Far, Far The Mountain Peak

by John Masters

  He stepped forward and took her in his arms, reaching down with his mouth for her mouth, placing his lips on hers, and seeking her.

  This was the first time any man had even tried to kiss her, except Gerry. Why? Because she was a lady, and beautiful, and did not invite men to share anything with her. But this was not Gerry, and this was not Gerry’s kiss. She put her arms round his neck and stood relaxed against him, wondering. His hand slid up deep into the hair at the nape of her neck.

  But this would not answer anything. It was more strangely wonderful than her most fierce imaginings, and he must not stop now. But it would not solve anything, it would only make everything worse.

  Slowly, as slowly as the realization of a tide rising between the rocks, she knew that he was not going to stop until all was done. So now she must break away from him, because he was insulting her. He was not a gentleman. He wasn’t fit to clean Gerry’s shoes, who treated her so gently, who stood so humbly before her womanhood. Then, and suddenly, as suddenly as the beginning of realization had been slow, she knew that this would answer everything, solve all problems. He was not insulting her any more than he had when he asked her to go up the Zmutt ridge with him. He would never treat her gently or stand humbly before her. This that was happening to her was real. This was the mystery she had dreamed about as unattainable, not even knowing the shape of it. This that was growing inside her before their bodies touched was the union, of more than bodies, which she had tried to tell herself did not exist--because she knew, seeing Gerry as her husband, that it never would. But here, now, it was real and urgent, as violently desired as the menacing promise of the Zmutt ridge; all real--the ridge, the summit’s unknowable reward--but oh, guarded by what cold edges of night and virgin fear.

  She was afraid, as vividly afraid as she had been on the glacier; and, as then, she tried to stop, stiffening in frantic unreason, fighting away from him, her eyes glazed and dull.

  ‘There’s no escape backward, ever,’ he said.

  She heard, and knew that for him there wasn’t; nor for her if she went with him; and that she knew she would do, because she loved him. In spite of knowing him, in spite of anything, because of everything, she loved him. She went to him, and he was not gentle with her.

  The act of love was nothing like what she had expected, and they did not reach any great summit together, though she matched Peter’s desperate strivings, but she knew when it was done that they had together set their feet on a great mountain.

  They sat side by side, hands tight clasped. The sun shone directly through the branches, and the sound of the torrent came louder to her ears. Peter got up and pulled her to her feet. When she was upright he said: ‘Emily, marry me.’

  She nodded. Her lower lip trembled so that she had to bite it with her teeth, and her eyes were full, and the far trees were blurred in the bright sun.

  ‘ “For better, for worse,” ‘ he said slowly.

  ‘ “For richer, for poorer,” ‘ she said.

  ‘ “Till death us do part.” Come on. We’ll go straight to the hotel and tell Gerry.’

  But a minute after they had crossed the rude bridge over the Zmuttbach she saw five men hurrying towards them--her father, three guides, and Gerry, all carrying ropes and ice-axes, and the guides also loaded with heavy rucksacks. Gerry, in the lead, saw them first of the party. He yelled: ‘Peter!’ and ran forward, limping and waving his ice-axe in the air.

  ‘Peter,’ he babbled, ‘are you all right? Where in hell have you been? Mally’s in a frightful stew, though I told her nothing could go wrong with you. How was it, Emily? He took you over the Zmutt ridge, did he? Well, well, no one else could have done it!’ His eyes shone and his teeth flashed and his sunburned face crinkled with pure joy.

  Mr Fenton came up and said gruffly: ‘Well, Peter, what’s the meaning of this?’

  Oh, God, let’s not say anything now--later, later, when we are calm and this joyful excitement’s over and Daddy’s not angry.

  Peter said coldly: ‘Uncle George, Emily and I are engaged. We are going to be married as soon as possible.’

  She kept her eyes on Gerry then, beseeching him to understand that what had happened to him had happened to her, only she was a woman and his sister. Now she recognized it. Gerry was born to be the brother of mankind. Abel--Jonathan. David had taken her. She heard her father gasp; heard a muttering from the guides as they mumbled that they’d better be getting back; heard the crunch of the boots going away down the path; behind her the roar of the Zmuttbach.

  ‘This--this--is impossible,’ her father said at last.

  ‘We’re in love,’ she said, speaking at Gerry’s frozen face.

  Gerry turned away and hobbled down the path towards Zermatt, stumbling as though he could not see. Peter took her hand and held it loosely.

  ‘It’s better,’ he said.

  Her father said: ‘Who will tell Peggy? Is your mind really made up, Emily? It’s unbelievable, it’s fantastic. Yesterday you hated him. Today----’ He drifted into silence.

  ‘I’ll tell Peggy,’ Peter said.

  She stirred then. Her lover was unafraid, and when the way was difficult they all fell back and left it to him, so his courage grew a hard, bitter edge.

  She said: ‘No I will.’

  He turned on her, ready to speak, his eyes glittering. She smiled, and after a moment he bent his head and kissed her hand.

  Chapter 12

  LETTERS FROM INDIA

  D.C.’S CAMP RUDWAL

  PUNJAB

  January 12th, 1910

  Dearest Mally and Daddy,

  It is only a month since we settled into the house--I must remember to call it a bungalow--at Rudwal, but already we are out of it again, and in camp. I was just getting used to the bungalow. It is huge, with great deep verandas all round, and eight big rooms with high ceilings and a big garden. The staff is about fourteen, of whom five are with us now in camp. I say ‘about’ fourteen because every time I tried to count them I got a different answer--someone had brought a friend to work and someone else had gone off to visit his mother in another part of India altogether.

  Camp is wonderful, though, and if Peter had his way I don’t think we’d ever be in the bungalow. We move nearly every day, and it is not a bit hot--in fact it is very cold at night, and at midday only hot in the sun. The mountains are covered with snow right down to the foothills twenty miles behind Rudwal, and you have never imagined such mountains! Nothing prepares you for them. They make everything we know seem very insignificant--except the Matterhorn, of course, but even that would look puny, too fierce for its size, like a ferocious little pygmy, if it was set out there in the great range a hundred miles behind us.

  Peter is very busy. I hope he doesn’t try to keep up this pace all the time because no one, not even he, could do it. The D.C. before him was a man called Philipson. He was here for about twenty years, and then died in the Suez Canal on his way home. The trouble is that there are no limits, and a man seems to be able to do as much or as little as he feels like. There are a few things which are definitely the D.C.’s business. But there is literally nothing which can’t be made his business if he wants it--leopards worrying the cattle, diseases that might be contagious, all kinds of crime, political movements, flooding rivers, new crop plantings, taxes, school curriculums, everything--and all over an area about the size of Wales. Believe me, Daddy, you’re lucky only being squire of Llyn Gared.

  I have seen Adam Khan once, in the bazaar. We exchanged a few words, but he seemed very distrait, and is even thinner than he was, with great hollow eyes. His father is an absolute dear, but rather overpowering, I imagine.

  I am very happy, Mally. You have got to understand that. There was a part in your first letter where you told me to take care of myself and not to worry, I could always turn to you. Mally, I am not going to have a baby, and if anyone’s going to look after me, Peter will. You know how awful I felt about the way things happened, and it still hurts terribly
that Gerry was so wounded. One never knows people. I just didn’t think he could be so hurt. The trouble is, Peter feels it twice as much. But I really think everything had to happen that way. I know you don’t like Peter, but it’s no good blaming him, because it was my fault too ... I mean, my doing. Anyway, I love him and you’ll have to think of that, always, or we shall only quarrel, or worse. I will write every week now that I am getting settled, and can find where the writing paper is kept, even in camp.

  All my love, Emily

  D.C.’S BUNGALOW

  RUDWAL, PUNJAB

  October 26th, 1910

  Dearest Mally and Daddy,

  Yes, we had heard that Harry Walsh and Peggy had been married. There was quite a lot about it in the local paper, the Civil and Military, because Peggy is the sister of ‘Lord Wilcot, whose informed interest in Indian affairs seems to be leading him towards the proconsulship of one of our Presidencies,’ as the paper said, and lots more in the best newspaper jargon. We wrote, and sent a present too, though the latter will not arrive for some time. I hope they will both be very happy, and I can’t help hoping too that this will help Peggy forget what is past. We have not heard from her since we were married.

  Gerry wrote Peter a wonderful letter a couple of months ago, apologizing for what he called his caddishness, congratulating us, and saying the best man won. It made me feel like a prize cow or something, but I cried with happiness, and I thought Peter was going to, and you know what his self-control is. He wrote off at once, and I believe they are closer than ever now.

  Yesterday we got another long letter from Gerry about plans for next year. He is coming out late in the cold weather, about the first of February, and will spend three months in Madras with the Lawleys before coming up here, and then he and Peter are going off to make a reconnaissance of Meru, with a few Gurkhas from the 13th at Manali. Peter thinks Gerry will learn the basic facts of Indian administration during his time in Madras, but I am not so sure. I am afraid he might only learn that he is unsuited to the life. Peter and I nearly quarrelled when I told him that. Well, we shall see, and I’m glad I shall be present when Gerry comes up here.

  I saw Adam Khan again the other day, this time while I was riding, alone, miles from anywhere, and he was out walking all by himself in the middle of a very hot afternoon. He tried to pass by with a word, but I wouldn’t let him, and once he started to talk he seemed to want to tell me everything. The main thing worrying him is the secretiveness that there has to be--well, Peter says there has to be--in his contacts with Peter. I told Peter about our talk later, and he said: ‘Adam doesn’t know what he wants. He’ll have to make up his mind.’

  Anyway, though I can see why Adam is unhappy, it does seem to be working. We have much more co-operation between the officials (meaning Peter) and the educated Indians here than they have in most districts. The district board, which is quite new, is really doing very well and taking a lot of work off Peter’s shoulders. Peter’s big problem now is the hospital and nurses’ school he wants to get founded, and there the C.G.G. is really being helpful. The old-fashioned people and the farmers, who are in the big majority, are quite happy the way things are, and do not have any use for the agitators--but because they are old-fashioned they wouldn’t dream of sending their daughters to the nurses’ school even when we get it started, and that’s going to need a lot more money and the enlargement of the hospital first, as nurses can’t learn properly just in a classroom.

  No more now. Peter’s superior, the Commissioner of the Dogra Division, is coming on the morning train, and I have to be hostess at a big mixed Indian and British tea-party, mostly Indian, and some of the C.G.G. won’t come because they don’t think the Morley-Minto Reforms went far enough. They have written very polite notes making it clear that they do not wish to insult the Commissioner himself. The Old Captain is furious and swears he won’t speak to any of the C.G.G. who do come. It’s more complicated than when Dai Jones wouldn’t play his flute at the Diamond Jubilee fete unless they sang God Save the Queen in Welsh.

  All my love, Emily

  D.C.’S BUNGALOW

  RUDWAL, PUNJAB

  May 9th, 1911

  Dearest Mally and Daddy,

  Gerry arrived a week ago, looking very well. It was the first time I had seen him since Zermatt. I was a little nervous just before he came, in spite of all the letters and everything seeming to be just as it used to be, only more so.

  I should have known better. Gerry is a dear all through; there is nothing mean in him, nor ever was, and nothing seems to have altered between him and Peter. They plunged into calculations for their expedition almost at once, and I hardly got a chance to talk to Gerry till the next day. They are off next Tuesday, and will be gone for six weeks. Right up till Gerry came we were thinking that I might go home while they were away, but in the end we decided it would be better if I stayed here. I shall go up to Manali for a week or two in June and be a gay grass widow, only I shall behave myself, not like the women in Plain Tales from the Hills. The sad thing is that it will not matter whether I behave myself or not, people will always be found to believe that I have not. It all depends on yourself and your husband. The thought that I might flirt never crosses Peter’s mind, of course.

  Peter’s been in court all day today, as usual, and Gerry and I have had a wonderful talk and went round the bazaar together. He is really quite miserable about his time in Madras, though he tries hard not to show it. He saw how the government is run, and what can be done to improve things, and he doesn’t mind the pomp and ceremony. But all he is really thinking of, all that really occupies his mind both there and here, is the poverty and the disease. He reacts to them as though he personally is responsible. Peter doesn’t, but he does a great deal to improve conditions. Gerry feels more, but can’t face the pushing and threatening and struggling that are necessary to change things. I hope they have a good talk while they are on the expedition, and really thrash out what is best for Gerry to do. He seems to be very drawn to India--and, of course, to Peter. He sends you his love, by the way, and promises to write you a long letter tomorrow. He pretends to be moonstruck over a girl he met on the boat, but I’m afraid that’s only for my benefit.

  All my love, Emily

  D.C.’S BUNGALOW

  RUDWAL, PUNJAB

  July 5th, 1911

  Dear Mally and Daddy,

  They’re back yesterday! And they are sure there’s a feasible way so that at least they can get a good chance at the summit. It’s a huge pyramid apparently, irregular and split by ridges, with short glaciers between. Most of the ridges seem to end in tremendous ice cliffs, but they are sure they can get round at least one of them, on the south-east. They didn’t try to force their way up any particular route, but went round the mountain at 19,000 feet, more or less, looking through a telescope, making sketches and taking bearings. Then the weather broke and they had to do double marches most of the way back. Gerry is looking fitter than I have ever seen him. There was no ‘big’ climbing, only hard effort and planning for the future. Peter is just the same, I do not think he would look any different if he fell off the top of Meru.

  They are going to make the big attempt in 1913, and have decided to ask Harry Walsh. I hope he accepts, and that Peggy can come out with him and stay here with me while they are away. She has written a couple of times since getting our wedding present, not as she used to, but politely enough. I am sure we can be real friends again if she would come here, especially with Peter away.

  There had been no change in Gerry’s plans, and, seeing him again, I wonder if I was imagining things before, when I thought he would not be happy as an Indian administrator. Being with Peter has put new life and determination in him, and he has everything at his fingertips. He is going to spend a lot of time in the Lords between now and the expedition, and he has already been promised the Parliamentary Under-Secretaryship for India by 1914, and a Presidency a few years later, depending on who retires and who succeeds Lord M
into at Calcutta.

  Peter has plunged straight back into his work as though he had never been gone. The C.G.G. had a reception committee for him, complete with garlands and a speech about how they were loyal to the King Emperor, and that their function was that of loyal opposition and that he, Peter, was a great man and they hoped he would rise to great heights for the good of India. I thought at first that Adam Khan had been the moving spirit behind the reception (for of course it will be reported in the C & M and will put Peter’s stock still higher) but he wasn’t--it was spontaneous. One gets so muddled when some people insist that the C.G.G. are practically anarchists and others that they are loyal constitutionalists. I think Peter is the only

  Englishman in this country who really knows what he wants to do, and why.

  All my love,

  Emily

  D.C.’S BUNGALOW

  RUDWAL, PUNJAB

  December 23rd, 1911

  Dearest Daddy Darling,

  I don’t know what to say. I sent off a cablegram as soon as I got yours yesterday, and I will try and write some more soon. Everything seemed to happen so suddenly but I suppose, it being what it was, that you must have known some time ago and didn’t tell me because of Peter’s being away and then he and Gerry having fever. They are both well now and Peter is going to write when he comes back from a short tour. He left this morning. He shouldn’t have gone, but nothing would stop him because he thinks he will be able to talk the big land-owner

  out there into giving half a lakh of rupees to the Hospital Fund--with the half-promise of a Rai Bahadur as bait. Oh Daddy, I’m going to have a baby. I would have waited to let you know till a little later--she isn’t due till July--but now I want you to know. Put some primroses on Mally’s grave for me as soon as they are out.