The Potter's Thumb Part 43

'I've been here exactly seven minutes and a half,' he replied, gloomily taking out his watch; 'for I looked just before I came in.'

She laughed. 'Well, that was very methodical of you; and I think, on the whole, dear, that you managed very nicely. And now, as I hear the carriage coming round, you might just help me to put in the flowers.

Aren't the lotus lovely?'

There was no help for it. She was hopelessly back in realities, and Lewis had to accept the position. After all, as he watched her drive off, like a bride herself in the midst of her white flowers, he told himself that she had managed to compress a great deal into those seven and a half minutes; a whole dream of life which must, which should come true. It would be more difficult for him than for her, of course; perhaps that was one reason why he was still thinking over it long after she had forgotten everything else in the fervour of a free fight with the parson, who objected on principle to lotus-blossoms in the chancel. They were a heathen flower, sacred to unmentionable beliefs and rites, and could not be admitted beyond the body of the church. It was but an offshoot of an old quarrel between these two, which renewed itself every Christmas and Easter-tide; but Rose, who by instinct understood the story which these particular flowers had to tell, opened up the whole question of symbolism hotly, finally marching off with her lilies in a huff to the lectern, whence, she told herself, their message of love and sacrifice might fittingly go forth. And while she worked away under the echoing dome of the old tomb, the band in the bit of public garden close by was clas.h.i.+ng and bas.h.i.+ng away at 'Rule Britannia, and 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' much to the delight of ayahs leading sallow dark-eyed children by the hand, and a motley crowd of servants and shopkeepers from the neighbouring bazaar.

Sometimes a palki gharry, like a green box on wheels, with four or five specimens of Tommy Atkins and a black bottle inside, would come rattling past, drawn by an anatomy of a horse, and leave a shower of gibes and greetings behind it for those other green boxes on wheels which were drawn up beside the road, while their gaily-dressed occupants chewed betel or strolled about with clanking feet among the long shadows thrown by the flowering shrubs. Light, and laughter, and noise; a whole eternity of time and s.p.a.ce between this life and the girl under the dome, decorating the Bible with lotus-blossoms.

'There's going to be a big shadi (wedding) in the girja ghur (church) to-morrow morning,' said one of the occupants, dressed in tight mauve silk trousers and a yellow veil, as she clambered back into the green box where a figure in white lay listening lazily. 'They are doing all sorts of pooja there to-day. It is that big, long sahib in the ca.n.a.ls and Boynton sahib's widow. Ai, the sorry tale! Making a fuss of shadi about a woman who has had the misfortune to kill one man.'

Chandni sat up suddenly. 'Tobah! a sorry tale, indeed! So she is to marry him! Lo, there is a man, indeed! but I wonder what he would say if he knew what I know now?'

'Dost know aught? Dost know him?' began the other enviously.

'I have seen him. He was down at Hodinuggur a week ago putting up a white marble stone to the young sahib who died there of the sickness last rains. They were friends, see you, great friends. Lo, tell thy driver to go on, Lalu; this wearies me, the folk have no manners.'

They had not far to go; only to the Bedami bazaar, with its current of life below and its latticed balconies above. The full moon rose through the golden-dust haze to hang like a balloon above the feathery crowns of the palm-trees; the clatter of horses, hoofs bearing their owners home to dinner died from the Mall hard by; and Rose stood at the door of the tomb looking back into the shadowy dome, where the huge lilies showed like the ghosts of flowers. It would look very nice, she thought, in the cool light of early morning; and she would have it decorated in the same way when she and Lewis were married.

But Chandni, as she paused to think of the future, thought of the past also.

'He fought me fairly,' she said to herself; 'and for his beauty's sake, I could bear more than he gave. That is our way. But she! Lo, she is even as I, and he shall know it. I will put that in the platter as the wedding tribute, and it will help him to pay her back for me. 'Tis almost as well I had not learnt the tale from Dalel in those days. It comes better now.'

So, as the night fell, she wrapped herself in the white domino of respectability, sent for another green box on wheels, and drove in the direction of the house where Dan was living. That was not difficult to discover; all that was necessary being a word of inquiry from the general merchant who sold everything heart could desire in the shop below the balcony. And the night was warm. She would as lief sit in the moons.h.i.+ne behind the hedge of white oleanders and talk to the gardeners, as stay in the stuffy bazaar with its evening odours of fried meats and pungent smoke.

CHAPTER XXVII

'I was never so happy or so sorry in all my life before, and I thank Heaven that I'm enough of an Irishman still to say so without being afraid of being laughed at.'

He stood at one end of the table looking his best, as a gentleman always does in his evening dress--a curious fact, since there is no more cruel test for the least lack of good breeding. But this man stood it triumphantly, and not one of those other men seated that night round the long table but carries to his grave a remembrance of Dan Fitzgerald's look when he was bidding good-bye to his friends. The eager vitality of the man, always his strongest characteristic, seemed to have reached its climax.

'I'm not going to say anything of her,' he went on, the rich, round voice softening. 'There isn't any need, since you all know her.

Besides, though you have all come here to-night--why, I can't for the life of me tell--to wish us good luck in the future, it isn't so much of the future I'm thinking as of the past. It has been so happy, thanks to you all. And it's over. That is the worst of it. I suppose it isn't quite what a man is expected to say on these occasions; but the ladies--G.o.d bless them!--would, I'm sure, agree, if they could only be made to understand that marriage is the end of a man's youth. It doesn't alter the case at all that it may be the end of the woman's also, or that we get something that may be as good in exchange. What has that to do with the past?--the merry, careless past, which I've enjoyed so much, and to which I'm now saying good-bye. Well, Heaven help those who say good-bye to it without a solid reason, or have a sneaking intention of not really saying good-bye to it at all? for their lines are in evil places. And that sounds like a sermon, and you never heard Dan Fitzgerald preach before, and you never will again. It isn't only that I'm off with the morning to the other end of the world--to a new world, if it comes to that, worth this old one and the past and all of you put together, if you'll excuse my saying so--it is because even if I were stopping here I should be out of the old life as surely as if I were dead and buried. To begin with, I shall have to think of every penny I spend, so that I may have enough to pay for paradise! The world is full of paradoxes for me to-night; and I'm the greatest of them all myself; for I don't want to say good-bye, and yet I wouldn't miss having to say it for the world. Then it seems to me to-night as if I'd solved the puzzle; and there's Doveton--the old bachelor--grinning as if he knew I was a fool, and that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I don't think so--I don't think I ever shall think so; I hope not, anyhow. And so, good-bye to you--goodbye!

And may none of us, married or single, live to know the pain of a "heart grown cold, a head grown grey--in vain!"'

Down the disordered table with its litter of gla.s.ses and flowers, its atmosphere heavy with the odours of dinner and drink, a hush lay for a second; not more. Then some one laughed, and with a roar of applause the general tone--varying from concert pitch to normal diapason according to the taste of the owner--struck into the old chorus; the refrain which, touching as it does the lowest and the highest ideals of humanity, has provoked more mixed sentiment and emotion than any other in the language:

'_For he's a jolly good fel-low. For he's a jolly good fe-el-low_.'

Love, admiration, a.s.sent. But to what? That lies in the creed of the singer.

And Dan, as the chorus went swaying and surging about in the discords and harmonies, was left alone, silent--as it were on a pinnacle.

Lewis Gordon, feeling responsible for his man, and noting his growing excitement, inveigled him out after a time for a quiet cigar on the verandah, and then suggested he should go to bed; whereat Dan laughed softly. Did not his best man see that the idea was palpably absurd when life itself was a dream--a dream that only came once to a fellow? When you hadn't a wish ungratified, save of course that some others he wot of might have as good luck as he.

'If you mean me,' replied Lewis stolidly, 'I'm all right. I'm going to marry Rose Tweedie whenever she can spare five minutes from your wedding to arrange mine.'

'You don't say so! By the powers, what a good matchmaker I am! And so it's settled. I say, Gordon, do you think there is any chance of her being up still?' put in Dan all in one breath.

'Couldn't say; she had a lot of favours to make and remake when I last saw her, certainly,' replied Lewis, with an inward smile at the remembrance; 'but you can't go and call on her now; it's half-past ten at least.'

'Can't I? There is nothing I couldn't do to-night, it seems to me. And _you_ are yawning. Oh, go to bed, old man! or you will spoil the show to-morrow.'

'And you?'

'I'm off too, but not to bed! No, you needn't be afraid. I'll turn up again in time.'

The glamour of the soft Indian night was on Lewis also; even on those who one by one drifted from the laughter within to stand for five minutes, arrested by the peace without, before going on their way. And if this were so to men in the slack-water of life, what must it have been to Dan on the flood-tide of his threescore years and ten? To Dan with his vivid imagination, his soft heart, his excitable, impulsive nature. As he rode along noiselessly at a foot's pace through the sandy dust which looked hard as marble in the glare of the moon, he and his shadow were the only moving things in that world of light. No darkness anywhere! Not even in the distant arcades of trees. Only a soft grey mist of moonlight blending all things into the semblance of a mirage seen from afar. A fire-fly or two showed against the flowering shrubs in intermittent glimpses of light. Here, and then gone, as it were, upon the soft quiver of the insistent cicalas in the air.

Was not life worth living, indeed if only for such a night as this!

'_On such a night did young Lorenzo!_'

But Dan Fitzgerald had pa.s.sed beyond that flood-mark on the sh.o.r.e.

Pa.s.sion counted for much in the elation of mind and body which was the apotheosis of both; but love counted for more. The memory of a thousand griefs and pains with pity hidden in their hearts came to fill the mystic cup of life which the Unseen, Unknown Hand held out to him from Heaven--the Sangreal of Humanity--the sacraments of Birth and Death.

The child dying of the potter's thumb-mark in the dust--that other in loving arms with the ice chilling even death's cold touch--George with the bullet piercing the friends.h.i.+p in his heart--Rose with her pure wisdom fearless and unashamed--these and many another remembrance seemed to blend sorrow and joy into peace, even as the moon-mist blent the world around him into vague beauty.

And there was Rose herself! He could see her, as with the easy friendliness of India he paced his pony through the open gates of the garden, and so pa.s.sed the house. She was still at work among the white flowers beside the door which was set wide upon the warm balmy night.

'Is that you, Mr. Fitzgerald?' she called, pausing at the faint sound of his coming to look out into the flood of moonlight clear as noonday.

'It is I, Miss Tweedie.'

He had slipped from his pony and stood beside it welcoming her with outstretched hands as she came forth, eager with some message for the morrow which he might deliver.

'Lewis has told me, and I'm so glad,' he said, breaking in on her words. 'It is the best wedding present I've had yet, and I came along on the chance of seeing you. I've something to give you. I meant it for to-morrow, as a parting gift--just a remembrance of your kindness to us both. But I'd rather give it to you with our best wishes.

He unfastened something from his own wrist and put it, soft and warm, into her hand. It was a native amulet cunningly twisted of silk thread and pearls, with a triangle of some blue stone strung in the centre.

''Tis only a glorified ram-rukhri,' he went on half-jestingly, 'the bracelet sisters give their brothers to bring them good luck. Only it is the other way round with you.'

Rose looked at the blue of the triangle doubtfully, then at his kindly face.

'Yes! it's a bit of the Ayodhya pot--the only bit that wasn't in pieces. And it has my name on the back, and--and George's.'

'And George's?' echoed Rose softly.

'Ay! He would have liked it, I know--for you were kind to him--kind to us both, always'--Madr-mihrban, as the old potter called you. And we two, George and I, are one part of the story; I was thinking of it as I came along just now----'

She put out her hand with a sudden gesture. 'Don't think of it, Mr.

Fitzgerald! Forget all about it. Go away and forget.'

He gave a happy laugh. 'Why should I? I don't want to forget anything to-night--except my sins. The rest is all good. Let me put that on for you--so--goodnight! We'll say good-bye to-morrow.'

So out on the deserted roads with the same happy unrest in his heart.

He would go down and see the old familiar places in the garden opposite once more--even the pond where the ducks and geese had quacked and gabbled him into silence! Then through the hanging ta.s.sels of the grey tamarisk trees, round the gleaming white road to the blue-tiled minarets of the old watch-tower standing causelessly upon the level plain where four ways met, and so back station-wards to the stunted dome of the church. The throbbing of tom-toms proclaimed the nearness of the bazaar, but the building itself stood una.s.sailably silent and deserted on its high white plinth, save for some one lying on a string bed set in a shadow by the door. Dan slipped from his pony again, and hitched the reins to a broken iron clamp in the stone-work of the steps. The door, he knew, would be open to let in the cool night-air, so he would look in--'go round the course' as a horsey friend of his had said when discovered doing the same thing before his marriage. The remembrance made him smile as he stepped into the dark building and paused, arrested by the strangeness of what he saw. For the dome was full of fire-flies brought hither in the flowers; full of a causeless glimpsing of pale green fire showing every instant the white heart of some blossom. And the air was burdened with scent; distinct, through all, a faint, deadly smell of bitter almonds. That must be from the lotus Gwen had mentioned, and there they were, in the upper shaft of moonlight through the upper window, standing like sentinels over the lectern.