The Distant Kingdom Read online

  ‘Perdita?’

  ‘Yes; what is it? Are you not well?’

  He looked at her as though she were half-hidden in a fog and said only:

  ‘It is time.’

  She did not understand anything except that he was not happy, and so once more she stretched out a hand to him. He came towards her, touched it briefly and then drew back the bedclothes.

  The smell of brandy on his lips was almost nauseating, and his face, so close to hers, seemed to be that of a stranger. She shut her eyes, saying over and over again to herself the words Lady Beaminster had said about her duty.

  What followed can have taken little more than ten minutes, but it left her feeling battered, ashamed, embarrassed and longing for comfort.

  She was not completely ignorant of the mechanics of copulation – no one brought up in farming country could be – but she had never thought of the ugliness and brutality of agricultural mating in connection with herself; still less with the civilized, quiet, infinitely superior man she had married.

  She kept her eyes shut to block out his unfamiliar face, but when he started to groan frighteningly she opened them again, shocked and worried. After a moment or two the sound ceased and he flopped forward to lie still at last, his head near her shoulder. Very concerned, she said quietly but with urgency:

  ‘Marcus, what happened? Are you all right? Marcus?’

  He did not speak, but she could feel him breathing, so that her first panic fear that he had suffered some fatal seizure was calmed. She waited, not daring to move or speak, for whatever was to happen next, embarrassingly aware of a trickling sensation between her legs. She hoped he had not noticed it, but she was very afraid that he must have. She would have liked to apologize for it, but could not have spoken of such a subject if her life depended on it. She started to wish he would move away from her.

  Almost as though he had sensed the thought, Marcus pulled himself up and away. She averted her eyes once more, anxious to see nothing of him. When he had extricated himself and stood beside her adjusting his dressing gown, he said in a voice from which all roughness and brandy had been choked:

  ‘I am sorry, my dear.’

  At that she opened her eyes again and saw in his a reflection of her own unhappiness. She tried to smile as she said:

  ‘I too.’

  He dropped his hand on to her shoulder in the gesture she had seen him use with his friends, and squeezed hard for a moment before he left her. With that brief clasp she was a little comforted.

  She longed to wash and change her frilled white nightgown, or at least have clean sheets put on the bed, but she could not have borne to call her ayah to witness what had happened. She eased herself to one side of the bed and lay in sticky discomfort, worrying about the servants’reaction in the morning, about facing Marcus again, and about the horrid ache in her back and whether something inside her had been damaged. She slept very little.

  When Edward came to visit her the next afternoon he found her languid and hollow-eyed, and as soon as they were alone asked if something had happened.

  ‘Nothing that I should not have expected, Papa,’ she said. He left his chair and went to sit beside her on the sofa, patting her clammy hands.

  ‘Was it very bad?’

  ‘No,’ she said, laying her head on his shoulder and feeling the grateful warmth of physical kindness for which she was so starved. It seemed that he understood for he held her close for a moment, before he said:

  ‘I think you need some diversion, now that you have lost Juliana. Will you let me take you to visit an Indian lady of my acquaintance tomorrow? I often drive to see her in the afternoons, and I am sure she will be delighted to see you.’

  Perdita sat up, immediately interested, and said:

  ‘But Papa, my Hindustani is not yet good enough.’

  ‘No matter. Aneila speaks English. I cannot take you today, but tomorrow I shall collect you at two o’clock. She lives a few miles outside the town but we shall be there soon after four.’

  Then they talked of other things and after he had left her she was able to greet Marcus and Captain Thurleigh with reasonable composure when they returned from their afternoon’s ride. Captain Thurleigh shook hands with her politely, and for the first time in days Marcus smiled at her instead of at the air to one side of her face. He asked her how she was feeling with real concern. Seeing the surprise in his friend’s face, she hastened to say:

  ‘Oh, my headache is almost gone, thank you. I shall be better after dinner. I do hope that you will be staying, Captain Thurleigh.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Thurleigh politely, and added: ‘Perhaps you would sing for us later.’ Her frightening sense of aloneness began to ease.

  Dinner that evening seemed friendlier, and Perdita found herself responding to Captain Thurleigh’s conversational overtures with less fear than usual, and, she believed, making slightly more intelligent replies. After dinner they sang a duet, an old English ballad both had learned as children, while Marcus watched them, his beloved features gradually relaxing in the candlelight as the two voices mingled and answered each other.

  When their guest had finally left, Marcus returned to the drawing room and said:

  ‘That was very good of you, my dear, when you must be so tired after your headache.’

  ‘Not at all, Marcus. I like to sing, and you must know that I shall always try to please you, to be the kind of wife you want me to be.’

  She watched him withdraw into his formal courtesy to say:

  ‘You are very good.’

  When he left her at her bedroom door again, she thought with relief that the previous night’s visit was not to be repeated, but later, when the servants had disappeared, he came again to her room. This time was not quite so bad; she knew what to expect. But again she kept her eyes closed until she felt him leave her, and heard his sad apology. Once more she tried to reach him, and once more she was left rebuffed and alone.

  The following afternoon Edward arrived to take her for the promised drive, and, at first, she was happy. They did not talk much but once more she felt herself to be in the hands of someone who could help her to cope with life.

  Although most of the sky was obscured with heavy white clouds and there was no direct sunlight, the drive out of Simla was pretty. Perdita soon lost her languor in looking about her at the deep precipitous valleys below the bumpy road, the sudden glint of water through the dark trees that filled the ravines, and the colourful birds that flashed and darted past the carriage.

  Edward was pleased with her reawakening and did his best to answer her questions about the things she noticed, but he was lamentably ignorant of natural history and could not identify the birds that were unfamiliar to her or name the gigantic climbers that hung in curtains of delicate flowers from the trees they passed. At one moment she turned, laughing, to say:

  ‘Why, Papa, how can you live surrounded by all this and not care to know the names of the plants and creatures?’

  ‘My dear Perdita, I have always thought it enough merely to enjoy the beauty of the scenery without troubling myself with its scientific components.’

  ‘Well, I think it decidedly shocking,’ she answered, and he was pleased to hear the mischief in her voice. In mock solemnity he answered:

  ‘I shall endeavour to improve my mind.’

  He was glad to see that she had some colour in her cheeks again and a sparkle in her eyes. Her carriage dress of lilac jaconet, en pelisse, was becoming and her big creamy leghorn bonnet made a charming frame for her face. She looked happy once more, and he thought that if only Aneila could help her over the trickiest hurdle of any new marriage, she would be all right.

  They drove on through a small hill village, admiring the picturesque dress of the women and ignoring the menacing expressions of the narrow-eyed men at their sides. As they left the squalid little houses behind, Perdita asked:

  ‘Is it much further, Papa?’

  ‘Not very. About ano
ther twenty minutes. You will probably see the house once we have rounded that corner, there. Look up to your right.’

  She followed his instructions, and saw the outlines of a modern bungalow clinging to the top of the hill above the road.

  ‘It must have a spectacular view,’ said Perdita.

  ‘Yes. Aneila has always liked to “see out” as she puts it.’

  ‘Have you known her long then?’

  ‘Yes, for many years,’ answered Edward, wondering whether to explain his relationship with her to his innocent and so easily shocked daughter. If he had not at last decided to marry Aneila, he might have given in to her doubts about this meeting, but he thought Perdita would find it impossible not to like Aneila, and he could not think of anyone better qualified to tell his daughter the things she ought to have learned from her mother before she had ever had to suffer at the hands of her husband.

  He turned his horses into the steep path that led up to Aneila’s house, pointing out the fine specimen trees she had had planted in her large garden and trying to stifle his sudden doubts. English women were so damnably distorted by their wretched upbringing. He reminded himself caustically that that was precisely why he had brought Perdita here, pulled his horses to a halt, and handed her out of the carriage.

  Aneila was welcoming, and Perdita found herself enchanted both by the house and by its mistress. She was tiny, not much more than five feet tall, with bones as delicate as some tiny woodland creature’s under her ivory skin. Her sari was of grape-coloured silk, most beautifully embroidered in gold. Perdita decided that she had never seen a more graceful or lovely woman in her life.

  She summoned up enough Hindustani to apologize for not being able to converse properly, and Aneila clapped her hands and exclaimed that few English people made such progress, and that she should not be ashamed. Then she rang a small brass hand bell and called her servants to bring tea, saying something to Edward that Perdita could not quite catch. He rose and told his daughter that he would return soon, adding:

  ‘Our hostess tells me of a matter which she wishes me to attend to for her. I shall not be very long.’ He hurried out, hoping that Aneila would be able to do as he had asked in spite of her reluctance.

  But when he returned a little less than an hour later, he realized that the attempt had failed. Perdita was sitting stiffly by the window gazing out unseeingly at the distant bluish-purple hills, with the familiar white distress on her face, and Aneila’s expression of shame told him much. He said quickly in Hindustani:

  ‘I am sorry. I see that I was wrong. I shall take her away now, but I shall come back as soon as I can. Do not be sad.’

  And she answered:

  ‘It is I who should beg forgiveness. I have dishonoured you in the eyes of your daughter.’ He stroked her face briefly and walked towards Perdita.

  She started at his touch, but pulled herself together enough to rise, thank Aneila formally and follow her father out of the house. Once in the carriage, however, she rounded on him and, with a passion he had never seen in her, said:

  ‘How could you? Why should you do such a thing to me?’

  He waited, unsure of precisely how to answer her.

  She went on:

  ‘That woman was, is, your … Oh I cannot say it.’

  ‘I am glad of that at least,’ he answered in a biting voice she had not heard from him before. ‘Aneila is a woman I have loved for many years. She has borne my children.’ He ignored Perdita’s angry look. ‘And now that I am free she has agreed to become my wife. I see that I should have told you all this before, but I assumed your good manners would prevent what you have just done; and I wanted you to know her before I told you she was to become your stepmother.’

  ‘Now that you are free of a tiresome daughter, you mean?’ Her angry voice shocked him into replying more truthfully than he might have done:

  ‘I had not thought of that. It is true that I should not have married her while you were living in my house, because there is no doubt that having an Indian stepmother would have made your life difficult with the memsahibs. But I really meant that now that your mother is dead, I am free to marry.’

  The hurt of it silenced Perdita. It was as though whenever she felt secure in her affection for someone that person would change and become quite different: Uncle George, Marcus Beaminster, and now even her father. As though he understood a little of what she felt, he said more gently:

  ‘Aneila and I care for your happiness, my dear child. I asked her to explain to you some things that could make your marriage easier and help you to be happy with Beaminster. She did not wish to, but because she knows that I love you she was prepared to try. I gather that you did not let her.’

  ‘What she said was disgusting. It is bad enough that marriage should entail what it does, but to behave like that …’

  ‘I hope one day you will know something of the great happiness that Aneila has brought me.’ He was silent for a few yards and then said carefully: ‘Relations between men and women can so easily plunge them into hell that deliberately to refuse to learn to avoid that is stupid.’ His voice changed into the brisker one she knew. ‘I hope that you will write apologizing before you leave for the Plains.’

  Marcus was surprised to see her face so drawn when he returned to the house just before dinner, and he asked, concerned, ‘Did you not enjoy your drive?’

  ‘Not very much.’ She looked at him, thinking that at least he had none of the coarseness that seemed to infect even the best of other men. Whatever happened between them at night, during the day he was always as gentle as she could have wished. She asked with some difficulty:

  ‘Are you dining out?’

  ‘Not if you wish me to stay with you.’

  She smiled at him gratefully, but shook her head.

  ‘I shall be all right. I am just tired. If you have an engagement, I shall go to bed, I think.’

  ‘Very well, my dear,’ he said relieved, and went off to dine with James Thurleigh and Major Jamieson.

  Chapter Six

  By the end of August, the thought of leaving Simla without making peace with her father had started to torment Perdita, and so she called at Whitney House one morning about three weeks before she and Marcus were due to leave for the Plains.

  Edward greeted her kindly enough, and watched in some sympathy as she struggled with her apology. When she had blurted out some clumsy words, he patted her hand and said:

  ‘It is as much my fault as yours. I ought to have told you more about Aneila before I introduced you to her. I am sure if you came to know her you would understand a little more.’

  ‘I’m sure I should, Papa. I am sorry.’

  He brushed her reiterated apology aside and said:

  ‘She understands. I hope that when you come up next year you will be able to be friends with her.’

  ‘I hope so too, but I don’t suppose I shall be here. Surely Marcus won’t be able to have so much leave again so soon?’

  ‘Probably not, but that has nothing to do with it. It would be very bad for you to swelter in the Plains just because he has to. As I told you, I may not be here myself, but the house is at your disposal whether I am or not. I am sure Beaminster will see the propriety of your coming up here. If you like I’ll have a word with him.’

  Perdita smiled gratefully, and as she saw the familiar crinkling at the corners of her father’s blue eyes she felt herself to be forgiven. Nevertheless, his words had roused a latent anxiety and she said:

  ‘Is there still danger up in the north then?’

  ‘You mustn’t be anxious, Perdita. Any government expects trouble on its frontiers. It may still be possible to sort this out peacefully,’ he said reassuringly; and then, seeing that she was not convinced, he went on, ‘But whatever happens, it will not touch you. Any fighting will take place hundreds of miles from here and even if Beaminster were to be involved – and there is no certainty of that – I should take care of you while he was away.’


  Perdita paled at the thought, but looking up at him she was reassured by something in his smile and said:

  ‘I hope it will be arranged diplomatically, but Papa, please be careful. It would be worth not having you here next summer if you can stop them going to war … but I wish I knew that I would see you then.’

  ‘My dear child, it is not I who can decide on whether there will be a war or not. I only take messages. But you know that if I can be here I shall, and in any case I shall arrange things with your husband. I am sure I can persuade him to let you come up.’

  In fact he had no difficulty. Marcus knew quite well how tiresome English women found the heat, and he had always expected to send her to some Hill resort or other. He was only relieved that she would be able to go to her father’s house instead of to some strange place where she would be lonely.

  Edward watched the sudden lightening of his son-in-law’s eyes as they spoke and wished he could be certain of its cause. Yet again he wondered why Beaminster should have married Perdita. He appeared to be treating her properly but he did not have the air of a man in love. Then, suddenly impatient with his anxieties, Edward tried to push them away; the thing was done now and provided he always kept an eye on her, he would have done all he could. Nevertheless his worries kept recurring.

  ‘If only,’ he said to Aneila a few days later, ‘she looked as happy now as she did on the day of his proposal.’

  Aneila, listening patiently as always, did her best to comfort him and explained that all women took time to become accustomed to leaving their father’s house for their husband’s.

  Perdita told herself the same thing day after day as she struggled with her continuing desire for some sign of Marcus’s affection. She soon learned to hide her needs, for she saw how they irritated him, and she tried to appear content. But that in itself became a Herculean task when he took her away from Simla to his Station several hundred miles to the south.

  The house he had leased for her was squat and dark, and although it was in a pleasant situation close to the parade ground, it was ugly and full of depressing, uncomfortable furniture. Perdita hated it. She knew that if she wrote to her father, he would have rugs and furniture sent down to her at once, but she could not make the effort to write. Marcus, too, would probably have given her anything she wanted, but he did not seem to understand how much she detested her new surroundings and she found she could not tell him.