The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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"It may be very beautiful on the surface," I said morosely; "but
there's a lot of misery below - hateful, they tell me."
"Of course. We shall get to work one day. But look at the sunset.
It opens like a mysterious flower. I must take Winifred home
now."
"One moment," I pleaded; "I can only see it through your eyes. I
feel it while you speak, and then the good minute goes."
She laughed.
"And so must I. Come, Winifred. Look, there's an owl; not like
the owls in the summer dark in England-
"Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping, Wavy in the
dark, lit by one low star."
Suddenly she turned again and looked at me half wistfully.
"It is good to talk to you. You want to know. You are so near it
all. I wish I could help you; I am so exquisitely happy myself."
My writing was at a standstill. It seemed the groping of a blind
man in a radiant world. Once perhaps I had felt that life was
good in itself - when the guns came thundering toward the Vimy
Ridge in a mad gallop of horses, and men shouting and swearing
and frantically urging them on. Then, riding for more than life,
I had tasted life for an instant. Not before or since. But this
woman had the secret.
Lady Meryon, with her escort of girls and subalterns, came
daintily past the hotel compound, and startled me from my
brooding with her pretty silvery voice.
"Dreaming, Mr. Clifden? It isn't at all wholesome to dream in the
East. Come and dine with us tomorrow. A tiny dance afterwards,
you know; or bridge for those who like it."
I had not the faintest notion whether governesses dined with the
family or came in afterward with the coffee; but it was a
sporting chance, and I took it.
Then Sir John came up and joined us.
"You can't well dance tomorrow, Kitty," he said to his wife.
"There's been an outpost affair in the Swat Hills, and young
Fitzgerald has been shot. Come to dinner of course, Clifden. Glad
to see you. But no dancing, I think."
Kitty Meryon's mouth drooped like a pouting child's. Was it for
the lost dance, or the lost soldier lying out on the hills in the
dying sunset. Who could tell? In either case it was pretty enough
for the illustrated papers.
"How sad! Such a dear boy. We shall miss him at tennis." Then
brightly; "Well, we'll have to put the dance off for a week, but
come tomorrow anyhow."
II
Next evening I went into Lady Meryon's flower-scented
drawing-room. The electric fans were fluttering and the evening
air was cool. Five or six pretty girls and as many men made up
the party - Kitty Meryon the prettiest of them all, fashionably
undressed in faint pink and crystal, with a charming smile in
readiness, all her gay little flags flying in the rich man's
honour. I am no vainer than other men, but I saw that. Whatever
her charm might be it was none for me. What could I say to
interest her who lived in her foolish little world as one shut in
a bright bubble? And she had said the wrong word about young
Fitzgerald - I wanted Vanna, with her deep seeing eyes, to say
the right one and adjust those cruel values.
Governesses dine, it appeared, only to fill an unexpected place,
or make a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments.
Fortunately Kitty Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not
nearly so pretty as her silver ripple of talk.
It was when the party had settled down to bridge and I was
standing out, that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting
by a window - not unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Meryon's
eyes as I did it.
"I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything I
straightway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of
Fitzgerald's death?"
"That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will
reach his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the
great people of the village where we are the little people. I
knew his mother as one knows a great lady who is kind to all the
village folk. It may kill her. It is travelling tonight like a
bullet to her heart, and she does not know."
"His father?"
"A brave man - a soldier himself. He will know it was a good
death and that Harry would not fail. He did not at Ypres. He
would not here. But all joy and hope will be dead in that house
tomorrow."
"And what do you think?"
"I am not sorry for Harry, if you mean that. He knew - we all
know - that he was on guard here holding the outposts against
blood and treachery and terrible things - playing the Great Game.
One never loses at that game if one plays it straight, and I am
sure that at the last it was joy he felt and not fear. He has not
lost. Did you notice in the church a niche before every soldier's
seat to hold his loaded gun? And the tablets on the walls;
"Killed at Kabul River, aged 22." - "Killed on outpost duty." -
"Murdered by an Afghan fanatic." This will be one memory more.
Why be sorry."
Presently:-
"I am going up to the hills tomorrow, to the Malakhand Fort, with
Mrs. Delany, Lady Meryon's aunt, and we shall see the wonderful
Tahkt-i-Bahi Monastery on the way. You should do that run before
you go. The fort is the last but one on the way to Chitral, and
beyond that the road is so beset that only soldiers may go
farther, and indeed the regiments escort each other up and down.
But it is an early start, for we must be back in Peshawar at six
for fear of raiding natives."
"I know; they hauled me up in the dusk the other day, and told me
I should be swept off to the hills if I fooled about after dusk.
But I say - is it safe for you to go? You ought to have a man.
Could I go too?"
I thought she did not look enthusiastic at the proposal.
"Ask. You know I settle nothing. I go where I am sent." She said
it with the happiest smile. I knew they could send her nowhere
that she would not find joy. I thought her mere presence must
send the vibrations of happiness through the household. Yet again
- why? For where there is no receiver the current speaks in vain;
and for an instant I seemed to see the air full of messages - of
speech striving to utter its passionate truths to deaf ears
stopped for ever against the breaking waves of sound. But Vanna
heard.
She left the room; and when the bridge was over, I made my
request. Lady Meryon shrugged her shoulders and declared it would
be a terribly dull run - the scenery nothing, "and only" (she
whispered) "Aunt Selina and poor Miss Loring?"
Of course I saw at once that she did not like it; but Sir John
was all for my going, and that saved the situation.
I certainly could have dispensed with Aunt Selina when the
automobile drew up in the golden river of the sunrise at the
hotel. There were only the driver, a personal servant, and the
two ladies; Mrs. Delany, comely, pleasant, talkative, and Vanna-
Her face in its dark motoring veil, fine and delicate as a young
moon in a cloud drift - the sensitive sweet mouth that had
quivered a little when she spoke of Fitzgerald - the pure glance
that radiated such kindness to all the world. She sat there with
the Key of Dreams pressed against her slight bosom - her eyes
dreaming above it. Already the strange airs of her unknown world
were breathing about me, and as yet I knew not the things that
belonged unto my peace.
We glided along the straight military road from Peshawar to
Nowshera, the gold-bright sun dazzling in its whiteness - a
strange drive through the flat, burned country, with the ominous
Kabul River flowing through it. Military preparations everywhere,
and the hills looking watchfully down - alive, as it were, with
keen, hostile eyes. War was at present about us as behind the
lines in France; and when we crossed the Kabul River on a bridge
of boats, and I saw its haunted waters, I began to feel the
atmosphere of the place closing down upon me. It had a sinister
beauty; it breathed suspense; and I wished, as I was sure Vanna
did, for silence that was not at our command.
For Mrs. Delany felt nothing of it. A bright shallow ripple of
talk was her contribution to the joys of the day; though it was,
fortunately, enough for her happiness if we listened and agreed.
I knew Vanna listened only in show. Her intent eyes were fixed on
the Tahkt-i-Bahi hills after we had swept out of Nowshera; and
when the car drew up at the rough track, she had a strange look
of suspense and pallor. I remember I wondered at the time if she
were nervous in the wild open country.
"Now pray don't be shocked," said Mrs. Delany comfortably; "but
you two young people may go up to the monastery, and I shall stay
here. I am dreadfully ashamed of myself, but the sight of that
hill is enough for me. Don't hurry. I may have a little doze, and
be all the better company when you get back. No, don't try to
persuade me, Mr. Clifden. It isn't the part of a friend."
I cannot say I was sorry, though I had a moment of panic when
Vanna offered to stay with her - very much, too, as if she really
meant it. So we set out perforce, Vanna leading steadily, as if
she knew the way. She never looked up, and her wish for silence
was so evident, that I followed, lending my hand mutely when the
difficulties obliged it, she accepting absently, and as if her
thoughts were far away.
Suddenly she quickened her pace. We had climbed about nine
hundred feet, and now the narrow track twisted through the rocks
- a track that looked as age-worn as no doubt it was. We
threaded it, and struggled over the ridge, and looked down
victorious on the other side.
There she stopped. A very wonderful sight, of which I had never
seen the like, lay below us. Rock and waste and towering crags,
and the mighty ruin of the monastery set in the fangs of the
mountain like a robber baron's castle, looking far away to the
blue mountains of the Debatable Land - the land of mystery and
danger. It stood there - the great ruin of a vast habitation of
men. Building after building, mysterious and broken, corridors,
halls, refectories, cells; the dwelling of a faith so alien that
I could not reconstruct the life that gave it being. And all
sinking gently into ruin that in a century more would confound it
with the roots of the mountains.
Grey and wonderful, it clung to the heights and looked with
eyeless windows at the past. Somehow I found it infinitely
pathetic; the very faith it expressed is dead in India, and none
left so poor to do it reverence.
But Vanna knew her way. Unerringly she led me from point to
point, and she was visibly at home in the intricacies. Such
knowledge in a young woman bewildered me. Could she have studied
the plans in the Museum? How else should she know where the abbot
lived, or where the refractory brothers were punished?
Once I missed her, while I stooped to examine some scroll-work,
and following, found her before one of the few images of the
Buddha that the rapacious Museum had spared - a singularly
beautiful bas-relief, the hand raised to enforce the truth the
calm lips were speaking, the drapery falling in stately folds to
the bare feet. As I came up, she had an air as if she had just
ceased from movement, and I had a distinct feeling that she had
knelt before it - I saw the look of worship! The thing troubled
me like a dream, haunting, impossible, but real.
"How beautiful!" I said in spite of myself, as she pointed to the
image. "In this utter solitude it seems the very spirit of the
place."
"He was. He is," said Vanna.
"Explain to me. I don't understand. I know so little of him. What
is the subject?"
She hesitated; then chose her words as if for a beginner;- "It is
the Blessed One preaching to the Tree-Spirits. See how eagerly
they lean from the boughs to listen. This other relief represents
him in the state of mystic vision. Here he is drowned in peace.
See how it overflows from the closed eyes; the closed lips. The
air is filled with his quiet."
"What is he dreaming?"
"Not dreaming - seeing. Peace. He sits at the point where time
and infinity meet. To attain that vision was the aim of the monks
who lived here."
"Did they attain?" I found myself speaking as if she could
certainly answer.
"A few. There was one, Vasettha, the Brahman, a young man who had
renounced all his possessions and riches, and seated here before
this image of the Blessed One, he fell often into the mystic
state. He had a strange vision at one time of the future of
India, which will surely be fulfilled. He did not forget it in
his rebirths. He remembers-"
She broke off suddenly and said with forced indifference, - "He
would sit here often looking out over the mountains; the monks
sat at his feet to hear. He became abbot while still young. But
his story is a sad one."
"I entreat you to tell me."
She looked away over the mountains. "While he was abbot here,-
still a young man,- a famous Chinese Pilgrim came down through
Kashmir to visit the Holy Places in India. The abbot went forward
with him to Peshawar, that he might make him welcome. And there
came a dancer to Peshawar, named Lilavanti, most beautiful! I
dare not tell you her beauty. I tremble now to think-"
Again she paused, and again the faint creeping sense of mystery
invaded me.
She resumed;-
"The abbot saw her and he loved her. He was young still, you
remember. She was a woman of the Hindu faith and hated Buddhism.
It swept him down into the lower worlds of storm and desire. He
fled with Lilavanti and never returned here. So in his rebirth he
fell-"
She stopped dead; her face pale as death.
"How do you know? Where have you read it? If I could only find
what you find and know what you know! The East is like an open
book to you. Tell me the rest."
"How should I know any more?" she said hurriedly. "We must be
going back. You should study the plans of this place at
Peshawar. They were very learned monks who lived here. It is
famous for learning."
The life had gone out of her words-out of the ruins. There was no
more to be said.
We clambered down the hill in the hot sunshine, speaking only of
the view, the strange shrubs and flowers, and, once, the swift
gliding of a snake, and found Mrs. Delany blissfully asleep in
the most padded corner of the car. The spirit of the East
vanished in her comfortable presence, and luncheon seemed the
only matter of moment.
"I wonder, my dears," she said, "if you would be very
disappointed and think me very dense if I proposed our giving up
the Malakhand Fort? The driver has been giving me in very poor
English such an account of the dangers of that awful road up the
hill that I feel no Fort would repay me for its terrors. Do say
what you feel, Miss Loring. Mr. Clifden can lunch with the
officers at Nowshera and come any time. I know I am an atrocity."
There could be only one answer, though Vanna and I knew perfectly
well the crafty design of the driver to spare himself work. Mrs.
Delany remained brightly awake for the run home, and favored us
with many remarkable views on India and its shortcomings, Vanna,
who had a sincere liking for her, laughing with delight at her
description of a visit of condolence with Lady Meryon to the five
widows of one of the hill Rajas.
But I own I was pre-occupied. I knew those moments at the
monastery had given me a glimpse into the wonderland of her soul
that made me long for more. It was rapidly becoming clear to me
that unless my intentions developed on very different lines I
must flee Peshawar. For love is born of sympathy, and sympathy
was strengthening daily, but for love I had no courage yet.
I feared it as men fear the unknown. I despised myself - but I
feared. I will confess my egregious folly and vanity - I had no
doubt as to her reception of my offer if I should make it, but
possessed by a colossal selfishness, I thought only of myself,
and from that point of view could not decide how I stood to lose
or gain. In my wildest accesses of vanity I did not suppose Vanna
loved me, but I felt she liked me, and I believe the advantages I
had to offer would be overwhelming to a woman in her position.
So, tossed on the waves of indecision, I inclined to flight.
That night I resolutely began my packing, and wrote a note of
farewell to Lady Meryon. The next morning I furiously undid it,
and destroyed the note. And that afternoon I took the shortest
way to the sun-set road to lounge about and wait for Vanna and
Winifred. She never came, and I was as unreasonably angry as if I
had deserved the blessing of her presence.
Next day I could see that she tried gently hut clearly to
discourage our meeting and for three days I never saw her at all.
Yet I knew that in her solitary life our talks counted for a
pleasure, and when we met again I thought I saw a new softness in
the lovely hazel deeps of her eyes.
III
On the day when things became clear to me, I was walking towards
the Meryons' gates when I met her coming alone along the sunset
road, in the late gold of the afternoon. She looked pale and a
little wearied, and I remembered I wished I did not know every
change of her face as I did. It was a symptom that alarmed my
selfishness - it galled me with the sense that I was no longer
my own despot.
"So you have been up the Khyber Pass," she said as I fell into
step at her side. "Tell me - was it as wonderful as you
expected?"
"No, no, -you tell me! It will give me what I missed. Begin at
the beginning. Tell me what I saw."
I could not miss the delight of her words, and she laughed,
knowing my whim.
"Oh, that Pass! -the wonder of those old roads that have borne
the traffic and romance of the world for ages. Do you think there
is anything in the world so fascinating as they are? But did you
go on Tuesday or Friday?"
For these are the only days in the week when the Khyber can be
safely entered. The British then turn out the Khyber Rifles and
man every crag, and the loaded caravans move like a tide, and go
up and down the narrow road on their occasions.
Naturally mere sightseers are not welcomed, for much business
must be got through in that urgent forty eight hours in which
life is not risked in entering.
"Tuesday. But make a picture for me."
"Well, you gave your word not to photograph or sketch - as if one
wanted to when every bit of it is stamped on one's brain! And you
went up to Jumrood Fort at the entrance. Did they tell you it is
an old Sikh Fort and has been on duty in that turbulent place for
five hundred years And did you see the machine guns in the court?
And every one armed - even the boys with belts of cartridges?
Then you went up the narrow winding track between the mountains,
and you said to yourself, 'This is the road of pure romance. It
goes up to silken Samarkhand, and I can ride to Bokhara of the
beautiful women and to all the dreams. Am I alive and is it
real?' You felt that?"
"All. Every bit. Go on!"
She smiled with pleasure.
"And you saw the little forts on the crags and the men on guard
all along the bills, rifles ready! You could hear the guns rattle
as they saluted. Do you know that up there men plough with rifles
loaded beside them? They have to be men indeed."
"Do you mean to imply that we are not men?"
"Different men at least. This is life in a Border ballad. Such a
life as you knew in France but beautiful in a wild - hawk sort of
way. Don't the Khyber Rifles bewilder you? They are drawn from
these very Hill tribes, and will shoot their own fathers and
brothers in the way of duty as comfortably as if they were
jackals. Once there was a scrap here and one of the tribesmen
sniped our men unbearably. What do you suppose happened? A Khyber
Rifle came to the Colonel and said, 'Let me put an end to him,
Colonel Sahib. I know exactly where he sits. He is my
grandfather.' And he did it!"
"The bond of bread and salt?"
"Yes, and discipline. I'm sometimes half frightened of
discipline. It moulds a man like wax. Even God doesn't do that.
Well - then you had the traders - wild shaggy men in sheepskin
and women in massive jewelry of silver and turquoise,-great
earrings, heavy bracelets loading their arms, wild, fierce,
handsome. And the camels - thousands of them, some going up, some
coming down, a mass of human and animal life. Above you, moving
figures against the keen blue sky, or deep below you in the
ravines.
"The camels were swaying along with huge bales of goods, and dark
beautiful women in wicker cages perched on them. Silks and
carpets from Bokhara, and blue - eyed Persian cats, and bluer
Persian turquoises. Wonderful! And the dust, gilded by the
sunshine, makes a vaporous golden atmosphere for it all."
"What was the most wonderful thing you saw there?"
"The most beautiful, I think, was a man - a splendid dark ruffian
lounging along. He wanted to show off, and his swagger was
perfect. Long black onyx eyes and a tumble of black curls, and
teeth like almonds. But what do you think he carried on his wrist
- a hawk with fierce yellow eyes, ringed and chained. Hawking is
a favourite sport in the hills. Oh, why doesn't some great
painter come and paint it all before they take to trains and
cars? I long to see it all again, but I never shall."
"Why not," said I. "Surely Sir John can get you up there any
day?"
"Not now. The fighting makes it difficult. But it isn't that. I
am leaving."
"Leaving?" My heart gave a leap. "Why? Where?"
"Leaving Lady Meryon."
"Why - for Heaven's sake?"
"I had rather not tell you."
"But I must know."
"You cannot."
"I shall ask Lady Meryon."
"I forbid you."
And then the unexpected happened, and an unbearable impulse swept
me into folly - or was it wisdom?
"Listen to me. I would not have said it yet, but this settles it.
I want you to marry me. I want it atrociously!"
It was a strange word. What I felt for her at that moment was
difficult to describe. I endured it like a pain that could only
be assuaged by her presence, but I endured it angrily. We were
walking on the sunset road - very deserted and quiet at the time.
The place was propitious if nothing else was.
She looked at me in transparent astonishment;
"Mr. Clifden, are you dreaming? You can't mean what you say."
"Why can't I? I do. I want you. You have the key of all I care
for. I think of the world without you and find it tasteless."
"Surely you have all the world can give? What do you want more?"
"The power to enjoy it - to understand it. You have got that - I
haven't. I want you always with me to interpret, like a guide to
a blind fellow. I am no better."
"Say like a dog, at once!" she interrupted. "At least you are
frank enough to put it on that ground. You have not said you love
me. You could not say it."
"I don't know whether I do or not. I know nothing about love. I
want you. Indescribably. Perhaps that is love - is it? I never
wanted any one before. I have tried to get away and I can't."
I was brutally frank, you see. She compelled my very thoughts.
"Why have you tried?"
"Because every man likes freedom. But I like you better." "I can
tell you the reason," she said in her gentle unwavering voice. "I
am Lady Meryon's governess, and an undesirable. You have felt
that?"
"Don't make me out such a snob. No - yes. You force me into
honesty. I did feel it at first like the miserable fool I am, but
I could kick myself when I think of that now. It is utterly
forgotten. Take me and make me what you will, and forgive me.
Only tell me your secret of joy. How is it you understand
everything alive or dead? I want to live - to see, to know."
It was a rhapsody like a boy's. Yet at the moment I was not even
ashamed of it, so sharp was my need.
"I think," she said, slowly, looking straight before her, "that I
had better be quite frank. I don't love you. I don't know what
love means in the Western sense. It has a very different meaning
for me. Your voice comes to me from an immense distance when you
speak in that way. You want me - but never with a thought of what
I might want. Is that love? I like you very deeply as a friend,
but we are of different races. There is a gulf."
"A gulf? You are English."
"By birth, yes. In mind, no. And there are things that go deeper,
that you could not understand. So I refuse quite definitely, and
our ways part here, for in a few days I go. I shall not see you
again, but I wish to say good-bye."
The bitterest chagrin was working in my soul. I felt as if all
were deserting me-a sickening feeling of loneliness. I did not
know the man who was in me, and was a stranger to myself.
"I entreat you to tell me why, and where."
"Since you have made me this offer, I will tell you why. Lady
Meryon objected to my friendship with you, and objected in a way
which-"
She stopped, flushing palely. I caught her hand.
"That settles it!-that she should have dared! I'll go up this
minute and tell her we are engaged. Vanna-Vanna !"
For she disengaged her hand, quietly but firmly.
"On no account. How can I make it more plain to you? I should
have gone soon in any case. My place is in the native city - that
is the life I want. I have work there, I knew it before I came
out. My sympathies are all with them. They know what life is -
why even the beggars, poorer than poor, are perfectly happy,
basking in the great generous sun. Oh, the splendour and riot of
life and colour! That's my life - I sicken of this."
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