Rudyard Kipling - The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated)

The Maharajah was an excellent friend, and no bad hand at pachisi; but as Tarvin sat opposite him, half an hour later, he reflected that he should not recommend the Maharajah's life for insurance if anything happened to his love while she remained in those mysterious chambers from which the only sign that came to the outer world was a ceaseless whispering and rustling. When Kate came out, the little Maharaj Kunwar clinging to her hand, her face was white and drawn, and her eyes full of indignant tears. She had seen.

Tarvin hastened to her side, but she put him from her with the imperious gesture that women know in deep moments, and fled to Mrs. Estes.

Tarvin felt himself for the moment rudely thrust out of her life. The Maharaj Kunwar found him that evening pacing up and down the verandah of the rest-house, almost sorry that he had not shot the Maharajah for bringing that look into Kate's eyes. With deep-drawn breath he thanked his God that he was there to watch and defend, and, if need were, to carry off, at the last, by force. With a shudder he fancied her here alone, save for the distant care of Mrs. Estes.

'I have brought this for Kate,' said the child, descending from his carriage cautiously, with a parcel that filled both his arms. 'Come with me there.'

Nothing loth, Tarvin came, and they drove over to the house of the missionary.

'All the people in my palace,' said the child as they went, 'say that she's your Kate.'

'I'm glad they know that much,' muttered Tarvin to himself savagely. 'What's this you have got for her?' he asked the Maharaj aloud, laying his hand on the parcel.

'It is from my mother, the Queen--the real Queen, you know, because I am the Prince. There is a message, too, that I must not tell.' He began to whisper, childlike, to himself, to keep the message in mind. Kate was in the verandah when they arrived, and her face brightened a little at sight of the child.

'Tell my guard to stand back out of the garden. Go, and wait in the road.'

The carriage and troopers withdrew. The child, still holding Tarvin's hand, held out the parcel to Kate.

'It is from my mother,' he said. 'You have seen her. This man need not go. He is'--he hesitated a little--'of your heart, is he not? Your speech is his speech.'

Kate flushed, but did not attempt to set the child right. What could she say?

'And I am to tell this,' he continued, 'first before everything, till you quite understand.' He spoke hesitatingly, translating out of his own vernacular as he went on, and drawing himself to his full height, as he cleared the cluster of emeralds from his brow. 'My mother, the Queen--the real Queen--says, "I was three months at this work. It is for you, because I have seen your face. That which has been made may be unravelled against our will, and a gipsy's hands are always picking. For the love of the gods look to it that a gipsy unravels nothing that I have made, for it is my life and soul to me. Protect this work of mine that comes from me--a cloth nine years upon the loom." I know more English than my mother,' said the child, dropping into his ordinary speech.

Kate opened the parcel, and unrolled a crude yellow and black comforter, with a violent crimson fringe, clumsily knitted. With such labours the queens of Gokral Seetarun were wont to beguile their leisure.

'That is all,' said the child. But he seemed unwilling to go. There was a lump in Kate's throat, as she handled the pitiful gift. Without warning the child, never loosening for a moment his grip on Tarvin's hand, began to repeat message word by word, his little fingers tightening on Tarvin's fist as he went on.

'Say I am very grateful indeed,' said Kate, a little puzzled, and not too sure of her voice.

'That was not the answer,' said the child; and he looked appealingly at his tall friend, the new Englishman.

The idle talk of the commercial travellers in the verandah of the rest-house flashed through Tarvin's mind. He took a quick pace forward, and laid his hand on Kate's shoulder, whispering huskily.

'Can't you see what it means? It's the boy--the cloth nine years on the loom.'

'But what can I do?' cried Kate, bewildered.

'Look after him. Keep on looking after him. You are quick enough in most things. Sitabhai wants his life. See that she doesn't get it.'

Kate began to understand a little. Everything was possible in that awful palace, even child-murder. She had already guessed the hate that lives between childless and mother queens. The Maharaj Kunwar stood motionless in the twilight, twinkling in his jewelled robes.

'Shall I say it again?' he asked.

'No, no, no, child! No!' she cried, flinging herself on her knees before him, and snatching his little figure to her breast, with a sudden access of tenderness and pity. 'O Nick! what shall we do in this horrible country?' She began to cry.

'Ah!' said the Maharaj, utterly unmoved, 'I was to go when I saw that you cried.' He lifted up his voice for the carriage and troopers, and departed, leaving the shabby comforter on the floor.

Kate was sobbing in the half darkness. Neither Mrs. Estes nor her husband was within just then. That little 'we' of hers went through Tarvin with a sweet and tingling ecstasy. He stooped and took her in his arms, and for that which followed Kate did not rebuke him.

'We'll pull through together, little girl,' he whispered to the shaken head on his shoulder.

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Ye know the Hundred Danger Time when, gay with paint and flowers,

Your household gods are bribed to help the bitter, helpless hours;

Ye know the worn and rotten mat whereon your daughter lies,

Ye know the Sootak-room unclean, the cell wherein she dies;

Dies with the babble in her ear of midwife's muttered charm,

Dies, spite young life that strains to stay, the suckling on her arm--

Dies in the four-fold heated room, parched by the Birth Fire's breath--

Foredoomed, ye say, lest anguish lack, to haunt her home in death.

—A Song of the Women.

'Dear friend--That was very unkind of you, and you have made my life harder. I know I was weak. The child upset me. But I must do what I came for, and I want you to strengthen me, Nick, not hinder me. Don't come for a few days, please. I need all I am or hope to be for the work I see opening here. I think I can really do some good. Let me, please. KATE.'

Tarvin read fifty different meanings into this letter, received the following morning, and read them out again. At the end of his conjectures he could be sure only of one thing--that in spite of that moment's weakness, Kate was fixed upon her path. He could not yet prevail against her steadfast gentleness, and perhaps it would be better not to try. Talks in the verandah, and sentinel-like prowlings about her path when she went to the palace, were pleasant enough, but he had not come to Rhatore to tell her that he loved her. Topaz, in whose future the other half of his heart was bound up, knew that secret long ago, and--Topaz was waiting for the coming of the Three C.'s, even as Nick was waiting on Kate's comings and goings. The girl was unhappy, overstrained, and despairing, but since--he thanked God always--he was at hand to guard her from the absolute shock of evil fate, she might well be left for the moment to Mrs. Estes' comfort and sympathy..

She had already accomplished something in the guarded courts of the women's quarters, for the Maharaj Kunwar's mother had entrusted her only son's life to her care (who could help loving and trusting Kate?); but for his own part, what had he done for Topaz beyond--he looked toward the city--playing pachisi with the Maharajah? The low morning sun flung the shadow of the resthouse before him. The commercial travellers came out one by one, gazed at the walled bulk of Rhatore, and cursed it. Tarvin mounted his horse, of which much more hereafter, and ambled toward the city to pay his respects to the Maharajah. It was through him, if through any one, that he must possess himself of the Naulahka; he had been anxiously studying him, and shrewdly measuring the situation, and he now believed that he had formed a plan through which he might hope to make himself solid with the Maharajah--a plan which, whether it brought him the Naulahka or not, would at least allow him the privilege of staying at Rhatore. This privilege certain broad hints of Colonel Nolan's had seemed to Tarvin of late plainly to threaten, and it had become clear to him that he must at once acquire a practical and publishable object for his visit, if he had to rip up the entire State to find it. To stay, he must do something in particular. What he had found to do was particular enough; it should be done forthwith, and it should bring him first the Naulahka, and then--if he was at all the man he took himself for--Kate!