Far to Seek Part 28

A full minute Roy stood there, eyes and brain blinded with brilliance.

Then he knelt down and covered his face; and so remained, a long while, his whole being uplifted in a wordless ecstasy of thanksgiving.

CHAPTER IV.

"The snow upon my life-bloom sits And sheds a dreary blight;-- Thy spirit o'er my spirit flits, And crimson comes for white."

--ANON.

On an unclouded afternoon of October, Roy sat alone with Thea Leigh in a shady corner of the Residency garden, smoking and talking, feeling blissfully at ease in body, and very much at home in spirit. After the wrench of parting with Desmond, it was balm to be welcomed by the sister who shared his high courage and enthusiasm for life, and who was smiling at Roy now with the same hazel-grey eyes that both had gotten from their father. But Thea's hair--her crown of glory--belonged exclusively to herself. The colour of it reminded him, with a pang, of autumn beech leaves, in his own woods. It enhanced the vivid quality of her beauty, and added appreciably to his pleasure in watching her while she talked.

Roy had arrived that morning, in the mist-laden chill of dawn; had enjoyed a long talk with Colonel Leigh; had made the acquaintance of Vernon and Phyllis, aged six and four; also of Flossie Eden, a kind of adopted daughter, aged twenty; and, tiffin being over, had announced his intention of riding out to re-discover the rose-red wonderland of his childish dreams--the peac.o.c.ks and elephants and crocodiles and temple bells. Thea, however, had counselled patience, threatening him with dire disillusion, if he went seeking his wonderland at that glaringly unpoetic time of day.

"An early cup of tea, and a ride afterwards," she prescribed, in her best autocratic manner. "Only sunset, or the first glimmer of dawn, can throw a spell over the munic.i.p.al virtues and artistic backslidings of Jaipur! I speak with feeling; because _I_ rushed forth untimely; and, in the full glare of afternoon sunshine, your rose-red city looked like nothing on earth but a fearful and wonderful collection of pink and white birthday cakes, set out for a giants' tea-party! It seemed almost a pity the giants had never come and eaten them up. Vinx said I was ribald. As a matter of fact, he was simply jealous of my brilliant metaphor! Look at him now--bored to death with me, because I'm telling the truth!"

Colonel Leigh--a tall pensive-looking man, who talked little and listened a.s.siduously--met her challenge with the indulgent smile of a husband who can be at once amused and critical and devoted: an excellent conjunction in marriage.

"If you can stay Roy's impatience with your metaphors, I'll begin to have some respect for them!" said he.

And she was staying Roy's impatience now, with cigarettes and coffee and the tale of Aruna--'England-returned.' She had revealed little by letter; an uncharacteristic touch of caution derived from her husband, who questioned the wisdom of her bold incursion into the complexities and jarring elements of a semi-modern Hindu household. But Thea Leigh, daughter of Honor Desmond, was strongly imbued with the responsibility of the ruling race. She stoutly refused to preserve, in Jaipur, the correct official detachment of Anglo-India. More: she possessed a racial wisdom of the heart, not to be gainsaid; as who should know better than her husband, since it had saved him from himself. And now, having secured Roy for half an hour, she confided to him, unreservedly, all she could gather of the tragic tangle she was unravelling in her own effective fashion.

"Aruna's the dearest thing," she told him--as well he knew. "And I'm truly fond of her. But sometimes I feel helpless. They're so hard to come at--these gentle, inscrutable Hindu women. Talk of English reserve!

However, I'm getting quite nimble at guessing and inferring; and I gather that your splendid old grandfather is rather pathetically helpless with that hive of hidden womenfolk and gurus. Also that the old lady--Mataji--is a bit of a tartar. Of course, having lost caste, makes the poor child's home position almost impossible. Yet she flatly refuses to go through their horrid rites of rest.i.tution. And Miss Hammond--our lady doctor at the hospital--backs her up."

"Well played, Miss Hammond!" quoth Roy; and remembering Aruna's cheerful letters (no word of complications), all his sympathy went out to her.

Might not he--related, yet free of grandmotherly tyranny--somehow be able to help? Too cruel that from her happy time in England there should spring such tragic issues. And she was not a creature made for tragedy, but for laughter and love and 'man's delight.' Yet, in the Hindu nature of things, this very matter of marriage was the crux of her troubles.

To the Power behind the curtain it spelt disgrace, that the eldest grand-daughter--at the ripe age of twenty-two--should be neither wife nor mother. It would need a very advanced suitor to overlook that d.a.m.ning item. Doubtless a large dowry would be demanded by way of compensation; and, before all, caste must be restored. While Aruna remained obdurate, nothing could be definitely arranged; and her grandfather had not the heart to enforce his wife's insistent demands.

But if the Indian woman's horizon be limited, her shrewdness and intuitive knowledge are often amazing; and this formidable old lady--skilled in the art of imposing her will on others--knew herself a match for her husband's evasions and Aruna's flat rebellion.

She reckoned, however, without the daughter of Sir Theo Desmond, who, at this point, took action--sudden and disconcerting.

"You see the child came regularly to my purdah parties," she explained to Roy, who was impatient no longer, only absorbed. "Sometimes I had her alone for reading and music; and it was heart-breaking to see her wilting away before my eyes. So, at last, in desperation, I broke loose--as Vinx politely puts it--and asked searching questions, regardless of etiquette. After all, the poor lamb has no mother. And I never disobey an impulse of the heart. I believe I was only in the _nick_ of time. It seemed the old tartar and her widowed sister-in-law were in touch with a possible husband. So they had given the screw a fresh turn, a.s.sisted by the family _guru_. He had just honoured them with a special visit, expecting to find the lost sheep regenerate and eager for his blessing. Shocked at the tale of her obstinacy, he announced that, unless he heard otherwise within a week, he would put a nameless curse upon her; in which case her honourable grandmother would not allow the poor child to eat or sleep under her honourable roof."

Roy's hand closed sharply on the arm of his chair. "Confound the fellow!

It's chiefly the mental effect they rely on. They're no fools; and even men like Grandfather--who can't possibly believe such rot--seem powerless to stand up against them. Does _he_ know all this?"

"It's hard to tell. They're so guarded--even the most enlightened--in alluding to domestic matters. Without a shade of discourtesy, they simply keep one outside. Poor Aruna was terrified at having told me.

Broke down utterly. But no idea of giving in. It's astonishing the grit one comes upon under their surface gentleness. She said she would starve or drown rather. _I_ said she should do nothing of the kind; that I would speak to Sir Lakshman myself--oh, very diplomatically, of course!

Afterwards, all in a rush, came my inspiration. Some sort of secretarial work for me would sound fairly plausible. (Did you know--I'm making a name, in a small way, over my zeal for Indian women?) On the strength of that, one could suggest a couple of rooms in the Residency; and she could still keep on at the hospital with Miss Hammond, giving me certain afternoons. It struck me as flawless--_till_ I imparted it to Vinx and saw him tweak his left eyebrow. Of course he was convinced it 'wouldn't do'; Sir Lakshman ... my position ... and so on. I said I proposed to make it do--and the eyebrow twitched worse than ever. So I mildly reminded him that _he_ had not held Aruna sobbing in his arms, and he didn't happen to be a mother! Which was unanswerable.--And, my dear Roy, I had a hectic week of it, manipulating Sir Lakshman and Aruna _and_ the honourable grandmother--strictly unseen! I'm sure she's anti-English.

I've got at all the other high-borns; but I can't get at her.

However--with a bold front and a tactful tongue, I carried the day. So I hope the holy man will transfer his potent curse to me. Naturally, the moment I'd fixed things up, came Lance's letter about you. But I couldn't back out. And I suppose it's all right?"

"Well, of course." Roy was troubled with no doubts on that score. "What a family you are! I was hoping to pick up threads with Aruna."

"You shall. But you must be discreet. Jaipur isn't exactly Oxford.

Brother and cousin are almost the same word with them; but still----"

"Is she at the hospital now?" Roy cut in irrelevantly. Her insistence on discretion--with Aruna, of all people--struck him as needless fussing and unlike Thea. And by now he was feeling more impatient to see Aruna than to see Jaipur.

"No. But she seemed shy of appearing at tiffin. So I said if she came out here afterwards, she would find you and me alone. She's looked happier and less fragile lately. Even Vinx admits the event has justified me. But of course it's simply an emergency plan--a transition----"

"To _what_?" Roy challenged her with surprising emphasis.

"That's my puzzle of puzzles. Perhaps you can help me solve it.

Sometimes I wonder if she knows herself, what she wants out of life....

But perhaps I haven't the key to her waverings...."

At that moment, a slight unmistakable figure stepped from the shadow of the verandah down the shallow steps flanked with pots of begonia; moving with the effortless grace that Roy's heart knew too well. Dress and sari were carnation pink. Her golden shoes glittered at every step: and she pensively twirled a square j.a.panese parasol--almond blossoms and b.u.t.terflies scattered abroad on silk of the frailest blue.

"_Is_ their instinct for that sort of thing unconscious, I wonder?"

murmured Thea. "You shall have half an hour with her, to pick up threads. Help me if you can, Roy. But--_be discreet_!"

Roy scarcely heard her. He had gone suddenly very still--his gaze riveted on Aruna. The Indian dress, the carriage of her veiled head, the leisured grace, so sharply smote him that tears p.r.i.c.ked his eyelids; and, for one intoxicating moment he was wafted, in spirit, across the chasm of the War to that dear dream-world of youth, when all distances were blue and all the near prospect bright with the dew of the morning.

Only under a mask-like stillness could he hide that startling uprush of emotion; and had Broome been watching him, he would have seen the subtle film of the East steal over his face.

Thea saw only his sudden abstraction and the whitened knuckles of his left hand. She also realised, with a faint p.r.i.c.k of anxiety, that he had simply not heard her remark. Was it possible--could Roy be at the back of Aruna's waverings? Would his coming mean fresh complications? Too distracting to be responsible for anything of that kind....

Without a word, he had risen--and went quickly forward to meet her. Thea saw how, on his approach, all her studied composure fell away; and both, when they joined her, looked so happy, yet so plainly discomposed, that Thea felt ridiculously at a loss for just the right word with which to effect a casual retreat. Responsibility for Sir Lakshman's grand-daughter was no light matter: at least she had done well in warning Roy. These emerging Indian girls...!

It was a positive relief to see the prosaic figure of Floss Eden, in brief tennis skirts and shady hat, hurrying across the lawn, with her boyish stride; racquet swinging, her round face flushed with exercise.

"I say, Aunt Thea--you're wanted _jut put_,"[6] she announced briskly.

"Verney's in one of his moods--and Mr Neill will soon be in one of his tempers, if he isn't forcibly removed. Instead of helping with the b.a.l.l.s, he's been parading up and down the verandah; two tin pails, tied on to him with string, clattering behind--making a beast of a row.

Shouting wasn't any earthly. So I rushed in and grabbed him.

'Verney--drop it! What _are_ you doing?' I said sternly; and he looked up at me like a sainted cherub. 'Flop, don't hinder me. I'm walkin' froo the valley of the shadow, an' goodness an' mercy are following me _all_ the days of my life.' That's the fruits of teaching the Bible to innocents!"

Thea's laugh ended in a sigh. "I warned Miss Mills. But the creature _is_ getting out of hand. I suppose it means he ought to go home. Mr Neill," she explained to Roy, "is Vinx's shorthand secretary: volcanic, but indispensable to the Great Work! So I must fly off and obliterate my superfluous son."

Her eyes tried to impart the warning he had not heard. Useless. His attention was centred on Aruna.

"Wonderful--isn't she?" the girl murmured, looking after her. Then swiftly, half-shyly, she glanced up at him. "Still more wonderful that, at last, you have come, that I am here too--only through her. She told you?"

"Yes. A little. I want to hear more."

"Presently. I would rather push away sad things--now you are here. If there was only Dyan too--like Oxford days. And--oh, Roy, I was bad never writing ... about her. I did try. But so difficult.... And--you knew----?"

"Yes--I knew," he said in a repressed voice. On that subject he could not trust himself just yet. Every curve and fold of her sari, and the half-seen coils of her dark hair, every movement, every quaint turn of phrase, set his nerves vibrating with an ecstasy that was pain. For the moment, he wanted simply to be aware of her; to hug the dear illusion that the years between were a dream. And illusion was heightened by the trivial fact that her appearance was identical in every detail. Was it chance? Or had she treasured them all this time? Only she herself looked older. Though her face kept its pansy aspect, her cheek-bones were a shade too prominent; no veiled glow of health under her dusky skin. But her smile could still atone for all shortcomings.

"Let's sit down," he added after a strained silence. "And tell me--what's come to Dyan?"

She shook her head. "Oh--if we could _know_. Not much use, after all, trying to push away sadness!" She sank into her chair and looked up at him. "The more you push it away, the more it comes flowing in from everywhere. Everything so broken and confused from this terrible War. At the beginning how they said all would be made new; East and West firmly united. But here, at home, while the best were fighting, the worst were too busy with ugly whispers and untrue talk. Even holy men, behind the purdah...."

"As bad as that, is it?" asked Roy, distracted from his own sensations by the subject that lay nearest his heart. "And you think Dyan's in with that crew?"

"Yes, we are afraid.... A pity he came back from France too soon, because half his left arm must be cut off. Then--you heard--he went to Calcutta?"