Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 27

He looked at her in surprise. "I scarcely expected one. Oh, Belle!" he continued hotly, "is it that? Did you think, could you think I would care?"

She gave a little hard laugh. "How stupid you are! Of course you don't mind. Can't you see it is that,--which hurts? Can't you understand it is that,--your kindness,--which must hurt,--always?"

The dead leaves had caught fire and flamed up, throwing a glare of light on both their faces. It seemed to light up their hearts also.

Perhaps she had not meant to say so much; yet now that she had said it she stood gracefully upright, looking him in the eyes, reckless, ready for anything. The sight of her brought home to Philip what he had forgotten before; that in this problem of his he had not to do with one factor but with two, and one of them a woman. Not a pa.s.sionate one it is true, but a woman to whom sentiment and emotion were more than reason; a woman whose very innocence left her confused and helpless, uncertain of her own foothold, and unable to draw the hard-and-fast line between good and evil without which she felt lost in a wilderness of wrong. The recognition startled him, but at the same time aroused his combativeness.

"I confess I don't see why it should," he said rather coldly. "Surely I have a perfect right to set,--other things before money, and it is wrong--"

"Shall I give you a copy-book so that you may write the sentiment down for future reference, Philip?" she interrupted swiftly. "Copy-book maxims about right and wrong are so useful when one has lost the way, aren't they? For myself I am tired of them,--dead tired,--dead tired of everything." And once again with a gesture of utter weariness she leant against the mantelpiece, her head upon her crossed arms.

His hands clenched as if to hold something tighter; something that seemed slipping from him. "I am sorry," he said huskily. "Is it my fault?"

She flamed round upon him. "Yea! it is your fault! All your fault! Why did you ever leave me that money?"

The truth, and the unfairness of her words, bit deep. "It was 'Why did you come back to take it away?' when we first met," he retorted in rising anger. "I told you then I had a right to live if _I_ chose. I tell you now I will take the money back if _you_ choose. I will do it to-day if you like. It is only lent, I can give notice."

"What difference will it make now?" she went on recklessly. "Will it undo the mischief? Your legacy did it all. It made John--" She broke off suddenly, a look of terror came to her eyes, and she turned away.

"Well! I am waiting to hear. It made John--?"

"Nothing," she said in a low voice. "What is the good? It is all past."

"But I have a right to know; I will know. Belle, what wrong did my legacy do you? What wrong of which I know nothing? Let me see your face--I must see it--" He bent over her, almost rough in his impatience at the fine filmy threads of overwrought feeling which, seeming so petty to a man, yet have the knack of tying him hand and foot. What did she mean? Though they had never talked of such things, the fact that her legacy had decided John's choice could be no novelty, even to her. A woman who had money must always know it would enhance her other charms. Then suddenly a hitherto unappreciated fact recurred to him--if this was her wedding-day, she must have been married very soon--the memory of a marble summer-house in a peach garden, with his will on the table and John standing by, flashed upon him, making the pa.s.sionate blood leap up in resentment. "Belle!" he cried imperiously, "did he--did you know? Have you known--?" He paused, his anger yielding to pain. Had she known this incredible baseness all these weary months, those months during which he had been priding himself on his own forbearance? And she had said nothing! Yet she was right; for if once this thing were made clear between them what barrier would remain? Why should they guard the honour of a man who had himself betrayed it? In the silence which ensued it was lucky for them both that the room was full of memories of her kind touch, soothing his restless pain; so the desire to give something back in kind came uppermost.

"Is there nothing I can do?" he said at last, moving aside and standing square and steady. "Nothing I can say or do to make it easier for you?"

"If you could forget--"

He shook his head. "I will go away if you like, though I don't see why I should."

"Then it would only be giving up one thing more to please me," she answered with a little sad smile. "Why should you give up anything, when I can give--nothing! Ah, Philip, Philip! If you had only taken poor d.i.c.k's will and were free to go,--if you chose."

He frowned moodily. "I should not choose, so it would make no difference; except that you think there would be one. I cannot see it.

As for the will, I'm afraid it is hopeless; but if you like I can take leave and try. Afzul might come with me."

"If I like!" she echoed in despair. "If I like! It always comes back to that."

The slow tears overflowing her tired eyes cut him to the quick, though in sober truth he thought them needless. "It must,--seeing that I love you. Why should you shrink from the truth, Belle? Great Heavens! what have you or I done that we should be ashamed of ourselves?"

"Don't let's speak of it, Philip," she cried in a sort of terror. "It is all my fault, I know; but I cannot help it. It is no use saying I am wrong; everything is wrong from beginning to end."

And though he fretted and fumed, argued and appealed, nothing he could say sufficed to re-a.s.sure her. Rightly or wrongly she could not view the situation as he viewed it. She was galled and chafed on every side; nor could he fail to see during the next four days that his presence only brought her additional misery. She seemed unable to take anything naturally, and she shrank equally from seeming to avoid being alone with him, or from being alone. Yet, with true womanly inconsequence, she shrank most of all when he told her that he had made up his mind to go, and not to return until she sent for him. They were walking up and down the new dam, which curved across a bend in the sandy reach, waiting for her husband who with Afzul and his gang of bandits was busy seeing to a strengthening of the side nearest the river. A red sun was setting over the jagged purple shadow of the Suleiman Hills, and flaring on the still pools of water below the embankment.

"I am driving you away," she said despondently. "You cannot even look after your own business because of me."

Then his patience gave way. "d.a.m.n the business!" he cried heartily, and walked along beside her kicking the little clods from his path before turning to her apologetically. "I beg your pardon, Belle, but it is a little trying. Let us hope the business will be successfully dammed, and then, according to John, I shall get my money back in two years. So cheer up; freedom is beneath your feet!"

Just below them, measuring up earthwork, stood John Raby and Afzul Khan. As they pa.s.sed the latter looked up, _salaaming_ with broad grins. "I wonder if he will take her away soon," was his thought. "I wish he would; then I could get rid of the paper and be off home by summer with Raby _sahib's_ rupees in my pocket. What is he waiting for? She likes him, and Raby _sahib_ would be quite content with the money."

John looked up too, and nodded. "Don't wait for me, good people. I have to go over to the further end. You needn't keep tea for me, Belle, I prefer a whiskey-peg. Ta, ta!"

And as they moved off, their figures showing dark against the red sky, he looked after them, saying to himself that the Major could not complain. One way and another he got his money's worth.

"Your husband works too hard, Belle," said Philip. "You should persuade him to take it easier."

"He is so anxious to make it a success," she replied quickly.

"So are we all," retorted Philip cynically. "We ought to manage it between us, somehow."

As they pa.s.sed the coolies' huts a big strapping woman with her face hidden in her veil came out and _salaamed_.

"Who is that?" asked Philip at once. The last few days had brought him a curious dissatisfaction with Belle's surroundings. Despite the luxurious home she seemed out of keeping with Afzul and his bandits, the tag-rag and bobtail of squalid coolies swarming about the place, and the stolid indifference of the peasants beyond the factory.

"A _protegee_ of John's. He got her out of trouble somewhere. He says he has the biggest lot of miscreants on the frontier on his works.

They don't look much, I must allow; but this woman seems to like me.

She has such a jolly baby. I had to doctor it last week. How's Nuttu to-day, Kirpo?"

The woman, grinning, opened her veil and displayed a sleeping child.

"Isn't he pretty, Philip?" said Belle softly. "And see, they have pierced his nose and ears like a girl's."

"For luck, I suppose. May G.o.d spare him to manhood," prefaced Philip piously, in native fashion before he asked the mother if it were not so.

She shook her head. "No, Protector of the poor! All my boys are healthy. He is called Nuttu, so that as he thrives some one else of the same name may dwindle and pine. That is why." She hugged the baby to her with an odd smile.

"She could not have meant that there was really another child whose death she desired," said Belle as they went on.

"I would not answer for it if I were you. They are a queer people. By Jove! How that woman does hate some one; I'm glad it isn't you, Belle!"

And Kirpo looking after them was saying in her turn that they were very queer people. If he was her lover why did the _mem_ look so unhappy? The _sahib logue_ did not cut off their wives' noses, or put them in prison; so what did it matter?

Truly those two were compa.s.sed about by a strange cloud of witnesses as they strolled homewards. Perhaps the civilised world would have judged them as harshly. But no tribunal, human or divine, could have judged Belle more harshly than she did herself; and herein lay all the trouble. She could not accept facts and make the best of them.

John Raby coming in later found the two reading solemnly, one on either side of the fire, and told them they were horribly unsociable.

"I couldn't get away before," he said. "Afzul wanted a day's leave and I had to measure up before he started."

"Has he gone already? I'm sorry," remarked Philip. "I wished to see him before I leave tomorrow."

"To-morrow!" John Raby looked from one to another. "Have you been quarrelling?"

And poor Belle, with the necessity for derisive denial before her, felt more than ever that she was on the broad path leading to destruction.

"I am sorry I have to go," said Philip with perfect truth; "but I really am of no use here."

CHAPTER XXII.