The Lotus and the Wind (12 page)

Again the tears burst from her. She faced him and saw through the blur the lights in his eyes and the sadness and the loneliness. She said, ‘I love you, only you, no one but you.’

Anne stepped into the third and last petticoat, pulled her dress down over her head, and walked in her stockinged feet along to her mother’s room to have the laces tightened at her back. When she returned she sat down in front of the mirror and began, with her mouth full of hairpins, to build up her hair into the hill of tightly rolled curls that Eugenie, lately empress of the French, had apparently set as fashion for all time to come. The lamplight was too soft and flattering. It made her thick hair seem auburn, when really it was a lighter, tawnier red than that. Robin would laugh if he could see her now--well, he’d smile at least. She had not seen him since that day he came back, except once in the road, and then he’d hardly said a word except that he had to hurry to work. Monday---Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday--and to-day was Friday.

Crossly she stuck another pin in place. Oh, for Edith Collett’s assurance, just for a week or two, even at the cost of tight little crows’ feet around her eyes; she opened them wide and saw they were green and large, and that, try as she might, she could not make them look soulful. Robin’s note of this morning lay unfolded on the dressing-table: ‘I shall not be able to come to dinner. Sorry ...’ and a word or two about late work--after all the battling she had gone through to force her mother to invite him. But he’d be joining them after dinner, in time for the ball. And though she had beaten down her mother’s will, recognizing with surprise its feebleness, she had had to compromise and allow her mother to ask Major Hayling as well--’Because the party he was going with has fallen through, Anne. It would be rude not to ask him after all his kindness to you. You do not appear to realize . .

The talk buzzed round and round Peshawar like swarming bees. About the war and General Roberts and Colonel This and Major That, and above all about the terrible affair at Tezin Kach, where the MacDonald Highlanders had suffered so bravely and the 13th Gurkhas had behaved so badly, especially Lieutenant Robin Savage. She mumbled angrily, working her lips in and out between her teeth, biting and bruising until the blood came to the surface to make them full and red. Perfume. She’d show her mother to-night, and Mrs. Collett too. She touched liberal dashes behind each ear, and more down in the valley between her breasts--they were big, too big, her mother said. She pushed back her shoulders and thrust out her breasts. The aroma of perfume rose overpoweringly, and she began to giggle. There was a secret store of rouge in the back of the top left-hand drawer. The ayah had bought it for her in the bazaar at Simla. She slapped some on. It looked terrible, and she rubbed hard, trying to get it off, but it wouldn’t all come. The pins were in place, her hair felt top-heavy, and her lip was nearly bleeding. She opened the door, lifted her head, and primped along the passage. The skirt clung so tightly around her thighs that she had to hobble. Most of the girls that she knew seemed to like the fashion, but she would have preferred being able to take a longer stride. In the drawing-room she lifted her bustle--exactly like a hen settling down over a clutch of eggs--and sat on the edge of a hard chair. She composed herself with some difficulty, crossed her hands in her lap, and waited.

When Major Hayling came her parents had still not finished dressing. She greeted the major carefully, and he went to stand in front of the fire. His mess-kit was grey and black with silver facings. He looked distinguished and deceitfully young this evening, in spite of his grey hairs. After a few moments her father and mother came to help her out.

As soon as they sat down to dinner her mind ran off, although she heard what the others were saying and tried to keep a place in their conversation. When she’d said to Robin--that last beautiful Monday morning on the plain--‘I love you,’ the words had come from inside her of their own volition. She had not meant to speak then. But she had said those words and immediately afterwards found she had no more doubts. And Robin had answered, ‘I
must
love you.’ Meaning, I must love you, I’ve got to? Or, I must love you, because I think of you so much? Why ‘must’? She frowned and grappled with her thoughts.

‘I beg your pardon, Mother? Oh, dear, yes, of course.’ She dabbed her lips and got up. Major Hayling leaped attentively to pull back her chair. She followed her mother out of the dining-room, leaving Major Hayling and her father to their port. Even before the bearer closed the door behind them her mother began a rambling, nagging tirade about her company manners. A minute later, the doors of her mind firmly closed against the familiar, scratchy voice, Anne was away again. Sunlit clouds of content cushioned her. Then someone came to insult Robin, and she was haughty, bitingly cold, annihilating the faceless someone with a look. The someone grovelled to apologize. Another someone came. She wanted to scratch him with her nails. Robin stood by, too hurt to fight. She did all the fighting.

After dinner they all waited in the drawing-room for Robin. Half-past nine struck, and he had not come. Her mother fidgeted on the edge of a chair. Her father pulled out his watch, checked it twice against the grandfather clock in the comer, and muttered, ‘Dash it, young Savage might attempt to be here at the time he’s invited for. I don’t know what these young men are coming to, do you, Hayling?’

‘No, indeed. But I expect Savage will have some very good reason for his tardiness. We old fogies must be careful nowadays before we sit in judgment on those who already think we have both feet in the grave.’

‘Ah, h’m. Fogies? Us? Well, I suppose we’re not getting any younger.’

‘Of course Robin will have a good reason,’ Anne broke out sharply at Major Hayling; but she couldn’t really touch him, because he was pretending to be on her side.

At ten o’clock Mrs. Hildreth jerked to her feet. ‘We can’t wait a minute longer, Edwin, or we’ll lose our table. If Mr. Savage is able to come to the ball he must meet us there.’ At the door she turned to Major Hayling, and her voice became a coo. ‘You are taking Anne in your trap, are you not, Major Hayling?’

‘I did hope that I would be allowed that great privilege--oh!’

‘I
am
sorry, Major Hayling.’ Anne lifted her heel off his instep and looked him in the eye. She was not afraid of him any more, nor was she shy with him. In fact, he was fun when you learned to behave according to his scandalously incorrect rules. Now he was smiling and apologizing for getting his foot in her way. When her mother looked away he cast his eye up and down her in that manner he had, as though he could see through her clothes. There was a statue--’The Slave Market,’ or some such title; he reminded her of that. She pulled her wrap tightly around her. It was bitter cold too.

‘Wind from the north-east,’ said Major Hayling, raising his head to sniff. ‘Straight out of a thousand miles of mountain and two thousand miles of steppe beyond that.’

‘May we go now, please? I am becoming chilled.’

Once the pony had started the light trap moving he shifted the reins to the crook of his right arm and with his left hand got out a cigar and lit it. She watched, fascinated but knowing she shouldn’t help. The queer and warming thing was that she did not want to. He saw her watching and said, ‘You learn. That’s the easiest thing to get over.’

The idea sprang ready-clothed with words into her mind. She said breathlessly, ‘Will you take me to Robin’s bungalow? I’m sure there’s something wrong.’

Hayling still had not answered her when he turned the pony into a side road, nor five minutes later when he said, ‘Here.’ The pony turned again and trotted up a short drive. The glimmering carriage lamps showed a camp bed in the middle of the tiny, unkempt lawn. A canvas canopy sheltered the bed from the weather. Hayling whistled between his teeth. Anne gasped and choked down an exclamation. Two or three other bachelor officers shared the bungalow with Robin, but it must be he who slept out there in the cold of these February nights, in the blast of the winds. The other young officers must have ostracized him, that he did this thing to be away from them. Hayling answered her thoughts with a drawled, ‘Perhaps he likes it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Major Hayling.’

He looked at her thoughtfully. Jagbir ran out of the bungalow, followed by an old Pathan in bearer’s livery. Anne wondered what had happened to the bearer Robin had had in Simla. This was a new man. Why didn’t he keep his servants for any length of time? It wasn’t as though he was cruel or overbearing.

Hayling called, ‘Savage! Hayling here, with a friend of yours.’

Robin came out on to the verandah, dressed in his dark-green parade uniform, which was covered with dust. Hayling said, ‘Aren’t you coming to the ball?’

Robin looked at Anne and said, ‘Ball? Oh, yes, I hadn’t forgotten about it. We’ve had a robbery. We’ve been busy the last hour chasing the robbers and trying to get hold of Mr. Johnson, the policeman.’

‘May I have a look? Perhaps, in the circumstances, if nothing is said about it, Miss Hildreth could come too?’

‘Yes, of course. Why not?’

She examined the barren little room with unconcealed interest. There were a table and two chairs, a stool, a long bookcase, two black japanned metal trunks, one on top of the other, a chest of drawers, and a wardrobe--no mirror. A hurricane lamp stood on top of the trunks, and another on the table. A door led off into the bathroom. No carpets covered the bare stone floor. There was no bed--that was out on the lawn--and she tightened her lips, feeling the unforgiving wind and the unforgiving cruelty. Two pictures hung on the wall, both oils--one of a mountain which she recognized as having seen from Simla on clear days; one of a flat, stony waste under an empty sky. She looked at them more closely while Robin muttered with Hayling. She could find no signatures on them. The light in them was peculiarly powerful and filled them with a radiance unnatural to the subjects. A long jezail hung over the mantelpiece. Presumably that was the gun he had nearly sold in Jellalabad to buy her a ring. The grate was black and empty.

Robin was saying, ‘I don’t think he can have been here more than a few seconds. I heard a noise, breathing, when I came in. I thought it might be Lascelles and Browning and their friends, come to wreck my room. But I grappled with someone, and it was only one man. Then Jagbir came in with a lamp, and I saw that the man had a knife. He was a Pathan.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I went up to hold him, and--’

‘Were you armed?’

‘No. I tried to make him drop the knife. He looked vicious but hungry. Then he kicked the lamp out of Jagbir’s hands and dashed out. We searched all around and couldn’t find him. The chowkidar’s disappeared, too, so he must have been in league with this fellow. We haven’t missed anything, nothing was opened or turned upside down. We found that someone had broken into Jagbir’s quarters. It was just the same there as here--no signs of rummaging, nothing missing. We thought we saw a couple of men lurking around, but couldn’t catch them. The bearer got Mr. Johnson, and he’s just gone. He took notes but didn’t tell us if he had any ideas. It would be simple enough if the man had been after the things they usually come for: money--it’s there on the table, but he didn’t touch it--sheets off the bed outside; clothes in those boxes--they’re not locked.’

Hayling tapped his hook absentmindedly on the mantel. ‘Yes, that’s strange. He may not have had time, as you say, but it sounds as if he or they were looking for one definite thing, and that too large to be kept in a box. You aren’t secreting the Peacock Throne in here, are you?’

‘No, sir,’ said Robin, smiling. ‘Look here, sir, and Anne--I’ve got to change if I’m coming to this ball, and this is my only place, so would you mind waiting outside?’

‘All right.’

In the trap she huddled herself into her wrap and hoped she would not cry. The horrible calm way in which Robin had talked of Lascelles and Browning coming to wreck his room! He had hardly met her eyes throughout her visit. It was the first time she had even been inside a bachelor’s quarters--she did not count going with her mother to see a rich old commissioner who had a whole house. This place of Robin’s was so bleak!

Hayling said quietly, ‘Why isn’t he staying with his mother?’

‘Mrs. Rodney Savage is his stepmother.’

‘I know that. What of it? She has a huge bungalow. He’s allowed to live there. It isn’t as if his regiment was here and he had to live in mess.’

She did not know. She had not thought about it. There had been more important problems on her mind. She thought about it now and came suddenly on the answer. ‘Because he won’t shelter behind her! He doesn’t want these brutes, Lascelles and everyone like him, to think he’s running away from them. Precious few of them have fought in Afghanistan, or ever will!’

‘So you are wondering, even after this evening?’

‘What do you mean? Do you mean I think Robin might be a coward?’

‘No. I hoped you were thinking about cats. Be calm now, miss, here’s your ewe lamb.’

At the club Anne knew better now than to expect trouble over their late arrival, and, sure enough, her mother only raised her eyebrows archly at Major Hayling. Then Robin, limping slightly, followed them at a distance into the lounge, and her mother frowned and said something behind her fan to her father. Anne rested her hand absently on the chair next to her until Robin came out of the cloakroom and sat down. Major Hayling began a conversation with her parents, and she took the opportunity to give Robin her programme and its little white pencil. She said, knowing that her eyes were brighter than they ought to have been, ‘Write down your name on as many lines as you like. Oh, leave number sixteen at least; I’ve promised that one.’

‘To him?’ Robin inclined his head towards Hayling. She wrinkled her nose at him, and he wrote in the little pasteboard folder. When he handed it back she saw that he had taken only two dances, this number five that had already begun, and another much later in the evening. She was disappointed but she could feel the ends of her nerves tingling. To-night was important. People were already staring surreptitiously at her and at Robin. To-night she was going out against them. Robin ought to have taken more dances. She had said ‘I love you,’ and it was like the final decision to embark on a voyage. With the words, she had stepped down out of her parents’ ship into her own little boat. She was in harbour still, but preparing for the sea.