The Potter's Thumb Part 33

'That is, say, ten o'clock on the morning of the 6th, I suppose. Good riding, indeed! And that reminds me. The report from the Rajah's people, which came through your office, says that the water first ran through the cut about middle day on the 6th. Manifestly impossible. You had hardly left Hodinuggur. It's a trifle, of course but you had better stamp on the inaccuracy, and show you are on the watch, or they will go on to cooking generally.'

'Yes----,' replied Dan slowly. This simple difficulty in concealing the discrepancy of time had escaped him before; but he was fully alive to it now. Most men in his place would have set the question aside, at all costs, for further consideration, and risked the possible consequences of the evasion. But Dan's mind was of finer temper; he could trust it to thrust home at any moment. This is the true test of power, and it is only the second thoughts of the commonplace which are better than their first. So he took advantage of the occasion calmly, knowing his man.

'But they are right. I did not open the gates. I believe George did, but even of that I am not sure. However, you shall judge for yourself.

I don't ask for confidence, of course. I haven't the right; but I expect you will give it all the same.' Then boldly, plainly, yet with one reservation, he told the tale of what he knew and what he surmised.

George had shot himself--of that there was no doubt. The sluice had been opened, in his opinion, by treachery, of which George, at Simla, had received some hint, and which he had arrived too late to prevent; though this also was mysterious, since the gates had not been opened till long after George's arrival. The guard at the sluice had been drowned or had disappeared, and the new Diwan, Khush-hal, professed pious ignorance. In fact, only this much was certain, that the Sunowlie embankment had been saved, that George had taken the responsibility on himself even to death, and that the flood had made it possible to keep his memory from stain. For the sake of his friends alone, was not this desirable? This hint, no more, he gave of the inner tragedy connected with the locket. Yet as those two men sat looking at each other across the office-table littered with papers, their thoughts, all unknown to each other, flew to the one woman; but the memory brought tears to Dan's dark eyes, and left Lewis's hard as the nether millstone in the conviction that Gwen was at least morally responsible for George Keene's death. It came to him as a certainty, and yet a contemptuous tolerance came with it. She had not meant, of course--women never did--to play fast and loose with the boy's head. Yet she had done so.

He had spent too much money, he had been careless; honest, perhaps, though even that might not be so, no one could tell. Why then should they try to find out now, when it was all irrevocable, when no harm could come out of silence? And George had been a good sort; too good for such an end; besides, even for Gwen's sake silence was best. He felt very bitter against her, very sore; yet such things must not be said about his future wife as might be said if the truth were really known.

'I suppose it had better remain as it is,' he said at last, moodily.

'Cholera has served its turn in such a case before--one of the advantages of living in a land of sudden death. Poor George! I daresay there was treachery.

Dan, shading his eyes with his clasped hands, was silent a moment. 'If there was, he had no part in it. I wonder if you remember a conversation in the balcony at Hodinuggur about what a man would do in such a case. "No, you wouldn't, not unless you wanted to be thought guilty." Do you remember saying that, Gordon?'

Lewis nodded; it was not a pleasant memory.

'I can't tell you the whole. But I am convinced George shot himself to save me. He knew'--what, perhaps, you don't--that I was engaged to a woman----'

Gordon pulled some papers towards him impatiently, and took up a pen, as if to end the subject.

'I suppose it is always "_cherchez la femme_"; yet it does not seem to me an agreeable factor in existence.'

'_Cherchez la femme!_' echoed Dan. 'Why not? They are our mothers and sisters, our sweethearts and wives, after all. And have you ever thought, Gordon, what it must be like to look back over a lifetime, and see next to nothing that you would rather have left undone? Or, if you're pious, to take a sort of pride in pillorying yourself for a cross word or a tarradiddle? There isn't a man in a million with that record, but half the women one meets--ay! half the women one patronises--have it. Perhaps it is small blame to anything but fate; still they have it.'

'Or think they have--which has the same effect! You remind me of a countryman of yours, a doctor, I knew once. "The s.e.x," he said, "can't do wrong, and when it does it's hysteria." However, let us leave that poor lad to rest in peace; in a way that is more worth than the happiness of any woman who ever was born. And, look here, make the tale of reports complete, send them to me, and I'll consign them, dates and all, to a pigeon-hole. That is the beauty of official mistakes; you _can_ pigeon-hole them and no one is the wiser, unless, indeed, some personal motive crops up. But that is not likely. So far as I can see, it is to no one's interest to make a row--not even if there is a woman at the bottom of it all.'

There was a concentrated bitterness in his tone, due to no cynicism, but rather to an intensity of pain; for if Rose Tweedie belonged by birth to that strange latter-day feminine development which unconsciously sets pa.s.sion aside both from mind and emotion, and will none of it spiritually or physically, Lewis belonged to that still larger cla.s.s of men who have driven it from the mind: who say openly that it is despicable; but that the world cannot get on without it; who insist in a breath in its unworthiness and its necessity. Gwen, he said to himself after Dan had gone, was very woman, capable of ruining any man in a week if she chose, and then being sorrowfully surprised at the result. Still it would be unkind to wound her needlessly by telling her that result; the more so because she would certainly tell other people, and Rose Tweedie might break her heart over it. Even if the pigeon-holed mistake were found out, they might get up a fiction about the telegram having reached George after all. The compensation might have to be given; but even in that case he could see no need for raking up the mud, since the claim would be a just one.

Nevertheless a week after, when he and Dan were once more seated opposite each other at the office-table, he felt vaguely uncomfortable.

For a schedule of the dead lad's debts lay between them ready for the Administrator-General, and that showed an item of six thousand rupees borrowed on George's note of hand, backed by some youngsters on the very day on which he had left Simla.

'It was a first holiday, you know,' said Dan regretfully. 'And Hodinuggur is such a hole. There were the races, you know, and--and----'

'_Cherchez la femme_,' quoted Lewis; 'I don't blame him, not a bit. But if there had been an inquiry, Fitzgerald?-----'

Dan shook his head and sighed fiercely. 'Yes! I know. For all that, he was straight--straight as a die! My only regret in keeping the thing dark is that some one has to go scot-free.'

CHAPTER XXI

A shivering woman in one pannier; in the other, such things as a breathless fugitive can gather together in one hurried half hour.

Between them the hump of a camel, a camel which every instant seems as if it must split into halves as its long splay legs slither and slide in the mud that covers all things.

Such was the method of Chandni's flight from Hodinuggur. Not a comfortable one, but under the circ.u.mstances necessary; nor was she altogether unprepared for that necessity. People of her trade know what to expect when they are attached to petty intriguing courts, where one ruler's meat is invariably the next ruler's poison. Besides, in this case she had to reckon on Khush-hal Beg's anger at the repulse she had given him on more than one occasion; given him, of course, with a view to future possibilities with his son Dalel, but that rather increased than diminished the offence. And now her patron, old Zubr-ul-Zaman, was dead, Khush-hal had supreme power, and what was more, three pearls were amissing from the Hodinuggur necklace; three pearls which could easily be traced home to her safe keeping, _and no further_, if needs be. So, at the first hint of inquiry, Chandni had deemed it wiser to seek the protection of the only man who knew something--if not all--about the intrigue which had ended so strangely in Providence setting aside the necessity for any intrigue at all. If Dalel chose to remain at Simla, where, no doubt, he was amusing himself hugely, she would not interfere with his amus.e.m.e.nts; that had never been her plan. She would only resume her empire over his weak, worn-out wickedness. And yet the flight entailed horrible discomfort. The splaying camel was to her what a bad pa.s.sage across the channel is to a fashionable lady, and as she clutched wildly at the sides of the pannier, she decided that life was not long enough for a repet.i.tion of such experience. If she returned to Hodinuggur at all, it must be in a position which would ensure a different style of locomotion. Even the night journey by rail, cooped up behind iron bars in the wild-beast-cage-like compartment, labelled in three languages for 'modest women,' was, in comparison, comfort itself. Huddled up decently into a shapeless white bundle, she could at least think over the odd turn affairs had taken, and make up her mind what had best be done. The first thing, of course, was to bring Dalel to her heel. That ought not to be difficult, for though--the water having been procured--he might, like his father, find it convenient to underrate her services in the matter, she had one or two good cards to play in her adversary's strong suits which might with care save the trick. At any rate they ought to prevent any reckless disregard of her claims. First, they wanted the pearls back, and now that the Diwan was dead, she was the only person who could tell them the ins and outs of that transaction. Next, they wanted payment of the heavy _douceur_ promised by the Rajah for good offices in making it possible for the water to irrigate that basin of alluvial soil to the south. But here again now that the Diwan was dead, they would find difficulty in proving that anything had been done--that the flood was not responsible for all, unless she chose to help them with her evidence.

For the rest, give her Dalel and a bottle of champagne to herself for one hour. If in that s.p.a.ce he did not come back, as he had done a dozen times before, to her empire of evil, she would have none of him. He would be dead to all she had to offer in fullest perfection. He would be beyond her influence, as it were, and so useless for her purpose.

She was not going to marry a fool in order to wear a veil and live with a lot of women.

By this time two coolies were carrying her up the hill from Solon, in a thing like a bird-cage slung on poles; so small, so square, that she had to sit in it cross-legged and bolt upright. But though she could not sleep, even with the aid of opium, and though the hill-sides, after the first rush of the rains, were clothed with tinted blossoms, and the winding valleys green as emeralds with young rice, Chandni never parted the thick patchwork curtains shrouding her from the public gaze, until the setting down of the dhooli warned her of an opportunity for a gossip and a pipe. Then her feet came over the side with a challenging clash of their silver bells, and a quick stir run round the sleepy, sun-sodden stage where travellers, and coolies, and sweetmeat sellers lay huddled together in the shade. Even the cowboy driving his cattle from the bales of fodder on their way up for the sahib-logue's ponies, paused to look at her with a grin, while his beasts ate on. The bees were flitting from flower to flower, a golden oriole flashed through the green transparency of the walnut-trees, and below the branches the great emerald hearts of the yam leaves outlined themselves against the sapphire distance of the valley, which was divided from the sapphire distance of the sky by the glittering pearly spikelets of the snowy range. Sapphires and pearls echoed and re-echoed in ever-receding distance by the white clouds dividing one sea of ether from another.

But in all this world there was nothing worth a look, apparently, save Chandni, the courtesan, swinging her silver anklets over the edge of a dhooli; to judge at any rate by those human eyes.

She did not go straight to her destination, but paused at a house in the bazaar where such as she were all too welcome. There was never any mincing of words or thoughts with Chandni. To one end she had been born a courtesan, and to this end she lived to the best of her ability. So she paused to clothe herself in clean clear muslins, and hang great garlands of tuberose and jasmine about the column of her ma.s.sive throat; to redden her lips, and give a deeper shadow to her eyes; looking at herself the while in the thumb-mirror worn on her left hand.

No more, no less intent upon appearing at her best than many a person who has not been born to that end; many a decent, respectable person, who would be dreadfully shocked at having her innocent half hour before the cheval-gla.s.s evened to Chandni's most reprehensible occupation.

Perhaps the difference lies in the size of the mirrors; at any rate it is not palpably apparent elsewhere.

Mirza Dalel Beg was living, she knew, in a European house, as the upper ten of natives love to do. Why, is, in five cases out of six, a mystery. The sixth, no doubt, has acquired exotic tastes; the remaining five, no doubt, consider it good style to pretend them. So, after paying roundly for the privilege of toilet-sets and dinner-services, they prefer the water-carrier with his skin bag to a lavatory, and a big platter on the floor to all the neatly-laid dining-tables in creation.

A curious example of the fascination which useless comforts have for some people came to light during one of the many Emba.s.sies from Cabul which British diplomacy, or the want of it, has inveigled into India.

During its stay there, district-officers were instructed to provide the whole horde of barbarians with house-room in European fashion so as to avoid invidious distinctions. As a rule, the local Pa.r.s.ee was invited to furnish a requisite number of empty houses with the necessary repp curtains, French clocks, Britannia-metal teapots, and German prints, needed for the night's hospitality. Next day, so runs the tale, there never was a soup-plate to be found. Occasionally the guests packed up a French clock; once, it is affirmed, a sponge-bath went amissing, but unless they ate them, that Emba.s.sy must have gone back to Cabul with some hundreds of dozens of soup-plates stowed away among the official presents of watches that won't go, and guns that won't fire; and soup is not a national dish in Afghanistan.

So Dalel Beg had rented a house which he got cheap, because three of its previous tenants had died of typhoid fever. It was a pretty place enough, shut in somewhat by the ravines which furrow the lower part of the ridge, but with an outlook beautiful beyond belief over the plains.

The single dahlias--refuse run wild from many a garden above--found foothold in every cranny of the rocks, and great sheets of morning glories climbed over the broken rails fencing the narrow path from the steep declivity, which seemed to leap at one bound to the pale blue of the valley below. Chandni, stepping out of her dhooli, looked at it all distastefully, reached forth a strong, ring-bedecked hand, appropriated a yellow dahlia, which she stuck behind her ear, and called. Then the bells clashed again as she walked with a free step over to the verandah of the house, raised the chick, and looked in, while the dhooli-bearers squatted down beside the railings, and apparently resumed a conversation begun in the bazaar. For the rest, sunshine and silence.

Chandni, dazzled by the glare outside, could at first see nothing clearly; the room, though to her unaccustomed eyes crammed full of useless things, seemed empty of what she sought. Then suddenly there came a shrill, unformed voice--

'Go away! We don't want you. Mam-ma, send her away. Go, I tell you! The Mirza is married now; I am his wife.'

The girl who came forward was not more than fifteen by the look of her, with a frizz of hot-pressed light hair over her forehead, and a skin which gave one the impression of being bleached, perhaps because of the coal-black eyes set in the narrow sharp face; yet with a certain attractiveness about the figure, dressed as it was in the height of fashion, with sleeves to the ears, and a waist requiring the surgical bandage of folded silk to prevent it from breaking in two.

His wife! Chandni, from her full height and magnificent development, looked at her as distastefully as she had looked at the view from the terrace. Neither were to her liking: they both appealed too much to the imagination. This other woman who came in answer to the call was better, though past her prime and pulpy; drowsy, too, from the snooze she had been enjoying on the sofa. Still with a torrent of capable, tell-tale abuse for the intruder.

'Ari!' laughed Chandni contemptuously, when the fat lady paused for breath. 'So thou too hast been of the bazaar? But I want not thee, or that half-fledged thing who calls herself a wife. I want Dalel--where is he?'

'Mamma!' cried the unformed voice in English, breaking down over its own feeble pa.s.sion. 'Send her away, I tell you! The Mirza will be back soon, and she must not be here. Don't fool with words. Call the servants. _Ai! budzart!_ (base-born). I will throw you down the _khud_!

(hill-side).'

Chandni laughed again--laughed louder as, in response to the girl's cry, a face showed itself behind her.

'Salaam, oh _bhai_! (brother),' she said, nodding her head at the new-comer. 'Ah! 'tis thou, Mohammed? look you, this image saith she will fling me down the _khud_. If it came to force, my pigeon, I know which would have the Mirza; but I will not fight for him thus, he is not worth it. So, he fancies thee? G.o.d help him. Sure, thy mother is the better woman.'

'Come, come, mother Chandni,' urged the servant in response to shrill commands. 'This is no place for thee now. These are mem's. And he hath married her,' he went on fast and low. 'Yea! 'tis true, the _nikka_ hath been read, so abuse is vain. Come, thou canst see him elsewhere.'

'Nay! I will see him here--here with his mem,' retorted Chandni airily.

Then she turned swiftly on the elder woman, who, going to the door, was about to call for further a.s.sistance. 'What harm shall I do thee, fool, who art as I am with a piebald skin, or as this one, who would be as I am had G.o.d made her a woman. Lo! ask thy servants who Chandni the courtesan is, and what she has been, ay! and will be--if she chooses.'

It was an odd scene. The room decorated into b.a.s.t.a.r.d civilisation; the girl depending on a lack of pigment in her skin for all her claims to mem-ship, that being the only trace of her unknown European father; the mother without even this distinction, yet clinging to her taint of 'Western blood, as to a patent of n.o.bility; clinging to it farcically, in fringe and furbelow, in fashion generally. Before them, as it were, against them, stood Chandni, in her trailing white Delhi draperies and ma.s.sive garlands, a figure which might have served as model for some of those strange solemn-eyed statues, half Greek, half Indian, which are found buried in the sand-hills of the frontier. There was a little crowd of dark expectant faces at the door now, towards which she nodded familiarly.

'Go back! oh brothers! I do no harm. 'Tis not my way with women folk. I wait the Mirza's return. Then, if I am not wanted, I will go. Lo!

Chandni the courtesan hath no need to keep a man in a leash; she hath no need to have the _nikka_ read, my little pigeon, as thou hast. Ari!

so the pictures in the papers Dalel used to bring me are true, and 'tis a beauty to have no body and a big head.

Beatrice Norma Elflida D'Eremao, presently her Highness Mrs. Dalel Beg, gave a little scream of rage, and stamped her tiny high-heeled shoes upon the floor. Mrs. Lily Violet D'Eremao, her mother, known in her time by many a _sobriquet_ until she settled down to sobriety and the education of a fair daughter, screamed too, in voluble abuse; but they were both quite helpless before the white-robed figure standing between them and the sunlight with a laugh on its red lips, which did not leave them when into the midst of the scene came Dalel Beg, got up in his dandy riding gear; only the folded pugree remaining to tell the tale of his birth. Perhaps because the ideas within the head it covered needed some such excuse for their existence. His face was hideous in its sheer malice, livid, not with pa.s.sion or fear, but from that hatred of opposition which belonged to his race. And Chandni, recognising this, swept him a low salaam, graceful to the uttermost curve of each finger, a salaam which would have made Turveydrop die of envy, a salaam such as one sees once or twice in a lifetime. A minute before she might have given it in derision; now she yielded it to the lingering majesty in this pitiful representative of a long line of tyrants.

'Long life attend my lord,' she said, in those liquid tones of set ceremony, which her cla.s.s pride themselves on acquiring. And even among them Chandni had a silver tongue: none near her, so the report ran.