Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 19

John Raby raised his eyebrows a little, but took the hint. Women were kittle cattle to deal with; even the best of them like Belle. Who, for instance, would have thought of any one with a grain of sense getting into such a position? Underneath all his kindness lay a certain irritation at the whole business, which he could not conceal.

CHAPTER XVI.

Belle, recovering from the shock healthily, looked for a like forgetfulness in her husband, but she was disappointed. "There is nothing to make such a fuss about, John," she said, when a few days brought no cessation of his regret at her having been mixed up in such a scene. "It hasn't hurt me, you see; and as for the notoriety, people will soon forget all about it."

"At any rate it shows you that I was right in saying that the philanthropical dodge doesn't do in the wife of an official," he replied moodily. "A thing like that might do a man a lot of harm."

"I can't see how; besides, there isn't much philanthropy in watching men--Oh, John! don't let us talk of it any more. It makes me feel ill; I want to forget all about it."

"But you can't. I don't want to be disagreeable, Belle; but have you ever considered that there must be a trial, and that you, as an eye-witness, must--"

She turned pale, and clutched the arm of her chair nervously.

"No! I see you haven't,--that's always the way with women. They want all the fun of the fair without the responsibility. The ring-leaders will be tried for their lives of course; eight of the poor beggars were killed, and two more are dying, so they must hang some one. You had a box-seat, so to speak, and are bound to give your evidence."

"But I could only see the tops of their heads. I couldn't possibly recognise--"

"You must have seen and heard that fool of a preacher, my dear child.

That's the worst of it; if you hadn't studied the language it would have been different. As I said before, it all comes of taking what you call an interest in the people. I don't see how you are to get out of being called on for evidence, and I tell you honestly I'd have given pounds to prevent you putting yourself in such a position. It may mean more than you think."

"But I couldn't give evidence against that boy," said Belle in a very low voice. "I told you, John, I thought it was he who,--who--"

"It doesn't matter a straw if he did help you. The question is, if he excited the crowd. Of course he did, and with your predilection for abstract truth, you would say so, I suppose, even if it was,--well, unwise."

"What,--what would the punishment be?" she asked after a pause.

He looked at her with unfeigned surprise. "Really, Belle! you surely see that some one must be hanged? The question is, who?"

"But he used such long words."

He had been quarrelling with a cigarette during the conversation, and now threw it away impatiently. "You are certainly a very ingenuous person, Belle. On the whole, perhaps you _had_ better stick to the truth. You couldn't manage anything else satisfactorily."

"Of course I shall stick to the truth, John," she replied hotly.

"Well, I don't want to be disagreeable, you know; but in your place I shouldn't, and that's a fact."

"Why?" she asked, in a startled voice.

"For many reasons. To begin with, the boy comes of decent folk; Marsden used to swear by the father. There were three brothers in the regiment, and one of them saved the Major's life, or something of that sort. Why, Belle, what's the matter?"

She had risen, and was now fain to catch at his outstretched hand to steady herself. Why, she scarcely knew; finding the only explanation in an a.s.sertion, made as much for her own edification as his, that her nerves must be out of order.

"Nerves!" he echoed, as he placed her with half contemptuous kindness in his chair, and brought her a scent-bottle. "I'll tell you what it is, dear, no woman should have both nerves and conscience. It's too much for one frail human being. It is no use my advising you to forget all about this wretched business, or to suppress the disagreeable parts; and yet, in your place, I should do both."

"Oh, John!"

"Yes, I should, from a sense of duty,--to myself first, and then to society. What will be gained by hanging that blatant windbag of a boy?"

Murghub Ahmad, who, in his cell awaiting trial, was meanwhile comforting himself with the belief that the fate of nations depended on his life or death, would no doubt have resented this opinion bitterly. Yet it was all too true. The evil lay much further back than the utterance of the half-realised words which had poured from his lips like oil on the flame. He had said things as wild, as subversive of the law, dozens of times before, and nothing had happened; no one had taken any notice of it. And now! The boy buried his face in his hands, and tried to think if he was glad or sorry for martyrdom.

Mahomed Lateef, stern and indignant, hurried from far Faizapore to see his Benjamin, and in the sight of the pale half-starved face forgot his anger, and pledged his last remaining credit to engage an English lawyer for his son's defence. And then he girt his old sword about him, counted over the precious parchments of olden days, and the still more precious sc.r.a.ps of modern note-paper, which were all that was left to his honour, and thus armed set off to see the big Lord _sahib_ at Simla. He came back looking years older, to await, as they bade him, the usual course of law and order.

So it came to pa.s.s that as her husband had foretold, Belle found herself one day saying in a low voice: "I heard him call on the people to fight. I saw him wave his hand towards the Hindus."

"You mean,--pray be careful Mrs. Raby, for it is a point of great importance--that, as the butchers were coming up, you saw the prisoner wave them on to the conflict?"

"I cannot say if that was his intention. I saw him wave his hand."

"As they were pa.s.sing?"

"As they were pa.s.sing."

"Should you say,--I mean, did it give you the impression that he was encouraging them, urging them on?"

Belle Raby, before she answered, looked across the court at the boy, then at her husband, who with a slight frown, sat twiddling a pen at the Government Advocate's table. "It did. I think it would have given that impression to any one who saw it." And with these words every one knew the case was virtually at an end so far as Murghub Ahmad was concerned.

"Roman matrons are not in it," thought John Raby as he flung the pen from him impatiently; "and yet she will regret it all her life, and wonder if she didn't make a mistake, or tell an untruth, to the end of her days. O Lord, I'm glad I wasn't born a woman! They won't hang him, if that's any consolation to you, my dear," he said as they drove home; "though upon my word, it isn't your fault if they don't. I'm beginning to be a bit afraid of you, Belle. Your conscientiousness would run me out of that commodity in a week; but I suppose some people are born that way."

The fresh wind blew in her face, the sun was shining, the little squirrels skipping over the road. The memory of that drive to her father's funeral returned to her, sharply, with a sort of dim consciousness that something else in her life was dying, and would have to be buried away decently ere long. "Why didn't you tell me before that he would not be hanged?" she asked in a dull voice.

"Why? For many reasons. For one, I thought you might be more merciful, and,--but there's an end of it! They'll give him fourteen years over in the Andamans. By George, the boy will learn that the tongue is a two-edged sword! Pity he wasn't taught it before."

Perhaps it was. At all events Mahomed Lateef, his father, went back to his sonless house with a vague sense of injustice not to be lost this side the grave, and a palsied shake of his head only to be stilled by death. Not to stay there long, however, for he was ousted even from that dull refuge by the necessity for selling it in order to redeem his pledges. So he flitted drearily to his last hold on life. A sc.r.a.p of land between the Indus and the sand-hills, where, if the river ran high, the flooding water raised a crop, and if not the tiller must starve,--or go elsewhere; if only to the six feet of earth all men may claim whereon to sow the seed for a glorious resurrection.

About a month after the trial John Raby came home from office, not exactly in a bad temper, but in that cynical, contemptuously-patient frame of mind which Belle began to see meant mischief to the hero-worship she still insisted on yielding to her husband.

"I've brought you something to read," he said coolly, laying a newspaper on the table and taking up the cup of tea she had poured out for him. "As that unfortunate trial has led to this premature disclosure, I think it only fair to ask you what you would rather I did in the matter. Honestly, I don't much care. Of course I would rather have had a little more time; but as the native papers have got hold of the business I'm quite ready, if you prefer it, to throw up my appointment to-morrow. However, read it,--on the second page I think--and skip the adjectives."

"Well?" he asked, as after a time she laid down the newspaper, and stared at him in a bewildered sort of way. "The main facts are true, if that is what you mean. I was lucky enough to hit on that indigo business; it will pay cent per cent if properly worked."

"I thought," she replied in a toneless voice, "that it was against,--the rules."

"Exactly so; but you see I haven't the slightest intention of remaining in the service. I never had, if once I got an opportunity, and I've got it."

"But the rules?"

"Bother the rules! I am not going to buy a pig in a poke to please propriety. That part of it is done, and I think it is always best to let by-gones be by-gones. If you like me to send in my papers to-day, I'll do it; if not I shall hang on for a time, and defy them. Why should one lose twelve hundred a month for an idea? I do my work quite as well as I did, and there won't be any necessity for personal supervision down in Saudaghur till next spring. But as I said before, if you have scruples,--why, you brought the money, and I'm deeply grateful, I a.s.sure you. Don't look scared, my dear; I'll insure my life if you are thinking of the pension of a civilian's widow!"

"Don't laugh, John; I can't stand it. Have any more of the native papers been writing,--things like that?" And she shivered a little as she spoke.

"No, that's the first; but the others will follow suit. They were desperately indignant about the Mohurrim riot. That is why I wanted--"

Belle stood up, and stretched her hands out appealingly to her husband, "Don't say it. Oh, please don't say it! You don't,--you can't mean it!"