Chapter XII

After dinner that same evening Alderbury sat in the verandah with Eola and her brother. The end of the verandah was enclosed with a trellis over which creepers were trained. From the roof hung a lantern that shed a subdued light. If Eola desired to work or her brother to read, a lamp was brought and placed upon a table. This evening the lamp was not required.

While the servants waited at table, Alderbury could not speak of the subject uppermost in his mind. No sooner had the coffee been handed round and the cigars lighted, than Ananda's name was brought up, and he described his visit to the convert.

The chief thing accomplished was the moral support he had been able to give to the convert. He devoutly hoped that it would sustain Ananda until something could be effected to improve his condition. All that had happened since his return home was quite sufficient in itself to induce depression; and there was always a danger lest depression should be followed by apostacy.

"I want your help, Wenaston," said Alderbury suddenly.

"You shall have it," the other responded without hesitation.

"You promise without knowing what it is."

"You want to borrow the motor-car. It shall be ready at sunrise to-morrow. I can't drive you myself, much as I should like it. I haven't time. The chauffeur will take you where you want to go."

"I shall be very grateful. The car transforms travelling from purgatory to pure delight. It was not the car, however, that was in my mind. I want something else--help for Ananda. His money won't hold out a week longer, and then it will be in the power of his people to starve him."

"He will have to take food from his pariah servant--a practical beginning of his education in the brotherhood of man," remarked Wenaston.

"Lately no food of any description has been sent to his room. Unless I am very much mistaken the supply will stop altogether."

"And his father will give him no money?"

"I am sure of that."

"What are Ananda's rights as a son? Can't he claim assistance and support from his nearest relatives by his caste laws?"

"If he were still a member of the Hindu religion he could claim house-room, food and clothing from his father. These benefits are conceded by the unwritten law of caste custom. Having abandoned his faith and become an outcaste, he loses all his rights legal and social."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite certain. I called on the chief lawyer in the town on my way back to find out what his position really was--the reason I was late for tea, Miss Wenaston--and from him I learned the law regarding converts to Christianity as it stands in the native State."

"Is it different from the law in British India?"

"Entirely; the 'vert has no legal standing at all, no civil rights whatever. He is an outcaste in every sense; in other words an outlaw. Neither by inheritance, nor by deed of gift, nor by a duly executed will can he inherit his father's property. He has no power to compel his wife to live with him. She may contract any other alliance she chooses as if he had never existed; and he has absolutely no control over his children. What is more they are empowered to divide his patrimony among themselves exactly as if he were dead."

"How unjust!" exclaimed Eola in indignation.

"It is nothing less than iniquitous," responded Alderbury, with some warmth. "But there it stands. We cannot alter it and Ananda must face it."

"He should get away from his home and his people; he is at too great a disadvantage where he is," remarked Dr. Wenaston.

"Exactly so; and we must help him," said Alderbury.

"If it means a sum of money, of course I am ready----"

"I don't want your money, Wenaston," protested Alderbury, speaking rapidly as was his wont when excited. "I want your help in another way. Ananda is very unwilling to leave his home to which he has only just returned. He is devoted to his parents and cannot at present bring himself to believe that they are lending themselves to this system of persecution. He attributes it to his uncle. Until he has proof that his father's hand is actually turned against him, he wishes to continue living under his roof. He would like to obtain work of some sort in Chirapore that would enable him to keep house with his wife and child separately. Can you find anything for him to do in your school? He is quite capable of teaching English, mathematics, history, geography or anything of that sort to boys."

Wenaston was silent and unresponsive to the appeal.

"I suppose you haven't a vacancy and don't see your way to making one on the staff," said Alderbury in a disappointed tone.

"As it happens there is a vacancy, but----"

"Why this hesitation, then? It would be a clear way out of our immediate difficulty if you would give him a trial. I feel sure he can teach. You know him personally and need no testimonial as to his character."

"I wasn't hesitating over his character or his qualifications as a teacher. I was wondering how much sympathy was extended in the town to the family, and whether feeling runs strong on the subject of his conversion."

"It will not affect his status in the college. Of course he understands that religious discussion is prohibited. You may depend upon him for not proselytising; he will not even introduce the subject; and I am sure that he will be ready to fall in with your wishes in every way. Poor fellow! I know he will be very grateful."

The pleading on the part of Alderbury roused Eola's sympathy, and she added her entreaty to his.

"You must lend him a helping hand!"

"It is against my better judgment," replied her brother, giving in reluctantly.

"If it doesn't answer you can put an end to the arrangement at once; a day's notice, if you like, will be sufficient. Take him on for a week, and let me hear at the end of it whether the plan is working successfully or not. It will be a great relief to my mind to know that he has employment of some kind, not only as a means of living but also as occupation. Later on I will try to persuade him to leave Chirapore and get work elsewhere. With a testimonial from you he should have no difficulty in finding a situation as schoolmaster in one of our missions. If he will only sever his connection with his family and place himself beyond their influence I see a grand future before him in the mission field. We so rarely win over a man of good caste. At present he clings with all the force of a great love to his family and to his wife and child. Patience! patience! I am a most impatient man, Miss Wenaston," he concluded, turning to her with a boyish laugh that echoed through the verandah.

Having discussed the details of Ananda's immediate employment, Alderbury dropped into a thoughtful silence. From a few words spoken casually by the Doctor he was not satisfied that Wenaston appreciated and valued Ananda's conversion as much as he should. Eola's remark earlier in the day also hung in his mind; yet he did not want to preach or to talk shop, as he sometimes called it. His difficulty of finding an opening was solved by a question put by Eola herself in the pause that ensued.

"You said this afternoon that I knew nothing about Hinduism. Don't you think you might enlighten me a little? I am open to conviction, and quite ready to believe that the Hindus will be the better for the Christianity you are giving them. Of course idolatry is only fit for savages, and the people of India ought to adopt something better as they are not savages."

"You mustn't think that the Hindus are a nation of idolaters. The ignorant masses worship idols and probably believe that the images themselves have some mysterious power of divinity in them; but the educated Hindu will tell you that the idol is symbolical; that they look beyond and through the image to the Deity. Their conception of the Deity is different from ours. He is impersonal and He is the creator of good and evil."

"A bold theory of the infinitude of the Deity on one hand and the existence of evil on the other," said Wenaston, who was listening, although Alderbury addressed his remarks to Eola.

"The Hindu believes that the world exists for a retributive purpose so that spirits may find embodiment, and suffer pain and joy according to their deserts. Through their sufferings in cycles of rebirths they progress towards their final state of impersonal beatitude. The retributive world with its process is eternal and lasts through all ages. If the world dies, it dies to be born again.

"A wonderful conception but deadening in its effects, whether one contemplates rebirth in this world or absorption into Brahma," commented Wenaston. "The marvel to me is that Hinduism has held its own so long."

"Its preservation is due to its wonderful system, its width and breadth. It preaches on one hand an asceticism which is acceptable to the most exacting fanatic. On the other it gives a licence, in the name of religion and the worship of Kali, that appeals irresistibly to the lowest and most sensual side of man. Hitherto its isolation and its marvellous power of absorbing other religious systems have been a tower of strength; but it cannot be saved much longer from the inrush of the modern spirit and stands in danger of being broken down."

"By what?" asked Eola.

"By the response to modern thought and by the awakening of Hindus like Ananda to a yearning after something better. Under the influence of the new spirit of inquiry they are demanding more freedom, more spirituality in their doctrines. They revolt as Ananda has revolted against the hopeless theory of transmigration, and they require something more satisfying in its place."

"The Hindus are a religious people, with strong cravings that must be satisfied. This is shown clearly by the absence of any desire on the part of my boys to shirk their religious duties," said Wenaston.

"By and bye those boys won't be content with the performance of superstitious pujah with a pantheistic leaning. They will require one God for India, not a million gods; they will demand an uplifting of suffering humanity, and they will rebel against a horrible creed of fatalism and predestination."

"What have you to offer to a man like Ananda?"

"Our own faith."

"Can he comprehend it with its spiritual teaching?"

"Ask him some day and he will tell you that in the teaching of Christ and in the following of Christ's example he has found a soul-satisfying substitute for his worn-out creed and childish rituals."

"Alderbury, you are an incorrigible iconoclast. With one blow you would annihilate the longest-lived religion of the world!"

He was on his feet in a moment, as was his way when excited, and his voice rang out into the night.

"You obsolete old professor! you bag of dry bones!" he cried, as he strode up and down the verandah. "The ancient Greeks and Romans killed their conquered enemies, I know; but modern conquerors pursue a different plan. They preserve; at the same time they subdue and bend the conquered to their will, making use of the good and pruning away the bad. We shall treat Hinduism in the modern manner; remodelling its rites and its institutions. Even that bugbear to all mission work, caste, shall be reformed. Hinduism will be transfigured in God's good time by the spirituality of Christ. It will merge into a fuller, richer Christianity than we of the less imaginative West have ever contemplated."

Eola felt the blood coursing through her veins with an emotion that was startling. Alderbury's enthusiasm, his magnificent faith, his absolute optimism and trust in the future roused her admiration, almost her envy. She felt the infection of his hope and belief; but because she was a woman, there was something behind it that detached her mind from the cause for which he battled, and centred her thoughts upon the man himself. While she listened, carried away by his words, she was conscious of his splendid personality, his strength, his confidence, his purity of heart. He was a born leader of men with a strong personal influence that was not to be denied; and the messenger occupied her mind more than the message he carried. Alderbury was unlike any one else of her acquaintance; and each time they met she became conscious of a growing attraction that she was unwilling to acknowledge even to herself.

When the hour for retirement came, Wenaston said good-night to his guest and departed to his sitting-room to read. Eola stood for a few minutes after she had shaken hands. Alderbury waited, his quickened perception where human beings were concerned telling him that she had something to say which was for his ear only.

"I am sorry I spoke as I did about Ananda and his religion. I am afraid I gave you the impression that I thought one religion as good as another."

"It certainly crossed my mind that such was your attitude," he replied gravely.

"I ought not to have said that it was a pity that he had changed. I am sorry."

She was sweet in her penitence, and Alderbury was constrained to take a firm grip of himself.

"People have a habit of making loose statements of that kind, and of expressing a vague regret that we interfere with the Hindu creed. They don't realise what they are practically admitting.".

"It is so! I have often heard English men and women say that they would rather have a good heathen servant for instance, than an indifferent Christian."

"The standard of one is entirely different from the standard of the other. A 'good heathen's' religion makes the practice of certain sins a religious act. Among the 'indifferent Christians' there are a great many who have no religion at all; but they claim to be of the faith of those they serve, thinking that they will be more favoured."

"I mustn't get into the habit of making loose statements."

"Nor of believing everything a native tells you. I am sure Mrs. Hulver is careful how she receives what they say of themselves. I should like to hear her on the subject, and also on their habits, good and bad. She would be sure to quote one of the Williams."

"I know what they would have said!" cried Eola, the cloud dispersed, and on good terms with herself again. "William the first would have held that habits had their advantages and might be acquired with discretion. William the second's views would have been more rigid. Habits were good and bad; the good were to be adopted at all costs and the bad avoided. William the third would have been of the opinion that habits, good and bad, were unavoidable in poor weak human natures and must be accepted with the man."

Alderbury's laugh rang out; and Mrs. Hulver, dropping off to sleep on her cot under the mosquito curtains, heard it. She stirred in sleepy protest. Missionaries had no right to joke and laugh like that with "society ladies." How could they expect to convert the heathen if they indulged in such levity? As William used to say----; but here she fell asleep and happily forgot Miss Wenaston and the missionary, together with the words of wisdom that fell from the lips of her trinity of Williams.