Cinders & Sapphires (At Somerton)

by Rasheed, Leila

  “I can’t hold Prince to this pace,” he flung over his shoulder. “I’ll have to canter.”

  He was off in a kick of flying gravel, Prince bounding away like a deer.

  “Oh, come on, Beauty!” Georgiana clicked her tongue and urged Beauty forward. Beauty ambled into a startled trot and eventually a reluctant canter. The wind whipped by and brought the color into Georgiana’s cheeks. She loved going fast; it was like her fingers flying over the piano keyboard, when she went into a world of her own.

  Michael didn’t look back until he reached the gate in the hedge.

  “Here I am!” Georgiana cantered up, eyes bright and cheeks pink.

  “Finally,” was all Michael said. Georgiana wilted.

  “Shall we ride down to the village?” she suggested as he dismounted to open the gate. “I’ve a little money, we could get chocolate and sit by the river.” Riverbanks were the kind of places where one might get kissed, she thought.

  “Trust a girl to think of something that boring,” he muttered, holding the gate open for her.

  Georgiana turned pink. Once she had ridden through the gate she drew rein and looked around. “I think you’re very rude,” she said firmly. “I don’t see you suggesting anything so exciting.”

  Michael looked startled and a little remorseful. He closed the gate and remounted. They rode on side by side. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, with such honesty that Georgiana was disarmed. “I have a rotten temper, I’m sorry. I’m just…well, if I’m honest, I’m wishing I hadn’t got expelled.”

  Georgiana’s eyes widened. “But you said you didn’t care. You said—”

  “Well, maybe I was bluffing.” He looked embarrassed, and ran a hand through his blond hair so it stood up. “The thing is, I hate school. I want to go into the army. But Mother won’t let me, and now that I’m at home she spends all her time nagging me and babying me. I can’t stand it, I tell you.” He slapped the air crossly with his riding crop. “Even Eton would be better than this.”

  “Oh…” Georgiana understood, and forgave him at once. “But why won’t she let you go into the army?”

  “Says it’s dangerous, of all things. I just want to get out and see the world.”

  “I know what you mean,” Georgiana said. She smiled. “Well, at least we can see as far as the road. Race you!”

  She urged the startled Beauty into a canter and rode to the fence that separated Somerton land from the road. Michael followed. At the fence they drew rein and stood, the horses panting, while they looked back over the park toward the house. The road curved past them, and as they sat there a carriage came along it. Inside, Georgiana glimpsed Edith and the nursemaid, Priya, a fractious Augustus squirming on her knee. Georgiana raised her riding crop to wave. Edith smiled graciously.

  “Who was that?”

  Michael’s tone startled her. She turned toward him. He was staring after the carriage as if thunderstruck.

  “Lady Edith, of course. Probably going to the village to call on Lady Fairfax.”

  “Not her! The…other one.”

  Georgiana felt a shock of anxiety go through her. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she disliked the way he was looking after the carriage so intensely.

  “Just the—the nursemaid,” she said reluctantly. “I believe her name is Priya.”

  “Priya,” murmured Michael, gazing after the carriage. Georgiana thought he looked like a prince under a spell—the spell of a mysterious fairy.

  She panicked. She had to draw his attention back to her somehow. “Let’s gallop!” she burst out, wheeling Beauty around. “Come on—into the woods!”

  She set Beauty off at a fast pace down the hill. Behind her she heard him shout after her, but she ignored him. The slope was much steeper than she was used to, and inside the woods it would be dangerous. But she had to distract him. She had to break the spell.

  “Come on, Beauty!”

  She reached the woods and guided Beauty away from the branches and onto the track. Beauty, who had not galloped in years, tossed her head in protest, but Georgiana spurred her on.

  Wanting to show Michael what she was made of, she did not slow her pace, but urged Beauty down the track, clods of mud spattering from her hooves thudding on the ground.

  “Georgiana, stop!” she heard Michael shouting behind her. She turned round to grin at him, and when she looked back, she saw a fallen tree trunk blocking the way.

  Georgiana bit her lip and urged Beauty forward. The old horse heaved herself over the trunk—and the ground on the other side wasn’t there. There was a sudden drop, Beauty neighed in fear, and stumbled. Georgiana barely had time to gasp before she was flying over the horse’s head, the world was green and fast, and in the long, almost luxuriously stretched-out second before she hit the ground, she had time to think: This will hurt.

  She was swimming in darkness, a roaring pain in her head. The pain became words.

  “Georgie! Georgiana! Can you hear me?”

  It sounded like Michael, but it couldn’t be. Michael never sounded like that: terrified, on the brink of tears.

  “Georgiana, wake up! Say something!”

  She tried to say, “Stop shouting,” but she couldn’t drag her voice up; it was like fishing a heavy weight from deep water. She tried again, and managed a groan.

  “Oh, thank God. You’re not dead.” He really was sobbing now. This was too intriguing to miss. She forced her eyes open and the glare of the weak sunshine hit her like a sledgehammer.

  “O-o-o-oh…my head!” she gasped.

  Michael was crouching next to her. In fact, she was in his arms. She did not have time to enjoy this quite as much as she would have liked, for she was too busy being sick in the bushes. Even at the time this struck her as unjust.

  “What happened?” The memory of the tree trunk, like a black barrier across her path, rose up.

  “You came a cropper. What a jump you took! I thought you would go round.”

  “Beauty?” She struggled to sit up. Beauty stood not far away, an I-told-you-so expression on her face.

  “She’s all right. Bit of a graze on her hock, but she was clever—picked herself up. You landed right on your head, though. I thought you were dead, Georgie. Never do that to me again!”

  Georgiana beamed at the concern in his voice, and winced as pain shot through her skull. It forced her to say, “Perhaps we ought to go home now.”

  “You shouldn’t move. I’ll ride back and fetch someone, if you’re all right alone for a few moments.” He stood up and caught Prince’s reins. He looked down at her again and said, “I’m so glad you’re not badly hurt. I’d have felt—well, never mind.”

  Georgiana smiled weakly. I must do this more often, she thought.

  Everyone in Oxford knew which Sebastian Templeton’s rooms were. They were the ones with the windows always open, from which the loudest laughter and gramophone music spilled, the ones where the sunshine seemed to linger longest, the ones out of which undergraduates leaned, calling raucously and drunkenly down to the passing students. They were the ones outside which the motorcars drew up day and night with a screech of brakes, to off-load boys with glossy toppers and the most ringingly aristocratic accents, who raced upstairs talking and laughing so loud that dons asleep half a mile away sat up groaning and vowing to send Sebastian down the very next day. Only somehow Sebastian never was sent down. Oxford would just not have been the same without him.

  “So we just left the motorcar there, in the haystack, and simply swam the rest of the way home!” Lord Evelyn Spencer said, finishing his anecdote. There was a roar of laughter from the rest of “the Set,” as fashionable young men and women of means were known. Lord Evelyn held out his glass vaguely. “Sebastian, where is that valet of yours with the champagne?”

  Oliver heard him from inside the kitchen and hurried out with the fresh champagne. He kept his head down and bowed, and hoped no one could see how nervous he was. Sebastian lolled on the couch, between Archie
Ffoulkes and Prince Alexander Tatenov, and winked at Oliver as he poured the champagne. Oliver allowed himself a brief smile in return.

  But his heart was not in it. He retreated to the kitchen and went on with setting out the small porcelain dishes that Sebastian had picked up in an antiques shop on their drive down. It was hard to see Sebastian so at ease, so careless, and not be able to join in the laughter, to have to keep a poker face and stay in the background. After the days they had shared together, it felt like a betrayal.

  He scolded himself as he carefully placed a silver spoonful of caviar in each dish. Sebastian couldn’t be expected to change his life completely, just because of Oliver. If he did, everyone would get suspicious. And he had known that this was what Sebastian was like. Truth be told, it was why he liked him so much.

  The doorbell rang just as he came out with the caviar.

  “Oh!” Evelyn exclaimed. “Is this your new find arriving, Sebastian?”

  Oliver thought for a second he meant himself, and turned pale. But Sebastian answered, “I hope so! He’s quite fascinating—dark and handsome, and so intense.”

  The words rang in Oliver’s ears as he went to the door and opened it. Joke or not, it wasn’t funny of Sebastian to flirt in front of him. He opened the door. Outside stood two men—a tall, handsome Indian boy who looked as if he would rather not be there. And the Honorable Peregrine Winchester.

  Oliver half gasped, and his hand jerked automatically to hide his face. He managed to turn the gesture into brushing his hair from his eyes, and hastily stood back. Of all people, Perry—here. Of course, he would have been going to Oxford. If he recognized him…

  But Perry Winchester just thrust his coat at him and strode in, saying in his booming voice, “Sorry I’m late, everyone. I’ve brought my friend—Ravi Sundaresan.”

  Sebastian jumped to his feet, smiling broadly.

  “Ravi, my dear chap—I’m so glad you could come. Sit down, have a drink. Campbell, fetch him a drink.” He ushered Ravi to a chair. Ravi sat down, managing a smile. “I said, Campbell, fetch him a drink!” Sebastian threw impatiently over his shoulder.

  Oliver started, Perry’s coat still in his arms. He had been so thrown back into the past by thinking Perry was sure to recognize him that he had forgotten that Campbell was the surname that he had given when he became a valet. “Right away, sir.”

  He was angry, at his own lapse, and at Sebastian’s rudeness. He was glad to retreat to the kitchen to hide his anger. So this was what it was to be a servant: not to dare speak back or to defend yourself, to put up with humiliation. Well, you were a bloody fool to expect anything else, he thought, but he couldn’t stop the spots of color coming into his cheeks, or the ache of rejected disappointment that opened in his heart. He was a servant now; he had to remember that. It had been his own decision to throw his life away, and by God he had made a good job of it. There was no sense in expecting a gentleman like Sebastian to take what they had together seriously.

  He came out with the champagne and handed it around. He trembled as he handed Perry his glass, but Perry didn’t even look at him. Oliver was half annoyed, but relieved also. It seemed that as a valet he was invisible even to his old friends from Harrow.

  He noticed that Ravi did not seem impressed with the Set. He sat silently, giving the barest minimum of answers as the others rattled on, exchanging gossip about society figures and plans for country-house parties. Oliver wondered why he had come, and why he did not leave, if the company was so little to his taste.

  It was not until much later, when some of the Set had left, and others had lounged over to the pianola to play records, that Sebastian was left alone with Ravi on the sofa. Oliver came out of the kitchen to collect the empty glasses. Ravi sat, frowning into his glass. Sebastian watched him thoughtfully. He paid no attention to Oliver.

  Ravi broke the silence. He said, abruptly, “How is…everyone at Somerton, Sebastian? I hope you left them all well.”

  “Quite well.” Sebastian looked surprised.

  “Good,” Ravi muttered. He half frowned, and Oliver could see that he was trying to think of a way to continue the conversation.

  Sebastian cleared his throat. “You don’t like me, do you?”

  His tone was flirtatious. Oliver hastily snatched up the last glass and returned to the kitchen to hide his feelings. But once there, he could not resist moving to the crack between the door and the wall, and watching and listening to the conversation unfold.

  Ravi’s reply was cool and distant. “On the contrary. I like you very much.”

  “Really? I would have said you almost despise me. Why is that?”

  Ravi hesitated. “Perhaps because I dislike waste.”

  “Waste? What do you mean?”

  Ravi paused again before answering. The sun sparked golden flecks from his brown eyes. “You are an intelligent man. That’s clear. You could make a difference to society.” He dropped his voice discreetly. “Yet you choose to waste your time and your intelligence talking inanities with these…butterflies.” He nodded toward Archie Ffoulkes and Perry Winchester, who were laughing by the pianola.

  Sebastian gave a small, thoughtful “Hmmph.” He twirled the stem of the champagne glass between his fingers as if thinking of a reply.

  Oliver’s heart beat hard. They were sitting so close together on the sofa. And he was stuck here, marooned in the kitchen, behind a wall of propriety.

  “Society. Yes. You see, I don’t consider myself a part of society.”

  “I don’t mean polite society,” Ravi said with some contempt. “I mean people. All people, everywhere.”

  “I know you do. But I still don’t belong.”

  Oliver shivered. He knew what Sebastian meant. He was talking about the love that could get them both arrested, that could make friends and family turn away from them in disgust. He knew. He had lost both friends and family already, and his name and his station had followed.

  “How can you say that? You’re one of the human race, after all.”

  “I don’t think much of the human race.” Sebastian kept his tone light and witty, but Oliver could hear a hardness underneath.

  “Really? What has made you so cynical?”

  Sebastian smiled. “Betrayal.”

  “How dramatic.”

  “Not really. I expect everyone lives through it at some point. You learn not to trust people. Not to let yourself be hurt.”

  “But if you don’t let yourself be open to pain, how can you be open to…”

  “What?”

  “I was going to say love, but I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

  Sebastian laughed. “No fear of that. I don’t think much of love, either. I don’t believe in it.”

  Oliver stepped back, feeling as if he had been punched. What did you expect? he asked himself again. But it seemed his heart was not as sensible as his head. His heart had expected more.

  “I did not use to believe in love either,” said Ravi. “But I think you will change your mind. I have.”

  He stood abruptly, placing his glass down. Sebastian rose too, and Ravi held out his hand.

  “It has been interesting to talk to you, Sebastian. It has been interesting to observe English society at close quarters.”

  Sebastian took his hand and shook it firmly. “Are you sure you must go?”

  “Yes. I have a letter to write.”

  Sebastian followed him to the door. Oliver remained in the kitchen. He realized he still had a glass and a cloth in his hand. He put them down as gently as he could.

  Sebastian came back into the room, a thoughtful, rather sad look on his face.

  “Oliver…” he began. Then he hesitated, and shook his head. He raised his voice, calling to his friends. “Come on, let’s go down to the river before the sun sets.”

  They went out, laughing and talking. Oliver stood in the kitchen, listening as the door slammed behind them. He heard their voices fade down the stairs and reappear in
the street. He ran into the main room and looked down into the street. Sebastian, arm-inarm with Perry, was laughing and joking as he strode across the quad toward his motorcar. The door of the motorcar slammed behind them, and it was as if it had slammed onto Oliver’s heart.

  Sebastian did not return that evening. Oliver knew this, because he lay awake waiting for him long after he knew it was stupid to hope.

  Ada was walking toward the dining room, following the sound of the dinner gong, when Rose darted out from the servants’ passage. With a quick glance up and down the empty corridor, she pressed an envelope into Ada’s hand. Ada clutched it tightly: she didn’t have to look at the handwriting to know it was Ravi’s reply to her last letter.

  “Thank you!” she whispered. Rose gave her a quick smile and was gone at once.

  Ada looked up and down the corridor. No one was coming. She tore open the envelope and read the letter hastily.

  My dear Ada,

  I was so pleased to receive your last letter and know that I had not given offense. I think I admire you more with every day that passes. Sometimes I wish I did not, it would make it easier to be here, away from you.

  You ask me about India, and accuse me of being unjust to men like your father, who have worked hard to improve matters there. I do not deny that he has done much, but he has done it in the interests of the British. How can the representatives of an invading force, who have exploited the riches of India for their own gain, be considered our benefactors?