Rose Tweedie's sneer against men's women lacked point, since it so
happened that Mrs. Boynton, in the opposite corner-room of the
pavilion, was, at the very moment, setting aside the temptation of
pleading a headache as an excuse for not appearing at dinner. And she
had more reason to seek quiet than the girl, though a new dress lay
ready on the bed; for Gwen loved to dazzle her world, and had spent
some of her leisure in instructing a native tailor how to run up a web
of coarse native muslin bought in the bazaar into a very decent
semblance of a fashionable garment. But the pleasure of the trick had
gone out of it. Something had happened. Something incredible, yet,
given the surroundings, natural enough. Something about which she must
make up her mind. It seemed scarcely a minute ago since she had passed
in swiftly to the solitude of her room in order to think. She, Gwen
Boynton, in native dress, with a white scared face and something in her
hand. Now she had to pass out of that room again as an Englishwoman,
and the transition left her oddly undecided. Indeed, as she paused for
a moment ere taking the plunge, with one hand on the embroidered
draperies doing duty as a door, it seemed almost as if she were
awaiting some command, some voice which would relieve her of
responsibility. Then she smiled and passed on to meet the surprised
admiration of her little world; for she had never looked better in her
life, and she knew it. The creamy muslin suited her in its careless
folds, her excitement showed itself becomingly in flushed cheeks and
bright eyes, and the chorus of wonder at her cleverness made her
gracious beyond compare. They had been away so long, she said, airily,
that she had had to amuse herself somehow, and were there not miles of
muslin to be bought in every bazaar, and many men to put stitches into
it? Any one could have done it. Rose, listening with a certain contempt
in her look, told herself that Gwen said truth; any one could have done
it who thought it worth while to take so much trouble for the sake of
personal effect; yet a regret rankled somewhere, mingling with the
resentment which came as Gwen called attention, somewhat garishly, to
more of her good works. Did they not admire the room? When Colonel
Tweedie had gone off to the Diwan she had consoled herself by pulling
about the furniture; and did not the Ayodhya pot look sweet on the
corner-stand she had improvised out of three bamboos, a brass platter,
and a yellow silk scarf?
'You should have packed it away in your box at once,' remarked Lewis
coolly. 'Keene may repent his good-nature, or some of us may steal it.
The colour is admirable.' As he spoke he walked over to the stand as if
for closer examination.
'Don't touch it, please,' cried Mrs. Boynton hastily. 'You--you will
spoil my draperies.'
'A thousand pities, when they are so artistic,' put in Colonel Tweedie,
glad of the opportunity. 'That is dinner, Mrs. Boynton. I've had it
laid in the small pavilion so as to keep this as your drawing-room.'
'Thanks! but everything is delightful; simply fascinating! In spite of
what Mr. Keene said this morning, I begin to wish I were a native.'
'For the sake of the satin?' asked Lewis, who was following close
behind with Rose. Gwen flashed back a brilliant look at him.
'No! not the satin. That game would not be worth the candle.'
Apart from the question of satin, Mrs. Boynton had excuse for admiring
the _mise en scene_. The violet sky, spangled with stars, seemed made
apparently but for one end--to hap and hold that terraced roof which
was clearly outlined against it by the light streaming from the
pavilions on to the fretted white marble balustrades. At the corners
were shadowy cupolas, and there in the arched summer-house at the
farther end, close upon the velvet darkness, was a table set with
silver and glass, fruits and flowers. At one side, so as to divide the
ladies equally, was Rose, in her habit, doing the duty of hostess with
a little air of gravity and preoccupation; at the other, Gwen, in her
soft clouds of muslin, keeping the men in a state of admiring
gratification through their eyes and their ears. They gathered round
her too, when, dinner being over, they adjourned to the balconies for
coffee and cigars. It was deliciously cool; a faint breeze stirred
Rose's hair as she sat a little apart from the others watching the
twinkling lights go up and down the stair which formed the only tie
between that world on the roof and that world in the courtyard below.
'We ought to go to bed early,' said Lewis, Coming to stand before her.
'You are half-asleep--no wonder, after last night!--and Gwen is what
superstitious Scotch folk call "fey." Then, if we have to join that
detestable hawking-party to-morrow morning, we shall have to get up at
five.'
'You needn't go unless you like,' she replied curtly. 'Mrs. Boynton has
cried off.'
'I am not Mrs. Boynton's personal assistant, Miss Tweedie; I happen to
be your father's--so duty calls.' As he spoke he seated himself on the
balustrade and leant forward, his elbows on his knees, to watch the
group on the other side of the arcade.
'If I didn't know that Gwen despises that sort of thing,' he went on in
dissatisfied tones, 'I should say she had rouged this evening. Her way
of showing fatigue, I presume; though, of course, neither of you have
the common-sense to confess you are tired. Women are all ascetics at
heart; at least they believe in the virtue of martyrdom. They have
different ways of showing it, that's all. Gwen spends her fatigue in
dress-making and conversation to please, and you, I'll go bail, haven't
even a proper bandage on that scorched arm----'
'Mr. Gordon!'
'Yes! I saw you imagined I was blind--suppose we say like to imagine
it; but I really had my eye-glass, Miss Tweedie. Besides, it doesn't
require microscopic sight to see some things.'
'What a profound remark!' interrupted Rose, to hide her pleased
surprise at his unusual consideration. At the same moment Gwen's gay
laugh rang out, soft yet clear. Either the sound or the speech annoyed
the hearer on the balustrade, for he frowned as he slipped his dangling
feet to the floor.
'As profound as I can make it this evening, for I'm not ashamed to
confess myself dog-tired. Couldn't tell a crow from a pigeon; so I
shall be off. Good-night, Miss Tweedie, I wish you would persuade Gwen
to go to bed. It is easier to give good advice than to take it.'
Rose remained looking at the twinkling lights, and wondering if Lewis
were really jealous of his cousin, till seeing the others go back to
the central summer-house she followed suit.
'Tired!' echoed Gwen sharply, in reply to her information that Lewis
Gordon had stolen away. 'Are we not all tired? I feel as if I had been
up since the beginning of time seeking for something I could not find.
My bed, perhaps. Good-night, Rose.'
They were an odd couple, as they bent to kiss each other in that
mirrored room, where the oddness was reflected again and again in the
myriad scraps of looking-glass on the walls. Each curved fragment
giving and taking an eternity of Gwen's and Rose's bending to kiss each
other.
'I am tired of it all, I will go to sleep;
When morning comes I will seek for something,
_Over hill and dale, through night and day, I must seek for
something_.'
The remembrance evoked by Gwen's chance words sent a little shiver
through the girl; and with it came a sudden pulse of sympathy for the
woman who, now that she saw her close, did indeed look haggard and
worn.
'No wonder you are tired,' she said gently. 'Even I feel as if I could
sleep for days.'
'But you are coming to hawk surely,' broke in George. 'Do, please! it
won't be any fun without you.'
'Not a bit,' assented Dan. 'Gordon ordered your horse, I know, and told
them to take you your tea at five punctually.'
'You must go, Rose,' put in Gwen with a shrug of her white shoulders.
'Diana _Chasseresse_ mustn't disappoint her votaries. I'm glad my habit
was burnt.'
She did not look it, and Rose, as she went off to her corner room
wondered if Gwen could be jealous of her. The idea was absurd, but
pleasing; and she fell asleep placidly over variations of the
possibility.
But just over the way with that dark mirrored room between them, Gwen
lay awake, with one hand thrust under the pillow where she could feel a
tiny paper parcel. Should she keep it, or should she not? Should she
say anything of the scene burnt in on her memory, or should she not?
She seemed to see it as a spectator, not as the only actor in it. To
see a woman in native dress in that room set round with eyes; the
Ayodhya pot in her hand, and in her tinsel-edged veil the jewels which
had fallen from its false bottom. Jewels which if sold would buy her
freedom, perhaps save her, and Dan too, from a great mistake. It was a
chance. A chance most likely unknown to any one in the wide world save
herself, for who would have knowingly sold a pot containing three huge
pearls and an emerald for ten rupees? Nor was she bound to give more to
the seller. Land was bought so, but if the mines were found afterwards,
that was the buyer's good luck, even if he had guessed. Facts like
these, accepted apparently by the honest and honourable, go far to give
such as Gwen immoral support. No one could possibly know; she herself
would not have known save for that chance slip, and the eyes made keen
and eager through fear of some slight injury to the treasure.
It was a chance of escape from the danger which had come home to her
sharply in the past twenty-four hours. The danger of yielding to her
own weakness about Dan made clear by his actions; the new danger,
suggested by his words, of her losing her hold on Lewis. Could the
latter really be attracted by Rose? The events of the evening gave
colour to the possibility. If so, there was no time to be lost. She
must be free; free to do as she chose. No one would know. Nobody
would dream of bribing one so powerless as she. And if the jewels had
been put there knowingly, it was only her risk. No one else was
responsible--Lewis had said so----
So she argued, coming round always to the same thought, till the first
glint of dawn brought sleep, as it so often does to weary eyes. Perhaps
in the thought that the sun will rise, the world go on, no matter what
we do, or think, or say.
She slept so soundly that all the bustle of the hawking party failed to
disturb her; and when that was over the long stretch of terraced roof
lay empty of all sound or sign of life, save for the green parrots
shrieking and swooping about the carven work. A pair of them had built
in a loophole, whence the young ones kept up a simmering, bubbling
noise, like a boiling tea-kettle; a comfortable homely sound out of
keeping with the bare beauty of stone, and sunlight, and hard blue sky.
Down in the courtyard below, two badge wearers in scarlet and gold
lounged on the stairs, barring the roof from intrusion, chatting to the
passers-by, and discussing the news which had just been brought in by
the camel which was crouching beside a pile of fodder in the centre of
the yard, while its owner stretched his limbs, cramped with riding all
night across the desert, in front of the cook-room. Halfway up the
stairs on the landing leading to the state-rooms, Mrs. Boynton's ayah
squatted, combining business with pleasure, by being within reach of a
call and her forbidden hookah, at one and the same time. A bundle of
letters lay beside her, intended as a peace-offering against the
possible smell of smoke.
The sun climbed up silently, shifting the shadows on the silent roof.
That was the only movement, until suddenly a figure in a white domino
peered through the _grille_ which barred the flight of steps leading to
the Diwan's tower. Then came the grate of a rusty key in a lock, and
the figure flitted, silently as the shadows, to the summer-house, and
paused in the mirror-room. Perhaps the transformation which Western
taste and Mrs. Boynton's clever fingers had wrought in its adornment,
was pleasing, perhaps the reverse. The _burka_, however, is of all
disguises the most complete, since it blots out form, colour,
expression, even movement. The figure showed indeed like a white
extinguisher in the centre of the room, until, with a swaying of ample
folds it glided over to the corner stand where the Ayodhya pot stood
out from Gwen's artistic drapery. Then something slid out, still
shrouded in white folds, from the extinguisher, raised the vase, shook
it slightly, replaced it, and slid back again in a horrible
invertebrate protoplasmic sort of movement, calculated to send a shiver
through a spectator. But there was none. The thing had the whole roof
to itself save for that fair-haired sleeper in the corner room who lay
with one hand clasping a little packet hidden under her pillow. Her
face was turned to the doorway in full view of those latticed eye-holes
belonging to the _burka_, which after a time came to look in on her
from the half-raised curtain, and let in with a shaft of sunshine, a
vista of blue skies and marble balustrades with two red and green
parrots pecking at each other. It may have been the light, more
probably the disturbing effect the dim consciousness of other eyes
fixed on our own has upon most people, which roused Gwen Boynton. But
she opened hers suddenly and started up in bed, her heart throbbing
violently, though the curtain had fallen and not a sound was to be
heard.
'Comin', mem sahiba, comin',' came in immediate answer to her
imperative call as the ayah, thrusting her hookah aside, snatched at
the letters, and shook what smoke she could from her voluminous
garments. A trifling delay, but enough to allow the thing up-stairs to
flit round the summerhouse again; even to pause a second at the
_grille_.
'It makes too much noise. I will leave it open,' it muttered as it
disappeared up the steps with the rusty key held in its formless clasp.
'Where were you?' asked Gwen, her heart still throbbing. 'And who was
that who looked in on me from the door? There was some one: I'm sure
there was some one.'
'Me, mem sahiba,' grinned the woman readily. 'Me, ayah. Look in several
time. Mem always neendi par; sota! sota! like baba.[2] Ayah waitin'
close to bring dak. Many letters for mem sahiba.'
Mrs. Boynton looked at her doubtfully. It was not the ayah whom she had
seen; of that she felt certain. On the other hand, if the woman really
had been sitting outside it was more than probable the whole thing was
a dream. No harm had come of it, anyhow; so five minutes after she was
dividing her attention between early tea and a long epistle from an
absent admirer. Gwen's victims were always excellent correspondents,
perhaps because of that gracious indifference in which lay her great
charm, since a letter had quite as good a chance as a man of whiling
away her kindly, sympathetic leisure.
But when the ayah was brushing at the pretty hair Gwen's mind reverted
to the question which had kept her awake. As so often happens--the
learned say by unconscious cerebration--it appeared to have settled
itself. Independently of Dan, or any secondary matter of that sort,
money would be useful. Most useful, seeing she had just lost the best
part of her wardrobe and had a season at Simla in immediate prospect.
Now she came to think of it, Hodinuggur owed her some reparation for
the loss it had inflicted upon her. Besides, it would be wiser to wait
and see if the presence of jewels in the pot were suspected by any one
or not. If the latter, it would clearly be flying in the face of a good
Providence to mention her discovery. So, by the time she was ready to
face her world, that world seemed quite simple and easy to face.
Chandni thought the same thing as she sat at the Diwan's feet in the
big balconied room of the tower overlooking the canal, telling him in
whispers of the success of her plan so far. The jewels were no longer
in the pot. The mem must have them, for, as she had found out through a
khitmutgar, the mem had been alone during many hours, and had been
making a mess in the room with trumpery platters and pots.
'She may send it back yet,' said the Diwan cautiously. 'Lo! I am old,
and this I have learnt through long years: Trust not a woman not to
change her mind till she be dead.'
The courtesan laughed. ''Tis as well for some men she is born so,
father. But a night's thought is as death to a woman. Life is too short
to give more to such things. And that night is over without a sign.
Give her yet one more, an thou wilt; after that, say that Chandni hath
dug the channel. 'Twill be thy task to turn the water into it.