by Isobel Chace
“I don’t suppose we shall see much of each other—ever,” she said simply.
On the train that night I simply could not get to sleep. The air-conditioned compartment had been speedily and easily converted into a sleeping cabin.
It was a long time since I had slept on a train and I was terribly conscious of the rhythm of the engine and the wheels: I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, all the way up the hills and the triumphant I-knew-I-could, all the way down again. Then I started to worry about the dam and whether I had acquitted myself well enough to please Gideon. That mattered a great deal because somehow I couldn’t get away from the idea that he had trusted me to do something for him. Joe had to be explained away, of course. With a sinking feeling that was more a premonition of failure, I couldn’t help remembering how Joseph had neglected to get my jeep ready when I had first arrived and how Gideon had frowned on him. I didn’t want to incur the same displeasure myself, and yet how was I going to avoid it? I lay and shivered at the thought. Then I realized that my sheet had slipped and that the air-conditioning was blowing straight in on me and was making me cold, so I hunched myself up under the sheet and worried some more.
It was just after midnight when I began to worry about Julie. I thought about her parents and the place where she lived, and I thought about the way her friends had treated her at the Red Fort in Delhi. One thing was quite clear and that was that she wasn’t nearly good enough for Gideon.
Gideon, Gideon, Gideon, went the wheel of the train, and I became sleepy at the repetition of his name. By the time I awoke the rhythm had changed.
“I love Gideon, I love Gideon,” I muttered to myself, and was promptly wide awake again. I glanced at my watch in the first light of dawn and was glad to see that it was time to get up. In half an hour we would be pulling into the station.
There was no one to meet us, but my jeep was parked in the station yard where I left it. Joseph and I climbed into it in silence. I pressed the button and in silence we started for home, back to the research station.
CHAPTER NINE
“Miss King!”
That’s torn it, I thought. I stuck my head around the door of Gideon’s room.
“Did you want me?” I said.
He was lying in bed looking both rumpled and angry. I would have offered to tidy the bed for him, but I shied away from the look in his eyes.
“Yes?” I prompted him.
“I suppose one has to expect disadvantages when one employs females,” he began repressively. “But really! Whatever induced you to kidnap Joseph? I’ll bet he was a lot of help to you!”
I frowned. I was going to have to pick my way carefully through this conversation if both Joseph and I were not to come to grief.
“I think he felt sorry for me,” I began hesitantly.
Gideon laughed sourly.
“I’ll believe that when I hear his side of it,” he retorted grumpily. “Did you get all the things you need?”
I launched into an enthusiastic report. I told him about the shops we had been to and the difficulties we had encountered in finding suppliers for the machinery.
“But you still feel you can manage?” Gideon asked.
I nodded. “Really we can,” I assured him. “Most of the digging can be done by hand. It seems the long way around, but actually I think we’ll get it done quicker that way.”
“Very likely,” he agreed. He paused. “You realize I won’t be much help to you while I’m stuck with this leg, don’t you?”
I tried to tell him how sorry I was, but he cut me short. He had had enough slushy sympathy from all and sundry without my adding to it, he told me harshly.
“I hadn’t realized that I was being sloppy!” I exclaimed crossly. His eyes met mine and his expression softened a little.
“Oh, damn,” he said. “You know quite well what I mean!”
I grinned discreetly, but he knew the way to take the wind completely out of my sails and basely he asked me, “You look so pleased with yourself this morning that I suppose you’ve heard from that boyfriend of yours?”
The smile died on my face.
“What do you mean?” I asked hoarsely.
“The fellow in America,” he reminded me.
“Timothy?” I cleared my throat, wondering desperately how it was that I could hardly remember Timothy’s face.
Gideon’s eyes twinkled. “Do you know so many people in the States?” he asked.
“N-no,” I admitted. “But I hadn’t been thinking about Timothy, you see. In fact I haven’t had a letter from him since I came to India.”
Gideon eased himself into a more comfortable position on the bed.
“Didn’t he approve of your coming here?”
I shook my head.
“It wasn’t that,” I explained. “In fact he suggested that I should come. But since I’ve been here. I’ve hardly had time to write to him, and I suppose that makes a difference.”
He gave me a long, hard look.
“I suppose it could,” he agreed. I noted the careful change in wording and blushed. I didn’t want him to think that I had done all the running as far as Timothy was concerned.
“He—he won’t have much to say about his work, you see,” I rushed into speech. “He knows that I don’t understand much about what he’s doing.”
Gideon looked thoughtful. “And he doesn’t understand anything about you at all?” he suggested mildly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that! He was always very kind!” I insisted. “I should never have passed my exams if he hadn’t coached me and taken an interest.”
“Which hardly makes you the love of his life,” Gideon went on firmly. “Why don’t you write to him and break off that disastrous arrangement you made?”
“It was a very vague arrangement,” I said with a laugh. “But I guess I must be the faithful type!”
Gideon snorted. “How you love your illusions!”
I was hurt and showed it.
“Don’t you think I can be loyal?” I demanded.
“I wasn’t questioning that,” he scoffed. “What I wonder is if you really know your own mind. And that I seriously doubt!”
I was furiously angry.
“I am over twenty-one!” I informed him haughtily.
But he only laughed. “Go on, get out and go and make your arrangements. I want to have my man servant make me a little more comfortable!”
“Couldn’t I help you before I go?” I asked, immediately solicitous.
“No, you cannot!” he retorted. “You’d like messing about far too much for my comfort!”
“Oh, indeed?” I said coldly. “Then be uncomfortable. I don’t care! I don’t have to sleep in that bird’s nest!”
His eyes lit with amusement.
“And aren’t you glad?” he teased me.
But it wasn’t the sort of teasing I was in the mood for, so I beat a hasty retreat.
Later, I happened to be passing Gideon’s door while he was talking to Joseph about his trip to Delhi. It was a very different kind of interview and I couldn’t help wondering why I had been let off so lightly.
It was a moment of great pride when I stood on the edge of the wheat field and flung the first spadeful of earth into the wheelbarrow. The dam project had begun. A variety of Indian labour had come from far and wide to dig the reservoirs, some of them, to my great satisfaction, had actually been sent by their own villages to see how it was done. Joseph suggested that I make a speech, but I was too full of emotion to say anything. Instead, I sat on the bank and allowed myself to dream of its future glory. The first of the monsoon rains were not far away and then we should see the waters swell and slowly gather into the two tanks, offering undreamed-of crops in the future. I hugged the knowledge to myself with glee. Whatever I suffered personally when the time came for me to leave India, at least I would leave something behind me that was worthwhile and lasting.
The panchayat stood in solemn assembly on the opposite bank worrying about the
costs and their own disbelief that a slip of a girl could organize anything on a grand scale. From my side of the stream I could afford to smile and wave. To my surprise, and with tremendous dignity, they responded with a bow and waved back. “Look at them! As proud as peacocks!” Joseph scoffed. “They have something to be proud about!” I retorted crossly. I was becoming rather fond of this group of stiff-necked old men despite myself.
“It wasn’t their idea!”
“No,” I agreed, “but they allowed it to happen. That’s quite something in itself!”
Joe shook his head. “They’ve got you thinking in terms of symbolic action too!”
“Maybe,” I laughed. “But this symbol represents better things to come. You just wait and see.”
Joseph shrugged, visibly depressed.
“If I’m here long enough,” he grunted. “The great white chief is after my hide after my going to Delhi with you.”
I was sympathetic, but I couldn’t pretend to be surprised. “Well, you did ask for it, didn’t you?”
The hint of weakness in his face was exaggerated by the anger that burned up within him.
“He should never have sent you on your own in the first place! It was an iniquitous thing to do!”
I leaped to Gideon’s defence, feeling decidedly ruffled.
“How can you say that?” I gave him a rather sharp glance. “Who did all the arranging, anyway?”
It wasn’t particularly kind, I suppose, and he flushed angrily. “It still wasn’t right that you should go on your own,” he persisted. “I told him so, too!”
“And what did he say?” I asked curiously. I had heard enough of the two men’s conversation to know that words were spoken in anger, but I hadn’t been able to hear what they had actually said. Joseph shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I’d better not tell you,” he rumbled. “Not that I agree with a word he said, but I don’t suppose he meant me to repeat it all to you.”
“Perhaps not,” I said stiffly, “as it was obviously something unpleasant!”
He flushed. “I didn’t say that!” he denied indignantly. “As a matter of fact it wasn’t anything against you at all. It was me he was angry with!”
I said no more, but I was now well aware of the danger signals being up between the two men. And I had no doubt as to who was right. Gideon was a fair man and not given to being carried away by his emotions as Joseph often was.
It was something of a relief when one or two of the old men summoned me to join them on their side of the stream. Joseph showed no signs of coming with me, and I was glad, though I was slightly ashamed of that fact because he had difficulty in getting on with them recently. He considered them reactionary and they considered him brash. There was something to be said for both opinions.
“Are you sure it will be ready before the rains?” the old men asked me anxiously.
I assumed a confidence I was far from feeling.
“Oh yes!” I said. “It will be a terrific amount of work because the ground is so hard, but everybody is very willing. We shall do it all right.”
The leader of the panchayat, a very old man with flowing white hair, smiled and said, “Who would have believed that a woman could speak with such confidence?” he scoffed gently. “Nevertheless, the Sahib says you are to be trusted and will make great things come to pass in our village. This evening we shall honor the gods and gain their favor as the women have been doing all day.”
I thanked him warmly, secretly thrilled that Gideon should have shown such trust in me. I left him, glowing with pleasure, just in time to see Gideon arriving in the passenger seat of his jeep that was driven by the Swami.
I ran toward them, waving as I went. Their unexpected presence was reassuring and it was with great restraint that I refrained from throwing my arms around Gideon’s neck.
“How lovely!” I exclaimed as I drew up to them. “I didn’t think there was any way for you to come here.”
Gideon smiled at the Swami. “He brought me,” he said. “He knew I wouldn’t want to miss the great event! How’s it going?”
“The ground is hard,” I said.
Gideon grunted. “We’ll see about that!” he promised. Somehow he managed to get down to where the men were working and in a few seconds he had them organized into gangs and really putting their backs into moving the earth. The Swami and I stood and watched.
“I do hope he doesn’t hurt himself,” I remarked, unable to keep my anxiety to myself any longer. “He’s a grand man, isn’t he?” The Swami smiled his consent.
“He is my friend,” he said.
Something in his smile made me wonder if I had been too effusive and had somehow given myself away—though what was there to give away beyond the fact that I liked and admired Gideon and was glad to be working for him? I refused to think about anything else. And I was wise enough to know the ways that led to heartbreak and despair, even if I wasn’t wise enough to know that those ways can’t always be avoided.
“Where is the other young English lady?” the Swami asked me, uncannily mirroring my own thoughts.
“Julie? She’s in Delhi,” I answered briefly.
The Swami swept his orange robe more closely around his shoulders.
“She is not the one for Gideon,” he said decisively. “It would be a pity if he fell into the trap of thinking that she were. One needs compassion, but not for one’s wife.”
Of course, I reminded myself, the Swami was a wise man and accustomed to making prophetic utterances and interfering in other people’s affairs, but I was still shy of him and not at all inclined to ask his advice.
He turned to face me. “It is a good task you have set yourself here. India has great need of such ideas and such people.” Then he was gone, running down the slope to where the men were working, exchanging a word with this one and patting another one on his shoulder. When he reached Gideon’s side he said nothing at all, but offered his shoulder as an extra crutch and tenderly helped him back into the jeep.
That evening the whole village was astir. Lights, kept going with little more than a dab of oil, lit up the hot, dusty streets, transforming them into a fairy paradise. Now and again fireworks lit up the sky. The village had decided to hold a feast, to appease the local household gods, and to have a lovely excuse for dousing each other with water and colored dyes, a ceremony usually reserved for later in the year.
I wandered down the main shopping street looking at the sights. The statue of the local goddess, patronized mostly by expectant mothers, was covered by colored streamers and garlands of marigolds lay at her feet. It was a very pretty sight.
Seeing me on my own, Lakshmi came over and stood by my side. “Are you enjoying the festival?” she asked me. “Why isn’t the Sahib with you?”
I laughed.
“The Sahib is having trouble carrying his leg around with him!” I told her. “But aren’t the lights pretty? And why are all the flowers marigolds?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“They are always marigolds. When we greet visitors we place garlands of marigolds around their necks; when we visit Ghandiji’s memorial place we drop marigolds on the ground. In a way they are the national flower of India.”
I accepted her explanation because the flowers did seem to suit India. Their color was brash and effective and the marigold was a common flower, easily grown and without the distinction of a sophisticated perfume to please the more jaded palate. A quieter bloom would droop in the hot sun or be unable to withstand the long days of pelting rain in the monsoon season. It would, therefore, never summon up the spice and will for survival that was all I knew of Mother India.
“I see,” I said. “No one gave me a garland of marigolds when I arrived!”
Lakshmi giggled.
“When the dam is finished they’ll give you hundreds!” she promised rashly. “The crops will grow and we’ll be the richest village for miles around. We are all very pleased and proud. I am especially proud, of cou
rse!”
“Oh, why?” I asked.
She gave me a sidelong glance that was at once shy and teasing.
“Because it is I who serve you, why else?” she commented. Another rocket streaked through the black sky and fell practically at our feet, causing us both to laugh. “That is nothing yet!” she assured me. “You wait until later when we really get going!”
“Lakshmi—” I began, and then stopped. After all, the question I wanted to ask her was personal and she might very well resent it.
“You want to ask something?” she prompted me.
“Well, yes,” I said. “Why don’t you go to one of the cities? You speak English so well. I’m sure you could make more money!”
“I have little need of money,” she said. “Compared to my friends I am rich, and soon, when I marry, my home will be near here. Why should I go away?”
My interest was immediately caught.
“But who are you going to marry?” I asked, intrigued.
She laughed again, shrugging her shoulders a little.
“I do not know yet. My family are still considering the matter. All I know is that it is time for me to marry and that the money I earn will make me a fine dowry.”
