Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (54 page)

‘MRS. MUTRIE, DENVER. — Necklace is yours. Get throat ready and lay that track into Topaz. — TARVIN.’

Then he turned his horse’s head toward Kate. He buttoned his coat tightly across his chest, and patted the resting-place of the Naulahka fondly, as he strode up the path to the missionary’s verandah, when he had tethered Fibby outside. His high good humour with himself and the world spoke through his eyes as he greeted Mrs. Estes at the door.

‘You have been hearing something pleasant,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

‘Well, either the pleasantest, or next to the pleasantest; I’m not sure which,’ he answered with a smile, as he followed her into the familiar sitting-room. ‘I’d like to tell you all about it, Mrs. Estes. I feel almightily like telling somebody. But it isn’t a healthy story for this neighbourhood.’ He glanced about him: ‘I’d hire the town crier and a few musical instruments and advertise it, if I had my way; and we’d all have a little Fourth of July celebration and a bonfire, and I’d read the Declaration of Independence over the natives with a relish. But it won’t do. There is a story I’d like to tell you, though,’ he added, with a sudden thought. ‘You know why I come here so much, don’t you, Mrs. Estes — I mean outside of your kindness to me, and my liking you all so much, and our always having such good times together? You know, don’t you?’

Mrs. Estes smiled. ‘I suppose I do,’ she said.

‘Well; that’s right! That’s right. I thought you did. Then I hope you’re my friend!’

‘If you mean that I wish you well, I do. But you can understand that I feel responsible for Miss Sheriff. I have sometimes thought I ought to let her mother know.’

‘Oh, her mother knows! She’s full of it You might say she liked it. The trouble isn’t there, you know, Mrs. Estes.’

‘No. She’s a singular girl; very strong, very sweet. I’ve grown to love her dearly. She has wonderful courage. But I should like it better for her if she would give it up, and all that goes with it. She would be better married,’ she said meditatively.

Tarvin gazed at her admiringly. ‘How wise you are, Mrs. Estes! How wise you are!’ he murmured. ‘If I’ve told her that once I’ve told her a dozen times. Don’t you think, also, that it would be better if she were married at once — right away, without too much loss of time?’

His companion looked at him to see if he was in earnest. Tarvin was sometimes a little perplexing to her. ‘I think if you are clever you will leave it to the course of events,’ she replied, after a moment. ‘I have watched her work here, hoping that she might succeed where every one else has failed.. But I know in my heart that she won’t. There’s too much against her. She’s working against thousands of years of traditions, and training, and habits of life. Sooner or later they are certain to defeat her; and then, whatever her courage, she must give in. I’ve thought sometimes lately that she might have trouble very soon. There’s a good deal of dissatisfaction at the hospital. Lucien hears some stories that make me anxious.’

‘Anxious! I should say so. That’s the worst of it. It isn’t only that she won’t come to me, Mrs. Estes — that you can understand — but she is running her head meanwhile into all sorts of impossible dangers. I haven’t time to wait until she sees that point. I haven’t time to wait until she sees any point at all but that this present moment, now and here, would be a good moment in which to marry Nicholas Tarvin. I’ve got to get out of Rhatore. That’s the long and the short of it, Mrs. Estes. Don’t ask me why. It’s necessary. And I must take Kate with me. Help me if you love her.’

To this appeal Mrs. Estes made the handsomest response in her power, by saying that she would go up and tell her that he wished to see her. This seemed to take some time and Tarvin waited patiently, with a smile on his lips. He did not doubt that Kate would yield. In the glow of another success it was not possible to him to suppose that she would not come around now. Had he not the Naulahka? She went with it; she was indissolubly connected with it. Yet he was willing to impress into his service all the help he could get, and he was glad to believe that Mrs. Estes was talking to her.

It was an added prophecy of success when he found from a copy of a recent issue of the Topaz Telegram, which he picked up while he waited, that the ‘Lingering Lode’ had justified his expectations. The people he had left in charge had struck a true fissure vein, and were taking out $500 a week. He crushed the paper into his pocket, restraining an inclination to dance; it was perhaps safest, on reflection, to postpone that exercise until he had seen Kate. The little congratulatory whistle that he struck up instead, he had to sober a moment later into a smile as Kate opened the door and came in to him. There could be no two ways about it with her now. His smile, do what he would, almost said as much.

A single glance at her face showed him, however, that the affair struck her less simply. He forgave her; she could not know the source of his inner certitude. He even took time to like the grey house-dress, trimmed with black velvet, that she was wearing in place of the white which had become habitual to her.

‘I’m glad you’ve dropped white for a moment,’ he said, as he rose to shake hands with her. ‘It’s a sign. It represents a general abandonment and desertion of this blessed country; and that’s just the mood I want to find you in. I want you to drop it, chuck it, throw it up.’ He held her brown little hand in the swarthy fist he pushed out from his own white sleeve, and looked down into her eyes attentively.

‘What?’

‘India — the whole business. I want you to come with me.’ He spoke gently.

She looked up, and he saw in the quivering lines about her mouth signs of the contest on this theme she had passed through before coming down to him.

‘You are going? I’m so glad.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘You know why!’ she added, with what he saw was an intention of kindness.

Tarvin laughed as he seated himself. ‘I like that. Yes; I’m going,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going alone. You’re in the plan,’ he assured her, with a nod.

She shook her head.

‘No; don’t say that, Kate. You mustn’t. It’s serious this time.’

‘Hasn’t it always been?’ she sank into a chair. ‘It’s always been serious enough for me — that I couldn’t do what you wish, I mean. Not doing it — that is doing something else; the one thing I want to do — is the most serious thing in the world to me. Nothing has happened to change me, Nick. I would tell you in a moment if it had. How is it different for either of us?’

‘Lots of ways. But that I’ve got to leave Rhatore for a sample. You don’t think I’d leave you behind, I hope.’

She studied the hands she had folded in her lap for a moment. Then she looked up and faced him with her open gaze.

‘Nick,’ she said, ‘let me try to explain as clearly as I can how all this seems to me. You can correct me if I’m wrong.’

‘Oh, you’re sure to be wrong!’ he cried; but he leaned forward.

‘Well, let me try. You ask me to marry you!’

‘I do,’ answered Tarvin solemnly. ‘Give me a chance of saying that before a clergyman, and you’ll see.’

‘I am grateful, Nick. It’s a gift — the highest, the best, and I’m grateful. But what is it you really want? Shall you mind my asking that, Nick? You want me to round out your life; you want me to complete your other ambitions. Isn’t that so? Tell me honestly, Nick; isn’t that so?’

‘No!’ roared Tarvin.

‘Ah, but it is! Marriage is that way. It is right. Marriage means that — to be absorbed into another’s life: to live your own, not as your own but another’s. It is a good life. It’s a woman’s life. I can like it; I can believe in it. But I can’t see myself in it. A woman gives the whole of herself in marriage — in all happy marriages. I haven’t the whole of myself to give. It belongs to something else. And I couldn’t offer you a part it is all the best men give to women, but from a woman it would do no man any good.’

‘You mean that you have the choice between giving up your work and giving up me, and that the last is easiest.’

‘I don’t say that; but suppose I did, would it be so strange? Be honest, Nick. Suppose I asked you to give up the centre and meaning of your life? Suppose I asked you to give up your work? And suppose I offered in exchange — marriage! No, no!’ She shook her head. ‘Marriage is good; but what man would pay that price for it?’

‘My dearest girl, isn’t that just the opportunity of women?’

‘The opportunity of the happy women — yes; but it isn’t given to every one to see marriage like that. Even for women there is more than one kind of devotion.’

‘Oh, look here, Kate! A man isn’t an Orphan Asylum or a Home for the Friendless. You take him too seriously. You talk as if you had to make him your leading charity, and give up everything to the business. Of course you have to pretend something of the kind at the start, but in practice you only have to eat a few dinners, attend a semi-annual board meeting, and a strawberry festival or two to keep the thing going. It’s just a general agreement to drink your coffee with a man in the morning, and be somewhere around, not too far from the fire, in not too ugly a dress, when he comes home in the evening. Come! It’s an easy contract. Try me, Kate, and you’ll see how simple I’ll make it for you. I know about the other things. I understand well enough that you would never care for a life which didn’t allow you to make a lot of people happy besides your husband. I recognise that. I begin with it. And I say that’s just what I want. You have a talent for making folks happy. Well, I secure you on a special agreement to make me happy, and after you’ve attended to that, I want you to sail in and make the whole world bloom with your kindness. And you’ll do it, too. Confound it, Kate, we’ll do it! No one knows how good two people could be if they formed a syndicate and made a business of it. It hasn’t been tried. Try it with me! O Kate, I love you, I need you, and if you’ll let me, I’ll make a life for you!’

‘I know, Nick, you would be kind. You would do all that a man can do. But it isn’t the man who makes marriages happy or possible; it’s the woman, and it must be. I should either do my part and shirk the other, and then I should be miserable; or I should shirk you and be more miserable. Either way such happiness is not for me.’

Tarvin’s hand found the Naulahka within his breast, and clutched it tight. Strength seemed to go out of it into him — strength to restrain himself from losing all by a dozen savage words.

‘Kate, my girl,’ he said quietly, ‘we haven’t time to conjure dangers. We have to face a real one. You are not safe here. I can’t leave you in this place, and I’ve got to go. That is why I ask you to marry me at once.’

‘But I fear nothing. Who would harm me?’

‘Sitabhai,’ he answered grimly. ‘But what difference does it make? I tell you, you are not safe. Be sure that I know.’

‘And you?’

‘Oh, I don’t count.’

‘The truth, Nick!’ she demanded.

‘Well, I always said that there was nothing like the climate of Topaz.’

‘You mean you are in danger — great danger, perhaps.’

‘Sitabhai isn’t going round hunting for ways to save my precious life, that’s a fact.’ He smiled at her.

‘Then you must go away at once; you mustn’t lose an hour. O Nick, you won’t wait!’

‘That’s what I say. I can do without Rhatore; but I can’t do without you. You must come.’

‘Do you mean that if I don’t you will stay?’ she asked desperately.

‘No; that would be a threat. I mean I’ll wait for you.’ His eyes laughed at her.

‘Nick, is this because of what I asked you to do?’ she demanded suddenly.

‘You didn’t ask me,’ he defended.

‘Then it is, and I am much to blame.’

‘What, because I spoke to the King? My dear girl, that isn’t more than the introductory walkaround of this circus. Don’t run away with any question of responsibility. The only thing you are responsible for at this moment is to run with me — flee, vamoose, get out! Your life isn’t worth an hour’s purchase here. I’m convinced of that. And mine isn’t worth a minute’s.’

‘You see what a situation you put me in,’ she said accusingly.

‘I don’t put you in it; but I offer you a simple solution.’

‘Yourself!’

‘Well, yes; I said it was simple. I don’t claim it’s brilliant. Almost any one could do more for you; and there are millions of better men, but there isn’t one who could love you better. O Kate, Kate,’ he cried, rising, ‘trust yourself to my love, and I’ll back myself against the world to make you happy.’

‘No, no,’ she exclaimed eagerly; ‘you must go away.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t leave you. Ask that of some one else. Do you suppose a man who loves you can abandon you in this desert wilderness to take your chances? Do you suppose any man could do that? Kate, my darling, come with me. You torment me, you kill me, by forcing me to allow you a single moment out of my sight. I tell you, you are in imminent, deadly peril. You won’t stay, knowing that. Surely you won’t sacrifice your life for these creatures.’

‘Yes,’ she cried, rising, with the uplifted look on her face. ‘Yes! If it is good to live for them, it is good to die for them. I do not believe my life is necessary; but if it is necessary, that too!’

Tarvin gazed at her, baffled, disheartened, at a loss. ‘And you won’t come?’

‘I can’t. Good-bye, Nick. It’s the end.’

He took her hand. ‘Good afternoon,’ he responded. ‘It’s end enough for today.’

She pursued him anxiously with her eye as he turned away; suddenly she started after him. ‘But you will go?’

‘Go! No! No!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll stay now if I have to organise a standing army, declare myself king, and hold the rest-house as the seat of government. Go!’

She put forth a detaining, despairing hand, but he was gone.

Kate returned to the little Maharaj Kunwar, who had been allowed to lighten his convalescence by bringing down from the palace a number of his toys and pets. She sat down by the side of the bed, and cried for a long time silently.

‘What is it, Miss Kate?’ asked the Prince, after he had watched her for some minutes, wondering. ‘Indeed, I am quite well now, so there is nothing to cry for. When I go back to the palace I will tell my father all that you have done for me, and he will give you a village. We Rajputs do not forget.’