Black Narcissus

by Rumer Godden

  ‘Steady, steady, steady!’ he said.

  She stopped and looked at him wonderingly. ‘But that’s what I say to myself. That’s what I say, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ he said.

  ‘You understand. You do understand,’ she said, holding him. ‘I have to say it. Things run away with me, but that’s all. You understand?’

  ‘Of course I understand,’ he said, heartily, backing a little away from her. ‘Now listen. You go back and I’ll come up with you and explain everything to Sister Clodagh.’

  ‘You’ll take me away? Promise. You’ll take me with you?’

  ‘I promise I’ll get you away.’

  ‘You do understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  She searched his face and turned away. ‘You’re only saying it,’ she said in despair.

  He was silent, and then he said: ‘I’ll come up with you, Sister, and explain.’

  She turned her back on him and went to the door, looking at the path that went up in the sunlight and down at the River rolling by the orange trees below.

  ‘No, let me go alone,’ she said. For a moment she waited in the doorway and then went out and up the path.

  After she had gone he sank into the chair and wiped his head and face with his handkerchief, and with shaking fingers lit his pipe. He bridled his pony and set out by the long River way to avoid passing her. Several times he stopped to watch her black figure with the dot of veil toiling up the path, until he was satisfied that she was going home.

  He had meant to go up to the Convent at a gallop to warn Sister Clodagh, but he had to pass his own house first, and he was aching for a drink. He felt shocked with a feeling of repulsion mixed with a pity that he could not forget and he was a little disgusted with himself. He had done the easiest thing; he felt cheap and more than a little false. The more he felt that, the angrier he grew with Sister Clodagh.

  His pony stopped by itself at his gate, the monkey chattered a welcome and the dogs stood up wagging and yawning. ‘I damned well will have a drink first,’ he said, throwing the reins on the pony’s neck.

  The more he drank the angrier he grew. That was fine. He wanted to be more angry than he had ever been in his life, before he went up and saw Sister Clodagh. He wanted to be so angry that this disgust of himself, that he could not help feeling, would be drowned.

  Angrier ’n’ angrier ’n’ angrier.

  By nightfall he was very drunk indeed.

  31

  ‘Ayah,’ said Sister Clodagh, ‘you’re not to say a word of this to the other servants.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Ayah. ‘I’ll keep it absolutely secret, and anyhow they all know.’

  ‘To think this had to happen now,’ said Sister Briony. ‘Just now, on top of everything else.’ She avoided Sister Clodagh’s eye and with a burning face she said: ‘You remember the things she said. You don’t think she could have gone – after Mr Dean?’

  ‘She was in the mood to do anything.’

  ‘We mustn’t forget she’s mad.’ Sister Briony twisted her hands. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing. We mustn’t lose sight of that.’

  ‘Sister,’ said Sister Clodagh, ‘you can’t ride down these hills as I can. I’m going to take Love and go down to the factory.’

  ‘Go down there! You might meet coolies or anyone.’

  ‘She may be there. Will you, meanwhile, go across to Mr Dean’s bungalow?’

  ‘A-alone?’

  ‘You can take Sister Adela if you like, but I’d rather you didn’t. For one thing, if we all go we’ll be missed, and then there’ll be a hubbub, and you know how she reacts to Mr Dean. You can take Ayah.’

  ‘Dear goodness!’ Sister Briony twisted her hands more fiercely. ‘If she’s there, what am I to do? What am I to say?’

  ‘He’ll help you, I’m sure. He’s got no love for Sister Ruth.’

  ‘He’s got a terrible reputation,’ wailed Sister Briony. Then she stopped and said: ‘He’s never shown it to us though, has he, now I come to think of it? He’s always been very kind and sensible to me, and if I hadn’t known about him, I should have called him a really good man though he’s certainly unusual. A regular Boheemian, isn’t he, Sister?’

  ‘Bohemian,’ said Sister Clodagh absently.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Then you’re not afraid to go?’

  ‘I’ll go. But I can’t get over this. I thought Sister Ruth was neurotic but I never dreamed of this. I blame myself for not having seen, I seem to have been so busy lately. Things have been too easy and pleasant for her here.’ She paused and said: ‘It’s odd I should say that, because lately I thought you were almost too severe with her.’

  ‘I wasn’t severe enough.’

  ‘But you were,’ cried Sister Briony. ‘Sometimes I felt you were driving her –’ She broke off distressed. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have said that to you now. I only meant that you seemed to have a peculiar effect on her and I think you should be careful when we find her. It’s not your fault, they should only have given you tried Sisters for this outlandish place. Sisters whom you could trust in everything.’

  ‘Isn’t there always one thing for each of us, when we can’t trust even ourselves?’ answered Sister Clodagh bitterly. ‘Now hurry, Sister. Take care that no one sees you go. I’m going to ring the bell for Vespers and I shall give out that you are in the infirmary with Sister Ruth.’

  It was getting dark. There was no sign of anyone on the path as she rang the bell, but there was a light in the factory. After Vespers she went to the stables and ordered Love to be saddled. She walked down the path in the dusk with Jangbir leading the pony after her; every few minutes they stopped and called into the shadows, the pony lifting its head looking this way and that after their voices. When they reached the factory Jangbir went in, while she waited by the door. Love cropped the grass; there was no other sound but an occasional tread or a voice from inside.

  ‘No one’s there,’ said Jangbir, ‘but the watchmen and some women; they say the Young Lemini was here this afternoon with Dean Sahib.’

  ‘Then he has taken her back. We shall find them at the house, I expect.’ Sick with relief she mounted Love and cantered back up the hill with Jangbir holding on to the pony’s tail. She stopped at the stables and walked up to the house.

  There was no one there but Sister Honey and Sister Adela.

  ‘We were wondering where you were,’ said Sister Honey. ‘Supper’s ready. Where’s Sister Briony?’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll like to leave Sister Ruth,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘I’ll take a tray in to her afterwards. I’ll go and see. You can start.’

  Sister Briony was waiting in the office, her cloak huddled round her; her face, when she turned it to Sister Clodagh, was shocked and grey.

  ‘Well?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Sister, I – I think he was drunk.’

  ‘But what did he say?’

  ‘He was sitting on his verandah. He had whisky, there was a horrible smell of it and he looked so funny. She wasn’t there and he wouldn’t tell me if he’d seen her. He – he asked me to have a drink,’ said Sister Briony with a rush of horror.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I told him we were searching for her, and he – he tipped his chair back and waved his hand and said: “Search away. Don’t mind me”.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘The rooms were open, but I thought I’d better. I told him I didn’t want to search but I thought it my duty to, and he laughed. Then I said that if he were a gentleman he’d help me look for her, and I – I can’t tell you what he said then.’ She drew a hurt shocked breath. ‘Never in all my days, Sister!’

  ‘I’ll bring you a tray of supper to the infirmary,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten and I’ll tell them to make you a cup of tea for once. We can say it’s for Sister Ruth. After Compline we�
��ll organize a search.’

  ‘Not till after Compline? Sister, suppose she’s down by the River; there are bears and leopards there.’

  ‘We have to get men and lights and you must rest. That will give the others time to – get to bed. You’ll join us in chapel, Sister.’

  ‘Jangbir, you must get men and lights.’

  ‘If I can get them, Lemini.’

  They were talking in the shadows beyond the chapel.

  ‘Of course you can get them.’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ said Jangbir. ‘The Lemini knows,’ he said, turning his head aside and speaking into the ground, ‘that the people don’t like to come here lately.’

  ‘We must get them,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘We have Nima and Toukay and the two house boys and the stable boy. Have the garden coolies gone?’

  ‘At sunset, Lemini.’

  ‘That’s not enough then. We must get more.’

  ‘We must go to Dean Sahib.’

  ‘I don’t –’ began Sister Clodagh, then she said ‘Go at once, Jangbir. If – if Dean Sahib is out get Phuba and tell him to bring men.’

  Just before nine o’clock Jangbir knocked at the office window. ‘Did you get anyone?’

  ‘Phuba is here and his brother.’ Phuba salaamed from the path. ‘Dean Sahib is –’

  ‘The Sahib is ill,’ said Phuba in his deep voice. ‘He shivers like this, and his head is going round and his stomach is full of pain and he has terrible fever. I have put him flat on the bed and covered him with all his blankets. My brother and I will come with you to search for the Snake-faced Lemini.’

  ‘That makes eight men,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘That’s not enough. Jangbir, are you sure the men won’t come? Not if you offer them double baksheesh?’

  They conferred together on the path, then Jangbir came back to the window and said: ‘We could ask the young General. He might make them come, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘No,’ said Sister Clodagh at once, ‘that’s out of the question. We must go as we are. Ayah and Sister Briony must keep watch from the house and keep the fires in. We’ll start after our Church is finished.’

  Sister Clodagh attended to the chapel herself that night. She closed the windows and snuffed the candles, cutting off the wax drops that had fallen down their sides and pressing them into the candle head so that nothing would be wasted, and turned up the carpets for to-morrow’s sweeping. Then realizing that she was only putting off the moment when she would have to go out into the darkness, she knelt down for a minute, and then picked up her cloak and went out. Sister Briony was waiting outside.

  ‘You and Ayah will watch here. I’ll go with the men. If she comes back ring the bell, very softly.’

  ‘Don’t you think Sister Adela should go with you?’

  ‘Let’s keep it to as few as possible, while we can.’

  Sister Briony watched the lights going up the drive; the men carried flaring wood torches and lanterns; they went first above the house to the forest. ‘We’ll begin here and work downwards,’ said Jangbir.

  Phuba’s young brother went ahead, bending low on the ground looking for signs on the path. On the fringes of the forest by a fire that streamed up into the branches sat the Sunnyasi. Even at the sudden invasion of men and lights he did not move; the men stopped to face him respectfully.

  ‘Ask him if he’s seen her?’

  ‘Oh no, Lemini. We couldn’t do that.’

  ‘But, Jangbir, the Young Lemini may have hurt herself. Anything may have happened to her.’

  Jangbir looked embarrassed, ‘That would be a very little thing to him, Lemini. He wouldn’t notice it.’

  Far into the night the torches went backwards and forwards across the hill, down the short cut to the factory and down the long path to the River. Sister Clodagh had not been that way before; it was the way the procession had gone last autumn with the young General walking behind it. At the thought of him, her face hardened.

  She thought then that he was to blame for it all; that if she had never seen him or let him in, this would not have happened. He was the beginning of it all, he had put these fantastic ideas into the Sisters’ heads and had made them think that anything could happen. ‘Look what you did to me,’ she thought. ‘If it hadn’t been for you and your people I should never have thought of Con. You bewitched us all and I wish I had never set eyes on you.’

  They were down by the River; they could hear it running in the darkness. The eight days’ moon was hidden by clouds and they could not see the water except where the torches shone down the bank. They were deafened by it; they could not hear their own footsteps and their shouts were thrown back to them. It was easy to believe in Sister Briony’s bears and leopards creeping up behind under the sound of the rushing water. ‘If she went in here,’ said Jangbir, ‘we shall never get her. The currents would sweep her under and hold her for days.’

  In the darkness Sister Clodagh was sick with dread. The River ran close by the factory. They had said that Sister Ruth had been there that afternoon. She would have heard it below her, running quickly to forgetfulness under the orange trees.

  Sister Clodagh felt turned to ice as she stood there while the men went down the banks between the trees, casting the light of their torches over the water. Her hands and feet were ice cold, her wimple was pressing its band round her face, and her teeth were chattering.

  What was the use of blaming Dilip Rai? Now she saw clearly that no one was to blame but herself. ‘You’re not the sort of person who’ll admit you’re wrong. Go before something happens. What can happen now I’m on my guard?’ She had deliberately stayed; and now the men were searching the River for Sister Ruth, the people stayed sullenly away from the Convent; Kanchi had gone, Dilip Rai had gone – even Mr Dean had failed them when they most wanted his help.

  They went along the bank to the ford and she followed them; then they separated round the factory and turned up the hill. It was dark; the tea and the trees seemed breathing in the darkness, when they stopped to listen they could only hear that breathing, a sighing in the tea and their calls came back to them a dead echo.

  Now the men went through the tea, making a cordon across the hill, throwing their torchlight low on the ground. There were cries and a leap of hope when an animal that had hidden there ran out. To the left they shouted that it was a leopard, but Nima saw it and called out that it was only a wild cat.

  At the foot of the buttresses they paused, while the men came straggling in. They had seen nothing. It was two o’clock.

  ‘In two or three hours it will be light,’ said Jangbir. ‘We’ll come back then. We can’t do any more now. We must wait till daylight.’

  She had to agree, though she was appalled by the thought of day, when the light would come and nothing could be hidden. ‘In four hours it will be daylight, we have four hours left.’

  She told Sister Briony to go to bed. ‘I’ll keep watch. Someone must watch.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you let me stay?’ said Sister Briony with an effort. ‘Instead of you. I mean if she saw me alone, she might come to me more easily than to you, poor child.’ Her voice broke; with a clumsy futile gesture, she turned away. ‘It’s so terrible when there’s nothing we can do.’

  From two to four, the hours faded slowly for Sister Clodagh. She could not bear to think of herself picked out on the hill by the lantern’s light, and she put it away on the terrace and sat down on the horse-block to wait. Watching and straining her eyes, she was afraid. She was afraid of the dark and the wind that sounded like a voice, and the sense of something lurking and hiding behind her back and watching her. Sometimes she stood up suddenly, her heart beating, ready to fly to Sister Briony or down to the men’s quarters, but she forced herself to sit down again and wait.

  Towards four o’clock the dew fell, and she smelled a gust of sweetness from the roses and a paleness showed in the sky to the East. It was cold; the wetness was cold on her hands and she felt the skirt of her habit dragging round h
er ankles, and she had to go into the porch. The light spread, there were long lines of cloud in the sky and presently above them the outline of the snow peaks appeared, cold and hard as if they were made of iron; they turned from black to grey, to white, while the hills were still in darkness.

  Then the forest came, mysteriously dark out of darkness, and the light moved down, turning the trees dark blue and green, and the terrace was full of a swimming light that was colourless and confusing. The sky had no colour, the earth was coloured only with dim toneless colour, swimming and indistinct. Then she looked up and saw that the Himalayas were showing in their full range, and were coloured in ash and orange and precious Chinese pink, deeper in the east, paler in the west.

  The people called it ‘the flowering of the snows’; and she thought that it was true, the mountain looked as if it flowered, stained with brilliant flowery pink; the spring of pink, of hill crocuses and almond trees and girlish cotton clothes. It seemed to come nearer, to spill across the valley and the terrace, to her feet.

  It was light. Joseph came up to the house, gingerly skirting the bamboos as if he thought he might be pounced on, his eyes rolling as he passed under the trees as if he thought Sister Ruth might drop on him there; he jumped nearly out of his skin when he saw Sister Clodagh.

  ‘Put out the lantern,’ she said. ‘Tell Ayah to wake Sister Briony and tell her I’m in the chapel. It’s morning.’

  ‘It’s morning, Lemini,’ he agreed. ‘Auntie’s watch says it’s nearly five.’

  More than ever in the chapel she thought someone was watching her. She looked up sharply, but there was no one. Twice she got up from her knees and went to the door. She felt sincerely now that she could have prayed, but she could not settle. ‘I’m tired and jumpy,’ she told herself. Then she could have sworn she heard a noise, a drag like a wet skirt on the floor, but the room was empty.