CHAPTER III
TESSA'S MOTHER
"It really isn't my fault," said Netta fretfully. "I don't see why youshould lecture me about it, Mary. I can't help being attractive."
"My dear," said Mrs. Ralston patiently, "that was not my point. I amonly urging you to show a little discretion. You do not want to be anobject of scandal, I am sure. The finger of suspicion has been pointedat the Rajah a good many times lately, and I do think that for Tessa'ssake, if not for your own, you ought to put a check upon your intimacywith him.
"Bother Tessa!" said Netta. "I don't see that I owe her anything."
Mrs. Ralston sighed a little, but she persevered. "The child is at anage when she needs the most careful training. Surely you want her torespect you!"
Netta laughed. "I really don't care a straw what she does. Tessa doesn'tinterest me. I wanted a boy, you know. I never had any use for girls.Besides, she gets on my nerves at every turn. We shall never be kindredspirits."
"Poor little Tessa!" said Mrs. Ralston gently. "She has such a lovingheart."
"She doesn't love me," said Tessa's mother without regret. "I supposeyou'll say that's my fault too. Everything always is, isn't it?"
"I think--in fact I am sure--that love begets love," said Mrs. Ralston."Perhaps when you and she get to England together, you will become moreto each other."
"Out of sheer _ennui_?" suggested Netta. "Oh, don't let's talk ofEngland--I hate the thought of it. I'm sure I was created for the East.Hence the sympathy that exists between the Rajah and myself. You know,Mary, you really are absurdly prejudiced against him. Richard was thesame. He never had any cause to be jealous. They simply didn't come intothe same category."
Mrs. Ralston looked at her with wonder in her eyes. "You seem toforget," she said, "that Richard's murderer is being tried, and thatthis man is very strongly suspected of being an abettor if not theactual instigator of the crime."
Netta flicked the ash from her cigarette with a gesture of impatience."I only wish you would let me forget these unpleasant things," she said."Why don't you go and preach a sermon to the beautiful Stella Monck onthe same text? Ralph Dacre's death was quite as much of a mystery. Andthe kindly gossips are every bit as busy with Captain Monck's reputationas with His Excellency's. But I suppose her devotion to that wretchedlittle imbecile baby of hers renders her immune!"
She spoke with intentional malice, but she scarcely expected to strikehome. Mary was not, in her estimation, over-endowed with brains, and shenever seemed to mind a barbed thrust or two. But on this occasion Mrs.Ralston upset her calculations.
She arose in genuine wrath. "Netta!" she said. "I think you are the mostheartless, callous woman I have ever met!"
And with that she went straight from the room, shutting the door firmlybehind her.
"Good gracious!" commented Netta. "Mary in a tantrum! What an excitingspectacle!"
She stretched her slim body like a cat as she lay with the warm sunshinepouring over her, and presently she laughed.
"How funny! How very funny! Netta, my dear, they'll be calling youwicked next."
She pursed her lips over the adjective as if she rather enjoyed it, thenstretched herself again luxuriously, with sensuous enjoyment. She hadriden with the Rajah in the early morning, and was pleasantly tired.
The sudden approach of Tessa, scampering along the verandah in the wakeof Scooter, sent a quick frown to her face, which deepened swiftly asScooter, dodging nimbly, ran into the room and went to earth behind abamboo screen.
Tessa sprang in after him, but pulled up sharply at sight of hermother. The frown upon Netta's face was instantly reflected upon herown. She stood expectant of rebuke.
"What a noisy child you are!" said Netta. "Are you never quiet, Iwonder? And why did you let that horrid little beast come in here? Youknow I detest him."
"He isn't horrid!" said Tessa, instantly on the defensive. "And Icouldn't help him coming in. I didn't know you were here, but it isn'tyour bungalow anyway, and Aunt Mary doesn't mind him."
"Oh, go away!" said Netta with irritation. "You get more insufferableevery day. Take the little brute with you and shut him up--or drownhim!"
Tessa came forward with an insolent shrug. There was more than a spiceof defiance in her bearing.
"I don't suppose I can catch him," she said. "But I'll try."
The chase of the elusive Scooter that followed would have been an affairof pure pleasure to the child, had it not been for the presence of hermother and the growing exasperation with which she regarded it. It wasall sheer fun to Scooter who wormed in and out of the furniture withmirth in his gleaming eyes, and darted past the window a dozen timeswithout availing himself of that means of escape.
Netta's small stock of patience was very speedily exhausted. She sat upon the sofa and sternly commanded Tessa to desist.
"Go and tell the _khit_ to catch him!" she said.
Tessa, however, by this time had also warmed to the game. She paid nomore attention to her mother's order than she would have paid to thebuzzing of a mosquito. And when Scooter dived under the sofa on whichNetta had been reclining, she burrowed after him with a squeal ofmerriment.
It was too much for Netta whose feelings had been decidedly ruffledbefore Tessa's entrance. As Scooter shot out on the other side of her,running his queer zigzag course, she snatched the first thing that cameto hand, which chanced to be a heavy bronze weight from thewriting-table at her elbow, and hurled it at him with all her strength.
Scooter collapsed on the floor like a broken mechanical toy. Tessauttered a wild scream and flung herself upon him.
Netta gasped hysterically, horrified but still angry. "It serves himright--serves you both right! Now go away!" she said.
Tessa turned on her knees on the floor. Scooter was feebly kicking inher arms. The missile had struck him on the head and one eye wasterribly injured. She gathered him up to her little narrow chest, and heceased to kick and became quite still.
Over his lifeless body she looked at her mother with eyes of burningfurious hatred. "You've killed him!" she said, her voice sunk very low."And I hope--oh, I do hope--some day--someone--will kill you!"
There was that about her at the moment that actually frightened Netta,and it was with undoubted relief that she saw the door open and MajorRalston's loose-knit lounging figure block the entrance.
"What's all this noise about?" he began, and stopped short.
Behind him stood another figure, broad, powerful, not overtall. At sightof it, Tessa uttered a hard sob and scrambled to her feet. She stillclasped poor Scooter's dead body to her breast, and his blood was on herface and on the white frock she wore.
"Uncle St. Bernard! Look! Look!" she said. "She's killed my Scooter!"
Netta also arose at this juncture. "Oh, do take that horrible thingaway!" she said. "If it's dead, so much the better. It was no more thana weasel after all. I hate such pets."
Major Ralston found himself abruptly though not roughly pushed aside.Bernard Monck swooped down with the action of a practised footballer andtook the furry thing out of Tessa's hold. His eyes were very bright andintensely alert, but he did not seem aware of Tessa's mother.
"Come with me, darling!" he said to the child. "P'raps I can help."
He trod upon the carved bronze that had slain Scooter as he turned, andhe left the mark of his heel upon it--the deep impress of an angrygiant.
The door closed with decision upon himself and the child, and MajorRalston was left alone with Netta.
She looked at him with a flushed face ready to defy remonstance, but hestooped without speaking and picked up the thing that Bernard had triedto grind to powder, surveyed it with a lifted brow and set it back inits place.
Netta promptly collapsed upon the sofa. "Oh, it is too bad!" she sobbed."It really is too bad! Now I suppose you too--are going to be brutal."
Major Ralston cleared his throat. There was certainly no sympathy in hisaspect, but his manner was wholly lacking in brutality. He was nev
erbrutal to women, and Netta Ermsted was his guest as well as his patient.
After a moment he sat down beside her, and there was nothing in theaction to mark it as heroic, or to betray the fact that he yearned tostamp out of the room after Bernard and leave her severely to herhysterics.
"No good in being upset now," he remarked. "The thing's done, and cryingwon't undo it."
"I don't want to undo it!" declared Netta. "I always did detest thehorrible ferrety thing. Tessa couldn't have taken it Home with hereither, so it's just as well it's gone." She dried her eyes with avindictive gesture, and reached for the cigarettes. Hysterics wereimpossible in this man's presence. He was like a shower of cold water.
"I shouldn't if I were you," remarked Major Ralston with the air of aman performing a laborious duty. "You smoke too many of 'em."
Netta ignored the admonition. "They soothe my nerves," she said. "May Ihave a light?"
He searched his pockets, and apparently drew a blank.
Netta frowned in swift irritation. "How stupid! I thought all mencarried matches."
Major Ralston accepted the reproof in silence. He was like a large dog,gravely presenting his shoulder to the nips of a toy terrier.
"Well?" said Netta aggressively.
He looked at her with composure. "Talking about going Home," he said,"at the risk of appearing inhospitable, I think it is my duty to adviseyou very strongly to go as soon as possible."
"Indeed!" She looked back with instant hostility. "And why?"
He did not immediately reply. Whether with reason or not, he had thereputation for being slow-witted, in spite of the fact that he was abrilliant chess-player.
She laughed--a short, unpleasant laugh. She was never quite at her easewith him, notwithstanding his slowness. "Why the devil should I, MajorRalston?"
He shrugged his shoulders with massive deliberation. "Because," he saidslowly, "there's going to be the devil's own row if this man is hangedfor your husband's murder. We have been warned to that effect."
She shrugged her shoulders also with infinite daintiness, "Oh, a nativerumpus! That doesn't impress me in the least. I shan't go for that."
Major Ralston's eyes wandered round the room as if in search ofinspiration. "Mary is going," he observed.
Netta laughed again, lightly, flippantly. "Good old Mary! Where is shegoing to?"
His eyes came down upon her suddenly like the flash of a knife. "She hasconsented to go to Bhulwana with the rest," he said. "But I beg you willnot accompany her there. As Captain Ermsted's widow and--" he spoke asone hewing his way--"the chosen friend of the Rajah, your position inthe State is one of considerable difficulty--possibly even of danger.And I do not propose to allow my wife to take unnecessary risks. Forthat reason I must ask you to go before matters come to a head. You havestayed too long already."
"Good gracious!" said Netta, opening her eyes wide. "But if Mary'ssacred person is to be safely stowed at Bhulwana, what is to prevent myremaining here if I so choose?"
"Because I don't choose to let you, Mrs. Ermsted," said Major Ralstonsteadily.
She gazed at him. "You--don't--choose! You!"
His eyes did battle with hers. Since that slighting allusion to hiswife, he had no consideration left for Netta. "That is so," he said, inhis heavy fashion. "I have already pointed out that you would bewell-advised on your own account to go--not to mention the child'ssafety."
"Oh, the child!" There was keenness about the exclamation which almostamounted to actual dislike. "I'm tired to death of having Tessa'swelfare and Tessa's morals rammed down my throat. Why should I make afetish of the child? What is good enough for me is surely good enoughfor her."
"I am afraid I don't agree with you," said Major Ralston.
"You wouldn't," she rejoined. "You and Mary are quite antediluvian inyour idea. But that doesn't influence me. I am glad to say I am more upto date. If I can't stay here, I shall go to Udalkhand. There's a hotelthere as well as here."
"Of sorts," said Major Ralston. "Also Udalkhand is nearer to the seat ofdisturbance."
"Well, I don't care." Netta spoke recklessly. "I'm not going to bedictated to. What a mighty scare you're all in! What can you think willhappen even if a few natives do get out of hand?"
"Plenty of things might happen," he rejoined, getting up. "But that bythe way. If you won't listen to reason I am wasting my time. But--" hespoke with abrupt emphasis--"you will not take Tessa to Udalkhand."
Netta's eyes gleamed. "I shall take her to Kamtchatka if I choose," shesaid.
For the first time a smile crossed Major Ralston's face. He turned tothe door. "And if she chooses," he said, with malicious satisfaction.
The door closed upon him, and Netta was left alone.
She remained motionless for a few moments showing her teeth a little inan answering smile; then with a swift, lissom movement, that would havemade Tommy compare her to a lizard, she rose.
With a white, determined face she bent over the writing-table andscribbled a hasty note. Her hand shook, but she controlled itresolutely.
Words flicked rapidly into being under her pen: "I shall be behind thetamarisks to-night."