The Potter's Thumb Part 35

Their ponies were waiting, and she stayed to see them start and give a parting nod as they rounded the last visible turn of the path leading to the Mall. Gwen always added these pleasant friendly touches to the bareness and business of life. They came to her by instinct, and she herself felt cold and cheerless without them.

Then, very well satisfied with herself, she crossed the long matted pa.s.sage which ran from end to end of the house, separating the portion Colonel Tweedie reserved for his own use from that occupied by the office. Here, beside her father's private room, was Rose's little study, and beyond that again Lewis Gordon's quarters and the big glazed verandah where the clerks sat designing. It was quite a small room, and, as Mrs. Boynton entered it, seemed to her over full of perfume, possibly from the vase full of wild turk's-cap lilies on the table. The window was shut too, and Gwen as she made her way to the most comfortable chair, with scarcely a glance at the white-robed figure standing in the shadow of the curtains, gave a quick yet languid order to set the glazed doors wide open.

'They are best shut if the Huzoor does not mind. I have that to say which requires caution.'

Those round, suave tones, with almost the nightingale thrill in them belonged to no ayah, surely! Gwen looked round hastily. That was no ayah's figure either, tall, supple, unabashed. Instinctively the Englishwoman stood up and confronted her visitor, more curious than alarmed. Even to that ignorance of native life which is so typical of the mem-sahib--an ignorance not altogether to be deprecated--the woman's trade was unmistakable. That was writ large in the trimness and cleanliness, the spotless white, the chaplets of flowers, the scent of musk and ambergris filling the room; all the more reason for surprise at her presence there. Yet, even so, curiosity outweighed indignation and resentment in Gwen's cold questioning.

'Who are you? What do you want?'

The answer came quick, so quickly that it left the hearer with that breathless sense of pained relief that the worst is over, which comes with the clean sharp cut of a surgeon's knife.

'I am Chandni of Delhi. I want the Hodinuggur pearls which the Huzoor took out of the Ayodhya pot.'

There was no mincing of the matter here; none of that beating about the bush which, as a rule, Gwen loved. Yet the directness did not displease her; it seemed to rouse in her a novel combativeness, taking form in similar effrontery and cool a.s.sertion.

'I don't know what you are talking about,' she said indifferently, 'and I don't want you. Go!'

Her Hindustani, though limited, was of the imperative order and suited the occasion; yet it evoked one of Chandni's shrill mocking laughs.

'The mem sahiba mistakes. She is not as I am, a daughter of the bazaars, and if it comes to words Chandni hath two to her one. So I come quietly to ask reasonably for my rights; not to dispute after the manner of my kind. There is no need to tell the mem sahiba the story.

She remembers it perfectly. She knows it all as well as I. But this she does not know: The pearls are mine, and I will have them back, or their price in revenge.'

'I think you are mad!' cried Gwen more hastily. 'Go! go instantly, or I will call the servants.'

'That were not wise! Lo! I know all about the papers of safety, which Manohar Lal gave in exchange for the little sahib's rupees. But the pearls went not once, but twice.'

'Twice!' The involuntary echo had a surprise in it which angered the courtesan.

'Yes, twice! The mem knows that as well as I do. The Ayodhya pot----'

'Was stolen from me in the palace,' put in Gwen; 'you stole it, I dare say.'

Again Chandni laughed. 'If I did, what then? The mem got it again and sent it back through the post for more pearls. But we did not send it thus; we sent it by the little sahib, who gave it to the mem, and she sent the key in return. The papers are about the first pearls. These are the second, and there is no safety paper about them.'

'It is not true!--it is a lie--he never took them--he never gave them to me,' cried Gwen, her courage, oddly enough, failing before what was to her an absolutely novel and unfounded accusation. 'I will not listen! Go! or I will call.'

Chandni took a step nearer, lowering her voice. 'What! wouldst let the truth be known; when thou canst conceal it--for ever! Give me the pearls and no one shall know--no one shall cast dirt on the mem, and on the little sahib--no one shall know how he took the bribes for you--no one shall know thou didst beguile him as men are beguiled.'

'I--I did not--it is a lie, I----' faltered Gwen, falling back till Chandni's hand closed like a vice on her wrist.

'Wah! What use to deny it to me? Do I not know the trick? A word, a look, no more. What! do men send bullets through their hearts as Keene sahib did for no cause? Ari, sister! we know better.'

The jeering comradeship was too much for caution even though the story of poor George's death pa.s.sed by her as a wanton lie. Gwen, struggling madly, gave one scream after another for help, and, breaking from her persecutor, turned to fly. At the same moment Rose, who had been into her father's study for a book, burst through the door and stood bewildered at the scene.

'Send her away! She tells lies--lies about me and George--lies about everything. Oh! have her sent away, Rose. Please send her away.'

The girl, clasping the hands with which Gwen clung to her, turned on the intruder angrily, and an indescribable hardness and contempt came to her face, as she took in the meaning of the figure and its dress.

'How dare you come here? Go this instant! Put on your veil, hide yourself, and go! Impertinent! Shameless!'

There was no answering laugh now. 'The Huzoor speaks truth,' replied the courtesan quietly. 'I have no business here. I came but to see the mem, bethinking me she might listen better in the house of those who were friends to the little sahib----'

But Gwen's immediate terror had pa.s.sed, leaving her face to face with future fears.

'Don't listen, Rose!' she interrupted in English. 'You should never listen to what women of that sort say about any one. She frightened me at first with her lies, but the wisest plan is to send her away. I'll call a servant.'

Chandni, listening to the quick whisper, smiled.

'The mem sahiba wants silence,' she said, nodding her head; but silence is ever unsafe unless tongues are tied. And mine will wag if not here, elsewhere, unless I get the Ayodhya pot.'

Rose gave a quick exclamation, but Gwen's hand was on her arm, her voice full of pa.s.sionate entreaty.

'Don't, Rose! don't speak to her. I can tell you all. It is all lies; some rigmarole declaring that after the pot had been stolen at Hodinuggur it was sent back to me here at Simla, and that I returned it again. There isn't a word of truth in it; I never----'

But the girl set aside her detaining hand with an impatient gesture, and crossed to where Chandni stood watching them.

'You have made a mistake,' came the clear unfaltering voice. 'The Ayodhya pot was not sent to the mem sahiba, it was sent to me; and it was I who returned it. What then?'

The frank admission brought a curiously similar expression to those two listening faces; it seemed to leave both, abashed, uncertain, so that Rose had to repeat her clear question before it gained reply.

'What then?' echoed the courtesan at last, somewhat sulkily. 'How can I tell if this be so; and if it be so, how can I tell what came? Only this I do know: the pot went to Keene sahib the day he left. He gave it to some one. Let that some one answer. I care not who 'tis, so I have my pearls that were hidden in the pot.'

'Pearls! There were no pearls in it when it came to me,' cried Rose quickly; then remembering the jagged edge of clay she had noticed inside, she turned to Gwen: 'Did you notice anything like a false bottom when you had it before?'

The face into which she looked paled. 'You don't understand!' said Gwen petulantly; 'the woman says that these pearls were put there after it was stolen, so how could I notice anything when I tell you I never saw, never heard of it again? I told the woman so just now. I will tell her again before you! then I must, I will have her sent away, she has no business here.'

But Chandni's recklessness had grown. 'I care not who has them. See!

there are three of us here in this room who have handled the pot. Let her who hath it and its h.o.a.rd speak truth, and save the little sahib.

For he had it, sure enough; of that there is proof.'

'Three of us!' repeated Rose absently, as if struck by a thought. Then obeying a sudden impulse, she went over to a portfolio standing in one corner of the room. 'You mistake,' she continued, her eyes full on the courtesan. 'There are not three, but four of us. Look! Keene sahib painted that.'

Chandni fell back, averting her face from the portrait of Azizan, which Rose placed against an easel on the table.

'The evil eye! the evil eye! G.o.d save us from the witch,' she muttered, thrusting out her right hand in that two-fingered gesture which is used against a baleful glance in both East and West. But Gwen pressing closer looked at the picture with a dawning light of relieved comprehension in her face.

'Did he paint that--how pretty it is! And it explains--it explains--a--a great deal. He gave her the pot, I suppose--Well! it is a pity, but one ought not to be----'

'Ought not to be what?' interrupted Rose fiercely, with a fine scorn in her face, scarcely less concealed than the contempt with which she turned to the other woman.

'You both seem to know or understand this picture better than I do,'

she said superbly. 'Perhaps you can tell me whom it represents?'

'My dear Rose,' expostulated Gwen, aside; 'don't for pity's sake ask that creature. What would your father say if he knew? You may mix yourself up----'

'Whose picture is it, I ask?' repeated Rose, unheeding. Then in the silence of Chandni's smile, and Gwen's frown, she turned pa.s.sionately to the portrait itself. 'Why don't you speak and shame them? You look as if you could tell the truth, and if he made you so, it was true!'

The very vehemence of her own fanciful appeal imposed on her, and she paused as if waiting a reply. It came with a laugh from Chandni.

'She was another of the little sahib's friends. The miss saith true.