The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
the Victorian female, passes with gathered skirts. For in Anne's
catalogue of humanity there were as yet only two varieties of her sex,
the sexually virtuous and the sexually immoral. They were accordingly
good women or bad women, no matter what other failings or qualities they
might possess. Or, in a word, a woman's loyalty to her husband,
prospective or actual, was all that mattered in Anne's eyes.
Mrs. Barclay, she knew, was a bad woman.
Sigrid regarded her thoughtfully from beneath the shadow of her hand.
"You are insulting me, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "but I do not think you
mean it. I think you are unhappy, and that is excuse enough. Won't you
explain exactly what you mean?"
"I'm sure you know," Anne answered unsparingly. "You were always--I
don't know how to express it--but it seemed to me--to a great many
people--that you tried to entangle my husband--before our marriage----.
I could have borne that. I knew my husband so well. In many ways he is
careless and unconventional. He doesn't recognize evil easily. But
now--now it's different." She halted, fighting the tremor in her voice.
It was the first trace of emotion that she had shown, and, in spite of
her prim brutality, it was curiously pathetic. "Since the--the scandal
in the temple--I've felt I couldn't bear it any longer. People have
talked--they think--oh, I know--though they hide it from me--and I can't
do anything. I can't because I don't know----"
"You don't know what?"
"Whether it's true."
"Wouldn't it be best--fairer--to ask your husband?"
There was a moment's silence. The splash of the rain on the trees of
the compound sounded dismally in the room's stillness. Sigrid shifted
her position. She leant forward a little as though to look closer into
her visitor's face. The small white hand on her knee clenched itself.
But Anne turned her face away from the intent, weary eyes. She bit her
lips desperately.
"I can't----" she said. "I can't--that's just it----"
A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away flurriedly, but the
knowledge of her weakness broke down the wall of pride and anger which
she had built up in her loneliness. "I can't because I sent him away.
We'd quarrelled--no, it wasn't a quarrel--it was something worse than
that--and--and he let me choose--and I told him to go. I was very
wicked--very unjust. A wife's business is to forgive everything. I see
that. But it's too late. He's gone, and now--now I've no one----"
It was not what she had meant to say. She had meant to be grave and
dignified and judicial, and instead she was crying quietly. But now
that the dam was broken her pent-up unhappiness flooded over her
irresistibly. She had been intensely lonely. She had no great friend
to turn to, and her instincts tended to a stern reserve where marital
relations were concerned. She had hidden her growing fears and remorse
under a cloak of indifference. Then had come the wild story of the
temple, of Sigrid Barclay's night spent in Tristram's hut, of her
supposed dangerous illness, of her apparently swift recovery. Then Gaya
had begun to whisper, and those whisperings had been more than she could
bear. She had meant only to seek the truth--instead she had poured out
her overladen heart to the woman she most hated.
Sigrid got up slowly and went to the verandah. She stood for a minute
with her raised hand resting on the lintel, gazing out into the
rain-soaked gardens. The moist air was full of fragrance and reviving
life. When she turned at last there was a splash of colour in her pale
cheeks.
"Mrs. Tristram, send for your husband--go to him. He is the sort of man
who doesn't need to forgive."
"I can't."
"You love him----"
"I couldn't go to him until I knew----"
"--that you had nothing to forgive?"
Anne's silence answered. Sigrid studied her with no shadow of change on
her own palely composed features.
"We're two women, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "and that makes many
impossible things possible--it makes it possible, for instance, though
we dislike one another, for us to be honest--even about the man we both
love."
Anne lifted her wet, piteously twisted face.
"Then it's true?"
"It's true that I love him." She played absently with one of the little
silver ornaments on the table beside her, and then added: "It is true
also that I offered myself to him, though I never meant to marry
him--threw myself at his head. And that he refused me----"
"He didn't care----?"
Sigrid, glancing up, caught that look of mingled disgust and hope and
fear, but it was the hope and fear alone that had significance.
"He had asked you to marry him. He told me that there could only be one
woman in his life--and that woman his wife."
"That is true?"
"I give you my word of honour."
Anne sat very still. The tears were dry on her cheeks. She held herself
rather as she had done at the beginning.
"And then--that night--a fortnight ago----"
"Ah, the temple?" She smiled faintly. "You won't understand that so
well. You see, I am a mixture of a great artist and a bad woman. And
artistically I have always realized how beautiful I should be against
such a background. It was an artistic freak--though I daresay the woman
in me had a spiteful hope that Major Tristram might chance that way and
realize all he had lost. Anyhow, my heart failed me. Your husband acted
the good Samaritan; and that is the whole story."
"If that is true I have done my husband a great wrong."
"I think you have."
Anne rose with a vague little gesture. It seemed to indicate barriers
over which no reproof could pass. She was quite composed now. The
strain and insolence had gone out of her manner, which was faintly
patronizing.
"I have to thank you for your frankness. I--I shan't ever feel quite
the same to you as I have done. Indeed--I hardly understand. You say
you dislike me--and yet you've told me all this----"
"That's because most unscrupulous people are good-natured," Sigrid
answered with careless amusement. She helped herself to a cigarette,
aware that by so doing she was living up to Anne's conception of her.
"You see, it doesn't cost me anything. This particular incident is
closed as far as I am concerned, and you might as well enjoy the benefit
of the truth. I am conscious that I tried to hurt you, and I'm sorry."
Anne nodded.
"I'm sorry, too," she said primly. She went towards the door and there
hesitated nervously. "You're--you're leaving Gaya, are you not?"
"Yes, soon. My husband's business here is finished. It is very
fortunate."
"Yes--very fortunate."
She lifted her eyes to Sigrid, realizing for an instant why Gaya had
called her beautiful. An incredible impulse seized her, but she thrust
it down in scorn and self-disgust. She made a little tentative movement
as though to hold out her hand, and then turned and went out without a
word. After all, it was the only thing to do. Now that her worst fears
were over she saw that the scene had been preposterous, but she was a
little thrilled by her own action as conventional people are when they
have ventured out of their rut. She had met sin on her own ground and
worsted her. In some dim way she believed that she had fought for
Tristram and his happiness. Her anger against him had died--had been
transmuted into pity. She saw that behind his bigness he was weak and
easily led. Well, it was her task to lead him, to protect him. She was
his wife.
She drove homewards through the steady downpour with an exalted
consciousness of a duty done and of a clear road before her. She knew
now what she had to do. It meant sacrifice because she no longer loved,
but sacrifice was a glorious prerogative. In it one found peace and
happiness. She was happier already. As she passed the little tin
chapel her happiness clamoured for expression, for thanksgiving. She
ordered the syce to wait for her, and a moment later she was kneeling in
her old place, to the right of the pathetic altar, thanking God for the
light that had been granted her.
At first she did not see Meredith. There were only two side-windows
through which the grey light filtered, sinking drearily on to the
place's bleak unloveliness, and the figure bowed down before the altar
was in shadow and motionless in its utter, almost passionate
prostration. But presently he rose slowly to his feet and turned. The
lower part of his body was still in darkness, but his face was in the
light, lifted to it. And to Anne, who now saw him, its hideousness was
sublime. She saw in it the seal of God set on His martyr. Her
intuition flashed down into the depths of the man's patient soul, more
seared and scarred even than those dreadful features, and the compassion
which she poured out to him was other than her pity for her husband. It
was understanding. In truth it was not pity, but she gave that name to
it.
He saw her. Even though the twilight separated them she knew he
faltered. She knew the memories that had driven the dark blood into
those scars. And she too remembered--all her girlhood and all her
girlhood's prayers and fancies which had been born in this poor room.
She was a woman now. The fancies had been foolish and childish. She
had flung away reality for them. Well, she would take up her cross.
Meredith came towards her and took her outstretched hand.
"When I saw you it was as though all the old times had come back again,"
he said with a grave smile.
"I came in for quiet," she answered. "I wanted to--to thank God for
something. And now I've found you--may I speak with you?"
He nodded silently and led her into the tiny side-room, where he changed
his vestments and gave lessons to a few Pariah children who accepted his
doctrine in exchange for a certain social status. He offered her the
one chair, but she remained standing.
"I have just seen Mrs. Barclay, Owen," she said. "I went to see her.
It may seem a dreadful thing to have done--and it was dreadful--but I
know that I did right. She confessed to me."
He looked at her and then down at the papers littered on the table.
"What did she confess?"
"That some of the wretched scandal which has associated her with
Tristram was true. She did try to drag my husband into a horrible
intrigue. But she failed. She swore to me, and I believe it was the
truth."
"I think Mrs. Barclay would speak the truth," he said meditatively.
"She is shameless," Anne retorted with a flash of scorn; "but, at least,
now I know that Tristram is innocent where she is concerned. It is for
that I am so thankful."
Owen Meredith drew himself up from his bowed attitude. There was
something weary and apathetic in his bearing which was new to her. She
felt, with a stab of pain, that he was very ill.
"Anne--don't you love your husband?" he asked.
The feverish blush in her cheeks deepened. But his eyes were grave,
even to severity, and admitted no offence.
"Why, I must love him--he is my husband."
His twisted mouth was bitter.
"The one thing doesn't always imply the other, Anne. Men and women are
frail. They can't always keep the terrible oaths God makes them swear."
"They can do their duty," she interrupted, "as I shall do mine."
"Duty isn't love," he said.
She lifted her head proudly.
"It is the best one can give after love has been killed."
"Has Tristram killed your love, Anne?"
She met his stern gaze unflinchingly.
"He has done something I can't forget. I have forgiven it, but I know
now how wide the gulf is between us and now I can't ever forget it.
That's all I can tell you."
"Anne--Anne--we must judge gently----"
"I don't judge any one but myself," she answered. "I see that I have
been most to blame. I made a great mistake and I accept the