Chapter XX

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.