The Lotus and the Wind Read Free Page B

was ajar into the centre room, which was used as a living and dining-room by the travellers who spent the night in the bungalow. Anne remembered waking once or twice on the journey, then dozing off again, then arriving here and refusing to be undressed by her mother. She had undressed by herself and got into bed. Now it was dark, and if she opened her eyes she would see that the oil lamp on the table in the centre room sent a vertical beam of light through the door and up the wall near her head.
    She knew her father was in there, sprawled back in a wicker chair; and her mother, sitting upright near the table; and Major Hayling--he would be by the window because the lone man was there on a cot, still without the power of speech. In her mother’s voice she had heard the desire to protest against such a misuse of dak-bungalows, which were reserved for European travellers. But the lone man lay there. His presence and the forms of death that sat at his head filled both rooms, so that Anne thought: If I let my hand drop over the edge of my bed it will touch his lined face. She almost called out that she was awake, then decided not to. She was tired, and frightened that the dying man might be left alone with death if they all came to her.
    She heard her father say, ‘I still don’t understand quite, I must say. By the way, where’s the wounded Highlander?’
    ‘In the cantonment hospital,’ Hayling said, and went on to answer indirectly the Hildreths’ unspoken complaint. ‘The surgeon said there was no hope for this poor fellow, so I thought it would be better to have him here where it’s easier for me to be with him if he regains the power to speak. The surgeon said there was nothing more he could do, that even the bandages were as good as he could tie. Mrs. Collett did a wonderfully neat job--where are the Colletts, by the way?’
    ‘Ah, h’m, yes, Mrs. Collett. She and her husband are spending the night with friends in the cantonment.’ Major Hildreth coughed nervously, as he always did when circumstances forced him to bring Edith Collett’s name into a conversation. The first time, back in Meerut, he’d made the mistake of saying what a good-looking woman she was. Now Anne heard her mother sniff, and herself became angry. Mrs. Collett was supposed to be fast. Perhaps she was. But she did her best to look attractive, and she laughed cheerfully with gentlemen and had a sort of tantalizing scorn for them, which they loved. Why, on account of that, should her mother sneer even at Edith Collett’s ability to tie a good bandage?
    ‘The Colletts are going to be in Peshawar, are they not?’ Major Hayling inquired suavely. Anne could imagine the queer, curved little smile on his face, a smile that his listeners could interpret any way they chose. Major Hayling too was said to be fast, but, because he was an eligible bachelor, her mother did not mind.
    Mrs. Hildreth said coldly, ‘I believe she is. Captain Collett is going up to Afghanistan to his regiment. Why she could not stay behind in Simla or Meerut until he returns, instead of coming up to Peshawar, I am at a loss to understand.’
    ‘Oh, come, Mrs. Hildreth, perhaps she wishes to be near her husband, for when he gets leave.’
    ‘Major Hayling, you are a man of the world. You know perfectly well that she is coming up here because in Peshawar there will be many gentlemen whose wives for one reason or another have not been able to accompany them that far.’
    Major Hayling chuckled. It was peculiar to be lying here and listening to her mother’s gossip, just as though they were all still in India proper, when they weren’t in India, and a dying man lay on the floor. She imagined she could hear his breathing, slow, faint, unsteady, under the voices in that room and under the muttering of the servants in the compound and under the singing of the soldiers in their tents. Her mind ran back down the Grand Trunk Road to the whole rushed, muddled excitement. She