by Talbot Mundy
“Competent, Mrs. Harding, I assure you. Discreet, I guarantee.”
Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the Bengali doctor, who looked devilishly discreet and more afraid of Aunty than if she were the devil’s own widow, the Maharanee’s carriage drew up, with its horses’ noses snorting on top of the Rolls-Royce.
Out got Lynn, too full of excitement and alarm and fun and sympathy to remember she should veil her face. She could hear her aunt through the open guesthouse window. Lynn came running into the glare of Rundhia’s headlights. There was nothing that anyone could do about that. There they were, he, she and astonishment. Lynn’s diamonds, loaned by the Maharanee, sparkled like Lynn’s eyes, more brilliant no doubt, but much less interesting.
“Who are you? What is wrong with Aunty?”
“Your aunt has hurt herself. My physician and some women are exploring for broken bones. I believe it is nothing serious.”
Aunty, it was obvious, thought otherwise. She wasn’t liking the doctor. She was calling him a fool, and she could make the word sound like a description of a flunkey caught stealing.
The Maharanee had to be ceremonially helped out of the carriage. She, too, had heard Aunty’s yells. She was overflowing with eagerness to overwhelm an injured guest with kindness, but she couldn’t run as fast as Lynn. And then Rundhia stood in the way, smiling, careful not to embarrass Lynn with gallantry. His memories of all the women he had ever loved and left had vanished. He didn’t mind making that obvious. But he made no false move.
“Nothing,” he said in English, to the Maharanee. “A twisted ankle. A bruise. A little badly shaken I believe. My doctor is attending to her. Won’t you introduce me to the goddess?”
The Maharanee purred. She unveiled her face. She put her arm around her lamplit protégée: “Lynn darling, this is my nephew Prince Rundhia. He is a bad boy, but I do hope you will like each other. Rundhia, this is Miss Lynn Harding, who is teaching me how Americans do things; and I am having such fun pretending she is one of us. I wish she were! Oh, how I wish it.”
“She is too beautiful to be one of us,” said Rundhia. His half-mocking insincerity had exactly the right nuance. He bowed the Maharanee into the guesthouse with an air of taking nothing seriously. He stood aside, lighting a cigarette, waiting for the Bengali doctor, listening to Aunty’s angry protests that the doctor was breaking her leg. Lynn wondered. Why the sudden aloofness? She decided to let the Maharanee bear the first brunt of Aunty’s anger, while she waited on the far side of the Rolls-Royce, where the Prince couldn’t see her.
Presently, when the doctor came out, Rundhia eyed him in the lamplight with a stare that made the Bengali flinch. He did his best to look like a confidential, dignified retainer, but it didn’t work. Aunty had broken his dignity, and his fear of the Prince had no covering left. He almost stammered:
“Nothing broken. Tape — iodine — bandages. She will soon recover.” He made a sudden, nervous effort to regain the feeling of being important and on the inside of events. “Have you heard that Captain Norwood, of the Royal Engineers, has arrived? He is in camp outside the city.”
Rundhia looked startled. The doctor continued: “He has with him an Eurasian named Moses O’Leary who, they say, already is poking his ugly nose into what is none of his business.”
There was quite another expression on Rundhia’s face from the one with which he had greeted Lynn. After a moment’s thought he touched the doctor’s arm and led him away into the darkness. Rundhia and the doctor stood talking.
Lynn Harding stood examining the Rolls-Royce. She was quite used to luxury, but even Hollywood owned nothing like that thing. Its gadgets and gold-plated adornments were a sufficiently good excuse for giving Aunty’s temper time to cool off. So she lingered, letting the Maharanee go alone into the guesthouse. Aloneness, of course, included three servants, but a Maharanee is lucky who endures only six eyes to watch what she does, and six ears to hear what she says. Lynn could not hear what Prince Rundhia was saying to the doctor, but he was doing all the talking and she felt fairly sure that he was talking about her. She saw him dismiss the doctor and stand staring at him in an attitude that vaguely suggested Adolph Menjou in one of his early pictures. The doctor looked hopeless, helpless; as he hurried away his back suggested humiliation. Lynn felt sorry for him and began to wonder whether she couldn’t invent something wrong with herself, so as to make an excuse to send for him and talk to him and find out why he was a man of sorrow. But that line of thought was interrupted by Rundhia. He strode toward her looking as deadly self-assured as Mephistopheles. Lynn fell on guard. In spite of years of Aunty’s supervision she had had her share of encounters with men who approach good-looking girls with a definite technique. She spotted that in a minute: knew without forming the thought in her mind — knew instinctively that Rundhia had grasped the Aunty Harding situation and intended to leap fences. His would be no conventional opening.
“You win,” said Rundhia.
“Win what?”
“Whatever you came for.”
“I came for a good time.”
“Uh-uh? Been having it?”
“Yes.”
Rundhia’s wonderful eyes glanced sidewise at the guesthouse window. Aunty’s voice was quite audible, and no one within earshot was ever permitted to be in doubt about what kind of time Aunty was having. Lynn chose not to answer Rundhia’s unspoken question. If it was conversation he wanted, she would tell him something he did not yet know.
“Your aunt has been conducting me into Indian mysteries.”
“We have none,” said Rundhia. “We are an open book. We are three hundred and fifty million people, every single one of whom carries his heart on his sleeve. You are the mystery. Have you a heart? Where is it?”
Lynn laughed: “Is that any of your business?”
“Of course it’s my business.”
“Why?”“
“Because you are the most beautiful mystery I have ever seen. Every mystery is an invitation to find the right key.”
“Oh, are you a detective?”
“You bet I am. I’ve detected your cruelty. You intend to keep me guessing. I can’t endure it.” Lynn laughed again: “Should I pity you?”
“No. Pity and compassion are the twin curses of India. We’re so compassionate to one another that we hate one another for not being even more miserable than we are, so as to be able to mop up greater floods of useless pity.”
“So you’re an iron man?”
“No — nor a jellyfish. I have a leathery disposition, due to talents that have dried from lack of use.”
“Oh, are you lazy?”
“No. Iron has entered into me. It’s like a spur that dug too deep and keeps on working inward. It irritates abundant energy that has no outlet. Add boredom to that, and what have you?”
“It sounds like an explosive mixture. Aren’t you afraid you may blow up? I believe you’re sorry for yourself.”
“Sorrow is not in me,” he retorted. “I don’t know the emotion.”
“Not even when you make mistakes?”
“I never make them. A mistake is what a fool does to an opportunity. All that I have lacked until now is a real opportunity.”
“To be foolish?”
“To be energetic, willful, talented and wonderfully wise. I am a genius. How long are you intending to stay here?”
“I don’t know. Aunty Harding is the Bureau of Intentions. If you get too talented and wise, I daresay you can cut short our visit very easily. Aunty specializes in wisdom, and she doesn’t enjoy competition.”
“Ah, but I have talents.”
“How many?”
“Too many. They’re a nuisance.”
“What are you really good at?”
Prince Rundhia chuckled: “Now, now — are you flattering me, or are you really interested?”
“Yes, honestly, I’m interested. I’ve never talked with a Prince. What are you good at?”
“Isn’t it obviou
s? I’m very good indeed at recognizing goddesses who visit Kadur.”
“Do they come here often?”
“Until now, they were legendary — morbidly unhealthy myths, who left behind their unclaimed luggage in the shape of idiotic morals and the kind of superstition that corrupts independence. But now that a genuine goddess has come to Kadur—”
“Aunty will adore it.”
“Mystery again! Mystery! Will adore what?”
“Being called a goddess. However, she’s a fallen goddess at the moment. I must go in and see her.”
“There is no need to worry about her,” Rundhia objected. “She’s quite all right — just a bit shaken — undoubtedly angry — perhaps suffering a little pain, but nothing serious. My doctor said she will be well in a couple of days.”
“All the same, I will go in and see her. I suppose we’ll meet again? Do you live at the palace?”
“I have a palace of my own,” said Rundhia. “I live there like a spider in its lair, awaiting opportunity to pounce on goddesses who come to Kadur. Oh, yes, Miss Harding. We will meet again. Yes, indeed we will meet. Count on my entertaining you.”
Mrs. Harding’s voice came through the guesthouse window sharply impatient:
“Lynn! Lynn! Where are you?”
“All right, Aunty. I’m coming.”
Experienced tyranny knows countless ways of compelling submission. Aunty groaned on a sumptuous bed:
“No, don’t let me trouble you. Don’t let me be a nuisance. I am sure that the cares of a palace must be more than enough. You must try to forget my existence. Lynn can look after me.”
Lynn’s eyes met the Maharanee’s — deep unto deep. The Maharanee looked rather like a New York East-side Jewess who has risen through the ruck of immigration to the ranks of affluence and prestige. Full-bosomed, matronly, kind, but aware that the world is full of pitfalls: aware that the world needs kindness, but can misinterpret and cruelly resent good intentions. She was afraid to say anything that might make Lynn mistrust her, even though Lynn in oriental jewelled finery looked like the golden-haired, glorious daughter of kings of legend that the Maharanee, in her secret heart of hearts, imagined she herself might be, if only nature had endowed her with the outer grace. She had the genius, gentleness, iron. She had also a will that no Deborah Harding could bully to obedience.
Lynn undid a necklace from the palace heirlooms, and handed it to the Maharanee. She began to remove a bracelet, but the complicated fastening prevented. She held out her wrist.
“Please. I must get into some clothes that Aunty thinks respectable and stay with her.”
The mild, plump Maharanee countered with surprising firmness:
“Darling, we will expect you to dinner. Yes, I will take the jewelry because it must be returned to the Keeper of the Jewels. I will choose two women from my own attendants who shall take care of Mrs. Harding. They shall entertain her if she wishes. They are skillful with the lute and many other instruments. They sing. They dance. So Mrs. Harding shall not feel neglected. I will send some special dishes from the palace.”
She almost flounced out, giving Aunty no time to reply. There was silence until the drum-beat of the horses’ hooves died away along the drive in the direction of the palace. Then Aunty spoke:
“This comes of making social concessions. I never heard of such audacity. Did you hear her speak to me as if I were a servant or a charity patient? Go and take off that immodest costume. It suggests a fancy-dress ball in a badhouse. Then come back and tell me what you did this afternoon.”
“I was in the temple,” Lynn answered. “I have been where no other white woman ever was. I have been having the time of my life. I am sorry you are hurt. But I am very tired of your scolding, Aunty. You seem to me to try to take the fun out of everything. If the doctor hadn’t said you are only slightly hurt, I would stay here and be glad to do it.”
“Doctor! Do you call that thing a doctor? He’s a monkey. I was never in my life so embarrassed, so humiliated. As soon as I can move without torture, we will pack up and leave, unless I have been poisoned by that creature’s touch. He made me shudder. I won’t let him come near me again.”
“But, Aunty, he has promised to return with something to relieve the pain, so that you will get some sleep.”
“Sleep! While you are doing what in the palace? Do you think I am deaf, blind? Do you think I have forgotten your flirting on board ship and in hotels until I blushed for you? I heard you, through the window, talking to Prince Rundhia.”
“Aunty, I think I hate you. It makes me feel mean and ungrateful. I would so much rather love you.”
“I have left off hoping to be loved,” said Aunty. “I demand your respect. That may teach you to respect yourself and so merit the respect of your equals. Love? Gratitude? Illusions! I have learned that. I shall feel well recompensed if I can only guide you through the age of indiscretion until the time when your breeding asserts itself and you can be trusted to take a proper place in the world.” Lynn went and changed into black silk Chinese pajamas. They would remind Aunty of that fancy-dress ball on board ship, when the penniless son of a Tirhoot planter had made the pace so hot that Aunty nearly had fits. To hell with Aunty. Lynn stared at her own reflection in the mirror, not quite liking it. She smiled at herself, just to see what the smile would look like.
“That isn’t me! I’m not sly! I’m angry. I’m indignant! I’m — That’s what I’ll become unless I break Aunty’s hold! Damn Aunty! Damn her! I’ll be independent if it kills me!”
The Maharanee returned from the palace, excited, fawned on by four women. Two meek men-servants followed her with baskets of provisions. Lynn ran to greet her. The Maharanee almost squealed at the sight of Lynn in black pajamas with her golden hair massed in becoming contrast.
“Wonderful! But no, that won’t do! Yes it will, yes it will! I forget. I am so excited, I forget! We are to have an informal supper party at the palace, instead of dinner — truly, truly unconventional — modern — a picnic!”
“Oh, my God!” said Aunty.
But the Maharanee could be as deaf as Fate when it pleased her to be. She continued, almost breathless:
“His Highness my husband” (she always spoke of the Maharajah as His Highness my husband) “has heard that Captain Norwood is in Kadur. Captain Norwood is a Royal Engineer. He is said to be a man of great attainments. His Highness my husband is very eager to be pleasant to him.”
“Engineer?” said Aunty.
“Yes, he is to make a survey of the Kadur River, It would not be etiquette to notice him until after he makes his formal call, which he should do tomorrow. However, I persuaded His Highness my husband, who is a very conventional man, but now and then he listens to me. I suggested to him that a very informal supper-party need not interfere with Captain Norwood’s formal call tomorrow. Lynn darling, you must come and help me to arrange it. We have sent a car for Captain Norwood, but very likely he will come on horseback; he is said to be an independent person. Rundhia will come, for I have promised Rundhia the sort of informality he loves. But Lynn, you must come at once, please. I need ideas.” She turned to Aunty: “We are so, so sorry, Mrs. Harding, that you can’t be with us.”
Aunty sat up. It made her groan, but she smiled her sweetest at the Maharanee’s veiled embarrassment:
“I will spare you that regret,” she answered. “I will be there. You have a rickshaw? Your women can help me to dress, I don’t doubt. Lynn and I will be leaving as soon as I am fit to travel. A last supper in your palace will be something to remember.”
“Oh, how gracious of you,” said the Maharanee. “But are you quite sure—”
The Bengali doctor appeared, cautious, with a bedside confidential air that did not, however, prevent the Maharanee from instinctively veiling her face.
“Mrs. Harding, I have a little pellet for you, just one little pellet, prepared specially.”
“Thank you, I don’t take pellets.”
The doctor he
sitated. The Maharanee spoke through her veil:
“Mrs. Harding is coming to supper at the palace.”
“Oh?” said the doctor. “Well, perhaps she will take the medicine at supper. Shall I send it by a servant? She should take it with a little piece of bread or with a glass of water.”
“Thank you, you needn’t trouble,” said Mrs. Harding. “I need no medicine.”
“Come, Lynn.” The Maharanee could hardly wait while Lynn looked for a wrap. “We must be ready before Captain Norwood comes. It is important that we make on him the friendliest impression.”
“So long, Aunty. See you later.”
“Lynn, go back and put on something decent!”
“No, no!” said the Maharanee. “I like her this way.”
“Scandalous!” said Aunty. She said it loudly, not under her breath.
The Maharanee had royal ears that could hear and ignore. She was well trained in the royal art of knowing but seeming not to know. She looked portly and short beside Lynn, but there was rhythm in her movement, and in her thought, too, that leaped the invisible walls of mere appearances and landed safely on the plane of metaphysics far beyond the reach of Aunty Harding’s matters of fact and merely logical malice. Passing through the shadows cast by the electric lights along the garden path she seemed a link with ancient India — almost a living incarnation of the past. But she spoke of the moment:
“Lynn, your aunt doesn’t enjoy being used by destiny. That is a pity, because people who oppose their destiny do have such a difficult time, don’t they. Destiny always wins.”
“Aunty isn’t always a good loser,” Lynn admitted. “She is always brave. But I don’t think she believes in destiny.”