by Rumer Godden
‘All the same, I wonder where she’ll send Sister Clodagh when we do get down,’ said Sister Adela.
That was what Mr Dean asked her. ‘What will they do with you?’
‘I’ll be sent to another Convent with less responsibility. I’ll be superseded as Sister-in-Charge.’
‘Will you be able to stomach that, a stiff-necked, obstinate creature like you? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reminded you of that just now.’
‘It’s what I need,’ she answered. ‘I expect I’ll have to remind myself a hundred times a day. I don’t think, like the young General,’ she smiled, ‘that I’ll change in a minute. I’ll have my bhûts to remind me.’
‘Well, you’re leaving me with more than one,’ he said.
She remembered how he had broken in on them when they were washing and dressing Sister Ruth’s body in the chapel. He had looked so wild that she thought he was still drunk and she had driven him out and shut the doors behind her. ‘You can’t come in here,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you done enough already?’
He was dirty and unshaved, his face was blotched and his eyes were bloodshot; he must have slept in his clothes, but he was not drunk. He looked haggard and ill, but he was perfectly sober.
‘They only told me when they brought my tea this morning,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t the fools wake me?’
‘The fools couldn’t wake you,’ she said crisply.
‘I got drunk,’ he stared at her. ‘I’m not surprised.’
He was shivering. The wind was still cold and he had no coat; he must have come straight out of bed and ridden hard, his pony was steaming on the drive. ‘You’ll get pneumonia if you stand here,’ she said. ‘Go and sit in the office and Ayah will bring you some coffee and I’ll send the boy up to your pony. I want you to tell me what happened. We know Sister Ruth was with you yesterday. If you can wait, Sister Briony and I will come to you presently.’
Sister Briony did not want to go near him. ‘After the way he spoke to me last night!’ she said and her very skirts rustled with her perturbation. ‘Sister, how can we speak to him again?’
‘I honestly thought she was going back,’ Mr Dean said; his cup and spoon rattled in the saucer. ‘I watched her right up the hill and I’d every intention of coming after her to tell you what had happened. I did my best.’
They said nothing and he burst out: ‘Why should I have done more? Why should you expect me to? I’m not infallible. You should have kept her under control. I warned you. Damn this coffee, it won’t keep still.’
He had come back that afternoon to arrange that Pin Fong should make the coffin. He had arranged everything, and all the time he had scarcely spoken. His hat was laid on the table as he came in, he did not whistle and Sister Clodagh thought that he was as hostile as he had been on the first day she had met him. But each time Phuba saw her, he gave her a significant and reverent salaam. ‘He’s trying to show me that he, at any rate, is on our side,’ she thought. He was not one of their servants, they had done nothing to make him stand apart from his people, and she thought that his courage and approval must have come from Mr Dean. It was Phuba and his salaams that gave her confidence to talk to him with their old friendliness in spite of his hostility.
‘Have you any news of the General?’ she asked him every day, and he always answered: ‘Not yet.’
‘You said you’d give us till the rains break,’ she said one morning, looking out through the porch door to the hills. ‘It looks as if we’ll still be here when they do.’
‘They haven’t broken yet,’ he answered.
The sky was blue and smooth as silk with a few shapes of floating clouds and the valley had a dim skein of hills covered with pink from the almond groves, and the honeysuckle was out. Already the roses were almost over; the snowline had shortened on the peaks; their flanks were bare and blue. It was past the middle of June.
‘They must break soon,’ he said, and Sister Clodagh sighed. It was then that he asked her: ‘What will they do to you?’
‘I’ll be sent to another Convent,’ and as she said, ‘I’ll have my bhûts to remind me,’ there was a wistful edge to her voice that he had heard there before.
He bent his head to the case he was nailing and said gruffly: ‘Well, you’re leaving me with more than one.’
‘If only we could go now,’ she cried. ‘It’s this lingering I can’t bear. Oh, when will we be able to go?’
He stood up and looked past her. Two grooms in violet puggarees were running down the drive.
‘Here’s your answer,’ he said. ‘Here comes the General now.’
Two men with trays had been waiting since the early morning in the porch. They had not explained themselves, but now they stood up and uncovered the presents they carried. They were heavy plated trays of nuts; big and little nuts, roasted, salted and plain, and some of them were tied with tinsel. ‘Car-ry them in. Car-ry them in,’ said the General as he rode up. ‘Car-ry them in and divide them up. But the trays must be given back.’
‘Dear goodness, what are we to do with them?’ cried Sister Briony. ‘There must be bags and bags of them here. How can we take them?’
‘We must,’ said Sister Honey. ‘And we must take them away with us or he might find them in the cupboard after we’ve gone. I think he brought them to show us that he isn’t angry with us. I think it was a very touching thing for him to do.’
That was just what the General had tried to tell them, but he was so polite that it was hard to come to the point. His face was a mask over his feelings and Sister Clodagh’s heart began to beat nervously. They talked of the weather, and of course of the lateness of the rains. Then there was a silence; Colonel Pratap crossed one leg over the other and uncrossed it again, Sister Clodagh’s fingers closed on the knot of her girdle, the General looked at his hat.
‘Your Excellency,’ said Sister Clodagh, ‘I should like to tell you how sorry I am. I feel we have failed you in every way.’
That embarrassed him. ‘You must not blame yourself for it. It was too much for you. It is too much for ev-er-y-one, though I don’t un-der-stand why.
‘I have always been very bothered over this house,’ he said, ‘and I have always wanted to put it right. Why is it so important to me, can you tell me that?’ Sister Clodagh did not answer, and he did not expect her to, for he went on: ‘It is not the waste of money that makes me sad, though that is a pity, it is true, but I cannot bear this house to belong to me and be as worse as it is. Now it will be like that always. It is something that won’t come right for me, Sis-ter Clo-dagh. It was right for my Father. He would have chuckled to think that it bothered me.’
He sighed as he sat on the chair looking at the hard gold stars on the walls, his hands with their pointed nails spread on his knees, the skirt of his achkan falling in a dove-grey loop between them. He sighed, and his eyes in their slits seemed to be looking at something he wanted very much. Then he gave it up and turned to her. ‘Per-haps it will come right for Dilip,’ he said.
‘I blame myself for him too, very much,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry about the young General, Excellency.’
‘You must not mind for it, Sis-ter Clo-dagh. It was only to be ex-pec-ted. No, you must excuse me for the trouble he has caused you. He has al-ways been a trouble-some boy. Ev-er-y time I arranged any-thing for him the apple-cart was upset and noth-ing came of it. He is a sick-en-ing boy.’
There was another silence.
‘You really have to go?’ he pleaded.
‘I’m sorry, General.’
He said slowly: ‘I was glad when the Brothers came and then they went. I was more glad when you came, and now you are going too. I thought I was wise in trying la-dies, because I thought they might be more – more’ – he waved his hand – ‘and now you are not; no, not at all. I am very sad for it, Sis-ter Clo-dagh.’ After a pause he added: ‘I shall al-ways remember you, Sis-ter Clo-dagh.’
Suddenly she said, as she had said to Ayah: ‘And I have a feeling that
no one will remember. Soon you’ll have forgotten our names and who we were. Nothing of us will be left but the empty buildings and the bhût from the grave. You’ll have forgotten whose grave it is, there’ll be only a legend and a ghost.’
He was surprised at her vehemence. ‘Is it because of the young Sis-ter who died,’ he said. ‘It is because of her that you can-not bear to stay. Yes. Yes. I un-der-stand.’
‘It isn’t only that –’ she began. He waited for her to speak but she could not go on. Presently he said: ‘The Brothers would not tell me ei-ther,’ and sighed.
33
‘Is this the same place that we rested in before, do you think?’ said Sister Briony. ‘It looks exactly the same.’
It might have been the very same; they sat on their saddles resting as they had before, in the green shade of the trees. For three hours they had ridden uphill, following Jangbir who showed them the way. They rode in single file up the path with Sister Clodagh at the back, and soon after they entered the forest they passed the porters struggling Up the hill with their loads and left them far behind. Now they rested, the green light slipping over them, the sulphur butterflies flying past them through the trees, and the grooms sat round a fire that they had made and talked in whispers.
The Sisters said nothing. They had started out at eight, after a silent breakfast. None of them seemed to have anything to say as they ate; nor had they said much to the servants who had given them their quiet salaams as they watched them mount their ponies on the drive. ‘Give salaams to the Silent Lemini for me,’ Nima said to Sister Clodagh, but the others had not spoken.
Joseph had cried so much that his face was a black pulp; he clung to Sister Honey, kissing her foot as she put it in the stirrup, and she was crying too. Ayah watched them from the porch door; she stood there, her eyes watering in the wind, seeing them out; and they had the feeling that the minute they had gone, she would walk in and shut the door. Sister Clodagh thought that the shutting of that door would sound down the valley, up to the village and down to the lines, and that a sigh of relief would go up, and then the quiet would settle over it again and it would be gone for ever.
When they passed Sister Ruth’s grave they rode silently by it. They had gone there with Sister Clodagh before breakfast and had thrown away a pot of curds, that they found, into the bushes. ‘But there’ll be no one to do that when we’re gone,’ sobbed Sister Honey.
‘Mr Dean will see to it,’ Sister Briony comforted her.
But he had said to Sister Clodagh: ‘It’s better for you to go and try and not to remember it. No one can stop them from doing their poojah to the grave.’
He had not come to see them off but had come up to them the night before. He had said an abrupt good-bye, and then turned back reluctantly and asked if there were anything else he could do to help them.
‘There is one thing,’ said Sister Clodagh. ‘It’s a thing I know you would rather not do.’
‘I’ll do it,’ he said at once, without asking what it was that she wanted.
‘Will you take care of the grave?’
He looked away from her and down at his hat, the old Feltie she knew so well. ‘I’ll try,’ he said, and it was then he added: ‘But it’s best for you to go and try not to remember it. No one can stop them doing their poojah to the grave. I’ll try all the same.’ Then he said again: ‘Good-bye, Sister Clodagh,’ and went out to his pony.
That was the last sight she had of him, as he rode away sitting loosely in his saddle, his legs dangling, his shirt tails and his hat brim flapping against the summer sky, and Phuba running beside him at a steady jog trot, his pig-tail slapping his thighs as he ran.
There was no sign of Mr Dean that morning, but at the turn of the path was Phuba, and he had in his hand five compressed little buttonholes of flowers. The smell of them mingled with the smell of his dirty coat-sleeve as he gave one to each of them, but they were touched and smiled as they took them. ‘Goodbye, Phuba. Salaam. Salaam,’ they called, but he only grunted and stood back from the path to let them go by.
They did not take the short cut because Sister Briony was nervous of the ponies falling on the steps; they rode out through the gate posts and turned back to join the path again. As they turned they saw the house and terrace, the tea slopes and the valley and the River spread out below them. In the haze they looked already far away and the gulf seemed wide and spaceless, separating them from the hills.
‘I wish we could have seen the snows,’ said Sister Honey. ‘They should have shown themselves for us this last time.’
There was no hint of them in the heavy line of clouds. Sister Clodagh’s eyes went from one to another where the peaks were hidden, saying their names; when she came to the mountain Kanchenjunga she hesitated and stopped. Abruptly she turned her pony on the path.
At the top of the hill the Sunnyasi was sitting under his deodar tree.
‘I don’t believe he’s moved since we were here,’ said Sister Honey. ‘I don’t believe he’s stirred. It’s hardly human, is it?’
But they noticed that his disciples had spread sacks on the branches over his head, and someone had ingeniously tied an umbrella to a tripod of bamboos above his fire.
‘He’s all ready for the rain,’ sniffed Sister Briony. ‘It’s wonderful how they can bother with him. What good is he to them?’
They rode past him into the forest. ‘Seeing him like that,’ said Sister Honey, ‘makes you feel that it’s not a moment since we all rode down the hill.’ She sighed. ‘And it’s nearly a year.’
Now Jangbir came to them from the fire and said: ‘The General Bahadur said you were to have some tea. He sends the tea with many many salaams.’
One of the grooms carried the tray and put it down on the ground in front of them. ‘It’s exactly the same as we had before,’ cried Sister Honey. ‘I’ve never forgotten those cups. Do you remember, Sister Ruth told us they were jade? She was always so clever about everything.’
She began to cry again. ‘Sister, you’re not to cry again.’ But the sight of the cups was too much for her. It was not for Sister Ruth that she cried. She had only to shut her eyes and she could feel the little hands pulling her and the voices that cried, ‘Come, Lemini. Come.’
They did not talk. Each one of them was closed in her thoughts. Sister Adela’s face was intent and avid, as if she were picking over her impressions of the last few days, examining them and holding them up to the light; and from time to time she looked from one to another of the Sisters as if she were holding an examination of them too. Sister Briony’s face wore a look of regretful sadness; then her lips moved and presently she took out her keys and counted them. ‘Sister,’ she said. ‘Do you remember if I took out the key of the little black box? The one with the packets of tea for Reverend Mother. It was under that roll of blankets. I can’t think I could have been so careless – Ah, here it is. I thought I couldn’t have been so forgetful.’
The groom brought round a plate of cakes; he handed one to each of them between his finger and thumb which he had wiped on a leaf, and put the plate down beside the tray. ‘Have your tea,’ he said kindly, and held the cups out to them.
Sister Adela said: ‘What a ridiculous idea to have cups with no handles. You do nothing but burn your fingers.’
‘They are meant for wine,’ said Sister Clodagh, and Sister Adela sniffed.
‘Well, the tea is quite good,’ Sister Briony answered her. ‘It was kind of the General to send it, particularly when you think of all the money he’s wasted on us.’
Sister Clodagh sat with her tea in her hand, crumbling her cake. She was thinking of the road that went back and back the way they had come; through the forest and past the Sunnyasi, down the steps where the women had sat chattering and smoking their cigarettes and the coolies rested their baskets on the stones. There was Sister Ruth’s grave under the tree; the people were afraid to pass under it down the empty drive to the porch. She thought of how the General had come there yesterday w
ith his trays of tinselled nuts. Afterwards, as he mounted his pony to ride back to Canna Villa he had said: ‘I shall not come here any more, Sis-ter Clo-dagh. It is good-bye for me too. I shall not come back again.’
The house was empty now; the corridors and rooms empty and silent except for the creaking and straining in the wind. Ayah could bawl as loudly as she wanted from the kitchen, and let her cooking smell in the rooms and bounce in at any door without knocking. The servants would have gone back to their homes and soon they would forget the Leminis except in tales to tell their children. In the village they would be glad and their lives would close over them, and this time they would be undisturbed to sleep and eat and work a little in the tea and orange groves, to drink on feast days and laugh and quarrel and go to market, to marry and get children and, when their time came, to die. The children would forget that they had ever been to school, except in some dark dream at the bottom of their minds; Samya and Maili and Jokiephul might remember that they had once made lace, but that was a long time ago; Sister Honey had packed the small red pillows in the work-box with their patterns still spread out unfinished between the bobbins.
She thought how Kanchi had been brought to them by Mr Dean. Little ripe sly Kanchi; last night her box and umbrella had been sent up to the General’s house, but the money bag had gone to her uncle who had come and demanded it back.
Those yellow butterflies were the colour of the feathers in Mr Dean’s hat. ‘Are they from birds you’ve shot yourself?’
She turned the cup in her fingers. He was sitting on his verandah and with him were his dogs, his cockatoos, a mongoose, three cats and a monkey. All the trite phrases fitted him; blue eyes, chestnut dark hair, charming face; his skin was brown and smooth and his lips red like the Irish children she used to play with long ago.
That was when the first thought of Ireland had come to her; from Mr Dean. The road went on down below the terrace to the River where the young General Dilip Rai had gone, where she had dreamed of him and Con. Con was so white for a man, Dilip was dusky black, yet she had dreamed of them in one.
