The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [242]
‘Of what use will that be to me, when I shall never see or know him? When I may never even hear that he exists?’ demanded Ash bitterly.
For a moment he thought that she was not going to answer him, and when she did it was in a whisper. ‘I am sorry,’ said Anjuli. ‘I… I did not think It was for myself, for my own comfort that… that I wished it. I have been selfish… ’Her breath caught on a sob, and then her voice steadied again: ‘But it is done now: and what may come of it is out of our hands.’
‘It is not! It is still in our hands. You can come away with me – for the child's sake, if not for mine. Promise me that if there should be a child you will come to me. Surely you can do that? I won't believe that Shu-shu means more to you than any child of mine could do, or that you would sacrifice its future for her sake. Promise me, Larla!’
Only the echoes answered him, for Anjuli did not speak. Yet her silence spoke for her, repeating, wordlessly, what she had told him before; that she had already given a promise to Shu-shu. And that a promise was sacred…
A tightness built up in Ash's throat but once again anger drove him to speech, and he forced words past the constriction and threw them viciously at that obdurate silence: ‘Can't you understand what it will be like for me to have to live – as I may do – with the knowledge that my child, my child, is the property of another man to do what he likes with? To sell in marriage one day to whoever he chooses – as you and your sisters were?’
‘You…will have other children –’ whispered Anjuli.
‘Never!’
‘– and I shall not know,’ continued Anjuli as though he had not spoken. ‘It may even be that you have some already, for I know that men are careless of their seed. They think nothing of lying with harlots and light women, and do not trouble their minds as to what may come of such matings. Can you tell me that you yourself have never, until this night, lain with any other woman…?’ She paused briefly, and when he did not reply said sadly: ‘No. I did not think I was the first. For all I know there may have been more than one; perhaps many. And if that is so, how can you be sure that there is not, somewhere, some child who could call you father? It is the custom for men to buy their pleasure, and when they have taken it and paid, to walk away and think no more of it. And though you say now that you will never marry – and you may not – I do not believe that it is in your nature to become an ascetic. Sooner or later, in the years to come, you will lie with other women and – it may be – father other children without knowing it, or caring. But I, if I should conceive one, will know… and care. I shall carry it in my body for many months and suffer all the discomforts that come from that, and at the end risk death and endure much pain to give it life. If I pay that price, surely you could not begrudge it me?… You could not.’
You could not, sobbed the echo. And he could not. For Juli was right. Men were careless with their seed, yet they reserved the right to pick and choose among the fruit of their matings: to ignore, repudiate or claim paternity as it suited them. It had never occurred to Ash before that he might have fathered a child, and now that it did he was horrified to realize that it was not only possible, but that he had not cared enough to take any precautions against it, presumably because he had always thought (if he had thought about it at all) that precautions were something for women to worry about and to deal with.
Yes, he supposed it was quite possible that there could be a child of his alive at this moment, living in 'Pindi Bazaar or some smoke-filled hut among the Border hills, or in the poorer quarters of London. And if that were so, and Juli were to bear one – braving the ‘pains and perils of child-birth’ to do so – then what possible right had he to lay claim to it? Or even to insist that he would make a better father than the unknown Rana?
He tried to speak and found