A shivering woman in one pannier; in the other, such things as a breathless fugitive can gather together in one hurried half hour. Between them the hump of a camel, a camel which every instant seems as if it must split into halves as its long splay legs slither and slide in the mud that covers all things.
Such was the method of Chândni's flight from Hodinuggur. Not a comfortable one, but under the circumstances necessary; nor was she altogether unprepared for that necessity. People of her trade know what to expect when they are attached to petty intriguing courts, where one ruler's meat is invariably the next ruler's poison. Besides, in this case she had to reckon on Khush-hâl Beg's anger at the repulse she had given him on more than one occasion; given him, of course, with a view to future possibilities with his son Dalel, but that rather increased than diminished the offence. And now her patron, old Zubr-ul-Zamân, was dead, Khush-hâl had supreme power, and what was more, three pearls were amissing from the Hodinuggur necklace; three pearls which could easily be traced home to her safe keeping,and no further, if needs be. So, at the first hint of inquiry, Chândni had deemed it wiser to seek the protection of the only man who knew something--if not all--about the intrigue which had ended so strangely in Providence setting aside the necessity for any intrigue at all. If Dalel chose to remain at Simla, where, no doubt, he was amusing himself hugely, she would not interfere with his amusements; that had never been her plan. She would only resume her empire over his weak, worn-out wickedness. And yet the flight entailed horrible discomfort. The splaying camel was to her what a bad passage across the channel is to a fashionable lady, and as she clutched wildly at the sides of the pannier, she decided that life was not long enough for a repetition of such experience. If she returned to Hodinuggur at all, it must be in a position which would ensure a different style of locomotion. Even the night journey by rail, cooped up behind iron bars in the wild-beast-cage-like compartment, labelled in three languages for 'modest women,' was, in comparison, comfort itself. Huddled up decently into a shapeless white bundle, she could at least think over the odd turn affairs had taken, and make up her mind what had best be done. The first thing, of course, was to bring Dalel to her heel. That ought not to be difficult, for though--the water having been procured--he might, like his father, find it convenient to underrate her services in the matter, she had one or two good cards to play in her adversary's strong suits which might with care save the trick. At any rate they ought to prevent any reckless disregard of her claims. First, they wanted the pearls back, and now that the Diwân was dead, she was the only person who could tell them the ins and outs of that transaction. Next, they wanted payment of the heavydouceurpromised by the Rajah for good offices in making it possible for the water to irrigate that basin of alluvial soil to the south. But here again now that the Diwân was dead, they would find difficulty in proving that anything had been done--that the flood was not responsible for all, unless she chose to help them with her evidence.
For the rest, give her Dalel and a bottle of champagne to herself for one hour. If in that space he did not come back, as he had done a dozen times before, to her empire of evil, she would have none of him. He would be dead to all she had to offer in fullest perfection. He would be beyond her influence, as it were, and so useless for her purpose. She was not going to marry a fool in order to wear a veil and live with a lot of women.
By this time two coolies were carrying her up the hill from Solon, in a thing like a bird-cage slung on poles; so small, so square, that she had to sit in it cross-legged and bolt upright. But though she could not sleep, even with the aid of opium, and though the hill-sides, after the first rush of the rains, were clothed with tinted blossoms, and the winding valleys green as emeralds with young rice, Chândni never parted the thick patchwork curtains shrouding her from the public gaze, until the setting down of the dhooli warned her of an opportunity for a gossip and a pipe. Then her feet came over the side with a challenging clash of their silver bells, and a quick stir run round the sleepy, sun-sodden stage where travellers, and coolies, and sweetmeat sellers lay huddled together in the shade. Even the cowboy driving his cattle from the bales of fodder on their way up for the sahib-logue's ponies, paused to look at her with a grin, while his beasts ate on. The bees were flitting from flower to flower, a golden oriole flashed through the green transparency of the walnut-trees, and below the branches the great emerald hearts of the yam leaves outlined themselves against the sapphire distance of the valley, which was divided from the sapphire distance of the sky by the glittering pearly spikelets of the snowy range. Sapphires and pearls echoed and re-echoed in ever-receding distance by the white clouds dividing one sea of ether from another.
But in all this world there was nothing worth a look, apparently, save Chândni, the courtesan, swinging her silver anklets over the edge of a dhooli; to judge at any rate by those human eyes.
She did not go straight to her destination, but paused at a house in the bazaar where such as she were all too welcome. There was never any mincing of words or thoughts with Chândni. To one end she had been born a courtesan, and to this end she lived to the best of her ability. So she paused to clothe herself in clean clear muslins, and hang great garlands of tuberose and jasmine about the column of her massive throat; to redden her lips, and give a deeper shadow to her eyes; looking at herself the while in the thumb-mirror worn on her left hand. No more, no less intent upon appearing at her best than many a person who has not been born to that end; many a decent, respectable person, who would be dreadfully shocked at having her innocent half hour before the cheval-glass evened to Chândni's most reprehensible occupation. Perhaps the difference lies in the size of the mirrors; at any rate it is not palpably apparent elsewhere.
Mirza Dalel Beg was living, she knew, in a European house, as the upper ten of natives love to do. Why, is, in five cases out of six, a mystery. The sixth, no doubt, has acquired exotic tastes; the remaining five, no doubt, consider it good style to pretend them. So, after paying roundly for the privilege of toilet-sets and dinner-services, they prefer the water-carrier with his skin bag to a lavatory, and a big platter on the floor to all the neatly-laid dining-tables in creation.
A curious example of the fascination which useless comforts have for some people came to light during one of the many Embassies from Cabul which British diplomacy, or the want of it, has inveigled into India. During its stay there, district-officers were instructed to provide the whole horde of barbarians with house-room in European fashion so as to avoid invidious distinctions. As a rule, the local Parsee was invited to furnish a requisite number of empty houses with the necessary repp curtains, French clocks, Britannia-metal teapots, and German prints, needed for the night's hospitality. Next day, so runs the tale, there never was a soup-plate to be found. Occasionally the guests packed up a French clock; once, it is affirmed, a sponge-bath went amissing, but unless they ate them, that Embassy must have gone back to Cabul with some hundreds of dozens of soup-plates stowed away among the official presents of watches that won't go, and guns that won't fire; and soup is not a national dish in Afghanistan.
So Dalel Beg had rented a house which he got cheap, because three of its previous tenants had died of typhoid fever. It was a pretty place enough, shut in somewhat by the ravines which furrow the lower part of the ridge, but with an outlook beautiful beyond belief over the plains. The single dahlias--refuse run wild from many a garden above--found foothold in every cranny of the rocks, and great sheets of morning glories climbed over the broken rails fencing the narrow path from the steep declivity, which seemed to leap at one bound to the pale blue of the valley below. Chândni, stepping out of her dhooli, looked at it all distastefully, reached forth a strong, ring-bedecked hand, appropriated a yellow dahlia, which she stuck behind her ear, and called. Then the bells clashed again as she walked with a free step over to the verandah of the house, raised the chick, and looked in, while the dhooli-bearers squatted down beside the railings, and apparently resumed a conversation begun in the bazaar. For the rest, sunshine and silence.
Chândni, dazzled by the glare outside, could at first see nothing clearly; the room, though to her unaccustomed eyes crammed full of useless things, seemed empty of what she sought. Then suddenly there came a shrill, unformed voice--
'Go away! We don't want you. Mam-ma, send her away. Go, I tell you! The Mirza is married now; I am his wife.'
The girl who came forward was not more than fifteen by the look of her, with a frizz of hot-pressed light hair over her forehead, and a skin which gave one the impression of being bleached, perhaps because of the coal-black eyes set in the narrow sharp face; yet with a certain attractiveness about the figure, dressed as it was in the height of fashion, with sleeves to the ears, and a waist requiring the surgical bandage of folded silk to prevent it from breaking in two.
His wife! Chândni, from her full height and magnificent development, looked at her as distastefully as she had looked at the view from the terrace. Neither were to her liking: they both appealed too much to the imagination. This other woman who came in answer to the call was better, though past her prime and pulpy; drowsy, too, from the snooze she had been enjoying on the sofa. Still with a torrent of capable, tell-tale abuse for the intruder.
'Ari!' laughed Chândni contemptuously, when the fat lady paused for breath. 'So thou too hast been of the bazaar? But I want not thee, or that half-fledged thing who calls herself a wife. I want Dalel--where is he?'
'Mamma!' cried the unformed voice in English, breaking down over its own feeble passion. 'Send her away, I tell you! The Mirza will be back soon, and she must not be here. Don't fool with words. Call the servants.Ai! budzart!(base-born). I will throw you down thekhud! (hill-side).'
Chândni laughed again--laughed louder as, in response to the girl's cry, a face showed itself behind her.
'Salaam, ohbhai! (brother),' she said, nodding her head at the new-comer. 'Ah! 'tis thou, Mohammed? look you, this image saith she will fling me down thekhud. If it came to force, my pigeon, I know which would have the Mirza; but I will not fight for him thus, he is not worth it. So, he fancies thee? God help him. Sure, thy mother is the better woman.'
'Come, come, mother Chândni,' urged the servant in response to shrill commands. 'This is no place for thee now. These are mem's. And he hath married her,' he went on fast and low. 'Yea! 'tis true, thenikkahath been read, so abuse is vain. Come, thou canst see him elsewhere.'
'Nay! I will see him here--here with his mem,' retorted Chândni airily. Then she turned swiftly on the elder woman, who, going to the door, was about to call for further assistance. 'What harm shall I do thee, fool, who art as I am with a piebald skin, or as this one, who would be as I am had God made her a woman. Lo! ask thy servants who Chândni the courtesan is, and what she has been, ay! and will be--if she chooses.'
It was an odd scene. The room decorated into bastard civilisation; the girl depending on a lack of pigment in her skin for all her claims to mem-ship, that being the only trace of her unknown European father; the mother without even this distinction, yet clinging to her taint of 'Western blood, as to a patent of nobility; clinging to it farcically, in fringe and furbelow, in fashion generally. Before them, as it were, against them, stood Chândni, in her trailing white Delhi draperies and massive garlands, a figure which might have served as model for some of those strange solemn-eyed statues, half Greek, half Indian, which are found buried in the sand-hills of the frontier. There was a little crowd of dark expectant faces at the door now, towards which she nodded familiarly.
'Go back! oh brothers! I do no harm. 'Tis not my way with women folk. I wait the Mirza's return. Then, if I am not wanted, I will go. Lo! Chândni the courtesan hath no need to keep a man in a leash; she hath no need to have thenikkaread, my little pigeon, as thou hast. Ari! so the pictures in the papers Dalel used to bring me are true, and 'tis a beauty to have no body and a big head.
Beatrice Norma Elflida D'Eremao, presently her Highness Mrs. Dalel Beg, gave a little scream of rage, and stamped her tiny high-heeled shoes upon the floor. Mrs. Lily Violet D'Eremao, her mother, known in her time by many asobriquetuntil she settled down to sobriety and the education of a fair daughter, screamed too, in voluble abuse; but they were both quite helpless before the white-robed figure standing between them and the sunlight with a laugh on its red lips, which did not leave them when into the midst of the scene came Dalel Beg, got up in his dandy riding gear; only the folded pugree remaining to tell the tale of his birth. Perhaps because the ideas within the head it covered needed some such excuse for their existence. His face was hideous in its sheer malice, livid, not with passion or fear, but from that hatred of opposition which belonged to his race. And Chândni, recognising this, swept him a low salaam, graceful to the uttermost curve of each finger, a salaam which would have made Turveydrop die of envy, a salaam such as one sees once or twice in a lifetime. A minute before she might have given it in derision; now she yielded it to the lingering majesty in this pitiful representative of a long line of tyrants.
'Long life attend my lord,' she said, in those liquid tones of set ceremony, which her class pride themselves on acquiring. And even among them Chândni had a silver tongue: none near her, so the report ran.
Dalel Beg's eyes saw, his ears heard. They would not refuse their wonted office, and yet as he took a step nearer, he raised the hunting crop he held.
'Go!' he cried. 'Go! Mohammed! Fuggu--turn this scum of the bazaars from the door.'
'Which scum of the bazaars?' she asked coolly. 'This--or that?'
It was not scorn exactly, it was an indifferent contempt which seemed to leave no denial possible, and which held action arrested.
'Which is it to be, Mirza sahib?' she asked again, crossing swiftly to where the girl stood as if to measure her height against that small insignificant figure. 'There is not much to choose between us, except in the outside--and thou hast eyes!'
'Fuggu! Mohammed! Dittu! Scoundrels, turn her out! call the Kotwâl! Turn her out, I say!' shrieked the Mirza, fast loosing all dignity in a sort of animal admiration for this woman, who, he knew, would come back to him at a word. A word he dare not give,--which he did not wish to give, as yet.
'Softly! softly! oh, my brothers,' came that liquid voice. 'There is no need to touch Chândni the courtesan. The master hath his right, and I will go. I only ask a word, and sure my words are better for the ear than theirs.'
It was incontestably true, for mother and daughter were now at the highest pitch of the Eurasian accent aggravated by hysterics, and the men stood uncertain, siding, every one of them, with that which was familiar.
'The word is this,' she went on boldly, 'I have done my part. Is there to be payment?'
Dalel's face lost its last trace of dignity and settled down into mere spite.
'So! it is payment. Lo! mother-in-law, hold thy peace! 'Tis nothing but a bad debt, a debt without a bond! Payment! Go, fool, and ask it of the old man--the old devil who was drowned. Ask not here--here we need all the money we can get.'
Then in his delight and content in this opportunity for malice, he forgot a suspicion of fear which had been with him hitherto, and turned to the girl with a leer and a laugh: 'Aha! we want theoofourself, don't we, Tricks? Lo! I give you gold watch and chain to-day. I give you gold bangle to-morrow, if you're good girl. But that one--nothing--nothing.'
He echoed the last words jeeringly in Hindustani, cutting with his whip towards Chândni as one cuts at a dog to frighten it from the room. Perhaps he was nearer than he thought; anyhow, the uttermost end of lash touching the silver bells on her ankle set them jingling. A slight thing to make two women cease their cries, and half a dozen men or more hold their breath involuntarily; yet it did, commanding silence for that clear voice.
'Lo! thou hast given me something, oh Mizra Dalel Beg! which no man hath given before to Chândni the courtesan. It is enough. I go.'
So far dignity went with her. But at the door she turned to give the women back in kind and with interest the abuse which they had given to her. Even with a despicable cheat like the Mirza, there was a reputation to keep up--he was at least the descendant of worthy men who had done their best for such as she; but with those two women, even as herself, but without her claims, why should she be silent?
Yet ere she was half-way back to the bazaar she had forgotten them and their abuse; forgotten everything save that clash of the silver bells. That was an end--an end for ever to Dalel. In a way she was glad, for he was unendurable when sober, and not much better when he was drunk. Now nothing remained save the necessity for compensation and revenge. If the Moghuls would not pay, there were others who would. The mem, for instance, who had taken the pearls. And those who had spread it abroad that the little sahib had died in his bed, they would not care to have their truth impugned. They had bribed the servants no doubt, the Diwân was dead, and they had held the water sufficient inducement for the others. But she? She had had nothing, and she meant to have something. And then when she had got her money's worth for silence, she would go and sell that silence to the Rajah, unless indeed by that time the Moghuls had bidden higher for her speech. Without her evidence the question as to whether the bribe were honestly due for favours done could not be settled. She would begin with the mem; not by demanding money, but the pearls, since most likely they had been disposed of and the difficulty of getting hold of them again would, as it were, increase her power of screw. If at the end of a month the sahib-logues defied her, she would offer her silence or her speech to the highest bidder, and give her evidence for either. After that, a merry life, even if it had to be a short one; for the mere taste of comparative freedom she had had that morning in the wooden house in the Simla bazaar, had aroused the old reckless instincts, and before the evening was over the news that Chândni, singer and dancer from Delhi, had come to the place, was on the tip of every native's tongue.
Mrs. Boynton had behaved very much as Lewis Gordon had anticipated on hearing of George Keene's sudden death from cholera. She had wept honest tears over the dear lad, even while she could not help feeling happier than she had done for months; happier because of the flood which had come and gone, sweeping away with it all her difficulties, all her troubles. Yet it brought her one unavailing regret that she should so unnecessarily have put the bitter pain of hearing her confession into those last days, and that he should have gone down to his death not thinking ill of her exactly--the dear lad would never have done that--but hurt, disappointed, unhappy. She would have liked him to have seen a certain letter which lay in a drawer of her writing-table. A letter addressed, sealed, stamped, ready for sending, which she had only kept back one day. Only one; yet, but for that lucky chance it might have fallen into Dan's hands while George was ill and brought needless pain into another kind heart; for there was, thank heaven! no more need for humiliation and confession and promises of restitution. She had torn open the letter in order to read it again, and had been quite satisfied with its straightforward avowal of responsibility and firm intention, should difficulties arise, of taking the whole blame on herself. Then she had put it away again as a perpetual witness to her repentance and amendment. And surely these virtues had a right to forgiveness? One person, she knew, would do more than forgive if he knew all, and this conviction joined to the sense of loss which his prolonged absence from her environment always produced in Gwen Boynton made her think very tenderly of Dan, who wrote her such kind, sympathetic letters from Hodinuggur about the dear lad. He was not jealous, and full of evil imaginings like Lewis, whose temper had certainly not been improved by his visit to the plains. Though she did not consciously feel the need of something stronger than the cousinly affection she had for him, there is no doubt that the shock of her own lapses from strict honesty, joined to that of George Keene's sudden death, had made her disinclined for final decision; so the fact that Dan would, from pressure of work, be unable to get leave that year, and Lewis, from the same cause, was not likely to be urgent in love-making, suited her capitally. She would have time to recover her tone. To this end she proceeded, with a curious strength of purpose, to dismiss the nightmare of the past from her mind. It was over. What had been, had been. She would 'reach out to the things which were before'; no! not reach out! She would not again be premature; she would let fate and luck have their say to the full.
One small fact showed her state of mind exactly. She dismissed her ayah, giving her as a parting present most of the articles which Manohar Lâl had forced her into buying from him. The woman sulked, yet held her tongue, no doubt knowing through her patron, the jeweller, that so far as he was concerned the mem was safe; besides, when all was said and done, the bucksheesh was sufficient; under no circumstances could more have been expected. So, on the whole, life went quite smoothly in the pretty little drawing-room where poor young George had sat with his head on the table dazed and stunned by his bitter pain.
Over the way, however, in Colonel Tweedie's house, things were different. Lewis Gordon, up to the ears in endless calculations, yet found time to notice that grief suited Rose very ill. And grief, forsooth, for a boy who had not cared a pin for her, who had run into debt, and gambled and lost his head completely over another woman; who, if the truth were known, had shot himself because--to take the most charitable view of the matter--he had not the pluck to bear disappointment. Naturally a young fellow felt being fooled--more or less--by a woman, because certain instincts were the strongest a man had--as a man. But one expected something more--or less--in a gentleman. And there was Miss Tweedie, who depended for attractiveness on thebeauté du diable, looking pale and worn, over a mere sentimentalism; for she herself would be the first to deny that she had been what he, Lewis, would call 'in love' with George. Finally, though he, knowing to the full Gwen's responsibility for the boy's suicide, had every right, if he chose, to be hard on his cousin, why should this girl, who knew nothing, stand aloof and show her disapproval so plainly?
'You don't understand girls,' said Gwen easily, in reply to some hints of his to this effect. 'Dear Rose can't help huffing me at present. I should feel the same, I'm sure, towards any one who had, to my mind, stood between me and my dear dead.'
Lewis shifted irritably in his chair, and wished to goodness she would talk sense.
'Sense! Why, you yourself are always blaming me in your heart because that poor boy thought me the most perfect woman in the world! You know you are! As if it was my fault. As if I ever encouraged such an idea in any one, or set up for being perfection.'
It was true enough. She never posed as anything but a womanpur et simple. That was one of her charms in his eyes, and the injustice of cavilling at what he really liked made him say more gently--
'I don't suppose you could help it, dear; and perhaps Miss Tweedie can't either. I don't pretend to understand women--have enough to do in trying to understand the atrocious English men put into their reports. But I wish you could come over sometimes as you used to do. The girl oughtn't to be allowed to eat nothing and grow so disagreeably thin.'
Gwen gave an odd laugh. 'Well, I'll invite myself to luncheon to-morrow. It is bad for the girl--and so useless, into the bargain.'
The common-sense of the last remark lingered in Lewis Gordon's mind comfortably as he went home. In more ways than one it was quite useless to dwell on George Keene's unfortunate death. No doubt Rose, if she knew all, would judge Gwen very harshly, and not only Gwen, but those who, knowing what they did, went on as if nothing had happened; but Rose Tweedie, the fates be praised, was not his judge.
And yet when he passed the window of her room on his way to his own, she was in sober truth sitting in judgment on the figure she saw for a second between the draped curtains. He had been over as usual to Mrs. Boynton's--to the woman who had been the last to see George Keene, and who would say so little of that interview; the woman who no doubt was to blame if, as her father said, George had run into debt, and gambled, and lost his head. Lewis must know all this, perhaps more, yet he went on approvingly. By and by he would marry this woman--for they were engaged, of course, even now. Was not that enough to make any one unhappy who cared for him as she cared? Rose leant forward over the book her eyes were studying, and tried hard to bend her mind also to its consideration.
Despite these thoughts she received Mrs. Boynton on the next day without a sign of disapproval; for Rose, like most unmarried girls at the head of a house, was intensely proud of her position. In society, if she did not care to speak to Gwen, she would not speak; if she did not care to have her in the house she would not ask her; but if she came, as she did now, uninvited, she was nothing more nor less than a guest to be treated as a guest should be treated. Perhaps Lewis Gordon had an inkling as to the cause of her graciousness, but Colonel Tweedie saw nothing but a renewal of those amenities the loss of which he had helplessly deplored during the past fortnight. It had put him out terribly, and left him completely puzzled as to its cause. Certainly not to any change in his mind, for the coolness had checked a steadily growing conviction that he would not only like, but that he also ought, to ask Mrs. Boynton to marry him. Rose was too much alone; she brooded, as the former had kindly pointed out, over life, and fancied herself in love with subordinates. She was too sensible for that sort of thing to be real, but the constant companionship of a woman of the world was a necessity to a young girl. It is surprising how many second marriages are inspired by sensible considerations; still more surprising why such prudence should then be thought virtuous, moral, blameless, yet be deemedanathema maranathain first marriages. There are some things which, as Dundreary said, 'no fellow can find out,' and one is the curious ethical code which has quite obscured the real issues of marriage, and made it possible for quick-witted husbands and wives to quarrel desperately with each other about things that have nothing to do with the tie between them. Colonel Tweedie, however, treated his secondary reasons with the greatest respect, and beamed pompously round the luncheon table as he announced his infinite regret that the duties of his responsible position made it necessary for him to leave such pleasant company sooner than he would otherwise have done. Mrs. Boynton, however, would readily understand that Councils of State were paramount to the public servant. Whereupon Gwen, after her fashion, took the edge off his anguish by saying that she also had to be at home early, seeing she had promised to interview some dreadful Madrassee creature who had been recommended to her as an ayah.
'Why did you send old Fuzli away?' asked Rose suddenly. They had risen as they were speaking, and she had been standing by the window listening with a certain weariness in her face to her father's ornate regrets.
'The old reason, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,"' laughed Gwen. 'I suppose it is very illogical--therefore, as Lewis would say, very womanly'--but I can't help disliking my world by instinct.'
'That is monstrously unkind,' broke in the Colonel, eager as a boy over the opportunity, 'when your world can't help doing the reverse.' There is something very satisfactory apparently in a compliment to the person who makes it, and the Colonel felt and looked quite lighthearted over his.
'When you have got rid of us all, Miss Tweedie,' said Lewis Gordon in a low tone which yet covered Gwen's little laugh, 'you should go out and have a jolly ride. I'm not using Bronzewing--she frets at waiting--so she is at your service, if you care----' he paused in quick surprise--
Such a very little thing upsets a woman's balance at times; and Bronzewing had been the one subject over which she and Lewis had never quarrelled since the day of his accident. It was foolish, but the look on her face made him turn hastily from the window to his cousin, and catch at the first thing likely to give the girl time to recover herself.
'I believe your ayah's coming here, Gwen; at least I see one of those little covered dhoolies descending from your house, and if there are to bepurda-nishinwomen about, sir, it is time we men were going.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Lewis. It is somebody going to pay a visit to the khansaman's wife. The ayah wouldn't bepurdah, and she wouldn't dare to come here; and if she did, I am not going to make a zenana out of Colonel Tweedie's drawing-room.'
'But you could go into Rose's sitting-room, of course,' protested the Colonel; 'couldn't she, dear?'
'But indeed, good people,' began Gwen, laughing, 'it can't----'
Just then a servant, entering stolidly, announced a woman waiting to see Mem Boynton sahib.
'I told you so,' cried Lewis joyfully, 'and, as a matter of fact, we ought to be off, sir. It will take us a good twenty minutes to the Secretariat.'
'Show the woman into the Miss Sahib's office,' cried the Colonel fussily. 'Rose, my dear----'
But the girl had taken the opportunity of escaping through the open French window.
'Please don't mind,' said Mrs. Boynton. 'I know my way about this house--at any rate I ought to, seeing how hospitable and good you have been always. Good-bye. I hope your interview will prove more pleasant than mine is likely to be.'
Their ponies were waiting, and she stayed to see them start and give a parting nod as they rounded the last visible turn of the path leading to the Mall. Gwen always added these pleasant friendly touches to the bareness and business of life. They came to her by instinct, and she herself felt cold and cheerless without them.
Then, very well satisfied with herself, she crossed the long matted passage which ran from end to end of the house, separating the portion Colonel Tweedie reserved for his own use from that occupied by the office. Here, beside her father's private room, was Rose's little study, and beyond that again Lewis Gordon's quarters and the big glazed verandah where the clerks sat designing. It was quite a small room, and, as Mrs. Boynton entered it, seemed to her over full of perfume, possibly from the vase full of wild turk's-cap lilies on the table. The window was shut too, and Gwen as she made her way to the most comfortable chair, with scarcely a glance at the white-robed figure standing in the shadow of the curtains, gave a quick yet languid order to set the glazed doors wide open.
'They are best shut if the Huzoor does not mind. I have that to say which requires caution.'
Those round, suave tones, with almost the nightingale thrill in them belonged to no ayah, surely! Gwen looked round hastily. That was no ayah's figure either, tall, supple, unabashed. Instinctively the Englishwoman stood up and confronted her visitor, more curious than alarmed. Even to that ignorance of native life which is so typical of the mem-sahib--an ignorance not altogether to be deprecated--the woman's trade was unmistakable. That was writ large in the trimness and cleanliness, the spotless white, the chaplets of flowers, the scent of musk and ambergris filling the room; all the more reason for surprise at her presence there. Yet, even so, curiosity outweighed indignation and resentment in Gwen's cold questioning.
'Who are you? What do you want?'
The answer came quick, so quickly that it left the hearer with that breathless sense of pained relief that the worst is over, which comes with the clean sharp cut of a surgeon's knife.
'I am Chândni of Delhi. I want the Hodinuggur pearls which the Huzoor took out of the Ayôdhya pot.'
There was no mincing of the matter here; none of that beating about the bush which, as a rule, Gwen loved. Yet the directness did not displease her; it seemed to rouse in her a novel combativeness, taking form in similar effrontery and cool assertion.
'I don't know what you are talking about,' she said indifferently, 'and I don't want you. Go!'
Her Hindustani, though limited, was of the imperative order and suited the occasion; yet it evoked one of Chândni's shrill mocking laughs.
'The mem sahiba mistakes. She is not as I am, a daughter of the bazaars, and if it comes to words Chândni hath two to her one. So I come quietly to ask reasonably for my rights; not to dispute after the manner of my kind. There is no need to tell the mem sahiba the story. She remembers it perfectly. She knows it all as well as I. But this she does not know: The pearls are mine, and I will have them back, or their price in revenge.'
'I think you are mad!' cried Gwen more hastily. 'Go! go instantly, or I will call the servants.'
'That were not wise! Lo! I know all about the papers of safety, which Manohar Lâl gave in exchange for the little sahib's rupees. But the pearls went not once, but twice.'
'Twice!' The involuntary echo had a surprise in it which angered the courtesan.
'Yes, twice! The mem knows that as well as I do. The Ayôdhya pot----'
'Was stolen from me in the palace,' put in Gwen; 'you stole it, I dare say.'
Again Chândni laughed. 'If I did, what then? The mem got it again and sent it back through the post for more pearls. But we did not send it thus; we sent it by the little sahib, who gave it to the mem, and she sent the key in return. The papers are about the first pearls. These are the second, and there is no safety paper about them.'
'It is not true!--it is a lie--he never took them--he never gave them to me,' cried Gwen, her courage, oddly enough, failing before what was to her an absolutely novel and unfounded accusation. 'I will not listen! Go! or I will call.'
Chândni took a step nearer, lowering her voice. 'What! wouldst let the truth be known; when thou canst conceal it--for ever! Give me the pearls and no one shall know--no one shall cast dirt on the mem, and on the little sahib--no one shall know how he took the bribes for you--no one shall know thou didst beguile him as men are beguiled.'
'I--I did not--it is a lie, I----' faltered Gwen, falling back till Chândni's hand closed like a vice on her wrist.
'Wah! What use to deny it to me? Do I not know the trick? A word, a look, no more. What! do men send bullets through their hearts as Keene sahib did for no cause? Ari, sister! we know better.'
The jeering comradeship was too much for caution even though the story of poor George's death passed by her as a wanton lie. Gwen, struggling madly, gave one scream after another for help, and, breaking from her persecutor, turned to fly. At the same moment Rose, who had been into her father's study for a book, burst through the door and stood bewildered at the scene.
'Send her away! She tells lies--lies about me and George--lies about everything. Oh! have her sent away, Rose. Please send her away.'
The girl, clasping the hands with which Gwen clung to her, turned on the intruder angrily, and an indescribable hardness and contempt came to her face, as she took in the meaning of the figure and its dress.
'How dare you come here? Go this instant! Put on your veil, hide yourself, and go! Impertinent! Shameless!'
There was no answering laugh now. 'The Huzoor speaks truth,' replied the courtesan quietly. 'I have no business here. I came but to see the mem, bethinking me she might listen better in the house of those who were friends to the little sahib----'
But Gwen's immediate terror had passed, leaving her face to face with future fears.
'Don't listen, Rose!' she interrupted in English. 'You should never listen to what women of that sort say about any one. She frightened me at first with her lies, but the wisest plan is to send her away. I'll call a servant.'
Chândni, listening to the quick whisper, smiled.
'The mem sahiba wants silence,' she said, nodding her head; but silence is ever unsafe unless tongues are tied. And mine will wag if not here, elsewhere, unless I get the Ayôdhya pot.'
Rose gave a quick exclamation, but Gwen's hand was on her arm, her voice full of passionate entreaty.
'Don't, Rose! don't speak to her. I can tell you all. It is all lies; some rigmarole declaring that after the pot had been stolen at Hodinuggur it was sent back to me here at Simla, and that I returned it again. There isn't a word of truth in it; I never----'
But the girl set aside her detaining hand with an impatient gesture, and crossed to where Chândni stood watching them.
'You have made a mistake,' came the clear unfaltering voice. 'The Ayôdhya pot was not sent to the mem sahiba, it was sent to me; and it was I who returned it. What then?'
The frank admission brought a curiously similar expression to those two listening faces; it seemed to leave both, abashed, uncertain, so that Rose had to repeat her clear question before it gained reply.
'What then?' echoed the courtesan at last, somewhat sulkily. 'How can I tell if this be so; and if it be so, how can I tell what came? Only this I do know: the pot went to Keene sahib the day he left. He gave it to some one. Let that some one answer. I care not who 'tis, so I have my pearls that were hidden in the pot.'
'Pearls! There were no pearls in it when it came to me,' cried Rose quickly; then remembering the jagged edge of clay she had noticed inside, she turned to Gwen: 'Did you notice anything like a false bottom when you had it before?'
The face into which she looked paled. 'You don't understand!' said Gwen petulantly; 'the woman says that these pearls were put there after it was stolen, so how could I notice anything when I tell you I never saw, never heard of it again? I told the woman so just now. I will tell her again before you! then I must, I will have her sent away, she has no business here.'
But Chândni's recklessness had grown. 'I care not who has them. See! there are three of us here in this room who have handled the pot. Let her who hath it and its hoard speak truth, and save the little sahib. For he had it, sure enough; of that there is proof.'
'Three of us!' repeated Rose absently, as if struck by a thought. Then obeying a sudden impulse, she went over to a portfolio standing in one corner of the room. 'You mistake,' she continued, her eyes full on the courtesan. 'There are not three, but four of us. Look! Keene sahib painted that.'
Chândni fell back, averting her face from the portrait of Azîzan, which Rose placed against an easel on the table.
'The evil eye! the evil eye! God save us from the witch,' she muttered, thrusting out her right hand in that two-fingered gesture which is used against a baleful glance in both East and West. But Gwen pressing closer looked at the picture with a dawning light of relieved comprehension in her face.
'Did he paint that--how pretty it is! And it explains--it explains--a--a great deal. He gave her the pot, I suppose--Well! it is a pity, but one ought not to be----'
'Ought not to be what?' interrupted Rose fiercely, with a fine scorn in her face, scarcely less concealed than the contempt with which she turned to the other woman.
'You both seem to know or understand this picture better than I do,' she said superbly. 'Perhaps you can tell me whom it represents?'
'My dear Rose,' expostulated Gwen, aside; 'don't for pity's sake ask that creature. What would your father say if he knew? You may mix yourself up----'
'Whose picture is it, I ask?' repeated Rose, unheeding. Then in the silence of Chândni's smile, and Gwen's frown, she turned passionately to the portrait itself. 'Why don't you speak and shame them? You look as if you could tell the truth, and if he made you so, it was true!' The very vehemence of her own fanciful appeal imposed on her, and she paused as if waiting a reply. It came with a laugh from Chândni.
'She was another of the little sahib's friends. The miss saith true. There are three of them here. Which will give back the pearls and save him?'
'Save him from what?' cried Rose, disregarding Gwen's appeals for her to leave the mad woman to the servants. 'What has Keene sahib done that you can dare to threaten?'
The girl's bitter contempt roused all Chândni's savageness. After all she was the mistress, and this girl, despite her courage, in her power too; and what is more she should learn it.
'From what? from the shame which comes to the sahib-logue when their pretence of honesty is found out--from the shame of having friends--the shame of taking jewels for those friends--the shame of being untrue to salt--Ask the mem how 'tis done, she knows--the shame of sending the key of the sluice-gate so that the water----'
Her voice had risen with each sentence; now it ended in a gasp and a gurgle.
'Open the door, please,' said Rose to Mrs. Boynton, who gasped also in the intense surprise of the girl's swift action. 'Don't struggle, fool!' she went on in the same hard tone, only the dead whiteness of her face and a catch as she drew breath telling of the wild passion surging in her veins. 'I won't choke you if you hold your tongue.'
Once before Chândni had felt a girl's grip on her throat; a hot, straining grip. This was neither. It was the grip of a strong healthy hand made vigorous by constant use. Those fierce fights over bat and ball with the dead lad had had their share in the sheer muscle of her defence of him, before which Chândni's large softness gave way, leaving her not even a slandering tongue.
'Put the veil over her face, please! I won't even have it known who dared to come here!' continued the girl, forcing the woman backwards step by step till they reached the door. Then she pushed her from it magnificently. 'Now go! and tell what lies you like elsewhere.'
But her face changed as she turned when the door was closed and bolted to Gwen Boynton.
'Is it true? For God's sake tell me if there is a word of truth in it, and I will find the money.'
Gwen dissolved into helpless tears at once; tears at once of vague remorse, and a very real sense of injustice. 'True! oh, Rose, how can you ask? Of course it isn't true. I wouldn't have done it for the world. Indeed and indeed I never saw the Ayôdhya pot again, and I don't believe George did. He was the soul of honour, and so good--so good to me. It is all wicked, wicked lies, unless, indeed, that girl--but there, I daresay she was bad like that horrid creature. Perhaps they stole the pot between them and are now trying to blackmail us.'
'Stole the pot!' repeated Rose slowly, for the first time remembering her dream on the night of the storm at Hodinuggur. 'Yes! that is possible, and yet----.' She looked at Azîzan's picture, and then back at Gwen, who was dabbing her eyes with a soft pocket-handkerchief. 'You are sure?' she began again.
'Of course I am quite sure,' retorted Gwen, whose remorse had vanished in grievance at this impudent attempt to amend and enlarge the text of a past incident. 'I never saw or heard of the pot again. I may be weak, I may have done things for which I am sorry in the past, but whatever you may think, my conscience is clear. And as for the sluice? Dan opened it by order; besides, there was the flood. It is all an attempt to blackmail me, and I won't be blackmailed. I have done nothing they can take hold of, nothing--nothing.'
Rose gave a sigh, almost of dissatisfaction. If it really was a case of blackmailing, payment would be but a temporary relief. Perhaps, as she had also suggested, the girl in the picture was in league with Chândni. She did not look that sort either. Nor did she look as if---- Rose glanced from the pure oval of the cheek and the fine long curves of the mouth to Mrs. Boynton's tear-stained face and frowned.
'Some one has the pearls,' she said, 'and George's memory must be saved--somehow.'