_ PHASE III. PISGAH HEIGHTS
CHAPTER XII
"God uses us to help each other so."
--BROWNING.
It was distinctly one of Roy's great moments when, at last, they four stood together in Sir Lakshman's room: the old man, outwardly impassive--as became a Rajput--profoundly moved in the deep places of his heart; Aruna, in Oxford gown and sari, radiant one moment; the next--in spite of stoic resolves--crying softly in Dyan's arms. And Roy understood only too well. The moment he held her hand and met her eyes--he knew. It was not only joy at Dyan's return that evoked the veiled blush, the laugh that trembled into tears. Conceit or no conceit, his intuition was not to be deceived.
And the conviction did not pass. It was confirmed by every day, every hour he spent in her company. On the rare occasions, when they were alone together, the very thing that must be religiously stifled and hid, emanated from her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond--were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that--or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal--for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud achievement to an insignificant thing.
To the rest, unaware, his triumph seemed complete, his risky adventure justified beyond cavil. They all admitted as much;--even Vincent, who abjured superlatives and had privately taken failure for granted. Roy, in a fit of modesty, ascribed it all to 'luck.' By the merest chance he had caught Dyan, on his own confession, just as the first flickers of doubt were invading his hypnotised soul; just when it began to dawn on him that alien hands were pulling the strings. He had already begun to feel trapped; unwilling to go forward; unable to go back; and the fact that no inner secrets were confided to him, had galled his Rajput vanity and pride. In the event, he was thankful enough for the supposed slight; since it made him feel appreciably safer from the zeal of his discarded friends.
Much of this he had confided to Roy, in fragments and jerks, on the night of their amazing exit from Delhi; already sufficiently himself again to puzzle frankly over that perverted Dyan; to marvel--with a simplicity far removed from mere foolishness--"how one man can make a magic in other men's minds so that he shall appear to them an eagle when he is only a crow."
"That particular form of magic," Roy told him, "has made half the history of the world. We all like to flatter ourselves we're safe from it--till we get bitten! You've been no more of a fool than the others, Dyan--if that's any consolation."
The offending word rankled a little. The truth of it rankled more. "By Indra, I am no fool now. Perhaps he has discovered that already. I fancy my letter will administer a shock. I wonder what he will do?"
"He won't 'do.' You can bank on that. He may fling vitriol over you on paper. But you won't have the pleasure of his company at Jaipur. He left his card on us before the Dewali. And there's been trouble since; leaflets circulating mysteriously; an exploded attempt to start a seditious 'rag.' So they're on the
qui vive. He'll count that one up against me: but I'll manage to survive."
And Dyan, in the privacy of his heart, had felt distinctly relieved. Not that he lacked the courage of his race; but, having seen the man for years, as it were, through a magnifying lens, he could not, all in a moment, see him for the thing he was:--dangerous as a snake, yet swift as a snake to wriggle out of harm's way.
He had not been backward, however, in awakening his grandfather to purdah manoeuvres. Strictly in private--he told his cousin--there had been ungoverned storms of temper, ungoverned abuse of Roy, who was suspected by 'the Inside' of knowing too much and having undue influence with the old man. 'The Inside,' he gathered, had from early days been jealous of the favourite daughter and all her belongings. Naturally, in Dyan's opinion, his sister ought to marry; and the sooner the better. Perhaps he had been unwise, after all, insisting on postponement. By now she would have been settled in her lawful niche instead of making trouble with this craze for hospital nursing and keeping outside caste. Not surprising if she shrank from living at home, after all she had been through. Better for them both, perhaps, to break frankly with orthodox Hinduism and join the Brahma Samaj.
As Roy knew precisely how much--or rather, how little--Aruna liked working in the wards, he suffered a pang at the pathos of her innocent guile. And if Dyan had his own suspicions, he kept them to himself. He also kept to himself the vitriolic outpouring which he had duly found awaiting him at Jaipur. It contained too many lurid allusions to 'that conceited, imperialistic half-caste cousin of yours'; and Roy might resent the implied stigma as much as Dyan resented it for him. So he tore up the effusion, intended for the eye of Roy, merely remarking that it had enraged him. It was beneath contempt.
Roy would like to have seen it, all the same; for he knew himself quicker than Dyan at reading between the lines. The beggar would not hit back straight. But given the chance, he might try it on some other way--witness the pistol-shot in the arcade; a side light--or a side flash--on the pleasant sort of devil he was!
Back in the Jaipur Residency, in the garden that was 'almost England,' back in his good familiar tweed coat and breeches, the whole Delhi interlude seemed strangely theatrical and unreal; more like a vivid dream than an experience in the flesh.
But there was Dyan to prove it no dream; and the perilous charm of Aruna, that must be resisted to the best of his power....
* * * * *
All this stir and ferment within; yet not a surface ripple disturbed the flow of those uneventful weeks between the return of Roy and the coming of Lance Desmond for Christmas leave.
It is thus that drama most often happens in life--a light under a bushel; set in the midst, yet unseen. Vincent, delving in ethnological depths, saw little or nothing outside his manuscript and maps. Floss Eden--engrossed in her own drawing-room comedy with Captain Martin--saw less than nothing, except that 'Mr Sinclair's other native cousin' came too often to the house. For she turned up her assertive nose at 'native gentlemen'; and confided to Martin her private opinion that Aunt Thea went too far in that line. She bothered too much about other people all round--which was true.
She had bothered a good deal more about Floss Eden, in early days, than that young lady at all realised. And now--in the intervals of organising Christmas presents and Christmas guests--she was bothering a good deal over Roy, whose absence had obviously failed to clear the air.
Not that he was silent or aloof. But his gift of speech overlaid a reticence deeper than that of the merely silent man; the kind she had lived with and understood. Once you got past their defences, you were unmistakably inside:--Vinx, for instance. But with Roy she was aware of reserves within reserves, which made him the more interesting, but also the more distracting, when one felt entitled to know the lie of the land. For, Aruna apart, wasn't he becoming too deeply immersed in his Indian relations--losing touch, perhaps, with those at home? Did it--or did it not matter--that, day after day, he was strolling with Aruna, riding with Dyan, pig-sticking and buck-hunting with the royal cheetahs and the royal heir to the throne; or plunging neck deep in plans and possibilities, always in connection with those two? His mail letters were few and not bulky, as she knew from handling the contents of the Residency mail-bag. And he very rarely spoke of them all: less than ever of late. To her ardent nature it seemed inexplicable. Perhaps it was just part of his peculiar 'inwardness.' She would have liked to feel sure, however....
Vinx would say it was none of her business. But Lance would be a help. She was counting on him to readjust the scales. Thank goodness for Lance--giving up the Lahore 'week' and the Polo Tournament to spend Christmas with her and Roy in the wilds of Rajputana. Just to have him about the place again--his music, his big laugh, his radiant certainty that, in any and every circumstance, it was a splendid thing to be alive--would banish worries and lift her spirits sky-high. After the still, deep waters of her beloved Vinx--whose strain of remoteness had not been quite dispelled by marriage--and the starlit mysteries of Aruna and the intriguing complexities of Roy, a breath of Lance would be tonic as a breeze from the Hills. He was so clear and sure; not in flashes and spurts, but continuously, like sunshine; because the clearness and sureness had his whole personality behind them. And he could be counted on to deal faithfully with Roy; perhaps lure him back to the Punjab. It would be sad losing him; but in the distracting circumstances, a clean cut seemed the only solution. She would just put in a word to that effect: a weakness she had rarely been known to resist, however complete her faith in the man of the moment.
She simply dared not think of Aruna, who trusted her. It seemed like betrayal--no less. And yet...? _