Читать книгу Far to Seek - Diver Maud - Страница 22

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"You could humble at your feet the proudest heads in the world.

But it is your loved ones … whom you choose to worship.

Therefore I worship you."

—Rabindranath Tagore.

Roy, after due consideration, decided that he would speak first to his father—the one doubtful element in the home circle. But habit and the obsession of the moment proved too strong, when his mother came to 'tuck him up,' as she had never failed to do since nursery days.

Seated on the edge of his bed, in the shaded light, she looked like some rare, pale moth in her moon-coloured sari flecked and bordered with gold; amber earrings and a rope of amber beads—his own gift; first fruits of poetic earnings. The years between had simply ripened and embellished her; rounded a little the oval of her cheek; lent an added dignity to her grace of bearing and enriched her wisdom of the heart.

It was as he supposed. She had understood his thoughts long before. He flung out his hand—a fine, nervous hand—and laid it on her knee.

"You're a miracle. I believe you know all about it."

"I believe—I do," she answered, letting her own hand rest on his; moving her fingers, now and then, in the ghost of a caress:—an endearing way she had. "You are wishing—to go out there?"

"Yes. I simply must. You understand?"

She inclined her head and, for a moment, veiled her eyes. "I am proud. But you cannot understand how difficult … for us … letting you go. And Dad. … "

She paused.

"You think he'll hate it—want to keep me here?"

"My darling—'hate' is too strong. He cares very much for all that makes friendship between England and India. But—is it wonder if he cares more for his own son? You will speak to him soon?"

"To-morrow. Unless—a word or two, first, from you——"

"No, not that!" She smiled at his old boyish faith in her. "Better to keep me outside. You see—I am India. So I am already too much in it that way."

"You are in it up to the hilt!" he declared with sudden fervour: and—his tongue unloosed—he poured out to her a measure of his pent up feeling; how they had inspired him—she and his father; how he naturally hoped they would back him up; and a good deal more that was for her private ear alone. …

Her immense capacity for listening, her eloquent silence and gentle flashes of raillery, her occasional caress—all were balm to him in his electrical mood.

Were ever two beings quite so perfectly in tune——?

Could he possibly leave her? Could he face the final wrench?

When at last she stooped to kiss him, the faint clear whiff of sandalwood waked a hundred memories; and he held her close a long time, her cheek against his hair.

"Bad boy! Let me go," she pleaded; and, with phenomenal obedience, he unclasped his hands.

"See if you can go now!"

It was his old childish game. The moment she stirred, his hands were locked again.

"Son of my heart—I must!"

"One more kiss then—for luck!"

So she kissed him, for luck, and left him to his midnight browsings. …

Next morning she sat among her cushions in the studio, ostensibly reading a long letter from her father. Actually, her mind was intent on Nevil, who stood at his easel absorbed in fragmentary studies for a new picture—flying draperies; a man's face cleverly fore-shortened.

Though nearing fifty, he looked more like five-and-thirty; his face singularly free of lines; his fair hair scarcely showing the intrusion of grey. To her he seemed perennially young; and dearer than ever—if that could be—as the years mellowed and deepened the love on which they had boldly staked everything that counted most for them both. Yet, for all her skill in divination, she could not tell precisely how he would take the things Roy had to say; nor whether Roy himself would say them in just the right way. With Nevil, so much depended on that.

Till this morning, she had scarcely realised how unobtrusively she had been, as it were, their connecting link in all difficult or delicate matters, where their natures were not quite in tune. But now, Roy being a man, they must come to terms in their own fashion. …

At the first far-off sound of his step on the stairs, she rose and came over to the easel, and stood there a few moments—fascinated always by the swift sure strokes.

"Good—eh?" he asked, smiling into her serious eyes.

She nodded. "Quite evident—you are in the mood!" Her fingers lightly caressed the back of his hand. "I will come back later. Such a tray of vases waiting for me in the drawing-room!"

As Roy entered, she passed him and they exchanged a smile. Her eyes, mutely blessing him, besought him not to let his eager tongue run away with itself. Then she went out, leaving them together—the two who were her world.

Down in the drawing-room, roses and sweet-peas, cut by Christine—her fairy daughter—lay ready to hand. Between them they filled the lofty room with fragrance and harmonies of delicate colour. Then Christine flew to her beloved piano; and Lilámani wandered away to her no less beloved rose-garden. Body and mind were restless. She could settle to nothing till she knew what had passed between Nevil and Roy. His boyish confidences and adorations of the night before had filled her cup to overflowing. She felt glad and proud that her first-born should have set his heart on the high project of trying to promote deeper sympathy between his father's great country and her own people, in this time of dangerous antagonism and unrest.

But beneath her pride and gladness, stirred a fear lest the scales she had tried to hold even, should be inclining to tilt the wrong way. For duty to his father's house was paramount. Too strong a leaning towards India—no matter for what high purpose—would still be a tilt the wrong way. She had seen the same fear lurking in Nevil's heart also; and now, unerringly, she divined the cause of that hidden trouble which baffled Roy. Nevil feared that—if Roy went to India—history might repeat itself. She admitted the danger was real; and she knew his fear implied no reflection on herself or her country. Best of all, she knew that—because of his chivalrous loyalty that had never failed her—he would not speak of it, even to his son.

Clearly then, if Roy insisted on going to India, and if a word of warning must be spoken to ease Nevil's mind, only one person in the world could speak it—herself. For all her sensitive shrinking she could not, at this critical turning-point, stand outside. She was "in it"—as Roy dramatically assured her—up to the hilt. …

Time passed—and he did not come. Troubled, she wandered back towards the house; caught sight of him, lonely and abstracted, pacing the lawn: saw him stop near the great twin beeches—that embowered a hammock, chairs and rugs—and disappear inside. Then she knew her moment had come. …

She found him prone in the hammock: not even smoking: staring up into the cool green dome, fretted with graceful convolutions of trunk and branches. One lightly clenched hand hung over the edge. Attitude and abstraction alike suggested a listless dejection that sharply caught at her heart.

He started at sight of her. "Blessed little Mummy—no hiding from you!"

He flung out his left hand. She took it and laid it against her cheek: a form of caress all her own.

"Were you wishing to hide? I was waiting among the roses, to show you the new sweet-peas."

"And I never came. Proper beast I am! And sprawling here——" He swung his long legs over the side and stood up, tall and straight—taller than Nevil—smiling down at her. "I wasn't exactly hiding. I was shirking—a little bit. But now you've found me, you won't escape!"

Pressing down the edge of the hammock, he half lifted her into it and settled her among the cushions, deftly tucking in her silks and muslins.

"Comfy?" he asked, surveying her, with Nevil's own smile in his eyes.

"Comfy," she sighed, wishing discreet warnings at the bottom of the sea. Just to be foolish with him—the bliss of it! To chime in with his moods, his enthusiasms, his nonsense—she asked nothing better of life, when he came home. "Very clever, Sonling. But no,"—she lifted a finger—"that won't do. You are twenty-one. Too big for the small name now. So far away up there!"

"If I shot up as high as a lamp-post, my heart would still be down there—at your feet."

He said it lightly—that was the Englishman. But he said it—that was the Rajput. And she knew not which she loved the best. Strange to love two such opposites with equal fervour.

She blew him a kiss from her finger-tips. "Very well. We will not be unkind to the small name and throw him on the rubbish-heap. But now sit, please—Sonling. You have been talking—you and Dad? Not any decision? Is he not wishing you should—work for India?"

"Mummy, I don't know." He secured a chair and sat down facing her. "He insists that I'm officially free to kick over the traces, that he's not the kind of father who 'thunders vetos from the family hearthrug!'"

Lilámani smiled very tenderly at that so characteristic touch; but she said nothing. And Roy went on: "All the same, I gathered that he's distinctly not keen on my going out there. So—what the devil am I to do? He rubbed it in that I'm full young, and no hurry—but I feel there's something else at the back of his mind."

He paused—and she could hesitate no longer.

"Yes, Roy—there is something else——"

"Then why can't he speak out?"

"Not to be so impatient," she rebuked him gently. "It is because he so beautifully remains—my lover, he cannot put in words—any thought that might give——" She flung out an appealing hand. "Oh, Roy—can you not guess the trouble? He is afraid—for your marriage——"

"My marriage!" It was clear he did not yet grasp the truth. "Really, Mummy, that's a trifle previous. I'm not even thinking of marriage."

"No, Stupid One! But out there you might come to think of it! No man can tell when Kama, godling of the arrows, will throw magic dust in his eyes. You might meet other cousins—like Arúna, and there would come trouble, because"—she faced him steadily and he saw the veiled blush creep into her cheeks—"that kind of marriage—for you—must not be."

Now he understood; and, for all her high resolve, she thrilled at the swift flash of anger in his eyes.

"Who says—it must not be?" he demanded with a touch of heat. "Aunt Jane—confound her! When I do marry, it will be to please myself—not her!"

"Oh, hush, Roy—and listen! You run away too fast. It is not Aunt Jane—it is I who am saying must not, because I know—the difficult thought in Dad's heart. And I know it is right——"

"Why is it right?" He was up in arms again. Obstinate—but how lovable!—"Why mayn't I have the same luck as he had—if it comes my way? I've never met a girl or woman that could hold a candle to you for all-round loveliness. And it's the East that gives you—inside and out—a quality, a bloom—unseizable—like moonlight——"

"But, my darling! You make me blush!" She drew her sari across her face, hiding, under a veil of lightness, her joy at his outspoken praise.

"Well, you made me say it. And I'm not sentimentalising. I'm telling a home truth!"

His vehemence was guarantee of that. Very gently he drew back the sari and looked deep into her eyes.

"Why should we only tell the ugly ones, like Aunt Jane? Anyway, I've told you my truest one now—and I'm not ashamed of it."

"No need. It is a jewel I will treasure in my heart."

She dropped the veil of lightness, giving him sincerity for sincerity as he deserved. "But—Ancient one, have you seen so many girls and women in your long life——?"

"I've seen a pretty good mixture of all sorts—Oxford, London, and round here," he insisted unabashed. "And I've had my wits about me. Of course they're most of them jolly and straight. Good fellows in fact; talking our slang; playing our games. No harm, of course. But it kills the charm of contrast—the supreme charm. They understand that in India better than we do here."

The truth of that last Lilámani could not deny. Too clearly she saw in the violent upheaval of Western womanhood the hidden germs of tragedy, for women themselves, for the race.

"You are right, Roy," she said, smiling into his serious face. "From our—from Hindu point of view, greatest richness of life come from greatest possible difference between men and women. And most of all it is so in Rajputana. But over here. … " She sighed, a small shivering sigh. The puzzle and pain of it went too deep with her. "All this screaming and snatching and scratching for wrong kind of things hurts my heart; because—I am woman and they are women—desecrating that in us which is a symbol of God. Nature made women for ministering to Life and Love. Are they not believing, or not caring, that by struggling to imitate man (while saying with their lips how they despise him!) they are losing their own secret, beautiful differences, so important for happiness—for the race. But marriage in the West seems more for convenience of lovers than for the race——"

"Yet your son, though he is of the West—must not consider his own inclination or convenience——"

"My son," she interposed, gently inflexible, "because he is also of the East, must consider this matter of the race; must try and think it with his father's mind."

"All the same—making such a point of it seems like an insult—to you——"

"No, Roy. Not to say that——" The flash in her eyes, that was almost anger, startled and impressed him more than any spoken word. "No thought that ever came in your father's mind could be—like insult to me. Oh, my dear, have you not sense to know that for an old English family like his, with roots down deep in English soil and history, it is not good that mixture of race should come twice over in two generations. To you—our kind of marriage appears a simple affair. You see only how close we are now, in love and understanding. You cannot imagine all the difficulties that went before. We know them—and we are proud, because they became like dust under our feet. Only to you—Dilkusha, I could tell … a little, if you wish—for helping you to understand."

"Please tell," he said, and his hand closed on hers.

So, leaning back among her cushions—speaking very simply in the low voice that was music to his ears—she told. …

The telling—fragmentary, yet vivid—lasted less than half an hour. But in that half-hour Roy gleaned a jewel of memory that the years would not dim. The very words would remain. …

For Lilámani—wandering backward in fancy through the Garden of Remembrance—revealed more than she realised of the man she loved and of her own passionate spirit, compact of fire and dew, the sublimated essence of the Eastern woman at her best.

Yet in spite of that revealing—or rather because of it—rebellion stirred afresh. And, as if divining his thoughts, she impulsively raised her hand. "Now, Roy, you must promise. Only so, I can speak to Dad and rest his mind."

Seizing her hand, he kissed it fervently.

"Darling—after all that, a mere promise would be a fatuous superfluity. If you say 'No Indian wife,' that's enough for me. I suppose I must rest content with the high privilege of possessing an Indian mother."

Her radiant surprise was a beautiful thing to see. Leaning forward, she took his head in her hands and kissed him between his eyebrows where the caste-mark should be.

"Must it be October—so soon?" she asked.

He told her of Dyán, and she sighed. "Poor Dyán! I wonder? It is so difficult—even with the best kind—this mixing of English education and Indian life. I hope it will make no harm for those two——"

Then they started, almost like lovers; for the drooping branches rustled and Tara stood before them—a very vision of June; in her straight frock of Delphinium blue; one shell-pink rose in her hat and its counterpart in her waist-belt. Canvas shoes and tennis-racquet betrayed her fell design on Roy.

"Am I despritly superfluous?" she queried, smiling from one to the other.

"Quite too despritly," Roy assured her with emphasis.

She wrinkled her nose at him, so far as its delicate aquiline would permit. "Speak for yourself, spoilt boy!"

But she favoured him with her left hand, which he retained, while she stooped over the hammock and kissed Lilámani on both cheeks. Then she stood up and gently disengaged her hand.

"Christine's to blame. She guessed you were here. I came over in hopes of tennis. It's just perfect. Not too hot."

"Still more perfect in here, lazing with Mummy," said graceless Roy.

"I disown you, I am ashamed!" Lilámani rebuked him only half in jest. "No more lazing now. I have done with you. Only you have to get me out of this."

They got her out, between them; fussed over her and laughed at her; and then went off together for Roy's racquet.

She stood in the silvery sunlight watching them till they disappeared round the corner of the house. Not surprising that Nevil said—"No hurry!" If he would only wait … ! He was still too young, too much in love with India—with herself. Yet, had he already begun inditing sonnets, even to the most acceptable eyebrow, her perverse heart would doubtless have known the prick of jealousy—as in Desmond's day.

Instead she suddenly knew the first insidious prick of middle age; felt dazed, for a mere moment, by the careless radiance of their youth; to them an unconsidered thing: but to those who feel it relentlessly slipping through their fingers …

Her small fine hands clenched in unconscious response to her thought. She was nearing forty. In her own land she would be reckoned almost an old woman. But some magic in the air and way of life in this cool green England seemed to keep age at bay: and there remained within a flame-like youth of the spirit—not so easy, even for the Arch-Thief to steal away. …