Mrs. Rochfort, a clever and practical woman, promptly took matters into
her own hands; sent Parsons home--lest peradventure she might learn
too much--and then, with her husband and adopted daughter, started
for Ootacamund. Within a short time, Mallender also departed on an
active, "personally conducted" search. He was anxious to make up for
four weeks', nay four months' idleness; instigated by information
from Francis, he put his shoulder stoutly to the wheel, and set out
for Vellore, where he believed he had a clue, and pursued and ran to
earth an elderly man, who proved to be merely a bankrupt horse-dealer.
From Vellore, it was but a short journey to Bangalore, from Bangalore,
he followed various wills-o'-the-wisp, to Mysore, Mercara, and
Trichinopoly.
Delicacy forbids one to linger on the intrusions into family affairs
effected by Mallender; the skeletons he dragged from their cupboards,
the black sheep he disturbed; the fugitives hiding from their
creditors, "or their wives." Over these unpleasant successes, it is
permitted to draw a veil. Failure merely roused him to still more
active exertions; week after week passed and still Mallender prosecuted
the quest, with unabated zeal; by rail or tonga, bullock-cart, or on
horseback, accompanied by the camera, and Anthony--his ever sympathetic
adviser, adjutant, and confidant--he travelled wide and far.
September found him once more in Panjeverram, foiled, but still
hopeful. The wayfarer's face was haggard, and weather-beaten, he had
experienced several "go's" of fever, his clothes were considerably the
worse for wear, his smart appearance had become eclipsed by sun, dust,
privation, and anxiety. After a couple of days' rest at Panjeverram,
he presented himself at Shumilal's office, and was received by the
principal with upraised hands, and greeted as a long-lost friend!
"The very young gentleman we wanted, where have you been?" enquired
Shumilal, eyeing him critically, and noting his altered looks.
"Only doing a little on my own, up in Mysore, and Coorg."
"No results?"
"None so far,--but I've discovered a lot of things, that might be
useful to other people."
"Ah, no doubt," agreed Shumilal with a look of grim amusement. Then
leaning forward confidentially, "I think we have got him--at last!"
"Um, yes--I'll believe it, when I see him."
"You shall see him this time, I guarantee," declared the other with
dignified confidence. "I will send your plan of action to Panjeverram,
where you are staying at present."
"But why not give it to me now?"
"Oh, there are wheels within wheels," replied the other nodding his
head, and looking wise, and inscrutable.
"Precious slow ones!" exclaimed the visitor. "Well, mind I shall expect
to hear from you, in not later than a week!"
"I promise for a fortnight, on my honour," said Shumilal; he rose as
he spoke, and bowed his client out of the room, and down the stairs.
Apparently his time was invaluable. Was his honour of the same quality?
Although to Mallender, Madras had once seemed to be the city of
friends, he now felt lonely, and depressed, as he walked slowly along
Pophams Broadway. The regiment he had known had been moved up country,
and replaced by another from Singapore. He avoided the Club, and the
polo ground--in a month the Hill people would descend in force. Somehow
he experienced an instinctive reluctance in presenting himself in a
circle, where once he had been welcomed with open arms, as a relative
of the Tallboys--since the Tallboys had now cast him off! Fortunately
he had no idea of, or any means of hearing, the whispers respecting him
that Mrs. Fiske poured into the ears of her confidantes. To these, her
information would be imparted after this fashion:
"_I_ always thought there was something fishy about young Mallender;
his sudden arrival was rather queer to start with, and I know for a
fact, he had an intrigue with that wretched Ada Sim, and _paid_ to get
her out of the country! I heard this from Mrs. Wylie, whose husband was
Mallender's confidant; and then he got into another mysterious scrape,
which must have been pretty _bad_, as the Tallboys turned him out of
their hotel the very day they arrived in Coonoor. A friend of mine met
him flying for the train with all his baggage, and his two servants,
and Nancy Brander chasing him like a mad woman! I'm told he has been
seen knocking about Madras, looking dreadfully seedy and shabby--serves
him right. _I_ took his measure. _I_ knew he was an upstart, and
impostor, sponging on the Tallboys!"
Luckily Mallender did not hear this version of his character; but he
had an intuition that there was something hostile in the social air,
and held himself in solitude, and retirement.
The rainy season still continued, though the violence of the monsoon
had abated; everything in the shape of vegetation was now so refreshed
and resuscitated, that one might almost imagine they could see the
plants sprouting, hear the sap running, and the leaves unfolding in the
tropical surroundings of Panjeverram. The great banyans had renewed
their youth; ferns, arums, bamboos, plantains, glistened and dripped
and grew; the sun-baked yellow plains were now a vivid green, dotted
with lean appreciative herds, yet the actual atmosphere of the place
was steamy, and enervating. Flying ants, snakes, and other crawling
objects, were all, in their several ways, obtrusively active,--and the
land brought forth frogs!
As the two Smith boys were at college, and only came home for
week-ends, Mallender, and Mrs. Dixon, had the house more or less to
themselves. In the mornings, he exercised the horses, or waded after
teal and snipe in the marshy land that lay within a couple of miles
to the west; after dinner, he and Mrs. Dixon foregathered in the den;
she sewed and mended, whilst he smoked, or read. Occasionally he
read aloud interesting local events, or what his companion specially
enjoyed--accidents and tragedies. She was a fluent talker, and thus
this couple so curiously thrown together, wiled away the moist sultry
evenings.
Mallender rather enjoyed listening to Mrs. Dixon's long-drawn tales;
they diverted a somewhat embittered mind from its own affairs. He
learnt, that she had married at sixteen a sergeant in her father's
regiment, "the Roifles," and gone home with him to the depôt then.
There he had ill-treated her, led her a miserable life, and ultimately
drank himself to death. Subsequently--and as is so usual in similar
cases--she had again become the wife of a sergeant, and once more a
sergeant in "the Roifles," a good man, who had made her very happy;
but they had buried all their children; one in Bellary and three in
Kamptee. Then her husband fell ill, and was sent to Madras Hospital,
to be under special doctors,--and there he died, leaving her all his
savings. Soon after she became a widow, every single penny was lost
in the failure of a House or Bank, and she was almost destitute; the
regiment was good to her, but of course she had to turn to and work,
so she put a humble-like advertisement in the paper, and Major Smith
engaged her at once; it was a few weeks after Mrs. Smith died, and Mota
was an infant.
"Oh, and hadn't I work to rear her!" she exclaimed, "among these divils
of milkmen--such milk for a baby, just blue with water. I had the cow
milked afore me, so there could be no deceit, and still and all, her
milk was like skim; one day I came round the corner unexpected, and
there was the chap, after me seeing him milk, and him going to the
butler with the can--hadn't he the great turban off his head--yards of
it--soaking and heavy with water, and wasn't he squeezing it into the
milk for the dear life? See now, ye never could be up to them blacks!
After that, we had our fine Nellore cow, and I milked her with my own
two hands, till the child had cut her teeth."
"I believe you have been here nearly nine years," said Mallender.
"I have so, and it's me own fault, that I'm not married out of it. Some
of the fellows suspicion I have big savings--but I'll not stir a toe
out of the house till I'm no longer wanted, and at fifty-five year
of age, if I were to marry again, I'd be a nice old fool! Anyway, my
savings is for the boys."
"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Dixon."
"Ye see, I'm fond of them, especially Pedro; there's a real gentleman
for ye, and so loving; if you was to put your eyes on sticks, that
fellow could not tell a lie! I'm wishful, I had some eddication for the
children's sakes; I can talk Tamil and Telagu, but I only went to the
regimental school, and was never to say smart. Sewing and housekeeping,
and keeping order and decency, is just all I'm good for."
"I think it's pretty well," observed her companion.
"I taught Mota her reading, writing and sewing, but latterly we had
a young woman from Madras three days a week, with a high character
as governess; she was just a streel of a young thing, and found the
child mighty wild, and could make no hand of her, unless I sat with
them at the lessons. Mota is terribly imparious for a little girl of
nine, and that has never seen no company. Now and then, we do go in to
Madras for shopping, and to the band, and every couple of Sundays, we
make out church at Monaghary, but the Major he won't have no visitors
whatever; not even children, much less the parson. Faix, it's a queer
sort of life, is not it?" and she looked across at her companion for
confirmation; but he suffered the pause to lapse without comment.
"Well," she added--drawing a long sigh, "every cripple has his own way
of walking!--and it's not for the likes of _me_, to interfere."
Mallender nodded, then he said: "Of course not--it's a--personal
affair."
"'Tis so," she agreed, "and the Major made a bargain wid me the day I
engaged, and a bargain is a bargain! and so though it goes to me heart,
I keep a shut door, and a closed mouth. Anyhow Society don't trouble
Panjeverram; it's the leavings of everywhere; just an overgrown,
forgotten old place, and cram full of snakes, and ghosts."
"Ghosts! Surely you don't believe in that sort of rot, Mrs. Dixon?"
"Do you, sir?"
"Certainly not, though they say I have a ghost of my own at home."
"Then Captain Mallender, dear, if it's the last word I'll spake--_I've
seen one_!"
"You don't mean that," and he laughed incredulously, "let me hear all
about it!"
"Well now, I declare, it's the pure truth I'm going to tell ye,"
said Mrs. Dixon laying down her work, "when I was a girlie of about
fifteen, the Roifles was lying in Madras Fort, and my father was a
Quarter-master-Sergeant. Our quarters were fine and big, and near the
North Gate; somehow or other, I never felt very easy in our living
room; for people--that is the blacks--give out it was haunted by a
woman who had hanged herself from the punkah, years and years before."
"Did she? What a foolish thing to do."
"That's as it may be, we don't know the ins and outs! Well, one morning
very early, I got up for a drink of water, and as I went past the room,
by the verandah, it had a strange sort of appearance, and as far as
I could make out, in the dim light,--there was _someone_ in it. And
by me faith there was! I thought my heart would lepp out of me mouth,
when I saw a woman hanging from the punkah, which was moving slowly
backwards and forwards, and backwards and forwards. Her head was all
to one side, lying on her shoulder, her arms hung down stiff like, and
her dress was going with a sort of 'swish, swish,' that would make
your skin creep. For a while, I stood there just paralysed, and then I
screeched to me father and mother; and bedad, and I'll tell ye no lie,
they saw her too. With the first squint of dawn she faded away, and
there was nothing whatever there, but the barrack furniture, and the
great heavy old punkah! I tell ye we moved off pretty smartly, though
they were fine airy rooms, and I'll lay me life she is hanging there in
Sergeants' Quarters A Block to this day."
"No, no, Mrs. Dixon," said her companion, "that _would_ be hard lines
on the poor creature! It was just a joke, that someone played on you."
"Is it a joke?" she repeated shrilly. "Didn't I see her face, and by my
faith, I'll never forget it.--I see you don't believe; there does be
people that cannot see shapes, and lucky for them! There is something
here too," she added triumphantly.
"What, in this house?" said Mallender, sitting erect.
"So the servants say. I've not come across it, but there does be
strange stories about bad folk, that lived in the bungalow long long
ago. Whatever it is, it's in your room."
"Oh, I don't mind, as long as it's not a cobra. I'd like to meet a
ghost, and question it!"
"Now, Captain Mallender dear, _don't_ talk that way," she urged, once
more laying down her work, and surveying him gravely--"it brings ill
luck; ill luck, and no mistake."
"Can't bring me much more than I've had!" he answered bitterly.
"Oh, hould yer tongue for goodness' sake!" she protested with a scared
expression; then after a short silence, added:
"I heard from the Major to-day, they will soon be moving. He says Mota
is looking splendid, and making a terrible stir at children's parties,
and Mrs. Rochfort wrapped up in her, as if she was a thousand times
her own. I can't rightly get my tongue round _Rochfort_, him living
here so long as Major Smith--it's a bit confusing, but I expect he
was ashamed of his first marriage, and kep' it a secret." She looked
interrogatively at Mallender, who merely nodded his head; _he_ was not
going to let Rochfort down.
"He says, he is writing to you to-morrow, and so is Mota, and now
Captain," rising and folding up her mending, "there is ten o'clock
striking, and I'll wish you good luck and a good night," and she went
away.
But Mallender did not move for another hour, he was reading Orme's
"History of India," and deeply interested. The night was warm and
muggy after rain; the moon shone fitfully above the black banyan trees,
as he lay with his door to the verandah wide open, listening to the
night's mysterious sounds; the uncertain dripping from the mango trees,
the chaunting of frogs, and the far, far-away cry of a jackal. For a
long time he remained awake, worried by his own conflicting thoughts.
Finally he decided, that if his next venture failed, he must abandon
his search,--driven to the extremity by a process of exhaustion. He
would wait till after Christmas, in order to put in a full twelve
months, and then go home,--defeated. He had his house to see to, a
home, which for all he knew to the contrary, he held on sufferance. He
must find some employment, that would bring him in two or three hundred
a year. Oh, if he was only still in the service!--yes, but how to live
on his pay? and the problematical rent of Mallender!
At last sleep claimed him. He seemed to have slept for a long time, but
it was really not more than a couple of hours, when he suddenly awoke
with the conviction that there was someone creeping stealthily about
the room. His heart gave a violent lurch--was this the ghost, come to
answer his challenge?
Whatever it was, it was disagreeably near, for he could distinctly hear
its hurried breathing.
"Who's there?--what do you want?" he demanded in a sharp "on parade"
tone of voice. No answer, so he hastily put out his hand to reach the
matches, overset a small lamp, and was immediately rewarded by an
atrocious odour of kerosene oil. Helpless, he stared steadily into the
gloom; the moon had sunk, and the room was dark as pitch. Gradually
by degrees, he discerned, that the outline of the door, was a shade
lighter, and it seemed to him, as he gazed, that a shadow flitted
through and melted away into the surrounding gloom. He had no light,
and no slippers--otherwise, he would have risked the fatal chance of a
cobra under foot, and pursued the intruder.
As he sat erect, staring hard, a faint glimmer of dawn became apparent;
and at this moment, a cock crew!--evidently a young and inexperienced
bird, whose note was weak and discordant.
"So it _was_ the ghost!" muttered Mallender. "He might have given me
a tip," and he threw himself back on the pillows, and was soon fast
asleep.