by Talbot Mundy
“You’re a liar,” Joe said simply. “You have no such information.”
Cummings tried to carry that off cavalierly. “Joe, I’ll overlook that for your mother’s sake and because of your injury.”
“Overlook nothing,” Joe answered. “I called you a liar. Bruce heard me. So did Rita. So did Hawkes. So did Sri Ram-Chittra Gunga. So did Miss Weems. I repeat it. I intend to continue repeating it at every opportunity until—” Joe’s mother interrupted: “Joe, you’re acting like a mad man!” She pushed Cummings aside and strode toward Joe’s bed as if she meant to strike him. Then she whispered hoarsely: “Fool! You’ll only get yourself in bad. You’ve not a scrap of legal evidence.”
His inward calm surprised him, and his outward smile exasperated her. “No? None?” he answered. “Well, you saw what I saw, and you know now what I know.”
“Much good may it do you! Prove it!”.
“Mater, I don’t intend to show my hand until it suits me. Get that. Get it good. And then get this: they call it Black Light that produces what we saw a little while ago. If it can do that, it can do a whole lot more. Just think that over.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Joe smiled. “I will protect my friends,” he answered, “to the limit.”
“At the expense of your mother? Joe — won’t you see that all I’ve done was to protect you?” She had raised her voice. Excitement, or it might be fear, had caused her to forget that there were other people in the room. “I’ve tried to save you.”
“Save yourself,” he answered.
Cummings took her arm then. He made two of the men from Poonch take a chair for her down to the end of the passage, where there was a little hallway paved with flagstones. But she lingered. She had fought too many battles to retreat now without spoiling the field for the enemy. She treated Cummings to a taste of what he might expect in days to come, and he took it meekly:
“Albert, don’t you think a doctor should be sent for?” “Yes, yes, somebody should certify to snake-bite.”
“Send for Muldoon,” she suggested. Then, with a half-triumphant, half-vindictive smile at Joe she left the room on Albert Cummings arm.
But the smile undid the threat. Joe knew her too well. If she had been really confident that Muldoon and his lying gossip about Rita would avail her at all she would have held her tongue and would have thoroughly instructed Muldoon first before hurling him into action with the full weight of surprise to increase the effect of his impudence. As she reached the door she glanced back. Joe detected terror in her eyes, or thought he did. He wondered whether she could read the cool indifference in his and judge the strength behind it.
Then he turned his head to stare at Rita. Bruce had made five of the men from Poonch return outside under the cloister to prevent them from conversing with the other two. He was watching them through the doorway and Joe heard him consult with Hawkes as how best to bring the police on the scene.
“They’ll be hard to come by,” Hawkes advised him. “The police don’t kid ‘emselves they’re submarines.”
“Then see if you can find my horse, if it hasn’t bolted. Ride in search of the police and bring the first two or three you can find.”
“All right, sir. What about that knife, though?”
“Which one?”
“Sticking in the wall over Mr. Joe’s bed.”
“I’ll look at it. May I, Beddington?” Bruce crossed the room and climbed upon the bed. Joe had to look around his legs in order to watch Rita; she and Annie Weems were sitting at the Yogi’s feet and he was listening to what looked like whispered argument. Bruce whistled softly. “Come and look, Hawkes.” Hawkes, too, climbed on to the bed.
The bearded coachmen, having set the chair for Mrs. Beddington, returned. One of them sat down patiently with his back against a wall, but the other walked straight up to Joe and handed him a folded piece of paper.
“Bring the lantern.”
The man brought it, but Bruce supposed the lantern was for him, so he took it to study the knife in the wall. It was a minute or two before Joe could make out what was written on the ruled sheet torn from Cummings note-book:
“Come and talk to me. This man will help you out here. Mother.”
He tore up the paper, gave the pieces to the man and signed to him to take those as his answer. Then he went on watching Rita; somebody had lighted the night-lamp at the Yogi’s feet; its dim rays shone on her face and throat. He was determined she should speak first, but he remembered she had said something about all eternity; he hoped she would not keep him waiting that long.
Hawkes voice: “Yes, sir — his knife — them are his initials.” Bruce stepped down to the floor and Hawkes voice followed him: “I can work it out of the wall all right without breaking the point.”
“No, leave it in there. Go and find the police and let them see it the way it is.”
Cummings heard that just as he reentered the door. His attitude and gesture suggested worry, Joe thought, like a tradesman’s with an important account in jeopardy. His voice, too, sounded decidedly nervous:
“No, Bruce, not yet. Premature, in my opinion. And besides, that is my department — my prerogative; you soldiers have no business in civil matters. Joe, your mother wants to speak to you.”
“So her note said.”
“Won’t you come? Captain Bruce and I can help you down the passage.”
“No, thanks.”
Cummings hesitated, half turned away, faced Joe again and jumped his hurdle:
“Joe, my boy, you can take this from me without resentment, since I’m so much older than you are. She is after all your mother.”
“Oh, no. She has disowned and repudiated me in the presence of witnesses. I am now a free man, absolutely independent of her. She goes her way, I mine.”
“She asked me to say that she regrets having spoken unkindly to you.”
“Kindest words she ever used to me. Tell her I’m feeling wonderful since I’m free of her yoke.”
But Cummings stuck to it and Joe laughed inwardly. “Joe, this isn’t a time to pick quarrels or to stand on ceremony. Judging solely by what your mother has just now hinted to me, circumstances might prove most embarrassing unless we three stick together. Your mother realizes that you feel under deep obligations to Miss Weems and Miss Amrita, so she withdraws any adverse criticism that she may have made.”
“Yo-yo-yo! Eat crow — eat crow! You’ll earn your lackey’s income,” Joe reflected. Then, aloud, he answered:
“I’ve nothing to withdraw. Do you remember what I called you?”
Even in the lamplight Cummings face flushed crimson; he was aware that Bruce was listening; Hawkes, too. However, billionairesses don’t grow on brambles. He swallowed what resembled pride:
“I, too, withdraw my criticism.”
“What do I care for your criticism? I have told you you’re a liar. If you’re ashamed of that and would like to apologize, go and say so to Rita.”
Cummings swallowed something, flinched and fell back on original instructions:
“Then you won’t go and talk to your mother?”
“I have nothing to say to her.”
Something seemed to have pulled the plug from under Cummings’ dignity. He wilted. However, there are traditionally conventional ways of saving face. He shook his head sadly, turned and walked away with hands behind his back.
Bruce, trying to seem unembarrassed, offered a suggestion:
“I say — pretty personal, all this — I can’t help overhearing. Would you rather I’d wait outside? There’s the courtyard — Hawkes and I could—” “Not a bit of it. You help me to keep my temper.”
“Do I? I admire your guts. Not many men would turn down all those millions. Nine out of any ten in your shoes would behave like Cummings. Can’t imagine what she sees in him. He’s cheap. He swallows insults like a dog at breakfast.”
“He’s afraid of her,” said Joe. “She sees that.”
“Uh-h
uh. And a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind, eh? She’s afraid, too. You behave as if you held all the high cards; but as she said before she left the room, what we all saw to-night isn’t legal evidence. No court would listen to it. However, it’s none of my business. Can’t help feeling curious about it, though. I say — there’s one chap I would like to see go scot-free.”
“Feeling fine and free myself!” Joe answered.
“I mean that cobra-wallah. Poor little devil. Just a simple savage — loyal as a dog to Amal. I admit I wasn’t dry-eyed when he saw how Poonch-Terai had tricked him into killing Amal with a cobra. Begged her to forgive him — did you get that? I believe she did, too — hope so, anyhow. I suppose there’s absolutely no doubt he deliberately murdered Poonch-Terai with that other cobra?”
“None at all,” Joe answered. But he hardly heard Bruce. He was watching Rita. She and Annie Weems were pleading, it seemed, with the Yogi, but if he listened to them he was doing so with closed eyes; he seemed almost asleep.
But suddenly Ram-Chittra Gunga came out of his silence and his voice boomed like an oracle:
“I tell you: It is always now. And it is now or never. That which was, now is, and none can change it. That which was not, is not; none can bring it into being. That which shall be, now is, or it could not ever be. But fools imagine vain things; they imagine what they please until the time of wakening. And time — what is it? That, too, is imagination. But you imagine it, so you must wait on your imagination. Are you not like some one standing by the river? This comes — that comes — then the thing that you desire comes floating downstream. Shall you not take it ere it passes? Why not? Who else’s is it? Howsoever, if you grasp too soon, shall you receive it? And if you grasp too late, has it not gone past you? Should you plunge in, can you overtake it? Nay, I say there is a proper time for all things — aye, a proper instant; because time is of the very essence of that river, on whose bank you think you stand and yearn for what you think you have not.”
Cummings entered. He was steaming, and his suit had shrunk badly, so he looked less self-important even than he felt; in fact, he looked like a criminal haled to the dock, which Joe thought interesting, since the man lacked a criminal’s courage. He was using Joe’s mother’s magnetic impulse, which was another story. He had another message from her:
“Joe, your mother wishes me to say that she is willing to apologize. She asks you to come and receive her apology. She thinks you can at least make that much effort to meet her half-way.”
“I prefer not to meet her at all,” Joe answered. “Cummings, you may say this: I have seen her apologize probably twenty times, and I have never known her to do it unless she felt she had to. I have never known her not to exact vengeance for it afterward. Her apologies have teeth in them.”
“Joe, should you talk like that about your mother?”
“You oblige me. I prefer to say nothing at all about her.”
“Joe, she realizes she has not been altogether fair to you. She admits you have been devoted to her, and that you have faithfully and skilfully conducted her affairs. She wants you to continue, but under a contract that will give you a much bigger income of your own and more authority.”
“No thanks,” said Joe. “I’ve seen what I want, floating down the river. You may say I am not interested.”
“That is your answer?”
“Yes, it’s final.”
Cummings looked almost pleased. He seemed to think his own nest might be better lined without Joe as a competitor. He retired with a symptom of starch in his smile; becoming sorrow at Joe’s obstinacy wore thin; optimism perched between his shoulder-blades.
“Should you seize the wrong thing,” boomed Ram Chittra Gunga’s voice, “why bother with it? Throw it back into the river. Some one else may need it. And if some one else takes what you crave, permit that. Shall not two destroy what one can cherish? Give, I say — let go of it. Nay, take not that which is not free and clear, or you will find yourself in bond for others’ debts.”
Joe thrilled at the thought that he owed no debts, except that thousand pounds to Hawkes, and he knew he could scrape that sum together. There were some bonds of his own in a safe-deposit box; he could sell those.
“Rita,” he said, “what have I done? Won’t you come and talk to me a minute?” He smiled at himself to think how resolutely he had decided she should speak first.
Bruce and Hawkes had manners. They began to talk together instantly — pointedly — noisily — turning their backs. They could hardly vanish into thin air, but they could create a sort of privacy by holding conversation of their own. They even turned their backs on Rita, and that called for self-control, because Rita walking toward Joe with love-light in her eyes was a symphony in line and plane and movement.
Suddenly then, like a stab in the heart, emotion almost split Joe’s consciousness in two. He had not guessed himself so capable of feeling — least of all of feeling, simultaneously, love and hatred. It was like life and death at war within him. It seemed even to divide his eyesight. Through his left eye, and with half his consciousness, he saw his mother entering the doorway; with his right, he saw Rita and nothing but Rita. They approached each other, and Joe’s head swam. But brains are inconsistent mechanisms; he could hear with concentrated clearness, as if the unimportant words were etched on bone inside his own skull, Bruce and Hawkes inventing conversation:
“Sir, if I’d a wish-bone worth a rusty tin can, I believe I’d wish a pair o’ seven-league boots on Chandri Lal — him wi’ the cobras. The poor devil’s broke; he can’t go far without a fist-full of rupees. If he’d the British Army’s luck — but that kind hasn’t.”
“The police can’t do a thing to him,” said Bruce.
“Sir, two or three policemen in a dark cell would make a tough one turn his secrets inside out. That little blighter isn’t tough; he’d tell what he knew, and what she knew, and what he saw, and heard, and thought about—” Attention switched its energy to other nerves. Bruce and Hawkes faded out of the picture. With the keenness, almost of a concentrated pain, Joe read his mother’s thought — but not in pictures — he sensed it, feeling her emotions one by one, as if that invisible bond that once united them had not yet snapped, but was drawn taut and rendered ten times vibrant. She had entered the room resolved to make the utmost sacrifice compatible with self-esteem and willing to concede her son the victory if she only might save her face before the world and still cling to a vestige of authority, that she would know how to enlarge as time rolled by. She heard that scrap of conversation and it frightened her. She saw Rita approaching, face to face, and that enraged her so that rage obliterated reason. She trembled. If her hate could kill, then Rita would have fallen dead that instant. She was actually dumb with baffled jealousy and malice. Rita spoke first:
“Yes, Joe?”
Rage found speech then — tight-lipped — grim. “Excuse me. I came in to speak to my son. Will you leave us alone, please?”
“But I’m not your son,” Joe answered. “You disowned me before a number of witnesses. I have something to say to Rita; I invited her to come and listen to me. I have nothing whatever to say to you.”
Mrs. Beddington glared at Rita. “Will you leave us?” she demanded.
“Joe answered you, Mrs. Beddington. There is nothing that I need add to that.”
“Then you shall listen to me! I am this man’s mother. I have offended his pride, and perhaps his dignity, by using tactless methods of protecting him against his own boyish romanticism. He is angry with me. He remembers nothing but what he thinks was tyranny. He forgets what a friend I have been. He forgets that he owes me some consideration for my patience with him. That is because you, young woman — you have come between us. If you have a spark of decency — a spark of reverence for motherhood, you will make amends to both of us — to him and me — by never seeing him again!”
She paused for breath, perhaps expecting a retort. But Rita merely stood her ground, observing her w
ith quiet, unwavering eyes, and Joe said nothing; he had already said all he intended to say.
Then passionate, hate-edged speech again: “Is it money you want? I will make you a monthly allowance on condition that you keep a thousand miles away from him.”
A quiet, bronze-voiced answer: “Money? No. I want nothing from you, Mrs. Beddington.”
“What do you want? Apology? You may have it. I apologize to you for having said things that I can’t prove. The man who could have proved them lies, done to death, under that sheet. I know nothing against you — nothing — except that you’re not fit to be my son’s wife — nor his mistress either.”
Joe spoke grimly. “That’s all. Mater, there’s the door. D’you hear me? Do you want to be shown the way out?”
Rita stilled that outburst. “But I am not your son’s wife — nor his mistress.”
“Hasn’t he made love to you? Do you mean to tell me that you and he haven’t reached an understanding? Why, I had it from his own lips!”
“Joe loves me. I love him. But we don’t yet understand each other.”
“Speak plain English! If you and I can understand each other, that’s all that’s needed!”
“I will not take Joe away from some one else. I think he doesn’t understand that. I will not bring ruin on him for the sake of my happiness. Happiness isn’t won that way.”
“Then you surrender him?”
“He is not mine to surrender.”
“There! Joe — did you hear that?”
He stared at them — silent — numb. He was still a sick man. Strong emotion, following a line of least resistance, staggered him as if he had been struck by some one’s fist. It was almost as if Rita had struck him. And the cunning that was hers by instinct quickened in his mother’s mind, appraising Rita’s honesty — discerning how it might be subtly turned against her.
“Joe, dear, I’m only an ageing and rather bewildered woman. What I came in here to say was, that I’m sorry I have treated you so niggardly. I did it for your own sake, but I can understand how you’ve wanted to have control of things, since it was you who attended to everything. You are an excellent business man. You should be; for it was I who trained you. I have made up my mind to put you in the saddle, as you would call it, and from now on you may have whatever income the estate will stand, and I will give you a contract giving you full authority. Now — isn’t that better than being obstinate about a case of calf-love? Say good-by to her and come away with me in Mr. Cummings’ carriage.”