The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
appreciate more than I do the courage of our women here in India.
Literally we all go more or less with our lives in our hands. Of
course, the vast majority of the natives are loyal, but in so many
millions there are bound to be one or two degenerate fanatics with a
grievance. I understand there has been some question of sedition in the
native regiment--at least, a good deal of discontent. We had rumours of
it even in Lucknow."
Anne Boucicault looked up. She had certainly been crying, but now her
brown eyes were bright, and her lips straight and firm.
"It wasn't any of father's men," she said on a low note of defiance.
"I'm sure it wasn't. Father is a fine soldier. When he was captain they
used to call him the Bagh Sahib because of his fearlessness. They
worshipped him. One of the older men told me--I know they wouldn't have
touched him."
Dr. Martin smiled. He felt relieved and pleasantly moved by the quick
and passionate championship of the hulk he had just condemned. He had,
moreover, heard something of Colonel Boucicault's past and something of
his present. For the latter he was prepared to find some explanation in
the grey-haired, bedizened figure of indifference opposite him.
"One would be glad to believe that you are right, Miss Boucicault," he
said courteously. "If only the dastardly coward could be got hold
of----"
"I believe I know who he is," she interrupted in a hard quick way, which
was new to her. "Ayeshi, Major Tristram's servant, has disappeared. He
had some money which the Rajah gave him for his education, and he has
stolen it and gone. I saw him that night when he came and told us that
father had been found. I saw blood on his hand."
Dr. Martin hesitated an instant, as though in two minds as to his
answer. Finally he looked up with a professional twinkle.
"Feminine intuition again! Well, since you've got so far on your own,
Miss Boucicault, I might as well tell you that your surmise is shared by
others. I met Captain Compton at the dak-bungalow, and he told me
there's a hue and cry after this said Ayeshi. Only it's to be kept
quiet. I understand the boy was a sort of protege of Major Tristram's,
and there's a general opinion that, unless it's necessary, the latter is
not to be told. He's pretty weak still, and it's something of a shock
to get one of your pet theories bowled over in that way."
Anne's eyes sank to her clasped hands.
"Is Major Tristram better?" she asked.
"Fine. Well round the corner. But I fancy it must have been touch and
go with him. That fair-haired woman--Miss Fersen, isn't that the
name?--seems to have fought every inch of the ground." He reflected
pleasurably for a minute. "Well, that's the sort of nurse a man wants
on his death-bed--a real fighter and worth looking at to boot--something
to make life worth struggling for. Great dancer, isn't she? Well, I'm
a sort of back-number that never catches up, and there's always a
different star on the horizon when I get home on leave, and even then I
only get a glimpse. My people hang out in a God-forsaken spot in
Yorkshire." He rambled on for a time with a man's affable, crushing
indifference as to whether his listeners are bored or otherwise, but
finally, chilled by Mrs. Boucicault's enigmatic smile and Anne's white
silence, he got up.
"Well, I'll be getting along to the club----"
Mrs. Boucicault remained seated.
"Would you spare me a minute, Dr. Martin? A little trouble of my own--a
bruise, a mere nothing, still perhaps you would look at it. Anne, run
away, would you?"
Dr. Martin, a little irritated by this fresh and probably petty call on
his services, wondered at the girl's dignity. It must be galling at her
age to be told to "run away." He scented tragedy, and sized it up and
turned to its creator with professionalism and small sympathy.
"Now, Mrs. Boucicault, if you could just tell me----"
Anne heard the last words and smiled bitterly to herself. She went out
on to the verandah and stood there looking down into the sunlit garden
with eyes that were blind with misery and anger and contempt. In that
quiet room, listening to the doctor's pleasantly modulated voice, she
had been through purgatory. She knew that the ways of God were
inscrutable--it was the all-covering explanation of her creed--but they
were sometimes hard to tread. Why had He given a bad woman the power to
save the life of a good man? Why had He allowed Evil to creep in and
take possession of peaceful Gaya? Was it perhaps a trial, a test of
their strength? That seemed possible. At least she did not doubt the
working of God's hand. She had seen it strike--strike terribly. In a
few hours it had brought a miracle of change in her little cosmos. The
figure of terror had gone down like some monstrous clay-footed idol, and
become pitiful and pitiable. She no longer feared it--no longer hated.
She yearned towards it as towards a sinner whose punishment has been
meted out with an implacable justice. He was a symbol of Divine wrath,
an awful admonition, but beyond man's hate or censure. He had become
almost sacred to her. But her mother had drifted from her, had wilfully
stood apart in that solemn moment, with that hateful smile on her lips
had seemed to deny the very existence of God Himself. Anne shuddered.
It was as though a mask had fallen from the grey-tinted, childish,
wrinkled face, and that Anne saw her as she was, petty, cruel,
mean-souled--a hard, unlovable woman who had perhaps driven her father
to his destruction. Her father had been a great man--a fine soldier,
brave, daring, much beloved. She thought of him with a dim, uncertain
pride which grew stronger and clearer. But her mother sank into a
shadow. She was little and selfish. In this awful hour when Death hung
over them, she thought of her own petty ailments--of a trivial bruise,
keeping Dr. Martin back to discuss herself with a nauseating self-pity.
In that moment Anne's heart turned towards her father with an
overpowering tenderness, a kind of comradeship of understanding.
How long they were! Presently she heard her mother's voice,
high-pitched and steady. Mrs. Boucicault led the way out on to the
balcony. She was toying with the red rose, smelling it with a
deliberate epicureanism.
"I am so glad you are able to stay on a few days, Dr. Martin. I am
giving a dinner and a little dance to the Station next week, and of
course Miss Fersen will be of the party. She is rather a friend of
mine. You will meet her then. Good-bye for the present, and ever so
many thanks."
Dr. Martin muttered something. Even then Anne wondered at him. He took
no notice of her, and went stumbling awkwardly down the steps like a man
shaken out of his composure. His face was white and rather sickly
looking.
The two women stood side by side, and watched him clamber up into the
dog-cart and drive off. Even after he had disappeared they remained
motionless as though both feared the first move, the first break in the
long silence between them. Or perhaps it was only Anne who was afraid,
for when she turned suddenly she found her mother's gaze fixed absently
on the distance, her smile lingering at the corners of her mouth like
the forgotten grimace of an actor who has suddenly ceased to act.
"Mother--you didn't mean it--it was a mistake--I didn't understand you,
of course--it isn't true about the dinner----"
"Why not?" Mrs. Boucicault turned her faded blue eyes to her daughter's
face. "Yes, it's perfectly true," she said.
Anne was shivering with an almost physical sickness.
"It isn't possible," she said breathlessly. "You can't realize--with
father so ill--so terribly ill. How can you think of such a thing?
It's wicked--cruel! What will people think?"
"I don't really know. But they'll come. Sigrid Fersen will come, I
know. I wish she would dance--just once. I have never seen her."
"That woman! You mean to have her--now?"
"I thought you'd be glad. She seems to have saved Major Tristram's
life."
"The Rajah's mistress!"
Mrs. Boucicault laughed lightly.
"My dear little daughter, how grown-up of you! Is that the sort of
thing your religion teaches you?"
Anne made no answer. She was ashamed and sorry, but also full of a
bitter resentment, as good people are when they have been goaded into an
unjustifiable aggression, an ugly, unchristian outbreak. Yet she
recognized her share of the fault with contrition, and in penance sought
to retrace her steps, to bridge the widening gulf between her and the
woman who one short week ago had been her companion, her half-protected,
half-protecting comrade. She came and laid her hand gently on her
mother's.
"It was horrid of me to say that--it was uncharitable. But I am so
unhappy----"
"Unhappy--are you?" Mrs. Boucicault smiled vaguely down at the
caressing hand as though it amused her.
"Why?"
"Mother--isn't it obvious?--Isn't it the most terrible thing that could
have happened?"
"It doesn't seem to me terrible at all."
Anne held her ground. She was trembling with a kind of painful
excitement. In her own mind there was a picture of herself fighting to
bring this shallow little soul up to the heights of realization, to some
dim perception of the real tragedy.
"It is terrible," she affirmed patiently. "Even if you don't love
father any more you must see how awful it is to be struck down like that
in a minute, without time to make his peace with any of us--and now to
lie there dumb and helpless, never able to tell us things--never able to
make up for anything. Isn't that pitiable? It's the very coldest way
one can look at it. But you must feel more than that. After all, you
did love him once. Of course he was different then, but you must try
and remember him as he was in those days----"
Mrs. Boucicault patted the hand on her arm.
"That sounds quite pretty and nice, Anne. But I haven't time for
remembering."
"Not time? You've got all your life. You must try and make a new
picture of him. I shall. I shall think of him as the handsome, brave
Tiger Sahib and learn to love him. We've got to hold together, mother,
and make this awful trial bearable for him. After all, we can't
tell--it may be a kind of test of us all--it may be the saving of
him--of us----"
Mrs. Boucicault shook her head like a playful, obstinate child.
"I don't look at it like that at all. I'm free. I'm going to have a
rattling good time."
"Mother!" She still retained her affectionate attitude, but it had
become official, perfunctory. All the warmth in her died out, leaving a
chill horror. "Mother--you can't mean what you say! If you do you must
be mad or very wicked."
"I daresay both, my dear. I really don't care. I'm free--that's how I
feel about it. I'm going to make up for lost time----"
Anne shrank away from her.
"It's awful--horrible----"
Mrs. Boucicault threw her rose petulantly into the garden. She had only
worn it a short time, and it had already withered.
"I guessed you would feel like that. If you don't like it you could go
down to Trichy and stay with the Osbornes. They are your father's
relations, and they always hated me, so you'll get on. Of course I
don't want to persuade you. I'm very fond of you, Anne. I should like
you to stay."
"And watch you make a mock of my father's misery?"
"No, Anne--only having a good time."
"It would make me sick to see you."
"Well, then--of course you must go."
The two women considered each other for a moment. There was no pity, no
relenting to be read on the older face, only an inflexible purpose
softened by a childlike look of gay anticipation. Anne turned away.
"I couldn't bear it--I couldn't bear to live with you----"