“Why should I follow my father’s footsteps? I must leave him so that I can live alone with India and myself. There was that little village in the north that I liked so well. That is where I shall live.”
He stood enraptured with the thought. Hindu saints, like ancient Christians, were acquainted with the state of ecstasy, and this, he supposed, was what they meant. When a decision was right, because it was the will of God, or perhaps only because it fulfilled the soul’s deepest unspoken desire, then such ecstasy was the confirmation, a powerful happiness, an accord which was complete.
He sat down quiescent, wondering and grateful, and after a time the joy subsided and peace remained. He made plans, he thought of the village, Vhai, and of all that he could do there — yes, and receive. He would go there humbly to learn as well as to teach.
XIV
“I CANNOT UNDERSTAND YOU,” David said.
“I don’t expect you to, Father,” Ted replied.
They sat at dinner together that night in the orderly house. His father looked exhausted. The heat had risen unbearably during the day and the monsoons were due at any hour now, and would probably begin before midnight. Meanwhile the air was fetid. Neither of them could eat and they made no pretense. The languid servant removed their plates and brought in coffee.
“Does this decision mean that you have given up the thought of marriage?” David asked.
“No, not if Agnes will come to the village with me,” Ted said.
“I hope you will not be so inconsiderate as to ask her,” his father replied severely.
Ted laughed. In spite of the heat he had continued singularly lighthearted all day. He had busied himself with packing a few of his things, a change of garments, some books, a cooking kit, an army cot and a mosquito net. When he got to Vhai, he would build one of the mud-walled houses with a thatched roof. There was no reason for delay now that the school year was over.
“Does it seem laughable to you?” his father asked drily. Humor between the generations was perhaps impossible. He remembered the jokes which his father used to tell and laugh at loudly which even in his youth had seemed to him childish and certainly not funny.
“Not at all,” Ted said gaily, “but I suppose Poona was rather remote when my mother came to marry you.”
“It was not the same,” his father retorted. But he did not explain how it was. Instead his mind busied itself suddenly with an inspiration. Why should not he write to Agnes Linlay and beseech her good sense for his foolish son? Let it be a secret between them, let him convey to her delicately how happy he would be if ever she became his daughter-in-law. He could praise his son honestly to several ways, and then hint that though he was extremely young and could benefit the more from a sensible wife, yet he felt he could promise that she need never regret her choice, if now Ted could be kept from an unwise decision to go and live in an Indian village, an act which must somehow be prevented by his family and his friends. There were proper ways for a white man to live in India and she above all young women perhaps must know this and could help to save Ted from folly.
“I shall just drift off in a day or two, Father,” Ted was saying cheerfully.
“I am surprised that you have let Jehar so influence you,” David said.
“It is not Jehar alone,” Ted said. It is even partly Darya. Most of all it is my own wish just to strip off everything that you and Grandfather have given me, though I am grateful to you both and must always be, and yet I want to be only myself at least for a while — not a MacArd, perhaps.”
David did not reply. He was haunted by this morning’s memories of his own youth and he could not speak without seeming to echo his own father twenty-five years ago. He must rely on Agnes Linlay.
Their meal was interrupted by a commotion on the veranda and the announcement that Fordham Sahib and Memsahib were waiting.
“Ask them to come in,” David told the manservant. They came in not two but three, and the third was a young girl, a girl with a face as fresh as a pansy, and indeed very like a pansy, the large soft brown eyes and thick soft brown eyebrows, full red mouth and pointed chin combining the effects of that simple flower. She was extremely pretty and childlike, and Mrs. Fordham introduced her with bursting pride.
“Our daughter Ruthie, Dr. MacArd, and this is young Mr. MacArd, Ruthie. Do forgive us, but we couldn’t wait.”
“She’s come, has she?” David said, essaying a smile. He had forgotten and so, he supposed, had Ted, that Ruthie was to arrive.
“Oh yes, and very lucky it is just before the monsoons, so difficult to travel in those pouring rains, but they’re very near.”
“I went up to Bombay to fetch her,” Mr. Fordham said, staring at Ruthie with eyes shining behind his small steel spectacles. “Ain’t she pretty?” he added with mischief.
“Papa!” Ruthie cried in a sweet, loud, young voice.
“Papa is just the same as he always was, dearie,” Mrs. Fordham said fondly.
“He’s awful,” Ruthie said to everybody. She opened her red lips and laughed, her teeth sparkling white. She was quite at ease, her rather plump young body relaxed and even indolent, and she wore a pink short-sleeved dress, for which Mrs. Fordham now felt it necessary to apologize.
“Ruthie, your sleeves are a mite short, aren’t they? For a missionary, dearie? We have to set an example.”
“Are they?” Ruthie said innocently.
They all gazed at Ruthie’s smooth and pretty arms, and Ted stared at her frankly. It was astonishing to remember her even as vaguely as he was able to do and then see her as she was now. That round-faced, round-eyed troublesome small girl who had tagged him mercilessly as soon as she could walk, and whom he had avoided as completely as he could, had become this fresh and natural flower, a little stupid perhaps, but of a gentle and sweet disposition, as anyone could see. His grandfather had said once, “Marry a good disposition, Ted. Your grandmother had a sweet nature and it is the most important gift for a woman to have. I’ve known men ruined by their wives’ dispositions.”
When the guests were seated Ted asked his father, “Shall I tell the Fordhams?”
“With one explanation,” David replied. “That is, I do not approve.”
“What is it now?” Mrs. Fordham was as usual lively with curiosity.
“I am going to live in a village,” Ted said.
“For good?” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed.
“I hope so,” Ted said.
“Mama means is it forever,” Ruthie said, laughing.
“I don’t know.”
“But how queer,” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed. “To leave your father, and this lovely house and everything — what for?”
“I daresay the end of the summer will see him back,” Mr. Fordham said.
“I don’t know,” Ted said again.
“A lot of young men think they are going to do something new,” Mr. Fordham said. “I remember when I was young, I had such ideas. But a village can be very uncomfortable.”