The Broken Road Part 18

"Other women, here in India, have had the courage."

"And what have their lives been afterwards?" she asked. She had not herself any very strong feeling on the subject of colour. She was not repelled, as men are repelled. But she was aware, nevertheless, how strong the feeling was in others. She had not lived in India for nothing.

Marriage with Shere Ali was impossible, even had she wished for it. It meant ostracism and social suicide.

"Where should I live?" she went on. "In Chiltistan? What life would there be there for me?"

"No," he replied. "I would not ask it. I never thought of it. In England. We could live there!" and, ceasing to insist, he began wistfully to plead. "Oh, if you knew how I have hated these past months.

I used to sit at night, alone, alone, alone, eating my heart for want of you; for want of everything I care for. I could not sleep. I used to see the morning break. Perhaps here and there a drum would begin to beat, the cries of children would rise up from the streets, and I would lie in my bed with my hands clenched, thinking of the jingle of a hansom cab along the streets of London, and the gas lamps paling as the grey light spread. Violet!"

Violet twisted her hands one within the other. This was just what she had thought to avoid, to shut out from her mind--the knowledge that he had suffered. But the evidence of his pain was too indisputable. There was no shutting it out. It sounded loud in his voice, it showed in his looks.

His face had grown white and haggard, the face of a tortured man; his hands trembled, his eyes were fierce with longing.

"Oh, don't," she cried, and so great was her trouble that for once she did not choose her words. "You know that it's impossible. We can't alter these things."

She meant by "these things" the natural law that white shall mate with white, and brown with brown; and so Shere Ali understood her. He ceased to plead. There came a dreadful look upon his face.

"Oh, I know," he exclaimed brutally. "You would be marrying a n.i.g.g.e.r."

"I never said that," Violet interrupted hastily.

"But you meant it," and he began to laugh bitterly and very quietly. To Violet that laughter was horrible. It frightened her. "Oh, yes, yes," he said. "When we come over to England we are very fine people. Women welcome us and are kind, men make us their friends. But out here! We quickly learn out here that we are the inferior people. Suppose that I wanted to be a soldier, not an officer of my levies, but a soldier in your army with a soldier's chances of promotion and high rank! Do you know what would happen? I might serve for twenty years, and at the end of it the youngest subaltern out of Sandhurst, with a moustache he can't feel upon his lip, would in case of war step over my head and command me.

Why, I couldn't win the Victoria Cross, even though I had earned it ten times over. We are the subject races," and he turned to her abruptly. "I am in disfavour to-night. Do you know why? Because I am not dressed in a silk jacket; because I am not wearing jewels like a woman, as those Princes are," and he waved his hand contemptuously towards a group of them. "They are content," he cried. "But I was brought up in England, and I am not."

He buried his face in his hands and was silent; and as he sat thus, Violet Oliver said to him with a gentle reproach:

"When we parted in London last year you spoke in a different way--a better way. I remember very well what you said. For I was glad to hear it. You said: 'I have not forgotten really that there is much to do in my own country. I have not forgotten that I can thank all of you here who have shown me so much kindness by more than mere words. For I can help in Chiltistan--I can really help.'"

Shere All raised his face from his hands with the air of a man listening to strange and curious words.

"I said that?"

"Yes," and in her turn Violet Oliver began to plead. "I wish that to-night you could recapture that fine spirit. I should be very glad of it. For I am troubled by your unhappiness."

But Shere Ali shook his head.

"I have been in Chiltistan since I spoke those words. And they will not let me help."

"There's the road."

"It must not be continued."

"There is, at all events, your father," Violet suggested. "You can help him."

And again Shere Ali laughed. But this time the bitterness had gone from his voice. He laughed with a sense of humour, almost, it seemed to Violet, with enjoyment.

"My father!" he said. "I'll tell you about my father," and his face cleared for a moment of its distress as he turned towards her. "He received me in the audience chamber of his palace at Kohara. I had not seen him for ten years. How do you think he received me? He was sitting on a chair of brocade with silver legs in great magnificence, and across his knees he held a loaded rifle at full c.o.c.k. It was a Snider, so that I could be quite sure it was c.o.c.ked."

Violet stared at him, not understanding.

"But why?" she asked.

"Well, he knew quite well that I was brought back to Kohara in order to replace him, if he didn't mend his ways and spend less money. And he didn't mean to be replaced." The smile broke out again on Shere Ali's face as he remembered the scene. "He sat there with his great beard, dyed red, spreading across his chest, a long velvet coat covering his knees, and the loaded rifle laid over the coat. His eyes watched me, while his fingers played about the trigger."

Violet Oliver was horrified.

"You mean--that he meant to kill you!" she cried incredulously.

"Yes," said Shere Ali calmly. "I think he meant to do that. It's not so very unusual in our family. He probably thought that I might try to kill him. However, he didn't do it. You see, my father's very fond of the English, so I at once began to talk to him about England. It was evening when I went into the reception chamber; but it was broad daylight when I came out. I talked for my life that night--and won. He became so interested that he forgot to shoot me; and at the end I was wise enough to a.s.sure him that there was a great deal more to tell."

The ways of the Princes in the States beyond the Frontier were unknown to Violet Oliver. The ruling family of Chiltistan was no exception to the general rule. In its annals there was hardly a page which was not stained with blood. When the son succeeded to the throne, it was, as often as not, after murdering his brothers, and if he omitted that precaution, as often as not he paid the penalty. Shere Ali was fortunate in that he had no brothers. But, on the other hand, he had a father, and there was no great security. Violet was startled, and almost as much bewildered as she was startled. She could not understand Shere Ali's composure. He spoke in so matter-of-fact a tone.

"However," she said, grasping at the fact, "he has not killed you. He has not since tried to kill you."

"No. I don't think he has," said Shere Ali slowly. But he spoke like one in doubt. "You see he realised very soon that I was not after all acceptable to the English. I wouldn't quite do what they wanted," and the humour died out of his face.

"What did they want?"

Shere Ali looked at her in hesitation.

"Shall I tell you? I will. They wanted me to marry--one of my own people.

They wanted me to forget," and he broke out in a pa.s.sionate scorn. "As if I could do either--after I had known you."

"Hush!" said she.

But he was not to be checked.

"You said it was impossible that you should marry me. It's no less impossible that I should marry now one of my own race. You know that. You can't deny it."

Violet did not try to. He was speaking truth then, she was well aware. A great pity swelled up in her heart for him. She turned to him with a smile, in which there was much tenderness. His life was all awry; and both were quite helpless to set it right.

"I am very sorry," she said in a whisper of remorse. "I did not think. I have done you grave harm."

"Not you," he said quietly. "You may be quite sure of that. Those who have done me harm are those who sent me, ten years ago, to England."

CHAPTER XV

A QUESTION ANSWERED

Thereafter both sat silent for a little while. The stream of people across the courtyard had diminished. High up on the great platform by the lighted arches the throng still pressed and shifted. But here there was quietude. The clatter of voices had died down. A band playing somewhere near at hand could be heard. Violet Oliver for the first time in her life had been brought face to face with a real tragedy. She was conscious of it as something irremediable and terribly sad. And for her own share in bringing it about she was full of remorse. She looked at Shere Ali as he sat beside her, his eyes gazing into the courtyard, his face tired and hopeless. There was nothing to be done. Her thoughts told her so no less clearly than his face. Here was a life spoilt at the beginning. But that was all that she saw. That the spoilt life might become an instrument of evil--she was blind to that possibility: she thought merely of the youth who suffered and still must suffer; who was crippled by the very means which were meant to strengthen him: and pity inclined her towards him with an ever-increasing strength.

"I couldn't do it," she repeated silently to herself. "I couldn't do it.

It would be madness."

Shere Ali raised his head and said with a smile, "I am glad they are not playing the tune which I once heard on the Lake of Geneva, and again in London when I said good-bye to you."