Nightrunners of Bengal (11 page)

That was not quite true. He remembered the fantastic wealth the Rani had offered him: if he changed his mind he could be the richest man in the state.

Joanna said tearfully, “Rodney, surely she’ll let you change your mind? She can’t have got anyone else yet. She didn’t ask Geoffrey, did she? That would be too much, with all they’ve got already. Or Major de Forrest? Rodney, don’t be so silly. I know what you’re thinking of—that it would be bad for Robin, that he’d have no one to play with. But he and I could live in Bhowani, and you could come over lots of times. There can’t be much work; she just wants to be able to order a white man about—and I’d be expected to kowtow to her if I went; I wouldn’t like that. But everything’s all right if I stay here. Rodney, you
must
tell her you’ll go.”

He felt himself cornered and fought to keep hidden the reason which must make his refusal final.

He snapped, “You want me to accept so that you can spend April to September in Simla, and September to April here, basking in the sunshine of your precious coward Dellamain! Do you mind telling me whether you share a bungalow with me because you want to, or just to stop gossip?
You didn’t let me have you for four months before I went off, not even on my last night. Do you want to leave me? If so, say it right out.”

“Rodney, shhh! You’re disgusting. I—I’m frightened of having another baby. You know how Robin tore me.”

She burst into tears, but he would not stop for them now, as he used to in the early days of their marriage.
“I
didn’t have the baby, so I don’t know. But I know the doctor said it wasn’t serious. And I know you’ve said since Robin was born that you wanted more children. Oh, God, what does it matter? I apologize. How the hell did we get here? I refused the job, and I’m not going to change my mind.”

He could feel Sumitra’s arms round his neck, and her warmth enwrapping him, and see the happiness in her face. He stared at his wife, his eyes glittering. It wasn’t true that he had given up everything for her; Robin had counted most, and the regiment; but he had at least thought of her wishes, and she wasn’t worth even that.

Joanna in turn lost her temper. He saw her search for things to say that would hurt him.

“You beast, you won’t go because you want to be here with that dreadful Langford girl! You want to spite me by letting me think of all the things I need and now I’ll never have!
You
told that black woman not to invite me to the tiger hunt! And I’d had two costumes specially made because I was sure she must ask me when you were there on duty, and I told everybody, and I felt such a fool when she didn’t, and Mrs. Caversham gloating! It’s all your fault!”

Langford? Caroline Langford? What on earth had she got to do with this? He stared at Joanna in astonishment. Suddenly he remembered Victoria de Forrest by the falls. He jumped out of his chair and seized her shoulders.

“Shut up!” He shook her hard. “Listen! Caroline Langford pesters me with some damned tommy-rot about the old Rajah and the Silver Guru, and I can’t stop her. That’s all! I’m not interested. I don’t like her. Besides, you must have heard de Forrest has attached himself to her.”

She looked at him slyly. “It’s no more ridiculous than your nasty hints about Mr. Dellamain. And he’s not a coward; he sprained his ankle.”

“I believe he did.” Rodney laughed sourly. “But not till he’d thrown away a rifle still loaded in one barrel and run a hundred yards in exceptionally fast time for a man of his age and weight.”

“And why did
you
have to be such a hero? You wouldn’t have done it for me. What sort of pension would I get if you’d been killed? Nothing! I’d have to work as a seamstress. And what about Robin’s future? You’re always restless; you don’t think of your responsibilities. And why are you wearing that ridiculous great ruby? Did she give it you? I hear she was always ogling you.”

“That spiteful little vixen again!” This was nearer the bone, but nothing would make him take off the ring. Controlling his voice, he managed to speak gently. “You can’t have it both ways, Joanna. If I’m supposed to be so charmed by the Rani, why didn’t I accept the job—especially as you’re so keen to leave me alone with her in Kishanpur?”

“Ah, but you didn’t know that when you refused.”

He let go of her and stood up. With a great effort he stilled the trembling at the corner of his jaw.

“Joanna—I don’t know what’s happened to us. Let’s try to——”

“I know what’s happened! You’ll never grow up, and I’ve found it out And you drink too much, too. Everyone’s talking.”

His anger flowed away, leaving him limp and exhausted. He flopped back into his chair. “I’m sorry, Joanna. I know I’m restless. Sometimes it’s all right, when I can persuade myself that all this routine and stuff is worth while. Other times I suddenly feel that I’m bogged down in a slough of pettiness, and I’ll never get out. That’s why I drink, I suppose. I didn’t drink much while I was in Kishanpur, because I had a big job to do, and it was all—well, exciting.”

“What excitement is there in Kishanpur that there isn’t
here? And if you found that job big enough, why did you refuse a much bigger one?”

“I had to.”

He wanted to say still more, blurt out all that he had done and thought, flay himself before her and expiate some of the hurt he had caused Sumitra. But he would only hurt Joanna as well if he did, without helping Sumitra. Joanna would think he was telling her to humiliate her by flaunting his infidelity.

He went on. “As for Miss Langford—well, look at her.”

Joanna bridled, and some of the discontent left her face. A voice in Rodney’s head was shouting, “Swine! Swine!” Caroline wasn’t as plain as that; she was just not chocolate-box pretty, her symmetry was in her bones, and she’d be a wonderfully impressive old lady. But she was outside this quarrel, only dragged in by Victoria de Forrest’s gossip. Joanna was the woman he must live with for the rest of his life, and make happy if he could. Any weapon was permissible which would help him clear up this sordid tangle. “Why, she’s almost ugly! And I’ve got you—sometimes. I’ve told her I’m not going to have anything to do with her nonsense. I’m finished with it, and with Kishanpur. I’ll try and settle down, really I will.”

“Oh, Rodney, promise? And will you
please
be more respectful to Mr. Dellamain? He can do so much for us. Darling, I’m tired. Shall we retire?”

She put out her left hand, and slowly he stretched out his right to cover it. A dark flush mantled his neck, spreading up to his face. He raised his eyes to hers, praying, begging that there be no more punishment in them for him. And if there were any sort of genuine love, even genuine physical desire, it would hurt, because it was too late, and he had gone from her for ever. He bit his lip and turned the light out quickly. It was all right. Behind the deep swimming blue of her eyes there was—nothing.

A
FTER ten days Kishanpur seemed a thousand miles away, and it was a hundred years ago that someone of his name had killed a figure there and lain with Sumitra on scarlet cushions. He saw little of the Hatton-Dunns and nothing of Caroline Langford. The torpid current of cantonment life carried away Victoria’s gossip about him, and newer fresher scraps floated down to replace it: de Forrest’s attentions to Caroline, Victoria’s affair with Hedges, Geoghegan’s new Indian girl, Two-Bottle Tom’s recovery from the D.T.’s, his daughter Rachel Myers’ claim to have seen an angelic vision.

The heat increased. Officers and sepoys sweated through the heavy serge of their tunics, staining their belts and crossbelts with black wet patches. White trousers of coarse cotton drill replaced the thick cold-weather pattern in all three regiments. The 60th Cavalry took out their peaked caps and white neck-curtains. For the seventh year in succession the two infantry regiments tried to get the new white Kilmarnock caps to replace their heavy shakos—and for the seventh year were told that none was available. Parades began earlier, afternoon siestas lasted longer, and it was difficult to get to sleep before midnight. The Club was a sunbaked mausoleum until five or six in the evening, when nearly every day the cantonment gathered to gossip and play whist, cribbage, or croquet. At this season, especially, the ladies practised their archery, for the Club’s annual Hot Weather Tournament of Toxophily (Ladies’ Section) would take place on Saturday, April the fourth, beginning at four-thirty p.m. (sharp), and Mr. Dellamain had undertaken to present the Silver Arrow to the winner.

Rodney and Joanna reached the Club the afternoon of the
tournament at a quarter past four. A cup of tea had not altogether dispelled from his mouth the foul taste of afternoon sleep. The shadows had begun to slant away from the trees, but the lawn was still a hard glare and the air dry, hot, and motionless. Grey squirrels scurried along the branches of the trees; from somewhere across Clive Road a coppersmith bird, like a faulty metronome, beat out the rhythm of the hot weather:
dong dong dong
—
dong dong
—
dong dong
dong dong dong
. The Club marker pottered round the far line of targets, his turban on the back of his head and a ball of twine in one hand. A dozen or so English people stood in groups in the shade of the front verandah, talking and unlocking bow cases.

Victoria de Forrest, in the nearest group, hardly bothered to acknowledge Rodney’s short greeting; the girl had a new and rather unpleasing assurance these days, presumably due to Hedges’ continued attentions. He was there with her now, and so was Anderson, the second-in-command of the 13th. Rodney listened with half an ear to their conversation behind him while Joanna took out her bow and began to wax the string.

Victoria was saying, “My dear Major, I’m
sure
I shall have to abdicate as my father’s hostess soon. Someone else will be supervising the Sixtieth’s entertainments.”

“And is Eddie here going to get himself a hostess too, in competition, eh? Ha!” That was Anderson; without looking, Rodney knew he would be scratching his upper lip and screwing up his small eyes.

“Now don’t be a tease, I
do
think Father should be more careful of the proprieties, even in India. These unchaperoned rides—oh, yes, they’re out now, didn’t you know? At least, Father went riding, and I can’t think of anyone else he would go with.”

“Where do they go, Victoria? and”—the major’s voice dropped—“how long do they stay out, eh?”

The girl giggled. Dirty-minded little slut. This story of de Forrest’s rides with Miss Langford was news to Rodney.
Joanna’s catty remark at the ball, that the two would make a suitable match, seemed to be coming true.

Victoria continued. “I’m sure
I
don’t know where they go. Father never says. They ride out at two, in the worst of the heat, and come back at seven, or eight, or even later. Yes, a groom goes with them, but I’m not in the habit of getting familiar with servants.”

“Aren’t you, dear? I thought you had such a way with ayahs.”

Rodney bent his head and chuckled; that was Lady Isobel, cold and cooing. She could cut when she wanted to, and she certainly wouldn’t tolerate Victoria’s spreading prurient gossip about her cousin. A clean, beautifully delivered cut, heard by as many people as heard Victoria’s chatter, all of them knowing that Victoria talked with ayahs to ferret out the gynaecological, obstetrical, and matrimonial secrets of Bhowani.

Victoria was silent. Rodney glanced around covertly and saw that her flat face was sullen and scarlet. Lady Isobel limped by heavily, a smile for him in her steady eyes. Joanna laughed, a silvery laugh. It was a mistake, for Victoria had to Joanna no such sense of inferiority as that imposed by Lady Isobel’s character and title.

Victoria said in a clear voice, “Shall we go out now, Eddie? Though really we shall have to shoot impossibly badly if the Commissioner is to give the Silver Arrow to the right lady.”

Joanna tightened her lips, jerked the bow viciously, and slipped the loop of the string over the upper notch. That petty dart hurt her; it hurt him too, that she should have made herself vulnerable to it. What a place, what a pack of vixens! He kept his head down while fastening the straps of the leather bracer on her left forearm, and at once hurried behind her down the steps and on to the parched grass.

Soon Eustace Caversham called out politely, and the shooting began. Joanna’s first flight did not look good; the
others would indeed have to shoot badly if she kept this up. They waited till the westward-shooting members of each pair had shot their flights; then Caversham’s reedy voice called, “All finished? To the other end, please.”

Rodney was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a pale grey suit with a long coat. He undid the coat buttons, tilted the hat forward over his eyes, and leisurely followed Joanna and her partner, Mrs. Bulstrode. The arrows flew; the contestants and spectators proceeded back and forth. If only the grass sprang thick and richly green, dense from centuries of scything; if Thames or Avon slipped by at the foot of the lawn, and trout hid there under a Roman bridge, and an English cathedral rode an English sky through English clouds!

They walked to the east, and the quiver belts marked the compression of the women’s waists, made wider the billow of their skirts. The arrows flew,
clunk,
into targets of padded straw. They walked to the west, and the feathered arrows stuck out sideways and upwards from the quivers on their right hips. The arrows flew—and the women should have had jaunty little hats with curled brims and curled feathers, but they wore big sunbonnets which got in the way of the bowstrings; and the Sindhya Hills rolled down like a rumpled carpet into the haze over the plains, and the coppersmith hammered monotonous rivets into the copper-plated sky. And the women talked.

“I hear Captain Hedges is as good as hooked.”

“Oh, dear, Mrs. Savage, I wouldn’t put it like that, would you? Victoria is young. I’m sure she’ll steady down when she finds Mr. Right.”

“You misunderstand me, Mrs. Bulstrode. I think Captain Hedges
is
Mr.—the right man. He deserves nothing better.”

Another mistake: Mrs. Bulstrode admired Eddie Hedges for his very wildness and to-hell-with-everything attitude. Perhaps that was how she remembered the George Bulstrode of thirty years before. And even she could defend herself against Joanna. She spoke across Joanna to Rodney. “That
is a wonderful ring you wear, Captain Savage. I’ve so admired it The Rani gave it to you for saving her life that day, didn’t she? We were
so
proud of you!”

Rodney muttered, “Yes,” shuffled from one foot to the other, and quickly excused himself. He strolled away with careful nonchalance, while Joanna sparred for an opening to strike back at Mrs. Bulstrode.

A little farther up he stopped behind a tree five yards from the row of targets and lit a cheroot. Nearby Mrs. Atkinson was shooting, watched by her partner, Mrs. Cumming, and by two spectators—Louisa Bell (née Caversham) and her mother. Harriet Caversham, he knew, thought archery unladylike, and Louisa Bell had given birth too recently to take part in the competition; she was looking tired and pale. She was a fool even to come out so soon; but then she was a fool, just that.

Mrs. Atkinson was speaking. “The twins are in wonderful shape again. Tom’s taken his pony over walls at least two foot six high.” She paused.
Twang
—
whirr
—
clunk
. “Bother! A black, I think. And do you know, the groom had the impertinence to demand an extra rupee a month for teaching him, and he gets five and a half as it is.”

“Your husband didn’t give it to him, I hope?”

“Certainly not, Mrs. Cumming. There! that’s better, a red. I hear”—she dropped her voice, but not very far—“that Mrs. Herrold is expecting a little companion for Ursula in December.”

The match burned in Rodney’s fingers; he calculated quickly. December—early April now. It wasn’t possible! Tom and Ruth Herrold could hardly have got out of bed before these women were talking about the child conceived in it. He tried to work out the channel of information: the Herrolds’ sweeper of course would know first; he’d tell the other Herrold servants; the ayah would tell the Atkinson ayah; and she’d tell Mrs. Atkinson. What a country! They might just as well live their most secret moments in the middle of the Pike. He threw away the match hurriedly. Mrs.
Atkinson had raised her voice, for the rest of her news was not exclusive.

“Dotty van Steengaard’s is not kicking much. Mr. McCardle says he thinks it will be a breech. He is going to try and turn it in three weeks’ time.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes, Mrs. Bell. It is a most distressing and embarrassing experience. I had it done before Billy was born—good! A gold!”

Louisa Bell said, “I can no more hit that gold circle than get gold hair!”

“Archery is not difficult, Mrs. Bell, if one only perseveres.” That was Mrs. Cumming.

Mrs. Atkinson cut in. “It is for some people, Mrs. Cumming, however hard they try. It’s a knack, like—oh, riding for example.”

A murderous silence, and Rodney backed out of earshot. The lawn was the site of two separate competitions, one with wooden, the other with verbal, arrows. The score in the first was easy to reckon up: Mrs. Cumming had shot a flight of three arrows into the target—one black, one red, one gold—nineteen points. To assess the value of the hits in the other, poisoned, competition you had to know Bhowani. Louisa Bell had started it by her remark about gold hair (Mrs. Atkinson was widely believed to dye her hair)—a little cheap; score it a black for Louisa—three points. On the instant, Mrs. Cumming had shot under Louisa’s guard; but to appreciate it you had to know that the leaders of Bhowani society thought the Bells a dilettante and affected couple, too much given to facile enthusiasms—say five points. Recovering herself admirably from Louisa’s original tally, Mrs. Atkinson had promptly struck down Mrs. Cumming in an indirect but none the less effective way. (“Captain Ernest Cumming of the Eighty-eighth B.N.I. is your husband; we all know he just cannot ride a horse with grace, however hard he tries. Riding, however, is an accomplishment—or knack—that all gentlemen are born with; therefore your
husband is not a gentleman; therefore you are no lady.”) Excellent, and so quick—and worked off, too, on someone who was attacking her attacker and therefore entitled to gratitude rather than insults—a golden nine points all the way. Mrs. Caversham hadn’t scored yet; but she would, she would!

At the end of the line of targets he caught at the sleeve of a short, hurrying, sandy-haired man and cried, “John McCardle! Stay and talk to me. You never gossip or swear, you’re always serious and careful what you say, and I love you.”

McCardle had a square face and the uneven freckled complexion which often goes with sandy hair and eyebrows. His freckles stood out now like the scabs of a disease against the drawn white skin of his face.

“Let go, Rodney. Ah’ve bad news. Ah can’t find de Forrest. Ah’m luking for Gosse. It’s nae gude trying to keep it secret any more. Julio’s deid.”

Rodney’s hands fell slowly to his sides. “Julio?
Dead?
John, he can’t be. We were out fishing together a few days ago. I heard he’d gone to visit Father D’Aubriac.”

“It was a lie, man. He’s deid. Hydrophobia.”

“Jesus Christ have mercy!”

“Aye, He’s the one that’s done it—but He had nae mairrcy. Rodney, will ye promise to get hog-stinking-blind drrunk wi’ me tonight? Ah’ve never had a drrop in me life. Stay on here after the competeetion.”

“But, John, how did it happen?”

McCardle stared at him in a kind of stony anger. His blue eyes were frightened. “How the bluidy hell do I know? Julio’s dog is fine. The poison can lie low for six months, a yearr. Any one of us may have it in us now. Any dog in Bhowani may have it. Didna your Jewel have a fight wi’ a jackal in January? It cude ha’ been herr. We don’t know. And there’s nae cure.”

He talked fast, as if he could not stop, hardly moving his lips or teeth. “So Julio’s deid. D’ye remember him as dull
and nairrvous when ye went out fushing? And couldna stop talking? Aye, that’s the beginning of it. We brought him into ma little hospital secretly. He didna froth at the mouth, tha’s all balderdash. He lay wi’ a headache, getting worrse and worrse, luking out the window—it’s bare there and hotter than hell. He was mad tae drink but couldna; it choked him, and then he’d go crazy mad for a five-ten minutes. Whiles he’d vomit, black stuff, and whiles he’d have a convulsion, but when he came rround he knew exactly wha’ was happening to him, and it tuke me and Miss Langford and five orrderlies to holt him doon—Christ, tha’ girl was an angel, but there’s not one bluidy thing Ah cude do—Christ, Rodney, Ah sent a man running for ma pistol, but Ah’ve nae more courage than a snivelling rabbit, and Ah couldna do it. Rodney, he near brroke his back, arrching over more and more each time till—he deed in a parroxysm, and couldna speak. But he knew!
Knew!
Ah’m going to get drunk, Ah’d cry on Miss Langford’s shoulders, only that she’s exhausted, near deid.”