The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
She ran down the verandah steps into the garden as though flying from a
revelation of evil.
Mrs. Boucicault looked after her, watching till the light-clad figure
had disappeared among the trees. Then, plucking a fresh rose from the
trellis-work, went back into her boudoir. A few minutes later she
entered her husband's sick-room and motioned the nurse to leave them.
In that simple action there was an authority, an easy self-assurance
that seemed, to change even her appearance. She held herself well, with
lifted head as a prisoner does who breathes the free air after many
years.
Boucicault saw her. He could not turn his head, but she stood well
within the range of his roving eyes. He stared at her, and she too
studied him, the while scenting her rose delicately. He had changed
almost beyond belief. The muscles of his face were withered so that it
looked much smaller and weaker. The consuming, unappeasable temper was
still marked about the mouth, in the black puckered brow, but now it was
merely pitiable. It could never make another man or woman cower. It
could never make _her_ cower again. Perhaps some such reflection passed
through both their minds. Boucicault turned his eyes away like a sick
animal. It was almost the first sign he had given of understanding.
Hitherto, though obviously conscious, he had refused all response to the
code of signals which Dr. Martin had planned for him, in his bitter
humiliation of body seeming to cling to the utter isolation of his mind.
Now, though he could not move, he appeared to shrink into himself, to
cringe before an encroachment which he could no longer avert. His wife
came and stood close beside him. She was playing idly with her rose,
twisting the stem between her fingers. Her eyes were bright, wide open,
with two sharp points of light in them which seemed to dance. There was
real colour in her cheeks. She was not smiling now, and yet her face,
her whole body, radiated a fierce vivid amusement.
"I've just seen Dr. Martin, Richard," she said. "You'd rather I told
you the truth, wouldn't you? He says there's no hope of your getting
well--not really well. Perhaps, after a long time, you may be able to
move a little, but you might also die suddenly. No one can do anything
for you. You'll just lie there. I thought I'd tell you. I'm going to
have a good time. Anne doesn't think it quite proper, but I'm sure
you'll understand. I haven't had much fun in the last few years, have
I? And I was awfully gay before I married you. You don't object, do
you, Richard? Do say so if you do."
She grew bigger--taller, like a bird of prey spreading itself over its
maimed and helpless victim. The soldier's whitewashed room, blank of
all beauty, made a simple frame for the artificial brilliancy of her.
The man whose dead body outlined itself massively under the thin
covering, burned and withered in it. His eyes met hers for an instant
in understanding and mad defiance.
"Of course we'll do all we can, Richard. We shall stay in Gaya. Dr.
Martin advises it, and I want to. It will be nicer for you too, because
if we went to a new place--or to Cheltenham or something of that
sort-nobody would bother about you. Here, of course, people are bound
to take notice of you. They'll drop in and tell you about the regiment
and all that. I shall come in every day, so that you shall hear all I
am doing. I expect I shall be very busy."
She paused deliberately, assuming an attitude of closer interest. "Have
you tried to tell any one who killed you? I wonder. Perhaps you don't
want to. I expect it was something discreditable. Besides, even if he
or they were caught and hanged it wouldn't help you much, would it? You
couldn't see it done--unless we dragged you out in a long chair or
something----" She laughed, and bent over him--a pale-tinted, delicate,
very sinister figure. "Am I tiring you? You look tired. Smell that
rose--isn't it beautiful?--you can smell still, can't you? But I
forgot; you don't care for flowers. You wouldn't let me have any in the
house. Well, perhaps you will grow to care for them. I will tell nurse
to put some in a vase for you." She touched his cheek lightly with the
flower and laughed again. "Well, good-bye for today, Richard."
She pirouetted on her heel like a girl, and went to the door. He could
not see her, but he heard her give a little gasp and then utter a name.
His eyes opened to the full--he began to breathe quickly and
laboriously. The veins on his dark, wizened-looking forehead stood out
in the frightful effort to break through, to move, to speak----
"Major Tristram--what a shock you gave me! I thought you were at
death's door. You oughtn't to be here, I'm sure. I hardly recognized
you."
"Yes--I am a sight, aren't I? Still, I'm not dead--not by some lengths.
May I speak to your husband?"
"Oh, yes, you may speak to him. You won't mind a monologue, will you?
You've heard about it, I expect--spinal column affected or
something--but I'm so stupid about these things. Do come and talk to me
afterwards, won't you, Major? I should like to hear all your news."
The door closed. Boucicault lifted his eyes. They were sunken--so
black, so lightless that their expression could not be guessed at. It
might have been an appalling hatred--anything.
Tristram did not return the gaze. He stood at the sick man's side,
rocking on his heels, fighting a purely physical battle, then suddenly
crumbled up on the edge of the bed, his shaking hands to his face. Thus
he remained for a minute whilst Boucicault's eyes rested on him with
mute, unfathomable intensity.
Presently Tristram raised himself, and the encounter had taken place,
almost actual in the poignancy and force of the memory which flared up
behind the mutual scrutiny. Neither man flinched.
"I had the deuce of a business to get here," Tristram said at last quite
simply. "I had to humbug and dodge any number of people, and get my own
legs to crawl which wasn't easy. But I had to come. I've got to speak
to you, Boucicault. I'd have come sooner, but I've been a raving
lunatic most of the time and this was my first chance. You may think it
damnable of me to hound you down when you can't hit back, as it were,
but I can't help that, I've got to have it out." He paused a moment,
running his hand over his close-cropped head. He seemed to be
struggling for coherency. Boucicault's stare never wavered. "It's not
very much I've got to say. I won't waste time and breath telling you
what I feel--I've done something worse than murder you. I smashed you
up when I ought to have realized that you were a man with a sick brain.
I was a sick man myself and--and couldn't think clearly. I just heard
poor old Wickie scream--well, we won't go into that--it's too beastly.
But I've just come to tell you that I'm not going to give myself up to
what some people would call justice. That's what I meant to do at
first--but I see now that it was sentimentality and cowardice--the sort
of thing that drives some people to confess--a kind of shaking off one's
burden of responsibility on to some one else. I'm rambling--it's so
infernally difficult to keep one's thoughts clear." He passed his
tongue over his cracked lips. Boucicault's eyes closed for an instant.
"Can you understand what I'm saying?" The eyes opened again to their
full stare and Tristram went on more clearly. "Of course, it's possible
you may get all right or even be able to denounce me without that. I
shan't deny anything. I shall be jolly glad, I daresay. But until then
I'm going on with my work. We're men, Boucicault--and I won't mince
matters--you've smashed up a good many lives in your time--men in the
regiment, your wife, Anne--and you and I have smashed each other but
that's the end of it. You may or you may not believe me--but I'm not
going to be dragged into disgrace if I can help it--for my mother's
sake. She's old--very old--she can't last long---she's had a rotten
time, and the last year or two--well, I shall protect them with all my
strength." He straightened his shoulders as a man does who, groping
through darkness, suddenly sees his way clear. "That's what I conceive
to be my duty. You hate me, of course, but you're clever enough to know
the sort of man I am and you know quite well that whether I'm punished
or not, I've done for myself. That ought to satisfy you for the
present." He got up. "So I'm going back to my work. I don't know
whether you'll understand what I mean when I say that I'm going to try
and balance the misery you and I have brought into this world--I've got
your responsibilities as well as my own to shoulder because I've smashed
your chance of making good. And there's something else--if it lies in
human power I'll set you on your feet again. If I succeed I shall tell
my mother the truth, and I think somehow that then she will feel
differently about it--it won't be quite the same sort of failure. Of
course you'll want other doctors--you mayn't trust me--but no one else
will fight for you as I shall. Give me some sign. If you trust me
close your eyes once. I shall understand."
In the long silence which followed the two men held each other in a gaze
so ardent, so penetrating that it was like the physical grappling of
wrestlers, one of whom at least knew no pity. The sweat of weakness and
recent effort showed itself on Tristram's forehead, but his features
wore a weary serenity.
Presently a change showed itself on Boucicault's face. There was a
shadow at the corners of his stiff, powerless lips--a kind of smile,
malicious, calculating, ironic. His eyes closed once.
Tristram nodded.
"That's all I have to say, then."
He made his way from the bungalow, circuiting the front verandah where
he guessed Mrs. Boucicault would wait for him, to the compound gates.
There Sigrid Fersen with the Rajah's dog-cart awaited him. She bent
towards him, her face white with anger.
"How could you, Major Tristram! I guessed somehow you had come here and
followed you. How could you do it?"
"I had to," he answered. He came up to the step of the cart, trying to
support himself against the shaft unseen by her. "I had to," he
repeated.
"A professional visit, I suppose?" she flashed scornfully.
"In a sort of way--yes."
"Well, anyhow--try and climb if you've the strength. I'll drive you back
to bed."
He looked up at her and she frowned and bit her under lip to keep back
an exclamation.
"Please--will you do something for me?"
"What is it, you madman?"
"Drive me to Heerut."
"Heerut--are you really insane? Do you want to die?"
He smiled wistfully.
"Oh, Lord, no--I've jolly well got to live. But I'm going back to
work."
"You can't--it's absurd--I won't be responsible."
"You wouldn't be responsible," he interrupted earnestly. "Listen--I've
got to go--there are my poor beggars in quarantine--all sorts of
things--believe me, it's urgent, it must be--if you don't help me, I
shall walk or get some one else."
"You know that Ayeshi has gone--gone to Calcutta."
He averted his face.
"Yes--Compton told me."
"And Wickie--disappeared. You'll be all alone."
"Yes," he agreed simply.
She bent a little lower. She was smiling as one does at an obstinate,
unhappy child.
"In a few weeks I may have to leave Gaya. My time is almost up. Are
you flying from me?"
He remained patiently, doggedly silent, and she sighed and drew back.
"_Kismet_! So you make Fate for us both. I won't try to thwart you. I
will take you to Heerut. But I make one stipulation."
"Yes?"
"It is that before I leave Gaya we spend one day together--a kind of
farewell picnic--a high and solemn feast to the end of all things. It