Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Joe thought swiftly. “You are sending for the ayah? Does this explain why she was spying on me? Does she know the girl? How does she know I am interested?”

  “Sergeant Hawkes has told me that you saw the temple ceremony last night. There is a Yogi there — I think you had some conversation with him. It was he to whom the ayah took the child the moment it was weaned, and it was he who gave it to the temple priests. She suspects any white man who talks to that Yogi; she is afraid her priestess-princess may be taken from her.”

  “What is the girl’s name, by the way?”

  “Amrita.”

  Hawkes returned, the ayah following in time to hear the name Amrita. The yellowish whites of her eyes and her wrinkled face betrayed alarm, although she plainly did not fear Miss Weems, whom she salaamed with respectful familiarity. It was from Joe that she shrugged herself, wrapping her dingy black cotton stuff around her as if that might serve as shield against his iron-gray eyes. Joe noticed that she kept her fingers crossed and made curious furtive gestures with her right hand.

  Hawkes sat down again. The ayah remained standing. There was silence for a moment, interrupted only by the parrot who appeared to know the ayah.

  “Amal!” the bird cried. “Amal! — Polly want a cracker!”

  The ayah smiled and fell again on the defensive, scared of Joe and none too confident of Hawkes whom she seemed to suspect of telling tales. With a gesture of her arms within the long black garment she enwrapped herself in silence.

  Annie Weems knew how to manage her. “Amal, I want you to tell this sahib why you followed him.”

  The ayah seemed to understand, but she had the excuse as yet that English was not her language. Itching to answer, she sulked. Annie Weems translated into the vernacular, and waited. Suddenly the ayah’s pent up misery escaped — first two tears, like drops of water seeping through cracks in weakening masonry — then floods of tears — and then the dam went down in a torrent of words that tumbled over one another, galloping and plunging, ends of sobbing sentences surging to swamp their beginnings and two streams of argument fighting for room in the gap of one muttering throat. She ceased at last for lack of tears and lack of breath to begin the tale over again.

  “She says,” said Annie Weems, “that that Yogi is her Yogi and she will not have you asking him questions and learning her business. She says she, not you, has fed and combed the Yogi all these years, and cleaned his cell, and cared for him, and asked for nothing in return except a little comfort now and then. Amrita, she says, is her child, not yours. And she says she knows what the Yogi told you yesterday: he said you are a man from Jupiter, and Jupiter is a royal planet, so she does not doubt you are a king. She says you are to go away and be a king where you belong, wherever that is. You are not to come into Amrita’s life and cause war inside her, which is what she heard the Yogi say you will do.”

  “Why does she call Amrita her child?” Joe asked.

  No need to interpret. Amal caught the meaning of that question instantly. She burst into another torrent of invective in her own tongue, flinging aside her sari now and going through the motions of nursing a baby, shielding it, loving it — suddenly denouncing Joe with out-flung arm and calling Annie Weems to witness — down on her knees then and surrendering the child to some one — hugging at her heart as if it tortured her and beating at her old dry breasts with knotted fists. On her feet again — glaring — breathless.

  “Perfect pantomime,” said Joe. “I’m sorry for her. What’s it all about?”

  “Her answer to your question. She says the baby’s parents died of cholera, and bad men came — she means dacoits. So she took the child and hid it — she was its wet-nurse — who else should have taken it? But she was young in those days and desirable; she was afraid that the dacoits would catch her and carry her off. And she had no money, so she hid by day and ran by night. And then some one accused her of stealing the child and threatened blackmail; she became afraid that if she took the child to any one in authority she would be thrown in prison on a false charge. She was not so afraid of the prison, but she knew they would take the child away from her, and she loved it — could not bear to part with it. So she hid, starving, stealing scraps of food and fearful that her flow of milk would cease — as it began to do. At last, in despair, she took the baby to that Yogi. And he gave it to the temple priests, who have never allowed Amal within the temple precincts but have been kind about letting her see the child from time to time, outside the temple. So Amal borrowed a little money from the priests, and paid it back. She bought a loom, and lived near by, and made a living for herself. And she has watched that child grow. She has sat with her at the Yogi’s feet by night and listened to the lessons that he gave her. And it was Amal who told me about Amrita, in secret, exacting my promise to keep the secret — as indeed I have done, on condition that the child should come here daily to be taught in my school. It was a little difficult at first to get the priests to agree to that, but the Yogi helped us. He cast her horoscope.” Annie Weems chuckled. “I am told he understands that nonsense. Certainly they think he does. I have my own opinion. I know if I wanted to have my way, I could cast a thoroughly convincing horoscope for any one who puts faith in such fancies though I don’t say, mind you, that there’s nothing in it — I have seen some strange coincidences, of whom you are one. At any rate, they let the child come here to my school, and they have even let me visit her within the temple, so I have no personal quarrel with astrology.”

  “It’s like politics — the bunk, with brass tacks here and there,” Joe answered. “Did the ayah ever mention the name of the child’s parents?”

  “Wilburforce.”

  “Any birth certificate available?”

  “No. The birth had been registered in the office of the Collector of the district, but the office and all the records were burned by the dacoits.”

  “Pretty hard to prove then?” Joe glanced at Hawkes for amusement’s sake. Hawkes shifted his feet; he had no notion of the pitfalls hidden in a partly proven title, but he began to feel uneasy. That thousand pounds seemed less material — more like an unkind dream of affluence with only disappointment in its wake.

  “Maybe, sir, you might recognize the family likeness if you saw her,” he suggested.

  “Mother might.”

  “She is the child you are looking for,” said Annie Weems.

  “Not a doubt of it.” Hawkes nodded eagerly.

  “And it might even be possible to prove her identity legally,” Miss Weems went on. “If there were money coming to her—” “Not a cent,” Joe interrupted.

  “I was about to say: if there were money coming to her, even so I don’t think she would wish to give up the life she is leading. She is one of the happiest girls I have ever known — I think the happiest.”

  “I’ve heard it said one can be happy in the U. S. A.,” Joe answered.

  “Ship me somewheres west of Ireland, where the money grows on trees!” said Hawkes. “I’m with you there, sir. Me for Hollywood. My name goes on the quota on the same day I get my discharge. I’ve heard they make you swear an oath to fight King George the Third. They may throw in Henry the Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey — I’ll fight all three of ’em.”

  “Can I see her?” Joe asked.

  “Why not?”

  “When?”

  “She will be here the day after to-morrow.”

  Miss Weems effect on Joe was just the opposite of that of Hawkes. Hawkes’ eagerness had made him hang back. Her coolness urged him forward. He felt genuine interest — almost excitement. He began to think of reasons other than his boredom why a wait of two days might be inadvisable.

  “Hawkes said something about a Maharajah sending some of his gang to waylay her and carry her off,” he remembered. “Is there any danger?”

  “There is always danger in the world,” said Annie Weems. “I have been facing danger here for more than twenty years. It is good for us. When danger gets too dangerous, we die and
render our account; it will look better to God without cowardice stamped all over it.”

  “But there are risks a decent girl should not run,” Joe objected.

  “There is a risk that none of us should run the risk of being false to our ideal,” said Annie Weems. “Amrita is a sort of Joan of Arc. That girl has character. And she has good friends, who protect her. I suppose she is the only woman that ever lived who upset all the customs and traditions of a Hindu temple from the inside — mind you, from the inside. Nevertheless, I sometimes think the priests would die for her if necessary; and I know that a number of Indian soldiers would. Of course she is in danger. She has beauty, talent, intellect — dangerous gifts, Mr. Beddington. She has also courage.”

  “You’ve ‘sold’ me. I can’t wait to see her,” said Joe.

  Hawkes leaned forward. “Mr. Beddington, if you should care to come with me to-night, I’ll show her to you. I know her goings and comings — some of ’em — I know some. Shall I call for you?”

  “You’re on. What time?”

  “About a half-hour after dinner.”

  “I’ll be ready for you. Can you get two decent horses? Bring ’em.”

  Joe offered the ayah ten rupees. She refused the money, biting her lip, turning her head the other way, with both hands clenched and her bare toes kneading at the clean New England rug.

  CHAPTER VI. “What’s the odds? She’s harmless.”

  Joe always had hated to dine with his mother alone. Fortunately there was a bottle of not-so-bad Madeira. Joe’s mother drank two-thirds of it. Joe kept filling her glass; she sometimes became good-tempered when she drank too much — she even let pass opportunities to poison hope with cynicism. So he kept on pouring and did not even mention Annie Weems. There was a sort of silent laughter deep within him. He was so absorbed by his own line of thought that he had to jerk himself out of it to listen to his mother. It was never safe not to listen to her.

  “Mr. Cummings told me, by the way, that it’s useless to try to find the Wilburforce’s child. If she’s alive, which he doubts, she’d be beyond hope of redemption — probably Mahommedan or Hindu, with three or four half-caste children of her own already and an inferiority complex like a stray cat’s. He says white children raised by natives in this climate lose all sense of honesty and moral stamina. She’d be too old to be educated and too familiar with vice to be safe with anybody’s children. I can’t see myself taking that sort of young person back to the States with us, even if the immigration people would permit it. I believe we’d better leave her to the gods, as Mr. Cummings phrased it. What do you propose to do to-night?”

  “Moonlight sketches.”

  He said that through his teeth, with eyelids lowered. He cracked nuts swiftly, finding one at last that he could pass to her: “Here you are — all the way from Brazil — but don’t ask why.” He knew her capable, because she knew he loved sketching, of inventing something else for him to do — for instance, find a doctor for imaginary, agonizing ailments. He had hard work not to betray relief when she seemed hardly to notice his answer — although he knew she weighed it and passed judgment on it before almost casually saying what, in turn, she wished him to believe.

  “I’m so tired — I suppose I ought to go to bed. However, Mr. Cummings wants to show me photos of the Delhi Durbar, taken years ago. I think I’ll take the rickshaw and submit to being shown.”

  Joe knew she was lying, although he had no doubt that Cummings wished to show his photographs. A creepy feeling down his spine warned him that she meant to make her own inquiries about the Wilburforce child and to set in motion means of legally disproving in advance the girl’s identity, in case she should turn up and prove embarrassing. Thoroughly, through and through, he understood his mother’s vanity and cruelty. The unfamiliar new laughter he had found within himself mocked the very nervousness that caused it.

  He summoned the rickshaw, helped his mother into it and even delayed her by making her look at the violet mystery of shadows under the trees and on the compound wall. “I’d give a year’s salary to be able to get that color right with oil or pastel.”

  “You will be a fool with money to your dying day,” she retorted. “Don’t disturb me if you’re out late. I expect to return early and go straight to bed. Come to my room after breakfast in the morning.”

  And then Hawkes came, astride a Waler mare that he had borrowed, leading an Arab gelding. He was smoking his short pipe and there was about him an air of genial recklessness that was probably due to thoughts about the thousand pounds, but it suggested adventure and Joe’s mood grew luxuriously free from responsibility. He told himself he did not give a damn what happened that night. He ordered two whiskies and spilled his own in the dust while Hawkes drank.

  The Arab gelding moved with silky smoothness and the night was a-swim with impalpable dust made luminous by starlight. There were soft sounds at uncertain intervals, but for the most part a mystic silence enveloped everything. It was another universe, in which anything might happen except the rational and real. It seemed comfortingly familiar, and his own voice sounded, friendly fashion, like the voice of some one else — some fellow full of confident amusement.

  He asked Hawkes the familiar question, that, from Greenwich Village to Darjiling, always crops up on a dark night amid strange surroundings.

  “Did you ever come to a place where you knew you had never been before, yet the place was perfectly familiar and you recognized every detail of it?”

  “Sure, sir, lots o’ times. Once when I went with a girl near Woking and we came to a clump o’ deodars. I hadn’t never been in India in those days. But I saw those deodars, and smelt ’em, and I felt it was a place I’d seen. I knew what was around the corner, so to speak, and where there was a waterfall — and mountains ‘way away beyond it. Funny, ‘cause there ain’t a waterfall near Woking and the only thing that even hints at mountains is the Surrey Downs, about eight hundred feet high. Pretty soon I forgot it. She was a girl who made a man forget things — scrumptious, but too expensive for a soldier’s income. And besides, I had to be back in barracks before midnight. Anyhow, I forgot them deodars. Forgot myself, too.”

  “Well, what of it?” Joe rather resented sharing mystic interludes with Hawkes. He was half afraid the man would bring him back to earth with inane explanations.

  “This, sir: three years later I was in India, and I was always a one for getting myself transferred to places I’m curious to see. That’s quite a trick. I’m not a soldier, I’m a tourist with a liking to have my expenses paid by Government. So, ‘fore long, me and Simla makes acquaintance. Presently, ten days leave; and I go pony riding, acting nursemaid to a subaltern who wants to see the sights. The subaltern goes sick with collywobbles in his tummy along o’ being careless. Them Hills, as they call ’em, are tough on amateurs unless they watch their stummicks. Camp — and I’ve time on my hands. A full moon — deodars — and I go walking. There she is! The very sight I’d seen that night at Woking — waterfall, mountains — mist in a valley — everything. And mind you, I say, everything. There was a woman there, the very spitting image of the girl I’d loved in Woking, only this one wasn’t white and couldn’t speak a word of any language I knew. But she knew me as sudden as I knew her, and we stood there grinning at each other until a savage with a long knife came and took her away, she looking back at me over her shoulder. How do you account for that, sir?”

  “Can’t. There’s no accounting for lots of things that happen. What’s the noise behind us?”

  “Nothing but your bodyguard, I reckon.”

  Joe drew rein. A moment later the sound of pattering footsteps ceased. He turned back, legged his horse into a shadow, stopped again to listen — heard labored breathing. Hawkes, drawing rein beside him, chuckled and lifted a heel to knock the ashes from his pipe.

  “Come on out o’ there, Amal, nobody won’t hurt you.”

  There was a moment’s pause and then the ayah stepped out from the darkness, followed
after a moment by Chandri Lal. Hawkes turned a pocket flashlight on the woman; her breast was heaving and her nostrils trembled.

  “Ask what in hell does she follow me for?”

  Hawkes spoke to her, but she merely looked dumbly determined, nervous grin and sulky defiance alternating. There was something about her that was irritating but nevertheless respectable. Joe felt toward her as he might toward an uninvited lost dog that had adopted him.

  “She won’t let up, sir. Some people might try whipping her, but I’m not that kind and I don’t think you are. We might gallop a bit, but we’d only make her suffer. She’d follow. She’d track us. She’d catch up. What’s the odds? She’s harmless.”

  Joe tried English: “What do you want, Amal?”

  Silence. Joe’s hand, feeling for support as he leaned back in the saddle to ease himself, discovered that the numnah was an over-size one that protruded about a foot behind the polo-saddle. It suggested a rather amusing notion.

  “Tell her, if she’s so set on following, I’ll save her all the trouble. She may climb up behind if she isn’t afraid.”

  “She, sir — she’s afraid o’ nothing that’d scare you and me. Her kind keep a whole seraglio of fears that couldn’t scare us in a month o’ Sundays. How about it, Mother?” He translated Joe’s invitation.

  The ayah hesitated. Chandri Lal whispered — pushed her. The whites of the ayah’s eyes were like green glass in the glare of the flashlight. She struck Chandri Lal with her elbow to silence him, grinned — stepped up to Joe’s stirrup. Chandri Lal lent her the use of his shoulder. She was up behind Joe in a moment, gripping with strong legs that made the Arab restless, and with a hand under Joe’s arm-pit that lay like a threat on his heart; he could feel his heart beating beneath it.

  “Who said anything about you, you devil?” Hawkes legged the Waler mare away from Chandri Lal.

  “Can’t you take him up behind you?”

  “He’s got them blasted cobras with him in a basket. I don’t know which gives me the creeps most, he or they. Besides, he don’t belong to her. He’s like a leech or a louse. He’s a blooming parasite, that’s what he is. He’s like one o’ them whimpering jackals that follow a tiger.”