Ootacamund. London. Madras.
“That’s the man, over there.”
The speaker indicated with a slight almost imperceptible motion of the hand a figure standing in the doorway. He had just arrived and his eyes were searching for his host and hostess. He was an Indian, a caste Hindu of good birth, Narasimha by name. He bore several other names, but was known generally as Mr. Narasimha. His friends dropped the English honorific and used the simple name alone. Of medium height, with regular features and small hands and feet, he presented a striking personality in the assembly of Englishmen.
The eyebrows of the listener were slightly raised as her gaze took in the details of Narasimha’s appearance.
“So he is in the Civil Service.”
“Passed out with Mr. Strafford, a man of the same year.”
“Well, we shall see how this move on the part of Government will answer.”
There was scepticism behind the words. Mrs. O’Brian was one of the old school who still held to the belief that India should be ruled by the conquerors and not by a committee of the conquered.
“The man is handsome enough in all conscience,” she added, as Mrs. Abbott, her companion, had not responded.
“He’s more than that. They say in Madras that he is one of the coming men. From all accounts he has already a marvellous grip of affairs,” said Mrs. Abbott.
“How long has he been in the service?” asked Mrs. O’Brian, who had lost her husband and had retired to the Hills, where she saw very little of the world and was consequently behind the times in her opinions.
“Ten or eleven years. He came out with John Strafford. They were friends in England when they were reading together with the same coach for the examination. Narasimha was high up in the list; far above Mr. Strafford; but there was no jealousy on that account, and they have been the best of friends ever since.”
Mrs. Abbott, who had constituted herself Mrs. O’Brian’s cicerone, glanced round the wide room. The Nilgiri mountain air, laden with the scent of the mimosa, that grew luxuriantly wherever it could get root hold, came into the room. A stringed band played the latest music in an adjoining room and a few couples circled to its strains.
It was a party given in honour of the bride who was to be married the next day at St. Stephen’s, Ootacamund. John Strafford, the bridegroom, had startled all his friends and acquaintances by inviting Narasimha.
The fact that Narasimha was not a Christian carried no weight with Strafford. He had exhibited considerable obstinacy on the point as soon as he obtained his bride’s consent. It was his way of showing the depth of his long friendship with the Hindu.
Barbara Bonham, the bride, laughed when he proposed it and made no objection whatever. She had said that she hoped it would not invalidate their marriage, and being reassured on that point, approved of his invitation. Nothing pleased her more than a departure from the conventional and doing something that was original.
“That’s the individual who is the bridegroom’s great friend,” said Mrs. Abbott.
“I wonder how Miss Bonham really likes it.”
“She professes to be satisfied.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said; but things are very different from what they were in my young days,” said Mrs. O’Brian, with some severity.
“The same may be said of England,” responded Mrs. Abbott. “Every time I go home I see a change.”
They ceased gossiping to watch the company. Some fifty people had accepted the invitation of Sir William and his wife to be introduced to their niece. She had just arrived from home to be married to her fiancé from their house on the Hills.
Strafford, on the appearance of Narasimha, came forward from the group in which he was temporarily buried and hurried to his friend.
“Narasimha! I am so glad to see you!” he exclaimed, the expression on his face confirming his words. “I was terribly afraid that you wouldn’t get leave.”
“I promised you, old friend, that I wouldn’t fail you,” replied the other, grasping his hand.
“If it depended on you—” began Strafford.
“When I accepted my new appointment, I gave the authorities to understand that I did not mean to forego the month’s privilege leave that I asked for and obtained before I knew of my promotion.”
“I ought to congratulate you. It is a great feather in your cap to be made an Under-Secretary. In my opinion they could not have picked out a better man,” rejoined Strafford warmly.
“Thanks awfully. I hope that you, too, will be called up to the Secretariat before long.”
Strafford shook his head. There was no sign of disappointment on his face as he replied.
“Afraid I’m not even in the running. I have nothing to grumble at, however. They’re giving me a good station as acting Collector with a climate that will suit my wife.”
The pride with which Strafford spoke of his wife was not lost on Narasimha. He looked at the Englishman curiously. He understood the pride and the ready mention of the wife. His residence in England had taught him many things and had shown him the vast difference that existed between the East and the West in more ways than one. The Hindu never speaks of wife or child personally, but classes them together under one heading, “the family.”
“By the bye, you haven’t met Barbara yet, have you?”
“I have not had that pleasure,” replied the Indian a little formally.
“Come along; let’s find her. She’s somewhere about.” Strafford slipped his hand in the arm of the other and led him off towards a group of young people at the other end of the room.
Barbara’s eyes, never blind to the presence of her lover, caught sight of him as he advanced with his friend towards her. She disengaged herself from her friends and turned to meet the two men.
Narasimha’s scrutinising glance met hers in a swift look wherein each seemed to be taking the measure of the other. Both were apparently satisfied. He saw a fair English woman, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a white skin in which the tints of the rose leaf showed. She noted the handsome features and olive brown complexion of the man of the East.
He smiled pleasantly in response to her greeting; but his lips soon lost their curves and resumed habitual gravity that gave him an expression of seriousness. It was not sternness but the gravity of a man who fully realises the responsibilities of life, a man to whom work was all-important and amusement counted for nothing.
Barbara was a shade disappointed, although she took care not to let it be seen. She had fully anticipated that her husband’s friend would wear a turban and possibly a long Indian coat. He had nothing about him to mark his nationality but his complexion. She had seen men in England and on the Continent with skins as dark as Narasimha’s, and the men bore European names.
After the introduction and a few words, Strafford slipped away, leaving his bride to make the better acquaintance of his friend.
“You have lately arrived from England, Miss Bonham,” said Narasimha, and he began to ask her politely about the voyage.
Her mind was occupied with other matters. She interrupted him, going at once to the point.
“Mr. Strafford told me some weeks ago that you were to be present at the wedding. It is very kind of you to come. It is an act of friendliness which I understand he cannot reciprocate. You don’t invite Englishmen to your weddings, do you?”
The faintest flicker of his eyelids would have told Barbara, if she had known her India, that she was treading on delicate ground. He did not reply immediately; and she continued, blundering still more in her ignorance,
“But perhaps you are already married?”
“That is so,” he answered quietly.
“Are we to have the pleasure of seeing your wife here?”
“She is with my people at Chittoor; too far away to be present.”
“Some day I hope I may be allowed to make her acquaintance. Mr. Strafford tells me that you have just been appointed to something good at Madras. I congratulate you. You will be coming up to Ooty with the Government in the hot weather. We shall have the opportunity of seeing you when we run up to the Hills for a change.”
“I hope so.”
He seemed to have little to say. Perhaps he was shy and felt awkward; an erroneous supposition on her part. She continued to talk, unaware of the fact that she was not allowing him much chance of contributing to the conversation.
“Mr. Strafford has given me as a wedding present the dearest little house in Coonoor, to which I shall be able to come whenever I want a change. We are going to drive down to it tomorrow afternoon. The distance is only twelve miles, which we shall do in our own little two-seater; it will take so short a time that we shall not hurry away after the wedding. I always think it a little hard on the bride, when she has to be whirled off almost immediately after the ceremony. I am going to enjoy my own wedding and make the most of it.”
Narasimha had not been without his social experiences in England as well as in India. But with them all he could not help marvelling slightly at the ease and composure with which this bride of the West spoke of the event. A woman of his own nation under the same circumstances would have been speechless and overwhelmed with modest confusion. She could not have discussed the situation even with one of her own sex. To talk about it with a strange man she was meeting for the first time in her life would cause her to sink to the ground in shyness. It even left Narasimha himself with an uncomfortable feeling that if he responded he would be taking a liberty.
At this moment they were joined by Sibyl Cullington, one of Barbara’s bridesmaids and an old friend of many years’ standing. The bride was about to introduce him when Sibyl cried,
“No need, my dear. Mr. Narasimha and I are well known to each other.” She turned to him in friendly fashion. “I’ve been looking forward to this meeting. Give me a wedding on the Hills for a good old gathering of the clans. Now, Barbara, if you have done with him for the present you may hand Mr. Narasimha over to me. I’ve lots to say.”
“I haven’t had him very long to myself,” Barbara rejoined laughing. “But I see my aunt looking for me, which means more introductions, so I’ll take the hint and go.”
“You should have come out a month ago; then you would have had time to get all this sort of thing over before the wedding,” retorted Sibyl.
Narasimha watched the girl move away with the grace and the assurance of a woman accustomed to society. What a hostess she would be in the station that was to be her home! Sibyl’s eyes also followed Barbara with a similar thought.
“Lucky man, Mr. Strafford,” she commented. “Miss Bonham is an old friend of mine, so I say it with knowledge. She is younger than I am, but we were at school together. A man in your service wants a wife to stand by him socially. She’ll do.”
“He is fortunate,” was Narasimha’s reply. She looked at him.
“I’m going to be—what shall I call it?—personal, and I expect to be forgiven on the strength of our friendship, which is no new thing, since we happen to have been neighbours at the same station for four years. I wish I could see you following your friend’s example.”
There was a slight pause. She knew that he shrank from speaking of his own private affairs with all the instinctive dislike of the Indian. But she continued,
“I am not going to allow you to shirk the question. I am soon going out of your life altogether. I am returning to England by the Denbighshire, sailing a few days hence from Colombo.”
He looked at her with surprise.
“You are leaving India? This is the first I have heard of it.”
“It is rather a sudden summons. My mother is ill and needs me.”
“We are to lose you altogether?”
“Possibly; I ought to say probably, but I cannot tell for certain.”
He was silent. Sibyl Cullington had counted for much in his life. While they had been together in the up-country station Sibyl had given him her friendship. He was scarcely aware of the extent of that friendship and all it had meant to him. He had sought her counsel and had been guided by her advice in social matters connected with his position in the European community as a member of the Civil Service.
“You are going down to the Presidency town I understand. Our pleasant friendship must, of necessity, have come to an end whether I leave India or not, except for a chance meeting now and then. It is inevitable in the Service.”
“I owe you a great many thanks,” he said.
“Never mind that. I have a last piece of advice to give you which you may take or turn down as you like. Follow John Strafford’s example and choose a wife who can stand by your side and help you socially in your new appointment.”
He looked at her gravely.
“Can we have a chat in private?” he asked, glancing round at the moving groups.
“Come this way. I can give you twenty minutes. Then I must go back to my duties. I have left the other bridesmaids to carry on. I mustn’t forsake them too long.”
Sibyl led the way to a little room which was Sir William’s sanctum. A bright fire of eucalyptus logs burnt in an open grate. It was not needed, but its appearance gave a snug, homelike character to the room which its master liked. The air at that altitude, seven thousand feet, grew cool after sunset, which was not far distant.
They seated themselves in a couple of cane lounges and Sibyl opened her fan to make a fire screen of it.
“What is it, old friend?” she asked.
“You advise me to follow Mr. Strafford’s example. More than once I have been on the point of telling you that I am already married.”
“Married!” she exclaimed, taken by surprise. “Somehow I always thought you were a bachelor.”
“I should be a rara avis, indeed, if I, a Hindu of over thirty, were single.”
“Perhaps you mean that you are betrothed, engaged, as we call it.”
“No; it is a much stronger tie than betrothal. I was irrevocably married nine years ago, and the fact has not been made known to my English friends because my wife, up to the present, has been unable to join me by reason of her youth.”
“Then she hasn’t been living under your roof all this time?”
“Until six months ago she was with her father near Poona. For the last six months she has been with my parents at Chittoor. Practically I have been a bachelor. Now it behoves me to play my part as a husband and make a home for her. This I shall do in Madras after I get settled.”
“Where has she been educated?”
“Unfortunately she hasn’t been educated at all. Her parents are old-fashioned and don’t approve of female education.”
“Oh, Narasimha! Oh, the folly of it!” protested Sibyl, clasping her hands in the regret that filled her heart.
She had a romantic affection for the man who was speaking. It had never been allowed to develop into the love that might have made her think of a closer tie than friendship; but for all that Narasimha stood for a good deal in her life. The friendship of a judicious Englishwoman has been proved on more than one occasion to be an important influence with an Indian whose education and breadth of outlook on modern existence has been progressive. He did not reply, and she continued,
“Why didn’t you insist on her being educated?”
“It was impossible for me to take any action as long as she was under the care of her parents.”
“Did you make any effort?”
“I tried my best, and if I could have obtained possession of her——”
“Surely you could have insisted, as her lawful husband, on taking her under your protection?”
“It was quite impossible. Though she is bound to me by the strongest of marriage ties, so that if I die she becomes my widow, I have no power whatever over her life until she is at an age to be taken as a wife and do her duty as such.”
“How old is she?”
“She is fourteen.”
“Oh, poor little thing! Why, she is still a child from our point of view! What is she like?”
“I haven’t seen her since the marriage. She was a small child then, hidden in jewellery and the folds of a huge saree. I shouldn’t recognise her if I met her.”
He spoke indifferently, leaving Sibyl under the impression that he took no interest whatever in his young wife or in her welfare, unconsidered trifles in the life of an ambitious man.
She looked closely at him. A glint of obstinacy appeared in his eyes. She knew it of old. When properly directed it was a strength rather than a weakness in his character. He needed something of the sort to carry him through a life that was full of complexities, with his official obligations on one side and the conservatism of his religious and domestic duties on the other. In the matter of his wife there was no official obligation whatever.
Sibyl was disappointed. That he should be content to accept for his partner in life an ignorant child who could not even write her name seemed unworthy of him. She was inclined to blame him for his supineness, which, knowing his own circumstances, seemed unpardonable.
“Why haven’t you, as a progressive, seen her and had a voice in her upbringing?” she asked, with a touch of reproach in her tone.
“Because it is altogether against our custom. We are Hindus, and we are ready in many ways to adopt Western customs that seem good to us; but in all matters of religion we caste people are rigidly conservative.”
“Matters of religion, you say. Does marriage come under that heading?”
“Certainly it does. So do all other domestic events—birth, childhood’s different ages, the attainment of manhood and womanhood, marriage, and death. Religious rites are associated with all the various stages of our life. To neglect and omit them is to break caste, and that means loss of prestige and public respect. I tell you this, Miss Cullington, because, like Strafford, you have been a great friend in my life, a valued friend, whom I shall miss more than a little.”
Sibyl was touched by the fact that he was talking seriously, and was not passing over the subject with a lightness and insincerity that so often covers the truth, which the Oriental wishes to hide.
“It is very good of you to say so. I am testing your friendship and good nature by plain speaking. You Indians have made an admirable advance in all sorts of ways, entering the civil and military services and taking your places among the Europeans with marvellous success. Yet you are content with the religious ordinances that were practised generations ago. You don’t attempt to alter them or bring them up to date. You seem to have no compunction in following the ancient custom of marrying an ignorant young girl. Have you considered how she is to help you when you rise, as you will do, in Government service, to a high position? You will want someone by your side who can take a place socially and be able to receive Englishmen in authority whose interest is vital to your career.”
He did not reply. It was something to the good, she thought, that he listened without making an attempt to silence her. She continued:
“I am going to be practical. After I get home will you let me choose an English lady who could be governess-companion to your wife when you set up house in Madras? Give it a trial. If you don’t find it a success you can send her back to England. I will make it quite clear that the engagement is to terminate on either side without obligations or difficulty.”
“Perhaps it might be as well,” he replied at last.
“You see difficulties?”
“I am afraid I do.”
“With her relatives?” she suggested.
“They cannot be kept out of my wife’s house. Yes, there will be difficulties—but we might give it a trial.”
“She will not be too old at fourteen to learn. She can only be a child at present.”
He smiled rather grimly as he answered,
“There are no children in India.”
She did not pursue the subject. She had said what she thought necessary. Anything more would have seemed to be of too personal a nature, even from a sympathetic friend, to be heard with the patience he had shown.
If he chose to be a progressive in some matters and a rabid conservative in others, he must go his own way. Many Indians were entering the services who in public were on a par with Europeans in education, manners, and thought. What they might be in private was unknown to their fellow-workers. A few of them had managed to provide themselves with educated wives, women who were able to appear on a public platform and speak on behalf of their own sex. This need not be Narashima’s aim. It would be sufficient if his wife could move with dignity among the Englishwomen as he moved among the men.
Sibyl rose from her chair.
“We must go back to the drawing-room. I want to introduce you to two or three of my friends whom you have not met.”
“First you must give me your address in England. I will write and ask you to help me if I see that it is feasible.”
She made a note of it and handed it to him with an expression of gratitude for having listened patiently to what she had to say.
“That will always find me wherever I am. Let me help you if I can.”
Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. O’Brian were still together when Sibyl and her companion rejoined the company. They were enjoying themselves immensely, discussing the home news with occasional interludes of Hill gossip. Their knowledge of social doings was picked up second-hand, seeing that their small incomes obliged them to remain in India with a run home at rare intervals. What they did not learn from their relatives’ letters they picked up from the weekly papers at the club, and by close observation of the latest arrivals. The length of the skirts afforded them a topic that never lost its interest.
“Do you like all these new fashions?” asked Mrs. O’Brian.
Mrs. Abbott was not going to commit herself with regard to fashions that were evidently popular. She preferred to move with public opinion and was not prepared to set herself against it.
“It’s wonderful what you can get used to,” she said, lowering her voice to a confidential tone that always attracted her companion. It meant something spicy.
“If you only have enough of it,” said Mrs. O’Brian.
“Exactly so! When I was last at home I made a point of going to see as much mixed bathing as was possible. It was very attractive, I admit. And other people evidently felt the same about it. Crowds of people of both sexes hung about the beach where the tents were. They couldn’t all be relatives of the bathers waiting for them to come out of the water. Some of them must have been, like myself, sightseers. It really was a pretty sight.”
“This wedding will be a pretty sight tomorrow. I wonder how Mr. Narasimha will get on. Anyway, I hope he won’t claim the privilege of kissing the bride,” said Mrs. O’Brian.
“There’ll be no kissing. It has gone out of fashion. Novelty is the aim and object nowadays. I heard from my niece by last mail, a long letter. She had been to the wedding of a friend who lived at the seaside. What do you think? They all wore bathing costumes! The bathing frocks, if I may call them that, were very ornamental and made a wonderfully pretty scene.”
“A bathing-dress wedding! Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Brian. “Impossible! No decent clergyman would have such a party in his church.”
“He wasn’t asked to. The wedding took place at the Registrar’s office. They arrived in motor-cars, wearing gorgeous cloaks and dressing-gowns, stockings and sand shoes, and the sweetest little bathing caps imaginable. After the wedding the whole party drove off to the seashore, the bride and bridegroom leading. A steam yacht, in which the young couple intended to spend the honeymoon, was anchored as close to the bathing beach as possible, and the party went on board for the wedding breakfast. It was really the most decent affair in the world, and the crowd on the beach was enormous. It might have been a royal wedding.”
“It was decidedly original and I should have liked to have seen it,” said Mrs. O’Brian, who could not afford to go to England as often as her friend.
“You would have found it most amusing, I am sure,” said the more seasoned lady.
“I’m old fashioned enough to like to see marriages performed in church,” declared Mrs. O’Brian, who was not to be corrupted by accounts of modern eccentric display.
“The marriage tomorrow will have a feature that is novel and original. Are you going to stay away because one of the guests is a pagan?” asked Mrs. Abbott, eyeing her friend with curiosity.
“Oh, don’t call him a pagan. Everybody says he is perfectly charming.”
“He may be all that, but he’s—well, not a Christian.”
“Perhaps he will be one day,” said the hopeful Mrs. O’Brian, who was not going to allow her principles to prevent her from attending the smartest function of the season.
“Which means that you will condone the introduction of the Hindu, but you would draw the line at a bathing wedding. I am afraid we should both be out of place at such an entertainment,” responded Mrs. Abbott.
The conversation ended in a little flutter of excitement. Sibyl had taken Narasimha round the room, introducing him to those whom he had not met before. She arrived at the spot where the two old friends had seated themselves, and to their delight she introduced the object of their gossip. He spoke to them with the ease of an English society man, and they straightway fell victims to his charms, charms that were acquired at Eton and Oxford and learnt from a circle of friends of the John Strafford type. Mrs. O’Brian forgot his colour and Mrs. Abbott his pagan creed. As he moved away with Sibyl, they settled down to another round of gossip.
“He is wonderful. Talking to him one can scarcely realise that he is an Indian.”
“Not one of the old sort of our young days,” observed Mrs. O’Brian.
“I think Mr. Strafford has done a really meritorious thing in asking Mr. Narasimha to be present as an old friend,” said Mrs. Abbott.
“In what way?”
“He is going to show him in intimate detail how a wedding should be conducted. Probably the poor young man has never seen an English marriage. It may fire him with a wish to follow Mr. Strafford’s example and suggest to his mind that he should choose a wife like Miss Bonham.”
“H’m, I don’t know where he is to find one.”
“There must be plenty of educated Indian ladies in these days among whom he could make a choice.”
“He’s got caste to consider and I am afraid he would meet with other difficulties,” replied Mrs. O’Brian. “Do you remember that Rajah who used to come to the Hills sometimes twenty-five years ago? He was educated and civilised to the highest degree. The authorities were delighted. They said, ‘Look at this; isn’t this a success?’ Then the poor prince said, ‘Now I want a wife.’ His ministers replied, ‘Sir, choose where you will, but she must be a woman of your own caste.’ They brought the best of their maidens for him to inspect, but they were all illiterate and had the manners of villagers. The Rajah would not look at them. ‘I want a woman who can be a companion as well as the mother of my children. I won’t marry one of these. They are only fit to draw water from the well.’ Too late the ministers of State discovered their mistake.
They should have chosen a dozen of their daughters and had them educated up to the Rajah’s standard; but they forgot to take this very necessary precaution.”
Their eyes followed Sibyl, who was still piloting her charge round the room.
“It is to be hoped that Mr. Narasimha will not contemplate marrying an Englishwoman if he fails to find an Indian,” said Mrs. O’Brian.
“I don’t think that there is any fear of that. Anyway, it wouldn’t be Miss Cullington. She is his very good friend, but nothing more. Besides, I know for a fact that Mr. Narasimha prides himself on being a caste Hindu, and he will do nothing that will imperil his position. Government is most anxious to get Hindus and Muhamadans into responsible positions; men who will have influence with their co-religionists and take a strong lead in the future when they attain a prominent position in the service. Whatever their private convictions may be, they must stand for their respective religions at present if they are to become leaders of their nations. Their grandchildren may adopt Christianity——”
Mrs. Abbott ceased speaking. She perceived that she had only half her companion’s attention. The other half was with Narasimha. Mrs. O’Brian’s memory stretched back over a period of forty years. She was comparing him with the advanced Indians she remembered of her early days in the country. He was like no one she could recall. It was his easy assurance, absolutely free from self-assertion, that astounded her. There was nothing apologetic in his bearing. He carried himself like an Englishman of good breeding who had a right to be with his compeers. The people with whom he was mixing were taking him at his own valuation and without a shadow of resentment at his presence.
Mrs. Abbott followed her friend’s eye and read her thoughts.
“Yes; he is rather a wonder,” she remarked.
“He’s marvellous,” responded Mrs. O’Brian with increasing enthusiasm. The man’s grace of manner had completely won her old heart. “But what my dear husband would have said I really don’t know!”
“He’s the product of the age,” declared Mrs. Abbott. “If he’s a specimen of the coming man in India, it will mean a great change for the country.”
“The question will be, Have such men the staying power necessary to enable them to live up to their responsibilities?” asked Mrs. O’Brian, who found a difficulty in adapting preconceived opinions, formed forty years ago, to present conditions.
“They can do it if they have adequate support.”
“They will get it from the Government.”
“I don’t mean official support. Of course they will have that,” said Mrs. Abbott. “Their difficulty will be in the double life that faces them under present conditions.”
“In what way?”
“With regard to their women. I don’t think they quite realise it. Men of any nation cannot rise beyond the status of their women. The educated Indian may know it, but he doesn’t choose to acknowledge it. The solidarity of the whole of India depends on whether the girls are educated and brought up to the social and mental standard of men like Narasimha.”
“Can it be done?” asked Mrs. O’Brian.
“Of course it can be done; but nobody is able to do it but they themselves. They must bring about the change. They won’t do it till they recognise the vital necessity of it.”
“When do you think that it may be looked for?”
“When men like Narasimha find their lives restricted and narrowed down to semi-barbarism as soon as they leave the office and seek the domestic hearth, so to speak. I can fancy Narasimha’s disgust when he finds his illiterate wife, a woman who can’t even read, in the kitchen smelling of raw onions and curry stuff, and squatting over the ghee pot with her servants. She will probably be abusing them in the language of the street coolie. Perhaps she will be whacking one of the younger girls with a bamboo. Imagine his dislike of the whole scene, his shame when he compares the English wife with the woman who calls him husband. He will be powerless to alter it.”
“Do you think that Narasimha is aware of what a handicap it will be to have such a wife?”
“I can see the knowledge dawning in his mind when he looks at his friend John Strafford and realises all that Barbara Bonham stands for in her husband’s life,” replied this shrewd old relic of the past.
There is no need for anxiety over the weather on the Indian Hills in the hot season. The heat is tempered by cool mountain breezes. The sun blazes forth from six in the morning to six in the evening, and though there may be clouds not much rain is expected. Towards the end of the season mists gather swiftly on the peaks and slopes and produce short, sharp thunderstorms. The clouds clear away with the same rapidity with which they gather. The afternoon sun bursts forth on dripping vegetation, causing the buds to swell ready for the morning flowering.
As the bridegroom motored to St. Stephen’s Church a wisp appeared on Dodabetta’s rounded head. The mountain mass overlooks Ootacamund like a brooding hen. Grass covers its broad shoulders and hides the living rock that lies in gigantic slabs on its sides.
Long ago Dodabetta was deprived of its primeval jungle by charcoal-burners. The bygone forests are replaced by plantations of eucalyptus-trees, shabby, ragged trees that discourage undergrowth and strew the bare ground with ribbons of bark and dry scimitar-shaped foliage.
Strafford and his companion were too preoccupied to pay any attention to the landscape and its signs of the coming storm. Strafford himself was self-possessed and as calm as if a wedding were a common occurrence in his life.
He led the way up the church and took a seat in the front sitting. The church was decorated with arum lilies and asparagus fern, common to every garden on the Hills. Roses were reserved for the wedding party, each bridesmaid carrying a large bouquet that shed around her a profusion of scent.
Strafford was deep in thought as he sat there waiting for the arrival of the woman who was giving herself to him for life. She was coming to him with joy and gladness of heart and with perfect confidence and trust.
Narasimha, silent and observant, lost nothing of all that was passing. He could read the face of his friend who had no secrets to hide. In his mind he contrasted the English wedding with the Indian marriage ceremonies common to most castes and classes, rich and poor.
The Indian is given no opportunity of knowing his bride. If he sees her at all it is in her childhood, when she is more or less in a terrified state over all that is happening to her. She is selected for him by his parents as his mate. They are like a couple of animals, on whom the duty devolves of maintaining the race. He has no voice in the choosing of her.
His thoughts were dispersed by the arrival of the bride. Barbara, glittering in silver and white, came up the aisle on Sir William’s arm. Strafford rose and moved to his place before the chancel steps. Narasimha, close at hand, caught the look bent by the bride upon her husband-to-be. It was full of a great love, not the animal love of a mate. It was an emotion that rose far above material sentiment. It contained infinite trust, worship and devotion, and it was returned by Strafford.
No thought of the intimacy of their new life brought a blush to the face of either. They had risen far above domesticities and were soaring to the heights of a love which was not only to last to the end of their lives, but to survive after death when they passed beyond the grave into the unknown future.
Instead of the songs of the dancing girls that accompanied all Indian weddings, the white-robed choir sang hymns of praise in which the whole congregation joined, including the bride and bridegroom.
The Chaplain concluded the service by giving the Blessing. He raised his hands and to the Hindu he seemed to embrace everyone present, including himself. Narasimha had been in a church more than once in England and had heard the service, but never before had it sounded so all-embracing, so solemn. Somehow he was glad to be included with his old friend and the wife he had taken.
His own purohits had nothing of the kind to offer on similar occasions. It was a pity, he thought, that they did not adopt the bestowal of a divine benediction on their people at the conclusion of religious ceremonies.
Strafford led his bride to the vestry. There Narasimha witnessed a little unrehearsed incident that he had not anticipated. Strafford, with careful hands, raised Barbara’s veil and kissed her on the lips. She lifted her face to his and returned the kiss. Then she extended her ungloved hand to the best man and immediately afterwards to Narasimha. He had not expected this little mark of favour, but he showed no sign of confusion. He took the hand and, with the echoes of the Blessing still lingering about him, like the incense from some unseen censer, he raised her hand to his lips and left his kiss of friendship upon it.
Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. O’Brian were in the church among the guests, but they were not invited to go to the vestry. They therefore missed this little episode, which was a pity. The sight of it would have settled a difference of opinion that at one time threatened to become serious.
Mrs. O’Brian had insisted that there would be kisses, privileges which in her young days were much prized. The best man always kissed the bride and the bridegroom was at liberty to kiss the bridesmaids if he pleased on that one day in his lifetime.
Mrs. Abbott, the more travelled of the two, maintained that such practices were obsolete and vulgar. She was convinced that Narasimha was up to date in every respect, in manners as well as dress. John Strafford would never have invited him if he was not assured that no breach of etiquette would be committed. If the two dames could only have had the satisfaction of seeing what took place in the vestry, they could both have claimed to have been right in their conjectures.
Arrived at the house of Sir William the party lost its congregational character and dissolved itself into an ordinary social gathering. Strafford and his wife received the congratulations of their friends as they trooped in after them. As soon as this was over Barbara slipped away from her bridegroom’s side and was appropriated by bands of laughing friends. When the time came for cutting the cake she had to find her husband that he might lend a hand at the task. After this, the last ceremony, she again forsook him and allowed herself to be absorbed by the company. Strafford turned to Narasimha.
“Come along, old man. I want to have a quiet smoke and chat after all this turmoil.”
“Won’t you be missed?”
“Not I! My next appearance in public is the going away scene. Even then I shall only be a cipher. The bride will hold the eyes of all. The husband is nowhere in an English wedding.”
Narasimha did not betray his thoughts. Here was another reversal of the order of things. In an Indian wedding it is the bridegroom who is the centre of observation. The bride, a speechless bundle of saree and jewellery, too shy to lift her eyes, attracts no attention.
When Strafford had settled himself comfortably and lighted his cigarette, he said,
“Now tell me about your prospects. You have evidently been singled out to be pushed eventually into the high places. Were you anticipating this promotion?”
“Not in the least, but I am glad it has come. I mean to do my best you may be sure.”
They talked intimately of the Secretariat and what the appointment might lead to.
“This means that Madras will be your headquarters. You will have to take a house there,” said Strafford presently.
“I have secured one already.”
“It will be a bachelor establishment, of course.” This was the nearest Strafford cared to go to inquiring whether his friend meant to bring a wife down to the Presidency town.
“For the present,” replied Narasimha.
“It can be done satisfactorily if you set about it in the right way. I mean the taking part in the social life which is usually expected of men in your position.”
“I shall furnish well, keep a staff of good servants and I hope to entertain.”
There was a pause. Strafford would have liked to have added a few more words of advice, but he shrank from speaking on personal matters. It was easy to do it in England, but here, in Narasimha’s own country, Strafford felt that it would be taking a liberty. Narasimha ought to know the line he should adopt. What he wanted to tell his Hindu friend was that it would be to his interests to keep his family in the background unless they were qualified to stand by his side and give efficient help.
Strafford lighted a second cigarette and the opportunity for counsel passed.
“A few minutes more and then I must be off. Barbara will be looking for me.”
Even as he spoke she entered the room.
“Oh, there you are! I’ve changed but I don’t want to go back to the company until it is nearly time to start.”
Narasimha rose to leave them together. She stopped him with a gesture of the hand.
“Don’t run away. Let’s have a cosy little chat before we part,” she said.
“Narasimha has been telling me about his new appointment. It will necessitate his settling in Madras.” He turned to his friend. “I must come and pay you a visit when I can get a few days’ leave.”
“And bring Mrs. Strafford,” responded Narasimha with a warmth that showed he meant it. “I should be so proud if my old friend would bring his wife.”
She blushed prettily at the new titles he was giving her, and replied,
“I shall be delighted, and you must pay us a visit and bring your wife.”
Strafford and his friend exchanged a swift glance. There was a slight pause, and Narasimha replied with a smile that stood for gratitude.
“It is most kind of you to ask me——”
“And your wife,” interposed Barbara. “Now, John, it is time we made a move or Uncle William will be thinking that we intend stopping here all night.”
They went back to the drawing-room and were vociferously greeted by bridesmaids and old friends, who had provided themselves with baskets of rose petals to shower on the bride.
One of the groomsmen, egged on and assisted by the bridesmaids, took the opportunity in the lull of the proceedings to tie a large floral shoe on the back of the car.
Amidst a cyclone of rose petals they drove away in the little two-seater. Many an excursion into the hills they promised themselves, carrying their tiffin basket with them and returning their dinner à deux.
When the excitement of their departure died down, Narasimha prepared to take his leave. He was turning to seek his host and hostess when he heard Miss Cullington’s voice at his elbow.
“Are you leaving Ooty today?” she asked.
“At once,” he replied. “I was looking for our hosts when you spoke.”
“Then it is a real good-bye this time,” she said, “and we shall not meet again.”
“I am afraid it is so. And I say once more how sorry I am to lose such a good friend as you have been.”
“Same here. Now, mind, if you ever need the help of a friend in England, don’t forget that you have one in me. I am ready at a moment’s notice to stand by and assist. You have my address to which you can cable or write.”
He thanked her warmly but said nothing more about seeking a companion for his wife. She was just a little disappointed at his silence. She turned to the subject of the bride and bridegroom.
“I think we may congratulate ourselves on what we have done today, in seeing these two married,” she remarked.
“Have we assisted them?”
“You as an intimate friend as I as a bridesmaid have morally supported the happy couple through the ceremony that makes them one.”
“Yes,” responded Narasimha. He added slowly repeating her words. “——that makes them one.”
She was unable to follow the intricacies of his mind. Marriage with him tied the couple together tightly enough in all conscience, but it could not be said to make them one. There was not enough equality about the pair for the making of the husband and wife equal, and he knew it. With what little knowledge he had of his bride and her bringing up, he could not hope for a similar condition of things such as existed between Strafford and his wife.
A large car came up to the veranda. The chauffeur, a Hindu, salaamed and inquired of Narasimha if he should remain there or retire again to the spot where the cars were parked.
“Wait,” cried his master. “I shall be ready directly. Good-bye, Miss Cullington,” and he held out his hand.
“Good-bye, I sail from Colombo in the Denbighshire as I have already mentioned. A note to the agents, Colombo, will catch me if you have anything to say.”
“I won’t forget.”
Ten minutes after the departure of the bride and bridegroom the car was starting on its journey to the plains.
The cloud cap on Dodabetta had thickened. As Narasimha ran smoothly down the long carriage-drive a low rumble of thunder came from the brooding mist. Its nearness to the earth deadened the sound and deprived it of its echoes. The storm still clinging to the mountain sent its ragged skirts down the slopes on the Coonoor side. With the discharge of electricity the downpour began, spreading over the valley lying between Ooty and Coonoor. The rain brought the mist with it and buried the road in a dense fog. Narasimha’s car slowed down to a crawl.
Within two miles of Wellington, the military Hill station of the Presidency, the chauffeur stopped the car, asking permission to remain stationary for a few minutes. The mist would clear away, he said, as quickly as it had come down upon them.
The ghat road was on the hillside, the living rock to the left and a substantial wall of large blocks of rough-hewn stone on the other. The thunder growled on the rocky shoulders of the mountain and the rain descended in a torrent.
The chauffeur and his master were sheltered in the closed car, and it was only a matter of patience to wait till the mist should be carried away on the breeze that was sweeping up from the heated plains below. Narasimha looked at his watch. There was plenty of time and some to spare to reach the foot of the ghat where he intended to put up for the night at a dâk bungalow.
The silence of the cloud broken occasionally by the thunder round Dodabetta’s head gave him a strange sense of isolation. It was suddenly dissipated by the appearance of a face at the window of his saloon car. It came out of the fog, pressing close against the glass and peering into the car in an endeavour to identify the occupant. To his horror he recognised the owner of the face as an English lady. Letting down the window he found himself confronting Barbara.
“Mrs. Strafford!” he exclaimed, astounded. “Where’s your husband? and what are you doing alone on the ghat road?”
“We have had an accident. The car has upset. I am only badly shaken, but I am afraid my husband has not been so lucky.”
“Where is he?”
“Lying by the side of the road,” she replied evenly and with little or no outward sign of agitation.
He stepped out of the car, the chauffeur following. Barbara led him on a few yards. The two-seater was on its side and Strafford extended at full length by it. She had propped him up with all the available cushions and covered him as well as she could. He was conscious but very white, and his face was drawn with pain.
“Hallo, Narasimha! This is a piece of luck seeing you!” he cried as his eyes fell on his friend.
“Luck indeed! I call it a piece of bad luck to find you on your back in the road! Have you broken any bones?” he asked, bending over the prostrate figure.
The rain was lessening and the clouds were breaking.
“I’m afraid it is my collarbone,” replied Strafford.
“All my fault,” cried Barbara. “I got in the way of the gadgets between us.”
Strafford protested that the accident was entirely caused by the jamming of the steering-gear. Before he could put on the brakes they were into the wall and the car was thrown on to its side.
“Never mind how it happened,” said Narasimha. “We must manage somehow to lift you into my car and get you to your house. Then we must find the civil surgeon.”
Between them they succeeded in putting Strafford into the car. The overturned two-seater at the side of the road looked smaller than ever and abject in its disablement. Narasimha glanced at it.
“We can safely leave it where it is,” he observed. “I’ll send my man to the motor firm in Coonoor and have it fetched for repair. But first we must take you and your wife home and then send for the doctor.”
Narasimha looked closely at Strafford as he completed his arrangements for the invalid’s comfort. He ordered the chauffeur to drive slowly.
“How is that? Can you bear the motion?” he asked as they started.
They reached the house in the broad rays of the setting sun. Dodabetta, satisfied with the mischief she had done with her mists and rain, threw off her mantle of cloud and stood out sharp and clear in the crystal atmosphere. The golden rays of the descending sun illuminated her grey rocks and windswept grassy sides.
Strafford’s servants had gathered in the road to welcome the master and the new mistress. There were plenty of helpers to carry him in. He was taken straight to the bedroom. Narasimha insisted on lending a helping hand. Barbara was well content to let him take command, contenting herself with the touch of her husband’s listless fingers where it was possible.
Narasimha glanced round the room that his friend had so carefully prepared for his bride. The two beds were placed side by side. They were covered with lace counterpanes. The pillows were frilled and the sheets—of the finest linen—were embroidered.
The window, that looked into a garden filled with flowers, was curtained with cretonne. The dressing-table was draped with cretonne and lace. On it were laid out silver-backed brushes, hand-glass and toilet jars of delicate china. Two cane lounges upholstered in the same kind of cretonne and a small writing-table suggested hours of ease and comfort. Everywhere fresh flowers met the eye, roses for the most part, full of scent and colour.
The ayah had done her best to prepare for her mistress even to the unpacking of trunks and suitcases. A dinner dress was laid out and a dressing-gown. Blue was the dominant colour of the garments while the roses on the cretonne and in the vases were of the sulphur noisette kind.
So this was how an English man prepared a bower for his bride, thought Narasimha.
He would have taken himself off and have left husband and wife together, but they both begged him to stay till the doctor had paid his visit and given his opinion. Barbara offered him one of the cretonne-covered chairs, placing it close to the bed on which they had laid the invalid.
Strafford was in too much pain to be able to talk. He was glad to lie quiet and allow his bride to arrange the pillows and to cover him with a light rug.
Narasimha watched her as she ministered to his friend, composed and calm in whatever she was doing. Never once had she given way to panic nor shown herself unnerved by all that had happened. An Indian lady in a similar position would have been completely unhinged. She would have required as much attention as the patient himself. She would have made the house ring with her lamentations; and her household, far from blaming her, would have admired her for the sensitiveness she was exhibiting.
Such composure as Barbara showed seemed almost to express indifference to suffering. Yet he did not fail to see the intense anxiety that possessed her. It could not be hidden for all its dumbness.
In half an hour’s time the doctor arrived and later a nurse. The damage consisted of a broken collarbone and severe bruises. All would yield to treatment and good nursing.
When the patient had been undressed and put properly to bed, Narasimha made another attempt to take his leave. This Barbara was inclined to oppose, forgetting that his caste prevented him from accepting her hospitality. A little later he was allowed to depart. Barbara held his small hand and tried to express her thanks. Her voice failed her, and for the first time there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes.
“Don’t say a word of thanks, Mrs. Strafford. He is my best friend and I feel that I cannot leave him in better hands than yours.”
They were standing at the open door of the room wherein Strafford lay. He was already sinking into sleep under the influence of the opiate the doctor had administered.
Narasimha looked back and bore away with him a memory that never vanished. It was of the Englishwoman who had joined her life to the life of the man she had chosen for her mate. He was not without experience of the marital relations of the Western husband and wife, but this was a revelation in its way. It lingered in his mind because he was just going to complete his own marriage, a very different affair from this in which he had played such an intimate part.
Narasimha’s destination was Chittoor. His father was a large landowner in the district and was known as a Zemindar.
The father was no longer a young man. He had three grown-up sons and one daughter. Narasimha was the youngest child. His father had sent him to England when he was a boy and had placed him at an English Public School. Afterwards he had gone to Oxford in the usual way and entered the Indian Civil Service.
His mother had opposed this course from the very beginning, and, if she could have had her way, would have called him back to the ancestral home before his education was completed. There was work enough on the estate for the three sons, she said, looking after the ryots and the family interests. But the Zemindar, easy-going in some matters, was firm in this. His son was to enter Government Service, not in one of the inferior branches, but in the highest; and the old man carried out his intentions.
Narasimha had responded to his father’s effort and accomplished all that was hoped for. The Zemindar was extremely proud of his youngest son. He saw very little of him, but this did not matter. It was enough to find the young man’s name in the Gazette, published in the South Indian newspapers.
Fortunately for all concerned, they were content with this; and when Narasimha wrote regretting that he was unable to pay them a visit, they believed that he could not get leave.
The truth was that Narasimha was bored by the routine of the old home life. When he found himself in the bosom of his family, he seemed to be stepping straight back into a past which belonged to an obsolete world that was no longer tolerable to young India.
As soon as he arrived he was expected to cast off all his Western habits, and to resume the old customs of living, eating, and sleeping. He had to throw aside his European garments and adopt the dhoti loincloth and the collarless cotton coat. The ways of the West had left his parents untouched. His brothers with their wives and families and his sister with her husband and children clung to the manners of their ancestors and desired nothing different.
He hated it all and could not reconcile himself to the life. He missed his comfortable sitting-room with its English furniture. He missed the orderly daily routine, the dressing-table and its toilet accessories, the lounge on which he extended himself to look through the morning paper before getting to work at his writing-table, the excellently prepared dinner, cooked, of course, by a caste man and served by caste servants on a perfectly appointed table.
In his father’s house he was expected to follow the old custom of eating without conversation, his upper garments cast aside, and his fingers taking the place of the knife and fork he had learnt to use at an English school in his boyhood.
He was served on a platter made of green leaves only used once. Fruit was put on a silver dish. Some of the condiments, the green chutneys, as they were called, were on small trays of gold. His mother and the kitchen women, who assisted, placed the dishes upon the floor or upon low tables only a few inches high. He was not allowed a chair, but was obliged to sit on his heels, as his forefathers had done for a thousand years or more previously.
The various little refinements taught to the boy in England, and which he had faithfully observed ever since, were entirely absent in his brothers and his father. Their manners jarred on him to the point of irritation, but he had to bear it all in silence. He might not show by his manner, even, how much he disliked the whole daily routine from dawn to sunset. Oddly enough, what he most missed was his dinner napkin.
He arrived at Chittoor in the morning of the second day after he left the bride and bridegroom at Coonoor. He had taken care to breakfast before reaching his father’s house; and only at the last moment did he change his dress and assume the long satin coat and muslin turban that marked the Indian man of means up country.
The saloon car took him up to the family mansion. The house was approached by a private road which passed through rich fields of grain and sugarcane. Archways of greenery had been erected at various points of the road. At each was a group of ryots to greet him with salaams.
Here and there he was obliged to stop and alight from the car to receive from the headman of the village that had been responsible for the particular archway at that point a wreath of jasmin flowers. Fruit was also presented. This he only touched by way of acceptance and saw it no more. The flowers he was obliged in courtesy to wear round his neck.
Each reception took no more than seven or eight minutes, but after the repetition of the ceremony half a dozen times, Narasimha found it wearisome. The same sort of ceremony occurred in his Government work, but it was reduced to a single incident and was not expected to be repeated. However, Narasimha, knowing that they were his father’s people, maintained his good humour and hid his impatience. He treated the serfs of the great estate with traditional graciousness.
Before the car reached the house the chauffeur made the horn speak to its fullest capacity. He slowed down to a crawl to give the occupants of the house time to assemble. This was necessary, as they were not aware of the exact hour at which to expect him. His arrival was princely and his reception by the family royal.
His father, as became a rich man and master of a large establishment, was clothed in the plainest fashion. It was for his sons to assume the garments suitable to their position. Silk, satin, gold embroideries, and jewels were displayed by them. Even the retainers were in gala dress, which belonged to the Zemindar and was reserved for such occasions.
The verandas had been festooned with long strings of green leaves, the foliage of the sacred margosa-tree. The pillars of the outer verandas supported plantain palms with branches of yellow bananas hanging from their centres. Chains of coloured paper were scattered and suspended here and there without much method and certainly without elegance in their arrangement. Chinese lanterns, some new and some old and discoloured by much service, swung in the breeze.
Narasimha descended from the car and walked slowly up the veranda steps. His father and two brothers made the customary salaam, touching their foreheads with their fingers. He returned the salutation solemnly, and advancing to the old man, knelt before him. The hands that were extended over his head trembled as they conveyed the paternal blessing.
The party passed into the house. Behind a screen in the centre room Narasimha found his mother. She had aged since he last saw her; but she had lost none of the activity and alertness that had characterised her all her life.
By her side stood her daughter and a number of women handsomely dressed. They were relatives of all kinds; relatives of relatives. Some of them served in the house, supervising servants and helping in the huge establishment which was necessary for the support of the big family party that had gathered under the Zemindar’s roof.
Again Narasimha knelt. The old lady cracked all her finger-joints over his head by way of bringing him good luck and bestowing her blessing on him. His sister followed her mother’s example; after her a string of elderly women approached, who claimed the privilege of blessing the young bridegroom and calling down the favour of the gods upon his head.
The ceremony of welcoming the son of the house occupied some time, but to Narasimha’s relief it came to an end at last. He was permitted to return to the front veranda, where he found his father and brothers waiting for him.
His father, taking him by the hand, led him to a small room that opened into a little courtyard. Here was privacy and seclusion, for which the bridegroom was in a measure thankful. If he could have had the room to himself for an hour’s rest and quiet, he would have been far more grateful. He knew what was coming. His father and brothers would put him through a species of catechism from which he could only find relief by becoming catechiser in his turn, and by asking questions about the estate, the crops, the condition of the ryots, the welfare of the villages, and the state of the roads, tanks, canals, and bridges. They did not interest him in the least, but he must appear interested. As long as the estate was flourishing and yielding the usual good income, he was content to leave the details to his brothers, experts in all such matters.
After much talk the father inquired how long he would be able to stay.
“I have only a very short time,” he replied, committing himself to nothing.
“You have taken a month’s leave?” asked one of his brothers.
“It has been granted provisionally. This new appointment is an honour which I cannot afford to risk losing. I must fall in with the wishes of Government. If my leave is curtailed it will be made up to me in the future.”
“You will receive more pay, of course.”
He agreed, without informing his hearers that residence in the Presidency town was more expensive than living up country.
They questioned him closely as to the number of peons he would be allowed, how many horses he would keep, which he answered at random, not thinking it advisable to tell them that he would have fewer peons in Madras, where fewer would be needed, and that he would keep no horses, as a motor-car would serve him better—another advance on the old conservative customs when state was considered instead of utility.
“Since your stay is uncertain, the marriage must be consummated tomorrow night,” said his father.
“That is what I have come for,” replied his son shortly.
“Your mother has had some trouble with the girl, but she will tell you about it herself. She is disappointed in your wife.”
“I’m sorry to hear such unsatisfactory news,” replied Narasimha indifferently.
“Perhaps, after she joins you, the little sister will be less difficult to manage,” suggested his eldest brother, a stout, peaceful man who paid no attention to the squabbles of the zenana.
“It is the Mahratta blood in her that makes her troublesome,” said the other brother.
“It is good blood,” observed the old man quickly.
“It brings only a small amount of wealth to the family,” remarked the eldest.
“We have enough,” said the father. “I did not look for riches when I chose the girl. I thought of her Mahratta mother. The Mahrattas are a proud race. They seldom marry out of their jât as the child’s mother did.”
The eldest brother took upon himself to recall the incident, although Narasimha was not ignorant of the fact.
“Our mother was much against accepting the girl; but her father pressed the alliance, and so it was carried through.”
“It is some years since the marriage took place,” said Narasimha. “I can’t recall the child except that she seemed to be fairer in complexion than the children of the south. I was very anxious at the time to get away, as I had just got a move which meant promotion, my first step as a youngster.”
“You seem equally anxious to get away this time,” said his brother.
“I am. My profession is the one important object of my life.”
“Your wife was five years old at the time,” continued his father, who did not share his son’s opinion concerning a man’s profession. “She is now fourteen. After the marriage we sent her back to her father’s house near Poona. Six months ago he wrote to us and told us that she had reached a marriageable age and that she had better go to her husband. Her own mother died three or four years ago and her father married again. The little one gave her stepmother trouble, and I think they were glad to get rid of her.”
“You don’t wish to delay taking charge of your wife?” asked the elder brother with a note of anxiety in his voice. He was reassured when the bridegroom declared that he was quite ready to perform his marital duties and desired no delay.
It was a relief to find that it was the general wish of his family to have the last ceremony, if such it could be called, completed as soon as possible. But they were not prepared to let him go immediately afterwards. A few days should be spent in feasting and making merry and in receiving congratulations from a crowd of friends from far and near.
Narasimha determined to leave the very morning after the event. Forty-eight hours in his father’s house, living under the primitive conditions of the establishment, was about as much as he could bear. Already he found himself longing for his suit of English tweed, his socks, and his shoes, instead of bare feet and ill-fitting white satin trousers. He kept his intentions to himself. He was not prepared to discuss his intended action with his father and brothers. They might reconcile themselves to circumstances when they found themselves confronted with them. To get away from the subject of his marriage, he questioned them about a mine that was being opened by a company on the estate. It promised to be a valuable asset to the family exchequer.
“Fortunately the piece of ground the company is anxious to open is that waste rocky land which the ryots have never been able to cultivate,” said the eldest brother. “If you will come into the office I will show you the situation on the map of the estate.”
Narasimha rose with alacrity, thankful to escape the family conclave.
“Your mother will expect to see you and tell you her wishes with regard to the management of your wife and the establishment of your zenana at Madras,” said his father.
“Certainly; any time after I have looked at the map,” replied Narasimha dutifully.
So his mother was going to dictate to him about his household now that he was taking to himself a wife. Apparently she intended to have a finger in the arrangements he was making. This could not be allowed. Whether she was living in his house or absent, she would never consent to the presence of an Englishwoman there. He had no intention of letting her know what he proposed to do nor of allowing any interference whatever.
He stood for advancement and progress. His mother stood for conservatism and anti-progress.
Later he found her waiting for him in another small room, furnished chiefly with mats, cushions, and timeworn quilts and coverlets.
“Sit down, my son, and let me tell you what we have arranged to do.”
“Say on, mother; I am listening,” he replied dutifully enough to satisfy her, but with secret rebellion in his heart.
“This girl, she is not of my choosing. Your father insisted. It is not often that he opposes me as he did in this case. All I have to say is that the trouble which is before you is not of my making.”
“There will be no trouble, I feel sure.”
“Wait till you see the girl. For six months I have done my best to break her spirit and teach her obedience; but I have failed. She is like a wild thing out of the jungle.”
“She will be tamed in time,” said Narasimha. He had the foggiest recollection of the shy child who sat smothered in her silk saree by his side when the marriage rites were performed. At the present moment his thoughts dwelt on the wedding at which he had so lately assisted. Before his eyes passed a mental vision of the handsome, self-possessed woman who stood by John Strafford’s side and made her vows in a clear voice full of quiet confidence.
“It will be necessary for me to come and live with you, my son, that I may continue the work of bending her will to ours.”
Narasimha stirred uneasily. On no account would he have his mother in his house.
“I am afraid you won’t like Madras. After living so long in this climate you will find the sea air enervating.”
“It is much against my will to leave. Your eldest brother’s wife is a woman who loves to rule. In my absence she will be the big mistress.”
“If that is so it would be very unwise of you to go away.”
“I might ask my youngest sister, your aunt, to go and live with you, but I do not trust her. She knows nothing of how to discipline the young.”
“You understand that, as I shall be living in Madras, I must take a house such as the English inhabit and furnish it in the same way.”
“Why should you? You are a Hindu of good caste. You must have caste servants and hold yourself aloof from these foreigners.”
How little she knew of the conditions that ruled in the Presidency town! He devoutly hoped that for his own peace of mind she would never know. Yet Chittoor was not a far cry from Madras. By rail it was easy of access. He did not pursue the subject. It was safer to leave her in ignorance, and, if possible to persuade her that the difficulties of joining him were insuperable.
“For the present we can settle nothing. Now tell me about your preparations for tomorrow.”
She was quite ready to describe all she designed to do. It was to be a splendid affair, with half a dozen nautch girls, some musicians, the feeding of a number of Brahmin beggars, the feasting of the whole household down to the meanest persons employed. The family jewels were to be brought out and worn. No expense was being spared to do honour to the occasion.
“What jewels will the bride wear?”
“None of those belonging to the family. She has her own given to her by her father. They belonged to her mother. I was prepared to let her have the necklace of Australian sovereigns, but my eldest daughter-in-law objected. It has of late been in her keeping, as she wished to wear it. She refuses to give it up, and her husband backs her. We are powerless in the matter.”
The old lady went on to grumble volubly at the grasping nature of the young people in the present day. They appropriated valuables and took possession of the best sarees as if the place belonged to them.
“My son, you must never allow your wife to have a voice in household matters until she becomes the mother of your son. It is not proper that she should speak or express an opinion on anything. She must be kept in the kitchen, where she can watch the women who pound the rice and grind the curry stuff.”
She was too busy laying down the law to notice the involuntary shudder that passed through her son as he listened to this programme mapped out for his wife’s conduct, his wife who should be taking her place by his side socially, and helping him to entertain as Strafford and his wife would entertain their friends.
He dared not breathe a word of what he hoped might possibly be accomplished with the help of an English lady. His mother was too old to learn or even listen patiently to the introduction of innovations of this character. Nothing he could say would induce her to believe that an Indian lady had any other mission in life than to superintend personally the cooking of her husband’s food and to bear him children.
Happily, Narasimha’s presence was required elsewhere, and the maternal lecture came to an end.
There was to be a reception of friends that afternoon and a nautch in the evening. The following day was to be occupied in a similar manner. The bride and bridegroom would be robed and prepared. Late in the evening the husband would be conducted to the door of his wife’s room to enter it alone and make the acquaintance of his life’s partner.
In the meantime, where was the bride? Hidden in an inner room, unhappy, sullen, rebellious, but with the spirit of her ancestors unbroken and unsubdued.
It was late when Narasimha succeeded in shaking off his family and retiring. They would willingly have kept him up all night passing from one protracted show to another. A room had been assigned to his use if he insisted on leaving hosts and guests. Soobah, his servant, knowing his master’s ways, had made up a bed and had provided a sleeping-suit with certain toilet necessaries. It was with a sigh of relief that Narasimha exchanged the satin trousers for the more comfortable pyjamas.
Early tea came at sunrise, served as he was accustomed to have it in his own house. He would have been glad to have remained quiet for a couple of hours, but his brother came in and asked him to dress. The headmen of the villages on the estate, not content with their interviews on his way to the house, were coming presently to offer him their congratulations.
From that moment he was no longer his own master. He passed from one function to another in quick succession. His personal attitude towards the different ceremonies puzzled him. He no longer took them as a matter of course. A curious criticism sprang up in his mind as he looked at his father and brothers. They regarded everything with complacency and exhibited a stolid joy in everything that was done. Criticism was the one thing that was absent. Warm approval was expressed by looks and words on every side.
To Narasimha the bowing and salaaming, the sitting down and rising up, seemed almost childish in character. Even the conventional exchange of polite speeches sounded hollow and empty. He wearied of the eternal congratulations that were poured upon him in very plain language.
Could he have had his way he would have begged for a shortening of some of the functions wherein the purohit did not take a prominent part; but he was restrained from showing impatience lest he should hurt his parents’ feelings. He stifled his criticisms and yielded with the best grace he could assume to all their demands. He submitted to the rubbing of sacred ashes on his chest and the painting of the sect mark upon his forehead, and he carried through every ceremonial ordered by the old purohit who had known him from a child.
In the afternoon the nautch girls were introduced. He could understand the words they sang and he could interpret their gestures. His Western refinement took exception to their actions and he resented them.
He recalled the words of the hymns that were sung at the Strafford wedding and their spiritual nature. “Oh, God! our help in ages past” was as simple and universal in its character as the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer he had joined in times without number without offending his religious prejudices. The hymn in its simplicity and purity was a startling contrast to the chants of the dasees with their sensual description of the material joy of the bridegroom in the bride.
The songs were familiar. He knew them of old. In his childhood they conveyed nothing to his mind but a sense of rhythm and drowsy movement. Now he brought a new judgment to bear upon their words and poses. The old familiarity did not save him from a sense of disgust at their coarseness.
He glanced round at his companions. They were content with the matted floor as their resting-place. Cushions were available for those who desired them. Tables and chairs were absent.
The long afternoon came to an end; darkness approached with its tropical swiftness. Chinese lanterns were lighted and wall lamps of every description as well as those of the electric bulbs that were not out of order.
Narasimha retired at nine o’clock to take his evening meal, the preparation of which by his order was entrusted to Soobah. At a little before ten he presented himself at the door of the room that held his bride. He was greeted by a group of his nearest relatives. His mother advanced to speak to him. He noticed that her hand was bandaged.
“Have you hurt yourself, mother?” he asked.
“That child has bitten me badly. The little devil!” she concluded under her breath.
“How did that happen?”
“I was giving her the sleeping draught that is best for all brides to take. She struck the cup out of my hand; and when I caught hold of her to force what was left down her throat, she bit me. Take care, my son, that she does not bite you. She has had no opium and very little food. It is her own fault. Ah! what a temper she has! I punished her. My women came and carried out my orders, holding her down till it was done.”
Narasimha looked uncomfortable. He knew that there was ill-will between his wife and her mother-in-law, but he was not aware that matters had gone so far.
“I am sorry. I am afraid she is unhappy.”
“Never mind whether she is happy or unhappy. She must submit,” said his mother angrily. Her hand was inflamed and painful.
“Have no fear. I shall be able to manage her,” he replied.
“If she fights and gives trouble send for my two women. Though they are old they are very strong. They can hold her down for as long as is necessary.”
Narasimha shuddered with an outraged feeling of horror. Was he a brute beast to assault a child, a half-grown child to whom marriage was a terror?
“I shall need no help; and I shall be very angry if the privacy of my room is violated. You understand clearly that I will have no interference.”
His mother glanced at him in surprise. She was not accustomed to be dictated to; nor did she approve of the tone in which he warned her that he would not tolerate interference. She might have protested and issued something in the nature of a command; but his sister came up and claimed her right to the choice of a wife or a husband for one of her own children should he have a family.
Again Narasimha shrank from the time-honoured customs which from familiarity had almost lost their meaning to those who took part in them.
Escaping from a chorus of congratulations expressed in very plain language, he strode up to the door. With his back against it he beckoned to Soobah. The man hastened forward.
“You will sit before this door until I return. Let no one enter. Where is your sleeping mat?”
Soobah indicated a small roll lying near the spot from which he had come.
“Go and fetch it.”
The man obeyed and returned quickly.
“Your food?”
“It is here, your honour, with my pillow and blanket.”
“Good. You will take no orders except from me. If I want you I will call you.”
The commands were given in a low voice that did not reach the ears of his parents and brothers. All eyes were fixed upon him with curiosity. His brothers could not help wondering how this calm, dignified relative would fare when it came to dealing with the little spitfire hidden behind the purdah that covered the door. They knew all about their sister-in-law from their wives.
Narasimha put his hand upon the purdah and thrust it aside. Soobah caught it and held it back. The bridegroom grasped the handle of the door, opened it quickly and stepped into the dimly lighted chamber, closing the door after him with a swiftness that shut out the gaze of the many pairs of eyes that followed him inquisitively. Soobah dropped the purdah and sat down before it.
The disappearance of the bridegroom was the signal for another movement of the pawns in this strange marriage game, the survival of many generations.
The nautch girls in their full strength gathered before the door of the bride-chamber and prepared for a long course of evolutions and song. Musicians with stringed instruments and pipes appeared accompanied by professional tomtom-beaters. The musicians seated themselves in a row about six feet from the door which the faithful Soobah was prepared to guard all night if it was the will of his master. Spreading his mat he laid himself down at once like a dog and was hidden from view by the dancers and musicians.
The audience seated itself in leisurely fashion, the women separated from the men to whom they gave place. Being relatives and connections no screens were necessary. The Zemindar’s family was not, strictly speaking, purdanasheen, but the ladies preferred to hold themselves aloof and be ready to pull forward the edge of the muslin or silk saree when strange eyes might possibly be drawn to them.
Dishes of sweets were handed round and betel-nut. A long evening of enjoyment was begun which was to last at least three hours. Between twelve and one o’clock a gradual relaxation on the part of the performers took place. The music became fitful and some of the dancers retired to the side and sat down. Most of the children had been decoyed to their rooms by a fresh supply of sweets. Their eyes were so full of sleep that they could scarcely keep them open. Their elders fell under the same dormant influences. They moved away as fancy seized them and sought their pillows. The mistress of the house, satisfied by now that assistance would not be needed in coercing the bride, lost all further interest in her son’s actions and slipped away to bed, taking her husband with her.
The heads of the family having disappeared, the rest of the household was not long in following their example. The nautch girls were conducted to the spot where food awaited them. The musicians melted away in the darkness and found supper and rest in one of the go-downs outside. The entertainment ceased as casually and indefinitely as it had begun.
Between one and two o’clock silence reigned throughout the house and Soobah, who had slept soundly while the pipes and strings and drums and the nasal tones of the singers filled the night with noise, awoke and removed the blanket from his ears. He was alone except for the night-watchman who prowled like a gaunt night-bird round the premises.
Soobah had no curiosity. His brain received nothing but what was of the nature of an order. Why the order was given or what it meant was nothing to him. He was born to receive commands and to execute them. Long practice had made him an expert at the business of serving. He was devoted to his master and possessed the fidelity of a dog. Food and sleep he took as opportunity occurred. Now in the small hours of the morning he sat waiting for the opening of the door and the issue of a command.
Narasimha stood with the closed door behind him. The light was too dim at first for him to distinguish much. Coming out of the brilliantly illuminated central hall, into which the room opened, his eyes were dazzled. As they became accustomed to the semi-darkness, he gazed round in astonishment. The whole place was in unaccountable disorder.
A single cot had been placed originally in the middle of the room. On it should have been an array of pillows, sheets, and coverlets. The cot had been stripped. Its bedding had been thrown to the corners of the chamber. The mattress had been dragged to the wall opposite to the door. The canvas webbing of the cot had been broken, making the bed useless until it could be put together again.
A folding chair which he had ordered to be brought for his own use, should he require it, was the only other bit of furniture. It was lying closed on the floor, fortunately unbroken.
Narasimha’s thoughts flew to the bridal chamber that had been prepared for Strafford’s bride, and his firmly closed lips curved into a brief smile, grim with sardonic humour. The contrast between his friend’s bower and his own could not have been more striking.
The author of all this mischief was seated on the mattress. She was draped in a fine white muslin saree bordered with gold. She had enveloped herself entirely in its folds, drawing the end of it over her head like a shawl. Her hair was completely hidden and only a small portion of her face was visible.
A thin, claw-like hand held it in position, leaving one large brown eye to keep watch on the enemy. Not a sound escaped her. She was as silent as a wounded jungle cat at bay and she was almost as dangerous.
He took a step or two into the room with a view of picking up the deck-chair and providing himself with a seat. The movement startled her and, true to its nature, the jungle cat spat at him.
“Don’t trouble,” he said indifferently. “I am not coming near you. I am going to set up my chair.”
He spoke slowly and with pauses between each sentence so that she should understand. Meanwhile he pushed the dismantled cot aside and out of his way. Opening the chair, he placed it so that he faced his bride. He picked up two or three pillows and arranged them on it with deliberation and care, as though his own comfort was the only thing he had in his mind. So far, he remained standing or moving about gently to accomplish his purpose.
The girl continued seated on the mattress with her back to the wall. She watched his movements closely with the one exposed eye, and made no further attempt to imitate the ways of an angry jungle cat. She was about ten feet distant from him, an intervening space which she apparently considered safe for the present.
The music and tomtoms began to sound, but the drumming was muffled by the closed door and the heavy purdah which Soobah had drawn across.
Narasimha seated himself, leaning back on the pillows with a weary sigh of relief. He was very tired, more tired than he at first thought. The reaction of the ceremonies at which he had unwillingly assisted was making itself felt. He was thankful to rest. If he could have slept he would have been still more thankful. But sleep was out of the question with his rebellious bride facing him at close quarters. She might spring upon him and bite and scratch seriously.
He must get out of this as soon as he could, was his one thought. There was much to be done in Madras in the furnishing of his house and establishing himself before his time was fully occupied in the office, where he would have to learn what duties were expected of him. His eye dwelt meditatively on the motionless figure seated on the mattress.
This little cat! He would have no use for her in the Presidency town. It was absolutely necessary that he should not burden himself with any domestic difficulties that would tend to distract his attention. He must leave her behind, where she was not welcome. He could not help it. If she chose to behave in this violent manner, she had only herself to blame. It was inevitable that she would be worsted in the contest when she measured her puny strength against that of his rigid old mother.
He closed his eyes and again sighed deeply. The noise of the music and the irritating songs of the dancing girls fell faintly on his ears, stirring his mind into unwelcome activity instead of soothing it. Again his thoughts flew to that little house on the Hills where the atmosphere breathed peace and love, such peace as he would never know with this thorn in his side.
If his parents could give him a Western education and a profession that was the reward of that education, why could they not have left him a free hand to choose a suitable wife? They had spoilt their good work by arrogating to themselves a right and a privilege that belonged to him. He opened his eyes. The steady watch on his every movement had not relaxed. She was beginning to get on his nerves. He sat up and regarded her critically.
“Wife, are you a woman or a baby?” he asked not in the least anticipating that she would answer. Indian women are supposed to listen in silence when their husbands speak.
“I am a woman,” came the reply, sharp and clear.
“Oh, are you? I am surprised to hear it. You have been behaving like a bad-tempered baby. Look at all this mess. I suppose it is your doing. The ayahs would never have left the room like this.”
“I’ll put it all back in its place if you will promise to keep your hands off me.”
He suppressed a smile of amusement. Was ever a husband addressed in such a manner? After a slight pause he said,
“Certainly I will promise so much. I would as soon touch an angry cat.”
She began to scramble to her feet, but he held up his hand.
“Stay where you are, little one. I have all the pillows I want. I shall not need the bed. The ayahs can put it tidy tomorrow morning—after I am gone.”
The words startled her. The saree was removed from the other eye to give her a better view of her strange lord and master. He was behaving very differently from what had been promised.
“Going away, husband? Where?”
“I am off to Madras at sunrise, and very glad I shall be to get away.”
“I want to go to Madras,” she said, after a pause.
“Madras doesn’t want bad children with no manners. I can’t take you to Madras.”
The saree was drawn up and both eyes were hidden. The muslin of the cloth was semi-transparent, and she was able to watch him through it. She was not yet satisfied that he was safe. He might make a raid upon her and crush her in a hideous embrace. His quiescence reassured her.
“What is to become of me?” she asked presently.
“You? You will remain here.”
The saree was thrust aside and for the first time her full face was exposed to view. It was pale and thin and bore the marks of misery and suffering.
“I can’t stop here! I won’t stop in this house. They will kill me if you leave me here!”
There was anguish in her sharp tones, but no tears came. The child was self-possessed to an extraordinary degree.
“Oh no, they don’t kill people in my father’s house,” he replied calmly.
“Then I will kill myself! I will throw myself into the well after you have left tomorrow morning.”
“I forbid it. My wife shall not drown like a bandicoot in a well.”
“Then I will run away.”
“And become as a pariah to be despised by everybody?”
She was silent. She had never been addressed in this quiet, temperate manner in her life. It puzzled her.
“Where am I to go?” she asked pathetically. “Where can I hide from the big mistress?”
“Why hide at all?”
She crept towards him on all fours, moving carefully, full of distrust.
“You need not be afraid, little one. I am not going to touch you.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes as though she was of no consequence whatever. He hoped to show her that he was merely marking time till the sun was up and he could get away in his big devil-carriage.
When he opened his eyes again she was close to his side. She had loosened her silver belt and allowed the saree to fall in a heap at her feet. He beheld the emaciated figure of a girl not fully formed. Her only other garment was a little petticoat that reached to her knees. Her flat bosom was bare except for some gold beads that had once been her mother’s, to which was attached the wedding thali or badge.
“Look at that!” she cried bitterly, pointing to a recent scar. “And that! And that! Your mother ordered her women to burn me with a fire-stick. It hurts, for it hasn’t dried up yet. See my back.” She turned round, showing the lines where the bamboo had bruised her skin. “I was beaten yesterday and again this morning, because I would not drink the sleeping medicine, and because I bit the hand of the big mistress. I wish I had killed her. I must wait till I am bigger.”
She resumed her saree, throwing the end of it over her head and drawing it across her face.
Narasimha was shocked. It was his mother’s doing. He could not express his disapproval and lay blame upon her. But the cruelty of it revolted him. He remembered the use of the fire-stick and the bamboo when he was a child. He had looked on with curiosity when the punishments were given to those who dared to cross his autocratic mother’s will. It was only since he had been among Western people that he had learnt to pity and be merciful.
The child placed a hand on each of his knees, letting the veil drop from her face. The little hands were curiously firm and they pressed hard upon him.
“You see, my lord, I cannot stay here. If you will not take me to Madras I will walk there.”
“Madras won’t protect you from my mother. What if she comes to my house? Can I turn her away?”
The forlorn little wife drew a deep breath that was more of a dry sob than a sigh. It touched him.
“It must be the well,” she said, with resignation.
“I tell you that it must not be the well for my wife. If you were anyone else’s wife you might go and drown yourself in twenty wells for all I should care,” he said mendaciously. “As you belong to me, I won’t be disgraced by a drowned wife.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“To get away from the big mistress?”
“Can you hide me, husband?”
“I must think.”
“You won’t let her have me again?” she pleaded.
His heart was beginning to ache for the poor little unwanted soul; but he was careful not to let her see that he was sorry for her. This was not a moment for sentiment or emotion. It was the cold, indifferent attitude that he had assumed which had given her confidence and broken down her intense antagonism
“No,” he replied slowly. “I promise that you shall not be left in this house, but I must consider what is best to be done.”
She fell at his feet as he sat in his deck-chair and placed her hands over his instep. She kissed his naked feet and gently caressed his ankles with her fingers. He stirred uneasily, with difficulty preventing a movement of escape from her touch. He desired no affection of any kind. Demonstrations of gratitude were almost as unwelcome. When he had broken away from this nightmare of a marriage, he wanted to forget it all and feel that he had no obligations of a marital kind.
“That will do, little one. Sit down and wait. Sleep if you can. When I have decided what to do I will speak.”
She did not return to the mattress. Gathering up some pillows she settled herself down by the side of his chair, leaning a shoulder against it. She was too sore with the burns and weals to be able to lie down. Narasimha was half asleep. He might have gone off into a restful slumber had it not been for the problem the child had put before him. At the end of an hour that, on the whole, had been restful, he sat up. His ideas had become a little less chaotic. Suddenly with an illuminating flash he solved the difficulty in his mind.
“Little one, are you awake?” he asked.
“Yes, husband. I cannot sleep with this terror hanging over me.”
“Will you trust me to hide you and place you in safety?”
“Will it be where the big mistress cannot find me?”
“Yes, it will be in a place where only I can find you.”
She searched his face for the truth.
“What about my stepmother at Poona? She is as wicked as your mother. I tried to poison her by putting datura seeds in her coffee, but she found them before she drank the coffee. She tied me up in a sack which she hung high up on a nail in the wall. I thought I should have died that time.”
“You deserved what you got. It is very wicked to try to poison anyone.”
“It was she who was wicked; she beat me every day.”
“Now, look here, wife. You must clearly understand that you have to be very good in the place where I am hiding you. If you are naughty, back you come to this house. I won’t have you with me. And your stepmother won’t have you with her. This house will be the only place for you.”
“Then it will have to be the well.”
“All right. Let it be the well, and we shall all be relieved.”
“I would rather go with you to the place you will choose,” she said, after a pause. “I don’t want to jump into the well. It is full of snakes.”
“There is no need whatever for you to jump into the well. You will be turning your back on the happiest time of your life if you go to the well. Will you promise me to be good?”
“I promise! I promise! I promise on the word of a Mahratta.”
“Very well, I accept your promise, and believe that you will keep it, as I should keep my word. You will have all the joys and delights that are generally given to good children and not to wicked little jungle cats that bite people in the hand and spit at their husbands.”
“Husband, I am so sorry. I will never bite or spit again.”
“If you do, you will know what to expect. I shall give you up as hopeless.”
“I shall not be beaten and burnt again?”
“Never! Not if I know it. My wife beaten and burnt when she is behaving properly? Not likely!”
“When can we go?”
“As soon as it is light. We shall not have to wait much longer. The music has stopped and everybody must have gone to bed. Fasten your saree properly and draw the end of it over your face. I shall carry you out of this room straight to the car. You must not speak. You must just do whatever I tell you.”
Narasimha rose from his chair.
“Where are you going, husband?” she cried, in renewed alarm.
“To see if they are all out of the way. We don’t want to meet the big mistress or any of the family.”
He opened the door and spoke to Soobah. There was no sign of dawn yet. A little later, Soobah brought coffee and rice cakes. The husband and wife took their breakfast together, he reversing the domestic order of eating by giving to his wife before he fed himself. He changed quickly into his European clothes.
Soobah came to the door and gently knocked.
“The car stands out in the carriage drive. It is ready to start as soon as your honour enters it. The luggage is there.”
“You are ready yourself? I see you are,” he added, as he noted that the man wore the dark serge coat assumed when he was travelling.
Narasimha went back into the room. His wife rose to her feet at a sign from him. He lifted her on to his hips, Indian fashion, and with his arm round her waist he carried her noiselessly to the spot at a little distance from the house where the car stood.
They were not able to escape without observation. The night-watchman, whose duties ended with the dawn, stood wrapped in his blanket, stick in hand, near the car.
Narasimha beckoned to him to approach. He spoke to him from the window of the car and placed some rupees in his fingers.
“You are not to wake the big master and mistress. By and by, when it is time for them to rise and take their coffee, you will tell them that I am called to my new duties in Madras. I shall not have time to come here again, so I have taken her Excellency, the young mistress, with me.”
The old man salaamed low and the car glided away without the sound of the horn.
As the sun rose over the low hills and flooded the country with its warm, golden rays, the news of their departure flew round the house. It was incredible.
A rush was made for the bridal chamber. The sight of the wrecked cot and the disorder only increased their amazement. The big mistress declared her belief that her son had half killed his bride with his violence, and had removed her so that her death might not bring trouble and disgrace on the ancestral home. He had done right in carrying her off if such was the case.
The Denbighshire lay at anchor in Colombo harbour, her double awnings stretched from taffrail to taffrail. Her white decks were deserted. The Burmah passengers had gone ashore and those from South India had not yet arrived with the exception of one solitary person. This was Sibyl Cullington, who had been staying a few days in Colombo to mark time. She was seated in her chair enjoying the cool sea breezes. She had only arrived on board a couple of hours before.
She found herself the sole occupant at present of her large cabin and she was hoping sincerely that she would remain its sole occupant, a hope that the steward did not support. It would be some hours before the ship sailed. The southern mail train from India had not yet arrived, and for all she knew it might bring a horde of passengers, except for the fact that it was early in the season for the rush home.
The harbour was full of shipping. Big liners on their way to and from Australia, Calcutta, Penang, Singapore, China and Japan were anchored. Round each big hull were boats of Oriental merchants who were doing business with the passengers, or were bringing supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables for the storerooms of the ships.
Sibyl was thinking that the Red Sea would be very hot and muggy and the Indian Ocean not much better. After passing Suez the climate would be delightful and would compensate for the boiling she would get between Colombo and Suez. She had every hope that the early days of autumn would be genial and pleasant.
Her thoughts went back to India and the many friends she had left behind. One of them was Narasimha himself. Four years together at an up-country station, where there was much friendliness and no formality, had drawn them together. She sighed as she thought how extremely unlikely it was that they would ever meet again unless she returned to the East. Of that there seemed at present little chance. She had come out on a visit and the visit was not likely to be repeated. At that precise moment the sound of his voice fell on her ear.
“Miss Cullington, you will be surprised to see me,” he said.
She looked round quickly. He was not alone. By his side was the bride he had abducted from his father’s house at Chittoor. Sibyl saw a thin, half-grown girl, dressed in a tumbled saree. She held the corner of it across her face, hiding her hair and exposing one eye. The eye regarded her solemnly. Except when the child had stripped to show him her wounds, Narasimha himself had been denied a view of her face. During the journey she had jealously veiled herself and turned from him, an action that did not trouble him in the least.
“I am delighted as well as surprised,” responded Sibyl warmly. “Do tell me what brings you to Colombo.”
“This is my wife,” he said without answering her question.
“Your wife!” she repeated, looking down on the child astounded. “You are joking!”
“I wish I was joking,” he replied with some bitterness. “Didn’t I tell you that after leaving Ooty I was going to Chittoor to claim my wife—to whom I was married nine years ago.”
“Why, she must have been a baby!”
“She was five years old.”
“Then she is fourteen now. She doesn’t look it.”
“Only fourteen,” he repeated. “She is too young to take up the duties and responsibilities of wifehood.”
“Much too young,” said Sibyl. “I hope you are not thinking of letting her do so.”
“I found her very unhappy in my father’s house,” he continued without answering her question. “My mother expected too much of her and made no allowance for her youth. I could not leave her there. It is impossible for me to establish her in my house in Madras. I thought of you and your words of counsel about the necessity of education. I have come to ask you a favour, a very great favour. Will you take her under your wing and let her travel with you to England, where I beg you will be so kind as to place her with some kind woman who will mother her and teach her?”
It was a serious request and he was aware of it.
“Is she willing to go?”
“Quite willing. I have won her confidence sufficiently to satisfy her that it is the only course we can take to ensure her happiness. I have promised her that she will be well treated and very happy. Of course she has heard of England. It is the ambition of every Indian to see that wonderful country in the West. If you cannot grant me this boon I shall be at my wit’s end to know what to do with her. She vows she will drown herself in the well sooner than come under my mother’s supervision again. With her indomitable spirit I am sure she will do it.”
There was something in the attitude of the girl that appealed strongly to Sibyl’s pity. She was like a lost dog on a string whose fate was under discussion. By this time the other eye was visible and both were fixed on the English lady. The expression in them seemed to appeal to Sibyl and roused the maternal instinct that every good woman feels for a helpless child.
“Yes,” she answered slowly and with a thoughtful deliberation that gave him hope. “I will take her.” She let her steadfast eyes rest on him. “For your sake I will take her; for the sake of our friendship; and I will do my best.”
“Thank you,” he replied quietly. “Make her as like yourself as you can and I shall love her.”
A faint colour touched Sibyl’s cheeks. She turned swiftly to the practical side of the question.
“She had better come into my cabin. It is empty at present, but passengers may arrive at any moment and appropriate the other berths.”
“I’ll go at once and secure the whole cabin.” He turned to the child and spoke to her in her own language. “You will stay with this lady, wife, while I go and arrange for your bed. As long as you keep near her and obey her, she will guard you from the big mistress and from your stepmother.” He explained to Sibyl what he had said. “She knows Tamil. You know a little, enough to get along till she picks up English, which she will do very quickly.”
He was off at once to find the head steward. It was half an hour before he returned. All the time the child sat motionless at Sibyl’s feet watching for her husband’s return.
“I have taken the whole cabin and paid for every berth. Here is the ticket and the receipt. I have seen the captain who was most interested and obliging. Also I have interviewed the stewardess. She will help you. I have tipped her and the cabin steward. I have not mentioned her relationship to me. They are all under the impression that she is my sister.”
“But I must pay for my own berth!” protested Sibyl.
“Not at all. This is my affair. You are giving me your services and this is the only way in which I can, in part, repay you.”
He placed an envelope in her hands with the other papers.
“Here are English notes for fifty pounds. You will want them when you land. I shall send you a draft for three hundred pounds by post at once and more later on.”
He explained that expense was no object where his wife was concerned. She was to have of the very best.
“Please place her in a good home where things are well done.”
“Have you any special wishes in that respect?”
“I leave everything to your judgment; everything. One point I should like to insist on. She may be taught all that is best in Christianity, but she must not profess Christianity without my knowledge and consent.”
“I understand. I will keep faith with you,” responded Sibyl. “It will not be difficult. What about caste? Will she show any objection to the inevitable breaking of some of her caste rules?”
“I think not. I will warn her that something of the sort must happen. After all she is only a woman, and with women——”
“Now, Narasimha, you must not talk like that!” cried Sibyl, interrupting him. “As I have pointed out to you more than once, it is only by raising your women to an equality with the men that you will be able to raise your nation.”
“Forgive me! What shall I do without my friend and adviser?”
“What about clothes? She will want warm things when we get into the Mediterranean.”
“I bought a supply in Colombo this morning directly I arrived. There are two suitcases. I have had them placed in the cabin. Now, if she is not obedient, tell her that you will send her straight back to Chittoor, Chittoor,” he said, repeating the name of the place. “I will tell her what I am saying. I fancy that it will be quite enough for you to mention Chittoor and she will understand the threat.”
He interpreted all that he had told the English lady. His wife looked up at him with earnest eyes as she listened and wagged her head in assent and agreement.
“I know. I understand,” she said. “I have promised on the word of a Mahratta that I will be good and give the lady no trouble. Mahrattas always keep their word.”
He repeated what she said and Sibyl smiled at her in comprehension. What a brave little spirit it was that shone from those brown eyes. She had no fear that the child would be difficult to manage. All she wanted was kindness and just treatment. That she should have most assuredly.
“By-the-bye, what is her name?”
“Her name?” Narasimha repeated. “Upon my word I have forgotten—if I ever knew. We don’t use names. She is ‘wife’ or ‘little one’ to me.”
Sibyl laughed at him.
“You’re a nice husband, you are! Don’t know your wife’s name? I’m ashamed of you! However, Little One will do for the present.”
“I must be off soon, but tell me about Strafford and his wife. How is he?”
They talked of the wedding and the accident of which Sibyl had heard. Narasimha told her how he found them on the ghat road in the rain with the car overturned and Strafford with a broken collarbone. The child, her fears at rest, was venturing to close her eyes in much needed sleep. She leaned against Sibyl, one hand holding a fold of her new guardian’s skirt. A little later Narasimha rose from the chair he had appropriated in its owner’s absence.
“I must be going. There is one thing I must mention. I have spoken to the doctor. He must see her arms and back. She has been wounded in a foolish attempt to punish her. The fire-stick and the bamboo have been used. A sea-water bath will be impossible until the skin has healed.
He had forgotten nothing. He leaned over the sleeping child to awaken her.
“Is it necessary? Let her sleep, poor tired child,” protested Sibyl.
“I can’t go without a word. It would be breaking faith with her and that I hope never to do. The girl has been badly enough treated as it is. I won’t add to it.”
He touched her on the shoulder. She sprang up like a startled animal on the defensive, ready to put up a fight to the death for its life and liberty. There was no sign of fear. Battle blazed from her eyes.
“Wife, the time has come for me to go back to Madras.”
The term he used sounded strange in Sibyl’s ear. She knew enough of the language to recognise it. It would have seemed stranger still if he had spoken in English. She lost the reply. From its tone she judged it to be an entreaty.
“You won’t let the big mistress know where I am?”
“I promise.”
“And when I am big and strong I will come back and kill her.”
“Chuh! You will have forgotten all about it by that time.”
“I shall remember everything—their cruelties and your goodness.”
He looked down at the little creature. She had risen to her feet, and was standing close up against Sibyl, the frail body leaning towards the strong new friend and protector, who would shield her from her oppressors and hide her in that wonderful land where life was to be all joy and pleasure.
Narasimha was satisfied. He ran down the gangway to the waiting boat where Soobah sat. Sibyl led the child to the taffrail to see the boat leave the ship.
“Good-bye! Good-bye!” Sibyl cried, waving a hand.
Her companion, imitating her action, repeated the unfamiliar farewell in a shrill voice. It reached his ears. He turned and looked at the pair, waving a hand in response.
It was the last he saw of his wife for a long time and deep in his heart was a thankfulness he was half ashamed of acknowledging, that she was passing out of his life for the present.
Narasimha went straight back to Madras. He allowed the incidents connected with his own marriage to slip from his mind. If they recurred he put them resolutely aside as inconvenient and obstructive to the great purpose upon which he had set his heart. He knew that he had been chosen from many others, possibly better men, he was willing to allow, than himself. It was a period when the cry of “India for the Indians” was being raised. A liberal-minded Government was ready to acquiesce if it could be done without detriment to the country.
He was aware of the reason for his promotion. He intended to show the authorities that their confidence was not misplaced.
When he arrived in Madras he had a week of his leave still to run. They were valuable days, during which he had time to complete the furnishing of his house. It stood among the houses of the Europeans and was large enough to allow of his entertaining if he chose to do so.
At the end of his leave he appeared in the Government office where his sphere of work lay, and took over charge. With the quick perception of his race he gathered up the threads and showed himself efficient. His superiors made no comment. They contented themselves with close observation. They neither criticised nor commended, but he could judge by their manner that he was not coming under their condemnation. Among themselves they said,
“He’ll do. Wonderful capabilities some of these well-born men have.”
“Yes,” said another. “If he keeps it up he will go far.”
Then they waited to see if their estimate of his abilities was correct, prepared for failure but hoping for success.
His work was in the Department of Agriculture, which of late had undergone development. His father being an extensive employer of labour on his zemindary, the subject interested Narasimha more than a little. He had learned some of the conditions from his visits to Chittoor. The product of the zemindary was chiefly rice. Sugar-cane was grown in places where the irrigation allowed of it. Fruit was cultivated to some extent and sent to the Madras market. He had long been aware that there was room for improvement in the matter of implements, in the quality of the seed, in the breed of the draught buffaloes needed for the plough. He also knew the ryot, his good qualities and his bad, his dislike to anything in the shape of an innovation and the difficulty of getting him to adopt new methods. The ryots of his father’s zemindary were typical of the agriculturists all over India. “To teach old dogs new tricks” is heart-breaking work, but Narasimha intended to do his best, and if he succeeded in becoming only a pioneer, it was something towards benefiting the land of his ancestors.
Strafford and his wife came down to Madras on their way to his station at the expiration of his leave. They stayed at an hotel and saw as much of Narasimha as was possible. Strafford had quite recovered from his accident and was much better in health for his rest on the Hills. They discussed things social and official.
“What are you going to do about entertaining down here? You will find people friendly enough, but there is not the opportunity for the same intimacy that we get up country,” said Strafford.
“I shall carry on in much the same way as I did at my last station. Of course, I have to wait till I receive invitations. They may or may not come after I have made my calls.”
John Strafford gave him one piece of good advice.
“Give your guests the same fare that you see on their tables. Don’t try to go one better. When you go out to dinner let your man give you a plate of fruit. The servants will quite understand. They will pass you over when they are handing round the dishes and respect you all the more for keeping your caste rules.”
“I don’t want to hold myself superior.”
“Your guests will understand.”
“I want to join in everything as an Englishman would in my position. As I begin so I can go on. If I can mix socially with the men I am associated with in my work, I shall have a much better chance of breaking down the barriers that exist between us. They do exist; it is inevitable.”
“What a pity you haven’t got your wife to help you. By-the-by, you completed the marriage, didn’t you?”
“It had a curious ending,” said Narasimha. He checked himself, but on second thoughts decided to continue his confidences. “The bride was duly handed over to me. I found that she was totally uneducated; and in my dilemma I came to a sudden resolution. I remembered that Miss Cullington was going to England immediately. I carried my wife off to Colombo, went on board the Denbighshire, and threw myself on Miss Cullington’s generosity. I asked her if she would take the child to England and place her in a good school where she could be properly educated. My wife was quite willing to go. I hope my experiment will prove successful.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be highly successful. You speak of her as a child. May I know her age?”
“She is fourteen, and young for her years.”
“Wise man!” warmly responded Strafford. “It is just like you to have done such a thing. It was the only solution. If you are to go forward, you must have an educated woman by your side.”
Narasimha was pleased at his friend’s approval. He knew that it included a still warmer approval, in that he had respected the youth of the girl.
“It was my only course, and it was a fortunate chance that I had Miss Cullington to fall back on. My own family, and probably my wife’s as well, would have opposed it. Too great a risk, they would say. But I am going to chance it. Nothing could be worse for me here in Madras than to have a wife ignorant of every social rule and unable to read and write into the bargain.”
“How long shall you leave her in England?”
“Four or five years. It will depend on whether I am retained in the Presidency town. I am saying nothing of all this to anyone.”
“Quite right. Keep your own counsel. You may depend on me.”
They spoke of the particular branch of Government employment to which Narasimha had been appointed.
“It won’t be all plain sailing,” remarked Strafford.
“You mean that my co-religionists will have to be persuaded that they have no claim on me because they belong to my nation. I’ve already come up against that sort of thing in my last station,” replied Narasimha.
“They will have to understand that in occupying a position hitherto held by an Englishman you will behave in many respects as an Englishman.”
“Their theory is that a European in India has no duty towards relations. His family is separated from him by the width of half a hemisphere. A monkey, they say, can be very virtuous in a garden where there are no nuts,” responded Narasimha. “Our family ties are stronger than yours because of our patriarchal system of living. Even an Indian family that is poor will combine to scrape and save to pay for the education of a member so that he may enter Government service, and he will reward them afterwards for their generosity by promoting their interests in the Service.”
“That wasn’t the case with you. Your father is a rich man.”
“All the same, the general opinion will be that I owe him some return. This is one of the weak spots where reform is needed.”
Strafford told Barbara of Narasimha’s action with regard to his wife; how he had sent her off to England on the spur of the moment under Sibyl’s charge, to be placed in some school or suitable home.
“It was providential that he had Sibyl to fall back upon in his difficulty,” she remarked. “But what a man in a thousand he is, to come to such a drastic decision and carry it out on the spot!”
“I wish other Indians would act as he has done. No matter how advanced these educated men become, they go back to the customs and habits of their ancestors as soon as they pass behind the purdah of the zenana,” said Strafford.
“And they don’t seem to wish for anything different. Did Narasimha show any liking or affection for his young wife?” asked Barbara, who had the curiosity that one bride shows concerning another.
“I thought he was profoundly bored with the incident. I have a strong suspicion that his action relieved him of an anxiety which, of course, he would not care to mention. With no wife in his house, his parents have no sort of excuse for planting themselves upon him and interfering with his household arrangements. He is a long-headed man, and no mistake! I am sure that he hadn’t lost sight of the contingency. It was another reason for getting rid of his little lady.”
“His parents’ choice, by all accounts, and not his,” added Barbara.
A month later, Narasimha came home one afternoon at his usual time. He intended to take a hasty cup of tea, change into riding kit, and drive out to Guindy. A polo match was to take place. He had joined the club and was looking forward to a good game. His car was ready at the portico. He had two in use, a small two-seater for office work and a larger one to take him out in the early morning or evening to his social engagements.
As he entered the centre room to pass through to his dressing-room, a man advanced to greet him. It was his eldest brother.
This totally unexpected visit would put an end to his drive to Guindy. Soobah, waiting in the background, caught his eye.
“Send the car to the garage. I shall not be going out again,” he said. Then he turned to his brother. “I am sorry that I was not here to receive you. When did you come?”
“I arrived at midday. I heard you were at the office. It did not matter. Your servants have given me food. While I have been waiting I have questioned them about your health and welfare.”
Narasimha quite understood the catechism to which they had been subjected. Soobah was the only one among them who had information, and he was not likely to have divulged a single item of his master’s doings.
“I am wonderfully well. The place seems to agree with me. How did you leave the family at Chittoor?”
“They are all in excellent health.”
This kind of conversation went on for some minutes. At last the visitor could restrain his curiosity no longer. Even now he did not come straight to the point, but led up to it carefully. He could not force his brother to tell him more than he chose. He might not choose to tell him anything.
“Our mother has been troubled of late at receiving no news from you.”
“I am sorry, but I have been so overwhelmed with office work that I have not had a moment to write.”
“Are you aware that you have not written since you left us in that strange manner on the night of your wedding?”
“Haven’t I? I have forgotten it,” said Narasimha indifferently.
His brother was nettled at the tone in which this was said.
“Your sudden departure troubled the whole family and it stopped all our celebrations. Such things are not done, little brother.”
Narasimha seemed to be paying no attention, but this was not so. He recognised a note of authority in his elder brother’s tone which it would not be convenient to admit. He rose hastily as though struck with a sudden thought and called Soobah.
“Have you prepared a room for his honour to sleep in?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“See that there is food such as he is accustomed to take at nine o’clock. We will dine together.”
“Yes, your honour. It shall be as you order.”
“Bring me my house shoes and thin coat.”
Soobah hurried away and his master resumed his seat. The little action, trivial as it seemed, and done as it was in honour of the visitor, was understood. It meant that Narasimha was not going to brook any interference, nor would he be dictated to.
“You were saying—what was it, brother?” he inquired.
“That your flight from our father’s house troubled us all. We could find no reason for it.”
“I had plenty of reason for getting away as quickly as possible. Government servants are supposed to be punctual to a moment in taking up their new duties,” replied Narasimha. His manner was not encouraging.
“Your action troubled my mother. It was out of order. She wished to know how you fared with your bride and whether the girl gave you any trouble,” said his elder brother.
“She gave no trouble at all, I assure you. The little one seemed out of health and I thought that a change of air would do her good.”
“Did you bring her here?” he asked, knowing that the girl had not been to Madras.
“No, the house was not ready.”
“So your servants told me. They all say that they have no knowledge as to where you have placed her. Perhaps you took her to her father’s house in Poona?”
He knew that this was not so, for he had been to Poona to see for himself if his missing sister-in-law was with her people. Narasimha was silent. So far he had kept his own counsel. It was the easiest way in his opinion—until they began to question him. Then the truth would have to be told. This was the first onset. It would be followed by many more. Perhaps the time had arrived for letting the family know the true facts of the case. While his brother continued to talk he sat considering what was best to be done.
“After leaving the house,” he said presently, “I drove straight to the railway station and took the southern mail to Colombo. There I found an English lady, an old friend whom I knew well. I placed my wife under her charge, and sent her to England to be educated. When she has learnt manners and how to read and write English, she will come back to me and take her place with the other educated Indian ladies in Madras who are able to advance their husbands’ interests.”
His brother gaped at him in astonishment. He could scarcely believe his ears.
“It was a very bold and unwise step,” he said.
“That we shall find out for ourselves when she returns, which will not be for some time. Mine is what the English call a bachelor establishment. It has no zenana.”
“No zenana!” repeated the other, in bewildered surprise. He had never heard of a Hindu, a married man, living in a house of his own without a zenana. “I don’t see how it can be possible.”
“I have made it possible,” said Narasimha shortly.
“Our honourable mother will be much annoyed and vexed.”
“She need not be. I am not living in Chittoor.”
“What am I to say to the family?”
“Say nothing.”
The two brothers regarded each other with the watchfulness of fencers who were measuring their strength against an impending combat. With Narasimha’s last pronouncement, spoken with characteristic decision, his brother did not press for more information. The matter could wait. Later on an opportunity would probably occur of discovering all that he wished to know. He therefore shifted his ground as though he had learned enough.
“Will you write to our mother and give her the explanation that she asks for?”
“What is the good of writing? She can’t read my letter.”
“The letter can be read aloud to her.”
“Possibly if I can find time I may do so.”
“Shall I take the letter back with me?”
“I won’t trouble you. The post will serve.”
There was a longer pause than had before elapsed. Narasimha was wondering how he could find an excuse to get away from his visitor for a time. There were papers lying on his writing-table that must be attended to with a clear brain and undivided attention. By nature he was courteous. His long residence in England when he was at a Public School and afterwards at the University had established his courtesy as a habit. He could not make up his mind to abandon his brother without some reasonable excuse.
If he had finished with his brother for the present, his brother had not finished with him. On the zemindary time was of no account. Everything was done in leisurely fashion and with deliberation. Seeing Narasimha glancing round, as though contemplating a move, the visitor spoke, asking a question.
“You are occupying a very influential and important position in the Government, are you not?”
Narasimha had an inkling of what was coming. He had dreaded something of the sort from the moment his eyes fell upon his brother.
“The position has its responsibilities, but they are not greater than I am able to perform. After all, I am only a junior, practically learning the work. The training that is given in England to Europeans and Indians alike is adequate. It weeds out the unfit and sends out to India only the efficient.”
His brother was not interested in the training of candidates in England nor in the system by which they were elected. He waited till Narasimha ceased speaking.
“As an official high up in the scale you must have many opportunities of promoting your subordinates and of making appointments among your writers and clerks.”
Narasimha held up a protesting hand.
“I have no power whatever to advance the interests of the staff employed in the office. I cannot even nominate the peons nor the sweepers who clean out the office.”
Narasimha read disbelief on his brother’s face as the latter made answer.
“Surely if you ask for the appointment of a man, provided, of course, that the post is vacant, you can obtain it.”
“Impossible!” said Narasimha, controlling his irritation as best he could. He wanted, above all things, to be emphatic and convincing. Yet he wished to keep his temper with it and give no offence.
“There is a young man in Chittoor in whom I am interested. He is twenty-two. At present he is storekeeper of our rice go-downs. He would like to come down to Madras and get something with a salary attached to it.”
His brother seemed to have no hesitation in asking for the favour which he firmly believed was in Narasimha’s power to grant.
“I am afraid I can’t help him. The clerks in the Secretariat have to pass a stiff examination before they are employed. Has the man any knowledge of English?”
“He can speak enough to make himself understood when he is travelling on the railway. At present he cannot read or write it.”
“Can he work a typewriter?”
“We don’t need such machines in our store go-downs.”
“His ignorance of the English language would be a serious obstacle——”
The visitor waved his hand as though he would put aside such a trifle.
“The young man is intelligent. He could soon pick up enough English to keep books and make entries in the accounts.”
“Something more would be required of him than a knowledge of how to speak the language. He would have to pass the test.”
“He could do it easily if a little instruction was given. Perhaps you could coach him yourself after office hours. It would be quite easy,” responded Narasimha’s brother with a confidence that admitted of no doubt or contradiction. Narasimha suppressed the smile that was near his lips at this preposterous request.
“Possibly you may like to see the form of application which it will be necessary to fill up before making a request for an appointment.”
“Will it be in English?”
“Certainly, and he must answer in the same language.”
“I could fill in the form for him. I know quite enough English to do that,” said the brother, with unshaken confidence.
“But you could not personate him and answer the questions that would be asked.”
“If I went with him I could tell him what to say.”
Narasimha gave it up as hopeless.
“Very well; I will let you have a form of application if you very much wish it, but I don’t advise him to send it in. It is only asking for disappointment to seek a post for which a man is not fitted.”
“You would push his interests and do all that you could to help him.”
Narasimha was silent. His brother spoke in a tone of command once more. It was useless to combat it or repeat the insuperable difficulty that barred the appointment of anyone but a fully qualified candidate.
The following day was fortunately a half-holiday in the office. Narasimha seized the opportunity of showing his brother many things that were eye-openers to the man from up country. He took him to the harbour to see the shipping of the rice on the coasting steamers, and pointed out how best the grain could be packed for its journey, first by sea and then by country cart or by rail. The packing of the raw sugar left much to be desired. It was not properly protected from the dust and dirt of travel. It became deteriorated, and there was loss from exposure to the heat of the sun.
The visitor was impressed, but very far from being convinced. He said that he did not see any necessity for improvement.
They went through the warehouses of one of the big firms that imported machinery, and he was shown the latest machine for extracting the juice of the sugar-cane. Narasimha suggested that the new machinery might be installed to advantage on the zemindary at Chittoor.
Whilst admitting that it would be an advantage and would possibly increase the revenues, the suggestion was turned down with the remark that it would be against custom and therefore unpopular with the ryots.
Narasimha was beginning to find the old formula, “It is against our custom,” a serious obstruction to advance and progress in the endeavour of his Department to better the conditions of agriculture. His brother he knew to be typical of the up-country landowner. Just as the zemindars were content with the existing conditions of their own households and mode of living, so were they equally content with the condition of their fertile lands and industrious but supremely ignorant labourers.
The next day being Sunday, Narasimha was able to conduct his brother through the schools and colleges and to give him some idea of the progress being made in the education of boys and girls in the Presidency town. The girls’ schools the visitor disapproved of entirely. They were an unnecessary charge on the revenues. They tended to make the women bold and unmanageable, discontented with their lot and likely to bring misfortune on the nation.
As to the education available for boys, he approved of it to a certain point. He expressed his fears that things were being carried too far. Benefits were extended to the out-castes which should be reserved strictly for men of caste, not necessarily Brahmins, but for the many castes that came between the Brahmin and the pariah. He believed that Chittoor offered the best education that could be obtained, and that it was an improvement in many ways on Madras methods.
“It is not quite fair on us at Chittoor to give the boys and men down here greater advantages than we can give them,” said the brother, as his eye swept the big classrooms and the technical equipment of the industrial sections.
“How are we to deal out fairness, as you call it?” asked Narasimha.
“Limit the number of the pupils and don’t go higher in university training than we can go.”
“You mean have a universal standard of education throughout the Presidency?”
“Why not? The students would then be equally trained.”
“And what standard of education would you adopt?”
“The standard that we have in Chittoor,” responded the brother, quite seriously and very much in earnest.
“I am afraid that would be curtailing the liberties of the people. If a parent in Chittoor wants higher education for his sons than the town affords, he can send his sons down to Madras.”
“There are caste difficulties in the way of boarding and lodging that would make a man of Chittoor hesitate over allowing his sons to come down here. In addition, the expense is a great consideration.”
Narasimha dropped the subject. He felt that in addition to the cry, “It is not the custom,” he was up against the arrogance of caste in its worst form. Had he stayed at home in his father’s house he might have been just as prejudiced against progress and advancement as he found his elder brother to be. He was not inclined to enter into a discussion on the conservatism of caste. He was beginning to recognise the fact that the time must come when caste prejudices would have to be modified and brought into line with the necessities of national progress.
On the day following the visitor returned to Chittoor. He made two or three attempts to get more information from his brother as to the missing wife, but he was unsuccessful. Beyond the fact that the girl had been sent to England he could learn nothing. There was the same reserve and silence over the events of the wedding night. He went so far as to look for a wound on his brother’s hand where the teeth of the rebellious wife might have left a scar, but he could see nothing to indicate that there had been a struggle.
Narasimha sincerely hoped that his want of success in the mission upon which he had come, the placing of a protégé in a clerkship, would discourage others from appearing on similar errands.
No orders came from his father’s zemindary for machinery nor for improved sacks for the transport of rice and sugar.
Five weeks later the second brother appeared in the same uninvited manner, taking it as a matter of course that he would be welcome. He went over the old ground, beginning with the wedding night and its astonishing ending. He, too, begged for an explanation, which was not forthcoming. He was told exactly the same tale as had been given to his elder brother, and with that he had to be content.
His particular work on his father’s estate was with the cattle. The Zemindar possessed herds of cows and a large dairy. The ryots were also cattle-breeders in a small way.
The object of his visit appeared after a good deal of beating round the bush. He was anxious to place an acquaintance of his own caste in an office in Madras. He did not specially desire a post under Government. A well-paid clerkship in one of the big merchant’s houses would content him.
He asked if the young man might come down to the Presidency town and present himself in person. It would only be necessary for Narasimha to cast his eye over the lad to be convinced that he would be a desirable acquisition in any office. He not only understood English, but he could write it. Of bookkeeping he knew nothing. He kept his records in the cattle-sheds on the zemindary by means of tallies made by notches in sticks. It was by far the best way of keeping accounts, and it was known to everybody whether they could write or not. If it was not in use in the Government offices, it ought to be introduced at once. This youth would be willing to show the clerks how it was done. The sticks for notching could be supplied at so much a thousand from the estate.
It was no easy matter to convince the cattle-breeder from up country that the system of tallies had long ceased to exist. He accepted the statement at last, expressing his regret that Madras had lost the art of reckoning in tallies.
Narasimha took his brother out to the Government farm and showed him all the improvements that had been introduced in dairy work and cattle-breeding. He was astounded at the cleanliness of the sheds; at the care that was taken of the pedigree animals so that they should not wander to unworthy mates. This, he was told, was imperative if the class of stock was to be kept good. He observed that his own cattle were allowed to roam as they chose and to select their own mates.
The treatment of the milch cows was also a source of wonder. They were kept cleaner than the ryots’ children. As for not being allowed to wallow in the mud, how, he asked, were they to free themselves of the parasitic insects that tormented them at all times?
The work of the cream-separator seemed nothing less than magic. He was obliged to admit that it was real cream that resulted from its use, but he could not believe that as much cream could be obtained from the milk as when it was set out in the customary way in open pans.
Narasimha offered to give him a cream-separator to take back with him, but he declined it, half afraid of it himself and altogether afraid of his ignorant herdsmen, who would accuse him of having dealings with a devil when they saw the astonishing results.
Narasimha sighed, as many Englishmen had done before him when they had tried to push conservative old India on a step or two. If he could not persuade his own caste people to make a move forward towards progress and improvement, how could he hope to prevail on the great masses of agriculturists and producers of the raw material to adopt improvements, even if the means of improvement were thrust upon them as a free gift?
He felt that the desire for progress was not there. It would have to be created, but by what means it was impossible to say. The people were content with their old wooden implements, their slow-moving buffaloes, their heavy two-wheeled carts. As long as that paralysing content remained, all the efforts of a benevolent Government were unavailing.
The second brother departed immensely gratified by what he had seen, but in no way convinced that Madras had anything in the way of improving the condition of the zemindary to offer. He found opportunity to cross-examine the establishment. In addition, he placed his brother under a severe catechising, which Narasimha bore with exemplary patience, and he went away no wiser than he came with regard to the wife.
A month later an uncle turned up. He proposed that he should bring his wife and family on a long, indefinite visit. There was nothing to detain him at Chittoor. They could leave immediately. There were nine of them, including his wife’s relations and a married son who could not be left behind. All they would want would be two or three rooms and access to the kitchen and storeroom. It would be an economy for Narasimha to take the party in. They could do the work of the house, and he would be able to dismiss his present lot of servants, who were doubtless a set of idle dogs not worth their rice. Servants were always bad where there was no mistress to supervise them.
He was sent back without any hope that his proposition would be accepted. He explained that the journey was expensive. He had undertaken it solely for the benefit of his nephew Narasimha, and he would not have come if he had known that he was not wanted.
Narasimha handed him some rupees and a roll of notes, which he was not above accepting, and he disappeared off the scene.
The next suppliant to turn up was a young man who had come straight off the land. He claimed to be a distant relative of his brother’s wife, a claim Narasimha did not dispute, although he doubted it. His large splay feet, naked, and unaccustomed to shoes and socks, betrayed his calling. His work took him through the flooded paddy-fields as he followed the primitive wooden plough that no persuasion on earth would make him change for the more modern implement of iron. His bony fingers were expert at twisting the tails of the toiling buffaloes and were not of much use for anything else.
He wore a small loin-cloth girded tightly about his thighs, leaving his thin, hairy legs as naked as his feet. A small red turban and a white cotton coat completed his costume. He had no shirt nor collar, having never worn such garments. In his hand he carried a long stick cut from the jungle.
He stood before the Assistant-Secretary full of self-confidence. His father was the owner of a rice farm near Chittoor. He was tired of following the plough, he explained. Younger brothers were able to take his place. He would be willing to enter an office or take any appointment as inspector or manager that was going. He did not ask for a big salary. His expenses would be small if his kind brother, as he called Narasimha, would let him live in his house.
Narasimha heard him patiently to the end. He once more set himself the hopeless task of trying to persuade another deluded individual that no appointments of any kind rested in his hands. There was the same disbelief in the absolute necessity for special education and knowledge of office routine, the same confident assumption that such knowledge could be picked up easily in a week or two. As for passing examinations and tests, those could be set aside by interest and favour if Narasimha chose to ask in the right quarter.
How to convince these men that they could not become clerks at ten minutes’ notice was a problem he could not solve.
He sent him down to the public offices to see the clerks leaving for home after work was over. The young man stood by himself and watched the men pour out of the doors. They wore patent leather shoes and silk socks. Every one of them had a shirt and starched collar and tie. Many of them possessed gold watches and chains. The watches he could not see, but the chains were very much in evidence. So also were the gold sleeve-links. In place of the rough jungle staff they carried neat walking-sticks, which, he noticed, they did not use as supports in walking, but as toys to trifle with or they hung them on their arms.
He placed himself in a position where they had to pass close to him. They were talking among each other, and the language they spoke was English. He believed that he understood the tongue of the foreigner who ruled in India, but he discovered that he could only catch a word here and there and that he entirely lost the sense of what they were saying.
They took no notice of him, but passed him by as though he was a waterman or country cartman on a holiday. The sight of the self-satisfied clerks irritated him. Their superiority in dress and bearing was patent to all who saw them. It was his first introduction to the so-called baboo class, and he felt that they held in contempt others who did not happen to have had an education such as had been given to them.
He went back to Narasimha’s house and informed him that he had changed his mind about coming down to Madras. He did not think the climate would suit him. Narasimha accepted his decision with a kindly smile.
“I think you have done right. The sea air of this place is bad for those who have been brought up in the rice fields up country.”
“With your kind permission, brother, I will leave tomorrow morning by the early train.”
“My servant will give you some food to take with you. I shall be pleased to pay your fare back”—how pleased he did not dare to let his visitor see—“and to give you a present as well.”
The young man’s eyes shone with pleasure at the promise of the gift. Narasimha handed him the notes and sent his salaams to the family on the zemindary. Before the sun was above the horizon the applicant for a clerkship in a Government office was on foot, making his way to the Central Station, his mind purged of all desire to change his peaceful calling and to join the band of superior beings he had seen streaming forth from the offices before the doors were closed for the night.
For some time after these visits Narasimha was left in peace. He felt justified in hoping that the family had come to the conclusion that nothing was to be got out of him for them and their friends. It was possible that they might leave him alone for the future.
His father and mother were not in ignorance of all that had transpired. They were informed how each visitor fared and they made their comments and gave their opinions freely on his behaviour.
The point that troubled his parents most was the fact that he had no zenana, no women hidden away in curtained rooms at the back of his house. It contained two stories. There was ample room upstairs for a zenana of some size. It did not seem respectable in their Oriental eyes that those rooms should be empty. They were convinced that he must lose prestige among his fellow-men. Even if they were not of his caste, they must believe that the absence of a zenana was due to some adverse influence working against him. It could not be by his own arrangement.
Occasionally people came up from the Presidency town to Chittoor. They brought news of Narasimha. He was becoming a “power behind the throne.” He was popular with everybody alike, socially as well as officially. The family pride was flattered and his brothers pronounced that the news was all that they could desire. The rest did not matter.
This was not the opinion of the old people. They inquired if there was any rumour of his wife joining him soon. No one could hold out any hope that this was likely to happen. The general impression was that he had taken a violent and most unusual dislike to the opposite sex and would have no women near him. It was incomprehensible. Never before had such a thing been heard of, except in the case of a hermit or a saddhu.
The young master stood well with the English, they were told. He went to their houses to be entertained and they came to his. He had the honour of receiving the wives of the Englishmen as well as the men themselves. He had been invited to Government House several times, and he was asked to meet the Viceroy on his official visit to Madras. He had been seen speaking with His Excellency, who listened gravely to all Narasimha had to say. The Viceroy was making a tour of the Presidency. After the tour he would return to Madras for a few days. He had intimated to Narasimha that he would be happy to attend a certain garden-party for which Narasimha had sent out invitations.
Soobah was instructed to prepare for the entertainment on the usual lines. Tents were to be pitched in the garden. The refreshments were to be of the best, and the regimental band from the barracks in the Fort was engaged to play.
The news of the honour to be paid to their son reached the ears of Narasimha’s family. His mother was excited and proud when she heard it.
“Of course he will have a nautch,” remarked his father.
The Chittoor friend who had brought the news said that the military band was considered sufficient.
“There ought to be conjurors with snakes and the basket trick,” added the mother.
“And a good display of fireworks,” suggested the elder brother.
“These kind of shows are not given now,” said the visitor, with his superior knowledge of the ways of the Presidency town.
“The English may not give them, but our son should follow the customs of his country,” pronounced the big mistress in an authoritative tone.
“Will you be returning to Madras?” asked the father.
“Not for some time. I have disposed of my crops to a firm that will send a lorry for the rice as soon as I let them know that it is ready.”
Narasimha’s mother sat in the doorway leading into the central hall. She was too anxious to hear the news to allow her scruples to keep her in the background. She was not purdanasheen, but she drew her saree over her head and partially hid her face when she spoke with men who were not of the family.
“You are certain that our son has no intention of sending for dancing girls to perform before His Excellency?” she asked.
“Your son’s servant informed me that there would be no dancing girls. The head peon, who happened to be there when I was speaking with the man, assured me that the English objected to the presence of temple girls and found no pleasure in their performances.”
The old lady snorted with disapproval.
“I must talk to my son and point out his mistake. He should leave nothing undone in the way of honouring such a distinguished person as His Excellency, the Viceroy.”
She retired, stirred to her depths with indignation that her son should be so blind where his interests were concerned. It could not be that he was short of money. His father had been able to double his salary, which in itself was large. With no zenana to keep up and no jewels to buy he ought to be a rich man.
Narasimha, all unconscious of the family criticisms, proceeded with his preparations. By this time, Soobah was familiar with the details of a Madras garden-party. Such entertainments were all run on the same lines. Government House led the way. The Members of Council followed suit, and Narasimha, careful not to exceed or even to emulate his superiors, left his very efficient servant to carry out similar arrangements.
The day arrived. Everything was in readiness, and there was no hitch to make host and guests uncomfortable.
The Viceroy arrived, and Narasimha was duly warned of his approach. With a rattle of arms, the lancers of the bodyguard rode up. The car containing the illustrious guest and a second car with his staff arrived before the portico. Peons opened the doors of the cars and salaamed as the party alighted.
In India, punctilious honour is shown by the host in choosing the spot where he greets his guests. He meets them on the threshold of the room, or in the veranda. He may go to the top step of the portico or to the second or third lower down. The visitor waits for him to come. He knows exactly what to expect. The spot selected is in accordance with the visitor’s rank.
Narasimha chose the lowest step of his portico, and was there as the Viceroy alighted.
At a short distance from the portico a bullock coach had been drawn up. The master of the house was a little surprised at its appearance. It might contain, he thought, one of the old Hindu officials whom he had invited and who clung to the old method of conveyance.
Before he could conduct his illustrious guest away from the spot, the occupants of the coach left it in the customary manner. An old man, with the experience of years, descended nimbly from the back of the coach. His loin-cloth was tucked up round his waist, leaving his thin, bare legs and feet exposed. He wore a white cotton coat with no shirt nor collar, and across his shoulders he had thrown a large silk handkerchief. A white turban completed his costume.
Following him and moving out backwards with infinite precaution came an elderly woman. Her legs, thinner than those of the old man, waved uncertainly in mid-air as her feet felt for the crude iron step of the coach. She clung desperately to the sides of the opening and landed with some difficulty on the gravel drive. Her saree was bunched up round her body and drawn over her head, so that the eyes of the low caste might not fall upon her.
They turned and salaamed low to Narasimha and the astonished Viceroy, who was quite at a loss to know what they were doing there.
In that awful moment Narasimha recognised his parents.
A third figure emerged from the coach, the figure of a pretty dancing girl of the age of fifteen or sixteen. She placed herself behind the old couple with as much jingling as she could manage to make with her bangles and toe-rings.
In spite of the shock that Narasimha had received, he retained his presence of mind and his self-possession. He took no notice of his parents, but devoted his whole attention to the performance of his duties as an honoured host in the reception of His Excellency.
The Viceroy took his cue from Narasimha and ignored the presence of the uninvited guests. He held out his hand to his host and they greeted each other in formal English fashion.
Narasimha led the way to the special tent that had been erected for the reception. Chairs had been placed and carpets spread. A couple of aides-de-camp, who had arrived with the Viceroy, took possession of the situation and prepared to announce the guests who were to be introduced.
The reception began and was proceeding without a hitch when Narasimha’s watchful eye caught sight of his parents. They were making straight for the reception tent. Confused with the strange sights around them, they hesitated, hurried forward with short, uncertain steps, and then stopped to gaze round in bewilderment as the band struck up a rousing march. The dancing girl followed closely at their heels, casting a glad eye to right and left with a curious blend of boldness and timidity. She had shaken out her stiff silken saree and had brought every bit of glittering jewellery that she possessed into view. The silver hawk-bells attached to her anklets tinkled at every step she took, and her small hands, with their barbaric rings, were posing as she moved.
The A.D.C. who was not occupied with the introductions approached Narasimha, who was standing with the Viceroy, and whispered in his ear.
“I see, sir, that you have engaged a nautch girl. Pardon me if I tell you that His Excellency, the Viceroy, has requested that no nautches should take place on occasions like this.”
“They are not here at my request,” replied Narasimha.
Usually master of his emotions under the most trying circumstances, his temper was on the point of showing itself. His parents had come without an invitation, without a warning, and he felt that it was a liberty.
But the Indian is a good son. He respects his father instinctively and honours his mother. He controlled his irritation and slipped away with the intention of hustling the trio out of sight.
By this time they were the centre of attraction. The guests began to wonder if the young Hindu, so favoured by the Viceroy, intended to assert himself and set English scruples at defiance. Every person present knew the real profession of the temple dancing girl.
The old lady, finding that she had become the object of the company’s regard, signed to the girl to begin to dance. It was promptly obeyed with a stamping of the heels and waggling of the hips.
The A.D.C., following closely behind Narasimha, came up with the intruders.
“I am afraid you must leave the grounds,” he said in English. “His Excellency does not like nautches.”
Meanwhile, the old lady had advanced to meet her son. She raised her hands and cracked all her finger-joints over his head according to custom. His father began to give him his blessing.
“My son!” cried his mother in a shrill voice before Narasimha could silence her, “I have been told that you have no zenana in your house. Here is my gift to you.” She turned to the girl and beckoned her forward. “Now you will have no excuse for not making a zenana. Let the child dance before the company that they may see what a treasure you have.”
Fortunately she spoke in her own language, which was not understood by the guests.
Narasimha could find no words that were fit to offer a mother. He took refuge in action. Seizing his father by the arm, he hurried him towards the house. The old lady and her treasure could not do otherwise than follow, to the intense disappointment of the girl. It was impossible for that self-assured young person to believe that her presence was not needed and that her accomplishments were at a discount. Her eyes sent many backward glances over her shoulders with a last hope that someone would recall her. By this time, however, the guests had recovered from their surprise, and the diplomatic A.D.C. had explained that the presence of the dancing girl was a mistake. It seemed that she had been brought to the wrong house.
Narasimha somehow managed to lure his people back to the portico. He translated to his parents what the A.D.C. had said. They expressed their regret to their son that they had not given him notice of their intended visit. The car that brought the Viceroy had moved aside. There was room for the old-fashioned bullock coach to come up. Narasimha pulled open the door at the back, the only means of entering.
“Get in, honoured father and mother. While His Excellency is my guest I must not pay attention to anyone else.”
His mother regarded him with blank dismay.
“Do you send us away, my son?” she cried.
“This is no place for a lady of caste like you. I have no zenana to shelter you. Some more suitable lodging must be found.”
“We will wait until you are at liberty to attend to us,” said his father.
“It will be best to go to the caste rest-house,” said his mother. She looked at her son with a shrewd keenness. “Is it that you are ashamed of us?” she asked.
“Believe me, it is not so,” he assured her.
“And the girl? You would find her a great consolation. Is it your will that she goes with us?”
“Most certainly. Englishmen do not—employ dancing girls. They are out of fashion, out of favour.”
“The English are a strange race. I don’t understand them. However, we go as it is your wish. We will discuss this matter tomorrow.”
The trio crept back into the coach. Narasimha sent Soobah to them later with food and what bedding they required. They were quite happy at the chuttrum, or rest-house, that was used by travellers of caste, more so than they would have been in Narasimha’s house, with its European furniture and, worse still, its English ways.
The incident was over in five minutes. For a few seconds Narasimha stood in the portico watching the creaking, swaying bullock coach as it departed at the rate of three miles an hour. A pang of regret passed through him as he thought of the inhospitality he had shown to his parents. Then he reminded himself that they must of dire necessity be excluded from his house in Madras if his career was to be successful. He was occupying the position of an official Englishman, and he was doing his best not only to live up to it in the office but also in the home. He wished to show that it was possible for a Hindu to exist without having two sides to his life.
His mind flew back to his duty as host. He had committed a breach of good manners by leaving his guests. To the Viceroy he felt that an apology was needed. His natural instinct was to allow the incident to pass in silence. On second thoughts this was neither fair to himself nor to His Excellency.
The Viceroy must have seen the little tableau, including the A.D.C.’s warning, and could not help drawing his own conclusions. Those conclusions would belie the reputation Narasimha had acquired by his mode of life. If the Viceroy had believed for a moment that he was going to a house where expensive dancing girls were entertained, he might not have been inclined to do the Assistant-Secretary the honour of attending his garden-party.
When Narasimha was in doubt he had a habit of saying to himself, “What would my friend Strafford say or do in like circumstances?” He was repeating it now to himself as he walked back to where the Viceroy was standing. The visits of Excellencies are never long. When a few gracious words have been exchanged with the company, the great ones retire. Narasimha came to a swift decision. As he reached the Viceroy he detected the going-away look on his smiling countenance.
“May I have a word with you in private, sir?” asked Narasimha.
A flicker of surprise passed over the Viceroy’s face as he replied smoothly:
“Certainly, Mr. Narasimha. Shall we go into the house for a few minutes? I cannot stay long. I have to receive a deputation from the Municipality at five o’clock.”
His Excellency was prepared for nothing less than a request for promotion or some other favour.
“I must apologise to Your Excellency for the appearance of the temple girl. She was brought here uninvited.”
“By those mistaken old people?” responded the Viceroy, whose curiosity was awakened.
Something in the tone in which the words were said stung the Hindu, prompting him to hide the truth. He fought against it, beating down the temptation as he gathered his courage in his hands, and pursued the line he had originally intended to take.
“They were my parents, sir. Not knowing the etiquette of the present day, they thought to do Your Excellency honour by introducing the old-time nautch.”
Again there was a momentary lifting of the eyebrow. In all his experience the ruler in the King’s name had never received such an intimate explanation or honest apology.
“Do they live in Madras?”
“They belong to Chittoor, where my father is a Zemindar.”
“Will you thank them for their kind thought and explain that we have nothing but military bands in the present day at our big receptions. I understand that you have no wife here.”
“I have sent my wife to England, sir, to be educated. She is too young to take her place here in Madras at present. Meanwhile, I live a bachelor life. My mother, who is old-fashioned, cannot understand that such a household as mine is possible or—or respectable for a Hindu in my position.”
Narasimha smiled rather sadly as he used the word respectable. The Viceroy suddenly held out his hand.
“You are one in a thousand, Mr. Narasimha,” he said, with unusual warmth. “I highly appreciate the confidence you have reposed in me by speaking of your family affairs. I wish I could gain the confidence of other Indian gentlemen in the Civil Service. I shall be glad to see you in Calcutta at any time and to keep in touch with you.”
Narasimha expressed his thanks without effusion. His Excellency could see for himself that he was grateful. They returned to the tent, where the aides were waiting with the rest of the company. The Viceroy took his leave, and departed as he came.
A sigh of relief unconsciously passed through the assembly as he disappeared. Narasimha busied himself with his duties as host, devoting himself chiefly to the ladies. There was some curiosity as to the subject of the private interview which had been seen to take place between the Viceroy and himself. Had the Viceroy given him a wigging over the lapse of good manners in the introduction of a temple dasee?
“That wasn’t his doing,” somebody said. “Anyone could see it with half an eye.”
“She was brought by some relative. No one but a relation would have dared to greet him as the old lady did with a snapping of the fingers,” said another.
“Ah,” said a third, beginning to generalise. “That’s just where the Indian official is going to find himself faced by a difficult problem, that of relatives.”
“Millstones round his neck for all time,” remarked the first.
“Unless he brings about a reform in his domestic arrangements,” added the third.
The Denbighshire, one of the latest of the Bibby Fleet, moved away from her moorings and steered slowly out of Colombo Harbour. A few more passengers had come on board, but she was not full.
Narasimha, however, had secured the cabin with its three berths for Sibyl and her charge. There was no danger of any intrusion by strangers. With an unknown future before her this was a boon to Miss Cullington. She stood with the child by her side, watching the shores of Ceylon recede into the distance. The thick belts of palm-trees that lined the beach lost form and detail and were slowly massed under the warm haze of intense blue that settled over the tropical land. Above were the brilliant reflected colours of the setting sun, a riot of rose and gold lavishly displayed.
Sibyl looked down at the figure by her side. A small hand grasped a fold of her dress. The other held the end of the saree across her face, leaving the single eye visible.
There was no sign of an outburst of grief at parting with the man who was so drastically mapping out the future for her. The one visible eye was dry. It shone with alertness. It wandered round in sharp, comprehensive glances that weighed and measured every sight within reach of its vision. Curiosity, self-defence, and readiness to do battle sparkled in its depths. Fear was entirely absent; grief was also absent. There was not even what might be called a natural regret.
Could Sibyl have seen into the heart that throbbed beneath the saree, she would have found an enormous sense of relief; relief that extinguished every other emotion. To be taken out of reach of a man who had absolute control of her body was like a reprieve to a condemned prisoner. The horrible, shuddering dread of the fate that she believed was awaiting her in the bridal chamber was already losing its acuteness. It had been held over her with unconscious brutality on every occasion. The bamboo and the fire-stick had been bad enough; but past experience had taught her that they could be endured and survived. The anticipation of the rough treatment she would receive from her husband, if all accounts were true, was enhanced by the fact of its being mysterious and unknown.
She was going to a country where she was assured such barbarities did not exist.
The girl glanced shyly up into Sibyl’s face to see if she had the appearance of a person who would burn her tender golden skin, and mark her fragile back with welts that would have made even a buffalo’s hide smart.
Sibyl smiled as she met the glance. She saw the little breast heave with a smothered sigh. She took it to be a sigh of resignation to the decree of exile that had been passed upon her. Sibyl would not have wasted her pity could she have known that it was the happy sigh of the refugee who had found sanctuary.
Sibyl had leisure now to contemplate the task she had undertaken. There was no possibility of retracting her promise to Narasimha; no going back on her bargain. She had put her hand to the plough. Whether with good or bad results, the furrow must be drawn. As she thought it over, it certainly seemed appalling. Her decision to charge herself with the guardianship of this unknown girl had, of necessity, been made on the spur of the moment. There had been no time for consideration. Sentiment had driven her down a path that, for all she could tell, might bristle with difficulties. Narasimha, whom she had known for four years in the intimacy that comes to the small communities of officials in Indian up-country stations, had appealed to her for help. The knowledge that she alone could give it made her unwilling to refuse. If it had only been chaperonage to the end of the voyage it would have been comparatively easy; but a far greater responsibility was attached to it, which would by no means end with the voyage. She was pledged to find a home in England for the girl, with suitable instruction. She would have to arrange such matters as dress and pocket-money. Then there would be the holidays. The child could not be left at school permanently, and she had no home to go to. Even if she were docile and easy to manage, it would be difficult to fit her into Mrs. Cullington’s household.
Would the quiet little person by her side, who controlled her tears at the parting with her country and all her people, be easy to satisfy? Would she be amenable to the authority of a “foreigner”? For all Sibyl could tell, there might be resistance to authority before many hours had passed.
Ceylon sank into the sea with its green mantle of vegetation. The colours faded from the sunset sky and the warm tropical night overtook the great ship.
Sibyl was about to lead her charge down to the cabin when a passenger approached. She had come up from below to take her last look at Ceylon. She wore the uniform of a hospital nurse, and had the assured, friendly manner that is acquired by waiting on the helpless sick. Her eyes fell on the child with a touch of curiosity. She could not place the strange couple in her mind.
“May I ask if you are taking this girl to England for one of the mission societies?”
“No, we have no connection with any society. I am befriending her husband, a Hindu in the service of Government, by taking her home to be educated.”
“Her husband.” There was no expression of surprise in the repetition of the word. The nurse sighed and continued, “I know all about these child marriages; they are too common. I have never yet heard of a husband wise enough to send his wife to England to be brought up to his own standard intellectually. May I know the circumstances?”
Sibyl told her the story.
“What a wise man, wise beyond his generation!” said Mrs. Walters, the nurse.
She spoke to the child in the vernacular.
“Are you pleased to be going to England?” she asked.
The girl’s face broke into smiles as she heard her own tongue. For the first time Sibyl recognised the fact that her face was not without beauty, with its finely modelled features and olive skin. As soon as the child realised that she had a listener who could understand her language, she burst into speech.
She was very pleased to be on the big ship, which none of her people could reach. She had a stepmother and a mother-in-law. They were both wicked old devils, and she hated them.
Mrs. Walters smiled in spite of her endeavour to receive all the information with an encouraging seriousness. Her experience in a large hospital at Hyderabad made the young wife’s speech comprehensible.
“You are used to these girls apparently,” remarked Sibyl.
“I have had much to do with girl-wives. Poor little souls! It breaks your heart to see them suffering from these early marriages. We do what we can for them, but they are crushed and broken flower-buds that can never——” She sighed and left her sentence unfinished, as though it was a subject she could not speak of without emotion. “You must let me help you with her. Do you know her language?”
“Only a few words. I shall be more than grateful if you will lend a hand.”
“I should love to do so for the good of the cause. I wish we were bringing home a hundred of these little wives instead of only one.”
Mrs. Walters explained that she herself was the widow of a doctor in the Service. Since her husband’s death she had found employment in one of the Nizam’s large hospitals for women in Hyderabad, and was now taking her first leave, a much-needed holiday, to England. She had chosen England for the sake of the climate. She was a lonely woman, she added, with no children and no near relatives. She looked wistfully at Sibyl’s charge as though she envied her her good luck in having something to love and care for.
Sibyl listened, her brain busy with all she heard. It seemed as though Providence was exceptionally kind in bringing her a friend in need so unexpectedly. While she was wondering how she could engage her services, Mrs. Walters solved the difficulty for her.
“Shall I come with you to the cabin and help you with the child?” she asked.
“Oh, will you? I shall be more grateful than I can tell you.”
“Let’s go down at once to the cabin. We must get some food for her. I am afraid she will be too shy to eat in public.”
The suitcases containing the clothes bought by Narasimha were in the cabin where he had placed them. Sibyl opened one and lifted out some of the contents. The girl chose a white saree and proceeded to divest herself of that which she had worn on arrival. The petticoat was removed and Mrs. Walters substituted another. The white saree was wrapped round her body in no time.
“Ought she not to have some kind of nighty?” asked Sibyl, to whom all these arrangements were new.
“No, we shall have to teach her all that later on. See, here is a dressing-gown, and a pretty one, too, which her husband probably chose with the help of the shop assistant. I don’t suppose the girl has ever seen such a garment in her life. When she looks at yours, she will adopt it without any fuss. These girls are imitative little monkeys as long as nothing offends their caste.”
A comb came to light in unpacking the suitcase. She seized on it, took her long hair down, and combed and plaited it. Mrs. Walters introduced her to the wash-basin. She delighted in the scented soap and clean towels.
“Thanks to you, we have made an excellent beginning,” said Sibyl, with relief and satisfaction. “After all, she is not quite a savage; and she knows what she wants, which is something to be thankful for.”
A knock at the cabin door announced the ship’s doctor. He entered in a professional manner, saying that he had been asked to look in at a Hindu girl. His patient glared angrily at the strange man and hid behind Mrs. Walters. It took some time to reassure her and to persuade her to emerge from the folds of the blue uniform. Mrs. Walters called him “Hakeem,” a term that signifies a medicine man, and allayed her fears. She explained that he was the ship’s doctor and would give her something to ease the pain of the wounds. They needed attention and were causing her some suffering, as was evident from her manner of shrinking.
“Poor little soul! They have maltreated her, the wretches!” said Mrs. Walters, as she assisted in dressing the sores.
“I wonder why they behaved so brutally,” remarked the doctor.
“She was disobedient, I believe, to the authorities in the zenana,” said Sibyl, who thought it might be wiser, in view of her youth, not to mention husband and mother-in-law.”
“And are you taking her home to England?”
“To be educated.”
“I think the little maid will be worth it,” he remarked.
When the doctor had finished, Mrs. Walters went in search of food for her. Bread and a couple of bananas with a cup of warm milk were taken with returning appetite. When she had finished her supper she curled herself up on the floor, using her arm as a pillow, and would have fallen asleep, but Mrs. Walters made her a nest in one of the lower berths.
“Before you go to sleep tell me your name,” she said, as she tucked the sheet round her.
“I am called ‘child.’”
“In England people have names, pretty names. We must think of one for you. What shall it be?”
“Seeta; I should like to be Seeta.”
“Very well; it is a very good name. Seeta was a good woman, and that is what you must be. Goodnight, Seeta. Sleep well. Say ‘Good-night, nurse.’”
The child wagged her head in acquiescence, smiled, and closed her eyes, nestling among the white pillows like a tired, over-beaten dog. In a couple of minutes she was asleep.
“What a wicked thing to do to make that poor little thing into a wife,” said Mrs. Walters, looking down at her.
“I think and hope she was spared that,” responded Sibyl.
“Good! Her husband will find his reward by-and-by when she becomes the mother of his children,” said Mrs. Walters.
“He is one of the most advanced Hindus I have met, and I believe he fully understands what he is doing.”
“How long is Seeta to remain in England?”
“We did not get as far as that. It was all arranged in a desperate hurry just before sailing. We shall have to go into detail in our correspondence,” replied Sibyl.
Mrs. Walters stayed to tidy the cabin. The third berth was empty. She glanced at it and then at Seeta.
“Would you like me to come and sleep here? I can help you in the night if the child wakes and is frightened.”
“Oh, do! I should be so grateful if you would. You can speak her language. I can’t, except for a few words.”
It was the beginning of an arrangement that solved many difficulties for Sibyl in the early days of Seeta’s life in England.
One afternoon when the ship was gliding over the blue, breezy waters of the Bay of Biscay, Sibyl and Mrs. Walters spoke of the immediate future. Seeta, who had not yet accustomed herself to the use of chairs, sat at Sibyl’s feet, a favourite position. The two women had placed their chairs in a sunny spot sheltered from the wind.
“We shall be in port in two or three days if this weather continues,” remarked Sibyl.
“What are you going to do about your charge?” asked Mrs. Walters presently. “Have you made any plans?”
“I have come to no decision. I should like to place her at once with some lady who could undertake her education.”
“Poor child! She will be dreadfully lonely. It ought to be someone who knows the language.”
Sibyl sat up as a sudden thought struck her.
“Could you take her? She would be happy with you. I should be in a position to give you liberal terms.”
“I wish I could undertake the charge!” replied Mrs. Walters, looking down at the girl. “But in a year’s time I shall be returning to India, and just as we were comfortably settled you would have to begin all over again.”
Seeta’s large brown eyes, like those of a trusting spaniel, were upon them. She had picked up enough English during the voyage to understand that she was the subject of their conversation.
“What do you advise me to do?”
“If you are remaining in England some time,” said Mrs. Walters, speaking slowly and deliberately, “my advice to you is to keep her with you—if you have any regard for her husband.”
“I should like to do so immensely,” Sibyl replied impulsively. “But what about my mother? If she dies, I am homeless.”
“But not penniless. You must live somewhere; and you say that money is no object with Seeta’s husband.”
The three weeks spent together on board ship had already forged bonds of affection between Sibyl and her charge. The ties were making themselves felt and drawing them closer together as the hour approached for the parting.
It is hard enough to get rid of a dog one has learnt to love; but with a child it is ten times more difficult to part with it.
“I shall certainly be in a position, whether my mother lives or dies, to keep Seeta with me,” said Sibyl, on consideration.
“Then make a home for Seeta and yourself. Has her husband expressed any wish about arrangements?”
“Nothing whatever. I gathered from what he said that he leaves everything to me.”
“So much the better,” said Mrs. Walters.
“I am not so sure that it is for the better.”
“Has he no regard for the girl?”
“Only so far as his duty towards her is concerned. Personally, she does not attract him in the least. As far as I could judge by his manner he was terribly bored, not to say disgusted, at being saddled with a raw, uneducated girl, who showed her hatred of him after the manner of an untamed cat.”
“I hope he wasn’t responsible for her injuries. They have healed but she will bear the scars to her dying day.”
“Those were done while she was waiting for her husband.”
“You must tell him when you next write that they are cured. He may be interested to know that she is very quick at picking up our language and our ways.”
“I think I shall be wise not to say too much. I must give him time to get over his disappointment in his bride, and his natural annoyance at her treatment of him.”
“Did she show any gratitude for his deliverance of her from the hands of her severe old mother-in-law?” asked Mrs. Walters.
“None whatever, and she expressed no regret at parting with him. She was equally relieved to be rid of him as he was of her.”
“Poor souls! What a terrible beginning for their married life!”
“He can’t know anything about her. He couldn’t even tell me her name. He called her Little One. I intend to use the name when I speak of her in my letters to him.”
“He must have heard her name; but they don’t use the personal name as we do. Little One will serve your purpose. I don’t think she has any right to the name of Seeta. She has appropriated it. If you told him of it, he might ask you to call her something else, which would be awkward now that she has learned to answer to the name.”
There was silence between them for a while. Presently Mrs. Walters spoke.
“If you take the child home with you, you will want help. Let me help you. I am in no hurry to go to my people. My visits to them—-all busy, hardworking folk—must not be long, or I shall make myself a nuisance. I should be so glad to be of assistance.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sibyl, in glad surprise. “Will you—can you——? It would make everything easy and solve all my difficulties.”
They discussed the arrangement in detail, and Mrs. Walters promised to remain as companion-governess to Seeta for three months.
At this moment the captain appeared. He was a man of about sixty and well preserved at that. Sociably inclined and a favourite with his passengers, he usually looked round in leisurely fashion at some time of the day—a good old custom reminiscent of sailing days when voyages lasted for many weeks.
He stopped in front of Mrs. Walters and Miss Cullington, who greeted him warmly from their comfortable deck-chairs. Seeta was sitting at their feet on a cushion. Her sharp ears had taken in some of the conversation that had passed but not all. It was enough to raise anxiety in her apprehensive mind, since she gathered that it concerned the disposal of her own person. At the captain’s approach she drew the edge of her saree over her head and across her face, leaving the one eye visible only. Mrs. Walters had tried to cure her of it, but the purdanasheen instinct was inherited and not easily eradicated. Moreover, there still remained the sex-consciousness that is inherent in every Oriental.
“Well, ladies!” said the captain cheerily. “We are not far from port now.”
“When do you expect to be in the Channel?”
“Not later than Thursday. Tilbury on Friday.” His gaze fell upon Seeta, whose eye never left him. “I wonder what our little Indian princess will think of England after the gorgeous East!” He stooped towards her. “You will have to give up your veil, my dear, when you leave us. You will look much better without it. Let’s see.”
He extended a hand and pulled back the saree. The effect was startling and no one was more surprised than himself. It was like touching a tiger cat. Seeta sprang to her feet and made a rush at him. She caught hold of his thigh just above the knee, pinched up his flesh and gave it a vicious twist.
For the moment he was paralysed with astonishment and the acute pain to which he was put. No one in his life had ever dared to pinch him. It was a tender and unprotected spot. He yelled and danced in agony.
“You little devil!” he cried.
She recognised the anger in his voice and, anticipating swift and merited retribution, fled for safety to Mrs. Walters. Ducking down at the back under the seat of the deck-chair, she wormed herself on her stomach until her head was between Mrs. Walters’ ankles and her body hidden completely from view.
Sibyl sprang to her feet, full of apology. Mrs. Walters rose and lifted the chair off the culprit. Seeta was on the offensive to bite and scratch and fight. Mrs. Walters talked to her in her own language.
“You are a naughty girl! A bad, wicked girl! What has the captain done that you should attack him like that?”
“He pulled away my saree,” she replied passionately, adding: “Among the Mahrattas if a strange man pulled away a woman’s saree it would be considered worthy of death. If my husband knew, he would kill him.”
“It is not so with us. We are not savages to bite and pinch and behave like wild beasts. The captain has brought us home to England in his ship. He has fed us, protected us and kept us from drowning; and this is how you treat him! Shame on you for a bad girl! You are not worthy of the name of Mahratta. He is older than your father. He has been a father to us all, to me and to Miss Sibyl as well as yourself. You are a wicked, ungrateful daughter.”
Lower and lower drooped Seeta’s head as she once more sat upon the deck. She had not dared to replace the saree; it remained as the captain had left it.
“Don’t scold her, poor little soul!” he said. “I ought not to have taken such a liberty. Forgive me, princess. Let us make friends. We mustn’t part in anger.”
She did not understand what the words meant, but she recognised the note of conciliation. Quick and abrupt as was her first movement, she threw herself down, placed her hands over his instep and kissed his foot. The action was as embarrassing in its way as the pinching attack, but without pain. Mrs. Walters lifted her to her feet.
“The captain sahib knows that you are sorry. He forgives you,” she said.
“Will he take me to the kitchen and burn me with a fire-stick?”
“No, dear; as I told you before, we don’t burn people in England.”
The captain was talking to Sibyl.
“You have your hands full, Miss Cullington, with that child; but she is a high-bred one and no mistake. She will require careful handling.”
“I am keeping her with me for the present.”
“She will take some taming before she goes back, to her parents.”
“It is her husband she will have to join,” said Sibyl.
“Her husband!” he repeated, in astonishment.
Sibyl smiled and nodded.
“Good Heavens! You don’t mean to say that she is a married woman?”
“She was married when she was five years old.”
“Bless my soul! What an iniquitous thing! Well, if that’s the case the little lady is not to be blamed altogether for resenting the liberty I took.”
He was gently rubbing the place where Seeta’s bony fingers had bruised his flesh.
“I am glad it was no worse than a pinch,” said Sibyl. “She might have bitten you.”
“Bitten me? Can she bite as well as pinch?” he asked, a broad smile chasing away the frown of annoyance that had marked his forehead. “Let young men beware. If she pinches an old man she will most certainly bite a young one!”
He burst into laughter, as the humour of the incident struck him.
“This should be a lesson to me to be more careful in my behaviour with married women.”
He turned to pass on and they heard him chuckling as he repeated the words: “Married woman! Great Scott! That chit! Lordy! How my wife will chaff me when she hears the tale!”
After he had gone Seeta, as usual, overcome with repentance, crept up to Sibyl and put her arm round her neck. Half in her own language and half in broken English she expressed her sorrow.
“Aiyoh! Aiymee! Miss Sibyl! I ought to be beaten. I will keep quite still and silent if you will beat me when we get into the cabin.”
“Dear little one, I am not going to beat you, nor punish you. You are forgiven.”
“You won’t send me away from you?”
“No; you shall stay with me.”
Sibyl’s arm closed warmly round the fragile body with a grip that restored confidence and helped to still the beating heart.
“I will be so good, as good as I can be. I promise. I will beat and burn myself if I am naughty.”
“No need to do that. Try to keep your hands quiet. Put them behind your back and hold them tight so that they can’t get into mischief. Then no punishment will be needed.”
“And you will let me stay with you always—always—always?”
“Until you wish to go.”
“That will be never.”
The Denbighshire tied up at Tilbury. With the linking-up of the gangway a small rush of eager visitors pressed their way on board. A rapid glance round at the groups of passengers was followed by warm greetings as relations and friends were recognised. A young man hurried towards Miss Cullington.
“Hullo, Sibyl! You’re up to time and we shall do our journey all right,” he cried, throwing his arms round her and giving her a hearty kiss on her cheek. Seeta was by her side, perturbed by this sudden onslaught. Mrs. Walters was below packing in the cabin and giving directions to the luggage steward as to the disposal of the boxes in the hold.
“Alan! Alan!” she exclaimed, staring at him. “You are Alan, are you not?”
“Yes, I’m Alan all right; your youngest brother,” responded the boy, with a touch of impatience.
“How you have grown!”
The remark irritated him.
“Of course I’ve grown,” he replied impatiently. “Did you expect to see me in sailor suits? It’s getting on for five years since you left England. Rather a difference between twelve and seventeen. However, never mind me. You have got to come along at once. Those are my orders. I have brought the big car and I’m going to drive you straight home.”
“But why this haste? I can’t be whisked off at a moment’s notice like this.”
“The poor old mum is so anxious to see you.”
“Is she very ill, then?” asked Sibyl, with sudden anxiety. “The last letters which I received at Marseilles spoke of her being better.”
“Just a last rally. If you want to see the mater alive, Sib, old thing, you will have to come away at once. We can do the journey in two hours. Let me have your cabin things. I can probably stow them on the roof and the luggage carrier. The heavy boxes must be forwarded through the agent.”
Seeta’s hand was pushed into Sibyl’s and she drew still nearer to her guardian.
“Who’s this youngster?” asked Alan Cullington.
“A girl I have taken charge of.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“She must come with us. There’s plenty of room in the old house.”
“We’re a pretty big crowd already. The others have been sent for; but I suppose the housekeeper can find somewhere to put everybody.”
At this moment Mrs. Walters came up.
“Everything is ready as far as the cabin luggage is concerned. We can start when you like,” she said.
“What, another!” ejaculated Alan. “Lucky I brought the big Wolseley instead of the two-seater.”
Sibyl made the necessary introductions and explained Mrs. Walters’ attachment to her party as Seeta’s governess. She was still hesitating as to the advisability of taking the two with her without giving some sort of warning to the housekeeper, who must have quite enough on her hands without any additional visitors.
“I wonder what I had better do,” she pondered.
Alan settled it for her with the impetuosity of youth and the authority of a brother who considered that he was no longer a boy to be ordered about by a vacillating sister.
“My orders were to bring you home as quickly as I could. Nothing was said about your incumbrances. They shall be carried along as personal effects. Will you please collect them. I suppose this is your little lot—-to wit, one Indian princess, one chaperone or lady-in-waiting, and a bunch of suitcases of sorts,” said the boy airily.
“Do you think——” began Sibyl, still troubled with scruples.
“My dear Sib, get a move on. I want to go back to the car.”
“Where is it?”
“Over there on the wharf. Someone will be pinching it if I leave it too long.”
Mrs. Walters acted at once. Already the cabin steward was bringing up the luggage, galvanised into activity by Alan’s tip and energy. She found the agent, handed over to him the keys of the heavy luggage, and Sibyl was hurried off to the customs.
Seeta’s watchful eye was upon this bustling brother as he assumed command. Mrs. Walters glanced at her and recognised a combative gleam as the child took note of Alan’s activities.
“It is all right, Seeta. He has brought orders from missie’s mother, and he is carrying them out.”
“Missie’s own mother or her mother-in-law?”
“Her own mother. Missie has no mother-in-law. We must do as Alan tells us. We are going to have a long drive in a car.”
A little later they were moving away by northern roads into Hertfordshire, where stood the old country house which Mrs. Cullington had made her home for more than half a century. It was not far from St. Albans, and they reached it in time for a late lunch.
Sibyl was able to see her mother alive. A week after her arrival, Mrs. Cullington passed away. A busy month followed, during which the old home was broken up. At the end of the month Sibyl had to look for a new anchorage. During the days of transition there was little time to spare for her charge, and Sibyl was thankful to have Mrs. Walters with her.
It was still autumn. The foliage of the trees had turned into flaming colours and the sun was pleasantly warm. Alan, at a loss for companionship, spent a good deal of his time with Mrs. Walters and “the Indian princess,” as he persisted in calling Seeta.
The girl’s never-ending wonder at all she saw was an unfailing source of amusement to the active, good-natured boy. In the Grange garage was the two-seater, which was at his service whenever he liked to use it. Into it he packed Mrs. Walters and Seeta and took them for drives in all directions, not omitting London. Seeta showed no sign of fear in the thickest of the traffic in the streets. Her confidence in his driving was unbounded, the outcome of ignorance and inexperience probably. It pleased him to have her so trustful. She had a habit of saying, “Good! Good!” when a difficult point was negotiated. In the country she expressed her pleasure in the hills. To glide down a long, steep incline filled her with a new exhilaration and delight.
Mrs. Walters, with less youthful nerves and more experience, did not attempt to hide her shaken nerves. While Seeta was crying “Good! Good!” she was pleading for caution and begging him to be more careful.
Alan drove round the aerodromes north of London and pointed out the planes in the sky and on the ground. Would he take her up in one?
“Next summer, when the weather is warmer,” he replied.
She wanted to go now, now! He told her she must be patient, and she had to be content.
All this time Seeta was picking up the language fast. Of colloquial English she learnt more from Alan than from Mrs. Walters. Occasionally a word of slang slipped in, and Mrs. Walters reproved Alan for using it when she was so anxious that the child should acquire a cultivated style of speech.
“Why may I not say ‘Not ’arf,’ like Alan?” Seeta asked.
“Because—because it is how English coolies talk,” replied Mrs. Walters.
“Are there any coolies in England? I don’t see any,” said Seeta. “Alan told me that everybody in England was a white man.”
“A great many Englishmen, who are as white as I am, have to do coolie work. You have seen them sweeping the roads, leading horses, driving cows and sheep, and doing carpentering and ironwork. They are work-people and they speak differently from Miss Sibyl.”
Seeta was silent for a short space. Then she said, “I would like to talk like Miss Sibyl; her voice is so soft and gentle. I don’t think she could scold if she tried.”
The peace of mind, the gradual realisation that she was surrounded by kindness and love, broke down the painful, defensive manner that had become habitual. Seeta lost her expression of combativeness and ceased to look for injury. Alan laughed at her and teased her. He did it in such a good-humoured way that he gave no offence. Mrs. Walters was astonished at the amount of chaff she would stand. Now and then he came near to straining their relations, but he seemed to know by intuition when he was approaching dangerous ground, and he slipped aside with a tact Mrs. Walters could not but admire and saved the situation.
By this time she was able to recognise the danger signals. She could see the wild, ungovernable temper rising, and by judicious interference she was able to check the outburst that would otherwise have culminated in pinching, biting, and scratching. Gradually, Seeta herself learnt self-control. When Mrs. Walters cried, “Steady, Seeta, steady!” the child took a grip of herself and became suddenly silent and motionless. The warning was sufficient to check the rage and maintain self-control. In one respect Mrs. Walters was unable to get her way. She could not stop the ridicule on Alan’s part with which he greeted the loss of temper.
He began to laugh as soon as he saw signs of anger on Seeta’s part. At first his ridicule was fuel to the fire he was kindling. Once or twice she chased him to inflict bodily punishment on her tormentor, but she could not catch him, and in despair she flung herself down and wrapped herself from head to foot in her saree till she looked like a misshapen pillow. Mrs. Walters, as usual, remonstrated, begging him not to tease the “exiled princess.”
“It’s such fun to see her eyes begin to burn and to know that, if she could, she would kill me. She is like a beautiful little tiger. Who wouldn’t like to stir up a tiger if it was possible?” he said.
“You must not do it, Alan. It is one of the reasons why she has been sent to England, to learn self-control and how to behave like a reasonable being.”
“All right, Mrs. Walters, I’ll try not to irritate her; but, you know, she looks splendid when she is in one of her rages.”
A fact that Mrs. Walters could not contradict.
The weeks that succeeded Sibyl’s return to her mother’s house were full of occupation. There was much to be settled one way and another. Her brothers and sisters were married with the exception of Alan. With the death of Mrs. Cullington the necessity for keeping up a country house no longer existed. It was decided that it would be for the benefit of all concerned to break up the old home and sell the property.
This arrangement, with the division of the money left by Mrs. Cullington, was carried out by the executors. Sibyl found that she had ample means to take a flat in London, where she could make a home for Seeta.
Alan’s share was sufficient to cover his expenses, and he would be able to carry out the dearest wish of his heart and go to Woolwich.
In less than two months after the death of her mother, Sibyl found herself settling down in a comfortable flat in Kensington. Mrs. Walters had yet a month to run of the time she had promised to devote to Seeta. She was able to assist in the choosing of carpets and curtains and in the production of dainty order out of confusion and chaos. She found time to continue the lessons with Seeta that were essential with regard to the English language.
Seeta looked on with growing interest, adapting herself marvellously to the new conditions of life. She was observant and imitative of all that pleased her fastidious taste. With the instinct of good breeding, there was little to teach her in the way of manners. She understood that all caste rules and prohibitions were in abeyance now that she was in a foreign country. She was prepared to eat and drink whatever was offered at the table, with the exception of meat. Fish was always acceptable, but she showed a preference for fruit and farinaceous food. The housekeeping presented no difficulties. Mrs. Walters, before she left, taught the cook to make an egg curry that met with the full approval of “the Indian princess,” as the servants had also learnt to call her.
The bedroom assigned to her use looked out on the plane-trees of a neighbouring square. It had a south-eastern aspect, and when the sun shone Seeta had the full benefit of it. She had been taken to the furnishing shop and encouraged to make her own choice of cretonne for curtains. She helped to choose her bed and the rest of the furniture. The wardrobe had the usual cheval glass let into the door. At first sight of it, it produced a strange kind of shyness. She seemed afraid to look at her own reflection. The shyness soon wore off and was exchanged for a fascination which Mrs. Walters encouraged.
Seeta was taught to look after her own treasures, which were not slow in accumulating. She folded her clothes and put them away in the drawers. A bookshelf was provided for her books, and a small bureau where she could practise her first efforts with the pen.
Mrs. Walters hoped that her ebullitions of temper were incidents of the past, but in this respect she was disappointed. Alan had driven Seeta more than once to the verge of an outbreak, but a warning from Mrs. Walters or from Sibyl had been sufficient to check it. Alan, too, had seen that he was carrying things too far on more than one occasion and had desisted just in time.
A week before Mrs. Walters was due to start on her round of visits to her relatives, Alan came bursting into the flat full of boisterous spirits. The gloom caused by his mother’s death had vanished, and he was as full of buoyant vitality as ever. He had passed his examination for entrance at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. A load of anxiety was lifted from his shoulders, for though full of hope he was by no means sure of himself.
“Congratulate me, Sibbie, old thing! Pat me on the back, Mrs. Walters! I’m through and I shall be going into residence as soon as the term begins.”
Seeta was busy with some simple needlework of a kindergarten character. She rose to her feet and laid the embroidery on the table. Her eyes dwelt on the happy boy.
“You look pleased, Alan,” she remarked, without a smile. Smiles were still of rare occurrence with her.
“So I am, I am, I am!” he chanted, dancing round the room.
He caught his sister by the waist and compelled her to take two or three turns of the latest waltz. She freed herself and struggled out of his arms, laughing.
“Oh, Alan, don’t be so silly! Go and dance with Mrs. Walters. She loves dancing. I don’t.”
He caught Mrs. Walters in his arms. She fell in with his humour and circled the room; but she was out of training.
“Stop, stop, Alan! I can’t go on! I’ve no breath left!”
He dropped her into a chair and advanced towards Seeta, who had seen no fun at all in his wild gyrations.
“Your turn next, my ‘Indian princess’!” he cried.
Without waiting for her consent, his hand was upon her back and her unwilling fingers were tightly gripped in his.
Like a flash of electricity her rage flamed up into ungovernable passion.
“Let go! Let go! I will not dance!” In her own language she added, volubly, “It is disgraceful for all women who do not belong to the temples to dance. It brings shame, shame!”
She twisted herself out of his embrace, but was unable to free herself from his hands.
“Dance, dance, ‘my princess,’ dance!” he cried, taking no heed of the danger signals in her eyes.
Her arm shot out and she fastened on his ear with a vicious grip. She dug her thumbnail into the soft cartilage, and he yelled with pain. He tried to break away, but he could not loosen her grip. His dance, no longer a ballroom measure, became a high-stepping prance round his captor. He flung his arms out in a vain endeavour to release himself.
Seeta was prepared for blows, but they did not come. She raised her other arm to protect her eyes and ward off angry fists. She seemed surprised that she was not struck.
Mrs. Walters was on her feet immediately. She caught Seeta’s hand and wrenched open her fingers. Alan was released and not in the best of tempers after the encounter. He put his hand to the injured ear and glared at Seeta.
“You—you horrible little cat! You’re the limit, you are; straight from your beastly jungles! You ought to be put in a cage.”
Seeta returned his angry glances from beneath her arm, keeping a watchful eye on him lest he should retaliate.
“Seeta!” said Mrs. Walters severely. “Put your arm down. No one is going to strike you.”
“He will, if he can get at me.”
“What!” cried Alan. “Hit a woman? Not much!”
“Why doesn’t he beat me?” demanded Seeta.
“Men don’t beat women in England.”
Seeta backed away as far as was possible from Alan. She had heard something difficult of belief. Men did not hit women in England! Not even when they deserved it! With the quick repentance that followed her outbreaks she was already regretting her violence. She had been taken unawares. The usual caution, “Steady, Seeta, steady!” had not been spoken. Neither Sibyl nor Mrs. Walters had noticed the storm that was brewing. Their attention was absorbed in the happy, triumphant boy who had been begging them to rejoice with him over his success. They had no eyes for the girl when she received the unpardonable insult in his invitation to dance.
How could Alan know that it was an insult and not a compliment to ask a well-born Indian woman to play the part of a dancing girl? All who practise dancing in the East belong to a class whose profession is unmentionable in polite society.
In course of time Seeta learnt to view the question with different eyes. She never danced herself, even after she had altered her opinion of the character of English dancing. It did not appeal to her and offered no temptation, but in her first few months she looked upon it with Indian eyes and considered it nothing less than degrading.
Mrs. Walters understood her attitude. She was aware of the opinion in which it was held and understood Seeta’s prejudice.
As the girl stood with fiery eyes regarding the offending boy, the old defensive expression returned. She was fully prepared to be dragged round the room by the hair of her head while Alan rained showers of blows on her shoulders. Cowardice was not one of her weaknesses. She stood her ground, angry, outraged, and prepared for retaliation, for she had hurt him severely.
Already the blood was dripping from the broken skin of his ear and was trickling down his neck. On a dark skin blood is not a brilliant stain, but on a white skin its rich crimson colour has its full value. Mrs. Walters left the room and returned with a basin and towel. She bathed the wound and dressed it with a soothing ointment.
“Seeta!” cried Alan, as he winced and made faces over the pain of the nurse’s touch, “you’re a beastly little cat, and I’ll never play with you again.”
She clasped her hands together and lifted them to her forehead.
“Pardon, rajah; I did not mean to hurt you.”
“Oh yes, you did! Ah! Oh! Mrs. Walters! That hurts!”—and he danced round involuntarily with the pain.
Seeta drew back in alarm. Although she had been assured to the contrary, she could not believe that Alan would keep his hands off her. Wait till he was alone with her and he would give her the hammering she deserved.
“Why should she be so angry?” he asked presently of Mrs. Walters. “I was only in fun.”
“Indian ladies never, never dance.”
“Never dance!” he repeated, finding it difficult to believe her statement. “What idiots they must be!”
“It is not considered respectable.”
“My hat! Is it legs, or what?”
“No, those whose profession it is to dance wear long skirts to their ankles and they never kick about.”
“What a set of dull mugs they must be! You may tell Seeta in her own jargon that I will never ask her to dance again, even if she goes down on her knees to me.”
Mrs. Walters smiled.
“She will never do that; but she will be truly grateful to you for not expecting her to dance.”
“Why? Why is she such a mugwump about it?”
“Because it is not considered respectable in India.”
“My hat! My best hat!”
After Mrs. Walters’ departure Seeta was drawn still closer to Miss Sibyl, as she habitually called her guardian. The girl developed a passionate devotion for her, which was turned to the best possible use.
Sibyl made no attempt to teach her herself. She engaged a daily governess to carry on the work that Mrs. Walters had so ably begun. At present the education required was of an elementary character. There was no inclination on Seeta’s part to shirk her studies. On the contrary, she showed an avidity for learning that required checking rather than urging on.
At the end of a year she knew enough English to attend a small day school where individual attention was given. She had the companionship and example of well-bred girls of her own age. From them she learnt much that was not to be found in books.
After her encounter with Alan and difference of opinion in the matter of dancing there were no more violent outbreaks of temper. Seeta understood at last that physical force did not enter into disputes in the wonderful country of white men. If violence existed it was far removed from the circle in which she found herself. It was possible to disagree entirely on any subject she chose with her friends without having recourse to fisticuffs to enforce an argument. A difference of opinion could be settled amicably without resorting to pinching and scratching.
When brought face to face with calm reasoning, no one could be more amenable to common sense than Seeta. Miss Sibyl’s even temperament was ever before her, a constant example of restraint and self-control.
Seeta found, somewhat to her surprise, that her wishes were consulted. No force was employed to compel her to act otherwise than as her inclination dictated. She was no longer treated as an irresponsible child, no longer opposed by domestic tyrants as unreasonable as they were capricious.
On two points, however, she maintained an unconquerable obstinacy. She could not be induced either to dance or to sing. Englishwomen might indulge innocently enough, if it was their custom, in the arts; but for Hindu women of good birth they were not suitable. Sibyl respected her prejudices and made no attempt to overrule them.
In the early days of the voyage Seeta had given herself the name by which she was now known. She had no other to suggest, and was content with the single one without any addition. It was necessary to add a second that should serve as a surname. An easy familiar name was suggested in Rama. Seeta made no objection. She was amused but willing to fall in with Miss Sibyl’s wishes; and she became known in school to all her companions as well as to Miss Cullington’s friends as Seeta Rama.
It was impossible to introduce her as a married woman of some years’ standing. To have seriously announced that she was the wife of a Government official holding an important post in India would have challenged the credulity of those who had never been in the East. Even in her letters to friends in India, including Barbara herself, Sibyl was very reticent.
Sibyl wondered if Narasimha would have approved of her action. She decided to say nothing about it. He had left everything in her hands and had shown in various ways that he had no wish to be consulted in the details of his wife’s education. She judged it best to be silent. She gathered from his letters, which were reserved and uncommunicative about himself, that he was entering on a busy and responsible life. He had no time to think of the child with whom he had been associated for forty-eight hectic hours. Those associations were not of a happy nature and held no pleasant memories for him.
Narasimha’s name for his wife had been invariably Little One. He used the English translation of the term in writing to Sibyl, and she fell into the habit of speaking of Seeta by that name. It so happened that the name the girl had given herself was never once mentioned, and Narasimha remained in ignorance of it.
He sent no messages to her. It apparently did not cross his mind that they were necessary. When he spoke of her his whole concern was for her welfare. Money was to be spent on this and that in whatever direction Miss Cullington thought advisable. If it was quite convenient and in accordance with her inclination, he would be grateful if she would take the Little One abroad in the holidays, to Paris, to Switzerland, to the Riviera, to Italy. It was essential that the Little One should see picture galleries, theatres, and shows that were educative and amusing. She should hear good music and she was to mix as much as was possible with desirable people. For this reason he recommended a choice of the best hotels.
After suggestions of this character he never failed to enclose a munificent cheque, which more than covered every expense incurred for them both.
On very rare occasions Narasimha sent a short note to Seeta. The letters expressed hopes that she was grateful to her kind guardian. In one of them he said, “Learn what you like. Take lessons in anything that commends itself to you.” Only on one subject did he express a definite wish. It was that she should have lessons in riding.
It was some weeks before Sibyl could persuade her to go to the riding-school. Once in the saddle, however, she showed a sudden liking for it and took a keen pleasure in the morning rides in the Park.
Seeta showed no sign of disappointment over Narasimha’s letters. She still shrank from the memory of the terrible period she spent at Chittoor. Deep in her heart there lingered a resentment at the injustice of it all, which Sibyl took care not to rouse.
One day, after the arrival of the Indian mail, Sibyl found Seeta drawing her brows together over one of Narasimha’s rare notes. It was not more than a dozen lines and was written in English. Sibyl never asked to see the letters, but occasionally they were shown, with a request that she would read them.
With the letter gripped in her fingers Seeta crept close to Sibyl’s side. A little olive-tinted hand was slipped under her guardian’s elbow and a tiny squeeze was given to the arm.
“Miss Sibyl, shall I have to go back to Chittoor?” she asked in a low voice.
“I think not; unless you wish it.”
“I don’t wish it. I want to stop with you always, always, because I love you so,” she said, laying her cheek, now becoming round with youth and health, against Sibyl’s shoulder.
“But what about your husband? He will want you some day.”
“I don’t want him. I hate him. I wish I had bitten his hand as well as his mother’s. It was a good deep bite. I know it hurt because she screamed with the pain of it.”
Sibyl put her arm round the girl and drew her close.
“Dear Little One, I can’t bear to hear you talk like that. Your husband was very good to you and you know it. He gave you to me to keep and make happy until you grow a big woman.”
“Then I shall go and kill his mother.”
“No, no, Little One; that won’t do. It’s naughty to talk so. I shall have to send you away if you say such things. I can’t live with cruel, angry people.”
Seeta’s face was hidden in the folds of Sibyl’s dress about her neck. The firm young body trembled in the arm that held her.
“I will be good, Miss Sibyl. I promised on the word of a Mahratta, my mother’s people, that I would be good. Mahrattas are like the English. They never break faith with anyone, not even with their enemies.”
“I was taught to love my enemies,” remarked Sibyl.
The face on her shoulder was lifted, and Sibyl encountered the gaze of a large pair of brown eyes.
“That is a very hard thing to do; but I will try, because I want to be like you. I will begin with my husband. I can begin, can’t I?—by liking him. Afterwards—perhaps—I might love him a little bit, but never, never as I love you.”
There was silence for a time which Seeta broke.
“Miss Sibyl, who taught you to love your enemies? It wasn’t a Mahratta, was it?”
“No, it was someone called Jesus Christ.”
“We read about Him in school. He was treated badly. He might have killed all His enemies; but He didn’t because He had promised God that He would rather die Himself than kill them.”
There was to be no proselytising, but Narasimha had imposed no restrictions on his wife’s general studies. If the tenets of the Christian religion came into her lessons they were not to be omitted. It was as well, in his opinion, that she should know the outlines of the different creeds of the world.
“Please read my letter,” Seeta said presently.
It began “My Dear Wife,” and ended with the simple words “From your husband.” In it he made a request. He directed her to go to a good photographer and have half a dozen pictures taken of herself. “I wish to see if there is any improvement.”
This very natural desire alarmed Seeta. She received back the letter, folded it and put it in her pocket.
“It is a very reasonable request,” Sibyl remarked. “We will go to a good photographer and send out half a dozen pictures as he says. He will see a change, I fancy. It is more than two years since you left India.”
“I don’t want to be photographed,” replied Seeta in a low voice.
“We must carry out his wishes. It is so seldom that he gives us an opportunity of doing anything for him. He does everything for us.”
Seeta made no comment, and the subject escaped Sibyl’s memory in the press of her busy life.
A week later Seeta brought her the proofs of a couple of photographs of herself. Sibyl burst into a sudden little gust of laughter as she looked at them, which slightly disconcerted the serious Indian girl.
To ensure a free hand in sitting for the picture, Seeta had asked a school friend to go to the studio with her. She had chosen her own dress and pose, much to the consternation of the artist, repudiating all his professional accessories and arranging the scene in her own way.
She was seated on what appeared to be a mattress placed on the floor against a blank wall. Her figure was enveloped in a saree, which was drawn over her hair and was held across her face so that nothing of her features were visible but one eye. It was the exact representation of her as she must have appeared on her wedding night to her irritated husband.
“Oh, Seeta! You quaint person! Why have you veiled yourself like this? You are not purdanasheen and never were.”
“That was how he found me when he came to me on my wedding night.”
“Poor man! You didn’t give him much encouragement.”
“Encouragement! Why should I give him encouragement? I didn’t want him there.”
“You could have asked him to leave you alone.”
“I did better than that, Miss Sibyl. I spat at him!”
“Oh, how could you!” And to Seeta’s discomfiture Sibyl again shook with amusement.
Sibyl knew Narasimha well. She could picture him on that memorable night, gazing in perplexity and dismay at his bride and devoutly wishing himself anywhere else.
“Don’t send it, dear Little One. It really is too cruel. It will only remind him of something that he wants to forget. After all, as I’ve said more than once, he behaved very well to you, didn’t he?”
Seeta’s lips were closed firmly; her eyes shone and she maintained a grim silence.
“You know quite well,” continued Sibyl, “that he might have behaved so differently. He was strong and backed by the whole family. Instead of using you badly he set himself to the rather difficult task of protecting you. He had to escape while it was dark and when they were all asleep. If his family had caught him trying to run away with you, they would have torn you from his arms and shut you up where he could not get at you.”
Seeta listened wide-eyed. This side of the situation had never been presented to her, although Sibyl had often tried to convince her of her husband’s constant kindness. The girl possessed a keen sense of justice. She knew that Sibyl was speaking nothing but the truth. A consciousness was dawning that she had been confusing her husband with his mother. He was not responsible for what the old lady had done, nor in anyway to blame for it. Narasimha’s conduct was beginning to appear to Seeta in a new light, yet for all that she adhered to her determination to send the picture.
“You ought to let him have a decent picture of yourself as you are. You have grown and he will probably see a change. That ridiculous caricature will only remind him of an unpleasant time.”
“Perhaps I will be taken again—later.”
“Why not now?”
“Miss Sibyl, supposing, when he sees it, he says I am big enough now to go back to India—to Chittoor?”
“Not Chittoor. Your husband is in Madras, and likely to remain there—unless he is called up to Calcutta to sit on a commission.”
“But what if he sends for me?”
“You will have to go, dear.”
“I won’t! I won’t leave you, Miss Sibyl! I won’t go back to India!”
“You need not cross the bridge before you get there. So far, your husband hasn’t breathed a word of your return. It is more likely that you will be begging him to have you back than that he will be begging you to join him.”
“I will never beg anything of him,” replied Seeta proudly.
“Pride goes before a fall, my dear. Now, about this photograph.”
“I shall send it.”
“Very well; but please don’t let him think that I had anything to do with it.”
“I shall give no explanation. He will understand. If he is a wise man he will never wish to look at me again. I might spit at him.”
“What? After all my careful teaching? Oh no Little One. You wouldn’t disgrace me and ‘spoil my name,’ would you?”
Again there was food for thought on Seeta’s part as the words sank in.
The photograph was sent, however.
Narasimha returned to his house from the Government building where he had his office. He was tired and a little out of heart. The fatigue would disappear after a night’s rest and the slight depression would vanish with it. His vigorous mind and natural courage sprang to the fore as the brain cleared and conquered all misgivings.
It seemed today that he had been fighting against long odds. The people who opposed him were his own compatriots. He was convinced that their antagonism arose from an unworthy jealousy. The more he studied the economic welfare of India, the more confident he became that if all the available resources of the country were to be developed, coordination throughout the empire was needed. He could not bring the Indians on the Council to see matters in a progressive light. What had gone before was, in their opinion, good enough for the future.
He pleaded before the Council that the work of the various provincial agricultural departments and those kindred to it—irrigation, cattle-breeding, etc.—should be submitted to a central Board. Watertight compartments, he urged, in a vast grain-producing field could only exist to the detriment of economic progress. There might be race difference among the agriculturists, but there was little difference all over the world in the treatment of soils, the planting of the seed and the harvesting of the grain.
He could see while he spoke that he carried every Englishman on the Council with him, but the instinctive conservatism of the Indian members held them back from heartily supporting an up-to-date progressive scheme. They preferred the old provincialism which kept authority in their hands. And they distrusted the interference of the Imperial Government, as liable to overlook the claims of local administration.
The car brought Narasimha home as usual. He called for tea, late as it was in the afternoon, and dismissed the chauffeur. He felt too tired to go out again; too mentally fatigued to meet his neighbours, European or Indian, merely with the object of chat and small talk.
He entered his sitting-room, a pleasant room on the north side with a garden stretching away from its veranda backed by beautiful tamarind trees.
The second post had arrived since he left the house. On the blotting-pad was a formidable heap of inland correspondence. The letters were mostly of an official nature. By the side of this was a smaller pile of English letters. To these he turned first, although there was no sign of special interest in his expression as he leisurely opened them.
The last, slightly larger than the rest, was a packet. He recognised the round handwriting of his wife on the address. He cut the string and pressed back the papers in which it was enclosed. It was the photograph he had asked for, but not exactly as he would have had it taken.
No letter was enclosed and no word of explanation. From the photograph stared a vivid representation of a scene that would never fade from his memory. His wife, as he had originally seen her, confronted him. As far as he could judge she was unchanged. Her position, her defensive, inimical attitude was unloving and unlovable. He thought he detected the same old combativeness with which she had received him and held him at arms’ length.
He studied it for some minutes, wondering if the steady gaze held any softness, any gratitude towards the man who, contrary to all custom, had treated her with a gallant chivalry that in these degenerate days is rarely to be found in the East. He could detect none.
“So that’s it,” he said as he laid down the picture with a deep sigh. “She wishes me to understand that her attitude is unchanged.”
After five minutes, during which he sat in deep thought, he took up the picture again. In vain he searched for an alteration. The figure had filled out and was plumper without being fat. The hand that held the saree across her face was a little less skinny. The voluminous folds of the saree veiled the form of the woman as well as the features, but the hostile eye with its unfriendly gaze was there. He threw it down with an impatient exclamation.
“It seems as if my experiment was going to be a failure. A wife who could sit like that and perhaps choose to receive my European friends in such a pose would cause a sensation. No, no, Little One! If you can’t behave differently you had better remain where you are.”
He gathered up the wrappings of the packet and thrust them into the waste-paper basket. Then, with a deliberate movement in which disappointment and disgust were present, he tore the photograph into small pieces. The scraps followed the wrappings and all were consigned to the municipal dust-cart that would make its rounds the next morning.
“So that’s that,” he said again to himself, using the English expression.
With the remark he dismissed the subject from his mind, as he dismissed the tiresome objections made to his great scheme.
Months elapsed before Seeta heard from her husband again.
Another year and a half slipped by quickly. It was now more than three years since Narasimha had handed his wife over to Sibyl Cullington. The girl had grown out of all knowledge. The weedy, attenuated figure had not only shot up in height, but had put on flesh. Seeta was as tall as her guardian. Her face was oval instead of being wedge-shaped. Her complexion was the tint of rich ripe wheat, a golden brown with delicate shades of a cream straw in the neck and arms. Her eyes, no longer glittering with hostility, were softened with friendliness. Pride lingered on the beautiful lips, a protective quality that preserved her dignity and self-respect.
There remained a natural independence of character which she would never lose, even though it led her occasionally into trouble, as when she took upon herself to be photographed without consulting Sibyl. It was Sibyl’s wish that she should be capable of acting on her own initiative. When Seeta joined her husband she would have no guardian to consult, no one to guide her or help her to form her judgment but her husband who so far had shown no disposition to be mentor.
Sibyl did her best to prepare the girl for what was before her. She succeeded in giving her a gracious, assured manner in society. She taught her to do her own shopping and choose her own clothes. She gave her a banking account of her own and made her familiar with the business of drawing cheques and of keeping a rigid account of the moneys she received and spent.
Sibyl informed Narasimha of her action. It met with his warm approval. Her name with the bankers was Seeta Rama Narasimha. It went no farther than the bankers. To the rest of the world she was Miss Seeta Rama, the daughter of a rich Zemindar living in the Poona direction.
Narasimha sent his remittances to Sibyl, asking her to pay over such and such sums to the Little One’s account and to inform him if more was required. Never once was he sufficiently interested to inquire the name in which his wife banked.
The only stipulation Sibyl made with Seeta was that her accounts should be shown half-yearly to herself. The girl developed no tendency to be extravagant. She was naturally of a careful disposition and needed encouragement rather than restriction in her expenditure. Her one extravagance was in buying flowers. She could not resist the arum lilies that reminded her of her own land, nor the gardenias and tuberoses. Chocolates and sweets did not tempt her; nor did the glitter of tinsel.
In her dress she clung to the saree, never now pulled across her face to serve as a veil. Brilliant colours of deep rich tones attracted her and she showed her Eastern taste in mixing them. Some people said that her scheme of colour was daring, but no one could accuse her of having a weakness for gaudiness. The colours she wore were of the tint of the ruby, the emerald and the sapphire. Yellow she hated, but gold in rich embroidery she loved.
Under the saree she wore the usual English dress—white, cream, oyster, ivory, biscuit, rose, eau-de-nil. Browns, blacks, navy blues she would have none of, unless they were heavily embroidered with gold and pearl.
By this time she was about eighteen, a strikingly beautiful woman who had found her “place in the sun” and was never likely to lose it.
Alan Cullington had passed out of Woolwich. The time was approaching for him to go to Egypt, to which place he had been appointed. He came to his sister’s flat to say good-bye. He had paid her many visits while he was at the Royal Military Academy, and on two or three occasions he had accompanied her and Seeta to Switzerland. He taught Seeta how to skate and gave her lessons in ski-ing. She still refused to dance with him or with any other enthusiastic friend.
Alan and Seeta were excellent pals, but there was nothing more than friendship on the part of Seeta. Sibyl looked on and wondered now and then if it was fair to Narasimha to allow his wife to get on such good terms with the handsome Lieutenant of the Royal Engineers. She saw nothing to cause her any uneasiness. When Seeta joined her husband in Madras, she would meet many young Englishmen in the Services who would admire her, and possibly go a little farther in the matter of attentions without considering the consequences. It was inevitable, and the sooner Seeta understood how to meet it the better.
Sibyl, therefore, did not think it necessary to interfere when her brother’s admiration of “the Indian princess,” as he continued to call Seeta, came near to adoration. Alan was leaving England before long. It would do him no harm to fall in love. He was going too far away to have any opportunity of pursuing his fancy.
If Sibyl had observed any signs of love on the part of her charge she might not have remained quite so complacent. Feeling confident that Seeta had no thought of the boy other than as an old friend, she allowed them to see as much as they chose of each other.
“Princess, I am off to Egypt in a fortnight’s time,” he said one day as they sat in Sibyl’s pretty drawing-room, a spot dear to both of them for its happy associations.
“How interesting! I wonder if it will be anything like India?”
“It is the gate of the East,” he replied, his thoughts not on the subject.
“I can remember the Canal and Port Said very well,” she said.
“Port Said isn’t Egypt.”
“It’s in Egypt.”
He did not reply. Her trivial remark made no impression on his brain.
“I say, Princess, I want to ask you something.” He paused and his eyes dwelt upon her with a new expression that made her wonder.
“What is it?”
“Will you marry me?”
She gasped. Speech left her for the moment and she could not reply to his astounding question. He saw that he had startled her.
“I don’t mean this very minute,” he continued boyishly. “I could run home on short leave six months hence and we could be married. Oh Princess, darling! you don’t know how I love you! I’ve loved you ever since I motored you and Sibyl home from Tilbury.”
He was young and inexperienced, but he had his instincts and needed no instruction how to declare his love. He rose from his chair with the intention of approaching nearer to play the lover.
She stopped him with a sudden gesture that warned him to keep his distance. A memory of the attack on his ear told him that no liberties were to be taken without a diplomatic feeling of the way. His movement restored her speech.
“Alan, Alan! Are you mad? Marry you!” she cried, her eyes fixed on his till they fell abashed before her steady gaze.
“Yes, yes, marry you, darling. I’d marry you tomorrow if it was possible.”
“Don’t you know that I am a married woman?”
“Married woman! Rot; you’re joking.”
“I am not!”
“Where’s your husband?”
“In Madras.”
There was a breathless pause. The two young people stared at each other with mixed emotions. Alan, disappointed and aghast, felt his temper rising. He had been deceived. A trick had been played upon him, and he had, in his own terms, been made a fool of by his sister and her charge.
“If that’s so—I find it very hard to believe—why wasn’t I told?”
“It was for Miss Sibyl to tell you; but we came to the conclusion that it would be more convenient at my age that I should be considered an unmarried woman until I join my husband.”
“Are you separated from him or have you divorced him?”
It was Seeta’s turn to be angry.
“Of course not! Indian women don’t divorce their husbands.”
“Then why the deuce don’t you go and live with him?” asked Alan bluntly and with some heat.
Seeta was taken aback by the question. It was difficult to answer. Why was she not with her husband?
“He is leading a busy life and—and——”
“You mean that he doesn’t want you?” demanded Alan, whose anger was still more or less aflame.
“I didn’t say so,” responded Seeta, lifting her chin as pride and self-esteem were stirred. The mere hint that she was a neglected wife offended her.
“Great Scott! If your husband had any grit in him, would he leave a woman like yourself in exile at the other end of the world?”
She was at a loss to know how to defend her husband’s action. Alan must understand that she had been sent to England to be educated.
“No!” cried Alan, answering the question himself. “No! if he was half a man he would be scouring the earth for you.”
Her face showed trouble and distress. In an instant his anger melted for the moment.
“Seeta, darling! Divorce him and marry me. He won’t mind, the cold-hearted wretch! Tell him you are sick of being a grass-widow.”
She listened like one awaking with a shock from a dream. Alan’s hot, impetuous words sank deeply. They terrified her; there was so much behind them. She fought against the suggestions they conveyed.
“Divorce! No, I could not do that.”
“For desertion; yes, you could.”
“’Tis I who have deserted him and left him to live alone in India.”
The memory of Narasimha’s kindness flowed back upon her with overwhelming force, bringing self-reproach in its wake.
“If you think that you can’t divorce him then bring him into line. Tell him you want to join him.”
“I should have to leave Miss Sibyl.”
“Of course you would. You can’t live in her pocket all your life. Write and ask him what he intends to do about the future. If you find that he intends to allow you to waste your sweetness on the desert air of this little old England, get a move on and chuck him out of your life. Take me instead, dearest love. You will never regret it.”
“It is for my husband to make the first move.”
“It looks as if he was going to wait till doomsday. I shall not give up hope of winning my beautiful princess until I hear that she has actually started for India. Princess, may I have a kiss, just one little kiss?”
“Indian wives never kiss anybody but their husbands and their children.”
All the same she extended her hand, lifting it up suggestively. He took it and carried it to his lips.
“A Princess’s subjects may kiss her hand without offence. Good-bye, darling. You may tell your husband next time you write that he is a dog-in-the-manger. Tell him I say so.” His angry tone vanished and he dropped into the pleading lover once again. “Princess, if he sets you free—mind! he may be mighty glad to get free of domestic ties—give me the refusal of your dear, sweet self and make me the happiest man on earth. I shall never love another,” cried the broken-hearted youth, sore and stricken at this his first refusal.
Seeta let him go without making any reply to his appeal. After he had kissed her hand, with something more than the warmth of a subject, she became very still. His words had raised a tumult in her heart. She was not in love with him, but she had the grateful affection of one who has received many kindnesses in a foreign land. Although she spoke English well, she had no great command over the language. She felt that she could not tell him that as a husband he did not appeal to her. She was not prepared to say that she was too much in love with her own husband to think of another man. Indian women are instinctively faithful to their husbands; and if they have children the maternal love satisfies their hearts and keeps their affections from wandering.
Seeta’s education had filled her mind to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Alan’s hot, impetuous words had burst open the flood-gates of an emotion that had been lying dormant under the blow it had received in her youth. It was suddenly borne in upon her that for some reason or other she had been left indefinitely in Miss Sibyl’s charge and was likely to remain in that state for some time to come.
Up to the age of sixteen she had vehemently declared that she wished never to see her husband again. She had sent him the objectionable photograph as a deliberate reminder that he was obnoxious to her. He had evidently read its meaning aright, for he had treated the incident with silent contempt. At the time, she had experienced a childish gratification in that she had discouraged him from sending her an invitation to return. The consequences of her action she did not consider.
The conviction that she had repelled him for all time came as something of a shock. Alan’s impetuous offer of marriage had opened her eyes to much that concerned her welfare intimately. Her heart sank within her as she realised for the first time that she had made a mistake, a stupid mistake, which had worked incalculable harm to herself.
Alan went to Egypt assuring himself that life held no more joy for him, and that women were “a washout” as far as he was concerned. By the time he had arrived at Port Said he had told himself that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Three months later he was trying to persuade his Colonel’s daughter that she was his one and only love.
Fortunately the girl was not inexperienced. She gave him to understand that she was quite willing to be loved, but marriage was another thing altogether; and at present she could come to no decision. As for engagements she could not go beyond dances. He might have eight at the next ball and all the supper dances if he cared to take them, but she would pledge herself to no other kind of engagement.
“Miss Sibyl, I want to have a talk with you,” said Seeta, the day after Alan came to say good-bye.
Miss Cullington glanced out of the window. It was pouring with autumnal rain, which made it impossible to take a walk.
“What about now? We are not likely to have any visitors. Tell me what’s the matter, Little One.”
“I should like you to know that when Alan was here yesterday he asked me to marry him.”
“Did he?” responded Sibyl, in some surprise. “Silly boy! He can’t afford to marry and he’s too young.”
The sister was more concerned with the action of her foolish brother than the object of his affections.
“He seemed so surprised when I told him that I had a husband.”
“I dare say he was. Bless his innocence! He knows nothing of child marriages. What did he say?”
“He seemed to be angry with me for being married.”
“Why should he be?”
“He said if I had a husband I ought to be living with him.” Seeta paused as if she were uncertain if she ought to tell tales out of school.
“Yes?” said Sibyl, feeling that something was being held back.
“Or I ought to divorce him.”
“What nonsense! Divorce your husband! How could you when you and he have decided for the best of reasons to live apart?”
“Alan called him names as if he thought that he was treating me badly. He said he was a dog-in-the-manger and an idiot for leaving me alone at the other end of the world. He said I was a grass-widow. I am not a widow of any kind though I am separated from my husband.”
“That’s only Alan’s way of talking,” said Sibyl, who was feeling more and more disturbed at what she termed in her mind her brother’s folly.
Seeta had no thought for Alan. Her mind was centred on her own affairs, which had assumed a new and perplexing aspect.
“Miss Sibyl, does my husband mention me in his letters to you?” she asked.
“Occasionally, if there is reason for it.”
“May I know what he has said?”
“It is so little that it is hardly worth repeating. I have not spoken of him to you because you seemed to dislike even to hear his name. I had no desire to rouse your anger against him unnecessarily.”
“I used to hate the mention of him and of everything belonging to him.”
“And you don’t now?”
“All the angry feeling connected with Chittoor has faded away. I must have been a troublesome child, and their management of me was not good.”
“I am so glad to hear you say so, Little One,” replied Sibyl. It was difficult to hide the mild astonishment she felt at the admission.
“It was you, Miss Sibyl, who pointed out how nobly my husband had treated me. I owe him a great deal. I don’t know how I shall be able to repay him.”
“Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not for a very long time,” Seeta replied, gazing at Miss Cullington with troubled eyes.
“Oh, how is that?”
“He hasn’t written since I sent him that horrid photograph.”
“You did send it, then?”
“Yes, even though you advised me not to do so.” After a pause of a minute or so she added, “I wish I had followed your advice.”
Again there was silence. Sibyl knew better than to preach inopportunely to a sensitive spirit, already smarting under the consequences of a foolish action.
“Then you have had no news of him for a long time?”
“It is ages since I had a letter from him.”
“You don’t know what he is doing?”
“Yes, I do,” responded Seeta quickly. “I read every word that is said of him in your weekly edition of the Mail, and all his speeches. I know what he is doing and how highly the Government thinks of him.”
Again Sibyl marvelled.
“He is a wonderfully clever man, and as a caste Hindu he is doing great things for his country; not merely the Madras Presidency, but for the whole of the empire.”
“Has he mentioned my name?” Seeta asked presently.
“No, except to express his satisfaction with all I have done. I told him some time ago that I had opened a banking account for you to teach you how to take care of your money. He said ‘Good,’ and he sends a cheque that I am to pay into your account. Also I described our visits to Italy, Rome, Venice, Florence; our winter sports in Switzerland; our spring in the Riviera.”
“What did he say?”
“‘Good, thank you for all the trouble you are taking.’”
“Does he inquire if I have grown?”
“Never a word. He is far too busy to think of us. I make my letters as short as possible as I know he has so little time for private matters.”
“He hasn’t asked for another photograph?”
“No, and I don’t think he is likely to do so after the experience you gave him,” replied Miss Cullington.
Seeta was too old now to seek refuge like a child in Sibyl’s arms and hide her face on her shoulder. Her emotion showed itself in the interlaced fingers, the downcast eyes, and the drooping mouth. If only Narasimha could see those curved lips, thought Sibyl, surely he would want to kiss them and bring back the smiles.
“I ought to write to him again,” said Seeta.
“When did you write last?”
“Before I sent the photograph. Do you think he will answer if I write? Or is he still angry with me?”
Although her words were calm and even, the brown eyes held deep anxiety.
“You can but try. Send a short letter.”
“Shall I say I am sorry?”
“It is not necessary. Don’t rake up the past. He has not expressed any anger. It is probable that he has put it out of his mind. Better let the past be buried in silence. You understand what it may mean if you write? He may think that you want to join him in Madras—as his wife. Are you prepared for that?” asked Sibyl, watching her charge closely. This was a new Seeta. Could the change have been brought about by Alan’s plain speaking?
“I want him to think so.”
“You won’t draw back at the last moment with a refusal and an entreaty to be allowed to stay on in England?”
“I promise to go and I will keep my promise.”
“And be a good wife to a very busy empire-making man?”
“Yes; it was one of the things Alan said—that I ought to be with my husband. Alan was right.”
“Then write as you propose. Tell him your education is finished and ask him what he wishes you to do in the future.”
The advice fell in with Seeta’s desire.
“Miss Sibyl, will you please say nothing about it when you write. I don’t wish him to think that I have done it because you have suggested it.
“I won’t mention it. In England we have an unwritten law that says there should be no interference between husband and wife.”
“Ah, if only we could have the same law in India how much misery would be done away with in the zenanas!”
Miss Cullington did not think it necessary to let Seeta know that she had already opened the subject with Narasimha. She had spoken in a few careful sentences of the mental and bodily development of his wife. The Little One had shown herself unusually clever in picking up languages and in the various subjects that had been included in her general education. There had been no recurrence of outbreaks of temper. She had developed a very sweet disposition and she had acquired sufficient self-control, which, with her natural pride of race and dignity, would carry her safely through the world.
All this had not been said in one letter. She had introduced portions of the information where she thought and hoped the words would sink and bear fruit.
She was disappointed at not receiving any response. He had made no allusion to the future. It was not possible, she thought, that in Narasimha’s scheme of life he should cast out the wife to whom he was irrevocably married without chance of honourable release except by death. He could not keep her always in England while he spent his days in India.
Possibly it was his intention to come to England some day and claim his wife. Or he might ask her in the dim future to join him in Madras. Neither contingency was hinted at. The weeks grew into months and the months seemed likely to extend into years. By this time Seeta was just nineteen, at which age Sibyl considered that she should come into her rights without further delay.
The situation troubled Sibyl and had impelled her to put a question prominently in one of her recent letters. “When do you think of asking your wife to join you?” The answer was calm and to the point.
“My work is of such a strenuous nature I have no time to give to the domestic side of life. Possibly I may be able to consider the question next year.”
He added a postscript that made Sibyl think that she had better leave the subject alone. Narasimha was not a man to be driven or persuaded into a course of action that was against his inclinations.
“P.S.—If by any chance it is inconvenient to you to make a home for the Little One, please place her elsewhere. I shall have perfect confidence in your choice of another home in England for her.”
This was far from Sibyl’s thoughts when she wrote as she did. His words hurt her and she was thankful that Seeta was kept in ignorance of them. She allowed his remarks to pass in silence except for a single sentence that set his mind at rest, if it was ever disturbed, over the subject. “She stays with me as long as she remains in England.”
It would be a great loss out of Sibyl’s life when the girl left her. Nothing but a strong sense of duty made her suggest a return to India. If it was absolutely necessary that Seeta should remain in England for the present, there was only one place for her, and that was with Sibyl.
Alan’s proposal had startled his sister. It had not occurred to her that such a thing could happen. She had been blind to the danger signals that might have warned her. She blamed herself for her want of observation. She might so easily have given Alan a hint and saved him from the mortification of a refusal.
She began to wonder if other men were becoming aware of the beauty and charm of the Indian girl. She had seen admiration on the part of the foreigners and Englishmen when they stayed at big hotels abroad. Seeta had shown consistent indifference to looks and compliments, and Sibyl’s fears had not been aroused. Alan was the first to declare his love. She must see to it that he was the last, or she would be guilty of betraying the trust Narasimha reposed in her.
It was with more than a little satisfaction that she listened to Seeta’s proposal to make an appeal to her husband herself. She could not help wondering how he would get out of the consent that he was in duty bound to send. Nor could she contemplate the possible effect that a point-blank refusal might have on the newly awakened woman, who was just beginning to crave with all the warmth of an Oriental nature for the fulness of love.
The reply was not delayed. It was almost telegraphic in its wording.
“Dear Wife, I am sorry but it is impossible to say yes to your request. I am just off on a tour of inspection of all the agricultural regions throughout India. I have to report on every portion of the country. It will take me over six months. When I return to Madras I will consider the question. Meanwhile, I am sending six hundred pounds to your account. With it you may like to buy a motor-car. Learn to drive it yourself. It will amuse you. Take Miss Cullington for a tour through England or Scotland this autumn. There is much to see of interest in cathedrals and castles. Your husband.”
Seeta carried the letter to Sibyl and threw it down on the table in front of her as though its very touch burnt her fingers.
“There! You see he doesn’t want me.”
Her lips and voice trembled and her eyes glittered. The old temper could still throw out sparks under stress of acute irritation.
“He gives an excellent reason why,” said Sibyl, as she returned the letter to Seeta. “He is going to travel.”
“I could have travelled with him.”
“If he is moving about over wild districts, he might find a wife an incumbrance.”
“If he were an Englishman he would take his wife with him, although she knows nothing of the country’s ways. Where she could go, I could go with far less difficulty.”
“I am afraid we must abide by his decision,” said Sibyl, who was more sorry than she could express for the disappointment that she read in Seeta’s voice and manner.
“Miss Sibyl!” cried Seeta, in a voice of regret and anguish. “It is all my fault. I deserve it. I have never shown him any gratitude. From the first I treated him as if I were the jungle cat he called me. And when he asked for a picture of myself I sent him one that only reminded him that I was still nothing better than what he had called me.”
Two tears welled into the beautiful eyes. She rarely wept, and Sibyl knew the bitterness of her heart. She dried her eyes with an impatient movement, putting away the handkerchief immediately, as if she had determined that there should be no further use for it.
“I don’t know how we can mend matters except by waiting patiently. If he could see you now he would soon forget the jungle cat,” she added, looking at Alan’s “Indian princess” with involuntary admiration.
“But he can’t see me. He makes it impossible. It is too late to be photographed as I really am. I have a certain amount of pride.”
“You were in the wrong, Little One,” Sibyl reminded her.
“I am quite ready to admit it and to apologise; but I will not be photographed again. I won’t throw myself before his footsteps, as they call it in India. He would not believe that I have changed. I must see him! I must see him!”
“After his tour it may be possible.”
“Will it, indeed! Look what he says in his letter. He is giving me a motor-car. I don’t want a motor-car. I want a husband.”
Sibyl suppressed a smile and contrived to maintain her expression of sympathy. Her memory went back to an occasion when she had warned Seeta that the time might arrive when she would be asking favours instead of refusing them.
“I must see him and he must see me,” Seeta repeated more than once.
“Meanwhile, won’t you have the motor-car? Only the other day you were wishing that you had one.”
“I should like very much to have it; but I won’t take it as a substitute for anything else. It is like putting off a child with a toy when it is craving for a favour.”
“Anyway, write and thank him.”
“I’ll do as much as that, of course.”
“And be careful not to reproach him for turning you down in this way. I don’t see how he could help it,” said Sibyl, who knew the difficulty of having womenkind to look after in India when a man was travelling on duty.
“I was thinking of telling him about Alan and what he said.”
“Oh, don’t do that. You will get me into trouble. Alan is my brother, and I ought to have prevented him from making love to you.”
“All right,” she said, with pathetic resignation. “I won’t mention Alan’s name. It would not do any good. I must see him and he must see me. Somehow or other I will manage it.”
“All in good time, Little One.”
Narasimha’s suggestion that Sibyl and Seeta should make a tour in England and visit some of the cathedrals and their quaint old towns met with approval. With a view to planning out the route they provided themselves with maps and guidebooks. The dining-table was covered with them, and Seeta, with paper and pencil, was busy making notes when the maid entered and announced that a visitor had called who had refused to give her name.
“I have shown her into the drawing-room, miss.”
“Please say that I am coming immediately.” The maid vanished, closing the door behind her.
It was opened again, and Barbara Strafford burst in.
“Forgive me!” she cried joyously. “I could not sit patiently in the drawing-room. I had to come and find you.”
“Barbara!” exclaimed Sibyl in happy surprise and rushing at her friend with open arms. “I didn’t know that you were in England.”
“I am only on a short visit. John has sent me home for four months. He couldn’t come himself. He is on this agricultural commission of inquiry.”
“I understood from the papers that Narasimha was doing it.”
“He’s at the practical head under Sir Anthony. There are delegates for the different provinces and districts, and Narasimha helped to get John into it. John is delighted. It is just the work that he likes. They have sent him to a part where he knows the vernacular.”
While she talked, Barbara’s eyes wandered round and rested with curiosity on the maps and guidebooks.
From the books they went to Seeta. In the excitement of meeting her old friend she had not observed the girl. Suddenly she remembered the fact of her existence and her identity.
“You are Narasimha’s wife!” she cried, catching her by the arm and turning her to the light.
At the words a sudden light sprang into the girl’s eyes. A strange thrill ran through her—was it pride?—at the recognition. As she did not speak in her embarrassment, Barbara continued:
“Yes, of course! You are Mrs. Narasimha!” And there was surprise and admiration in her voice.
“She is known here as Miss Seeta Rama,” explained Sibyl. “As she was still in her teens—she is only nineteen now—and had to go to school, we thought it best that she should not be given her married title.”
“Quite right,” responded Barbara. “You told me all about the arrangement at the time, but I had almost forgotten it. You have been so quiet about it. I remember thinking at the time that it was such a wise move on the part of Narasimha.”
“Mrs. Strafford, do tell me; how is my husband? What is he doing?” implored Seeta, with difficulty controlling her excitement.
“My dear! he is a very wonderful person,” Barbara replied impressively.
“Is he? I gathered as much from the Indian papers. His name is constantly mentioned in their columns with comments on the work he is doing and the way in which he is doing it.”
“Yes, Narasimha is undoubtedly the coming man among the progressive Indians. They say he is simply wonderful in the grip he has on the scheme. He has been appointed second to Sir Anthony in this new commission of inquiry into the economic condition of agriculture in India. John says that if anyone can make a good thing out of it, he can.”
“How long will it take?” asked Sibyl.
“Six months if a day. John has sent me to England, since I can’t very well spend the time with him. This gives me just over four months at home. I want to return to Madras in the middle of January, where I can wait for him if he hasn’t finished his round of inspection.”
“I suppose Narasimha will be there about the same time,” observed Sibyl.
“I believe so,” replied Barbara. “After the Council has digested the report of their investigations and condensed it, the papers will go up to Calcutta for the consideration of the Supreme Council. Sir Anthony will present the report, and it is possible that Narasimha will have to go to Calcutta with him.”
“Have you seen much of Narasimha?” asked Sibyl.
“Not as much as I should like. We meet occasionally. He plays tennis and polo when he has time; so does my husband. But we really have very few opportunities of meeting. His work lies in one direction, John’s in another.”
“Has he ever spoken of me?” asked Seeta, a ring of wistfulness in her voice that was pathetic in Sibyl’s sensitive ears.
“No,” replied Barbara reluctantly. She felt instinctively that such an admission would hurt the young wife’s feelings.
“Do you think that he is ashamed of me, Mrs. Strafford?” asked Seeta in a low voice that was not altogether under control.
“Why should he be ashamed of you? On the contrary, he ought to be proud, very proud,” Barbara added, thinking within herself what a sensation this beautiful girl would create if her husband introduced her in Madras as his wife.
“Being a Hindu, he could, of course, marry a second wife. I suppose he hasn’t done so,” said Sibyl.
“Certainly not,” replied Barbara warmly. “He is far too fastidious to do such a thing. He maintains a strictly bachelor establishment, by all accounts. A couple of years ago it was said that his parents were giving him no peace on the subject of a second marriage, but he stood as firm as a rock in his refusal.”
“It looks as if he intended at some time or other to ask Seeta to join him,” remarked Sibyl.
“Yes, indeed! Why not?”
“She would be quite capable now of managing his house for him, and could perform all the social duties that her life in Madras would require of her,” continued Sibyl confidently and with an unconscious pride in her charge which was justifiable.
“He really needs the help of a wife who has had education and training,” said Barbara.
“He used to be very sociable and friendly with us all in the old days,” said Sibyl, who recalled her own warm friendship with Narasimha when he was less absorbed in his work.
“In that respect he has not altered. He is popular with the wives of the English officials, and seems to get on with the few Indian ladies who are beginning to take a prominent position in society.
“Is he likely to come to England?” asked Sibyl.
“Not in the least likely. He is too deeply immersed in his work. When I met him on the Hills—he was up with the Government—I asked if he had any thoughts of running over to England. He said very decidedly that he had not. ‘No attraction?’ I inquired. ‘None whatever,’ he replied; and he added: ‘You mustn’t hope to see me in England for many years to come.’ If you want to meet him again, Sibyl, you will have to go back to the East. It is his home, we must remember.”
Seeta relapsed into silence, and the two old friends continued to discuss Narasimha, John, and India. From these subjects they went to John Strafford, junior, otherwise Jacky, a sturdy boy of three years old, who had been left at his grandmother’s house with his nurse while his mother paid visits and went shopping.
Seeta had learned much of her husband which had given her food for thought. Her spirits sank lower and lower as she considered everything. How was she to go back to the East, her home as well as her husband’s, if he continued to refuse to give his consent? A cloud overshadowed her. It had been gathering ever since he had offered her a motor-car by way of consolation for his refusal. All that she had heard this afternoon only tended to deepen the shadow. Sibyl was aware that the girl was unhappy, but Barbara was ignorant of how acutely her words had disturbed the peace of the young wife.
“When shall I see you again?” Sibyl was asking.
“It won’t be till you return from your trip. I am going to the seaside with Jacky for a couple of months. I’ll look you up in November. I must come back to town to do my final shopping.”
“What date do you sail?”
“The middle of December. I shall spend Christmas on board.”
“Are you taking Jacky with you?”
“Rather! The darling! With the house at Coonoor I can keep him in India till he is seven or eight.”
“Mrs. Strafford——” began Seeta.
Her courage failed her and she relapsed into silence. Again Barbara scanned her face with close attention. The girl was not happy was her conclusion.
“Do you want to join your husband?” she asked.
“Yes; oh yes.”
The words choked her and she could not go on. Barbara waited a few seconds; then, full of her own affairs, she returned to the subject nearest her heart and picked up the threads of her conversation with Sibyl.
“It is so good for John to be able to see the child sometimes. Even if there were a risk—but there is none—I would take him back to India. With the little house on the Hills as a refuge as soon as the weather gets too warm, I have no fear of the climate.”
Barbara departed as breezily as she had arrived. Seeta watched her as she left the room escorted by Sibyl. As she vanished the girl felt that she was losing a link with her husband. Never before had she experienced so strongly the sensation of being exiled in a foreign land.
During the two months that followed, Sibyl observed with increasing concern that Seeta had lost some of her joyous vitality. The joie-de-vivre that had always been in evidence in all that she did seemed fading. The girl had never been given to tears nor to fretting. Her pride enabled her to hide emotion. Whatever she might have felt of trouble and disappointment, ordinary acquaintances were not allowed to see.
By this time Sibyl could read her like a book. All that was covered by that still reserved manner was revealed to the observant Englishwoman. She searched for the cause, wondering if Seeta’s heart was in the right place or if an Englishman by any chance had made an impression.
Was it possible that love was awakening? Was the girl pining for a lover? Since the episode in which Alan figured, Sibyl had tried to avoid as far as was possible any intimacies that might lead to a repetition on the man’s part of Alan’s experience. It would be natural if the Indian maiden’s heart turned to the tropical sun and flowers. She might well be homesick and longing to return to the light and warmth of her mother-country.
If the way had been clear for the fulfilment of such a desire, Sibyl felt that she would have rejoiced. She was inclined to be angry with Narasimha for his indifference concerning his wife. Had the man no sense of duty towards the girl? His whole being was apparently filled with his work. Ambition held him in its paralysing grip. His natural instincts were being atrophied while his wife was imprisoned in England, in danger of eating her heart out in passionate longings that are the inheritance of the Eastern woman.
Could nothing be done to mend matters? Seeta herself had struck the right note when she cried out from the depth of her heart:
“I must see him ! He must see me!”
All very well to suggest the remedy, thought Sibyl; but how was it to be accomplished?
It was late autumn. November had set in misty and mild. The tour through the cathedral cities was ended. On the whole it was not an unhappy period, but both Seeta and Sibyl felt the cloud that had settled on them since Narasimha had refused his wife’s request.
After their return to town the time was passed in shopping, seeing picture galleries, and paying visits to their various friends, who had drifted townwards for the winter months. Seeta was popular, and there was no lack of invitations to afternoon parties. Some were large gatherings. Others were tête-à-tête teas.
One day in the middle of the month they went to tea with a Major and Mrs. Robinson, whom they had met on the Riviera in the spring. Mrs. Robinson had made a successful rock garden in the small piece of ground attached to the house they had taken. She was anxious to show it to Sibyl—although its summer beauty was over—and exhibit the treasures she had collected in her wanderings.
The two friends went into the garden, passing through the French window of the drawing-room. Seeta remained, from choice, in the warmth of the house. A fire of logs was burning in the grate, a cheerful, attractive sight. She had not yet grown acclimatised to the autumnal days with their misty, chilly afternoons.
The Major also stayed behind. Usually he left the house before the tea hour to go to his club. To-day, hearing his wife was having a couple of visitors, one of them the pretty Indian girl he had met abroad, he elected to remain.
As soon as his wife, with Miss Cullington, had disappeared through the window, he approached the spot where Seeta was sitting, pulled up a chair, and seated himself close to her—too close for her liking.
“You little darling!” he murmured. “I had no idea that ‘Indian princesses’ could be so sweet and human.”
His hand went out towards her, and his arm rested on the back of her chair. She rose deliberately, summoning all her courage and dignity to her aid, and said:
“I am usually called Miss Seeta Rama.”
He was not so easily rebuffed.
“Mayn’t I call you darling? It is a much better name for your sweet daintiness.”
He had the look in his eyes that she had seen in Alan’s when he addressed her as darling and had declared his love. The Major also rose from his chair and took a step forward, with what intention Seeta could not tell. She stood her ground. There was very little room for retreat unless she made an ignominious flight. This her natural courage forbade. She raised her chin and levelled a pair of angry eyes at him with a steady gaze.
“‘Indian princesses’ are indeed very human in expecting what is due to their birth,” she said in a voice that was devoid of all softness. “Shall I show you a little Oriental treasure that I picked up at a shop in Kensington? It is one of the finest bits of workmanship I have ever seen.”
Robinson drew back slightly. He recognised that he was up against something different from the ordinary flirt, who says that she is out for a good time and is not over-scrupulous how she gets it.
While he hesitated in his impudent love-making, Seeta drew from her vanity bag a small weapon the size of a folded pair of scissors. She opened it and displayed before his astonished eyes a fine stiletto. The blade was only a quarter of an inch broad and not more than five inches in length.
“This little dagger is sufficiently long to pierce the heart if it is struck slightly upwards below the left breast.”
He gazed at her in horror and surprise.
“Good heavens! Why do you carry such a murderous weapon?”
“My mother’s people live in a wild country. The men are away a good deal. They teach their women to use this kind of thing in defence of their virtue. It is better to die than to——”
She did not finish the sentence. He understood. He retreated another step or two. The sight of the dagger had killed his untimely sentiment.
“Little devil!” he thought. “She would have struck me without a scruple if I had taken any liberties.” He turned to her and asked: “Do you always carry it about with you?”
“Always; it is not much larger than a penknife—a little longer, perhaps.”
“Put it away. You ought not to be trusted with such a dangerous plaything.”
“You think that I am not likely to need it in England?” she asked, her eyes glittering with suppressed rage.
“More likely that it would be necessary in India,” he replied awkwardly. He was thoroughly put out.
“I find England no different from India in many respects.”
“Put it away; it won’t be needed,” he said roughly, and with a grim smile that had a touch of impertinence in it.
“Mrs. Robinson may like to see it, since you have found it interesting.”
She continued to clasp the handle in her small right hand. He turned aside abruptly and strode to the French window. Without a word he stepped into the garden, moving towards the rockery.
This last action, which bordered on discourtesy, coming as it did immediately after his frustrated attempt at love-making, added to her wrath. Her impulse was to leave the room by the door opening into the hall and to walk straight out of the house. The thought of Sibyl’s distress at an action so pointed held her back.
Mrs. Robinson, seeing her husband appear, came to the conclusion that he had been bored by the girl. She abandoned her precious garden and hurried towards him.
“You are wanting tea. I will go in and ring for it.”
Robinson began to talk to Sibyl about rock plants, of which he knew very little, and left his wife to entertain Seeta. By this time the dagger was put away. The Major noted the fact, and, remembering why it had been brought out, wisely refrained from any allusion to it.
Sibyl, on her return to the drawing-room, caught sight of Seeta’s face as she sat unusually silent a little apart from the others. She knew at once that something had occurred to upset her. What could Major Robinson have done to produce that ominous glitter of the eye?
When tea was over, Sibyl pleaded another engagement and rose to depart. No sooner was she in the taxi that was to carry them back to the flat than the storm burst.
“Miss Sibyl! Why are some Englishmen so hateful?”
“What do you mean, Seeta? What has happened?”
The story of the Major’s attempt at love-making was told. Seeta had nipped it in the bud; but there was the intention which could not be denied. Sibyl listened in growing anger. She had been very far from expecting that Major Robinson would try to take advantage of any girl who had been placed under her charge. It was nothing less than a breach of faith, in Sibyl’s opinion.
“I am astonished,” she repeated two or three times, and, when she said so, she was only repeating the truth. “Did you mention the fact of your being a married woman?”
“No, I had such a lecture from Alan on the subject of living apart from my husband, I did not venture. I bore it from Alan because I liked him. If Major Robinson had said anything of the kind I might have scratched him or done something worse.”
Sibyl glanced at her in sudden apprehension. She had hoped that the danger of any act of violence, even if provoked, had passed.
“Oh, my dear! Surely you have your temper under control by this time? Don’t let it master you again,” begged Sibyl.
“It is all very well trying to make a civilised Englishwoman of me,” said Seeta passionately. “I am not built of the right stuff for it. You have the civilisation of centuries in your blood, thanks to your ancestors; we Indians have not such an inheritance. We are only half civilised. It will take generations before we are as civilised as you are.”
“Don’t despair, Little One. You know that civilisation is coming. From what you have told me, I gather that you behaved with restraint to-day and that you were not violent.”
“I let him know that I could be violent if I were driven to extremes. I showed him my little pocket dagger and told him that it was long enough to reach a man’s heart.”
Sibyl smiled in spite of her concern.
“What did the Major say to it?”
“He was impressed and possibly a little alarmed.”
“I hope he will profit by his experience,” remarked Sibyl.
For a time there was silence. Just before they reached home Seeta said:
“I am going back to India.”
“You can’t go until your husband returns to Madras; and you ought not to go at all until he gives his consent to your joining him.”
“He will be in Madras early in January, so the Indian papers say.”
“But, Seeta! You must wait till he says that he is prepared to receive you,” cried Sibyl, aghast at these signs of revolt.
“I cannot wait! I will go by myself and claim my rights when I get there. He can’t close his doors against the wife his parents have chosen for him.
“Oh, my dear! I must not let you do it.”
“I must do it,” she repeated obstinately.
The taxi stopped and the contention came to an end. This was the first time Sibyl had found herself in direct opposition to the wishes of her charge. She had encountered a slight indication of Seeta’s obstinacy in the incident of the photograph, but in every other respect Seeta had been compliant and ready to conform to her wishes. The girl had been firm in refusing to dance or to learn to sing. These were points where she was at perfect liberty to choose her own way.
The question of her return to India was another matter altogether. Sibyl felt that it was her duty to Narasimha to uphold his decrees as far as was possible, and to give his wife no assistance in disobeying his express orders.
In the flat they found Barbara. She greeted them effusively.
“I have come up to town for the day only. I have been shopping since ten o’clock this morning and I’m dead tired. I asked your maid to give me some tea.”
“How good of you to spare the time! Where are you staying?”
“With my mother at Maidenhead, I must catch the seven o’clock train from Paddington, What have you been doing this afternoon?”
“We have had tea with Major and Mrs. Robinson, people we met abroad in the spring.”
“You are home in good time. So much the better for me. I ought to have written.”
“Seeta was tired and glad to get away,” said Sibyl feebly. She had better have kept silence. The excuse was unnecessary. It only served to rouse the girl’s combativeness.
“Pardon me, Miss Sibyl,” she said with a dangerous quietness. “I was not tired.”
“You looked it, my dear.”
“I was furiously angry with Major Robinson. I could have killed him.”
Upon this out came the whole story. Barbara listened in surprise as the words poured forth.
“Mrs. Strafford, do men make love to you?”
“Certainly not; I am a married woman.”
“So am I.”
“No one would believe it. You look too young to be anything of the kind.”
“In India girls are married when they are nothing but children. I was married at five; and, as you heard last time you were with us, I am the wife of Mr. Narasimha of whom you speak so highly. It is his fault that I am insulted,” said Seeta, her eyes glittering with anger.
“Why do you blame him?”
“Because he refuses to allow me to join him. I am nineteen. It is time he acknowledged me and placed me at the head of his zenana. It would serve him right if I encouraged an English lover.”
“Seeta!” exclaimed Sibyl, shocked at her passionate outbreak. “You are beside yourself! You are talking nonsense!” She turned to Barbara. “You had better know all the facts, since we have gone so far.”
Sibyl related the story of her correspondence with Narasimha and of Seeta’s request, which he had refused. Her quiet voice and calm manner had a soothing effect on the stormy temper that had been roused. “You are surprised to hear such a tale,” concluded Sibyl.
“I am,” replied Barbara, her eyes on Seeta in growing perplexity. She turned to Sibyl. “Narasimha has not seen her since he placed her in your hands?”
“They have had no opportunity of meeting.”
“He can’t possibly know much of the result of his experiment, except what he could learn from a photograph.”
“I have sent him one only, and that was a failure,” said Seeta. She was far too proud to hide any incident that concerned herself.
“Tell Mrs. Strafford about it,” said Sibyl, relieved to find that she was recovering her self-control.
Barbara laughed as she listened. It was just as well to make light of it and not give it any importance. She felt that there was already too much tragedy wrapped up in the whole affair.
“I’m so sorry I was such a little idiot!” said Seeta as she finished her story.
“You poor child! How could you know that your foolish little trick would have such a disastrous effect?”
“What can I do to make him think that I am no longer a young savage?” said Seeta pathetically.
“Somehow we must contrive that he sees you. I am sure that all will come right as soon as he sets eyes on you.”
“Meanwhile he has definitely refused to allow Seeta to go out to India at present,” remarked Sibyl.
“And he sent me six hundred pounds to buy a motor-car as a consolation. It made me so angry!”
“Have you spent the money?” asked Barbara.
“Oh no. We hired for our trip or went by rail.”
Barbara laid a hand on her arm impressively.
“Six hundred pounds! Oh, Seeta! That’s splendid! It makes everything possible. Come out with me as Miss Seeta Rama. We will keep it a dead secret. I won’t even tell my husband who you are.”
Her eyes shone with excitement at the thought of her suddenly conceived plot; as for Seeta, it carried her away altogether. She sprang to her feet and rushed at her fairy godmother who was promising to bring her to her prince.
“Oh, how happy you have made me, kindest and best of friends!” she cried, throwing her arms round her. “How can I thank you?”
“Barbara! Do you think we are justified in going against Narasimha’s expressed wishes?” protested the more scrupulous Sibyl.
“We shall be bringing husband and wife together and conferring a blessing on them both. Leave it to me. I will take all the responsibility. He is my husband’s oldest friend. It will be a joy to me to do him a good turn.” She turned to Seeta and spoke more seriously. “Now listen. From this moment you are to consider yourself my daughter, and you are under my care till I hand you over, body and soul, to your husband.”
Barbara went at once to the business part of the transaction. She set aside Sibyl’s last protests and began to make her plans.
“Get your trousseau at once. You have only three weeks. I am sailing by a Colombo boat arriving there in the middle of January. We shall spend Christmas on board. Six hundred pounds! Why, it will more than cover all your expenses. How lovely! What a romance we shall have!”
“If it ends all right,” put in Sibyl doubtfully. “But supposing Narasimha is angry and refuses to receive Seeta?”
Barbara turned on her old friend with just a spark of indignation. It was solely on Narasimha’s behalf.
“I assure you that he is an honourable man, full of kindness and possessed of a natural nobility that was developed by an English education. Is it likely that he will close his door against a wife like Seeta? His instincts as a gentleman and as a human being will forbid anything of the kind.”
The other was not satisfied.
“If I could only be sure that his anger would not be roused——” she began.
Barbara stopped her with a protest.
“How can you distrust him? It shows how little you know of the man; He is one of the best in the world. Seeta,” she continued, turning to the listening girl whose eyes were shining with deep emotion. “Seeta! Do you distrust him? If so you had better remain in England.”
“Mrs. Strafford!” she cried in tones that went to Barbara’s heart. “I trust him, I believe in him, I want him, because I—love him.”
The beautiful eyes were lowered. The warm blood enriched the tint of her cheek. Anger had vanished, the Major was forgotten, as the young wife’s devotion went out to her distant husband.
Barbara was satisfied, and Sibyl had no more objections to make to the plotting of the two wives.
The Banqueting Hall at Madras presented a brilliant scene. The Hall, with its magnificent pillars and corridors and its polished floor, was lighted by electricity. The dais opposite the entrance was draped with scarlet and furnished with chairs and lounges upholstered in red velvet.
Light and colour filled the eye. It was one of the State functions of the season, a reception to be followed by a dance. The guests, European and Indian, were mostly in uniform or national dress. The Englishwomen were eclipsed by the resplendent silks and satins of Hindu ladies, whose jewels outshone any that were worn by the wives and daughters of the Europeans.
A regimental band played in the gallery over the entrance. A guard of honour, supplied by the Governor’s bodyguard, lined the steps leading up to the entrance of the Hall. The troopers were picked men, none of them being under six feet in height. The pennoned lances that they held gave the impression of still greater height.
Seeta’s eyes glanced from right to left as she walked slowly up the broad, shallow stairs. It was her first view of the panoply of state, and it sent a thrill through her. It was a show that even England with her Horse Guards and Household troops could not exceed. This was India! India! Her native land! Pride filled her heart. She seemed to be stepping on air as the conviction passed through her mind that this was not a foreign country, and that she was part and parcel of the gorgeous scene. It was the English themselves who were aliens and strangers, if anyone could be so called.
Their Excellencies had already arrived. They proceeded to the dais accompanied by the aides and officials of their staff. Barbara hung back, taking her place in a queue that formed for introduction.
She was kindly received as the wife of a man who was on an important commission; and her companion, announced as Miss Seeta Rama, received something more than the ordinary smile. Her Excellency was curious about this beautiful Indian girl, whom she did not remember to have seen before. Barbara explained that she had brought her out from England and was introducing her before she joined her family.
Fortunately, there was no time for questions, and Mrs. Strafford was not asked for details concerning Seeta’s family. They were followed by others who were waiting to make their bow. Barbara, feeling very much at home and not a little pleased to find herself back in the old familiar Government House entourage, drifted away, scanning the groups of assembling guests intent on recognising friends and acquaintances.
It was not long before she was greeted by a man and his wife who had been stationed at the cantonment to which she had gone as a bride. After a short chat, their places were taken by a Coonoor friend, who gave her news of the little house that had been let for the hot weather.
“Your tenants were devoted to the garden. We never saw it looking better. If you want to let it for next hot weather, do tell me. I know someone who would be so glad to have it.”
“I shall be there myself, I hope. You know I have brought Jacky out with a first-rate English nurse. I shall send him up in March whether I am able to go myself or not.”
Then followed gossip about the Hill station—who had come to the hotels and taken houses and who were absent. The sight of a friend drew off the Coonoor acquaintance, and for a moment Barbara and Seeta were by themselves.
“I hope you are not dull, Seeta. They don’t stay long enough for me to introduce you to them,” said Barbara apologetically.
“You mustn’t trouble about me, please,” replied Seeta. “You don’t know how interested and happy I am to be here. I feel surrounded by a familiar atmosphere although the scenes are new. Mrs. Strafford, do you think my husband is here?
“I haven’t seen him yet. He ought to be here. Probably he will come late and only for a short time.”
At that moment a familiar voice fell on her ears as someone came up to them.
“Mrs. Strafford! Welcome back! I am so glad to see you,” said Narasimha, holding out his hand in warm greeting.
“Mr. Narasimha!” Barbara said his name distinctly so that it should reach Seeta. “This is fortunate. I heard someone say that you might not be in Madras for another week.”
“I only returned yesterday,” he replied.
His eye passed over Seeta without the consciousness that her face was strange, and certainly one of the most beautiful in the room. He did not seem to connect her with his friend’s wife, nor was his curiosity raised as to her personality.
“Where’s my husband? What have you done with him? And why is he left stranded in some remote district while you are here?” demanded Barbara.
“He has not quite finished his inquiries in the last district of his circle. There was unusually heavy rain, and he had to wait till the floods subsided.”
“When may I expect him?”
“I am afraid it will be two or three weeks before he can come down to Madras. He has done a splendid work.”
“It has been more work than play!” exclaimed Barbara ruefully. “His letters to me were disgracefully short and scrappy. I shall have something to say to you if I find he has been overworked.”
“On the contrary, he declares that he is all the better for his trip. Some of the districts he has been in have been as bracing as the Hills.”
While they talked Seeta had an opportunity to recover from the inward perturbation of spirit this sudden meeting with the man who controlled her destiny caused. Her heart beat wildly beneath the opalescent silk saree that fell from her shoulder and crossed her bosom. The saree was draped over an English ball dress of pale blue. The gold border of the saree glittering richly in the bright electric light marked the Indian portion of her dress and gave it the correct Oriental character.
She had no thought for anything but the man before her and all he stood for. The brilliant scene no longer held her attention. It was forgotten. She was spellbound by the wonderful thing that had come to pass. The man she had been pining to see was before her in the flesh, a real being and no longer a bogey memory of childish days.
He was younger than she remembered him. She recalled him as someone much older than herself, old enough to be her father, a tall, alarming figure who towered above her. She forgot that she had grown herself taller and broader, a very different person from the slip of a girl she had been at Chittoor.
She could not recall his features, but she believed that she remembered his voice. It was cultivated and restrained, and there was an absence of the harshness an Indian acquires through speaking in the open verandas.
He was in evening dress. He wore no turban, and his hair was short and brushed like that of an Englishman. He stood at his ease, courteous and attentive, ready to drop out of the conversation when it should come to a natural end.
With her experience of the Continental hotels and London, Seeta could see for herself that her husband was possessed of a striking personality. His spare, upright figure had nothing of the superfluous flesh about it that the caste Hindu with his farinaceous and fruit diet is apt to acquire.
She was a pace or two away from Barbara, but near enough to hear all that was said; she took in every detail. Recognition of his personal qualities had been impossible as long as she had no opportunity of seeing him. Knowledge of his mental capabilities had come through reading Sibyl’s Indian newspapers. She knew all about his ability as a member of the Government. What she was ignorant of was that side of his character which appealed to the woman in her, the man as a man and not as a Government machine.
There was a pause in the conversation. Barbara, hoping that Seeta had recovered from the shock of the first sight of her husband, turned to her with the intention of introducing “Miss Seeta Rama” to Narasimha. He, however, seized the opportunity of the break to speak to an acquaintance who approached.
Barbara made no effort to detain him. It was as well not to be too hasty. Let him see the girl before any confession was made. At present she was conscious that, though the two had met, he had been blind to the qualities that were already making Seeta the cynosure of all eyes.
When once they had become acquainted with each other, Barbara was aware that she must be prepared to explain and perhaps justify herself for having aided and abetted Seeta’s behaviour. She was in no hurry to put the fat in the fire, so to speak. The plot must be given a fair chance of ripening and producing good results.
“Shall we go and find a seat?” asked Barbara. “You don’t dance; neither will I this evening.”
They found chairs in a spot that gave them a good view of the dancing. Two or three people recognised John Strafford’s popular wife, and came up to speak to her.
“Glad to see you back again,” said one. “May I be introduced to your friend? Does she by any chance belong to Madras?”
Barbara hesitated, and Seeta answered the question at once.
“I don’t belong to Madras. My father is a Zemindar in the Poona direction.”
“Have you just come out from England?”
“Yes, with Mrs. Strafford. I am delighted to find the sun again.”
A few minutes’ chat, and the friend moved on. Others singly and in couples followed, asking for the introduction if it was not forthcoming.
Narasimha, talking of the subject nearest to his heart, and absorbed in it to the exclusion of all else, had buttonholed a friend in the same service as himself. The other, less occupied with office affairs, had eyes for what was going on around him, as well as attentive ears for what Narasimha was saying. Just now his gaze was upon Barbara and her companion and their little reception.
“Can you tell me who that remarkably pretty girl is over there?” he asked.
“Which girl?” inquired Narasimha, his eye wandering vaguely over the sea of faces that filled the hall.
“The Indian girl with Mrs. Strafford.”
Narasimha focussed his eyes on Seeta and noticed for the first time a figure and face that could not easily be forgotten.
“I don’t know who she is. I haven’t seen her before. She is a stranger.”
“She seems a very self-possessed young woman. There’s that bounder Smith trying to ingratiate himself. Hullo! my lady has turned him down, and serve him right, too.”
Again Narasimha studied the figure. In his eyes was a suddenly awakened curiosity. He knew Smith by reputation as well as personally. Not much harm in him, he thought, but egregiously self-assured and pushing.
“I must get Mrs. Strafford to introduce me. By-the-by, where is she staying?” asked the man who had drawn the attention of the Hindu civilian to Seeta.
Narasimha named the hotel. Barbara had not left him in ignorance of it for reasons of her own. He watched his friend as he threaded his way to the spot where Barbara was sitting. After the greeting, the introduction to Seeta was duly made. Narasimha saw the uplift of the eyes and the smile with which she acknowledged it. The expression was very different from that which she wore when Smith was attempting his little flatteries. Her large eyes were full of a warm light, and her smile, which came and went as she talked, held Narasimha’s attention in spite of himself.
Then came along a couple of old friends, Colonel Beech and his wife, making their way towards Mrs. Strafford. He was commandant at the Fort. They had been on the Hills together, and Mrs. Beech had much to say to Barbara. Seeta rose and gave her chair to the Colonel’s wife. As she took it the Colonel offered his arm to Seeta and led her away. They passed through the corridor into the veranda, and Narasimha lost sight of them.
He did not dance. He had come with the intention of staying only a short time, as he had an hour’s work that he hoped to accomplish before turning in to rest. He lingered now, scarcely knowing why. He was not waiting for supper, which was ready, nor was he looking for more acquaintances with whom he could chat or talk “shop.” He stood where his friend had left him, his gaze towards the spot where Barbara was sitting with Mrs. Beech. He heard a clear young voice say:
“Thank you for showing me the Hall and telling me all about it. It is most interesting.”
“You must drive down to the Fort and see our Mess House. It’s one of the oldest of the Englishmen’s houses in Madras.”
Seeta and the Colonel strolled slowly past him. As she went by she turned towards Narasimha, and her eyes met his, but there was no recognition in them. It was not a stare. It was merely the look of one who was aware that the object of her regard was a notoriety. He gathered that she knew him by sight although he did not recognise her.
As they passed him he heard the Colonel say:
“You must come to our regimental sports on the island. I am sure you will be interested.”
Narasimha glanced after the couple. He was puzzled. He thought he was acquainted with all the Hindu ladies of the Presidency town who had ventured to come out into society. Here was one who was evidently accustomed to English social life and well versed in its intricacies. He was sufficiently curious to determine that he would find out from Mrs. Strafford at the first opportunity the name of the girl under her charge.
As Seeta drove to the hotel with Barbara a little later in the evening she seized her hand.
“Mrs. Strafford! I have seen him at last!”
“Well?”
“He is splendid. I didn’t know he was so handsome nor so—so young!”
“I suppose he is between thirty and forty.”
“From what I remember of him I should have said that he was at least fifty.”
“My dear Seeta!” protested Barbara. “He is my husband’s year, his contemporary. How could he be fifty?”
“In my childish eyes he seemed very big and elderly. I wonder why I was so frightened of him.”
“Ah, that is another matter. You were far too young.”
“I am not afraid of him now. I am only afraid lest my stupidity should have turned him against me.”
“You have seen him. That’s something to the good.”
“I have, and, oh! I have fallen in love with him more than ever.”
“That’s all right and as it should be. What I want to find out is whether he has seen you.”
“I don’t know. I am not sure. Once as I was walking past him with Colonel Beech I think I caught his eye for half a second.”
“A good beginning,” said Barbara, “but you have got to catch something more than a momentary glance.”
Barbara entered the drawing-room of the hotel, carrying a packet of letters in her hand. The postman had just delivered them.
She was in search of Seeta. She found her luxuriously ensconced among the cushions of the largest of the cane lounges. The chair had been pushed up near a tall French window that opened on to a deep pillared veranda. The sunblinds were lowered, but the sea breeze found its way in, keeping the air cool and fresh and producing a pleasant tap-tapping against the balustrade. In the distance the surf boomed on the long, sandy shore. Its music had a lulling effect on the nerves which was not lost on Seeta.
She had provided herself with a book. It rested unopened on her knee. Her thoughts were far away from literary subjects even of the lightest kind. Her mind was filled with visions of Narasimha as she had seen him in the brilliantly lighted Banqueting Hall. That one glance when their eyes met as she was strolling by with Colonel Beech thrilled her each time she recalled it.
Had he been thrilled too? she wondered, unable to decide upon an answer for herself. Had some mysterious psychic force conveyed to his mind a subtle consciousness that she was something more in his life than a casual acquaintance?
“Dreaming, my dear?” cried Barbara. “I have something here to wake you from your pleasant visions. I am sure they are pleasant, aren’t they?”
Seeta did not deny the implication. She smiled and held out her hand.
“Letters, I see,” she said. “It looks as if the English mail has come in.”
“It has, and there is one for you. The rest are for me.”
Barbara seated herself near the window. She shuffled her pack with quick fingers and picked out her husband’s. She was soon deep in its contents.
Seeta’s letter was from Sibyl Cullington. The two relapsed into silence as each studied the closely written sheets. An exclamation from Seeta diverted Barbara’s attention from John’s oft-repeated regrets that he could not join his wife at once in Madras.
“Mrs. Strafford, Miss Sibyl says that he has asked for me!” Seeta’s eyes were aglow and her lips trembled as she spoke.
“Who has asked for you?” inquired Barbara, whose thoughts were still with the lamenting John.
“My husband!”
“Bless him! He has come to his senses at last!”
“He proposes that I should be sent out by a Calcutta boat, the Chitral, that calls here at Madras on the fifteenth of February.”
“Oh, Seeta! What shall we do? Go and make a full confession and ask for pardon?” cried Barbara, pretending to be alarmed, but laughing over their sudden dilemma.
“The fifteenth of February will be exactly three weeks from today. It will suit us well,” said Seeta, to whom the situation presented no difficulty.
“Has he sent the money for your passage to the shipping agents?”
“Fortunately he has left all the arrangements as usual to Miss Sibyl.”
“I’ll see what she says in her letter to me,” observed Barbara, opening the envelope.
Seeta waited impatiently, her eyes on Barbara and the query on her lips.
“Well, what’s the news?” she demanded.
“She tells the same story. She received Narasimha’s letter a few days after our departure.”
“Is she going to write and let him know that I have already left England? We must be quite sure of how we stand, or we may get into trouble.”
Barbara read to the end and handed the letter to Seeta.
“You will read for yourself that she is leaving the matter entirely in our hands. She will take no responsibility for our madcap deeds, she declares. We are to bear the full blame for our escapade.”
“I see,” said Seeta as she glanced through the pages. “She has told him that his wishes shall be carried out and that I shall be sent in due course to India—like a naughty child going home from school. What fun!”
“It sounds fairly safe,” said Barbara as she received the letter back. “I hope he hasn’t suggested anyone as an escort. It might complicate the arrangements.”
“In her letter to me, which you must read, she says that I am to be put under the captain’s charge,” said Seeta, her eyes suddenly twinkling with humour. “It is just as well that he does not know how badly I behaved to the captain who brought me to England.”
“What did you do?” asked Barbara.
“He pulled my saree off my head. He didn’t know that it was an unpardonable insult to touch a woman’s saree. Her husband is the only person who has liberty to remove it.”
“You ran away terrified?”
“Indeed I did not! I flew at him and pinched the tender part of his leg. You should have seen him dance! It really was very funny now I look back on it. It was his own fault.”
“He took you for a child.”
“He couldn’t believe that I was a married woman.”
There was a pause. Barbara returned to her husband’s letter, and Seeta, lying on her cushions, relapsed into thought. When John’s missive was at last folded and replaced in its envelope, Seeta took the opportunity of bringing her friend’s mind back to her own affairs.
“Mrs. Strafford, you will keep my secret a little longer?” she asked, her face serious enough now.
“Certainly, as long as we can. Not a soul in Madras knows your identity. It ought not to be difficult.”
“I have seen my husband, but I don’t consider that he has seen me yet. I have not spoken with him at present, nor have I even been introduced.”
“My fault!” cried Barbara. “I thought it best not to be in too great a hurry. It would be a mistake to rush him.”
“I quite agree. We can decide later on how far things may be allowed to go on without an explanation. The confession can always be made, but, once made, we cannot go back on it. We must take the consequences. At least, I must.”
“You are a long-headed little person,” remarked Barbara, who was alive to the shrewd sense of what her companion was proposing to do. The excitement that Seeta had shown at first died down. It was replaced by a clear comprehension of the circumstances with a readiness to act as her common sense dictated. Of the two conspirators, Barbara was the more likely to lose her head and give away the situation.
“Of course, if I find myself obliged to face confession, I will make a clean breast of it,” said Seeta.
“Will it be very formidable?” asked Barbara with a touch of curiosity.
“Not now that I have seen him. I am no longer afraid of him. He’s a dear,” she said with a sudden warmth that came from her heart. “I am sure that I may trust him to treat me well.”
She let her eyes rest on her companion. Although she spoke with conviction, it would be comforting to have her words confirmed by one who knew him so well. Barbara did not fail her.
“You ought to be confident by this time that he may be trusted.”
Mrs. Strafford returned to her letters. She pulled out her husband’s and read it again.
“I suppose I must be patient,” she said, more to herself than to Seeta. “It will be three weeks before John arrives.”
“And it will be three weeks before Mrs. Narasimha arrives by the Chitral. I, too, must be patient,” remarked Seeta.
“It will be difficult to keep your secret all that time.”
“It depends on all sorts of things. He is a busy man. We may not have many opportunities of seeing each other.”
“What will you do if he goes off to Colombo to meet the boat there?”
“Judging by what the Madras papers say, he will have no opportunity. The members of the Commission are gathering here to give their reports. It falls to his lot to superintend the summarising and condensing of the information before it is laid on the Council table.”
“How do you know all this?”
“By studying the papers. There is no secrecy about the proceedings. The whole business is to be finished, they hope, by the fifteenth. He has timed my arrival opportunely.”
“At which date he will meet the Chitral here?”
“At which date he will meet his wife on the jetty if he is able to get away from the Council Chamber in time. I shall be there as soon as the boat anchors. I shall not wait for him if he is late, which I anticipate. I shall go straight to his house, and he will find me there.”
“You are wonderful.”
Seeta smiled as she answered.
“I am back in my own garden of delight. Though I am not familiar with Madras itself, I am in the country of my birth. I did not know that I should be so completely at home as soon as I felt the sun, saw the palms, and heard and smelt the East. It is like awaking out of a dream. And, oh! Mrs. Strafford! how happy I am to be back again!”
As soon as it was known that Mrs. Strafford had arrived in Madras to await the return of her husband, she received many callers and more invitations than she could accept. One of the invitations was from Colonel Beech, whose regiment was stationed in the Fort.
Regimental sports were to be held on the large level piece of turf just outside the Fort walls. It was known as the Island, and from the earliest times of the occupation of the British had been used as a parade-ground. It still served the same purpose, and was also greatly in request for sports and gymkhanas. There was plenty of room outside the space roped in for the many guests of the regiment or club that happened to be giving the display.
The gymkhanas were popular with the Europeans, from the Government officials downwards. They also brought hordes of Indians inhabiting the thickly populated quarter called George Town, and from the old city of Triplicane, laid out two centuries ago by the French when they occupied Madras. It was a perfectly orderly crowd that required no policing. They knew little of the science of the competitions that took place, except the tent-pegging.
The contests that provided the Indians with most amusement were the gymkhana items, the sack race, the obstacle race, and the three-legged race. To see an Englishman tied up in a sack, a common form of punishment among themselves, staggering along only to roll helplessly on the ground, appeared screamingly humorous in their eyes. The skill with which the shackled men covered the ground was entirely lost sight of. It seemed strange to the spectators that the competitors did not lose their tempers over it, but they laughed even more heartily than the people who were looking on. The falls were greeted with loud “Hohs!” and “Ya-hahs!” What the sound expressed it was difficult to say. In any case, the predicament in which the good-natured Tommy found himself in no way lessened the respect felt for him by the Indian.
A tent was pitched in the enclosure, where the guests of the regiment were received. There was a large gathering. The officers, mostly in riding kit, ready to take part in the mounted competitions, were everywhere in evidence, greeting their friends with ready hospitality.
Colonel Beech, in mufti with his wife, was in his element. He was never happier than when he was entertaining. He loved his men and took care to see that the prizes they competed for were plentiful and good.
Barbara arrived on the ground accompanied by Seeta. The motor drew up at the entrance of the enclosure. The Colonel came forward to greet them, and he led them to the spot where his wife was seated near the starting-point. Already a number of people had found seats, many of them known to Barbara. Several Hindu and Muhamadan gentlemen, holding positions in the Government service, were present. They brought their handsomely dressed, well-educated wives, who were as much at their ease as their European sisters.
More than once Seeta’s eyes swept over the crowd in search of a figure. Narasimha had not arrived, and she could not tell if he intended to accept the invitation. That he received one she felt certain. Presently she found Colonel Beech by her side.
“Now, Miss Seeta Rama, I am going to take you to see the course marked out for the obstacle race, if you will allow me. Mrs. Strafford, will you come, too?”
Barbara was already deep in a conversation with his wife.
“If you will excuse me, I will stay with Mrs. Beech,” she said, a reply that carried no disappointment to the gallant Colonel. He was well content to have Seeta all to himself, although he was not a man of the Major Robinson kind.
“We have had to mark out the course for the obstacle race apart from the ordinary course, because the obstacles have to be fixed firmly and securely. We don’t want to have any accidents.”
They strolled on to the first obstruction.
“What are these tubs for?” asked Seeta, looking at a set of swinging barrels that had been deprived of their ends.
“Each competitor has to crawl through one of them. He may take his choice.”
“Does anyone hold the tub for him?”
“Oh dear, no!”
“The swinging of the tub must make it very difficult to crawl through.”
“Rather! That’s where the fun comes in.”
“And those buckets hanging on the bar over there?”
“They are full of water and have to be pushed aside. It means a shower bath, of course. The men can’t get past without upsetting the water, and if that doesn’t insure a ducking they will get it in the water-jump over there. You must come and look at it.”
As they were about to walk on an officer came up. With him was Narasimha, anxious to pay his respects to the Colonel on arrival and full of apologies for being so late.
“I was unavoidably detained by a deputation bringing more evidence about the condition of their district.”
“Never mind, there’s plenty to see yet,” said the Colonel heartily.
The officer put in a word.
“His Excellency would like to have a chat with you, sir. He will not be able to stay long.”
“Do you know what he wants?”
“I think he would like to offer a prize or two for the drummer-boys. He doesn’t see their names down on the programme.”
“All right. Say I will be with him immediately.” He turned to Narasimha. “Do you know Miss Seeta Rama? She has come out from England with Mrs. Strafford. Will you take my place and show her the water-jump at the end of the course? The obstacle race is great fun. It will come off in five or ten minutes.”
As he finished speaking he turned away and hurried towards the tent to seek the great man who had asked for him.
Narasimha glanced after the Colonel. His first instinct was to excuse himself and follow his host but this was impossible. The Colonel had left him a duty to perform in the name of courtesy, and he must do it. Like His Excellency, he had not much time to spare for idling. He would take his companion to the water-jump and then conduct her back to Mrs. Strafford, whom he had already greeted in the tent.
Seeta’s pulses throbbed. She was not only introduced in such a way to her husband that his eyes must perforce be brought to bear upon her, but, in addition, fate had been kind in isolating them, in allowing them to be together without the presence of a third person.
She controlled the excitement that inwardly shook her and pulled herself together, striving to find some commonplace remark with which she could open the kind of conversation demanded by the ordinary rules of society.
“What a pretty sight a gathering like this makes,” she said at last, as they moved towards the spot where the water-jump had been prepared. “It is all colour and light, so different from the greyness of England.”
“It’s all due to the sun. You must be very glad to see it again,” he replied, watching unconsciously for the curving of the lips into a smile that was the more fascinating because it was fleeting.
“I didn’t know what a gift the sun is to us of the East—until I lost it.”
“Were you long in England?”
“I was taken there as a child,” she replied. “You have been up north, I believe. There the sun is more apt to be hidden by mists than down here in the south. Am I asking too much if I inquire whether your mission has been successful?”
“You know what we had in view?” he asked, his eyes seeking her face with a suddenly aroused curiosity.
“I read an account of it in the weekly Indian papers. It was the improvement of the agricultural resources of India, as I understood it.”
“That is so,” he said.
“It seems to me an enormous subject, continental in its extent. Didn’t you find it so?”
He glanced at her again. The smile of trivial social conversation had vanished. It was evident that she was as seriously impressed as he was. But for all that he was not inclined to discuss a great subject like this with a girl who had only just finished her English education. What could she know of political economy? As he did not reply, she continued,
“It is not only enormous on account of the area that the term India includes, it is immense because it embraces so many subjects that are of necessity linked with agriculture.”
He bowed his head in acquiescence, but he was still unwilling to be drawn into a discussion with this unknown daughter of India.
“It includes irrigation, cattle-breeding, forestry, manufactures, the raw material, and many more that I could mention,” continued Seeta, summoning all her courage to her aid as he became less and less responsive. Without waiting for comment she went on with a query which he could not very well pass over in silence.
“Did you take evidence and report on the condition of all these branches?”
“We did, but we were more immediately concerned with the production of the food supplies,” he replied, with a strange unwillingness.
“Of course, I am not an expert, but I think I am an observer. I am also an Indian and intensely interested in my country’s welfare,” said Seeta, with an apologetic smile. “A larger problem, to my mind lies in dealing with the people, the agriculturists.”
“May I ask if you have had any experience with ryots?”
The smile disappeared and he thought he detected a ray of resentment in her eyes. It was a personal question that went just a little beyond the generalities with which they were dealing. A few seconds elapsed before she answered. The reply came with a slight lift of the chin.
“My father is a Zemindar, owning a large estate and a great number of ryots.”
His curiosity was roused, but he dared not ask more. He would have been glad to know where the estate was situated, but the innate courtesy of the well-bred Indian kept him silent. He had already gone quite as far as he dared in eliciting the fact that her father was a Zemindar. Naturally, if such was the case, she would be immensely interested in any measures taken by the Government to improve the condition of the agriculturists.
“You think—from your family’s experience—that one of our difficulties will lie with the ryots themselves?”
“I do, I feel sure of it.” They had reached the last obstacle. “Here is the water-jump. I suppose no man, European or Indian, could clear it?”
“It is purposely made so.”
“To create difficulties for the competitors and fun for the spectators. Let’s go back to the swinging barrels. They fascinate me. If you are not in a hurry I should like so much to see how the Tommies manage to get through.”
They strolled back to the point and took up a position near. The men were assembling already for the race. It was evidently a popular competition, judging by the many entries.
“With regard to the subject we were discussing, you must have read it up carefully to see where the crux of the difficulty lies,” said Narasimha.
“Dwarfs see a long way on giants’ shoulders,” she replied. “I read an amusing letter from a retired English official in a home paper that had alluded to the Agricultural Commission in one of its leaders. He said that he had tried hard to improve the methods of the Indian agriculturist. On one occasion he had sent those of a certain district a supply of special seed that he believed would be a great improvement on the seed they were using, which was gathered year after year from the same soil.”
She broke off as the race started and followed it keenly.
“Oh, now they are coming! How quickly they cover the ground! Oh, well played! Good! she exclaimed enthusiastically, as two men took headers neatly through their chosen tubs and landed sufficiently far enough to touch the ground with their hands. It was the work of only a few seconds to grip the turf and kick their feet free of the tubs.
“These men are practised hands,” remarked Narasimha.
“I hope they will win.” Her eyes followed them to the water-jump. Their encounter with the suspended buckets before they reached the water-jump soaked them to the skin.
“What was the end of the old civilian’s story?” he asked, when the men had passed.
“He put himself to some trouble to procure seed, choosing it from a district where the conditions were similar in the matter of soil, climate, and irrigation. He took the precaution of sending someone to see that it was planted.”
“And the result?” asked Narasimha, deeply interested by this time in the story as well as in the narrator herself.
“They had bumper crops and an excellent harvest.”
“He must have been gratified at the success of his experiment.”
“He would have been if only the cultivators had availed themselves of the opportunity to improve the quality of the grain. By the time he visited the district to urge the people to save the crop for seed, they had thrashed out the rice, boiled, and eaten it. They grinned at him, wagged their heads wisely, and explained that the grain of the rice was larger than that of their old kind. They preferred the old, small grain; it agreed with them better than the new. They intended for the future to plant the traditional muster of seed. It had served their fathers and would serve them better than anything else that could be found.”
“I wonder that the letter was not copied into our Indian papers.”
“It was rather long. From the agricultural labourers the writer went on to speak of the necessity of adult education.” She broke off again to comment on the race. “See! The two men who took their tubs so splendidly have come in first and second. Now we will go and find Mrs. Strafford.”
The suggestion that he should take her back to Mrs. Strafford did not meet with his approval. She had succeeded in interesting him, partly, but only partly, by what she was saying. There was another charm that was stealing upon him and making its influence to be felt. He caught himself watching for the smile that came and went like a shy ray of sunlight peeping through broken mist. The sound of her voice, matured and womanly, pleased his cultivated ear. The occasional turn of the small, expressive hands revealed a depth of emotion that had nothing childish or shallow about it.
He had met several of his countrywomen in Madras, the wives of officials in the same service as himself. They were all educated, thoughtful women, capable of preserving their dignity and self-respect, while they enjoyed the social liberty granted to them by their husbands. But, so far, he had never met one who did not possess a visible protector with a husband’s authority. Miss Seeta Rama was apparently under no control other than that of Mrs. Strafford.
They moved towards the tent, which was some distance away, strolling slowly. A young man hurried up. It was the irrepressible Smith.
“Miss Seeta Rama,” he cried; “do let me take you to see the cups and prizes.”
Seeta swung round towards him, the smile once more vanished.
“Thanks, but I have an escort. Mr. Narasimha is showing me all that I wish to see.”
She turned on her heel, implying by the action that she did not require his escort, and picking up her conversation with Narasimha she said:
“Shall we walk on? I was telling you about this letter of the retired official. He really had a great deal of excellent advice to offer, but it was too lengthy; it wanted condensing. You could read between the lines that the memory of his frustrated efforts to better the condition of the agriculturists rankled in his mind.”
Smith had been pacing alongside, unable to take his dismissal. Not knowing what she was talking about, he fell back, as she intended he should.
Narasimha lost nothing of the incident, and again his curiosity was stirred. Where had the girl been bred, and how could she have acquired the ability to rid herself of a pushing Englishman who could not take a rebuff unless it was palpably marked? She must have mixed with those self-possessed women of the present day who were dispensing with chaperones and learning to protect themselves.
“Poor fellow,” he said, alluding to the old civilian. “There is nothing so disheartening to the philanthropist as stupidity.”
“But is it stupidity?” she asked. “I put the act of the ryots down to ignorance and a certain shrewdness and conservative distrust of any innovation. That’s what you are up against in India, and the old civilian seemed aware of it, although it is some years since he retired.”
“How did he show it?”
“By his allusion to the ignorance of the masses all over the world. He declared that the great need of the present day is adult education. The writer recommended a little science-series of handbooks on simple political economy lately brought out by one of the big educational publishers. I bought one of the series called ‘Adult Education,’ which might prove helpful.”
“Was the book practical?”
“Miss Seeta Rama,” cried Smith, back again by her side. “I meant to ask you, are you going to the Club ball tomorrow?”
“I hope so.”
“Will you give me two or three dances?” he asked eagerly.
“I don’t dance.” She turned to Narasimha again giving Smith her shoulder and speaking in her own language, “You ask me if the book was practical. It was; I thought it highly useful. It put forward clearly and concisely the means by which adult education of the masses may be carried on.”
“Will you tell me what was recommended?” asked Narasimha, dropping like his companion into his mother-tongue.
Smith stopped abruptly in his uneasy pacing by Seeta’s side, and turned away with an expression of disgust on his face. The language of the country had been a little too much for him. He did not understand it, and he found himself outside the pale of their conversation, in which he would have readily intruded had he been given the opportunity.
“Mr. Smith doesn’t take a hint easily,” remarked Seeta, reverting to English.
“I believe he has the reputation of being rather dense,” answered Narasimha.
“Young and filled to the eyes with self-esteem. On the whole, they are not bad qualities for the rough and tumble that the world has had since the war.”
“You were telling me about this book on adult education. What does it recommend?”
“The subject is very much to the fore in England just now. The Services have taken it up as well as the municipalities. I heard of a Company Captain the other day who was ordered to hold classes for his men on the rudiments of banking.”
“That would not be of much use to our agriculturists,” remarked Narasimha, with a smile.
“The writer of the handbook confined himself to technical subjects. He recommended practical demonstration by means of films or dramatic action. For some time past the lecturer on cooking has been teaching her class how to mix a pudding by doing it herself before their eyes. Water lifting, mechanical ploughing, even the mechanical milking of cows can be shown in demonstration.”
“Have you the book?”
“Sorry, I left it behind. To tell the truth, I put it into circulation.”
“Into circulation? I don’t quite understand.”
“Books for the most part are of no use unless they pass from hand to hand. Libraries don’t attract me. They are the unprofitable stores of misers. I met a man in England who prided himself on his large collection of books. He boasted of the fact that many of them had their leaves uncut. They were what he proudly called mint-proof. This little book had some wise advice to offer on the subject of adult self-education, so I left it on the seat of an omnibus, hoping that someone would pick it up, digest its contents, and pass it on.”
They reached the tent. Barbara with Mrs. Beech and other guests were just issuing.
“Miss Seeta Rama, you have arrived in time to see the prizes,” said Mrs. Beech. “They are arranged on a table over there.”
Seeta left her companion and moved forward to Mrs. Beech’s side. Narasimha found himself by Barbara.
“Have you time to spare to look at these baubles?” she asked. “You said something about important work awaiting you at home.”
“Like your husband, I am always busy, but I am glad of a break now and then. Miss Seeta Rama and I have been watching the obstacle race.”
“She would enjoy it immensely.”
“I find that she is interested in other matters besides sport.”
“Very much so,” responded Barbara warmly. “She is one of the most patriotic of India’s daughters.”
“I gather that she belongs to the family of a Zemindar. Do you know if his estate is in this Presidency?”
“I think not. Her home is in the southern part of the Bombay Presidency. I cannot tell you where, for I don’t know.”
“It is a personal question that perhaps I ought not to have asked. Forgive me, but she interests me to an extraordinary degree.”
“There’s nothing remarkable in that. You ought to be proud of any countrywoman who has responded to her English education as Miss Seeta Rama has done.”
Narasimha did not reply. He followed the group that, under the eyes of Mrs. Beech, was moving towards the table of prizes. His eyes sought the figure of the girl who was walking by the side of Mrs. Beech. She had taken up the cup that was to be the reward of the man who had won the obstacle race.
“He deserves it for his cleverness. I am glad that there is something for the one who came in second,” she remarked. “It was such a good second.”
Other guests closed in round the table and Narasimha was gradually separated from his late companion. He made no attempt to push his way in and occupy her attention again. He had been fortunate in securing the chat on the field and he must be content. It was easy to see that Miss Seeta Rama’s popularity was growing. Several people in turn had asked to be introduced.
Five minutes later Narasimha quietly withdrew without waiting for the distribution of prizes. He found his car and returned to his house. The writing-table in his room was piled with typed folios. Broad margins were left on which notes in red ink could be made where further reductions in matter were needed.
He seated himself in the cane lounge placed near enough to the table for him to reach the papers. But his hand was not outstretched to grasp the sections pinned together by the paper clips.
The work which before starting out he had assured himself ought to be done, faded into the background of his mind. The vision of brown eyes and curving lips came between him and the typed sheet. The pleasant tones of a sympathetic voice lingered in his ear.
What was it she had said? He could not recall the exact words. They related to the ryots and their need of adult education. Or she spoke of the men she called Tommies. The import of her speech mattered nothing. It was the sound of her voice that held him in a new enchantment. It was the sight of the frequent and fleeting smile that fascinated him. It was the gleam of the eye that met his so steadily, so full of understanding, that set his pulses throbbing and filled him with a disturbing desire to see her again.
The days passed quickly. Barbara and Seeta, both of the same mind, accepted various invitations. They went to see the tennis where Barbara occasionally joined in a game. She was not a keen player, and as Seeta did not play she always had a companion as a spectator. They spent pleasant hours in the shops, Mrs. Strafford choosing the furniture for the house she and John would take as soon as he joined her. Three or four tea-parties were given to friends, and the hours never hung on their hands.
Seeta had plenty of time for reading, books and papers and magazines. She was a quick reader and was not interrupted by other interests. Barbara had her boy to look after. She had brought out a good English nurse, but every spare hour was spent with the little fellow, a merry, happy child with the energy still remaining in him to be boisterous and naughty when his spirits bubbled over.
In addition to looking after Jacky, Barbara had her daily letter to write to her husband. This duty would soon come to an end. She was counting the days to his return. He was able by this time to fix the date. It was to be the fifteenth, the day originally mentioned by Narasimha.
“Have you told Mr. Strafford about me?” asked Seeta one day as Barbara spoke of their future plans.
“No; it would involve explanations which we are not prepared to give, are we?” she concluded, looking at Seeta in inquiry.
“I would rather keep my secret a little longer.”
“Do you think that you can do so yourself?”
“If I am not to see more of him than I have seen for the last week, it seems to me that I could keep it months,” said Seeta.
There was a ring of disappointment in her voice. Barbara was sorry for her. She would willingly have hastened matters if Seeta had not expressly asked for silence.
“You must remember that Narasimha is a very busy man,” she said.
“He will be busier than ever when Mr. Strafford returns.”
“I think you are mistaken. John has sent in all his evidence, and he hopes that it will have been dealt with by the time he reaches Madras.”
There was silence for a while which Barbara broke. The subject was still in her mind.
“I am rather vexed,” she remarked, “that Narasimha hasn’t called on me. I felt sure he would.”
“If he is so overwhelmed with this agricultural work, we must suppose that he has not had time to do so,” said Seeta, strangely ready to defend and excuse his conduct as soon as it fell under the criticism of another.
“The calling hours are really prohibitive for men. According to time-honoured custom, they may only come between the hours of twelve and two, at which period of the day they ought to be in the thick of business. They can’t go out in their office kit; it is necessary to return home and change, and this in the very hottest hours of the day.”
“They might manage to call in the evening,” remarked Seeta, thinking of Narasimha’s shortcomings in respect to the matter.
“We should be out. What would be the good? If they want to meet us, they had far better go to the club grounds, where we should be found.”
“I haven’t seen my husband at any of the clubs. I suppose he doesn’t play games.”
“He’s great on polo; so is John. This means that he is often at Guindy when we are at tennis or golf.”
“How often do they play?”
“Three or four evenings a week. It doesn’t last long. They play a strenuous game, and it is quite long enough for the ponies.”
Seeta allowed some minutes to pass; then she said:
“Mrs. Strafford, do you think that I have made any impression?”
“What do you feel about it yourself?”
“I am puzzled. Since the regimental sports I have met him twice, but only for a few minutes. Each time he has left me abruptly. On the first occasion I lured him into speaking of his beloved work. He stopped abruptly in the middle of it.”
“Perhaps he thought he ought not to talk shop and that you were not interested.”
“I am sure it was not that. He could see for himself that I had followed the proceedings of the Commission closely. I am intensely interested apart from its being connected with him. It touches the welfare of my country vitally.”
“What happened on the second occasion?”
“I don’t know. I cannot guess what was the matter.”
“Did you talk shop again?”
“No; this time I was telling him of the dance at the Adyar Club and how Colonel and Mrs. Beech took me out in a boat on the river. It was moonlight, a fairy scene. The sound of the band playing for the dancers came across the water, and the night air was soft and warm. It was a fairy scene like nothing I have ever seen in chilly England.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He hoped that we had a good waterman to row and keep us away from the banks where the water-snakes congregate! We didn’t see any.”
“At times the river is full of them—nasty creatures!”
“I told him who was there—Colonel and Mrs. Beech, Major and Mrs. Turner, of the regiment, and myself. I let myself go enthusiastically about the tropical moonlight and explained how different I found it from the moonlight of the north of Europe.”
“He didn’t enthuse as you did?”
“Not in the least. I ventured to add that I wished he could have been there to enjoy it as I did.”
“What was his answer?” asked Barbara with an amused smile, which she was careful to suppress.
“He turned away abruptly without a word, avoiding my eye, and making his escape. I can’t call it anything else. What could have been the reason for his running away like that?”
“I can’t think,” replied Barbara mendaciously.
His reason for flight was obvious. He was flying from the lure of a woman whose influence was making itself felt in spite of his struggles to resist it. She was drawing his thoughts away from the mechanical programme of his existence that he had mapped out for himself.
Barbara could easily visualise all that had happened and could read through the lines where Seeta herself was mentally blind. And Mrs. Strafford was right.
As long as Seeta was within his line of vision his eyes dwelt lingeringly on the features of this unknown girl. Reason said: “Forget her. Put her out of your thoughts. You have a wife, who in a few days will come to claim her rights. You cannot do your duty to her if you allow your mind to be filled with the charms of another woman.”
When Seeta was not in his line of vision he could listen to reason with patience and a resolve to follow its dictates. But when he was with her, when the atmosphere was charged with the sense of her presence, he thrust reason aside. He was only conscious of the tumultuous cravings of his heart. In spite of his European education, his nature was Oriental. His soul went out to her in one great wave of desire that lifted him off his feet and tossed him, bewildered and helpless, beyond the reach of reason and convention.
He cursed the customs of his forefathers that insisted on child-marriage, that linked the lives of men and women together before they knew what they were about.
As long as caste was satisfied, the most incongruous ties were made between highly refined individuals and uncouth, semi-civilised men or women. What had it been in his case? A refined, educated man found himself bound for life to a little jungle cat, as uncivilised in her ways as it was possible for a well-born girl to be.
Thoughts of this character, accompanied by longings that should have been strangled at birth, raced through his heart and his brain every time his eyes rested on Seeta. The strain became too great, the temptation to seek out her father and ask if a marriage could be arranged was too strong, to enable him to preserve his composure. He had determined from the very first to be the husband of one wife. The temptation to break this resolution produced chaos in his otherwise orderly mind.
Then he tore himself away, not trusting himself to make an excuse or give a reason for his abrupt behaviour. He took refuge in his study, where there was plenty to occupy his mind if he could only concentrate his thoughts.
Barbara divined something of this with her greater experience of love, but Seeta had no suspicion of the turmoil she was raising in her husband’s heart. It had been easy to say:
“I must see him. He must see me.”
And it had not been difficult to accomplish as far as she was concerned. The blossoming love that she felt for her husband since her encounter with Alan was gradually coming to its full beauty.
But the effect of her second decree, “He must see me,” she could not foretell. It was going to be immense, almost catastrophic.
When Narasimha returned to his house, hoping to concentrate his attention on the papers that had accumulated on his office table, he was not always successful. In such a case he turned his attention to the upper story of his house. Here the zenana was to be prepared. Long ago he had decided that it should be furnished in a manner befitting his wife. It should be very different from the wedding chamber given to him and his bride on the memorable night at Chittoor.
Already he had caused the walls to be distempered, blinds to be hung, and fine bamboo matting to be laid down. A little furniture had been bought, but the process of choosing it was slow. He found himself difficult to please.
The reason for his fastidiousness may have been caused by the preconceived notions he had acquired through having seen the bower John Strafford had prepared for his bride. He had a vivid recollection of the cottage at Coonoor, the cretonne curtains covered with a pattern of tea roses, the two beds with their frilled pillows and embroidered coverlets, the dressing-table and looking-glass, the easy chairs and cushions.
Narasimha had long ago made up his mind that he would have just such a home for the woman who bore his name when the time came for her to join him.
Every odd half-hour that he had to spare was spent in the big European shops looking at furniture. Some of the bits that he required had been ordered. Chairs and cushions were being covered, rugs were chosen and house linen.
Time was getting short, and he was anxious to have everything finished without delay. There had been difficulty in procuring a cretonne that pleased him. When Strafford chose his the fashion prevailed of a flowing pattern of flowers as like the real blossoms as possible. Nearly six years had passed since then, and the mode had altered. The flowery had been superseded by the more conventional design.
There was no time to send to London for it, even if it could be found, which the furnishing firm assured him was doubtful. On his last visit he had carried away half a dozen patterns of the material that was in stock. He said he would decide and let them know so that they might set about making the curtains as soon as possible.
The rooms on the upper story of his house followed the lines of those below to a great extent. A certain amount of space was devoted to the staircase, and on the right the upper veranda opened on to a terraced roof that promised a private spot where the mistress of the house could sit in the evening and take the air if she was not disposed to drive or walk.
The verandas were wide and pillared and admitted the breeze as it blew in off the sea a mile or so distant. The house had been built a hundred and fifty years ago in the Company’s days when money was plentiful and labour cheap. The walls were thick and kept out the heat.
The front room was being furnished as a sitting-room. A large room behind this was the bedroom. On the north-west side was a dressing-room looking inland over palms and large forest trees—tamarinds, mangoes, margosas, and banyans. Here and there could be seen the green rice-fields yellowing to harvest. The mud huts of a hamlet were hidden among the coconut palms. Behind the belt of trees the sun sank in a glory of colour, sending arcs of crimson across the sky to meet the horizon of the sea in the east.
The garden that surrounded the house was full of flowers and foliage plants, and the base of the walls and the verandas was hidden in ferns and palms. Nothing that money could procure was wanting to make it a perfect home, whether the master and mistress were Europeans or Indians.
It was Saturday, a half-holiday in the offices. There was no special business to take Narasimha out. The Council did not sit on Saturdays. The bulk of his work had been sent to his house, and he decided to devote three hours of the morning to look through some of the reports that had not quite satisfied him.
He dealt first with the letters that had come by the morning delivery, answering two of a private nature and leaving the others for the clerks to reply to on Monday.
With pen in hand and the red ink within reach, he tackled the typed sheets. The house was quieter than the office and more airy, although it was farther from the sea. He came to the end of the particular section he had taken up, but not to the conclusion of the matter. There must be another bundle of sheets somewhere. He turned the piles over in his search. They were not in disorder, but if this particular section had been delivered after the first portion, it had become separated and placed with other papers that had more recently arrived from the office.
In turning over the sections he came upon the bundle of patterns of cretonnes that he had received from the furnishing firm. Instead of throwing it aside to be dealt with when the business in hand was finished, he weakly turned over the pieces, debating in his mind which to choose. It was fatal. Every day was of consequence, so the furniture people would have him believe, if everything was to be finished by the fifteenth. He was no nearer coming to a decision now than on the evening before.
Meanwhile the lost folio of typescript was found as he discovered the patterns. He was about to lay aside the latter and resume his study when a sudden suggestion came into his mind, scattering the business of making a digest to the winds.
Why should he not go and consult Mrs. Strafford about the cretonne? He could not have a better guide in his choice. He would take the bundle with him and pay his deferred call that was due ten days ago.
At half-past twelve he drove up to the hotel where Barbara was staying. In spite of his resolution to think no more of Mrs. Strafford’s young friend, his pulse throbbed faster than usual as the servant gave the old reply: “Yes, sir, missus can see.” He followed the man upstairs to the drawing-room, a large pillared salon that would easily hold a hundred guests, as it doubtless did in the old days when the house was occupied by a member of Council.
Barbara was alone. Many of the visitors to the hotel had departed. The few that remained were occupied elsewhere. As he entered she rose, and went towards him with outstretched hand.
“Mr. Narasimha! how good of you to find time to call!”
“I ought to apologise for not having done so before.”
They seated themselves by the ferns and foliage plants grouped in the veranda at the open window. Close to the house stood two or three noble palms, their glossy fronds of shining green rubbing together in the breeze and producing a rustle that was like nothing heard in England.
“I know how difficult it is for men to find time for calling. Therefore I am the more appreciative,” she said.
He did not reply immediately. He was anxious that Mrs. Strafford should extend a friendly hand to the Little One and teach her the ways of society. He had not mentioned to Barbara that he was expecting his wife by the Chitral. He was beginning to think that it was about time to let his intimate friends know of it. He would have to account to Mrs. Strafford presently for the furnishing of his spare rooms, and explain his anxiety to make a good choice of the cretonne he had brought.
“I am not a single man. You heard from your husband that I am married, although I am leading a bachelor life.”
“When your wife joins you, which I hope will be soon,” said Barbara, “she will be able to do all the society work for you, as I do for my husband.”
Again there was a pause, during which Narasimha seemed to be debating something in his mind. Barbara’s heart beat a little more rapidly than usual. She would have avoided the subject of his wife if possible. It was full of pitfalls for her unwary feet. Her light-hearted, outspoken temperament was not of a secretive nature, and she dreaded lest she should make a slip. She hoped that his thoughts were centred too exclusively on the all-absorbing agricultural question to be able to put two and two together.
“I have never mentioned my wife——” he began diffidently.
She interrupted him with almost a gasp of apprehension.
“I quite understand. We English are reticent about our intimate family affairs. You as a nation are doubly so. I wish we followed your example more closely.”
Any confidences that he might have been disposed to make were nipped in the bud. He fell back on the subject of his house furnishing without further explanation.
“I have brought a few patterns of cretonne on which I should like to have your advice. I am completing the upper rooms of my house—sitting, bed, and dressing rooms. I have a very pleasant memory of your pretty cottage, as I saw it on your wedding day, when I helped Strafford after his accident.”
“It is still one of the prettiest little houses at Coonoor. It was bad luck beginning our honeymoon with an accident,” said Barbara, relieved that he no longer spoke of his wife.
“I admired it so much, particularly the stuff that your husband had chosen for curtains. The pattern was tea roses. I have been trying to get something like it from the firm that supplied yours, but they say they are out of it and they doubt if they can repeat it.”
“By this time it is old-fashioned,” said Barbara. “We had it nearly six years ago. Yes, it’s six years next August. I can hardly believe it!”
He opened the little parcel he had been carrying.
“I have brought some patterns for you to see.”
“What is the colour of the walls?”
“A pale buff.”
She chose one that had the tea rose as a motif, but the design followed the taste of the day and was conventional.
“I like this.”
“So do I, but I hadn’t the courage of my convictions,” he said, pleased to have his choice confirmed.
“It is quite up to date. I have seen the sort of thing in England lately. Have the furnishers plenty of it?”
“More than I shall need, they tell me.”
“I shall bespeak the rest. My roses at Coonoor have faded and grown shabby. Young Jacky has been the destructive element. Let me have the number and I’ll call this afternoon and give the order.”
She rose and went to a small bureau, where she made a note. Narasimha’s eyes turned two or three times towards the door. The action did not escape Barbara. His call was upon her. If by a fortunate chance her companion happened to be in and visible, so much the better. He did not venture to ask for Miss Seeta Rama.
Barbara returned to her seat. She began to question him about the sport he loved best in the world.
“Are you playing polo next week at Guindy?” she asked.
“On Thursday next we shall be having our last match of the season. I hope very much to be able to play. I’m a little out of practice, but I am told that I am good enough all the same to be included in the team. I wish your husband was here to join us.”
“I should like to see the match even though he won’t be there.”
“Will you and your friend come as my guests? I should be so pleased,” he said quickly, as though it had only just occurred to him that Mrs. Strafford would be interested.
“We shall be delighted,” replied Barbara promptly. “What team are you playing against?”
“One from Bangalore.”
“Then it will be rather a tough proposition. The Bangalore people have the advantage of a better climate for the ponies than you have.”
“It will be a very good fight. After the match I shall send my ponies up to Ooty.”
“I’m so glad we shall have the opportunity of seeing a match,” said Barbara, beginning to wish Seeta would turn up and make a diversion. She still felt very uneasy over the drift of the conversation. The girl had announced her intention of going shopping; but she was such an independent person that Barbara was never sure of her movements.
“Did you see anything of Miss Cullington when you were at home?” asked Narasimha.
“Goodness gracious!” said Barbara to herself. “Now I’m in for it!” Then to Narasimha: “Very little indeed. She was away abroad somewhere when I arrived, and by the time she had returned I had left London and had gone to my mother. My mother was staying at the seaside, and it was so good for Jacky to be there. I spent very little time in town.”
“I am deeply indebted to Miss Cullington. I feel that I can never repay her for all that she has done for me.”
Barbara sprang up with a frantic endeavour to stop him.
“I will go and see if Miss Seeta Rama is in. She will be sorry to miss you.”
She got no farther than the doorway. Seeta, buoyant with the joy of an excursion made on her own account, met her on the threshold. She entered the room, her eyes lighting up with pleasure as they fell on the figure of Narasimha, who had risen from his chair. She carried several parcels in her arms.
Seeta placed her parcels on a table and held out her hand.
“I’m so glad I haven’t missed you. Have you been here long?” she said, with the smile that held enchantment for him.
“I wondered where you were,” cried Barbara with relief. Now if he chose to speak of Miss Cullington she could leave Seeta to deal with the problem of how he was to be answered.
“I’ve been shopping. Oh! it’s such a contrast to the shopping in High Street, Kensington, or at the Army and Navy Stores! However, I discovered one or two things I wanted, to compensate for the many I could not find. The chauffeur knows his Madras well.”
She slipped back the edge of the saree that had been resting on the neat coil of hair at the back of her head. The saree was of a rich royal blue bordered with silver. She had draped it over a white English frock of fine, soft material cut in the latest fashion. Her stockings were of a silvery silk and the shoes had dainty little silver buttons to their many straps.
She picked out one of the packages that she had brought back with her and untied the string. It contained a small book with a plain red cover. She held it out to him.
“This is the little volume of which I was speaking the other day. ‘Adult Education.’ You must read it.”
“Thanks; this is very good of you,” he said as he took it from her hand and glanced at the title-page.
“I don’t want it again. When you have done with it, treat it as I treated my copy and put it into circulation. Your committee may be interested.”
“Is it really for me?” he asked, laying it down beside the cretonne patterns.
“Yes, for keeps, and may you find it as interesting as I did.”
“It is written for the English adult, of course.”
“English or Indian the methods are much the same. They can be applied in principle to the most primitive agriculturists.”
“Where did you find the book?” asked Barbara.
“I went to the big booksellers here some days ago and asked for it. They had not got it in stock. Whereupon I scolded them for not having a popular up-to-date book like this. I told them that philanthropists in England were tumbling over each other to secure a copy.”
“What did they say to your reproaches?” asked Barbara with a smile of amusement.
“They were apologetic and full of promises. I asked them to wire to Bombay for it, and they were lucky enough to get it.” She turned to Narasimha, whose eyes were upon her, fascinated by something more than her words. “They say in England that it is good for trade to ask for things. Demand brings the supply. Supply doesn’t create the demand.”
She turned to Barbara again.
“My next quest was a failure, a washout, as the girls say.”
“What were you looking for, may I ask?” said Narasimha.
“You will never guess. I was in search of a flower-shop, a window full of lovely cut flowers that fill a room with their sweetness. I couldn’t find even a coster’s barrow.”
“We have no flower-shops in Madras, have we, Mr. Narasimha?” remarked Barbara.
“The only place where flowers might be found would be in the market early in the morning.”
“So the chauffeur told me. Sad to say, I have come back without the tuberose lilies and jasmine which I had been counting upon.”
“I am sorry you were disappointed,” said Barbara. “Most people have gardens of their own and they look to the gardener to supply sufficient to fill the vases.”
“But what do they produce?” said Seeta scornfully. “Marigolds, zinnias, bougainvilleas, like those over there. They have no more scent than the artificial flowers that I dislike so much. However, I consoled myself.”
“What with?” asked Barbara. “A bottle of eau-de-Cologne?”
“No, I went to the Indian shops behind the Club. I had no disappointment there. They were fascinating. After choosing a new saree——”
“A new saree! Oh, Seeta! You have such a number already.”
“An Indian woman can never have too many sarees,” said Seeta, with a little gesture of self-assertion that was not lost on the visitor. “The sarees don’t change their fashion as English dresses do. If I find myself up-country and out of reach of fascinating shops, think how I can amuse myself dressing up when I am tired of studying political economy! Now you shall see my latest extravagance. These must take the place of the flowers I cannot get.”
She went to the table that held her parcels and chose one of the bulkiest. She drew a chair near to the window as if in search of a good light and unfastened the string. The paper fell away and a number of bead necklaces slipped out and hung in a tangled mass over her knees. She grasped at them to save them from falling to the ground.
“I passed a bead stall. The necklaces were lying on a crimson mat. They were of many colours, glittering like diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls in the sun. I felt a sudden greed for them all. Look at these mother-of-pearl beauties. They are real enough, aren’t they? and fascinating!”
She handed a couple of strings to Narasimha. One of them had a blue gleam in the opaque depths of the globules. Another was tinged with a sea green. A third with a roseleaf tint she coiled round her arm from wrist to elbow. To Barbara she passed a string of finely cut crystal beads.
“How many have you bought, Seeta?” asked Barbara.
“Dear Mrs. Strafford, don’t scold! It was such a pleasure!”
“There must be a dozen necklaces or more here.”
“Quite that,” said the unabashed spendthrift as she fondled her newly acquired treasures. “I had a delightful bargaining with the merchant, an old white-bearded Muhamadan. He said he belonged to Hyderabad. It was so pleasant to sit down to a long bargain once again.”
“Did you get out of the car?” asked Barbara.
“He insisted on my coming into the shop. He spread a beautiful mat for me to sit upon, and when we had finished he presented me with a little glass vial of otto of rose.” She turned again to Narasimha. “You have been in England so you know how annoyed the English tradesmen are if you want to bargain. They say, ‘Madam, it is plainly marked five shillings and eleven pence. We can make no farther reduction.’ They speak so politely but they look so annoyed.”
Barbara laughed.
“Where should we be without that wonderful elevenpence? Our shopping would fall very flat.”
“I am afraid I think these beads a very poor substitute for the real thing,” said Narasimha as he handed back the mother-of-pearl.
“Are you going to wear them, Seeta?” asked Barbara.
“Rather not! The jewels of Indian women are always real unless, of course, the women are coolies. These are to be my playthings. I shall hang them about my toilette glass, and when I am tired of them I will give them to the ayah’s children. Pearls are my desire. I love pearls above all other gems.”
“I think I must come out shopping with you next time you go,” remarked Barbara. “You will make a terrible hole in your husband’s pocket if you go on like this.”
The word slipped out before Barbara realised what she was saying. Her momentary confusion escaped Narasimha’s notice, but the use of the word did not. It came like a bombshell. He waited breathlessly for the reply.
“He will have to shut me up in his zemindary house, where I can’t get into mischief,” responded Seeta, with a mock sigh but a humorous light in her eye. Barbara had struck no terror to her heart by the mention of a husband. Seeta was still revelling in the thought of her escape and gaining confidence with every interview.
“Don’t they feel delightful?” she asked, fingering them lovingly. “They are so smooth to the touch. I wish I could wear them!”
He did not respond. The two words spoken by Mrs. Strafford had been of the nature of a shock. They revealed what in his inmost mind he knew must exist—a husband. The man would probably consign this beautiful woman to a semi-purdanasheen existence in which the joyousness that was now such a charm would be extinguished in maternal cares and housekeeping.
For a second time acute nervousness seized Barbara. She turned over the bundle of patterns and said,
“Seeta, do give us your opinion. Mr. Narasimha contemplates completing the furnishing of his house. I have been helping him to choose a cretonne.” She put her finger haphazard on one of carnations. “What do you think of this?”
The girl bent over the patterns, deeply interested.
“Not much; carnations are stiff and formal, and the colour does not appeal to me.”
“This one of holly?”
“Oh no! Poor, prickly, unlovable holly, suggestive of frost and snow!”
She looked through the slips and came upon the roses. She exclaimed at once:
“Ah! There’s a charming design!”
“The roses of the Indian hills,” said Barbara.
“Lovely! Nothing could be better, Mr. Narasimha. You must have it.”
Seeta’s eyes were sparkling with a sense of fun as she realised that she had been asked to choose something for her own house.
“Mrs. Strafford and I were equally attracted by it,” he said.
Barbara gathered up the patterns and wrapped them in their paper covering. The fingers with which she tied the string actually trembled with the tension of the moment. She handed the parcel to him. He rose from his chair, taking her action as a hint that it was time to depart, as she intended it to be.
“May I hope that you will call and see my wife after she arrives?” he said, as he shook hands with Barbara.
“I’ll come with pleasure,” was the prompt reply.
He turned to Seeta.
“Is it too much to ask if you will?” he began diffidently.
“I shall be delighted,” said the unabashed Seeta. “When do you expect her? I may have left Mrs. Strafford by that time.”
“She arrives on the fifteenth.”
“Sorry; I shall be joining my husband on that day.”
Narasimha turned away abruptly without a word.
“You have forgotten my little gift,” cried Seeta, holding out the book she had given him. It had been lying on the table. “You must read it for your good. I went through it more than once before I parted with it.”
Speech failed him. The eyes that smiled into his dazzled and bewildered him. The conviction that there was a husband waiting for her raised a tumult in his mind which prevented him from collecting his thoughts. Miss Seeta Rama? Why was she called Miss Seeta Rama if she was a married woman? He could not account for the strange situation.
He went slowly to the portico, where his car awaited him. He endeavoured to recover his self-possession and took himself seriously to task for his folly.
To Barbara it seemed nothing less than marvellous that he had no suspicion of the truth. Seeta, on the other hand, was troubled by no misgivings. She was conscious of the vast change that had taken place in herself; a change so great that it was impossible for her husband to identify her with the little jungle cat that had been such a problem in his life six years ago.
This new sense of power—it comes to a woman when she realises her own beauty and its effect on men—gave her a sense of joy that thrilled her whole being.
Seeta stood entranced, listening to Narasimha’s footsteps as he went down the broad, polished wooden staircase. There was no carpet on the shallow steps to deaden the sound. Her ears followed him till he reached the portico. A strange exaltation of spirit animated her. Barbara had never seen her in such a mood. It was not surprising. The girl was lifted on the wings of love. She was blossoming out into new beauty in the presence of her lover, like a rare flower under the rays of a tropical sun. She was appealing unconsciously to his manhood and offering him the devotion of her heart.
He was sensible of the appeal. It thrilled through him and shook him. As he stepped into the car he was like a man in a dream, concerned only with his own emotions. They were new and startling and at present unrecognisable. Why did his hand shake as he turned the handle of the door of the car? Why did his heart beat in this unaccountable manner? Why did the vision of a beautiful woman of his own race fill his mental eye with her physical charms?
He bowed his head, seeing nothing, and clasped his hands in front of him. Slowly the truth was penetrating his brain. By the time the car turned in at his gateway he was repeating to himself the words,
“I mustn’t see her again. I must keep away.”
Meanwhile, Seeta, like a fluttering butterfly that has just felt the warm sun upon its wings after emerging from its chrysalis state, stood looking down on her more placid friend.
“Mrs. Strafford, why does he run away so abruptly? Why is he so silent all at once when he has been talking to me?” asked Seeta.
Barbara did not reply, but she smiled. The sound of the motor-horn of Narasimha’s retreating car came through the open window. Seeta turned her head to listen.
“Do I frighten him away with my English manners? Oh,” she cried, with a sudden sinking of the heart, “I hope he won’t think that—that I am too Europeanised.”
“You surprise him; you ‘give him to think,’ as the French say.”
“Why should he be afraid of me as I am? Anyway, I can’t pretend to be otherwise than what Miss Sibyl has made me.”
“He is not afraid of you,” said Barbara.
“I wish I could be sure of it.”
“He is afraid of himself.”
Seeta gazed at her in astonishment.
“I don’t understand,” she said helplessly. “What has it to do with him? Am I wasting his time?”
“When he is with you he forgets all about time.”
Perhaps it was dawning upon her that he was not indifferent, that she had made an impression upon him and shaken him out of his habitual preoccupation.
“He distrusts himself,” added Barbara.
“Why should that be?” asked Seeta, unwilling to answer the question herself.
“You see, he doesn’t know who you are,” continued Barbara. “He believes you to be a stranger.”
“I am not a stranger now. We have met several times.”
“Seeta, listen.” Barbara spoke more impressively than she had done previously, and the smile of amusement had given place to a soft, earnest expression. “You must face the facts. You have brought about this curious situation by your own actions, and you ought to know how you stand.”
“Yes?” she said, as she listened with parted lips.
“He is falling desperately in love with you. He——”
“Oh!” gasped Seeta.
“—and he is trying very hard to be faithful to his unknown wife.”
Seeta clasped her hands and gazed at Mrs. Strafford, scarcely daring to believe her ears. The beads rippled to the floor in a cascade unnoticed. Her eyes shone, and Barbara was filled with new fears lest she should be unable to keep the secret longer.
“What ought I to do? I don’t want to be unkind,” Seeta said in a low, breathless tone.
“You have to be patient and sensible,” said Barbara firmly. “For the present, let things be as they are.”
“But what if he speaks?”
“I don’t think he will say anything about his own feelings. He has absolute control over himself, or he wouldn’t be the man he is.”
“If he speaks——?” repeated Seeta.
“You may find yourself obliged to confess. But, for my sake, I wish you to carry out your original plan and choose our own opportunity for declaring yourself.”
“The Chitral arrives ten days hence. This is the fifth. The agents say that she will be here in the afternoon of the fifteenth; ten days more to wait—if I can.”
“Do you know for certain?”
“I called at the office today while I was out shopping and I inquired.”
Barbara looked at her with a curious expression which made Seeta smile, and she added,
“You think me a very independent young woman. I am afraid I must plead guilty to being one that likes to have her way, and is inclined to see that she gets it.”
“Perhaps I do.”
“If I hadn’t come out to India under your wing, I should have taken the journey alone,” said Seeta, with a lift of the chin, showing that the old spirit was there, tamed, perhaps, but ready to act with reason behind it.
“Sibyl would never have allowed it.”
“She could not have stopped me. She was far too gentle to hold me as a prisoner. I should have run away, relieving her of all responsibility.”
“What would your husband have said to such independent behaviour?”
“Much the same as he will say now. Mrs. Strafford, I am not afraid of him or of anything he can say. I wasn’t afraid of him in the very beginning, years ago.”
“Then we have nothing to fear.”
“Unless I distrust myself.”
“In what way?”
“If your husband were within reach of you, would anything in the world hold you back? Wouldn’t you rush to him with open arms? Wouldn’t you lay your cheek against his, and whisper in his ear how glad you were to see him again?”
Barbara was silent. She had once more forgotten the fact that Seeta was, like herself, a wife.
“Shall I see him to speak to again before the fifteenth?” asked Seeta presently.
“You will meet him at Guindy next Thursday. There is to be a polo match, Madras against Bangalore, and he has invited us to be his guests.”
“Is he playing himself?”
“I believe so.”
“Then we shan’t have much opportunity of talking.”
“He will join us after the match is over and give us tea,” said Barbara. “They can’t play when daylight goes. The match doesn’t last long, nor does the tea. The players are anxious to change as quickly as possible. However, I dare say you will have ten or fifteen minutes of his society, not long enough for you to give yourself away.”
Seeta remained silent. Her thoughts wandered and she fell into a day-dream. Barbara glanced at her and said,
“I am looking forward to showing you Guindy. It used to be the country house for the Governors before they migrated to Ooty for the hot season.”
“Is there a river at Guindy like the one at the Adyar Club?”
“No; that would make the grounds perfect. The river is not quite near enough to the house to be of any use. There’s a racecourse as well as a polo-ground. It is a pleasant run by car, along a level road with its avenue of beautiful trees.”
“We shall probably meet before Thursday,” remarked Seeta, who had been too absent-minded to follow Barbara’s descriptions of the beauties of Guindy.
She rose from the seat into which she had dropped after hearing the last echo of the beloved one’s motor-horn. She was drifting towards her room when Barbara called after her.
“Your latest toys and your parcels. You have forgotten them all.”
She pointed to the gleaming heap of beads on the floor.
“How stupid of me!” cried Seeta. “I can think of nothing. My head is in a whirl.”
“The penalty of being in love!”
Narasimha had made his call on a Saturday, a half-holiday. On the following Monday there was a theatrical performance. It was staged by the Amateur Dramatic Association of Madras at the theatre. Barbara and Seeta, having secured stalls, went with the intention of enjoying themselves. There was plenty of talent on the stage. In the auditorium many friends and acquaintances were gathered. Most of them knew the players as well as the members of the amateur orchestra.
Seeta enjoyed it to the full as far as the play and the company were concerned. She was not too much absorbed, however, in watching the stage, to give an occasional glance round. She began to fear that Narasimha was keeping away for reasons of his own.
It was some time after the performance began that he appeared. He slipped into a stall at the very end of the row in which Barbara and Seeta were sitting. Seeta caught his eye as he seated himself, and gave him one of her quick smiles. He raised his hand in acknowledgment. Her attention went back to the stage till the end of the act. As the curtain fell her eyes once more sought Narasimha.
He was standing in the gangway talking to a friend, who had come in even later than himself. He did not glance again in the direction of Mrs. Strafford, but continued deeply absorbed in the conversation, which could only have been on the subject so near his heart, the Agricultural Commission.
The third and last act began and Seeta, with the enjoyment of youth in plays, fixed her eyes on the stage once more to follow the fortunes of the characters. It was not a long act, and the piece drew quickly towards the end. Her eyes wandered round to the end seat of the row where Narasimha had been sitting. It was empty. He had vanished.
She had a confused memory of how the play ended. The applause was vociferous. Boxes of chocolates and of cigarettes were handed up by the enthusiastic friends of the players. The company, instead of leaving in an impatient, hustling crowd eager to find their respective cars, gathered into groups in the gangway, and there was a buzz of conversation. The players, still in their stage dresses, joined them and added to the fun of the assembly.
Three or four friends came up to Barbara. They praised the play, and appealed to Seeta to say if it was not as good as anything she had seen in London. She felt bewildered. Her eyes sought in vain for the familiar figure in evening dress—the spare, upright figure and the sleek, black head. He had vanished. She made so sure that he would seek them out when the performance was over. She could scarcely believe that he had left the theatre without a word. The joy faded from her heart, the light went out of her eyes, and a deadening sensation of fatigue took possession of her.
Barbara’s quick eye detected the change. She turned to a man who was standing in the group of which she and Seeta were the centre. He was in the same Service as her husband.
“Is Mr. Narasimha here?” she asked. “I thought I saw him come in, but I may have been mistaken.”
“He looked in for a short time and then left.”
“Work as usual, I suppose,” said Barbara lightly. “I hope he does not expect my husband to follow his example.”
“Just now he is having trouble in the Council. Two or three Members, Indians like himself, think that he is curtailing the evidence of the Commission too much. The more it can be curtailed the better, as long as no important detail is omitted.”
“What is their object in being obstructive?” asked Barbara.
“They confuse the issues. Where the districts are poor they want to enlarge on the poverty of the people with a view to obtaining a greater Government grant than will be given to the richer districts. The question is premature, as Narasimha says. First legislate for the granting of assistance to the agriculturists generally. Afterwards, the apportioning of the sum can be considered.”
“Will he get his way?”
“Undoubtedly; but, meanwhile, the objections are of a vexatious nature apt to irritate a strenuous worker.”
“My husband says that Narasimha has a wonderful brain for organisation.”
“That’s true. He has breadth which is so often wanting in the Indian politician. He is not trammelled by detail. He grasps things in the mass and works for the good of the community instead of concentrating on benefiting the individual. In spite of the ardour which he throws into it, he has a wonderful power of restraint. I have never known him lose his temper.”
“You think he will succeed in getting his way with these men?”
“I feel sure of it. He has all the Europeans behind him.
“It would be a pity to damage the work done by the Commission through making the report too bulky.”
“If the Imperial Council consider it too voluminous they will have the evidence précis-ed again.”
“That would be vexatious to Narasimha and also to my husband,” said Barbara.
“It would be more than vexatious; it would be disastrous. Only the men who have had personal experience of the countries they have examined are capable of discriminating between the vital and the trivial points.”
Two or three people, among them the irrepressible Mr. Smith, pushed their way towards the spot where Barbara and her companion were standing. She turned to Seeta and proposed a move towards the entrance.
“Oh yes, please let us go,” was the reply. “I am so tired I can scarcely keep awake.”
Narasimha had escaped from the theatre purposely to avoid closer contact with the new disturber of his peace. Barbara had given the true reason for his eccentric conduct after his departure from the hotel on the day of his call.
At first the assurance that he was losing his heart to her filled her with ecstasy. Then came the inevitable reaction on the heavy wings of doubt. She caught herself repeating, like the lovelorn maid of all ages: “He loves me, he loves me not; he loves me, he loves me not.” As Barbara was not always at hand to reassure her, the counting out often remained at “He loves me not.” In her eyes his behaviour was not that of a lover. It was more in accordance with “He loves me not.”
Barbara had a clearer conception of how matters really stood, but she purposely said as little as possible of her belief. She was not sure of Seeta’s strength of mind. Things had gone so far by this time she was anxious that the little plot should be carried out to the original issue decided on from the beginning. Now that they were within a few days of the arrival of the ship, it was better to continue the intended course of action. If she said too much of the love that was growing on both sides, Seeta might throw all her previous resolutions to the winds, declare her identity, and seek the arms of a husband who would willingly forgive all that had happened, provided it brought him bliss. Barbara did not forget that she had an Oriental nature to deal with, in Seeta, who was a true child of the sun. The passions of life were budding and preparing to burst into rich tropical blossom. When Seeta complained again about Narasimha’s incomprehensible attitude, Barbara remained silent and left her rather cruelly to answer her own questionings.
“If he loves me, why doesn’t he seize every opportunity of meeting me?” demanded Seeta.
“Perhaps he is one of those peculiar people who subordinate their private feelings to their high sense of patriotism and public duty.”
“Does Mr. Strafford do that?”
“Not to such an extent. He is keeping away from me now that he may finish his work without interruption.”
“My husband is indifferent! He has no heart! I shall end by hating him as I began!” cried Seeta passionately.
“Easier said than done, my dear,” replied Barbara calmly. “Once give your heart to a man, and the odds are that you don’t get it back.”
“He has devoted his heart to his work. There is no place in it for love.”
“It is too soon to say that. You forget always that by keeping away from you he is being heroically faithful to a wilful, impatient little wife, who I’m not sure is quite good enough for him.”
“I’ll try and be patient,” replied Seeta, with a humility that made Barbara want to kiss her and swear that Narasimha adored her.
They drove to Guindy on the day of the polo match, arriving on the ground in good time. This was chiefly due to a restlessness on the part of Seeta which she was unable to control. She had no eyes for the beautiful banyan-trees and groves of palms that they passed. The chauffeur seemed to drive unusually slowly. She would fain have ordered him to hurry, but when Barbara was with her the orders were left to her.
The players were assembling on the field. Syces were leading ponies up and down, and visitors were collecting in groups. In the absence of her husband, Barbara took a seat at the end of a row of chairs, removed some distance from the crowd. Seeta, with her brilliant saree of ivory and gold, was a conspicuous figure. She caught Narasimha’s eye immediately. He mounted and rode up to the spot.
“I am so pleased that you have been able to come,” he said, addressing Barbara. “It is going to be a good match but a hard one.”
“How about the ponies?” she asked, knowing how much it depended on the clever little animals to bring success.
“They are good on both sides; well matched, I should say.” He glanced about him. “Are you satisfied with these seats? This is the goal that we have to get.”
“I chose the place on purpose that I might see you win,” she answered. “Mind you don’t disappoint me!”
He turned to Seeta and asked if she had seen polo previously.
“Yes, at Ranelagh.”
“Then you know something about it.”
He glanced at the players who were mounted or mounting.
“I must be off. They are ready to throw in. See you, Mrs. Strafford, after the match.”
“Good luck!” she cried after him, as he swung his fidgety pony round and galloped on to the ground to take his place.
Soon they were off, madly chasing the ball, the ponies seeming equally aware of what they were out for as their riders. There was no wild hitting nor purposeless riding. The players knew their work.
The odds of the game—the game of princes—were even at the start. A goal was scored by the Bangaloreans in the first chukker. It was quickly followed by a goal to the Madrasees. Up and down, play kept them busy for the rest of the chukker without any further gains to either side.
A short rest and change of ponies brought the players to the point again. The game proceeded steadily through each succeeding chukker, every player doing his bit and showing no sign of loss of energy. The match was very evenly contested. First one side, then the other, added another goal to the score. The excitement among the spectators increased as the fortunes of the game were maintained. It was difficult to say which team would win. The hitting was accurate and no one muffed his shot.
At the end of the fifth chukker the score was equal. It was agreed that it was anybody’s game.
In the last chukker one of the Bangalore men missed an easy chance of scoring. Suddenly it was seen that Narasimha had got away with the ball. Down the field he came, carrying it before him, outdistancing everyone else. His opponents, however, were close on his heels. He dared not risk being overhauled. He staked everything on a long-range shot. It sent the ball straight and swift in its flight, securing as pretty and neat a goal as anyone wished to see.
A roar of applause went up, which was cut short by the sight of a sudden overthrow of the player.
Whether the pony slipped or crossed his legs through being pulled round too abruptly it was impossible to say. In a moment horse and rider were rolling, a confused mass, on the ground as the bugle sounded to end the match.
The accident had occurred almost opposite the place where Barbara and Seeta were sitting. As he came charging down the field, they had both sprung to their feet. Barbara, from her past experience, knew all about the import of the movement. If Narasimha succeeded in his design he would have the honour of making the winning hit.
Seeta had been watching the play intently. She had not sufficient knowledge of its intricacies to follow it as closely as Barbara was doing. Her eyes never left the figure of Narasimha. When he saved the match with his neat, final stroke, unerring in its aim, the ball smitten with an enviable turn of the wrist, her heart bounded with pride and delight.
In another instant her pulse seemed to cease throbbing. The setting sun shone on the gleaming iron-shod heels of the pony as it struggled wildly to regain its feet. Not far from those death-dealing hoofs was the figure of the rider. At any moment, she thought, he might be kicked to death by the frantic, terrified animal.
The game being over, the players were at liberty to ride up to the fallen man to help him to rise, if there was by good luck any life left in him. They threw themselves out of the saddle, caught him by hand and foot, and drew him aside. Syces ran to take the ponies, and several men from the spectators hurried into the field to offer assistance.
Seeta, petrified by what she had seen, uttered a cry of horror. Her hands were clasped tightly upon her breast as though she were forcibly holding herself back from a wild rush towards the fallen man.
Barbara extended a hand and laid it firmly on her arm. The touch had a stilling effect on her nerves.
“Keep quiet, Seeta. Don’t give yourself away. Ah!” she exclaimed, with a sharp indrawing of the breath. “See! they have lifted him on to his feet. Thank God he isn’t hurt. He can stand.”
By this time the pony was up and the hand of the syce was soothing its nerves. Like its rider, it seemed unhurt.
“Let’s sit down again and wait,” said Barbara. She was still anxious about Seeta, who had not yet recovered her composure.
They were alone. The spectators who had occupied seats near them had hurried away to ascertain if Narasimha was injured.
“Can’t we go, too?” asked Seeta. Her voice trembled and unusual tears gathered in her eyes.
“Not in your present state. You really must sit down and pull yourself together before you mix with that crowd,” said Mrs. Strafford, with a touch of severity in her tone.
“I promise that I will be quiet,” said poor Seeta brokenly.
“If they see your agitation they will be asking what Narasimha is to you that you should be so upset.”
Seeta drew her saree over her head and shrank beneath the hood it formed. Narasimha, on his feet once more, was walking towards the spot where the committee had their seats. He moved slowly and was evidently glad to have a supporting arm.
“Oh, he is hurt! He is hurt!”
“Not badly, or he could not walk at all. He has been shaken.”
“But he is limping!”
“Not surprising after that tumble,” replied the hard-hearted Mrs. Strafford.
“I wish someone would come this way who could tell us——”
“We shall hear presently,” responded Barbara, watching her with a dread lest, after all, Seeta’s identity should be disclosed.
The warm tints of Seeta’s face had turned to the colour of old ivory. It seemed possible that she might yet faint, if by any chance an alarming report was brought. It was not an easy matter to keep the girl in her chair, but Barbara insisted, placing a strong detaining hand on her arm to strengthen her command. Gradually Seeta’s fingers became steadier and the colour returned to her face.
They were both startled when Narasimha’s voice broke the silence that had fallen upon them. He had come up from behind them as they still sat facing the field.
“Mrs. Strafford, I am sorry——”
His words were checked by a sudden and unexpected movement on the part of Seeta. She sprang from her chair, turned round, and held out both her hands to him. The expression on her face startled him.
“You are not hurt?” she gasped. “Thank the great God that He has saved you from death!”
Barbara moved quickly to her side. Seeta’s arms dropped before Narasimha could take her hands in his, if he intended to do anything of the kind. He remained to all appearances still and self-possessed.
“Mr. Narasimha is quite safe, you see. There is nothing to be alarmed about.”
“I am not hurt beyond a bruise or two,” he said. His eyes fastened on Seeta like those of a man who has seen an unexpected vision.
The vision that had been revealed was the fear and apprehension roused for the safety of a loved one. As though aware that she had allowed her secret to be discovered, her head drooped and her hands went up to her eyes.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” she cried.
“She has been thoroughly unhinged at the sight of her countryman in such peril,” said Barbara firmly and composedly, a condition she was far from feeling. “She will have to get used to this sort of thing if she means to look on at polo.”
While she spoke, Narasimha had time to recover himself. He leaned heavily on a stout walking-stick someone had lent him.
“You are not injured, are you?” asked Barbara.
“My ankle is slightly sprained. It was badly twisted as I fell. I must go home and have it looked to.”
“Don’t neglect it.”
“This means that I must forsake you and leave someone else to do the honours of the club on my behalf.”
“Please don’t trouble about that. My husband is a member, and I am quite at home here.”
“You must forgive me,” he said, his eyes once more on Seeta, who did not dare so much as to glance at him.
He turned away and with increasing difficulty hobbled towards the spot where he could find someone to call up his car.
He was joined by two or three other members of the club. One of the men gave him an arm and helped him into the car. He would have gone home with him, but Narasimha would not hear of it. He was in considerable pain, which could be better borne in solitude. But there was another reason for his desire to be alone.
He believed that he had brought his unruly heart into subjection by keeping away from the unwonted attraction. He had avoided Mrs. Strafford and her companion at the theatre and at subsequent afternoon gatherings. He had stayed at home instead of going to tennis or golf. He hoped that he had disciplined himself into an attitude that at least had the merit of being honourable.
He had entrenched himself in vain. That one glimpse into those troubled eyes had been the undoing of all his efforts. It told him that the love was not on his side only. It welled forth from the girl herself in a warm flood and enveloped him in its intoxicating atmosphere.
She had made no effort to hide or control it. It came to him with an appeal for response that bid fair to throw him off his balance and cause him to lose his head.
Seeta saw nothing more of Narasimha after the encounter on the polo ground. She was out every afternoon with Barbara, and on three out of the four evenings intervening between the Thursday and the day on which she was supposed to arrive. Her eyes searched the crowd for the familiar face and figure, but always in vain. If by chance he was present, he kept out of sight.
She thought that he might be laid up with a serious injury; to set her mind at rest Barbara sent her servant to find out from his head man, Soobah, how his master was. The reply came back that His Honour was quite well after a night’s rest—a little stiff, perhaps, but nothing sufficient to keep him at home. His Honour had gone to office as usual and would be detained late.
When Narasimha returned he was informed of the visit of Mrs. Strafford’s servant. He received the information in silence. He thought he could guess the reason for the inquiry. Mrs. Strafford had too often seen her husband take a toss on the field to feel any anxiety concerning his own well-being. It was her companion who had felt anxiety on his behalf and who was desirous of having news. She had betrayed a concern that was impossible to forget. It haunted him and disturbed his mind.
On Tuesday morning, the fifteenth day of February, the agents sent up word to Narasimha that the Chitral was expected to arrive at four o’clock that afternoon. The ship was calling to land a few passengers. There was no cargo to take up. She would not remain more than a couple of hours.
The message arrived at eight o’clock in the morning. After reading it Narasimha went upstairs to give a last look at the preparations he had made for the reception of his wife.
He was satisfied with all he saw. The front room had a large Chesterfield sofa in it. Behind it was a screen. Two or three occasional tables were within easy reach. Chairs of various shapes, holding cushions covered with Eastern silks and embroidery, were arranged near enough to the sofa to allow of conversation between their occupants and anyone seated on the sofa.
He was satisfied with his choice of cretonne. He had not done wrong in following Mrs. Strafford’s advice. Here and there a net curtain added its lightness to the heavier material.
Vases of flowers stood on the tables, holding tuberose and arum lilies; a bowl of roses and another of picotees sent down from Bangalore filled the morning air with sweetness.
Narasimha moved behind the screen and passed through a curtained doorway into the bedroom. The half-doors were panelled with Chinese embroidery. Two beds placed side by side occupied the centre of the room. The mosquito nets were thrown up above the frames. The beds were covered with coverlets of the material known as Indian moonlight satin. The more it is washed, the more it gleams with a sheen of its own.
No money had been spared to render the rooms beautiful as well as comfortable. Never had a bride been better prepared for.
He turned to the dressing-table with its mirrors and drawers. Nothing had been forgotten. It had been furnished with toilet accessories of his own choosing—brushes, combs, hand-glasses, powder-boxes, trays for pins and trinkets, all of the finest mother-of-pearl that could be procured.
Did it remind the provider of all this luxury and comfort of that cottage on the hills that his friend Strafford had prepared for his bride? John had spent far less over his preparations, yet somehow Narasimha was not satisfied. He knew inwardly that he was not feeling any of the joy and pleasure his friend had experienced, as he gathered together comforts and luxuries for his bride. What Strafford had done was a work of love. What Narasimha had done was the work of a man who was influenced by the dictates of duty. When he began his preparations he had tried to persuade himself that something more than cold duty was beneath his actions.
Since he had seen Seeta Rama he knew that there was nothing but duty behind it all—his duty to the child who had been pitchforked into his life through the iniquity of an infant marriage.
A question had of late haunted his mind. It occurred now, and he found himself unable to answer it. Had he been right in maintaining faith with this unknown, unloved wife who had shown nothing but resentment towards the claims he had upon her?
Until he had met Seeta Rama the doubt had never entered his mind. It had not been difficult to keep faith. Now his spirit was beginning to rebel against all such bonds. The thought recurred frequently that his religious faith did not ask for such rigidity. The fidelity he had observed regarding his marriage contract was self-imposed. He had been begged by his family to take another wife while he waited for the first, or at least to set up a zenana of some sort in his house. This he was wise enough to oppose. From the very beginning he had definitely promised himself that, as he had been to the forefront as a progressivist in public matters, so he would be in private, and his wife should be the same. She should take her place among women of modern times who did not fear to emerge from die seclusion of the zenana, and, what was more, knew how to use their liberty with grace and dignity. If only he had been free to woo and win this beautiful woman——
He pulled himself up sharply. What was the good of letting his mind occupy itself with a different line from that which he had laid down for himself? Granted that he was free to-day to seek the woman he wanted, would he be able to compass his desires? Like himself, she was bound by ties that must have been contracted when she was too young to know what was before her. They were binding; and the Hindu religion, although it permitted a man to marry more than one wife, had no such liberty to grant to a woman. Once married, nothing but widowhood could release her.
Mrs. Strafford had spoken involuntarily of Seeta Rama’s husband. She had pulled herself up sharply as though she had gone further in the matter of personalities than was courteous to the girl or advisable in the presence of a casual acquaintance and stranger to her family.
Seeta Rama had shown no annoyance at the lapse, nor was there any indication of consciousness that she was the property of a husband. It had brought no shadow of fear nor of anxiety into the brown eyes that shone with youthful excitement. The cause of the excitement he could not divine. He was not at the time in a calm, critical mood. The tumult of his varying emotions had rendered him confused and incapable of fathoming mysteries. His eyes were dazzled every time he looked at her. He was becoming gradually aware that she was making an appeal to that part of his nature which had hitherto been repressed and disciplined until it had become torpid and unresponsive.
He had been standing by the dressing-table, lost in thought. He touched the mother-of-pearl ornaments with absent-minded fingers. He lifted up a cut-glass flask containing eau-de-Cologne, took the stopper out and put it in again, ill at ease, but not knowing how to tear himself away from what some might call his new set of playthings.
Coming to his senses with an effort, he thrust Seeta Rama out of his thoughts and returned to the sitting-room. There he paused before a bookcase filled with new novels, travels, and other light literature. Would this little jungle cat read them, or would she use them as missiles to throw at his head when he displeased her with his presence?
He descended the staircase. Soobah, his faithful servant, met him, bearing a note on a silver salver.
He took the letter, and, as he did so, the man asked:
“Is everything as master wishes for Her Honour the Dorasani?”
“Everything. Is the ayah here?”
Soobah had been at pains to find a woman of his own caste. She was his niece.
“The ayah is ready. I have given her a room next to mine.”
“She must hold herself responsible to the mistress for the house linen.”
As he spoke Narasimha opened the letter. An exclamation of annoyance escaped him as he read its contents. It was from the private secretary of the Governor, saying that His Excellency hoped that Narasimha would not fail to be present to support the movement in Council. He hoped that it would finish off the final form in which the evidence of the Agricultural Commission could be forwarded to the Supreme Government. The Council would meet at half-past two. It must of necessity be a lengthy sitting, as His Excellency was determined to get the business finished.
This meant that Narasimha would be detained in the Council Chamber till half-past five or six—and the Chitral would be in at four o’clock. It was impossible to slip away from the meeting. And it was equally impossible to plead urgent private affairs and excuse himself from attending.
Without his presence the measure could not be so certainly carried. The Governor, knowing that he would need all the support Narasimha could give him to attain his object, had written, by his secretary, to make sure of his presence. He sat down and answered the letter by giving the necessary promise and saying that he would not fail His Excellency.
After despatching the note by the peon who brought the letter, he faced the situation that his policy of sacrificing private interests for those of the public good had produced.
He must send Soobah with a couple of peons and the big car to the jetty to meet his wife. The heavy luggage would be passed through the Customs by his agent, who had already received instructions. He sighed.
This was a poor way of welcoming a wife from whom he had been separated for more than five years. The Little One might take offence, with reason, at being left to the care of a servant, even though he were of the confidential class such as Soobah.
This summons to the Council Chamber was unexpected. He had understood at the last meeting that the Council would not be called together again for a week. He could only suppose that His Excellency would brook no further delay, and was determined to overrule all obstructions.
He called Soobah, who was waiting for orders, should there be any more.
“I shall have to go to the Council Chamber this afternoon. You will go to the jetty to meet the Dorasani, who arrives by the Chitral.”
“Yes, sir. Is it Your Honour’s wish that I should go on board?”
“No; I shall phone to the agents to provide a boat to bring the Dorasani ashore. You will take two peons. The cabin luggage can come with Her Honour in the car. The baggage will be passed through the Customs and be sent up by cart from the agents’ office.”
Soobah remained standing at attention. His master was deep in thought. Probably there were more orders to come.
“You will give the Dorasani a letter from me to explain my absence. Then you will bring her here and ask if she will have coffee or tea. You have some cakes and fruit? Serve the afternoon tea in the sitting-room upstairs. If I am home in time I will take my tea there. Have you the flowers I ordered?”
Soobah went to the back veranda and returned with a large tray. He removed a damp cloth and displayed a garland of double jasmine flowers. The pure white blooms, only half opened by the morning sun before they were plucked, were strung like pearls. The delicate strings were caught here and there and clustered together by means of rosettes of blooms more fully opened. The air was filled with their fragrance.
He lifted the floral necklace gently, gazed at it for a few moments, and put it back on the tray. How Seeta Rama would have revelled in the flowers! He recalled her account of her unsuccessful quest of a flower-shop where she could fill her arms with the spoils of the garden! He wished that he could send her a similar garland together with a sheaf of arum lilies.
“Take it away,” he said abruptly. If it brought thoughts of Seeta instead of his wife, it was best out of sight. “Those are all the orders I have to give. You will have no difficulty in carrying them out.”
Soobah salaamed and left his master to his own thoughts. After a few minutes Narasimha seated himself at his writing-table and unlocked one of the drawers where lay a jewel-case. He opened it and gazed at its contents, a string of valuable pearls. It had a diamond clasp and a large diamond star attached to it as a pendant. His welcome for his wife was not confined to the luxurious furnishing of her rooms. He had not forgotten the jewels that form so important a part in an Indian bride’s outfit.
Again his thoughts wandered to the girl who had brought home beads to play with because she had no pearls nor diamonds. He wondered idly whether it would be the hand of a young and eager bridegroom who would throw gems worthy of her round her neck. Or would it be the fat, clumsy fingers of a man old enough to be her father who would——
Once more he pulled himself up abruptly. What concern was it of his whether youth or age showered a bridegroom’s gifts on such a bride? he asked himself angrily.
He lunched early, interviewed Soobah once more, and ascertained that he thoroughly understood his orders. The car came up to take him to the Council Chamber. He departed puzzled to know what ailed him.
The enthusiasm for his work, that had been the mainspring of his energy, had unaccountably died away. The opposition faction in the Council irritated him. Their pleading seemed puerile and beside the mark, not worthy of men who had wide interests at heart for their country’s good. They were unworthy combatants, nothing more nor less than stupid obstructionists who should be set aside as—minority not worth considering.
If he was given any opportunity of offering advice to the Governor, it would be to deal summarily with them, and not permit them to waste valuable time.
Time; that was the secret of his annoyance. He grudged every minute that was of the nature of a delay.
Where was the restraint that was so marked a characteristic of this honoured Member of Council? It seemed as if it had eluded his grasp and left him irritable and impatient—a most unusual condition.
The Members of Council took their seats and proceeded to the business that had called them together. Narasimha plunged into it with all his old force and vigour like a true son of the State. As he warmed to his work he lost his irritation and recaptured his self-control. The Members who had been obstructive withdrew their opposition, and the Governor, with an approving glance at Narasimha, rose and closed the proceedings.
Before leaving the Chamber His Excellency found an opportunity of saying a few words to Narasimha.
“We owe you a great many thanks for your clear conception of this business. You have picked out the essentials with marvellous insight. I am afraid without your help this matter might have been held over for months.”
Narasimha felt the blood quicken in his veins as the cordial words were spoken. They were soothing and acceptable. His Excellency could not know to what extent he had sacrificed his own interests to those of the public good. It was known by all alike that Narasimha had never spared himself. Others had probably done the same. But it was satisfactory to find that in his own case his self-devotion had been appreciated.
Several men pressed forward to add their words of congratulation. It was some minutes before he could get away to his car and order his chauffeur to go home. He glanced at his watch. It was half-past five. By this time his wife would have arrived.
He recalled the wild disorder of their first wedding chamber. He wondered if the rebellious spirit that produced it would rise again and create havoc of his arrangements. The spirit may be tamed and controlled, but it cannot be eliminated from the body in which it has its habitation. He could only hope that the Little One’s spirit had been brought into subjection by the gentle treatment she had received at the hands of Miss Cullington, and that the Englishwoman had succeeded where his mother had failed.
Barbara and Seeta stood on the jetty in the afternoon sun. The waters of the harbour were not very clear. The sand, stirred by the movement of the coasting craft and lighters, clouded the glittering sea. Here and there a fisherman’s log-boat was paddled across while its owner, sitting astride the logs with his legs in the water, drew up silvery fish, good to look at but muddy of taste. They had long bodies and trailing feelers and no scales. The cooks spoke contemptuously of them as second sorts fish.
Seeta went to the edge of the jetty and looked down at the water. A turtle, like a half-submerged football, came to within two feet of the surface, hunting for vegetable refuse thrown overboard by the shipping inside the harbour. She watched it with fascinated eyes as it paddled about with its short, disorderly legs. Suddenly it must have caught sight of her, for it sank and disappeared from view with a drawing in of the legs and head that turned it once more into the semblance of a brown football.
Barbara’s mind was not upon the sights tropical nature had to offer. Her eyes were upon the big liner lying outside the harbour. It was gently moving on the smooth, long swell of the Bay of Bengal. It thrilled her to think of the breath of home that the liner brought with it. Only three weeks ago it had cast off at Tilbury, and had been towed out into the grey, muddy Thames. The grass of the meadows on either side was greener than any grass in Madras, even though it was winter. The ship had been tossed and salted through the stormy Atlantic Ocean. It had entered a region of sunshine when it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, but it had not experienced the warmth of the East till it reached the Red Sea, and then the heat was tempered and far from being at its worst. The Chitral still carried its atmospheric sense of a temperate climate, which it would not lose until it was berthed in the Hugli.
Barbara was strongly tempted to take a boat and go on board just for the pure pleasure of feeling herself in touch again with old England. She was restrained by the presence of Seeta, to whom the tropical turtle was more attractive than the link with the land of her exile. There was the risk of missing Narasimha if he should be coming along. While she hesitated a servant approached, accompanied by two peons, whose uniforms she recognised at once as those of the Government office to which Narasimha was attached.
“Who are you looking for?” she asked quickly, as Soobah made a low salaam.
“Her Honour the Dorasani. The master is at the Council Chamber and cannot come. He has sent a note.”
Soobah’s eyes rested on Seeta with sudden comprehension. He repeated his salaam and tendered the letter. He wondered if his master knew that the Hindu lady who had been staying with Mrs. Strafford at the hotel was none other than the Dorasani herself. His quick gaze took note of her in secret surprise. He had a vivid recollection of the thin slip of a girl he and his master had carried off, and he found it impossible to identify this tall Indian lady with the half-grown child of more than five years ago.
Meanwhile, Seeta had been reading the few lines contained in the envelope.
“He says that he is unavoidably detained. He is very sorry and hopes that I will forgive him. He has sent his servant and two peons to bring me home.” She paused for a few seconds. Then she added, “I think he might have made an effort and come himself.”
“My dear Seeta,” exclaimed Mrs. Strafford, “you must understand, now and onwards, that Government is an autocratic taskmaster. If it summons a servant the summons must be obeyed. It is none of Narasimha’s fault that he is not here.”
Seeta turned to Soobah, looking closely at him.
“You came with us to Colombo?”
The old man grinned with delight at being recognised.
“I helped His Honour to get away from the old mistress. She was very angry with us and we did not go back again to Chittoor for a long time.”
“Mrs. Strafford, I shall never forget that journey!”
Barbara’s mind was dwelling on present plans. It was time to dispatch Seeta homewards. She turned to Soobah.
“Have you brought a car for the Dorasani?” she asked.
“The big motor is at the entrance of the jetty,” he replied.
“My car is there also, and you will find the Dorasani’s luggage on it. Have it moved to Mr. Narasimha’s car.”
He hurried away to see that the luggage was transferred, taking one peon with him, and leaving the other as a kind of bodyguard to keep away the crowds of beggars that haunted the roadway. As they strolled towards the jetty entrance Barbara said:
“I am sorry I can’t come to the house with you.”
She meant what she said; she would dearly have liked to see the end of their little plot and enjoy Narasimha’s surprise.
“I would rather go alone. My husband says that he will be detained until sunset. Of course, he assures me that he will come home as quickly as he can.”
“That I can quite believe. You are not afraid of meeting him alone, with no one to back you up in the little piece of deception that you have played upon him?”
Seeta smiled happily, and Barbara could see that no qualms of doubt troubled her.
“I think that he will be more alarmed than I shall be, if he has any recollection of our first encounter.”
They reached the end of the jetty and prepared to take leave of each other. Seeta’s warm thanks poured from her lips as well as from her heart.
“We shall see each other frequently,” observed Barbara. “Our husbands are old friends of long standing and I hope we shall follow their example.”
“Are you going from here to the railway station to meet Mr. Strafford?” asked Seeta.
“Presently. The train from the north comes in between five and six and he arrives by it. Oh, Seeta what a happy pair of grass-widows we are! It is more than five months since I have seen my husband.”
“It is more than five years since I have seen mine.”
“Everything is ready as soon as Your Honour wishes to depart,” said Soobah.
Seeta stepped inside and was driven off, leaving Barbara to gaze after her and to wonder for the hundredth time if she had been wise in lending herself to the working out of the little romance in these dear people’s lives. She knew the old saying, which she had called to mind on a former occasion, that it is a thankless task to interfere between husband and wife. She hoped that this would prove the exception to the rule.
The distance was not great to Narasimha’s house. The road to it ran straight inland westwards to one of the suburbs where mansions stood in park-like grounds. She knew the way, as she and Barbara had driven out in that direction purposely, that they might look at the house that was to be her home. The road was bordered by an avenue of spreading trees, varied with clumps of bamboos and groups of palms. Here and there were fields of grain and patches of sugar-cane with a few mud huts and raised water channels leading from the village well.
The car took no more than ten minutes to reach the house. It drew up under the portico, and Seeta stepped out. With Soobah leading the way, she mounted the steps and found herself in a wide veranda.
The servants of the establishment, dressed in their best, came forward at a sign from Soobah and prostrated themselves before the mistress, who would henceforward rule the house with the master. They touched her silken instep with their foreheads and welcomed her home in their own way.
She felt no embarrassment in receiving this homage. It came naturally like the revival of half-forgotten customs that lingered in her memory of childish days. She accepted it gracefully and with due dignity. They rose to their feet at her bidding and were dismissed to their work in the house.
There was one event that stood out in her recollection with peculiar distinctness. This was the reception she had been given when she was brought by her father to be left at her husband’s house. The one figure that still loomed clearly out of the misty past was that of her mother-in-law.
From the time the unhappy child had entered the doors, her husband’s mother had scolded, punished, and tortured her. It could never happen again, was the thought that was running through Seeta’s mind, lifting her heart with thankfulness to the good God whom she believed watched over her.
Narasimha’s mother had aged considerably since those days. Her sight had almost gone. Nothing remained to her but to lament her son s fate, his obstinacy in not taking another wife, his infatuated devotion to his office work, and his forgetfulness of all else. What good would it do him or his family to sacrifice himself in this manner? Would it bring more rupees into his pocket? And if he died, where was the son who alone could perform the death ceremonies that could insure future happiness?
As for the wife, grumbled the old woman nothing but evil would come to her. One who had shown herself, at that early age, to be so headstrong and mutinous should have had her spirit properly broken by the customary methods that had been in use from time immemorial.
Seeta had no wish to meet her husband’s mother again. It may be mentioned here that they did not encounter each other till, as a proud young mother she carried her firstborn, a beautiful boy, in her arms to the ancestral halls. Then nothing was too good for the daughter-in-law and nothing she did was wrong.
Soobah dismissed the servants, took upon himself the office of guide to the Dorasani, and conducted her through the lower rooms. In the dining-room the dinner-table was already being laid. Her heart gave a little throb of pleasure as she noted that preparations were made for two at the table. This indicated that her husband had abandoned the old fashion of eating by himself.
From the dining-room she was taken to the big drawing-room, which Soobah described as the visiting-room. It was like the drawing-room of England—tables, couches, comfortable armchairs, and a bureau. The floor was covered with rugs. Vases stood on most of the tables, filled with flowers.
She passed down the veranda and asked for her husband’s sitting-room. Again she was struck by the European character of its furniture. The large writing-table in the centre was covered with official papers, and a wastepaper basket by the side of the revolving chair was stuffed full of letters that had been answered. The sight of his room opened her eyes to his character. At no time had she realised so fully that he was a man who was making his mark in the world and leading a busy, important life. How had she ever dared to behave as she did at their first meeting? She remembered with horror that she had actually spat at him. How could she do it? What a little jungle beast she was!
She turned away towards the staircase. Soobah went with his mistress to the top. An ayah came forward and he retired to the regions below, which were his department.
As her eyes fell on the scene upstairs she gave a little gasp of delight. She clasped her hands and gazed entranced. The handsome furniture and drapings, the brilliant cushions and soft rugs, the little tables and chairs, the bookcase, thrilled her. It was better than anything she had anticipated. Even in the houses of Mrs. Strafford’s friends she had found nothing quite so superb, so marvellously put together. The same wealth of flowers met her gaze as in the lower room. Vases stood on all the tables, and, joy! she found a bowl of roses in which to bury her glowing cheeks.
One of the tables was set out with silver and china. On the dishes were cakes and fruits. The ayah asked if she should bring tea. Seeta, glad to be rid of her presence, told her to go and fetch the teapot.
There was yet the bedroom to see. She passed behind the screen and entered her second bridal-chamber. She stood perfectly still, entranced. The room formed a striking contrast to that which had been assigned to the bride and bridegroom at Chittoor. When she had taken in the scene, she moved softly to the two beds. They were of polished inlaid wood, standing side by side in friendly fashion. She touched delicately the fine coverlets and the embroidered linen pillow-cases. They were like the pearl beads in their smooth, cool touch.
Curtains covered with a tea-rose pattern draped the windows. Between the windows stood the dressing-table furnished with the mother-of-pearl accessories that he had chosen. The powder and the little puff in the box and the eau-de-Cologne in the glass bottle seemed with the rest of the furniture to carry a message which she understood with a new perception that was making its presence felt.
Why had he done all this? Was it nothing but the instinct of a man of good birth that had caused him to provide all this luxury for the woman who was to share his life?
Near the table stood an easy-chair. She dropped among its downy cushions and leaned back to consider her surroundings. England and Miss Sibyl had given her new eyes, new standards by which she was to judge life. And with this fresh attitude towards life, the last of her childish tantrums passed away for ever.
The memory of the disordered, unlovely room that she had prepared for her husband came back upon her with the full force of youthful recollection. The bridal-chamber had been ugly enough at its best.
She, in her wild, angry terror, had done everything in her power to make it uglier. She had disordered the furniture, destroyed the bed as far as was possible. She had left him no place to rest but the folding camp-chair. She would have broken that if she had only known how to do it.
A hot flush of shame mounted into her cheeks as she recalled the scenes. At the time she was conscious only of a wicked pride in having accomplished so much. Recalling the incidents, she was almost inclined to think that perhaps the bamboo wielded by her infuriated mother-in-law was, after all, not undeserved.
The windows of her room looked north-west. The grounds of the house extended towards a belt of trees that divided the compound from the outlying fields of one of the small villages that are characteristic of Madras.
Borne in on the afternoon air came the distant song of the villagers at the picotta, the village well. They sang a song that is older than history. The Israelites in the wilderness were bidden to sing it when Moses struck the rock. It continues unaltered and untouched to the present day, and will outlast all the folklore of the ancients:
Spring up, O well; sing ye to it.
The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves.
— Numbers xxi., 17-18.
The Indian, as he moves up and down the beam that lifts the skin bucket, addresses the well in a primitive chant of a few minor notes. His mate below, who catches and empties the swinging bucket, sings his answer as he is bidden.
They vary the song slightly by praising its noble origin:
It was dug by princes; it was dug by the people, by order of lawful authority.
Therefore spring up, O well.
The clear, wailing notes of the water-drawers’ song fell on her ears, bringing with it a sudden sense of home. It recalled a long-dead mother, a happy home before the time of a stepmother, where she was the joy and delight of loving parents. How often she had stood by her own mother’s side, watching the brimming bucket and its crystal jet of water as it was discharged into the channel that was to carry it to the green rice-fields!
A sound of spoons placed in china saucers awoke her from her reverie. She rose, and, with a lingering gaze at the rich green vegetation in which the house was set, she went back to her sitting-room. She called the ayah.
“When I have finished tea I wish to change my dress for this evening. Here are my keys. Unpack the suitcases and lay out the clothes. I will tell you presently where to put them.”
By this time it was five o’clock. As she drank the tea she turned her ear to the window on the northwest. She could still hear the well song, but it was only half her attention that she gave to it. She caught herself listening for the more modern sound of the motor-horn.
When would he come?
Narasimha entered his car and was driven from the Fort in which the Council Chamber was situated. Just before he reached the mainguard gate he was stopped by one of the Council. It was the man who had been the greatest obstructionist all through the debate.
“Can you spare a few minutes?” he said, as he forsook his own car and came to the door of Narasimha’s motor.
“With pleasure; but it must not be long. I have an engagement to keep. What is it?”
The Member poured forth the old tale of pushing the interests of the agriculturists of the poorer districts. He spoke in his own language, repeating himself many times. Narasimha listened in silence, hoping that he would exhaust himself before long.
“You see, I know the districts so well. I am intimately acquainted with the needs of the ryots.”
“They are your own, are they not?” remarked Narasimha. “The subsidy you are so anxious to secure for them will, of course, benefit yourself.”
The other was visibly taken aback. He stammered something to the effect that the more prosperous the owners of the land, the more they were enabled to assist the agriculturists. Of course it would not be for his own benefit—Narasimha cut him short by saying that it was necessary he should be moving on to keep his appointment. Without waiting to hear more, he gave the order to the chauffeur to start.
He looked at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He thought of the meeting. If it had not been for the promptness and decision of His Excellency in disposing of such men as the one he had just encountered, the meeting might have been prolonged another two hours. He was grateful for the quiet strength, always courteous but always firm, that was shown. For the present the business of the Agricultural Commission was at an end.
Once across the drawbridge and out of the precincts of the Fort he was not likely to be stopped again. He passed into the avenued road that led him away from the sea towards his own house. The car turned into the carriage drive. He glanced at the pillared veranda that screened his wife’s rooms. Nothing was visible to mark her presence. She would not be looking out, he knew, but he might have caught sight of the ayah moving about.
He stepped out of the car and walked up the steps of the portico and was met by Soobah, grave and expressionless as usual, who waited for his master to speak.
“The Dorasani has arrived?” said Narasimha quietly.
“Her Honour came at half-past four.”
“Where did you find her?”
“On the jetty, Your Honour.”
“Where is she now? Upstairs in her room?”
“Yes, sir. Her Honour, having had tea which the ayah took up, rests. Shall I bring tea for master?”
“It is too late.”
Narasimha moved towards the dressing-room that adjoined his sitting-room and bedroom downstairs.
“Bring me my bath. I will dress for dinner before I see the Dorasani.”
“She waits for Your Honour.”
“Send a message by the ayah to say that, if it pleases the Dorasani, I will go upstairs in half an hour.”
Thirty minutes later Narasimha returned to his sitting-room. He had put on evening dress and wore a dinner jacket. He felt rested and less irritated by the friction of the debate. Half an hour’s sleep would have been acceptable, but he knew that he could not take it until the meeting with his wife was over.
The sun had almost touched the horizon. A great flood of golden light spread across the heavens, with soft touches of orange and crimson.
Narasimha called to Soobah to bring the flowers he had provided. He took the pearls with the diamond star from the jewel-case and laid the necklace on them. It would have been a noble gift from any husband, and should have carried a power of love. In this case it seemed to him that the love was as cold as the white flowers and the pearls that were to accompany them.
With the garland and its precious addition in his hands he rose from the writing-table chair, and stood for a few moments still and silent. He had dismissed Soobah, who quietly departed, carrying the tray with him. The faithful manservant showed no sign that he divined the trouble of his master’s heart, the doubts and perplexities that stormed within his breast. The temptation had more than once crossed Narasimha’s mind to take refuge in flight. It came now with the seductive suggestion that it could be temporary only; put off to a time when he was less fatigued, less obsessed by another vision that had so recently come into his life.
He was alone with his heart, disciplining it to the task that was before him, suppressing unruly thoughts that were undermining his loyalty, and trying to recall with some degree of charity the small figure hiding itself from his gaze in the folds of her saree.
With a deep sigh he passed slowly through the door of his room and moved towards the staircase. It was impossible to put any semblance of eager anticipation into his footsteps as he mounted the stairs, garland and pearls hanging from his fingers.
There was no sound of anyone in the room, no voice to greet him or bid him welcome. He told himself that he ought not to expect it. Above all things, Indian women must be modest and silent in the presence of the men.
“May I come in?” he asked, as he reached the top of the stairs and stood outside the doorway. Before it hung a bead curtain which partially hid the interior of the room. There was no reply.
“Little One, are you there? May I come in?” he asked again.
“Come in, husband. I am waiting for you.” The answer was firm and free from any indication of trepidation.
A sense of disappointment struck him. She had not advanced to the doorway to meet him nor offered to hold back the curtain.
He pushed aside the glass and bamboo fringe and passed into the room. As his eyes fell on the figure of his wife he stopped short, with a catch of his breath.
She was dressed in white and gold. Her shoes were of gold, strapped over the instep. The room was in perfect order just as he himself had arranged it.
She was seated on the sofa with her feet drawn up Indian fashion. Behind her were three or four bright-coloured cushions which had been selected with the regard to a colour scheme of contrasts, that is inbred with the Oriental.
The fine muslin saree, with its rich border of gold, enveloped her figure. Its edge was held across her face just as the child held it on the memorable night of the wedding at Chittoor.
One eye was visible. It shone, but not with the gleam of terror and anger that had been there as she had sat with her back to the wall on the bare mattress dragged from the cot. A light of mischief and a sparkle of fun lighted her eye, which fixed him with a steady gaze.
Narasimha stood still as he had stood on that night, regarding his bride with perplexity. What could he do? Was the hideous business to be acted all over again? Had his effort to tame the wild nature of the girl in whose veins ran her mother’s Mahratta blood been of no avail?
“Little One,” he began, after a short silence. “If it is your pleasure that I should leave you——” His voice was gentle as on the former occasion when he had respected her wishes.
At his words the saree was thrown back on to her shoulders, the golden feet touched the floor. She rose with a bound. A pair of rounded arms were extended as she advanced towards the astounded man.
“Seeta Rama, what marvel is this?” he whispered.
“Oh! my husband! stay! My beloved, do not leave me again! I want you! I die for you! I love you! I am yours now and for ever!”
She was in his arms, her cheek against his, her hands upon his neck, her lips seeking his, till she sank half fainting, and would have fallen to the floor if he had not placed her on the sofa.
Kneeling by her side he heard her confession with a silent uplifting of his heart to the great God above, who had at last brought him to a haven of bliss.
He placed the garland of jasmine round her neck and then the pearls, watching her delight in the gifts.
“Better than beads, Little One, aren’t they?” he asked.
“Lovely! Oh, lovely! and I don’t deserve them. Husband, will you ever forgive me for my bad behaviour that night?”
“Not your fault, my flower of delight! You had been badly treated.”
“You changed all that when you handed me over to Miss Sibyl.” She smiled at the sudden recollection of Miss Cullington. “Poor Miss Sibyl! I was too much for her as soon as I discovered that I wanted my husband. You refused to give me leave to come——”
“I was just going to start on my long tour on the Agricultural Commission. What could I do with a wife in the wild districts I had to visit?”
“I didn’t realise the difficulties,” she said repentantly. “Then I met Mrs. Strafford. She offered to mother me till she could hand me over safely to you.”
“Which she has done; bless her for being the best friend I have ever had.”
There was silence for a while. Narasimha broke it.
“It is strange that I had no suspicion of the truth,” he said.
“You nearly arrived at it on the polo-ground when you had the accident, beloved.”
“I learnt another secret.”
“What was it?”
“That you loved me; that my love was returned.”
“So you kept away from me and made me very unhappy,” said Seeta.
“Dear Little One! I was afraid of myself.”
“And Mrs. Strafford was afraid lest I should betray myself and allow you to discover that Seeta Rama was none other but your little jungle cat,” she said, burying her face on his breast.
The song of the well was wafted through the open windows as the busy villagers raised the last skin of water. The light of the sunset slowly died out of the sky. The shadows under the trees deepened and the short twilight of the tropics enveloped the land.
There was once again silence, a silence too sacred to break, as these two souls found each other.
The Indian poetess sings with the true knowledge of her race:
“How shall I woo thee, O dearest?”
“With the delicate silence of love.”