The Lotus and the Wind (11 page)

‘I want to marry the man I love, and be loved by him, and that’s Robin,’ she said in a rush.

‘You want comradeship, friendliness too, don’t you, both from your husband and from other people? You don’t want to live in a little circle of two?’

‘No--but I’d prefer that with Robin to anything else with anybody else. But we’ll have that too. Robin must want that. Everyone does, surely, or they wouldn’t be people; they’d be cats or something. He wants it, but he’s shy, and people are just beastly to him.’

They had fallen a long way behind the hunt. Major Hayling’s face was lined, grey, and very old-seeming to her. He said, ‘Since the rumours began, a lot of people who have met Robin Savage have been airing their views about him. I’ve listened. What most of them say is that he’s too wrapped up in himself. Not healthy--now, now, wait. What they mean to imply is that he is a cat. You know, some men are cats, some dogs. No women are cats. I haven’t met one who really, in herself, wants above everything else to walk by herself. But some men do. I’ve met one or two and I know the brand. It’s in the eyes.’

‘You are like that yourself,’ she said, surprised, feeling that by his words he had suddenly chosen to reveal himself to her. Hayling looked at her and went on. ‘And some men are thought to be cats, but they aren’t. They want love, companionship, and all the rest, but for one reason or another they can’t get it. They just have to make the best job they can of pretending to be cats.’ He looked away from her, and she cast her eyes down in embarrassment as he continued, ‘I haven’t met your Robin yet. You’re a dog--the liveliest, most affectionate, doggiest dog of a young woman I’ve ever known. Just make sure Robin isn’t a cat---a real, genuine, born-to-walk-in-the-woods-alone cat. Come on, we’d better catch up the hunt.’

‘No, wait, please.’ For some minutes she had been watching a haze of dust that began over Jamrud, the fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, and spread in an ever-lengthening trail down the road towards Peshawar. She said, ‘How will I ever know, if people’s beastly rumours and lies drive him back inside himself? I won’t have it! The next time I hear anything like that I’m going to slap their faces, and I don’t care who it is! What is that?’

‘A winter caravan from Kabul, probably. I doubt if it’s come from any farther, because the passes from Turkestan will be closed. Do you like having your battles fought for you?’

‘No, but Robin----’

‘My dear Anne,’ he said brusquely, ‘I do not want to hear anything more about Mr. Robin Savage. I am sorry, but I don’t.’

She knew she had hurt him and was unwillingly pleased that she had been able to. It was a part of woman’s power that she had lacked, the power that Edith Collett could exert over so many men with no effort and no hurt to herself.

But the pleasure did not last, because she found that in her it did hurt. She said, ‘I am sorry, Major Hayling. You know I like you, don’t you?’

‘When I choose to keep my place as a cynical but wise and kindly old one-eyed owl? Yes, I know. Come on.’

‘No, I’m going home. You go on. I’ll say you escorted me to the edge of cantonments.’

‘This is the North West Frontier, miss. I will go with you. The road is over there; the shoulders will be easier on the horses than these stones.’

At his side she trotted towards the road. Away to their right the crawling caravan had dissolved out into separate figures of men and horses and pacing camels. The dust blew slowly away to the south as the wind caught it. Reining in, she scanned the scene and soon realized that it was not a caravan but a military convoy. She saw the commissariat carts and their straining mules. If Robin could only be with it--but he would not be, unless he was wounded or being sent back. Then, closer than the head of the convoy, she saw a horseman and a man on foot. Her fingers tightened; if she had not been wearing gloves Major Hayling must have seen the whiteness of her knuckles. Her lips were drawn together; that, surely, he must see. She relaxed, forcing her lips apart and holding herself more easily in the saddle, so that she was only looking down the road, not staring like a she-wolf ready to defend her cub.

She could not be sure. The distance was too great. The horse and the man came slowly, slowly on. She began to tremble. Please, Major Hayling, if you are kind, go away.

The walking man was a Gurkha, carrying two rifles--a modern Snider and an old jezail.

When Robin came to her he stopped his horse and saluted. He looked just the same as in Simla so long ago. He said, ‘Hullo, Miss Hildreth.’ He was contained, but his lips were tight as hers, and his jaw was set in the way that meant hurt or readiness to receive hurt.

‘Robin.’ She urged Beauty forward.

‘Well, I will get back to the hunt.’ That was Major Hayling’s cool voice behind her. ‘I will be seeing you again soon, no doubt. Good morning, Mr. Savage, and--for the moment--good-bye.’

‘Good-bye, sir. Who’s he, Anne?’

‘Oh--Major Hayling.’

‘What regiment?’

‘Bengal Lancers, seconded. Something to do with Intelligence. Robin, I’m glad to see you. Salaam, Jagbir.’

‘Salaam, miss-sahib.’

‘Of course, you saw Jagbir in Simla. How do you like Peshawar? I’ve only had one letter from you since you got here. That was about horses, dancing, and the man who was killed near Attock.’ The horses stepped together down the Peshawar road, the very beginning of that Grand Trunk Road which led eighteen hundred miles south-east to end in the steaming stew of Calcutta.

‘Heavens, yes! It’s awful, but I’d forgotten about him. Major Hayling promised to tell me who he was if he could, but he never has.’

‘My stepmother wrote and said everyone in Peshawar was talking about how brave you were. Congratulations.’

She spoke quickly, wanting to get away from the subject. ‘That was nothing. His life was really saved--prolonged--by Edith Collett’s bandages, I should think.’

‘She’s the wife of Captain Collett, Frontier Force?’

‘Yes. My mother doesn’t like her because she’s supposed to be fast. Mind, Robin, you be careful with her, or I’ll be jealous.’

Robin looked at her and said seriously, ‘I don’t think the situation will arise.’

She became angry with herself. She was no good at this tight-rope walking. She had become roguish and silly, like the Gillespie girl. How would Edith Collett herself have acted in this situation? Gone straight to the point probably, or somehow encouraged Robin to do so. But Robin was not an easy man to encourage.

While she hesitated he said, ‘Is my stepmother out with hounds to-day?’

‘Yes. Of course you’d like to see her. I’m not quite sure where they’ve got to by now--’

‘I don’t want to see her.’

She looked at him anxiously, for he had spoken with unexpected shortness. Surely he had not quarrelled with the only woman he could know as a mother? Surely Caroline Savage had not believed that dreadful Mclain’s stories against him, and written something in a letter to wound him? The thought made him seem more lonely, more gallant still. She stole a sideways glance at him. He had taken off his topi, and the wind ruffled his hair. He was a thin-faced, fragile Galahad, riding against the world’s meanness, the fine lines of his profile set off by the merciless severity of the background hills. After a long silence he spoke again. He always managed to surprise her. She listened to him and tried to find the cord of thought which would have led him to say this, when so many other things must be more urgent in his mind. If she could not understand that, perhaps she would never understand him. He was saying, ‘The P.V.H. is typical of all we are and all we are not. Most foreigners, and a lot of people in England, would think that it was romantic and somehow exciting to hunt jackals through this barren wild. They’d get a sense of loneliness, feel almost they were explorers. They’d think they were adapting themselves to Central Asia.’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. She had not joined him yet. As so often before, he was looking out of some secret window, and what he saw was not what she saw or what her father would see.

He went on. ‘It’s not true. They’re adapting Central Asia to themselves. They ought to be hawking, at least.’

‘That’s cruel.’

‘So are they. Or they ought to be buying camels and trading across the passes. They ought to be missionaries, streaming west and north like locusts.’

She was really astonished now. He caught her glance and fell silent, his expression closing almost imperceptibly against her. She said brightly, ‘I almost forgot! There’s a ball at the club on the sixth. To-day’s the second, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m sure it is. We’re all going, and you must come in our party. You will, won’t you? Promise.’

‘I don’t go out much, Anne.’

‘I know, but I do want you to come to this.’ She gazed full at him and felt the tears welling up in her eyes. He would see them through the veil. That would give her away. He’d know how much she was worried about him, and why. But it might be a good thing. Anything would be good that brought him back from mooning at the window she could not find. She had thought more accurately than she relished when she saw him as Sir Galahad. She remembered now that she had never been able to understand what the Holy Grail really was. She remembered that she had loved Sir Lancelot, the hot fighter, and only admired Sir Galahad. She would be Robin’s champion, but he was a-man and must fight too, in a man’s way, for his name and reputation. Soon she would be sharing them. If he saw her tears he might spring from his horse and drag her down, to kiss her fiercely and shout in her ear, ‘Marry me! We’ll go out against them!’

Robin held her eyes for a long time, leaving his horse to plod without guidance down the verge of the road. Then he said, ‘All right, Anne. I’ll come.’

She lifted her veil and with her handkerchief wiped her eyes. Now he must know. She said in a choking voice, ‘What was Afghanistan like?’

‘It was wonderful.’ She had to grip the reins in her astonishment. His voice was passionately eager. He couldn’t have seen her tears or understood anything. He had been at his window all the time. He said, ‘The wind blew from Siberia. There were tangled mountains. When we got out of them, if the air was clear, the view stretched for ever. Not a soul to see in it--though there were people, of course, hidden. I saw the Hindu Kush one day. Beyond that there’s nothing for thousands of miles. I could feel it.’

She said, ‘Isn’t it lonely, unfriendly?’

‘Lonely? I suppose so. I didn’t find it unfriendly. “The everlasting universe of Things flows through the mind . . .” I’ve been sent back for cowardice.’

Now that he had said it she could find no answer. He spoke so calmly that the hot anger she had nourished on his behalf froze within her. He ought to be fighting mad, furious over the misunderstanding. He ought to be grim. He ought to be scornfully offering her the opportunity to desert him--so that when she didn’t take it both she and he would be lifted up by their choking love and loyalty for each other. Perhaps--oh, that must be it; he spoke of the joys of loneliness because he thought loneliness would be his fate now. Already he must have made up his mind that she would not stand by him.

She put out her hand and felt for his. ‘We must fight them, Robin.’

She was practically proposing to him. Well, she wanted to, and it was leap year. Ordinary rules did not apply to Robin.

He said, ‘I don’t think I want to fight anyone, Anne. I used to be sure of that--but then I found that, because of me, other people were hurt: Maniraj, Jagbir. When I think of them and people like them, I do want to fight. But most of the time I just don’t feel the same about anything as other people do, or think in the same way.’

She knew he was right, but this was the thing she had to fight in him. She rode over it, saying eagerly, ‘It’s not true. You are like other people, only better. What happened?’ she finished lamely.

He told her, speaking in slow, short sentences, and ended, ‘Then I shot myself.’

‘Are you all right now? Does it hurt any more? How could they think you dropped the pistol on purpose?’

He looked along the road at the approaching city. ‘Perhaps I’m not meant to kill anyone. The time before I didn’t even draw my pistol. I intended to but I didn’t. The next day, Christmas Day, the general came to see me in the field hospital. He told me he would like to court-martial me. But he wasn’t going to, because I was the son of the splendid Colonel Rodney Savage, C.B. He said I was to go to Peshawar. He said if I didn’t send in my papers quickly he’d bring me back for court martial.’

‘That’s horrible! Don’t do it, Robin. We’ll get you a transfer to another regiment; then you can go back and show them. We’ve got friends. We know people. We can do it.’

‘Perhaps, dear.’ He smiled at her with so much warmth, and his eyes shone so affectionately on her, that she was ready to die of love. He went on, ‘But I don’t want to kill anyone. And I don’t want to send in my papers because that would hurt so many people. They ought not to be hurt, but they would be. I don’t know what to do.’

She was appalled. In her mind the words fell over themselves. It was not logical. How could he be an officer of Gurkhas and not kill the enemy? He meant killing someone himself, but he seemed not to mind giving orders which would help the Gurkhas to kill.

He was speaking again. ‘I had to wait for a convoy down. By then the wound was almost healed. On the way I nearly got you a present.’

‘Oh.’ This was something she could understand again. She felt as if she had travelled too fast on a fairground merry-go-round.

‘There was a man in Jellalabad. He came out to the staging camp, selling cloth and trinkets. When he saw that jezail Jagbir’s carrying’--Robin turned and motioned with his hand--’he asked to examine it. He said it was valuable, belonged to an important Ghilzai family, and offered me quite a lot of money for it. I’d just seen something he was selling that was very pretty. It was too much for my means. But if I’d sold the rifle and given half the money to Jagbir I could have bought it with the other half.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ Her heart was pounding and her lips dry. He simply must not see her face now. She turned her head towards the hills. The hunters were miles away across the plain. He said, ‘It was a ring. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.’