Part 12 (1/2)
”I hope so, I believe she is ... quite happy and well.”
”You're sure?” And Tony's eyes searched Jan's face. ”You're sure _you_ haven't put her somewhere?”
”Tony, I want Mummy every bit as much as you do. Be a little good to me, sonny, for I'm dreadfully sad.”
Jan held out her hand and Tony took it doubtfully. She drew him nearer.
”Try to be good to me, Tony, and love me a little ... it's all so hard.”
”I'll be good,” he said, gravely, ”because I promised Mummy ... but I can't love you yet--because--” here Tony sighed deeply, ”I don't seem to feel like it.”
”Never mind,” said Jan, lifting him on to her knee. ”Never mind. I'll love you an extra lot to make up.”
”And Fay?” he asked.
”And Fay--we must both love Fay more than ever now.”
”I do love Fay,” Tony said, ”because I'm used to her. She's been here a long time....”
Suddenly his mouth went down at the corners and he leant against Jan's shoulder to hide his face. ”I do want Mummy so,” he whispered, as the slow, difficult tears welled over and fell. ”I like so much to look at her.”
It was early afternoon, the hot part of the day. The children were asleep and Jan sat on the big sofa, finis.h.i.+ng a warm jersey for little Fay to wear towards the end of the voyage. Peter, by means of every sc.r.a.p of interest he possessed, had managed to secure her a three-berth cabin in a mail boat due to leave within the next fortnight. He insisted that she must take Ayah, who was more than eager to go, and that Ayah could easily get a pa.s.sage back almost directly with people he knew who were coming out soon after Jan got home. He had written to them, and they would write to meet the boat at Aden.
There was nothing Peter did not seem able to arrange.
In the flat below a lady was singing the ”Indian Love Lyrics” from the ”Garden of Khama.” She had a powerful voice and sang with considerable pa.s.sion.
Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, Less than the rust that never stained thy sword.
Jan frowned and fidgeted.
The song went on, finished, and then the lady sang it all over again.
Jan turned on the electric fan, for it was extremely hot, and the strong contralto voice made her feel even hotter. The whirr of the fan in no way drowned the voice, which now went on to proclaim with much _brio_ that the temple bells were ringing and the month of marriages was drawing near. And then, very slowly and solemnly, but quite as loudly as before, came ”When I am dying, lean over me tenderly----”
Jan got up and stamped. Then she went swiftly for her topee and gloves and parasol, and fled from the bungalow.
Lalkhan rushed after her to ask if she wanted a ”tikka-gharri.” He strongly disapproved of her walking in the streets alone, but Jan shook her head. The lift-man was equally eager to procure one, but again Jan defeated his desire and walked out into the hot street. Somehow she couldn't bear ”The Garden of Khama” just then. It was Hugo Tancred's favourite verse, and was among the few books Fay appeared to possess, Fay who was lying in the English cemetery, and so glad to be there ...
at twenty-five.
What was the good of life and love, if that was all it led to? In spite of the heat Jan walked feverishly and fast, down the shady side of the Mayo Road into Esplanade Road, where the big shops were, and, just then, no shade at all.
The hot dust seemed to rise straight out of the pavement and strike her in the face, and all the air was full of the fat yellow smell that prevails in India when its own inhabitants have taken their mid-day meal.
Each bare-legged gharri-man slumbered on the little box of his carriage, hanging on in that amazingly precarious fas.h.i.+on in which natives of the East seem able to sleep anywhere.
On Jan went, anywhere, anywhere away from the garden of Khama and that travesty of love, as she conceived it. She remembered the day when she thought them such charming songs and thrilled in sympathy with Fay when Hugo sang them. Oh, why did that woman sing them to-day? Would she ever get the sound out of her ears?