Part 11 (1/2)
It was evident that the spinster was held in reverent awe of her employer, for she guarded a judicious silence, as with a formal bow she at last left the table at the graciously permitting nod of Hugh Johnstone. There was a cold and brooding restraint, which had seemed to cast a chill even over the sultry Indian midday, but Justine's smile was bright and winning as she faintly acknowledged with a blus.h.i.+ng cheek Major Hawke's gallantry as he sprang up and opened the door for the retiring lady. ”She will come, she will come,” gayly throbbed the Major's happy heart.
Alan Hawke was now thoroughly on his guard. He had never lifted an eyebrow at the mention of Miss Johnstone. He had dropped Justine Delande like a plummet into the lake of forgetfulness, and watched Hugh Johnstone's listless trifling with the dainties of the superb collation.
The raw-boned old Scotsman leaned heavily back in his chair.
His bony hands were thin and claw-like, his bushy white beard and eyebrows gave him a ”service” aspect, while his cold blue eye gleamed out pale and menacing as the Pole star on wintry arctic seas. His broad chest was sunken, his tall form was bent, and a visible air of dejection and unrest had replaced the st.u.r.dy vigor of his early manhood. He was sipping a gla.s.s of pale ale in silence when Hawke neatly applied the lance once more. ”It must be a great change for you to leave India, Johnstone, but you need rest, and a general shaking up. You have a good deal to leave here. I suppose your nephew--”
”He's a good lad, but a stranger to me, Hawke,” broke in the host. ”The fact is, I am as yet undecided. I go home for my daughter's sake; it's no place for her out here,” he sternly said. ”You know what Indian life is?”
Hawke bowed, and mutely cried, ”Peccavi.” He had been a part of it. ”I'm waiting for the action of the Government. This Baronetcy. I must talk with you about it. I might have had the Star of India. You see, it's an empty honor. And I hate to break away for good, after all. Do you know anything from Anstruther? He was up here, you know.”
”I have him now!” secretly exulted Hawke, as he said gravely, ”You know what duty is, I cannot speak as yet, but you can depend on me as soon as my honor will permit--”
”Yes, yes, I know,” said Hugh Johnstone, with a sigh, rising from the table. ”You must make yourself at home here. In fact, I am thinking of sending my daughter back to Europe. Douglas Fraser can have them well bestowed; that is, if I have to remain and fight out this Baronetcy affair, then I could put you up here.” Alan Hawke bowed his thanks.
They had wandered back to the reception-room. With an affected surprise the Major consulted his watch. ”By Jove! I've got a heavy official mail to prepare, and I'm to dine to-day with Harry Hardwicke, of the Engineers. General Willoughby wants a private conference with me, and Hardwicke is the only confidential man he has. He gets his Majority soon, and Willoughby will lose him on promotion. A fine fellow and a rising man.”
”See here, Hawke! Come in to-morrow and dine with me at seven. I want to have a long talk with you,” said the uneasy host.
”You may absolutely depend on me, Sir Hugh,” heartily answered the visitor, with a fine forgetfulness as to the t.i.tle. When he rode away, Major Hawke caught sight of a womanly figure at a window above him, watching his retreat in due state, and there was the flutter of a handkerchief as his carriage drove around the oval. ”I wonder if Ram Lal knows about the jewels. I must buy him out and out, or make Berthe Louison do it unconsciously for me,” so mused the victorious renegade.
”He is afraid of me! Now to dispatch Ram Lal to Allahabad. I must only see Berthe Louison, at night, in her own bungalow, for my shy old bird would take the alarm were we seen together. What the devil is her game?
I know mine, and I swear that I will soon know hers. I have him guessing now. I must hunt up Hardwicke and call on old Willoughby to keep up the dumb show. Johnstone may watch me--very likely he will. He is afraid of some coup de theatre.” He drove in a leisurely way back to the Club and sported the oak after giving Ram Lal his last orders.
”I think I hear the jingle of gold 'in the near future,' as the Yankees say; and, Miss Justine, you shall open the way to the veiled Rose of Delhi for me, while Berthe Louison tortures this old vetch. Place aux dames! Place aux dames!” he laughed.
BOOK II. ”A DEVIL FOR LUCK.”
CHAPTER VI. THE MYSTERIOUS BUNGALOW.
If the fates favored Major Alan Hawke upon this eventful day, for as he was contentedly awaiting the news of Ram Lal's departure for Allahabad, the card of Captain Harry Hardwicke, A. D. C., and of the Engineers, was sent up to him. With a neat bit of Indian art, old Ram Lal had sent the carriage around to report, as a mute signal of his own departure. It was a flood tide of good fortune!
In ten minutes, the Major and his welcome guest were spinning along in the cool of the evening, toward the deserted ruins of the old city of Delhi! As they pa.s.sed through the Lah.o.r.e gate, Hardwicke's pith helmet was doffed with a jerk, as a superb carriage pa.s.sed them, proceeding in a stately swing. Major Alan Hawke bowed low as he caught the cold eye of the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone.
”Who are the ladies, Hardwicke?” laughed the Major, as he saw the young officer's face suddenly crimson. ”For a man who won the V. C. in your das.h.i.+ng style, you seem to be a bit beauty-shy!” They were hardly settled yet for their cozy chat. Hardwicke lit a cheroot to cover his evident confusion.
”I know” he slowly answered, ”that one of them is Miss or Madame Delande, old Fraser's house duenna--I will still call him Fraser, you see--the other is the mystery of Delhi. Popularly supposed to be the old boy's daughter, and his sole heiress, Miss Nadine,” concluded the young aid-de-camp. ”The old curmudgeon keeps her judiciously veiled from mortal ken. No man but General Willoughby has ever exchanged a word with her. The dear old boy--his memory does not go back beyond his last B.
and S.--he can't even sketch her beauty in words. And she is as hazy, even to the Madam-General--our secret commanding officer. There is a continuous affront to society in this old monomaniac's treatment of that girl.”
”You would like to storm the Castle Perilous, and awaken the Sleeping Beauty?” archly said Hawke, as they rolled along under a huge alley of banyan trees.
”Not at all,” gravely said Hardwicke. ”She is only a girl, like other girls, I presume; but, this old fool is only fit for the old days, when the kings of Oude flew kites and hunted with the cheetah; or, half drunken, dozed, lolling away their lives in these marble-screened zenanas, with the automatic beauties of the seraglio. Our English cannon have knocked all that nonsense silly. Here is a high-spirited, Christian English girl, shut up like a slave. It's only the unfairness of the thing that strikes me.” Hawke eyed the blue-eyed, rosy young fellow of twenty-six with an evident interest. Stalwart and symmetrical in figure, Hardwicke's frank, manly face glowed in indignation.
”You've won your spurs quickly out here,” said Hawke. ”You have not been long enough in India to case-harden into the cursed egotism of this hard-hearted land, and remember, age, crawling on, has indurated old 'Fraser-Johnstone.' He was never an amiable character. What do the ladies of the city say of this strange social situation? I never knew that the old beast had a daughter till to-day.”
Captain Hardwicke wearily replied: ”They all hold aloof, of course, after some very rough rebuffs, as I believe the old boy will clear out for good when he gets his baronetcy. It's possible that the girl is half a foreigner after all,” mused Hardwicke. ”The duenna is surely a continental.”
”Yes; but she seems to be a very nice person. I was there to-day at tiffin,” finally said Major Hawke,
”She had very little to say, and cleared out at once. I did not see Miss Johnstone.” They fell into an easy, rattling chronicle of things past and present, and before the two hours' ride was over, the astute Major felt that he had divined General Willoughby's object in sending his pet aid-de-camp to reconnoitre Hawke's lines and pierce the mystery of his rumored employment.