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

the very midst of them Mrs. Bosanquet blundered in with her attack, for all the world like a squadron of cavalry through a picnic. "You know, Anne, you're not playing the game," she said. "That's my feeling about it. You're setting a bad example. We can't go on like this. It's our duty to hang together--not to build nasty little coteries and cliques. We're not living in London, where there's plenty of room for everybody's morals. We've got to put up with each other and pretend we like it. I do my share, you must do yours----" Mrs. Compton nodded decided agreement. Her husband hunted for his cigarette-case. "Them's my sentiments," he declared vulgarly. Anne had started a little. Now she looked from one to the other and finally at the unhappy Archibald. Her lips curled. "Of course, I know whom you mean," she said; "but I didn't think you would take that point of view, Captain Compton. I thought men were so strict about that sort of thing." "What sort of thing?" Mrs. Compton asked, elbowing her husband from the field of discussion, where he was not likely to distinguish himself. Anne's smile persisted. She was not in the least angry, though the war-signals had been in the other's eyes from the outset. She was prepared to discuss the question reasonably and gently. She felt a queer, suppressed little exultation throbbing beneath her reasonableness. "Colour," she said. Both Compton and Mrs. Bosanquet grimaced involuntarily. But Mary Compton was too accustomed to her advanced position to feel any particular smart. "You mean, because Mr. Barclay has native blood?" she asked. "It's ridiculous. Of course, we none of us like it. We don't even like him. But he's going to marry one of us----" "Not one of us," Anne interposed with a quick, upward flash of the grave eyes. "One of our blood," Mary Compton persisted. "And--and, speaking for Archie and myself--one of our friends. We can't have them ostracized by half the station like this. The scene the other evening was intolerable, and it would never have taken place if you had behaved reasonably. You don't involve your heavenly salvation by bowing to a man." Her fiery temper, which had been severely tested during the last week, had taken the bit between its teeth during her expostulation, and the knowledge that she was now at a disadvantage did not help her to recover it. Anne's mouth hardened. The memory of that scene still rankled. "One has to draw the line somewhere," she said. "I daresay. Still, it would have been wiser not to have drawn the line at one's husband's brother." "He is not Tristram's brother." Her voice quivered, and Mary Compton had the satisfaction of seeing the tears rise to the brown eyes. "They're no relation--no legal relation. These dreadful things happen--but one doesn't acknowledge them or talk about them. It was absurd and unkind of Tris to have behaved as he did. He has such ridiculous notions. Anyhow, just because it's true, it's all the more impossible for us to have anything to do with him--or his wife. Surely you can see that, Mary." She paused, and then added: "Everyone else does, you know." It was true. Mary Compton acknowledged it to herself with an angry, sinking heart. Sigrid had not been strong enough--not strong enough, certainly, to balance the consternation, the uneasy sense of insulted tradition which had punished Barclay's outburst. Mary Compton looked gloomily at Tristram's wife, and wondered if it was only a sense of outraged propriety which gave her naturally girlish face that expression of old and set resolution. Archibald Compton created a merciful diversion. "It's a rotten business," he said, in his drawling way; "and I can tell you one thing--it's not going to be settled quite so easily as some of you people think. Barclay isn't just an ordinary, feckless Eurasian. He's not going to be snubbed for nothing. He's got Tristram blood in him. I believe he's got a touch of the devil, too--which Tristram senior may or may not have had--and a lot of dangerous explosive stuff in his head which might go off any minute. We've seen that. And I'll tell you something more--some natives are jolly touchy about that sort of thing. I've no doubt Tristram senior got the knife for his little escapade, and a grudge dies hard. Besides, this fellow has an awful hold over the natives. They've pretty well mortgaged their souls to him. He can make himself jolly awkward if he chooses." It was the longest, most dogmatic utterance Compton had ever been guilty of, and he got up and groped for his helmet on the chair behind him. "I guess we'd better be clearing, old lady," he said awkwardly. His wife forgot to reprove him. She felt a glow of passionate affection mingle with her general indignation. "I'm sure we deserve whatever happens to us," she said. "We're the pettiest, meanest lot of God-forsaken, benighted idiots that ever made the word 'humanity' ridiculous. Anyhow, I shall do what I can. You can all come to our dinner or you can stay away. I've asked Sigrid and Mr. Barclay, and they've accepted. It's in their honour. So now you know." She looked at Mrs. Bosanquet, and the latter lady got up with a fat sigh of resignation. "Oh, I suppose I shall come," she said, "and George, of course. It seems to be his luck, poor dear, always to be on the wrong side." Anne said good-bye to them with her composed little smile. It was amazing how self-possessed, how deliberate she had become in those few months of married life. It was as though her character had been kept deliberately in flux until her mate had been chosen, and had then settled into hard, predestined lines. After the routed deputation had waved its farewell, she went back into the drawing-room and began to rearrange her wedding presents for about the fourth time. They never quite satisfied her. Gaya had divided its treasures in the true Christian spirit. The family that had two silver candlesticks gave one, and so on, and the result was distressing for any one with a sense of symmetry. She sang softly to herself as she worked, and when she came across the Dresden shepherdess she put it in a drawer and turned the key on it with a quiet satisfaction. After that, she found an old foul-smelling pipe hidden behind a vase. She smiled at it affectionately, disapprovingly, as at a child's broken toy, and placed it in the waste-paper basket. Then she rang the little silver-tongued bell and a soft-footed servant slid into the room, and, in obedience to her slight gesture, the waste-paper basket and its doomed contents disappeared. It was at that moment that she noticed the shadow of a man on the verandah. His back was to the light, and at the first glance she did not recognize him. Nor did he make any movement to recall her memory. He stood there looking at her. "Why--Owen!" she said. "Owen!" She ran to him with a joyful relaxation of her staidness, both hands outstretched. He waited for her to come up to him. There was something at once proud and humble in that deliberate waiting. He held his head well up like a soldier, challenging nothing, fearing nothing. It was the first time that they had met since the day when he had seen her off on her way to Trichy. Between then and now there had been the Feast of Siva and her marriage. She looked up at him, her hands in his quiet grasp. One side of his face had no resemblance to the other. It had been smashed and mended into a grotesque hideousness--into a leering distortion. The eye was completely closed. The whole face looked like a divided mask--one half human, the other devilish. It was intensely, cruelly pitiable. Anne neither winced nor changed colour. She looked up at him steadily. "Dear Owen!" she said. "Dear Owen!" The one half of his poor twisted mouth smiled. "I've been hesitating outside for about an hour--listening to your voices. I didn't like to come in--I was afraid of startling you. I suppose you knew--but one can talk about things one can't face." He lisped a little, but the lisp could not weaken his simple, unconscious dignity. "You should have come before," she answered. "I have thought so much of you." "I couldn't come. It took a long time to tinker me up, and then I tried to go back to my work. It's been rather difficult. The poor beggars think I've got the evil eye or something." She made him sit down in Tristram's long wicker chair and sent for fresh tea. There was a gentle solicitude in all her movements that was very touching. When she came near him to bring him his cup, he saw there were tears on her lashes. "Anne--it's awfully sweet of you to be so sorry." She smiled at him with unsteady lips. "I don't think I am sorry. It isn't a matter to be sorry about--one can only be very proud." A boyish flush crept into his cheek. "There's nothing to be proud of either. I thought perhaps you'd be angry, as the others were." "Don't you know me better than that? Were the others angry?" "All of them, pretty well. They talked about the risk. Tristram said I'd endangered their lives." She considered a moment. "It isn't like Tristram to be afraid," she said. "Not for himself. My word, no. He came into the thick of that scrum like a lion. You know how big he is. He seemed to grow a lot bigger. He fairly picked me up by the scruff of the neck and hauled me out over their heads. How he managed, I don't know. It was a marvellously brave thing to have done." He laughed. "I've had a kind of hero-worship for him ever since," he added shyly. "You don't need to have. What you did was just as brave. It was throwing yourself single-handed against all the forces of evil. I was proud, Owen. It made me feel that some of us are still ready to prove our faith at whatever cost. It was as though one of the old martyrs had come back to shame our indifference, our wicked toleration. It gave me new hope----" The colour glowed vividly in her cheeks. He glanced at her, and then turned away again, revealing the distorted profile. There was a moment's crowded silence. She could see his hands working nervously on the arm of his chair. "I was awfully afraid," he said at last, and she knew by his voice that he was living his bad hour of fear over again. "And yet I had to go on. I had never understood how real the voice of God can be. It's easy enough to keep up the ordinary jog-trot service until the summons comes to you--then you must either obey or give up your mission. One can deceive one's conscience--not God." "And God saved you," she said eagerly. She said it with her eyes set on his tortured face. He nodded, and laughed whimsically. "And with a strange instrument--a man who cursed me in all the languages for doing the devil's work." "Tristram, you mean?" There was no amusement in Anne's eyes, but a shadow. "Poor Tristram, he just doesn't understand. He hates sacrifice--I don't think he knows what it means. He wants people to be healthy, and have plenty to eat, and lots of pleasure. He thinks that's all that matters. He doesn't understand the significance of the Cross. Perhaps he has been too happy." Meredith did not answer. He was thinking perplexedly of the man who had lain stretched motionless across the portrait of an unknown woman. It was a glimpse of memory which never wholly faded. It blurred his conception of Tristram's happiness. Then he looked at the woman opposite him and forgot. He saw her goodness, her purity, her steadfastness of soul. He saw that she had developed. She had been a girl, she was now a woman, strong and self-reliant. A thrill of sheer