The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
what lay ahead of him--lonely, hard years and perhaps no return. So he
did what he had never done before, because money and pleasure had not
come his way--he took himself and his pain into a theatre. And there he
saw you."
"Well--and then?"
"That's all. There was wonderful music, and you explained it to him.
You showed him a new beauty that he had never dreamed of, you unlocked a
door, and he entered a new world. When it was over he got up and left
the theatre. He behaved like a boy--he went and stood by the river
until day broke."
"And the photograph."
"He bought it to take with him."
She smiled to herself, tenderly, ironically.
"It did not occur to him to ask for my autograph--to seek me out."
"No, then you would have been a reality to him--an unattainable reality.
He wanted you as a dream he could live with and conjure up at will."
"As he did by the backwater."
"Yes." He pointed out towards the grey bulk of the temple lying against
the forest. His voice lost its habitual unevenness, and grew full and
clear. "One thing you danced--do you remember?--the ballet in _Robert
le Diable_? The scene was a churchyard--an ugly thing of cardboard and
clumsy carpentering until you came. But out there is a real temple. At
night the moon plays through the great sun-window of the _sikhara_ and
fills the space between the pillars. And I have gone there at
night-time and seen you dance."
"Shall you go again, Tristram Tristram?"
"I don't know--I don't know."
They went on in silence. There was no sound but the song of the water
and the swish of the grass at their feet. Presently she drew rein.
"We are near the bridge; I can hear voices, and I want to say good-bye
to you now. I want to thank you. I have made my experience, and
climbed higher."
He looked up at her with a wistful smile.
"I don't know about that--I don't know what I have done. I do know that
I have grown frightened for you. I've been thinking of infection and
cheetahs on the home road and all the horrors I don't believe in. I
wish I could go with you to Gaya."
"There is nothing to fear, Tristram Tristram. And you will come to Gaya
tomorrow or the next day or next week and I shall play to you Beethoven,
Chopin, Brahms--all the most wonderful music in the world. I shall open
new doors for you and new worlds----"
He shook his head.
"There's cholera out in Bjura."
"Still you will come----" she answered.
Her hand touched his. Then she was gone--a speck of moving light--into
the darkness.
*CHAPTER VII*
*ANNE BOUCICAULT EXPLAINS*
It was Anne Boucicault's birthday--her twenty-second--and Owen Meredith
had proposed her health in lemonade--a beverage which he was assured had
no unlucky superstition attached to it. The rest responded in
champagne. It was not Colonel Boucicault's champagne, though it was on
his verandah that Gaya had gathered to celebrate. Jim Radcliffe, who,
since his midnight ride with Sigrid and the consequent hubbub, had
developed into a very debonair and self-confident young man, had
produced a case-full with the satisfaction and mystery of a popular
conjurer, and Mrs. Boucicault showed neither offence nor appreciation at
this addition to her hospitality. She sat in the shade near the doorway
and scarcely spoke. From time to time her hand rose involuntarily to the
high collar which had been added to her elaborate gown, and rested there
as though it hid something painful. When a remark reached her a fitful
smile quivered about her lips steadied to artificial gaiety. But her
pale eyes were wide and unsmiling, their sight turned inwards on to some
ugly vision, and never lifted from their unseeing watch on the avenue
leading to the high-road. Anne sat on the arm of her chair and held her
hand. She looked very young, and, whilst Meredith spoke, almost
radiant. He had seen the colour creep back into her pale cheeks, and
had become gay and eloquent and a little reckless. For all the
lemonade, and the little chilly mannerisms of his calling, he was a
passionate young man, and the sight of her fragile pleasure roused in
him a fierce pity and tenderness. He betrayed himself, and did not know
it. Afterwards, when he came and touched her long-stemmed glass with
his tumbler, he lingered, looking down at her, his hazel eyes bright
with a new purpose and an old hope suddenly and daringly set free.
"Anne--dear--before I go tonight I have something I want to say to you.
Give me a chance, will you?"
She met his eager gaze for an instant, and then her own eyes faltered
and dropped. She looked startled, a little frightened, like a child
that has been taken unawares, but her colour remained unchanged.
"Of course--we shall be going into the garden. Come with me. I will
show you our new rose-trees."
"Thank you," he answered. He stood back, others crowded to take his
place, and she received their good wishes much as she had received him,
with a shy graciousness that made her appealingly attractive. Only when
Sigrid Fersen held out her glass she stiffened, and grew suddenly much
older. It was as though for an instant they had changed places, and the
girl had become the woman defending herself coldly and bitterly against
the threat of youth.
"And I can wish you nothing better than that you should always have some
one like Mr. Meredith to wish you so much good, with so much fervour,"
Sigrid said lightly. She turned her head towards the man standing behind
Anne Boucicault's chair, and her eyes in the shade of the big garden hat
sparkled with subdued merriment and kindly mockery. "Tell me, is Mr.
Meredith so eloquent in the pulpit?" she asked.
"You should hear him for yourself," Anne replied staidly.
"But then, I never go to church."
"That is a pity." She flushed a little, her mouth small and
tight-looking. "It is especially a pity out here--because of the
natives. But then, of course, you haven't our responsibility."
Meredith frowned slightly, not at Anne's words, but at the expression
which he saw pass over the small face opposite him. It was still
kindly, but the merriment had become ironic. Up to that moment he had
felt nothing very definite towards her, recognizing, with an unclerical
modesty, that he did not understand her. Now he thrilled with an odd
dislike.
"I'm afraid my eloquence won't cure Miss Fersen's backsliding," he said,
hurriedly good-humoured. "And, in the meantime, behold a new arrival,
breathless with congratulations."
The new arrival proved to be Wickie, escaped from the compound, who
bounced up the verandah steps and advanced among the scattered tables
practising the ingratiating squirm with which the Aberdeen masks his
real impertinence. He was received with acclamation, partly for his
master's sake, partly as a tribute to his own irresistible ugliness.
Anne whistled timidly to him, but he ignored her and sniffed at Sigrid's
outstretched hand.
"It's almost as though he knew you," Anne said sharply.
"Well, we know of each other at any rate, don't we, Wickie?"
"How?" The question was rude in its abruptness and Anne's manners were
always very gentle. Sigrid Fersen did not look at her. She bent down
and balanced a generous portion of cake on Wickie's hopeful snout.
"Major Tristram told me about him," she said.
"But Major Tristram has not been in Gaya since you arrived."
"Nevertheless, we have met." She glanced across at Radcliffe who
chuckled with boyish self-consciousness. "I paid Major Tristram a
visit," she added.
"At Heerut?"
"Well, we had tea there--but we met by the river. Major Tristram had
been bathing."
Anne Boucicault sat very straight and still and hard-eyed. Meredith saw
that her hands were clenched so that they were white at the knuckles,
and again he felt the passing of a sudden emotion which was this time a
mingling of inexplicable pain and dread.
"That must have been an unusual--dangerous adventure," Anne uttered from
between stiff lips.
"I had hoped that it might be--it proved to be nothing but a very
agreeable afternoon," was the answer.
The dialogue passed unnoticed. Mrs. Brabazone was telling one of her
only three stories, and trying to sort out the point. Gaya listened and
waited reverently, and Mrs. Brabazone, being possessed of a fine sense
of her own total lack of humour, finished with a round fat laugh which
added a perfecting touch to her rotund figure and creaseless, elderly
face.
"Anyhow, I do amuse you," she said triumphantly. "Nobody amuses you like
I do. I don't believe you could get on without me. One of these days I
shall have that story right, and then you'll see that it was worth
waiting for it. You know, I always mix it up with the one about the
Lancashire woman who----" She stopped, her mouth agape. "What on earth
was that?" she demanded sharply.
"Firing," Mary Compton answered. She raised herself from her
comfortable lounging attitude on the long chair, and leant forward with
a curious expression on her alert face. "What was it, Mr. Radcliffe?"
The boy got up hurriedly, ostensibly to refill his neighbour's empty
glass. His fresh-coloured face, not yet burnt with the Indian sun, had
turned a dull red.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Some silly ass over in the barracks. A
rifle gone off by mistake. Or a sentry. The sentries have taken to
firing at their own shadows."
"It may have been at the barracks," Mrs. Compton pursued, "but that
wasn't a rifle, Jim Radcliffe. It was a squad firing, and you know it."
"And how do you know?" Mrs. Brabazone broke in. "Sometimes, Mary, I feel
that you can't be really nice. You do know such dreadfully unwomanly
things."
"I was shut up in Chitral with Archie when the regiment mutinied," Mrs.
Compton retorted coolly. "I learnt to know the meaning of every
sound--even to the snapping of a twig under a naked foot."
Mrs. Brabazone shook herself like a dog throwing off a douche of cold
water.
"My dear, don't! You're trying to insinuate that we are on the verge of
being murdered in our beds, and I know it perfectly well. I tell the
Judge so every night, and he says he's sure I shall die of a broken
heart if I have to go off peacefully. But then----"
Her voice trailed off. For once her headlong garrulity failed to evoke
a response, and the little group of men and women sat silent, avoiding
each other's eyes. It was very still again. A drowsy late afternoon
peace hung over the shady garden at their feet. Yet the sound which had
fallen lingered among them like a long-drawn-out echo.
They lived lightly and gaily, these people of Gaya, most blessed of
Indian stations. Polo and tennis, a drag-hunt here and there, a
constant happy-go-lucky exchange of hospitality, a close fraternity
which allowed for scandal and malice and all uncharitableness, and never
failed at a pinch. And then for an instant a rift--a glimpse down into
the thinly crusted abyss on which they danced--a tightening of the lips,
a laugh, a call for a new tune, a fine carrying-on of their life with
the secret knowledge that their pleasure and their brotherhood was other
and greater than they had thought.
Mary Compton broke the silence. Her voice sounded light and careless.
"I don't think we're going to die just yet, anyhow," she said; "there's
Colonel Boucicault. Perhaps he will condescend to tell us what Mr.
Radcliffe won't." She gave the latter one of those penetrating glances
which made her a rather dreaded little personality, and immediately
afterwards, catching sight of Mrs. Boucicault's face she flushed
crimson. It was, as she afterwards expressed it, as though she had been
caught eavesdropping or prying into a confession not meant for her