The Lotus and the Wind (17 page)

‘No, thank you, Mrs. Collett. I--just wanted to call.’

‘Now that you’re married you’d like to disassociate yourself from your mother’s rudeness?’ said Mrs. Collett, suddenly ceasing to smile. Anne knew that her mother had never called. Mrs. Collett went on. ‘That’s very kind of you. But I knew it wasn’t your fault, Anne.’

Anne blurted out, ‘I’ve always wanted to call, honestly I have. And now I’m married it’s different.’

‘I’m sure it is, Anne. Nicer too, if you’re lucky.’

Anne took a deep breath. ‘Mrs. Collett, you see, you’re alone here, and I wondered--I thought--would you possibly let me come and share it with you--I mean live here and learn about housekeeping and do the work if it wouldn’t be a nuisance for you--if you’d help me, tell me what to do so that I could learn, and not be in your way?’

Somehow she had offended the other woman. Mrs. Collett leaned forward sharply. ‘You mean, not in the way of what your mother doubtless calls my amours? But the truth is that you can’t bear living under the same roof with her any longer, isn’t it? Any port in a storm?’

Anne jumped up, feeling miserable and muddled. ‘No, no, Mrs. Collett! I mean, I can’t bear it at home but I do want to come and live with you too. I haven’t asked my mother, or mentioned it even. She’d have a fit.’

‘Why?’ said Mrs. Collett, less angrily, and waited, half smiling, for Anne’s answer. Anne could not speak because the answer was ‘My mother thinks you are an unpaid harlot.’

Mrs. Collett said, ‘You needn’t answer. I know quite well what your mother thinks of me. The point is, do you agree?’ Anne said, ‘Of course not, Mrs. Collett. But--well, I wouldn’t care if the worst she thought was true. You’ve always been kind to me. I admire you and--and I want to be like you. I don’t want any more mothers, not even Mrs. Savage. I could go there, and she would be wonderful. It’s not what I want. I’m married--but I don’t know anything. I don’t mean about babies, I know that, I mean about being a lady, a woman--well, being something more than a girl, anyway.’ She had stated the problem as accurately as she could, and in terms as personal as she cared to use at this stage. Later, if she could bring herself to talk about Robin, and if Mrs. Collett was as understanding close to as she was at a distance, she might. . .

But Mrs. Collett seemed to know already; she was saying ‘ . . sure of yourself, confident, as a girl, and now you’re not sure of anything all of a sudden, is that it? My poor dear! Now, now, don’t worry about it. It’s good. Some of these modern young women are too hard or too stupid to realize that they lack something.’

Edith Collett rose quickly but smoothly from the pouffe and left the room. Her skirts were as tight as Anne’s, but she did not hobble; she swept out, and how she did it was a mystery of locomotion. Anne waited quietly until she returned, carrying a silver tray with a decanter and two glasses. She did not pour out the wine but set the tray down and looked steadily at Anne. Then she said, ‘Anne, before you come here you must know that sometimes I am an immoral woman. There is a reason. My husband happens not to like women. I suppose I should report him to the police, but he’s a very kind man and I can’t do it. I can’t even divorce him, because it would take away his--oh, call it his protective coloration. He’ll be discovered one day. Then he’ll shoot himself. Meantime, as I can’t be a good wife, I have to try and be a good woman. When men are lonely or frightened, that isn’t what it sounds--at least not in my opinion. Why do you think I told you that?’ she finished suddenly.

Anne did not understand all she had heard, but she knew that Mrs. Collett was weary and sad and, like herself, fighting. She said, ‘I don’t know, Mrs. Collett. I’m glad you did tell me, though.’

Mrs. Collett said, ‘Is Robin one too, like my husband? Is that the trouble? There’s something the matter with you, Anne. Can’t you trust me?’

Anne dropped her head. She couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘My husband won’t give me my connubial rights’--Mrs. Savage said it should be ‘rites.’ Besides, that was a result of the trouble, not the trouble itself. The trouble was her lack of
savoir-faire
. Women who had
savoir-faire
could make a man believe anything--why not, then, the truth? She said, ‘I love Robin, Mrs. Collett, but I don’t think---well, I’m twenty-three and yet with him I feel as if I were seven or eight. Can you, will you--?’

She felt Mrs. Collett’s plump arms around her and her low, rather hoarse voice in her ear. ‘Of course I will, Anne. It gets lonely here sometimes, but together we can have a good time and enjoy ourselves. And now we will have a glass of this wine.’ The wine was the colour of pale straw.

‘Oh, thank you, I couldn’t, Mrs. Collett. I’m not allowed to take wine until the evening, and then only--’

‘Not allowed, Mrs. Savage? Call me Edith. This is Manzanilla. Some very dry sherries are called Manzanillas, but that’s wrong. It’s different, it’s a wine by itself, it’s--well, taste it. Have you ever had anything like that before?’

‘No. It’s like water. No, it’s like fire, only it’s smooth.’ She sipped again. ‘There, I had it on my tongue, but it’s gone, and there’s no taste left in my mouth. Now there is again! It’s bitter, Edith--not for long. It’s sort of half sweet, just for a moment. Why, it’s fascinating!’

‘Exactly, Anne. You’ve been a good, straightforward, wholesome Madeira for much too long.’

As the ponies slid gingerly down the last scree slope of the last hill Robin glanced back over his shoulder. Jagbir, twenty yards behind him, looked out of place on horseback. It was the effect of his infantryman’s uniform and had not been the case while he had been wearing the loose woollen robes and felt boots of a Hazara tribesman.

They were returning from their five months’ training. Robin turned forward and with his eye swept the Peshawar plain. In the distance he saw the trees surrounding the city and the cantonment. In the foreground a goatherd piped on a sarnai, leaning back against a rock, his rifle between his knees. He stood up as they came closer and held his rifle loosely ready in his hand. Robin said, ‘May you never be tired!’

‘May you never be tired!’

‘Are you well?’

‘I am well.’

‘Are you right well?’

‘I am right well.’

‘Are you in good health?’

‘I am in right good health.’

The goatherd remained standing by the rock, watching them. The ponies wended on across the stony level among the scattered grazing goats. The sun of mid-July beat back from the gravelly surface, and heat poured out in waves from the oven-like hills.

In Peshawar cantonment the few passers-by gazed curiously at them as they walked the drooping horses towards the Hildreths’ bungalow. There Robin dismounted. It was only just after noon, and the family should not be asleep yet. He called quietly,
‘Koi hai!’
The bearer shambled out of the bungalow, recognized him with a surprised salaam, and hurried back inside. On Robin’s order Jagbir led the ponies to the stable. Robin found that he still had difficulty with the Gurkhali tongue; it was only a week since they had reverted to speaking it to each other.

Major Hildreth came on to the verandah, a newspaper in his hand, and stared with screwed-up eyes into the shimmering noon. ‘Well, I’m damned! Robin. I say, come in, boy.’ In the dark hall he grasped Robin’s hand and peered closely into his face. ‘Why, boy, you’re as black as the ace of spades! I mean the sun has burned you. Where have you been? Oh, suppose you’re not allowed to tell me, h’m?’

‘Afghanistan, sir. It’s, a big country. Where’s Anne?’

‘Anne? Didn’t you know? Here, sit down a minute. Anne’s been--ah, living with Mrs. Collett since you went away. Much more convenient, you know--I mean, well, boy, two women in one house! Mrs. Hildreth’s got a notion about Edith Collett, but it isn’t so. She’s a fine woman.’

‘I understand, sir,’ said Robin, smiling. He remembered hearing some gossip about Mrs. Collett while he was here last. Not much, because few people had been talking to him then. It was good of Anne, and typical, to go to her.

‘Want a glass of beer, my boy?’

‘Yes, please, sir.’

The bearer brought the beer and poured it out, stooping obsequiously beside Robin’s chair. Major Hildreth’s popping eyes ran cautiously over Robin’s dusty uniform. ‘You didn’t get much beer in Afghanistan, I suppose?’

‘No, sir.’

‘See much action? I mean--h’rrm--how was it up there?’ His father-in-law’s several chins quivered with embarrassment, and his eyes wandered away. Poor man, he really was kind, and as thin-skinned as a gazelle in spite of his appearance. Robin said, ‘No, sir, I didn’t see any action. I think, if you’ll excuse me, I must move on.’

‘Must you? Oh, well--Sultan! Tell the Gurkha to bring the horses round. H’m.’

‘Give my affectionate regards to Mrs. Hildreth, won’t you, sir?’

‘Of course, of course. She’s in Kashmir--Srinagar. Went up in May. I’m a grass-widower. Hardly a woman left in the station, except Anne and Mrs. Collett.’

They stood on the verandah, waiting for the horses. Major Hildreth hemmed and cleared his throat once or twice before getting out, ‘Give Anne a kiss from her father, eh? She’s been in often to see me since May. Goes out a lot. Makes me feel like a child now. She’s a great lady now--and--ah--she loves you, boy.’

‘Thank you, sir. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye. Well--good-bye.’ Robin and Jagbir mounted, and Major Hildreth watched them till they turned out of the drive. From the road Robin saw him shake his head, pick up his paper, and return inside the bungalow.

Major Hayling greeted them without surprise. He said, ‘Good. Right on time. Would you like a bottle of beer?’

‘Not another, sir, or I’ll go to sleep.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘Over the Shutagardan, then through the Tirah.’

‘Ah. Very few of us have been through there. I’m surprised the Kurram Valley commander didn’t forbid you--oh, you didn’t ask him? And you were in uniform? Yes, I see. Jagbir must make a perfect Hazara in the proper clothes, but of course I agree that a Hazara would be an unusual sight in the Tirah.’

They had reached the major’s office. The walls were bare of pictures or maps, and very few papers lay on the desk. A large, square safe stood in one corner. Hayling lit a cigar. ‘Have you been to see your wife yet?’

‘No, sir. She’ll be resting. I’ll go in the evening.’

‘Good idea. It’s hot as hell now. We’re having a real brute of a hot weather.’ He glanced out of the window at a thermometer hanging in the shade of the verandah. ‘A hundred and eighteen. You must be fried to a cinder.’ He drew on his cigar. ‘How did you get on in Gharghara?’

‘All right, I think. I can speak Hazara and Zaboli Persian well enough. Jagbir learned Hazara quickly. He doesn’t have a big vocabulary, but as a peasant he wouldn’t. I learned something about business when I went on a trading trip to Herat in the late spring with Faiz Ali. I think I’m ready.’

‘Good.’ Hayling surveyed him through the cigar smoke. ‘We’re ready too. You remember that report in the barrel of the jezail? It was from an agent in Jellalabad, to the Russians.’

‘How is that known, sir?’

‘Because the fellow works for both sides, and we know his handwriting. It was routine stuff, about our troop movements in Afghanistan. Our reconstruction of the whole story goes something like this. First, our man Selim Beg discovers something. He dares not trust even a word to paper. He scratches “Horses, north” on the butt of his gun and comes east, meaning to report to us well beyond the places where the Russians would expect him to come in. He was probably heading for Rawalpindi--even Simla. However, they get him and take his jezail because they suspect that he has his report rolled up in the barrel, or because they know he’s scratched those two words on the butt.

‘On their way back to their base--which was probably Balkh--they’d have to pass through Jellalabad, where the two-sided agent lives. He says, “Here, save me a trip, take this with you,” and gives them his monthly routine report. They roll it up in the jezail. That’s important, in spite of the report’s actually being valueless, because it proves that the men who murdered Selim Beg and took his jezail
are
connected with Russian espionage, which in turn proves that Selim Beg had something big to tell us. Well then, these two stumble into your battle, and so--you get married and live happily ever after. Damn it, I’m sorry, Robin.’

Robin’s head kept nodding forward. The major’s spurt of bitterness could not penetrate his weariness.

Hayling said, ‘Keep awake another minute. We--by which I mean the Viceroy and the government at home--have come to the conclusion, on other grounds of course, that the Russians mean business. Events may change the Czar’s mind, but at this moment his generals are planning further large advances southward. Our agents will remain at their posts. As they are local men they cannot readily move. Independently of them, you will enter Russian-controlled Asia and find out what the Russians’ specific plan is. We know their general intention--an advance on India. What we don’t know is the methods by which they hope to achieve it. You and I leave by dak to-morrow morning for railhead, then train and dak to Simla. In Simla you will receive full information, but no more instructions. There aren’t any.’

‘Will I be coming back here afterwards?’

‘I doubt it.’ Hayling pushed back his chair quickly. ‘That is not my doing. Here.’ He pushed open the door of a small room off his study. It contained a narrow camp bed and a single camp chair. ‘Sleep here until you’re ready to go to your wife’s. Come back at seven to-morrow morning. By the way, where are your desi clothes, and Jagbir’s?’

‘In the Nau Jabbar Khan serai in Kabul.’

‘With Dost Khan?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Now get some sleep. I’ll tell that little man of yours.’

Robin awoke and knew without looking at his watch that it was five o’clock. The sun still shone, but the glare had died out of it, and a slight, hot breeze ruffled the trees. He dressed and whistled quietly outside the servants’ quarters. Jagbir appeared immediately, wearing only white cotton drawers. Robin said, ‘I’m going to my memsahib. There’s nothing for you until seven to-morrow morning, here. We’re going to Simla.’ He walked across the compound to the stables and began to resaddle Bahram, the shaggy pony he’d bought during his schooling period in Gharghara.