Hindoo Holiday (33 page)

But neither do the ministers want the blame for thwarting Miss Murdock, so they call in public opinion. Public opinion, they say, objects to a European dispensary inside the city, so they regret Miss Murdock may not have the site she has chosen, but she may have that one over there, about five hundred yards further away, or indeed any other site she wishes on or outside that radius.

But Miss Murdock wants the site she has chosen. Five hundred yards make a considerable difference to her, and that site over there has none of the natural advantages of
her
site; it has no well, and no gully for timid Indian ladies to creep along; also the amount of excavation and leveling that would be needed to prepare it makes it impracticable.

Besides, she points out, her own site fulfills the requirements of public opinion, for it too is outside the city. But this is disputed. True, her site is outside the walls, but the walls are very old, and the city itself has spread outside them; her site is
not
outside the city.

A long and wearisome argument ensues, throughout which His Highness, by professing complete helplessness and pretending that her disappointment is also his, tries to preserve the friendship he so deeply values.

But in vain. The lady doctor, her grip packed, is waiting impatiently on the quay in America for her call, and Miss Murdock, vexed and irritable, has taken refuge in Rajgarh, where she stirs up against His Highness the displeasure of the British Cantonment.

“How does one make a decision? How does one make up one's mind?” sighed His Highness.

One doesn't. The business of the dispensary has been dragging on for months.

I did not feel any better this morning, so very early, before breakfast, I went down to find the doctor. He was sitting on the verandah of his house, smoking a hubble-bubble and contemplating the scenery, which comprised the back premises of his hospital and the back premises of a goat which was rooting about among the weeds and refuse of which his garden consisted.

“Very kind of you to come,” he said amiably, struggling out of an armchair which was rather too small for him and offering it to me.

“Yes, it's partly friendliness,” I said; “but also because I want some castor-oil.”

“May I see your tongue?” he asked politely.

I protruded it. He gazed at it in silence, and then, returning the stem of his pipe to his mouth, fell to contemplating the scenery again in a thoughtful manner.

“Very dirty!” he remarked, eyeing the goat, which had given a little skip and drawn nearer. Then he stretched out a plump brown hand and felt my pulse.

“You must fast for two days,” he said, “and then you must take only light things like milk pudding, vermicelli, and fish. You will be all right in a day or two.”

He bubbled for a moment into his pipe and then said:

“You are to leave us soon?”

“Yes, in about a month's time.”

“I am sorry. His Highness will be sorry. Have you enjoyed it here?”

“Oh yes, very much indeed. But I find it a little too warm for me now.”

“Of course, of course,” he said, “I understand. And is it not a little lonely for you sometimes—up at the Guest House by yourself?”

“Yes, it is sometimes.”

“It is natural. We are not made to be alone. If there is anything that I can do for you, please to tell me. The society of girls, it is not difficult to arrange. . . . If you speak to your sweeper, she will find you some one.”

“Thank you, Doctor Sahib,” I said, “but I can get along without.”

He nodded.

“His Highness says that you will come back again?”

“I hope so,” I said.

“Will you come alone?”

“Alone?”

“You should marry in England and bring out your wife to Chhokrapur with you.”

I smiled.

“If I come again,” I said, “I shall come alone.”

“It is a pity,” he replied. “For then you will not stay.”

With another little skip the goat mounted the steps of the verandah and entered the house.

“If you will come with me to the hospital,” said the doctor, “I will give you some castor-oil.”

When I return from my early morning rides I find flowers on my dressing-table. Sometimes there is a single blossom of scented
chaman
; sometimes a handful of petals, usually jasmine, scattered upon the marble. I thought, for some time, that these gifts came from Narayan; but now I learn that they are from Hashim, the waiter.

Abdul has gone off to Deogarh for a day or two in search of a new job. He was afraid, he said, of what would happen to him after my departure, so wished to take measures for his defense while I was still here. After all, I had done nothing for him except make his life more difficult; but if I would now give him a certificate—a good certificate—to the district Commissioner, he might yet retrieve the fortunes I had jeopardized. Yes, I had done my best for him; he knew that; but nothing had come of my promises, nothing—three rupees! I had failed.

I gave him an excellent certificate, feeling that if it was going to rid me of Abdul praise could not be too extravagant, and told him it was the last work I would do on his behalf. Eventually a reply to his application came—a telegram telling him to present himself at once to the Deogarh Collector for examination.

His diplomacy was admirable at this point. After expressing his gratitude for the success of my certificate, he said that he could not however take the journey, for that would interrupt my studies with him. I said they would not suffer much by the interruption, and advised him to go. He consented—it would be only for a few days.

“Very well, Mr. Ackerley, I will go, since you wish it.”

But one other thing—he distrusted the wording of the telegram; it said nothing about “expenses paid,” and his railway fare would be twelve rupees, which he could ill afford. Since Mr. Ackerley wished him to go and apply for the job . . .

I shook my head.

“Nothing more, Abdul.”

He received the refusal with perfect composure and left, exhorting me to study hard while he was away so that we should be able to make great progress when he returned. I watched his retreating figure, stiff, self-conscious, humorless, and knew that I had had my last lesson.

There is a golden mohur tree near the Guest House, and I sat on the verandah to-day looking at its beautiful cascading orange flowers. A mina bird perched on its branches, looking very inquisitorial and making a variety of inquisitorial noises. The mina is a kind of starling, and is said to be as intelligent as the parrot in learning to talk. Maybe it is; and its harsh voice is no less unpleasant to listen to. Bird noises are seldom pleasant, however. The peacock's voice is as ugly as his nature, but then he is beautiful to look at, so perhaps nothing more should be expected of him.

In a
neem
tree close by a family of doves was disputing, peevish and spiteful; and a tree-pie gurgled somewhere overhead, like an air-locked water-pipe. Then a bulbul, the Eastern songthrush, arrived; but he did not contribute to the concert; he only turned up his tail at me to show me that his bottom was decorated with a tuft of red feathers, and then flew away.

Babaji Rao left Chhokrapur for two months' holiday yesterday, so I shall not see him again. He said he would give me a call for farewells at five o'clock this morning as he passed the foot of the Guest House hill on his way to Rajgarh; but as he had not come by half-past five I walked down to his house, fearing I had missed him. But he had not started. A fantastic green wooden coach, to which two lean horses were harnessed, was standing outside his gate; some tin trunks and a bundle in a blanket were stacked on the roof, and three children were clambering over it like monkeys.

Eight people were to travel in this, and a plank had been placed across the two benches inside to afford more seating room. I asked one of the children where Babaji Rao was, and a grubby hand pointed in the direction of the Palace; so I sat on the wall and waited. At a quarter to seven he came, carrying papers and smoothing his scant, disordered hair.

“How late you are!” I said.

“What could I do?” he replied. “His Highness called me at four-thirty, but when I got there he had fallen asleep again and slept until six o'clock. When he had dictated some letters I came away.”

That was all he said, and without the least suggestion of impatience or reproach or any sign of bitterness.

“Will you catch your train?” I asked.

“I do not think so; but we must try.”

I said good-bye to him at once so as not to delay him further, and returned to the Guest House thinking what a kind, generous man he was and how sadly I should miss him.

Babaji Rao departing, Abdul returns, very brisk, very selfpossessed, very punctilious. After perfunctory inquiries about my “homework,” we turned to more important matters. His visit to Deogarh had been most unsatisfactory, the Collector had offered him the job at forty-five rupees—but only on a month's probation. Abdul had not trusted the Collector. He was a Hindoo. Moreover he had not refunded Abdul's train fare.

If only there were some one to write again to the Commissioner to put the case before him, to ask for protection for Abdul—and to request the refunding of his money. If only Mr. Ackerley would do this for him—the last request he would ever make—for consider the effect Mr. Ackerley's certificate had already had on the Commissioner.

“Very well, Abdul,” I said, “get me some notepaper.”

He was quite astonished—astonished and delighted. Pen and paper were brought.

“By the way,” I said, as I signed it, “I'm dismissing you to day—this is our last lesson.”

He could scarcely believe his ears.

“What, Mr. Ackerley? No more lessons? But Mr. Ackerley, that is very bad. It cannot be. You will never learn to speak in this way, and you are much improved. Oh, my Lord! You are joking, I think. Is it not so?”

I shook my head.

“But why will you not go on with your lessons? What is the matter?”

I said the weather was too hot.

“Oh, my Lord! But what of your promises, Mr. Ackerley, that you will keep me with you till the last? Oh, my Lord! Do not forsake me also, gentleman, at this moment! Never mind, then, I will come without payment to teach you for nothing. Ah, Mr. Ackerley, do not send me away from you.”

There was a lot more of this; but I was firm.

“But I shall come to visit you, Mr. Ackerley?” he cried. “I shall come to visit you—from time to time—when I wish?”

I wanted to refuse even this, but of course I hadn't the courage. So I said that he might come, but not too often, and never again with any hope of assistance from me. Then I made him a present of his railway fare to Deogarh, and with this and the letter he departed slightly consoled.

His Highness told me the Hindoo's poetic conception of male beauty the other day as we drove out together. The hair, he said, should be like scorpions' stings; the nose like the parrot's beak; the eyebrows drawn bows meeting above it, and the eyes the eyes of a fawn. The cheeks should seem like looking glasses; the chin a lemon; the teeth pomegranate seeds; the lips coral, and the ears mother-of-pearl. The neck should be like a shell; the arms like serpents; the torso like the leaf of the sacred
peepal
tree, and the thighs plantains. I had never noticed the leaf of the
peepal
tree, so he stopped the car and sent his gray-bearded cousin to pick one for me. It was a beautiful bright leaf, and His Highness illustrated with it the poet's fancy. From the stalk (the human neck) the edges of the leaf ran squarely out on either side (the shoulders) and then curved round and inwards to terminate in a finely-pointed tail, some two inches long (the waist), so that the suggestion was of a square, broad torso upon a very narrow waist, like the Minoan Vase-bearer. From the spine of the leaf, running from stalk to tip, the ribs curved out to join and form a fine tracery just within the outer edges, and from these ribs radiated a scarcely perceptible network of small and large veins.

On our way back, a bird flew across the road. His Highness called my attention to it, but I was too late to see it. He said it was a bird he had never seen before. “Not that rare blue bird of yours?” I asked. No, this one was red.

“It flashes like a jewel!” he exclaimed. “It must be the robin red-breast!”

Narayan says that he has no physical love for Sharma or for any man. This is wrong, he thinks.

But he kisses him sometimes in praise, as he beats him in blame. When Sharma does a good act Narayan kisses his hand, and when he makes a good speech Narayan kisses his cheek; but publicly, never in private.

“Not his mouth?” I asked.

“He eats meat,” said Narayan.

One night, he told me, when they were lying together on a
charpai
, Sharma whispered:

“Narayan! Narayan! Kiss me.”

Narayan pretended to be asleep. But Sharma knew he shammed, and touched him. Narayan would not respond to this either, so Sharma leant over him and kissed his hand. And in the morning Narayan said that he had dreamed that some one had kissed him on the hand. But Sharma would not believe in this “dream”; he said Narayan had been awake all the time and knew it was he who had kissed him.

Laughing, Narayan had denied this and asked why Sharma had kissed his hand; and Sharma had replied:

“I got much love.”

“He love me very much . . . very much,” said Narayan, recounting this story. “I say to him one day. ‘If I die, what you do?' and he say, ‘I die too. I have no father, no mother, no God, no friend, only you. You are my God, my friend and brother. What can I do but die too?' And then he say in English, ‘My darling Narayan.'”

But Narayan's feelings for Sharma are not so simple, so honest, or so beautiful.