Winter saw that her hands were trembling and took the veil from her while Mrs Abuthnot swept the Gardener-Smiths off to the drawing-room, declaring that the remainder of the trousseau dresses were not in a condition to be displayed. A white lie that did not trouble Mrs Gardener-Smith, who was not in the least interested in Lottie’s trousseau, but had called in expectation of seeing Lord Carlyon.
There was to be a ball at Metcalfe House, the residence of Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, Chief Magistrate of Delhi, and Mrs Gardener-Smith hoped that Lord Carlyon might, if reminded of her presence, think to engage Delia for a waltz or the cotillion. But Carlyon was not in. He had ridden over to the Artillery Lines to see some carriage horses that an officer wished to sell, and would not be back for at least an hour. Mrs Gardener-Smith signified her willingness to partake of refreshments, and the two ladies fell to discussing the arrangements for the wedding and the various social engagements of the coming week.
A moonlight picnic on the walls of Delhi had been arranged by the livelier spirits among the younger officers, and neither lady was entirely sure that they approved of such a festivity. Naturally no young lady would be attending it unchaperoned, and both Mrs Abuthnot and Mrs Gardener-Smith would be there to keep a maternal eye upon their daughters. But all the same they were not sure that such an entertainment was not a little fast.
‘Although of course,’ said Mrs Abuthnot hopefully, ‘when the moon is at the full it really is almost as bright as day, and I hear that it is to be quite a large party. We are to start an hour before sunset so as to be able to observe the moonrise. It should be a very pretty sight.’
‘Does Lord Carlyon intend to go?’ inquired Mrs Gardener-Smith.
‘Yes, indeed. We are all to go. Except Colonel Abuthnot, of course. He says that such things are not at all in his line. But with Carlyon and dear Alex to accompany us we shall not want for male escorts, and shall do very nicely.’
Carlyon returned before the visitors left, and in reply to Mrs Gardener-Smith’s questions said that he had purchased a carriage and pair with the object of travelling in his own conveyance instead of by dâk-ghari when he left Delhi. He was at present engaged in the purchase of spare horses for the carriage, for although he himself preferred to ride, on a long journey a carriage was sometimes necessary.
Mrs Gardener-Smith was desolated to hear that Lord Carlyon intended to deprive them of his society, and hoped that he would perhaps find the time to visit Lunjore. She was sure that Colonel Gardener-Smith would be able to show him some tiger shooting in the surrounding jungle. She then turned the conversation to the ball at Metcalfe House and tomorrow’s moonlight picnic, where it remained until they were interrupted by the return of Colonel Abuthnot, and the two ladies took their leave.
‘We shall be seeing you at the picnic then, Lord Carlyon,’ said Mrs Gardener-Smith graciously. ‘And the dear girls, of course. I can only trust that it does not rain. Not that rain is usual at this season, but there appear to be quite a large number of clouds about. I expect if it does rain it will be only a short storm. Enough to lay the dust. Until tomorrow, then. Come, Delia dear, the Braddocks will be wondering what has become of us.’
The clouds that had attracted Mrs Gardener-Smith’s attention produced no rain that day but provided a magnificent sunset, and Winter, riding with Colonel Abuthnot that evening to the Flagstaff Tower on the Ridge, looked out towards the distant city, the gleaming curves of the Jumna river and all the wide plain beyond, and saw them bright gold in the flaring glory of the setting sun.
The minarets and mosques and bastions of Delhi caught the light and glowed as though they were fashioned from molten metal, and in the far distance, rising above the domes of the countless tombs and the ruins of the Seven Cities that stretched away to the eastward, rose the tall tower of the Kutab Minar, a bright, lifted spear against a bank of purple cloud.
Winter drew rein to watch that brief vision of fantastic splendour, and as she watched, the gold turned to rose and the rose faded to lavender, until at last the battlemented walls, the soap-bubble domes, the minarets and the palaces were coldly mauve against the glowing sky, while the river ran blood-red across the darkening plain. And suddenly tears pricked her eyelids, because the evening was no longer full of beauty but of sadness. The sadness of past glory and lost empires. Of change and decay. It seemed to her as though there were something symbolic in that brief flare of beauty that had illuminated the city of the Moguls, and in the swift twilight that was swallowing it up…
Somewhere within those walls, a shadow among shadows, the last of the Moguls - an old, frail, withered pantaloon, stripped of all power and King only in name - shuffled through the marble magnificence of the palace built by Shah Jahan, composing Persian couplets to fill his aimless days. And the echo of a long-ago voice seemed to whisper in Winter’s ear - the voice of Aziza Begum, telling a small girl stories in the twilight: ‘… and the sands crept in upon that city and buried it, and it became as if it had never been.’
Colonel Abuthnot had also been thinking of that same walled city. But his thoughts had evidently taken a different turn from Winter’s, for he said unexpectedly and as though he were continuing some argument: ‘Yes, I suppose it would be possible. But the Army would soon set it all to rights.’
Winter turned to look at him in some surprise. ‘Set what to rights, sir?’
The Colonel awoke from his reverie with a start. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I fear I was talking aloud. Silly habit. Matter of fact, I was thinking of an article that Sir Henry Lawrence wrote - oh, some ten years and more ago. Caused quite a stir at the time; a lot of people were displeased. But I cut it out. It was about Delhi, you know. He pointed out how simple it would be for a hostile party to seize it, and said that if such a thing should ever happen, twenty-four hours would see the rebels joined by thousands of sympathizers, and every ploughshare in Delhi beaten into a sword. Perhaps there is something in it. I have often felt, myself, that it might be a wiser course to have at least one regiment quartered inside the city. We furnish a guard of course, but that would be of little use if the city were to fall into hostile hands.’
‘Do you think that is possible?’
‘No, no. Of course not. Most unlikely. The country has never been quieter. It is merely a tactical point. In theory, it is possible. But we could take the place again with little trouble. The rabble might turn against us, but they would have no chance against the Army. I would engage to re-take the city with my sepoys alone. No finer troops in the world!’
Colonel Abuthnot’s eye lit with the glow of a fanatic and he treated Winter to a lengthy anecdote concerning a minor skirmish of thirty years ago in which a company of native infantry under his command had acquitted themselves with considerable gallantry.
‘Should have sent ’em to the Crimea,’ concluded Colonel Abuthnot roundly. ‘By Gad, they’d have shown some of those Horse Guards fellows what they were made of! Too cold, of course - they couldn’t have stood the climate. But give ’em the right officers and there’s nothing they can’t do. Finest troops in the world! It’s an honour to lead ’em, and don’t you let anyone tell you different, m’dear. Men like Carlyon don’t know what they’re talking about - hardly possible of course. No experience. But still—’
Colonel Abuthnot, who fondly and proudly regarded his entire Regiment as a conglomerate favourite son, sounded faintly ruffled, and Winter concluded that Lord Carlyon had been expressing himself tactlessly.
‘Odd fellow, Carlyon,’ mused Colonel Abuthnot, his cherubic countenance puckered in a thoughtful frown. ‘Don’t quite know what to make of him. Charming fellow. Excellent shot, and it’s a pleasure to see him on a horse. All the same there are times when—’
A bat flittered past the Colonel’s head and he awoke from his musings and realized that the swift dusk was closing in upon them and the rock-strewn Ridge was already faintly silver with moonlight. ‘Come, my dear. We must be getting back, or Mrs Abuthnot will be thinking that we have
met with some accident.’
They turned their horses towards home and cantered sedately back through the dusk to the neat white bungalow in the cantonments where the lights were just beginning to show through the trees.
22
There were clouds to the north-east of Delhi on the evening of the moonlight picnic: a threatening bar of greyness that lay along the horizon, though elsewhere the sky was clear. Mrs Abuthnot had regarded them with some anxiety, and had been with difficulty restrained from bringing an assortment of capes and umbrellas to the picnic and ordering the closed carriage. But Alex had assured her that their presence merely indicated rain somewhere in the foothills; adding that if it had been raining up north he might well find himself being held up on his way back to Lunjore.
The low sun bathed the walls of the ancient city in warm splendour and dazzled the eyes of the earlier arrivals who strolled upon the broad battlements that lay between the Kashmir Gate and the Water Bastion, overlooking the green tangle of the Kudsia Bagh. Supper would be spread near the guardhouse on the bastion near the Main Guard, and meanwhile the guests walked upon the walls to watch the sunset and wait for the moon to rise over the Ridge.
Carlyon, Winter and Alex had ridden to the picnic, while Mrs Abuthnot and her daughters had driven in the carriage. The ride had been a pleasant one, though a trifle dusty, and Carlyon had behaved in an exemplary manner. He could be excellent company when he chose and this evening he had exerted himself to please, so that by the time they arrived at the Kashmir Gate Winter was feeling quite in charity with him. Riding in under the massive arch of the gate they dismounted before the Main Guard, where Alex had stopped to speak to a jemadar of the guard, and had been hailed by a man on horseback who was approaching the gate from the direction of St James’s Church.
‘Alex, by God!’ The man had spurred forward and leaning down from the saddle smitten Captain Randall between the shoulder-blades. ‘When did you get back? I haven’t had so much as a word from you in half a year, you ingrate.’
Alex had turned swiftly and gripped the proffered hand. ‘William! What the devil are you doing here? They told me you were in Dagshai.’
‘So I am - officially.’
Alex said: ‘Get down off that horse and join us. Condesa, may I introduce Lieutenant Hodson. William, the Condesa de los Aguilares and Lord Carlyon.’
Lieutenant Hodson reached down a hand to Winter and said: ‘Will you forgive me if I do not dismount? I have been suffering from a dislocated ankle and can do little more than hobble when on the ground.’
He was a slim wiry man, as slim as Alex, though a little taller, and looked to be a few years older; but where Alex was dark-haired and deeply sun-burned, this man was of almost Nordic fairness. The Indian suns, that had apparently had no power to tan his intensely white skin, had bleached his blond hair and long cavalry moustache to a yellow so pale as to be almost white, and only his eyes were dark. They were remarkable eyes, of so deep a blue as to appear black at first sight, and large enough to have graced a girl, but as hard and fierce and glittering as a hawk’s.
He shook hands with Winter, favoured Carlyon with a direct look that appeared to sum him up, analyse him and dismiss him in one brief second, said: ‘Your servant, sir,’ and turned back to Alex with an inquiry as to his injured arm. Winter and Lord Carlyon had continued on their way and joined the remainder of the party on the ramparts, and Alex said: ‘William, your manners are as abominable as ever.’
‘Nonsense. You cannot expect me to waste time uttering social inanities when I have not seen you for close on two years. Get back onto that spavined animal you have there and ride with me. I can’t talk to you here.’
Alex swung himself back into the saddle and the two men rode out through the gate and turned right-handed along the far side of the deep ditch that formed a wide, dry moat between the walls of Delhi and the open country and jungle-like greenery of the Kudsia Bagh.
‘Who was the Spanish beauty?’ demanded Hodson, ‘and what are you doing in such company?’
‘Acting as duenna,’ said Alex with a grin. ‘The Spanish beauty has come out to marry my respected chief, and I have had the thankless task of seeing to her safety during the journey. I escorted her out from England.’
‘What?’ Hodson threw back his head and shouted with laughter. ‘Now I have seen everything!’
‘It has its humorous side,’ admitted Alex with a somewhat wry smile. ‘But then I admit I had not visualized, when I joined the Bengal Army, finding myself called upon to act in almost every civil capacity from magistrate to midwife. Being employed to bring out brides for senior officials should be no surprise, and not much worse than being saddled with the care of a stray orphan, which I seem to remember you suffering from on one occasion.’
‘My God, yes! Shall I ever forget it? The tasks we are called upon to do in this country would raise the hairs on the head of any Horse Guards officer. Who was the lordling? Don’t tell me that you have been press-ganged into bear-leading the globe-trotting nobility in addition to nurse-maiding your unspeakable chief’s betrothed?’
‘Not yet. Though I daresay I shall come to it - all is grist to the mill in this service. Lord Carlyon is merely visiting in Delhi.’
‘Dangerous look in his eye,’ commented Hodson. ‘I had a horse like that once. Thoroughbred, with the lines of an archangel and as full of vice as Beelzebub. I shot him. Which reminds me, you didn’t tell me what you’ve been doing to your arm. Riding accident? Or did someone put a bullet through you?’
‘The latter,’ said Alex, drawing rein among the scrub and the grasses that fringed the banks of the Jumna river. ‘It’s a long story, but I propose to inflict it on you. The sling, however, is merely a façade. It could have been discarded some days ago, but I find it useful.’
He smiled, and Hodson, who unlike Lord Carlyon had reason to know that particular smile, said accusingly: ‘What devilry are you up to, Alex?’
Alex laughed. ‘No devilry I assure you, Will. But it does not happen to suit me just now to involve myself in a brawl with his noble Lordship, and while I carry one arm in a sling he can hardly be as offensive as he would wish. One cannot insult a man who appears incapable of repaying the insult with a blow.’
The hard blue eyes regarded Alex with a speculative interest not untinged with surprise. ‘What’s plaguing you, Alex? Afraid of a scandal?’
‘Good God, no. It is only that I, like you, distrust the type. He does not care to be crossed and is, I think, egotistical enough to go to almost any lengths to avenge an injury. He has influential friends, and at the present moment I have no particular desire to have complaints laid against me in Calcutta - or anywhere else for that matter - and possibly find some uninstructed Johnny Raw replacing me while I am sent to kick my heels in a useless backwater.’
‘As I have been,’ said Hodson grimly. ‘You heard, did you not, that I had been removed from command of the Guides, and that there had been a court of inquiry on my actions? Yes, of course you did. You wrote.’
‘And offered to come up and strangle young Taylor for you,’ said Alex. ‘It is a pity you didn’t accept the offer. How do you do now?’
‘Oh, they proved nothing of their case. But the findings exonerating me have been filed in some government pigeon-hole, there to gather dust while I kick my heels in Dagshai. I tell you, Alex, it is damnably hard to begin again as an infantry subaltern after more than eleven years’ hard work. I shan’t stand it much longer. I shall give ’em another six months, and if by then I have still received no satisfaction, there will be nothing left for it but to decide between suicide, resignation, or desertion to the enemy - or forcing the Governor-General to eat his words and apologize! I rather fancy the latter.’
Alex said: ‘Come on down out of that saddle if you can hobble as far as the trees. I have more to say to you than can be comfortably said sitting this fidgeting animal.’
He offered a hand, and having tethered the horses the two men move
d off between the tussocks of grass and seated themselves on the river bank, looking out across the Jumna that lay all pearl-pink and glinting in the evening light.
Behind them, a mile or so distant, ran the low line of the Ridge, and to their right the walls of Delhi glowed rose-red in the dusty glamour of the setting sun, while upstream stretched the curves of the river, the wide white sands and the wider plain, with the white roof of Metcalfe House showing above the thick green of trees.
Alex looked over his shoulder at the thicket some ten paces behind them, and Hodson, interpreting the look, said: ‘There are peafowl in that cane-brake. I saw them move as we passed. If anyone comes that way they will warn us.’
Alex grinned appreciatively. ‘You are a great man, William.’
‘Not yet. But I shall be. God willing, I shall be.’
The words were spoken entirely seriously and Alex said abruptly: ‘You have not told me yet what you are doing here. Have you taken French leave?’
‘More or less.’ Hodson put up an impatient hand, and pulling off the peaked pith helmet that he wore, tossed it away into a clump of grass and ran his fingers through his yellow hair. ‘I came because I heard that a friend of yours was expected in Delhi. I have a few friends of my own in the city, and I thought it worth while to make some inquiries.’
‘A friend of mine?’ Alex frowned at the tone of his voice.
‘Sparkov.’
‘Gregori!’
‘The same.’
‘Then he must have moved damned quickly. I saw him in Malta on my way back here.’
‘The devil you did! What was he doing there?’
‘Plotting murder and mayhem,’ said Alex. And retold the story.
Hodson listened without interruption and when he had finished said:
‘Very interesting. But I imagine that means he is not in Delhi - yet. Farid Khan sent me word that he was expected, although he did not say when, nor did he say how he had come by the information. I came down because I thought I might get more out of him, but something or someone has scared him badly and he isn’t giving anything away. Still, it’s something to know that Kishan Prasad is one of Gregori’s contacts: I’ve met the Rao Sahib. A clever devil and likeable.’