The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
up, bracing herself--then rolled back again with a thwarted, muffled
murmur.
She had fed the stray pup and put it to sleep on Wickie's old bed. A
disreputable, ill-bred-looking tabby had crept slyly in through the open
window and had eyed the intruder with disapproving curiosity, then
settled herself down as one accustomed to eccentricities. Sigrid had
laughed a little at the interlude. It had seemed grotesque and humdrum,
a kind of satire on that which the sound painted on the gathering
darkness.
Presently it was quite dark. She got up and lit a candle, and held it
high above her head. The flame threw a pale circle of light down on the
surface of the still black waters which eddied round her. It gave life
to an eerie procession of formless, soft-footed shadows. She watched
them slide past, from darkness to darkness. Then she went back to the
table and sat there with her chin in her hand, her wide eyes fixed
broodingly on something far beyond the tiny pillar of light.
An hour passed. She got up and moved restlessly about the room. In the
struggle, her helmet had been knocked off and her hair loosened. She
let it down and smoothed its fair softness with her hands. There was no
glass in the place. She took the candle to the carved table against the
wall, and knelt down so that she could see a faint reflection of herself
in the glass of the big photograph. She began to do her hair with
fastidious, delicate carefulness. When it was done she took the
photograph and held it to the light. There was a pile of letters on the
table. The envelopes bore the same handwriting--strong and clear, yet
not with the strength and clearness of youth. It had an indefinable
affinity with the old face that looked out at her with its serene,
smiling wisdom from the wooden photo-frame. She counted the letters,
lingering over them, as though their touch brought her secret knowledge.
The cat, sleeping by the wall, lifted its head. A minute later, it got
up, arching its back, its fur bristling, its eyes blazing in the
darkness. She glanced towards it, aroused by its soft, menacing hiss of
anger and fear. Then suddenly the silence around her shivered and
broke. She turned and slipped into the second room. There was an old
hunting-knife lying among the debris of their hastily prepared picnic.
She snatched it up and ran back, placing herself against the wall with
the light between her and the door.
The sound that rushed down upon her was a new thing--more terrible than
the roar which had beaten persistently against the outer wall of her
consciousness. It was like rain and wind and water tearing through a
narrow gully. It came on swiftly, gathering speed and violence. It came
with a rush down the village street--nearer and nearer--the patter of
countless running feet--the gasp and groan of hard-drawn breath, stifled
mutterings, the shrill scream of a woman breaking off into a choking
gurgle. Nearer--in a headlong torrent--right to the closed door. She
drew herself up, her lithe body tense and prepared--and it swept past.
It raced on in a ceaseless torrent. She heard the jolt of a heavy body
sent reeling against the walls of the hut--and a little whimpering sound
that was like a child's crying. Behind the deluge there was a fresh
sound--the clatter of horses' hoofs at the gallop.
The door opened and closed. She had taken an involuntary step forward
to meet whatever was to come, the knife clenched in her right hand; but,
as she saw Tristram, she relaxed with a short, shuddering sigh and her
hand sank. He stood leaning with his shoulders against the door, staring
at her. His clothes were torn and blood-stained. There was something
wild and violent in his face which she had never seen before--the look
of a fighter straight from a struggle in which every nerve and sinew has
been put to a dire test--in which all the primitive passions of men have
risen like wolf-hounds tugging at the leash. The sleeve of his shirt had
been ripped to the elbow, and she saw the grand curving line of his
shoulder, expressive of an immense, tutored strength.
The hot colour raced through her pallor. She looked back to his face.
His eyes had dropped to the knife which she still held--they met hers
now and blazed back her fierce and sombre admiration. They remained
thus watching each other through a moment of shaken silence. Then he
lurched forward, dropping down on the chair by the table, sprawling like
a man overtaken by a sudden exhaustion, his bleeding hands clenched
before him.
"I am sick--sick of bloodshed!" he muttered.
She laid the knife quietly on the table and stood looking down at his
bent head.
"Meredith----" she began.
He threw back his shoulders with a bitter laugh.
"Did you ever know of any one who set out to sacrifice himself and who
didn't sacrifice everyone else first? Meredith's safe--but my people--my
poor people--they didn't mean any harm--they saved us--you and me. Even
though one of our kind had spat in the face of their religion--they
didn't forget. You don't know what it meant to them to be so calm and
loyal in all that frenzy. Then--then the troops came from Gaya. There
was a stampede--no one meant to hurt any one--but they went
under--dozens of them--stamped out of recognition--old Seetul and
Lalloo's little son, whom I nursed once----" He broke off with a harsh,
dry sob. She knelt down beside him. She drew his head down to her
shoulder, soothing him like a child.
"Tristram--you mustn't mind so. Things happen like that. We don't mean
to harm each other--we don't realize or we can't help ourselves. Some
one has to go under. We're always trampling on some one. It can't be
helped. The crowd is too great--we have to fight for ourselves first.
We were made like that----"
He made no answer. He leant against her with closed eyes. The
hurricane of galloping hoofs rolled past. She kissed him lightly,
tenderly--"Tristram----"
His eyes opened. Their faces were quite close. Their gaze became
fixed, intoxicated, deepening in intensity till it seemed as though they
held each other, were drawn closer and closer in an embrace of fire
which burnt out every intervening thought and consciousness. Suddenly,
violently, he sprang up, pushing her from him, and lurched towards the
door.
"I've got--to--see after things--there'll be an escort for you at the
bridge-head--later--I'll keep guard outside----"
She also had risen as swift and soundless as a panther. She stood by the
table upright and exultant, a point of light shining in her eyes.
"Stay here--here with me. If you go, it is because you're afraid----"
"Afraid----?" He swung round, his hand still on the door. "Of whom?"
"Of me--of yourself. You promised to be honest with me. This was to be
our day of days for which no one should demand reckoning. It is not
ended yet. You were honest once. That was when you thought we were
going to be killed. Then you dared to own to what I know already--that
you belonged to me--as I perhaps belong to you--to our fate--a fate
neither of us can escape, Tristram----"
He remained motionless; she could see the rise and fall of his great
chest.
"It isn't wise to be honest," he said thickly. "I'm afraid, if you
like--afraid of myself. You'd better let me go."
"Back to your dreams? But they're gone. You were just a grown-up boy,
playing with a fancy. Now you are a man and I am a woman. We've got to
deal with the reality now."
"That's true." He came slowly towards her, reeling a little in his
stride. "I want you--body and soul."
"I know--you told me----"
"When----?"
"The night you lay unconscious in my arms."
He put up his hand to his throat, as though something suffocated him.
"You had better let me go," he repeated doggedly. "We're both thrown out
of our course. At my best, I'm not much--I've learnt that--if I
resist--things it's because I don't care. And tonight----"
"You do care."
"Yes," he said, between his teeth.
"Why should we resist what is the most splendid thing in us?"
"Splendid?" he echoed. "My--my dreams were splendid. As you
say--they've gone. And the reality--can there be any reality between
us--between a divinely gifted woman and the loutish fool who dreams
about her? If I'd thought so--I'd have gone away--but it seemed to me
that you were just kind and pitying--amused even--and I dared go on.
And it is impossible--we belong to different worlds--life isn't the same
thing to either of us."
"We stand on different peaks of the same mountain range," she answered
wistfully. "There is the same sun and sky and stars for us both. It
seemed to me that we could have watched the sun rise together."
He held out his hand as though to touch her, and then drew back, his
face drawn and hard with the bitterness of mastered passion.
"You don't know what you're saying, Sigrid," he began harshly. "Nor
what you are offering me----"
"Myself," she flung in, with joyful fearlessness. "My love for you."
He began to pace the room backwards and forwards, in and out of the
light, his hands clenched at his sides.
"I can't--oh, my dear--it's hideous, so hopeless." His voice shook with
rough suffering. "Even if things were different--if I were
cad--enough--you see, I am being desperately frank now--don't you
realize what it would mean--can't you realize what you'd have to pay?"
She watched him patiently. Her first fierce energy had died down. The
colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving her with a look of pathetic
weariness.
"I've never bothered about the price of things. It's been a curse in my
life, I daresay; I shall never be able to sink into a safe, comfortable
mediocrity. I've burnt my boats too thoroughly for that. But, instead,
I've had the highest and best in life. I've always dared to live to the
utmost, Tristram. I wanted to be perfect in my art, and I gave my soul
to it. I lived more austerely than a nun, more grandly than an empress.
Men wanted to love me, but I never thought of them. There was only one
thing for me then--it was like a mountain that I had sworn to climb. I
climbed it. And then--then it was over. You can't understand--but I
had paid the price to the last farthing. Now, before it's too late, I
want the greatest, most splendid thing that perhaps a human being can
pray for--the happiness of loving."
Her voice had dropped gradually, as though she had forgotten him. He
stood still, frowning at her with a hopeless misery in his exhausted
eyes.
"Sigrid--if I'd asked you a month ago would you have been my wife?"
She started a little, seeming to shrink from what was to come.
"No, Tristram--not then."
"And now--if things were different--if it were possible----?"
She shook her head.
"No--now least of all." She heard the sharp, painful catch in his
breath. "It isn't possible--that's just it," she added wearily.
He resumed his restless pacing backwards and forwards.
"Then it was just a moment in your life you were offering me--I was to
be part of a new and splendid episode----" He strode up to her and
gripped her by the shoulders. "Oh--I'm not proud--you're a creature of
fire and air, and I'm one of the earth. You could have walked over me
and I'd have been content. And yet--I don't know. I might have cared
too much. Perhaps I do care too much--but there's something besides
that now. I'm not a moral or even a strong man, but there's only to be
one woman in my life---the woman I marry."
"Yes," she said listlessly.
"And Anne has promised to be my wife."
She looked up at him for an instant. It grew very still.
"I might have told you that before. But it was to have been our
day--with no one between us--no one to demand reckoning. I cheated