by Alyssa Deane
Roxane felt his mouth against the side of her brow. His breath was warm, and moist, and gently scented.
“The day after tomorrow,” he said, “a picked body of men will depart for Delhi, my love."
“And you will be with them."
“And I will be with them."
At his words, Roxane waited for the dull numbing of pain to take over, as it had when she had discovered his former betrothal, and had known he was not free. She waited, but it did not come. She looked for anger, or the simple, blunt-edged blade of indifference to separate her from the hollow misery circling to the surface like oil on water, but found neither.
“Roxane, do you love me?"
Silently, she moved her head against his shoulder in assent.
“Then bid me Godspeed, my heart, and let me go. You, who have been your own strength for so long, must let me find mine again. We have seen the same things, Roxane. You know what I do, and feel much the same. Let me go, without grief, and I promise you, on all that is sacred to me, that I will return."
Roxane lay still against her husband, encircled in his arms, listening to the troubled cadence of his breathing and the rapid beat of his heart within his rib cage. His hand crept up, fingers entwining in her own, but he remained quiet, and made no more pleas for his case.
Lying there, Roxane contemplated all the arguments she could make to him, on her own behalf and that of the child, and even his own well-being. She knew that within her was the power, if she chose to wield it, to make him stay, to keep him safe and whole and free from danger. But even if she might have one day forgiven herself for utilizing that privilege, as his wife, she knew he would not be able to truly do so.
Turning her head into the curve of his shoulder, she remembered what he had said, when questioned about his honor. My honor, like my love, stands before me. There can be no other that comes first....
He had spoken those words truthfully, from his heart, and they had not, in essence, changed. She was his love, she knew that, and all things, it seemed, spiraled out from the core which was their union. Yes, he would go to battle, to his soldier's duty, but even the consciousness of that duty was channeled, somehow, through the alliance of love shared and understood. In turn, she had her own trust to which she must attend. There was no turning aside from it. To be selfish, at this juncture, was to do irreparable harm. His duty was of utmost importance to him, for reasons that were more than obvious. To go without her blessing was to go, now, without his honor. Roxane wriggled around on the bed, so that she was lying across his chest, looking down at the shadow of his countenance. She reached up, tracing the outline of his features with the tips of her fingers. When she reached his mouth, she kissed him, then pulled away, just enough so that there would be no mistaking her words when she spoke them.
“Godspeed, then, Collier, and when you return,” she said, pulling his hand down so that it lay, palm flat, across her abdomen, “we will both be waiting. Please, don't be too dreadfully long away."
Easing his hand from beneath her own, he trailed it further down her body, to a place that was warm and moist. Carefully, he maneuvered her body over his own, and slid into her with a slow and gentle pressure.
“Not too long,” he whispered, on a sigh, “I swear it."
Chapter Twenty-Four
England
October, 1858
It was a rare and lovely day, where the sky was far bluer than seemed possible, the air temperate, the foliage a remarkable mixture of cool greens and deep, warm shades of gold and brown and orange. The flowers had died off long ago, except a few hardy mums planted near the doorway. Their rust-colored heads bowed to the small breeze with a noise like water splashing from a wheel.
Roxane sat in a wicker chair on the long, narrow porch of the house she had rented after selling the home she had shared with her mother in London. She stared out over fields golden yellow in the sunlight. Soon, they would be harvested by the farmer who owned them. She was looking forward to watching the harvest, to the chaff rising in the air, filling it with clouds of pale brown dust. To hearing the creak of leather and rolling wheels through earth, and the drifting, shouted commands of the men who rode the wagons. She remembered that it had been like that when she was young, and hoped against hope that the sights and sounds and scents would not have changed with the passage of years.
Two letters had come in the post today. She held them both in her lap, clutched in an upturned fist. One was from Unity, but she had not opened it. Unity's effervescence was too much to stand just now. Today was not one of Roxane's better days. The other was from Rose and Harry, urging that Roxane bring Sera and the baby to London for the holidays.
Turning her head on her shoulders, Roxane glanced into the cradle at her elbow, where the baby's dark head was just visible above the quilted blanket. Beautiful, shining dark ringlets, as black as Collier's own hair had been. Nearly ten months old, this child of theirs, already walking with unsteady, tentative steps. Oh, yes, a strong child, as she had suspected all that time ago when fleeing for her life across India. A strong child, but not a boy, after all.
The baby was born in Calcutta, in January. Collier was nearly four months gone at that point, and there had been no word able to get through from him. She had no doubt that he was writing faithfully, as he had promised, but there was no way for him to post the letters and be assured they would be delivered. He was saving them all, she kept telling herself, and would give them to her, every one, on the day he returned.
However, before his departure, they had not taken the time to discuss baby names or family preferences, and Roxane had only been able to hesitate for so long. She could not keep calling the infant “baby,” and a christening needed to be arranged, for in India there was cause to rush these things. The country was not kind to its children.
Roxane had named the infant, against all opposition, India. India Colleen, for Collier's sake. A pretty, pale child, with eventual green eyes and black hair. Unity had been right about that. Between them, they had made a beautiful little girl. She had never seen another more beautiful.
Collier had never seen her at all.
Closing her eyes, Roxane dropped her head listlessly against the back of the chair. She had, quite honestly, thought to be stronger. There were those, friends and mere acquaintances, who remarked to her face upon her courage and fortitude, who passed comments, thought to be beyond her hearing, regarding her ability to endure so much loss; and yet, she did not feel it. Perhaps she presented to the world a brave countenance, but in her heart she merely drifted from day to day. The initial shock that had insulated her so well had long ago lost its sheen of protective value, and now merely isolated her from contact with those she loved, or had grown to love.
Ahmed. Ahmed was dead, hung by the neck along with many of his relations, with the sons of Bahadur Shah, in direct or indirect retaliation for the massacre of the European women and children beneath the spreading branches of the pipal tree. Roxane did not know what had happened to the statement she had written for him. Perhaps he had possessed too much pride to produce it. Most likely, to British soldiers bent on vengeance, it had not mattered.
It was Harry who had brought her that news. That, and the other, too, and had it not been for the fact that it came from Harry's own mouth, he who had been witness to both events, she would not have believed them to be true.
For, when Collier had left her for Delhi, Harry had gone with him. Rose, Roxane remembered, had been devastated, and had blamed Collier for persuading Harry to go. But Roxane had spoken to Harry at length the night before he and Collier departed, and she knew Rose's viewpoint was less than accurate, but she did not attempt to dissuade her. Rose was adamant. In her mind, there could have been no other cause for Harry's departure.
How very long ago it seemed now, Roxane mused, opening her eyes to gaze, once more, over the wide expanse of field. Nearer, in the newly tended lawn before the house, blackbirds were pecking at the soil, a dozen or mor
e of them, darting with their heads tipped sideways to view the ground before their feet.
Tears started to Roxane's eyes. Lowering her lashes, she recalled that Collier had not come, for all her prayers, when she was crying out for him in the agony of an exhausting and painful labor. He had not come when, one by one, wounded men straggled in, to be tended before their return to England. He had not come with Harry, when Harry returned, his leg nearly lost to a powerful blast of cannon fire.
He had not come, though his letters had, handed to her in silent, grieving apology by Harry Grovsner. All those letters Roxane had been anticipating in her mind, wrapped round in a neat packet with one of Roxane's own hair ribbons. One day, she had vowed, she would read them, but as of yet, they remained still tucked away in a box atop the dresser. Sometimes at night she would take them out and spread them over the mattress, and always she would gather them up again without reading a single one. She could not bear to do it. To read them now would be to acknowledge his death, and she could not yet bear to do it.
In an abrupt flurry of motion, Roxane rose from the chair, bending in one fluid movement to lift her child, blanket and all, from the cradle. India did not cry, nor even wake. Holding the hem of her skirt clear of the scythed grass with one hand, Roxane descended the steps onto the lawn, scattering the birds. The perambulator was left behind on the porch, but she did not care as she hurried blindly around the house toward the open lane beyond the hedges.
Shortly, Govind would be returning with Sera. Having already received an education beyond her years, Sera was continuing with a tutor who lived in a small cottage on the opposite side of the village. Roxane would meet them on the road, ask about Sera's day, discuss with Govind the laying in of provisions for the coming winter, urge him, again, to permit her to buy him a heavier greatcoat, as the cooler days were already too much for a body accustomed to India's heat. Oh, God, oh, God, she thought, please no, I do not want to think of him dead; let my head be filled with other things, just for a little while ... just for a little while longer....
Pushing through the gate into the dirt lane, Roxane brought herself up short, loosening her tightening grip on India. The child had awakened, squirming in protest. Roxane flipped the blanket away from her daughter's face and stared down into it, studying the tiny, perfect features ... so much like his, so very much like Collier's.
Right now, however, she was beet red with the effort to let out a yell. Turning, Roxane crouched down beside a stone wall and sat India upon it, pulling the blanket off her and disentangling the clothes beneath.
“There you are, my pretty girl. I knew you were under there, somewhere. Auntie Sera will be home soon, and Uncle Govind, and we must look presentable when they get here.” With both hands, she straightened the white bib over the front of India's gown. India pulled a tuft of grass from between the stones and held it out with a burble of attempted words. “That's grass, sweetheart. Oh, no, don't eat it. Here, have this instead,” Roxane said, and produced a smooth wooden ring from her apron pocket. It bore the marks of several tiny teeth over the curved surface. While the baby was occupied, Roxane smoothed the unruly curls of India's head, retrieving the bonnet from the folds of the blanket and positioning it over her daughter's dark hair.
“Yes, my little one,” Roxane cooed, “except for your eyes, you look just like your daddy."
“Da?” mimicked India.
Roxane's smile wavered. “Yes, da.” Scooping India up into her arms, she turned to face the direction she knew Sera and Govind would come. Briefly, she closed her eyes, probing her soul for that place where the pain lay, for it had not started out at her, just now, as it had been wont to do. She tested it.
“Your daddy would love this little dress, India,” she said.
A small, rolling ache, and no more.
“He loved the color blue,” she said.
Oh, God, almost nothing. The time has come, she told herself, the time has come. You have known he is dead; now you must say it aloud.
She swallowed, twice, as the tears welled up into her eyes and out, streaming down her cheeks in the light autumn breeze.
“Col—Collier died,” she whispered. “He died, in Delhi. He is not coming home."
There, she said to herself, as she spied Sera and Govind strolling hand in hand up over the rise. In her arms, India gave a little kick of excitement upon seeing them, her small feet hitting Roxane in the thigh.
There, she said again, deeper now, to that place of pain. It can only be better now.
* * * *
That night, after everyone was asleep, Roxane took out Collier's letters. Side by side, she arrayed them across the quilted coverlet in the candlelight, attempting to sort them chronologically. She supposed they had been in order at one time, but she had so frequently shuffled them about that they no longer possessed any particular arrangement. After a while, she realized she was merely stalling, and picked up the first one that came to hand when she closed her eyes and reached out.
It was, coincidentally, dated October 10, 1857, a year ago to the day. Smiling at the ironies of fate, Roxane sat down, cross-legged, on the end of the mattress and opened the letter across the tented fabric of her nightgown.
"Roxane, my dearest, there is little light left, but I shall hurry to get down all the words I want to say to you. I know what it cost you, to let me go, and as you only asked two things of me, that I write as often as possible and that I return before too ‘dreadfully’ long, I must at least endeavor to make certain that one of my promises to you is kept..."
Roxane's heart gave a small jolt, a physical contraction, at these words, and she brought her fingers up to her mouth. She read the letter through to the end, then picked up another, at random. The order did not seem to matter, for the letters were not meant to be read as a novel, from start to finish, but were all of his thoughts as he perceived them, without apparent time frame—thoughts of Roxane, and of their coming child, of the rebellion and the agony of men all around him, anecdotes regarding people he had known, and memories of home—mostly of home, later, and the life he conceived they would have together, once returned there.
In time, Roxane realized what it was that he was doing. It was his last gift to her, this presentation of his life, for he must have understood, with some elemental knowledge, that he was going to die. And it seemed he did not fear death, but only that she would not know those things which lived in his heart, before it claimed him. And so he wrote and wrote, covering every spare inch of paper with his flowing, concise hand. This compilation of correspondence to which there could be no response was, in the end, an absolute testimony of his love for her.
When she had read them all, Roxane scrubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand, gathered the letters into a pile in the center of the bed, and rose, snuffing the guttering candle flame with two wet fingers. Slipping her arms into a robe, she silently crept down the stairs to the back porch. Very soon, the sun would be rising. She would watch it rise, the harbinger of every new day, with a conscious reflection on its portent. The time has come; the time has come; it can only be better now.
The door squealed slightly on hinges in need of oiling, and Roxane held her breath for fear she had awakened Govind, whose room was not far away. Hearing nothing that would indicate she had disturbed him, Roxane stepped out into the chill air. She had forgotten slippers, and the wood of the porch was rough and damp beneath her feet. Still, she crossed to the railing and leaned her hips against it, folding her arms beneath her breast, shoving her hands up inside the sleeves opposite. The dawn was a thin line of flame beyond the trees at the horizon. The fields, the lawn, all were in shadowless gloom. Roxane tipped her head back on her shoulders, breathing in the fresh morning air.
Already, she noted, someone was up and about somewhere, for she could scent the smell of smoke, drifting on an errant breeze so that it seemed to surround her. It was heavy and pungent and so much like the Turkish tobacco of which Collier had been fond that
she was thrust back, in memory, to a place nearly on the other side of the earth, where he had been, and she with him. She could almost smell the exotic perfumes of the gardens, and the dust, and the heat rising in shimmering waves. She could forget, for the moment, the filth and squalor and decay, and remember that morning, on the Stantons’ verandah, when he stood behind her to watch the sun rise, and promised to show her all the beautiful things in the world....
“Roxane."
At the sound of a voice, so much like his voice, she knew that she was either dreaming or someone had come to taunt her with her memory of him, though she could not fathom why. She spun about from the railing and saw a small ember in the darkness, from which smoke trailed, barely seen.
“Who is that?” she nearly screamed.
A large shadow rose, with a scrape of wood, from the chair against the wall, and came forward. Roxane backed away, instinctively, until she came firmly up against the railing.
“Roxane, sweetheart, it's me...."
“Collier? It cannot be you. You're dead. Harry swore he saw—"
“He did see, Roxane, but I was not dead. I'm sorry you—"
“Sorry? Sorry!” With little thought, Roxane balled her hands into fists and brought them both down against the chest of the man before her. He staggered back with an exclamation of surprise and pain, and threw down the cigarette in order to bring up that hand to ward her off. The shadow of the right arm of his jacket hung at his side. “You let me believe you were dead? You nearly killed me with that! How could you? How—” And then, as the significance of the hollow right sleeve came home to her, “Oh, my God, Collier. Oh, my God. Oh, no, oh, no—"
“Hush, sweetheart, hush. Come here, and let me hold you. I have missed you so. I was ... I was a long time healing, Roxane. Harry could not help but think me dead, for I lay beneath those men who had been killed all around me. The weight of them pressed down, pressed the air from my lungs, the life...” He sighed, then shuddered beneath her hands. “I thought ... I thought I would never come back to you."