The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India
"Of course, we did what we could," she said. "Gaya is rather proud of
its hospitality. We wanted you to take back a good impression,
Mademoiselle----"
A quick gesture interrupted her.
"I'm not 'mademoiselle.' I'm English. My mother was a Swede, and I
took her maiden name because--there never has been a great English
dancer, and in England what hasn't been can't be. It's just one of the
Rajah's foibles to give everything a Gallic touch. But I'm just Miss
Fersen--or Sigrid if you like."
The Celtic temperament works both ways. The only certain feature is its
uncertainty. Mrs. Compton abandoned her offensive-defensive and with
great dexterity managed to cling to the Sevres vase and kiss the giver
on both cheeks without disaster.
"I'd like it to be Sigrid," she said warmly. "And my name's Mary--and
I'm going to take the Sevres because I want it badly, and because I like
you and I shan't mind feeling horribly grateful. And I hope you'll make
me your master of ceremonies, and our bungalow your headquarters. You
will, won't you?"
She thrilled under the touch of the cool, small hand on hers.
"Yes, I promise you. It's what I wanted. I shall need a friend. A
great many people will hate me--men and women. I have seen it in the
eyes of one woman already. And, besides that I want to get to know real
human beings. All my life I have lived for and in the one thing.
People have been shadows to me. Now I need them. But they must be
real--good, honest flesh and blood. Not puppets." She sat down on the
big divan drawn up against the wall and patted the seat beside her.
"Tell me about this Major Tristram," she said.
And Mrs. Compton, whose rules of etiquette were Gaya's social law, sat
down and for half an hour talked about Major Tristram, whilst Sigrid
Fersen's guests wandered unshepherded about her garden.
At the end of the half-hour Mrs. Compton found her husband near the
gates, disconsolate and alone, guarding the rather shabby little
turn-out which they called a dog-cart. He was in uniform, and had
evidently been at some pains to escape notice.
"You said six o'clock and it's half-past," he commented, gloomily. "I
shall be confoundedly late. What on earth have you been doing? And
what's that you've got under your arm?"
She chuckled to herself.
"Can't you recognize Sevres when you see it?"
"By George--what a piece!" His eyes opened with a hungry appreciation.
Then he shook his head at her. "My dear girl, put it back! I knew we
should come to this sooner or later--all collectors do. Put it back
before it's missed. Think of the scandal. And a newcomer, too!"
She broke into a half-pleased, half-ashamed laugh and wrapped the
precious trophy in the protecting folds of a rug.
"She gave it me--yes, she did. And she calls me Mary, and I call her
Sigrid, and we've kissed each other, and I've given her the run of our
bungalow." She climbed up into the driver's seat and took the reins.
"You know how I _hate_ those sort of sudden familiarities, Archie. But
I've no explanation. Have you?"
"Not one."
"She isn't beautiful. I'm better-looking myself."
"A dozen times, old girl."
She smiled down upon him with a rather absent-minded graciousness.
"I believe she's got electric wires instead of nerves and sinews," she
said reflectively. "I felt them in her hand. It was like putting one's
fingers into a steel glove covered with velvet. What bosh I'm talking.
I believe I'm hypnotized. I shall go round and look up poor Anne and
restore my self-respect. Mr. Meredith told me she looked as though she
was breaking her heart over something. Of course, it's that brute! Why
aren't you men plucky enough to shoot him----?"
"My dear girl----"
His wife cut short his protest by turning her pony out of the gates and
up the broad avenue which led from the outlying dak-bungalow to Gaya
proper. The steep hill, her new possession, and various rather confused
speculations accounted for the fact that her pony promptly dropped to a
walk and was allowed to proceed in a leisurely fashion, which culminated
in an abrupt halt. Mrs. Compton awoke then. She felt vaguely annoyed
with herself, and her annoyance changed to something like consternation
when she perceived that the stoppage was not attributable either to the
pony's disinclination or her own day-dreaming. A man stood at the
animal's head and now came up to the step, his long, brown hand lifted
to his topee in greeting.
"I called to you, Mrs. Compton," he said, "but you didn't hear me, and I
took the liberty of stopping you. I hope I'm forgiven."
She stared down at him. Her confusion of warm disjointed musings
chilled instantly to her usual trenchant matter-of-factness.
"If you wanted to speak to me, Mr. Barclay----" she began.
"I know--I might have called formally. But I ran the risk either of
being refused or landing into a crowd of people. I wanted to see you
alone." He waited a moment. His hand rested firmly on the side of the
cart, and she could not have driven on without going over him. She saw
also the dogged set of his dark face and waited with an angry
resignation. "You've just come from Mademoiselle Fersen's At Home,
haven't you?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I used to know her," he said, "that is to say, I was introduced at some
big reception in England. She wouldn't remember me. That was in my
undergrad days. I was at Balliol, you know."
Mrs. Compton's fine lips twitched satirically. She was not feeling
charitable, and this man was offering her his credentials in a way that
incited derision. He must have seen her expression, for his brown eyes,
with their blue-tinted whites, never left her face. "I want you to do
me a favour," he burst out. "I want you to introduce me again, Mrs.
Compton."
Her smile faded. She was thoroughly angry, but some other less
definable emotion confused her indignation to the point of
ineffectuality.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Barclay, but I really haven't the right or the power to
introduce any one to Miss Fersen without her permission."
"I know that--at least, your friends and acquaintances would be
introduced naturally----" He broke off. The nostrils of his fine,
aquiline nose distended, his whole face, handsome in line and profoundly
brooding in its fundamental expression, was tense and strained-looking.
He seemed like a man doggedly setting himself to a hated task. "May I be
straightforward with you, Mrs. Compton?"
"Of course. Why not?"
"I know you are anxious to drive on--over me even," he said, with a
flash from a smothered bitterness. "But you are the only person I feel
I can speak to, and I mayn't get you alone again. Look here, Mrs.
Compton, I'm an Englishman. My father was English--I was educated at an
English University--I hold an English degree. I've got any amount of
money. It seems to me I've got the right to demand--well, decent
civility. So far--I've been here two months--I've been out of things.
Of course, I don't belong to the military lot, and I haven't a
government appointment--but it seems to me-out here in an alien
country--we English ought to hold together----" He was choking and
breaking over his words like a man breathless with running, the fatal
mincing accent betraying itself in his gathering excitement, and
instinctively Mrs. Compton looked away from him. He was trembling, and
somehow the sight filled her with an odd pity almost stronger than her
repugnance.
"What do you want me to do, Mr. Barclay?" she asked.
"After all--it's not much. If your husband would put me up for the Polo
Club--I'm a good player, and I've got some of the finest ponies in
India. Gaya could beat any team you like with my ponies. Your
husband's popular--he could easily do it--if he wanted to----"
"I couldn't ask him," she interrupted hurriedly. "It's not my business.
I hate backstair influence with husbands." She took refuge in a
cowardly compromise. "You ought to speak to Captain Compton yourself."
He laughed shortly.
"That means you won't," he broke out suddenly and violently. "It's the
touch of the tar brush that's worrying you, isn't it? Yet you don't
mind kowtowing to a full-blooded native. You'll have that dissipated
degenerate Rasaldu at all your feasts, though he's not even accepted by
his own people. His grandfather was a village cow-herd, and the
Government set his people up in the place of the hereditary heirs
because they were likely to be more tractable. You know all that, and
yet you'd lick his boots, whilst I, with your own blood in my veins----"
He caught himself up, smoothing his working features with a desperate
effort. "Look here, Mrs. Compton, I want to do the right thing. I want
to serve my country loyally. But I've got to have a country--I've got to
belong somewhere. Otherwise----"
She tightened the reins, moving her pony's head round so that she could
go forward without driving over him.
"I'm sorry," she said, coldly. "I have no prejudices myself, but I also
have no right to interfere with the prejudices of other people. You
must make your own way. Please let me pass----"
The pony started under the cut of her whip, and Barclay instantly jumped
out of danger. He stood then in the middle of the dusty road, his hands
clenched at his side, his cheeks wet. He was crying with the helpless
passion of a child. Meanwhile, the swift Indian nightfall had risen up
out of the plain to Gaya's hilltops pouring its shadow army into the
dak-bungalow's neglected garden, veiling its rambling decay with an
unfathomable, shapeless beauty.
The Rajah had been the last to leave, lingering clumsily and
obsequiously to the limits of the law, but now even he had gone, and in
the place of the voices and subdued laughter there was nothing but a
flutter of a night-bird among the trees, the hushed, mysterious
rustlings and whisperings of darkness.
Sigrid Fersen had drawn her chair near to the verandah. A lamp burnt
behind her, and she was reading intently in some old vellum-bound book.
Mrs. Smithers sat opposite her, knitting a sock, which even now that the
day's heat was over had a curiously smothering and woolly appearance.
From time to time her faded, truculent blue eyes glanced across to the
figure beneath the light, and their habitual expression of grim
disapproval yielded to a wistful anxiety.
For half an hour there had been no sound but the turning over of the
thick leaves and the click of the knitting-needles. Now Sigrid Fersen
touched the soft-voiced silver bell beside her. The curtains at the far
end of the room parted almost immediately in answer.
"Tell the syce to have the best horse in the stable saddled by
daybreak," she said. "I am riding to Heerut. I shall need a guide."
There was a moment's perceptible hesitation. The ayah's roe-eyes were
large with trouble.
"Mem-Sahib, there is much sickness in Heerut."
"I know."
"It may be, Mem-Sahib, that no guide will dare----"
"He need not accompany me farther than the river. See to it."
"It shall be done, Mem-Sahib."
The curtains fell noiselessly in their place. Mrs. Smithers dropped her
knitting-needles.
"Oh, lawks a-mercy!" she said. "Lawks a-mercy!"
It was as though some solemn old Egyptian sphinx had broken into broad
Cockney, and, having given vent to its feelings, relapsed into the
historic pose of unfathomable and supercilious meditation. Sigrid
Fersen closed her book. She rested her head on its smooth yellow surface
with a curious tenderness.
"You mustn't be unhappy, Smithy, and you mustn't try to prevent me. One
way or the other, my days are numbered, and each one of them has to be
an episode, something definite and new, something to take with me or to
look back on. Afterwards----" Her voice lifted from its veiled