The Maclarens (The Regiment Family Saga Book 1)

by CL Skelton

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said Jean, ‘and then perhaps if we said a little prayer together ‒’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up and get out of my house. Nobody asked you here and nobody wants you to stay. Just get out and leave me alone. That is all I ask of you. That is all I ask of your whole bloody family.’

  Jean finally got the message. ‘Well, perhaps some other time.’

  ‘There’s the door,’ said Maud.

  Jean squared her shoulders and left the house, tut-tutting as she did so.

  Maud watched her going down the path from the bow window, then threw herself on to the sofa and burst into tears. ‘Oh, Andrew … Andrew …’ she sobbed.

  A little crowd had gathered outside St Margaret’s, drawn by the red awning and the shining carriages gathered nearby waiting to collect the ‘happy couple’ and their guests. It was the usual bunch of gapers who came to leer at brides and grooms as they left the church and passed on their way to bed together for the first time, while they themselves fantasized upon the virgin, or the rapist, and the joy or hurt of the impending copulation, according to their own experience.

  They came out of the church and stood for a moment beneath the swords, Andrew solemn, almost grim-faced, and Emma with a smile that could have been cynical amusement playing around her mouth.

  The bridal landau drew up and Andrew helped Emma into her place. A moment’s pause, a little wave to the emerging guests, and the pair of gleaming black hackneys set off down Victoria Street and up Constitution Hill, on to Piccadilly and the Ritz Hotel where the reception was to be held, and where all the pointless speeches would be made.

  The bride’s mother, who was nothing if not a social organizer of distinction, had dealt with all of the arrangements, and the whole affair was carried through with a precision which would have done credit to the Brigade of Guards. A good time was had by all ‒ all, that is, except Lady Maclaren. She alone had not enjoyed herself, and not because she felt she was losing her only son. There was something subtly, terribly wrong with Andrew, and she was well aware of it. For several weeks now, he had barely spoken to her, and when conversation had been unavoidable, he had conducted it in monosyllables and terminated it at the first opportunity.

  She could hardly help but be aware that he was avoiding her, but she had not the courage to ask him why. She could not get it out of her mind that he had in some way found out about the letters. Not that he had mentioned them to her, not that he had even mentioned the wedding to her. But it was over now, and though his attitude had given her great pain, she could not help feeling great relief at seeing him finally married to the woman of her choice.

  There had been some private talk about the honeymoon, and on this matter Emma had been quite adamant. It would not be Paris or the Riviera, or any of the fashionable continental resorts. The London season was just beginning, and Emma had no intention of being anywhere else.

  Bowing to his daughter’s wishes, General Worthing had placed his own town house, which lay just off Piccadilly in Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square, at their disposal, fully staffed and provisioned.

  It was there that they went as soon as they could, with dignity, leave the reception. The house was tall and terraced and modern, overlooking a quiet square where elderly matrons walked their Pekingeses, and uniformed nannies parked their prams and gossiped. It was built of red brick and fronted by iron railings, behind which steps led down to the basement where there were servants’ quarters and the kitchen. The front door was of polished oak with a gleaming brass doorknob and bell pull, sheltered from the elements by a stone canopy supported on twin rounded pillars. It was like all the other houses in the square, opulent, and the town dwelling of a wealthy family. Inside was a large reception hall with a sweeping curved staircase leading to bedrooms; and heavy doors led off into the library and drawing room and dining room. Everything had been cleaned and dusted, the front steps newly pumice-stoned, the brasses polished throughout the house to greet the bridal couple.

  They had left the Ritz in a closed carriage, and when it drew up outside the house, Andrew helped his bride down.

  They were halfway up the steps when the door opened and they paused. Andrew looked at Emma in surprise.

  ‘That will be Blundel,’ she said, ‘my father’s butler. He’ll have been looking out for us.’

  ‘I suppose that I ought to carry you over the threshold,’ he said.

  ‘Please don’t,’ replied Emma. ‘You don’t believe in all that nonsense, do you?’

  ‘Well, actually no.’

  ‘Besides, I want to get out of this damned thing.’

  The damned thing that she was referring to was her magnificent white satin wedding dress, the provision of which had cost her mother a great deal of time and her father a great deal of money.

  Before he had a chance to say more, she had walked past him and into the house. He followed her just in time to see her disappearing up the broad curved staircase.

  ‘I’ll be down in half an hour,’ she said over her shoulder as she vanished from his view.

  ‘Ahem.’

  Andrew turned. It was the butler.

  ‘May I offer my congratulations, sir?’

  ‘Oh ‒ er ‒ thank you,’ said Andrew, handing him his feather bonnet and his gloves. ‘You are ‒?’

  ‘Blundel, sir. I am your butler. Would you care to have me show you over the house?’

  ‘Not just at the moment,’ replied Andrew. ‘Is there a sitting room, a library? Somewhere I can get a drink?’

  ‘Might I suggest the library, sir? There’s a pleasant fire there. You will find it most comfortable, and well stocked with a variety of refreshments.’

  He led Andrew into the room and Andrew thought it was strange how all libraries looked alike, book-lined, heavy with the smell of leather, and uninhabited.

  ‘I’ll have a brandy and soda,’ said Andrew. ‘And when Miss ‒ I’m sorry, Mrs Maclaren comes down, I think you might send up some tea.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ replied Blundel, pouring the drink and handing it to Andrew. ‘Is that all, sir?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Andrew. ‘Unless my wife wants anything. I’ll ring if she does.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Blundel, and withdrew.

  Andrew sat for some twenty minutes sipping his drink. It was not a large one, but even in that time he didn’t finish it. He didn’t really want it; as a matter of fact, he felt quite peculiar. And then she came in.

  He stood up as she entered, and an expression of genuine hurt crossed his face.

  ‘Andrew,’ she said. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No, nothing wrong,’ he said, lying. How could he possibly tell her? How could he possibly ask her why she had chosen to wear a green silk gown? That was Maud’s special colour. ‘You look lovely,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ve ordered tea. Unless you’d prefer a drink.’

  ‘Tea will be fine.’

  She sat down on the club settee which lay at right angles to the fireplace, and Andrew, after a moment’s hesitation, sat in the armchair opposite. She looked at him, again the slightly cynical smile on her face.

  ‘Don’t you want to sit beside your wife, Andrew?’ she said.

  ‘Oh ‒ yes ‒ yes, of course. I’m sorry ‒ I ‒’

  ‘Andrew, are you frightened?’

  ‘Yes, I am a bit. I’ve never been married before.’ And he sat beside her.

  ‘Well, neither have I,’ said Emma. ‘But I know what is supposed to happen. I hope you do?’

  ‘You mean ‒’ She nodded. ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ He was finding her direct manner somewhat unnerving. ‘When?’ he said.

  ‘Whenever you like,’ she replied. ‘But I would like a cup of tea first.’

  ‘All right,’ said Andrew, glad of the delay. ‘I’ll ring.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, and now she was really laughing at him.

  They drank their tea almost in silence. Andrew took one sip and then wa
tched his cup get cold, while Emma did not seem in the least perturbed. She had two cups and nibbled at a biscuit.

  ‘Your tea must be cold,’ she said. ‘Shall I throw that away and give you a fresh cup?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t really want any.’

  ‘All right,’ she smiled. ‘Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll go upstairs to our bedroom, it’s the white door on the first landing. There’s a lovely fire in there, and you come up in about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit early?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no. We can try now, and then if we like it, we can do it again tonight.’ And before he could reply, she was gone.

  He decided he needed another drink, so he poured himself a brandy ‒ a large one this time ‒ and drank it at a single gulp. He could not keep his eyes off the clock on the mantelpiece as he watched the minutes ticking away. Then it was time to go, and slowly he walked up the stairs and into the master bedroom. He looked towards the bed expecting to see her there, but she was not in it. She was standing in front of the fire, completely naked.

  He gasped at the sight of her. He had never seen a naked woman before except in his dreams and fantasies, but this was magnificent. She had let her hair fall down her back, and the creamy skin, the full breasts and delicate curves of her body, culminating in the triangle of soft curls beneath her navel, banished everything but desire from his thoughts.

  She saw it in his eyes, and what she saw stripped her emotions until they were as naked as her body. The brittle veneer of sophistication was gone, and the fear which had left him came to her.

  ‘I thought that you had a right to see me first as I really am,’ she said, and her voice was softer than he had ever known it.

  She crossed her arms over her breasts and hurried over to the bed and got between the sheets. He still stood just inside the door, not knowing what to do next.

  ‘Andrew,’ she said, appealing, ‘your dressing room is through that door there. Will you close the curtains and then go in there until you are ready? and then come to me.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘Anything.’

  He did as she had bid and returned to the darkened bedroom.

  ‘Can I come in beside you?’ he asked.

  In reply, she folded down the covers at the other side of the bed. He got in, being careful not to touch her, and then she found his hand.

  ‘Andrew, I have never done this before; please be gentle with me. I have been told that it hurts the first time.’

  ‘Would you rather wait?’ he said, knowing that he didn’t mean it, and that his body was crying out for her.

  ‘No, Andrew, you must take me now. We cannot wait. Come, my dear, we must help each other.’

  She moved towards him so that they could feel each other’s nakedness. As he entered her, she gave a gasp and a little cry of pain.

  ‘Maud, my darling,’ he cried, not realizing what name he had used, ‘did I hurt you?’

  She neither replied nor reacted to the word. Instead she thrust her body closer to him, and when it was over, they lay together in silence for a long while.

  It was not until they had dressed and gone downstairs that she mentioned the subject.

  ‘Who is Maud?’ she asked, and when he made no reply, she continued, ‘Andrew, when we were in bed, you called me Maud. Maud must be someone who is very important to you. No, don’t answer. Perhaps it is better you do not tell me. Ours is not a love match and there is little point in trying to pretend that it is.’

  ‘But Emma ‒’

  ‘Wait, I haven’t finished. Perhaps I shall become pregnant very soon, and that will fulfil the purpose of our union. Then perhaps it will not matter. But let me tell you one thing, my dear. I do not mind if you look for solace among other women as long as I know nothing about it. If ever I find out who they are ‒ and I include this Maud among them ‒ I give you my solemn word that I will destroy them.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Himalayas, the vast mountain barrier which protected British India from the savage inhabitants to the north and west, is pierced where it turns sharply southward by a number of passes, the best known of which is the Khyber. This rises only to thirty-three hundred and some feet. Flanked by the huge mountains, it winds its way through the homelands of the Pathans and on into Afghanistan.

  The Pathans are an ancient, unruly, independent, and proud people, not unlike the ancient Scottish clans, who had never submitted to the British Raj or to any other. Whenever the opportunity arose, they would sweep through the mountain passes and raid the fertile plains below.

  The British army had built an elaborate system of defences to control the entry through the gaps in the mountains, and it was here, in the Khyber, that the 148th Foot sweated it out for nigh on three months.

  Since the punitive expedition of Brigadier General Wilde the Khyber had been comparatively quiet. This did not mean that there was no action. Small-scale raids and counter-raids continued sporadically. The Pathans were covetous of the new Snider rifle, a breech loader with which the army was now equipped, and would take enormous risks in order to lay hands on one. Companies manning the forward positions would live under canvas. They slept in bell tents, fourteen to a tent, feet towards the pole around which their rifles were securely locked by means of a chain passed through the trigger guards. But even with all these precautions, occasionally one was stolen; and when that happened, the battalion could not rest until it had been retrieved.

  But most of the time, nothing happened. For in the army, the fighting men, the soldiers of the line, spent over ninety per cent of their time in a state of boredom. Some of them took to drink, some of them gambled. The ordinary soldier talked about women and beer and bragged of his prowess in both fields. The young officers indulged in childish parties and pranks ‒ anything in fact to relieve the monotony and the tedium of their day-to-day existence. But any of them who had a home, and in the 148th that meant most, spent a great deal of their time thinking about it.

  Andrew spent many long hours gazing at the brown, barren, rocky hills with his thoughts in Scotland, remembering. He remembered how they had gone north after their short honeymoon, and how he and Emma had set up house. Sir Henry had given them the dower house, a comparatively recent structure, which had been built a mile or so from Culbrech. It lay on a south-facing hill overlooking the Glass and the hills beyond. It was not large by country-house standards. There were six bedrooms, and the ground floor had a drawing room, a dining room, and a study-cum-library. It had been built initially for Andrew’s grandmother after his grandfather had died and Sir Henry had inherited the estate. His grandmother had lived in it only a couple of years, a broken-hearted recluse, before she too had died, and the house had remained silent and empty ever since. But while the family had awaited his return from New Zealand, it had been restored and modernized, and prepared for possible occupation by Andrew and his hoped-for bride.

  The house was built of red brick, an unusual material in that part of the world, which had been shipped by sea from the south. It had French windows which led out on to the lawn and the gardens beyond. When Sir Henry had given it to Andrew and Emma, it had been absolutely devoid of furniture. With the help of a large cash settlement from her parents, Emma had furnished it herself, allowing no one to interfere with her fixed ideas of what a home should be. The result had been quite spectacular, if not in the vogue of the era. It lacked the clutter and the dark velvets and the heavy, heavy curtains so popular at that time. Instead, everything was light. She had discarded the conventional mahogany and heavy oak furniture and had used light-toned walnuts and rosewood. The rooms themselves were wall-papered in delicate blue and pale gold stripes, or painted in Adam green and white, and picked out with shining gilding. Where she had used velvets, as she did in the withdrawing room, instead of the sombre browns and greens, she had chosen pale salmon pinks and gentle yellows. She had left space, open spaces in all of the r
ooms, so that one could walk around and not be confronted every two paces with another piece of furniture.

  Lady Maclaren had viewed the final result with slight disapproval. In her heart she felt that it looked more like a French salon than a Scottish country house. There was no denying this, the French influence was there all right. For Emma had engaged a French girl to be her personal maid. As for the rest of the staff, she engaged a butler, groom, two footmen, a cook, a scullery maid, and an upstairs maid. With the exception of the cook, they were all English and had all been vetted by her own mother before being sent up to the Highlands.

  Andrew had had nothing at all to do with this, but he had admired his wife’s efficiency in organizing their new home, and living in it, he could not deny the success of her efforts. It was comfortable, and pleasant, and easy to live in. A place to relax, if only he had been capable of relaxing and accepting his lot; if his mind had not been constantly drawn to that little cottage only a handful of miles away beside the river.

  But out there in India, it was all so far away. Scotland and home. It was a period of great boredom, interspersed with spells of high tension. Tension because there could be fighting at any time to break the boredom of constant patrols, guard duties, and sheer inactivity, when men saw nothing but mountains and rocks and a dusty, barren land. There had been casualties, not many of them from the guerrilla actions of the Pathans. In three months on the frontier, they had lost one man killed, and two wounded; disease had taken a much higher toll, and they looked forward longingly to the relieving battalion which was soon due. Then they would move eastward to Lahore, and the officers and some of the luckier N.C.O.S would get a period of rest in Simla, where their wives and families would be waiting for them.

  One night, sitting out there in the Khyber, Jamie Patterson, who had been sober longer than he could remember, wrote in his diary:

  Life here is intolerable. There is nothing to drink except water, and very little of that. I never believed that the time would arrive when water would be the most precious thing in my life. I have not seen alcohol for over a month. We are camped at the foot of a long, narrow pass, down which the wind will suddenly blow at gale force and the sandy soil will rise in masses so that you cannot see the tent next to your own. And when the wind dies down, everything is coated with a fine dry dust and we have to spend hours cleaning our rifles and equipment, being sent out on guards or pickets, which time we spend hiding, for the Pathan is so much better at seeing us than we are at seeing him. We parade every morning at six o’clock and the colonel sometimes gives us a talk. He is trying to keep up our morale, but I fear that he, poor soul, finds this depressing as we do. I wonder sometimes that the men do not go out of their minds, but they are a hard lot, and though in the past I would not have associated with them, I am now proud to be numbered among them.