Selected Stories (5 page)

At the end of three months, Lispeth made daily pilgrimage to Narkunda to see if her Englishman was coming along the road. It gave her comfort, and the Chaplain's wife finding her happier thought that she was getting over her ‘barbarous and most indelicate folly'. A little later, the walks ceased to help Lispeth and her temper grew very bad. The Chaplain's wife thought this a profitable time to let her know the real state of affairs – that the Englishman had only promised his love to keep her quiet – that he had never meant anything, and that it was wrong and improper of Lispeth to think of marriage with an Englishman, who was of a superior clay, besides being promised in marriage to a girl of his own people. Lispeth said that all this was clearly impossible because he had said he loved her, and the Chaplain's wife had, with her own lips, asserted that the Englishman was coming back.

‘How can what he and you said be untrue?' asked Lispeth.

‘We said it as an excuse to keep you quiet, child,' said the Chaplain's wife.

‘Then you have lied to me,' said Lispeth, ‘you and he?'

The Chaplain's wife bowed her head, and said nothing. Lispeth was silent, too, for a little time; then she went out down the valley, and returned in the dress of a Hill-girl – infamously dirty, but without the nose-stud and ear-rings. She had her hair braided into the long pigtail, helped out with black thread, that Hill-women wear.

‘I am going back to my own people,' said she. ‘You have killed Lispeth. There is only left old Jadéh's daughter – the daughter of a
pahari
⁷
and the servant of
Tarka Devi
.
⁸
You are all liars, you English.'

By the time that the Chaplain's wife had recovered from the shock of the announcement that Lispeth had 'verted to her mother's gods, the girl had gone; and she never came back.

She took to her own unclean people savagely, as if to make up the arrears of the life she had stepped out of; and, in a little time, she married a woodcutter who beat her after the manner of
paharis
, and her beauty faded soon.

‘There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the
heathen,' said the Chaplain's wife, ‘and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart an infidel.' Seeing she had been taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chaplain's wife.

Lispeth was a very old woman when she died. She had always a perfect command of English, and when she was sufficiently drunk, could sometimes be induced to tell the story of her first love-affair.

It was hard then to realize that the bleared, wrinkled creature, exactly like a wisp of charred rag, could ever have been ‘Lispeth of the Kotgarh Mission'.

Venus Annodomini
¹

And the years went on, as the years must do;
But our great Diana was always new–
Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair,
With azure eyes and with aureate hair;
And all the folk, as they came or went,
Offered her praise to her heart's content.

Diana of Ephesus
.

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio Nuovo
²
of the Vatican, between Visconti's Ceres and the God of the Nile. She was purely an Indian deity – an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say – and we called her
the
Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her from other Annodominis of the same everlasting order. There was a legend among the Hills that she had once been young; but no living man was prepared to come forward and say boldly that the legend was true. Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their name and did their life's work, and returned again to find the Venus Annodomini exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as the Hills. But not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen could do in the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnicking and over-exertion generally, the Venus Annodomini did, and showed no sign of fatigue or trace of weariness. Besides perpetual youth, she had discovered, men said, the secret of perpetual health; and her fame spread about the land. From a mere woman, she grew to be an Institution, insomuch that no young man could be said to be properly formed, who had not, at some time or another, worshipped at the shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no one like her, though there were many imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more than six months to ordinary women; and ten made less visible impression on her than does a week's fever on an ordinary woman. Everyone adored her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous to nearly everyone. Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that she could not part with it – never realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with it – and took for her more chosen associates young people.

Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young Gayerson. ‘Very Young Gayerson' he was called to distinguish him from his
father ‘Young' Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian,
³
who affected the customs – as he had the heart – of youth. ‘Very Young' Gayerson was not content to worship placidly and for form's sake, as the other young men did, or to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the Venus Annodomini in a properly humble and thankful spirit. He was exacting, and, therefore, the Venus Annodomini repressed him. He worried himself nearly sick in a futile sort of way over her; and his devotion and earnestness made him appear either shy or boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of the older men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She was sorry for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years ago, had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in return she had felt something more than a week's weakness. But that lad had fallen away and married another woman less than a year after he had worshipped her; and the Venus Annodomini had almost – not quite – forgotten his name. ‘Very Young' Gayerson had the same big blue eyes and the same way of pouting his underlip when he was excited or troubled. But the Venus Annodomini checked him sternly none the less. Too much zeal was a thing that she did not approve of; preferring instead, a tempered and sober tenderness.

‘Very Young' Gayerson was miserable, and took no trouble to conceal his wretchedness. He was in the Army – a Line regiment I think, but am not certain – and, since his face was a looking-glass and his forehead an open book, by reason of his innocence, his brothers-in-arms made his life a burden to him and embittered his naturally sweet disposition. No one except ‘Very Young' Gayerson, and he never told his views, knew how old ‘Very Young' Gayerson believed the Venus Annodomini to be. Perhaps he thought her five-and-twenty, or perhaps she told him that she was this age. ‘Very Young' Gayerson would have forded the Indus in flood to carry her lightest word, and had implicit faith in her. Everyone liked him, and everyone was sorry when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus Annodomini. Everyone, too, admitted that it was not her fault; for the Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs Hauksbee and Mrs Reiver
⁴
in this particular – she never moved a finger to attract anyone; but, like Ninon de L'Enclos,
⁵
all men were attracted to her. One could admire and respect Mrs Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs Reiver, but one was forced to adore the Venus Annodomini.

‘Very Young' Gayerson's papa held a Division or a Collectorate or something administrative in a particularly unpleasant part of Bengal – full of Babus who edited newspapers proving that ‘Young' Gayerson
was a ‘Nero' and a ‘Scylla' and a ‘Charybdis'; and, in addition to the Babus, there was a good deal of dysentery and cholera abroad for nine months of the year. ‘Young' Gayerson – he was about five-and-forty – rather liked Babus, they amused him, but he objected to dysentery, and when he could get away, went to Darjiling
⁶
for the most part. This particular season he fancied that he would come up to Simla and see his boy. The boy was not altogether pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that his father was coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she should be delighted to make his acquaintance. Then she looked long and thoughtfully at ‘Very Young' Gayerson, because she was very, very sorry for him, and he was a very, very big idiot.

‘My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr Gayerson,' she said.

‘Your
what?
' said he.

‘Daughter,' said the Venus Annodomini. ‘She's been out for a year at Home already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is nineteen and a very sensible nice girl I believe.'

‘Very Young' Gayerson, who was a short twenty-two years old, nearly fell out of his chair with astonishment; for he had persisted in believing, against all belief, in the youth of the Venus Annodomini. She, with her back to the curtained window, watched the effect of her sentences and smiled.

‘Very Young' Gayerson's papa came up twelve days later, and had not been in Simla four-and-twenty hours, before two men, old acquaintances of his, had told him how ‘Very Young' Gayerson had been conducting himself.

‘Young' Gayerson laughed a good deal, and inquired who the Venus Annodomini might be. Which proves that he had been living in Bengal where nobody knows anything except the rate of Exchange. Then he said boys will be boys, and spoke to his son about the matter. ‘Very Young' Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy; and ‘Young' Gayerson said that he repented of having helped to bring a fool into the world. He suggested that his son had better cut his leave short and go down to his duties. This led to an unfilial answer, and relations were strained, until ‘Young' Gayerson demanded that they should call on the Venus Annodomini. ‘Very Young' Gayerson went with his papa, feeling, somehow, uncomfortable and small.

The Venus Annodomini received them graciously and ‘Young' Gayerson said, ‘By Jove! It's Kitty!' ‘Very Young' Gayerson would have listened for an explanation, if his time had not been taken up with trying to talk to a large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed girl – introduced to him by the Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She was far older in manner,
style, and repose than ‘Very Young' Gayerson; and, as he realized this thing, he felt sick.

Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying, ‘Do you know that your son is one of my most devoted admirers?'

‘I don't wonder,' said ‘Young' Gayerson. Here he raised his voice, ‘He follows his father's footsteps. Didn't I worship the ground you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty – and you haven't changed since then. How strange it all seems!'

‘Very Young' Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the daughter of the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, fragmentary and disjointed.

‘At five tomorrow then,' said the Venus Annodomini. ‘And mind you are punctual.'

‘At five punctually,' said ‘Young' Gayerson. ‘You can lend your old father a horse I daresay, youngster, can't you? I'm going for a ride tomorrow afternoon.'

‘Certainly,' said ‘Very Young' Gayerson. ‘I am going down tomorrow morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir.'

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the room, and her big grey eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook hands with him.

‘Goodbye, Tom,' whispered the Venus Annodomini.

His Wedded Wife
¹