Emily was in a state of anxiety.
‘Sandy’s been given orders to join MacNaughten’s staff,’ she told Alice. ‘Do you remember him from last season? He’s an amiable sort but his wife’s a bit common.’
‘Don’t be unkind,’ Sandy chided Emily.
‘Well, she comes from a humble background is all I’m saying,’ said Emily, ‘but is full of airs and graces.’
‘What will MacNaughten be doing?’ Alice asked.
‘He’s the newly appointed envoy to Kabul with Lieutenant Colonel Burnes in support,’ said Sandy. ‘Smoothing the way for Shah Shuja – that sort of thing. Purely diplomatic, so there’s no need to worry that I’ll be in the firing line.’ He smiled at his wife, trying to allay her fears.
‘No doubt they’ll give MacNaughten a knighthood for going,’ said Emily. ‘That’ll make Mrs MacNaughten lord it over us all the more.’
‘Don’t you mean Lady MacNaughten?’ Alice said with a wink.
Vernon returned home one crisp October day to find Alice being sick in the bedroom.
‘Been at the champagne early today?’ he teased.
She straightened up from the china washbowl, wiped her mouth and went to lie on the bed.
He frowned. ‘Are you ill?’
Alice faced him. ‘I’m with child.’
He came towards the bed and peered at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
He seized her hand and kissed it. ‘That’s marvellous!’
‘You’re pleased?’ Alice asked.
‘Of course I am.’ He smiled. ‘My very own son and heir!’
‘It’s early days,’ Alice cautioned. ‘I’ve lost babies . . .’
‘Not this one,’ Vernon said, squeezing her hand. ‘Buckleys are made of stronger stock than Gillverays.’
He leant and kissed her forehead. It was the first tender gesture he had shown her in weeks.
‘Wait till my father hears of this. He won’t be so quick to condemn me now, will he?’
Alice felt a pang of pity for her husband. What he wished for most in the world was for his martinet father to show his approval. Whenever he didn’t get it, Vernon behaved even worse.
After that, Vernon was more considerate towards Alice, cosseting her and making sure she rested. He no longer forced her to join in his revelries. At first she felt so unwell that she could keep no food down but gradually the sickness eased. She developed a craving for sweet things so he ordered her sticky jelabies from the bazaar and had the cook make her sugary rice pudding.
To her immense relief, Vernon left her alone in the marital bed. Sometimes he would stretch himself out beside her and run a hand gently – almost reverently – down the curves of her body. But he never pressured her to have sex.
‘We’ll call him Richard after my father,’ said Vernon. ‘That should please the old tyrant.’
‘And what if it’s a girl?’ asked Alice.
‘It won’t be.’
‘We should choose a name just in case. What is your mother’s name?’
‘Charlotte.’
‘That’s the same as my mother’s!’ Alice cried.
‘Hardly the same,’ Vernon was dismissive. ‘My mother didn’t whore with a foreign sailor and abandon her brat.’
Alice flinched at his sudden cruelty. How she regretted confiding in Vernon about her birth when she had been the worse for drink, confirming the rumours he had already heard.
‘But you’re not like your mother,’ Vernon went on, unaware she was upset by his words. ‘I’ve seen you with Alexander. You will be a wonderful and loving mother to my child.’
Their marriage entered a calm phase with Vernon being affectionate and possessive towards Alice. She felt a stirring of optimism that their future together could be happy. He would be a doting father and learn to curb his excessive appetites; he was already a more loving and considerate husband. There was rumour that the whole Afghan expedition might be abandoned as the Persians, who had been threatening in the west, had withdrawn.
‘No military reason for us to invade now,’ said Sandy cheerfully.
‘What a relief that would be,’ cried Emily.
So Alice met Vernon’s announcement in early November with dismay.
‘I’m to be called up for field service after all,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Cavalry brigade under Colonel Arnold. Bengal Army. I’m to report to Ferozepur by the end of the month.’
‘But I thought the invasion was being called off?’ Alice said.
‘Not at all,’ said Vernon. ‘It might be scaled down a bit but there’s still a need for us to put a ruler on the throne in Kabul who favours the British.’
‘But I thought you wouldn’t have to go? Auckland needs you here, doesn’t he?’
‘He’s letting me go,’ said Vernon. ‘Knows how keen I am to do my bit.’
‘So you begged his permission? How could you do that now you know about the baby?’
Vernon looked impatient. ‘I can’t stop being a soldier. I have a duty to go.’
Alice felt a wave of disappointment. She knew it wasn’t duty but the thrill of being part of a campaign that drove him. He was infused with excitement at being included. Home life was too humdrum.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ Alice said, feeling suddenly tearful. She cried easily these days.
Vernon sat down beside her and put an arm about her shoulders. ‘And I don’t want to leave you.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘But it’ll all be over soon. We’ll march on Kabul once the snows melt. It’ll all be done and dusted by the spring. I bet I’ll be home in time for the birth.’
Vernon and Sandy left a week later with a large procession of pack animals and porters.
‘Dry your tears and kiss me,’ Vernon said to Alice on the morning of departure.
He gave her a lingering kiss and touched her belly. ‘Look after my son. I’ve instructed Emily to keep an eye on you and not to let you do anything you shouldn’t.’
‘I’m not the one who needs to be told,’ Alice said with a wry smile. ‘You must take care of yourself too. Promise me you won’t do anything rash? I don’t want this baby to grow up without a father.’
‘He won’t. I promise you that.’ Vernon pulled her to him for one last kiss – a fiercer one that left her lips feeling bruised.
Emily and Alice waved their men away.
Over the next few days they kept each other company and spoilt Alexander, trying to hide their anxiety and sadness. They had decided to winter in Simla in case there was any chance of joining their husbands before they set off for Afghanistan.
Alice was surprised by how much she missed Vernon. Two months ago she would have gladly seen the back of him. But he had shown a more caring and considerate side since knowing she was pregnant. Settling down as a family man would be the making of him; Vernon was learning about responsibility and love for people other than himself.
As Christmas came, Alice waited for word from Vernon. Emily received letters from Sandy about the extraordinary sights at Ferozepur; the pomp and ceremony laid on by their ally Ranjit Singh for the British army that was camping on his border.
‘Tents of crimson and gold,’ Emily read out loud, ‘gun salutes and elephant processions. We went across the river to watch the Sikhs put on military displays. They were all dressed in magnificent scarlet-and-yellow uniforms with chain armour and steel helmets – and mounted on stallions. They have learnt tactics from French instructors to great effect. I’m afraid the evening entertainment was more unseemly. Old Ranjit Singh appears to be rather too fond of dancing girls. It doesn’t do to criticise his ways so we have to remain silent on such matters.’
Emily frowned. ‘I don’t like the sound of dancing girls, do you?’
Alice felt a stab of disquiet. She wished she could erase from her mind the time she was made to watch the cavorting of nautch girls with Vernon’s bachelor friends. The girls had hardly been older than the children she had taught. Miss Wallace
had set up the school to give native girls an alternative to such exploitation. How had she allowed such a thing in her own home? Alice felt a wave of shame. And the things she had done in drink just to please her equally drunk husband . . .
Alice tried to banish the memory. She would never allow her senses to be so out of control again.
Just when she thought she would never hear from Vernon, a parcel arrived with an array of expensive presents for Christmas: a peacock-blue shawl, a necklace of gold medallions, a sapphire ring and a tiger skin for the sitting-room hearth.
‘Vernon knows how to spoil a girl,’ Emily said in envy. ‘All I got from Sandy was a gaudy jewellery box made of papier-mâché.’
Alice kept to herself that it was she who was paying for Vernon’s extravagance.
‘But you get such lovely letters,’ Alice pointed out. ‘I’d trade all these gifts for some proper news.’
A week later, she felt the first thrilling flutter in her womb. She could do nothing about her husband’s profligate ways but at least Vernon had given her this baby that she carried – and for that she could forgive him a great deal.
CHAPTER 25
Simla, May 1839
Alice’s baby pushed its way into the world on a warm sunny day in May and gave a piercing wail. Emily was with her.
Alice tried to sit up, panting and sweating from the exertions, which had gone on all night.
‘Let me see! Is it all right?’
The doctor, whom Vernon had insisted must attend the birth, smiled and said, ‘Well done, Mrs Buckley. The baby is fine.’
He cut the umbilical cord and the baby was wiped down and wrapped in a cotton sheet.
‘What a bonny bairn!’ Emily said, tearfully handing the mewling bundle to her friend.
Alice clasped her baby in triumph and wonderment. Never before had she seen such a sweet pink face, with bright eyes open and trying to focus on her.
‘Hello, my beautiful boy! Won’t your daddy be pleased—’
‘It’s not a boy,’ Emily said. ‘You have a daughter. Aren’t you the lucky one? Sandy and I long for a girl. I’m quite jealous of this wee thing.’
Alice stared at the baby in confusion. She had been so sure that it was a boy; Vernon’s conviction that he would have a son must have swayed her too. Throughout the pregnancy, when she had felt the boisterous kicks in her womb, she had known it was a boy. How many times had she written to Vernon and told him so? The only two letters she had received from him in six months – two short notes – had been taken up with excitement about their son and how he was going to teach him to ride as soon as he could walk.
Alice could not help her disappointment. She felt suddenly nauseous. She had failed Vernon. He would be upset to find it was only a girl. Tears leaked from her tired eyes.
‘Vernon so wanted a boy,’ she said, utterly drained.
Emily stroked the baby’s cheek. ‘Alice!’ she chided. ‘You know what it’s like to lose a bairn. So you know how precious this one is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy – she’s alive and healthy. That’s what counts, surely?’
Alice felt a twinge of shame. Poor Emily knew what it was like to miscarry a baby and to long to be pregnant again. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ She looked closer at the baby. She had stopped crying and her tiny bud-like mouth was opening and closing as if she wanted to speak.
‘She wants her first feed,’ said Emily with a smile.
Alice asked, ‘Will you show me how?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you,’ Alice said gratefully. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Emily Ayton.’
Each day, Alice grew to love her daughter more. She called her Charlotte after both the baby’s grandmothers and wrote to Vernon’s parents to tell them so. It made her realise how much she missed her own papa and the mother that she had never known. How good it would have been to share her news with them – her papa would have delighted in his new granddaughter, of that she was sure.
Alice wrote instead to the Browns. For a long time she had blamed them for keeping the truth of her birth secret from her; the shock of the discovery had caused a rift between them. But now that she was a mother herself and felt deep emotions of love and protection towards her child, Alice could see how much the Browns had loved her. Effie may have fussed and scolded but more often she had been kind. How many times Alice must have tried her patience! Arnold had fostered in her a love of learning and nature; he had favoured her over his own sons and shown her deep affection.
So Alice wrote them a tender letter, telling them of baby Charlotte and sending a tiny lock of the baby’s downy blonde hair.
‘I’m mad with love for this tiny creature,’ Alice said to Emily as she marvelled at her daughter. ‘Everything she does delights me. Even being kept awake half the night when she’s demanding to be fed doesn’t seem like a chore.’
‘Not so tiny anymore.’ Emily laughed. ‘Look how plump she grows. A picture of health.’
‘I know, isn’t she adorable?’ Alice smiled, lifting the baby and covering her face with kisses, making Charlotte gurgle with pleasure.
Alice sighed. ‘I just wish I knew if Vernon had got my news. Lotty is nearly two months old. He hoped he’d be back for the birth.’
‘That was never going to happen,’ Emily said, ‘not with such delays all through the winter. But at least they’re making progress now. You’ll hear from Vernon soon, I’m sure.’
Word had come through shortly after Charlotte’s birth that the British forces had reached the city of Kandahar, somewhere in the south of Afghanistan. Sandy’s most recent letter, written in April, had come from there. He had alluded to some resistance through the mountain passes between Quetta and Kandahar but mostly he had made entertaining comments, such as the one about Shah Shuja’s insistence on royal gun salutes, which had set panic among the baggage train and caused camels to bolt.
Both the women knew that he was keeping a lot from them for they heard talk in other Simla drawing rooms.
Mrs MacNaughten, who had joined them in Simla that spring along with Lady Sale, wife of a brevet-colonel with the 13th Regiment of Foot, seemed to be an authority. Dysentery had decimated Sale’s Infantry, servants had deserted, there weren’t enough camels to carry all the luxuries some officers insisted on taking and the army had been hampered by the huge spread-out baggage train.
‘Me husband says it’s like a city on the move,’ said Frances MacNaughten. ‘It’s an ’eadache trying to find provisions along the way for such a number. It’s not just soldiers, don’t you know? There are thousands of servants and camp-followers and their families. Who would have thought an army needed so much?’
Alice thought of the money that had flowed out to cover Vernon’s expenses in Ferozepur that winter: crates of champagne and wine, boxes of cigars, tinned luxuries from Europe; bills from tailors, meat merchants, cobblers, metalsmiths, barbers and saddlers. She knew that he alone had hired ten camels for all his camping needs and provisions. She was uncomfortable at the thought that Vernon’s love of possessions could have added to the slowness of the army’s progress.
‘Some of these young officers think they’re going on a picnic,’ said Florentia Sale with a wry laugh. ‘They’ve grown accustomed to far too many luxuries in India. The Afghans will show them how it’s done – they ride with a gun and sleep in a blanket.’
Alice had a sudden image of John Sinclair. He was the kind of soldier who would travel light and not care for comfort. She felt winded by how vividly he came to mind. What on earth had made her think of him? Was it all this talk of Afghanistan? She wondered if he was still in Kabul and whether he was working for the advancing British.
Colin had said how John had been against invasion. But she had not heard from Colin since her marriage to Vernon. She had been piqued by his blunt message at the news; he wished her well and hoped she knew what kind of man she was taking on. Alice had no idea if Colin was on the expedition or not.
Alice smiled and tried to smother the long-buried yearning that thinking of John had rekindled deep in her belly. She liked the lively and straight-talking Florentia Sale. Her husband was a veteran infantry commander who had been knighted for heroics in Burma and was known affectionately among his men as Fighting Bob. Alice had made friends with Lady Sale’s daughter, Dinah, who was betrothed to a British officer, Johnny Sturt. Both Florentia’s husband and Dinah’s fiancé were on the expedition to Kabul.
‘And then we’ll be able to join them,’ said Dinah eagerly.
‘Join them?’ Alice said, startled by the idea. ‘But won’t they be returning as soon as the old amir is back on the throne?’
Florentia shook her head. ‘That could take at least a year. Our men won’t be able to leave until they are sure Shah Shuja is secure and the country is calm.’
‘They say that the mountain air is invigorating,’ said Dinah, her slim, pretty face lighting up. ‘Much more healthy than India. I think it would be jolly if we could join our men up there.’
‘It depends if the men want us, don’t you know,’ said Frances MacNaughten. ‘If my William sends for me, I’ll go – as long as I can take all me gowns and home comforts. I’m not one for camping.’
‘Well, I’d join Sandy like a shot,’ said Emily. ‘He’s missed so much of Alexander growing up already. The boy won’t know his father if we’re parted for too long.’
‘You must be desperate to see your husband, Alice,’ Dinah said, smiling. ‘And for him to see baby Lotty.’
Alice flushed. ‘Of course.’
But it wasn’t the thought of seeing Vernon that was suddenly making her pulse quicken, it was the idea that she might come across John in Kabul. The thought both filled her with dread and excitement. He had been the cause of so much heartache and yet the chance of seeing him again made her heart leap. She mustn’t think of him! For Lotty’s sake she must redouble her efforts to make her marriage to Vernon work.
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 30