Chapter 73

Because of the troubled state of her mind following the illness and death of Cowperwood, Berenice decided that it would be best for her to remove to her own home on Park Avenue, which had been closed during her absence in England. Now that she was uncertain as to her future, she would use it as a retreat, temporarily, at least, from prying contacts with the local press. Dr. James agreed with her decision, believing that it would be best for him also if he could truthfully say that she had departed and he did not know her present whereabouts: a ruse that subsequently worked very well, for having answered a number of times that he knew nothing more than the newspapers did, the inquiries ceased as far as he was concerned.

Nonetheless, from time to time there began to appear in print, references, not only to her disappearance, but her possible whereabouts. Had she returned to London? And to make sure of that, the London papers queried whether she had returned to her former residence at Pryor’s Cove: a series of inquiries that brought the unsatisfactory news that although her mother was there, she stated that she knew nothing of her daughter’s plans, and that they would have to wait until she obtained that information herself. This reply was prompted by the receipt of a cable from Berenice requesting her mother to furnish no information until she heard from her.

While Berenice got some satisfaction out of outwitting the reporters, she found she was quite lonely in her own home, and spent most of her evenings reading. However, she was shocked by a special feature article in one of the New York Sunday papers which dealt entirely with herself and her previous relations with Cowperwood. While she was referred to as his ward, the whole tenor of the article tended to single her out as an opportunist who had used her beauty to further her personal comfort and social pleasures in general: an interpretation and presentation of herself which irritated as well as pained her greatly. For as she saw herself, then and before, she was wholly concerned with the beauty of life, and such creative achievements as tended to broaden and expand its experiences. However, as she now felt, this type of article was likely to be repeated and even reproduced in other papers, abroad as well as in her own country, for it was obvious that she had been singled out as a romantic and dramatic personality.

What could she do about it? Where go to live to get away from such publicity?

In her troubled and somewhat confused state of mind, she walked about the library of her home, the shelves of which were crowded with long-neglected volumes, and haphazardly withdrawing one of the books, she opened it casually and her eyes fell on the following words:

Part of myself is the God within every creature,

Keeps that nature eternal, yet seems to be separate,

Putting on mind and senses five, the garment

Made of Prakriti.

When the Lord puts on a body, or casts it from Him,

He enters or departs, taking the mind and senses

Away with Him, as the wind steals perfume

Out of the flowers.

Watching over the ear and the eye, and presiding

There behind touch, and taste, and smell, He is also

Within the mind: He enjoys and suffers

The things of the senses.

Dwelling in flesh, or departing, or one with the gunas

Knowing their moods and motions, He is invisible

Always to the ignorant, but his sages see him

With the eye of wisdom.

Yogis who have gained tranquility through the practice of spiritual discipline, behold Him in their own consciousness. But those who lack tranquility and discernment will not find Him, even though they may try hard to do so.

So arresting were these thoughts that she turned the book over to see the name of it. And noting that it was the Bhagavad-Gita, she remembered a certain Lord Severance’s brilliant discourse on the subject matter at a dinner given one evening by Lord Stane at his town house. She had been deeply impressed by Severence’s vivid account of his sojourn in India, where for a considerable period he had lived the monastic life in a retreat near Bombay and studied with a guru. She recalled how stirred she had been by his impressions, and had wished at the time that she also might one day go to India and do likewise. And now, in the face of her threatened social isolation, she felt even more keenly disposed to seek sanctuary somewhere. Indeed, this might be the solution of her present complicated affairs.

India! Why not? The more she thought about going there, the more the idea appealed to her.

According to another book on India which she found on her shelf, there were many swamis, many gurus, or teachers and interpreters of the mysteries of life or God, who had founded for themselves ashramas or retreats in the mountains or forests to which the troubled seekers after the meaning of the marvels or mysteries of life might turn in their hours of grief or failure or dismay, to learn of spiritual resources within themselves, which, if studied and followed, might readily dispel their own ills. Might not such a teacher of these great truths lead her into a realm of light or spiritual peace sufficiently illuminating to dispel the dark hours of loneliness and shadow which might permanently engulf her?

She would go to India! As she arranged it in her mind, she would sail to Bombay from London after closing Pryor’s Cove, taking her mother with her if she wished to go.

The next morning she called Dr. James to get his opinion regarding her decision, and when she told him of her plan to study there, much to her surprise, he said he thought it a very good plan indeed. For he himself had long been intrigued by no less an ambition, only he was not as free as Berenice to avail himself of the opportunity. It would be the kind of retreat and change she most needed, he said. In fact, he had a few patients, with physical and mental condition greatly deranged by social and personal difficulties, whom he had sent to a certain Hindu swami in New York, and they had later returned to him completely restored to health. For, as he had noted, there was something about the limited thought of the self that was lost in the larger thought of the not self that brought about forgetfulness of self in the nervous person, and so health.

And so encouraged was Berenice by his approval of her decision that she made immediate arrangements for the care of her Park Avenue home in her absence, and left New York for London.