“That music makes me fearfully lonely,” Olivia said suddenly.
“Why?”
“Even here with you I am lonely, a sort of world loneliness I cannot define.”
“Perhaps it is only that you can’t see the face of the man who sings,” he suggested.
“Perhaps.”
They fell silent, it was too much effort, she thought, to explain herself to him. For if she did, or could, his mind would not stay upon what she said. The voice of the lonely man had sent him far off. He was dreaming his vast dreams and though he loved her and she was sure of that, she knew now that she was not his only love. She must share him with millions of people, with these singers in the night, whose faces he did not see, though they were continually with him, the stuff of his thoughts and dreams. She had lost him for herself alone. These few days in the hills had shown her clearly enough that she could never possess him because he was already possessed and her hold upon him, whatever it was, could grow only if she became a part of all that he loved. That is, she, too, must give herself to India. Even the child could not make David wholly her own.
For a wild solitary moment she was desperately homesick for her own country, for home, even for her mother, and certainly for the streets of New York. What was she doing here in this lonely countryside, lifted upon these tiger-haunted hills above the valleys of India? She gripped his hand, clinging to it for all she had. There was no response, though no repulse. He let his hand be held.
And if she had been able to love David when he was the young boy who had thrown himself at her feet, begging her to love him, the boy who had seemed spoiled and childish, not a man worth loving for a strong girl like her, but if she had foreseen this man he now was and could have loved the boy in patience, would he then have loved her only and with his whole heart? Ah, but had she loved him, and let him so love her, he would never have grown into this man whom she adored because he did not bend to her. She had what she wanted, a strong self-contained man, intent upon his work, and perhaps such a man could never love only a woman, not even her, not at least when her rival was India.
“The air is getting damp,” she said.
“Shall we go in?” he asked.
“Yes, I am tired.”
They walked together into the big central room, a lamp was turned low and the light was dim. He put his arm about her and she leaned upon him.
“David, I am glad we are going to have the baby.”
“Tell me why.” He was suddenly tender. “I know, my darling, I feel it’s God’s blessing, but tell me why.”
She could not tell him the truth as suddenly it appeared to her. If she had a baby, if there were children whom she must tend, then she would not be free to give herself to India. She would not have time, she must put their children first as her duty.
“I want four children, at least,” she said, her face against his breast. “And while you do your work, I will take care of them. I won’t make demands of you, David. I will let you be free to do your work.”
“My perfect wife,” he murmured.
She felt his hand smoothing her hair, and she closed her eyes and pressed herself to him fiercely. Oh, she would live her life around him, her love would be his atmosphere, and though he might not know the air he breathed, he would never know, either, that his God was not hers, or that she needed no other god than love.
At the end of the week they went back to Poona and the mission house. She dismissed the Marathi teacher. Let the communication with India cease. She would be only David’s wife.
She sent word to Leilamani that she was not well and could not visit her, and when Darya came up on their return from the hills, she was distant with him and he did not reproach her because Leilamani had told him, and he knew that pregnant women were wilful and changeable.
“It tires me,” she told David when she found that he was displeased that she had sent away her teacher.
It was to be her weapon, this easy fatigue in a climate unnaturally hot, and he did not protest. How could a man protest? The woman carried the burden of the child as well as herself. She needed double energy, twice the amount of sleep, and her appetite had failed. He would not harass her, he would be more considerate of her, more tender toward her, remembering the immensity of the task that was only hers. He kissed her gently, and forgave her for the quick retort she made.
“I’m not made of glass, David! Don’t kiss me as if I were something breakable.”
She flung this at him and he was startled by the anger in her dark eyes. Then he laughed.
“You temptress,” he muttered and taking a step toward her he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard and long.
“That better?”
“Yes—but again—” she whispered.
In the midst of their long embrace, standing in the middle of the floor, their bodies pressed together, the door opened and the ayah looked in, saw them and shut the door, horror upon her astonished face. They turned their heads, they saw the look, and he drew away from her.
“Oh, that ayah!” Olivia cried under her breath.
“After all, Olivia, it’s the middle of the afternoon and I ought to be at work.”
“You haven’t really kissed me for days, not since we came back from Poona.”
He laughed, embarrassed. “Ah, we’re married, my love. We’re together, aren’t we? And I must be off, now.”
“Oh well—”
He saw her pouting look, he caught her face in his two hands and tipping her chin upward, kissed her heartily, but without passion, smiled down into her rebellious eyes and went quickly away.
And she stood there alone in the middle of the room, and made a symbol out of what had happened. It was India that had interrupted them and would always disturb them and separate him from her. What could one woman do against that stealthy and eternal figure?
This was the year the monsoons failed. At first the anxious people told each other that the sacred winds were only late. Sometimes they delayed for a week or even a month. Delay was grave enough, for delayed monsoons meant a meager rainy season, and so much the less water for the fields and the year’s needs.
Week passed after week and hope gave way at last to certainty. The warm currents of air had swept aside, they had curved to other regions. The north had abundant rain and even the east had short but heavy rains. On the west of India, beyond the high central plateaus, no rains fell, and David foresaw inevitable famine and the people yielded themselves to hopelessness. Yes, there would be a famine. There was no possibility of avoiding it now. Food supplies, already at the lowest ebb, were hoarded still further and the poor prepared to die.
In the midst of this distress Olivia was delivered of her child. She had refused to go to Bombay and the English hospital for her confinement, and the local British doctor had tended her, and a pleasant Eurasian nurse had come in to stay for a month.
The child was a boy. He was born late in the afternoon while the dry heat shimmered over the city of his birth. The air was so dry, the doctor grumbled, that he could not sweat. He was grateful that his patient was young and strong. He disliked delivering white women and he always advised them to go to Bombay, but this one was stubborn against all advice. Had there been complications he would not have felt responsibility. But there were none. The mother was strong and controlled. She had asked that her husband be summoned and when it was found that he had gone into the native city, she had accepted the situation and had set herself to her task. He did not believe in using the fashionable modern anesthetics in childbirth and he had let her proceed, watching her constantly and encouraging her.
“Brave doing, Mrs. MacArd,” he murmured. “You’ll have a good baby.”
A few hours later, when it was over she lay gasping for a moment and then she drew a deep breath.
“Is it a good baby?” she asked.
“A fine son,” the doctor replied. “I congratulate you.”
The plump little nurse, eternally smiling, held u
p the tiny newborn boy, wrapped in a square of blue flannel, and Olivia looked at her son for a long instant. Then she laughed.
“Why, he’s the image of his old grandfather!” she said cheerfully, “He’ll have red hair and red eyebrows and a bad temper.”
They laughed with her, and the doctor twisted his dyed mustache. A pity the husband wasn’t here, he thought. Such courage was rare. White women usually went soft in this climate. He went away feeling proud of himself, and was very stern with the nurse lest she bungle the case, after all. One could never trust these half-Indians as one trusted a real British nurse.
When David came in at nightfall, every light was lit in the house and servants waited with gleaming eyes and hushed voices.
“Sahib—”
“Sahib—your son—”
“Sahib—”
They chattered together, each trying to be the bearer of the royal news, and then the nurse heard them and came out with the blue bundle in her arms, and David, as dazed as though he had not known for months that this must happen, stared down into the round firm face of his son.
“Mrs. MacArd says he looks like your father, sir,” the nurse chirped.
“So he does,” David exclaimed. He was not at all sure that he liked the idea. Nevertheless, the resemblance was plain. The boy looked back at his father with astonishing calm.
“I don’t believe he likes me,” David said.
The nurse laughed. “He cawn’t see you, sir. They never do at this age.”
“That’s a relief.”
He felt suddenly gay in spite of a most depressing day. In the native city the streets were already lined with refugees from the country. He had gone to see for himself what was happening, and he had listened to their stories of empty granaries and cracked fields. Their cattle were dead skeletons and their wells were dried. Only in the city were there still stores of food and to the city they had come to beg. He had made up his mind as he walked homeward that he would appeal to the local Governor for help tomorrow, but he knew that the remote and pessimistic Englishman would probably only shrug his shoulders and refer him to the Governor-general in Bombay. Well, then to Bombay he would go if he must. Meanwhile, ironically, his school was as full as ever. The sons of the rich were his pupils.
All this was now forgot. He smiled down at his son, and then passed to enter the room where Olivia lay.
“She’s sleeping, sir,” the nurse exclaimed.
But he went in nevertheless and tiptoed to the bed, beside which a candle burned. Through the misty white of the mosquito net he saw Olivia lying straight and still. She had been tidied, he supposed, by the nurse, for her dark hair was carefully brushed and braided into two long black braids over her shoulders and her hands were folded on her breast. The sheet was drawn up tightly and doubled back under her arms, and the lace-edged ruffles of her white linen nightgown framed her unconscious face. She was breathing deeply and softly, and he noticed now as he never had before how long her dark lashes were as they lay upon her white cheeks.
Standing there, seeing her without being seen, he felt a rash of new and unutterable love for her. How beautiful she was, how faithful, and how strong! Another woman would have complained that she was left so much alone, even alone at the hour of birth, but she never complained and would not now. He had not treasured her enough, he thought with remorse, and from now on he would show his love more plainly while they shared the child. But he longed to show her now how he loved her, and lifting the net he crept inside and sat upon the edge of the bed and put his hand gently over her hands.
She opened her eyes slowly, as though she came back from some far place, and then she saw it was he.
“Darling David,” she murmured, still asleep.
He leaned to whisper to her. “I saw him, dearest. I saw our lovely son!”
A smile flickered at her lips. “All MacArd!”
“Isn’t it funny? But perhaps he is like you inside.”
“I want him to be like you.”
“We’ll wait and see.”
“Oh, but I’m sleepy—” Her voice trailed away in sleep and her eyelids trembled downward.
“Sleep, dearest,” he said. “I shouldn’t have waked you.”
The eyelids quivered upward at that, and she gave him a look of heavenly happiness and slept again.
He stole away, closing the door noiselessly behind him, and went to his study to be alone that he might give thanks to God.
IX
“FAMINE IS CHRONIC IN India, Mr. MacArd,” the Governor-general said in Bombay.
He was a tall handsome Englishman, a man of pride and dignity, a righteous man.
“Does it have to be so?” David demanded.
“It always has been,” the Governor-general replied. “We have reduced the incidence, we have built railroads, irrigation works, even reservoirs and tanks to catch the Himalayan waters. We are feeding millions of people, we are giving employment to millions more so that they can afford to buy imported food, and yet in spite of that I estimate that Bombay presidency alone will lose fifteen percent of its population in the next three months. In some provinces it may be as high as twenty-five percent. Statistics can never be accurate in India.”
David listened with proper respect. The Governor-general was always courteous to him, first perhaps as the son of the great American financier, but now also, as the years passed, he was courteous to him in his own right. He had been scrupulous in his relations with Government and he was building up a school of such caliber that his graduates would be going into the Indian civil service. MacArd men must be well trained and loyal, for in these days loyalty alone was beyond price.
“My father would say that India needs more railroads,” he suggested. “I understand that there is food in the north. It is a matter of distribution.”
The Governor-general was irritated at this and tried not to show it. “Ah, there is no such easy way to solution! The real problem is overpopulation. Indians are obsessed with fears for their fertility. The native newspapers are filled with advertisements for remedies for sterility, yet to my knowledge I have never seen an infertile Indian, man or woman. No, Mr. MacArd, all the resources of the Empire can never catch up with the increase in population among this people. Some are doomed to starve.”
David pondered reply. He knew well enough what Darya would say for he had dared once to quote this Judgment of Government and Darya had leaped to passionate resentment.
“Ah, how that sickens me, David! It has been made the excuse of every delay by Government. And did we not propagate too rapidly to please these Englishmen, India would have ceased to exist. Consider our life span—twenty-seven years! Is this our fault? Consider our death rate—half our children die before they are a year old! Can we afford not to have many children? We are helpless before the worst climate in the world and an indifferent government.”
These words could not be repeated here. David was prudent, he had occasional favors to ask and it would not do to anger this good Englishman. Besides, Darya might be wrong. He was often wrong.
He rose. “Well, Your Excellency, I suppose we shall just have to weather through this famine. It doesn’t touch me personally, my school is fuller than usual.”
“Ah, I suppose the families want to get their sons into a safe place where sickness can’t reach them. That is the worst of famines, I think. Starvation breeds disease. We are preparing for epidemics, of course.”
“I am sure you are. I’ll say good-by, Your Excellency.”
“Good-by, Mr. MacArd. I am sure you know I appreciate very much all that you are doing for India.”
“Thank you.”
The two men shook hands, and the Governor-general allowed his approval to express itself in a warm smile. This tall grave young American was no common missionary. He had given up a world of wealth and pleasure to become a missionary schoolmaster, a very Christian act. “Except ye leave all and follow me—” and so on. One did not often see it.
; Outside the palace gates where the tall Sikh guards stood in scarlet uniforms, David got into his hired carriage and was driven back to the hotel. He was sad and troubled, and the dusty dry air that hung over the city seemed a miasma of ill omen. He wished that he had not brought Olivia and the child to Bombay with him, but in Poona it had seemed a good thing to do. She needed a change and there had seemed to be no good reason against it. So they had come with an entourage of the ayah and a manservant to hold an umbrella over the child whom the ayah carried, and the few days in Bombay had done Olivia good.
This evening when he entered their rooms she was in gay spirits, dressed for dinner in a soft white muslin frock and her cheeks were even a little pink. The rooms were quiet.
“Ted is asleep?” he inquired.
She made a little face at him. “Theodore is asleep.”
They had named the baby Theodore, Gift of God, and she would not hear to a contraction.
“Wait until he gets into college on the football team,” he teased.
“I shall always call him Theodore,” she said decisively.
She put up her face for his kiss, but he warned her off. “Wait, dearest, until I have washed. We must always wash when we come in from the streets. Never forget, Olivia—promise me?”
“But I do,” she protested.
“That’s right.”
He soaped hands and face thoroughly at the china basin in the bathing room and then came back rubbing his face with a towel, She stood at the mirror, fastening a necklace about her neck.
“Pretty?” she inquired of his image in the mirror.
“Very pretty,” he replied. “What are they?”
“Crystals,” she said. “I got them today in the native city.”
He dropped the towel. “The native city, Olivia?”
“Yes, the clerk said the shops there were wonderful and they are.”
He checked the protest upon his lips. She should not have gone. He ought to have warned her. She was still new in India and she did not know the dangers of famine time. Then he decided not to frighten her. Epidemics came afterwards, and it was early in the season.