Winter’s arms had been hanging stiffly at her sides, but now she put up her hands and caught at his coat sleeves in an endeavour to thrust him away, so that for a moment it appeared as though she were returning her husband’s embrace. She heard the door open and found herself looking into Alex Randall’s expressionless face.
It was a sudden and nightmare repetition of the day at Delhi when he had walked in and found her in Carlyon’s arms. A nightmare with a cruel twist to it, because then she had been so afraid that it would be Conway who would find her in that degrading position; but it had been Alex. And now it was Conway who held her, and again it was Alex. But it was Alex whom she loved.
Conway released her and turned. ‘Hullo, Alex m’boy. Walked right in on the turtle doves, dammit! Have a drink. Make yerself at home. Nothin’ urgent, is it? because I ain’t got the time to look to it now. Here’s Mrs Barton already dressed, and I still have to have a bath and change.’
He shouted for drinks to be brought, took one himself and moved to the door. ‘Don’t go. M’ wife ‘ll look after you. Why don’t you stay t’ dinner? Good party on tonight. Capital crowd. We shall all be as jolly as grigs. Time you got yourself out of a rut. Shall expect you.’
‘I am afraid, sir—’ began Alex, and stopped. He looked at Winter’s drawn rigid face, and after a perceptible pause said quite deliberately and as though he had intended to finish the sentence that way ‘- that I have been neglecting my social duties of late. I should be glad to.’
‘Good, good,’ approved the Commissioner heartily. ‘Look after him, m’ dear.’
He removed himself, and Winter said stiffly: ‘I am sorry that Mr Barton should be unable to give you his attention, but we are expecting guests within the hour. I hope that your business with him will keep?’
Alex strolled across the room and came to a stop before her. He was feeling angrier than he had ever felt in his life. An entirely illogical anger, for surely he should be glad that she was not, after all, as unhappy in her marriage as he had supposed. Because of that anger his slight suggestion of a drawl was suddenly more marked.
He put his glass down on the chimney-piece and said: ‘I did not come here to see Mr Barton. I came to pay my debts.’
‘Your debts?’
‘Let us say, my thanks. I am afraid that I cannot have appeared particularly grateful to you this morning. But I am. I think I owe you my life, and the least I can do is to thank you properly for the gift.’ He looked down at her and smiled, not entirely pleasantly, and added: ‘I believe that I had intended to say something to the effect that it is now of course wholly at your disposal, but such statements are apt to sound better in a theatre, do you not think? So I will confine myself to saying “thank you”. I am indeed grateful.’
He reached out, and before she had realized what he meant to do he had taken her hand and bent above it formally, lifting it so that it barely touched his tight mouth.
Winter snatched it away and took a quick step backwards: afraid of his proximity and what it did to her, and bewildered by the derisive note in his voice. She said a little breathlessly: ‘You have nothing to thank me for, Captain Randall. I did nothing that anyone else would not have done in the same circumstances.’
Making a determined effort to steady her voice and appear calm and composed, she moved to a chair and sat down, her wide skirts spreading crisply about her, and said: ‘You have not told me what occurred this morning. Was there no one in the ravine, then?’
‘No, they were there,’ said Alex. He did not accept her invitation to be seated, but leaned his shoulders against the chimney-piece and looked down at her, his hands - which like Durga Charan’s were not quite steady - driven deep in his pockets.
He gave her an edited and colourless version of the happenings in the ravine, and passed on to other topics, mentioning that he had recently received a letter from Mrs Abuthnot, and inquiring if Winter had had any news of Lottie.
Winter had, in fact, received a long and rapturous letter from Lottie by the last dâk, but as it had been largely concerned with the many perfections of Edward and the sweetly pretty furnishings that Lottie had contrived for her drawing-room, there was little in it that could be expected to interest Captain Randall, while its only really important item of news - that Lottie had begun to cherish hopes of a child who would be born in midsummer - could not be imparted, since such things were unmentionable before gentlemen.
Captain Randall, however, did not stay long. He finished his drink and excused himself, saying that if he were to dine at the Residency that night he would have to change into more formal wear.
Winter rose with a rustle of yellow gros de chine. She had not looked directly at him during the past ten minutes or so, but she looked at him now. ‘Why did you change your mind about dining here tonight, when you had meant to refuse?’ she demanded abruptly. ‘I know that you do not like parties, and if you only wished for an opportunity to thank me, you have done that, and need not dine here if you do not wish to. I will make your excuses to Mr Barton.’
‘What makes you think I do not wish to?’
‘Well … you have never accepted any previous invitation to dine.’
Alex lifted one faintly ironic eyebrow. ‘Have I not? You must put it down to pressure of work. I daresay I offered some such excuse. But you are quite wrong. I like parties. It is only their after-effects that I have sometimes found tiresome. And I seem to have attended several this season.’
‘But none in this house.’
‘That was churlish of me,’ said Alex gravely. ‘But it will be remedied tonight.’ He bowed and went away, leaving her question unanswered.
He had returned some thirty minutes later, and Winter had had the doubtful felicity of observing that he appeared entirely at his ease among the inner circle of the Commissioner’s friends. Mrs Cottar addressed him familiarly by his Christian name and devoted a large part of her attention to him, and her conversation seemed to afford him considerable amusement. He had also made himself unusually pleasant to Delia Gardener-Smith, while at the same time blandly refusing to be drawn into any argument with Colonel Moulson, who continued to regard him with a hostile eye.
At the conclusion of the meal the guests had repaired to the drawing-room, where the furniture had been moved to allow space for a long table covered with a baize cloth on which cards and dice were laid out. There were usually several Indian guests on these occasions: rich landowners and noblemen, or their sons, who gambled heavily, and were on that account on easy terms with the Commissioner and his more raffish friends. Those who were Hindu, and whose caste raised difficulties in the matter of eating, would arrive after dinner, and tonight they were joined by Kishan Prasad, whom Winter had not seen since the day of her arrival at Calcutta.
She had been about to excuse herself on the plea of a headache, but two things had made her change her mind. The arrival of Kishan Prasad and something that had been in Alex’s face when he had seen him.
Alex had been standing at the far end of the room among a noisy group which had gathered about Mrs Cottar, and Winter had been covertly watching him. She had seen his gaze rest briefly upon Kishan Prasad, and had been suddenly aware that he had known that the Rao Sahib would be present that evening, and it was for this reason that he had accepted her husband’s invitation to dine. Perhaps he had even arrived at that particular moment in the hope of obtaining such an invitation, and for reasons of his own had made it appear as though he had at first intended to refuse? His expression had not altered noticeably at the sight of Kishan Prasad, but it seemed to Winter as though there was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes, as though he had bet on the turn of a card and won. Then he had turned his back and engaged Mrs Cottar in conversation as Winter moved forward to greet the Rao Sahib.
Kishan Prasad bowed formally in the Indian fashion and expressed his pleasure at meeting her again. She had never been able to rid herself of a slight feeling of repulsion towards him ever since the day that sh
e had surprised that look of gloating hate on his face as he watched a sinking, water-logged wreck in the wild dusk four days out of Aden. But he was of a very different kidney to those few of his fellow-countrymen who frequented the Commissioner’s less reputable parties, and she could not imagine him tipsy, obsequious or insolent, or permitting himself to be cheated at cards - treatment that she uneasily suspected was not unknown when the Tuesday parties had lasted well into Wednesday morning.
Card-play had not yet begun, and Kishan Prasad, having greeted Colonel Moulson and one or two other acquaintances, had drawn up a chair beside the sofa on which Winter had seated herself, and addressed her in his own tongue. Since she was well aware of his proficiency in English, she appreciated the compliment; together with the fact that he did not talk the trivialities of the Station. Kishan Prasad’s conversation was drily entertaining and rich with the imagery of the East, and Winter found herself conversing with him with more ease and interest than she had as yet enjoyed since her arrival in Lunjore, and could only be sorry when they were joined all too soon by Colonel Moulson and Delia Gardener-Smith and he reverted to English.
He inquired politely where Mrs Barton intended to spend the summer months, and on hearing that she would not be removing to the hills, advised her most earnestly to do so. She would, he assured her, find Lunjore unpleasantly hot from mid-April until the monsoon broke, and it had an unenviable reputation in the matter of high temperatures during May and June. He himself had visited Simla on more than one occasion, and he dilated upon its charms. She must persuade the Commissioner to permit her to sample the delights of the cool airs and the pines.
Delia had been pleased to be arch. She had informed Kishan Prasad that no loving wife would ever voluntarily allow herself to be separated from her husband, and that were she married she knew that for her part she could never endure to leave her husband’s side even for a week. No mountain airs could compensate for such deprivation! She had allowed her gaze to rest innocently upon Colonel Moulson, who had twirled his moustache and expressed approval of such womanly sentiments.
Kishan Prasad remarked drily that Miss Gardener-Smith had yet to experience a hot weather in the plains, and turned the conversation to the forthcoming duck shoot at Hazrat Bagh, a jheel that lay some fifteen miles to the west of the cantonments. Hazrat Bagh - the ‘Grove of a Thousand Trees’ - had once been the site of a hunting park of some forgotten king, but nothing remained of it now except the lonely stretches of water and the intersecting bunds on which the ‘thousand trees’ - kikar and an occasional peepul tree - stood among high grass and reeds and provided excellent cover for sportsmen. And since there were no villages near the jheel, the waterfowl came there in their thousands.
The shoot was being arranged by some of the local talukdars, and food and beaters on an elaborate scale were being provided for the guests, who included most of the British officers stationed in Lunjore. Those ladies who had been invited to attend as spectators would watch the battue from the tree-lined bunds or from an artificial ‘hide’ to one side of the jheel, and several hundred sepoys were to be lent for the occasion to keep the birds from settling on outlying jheels and inaccessible stretches of water. A road was in process of construction so that the ladies would be able to drive there in their carriages, since the jheel lay far from any made road and was at present difficult to reach even on horseback, owing to the roughness of the going.
‘I hope that we are to have the pleasure of seeing you there, Mrs Barton?’ said Kishan Prasad. ‘I am to be one of the hosts, you know.’
‘No, I did not know,’ confessed Winter. ‘But I shall certainly be there. I have never been out on a big shoot before.’
‘You must let me arrange a tiger shoot later on,’ said Kishan Prasad. ‘One may shoot duck in Europe, but a tiger shoot is something that you will see only in the East.’
‘For my part, I could not endure to attend such a thing,’ declared Delia with a shudder. ‘I am sure I cannot conceive how any lady could do so.’
‘Why?’ inquired Kishan Prasad. ‘Would it distress you to see so beautiful a creature shot? But tigers are vermin, you know. They prey upon the herds of the villagers, and in their old age they often take to killing men, while the duck you will see shot do no harm.’
‘Oh, but I did not mean that,’ said Delia, opening her eyes at him. ‘I meant the danger, of course. There can be no danger in a duck shoot, but a tiger shoot cannot help but be dangerous.’
‘That is why it is exciting,’ said Kishan Prasad with a smile. ‘No sport is worthy of the name that does not include an element of risk.’
‘Is that a creed, or merely an opinion?’ inquired a pleasant voice behind them. ‘Good evening, Rao Sahib. When did you arrive in Lunjore?’
They had none of them observed Alex approach, and Winter saw Kishan Prasad’s slight involuntary start at the sound of that voice; but he turned a bland countenance and his voice was as pleasant as Alex’s own:
‘A creed, of course, Captain Randall. I seldom advance opinions. I arrived at mid-day.’
‘In good time for the obsequies, in fact,’ said Alex with a grin. ‘I am sorry to have had to disappoint you.’
‘Yes?’ Kishan Prasad’s slim brows rose and he looked puzzled though polite, as though he imagined Alex to have attempted some Western joke, the point of which had escaped him.
Winter looked sharply from one face to the other, for Alex’s apparently pointless remark was entirely clear to her, though she could not conceive why he had made it. To suggest that Kishan Prasad could have had any hand in an attempt upon his life was absurd, since the man owed his own life to him and was not likely to forget it. Yet she did not think that Alex was in the habit of making pointless remarks.
Had Kishan Prasad known that there was to have been an attempt to kill Alex? No, of course that was impossible! … Or was it? She could not be sure, and because she was not, she was all at once afraid.
Alex laughed, but did not explain himself. He said instead: ‘I hope you mean to invite me to your tiger shoot. When is it to be?’
‘I have not thought,’ said Kishan Prasad gravely. ‘It was not a plan, merely a suggestion.’ He met Alex’s gaze blandly, holding it for a long moment, and then said gently: ‘Some time in the hot weather, shall we say? They are always easier to deal with in the hot months, for instead of ranging at large they are forced to keep near water, and are less active.’
‘That is not a thing that I should care to count on,’ said Alex, regarding him under drooping eyelids.
Kishan Prasad shrugged his shoulders: ‘But of course not. Did I not say that there is always an element of risk? It is for that reason that one should take particular precautions when ladies are of the party. But there can be few ladies who would care to go on such a shoot during the hot weather, and I do not imagine that Mrs Barton will be with us then. I feel sure that she will have removed to some hill station to escape the worst of the heat. I have just been warning the ladies that Lunjore can be a veritable furnace in the months before the monsoon breaks, but coming from Europe they have as yet little idea of how fierce our Indian hot weathers can be.’
‘I shall do my best to impress it upon them,’ said Alex.
‘I am sure you will, Captain Randall,’ said Kishan Prasad with a smile. ‘Though I fear your warnings are doomed to be disregarded. You will find that those ladies who have not yet experienced a hot weather will be sure that you are grossly exaggerating the discomforts, while those who have will have forgotten just how bad they can be. So you see I am really quite safe in playing traitor to the climate of my native land.’
Delia said brightly: ‘Maudie Chilton, who has spent four seasons in Lunjore, says that it is best not to think of such things while it is cool, as once it becomes hot there is nothing to be done about it, and when it is over one can forget all about it until the next time.’
Winter could see nothing amusing in the remark, but both Alex and Kishan Prasad laughed, and t
heir laughs contained a disturbing and identical note of grimness. It was almost, thought Winter uneasily, as though their casual conversation had possessed two separate and distinct meanings, and that each knew exactly what the other had implied. She looked at the two men, and for a fleeting moment it seemed to her that there was a strange likeness between them. A likeness that had nothing to do with colouring or feature, but that went deeper than externals.
Kishan Prasad rose at the approach of Mrs Cottar and presently walked away with Alex, amicably discussing the forthcoming duck shoot, and Winter decided that she was letting her imagination run away with her. Yet she had not, after all, left the party early that night. She had stayed for the first time; watching Alex and Kishan Prasad, and telling herself that there was nothing there - nothing. That Kishan Prasad had not blandly presented Alex with some obscure piece of information or warning, or Alex recognized it as such.
The Commissioner had as usual drunk too much, and had eventually abandoned cards in favour of lolling upon a sofa at the far end of the room with his arm about Mrs Wilkinson’s waist - Major Wilkinson being at present in no state to resent such behaviour, having succumbed early to the effects of the Commissioner’s port.
Winter looked at her husband’s coarse, flushed face with its pale, protuberant eyes and drooping brandy-sodden moustache, and watched him fondle Chrissie Wilkinson’s plump bare shoulder while he whispered something in her ear that sent her off into peals of laughter. She knew that she should not remain and lend her countenance to such proceedings, and that she need not even trouble to make any excuses for her removal, since few if any of her guests would notice that she had gone. Yet she did not go. She sat stiffly upright, the yellow silk flounces of her wide skirt spreading out from below her slim waist like the petals of an overblown rose, and the same small frozen smile on her face that she had worn during the nightmare hours that had followed her wedding.
She could not leave, because Alex was there, and all at once it had become enough to be in the same room with him: to be able to watch his face and to hear his voice and his laugh. To realize, having visualized him dead, that he was alive and safe and real; and to feel the ache of loving him tug at her heart. Tomorrow, or the next day or the next, he might meet with another carefully planned accident, or die of cholera or typhus or black-water fever, or any one of the deadly diseases that ravaged India. Life was cheap in such a country, and a face seen laughing across a luncheon-table one day might well lie slack-mouthed in death less than twenty-four hours later, and be hidden under six feet of earth before another sun had set.