Come, My Beloved

by Pearl S. Buck

“O-livia,” Leilamani said below her breath, accenting the first letter.

  “Leilamani,” Olivia replied. She pressed the pretty hand slightly and then released it.

  “These are my two naughty boys,” Darya said carelessly. He tumbled the curly dark heads, “This one is five and this one is four. We shall have another one, boy or girl, six months from now.”

  The children released their tight hold on their mother’s sari. The elder leaned toward Olivia’s tray and she gave him a tartlet. The small one immediately put out a minute brown palm and in it also she laid a tartlet.

  “Enough,” Darya said with authority. “Go away now and play.”

  They were obedient immediately, and walked away hand in hand, tartlets at their mouths.

  Leilamani seated herself beside Darya, careful not to touch him in public, and Darya watched her with a loving and solicitous pride. “She does very well, eh? This wife of mine, Olivia, was in purdah until she married. Never did she see a strange man. When she went out with other women in the family it was always in a curtained carriage. I remember that when her father ordered an English carriage enclosed in glass, he had the glass painted so that no one could see in and no one could see out. Eh, Leilamani?”

  Leilamani nodded, smiling, and did not speak.

  Darya coaxed her. “Now Leilamani, you must speak some English. I have been teaching her, Olivia. I have told her that she must learn to speak English as fast as you learn Marathi. That is fair, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure that it is,” Olivia said, smiling at Leilamani. “I think English is easier.”

  “Now, now,” Darya cried.

  It was all banter and small talk, and David sat listening and taking no part but enjoying it and understanding very well that Darya was gently and patiently helping his wife to forget her shyness and show them her delicately gay self. Slowly she did what he wished, first by gentle movements, then by eating a favorite sweetmeat, then by smiling and then by a soft laugh, until when Darya grew too bold, she gave him a little push with both hands against his cheek.

  Olivia was enchanted. She had never seen such a woman as Leilamani, a creature so young, so childish, and yet so profoundly feminine, so sophisticated in her femaleness. Leilamani was all woman and unconscious of any other possible being. She patted her little round abdomen and then touched Olivia’s flat waist with tentative fingers.

  “Yes?” she asked softly.

  “No,” Olivia said, shaking her head.

  “Soon?” Leilamani asked with pretty hopefulness.

  “Perhaps,” Olivia said, very uncomfortable.

  Darya burst into laughter again. “You mustn’t mind, Olivia! Like all Indian women who have not been spoiled by western life, Leilamani feels her first pride is in being able to have children. It is a proof of her quality as a woman. Indian women had rather be dead than be barren. Is that too hard for you to understand?”

  “I think it is,” Olivia said.

  She was aware now that Leilamani was watching her with enormous and reflective eyes. She was fearlessly examining Olivia’s face and hair and figure. She put out her hand and felt the stuff of her thin blue silk dress, then she took Olivia’s hand in her left one and stroked it gently with her right one. She smiled frankly and sweetly at Olivia, coaxing her to friendliness.

  It was an enchanting sight and the two men looked on enjoying it.

  “She is telling you that she is going to love you as her sister,” Darya said. “You must not be shy, Olivia. We believe that love is the best gift of all and never to be withheld when it exists. I can tell you that Leilamani does not often give it so freely. She is a proud little thing, this wife of mine!”

  “Tell her I am happy that I came and I hope she will let me come often,” Olivia said. It was too little to say, when Leilamani poured over her this warmth of affection and trust, but she was confused. She was aware of strange feelings within her, a melting of inner hardness that she did not know she had, a softening of her heart, a new perception of woman, something that Leilamani was which she was not and which she was not sure she wanted to be, and yet which attracted her strongly. Leilamani was a mixture of witchery and wisdom, youth and age, simplicity and complexity, emotion and shrewd common sense. She felt crude and bigboned and harsh, she wanted to go away and she wanted to stay and gaze at Leilamani. She was repelled by her and yet she longed to embrace her. She was jealous of her beauty and delighted by it. It was an overwhelming, inexplicably exciting hour and when it ended and they came away, she was exhausted. She was not at all sure that she was going to like India entire or even that she could bear it always.

  That night in his bed when he was drowsing off to sleep in the darkness and the whining of the mosquitoes was dying away in his ears, David was astonished to hear the patter of Olivia’s bare feet on the floor. He woke up at once for never had she dared to walk at night in the dark or without her shoes.

  “Olivia, is that you?” He sat up and felt for the matches and the candle always inside the net.

  “Yes, don’t light the candle.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, David, love me!”

  “But darling, I do love you!”

  “Oh, but more, more, more!”

  She was half sobbing and he did not know what to make of it. He lifted the net and pulled her inside. “Come in, dearest. Why are you crying? Are you ill?”

  To none of his questions did she reply. Here was an Olivia he had never seen before, melted in weeping and clinging to him, passionate and demanding and insistent.

  “Oh love me—love me—” she was crying, and at last he abandoned himself to her, passion rising and then rising again to climax and finally to exhaustion. Never, never had he allowed himself to be absorbed like this, never had he been compelled beyond his own control.

  When it was over and she was asleep he could not sleep. For the first time since their marriage he had a sense of sin. What he had done, what she had compelled him to do, was not good. He had never seen this demand in her before but it was not right for him. He lay deeply troubled and after a time he rose and went into the bathing room and washed his body clean from head to foot. Then he put on clean garments and went into his study and closed the door. He fit the lamp and tried to read some scriptures but the words were empty, and would be empty until he had acknowledged his sin. He had been overcome. She had tempted him, yes, but he would not use that excuse as old as Adam. His soul was his own, and he had not kept it undefiled.

  He turned the lamp low and got down on his knees by his desk and bowed his head and sent up his prayer in shame and contrition.

  “God, forgive me—”

  After a long while he felt comfort pervade him slowly, like light rising over a mountain, but his prayer was not finished. He lifted his head and prayed again, “God, give me strength.”

  And while he prayed, Olivia slept.

  VIII

  THE WEATHER TURNED AND grew cool, as cool as Poona weather ever was, but Olivia was languid. Her days were spent in a routine, pleasant enough but unchanging, and she marvelled that she did not mind. She was getting very lazy, she told herself, and it was an effort to return the dinners to which she and David had been invited, most important of which was a dinner due the Governor and his wife. She made the effort, because David insisted that he must be friendly with Government or he could not do his work. It was difficult, nationalism was rising, Government was irritable and irritated. Americans were suspected of being sympathetic with the nationalist movement and ultimately with independence for India. History was against them.

  “I am very glad to find that you are sound, Mr. MacArd,” the Governor said somewhat patronizingly at the dinner table.

  Olivia, at the opposite end of the oval table, listened for David’s reply.

  “I am against revolution, Your Excellency,” David replied calmly. “That is not to say I am against change. I am doing my best to educate young Indians who will wis
h eventually to rule their own country, doubtless, but it will be within the scheme of evolutionary order and not in my time or yours, probably.”

  “Oh, well, as to that,” the Governor said tolerantly, “we shall of course give them a gradual independence as they are fit for it. Certainly they are not fit for it now, with four fifths of the people illiterate and ignorant.”

  Olivia spoke too quickly. “Your Excellency, I’ve wondered so much why they are like this after hundreds of years of enlightened rule under the British Empire.”

  She dared not look at David. Instead she fastened her eyes brightly and defiantly upon the Governor’s dignified square face. His voice sharpened. “Oh, come now, Mrs. MacArd, don’t you go saying such things. It will take more than a few hundred years to change India completely. Consider her condition when we came in, and how long it took us merely to establish order. A hundred years passed before we could begin really to govern. As it is, we are still not responsible for the entire country. There are the Native Princes. We are not tyrants, you know. We don’t force things down Indian throats.”

  A general movement swayed the guests into conversation, as though by common impulse they moved to cover Olivia’s question. Nothing more must be said, and Olivia’s brief emergence was drowned. She yielded, as she yielded in everything nowadays. She sat quietly smiling, eating with good appetite for she was always hungry, to her own surprise, and yet food gave her no energy.

  The evening passed, and when the guests were gone she waited for David to reprove her for the question, but he did not. He was aloof, but he was always aloof now, and she supposed it was because he was so busy. The buildings were going up rapidly, and he was already receiving students. Ramsay was with him every day and on some days all day long, and she saw very little of her husband.

  The servants put out the lights, and they went to their rooms. She clung to his arm as they walked down the hall.

  “Are you tired?” David asked.

  “A little,” she confessed. Tomorrow she would tell him that she was always tired and perhaps something was wrong with her. But she did not want to tell him tonight, she was too tired for explanation. He stood aside for her to enter their room and she swept past him, holding up her long silken skirts with both hands.

  In the doorway she paused. “Did I look pretty tonight?” she asked.

  He hesitated and she saw his eyes grow wary. “Very pretty,” he said calmly.

  Why don’t you kiss me? That was what she had been about to say. When she saw the withdrawal in his eyes she leaned and kissed his cheek.

  “Good night, David.”

  “Good night, Olivia. But why now, my dear?”

  “I think I shall sleep in the guest room tonight. I am tired.”

  He waited a second, two seconds, before he replied. “A good idea, perhaps. You look a little pale.”

  She turned and left him then and for the first time since their marriage she went to bed alone.

  He did not care, then! That was what she began to think. He did not call to her and tell her to come back. He did not love her, actually, as she loved him. She began to cry softly and it occurred to her that these days she was crying too easily.

  The next afternoon, beset by this strange new loneliness, she thought of one friend after another whom she might go to see. Not Mrs. Fordham, certainly, who was always voluble with disapproving advice because Olivia never went to prayer meeting and seldom to church, and not little Miss Parker who made her sad, and none of the formal English ladies, because they did not like Americans. Who then but Leilamani? At the thought of Leilamani she felt her heart relax, and she called her carriage and without telling anyone, for David was nowhere to be seen, she bade the driver go across the city to Darya’s house.

  There she found Darya not at home and the gatekeeper very hesitant about allowing her to enter his master’s gate. He conferred long with the driver in Marathi, of which Olivia could only gather enough to understand that Leilamani never received English ladies.

  “But I am not English,” Olivia said and then found that when she spoke Marathi it was enough. No English ladies spoke Marathi, and the gatekeeper admitted her at once, and she bade a servant inside the gate to tell his mistress that she was there.

  She stood waiting in the beautiful garden, where birds cunningly tied to branches of trees sang as sweetly as though they were free and a pet gazelle, brought perhaps from the foothills of the Himalayas, came dancing to her to sniff at her hand for cakes. She touched its wet dark nose and it sprang back, staring at her innocently and fearfully.

  The servant came back and invited her to come in and when she had entered three doors, she saw Leilamani herself walking toward her, hands outstretched to grasp her hands and hold them.

  “Sister, you have come alone,” Leilamani said. “Now we can talk, I am so glad you have come.”

  “Speak very slowly, please,” Olivia said. “My Marathi is still very bad.”

  “It is good,” Leilamani exclaimed, “and I still do not know any English. I am too stupid. He tries to teach me but it makes me laugh and then—” she broke into rippling laughter and shook her head. “Come in, come, sister.”

  Still clinging to Olivia’s hand, she led her into the room where the children played and each child must come forward and greet Olivia with his hands together and she kissed each one on the cheek while Leilamani watched, and then she obeyed Leilamani’s inviting gesture and sank down on the cushions.

  It was pleasant here and she felt relaxed and at ease. The afternoon sun shone in the open door and the little boys played quietly at the far end of the long room. Tall brass vases held fragrant lilies and the air was faintly perfumed and very still.

  “It is so quiet,” Olivia said. “How is it your house is always quiet even with children?”

  “It is not quiet when he is here or our relatives come,” Leilamani said. “It is only that I am quiet, because I like to be so. Others talk but I listen. Sleep, sister—you look weary.”

  Olivia smiled and leaning against the cushions, she closed her eyes. “I mustn’t sleep,” she murmured. “I’ll just rest a few minutes.”

  But she could not rest and opening her eyes, she found that Leilamani was watching her with an intense gaze. She caught it and moved away, turning her head to look at a hanging on the wall and then to speak to the children. Servants brought in the usual fruit juices and sweetmeats, she ate and drank concealing her inordinate hunger and thirst, she thought, and then Leilamani’s watching eyes were not to be avoided. She met them fully and suddenly Leilamani broke into laughter and clapped her hands.

  “You, too, sister!” she cried. She leaned over and patted Olivia’s waist with both hands. Olivia stared at her, not comprehending.

  “Yes, I know it is so,” Leilamani said half singing. She patted her own swelling abdomen. “Feel me, sister—another boy! Yes, feel how high he is, just like the other two, and so it is a boy. I will tell you in a few months whether yours also is a boy—”

  A hot blush rushed over Olivia’s whole body. She understood. Yes, perhaps—and if it was so, that was why she was so languid, so hungry, so careless of what happened in the house.

  “I did not know it myself,” she faltered.

  “Ah, it is good for me to be the first to tell you,” Leilamani said joyfully. “I am the bearer of good news. It is certain that I am right. I shall tell him, my sons’ father. He will be very happy and he will tell his brother in your house and we will all be happy.”

  She sat up listening. “Ah, is that he? I hear him. I will tell him now!”

  “No, no, please,” Olivia begged. “I must tell my own husband first. I must go home now.”

  She did not question Leilamani’s certainty. Instinctively she felt it true, it explained all that she had not understood.

  “Go then,” Leilamani said, excited, “go, and come back soon. I shall pray to Sita that it is a son.”

  When she reached home David was waiting for her, a l
etter in his hand. She stopped in the door at sight of his grave face.

  “I have been to see Leilamani—”

  “So the gateman told me. I have received a letter from the Governor, Olivia. He is displeased at what you asked him last night and he takes great pains to explain—”

  She burst into wild inexplicable tears. “Don’t scold me, David—not now! I am going to have a baby.”

  She threw herself on his breast and felt his arms close about her and the letter dropped to the floor.

  He had come with her to the hills for a week, that they might be alone together. A week entire from his life he gave her as a gift, because she was with child. It was true, the British doctor in Poona confirmed it to him. Then he had added advice.

  “She’s a bit nervy, though, Mr. MacArd. Get her away for a short holiday.”

  Up from the shallow valley in the hills they heard at evening the thin wailing song which was the song of India, the human music of the villages.

  Till my heart, O Beloved,

  As I am tilling this land.

  And make me Thine,

  As I am making this land my own,

  Till my heart, O Beloved!

  Somewhere in the swiftly fading dusk a man worked late upon his land and he sang while he worked. They heard his voice, and David felt the quick grip of his wife’s hand.

  “What are you feeling, Olivia?”

  They were sitting in the enclosed veranda of the hill house, safe against the night insects, and the cool high air was refreshing. Though he had decided upon this week alone with her, he could not leave his thoughts behind in Poona, nor his spreading plans, nor, above all, his doubts. His life, he sometimes thought, was a series of strong steps forward, and then long pauses of doubt. Thus, was it wise to set up these great buildings, to erect vast edifices for the future? Was he building in God-driven faith, or was he simply the son of MacArd, compelled by his inherited perspectives to create huge shapes of brick and stone? And yet India herself compelled large thinking, immense plans. Millions waited and he could not consider in terms of one and one and one and one—