Читать книгу Far to Seek - Diver Maud - Страница 16

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"Youth is lifted on Wings of his strong hope and soaring valour; for his thoughts are above riches."—Pindar.

Oxford on a clear, still evening of June: silver reaches of Isis and Cher; meadows pied with moon daisies and clover, and the rose madder bloom of ripe grasses; the trill of unseen birds tuning up for evensong; the passing and repassing of boats and canoes and punts, gay with cushions and summer frocks; all bathed in the level radiance that steals over earth like a presence in the last hours of a summer day. …

Oxford—shrine of the oldest creeds and the newest fads—given over, for one hilarious week, to the yearly invasion of mothers and sisters and cousins, and girls that were neither; especially girls that were neither. …

Two of the punts, clearly containing one party, kept close enough together for the occupants to exchange sallies of wit, or any blissful foolishness in keeping with the blissfully foolish mood of a moonlight picnic up the river in 'Commem.'

Roy Sinclair's party boasted the distinction of including one mother, Lady Despard; and one grandfather, Cuthbert Broome; and Roy himself—a slender, virile figure in flannels, and New College tie—was poling the first punt.

As in boyhood, so now, his bearing and features were Nevil incarnate. But to the shrewd eye of Broome the last seemed subtly overlaid with the spirit of the East—a brooding stillness wrought from the clash of opposing forces within. When he laughed and talked it vanished. When he fell silent, and drifted away from his surroundings, it reappeared.

It was precisely this hidden quality, so finely balanced, that intrigued the brain of the novelist, as distinct from the heart of the godfather. Which was the real Roy? Which would prove the decisive factor at the critical corners of his destiny? To what heights would it carry him—into what abyss might it plunge him—that gleam from the ancient soul of things? Would India—and his young glorification of India—be, for him, a spark of inspiration or a stone of stumbling?

Broome had not seen much of the boy, intimately, since the New Year; and he did not need spectacles to discern some inner ferment at work. Roy was more talkative and less communicative than usual; and Broome let him talk, reading between the lines. He knew to a nicety the moment when a chance question will kill confidence—or evoke it. He suspected one of those critical corners. He also suspected one of those Indian cousins of his: delightful, both of them; but still. …

The question remained, which was it—the girl or the boy?

The girl, Arúna—student at Somerville College—was reclining among vast blue and pink cushions in the bows, pensively twirling a Japanese parasol, one arm flung round the shoulders of her companion—a fellow-student; fair and stolid and good-humoured. Broome summed her up mentally: "Tactless but trustworthy. Anglo-Saxon to the last button on her ready-made Shantung coat and the blunted toe of her white suède shoe."

Arúna—in plain English, Dawn—was quite arrestingly otherwise. Not beautiful, like Lilámani, nor quite so fair of skin; but what the face lacked in symmetry was redeemed by lively play of expression, piquante tilt of nose and chin, large eyes, velvet-dark like brown pansies. The modelling of the face—its breadth and roundness and upturned aspect—gave it a pansy-like air. Over her simple summer frock of carnation pink she wore a paler sari flecked with gold; and two ropes of coral beads enhanced the deeper coral of her full lower lip. Not yet eighteen, she was studying "pedagogy" for the benefit of her less adventurous sisters in Jaipur.

Clearly a factor to be reckoned with, this creature of girlish laughter and high purpose; a woman to the tips of her polished finger nails. Yet Broome had by no means decided that it was the girl——

After Desmond—Dyán Singh: each, in his turn and type, own brother to Roy's complex soul. Broome—in no insular spirit—preferred the earlier influence. But Desmond had sped like an arrow to the Border, where his eldest brother commanded their father's old regiment; and Dyán Singh—handsome and fiery, young India at its best—reigned in his stead. The two were of the same college. Dyán, twelve months younger, looked the older by a year or more. Face and form bore the Rajput stamp of virility, of a racial pride, verging on arrogance; and the Rajput insignia of breeding—noticeably small hands and feet.

He was poling the second punt with less skill and assurance than Roy. His attention was palpably distracted by a vision of Tara among the cushions in the bows; an arm linked through her mother's, as though defending her against the implication of being older than any one else, or in the least degree out of it because of that trifling detail—tacitly admitted, while hotly denied; which was Tara all over.

Certainly Lady Despard still looked amazingly young; still emanated the vital charm she had transmitted to her child. And Tara at twenty, in soft butter-coloured frock with roses in her hat, was a vision alluring enough to distract any young man from concentration on a punt pole. Vivid, eager and venturesome, singularly free from the bane of self-consciousness; not least among her graces—and rare enough to be notable—was the grace of her chivalrous affection for the older generation. In Tara's eyes, girls who patronised their mothers and tolerated their fathers were anathema. It was a trait certain to impress Roy's Rajput cousin; and Broome wondered whether Helen was alive to the disturbing possibility; whether, for all her genuine love of the East, she would acquiesce. …

Only the other day, it seemed, he and she had sat together among the rocks of the dear old Cap, listening to Nevil's amazing news. She it was who had championed his choice of a bride: and Lilámani had justified her championship to the full. But then—Lilámani was one in many thousands; and this affair would be the other way about:—Tara, the apple of their eye; Tara, with her wild-flower face and her temperament of clear flame——?

How sharply they tugged at his middle-aged heart, these casual and opinionated young things, with their follies and fanaticisms, their Jacob's ladders hitched perilously to the stars; with their triumphs and failures and disillusions all ahead of them; airily impervious to proffered help and advice from those who would agonise to serve them if they could. …

A jarring bump in the small of his back cut short his flagrantly Victorian musings. Dyán's punt was the offender; and Dyán himself, clutching the pole that had betrayed him, was almost pitched into the river.

His achievement was greeted by a shout of laughter, and an ironic "Played indeed!" from Cuthbert Gordon—Broome's grandson. Roy, tumbled from some starry dream of his own, flashed out imperiously: "Look alive, you blithering idiot. 'Who are you a-shoving'?"

The Rajput's face darkened; but before he could retort, Tara had risen and stepped swiftly to his side. Her fingers closed on the pole; and she smiled straight into his clouded eyes.

"Let me, please. I'm sick of lazing and fearfully keen. And I can't allow my Mother to be drownded by anyone but me. I'd be obliged to murder the other body, which would be awkward—for us both!"

"Miss Despard—there is no danger——" he muttered—impervious to humour; and—as if by chance—one of his hands half covered hers.

"Let go," she commanded, so low that no one else knew she had spoken; so sternly that Dyán's fingers unclosed as if they had touched fire.

"Now, don't fuss. Go and sit down," she added, in her lighter vein. "You've done your share. And you're jolly grateful to me, really. But too proud to own it!"

"Not too proud to obey you," he muttered.

She saw the words rather than heard them; and he turned away without daring to meet her eyes.

It all passed in a few seconds, but it left him tingling with repressed rage. He had made a fool of himself in her eyes; had probably given away his secret to the whole party. After all, what matter? He could not much longer have kept it hidden. By the touch of hands and his daring words he had practically told her. …

As he settled himself, her clear voice rang out: "Wake up, Roy! I'll race you to the backwater."

They raced to the backwater; and Tara won by half a length, amid cheers from the men.

"Well, you see, I had to let you," Roy explained, as she confronted him, flushed with triumph. "Seemed a shame to cut you out. Not as if you were a giddy suffragette!"

"Qui s'excuse—s'accuse!" she retorted. "Anyway—I'm the winner."

"Right you are. The way of girls was ever so. No matter what line you take, it's safe to be the wrong one."

"Hark at the Cynic!" jeered young Cuthbert. "Were you forty on the 9th, or was it forty-five?"

Roy grinned. "Good old Cuthers! Don't exhaust yourself trying to be funny! Fish out the drinks. We've earned them, haven't we—High Tower Princess?" The last, confidentially, for Tara's ear alone.

And Dyán, seeing the smile in her eyes, felt jealousy pierce him like a red-hot wire.

The supper, provided by Roy and Dyán, was no scratch wayside meal, but an ambrosial affair:—salmon mayonnaise, ready mixed; glazed joints of chicken; strawberries and cream; lordly chocolate boxes; sparkling moselle—and syphons for the abstemious.

It was a lively meal: Roy, dropped from the clouds, the film of the East gone from his face, was simply Nevil again; even as young Cuthbert, with his large build and thatch of tawny hair, was a juvenile edition of Broome. And the older man, watching them, bandying chaff with them, renewed his youth for one careless golden hour.

The punts were ranged alongside; and they all ate together, English and Indian. No irksome caste rules on this side of the water; no hint of condescension in the friendly attitude of young Oxford. Nothing to jar the over-sensibility of young India—prone to suspect slight where no thought of it exists; too often, also, treated to exhibitions of ill-bred arrogance that undo in an hour the harmonising work of years.

Dyán sat by Tara, anticipating her lightest need; courage rising by leaps and bounds. Arúna, from her nest of cushions, exchanged lively sallies with Roy. Petted by a college full of friendly English girls, she had very soon lost what little shyness she ever possessed. Now and again, when his eyes challenged hers, she would veil them and watch him surreptitiously; one moment approving his masculine grace; the next, boldly asking herself: "Does he see how I am wearing the favourite sari—and how my coral beads make my lips look red?" And again: "Why do they make foolish talk of a gulf between East and West?"

To that profound question came no answer in words; only in hidden stirrings, that she preferred to ignore. Both brother and sister had persuaded themselves that talk of a gulf was exaggerated by unfriendly spirits. They, at all events, having built their bridge, took its stability for granted. Children of an emotional race, it sufficed to discover that they loved the cool green freshness of England, the careless kindly freedom of her life and ways; the hum of her restless, smoky, all-embracing London; her miles and miles of books and pictures. Above everything they loved Oxford, where all were brothers in spirit—with a proper sense of difference between the brothers of one's own college and the mere outsider:—Oxford, at this particular hour of this particular June evening. And at this actual moment, they loved salmon mayonnaise and crushed strawberries fully as much as any other manifestation of the delectable land.

And down in subconscious depths—untroubled by the play of surface emotions—burned their passionate, unreasoned love of India that any chance breath might rekindle to a flame.

Presently, as the sun drew down to earth, trees and meadows swam in a golden haze. Arrows of gold, stealing through alders and willows, conjured mere leaves into discs of pure green light. Clouds of pollen brightened to dust of gold. In the near haze midges flickered; and, black against the brightness, swallows wheeled and dipped, uttering thin cries in the ecstasy of their evening flight.

On the two punts in the backwater a great peace descended after the hilarity of their feast. Clouds of cigarette smoke kept midges at bay. In the deepening stillness small sounds asserted themselves—piping of gnats, the trill of happy birds, snatches of disembodied laughter and talk from other parties in other punts, somewhere out of sight. …

Only Arúna did not smoke; and Emily Barnard, her fanatic devotee, retired with her to the bank, where they made a lazy pretence of "washing up." But Arúna's eyes would stray toward the recumbent figure of Roy, when she fancied Emmie was not looking. And Emmie—who could see very well without looking—wished him at the bottom of the river.

Propped on an elbow, he lay among Arúna's cushions, his senses stirred by the faint carnation scent she used, enlarging on his latest enthusiasm—Rabindranath Tagore, the first of India's poet-saints to challenge the ethics of the withdrawn life. When the mood was on, the veil of reserve swept aside, he could pour out his ardours, his protests, his theories, in an eloquent rush of words. And Arúna—absently wiping spoons and forks—listened entranced. He seemed to be addressing no one in particular; but as often as not his gaze rested on Broome, as though he were indirectly conveying to him thoughts he felt shy of airing when they were alone.

A pause in the flow of his talk left a space of silence into which the encompassing peace and radiance stole like an inflowing tide. None loved better than Roy the ghostly music of silence; but to-night his brain was filled with the music of words—not his own.

"Just listen to this," he said, without preamble. His eyes took on their far-away look; his voice dropped a tone.

"The night is night of mid-May; the breeze is the breeze of the South.

"From my heart comes out and dances the image of my Desire.

"The gleaming vision flits on.

"I try to clasp it firmly, it eludes me and leads me astray.

"I seek what I cannot get; I get what I do not seek."

To that shining fragment of truth and beauty, his audience paid the fitting tribute of silence; and his gaze—returning to earth—caught, in Tara's eyes, a reflection of his exalted mood. Dyán saw it also; and once more that red-hot wire pierced his heart.

It passed in a second; and Roy was speaking again—not to Tara, but to her mother.

"Is there any poet, East or West, who can quite so exquisitely capture the essence of a mood, hold it lightly, like a fluttering bird, and as lightly let it go?"

Lady Despard smiled approval at the simile. "In that one," she said, "he has captured more than a mood—the very essence of life.—Have you met him?"

"Yes, once—after a lecture. We had a talk—I'll never forget. There's wonderful stuff in the new volume. I know most of it by heart."

"Spare us, good Lord," muttered Cuthbert—neither prejudiced nor perverse, but British to the core. "If you start again, I'll retaliate with Job and the Psalms!"

Roy retorted with the stump of an extinct cigarette. It smote the offender between the eyebrows, leaving a caste-mark of warm ash to attest the accuracy of his aim.

"Bull's eye!" Tara scored softly; and Roy, turning on his elbow, appealed to Broome. "Jeffers, please extinguish him!" ("Jeffers" being a corruption of G.F., alias Godfather).

Broome laughed. "I had a hazy notion he was your show candidate for the Indian Civil!"

"He's supposed to be. That's the scandal of it. A mighty lot of interest he's cultivating in the people and the country he aspires to administer."

"High art and sloppy sentiment are not in the bond," Cuthbert retorted, with a wink at Dyán Singh.

That roused Lady Despard. "Insight and sympathy must be in the bond, unless England and India are to drift apart altogether. The Indian Civilian should be caught early, like the sailor, and trained on the spot. Exams make character a side issue. And one might almost say there's no other issue in the Indian services."

Cuthbert nodded. "Glorious farce, isn't it? They simply cram us like Christmas turkeys. Efficiency's the war-cry, these enlightened days."

"Too much efficiency," Dyán struck in, with a kindling eye. "Already turning our ancient cities into nightmares like Manchester and Birmingham, killing the true sense of beauty, giving us instead the poison of money and luxury worship. And what result? Just now, when the West at last begins to notice our genius of colour and design—even to learn from it—we find it slipping out of our own fingers. Nearly all the homes of the English educated are like caricatures of your villas—the worst kind. Yet there are still many on both sides who wish to make life—not so ugly, to escape a little from gross superstition of facts——"

"Hear, hear!" Broome applauded him. "But I'm afraid, my dear boy, the Time Spirit is out to make tradesmen and politicians of us all. Thank God, the soul of a race lives in its books, its philosophy and art."

"Very well then"—Roy was the speaker—"the obvious remedy lies in getting the souls of both races into closer touch—philosophy, art, and all that—eh, Jeffers? That's what we're after—Dyán and I—on the lines of that society Dad belongs to."

Broome looked thoughtfully from one to the other. "A tall order," said he.

"A vision splendid!" said Lady Despard.

Roy leaned eagerly towards her. "You don't sneer at dreams, Aunt Helen."

"Nor do I, my son. Dreamers are our strictly unpaid torch-bearers. They light the path for us; and we murmur 'Poor fools!' with a kind of sneaking self-satisfaction, when they come a cropper."

"'Which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me!'" quoted Roy, cheered by Lady Despard's approval. "Anyway, we're keen to speed up the better understanding move—on the principle that Art unites and politics divide."

"Very pithy—and approximately true! May I be allowed to proffer a sound working maxim for youth on the war-path? 'Freedom and courage in thought—obedience in act.' When I say obedience, I don't mean slavish conformity. When I say freedom, I don't mean licence. Only the bond are free."

"Jeffers, you're a Daniel! I'll pinch that pearl of wisdom! But what about democracy—Cuthers' pet panacea? Isn't it making for disobedience in act—rebellion; and enslavement in thought—every man reared on the same catch-words, minted with the same hall-mark?"

That roused the much-enduring British Lion—in the person of Cuthbert Gordon.

"Confound you, Roy! This is a picnic, not a bally Union debate. You can't argue for nuts; and when you start spouting you're the limit. But two can play at that game!" He flourished a half-empty syphon of lemonade, threatening the handle with a very square thumb.

"Fire away, old bean." Roy opened his mouth by way of invitation. Cuthbert promptly pressed the trigger—and missed his mark.

There was a small shriek from Tara and from the girls on the bank: then the opponents proceeded to deal with one another in earnest. …

Dyán soon lost interest when India was not the theme; and, as the elders fell into an undercurrent of talk, his eyes sought Tara's face. Her answering smile spurred him to a bold move; and he leaned towards her, over the edge of the boat. "Miss Despard," he said under his breath, "won't you come for a stroll in the field?—Do."

She shook her head. "I'm too lazy! We've had enough exercise. And there's the walk home."

Her refusal jarred him; but desire overruled pride. "You couldn't call it exercise. Do come."

"Truly—I'm tired," she insisted gently, looking away from him towards her mother.

It was Lady Despard's boast that she could listen to three conversations at once; but even Tara was surprised when she casually put out a hand and patted her knee. "Wise child. Better keep quiet till we start home."

The hand was not removed. Tara covered it with her own, and further maddened the discomfited Dyán by saying, with her very kindest smile: "I'm so sorry. Don't be vexed."

Vexed! The bloodless word was insult piled on injury. All the pride and passion of his race flamed in him. Without answering her smile or her plea, he drew abruptly away from her; stepped out of the punt and went for his stroll alone.