“And here is my very own Florence Nightingale,” Mrs. Jennings caroled, hastening forth to embrace Catherine.
“Welcome to our home,” Colonel Timbs said with a courtly bow. His introductions included his wife, a younger, fairer-cheeked version of her mother, and his adjutant, Lieutenant Elham, a tall, striking figure with long side-whiskers neatly trimmed and wavy, almond-brown hair.
They took seats and chatted, at least the older adults did, while Catherine and Jewel listened. Once the weather, the school, and army matters had been discussed lightly, a female servant paused at the door to send Mrs. Timbs a discreet nod. In the dining room, Mrs. Timbs directed Lieutenant Elham to take the chair across from Catherine’s. Two female servants efficiently placed bowls of soup upon the white cloth. Each time Catherine’s eyes met Lieutenant Elham’s, she shifted her gaze to the Constable landscape over his right ear. She was so absorbed with pretending not to notice him that she could barely taste the yam soup or follow the discussion flowing about her.
“Can you imagine suffering a bullet in the back for a whole month?” Colonel Timbs was saying from the head of the table. Even though mail delivery from England took thirteen days, the telegraph ensured that the Times of India was up to date.
“Has anyone discovered why he did it?” Mother asked.
Lieutenant Elham forked a curried shrimp into his mouth and turned to his left. “I believe he expected a consular position that was denied him, Mrs. Rayborn. Bitterness apparently drove him insane.”
It wasn’t that Catherine had no sympathy for the States’s President Garfield. But the lieutenant’s elegant, eligible presence caused her to feel extremely self-conscious. Especially with her father seated at her right elbow.
“What is your impression of Cambridge, Miss Rayborn?” the lieutenant said presently, when the subject of the attempted assassination was exhausted.
“It’s a fascinating town,” she replied, relieved that she could stop pretending not to notice him. “Have you been there?”
“Actually, I graduated from King’s College. Did you enjoy your year at Girton?”
“Very much so.”
“She’s in the Tennis Club,” Jewel told him.
“Is that so?” The lieutenant smiled at Jewel. “I should ask your sister for some lessons. My sister trounces me unmercifully every time I visit home. My younger sister.”
Jewel covered a smile, and Catherine was about to ask where home was, but Father cleared his throat and said pleasantly, though pointedly, “Indeed Girton is a fine college. Catherine will be eager to return there as soon as possible after she leaves us on Friday. We’re delighted she’s willing to delay such frivolous pastimes as courtships in favor of education.”
Such frivolous pastimes as courtships? Catherine stared down at her plate, her cheeks on fire. Could you be any more blunt?
“This is excellent shrimp,” Mother said to Mrs. Timbs with strained voice. “Do convey our compliments to your cook.”
“Yes, excellent,” Father echoed. There was only self-satisfaction in his tone. And Lieutenant Elham did not address Catherine directly again for the remainder of the meal.
Thirteen
After the dessert of kheer, rice cooked in sweetened milk with raisins and almonds, everyone retired to the parlor. Through the chick screens rolled volleys of not-too-distant thunder.
“I was hoping the rain would miss us this afternoon,” Father said.
“Those are target drills,” Colonel Timbs corrected, crossing one polished boot over the other. “The men are acquainting themselves with our new carbine Martini-Henry rifles.”
“Indeed? Are they vastly different from what you had before?”
Father had no interest in guns and was only being polite, Catherine knew. She told herself that if Lieutenant Elham had voiced an identical statement about the rifles, Father would have replied something in the order of How good that you keep your men occupied so that they aren’t gadding about trying to romance colonists’ daughters or something equally humiliating. She just knew it.
“Five ounces lighter, a good six inches shorter,” Colonel Timbs replied. “But you see, even the most minuscule change requires some adjustment. A weapon must be as a third arm to a soldier, and the heat of battle isn’t the time to make that adjustment.”
He turned to Mother. “Pray, don’t be alarmed by that, Mrs. Rayborn. There are no foreseeable battles here in India. Still, it is a soldier’s duty to be prepared.”
“I see.” Mother’s smile only minimally softened the taut lines of her face. Catherine could feel identical lines in her own.
“Perhaps Mr. Rayborn would care to see your gun collection, Frank,” Mrs. Jennings said to her son-in-law.
“Really, I shouldn’t wish to trouble—” Father began, but Colonel Timbs had uncrossed his boots and was on his feet.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Lieutenant, do stay and keep the ladies company. Will you excuse us?”
“But of course, Colonel Timbs.” Mother’s smile was guileless as she watched Father rise from his chair. “James is immensely fascinated with guns. Isn’t that so, James?”
“Immensely,” Father replied, but the grey-green eyes above his smile made Catherine think of King John being presented with the Magna Carta.
“Fine fellow!” Colonel Timbs clapped him on the back on the way through the doorway. “We’ll begin with the pistols . . . wait, muskets. My favorite was captured from an Iroquois warrior during the French and Indian War . . .”
The atmosphere of the parlor was lightened by the older women’s conspiratorial smiles. Conversation eddied from one subject to another: Mrs. Jennings’ tour of the Taj Mahal, Mother’s discovery of a stall in the market selling fine silks cheaply, and Mrs. Timbs’s enthusiasm over the telephone exchange to be built in Bombay by the beginning of next year.
“But here we are, boring the young ones,” she said abruptly, and turned to the lieutenant. “Lieutenant Elham, why don’t you escort the two Misses Rayborn to the roof to watch the drills?”
“It would be a pleasure, Mrs. Timbs,” he replied. He rose and offered a white-gloved hand to Jewel first, with her being seated the closest to him, then Catherine. “May I?”
He accompanied them down a corridor. Just before a narrow set of stairs, Catherine heard the Colonel’s voice from one of the rooms.
“ . . . as you can see, the internal coiled spring striker was a welcome improvement over the external hammer and firing pin . . .”
“One moment, if you please,” Lieutenant Elham said pleasantly. He climbed the steps, his boots striking against the wood, unlatched and pushed open a door in the ceiling. His body disappeared through it, then his face and shoulders reappeared. Holding out a hand, he said, “It’s quite safe.”
“May I go first?” Jewel asked.
Catherine smiled at her. “Go on.”
The girl scurried up the steps and disappeared. Catherine took his hand next, and was helped out onto a railed area above the slate-tiled verandah. On the parade ground a half dozen targets were set up before huge bales of hay. A half dozen soldiers loaded rifles and fired off volleys at an officer’s command, then hastened to the back of the queue while others took their places.
“We’ve some talented marksmen in the regiment,” the lieutenant said. “Five were awarded VCs during the Battle of Kambula.” He nodded at Jewel’s puzzled expression. “That was in South Africa, against the Zulus.”
“VCs?” Catherine asked, resting both palms against the wooden railing and trying not to think of how it felt to have him take her by the arm and elbow just minutes ago.
“Forgive me. It’s so seldom that I speak with civilians that I forget how. The Victoria Cross—the highest decoration for gallantry.”
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Jewel asked.
Catherine turned to look. Chin dipping to his chest, Lieutenant Elham touched the medal attached to a red and blue ribbon. “No,” he said modestly. “F
or distinguished conduct in that same battle.”
“Your parents were proud?” Catherine said.
“Yes.” His white teeth flashed with his grin. “But then, they were proud the first time I washed my ears unassisted.”
Jewel’s girlish laugh rang out over the railing, and Catherine smiled, put to ease by the shared humor.
“Does the noise hurt theirs?” Jewel asked when sober again. “Ears, that is.”
Lieutenant Elham looked out toward the parade ground. “Only those foolish enough not to put cotton in them as advised.”
“But then how can they hear the commands?”
“It only muffles the loudest noises. Give it a try sometime and you’ll see.”
“How long have you been quartered here, Lieutenant Elham?” Catherine felt comfortable enough to ask.
“One year,” he replied. “We spent five in South Africa.”
“You’ve not been home in six years?” Jewel asked, green eyes filled with sympathy.
“I’ve been twice, actually,” he said. “Spennymoor, in Durham. Have you heard of it?”
Catherine and Jewel shook their heads.
“I can understand that. The roads into Spennymoor weren’t even surfaced until I was—”
“Ah well, there you are,” came a familiar paternal voice. Catherine turned. Father’s head stuck out of the opening. “How good of you to show my girls the drill, Lieutenant.”
“Would you care to join us?” the lieutenant asked, taking a step in his direction.
“I’ve seen quite enough, thank you,” Father replied with an innocuous smile. “And now we must beg your leave, for we must be getting on before the rains come again.”
On the way home in the gharri, Mother stared straight ahead with hands clasped. By the time they passed the railway works, Father was sending puzzled glances her way. She excused herself to her chamber once inside, saying she intended to take a nap.
“Your mother never naps,” Father said, peering up the empty staircase as her footfalls faded in the landing.
“Do you think she’s ill, Father?” asked Jewel, too young to notice the undercurrents swirling below the surface of the adults’ behavior.
“The humidity,” Catherine suggested for Jewel’s benefit. While Father’s remarks at the table grated in her mind like fingernails against a chalkboard, she tried to swallow her anger. It was frustrating not to give it vent, but she would soon be enmeshed in the routine of University again, and Lieutenant Elham’s smile would fade from her memory. What if she poured harsh words upon her father, and then he contracted malaria or some other fatal tropical disease while they were two weeks apart?
The headstone in Saint Thomas’s churchyard looked as if it had just left the stone carver’s table. Not like those surrounding it, weathered by monsoons and the overbearing sun. Catherine reached out, touched the cold granite, and murmured, “If only I could take back what I said!”
Her very-much-alive father’s voice penetrated the daydream. “I should see to her,” he was saying, and when Jewel moved to follow, he shook his head. “Stay with your sister.”
“But—”
“She’ll be all right,” Catherine reassured her, and motioned toward the parlor. “Why don’t we play draughts? I’ll be the red this time.”
They started the game, but Jewel looked up at Catherine as if trying to decide whether to speak.
“Well, what is it?” Catherine asked after the fourth such look.
The girl hesitated, moved her draughts piece, and said, “Lieutenant Elham will be sad when you leave too. I think he was in love with you.”
Catherine gave her a loving smirk. “Oh, you do?”
“I could just tell by the way he looked at you.” The narrow shoulders shrugged. “And he smiled at you a lot.”
“He smiled at you more.”
Jewel sighed, rolling her green eyes. “Catherine, people aren’t as shy about smiling at children.”
“Jewel?”
Both heads turned toward the doorway, where Father stood. “Fetch your mother a glass of water, please.”
“Yes, Father,” Jewel said.
He patted the top of her head as she passed, then walked over to take the chair she had vacated. “Your mother says I behaved boorishly today.”
His expression begged contradiction, but the resentment Catherine had pushed aside came welling to the surface again. “He was only being courteous, Father.”
He winced. “I know.”
“Would you have preferred it if he had acted rudely and ignored me?”
“Truthfully?”
“Father . . .”
“You’re too innocent to understand how these soldiers long for the company of eligible English women, Catherine. Lieutenant Elham seemed a decent sort, but there are countless opportunists wearing scarlet coats these days.”
“And so being in the Army automatically makes one an opportunist?”
“Of course not.” He blew out a breath, ran a hand through his greying brown hair, and tempered his voice. “Can you fault me for wanting a man to court you for your character and goodness, and not because his options are limited by society?”
“I can’t imagine your wanting any man to court me.”
“Is that what you think?” he asked, giving her a wounded look. “I look forward to the day my daughters are happily wed, Catherine. Nothing will make me happier than when the right men come along.”
Such earnestness tempered some of Catherine’s resentment. And there was the matter of her having only three days remaining. Not enough time for the most whirlwind of courtships, even if Jewel’s assessment of the man was correct.
“Can you ever forgive me?” he asked.
She reached over the board, touched the back of the hand absently rolling a black draughts piece upon its edge. “You’re a good father.”
His grey-green eyes were pensive. “I realize I’m overbearing at times.”
“Not all times. You don’t scold me over my marks.”
He chuckled. “Yours are higher than mine were. If my students only knew how your Uncle Daniel had to tutor me all the way through college.”
They smiled across at each other, and then he turned serious again. “Had I the opportunity to do it all over again, I would treat the young man differently.”
And so with the memory of his words, Catherine felt no guilt over accepting the envelope Mrs. Jennings handed her on the promenade deck of the S.S. Heron on the fifth of August, when Bombay had faded to a speck on the watery horizon.
“It’s from Lieutenant Elham,” Mrs. Jennings said, though Catherine already knew. “He brought it by yesterday evening.”
“Would you mind if I . . . ?” Catherine began.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Jennings said, smiling.
Their cabin was less roomy because of the two crates of mangoes they were bringing back—each fruit wrapped in a sheet of newspaper. But there was ample room to pull a chair over to the porthole light and read.
Dear Miss Rayborn,
It was an honor to make your acquaintance on Tuesday past. I only wish we could have spoken longer.
Diplomatically he did not mention her father’s statement at the lunch table. He wrote on to tell her of himself, describing his duties in the infantry and his family background—his father was a blacksmith in Spennymoor, and his mother kept house. He had an older brother, married, and two younger sisters, one the organist at Saint Edmund’s in nearby Sedgefield.
“You were right, Father,” Catherine murmured dryly. “He certainly sounds like an opportunist.”
He also professed to enjoy poetry, particularly Keats . . . but ever since I was commissioned into the Army, I cannot read ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ without a lump in my throat.
I wish Milly could meet you, she thought, but then discarded the idea. Milly was just too beautiful. Just because she was a loyal friend did not prevent a young man’s eyes from making comparisons. That evening when Catherine
discovered that a lecturer on British Literature at Owens College was one of the eight people sharing the dinner table with her and Mrs. Jennings, she asked if he was familiar with the poem.
The old man smiled, set down his fork, and began to recite.
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk . . .”
By the time he was halfway though the seventh stanza, the lump of which Lieutenant Elham wrote had found a place in Catherine’s throat.
“. . . Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn . . .”
Catherine blinked tears from her own eyes. He’s homesick, she thought. How sad.
And how touching. She reread the letter by lamplight just before bedtime.
“Do you plan to write him back?” Mrs. Jennings asked from her berth, where she sat propped on pillows with Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady.
“Yes,” Catherine replied. She could post her letter from Aden, the first port of call. It was her duty, with him serving Queen and Country far from home.
And he did have that nice smile, she reminded herself.
Fourteen
“Why, yes,” Sir Ronald Hill replied to Sidney’s inquiry at the Club on Monday the eighth. They sat adjacent to each other and near an open window, for the August heat was as severe upon the upper-crust Londoners as the lower. “I’m doing quite well with Montreal Rolling Steel. Are you thinking of purchasing some shares?”
“I’m leaning in that direction,” Sidney said, elbows propped upon the arms of a leather chair.
“Why don’t you follow me home? I’ll show you the percentages in my ledger.”
It was the old quid pro quo practiced in the Club. Last year Sidney had shared with Sir Ronald the knowledge he had gained of G Costa & Company food exporters, and they were both starting to reap decent profits from those investments.
His coach trailed Sir Ronald’s barouche into the mews behind Charles Street in Mayfair. In the garden, hollyhocks, roses, and delphiniums wilted under the unrelenting sun. Two young girls and a boy ceased tossing a ball with a nursemaid in black-and-white to squint at them with hands shielding eyes.
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