Far to Seek Part 10

"I'm ten and a half," said Roy, wishing it was eleven.

"Bit late for starting. I'm twelve. Going on to Marlborough next year."

Roy felt crushed. In a year he would be gone! Still--there were three more terms: and _he_ would go on to Marlborough too. He would insist.

"Does Scab Ma. bother you much?" Desmond asked with a friendly twinkle.

"Now and then--nothing to fuss about."

Roy's nonchalance, though plucky, was not quite convincing.

"Righto! I'll head him off. He isn't keen to knock up against me." A pause. "How about sitting down my way at meals? You don't look awfully gay at your end."

"I'm not. It would be ripping."

"Good. We'll hang together, eh? Because of India; because we both belong--in a different way. And we'll stick up for that miserable little devil Chandranath."

"Yes--we will." (The glory of that 'we.') "All the same,--I don't much like the look of him"

"No more don't I. He's the wrong 'jat.' He won't stay long--you'll see.

But still--he shan't be bullied by Scabs, because he's not the same colour outside. You see that sort of thing in India too. My father's fearfully down on it, because it makes more bad blood than anything; I've heard him say that it's just the blighters who buck about the superior race who do all the damage with their inferior manners. Rather neat--eh?"

Roy glowed. "Your father must be a splendid sort. Is he a soldier?"

"Rath_er_! He's a V.C. He got it saving a Jemadar--a Native Officer."

Roy caught his breath.

"I would awfully like to hear how----"

Desmond told him how....

It was a wonderful walk. By the end of it Roy no longer felt a lonely atom in a strange world. He had found something better than his Sanctuary--he had found a friend.

Looking back, long afterwards, he recognised that Sunday as the turning-point....

Later in the evening he poured it all out to his mother in four closely-written sheets.

But not a word about herself, or Desmond's friendly warning, which still puzzled him. He worried over it a little before he fell asleep. It was the very first hint--given, in all friendliness--that the mere fact of having an Indian mother might go against you, in some people's eyes.

Not the right ones, of course; but still--in the nature of things,--he couldn't make it out. That would come later.

At the time its only effect was to deepen his private satisfaction at having hammered Joe Bradley; to quicken his att.i.tude of championship towards his mother and towards India, till ultimately the glow of his fervent devotion fused them both into one dominant idea.

CHAPTER VII.

"He it is--the innermost one who awakens my being with his deep hidden touches."--TAGORE.

Lilamani read and re-read that letter curled among her cushions in the deep window-seat of the studio, a tower room with tall windows looking north, over jagged pine tops, to the open moor.

And while she read, Nevil stood at his easel, seizing and recording, the unconscious grace of her pose, the rapt stillness of her face. He was never weary of painting her--never quite satisfied with the result; always within an ace of achieving the one perfect picture that should immortalise a gleam from her inner uncaptured loveliness--the essence of personality that eternally foils the sense, while it sways the spirit.

Impossible, of course. One might as well try and catch the fragrance of a rose, the bloom of an April dawn, or any other fragment of the world's unseizable beauty But there remained the joy of pursuing--and pursuing, not achieving, is the salt of life.

Something in her pose, her absorption--lips just parted, shadow of lashes on her cheek, primrose-pale sari against the green velvet curtain--had fired him, lit a spark of inspiration....

If he made a decent thing of it, Roy should have it for a companion to the Antibes pastel: her two aspects--wife of Nevil; mother of Roy. Later on, the boy would understand. His star stood higher than usual, just then. For Nevil had detested writing that letter of rebuke; had not dared show it to his wife; and Roy had taken it like a man. No more lamentations, so far. Certainly not on this occasion, judging by her rapt look, her complete absorption that gave him the chance of catching her unawares.

For, in truth, she was unaware; lost to everything but the joy of contact with her son. The pang of parting had been dulled to a hidden ache; but always the blank was there, however amply filled with other claims on heart and spirit. A larger schoolroom now: and Nevil, with his new Eastern picture on hand, making constant demands on her--as usual--in the initial stages; till the subject of the moment eclipsed everything, every one--sometimes even herself. Her early twinges of jealousy, during that phase, rarely troubled her now. As wife and mother, she better understood the dual allegiance--the twofold strain of the creative process, whether in spirit or flesh. Now she knew that, when art seemed most exclusively to claim him, his need was greater, not less, for her woman's gift of self-effacing tenderness, of personal physical service. And through deeper love, came clearer insight. She saw Nevil--the artist--as a veritable Yogi, impelled to ceaseless striving for mastery of himself, his atmosphere, his medium: saw her wifely love and service as the life-giving impetus without which he might flag and never reach the heights.

Women of wide social and intellectual activities might raise perplexed eyebrows over her secluded life, still instinct with the 'spirit of purdah.' She found the daily pattern of it woven with threads so richly varied that to cherish a hidden grief seemed base ingrat.i.tude. Yet always--at the back of things--lurked her foolish mother-anxieties, her deep unuttered longing. And letters were cold comfort. In the first few weeks she had come to dread opening them. Always the bitter cry of loneliness and longing for home. What was it Nevil had said to make so surprising a change? Craving to know, she feared to ask; and more than suspected that he blessed her for refraining.

And now came this long, exultant letter, written in the first flush of his great discovery----

And as she read on, she became aware of a new sensation. This was another kind of Roy. On the first page he was pouring out his heart in careless unformed phrases. By the end of the second, his tale had hold of him; he was enjoying--perhaps unaware--the exercise of a newly-awakened gift. And, looking up, at last, to share it with Nevil, she caught him in the act of tracing a curve of her sari in mid-air.

With a playful movement--pure Eastern--she drew it half over her face.

"Oh, Nevil--you wicked! I never guessed----"

"That was the beauty of it. I make my salaams to Roy! What's he been up to that it takes four sheets to confess?"

"Not confessing. Telling a tale. It will surprise you."

"Let's have a look."

She gave him the letter; and while he read it, she intently watched his face. "The boy'll write--I shouldn't wonder," was his verdict, handing back her treasure, with an odd half-smile in his eyes.

"And you were hoping--he would paint?" she said, answering his thought.

"Yes, but--scarcely expecting. Sons are a perverse generation. I'm glad he's tumbled on his feet and found a pal."

"Yes. It is good."

"We'll invite young Desmond here and inspect him, eh?"

"Yes--we will."

He was silent a moment, considering her profile--humanly, not artistically. "Jealous, is she? The hundredth part of a fraction?"

"Just so much!" she admitted in her small voice. "But underneath--I am glad. A fine fellow. We will ask him--later."

The projected invitation proved superfluous. Roy's next letter informed them that after Christmas Desmond was coming for ten whole days. He had promised.

He kept his promise. After Christmas he came and saw--and conquered. At first they were all inclined to be secretly critical of the new element that looked as if it had come to stay. For Roy's discreetly repressed admiration was clear as print to those who could read him like an open page. And, on the whole, it was not surprising, as they were gradually persuaded to admit. There was more in Lance Desmond than mere grace and good looks, manliness and a ready humour. In him two remarkable personalities were blended with a peculiarly happy result.

They discovered, incidentally, his wonderful gift of music. "Got it off my mother," was his modest disclaimer. "She and my sister are simply top-hole. We do lots of it together."