Chapter VIII

"In two little rooms my heart divides,
Joy, wide awake, in one resides,
While slumbering Sorrow in the other hides.
Oh, Joy, sing gently in thy glee,
Lest Sorrow wake through hearing thee."
HEINE.

The Lake of Como in July is only for the native born; or for banished Lilamanis, who rejoice alike in the heat and the absence of vagrant humanity. But for all Sir Lakshman's fatherly indulgence, that fortnight had seemed to the bird with one wing the longest two weeks in her life.

While irate and bewildered Sinclairs were passing their parochial, though not unnatural judgment upon her, she lay alone in the night, wondering sore whether "That Terrible" were trying to wean her lord from his "foolish passion beyond control of reason." His letters were full of tender devotion: but when night came, the spirit of Jane prevailed. That haunting sentence pricked her like a thorn left under the skin, and would continue so to do till time should prove things definitely one way or another. But by day she smiled bravely, because her father must not guess; and, as often happens, in sowing courage, she reaped happiness--of a kind.

Sir Lakshman, intent on distracting her thoughts, had lured her into excursions up and down the Lake, and even across to Lugano. Then, in the quiet of their chalet, they had enjoyed an informal reversion to the "studies" of early days, peculiarly welcome to the man, who by rights, should have been back in India weeks ago. But the lure of the West, that grew in him with the years, was intensified now by the wish to remain within reach of his child. Stifling the voice of conscience, therefore, he had secured leave for a longer stay, and had written smooth things to Mataji, who tyrannized triumphantly in his absence, yet hated, with a vitriolic hate, the unseen power that took him oftener and oftener from her side. And, in a sense, she was justified of her hate: she--mother of his sons, controller of his household, guardian of his immortal soul, whose after-fate he imperilled year upon year by these futile journeys across the "black water," with its mysterious power to defile. Loyal though he was to his own Motherland, the Big Mother drew him, as she draws all who drink of the well of knowledge; drew him into the vortex of that unresting flux, which, while satisfying desire--of mind and body, if not of soul--recreates it at every turn. Multiplicity of desire--that is the Alpha and Omega of our mercurial civilization, that runs ceaselessly to and fro, in quest of fresh stimulant, fresh satisfaction of a hunger that grows by what it feeds on. Hence the insidious danger of Western education for the keen brain and sensuous nature of the East.

After the dazzling complexity and movement of Paris and London, the fundamental simplicity of Indian life beneath all its barbaric splendour, is apt to lack flavour; and though, in a sense, discontent may be divine, it does not touch all spirits to fine issues. Unhappily for awakening India the average result hitherto is sterile dissatisfaction; time and money spent out of the country; home duties left undone. That the exceptions are most often brilliant exceptions--doubly endowed, with the wisdom of the East by heritage, and the knowledge of the West by acquisition--does not disprove the critical nature of the ordeal. Sir Lakshman--himself a brilliant exception--was yet, in some ways, a less satisfactory working force in the great native state he served, than men of half his ability whose hearts and minds were not torn between opposing interests and beliefs. As a husband, also, he wearied increasingly of the dissonance inherent in a house divided against itself: a dissonance that makes the home-life of the "England-returned" one of the saddest features of a progress-at-any-price age. But, when all is said of drawbacks and dissonance, there remains the existence of a real Indian renaissance, working, like all true growth, from within outward, to what ultimate end who shall prophesy--as yet?

In Sir Lakshman's home, the daughter after his own heart had been the main redeeming feature; and, bereft of her, he came near to dreading return. The fortnight she found so long had, for him, been all too short.

It was over now. To-night the man who had robbed him of his treasure would return to claim his own. To-morrow he supposed he must be gone. But Lilamani would not hear of that. Nevil would surely have much to ask him of the Ramayāna pictures. He need not think to escape so easily!

Would she not like to go over and meet her lord, he asked, the little station of Menaggio--or even at Lugano. But she shook her head; eyes darkly shining; and he understood. This meeting, after long absence, was a thing too charged with sacred emotion to take place anywhere but in their garden of dreams. Let her have patience, only a little, and he would come in the Hour of Union--their veriest hour; even as the sun, husband of earth, descends after the day's work to meet her at the time of sleep.

And so it was. In the Hour of Union, he came. Sitting on the balcony they sighted the little white boat afar off. She fluttered a handkerchief, leaning over the rails; and he, standing up recklessly, waved his hat.

Down she sped into the garden, and there awaited him in a shadowed corner near the bench where he had won her back to life and love. She heard the keel kiss the shore; saw the slim, alert figure--dark now, because of his loss--hurrying up the slope with long strides.

Then, as he sighted her--his low call: "Lilamani"; and her throbbing answer:

"King of me. I am here."

The rest was sacred to themselves and the unheeding stars, that trembled into life one after one, while they two lingered, heart against heart, humanly loath to let the good minute go.

"Darling, did it seem so long?"

"Endless ages--to me, waiting. For you it was different. So much to think, to do--to suffer." She stroked the dark sleeve of his coat. "But now--all is past. Come in the little nest. Father will be waiting us. He is saying he must go to-morrow. But we will not push him away first minute, will we?"

"Of course not. He likes the picture?"

"Yes. He is so pleased over all. Not sorry now for trusting me to English husband! Oh--and Nevil, he will tell you--such a plan! I hope you agree."

"Something to do with you?"

"Yes, yes. With all three."

"Come on then. Let's hear it. I couldn't refuse you anything to-night--Lady Sinclair!"

But having brought father and husband together, she left them "to talk the plan" at leisure. She herself had inevitably some mysterious dish on hand in honour of her lord's return.

Sir Lakshman greeted his son-in-law with genuine, if restrained friendliness, and regret for his loss; regret privately increased by a natural anxiety as to its effect upon his daughter's immediate future. They spoke for a while of Sir George, of the crippled estate, of Nevil's prospects as artist and landowner. Then came the crucial question.

"You ought now to remain in England, and look after this home of your ancestors?"

"Yes---I believe I ought," Nevil answered, pensively twisting his father's signet-ring.

"Then you came back only to fetch Lilamani, and other belongings?"

Nevil's direct look put the Hindu out of countenance.

"Sir Lakshman, I gave you my word."

"H'm. The word of an Englishman. I should have known. But remember, Nevil, I have had dealings with all kinds of humans. Even the Englishman is not immaculate! And men of all races, desiring some great gift, are ready for big promises that afterwards they may conveniently forget."

Nevil smiled.

"True enough. But I think you may trust me, sir. Not that I'm any better than the rest. Only--I love my wife a deal too well to run risks with her happiness." He flushed awkwardly in making the confession; adding, yet more awkwardly: "A man doesn't speak of such things. But I do want to give you confidence in me."

"That I have more and more; especially since these days spent alone with her. And--your family----?"

Nevil, not unprepared, looked steadily out of the window.

"My elder sister will write and make her welcome--and be good to her, though they won't have much in common. My younger sister--more like myself--is longing to know her. My brothers are seldom at home. They all admired her picture. Then--there is Mrs. Despard----"

"Yes. That is good. She understands like few of your race. And you mean to return--by what time?"

"Not till the summer's over--they're having a wretched one at home--and my new picture's nearly done. But what's the great plan she spoke of that concerns all three of us?"

"Ah, that----" Sir Lakshman's face lit up. "Since I do not now sail till September, I was thinking how delightful if you and she shall come only to Egypt. There we shall all spend a week together. Then I go on by next mail; you returning same time--if you will. You have seen Egypt?"

"No. I should like it of all things, only----" renewed awkwardness here--"I must think it over. I believe we might manage."

But Sir Lakshman, guessing his thought, took him kindly by the arm.

"You do not quite take my meaning, Nevil. It is not for you to manage. The plan is mine altogether. My parting gift--you may call it--to my child. For her it will be greatest pleasure imaginable. For myself--I need not say! And you--with these bold pictures in your brain--though Egypt is much different from India, yet how excellent to feel for yourself the spirit--what you artists call atmosphere--of the East. Now--you will come?"

"Thank you, sir. It'll be splendid. Lilamani will love it, of course----" A minute prick of apprehension checked him. Would she love it more than he quite cared about? How would it affect him to see his Eastern wife among Easterns, even though not her own people?

He thrust the disturbing questions aside; and Sir Lakshman, not enlightened this time, added: "Of course, in September it will still be hot. But that you would not mind?"

"Not a bit."

Vaguely disconcerted, he strolled over to his easel, and they talked Ramayāna till the door of the shrine opened softly, and a mother-o'-pearl Lilamani, with the buckles of Antibes on her shoes, stood looking from one to the other with questioning eyes.

It was to Nevil she spoke.

"Have you planned the plan? Is it real and true?"

"As real and true and delightful as you are, little wife!" he answered, smiling; and in the quaint young fashion that he loved, she clapped her small hands lightly, without sound.

Sir Lakshman stayed three days longer; and the pain of parting was alleviated by visions of "the plan." On the Sunday that followed, Nevil asked a question that surprised his wife.

"Lilamani, would you mind much if I deserted you this morning, and went to church?"

"To church?" She could only regard him in open-eyed amazement; and he smiled, a queer, half-sad smile, unusual with him.

"Well, darling? Did you think your Christian husband was a rank unbeliever?"

"Oh, Nevil! Please not say such things. But--I could not help from wondering--did you ever----"

The words would not come; and he, slipping an arm round her, gently kissed her cheek.

"Dear little saint! I did--and I do," he assured her none too lucidly: yet she understood. "The trouble with our religion nowadays is that, being a live thing, it is growing and changing its form like all other live things: breaking through husks, throwing out new leaves. But the Church says: No. The one ancient form must be kept sacred from all change, like an embalmed mummy. And in consequence, many thinking Christians have little use for Church, however honestly they believe in the things that matter. You understand?"

"I do," she answered thoughtfully. "Same with us. It is always so with priests. Nevil--I would like to hear more."

"That you shall. Another time. It would need a long talk and rather a deep one, if I'm to make things clear. But you mustn't doubt my belief in the Great Unseen; and now will you spare me to go and worship Him in my own fashion?"

"Yes. I am so pleased----" She spoke without looking up; and there fell a pause.

"Well--what more?" he asked, regarding her with a quizzical tenderness.

"Only ... I am shy to ask ... is it quite beyond Possible ... that I come also?"

"You? My dear little wife! Will you?"

"If--if it would not make shock to the Christian Peoples?"

"I think the Christian peoples might survive it!" he answered, kissing her again. "There won't be half a dozen at this time of year."

"And I can hide all Hindu-ness with my cloak and hood. Oh, Nevil--I hardly believe! I never thought----"

"No more did I!" He pushed her gently toward the door. "Hurry up, little woman. We've none too much time."

So Sir Nevil and Lady Sinclair rowed across to the little English Church at Cadenabbia; and if the Christian peoples were pricked to undue curiosity by the veiled and hooded, figure in a pew near the door, the subject of their scrutiny was lifted beyond all consciousness of the fact. To-day the presence of others troubled her not at all. For to-day, by her husband's wish, she was privileged to worship, with him, that Great One, that "Brilliance at the core of Brilliance," whose diverse names and forms are but the manifold garments of His revealing.

The handful of "Christian peoples," hypnotized by ceaseless repetition, found the service, with its scanty music and unimpressive sermon, a rather lifeless affair. But to one privileged "heathen" it seemed a thing of beauty and awe. The church itself, plain and unpretentious, like most of its kind abroad--had yet its pervasive atmosphere of sanctuary, above all in the region of the altar--shrine, she named it--where the white-robed figure, tall candlesticks and sober embroideries were glorified by sun-rays streaming through stained glass.

As for the simple hymns and chants--it was her first hearing of organ music, and the deep-toned reverberations set all her sensitive nerves a-thrill. The hidden magician--bald and spectacled--chose for voluntary a stately Largo by Beethoven; and Lilamani's hand, slipping into her husband's, kept him seated till the last note shuddered through the empty church.

Then they went forth into the blaze of noon, and rowed homeward, too deeply and diversely stirred for common speech. Only once he intercepted her brooding gaze and asked, smiling:

"Well, does our fashion of worship please you?"

"Yes. It is more simple--more solemn than ours. It speaks to the soul."

Her husband's smile had a touch of envy. He had not found it so.

"Some day I will take you to a really great service in our Abbey," he said; and the promise wafted her on a dream-journey that only ended when the keel touched ground.

A small event; yet of no small significance in an experiment more vital and far-reaching than they two, in their charmed seclusion, had quite recognized as yet. That first church-going led to others, at intervals; led also to more intimate talk of the "big-little things"; a strengthening of links for the long after-strain of marriage.

For the rest, throughout the blazing stillness of July and August, they dwelt in an atmosphere of ordered peace, as needful to artistic achievement as emotion and experience to artistic conception. And it was just this absorption in a subject quite outside themselves that saved them from those lavish overdrafts on the emotions that are the peculiar danger of honeymoon conditions indefinitely prolonged. They talked Ramayāna, read Ramayāna, and lived Ramayāna, without fear that either could weary of the obsession. Sir Lakshman's treasures from India supplied fresh fuel for the divine fire, that burned clearer and stronger as the bold pictures came to life under Nevil's hand. Martino--vindictively jealous of all who trespassed on his sacred sea and sky--could rejoice whole-heartedly in the growing vigour and beauty of his friend's work. His monologues became more volcanic; his prophecies more extravagant. He spent more time in Nevil's studio than in his own; now and again bringing a brother artist to confirm his verdict, lest it seem mere partiality to the man who felt himself in the grip of a power greater than he knew.

Outside the pictures, worked at day by day and dreamed of at night, their only events were constant letters from Sir Lakshman and rarer ones from the house of Sinclair. Christina, zealous to atone for Jane, wrote in genuine sisterly fashion to her "dearest Lilamani," regretting that she must be back in Germany by October, not to return again for good till early spring. And Jane wrote also; kindly--yet with a difference, which "the Hindu child" was not considered capable of detecting. But she did. She discovered, also, that, while she had supposed herself to be obeying Nevil in regard to that first letter, it had in truth so tinctured all her thoughts of Lady Roscoe, that mere sight of the square handwriting awakened a fierce antagonism, personal and racial, that boded ill for the days to come. Between the formal phrases of welcome her quick spirit caught flashes of the two-edged sword. Yet, for Nevil's sake, she must seem convinced; must even devise an answer, not too carefully studied, lest he suspect. What the writing of it cost her, he never knew. Nor did he know how, when it was written, she tore Jane's compulsory welcome across and across; then burned the pieces one by one in her brick oven, holding them in her dwarf tongs; watching them curl and blaze with a gleam of primitive hate in her eyes that her husband must never see. Could he have seen it, he might have thought twice about taking his wife home at all.

As it was, Lilamani's answer pleased him; and the ardour of work--that, for the moment, eclipsed all else--flowed over the incident, as the rising tide over a rock that will rear its head anew in the time of shallows.