Far to Seek | Page 2

from
neighbouring families, partly from infrequent visits to "Aunt
Jane"--whom he hated with a deep unreasoned hate--and "Uncle
George," who had a kind, stupid face, but anyhow tried to be funny and
made futile bids for favour with pen-knives and half-crowns. Possibly
it was these uncongenial visits that quickened in him very early the
consciousness that his own beautiful home was, in some special way,
different from other boys' homes, and his mother--in a still more special
way--different from other boys' mothers....
And that proud conviction was no mere myth born of his young
adoration. In all the County, perhaps in all the Kingdom, there could be
found no mother in the least like Lilámani Sinclair, descendant of
Rajput chiefs and wife of an English Baronet, who, in the face of
formidable barriers, had dared to accept all risks and follow the
promptings of his heart. One of these days there would dawn on Roy
the knowledge that he was the child of a unique romance, of a mutual
love and courage that had run the gauntlet of prejudices and
antagonisms, of fightings without and fears within; yet, in the end, had
triumphed as they triumph who will not admit defeat. All this initial
blending of ecstasy and pain, of spiritual striving and mastery, had
gone to the making of Roy, who in the fulness of time would
realise--perhaps with pride, perhaps with secret trouble and
misgiving--the high and complex heritage that was his.
* * * * *
Meanwhile he only knew that he was fearfully happy, especially in
summer time; that his father--who had smiling eyes and loved messing
with paints like a boy--was kinder than anyone else's, so long as you
didn't tell bad fibs or meddle with his brushes; that his idolised mother,
in her soft coloured silks and saris, her bangles and silver shoes, was
the "very most beautiful" being in the whole world. And Roy's response
to the appeal of beauty was abnormally quick and keen. It could hardly

be otherwise with the son of these two. He loved, with a fervour
beyond his years, the clear pale oval of his mother's face; the coils of
her dark hair, seen always through a film of softest
muslin--moon-yellow or apple-blossom pink, or deep dark blue like the
sky out of his window at night spangled with stars. He loved the
glimmer of her jewels, the sheen and feel of her wonderful Indian silks,
that seemed to smell like the big sandalwood box in the drawing-room.
And beyond everything he loved her smile and the touch of her hand,
and her voice that could charm away all nightmare terrors, all
questionings and rebellions, of his excitable brain.
Yet, in outward bearing, he was not a sentimental boy. The Sinclairs
did not run to sentiment; and the blood of two virile races--English and
Rajput--was mingled in his veins. Already his budding masculinity
bade him keep the feelings of 'that other Roy' locked in the most secret
corner of his heart. Only his mother, and sometimes Tara, caught a
glimpse of him now and then. Lady Sinclair, herself, never guessed that,
in the vivid imaginations of both children, she herself was the
ever-varying incarnation of the fairy princesses and Rajputni heroines
of her own tales. Their appetite for these was insatiable; and her store
of them seemed never ending: folk tales of East and West; true tales of
Crusaders, of Arthur and his knights; of Rajput Kings and Queens, in
the far-off days when Rajasthán--a word like a trumpet call--was
holding her desert cities against hordes of invaders, and heroes scorned
to die in their beds. Much of it all was frankly beyond them; but the
colour and the movement, the atmosphere of heroism and high
endeavour quickened imagination and fellow-feeling, and left an
impress on both children that would not pass with the years.
To their great good fortune, these tales and talks were a part of her
simple, individual plan of education. An even greater good fortune--in
their eyes--was her instinctive response to the seasons. She shared to
the full their clear conviction that schoolroom lessons and a radiant day
of summer were a glaring misfit; and she trimmed her sails, or rather
her time-table, accordingly.
"Sentimental folly and thoroughly demoralising," was the verdict of

Aunt Jane, overheard by Roy, who was not supposed to understand.
"They will grow up without an inch of moral backbone. And you can't
say I didn't warn you. Lady Despard's a crank, of course; but Nevil is a
fool to allow it. Goodness knows he was bad enough, though he was
reared on the good old lines. And you are not giving his son a chance.
The sooner the boy's packed off to school the better. I shall tell him so."
And