What hath night to do with sleep?-Milton.
“What a nuisance!”
Leonie turned on her bed and frowned
through the chick at the two girls who had ensconced
themselves in long chairs on the verandah outside her
bedroom.
Broad-minded and big-hearted, she
had tried to overcome the intense irritation which
the Eurasian manner of speech invariably aroused in
her. Some get accustomed in time to the parrot-like
monotony; some don’t; and to the end of his
days the young, immaculately groomed and turned-out
assistant in Hamilton’s will wonder why the beautiful
girl with gold-flecked eyes had suddenly frowned,
and placing the trifle intended for a wedding present
upon the glass counter, had left the shop with an
appallingly inadequate excuse.
Fortunately for him the pukka European
has not been endowed with the gift of hearing himself
speak as others hear him.
Like the broken flight of maimed birds
over a lawn in the process of being mown is the Eurasian
speech and intonation; with the inevitable dip in
the middle, the rise at the end of each sentence, and
the ceaseless clipping of syllables.
And Leonie frowned as she lay under
the mosquito netting awaiting the warning of the dressing
bell, and even felt thankful to a crow which suddenly
perched itself on the top twig of a fir tree, and shrieked
its condemnation of the sunset, the star just above
its head, and the chatterers in the chairs.
In an effort to break through the
overpowering lethargy which lately had fallen upon
her at odd moments of the day, she lifted herself on
to her elbow, only to sink listlessly back on the
very hard bed. After all, why worry over problems
to which there seemed no answer? Why fret over
the silence of the man she loved when she had curtly
refused his offer of companionship; for there always
comes a time when mere man, subjected to the unsatisfactory
daily menu of snubs and refusals, tense moods, and
moody silences, will refuse it, and clear for a diet,
which, although somewhat lacking in salt and spice,
will have the advantage of being substantial, therefore
satisfying.
Also there was no doubt about it the
social ostracism of Calcutta had followed her to Benares;
she had not failed to notice that the people packing
the hotel looked at her furtively, smiling spasmodically
when caught in the act, and seemed ill at ease when
left alone with her.
Another thing which annoyed her intensely
was the habit she had developed of peering into the
shadows of the compound at odd moments, and listening
for a sound she could not even describe to herself,
and which she never heard; while through the blazing
hours of the day, and the stifling hours of the night,
like a black thread woven into a tissue of gold, ran
the ghastly fear which had been with her since the
day when a schoolgirl had taunted her, and to which
she had given voice near the poinsettia bush to Jan
Cuxson.
She had done Benares en tourist.
She had watched the worshippers thronging
the Praying Steps at dawn from the deck of a boat
rowed slowly up and down the holy river; had enticed
the monkeys with gram from the niches in the Doorga
Kond, the world-famed Monkey Temple; gazed fascinated
and with reverence at the firing of the pyres about
the dead bodies shrouded in white or red according
to their sex upon the Burning Ghats; averted her eyes
steadfastly from the bloated bodies in process of being
torn to pieces by crows or vultures as they floated
on the soft bosom of Mother Ganges to everlasting
peace; and had passed restful hours in the wonderful
ruins of the Buddhist temple some miles outside the
city.
She had done all that others have
done and will do, and still she waited, doing absolutely
nothing and with no excuse for loitering in the hotel
with its long broad verandah; learning much of the
city’s history from the charming manager who
walks with a stick, and has the blue-green-brown shadow
of the peat bog in his eyes.
“Shoo, you brute!” said
one, of the girls on the verandah, and continued speaking
when the crow had flown farther afield. “Well,
the manager says we are not to go to the bazaar to-night
on any account!”
“Why ever not?”
“Says there’s a row or
something brewing-something to do with the
natives and their religion!”
The girl with the reddish-brown hair
put a final polish to the nails, which damned her
everlastingly, as she spoke condescendingly of one
half of her forbears; while the other, a bona fide
blonde as to hair, half opened the long sleepy brown
eyes, which, combined with the shape of her silken-hosed
leg from ankle to knee branded her even before she
uttered a word.
“Don’t believe it,”
the latter replied. “It’s a do on
the part of the guide to get more backsheesh; you
simply can’t trust these natives a yard.
I’ll tell you what, though,” she sat up
with an energy surprising in one of her kind, “let’s
ask Lady Hickle. She’s such a pet,
and there’s nothing she doesn’t
know about the place, she’s been here a whole
month.”
Followed a short spell of peace in
which Leonie raised her hand to summon her ayah squatting
on the dressing-room matting, and put an end to the
incessant chattering.
But bolts do not wait upon the clapping
of hands before they crash down upon your defenceless
head from out the blue, and the one destined for her
from all time hurled itself at her from out a wispy
cloud of Eurasian gossip.
“Oh! but we can’t do that!”
announced the peevish high-pitched voice.
“Why not?”
“Ma says we’re not to
be with her alone. There’s all sorts of
weird tales going round about her. Thought you
knew. They say she killed her first husband,
and tried to stab someone in Calcutta with that dagger
she wears in her hair; that she lives on the q.t. with
a native-he gave her that gorgeous necklace
of pink pearls; has been seen with him in the compound
after dark-Ma watched-and she’s
positively dotty at the full moon. Fact!
Mrs. Oswald told Ma that there’s no doubt that
she’s quite mad at times.”
The blonde slid her slightly bowed,
silken-hosed limbs to the ground, her face the colour
of greenish putty through the superstitions of one
half of her forbears.
“Let’s go and find your
ma!” said she. “It’s full moon
to-night.”
And after their departure Leonie sat
very still on the edge of the bed, with one foot tucked
under her, and the other bare and very perfect stretched
down to the matting; the netting fell in folds behind
her, and her eyes stared into the corner where a one
time nameless, unshaped spook, having taken form and
name at last, stood mouthing at her from the shadows.
She started violently and looked down
when her body-woman touched the arched instep with
her wrinkled, dusky hand.
Keenly intuitive, as are all the peoples
of India, she had crept noiselessly across the matting
and crouched at Leonie’s feet in her desire
to be near the beloved child in her distress.
There was a heaven of love and a world
of indecision in the monkey eyes, but not a trace
of fear when the beloved child suddenly twisted the
sari from about the sleek head and pock-marked
face and shook her violently by the shoulder.
Instead she rocked herself gently to and fro, crooning
in the toneless cracked voice of the native woman who
tends a white child and loves it.
“Missy-baba, it’s
ayah!” went the tuneless song, “it’s
ayah-it’s ayah-be not
afraid, baba-baba-it’s
ayah-ayah-ayah.”
Over and over again she repeated the
words with her eyes on the terror-stricken face above
her.
“Why!” said Leonie, frowning
till her straight brows met as she pressed the palms
against her temples, “why, you used to sing that
in-in-you used to call me-in
the name of all the gods, woman, tell me-help
me, oh! help me to understand!”
Great tears stood in the native woman’s
eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, then turned
her head slightly and looked towards the chick which
had rustled; scowled, and bowing her head ever so little
placed the palm of her hand against her forehead for
an instant.
“Won’t you or can’t
you speak?” said Leonie almost roughly, her voice
ending on a sharp note which changed to a little bubbling
uncanny laugh as she sat back on the bed holding her
ayah at arm’s length.
She took no notice of the dressing-bell
when it clanged throughout the building, nor of the
swish of the water as it was heaved into the tin bath
in the bathroom, but sat on with the plaits of her
hair coiled like snakes on each side of her, and the
whiteness of her bare arms and shoulders shining in
the light from the bathroom.
“Ayah! ayah!” she said
in a dull sing-song sort of way, “do you know
what they say? Do you know what they think?
They think, they say I’m mad!
And do you know I think I am. Sometimes there’s
the sound of drums in my brain, great big drums beaten
by giants, and sometimes the sound of bells.
And the sound of the bells is hot, it burns great
scars on-on-and there are hours
for which I can’t account, and cuts and bruises
on my feet and-and-
Very quietly the native woman rose,
and passing one arm behind the bare shoulder drew
a hand across the low broad forehead, singing in her
own tongue so softly as to be almost inaudible.
“I dream of blood, ayah,”
went on Leonie, “so often-so often-it
is warm to the fingers and drops so-so
slowly-and-
The ayah pressed her fingers a little
as she drew them behind the ears to the nape of the
neck, and raised her voice ever so slightly in the
Vega chant she had learnt as a lullaby.
“The women,” she crooned,
“that are lying on a bench, lying on a couch,
lying in a litter; the women that-are-of-pure
odour-all-of them we-make-sleep!”
The cracked voice sank suddenly as
her child’s face softened and relaxed, but the
dark hand passed to and fro ceaselessly above the eyes
and down behind the ears.
“It walks so softly, ayah-it’s-it’s
in that-corner now-look! can’t
you see-its-its eyes-and
the small-light-and she is-she
is calling-calling-just as she-has-has-always-
The tawny head fell backwards on to
the white sari picked out in coloured silk,
pulling it away from the head, and the marriage dower
of thirteen silver earrings in the left ear, and the
turquoise studded nose ring which shone dully in the
dim light.
“And it’s dark-it’s-quite-
Leonie slept, and her neighbours in
the dining-room went through certain anatomical gymnastics
such as lifting the eyebrows, shrugging the shoulders,
and pursing the lips, all of which are supposed to
denote suspicion; while the native woman kept guard
behind the reed blind through which she watched a
figure clothed in spotless white flitting among the
shadows of the trees.
When those shadows marked the hour
of midnight she sprang quickly to her feet.
With one violent uncontrollable movement,
Leonie had risen to her knees with the tips of the
fingers of one hand against her lips and her eyes
slanting sideways towards the window near her bed.
“Hush!” she whispered. “Listen!”
Very softly, very sweetly there fell
upon the night air the single stroke of a temple bell.
Once it fell, and twice, and yet again.
And as it stopped the night was filled with the dull
faint throbbing of many drums.
Calling! calling! calling!
Hidden in the shadows close to the
reed blind, Madhu Krishnaghar watched the girl with
intent half-shut eyes as, outlined against the dim
light from the dressing-room, she twisted the heavy
plaits of hair about her head, pinning them with the
diamond hilted dagger; then stripping her flimsy garment
from her, lifted the sheet from the bed, and twisted
it deftly about her waist; watched her as she mechanically
took a white sari embroidered in silver from
the ayah, and without hesitation folded it in true
native fashion about her body and small head.
The light of his religion flared into
a flame of love and passion almost uncontrolled when
Leonie, lifting the chick, stood by his side in the
full light of the moon, with a smile of welcome on
her lips, and the light of unholy knowledge in her
eyes.
Quite close to him she stood with
one hand upon his arm, as he hung garlands of scented
flowers about her neck, and then with a little beckoning
gesture was gone; and the ayah crouching on the floor,
beat her withered breast with her withered hand, a
world of doubt in her monkey eyes.
Like two white moths they flitted
through the gloom and the hanging ropes of the banyan
trees, down the narrow native path, and on through
strangely empty streets and deserted bazaar to the
Praying Ghats.
The air beat about them with the incessant
throbbing of many drums, calling to prayer-calling
to sacrifice.
Calling! calling! calling!