CHAPTER VI.

Sometimes when Mr. Morpeth felt specially wearied with the labours of the previous evening, he varied his early morning walk by a drive in his little victoria. To-day he had allowed his syce to drive him along the winding roads of the suburbs, heedless whither he was being carried.

Rousing himself at length from his reverie, he saw he had now reached the green precincts of Nungumbauk.u.m, and decided to take a stroll. He alighted, and directed his syce to follow while he walked along the road.

As he pa.s.sed one of the houses he overheard sounds of bitter weeping from the other side of the straggling hedge. A gap in the thicket--a mode of exit much favoured by the native servants--permitted him to catch a glimpse of a little native girl. Sobs painful to his kind heart fell on his ear, and pausing in his walk, he asked in Tamil;

"What ails you, little one?"

The child glanced up with startled air and, peering through the twisted tendrils, caught sight of the speaker. Encouraged by the kind voice and seeing its owner was in European dress, she replied in the best English she could muster, the words broken by sobs:

"Please, sah, Missus say I done steal gold ring. I never done no such ting. My heart done break. I not want to live one minute more. I go drown in tank!"

"Then you did not touch your Missus' ring, little girl?"

"Oh, no, no, I not once touch Missus' ring," wailed the child. "But what I do? n.o.body believin' me. Ramaswamy butler hurt werry sore to make me 'fess," and again the dusky head was bent in low weeping.

"What's the matter with your hand?" asked Mr. Morpeth, observing that her right hand was rolled in a comer of her red saree. "Let me see it!"

The small brown hand was obediently held out, showing swollen and bleeding fingers. Little chips of wood, of which some fragments remained, had been pushed under the nails, lacerating the flesh.

"H'm, torture! Just as I suspected!" muttered Mr. Morpeth. "Who did this?"

"Butler done take me into G.o.down make me 'fess. When I no 'fess, he make fingers plenty sore"; and again the child burst into convulsive sobs.

Just then the sound of voices was heard, and the girl leapt from her hiding-place with a look of terror, only to come into view of a stout matron and a young lady who were approaching the dividing hedge between their own and their neighbour's compound.

"There's the little thief, I declare!" exclaimed the young lady, catching a glimpse of the red saree. "And see this gap in the hedge, she's no doubt made it flying from justice."

"Well, it will serve our purpose, for I must go at once and tell Mrs.

Rayner how disappointingly her _protegee_ has turned out," said Mrs.

Harbottle, crossing the dividing line.

"How could you expect anything else, mama? Mrs. Rayner has only been two months in the country," returned the young lady, with the scorn of new-comers bred of two cold weathers in India.

"Look, the creature's going to slip through our fingers after all. She's making a dart through the hedge to the road"; and Miss Harbottle, hurrying forward, pounced upon the child, and seized the maimed hand still rolled in the saree, causing her to shriek with pain.

"Be quiet, you wicked little thing! I believe you're hiding my ring there. Give it up this instant, or I shall tell Mrs. Rayner what a thief you've turned into. A nice whipping you'll get from her ayah, your old granny; and I hear you tried to bite my butler into the bargain!"

"Ai, Missus, I not done nossin' bad. I not done steal ring! I not done bite butler, he only bleeding my fingers," the child wailed. Remembering the kind face which had looked pityingly upon her from the other side of the hedge, she sprang towards the gap, but the friendly figure had disappeared and Miss Harbottle's fingers were gripping her shoulder like a vice and dragging her along the compound.

Rosie was the granddaughter of Mrs. Rayner's ayah. She was a comely little maid with great l.u.s.trous eyes. Her home had been in the G.o.down with her grandmother, who, as all good ayahs do, considered it her function to keep watch and ward over her mistress's belongings, and it early struck Hester that the child must have a very lonely life. She had already grown fond of her ayah, who was indeed worthy of her confidence, being one of the best of her type. The bright, delicate-featured old face, with its nut-brown colouring, framed by wavy grey hair, and the ready responsive smile, had at once attracted her. The ayah, on her side, was devoted to her young mistress, and was not long in telling her of her two treasures, Jan and Rosie, the boy and girl of her dead daughter. For Jan, she had managed to find service, but she had never been able to make up her mind to part with the winning little Rosie. The child, too, was useful to her in many ways. She found her rice always prepared for her to her liking when she went for her mid-day and evening meals. Rosie did a little "t.i.tching" too, the ayah a.s.sured Mrs. Rayner, but as her clothes were merely lengths of coloured muslin draped gracefully about her little person, there were not many seams to sew.

The ayah had the voluble and quaint command of English common to Madra.s.see servants, and in a wonderful way had been able to impart it to Rosie, though, as to reading English, that was beyond even granny ayah herself. What a joy it was to her therefore when one day her mistress called Rosie to her and gave her her first lesson! The little girl was bright and intelligent, and Hester had pa.s.sed hours which might have hung heavy on her hands in teaching her to read, and in telling her the simple stories she had been wont to relate to her young brothers at home. The ayah meanwhile would pa.s.s and repa.s.s on tiptoe, stealing joyful glances at her mistress and the little maid. Thus, in so short a time, a strong link was forged between the young English lady and the ayah's granddaughter. When therefore Mrs. Harbottle chanced to find Rosie so honoured, and heard her connection with her neighbour's excellent ayah, she set her heart on having her as an a.s.sistant to her own dull, heavy-featured attendant. Hester decided that such a beginning, so near the watchful grandmother, was a favourable chance for Rosie, and the bargain was concluded.

All hitherto had gone smoothly, and great was Hester's consternation, when looking out from the verandah of her bedroom where she sat busy with her home-mail, she perceived Mrs. Harbottle and her daughter dragging Rosie across the lawn. Hurrying downstairs she was met by a voluble tale from the two ladies in chorus.

"But are you sure the ring is really lost?" she asked in an undertone.

"Things often turn up again--are only mislaid."

"This is lost sure enough. Stolen by that imp from my ring-stand on my dressing-table. This very morning when I was at early tea that brat was alone in my room 'tidying up,' forsooth!" Mrs. Harbottle reiterated her accusation while Rosie lay p.r.o.ne on the gravel, a pathetic little bundle of heaving sobs.

The telepathic agency, ever at work among the many domestics of an Anglo-Indian household, now brought the old ayah to the spot to hear what had happened to her one ewe-lamb. The nut-brown tint of her face was replaced by a greyish hue, her features seemed suddenly sharpened as she took in the situation. Folding her lean brown arms, she stood a pathetic, statuesque figure as she listened to the denunciations of the angry Englishwoman. Her eyes turned with a gaze of anguish on the little huddled figure, and catching sight of the m.u.f.fled hand she went forward and made to undo the end of the red saree.

A scream of pain from the child caused her to desist. With a groan she covered her face for a moment, then looked piteously towards her mistress, saying with quivering lips:

"They done torture my pore chil'. See, Missus, that bleeding han'?"

"Torture the child!" exclaimed Hester with dilating eyes.

"Yes, Missus, butler poking fingers with sticks making plenty blood come to make me 'fess," said Rosie, looking up with a pitiful air.

"How dreadful! This is shocking, Mrs. Harbottle! What have you to say to this?"

"A parcel of lies, of course! n.o.body laid a finger on the little wretch," cried Mrs. Harbottle excitedly.

The ayah on hearing this stepped forward again, and leading Rosie near pointed silently to the mutilated hand.

"Who did this to you, Rosie?" asked Hester in gentle tones.

"Ramaswamy butler. He do this to make me 'fess--only----"

Great tears rolled down her cheeks as she glanced up to Hester's pitying face.

"You see this hand, Mrs. Harbottle. This is terrible"; and there was a flash in Hester's grey blue eyes which made Mrs. Harbottle quail. Trying to a.s.sume a defensive air, she burst forth:

"How can you believe that little liar! Most likely she fell in trying to escape and hurt her hand." All the same she was not feeling easy at the discovery, for had she not at the butler's request given Rosie to him to try to make her confess the theft? Now she began to fear she had gone too far.

"I am sorry my husband happens to be out," said Hester. "He has gone driving with a friend who is staying with us. This is a matter that will require looking into."

"Oh, if you like to take the word of that native imp in preference to mine, I've nothing more to say," wound up Mrs. Harbottle, with an air of offence. "Perhaps you'll get the creature to confess to you after we've gone," she added, as a parting shot.

"I will--I 'fess to my werry own missus only," sobbed Rosie, and sprang forward to cling to Hester's morning gown.

"Ah, there, I told you so! You'll soon find out where the ring is hidden," cried Mrs. Harbottle, with a ring of triumph in her tone. "I'll leave you now," she added, with returning smiles as she prepared to go.

"I really cannot expose myself and my daughter to the sun. We've been delayed too long already over this wretched business."

Bowing stiffly, she raised her white umbrella, and the mother and daughter hurried away across the brown turf towards the gap in the hedge.

Hester felt rather nonplussed. Did Rosie not say she would confess after all? Had the child yielded to a sudden temptation and become a thief?

Was that why poor old ayah had stood by with such an unutterably stricken look?

"Come, Rosie, I want to talk to you in this very place where you used to repeat your hymn and hear nice stories," said Hester in a soothing voice. "Now tell me about all this!"

The little girl, in spite of her aching fingers, seemed to have wonderfully recovered her equanimity since the departure of her accusers.

"What are you going to confess to me, Rosie?" asked Hester gravely.