Dark Road to Darjeeling (28 page)

Just then I spotted the familiar butterfly net waving above the shrubbery, and I felt a pang of guilt. I had not visited with Robin in some time, and I wondered how he was taking the news of his friend the White Rajah’s abrupt flight. I followed the bobbing net for a little distance, finally emerging into a clearing where Robin was perched upon a rock.

He nodded toward the rock next to him where he had spread
the patterned bandanna handkerchief he usually wore tied about his neck. “Here is a place for you to sit, and I will share the cold tea in my flask, although I ought to be very cross with you.”

“Why?” I asked, heaving myself up onto the perch. I took the cold tea and sipped at it gratefully.

“I was about to capture a common blue Apollo butterfly,
Parnassius hardwickii,
but you crashed through the bushes and frightened it away.”

“You do have a right to be cross,” I agreed. “I should learn to walk more quietly.”

“It is a good skill,” he said generously. “Mother says the red Indians of America are as silent as panthers when they walk.”

“Are they indeed? Then I should not like to go to America. I do not like to be surprised,” I told him. His eyes widened.

“Not go to America? Are you entirely mad? It is the most wonderful place in the world! I mean to go there when I am finished with the Himalayas. Very little of the continent has been explored, not properly, you see. And I mean to catalogue the species that haven’t yet been discovered.”

“And you can write about them in scientific journals and even name one after yourself,” I put in.

He gave me a patient look. “It is not about the glory,” he said severely. “It is about the
knowledge
. About being the first person ever to say, ‘I have seen this, and here is what I have observed.’ Observation is the key to scientific accomplishment.”

“Of course,” I murmured. “And with your keenly observant eye, you will have noticed that the White Rajah is gone.”

His expression turned a bit sullen. “He might have said goodbye. I would have thought him past all of that nonsense at his age.”

“What nonsense? Do you mean marriage?”

He nodded. “Lady Eastley is nice enough, I suppose, but he is very old and old men do not need wives.”

“Perhaps he was lonely,” I offered. I could not very well tell the boy the real reason the old villain had eloped with Lucy Eastley, but it galled me to no end to defend him.

“Perhaps,” said Robin slowly, “but he had Chang for company, and he did have callers.”

“Did he?” I asked softly. “Anyone in particular?”

He furrowed his brow. “Dr. Llewellyn went to see him, although I think those were professional calls because Dr. Llewellyn is a medical man,” he said seriously, and I bit my tongue against correcting him.

“Did Harry Cavendish go to see him?” If Harry had gone, in spite of his protestations, it might lend some credence to my theory of Harry as murderer.

“No,” he said. “He spends too much time in our garden, wooing Miss Thorne,” he added, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, you know about that.”

“I am not stupid,” he told me with a certain stiffness. I would have to scramble to make up for the affront.

“Of course not,” I soothed. “I just would have thought romantic matters would have been beneath your notice as a scientist.”

“You would be shocked if you knew how much carrying on happens in this valley,” he told me soberly.

“Really? Is it such a hotbed of iniquity?”

He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “Mama took photographs of Primrose that were not nice at all. Quite disgusting in fact.”

“You know about the photographs?” I asked.

He stared at me. “
You
know about the photographs?”

“I saw them in an album,” I told him.

“When? How?” he demanded.

“It does not matter. They have been returned to your parents before they could do any harm.”

He rose, scrabbling together his things.

“Robin, what is the matter?”

When he looked at me, his face was red with anger, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “I have to go.”

Suddenly, with a flash of clarity, I understood. I put a hand to his wrist. “You took the album. You gave it to Freddie, and after he died, you went through his things. That is how you came to have his clasp knife.”

He wrenched his arm from my grasp. “I did not mean to do it. I did not think he would use them to hurt anyone.”

“Did he ask you to take the album and give it to him?”

“He said he just wanted to see the pictures. I did not know he would keep it. I told him it was not his property, but he laughed and said it belonged to him now and I had to keep quiet or my parents would be in terrible trouble, a laughingstock, and my sister would be ruined.”

He was weeping openly now. I put out my hand, but he reared back.

“He did mean to harm your family with the photographs, but he did not have the chance,” I told him. “It is all right, Robin. Your family are simply happy to have them back. You need have no fear or shame.”

He hesitated, dashing the tears away from his face with the back of his hand.

“But I must know, whom did you tell that you gave the album to Freddie? Someone knew, and they harmed him, perhaps to prevent him from hurting your family. Who was it? Was it your parents? Primrose herself? You must tell me. It was your father, wasn’t it?”

“My father would never hurt Freddie,” he shouted. Turning, he disappeared into the dense shrubbery. Giving chase would serve no purpose, I realised. The boy was fleeter than I and knew
the valley like the back of his own hand. I should simply have to wait and ponder the best way to approach the Pennyfeathers about their misdeeds.

That evening, we were a solemn group at the dinner table. The peacock dining room was still resplendent, but I felt Brisbane’s absence keenly. The mood was not lightened by Portia’s presence; she had quarrelled with Jane and the pair of them were hardly speaking.

“You will make it up,” I assured her. “Breeding women often say things they do not mean. Think of Nerissa,” I added. Our third eldest sister was notorious for her foul moods when she was carrying.

Portia merely shrugged and the conversation turned to the weather.

“I noticed quite a bit of wind coming off of Kanchenjunga this afternoon,” Plum put in. “Will that affect the growth of the tea plants?”

Harry shrugged. “If it carries too much rain it will, but it is early yet for monsoon. We will hope it is merely a passing storm.”

But the wind rose as we sat over our food, and Jolly came in twice to request permission to secure various shutters and doors against the storm.

“Is it really so bad?” I asked, thinking of my husband.

Jolly gave me a solemn bow of the head. “It is never peaceful when the five brothers of Kanchenjunga quarrel, Memsa Julie.”

“Five brothers?”

“The peaks of the mountain. There are five and they stand together as noble brothers. But sometimes they quarrel, as brothers often do. And when they quarrel, it is the mortal who suffers.”

He left us then and I fretted over his words, hating the thought
of Brisbane out in the gathering storm and cursing his father and Lucy for a pair of fools.

We withdrew to our rooms and I sat over a book, trying in vain to focus on the words as the rising storm shook the casement shutters. Suddenly, above the noise of the wind came a rhythmic pounding, a banging upon the front door. I rose and took up my dressing gown, emerging from my room to find everyone else gathering in the hall.

“This is most irregular,” Miss Cavendish said. “Harry, go and answer it.”

We followed as Harry went to unlock the great door and when he swung it back upon the hinges there stood a sodden Miss Thorne, so paralysed with cold and wet she could hardly speak.

“I have not yet doused the fire in the drawing room,” Jolly said helpfully, and between them, Harry and Plum managed to get Miss Thorne to a chair before the fire and out of her wet things. Jolly took her oilskin coat and her shoes, but she protested.

“I must go back,” she said through chattering teeth.

“Nonsense,” Miss Cavendish said with her customary brusqueness. “You are soaked through and will catch your death. You must remain here until you are properly warm and dry. It is our duty,” she added, as if to underscore that she would have done as much for anyone abroad on such a night. She signalled Jolly to bring tea and whisky and warm blankets and while he was gone, Harry knelt and began to chafe her feet and hands.

The warmth relaxed her, but only for a minute. She started forward in her chair. “You must find them. They never came back and no one knows what has become of them.”

“Who?” Harry asked, his voice low and soothing.

“The Reverend and Robin,” she said, her voice trembling
with fear. “They left before dinner and never came back. You must find them,” she pleaded.

“Where did they go?” Plum asked, his brow furrowed like a proper investigator. I had still not taken up with him the fact that he had gone into my husband’s employ without telling me. But I did not need to confront him, I reminded myself smugly. Father would make enough of a fuss for the both of us.

“They were bound for the ridge. Robin was afraid that the White Rajah had left some animals behind and they would be unattended. The Reverend suggested they go and bring them back and promised Robin he could keep them. Robin has always been fond of the White Rajah’s pets. There were birds and things, and I think a tame mouse,” she said, twisting her hands in her damp skirts. She did not look at Harry. Perhaps the closeness of the gentleman, given the twin burdens of affection and suspicion, was proving too much for her composure.

“They must have taken shelter from the storm,” Harry said, attempting to pacify her. “Robin is a clever lad. He would know there was a storm brewing on the mountain and if they were caught out too quickly, he would prepare. I daresay he took food for a week and his notebook,” he said with a touch of forced jollity.

“He took nothing,” Miss Thorne corrected. “I have already asked Lalita and she said the Reverend told her they would require nothing.”

“So they did not plan to be caught in the rain,” Harry reasoned. “They would still take advantage of the shelter of the monastery. And the White Rajah left so quickly, Chang most likely left a full store of food in the kitchen. They are probably up there right now, warm and dry and stuffed with
chapattis,
having a tremendous adventure.”

But Miss Thorne would not be persuaded. She permitted
Harry to hold her hand for a moment, then she threw it off, almost angrily. “I know something is wrong. I know it,” she insisted.

He exchanged glances with Plum. “Very well. I will go to the monastery. If they are in some distress, I will send back for Mr. March.”

“It would be faster if I came with you,” Plum argued. “If there is some trouble, then one of us can stay whilst the other returns.”

“Even better,” Harry said. He pressed her hands once more. “It will be fine, I promise you.”

Before he could engage in any more demonstrations of his affections, Miss Cavendish routed Miss Thorne out of her chair and upstairs, putting her to bed in the guest room after promising that she would be roused as soon as there was news of the Pennyfeathers. The rest of us retired to our rooms again, listening to Plum and Harry bashing about for a few minutes in their rooms, kitting themselves out for the beastly weather. They left and the house fell silent again, but not entirely. From Miss Thorne’s room I could hear the slow, even sound of footsteps as she paced.

I went to her room and knocked softly. She opened the door, her eyes wide in her unusually pale face.

“May I come in? I heard you pacing and thought you might like some company.”

She stepped back and said nothing, but gave me a grateful smile.

“Harry is right, you know. Robin is an extremely capable child. I am quite certain he would take whatever precautions are necessary to secure their safety and comfort.”

She sank into a low chair. “I want to believe that. Mrs. Pennyfeather is not so worried. She thinks like Harry, that the boy will take care of them both. The Reverend is so forgetful,” she said,
but her tone was one of affection, not censure. “He thinks of his orchids and his books, and sometimes he forgets there are people in his house. Robin was so excited that his father wanted to go walking with him. There is much love there, but their interests are so different,” she said, trailing off.

She was becoming pensive again and brooding. I rose and went to the little table where a chessboard stood waiting. “Do you play, Miss Thorne?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Good. Then we will play and it will keep our minds occupied whilst we wait.”

We drew for colours and although Miss Thorne was white, she moved poorly, her mind clearly not in the game. We played a second and I won that as well, although not quite so handily. We played four games in all, well into the night, and it was only as I was calling checkmate for the fourth time that we heard the sound of the door opening and rushed downstairs.

But one look at the dejected faces told us all we needed to know. The Reverend Pennyfeather and his son, Robin, were not to be found.

“They cannot simply have vanished,” Portia said reasonably. “It is not possible.”

I thought of Black Jack’s dramatic disappearance from his own room and said nothing. That had been a cheap conjurer’s trick, effective, but not real. This was something entirely different. A man and boy had stridden out under a lowering sky and never come back. For two days the inhabitants of the valley searched for them, but not a trace was to be found.

“I wish Brisbane would return,” I said for the fortieth time that morning. I had heard nothing from him, and although I knew he would come back at the earliest possible moment, having no word from him made me exceedingly anxious as the hours passed. I thought often of the moon-shaped scar high on his cheek and of the man who had given it to him. Would he raise his hand in violence against Brisbane again? Would he
scruple to kill him even? And I thought of the pistol and the knife that Brisbane had taken and my stomach turned to water. I had not even the consolation of tender last words between us, for our parting had been sharp and bitter, and I remonstrated with myself endlessly as I wondered if those would be the last words we would ever share.

I held down no food those few days, only the endless cups of tea that Miss Cavendish proffered in an attempt to fill the empty hours. Harry went out every day looking for the Reverend and Robin, but Plum had a different plan, and it was obvious that he searched for some sign of Brisbane as well. He rode often to the mouth of the valley where the road to Darjeeling trailed away into the folds of the foothills, using a spyglass to search the horizon for some trace of him before directing his attentions to the search for the Reverend and Robin. And the rest of us sat, our nerves stretched tightly, waiting for news. Even the Pennyfeather women had finally been shaken from their complacency. Cassandra and Primrose came to sit with us and it was apparent they were both nervy with worry.

All of the available men had assembled themselves to search with the pickers, and I was pleased to see Dr. Llewellyn among them. His hands were steady, although he was still pale and far too thin. He searched with Naresh, taking the road from the monastery and back again, beating the bushes with sticks and calling endlessly for replies that never came. The weather held fair after the first terrible night, and it seemed that all the valley had sprung fully into glorious bloom. The flanks of the hillsides were a riot of colour and texture, and even the new growth of the tea plants gleamed glossy and green as the bushes reached for the sun that shed its lambent light over the valley. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, and I knew that wherever I went for the rest of my days, I would never find so enchanted a spot.

And finally, on the afternoon of the third day, the searchers began to call excitedly to one another. They came, carrying what they found on a makeshift litter, and even now, so many years after, I can still feel the stillness of my own heart as they came closer, wailing their lamentations. Plum rode at the front. He kept his eyes fixed upon the ground, benumbed it seemed by what he brought with him. They came to the Peacocks, chanting their songs of woe as they came, and we stood, watching them wind their way up the narrow road, carrying the litter, and resting upon it was the shrouded form of a man, and the single hand that lay uncovered was pale and lifeless. They carried to us a dead man, and my thoughts came, slowly and apart from the rest of me. I saw them bringing him closer, singing mournful tunes over his body, and suddenly I knew,
I knew,
they must carry the body of my husband.

I thought of how different it was to be a widow this time, for I had not loved my first husband, and Brisbane was everything to me. I thought how strange it was that I could breathe, that the birds still sang and my heart still beat, while he was not in the world. It seemed that something should have stopped for him, whether it was the blowing of the wind or the beating of my own heart. Something should have stopped and marked the moment of his passing.

The men rested their burden and the songs continued, more softly now, and Plum came near, his expression now steeled against what he must do. He must make a widow, I thought wildly, and as he walked closer, I wondered if he never said the words, would it never be true? I thought of the moment I had met Brisbane, whilst my first husband lay, curled like a question mark upon the marble floor between us, those cool black inscrutable eyes fixed upon mine as my husband lay dying. A thousand memories since crowded my mind, the sweet and the
bitter, the impossible and the essential, and I wondered if he had known that he was all things to me. Had I made him happy? I wondered. Or had he regretted me? He had fought so hard against loving me. No man could have struggled more to keep his heart untouched. But Brisbane had loved me, as no man had ever loved a woman before.

Plum came closer, each step of his booted foot a death knell in my ears. I closed my eyes, wanting to cling for as long as possible to the last moment when this thing would not be true. When he spoke the words, then it would be real, and until that moment, I could still exist.

And when I opened my eyes, he stood there, his handsome face a picture of anguish. But he did not look to me. Instead, his eyes were fixed upon Cassandra Pennyfeather.

“I am so sorry,” he began. Behind him, the bearers drew back the covering and there lay the lifeless body of the Reverend Pennyfeather.

Cassandra crumpled into herself then, giving a low moan, and it was Primrose who supported her.

“Where is Robin?” Cassandra demanded. “Where is my son?”

A heavy silence fell upon the pickers. They parted, permitting a long figure to come forward. It was Brisbane, and in his arms he carried a still, slight body that did not move. He had taken off his coat and laid it over the boy’s face. He lay Robin down gently next to his father and bowed his head toward Cassandra. She subsided into weeping then, and the lamentations of the pickers rose once more into the mountain air.

He came to stand beside me, and although I was deeply conscious of Cassandra’s twin losses, I put my hand in his. He did not look at me, but he held my hand as tightly as if it were the last tether to life itself.

“I came across the searchers on my way back,” he murmured. “They had begun to drag the lake. They found the Reverend.”

“And you found Robin,” I guessed, my voice trembling with emotion.

He nodded and said nothing more, but he looked a thousand years older, and I knew that he had felt the weight of the child’s death every step he had taken from the lake.

It is a merciful thing that there is so much to be attended to at such a time. Funerals had to be arranged, the widow looked after, and the bodies themselves must be washed and dressed and made ready for burial. To everyone’s astonishment, Cassandra insisted upon taking her husband and son home immediately. Miss Cavendish accompanied them with the competent Miss Thorne, who had regained her composure. She was sorrowful, but dry-eyed and calmer, as if the worst of her fears had come to pass and now she could attend to the business of helping her mistress through the dark days to come. Primrose wept openly upon Miss Cavendish’s shoulder, and I was glad of it. Grief is a thing best turned outward than in, I reflected. Dr. Llewellyn went with them, giving Cassandra his arm, and I was happy to see that he walked with new purpose, as if their need of him had called forth some strength that had long lain dormant.

The rest of us filed quietly back into the Peacocks. Portia went to carry the news to Jane, whilst Harry said he wanted to be alone. He went straight for his office, taking up a bottle of whisky on his way. I turned to Brisbane who seemed scarcely able to keep to his feet.

“You need food and rest,” I told him, urging him upstairs.

“I need a bath,” he corrected. “And I quite loathe Harry for taking the best of the whisky.”

“Not the best,” I said, retrieving a bottle of rather fine single malt from my bedside table. “You should know by now I always
travel with whisky. It is medicinal,” I told him, pouring out a hefty measure.

I rang for Jolly and ordered a bath, returning just in time to see Brisbane drink off his whisky in one swallow. He held out his glass for another. I had never seen the merest sign of inebriation upon him, and he sipped the second glass slowly, savouring the peaty warmth of it. “If I had not already married you, I should have done so for that,” he said, sitting to remove his boots.

“Let me,” I said, kneeling to pull them off. There are few pleasures more simple and satisfying than having someone else draw off one’s riding boots, and I did not like to call for Morag. I wanted him to myself at present. “Father always says whisky is life’s blood to a Scotsman. The only piece of advice he gave me at our wedding was to make certain I always had a good bottle of the best single malt.”

“A good man, your father,” Brisbane said, dropping his head back to rest it upon the chair.

We said nothing for a long moment, and I was content merely to study the planes of his face, the sharp cheekbones, the hard jaw shadowed with black, the jetty hair that flowed from his proud brow, and the single lock of hair at his temple that now shone silver.

Just when I had begun to think he had fallen asleep, he lifted his head and opened his eyes.

“Lucy and my father have quitted the country,” he said flatly. I knew the failure of his expedition must rankle, but I could not have cared less.

“I surmised as much. You have the air of a man who is trying to forget something.”

He pulled a face and sipped again at the whisky, rolling the glass in his palms.

“He had of course made arrangements in advance, passage booked from Calcutta on a steamer that I missed by a quarter of an hour.”

I winced. It would have been far better to have missed it by a few days. To have come so near would have pricked him all the more.

“They are bound for the Mediterranean,” he told me.

I shrugged. “I have ceased to care. He can murder her and throw her overboard like so much soiled laundry for as much as I am interested. She is a stupid, thoughtless girl and I wash my hands of her.”

Brisbane quirked a heavy brow at me. “If I had known that, I might have saved myself the trouble of haring after them.”

“I am entirely serious,” I said heatedly. “Lucy entered into an elopement with a man she scarcely knows. She may have made his acquaintance some time ago, I will grant you, but she knows nothing of the man’s character. She does not know his family, she has not presented him to hers, although she had the perfect opportunity when we arrived. Plum is her nearest male relation in this place. She ought to have introduced them, for her own protection. And now she is adrift on some ship of horrors, sailing toward her own doom because she was too stupid to have a care for herself. And not just herself—her money! She is worth a substantial fortune. She ought to have had a consideration for her inheritance at least, but she is not even clever enough to think of that. No, she would go off with the first gentleman who is wily enough to make her believe he cares nothing for her money and everything for her. She was never going to be more than tempting prey for the most ruthless fortune hunters and she was a fool not to see it.”

I left off my harangue then to answer the door. “Memsa Julie, the bath has been prepared for Sahib Nicky,” Jolly told me,
bowing. “I have taken the liberty of ordering a tray of hot food for the sahib, and one for the memsa as well, to be taken in the privacy of your room.”

He withdrew and I closed the door, nodding after him. “This may be the most remote and godforsaken spot on earth, but I will say this for the Cavendishes, they have better staff than you or I could find if we searched the breadth of England.”

“I heard that,” Morag snapped as she bustled in from the dressing room. “Backstairs is full of gossip about the nice Reverend. Is it true he is dead? And the boy as well?”

I did not bother to remonstrate with Morag. For all her sins, she had a tender heart and she seemed upset at the news of the deaths.

“I am afraid so, Morag. It seems they went on a nature excursion and were caught out by the storm. They were drowned in the lake.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, shaking her head. “A terrible way to die,” she whispered. “That is why you will never find me learning to swim,” she added with an air of satisfaction.

She went to collect Brisbane’s muddy boots and as she bent, we exchanged puzzled glances over her back.

Brisbane regarded her thoughtfully. “Morag, the point of learning to swim is rather to prevent drowning.”

She sniffed. “Ha! My father was a sailor, he was. And he always said them that learnt to swim died the worst. They flailed around and waited to be saved while the sharks circled and took them a piece at a time, prolonging the agony. But them that drowned quick were spared the pain of it.”

Brisbane looked at me and shrugged. “The logic is faultless,” he said.

She bobbed a ridiculous curtsey at the door. “I shall return later for Sahib Nicky’s clothing,” she said with an air of exaggerated pomp.

I sighed. “Morag, I would not really prefer to have an Indian servant. I was merely observing that they seem to be singularly excellent staff.”

She sniffed again and withdrew, banging the door closed behind her.

“We will pay for that remark for quite some time,” I told Brisbane.

“You might. She just took my boots to polish,” he pointed out.

He lapsed into silence again and stared into the depths of his whisky glass. I took it from him and knelt before him, taking his face in my hands. I said nothing, but we had no need of words then. Living together was difficult and treacherous and terrifying, but living apart was unthinkable. I knew that he felt the same, for he put his hands into my hair, twisting lightly until I rose and followed him to the bed.

“I really do not mind that you were not able to save Lucy from her folly,” I assured him a long while after. “I know you would love nothing better than to thwart your father’s machinations, but it simply was not to be.”

He shook his head. “I do not care what becomes of Lucy Eastley,” he told me bluntly. “I only went after her because you wanted me to.”