by Isobel Chace
I felt sharply that she would never fall in love and never know the agony of indecision that I was going through. It seemed unfair somehow, for the glory of the occasional moment far outweighed the morose sorrow of knowing that Gideon would never fall in love with me.
“But don’t you want to choose your own husband?” I asked her.
“Sometimes,” she agreed lightly, “and sometimes not. The old ways are better when you have a good family and they are kind to you. I will have many years in which to fall in love with my husband.”
Another sparkler roared through the sky and fell over Lakshmi’s sister’s house. It made me think of the poverty of that family and I could hardly bear the thought of Lakshmi being destined for the same sort of existence. As if she had read my thoughts, she smiled at me.
“Don’t worry, I am what you would call in your country a ‘good’ catch.’ My family have worked very hard so that I shall marry well!”
“Marry well, yes!” I couldn’t help arguing. “But what about marrying happily?”
Lakshmi was confused by the very idea and hung her head, only cheering up when I suggested that we go back to the main bungalow for dinner before the festival really got under way. She walked back along the street with me and accompanied me on to the verandah.
“I shall go and tell the Sahib you are here,” she said softly, and disappeared inside, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And they were not very comfortable ones, because I had grown fond of Lakshmi and couldn’t see that there was going to be much happiness in the future for either of us.
I chose the most comfortable chair on the verandah and luxuriously stretched my tired body. It had been quite a day and the softness of the night was conducive to dreaming. In the distance, I could smell something cooking, but I was not hungry enough for it to disturb me. I was nearly asleep when Joseph joined me.
“Where’s Camilla?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. She’s probably with Gideon.”
Joseph stood on the edge of the verandah. After a while he began to whistle some endless tune under his breath.
“Do you have to?” I complained.
“Sorry.” He scuffed his shoes on the top step. “Suki,” he said at last, “I’m not getting anywhere, am I?”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled wryly. “You know quite well. I’m not exactly making a success of my time here, as the Sahib Gideon was kind enough to point out to me. You’re getting all the kudos for your go-ahead vision with the dam and irrigation is supposed to be my field!”
“Well, so it is,” I said in matter-of-fact tones. “What have you been doing about it?”
He was moodily silent for a long moment.
“You know perfectly well that I haven’t done a thing about it,” he said at last. “I’ve had my hands full with our wretched machinery.”
“That’s your job too,” I reminded him. “You’re also the mechanic.”
He laughed harshly. “And I suppose you agree with him that I haven’t been doing that very well either?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said gloomily.
“Aren’t you exaggerating just a little?” I teased him.
“You might think so, I don’t! The only person who has any time for me at all at the moment is Camilla.”
I was determinedly cheerful. “Hence your anxiety to know where she is?”
He nodded. “I thought she might like to watch the fireworks with me. I think she’s the only person I could bear to have with me, quite honestly. At least she isn’t perpetually nagging me to be something that I’m not!”
I sighed. I was puzzled that he should be even more gloomy now than he had been earlier.
“Have you had another session with Gideon?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you like to know!” he retorted bitterly. “You’re not even grateful that I stuck out my neck for you by going to Delhi. Women!” he added almost as if it were a swearword.
I stood up. He had successfully destroyed my moment of dreamy comfort.
“I was grateful,” I said clearly. “But I’m not going to fall over myself to prove it to you.”
His eyes sparkled with contempt in the light of the lamp. “No, no. Never be seen fraternizing with those who are out of favor! Funny, I had you figured quite differently. I had a picture of you as a sweet, English girl, loyal and without too much ambition. But you’re not like that, are you? You’re crowing your head off that Gideon’s bought your scheme for the dam. But don’t crow too hard. If the monsoons come early, your cheap little success will come crashing around your ears and your stature will be no higher in the great man’s eyes than mine is now!”
I bit my lip, feeling slightly sick. I had been quite unprepared for anything like this from Joseph.
“You’re jealous!” I accused him sharply, the tactless remark rising almost unbidden to my lips.
“Of course, I’m jealous!” he agreed. “But I wouldn’t have cared if you’d been different about it. I thought you were my friend!”
“I thought so, too,” I said coolly. “You’re making it rather impossible, though, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” He eyed me sardonically. “I’m not the one who’s been spilling tales to Gideon!”
“Meaning that I have?” I demanded.
“Haven’t you?”
“Not that I’m aware of!” I denied sharply. “Look, Joe, what is all this?”
He hunched up his shoulders and sat heavily in the nearest chair.
“The jeep wouldn’t start again. The Swami had to fix it with his own fair hands. It seems he was a mechanic himself before he took to being a holy man. Never cease to surprise one, do they? I mean, who would have thought that he ever earned his living just like everyone else? Well, anyway, it was just about the final straw as far as Gideon was concerned. I rather gathered that not even you could find much use for me.”
I was uneasily aware of a feeling of acute irritation that he couldn’t keep the vehicles properly maintained, and I wondered just what it was that Gideon had said to him.
“I haven’t said anything,” I said.
“Well, I did,” he said moodily. “I told him about our running into Julie in Delhi. That set him back, I might tell you.”
“The Swami doesn’t think she’s the right person for Gideon either,” I said without thought.
He flung back his head and laughed.
“I suppose you’re planning to cut her out!” he exclaimed. “You might just manage it if you play your cards right!”
I gave him a look of extreme distaste.
“Gideon doesn’t see me like that!” I passed it off casually. But for some reason my heart was suddenly pounding within me. “It wouldn’t be fitting anyway,” I said gruffly.
For answer Joseph laughed again.
“Well, well,” he said, “whoever would have thought it?”
CHAPTER TEN
If I was pleased when Camilla joined us, Joseph—despite his earlier assertions—most certainly was not.
“What do you want?” he asked her harshly.
She blushed, but held her ground.
“Not you,” she returned pleasantly.
He gave her a rather haughty look and frowned. “What do you mean?”
Camilla gave him a sunny smile and refused to answer directly. Instead she turned rather pointedly to me.
“Suki, darling, Gideon says we’re to make the most of the celebrations tonight and that he’s coming with us to make sure that we do!” She turned almost reluctantly to Joseph. “I suppose you can come, too, if you really want to and if you’re not too busy sulking!”
“I? Sulk?” he demanded indignantly.
“Of course you’re sulking! You’ve sulked solidly ever since you came back from Delhi!” She sat down beside me. “You know what,” she went on, “I think it would be a great deal easier to do your work than to worry about the results of not doing it! It’s only an opinio
n, of course,” she added hastily.
I refrained from laughing with some difficulty.
“And what do you know about it?” Joseph mocked her, but he was visibly shaken all the same. “You don’t have to do anything all day!”
“I find myself enough to keep occupied,” she answered smugly. “How about you?”
Joseph flushed angrily.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he complained. “I don’t seem to be able to please anyone today.”
Camilla looked fleetingly sympathetic, but it didn’t last long.
“Perhaps you don’t try hard enough?” she suggested.
But Joseph had had enough. He glared at her and then at me and silently walked off, his hands in his pockets and scuffing the toes of his shoes as if he more than half-expected us to call him back. Camilla looked after him sadly.
“What’s the matter with him?” she asked impatiently. “Doesn’t he know that it hurts when he goes into a grouch?”
I looked at her closely, noticing the drooping lips and the tears in the corners of her eyes. She looked the picture of heartache bravely borne, and I felt terribly sorry for her.
“I don’t suppose he thinks,” I answered. “Does it really matter to you?”
She closed her eyes and the tears squeezed out on to her cheeks. Restlessly, she wiped them away with the back of her hand.
“Yes,” she admitted. “It matters very much.”
I felt a hollow sensation in my middle. I remembered Gideon’s admonition that Joseph was incapable of being friends with any woman. It was only now that I was beginning to see what he meant.
“The trouble is,” I began, “that men don’t grow up nearly as quickly as we do. Joe is all right, but he doesn’t really know where he’s going.”
Camilla began to cry, the tears spilling out with increasing ease.
“But I’m young, too!” she cried out. “And he isn’t even interested!”
I sighed, knowing that I was going to have to talk about Timothy.
“You see,” I said, “Joseph is just like Timothy, so I feel I know him rather well.”
Camilla stopped crying and gazed at me in astonishment.
“Your Timothy?”
I smiled wryly. “Yes, my Timothy. Why not?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said uncomfortably. “Gideon said I wasn’t to ask you about him, though we were both dying with curiosity,” she added naively.
For an instant I was shocked that they had discussed me.
“Both of you?” I asked dryly. “I can’t believe that Gideon was interested.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong!” Camilla insisted. “He said Timothy didn’t sound your sort at all. Oh, do tell me about him, Suki. Was he madly attractive?”
I blushed a little.
“No, he was quite ordinary. He was very clever though.”
“And were you really in love with him?” she asked.
“I suppose so,” I said softly.
“I don’t think you were,” Camilla said practically. “He was just an interest for you. I expect you needed something while you were studying.”
I gazed at her with respect. And to think that I had started out in this conversation to warn her of the dangers of youthful infatuation!
“Well, yes,” I admitted. “Like Joseph.”
She smiled a rather superior smile and she didn’t look young at all.
“And that’s why you think they are alike, Timothy and Joseph?” she asked.
I nodded. It was why they were alike. They were both cast in the same mold, lovable but weak, not the sort of man I really wanted at all.
“It’s difficult to admit,” I went on with decision, “but I’ve grown out of Timothy. It happens that way sometimes. No matter how much you think you are in love with a person, you change and so do they, and you find you are no longer in love with them at all.”
Camilla smiled more broadly.
“And you think that’s what will happen to what I feel for Joseph?”
“Well, yes,” I said very gently because I didn’t want to hurt her. “You see Joseph isn’t very mature, is he?”
Camilla shook her head at me.
“You don’t really understand at all,” she told me. “Timothy was one thing and of course out here you feel differently about him. Gideon says he doesn’t believe you were ever in love with him at all! But what I feel for Joe is quite different! You see I know he’s silly and weak and a bit lazy, but it doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“I don’t see what it has to do with Gideon,” I said with a throat that had suddenly gone dry.
Camilla grinned.
“Poor Suki!” she murmured. “You know, of the two of us, you’re the poor mixed-up kid! And don’t start worrying about Joseph and me! We’ll look after each other perfectly well. You’d do better to worry about Julie!”
“Why?” I asked blankly.
Her face filled with impatience mixed with despair.
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you!” she exclaimed, and sauntered off into the house to find out what had happened to dinner. I stared out into the darkness. Here and there fireworks burst forth, let loose by someone’s impatient fingers. As an older woman and a confidante, I had not been a howling success.
Gideon joined us for dinner. With a great deal of laughter he had fashioned a couple of crutches. He came across the verandah with a flourish of independence and a broad grin on his face.
“Isn’t that something?” he demanded.
I laughed. “That’s something!” I agreed.
He sat down heavily and chuckled.
“Know something, you’re getting quite cheeky!” he teased me. “How does it feel to have a whole village en fete for you?”
“Unbelievable!” I told him. “Not that it is for me exactly. I think they’re just beginning to realize what this dam could mean to them.”
His eyes twinkled. “Well, the dam is your project!” He laughed at my discomfiture. “And you’re going to find a lot of work. Have they done their full day’s quota?”
I shook my head. “No, but this is the first day. It’ll take a day or so to make it clear exactly what has to be done. I’m hoping then it’ll go like a bomb, as Joe would say.”
The smile died out of Gideon’s eyes.
“What do you think of that young man?” he asked abruptly. “Did I hear you and Camilla talking about him earlier?”
I blushed to the ears, wondering what else he had heard. “It was just in passing,” I said.
He looked straight into my eyes. “Have you heard from that Timothy of yours recently?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t, though I can’t see what business it is of yours!” I added hotly.
He grinned. “I suppose you can’t, you ridiculous blockhead! Don’t you think it’s about time you wrote to him?”
“I’ll think about it!” I said lightly.
“Yes, do,” he said. “The sooner you’re free of that entanglement the better!”
But I wasn’t sure that I saw it that way. Timothy, after all, was a form of defense. He wasn’t a very good one, but he was the only one I had. And at that moment I needed a defense very badly against the charms of Gideon Wait.
“I’m not sure I want to be free,” I said stubbornly.
Gideon looked exasperated. “Muddleheaded and ridiculous!” he commented.
“I’m very fond of Timothy,” I insisted.
Gideon blew up like a geyser. It was fascinating to see. Whoever would have thought that he held his temper on so light a rein? “Have it your own way,” he said at last. “But don’t be surprised if someone takes the trouble to wring your neck!”
From somewhere I found the audacity to laugh.
“Oh really!” I protested weakly.
“Yes, really!” he told me.
Dinner passed in a whirl. I puzzled over Gideon’s comments, but I couldn’t see any good reason why he should care whether
I wrote to Timothy or not. At last, when it was all over, I escaped to my room and sat on the edge of my bed and tried to pull myself together. Outside the crowd was becoming noisier. The celebrations had officially begun.
The village was indeed en fete. I had only the haziest notion of what was going on, because the myths and legends of India must be almost as numerous as her extensive population. So who the two giants were, stuffed with fireworks and explosive bangs, remained a mystery, though I cheered as hard as any when they went up in smoke, in one uproarious spectacle of flare and color, finally bursting into flames.
I recognized the King of the Monkeys, very much the noble ally, with his breast flapping in the breeze to reveal Rama’s name written on his heart. But this demigod, this humanized ape, bore little resemblance to the mischievous monkeys that had frightened me in the forest. I was disappointed when he, too, didn’t burst into flames, but contented himself with throwing colored water at all the pretty girls instead. Lakshmi was soaked in a glowing scarlet and I, to my annoyance, ended up multi-colored like a patchwork quilt. It was all great fun, though, for the villagers.
Some time during the evening Hanuman, the King of the Monkeys, lost the head of his disguise and I saw Lakshmi clinging to his arm as they ran through the crowd. So that was the way the land lay, I thought, and I hoped that her family were thinking along the same lines.
