"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; Arúna, in Oxford gown and sari, radiant one moment; the
next--in spite of stoic resolves--crying softly in Dyán'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 Dyán'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 Dyán, 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 Dyán; 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,
Dyán--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 Dewáli. 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 Dyán, 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
Dyán'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 Samáj.
As Roy knew precisely how much--or rather, how little--Arúna liked
working in the wards, he suffered a pang at the pathos of her innocent
guile. And if Dyán 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 Dyán 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 Dyán 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 Dyán to prove it no dream; and the perilous charm of
Arúna, 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, Arúna 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 Arúna,
riding with Dyán, 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 Arúna
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 Arúna, who trusted her. It seemed like
betrayal--no less. And yet...?