The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India

distance he had seen the glitter and flash of the Rajah's gaudy howdah, and was not unprepared for the procession which, now bore down towards the river. There were five elephants in all, the first showily caparisoned with a mahout in splendid livery, the others more seriously equipped for the hunt. Rasaldu and his guest, the new Colonel, whose face was overshadowed by his helmet, rode in the first, and, seeing Tristram, nodded with a cheerful condescension and held up two fat fingers to indicate the success of their expedition. Then the procession rumbled past like a noisy, gorgeous carnival of life leaving a cloud of sullen dust and the grey bed-rock of reality. An old man who had taken refuge under Arabella's lee put up a palsied hand and pointed in fierce scorn after the disappearing Rajah. "His father--a cowherd----" he stammered. "His father served mine and betrayed him to the English." Tristram nodded. "And the Rajah who then was?" "Dead, Sahib." "He left no heirs?" The sunken eyes were lifted for a moment. "Sahib, there are things we do not even whisper among ourselves." Then his expression changed. It was as though a vizor had dropped over his shrivelled features. With bowed head he shuffled towards a group of villagers who had gathered farther off, and Tristram, becoming uncomfortably aware of a third presence, turned in his saddle. He saw then that, under cover of the procession's passing, he had been overtaken by a second horseman whose delicately built Arab showed traces of hard and recent galloping. The rider lifted his brown hand in formal salutation. "I was loafing round the temple when I saw you pass, Major," he said easily. "It occurred to me that our long-planned interview might take place now and here. Are you agreeable?" "If you wish it." "May I ride with you?" "Are you going to Heerut?" Barclay showed his white teeth in a brief smile. "I hope so." There was a moment of uncertainty on Tristram's side. He stroked Arabella's long neck thoughtfully. "Still, I think we'd better say what we want to say now. Your mare looks pretty winded--mine's all in. It won't hurt to breathe them both." "As you like," Barclay answered. His manner was touched with a certain tremulousness which might have resulted from his rash gallop through the treacherous grass. But otherwise there was no trace of the man who had broken down at the temple gateway. "Look here," he began abruptly, "do you think you're playing the game, Major Tristram? What's your idea? What have I done to you? We don't need to beat about the bush. I know quite well whom I'm up against. I tell you straight--I've got a short way with people who oppose me--I smash them. But I don't smash till I've tried reason. Why don't you let my affairs alone?" Tristram stirred impatiently in his saddle. "I'm not interested in your affairs, Mr. Barclay, except in so far as they concern my friends." "Friends!" Barclay laughed out with a forced good-humour. "And what have I done to your friends, pray? Look around you. Look at these rotten crops. Well, I've lent good money on these crops--lent it to your precious proteges. When am I going to see my money back?" "When you want to," Tristram returned. "Next harvest, or as soon as the poor devils get a cow they can call their own--and fifty per cent. into the bargain." Barclay shrugged his shoulders. "Fifty per cent. covers the risks--no more." "Then it's a pity you bother yourself." "That's your idea of humour, no doubt, Major. But I'm dead serious. I know what you've done. You've set these people against me. You've used your influence to prevent my doing business with them. I've no doubt you used your power to terrify them." Tristram laughed gaily. "I did that," he admitted. "I believe they think you're the devil himself." "And you think that's fair? What right had you----?" "I don't care to see people paying fifty per cent. interest." "Very well. But what's going to happen? You're so damned thoughtful for your friends--perhaps you'll tell me what's going to happen to them. Those weavers--at Heerut and Bjura and all round--they're smashed. No one will touch their stuff for a year at least. Are they going to starve--or are you going to advance them money out of your screw?" Tristram looked up, his blue eyes resting calmly and even with a certain amusement on the other's dark and bitter face. "In a sort of way--at least I'm getting the Government to take a hand." "You--you did that?" "I'm trying to. You're quite right. I've done all I can to keep you and your agents out. I'm a doctor, and the material conditions of my people concern me. I've seen some of your business methods, and I think you're unhealthy, Mr. Barclay." Barclay contained himself with a desperate effort. "My word, that may be truer than you think. I'm unhealthy to people who get in my way. Look here, Major Tristram--I don't want to use the screw--after all, we're Englishmen in a foreign country, and it's our infernal duty to hang together--but I won't be kicked out of things like that. I give you fair warning to leave my preserves alone, and I'll tell you why. I know things--I know something that would----" He stopped short. Tristram's eyes were still on his face. They had neither flickered nor lost their quizzical good-humour. "Well, what do you know? It's rather funny, but we both seem to have found out something detrimental about each other. For instance, though this is only our second meeting, I'm convinced that you're a thorough-paced blackguard, Mr. Barclay." "That may be. My father was one." "I'm sorry." "You have good reason to be sorry." His lips were quivering. He burst out ungovernably. "You have your share in him." "Mr. Barclay----" "Tristram--that's what my name should be. Your father was mine----" "Is that your attack, then?" Barclay put up his hand as though to hide his unsteady mouth. "No," he said. "It is not. But it is the truth. I can prove it. I guessed it some time back, but I wasn't certain. Your--our father, lived in my bungalow. It was there he was murdered--he and my mother by her husband. How much you know----" "I didn't know that," Tristram put in quietly. He looked away from Barclay, and the latter, watching him with a fevered anxiety, saw that the fine hand lying on Arabella's neck had lost its absolute steadiness. "You must prove it." "I can do so." "If it's true--then I'm sorry--sorry I spoke as I did. You've had the beastliest luck--I beg your pardon." He lifted his head again. The white gravity of his face lent the rather boyish words a sincerity which Barclay recognized with an inward faltering of his anger. For a vivid instant the two men touched spiritually, or met on some common ground of emotion--then broke apart. "I don't want pity," Barclay exclaimed childishly, bitterly. "I didn't offer you pity. Or if I did--I meant it for us both. It's not as bad--but I was rather proud of my father. My mother--we'll leave that out. And, anyhow--I suppose it's a small thing compared to what he did to you. It was a pitiless thing to do." He hesitated, and then added, with a shyness which sat quaintly enough on his big manhood: "I suppose we're brothers, then?" Barclay drew back from the outstretched hand. A mad impulse had almost driven him to grasp it and kiss it, but he crushed it under, shivering from head to foot in the violence of the revulsion. "So you acknowledge the relationship?" "Why shouldn't I?" "We'd better look the thing in the face. I'm an Eurasian, and illegitimate at that. Are you going to own me before your friends?" "Yes. I don't care what you are by circumstance. Illegitimacy and race are nothing to me. A man's a man." "That's not the law," Barclay returned sneeringly. "And I don't care a fig for the law either," Tristram said with a faint smile. Barclay was silent. A dull anger was kindling in him. It was a deeper, more dangerous passion than that which had driven him to strike before he had intended. It had its roots in their fundamental antagonism of character as it revealed itself now, in Barclay's failure to strike hatred out of a man he hated. For a moment whatever was fine in him had flashed up in response to Tristram's simple humanity, but that was gone, and there remained nothing but the galling recognition of an inferiority which was not that of race or circumstance. And with that recognition the little light he had within him went out. "That's all very well," he said at last, "but it's just talk. It won't help me. If you did recognize me, neither of us would get anything out of it. I should have to leave Gaya, and you'd get into trouble. That's not my game. The only brotherly act I ask of you is to leave me alone." "I have told you already I don't want to interfere. I've got to." Barclay gnawed at his thick under-lip, holding himself in, calculating. "Look here," he began again, "I guess I've inherited something from my mother besides my infernal colour--a sort of instinct--a knowledge of people. That night I met you at Sigrid Fersen's I found out something about you. I knew what was going on in you though you didn't know it yourself. I know what's wrong with you now. Well, I'll do the brotherly first. If you treat me fairly, you'll have nothing to fear from me--and besides that, I'll give you the straight tip--I know something of Sigrid Fersen. She wants the cream of life--it's a sort of religion with her. In London there wasn't a man or woman who could stand up to her in magnificence. There were the wildest stories told about her, and they were truer than most stories. She wouldn't stand this sort of thing--not if she were dying of love for you. Take my word for it--you'll want money--any amount of it--then you'll stand a chance with her----" Tristram, urged by a sudden disgust, and an intolerable unrest, turned Arabella's head and touched her to a walk. But Barclay was beside him, leaning towards him, talking rapidly. "Well, you can have money, Tristram"--and now he was using the Christian name with a deliberate purpose--"you can have as much as you need. I tell you this country is like an unworked mine. I'm going to work it. I'm going to be as rich and powerful as the pioneers in South Africa. These Anglo-Indian officials treat India as though it was a sort of toy--a kind of game against heavy odds. There isn't a business man among them. I'm a business man. And I'll take you into partnership--a sleeping partner with a quarter share and nothing to do but to sleep hard. I swear to you that in a year or two you can marry any one you please--I tell you she's hard up----" Tristram pulled Arabella to a standstill. "Don't talk like that," he blazed out. "I don't want to think you a scoundrel. If there is any blood common to us both I don't want to loathe it. You've had rough luck--it doesn't need to make you a cad." "Doesn't it? I'm not so sure. What do you expect me to do?" "Throw up this slave-driving business. I'll stand by you. I'll see you through, Barclay--whatever one man can do for another I will do----" "Will you? Will you come and live with me in Calcutta--with my people--the only people who won't treat me as though I were a nasty cross between a human being and an animal--blowsy, feckless, shiftless outcasts--will you? Well, you might--you're credited with queer things of that sort, but it would do for you. Your white blood wouldn't stand it. Nor will mine. I've got to get away from them. It's our father in me. But there's nowhere for me to go. I've got to make my world--make