The Daughter of Brahma, I. A. R. Wylie [carter reed txt] 📗

She shook her head as Diana glanced towards the fire. "It is not there the cold but here." She laid her free hand upon her breast. "Here, in your country, the fires must be strong or they die out," she said wistfully.

Diana nodded. She who knew the Indian sunshine, that intense, maddening, yet enervating sunshine which seems to pour down from the brazen skies only to radiate back, laden with the perfume of the flowers and the stench of pestilence, with all the vilest and noblest passions of humanity, knew what this exile suffered. Outside the snow lay in thin, drear patches on the barren soil and a wind, icy yet uninvigorating, swept round the square surface of Hurst Court.

"Are you not happy, Sarasvati?" Diana asked. "Is there anything that troubles you?"

"Nothing now, I thank you. Yes, before you came a great sadness was upon me. I was so alone." She made a little gesture of protest as she saw Diana's face. "Not alone, perhaps, but lonely. I have been taught to need love. And no hand but yours has ever taken mine in kindliness."

"Sarasvati!"

She stretched out a slender brown hand, with its many rings, and looked at it thoughtfully.

"It must be a very ugly hand," she said. "Often I have seen how those who came here have shrunk from touching it, as though it was unclean. It was then that I first learnt that I was an outcaste. And yet is it the colour that makes it so ugly? Is it the whiteness only that matters?"

"Yes, only the colour," Diana answered. Her brows had contracted; her eyes shone fiercely bright. "It does not matter how coarse, how shapeless, how ignoble a hand may be, so long as it is white." She bent her head and kissed the long delicate fingers with a vehement tenderness. "So much for the fools and Pharisees," she said. "What do they matter to you? You do not need them. You have love enough."

She looked up, her fair, lovely fair face flushed with the triumph of an enemy overcome, and her eyes met Sarasvati's. The flash of exultation died down beneath that all-seeing gaze.

"You are brave," David Hurst's wife said gently. "For I know that your heart shrank within you as you kissed me. Do not say that it is not so, for I know."

Diana made no protest. Before that direct, unfaltering perception of a truth which she would have refused to recognise all denial seemed futile, contemptible. Only another, greater truth remained.

"I despise myself now," Diana said frankly. "For I care more for you than I have ever cared for another woman, and if I shrank it is because I was born a Pharisee, and the habits of the Pharisee are appallingly tenacious. Sarasvati, if you know so much you must also know how much these days together have taught me to care for you."

"Yes, I know. You are my friend. You are very good to me. Your friendship is like the sunshine which comes from afar off yet warms the heart." She drew herself suddenly upright. "But a great river separates us," she said in a low, broken voice, "and it never can be bridged never, never, never!"

Diana rose to her feet. Something in those scarcely audible desperate repetitions startled her as a revelation of a danger hitherto unsuspected. She knew that she had passed out of Sarasvati's horizon and that another and dearer figure stood before the eyes that stared with so much prophetic pain into the fire-light. Diana put her hand gently on the quivering shoulders.

"Even if it were true," she said " and I won't admit that it is true what does it matter to you? You have David."

"I have my husband." It was as though a light had been flashed into the darkness of her thoughts. She lifted her head and smiled with a joyous gratitude which filled the Englishwoman with an odd sense of shame. "I know that he is mine. But it is even for his sake that I grieve. For have I not learnt in these days how much he needs the friendship of his people? And I cannot help him. You yes, how well you help him! I have seen the gratitude in his eyes, I have heard it in his voice. But I can do nothing I stand between him and his kind, his ambition--"

"No," interrupted Diana sharply and almost sternly. "That is not true. Love like yours could never hinder any man. You have been discouraged and frightened by a few prejudiced people who would be suspicious of any foreigner. Could they see you as I see you and know you as I know you, they would learn to love you as I have done. But you must not be afraid. You must go amongst them bravely. That is the only way." She had spoken with a lack of conviction which disgusted her the more because it rang sincere. She realised that she was playing a part the poor, weak part of a futile consoler driven thereto by a fear of a danger whose extent she could only dimly apprehend. Sarasvati raised her eyes, and she bore their expression of dawning hope with the determination of a general who knows that an error of judgment must be atoned for by redoubled energy.

"And if I went among them bravely," David Hurst's wife said, "do you think that one day they would forgive me for not being as they are? Do you think that one day the opportunity would be given to serve him as you serve him?"

And suddenly, with those words, the danger took shape. Diana bent and caught the slender figure in her arms.

"I am sure," she said with a fierce resolve which challenged her own reason. "I am sure. No one could ever serve him better than his own wife as the woman who loves him and whom he loves. Only be brave and patient."

The door opened and she turned and saw that David Hurst stood on the threshold. He carried his overcoat over his arm and a faint flush in his dark cheeks told her of some suppressed excitement. His glance passed quickly from Sarasvati to Diana and there stopped, with an expression that was familiar enough to her so familiar that she had never realised until this moment how new a thing it was. Now she indeed realised. She understood that it had dawned gradually in these last few weeks of common toil and common ambition. Together they had built a wall of protection around the frail dark woman who bore his name, and in the building they had become comrades. But the woman whom they protected stood in the midst of their protection alone. All this Diana realised in one flash of intuition. Then Hurst spoke.

"Lord Salby has just arrived from South Africa," he said in the quick, curt way which had become habitual to him. "He has travelled night and day in order to be able to lend me his support, and I am to see him this afternoon at Ashley, where he is to take the chair at the meeting. Mr. Smith has just brought in the news.. Di, you'll come too, won't you? I hope that it will be the turning-point hi my favour."

Mr. Smith, who had followed close on his employer's heels, greeted the two ladies with a profound bow. His bright, clean-shaven face announced an elated presence of coming victory and a certain amount of innocent self-satisfaction.

"Of course Miss CJiichester is coming," he said briskly. "If we pull off this little affair to-morrow, it will be not a little owing to her work, and she's got to have some of the glory. Miss Chichester, you've done more for the party than any other lady in the whole division fairly talked the people's heads off. Old James, the shoemaker, he swore he was going Socialist this time by way of variety; but he told me yesterday that he'd changed his mind. He said you'd spent the afternoon with him, had been so pleasant and convincing, and made his head so tired that he gave way from pure weariness of spirit. That's how to do it, Miss Chichester make 'em tired, stop 'em thinking at all costs, and the country's safe."

Diana laughed, but she was watching the figure by the fireside with an increased apprehension. Sarasvati had risen. Her eyes were fixed on her husband's face, her lips a little parted, as though she were breathing quickly.

"You are very kind to give me so much credit," Diana said, "but I think you must excuse me this afternoon. I have had more than enough of meetings of late, and I am tired."

"Tired! "Hurst interrupted blankly. "I didn't know you could be tired, Di. Of course, I don't want to urge you^ you have done enough already; but, frankly, I shall miss you this afternoon. I have grown to look upon you as an indispensable adjutant. I can hardly do without you."

She tried to signal to him to be silent. In the light of her new understanding each innocent word of his had a painful significance. Perhaps, in his gratitude, he had said more than he felt; but his eyes were earnest, and even troubled. She forced a smile.

"I am really sorry, David, but I don't think I should make much difference this afternoon. You will have enough to look after--" She stopped.

Sarasvati came to her husband's side and laid her hand on his arm.

"She refuses for my sake," she said. "Husband, may I not also accompany you?"

In the brief, scarcely perceptible pause that followed, Diana glanced at Mr. Smith's face and saw that it had fallen into lines of blank consternation. The flush had died out of Hurst's cheeks, but he looked down into Sarasvati's eyes and smiled.

"Do you wish it?" he asked quietly.

"If it would not harm you."

"Harm me? How should you ever harm me?

But--" he hesitated "--the people are often rough," he said slowly. "Hard things are often said, Sarasvati. They might hurt you. For men it is a different thing--"

"Diana is not afraid nor will I be afraid."

Hurst looked up and met Diana's eyes. This time her message was understood.

"I know you will not be afraid," he said. "If you wish it come with me. I will order the Victoria. Dress warmly, for it is very cold."

"I thank you." Forgetful of the stranger's presence, she put up her hands to him in an attitude of humble gratitude. "You are not angry with me that I have asked?"

"I am glad," he answered steadily, "I want you with me always, my wife. Go and get ready. Diana, you will come with us and keep her company?"

Their eyes met a second time over the dark head. It seemed to Diana Chichester that he was reminding her of a promise given, and that she must answer.

"Of course," she said, "we will be ready as soon as you." She came to Sarasvati and took her passive hand. "Come!" she said gently. "We must not keep them waiting."

Sarasvati lifted her face with a faint, tremulous smile. Her courage seemed to waver; she looked from one to the other appealingly and nervously, like a child seeking support and approbation. But her husband had turned away, and Mr. Smith's eye avoided her, and she crept silently from the room.

Mr. Smith waited until the door had closed upon the two women. Then he came quickly across the room.

"Sir David," he began jerkily, but resolutely, "Sir David, I shouldn't be doing my duty to you as your agent if I did not warn you against this change in your plans. You know what this afternoon means for us all. We've had a hard fight for you, and Lord Salby's support may make the vital difference. He owns half Ashley, and Ashley will vote with him to a man. Sir David, it's against my principles, and it's a confoundedly unpleasant thing to have to do,