“I tell you he wouldn’t look at it—not if you offered him millions, and brought it to him on your bended knees!”
“That”—with the strict moderation she found so trying—“is hardly likely. Well, my dear, I’ll leave you to enjoy your letter.”
But Ketty had something to say first, and she said it at length, as she removed her mistress’s mud-stained garments and disclosed an extensive system of bruises. In vain did Eveleen assure her that she had been worse bruised many a time after a day’s hunting, the handmaid remained of opinion that “Madam-sahibs no done ride that way.” As a Parthian shot, even as she with drew by command, she expressed the hope that Master would stop these rides, but by this time Eveleen was established on her couch in a deliciously cool muslin wrapper, sipping a cup of tea, and preparing to break the seals of her letter.
Alas, alas! Brian was in trouble still. By the most unfortunate chance in the world, at this very last moment the brother officer on whom he had relied to relieve him—at a price—of an elaborate fowling-piece had been invalided home, and was selling his own guns, and no other purchaser could be found. The sum at issue was a paltry one—three hundred rupees would cover it, but without those three hundred rupees Brian could not appear before Sir Harry Lennox and proudly declare himself free of debt. Simply and naturally he applied to the helper who had never yet failed him. Surely Evie’s husband could not refuse to advance so small a sum if she asked it? He might cut up a bit rusty, but it would only be for a minute or two. Alas! Richard’s wont was not merely to let the sun go down upon his wrath, but to cover that wrath up carefully to keep it warm for the night—so Eveleen had once declared aghast, in her astonishment at a method so unlike the quickly passing tempests to which she was accustomed. And moreover, even if she could have appealed to him two hours ago, it was absolutely impossible after the last words that had passed between them. Even for Brian’s sake—rather, perhaps, especially for Brian’s sake—she could not expose herself and him to the certainty of a refusal couched as Richard Ambrose would couch it. But something must be done, for at the end of his letter Brian supplied an additional reason:—
“So do your best for me, my dear girl, for I am bruk entirely, as old Tim the huntsman used to say. If you don’t, you will lose more than you bargain for—this is a dead secret. I hear old Sir Harry is bound for Kaymistaun before long, so stump up the tin somehow if you have any fancy for seeing
“Your despairing brother,
“Brian Delany.”
But how? Eveleen’s first thought was to apply to Colonel Bayard, but the thought was relinquished as soon as formed. He would press upon her three thousand rupees instead of three hundred if he had it, but he would certainly make Richard a party to the transaction—and then it would be at an end. She became as despairing as Brian himself as she ran over the names of the various men with whom she came in contact. Some of them would be unable to raise the money, having solved the problem of existing on chits eked out by a judicious distribution of their pay as it came in; some would be so proper that they would tell Richard at once; others would hold over her the threat of telling him, and do so at last. Clearly there was nothing to be done in that way. She must sell something—or, at any rate, get an advance on something, and that not from the Soucars who acted as bankers to the Agency, but from some firm without official connections. The idea sounded hopeful. Her own simple rural life had known nothing of pawnbrokers, but she had relatives in Dublin who, in common with the rest of their circle, were wont to “deposit” their ancestral jewellery—at the bank, it was politely understood—save during the brief Castle season, while the family plate was “stored” in like manner except when required for a rare dinner-party. She must certainly pawn something, since the few odd coins in her own possession, if hunted up from all the nooks and corners where they somehow found hiding-places, might possibly amount to five rupees, but more probably would not.
But what could she pawn? She had so little jewellery that Richard would be sure to notice it if any particular ornament was not worn for some time, and none of it was very costly. She knew little about values, but she feared it might need all her trinkets to serve as security for three hundred rupees. All save one, that is. Impulsively she rose, and going to her jewel-case, took out the turquoise disc. To the Western eye it was not particularly attractive, but the Oriental mind attached to it a sentimental worth. She recalled the day when she had worn it at Bombay to show Brian, who was staying with her, and the awe and reverence with which his bearer, a Northern man, had viewed it. His eyes were glued to it from the moment he first distinguished it amid the laces on her breast, and when she took it off and handed it to Brian to examine, the servant retreated a little, as though either afraid or consciously unworthy to approach. When his master demanded what was the matter, the man explained that the stone was undoubtedly the Seal of Solomon, bearing the Name at which all the demons trembled, and endowing its owner with power to compel their services. Nothing more was needed to make the brother and sister waste the whole evening, and all the sealing-wax in the house, in trying to produce a satisfactory impression, entirely without success. The bearer, appealed to with ribaldry by his master, pointed out that the markings on the stone might by the eye of faith be interpreted as forming the required letters. It was the seal itself, not the impression, that signified, he said, and to cut it, as the sahib suggested, would be impious in the extreme, since it already bore all that was necessary. He ended by adjuring Eveleen to keep it safely, and pointed out the value which must have been attached to it by the former possessor who had suspended it from its strong steel chain.
“Well, it’s not much use to me!” said Eveleen. “Not being Solomon, I can’t wear a ring the size of a soup-plate, and Ambrose don’t like to see it round my neck. It may be very nice and magical, as your man says, but what good’s that when I don’t know how it works?”