Ch. 20: Without Benefit of Clergy - Page 2

courtyard and Ameera had
established herself according to her own ideas of comfort, and her
mother had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the
distance from the daily market, and at matters of house-keeping in
general,--that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his
bachelor's bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led there was
an unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only could pass
beyond the outer courtyard to the women's rooms; and when the big wooden
gate was bolted behind him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera
for queen. And there was going to be added to this kingdom a third
person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with
his perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house
that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought of it,
and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and particularly a white
man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both women
argued, be held fast by a baby's hands. 'And then,' Ameera would always
say, 'then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate them all--I
hate them all.'

'He will go back to his own people in time,' said the mother; 'but by
the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.'

Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts
were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The
Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a
fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the
bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been
edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in
being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera.

'It is not good,' she said slowly, 'but it is not all bad. There is my
mother here, and no harm will come to me--unless indeed I die of pure
joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the
days are done I believe... nay, I am sure. And--and then I shall lay HIM
in thy arms, and thou wilt love me for ever. The train goes to-night, at
midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by cause
of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt not stay on the
road to talk to the bold white mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my
life.'

As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was tethered to the
gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman who guarded the
house, and bade him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up
telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that could be done, and
with the sensations of a man who has attended his own funeral Holden
went away by the