Rudyard Kipling : The Complete Novels and Stories. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

to his escort, who, dividing, lined either side of the road, with all the ragged bravery of irregular cavalry. The mail-carriage halted, and Kate, crumpled, dusty, dishevelled from her long journey, and red-eyed from lack of sleep, drew back the shutters of the palanquin-like carriage, and stepped dazed into the road. Her numbed limbs would have doubled under her, but Tarvin, leaping from the barouche, caught her to him, regardless of the escort and of the calm-eyed child in the golden drapery, who was shouting, ‘Kate! Kate!’

      ‘Run along home, bub,’ said Tarvin. ‘Well, Kate?’

      But Kate had only her tears for him and a gasping ‘You! You! You!’

      ▲▲▲

IX

      We meet in an evil land,

      That is near to the gates of Hell—

      I wait for thy command,

      To serve, to speed, or withstand;

      And thou sayest I do not well!

      Oh, love, the flowers so red

      Be only blossoms of flame,

      The earth is full of the dead,

      The new-killed, restless dead,

      There is danger beneath and o’erhead;

      And I guard at thy gates in fear

      Of peril and jeopardy,

      Of words thou canst not hear,

      Of signs thou canst not see—

      And thou sayest ’t is ill that I came?

      —In Shadowland.

      Tears stood again in Kate’s eyes as she uncoiled her hair before the mirror in the room Mrs. Estes had prepared against her coming—tears of vexation. It was an old story with her that the world wants nothing done for it, and visits with displeasure those who must prod up its lazy content. But in landing at Bombay she had supposed herself at the end of outside hindrances and obstacles; what was now to come would belong to the wholesome difficulties of real work. And here was Nick!

      She had made the journey from Topaz in a long mood of exaltation. She was launched; it made her giddy and happy; like the boy’s first taste of the life of men. She was free at last. No one could stop her. Nothing could keep her from the life to which she had promised herself. A little moment and she might stretch forth her hand and lay it fast upon her work. A few days and she should stoop eye to eye above the pain that had called to her across seas. In her dreams piteous hands of women were raised in prayer to her, and dry, sick palms were laid in hers. The steady urge of the ship was too slow for her; she counted the throbs of the screw. Standing far in the prow, with wind-blown hair, straining her eyes toward India, her spirit went longingly forth toward those to whom she was going; and her life seemed to release itself from her, and sped far, far over the waves, until it reached them and gave itself to them. For a moment, as she set foot on land, she trembled with a revulsion of feeling. She drew near her work; but was it for her? This old fear, which had gone doubtfully with her purpose from the beginning, she put behind her with a stern refusal to question there. She was for so much of her work as heaven would let her do; and she went forward with a new, strong, humble impulse of devotion filling and uplifting her.

      It was in this mood that she stepped out of the coach at Rhatore into Tarvin’s arms.

      She did justice to the kindness that had brought him over all these leagues, but she heartily wished that he had not come. The existence of a man who loved her, and for whom she could do nothing, was a sad and troubling fact enough fourteen thousand miles away. Face to face with it, alone in India, it enlarged itself unbearably, and thrust itself between her and all her hopes of bringing serious help to others. Love literally did not seem to her the most important thing in the world at that moment, and something else did; but that didn’t make Nick’s trouble unimportant, or prevent it, while she braided her hair, from getting in the way of her thoughts.. On the morrow she was to enter upon the life which she meant should be a help to those whom it could reach, and here she was thinking of Nicholas Tarvin.

      It was because she foresaw that she would keep on thinking of him that she wished him away. He was the tourist wandering about behind the devotee in the cathedral at prayers; he was the other thought. In his person he represented and symbolised the life she had left behind; much worse, he represented a pain she could not heal. It was not with the haunting figure of love attendant that one carried out large purposes. Nor was it with a divided mind that men conquered cities. The intent with which she was aflame needed all of her. She could not divide herself even with Nick. And yet it was good of him to come, and like him. She knew that he had not come merely in pursuit of a selfish hope; it was as he had said—he couldn’t sleep nights, knowing what might befall her. That was really good of him.

      Mrs. Estes had invited Tarvin to breakfast the day before, when Kate was not expected, but Tarvin was not the man to decline an invitation at the last moment on that account, and he faced Kate across the breakfast-table next morning with a smile which evoked an unwilling smile from her. In spite of a sleepless night she was looking very fresh and pretty in the white muslin frock which had replaced her travelling dress, and when he found himself alone with her after breakfast on the verandah (Mrs. Estes having gone to look after the morning affairs of a housekeeper, and Estes having betaken himself to his mission-school, inside the city walls), he began to make her his compliments upon the cool white, unknown to the West. But Kate stopped him.

      ‘Nick,’ she said, facing him, ‘will you do something for me?’

      Seeing her much in earnest, Tarvin attempted the parry humorous; but she broke in——

      ‘No; it is something I want very much, Nick. Will you do it for me?’

      ‘Is there anything I wouldn’t do for you?’ he asked seriously.

      ‘I don’t know; this, perhaps. But you must do it.’

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘Go away.’

      He shook his head.

      ‘But you must.’

      ‘Listen, Kate,’ said Tarvin, thrusting his hands deep into the big pockets of his white coat; ‘I can’t. You don’t know the place you’ve come to. Ask me the same question a week hence. I won’t agree to go. But I’ll agree to talk it over with you then.’

      ‘I know now everything that counts,’ she answered. ‘I want to do what I’ve come here for. I shan’t be able to do it if you stay. You understand, don’t you, Nick? Nothing can change that.’

      ‘Yes, it can. I can. I’ll behave.’

      ‘You needn’t tell me you’ll be kind. I know it. But even you can’t be kind enough to help hindering me. Believe that, now, Nick, and go. It isn’t that I want you to go, you know.’

      ‘Oh!’ observed Tarvin, with a smile.

      ‘Well—you know what I mean,’ returned Kate, her face unrelaxed.

      ‘Yes; I know. But if I’m good it won’t matter. I know that too. You’ll see,’ he said gently. ‘Awful journey, isn’t it?’

      ‘You promised me not to take it.’

      ‘I didn’t take it,’ returned Tarvin, smiling, and spreading a seat for her in the hammock, while he took one of the deep verandah chairs himself. He crossed his legs and fixed the white pith helmet he had lately adopted on his knee. ‘I came round the other way on purpose.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ asked Kate, dropping tentatively into the hammock.

      ‘San Francisco and Yokohama, of course. You told me not to follow you.’

      ‘Nick!’ She gathered into the single syllable the reproach and reproof,