Chapter VI

"Mine ear is full of the murmur of rocking cradles;
'For a single Cradle,' says Nature, 'I would give every
one of my graves----'"
ROUMANIAN BALLAD.

The door of the day-nursery stood ajar; his own day-nursery, the one room in the house where the spirit of his mother seemed still to linger. He had grudged it not a little to Dick's unruly offspring. But well he knew how she would have approved, both the act of fellow-kindness and her who had urged it--that fragile-sweet wife of his, who, for all her gentleness, seemed rather to set her impress on others than to take colour from the enveloping influences of the West.

As he neared the door a low crooning reached him; broken wordless music, and gurglings of baby laughter. He guessed her alone with the "man-child called of his name," whom she had longed to hold in her arms; and, promising himself a glimpse of her unseen, went forward lightly, without sound. A gentle push when he reached the door; and a long pause while he stood on the threshold scarce daring to breathe; the artist entranced, the man inly and deeply stirred.

At the far end of the great dim room she sat, in a mellow zone of light from the green-shaded lamp on the table at her side. A flannel apron shielded her silken daintiness; and on it lay the two-year-old boy in all his pristine rosiness and roundness, kicking out dimpled legs and stretching up eager hands to the glitter of gold and glass dangled above him just out of reach. Rapt, entranced, Lilamani leaned over him, brow, cheek, and delicately aquiline nose outlined in light; the curve and tinting of her lifted arm a picture in itself. Released from strict mourning, she wore her night-sky _sari_ of betrothal, and the great wood-fire woke quivering points of light in breast-girdle and armlets, rings and shining shoes.

A Madonna true to type, was the man's thought. Some day he would paint her thus, with the mother-worship in her eyes. And the child----?

A sudden pang smote him. Jane's voice proclaiming her fervent hope came to him, startlingly clear, across the intervening weeks. Jane, for whom he had come to speak, could find it in her heart to wish--to hope----. Now as then, white-hot wrath flamed up in him. And yet----? Had he himself----?

"Oh Nevil--I did not hear----!"

An unconscious movement had betrayed him; and her low voice put questionings to flight.

"Sorry if I startled you," he said, smiling. "I may come in?"

"Dear lord--what need to ask?"

She glanced from him to the child, and the colour flooded her face: part shyness, part emotion. It was the first time he had sought her out in these regions. That unworthy twinge of jealousy forbade. Even to-night he would scarcely have come, but for Jane. Well, at least he owed her one unforgetable moment; and such return as he could make was very much at her service.

With an undersense of treading on holy ground, he went forward and stood beside his wife.

"A bonny little chap," said he, looking down at the jubilant creature that rollicked on her arm. "You'll miss him when he goes."

She nodded; then glanced up at him, softly content. "You were wanting me?"

"Am I ever doing anything else worth speaking of?" he asked with a sudden access of lover's ardour, that quickened every pulse in her body; and catching his hand that hung near, she pressed it to her lips. Even after nine months of marriage this was still almost her only spontaneous form of caress. There fell a silence. Two cinders clinked on to the hearth, and the small Nevil chuckled at some private joke of his own.

"I was meaning--did you want me for special reason?" she said.

"Well--yes. I'd like a talk in the studio before dinner."

"I also. I will come."

Deftly and quickly she slipped on the small night-things, untied her apron and rising, stood before him with the other Nevil clinging about her neck, his petal-soft cheek against her own.

"Just one minute for putting him in bed," said she.

"No--no!" in commanding tones from the embryo lord of creation, jigging up and down like a thing on wires; and she pressed him closer, her lips caressing his hair.

"Little Auntie says yes, O Princeling. And not to cry," she told him, a hint of authority in her cooing tone that the child never heard in his mother's and instinctively obeyed.

Then she passed on to the night-nursery, with the rhythmical grace of movement that was hers, and the man stood looking after her with very mingled feelings at his heart. It annoyed him that he must needs dispel her mood of mother-tenderness with sententious talk of Jane. He wanted simply to make love to her, to enjoy their rare moment alone; wanted it still more when she sped back to him with flying draperies, and slipped a hand through his as they went.

Till the studio door closed upon them neither spoke. Then it was the woman, softly solicitous.

"Dearest, what now? Something troubling you? Difficult to say?"

And he, pressing the fingers he still held: "Little witch! How did you know?"

"From your eyes; from your touch of hand," she answered simply. "True?"

"Yes, true. Better speak straight and be done. It's about Jane."

Chin and brows went up ever so slightly, and the gleam that recalled her father lightened in her eyes.

"You are still vexed for that? I am sorry. But how to help being angry? She has no kind feeling when there is trouble. Her heart is little and dried up like a nut. Oh, forgive that I speak like that of your sister! But it is truth. Pity that we must talk of her at this so happy time."

"A pity indeed. I own I shirked it, as you realized before I spoke. And yet--isn't this 'so happy time' just the right moment, Lilamani? My dear little Hindu wife has been so eager to share the spirit of our Christmas festival; and the core of it is peace and goodwill. Could you choose a better time than this for trying to think more kindly of her?"

"I? Oh Nevil--it is _she_----!"

"Lilamani, ask yourself--is it _only_ she?"

The blue eyes, that were her heaven, looked straightly, almost sternly into her own; a look that steeped the whole of her in one burning blush. Yet she returned it bravely while he went on: "I know her manner is often brusque and disagreeable to the verge of rudeness, and yours never. She is hard, unimaginative, everything almost that you are not. But in her own queer fashion she did try, just at first, to be friendly with you, for my sake. Did you ever try to make a shadow of response?"

"No," she answered very low, her voice steady as her gaze; and for the unadorned directness of that denial he admired her the more.

"Isn't the door of your heart bolted and barred against her?"

"Yes. How shall it be otherwise--ever?"

"But, my darling!" His dismay held a note of reproach: "You--the soul of tenderness--how can you be so implacably unforgiving?"

"In our belief there are things it is not good to forgive. Insult to great race of my father, and cruel wound to you, lord of my life. Only by chance was it that in my madness I did not go from you, leaving you without Sita for your so great pictures. Can inmost heart of me ever forget--ever forgive?"

The very quietness of her tone intensified its primitive fierceness of conviction. Before it, he stood speechless, half in amaze, half in admiration. Here was no pretty child to be coaxed into good behaviour; but a woman with all her woman's heart on fire of such strong love and hate as are the heritage of her emotional race.

Capturing one small clenched hand he drew her nearer. "Not an easy task," he said gently. "But you have never tried. Won't you try now, Lilamani, for your lord's sake--and for the sake of the Great Birthday we shall keep to-morrow?"

"Oh, Nevil!" She drew a deep breath. "Easy to make such promise with the lips. But how to keep? Loving and hating are not any more to be commanded than sun or sea."

"No; but at least controlled," said he of the West, using the key-word of his race. "And you have to remember this, little wife, that although Jane may be harsh and prejudiced, the real trouble on your side springs from your having read a letter you were never meant to see----"

She started. "You are still thinking I did wrong by that?"

"In a sense--yes. But it was a great temptation; and I blame myself more than all. I hardly realized then what a proud, fiery-hearted little woman I had to deal with. But unhappily, the thing's done. You know what Jane must never guess that you know; and it follows that you must either be more forgiving or be constantly misjudged by one who is already prejudiced, and who is, after all, my sister. I don't want things to come to such a pass that she shall feel herself unwelcome in my father's house; and this incessant friction hurts me even more than it hurts either of you. So you see, it is for my sake I ask you not to go on cherishing anger, but to give your own tender heart a chance. Will you try?"

For a long minute she stood silent and very still, but for the quickened rise and fall of her breast. Even now he did not feel sure of her answer, till she unveiled her eyes.

"King of me--I will try," she said gravely; and the concession was a bigger one than he realized. "I cannot promise for succeeding. But because your wish is like command to me, I will try."

Then, with a swift, enchanting transition from Indian to English wife, she lifted her lips for the reward that was her due.

"Now--shall we have a quiet time here till dinner?" he asked, his arm still round her. "Or have you a hundred more things to do?"

"Only to fill three small pair stockings in my shrine."

"Santa Claus, masquerading in _sari_ and spangles!" he said, smiling. "Are the contents a sacred secret? Or may I come too?"

"Come too."

But as he opened the door of her room, she flew past him with a little cry: "Oh, I had forgot----!"

The lid of her sandalwood casket stood open, and she closed it swiftly as he came up. Never yet had he seen its contents; and knowing her a creature hedged about with reserves, had refrained from question. But the last few minutes had brought them very near together; and now, obeying his natural impulse, he spoke.

"Shall I ever be allowed to see the treasure hidden in your holy of holies, little wife? I have often wondered what it might be, and when you would think me worthy----"

"_You_? Oh, dearest--that was never my thought! It is only---- How to explain? Indian wife has always some private god for worship; not speaking his name to any, even to her husband. But now--I am trying also to be English wife. There comes no priest between us, as often in India. And--if you are really wishing----"

"I am wishing very much----" he said quietly; and she, with head reverently bowed, lifted the lid.

It has been said that to overhear the prayer of a man is to know him; and Nevil Sinclair, looking down upon the tiny blue image of Babyhood, gold-crowned, with gilded lute and scroll, had a sense of overhearing the most intimate prayer of his wife's heart. The primitive simplicity of it moved him beyond speech; and it was she who broke the silence, speaking softly with lowered eyes.

"That is Krishna. Him you have read with me in Bhagavad Gita. That colouring of blue--like sea and sky--is for symbol of infinite. Scroll is for symbol also, meaning the Gita; and lute because he was humbly born among cow-herds, by river Jumna, even like your Christ in that manger. For us he also is Holy Child, Healer of World-disease, Shepherd and Lord. Indian mothers are calling this Baby-image their Gopala, little cow-herd; and to him we pray always for desire of the heart----"

A pause. Her own heart's desire and secret fear trembled on the verge of utterance. Never in their most blessed moments of intimacy had she felt quite so near to him she worshipped; so certain that he would understand. Secure in that certainty, she found courage to speak on.

"To him I pray also for the coming--of that other, too long delayed. And though yet he is not seeming to hear, surely there will come promise soon." Her voice dropped a tone; and she spoke as one who consoled him for lack of that which he needs must crave. "Then you can no longer feel--I am useless wife----"

"Useless! You--my Sita, my main source of inspiration! What put such a notion into your head?"

"Nothing put. It is natural," she answered quietly. "I am--oh, so glad for the pictures. But they cannot always be. And then--what use for wife who cannot command servants, or shoot with gun, or make all kinds of talk for dinner-table, unless--by giving of that great gift----"

She could say no more. His arm was round her; his lips against her cheek.

"My darling, you must never think such foolishness again. And as for--the other---- All in good time. Why, you're still almost a child yourself----"

"I am _not_! I am woman!" she cried out with sudden vehemence; contradicting him flatly for the first time and half withdrawing herself from his clasp. And he, looking back on the past half-hour, knew that she spoke truth.

"You are. Very much so. I spoke thoughtlessly," he admitted, smiling. "But still--it's full early to be troubling your head about it. And if it's me you're concerned for, you may set your mind at rest----"

"You mean, you do not--you have never----?" His attempt at reassurance chilled her strangely. He seemed suddenly very far away. "In all these months you have not thought--have not wished----?"

"Is that very dreadful of me?" he asked, drawing her closer; puzzled to know what was wrong. "I suppose the truth is I've been so well content with my Sita Dévi and the splendid field of work she has opened up for me, that there has hardly been space for other wishes, other hopes----"

"Nev--il! Nev--il! Are you there?"

The voice was Leslie de Winton's; and Sinclair felt the small shiver with which his wife released herself.

"Go now. They are wanting you," she said hurriedly, as the call came again.

"Yes, yes--I'm coming," he answered impatiently. Then, to her: "No quiet time, after all, I'm afraid. But remember, little wife, you're not to brood about me. I'm in no hurry to share you with anyone; and quite content with things as they are."

He was gone; and she stood alone beside the open casket, his final reassurance sounding ironically in her ears.

Nine months married, and neither thought nor desire of fatherhood had been his! That which was, for her, the sum and crown of marriage, was for him a mere side-issue. He was in no hurry for that greatest gift it was her one desire to give. With no Indian husband could it have been so. It was the first time she had compared him thus with one of her own race; had recognized with piercing clearness that on this supreme subject they must needs speak and think in different tongues, spiritually; be their hearts never so close entwined. True, the Hindu sees in his son not merely the torch of life passed on, but the prime factor in that complex transaction, the future welfare of his own soul. Yet even an English husband, for whom wife and son have less of spiritual significance, must surely crave the certainty of an heir to carry on his name; the more so when there are broad lands and an ancestral home, that must otherwise go elsewhere----.

At this point memory flashed a paralysing sentence through her brain--a sentence branded there six months ago, and lightly overlaid with happier things: "A native mistress at Bramleigh Beeches! Half-caste sons to carry on the name of which we are so rightly proud----"

It was as though a scorpion had stung her. Could it be--that he, her King, shared, even in a small degree, his sister's racial recoil from mixed blood, even of the best? In the deep of his heart did he dread rather than desire the price of possession? It would be like him to feign jealousy of that other, sooner than let her guess----.

Dismay flowed over her like the waters of a cold and bitter sea. All strength seemed to go out of her. Outlines wavered. She swayed a little where she stood. And yet--she could not, she would not so much as harbour the thought. Loyalty forbade. Nonetheless, did she foreknow that the hideous thing would return again and yet again to torment her, whenever the way of life was hard or the wheels of being low.

Already it shadowed her joy in this great festival of children-worship. And as she closed the casket two tear-drops splashed the Baby image of Him on whom all things are threaded "as gems on a string": that Blessed One, too preoccupied, it seemed, with the troubles of the orthodox to heed the secret cry of her heart.