AWAKENING

A STUDY IN POSSIBILITIES

BY

MAUD DIVER

"To hold by leaving; to take by letting go, Leaving and again leaving, and ever leaving go of the surface of things; So taking the heart of them along with us— This is the law." EDWARD CARPENTER

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1922

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

TO YOU

Who have always sympathized, Always believed, always understood, I dedicate this book. M. D.

"There is a collaboration loftier and more real than that of pen. It is the collaboration of thought and example."—MAETERLINCK.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CAPTAIN DESMOND, V.C. THE GREAT AMULET CANDLES IN THE WIND

CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE SEED

BOOK II. THE BLOSSOMING

BOOK III. THE FRUIT

BOOK I THE SEED

AWAKENING

CHAPTER I

"I stay my haste, I make delays, For what avails the eager pace? I stand amid eternal ways— And what is mine shall know my face." BURROUGHS.

"Where on earth did she spring from? And who, in the name of all that's exquisite, can she be?"

Nevil Sinclair asked himself the question, with quite a keen touch of curiosity, as he sat idly smoking under the araucarias that front the Cap d'Antibes Hotel. A slim, clean-cut figure of a man, with long sensitive hands, a mobile face, and thoughtful eyes where a smile lurked always like a beam of light. He looked round in search of information. But no one was at hand to enlighten him, and his gaze reverted to the vision on the corner balcony; a vision unusual as it was arresting to an artist's eye and brain.

The olive skin faintly aglow, the velvet darkness of eyes that brooded upon sky and sea, were framed in a gold-bordered sari, pale as an evening primrose, that half veiled without hiding the sweet seriousness of the girl's face. These, and her aloofness from the chattering tea-drinkers in the verandah below, conspired to give her an alluring air of unreality; and her purely Eastern stillness, in that temple of unrest, a Riviera hotel, enhanced the effect.

Sinclair had leisure to approve the delicate curves of brow and cheek and nostril, the slender symmetry of the hand and arm resting on the balcony's ledge, the classic poise and outline of the veiled head. For all the gravity of her eyes, a hint of passion in the ripe lower lip, and of wilfulness in the round chin that matched it, promised just those varying elements of light and shade that would some day make her all a woman. At present she seemed little more than a sheaf of possibilities; a bud half open awaiting the strong kiss of the sun. And behind her loomed the wide, white façade of the Hotel du Cap, uncompromisingly square and solid; as it were the House of Life with its hundred rooms, and hundred complications, old as the sea, yet eternally changeful as the myriad waves thereof.

Sinclair had dallied with love in more than one form, even as he had dallied with art and life; reaching the core of none. But art had lured him farthest; and he saw this child of an alien race rather as a possible picture than a possible woman. Her absorption tempted him: so also did the sketch-book on his knee. He opened it, and paused—looking upward. The thrill of inspiration was on him: a visitation too rare, too imperative to be ignored. There was also the insidious joy of yielding to temptation. Out came the pencil, and he went swiftly and skilfully to work. Naturally she moved the moment stillness was essential. But it was only to set an open book upon the ledge and give him an instant's fuller vision of her face. Then, her cheek lightly resting on her hand, she fell into a pose more lasting, more enchanting than before.

"Ye gods! I'm in luck!" the Englishman muttered; and worked on.

Slowly the sun dipped behind the araucarias and the lofty blue gums, with their slender, listless leaves. Slowly the shadows engulfed the gravel path. The militant snortings and puffings of motors, that bore away chance visitors, sounded faint and fainter in the deepening quiet, and the chatter of tea-drinkers was hushed. Those that were not chance visitors took unto themselves books, work-bags, shawls, and strolled down the wide, tree-bordered road to the coast line of tumbled rock that gleamed, grey-white, against the blue enchantment of the Mediterranean. The Princess from the Arabian Nights watched them, as they went, with eyes that questioned and wondered and dreamed. Then she reverted to her book; and Sinclair to his sketch.

Slight though it was, instinct told him that—in years of promising and even distinguished amateur work—he had never come so near to "the real thing." Be she Princess or Peri, by some means he must get speech of her, and win leave to convert his sketch into the picture—long dreamed of yet never achieved—that should prove him indisputably an artist, and bring home to the father, who would fain have him a politician, the futility of trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

He had left England mainly to escape a political "gathering," organized for his benefit at the country house of an elder sister. Lady Roscoe, wife and daughter of politicians, lived and moved and had her being in the strenuous atmosphere of party politics. "More party than politics," Nevil averred—but not in her hearing. Like her father, she could appraise pictures, books, music intelligently enough; could even enjoy them in the rare moments when she was socially and politically "off-duty." And, like her father, she had a tendency to scorn the creators of these superfluous delights. It was a case of "music and pictures must needs come. But woe unto him through whom they come." Authors she could condone, provided they were not poets and had achieved material success. Journalists she almost venerated. Without them where would be the newspapers that were her daily bread? Such were her views in regard to ordinary mortals. But that a Sinclair, and an eldest son to boot, should associate himself professionally with anything of the kind was an

innovation against which she set her typically Sinclair face like a rock.

The Sinclair men—and a distinguished line of them stretched backward through a score of generations—had so far been singularly free from such vagrant impulses. But family traditions, however sacrosanct, are lamentably at the mercy of individual impulse; and a woman of poetic temperament had cast her spell upon Nevil's father, the present Sir George, luring him from sage consideration of Sinclairs to come. Such, at least, was Lady Roscoe's version of the matter. Any other had seemed to impugn the wisdom of the man in whose image she herself was made. She preferred to shift the burden of responsibility on to Lady Sinclair, who had been gone long enough to be exempted from the kindly fiction that the dead can do no wrong.

Yet wrong or no, she had seriously inconvenienced the house of Sinclair by bestowing her own name and nature upon the first man child she had gotten from the Lord. On him, too, she had expended her repressed genius for devotion—as little understanded of her husband as any other form of genius. For nine years the boy had been hers, body and soul, and in those years the man was made. Not all the after influences of school and life could efface the stamp of her personality on the child she had so loved. But Nevil had a streak of Sinclair in him also. Hence complications. Fondness for his father and dominant elder sister made him shrink from disappointing them; while he shrank, yet more, from the path worked out for him by tradition, and by ambitions that were not his own.

So it came about that Lady Roscoe's letter of a week ago, hinting at a house-party that might prove profitable in view of the General Election looming ahead, had spurred her refractory brother in quite the wrong direction. Scenting fresh schemes for his political salvation, he had wired straightway for his favourite room in the Cap Hotel, and had fled to the South of France, on the wings of an express, to paint Antibes sunsets, and possibly Italian fishermen; and, if the Muse were kind, add a few poems to the small volume he had in hand. The kindness of the Muse had taken a form quite other than he sought; for the which he blessed her fervently, while the sketch grew under his hand and inspiration fluttered nebulous wings in his brain.

"By Gad—it's not half bad!" he muttered, surveying it at length, with a rare glow of satisfaction. "Martino shall see it—to-morrow."

Then, from the tail of his eye, he discerned a slim grey figure at the foot of the wide steps; he looked round, started, and sprang up, hastily pocketing his treasure. The girl in grey started and quickened her pace. But she was not of the type that scurries. She merely took a longer stride that accentuated her boyish straightness and suppleness of limb.

Sinclair greeted her impulsively. "Why, Miss Hammond! You back again, too, at the dear old 'Cap'? What luck!"

She smiled upon him frankly with clear eyes, almost as grey as her dress, and, being observant, he noticed that her hand had grown harder to the touch since he held it last.

"It used not to be 'Miss Hammond' in the old days," she said as they sat down. "I am still Audrey—to my friends."

"Audrey, then—by all means! I didn't dare, at first sight. We have grown up so aggressively since then. And you've been doing great things in India, I suppose—doctoring, riding, dancing?"

"Not a great deal of the last," she answered cheerfully. "As a rule, I felt too done up by the evening. Hyderabad isn't exactly bracing; and my life out there was a very full one."

"Ah!"—a shadow of envy lurked in his tone. "And mine, at home, has been quite the reverse. I often thought of you, and your progressive schemes, and wondered whether doctoring zenana ladies had modified your advanced views on the Woman Question, or whether you had fired them with a craving for the Suffrage—or its Eastern equivalent!"

Audrey Hammond laughed outright. "How little you know of me or of them, poor dears, to imagine either! My own views have not retreated one inch; and as for them—well, I did more than doctor them. I taught a few, and helped—in other ways, when the chance offered. Rather like trying to alter a coast line by shifting pebbles on the shore. Still—one may have done some good; let a little light into their custom-ridden souls. But I won't tax your good-nature by boring you with such things——"

"Which means that they are too sacred to be discussed with a mere man; even an old friend who has come within sight of the thirtieth milestone since we lazed and argued on this enchanted headland four years ago."

"And has not yet achieved a seat in Parliament, or a picture on the line?" she queried, slipping past the point at issue with the self-possessed ease of her type.

"Neither," said he, and opened his silver cigarette case as one in search of consolation. "The good old man at home is still hopeful. Jane, the indefatigable, will not suffer the temples of her head to take any rest till she has cajoled me into swallowing the gilded political pill. But the failure of the family remains where you left him——" He paused to light his cigarette, and the girl scanned his well-remembered face and figure with kindly critical eyes, that, like her hands, were a trifle too hard for her years.

Her silence was more pregnant than speech; and he looked up again quickly with a disarming smile.

"You disapprove, of course. We never did agree about things, did we? Which was just why we couldn't resist discussing them! I'm not 'indifferent to my country's welfare,' as Jane assures me in her most parliamentary voice. The larger issues interest me enormously. But minor details of legislation weary me to death; and I confess I feel no serious call to take an active part in 'the savage wars of peace' that can be waged very effectually without my luke-warm assistance!"

She smiled in spite of disapproval.

"Have you ever in all these years felt a serious call of any kind?"

"Frankly, I can't say I have," he confessed without shame; the twinkle deepening in his eyes. "Too many-sided, perhaps; or too little call to exert myself. That's the curse of the ready-made income, plus family records! But I've not been altogether idle while you tried to hustle the East. I've written a fair sheaf of essays and verses; painted a few decent pictures, read widely and knocked round Europe with my eyes open——"

She waved aside his list of mild "achievements."

"Mere dilettantism! In a world full of work worth doing, and wrongs crying out to be set right!"

"Hear, hear!" he applauded, with his most imperturbable smile. "Spoken like the 'Minerva' of old times! Study the 'Apology for Idlers,' Audrey. That's my credo—if I have one. After all, there must be a few of us, if only to keep the balance of things. And since a million or so of women have waxed strenuous or nothing, what can the superfluous male do but sit mutely admiring and look on!"

"A rôle for which he gets finely trained at school—watching cricket and football!" she retorted with a touch of heat.

"Yet even there I seem to remember that now and then he gets out into the field and kicks or slogs the ball to good purpose. Some day, even I may get out into the field too, when I really discover a ball worth kicking, or a game worth playing."

"You call yourself an artist and talk so——"

"Pardon me. I call myself a double-distilled amateur."

"Oh—you are as exasperating as ever!—I mean—you care for your art. At least—I thought——"

"So did I, worse luck! But the Fates must have quarrelled badly when I was born, so that all my threads came out tangled. And they had not even the grace to endow me with a gift for unravelling tangles; or with enough selfishness to go my own way in spite of my dear old father's prejudices. For him, my art is 'futile piffle'; a decorative hobby that has helped to keep me out of mischief—or so he believes. For me, it is the one thing on earth that might have been worth doing; would have been if—if my mother had lived——"

She turned on him—rebellious and decisive.

"Don't be weak-minded and shift the responsibility. If it would have been, it is, still."

"You forgot the long apprenticeship, the great gulf that divides the artist from the amateur. If my spell in the Quartier Latin taught me nothing else, it taught me that."

"You could go there again—why not?"

"Oh, for a score of reasons. And I'm almost too old for it now. Every idle year that slips by puts achievement farther out of reach. Inspiration grows rarer. Which reminds me—you interrupted one just now." And he glanced towards the balcony, fearful lest his vision had fled.

No. She had merely deserted her book, and leaned over the parapet watching them with absorbed eyes. Then, as Audrey Hammond looked up also, she smiled and waved her hand.

"You know her?" Nevil cried eagerly, and Miss Hammond's brows went up ever so little.

"Certainly, I know her. I am more than half responsible for her being here. And was she responsible—for the inspiration?"

A faint change of tone checked the artist's impulse to produce his work; and he merely answered: "Yes. I was trying to make a sketch of her when you came up."

Miss Hammond frowned. "That was a mistake. I am glad I interrupted. They would hate the idea."

"And who are they?"

"She and her father—a high-caste, cultivated Hindu gentleman. I came home with them."

"But when did you arrive? That should have been my first question! Just like us to plunge headlong into an argument without playing How, When, and Where? I never saw you at dinner last night."

"No. We are wealthy and exclusive! We have private rooms and feed upstairs. The daughter is the one tangible, practical result of my three years' crusade. She has been plucky enough to break through the hampering laws of purdah and caste; and is still rather shy and bewildered with it all. But at least she is here, studying medicine, under my guidance—for the present."

"Studying medicine! That beautiful child——"

The masculine implication annoyed her.

"Well, why not? Because she is beautiful, or because she is a child?"

"Oh, a little of both. Of course, I am an ignoramus about such matters, and you're quite the reverse, only——" He glanced again at the embryo student of medicine. His vague recoil from the idea did not readily phrase itself under the quiet challenge of Audrey's grey eyes.

"What is the rest of the programme?" he ended lamely. "The final goal in view?"

"You are really interested?"

"Immensely. Catholic tastes breed catholic interests. Call it dilettantism if you choose. Well?"

"My hope is, of course, that when I have put her in the way of things, she will go to college and take a degree. Then she will go back to India—and move mountains! Her loss of caste can be restored by ceremonies of purification; and she will do greater things for her self-restricted sisters in a few years than I could do in a lifetime. The more one sees of Indian life behind the scenes, the more one realizes that the ideals and aspirations of the West can only be instilled into Easterns by Easterns—not by foreigners. One can only hope to make some impression on units, and trust them to carry on the larger work."

A rare glow of enthusiasm transfigured her face; she looked almost beautiful. Nevil, though still unconvinced, felt a sudden pang of envy. This was the quality he lacked; this, and the invisible assurance that vibrated in her voice.

At that moment the Princess, who would be a doctor, left the balcony. Both followed her with their eyes. Then Nevil spoke.

"And has she caught fire from your zeal?" he asked half anxiously.

"Only in part, so far. But once her foot is on the ladder, that will come. It was her own wish, and I believe she will carry it through. They have a fund of character and courage that would surprise you—those gentle, dreamy-looking Indian girls who have seen nothing of life outside their own walls. But I must go up now. Lilamani may be wanting me."

"Lila—how much?"

"Lee-la-mun-nee," Audrey said slowly; and he, repeating it after her: "Was there ever a more musical name? The lilt and the rhythm of it. I hope it has a meaning to match."

"I don't know about matching! Mani is jewel, and lila Sanskrit for delight."

"Jewel of Delight," he mused aloud; and she, with her practical briskness:

"Yes. Rather too fanciful, isn't it? Eastern names are apt to be.—Well, good-bye till to-morrow."

"Why not to-night? Do they never come down?"

"Not in the evening; at least, not as yet. Lilamani is still ridiculously shy. I should insist. But her father says 'not till she wishes it herself.' He spoils her; idolizes her. When he is gone, I shall have a better chance."

"Well—introduce me, will you, when they do come down. New types are interesting."

Thought of his unfinished sketch imparted a veiled eagerness to the casual request; and Audrey, noting it, smiled her inscrutable smile, that too rarely invaded her eyes.

"Sir Lakshman Singh often comes down, and is very well worth talking to," said she. "As a young man he spent several years at home; studied at Cambridge, I think. And though he still remains within the pale of Hinduism, his whole view of life is admirably sane and broad. The girl has mainly been taught by him. But with all her free and fearless mental outlook, her actual emancipation is still not much more than skin deep; and being a well-bred Hindu girl she naturally shrinks from promiscuous talk with strangers, especially men——"

"Surely—as an old friend of yours—I might be privileged."

"Possibly. We'll see. But, Nevil, you must tear up your sketch."

He started visibly. "Great Scott—that's a pretty cool request. And why on earth——"

"Oh, for a dozen reasons. I told you they would hate the idea; and 'one can't spend the day in explanations,'" she quoted with a little nod of friendly decision. "It's really very nice to find you here again. Au revoir."