by John Masters
Gerry said: ‘Peter, did you get my note?’
Peter, facing Harry Walsh, ignored him. Peggy was looking up at Emily, smiling, almost leering. Peter said: ‘Harry, why didn’t you ask me to join your expedition?’
Emily realized that they were all holding their breaths, and the room was silent, so that the words went home like unexpected swords. Oh, damn him! she whispered to herself, he won’t play the rules as Harry and poor Gerry know them; he won’t pass it off; he won’t fence with buttons on the points; the boat race is beginning again.
Harry flushed and said: ‘I knew the I.C.S. wouldn’t release you again this year.’
‘That’s not true,’ Peter said, smiling, the cold grin widely white in his mouth amid the dust. ‘I mean, it isn’t the reason.’
‘I didn’t think you would take to being a member under my leadership,’ Harry said, the flush dying away as he found his balance.
‘Go on.’
Harry looked at him. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘No, the whole truth is better, so that Gerry can understand. All right. I’m not going to Lahore tonight. I’m resigning, here and now. I’m available. I’m willing to serve under you in any capacity that you order. I hereby apply to join you. Will you take me?’
This time the silence was short, because Harry had regained his footing and remembered that this was Peter Savage and not Gerry, not a mountaineering gentleman, not a decent member of the Alpine Club, with whom he was dealing. He said: ‘You know quite well that I am never going to climb with you again.’
Emily caught Peter’s arm and cried: ‘Must we say this now? Here? You aren’t going to resign, so you can’t go. Why can’t we leave it at that?’ But she knew, and Harry knew, that Peter would resign if necessary. There was nothing he would not do, and that was the secret, all the way up and down.
‘I’m afraid I can’t leave it,’ Peter said. ‘Sit down, Emily. You’re looking very tired. . . . Why aren’t you going to climb with me again Harry?’
Emily stole a look at Gerry’s face. Gerry’s mouth was open, his eyes wide in growing horror.
Harry said: ‘Because you’re not a mountaineer and never will be. You’re a climber, in every sense of the word--a conqueror. A selfish, cruel swine. And a murderer.’
Peter said: ‘I’m going to have a bath, Gerry.’ He turned and walked out, and in the creaking silence, with a night bird hooting across the hot lawns, they heard him call, ‘Bearer! Ghusl tayyar karna, ek dam.’
Sweat stood out in jewelled beads on Gerry’s forehead, and now his cheeks were tight as a corpse’s. ‘Harry,’ he said in a choked voice, ‘Harry, you’ve got to apologize.’
‘I can’t,’ Harry said gruffly. ‘It’s the truth. Everyone knows it but you. I’m sorry, Emily but---‘
‘Peter can speak for himself,’ she said wearily. She had no wish to defend Peter. What Harry said was true as far as the rest of the world could understand. Only she and Peter himself and Gerry--yes, Gerry above all--could tell them that it wasn’t the whole truth.
Gerry said: ‘You’re not fit to clean his shoes, Harry.’ His voice shook. ‘I never guessed--I never dreamed you wouldn’t have asked him if you thought he could come. So you sneaked in and organized this party to the mountain that he discovered, he worked on, he showed you everything you know about---‘
‘Oh, God,’ Peggy said, and now the brittle expectation had broken and her face was twisted in ugliness. ‘How long did Peter rehearse him?’
‘He doesn’t have to,’ Emily said, all sensation slowly freezing as she watched Gerry, heard the words come out of his mouth, saw his blazing eyes. Lyon and Goodwin, on either side of him, were full of a furious, helpless anger.
‘I can’t come with you,’ Gerry said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said at last. ‘I understand. Don’t worry about it. Peg, we’d better go back to the dak bungalow. I hope you’ll excuse us, Emily.’
‘Of course.’
Peggy said: ‘I suppose you’d rather I didn’t come to stay, after this?’
Emily felt that, in spite of the words, Peggy did want to stay, even that there had been in them a faint, miserable reawakening of that air of expectancy.
She said: ‘No--I’d like you to, if you want to. There’s another room. Peter won’t be unpleasant, if that’s what you mean.’ She tried to keep her eyes and mind off Gerry, standing aside, set, looking away from them all, out of the window on to the garden. ‘He only made Harry say what we all know that he feels. Nothing’s really changed.’
‘No, it hasn’t,’ Peggy said. ‘That’s what’s so wonderful about Peter.... Yes, I’ll be back.... No, we’ll walk.... Good night. Good night, Gerry.’
The other men muttered their curt good-byes, and Emily forced herself to accompany them to the front door. As soon as they had gone down the front steps she hurried back to the drawing-room, her skirts hissing like vipers along the stone floor. ‘Gerry,’ she cried. ‘Gerry!’
He was sitting on the sofa, staring straight ahead, an unlit cigarette between his lips, a box of matches shaking in his hand--but he never smoked. She sank awkwardly to her knees beside him. ‘Gerry! You haven’t done anything wrong. Nor has Harry. He’s just--people.’
He said: ‘They can’t touch Peter. They’re like mice, nibbling at his feet. “Murderer!” He saved Harry once, me twice---‘
She stroked his hand and spoke urgently. ‘It doesn’t matter, Gerry. It’s done, finished with. Forget it happened. Peter has.’ When Gerry spoke again his voice was very low, so that she could hear only by straining forward. ‘I cursed Harry just now,’ he said. ‘But I’m as bad. I’ve been weak and selfish, thinking only of myself, of being a doctor--leaving Peter in the lurch after he’s trusted me all these years, and he’s never said a word.’
She raised herself slowly and sat down beside him on the sofa. Looking at his face, incredibly handsome as it had always been and now with an added strength of suffering, a grimness of self-discovery, she recognized as clearly as though she had read it in a book that Gerry now, in this shape, meant more than anything else in the world to her. For his sake she would sacrifice herself and her hopes of happiness; the child in her womb; the sharp-eyed, electrically capable boy of two who slept in his cot in the quiet nursery; Peter, whom she loved, but who was so much a law to himself that she could not understand how she had ever thought to guide him one inch off the path which that law ruled he must follow. She loved Gerry as a brother and as a son, and now, in this livid silence, as a lover. Her flesh yearned after him, that they could comfort each other in love. Her hand, still stroking his, passed a new message to her brain and to the pit of her stomach and to the small of her back.
She knew, as from a flash of lightning, what secret it was that Peggy hugged so jealously to her breast. Peggy’s jealousy of her had seen the physical aspect of this love in her before she herself was aware of it.
She stood up finally. There was still a chance. That chance lay in keeping Gerry to the only course which would free him from Peter, and so free her from her compulsion to protect him at all costs. She said: ‘Now, Gerry, the reason Peter has never said a word is that he does not think you have left him in the lurch. Surely we saw tonight, if we didn’t know already, that Peter is not afraid to speak his mind?’
Gerry nodded.
‘You’re doing the only thing that is right for you to do. After all these years you discovered it--through Peter, indirectly-- and you know it, and he knows it. But I still think you’d do better to study in England.’
Gerry stood up and took her hands in his. She held them tightly, recognized the involuntary spasm of love that had made her do so, and then relaxed her grip. ‘I suppose you’re right, old girl--but I don’t want to go back to England. Can’t you see the headlines? EARL CUTS FIRST CORPSE! Not so many distractions in Lahore . . . My gosh, what a night! Think I’ll wander along to my room and turn in. Good night.’
She heard him go down the passage and shout t
hrough the door of Peter’s bathroom: ‘Good night. Feeling awfully tired. When will you be back?’
Peter’s voice was faint. ‘Next week, Gerry. Anything I can get for you in Lahore?’
‘No. Anything you want seen to here? Well, good night.’ Ten minutes later Peter joined her in the living-room, and the bearer laid the occasional table for his supper. She waited, collecting her thoughts into orderly sentences, until they were alone, and then said: ‘I’ll never forgive you for what you did tonight, Peter. Now I want you to know something else. If you stop Gerry from becoming a doctor, for any reason whatever, I’ll leave you.’
‘To look after Gerry?’ Peter asked.
‘Gerry won’t be alive for long to need looking after if you do that,’ she said. ‘Good night.’
He stood up to kiss her, but she leaned away from him. ‘I don’t want to kiss you now. I’m sorry.’
He sat down again and said matter-of-factly: ‘So am I. Just remember that you’re the only person I love--you and Gerry.’ She walked heavily along to the nursery. The ayah was fast asleep on her charpoy at the foot of Rodney’s cot. The little boy’s hair was thick and straight and the colour of tarnished gold. He had the edge of the single sheet that covered him grasped firmly in his thin, strong hand. She leaned down, almost unwillingly, to kiss him, while the ayah’s rasping snores shook the room. He was his father’s son and she found it difficult, tonight, not to fear him.
Chapter 20
They were in the drawing-room, on a day early in August, the afternoon heavy with the close, wet air that swirled in mist about the town as though round some high Alpine mountain. Rainwater lay in puddles across the lawn and the carriage wheels had left narrow curving canals and the horses’ hoofs crescent-shaped lakes in the gravel of the drive. The leaves of the walnut tree hung dark over the grass, and beyond the wall the city might not have existed, for the mist hid it.
The telegraph lines had been down for forty-eight hours, somewhere between Rudwal and Lahore. Before they broke they had been bringing every day an increasingly loud clamour from Europe. Nations were at war, peoples were mobilizing, statesmen sending ultimatums. Now, lost in the mist, the wires down, there was silence; like the city, the crisis might not have existed; only, like the city, it did.
Rodney was playing on the floor, piling bricks one on top of another, then neatly destroying his creations. Elizabeth, five weeks old today, lay at the far end of the sofa, wrapped in swaddling clothes, looking mistily at the ceiling. Gerry was in his room, working. Peggy had gone out for a walk; she liked walking in the rain.
Peter sat in his chair, a heavy report in his hand. He was nearing the end of it, and Emily could tell by the way he flicked over the pages that, though he was absorbing all it had to tell him, he was not interested in it. Her feeling that Peter had at least temporarily disengaged himself from commitment to his work had strengthened during the two and a half months that had passed since the expedition left. There had been an armed caution between them since that day; she showing her affection for him, but on her guard to withdraw it and attack him tooth and nail if he made a move to exert his power over Gerry; he carrying out his duties, solicitous of her through the time of Elizabeth’s birth, never coming so far forward that she would have a chance to rebuff him. He had seemed to be waiting; she thought at first that it was for word from Meru. Perhaps it had been, but then, in July, the news from Europe began to come like the hammer blows, daily gaining in strength, of crazed giants smashing away at the foundations of their existence, at everything that held up the world they knew--Meru, Peter’s ambitions, Gerry’s new career, the lives of the babies. Whatever the cause of his brooding had been before, now it was this --war, world war, for he had already told them that that was what it would be. ‘A war of peoples,’ he’d said, and his eyes he had veiled, hiding their intensity while he waited.
Gerry had returned to his books and the building of the new hospital almost as though nothing had happened, and she had marvelled at the power of this new love that could enable him to take such a night in his stride. Once or twice she had caught Peter looking at him with the same astonishment; but Peter had said nothing. And, as far as Peter had stepped back and left Gerry to follow his own path, that far she found that her physical love for Gerry had lessened. It was still there, close beneath the surface of sisterhood, but she had no difficulty in keeping it there, where it did no harm but lay like a battle fleet at anchor, ready to sail out and alter the balance of destiny. ‘Ultima ratio regis!--the last resort of a king,’ they often used to engrave round the muzzles of great guns; but what was the last resort of a queen?
In another month Gerry would be at the university and irrevocably launched on his career. Then, she thought, this waiting love would wait no more but would vanish and be remembered only as were those week-long lusts of adolescence, when she had prayed--and feared--that the butcher’s boy in Llyn Gared would take her behind the hedge and kiss her and put his hand on her breast.
She looked down at Rodney and smiled at him, for he was smiling up at her, a crooked, reasonless grin. All would yet be well.
‘Adam Afzal Khan is here, huzoor, and his son, Baber.’
She let her knitting fall into her lap. All might be well, but not yet. The city and the war would not be hidden for ever by the mist, and here was Adam Khan standing in the door, the chuprassi holding it open for him, and Baber, the tall youth, upright at his father’s side.
Peter said: ‘Come in.’ He rose and motioned Adam Khan to a chair. ‘Baber, I’m glad to see you.’ He shook hands with the boy, who then joined his palms in a graceful old-time gesture that held courtesy and no hint of servility in it. Adam watched with a peculiar, wry smile as his son sat down in a hard chair beside him. ‘Baber has been well taught, hasn’t he?’
‘By my grandfather,’ the boy said in stiff English. ‘He gave me a gun today. A four-ten single-barrelled gun by Purdy.’
‘I asked the boy to come with me today because I want him to hear what I have to say to you,’ Adam Khan began. ‘Also because he wanted to see you. He says he is going to be a mountaineer when he grows up. He says he will learn to climb from the English sahibs, and then climb with them--and then climb higher than they.’
‘Good,’ Peter said. ‘When you’re eighteen, Baber, I’ll take you into the Northern Tehsils--if I’m still here.’
‘Your children are beautiful, Emily,’ Adam murmured. He brushed his hand lightly through Rodney’s hair. Rodney ignored him and crawled over to sit at Baber’s feet, staring intently into his face, while the boy smiled and held down a finger for him to play with.
‘Maila!’ Rodney said, pointing at the mud on Baber’s light trousers.
‘Well,’ Peter said, ‘is it peace or war that brings you here?’
Adam Khan said: ‘Peace or war. That’s it. Is there any news from Europe?’
Peter said: ‘I heard a rumour that the Germans had invaded Belgium.’
Adam said: ‘And our--the British--ultimatum?’
‘I don’t know. The telegraph’s down.’
Adam was leaning forward, his thin hands clasped together so tightly that Emily thought the knuckles would crack. He said: ‘This war will be a terrible thing, Peter--perhaps the most terrible that has ever come to civilization.’
Peter said: ‘A lot of people don’t think so. The general opinion among the soldiers in Manali seems to be that the French will beat them in six weeks, without us. They’re fed up because they don’t see any chance of getting into it.’
‘And taking their Indian soldiers with them.’
‘Gurkhas.’
Adam jerked his hands free. ‘There will be Indians too.’ Emily saw that the boy Baber was listening intently now, his eyes sparkling. ‘Peter, I can’t stand aside from this war, if it comes--India can’t--but it is very important that we should come in the right way. The Viceroy must not declare war as though we were chattels. He must ask the leaders of Indian opinion.’
&nb
sp; ‘Such as who?’ Peter asked. ‘Your South African lawyer, Gandhi? The Maharajah of Bikaner? Rabindranath Tagore?’
‘It doesn’t matter who,’ Adam said strongly, ‘but ask someone. I came here because I want you to know that I, personally, perhaps because of Cambridge, believe that India ought to be in this war if England is. I am going to try and persuade our leaders that it would be short-sighted and--well, mean, un-Indian--to use England’s involvement to increase our demands. But you must understand that we have pride. There will be tragic consequences if you don’t make some gesture to India before declaring war on our behalf.’
‘That was what you were going to do, wasn’t it--after you and I had decided what was best? You were going to consult, explain--remember?’ Peter said, the corners of his mouth hard set. Adam flushed slightly. Peter went on. ‘Even as things are, I agree. But I don’t think any such gesture will be made. We are not strong on imagination, especially in the councils of the Great Ornamental. They will decide, quite correctly as far as facts go, that people like you don’t stand for much in India besides yourselves, yet.’
The boy Baber said: ‘Of course we must fight. Anyone who does not think so is a coward.’ He met his father’s eyes defiantly.
Emily listened closely, her head bent over her knitting, now and again stealing a glance at Elizabeth or at Adam Khan’s intent, sad face. Adam had gained a lot of stature since he had made the great effort and freed himself to stand alone, for better or for worse, in the turgid whirlpools of Indian politics.
Now Adam had turned away from his son’s hostile stare and said: ‘He’s right, Peter. There are more who think as he does than as I do--and I wouldn’t really have it otherwise; but to us it’s frightening, it’s absolutely appalling, to think that our fate is going to be settled six thousand miles away and without our having a word to say in it. We could finish up as a colony of Germany!’
Peter said: ‘Would you prefer that? It’s not our fault that it’s the truth. It’s yours, for being such a mess of corruption and civil war a hundred and fifty years ago. If it wasn’t us dragging you around at the wheels of our chariot it would be the French or the Russians. What the devil do you want? To be left on the sidelines as a kind of trophy to be picked up by the winner? If you’d prefer the Germans, make trouble for us here. If you don’t, put your pride in your pocket and come and fight. I can assure you that we won’t be starting this war, and certainly not with the express purpose of insulting Indians, as I expect Harnarayan has already decided.’
