The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [202]
That hope had never quite faded; though it had grown fainter as the years passed and they had not returned. But as long as she remained unmarried it seemed to her that somewhere a door was still open: and as she grew up and left childhood behind her, and there was still no talk of a husband for her, she began to think that perhaps there never would be.
For Shushila of course, it would be different. Shu-shu was going to be as beautiful as her mother: that had been clear from the first. She was also a person of considerable importance, so an early and splendid marriage for her was a certainty. Anjuli had long ago resigned herself to the fact that it would separate them – perhaps for ever - and the news that this would not happen, and that they were to stay together after all, had compensated her for many things. For the closing of that door and the final abandonment of a dream. For having to leave Karidkote and live out her days in a hot and arid country far and far to the southward, where no one had ever seen a deodar or a rhododendron or a pine tree, and there were no mountains – and no snow…
She would never see the Dur Khaima again, or smell the scent of pine-needles when the wind blew in from the north. And if Ashok were now to keep his promise and return, it would be too late, for he would find her gone.
21
Not many people in the camp were able to sleep late. There was too much work to be done, and the majority rose early in order to feed and water animals, milk cows and goats, light fires and prepare the morning meal. Or, like Mahdoo and Kaka-ji, to pray.
Mahdoo's prayers did not take too long, but Kaka-ji's pujah was a protracted affair. The old man was keenly aware of the existence of God though he confessed to being uncertain as to whether God was also aware of him. ‘But one must hope,’ said Kaka-ji. ‘One must live in hope.’ The Unseen was very real to him, and as he had no intention of allowing the fact that he was on a journey to interfere with his religious observances, he took to rising well before dawn in order that he might devote his customary two hours to his pujah.
His niece Shushila was one of the few who lay late abed, but her sister, Anjuli-Bai, rose almost as early as Kaka-ji; though for a different reason. Habit had something to do with it, but in the early days of the march she would be up by cockcrow in order to peer out between the tent-flaps and gaze at the mountains.
For a time the snow peaks of the Himalayas had remained clearly visible in the dawn, floating silver and serene in the cool air of morning. And though at mid-day the dust would hide them, when the day waned they would emerge again, rose-tipped now against the green of the evening sky. But as the weeks wore away, the snow-capped ranges receded, dwindling and growing fainter and further away, until finally they vanished. And Anjuli looked for them no more.
There came a day when the Punjab too, with its five great rivers, its friendly villages and fat crop-lands, was left behind. And with it, British India. They were crossing Rajputana now: Tod's fabled Rajasthan – the ‘Country of the Kings’. A land of feudal states ruled over by the descendants of warrior princes whose deeds colour the chronicles of Hindustan with blood and violence and splendour, and whose names read like a fanfare of trumpets – Bikaner, Jodhpur, Gwalior and Alwar; Jaipur, Bhurtpore, Kotah and Tonk; Bundi, Dholpui, Udipore, Indore…
This was very different country from the fertile and densely populated Punjab. Here towns and villages no longer stood cheek-by-jowl, but were widely scattered, and the land itself was for the most part flat and featureless. A place of limitless horizons and little shade,