Three days later I met Lady Meryon, and was swept in to tea. Her manner
was distinctly more cordial as she mentioned casually that Vanna had
left--she understood to take up missionary work--“which is odd,” she
added with a woman’s acrimony, “for she had no more in common with
missionaries than I have, and that is saying a good deal. Of course she
speaks Hindustani perfectly, and could be useful, but I haven’t grasped
the point of it yet.” I saw she counted on my knowing nothing of the
real reason of Vanna’s going and left it, of course, at that. The talk
drifted away under my guidance. Vanna evidently puzzled her. She half
feared, and wholly misunderstood her.
No message came to me, as time went by, and for the time she had
vanished completely, but I held fast to her promise and lived on that
only.
I take up my life where it ceased to be a mere suspense and became life
once more.
On the 15th of June, I found myself riding into Srinagar in Kashmir,
through the pure tremulous green of the mighty poplars that hedge the
road into the city. The beauty of the country had half stunned me when
I entered the mountain barrier of Baramula and saw the snowy peaks that
guard the Happy Valley, with the Jhelum flowing through its tranquil
loveliness. The flush of the almond blossom was over, but the iris, like
a blue sea of peace had overflowed the world--the azure meadows smiled
back at the radiant sky. Such blossom! the blue shading into clear
violet, like a shoaling sea. The earth, like a cup held in the hand of a
god, brimmed with the draught of youth and summer and--love? But no, for
me the very word was sinister. Vanna’s face, immutably calm, confronted
it.
That night I slept in a boat at Sopor, and I remember that, waking at
midnight, I looked out and saw a mountain with a gloriole of hazy silver
about it, misty and faint as a cobweb threaded with dew. The river,
there spreading into a lake, was dark under it, flowing in a deep smooth
blackness of shadow, and everything awaited--what? And even while I
looked, the moon floated serenely above the peak, and all was bathed in
pure light, the water rippling and shining in broken silver and pearl.
So had Vanna floated into my sky, luminous, sweet, remote. I did not
question my heart any more. I knew I loved her.
Two days later I rode into Srinagar, and could scarcely see the wild
beauty of that strange Venice of the East, my heart was so beating
in my eyes. I rode past the lovely wooden bridges where the balconied
houses totter to each other across the canals in dim splendour of
carving and age; where the many-coloured native life crowds down to the
river steps and cleanses its flower-bright robes, its gold-bright brass
vessels in the shining stream, and my heart said only--Vanna, Vanna!
One day, one thought, of her absence had taught me what she was to me,
and if humility and patient endeavor could raise me to her feet, I was
resolved that I would spend my life in labor and think it well spent.
My servant dismounted and led his horse, asking from every one where the
“Kedarnath” could be found, and eager black eyes sparkled and two little
bronze images detached themselves from the crowd of boys, and ran, fleet
as fauns, before us.
Above the last bridge the Jhelum broadens out into a stately river,
controlled at one side by the banked walk known as the Bund, with the
Club House upon it and the line of houseboats beneath. Here the visitors
flutter up and down and exchange the gossip, the bridge appointments,
the little dinners that sit so incongruously on the pure Orient that is
Kashmir.
She would not be here. My heart told me that, and sure enough the boys
were leading across the bridge and by a quiet shady way to one of the
many backwaters that the great river makes in the enchanting city. There
is one waterway stretching on afar to the Dal Lake. It looks like a
river--it is the very haunt of peace. Under those mighty chenar, or
plane trees, that are the glory of Kashmir, clouding the water with deep
green shadows, the sun can scarcely pierce, save in a dipping sparkle
here and there to intensify the green gloom. The murmur of the city, the
chatter of the club, are hundreds of miles away. We rode downward under
the towering trees, and dismounting, saw a little houseboat tethered to
the bank. It was not of the richer sort that haunts the Bund, where the
native servants follow in a separate boat, and even the electric light
is turned on as part of the luxury. This was a long low craft, very
broad, thatched like a country cottage afloat. In the forepart lived the
native owner, and his family, their crew, our cooks and servants; for
they played many parts in our service. And in the afterpart, room for a
life, a dream, the joy or curse & many days to be.
But then, I saw only one thing--Vanna sat under the trees, reading, or
looking at the cool dim watery vista, with a single boat, loaded to the
river’s edge with melons and scarlet tomatoes, punting lazily down to
Srinagar in the sleepy afternoon.
She was dressed in white with a shady hat, and her delicate dark face
seemed to glow in the shadow like the heart of a pale rose. For the
first time I knew she was beautiful. Beauty shone in her like the flame
in an alabaster lamp, serene, diffused in the very air about her, so
that to me she moved in a mild radiance. She rose to meet me with both
hands outstretched--the kindest, most cordial welcome. Not an eyelash
flickered, not a trace of self-consciousness. If I could have seen her
flush or tremble--but no--her eyes were clear and calm as a forest pool.
So I remembered her. So I saw her once more.
I tried, with a hopeless pretence, to follow her example and hide what I
felt, where she had nothing to hide.
“What a place you have found. Why, it’s like the deep heart of a wood!”
“Yes, I saw it once when I was here with the Meryons. But we lay at the
Bund then--just under the Club. This is better. Did you like the ride
up?”