by M. M. Kaye
She stared at it for a long moment and found herself wondering illogically how much Carlyon had paid that oily Calcutta bearer to remove the bolt, and what the man had thought on receiving such an order? But the discovery of this evidence of his intentions had an unexpectedly steadying effect upon her. This was no longer some nebulous evil that she had to deal with, but a concrete thing. There was only one way out of this tangle of her own devising, and that was instant flight. There were the horses … She could go through the bathroom and out through the back door to the stables, and once there she could saddle a horse and escape. But she would have to be quick, for at any moment the door might open and she was no match for Carlyon in the matter of physical strength.
Winter pulled up her foaming skirts - those spreading yards of chintz-flowered balzarine that had looked suitable for going out for a short drive in a carriage - and unfastened her crinoline. The hooped underskirt fell to the ground with a rustle and a click, and she stepped out of it and ran to fetch the carpet-bag … the valise would have to be abandoned. There was no time to change, but without her hoops she could ride.
But the outer door of the bathroom was locked and the key removed, and the latch of the inner door had been wrenched off.
Panic rose in her once more but she fought it down. She would have to leave by the verandah door. There was no other way, and she did not believe that Carlyon would be waiting out there. He would wait in his own room until the Indian lady and her retinue had left and the bungalow servants had retired to bed. It would not occur to him that she would run away, for where was she to run to?
The thought checked her abruptly. There was no place to run to. The road back to Delhi was blocked by the swollen ford, and if she continued on her way she would not outdistance him for long. He would soon find that she had gone, and overtake her. A choking hopelessness caught her by the throat and she leaned against the bedroom door, suddenly weak and shivering once more.
A sound of wrangling voices and an occasional laugh came from the compound outside, and her ear caught the jingle of bells as one of the bullocks tossed its horns. The other travellers, who were to leave tonight. Of course! She would beg help of the lady from Oudh. Surely another woman would not refuse to help her?
Winter eased open the door onto the verandah with infinite caution. The hinges squeaked protestingly, but there was no one on the verandah. A flare of torches and oil-lamps and a talkative group of retainers surrounded the tinselled ruth, and a square of light from the window of the end room showed that the Indian lady had not yet left. Winter gathered up her trailing skirts in one hand and the carpet-bag in the other and ran lightly down the moonlit verandah.
The door was not locked and she could hear a woman talking on the other side of it. She pushed it open and went in.
There were three women in the room. A young and strikingly beautiful woman wearing the silk tunic and full trousers of a Mohammedan lady of family, and two older ones who were obviously servants, the younger of whom uttered a small scream of alarm at the sudden appearance of a stranger.
Winter put a finger to her lips in a gesture that implored silence and spoke in a soft, breathless whisper, explaining what little she could of her predicament and begging that they would take her with them. The Indian girl - she could not have been very many years older than Winter - listened in wide-eyed astonishment, and when she had finished, clapped her hands like a child and said: ‘But it is wonderful!’ She turned to the elderly serving-maid: ‘Is it not wonderful to hear a feringhi speak as one of us? Who art thou? What is thy name?’
‘Winter. Winter de Ballesteros. If the Begum Sahiba would be so kind as—’
‘What? What is that you say?’ said the girl sharply. She snatched up the oil-lamp that stood on the floor and held it so that the light fell full on Winter’s face.
Winter blinked at the sudden blaze and the girl stared in silence, moving the lamp so that it lit first one side of Winter’s face and then the other, lifting it so that the light poured down upon the black waves of hair.
‘It is!’ said the girl. ‘Allah Kerimast! It is so. Little sister, do you not know me?’
‘I - I do not think—’ began Winter breathlessly.
‘Ameera! - dost thou not remember Ameera? Hast thou indeed forgotten the Gulab Mahal and my mother Juanita Begum, and the tales that nani told us on the roof-top?’
The older serving-woman threw up her arms with a little wailing cry: ‘Aié! Aié! It is the Chota Moti! It is Zobeida’s baba whom I nursed as a babe!’
Winter’s eyes widened until they were dark pools in her white face, and she looked from the elderly woman to the girl who had called herself Ameera.
‘Anne Marie!’ All at once there were tears in Winter’s eyes and her voice was a shaken whisper: ‘It is Anne Marie!’
And then quite suddenly they were in each other’s arms, laughing and crying and pulling away to look at each other and clinging together again.
The soft silk, the smell of sandalwood and attar of roses; the liquid Eastern vowels. The touch and the scent and the sound of home …
A sudden tumult from the compound outside brought Winter back from the past to the recollection of her present position, and she pulled away, listening, her face once more strained with alarm.
‘Quick, Anne Marie - quick! Take me with you. If he should find that I am gone—’
‘Hush, hush,’ said Ameera, who was Juanita’s daughter. ‘We go now. Those are my servants out there, and they shall protect thee.’
‘No!’ said Winter urgently. ‘There must not be fighting. He has guns. Let us go quickly before he finds that I am not in my room.’
‘As thou wilt,’ said Ameera. ‘And on the road thou shalt tell me who this feringhi is who has frightened thee so. Is it thy husband from whom thou wouldst escape?’
‘No. It is someone who— Anne Marie, I cannot go out there. There are lights, and his servants will see me go. Cannot the ruth be brought nearer?’
Ameera laughed. ‘No one shall see thee, Little Pearl - dost thou remember thy pet name in the zenana? - see, we will put Hamida’s bourka upon thee, thus.’ She snatched up a voluminous white cotton garment that lay on the floor and dropped it over Winter’s head. It was a long, full, tent-like cloak that shrouded her from head to foot leaving only an inset of coarse net over the upper part of the face, through which the wearer could see but not be seen. ‘There,’ said Ameera triumphantly, ‘It is done. Hamida must cover her face with her chuddah if she fears that men will attack her for the sake of her beauty!’
The older waiting-woman, who had been the infant Winter’s wet nurse, mopped the tears from her face and chuckled like a parrot. ‘I will go out by the back way lest any of the nauker-log should see four women go out where but three came in.’
‘That is well thought of,’ said Ameera, donning her own bourka. ‘Come now. We are ready.’
‘No - wait,’ said Winter suddenly. ‘I must leave a message. If I do not, he will think me lost and rouse the country looking for me, or go to the police. He could not just leave me and go back. Hast thou paper and ink?’
‘Paper and ink? No. But Atiya here shall fetch some from the khansamah. Quick, Atiya - run!’
Ameera gave the girl a push, and she scuttled away, looking like a Hallowe’en ghost, to return a few minutes later, breathing hard and bearing a soft sheet of native paper, a bowl of black and gritty ink and a quill-pen. Winter threw back the folds of the bourka and wrote swiftly, Ameera holding the lamp. She thanked Lord Carlyon for his kind assistance, but she had met with a relative, a cousin, and so need put him to no further trouble on her behalf. He need be in no anxiety about her as she would be quite safe, and was continuing her journey immediately.
She held the paper above the lamp to dry the ink, her hands shaking with nervous haste, and folding it, begged Atiya to take it to her room and leave it there, but to make no sound that might attract attention. The woman had slipped out again, and Winter had w
aited in a fever of impatience and dread until she had returned, giggling reassuringly and carrying the small valise: ‘No need to leave thy gear,’ said Atiya. ‘We will cover it with a chuddah, so, and it will pass unnoticed.’
They hurried down the verandah steps and out into the night, and a moment later they were in the dark, close-curtained ruth. There was a startled ejaculation from one of the entourage, and a fierce request to be silent from Hamida, as a fourth figure crept into the ruth. ‘That son of an owl will ruin all,’ muttered Hamida angrily. The man who had exclaimed at the sight of four women where he had expected three inquired anxiously if all were well. ‘All is well, Fateh Ali,’ called Ameera. ‘Drive on. It is late.’
The driver of the ruth shouted, the bullocks grunted and the ruth jolted forward and precipitated Winter into Ameera’s lap, where the pent-up strains and anxieties and emotions of the last twenty-four hours found relief in a gale of laughter. She clung to Ameera and laughed, and Ameera and the two serving-women laughed with her, so that the driver and the four elderly mounted retainers who accompanied the ruth stared at each other in bewilderment and ended by chuckling in sympathy with that joyous sound.
‘And now,’ said Ameera, drawing breath and dabbing her eyes with the edge of her veil, ‘tell me all. How dost thou come to be here? Art thou not yet wed? And who is this feringhi from whom we escape?’
But she received no answer. Winter’s head was still against her shoulder, but she had fallen asleep.
Carlyon had waited until the sound of quarrelling voices and the wheels of the Indian women’s equipage had been swallowed up by the night. He had heard the khansamah and others of the dâk-bungalow servants pass along the verandah, and had waited until the voices from the stables and the servants’ quarters at the back of the house sank to a murmur and there was silence at last. He was in no hurry. He could afford to wait.
He adjusted his long silk dressing-gown to his satisfaction, ran a hand over his hair, and smiling a little, went out onto the deserted verandah. The light still burned in Winter’s room and he pushed the door open and went in, and finding the room empty supposed that she must be in the bathroom; she had evidently prepared for bed, for her discarded crinoline was lying on the floor. He closed the door softly behind him, and crossing the room sat down on the bed to wait.
It was not until several minutes later when, disturbed by the silence, his eye fell upon a paper that bore his name, and less than a minute later he was on the verandah shouting for horses, servants and lights.
He dressed with desperate raging haste, but he had allowed too much time to elapse, and he did not know of the narrow side lane that led off the road to the house where Ameera was to pass the night. A lane down which the ruth and its escort had turned less than five minutes before he galloped past it.
An hour later he was forced to realize that Winter had escaped him, and he turned back, rage contending with fear for her safety. Whom had she gone with? How could she have left without his knowledge? A relative? How could she have met a relative? Had she planned it all, and known that there would be someone here to meet her? The Indian woman in the end room did not so much as cross his mind, for Carlyon had never heard of Juanita de Ballesteros, who had married Wali Dad of Oudh.
The frightened servants could give him no information, and he cursed his inability to understand this barbarous language and the incapacity of his Calcutta bearer as an interpreter. He had headed for the ford on the chance that Winter’s letter had been a blind and that she had, after all, turned back to Delhi. But a raging torrent ran where the ford had been and Carlyon had returned to the dâk-bungalow, white with fury and convinced at last that Winter had tricked him. He had spent two appalling days of enforced idleness at the bungalow, alternating between the extremes of rage and boredom, and on the morning of the third day, having heard that the river had fallen, he had returned to Delhi.
Winter awoke to find sunlight lying across her in a fretted pattern thrown by a carved wooden shutter. She was still wearing the crushed and crumpled morning-dress of balzarine that she had put on in her bedroom at the Abuthnots’ bungalow in Delhi Cantonment… how long ago? It seemed an age; another existence.
She pushed away the thin cotton chuddah that covered her and stretched her arms above her head. She was lying on a charpoy, a low string bed with carved and painted legs, in a small bare room whose walls were coloured a gay pink while the floor was covered with rush-matting. Except for the charpoy and the matting the room was devoid of furniture, and once again Winter had a sudden mental vision of her room at Ware with its clutter of cumbersome furniture, gloomy wallpaper, dark heavily-framed engravings and thick fringed and tasselled draperies. The contrast made her laugh aloud, and there was a rustle of silk and a scent of sandalwood, and Ameera was there, smiling down at her.
‘We did not like to wake thee,’ said Ameera, ‘but the sun is high and if we do not wish to lose a day’s journey we must be on our way.’
Winter sprang up and immediately tripped on the voluminous folds of her crumpled dress and would have fallen if Ameera had not caught her.
‘Tenga cuidado!’ exclaimed Ameera, unexpectedly relapsing into Spanish. ‘Why do you wear a garment in which it is impossible to walk?’
‘My hoops,’ exclaimed Winter looking ruefully at her trailing skirts, ‘I took them off, and I suppose they are still on the floor of that dâk-bungalow.’ Forgetting more pressing matters she described to the fascinated Ameera the workings of a crinoline: ‘They hold the skirts out - so.’
‘Like a tent!’ exclaimed Ameera, delighted. ‘But it is ridiculous, is it not so? How does one sit down? Or walk through a door?’
Winter demonstrated and Ameera went off into peals of laughter.
‘But have you never seen one?’ asked Winter curiously. ‘Are there no European women in Oudh?’
Ameera’s laughing face sobered. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘there are European women, but I do not meet them.’
‘ But your mother?’
‘My mother is dead,’ said Ameera. ‘Did you not know?’
‘No. I am sorry. She used to write, and then she wrote no more, and - and that is all I ever knew.’
‘She died in the year of the cholera, when more than five hundred died in one day in Lucknow,’ said Ameera. ‘Ai de me! you will find few who remember you at the Gulab Mahal.’
‘Yet you still speak Spanish,’ said Winter.
‘As you see. But badly now. We kept it as a child’s language amongst us. I do not often speak it in these days, for my husband - my husband does not care for feringhis and their ways.’
‘Your husband! You are married, then?’
‘But of course,’ said Ameera in surprise. ‘I have been married these five years. Have you no husband as yet?’
Winter laughed. ‘You are taking me to my wedding!’
Ameera clapped her hands in a child-like gesture of delight. ‘Is it really so? Then there is all the more need for haste. You shall tell me the whole; but first you must eat, and then we will find you some clothes. You cannot travel in comfort in such garments as you wear now.’
She ran to the door and called a variety of orders down the steep little stair, and presently Winter was being bathed and fed, and dressed in a replica of Ameera’s own graceful costume by a horde of chattering, inquisitive, laughing women.
‘Zobeida has cared for this well,’ said Hamida approvingly, combing out the heavy silken waves of hair that reached almost to Winter’s knee. ‘It is softer and finer and even longer than Ameera Begum’s. Is Zobeida no longer alive that she is not with thee now?’
Winter shook her head and Hamida sighed. ‘Hai mai! We all grow old. Stand still, child, while I braid it. We shall need no black sheeps’ wool to lengthen this.’
Her gnarled brown fingers braided the rippling silken cloak into two long thick plaits, and fastened them with coloured thread. ‘There! It is finished. Now thou art no longer of Belait but of Hind.’
‘And is not that dress more comfortable than thy tent of wires and fishbones?’ demanded Ameera. ‘Thus do I remember thee when we played together in the women’s quarters of the Gulab Mahal.’
Dressed alike in full trousers, loose tunics and veils of fine shabnam from Dacca, with their blue-black hair braided to the knee, the relationship between the two women was suddenly apparent. Winter, daughter of Marcos, but with the small bones of her mother Sabrina, was not so tall as Ameera. But their eyes were the same; de Ballesteros’ eyes, dark brown, not black. Enormous, liquid and lovely. The eyes of some gentle Moorish maiden, centuries dead, who had married a knight of Castile. Their black hair swept back from their foreheads in the same line, springing from a deep widow’s peak and glinting blue and not bronze where the light struck it, and their small, high-bridged, delicate noses and slim, swallow-wing brows were the same. But there the resemblance ended.
The face of Juanita’s daughter was not broad at the brow and pointed at the chin like Winter’s, nor did it possess Winter’s gravity, or the faintly hollowed planes that were an indication of the beauty of bone beneath it. Ameera’s face was a smooth, laughing oval, and though her lips were as red as Winter’s they resembled a pomegranate bud rather than a full-blown rose, while her wheat-gold skin made Winter’s warm-tinted ivory appear velvet-white by contrast.
She was the elder by less than two years, but early marriage and her Eastern blood had ripened her to an opulent maturity that would have made her seem the younger girl’s senior by as much as ten, had it not been for the laughter that danced perpetually in her dark eyes and lurked in the dimples at the corners of her small curving mouth.
Winter, whom life at Ware had starved of laughter, looked into Ameera’s merry eyes and experienced a sudden relief of tension. An uprush of gaiety and high spirits and an irrational desire to run out into the sunlight and shout and play foolish games. To laugh for the sheer joy of laughing - and to make up for all the laughter that had been lost during the lonely years at Ware.