'It was a woman seeking somethingThrough day and night----'
'It was a woman seeking somethingThrough day and night----'
'Listen!' cried Dan, his face ablaze. Rose's hand went up again to the picture hurriedly, and Lewis started to his feet; only Gwen looked from one to the other bewildered:
'O'er hill and dale seeking for something.'
The voice grew clearer as if the singer was toiling up the unseen path below the lilies.
'Foul play! foul play!--look down and decide.'
'The mad potter!' cried Dan, with wonder in his tone.
'Azîzan! it is her turn at last,' cried Rose, with a hush in hers, which sent a thrill through Lewis Gordon--though he only said prosaically--
'I'll go and see who it is.'
But Dan had forestalled the thought, and, vaulting the railings, had disappeared into the mist, whence they could hear him hallooing down the path to the unseen singer as they stood waiting by the lilies. Then came a quick greeting, a low reply, and so, clearer and clearer--though they could see nothing--every syllable of eager questioning and slow answer until, as if from behind a veil, the strange couple stepped into sight--Dan, eager, excited, towering above the bent, deprecating figure of the old potter.
They had heard so much, those three in the verandah, that Rose without a pause could step forward and strike at the very root of the matter with the question, 'What is it? What is it that you want of me?'
The shifty, light eyes settled on her face with a look of relief before the old man bent to touch her feet.
'Mâdr-mihrbân,' he said. 'Mâdr-mihrbân--that is well!'
He was still breathless from his swift climb beside Dan's long stride, and, as he straightened himself again, his long supple fingers, busied already about a knotted corner in the cotton shawl folded round him, trembled visibly.
'Lo, I sent it before,' he went on in low excuse; 'but it returned, as all things return at Hodinuggur. Then she was vexed and could not rest. "Send it back! send it back," she cried all night long. Pity of God! what a fever; but now she sleeps sound----' He paused, to fumble closer at the knot.
'You mean Azîzan, your daughter?' suggested Rose softly, while the others stood silent, listening and looking, the whole world seeming to hold nothing for them save this tall girl with her bright, eager face, and that bent old man trying to undo a knot.
'Huzoor--Azîzan!' came the quavering voice. 'I looked for her so often till the Mâdr-mihrbân came. Then I found her with the pot clasped to her breast, but the bad dreams would not let her sleep. "It is not mine; it is hers." It kept her awake always. So when I found her again, lying asleep by the river with it still in her bosom, I said to myself, "I will not set a writing on it, and put it in the box with a slit as I did last time, trusting it to God knows who, after the new fashion. I will take it myself in the old fashion and give it to the Mâdr-mihrbân's own hands, and pray her hold it fast so it return not to wake the child; for she sleeps sound at last in the dust of her father's."'
The knot was undone. The shaking fingers held the Ayôdhya pot for a second, the white glare of the mist shining in a broad blaze of light upon its intense glowing blue. The next it had slipped from the potter's hand and lay in fragments on the ground!
Still fragments of sapphire colour--moving fragments of milky white, rolling hither and thither like drops of dew on a leaf seeking a resting-place for their round lustre.
Pearls!--the Hodinuggur pearls!
And Gwen's voice, with a triumphant ring in it, became articulate above the old man's cry of distress and the low exclamations of the others.
'So Azîzan stole them, after all!'
Rose turned on her sharply. 'Who knows. This much is certain, she has brought them back, and saved George when we could not.'
'Yes! she has saved him,' assented Dan; 'we have that she-devil on the hip now!'
Lewis Gordon stood silent a moment; he had grown very pale. 'You are both right, I expect,' he said quietly. 'It settles--everything.'
Gwen drew a long breath of relief, but Rose seemed lost in thought.
'No! not everything,' she said absently, half to herself. 'It does not tell us why George shot himself.'
She scarcely knew she spoke aloud; she had forgotten everything but the dead boy.
'Shot himself!, The words came back to her in a sort of cry. 'Shot himself!What do you mean? What does she mean?'
Gwen stood as if petrified before those regretful faces. Then, as the truth struck at her, beating down her shield of self-deception, she turned at last, forgetful of all else, to the shelter of Dan's kind arms. 'Dan! Dan! it isn't true--it can't be true! say it isn't true.'
He drew her closer to him, looking down into her agonised face with a perfect passion of tenderness and kissed it; forgetful in his turn, of everything save that she had come to him at last.
'It is true, my darling; he did it to save me and you. Gwen! Gwen! it wasn't your fault--My God! she has fainted!'
'I'm sorry,' began Rose, feeling paralysed by surprise, but Dan's kind smile was ready even in his distress.
'Don't worry. It's best over, for I must have told her. You see we have been engaged for years, and George knew it. If I carry her to your room, Miss Rose, she will be better there. 'Tis the shock, and she was so fond of him, dear heart.'
Lewis Gordon, left alone in the verandah while another man before his very eyes carried off the woman to whom he supposed himself to be engaged, felt that the world had broken loose from its foundations altogether. So that was the explanation! And then a low murmur of moaning from the potter arrested his attention, which, as is so often the case after a shock, had lost its airt and become vagrant.
The old man, still crouched beside the fragments of the Ayôdhya pot, was rocking himself backwards and forwards, and muttering to himself, 'She will be angry; the Mâdr-mihrbân will be angry, and then Azîzan will not sleep.'
Lewis walked up to him and laid his hand reassuringly on the thin, bent shoulders. 'I don't think the Mâdr-mihrbân will be angry. I'm almost sure she won't.' His own words made him smile, until, as he looked at the old man's shifty, bright eyes raised to his doubtfully, he remembered the young sad face which George had painted. 'And Azîzan is asleep,' he said gently; 'she will not wake again.'
As he stooped to gather up the jewels his eyes were dim with unwonted tears--why, he scarcely knew.
When Rose came back ten minutes after, leaving Gwen to Dan's kind consolations, she found Lewis leaning over the railings looking at the rain lilies through his eyeglass as if it had been a microscope. He turned to her with the air of a man who has made up his mind.
'You thought I was engaged to my cousin, Miss Tweedie,' he said. 'So did I. Apparently I was mistaken. So let us set that aside, once and for all, and think over more important matters. There is no lack of other surprises, thank Heaven.'
The semi-cynicism of his words did not sit ill on him, and Rose recognised that he had certainly chosen the most dignified way out of the difficulty. At the same time it left her free, unexpectedly free, to consider the position as an outsider, and all involuntarily, yet naturally enough, her first thought expressed itself in words:
'I wonder what father will say?'
This was too much both for temper and dignity, fortunately, also for humour. He gave her one indignant look, then relaxed into a smile.
'Really, Miss Tweedie, in this Comedy of Errors I am only responsible for my part; and that, believe me, is rather a sorry one.'
Whether Lewis Gordon spoke truth or not regarding the part he had to play, there could be no doubt that Dan found his anything but sorry. A subdued sort of radiance softened yet brightened the man as he came out to ask Rose for the loan of herdandy, Mrs. Boynton being anxious to get home as soon as possible. There seemed no need for words; the situation explained itself, and even Lewis, looking at his rival's eager face, could not help acknowledging that Dan was more likely to give Gwen the support she evidently needed than he was. Besides, the sudden change for the future seemed lost sight of in that, which the opportune arrival of the Ayôdhya pot had on the present, and on Chândni's impudent claim. It was of course clear evidence against the truth of the story so far as Gwen was concerned, but whether it would prevent the woman raking up the true facts of George Keene's death, out of sheer wanton malice, was another thing. Lewis felt himself rather helpless before the phenomenon of such a nature as hers, and confessed as much when Dan came racing back, breathless and excited after seeing Mrs. Boynton safely home, for a council of war. He brought a quick decision and intuition with him. The sluice had been opened by treachery of course, and now that he was free to speak of his engagement, Dan told the story of the open locket, which to him seemed proof-positive that George had voluntarily taken the blame on himself when thrown off his balance by the discovery that the happiness of the man and the woman he loved best in the world depended on Dan's getting his promotion. How the sluice had been opened was another matter. Chândni had always said by means of a key made after an impression sent from Simla; but this was manifestly impossible unless some servant had done it. Indeed he had never paid much attention to this assertion, for the woman in making it had contradicted herself more than once, and evidently had no definite story as to how the impression had been secured. In his own mind he had decided that the key itself had been stolen from the boy while he slept so heavily, and that the knowledge that this was so had had the lion's share in bringing about his self-sacrifice. So that even if the real facts came out, nothing beyond carelessness could be laid to George's charge, now that the potter was there to prove that Azîzan had had the Ayôdhya pot all the time, and that they were there to prove that the pearls had remained in the pot. So much for Chândni and the only possible cause of further action--a woman's wanton cruelty. For the rest, the old Diwân was dead, Khush-hâl seemed to be out of it, and Dalel had everything to lose and nothing to gain by a scandal. Finally, these intrigues were always as a house of cards; remove one support and the whole structure disappeared.
'Nevertheless,' said Dan, looking across the table with a grim smile, 'I'm not going to take you down as a witness to my interview with that she-devil this afternoon. You are too fine for the work, and that's the fact.'
'Can I lend you anything peculiarly barbaric in the way of a knife?' asked Lewis. 'I've a Malay crease in my room which fills most people with terror, though personally I should funk a woorâli dart more than anything.'
'Ah! you may jeer; but 'tis true. Sure! our fineness is at the bottom of half our mistakes in this country. Even in our kindness we treat these people as we would like to be treated ourselves--a poor philanthropy compared to treating them as they would like to be treated. And when we come to mere justice! Why, we might as well give a child who has disobeyed his mother the right to appeal against her in court. What chance would the child have to begin with, and then what good would it do? and what good is our complicated system of procedure save to put power into the hands of the educated few who naturally clamour for more? But there! This has nothing to do with Chândni. She wouldn't care a tinker's dam for what you'd say to her, because you would be regulating yourself by codes and sections instead of by the way she is made. I won't. I don't mind stooping to her level to get my will. So let me go with the old mad potter and his eyes, and see if between us we can't make a settlement. And then, please God, we will have done with the whole bad dream from beginning to end. So if you have three thousand rupees you can spare on a loan, I'll just have them handy in my pocket as a salve to her wounded feelings when I've got my own way.'
What really happened at the interview Dan resolutely refused to say. On his return from the bazaar he asked for a whisky and soda and a hot bath to take the taste of it out of soul and body. Yet he returned triumphantly with a written declaration signed by Chândni, stating that she herself had stolen the key from George while he slept.
'It isn't true, of course,' said Dan with a rueful look at Lewis, 'but upon my soul, no one could tell if it is, or not. My mind seemed a vast cobweb with lines going everyway into the outside world, but all beginning in that woman, and the only way was to smash through it. She has done worse things--that's one comfort. Maybe the pearls should have gone back to Hodinuggur direct, but she will make her bargain there, never fear, and by God they deserve----'
He broke out then with curses into the tale of Azîzan's birth, which it seemed had been his strong card--that and the potter's eyes. He had played the one against the other till he wormed the story out of his enemy, while the old man waited below, ready, if Dan failed to be told the truth, to bring his evil glance to bear on the question. That fear had really settled the matter; she had acknowledged the part Azîzan had played in bringing her plans to naught, and confessed the wisdom of dancing to a different tune in the future.
'We parted on the best of terms. She offered me cinnamon tea and fritters, and I took some as a sign of peace,' said Dan with a shudder. 'And now I must be off and tell poor Gwen 'tis all settled for ever.' He lingered a moment as he rose, to add with a half shy, half happy smile, 'Were you very much surprised, old man?'
'Very,' replied Lewis with dignity. But Dan still lingered.
'I wonder what on earth the Colonel will say?' he remarked apprehensively after a pause.
Then Lewis laughed; he could not help it. And actually the idea of playing second fiddle to Colonel Tweedie's disappointment in the eyes of the world, helped him materially in the interview which he had with his cousin next morning. Even without this, however, he would have felt it difficult to be severe, for he found her full of remorse and self-abasement; rather vague, perhaps, but still real. She would never forgive herself, she said, not so much for her indecision about Dan, for she had always loved him, and Lewis was well quit of her selfish regard. No! it was about poor George! She had sided with Simla in turning the boy's head, she had made too much of him and behaved most unwisely--really Lewis must let her say what she knew to be true--she had been over friendly, over confidential, and had asked him to do too much for her. All this and his foolish fancy about being the keeper of Dan's conscience, of which the latter had told her, had been too much for the dear, dear, lad's kind, sensitive heart. Then the terrible home-coming after all the pleasure and spoiling! Was not that enough, more than enough, to upset the balance? She was so insistent on this point that Lewis had to confess his assent to it, and finally went away feeling that she had more heart than he had given her credit for in the past, and that he might even be in a measure responsible for not having appealed to this better nature while he had the chance. Dan seemed to have done it successfully, for she had evidently given up all thoughts of a mercenary marriage. He understood her, she said plaintively, he knew her faults and yet he loved her; while Lewis--he must excuse her for saying so--had always treated her as if she had no heart, no sentiment; had always committed the unpardonable mistake of making her remember that she did not love him. Of course she had behaved abominably to everybody--far worse than they would allow, for they were all too good for her--but in the future she would have Dan, who was a tower of strength to her.
In fact, like many another woman of her type--many a man also--Gwen Boynton had taken refuge from the greater remorse in the lesser one--if indeed there was a greater one?--if indeed the real limit of her sinning had not been that over-confidence to which she had confessed. Not in detail truly; still shehadconfessed it with tears to Dan, and he had forgiven heren masse; as, no doubt, he would forgive in detail if she had thought it right to tell him what she had told George. But what right had she to put this pain into another man's life, or speak of that vague fear which even Chândni's confession of having stolen the key would not smother utterly? It would be worse than foolish! it would be wicked; and this dreadful doubt was her cross, her punishment, which she thoroughly deserved for doing as she had done. And when she had got thus far, remorse was once more in a clear open channel where it could spread itself out and lose its chill under the sunshine of Dan's kind consolations.
Thus it really turned out that, after all, the person most upset by the unexpecteddénouementof affairs was Colonel Tweedie.
'Engaged for years,' he said angrily, in reply to his daughter's information. 'Well! I am surprised. A most extraordinary proceeding which er--er--complicates--the--er--If you had said "of late," I might have seen some sense in it, for during the last week or so even Gordon, who is generally to be relied upon, has been absent over his work--er--not to say--er--somewhat negligent. And of course being his cousin--the--er--interest----'
Rose hastened to confess that the engagement had only, as it were, been a definite one during--here she hesitated a little--the last few days. Which tribute to his perspicacity soothed the Colonel's dignity, and encouraged him to further ventures in the seer's path by a suggestion that no doubt his daughter's improved appetite and appearance, which he had observed during the same period, was due to the proverbial interest which women took in the matrimonial affairs of their neighbours. Though for his part he must say that the friendly admiration he had had for Mrs. Boynton had been very considerably impaired by--er--the lack of judgment she had displayed in engaging herself to an assistant engineer, a man whose promotion, he believed, could not possibly come before the following July--if then. He went off to consult the departmental lists with portentous gloom, leaving his daughter defenceless before the truth. Certainly she had been much happier since Lewis had known her feeling for him, and what is more, Mrs. Boynton's decision in favour of Dan was a great relief in one way, though in another it was disturbing--confusing; for despite her theories Rose felt that the fact of his freedom to make other ties did make a difference in her relations with Lewis Gordon. It ought not to do so, of course; she was angry with herself for admitting the fact, but she was totally unable to juggle with realities, or escape, crablike, from a difficulty sideways. No thought of marriage or what she was pleased to call sentimental rubbish had marred the self-forgetfulness of that unpremeditated appeal she had made to her belief in him. No such thought existed even now, and that the fear of it should creep in was intolerable, absurd. No! she must feign the virtue of unconsciousness, even if she had it not, and by an increase of friendly confidence, combined with a strict attention to prose, prevent the awkwardness of the position from falling on innocent Lewis, and show him clearly that the altered situation had made no change in her, yet was not expected to make any change in him. Only by these means could she show him, what was really the truth, that her past avowal of interest was not mere sentiment.
Lewis, for his part, also tackled the position with a boldness which he had denied to himself while he was still engaged to his cousin, still smarting under the curiously mixed sensations which the knowledge of the girl's real feelings had aroused. Then he had felt bound to conventional modes of thought, and, to tell truth, had been more or less afraid lest on inquiry a sentimental love for Rose might pop up somewhere like a Jack-in-the-box. For her confession had affected him in a perfectly incomprehensible way, and the only other explanation of it he had been loth to admit, since it ran counter to all his pet theories. What feeling could there be between a man and a woman save the one feeling? This warmth at his heart when he thought of her praise, this pain at the thought of her blame, could only be the old, old story; and yet he had been in love before, and this was not the same experience. Well, it might be milk-food suited to babes and women, but it was not strong meat for strong men; withal it was strangely satisfying, strangely final, so that when a return to commonplace diet became possible, he found himself in two minds about taking to it. She evidently had but one; she evidently had given him all she intended to give, and the only return he could make was by showing her that he did understand this, and that he did not think it necessary to salve over her wounded modesty by making love to her. Wounded modesty! The very thought seemed an insult. He could not agree with her theories altogether, but he could at least respect them.
So for the next month, while Gwen was slowly recovering her shock, and all Simla was divided into factions over the surprise of her engagement to penniless Dan Fitzgerald, a very pretty little comedy was being enacted in the big house where Rose, as hostess, treated Lewis Gordon as a friend, and he returned the compliment in kind. There was absolutely no humbug, no effort about it at all. They were not in love with each other, they were not restless or moody or excited, but absolutely content and happy with things as they were. A state of affairs accentuated by the relief from anxiety, the improving weather and the charming gaiety andverveof the society in which they lived.
Thus it happened that Rose Tweedie had her chance of being wooed in the only possible way in which girls of her type can be wooed. One sees dozens of them nowadays in society; one will see more and more year by year, as the unnatural disproportion in the number of the sexes tends to intensify the present seclusion of the nicest girls from the men. It is not the fault of the latter. In a bevy of several hundred young ladies, the fortunate possessor of the handkerchief naturally throws it at some of those who press forward into individuality, or at some fair face which even a crush cannot hide. So the choice for a wife falls on beauty or brass. The latter may be too hard a term, yet the girls who are likely to make the most faithful wives, the most devoted mothers, are not those who are the readiest to attract and assent. On the contrary they do not fall in love, and men have no time to give them friendship. Friendship! They are engaged--nay, married--before the mere thought of such a thing crops up.
So the younger generation of women is rapidly dividing itself into the girls who dress and the girls who don't dress. In other words, those willing to attract men by one certain if seamy side of their natures, and those who are not willing. Who does not know the opposite extremes of these two factions? The girl who forces you instinctively to think of a looking-glass, and the girl who makes you wonder if there be such a thing in her room. The girl with not a hair out of place, and the girl with a hiatus between her soul and her body, as the feminine phrase runs. Rose belonged outwardly to neither factions, yet in her heart she strenuously resented the old-fashioned theory that marriage was the larger half of a man's life and the whole of a woman's. Truthfully, though she was three-and-twenty, she had never felt the slightest desire to marry anybody, not even Lewis, and she felt in consequence proportionally grateful to him for behaving, at any rate, as if he believed the fact.
Yet, even so, they sometimes found each other out, as for instance one day when he came back from his cousin's full of unexpected news. Dan Fitzgerald had sent in his resignation to the Department, and accepted an offer of employment from Australia.
'I'm as glad,' said Lewis heartily, 'as if I had had the chance myself; partly because I couldn't make anything of it! Brown--that is the man who has wired for him--was out here contracting one of the big railway bridges. A bloated mechanic; began life as a riveter sort of fellow, but with a knack of making money and a keen eye beyond belief. I remembered his telling me that Dan was too good for us, and that if ever he came across a job in which he wanted help, he would try and steal him. This is some huge irrigation scheme--private--down South. If Dan succeeds, and he will if any one can, there will be millions in it.'
'I suppose your cousin is delighted?' said Rose.
'Gwen? Never saw a woman more relieved in my life. For, mind you, though she is awfully fond of Dan--fonder than I personally should have thought she could have been of any one--the idea of the poverty was telling on her. You know it is absurd to think of her as an assistant engineer's wife. It is really not an environment in which she was likely to shine, and when all is said and done on the romantic side people ought to consider surroundings in making a settlement for life. Besides, I am sure she is relieved to get away from us all and make a fresh start. She feels it more than I should have expected.'
'Mr. Gordon,' said Rose suddenly, 'I'm very sorry I judged her so harshly that--that time. I've wanted to say so often; butthenit seemed foolish. As if it could have mattered what I said or thought.'
'I don't think it did really matter,' he replied frankly. 'Rather the other way round, I expect. Yet I doubt if you did judge her as harshly as she judges herself now; so it is far better she should leave all these associations behind. If he and she had had to go inspecting at Hodinuggur, or even if she had to meet Dalel Beg and his wife--did I tell you I saw her at the vice-regal squash yesterday, a perfect child in the most awful get-up?--why, then, it would revive the old affair. And if, by chance'--he paused a moment--'One never knows what mayn't crop up, and Dan is a queer chap in some ways. He works by instincts, as it were, and hitherto they have led him right. If they didn't, and he found it out, I don't know what mightn't happen. He is not what I call a very safe man unless he is successful. So they are both lucky to get out of the uncongenial atmosphere which Government service is to him and poverty is to her. They start in smooth water, and I must buy my wedding-present, for they are to be married next month.
'So soon?'
'He has to leave at once. The wedding is to be at Rajpore after we all go down. No bridesmaids, and I'm best man. If you want to know the wedding dress, ask Gwen; she is sure to have settled it long ago. Women always do.'
'I haven't,' protested Rose hastily. 'I shall be married in my every-day things.'
She tried hard to be grave while Lewis roared with laughter, but in the end she joined in the joke against herself. For they never quarrelled now. What was there to quarrel about?
It was on another of these pleasant peaceful days, that he came to lunch, with the news that Dalel Beg was even now detaining her father by abject apologies for past old-style misdemeanours at Hodinuggur, and profuse promises that in future it would be the abode of all the civilised virtues. Khush-hâl Beg it appeared had died of apoplexy, brought on no doubt by the unrestrained orgies with which the fat man had celebrated his accession, and in consequence Dalel was king.
'I don't quite understand it all,' he said thoughtfully. 'He is a fool, and yet he is playing his cards well. Do you know, I shouldn't be at all surprised to hear that Chândni was back again as chief adviser. She is a very clever woman. It seems that there is a scheme on foot for establishing stud farms or grazing paddocks for Government remounts. It is supposed to be cheaper and better in the end to buy them as yearlings and let them run loose, instead of being tethered heels, heads, and tails, in native fashion. And as the water supply is to be constant at Hodinuggur now, Dalel proposes that Government should utilise some of his waste land there, and put him in charge, or partly in charge. Of course it would bring him in a steady income if he gets his finger in the pie.'
'He ought to get nothing,' interrupted Rose hastily; 'I believe he was at the bottom of all that intrigue. We shall never know what went on exactly, but there was intrigue, and that sort of thing should be punished.'
'Undoubtedly; but as I said before, Dalel is a fool--except about a horse. It was the old man and Chândni; they belonged to that age. This man tries to break the Ten Commandments in two languages, and misses the idiom in both. But he does know the points of a horse, and as Government must keep up these old families and try to civilise them, it is as well to get some work out of them.'
'Hodinuggur civilised! I can't imagine it,' echoed Rose. 'When I think of the old potter, and that mirrored room on the roof--of Azîzan and the Ayôdhya pot--it seems like some old dream of life into which we nineteenth century folk strayed by mistake.'
'With disastrous results,' put in Lewis thoughtfully. 'Well! with half thedramatis personæof the play dead, and the other half married, it ought to have come to an end now like a decently behaved melodrama. Not a very moral one, I'm afraid, Miss Tweedie, and virtue must be its own reward.'
'What do you mean?' she asked.
'You and I have been left out of the prizes altogether; but then, as the potter said, we didn't belong to his world.'
'I wish you had not reminded me of that scene,' she interrupted hastily. 'I cannot help thinking of how Mr. Fitzgerald sat smiling at me while the old man measured him; just as George did when he measured himself, and he is dead.'
'What a woman you are when all is said and done!' he replied, smiling at her. 'Still I do think that poetic justice has not been meted out all round. Gwen, for instance, has everything she wants, and I am out in the cold.'
'Do you feel out in the cold?' asked Rose aggressively.
He hastened to assure her that on the contrary he was quite warm and comfortable, but in spite of this the conversation languished till Colonel Tweedie came in, full of his intention of recommending Dalel Beg's plan strongly to the authorities.
To call it Dalel Beg's was, however, as Lewis Gordon had suspected, to credit that gentleman with too much sense. It was Chândni's. When Dan Fitzgerald had left her after partaking in friendly fashion of cinnamon tea, she had put the pearls away in a safe place, and set herself, as she had been doing ever since she came to Simla, to amuse herself. She had looked after Dan as he rode away without the least malice, saying that there was a man indeed; one of the old sort like the Diwâns. If he had had her in the old days, say at Hodinuggur, there would just have been one order, and then silence. She nodded her head and smiled over the thought. But now she had three thousand rupees and the pearls. She could not sell them of course, could not at present let any one know she had them. They were too well known, these Hodinuggur pearls, for Chândni to traffic in them without fear of being accused of theft. By and by, perhaps, she might trade them off on Dalel; but nothing of that sort was safe as long as Khush-hâl was alive. So long too, as they thought the mem had them they would not dare to move in the matter, now that there was all this talk of a permanent water-supply; for Chândni, in the wooden-balconied house at Simla, heard all the latest talk, and had quite a bevy of respectable native gentlemen who drank sherbets at her expense. She heard also from a friend at court of this taking up of waste land, and as she listened to all the stir of intrigue after this thing and that thing, felt a pang of regret for that vanished dream of some day being a motive power in Hodinuggur. This court-life was as the breath of her nostrils, and if she had been in the place of that half-caste girl down in the house with the dahlias, she would not have been half starved and beaten; for if bazaar rumour said sooth, Dalel Beg had carried his occidental estimate of the marriage-tie to this almost incredible length.
Then one day, after a rich Hindu contractor had roused her wrath by claiming her more or less as his special property, by reason of the money he had chosen to lavish on her, came the news of Khush-hâl Beg's death in the odour of court sanctity. She could imagine it all down in the ruined palace out in the desert--the old ways, the old etiquette; poverty-stricken may be, yet still courtly. And why, in these pushing days when fat pigs like that Hindu made money, should they remain poverty-stricken? yet even so, it was better in a way to be Chândni of Hodinuggur, than Chândni of a bazaar, especially as one grew older.
That same afternoon a patchwork-covered dhooli went jolting down to the house with the dahlias, which was a miserable spot now; deserted, forlorn. A miserable room also, whence the indignant Parsees had reft the French clocks and thebric-à-brac. A most miserable pair of women too, reduced to cooking their own food at the drawing-room fire, lest their over-looking neighbours might see them in the degradation of the cook-room--since the deepest degradation of all in Eurasian eyes is to be servantless.
'Don't be a fool,' said Chândni to Mrs. D'Eremao's shrill abuse, as the former walked in upon them unceremoniously, and, squatting down, went on calmly chewing betel. 'You have nothing to do with the business. But, if she is wise, she will listen.' Beatrice Elflida Norma looked at her shrewdly and said, 'Be quiet, mamma, there is no harm in hearing what she has to say.'
It was not much, but to the point. No doubt, if they appealed to English justice, they could force the Diwân to support his wife. But how? At Hodinuggur under lock and key. It would not be nice, and Chândni had tales to tell which made Mrs. D'Eremao's hair stand on her head even while she protested thatshewas a freeborn British subject. Doubtless; but then they must give up all hopes of the position for which the girl had married such an atrocity. (Here Beatrice Elflida dissolved into tears.) Besides, that was not the way to treat a Mohammedan gentleman, an offshoot of the great Moghuls; butsheknew how to treat him, and for a consideration, was quite willing to use her influence with Dalel to set things straight. She did not want him, and had flouted his proposals of peace a dozen times, but she was quite ready,for this consideration, to make herself useful. Briefly, that consideration was a free hand if she could get it, no cabals against her position, and an assignment, in case of Dalel's death, of a good slice of that state pension, which, in such case, would be given to the wife. If there were children, so much the better, since the pension would be larger. In addition, they had to remember that refusal would not amend the position, since Dalel would no doubt bribe her back in some other way.
So a week after this, her Highness Beatrice Elflida Norma of Hodinuggur's name appeared on the list of donors to a certain Fund, opposite no less a sum than one thousand rupees, and she herself appeared at the next viceregal squash in full native costume, with her hair quite straight, and many shades darker in colour. She sat and talked affably to a stout English matron about her husband's great desire to assimilate the lives of Indian women more closely to those of their European sisters; so that, on her return home, the stout English matron mentioned to her stout English husband, who happened to be a Commissioner, that the Hodinuggur creature seemed to have ideas and should be encouraged.
And that evening, Dalel said to Chândni, ere he left the little balconied room where so many grave and reverend gossip-mongers sat drinking sherbet, 'Thou wilt return to Hodinuggur as thou hast promised.'
'I will return; but not as before. I am free to come and go. And see that thou pay me back that thousand rupees out of the first batch of horses. Else Chândni goes, never to come again.'
It was a hot October. The rains coming early had stopped early, giving Lewis Gordon and Rose that charming sunshiny month on the Hills, of which mention has been made. A whole month of almost idyllic happiness and content.
And now, after the usual hiatus of a visit or two for Roseen route, and a hasty tour for her father round some outlying canals, they had settled down for the cold-weather life at Rajpore. Perhaps it was only the rather unusual heat which made it seem less pleasing than usual to at least two of the party. And this was more evident to Lewis Gordon than to the girl, since she had the occupation and distraction of preparing for Gwen's approaching marriage. Naturally, it was to be a great function, for, while her admirers were legion, Dan's friends were many; besides, as everybody admitted, the bride and bridegroom alone would be worth going to see, worth remembering as a pattern pair of lovers. So the Tweedies were lending their house for the breakfast--which was to be a real breakfast, since the marriage was to take place so as to allow of a start by the cool morning mail; the regiment was lending its band for the wedding-march, and, on this tepid October afternoon, every garden in the place was sending white oleanders and hibiscus to the odd octagon church which had once been a Mohammedan tomb. Nay more! one devoted though disappointed lover far down by some distant canal had sent, by special messenger, a great basket of belated white lotus lilies, with a request that they might be trodden on by the bride's happy feet.
Gwen, as she bent over this offering, sniffing at the faint almond scent of the huge, jewelled flowers, was a gracious sight to look upon. She had quite recovered herself, and in sober truth felt absolutely content. 'How nice of the dear thing!' she murmured sweetly.
And so it was; very nice. One might give it another epithet and say it was almost heroic. But of this Gwen Boynton had no conception, and never would have one. That side of human nature, its passion, its tears, its temptations, its triumphs, had been left out of her composition. She roused it in others, she played with it prettily, she even spoke warily and discreetly about it; yet Rose Tweedie, despite her girlish disdain, had more real sympathy with it than she had.
Dan, meanwhile, in Lewis Gordon's office, disregardful of the lack of chairs, was kicking his heels as he sat on the table, declaring loudly that he would of a certainty break down in replying to the toast which was to be given at the Club dinner in his honour that night. What the dickens did the fellows mean by giving him a dinner? What had he ever done for any of them? What had he ever been but a reckless, insubordinate, unsteady, loafing brute, who ought to have been kicked out of the service years ago?
'I expect they know their own minds,' replied Lewis rather wearily. He had a headache; and he was telling himself it was liver when he knew quite well it was not; a most unsatisfactory denial since there is no phase of depression so unendurable as that when even a blue pill fails to hold out cheering hopes. Yet he spoke kindly and patiently also; for he must have been of base clay, indeed, who would not have recognised that Dan, transfigured as it were on the summit of his hopes, was a worthy sight in this work-a-day world, and that, in a measure, it was well to be there on the hill-top with him. 'Besides,' he added, 'I think I overheard Simpson saying something about a sick baby----'
'Oh! bad cess to the baby,' interrupted Dan, seeking refuge in an excess of Celtic recklessness. 'Sure it's a boy now, and one can't see a child die for the want of ice when your pony has four legs. More by token, it had but three for a month after, poor beast. But what's that to do with it? It isn't so much that I'm too bad. It's the world that's too good for me, and that's a fact. When I think of all you fellows who have been so good and so patient with me, my heart's broke about it entirely--and when I think of George! sure, it's only Gwen's kind face that comforts me. Oh, Gordon! what have I done that she should be going to marry me to-morrow?'
So he ran on, as many another man has run on; as most men, good and true, do run on when they are just about to marry the woman they love.
And Lewis Gordon sat listening to him with a headache and a pain in his heart; for the most part thinking that if Rose could only see this man, only hear him, she might not be quite so disdainful of it all; might acknowledge that, be it bad or good in its essence, this feeling did step into a man's life for the time and claim him body and soul, to the detriment of neither.
And by the by,' said Dan suddenly, 'I've been meaning to ask you for a long time, but I wasn't sure if you'd like it. And now that I'm going away for good and all, and you can't get out of being my best man, I'll risk it. When are you going to marry Miss Tweedie?'
'Never,' replied Lewis firmly, roused into instant resistance. 'What put such a fancy into your head now?'
'Now?' Dan's face was a study in tender humour 'It's been in my head for the last year, and in yours too. I told Gwen so, I remember, before we went to Hodinuggur that time, and I could see by her manner she thought so also.'
Lewis looked at him with an odd expression. 'Then you were both mistaken, that's all.' And Fitzgerald, if you're quite done talking about yourself--I've a lot of work to finish, old chap----'
Dan laughed. 'Well! I'll go; but it is true, Gordon, and what is more, she likes you; any one can see that.'
True! absolutely true. Lewis knew it right well, none better, and the remembrance of the affection she had given him unasked filled him as ever with a glow of intense satisfaction. And yet he had to confess that he was not happy. That idyllic month spent in each other's company had been charming, but that fortnight of absence had been the reverse. And what he felt now was something very different from that calm, contented confidence in their mutual friendship which remained, thank Heaven, untouched by this new passion. For it was that, and nothing else. He had felt it before, for other women, this moody, restless, selfish desire of appropriation, and if Rose would not marry him he would probably feel it again for some one else. In a half-hearted way he almost regretted that it should have obtruded itself in this, the most perfect idyl of his life, and yet, call it what hard names he would, there it was, a palpable factor in the future. Rose was the best of friends; but she was also a very charming girl into whose company he had been thrown, and he had fallen in love with her; naturally enough--only it complicated matters.
He gave a queer little grimace and began to add up a column of figures, telling himself that no doubt he would get over it as he had got over similar attacks before; and that at any rate he would wait and see. Anything seemed better than the risk of paining Rose by letting her think that after all he had failed to understand the absolute unconsciousness of her regard for him. And that she might think so, seemed more than likely, since with all his experience, all his knowledge, he was only just beginning to realise that this passionate love was indeed a thing absolutely apart from his affection for her. So much so, that it almost seemed to him that it would have been easier to tell her of the former, if the latter had not hedged her in with reverence and tenderness. It came to him, with a smile, that indeed and in truth it would have been easier had he been able to send the barber round with proposals to her father in native fashion; after all, there was an immense deal to be said for that side of the question.
And then, in his careful methodical fashion, he began to add up the column of figures again. This time the total was different; a trifle to be easily set right, yet he was not used to such aberrations of intellect, and it annoyed him. He did it again, this time allowing no thoughts of Rose or anything else to obtrude themselves, and a new set of figures rewarded his perseverance. He laid the pen aside and faced himself resolutely. Yes! he had been doing atrocious work of late, he had been thinking of Rose all day long, he had not been able to settle steadily to anything, and, unless this could be stopped, the sooner he took advantage of the many changes in the Department--consequent on Dan's going and the usual cold-weather returns from furlough--in order to give up his present position, the better. There was nothing like breaking loose from one's surroundings at once, and he was due some promotion. But if he had to do this, Rose ought to know the reason. Why should she live in a fool's paradise? Why should she not face the facts of life as well as he? If she had been like other women he had known, he would have made love to her and proposed as a matter of course; but she was not like others; or rather what did he know of the matter, save that never by word, or look, or sign had she shown her knowledge even of the most elementary facts in life. How could you go to a girl like that and ask her to marry you straight off? What could you do save gloze over the question by phrases, by mixing it up with other things, even with that perfect, angelic, absolutely unselfish affection and regard which she had given him, and which he, apart from all this, felt for her. Still, it had to be done; in common fairness to her and to himself, he must tell her that he was a fool, and that life was quite unendurable without her; he must tell her, if only because there was no other earthly reason why he should give up the Secretaryship. And if this had to be, if he had to tell her, then there was no time like the present, when the necessity for action seemed clear to him.
So ten minutes after, he walked into the room where Rose sat making wedding favours as for dear life, surrounded by a perfectchevaux de friesof white satin ribbons, bows, and blossoms. The windows were set wide open on to the verandah where great baskets of white flowers lay awaiting her final visit to the church. On the table stood the lotus lily offering with a note from Gwen to say it was too good to be trodden on, and would Rose see the pretty things were put on the altar, where they would look quite sweet. The girl in her white dress with her brisk hands flying about scissors, needle, and thimble, and her mind busy with the coming marriage, seemed, like her surroundings, in unsympathising connection with his purpose; and the perception made him say discontentedly as he paused beside her to lean against the table--
'I thought you didn't approve of wedding favours?' It was an opening of the siege at the very furthermost outworks of the position which she frustrated by a laugh.
'Oh, it doesn't matter! other people seem to like them, and I've made you such a beauty. There it is, beside you on the table--take care! you're almost sitting on it. Smell it, it's real orange-blossom.'
There was apparently not a vacant chair in the room. They were all occupied with white wreaths and true lovers' knots--but with a cross here and there he was glad to see--so he continued to lean against the table, smelling perfunctorily at his own favour, and thinking of the utter inconsequence of the feminine mind, until a certain irritation came to his aid.
'I wish you would put that work down for a minute, Rose,' he said quietly. 'I have something I want to say to you.'
Her hands paused, arrested among the white ribbons, her mind on one word; for he had never before called her by her Christian name. So she sat looking at him doubtfully, with the light from the windows behind her edging the great coils of her hair with bronze.
'I have come to tell you that I'm a fool,' he began almost argumentatively. 'At least, I suppose it's foolish. I am quite ready to admit, if you like, that it is so; but the fact remains. I can't go on as we are--as we have been, I should say--any longer. Don't think it is because I cannot understand. I do--at least I think I do. You are my friend, Rose, and will be that always, I hope. I don't say the best friend I ever had, or ever shall have, because that has nothing to do with the question, and, besides, there aren't any degrees in friendship--you have taught me that. So I think you may admit that I understand you. The question is, if you will understand me.'
He paused, and Rose's kind shadowless eyes noted with a sudden shrinking back from the sight, that his usual calm was broken by a palpable effort to steady his voice. He felt, indeed, that he had not the least clew to the girl's mind; that he was absolutely taking a leap in the dark. And that what he had to say now was, in reality, so foreign to every single word they had ever said to each other before, that even if she consented to marry him he could not be sure if she meant it--if she really understood the difference which he saw so clearly.
'Rose,' he went on, 'the fact is, that I've fallen in love with--with you; and if you don't really want to marry me, I had better go away. I would take an out-district for a time. I've had enough--perhaps too much--secretary work.' He seemed to take refuge in details from the main point.
'Why--why should you go away?' asked Rose in a low voice. 'We were very happy, weren't we?'
Her eyes, which had sought her hands among the white satin bows, came back to his face anxiously, almost fearfully.
'Why?' he echoed passionately, and as he went on his words, his voice, his manner trembled in the fine balance between the humour of the thing and its gravity. 'Ah, Rose, that is the question! Because I'm a fool, say you; because I'm a man, say I. Because I love you, Rose; because I think of you when I ought to be thinking of other things. Because I'm an idiot, and have gone all to pieces. Because it's torture to think you may go away and marry some one else. Because I can't even add up a column of figures without wondering what you will say now--now when I ask you to marry me? Because--yes! have it so--because I am a fool!----'
He had held out his hands towards her, and hers were in them in an instant.
'Oh, Lewis, what a wretch I've been!' she cried; 'but why didn't you ask me before?'
'Why--didn't--you--ask me--before,' he repeated slowly. The favours which had fallen from her lap lay round about their feet, and those on the table were squashed remorselessly as he seated himself upon its edge with the air of a man who requires some physical support, and still holding her by the hands, drew her down beside him silently. 'I shall never understand you, dear--thank God!' he said at last in an undertone: then went on in a different voice--'It is a little confusing, Rose, you must admit. All this time, ever since you told me that you----'
She interrupted him quickly, eagerly--'Ah, but that was a totally different thing altogether!'
'Totally different,' he echoed meekly. 'Yes, of course!' And then he paused again with his eyes on hers. 'I suppose you would rather I didn't kiss you?' he began irrelatively, with a half smile of infinite tenderness.
'Oh, I don't mind,' she put in hastily; 'it doesn't really matter--if you wish--only don't talk nonsense, Lewis; please don't. I do hate it so; it makes me feel inclined to put my head in a bag.'
'Then I won't; I can't afford to lose sight of your dear face just now.'
'Lewis!'
'But if I don't say that sort of thing, whatarewe to talk about?' he asked, only half in jest. 'The weather--the news? Not very interesting subjects either of them to a man when the girl he loves has just promised to marry him--for you have promised, haven't you, Rose?'
She took no notice of his question.
'Talk about,' she echoed, her kind eyes growing a little absent--'surely there are heaps of things to talk about besides you and me. There is the house we are going to have, Lewis; such a nice house! The prettiest drawing-room you ever saw; I will have it so. And a study for you, all to yourself, sir, where you can go when you're tired of me. And then the dinners, Lewis! That's one blessing of my having kept house for father. I know all about it. There won't be any cold mutton, Lewis; but the nicest little dinners.' She paused to nod her head wisely.
'Well,' said Lewis, 'please go on; this is really most interesting.'
'And the garden. 'I'll make you gardener, Lewis. I don't believe you know the difference between a carnation and a chrysanthemum now; but I'll teach you, and you shall tie them up for me--I hate tying up flowers. And I'll copy your reports for you, and keep the house quiet. And then, and then, everybody will be so hungry, Lewis, and there will be so many bills to pay; but it won't matter, for every one will be happy, and the children will brag about their home to all the other girls and boys----'
'Go on, dear, go on!' There was a little tremble in his voice now, and as they sat ruining the wedding favours, his right arm drew her closer to him; but she seemed not to notice it. A half smile was on her lips, a certain sadness in her eyes.
'And then, dear? Who knows--who can tell? There are so many things, and death comes--even to the little ones.' She paused, then went on more lightly--'And I'll grow stout; yes, I'm afraid so, Lewis. I'm the sort of girl, you know, who is apt to get stout. And you are sure to grow bald. Then I'll be cross, and you'll be cross; only it won't so much matter, for we will both be cross together--and no wonder, with the boys wanting cricket-bats, and the girls clamouring for music-lessons! So there will be more bills than ever. Then you and I will begin to get old, Lewis; and the girls will want me to sit up till three in the morning at balls, and I shall be so sleepy; but you shall stay at home and smoke, dear. And then the boys will get into scrapes--boys always do, don't they, Lewis--for they're not like girls, you know. And when they come to me to get them out of their trouble, I shall say: "No, dears, go to your father, he will understand; for he--for he is the best man I ever knew."'
Her voice ended in a little sob; he could feel it, hear it, as if it were his own, for her face was hidden on his breast.
'Rose! Rose! my dear, my dear!'
It was almost a cry. He would have liked to kneel before his love, as he had done before the other, but with her there so close to his heart, he could only hold her fast and tell himself passionately that, in those long years to come, it should be even as she had said, and that never, in word, thought, or deed, would he sully her pure ideal.
So they sat silent--for, to tell truth, other words seemed to him sacrilege, and she had said her say--until with a half apologetic smile she drew herself away.
'I'm sure you are sitting on your favour, Lewis, and I've such a lot more to make; besides, I promised to go down to the church at half-past five. It must be that now, and I've wasted all this time.'
'I've been here exactly seven minutes and a half,' he replied, gloomily taking out his watch; 'for I looked just before I came in.'
She laughed. 'Well, that was very methodical of you; and I think, on the whole, dear, that you managed very nicely. And now, as I hear the carriage coming round, you might just help me to put in the flowers. Aren't the lotus lovely?'
There was no help for it. She was hopelessly back in realities, and Lewis had to accept the position. After all, as he watched her drive off, like a bride herself in the midst of her white flowers, he told himself that she had managed to compress a great deal into those seven and a half minutes; a whole dream of life which must, which should come true. It would be more difficult for him than for her, of course; perhaps that was one reason why he was still thinking over it long after she had forgotten everything else in the fervour of a free fight with the parson, who objected on principle to lotus-blossoms in the chancel. They were a heathen flower, sacred to unmentionable beliefs and rites, and could not be admitted beyond the body of the church. It was but an offshoot of an old quarrel between these two, which renewed itself every Christmas and Easter-tide; but Rose, who by instinct understood the story which these particular flowers had to tell, opened up the whole question of symbolism hotly, finally marching off with her lilies in a huff to the lectern, whence, she told herself, their message of love and sacrifice might fittingly go forth. And while she worked away under the echoing dome of the old tomb, the band in the bit of public garden close by was clashing and bashing away at 'Rule Britannia, and 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' much to the delight of ayahs leading sallow dark-eyed children by the hand, and a motley crowd of servants and shopkeepers from the neighbouring bazaar.
Sometimes a palki gharry, like a green box on wheels, with four or five specimens of Tommy Atkins and a black bottle inside, would come rattling past, drawn by an anatomy of a horse, and leave a shower of gibes and greetings behind it for those other green boxes on wheels which were drawn up beside the road, while their gaily-dressed occupants chewed betel or strolled about with clanking feet among the long shadows thrown by the flowering shrubs. Light, and laughter, and noise; a whole eternity of time and space between this life and the girl under the dome, decorating the Bible with lotus-blossoms.
'There's going to be a big shâdi (wedding) in the girja ghur (church) to-morrow morning,' said one of the occupants, dressed in tight mauve silk trousers and a yellow veil, as she clambered back into the green box where a figure in white lay listening lazily. 'They are doing all sorts of pooja there to-day. It is that big, long sahib in the canals and Boynton sahib's widow. Ai, the sorry tale! Making a fuss of shâdi about a woman who has had the misfortune to kill one man.'
Chândni sat up suddenly. 'Tobah! a sorry tale, indeed! So she is to marry him! Lo, there is a man, indeed! but I wonder what he would say if he knew what I know now?'
'Dost know aught? Dost know him?' began the other enviously.
'I have seen him. He was down at Hodinuggur a week ago putting up a white marble stone to the young sahib who died there of the sickness last rains. They were friends, see you, great friends. Lo, tell thy driver to go on, Lâlu; this wearies me, the folk have no manners.'
They had not far to go; only to the Bedâmi bazaar, with its current of life below and its latticed balconies above. The full moon rose through the golden-dust haze to hang like a balloon above the feathery crowns of the palm-trees; the clatter of horses, hoofs bearing their owners home to dinner died from the Mall hard by; and Rose stood at the door of the tomb looking back into the shadowy dome, where the huge lilies showed like the ghosts of flowers. It would look very nice, she thought, in the cool light of early morning; and she would have it decorated in the same way when she and Lewis were married.
But Chândni, as she paused to think of the future, thought of the past also.
'He fought me fairly,' she said to herself; 'and for his beauty's sake, I could bear more than he gave. That is our way. But she! Lo, she is even as I, and he shall know it. I will put that in the platter as the wedding tribute, and it will help him to pay her back for me. 'Tis almost as well I had not learnt the tale from Dalel in those days. It comes better now.'
So, as the night fell, she wrapped herself in the white domino of respectability, sent for another green box on wheels, and drove in the direction of the house where Dan was living. That was not difficult to discover; all that was necessary being a word of inquiry from the general merchant who sold everything heart could desire in the shop below the balcony. And the night was warm. She would as lief sit in the moonshine behind the hedge of white oleanders and talk to the gardeners, as stay in the stuffy bazaar with its evening odours of fried meats and pungent smoke.