“Very useful,” Lord Frome said, “but, although I realised that scholars are lamentably underpaid, I imagined, if I thought of it at all, that your father had an income of his own.”
“Papa receives a pension of seventy pounds a year from the Bengal Asiatic Society,” Chandra replied, “and last year you paid him one hundred and fifty pounds for the two manuscripts he translated for you.”
“Is that all he had?” Lord Frome enquired.
“There was about twenty pounds in royalties from previous books and he wrote some articles which brought in five pounds. The magazines that publish such things have a very small circulation.”
Lord Frome’s lips tightened.
“I should have realised all this before,” he said, “but quite frankly it never struck me that scholars of your father’s reputation should not be more appreciated financially.”
“Papa has a most imposing list of distinctions from a great number of different countries. Unfortunately we cannot eat them!”
“I am beginning to realise that,” Lord Frome said, “and really Chandra, I am appalled at what you have told me.”
“Everything is all right for the moment,” Chandra said almost as if she was reassuring him. “Thanks to the money you gave Papa he has been able to go to a small pension at Cannes with Ellen to look after him. If he spends the winter there he will be, I am sure, perfectly well by the time I return home.”
“And what do you expect to happen then?”
The answer, Chandra knew, was that she hoped to receive the further six hundred pounds that he had promised her father.
But then she told herself that perhaps because she had taken his place, he would not think that she was worth the same money as if she had been a man.
Anyway it was impossible to put her hopes into words and instead she remarked,
“I expect – something will – turn up. The Gods have been kind up to now. If we find the Lotus Manuscript, there could not be a better tonic as far as Papa is concerned.”
She smiled as she spoke, but there was no answering smile on Lord Frome’s face.
Instead he said,
“I think some time you and I must have a serious talk about your father’s future, but not tonight.”
“No, not tonight,” Chandra agreed quickly.
“Go to bed,” Lord Frome said, “and remember only that you were a great success with the Nepalese and that tomorrow we may find the Lotus Manuscript.”
He smiled at her as he spoke and she smiled back.
Then, as if something unaccountable to which she could not put a name made her feel shy, she moved quickly back towards her own room.
“Goodnight, my Lord,” she said, “and I am sorry – very very sorry I behaved so – badly.”
She thought as she shut the door on the last words that she sounded rather childish.
Then she told herself that however angry he might have been she was sure that now Lord Frome had forgiven her and was thinking not of her bad behaviour but of her father.
“And so he should be!” she tried to say defiantly as she undressed.
But somehow the fire had gone from her feelings towards Lord Frome.
Instead, as she climbed into bed, she found herself wondering who had broken his heart and why, with all the opportunities that must be open to him, he had not found someone beautiful enough to repair it.
*
It seemed to Chandra that she had hardly fallen asleep before it was morning and the maid was drawing back the curtains in her room.
But a feeling of excitement swept away any drowsiness and despite the fact that it gave her some twinges of pain in her stiff limbs, she jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
Just as she expected, the sun on the mountains was even more enchanting than it had been before.
The peaks were vivid against the sky, but beneath them were white clouds hiding all but the very tips of the long range that seemed almost to encircle the valley.
It was like a sea of cloud and as Chandra watched, the sun began to pick out one peak after another turning it from white to pink and then from pink to gold.
It was so lovely that she stood for a long time just staring, feeling as if she was moving through the clouds themselves into the sun which was the spiritual light of the Gods.
Then with a start she remembered what lay in front of her and felt afraid not only of keeping Lord Frome waiting, but of missing one moment when she might be looking for the precious manuscripts.
She thought it was going to be hot and put on the coolest of her mother’s full-skirted riding habits with only a light lawn blouse beneath it.
Then she ran downstairs to find Lord Frome eating breakfast in a smaller room than the one where they had dined the night before.
The windows were open into the garden and through them Chandra could see beds filled with flowers, orchids in every colour, those that were cultivated being larger than the ones she had seen in the forest.
There were also camellias, rhododendrons and a mass of other familiar flowers all growing in almost tropical profusion.
“It’s all so lovely!” Chandra exclaimed.
Then she realised that Lord Frome, who had risen when she appeared, was waiting for her to sit down at the table.
“I will not be long,” she said quickly. “Am I late?”
“No,” he replied. “You have ten minutes to eat your breakfast before the ponies will be at the front door.”
“Have we far to go?” Chandra enquired, helping herself from the dish that the servant was handing her.
“I think it is about five miles outside Kathmandu,” Lord Frome replied, “but it is uphill, as the Monastery is built on the side of a mountain.”
“Do you think,” Chandra asked in a low voice, “that as I am a woman I will be unable to go in?”
For the first time it had struck her that she might be excluded from searching for the manuscripts, although she knew that many Buddhist Monasteries allowed women from the Convent that was often attached to them into all but the most secret parts of the building.
“I have already made enquiries about that,” Lord Frome said, “and, although you will not be allowed to enter the part of the Monastery where the monks live, you will be allowed into the library.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Chandra exclaimed. “I had a sudden fear that I would be shut out, but I am sure Papa would have known if that was likely to happen.”
“You will be admitted,” Lord Frome repeated, “and I shall be able to see if you are as proficient as you tell me you are in recognising the age and the source of the manuscripts we shall find there.”
It was, Chandra knew, what she might have expected him to say, but somehow the words did not sound pompous or even frightening.
Instead it was almost as if he was teasing her and she looked up from her plate to find that he had a twinkle in his eye.
“I might as well inform you,” he said, “that you don’t look in the least like a bluestocking – the sort of woman who has always frightened me!”
Chandra laughed.
“I don’t think you could be afraid of anything,” she answered, “but quite frankly I am terrified in case I fail you and, although the Lotus Manuscript may be right under my nose, I fail to recognise it!”
“You sounded very much more confident when you were in Bairagnia than you do here!” Lord Frome remarked.
Again he appeared to be teasing and there was a faint smile on his lips.
“I can only say,” Chandra retorted, “that the ‘proof of the pudding is in the eating’ and, as I have finished my breakfast, my Lord, I am ready to start on our voyage of discovery.”
“That’s the right word for it!” Lord Frome exclaimed.
Later, as they were riding through the town, he said,
“I have a feeling that we did not see our host this morning because he does not approve of what we are doing.”
“Does not approve?” Chandra
questioned.
“The Resident contends that enough manuscripts have already left Nepal and I am therefore going to suggest to you that whatever discoveries we make, we keep them to ourselves and do not share them with him.”
“Certainly not, if that is how he feels!” Chandra said indignantly.
Then she added anxiously,
“Can he stop us from removing the manuscripts when we find the ones we want?”
Lord Frome shook his head.
“No, that will be entirely a matter between myself and the Abbot and, as most Monasteries are in need of funds, I see no difficulty on that score.”
Chandra gave a sigh of relief before she said,
“It would be too awful to find the Lotus Manuscript and then to be told that we cannot have it and must go home empty-handed.”
“I feel certain we shall not do that,” Lord Frome answered. “Even if the Lotus Manuscript is not there, there will be, I am sure from what I have heard, other manuscripts of tremendous interest, so long as you can recognise them.”
Chandra drew in her breath.
“You are making me nervous and I wish more than ever that Papa was here with us.”
“If he was, I imagine you would still be at home,” Lord Frome replied.
She thought a little wryly that it was typical of him to make everything sound practical and down-to-earth.
They were riding through Kathmandu as they talked and Chandra was thrilled with the pagoda-shaped Temples which seemed to outnumber the houses.
They passed several magnificent white Palaces and then they had left the City behind and were riding on a rough narrow road with draining ditches on each side of it.
As they continually passed peasants bringing in loads of wood on their backs or carrying round buckets of vegetables on the end of a bamboo pole held over the shoulder, they were forced to ride in single file without conversing.
Soon they reached the foot of the mountains and were climbing all the time past dozens of small Chaityas or shrines some big, some small, and always surrounded by people turning the prayer wheels outside them.
Finally they began to climb higher and higher up an almost perpendicular path until above them on the side of the mountain Chandra could see the Monastery itself.
It was exactly like the Monasteries that her father had told her he had visited in Tibet and she felt herself thrill with excitement as they drew nearer to what was a very large building fitted into the rock of the mountainside like a tooth into its socket.
It soared upward, gaunt and many-windowed and it seemed almost supernatural that it remained where it was and did not crumble and fall into the deep valley beneath it.
The path wound backwards and forwards until, just as Chandra felt they must have reached their goal, she was startled by a great roar that seemed to echo and re-echo amongst the mountains themselves.
Even as she heard it, she knew that it was a welcome from the six foot long brass trumpets with which every Monastery greeted their guests.
As they reached the gate, she saw a number of monks waiting to meet them.
And as they dismounted from their ponies, an elderly Lama, whom they recognised because he wore the pointed hood with lappets falling over the shoulders, while the monks were bareheaded, accepted a silk scarf from Lord Frome.
This, Chandra knew, was like a visiting card in the countries around the Himalayas.
The Lama then led the way inside the building while Chandra was aware that the monks looked at her out of the corners of their slanting eyes.
There was a passage which seemed almost like a tunnel, then a door was opened into a room which had a huge window overlooking the valley they had just come from.
But for the moment Chandra had eyes only for the shelves with which the room was furnished.
Here, she knew from her father’s description, were the manuscripts they sought and she could see them wrapped, as she had expected, in faded silks or some in the Chinese manner enclosed in narrow exquisitely made boxes.
She stood looking around her with delight while Lord Frome conversed with the Lama in his own language, both using flowery sentences that sounded like poetry.
There was a long table of rosewood down the centre of the room and two chairs curiously carved with symbolic figures set beside it.
Finally the Lama bowed to Lord Frome, then to Chandra and withdrew.
As the door closed behind him, Chandra with her eyes shining exclaimed,
“We are here! And look at the treasures all around us! I never imagined – I never believed I would actually see a library exactly as Papa described it to me!”
Lord Frome also looked around and then he asked,
“Where do we start?”
“I don’t think it matters,” Chandra answered. “You take that side of the room and I will take this and we will see what we find.”
It was like the sort of treasure hunt she had played as a child, but more exciting, more thrilling than she could possibly have imagined.
Every manuscript she took from its beautiful silk wrapping seemed a treasure of huge value until she found that quite a number were in fact comparatively recent.
They were dated in the Sanskrit manner which she could translate to Lord Frome.
“Ratna Pariksha,” she said, when they had been working for about twenty minutes. “It is dated Samvat 764, which is A.D. 1644. Do you want it?
“Of course,” he answered. “I found nothing as old as that in the last library I visited.”
“I think it has thirty-five leaves.”
As she spoke, Chandra wrapped the manuscript up as she had found it, then put it down on the table.
“It is a treatise on gems and precious stones,” she said, “but I expect you realised that.”
Lord Frome smiled.
Then he answered,
“To be honest, I did not!”
“Perhaps, when I translate it, I shall enjoy it more than you will,” she smiled.
She opened a great number of other manuscripts finding one was dated 1814, but all the others were later.
Then she gave a little exclamation.
“Here is something very unusual, which I think will excite you.”
“What is it?” Lord Frome asked, coming round to her side of the table.
“It is a treatise in Slokas of various subjects connected with cooking and eating,” she replied. “It is written on palm leaves and is dated Samvat 484.”
“Are you sure?” Lord Frome enquired.
“Quite sure and A.D. 1364 is very early for such a work.”
“Very early indeed!” he agreed, “and that is something I must certainly buy!”
Chandra turned over the palm leaves very very carefully.
There were only six lines to a page, but she could see that even though an accurate translation would take some time, it was extremely interesting.
They went back to work stopping only at midday to eat a meal that Lord Frome had brought to them by his servants on ponies.
Mehan Lall brought it into the library and laid a place for them at the end of the long table where they were working.
Although Chandra had first thought it was a waste of precious time, she enjoyed the dishes that had been skilfully cooked at the Residency and the wine that was delicious.
It had, Lord Frome told her, been made from grapes grown in the valley.
They ate quickly, waited on by Mehan Lall. Then, as the Indian servant cleared everything away, they were back again turning over the manuscripts.
They found that a great number were quite worthless, but Chandra discovered one more that Lord Frome was determined to buy.
Only when he said it was time to go back to the Residency did Chandra realise how little impact they had made so far on the thousands of manuscripts which filled the shelves from floor to ceiling.
Right up at the very top which could only be reached by a long ladder she could see fascinating little bunches of faded silk
and she felt quite certain each contained a masterpiece.
And yet it was likely to take them months and months before they could examine everything.
They rode away from the Monastery having been seen off by one of the Lamas and Chandra noticed that Lord Frome made them a gift that was obviously received with delight.
In return they each accepted a little silk scarf printed with a prayer.
It was not until they had climbed down the winding path which seemed more frightening going down that it had going up, that Chandra had time to read hers.
Then she said,
“This is a prayer that I shall not only find happiness but be fertile for my husband. I am surprised that the monks should have anything so secular in their possession.”
“They would have painted it after they had seen you,” Lord Frome said.
“Of course!” Chandra exclaimed “How silly I am! I never thought of that!”
“As they believe you to be my wife,” Lord Frome went on, “they would obviously expect your one ambition would be to supply me with a large number of healthy sons.”
He spoke quite dryly and impersonally, but Chandra to her annoyance found the colour rising in her face.
She hoped he would not notice and, as there were a number of people on the road, they were once again obliged to ride in single file so that there was no chance of any further conversation.
As they arrived back at the Residency, Chandra realised, despite the fact that she had taken very little exercise compared with the other days, she was quite tired.
“I think you should rest before dinner,” Lord Frome suggested. “Thank you for your hard work today. You will find something in your bedroom which I hope you will like and accept.”
Chandra looked at him in surprise, but there were servants all around them and she did not like to ask questions.
Instead she went up to her bedroom to find as she entered it, that there were a number of items laid out on the bed.
She looked at them in astonishment, not realising for a moment what they were. Then she saw that they were saris, exquisite Indian saris embroidered with gold and silver thread each one with a little short-sleeved blouse to match it such as Indian women wear.
Love in the Clouds Page 12
