Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 20

He came across to her, taking her hands in his. "That's not consistent, Belle; you're always for having the truth. I do mean it.

What harm would you have done to anybody by toning down what you saw?

For the matter of that, what harm have I done to any one by investing money in indigo? None, absolutely none! However, it is no use talking about it; we should never agree; people seldom do on these points. But you ought to know by this time that I never mean to hurt your feelings in any way. So which is it to be,--dignity or impudence?"

And Belle, as he kissed her, felt helpless. It was like being smothered in a feather bed, all softness and suffocation.

"Well, I'm waiting. Am I not a model husband? Now don't begin to cry when it's all over; perhaps it is best as it is, for I shall have to build you a house, Belle. Think of that; a house of your very own! And look here! you can go in for doing good to your heart's content when you are no longer the wife of an official. Cheer up! There's a good time coming, and you have to decide if it's to come now, or next spring."

"How can you ask?" she said, breaking from him hurriedly, to walk up and down the room, twisting her fingers nervously. "We must go,--go at once."

"Very well. It's a little hasty; but remember it's your doing, not mine; and for goodness' sake, you poor, little, conscience-stricken soul, don't cry at getting your own way."

CHAPTER XVII.

John Raby's announcement that he was about to leave the service fell like a thunderbolt on his old friend Shunker Das, for that astute gentleman had sketched out a very different programme in which the _shaitan sahib_ was to figure as chief actor. Indeed, when the latter had first come nibbling round the indigo prize, Shunker had, as it were, asked him to dine off it, chuckling in his sleeve the while at the idea of getting his enemy into the toils. But then he knew nothing of the thirty thousand pounds, which the young civilian rightly considered a sufficient insurance against any punishment for breaking the rules of his covenant. So all the Lala's deft hounding of the native papers on the track of "disgraceful corruption and disregard of law on the part of Mr. John Raby of the Civil Service" had simply resulted in bringing a personal supervision, destructive of account-cooking, into the business.

He went down to Saudaghur shortly after the Rabys, and nearly had a fit over the calm decision with which the young Englishman took possession of the field. New machines were being imported, new vats built, new contracts made with growers throughout a large stretch of the district. On all sides Shunker found himself forestalled, outpaced, left in the cold. He would dearly have liked to break absolutely with this shrewd, unmerciful partner; yet to indulge this desire meant loss, for the Lala, despite his hatred of the work, was not blind to John Raby's supreme capability for making the business pay. He was torn asunder by rage at having been outwitted, and admiration for the wit which had effected the task. He came home one day to the square block of a house he owned on the outskirts of Saudaghur village, cursing freely, and longing for some covert means of relieving his spite. The recipient of his curses took them with stolid indifference. She was a dark-browed, deep-chested lump of a woman, engaged in cooking the Lala's dinner in a dutiful, conscientious sort of way, while she kept one eye on a solid two-year-old boy who was busy over a pumpkin rind. This was Kirpo, the absent Ram Lal's wife, who had been sent to occupy this empty house of the Lala's for several reasons. Chiefly because it was out of the way of scandal, and it had pleased Shunker to combine pleasure with the business of supporting her during her husband's imprisonment; wherefore, is one of those problems of human perversity best left alone. Kirpo herself had merely adopted the surest way of securing comfort and a pair of gold bangles, during this unpleasing interlude, and in her heart was longing to return to her rightful owner; but not without the bangles. There was, however, considerable divergence of opinion between her and the Lala on this point, resulting, on the one side, in her refusal to retire discreetly before the off chance of any remission of her husband's sentence which might induce a premature appearance; and, on the other, in Shunker's half alarmed desire to let her risk her nose by discovery. Neither of them being altogether in earnest, and each anxiously awaiting symptoms of capitulation in the other.

"I don't care for your words, Lala-_ji_," she retorted in answer to his abuse. "We women have to eat curses, aye! and blows too; but we get our own way for all that. I mean to have the bangles, so the sooner you unstomach them the better." Her black brows met in determination as Shunker consigned her and all her female ancestors to unspeakable torments. "If you say much more I'll have the evil eye cast on that sickly Nuttu of yours. Mai-Bishen does it. You take seven hairs--"

"Be silent, she-devil!" shouted the Lala turning green. "What ails you to give the mind freedom on such things? Lo! I have been good to you, Kirpo, and the boy there,--would mine were like him!"

Kirpo caught the child in her arms, covering him with kisses as she held him to her broad brown breast. "Thine! Pooh! thou art a poor body and a poor spirit, Shunker. Afraid for all thy big belly; afraid of Raby-_sahib!_ Look you, I will go to him: nay, I will go to his _mem_, who loves to see the black women, and she will make you give me the bangles."

Now Shunker's evil disposition partook of the nature of an am[oe]ba.

That is to say, no sooner did a suggestion of food dawn upon it, than straightway the undefined ma.s.s of spite shot out a new limb in that direction. Kirpo's words had this effect upon him. After all why should she not go to see the _mem?_ How angry the _shaitan_ would be if he knew that his, Shunker's mistress, had had an interview with the stuck-up English girl. What business, too, had she to bring her husband money when her father was bankrupt? Rare sport indeed to chuckle over when Raby put on his airs. "By the holy water of Gunga!"

he cried, "thou shalt go, Kirpo, as my wife. No one will know. Silks and satins, Kirpo, and sheets held up for thee to scuttle through so that none may see! Aha! And I have to take off my shoes at the door, curse him!" He lay back and chuckled at the bare idea of the petty, concealed insult of which no one but himself would know.

Kirpo looked at him in contemptuous dislike. "If I was a bad woman like thy friends in the bazaar I would not go, for they say she is easy to deceive and kind; but I am not bad. It is you who are bad.

So I will go; but with the bangles, and with the boy too, in a _khim-khab_ (cloth of gold) coat. 'Twill be as thy son. Lala-_ji_, remember, so thou wouldst not have him look a beggar."

Her shrill laughter rang through the empty house, making an old woman glance upwards from the lower court. "Kirpo should go home," muttered the hag, "or she will lose her nose like Dhundei when they let her husband out of gaol by mistake. A grand mistake for poor Dhunnu! oho!

oho!"

"Kirpo Devi," returned the Lala, with a grin of concentrated wickedness. "Thou shalt have the bangles, and then thou shall go see the _mem_ first, and to d.a.m.nation after. Mark my words, 'tis a true saying." For another suggestion of evil had sprung into vision, and he already had a feeler out to seize it.

Two days later he sat on the same bed grinning over his own cleverness, yet for all that disconcerted. Kirpo had fled, with her boy and her bangles. That he had expected, but he was hardly prepared to find a clean sweep of all his bra.s.s cooking-pots into the bargain.

He cursed a little, but on the whole felt satisfied, since his spite against Belle Raby had been gratified and Kirpo got rid of, at the price of a pair of deftly lacquered bra.s.s bangles. He grinned still more wickedly at the thought of the latter's face when she found out the trick.

As he sat smoking his pipe a man looked in at the door. A curiously evasive, downcast figure in garments so rumpled as to suggest having been tied up in tight bundles for months; as indeed they had been, duly ticketed and put away in the store-rooms of the gaol.

"Holy Krishna!" muttered the Lala, while drops of sweat at the thought of the narrow escape oozed to his forehead, "'tis Ramu himself."

And Ramu it was, scowling and suspicious. "Where's my house?" he asked after the curtest of greetings.

Unfortunately for the truth Shunker Das had answered this question in antic.i.p.ation many times. So he was quite prepared. "Thy house, oh Ramu? If she be not at home, G.o.d knoweth whither she hath gone. I sent her here, for safety, seeing that women are uncertain even when ill-looking; but she hath left this security without my consent."

His hearer's face darkened still more deeply as he looked about him in a dissatisfied way. "I went straight to Faizapore; they said she was here." He did not add that he had purposely refrained from announcing his remission (for good conduct) in order to see the state of affairs for himself.

Shunker meanwhile was mentally offering a cheap but showy oblation to his pet deity for having suggested the abstraction of the bra.s.s pots to Kirpo. "I say nothing, Ramu," he replied unctuously; "but this I know, that having placed her here virtuously with an old mother, who is even now engaged in work below, she hath fled, nor stayed her hand from taking things that are not hers. See, I am here without food even, driven to eat it from the bazaar, by reason of her wickedness; but I will call, and the old mother will fetch some; thou must be hungry. Hadst thou sent word, Ramu, the faithful servant should have had a feast from the faithful master."

Ramu and he looked at each other steadily for a moment, like two dogs uncertain whether to growl or to be friends.

"Fret not because of one woman, Ramu," added his master peacefully.

"Hadst thou sent word, she would have been at home doubtless. She is no worse than others."

"She shall be worse by a nose," retorted his hearer viciously. Whereat the Lala laughed.

He sat talking to his old henchman till late on into the night, during the course of his conversation following so many trails of that serpent, his own evil imaginings, that before Ramu, full of fresh meats and wines, had fallen asleep, Shunker Das had almost persuaded himself, as well as the husband, that Kirpo's disappearance had something to do with gold bangles and a series of visits to the _shaitan sahib_ in the rest-house, where, until their own was finished, the Rabys were living.

This scandalous suggestion found, to Ramu's mind, a certain corroboration next day; for on his way to the station in order to return to Faizapore, he came full tilt on his wife, also hurrying to catch the train. The gold bangles on her wrists, and the fact of her having remained in Saudaghur after leaving the Lala's house, pointed to mischief. He flew at her like a mad dog, too angry even to listen.

Now the station of Saudaghur was a good two miles from the town, and the road a lonely one; so that the enraged husband had no interruptions, and finally marched on to his destination, leaving his wife, half dead, behind a bush; a brutal, but not uncommon occurrence in a land where animal jealousy is the only cause of women's importance. That evening John Raby, riding back from a distant village in the dusk, was nearly thrown at the rest-house gates by a sudden swerve of his horse.

"_Dohai! Dohai! Dohai!_" The traditional appeal for justice rose to high heaven as a female figure started from the shadow, and clutched his bridle. It was Kirpo, with a b.l.o.o.d.y veil drawn close about her face.

The young man swore, not unnaturally. "Well, what's the matter?" he cried angrily; past experience teaching him the hopelessness of escaping without some show of attention. "I'm not a magistrate any longer, thank G.o.d! Go to the police, my good woman. Oh!" he continued, in contemptuous comprehension, as the woman, clutching fiercely with both hands, let go her veil, which falling aside, showed a noseless face; "'tis your own fault, no doubt."

"The Lala! the Lala!" shrieked Kirpo. "'Tis his doing."

"Shunker Das?" asked John Raby, reining up his horse in sudden interest.

"Yes, Shunker Das! He gave me the gold bangles for going to see your _mem_ and pretending to be his wife. He did it. The ill-begotten son of a hag, the vile offspring of a she-devil!"

So, with sobs and curses, she poured the whole tale of her wrong into the young man's ear. He listened to it with wonderful patience. "All you want, I suppose, is to punish your husband?" he asked, when she paused for breath.

"No!" almost yelled the woman. "The Lala! the Lala! I could choke him on his own flesh."

John Raby laughed. These half savages had certainly most expressive methods of speech, a pity their actions were not as forcible. "Wait here," he said quietly. "I'll send you out a note for the native magistrate; but mind! no word of your visit to my wife. I'm not going to have that all over the place."

Kirpo squatted down at the gate-post, wrapping the b.l.o.o.d.y veil round her once more; a habit she would have to grow into with the years.

Not a stone's throw from this ghastly figure, in the large bare sitting-room of the rest-house, which she had decorated to the best of her ability with Indian draperies disposed after the fas.h.i.+on of the West, sat Belle in a low wicker chair. A tea-table bright with silver and china awaited the master's return, while a pile of music scattered on the open piano showed her recent occupation. "There you are at last, John!" she said. "Cold isn't it?--quite Christmas weather; but your tea is ready."

"And what has my wife been doing with herself all day?" he asked, with the complacent affection which invariably sprang up at the sight of his own home comfort.

"Oh, I? Working, and reading, and practising as usual. There's a very interesting article on the morality of the Vedas in the _Nineteenth Century_. It seems wonderfully pure."

"A little more sugar, if you please, and one of those cakes with the chocolate, dear," was the reply, given with a stretching of the limbs into the curves of a cus.h.i.+oned chair. "Do you know, Belle, India is a most delightful country. If Blanche Amory had lived here she would not have had to say, '_Il me faut des emotions_.' They sit at the gate, so to speak, and the contrasts give such a zest to life. You, with that white gown and all the accessories (as the studio-slang has it) are like _pate de foie_ after the black bread of the Spartans. If you have done your tea, go to the piano, there's a dear girl, and play me a valse; _Reves d'Amour_ for choice; that will put the truffles to the _pate_."

Kirpo squatting at the gate, waiting for vengeance, heard the gay notes. "What a noise!" she said to herself; "no beginning or end, just like a jackal's cry. I wish he would send the letter."

It came at last; and Kirpo, for one, always believed that to it she owed the fact that Ramu was caught, tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for a whole year; for as she used to say, in telling the tale to her cronies, "I hadn't a cowrie or an ornament left, so it would have been no use complaining to the police."

The Lala, too, impressed a like belief on the indignant Ramu. "'Tis true enough," he said, "that it is tyranny to deny a man his right to teach his wife caution; but there!--she went straight to Raby _sahib_, and now you are in for a whole year without a friend to stand treat, my poor Ramu."

Ram Lal's teeth chattered at the prospect of desertion. "But you will stand by me still, master?" he asked piteously.