The Rupa Book of Love Stories & Favourite Fairy Tales (2 in 1)

by Ruskin Bond

  The grassy area inside the rampart sloped slightly upwards to the sheer edge, so that from where she stood she saw nothing of the sea, but only the grey, laden sky. But she did not want to see the sea, for she knew that today it would be—not as it had been eighteen years ago today, blue and lustrous as an iris-petal and, near the shore, paler and so clear that the ribs of chalky rock at the bottom were as visible as if seen through a flawless, pale blue crystal—but leaden-grey, desolate, chilling to the heart.

  So she did not go towards the cliff-edge, but followed the base of the rampart until it bent inwards at right-angles and crossed the hilltop. There she stopped, and in the bend, as if in the corner of a roofless room, sat down. For a while she sat motionless, self-absorbed; then leaned back against the slope of the turf wall, turned on her left side, and closed her eyes.

  And soon she knew that he was there, the Jim Ansell of eighteen years ago. She felt no human touch, no warmth, and his voice had no sound, but he was present to her and she could speak to him, not with her lips, not aloud—for there was no need to speak aloud—but in her heart, with a speech much more real, much more close, than the cold, audible speech she exchanged with her husband and neighbours and the tourists that came to the inn.

  And in that unworldly, spiritual speech he answered her. With her eyes and all her senses closed and his visible absence shut out and forgotten, she lay in his arms, felt her body wrapped, safe and sound, in his body, the warmth of his face against hers, the smell, like heather and seaweed, of his khaki jacket. She was alive once more, escaped from the death of her present existence into the warm life of her early days. That life was so real to her that whenever she reached their meeting-place and lay back and closed her eyes, her actual self ceased to exist, and she had never once thought it strange that a tired, faded woman of forty should lie in the arms of this dark-haired young man of twenty-two, nor had she ever told herself that their child, if it had lived, would by now have been a boy only five years younger than his father, or that, just as there was another Mary the faded Mary of today, so there was another Jim Ansell, withered and eyeless, lying in some unknown cemetery in France.

  Such thoughts never came to her, for he and she met in a timeless and unchanging world which belonged to them alone. This angle in the earthwork was especially theirs, but they met in other palaces too, for she carried their secret world within her and could drop back into it whenever opportunity occurred. When she was alone at the inn, working in the kitchen or sitting, darning, in the little private parlour, she would often leave her patient body to get on with its work and would step across the threshold; and at night, the moment the candle had been blown out and she had laid down in bed with Sam, she would be gone, abandoning to her husband the tired, obedient Mary Brakefield like a corpse laid out, hurrying back to her real life and Jim.

  But sometimes, when she was very tired, she had not the strength to escape. The outer world—Sam Brakefield, the inn, the neighbours—was too strong for her. She was too feeble, by herself, to support and preserve the world of her desires. If only there had been someone else who knew of it and recognised its reality, who would speak of Jim, who would, perhaps, call her, not Mrs. Brakefield, but Mrs. Ansell, what a help and what a comfort it would be.

  But there was no one: her secret was unshared. That name, Mary Ansell, which she had never borne in real life, was the name by which she thought of herself. She had actually written it in the few books which Jim's mother had left her at her death fourteen years ago. It was safe to do so, for Mary Ansell was the name of Jim's mother, and if Sam had ever noticed it he would not have been surprised.

  Mrs. Ansell had left her not only the books, but also Jim's scroll, neatly framed—the scroll that had been sent to her after he had been killed. But Sam, as far as Mary knew, had never looked into the books. He had shown no surprise when they and the scroll had been brought to his wife, for he had known that she and Mrs. Ansell were old friends. When she had opened the parcel he had lifted up the scroll and examined it. "It'll look nice on the wall," he had said, and had then asked: "Who was he?"

  "Her son," Mary had answered, and she had put away the books in the hanging bookcase in the parlour and hung up the scroll there. Sam never sat in that room. In the summer, on those days when so many visitors called that there was no more space in the public room, some of them were served there, but for nine months in the year Mary had it to herself, and she would sit there often to sew and darn.

  Seated there near the books he must often have read, and with his scroll before her eyes, she felt closer to him than anywhere else but in the earthwork. She often glanced at his name at the bottom of the scroll—Lance-corporal James Ansell—but she seldom read what went before it, for the last sentence—"Let those that come after see to it that his name be not forgotten"—spoke too painfully of his absence, made of him a name only, a name threatened with oblivion.

  It was eighteen years ago, eighteen years this very day, that they had met for the last time. On the last day of his leave from France they had climbed the downs together, scrambled up the earthwork, and walked to the edge of the cliff. He had laughed when she had clutched at his sleeve to stop him going too near the brink. The whole immense depth of air below them and the huge expanse of sea sparkled with sunshine. Out near the horizon a ship—an English battleship—drew a long, gauzy trail of smoke after it. Jim pointed to the horizon. "You'd never think, would you," he said, "that thousands of chaps were in the thick of it just over there?"

  "Don't," she said. "Don't think of it. I don't want to think of it till…"

  "Till I'm there?"

  She nodded, and they turned away from the cliff and walked across to the angle of the rampart. There they lay down, his arms round her. "Then you'll wait for me?" he whispered half-jokingly. "Only a few months, till my next leave, Then we'll get married."

  She pressed her cheek against his. "I don't have to wait," she said, her heart suddenly full. "I'm yours already."

  For a while he did not speak. Then he said: "Yes, you're mine Mary, and I'm yours. Only we've got to wait till my next leave to be married."

  She shook her head. "We're married already."

  Again he paused, as if thinking. Then he said: "But…but suppose I was to stop one?"

  "Stop one?"

  "Stop a shell or a bullet. Get knocked out."

  She put her hand over his mouth. "Don't. Don't say such things."

  "But it might happen," he said, when she had freed his mouth.

  "That means we mustn't wait."

  "But think, Mary what might happen; to you, I mean."

  "I'm thinking," she said. "That's why I say we mustn't wait."

  It was already dark when they walked home together, and parted outside the gate of her home.

  A week later, before she had received any letter from him, she was passing his mother's cottage and Mrs. Ansell called to her from the door. Mary went to her, and she led her into the little front room, paused to shut the door, then turned on the girl a face woefully transformed. "Mary," she said "Jim's gone."

  "Gone." It was as if lightning had struck her. She felt it leap from her head to her heels.

  "Killed," said Mrs. Ansell.

  When Mary knew she was to have a child she told her mother—weeping, as she spoke, not for shame, but for Jim. Her mother laid her arm round her shoulder. She spoke no word of rebuke, and, though she spoke no word of comfort either, Mary knew that she understood and sympathised. "I shall have to tell your father," was all she said.

  "Will he be angry?" Mary asked.

  "Yes," said the old woman, "but I'll manage him. You keep out of his way and say nothing."

  Mary never knew of the encounter between her mother and father, nor that her father had wished to turn her out of doors and had resigned himself only when her mother had told him that, if Mary went, she would go with her. She knew only that, after that, her father never spoke to her, never took the least notice of her.

&nb
sp; Two months later her mother told her that she was to go to an aunt in Devonshire and stay there till after her baby was born. What was to happen after that she did not ask, but she was resolved that, come what might, she would never be separated from the child. But the child, a little boy, was stillborn, and three months after his birth, Mary returned to her home.

  It seemed to her that her life was finished. In her absence a new landlord had come to the Golden Lion. He was a bachelor, and her mother now worked at the inn, scrubbing floor and washing-up mugs and glasses. Soon after her return, her mother came home with the news that Mr. Brakefield wanted a handy girl to help in the bar and that she had mentioned Mary to him. A few days later Mary began her work at the inn.

  At the end of a year, to her amazement and horror, he asked her to marry him. Ashen-faced and with a trembling lip she refused, but he waved aside her refusal. "You think it over, my dear," he said. "I don't want to hurry you. Think it over and see what your mother says."

  Her mother, when Mary spoke of it, pressed her to accept Brakefield."You must think of the future, my dearie," she said. "When your father and I are gone you'll have no home. You'll have to toil and moil, perhaps for a hard master or mistress. Mr. Brakefield's honest and he's kind. He'll be a good husband to you, Mary. Take him. It'll be a comfort to me to know you're well provided for."

  "But I can't ever forget Jim," said Mary.

  "You don't have to forget him. Keep him to yourself, that's all, and act fairly by your husband."

  "But mustn't I tell him. . .?"

  "About Jim?"

  "About the child?"

  "No. There's no cause to tell him. No one here knows about it, and never will."

  A month later Mary became Mrs. Brakefield.

  It was getting dark when Mary Brakefield opened her eyes and found herself alone under the sky in the angle of the rampart. Dazed and chilly, she got to her feet. It she did not hurry she would never find the path down the steep slope. Already when she climbed down the great turf wall and emerged from the ditch, the village below her was lost in the gloom of its elms, and by the time she had reached the foot of the down and struck into the road the last pale streaks in the west were closing into the darkness of a stormy sky.

  She felt desolate and tired by her long, lonely ecstasy. She clung to Jim, trying to keep him with her still, but he withdrew from her. Her spirit was too weak now to hold him, her attention too distracted by the need of keeping her path on the dark road. If only there was someone who knew, someone who would come towards her now, down this dark road, and as he passed her call out: "Good night, Mrs. Ansell." Those few short words would be enough to keep her and Jim together.

  But the road was deserted, and, as she turned into the village, large drops of rain began to fall.

  When she entered the inn her husband's voice greeted her.

  "Two gentlemen wanting tea, Mary. I've got the kettle on and shown them into the parlour, by the fire."

  The two young men had walked all day. They had lunched off beer and bread and cheese at an inn twelve miles away and had hoped to find another inn in the cove they had reached late in the afternoon. But no inn was there, and when they had asked for the nearest they had been directed to Netherhinton, four miles away. Now they sat, tired and contented, in the little parlour of the Golden Lion, one on each side of the fireplace, with their legs stretched to the warmth, waiting for the tea they had ordered.

  When he had finished a cigarette, the more energetic of the two got out of his chair and, with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, began prowling round the room, examining the pictures and photographs. When he had reached the bookcase be called to his friend: "I say, Guy, here's The Return of the Native, and Jude, and Lorna Doone, and the Bible, and Pickwick. Not a bad lot for a village inn."

  He took down Jude the Obscure, opened the cover, and read, "Mary Ansell, 1919." Pickwick revealed the same name, and then he was interrupted by the opening of the door. A thin-faced woman brought in their tea on a tray. The young man, caught with Pickwick in his hand, spoke to her. "I've found a nice lot of books here," he said. "Are they yours?"

  The pale, red-rimmed eyes met his. "Yes, sir," she said in her tired, toneless voice; "they're all mine."

  She set the tea on the table. "Just ring the bell if you want anything, gentlemen," she said as she went quietly out.

  They thanked her, and the other young man rose from his chair and went over to where his friend was standing. "What's this?" he said, bending his head to inspect Jim's scroll.

  "Some poor devil that was killed in the war," said the first, and he read: "Lance-corporal James Ansell."

  "Her son, I expect," said the other as they sat down to their tea.

  When they had finished they rang for the bill, and the thin-faced woman returned. How far was it, they asked, to Wareham?

  Six miles, she told them; and there was a bus in twenty minutes' time if they were tired of walking.

  "Good! Then, if you don't mind, we'll sit here till it comes."

  "Certainly, sir," she said, without raising her eyes from the tray on which she was piling the used tea-things.

  "Not exactly a cheerful specimen, is she?" said one to the other as they returned to their chairs beside the fire.

  Five minutes before the time for the bus they slung their knapsacks on their backs and went out of the room. As they passed the kitchen door it was ajar, and the first young man called out a good night as he passed. "Good night, Mrs. Ansell," he called.

  She was standing at the kitchen table, her pale eyes cast down, her mouth drooping bitterly at the corners, preparing supper for herself and her husband; but at the sound of the young man's voice her face bloomed suddenly as if kindled by some inner, spiritual light, and her mouth, its bitterness gone, took on the charming, wistful smile of a young girl.

  Laylá and Majnún

  BY NIZAMI

  The full name of this celebrated Persian poet was Nizam- Uddin Abu Mohammed Ilyas bin Yusuf (1140–1202) and he is generally recognised to be the earliest known Persian romantic poet. The story of Laylá and Majnún is a prose rendering of his second great poem, the first being "Khosrau and Shirin, " for which he was rewarded with a position at Court and the revenue from two villages.

  Laylá, Pearl of the Night!

  She was beautiful as the moon on the horizon, graceful as the cypress that sways in the night wind and glistens in the sheen of a myriad stars. Her hair was bright with the depths of darkness; her eyes were dark with excess of light; her glance was shadowed by excess of light. Her smile and the parting of her lips were like the coming of the rosy dawn, and, when love came to her—as he did with a load of sorrow hidden in his sack—she was as a rose plucked from Paradise to be crushed against her lover's breast; a rose to wither, droop, and die as Ormazd snatched it from the hand of Ahriman.

  Out of the night came Laylá, clothed with all its wondrous beauties; into the light she returned, and, while the wind told the tale of her love to the cypress above her grave, the stars, with an added lustre, looked down as if to say, "Laylá is not lost: she was born of us; she hath returned to us. Look up! Look up! There is brightness in the night where Laylá sits; there is splendour in the sphere where Laylá sits."

  As the moon looks down on all rivers, though they reflect but one moon, so the beauty of Laylá, which smote all hearts to love. Her father was a great chief, and even the wealthiest princes of other lands visited him, attracted by the fame of Laylá's loveliness. But none could win her heart. Wealth and royal splendour could not claim it, yet it was given to the young Qays, son of the mighty chief of Yemen. Freely was it given to Qays, son of the chief of Yemen.

  Now, Laylá's father was not friendly to the chief of Yemen. Indeed, the only path that led from the one to the other was a well-worn war-path; for long, long ago their ancestors had quarrelled, and, though there were rare occasions when the two peoples met at great festivals and waived their differences for a time, it may truly be sa
id that there was always hate in their eyes when they saluted. Always? Not always: there was one exception. It was at one of these festivals that Qays first saw Laylá. Their eyes met, and, though no word was spoken, love thrilled along a single glance.

  From that moment Qays was a changed youth. He avoided the delights of the chase; his tongue at feast and in council; he sat apart with a strange light in his eyes; no youth of his tribe could entice him to sport, no maiden could comfort him. His heart was in another house, and that was not the house of his father.

  And Laylá—she sat silent among her maidens with eyes downcast. Once, when a damsel, divining rightly, took her lute and sang a song of the fountain in the forest, where lovers met beneath the silver moon, she raised her head at the close of the song and bade the girl sing it again—and again. And, after this, in the evenings when the sun was setting, she would wander unattended in the gardens about her father's palace, roaming night by night in ever-widening circles, until, on a night when the moon was brightest, she came to the confines of the gardens where they adjoined the deep forest beyond; but ever and ever the moonlight beyond. And here, as she gazed adown the spaces between the tree trunks, she saw, in an open space where the moonbeams fell, a sparkling fountain, and knew it for that which had been immortalised in the sweet song sung by her damsel with the lute. There, from time immemorial, lovers had met and plighted their vows. A thrill shot through her at the thought that she had wandered hither in search of it. Her cheeks grew hot, and, with a wildly beating heart, she turned and ran back to her father's palace. Ran back, ashamed.

  Now, in a high chamber of the palace—it was as wondrous as that of a Sultan—where Laylá was wont to recline at the window looking out above the tree-tops, there were two beautiful white doves; these had long been her companions, perching on her shoulder and pecking gently at her cheek with "Coo, coo, coo;"—preeking and preening on her shoulder with "Coo, coo, coo." They would come at her call and feed from her hand; and, when she threw one from the window, retaining the other against her breast, the liberated one seemed to understand that it might fly to yonder tree; and there it would sit cooing for its mate until Laylá, having held her fluttering bird close for a time, would set it free. "Ah!" she would sigh to herself, as the bird flew swiftly to its mate, "when love hath wings it flies to the loved one, but alas! I have no wings." And yet it was by the wings of a dove that her lover sent her a passionate message, which threw her into joy and fear, and finally led her footsteps to the place of lovers' meeting.