Читать книгу Far to Seek - Diver Maud - Страница 13

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

Lilámani 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 ingratitude. 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."

His intelligent delight in pictures and books commended him to Nevil; but, at twelve and a half, skating, tramping, and hockey matches held the field. Sometimes—when it was skating—Tara and Chris went with them. But they made it clear, quite unaggressively, that the real point was to go alone.

Day after day, from her window, Lilámani watched them go, across the radiant sweep of snow-covered lawn; and, for the first time, where Roy was concerned, she knew the prick of jealousy—a foretaste of the day when her love would no longer fill his life. Ashamed of her own weakness, she kept it hid—or fancied she did so; but the little stabbing ache persisted, in spite of shame and stoic resolves.

Tara and Christine also knew the horrid pang; but they knew neither shame not stoic resolves. Roy mustn't suspect, of course; but they told each other, in strictest confidence, that they hated Desmond; firmly believing they spoke the truth. So it was particularly vexatious to find that the moment he favoured them with the most casual attention, they were at his feet.

But that was their own private affair. Whether they resented, or whether they adored, the boys remained entirely unconcerned, entirely absorbed in each other. It was Desmond's opinion of them that mattered supremely to Roy; in particular—Desmond's opinion of his mother. After those first puzzling remarks and silences, Roy had held his peace; had not even shown Desmond her picture. His invitation accepted, he had simply waited, in transcendent faith, for the moment of revelation. And now he had his reward. After a prelude of mutual embarrassment, Lance had succumbed frankly to Lady Sinclair's unexpected charm and her shy irresistible overtures to friendship:—so frankly, that he was able, now, to hint at his earlier perplexity.

He had seen no Indian women, he explained, except in bazaars or in service; so he couldn't quite understand, until his own mother made things clearer to him and recommended him to go and see for himself. Now he had seen—and succumbed: and Roy's very private triumph was unalloyed. Second only to that triumph, the really important outcome of their glorious Ten Days was that, with Desmond's help, Roy fought the battle of going on to Marlborough when he was twelve—and won. …

It was horrid leaving them all again; but it did make a wonderful difference knowing there was Desmond at the other end; and together they would champion that doubtfully grateful victim—Chandranath. Their zeal proved superfluous. Chandranath never reappeared at St. Rupert's. Perhaps his people had arrived at Desmond's conclusion, that he was not the right "ját" for an English school. In any case, his disappearance was a relief—and Roy promptly forgot all about him.

Years later—many years later—he was to remember.

After St. Rupert's—Marlborough:—and just at first he hated it, as he had hated St. Rupert's, though in a different fashion. Here it was not so much the longing for home, as a vague yet deepening sense that, in some vital way—not yet fully understood—he was different from his fellows But once he reached the haven of Desmond's study, the good days began in earnest. He could read and dream along his own lines. He could scribble verse or prose, when he ought to have been preparing quite other things; and the results, good or bad, went straight to his mother.

Needless to say, she found them all radiant with promise; here and there a flicker of the divine spark: and, throughout the years of transition, the locked and treasured book that held them was the sheet-anchor to which she clung, till the new Roy should be forged out of the backslidings and renewals incidental to that time of stress and becoming. What matter their young imperfections, when—for her—it was as if Roy's spirit reached out across the dividing distance and touched her own. In the days when he seemed most withdrawn, that dear illusion was her secret bread.

And all the while, subconsciously, she was drawing nearer to the given moment of religious surrender that would complete the spiritual link with husband and children. As the babies grew older, she saw, with increasing clearness, the increasing difficulty of her position. Frankly, she had tried not to see it. Her free spirit, having reached the Reality that transcends all forms, shrank from returning to the dogmas, the limitations of a definite creed. In her eyes, it seemed a step backward. Belief in a personal God, above and beyond the Universe, was reckoned by her own faith a primitive conception; a stage on the way to that ultima Thule where the soul of man perceives its own inherent divinity, and the knower becomes the Known, as notes become music, as the river becomes the sea. It was this that troubled her logical mind and delayed decision.

But the final deciding factor—though he knew it not—was Roy. By reason of her own share in him, religion would probably mean more to him than to Nevil. For his sake—for the sake of Christine and Tara and the babies, fast sprouting into boys—she felt at last irresistibly constrained to accept, with certain mental reservations, the tenets of her husband's creed; and so qualify herself to share with them all its outward and visible forms, as already she shared its inward and spiritual grace.

The conviction sprang from no mere sentimental impulse. It was the unhurried work of years. So—when there arose the question of Roy's confirmation, and Tara's, at the same Easter-tide, conviction blossomed into decision, as simply and naturally as the bud of a flower opens to the sun. That is the supreme virtue of changes not imposed from without. When the given moment came—the inner resolve was there.

Quite simply she spoke of it to Nevil, one evening over the studio fire. And behold a surprise awaited her. She had rarely seen him more deeply moved. From the time of Roy's coming, he told her, he had cherished the hidden hope.

"Yet too seldom you have spoken of such things—why?" she asked, moved in her turn and amazed.

"Because from the first I made up my mind I would not have it, except in your own way and in your own time. I knew the essence of it was in you. For the rest—I preferred to wait till you were ready—Sita Devi."

"Nevil—lord of me!" She slipped to her knees beside him. "I am ready. But oh, you wicked, how could I know that all the time you were caring that much in your secret heart."

He gathered her close and said not a word.

So the great matter was settled, with no outward fuss or formalities. She would be baptized before Roy came home for the Easter holidays and his confirmation.

"But not here—not Mr. Sale," she pleaded. "Let us go away quietly to London—we two. Let it be in that great Church, where first the thought was born in my heart that some day … this might be."

He could refuse her nothing. Jeffrey might feel aggrieved when he knew. But after all—this was their own affair. Time enough afterwards to let in the world and its thronging notes of exclamation.

Roy was told when he came home. For imparting such intimate news, she craved the response of his living self. And if Nevil's satisfaction struck a deeper note, it was simply that Roy was very young and had always included her Hindu-ness in the natural order of things.

Wonderful days! Preparing the children, with Helen's help; preparing herself, in the quiet of her "House of Gods"—a tiny room above the studio—in much the same spirit as she had prepared for the great consecration of marriage, with vigil and meditation and unobtrusive fasting—noted by Nevil, though he said no word.

Crowning wonder of all, that golden Easter morning of her first Communion with Roy and Tara, with Nevil and Helen:—unfolding of heart and spirit, of leaf and blossom; dual miracle of a world new made. …