'Come in!'
The words were given in an impatient tone, for Lewis Gordon was busy, and he hated being disturbed; especially when, as now, he had taken his coat off, literally as well as figuratively, before a difficult file.
The garment hung on the back of his chair, which, in obedience to a fad of his, was the only one in the office; a second one, he declared, being easily sent for if required, while its absence shortened many a trivial interruption. Otherwise it was a comfortable enough room, with a large French window set wide on a magnificent view of the serrated snows resting on the wall of blue distance, and framed by the curved tops of a forest of young deodars. The day was bright as a morning in the rainy season can be; bright by very contrast between the brilliant lights and shadows in earth and sky; bright as a rain-cloud itself when the sun shines on it. A fresh breeze came in with Rose Tweedie through the opening door and blew some papers off the table.
'I beg your pardon,' came in duet as Lewis fumbled blindly for his coat; his eye-glass having deserted him in the surprise, after the manner of eye-glasses. As he did so, he felt injured. Not that he was such a crass idiot as to be outraged by a pair of shirt sleeves in himself or others. But he knew quite well that no man can look dignified, when struggling, even into a lounge-coat, and he liked to be dignified, especially with Rose Tweedie. His irritation, however, hid itself under a different cloak; that is to say, annoyance at a most unusual intrusion. Perhaps she read the expression of it in his face, for her first words were an excuse.
'I came here--to your office, I mean--because I want to ask you something, and I didn't want you to feel hampered--not as a friend, you know.' Her eyes met his in confidence of being understood so far, at any rate, and he gave rather a stiff little bow.
'You are very welcome. Won't you take a chair--the chair, perhaps I ought to say? I've been sitting all the morning, and shall be glad of a change; unless you require some time. If so, I will send----'
'No, thanks, I prefer standing also,' she interrupted, with a quick flush. 'I only wanted to ask you a question. It is about George Keene.'
'Yes----' he replied coldly, unsympathetically; and yet he was noting her anxious eyes and haggard face with a sort of angry wonder why she should make herself so unhappy. Rose's fingers held nervously to the edge of the table by which she stood.
'Have you any reason--I mean, is there officially any reason to suppose that the Hodinuggur sluice was opened before the flood came down, or before Mr. Fitzgerald?'
She paused with her eyes on Lewis's face. She had lain awake almost all the night thinking of Chândni's threats and hints, and with clear sight had seen that their worth or unworth depended largely upon the official report of what had actually happened at Hodinuggur. To her father she could not go without danger from his want of judgment; there remained Lewis, who was always just, always to be trusted in such matters.
His heart gave quite a throb of dismayed surprise at her question, and forced him by contraries into still greater chilliness of manner.
'I'm afraid I can't quite see your right to ask me such a question--as yet. Perhaps if you could give me a reason----'
'Oh yes! I can give you a reason,' she interrupted, with a ring of scorn in her voice, 'though I think you might credit me with a good one where George is concerned, surely? Only if I have to tell, you had better send for the chair. I thought, perhaps, you would understand, for once.'
The bitterness of her tone did not escape him, and accentuated his annoyance. As he handed her the chair and leant negligently against the table, his hands behind him, he told himself that he was in formauvais quart d'heurewith this girl. Man-like she would expect to know all, womanlike she would expect sentiment to outweigh official integrity. These thoughts did not serve to soften his heart towards the dead lad even at the beginning, and as her story unfolded itself, his face grew sterner and sterner. Hers lightened. It was an infinite relief to have his advice--his help, and she told him so frankly, even while she appealed for it.
'You needn't even answer my question, Mr. Gordon,' she went on earnestly. 'You will know so much better than I do what had best be done. I thought of going to see the woman myself----'
'You didn't go, I hope?' put in Lewis hastily.
'No! I made up my mind to ask you first. You see, if there is no truth in all this--no truth whatever----'
'That is unlikely, I warn you,' interrupted Lewis. 'These women Really, Miss Tweedie, if you follow my advice--much as it may pain you at the time--you will leave this business alone, absolutely alone. It is not one with which--excuse me for even alluding to the fact--a girl such as you are should meddle. Unfortunately, we men have to face these things, and they are not pleasant, even for us.'
'You speak as if you thought George was guilty,' said Rose hotly. 'What right have you to do that?'
'I may have more right than you suspect. Believe me, Miss Tweedie, I am heartily sorry--especially for you; and, so far as is compatible with the facts, I will do my best to avoid officialesclandreshould this matter really crop up. In the meantime, I am afraid I must decline to interfere in what Mrs. Boynton, you tell me, stigmatised as an impudent attempt at blackmailing. She has her faults, no doubt, like everybody else; but she has, excuse me for saying so, more knowledge of the world than you have. In fact, you could scarcely do better than take her advice on this point.'
The girl, with a frown on her face, rose from her seat slowly.
'Then you refuse to find out the truth? You are content to let this suspicion lie upon--upon me and upon your cousin?'
Lewis smiled. 'That is rather far-fetched, Miss Tweedie, surely. The idea of suspicion with you is simply absurd; and as for Gwen! Well, I know you are ready to admit she has her faults; but she has called this claim impudent blackmailing, and you must excuse me if I incline to believe her.'
'And for George Keene? Do you suspect him? Are you going to allow his memory to be smirched?'
'I have told you I will do my best. For the rest, he must take the consequence of his own acts, I'm afraid. Indeed, I am sorry, very sorry,' he added hastily, impelled to it by the look on Rose Tweedie's face. It had grown ashen pale, yet she stood steadily before him, her eyes on his unflinchingly.
'Then there is truth in it? You had better tell me. It would be kinder to tell me--if you can.'
Perhaps, after all, it would. Perhaps, if this scandal had to come to light, it would be better she should be prepared. Even if it did not, was it not wiser she should know the real truth about George Keene, and so be able to judge him fairly? Not a bad boy, of course. That talk of bribery was no doubt false, and he had done no more in other ways than hundreds of boys in a like position. Even at Simla he had only run wild a bit, and for that he was not the only one responsible. Still, when all was said and done, he had shot himself, and that alone made the task of whitewashing him an impossibility if these women chose revenge.
'Yes! there is some truth in it,' he said gravely. 'If you will sit down again, I will tell you everything I know, and then you can judge for yourself. I should like you to understand, however, that in spite of appearances, I don't believe George lent himself to anything more than--what you would--not you, perhaps--but most of us would expect in a young fellow of his age and his position. Life is--is rather intoxicating to--to some of us.'
So, leaning against the table, he told her the truth, trying to do his task calmly and kindly, yet beset by a certain impatience at the still figure seated in his office chair, its elbows among his files, the coils of its beautiful hair showing beyond the hands in which the face was hidden. What business had it there? What business had the thought of its pain to come so close to him? closer even than his own reason, his own sense of justice?
'And you have known that he shot himself from the beginning?' she asked, raising her head suddenly to look him full in the face. He assented with a distinct self-complacency.
'Then what did you think made him do it? What did you think then--before you knew anything about the death or the opening of the gates?'
The self-complacency vanished. 'There are many reasons or want of reasons, for that sort of thing, Miss Tweedie,' he said evasively. 'I did not--I mean it was impossible to say absolutely, and that is why I acquiesced in Fitzgerald's plan. It was more convenient to every one concerned.'
'Much more convenient,' echoed Rose sharply. 'And you have known this all the time, and not----' she broke off, as if incredulous of her own half-uttered thought.
'Certainly, I have known it, and we would have kept the secret too, Fitzgerald and I, but for this unfortunate business,' he retorted, and his tone was not pleasant.
'Ah!heis different;hedid not know!hethought George had done it for his sake, to screen him. But you? What did you believe?' The girl's very voice was a challenge.
'I must say, Miss Tweedie, that I scarcely see how my belief affects the question; or, pardon me, what it matters to you,' he replied, taking refuge once more in his indifference.
'Do you not? Then I do. Not that it matters now,' she added in sudden passion, 'for I will have my own way in the future. If you won't help me, I can't help that; but I will have the truth. I will go down to this woman in the bazaar and make her tell me. Whether her story is a lie or not, there shall be no more concealment. I will not have it.'
'And George Keene's memory?' he suggested, angered almost beyond his self-control by her unmistakable defiance. 'My advice is unwelcome, of course, but if you took it, and Mrs. Boynton's--only that is unwelcome too--you might save all scandal. I cannot say for certain that it would, but as I have told you, I would do my best. Officially even, I would do my best. That seems to be an offence also, for some reason, but I would do it as much for the sake of the Department as for the boy's. You--I know--think only of him----'
She turned upon him like lightening, carried out of herself by her scorn, by her passion.
'Of him! I was not thinking of him at all! I was thinking of you--of you only, as I always do. Why should you not know the truth? You will not care a pin whether I think of you or not. And I? I care for nothing--nothing so long as you do not blindfold yourself wilfully--so long as you are just and honest. Ah! you may think I am mad--perhaps if what you believe about men and women is true, I am--but it means everything--everything in the world to me that you should be so--just and honest; because what you are is more to me than all the world beside. That is the truth.' The last words came slowly as the fire of her passion died down; yet there was no uncertainty in them. 'I suppose I oughtn't to have said this,' she went on, turning from him to lean her elbows on the table, and rest her head on her hands wearily. 'But you won't mind, and I don't care. It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved--it can't.'
'Loved!' The word sent a thrill through the man such as he had never felt before. 'Loved!' was that what she meant? The thought broke through even his armour of surprise. He stood for an instant looking down at her, then turned slowly and walked to the window, to return, however, in a second, with quick clear steps breaking the silence of the room.
'What do you mean!--I can't believe it. What do you mean?'
His impatience would not wait for a reply in words. Her face would give it truly, that he knew, and he stooped over her, taking her by the wrists, in order to draw her hands apart. She turned to him then bravely enough.
'Rose!'
It was almost a cry, as, stooping lower still, he knelt before her, his eyes on hers incredulous, yet soft. Then suddenly, still clasping her slender wrists, he buried his face upon them on her lap, muttering--
'Oh, I am sorry!--I am sorry!'
Never since, as a child, he had said his prayers at his mother's knee, had Lewis Gordon so knelt to man or woman. And something of the child's unquestioning belief in an unselfish love came back to him, joined to a perfect passion of the man's clear-sighted remorse and regret for long years of past disbelief.
'Don't,' she said, gently bending over him; 'please don't. There is nothing for you to be sorry about--indeed, there isn't.'
Nothing to be sorry about! Once more he echoed this girl's words to himself with that strange thrill, as, recovering his self-command, he stood straight and stiff beside her, conscious only of one vehement desire to care for and to protect her.
'What is it you want me to do?' he said at last unsteadily. 'Tell me, and I'll do it.'
Then, woman-like, she began to cry; it is a way the good ones have when they succeed in imposing their own will on those they love.
'I don't think I want you to do anything--particular,' she answered, trying to conceal her tears. 'I don't know; besides, I would much rather you did it your own way.'
If the uttermost truth could be told about a man's emotion in such scenes, as it can be regarding a woman's, it would have to be confessed that Lewis Gordon came very near to crying also over this foolish unconditional surrender on Rose Tweedie's part. For he understood the irresolution of a generous nature before its own success, and what is more, the woman's desire to give the man she loves the glory of justifying her belief in him. He felt quite a lump in his throat, and had to seek escape from the tenderness of one sex in the decision of the other; for in nine cases out of ten these are but different methods of showing the same emotion.
'I will go down and see this woman to-day; and then----' He paused, not in order to think over his next move--that undoubtedly would be to see Gwen Boynton--but to overcome a dislike to mentioning her name at all which suddenly assailed him. Why, he scarcely knew, except that it seemed mean, unmanly. Rose, however, saved him from the necessity by again repeating--this time almost abjectly--that she would rather not know; that she would be quite content to leave the matter in his hands.
'Thank you,' replied Lewis, in such a very low tone that it was almost a whisper. It did not lead, however, as might have been expected, to a silence, but to a louder, more aggressive gratitude. 'I have to thank you--for many things. I won't affect to ignore or set aside what--what you did me the honour of telling me just now. That would be sheer impertinence on my----'
Now, when he had got so far in a perfectly admirable sentiment, calculated to soothe both her feelings and his, why he should suddenly have found his hands in hers again, his heart full of an unpremeditated assertion that he was glad she loved him, cannot be explained logically; but so it was. Yet before the scared look in her eyes his own fell, he loosened his clasp, and the appeal died from his lips. There was no place for him or his questionings in her avowal. That hedged itself about from intrusion with a dignity he recognised. So what remained, save to pass on with as much of the same quality as he could compass to the work assigned to him.
'I will come in and tell you what I have done this afternoon about five o'clock,' he said quietly; 'that is, if it is convenient.'
'Quite, thank you.'
The baldest, most conventional of tones on both sides. The baldest, most convenient holding open of the door for her to pass out--to pass out from a scene that would linger in his memory; in nothing else. The descent to normal diapason comes sooner or later, no matter how highly strung the instrument may be to begin with, and melodrama fades into padding. In real life it generally leaves some of the actors dissatisfied with the way the scene has played. Lewis Gordon felt this distinctly as he was left looking at his own chair, as if he still saw a girl's figure seated there, her elbows resting on the litter of official papers, and the great coils of her burnished hair showing beyond the hands which hid her face.
'It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved.'
She had said so; but she was wrong. It did hurt confoundedly. So that was what she meant by love, was it?----
If any of the trivial interruptions which Lewis Gordon so much dreaded had come during the following five minutes, they would have found the coveted chair vacant, though the owner's face was buried in his hands among the files of memorandums and reports. Apparently he gained little consolation from them, for when he resumed work he looked about as upset and disordered as a tidy man can do when he is cool and properly clothed. Nor did they gain much from him during the next hour, which ticked away remorselessly from the chronometer by which Lewis loved to map out his day. He thrust them aside at last impatiently, and ordered his pony, thinking that may be when he had been through that visit to the bazaar he might feel less of a fool, and not quite so much depolarised. And yet she had said there was nothing to regret,--that he would not care,--that it would not matter to him if she thought of him or not!
It was a queer world! He set his teeth over it as he rode reluctantly between the shingled arcades of the big bazaar, and then through a narrow paved alley, pitching, as it were, sheer down into the blue mists of the valley below; and so on to the balconied house where, from inquiries at the Kotwâli, he learned that Chândni was lodging. The task before him was a disagreeable one, and he swore inwardly as he thought that but for his abject capitulation Rose would have attempted it herself. Rose! of all people. He began to understand that the feminine world could not be divided into two classes, since there was a third composed of one specimen. As he went on into the house the very cleanliness and order, contrasting so sharply with the dirt of surrounding respectability, struck him offensively on the girl's behalf, the giggling in the lower storey gave him a vicarious shock, and the obsequiousness of his introduction into the higher one, where Chândni sat secluded, actually made his cheek burn.
'It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved.'
He set aside the haunting words angrily, and began his task so soon as the patchwork drapery at the door fell behind him, leaving him face to face with white-robed salaaming grace.
'See here, my sister, this is for the truth. 'Tis not often thy sort are asked for it; but I ask nothing else. I will take nothing else.'
Checked thus in her languid welcome to the unknown guest, Chândni looked distastefully at the hundred-rupee note thrust into her hand, then at the giver; though both were to her liking. The latter she recognised instantly, having seen him among the party at Hodinuggur. So her seed of slander had taken root already.
'My lord shall have that which he requires, surely. Wherefore else are there such as I?'
The cynical truth of her answer showed him her wit at once, and he acknowledged it frankly when, half an hour afterwards, he felt himself baffled by the calm simplicity of her story. Most of it he had already heard, and the rest showed still more unpleasant details to have raked up should the worst come to the worst. Azîzan, he was told, had been a palace lady, with whom George had had clandestine meetings, over which he had first become mixed up with the intrigues about the water. The key of the sluice had been sent from Simla, whether by the Mem or the Miss, or the sahib himself, Chândni did not know, could not say. Was she not telling the Huzoor the bare truth she knew to be true, and nothing else?
'And how much do you want to keep all this quiet?' he asked calmly, when she had finished. It was as well to know her price, at any rate.
For an instant the immediate temptation to take the bird in the hand made the courtesan hesitate. Then she struck boldly for higher game.
'The pearls, Huzoor! The pearls, or my revenge!' This man, with the cool, refined face and the contempt which made her involuntarily remember the Miss sahib's also, affected indifference now, and would most likely offer her some paltry sum. She could afford to wait for the change which was sure to come; for she was not in the least afraid of anything Lewis could do, and, without being absolutely insolent, took care to show him the fact as she lolled about at her ease, chewing betel ostentatiously. She had nothing to gain here by affecting delicacy, so he might see her at her coarsest and worst; it contrasted better with his brains.
The result being that Lewis Gordon came into Gwen's Boynton's drawing-room for his next interview looking depressed; partly because he had been riding through a tepid shower-bath. For recurring rain had washed away the bright promises of the morning and was falling drearily over the rank, dank grasses and beating down the fringes of delicate ferns growing upon the dripping branches of the oak trees, until they lost shape and became nothing but a green outline against the grey mist.
Within, however, by the light of a blazing pine-wood fire, Mrs. Boynton looked bright yet soft, like a pastel painting, or a figure seen in a looking-glass; for she soon recovered from her emotions, and took pains to hide their effects even from herself. So the fact that she had lain awake half the night wondering if by chance Chândni's impudent lies had been prompted by any flaw in the chain-armour of security which George and the flood had forged for her, did not show in her face. For they were lies; even that tale of the dear lad's death, which had given her such a shock at the time, was nothing but the vile woman's wicked, cruel invention. Rose had evidently heard nothing and still knew nothing of it; besides, Dan did not know, and even if he had wished to keep the pain of such knowledge from her, Lewis, with his jealous blame, would have been sure to point a moral; a pointless moral at best, since George could have had no cause for despair. Had not the flood come to end even his anxiety? unless, indeed, there was any truth in the tale about the portrait. Yet why should truth be supposed in one incident when causeless wicked lying was evident in all the others? No; it was an impudent attempt at extortion, and must be met by denial. Therein lay safety, both for her and for poor George Keene's memory, since the conspirators would never face the evidence of those papers which they knew she held. So, as her cousin came in she greeted him with a smile changing to sweet concern at his ill looks.
'I have a headache,' he replied curtly. 'No wonder; the smells and general abominations of the bazaar are enough to kill one, and I had to go down there. Besides, I'm damp, and I've had no lunch. Isn't that a long enough catalogue of ills? No, thanks; don't order anything for me. I'd rather have a cup of tea by and by.'
It was the worst thing for him, he knew that. Nothing but a quiet cigar and a man's drink would have restored his balance. But he told himself captiously that he had been in a melodramatic atmosphere all the morning, and might as well go through with it to the bitter end. He felt demoralised, and so, almost out of contrariety, put himself at a further disadvantage by rushing at his fence.
'Gwen,' he began abruptly, 'I've come to ask you for the truth.' He did not hand her a bank-note as he had to the other woman; yet the thought had crossed his mind bitterly that one of sufficient value might be useful. He had set it aside, of course, as utterly unworthy since, in common justice, he had no more right to prejudge Gwen's implication than he had to prejudge Rose Tweedie's. There was, no doubt, the fact of George Keene's suicide against the one; but that was no new thing. She had been judged on that count before, and he had decided to save her from the pain of knowing it; to that decision, also, he meant to keep if it were possible.
Gwen's heart gave a great throb; she understood in an instant that the crisis had come sooner than she expected. Yet she was prepared for it.
'I suppose Rose Tweedie'--she began coldly.
'Yes; Rose Tweedie asked my advice, and I've been down to that woman in the bazaar. She sticks to her story. So now I have come to you----'
'If you had come to me first, Lewis,' she interrupted with a vibration of real anger in her voice, 'I would have warned you not to waste your time in playing Don Quixote at Rose Tweedie's bidding. The woman is an impostor, and should be treated as such. I would have sent the police after her yesterday, had I thought it wise to take even so much notice of her lies. And now you have been to see her! It is too foolish--too annoying! And all because Rose went crying to you, I suppose, about her lover. Her lover, indeed! You are very soft-hearted, Lewis! Perhaps some day your desire to console will lead you into taking his place.
He stared at her; that sort of thing being so unlike Gwen's usual sweetness; but his surprise did not equal his confusion, while his common-sense showed him her possible wisdom.
'Miss Tweedie did not cry over her lover, I assure you, he began, feeling in very truth that the young lady in question had meted out more blame than sympathy; 'and I did not choose to allow such tales of you to pass unnoticed.'
'So you listened to them again?' retorted Gwen in rising anger, which she wilfully exaggerated. 'Listened to what a common woman in the bazaar had to say of me! Really, I am obliged to you, Lewis! And she, I suppose, told you that I had stolen the pearls and the pot, and then taken it and a fresh bribe from poor George? 'Well, since you have come to me at last for the truth, I tell you, as I told Rose--who, perhaps, did not repeat it--that I have never seen the thing since the night of the storm at Hodinuggur. So I have less to do with it than she, since she confesses it was sent to her, and that she sent it back on the sly. Did she tell you that? and have you been asking her for the truth also? Or am I the only one who has to be questioned like that creature in the bazaar.'
Gwen had never looked better than she did at that moment, with the unwonted fire of real indignation lighting up her face, and Lewis Gordon felt vexed that it awoke no thrill in him. Was he really allowing Rose Tweedie's open mistrust to bias him? The idea made his reply more gentle than it might otherwise have been.
'Perhaps you are right to be angry with me,' he said quietly. 'I beg your pardon, if I have hurt you; but, indeed, it seemed best to me at the time. Perhaps, as you say, it would have been better to wait a while; until, for instance, I can consult with Fitzgerald. I wired him today to come up on three days' urgent private business. He knows a lot.'
Gwen gave an odd sort of laugh, not unlike a sob, and her face softened.
'I'm glad he is coming,' she cried passionately; 'very glad. He always understands, and he knows.' Yes! he knew and trusted her--he would stand by her even if he knew that one fatal mistake. Whereas Lewis would treat her as a Magdalen; as if she, Gwen Boynton, were a fit subject for a penitentiary!
'Yes,' she repeated slowly, 'I am glad he is coming. You did the right thing there, Lewis, at any rate.'
So, with this small consolation, he had to make his way back to give in his report to the girl who had told him that she loved him. Another delicate task, and he felt himself detestably awkward over it, the more so because Rose herself met him as if nothing unusual had occurred.
'Well,' she said eagerly, 'what news?'
He told her briefly that there was none. He had had three versions of truth--her own, Chândni's, and Mrs. Boynton's--and there seemed nothing to be done save wait for Dan's arrival. He might be able to throw some light on the subject--he was the last person, at any rate, who was likely to do so.
'You forget the girl--the girl of the portrait, I mean,' suggested Rose quickly. Lewis frowned.
'She disappeared, they say, just before we reached Hodinuggur. I should like, by the way, to see the picture, if you don't mind.'
He stood looking at it in silence for some time.
'And that, you say, was the face of your dream?' he asked at last.
'The face, the dress, the pot clasped so to her breast. I seem to grow more sure of it every hour. And I am certain now it was she who said, "I am Azîzan."'
'That sort of certainty grows upon one unconsciously,' he replied, after another pause. 'I confess it is odd; but you can hardly believe it really was the potter's daughter! She has been dead these sixteen years. You think it was her ghost, perhaps; but did George paint the ghost?'
Rose stood silent, her hands clasped tightly.
'Who knows?' she said slowly. 'One knows so little. When I think of it all--of that strange old man with his refrain, "We come and go--we come and go," I seem to feel that odd, uncanny sense of helplessness which one has during a storm at sea, when you realise that the waves are not moving on at all, but rise and fall, rise and fall for ever in the same place. It is the ship which drifts within their power, giving them their wrecker's chance once more. And now--you will say that I am superstitious; but I almost regret that you should bring Mr. Fitzgerald into this business at all. You remember the potter's measure? Think of it, and how poor George himself----'
She paused, her eyes full of tears.
Lewis, watching her, told himself he would never understand women-folk. Here was a girl, overflowing with fanciful sentiment in some ways, who yet apparently had none to spare for the one subject round which sentiment was supposed to cling--love and marriage. In addition, here were two women, both of whom he desired to help, and yet they were at daggers-drawing about the best method of giving that aid. If he pleased one, he displeased the other; and anyhow, he got no comfort out of either.
'Nay! thou hast given me enough, oh Mizra sahib. More than a free woman cares to have,' said Chândni, with a shrug of her massive shoulders. 'Thou hadst thy chance to pay me fair.'
Dalel Beg, clad in his European clothes, and perched in all the isolation of an esteemed visitor in the cane-bottomed chair of state, felt he would like to be on a level with those jeering lips as he used to be at Hodinuggur. Not for the sake of desire only, or for the sake of revenge, but for a mixture of both. As usual, the very audacity of her wickedness fascinated him, yet, now that wickedness was directed against himself he could have strangled her for it.
'Pay thee! How can I pay thee,' he whimpered, 'when those low-caste white swindlers with whom I betted will not pay what I have won? When those white devils of women turn the place into a museum until every Parsee in the bazaar threatens to summon me to court?'
It was not much more than a week since he had defied Chândni in the presence of the said white devils; but the interval had not been pleasant. Beatrice Elflida Norma's mamma knew all about Chândni's long years of hold on the Mizra Sahib, and he was totally unaccustomed to the nagging of wifely jealousy. Besides, something had happened which had opened his eyes to the danger of allowing the courtesan to have a free hand. A proposal had been made by the Canal Department to allow water to run permanently along the sluice-cut; the Rajah who owned the land to the south, having spent a whole season at Simla in order to work the oracle, and the flood having come opportunely as a warning to the experts that it might be wise to provide a more satisfactory outlet for the surplus water. Now, in this case, Hodinuggur, which, being for the most part barren desert, would benefit but little by the plan, might by judicious application of the screw make the Rajah pay for its consent, as a considerable portion of its best land would have to be taken up for various works. This sort of secret intrigue, these almost endless ramifications of rights and dues, underlie the simplest transactions in India, and are recognised by its people as an integral part of administration. Besides, Hodinuggur itself, in lieu of compensation for damage done--which for various reasons it had not yet claimed, one being a delay on the part of the Rajah in paying the promised fee for the opening of the sluice--might manage by the same judicious diplomacy to secure some trifling hold on the water-supply; something, in short, which might be used as a screw for the extortion of a perpetual, if small revenue. But for this, silence as to the past was necessary. Such considerations, to European ears, may seem almost too fine-drawn to be worth notice; but to Dalel Beg and Chândni they were quite the reverse, for he came from a long line of courtiers born and bred in such intrigues; men whose trade had passed with the corrupt courts of other days, while the memory of it survived in their title. Diwâns of Hodinuggur; not Nawabs or Nizams, but Diwâns, that is, in other words, prime minister. And she? Every atom of her blood came from the veins of those who for centuries had woven a still finer net of women's wit around the intrigues of their protectors. It is this extraordinary strength of heredity which, in India, makes the cheap tinkering of Western folk, who are compounded of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, so exasperating to those who have eyes to see. If English philanthropists would spend their motley benevolence on the poor, the diseased, and the drunken of their own country, it would be better both for it and for India, where the death-rate is no higher, drunkenness is practically unknown, and poverty is neither unhappy nor discontented.
Thus Chândni and Dalel were well matched as she lolled back in her cushions with a laugh.
'So she spends money! Lo! since thou hast married a "vilayeti" wife thou canst advertise, as the sahibs do, in the papers, that thou art not responsible for her debts. There is no sense in stopping half way as thou hast done. Thou shouldst have gone to a "mission" and been baptized instead of making that half-caste girl repeat the "Kulma" on promise that thou wouldst not in future claim the right of the faithful to other women. Yea! yea! I know the trick.'
'If I have,' muttered Dalel, vexed yet pleased at her boldness, her shrewdness, 'such promises are easily broken. Divorce is easy.'
'If thou hast money to pay the dower to her people--not when thou hast none! Lo! 'tis a mistake to try new ways of wickedness instead of keeping to the old ones.'
So she dismissed him, feeling on the whole contemptuous over her adversaries so far; the Miss Sahiba's arms had been strong, for sure, but the men were worth nothing! nothing at all.
Dan Fitzgerald, dangling his long legs disconsolately from Lewis Gordon's office-table two days after, said as much himself. 'The fact is, I ought to have killed her; only I didn't feel up to it to-day, after my journey. Oh, you may smile, Gordon!' he went on more eagerly, his face losing some of its dejection in his love of the extravagant, 'but it's true. That sort of woman doesn't belong to our civilised age; and we are absolutely at a disadvantage before her. There was I, as the mad old potter said, with a hero's measure round the chest, driven to words and threats of a policeman. I couldn't, even at the time, but think of that old sinner Zubr-ul-Zamân and what her chance would have been with him--just an order, a cry, and then silence. Sure, one feels helpless at times when one stands face to face with that old world. What's the use of strength--what's even the use of brains nowadays except to make money? There was I, with that woman, I give you my word, at the end of her tether, but 'twas the hangman's rope to me if I went a step closer, and so I didn't.'
'Ifyoudidn't,' remarked Lewis grimly, 'there isn't a civilised man who will; so we had better try something else. Still, unless that woman is silenced, we must face an inquiry, and then the facts of poor Keene's death must come out. By the way, Miss Tweedie knows them, but we have agreed to keep them, if possible, from my cousin. There seemed no use----'
'I'm glad of that,' interrupted Dan, with a sudden quiver of his mouth. 'I should be sorry to have that memory spoilt.'
He was pacing up and down the room now, his hands in his pockets, the brightness of his face absorbed as it were by a frown.
'Gordon!' he said abruptly. 'I'd give everything I possess if I could lay my hands on that cursed pot. Not that it would satisfy the horse-leech's daughter unless it contained the pearls--which isn't likely, for I believe the whole story to be a myth. But the thought that it is somewhere visible, palpable to the meanest fool on God's earth, is maddening. Or even if we could say to that she-devil, "do your worst." Oh! why didn't you send that wire sooner, and save poor George from his needless death?'
'Why didn't you tell the truth about it at first? you might as well ask that. It would have been better, as it turns out, if you had; but who can tell? As it is, I'm quite ready, as I told you before, to burke everything I can, in conscience; but, so far as I can see, it will do no good. If that woman breaks silence, the main facts must come to light.'
'I wish I had killed her,' said Dan regretfully.
'And I wish she were dead,' replied Lewis cynically, 'that is the difference between us. You are active, I'm passive, but we don't either of us seem to be of much use.'
That was the honest truth, and they had to confess as much to Gwen Boynton that afternoon. She looked a little haggard as she listened even while she protested bravely that in her opinion the vile creature would never dare to put her lies to the proof. So they sat and played at cross purposes; for she could not tell them of the papers she held in absolute disproof of what would be the first accusation, and they wished if possible to save her from the knowledge of George Keene's suicide. Perhaps if they had set their own feelings aside and told her the truth, she might even then have confessed her lion's share in the blame. But only perhaps; for she was a clever woman, capable of seeing that her confession could do no good now, and that she had, as it were, lost her right to save poor George from suspicion. Besides, she had brought herself to believe in the duty of denial; for, like many another woman, she required a really virtuous motive before she could do a really wrong thing; in sober fact--even in her worst aberrations from the truth--never losing hold of a fixed desire to be amiable and estimable. To this self-deception, as was natural, Lewis Gordon's half-hearted belief was gall and wormwood, while Dan's wholesale confidence was balm indeed. She could not refrain from telling him so when the former, pleading stress of work, left the latter alone with her beside the cosy little tea-table glittering in the firelight; for Gwen was one of those people who will never have been more comfortable in body and soul than they are on their death-beds.
'Now, don't spoil it all, dear, by wanting me to marry you to-morrow,' she said half-laughing, half-crying. 'We are all too busy for such talk, and too sad--at least I am. He was so good to me--you don't know how good. I shall break my heart if this vile creature succeeds in sullying his memory.'
'It will not be your fault, dear, if she does; that is one comfort.'
A chance shot may hit the quarry truer than the best aim, and Gwen turned quickly towards him with a little cry.
'Dan! you will prevent it, won't you? You are so clever, and, really, it is for my sake as well as for his. For my sake you will, won't you?'
'I do everything for your sake--you know that,' he answered simply.
Gwen stared at him as if she had seen a ghost. Perhaps she did; the ghost of a dead boy who had said those very words to her in that very room not a month ago.
'Gwen! what is it?' came Dan's voice sharply, anxiously. 'What is the matter?--tell me.'
Yes! The past was repeating itself.Hehad begged her to tell him also, and in her selfishness, her fear, she had yielded, and put a needless pain into his life at its close. She would not yield again; in denial lay her duty.
'Nothing is the matter,' she echoed, 'save this--that you say we can do nothing. I do not believe it. God will never let these lies prevail--He will never let my poor lad's memory suffer--never, never!'
If her mind could have been taken to pieces and strictly analysed as she gave utterance to this burst of real feeling, it would have afforded fruitful study to a whole college of psychologists. Yet the mental condition described as 'sitting in a clothes-basket and lifting yourself up by the handles' is quite common to humanity of both sexes, though women are as a rule the greater adepts in the art. Mrs. Boynton was really a firm believer in a Providence which was bound by many promises to help the virtuous, and George, therefore, had a claim to its assistance. The fact that Providence might possibly have appointed her as its instrument was a totally different affair, and did not interfere with the confused good faith and good feeling which made her voice thrill as she went on fervently, in answer to Dan's doubtful yet admiring face.
'Oh, you mayn't think so--you perhaps don't believe as I do, Dan, in a Providence "which shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may"--you don't----'
'Don't I?' he asked, catching fire, as it were, more from his own thoughts than her words. 'Oh, Gwen! my dear, it's little you know of me, then, if you think that. Don't I see it?--who but the blind do not--in everything? Isn't it that which makes me content to go on as I'm doing? Gwen! it's because I know that it is bound to come--that sooner or later you will take my hands in yours as I take yours just now. Yes, Gwen! it's Fate--but when will it be, my dear? When will it be?'
She was never proof against this mood in the man, this tone in his voice.
'Oh, Dan!' she cried, in a petulance that was all feigned, 'didn't I say you would be asking me to marry you to-morrow if I was so rash as to tell you that you were a comfort to me? As if that had anything to do with it.'
'Sure it has everything to do with it!' replied her lover fondly. The future, in truth, gave him few fears: it was the present, with the chance of annoyance if that venomous woman remain unscotched in the bazaar, which caused him anxiety. On the other hand, it was the future over which Lewis Gordon frowned, as he sat trying to make up his mind about his own feelings, for though the present was palpably unpleasant, it seemed clear that the future would be worse, since they must face the possibility of a scandal boldly in the hopes that Chândni's story would break down; except perhaps as regarded George, and he, poor lad, had brought it on himself. And then, when all this was over, he--Lewis--was going to marry Mrs. Boynton. No doubt about it; for it was too late now to judge her for that other fault--far too late. He had condoned it with full knowledge of what he was doing, and the fact that Rose Tweedie's subsequent scorn had awakened a tardy blame did not alter the past. At the same time, he had an insane desire that Rose should be brought to see this as clearly as he saw it. In fact, the idea of talking over the matter with her, and perhaps taking her advice upon it, had an attraction for him; and though he heaped contumely on himself for the mere thought, it lingered insistently. It was partly that which made him pause to knock at her sitting-room door on his way to the drawing-room before dinner. She would be glad to have the last news of the miserable affair, he told himself, but in his heart he knew that was not the real reason--that he himself scarcely knew what the reason was. Reason? there was none! Only a foolish curiosity to understand better what this icicle of a girl meant by love. It did not seem to hurt her, at any rate. But as he entered to see her sitting by the fire, the reading-lamp on the table lighting up her dress, but leaving her face in shadow, he seemed to forget all these thoughts in the friendly confidence of her greeting.
'I'm so glad you have come. I was wondering if you would. What news?'
He shook his head. 'None. We have all had our chance, and failed.'
'Not all,' she answered quickly, pointing to Azîzan's portrait, which showed dimly above the mantelpiece against which he leant. 'You forget the girl--she has not said her say.'
The unreality, the strangeness of it all, struck him sharply, not for the first time, as he replied after a pause--
'And never will. She is dead. Fitzgerald managed to get that out of the woman to-day. She must have been hidden away--as a punishment, most likely--in some dungeon of the old tower, for her dead body was found among the ruins--by--by the old potter. Yes! I know what you are thinking of; but that is impossible. He was always searching about, you see, and so he was more likely than others to find anything that was to be found. It is a coincidence, I admit; but the fact of the death seems undoubted. The woman let it out in her anger--Fitzgerald is not a nice cross-examiner, I expect--and tried to gloze it over afterwards. Perhaps it is as well. That story may be best unknown.'
'I don't agree with you,' said Rose quickly. 'I have been counting on her help--perhaps more than I realised--and now that her chance has gone----' The girl's eyes filled with tears, and her voice failed for a moment, 'it seems as if we could do nothing more to save him.'
'I'm afraid not. You see, once we begin to question outsiders we show our hand. There is no alternative between the silence and defiance which Gwen advocates so strongly, and a bold and open inquiry. In my opinion it is time for the latter. You see, my cousin is not quite a fair judge. She does not know that Fitzgerald and I have so far concealed George Keene's suicide, and that from purely personal motives we, or at least I, cannot have this scandal sprung by an outsider. He would take the risk, he says; but I, in my position, conceive that it is not my duty to do so. He, however, has suggested that we four shall meet and talk it over finally before I take any action, so I took the liberty of asking Gwen to come over tomorrow morning. It is Fitzgerald's last day, and something must be done before he goes down. I don't see the use of this meeting myself--we have all, as I said, had our chance--but it can do no harm, and it may satisfy Gwen--and you.'
'I am satisfied already,' she replied gently. 'You could have done no more than you have done; I see that now.'
'I am glad,' he began, and then stopped, realising that he was not in the least glad of the evident finality in her meaning. Was she contented that things should end as they had begun? Had her passionate interest in him died down with his obedience to her orders? A sorry reward, surely! A most perplexing result of his repentance!
'Ishallbe glad,' he corrected himself, almost angrily, 'when we can get out of this muddle. Of course I have heard before of such intrigues, but I never came in personal contact with that sort of thing before. It is maddening. I scarcely seem to know whether we are in the nineteenth century or the ninth. Ever since we went to Hodinuggur we seem to have got mixed up in some antique dream; the whole thing is absurd--scarcely credible.'
As he spoke the dinner-bell rang, and he held the door open for her to pass from the consideration of these things to the well-appointed table worthy of a house in Belgravia, where the dark-skinned, white-robed servants handed sherry with the soup, and vinegar with the salmon quite as naturally as Jeames or John in their plush liveries. But heredity was here also; Jeames or John's father may have been a day labourer or a gentleman at large, but not one of these could not have answered truthfully--'Huzoor, my father was servant to so-and-so or so-and-so in the great mutiny time, and his father served such and such a sahib in the Sutlej campaign, or in Cabul, or somewhere else.' Faithfulness or unfaithfulness to salt being, of course, a different question; though that also might possibly be one of heredity. Such thoughts strike one sometimes after years of complacent blindness, and on this evening they increased the sense of unreality which had already taken possession of Lewis Gordon. Nor did a remark of Colonel Tweedie's on his daughter's improved looks during the past few days amend matters. He felt that he might be living in that twenty-ninth century, when humanity may reasonably be supposed to have educated itself out of some frailties as, in the necessary glance at the young lady's face required by decorous assent, he met a perfectly unconscious, happy smile, so full of friendly confidence, that a positive gladness glowed at his heart that she should be content with him.
Nevertheless he made one more effort to get back finally to the every-day world by riding over to the Club after dinner and listening to the gossip of the day. But there was nothing wrong with the world; it was going on, he found, as usual. He played a game or two of pool, talked gravely with Major Davenant over some new rules intended to prevent such another fiasco as the last race-meeting, heard the latest official canards, and listened more patiently than usual to some boys--who had to go down from leave next day--bemoaning the general beastliness of the country as a residence for an English gentleman. It was only, so the verdict ran, fit for niggers.
Yet even this demonstration that life in the main was commonplace as usual, did not restore Lewis Gordon's general indifference. And the knowledge that this was so made him more than ever determined to carry his point when next morning the four met in Rose Tweedie's room, to settle the course of events.
The rain after a downpour during the night had ceased, or, perhaps, had become too light to make its way through the thick white mist which had settled down like cotton-wool upon everything, blotting out the world. There was not a breath of air, not a sound save occasionally a soft pit-pat, as the vapour condensing on the roof dropped into the hearts of the rain lilies which fringed the verandah with their upturned orange cups. Yet it was neither dark nor dull as on a cloudy day. The whiteness of the mist was almost luminous, and through the wide-set windows sent a faint glow, like that from newly-fallen snow, on the faces of poor George Keene's four friends, and showed still more clearly on the even surface of Azîzan's portrait as it stood upon the mantel-shelf. Rose stood beside it, looking beyond everything in the room, beyond the row of orange lilies, into the cotton-wool mist which seemed bent on suffocating the house and its inhabitants. There was silence in the room--the silence which comes to a discussion when the last objection has palpably fallen through, and a conclusion absolutely satisfactory to no one seems inevitable. Gwen, a flush of excitement on her cheek, lay back among the cushions of her easy-chair, nervously turning and twisting the rings upon her fingers. Dan Fitzgerald, who was seated close beside her, had evidently been the last to speak, and was now leaning towards her, his eyes fixed with kindly encouragement and sympathy on her face. Lewis Gordon, apart from the others, his elbows resting on the table, looked half regretful, half resentful,--the look of a man who knows he must take the initiative in a singularly disagreeable duty.
At last through the silence came Rose Tweedie's voice reluctantly, yet with a sort of challenge in it: 'I suppose that is settled, and that we can none of us suggest any other reason why we should delay longer?'
'I have told you before,' broke in Mrs. Boynton, 'that I have every reason to believe that no action will be taken by the woman; that she will never court inquiry.'
'I did not mean that,' replied Rose, still with the same note in her voice. 'I meant that if none of us have any further knowledge beyond what we have already discussed, then Mr. Gordon's plan for a private yet open inquiry with my father's knowledge seems best. I, for one, have none. I know nothing, absolutely nothing, in favour of delay. Nothing that would prevent the possible danger to George Keene's memory.'
Lewis Gordon followed fast on her words in swift, vexed comprehension of her challenge.
'I fancy we are all able to say the same, Miss Tweedie. If we agree, I may have to speak of something I should not otherwise mention, but it is no reason for delay. On the contrary, it is a reason why open inquiry will be the safest, even for George Keene's memory. I know nothing better;--I wish I did.'
'Nor I,' said Dan Fitzgerald, then paused, and rising from his chair crossed to the open door, whence he looked out, as Rose had done, beyond the rain lilies to the mist. 'I know better than any of you what poor George was; I know better than any of you what he did. If this is settled, I, too, will have to tell something to his credit; something that will make inquiry the better for him. Yet I'd give all I possess to save the necessity for it. But I'm lost,'--he stretched his hands out impulsively into the mist--'lost, as one might be out yonder--lost, as the lad's own explanation is lost in the mystery of death. It's hard to say so, George, but I can't help it.'
He spoke as if to some one out of sight, and Gwen Boynton sate up suddenly, nervously, with a scared look in her eyes.
'I think you are all wrong,' she said querulously. 'The woman must know that proof is against her story; but you will not believe it, and so I cannot help it. I cannot, indeed.'
Her voice died away to a sort of sigh, and she sank back again, clasping her hands tightly together. Rose let hers fall from its grip on the mantel-shelf. Dan's tall figure leant more loosely against the lintel, and Lewis Gordon mechanically turned the pages of a book lying beside him on the table. The tension was over, and the relief of decision, even of helpless decision, held them silent in the silence for the moment. They had done their best. They had played their part in the strange play.
Then suddenly out of the mist came a quavering, chanting voice--