When travellers--there were not many in those years--came to Kotgarh, Lispeth
used to lock herself into her own room for fear they might take her away to
Simla, or somewhere out into the unknown world.
One day, a few months after she was seventeen years old, Lispeth went out for
a walk. She did not walk in the manner of English ladies--a mile and a half
out, and a ride back again. She covered between twenty and thirty miles in her
little constitutionals, all about and about, between Kotgarh and Narkunda.
This time she came back at full dusk, stepping down the breakneck descent into
Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The Chaplain's wife was dozing in
the drawing-room when Lispeth came in breathing hard and very exhausted with
her burden. Lispeth put it down on the sofa, and said simply:
"This is my husband. I found him on the Bagi Road. He has hurt himself. We
will nurse him, and when he is well, your husband shall marry him to me."
This was the first mention Lispeth had ever made of her matrimonial views, and
the Chaplain's wife shrieked with horror. However, the man on the sofa needed
attention first. He was a young Englishman, and his head had been cut to the
bone by something jagged. Lispeth said she had found him down the khud, so she
had brought him in.
Pages:
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544