by M. M. Kaye
The last three words were spoken quite softly, but they were less a question than a command, and the tone was a reminder of the old days when a Master of Horse had befriended a lonely little boy in the service of a spoilt princeling, cuffing him when he needed it, consoling him in his misfortunes, and treating him in all ways as a son. Ash recognized it and reacted to it in the same spirit, though with reluctance. It seemed absurd to him that he should not be able to treat Zarin as a friend and brother without giving rise to criticism. But then he found a great many things that his elders and betters did absurd, and had seldom found any profit in arguing with them. In the circumstances Koda Dad's advice was probably sound and must be accepted, so he said slowly: ‘It is understood. But…’
‘There are no buts,’ interrupted Awal Shah sharply. ‘My father and I have discussed this between us, and we are agreed. Zarin also. The past is the past, and it is best that it should be forgotten. The Hindu boy from Gulkote is dead and in his place is a Sahib – an officer-Sahib of the Guides. You cannot alter that; or try to be two people in one skin.’
‘I am that already,’ said Ash wryly. ‘Your brother helped to make me so when he told me that it would be best for me to go to Belait to the care of my father's people, and to learn to become a Sahib. Well, I have learned. Yet I am still Ashok, and I cannot alter that either, for having been a child of this land for eleven years I am tied to it by something as strong as the tie of blood, and shall always be two people in one skin – which is not a comfortable thing to be.’
His voice held a sudden note of bitterness and Koda Dad laid a consoling hand on his shoulder and said gently: ‘That I understand. But you will find it easier if you keep the two separate and do not try to be both at one time. And some day – who knows? – you may discover in yourself a third person who is neither Ashok nor Pelham-Sahib, but someone whole and complete: yourself. Now let us talk of other things. Give me the hookah.’
Awal Shah pushed the pipe towards him, and the familiar bubbling purr and the scent of country-grown tobacco took Ash back to long-ago evenings in Koda Dad's quarters in the Palace of the Winds. But as the pipe circulated it was not of the past that the old man spoke, but of the present and the future. His talk was of the Border, which had been unusually peaceful of late, and as they spoke the moon swung clear of the surrounding tree-tops and drowned the red glow of the coals in a flood of cold, clear light. From the direction of the road came a sharp jangle of bells as the tonga-pony shook its head restlessly, impatient for its stable, and presently its driver coughed discreetly to indicate that time was passing and that he had already wasted the best part of an hour.
‘It grows late,’ said Koda Dad, ‘and if I am to get any sleep I must go, for tomorrow I set out for my own village before sunrise. No, no, my mind is made up. I wished only to see you, Ashok, and that being done I return to my own house –’ his hand pressed heavily on Ash's shoulder as he levered himself to his feet. ‘Old men become like horses; they like their own stable best. Farewell, my son. It is good to have seen you again; and when next you obtain leave, Zarin shall bring you across the Border to visit me.’
He embraced Ash and left, striding stiffly away into the shadows and disdaining the proffered help of his eldest son, who spoke briefly to Zarin, saluted Ash and followed in the wake of his father.
Zarin scuffed out the remnants of the fire and gathering up the cooking pots and the hookah, said: ‘I too must go now. Our holiday is over and my father is right – we would do better not to arrive together. The tonga will take you to the Adjutant Sahib's quarters where you should report your arrival. We shall see each other; but only in the way of work.’
‘But there will be other holidays.’
‘Beshak!’ (without doubt). ‘When we are on leave we can be what we choose. But here we are on duty in the service of the Sirkar. Salaam, Sahib.
He vanished among the tree shadows and Ash went slowly back to the road where the tonga waited in the moonlight, and was bowled away into the fort to report himself to the Adjutant.
Those first days in Mardan had not been entirely happy ones for Ash, a circumstance that probably accounted for much that was to happen in the future, since it altered, at the outset, his approach to army life, and intensified an inborn impatience for rules and regulations, and a critical attitude to the arbitrary decisions of his elders and betters.
He should of course have foreseen it all, though the fact that he had not done so was not entirely his own fault. At least three other people must be held partly responsible: his Uncle Matthew, who had naturally never dreamt of warning his nephew against engaging himself to be married before he had so much as joined his regiment, Colonel Anderson, who had given him a great deal of good advice but (himself a confirmed bachelor) had neglected to touch on matrimony, and Mrs Harlowe, who should have scouted the idea instead of welcoming it with such alacrity and instantly pledging her own and her husband's consent. In the circumstances Ash could hardly be blamed for thinking that lack of means, not years, was the sole reason why young officers were discouraged from marrying at the outset of their careers, and as this did not apply to him, that there could be no serious objection to his betrothal.
He was very speedily disillusioned, for Mrs Harlowe's worst fears had been realized. Her husband had taken an exceedingly poor view of the whole affair; and so too, when he heard of it, had the Commandant of the Guides. Ash's intention of riding over to Peshawar at the first opportunity had been forestalled by Major Harlowe, who had driven to Mardan two days after his arrival and had a private talk with the Commandant.
Both men had been in complete agreement on the subject of early marriages and the fatal consequences attending young officers who acquired wives before they had, metaphorically speaking, cut their wisdom teeth. Ash had been sent for and treated to an embarrassing lecture that had left him feeling bruised and humiliated and, worse, infuriatingly callow. He had not been refused permission to see Belinda – it would perhaps have been kinder if he had been – but Major Harlowe had made it painfully clear that there could be no question of an engagement, official or otherwise, and that the matter must not be raised again for several years, by which time it was to be hoped that both young people would have learnt wisdom and acquired more sensible views on life (and, by implication, Belinda would have met and married some older and more suitable man). Provided that was clearly understood, Major Harlowe would have no objection to Mr Pelham-Martyn calling on his family, if at any time he should happen to be in Peshawar.
‘You must not think me hard-hearted, my boy,’ said Belinda's father. ‘I know just how you feel. But really, you know, it will not do. I am aware that financially you are well able to support a wife, but that don't alter the fact that you are both far too young to be thinking of marriage. Or if Bella is not, you are. Cut your milk teeth first my boy, and learn your trade; and if you have any sense you'll give yourself at least another eight or ten years before you tie yourself to petticoats and perambulators. That's my advice.’
It was also the Commandant's. When Ash had attempted to argue his cause, he had been tersely instructed not to be a young fool, and that if he felt himself unable to support life without Miss Harlowe, then he was obviously unsuited to such a Corps as the Guides, and had better arrange a transfer to some more sedentary branch of the service as soon as possible. In the meantime, as it seemed that there had been some talk of an engagement, he had permission to take leave the following weekend in order to ride over to Peshawar and put matters straight with Miss Harlowe.
Ash had been prepared for a certain amount of opposition to his matrimonial plans and would undoubtedly have settled for a long engagement, but it had never crossed his mind that Belinda's father and his own Commanding Officer would refuse to recognize any engagement at all. After all, it was not as though he were a fortune-hunter or a penniless nobody; compared with the average Indian Army officer he could be considered extremely well-off, and it was therefore palpably unjust that h
is proposal to Belinda should be dismissed in this cavalier fashion.
Suddenly convinced that he could not possibly live without her, he decided on the instant that there was nothing for it but to elope. If he and Belinda were to run away together, her father would consent to the marriage in order to avoid a scandal, and if the Guides refused to keep him, well, there were plenty of other regiments.
Looking back on it, Ash could never remember very much about that first week in Mardan: there had been so much to learn and so much to do. But though the days had been full of interest, the nights had turned into a long battle for sleep, for it was only then that he had leisure to think of Belinda.
He would lie awake in the darkness evolving wild plans, and when at last he slept it was always to dream of riding headlong across a stony plain between low barren hills, with a girl on the crupper behind him who clung to him and urged him to ride faster – faster. A girl whose face he could not see, but who was of course Belinda; though the long hair that streamed out behind her like a flag in the wind, impeding his view of their pursuers, was not yellow but black. He would hear the thunder of following hoof-beats coming louder and nearer, and would wake sweating with terror – to find that the sound of galloping horses was his own heart-beats thumping as though he had been running a race.
It was disturbing, too, to realize that although he was back once more in the land of his birth and able to see and speak with Zarin and Koda Dad again, he had not after all lost that nagging sense of emptiness that had haunted his years in exile. It was still there, but he felt sure that if Belinda would only agree to defy her father and marry him, with or without permission, he would be free of it for ever together with all restlessness and anxiety and doubt. It was the nights that made the week seem long. Yet almost before he knew it, it was Saturday.
He left Mardan well before sunrise, accompanied by Gul Baz, and they breakfasted a mile beyond Nowshera on chuppattis and dal curry bought from a food-vendor by the side of the Peshawar road. Parrots screamed and preened among the branches of the shade-trees lining the road and Gul Baz, though now in his thirtieth year, so far forgot himself as to break into song, and Ash recovered his spirits and was suddenly full of optimism. Somehow and in some way his problems would be solved, and tomorrow when he rode back to Mardan the future would be clear and everything settled.
Ash had sent a brief letter to Belinda, telling her that he would be riding over to Peshawar and hoped to reach there by mid-day, and a longer and more formal one to Mrs Harlowe, asking permission to call. But though he arrived at their bungalow a little earlier than he expected he found it empty but for a portly Mohammedan bearer, who informed him that the Major-Sahib had gone into camp with his regiment on the previous day, and the memsahibs were out shopping and would not be back until three o'clock, as they were taking tiffin with the Deputy Commissioner's memsahib. There was, however, a note for Ash…
They were so sorry, wrote Belinda, to be out, but the luncheon engagement was one that could not be missed, and as Mohan Lal's shop had announced the arrival of a new consignment of dress materials and printed cottons from Calcutta, there was no help for it but to leave early. She was sure Ash would understand, and Mama hoped that he would take tea with them at four o'clock.
The note contained three spelling mistakes and had obviously been written in a hurry, but it was the first that Ash had ever received from her, and as she had signed herself his affectionate Belinda, he stowed it carefully away in the breast-pocket of his coat, and leaving a message to say that he would return at tea time, remounted his horse and rode slowly away to the dâk-bungalow. There he engaged a room for the night, left Gul Baz and the horses, and having sent for a tonga, had himself driven to the Club. At least it would be cool there and probably quiet – which was more than could be said for the dâk-bungalow. But it proved to be an unfortunate choice.
The Club was certainly cool and comfortable, and it was empty except for a sprinkling of bored khidmatgars and two middle-aged Englishwomen who were drinking coffee in a corner of the lounge. Ash retired to the opposite corner with a mug of beer and a six-month-old copy of Punch, but the quacking voices of the two women made it impossible to concentrate, and presently he rose abruptly, and marching out of the lounge, took refuge in the bar where, owing to the fact that most of the garrison were out on manoeuvres, he found himself the sole occupant and was alone with his thoughts, none of which were particularly pleasant.
It was a measure of his disquiet that barely a quarter of an hour later he greeted the appearance of George Garforth with something approaching relief, though normally he would have been at pains to avoid George's company, and within minutes was regretting that he had not done so. For George, having accepted his offer of a drink, had immediately embarked on a harrowing description of Belinda's impact on Peshawar society and the compliments paid to her by several eligible bachelors who, asserted George, should know better than to pester such a young and innocent creature with their loathsome attentions.
‘It's downright disgusting, when you think that Foley and Robinson are both old enough to be her father – or her uncles, anyway,’ said George bitterly. ‘As for Claude Parberry, anyone can see that he is nothing but a roué and not to be trusted to take one's sister out riding. I can't think why her mother permits it: or why you do.’
He glowered resentfully at Ash, and having refreshed himself with a long pull at his glass, cheered up slightly and remarked that he happened to know that Belinda was merely embarrassed by the attention of these officers – he would not call them ‘gentlemen’ – but the poor child was too inexperienced to know how to deal with them as they deserved. He could only wish she would give him the right to do so, said George, adding truculently that he felt it only fair to warn Ash that she might yet do so.
‘I may as well tell you,’ declared George loudly, ‘that as she is not wearing your ring, I do not regard her as irrevocably bound to you, and I shall do my best to make her change her mind. After all, “All's fair in love and war” you know, and I was in love with Belinda before you were. Have another drink?’
Ash refused, saying curtly that he had ordered lunch and did not intend to keep it waiting. But George was impervious to snubs and merely said that he too was feeling peckish and would join him. The meal was hardly a convivial one; Ash did not talk at all while George never stopped talking, and judging from his conversation, he appeared to be very much persona grata at the Harlowes' bungalow. He had already squired Belinda to a picnic in addition to accompanying her and her mother on a shopping expedition, and that very evening was to dine with them and go on afterwards to the ‘ Saturday Hop’ at the Club.
‘Belinda says I am quite the best dancer in Peshawar,’ observed George complacently. ‘I daresay I –’ he broke off abruptly as a new and obviously disagreeable thought struck him. ‘Oh, I suppose you are going to be there tonight. Well, you won't find many people there. I believe it's no end of a crush when the military are in town, but as most of 'em are marching around the Kajuri Plain just now, the hops are pretty small affairs. I can't think why Belinda didn't mention that you'd be coming. But perhaps you don't dance? I believe some of the fellows don't, but for my part –’
George continued to talk his way steadily through four courses, and Ash was profoundly relieved when at last he took himself off. A post-luncheon silence descended upon the Club, and he returned to the deserted lounge and the unread copy of Punch, and watched the hands of the clock crawl slowly round the dial until at last it was time to leave.
Mrs Harlowe was waiting for him in her drawing-room, and although she greeted him kindly enough, she appeared ill at ease and plunged at once into a disjointed flood of small talk. It was plain that she did not intend to discuss personal matters and was determined to treat his visit as nothing more than a social call, and she was becoming a little breathless by the time her daughter tripped in, wearing white muslin and looking enchantingly young and pretty.
Framed in th
e doorway of that common-place bungalow drawing-room with its drab-coloured chintzes, numdah rugs and Benares-brass trays, Belinda glowed like a freshly blown rose in an English garden, and Ash forgot the proprieties and the fact that her mother was present, and ignoring her outstretched hand, caught her in his arms and would have kissed her if she had not turned her head away and twisted free.
‘Ashton!’ Belinda's hands flew to her hair, patting her curls into place as she backed away from him, blushing vividly, and uncertain whether to laugh or be scandalized: ‘Whatever will Mama think? If you are going to behave so abominably I shall go away. Now do sit down and be sensible. No, not over there. Here, beside Mama. We both want to hear about your Regiment and Mardan and what you have been doing with yourself.’
Ash opened his mouth to protest that he had not come to talk about such things, but he was foiled by Mrs Harlowe, who rang for tea; and in the presence of a hovering khidmatgar there was nothing for it but to give a brief account of his doings, while Belinda poured and the khidmatgar proffered plates of cakes and sandwiches.
Listening to his own voice, it seemed to Ash that the day had taken on a queer dream-like quality in which nothing was real. Their whole future, his and Belinda's, was at stake; yet here they sat, sipping tea and nibbling egg sandwiches, and talking trivialities as though nothing else mattered. The entire day had been a nightmare from the moment that he had arrived at the Harlowes bungalow and learnt that Belinda had left to go shopping: George's unwelcome conversation, the long, slow hours of waiting, Mrs Harlowe's nervous chatter, and now this. The room seemed to be full of an invisible glue in which he struggled feebly like a fly trapped in a pot of jam, while Mrs Harlowe talked of Zenana Missions and Belinda gleefully listed the various gay functions she had attended during the past week, and drew his attention to the impressive array of engraved cards that stood ranged on the chimney-piece.