The Distant Kingdom Page 22

  ‘I wish I could take you away with me.’

  A sudden fear almost nauseated her, but she tried to keep her voice calm and social as she asked:

  ‘Are you leaving Caubul then?’ She looked at him, which was a mistake, and then tried to pretend that she had not seen the understanding in his eyes.

  ‘Only if you will come with me, Perdita.’

  Her longing, and her love, nearly overmastered her, but with a huge effort she stopped herself on the brink. After a little, she said as quietly as she could:

  ‘Charles, I regret more than I can tell you that you found me that day and that I told you what I did. There is nothing for you and me. I could never go away with you. It would be better if you left Caubul. If you stay we can only make each other unhappy.’

  ‘Is that true? Really true? Is my presence here making your life worse than it would otherwise be?’

  She stood up and walked towards the window to look out. He followed her and put both hands on her back. She ached to lean against him, and when his hands moved slowly, compellingly, over the thin muslin of her bodice, she gasped.

  ‘It is not true, is it, Perdita? Look at me.’ Obedient as always, she turned to face him. A feeling that was more than pure desire teased him. His hands gripped hers.

  ‘It should be true.’

  ‘How like you! I shall stay then.’

  She wished that she could suppress the relief she felt, but it showed in her eyes and in her carriage. He knew that in a week or two he could try again.

  By September it was bruited around cantonments that the whole country was up in arms against the British all the way from Caubul north to the Oxus river on the border with Bokhara. Riding into the city, the English would discover that more and more shops were shutting in the bazaars, as though in preparation for violence in the streets. It became very clear that some of the Caubul chiefs as well as those in the north were supporting the Dost, and news of his successes led the married officers who were quartered in the city to move their families into the Bala Hissar on the assumption that their houses were no longer safe.

  When Charles did not call for three days in a row, Perdita became more and more afraid. Like everyone else, she had heard that his hostess, Mrs Johnson, had been moved into the citadel, and she worried about his safety. When he did come, she could scarcely wait for the khitmagar to leave before taking Charles’s hands and saying:

  ‘Thank God, you are all right.’

  ‘My dear, of course. Have you been worried?’

  ‘How not? I heard that Mrs Johnson moved into the Bala Hissar and since then none of us has seen you or Captain Johnson.’ She watched a slight smile on his face.

  ‘Did it not occur to you, my dear anxious love, that if two foreigners had been assassinated or even abducted you would all have heard the news?’

  ‘Yes, but everyone said that the city is ripe for insurrection. Why did you stay away?’

  He looked at her, trying to say something noble about wanting to spare her pain, but for some reason he did not understand, he told her the truth:

  ‘Because I wanted you to worry and to fear, so that when I asked you to come away with me again you would find it harder to refuse.’

  Something in his self-revealing frankness stopped her protests.

  ‘But you are not going to ask, are you?’

  ‘I suppose I am not.’

  When he left her half an hour later to ride back to the city through the sullen, obstructive crowd, he wondered how he had come to such a ludicrous pass: so attracted to a virtuous woman whom he had failed to seduce that for her sake he was living in a dangerous city, volatile as a powder manufactory, in the middle of a war that was no concern of his. The folly of it was not even amusing, he decided, as he rode up from the Lahore Gate straight into a party of English officers.

  ‘Afternoon, Byrd,’ called Lord Beaminster, riding beside Captain Thurleigh, ‘coming to the cockfight?’

  ‘I think not, thank you. I have some work to do.’

  They laughed at his seriousness, and rode off. He was left wishing that her husband was more like Thurleigh so that he would have had no compunction in forcing her to leave him.

  ‘I like that fellow,’ said Marcus, as they rode down towards the gate, ‘don’t you?’

  ‘Well enough. But I do not trust him. What is he doing here, an American? I can’t help thinking he must be in communication with that shocking American mercenary, old Harlan in the Punjab. Now that Runjeet is dead, things are rather ticklish in that area. Byrd could well be intriguing with factions here to ally them with Lahore. Why else would he stay?’

  ‘God knows, but I’m sure you are wrong. He probably does not fancy riding south while the country is so unsettled. Wouldn’t myself. But when we’ve got the Dost and pacified the tribes he’ll go.’

  ‘When. But with all this bungling and drivelling, God alone knows when that will be. If only the Governor General would make up his mind to it that the only way to settle this damnable country is to send up at least six more battalions, organize the place properly, hang the rebels and stop pretending that the Shah is in charge. But what happens? We send individual officers with insufficient troops all over the country to negotiate with all these treacherous chiefs and amirs. With what result? There’s Stoddart in the mad Nasrullah’s dungeons in Bokhara, poor Loveday in Khelat with the almost equally mad Balooches, and everyone in just as much danger from any crazy, treacherous Afghan chief whose territory he is sent to fix up.’

  ‘I never thought to hear you croaking, Thurleigh,’ called Lieutenant Conolly. ‘Anyway, my brother Arthur’s been sent up to Bokhara to get Stoddart out. And we’ll get the Dost this time, you’ll see.’

  But they did not even manage to confront him until the end of October. On the twenty-seventh he broke ground at last, and two days later Marcus and his men marched in pursuit.

  In spite of her hurt and anger, Perdita had found herself becoming afraid of what might happen to Marcus. Now, knowing that he was facing a full battle with the Dost, she could not help thinking of the effects of the jezails that would be aimed at him, and the swords, of which he had once been so admiring. In the light of the dangers he faced her feelings paled, and she began to remember the affection she had felt for him.

  Marcus’s troops found the Dost unexpectedly on a beautiful morning at the beginning of November in the Purwandurrah valley. The crisp autumn air was invigorating and reminded more than one of the English men of home, where one could breathe without swallowing the dust of India, and walk in the sunlight without fear of sunstroke.

  The valley trees were as golden as autumn leaves in England and seemed to make a fitting background for the triumph all the officers expected. They marched forward with confidence to make an end to the trouble and rebellion caused by their enemy.

  But they failed. Many of their native troops fled in the middle of the battle, leaving the officers to charge alone into the steadily advancing Afghan horsemen. Two young lieutenants fell, and there was almost no one who did not suffer sabre cuts or bullet wounds. Marcus himself received a glancing slash across his cheekbone, the sword missing his right eye by only a whisker. He killed the Afghan who had struck him, but was soon half-blinded by the blood that seeped into his eye. He tried to rub it away, but succeeded only in making it worse, and one of his men urged him to the rear.

  By the end of the day the Afghans were the unquestioned victors, but the Dost appeared to have no wish to press his success and, astonishingly, withdrew. The English were left to fall back on Caubul, to have their wounds dressed and to start to plan how to recover their lost prestige and superiority.

  It was clear to practically everyone by then that Shah Soojah was unpopular with his people and that the Dost was a hero to them. His generalship was demonstrably superior to the English in the wild and difficult country he knew so much better than they, and he seemed to be Splaying with them.

  There were simply not enough English troops
in Afghanistan to police the whole country and subdue the Dost’s supporters completely, even if they had been allowed to do so, and the only way to achieve the necessary support for the Shah was by bribery. Sir William Macnaghten’s expenses were running at nearly one million sterling, and yet the tribes seemed as ever to be on the brink of rebellion.

  The day after the humiliating defeat at Purwandurrah, Sir William was taking his customary evening ride, frying to flog his exhausted brain into considering how to escape from the disastrous mess into which his army of occupation had fallen, when an Afghan horseman rode towards him. To his astonishment, and indeed that of everyone else who heard the story, the Afghan turned out to be an emissary of the Dost. He announced that his master was at hand and in a few minutes the Dost himself rode up, dismounted, and handed his sword to Macnaghten in surrender.

  Relieved almost to the point of euphoria, the English treated their late enemy honourably and took him to the Residency compound, where he was accommodated as comfortably as possible in a tent pending his removal to India. He proceeded to impress practically all the Europeans who saw him or spoke to him, and they began to compare him all too favourably with the puppet king thay had imposed on Caubul. But Macnaghten could not change horses in mid-race, and the Dost was duly packed off before the weather broke and snow closed the passes to India, soon to be followed as far as Jellalabad by Sir William, the Shah and their staffs to escape the worst of the coming cold.

  They left the rest of the occupying force in some idleness, to fill their time as they chose with shooting, skating on the frozen lakes around the city and any other amusements they could invent or adopt from the Afghans. Marcus, in particular, had time on his hands, since James Thurleigh had had to escort his chief to Jellalabad, and so he turned once more to his wife.

  For her part, Perdita had discovered that most of her hostility to him had been dissipated as she nursed him through a bad fever that was the result of his wound. As she had sat by his bed day after day, she had come to remember his gentleness and his care as much as the bitter hurt he had unknowingly dealt her. And so, when he came to find her one morning in December to cajole her into riding with him, she greeted him with a smile and an outstretched hand.

  But he thought she looked worried, and said:

  ‘Tell me, Perdita, what is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing very much. The sirdar-bearer has just told me that my syce is dead. Apparently it was pneumonia, which is rife in the city.’

  ‘Well, never mind that. We can certainly find you another. There must be many spare servants after all the actions in the autumn. I’ll have a word with Johnson.’

  ‘Please don’t trouble, Marcus. Lieutenant Sturt has told me of an Afghan, an excellent man, who would make a good groom. I have already engaged him.’

  ‘I think you should get rid of him, then. A Hindu would be much safer. I should not like the idea of your riding among these hills with a tribesman.’

  ‘Lady Sale thinks we should all be employing Afghans. She believes, or rather Sturt believes, that it is the only way to show these people that we are not their enemies, and to learn what they are really like. Sturt thinks this man trustworthy – and he is certainly a far better horseman.’

  Marcus said uneasily:

  ‘Well, I think I’d better have a word with Sturt.’

  They left the subject then, and agreed to ride into Caubul, where Perdita wanted to buy trays and new cutlery for the house, as well as some of the least stinking sheepskin coats she could find. The weather had turned very cold, and she was afraid that it might make the children ill.

  Whenever they went out of doors she saw that they were well clothed and she told their ayahs to wrap strips of coarse cloth around their boots as the Afghans did. The other English ladies mocked her and Maria Jamieson often said carefully within her hearing that the little Blagdons looked like bazaar brats.

  Marcus laughed at her too sometimes, but kindly. He used to tell her that she was making them all soft, wrapping them up for outdoor amusements as though they were heading for the North Pole. She always answered him seriously, one morning reminding him:

  ‘You have only just recovered from a bad fever; there is a lot of pneumonia about; Annie’s lungs are probably weak, and I could not bear her to contract phthisis like her mother. I think it is important that I keep you all warm.’ Then she went on, ‘Sometimes I wish that you were on Sir William’s staff so that we could winter at Jellalabad with him and the king.’

  ‘Never mind. From what Thurleigh writes, it is not so much warmer there.’

  ‘Have you heard from him then? Has there been any news of Lieutenant Loveday?’

  His face tightened and his eyelids dropped. Perdita knew then that the gallant young man must be dead. She waited for details but all Marcus said was:

  ‘When our people reached the fort at Khelat they found his body.’

  He turned away so that she would not ask any more, knowing how she would hate the knowledge of what had been done. He himself would rather not have known that Loveday, a brave and very generous man, had been starved to the point of complete emaciation, chained naked to a camel pannier and beheaded, apparently only hours before the relief force marched in.

  Perdita knew that her husband did not want her to say anything more and so she changed the subject by asking if he would escort her to the lake where most of the English practised their skating. He had nothing to do now that the country was virtually pacified and Thurleigh was ninety miles away in Jellalabad, and so he shook the memories of Loveday out of his mind and agreed to go with her.

  They rode off together, enjoying the bite in the air and the look of the snow-covered country. It was a clear day, and the sun beat down all round, sending sharp intense light into their eyes. More than one of the English had suffered from snow-blindness before they had learned to take precautions against it, and Perdita often found herself dizzy and almost nauseated by the brightness. Once or twice she had even wondered if she might be going to have a fit, but she had gradually become accustomed. And she enjoyed the winter: the snow seemed to gentle the mountains and, in whitening the forts and softening their edges, made the plain seem less sinister. The white covering also gave the city itself an illusion of cleanliness.

  The lake was about six miles from the cantonment, towards Istalif, and the Beaminsters rode there on strong yaboos that Marcus had bought a few months earlier from an itinerant horse dealer. Aktur, the new groom, rode with them, for Marcus had taken a liking to him and had come to accept Perdita’s wish to get on terms with at least one Afghan. He had been a little worried a few days earlier when one of the chiefs had said to him:

  ‘We wish that you had come among us as friends, for you are fine fellows one by one, though as a body we hate you.’

  But as they reached the lake, he shrugged the thought aside, and helped Perdita dismount. He buckled on her skates and his own, and they skimmed off across the ice together.

  The cold brought colour into Perdita’s pale cheeks and she smiled happily as he wheeled towards her, taking her attention off her feet just at the moment when her leading skate hit a bumpy ridge in the ice. She staggered and fell towards him. He slid quickly forward to catch her and she landed in his arms. To her surprise he held her there for a few moments longer than he had to before helping her to stand upright once more.

  Neither of them had noticed Charles Byrd arriving at the lake with Lieutenant Sturt and his wife, Lady Sale’s daughter, and they skated off again to the far edge of the lake hand in hand. Charles stood on the edge of the ice looking after them in dismay. Jealousy was a new emotion to him; if one of his flirts had ever shown any signs of turning to someone else, he had always been able to shrug and think himself well rid of her. But this time, this woman was different.

  It was several days before Charles Byrd rode over to the cantonment to visit Perdita once more. He found her warming her long hands at one of the charcoal stoves in the drawing room. She looked
up as he was announced, and said with a smile that he found enchanting:

  ‘Why, Charles, where have you been? I have not seen you for days.’

  ‘I know, but I have seen you.’

  She looked puzzled, the smile fading at the anger that was all too clear in his voice. She said:

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the lake. I saw you and Beaminster, but you were so engrossed in each other that you did not notice me.’ He had tried to sound lightly bantering, but it did not work.

  ‘You sound angry. Please don’t be.’

  He looked at her, cursing himself for his absurd folly. He said:

  ‘It is very hard not to. He has behaved abominably to you, made you painfully unhappy, and yet he has only to smile at you and you forgive him everything.’

  She held out both her hands to him.

  ‘Charles, I have to. I have told you …’ He interrupted, taking her hands in a painful grip.

  ‘I know, I know. And I am a fool. I wish I had never come here – or at least left when you first told me to. But I can’t go now. The passes will be impossible until the snow melts. They say it’s a foot thick. But my love, tell me one thing.’ He stopped, and she waited, hoping he would not ask her, but he did:

  ‘Tell me, just once, whether you meant what you said to me that day.’

  She looked at him honestly and said:

  ‘I have never lied to you, Charles.’ But he pressed her, and in the end she said quietly, driven to it by his persistence: ‘Yes, of course I love you. But it does neither of us any good to say it. There is nothing I can give you, and if you are going to be hurt every time you see me on reasonable terms with my husband, our lives will be intolerable.’ She tried to pull her hands away. But he kept them, bent to kiss them and then said: