The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (7 page)

She knew she could blame no-one for what had happened except perhaps her Step-mother for having forced her to take refuge with her brother.

Yet how could she have anticipated that out of all
the
ships sailing to India, Major Meredith would have been on the
Dorunda
or that because she was in the company of the Critchl
e
ys it was impossible for her to avoid him.

She might have guessed those searching grey eyes would not have been deceived.

Thinking over again and again of what had occurred on the landing at Charles’s lodgings, she had hoped that because
the
gas-light was behind her her face would have been unrecognisable.

Nor did she think that he would have remembered her figure; the way she moved, the darkness of her hair.

‘I
have been living in a Fool’s Paradise,’ Orissa told herself and knew there was nothing she could do, no explanation she could make to him.

W
h
at she had to try and find was an explanation to
herself as to why Major Meredith’s lips had held her captive so that she had made no effort to escape until he allowed her to do so.

How could she have been so helpless, so acquiescent?

How indeed could she have surrendered her pride and her sense of decency so that she had in fact behaved like the woman she pretended to be rather than a young girl who had never previously been touched by a man.

She could not explain her behaviour to herself. Yet it had happened and she could not deny it had been part of the glory of the night and something unexpectedly wonderful that no words could take away.

She had the feeling that if he had gone on kissing her she would still be in his arms.

She could not deny to herself that to be so close to him had given her a sense of security; a feeling of being safe that she had not known since she was a child.

It was all just part of my imagination,’ Orissa said sternly and yet she knew that was untrue.

But what concerned her now was that tomorrow she would have to see him again, to sit at the same table; and know what he was thinking of her.

She would feel even if she was not looking at him that his eyes were looking into her soul and believi
ng it to be smirched and dirty.

‘
I
cannot bear it! I cannot meet him!” she whispered aloud and yet there was nothing she could do.

She was caught! The ship was a cage from which there was no escape.

Wildly in her imagination Orissa thought of diving overboard and swimming ashore to disappear into the desert, but that was only a fantasy.

Tomorrow would bring reality. She must meet him again, know that she had been compliant to his will and apparently not outraged by the manner in which he had treated her.

“I must have been mad!” she told herself, but she knew that if it had been madness it was very sweet.

Never had she realised that she could know anything so magical and entrancing.

Never had she imagined that her whole being would throb because a man touched her lips. Or that all the poetry and all the beauty of the world could be contained in a feeling that had run through her body when it seemed no longer to be her own but to belong to him.

“It cannot have happened!” Orissa cried despairingly.

But it had!

And there was nothing she could do about it
!

CHAPTER
FOUR

Orissa approached Lady Critchley early
the
next morning.

“I think,” she said, “that Neil would eat a better meal if I gave it to him alone. It is clear that he becomes distracted by people talking and I am very anxious he should put on weight before he arrives in India.”

“Perhaps that is a good idea, Mrs. Lane,” Lady Critchley agreed.

Having managed to avoid seeing Major Meredith at luncheon Orissa had no compunction about saying she would dine in her own cabin and not come down to dinner.

There were only seven days left at sea before they reached Bombay. During the night when she had remained awake going over what had happened, she decided that if she were clever, it should be possible, even though they were confined in the ship, to avoid meeting Major Meredith.

She had the idea, although she was not certain, that he took his exercise early in the day before the majority of the passengers were up.

She did not know why he spent so much time in his
cabin. She guessed it had something to do with reports, perhaps making adverse comments on Charles’s behaviour when he was in London!

When she thought of it she tried to hate him but found it impossible!

She had only to remember the way he kissed her to feel again that strange warmth steal over her body and know the sudden rapture which had made her his prisoner.

Yet she was determined not to think of it, or of him, if she could possibly help it.

She forced herself to pay more attention to little Neil; to play games with him when they went on deck when the other passengers were about and she was quite certain there would be no sign of Major Meredith.

Neil enjoyed Deck-Quoits and she tried to teach him Badminton. She borrowed a pack of cards from the Card-Room and built him card-castles in the cabin.

The book which he was painting for his mother was nearly filled, with strange animals and people who had only sticks for arms and circles for faces.

They in no way compared with the expertise of the ship which Major Meredith had sketched.

Orissa also finished sewing her dresses and altered the others she had brought with her so that they looked more fashionable.

They acquired a grace and elegance when she wore them which was however more due to the fact that she had a perfect figure than to anything else.

Fortunately there were quite a number of books in the ship’s library which she wished to read; but even so, she would find herself staring at a page for a long time and realising she had not read a word.

It was very hot in the Red Sea. One evening it became so stifling in the cabin that even Mr. Mahla complained of it.

“Why should we not have our lessons on deck?”
Orissa asked, realising that she too felt confined in the airless State-Room.

It was getting late and she thought there would be few passengers on deck and when they reached it, it was in fact deserted.

Orissa went to two deck-chairs far forward in the bow, and they pulled them out to sit clear of the awning right against the railing which encircled the top deck.

There was just a faint breeze but not enough to fill the sails and the ship was relying entirely on its engines.

Again the stars threw a mystical light over the universe and the reflection of the lights from the ship on the smooth sea was very beautiful.

Orissa sat down and Mr. Mahla seated himself beside her.

“Are you looking forward to being home again?” she asked in his own language.

He shook his head.

“No?” she questioned.

“I wished to stay in England,” Mr. Mahla replied. “I enjoyed my position at the University. It was very interesting and I had many friends.”

“Then why are you going back?

“I have to go
!
My father has died and now I am head of the family. There is my mother to care for and I have four brothers, three sisters and their children who are all depending on me.”

“You mean that you will have to give up working as a teacher?” Orissa asked.

He nodded and she could see by the light of the stars that his eyes were dark and miserable.

“
W
e have a little land,” he said. “I must work on it for the good of the family.”

“Then your literary achievements will be wasted.”

“It is my Karma—my Fate.”

“Do you really believe,” Orissa asked, “that you have no choice in the matter?”

“None.”

"But I cannot think that is true,” she protested. ‘Is it all ordained what we shall do, what is to happen to us?”

“That is what I believe,” Mr. Mahla answered.

“How can you be sure that you are not imagining such a thing?” Orissa asked, “and just accepting everything that occurs, however bad, as inevitable without fighting against it?”

“It is all written in our hands.”

“I have heard that,” Orissa said, “and yet I can hardly credit that it is true.”

“Look at the lines on your palm,” he suggested. “Every line is different. No two human beings have the same marks. There is the story of one’s life. There are the lines of fate very clear for us to see.”

“Can you read your own fate?” Orissa enquired. “Can you read other people’s?”

“Sometimes,” he answered.

She put out her left hand, palm upwards towards him.

“What do you see in mine?”

Very delicately Mr. Mahla supported her fingers with the first two of his right hand.

Looking down into her small palm he said:

“Can you not see your line of Fate running almost from your wrist to the base of your middle finger? It is a very straight line. It denotes not only strength of character and tenacity but also that your life is preordained. You are a very old soul, Mrs. Lane.”

“Tell me more,” Orissa begged, fascinated.

Then as he raised her hand a trifle higher to catch the fight from the Heavens above there was a shadow beside them.

Orissa looked up and felt her heart give a frightened leap.

It was Major Meredith who stood there and she knew although she was not certain whether she saw it in his eyes or merely sensed it, that he was in a towering rage.

“You do not belong to this deck!” he said sharply to Mr. Mahla.

For a moment both Orissa and the Indian teacher stiffened.

Then Mr. Mahla rose to his feet, made his usual obeisance to Orissa and moved away before she could prevent him.

She was so surprised at Major Meredith’s behaviour that for a moment she could not think, and the words would not come to her lips. Before she could speak he said:

“It would be wiser, Mrs. Lane, if you kept your favours to your own class and to your own colour!”

For a second Orissa did not understand what he was saying, and then as a blush burnt her cheeks, she lost her temper!

“How dare you speak to me like that!” she said in a voice that was low and vibrant with fury. “How dare you make such suggestions or infer such motives for my actions! Whatever I do it is none of your business, but I suppose that in your usual manner you are interfering in other people’s affairs.”

She drew in her breath before she went on:

“I have heard about you, Major Meredith. I know how you involve yourself in matters which do not concern you, and how you snoop around trying to make trouble.”

She saw the surprise in his face at the ma
nn
er in which she was speaking, but now she did not care.

“And having discovered something wrong,” she continued in a scathing tone but all the more violent because she kept it low, “you harass the person, making their lives a misery until, like poor Gerald Dewar, they shoot themselves!”

“What are you saying? How do you know this?” Major Meredith asked and there was no disguising the astonishment in his tone.

“I know that I despise and hate you!” Orissa cried. “I have tried to keep out of your way after the manner in which you insulted me the other night, but it seems you are determined to interfere in my private life. Leave me alone, Major Meredith! All I ask is that you leave me alone!”

She turned as she spoke and walked away, not running frantically as she had done the last time they had been on deck together, but with her head held high.

She was however shaking with shock and anger and only when she had passed through the door which led into the accommodation did she run to the sanctuary of her own cabin.

She shut the door and with her cheeks burning and her breath coming jerkily from sheer rage, she walked across the cabin to stand staring at herself in the mirror on the dressing-table.

She could see the whiteness of her neck and arms against the red of her evening gown.

It was the same dress she had worn, she remembered, the first time she had seen Major Meredith when she had been creeping up the stairs to Charles’s room.

Perhaps it was unlucky. Perhaps there was something about the colour of it which attracted trouble.

Then she told herself the only thing that was really unlucky was that she had come in contact with Major Meredith.

How dare he think such things of her? How dare he?

At the same time some logical part of her mind told her that it was not to be expected that he should think anything else.

Always he seemed to find her in inc
r
iminating circumstances: the memory of her coming down the stairs of a gentleman’s lodging at six o’clock in the morning would obviously be enough to make him sure that Mr. Mahla had been holding her hand romantically in the star-light!

As she thought about it she realised that as he had walked up the deck towards them they would have been silhouetted against the sky and there was no denying that the Indian had in fact been touching her fingers.

‘But how can he think such things of me?
’
Orissa asked her reflection, and told herself in all honesty there was nothing else he could think.

‘It does not matter! It is of no consequence! In a few days’ time I shall never have to see him again,’ she told herself.

Then she remembered Mr. Mahla’s words ... that it was Karma ... Fate, and there was no escaping it!

That is nonsense!’ Orissa tried to convince herself in a practical manner. ‘We all have free-will and we all make our lives the way we want them.’

Yet her studies of Buddhism and a picture of the Wheel of Re-birth came flooding into her mind to question such an assertion.

Millions and millions of Orientals believed in their Fate and that there was nothing they could do about it.

Could they all be wrong? Could the white races with their self-assurance, their conceit that they themselves were omnipotent, be the only ones who were right?

In the meantime there was Mr. Mahla to consider. What would he think of being dismissed in such an arbitrary manner.

She had the feeling, he would be sensible enough to understand that Major Meredith’s anger was directed not against him but against her.

It was impossible for the Indian not to think there was something strange between them when Major Meredith showed his authority so obviously, and she had been too shocked and tongue-tied to do or say anything while he was still there.

Unhappy, still angry and yet at the same time deeply depressed at what had just taken place, Orissa undressed and got into her bunk to lie with sleepless eyes staring in the darkness.

She was half-afraid the following evening that Mr. Mahla would not come for their lesson.

It was in fact the one thing she looked forward to every day.

There was something soothing in talking in the lovely, eloquent language with its flowery, extravagant phrases; its soft vowels and words which were sheer poetry.

Even to speak in Urdu made Orissa feel that she had almost reached the end of her journey; that soon she would be home and know once again the warmth and love that she had missed so much these past years.

It was hard for her to realise she was not going to find her mother waiting for her, nor was she going to the Province of Orissa, where she had been bo
rn
.

She had been to Delhi only once or twice in her life and she could hardly remember the ancient Mogul City. She had the feeling that it might now be very Social.

For most of her years in India their home had been further North in the Punjab at Lahore—or at the City of Roses, Kapurtala, with its pink villas and the peaks of the Himalayas.

But it did not really matter where she went, Orissa thought, so long as she was again in the country where she belonged.

She need not have worried about Mr. Mahla.

He arrived punctually at nine o’clock, greeted her quietly and with his usual exquisite courtesy as if nothing untoward had occurred the night before.

“I am so pleased to see you,” Orissa said. “How is your family? They are well, I hope?”

She asked, as she always did, out of conventional politeness, but tonight Mr. Mahla instead of thanking her for her concern, replied: