Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 8

"That's what I want to know. I begged him to go, but the very idea excites him. Would it harm him officially? Is there any reason why he should not?"

d.i.c.k's words of warning recurred to Major Marsden unpleasantly. "None that I know of," he replied. "I will go round to Seymour's to-morrow, and get him to bundle you both off to the hills. You want change as much as your father. In a month's time you will be laughing at all these fears."

"I think you are laughing at them now," said Belle wistfully.

"Am I? Well, I promise not to laugh at you any more, Miss Stuart." He stood up, tall and straight, to say good-bye.

"Isn't that rather a rash promise, Major Marsden?"

"I don't think so. Anyhow I make it, and I'm very glad you sent for me. Considering how little you knew of me,--and how disagreeable that little had been--it was kind."

"I know a great deal of you," she replied, smiling softly. "d.i.c.k has told me a lot,--about the brevet,--and the intelligence-work--and the Afghan sepoy--"

"And the men in buckram too, I suppose? I'm afraid d.i.c.k is not to be trusted. Did he tell you how the man escaped next day, and I got a wigging?"

"No!" cried Belle indignantly. "Did he?--Did you, I mean?--what a shame!"

"On the contrary, it was quite right. I'll tell you about it some day, if I may. Meanwhile, good-bye, and don't starve; it really doesn't do any good!"

She watched him jingle down the steps, thinking how like an overgrown school-boy he looked in his mess-jacket. So life was not a tragedy after all, but a serio-comedy in which only the monologues were depressing and dull. She went in and played the piano till it was time to go to bed. Yet nothing had really changed, and Fate marched on relentlessly as before. We make our own feelings, and then sit down to weep or smile over them.

The very next afternoon Colonel Stuart was brooding silently over nothing at all in his private office-room, pa.s.sing the time, as it were, out of mischief, till he went to dine with John Raby. For the latter, with a sort of contemptuous kindness, put the drag of an occasional game of _ecarte_ on to the Colonel's potations. Sitting in the dusk his face looked wan and haggard, and, despite his profound stillness, every nerve was wearied and yet awake with excitement; as might be seen from his unrestrained start when Shunker Das came into the room unannounced; for the office-hours being over the _chupra.s.sie_ had departed.

"Well, what is it now?" he cried sharply. "I saw you this morning.

Haven't you got enough for one day? Am I never to have any peace?"

An angry tone generally reduced his native visitors to submission, but the Lala was evidently in no mood for silence. He had taken up a small contract that morning, the earnest-money of which lay for the time in Colonel Stuart's safe. Since then he had heard casually that a long-expected source of profit over which he had often talked with the Colonel, and for which he had even made preparations, had slipped through his fingers. In other words, that all the mule-transport was to be bought by a special officer. "I've come, _sahib_," he blurted out, sitting down unasked, "to know if it is true that Mardsen _sahib_ has the purchase of mules."

"And if he has, what the devil is it to you, or to me?" The man's arrogance was becoming unbearable, and Colonel Stuart was a great stickler for etiquette.

"Only this; that if you are not going to deal fairly by me, you mustn't count on my silence; that's all!"

"Go and tell the whole bazaar I owe you money, you black scoundrel,"

cried his hearer, annoyed beyond endurance by the man's a.s.sumption of equality. "I'll pay you every penny, if I sell my soul for it, curse you!"

"Eighty thousand rupees is a tall price, _sahib_," sneered the Lala.

"And how about the contracts, and the commission, and the general partners.h.i.+p? Am I to tell that also?"

The Colonel stared at him in blank surprise. G.o.d knows in his queer conglomerate of morality it was hard to tell what elementary rock of principle might be found; yet to a certain extent honour remained as it were in pebbles, worn and frayed by contact with the stream of life. "General partners.h.i.+p! you black devil, what do you mean?"

"Mean!" echoed the Lala shrilly. "Why, the money I've lent you, _paid_ you for each contract; the commission I've given your clerks; the grain your horses have eaten; the--"

The Colonel's right hand was raised above his head; the first coa.r.s.e rage of his face had settled into a stern wrath that turned it white.

"If you stop here another instant, by G.o.d I'll kill you!"

The words came like a steel-thrust, and the Lala without a word turned and fled before the Berserk rage of the Northman; it is always terrible to the Oriental, and the Lala was a heaven-sent coward.

"Stop!" cried the Colonel as the wretched creature reached the door.

He obeyed and came back trembling. "Take your money for the contract with you; it's cancelled. I won't have it in the house. Take it back and give me the receipt I gave you; give it me, I say." The Colonel, fumbling at the lock of the safe, stuttered and shook with excitement.

"Take 'em back," he continued, flouris.h.i.+ng a roll of notes. "The receipt!--quick! out with it!--the receipt for the three thousand five hundred I gave you this morning!"

"_Huzoor! Huzoor!_ I am looking for it; be patient one moment!"

The Lala's quivering fingers blundered among the papers in his pocket-book.

"Give it me, or, by heaven, I'll break every bone in your body!" His hand came down with an ominous thud on the table.

"I will give it, _sahib_,--I have it,--here--no--ah! praise to the G.o.ds!" He shook so that the paper rustled in his hand. Colonel Stuart seized it, and tearing it to bits, flung the pieces in the waste paper basket at his feet. "There goes your last contract from me, and there's the door, and there's your money!" As he flung the notes in the man's face they went fluttering over the floor, and he laughed foolishly to see them gathered up in trembling haste.

"Gad!" he muttered as he sank exhausted into a chair, "there isn't much fear of Shunker so long as I've a stick in my hand. Hullo! what's that? Something rustled under the table. Here, Budlu! quick, lights!

It may be a snake! Confound the servants; they're never to be found!"

He stopped and drew his hand over his forehead two or three times.

Just then Budlu, entering with the lamp, stooped to pick something from the floor. It was a note for a thousand rupees, crisp and crackling.

Colonel Stuart looked at it in a dazed sort of way, then burst into a roar of laughter and put it in his pocket-book. "My fair perquisite, by Jove! and it will come in useful to-night at _ecarte_. Budlu, give me the little bottle. I must steady my nerves a bit if I'm to play with Raby."

CHAPTER VII.

People who talk of the still Indian night can scarcely do so from experience, for, especially during the hot weather, darkness in the East is vocal with life. The cicala shrills its loudest, the birds are awake, and the very trees and plants seem to blossom audibly. Go round an Indian garden at sunset and it is a sepulchre; the roses shrivelled in their prime, the buds scorched in the birth, the foliage beaten down by the fierce sun. Visit it again at sunrise and you will find it bright with blossom, sweet with perfume, refreshed with dew. That is the work of night; what marvel then if it is instinct with sound and movement! Never for one hour does silence fall upon the world. The monotonous beat of some native musician's drum goes on and on; a village dog barks, and is answered by another until seventy times seven; a crow takes to cawing irrelatively; the birds sing in s.n.a.t.c.hes, and the Indian c.o.c.k, like that of scriptural story, crows for other reasons besides the dawn.

The long-legged rooster who habitually retired to sleep on the summit of Colonel Stuart's cook-room, had, however, legitimate cause for his vociferations, and dawn was just darkening the rest of the sky when the sudden flapping of his wings startled the horse of an early wayfarer who came at a walk down the Mall.

It was Philip Marsden setting out betimes for a two days' scour of the district in search of the very mules out of which Shunker Das had hoped to make so much profit. Most men, carrying ten thousand rupees with them, would have applied for a treasure-chest and a police guard; but Major Marsden considered himself quite sufficient security for the roll of currency notes in his breast-pocket. As he quieted the frightened horse, his close proximity to the Commissariat office reminded him that he had forgotten to apply for a certain form on which he had to register his purchases; the omission would entail delay, so he anathematised his own carelessness and was riding on, when a light in the office-windows attracted his attention. It was early for any one to be at work, but knowing how time pressed in all departments under the strain of war, he thought it not improbable that some energetic _babu_ was thus seeking the worm of promotion, and might be able to give him what he required. Dismounting, lest his horse's tread should disturb the sleepers in the house by which he had to pa.s.s, he hitched the reins to a tree, and made his way towards the office; not without a kindly thought of the girl, forgetful of care, who lay sleeping so near to him that, unconsciously, he slackened his step and trod softly. He had been as good as his word, and that very day the doctor was to go over and prescribe immediate change. Change!

he smiled at the idea, wondering what change could stem the course of the inevitable.

As he drew near he saw that the light came, not from the office, but from its chief's private room. He hesitated an instant; then a suspicion that something might be wrong made him go on till he could see through the open door into the room. Thefts were common enough in cantonments, and it was as well to make sure. Through the _chick_ he could distinctly see a well-known figure seated at the writing-table, leaning forward on its crossed arms.

"Drunk!" said Philip Marsden to himself with a thrill of bitter contempt and turned away. The bearer would find the Colonel and put him decently to bed long before the girl was up. Poor Belle! The little platform where she had stood but the night before was faintly visible, bringing a recollection of her pale face and sad appeal. "It is father,"--the first words she had ever said to him; the very first!

He retraced his steps quickly, set the _chick_ aside, and entered the room. The lamp on the table was fast dying out, but its feeble flicker fell full on the Colonel's grey hair, and lit up the s.h.i.+ning gold lace on his mess-jacket. Silver, and gold, and scarlet,--a brilliant show of colour in the shabby, dim room. A curious smell in the air and a great stillness made Philip Marsden stop suddenly and call the sleeper by name. In the silence which followed he heard the ticking of a chronometer which lay close to him. He called again, not louder, but quicker, then with swift decision pa.s.sed his arm round the leaning figure and raised it from the table. The grey head fell back inertly on his breast, and the set, half-closed eyes looked up lifelessly into his.

"Dead," he heard himself say, "dead!"--dead, not drunk. As he stood there for an instant with the dead man's head finding a resting-place so close to his heart, the wan face looking up at him as if in a mute appeal, a flame of bitter regret for his own harsh judgment seemed to shrivel up all save pity. The great change had come, to end poor Belle's anxieties. And she? Ah! poor child, who was to tell her of it?

He lifted the head from his breast, laying it once more, as he had found it, on the crossed arms; then looked round the room rapidly. An empty bottle of chloral on the table accounted for the faint sickly smell he had noticed. Was it a mistake? If not, why? Perhaps there was a letter. Something at any rate lay under the nerveless hands, powerless now to defend their secret. Philip Marsden took the paper from them gently and turned up the expiring lamp till it flared smokily. The blotted writing was hard to read, yet easy to understand, for it told a tale too often written; a tale of debt, dishonour, remorse, despair. Ten thousand rupees borrowed from the safe, and an unsigned cheque for the amount, drawn on no one, but payable to the Government of India, lying beside the dead man in mute witness to the last desire for rest.i.tution in the poor stupefied brain. A pile of official letters were scattered on the floor as if they had fallen from the table. All save one were unopened, but that one contained a notification of Colonel Stuart's transfer. Major Marsden drew a chair to the table and deliberately sat down to think.

Something must be done, and that quickly, for already the merciless light of day was gaining on the darkness. "And there is nothing hid that shall not be made manifest;" the words somehow recurred to his memory bringing another pulse of pity for poor Belle. What was to be done? The answer came to him suddenly in a rush, as if it had all been settled before. Why had Fate sent him there with more than enough money to save the girl from shame? Money that was his to use as he chose, for he could repay it twenty times over ere nightfall. Why had Fate mixed the girl's life with his, despite his efforts to stand aloof? Why had she sent for him? Why,--why was he there? The dead man's keys lay on the table, the sum owed was clearly set down in black and white, the safe close at hand. What was there, save a personal loss he could well afford, to prevent silence? And he had promised help--

When the hastily-summoned doctor came in a few minutes later the bottle of chloral still lay on the table, but the blotted paper and the cheque were gone. The lamp had flared out, and a little heap of grey ashes on the hearth drifted apart as the doors and windows were flung wide open to let in all the light there was.

"He has been dead about two hours," said the doctor. "Over-dose of chloral, of course. I forbade it from the hospital, but he got it elsewhere."

They had laid the dead man on the floor, and the grey dawn falling on his face made it seem greyer still. The native servants huddled trembling at the door; the two Englishmen stood looking down upon the still figure.

"There is always the fear of an over-dose," said Philip Marsden slowly, "or of some rash mistake."