The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 37

Nehal Singh started slightly, and his glance wandered to the red face of the speaker with an expression that was akin to fear.

"An honest concern!" he repeated. "Do you mean that--that it is not honest?"

Mrs. Cary beamed with recovered equanimity.

"Good gracious! How could you suppose I should mean such a horrid thing, dear Prince! Of course everything to which you put your hand is hall-marked. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of investing my money in the Marut Company."

There was a silence. The Colonel drummed with his fingers on the table, watching the native sentry who pa.s.sed stolidly backward and forward in front of the closed windows. Mrs. Cary fanned herself and exchanged whispered comments with Mrs. Berry on the opposite side.

Beatrice remained motionless. From the beginning of the meeting she had once raised her eyes--on Nehal Singh's entry--and then it had been for no more than a second. That second had been enough. She had seen his face. She had seen--and it was not her imagination, but a real and bitter irony--that of all the people in the room she alone had been the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then--for her eyes had not lost their keenness--that the eighteen months in which they had scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the G.o.ddess of beauty and perfection; for him she was still the ideal, the woman of goodness and truth and purity. Her victory over him had been complete, eternal. She had betrayed him and retained him. Of all her triumphs over men and circ.u.mstances this was the most perfect. Yet she sat there, white and still, not lifting her eyes from the table, and seemingly unconscious of all that went on about her.

Presently a carriage drove up the avenue. They heard Travers' voice giving some orders, and a moment later he himself entered, followed by a Mr. Medway, his chief mining engineer. He closed the door and with a grave bow took his place at the table. He seemed indifferent to or unaware of the curious and somewhat anxious glances which were turned toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an unpleasant chill over every one of the little a.s.sembly. Even the Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking in his composed features.

"Colonel Carmichael and honorable share-holders in the Marut Diamond Company," he began, "you are no doubt wondering why I have called this private meeting. I do so because you are the chief partakers in the concern, and because, as my friends, I wish to offer you an explanation which I do not feel bound to offer to the other share-holders within and without Marut. This excuse does not hold good for you, Colonel Carmichael, and you must feel I am encroaching heavily on your valuable time. Nevertheless, I a.s.sure you that your presence will a.s.sist me considerably in my difficult task."

"I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything in my power," Colonel Carmichael responded, "but I fear my knowledge of intricate business details is not such as to make it of the slightest use to you."

"The business is not intricate," Travers went on. "Nor do I propose drawing out this meeting to any tiring length. The heat must be very trying for the ladies present, but my wish to keep what pa.s.ses between us, at any rate for the time being, entirely secret, makes it essential to sit in closed rooms. I will be as brief as possible. Two years ago the Marut Diamond Company first came into existence under the protection of our friend, Rajah Nehal Singh. For some time previous to this event it had been my great ambition to open out a diamond field in which, thanks to favorable reports, I sincerely believed. My position, however, and above all my lack of personal means, made the scheme an impossibility so far as I was concerned.

Chance brought me the pleasure and misfortune of making your acquaintance, Rajah. I say 'misfortune,' because, as events have turned, I can not but feel that my casual observations led you to enter into an enterprise before which another man, if I may say so, with more experience and less impulse, would have hesitated.

"Your generosity and enthusiasm brought my half-conceived plans into a reality almost before I had any clear idea as to whither we were all drifting. You will remember, Mrs. Cary, I did my best to dissuade you from any rash investment; and even there, as director of the company, I felt that I was not acting with entire loyalty to the man who had put me into that position. The responsibility of the whole matter rested heavily on my shoulders, and grew still heavier as the circle of share-holders without Marut increased. I felt that, should my first hopes prove unfounded, my friends and many others would suffer losses which they could ill afford to bear. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my painful duty to tell you that the dreaded collapse has come. Mr.

Medway, here, the company's chief engineer and mining expert, informed me yesterday that any continuation of the works was useless and a mere waste of the share-holders' money. I therefore beg to announce to you that the Marut Diamond Company Mine is definitely closed."

The Colonel clenched his teeth half-way through the first oath he had ever allowed himself in the presence of ladies. He was not an unusually egoistical man, but his first thought was one of unutterable grat.i.tude that in the moment of strong temptation his wife had held an obstinate hand on the purse-strings.

The first person to speak was Mrs. Cary. She leaned half-way across the table.

"And my money?" she said thickly and unsteadily. "Where's my money?

Where's my money? Tell me that!"

Travers shrugged his shoulders.

"I fear it has gone the way of mine and of the other share-holders',"

he said. "Nor can I hold out any hopes of its coming back. The expenses of the mine have been terribly heavy, the workmen have been extremely well paid--extremely well paid." There was a distinct note of reproach in his voice, though he looked at no one.

Mrs. Cary sat down in her seat. It was a pitiful and almost terrible sight to see her, all the florid, vulgar ostentation and sleek content dashed out of her, leaving her with pasty cheeks and horror-stricken, staring eyes to face the ruined future. Mrs. Berry burst into ever-ready tears.

"Oh!" she sobbed. "What will my husband say! I told him it was such a good thing--it isn't my fault. What will he say!"

The sharp, wailing tones broke through Mrs. Cary's momentary paralysis. She sat up and brought her fat clenched fist down with a bang upon the table.

"You!" she half screamed at the Rajah. "You--you black swindler--you thief--it's you who have done it--you who have ruined us all with your wicked schemes. You baited us with this clubhouse--you pretended you wanted to do us such a lot of good, didn't you? And all the time you meant to feather your own nest with diamonds and the Lord knows what.

Give us back our money, you heathen swindler! For you aren't a Christian! You pretended that, too, just as a blind--"

Her flow of frightful coa.r.s.e invectives came to an abrupt end. Colonel Carmichael, who knew now why his presence had been required, leaned forward and pushed her firmly down in her seat.

"For Heaven's sake, Mrs. Cary, hold your tongue!" he expostulated, in a rapid, emphatic undertone. "You don't know what you are saying. You are not in England. A little more of that sort of thing, and our lives aren't worth an hour's purchase."

"I don't care," she retorted, with all the headlong brutality of her origin. "It's true what I say! It's true!"

"It is true." The interruption came from the Rajah himself. He had risen and stood before them, very pale, but calm and composed, his eyes fixed with haggard resolution on the furious face of his accuser.

"It is true. I am a swindler. I have ruined you all. Why should you believe it was done unwittingly? Yet that is true also. I, like my poor friend here whom I used as my tool, believed that I was doing the best for you all. But I have ruined you. I have done worse than that--I have ruined my country, my people. You have friends who will help you in your distress, but who will help my people? I pulled them out of their miserable homes only to cast them into deeper misery. I have taken their pitiful savings, meaning, without the use of charity, to increase them tenfold. I have taken everything from them. I gave a hope, and have left them with a deeper despair. Not all my wealth--and not a stone, not a farthing piece shall be held back from your and their just claims upon me--will fill up the ruin of those I wished so well. It is true--I stand before you all a dishonored man."

There was a moment's petrified silence. Even Mrs. Cary's coa.r.s.e nature stood baffled before this pitiless, dignified self-accusal. Nor could the Colonel find a word to say. He had been ready--knowing the native character--to defend Mrs. Cary from the stroke of a revenging dagger.

His half-outstretched arm sank powerless before the stroke of these few words, spoken with a calm which thinly covered a chaos of remorse and broken-hearted grief.

"I have a question I should like to ask you, Mr. Travers."

There was a general uneasy start. Each shook off his brooding considerations and turned with surprise to this unexpected speaker. It was Beatrice, hitherto silent and apparently unmoved, who leaned across to Travers. He himself felt the blood rise to his face. In his absorbed state he had not noticed her presence, and now that he met her cold eyes a curious discomfort crept over him--a discomfort that was nearly fear.

"I will answer your question to the best of my ability," he said quietly.

"The Rajah has spoken of you as his tool, and I think from your tone that you think yourself aggrieved. In what way have you suffered? What is your share of the losses?"

"I have lost all I have."

"All you have, no doubt. But your wife is very rich, and I believe has grown richer within the last year. I am anxious to know if you intend to follow the Rajah's generous example and meet your liabilities with her fortune."

The Colonel, who had been staring vacantly at her, gave a start of recollection.

"Yes!" he exclaimed energetically. "The settlement and Lois' own money--what's become of it all? Has that gone, too?"

"Of course not." Travers' hand tightened instinctively upon the arm of his chair. "I should never have dreamed of touching what was my wife's personal property. Nor do I intend to do so now. I am no more than the manager of the company--I am not responsible for its liabilities. Miss Cary's suggestion is beside the mark, and I warn her, for her own advantage"--there was a somewhat unpleasant note of warning in his rough voice--"not to pursue her questions further."

Beatrice rose to her feet. She was calm and, save for the vivid color in her cheeks, betrayed at first little of the seething storm of indignation which rose gradually above the barriers of her self-control.

She did not look at the Rajah. She stared straight into Travers' face, and once she pointed at him.

"You have been good enough to threaten me," she said. "It would be best for you to know at once that your threats are quite useless.

There is nothing you can say about me which I am not ready to say myself--and there is nothing you can do which will prevent me from revealing the true facts of this case. You have feathered your nest, Mr. Travers. That is what you told me to do, and now I understand what you meant. You saw this ruin coming at the very time that you were encouraging every one to partake further of the company's future success. You honored me, as a sort of accomplice, with a private piece of advice. Thank G.o.d, I did not take it, for then I should have been your debtor.

"As it is, I owe you absolutely nothing--not even the wealthy husband you promised me. There is a bottom to my depths. And even if I did owe you something, I should not hesitate to speak. You can call me a traitor if you like--I don't care. I am that--and I have been far worse than that to a man who did not deserve it--and I have, anyhow, not much reputation to lose. Besides, you have stood by without a word and let an innocent man bear your burden, and for that alone you have no right to claim loyalty from another."

She turned for the first time to Nehal Singh, and met his gaze boldly and recklessly. "Do not stand there and call yourself a dishonored man!" she exclaimed with increasing force. "You are not dishonored. Do not call Mr. Travers your 'tool.' He is not your tool, and never has been. You are his tool,--his and mine!" She paused, catching her breath as she saw him wince. Then she went on: "Don't burden yourself with the consciences of us all, for we have not got any; and what has been done we have done knowingly and wilfully. Do you remember that evening when you found me in the temple? You thought it was--chance--or--or the hand of G.o.d. Why, Mr. Travers hired one of your old servants to slip me through by the secret path, and I had on my prettiest frock and my prettiest smile and my prettiest ways--as I told them all afterward at a dinner-party--pious goodness, with a relieving touch of the devil--just to tempt you out of your cloister and make you do what we wanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Do not call yourself a dishonored man!"]

"You followed like a lamb. It took five minutes to wheedle the club-house out of you--five minutes, I think you told me, Mr.

Travers?--and the other things went just as smoothly. Do you remember that ride we had together after Mr. Travers' dance? He had broached the subject of the mine, but the next day something or other seemed to have shaken your implicit belief in our integrity and general holiness. At any rate, you asked me for my advice--my honest advice. I gave it you. I told you to go ahead--that Mr. Travers was an angel of goodness and perfection. That was what he suggested I should say, in a note he had sent me an hour before. So you went ahead. You did the dirty work for him, and took his responsibility upon your shoulders.

You have ruined a few of us incidentally, but above all things you have ruined yourself and your people. Mr. Travers is unharmed. He has his wife's money."

She paused to gather her strength for a final effort. "So much for Mr.

Travers' and my partners.h.i.+p. I did my share of the work to s.h.i.+eld myself and my mother from a trouble which must now go its way. But after that, I played my own game. I did not want to lose you--even though I knew quite well that you cared for me, and that I should never marry you. Months before I had made up my mind to marry a man with a high position and money. It was just a game I was playing with you. Even when you forced things to a head, I kept it up. I pretended innocency and high motives--because I wanted to feel you at my ap.r.o.n-strings always. We all treated you more or less badly, but I was the worst. I fooled you--for--for--"

"For what?"

His voice burst from him, harsh and terrible as though it had been torn from the bottom of a tortured soul.

"For the fun of the thing."

Among the seven present there was no movement, no sound. Scarcely one seemed to breathe or be alive except the woman who stood there, her breast heaving, a twisted smile of wild self-mockery on her ashy lips.