The Distant Kingdom Read online

  Marcus was concerned for Perdita, and would have been reluctant to send her away alone whatever his colonel thought. Travelling in India was an uncomfortable business even for those in the best of health; for a heavily pregnant woman it could be disastrous. He decided that a palanquin would be the safest conveyance for her and on hearing it said that the hot weather was likely to be early that year, arranged to leave a week earlier than they had planned.

  Accordingly they set off on 15 March, Marcus riding and his wife lying behind the curtains of her palanquin, carried by teams of bearers, and followed by the buggies and bullock carts of servants and luggage.

  They travelled mostly at night, to save the bearers from the growing heat, by the light of the messalchi‘s torches of rag and flax fed from a skin bottle of oil, moving at about three miles each hour through fields and jungle, across rivers or through the dirty streets of native towns. Often Perdita would open the curtains of her palanquin to watch and was amused to see the flashes of countryside revealed by the intermittent light of the torches.

  One night she had been asleep and was wakened only by a change in the motion of her chair. She pulled aside one of the curtains to see what had caused it. All around her she could see a broad expanse of water, so smooth and clear beyond the ripples that every star was reflected. The moon was nearly full and drenched the whole scene in thin, beautiful light; but not until they reached the further bank did she realize that her bearers, coming to an unbridged river, had swum across, carrying her palanquin on their heads. As so often before, she was horrified at what native servants did for their white employers, apparently without a second’s thought.

  But five days later she felt them dump her chair unceremoniously on the filthy road in the middle of nowhere. She pulled aside the curtains and was summoning up the severity necessary to call crossly to her chuprassi when she saw what the bearers had seen: a huge Bengal tiger crouched at the edge of the road amid the long drying grass. The words died, and she watched in horror as her bearers scattered, even the chuprassi leaving her side. The sudden movement excited the animal, and it sprang fully eight feet across the road to catch one of the running men.

  Perdita had never known his name, but she always recognized him, for he was the youngest in either of the teams and used to greet her with a cheerful, if half-insolent, smile. She watched in cold terror and shame as the creature’s powerful claws rasped the clothes from his back, and great, strips of flesh with them. His screams split the quiet of the night and in between she could distinctly hear the vile crunch as the tiger’s teeth hit bone. When the animal had finally killed the wretched man, it dragged his body back across the road and into the jungle. In the suddenly harsh moonlight, Perdita saw the red flesh and sharp ends of white bone where the man’s shoulder had been once. She watched as the tall grasses closed behind them and sat upright, shivering, and unable to speak.

  By the time Marcus had returned, surprised that her bearers had taken so long to catch up with him, she had recovered enough composure to call to the chuprassi and beg him gently to round up the surviving bearers so that they might proceed. When Marcus understood what had happened, he berated the men for their cowardice at leaving the lady-sahib, swearing at them and telling them that the young man’s death was a fit punishment for his lack of courage. He stopped only after Perdita called out:

  ‘Marcus, no, please stop.’

  He dismounted then, angrily thrust the reins into the chuprassi‘s hand and came to stand by her in the moonlight. He saw that she was trembling violently, and took her hands in his, saying:

  ‘My poor dear, forgive me.’

  She shook her head, unable to speak, and he signed to the bearers to start moving, walking beside her for the rest of the way, never letting go her hand. It was not much more than a mile to the dawk bungalow, and she was soon lying down on the uncomfortable bed provided, afraid to close her eyes in case she dreamed of the scene she had just witnessed. Marcus insisted on their remaining at the resthouse the following day as well so that she could recover from the shock, refusing to believe her assertion that she would rather get away as quickly as possible from the place.

  But they moved off at last, and he took care to ride at her side. Towards the end of that night’s march she began to feel queasy, but put the symptoms down to the swaying motion of her palanquin and the remaining effects of the shock, and told herself that a decent night’s sleep would put her to rights.

  They stopped for their next halt at the house of acquaintances of Marcus’s mother, where they planned to stay that day and the following night. Now that they had reached the hills the air was cool enough to travel during daylight.

  Their hostess greeted them warmly and then took one look at Lady Beaminster’s face and said:

  ‘It is so disagreeable, Lady Beaminster, to travel in such a condition. You must come and lie down at once. Are you sure that you would not prefer to stay here for a few more days to recover a little?’

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ answered Perdita. ‘We have only one more day’s march, and I should like to reach Simla as soon as possible.’

  ‘Well, you must know best, but if you should change your mind I hope you will tell me. Now come along and lie down.’

  She showed Perdita to a large airy bedroom with the most comfortable bed she had had since leaving Simla the year before. She slept for nearly fourteen hours and was able to assure Marcus that she felt perfectly strong when they met at breakfast.

  But when she took her place in the palanquin, she began to wish that she had accepted the invitation to stay. She felt thoroughly unwell and was aware of a great reluctance to travel any further. But it was too late to go back, and the nagging discomfort gradually eased as the morning drew on. She subsided into a kind of doze, occasionally aware of glimpses of the hills and green, green trees through the swinging curtains, and sometimes catching a glimpse of her chuprassi‘s turban or Marcus’s straight figure riding beside her whenever the road was wide enough.

  Towards midday she fell into a real sleep, only to wake less than an hour later from an unkind dream that she could not quite remember. About to call to the chuprassi to ask him whether the lord-sahib had ridden on ahead, she felt a piercing pain in the small of her back. It quite knocked the breath out of her for a moment or two, and she lay back against the cushions, trying to regain her breath. It crossed her mind that perhaps the pain was something to do with her child, but she dismissed the thought; it was not due for several weeks. She sat up once more and drew back the curtain.

  To her relief, it was her husband and not the chuprassi who answered her call of ‘koi hai!’

  ‘What is it, my dear?’

  ‘Nothing much, Marcus. I felt a curious pain, but it has gone off now. I just wanted to see you.’ He leaned down from his horse and took one of her hands in a comforting clasp, saying:

  ‘Tell me if it happens again. I shall stay beside you now.’

  After that she left the curtains open, so that she could see his dear, distant figure riding beside her. The sight of him was so reassuring that for a time she was able to ignore the pain that kept gripping her, but after a few hours, its increasing violence left her in little doubt that it was caused by the child, and she had no alternative but to tell her husband.

  ‘What the devil am I to do now?’ he asked. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon. I did not mean to blaspheme, but there will be no English doctor between here and Simla, and it will be well after six before we get there.’

  He looked so distraught that she found herself comforting him, and they agreed that it would be better to go on as fast as they could and hope that nothing happened before six. Then Perdita remembered the woman her father had taken her to see.

  ‘Could we not go to Aneila?’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘My father’s … a friend of my father’s. I believe they have just been married.’

  ‘I see. I did not know you knew her. Will she help us? And do you know where
she lives?’

  ‘Yes. And her house is at least one and a half hours nearer than Simla. I think she will help me, although I was vile to her. I think …’

  She broke off, too shaken by the pain to speak for a moment.

  He saw her trouble and said with decision:

  ‘We must pray that she has not gone away. Tell the chuprassi where she lives,’ and he urged the bearers to greater speed.

  One hour and twenty minutes later, Marcus saw to his relief the lights of the house, and he rode ahead to warn Aneila. Far from refusing to see Perdita, as he had feared, Aneila came immediately out of her room and said:

  ‘Poor Lady Beaminster. She must be so frightened. When did it start?’

  Marcus hardly noticed her Indianness as he said:

  ‘I am not quite sure. She first mentioned a pain four hours ago, but then she said nothing more until about an hour ago. But it must be very bad: you have only to look at her face to see that.’

  ‘We shall see. Here they are.’ She ran down to the palanquin to hold both Perdita’s hands in her own and say with great calmness and confidence: ‘Do not worry. All will be well. I know what must be done, and we shall do it together. Lord Beaminster, please come and help me bring your wife inside.’

  He picked his wife up in his arms and carried her into the house. Catching a glimpse of his square face in the dusk and seeing real anguish in his eyes, Aneila thought that perhaps Edward was wrong and the marriage was based on love. No man could be so worried by the pain of a woman for whom he cared nothing. He carried his burden indoors and laid her as carefully as he could on the bed. Aneila then hustled him out so that their ayahs could undress Perdita and make her as comfortable as possible.

  ‘I am going to die, aren’t I?’ she said as soon as Marcus had gone, looking up at the bunched white muslin curtains above the bed.

  ‘No, of course not. People die only if they are ill and you are not. You are bearing a child like thousands of other women.’

  ‘But I am too old.’

  Aneila sat on the edge of the bed and wiped the sweat off her stepdaughter’s forehead with a fine cloth and said:

  ‘No you are not. I am ten years older than you and I am going to have another child. I am not afraid and you must not be. Do not fight, Perdita, this is natural. Later you must push, but now you should do nothing.’

  As she stood up, Perdita said anxiously:

  ‘Don’t leave me, please.’

  ‘I shall not. I go just to tell your husband that all is well. I shall be only one moment.’

  Marcus was waiting outside the flimsy door to Perdita’s room, and he said as he saw Aneila shut it behind her:

  ‘Come here to the verandah.’ When they were out of earshot of his wife, he continued: ‘Are you sure she will be all right? Is it not taking far too long?’

  ‘First babies always take a long time. It is true that she is old to be having the first, but I think all will be well unless she bleeds.’

  ‘Bleeds?’ he repeated, horrified.

  ‘Yes, I do not know the words in English.’ She launched into a stream of Hindustani, which he understood well enough.

  ‘I see. I shall ride on to Simla, then, to find the doctor.’

  ‘Very well. And please tell her father. He is at Whitney House, and he should be here.’ She left him then to go back to Perdita, who had heard the sound of Marcus’s horse clattering down the steep road. She clutched at Aneila’s hand in sudden fear:

  ‘Marcus! Why is he leaving?’

  ‘He is going to Simla to fetch your father and the doctor.’ She smiled slowly. ‘It seems that most English men believe that women do not know enough about the bearing of children to help each other without a doctor. But don’t be afraid. I remember well what it is like.’ She wiped Perdita’s forehead again, and sat down by the bed to wait.

  The pains came at closer and closer intervals, and Perdita’s fear sharpened with each one. She clung to Aneila’s wrist and cried out in terror:

  ‘It is breaking me open!’

  She felt her head stroked and heard Aneila’s voice saying softly:

  ‘Nothing will break. All babies are born thus. Wait and you will see.’

  She repeated the advice and offered comfort throughout the four hours it took for Perdita to move into the third stage. Aneila said, blessing the benevolent gods:

  ‘I can see the baby’s head, Perdita. Now you must push, push down as hard as you can.’

  Perdita, terribly tired and almost beyond fear, tried to obey. She kept her eyes fixed on Aneila’s black ones as though she might find there the extra strength she needed. The contractions speeded up until they merged into one indistinguishable challenge. She longed to give in, but there was nothing to which she could surrender. She tried to push through that tearing sensation, as Aneila begged. Then, at nearly half past ten, through a worse pain than she had yet felt, she vaguely heard Aneila’s voice, which had sustained her through so many hours, saying:

  ‘It is coming now, Perdita. That is good. Push once more.’ She tried to obey and suddenly felt the pain and the burden leave her. In exhausted relief, she closed her eyes and felt nothing until Aneila put a small, white bundle into her arms.

  ‘You have borne a son, Perdita. You should be very proud.’

  Perdita opened her heavy-lidded eyes at last and looked down at the tiny squalling creature in her arms. She had never seen so young a baby before and was sorry that hers was ugly, but he was hers. Surging up through the exhaustion and the pain that remained, she could feel the beginnings of triumphant joy. Her arms closed about her son and she knew then and for ever that all the difficulties of her married life, all the fears and anxieties she had ever felt, and all the pains of the last few hours, had been worth suffering for this. This child of her union with Marcus would redeem them both.

  Aneila stood at the foot of the bed watching the superb smile that lit her stepdaughter’s face, and the tenderness with which she held the child against her, and was glad. Perdita looked up and impulsively took one hand from her child to reach out to Aneila.

  ‘Later I can say it properly, but now … I want to tell you that I am very glad it was you who was here.’

  Aneila came round the bed to touch her cheek. They were still handfast when Marcus arrived with the doctor and Edward.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Not at all, dear Lady Beaminster, I always feel that I am in loco parentis with regimental wives, and I wanted to see how you did after that terrible confinement. I should have come before, but Doctor Drummond told me that you were not to have any visitors.’

  The doctor had insisted that Perdita should keep to her bed for a month after the birth of her son, and when she had confided something of her dread of visits such as this one from Mrs Fletcher, he had said with a very understanding smile:

  ‘I shall do what I can to keep them off you.’

  Partly because of that, the month had been a good time for Perdita. She saw Marcus only rarely, but when he was with her he seemed kind and concerned for her and their son, and he often brought her flowers. Sometimes she wanted to ask how he spent all the rest of his time, but the nearest she could come to that was to ask for news of the other officers she knew were in Simla. Marcus always answered readily with some anecdote or other, or passed on kind enquiries they had made about her health. Perdita soon understood that he had renewed all his old friendships, and she tried not to feel excluded. It seemed sad that the last few weeks at the Station, which had been so happy and satisfying to her, should have made no difference to him and that he should have relaxed so easily into the violent world of sport, guns and killing that the other officers represented. Perdita knew that they were all in Simla because of the possibility of war in Afghanistan, and she felt their presence to be threatening. But, she would remind herself, looking around her magnificent bedroom at Whitney House, here at least they have no place. Here Marcus is mine – gentle, kindly, and my son’s father; this world at leas
t is not plagued with war fever and excitement.

  Her own father, too, was a crucial figure in her private world. Until he had had to leave Simla for Lahore on his expected mission for Lord Auckland, he had come every day to sit with her. Several times, Perdita had tried to tell him how much Aneila had helped her, but it was difficult to find the right words and she always stumbled over her gratitude. Nevertheless as Perdita spoke, Edward understood her genuine admiration for Aneila and was pleased.

  Before he had to leave Simla, he had asked her to visit Aneila sometimes; and she had said with her old, sweet smile:

  ‘How can you ask, Papa? I should visit her for my own sake in any ease. And I owe her too much to leave her alone for so long.’

  Edward had bent forward to kiss her smooth, pale forehead and said:

  ‘My dear, I am glad that you can be friends with her. Take care of yourself and the boy too.’

  ‘Of course. By the way, we have decided to call him Charles Edward.’

  She had laughed at the quizzical expression on his dear face: ‘No, not because we are secret Jacobites. Charles was Marcus’s father’s name, and Edward for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Perdita. I am very touched. Now I must go. I hope to be back here before you leave in September, but I shall write in any case. Goodbye, my dear.’

  When he had gone, she was sad for a while, but the fascination of small Charlie banished unhappiness When she held him in her arms, when she fed him and felt the imperious tug of his gums on her tender breasts, she was filled with an overmastering emotion she knew to be love. To her father and her husband she was always grateful that they should notice her, and trouble to be kind, but with Charlie there was no such sapping obligation. Since his birth, she felt herself at last a whole person like other people. It was as though in bearing Charlie she had somehow, miraculously, joined the human race.