Shadow of the Moon

by M. M. Kaye

  Death was an all too familiar visitant, and as Maudie Chilton had said of the hot weather, it was better not to think of such things. But there were also other and less disastrous things that could remove Alex from her orbit just as effectually. He might be transferred to some other district, or be returned to regimental duty. He might fall in love and marry some pretty creature like Sophie Abuthnot who, with infinitely more sense than Winter, had wasted no time over falling in love with him. Or someone like Delia— No, surely not Delia! He had never been more than polite to Delia. But he was being more than polite to her now …

  Winter watched him unobtrusively across the width of the room and suspected him of being a little drunk. His eyes were very bright and his thick dark hair was ruffled, and he appeared to be in excellent spirits and to have no objection to entertaining Miss Gardener-Smith - or, for that matter, Mrs Josh Cottar. Josh Cottar, who had the reputation of being able to drink any man in Lunjore under the table and still remain sober, was discussing a business deal in a far corner of the room with one of the Commissioner’s Indian guests, but Colonel Moulson, who was seated at Delia’s left, was showing every sign of losing his temper.

  Kishan Prasad had left at midnight, but his departure had not been the signal for any of the other guests to leave, since the Tuesday parties seldom ended before three and sometimes four o’clock in the morning. But shortly before one o’clock the Commissioner, who had passed successively through the convivial, the amorous, the quarrelsome and the maudlin stages of intoxication, finally arrived at the unconscious; and as though he had been waiting for that, Alex put down his unfinished drink, flung his cards face upwards on the table, and rose.

  ‘Where are you going, Alex?’ demanded Mrs Cottar.

  ‘Bed,’ said Alex briefly. ‘And so are the rest of you.’

  Unbelievably, he had managed to get rid of them. Winter did not know how he had done it, but within a quarter of an hour the last carriage had rolled away down the drive and only Alex remained. He had looked thoughtfully at the Commissioner’s snoring bulk and then at Winter and said: ‘Do you need any help?’

  Winter had not been entirely certain as to what he had meant by that question, but she had chosen to put the obvious interpretation upon it and had said a little stiffly: ‘You need not trouble. Ismail will help him to bed.’

  Alex shrugged his shoulders very slightly and had been turning to go when she had stopped him.

  ‘Captain Randall—’

  Alex turned back. ‘Mrs Barton?’

  Winter said: ‘Did you know that the Rao Sahib would be coming to the house tonight?’

  ‘I had heard that he might be.’

  ‘Is that why you were here tonight?’

  Alex regarded her with raised brows. ‘My dear Mrs Barton, I was here tonight because your husband invited me.’

  ‘But you would have refused if you had not thought that the Rao Sahib might be coming.’

  Alex shrugged again, ‘Perhaps. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Why did you want to see him?’

  Alex’s lazy glance dwelt reflectively on her for a moment or two and then he said: ‘Because I happen to be interested in him. There is a reason for everything that Kishan Prasad does, and it is always the same reason. He is a man with only one idea.’

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘My dear girl,’ said Alex with sudden impatience, ‘you know as well as I do. You once saw his face in the raw when we passed the wreck of that transport. He has only one aim in life. To throw off the rule of the Company. And to achieve it he would, if it were necessary, be prepared to cut the throat of every white man in this country with his own hands - with one possible exception.’

  ‘You mean - yourself? But you thought that he had told those men to kill you. You told him so! That is what you meant, didn’t you?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘No. He will not deliberately take my life, or plot to take it, because I once made the grave mistake of saving his. But if someone else should do it, that would be quite a different matter.’

  Winter sat down again a little abruptly. She said, looking up at him: ‘What were you talking about? It sounded just like ordinary talk, but it wasn’t, was it?’

  Alex subsided onto the sofa opposite her and drove his hands into his pockets. He said slowly: ‘Not exactly. I think that he intended to do you a service - or me - and that he is sufficiently sure of himself to be able to afford to do so. Perhaps he is right.’

  Winter said: ‘I don’t understand,’ and Alex looked at her under lowered lashes.

  ‘That may be just as well. Are you going to the hills this summer?’

  ‘No. I do not think that I shall mind the heat so much. Why are you changing the subject?’

  ‘I’m not. I think you should go, and I shall do all that I can to see that you do. Are you so particularly anxious to stay?’ His gaze wandered to the sofa on the far side of the room where her husband lay and snored.

  ‘Yes,’ said Winter, watching the turn of his head against the lamplight. Had that been what Kishan Prasad meant? Had he been hinting that there might be trouble in Lunjore in the coming months? But if that were so, how could she go to the hills, knowing that Alex would still be in Lunjore?

  She said almost inaudibly: ‘There are times when - when one would so much rather not be sent away.’

  Alex misinterpreted the hesitant words. He turned sharply, his mouth suddenly white. ‘Are you going to have a child?’ he inquired bluntly.

  Winter did not move, but he saw her face set in a dreadful silent stare and felt the shudder that went through her body as clearly as though she had been touching him instead of separated from him by a full two paces.

  It would be absurd to say that Winter had never contemplated such an eventuality, for she had often imagined herself as the mother of Conway’s children. But that had been before her marriage. It had, incredibly enough, never once occurred to her since; perhaps because, subconsciously, she could not believe that anything could be conceived as a result of happenings that inspired only fear and repulsion. Alex’s abrupt question had faced her with something that filled her with sick horror; as though she had been a sleep-walker waking to find herself balanced on the lip of a yawning gulf. The colour drained out of her face, leaving it pinched and sallow. That could not happen to her - it could not! Children should be born of love—

  Alex said: ‘Are you?’ The harshness of his own voice surprised him.

  Winter steadied her white lips with an effort, too shaken to resent the question. ‘No.’

  Alex stood up abruptly, and crossing to the table that was still littered with cards and dice, picked up his unfinished drink. The brandy burned his throat and he drank it as though he were parched with thirst, and refilling the glass at a side-table by the door, came back with it in his hand and stood looking down at her:

  ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps I should not have asked you that.’

  Winter did not raise her eyes further than the glass in his hand, and noting the direction of her gaze he smiled a little wryly: ‘No, I am afraid I don’t get drunk. It does not happen to be one of my failings, so I cannot excuse myself on that score. I thought that was what you meant, and it seemed to make it even more necessary that you should remove from Lunjore for the hot weather.’

  Winter did not look at him. She said: ‘I only meant that I will not run away.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From - from anything.’

  ‘No,’ said Alex thoughtfully, ‘I don’t believe you will.’

  He sat down again, and stretching his legs out before him, leant his head against the back of the sofa, and the silence lengthened and drew out and filled slowly with small sounds; the Commissioner’s stertorous breathing, the ticking of the clock, the chirrup of a gekko lizard and the monotonous fluttering of a large moth that had found its way in from the night and was battering its wings against the glass of the large oil-lamp, throwing whirling, wavering shadows across the walls and the high
white ceiling.

  Winter sat motionless, her body still rigid from shock. She did not look at Alex’s face where it lay thrown back against the gold-coloured brocade of the high-backed sofa. She looked at the hand that held his glass: brown, thin, long-fingered and nervous; a hand possessed of unexpected strength and equally unexpected gentleness; and she seemed to see beside it the damp, fleshy, unsteady fingers of the man she had married. She knew then that she could not bear children to Conway. To do so would be the ultimate indecency. She would go to Lucknow as he had suggested. Not to the house that had been her father’s, but to the one that had been her only home. To the Gulab Mahal. To Ameera, who might understand, and even if she did not, would be loving. If she could only get back to the Gulab Mahal she might be able to see things clearer; to stand back and get them into some sort of perspective. She could not do that while Alex was here and her need for him was so great. While Conway was here and her shuddering aversion for him filled her with such sick despair. She would go home …

  She saw Alex’s body relax, slackening perceptibly until the glass that he held tilted a little as his fingers loosened about it, holding it only lightly. He was still silent, but his silence was as devoid of tension as his body, and the familiar sense of safety and reassurance that his presence could bring her gradually smoothed out the turmoil in Winter’s mind. The taut rigidity left her and she leant back tiredly against the furry plush upholstery of the tall chair-back, feeling the strain and tension of the last twenty-four hours seep slowly away from her.

  The drawing-room smelt stalely of cigar-smoke and spirits, of fading roses and the heavy violet scent affected by Mrs Wilkinson, and the furniture still stood pushed out of the way of the card-table and against the walls. The room looked as cluttered and untidy and forlorn as any room when a party is over and the guests are gone, but despite its unattra ctive aspect it was all at once curiously peaceful. Alex had always been able to give her this feeling of security, and looking at his abstracted face Winter thought how strange it was that this should still be so. Surely, now that she had discovered that she loved him, she should feel embarrassed or shy or ashamed in his presence? She was a married woman, and it was shockingly improper of her to allow herself to fall in love with another man. She should by rights be overcome with shame. But then she had not allowed herself to fall in love with Alex. She had only discovered the fact when it was far too late to do anything about it. She had not even had sense enough to realize it when he had kissed her. She wondered, now, why he had done so? Had it only been a sudden impulse, born of the romantic beauty of the warm moonlight and the strains of a sentimental song? Or had he after all loved her a little? She knew that he had felt responsible for her and that the feeling of responsibility had irked him. She knew too that it had not died with her marriage. Sitting relaxed and silent she watched his quiet face and wondered what he was thinking of.

  Alex was not thinking of Winter. He seldom had time to think of her, or allowed himself to do so. There were too many other things to think about. Too much that needed to be done, and always too little time in which to do it …

  So Kishan Prasad was to be one of the hosts at the duck shoot - Kishan Prasad who never did anything without a reason. What then was behind this shoot at Hazrat Bagh? Could there be an ulterior motive behind such an arrangement? or was its aim merely to lull the senior officers and officials into a deeper sense of security and belief in the good-will of the local talukdars than they already possessed? It would, of course, mean that for the best part of a day the station would be practically denuded of British officers, as the majority of them were attending the shoot. Had anything been planned to take place in their absence? The armoury - the magazine—?

  No, that was absurd. Kishan Prasad had said the hot weather. He would not have troubled to say that if it had not been true, and the real hot weather did not officially start until the end of April or the first week of May. Or had he been playing a double game? That would be like him. And yet— No, he had meant it. He could afford to hand Alex that piece of information, carelessly secure in the knowledge that no one else would believe it.

  Sepoys … They had asked for sepoys to help put up the birds. Why, when there were so many villagers and coolies that they could call upon? Was there anything in that? ‘… this may do well enough for the villages, but it will not serve for the sepoys. For them it must be something that strikes deeper and touches every man. They are already as tinder, but there is as yet no spark. No matter; we will find it.’ Had Kishan Prasad found the spark he had spoken of? What had made him sure enough of himself to give that warning? - for it had been a warning …

  ‘I must see Packer and Gardener-Smith and Moulson in the morning,’ thought Alex, ‘though they will none of them believe a word of it. However, they may be prepared to believe that the other man’s regiment is rotten, and that may help. Surely they must know that their sepoys are being got at? What the devil is behind this damned duck shoot? There is something. I’ve felt it in my bones long before I even knew that Kishan Prasad was mixed up in it. Maynard says the police are firm. I wonder. Oh God, why won’t they send out more British officers - call off the civil from mucking about with the Army, and throw out some of these decrepit senior officers! … William was quite right when he said that at the age at which officers become colonels and majors not one in fifty is able to stand the wear and tear of Indian service. Look at the way the magazines and arsenals have been left unguarded. If there is a rising in Lunjore, who is going to hold the magazine if they are all involved in it? Thank God, we’ve only got a small one! But there’s the arsenal at Suthragunj: guns, arms, powder enough to blow up half of India, and only one Queen’s regiment against three of Native Infantry and one of Native Cavalry if it ever came to— Oh, what’s the good of thinking of it! It’s not my pigeon …’ His thoughts left the wider issues and drifted into the familiar pattern of planning for the we lfare of his own district.

  The clock on the chimney-piece struck two and Alex removed his abstracted gaze from the ceiling and turned his head to look at Winter. He said slowly: ‘I didn’t mean to keep you up so late. I’m sorry … Riding this morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere. To Parry’s mound?’

  ‘All right. Six o’clock, then.’

  They smiled at each other, their faces dim and peaceful, and Alex finished his drink and stood up. Winter rose with a rustle of silk and walked beside him into the hall where a sleepy servant squatted nodding by the dining-room door.

  Alex said curtly: ‘Send the Sahib’s bearer to him,’ and the man scrambled to his feet and scurried away into the darkness as Alex turned to Winter and held out his hand:

  ‘Good night. Or Good morning. And I suppose I should also say, “Thank you for a very pleasant evening.”’

  ‘Was it pleasant?’

  Alex considered the question, still holding the hand she had put into his. He had a habit of considering a question before he answered it, rather than returning a conventionally empty reply. He said thoughtfully: ‘Instructive, at all events. And I suppose tolerably amusing.’

  He seemed about to say something else, but he changed his mind and was silent for a moment or two, looking down at Winter and not quite smiling, the line of his mouth unexpectedly tender. Then he lifted the hand he held, and turning it palm upwards, kissed it lightly and deliberately, and folding her fingers upon the kiss, released it.

  There had been nothing in the least passionate in the gesture: it might have been either a wordless apology or a comforting caress given to a child. Then he had turned and gone out into the night, and Winter had heard him speak to a servant in the porch, and had waited, standing in the silent hall, until the sound of his footsteps died away in the darkness.

  29

  Less than four hours later Alex had been waiting for her on the Residency road, and they had ridden out through the quiet cantonments and across the rifle-range to the open c
ountry beyond, Niaz and Yusaf riding behind them.

  The rifle-range was hard and level and the horses were fresh, so they did not talk much. But beyond the range the ground became broken, and they slowed to a walk, threading their way between rough tussocks of grass, kikar trees and thorn bushes, feathery clumps of pampas and outcrops of rock, to draw rein on the crest of a lonely knoll that was crowned by a banyan tree and the weather-worn slab of an ancient grave whose inscription was still faintly legible: Here lyes the body of Ezra Parry of the Honourable Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies, the son of Thos: Parry and Susanna, who departed this lyfe the eleventh of October 1666.

  The sun rose as they reached it, and they sat looking out across the country beyond, while every blade and spear of grass flashed and glittered with dew-drops and the morning mists lifted in veil after veil so that the land seemed to unroll itself, stretching back and back into limitless distance.

  Doves cooed among the branches of the banyan tree and a flight of wild duck whistled overhead, making for the jheel that lay ten miles and more to the northward. Winter turned to watch them as they dwindled into specks against the pale blue of the morning, and saw that there were other lines in the sky, long and wavering or forming neat dark arrow-heads; duck and teal and geese flying in from a night spent on the river or among the ploughed lands.