The Distant Kingdom Read online

  Perdita’s acknowledgement of her condition allowed Mrs Fletcher the opening for which she had been waiting, and she proceeded to give her advice on the management of a confinement. Then she felt sure that Lady Beaminster would like to know how brave Maria had been with each of her three children. But she must not allow herself to worry: India was not so dangerous as people said; after all, she herself had lost only two children and Maria none yet.

  Before very long the catalogue of horrors and warnings had driven the healthy colour out of Perdita’s face, and she was beginning to wonder desperately how she could make her visitors be silent, when Mrs Fletcher gathered up her gloves and rose to go, saying:

  ‘But you must not allow yourself to be afraid. As it happens I shall be going to the Hills again myself next season and so I shall be at hand. Goodbye, dear Lady Beaminster.’

  Once they had left, Perdita reprehensibly told her butler that if anyone else called she was not at home, and went back to her sofa with one of her new books. As usual she lost herself in it completely so that when she was finally brought back to her own world by Marcus’s return, she was restored almost to the morning’s bloom. Nevertheless he looked searchingly at her and said:

  ‘You look tired, Perdita.’

  ‘Perhaps I am a little,’ she said, pleased that for once he had used her name instead of the impersonal ‘my dear’, which had once seemed so affectionate. ‘Mrs Fletcher came to visit me with Maria and they stayed rather a long time.’

  ‘Prattling all the time, I suppose, of the Auckland visit.’

  ‘Mostly, and of the poor Lieutenant Smytham.’ Perdita was surprised to see a frown on his face, and, suppressing an impulse to lean up and smooth his wrinkled forehead, said:

  ‘He must be so unhappy.’

  ‘I am sorry that you should have heard any of it, and knowing the gossip of this Station, I suppose you have heard the lot; I know you have a kindness for him. I don’t think he is unhappy precisely, but he is certainly behaving foolishly. I only hope he will pull himself together before Auckland arrives. If there really is to be a war, Smytham could damn his chances of getting into it if he makes a fool of himself then.’

  By the time the Governor General’s spectacular caravan approached the Station, Lieutenant Smytham had resolved his difficulties. Perdita, who felt herself to be enormous and was disinclined to leave the house, was probably the last person to hear the denouement of his pathetic little tragedy.

  Marcus had insisted that she attend the private dinner to which they had been bidden by the Resident, with whom Lord Auckland and his sisters would be staying, although he had agreed to carry her excuses to all the other festivities. It was after dinner there that she discovered that Smytham had lost again, heavily, and with no money, no more credit from the shroff and prospect of redeeming his notes, he had shot himself the day before the Station’s ball.

  It was the all-knowing, all-telling Maria Jamieson who had enlightened Perdita as they stood chatting to Captain Thurleigh after dinner. Perdita had looked at him for confirmation and he said:

  ‘What, Smytham? Yes, dam’fool. But there was nothing else to be done once he was in so deep.’

  ‘Nothing else? But to kill yourself over a game of cards! That cannot be right.’

  James Thurleigh looked down at her, and felt all his clamped-down resentment surging to the surface of his mind. He found the palpable evidence of her fecundity revolting, and he said, averting his eyes from her swollen figure:

  ‘It is not something a female could understand. The cause of his death, Lady Beaminster, was not a game of cards, but honour.’ Perdita tried to ignore the note of brusque contempt in his voice.

  ‘Of course I understand the principle, Captain Thurleigh, but I cannot accept that such a principle is more valuable than a man’s life; even a man in debt.’

  ‘Then you must be very stupid,’ he answered without thinking, and then, seeing the consternation in both their faces, apologized curtly and left them.

  As he walked away from them, he resolved to keep his temper better in future. The truth was that young Smytham’s suicide had shocked him. Officers in India should not embroil themselves with respectable women, he decided. Take whores if they must; but only trouble could follow from involving gently bred English ladies in a life that was fitted for men alone. Good God, they were here to subdue and rule an alien country. They should not have to be bothered with the destructive games of bored and flirtatious young ladies. After all, even Smytham had been a decent officer until he had fallen victim to Miss Fuller.

  ‘Ah, Thurleigh,’ came a voice interrupting his angry reverie, ‘I want to present you to Mr Macnaghten, His Excellency’s Political Secretary.’

  James Thurleigh hastily pulled himself together and exerted himself to make a good impression on one of the most influential men in India.

  They spoke among other things of the threat in Afghanistan and the possibility of going to war over it, and Thurleigh was pleased to find his views well received. A leading question from Mr Macnaghten opened the way to a discussion of the proper way to neutralize a hostile country, and Thurleigh began to forget his irritation in the absorption of his professional interests.

  The Political Secretary was so impressed that later in the week he spoke to Lord Auckland of the young captain’s vigour and good sense. His lordship, never the most vigorous of men himself, was pleased and quickly acceded to Macnaghten’s suggestion that they should add Captain Thurleigh to the already enormous entourage. It did not occur to either of them that he might prefer to remain with his regiment: it was well known that only a transfer into the political branch could bring influence and the chance of wealth within the reach of young officers, and this one’s family could not help him. Mr Macnaghten had gone out of his way to find out about Captain Thurleigh and had discovered that his father had a lowly position at East India House in London. The young man had risen so far on his merits; a little influence would not come amiss.

  Colonel Fletcher, who had provided the information, was equally aware and was therefore very surprised when his officer expressed the strongest reluctance to leave his regiment.

  ‘You must be the only man in India who would turn down such a chance, Thurleigh, and I am not sure that you can. I am glad, of course, to know of your loyalty to the regiment, but there is very little you can do here at the present, and a spell with these political fellows will do you no harm. If we do go to war over this fuss in Afghanistan, as they’re beginning to suggest, we shall probably get you back. I think you must go. Tell me, why are you so reluctant?’

  The only answer to that question was one he could not give and so he had to fall back on:

  ‘I am a soldier, sir, and I have no wish to spend my time being polite to a lot of old women who sit behind desks and write letters.’

  Colonel Fletcher, who privately approved of the sentiment, had to deliver a reprimand and order the insubordinate officer to report to the Political Secretary forthwith.

  Captain Thurleigh saluted smartly and left, to spend the rest of the morning with his new master. They had tiffin together, and it was not until well into the afternoon that Thurleigh was free to go in search of Marcus Beaminster.

  They had often discussed the merits of a transfer to the political, but had come to the conclusion that each was more suited to the camaraderie and sport of regimental life than to the lonely political responsibilities of some remote district. They had served together for the entire fourteen years of Marcus’s life in India, sharing quarters, organizing cold-weather hunting trips together, racing their horses, pursuing an amicable rivalry in the matter of their careers, and becoming fast friends. Marcus was the best of fellows, and James Thurleigh, who did not make friends easily and was often avoided for his abrasive manner and caustic tongue, was annoyed at the prospect of perhaps several years stuck serving Macnaghten hundreds of miles away, surrounded by weak-kneed civilians. He walked angrily over to the mess in search of Marcus and,
not finding him, felt his temper going. Half an hour later he ran him to earth at home.

  The servant who showed Captain Thurleigh into the drawing room had not announced him as he was such a frequent visitor, and he walked in to find Marcus sitting beside his wife’s sofa, reading to her. To many, it would have seemed a charming scene, a model perhaps for a painting entitled Domestic Felicity, but it provoked no such gentle thoughts in Captain Thurleigh. He greeted Lady Beaminster formally enough before turning unceremoniously to Marcus to say:

  ‘Have you forgotten our appointment? We were to ride to the river this afternoon.’

  Marcus, about to express surprise, caught sight of Thurleigh’s expression and substituted an apology to his wife. She was disappointed, but at the same time pleased to realize that Marcus had been content enough in her company to forget to ride out with the most bellicose of his friends. It seemed like a triumph over the warmongers, and she smiled happily up at Marcus. She was rewarded with a rare caress. As his hand left her arm, she looked across the room at Captain Thurleigh, and was childishly pleased to see a frown contracting his heavy black brows. She felt suddenly much better, and wished him a pleasant ride in a voice designed to provoke him. It did and he left the room.

  A week later Thurleigh rode off with the Governor General’s staff, determined to rejoin his regiment as soon as he could arrange a transfer, but consoling himself with the knowledge that he would at least be working close to the Commander-in-Chief. If there really were any fighting to be done it would be he who chose which regiments got the chance to do it and James Thurleigh was determined to do all he could to make sure that the 121st was one of them.

  Chapter Seven

  The Beaminsters, who were also going up to Simla, would travel about four times as fast as the Governor General’s monstrously large procession, and so they did not leave the Station for another six weeks, in good time to reach the Hills before Perdita’s confinement.

  The last few weeks in the Plains were almost all pleasurable for her. She had put the horror of Lieutenant Smytham’s death behind her, telling herself that however great his misery must have been before he shot himself, at least his death had freed him from it, and no longer seeing his shattered head in her nightmares. She wondered from time to time whether anyone had thought to write to Miss Fuller before the inevitable gossip of Anglo-India reached her guardian’s house in Meerut: even if she had not cared for him, she would probably have been distressed to hear of his suicide. Perdita thought briefly of writing herself, but then dismissed the idea as an impertinence, and tried to concentrate on preparations for her coming child.

  She had had to give up collecting flowers for Juliana when Doctor Pooley became concerned at the swelling of her ankles, and she missed being able to drive out of cantonments to the countryside, which to her surprise she had found appealing. The golden flatness of the plain could never compare with the loveliness of the Hills, of course, but it held its own attraction, especially in comparison with her ugly, dark bungalow.

  Lying amid the clumsy furniture day after day, Perdita had come to rely on her books. She tried to ration her reading so that Marcus’s novels would last longer than a few weeks, but she had found the self-discipline difficult until she took up needlework. Then she could read for half an hour, sew for two and pick up her book again. But among the forty-three servants she and Marcus employed was a durzee, who expected to do all the sewing required by the household, and he had been seriously affronted to discover that the lady-sahib intended to make clothes for her child herself.

  An impending revolt among the servants had been quelled only by Marcus’s asking the sirdar-bearer to explain to the rest of them that the doctor-sahib had decided that it would calm their mistress’s mind if she were to take up sewing, and he ordered the durzee to make up a piece of valuable silk from China into a dressing gown for the lady-sahib to wear after the birth of the child.

  But it was not only the servants who considered that the sight of the countess labouring over the seams of bonnets and nightgowns was unsuitable. The Resident’s wife caught her at it one morning and begged her to desist.

  ‘I realize that it is difficult for you to understand your position,’ was how she began her explanation, ‘but by doing a servant’s work like this you are lowering yourself in the eyes of your servants, and therefore lowering the standing of every Englishwoman in India.’

  ‘By occupying myself with embroidery on a bonnet for my own child? Surely you are exaggerating,’ protested Perdita, for once genuinely astonished to find herself at fault.

  ‘If it were only the embroidery, that would be different, but you are actually making up nightgowns and other clothes, I hear.’

  Searching for support for her own position, Perdita said:

  ‘Well, Catherine of Aragon embroidered and made shirts for her husband, and she was Queen of England.’

  Mrs Malwood’s sharp nostrils contracted and the corners of her mouth turned down into an expression that had become familiar to Perdita as the face of English disapproval and which she privately called ‘the bad-smell-under-the-nose expression’. Mrs Malwood said:

  ‘That is quite different, as you very well know. It is to be hoped that we have progressed sufficiently over the last three hundred years as to make any such comparisons absurd.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Perdita pacifically, putting her work down on a small table.

  After that visit, she took to hiding her stitchery under a cushion whenever she heard a visitor approaching the bungalow. She also apologized to Marcus when he came into her drawing room unexpectedly one afternoon before she had time to put the scrap of linen away. He stood looking down at her and said in a warm tone she rarely heard:

  ‘My dear Perdita, you do not have to apologize to me ever. If you wish to sew, you shall do so, whatever the servants think.’ He then went on, with some difficulty: ‘I know that our life is sometimes hard for you here, and I have wanted to say for a long time now … to tell you how grateful I am for the way you have endured so much.’

  She smiled shyly up at him, and said:

  ‘I am afraid I vex you too often, and I know that I do not behave as I should (for Mrs Fletcher and the others frequently tell me so), but I do try.’

  ‘I know you do. Now if you would care for it, I could read something to you while you work. Have you finished The Vicar of Wakefield yet?’

  ‘No, but it will be very boring for you to read without knowing what has gone before.’

  ‘Well, you must tell me first, and then I shall read.’ And so she told him, describing the characters as though they were people she had met, whose actions were dictated by reality. He was struck as he watched her expressive eyes by how much of herself she kept hidden from him in the normal way. It was as though in trying to do nothing to offend him, she blotted herself into insignificance. He began to want to know more about her, and when she had brought the narrative up to the point at which she had last closed the book, he asked questions about it, trying to draw out of her some opinions of her own. They led her on to comparisons with other novels and, indeed, to real people she had observed. Marcus listened, asked and contributed his own ideas.

  Perdita found herself arguing vehemently with him over the importance of reading novels, her work lying forgotten in her lap, when dinner was announced, and she realized how rarely she had enjoyed herself. Marcus, too, seemed happier than usual and they continued to talk animatedly as he helped her up off the sofa and escorted her to the dining room. A little hesitantly she began to ask about his own tastes and, as the evening progressed, felt that they had recaptured some of the friendship they had enjoyed before their marriage. When she eventually rose from the table, much later than usual, he said to her:

  ‘I have kept you up so long, talking too much, but I have enjoyed it too much to regret. I hope you are not too tired?’

  Her smile took on an unaccustomed brilliance and, as she passed his chair, she said:


  ‘It has been the happiest evening I have spent for a long time, Marcus. There is nothing to regret, except that Doctor Pooley orders me to be in my bed by eight o’clock. Goodnight.’ He took her hands and kissed them.

  The next morning she was afraid that their new friendship might not have survived, but there was no change, and during the next few weeks she felt something of the sensations of a child who goes to bed each night desperately afraid that the weather will have broken by the next morning and made some promised treat impossible, only to wake each day to find the sun pouring in through the half-drawn curtains.

  Marcus and Perdita became increasingly easy with each other, and began to talk as she had once talked with her father. She gradually lost her exaggerated respect for her husband’s knowledge and opinions and if he said something she regarded as nonsense she would tell him so. In his turn, he began to forget that she was female and therefore not a fit recipient of confidences or speculation on serious matters, and talked to her of the increasing possibilities of war in Afghanistan and his own doubts about it. One evening she told him of her father’s view that a war with Russia must be avoided at all costs, and he said thoughtfully:

  ‘I would agree with that, but I am afraid the cost might be very high.’

  She answered:

  ‘You sound almost reluctant; when I spoke to Captain Thurleigh once about the possibility, he said he thought it would be “excellent sport”.’

  ‘He was joking.’

  About to contradict Marcus, for she was certain he was wrong, Perdita saw the openness of his smile shrink a little and caught herself up in time, saying merely:

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Marcus heard the old submission in that small phrase and was sorry.

  Despite that temporary stiffness, their new friendliness was still with them when they made their journey to the hills. Colonel Fletcher had been unable to grant Marcus leave for the whole season, but thought it quite proper for him to take his young wife to Simla and stay with her until the child was born: she was in no condition to travel alone and his own wife and daughter, who might have served as an escort, were setting off to visit relations in Delhi on the way and could not take her there with them.