"Oh, not more subtly silence strays
Amongst the winds, between the voices...
Than thou art present in my days.
My silence, life returns to thee
In all the pauses of her breath.
And thou, wake ever, wake for me!"
--ALICE MEYNELL.
Some five weeks later, Roy sat alone--very completely and desolately
alone--in a whitewashed, unhomely room that everywhere bore the stamp of
dák bungalow; from the wobbly teapoy[4] at his elbow to the board of
printed rules that adorned the empty mantelpiece. The only cheering
thing in the room was the log fire that made companionable noises and
danced shadow-dances on the dingy white walls. But the optimism of the
fire was discounted by the pessimism of the lamp that seemed specially
constructed to produce a minimum of light with a maximum of smell--and
rank kerosene at that.
Dák bungalows had seemed good fun in the days of his leave, when he and
Lance made merry over their well-worn failings. But it was quite another
affair to smoke the pipe of compulsory solitude, on the outskirts of
Chitor, hundreds of miles away from Kohat and the Regiment; to feel
oneself the only living being in a succession of empty rooms--for the
servants were housed in their own little colony apart. Solitude, in the
right mood and the right place, was bread and wine to his soul; but
acute loneliness of the dák bungalow order was not in the bond. For four
years he had felt himself part of a huge incarnate purpose; intimately
part of his regiment--a closely-knit brotherhood of action. Now, the
mere fact of being an unattached human fragment oddly intensified his
feeling of isolation. With all his individuality, he was no egoist; and
very much a lover of his kind. Imbued with the spirit of the quest, yet
averse by temperament to ploughing the lonely furrow.
It had been his own choice--if you could call it so,--starting this way,
instead of in the friendly atmosphere of the Jaipur Residency. But was
there really such a thing as choice? The fact was, he had simply obeyed
an irresistible impulse,--and to-morrow he would be glad of it.
To-night, after that interminable journey, his head ached atrociously.
He felt limp as a wet dish-clout; his nerves all out of gear ... Perhaps
those confounded doctors were not such fools as they seemed. He cursed
himself for a spineless ineffectual--messing about with nerves when he
had been lucky enough to come through four years of war with his full
complement of limbs and faculties unimpaired. Two slight wounds, a
passing collapse, from utter fatigue and misery, soon after his mother's
death; a spell of chronic dysentery, during which he had somehow managed
to keep more or less fit for duty;--that was his record of physical
damage, in a War that had broken its tens of thousands for life.
But there are wounds of the mind; and the healing of them is a slow,
complex affair. Roy, with his fastidious sense of beauty, his almost
morbid shrinking from inflicted pain, had suffered acutely, where more
robust natures scarcely suffered at all. Yet it was the robust that went
to pieces--which was one of the many surprises of a War that shattered
convictions wholesale, and challenged modern man to the fiercest trial
of faith at a moment when Science had almost stripped him bare of belief
in anything outside himself.
Roy, happily for him, had not been stripped of belief; and his receptive
mind, had been ceaselessly occupied registering impressions, to be flung
off, later, in prose and verse, that _She_ might share them to the full.
A slim volume--published, at her wish, in 1916--had attracted no small
attention in the critical world. At the time, he had deprecated
premature rushings into print; but afterwards it was a blessed thing to
remember the joy he had given her that last Christmas--the very last....
On the battlefield, if there had been nerve-shattering moments, these
had their counterpart in moments when the spirit of his Rajput ancestors
lived again in him, when he knew neither shrinking nor horror nor pity:
and in moments of pure pleasure, during some quiet interlude, when larks
rained music out of the blue; when he found himself alone with the eerie
wonder of dawn over the scarred and riven fields of death; or when he
discovered his Oriental genius for scout work that had rapidly earned
him distinction and sated his love of adventure to the full.
And always, unfailingly he had obeyed his mother's parting injunction.
As a British officer, he had fought for the Empire. As Roy Sinclair--son
of Lilámani--he had fought for the sanctities of Home and
Beauty--intrinsic beauty of mind and body and soul--against hideousness
and licence and the unclean spirit that could defile the very
sanctuaries of God.
And always, when he went into battle, he remembered Chitor. Mentally, he
put on the saffron robe, insignia of 'no surrender.' To be taken
prisoner was the one fate he could not bring himself to contemplate: yet
that very fate had befallen him and Lance, in Mesopotamia--the sequel of
a daring and successful raid.
Returning, in the teeth of unexpected difficulties, they had found
themselves ambushed, with their handful of men--outnumbered, no loophole
for escape.
For three months, that seemed more like years, they had lost all sense
of personal liberty--the oxygen of the soul. They had endured misery,
semi-starvation, and occasionally other things, such as a man cannot
bring himself to speak about or consciously recall: not least, the awful
sense of being powerless--and hated. From the beginning, they had kept
their minds occupied with ingenious plans for escape, that, at times,
seemed like base desertion of their men, whom they could neither help
nor save. But when--as by a miracle--the coveted chance came, no power
on earth could have stayed them....
It had been a breathless affair, demanding all they possessed of bodily
fleetness and suppleness, of cool, yet reckless, courage. And it had
been crowned with success; the good news wired home to mothers who
waited and prayed. But Roy's nerves had suffered more severely than
Desmond's. A sharp attack of fever had completed his prostration. And it
was then, in the moment of his passing weakness, that Fate turned and
smote him with the sharpest weapon in her armoury....
He had not even heard his mother was ill. He had just received her
ecstatic response to his wire--and that very night she came to him,
vividly, as he hovered on the confines of sleep.
There she stood by his bed, in her mother-o'-pearl gown and sari; clear
in every detail; lips just parted; a hovering smile in her eyes. And
round about her a shimmering radiance, as of moonbeams, heightened her
loveliness, yet seemed to set her apart; so that he could neither touch
her nor utter a word of welcome. He could only gaze and gaze, while his
heart beat in long slow hammer-strokes, with a double throb between.
With a gesture of mute yearning her hands went out to him. She stooped
low and lower. A faint breeze seemed to flit across his forehead as if
her lips, lightly brushing it, had breathed a blessing.
Then, darkness fell abruptly--and a deep sleep....
He woke late next morning: woke to a startling, terrible certainty that
his vision had been no dream; that her very self had come to him--that
she was gone....
When the bitter truth reached him, he learnt, without surprise, that on
the night of his vision, her spirit passed....
* * * * *
It was a sharp attack of pneumonia that gave her the _coup de grâce_.
But, in effect, the War had killed her, as it killed many another
hyper-sensitive woman, who could not become inured to horror on horror,
tragedy on tragedy, whose heart ached for the sorrows of others as if
they were her own. And her personal share had sufficiently taxed her
endurance, without added pangs for others, unseen and unknown.
George--her baby--had gone down in the Queen Mary. Jerry, too early sent
out to France, had crashed behind the German lines; and after months of
uncertainty they had heard he was alive, wounded--in German hands. Tara,
faithful to the Women's Hospital in Serbia, had been constantly in
danger, living and moving among unimaginable horrors. Nevil, threatened
with septic poisoning, had only been saved at the cost of his left
forearm. Not till he was invalided out, near the close of 1916, had he
realised--too late--that she was killing herself by inches, with work
that alone could leaven anxiety--up to a point.
But it was the shock of Roy's imprisonment and the agony of suspense
that finally stretched her nerve to breaking-point; so that the sudden
onslaught of pneumonia had slain her in the space of a week. And Roy,
knowing her too well, had guessed the truth, in spite of his father's
gallant attempt to shield him from it.
His first letter from that bereft father had been little short of a
revelation to the son, who had ventured to suppose he knew him: a rash
supposition where any human being is concerned. There had been more than
one such revelation in the scores of letters that at once uplifted and
overwhelmed him, and increased tenfold his pride in being her son. But
outshining all, and utterly unexpected, was a letter from herself,
written in those last days, when the others still hoped, against hope,
but she knew----
It had come, with his father's, in a small, gold-embroidered bag--scent
and colour and exquisite needlework all eloquent of her: and with it
came the other, her talisman since he was born. Reaching him while brain
and body still reeled under the bewildering sense of loss, it had
soothed his agony of pain and rebellion like the touch of her fingers on
his forehead; had taken the sting from death and robbed the grave of
victory....
* * * * *
To-night, in his loneliness, he drew the slim bag out of an inner
pocket, and re-read with his eyes the words that were imprinted on his
memory.
"ROY, SON OF MY HEART,--This is good-bye--but not
altogether good-bye. Between you and me that word can never be
spoken. So I am writing this, in my foolish weakness, to beg of
you--by the love between us, too deep for words--not to let heart
and courage be _quite_ broken because of this big sorrow. You were
brave in battle, my Prithvi Raj. Be still more brave for me.
Remember I am Lilámani--Jewel of Delight. _That_ I have tried to be
in my life, for every one of you. That I wish to be always. So I
ask you, my darling, not to make me a Jewel of Sorrow because I
have passed into the Next Door House too soon. Though not seen, I
will never for long be far from you. That is my faith; and you must
share it; helping your dear father, because for him the way of
belief is hard.
"Never forget those beautiful words of Fouquet in which you made
dedication of your poems to me: 'How blessed is the son to whom it
is allowed to gladden his mother's heart with the blossom and fruit
of his life!' And you will still gladden it, Dilkusha.[5] I will
still share your work, though in different fashion than we hoped.
Only keep your manhood pure and the windows of your spirit clear,
so the Light can shine through. Then you will know if I speak
truth, and you will not feel altogether alone.
"Oh, Roy, I could write and write till the pen drops. My heart is
too full, but my hand is too feeble for more. Only this, when your
time comes for marriage, I pray you will be to your wife all that
your splendid father has been for me--king and lover and companion
of body and spirit. Draw nearer than ever, you two, because of your
so beautiful love for me--unseen now, but with you always. God
bless you. I can write no more.
"Your devoted
MOTHER."
The last lines wavered and ran together. In spite of her injunction,
tears _would_ come. Chill and unheeded, they slipped down his cheeks,
while he folded his treasure, and put it away with the other, that went
to his head, a little, as she had foreseen; though in the event, it had
been overshadowed by her own, than which she could have left him no
dearer legacy. In life she had been an angel of God. In death, she was
still his angel of comfort and healing. She had bidden him share her
belief; and he never _had_ felt altogether alone. Sustained by that
inner conviction, he had somehow adapted himself to the strangeness of a
life empty of her physical presence. The human being, in a world of
pain, like the insect in a world of danger, lives mainly by that same
ceaseless, unconscious miracle of adaptation. Dearly though he craved a
sight of his father and Christine, he had not asked for leave home.
There were bad moments when he wondered if he could ever bring himself
to face the ordeal. He sincerely hoped they understood. Their letters
left an impression that it was so. Jeffers obviously did.
And Tara----? Her belated letter, from the wilds of Serbia, had
revealed, in every line, that she understood only too well. For Tara,
not long before, had passed through her own ordeal--the death, in a
brilliant air fight, of her second brother Atholl, her devotee and hero
from nursery days. So when Roy's turn came, her fulness of sympathy and
understanding were outstretched like wings to shield him, if might be,
from the worst, as she had known it.
For that once, she flung aside the veil of grown-up reserves and wrote
straight from her eager passionate heart to the Bracelet-bound Brother,
unseen for years, yet linked with her by an imperishable memory; and now
linked closer still by a mutual grief.
The comfort to Roy of that spontaneous, Tara-like outpouring had been
greater than she knew--than he could ever let her know. For the old
intimacy had never been quite re-established between them since the day
of his tactless juvenile proposal--for so he saw it now. They had only
met that once, when he was home for Christmas. On the second occasion,
they had missed. Throughout the War they had corresponded fitfully; but
her letters, though affectionate and sisterly, lacked an unseizable
something that affected the tone of his response. He had been rash
enough, once, to presume on their special relation. But he was no longer
a boy; and he had his pride.
He wondered sometimes how it would be if they met again. Would he fall
in love with her? She was supreme. No one like her. But he knew now--as
she had instinctively known then--that his conviction on that score did
not amount to being in love. Conviction must be lit and warmed with the
fire of passion. And you couldn't very well fall in love across six
thousand miles of sea. Certainly none of the girls he had danced with
and ridden with since his arrival in India had affected him that way.
And for him marriage was an important consideration. Some day he
supposed it would confront him as an urgent personal issue. But there
was a tremendous lot to be done first; and girls were kittle cattle.
Unsuspected by him, the ultimate relation with his mother--while it
quickened his need for woman's enveloping tenderness and sympathy--held
his heart in leash by setting up a standard, to which the modern girl
rarely aspired, much less attained.
And now she was gone, in some strange, enthralling way, she held him
still. At rare intervals, she came again to him in dreams; or when he
hovered on the verge of sleep. Dreams, or visions--they persisted as
clearly in memory as any waking act; and unfailingly left a vivid
after-sense of having been in touch with her very self. More and more
conviction deepened in him that she still had joy in 'the blossom and
fruit of his life'; that even in death she was nearer to him than many
living mothers to their sons.
A strange experience: strangest of all, perhaps, the simplicity with
which he came to accept it as part of the natural order of things. The
intuitive brain is rarely analytical. Moreover, he had seen; he had
felt; he knew. It is the invincible argument of the mystic. Against
belief born of vivid, reiterate experience, the loquacity of logic, the
formulæ of pure intellect break like waves upon a rock--and with as
little result. The intensity and persistence of Roy's experience simply
left no room for insidious whispers of doubt; nor could he have
tolerated such scepticism in others, natural though it might be, if one
had not seen, nor felt, nor known.
So he neither wrote nor spoke of it to any one. He could scarce have
kept it from Tara, the sister-child who had shared all his thoughts and
dreams; but the grown-up Tara had become too remote in every sense for
a confidence so intimate, so sacred. To his father he would fain have
confided everything, remembering her last command; but Sir Nevil's later
letters--though unfailingly sympathetic--were not calculated to evoke
filial outpourings. For the time being, he seemed to have shut himself
in with his grief. Perhaps he, of all others, had been least able to
understand Roy's failure to press for short leave home. He had said very
little on the subject. And Roy--with the instinct of sensitive natures
to take their tone from others--had also said little: too little,
perhaps. Least said may be soonest mended; but there are times when it
may widen a rift to a gulf.
In the end, he had felt impelled at least to mention his dream
experiences, and let it rest with his father whether he said any more.
And by return mail came a brief but poignant answer: "Thank you, my
dearest Boy, for telling me what you did. It is a relief to know you
have some sort of comfort--if only in dreams. You are fortunate to be so
made. After all, for purposes of comfort and guidance, one's capacity to
believe in such communion is the measure of its reality. As for me, I am
still utterly, desolately alone. Perhaps some day she will reach me in
spite of my little faith. People who resort to mediums and the automatic
writing craze are beyond me: though the temptation I understand. You may
remember a sentence of Maeterlinck----' We have to grope timidly and
make sure of every footstep, as we cross the threshold. And even when
the threshold is crossed, where shall certainty be found----? One cannot
speak of these things--the solitude is too great.' That is my own
feeling about it--at present."
The last had given Roy an impression that his solitude, however
desolating, was a sort of sanctuary, not to be shared as yet, even with
his son. And, in the face of such loneliness, it seemed almost cruel to
enlarge on his own clear sense of intimate communion with her who had
been unfailingly their Jewel of Delight.
So, by degrees--in the long months of separation from them all--his
ethereal link with her had come to feel closer and more real than his
link with those others, still in the flesh, yet strangely remote from
his inner life.
To-night--after reading both letters--that sense of nearness seemed
stronger than ever. Could it be that the magnetism of India was in the
nature of an intimation from her that for the present his work lay here?
By the hidden forces that mould men's lives, he had been drawn to the
land of heart's desire; and at home, neither his family nor his country
seemed to have any particular need of him. Whether or no India had need
of him, he assuredly had need of her. And it was the very strength of
that feeling which had given him pause.
But now, at last, he knew beyond cavil that, for all his mind--or was it
his conscience?--might haver and split straws, he had been drawn to
Rajputana, as irresistibly as if that vast desert region were the moon
and he a wavelet on the tidal shore.
With a great sigh he rose, yawned cavernously and shivered. Better get
to bed and to sleep:--a bed that didn't clank and jolt and batter your
brains to a pulp. Things would look amazingly different in the morning.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Tripod table.]
[Footnote 5: Joy of my Heart.]