Part 21

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 myself. I'm a rotten sentimentalist, dear—and I've ended by doing something mean and low, like a thorough-paced cad. I deserve to lose—all that I have lost."

She shook her head. Something of her old detachment, a little of her demure humour, tinged with satire, shone in her eyes.

"It's almost funny—your blaming yourself. I hunted you down—and I am going to marry Mr. Barclay."

He swung round on his heel, white to the lips.

"That man—!" he burst out.

"That woman—!" she retorted cynically.

He fought desperately for self-control.

"Anne is a good woman—"

"Is she? A better human being than Barclay? Have you started to lay down the standard of values like the rest of us?"

For an instant they confronted each other as antagonists, then he made a gesture of despair, of fierce self-loathing.

"No—you're quite right. I don't judge—I can't. I seem going down-hill fast with my theories—my—my infernal humanity. I can't believe it—everything seems to have gone at once—you didn't care—it wasn't love you felt for me—"

"Aren't you glad—doesn't that relieve you of all responsibility?"

She watched him for a moment in silence. Then her face softened. He was standing against the table, his hand pressed upon it as though he held himself upright only by an effort of will. She laid her hand on his, diffidently, pityingly. "Tristram, we're both mad with pain, but don't let's hurt each other more than we must. It's no one's fault. We pick up threads in our lives carelessly and without a thought, and from day to day they weave themselves without our will into a pattern—into tragedy. That's all there is to it, Tristram." He nodded silently, and she turned away from him, sighing. "It's quite quiet now. I'll go back to Gaya, Tristram."

He went out beside her into the empty moonlit street. A black shadow lay huddled against the wall, and involuntarily he bent and touched it.

"Dead!" he muttered.

"The feast of Siva!" she said. "He who destroys!"

Her small pale face was lifted to the great silver disk above her. It seemed to his aching eyes that she was no more than a frail white ghost—a haunting spirit of the haunted moonlight.

"Sigrid—!" he whispered.

"Hush—it's no good. We've got to go on—Tristram Sahib—"

He walked beside her as she rode out of Heerut. It was very still—no sound but that of her horse's hoofs and the soft swish of the long Arab tail. They went out across the plain. The conflagration of the day had burnt itself out, leaving grey ash and a few stains on the white fields. The temple lay sinister and watchful beneath the shadow of the jungle. It was as though all life had been swept away in a deluge of destruction.

He looked up and saw how bravely she held herself.

They came within a hundred yards of the bridge-head, and she drew rein. They could hear voices and the jangle of steel. He stood close to her, touching her, feeling the warmth of her, drinking in a faint elusive perfume which was her own. His brain reeled. He was sick and faint at the nearness of the end.

Suddenly she bent down and took his hand. He felt something clasp itself about his wrist.

"I can't give you up—not altogether—I can't, Tristram. I want to keep you in my life—the dream of you—to haunt you a little—to claim you a little—in this world and the next—for good and evil—my bracelet-brother—"

She was gone. He stood there, listening to the thud of her horse's hoofs.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM

"Among all the noble, disinterested, selfless things I've done—and my life is full of them—this is the noblest, most disinterested, most selfless."

Mrs. Compton stood back and surveyed the dainty Dresden figure perched on the shelf with the dignity of renunciation. Mrs. Bosanquet sniffed. It was an uncorrected habit of hers when confronted with the incomprehensible and absurd.

"I don't see what you're so upset about," she commented from her large and comfortable pose in the most accommodating chair of which the rather shabby-looking room boasted. "Why, I've seen things just as pretty as that in sixpenny bazaars. I'm sure Anne won't like it. Anne's my type. We both have our spiritual homes in a London suburb—not a garden-suburb, my dear, with nasty modern folk in sandals and djibba—but in the old kind, with good old Victorian plush everywhere. It's just a tragedy that we should have to live in India with queer specimens like the Judge and Tristram." She chuckled. The serene detachment with which she regarded her own weaknesses and the weaknesses of her fellow-creatures had made her an institution in Gaya, and was a good substitute for a talent. Mrs. Bosanquet could not make a joke or tell a funny story without disaster, but she could hold up mirrors for herself and her friends and grimace into them with most excellent results, as far as the gaiety of the station was concerned. It was whispered, however, that the Judge's somewhat halting progress towards higher honours was not a little due to his wife's passion for showing plain but superior people just what they looked like.

Mary Compton continued to regard her treasure with wistful tenderness.

"Tristram will like it, anyhow," she said.

"H'm, poor Tristram!"

"Why 'poor Tristram'?"

"Oh, I don't know—a kind of inspiration. Anne did want him so badly, and now she's got him. It's a real triumph of goodness. Now she can pull long noses at dear, disgraceful Eleanor and be sentimental over dear, disgraceful Richard. Also she can make the place too hot for—for that woman. Altogether a wonderful strategic position for any one quite so harmless as dear, respectable Anne."

There was a distinct and unusual note of asperity in Mrs. Bosanquet's review of the situation, and Mary Compton turned to her with apparent puzzlement. But her eyes were bright and rather defiant, as though she was preparing for a long-expected engagement.

"Whom do you mean by 'that woman'?" she asked, not very steadily.

"My dear, there's only one 'that woman' in Gaya as far as I know. The rest of us are—what are we—ladies! or is that Victorian again?—in fact, I mean 'that woman,' and you're just pretending not to know whom I mean."

"I won't pretend." Mrs. Compton steadied to the attack. "If you mean Sigrid—"

"I do, my dear."

"Then I think it's mean and disloyal of you. You were one of the first to kow-tow to her—"

Mrs. Bosanquet settled herself back fatly and serenely unoffended.

"I did—I don't deny it. I kow-towed. Figuratively, I licked her boots. She could have walked over me if she'd had a fancy for mountaineering. She could have done a high-kick under the Viceroy's nose and I should have applauded to poor George's everlasting undoing. She could have eloped with that puppy Radcliffe. She could have become Rani of Gaya and worn a nose-ring. My ample bosom would still have welcomed her. But that man! No. It's not only the man, but it's what must be in her to be able to touch him with a fire-tongs. There's a rotten streak in her—there must be. And even if one got over that—well, it isn't feasible. One can't swallow her without him, and it's too big a mouthful. Can you imagine sitting down to dinner with him?"

Mary Compton faced her visitor. She held herself very straight, and her brown, alert face had a rigid look about it which boded trouble.

"Yes, I can," she said quietly. "It's a possibility everybody will have to face who comes here."

"Mary!"

She nodded confirmation. She lost her first rather tremulous aggressiveness and became quiet and resolute, her hazel eyes sparkling with the zest of battle.

"Yes, Archie and I figured it out as soon as we heard. We don't understand—we don't pretend to—and—and we hate it. Nobody can loathe it more than I do. I've run counter to that man, and I can guess what we're in for. But we're going to stick to her. We didn't become her pals on the understanding that she was to marry one of our nice select circle. She was just Sigrid. Well, as far as we're concerned, she's Sigrid still. Her husband's her business."

"Then," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you're in for a fight with the whole station—and, what's more, with an unwritten law which is based on sound principles. 'East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.' But they do meet occasionally, and it's then the trouble begins. We can do with a Rasaldu because we're not responsible for him—it's like watching a foreigner eat peas with his knife—but Barclay, no—he's a scandalous, illegitimate relation, and the more he claims us the more uncomfortable we get. My dear, we shall fight to the last ditch, and you'll be beaten, and badly beaten. You'll damage yourselves, and that's about all."

"Are you going to help beat us?" Mary asked quietly.

Mrs. Bosanquet pursed up her fat, good-natured lips.

"I can't help myself. I'm really sorry—"

"Rubbish! If you were sorry, you wouldn't do it."

"I've got to think of the Judge—"

"Well, I've got Archie. He's got his career, too."

"He'll get into trouble with the regiment."

"It's more than likely. We're not going to—to behave like cads on that account."

Mrs. Bosanquet got up, leaning heavily on her gold-topped stick. She had reddened slightly, but otherwise remained benignly unruffled.

"Quite right, my dear. I applaud. The trouble is that the majority of us are cads at the bottom—that is, we think of our own safety first. I'm sure I do. The station will ostracize Sigrid—has begun to ostracize her already. I can't stem the tide, and I shan't try."

Mary Compton smiled bitterly.

"How pleased Anne will be!"

"Eh?"

"How pleased Anne will be," she repeated.

Mrs. Bosanquet paused on the threshold of the verandah. She had become suddenly very angry.

"You're a very annoying woman, Mary Compton. You said that just to upset me. You know I can't bear Anne. In a previous existence, I believe we were next-door neighbours in our suburb, and that she played hymns on a pianola. Please don't mention Anne to me."

"And you're fond of me, and you were fond of Sigrid," Mrs. Compton persisted, not without malicious amusement. Mrs. Bosanquet turned round as sharply as her bulk would allow.

"She's driving up now," she said helplessly. "My dear, for goodness' sake, get me out—I don't want to meet her—I haven't made up my mind—I'm really not in a fit state—have pity on an old woman with a weak heart and an Indian liver—let me out by the back—do, there's a dear—I'll think it over—I will really—"

"You can go out by the back," Mary Compton allowed coldly. "You'll probably give the butler a fit, but that doesn't matter. By the way, we're giving a dinner next week. We hope you and the Judge will honour us."

Mrs. Bosanquet glared from the doorway.

"I dislike you intensely," she said, "and I won't be bullied."

"Nor will I," Mrs. Compton retorted, and then with an uncontrollable burst of venom. "You nasty old woman!" The curtains fell with a furious rustle and Mary Compton returned to her Dresden shepherdess. Her interest was either very intense or very artificial, for she did not appear to hear the dog-cart which rattled up the drive, and started guiltily when she was called by name.

She turned and saw Sigrid standing on the threshold. The latter still carried her lace parasol over her shoulder, as though she were not certain of coming in, and the tinted shadow which veiled her head and shoulders afforded a delicious contrast to the unrelieved whiteness of her dress. Mrs. Compton, not given to poetic comparisons, was driven in the first breath to the memory of the cool, intoxicating seductiveness of a narcissus flowering in the fresh winds of an English spring-time. But, in the second breath, she was realizing, not without a little twinge of unreasonable disappointment, that the muslin dress was not English but Parisian, and that the graceful lines of the unpretentious garden hat represented an expenditure which would have covered the greater part of Mrs. Compton's yearly outfit.

"Can I come in, or are you not at home?" Sigrid asked. Her head was a little on one side and her eyes and mouth were quizzical. Mary Compton promptly kissed her and took charge of the parasol, which she handled with an almost masculine awe of its amazing daintiness.

"Sigrid, I'm just thankful. I didn't know it was you. I didn't recognize the cart."

"It wasn't mine." She hesitated for a second and her mouth was uncontrollably wry. "Jim brought me in."

"Oh!" For the life of her, Mrs. Compton could think of no better answer. She drew her visitor to the chair which Mrs. Bosanquet had just vacated. "Anyhow, you're just the person I was longing to see," she added lightly.