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Far to Seek, A Romance of England and India
Phase 3. Pisgah Heights   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 6
Maud Diver
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       _ PHASE III. PISGAH HEIGHTS
       CHAPTER VI
       

       "God has a few of us, whom He whispers in the ear;
       The rest may reason and welcome...."
       --BROWNING.
       "Living still, and the more beautiful for our longing."

       The house of Sir Lakshman Singh, C.S.I.--like many others in advancing India--was a house divided against itself. And the cleavage cut deep. The furnishing of the two rooms, in which he mainly lived, was not more sharply sundered from that of the Inside, than was the atmosphere of his large and vigorous mind from the twilight of ignorance and superstition that shrouded the mind and soul of his wife. More than fifty years ago--when young India ardently admired the West and all its works--he had dreamed of educating his spirited girl-bride, so that the way of companionship might gladden the way of marriage.
       But too soon the spirited girl had hardened into the narrow, tyrannical woman; her conception of the wifely state limited to the traditional duties of motherhood and household service. Happily for Sir Lakshman, his unusual gifts had gained him wide recognition and high service in the State. He had schooled himself, long since, to forget his early dreams: and if marriage had failed, fatherhood had made royal amends. Above all, in Lilamani, daughter of flesh and spirit, he had found--had in a measure created--the intimate companionship he craved; a woman skilled in the fine art of loving--finest and least studied of all the arts that enrich and beautify human life. But the gods, it seemed, were jealous of a relation too nearly perfect for mortal man. So Rama, eldest son, and Lilamani, beloved daughter, had been taken, while the estranged wife was left. Remained the grandchildren, in whom centred all his hope and pride. So far as the dividing miles and years would permit, he had managed to keep in close touch with Roy. But the fact remained that England had first claim on Lilamani's children; and Rama's were tossed on the troubled waters of transition.
       As for India herself--sacred Mother-land--her distraught soul seemed more and more at the mercy of the voluble, the half-baked, the disruptive, at home and abroad.
       Himself, steeped in the threefold culture of his country--Vedantic, Islamic, and European--he came very near the prevailing ideal of composite Indian nationality. Yet was he not deceived. In seventy years of life, he had seen intellectual India pass through many phases, from ardent admiration of the West and all its works, to no less ardent denunciation. And in these days he saw too clearly how those same intellectuals--with catchwords, meaningless to nine-tenths of her people--were breaking down, stone by stone, their mighty safeguard of British administration. Useless to protest. Having ears, they heard not. Having eyes, they saw not. The spirit of destruction seemed abroad in all the earth. After Germany--Russia. Would it be India next? He knew her peoples well enough to fear. He also knew them well enough to hope. But of late, increasingly, fear had prevailed. His shrewd eye discerned, in every direction, fresh portents of disaster--a weakened executive, divided counsels, and violence that is the offspring of both. His own Maharaja, he thanked God, was of the old school, loyal and conservative: his face set like a flint against the sedition-monger in print or person. And as concessions multiplied and extremists waxed bolder, so the need for vigilance waxed in proportion....
       But to-day his mind had room for one thought only--the advent of Roy; legacy of her, his vanished Jewel of Delight.
       A message from the Residency had told of the boy's arrival, of his hope to announce himself in person that evening; and now, on a low divan, the old man sat awaiting him with a more profound emotion at his heart than the mere impatience of youth. But the impassive face under the flesh-pink turban betrayed no sign of disturbance within. The strongly-marked nose and eyebones might have been carved in old ivory. The snowy beard, parted in the middle, was swept up over his ears; and the eyes were veiled. An open book lay on his knee. But he was not reading. He was listening for the sound of hoofs, the sound of a voice....
       The two had not met for five years: and in those years the boy had proved the warrior blood in his veins; had passed through the searching test of a bitter loss. Together, they could speak of her--gone from them; yet alive in their hearts for evermore. Seen or unseen, she was the link that kept them all united, the pivot on which their lives still turned. There had been none with whom he could talk of her since she went....
       Over his writing-table hung the original Antibes portrait--life-size; Nevil's payment for the high privilege of painting her; a privilege how reluctantly accorded none but himself had ever known. And behold his reward: her ever-visible presence--the girl-child who had been altogether his own.
       Hoofs at last--and the remembered voice; deeper, more commanding; the embroidered curtain pushed aside. Then--Roy himself, broader, browner; his father's smile in his eyes; and, permeating all, the spirit of his mother, clearly discernible to the man who had given it life.
       He was on his feet now, an imposing figure, in loose white raiment and purple choga. In India, he wisely discarded English dress, deeming it as unsuitable to the country as English political machinery. Silent, he held out his arms and folded Roy in a close embrace: then--still silent--stood away and considered him afresh. Their mutual emotion affected them sensibly, like the presence of a third person, making them shy of each other, shy of themselves.
       It was Sir Lakshman who spoke first. "Roy, son of my Heart's Delight, I have waited many years for this day. It was the hidden wish of her heart. And her spirit, though withdrawn, still works in our lives. It is only so with those who love greatly, without base mixture of jealousy or greed. They pass on--yet they remain; untouched by death, like the lotus, that blooms in the water, but opens beyond its reach."
       Words and tone so stirred Roy that sudden tears filled his eyes. And through the mist of his grief, dawned a vision of his mother's face. Blurred and tremulous, it hovered before him with a startling illusion of life; then--he knew....
       Without a word, he went over to the picture and stood before it, drowned fathoms deep....
       A slight movement behind roused him; and with an effort he turned away. "I've not seen a big one since--since my last time at home," he said simply. "I've only two small ones out here."
       The carven face was not impassive now. "After all, Dilkusha,[10] what matter pictures when you have--herself?"
       Roy started. "It's true. I have--herself. How could you know?"
       Five minutes later, he was sitting beside his grandfather on the deep divan, telling him all.
       Before setting out, he would not have believed it possible. But instinctively he knew himself in touch with a quality of love that matched his own; and the mere telling revived the marvel, the thrill of that strange and beautiful experience at Chitor....
       Sir Lakshman had neither moved nor spoken throughout. Now their eyes met in a look of deep understanding.
       "I am very proud you told me, Roy. It is not easy."
       "No. I've not told any one else. I couldn't. But just now--something seemed to draw it all out of me. I suppose--something in you----"
       "Or perhaps--herself! It almost seemed--she was here with us, while you talked."
       "Perhaps--she is here still."
       Their voices were lowered, as in the presence of sacred things. Never, till now, had Roy so keenly felt his individual link with this wonderful old man, whose blood ran in his veins.
       "Grandfather," he asked after a pause, "I suppose it doesn't often happen--that sort of thing? I suppose most common-sense people would dismiss it all as--sheer delusion?"
       The young simplicity of the question lit a smile in Sir Lakshman's eyes.
       "Quite possible. All that is most beautiful in life, most real to saints and lovers, must seem delusion to those whose hearts and spirits are merely vassals to the body and the brain. But those who say of the soul, 'It is not,' have still to prove it is not to those who have felt and known. Also I grant--the other way about. But they speak in different languages. Kabir says, 'I disclose my soul in what is hidden.' And again, 'The bird is beyond seeking, yet it is most clearly visible.' For us, that is living truth. For those others, a mere tangle of words."
       "I see." Roy's gaze was riveted on the picture above the writing-table. "You can't explain colours to the colour-blind. And I suppose experiences like mine only come to those for whom words like that are--living truth?"
       "Yes--like yours. But there are other kinds; not always true. Because, in this so sacred matter, clever people, without scruple, have made capital out of the heart's natural longing; and the dividing line is dim where falsehood ends and truth begins. So it has all come into suspicion and contempt. Accept what is freely given, Roy. Do not be tempted to try and snatch more."
       "No--no. I wouldn't if I could." A pause. "You believe it is time ... what I feel? That she is often--very near me?"
       Sir Lakshman gravely inclined his head. "As I believe in Brahma, Lord of all."
       And for both the silence that fell seemed pulsating with her unseen presence....
       When they spoke again it was of mundane things. Roy vividly described his sensations, riding through the City; the culminating incident, and his recognition of the offender.
       "The queerest thing, running into the beggar again like that! He looks as sulky and shifty as ever. That's how I knew."
       "Sulky and shifty--and wearing English clothes?" Sir Lakshman's brows contracted sharply. "What name did you say?"
       "Chandranath, we called him."
       "And you don't know his whereabouts?"
       "No, I'm sorry. I didn't suppose his whereabouts mattered a damn to any one."
       The stern old Rajput smiled. It did his heart good to hear the familiar slang phrases again. "Whether it matters a damn--as you say--depends on whether he is the undesirable I have in mind. Quite young; but much influence, and a bad record. Mixed up with German agents, before the War, and the Ghadr party in California; arrested for seditious activity and deported: but of course, on appeal, allowed to return. Always the same tale. Always the same result. Worse mischief done. And India--the true India--must be grateful for these mercies! Sometimes I think the irony is too sharp between the true gifts given, unnoticed, by Englishmen working sincerely for the good of our people, and the false gifts proclaimed from the house-tops, filling loyal Indians with bewilderment and fear. I have had letters from scores of these, because I am known to believe that loyal allegiance to British government gives India the best chance for peaceful progress she is likely to have for many generations. And from every one comes the same cry, begging to be saved from this crazy nightmare of Home Rule, not understood and not desired except by those who invented it. But what appeal is possible to those who stop their ears? And all the time, by stealthy and open means, the poison of race-hatred is being poured into India's veins----"
       "But, Grandfather--what about the War--and pulling together--and all that?"
       Sir Lakshman's smile struck Roy as one of the saddest he had ever seen. "Four years ago, my dear Boy, we all had many radiant illusions. But this War has dragged on too long. It is too far away. For our Princes and warlike races it has had some reality. For the rest it means mostly news in the papers and rumours in bazaars, high prices, and trouble about food. No better soil for sowing evil seeds. And friends of Germany are still working in India--remember that! While the loyal were fighting, these were talking, plotting, hindering: and now they are waving, like a flag, the services of others, to gain their own ends, from which the loyal pray to be delivered! Could irony be more complete? Indian Princes can keep some cheek on these gentlemen. But it is not always easy. If this Chandranath should be the same man--he is here, no doubt, for Dewali. At sacred feasts they do most of their devil's work. Did you speak of connection with me?"
       "No. But he seemed to know about Aruna: said you were English mad."
       Sir Lakshman frowned. "English mad! That is their jargon. Too narrow to understand how I can deeply love both countries, while remaining as jealous for all true rights of my Motherland as any hot-head who swallows their fairy-tale of a Golden Age, and England as Raksha--destroying demon! By help of such inventions, they have deluded many fine young men, like my poor Dyan, who should be already married and working to all my place. Such was my hope in sending him to Oxford. And now--see the result ..."
       On that topic he could not yet trust himself; and Roy, leaning forward impulsively, laid a hand on his knee.
       "Grandfather, I have promised Aruna--and I promise you--that somehow, I will get hold of him; and bring him back to his senses."
       Sir Lakshman covered the hand with his own. "True son of Lilamani! But I fear he may have joined some secret society; and India is a large haystack in which to seek one human needle!"
       "But Aruna has written again. She is convinced he will answer."
       Sir Lakshman sighed. "Poor Aruna! I am not sure if I was altogether wise letting her go to the Residency. But I am deeply grateful to Mrs Leigh. India needs many more such English women. By making friends with high-born Indian women, it is hardly too much to say they might, together, mend more than half the blunders made by men on both sides."
       Thus, skilfully, he steered clear of Aruna's problem that was linked with matters too intimately painful for discussion with a grandson, however dear.
       So absorbed was Roy in the delight of reunion, that not till he rose to go did he take in the details of the lofty room. Everywhere Indian workmanship was in evidence. The pictures were old Rajput paintings; fine examples of Vaishnava art--pure Hindu, in its mingling of restraint and exuberance, of tenderness and fury; its hallowing of all life and idealising of all love. Only the writing-table and swivel-chair were frankly of the West, and certain shelves full of English books and reviews.
       "I like your room," Roy announced after leisurely inspection. "But I don't seem to remember----"
       "You would be a miracle if you did! The room you saw had plush curtains, gilt mirrors and gilt furniture; in fact, the correct 'English-fashion' guest-room of the educated Indian gentleman. But of late years I have seen how greatly we were mistaken, making imitation England to honour our English friends. Some frankly told me how they were disappointed to find in our houses only caricatures of middle-class England or France. Such rooms are silent barriers to friendship: proclaiming that East may go to the West but West cannot come to the East."
       "In a way that's true, isn't it?"
       "Yes--in a way. This room, of course, is not like my inner apartments. It is like myself, however; cultivated--but still Indian. It is my way of preaching true Swadeshi:--Be your own self, even with English guests. But so far I have few followers. Some are too foolishly fond of their mirrors and chandeliers and gramophones. Some will not believe such trifles can affect friendliness. Yet--strange, but true--too much Anglicising of India instead of drawing us nearer, seems rather to widen the gulf."
       Roy nodded. "I've heard that. Yet most of us are so keen to be friends. Queer, perverse things--human beings, aren't they?"
       "And for that reason, more interesting than all the wonders of Earth!" Setting both hands on Roy's shoulders he looked deeply into his eyes. "Come and see me often, Dilkusha. It lifts my tired heart to have this very human being so near me again."
       * * * * *
       Ten minutes later, Roy was riding homeward through a changed city; streets and hills and sky wrapped in the mystery of encroaching dusk.
       South and west the sky flamed, like the heart of a fire opal, through a veil fine as gauze--dust no longer; but the aura of Jaipur. Seen afar, through the coloured gloom, familiar shapes took on strange outlines; moved and swayed, mysteriously detached, in a sea of shadows, scattered, here and there, by flames of little dinner fires along the pavements. The brilliant shifting crowd of two hours ago seemed to have sunk into the earth. For there is no night life in the streets of Jaipur. Travellers had passed on and out. Merchants had stowed away their muslins and embroideries, their vessels of brass and copper and priceless enamels. Only the starving lay in huddled heaps as before--ominously still; while above them vultures and eagles circled, expectant, ink-black against the immense radiance beyond. Grey, deepening to black, were flat roofs, cornices, minarets and massed foliage, and the flitting shadows, with lifted tails, that careered along the house-tops; or perched on some jutting angle, skinny elbows crooked, absorbed in the pursuit of fleas. For sunset is the monkey's hour, and the eerie jibbering of these imps of darkness struck a bizarre note in the hush that shrouded the city.
       Roy knew, now, why Thea had stayed his impatience; and he blessed her sympathetic understanding. But just then--steeped in India at her most magical hour--it was hard to believe in the Residency household; in English dinner-tables and English detachment from the mediaeval medley of splendour and squalor, of courage and cruelty and dumb endurance, of arts and crafts and all the paraphernalia of enlightened knowledge that was Jaipur. It seemed more like a week than a few hours since he had turned in the saddle to salute Aruna and ridden out into another world:--her world, which was also in a measure his own....
       On and on he rode, at a foot's pace, followed by his twin shadows; past the temples of Maha Deo, still rosy where they faced the west, still rumbling and throbbing with muffled music; past wayside shrines, mere alcoves for grotesque images--Shiva, Lord of Death, or Ganesh the Elephant God--each with his scented garlands and his nickering chiragh; past shadowy groups round the dinner fires, cooking their evening meal: on and out through the double fortified gateways into the deserted road, his whole being drenched in the silence and the deepening dusk.
       Here, outside the city, emptiness loomed almost like a presence. Only the trees were alive; each with its colony of peacocks and parrots and birds of prey noisily settling to rest. The peacocks' unearthly cry, and the far, ghostly laugh of jackals--authentic voice of India at sundown--sent a chill down Roy's spine. For he, who had scarcely known fear on the battlefield, was ignominiously at the mercy of imagination and the eerie spirit of the hour.
       At a flick of the reins, Suraj broke into a smart canter, willingly enough. What were sunsets or local devils to him compared with stables and gram?
       And as they sped on, as trees on either side slid by like stealthy ghosts, the sunset splendour died, only to rise again in a volcanic afterglow, on which trunks and twigs and battlemented hills were printed in daguerreotype; and desert voices were drowned in the clamour of cicadas, grinding their knives in foolish ecstasy; and, at last, he swerved between the friendly gate-posts of the Residency--the richer for a spiritual adventure that could neither be imparted, nor repeated, nor forgotten while he lived.
       FOOTNOTES:
       [Footnote 10: Joy of my heart.] _
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本书目录

Preface
Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 1
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 2
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 3
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 4
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 5
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 6
   Phase 1. The Glory And The Dream - Chapter 7
Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 1
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 2
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 3
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 4
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 5
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 6
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 7
   Phase 2. The Visionary Gleam - Chapter 8
Phase 3. Pisgah Heights
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 1
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 2
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 3
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 4
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 5
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 6
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 7
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 8
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 9
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 10
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 11
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 12
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 13
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 14
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 15
   Phase 3. Pisgah Heights - Chapter 16
Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 1
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 2
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 3
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 4
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 5
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 6
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 7
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 8
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 9
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 10
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 11
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 12
   Phase 4. Dust Of The Actual - Chapter 13
Phase 5. A Star In Darkness
   Phase 5. A Star In Darkness - Chapter 1
   Phase 5. A Star In Darkness - Chapter 2
   Phase 5. A Star In Darkness - Chapter 3
   Phase 5. A Star In Darkness - Chapter The Last