An Absent Wife (2 page)

“You stupid, stupid man,” came the rather unexpect
ed reaction from his aunt Isobel when he went around to tell her the news of Adele’s demise. The distressed woman with brown hair like his confronted him.

“I really can’t see how you can lay the blame of this on me,” he defended himself as he stoo
d in his aunt’s sumptuous parlor.

“You let her run off with that man
—to India of all places—a place with every tropical disease under the sun.  It was only a matter of time before she caught something.”  Isobel’s voice faded and she brought her hand to her forehead in a clear sign of distress.  Truthfully, Isobel’s reaction annoyed him.  She always insisted on being Adele’s champion—even after everything the stupid girl had done.  If anyone was responsible for Adele’s death, it was Adele and her lover.  He certainly hadn’t sent her traipsing off across the world to conduct an illicit affair.

“I most certainly did not.”
He hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from his aunt who was pacing up and down in front of the window. He’d failed to see why his aunt would blame this on him. It only reiterated how illogical women were, or else his aunt hadn’t entirely grasped the situation. Perhaps senility was setting in.  She was a bit young for senility, but she could be one of the unlucky few who were afflicted with such early in life. He vowed that he would have to keep a closer eye on his aunt in case that was true.

“Men!” she said with unguarded anger.

“I am going to go there and collect her things.”

This seemed to calm his aunt and she nodded.
“You have informed her family?”

“I have.
I went around and saw her cousin.” It had been an unpleasant task, but luckily the relationship between Adele and her older male cousin hadn’t been close and the news was received as unfortunate, but not overly distressing. Lysander was grateful that Adele’s parents were not alive to hear such sad news, but he supposed they were all together now. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed that, but it was nice to think it was.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

His aunt nodded again.

“I am traveling through the Suez,” he said. His aunt turned away, giving him her back. He had upset her again. “I need to make some preparations.”

His aunt finally turned back to him and her face softened.
“Be safe. Don’t take any risks.”

“I am only going to
India; I’m not invading a country.”

“All the same, be careful.
It is India; it has dangers beyond what we know here. You must come back in one piece or you will break my heart.”

“Yes, Aunt,” he said, slightly embarrassed that she sometimes had a tendency to treat him like a boy.
He had accepted a certain lack of constancy in her character—her emotions seemed to sway her into illogical responses. Giving his aunt a kiss, he escaped out of her house. It was always difficult dealing with his aunt. He knew she cared for him and ultimately wanted what was best for him, but she had strange ways of showing it sometimes—ways he didn’t understand.

That was the last requirement. He’d already told
Evie, who insisted on coming with him, but he had refused her offer. While he understood that Evie would like for them to travel together—doing so for the purpose of collecting his late wife’s belongings was inappropriate. Perhaps when he came back, he would take her somewhere and they could move past the whole strain of this debacle.

Lysander boarded the train to Dover at London Bridge, where he ran into Nigel Tunbridge, whose company he could keep all the way to Paris, where he would change trains to continue to Venice. His private compartment was comfortable when he wanted solitude to watch the scenery go by. Nigel, with his pervasive interest in birds, could be trying company as he explained the habits and destinations of every flying thing they saw out the window.

Lysander wondered if this was the way that his wife had come when she ran off with her friend
—likely having an intimate time with her new lover. Perhaps he should have brought Evie after all, considering the reverence Adele had shown to her obligations when she traveled. But he was a better man and would show appropriate behavior where it was due.

He rec
alled their wedding, where he’d been an angry and sullen young man. He hadn’t been rude to the girl, whose eyes were large with anxiety. She’d barely spoken loud enough for the Vicar to hear her answers. Her hand had been cold too, on that late October morning when they’d said their oaths in the parish church in Devon. Her dress was elegant, but it didn’t take due consideration to the weather and she looked pale and drawn with cold.

He changed trains in Paris without much trouble
, saying goodbye to Tunbridge on the platform. The porters organised the moving of his belongings and he only had to wait half an hour in Paris before he was on his way to Venice. He hadn’t been back to Venice since his youth and didn’t entirely appreciate the reminders of that carefree time. It had been a time before he had known that Adele would be forced on his life.

Lysander whiled away the hours by reading, playing cards and engaging with the people who were
traveling to Venice. The first-class compartment included respectable people of mostly English and French origin. It was noteworthy how easily connections could be drawn between the people in the train, even the French. Everyone knew someone who knew someone. It wasn’t a large world they inhabited, he conceded.

He
’d made a few new acquaintances by the time he had to board the ship set for India. Lysander hadn’t done a great deal of sailing—only the short trips between Dover and Calais—so a longer journey was something new. He’d never been past Venice either and watched the city with all its history sail past as they left on the evening tide.

It wasn’t a large ship as the dimensions of the Suez Canal imposed restrictions on the ships that co
uld pass through, but it was a well-appointed ship, meant for travel by people of consequence. There were a number of high-ranking British Military men on board—a few whom he knew through social circles.

He relaxed as they sailed through the blue wat
ers of the Mediterranean, marveling at the different light and colors this far south. Luckily it wasn’t summer, so he wasn’t burdened with excessive heat, but it did get warmer the closer they got to the Suez, where beasts pulled the ship slowly along the canal. Egyptian men with their tanned faces and white robes worked along the edges of the canal, guiding the beasts and selling all manners of things. The local men gathering to force the ship around some irregularity in the wall of the newly finished canal.

“Marvellous achievement this,” a General Hastings said.
“May be the best feat of engineering in the history of the world.”

“I
t certainly cuts down on the arduousness of the journey to India,” Lysander responded.  “For which I am grateful.”

“Certainly does.
Much more civilized than spending six months sailing around the Horn, constantly reacquainting yourself with the contents of your stomach. A man loses his bulk in that manner; although I must say, there are a few who would actually be better off for it.”

Lysander l
iked General Hastings.  He was a no-nonsense man, who was set to relieve another General in Madras. “I have never had the misfortune of experiencing that route.”

“And we will concede that we are now living in a better age.”

“Indeed.”

“What brings you to India?” the General asked.

Lysander looked away considering what to say. It would only prove embarrassing if he admitted he was traveling to collect the things of his inconstant wife. “Business.”

“Well, here’s to fruitful business,” the General said
, holding up his glass. “What are you drinking?”

“Claret.”

“Best start acquiring a taste for gin; it is necessary with the malaria that’s constantly hanging around.  Should start building up your resistance now.”

“Of course,” Lysander said.
He’d forgotten about the malaria and placed an order with one of the servers, to be delivered an ample glass of gin and tonic. It wasn’t a drink he normally chose, but the taste was not unpleasant. It was actually refreshing in the heat.

“Your wife will not miss you on such a long journey?”

“I dare say not.”

“It is good to get away from them at times.
My wife chides me every time, but she knew I was a military man when she married me. Odd creatures, women.”

Lysander didn’t argue.

Arriving in Bombay was challenging. If it hadn’t been for his weariness of seeing nothing but ocean, he may well have turned back.
As soon as he got off the ship, his senses were assaulted by everything at once. There were people yelling at him in languages he didn’t understand. The sun was bright and he felt the heat beating down on his head as he moved away from the cool sea breezes and the shade of the ship’s decks. He hadn’t actually been aware that heat could be this oppressive. His clothes stuck to every part of his body and he felt he couldn’t draw breath properly.

Two men grabbed his trunk when the ship
’s porters placed it on the docks. Lysander didn’t engage the men and he didn’t entirely trust them, but they had his trunk and they were waiting for him to move, following behind when he finally did move after a few moments trying to orient himself.

He saw General Hastings across the crowded dock, who gave a wave before getting into an open carriage that clearly belong
ed to the military. Lysander felt envious that there was a greeting party for the General when he—as a private person—was left to find a way on his own. The General’s carriage struggled to get through the crowd.

Lysander walked into the port
’s administrative building, which looked elegant, but the crowd inside provided no reprieve. A sea of white-covered bodies, some of them not entirely covered, Lysander noted. He finally found a European man wearing trousers and a vest.

“Good morning, I am Lord Warburton and I need to take the train to Calcutta.”
Someone pushed him from behind as he spoke and he almost crashed into the man he was speaking to. Annoyance gripped him, at the rudeness and lack of consideration.

“Pleasure, my Lord.
Francis Sallerser, East India Company. At your service. You will have to make your way to the train station. A rickshaw would be best. Just pick one outside; they will accept any coin.” He pointed to the other side of the building and Lysander groaned when he realised he had to make his way across the crowd.

“It is always like this?”

“Welcome to India,” the man said with a beaming grin. “It gets worse. Good luck.” The man patted him on the arm before his attention was drawn away and he shouted something at a man in what Lysander assumed was the local language.

Lysander turned to the men standing behind him.
“Rickshaw,” he said and they blinked for a moment before turning to eye each other, then turning and leading the way—roughly forcing their way through the crowd. These men had no qualms about pushing their way through the crush and Lysander congratulated himself on his own inventiveness in letting these local men navigate the throng.

They picked a
rickshaw for him and had his trunk loaded at the back of the contraption on which Lysander had to awkwardly climb up after paying his porters a few coins. He grabbed onto the sides as he felt as if he was falling as the man picked up the poles in front and started pulling it along, struggling with the weight. Lysander wasn’t sure this would work, but the man got the thing going and pulled them out of the covered driveway of the port building.

It didn’t take long
for Lysander to understand the meaning of the East India Company’s man when he said that things got worse. The street was too narrow for the traffic and every inch of it was covered by a body, a cart or a rickshaw. The rickshaws were definitely more nimble and Lysander tried not to jump every time a collision seemed narrowly avoided, much to his surprise.

The heat of the sun was on him again and he was further accosted by the bright
colors everywhere. Women wore all manners of bright colors and there were colors upon colors everywhere he looked. And the smell assaulted him, there was no escape and it undulated from one pungent form to another, while the noise pounded his ears. He couldn’t take it all in. He reconsidered yet again returning to the ship where things were calm and normal. This was utter madness.

Another near miss with a cart
made his heart twist as he held onto the sides so his finger were white. He had no idea where he was or where he was going. This man struggling with his rickshaw through the crowd could be taking him anywhere. In the end, he just had to close his eyes to all the things that were coming at him.

It took a long time, but he finally arrived at a rail station. It was just as crowded as every other part of this place.
He decided that the best thing for him to do was to focus on his immediate needs—getting his trunk down and into the building. Again, men appeared unasked and did it for him. He paid the rickshaw driver, having no idea how much his services were worth, but he seemed happy with the money he received and pulled his contraption away.