by Rumer Godden
‘A pin stripe is a very narrow stripe, almost a thread, and a suit is said to hang well when it’s well cut.’
‘Well cut out, you mean.’
‘It looks very nice in the illustration.’
‘But is it the thing?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I do want to go about as fashionably as possible.’
‘The catalogue’s a new one, so that it’s sure to be up to date,’ she soothed him. ‘And now General –’
‘Shall I have to wear braces?’ he interrupted her.
‘Not if you don’t want to, but really, General –’
‘But I do want to,’ he broke in. ‘I’ve always wanted to. And I must have some underclothes. Here are some pictures and you see it says “Viyella is best for underwear.” I believe what it says because this is a printed catalogue so it must be true, but what is Viyella, Sister Clodagh?’
‘Really, General Rai, you must ask someone else these questions,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘In the Convent we can’t –’
‘Why, have I said anything not right?’ he asked in confusion and distress. ‘Is Viyella not a proper subject? Oh I am so sorry.’
‘No, no,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘Viyella is only a kind of flannel, but I meant that we are not suitable people to advise you on your clothes.’
‘But who is to help me if you won’t? I was depending on you. Why, already I’ve ordered a box of shirts and ties and socks, and pyjamas to be sent here to you on approval, so that you and all the Sisters could help me to choose them.’
‘You ordered them to be sent here?’ she asked faintly.
‘Yes. I thought we should have such fun choosing them. You mustn’t say you won’t help me. You see, my uncle doesn’t care for English clothes, and the only European gentleman I know is Mr Dean and he isn’t very tidy, is he? I mean he doesn’t look at all like these gentlemen in the pictures. I only know what Narayan Babu taught me and I do want to be charmingly dressed, Sister.’
‘You are charmingly dressed,’ she said, helplessly. ‘You shouldn’t change it. You look nicest as you are.’
‘But I want to wear English clothes. I want to learn to be just like they are in England. My cousin Pratap lives there in London. He has a valet and a flat and a car. It’s a Delage. My uncle would buy me a Delage if there were a road here for it to go on.’
‘General,’ she said, ‘we must start your lesson. You don’t come here to talk to me, you know. If you want to continue your lessons you must –’
‘One minute,’ he said again. ‘Sister Clodagh, you know all my ambitions. You know that I want to go away.’
She shut her eyes for a moment, and leaned her head back against her chair, bracing herself against it. She would not think of Con.
‘Please let me tell you,’ he was saying, ‘because you help me so much. There are so many things beside the lessons that I need to know.
‘There are several other ways,’ he said shyly, ‘in which I’m trying to improve myself. I have a great many books and records now and I’m learning to play golf. Do you know golf, Sister? The English think it’s a very serious game. I was going to learn a much more serious game called cricket, but you need twenty-two people and a perfectly flat place to play that, and as you know there isn’t a flat place anywhere here and I always have to play by myself. For golf you only have two, or four, and you can play quite well alone. The only thing is that it’s difficult to understand from a book. Have you ever seen golf, Sister?’
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I used to play it – once. But that was a long time ago,’ and hastily she added: ‘I’ve forgotten now.’
‘You will remember how it went as soon as you see my clubs. I sent for them from the Sports shop at Darjeeling. I’ll bring them to-morrow and you can give me a lesson.’
She began to laugh and abruptly broke off. It was Con who had said: ‘You’re getting so good, Clo, you’ll have to give me a lesson.’
To reach the Caragh course you had to drive four miles from Liniskelly over hills and marsh and bog. She had walked it back once after a full round – after a quarrel with Con.
‘Will you get in the car?’
‘No, I will not. I’d rather walk.’
‘Walk then, and when you’re tired don’t sit crying by the road, for I’ll not come for you.’
She had walked it quickly and easily, up the hill where the goats raised their heads to look at her, skirting the marsh where the flags were yellow and they were cutting peat for the early spring drying, taking to the road where the bogs were worst. Her legs were free under her short skirt, her hair was tucked under her hat and only a loose curl whipped her face and neck; the wind blew soft and damp on her face and the grass blew round her feet; she walked in angry exhilaration.
Half a mile from home she met Con and the car, come out to look for her. ‘Well, are you tired?’
‘No, thanks. Not in the least. I liked it.’
She walked on past him with long strides, her cheeks red and her eyes scornful. She heard him call and open the car door.
‘Get in. You have me beat, Clo. Get in and I’ll say I’m sorry.’
She came back with a jerk to the office where the General was patiently turning over the leaves of his catalogue, waiting for her to speak.
‘General,’ she said with an effort, ‘will you go now, and remember, when you come again, I can’t let you talk so much or I must stop your lessons.’ He stared, and she cried: ‘Really, I don’t know how I can go on having you here.’
The dark colour came up under his dark skin; he stood up at once with his books. ‘Why are you angry?’ he said. ‘I try to behave exactly as you want me to. I try to memorize everything you say. Don’t you like me to come here?’
‘You mustn’t talk so much,’ she cried. ‘Now go. Please go. I’ll make up your lesson to-morrow.’
‘Very well,’ he said, but his lips trembled. ‘Good-bye, Sister Clodagh. Thank you for helping me, and excuse me for anything I may have done wrong.’
He walked down to the stables. He shouted for his pony, but no one came; he had come out early but it should have been waiting on the drive and he thought he would walk down to the stables and catch his groom playing cards with the Convent peons.
It was cold and he wanted his coat; as the sun went down, its rays slanted higher on the hill, and as always there were shadows under the deodars; not the black winter shadows, but purple with a spring bloom on them and a crescent moon was showing in the sky. He was still smarting from Sister Clodagh’s sharpness and he did not see them; then close to him he heard screams, loud women’s screams that rang in the air. As he came out from the path under the trees, he saw a crowd of people gathered in the clearing in front of the stables.
The servants and coolies were laughing at Ayah who was beating Kanchi with a knotted rope. Her pigtails flew up and down as she flung up the rope and brought it down with a thwack on Kanchi’s shoulders; she was shrieking abuse with a great deal of side-talk to the servants, and Kanchi’s screams were the loud ringing screams that Dilip had heard from the path. She crouched on the ground, her face hidden, her veil off and her bodice torn open, and when she saw the young General she doubled her screams and watched him through her fingers; Ayah saw him out of the corner of her eye and doubled her antics too.
Then the servants saw him, and with slightly sheepish faces they moved off up to the house. He knew they were not really ashamed or they would have stayed where they were caught, dumb and expressionless; he knew there had been no malice in their laughter, nor in Ayah’s whipping, and that Kanchi’s screams were excellent showing off, but it suited him to smoulder and burn with pity in his present smarting mood, and though they were quite innocent, the servants quailed under his look and went quickly up to the house.
Ayah did not move, but smiled at him, as she panted for breath. ‘Why, it’s the little General Bahadur,’ she said.
‘What has the girl done?’ he asked, sternly.
‘She’s a thief,’
she said between breaths. ‘She stole a brass vase from the church room. A brass vase that wasn’t worth two annas, mind you, and hid it in her skirt where it goes jangle, jangle, jangle against her keys and of course I discovered it at once. When she cries they let her off, but this is my affair and she can cry all she likes and they won’t hear her. I brought her down here and whipped her without asking, once for stealing and twice for the silly way she did it.’
She looked him over again and said: ‘You look very doleful. What sort of a beating have you been getting?’ and cackled. He flushed, and she came close and put her hand on his arm. ‘There, there,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t mind your old Ayah. You’ll be a great man, my little General. Not like your uncle, oh, dear no! Like your grandfather. He was a man. Isn’t it time to put your books away, Dilip Raja, and be a man?’ She looked at Kanchi sobbing industriously at their feet, and put the rope in his hand. ‘Finish the beating, General Bahadur. I have to take the Sister Sahib’s tea. Finish the beating as you like and begin to be a man.’ Chuckling gently she went up the hill to the house.
The rope felt like a plait of hair, but hard and hairy in his hand, and his eyes went to Kanchi’s plait of hair as straight and soft as silk, tied with its red braid. It was trailing on the ground.
‘Get up,’ he said, ‘your hair is getting dusty.’
She crouched lower, sobbing into the earth, and the echo of her sobs from the ground sounded like the beating of a drum; soft and throbbing like the drums he had heard since he could remember. The sun had gone up to the garden above, the clearing was filled with the peaceful after-glow; the light that was left was strained of colour, clear and cold. Dilip’s skin shone and Kanchi’s hands and the soles of her upturned feet. He looked down at the soles of her feet and saw that she had stained the heels with red, and he saw the bright colours of her clothes and remembered how she had always tried to attract his attention.
She sobbed more softly, and then she put her hands on his feet over the Calcutta shoes and laid her cheek on them.
From her hands pressing his feet, a warmth stole up his legs and flickered along his thighs. He stood quite still, holding the rope while the warm delightful teasing stole upwards from his feet. Now Kanchi lifted her face and knelt on the ground, her waist swayed inward and her hand slid up to his knee. Now she pressed her face against him and her hands came up, smoothing, gliding, pressing. Her face was lifted to him, her skirt knot hung loosely, the buttons had burst open and he could see her bare breast.
The stable had no door; the smell of the ponies and baled grass met him as he turned, looking for a place. Almost dreamily he drew her up, his hand gently pinched the flesh of her shoulder that was firm and springing and soft.
‘Go in,’ he said, and followed her from the light to the darkness inside.
28
‘She must have run away,’ said Sister Adela in a pleased voice. ‘It’s a week since she was here.’
Sister Briony shook her head. ‘These people are very strange,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult to fathom them at all. I think she’s staying away because she stole the little vase from the chapel.’
‘But we haven’t said anything about it.’
‘I told Ayah. She must know that we know she did it. Yes, I think that’s why she’s hiding.’
‘But isn’t it very odd, that from the very same day, the young General hasn’t come for his lessons?’ asked Sister Adela. ‘Isn’t that a curious coincidence?’
‘Not at all,’ said Sister Briony, still obstinate. ‘Sister Clodagh said she had occasion to speak to him that day. He’s not at all the kind of boy who’d do anything deceitful. Doesn’t he talk quite openly to us all?’
‘He does indeed,’ said Sister Adela, ‘but I still maintain that it was asking for mischief to have him and that little minx here together.’
‘She isn’t half the minx she was when she first came,’ retorted Sister Briony. ‘She was getting to be quite clean and useful. I wish I had talked to her about that vase myself. It was silly of me. You have to be careful with these people. Mr Dean is always telling us that, and he knows them better than anyone else.’
When the girls were questioned they looked down at their fingers and smiled. Not one of them would say.
‘Perhaps she has gone away,’ said Maili helpfully.
‘Ayah, I think you know.’
‘Perhaps I do,’ said Ayah, ‘perhaps I don’t. I’m not going to say anything till I’m sure.’
‘But Ayah, don’t you understand. We’re responsible for her.’
Ayah only smiled. ‘I would like to know where she is,’ said Sister Briony.
One evening Ayah came to her in the Refectory. ‘Lemini, a woman has come with a baby.’
‘Where, Ayah?’
‘She has gone to the e’clinic to see the Smiling Lemini. She sent me to fetch you.’
‘Is the baby ill then?’
‘Lemini, the baby is ill. Don’t let the Sister take off his clothes and put him on the scales or she’ll kill him, I’m sure.’
‘What is this, Sister?’ said Sister Briony, bustling into the clinic. A woman stood by the table, holding a baby under her shawl.
‘It’s Om’s little brother,’ said Sister Honey. ‘He doesn’t seem very well.’
‘Put him on the table where I can see him,’ said Sister Briony, folding a blanket to make a pad for him to lie on.
‘He’ll cry,’ said Sister Honey, but the baby lay quietly on the blanket without moving, his eyes closed. Now and then he knit his brows and clenched his jaw as if he were worried. ‘Do you think he’s got a pain,’ asked Sister Honey. ‘Do you think that’s wind?’
Sister Briony took him gently and sat him a little up. He turned his head away from the light but still he made no sound. ‘Fetch me my thermometer,’ she said. ‘How long has he been like this?’ she asked the woman.
‘Three or four days, Lemini. To-day I couldn’t wake him.’
Sister Briony only grunted in reply as she put the thermometer under his arm. ‘His eyes seem to hurt and he doesn’t like the light, but he’s not in the least fretful, is he?’ said Sister Honey. ‘I don’t think he’s got any fever.’ She read the thermometer over Sister Briony’s shoulder. ‘A hundred and three!’ she said. ‘But that’s not much in a baby, is it? I mean they go up and down so easily, don’t they?’
Sister Briony did not answer; she began to question the mother whose eyes flickered from the Sister’s face to the baby.
‘Has he lain still like this for long?’
‘Since this morning. I couldn’t wake him. Before that he moved his head like this,’ she turned her head sharply from side to side, ‘but he isn’t asleep, Lemini!’
‘Has he vomited lately?’
‘He very often vomits a little, Lemini. Yesterday and to-day he wouldn’t take any food.’
‘She gives him too much,’ put in Sister Honey. ‘I expect that’s what is wrong. He’s been a little out of sorts for a long time. I thought it was teeth.’
Sister Briony bent over the table and turned up his coat; the muscles of his stomach seemed very retracted and rigid, and his legs were drawn up.
‘It’s probably teeth,’ said Sister Honey. ‘That tummy looks as if he ought to have a good dose. Shall we give him magnesia or some of that paraffin emulsion?’
But Sister Briony shook her head, and picked the baby gently up and gave him back to the woman.
‘You can’t wake him, Lemini?’ She looked at the rows of bottles on the shelves. ‘Give him something to wake him, Lemini. All yesterday and to-day he’s lain asleep like this.’
‘Let him sleep,’ said Sister Briony quietly and drew the shawl across him. ‘Take him home and put him on your bed and let him sleep,’ she said.
‘But aren’t you going to give him anything?’ cried Sister Honey. ‘Sister, aren’t you going to do anything for him?’
Sister Briony answered: ‘There’s nothing I can do.’
‘What
do you mean? He’s quite quiet. He hasn’t much fever. He can’t be very bad.’
‘He’s very bad. I can’t help him. I daren’t try.’
‘You mean – he might die?’
Sister Briony nodded, her lips pressed together. The woman’s eyes went from one of their faces to the other, trying to understand what they said.
‘There must be something you can do,’ cried Sister Honey. ‘At least you could bathe his eyes and relieve his tummy with a little oil. That couldn’t hurt him. You can’t risk letting that lovely baby die without raising a finger to help him.’
‘I’ve told you I daren’t touch him, Sister. I don’t think he feels any pain –’
‘You’ve only got to look at him to see how it must hurt him,’ Sister Honey burst out. ‘Look at those spasms in his face. I know what it is; you’re thinking of Mr Dean and what he said. That’s it. You’re afraid of getting into trouble and so you’ll let him die. You’ll give up his little life without a struggle. You’ll stand by and let him die.’
‘I’ve told you,’ Sister Briony’s voice was high, ‘there’s nothing I can do.’
The woman still stood, trying to make out what they said, listening intently, holding the baby under her shawl where Sister Briony had laid him. ‘Lemini, give him something.’ She hardly opened her lips, her eyes were on Sister Briony’s face. ‘Give him something.’
Sister Briony shook her head. ‘Let him sleep,’ she said again.
‘Then God in Heaven be your judge,’ said Sister Honey solemnly. ‘God have mercy on you. This little baby – this darling – and you won’t even try.’
‘That’s enough of this, Sister,’ Sister Briony’s temper snapped. ‘I know what I’m doing. I’m as sorry as can be, but she must take him home. The best and kindest thing you can do is to make her go home where she can be with her own people. Ayah can go with her. Tell her to let him sleep and persuade her to go home.’
