"It is from the songs of the great Indian mystic - Kabir. Let me read you more. It is like the singing of a lark, lost in the infinite of light and heaven."So in the soft darkness I heard for the first time those immortal words; and hearing, a faint glimmer of understanding broke upon me as to the source of the peace that surrounded her. I had accepted it as an emanation of her own heart when it was the pulsing of the tide of the Divine. She read, choosing a verse here and there, and I listened with absorption.
Suppose I had been wrong in believing that sorrow is the keynote of life; that pain is the road of ascent, if road there be; that an implacable Nature and that only, presides over all our pitiful struggles and seekings and writes a black "Finis" to the holograph of our existence?
What then? What was she teaching me? Was she the Interpreter of a Beauty eternal in the heavens, and reflected like a broken prism in the beauty that walked visible beside me? So I listened like a child to an unknown language, yet ventured my protest.
"In India, in this wonderful country where men have time and will for speculation such thoughts may be natural. Can they be found in the West?""This is from the West - might not Kabir himself have said it?
Certainly he would have felt it. 'Happy is he who seeks not to understand the Mystery of God, but who, merging his spirit into Thine, sings to Thy face, 0 Lord, like a harp, understanding how difficult it is to know - how easy to love Thee.' We debate and argue and the Vision passes us by. We try to prove it, and kill it in the laboratory of our minds, when on the altar of our souls it will dwell for ever."Silence - and I pondered. Finally she laid the book aside, and repeated from memory and in a tone of perfect music; "Kabir says, 'I shall go to the House of my Lord with my Love at my side; then shall I sound the trumpet of triumph.'"And when she left me alone in the moonlight silence the old doubts came back to me - the fear that I saw only through her eyes, and began to believe in joy only because I loved her. Iremember I wrote in the little book I kept for my stray thoughts, these words which are not mine but reflect my thought of her;"Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman, and the virtue of St.
Bride, and the faith of Mary the Mild, and the gracious way of the Greek woman, and the beauty of lovely Emer, and the tenderness of heart-sweet Deirdre, and the courage of Maev the great Queen, and the charm of Mouth-of-Music."Yes, all that and more, but I feared lest I should see the heaven of joy through her eyes only and find it mirage as I had found so much else.
SECOND PART Early in the pure dawn the men came and our boat was towed up into the Dal Lake through crystal waterways and flowery banks, the men on the path keeping step and straining at the rope until the bronze muscles stood out on their legs and backs, shouting strong rhythmic phrases to mark the pull.
"They shout the Wondrous Names of God - as they are called," said Vanna when I asked. "They always do that for a timid effort. Bad shah! The Lord, the Compassionate, and so on. I don't think there is any religion about it but it is as natural to them as One, Two, Three, to us. It gives a tremendous lift. Watch and see."It was part of the delightful strangeness that we should move to that strong music. We sat on the upper deck and watched the dream - like beauty drift slowly by until we emerged beneath a little bridge into the fairy land of the lake which the Mogul Emperors loved so well that they made their noble pleasance gardens on the banks, and thought it little to travel up yearly from far - off Delhi over the snowy Pir Panjal with their Queens and courts for the perfect summer of Kashmir.
We moored by a low bank under a great wood of chenar trees, and saw the little table in the wilderness set in the greenest shade with our chairs beside it, and my pipe laid reverently upon it by Kahdra.
Across the glittering water lay on one side the Shalimar Garden known to all readers of "Lalla Ruhk" - a paradise of roses; and beyond it again the lovelier gardens of Nour-Mahal, the Light of the Palace, that imperial woman who ruled India under the weak Emperor's name - she whose name he set thus upon his coins:
"By order of King Jehangir. Gold has a hundred splendours added to it by receiving the name of Nour-Jahan the Queen."Has any woman ever had a more royal homage than this most royal lady - known first as Mihr-u- nissa - Sun of Women, and later, Nour-Mahal, Light of the Palace, and latest, Nour-Jahan- Begam, Queen, Light of the World?
Here in these gardens she had lived - had seen the snow mountains change from the silver of dawn to the illimitable rose of sunset.
The life, the colour beat insistently upon my brain. They built a world of magic where every moment was pure gold. Surely - surely to Vanna it must be the same. I believed in my very soul that she who gave and shared such joy could not be utterly apart from me?
Could I then feel certain that I had gained any ground in these days we had been together? Could she still define the cruel limits she had laid down, or were her eyes kinder, her tones a more broken music? I did not know. Whenever I could hazard a guess the next minute baffled me.
Just then, in the sunset, she was sitting on deck, singing under her breath and looking absently away to the Gardens across the Lake. I could catch the words here and there, and knew them.
"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar, Where are you now - who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway far, Before you agonize them in farewell?""Don't!" I said abruptly. It stung me.
"What?" she asked in surprise. "That is the song every one remembers here. Poor Laurence Hope! How she knew and loved this India! What are you grumbling at?"Her smile stung me.
"Never mind," I said morosely. "You don't understand. You never will."And yet I believed sometimes that she would - that time was on my side.
When Kahdra and I pulled her across to Nour-Mahal's garden next day, how could I not believe it - her face was so full of joy as she looked at me for sympathy?
