Fragrant Flower (6 page)

‘I am just ignorant and confused,’ Azalea told herself, and yet she was intelligent enough to know that was not the proper answer.

“Dinner will be at seven o’clock,” Lady Osmund announced.

The sharpness of her tone made Azalea jump, because her thoughts had been far away.

“Am – am I to – dine with you, Aunt Emily?” she asked humbly.

“I suppose so,” Lady Osmund replied grudgingly, “but I do not expect you to push yourself forward! Not that I imagine anyone will take much notice of you.”

She paused and her eyes flickered over her niece unpleasantly.

“After all, we cannot pretend you are not a relation, even though it is nothing of which we can be proud!” she said spitefully. “But poor relations are expected to be humble and subservient, so you will make no effort to join in the conversation and you will certainly not speak unless you are spoken to.”

“I understand, Aunt Emily.”

Feeling she must not show that she minded such admonition, Azalea went quietly from the cabin to start unpacking for herself.

She had with her a much more varied wardrobe than she had ever owned before, since Violet and Daisy had been provided with what was a complete new trousseau.

Therefore, contrary to what had happened in the past, the clothes Azalea had received from them were in good condition and comparatively new and fashionable.

They were, however, too fancy and too be-frilled to be becoming to her slender figure. Although she contrived to remove some of the ruchings, fringes, braiding and bows, which she thought made them look like Christmas trees, there was nothing she could do about the pale colours which somehow looked wrong against the darkness of her hair.

“But as Aunt Emily said,” Azalea told herself, “no one is going to look at me!”

However, she put on a gown which she felt was the most attractive of all the gowns she now owned, remembering as she did so that her mother had once said that first impressions were important.

But there was another thought at the back of her mind which she hardly dared admit to herself.

Lord Sheldon, before he had kissed her in that outrageous fashion, had asked her what her position in the house was. He had thought her too cultured for a housemaid, but he had never for one moment thought she might in fact be a lady.

Very well, there was a surprise in store for him!

He would find that she was not only a lady, but the General’s niece as well!

That was not a circumstance which Azalea personally thought was much of a recommendation, but Lord Sheldon, with his conventional, hide-bound ideas, would undoubtedly be impressed by Uncle Frederick, as a distinguished soldier.

Azalea therefore took a little more trouble than usual in arranging her dark hair.

Usually she coiled it into a thick chignon and pinned it at the back of her small head. Tonight she made it look a little more fashionable, but she was aware that to arrange it in curls such as her cousins wore would cause her aunt to make some very sarcastic comments.

When she was ready she glanced at herself in the mirror and thought with a little smile that, while she might not look very attractive, she certainly did not have the appearance of a cultured housemaid or someone who was giving a hand to help out an overburdened staff. She wondered if there would be a look of surprise in Lord Sheldon’s eyes.

It was difficult to forget how penetratingly he had looked at her when he had questioned her as to why she was eavesdropping on the conversation he had had with his friend.

“How dare he be suspicious of me!” Azalea exclaimed aloud.

She tried to tell herself that she hated him violently to the point where she would be glad to learn he was injured or even swept overboard to drown.

Then she could only remember the strange, demanding warmth of his lips, and hastily turned towards the door. There was her aunt’s gown to fasten, the twins to be buttoned into their dresses, and ribbons to be threaded through their hair before the party was ready to descend to the Dining Saloon.

Lady Osmund went ahead, her train, be-frilled and ruched, rustling out behind her like the waves in the wake of a ship. The twins followed, walking hand in hand as they usually did, and giggling a little at nothing in particular. Azalea brought up the rear.

The First Class Dining Saloon was very impressive. The passengers sat in armchairs at the various tables, which were covered with heavy white linen cloths, and there seemed to be a whole army of stewards in white coats in attendance.

There were pot plants in the corners of the Saloon. At the Captain’s table, where Lady Osmund and her party were naturally to sit, there was a table decoration of flowers and green leaves because it was the first night at sea.

Lady Osmund sat to the right of the Captain’s place, although that night he was not present because, as was traditional, he was on the bridge navigating the ship safely out to sea.

The twins sat next to their mother, and Azalea next to the twins. That left a place on her right which, when they entered the Dining Saloon, was vacant.

There were about ten other places at the Captain’s table, most of them occupied by people to whom Lady Osmund had either already been introduced or had known before she came aboard.

The gentlemen stood up while she seated herself and the ladies bowed and smiled.

A General was always of importance, especially one who had been knighted, and Hong Kong was an important harbour from the point of view of the British Empire.

Those who smiled ingratiatingly at Lady Osmund were wondering how useful it would be in the future to know the G.O.C. commanding a Port of Call, and Hong Kong was undoubtedly a stepping stone to a most important position.

A steward hurried forward with the menus, and without consulting either her daughters or Azalea, Lady Osmund ordered what they would eat. While she herself drank wine, the twins and Azalea were given water.

The first course was just being served when Azalea was aware that a man had joined the party at their table and was seating himself beside her.

She glanced up and then, with a sudden shock, felt her heart begin to beat unaccountably within her breast.

It was Lord Sheldon who sat beside her and as she looked away from him hastily she felt that he must have seen the blush that rose almost painfully in her cheeks.

But if she was embarrassed, Lord Sheldon was entirely at his ease.

“Good evening, Miss Osmund!” he said. “I hope you are looking forward to the journey?”

Then, as he asked the question, the steward presented him with the menu and he scanned it while he still seemed to be waiting for Azalea’s reply.

For a moment it was impossible to speak. Lord Sheldon gave his order then turned his attention to the wine waiter, who handed him a leather-bound wine list. Finally he looked at Azalea.

“Are you a good sailor?” he asked.

“I think so,” Azalea managed to answer in what she hoped was a cool, calm voice, but which sounded a little breathless. “I have only been to sea once before.”

“And when was that?”

They might, Azalea thought, have been meeting for the first time at a vicarage tea party, but because the manner in which her heart was behaving made it difficult to reply, it required a superhuman effort for her to manage to say,

“Two years ago – when I came from India.”

She thought Lord Sheldon looked surprised as he asked,

“From India? So you know that country?”

“It is my home.”

Azalea could not help speaking a little defiantly.

“Why?”

It was only one word and yet she knew that he was interested.

“My parents lived there – my father was in the same Regiment as my uncle.”

She wondered as she spoke if she was saying too much. Then she told herself that her uncle could not expect her to conceal the fact that her father had served in what was to all intents and purposes the family Regiment, as his father and grandfather had done before him.

Besides, she told herself, there was nothing to hide except the manner in which he had met his death.

She knew she should have anticipated that these questions would be asked sometime, but she had lived such an isolated existence since she had gone to live with her uncle and aunt.

She had been to no parties or Receptions of any sort, and it had never occurred to her that she might one day have a conversation such as this and with, of all people, Lord Sheldon!

“So at one time your father was stationed at Lahore?”

“Yes.”

Azalea made up her mind that the only way to protect herself would be to reply to his questions in monosyllables. He might think her dull and nit-witted, but at least he would not think she was trying to grab or claw at him, nor would he dare to describe her as a ‘man-eating tiger-cub.’

The steward poured out his Lordship’s wine and he tasted it.

“I always think Lahore is one of the most beautiful cities in India,” he said reflectively. “The city of roses.”

Azalea could not answer, as the memory of the roses in Lahore brought her a sudden pain and a sense of homesickness that was a physical agony.

She could see her mother coming in from the garden carrying a whole armful of them. She could smell the fragrance now and knew that their beauty was there, stored in her memory more vivid and more real than anything that had happened to her since she had left India behind.

“Where else in India have you been?” Lord Sheldon asked.

“Many places,” Azalea answered, hoping he would not think her stupid.

“I am sure that among them you have seen your namesake in the foothills of the Himalayas. I cannot believe that anything could be more beautiful than when the azaleas are in bloom and the snow still lies on the mountain peaks.”

He spoke quietly, but again his words evoked a memory that was hard to bear.

If only he knew, Azalea thought wildly, how she had lain awake night after night thinking of the azaleas, gold and red, crimson, pink and white, and wishing that once again she could be amongst them.

She could remember saying to her mother,

“Why did you call me Azalea, Mama?”

Her mother had laughed.

“What could be a more perfect name? Your grandfather had said that all his granddaughters were to be given the names of flowers and when you were born, my dearest, I could look from my window onto a rainbow that had fallen from the sky.

“‘What are you going to call her?’ your father asked me. So I smiled up at him from the bed where I was holding you in my arms. ‘Have we any choice?’ I questioned. He looked out of the window and laughed. ‘But of course – she must be called Azalea! And may she be as beautiful and as fragrant as the flower itself – or as her mother!’”

“You have not answered my question,” Lord Sheldon prompted her.

“Yes – I have seen the azaleas in the spring,” she answered, and had no idea there was a throb in her voice that had not been there before.

A man seated on the other side of Lord Sheldon engaged him in conversation, and Azalea felt she had time to get her breath, and hoped the agitation within her breast would gradually fade away.

How could she have imagined that of all people she would sit next to the man who had kissed her in her uncle’s Study and had first thought her to be a spy and then a servant?

She glanced down the table at her aunt and realised that she was annoyed that Lord Sheldon should be beside her. She beckoned with her finger and obediently Azalea rose and went to her side.

“You will change places with Violet,” she said sharply. “There is no reason for the girls always to sit together in this childish manner.”

It was an excuse, Azalea knew well, to move her from Lord Sheldon’s proximity and while she told herself it would save her from further embarrassment, she could not help regretting being unable to continue their conversation about India.

He would not have appreciated the country anyway, she told herself. He would have been too busy bullying his Indian servants or drilling the soldiers unmercifully in the heat.

But there had been something in his voice when he spoke of the azaleas that told her, to her surprise, that he appreciated their beauty – they had meant something to him.

Could anyone, Azalea asked herself, see such beauty and not long for it again? Even anyone as stiff-necked and unimaginative as Lord Sheldon must be?

She moved Violet into her place and sat down between the two girls.

Although Lord Sheldon was talking to the man on his other side she had a feeling, although she could not substantiate it, that he was aware of what had happened and that it was her aunt who had effected the change.

As Azalea thought that nothing would appear more dull – and in fact ruder – than that three girls should sit in a row and say nothing to each other, she started to talk to Daisy.

“You must learn to talk and listen, Azalea,” her mother had said to her when first she had been allowed to have luncheon and dinner in the Dining Room. “There is nothing more boring than a woman, however pretty she is, who has nothing to say and does not give the right sort of sympathetic attention when people talk to her.”

“And what is the right sort?” Azalea had asked. She had not been very old at the time.

“It is right to take a sincere interest in other people, their troubles, their difficulties, their joys and their sorrows,” her mother replied. “When you once begin to think of them as having the same feelings as yourself, you will find yourself automatically making friends. Friendship, Azalea, is when you share part of yourself with another person.”

Azalea had never forgotten her mother’s words and although sometimes she found it hard to think of the more austere officers and their chattering, gossip-loving wives as like herself, she did try to give them her sympathy and listen to what they had to say.

She remembered her father once speaking angrily and rather scathingly about the wife of an officer who was making trouble for the other wives.

“She is a spiteful woman and if she has a heart, no one has yet found it!”

“I am sorry for her,” Azalea’s mother had said softly.