A Bottle in the Smoke Part 26

"Come now, be reasonable," he began. "If these are the only terms on which you can double your allowance--and you admit that you are in need of money--don't you think you would be a wise man to close with them, now and here, and end this interview?" added Mr. Fyson, rising from his chair with an air of decision. His conciliatory tone was however misinterpreted by the younger man, who sprang from his chair with clenched hands.

"You think to wheedle me, I see, but it won't do! I'll expose you, I'll put the matter into legal hands here where you are known, and I hope it will ruin you. I'll have my rights I tell you--whatever it costs me," he added, coming a step nearer and looking with threatening eyes at the tall, impa.s.sive figure.

"To what matter do you refer? To what rights, pray?" asked Mr. Fyson calmly, putting his hands in his pockets.

"As my father's heir I have a right to his estate. Don't you mistake, I'll be even with Messrs. Truelove Brothers yet"; and Mr. Rayner took a step towards the door.

"One moment," said Mr. Fyson, taking his right hand from his pocket. "I want to repeat again that we are not your trustees, Mr.----" Here Mr.

Fyson paused as if the surname had escaped his memory.

"Rayner," supplied the other.

"Ah, no--a better name!" murmured Mr. Fyson as he looked at the young man, and a curious smile played about his lips.

"Do you mean to give me the lie when I tell you my own name? This is insupportable! Perhaps you think I'm an impostor? Yet do you not address--or cause to be addressed--all the remittances that come from this house to Alfred Rayner?" he asked, with a strong effort at calmness.

"I do--though with reluctance," replied Mr. Fyson slowly. "You have driven me into a corner, young man! I feel that I owe it in loyalty to the good man who is your father to tell you that he lives still, and to tell you that the name he was induced--wrongly in my opinion--to consent to your bearing is not his"; and with a troubled air Mr. Fyson sat down again at his writing table and glanced at his papers.

"You lie, you lie!" screamed Alfred Rayner with almost feminine shrillness. His pa.s.sion choked him for a moment, then, with an effort at calmness, though he was still trembling all over, he called out: "Proof--I ask for proof, definite--immediate--of this astounding statement!"

"Fain would I give you the proof you seek if it lay with me, but loyalty to one of the best of men keeps me silent! But it appears to me that the hour has struck for a different course of action from that which has. .h.i.therto been maintained," said Mr. Fyson, with a stern light coming into his eyes. "You have need to be disabused of some of your--hallucinations, shall I call them? I hope permission may be given me to let you know the truth. I am sorry for your sake it has been so long withheld. I shall communicate with you in due course. Meanwhile, I should like to call your attention again to the offer your good father has made. Will you agree to his terms? I have his commands to double your allowance if you will only cease from vices which he holds--and rightly--to be soul-ruining. Now, sir, I desire to bring this interview to a close," said Mr. Fyson, again rising, though his visitor still stood as if riveted to the spot.

The older man straightening himself put his hands in his pockets and bowed stiffly, then with a softened air he added:

"I would fain believe all good of you as your father's son. I hope it will be given to you to know him one day--and to know him will be to respect him as I have done for years."

Somehow, as these words fell on his ear, Rayner seemed to move mechanically to the door, and stood outside it as if in a dream. He made a gesture as if he would re-enter, but appeared to decide against the step. Clinging to the old banisters he walked slowly downstairs, and crossed the marble-floored hall, the soft-footed _durwan_ opening the door for him noiselessly, he pa.s.sed out to the busy street.

He walked a few paces with unsteady tread, forgetting that he meant to hire a carriage. The noonday sun was beating fiercely on his head, but in the tumult of his thoughts he did not heed it. His first sense of being completely foiled in his mission with Truelove Brothers was presently succeeded by a suggestion of a different kind.

"Why, this unknown pater of mine is evidently an important personage! He may turn out to be some big official--Lieutenant-Governor of a province or the like! The old merchant spoke of him with bated breath. What an idiot I am to be weighted down by a sense of failure! I've actually scored this morning after all. The old fool very nearly let the cat out of the bag though! If I had only hung about a moment longer I might have heard all. But I'll worm out the secret yet. A double allowance if I turn Methody! Ha, ha! Why, lacs of rupees are more likely my rightful portion!"

Remembering his promise to return to Ballygunge Road to tiffin, he decided to call a tikka-gharry, and was stepping into it when he was accosted by a young man with a cringing air whom he at once recognised as Mr. Fyson's Eurasian clerk.

"Beg pardon, sir, but a word with you for your own advantage!" he said, making salaams.

"Well, out with it! I'm in a hurry," said Mr. Rayner in an impatient tone.

"You see, sir, it's like this," began the man, putting his head to one side. "I couldn't help hearing your talk through the door. You and the master both havin' a kind of carryin' voice--not as I heard all your talk--but you want to know who your father is? Well, I can let you into thatt secret," he added, with a nod and a wink.

"And pray what do you know about it?" asked Rayner coldly. "How can I believe a word that you say when you stand a convicted eavesdropper?"

"Oh, sir, don't say thatt," said the young man, glancing furtively round, his hands clinging to the window of the gharry. "But, look here, sir, if you'll trust me I'll give you his name and proof positive into the bargain. Can't do it now, I see a fellow from Truelove's comin'

along, and suspicion might be raised if you and me is caught hobn.o.bbin'.

They're terrible strict at our place."

"Well, where can we meet?" asked Rayner, seeing the difficulty of prolonging the present interview. "I'm a stranger to the town. I could come to your house this evening if you give me your address--that is to say if you've got anything worth telling me."

"Oh, sir, my house is too humble for a grand gent like you to come to,"

returned the clerk, shaking his head.

"Where then, quick, don't you humbug me a moment longer. Drive on, gharry-wallah," he shouted to the coachman, "I'm sick of this nonsense."

"One moment," pleaded the other, making a sign to the driver, and putting his head in at the window of the gharry. "What price if I tell you the secret and prove it?"

"A ten rupee note will be ample payment," returned Rayner.

"A ten-rupee note," echoed the clerk, withdrawing his head, then he thrust it in again. "Look here, sir, if you'll meet me at the Shrine of Kali at seven o'clock to-night--any gharry-wallah will drive you to that place, it ain't more than a mile off--I'll tell you what you want to know and prove it, but not for one pie less than one hundred rupees. I don't sell Truelove's best secret for naught," he added, with a cunning leer.

"All right, I'll consider," said Rayner.

The gharry-wallah waved his whip and began to thread his way along the crowded thoroughfare.

CHAPTER XXVI.

On the same day as Alfred Rayner made his call on Truelove Brothers, Mrs. Fellowes, with Hester seated by her side, was driving in her little victoria towards Vepery. They had made a slight _detour_ by the lines of the Native Infantry, which was some distance from the residential quarter, and had now left behind the quiet corner with the officers'

bungalows and reached the First Line Beach.

"I always like this bit," remarked Mrs. Fellowes. "Somehow it reminds me of one of the quays of Newcastle where I used to visit a dear friend when I was a girl. I suppose all busy seaport places have a family likeness. This suggests to me one of the vanished haunts of my girlhood, and has always made this First Line Beach pleasant to me."

Hester led her friend to share with her the pleasant reminiscences of the past, and their talk flowed on till the sight of the polo match in progress on the green island proved a distraction. The spectacle was being watched by crowds of spectators from the well-filled grand stand, and at the palings the natives cl.u.s.tered, scanning the feats of the agile riders with shrill delight.

The ladies in the victoria did not halt long in the neighbourhood of the island. Their destination was further inland, to the crowded quarter of Vepery.

"When I told the Colonel that you and I were going to make an impromptu call on Mr. Morpeth, he said it was rather unfair," said Mrs. Fellowes.

"That, being a bachelor, we should have given him warning."

"Mr. Morpeth looks so calm and detached--almost like a fakir, I don't think anything could take him by surprise," returned Hester with a smile. "Anyhow I'm going to make my visit at last. I have long wanted to see Mr. Morpeth at home, and you know he did invite us to come any afternoon. I don't think he'll mind our going without warning. You see, we never have any time left the day we are at the Girls' Club."

"I'm sure he won't mind," agreed Mrs. Fellowes. "It's only Joe's red-tape fussiness. I once took Mrs. Campbell of Puranapore to call on him when she was staying with us, and his reception of us was charming.

But I really don't think there is anything of the fakir in Mr. Morpeth.

It always strikes me what a delightful family man he would have made, but instead he has opened his heart to his poor despised race and lives for them. But I've been thinking he has been looking more lonely and sad lately. He has a sorrowful preoccupied air he didn't have when we first knew him. Ah, here we are at Freyville!"

"What a neat, home-like gate!" exclaimed Hester. "I haven't seen anything so tidy since I left Pinkthorpe. How carefully tended his garden looks! How can he manage it? Our compound at Clive's Road was looking quite brown and withered even before I left it."

She looked round with admiration on the well-kept borders, carefully trimmed shrubs and hedges, and the well-watered flowers.

"It's all of a piece--outside and in," said Mrs. Fellowes. "The fact is, my dear, we are too much birds of pa.s.sage to do justice to our homes here. They are merely camps to us, but to these sons of the soil they are real homes; and that's what Mr. Morpeth wants to make them for his poorer brethren of the Eurasian community, who are too often contented to crowd together in the most miserable sheds. Then Mr. Morpeth gets much better service than we can. His staff is not scattered to the winds every few years like ours. The residents are able to have their retainers growing grey in their service, and they become as perfect as the servants of the best, and fast dying out type, at home. Here comes one of these now! Well, Mootoo, is your master at home?"

"He is, ma'am, and very pleased will he be to see you," said the man, showing his white teeth as he salaamed. One could see from under the edge of his artistically-folded turban, a suspicion of grey hair. His snow white tunic fell in graceful folds about his tall figure as he noiselessly led the way to introduce the visitors.

"This hall is my envy," said Mrs. Fellowes. "It is all paved in real marble. Some of those older Madras houses are so. I do love those black and white chequers. What a poor subst.i.tute our rattan matting is, or even when the chequers are copied in chunam."

As they lingered to admire some of the ma.s.sive hand-made furnis.h.i.+ngs of the hall they heard the sound of voices.