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Far to Seek by Maud Diver

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FAR TO SEEK

A Romance of England and India

BY
MAUD DIVER

AUTHOR OF 'CAPTAIN DESMOND, V.C.,' 'LILAMANI,'
'DESMOND'S DAUGHTER,' ETC.

"I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance....
O Far-to-Seek! O the keen call of thy flute...!"
--RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

"His hidden meaning dwells in our endeavours;
Our valours are our best gods."
--JOHN FLETCHER.

William Blackwood & Sons Ltd.

Edinburgh and London

* * * * *

_TO
MY BLUE BIRD,

BRINGER OF HAPPINESS TO MYSELF
AND OTHERS,

I DEDICATE THIS IDYLL OF
A MOTHER AND SON.

M.D._

* * * * *

"The dawn sleeps behind the shadowy hills,
The stars hold their breath, counting the hours....
There is only your own pair of wings and the pathless sky,
Bird, oh my Bird, listen to me--do not close your wings."
--RABINDRANATH TAGORE.




AUTHOR'S NOTE.


As part of my book is set in Lahore, at the time of the outbreak, in
April 1919, I wish to state clearly that, while the main events are true
to fact, the characters concerned, both English and Indian, are purely
imaginary. At the same time, the opinions expressed by my Indian
characters on the present outlook are all based on the written or spoken
opinions of actual Indians--loyal or disaffected, as the case may be.

There were no serious British casualties in Lahore, though there were
many elsewhere. I have imagined one locally, for purposes of my story.
In all other respects I have kept close to recorded facts.

M.D.





CONTENTS.


PAGE

PHASE I. THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 1

PHASE II. THE VISIONARY GLEAM 65

PHASE III. PISGAH HEIGHTS 135

PHASE IV. DUST OF THE ACTUAL 283

PHASE V. A STAR IN DARKNESS 417




PHASE I.

THE GLORY AND THE DREAM





CHAPTER I.

"Thou art the sky, and thou art the nest as well."
--Tagore.


By the shimmer of blue under the beeches Roy knew that summer--"really
truly summer!"--had come back at last. And summer meant picnics and
strawberries and out-of-door lessons, and the lovely hot smell of
pine-needles in the pine-wood, and the lovelier cool smell of moss
cushions in the beech-wood--home of squirrels and birds and bluebells;
unfailing wonderland of discovery and adventure.

Roy was an imaginative creature, isolated a little by the fact of being
three and a half years older than Christine, and "miles older" than
Jerry and George, mere babies, for whom the magic word adventure held no
meaning at all.

Luckily, there was Tara, from the black-and-white house: Tara, who
shared his lessons and, in spite of the drawback of being a girl, had
long ago won her way into his private world of knight-errantry and
romance. Tara was eight years and five weeks old; quite a reasonable age
in the eyes of Roy, whose full name was Nevil Le Roy Sinclair, and who
would be nine in June. With the exception of grown-ups, who didn't
count, there was no one older than nine in his immediate neighbourhood.
Tara came nearest: but _she_ wouldn't be nine till next year; and by
that time, he would be ten. The point was, she couldn't catch him up if
she tried ever so.

It was Tara's mother, Lady Despard, who had the happy idea of sharing
lessons, that would otherwise be rather a lonely affair for both. But it
was Roy's mother who had the still happier idea of teaching them
herself. Tara's mother joined in now and then; but Roy's mother--who
loved it beyond everything--secured the lion's share. And Roy was old
enough by now to be proudly aware of his own good fortune. Most other
children of his acquaintance were afflicted with tiresome governesses,
who wore ugly jackets and hats, who said "Don't drink with your mouth
full," and "Don't argue the point!"--Roy's favourite sin--and always
told you to "Look in the dictionary" when you found a scrumptious new
word and wanted to hear all about it. The dictionary, indeed! Roy
privately regarded it as one of the many mean evasions to which
grown-ups were addicted.

His ripe experience on the subject was gleaned partly from neighbouring
families, partly from infrequent visits to "Aunt Jane"--whom he hated
with a deep unreasoned hate--and "Uncle George," who had a kind, stupid
face, but anyhow tried to be funny and made futile bids for favour with
pen-knives and half-crowns. Possibly it was these uncongenial visits
that quickened in him very early the consciousness that his own
beautiful home was, in some special way, different from other boys'
homes, and his mother--in a still more special way--different from other
boys' mothers....

And that proud conviction was no mere myth born of his young adoration.
In all the County, perhaps in all the Kingdom, there could be found no
mother in the least like Lilamani Sinclair, descendant of Rajput chiefs
and wife of an English Baronet, who, in the face of formidable barriers,
had dared to accept all risks and follow the promptings of his heart.
One of these days there would dawn on Roy the knowledge that he was the
child of a unique romance, of a mutual love and courage that had run the
gauntlet of prejudices and antagonisms, of fightings without and fears
within; yet, in the end, had triumphed as they triumph who will not
admit defeat. All this initial blending of ecstasy and pain, of
spiritual striving and mastery, had gone to the making of Roy, who in
the fulness of time would realise--perhaps with pride, perhaps with
secret trouble and misgiving--the high and complex heritage that was
his.

* * * * *

Meanwhile he only knew that he was fearfully happy, especially in summer
time; that his father--who had smiling eyes and loved messing with
paints like a boy--was kinder than anyone else's, so long as you didn't
tell bad fibs or meddle with his brushes; that his idolised mother, in
her soft coloured silks and saris, her bangles and silver shoes, was the
"very most beautiful" being in the whole world. And Roy's response to
the appeal of beauty was abnormally quick and keen. It could hardly be
otherwise with the son of these two. He loved, with a fervour beyond his
years, the clear pale oval of his mother's face; the coils of her dark
hair, seen always through a film of softest muslin--moon-yellow or
apple-blossom pink, or deep dark blue like the sky out of his window at
night spangled with stars. He loved the glimmer of her jewels, the sheen
and feel of her wonderful Indian silks, that seemed to smell like the
big sandalwood box in the drawing-room. And beyond everything he loved
her smile and the touch of her hand, and her voice that could charm away
all nightmare terrors, all questionings and rebellions, of his excitable
brain.

Yet, in outward bearing, he was not a sentimental boy. The Sinclairs did
not run to sentiment; and the blood of two virile races--English and
Rajput--was mingled in his veins. Already his budding masculinity bade
him keep the feelings of 'that other Roy' locked in the most secret
corner of his heart. Only his mother, and sometimes Tara, caught a
glimpse of him now and then. Lady Sinclair, herself, never guessed that,
in the vivid imaginations of both children, she herself was the
ever-varying incarnation of the fairy princesses and Rajputni heroines
of her own tales. Their appetite for these was insatiable; and her store
of them seemed never ending: folk tales of East and West; true tales of
Crusaders, of Arthur and his knights; of Rajput Kings and Queens, in the
far-off days when Rajasthan--a word like a trumpet call--was holding her
desert cities against hordes of invaders, and heroes scorned to die in
their beds. Much of it all was frankly beyond them; but the colour and
the movement, the atmosphere of heroism and high endeavour quickened
imagination and fellow-feeling, and left an impress on both children
that would not pass with the years.

To their great good fortune, these tales and talks were a part of her
simple, individual plan of education. An even greater good fortune--in
their eyes--was her instinctive response to the seasons. She shared to
the full their clear conviction that schoolroom lessons and a radiant
day of summer were a glaring misfit; and she trimmed her sails, or
rather her time-table, accordingly.

"Sentimental folly and thoroughly demoralising," was the verdict of Aunt
Jane, overheard by Roy, who was not supposed to understand. "They will
grow up without an inch of moral backbone. And you can't say I didn't
warn you. Lady Despard's a crank, of course; but Nevil is a fool to
allow it. Goodness knows _he_ was bad enough, though he was reared on
the good old lines. And you are not giving his son a chance. The sooner
the boy's packed off to school the better. I shall tell him so."

And his mother had answered with her dignified unruffled sweetness--that
made her so beautifully different from ordinary people, who got red and
excited and made foolish faces: "He will not agree. He shares my
believing that children are in love with life. It is their first love.
Pity to crush it too soon; putting their minds in tight boxes with no
chink for Nature to creep in. If they first find knowledge by their
young life-love, afterwards, they will perhaps give up their life-love
to gain it."

Roy could not follow all that; but the music of the words, matched with
the music of his mother's voice, convinced him that her victory over
horrid interfering Aunt Jane was complete. And it was comforting to know
that his father agreed about not putting their minds in tight boxes. For
Aunt Jane's drastic prescription alarmed him. Of course school would
have to come some day; but his was not the temperament that hankers for
it at an early age. As to a moral backbone--whatever sort of an
affliction that might be--if it meant growing up ugly and
'disagreeable,' like Aunt Jane or the Aunt Jane cousins, he fervently
hoped he would never have one--or Tara either....

But on this particular morning he feared no manner of bogey--not even
school or a moral backbone--because the bluebells were alight under his
beeches--hundreds and hundreds of them--and 'really truly' summer had
come back at last!

Roy knew it the moment he sprang out of bed and stood barefoot on the
warm patch of carpet near the window, stretching his slim shapely body,
instinctively responsive to the sun's caress. No less instinctive was
his profound conviction that nothing possibly could go wrong on a day
like this.

In the first place it meant lessons under their favourite tree. In the
second, it was history and poetry day; and Roy's delight in both made
them hardly seem lessons at all. He thought it very clever of his
mother, having them together. The depth of her wisdom he did not yet
discern. She allowed them within reason, to choose their own poems: and
Roy, exploring her bookcase, had lighted on Shelley's 'Cloud'--the
musical flow of words, the more entrancing because only half understood.
He had straightway learnt the first three verses for a surprise. He
crooned them now, his head flung back a little, his gaze intent on a
gossamer film that floated just above the pine tops--'still as a
brooding dove.'...

Standing there, in full sunlight--the modelling of his young limbs
veiled, yet not hidden, by his silk night-suit; the carriage of head and
shoulders betraying innate pride of race--he looked, on every count, no
unworthy heir to the House of Sinclair and its simple honourable
traditions: one that might conceivably live to challenge family
prejudices and qualms. The thick dark hair, ruffled from sleep, was his
mother's; and hers the semi-opaque ivory tint of his skin. The clean-cut
forehead and nose, the blue-grey eyes, with the lurking smile in them,
were Nevil Sinclair's own. In him, at least, it would seem that love was
justified of her children.

But of family features, as of family qualms, he was, as yet, radiantly
unaware. Snatching his towel, he scampered barefoot down the passage to
the nursery bathroom, where the tap was already running.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed, but hatless and still barefoot, he was
racing over the vast dew-drenched lawn, leaving a trail of grey-green
smudges on its silvered surface, chanting the opening lines of Shelley's
'Cloud' to breakfast-hunting birds.




CHAPTER II.


"Those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,...
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day;
Are yet the master-light of all our seeing."
--WORDSWORTH.


The blue rug under Roy's beech-tree was splashed with freckles of
sunshine; freckles that were never still, because a fussy little wind
kept swaying the top-most branches, where the youngest beech-leaves
flickered, like golden-green butterflies bewitched by some malicious
fairy, so that they could never fly into the sky till summer was over,
and all the leaf butterflies in the world would be free to scamper with
the wind.

That was Roy's foolish fancy as he lay full length, to the obvious
detriment of his moral backbone--chin cupped in the hollow of his hands.
Close beside him lay Prince, his golden retriever; so close that he
could feel the dog's warm body through his thin shirt. At the foot of
the tree, in a nest of pale cushions, sat his mother, in her
apple-blossom sari and a silk dress like the lining of a shell. No
jewels in the morning, except the star that fastened her sari on one
shoulder and a slender gold bangle--never removed--the wedding-ring of
her own land. The boy, mutely adoring, could, in some dim way, feel the
harmony of those pale tones with the olive skin, faintly aglow, and the
delicate arch of her eyebrows poised like outspread wings above the
brown, limpid depths of her eyes. He could not tell that she was still
little more than a girl; barely eight-and-twenty. For him she was
ageless:--protector and playfellow, essence of all that was most real,
yet most magical, in the home that was his world. Unknown to him, the
Eastern mother in her was evoking, already, the Eastern spirit of
worship in her son.

Very close to her nestled Tara, a vivid, eager slip of a girl, with
wild-rose petals in her cheeks and blue hyacinths in her eyes and
sunbeams tangled in her hair, that rippled to her waist in a mass almost
too abundant for the small head and elfin face it framed. In
temperament, she suggested a flame rather than a flower, this singularly
vital child. She loved and she hated, she played and she quarrelled with
an intensity, a singleness of aim, surprising and a little disquieting
in a creature not yet nine. She was the despair of nurses and had never
crossed swords with a governess, which was a merciful escape--for the
governess. Juvenile fiction and fairy tales she frankly scorned. Legends
of Asgard and Arthur, the virile tales of Rajputana and her warrior
chiefs, she drank in as the earth drinks dew. Roy had a secret weakness
for a happy ending--in his own phrase, "a beautiful marry." Tara's rebel
spirit rose to tragedy as a flame leaps to the stars; and there was no
lack of high tragedy in the records of Chitor--Queen of cities--thrice
sacked by Moslem invaders; deserted at last, and left in ruins--a sacred
relic of great days gone by.

This morning Rajputana held the field. Lilamani, with a thrill in her
low voice, was half reading, half telling the adventures of Prithvi Raj
(King of the Earth) and his Amazon Princess, Tara--the Star of Bednore:
verily a star among women for beauty, wisdom, and courage. Many princes
were rivals for her hand; but none would she call "lord" save the man
who restored to her father the Kingdom snatched from him by an Afghan
marauder. "On the faith of a Rajput, _I_ will restore it," said Prithvi
Raj. So, in the faith of a Rajputni, she married him:--and together, by
a daring device, they fulfilled her vow.

Here, indeed, was Roy's 'beautiful marry,' fit prelude for the tale of
that heroic pair. For in life--Lilamani told them--marriage is the
beginning, not the end. That is only for fairy tales.

And close against her shoulder, listening entranced, sat the child Tara,
with her wild-flower face and the flickering star in her heart--a
creature born out of time into an unromantic world; hands clasped round
her upraised knees, her wide eyes gazing past the bluebells and the
beech-leaves at some fanciful inner vision of it all; lost in it, as Roy
was lost in contemplation of his Mother's face....

And this unorthodox fashion of imbibing knowledge in the very lap of the
Earth Mother, was Lilamani Sinclair's impracticable idea of 'giving
lessons'! Shades of Aunt Jane! Of governess and copy-books and rulers!

Happily for all three, Lady Roscoe never desecrated their paradise in
the flesh. She was aware that her very regrettable sister-in-law had
'queer notions' and had flatly refused to engage a governess of high
qualifications chosen by herself; but the half was not told her. It
never is told to those who condemn on principle what they cannot
understand. At their coming all the little private gateways into the
delectable Garden of Intimacy shut with a gentle, decisive click. So it
was with Jane Roscoe, as worthy and unlikeable a woman as ever organised
a household to perfection and alienated every member of her family.

The trouble was that she could not rest satisfied with this achievement.
She was afflicted with a vehement desire--she called it a sense of
duty--to organise the homes of her less capable relations. If they
resented, they were written down ungrateful. And Nevil's ingratitude had
become a byword. For Nevil Sinclair was that unaccountable,
uncomfortable thing--an artist; which is to say he was no true Sinclair,
but the son of his mother whose name he bore. No one, not even Jane, had
succeeded in organising him--nor ever would.

So Lilamani carried on, unmolested, her miniature attempt at the forest
school of an earlier day. Her simple programme included a good deal more
than tales of heroism and adventure. This morning there had been
rhythmical exercises, a lively interlude of 'sums without slates' and
their poems--a great moment for Roy. Only by a superhuman effort he had
kept his treasure locked inside him for two whole days. And his mother's
surprise was genuine: not the acted surprise of grown-ups, that was so
patent and so irritating and made them look so silly. The smile in her
eyes as she listened had sent a warm tingly feeling all through him, as
if the spring sunshine itself ran in his veins. Naturally he could not
express it so; but he felt it so. And now, as he lay looking and
listening, he felt it still. The wonder of her face and her voice, and
all the many wonders that made her so beautiful, had hitherto been as
much a part of him as the air he breathed. But this morning, in some dim
way, things were different--and he could not tell why....

His own puzzled thoughts and her face and her voice became entangled
with the chivalrous story of Prithvi Raj holding court in his hill
fortress with Tara--fit wife for a hero, since she could ride and fling
a lance and bend a bow with the best of them. When Roy caught him up, he
was in the midst of a great battle with his uncle, who had broken out in
rebellion against the old Rana of Chitor.

"All day long they were fighting, and all night long they were lying
awake beside great watch-fires, waiting till there came dawn to fight
again...."

His mother was telling, not reading now. He knew it at once from the
change in her tone.

"And when evening came, what did Prithvi Raj? He was carelessly
strolling over to the enemy's camp, carelessly walking into his Uncle's
tent to ask if he is well, in spite of many wounds. And his uncle, full
of surprise, made answer: 'Quite well, my child, since I have the
pleasure to see you.' And when he heard that Prithvi had come even
before eating any dinner, he gave orders for food: and they two, who
were all day seeking each other's life, sat there together eating from
one plate.

"'In the morning we will end our battle, Uncle,' said Prithvi Raj, when
time came to go.

"'Very well, child, come early,' said Surajmul.

"So Prithvi Raj came early and put his Uncle's whole army to flight. But
that was not enough. He must be driven from the kingdom. So when Prithvi
heard that broken army was hiding in the depths of a mighty forest,
there he went with his bravest horsemen, and suddenly, on a dark night,
sprang into their midst. Then there was great shouting and fighting; and
soon they came together, uncle and nephew, striking at each other, yet
never hating, though they must make battle because of Chitor and the
Kingdom of Mewar.

"To none would Suraj yield, but only to Prithvi, bravest of the brave.
So suddenly in a loud voice he cried--'Stay the fight, nephew. If I am
killed, no great matter. But if _you_ are killed, what will become of
Chitor? I would bear shame for ever.'

"By those generous words he made submission greater than victory. Uncle
and nephew embraced, heart to heart, and all those who had been fighting
each other sat down together in peace, because Surajmul, true Rajput,
could not bring harm, even in anger, upon the sacred city of Chitor."

She paused--her eyes on Roy, who had lost his own puzzling sensations in
the clash of the fight and its chivalrous climax.

"Oh, I love it," he said. "Is that all?"

"No, there is more."

"Is it sad?"

She shook her head at him--smiling.

"Yes, Roy. It is sad."

He wrinkled his forehead.

"Oh dear! I like it to end the nice way."

"But I am not making tales, Sonling. I am telling history."

Tara's head nudged her shoulder. "_Go_ on--please," she murmured,
resenting interruptions.

So Lilamani--still looking at Roy--told how Prithvi Raj went on his last
quest to Mount Abu, to punish the chief, who had married his sister and
was ill-treating her.

"In answer to her cry he went; and climbing her palace walls in the
night, he gave sharp punishment to that undeserving prince. But when
penance was over, his noble nature was ready, like before, to embrace
and be friends. Only that mean one, not able to kill him in battle, put
poison in the sweets he gave at parting and Prithvi ate them, thinking
no harm. So when he came on the hill near his palace the evil work was
done. Helpless he, the all-conqueror, sent word to Tara that he might
see her before death. But even that could not be. And she, loyal wife,
had only one thought in her heart. 'Can the blossom live when the tree
is cut down?' Calm, without tears, she bade his weeping warriors build
up the funeral pyre, putting the torch with her own hand. Then, before
them all, she climbed on that couch of fire and went through the leaping
scorching flames to meet her lord----"

The low clear voice fell silent--and the silence stayed. The vague
thrill of a tragedy they could hardly grasp laid a spell upon the
children. It made Roy feel as he did in Church, when the deepest notes
of the organ quivered through him; and it brought a lump in his throat,
which must be manfully swallowed down on account of being a boy....

And suddenly the spell was broken by the voice of Roger the footman, who
had approached noiselessly along the mossy track.

"If you please, m'lady, Sir Nevil sent word as Lord and Lady Roscoe 'ave
arrived unexpected; and if convenient, can you come in?"

They all started visibly and their dream-world of desert and rose-red
mountains and battle-fields and leaping flames shivered like a
soap-bubble at the touch of a careless hand.

Lilamani rose, gentle and dignified. "Thank you, Roger. Tell Sir Nevil I
am coming."

Roy suppressed a groan. The mere mention of Aunt Jane made one feel
vaguely guilty. To his nimble fancy it was almost as if her very person
had invaded their sanctuary, in her neat hard coat and skirt and her
neat hard summer hat with its one fierce wing, that, disdaining the
tenderness of curves, seemed to stab the air, as her eyes so often
seemed to stab Roy's hyper-sensitive brain.

"Oh dear!" he sighed. "Will they stop for lunch?"

"I expect so."

He wrinkled his nose in a wicked grimace.

"Bad boy!" said Lilamani's lips, but her eyes said other things. He
knew, and she knew that he knew how, in her heart, she shared his innate
antagonism. Was it not of her own bestowing--a heritage of certain
memories--ineffaceable, unforgiveable--during her early days of
marriage? But in spite of that mutual knowledge, Roy was never allowed
to speak disrespectfully of his formidable aunt.

"You can stay out and play till half-past twelve, not one minute later,"
she said--and left them to their own delectable devices.

Roy had been promoted to a silver watch on his eighth birthday, so he
could be relied on; and he still enjoyed a private sense of importance
when the fact was recognised.

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