Far Pavilions (46 page)

‘
Get out, girl
!’

There was a choking, spluttering sound from the darkness and a hand reached out between the torn curtains. Ash gripped it and dragged its owner up and out, and lifting her off her feet, carried her to the bank.

She was no light and fragile creature like the little sister whom she had thrust out of the
ruth
into his arms, nor did she scream or cling to him as the younger girl had done. But though she made no sound he could feel the quick rise and fall of her breast against his own, while the weight of her warm, wet body, and every slender curve and line of it, spoke eloquently of a woman and not of a child.

He was breathing a little unevenly himself by the time he reached dry land, though his reasons for doing so were not emotional but physical, and few men, called upon to carry approximately a hundred and twelve pounds across a river, with the current tugging at their knees and a crowd of excited spectators splashing and jostling alongside, would not have done the same. It seemed a long way to the shallows, and when he reached the bank there was no one to whom he could hand over his burden. He called for torches and the Rajkumaries' women and waited in the dusk, holding Anjuli's dripping figure in his arms while his syce set off to retrieve his horse, and far too many helpers struggled to free the bullocks and drag the broken
ruth
out of the way, so that the cart with the princesses' waiting-women could cross in safety.

Above him the stars came out one by one, and as the night wind arose and blew strongly off the river, the girl in his arms began to shiver in the cold air and Ash called for a blanket and wrapped it about her, drawing one end over her head to shield her from the gaze of the crowd as torches began to flower in the darkness and the women's cart creaked into view at last.

Judging from the noise, the younger bride was already inside it, though her shrieks had now given place to hysterical sobbing. But Ash did not pause to inquire after her. His muscles were beginning to ache, and he bundled Anjuli in without ceremony and stood back as the cart jolted on its way to the camp, aware for the first time that his clothes were soaking wet and that there was a distinct nip in the night air.

‘
Mubarik ho
, that was well done, Sahib,’ approved Mulraj, materializing out of the darkness. ‘I owe you my life, I think. I and many others, for had you not been here the Rajkumaries might both have drowned, and then who knows what vengeance His Highness their brother would have taken on us his servants?’

‘
Be-wakufi
,’
*
retorted Ash impatiently. ‘They were never in the least danger of drowning. Only of getting wet. The river is not nearly deep enough there.’

‘The driver of the
ruth
was drowned,’ observed Mulraj dryly. ‘The current took him into deep water and it seems that he could not swim. The Rajkumaries would have been trapped inside by the curtains and drowned also, but it was their good fortune that you should have been on horseback and watching – and most of all, that you are a Sahib, for no other man there, save only their uncle who is old and slow, would have dared to lay hands on the daughters of a Maharajah, and by the time I myself had seen what was toward and was in the saddle, it was all over. They should fill your hands with gold for this night's work.’

‘At this moment I would rather have a hot bath and dry clothes,’ said Ash with a laugh. ‘And if anyone deserves praise it is Anjuli-Bai, for keeping her head and getting her younger sister out, instead of screaming and struggling to escape herself, when she must have known that the
ruth
was filling up with water. Where the devil is my syce?
Ohé,
Kulu Ram!’

‘Here Sahib,’ said a voice at his elbow: the horse's hooves had made no sound on the sandy ground. Ash took the reins and swung himself into the saddle, and having saluted Mulraj, touched the horse with his heel and cantered off between the clumps of pampas grass and the thorny
kikar
trees to where the lights of the camp made an orange glow in the night sky.

He turned in early, and the next day had been a busy one, for he had ridden off at dawn with Jhoti, Mulraj and Tarak Nath, a member of the camp's
panchayat
, and an armed escort of half-a-dozen sowars, to reconnoitre the next ford. The boy had been an unexpected addition to the party, having apparently teased Mulraj into bringing him. But as he proved to be an excellent rider, and was obviously eager to please and be pleased, he was no trouble to anyone. And it occurred to Ash that it would be no bad thing to get him away from his attendants and out into the fresh air, on horseback, as often as possible, for a day in the open had plainly done the little prince a world of good, and he already looked a different being from the pallid and anxious-eyed child of their first meeting.

The ford had proved impassable, and as it had been necessary to find out, by personal inspection, which of two alternative crossing places would save the most time and cause the least inconvenience, the sun was setting and the day almost over by the time they returned to the camp. Ash had intended to ask for an early start on the following morning, but this has been frustrated by Shushila-Bai, the younger princess, who sent word that she was suffering from shock and sickness and did not intend to move anywhere at all for at least two or three days – if not longer.

Her decision was not so tiresome as it would have been two days earlier, for food stocks were high and the river provided an unlimited supply of water. And as it happened, Ash himself was by no means averse to remaining in one place for a few days, for there were both black-buck and
chinkara
out on the plain, and he had seen snipe on a jheel near by and any amount of partridge in the scrubland. It would, he thought, be pleasant to go out shooting with Mulraj instead of shepherding this flock across country.

Having been informed that the Rajkumari Shushila was indisposed, he was surprised when a second messenger arrived with a politely worded request that he would pay the Maharajah's sisters the honour of visiting them. And as the messenger on this occasion had been no less a person than the brides' uncle, affectionately known throughout the camp as ‘Kaka-ji Rao’
*
, it had been impossible for him to refuse, even though the hour was late and he would have preferred bed to social conversation. However, there being no help for it, he duly changed into mess dress, and almost as an after-thought, slipped the broken half of the mother-of-pearl fish into his pocket before accompanying the Rao-Sahib through the lamp-lit camp.

The ‘durbar tent’ in which the princesses received guests was large and comfortable, and lined throughout with a rust-red cloth embroidered in gay colours and lavishly decorated with tiny circles of looking-glass that winked and glittered as the material billowed to the night breeze or the flames of the oil lamps swayed in a draught of air. The floor was strewn with Persian rugs and squabby silk and brocade cushions which served in place of chairs, and there were a number of low tables, carved from sandalwood and inlaid with ivory, on which an assortment of fruit and sweetmeats had been set out in silver dishes. But except for Kaka-ji Rao and the elderly duenna, Unpora-Bai, and two serving women who sat in the shadows beyond the circle of light, the only other persons present were the brides themselves and their younger brother, Jhoti.

The Rajkumaries were dressed much as they had been before. But with one noteworthy difference. Tonight they were both unveiled. ‘It is because they owe their lives to you,’ explained the little prince, coming forward to greet Ash and do the honours for his sisters. ‘But for you, they would both have drowned. This very day their pyres would have been lit and the river received their ashes, and tomorrow we others should have returned home with our faces blackened. We have much to thank you for, and from now on you are as our brother.

He waved away Ash's assertion that there had in fact been no danger, and his sisters rose to make their bows while Unpora-Bai made approving noises from behind her veil, and Kaka-ji observed that modesty was a virtue to be prized above valour, and that it was plain that Pelham-Sahib possessed both in full measure. One of the serving-women then shuffled forward with a silver tray that bore two ceremonial garlands fashioned out of tinsel ribbon ornamented with gold-embroidered medallions, and first Shushila and then Anjuli solemnly hung one about Ash's neck, where they glittered incongruously against the drab khaki of his mess jacket and gave him something of the appearance of an over-decorated General. After which he was invited to seat himself and plied with refreshments, and as a singular mark of favour (for it is pollution for those of high caste to eat with casteless men) the company ate with him – though not from the same dishes.

Once Shushila-Bai had been coaxed out of her shyness, the party relaxed and spent a very pleasant hour nibbling
halwa
, sipping sherbet and talking; and even cousin Unpora-Bai, while remaining closely veiled, contributed her mite to the conversation. It had not been easy to draw out the younger princess and persuade her to talk, but Ash, when he chose, had a way with him, and now he exerted himself to put the nervous child at her ease, and was eventually rewarded by a shy smile and then a laugh, and presently she was laughing and chattering as though she had known him all her life and he was indeed an older brother. It was only then that he felt free to turn his attention to her half-sister, Anjuli-Bai – and was startled by what he saw.

Anjuli had been sitting a little behind her sister when he entered, and directly under the shadow cast by the hanging lamp; and even when she rose to greet and garland him, he had not really been able to study her, for she had kept her head bent and wore the peak of her sari drawn so far forward that its broad edging of embroidery shadowed what little he could see of her face. Later, when they were all seated, he had been too occupied with his efforts to coax the younger princess into joining in the talk between himself and her brother and uncle to spare much attention for the elder one. That could wait. And though Anjuli had so far barely spoken, her silence neither suggested the nervous timidity that appeared to afflict her young half-sister, nor conveyed the impression that she was uninterested in what was being said. She sat quietly, watching and listening and occasionally nodding in agreement or shaking her head in smiling dissent, and Ash remembered that ‘Kairi-Bai’ had always been a good listener…

Looking fully at her at last, his first thought was that he had made a mistake. This was not Kairi. It was not possible that the thin, plain, shabby little creature who never seemed to have enough to eat, and who, as he had once complained, followed him around like a starving kitten, could have grown into a woman like this. Mahdoo had got it wrong, and this was not the daughter of the old Rajah's second wife, the
Feringhi
-Rani, but of someone else…

Yet because her head was no longer bent, her sari had slipped back a little, and the signs of her mixed blood were clearly to be seen. They were there in the colour of her skin and the structure of her bones; in the long, gracious lines of her body, the breadth of shoulder and hip, and the small, square-jawed face with its high cheek bones and broad brow; in the set of the wide-spaced eyes that were the colours of bog-water, the tilted tip of that short nose, and the lovely, generous mouth that was too large to suit the accepted standards of beauty that were so admirably personified by her half-sister.

By contrast, Shushila-Bai was as small and exquisite as a Tanagra figurine or the miniature of some legendary Indian beauty: golden-skinned and black-eyed, her face a flawless oval and her mouth a rose-petal. Her small-boned perfection made her seem as though she were fashioned from a different clay from the half-sister who sat beside and a little behind her – and who was not quite as tall as Ash's first impression of her, for standing, he had topped her by half a head. But then he was a tall man, and her co-bride, Shushila, stood barely four foot ten in her heelless silken slippers.

The elder girl lacked the delicacy of the East, but that did not prove that she was the
Feringhi
-Rani's daughter…

His gaze fell on a bare arm that was the colour of warm ivory, and there, just above the golden bangles, was a crescent-shaped scar: the mark left by the teeth of a monkey, many years ago… Yes, it is Juli all right, thought Ash. Juli grown up – and grown beautiful.

Long ago, during his first year at a public school, Ash had come across a line in one of Marlowe's plays that had caught his imagination and stuck fast in his memory ever since: Faust's words on seeing Helen of Troy:
‘Oh thou art fairer than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!’
It had seemed to him then, and still did, the perfect description of beauty, and later he had applied it to Lily Briggs, who had giggled and told him that ‘he wasn't 'alf a one’, and later still to Belinda – who had reacted in a similar manner, though she had phrased her comment a little differently. Yet neither of them bore the least resemblance to the Maharajah of Karidkote's half-sister, Anjuli-Bai, for whom, thought Ash, astounded, those lines might have been expressly written.

Looking at Juli, it was as though he were seeing beauty for the first time in his life, and as though he had never realized before what it was. Lily had been blowsily attractive and Belinda had certainly been pretty – a great deal prettier than any of his previous loves. But then his ideal of feminine good looks – had been shaped by his childhood in India, and unconsciously influenced by fashion – Victoria's England, as may be seen from countless paintings, picture-postcards and illustrated books of the period, still admired large eyes and a small rose-bud of a mouth in a smoothly oval face, to say nothing of sloping shoulders and a nineteen-inch waist. The era of Du Maurier's stately goddesses, who were to usher in an entirely new fashion in beauty, had not yet dawned; and it had never occurred to Ash that any form and face so diametrically opposed to the Victorian – and Indian – ideal could not only be immeasurably more arresting, but make the prettiness he had hitherto admired seem slightly insipid. But though his personal preference was still for dainty and delicately built women such as Shushila, Anjuli's looks, which threw back to her Russian great-grandmother, were a revelation to him, and he could not take his eyes off her.