Indigo: A Novel of India

by CHRISTINE WESTON

31

ONE afternoon in mid-September, Ramdatta the Marwari lay on a string cot under his favorite tree, where on clear days he usually received his important visitors. The air was warm and moist; a slight breeze stirred the mango leaves. In a semicircle beside the moneylender’s cot squatted a company of his neighbors; a Kaith, or scribe, perched on a campstool, was reading aloud from a pink-tinted vernacular paper. Ramdatta’s youngest son, a boy of ten, stood behind his father, fanning him with a wand of plume grass.

“The English ships Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy have been sunk by the Germans,” read the Kaith in a nasal singsong, and a stir went round the listeners. “Tobah!” exclaimed one, and turned aside to spit.

Jacques de St. Remy, riding in through an opening in the village wall, saw this little tableau set against the white wall of a house, where a rampant tiger had been freshly painted in vermilion. The sound of a horse’s hoof struck on Ramdatta’s ear and he sat up. “Behold, the Sahib comes at last to visit me. Depart, all of you. Send one to take the Sahib’s horse.”

Ramdatta’s coterie melted away, but his son remained, staring shyly as the young man approached.

“Hello, Ramdatta! I come, bringing you quinine.”

The moneylender rose and salaamed. “Sahib, this is an honor. What have I done to deserve it?”

“Little enough, I’ll wager!”

“Ah, you are young and full of jokes.”

“Mother’s foreman, Mr. Boodrie, assured me that you were practically at death’s door!”

“These half-castes always exaggerate.”

Boodrie had passed on Ramdatta’s invitation to Jacques with an air of excitement bordering on panic — adding the mysterious injunction that Madame de St. Remy was on no account to be told. “He is a sick man, or he would have come himself to see you.” Jacques, who enjoyed an afternoon’s canter across the plain, had seen no reason why he should not drop in on the moneylender.

The young man seated himself in a huge chintzupholstered chair and lighted a cigarette. Ramdatta returned to his cot, on which he sat cross-legged, the shawls slipping from his shoulders.

“It is considerate of you to accept the invitation of a sick and aging man, Sahib.”

Jacques smiled and said nothing. He knew better than to congratulate his host on his recovery or to compliment him on his appearance, for to do either would have been a breach of etiquette and a direct provocation to the Evil Eye.

“You and I, Sahib,” Ramdatta continued, “belong in a category of men who, to survive, must work, and who by working cannot help but accumulate fortunes that rouse the jealousy and greed even of our friends. But that is the way of the world, is it not? Even on isolated and forgotten islands there are some who have and some who have not.”

“And there are likewise those of whom it is said that there shall be taken from them even the little which they have,” observed Jacques with an absentminded air.

A golden smile spread over Ramdatta’s features. “Would that you were my son! There are few with whom I can converse in such a vein. My family are dunces, my friends hypocrites or worse.”

“God forbid!” murmured Jacques, repressing a laugh.

“Nay, it is true.” He leaned forward, fixing Jacques with an eye that was suddenly as cold and as steady as a cobra’s. “But then, perhaps I am luckier than you, for I at least am not deceived.”

The shift in voice and manner was so abrupt that Jacques found himself at a loss. He lighted another cigarette while Ramdatta straightened up and stared around him. But the courtyard was empty; the arched door under its vermilion tiger framed only a bluish, smoky interior.

“Draw your chair closer to me, Sahib, that we may not have to raise our voices.”

Ramdatta rearranged his plump legs under him. “I asked you to come here so that I might, with your permission, exercise for a little while the prerogatives of a father, and extend to you a word of warning and advice.”

“Well?”

“We will not beat about the bush. You are a friend of Ganpat Rai’s son Hardyal. Ganpat Rai I have always admired. Hardyal also. But time changes men strangely, and it has most strangely changed Hardyal. Nay, do not be offended if I venture to suggest that Hardyal’s change has not been for the best.”

“The suggestion offends me nevertheless.”

“Would that I could withdraw it ! But Hardyal has fallen into the wrong hands. He is seen everywhere with Abdul Salim, and Salim as you know — or should know — is under police surveillance.”

Jacques felt a stab of anxiety. “Since when?”

“For months past. Oh, it is no secret — Salim himself must be aware of it. But he is a fanatic. Nothing short of a jail sentence will silence his teaching.”

“And what, may I ask, is this teaching to which you so violently object?” Jacques spoke sarcastically, in an attempt to cover his real concern.

The moneylender shrugged. “You must have heard as much of it as anyone, for you see him often. You meet at the house of Ganpat Rai, and Hardyal himself carries Salim’s words of wisdom into your house, does he not? They use your friendship as a blind —”

Jacques said coldly: “You go far.”

“For your sake I would go further. You must forgive me, Sahib — I speak for us all.”

“ Speak for yourself if you must. I fail to see where we come into it.”

Ramdatta made a strange gesture with his hands, bringing the palms together in an attitude of prayer and letting them fall into his lap. “Sahib, hear me out. Two days ago Salim was at the village of my brother-in-law; he collected the people around him and outlined to them a plan for the nonpayment of their rents and taxes. In my brother-in-law’s village, and indeed in my own, there are a certain number of Moslems. They are shiftless, in debt almost to a man. Yet they kick and scream against paying interest on their debts. Why? Because to charge or to pay interest is contrary to their religious code.

“Well, Abdul Salim has succeeded in rousing, everywhere, something approaching organized revolt in the villages. The police are worried.”

While he was talking the sweat had started out afresh on Ramdatta’s flesh and his eyes began to glow with fever; but his voice remained calm, his pliant body retained its impassive poise. Jacques had listened less to Ramdatta’s complaint than to a peculiar subterranean quality in the man’s voice. It came to him suddenly: what he heard in Ramdatta’s voice was the note of fear.

Ramdatta was afraid of Abdul Salim, afraid of Hardyal! Ramdatta the great, the almost omnipotent Ramdatta, friend of the police, privileged crony of officialdom, sumptuous, engaging old sophisticate. Here he sat sweating, secretly frightened out of his clever wits!

Ramdatta broke the silence. “So now perhaps you can see, Sahib, what I mean when I insist that I speak for all of us — for you as well as for myself.”

“ You mean to say that you believe we are all in the same boat?”

“Can you doubt it?”

“And that Abdul Salim may attempt to capsize the boat?”

Ramdatta gazed at him broodingly. “ You believe that Salim would not dare to encroach on your preserves? Does that thought reassure you? ”

“What preserves, Ramdatta?”

“You are not really obtuse, Sahib.”

“I do but seek enlightenment!”

Ramdatta said slowly: “It distresses me that I should be the instrument of your enlightenment. I do not hope to be forgiven, but I have no alternative.”

“Must we talk riddles all afternoon?”

Ramdatta made no reply. Instead he rose from the cot and reaching under it. pulled out a highly decorated tin box fastened by a brass padlock. He groped among the contents of the box and lifted out a large package covered in oilskin and tied with black tape. This he opened, and after a glance at the contents, laid them on Jacques’s lap.

“There, Sahib. Take your time. There is no hurry.” Ramdatta folded his legs under him, clasping the folds of his shawl about his shoulders.

The papers which Ramdatta had given Jacques were hundis, or notes of hand, amounting to uncomputed sums. The thin sheets of native paper bearing signatures in Hindi and in English, all up to date, dryly businesslike and irrefutable, were proof enough to Jacques that his mother had pledged herself far beyond the limit of her resources.

Ramdatta spoke at last, in a sonorous undertone: “Years ago I promised your mother that I would not reveal the truth to you. But what can it profit Madame, or yourself, for you to remain in ignorance any longer? Should creatures like Abdul Salim succeed in wrecking my livelihood, what recourse should I have but to call upon you to fulfill your obligations? Alas, it is not a new situation, Sahib. We all must live!”

Jacques listened to his voice, which sounded like rain dripping from the caves after a storm.

“We are in the same case, Sahib. You, however, are in a position to protect both yourself and me. In the first place because you are a Sahib; in the second place because you are a friend of Hardyal and Ganpat Rai, both of whom exercise considerable influence over Salim. Men will sometimes do for love what they will scorn to do from other motives. Not that I expect wonders — I know Abdul Salim! He and I are old enemies.”

“And so you would have me go to him and tell him of these—” Jacques tapped the package on his knee. “And say to him, ‘Salim, my friend! Ramdatta has me in his clutches. He can, in the wink of an eye, institute proceedings which would deprive me of my factory, my home, my very shoes!’”

“I am not trying to blackmail you. I too have a code of friendship. Have I not, for twenty years, kept my word to your mother? Have I once come to her with whinings, with a single demand for what, after all, are my just dues?”

When Jacques remained silent he went on urgently: “Work with me, Jacques! Let us be friends. Let me serve your interests as I have always served Madame’s. This war will bring wealth to many — why not to you and me? Salim is an obstructionist who believes that this is the time to oppose all constructive ideas and to force concessions from men like me and from the Government which upholds us. He cannot last long, but he can do much damage while he lasts. Is it not better for us to try to win him over to our side — rather, to shame or to frighten him into silence? I don’t ask that you succeed with Salim — I merely ask that you try, that you use your good offices through Ganpat Rai and Hardyal. If you should fail, no matter. We are then no better off and no worse than before!”

Jacques replaced the hundis in their oilskin cover; rising, he flung the package on the cot beside Ramdatta, who continued to sit, gazing eagerly at the young man. “Well, Sahib?”

“No,”

“No? Ah, come, Sahib! That is sheer foolishness.”

Jacques said nothing. He stood under the flickering shadows of the mango leaves and his stillness was matched by that of Ramdatta’s son, who reappeared in the door and watched them with big, inquiring eyes.

“Sahib,” Ramdatta repeated in a voice which had lost most of its resonance.

Jacques glanced at the boy. “Go, tell them to fetch my horse.”

He turned to Ramdatta. “Salim is your enemy, not mine. As for the rest—" He shrugged. “It has lain in your hands for a long time. I am content to leave it there.”

32

As Madame de St. Remy walked from the church toward her carriage, she felt more than ever conscious of a fading of that solemn charm which never failed her in the house of her God. Faced now with a return to her own house, she was filled with foreboding. The thought of meeting Jacques — a thought, which used to bring its special delight and anticipation — brought instead the pang of some mysteriously acquired bruise. A month had passed since the day when he came to her with the news of his broken engagement, and remembrance of that scene was vivid in her memory. She had thrown her arms round him, and he stood in their circle, submitting but not responding to her embrace. She felt the chill in his body, felt the tensing of his muscles against her caress.

“Jacques, my poor child! She has deserted you!”

He looked at her then, and through the blur of her own tears she saw that his eyes were tearless, hard, clean, like stones. Gently, he freed himself and led her to a chair, and in a voice which somehow matched the new look in his eyes he said: “Bertie has not deserted me. It is I who have deserted her. Understand this once and for all, and then promise me you will never speak of it again.”

For Madame the weeks had passed in an atmosphere of bewilderment and incredulity. Every morning Jacques rode to the factory and stayed till afternoon; then he changed his clothes and bicycled to Hardyal’s house, where he played tennis and often stayed for dinner. It occurred to her that his whole nature had undergone some catastrophic change.

As confusion increased, her hope diminished; unable now to wring a word or a glance of tenderness from him, she began to brood on her wrongs, to recall with tears the hundred and one griefs and sacrifices she had endured for his sake. Denied possession, her vitality sought the only release available to it. She dwelt with sweet and secret satisfaction on Jacques’s physical and economic handicap, and she felt increasingly secure in the knowledge that she had lost her two most formidable rivals —Bertie and now, at last and forever, old Mrs. Lyttleton.

As her carriage rolled under the avenue of shisham trees, Madame saw the house waiting for her, all graceful arches and white pillars under the glistening thatch, the great pipal tree whispering beyond its deep verandas.

I he carriage stopped and she got out, making her way slowly up the steps to the veranda. It was not yet dusk and the lamps had not been lighted. She heard her servants talking as they went about their evening duties, and the sound of her carriage as it rolled across the compound towards the stables. The drawing room was empty. She stared round her, troubled by the stillness, the air of expectancy which hangs about an empty room. Then the bead curtains moved and Jacques appeared, his figure in its white silk suit slender as a shaft before her. For a moment they gazed at each other; then Madame asked gently: “When did you get back, my dear?”

“An hour ago.”

“Were there many people at the funeral?”

“Just her friends.”

Madame said presently: “I wonder what will happen to her property.”

“I understand there are cousins in England.”

His voice had a queer, absent-minded note, and she asked tentatively: “Tell me, Jacques — would it have pleased you if I’d gone with you to the funeral?”

He smiled then. “I think it might have amused Mrs. Lyttleton, could she have known.”

Madame winced. She heard herself say in an unrecognizable voice: “Both the women you professed so to love have left you, have they not, my son?”

Jacques made no reply. Silence, that formidable silence which she knew of old, deepened between them, and Madame clenched her hands. “Jacques, how am I to tell you? You must find out sometime — and though it breaks my heart —”

He interrupted calmly: “If you are trying to tell me about Bertie’s marriage, I know all about it.”

She felt the heat and exaltation of this prepared moment flow back on her. “You knew? And you said nothing!”

“What did you expect me to say?”

“I should expect you to behave like a human being!” She struggled to control a detestable shrillness. “I’d expect you to show a decent indignation—”

“ I’m sorry, if you were looking forward to telling me yourself.”

Her passion swerved into rage. “ Mon Dieu! You speak to me in such a tone? You, who have deliberately squandered your affections and must now pay for it! Bankrupt in your love, you turn on me, your mother?”

He made a slight gesture of his hand. “ Must we dramatize things, Maman? After all, this is my affair. And if we are to discuss bankruptcy, have you ever considered what might happen were Ramdatta to press us for payment of our debts?”

“Ramdatta! What do you mean?”

He hesitated, then in a few curl sentences told her of his interview with the Marwari, more than a month before. He felt a vague surprise at the sound of his own voice, but was powerless to check himself; the things were there and they uttered themselves.

She cried in despair: “Whatever I did, I did for your sake! If I’ve made mistakes, they were of a kind anyone might have made in my place. What would you have had me do? Let the factory go? What should we have lived on? If I’ve kept the truth from you, it was because I wanted to save you from anxiety.”

“You should have told me five years ago, when I left school and came home to work for you.”

“What would have been the use? What could you have done that I was unable to do?”

“I should not have become engaged to Bertie.”

“Ah!” Her voice was charged with bitterness. “Bertie! So that was why— And you blame me?”

He replied in a gentler voice: “No, I don’t blame you.”

“You would live on air,” she retorted, angrily. “ You are like your father. He, too, despised money. He thought it was mean and vulgar. He gave up his wife, his family, his church, everything, because he acquired instead a pride in what he was pleased to call his free intelligence. I never dreamed that my son —”

Jacques turned his face towards her and she saw how pale he was, how firm, how remote. “It does seem as though my father’s problem and mine are the same.”

“ I don’t understand.”

He murmured: “One loves—irresponsibly. It’s the only love. 1 can’t explain. And you cannot understand. Let’s not discuss it.”

“I shall discuss it!” Madame’s face took on a distorted, sexless look. “1 shall discuss it! I understand very well. I have tried to guard you against the things that I’ve always understood. I wished to save you from becoming a victim of them. You already know that your father was unfaithful to me with Mrs. Lyttleton. Perhaps you do not know that he was her lover before you were born.

“Ah, you did not know that! You cannot believe it? Well, it was true. Before you were born. And I think that in his diseased mind he formed some hideous notion that you were in a sense — ah, in what a sense! — his and Mrs. Lyttleton’s child. When Auguste died, Mrs. Lyttleton tried to appropriate you as she had appropriated him. And when I saw Bertie that first time in Gambul, I saw in her something of the look of Mrs. Lyttleton. They had that same air — that frightful pride of the English, that sinister force which makes them believe that there is nothing they may not appropriate if they so desire!”

The breathless sentences came to an end, and in the pause which followed, it seemed as if the servants, the whole house, must be waiting tensely for what was to come. Dusk had fallen outdoors; it crept into the room, cool, scented, but its freshness had no power over their human fever.

Madame said in a calmer voice: “Let us not talk of love or understanding, since you seem to have so little need of either. Let us confine ourselves to more practical matters. You are still my son, though no doubt you consider yourself to be fully a man. You have scarcely conducted yourself like a man. You scorn a man’s natural responsibilities, and it does seem as if those responsibilities scorn you.”

She broke off, distracted by his silence, by his almost spectral appearance in the gloom. Madame waited for him to speak, to move, and when he continued to stand motionless she was taken by a storm of shivering. “Jacques, Jacques—forgive me!" She held out her arms. “Don’t look like that — don’t stand there like — like a ghost . . . my dear . . . my son . . .”

Then he was gone, and the bead curtains trembled slightly, giving off little spurts of color and light, their faint music the only sound in the room.

33

BERARI platform, by comparison with Amritpore, was large and imposing; by comparison it was also modern in design and general sanitation. Here were no monkeys and very few beggars. The red turbans of the police bobbed like flowers among the drab and dust of the crowd; the paler faces of Europeans under pipe-clayed or khaki helmets appeared and disappeared as their owners made their august passage to and from the train.

“I hope,” said Abdul Salim as he and Hardyal descended from the train, “that your father will not be angry with me when he learns that I have brought you to Berari to listen to a political speech!”

Hardyal was touched and amused by his friend’s misgivings; the fiery Mohammedan cared so little, as a rule, for other men’s anger.

“Abdul Salim, must I remind you that I am no longer a child? Besides, Father has too much affection for you to be angry.”

“He has, however, little affection for Jagnath Singh.”

“You think, then, that there might be a row over this speech of his?”

Salim shrugged. “I understand that he has obtained permission from the Magistrate. But you can never tell, with Jagnath!” He laughed.

“I will find a tonga,” said Salim, elbowing his way through the mob. “We will go straight to Jagnath’s cousin’s house. It is Number Three Tamarind Road, behind the European quarter.”

Hardyal followed the tall Mohammedan, but he had not gone far when a police orderly touched his arm and handed him a note. “ A letter from the Captain Sahib of Police.”

Hardyal stopped dead in surprise. “For me?”

“For you, from Macbeth Sahib.”

Salim, missing him, had turned and fought his way back. “What is it? What has happened?”

The orderly stood a few paces away, respectful and aloof, as Hardyal tore open the envelope. With Salim peering over his shoulder, he read the letter: —

DEAR HARDYAL,
I have learned that you are expected in Berari and I thought that I might with luck catch you as you got off the train. I do not wish to interrupt your plans, but if you can spare an hour will you come and see me? The orderly who carries this note will direct you to my house. I should like very much to have a talk.
Yours sincerely,
JOHN MACBETH

They looked at each other, and Salim’s eyes narrowed. “ I made no secret of our plans or destination. Everyone knows that Jagnath Singh is to speak this evening. However, you and I are not such exalted persons that our movements should be followed with such devotion.”

It could mean but one thing: they were objects of official surveillance. Suddenly, Salim laughed. “Go, Hardyal. Gall on your friend the Captain Sahib. Convey to him my salaams and congratulations on his efficiency!”

Hardyal said impulsively: “He means well. It is a friendly invitation.”

“ Is it? Why then did he not write to you at Amritpore? Why does he have you accosted thus, by a constable, on a public platform? Nay, you cannot refuse to go, no matter how friendly the tone of his letter. It is a command, my boy — a command!”

For the first time in his life Hardyal experienced the strange shock of knowing that his actions were under scrutiny from an unseen quarter, that his privacy had been invaded, that he was, in fact, no longer an anonymous figure. He turned to Salim. “I will do what you say.”

The other’s hard face softened a little. “You must do as your father would have had you do. Go, my son. Perhaps, as you say, Mr. Macbeth has written you in the spirit of friendship. You will soon find out.”

They parted and Hardyal climbed into another tonga with the police orderly. They rattled out of the courtyard, and Hardyal’s spirit began to lift. Salim always affected him powerfully; the man’s optimism and pessimism were alike contagious. Now, rereading Macbeth’s note and judging from the respectful manner of Macbeth’s orderly, it was easy for him to believe that nothing particularly sinister could be afoot. After all, Macbeth was now an officer in one of the most efficient police forces in the world; all kinds of information must reach him continually; accident itself might have put him in possession of the fact that Hardyal had taken the train with Abdul Salim.

And, although Jagnath Singh might temporarily enjoy the good graces of the Government, it did not follow that his movements and the movements of his avowed admirers were neglected by the authorities. Macbeth, learning of Hardyal’s destination, might easily have acted on a friendly impulse.

Hardyal had never been in Berari, and he liked its trim and prosperous air. As they swung into the main channel of traffic, the constable pointed out the line of the distant barracks and the parade ground, the new municipality buildings, the cotton mill, the new High Court.

“Look, huzoor,” said the orderly, suddenly. They were seated at the back of the tonga; from a street at right angles to their passage a troop of horsemen appeared, native lancers in the grim drab of battle dress, with their lances at rest and pennons fluttering. They drew abreast of the tonga and Hardyal stared at the erect and magnificent figures led by a young prince whose saddle cloth was a leopard skin and whose profile under his pointed kulah and tightly wound turban might have come off a coin discovered on the upper reaches of the Indus valley, where once Alexander the Great had paused.

The tonga turned off down a wide street bordered with trees, beyond which he caught glimpses of big, attractive houses.

Would Macbeth ask for Jacques? Instinctively, Hardyal dismissed the thought ; Englishmen did not as a rule discuss one another before a native. He wondered about Bertie. Would she be there, would she greet him as a friend? The tonga slowed and turned in through a pair of wrought-iron gates. They rolled up a neat driveway, accompanied by a flock of barking spaniels, and stopped before a wide, furnished veranda.

“Wait for me,” Hardyal commanded the tongawallah. He got out, and was saluted by two police sentries beside the steps. Hardyal gave his name, but Macbeth appeared at once from a door further down the veranda.

“Hardyal, this is good of you!”

They shook hands, each observing the other with a sense of reassurance. He is less secretive in expression, less arrogant in his bearing, decided Hardyal, and wondered whether Bertie was responsible for the change.

“Looks damned decent, as he always did,” thought Macbeth. Aloud he said: “Let’s go into my dufter.”

The dufter, the official sanctum. Hardyal suffered a momentary recurrence of suspicion. Why the dufter? Why not the drawing room or the veranda? But Macbeth put his hand lightly on his shoulder and they walked down the veranda into a large, bright room, sparsely but adequately furnished. A native clerk was typing at a desk, but at a word from Macbeth he gathered up his papers and left the room.

Macbeth offered Hardyal a cigarette, took one himself, and they sat down on cool, leather-covered chairs. Macbeth looked at him and smiled. “How are you? It is ages since we’ve met.”

“Two years.”

“It seems longer.”

Hardyal smiled. “Will you accept my congratulations?” Then, before the other could speak, he said lightly: “There seems little you do not know about me — about my departures, my arrivals!”

“My note surprised you? Of course, it must have. But the explanation is quite simple. You were traveling with Abdul Salim, and you must know, as I am sure he does, that his movements are more or less under official surveillance. After all, Amritpore isn’t on the other side of the world. As a matter of fact I heard recently from an old friend of us both — Ramdatta.”

“ Ramdatta?”

“The old scamp did me a good turn once, long ago, and we correspond occasionally. If you should see him when you return to Amritpore, give him my salaams.”

Hardyal thought: So Ramdatta is in communication with the Superintendent of Police of Berari — they are friends, they exchange news, information. A gleam touched the edges of his mind.

Macbeth went on: “And I take it you have come to Berari to hear Jagnath Singh?” It was put lightly, almost absent-mindedly; then, without waiting for an answer, he added: “ I’m told he is a line speaker. I’ve never heard him, but he impresses people.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “there is no reason why you shouldn’t go to hear Jagnath — provided he speaks at all. What I wanted to discuss is your association with Salim. He is a recognized seditionist. I was sorry to hear you had traveled to Berari in his company. Duty, if nothing else, would impel me to speak of it to you. You must see that, too.”

Hardyal was filled with confusion, “Abdul Salim has been our friend for many years. The authorities have agreed to let Jagnath speak. Where, then, is the difficulty? You said just now, ‘provided he speaks at all.’ May I ask what that can mean?”

Macbeth hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, since you and I talk as friends, I might as well tell you. A difficulty has arisen. You probably don’t know our local magistrate, Mr. Sheldon. He’s what people call a liberal, a dyed-in-the-wool sympathizer of — of Indians, a stickler for free speech at all costs, and all that sort of thing. Perfectly all right, of course.”

Macbeth continued with a friendly, confiding air: “You know that we have troops quartered in Berari. Their commanding officer, Colonel Gordon, has of course nothing to do with the civil administration. However, to put it in a nutshell, Colonel Gordon is not keen on having his men filter into Perron Park to listen while a fellow Indian lambastes the Sircar which they are pledged to defend. He could, of course, confine his men to barracks, but that would rather take the fine edge off Mr. Sheldon’s gesture of confidence, wouldn’t it?”

It would, as Hardyal perceived instantly and vividly.

Macbeth went on quickly: “The speech itself is harmless enough. I’ve read it — so has Colonel Gordon.”

“Well, then — murmured Hardyal, hopefully.

“That’s just the point. It’s too damned innocuous to be worth giving. But you don’t know Jagnath Singh, do you? He’s a genius in his way. When he starts to talk it will be in the vernacular— full of twists and turns, devilish innuendoes, all idiomatic, impossible to pin down. Questions will be asked, challenges flung, by men like your Salim, for instance. That is exactly what Jagnath hopes for. Someone to throw him the ball so that he can throw it back — weighted. Whatever has been forbidden or agreed upon between him and us will go by the board — and it will, of course, be nobody’s fault.”

Hardyal looked up. “Yes, I see, I see! I appreciate your telling me all this, though I don’t quite know what I can do about it. I’m a nobody, after all.”

“There’s precious little anyone can do about it now, except perhaps so far as one is concerned oneself.”

“You mean, it would please you if I were to stay away from this meeting?”

Macbeth looked at him frankly. “It would please me. I’m pretty sure that it would please your father. I, too, can do little. One can only stand by or advise one’s friends to the best of one’s ability.”

They smoked and talked for a little while about the war and its problems. Macbeth was grateful that Hardyal had not brought Bertie’s name, or Jacques’s, into the conversation — grateful for the considerate restraint on many subjects he dreaded.

“Tell me,” said Macbeth, lightly, “about that queer old lady, Mrs. Lyttleton.”

“She is dead.”

“Dead?” exclaimed Macbeth. “I hadn’t heard. I wish I’d known — another friend was asking about her just the other day. Aubrey Wall.”

Stillness descended on Hardyal. “Wall? Aubrey Wall?”

“One of your old pals, wasn’t he? He’s been stationed at Berari for the past few months. His wife and child are here, too, for the winter. He retires next year.”

Macbeth felt the mysterious pressure of the moment without understanding its cause; he went on conversationally: “Wall spoke of the old days at Amritpore. He asked for you and for the — for the St. Remys, and of course for old Mrs. Lyttleton. I’m sure he will be saddened to hear that she is dead. But she must have been quite old.”

He became increasingly conscious of a coldness interposing between them. At a loss to account for this changed mood, he continued in the same easy, friendly manner: “You stayed with Wall’s people in Sussex, didn’t you?”

Hardyal nodded. He stared at his feet, thrust into light sandals which he had not remembered to take off before coming into the house.

“Wall wondered — and so, as a matter of fact, did I — why you never returned to England.”

“Did he talk much about that?”

Macbeth hesitated. Wall’s remarks had not been complimentary; they were the remarks of a disappointed patron become indifferent.

“No, he just wondered.”

Hardyal drew his breath on a deep sigh. “ I came home for t be holidays. I could not bring myself to go away again.”

It was not convincing, and Macbeth had the impression that it was not intended to be. But he went on, agreeably: “Well, what have you been up to since? Anything important?”

Hardyal answered without looking up. “Important? What could I do that would be considered important? When I came back from England I studied with a tutor. He was a Eurasian, and clever. Then I took my B.A. at Calcutta University, as you know. It was easy. Everything has been fairly easy. Since then I have helped my father with his work. ”

“You’ve never considered getting into government service, I suppose? A nomination to the police?”

“Perhaps, sometime.”

There was silence, and Macbeth thought: Mentioning England was, somehow, a mistake. I wonder what happened? Could he have fallen in love with some girl, and it ended unhappily? He asked gently: “How long will you stay in Berari? I’d like to see you again.”

“I return to Amritpore early tomorrow.”

“With Salim?” Lightly, banteringly.

“With Salim.”

So, it was ended. Not by words, not by declarations or gestures, but by the incomprehensible accident which at some unguarded moment had intervened between them.

It was Hardyal who rose at last; he could not have borne, now, to be politely or even kindly given the hint, that it was time for him to go. Macbeth, grateful for the other’s initiative, rose too, rubbing out his cigarette on a silver tray.

As Hardyal walked down the steps and signaled his tonga, he was as sure as he would have been had his eyes guaranteed her, that Bertie watched his departure from the elegant obscurity of the house. She must have known that he was with Macbeth in the dufter; yet she had not come out to meet him. She had eaten his salt, she had walked in his father’s garden. She had been engaged to his best friend. But now she let him come and go without greeting.

34

AS THEY drove between the gates into the road, the tonga-wallah looked at his passenger. “Where to?”

Hardyal had clasped his forehead, which felt hot and damp. “Drive—drive anywhere.”

Hardyal stared about him with superstitious eyes. Wall was in Berari! Wall, whom he had not seen for years, whom he had hoped never to see again Wall was here, within reach, perhaps within a few paces. Perhaps this Sahib bicycling towards them in gray flannels and sun coat — Ah, if they should meet! Hardyal sank back and tried to reconstruct the half-remembered, slight, rather colorless figure of his old friend. But what recurred — what Macbeth’s casual reference to the Engineer had strangely and vitally revived, was the memory of Mrs. Lyttleton and the sharp finality of her death. A little while ago that death had seemed to set a seal upon his youth; now in an aching second it unsealed the fact that he had inherited the full weight of a special and terrible knowledge — that Wall had killed Mrs. Lyttleton’s servant. He and Wall, now, stood together in the baleful glare of that knowledge: Hardyal felt threatened by it.

“Driver, what time is it?” he asked suddenly.

The man consulted the air, sniffed, meditated, then answered with reasonable accuracy: “Going on six.”

“Oh, good heavens! I must meet my friend. Turn round and let us go back as we came.” He racked his brains for the number and name of the street which Salim had given him. He stared at the tonga-wallah. “Where is the house of Jagnath Singh’s cousin?”

The man started. “Jagnath Singh? He who is to speak this evening?”

“I was to meet my friend at the house of Jagnath’s cousin.”

The driver, with Jehu’s dry wit, shrugged and suggested they drive to the nearest jail. “If Jagnath and his cousin and all their friends are not already there, they will be shortly.”

“Then let us drive to the city and make inquiries there.”

“Why not go straight to Perron Park ? Jagnath is to speak there in half an hour. If your friend is with him, you wall meet there.

Hardyal thought confusedly: Suppose Salim waits, and misses the speech ? No, no they must somehow find the cousin’s house. He combed his memory in an agony of humiliation. Salim had told him clearly enough — Something Avenue — Something Road. He stared anxiously about him as the tonga wheeled round and headed back as it had come.

The driver had taken a short cut down a dusty alley, and they now emerged on the main thoroughfare which ran in a straight line from the station past Perron Park towards the European Club.

With the eerie suddenness of their kind, a company of khaki-clad, red-turbaned figures appeared, riding bicycles, led by a short, powerful, red-faced English sergeant. The crowd made way for them, genially or timidly according to their separate natures or consciences.

“Let’s ask them,” cried Hardyal. “Stop, let me speak to the sergeant.”

He leaned out and shouted as the Englishman pedaled alongside: “Can you tell me, please, where Mr. Jagnath Singh is residing?”

The man made no reply, nor did he turn his head. Grim, thick-necked, he flashed past, followed by his retinue.

Hardyal sank back in the shabby seat. “Drive to the park,” he said, his voice not quite so assured as it had been. “Hurry!”

“Jagnath will speak from the bandstand at the southern end of the park,” explained the tongawallah. “It is wider, and there are benches.”

A policeman pressed through the crowd. “Vehicles may not proceed into the park. You will have to walk from here.”

Hardyal paid the driver, then got out and was instantly swallowed up by the crowd. Pushed, jostled, his feet stepped on, his cap knocked off, he felt a new exhilaration. He saw at once that he had no chance of reaching the bandstand from which Jagnath Singh was expected to deliver his address, and decided to wait until after the speech before going in search of Abdul Salim.

35

SOMEONE gave Hardyal a hand and hauled him up on the wall; another steadied him when he was almost precipitated over the other side. He felt their excitement, their good humor. “We may not hear much, but we’ll get a good view,” observed one, philosophically.

“Will Jagnath Singh be in native dress?”

“You will recognize him,” a neighbor assured him. “He always wears European dress. He is said to have observed, once, that in a scuffle the police might find it child’s play to deprive one of one’s dhoti, but it would be more difficult for them to steal one’s trousers.”

“He is a wit, that Jagnath.”

“I heard him once in Lucknow. He can make a stone laugh or a tree burst into tears. ”

“Aye, and he’s been known to raise blisters as big as plover’s eggs on the police, before now.”

Hardyal was happy to be among them. The man who had given him a hand was youngish, with a leathery black face and sparkling eyes. He wore an English jacket with his dhoti, and clutched the rough stone wall with bare, muscular toes. Hardyal could see various comings and goings on the bandstand, but there was no sign of Abdul Salim, nor of him whom they had described as Jagnath Singh.

Hardyal watched the evening crows fly in squadrons across the deepening sky. Where, where was Salim?

Behind him in the road a carriage hell shrilled imperiously. He heard important shouts from the police, cries of “Hut jao! Hut jaol Make way for the Sahib’s carriage. ”

Craning round, Hardyal had a glimpse of a smart dogcart driven by an Englishman. The police were clearing a way for its passage. The Englishman looked as though he were keeping his temper with an effort, and he was keeping his foot on the bell, which shrilled and shrilled. Behind him on the syce’s stand his groom brandished a horsehair switch over the heads of scurrying urchins.

“It is the Engineer of Canals,” volunteered the man at Hardyal’s elbow. “Wall Sahib himself.”

Hardyal felt his heart grow huge. Aubrey Wall, intent on keeping his temper and his horse under control in this smelling, milling mob, saw no one in particular.

Hardyal’s eyes were blazing. He straightened up suddenly and put his hand on the shoulder of the man beside him. Steadying himself thus, he stared across the shifting throng and raised his voice in a shout which carried far and high above the muted uproar: “Jagnath Singh! Jagnath Singh!”

The cry, evocative, first stilled, then electrified the circus-loving mob; it harnessed their disorderly limbs, focused their wayward attention, channeled and directed their ever-ready, straying emotions. Hardyal’s neighbor put his arm round Hardyal’s shoulders and added his undistinguished voice to the plangent cry: “Jagnath Singh!”

The crowd took up the cry — took it up with a roar. An amateur drummer, lost somewhere in the mass, rub-a-dub-dubbed wildly; a trumpet squealed its excitement.

Beside the gates the policemen moved towards each other, forming up two by two or in fours, unobtrusively slipping their truncheons from leather holsters. Those who carried lathees held their right palms against their mouths before grasping anew the polished bamboo staves topped with brass.

Light flung its spears among the trees: falling, it dazzled for a moment the eyes and the hearts of the multitude. This was the heroic moment and they acclaimed it, every one of them poised on the brink of instant silence should their prophet, their hero, show himself. But he did not show himself. Instead the bandstand suddenly swarmed with strangers, like a piece of sugar with ants.

A figure wearing a dark suit and a white topi detached itself from the group and walked to the edge of the bandstand. As he held up his hand for silence, those nearest to him, recognizing Henry Sheldon, their District Magistrate, became silent, and that silence rolled back over the crowd.

Hardyal craned forward in a passion of concentration, but he caught only occasional words of his utterance.

“Jagnath Singh will not speak today. A difficulty . . . necessary to postpone the speech. . . . The Lieutenant Governor himself ordered the postponement. In due time . . . notified as to the reasons of this delay ... be so good as to disperse as you have come, with the least possible disturbance of the general peace.”

The pause which followed the collective digestion of this news endured a few moments. Then a ripple passed over the crowd — another and yet another, growing to the loud, nondescript mumble which distinguishes the protests of surprised and disappointed people. Backed fairly tight, they still maintained proportion, density, and center, and it was from this center that a voice hoarse with rage suddenly yelled: It’s a put-up job! Shame on them! Shame! Shame!”

“They don’t dare let Jagnath Singh speak to us! ”

“That’s the truth! Jagnath says we have no quarrel with our brothers in Turkey!”

“He was going to tell us things which he believed we should know — but they prevented—”

“They gave their word. Then they broke it.”

“Let Jagnath explain!”

“Let us see him and we will go quietly.”

A gruff voice spoke suddenly behind Hardyal. “Move on, move on.”

It was the police sergeant, mounted now on a tough cavalry charger, carrying his wand of office — a short, stout, leather quirt.

“Move on, I said. Chello, you!”

Those below the wall began to move a little faster. Children scuttled like frightened beetles; women, pulling their veils over their eyes, clung silently to their men.

A voice muttered: “The whole thing is a police trick. They’ve put Jagnath in jail.”

“Better get out. They’ve sent to the nearest choky for more police. You know what happens when they start picking people up. All they want is a couple of dozen innocents to swell their quota and maintain their reputation!”

The voice behind Hardyal reiterated: “Didn’t you hear what I said, you cheeky swine? Chello!”

Hardyal’s neighbor, who had been addressed thus, leaped swiftly from the wall and disappeared into the crowd.

“You too,” said the sergeant, staring at Hardyal. “Get down from that wall and move along.”

Hardyal climbed down — he dared not jump because of the congestion. Nor did he see what happened immediately afterwards. He did, however, hear a scream as the sergeant’s horse, pricked by a spur, reared and brought, its iron-shod hoof down on a man’s foot.

“God blast your soul! Why don’t you get out of the way?”

Hardyal pushed his way along the wall, and when he believed himself to be out of reach of the sergeant, he hoisted himself onto it, realizing that to make his way along its undisputed length was his only chance of rapid progress. The noise of the scuffle seemed to dog his heels. A voice cried passionately: “They even train their horses to kill us!”

The whistle shrilled again, and he saw coming towards him a phalanx of constables, led by Macbeth on horseback. The captain’s face under the severe brim of his helmet wore a calm, assured expression; he seemed to be talking quietly to the people, who crushed aside to give him and his horse ample room. Pale, erect, Macbeth bored through the mass with his constables pressing behind him. Then Hardyal saw something fly through the air. and for a split second took it for a bird or bat. But it was a shoe which, hurtling over the intervening heads, struck a red turban. Something viperous whipped out , struck, vanished. The turbanless constable fell with blood spuming from his nostrils.

Hardyal was caught in a sort of trance by the sheer unexpectedness, the sheer perfection of this detail set in a generally formless and indifferent whole. Perhaps a dozen people had actually seen the constable fall; certainly a very few more could have witnessed what so swiftly followed. As Macbeth rose in his stirrups and began to lay about him with his crop, a figure leaped onto the wall and Hardyal saw the outflung arm which clutched, for missile, a green, broken, jagged bottle.

Hardyal’s warning cry reached Macbeth, who ducked as the murderous glass flew past his face, but the sound of that English “Look out!” was lost on the ears of the white sergeant and his escort. They struck Hardyal from behind and he and the thrower of the bottle went down together under a rain of lathee blows, amid the shrill crying of the whistles.

36

JACQUES left his bicycle on the gravel of the driveway and ran up the steps of Ganpat Rai’s house where Krishna, the old servant, came to meet him. The old man’s eyes were inflamed from weeping, his voice harsh as he muttered: “My master will receive you in his study.”

The barrister, wearing a kurtha and dhoti, rose as his visitor appeared in the door.

“Ganpat Rai, why in God’s name didn’t you send for me at once?”

“There was little time, and much confusion. Let us sit. I am very tired — I feel old for the first time in my life!” He smiled faintly, but his face had a worn, yellowish look. “First let me set your heart at ease: Hardyal is out of danger. In a few days he will be out of jail.”

He waited a moment, marshaling his tired thoughts, then went on: “I was at Agra when Salim telegraphed me, and I took the first train to Berari, where I arrived early on the morning after the affair. I went at once to see Henry Sheldon, who has always been my good friend. It was he who arranged that I see Hardyal in jail. As you can imagine, Sheldon is in thoroughly bad odor with many of his colleagues and most of the European contingent. They hold him responsible for what happened at Perron Park — although it was hardly his fault that the Governor’s wire canceling Jagnath’s speech arrived at the eleventh hour.”

“And Macbeth — what of him?”

“I found him friendly and helpful. It seems that he and Hardyal had met earlier in the day, and that he tried to dissuade Hardyal from going to hear Jagnath. He is convinced that Hardyal’s shout of warning saved him from a serious injury. Others have testified to this, among them a clerk in the Municipality, who saw the whole thing.”

“ Then.” said Jacques, drawing his breath sharply, “Hardyal has a clear case?”

“As far as that goes, yes. But there are other things which I don’t find so clear. Salim and I spent hours making inquiries and questioning people. if, after leaving Macbeth’s house, Hardyal had gone straight to the address which Salim gave him, he would have found Jagnath and Salim there, for Sheldon had already informed them of the Lieutenant Governor’s last-minute intervention. Hardyal said that he had completely forgotten the address which Salim gave him. I protested, knowing how such an excuse might sound in court, knowing also that such forgetfulness is foreign to Hardyal. But he gave me a strange glance and said: ‘ It was fate.’”

Ganpat Rai laughed. “Fate! To speak of fate to me, who have learned that there are but two implements to human action, accident and intention. But I did not want to disturb him then with arguments and expostulations. I comforted him by saying that Macbeth himself had interceded for his speedy release — that it would be a mere matter of days before he was free. He replied: ‘There is no hurry. Let me lie here and get used to these walls. I have a feeling that I shall see them again, often, often! ‘ ”

Ganpat Rai hesitated. Jacques was aware of his deep disquiet. It expressed itself at last, haltingly: “I can tell you, who have known him all his life, who have always loved him — that I find myself wondering whether we have not lost Hardyal.”

“Lost him?”

“You must realize that more than his body suffered at Perron Park.”

“Yes, I understand.” Then, afraid lest the understanding contribute to the other’s distress, he added: “But after all, the whole thing was an accident. It might never have happened!”

“ Nevertheless it happened, and that is the point.” He waited a moment, then went on. “And what is now happening in Hardyal’s mind and spirit is not wholly the result of accident. I do not know when or where it had its beginnings — he has never told me, and I have never brought the technique of the courtroom into my house. Only once, a long time ago. he and I quarreled. I was eager for him to return to England to finish his studies, but he would not go. He said he could not bring himself to leave India again. Although at the time I was sure that there was more to it than mere homesickness. I said no more. I thought that he might one day come to me with the true explanation. But he never has.”

Both were silent, thinking of the past, searching for its bearing on the mysterious present. Jacques asked at last: “What can we do?”

Ganpat Rai shrugged his tired shoulders. “We must wait. Just now he moves in a sort of darkness. He has ceased, temporarily, to see men as friends or as enemies. The shock of that beating has numbed, in him. the faculty of discrimination — he is aware only of forces, immense, impersonal, hostile.'’

“Is that what you meant when you said, just now, that we had lost Hardyal?”

“Yes, and Hardyal must not lose us.”

“But suppose,” said Jacques unhappily, “he no longer wants us! ”

The other’s eyes were full of pain. “He is the sufferer. remember. He is going to make demands he has never made before. On you, perhaps, more than on anyone else.”

“I should think that after all these years he could take me for granted.”

Ganpat Rai hesitated for a moment, then: “I do not think that he will ever again take any man for granted.”

“Then tell me what I should do, and I will do it. ”

Moved to a sudden rare passion the barrister cried out: “I cannot resign myself how dare they beat him, fling him into prison like a common criminal! How dare they — ”

As swiftly as his composure had deserted him, it returned.

“Forgive me. It is stupid to lose one’s temper.”

Jacques rose impulsively. “Ganpat Rai, my friend —”

“Yes, yes, your friend!” He put both hands on Jacques’s shoulders and stared into his face. “In this world where men are enemies, let us resolve to remain friends. Why not, why not ?”

Jacques said gently: “Take me to Berari with you, when you go to see Hardyal.”

Ganpat Rai gave Jacques a slight shake and released him. “We will go to Berari together, and bring him home. But here I have sat talking, talking of my troubles, when all the while there is a very important matter which I had almost forgotten. I should have written you about it from Agra if all this had not happened to drive it from my mind.”

He crossed the room to a small green safe set against a wall, and returned carrying a large brown envelope. “This is Mrs. Lyttleton’s will.”

Jacques scarcely heard. He was thinking of Hardyal.

“She did me the honor to entrust me with her affairs. I regretted bitterly that I was not in Amritpore when she died that I was unable, even, to attend her funeral.” He opened the envelope and withdrew its contents. “This will was written five years ago. In it she has made you her heir.”

Jacques stared at the document which the barrister’s brown hands spread before him on the desk. “There are a few bequests to her old servants. Everything else — and there is a great deal, for she was a wealthy woman—everything else goes to you.”

Jacques picked up the crisp bluish paper and examined its elaborate phraseology with an almost casual attention. Neither surprise nor pleasure moved in him, only a slow, painful mirth, as though he had drunk a faintly poisonous nectar. Ganpat Rai was watching him.

“ This will make a difference to you. It will take a little time for you to get used to the idea that you are a rich man, that you are as free as money can make anyone.” He smiled. “I shall observe the outcome with the greatest interest.”

Jacques was silent, meditating on a future whose sumptuous contours even Madame de St. Remy could scarcely have visualized, let alone achieved; and on a revenge so exquisitely contrived that it must leave her, inevitably and to the end of her days, at the subtle mercy of her dead rival. And because he saw now the first bright outlines of this moment which Mrs. Lyttleton had long ago conceived and foreseen — a moment whose eventuality must intensely have amused and sustained her — Jacques began to laugh, convinced in his heart that from somewhere she laughed with him.

“Good!” said Ganpat Rai, sighing. “Take it, my child. Take it, use it, be happy.”

(The End)

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