Far, Far The Mountain Peak Page 7

  ‘Grandfather, may I introduce you to Mrs Fenton? Mrs Fenton--General Savage....Mr Fenton.... Miss Fenton....’

  The old man was staring at her, like an old hawk. Her mother said: ‘Have Lord Manningford and Lady Margaret Holcombe arrived yet? They were coming direct from their father’s.’ She glanced meaningly at the door.

  The old general grinned suddenly, a grin that made him look for that moment younger than his grandson, and said: ‘My apologies, Mrs Fenton. I was admiring your daughter. She is no longer a child, so I can say that she is beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t say that in front of her, General,’ her mother said amiably. ‘She will get a swelled head.’ They were in the musty hall now, and Peter was helping Emily out of her travelling coat.

  ‘I am a very old man, Mrs Fenton,’ the general said. ‘I was born in the reign of King George the Fourth, and I can say anything, particularly to young ladies.’

  They climbed a flight of stairs and entered a large drawing-room full of bronze and brass and heavy curtains. It was a typical room, one of several Emily had seen like it, but made different, lifted completely out of its class, by four oil paintings on the wall opposite the windows. They were portraits, and as she sat down she eyed them surreptitiously. One was of an Indian woman with a veil across her forehead and huge dark eyes, one of a child of about two and a half with fair curly hair, one of a woman in her late twenties, the fourth of a man in dark green uniform. The man held a big shako loosely in his right arm; his careless, strong left hand rested on a silver sword; his hair was thick; and black, black whiskers curled flamboyantly across his cheeks, and his eyes were snapping, glacier blue.

  Adam Khan handed round sherry. Peter, who had been sitting next to her on an ottoman, looked at his watch and said: ‘Gerry and Peggy ought to be here by now, Grandfather.’

  A bell rang, clanging heavily in the lower reaches of the house. The general said: ‘Go down please, Peter. Ashraf’s still busy cooking.’

  Peter left the room, and Emily began wondering how he was going to be able to afford these two months in the best rooms the Monte Rosa Hotel had to offer, with all the expenses of guides, picnics, and excursions that would also fall on him. There was no money to burn here. But perhaps her mother was wrong and he had money of his own somewhere, though she doubted it. Once or twice during his stay at Llyn Gared last summer he had said something that showed he had no expectations--and was perhaps a little over-conscious of the fact.

  The door opened, and Peggy came in. Peter Savage, at her shoulder, introduced her quickly and then turned abruptly to Mally. ‘Peggy says Gerry’s sick, Mrs Fenton. He ran a temperature this morning, suddenly. He thinks he won’t be able to come with us.’

  Peggy said: ‘He feels awful about it, Mally. He says he’ll follow on in a few days, when he’s better.’

  ‘What about you, Peggy?’ Emily’s mother asked. ‘Are you going to stay with him?’

  ‘I feel I ought to. He says I mustn’t. Father’s there, and the servants of course.’ She turned to Peter and said apologetically: ‘He’s really feeling rotten, Peter.’

  Peter had gone taut; his eyes were narrower and his voice tinged with an edge of sharpness. He said: ‘I’ll go and see him, Grandfather. At once. Now. Do you mind?’

  ‘You’ll be missing a good lunch,’ the old man said calmly, ‘but run along. He’s your friend, and you ought to see him before you go off to Switzerland.’

  ‘I’ll meet you all at the train,’ Peter said from the door. ‘I’m taking my things with me now.’ The door closed behind him.

  Peggy sat down slowly at Emily’s side. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she said miserably. ‘The doctor should be there by now, but---‘

  ‘It’s a shame,’ Emily said. She wondered if she too should ask to go and see him; but her mother would not permit it.

  Then a tall, white-bearded Indian, older than the general and wearing a long white coat and a white turban, stood, bowed with age, in the door and shouted in a loud and cracked voice a few words in a strange language; and the general answered him; and they went in to lunch. Emily found herself at the foot of the table with her father on her right and Adam Khan on her left.

  Beyond Adam Khan her mother was saying: ‘Since Peter is not here, General, I suppose I can say, though I was not born in the reign of King George the Fourth, thank you, that he’s a brilliant young man.’

  ‘He’ll go a long way,’ her father said, nodding heavily.

  The old general agreed abstractedly. ‘Yes, Peter’s got brains. You have to have brains to get into the I.C.S. these days. And brains will get a man on--these days. But a man isn’t remembered in India for his brains. Character, I suppose you’d call it, is what makes a man retire feeling he’s done something, regardless of how high he climbed. He’s applied for the Punjab Commission, Adam. And then he’s going to try for Rudwal. But you know that.’

  ‘The Punjab is large, sir,’ the young Indian said with a smile, ‘but we both hope he can get it.’

  ‘Didn’t you say there were mountains near your home, Khan?’ her father broke in. ‘If there are, Peter will get there somehow. He’s a most determined young man--and a really amazingly gifted climber.’

  ‘I would hardly call them “near,” ‘ the general said with a slow smile. ‘The crest line of the range is about a hundred and twenty miles in--but of course it climbs all the way from the plains in ridges and valleys, each one grander than the last. Magnificent country. There are five peaks over twenty-one thousand feet in that area, and the lowest pass over into Parasia and western Tibet is thirteen thousand, eight hundred. I know. Went over it in ‘sixty-seven, after ovis ammon. Isn’t the Rudwal District one of the largest in India, Adam?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And with almost the smallest population. Apart from Rudwal City and the belt of villages along the foothills, where the Maghra comes out of the mountains, there’s really nothing. I believe actually the district is far the largest in India --because there’s no inner boundary.’

  He smiled happily at Emily. He was thinking of his own country, his own land, and she felt happy for him and with him, though her imagination could conjure up from these strange words and names only a vision of some vastly magnified Zermatt.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ the general said, equally happy, ‘the Tibetans have never agreed on a boundary commission. The last time I saw Younghusband he told me--Mrs Fenton, I do apologize. Indian shop talk, at my age! Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a little more meat?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ her mother said. ‘And I was not at all bored. In fact, I’d like to know just what a member of the Indian Civil Service does. I have tried to get Peter to tell me, but he didn’t seem to have the time. He was too busy on Cader Brith or Snowden or Cader Idris.’

  And, Emily thought, going his mysterious, locked-in way at other times. It was now July, 1903, a year since his first visit to Llyn Gared. There had been ten days at Llyn Gared over last Christmas, a couple of debutante dances, three theatres, a visit to the zoo, and finally May Week at King’s again--she and Gerry, Peggy and Peter; but she didn’t know any more about him than when she had first met him, nor did Peggy. They had learned as much as one learns of a steam engine from being hauled around the countryside by it.

  The general laughed and said: ‘You tell Mrs Fenton about the I.C.S., Adam.’

  Adam Khan slowly crumbled a piece of bread on his side plate. He said: ‘Once Parliament has decided what to do in India, and the Secretary of State in London has sent a letter to the Governor-General in Calcutta telling him to do it--there is the matter of getting it done. The Governor-General--who is also the Viceroy--tells the governor or lieutenant-governor of each province. They are mostly of the I.C.S. The governors tell the commissioners of each division--all I.C.S. The commissioners tell the deputy commissioners of each district--all I.C.S. There are about two hundred districts in India, so I suppose they must have an average population of a million each. The man the people see most of,
the most important man, is the one at the bottom, the district officer--the deputy commissioner. He controls the police through a superintendent of police. He is the district magistrate and can give sentences up to two years. He can try revenue and settlement cases. He assesses and collects taxes. He tells us how to improve the breed of our cattle and the drainage of our fields, and what crops we should plant. He builds roads and bridges and schools. He is the government. He is very nearly--God.’

  Mally had been listening with surprised interest. Now she said, but slowly and with a half-glance at the general: ‘It sounds very autocratic. What do the people think of it? What do you think, after Cambridge?’

  Adam Khan said: ‘It is no different from what has always been. Only the I.C.S. are honest, and the Mogul and Sikh officials were corrupt. The I.C.S. are also foreign--most of them. That doesn’t mean Indians dislike them, Mrs Fenton. It was the Sikhs whom we hated, but even while we hated them we could understand them. I doubt if there are more than a handful of Indians, in India, who don’t believe, now, in the I.C.S. and the I.C.S. system, especially if they know or have heard what India was like for the last hundred years or so before Warren Hastings. But the I.C.S. have never tried very hard to get across this barrier, that we think differently. That is what I am going to try and help with. That is why I am not going into the I.C.S.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘My father thinks I am going to lead the life of a young nobleman until he is dead and I have the estate to look after--but I have other ideas. In a few years, if our plans work out right, Peter will become Deputy Commissioner of Rudwal. You cannot imagine what we can do together--the people knowing what is being done and why, all of us striving to make Rudwal something new in India, leading the way! And then, as Peter goes up, perhaps I could go with him. To Lahore, capital of the Punjab. To Calcutta, capital of all India! Why not? There has not been a Viceroy from the Indian service for a long time, but why not? Peter could be another Warren Hastings. He was the first Governor-General of India--and the last who really understood India.’

  For a moment Adam’s animation, the frank eagerness of his expression, and the poetic fire in his voice made Emily stare open-mouthed at him, as though he had shown her one of his own secretly held visions.

  Then the general said: ‘By God, I wish I were going with you two. But heaven had better be with you when you try to explain all this to your father, Adam, if he’s anything like the same man I knew in the ‘seventies. That was the life, Fenton--a Punjabi Mussulman gentleman with land of his own and a huge jagir for services in the Mutiny. Twenty farms on it! Ghulam Afzul Khan, that’s Adam’s father, used to live like a baron in the days of King John--hawks on his hand, hunting dogs at his heel, a big sword at his waist. He’ll think you’ve become an anarchist, a revolutionary, Adam.’

  ‘Nothing has changed for my father,’ Adam Khan said quietly, not smiling. ‘But I am not a revolutionary. There are no serious Indians today, that I know of, who want independence now. A few want to go faster than others, but that’s all. Indians who think about it--not many have the time or the education--want India to become like England, and they know that they will need England’s help--guidance--for some time. That’s what Peter and I are going to do. But--where is there a place for one of King John’s barons? The barons are dead, and all their way of life with them. I sail the day after tomorrow. I shall be glad to see my family again.’

  His eyes suddenly filled with tears. The others turned to one another and began to talk, but Emily watched from the corner of her eye while he got out a big silk handkerchief, carefully wiped his eyes, and than arranged his fine-drawn features into the controlled interest proper to a Cambridge man.

  The talk drifted about, pleasant and formless. No one mentioned India again, and with an effort Emily dismissed from her mind the gaudy phrases, as arresting as strains of music heard while passing a gypsy encampment, that had stuck in her memory since Adam Khan and the general had been talking. The old man was a little tired now, she saw, and seemed to have withdrawn from them to some restful place where only he could go, an old man’s bench beside the flowing conversation. Then it was time to leave, and they were gathered in the hall downstairs, the stained glass in the upper panel of the front door marking diamonds of red and blue on her mother’s back. The old general was holding out Emily’s coat to her.

  She squirmed into it, and his light voice said in her ear, not whispering but addressed so directly to her that no one else listened: ‘Don’t let Peter bully you. It’s better for everyone.’

  ‘No,’ she said, startled and off balance. ‘I’m sure---‘

  Then they were outside and her father was hailing two cabs, and soon Peggy’s cab dashed off at a hand gallop, Peggy leaning out of the window and calling: ‘All my things are packed, Mally! I’ll be there at the station--with Peter.’ Emily settled back in the other cab, opposite her parents.

  Her father said: ‘A fine old gentleman. Did you notice those paintings, dear? I wonder who---‘

  But Emily was thinking: ‘Don’t let Peter bully you.’ The general should have spoken to Peggy and laid yet more emphasis on those last words: ‘It’s better--for everyone.’

  She closed her eyes, for she felt exhausted by the thought of what would have to happen to Peggy before she could stand up to Peter Savage--and it wasn’t until she could do that that she would see him in his true colours. It was impossible to imagine Peggy doing it. If he’d the mind, he would make her what he chose to. It was none of her, Emily’s, business, yet Peggy was her closest friend, although new barriers were growing up between them, and a mysterious sense of distance was destroying the old instantaneousness of contact. She loved Peggy as much, but she found herself standing back and saying: This is going to happen unless Peggy realizes that; and now it was impossible, as it had once been possible (lying on their stomachs on top of the walled garden, eating June strawberries and watching the grown-up visitors at tennis), to whisper in Peggy’s ear: ‘Isn’t that man awful? He gives me creeps up and down my spine.’

  ‘Wake up, dear. We’re here.’ Her mother was tapping her on the knee, and the cab was clattering into the station yard at Victoria. There was a great bustle inside, and crowds of people passed to and fro, in and out, up and down, without pattern, under the grimed glass arch, and shafts of dusty sunlight struck down among them in solid bars. They joined a little river winding slowly towards the boat-train, the women’s dust-coats and long skirts hiding their feet so that they flowed rustling on, and the men moving jerkily, in strides, like rocks and tree trunks caught in the current of the stream.

  ‘Dover, Calais, Paris,’ her father read aloud. ‘Here we are.’ ‘There’s Harvey,’ her mother said.

  Then they were on the platform, and the crowd was less, and Harvey was explaining with gloomy satisfaction that everything was in order, but Lady Margaret hadn’t sent her luggage yet, and what was to be done about that, sir?

  ‘Lady Margaret’s on her way,’ Mally began, and then Emily saw Peggy, hurrying clumsily down the platform towards them among the people. Her eyes were wide with excitement. ‘Mally!’ She gasped. ‘Gerry’s here!’

  ‘What! I thought---‘

  ‘When I got back I found they’d gone. They’re here!’

  ‘The young gentlemen are in the next carriage forward, madam,’ Harvey said. ‘Lord Wilcot’s man came about an hour ago and obtained a private compartment--not without difficulty, ma’am. I thought you would know---‘

  Peggy whispered in Emily’s ear: ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t say anything, but they think Gerry is getting measles.’

  They followed Emily’s parents up the platform. ‘Here, sir,’ Harvey said. Peering into the compartment, Emily saw that the blinds on the far side were drawn and Gerry was lying at full length on one of the seats, covered with a travelling rug, a pillow under his head. Peter was sitting on the opposite seat, talking to him.

  ‘Well!’ her mother said sharply. ‘Wh
at’s the meaning of this?’ Gerry raised his head and waved weakly. ‘Hello, Mally. I’m all right, really I am.’

  ‘You don’t look it,’ her mother said. ‘Oh, dear, what it is to have a son who isn’t your son. If I were your mother I’d take you straight back to bed at home.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go,’ Gerry said with a wan grin. He glanced up at Peter as if for confirmation, then caught Emily’s eye and said: ‘Hello, Em. I’ll be all right tomorrow.’

  Peter looked at her then, and for a moment she held his stare before turning away. A fierce outflow of will was beating over her, over Gerry . . . Don’t say anything, we’re going, we’re going! It was he who had made Gerry get up, though Gerry thought it was his own will. It was he who was scattering disease germs among them, and he who had used the coat of arms and the title to turn people out of this compartment. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

  The guard walked down the platform, murmuring: ‘Take your seats, please.’ A whistle shrilled, and Emily said suddenly: ‘Peggy and I’ll get in with Gerry, Mally. We’ll come back to you in a minute.’ She opened the door and got in, followed, after a moment’s hesitation, by Peggy. Her mother began to say something, but the whistle shrilled again, more insistently, and her parents hurried down to their own compartment. The train began to move, gliding gently along the platform, out into the brilliant sun, clanging over the river, winding importantly into the tangle of brick to the south-east.

  Emily put her hand on Gerry’s forehead and said: ‘About a hundred and one. You are an ass, Gerry. Well, now you’ve done it I suppose you expect me to nurse you, and then I’ll get measles.’

  ‘Oh, no !’ Gerry said, ‘I never thought of that. I don’t want that. Go on back to Mally and Uncle G., both of you.’

  ‘It’s done now,’ she said, smiling brilliantly at Peter as she sat down beside him. ‘Sit here, Peggy.’