She turned and left him then and for the first time since their marriage she went to bed alone.
He did not care, then! That was what she began to think. He did not call to her and tell her to come back. He did not love her, actually, as she loved him. She began to cry softly and it occurred to her that these days she was crying too easily.
The next afternoon, beset by this strange new loneliness, she thought of one friend after another whom she might go to see. Not Mrs. Fordham, certainly, who was always voluble with disapproving advice because Olivia never went to prayer meeting and seldom to church, and not little Miss Parker who made her sad, and none of the formal English ladies, because they did not like Americans. Who then but Leilamani? At the thought of Leilamani she felt her heart relax, and she called her carriage and without telling anyone, for David was nowhere to be seen, she bade the driver go across the city to Darya’s house.
There she found Darya not at home and the gatekeeper very hesitant about allowing her to enter his master’s gate. He conferred long with the driver in Marathi, of which Olivia could only gather enough to understand that Leilamani never received English ladies.
“But I am not English,” Olivia said and then found that when she spoke Marathi it was enough. No English ladies spoke Marathi, and the gatekeeper admitted her at once, and she bade a servant inside the gate to tell his mistress that she was there.
She stood waiting in the beautiful garden, where birds cunningly tied to branches of trees sang as sweetly as though they were free and a pet gazelle, brought perhaps from the foothills of the Himalayas, came dancing to her to sniff at her hand for cakes. She touched its wet dark nose and it sprang back, staring at her innocently and fearfully.
The servant came back and invited her to come in and when she had entered three doors, she saw Leilamani herself walking toward her, hands outstretched to grasp her hands and hold them.
“Sister, you have come alone,” Leilamani said. “Now we can talk, I am so glad you have come.”
“Speak very slowly, please,” Olivia said. “My Marathi is still very bad.”
“It is good,” Leilamani exclaimed, “and I still do not know any English. I am too stupid. He tries to teach me but it makes me laugh and then—” she broke into rippling laughter and shook her head. “Come in, come, sister.”
Still clinging to Olivia’s hand, she led her into the room where the children played and each child must come forward and greet Olivia with his hands together and she kissed each one on the cheek while Leilamani watched, and then she obeyed Leilamani’s inviting gesture and sank down on the cushions.
It was pleasant here and she felt relaxed and at ease. The afternoon sun shone in the open door and the little boys played quietly at the far end of the long room. Tall brass vases held fragrant lilies and the air was faintly perfumed and very still.
“It is so quiet,” Olivia said. “How is it your house is always quiet even with children?”
“It is not quiet when he is here or our relatives come,” Leilamani said. “It is only that I am quiet, because I like to be so. Others talk but I listen. Sleep, sister — you look weary.”
Olivia smiled and leaning against the cushions, she closed her eyes. “I mustn’t sleep,” she murmured. “I’ll just rest a few minutes.”
But she could not rest and opening her eyes, she found that Leilamani was watching her with an intense gaze. She caught it and moved away, turning her head to look at a hanging on the wall and then to speak to the children. Servants brought in the usual fruit juices and sweetmeats, she ate and drank concealing her inordinate hunger and thirst, she thought, and then Leilamani’s watching eyes were not to be avoided. She met them fully and suddenly Leilamani broke into laughter and clapped her hands.
“You, too, sister!” she cried. She leaned over and patted Olivia’s waist with both hands. Olivia stared at her, not comprehending.
“Yes, I know it is so,” Leilamani said half singing. She patted her own swelling abdomen. “Feel me, sister — another boy! Yes, feel how high he is, just like the other two, and so it is a boy. I will tell you in a few months whether yours also is a boy—”
A hot blush rushed over Olivia’s whole body. She understood. Yes, perhaps — and if it was so, that was why she was so languid, so hungry, so careless of what happened in the house.
“I did not know it myself,” she faltered.
“Ah, it is good for me to be the first to tell you,” Leilamani said joyfully. “I am the bearer of good news. It is certain that I am right. I shall tell him, my sons’ father. He will be very happy and he will tell his brother in your house and we will all be happy.”
She sat up listening. “Ah, is that he? I hear him. I will tell him now!”
“No, no, please,” Olivia begged. “I must tell my own husband first. I must go home now.”
She did not question Leilamani’s certainty. Instinctively she felt it true, it explained all that she had not understood.
“Go then,” Leilamani said, excited, “go, and come back soon. I shall pray to Sita that it is a son.”
When she reached home David was waiting for her, a letter in his hand. She stopped in the door at sight of his grave face.
“I have been to see Leilamani—”
“So the gateman told me. I have received a letter from the Governor, Olivia. He is displeased at what you asked him last night and he takes great pains to explain—”
She burst into wild inexplicable tears. “Don’t scold me, David — not now! I am going to have a baby.”
She threw herself on his breast and felt his arms close about her and the letter dropped to the floor.
He had come with her to the hills for a week, that they might be alone together. A week entire from his life he gave her as a gift, because she was with child. It was true, the British doctor in Poona confirmed it to him. Then he had added advice.
“She’s a bit nervy, though, Mr. MacArd. Get her away for a short holiday.”
Up from the shallow valley in the hills they heard at evening the thin wailing song which was the song of India, the human music of the villages.
Till my heart, O Beloved,
As I am tilling this land.
And make me Thine,
As I am making this land my own,
Till my heart, O Beloved!
Somewhere in the swiftly fading dusk a man worked late upon his land and he sang while he worked. They heard his voice, and David felt the quick grip of his wife’s hand.
“What are you feeling, Olivia?”
They were sitting in the enclosed veranda of the hill house, safe against the night insects, and the cool high air was refreshing. Though he had decided upon this week alone with her, he could not leave his thoughts behind in Poona, nor his spreading plans, nor, above all, his doubts. His life, he sometimes thought, was a series of strong steps forward, and then long pauses of doubt. Thus, was it wise to set up these great buildings, to erect vast edifices for the future? Was he building in God-driven faith, or was he simply the son of MacArd, compelled by his inherited perspectives to create huge shapes of brick and stone? And yet India herself compelled large thinking, immense plans. Millions waited and he could not consider in terms of one and one and one and one—
“That music makes me fearfully lonely,” Olivia said suddenly.
“Why?”
“Even here with you I am lonely, a sort of world loneliness I cannot define.”
“Perhaps it is only that you can’t see the face of the man who sings,” he suggested.
“Perhaps.”
They fell silent, it was too much effort, she thought, to explain herself to him. For if she did, or could, his mind would not stay upon what she said. The voice of the lonely man had sent him far off. He was dreaming his vast dreams and though he loved her and she was sure of that, she knew now that she was not his only love. She must share him with millions of people, with these singers in the night, whose faces he did not see, though they were continually with him, the stuff of his thoughts and dreams. She had lost him for herself alone. These few days in the hills had shown her clearly enough that she could never possess him because he was already possessed and her hold upon him, whatever it was, could grow only if she became a part of all that he loved. That is, she, too, must give herself to India. Even the child could not make David wholly her own.