A Bottle in the Smoke Part 28

"I shall never forget the picture those two made standing there," said Hester, looking back towards the verandah. "Those sad eyes of the old man wring my heart. How good it is that Mark seems to love him like a son."

"Yes, my dear, we've had a very pleasant visit, though it was impromptu.

We'll be able to tell the Colonel how well it turned out."

CHAPTER XXVII.

As Alfred Rayner was being driven along the crowded streets of Calcutta after his call on Truelove Brothers, he felt less inclined than ever for a pleasure trip on the river, or even for a return to tiffin with his host and hostess. He decided that he must find a safety-valve for his disturbed state of mind, and presently he caught sight of a gaudy sign announcing: "Tiffin and Billiards within." The place looked large and airy, and he saw some figures like European gentlemen moving about within.

"I'll tiff here more comfortably than with those worthy Melfords," he said to himself, and called to the gharry-wallah to halt. He paid his fare, dismissed him, and entered the wide doorway.

During lunch he made the acquaintance of some of the _habitues_ of the Club, who appeared eager to receive him, and invited him to share their game. Being an excellent billiard player, he congratulated himself as the afternoon advanced on having had a good stroke of fortune in stumbling into this resort.

"I've positively made enough to pay that crawling half-caste if I do make up my mind to buy his secret. Perhaps I'd better take the hazard of the die! It may prove well spent money. I'm convinced I'll hear my secretive pater is a _grand seigneur_, possibly lounging about Piccadilly at this moment while his son is grilling here! I could read in old Fyson's manner, as well as in his words, that my dad was 'somebody,' and if I have the secret from his clerk, I shan't have him to thank for the present of it. Yes, as I've made the required sum I will go and buy it from that creature whose long ears have stood him in good stead."

He glanced at his watch and found that it was now nearly the appointed hour for the meeting at the Shrine of Kali. Having taken the measure of the men round him, he knew well that they were reckoning on getting his winnings transferred to their own pockets before the evening was over.

To announce therefore his intention to depart would prove worse than foolish. Seizing a moment when he found himself near the door, he flung aside his cue and hurried off with such suddenness that the other inmates of the room did not realise he was gone.

"Very neatly played," he muttered with a relieved sigh, as he leant back in the tikka-gharry which was carrying him along the brightly-lit streets to the appointed trysting-place.

Presently the paving-stones were left behind, and the gharry rattled along a soft dusty roadway lined by trees, though the presence of lamps indicated that they were still in the suburbs. At last the gharry-wallah pulled up at the precincts of the little sandstone temple embowered by trees. Long dank gra.s.s of a marshy kind grew all round, the temple being in the near neighbourhood of a small river which ran into the Hoogly.

This river was regarded as sacred, and therefore the little shrine had been planted on its banks.

Under the shadow of a big neem tree Mr. Rayner caught sight of the Eurasian clerk, who now came towards him through the long gra.s.s with rapid steps.

"Thought you were never coming, sir," he began. "I've been hangin' about this blessed place for more than an hour. I was makin' up my mind you was goin' to give me the slip!"

He was holding some papers in his hand and his eyes shone with excitement. Mr. Rayner dismissed the gharry, and advanced a few steps into the gra.s.s, saying impatiently:

"Well, out with it! Mind, if you humbug me, I'll find means to pay you out in something different from a bag of rupees. But for good value I'll pay you a good price. I know my father must be a person of importance, or Truelove Brothers wouldn't have been so deferential to me all along."

"You're right, sir, he is a person of veree great importance. What's more, I've seen him with my own eyes and heard 'em whisperin'--the boss and him about you--'Alfred' bein' your name. So you see I know more than you might think to look at me."

"You'd need to!" said Rayner contemptuously, as he surveyed the bent shoulders and the weak face of this humble member of the race he despised. "Come on then, out with it! I can't stand all night listening to your haverings. His name and his address!"

"His name is an honoured one among us. It's David Morpeth, sir, and his address is Freyville, Vepery, Madras!"

"You lie--you lie!" shouted Rayner, after a moment's stunned silence, waxing so deadly pale that the clerk thought he was about to faint. Then suddenly he flung himself on the young man and seized him by the throat.

"You lie, say you lie!" he screamed.

The youth strove frantically to shake himself free from the grasp of the convulsive fingers, and after a struggle succeeded in doing so.

"Oh my gracious me!" he gasped. "Oh, my, what an onset--and for my prime bit of news too, as I thought you'd be proud to hear--you the son of such a man!"

"Listen to me, you idiot," said Rayner in a choking voice, with an effort to calm himself. "There must be some mistake! This is not the truth you have told me. Say that you've lied and I'll forgive you--you'll have your hundred rupees. I've got it here--say you've been lying!"

"I can't say no different than what I've stated," said the clerk, shaking his head dolorously. "I've got you the proofs in my hand. Though they be pilfered they're genuine, as you, being a man of education, will see at a glance."

He laid two letters into Rayner's hand. The writing could hardly be distinguished in the dim light, but on his going under one of the lamps he could read the words which David Morpeth had lately written to Mr.

Fyson concerning his son. One recorded the offer of the double allowance "if my son, Alfred Rayner, will agree to abandon his betting and gambling habits and turn to better ways." It bore so obviously the impress of genuineness that even Alfred Rayner could no longer doubt the truth of the, to him, appalling revelation.

"You see it was like this," said the clerk, in an explanatory tone, setting his head on one side. "Mr. Morpeth's wife--your mother, was, as I've heard, a great toast in Chandrychoke, though one would not have said, according to my mother, that she was a match for him--Mr. Morpeth, I mean--his family belonging to Duramtollah, where the upper cla.s.ses of us Eurasians live. But he wedded her all the same, and she worried him a good bit with her high-flown ideas and her temper and all, being a trifle light. He was always a quiet gentleman, they say. When you was born and she lay a-dying, she made him pledge himself to give you up to her sister Flo who was wed on a Mister Rayner. He once held the same post as myself in Trueloves', but he made his pile somehow and went to England to swagger and spend."

The man was so taken up with his narration that he forgot he was speaking to the relative of these people. At the mention of his aunt's name, Rayner squirmed. Cruel searching daylight was stealing into his mind. Forgotten things were being brought to memory. He covered his face and leant against a tree, groaning. But the clerk, with a ring of indignation in his _chi-chi_ voice, proceeded:

"And you, forsooth, were never even to be told about your father and was to carry the name of Rayner--a name a deal sight lower than Morpeth. I can show you the very house you was born in and where you was bred till you was took to England. It's not far from this veree spot. Your aunt said as how she would live no longer in half-caste holes, though she was a good bit darker than me, if you'll remember. And Mr. Morpeth, he took a bungalow for them, and they lived there like fighting-c.o.c.ks till they took you away across the black water. Being a kid, maybe you'll not mind, but there's more than one in Chandrychoke, including my mother, that minds well. So why you're squealin' and fightin' with me for tellin' the veree facts, I can't see," he wound up querulously, as he tried to peer into Rayner's face which was now turned towards him, appearing ghastly white, his eyes staring vacantly.

Some moments elapsed, and as Rayner still did not speak, the youth began to get impatient, and moreover, longed for his supper.

"I'll be steppin' townwards now, sir," he said timidly, keeping his eyes fixed on the rigid face. Mechanically Alfred Rayner drew from his small travelling satchel the bag of rupees, and held it out to the clerk, whose long thin fingers closed upon it. Without waiting to count the money he hurried off across the gra.s.s, never halting till he was well clear of the Shrine of Kali. Then he sat down under one of the oil lamps which skirted the road.

"I wonder if he's given me up to our bargain," he muttered. "Shouldn't wonder if he's divided it by half seeing he took my prime bit of news thatt bad. Oh my gracious me, to think of his turning up his nose 'cause Mr. Morpeth was his father, and him not fit to black his boots, for all his airs and fine clothes! I saw well the boss didn't seem to think much of him. Yes," he added, with a gratified start, after counting the money. "I declare, the hundred rupees is here all right. My gracious, some folks be fools and no mistake!" Then he jumped up and proceeded to walk home with brisk steps.

How long Alfred Rayner stood in the shadow of Kali's Shrine he never could have told, nor would he have wished to recall. Waves of misery seemed to roll over him. For long he could not steady his thoughts, and when he partially succeeded, his fury only grew apace. He saw it all now, he said to himself. From his very birth he had been the cruel sport of an evil fate! How he recognised his Aunt Flo in the touches the clerk had given! Yes, she _was_ dark, and used to delight in recounting how she had been a beautiful brunette in her day, though she always dwelt with complacency on his being a fair-skinned boy! He recalled that more than once since his return to India he had been haunted by a subconscious feeling that there might be a strain of the hated half-caste blood in his veins. It was that fear which he had hardly allowed to cross his mind which had proved the origin of his att.i.tude towards the whole cla.s.s, while to David Morpeth his hatred had amounted to an obsession. Never could he behold the man without a sense of bitter annoyance which he knew full well, had found vent on more than one occasion. He recalled that evening when he had almost trampled on him as he was driving home in his mail-phaeton--and Cheveril's remonstrance.

The whole scene sprang vividly into his memory. In his impotent rage he wished the hoofs of his Australians had trampled the life out of him that night. And again when he had crossed his path on the steps of his own house--ah, he remembered it well. It had been the occasion of his first quarrel with Hester.

"Oh, Hester, I had forgotten you!" he groaned. "She's bound to hear this awful disclosure. The secret seems common property. Perhaps she'll turn from me, or worse still, she will take sides with that half-caste, Cheveril. But after all this vile secret may be long in filtering through. My role is to put a bold front on it, and hold up my head and pose as heretofore as a pure-bred Englishman. If any rumour reaches my wife's ear I can squash it by persuading her that the whole thing is a slander trumped up by my enemies. But the allowance? I can't, I shan't continue to finger a penny of the money that comes from that man! I'll throw it back in his face, hard up as I am, at least I'll command Truelove Brothers to do so. I'll have no dealings with him. I'll pa.s.s him as before. I'll let the hoofs of my horses trample on him if they will. No mawkish sentiment for me! I'm not going to risk my reputation by having it known my father is a half-caste--even if it's true! The whole story may be a lie. I may only be some ward of his, and he swindling me with but a slice of my fortune."

A prey to seething thoughts, almost without knowing it he had started on his homeward walk. At the moment when he clung to the hope that after all he was the victim of some conspiracy and that there was no blood-tie between him and the hated community, he happened to glance up at a bungalow which was now brightly lit by oil lamps. Its circular verandah was ornamented with trellis-work eaves, among which tendrils of a dark glossy creeper intertwined. Suddenly there sprang to his mind the conviction that he had seen that spot long ago. Yes, those trellis-work eaves had looked down upon him when he was a little boy! One day he had gleefully rolled a new bright painted wheelbarrow along that verandah, and the giver of that wheelbarrow, a grave, silent big man with grey eyes, stood by watching him as he played, with a smile on his face--the smile of David Morpeth! Then the little boy had pushed his wheelbarrow down those red steps and run full tilt at the gardener's baby, a little, naked, brown urchin, who stood gazing open-mouthed, and knocked him down, while the air rent with his shrill cries. Then the smile vanished from the face of the big man, and with a stern air he brought his fingers down sharply on the owner of the new wheelbarrow, who in his turn gave an angry yell which brought a half-dressed woman with long black locks falling about her to the verandah. She had folded the boy in her arms, saying shrilly: "What are you doing to my _chota sahib_? You shall not touch my precious one with your big hands."

"I punished him for knocking down the gardener's boy, Flora," answered a grave voice.

"A native brat! What matter of thatt?"

And the grave voice replied: "If you bring the boy up like this, Flora Rayner, he'll turn out a scoundrel." Then the big man turned away with sad, stern eyes--the eyes of David Morpeth!

It was Alfred Rayner's only memory of the past, but it leapt out now, a clear-cut picture, as he stood gazing on the once familiar spot.

"Bah! What have I, an English gentleman bred, to do with such a nightmare," he muttered, shrugging his shoulders, as he walked off with quickened steps. "I'll bury the whole thing fathoms deep."

He did not slacken his pace till the feebly-lit road merged into the bright streets of the city. Seeing the doors of a hotel standing invitingly open, he paused.

"I'm hopelessly late for the Melford's dinner now, I'd better fortify my inner man here," he said to himself, and hurried up the steps. "This mad meeting at the Shrine of Kali has robbed me of my usual appet.i.te. I'll just toss down a gla.s.s of brandy to strengthen my nerves before I face that estimable couple."

The stimulant seemed restoring. He pa.s.sed out to the street again and hailed a tikka-gharry to drive him to Ballygunge Road without further delay.

His host and hostess could not help greeting him with inquiring eyes on his arrival.

"A most discourteous guest I must appear, Mrs. Melford. But pray don't pa.s.s sentence on me till you have heard my sad tale," he said lightly.

"Well, to begin with, when I emerged from Truelove Brothers I found that I was hopelessly late for your tiffin, and also for joining the steam-launch party. I refreshed myself as best I could at a place near, and then set out to mow down some calls, seeing that the pleasure of an afternoon on the river was beyond my reach. Then I lost myself, as one may well do in this labyrinth of a place. At last I managed to pick up a gharry and here I am, full of contrition for my bad behaviour. Hope you forgive me, Mrs. Melford?"

"Oh, but I'm sorry you missed our river picnic. It was so delightful and cool. What a strange day you seem to have had," the hostess added, with a musing air which Mr. Rayner did not relish.

"Didn't Fyson offer you tiffin?" asked Mr. Melford.

"He did not--most inhospitable, wasn't it?" said Mr. Rayner quickly, a.s.suming an injured air.