Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 3

Now the Faizapore office sent in the daily schedules, original, duplicate, and triplicate, with commendable regularity, and drew the exact amount of grain sanctioned for transport animals without fail; nevertheless a sudden demand on its resources was disagreeable. So, as he had done once or twice before in this time of war and rumours of wars, the chief turned to the big contractor for help; not without a certain uneasiness, for though a long course of shady transactions had blunted Colonel Stuart's sense of honour towards his equals, it had survived to an altogether illogical extent towards his inferiors. Now his private indebtedness to the usurer was so great that he could not afford to quarrel with him; and this knowledge nurtured a suspicion that Shunker Das made a tool of him, an idea most distasteful both to pride and honour. No mental position is more difficult to a.n.a.lyse than that of a man, who having lost the desire to do the right from a higher motive, clings to it from a lower one. Belle's father, for instance, did not hesitate to borrow cash from monies intrusted to his care; but he would rather not have borrowed it from a man with whom he had official dealings.

Shunker Das, however, knew nothing, and had he known would have credited little, of this survival of honour. It seemed impossible in his eyes that the innumerable dishonesties of the Faizapore office could exist without the knowledge of its chief. Bribery was to him no crime; nor is it one to a very large proportion of the people of India. To the ignorant, indeed, it seems such a mere detail of daily life that it is hard for them to believe in judicial honesty. Hence the ease with which minor officials extort large sums on pretence of carrying the bribe to the right quarter; and hence again comes, no doubt, many a whispered tale of corruption in high places.

"I shall lose by this contract, _sahib_," said the Lala, when the terms had been arranged; "but I rely on your honour's generous aid in the future. There are big things coming in, when the Protector of the Poor will doubtless remember his old servant, whose life and goods are always at your honour's disposal."

"I have the highest opinion of,--of your integrity, Lala _sahib_,"

replied the Colonel evasively, "and of course shall take it,--I mean your previous services--into consideration, whenever it--it is possible to do so." The word integrity had made him collapse a little, but ere the end of the sentence he had recovered his self-esteem, and with it his pomposity.

The Lala's crafty face expanded into a smile. "We understand each other, _sahib_, and if--!" here he dropped his voice to a confidential pitch.

Five minutes after Colonel Stuart's debts had increased by a thousand rupees, and the Lala was carefully putting away a duly stamped and signed I.O.U. in his pocket-book; not that he a.s.signed any value to it, but because it was part of the game. Without any distinct idea of treachery, he always felt that Lukshmi, the G.o.ddess of Fortune, had given him one more security against discomfiture when he managed to have the same date on a contract and a note of hand. Not that he antic.i.p.ated discomfiture either. In fact, had any one told him that he and the Colonel were playing at cross-purposes, he would have laughed the a.s.sertion to scorn. He had too high an opinion of the perspicacity of the _sahib-logue_, and especially of the _sahib_ who shut his eyes to so many irregularities, to credit such a possibility.

So he drove homewards elate, and on the way was stopped in a narrow alley by an invertebrate crowd, which, without any backbone of resistance, blocked all pa.s.sage, despite the abuse he showered around.

"Run over the pigs! Drive on, I say," he shouted to the driver, when other means failed.

"Best not, Shunker," sneered a little gold-earringed Rajpoot amongst the crowd, "there's a sepoy in yonder shooting free."

The Lala sank back among his cus.h.i.+ons, green with fear. At the same moment an officer in undress uniform rode up as if the street were empty, the crowd making way before him. "What is it, _havildar_ (sergeant)?" he asked sharply, reining up before an open door where a sentry stood with rifle ready.

"Private Afzul Khan run amuck, _Huzoor!_"

Major Marsden threw himself from his horse and looked through the door into the little court within. It was empty, but an archway at right angles led to an inner yard. "When?"

"Half an hour gone--the guard will be here directly, _Huzoor!_ They were teasing him for being an Afghan, and saying he would have to fight his own people."

"Any one hurt?"

"Jeswunt Rai and Gurdit Singh, not badly; he has--seven rounds left, _sahib_, and swears he won't be taken alive."

The last remark came hastily, as Major Marsden stepped inside the doorway. He paused, not to consider, but because the tramp of soldiers at the double came down the street. "Draw up your men at three paces on either side of the door," he said to the native officer. "If you hear a shot, go on the house-top and fire on him as he sits. If he comes out alone, shoot him down."

"Allah be with the brave!" muttered one or two of the men, as Philip Marsden turned once more to enter the courtyard. It lay blazing in the suns.h.i.+ne, open and empty; but what of the dim archway tunnelling a row of buildings into that smaller yard beyond, where Afzul Khan waited with murder in his heart, and his finger on the trigger of his rifle?

There the Englishman would need all his nerve. It was a rash attempt he was making; he knew that right well, but he had resolved to attempt it if ever he got the opportunity. Anything, he had told himself, was better than the wild-beast-like scuffle he had witnessed not long before; a hopeless, insane struggle ending in death to three brave men, one of them the best soldier in the regiment. The remembrance of the horrible scene was strong on him as his spurs clicked an even measure across the court.

It was cooler in the shadow, quite a relief after the glare. Ah!...

just as he had imagined! In the far corner a crouching figure and a glint of light on the barrel of a rifle. No pause; straight on into the sunlight again; then suddenly the word of command rang through the court boldly. "Lay down your arms!"

The familiar sound died away into silence. It was courage against power, and a life hung on the balance. Then the long gleam of light on the rifle wavered, disappeared, as Private Afzul Khan stood up and saluted. "You are a braver man than I, _sahib_," he said. That was all.

A sort of awed whisper of relief and amazement ran through the crowd as Philip Marsden came out with his prisoner, and gave orders for the men to fall in. Two Englishmen in mufti had ridden up in time for the final tableau; and one of them, nodding his head to the retreating soldiers, said approvingly, "That is what gave, and keeps us India."

"And that," returned John Raby pointing to Shunker Das who with renewed arrogance was driving off, "will make us lose it."

"My dear Raby! I thought the moneyed cla.s.ses--"

"My dear Smith! if you think that when the struggle comes, as come it must, our new n.o.bility, whose patent is plunder, will fight our battles against the old, I don't."

They argued the point all the way home without convincing each other, while Time with the truth hidden in his wallet pa.s.sed on towards the Future.

CHAPTER IV.

Had any one, a week before his daughter arrived, told Colonel Stuart that her presence would be a pleasant restraint upon him, he would have been very angry. Yet such was the fact. Her likeness to her mother carried him back to days when his peccadilloes could still be regarded as youthful follies, and people spared a harsh verdict on what age might be expected to remedy. Then her vast admiration gave a reality to his own a.s.sumptions of rect.i.tude; for the Colonel clung theoretically to virtue with great tenacity, in a loud-voiced, conservative "d---- you if you don't believe what I say" sort of manner. He also maintained a high ideal in regard to the honour of every one else, based on a weak-kneed conviction that his own was above suspicion.

He was proud of Belle too, fully recognising that with her by his side his grey hairs became reverend. So he pulled himself up to some small degree, and began to sprinkle good advice among the younger men with edifying gravity. As for Belle she was supremely happy. No doubt had she been "earnest" or "soulful" or "intense" she might have found spots on her sun with the greatest ease; but she was none of these things. At this period of her existence nothing was further from her disposition than inward questionings on any subject. She took life as she found it, seeing only her own healthy, happy desires in its dreary old problems, and remaining as utterly unconscious that she was a.s.similating herself to her surroundings as the caterpillar which takes its colour from the leaf on which it feeds. For a healthy mind acts towards small worries as the skin does towards friction; it protects itself from pain by an excess of vitality. It is only when pressure breaks through the blister that its extent is realised.

In good truth Belle's life was a merry one. The three girls were good-nature itself, especially when they found the new arrival possessed none of their own single-hearted desire for matrimony. Her stepmother, if anything, was over-considerate, being a trifle inclined to make a bugbear of the girl's superior claims to her father's affection. The housekeeping was lavishly good, and men of a certain stamp were not slow to avail themselves of the best mutton and prawn curry in Faizapore. Where the money came from which enabled the Stuarts to keep open house, they did not enquire. Neither did Belle, who knew no more about the value of things than a baby in arms. As for the Colonel, he had long years before acquired the habit of looking on his debts as his princ.i.p.al, and treating his pay as the interest. So matters went smoothly and swiftly for the first month or so, during which time Belle might have been seen everywhere in the company of the three Miss Van Milders, cheerfully following their lead with a serene innocence that kept even the fastest of a very fast set in check. Once or twice she saw Philip Marsden, and was rallied by the girls on her acquaintance with that solitary misogynist. Mrs. Stuart, indeed, went so far as to ask him to dinner, even though he had not called, on the ground that he was the richest man in the station, and Belle's interests must not be neglected though she was only a stepdaughter.

But he sent a polite refusal, and so the matter dropped; nor to Mrs.

Stuart's open surprise did Belle make any other declared conquest.

Yet, unnoticed by all, there was some one, who long before the first month was out, would willingly have cut himself into little pieces in order to save his idol from the least breath of disappointment. So it was from Cousin d.i.c.k's superior knowledge of Indian life that Belle learnt many comforting, if curious excuses for things liable to ruffle even her calm of content.

Poor d.i.c.k! Hitherto his efforts in all directions had resulted in conspicuous failure; chiefly, odd though it may seem, because he happened to be born under English instead of Indian skies. In other words, because he was not what bureaucracies term "a Statutory Native." His mother, Mrs. Stuart's younger sister, had run away with a young Englishman who, having ruined himself over a patent, was keeping soul and body together by driving engines. In some ways she might have done worse, for Smith senior was a gentleman; but he possessed, unfortunately, just that unstable spark of genius which, like a will-o'-the-wisp leads a man out of the beaten path without guiding him into another. The small sum of money she brought him was simply so much fuel to feed the flame; and, within a few months of their marriage, the soft, luxurious girl was weeping her eyes out in a miserable London lodging, while he went the rounds with his patent.

There d.i.c.k was born, and thence after a year or two she brought them both back to the elastic house, the strong family affection, and lavish hospitality which characterise the Eurasian race. Not for long, however, since her husband died of heat-apoplexy while away seeking for employment, and she, after shedding many tears, succ.u.mbed to consumption brought on by the fogs and cold of the north. So, dependent on various uncles and aunts in turn, little d.i.c.k Smith had grown up with one rooted desire in the rough red head over which his sleek, soft guardians shook theirs ominously. Briefly, he was to be an engineer like his father. He broke open everything to see how it worked, and made so many crucial experiments that the whole family yearned for the time when he should join the Government Engineering College at Roorkee. And then, just when this desirable consummation was within reach, some one up among the deodars at Simla, or in an office at Whitehall, invented the "Statutory Native," and there was an end of poor d.i.c.k's career; for a Statutory Native is a person born in India of parents habitually resident and domiciled in the country.

True, the college was open to the boy for his training; but with all the Government appointments awarded to successful students closed to him by the accident of his birth, his guardians naturally shook their heads again over an expensive education which would leave him, practically, without hope of employment. For, outside Government service, engineers are not, as yet, wanted in India. He might, of course, had he been the son of a rich man, have been sent home to pa.s.s out as an Englishman through the English college. As it was the boy, rebellious to the heart's core, was set to other employment. Poor d.i.c.k! If his European birth militated against him on the one side, his Eurasian parentage condemned him on the other. After infinite trouble his relations got him a small post on the railway, whence he was ousted on reduction; another with a private firm which became bankrupt. The lad's heart and brains were elsewhere, and as failure followed on failure, he gave way to fits of defiance, leading him by sheer excess of energy into low companions.h.i.+p and bad habits. At the time of Belle's arrival he was trying to work off steam as an unpaid clerk in his uncle's office when a boy's first love revolutionized his world; love at first sight, so enthralling, so compelling, that he did not even wonder at the change it wrought in him. Belle never knew, perhaps he himself did not recognise, how much of the calm content of those first few months was due to d.i.c.k's constant care. A silent, unreasoning devotion may seem a small thing viewed by the head, but it keeps the heart warm. Poor, homeless, rebellious d.i.c.k had never felt so happy, or so good, in all his life; and he would kneel down in his. .h.i.therto prayerless room and pray that she might be kept from sorrow, like any young saint. Yet he had an all-too-intimate acquaintance with the corruption of Indian towns, and an all-too-precocious knowledge of evil.

Belle in her turn liked him; there was something more congenial in his breezy, tempestuous, nature than in the sweetness of her stepbrothers, and unconsciously she soon learnt to come to him for comfort. "Charlie tells such dreadful stories," she complained one day, "and he really is fond of whisky-and-water. I almost wish father wouldn't give him any."

"The governor thinks it good for him, I bet," returned d.i.c.k stoutly.

"I believe it is sometimes. Then as for lies! I used to tell 'em myself; it's the climate. He'll grow out of it, you'll see; I did."

Now d.i.c.k's truthfulness was, as a rule, so uncompromising that Belle cheered up; as for the boy, his one object then was to keep care from those clear eyes; abstract truth was nowhere.

The next time Sonny _baba_ was offered a sip from his father's gla.s.s, he refused hastily. Pressure produced a howl of terror; nor was it without the greatest difficulty that he was subsequently brought to own that Cousin d.i.c.k had threatened to kill him if he ever touched a "peg" again. Luckily for the peace of the household this confession was made in the Colonel's absence, when only Mrs. Stuart's high, strident voice could be raised in feeble anger. The culprit remained unrepentant; the more so because Belle a.s.soilzied him, declaring that Charlie ought not to be allowed to touch the horrid mixture. Whereupon her stepmother sat and cried softly with the boy on her lap, making both Belle and d.i.c.k feel horribly guilty, until, the incident having occurred at lunch, both the sufferers fell asleep placidly. When Belle returned from her afternoon ride she found Mrs. Stuart in high good humour, decanting a bottle of port wine. "You frightened me so, my dear," she said affectionately, "that I sent for the doctor, and he says port wine _is_ better, so I'm glad you mentioned it." And Belle felt more guilty than ever.

These afternoon rides were d.i.c.k's only trouble. He hated the men who came about the house, and more especially the favoured many who were allowed to escort the "Van" as Belle's three stepsisters were nick-named. It made him feel hot and cold all over to think of her in the company which he found suitable enough for his cousins. But then it seemed to him as if no one was good enough for Belle,--he himself least of all. He dreamed wild, happy dreams of doing something brave, fine, and manly; not so much from any desire of thereby winning her, but because his own love demanded it imperiously. For the first time the needle of his compa.s.s pointed unhesitatingly to the pole of right.

He confided these aspirations to the girl, and they would tell each other tales of heroism until their cheeks flushed, and their eyes flashed responsive to the deeds of which they talked. One day d.i.c.k came home full of the story of Major Marsden and the Afghan sepoy; and they agreed to admire it immensely. After that d.i.c.k made rather a hero of the Major, and Belle began to wonder why the tall quiet man who had been so friendly at their first meeting, kept so persistently aloof from her and hers. He was busy, of course, but so were others, for these were stirring times. The a.r.s.enal was working over hours, and all through the night, long files of laden carts crept down the dusty roads, bearing stores for the front.

To all outward appearance, however, society took no heed of these wars or rumours of wars, but went on its way rejoicing in the winter climate which made amus.e.m.e.nt possible. And no one in the station rejoiced more than Belle. Major Marsden, watching her from afar, told himself that a girl who adopted her surroundings--and such surroundings!--so readily, was not to be pitied. She was evidently well able to take care of herself; yet, many a time, as he sat playing whist while others were dancing, he caught himself looking up to see who the partner might be with whom she was hurrying past to seek the cooler air of the gardens, where seats for two were dimly visible among the coloured lanterns.

For the most part, however, Belle's partners were boys, too young to have lost the faculty of recognising innocent unconsciousness. But one night at a large ball given to a departing regiment, she fell into the hands of a stranger who had come in from an outstation in order to continue a p.r.o.nounced flirtation which Maud Van Milder had permitted during a dull visit to a friend. That astute young lady having no intention of offending permanent partners for his sake, handed him over to Belle for a dance, and the latter, failing to fall in with his step during the first turn, pleaded fatigue as the easiest way of getting through the penance.

Philip at his whist, saw her pa.s.s down the corridor towards the garden; and, happening to know her companion, played a false card, lost the trick, and apologised.

"Time yet, if we look out," replied his partner; but this was exactly what the Major could not do, and the rubber coming swiftly to an end, he made an excuse for cutting out, and followed Belle into the garden, wondering who could have introduced her to such a man. To begin with he was not fit for decent society, and in addition he had evidently favoured the champagne. Philip had no definite purpose in his pursuit, until from a dark corner he heard Belle's clear young voice with a touch of hauteur in it. Then the impulse to get her away from her companion before he had a chance of making himself objectionable, came to the front, joined to an unexpected anger and annoyance.

"I have been looking for you everywhere, Miss Stuart. You are wanted,"

said Philip going up to them.

"Hallo, Marsden! what a beast you are to come just as we were gettin'

confidential--weren't we?" exclaimed Belle's companion with what was meant to be a fascinating leer. She turned from one face to the other; but if the one aroused dislike and contempt, the air of authority in Major Marsden's touched her pride.

"Who wants me?" she asked calmly.

"Who!" echoed her partner. "Come, that's a good one! We both want you; don't we, Marsden?"