A Fascinating Traitor Part 7

CHAPTER IV. THE VEILED ROSEBUD OF DELHI

The October winds were whirling the pine needles down the mountain defiles in the bracing Alpine autumn, as Alan Hawke sped on past Suez, gliding on through the stifling furnace heat of the Red Sea, past Mocha, and dashing along through the Bridge of Tears, to Aden. He left at Suez, and also at the Eastern Gibraltar of haughty Albion, the brief letters for his mysterious employer, and he mentally arranged the social gambit of his reappearance at Delhi in the nine days before the Sepoy steamed into the island-dotted bay of Bombay.

Sternly shunning, on his arrival, the local sirens, whose songs of old fell so sweetly upon his ear, the determined Major sped away at once for Allahabad. He was on shaking social quagmires at Bombay. There were sundry little threads of the past still left hanging out in the shape of stray urban indebtedness, and he now scorned to throw away a single one of the crisp Bank of England notes showered upon him by Fortune. He was growing sadly wise. He had lately mused over the old motto, "Lucky at cards--unlucky in love!" The cool provision of the funds at Lausanne by Berthe Louison, her separate route to Delhi, her business-like coldness in their strangely frank relations, all these things proved to him that he was to be only an intelligent tool; not a trusted friend in the little drama about to open at the old capital of Oude.

Alan Hawke had already abandoned the idea of any sentimental advances upon Alixe Delavigne. "Strange, strange," he murmured; "a woman can sometimes easily be flattered into a second conjugation of the verb 'To Love,' but an internal previous evidence of man's unreliability can do that which no personal sorrow can effect. The key to this woman's behavior is in the story of her sister's shadowed life.

"The hiatus from Hugh Fraser to Pierre Troubetskoi covers the tragedy of Valerie Delavigae's life, the death blow was then struck, and the central figure is the child. So, with the strangely acquired fortune at her beck and call, Alixe Delavigne has consecrated herself to that most illogical of human careers--a woman's silent vengeance! That achieved, will the furnace fires of her stormy heart be lit by the hand of pa.s.sion?"

He ruminated sagely over these matters as he sped on over the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The western Ghauts were now far behind him and their dark basalt crags. Bombay, Hyderabad, Berar, the Central Provinces, Central India, and the southern p.r.o.ng of Oude was reached. He was, however, no whit the wiser when he reached the Ganges and hastily sought the telegraph station at Allahabad. But he felt like a prince in the direct line of succession with his net eight hundred pounds still to the good. His first care was to telegraph to Madame Berthe Louison, to the care of Grindley, at Calcutta: "Waiting at Allahabad for your letters, and news of your safe arrival." While rushing past the Vindhia Mountains he had encountered several of his old Indian acquaintances.

The mere hint of a secret governmental employ of gravity satisfied the languid curiosity of the qui hais. For a week he lingered in the "City of G.o.d," and daily haunted the post and telegraph offices.

He had sent on to the Delhi Club a note for the maw of the local gossips, and also had dispatched a skillfully constructed letter to the unsuspecting Hugh Johnstone. With a veiled flattery of the old civilian's wisdom and experience, he referred to his desire to consult him as to a secret journey in the direction of the Pamirs. The opportune windfall of Anstruther's ecarte and Berthe Louison's liberal advance enabled Major Alan Hawke to maintain a dignified and easy port as he wandered through Allahabad. Strolling by the waters of the Ganges and Jumna, he invoked anew the blessings of the G.o.ddess Fortuna, as he gazed out upon the majestic heaven descended stream. The daily tide of travel toward Delhi brought on each day some familiar faces, and yet Alan Hawke lingered gently, declining their traveling company. "Waiting orders," he said, with the sad, sweet smile of one enjoying a sinecure. His swelling outward port thoroughly proved that the days were gone when he was to be scanned before the morning salutation. Les eaux sout ba.s.ses, the impecunious Frenchman mourns, but there was a swelling tide bearing Alan Hawke onward now.

A hearty welcoming letter from the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was a good omen, for rumor of a thousand tongues had already invested the returning Major with an important secret mission. His epistolary seed planted in Delhi had brought forth fruit as rapidly as the magic of the Indian conjuror's mango-tree trick. It was already rumored even in Allahabad that "Hawke had dropped upon a decidedly good thing." The Major was busied, however, in a.n.a.lyzing the motives of Alixe Delavigne, in her change of name, her separate journey, her choice of the Calcutta route, and the inner nature of her projected enterprise.

"A woman in her position, easy as to fortune, will stoop to none of the arts of the blackmailer; she could choose a life of soft luxury, for she is yet in the bloom of vigorous early womanhood. To her the personality of Hugh Fraser is surely nothing. There are but two objects of attack--his proposed social elevation, the nattering t.i.tle, and the peace of mind and future of the daughter, this lovely veiled Rose! Love, a natural love, even for the stranger child, would ward away the blow; but only an unslaked vengeance would point the shaft! The reproduction of her sister's face seemed to touch her to her very bosom's core.

There is some fixed purpose in this cold-hearted woman's coming! Not a lingering annoyance, but some coup de main, a bolt to be launched at Hugh Johnstone alone!"

"I do not know how I can break her lines, unless she shows me some weak point," he mused. "But either her fortune or Johnstone's shall yield me a heavy pa.s.sing toll. And, there is always the girl! There, I would have to meet Berthe Louison as a determined enemy!" In recognizing the fact that his employer must make the game at last, that she must lead out and so uncover herself, he saw his own masterly position between the two prospective foes.

"I can play them off the one against each other, at the right time, and, if they fight each other, with the help of Justine Delande, I may even make a strong running for the girl. I think I now see a way!" He felt that his wandering days were over. The dark days of carking cares, of hara.s.sing duns, of frequent changes of base, driven onward by the rolling ball of gossip and innuendo.

He felt strangely lifted up in the familiar scenes of his years of wanderings. For he was at home again. Alixe Delavigne, however carefully watched for her eastern adventure, was socially helpless in a land of strange alien races, of discordant Babel tongues, of shifting scenes, a land as unreal as the visions of a summer night.

But to Alan Hawke all this Indian life was now a second nature. The scenes of Bombay recalled his once ambitious youth, the days when he first delightedly gazed upon the wonders of Elephanta, and the gloomy grottoes of Salcette. From his very landing he had set himself one cardinal rule of conduct, to absolutely ignore all the lighter attractions of native and Eurasian beauty, and to let no single word fall from his lips respecting the sudden occultation of Miss Nadine Johnstone--this new planet softly swimming in the evening skies of Delhi. He felt that he was beginning a new career, one in which neither greed nor pa.s.sion must betray him. It was the "third call" of Fortune, and he had wisely decided upon a golden silence. "If I had only met the favored Justine, instead of that withered Aspasia, Euphrosyne, then, the girl's heart might have been easily made mine," was the unavailing regret of the handsome Major. "If I could have come out with them," he sighed. He well knew the softening effect upon romantic womanhood of a long sea voyage where the willing winds sway the softer emotions of the breast, and the trembling woman is defenseless against the perfidious darts of Cupid.

"My time will come," he murmured as the train rushed along through the incense breathing plantations. A richer nature than foggy England was spread out before him in treacherous Hindostan with its warring tribes, its dying creeds, its dead languages, its history sweeping far back into the mists of the unknown. For every problem of the human mind, every throe of the restless heart of man is worn old and threadbare in Hindostan, with its very dust compounded of the wind-blown ashes of dead millions upon millions. Gross vulgar Gold reigns now as King on the broad savannas where spice plantations and indigo farms vary the cotton, rice, and sugar fields. Wasted treasures of dead dynasties gleam out in the ornamentation of the temples abandoned to the prowling beast of prey. And riches and ruin meet the eye in a strange medley. Dead greatness and the prosaic present.

Modern bungalows, where the faltering conqueror watches the tax-ridden ryots dot the landscape, and an overweighted official system brings its haughty military, its self-sufficient civilians, its proud womanhood, to drain the exhausted heart of India. And the ryot groans under many taskmasters.

Lingering with a restless heart, in Allahabad, Alan Hawke roused himself as at a bugle call, when he received a telegram announcing the safe arrival of the Empress of India at Calcutta.

"La danse va commencer," he muttered, as he read the brief words of his employer: "Go on to Delhi, await me there. Telegrams to you there at private address. Leave letters." The signature "Lausanne" was a new spur to his well-considered prudence. And, so, the next day, Major Hawke sedately descended at Delhi.

There was nothing to distinguish Hawke from any other well-to-do European, as he stood gazing around the station, in his cool linens, his pith helmet and floating puggaree. The prudent air of judicious mystery lately adopted sat easily upon him as his eye roved over the familiar scenes of old with a silent gleam of recognition, he followed a confidential attendant who salaamed, murmuring "My master awaits the sahib whom he delights to love and honor."

"There is one card I must play at once," murmured Hawke, as the carriage sped along. "Mademoiselle Justine Delande must be my secret friend! I wonder if Euphrosyne really swallowed the bait! If she has fallen into the trap and written to her sister, then--all is well!"

His eyes roved over the familiar scene of the broad Chandnee Chouk, sweeping magnificently away from the Lah.o.r.e gate to the superb palace.

The sun beat down with its old ferocious glare on shop and bazaar. Grave merchants lolled over their priceless treasures of gold and silver work, heaped up jewels and bullion-threaded shawls for princely wear. Under the awnings lingered the familiar polyglot groups, while beggary and opulence jostled each other on every hand.

"It's the same old road in life!" murmured Alan Hawke, "whether called Inderput, Shahjehanabad, or Delhi--the same old game goes on here forever, here by the sacred Jumna!"

He was dreaming of the artful part which he had to play in the fierce modern race for wealth. "They used to fight for it like men in the old days," he bitterly murmured. "Now, the only gold that I see before me is to be had by gentlemanly blackmail! Right here--between old Hugh Johnstone and this flinty-hearted woman avenger--lies my fortune. And I swear that nothing shall stop me! I will be the prompter of the little play now ready for a first rehearsal!" His eyes lighted up viciously as he was swept along past the great marble house, gleaming out in the shady compound, where the Rosebud of Delhi was hidden.

"Cursed old curmudgeon! To lock the girl up!" muttered the handsome young rascal. "Old Ram Lal must do a bit of spying for me!" Hawke could see on the raised plateau of marble steps all the evidences of the sumptuous luxury of the haughty Briton, "who toils not, neither does he spin." But, the dozen pointed arches on each face of the vast palace house of the budding baronet showed no sign of life. The cl.u.s.tered marble columns stretched out in a splendid lonely perspective, and the square inner castellated keep rose up in the glaring sun, but with closed and shaded windows. Dusky shapes flitted about, busied in the infinitesimal occupations of Indian servitors, but no graceful woman form could be seen in the witching gardens where a Rajah might have fitly held a durbar.

"I'll warrant the old hunks has Bramah locks and Chubb's burglar proofs to fence this beauty off!" growled the Major, as he sank back in the carriage. "I fancy, though, that a liberal dose of Madame Louison's gold, judiciously administered by me, in her interest, to Justine Delande, may open the way to the girl's presence! The mother's story may serve to win the girl's heart. If I can only busy old Hugh and the Madame in watching each other, then I can handle Justine."

"Yes," the satisfied schemer concluded, "the old man's game is the bauble t.i.tle. Berthe Louison's must be some studied revenge. She is above all blackmail. I know already half the story of this clouded past.

Madame Alixe Delavigne must yield up the other half, bit by bit. By the time she arrives, my spies will have posted me. I will have opened my parallels on the Swiss dragon who guards the lovely Nadine. Now to make my first play upon the old nabob."

Major Alan Hawke had studied skillfully out his gambit for an attack upon Hugh Johnstone's vanity. When he descended at the hospitable doors of his secret ally, Ram Lal Singh, he plunged into the seclusion of a luxurious easy toilet making. A dozen letters glanced over, a comforting hookah, and Alan Hawke had easily "sized up" the situation. For Ram Lal's first skeleton report had clearly proved to him that the coast was clear. "Thank Heavens there are as yet no rivals," Hawke murmured.

"Neither confidential friend of the old boy, no dashing Ruy Gomez as yet in the way." Hawke viewed himself complacently in the mirror. He was severely just to himself, and he well knew all his own good points.

"Pshaw!" he murmured, "any man not one-eyed can easily play the Prince Charming to a hooded lady all forlorn, a mere child, a tyro in life's soft battles of the heart. I must impress this pompous old fool that I know all the intrigues of his proposed elevation. He will unbosom, and both trust and fear me. These pampered civilians are as haughty in their way as the military and be d.a.m.ned to them," mused Hawke, cheerfully humming his battle song, those words of a vitriolic wit:

"General Sir Arthur Victorious Jones, Great is vermillion splashed with gold."

"This old crab has quietly stolen himself rich, and now forsooth would tack on a Sir Hugh before his name. Ah! The jewels! I must delicately hint to him that I am in the inner circle of the cognoscenti."

And then Alan Hawke cheerfully joined his obese and crafty friend and host, Ram Lal Singh. For an hour the soft, oily voice of the old jewel merchant flowed on in a purring monologue. The ease and mastery of the Conqueror's language showed that the usurer had well studied the masters of Delhi. Sixty years had given Ram Lal added cunning. A crafty conspirator of the old days when the mystic "chupatties" were sent out on their dark errand, the sly jewel merchant had survived the b.l.o.o.d.y wreck of the throne of Oude, and from the place of attendant to one of the slaughtered princes, dropped down softly into the trade of money lender, secret agent, and broker of the unlawful in many varied ways.

It was Ram Lal's easy task to purvey luxuries to the imperious Briton, to hold the extravagant underlings in his usurious clutches, to be at peace with Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Pathan, Ghoorka, Persian, and Armenian, and to blur his easy-going Mohammedanism in a generous partic.i.p.ation in all sins of omission and commission. A many-sided man!

Alan Hawke heaved a sigh of easy contentment when he had brought the chronique scandahuse of Delhi down to the day and hour.

"You say that she is beautiful, this girl?"

"As the stars on the sea!" nodded Ram Lal.

"And the Swiss woman?"

"Never leaves her for a minute. They see no one, for all men say the old Commissioner will take her home, to Court when he is gazetted!"

"None of the great people go there?" keenly queried Hawke.

"Not even the fine ladies," laughed Ram Lal. "The old fellow may have his own memories of the past. He trusts no one. The girl is only a bulbul in a golden cage and with no one to sing to." Hawke cut short Ram Lal's flowery figures.

"Does the Swiss woman trade with you?" he demanded.

"Yes, she buys a few simple things--my peddlers take the Veiled Rose many rich things. The old Sahib is very generous to the child. And the dragon loves trinkets, too!" Then Alan Hawke's eyes gleamed.

"She knows your shop here?"

"Perfectly," replied Ram Lal, "and comes alone--on the master's business. You know I had many dealings with Sahib Hugh Fraser in the old days," mused the jeweler. "He always admits my men. I have valued gems for him for twenty years."

"Good!" cried the happy Major. "I want to send a man now to her with a note. I am going to put up at the United Service Club, but I must see this woman first. I don't like to send a letter, though. If I had any one to trust--"

The merchant promptly said: "I will go myself! They are always in the garden in the afternoon. I can easily see her alone."

"First rate! Then I will give you a message," answered Hawke. "I must see her to-morrow early, for old Hugh will surely ask me to tiffin. And, Ram, you must at once set your best man on to watch all that goes on there. I have a good fat plum for you now--to set up a neat little house here for a friend of mine who is coming, and you shall do the whole thing!" The merchant's dark eyes glistened. "A new officer of rank?" he queried.

"It's a lady--a friend of mine--rich, too, and she wants to live on the quiet! She will stay here for some time!" The oily listener had learned a vast prudence in the days when he trod the halls of the last King of Delhi, so he held his peace and wondered at the suddenly enhanced fortunes of that star of graceful wanderers, Allan Hawke!