The Distant Kingdom Read online

  ‘Well, it is something that I have not imagined your feelings, I suppose.’

  ‘Please don’t be angry,’ she said again.

  He let her hands go then and said more gently:

  ‘Only with myself, Perdita, for being such a sentimental fool. I can’t promise to leave you alone, but I shall do my best not to worry you with demands.’

  She asked him then about his work, and rang for some tea, so that when Marcus returned home forty minutes later, he found them decorously discussing the justification of civilizing savage peoples for commercial gain. Marcus joined them politely, and when Mr Byrd had left said to Perdita:

  ‘Interesting man, Byrd. I hope he makes a success of that book of his.’

  ‘So do I,’ she said smiling, ‘but he told me just before you arrived that he finds too many distractions here and cannot make himself sit down for the requisite number of hours each day. He thinks he ought to leave here and go somewhere where he knows no one.’

  ‘I doubt if that would work: he seems far too gregarious to be a solitary. Besides he’d be a fool to leave now. No one in his right mind would travel through those mountains in winter. There’s bad news again, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, no! What now?’

  ‘In spite of the Dost’s surrender, the Dourranis are agitating. Nott is said to be putting down their revolt, and then the politicals will have the tricky task of pacifying them once they’re beaten.’

  ‘Well, that ought to be all right: you told me that General Nott is a good soldier, and he has plenty of Indian experience.’

  ‘I’ve no doubts on that score. But there is some suggestion that the revolt was instigated from Herat.’

  ‘I begin to think there will be no peace in this country until whoever rules in Caubul is also chief of Herat.’

  ‘That’s what James says. But we haven’t the men to take it or garrison it properly afterwards.’ They were silent until he burst out. ‘It’s this wretched business of the pretence that we are here merely to support the Shah. We have to allow his people to ruin the balance we might have achieved by tyrannizing over some of the tribes. We cannot administer the province as though it were our own, but we are stuck here in expensive support because alone he would be helpless. I ought not to say this, but I wish to God it was the Dost we were supporting. He at least knows what he is doing and has some strength of character. I am sorry, my dear, to fuss so. Do not let it worry you.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said thinking: how can it not worry me? Here we are in the middle of an intractable country, endeavouring to pacify a people that has never known peace in centuries. Our interference is resented and we should be entirely at their mercy if there were to be an uprising. I have two small children to protect and we are living in cantonments that could be taken by a determined assault in less than half an hour. The garrison would hardly be adequate even if it were all based at Caubul.

  She went away then to visit Lady Sale, who at least would never ask anyone to stop worrying. In fact she went so far as to criticize openly everyone from the Envoy and the Governor General to the young officers who, she believed, were making her husband’s task next to impossible. Then she started on the new Commander-in-Chief, General Elphinstone, who was making his painful way up to Caubul from Calcutta. Perdita knew nothing of him, and asked who he was.

  Lady Sale answered pithily:

  ‘No Indian service; no Hindustani or Persian; very bad gout; very charming. Useless for Caubul and nearly seventy I should think.’

  ‘It seems a pity that General Nott should have been considered ineligible. After all, he knows this country and has been very successful in action.’

  ‘There is more to this appointment than plain soldiering, Lady Beaminster,’ came the tart rejoinder, ‘and the trouble with so many Company officers like Nott is that they are sadly lacking in the skills and graces of diplomacy.’

  Belatedly remembering that as a Queen’s officer, Colonel Sale would not have a very high opinion of General Nott even if they had never quarrelled personally, Perdita said nothing more.

  The new general, who was in fact barely sixty, arrived with the spring and better news from the south. The military campaigns against the Dourranis and the western Ghilzais had been successful, and Sir William Macnaghten rode back to Caubul from his winter quarters to a reasonable welcome from the garrison.

  The rain poured down most days and the melting snow turned all the mountain streams into voracious torrents, but towards the end of April, the storms were interrupted, and outdoor amusements became possible once again. Like most of the officers, Marcus spent a good part of his time going after snipe and duck at the lake, while Perdita tried to keep the children amused out on their ponies. The birds Marcus shot made a useful variation to their tedious diet of mutton, poultry and preserved vegetables, but that did not compensate Perdita for the loss of his company once more.

  She had hoped, without really expecting it, that perhaps this time when Captain Thurleigh returned, Marcus might still spend some time with her. But it did not happen. Almost as soon as the court returned from Jellalabad, he began to dine out three or four nights in seven, and to spend less and less time at home with his wife. Even when they were together, he hardly spoke. Perdita began to feel bitter again, and to look forward more than ever to Charles Byrd’s visits.

  He called one clear afternoon at the end of April to ask her to ride with him to the tomb of Baba Shah. She had nothing to do; it was a week or more since she had seen him; and so she agreed.

  He seemed much quieter than usual, and hardly smiled. Perdita worked hard at making him talk as they rode across the plain, asking him at one moment whether he had been away. He said:

  ‘Yes, I went with Burnes for some shooting in the Kohistan. We got over forty-five different species of duck.’

  ‘Marcus would be very jealous of that. Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Not really.’ He turned his head to look at her, and said:

  ‘I find myself thinking of you whatever I am doing: riding, shooting, trying to read or work, I cannot get you out of my mind.’ She did not know how to answer the harsh tone in his voice, and they rode on in silence until they reached the tomb, where he made her dismount and give the pony’s reins to her groom.

  The tomb was a place they both liked, quiet, beautiful and rather sad. The monument itself was an elegant white marble structure with the wide, pointed arches typical of the best Islamic architecture, and it was surrounded by graceful shade trees: walnut mostly, with some mulberry.

  They walked through the trees and up the first flight of steps to discover that the tomb was empty. There was not even a disapproving mullah praying, and so Charles took her hands. Looking down at them, he said slowly:

  ‘Perdita, I cannot go on. I understand now that you won’t ever leave him, but I cannot stand back and watch any more. I have got to go away somewhere I can be free of you. At the moment I can’t work; I can’t do anything except think about you: when I am going to see you next, what I should say to make you see why we ought to be together, what you will answer … I have to go.’

  Standing so close to him, her hands imprisoned, Perdita was shocked by the pain his declaration brought her. She had never intended to go with him, completely sincere in her determination to make the best of her life with Marcus Beaminster, but the knowledge that even if he did not want her Charles Byrd did, that Charles was there to help, amuse, comfort her had made it easier. She said painfully:

  ‘I think I have been very selfish.’

  ‘Ah, no, love. Not that. You did not ask me to stay. I wish…’ He stopped, looked up at her at last, and said, ‘I wish that I could be to you all the things that he will not. But I understand now why I can’t. And so I have to go. You do understand that don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I understand. It will be better for both of us,’ she said, thinking: how shall I bear it? Why don’t I say, take me with you? If Marcus prefers to spend his time with Captain Thurleigh
, let him, and I shall go with you. But instead she asked:

  ‘Where shall you go?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll leave here by the Koord-Caubul and on to Jellalabad and Peshawar, and then decide. Perhaps home. I don’t know.’

  ‘Will you write to me sometimes, Charles?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘It would make it less … less terrible if I knew that you would write. What I mean is, then I would know that nothing terrible had happened to you.’

  He saw how much she minded his going. He started to speak, stopped and then said only:

  ‘Very well. And now, goodbye my love.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes. I won’t come back with you. You will be all right with Aktur, and I do not want to see you there again. Out here, under the walnut trees, you are Perdita, who loved me and was not afraid to show it; there, Lady Beaminster, with duties, obligations and civility.’ He leaned forward and she felt his cold lips on her forehead while his hands gripped hers so tightly that they hurt. ‘Goodbye.’ Then he left her.

  She waited, shivering, alone by the white marble tomb, until she heard his pony’s hooves on the uneven road. Then she walked slowly back to her waiting groom. She was about to ask him to help her mount, when she felt the ground lurch and the waves of heat churn through her. Dismayed, she recognized the signs and gripped her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to stop it, working desperately not to succumb to the overmastering force that tried to pull her down. In one gap she saw Aktur’s puzzled face, and managed to say in Pushtu:

  ‘Wait, all will be well.’

  But the switching of her concentration was disastrous and she felt herself go.

  The next thing she felt was something soft under the bruise on her head; then the pain on her lower lip, which felt as large as a cricket ball. She tasted blood in her mouth and knew that she had had another fit. She felt too tired to remember where she had been when it happened, or who she was or even who was with her. She closed her eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was dusk before she woke fully and tried to get up. A peculiar smell seemed to surround her; she soon traced it to a filthy poshteen on which she was lying. Some memory functioned and she said:

  ‘Aktur?’

  ‘Yes, lady-sahib, I am here.’ She looked across in the direction of the voice and saw that he was squatting at the foot of a mulberry tree, watching her, an expression in his dark face that she had not seen before. He looked awed. She dismissed the thought impatiently and held out one hand for him to help her up. When he had adjusted her stirrup and handed her the reins of her yaboo, she thanked him, and asked him to tell no one except the lord-sahib what he had seen. Slightly to her surprise, he agreed fervently.

  When she reached the house, she found Marcus waiting for her in a fret of impatience. As soon as he saw her and took in the mud of her skirt and the blood on her lip, he said angrily:

  ‘Where have you been? What has happened?’

  ‘I am sorry, Marcus. I rode with Aktur to Baba’s tomb and then I had one of my turns. I thought I was cured and I am truly sorry, but I cannot stop them. I did try.’

  ‘My dear, forgive me,’ he said at once, ‘but I was so worried. Lieutenant Flecker was fired at this afternoon by a party of tribesmen and I was afraid something had happened to you. Come, come and sit down.’

  ‘I had better wash first, I think, Marcus. I am sorry you have been anxious.’

  He said no more then, but later he asked her not to ride outside the cantonments without his escort or that of another British officer. She agreed hesitantly, but was unable to ignore the good sense of his prohibition. It made no difference, though, for the next few days, because the aftermath of the convulsion left her feeling weak and suffering from an unpleasant nagging headache she could not throw off.

  When she eventually got up again, recovered but still very pale, the fading bruise on her head felt like the memory of Charles’s farewell: an ache, reminding her of the past that she could not ignore. But both dwindled as the months continued and present anxieties took over from them.

  Feelings among the occupying army were running high. General Elphinstone, charming though he might be, was despised by most of the senior English officers, especially his second-in-command, Brigadier Shelton, and the government paid no attention to his various, suggestions for improving the garrison’s situation. They even refused his offer to purchase, out of his own funds, some land near the perimeter of the cantonment to make it more secure.

  He had been selected for the post at Caubul because he seemed likely to conciliate Sir William Macnaghten, who had seriously disliked his predecessor, Sir Willoughby Cotton; but Macnaghten’s temper was becoming shorter and shorter, and even Elphinstone’s charm did little to help. It was well known, even among the most junior officers and their wives, that the Envoy would brook neither criticism nor any suggestion that the country was in a dangerously volatile state, or admit that the cantonments were the worst sited, worst defended any soldier would ever see. It was also known that Sir William was being badgered by Calcutta to reduce the expenses of the occupation.

  Perdita hoped that that might mean its being abandoned, with the regiments being sent back to Hindustan. Like many others she could see no good coming of it; the delights of the climate and scenery had come to seem insignificant in comparison with the hatred she could now feel all around, and the knowledge that there were only two possible routes out of the country, both in the hands of wildly resentful tribes.

  The only Caubuli who did not exude hatred, Perdita sometimes thought, was her own groom. But one morning when she had ordered him to bring her pony round to the front door, even his face was tight and his eyes cold with anger. She was shocked enough to ask him if there were something the matter, but he only stared at her and made some remark about the feringhees that was incomprehensible to her except in its tone of loathing. She pressed him, in her slow Pushtu, and eventually she grasped the fact that his sister had been dishonoured by an English officer. It took Perdita some fame to understand exactly what he was telling her, but in the end she understood that the girl, aged fifteen, had been seized by an English officer and raped.

  Perdita was disgusted and although her first instinct was to ignore what she had learned, she soon knew that she could not. Quite apart from the political implications of such crass behaviour at such a time, she felt a horrified sympathy for the unknown Afghan girl.

  She asked Aktur if he knew the name of the man involved. He did not, but he knew enough to describe him as a lieutenant in Marcus’s regiment with fair hair that waved and blue eyes. There was only one man who fitted that description, Lieutenant Flecker, and Perdita could well imagine him behaving in such a way.

  Telling Aktur that she had no wish to ride out after all, and that she would speak to the lord-sahib about the officer, Perdita went back into the house, certain that Marcus would see the necessity of punishing the man. But when she had told her husband the story, he was unhelpful, explaining that there was nothing he could do and, worse, showing all too clearly that he was shocked that she should raise such a subject.

  ‘But Marcus, that young girl has been criminally used. Something should be done.’

  ‘No doubt, but if he paid her some compensation that would be an admission of his guilt and we should be in a hell of a mess. I am sorry, my dear, but you will have to leave it alone. There is nothing to be done.’

  ‘Pay her?’ repeated Perdita, shocked. ‘How could money make up for something like that?’

  ‘All Afghans love money. Besides, why should knowing the man was punished make what she says happened any better?’

  ‘Of course it would not. But it would at least deter him and others from doing any such thing again. And it would demonstrate to her and her family that we do not condone what happened, that our shame and disgust equal theirs.’

  ‘Well, we cannot. Any admission of guilt would be wrong. And I must ask you not to refer to the subject again. It is not fit f
or you to speak about such things.’

  Perdita looked at him, angrily thinking of all the things men can do to women. She said:

  ‘It is too important to ignore. If you will not help I shall go to Major Jamieson and if he will not then to the colonel. If necessary I shall go to General Elphinstone himself. I mean it, Marcus. No woman could stand by knowing that another has been raped and do nothing.’

  He saw that she was in earnest and, despite his dislike of the matter, said:

  ‘Very well, if it will calm you, I shall speak to the major.’

  Perdita never asked what he had said or if he had had to argue, but one afternoon he came back to the house and told her that Lieutenant Flecker was to be transferred to Candahar. Marcus said:

  ‘I must stress to you that this is no kind of punishment. The colonel considered that if an Afghan family was accusing a British officer of such a thing, it would be safer for him to be elsewhere. Do you understand?’

  ‘I believe so. But, Marcus, tell me why he is not to be punished,’ she said in as neutral a voice as she could achieve. He understood that she was not arguing in order to score points, and so his sense of fairness would not let him ignore the question. He said:

  ‘Because that kind of thing never happens to a completely innocent female; and it would not be possible to punish one man for what many did when the army first arrived.’ Seeing that she was angry and about to speak, he went on: ‘This is a most distressing subject. The lieutenant will be leaving with his company on Thursday and you must leave the matter there.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said, wanting to say furiously: what do you mean, not innocent? She was fifteen, never went outside without a chadri, and he abducted her. But she recognized the finality in his voice, and she did not want to jeopardize the careful equilibrium of their relationship by forcing through it. All she could do was tell Aktur as gently as possible that his sister’s assailant had been found and was being sent away.