The Distant Kingdom Page 9

  While they had been in Simla she had hardly registered the fact that he was a soldier, but at the Station, hearing him speak of his men and the patrols and manoeuvres they carried out, she could not escape the knowledge, and it made him seem more than ever a stranger. When she understood at last that his reason for being in India was to fight, that he was trained to lead his men to death, her father’s words came back to her with increased significance. The idea of war began to obsess her.

  One afternoon soon after their arrival, she had lain down on the lumpy sofa in the drawing room and called a boy to pull the punkah to dispel some of the stuffy heat that was so tiring. She turned her face up to the expected draught as the clumsy contraption began to creak and swing, but all she felt was a cloud of gritty dust, and then, horribly, the corpse of a lizard that had made its hot-weather nest in the folds of cloth. To her shame, Perdita screamed. When the khitmgar came running, she ordered him to have all the punkahs in the house replaced, but that was the only improvement she made.

  Everything seemed a fearful effort and she was always tired, with a nagging pain in the small of her back that made it doubly hard to seem content. Small things irritated her more and more, and she began to feel aggrieved that Marcus had not noticed her malaise and that he spent so little time with her even when he was not on duty. But one morning when he had returned from his usual early ride, he asked if she were ill. She made an effort to stifle her crossness.

  ‘No, Marcus. I expect that it is just the change of climate; I felt very strange when I first landed in Calcutta last year, and this is almost as hot. I shall be better as soon as I become accustomed. And when I become more used to life in cantonments.’

  ‘Is it so different from Simla?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered baldly, and then, seeing the surprise on his face, searched for an unexceptional comment to add. ‘I find it so difficult to enter into the interests of the ladies here and they know nothing of mine. You see, I do not know – or care very much – what things cost, and that seems to be their chief preoccupation. And I know no scandal about the people they discuss all the time.’ She laughed a little to drive the frown from his eyes. ‘I expect I am a sad disappointment to them.’

  Marcus laughed, too, genuinely amused at that, and said:

  ‘I can imagine that their conversation is dreadfully dull, but as soon as you have recovered your health, you will join us riding in the mornings, and get away from them for a moment each day.’

  That ‘us’made her wonder, not for the first time, with whom he spent all his time. He spoke often of Captain Thurleigh and the other officers she knew, but she could not help thinking that he must also be seeing Major Jamieson’s wife. If it were she who shared his morning rides, Perdita decided that she would never join them. Even so, she smiled at Marcus and told him she looked forward to it.

  He left her then to the mercies of Maria’s mother, Mrs Fletcher, who had called dutifully to enquire after her health and to invite them both to dine. Perdita nearly always felt better by the evening, and the opportunity of getting away from her depressing house was too enticing to refuse.

  Pleased, Mrs Fletcher settled down to tell Perdita how important it would be for her to make a good impression on the other guests, and explained carefully how she should comport herself, warning her of the kind of entertainment she could expect.

  ‘Of course I shall not have any card tables, so you don’t need to worry that you can’t play. Lieutenant Smytham will be coming and the colonel wishes to keep him away from cards as much as possible.’

  Wondering whether he could be the same Smytham she had known on the Jupiter, Perdita asked a few questions. It became clear soon that he must be the same man, and she blushed at the prospect of meeting him again. It was hard enough to live cheek by jowl with Mrs Fletcher and her disagreeable daughter, who had seen her translation from despised spinster to young countess, but to have to face a man who had known her only as the black-clothed misery she had once been was daunting. And he had probably heard about the fit she had had and might tell people about it. Now that she seemed to have grown out of her affliction, she hated the thought of anyone knowing about it.

  When she saw Marcus again at tiffin, she asked him about the lieutenant’s position at the Station, and was very surprised to hear that he was in trouble.

  ‘I hadn’t realized that you knew him,’ said Marcus. ‘I don’t think you will see very much of him here. He’s been behaving very foolishly, playing far too deep. And now the shroff has refused him any more credit.’

  ‘What is a shroff?’

  He looked dumbfounded for a moment at her ignorance of what every griffin learns on his first or second day in India, but then remembering how new she was to the country collected himself enough to say:

  ‘A fact of life for young officers, I am afraid, my dear; a moneylender. One’s pay is so little, you see, that one goes first to borrow for a horse, perhaps, then for a hunting trip or a second horse or more servants, and perhaps for card debts. And then before you know where you are, you are borrowing to pay the interest on the first debt; and so it goes on. One foolish cold-weather’s spending can put a man in bondage for the rest of his life. Smytham has run through his own money already. He’s a fool – and still losing.’

  ‘Can’t anyone do something to help him?’

  ‘A friend might. Don’t look at me like that, Perdita. I didn’t mean that only a friend would take the trouble to try, but that he would listen only to a friend, and he won’t have any here. I believe the colonel has tried to talk to him, but he seems determined to crash.’

  ‘Poor man.’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered curtly, and Perdita decided that it was time to change the subject.

  But knowing that he was in trouble lessened her nervousness a little as she went to dress for the Fletchers’dinner. Determined not to give Maria Jamieson the satisfaction of seeing her appear clumsy or ill-dressed, she had spent some time trying to select the most suitable, of the dinner dresses her mother-in-law had had made, and had eventually chosen one of supple tigrine in a delicate Esterhazy grey, which was to be worn with a white crepe hat decorated with a curling ostrich feather. The pearls her father had given her at the beginning of the year would be suitable and she could wear the diamond and pearl drop earrings that had been his wedding present.

  She was still bothered about her appearance when Marcus led her into the Fletchers’house, but once she could examine the other ladies’gowns, she was able to relax. As far as she could see hers was no different except in its obligatory lack of colour, and her jewellery was second to none.

  Her confidence was just bringing a nice colour into her face when Mrs Fletcher introduced her to Lieutenant Smytham. Looking up into his bleak face, she was relieved to detect no signs of recognition and greeted him with equanimity.

  In fact he had recognized her almost immediately and in a detached way wondered at the change in her. The promise of good looks he had once discerned in her seemed to have been fulfilled, despite her obvious exhaustion and uncertain colour, and he would have liked to talk to her. But he was too far into his own private hell to be able to make any real contact with anyone. He addressed a few civil inanities to her but as soon as she was joined by her husband he moved away.

  Later in the evening Smytham thought he saw Perdita looking at him with sympathy and something very like affection, but he dismissed the fancy, unaware that by then she had been told every detail of what had happened to him.

  It had been Maria Jamieson who had painted in all the background to the picture Marcus had sketched for her Over a glass of warm, sickly lemonade, Mrs Jamieson said with satisfaction:

  ‘Oh yes, he was jawaub’d all right.’

  Perdita looked blankly at her.

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Jamieson, but I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘How silly! I keep forgetting how little you know of our ways here in India,’ answered Mrs Jamieson with a kind of pitying
pleasure. ‘It means “refused”. And because of it he is going to the devil. Miss Fuller is beautiful, of course, but that was not why he was so determined to marry her. She has thirty thousand a year.’ The sharp voice deepened in respect. ‘But her guardian saw what was happening and dismissed him, and now no one will allow him near her daughters unless they are so poor and plain that any husband would be better than none. I should not be saying this, except that I know you would never repeat it.’

  Perdita looked at her in distaste, and said:

  ‘Certainly not. But are you quite sure that you are not doing Lieutenant Smytham an injustice? I expect he cared deeply for Miss Fuller. I do not think you should say such things.’

  It did not occur to Perdita that her attitude to Mrs Jamieson had changed, but the difference in her behaviour struck the beauty with considerable force. Accustomed to Lady Beaminster’s timid acquiescence, or at the least silent disagreement, Maria Jamieson was distinctly resentful of the outspoken criticism, and when she found herself standing next to the Resident’s daughter after dinner, described not only Lieutenant Smytham’s latest excesses, but also the disagreeable airs the new countess had put on, and how little they became her.

  ‘After all,’ she added with a little laugh, ‘Major Jamieson is vastly senior to dear Captain Blagdon. Oh, how silly of me, dear Lord Beaminster. I do think someone should give her a hint; she should be told that it will harm his prospects if his wife insults the wives of his superior officers.’

  ‘I do not suppose that he will mind that very much. I can’t imagine that he will stay for very much longer in India,’ replied her companion drily, putting her finger on one of Mrs Jamieson’s many resentments against Perdita. The Jamiesons were trapped in India, utterly dependent on the Company and ultimately facing an impecunious old age in some provincial town in England, while Perdita Beaminster had the money and position to go home whenever she chose.

  The result of the dinner was hardly what it was supposed to have produced. Far from ensuring that Perdita became part of Station society, it achieved the opposite, for Maria Jamieson was not alone in her dislike. After a few weeks of sharing their jealousy and criticisms of the woman who had so sadly failed to fill the position she had unaccountably won for herself, the ladies of the Station ceased to pay calls on her. That suited Perdita very well, and had it not been for the tedium of her life and the continuing symptoms of ill-health, she would have been almost content.

  The only thing that kept boredom at bay was the letters that Juliana sent from all the possible points on her overland journey home. They tended to come in batches of four or five and kept Perdita amused for hours at a time. Occasionally Juliana lapsed into forebodings about living with only her mother, retired at Beaminster, or wrote sadly of Augustus, but in the main her letters were full of fun, and Perdita would search for amusing things to write in turn so that she gradually found herself seeing the funny side even of the ladies who could make her feel so uncomfortably inadequate.

  Marcus watched her slow acclimatization with relief, and blessed his little sister when he understood how much her letters lightened his wife’s mood. He wished he could do something similar himself, never realizing that all she wanted from him was the kind of casual gesture of welcome and comfort that he and his friends exchanged without thinking whenever they met. Marcus knew that his wife hated, and felt humiliated by, his visits to her room as much as he, and he tried to avoid touching her at all other times. He had no conception of her yearning to lay her head on his shoulder and feel his arms around her.

  He worried, too, about her health, noticing her increased pallor and disinclination for meals, which had not gone off as she became accustomed to the changed climate. Indeed, the weather had become almost cool, yet she still suffered. He eventually asked the regiment’s doctor to call on her.

  That evening, when Marcus returned to cantonments after leading a patrol to investigate some reported trouble in a neighbouring native village, he found her lying on her sofa, an expression of half-secret pleasure on her face. She held her right hand tightly over her left, afraid that she might upset him by holding them out to him, and said as quietly as she could:

  ‘Doctor Pooley says that I am with child.’

  Thoughts poured through his mind; he wanted to respond adequately to this gift she was bringing him, to the reprieve from distasteful duty that was implicit in her pregnancy, to the rare happiness on her face, but he did not know how. He smiled worriedly and tried to speak. Then he moved towards her; noticing that she squeezed her hands still more tightly together, he stopped himself from laying one of his own on them, and finally found some words:

  ‘I am very glad, but I hope that you are not too uncomfortable.’

  She tried to match his tone of distant courtesy as she said:

  ‘Oh, no. And Doctor Pooley says that in a few weeks I shall no longer feel so nauseated in the mornings. He tells me that the child will be born in April, and he thinks it excellent that I’ll be back in the Hills by then.’

  ‘I see. That is good. I shall write at once to Mama; she will be so pleased. But should you not be in bed?’

  ‘Doctor Pooley said that I must rest in the afternoons and retire by eight o’clock, but that I should not fancy myself to be ill.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Pooley, but you must tell me of anything that you need, or anything you would care for to make you more comfortable.’

  She looked up at him for a moment.

  ‘All I need is more books to read, but they will come soon. Juliana has promised me all the latest publications she can find when your mama takes her to London.’

  He said nothing then, but resolved to write urgently to Calcutta, where it was possible sometimes to purchase English books.

  It was almost six weeks before the rumour of Lady Beaminster’s pregnancy drifted round the Station, and aroused the other wives’ interest in her once again. Several of them invented reasons to call on her so that they could verify the news and tell her all about their own confinements, but Mrs Jamieson was the first. She arrived with her mother, full of a story of her daughter’s cleverness in tricking her unfortunate nurse in some game they played.

  But all thoughts of little Susie were driven out of her head at the sight of the Countess of Beaminster, looking extraordinarily healthy and really quite beautiful, actually on her knees on the floor unpacking a large box of books.

  She scrambled up as they were announced, dust and scraps of rush from the matting clinging to her misty grey muslin gown, and loosened wisps of hair curling around her rosy face, to shake hands and apologize for the mess.

  ‘Beaminster has had all these sent up for me from Calcutta. He knew that I had read all my existing books too many times, and so he has done this. Is it not charming of him?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ answered Mrs Fletcher politely. ‘I thought they must have come from England.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ came the innocent answer. ‘This one seems to have been printed in Calcutta, and this, Lady Annabella, in America.’

  The polite smile on Mrs Fletcher’s crumpled face shrank as she said:

  ‘I know that it is not your fault; you are still very ignorant of life in India, Lady Beaminster, and you may well have heard some teasing talk when you were in Calcutta, but it is very wrong to buy Indian or American versions of English books. Several people have told me that the Governor General’s sisters are purchasing Indian printers’illegal editions of Pickwick as it comes out, but I cannot believe such a thing. They know as well as I that it is our duty as English people in India to stand out against these pirates.’

  ‘But I am told that the English Lady Annabella will not be available here for at least another year, and then it will cost twenty-two shillings, instead of the three rupees Beaminster paid for this edition.’ Perdita was rather proud that for once she could discuss prices as all the other English ladies did, but it did not help her.

  ‘I am afraid that this is a case where your sens
e of duty must conquer your desire for pleasure, Lady Beaminster.’

  Perdita was about to reply crossly, but she suddenly remembered a piece of advice her father had given her right at the beginning when he first explained to her about the memsahibs, and so she said:

  ‘I understand now. Thank you so much for telling me.’

  The response so pleased both Mrs Fletcher and Maria that they stayed for another hour, regaling Perdita with all the tittle tattle of the Station.

  The most interesting subjects were the increasing possibilities of what they described as an exciting war in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Smytham’s continuing progress towards ruin, and the fascinating news that the Governor General, Lord Auckland himself, and his two sisters would be stopping at the Station on their stately progress up through India to Simla. The gubernatorial caravan, they told her, included over 800 camels and 140 elephants besides 12,000 people, stretched out for at least ten miles on the march, and raised dust clouds that could be seen throughout the surrounding country.

  ‘And they have a full orchestra,’ added Maria Jamieson, ‘so it has been decided that the Station should hold a ball for his lordship and his sisters – the Miss Edens, you know – and they will lend us their musicians. It will be wonderful to be able to dance properly again.’ She achieved a sigh that was supposed to indicate how much she missed the sophisticated season of a capital city which she had never in fact enjoyed. ‘But how cruel of me. Of course you, dear Lady Beaminster, will not be able to dance. You must forgive me.’

  ‘Willingly. But I never really cared for dancing and so it will not matter that by then I shall be too cumbersome to do anything but watch.’