Shadow of the Moon

by M. M. Kaye

  ‘Perhaps Conway is looking at it,’ thought Winter. Why had Alex looked so disconcerted when she had asked him about Conway? He had looked … guilty.

  ‘Winter, my love,’ said Mrs Abuthnot, bearing down upon her accompanied by an unknown gentleman, ‘here is someone whom I am sure you must be pleased to meet. Only fancy, Mr Carroll here passed through Lunjore less than a week ago and stayed the night with Colonel Moulson - you remember Colonel Moulson, do you not, dear? They dined with Mr Barton, so he can give you the latest news of him. Mr Carroll, this is the lady who is shortly to marry Mr Barton. The Condesa de los Aguilares.’

  Mr Carroll, a large man with a red face that even the white moonlight could not pale, stared at Winter and muttered that he was honoured to meet her. He took her hand doubtfully and bowed over it, and in reply to her eager questions said that he had indeed seen the Commissioner at the previous week-end. He was often in Lunjore and had had the pleasure of his acquaintance for some years. Mr Barton had in fact been kind enough to urge him to stay on and keep him company, there being little to occupy him at present. But though the Commissioner of Lunjore might find time hanging heavily on his hands, he himself had too many calls upon his time to allow him to—

  Mr Carroll became aware of the amazement and shock reflected on the faces of the Abuthnot ladies and the young Condesa, and stopped, disconcerted and alarmed.

  ‘But that is absurd!’ said Mrs Abuthnot sharply. ‘Perhaps you did not know that we expected Mr Barton in Delhi, but pressure of work did not permit him to leave Lunjore. You must be mistaken.’

  ‘Oh - er - yes,’ said Mr Carroll unhappily. ‘I must have misunderstood. Yes, of course. I—’

  Winter broke in upon his flounderings. ‘Mr Carroll, please tell me. Why could not my - the Commissioner - come to Delhi? Is he - is he not well?’

  Mr Carroll, embarrassed and distressed, caught at the excuse with the fervour of a drowning man snatching at a passing straw, and over-played his hand:

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am afraid that is it. He - er - did not wish to distress you. Naturally wished to spare you anxiety. Most awkward, being taken ill at a time like this - felt it very keenly.’

  ‘But - but why did he not tell me?’ asked Winter, her hands gripped tightly together.

  Mr Carroll gulped, groped wildly for a suitable answer, and was visited by inspiration: ‘Would not mention it, of course, for fear that you would consider it your duty to proceed immediately to his side. Sickroom no place for a delicately nurtured lady. Fever you know - er—’ Mr Carroll had a momentary vision of the corpulent, bloated face of the Commissioner of Lunjore, and improvised glibly: ‘A swelling fever. No, no, nothing serious I assure you. Merely - er - disfiguring. Not catching. But no man of sensibility would wish to meet his betrothed looking so.’

  ‘Oh, the poor, dear man!’ exclaimed Mrs Abuthnot, touched. ‘How well I understand! How could he wish to allow you to see him in such a sad state? And of course he would not permit you to endure the discomforts of a sickroom. Perhaps that is also why he could not come to Calcutta? I expect he hoped to be well enough to proceed to Delhi instead, and suffered a relapse.’

  Winter said in an eager, breathless voice: ‘Is that so, Mr Carroll? How long has he been ill?’

  Mr Carroll looked unhappily at the pale, tense face. He had roistered with Mr Barton on more than one occasion and considered him a bad man with a bottle or with women; but he could not tell this white-faced young woman the truth. A lie was better, and he’d drop a line to Con in the morning, giving him the tip.

  ‘Er - not above six weeks,’ said Mr Carroll. ‘Or it may be a little more. Slow business. He hopes to be recovered shortly. On the mend now. You will not let him know that I have told upon him? He - he did not wish you to suffer any anxiety on his account.’

  ‘No,’ said Winter unsteadily. ‘No, I will not tell him. But I am so very glad to know - to know that he is better. Thank you, Mr Carroll. I am truly grateful to you.’

  She gave him her hand and Mr Carroll bowed over it and removed himself hurriedly, mopping his brow with a large bandana handkerchief and breathing hard.

  ‘The poor, dear man!’ said Mrs Abuthnot, presumably referring again to the absent Mr Barton. ‘How truly noble of him to wish to spare you anxiety. And how very human to wish not to be seen by you except when looking his best. Gentlemen would like us to think that it is only we who are vain of our looks, but we know better. Ah, I see that we are to have some music. Let us join the others. I believe Miss Clifford to be an exceptional performer on the mandolin … such a treat. Come, Sophie dear. Why, Winter - where are you going, my love?’

  Winter did not answer her and it is doubtful if she even heard the question. She caught up the short train of her riding-habit, and turning from them went quickly away down the long stretch of the moonlit ramparts towards the Water Bastion.

  There were few people strolling now upon the broad ramparts. Most of them had returned to join the party and seat themselves on the carpets and cushions preparatory to being entertained by the talented Miss Clifford and the romantic Lieutenant Larrabie, and the few who passed Winter were returning from the far end of the wall. There was still, however, a lone gentleman who remained seated in an embrasure of the battlements overlooking the river, the end of his cigar making a small warm pin-point of light in the blue and black and silver of the night.

  Alex had no wish for company. He was feeling angry and irritable and irrationally guilty. He had hoped that he need do no more in the way of warning off Mr Barton’s betrothed, for once she reached Lunjore and saw the man, the whole affair - apart from arranging for her return to England - would be over. And, what was more to the point, the breaking of the engagement would have nothing whatever to do with him, Alex Randall, and therefore it would not lead to the Commissioner having him removed from Lunjore and sent to eat his heart out - as William was doing - in some useless and junior appointment. But Winter had asked him a direct question and it must be answered. He had answered it with a lie because she had taken him off-guard and it had been impossible to answer it truthfully in those surroundings. She had asked it because she was frightened and unsure. He knew that. But had she also asked it because now that she had come to know him better, and to regard him with less hostility, she had remembered what he had told her in the avenue at Ware, and begun to wonder if, after all, it could be true?

  He would have to tell her, and this time she would believe him and go back to Calcutta and to England instead of to Lunjore. And that meant that the Commissioner would ask questions and— ‘Oh, damn all women!’ thought Alex savagely. What had come over him? Surely this was no time to allow one young, white, frightened face to come between him and the work there was to do? And yet—

  Various couples passed him, chattering and laughing, but he kept his shoulder turned to them and no one broke in upon his thoughts, and presently they drifted back towards the Main Guard again and he was alone with the moonlight, the glittering river that wound between the wide, ghostly sandbanks below the walls, and a white egret that had alighted softly on the battlements some half a dozen yards to his right.

  Someone at the far end of the wall was singing ‘Where are the flowers we gathered at morning?’ to the accompaniment of a mandolin: a plaintive ballad that he had last heard in England. He heard a sound of quick light footsteps and the rustle of a woman’s dress, and the egret rose with a flap of silver wings and flew off into the night as the footsteps came to a stop beside him. Alex tossed the end of his cigar over the battlements, turned, and rose to his feet.

  Winter’s face appeared drained of all colour in the white moonlight and she breathed unevenly as though she had been running. The close-fitting pearl-grey habit she wore in place of a crinoline moulded the lovely lines of her figure and lent her an illusion of maturity and height, but she could not control the childish trembling of her lips or keep the hurt and anger from her eyes, and Alex, looking at her in the full moonlight with his own face in s
hadow, felt an odd pain at his heart, and a hurt and anger that matched her own.

  She said in a quick breathless voice that she tried to keep steady: ‘You knew what was the matter with Conway, didn’t you? You knew all the time. You could have told me, even if he did not want me to know. I had a right to know! And all these weeks I’ve thought - I’ve thought—’

  Her voice broke and Alex said curtly: ‘I did try and tell you once, but you would not listen.’

  ‘You never told me! I asked you, on the day that you came to tell me that he could not come, if there was anything the matter with him, and you said there was not. And I asked you again tonight—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ repeated Alex, relief and pity submerging that inexplicable anger. It did not not occur to him to wonder how she could have come by the knowledge. It was enough that she knew the truth at last without any further attempt on his part to force her to it. Yet, unaccountably, the fact that she had trusted him to tell her the truth hurt him unbearably.

  Winter said: ‘You knew the reason why he did not come to meet me in Calcutta. You had a letter from him too. He must have told you in that.’

  Alex’s brows twitched together in a sudden frown. ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Oh, I know that he did not want me to know. Mr Carroll told me so. He thought it would distress me, and - and he wished to spare me anxiety. And I know he cannot have wished me to see him looking—’ Her voice stopped on a sudden gasp of horror and her eyes widened: ‘Why - why, he may even have thought that I might turn from him if his illness had affected his appearance. He should have known I would not! But he has not seen me for so long. You knew though! You must have known that I was not like that. If you had told me—’

  Alex cut harshly across the sentence: ‘We seem to be at cross-purposes. I find I have not the remotest idea what you are talking about. What is it that Mr Carroll has told you?’

  ‘He told me the truth. That Conway has been ill.’

  ‘Ill?’

  Winter’s chin came up with a jerk. ‘I hope you do not mean to deny having had any knowledge of it?’

  ‘I most certainly do,’ said Alex, ‘although I suppose it is just possible to describe his condition in such a term. But it is not one I would have used myself. Perhaps you will be good enough to tell me just exactly what Mr Carroll had to say?’

  Winter told him; her voice quick with indignation and reproach. ‘I - I suppose you meant it for the best,’ she finished, ‘but you should have known that I would prefer to be told the truth. I did not think it of you. I thought that you—’

  She stopped and bit her lip and Alex said curtly: ‘You are right. I should have told you the truth. Will you hear it now?’

  ‘I know it now.’

  ‘Oh no, you do not. No—’ His hand shot out and grasped her wrist as she made a move to leave him. ‘This time you are not going until I have said what I have to say.’

  Winter tugged furiously at her imprisoned wrist but Alex’s lean fingers were hard and unyielding, and realizing that she could not free herself without an undignified struggle she let her arm go slack and stood still:

  ‘Very well. I will listen.’

  He released her and she snatched her hand away and stood rubbing it, her breath coming unevenly. There was doubt, and something else in her face - a dawning apprehension.

  Alex said: ‘Mr Barton is not ill. Not in the accepted sense of the word.’

  ‘What - what do you mean?’ The words were barely a whisper.

  ‘I mean,’ said Alex with brutal clarity, ‘that Mr Barton suffers from over-indulgence in drink, drugs and women.’

  Winter caught her breath in a harsh gasp and turned swiftly, but again Alex was too quick for her. He caught her by the arm and jerked her round to face him.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you are going to hear me out. I told you once before that Barton was not a fit person for you to have anything to do with, let alone marry. I meant it. A libertine and a drunkard is hardly a suitable husband for such a woman as yourself - or for any woman, for that matter. He would not come to England to marry you because he must have been well aware that should he do so, one look at what he had become would have been enough to ensure that the engagement was broken. I do not know why he did not meet you in Calcutta. Probably for the same reason. I do know, however, that the after-effects of a debauch, if nothing else, prevented him from leaving for Delhi. He was incapable of standing upright when I left him.’

  He let her go, but Winter did not move. She stood quite still, her eyes wide and frightened, and once again Alex was conscious of that bewildering pain in his heart. He said harshly: ‘Well, now that you know the truth, I can only suggest that you return to Calcutta and sail for England as soon as there is a passage available.’

  She did not answer him, and the moment seemed to stretch out interminably. A mongoose ran along the parapet, keeping to the shadows, and checked by the sight of the two motionless humans, fluffed out its tail and whisked away with a little chattering cry of rage. But neither of them moved or spoke, and in the moonlit silence the words of a tender, plaintive melody that drifted down the long length of the ramparts, sung by a dozen voices and blurred and sweetened by distance, filled the night with a strange, nostalgic magic—

  ‘Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

  Which I gaze on so fondly today,

  Were to fade by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms …’

  Winter saw Alex’s set mouth soften and twitch, and she spoke in a whisper: ‘No! Oh no … I don’t believe it. Alex—’

  She stretched out a groping hand in a gesture that begged for reassurance, and as it touched him something as vivid and as elemental as a flicker of lightning seemed to shiver between them. The next instant his arm was about her and he was holding her hard and close. For a brief moment she resisted him violently, her body taut with shock. Then his mouth came down on hers, and all at once the rigidity and resistance left her and the ground was no longer solid under her feet …

  ‘Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art…’

  Her skin smelt faintly of lavender and her body was soft and sweet and fragrant in his embrace; as soft and sweet and fragrant as her lips and her closed eyelids and her shining hair. Alex’s mouth was not hot and greedy as Carlyon’s had been. His lips were cool and firm and his slow-moving kisses were a warm, drugging wonder that deprived her of all power of thought or movement and narrowed the night and the moonlight, the wide world and the wider sky, down to nothing more than the close circle of his arm.

  She felt him free his left arm from the sling, and then his fingers were on the nape of her neck, pressing upwards slowly and caressingly through the thick soft waves of hair; fondling the curve of her head and holding it as closely and possessively as his right arm held her body. His mouth moved from hers at last, and his cheek was cool and harsh against her smooth warm one:

  ‘Darling … darling …’ His voice was no more than a breathed caress, but at the sound of it the passionate spell broke and dissolved before the cold inrush of reality. Winter tore herself free and backed away from him, shaking with rage and shame and the shock of a sudden revelation:

  ‘So that’s why you hate him …!’

  Her voice was low and breathless and edged with scorn: ‘You’re jealous of Conway, and so you made it all up! You haven’t even enough honour and - and decency to prevent you making love to his future wife. You! - you and Carlyon! Mr Carroll did tell me the truth. Why should he lie to me? Conway is ill - and because you are jealous of him you do your best to blacken him to me so that you can make love to me behind his back. I hope - I hope I never have to see you again!’

  Her voice broke on a sob, and then she had whirled about and had run from him, and he heard the sound of her flying feet die out along the wall and lose itself in the sound of the distant singing.

  Alex made no attempt to follow her. He stood where she had left him, staring into nothingness. Presently he lifted
an uncertain hand and rubbed it dazedly across his forehead, and sitting down slowly in the embrasure, felt mechanically in his pockets for tobacco and matches. He rolled a cigarette with careful concentration and struck a match against the worn stonework. It lit with a hiss and crackle of sulphur, and the vivid flare of the small yellow flame momentarily dimmed the brightness of the moonlight.

  ‘… the heart that has truly lov’d never forgets,

  But as truly loves on to the close;

  As the sun-flower turns on her god when he sets

  The same look which she turn’d when he rose.’

  The singing ceased and the night was silent once more. Alex appeared to have forgotten about the match, for it burnt out between his fingers. He dropped it with a quick grimace of pain, and removing the cigarette from his mouth, flicked it away into the shadows.

  ‘Hell!’ said Alex aloud and softly, addressing the moonlight, the ancient city of Delhi, and all India.

  23

  Lord Carlyon’s plans were at last reaching some sort of shape, and in pursuance of the policy of lulling Winter’s fears he had studiously avoided her and had devoted himself instead to entertaining Delia Gardener-Smith.

  He had seated himself as far away from Winter as possible, but this had not prevented him from observing that Randall had held her in conversation for the greater part of the meal, or that they appeared to be on remarkably easy terms with one another. He had tried not to watch them, but he could not keep himself from doing so, and the unusual animation on Randall’s face and the interest on Winter’s had infuriated and alarmed him. Thank heaven Randall would shortly be leaving Delhi, and that he himself would before long be shaking the dust of this deadly place off his shoes! Only a few more days - he could not stand it much longer.

  Carlyon looked across the laden cloth at Winter, trying to observe her dispassionately and decide what it was about her that had become such a fever in his blood. He had known many beautiful women: women far lovelier than this slender young creature whose wide-set eyes were full of a sweet unsureness that gave the lie to the full-lipped, passionate mouth.