‘But Vernon said you were giving up and leaving – resigning your commission. I thought I was never going to see you again.’
‘That was Buckley spreading tittle-tattle. I’ve been cut off in Kabul for weeks, helping Prince Shahpoor and the moderate chiefs. But the situation there is hopeless. It’s a matter of time before Dost Mohammed returns and reclaims the throne with Akbar at his side. The whole campaign has been for nothing. Khan Shereen Khan begged me to leave and take Rajban and his family back to India before there is further bloodshed.’
Alice gulped. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘I went straight to seek out the Aytons as soon as I arrived, thinking I would find you there. Emily told me Sandy’s at Avitabile’s banquet. No doubt that’s where Buckley is too?’
Alice nodded. ‘We had a terrible row before he left. I told him I would never submit to him no matter what he did to me. And I told him something about us that made him furious with me.’
John held her look. ‘What did you say?’
‘That I’m with child – your child.’
‘My child?’ There was wonder in his voice.
Alice nodded. Her eyes stung with tears of emotion at the look of love in John’s face. He hugged her close and kissed her forehead.
‘Oh my darling, you brave one! I love you so very much. I can’t bear to think how you have had to put up with Buckley’s indignities these past weeks. If I’d known, I’d have come from Kabul and rescued you.’
‘It would just have made matters worse,’ said Alice. ‘While we were still in Afghanistan there was no chance of escape. But now it’s different. I won’t stay with him a moment longer. All I want is for me and Lotty to be with you.’
‘And you shall,’ John said fervently. ‘I’m not leaving here without you.’
Alice’s heart soared. She felt brave again. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Bali found me at the Aytons’,’ said John. ‘Gita sent him. She must have been worried about you.’
‘Dear Gita!’ Alice gasped.
‘Come on,’ John urged, ‘we must go. Gita and the boys can gather up a few things. I’ll carry Lotty.’
Alice returned inside with John. Lotty was curled up asleep with her thumb half in her mouth. Tenderly, John bent down and picked up the girl. Lotty murmured in her sleep but settled at once into his strong hold. Minutes later, they were ready to leave.
Approaching the gate, Alice tensed. What if the guards tried to stop them? John called out something in his native Gaelic and an answering call came back. Stepping through the gateway, Alice saw Colin and Rajban standing armed and waiting. Colin smiled in encouragement.
‘We’re going to MacRae’s quarters,’ John told her. ‘It’ll take Buckley a while after he’s sobered up to work out where you’ve gone. But he’ll have to get past us Highlanders first.’
Alice’s stomach lurched at the thought of how maddened Vernon would be to find her gone and how full of vengeance. If only they could leave Peshawar at once. But John was still a Company officer and fleeing now would be treated as desertion. She had felt guilty and responsible for his previous disobedience to the Company when he had absconded to Ladakh. She would not be the cause of ending his career for good.
She pulled her pashmina shawl around her shoulders – the material was almost threadbare, but it was made from the wool that John had sent her and she would never part with it. It was like a comforting hug giving her courage.
Alice and Lotty spent the rest of the night bedded down with Gita and her family in a cramped upstairs room in a flat-roofed house occupied by some of the artillery officers. They were all fellow Scots, Colin told her, and not about to betray her whereabouts to Vernon. A couple of them remembered her husband’s arrogance towards them at Addiscombe.
She was woken by the call to prayer just before dawn. Alice sat up, her insides clenching. Was Vernon home yet? Was he already sending out a search party for her? Glancing through the gloom, she saw the glow of a cheroot. John was standing in the doorway, on guard. He sensed her watching and turned towards her. Even in the half-dark she could see he was smiling. A warm glow spread through her.
She got to her feet and went to him, picking her way over Adeep and Bali, who slept wrapped in their blankets.
‘What happens today?’ Alice whispered, slipping her arms about his waist.
He stubbed out his cigarette and pulled her into his hold, kissing the top of her head. ‘You stay here. It won’t be for long,’ John promised. ‘Colin says Pollock wants to press on quickly through the Punjab. We’ll go in the advance party. Once we’re across the Sutlej we can make for the hill states around Simla with Rajban – or wherever you want.’
Alice smiled at him tenderly. ‘I don’t mind. I’ll go anywhere as long as it’s with you and Lotty. Somewhere safe from . . .’
She couldn’t even bear to say Vernon’s name in case it somehow conjured him up. They stood together watching the dawn grow pink over the dark walls of the city. People, still huddled in blankets, were beginning to stir in the bazaar below. The smell of dung fires filled the sharp air. Alice could feel the tension grow tight across her forehead at the thought of Vernon out there, sore-headed and belligerent, seeking her.
John seemed to guess her worries. ‘He will never touch you again,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘I promise you that.’
Just then, something soft brushed at her legs. Alice glanced down to see a sleepy-headed Lotty standing in front of them both.
‘Lieutenant John?’ she asked, gazing up at the tall man holding onto her mother.
John immediately crouched down and grinned at the girl. ‘That’s me. How are you and Gita-dolly? Did she sleep well?’
Lotty clutched the ragged remains of her cherished doll to her chest. She had not been parted from it since her reunion with Alice. The girl nodded.
‘Good,’ said John. ‘Now perhaps she’d like some breakfast?’
Lotty whispered to the doll, then nodded at John. ‘She’d like chapatti and curds with honey.’
John grinned. ‘Then that’s exactly what she shall have.’
Alice put a tender hand on Lotty’s head and smiled at John. ‘You know I love you so very much, don’t you?’ she said softly.
The smile John returned made her heart glow with warmth.
Alice could hardly bear to see John go.
‘I’ll knock hard twice when I return so that you know it’s me,’ he told her. With a swift kiss on the lips he left her. She and Gita bolted the door behind him. Alice listened to him clattering down the outside steps and calling to Colin, and then they were gone.
All day, Alice tried to distract herself from fearful thoughts about Vernon by playing with Lotty. Once or twice, she crept onto the covered-in veranda and peered through the latticework at the street below, half-expecting to see her husband causing a scene. There was plenty of hustle and bustle and the sight of soldiers in uniform made her heart race with alarm but not one of them was Vernon.
What if he had found John and the two of them had had a terrible fight? What if John was injured or worse? The waiting and not knowing were torture.
When the double knock came, Alice jumped in fright. She exchanged worried glances with Gita but John called through the door.
‘Alice, open up. It’s me – you’ve nothing to fear.’
The women scrabbled to unbar the door. John stood in the doorway, his tall frame almost blocking out the light. With his face in shadow, Alice couldn’t see his expression but she sensed a tension in his broad shoulders.
‘What is it?’ Alice gasped. ‘Has he hurt you?’
John shook his head. ‘Gita, keep Lotty with you for a few minutes, please,’ he told the ayah.
Then, taking Alice by the hand, he pulled her towards the outside steps that led up the side of the house. She squinted in the sudden harsh light after the gloom inside.
‘What is it?’ Alice asked. ‘Something has happened, hasn’t
it?’
John held her look. ‘Buckley’s dead.’
Alice gaped at him in incomprehension. ‘Vernon’s dead?’
John nodded, his look grim. Even as the first wave of relief passed through her, Alice had a terrible foreboding.
‘Did – did you . . . ?’
John gripped her. ‘No, Alice. He was found murdered at Avitabile’s a couple of hours ago but I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Oh my God! Murdered?’
‘Sandy’s been looking for you to tell you.’
‘I don’t understand. A couple of hours ago? He’s been there all this time? Who would have done such a thing?’ Something in his look made Alice think he knew. ‘Tell me. Please, John, you must!’
‘The servants were told not to disturb him this morning. He’d taken one of the dancing girls to bed with him in the early hours.’
Alice blanched. ‘Are you telling me that a nautch girl killed him?’
John shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s who she was.’ He hesitated.
‘Go on,’ said Alice. ‘Nothing you say can shock me now.’
‘Buckley was found with his throat cut and his eyes put out,’ John said. ‘It was a very personal kind of revenge.’
Alice shuddered at the barbarity of her husband’s killing.
‘What woman could possibly . . . ?’ Alice felt faint.
‘A hunting knife was found beside the body. Sandy showed it to me – I’ve seen it before. It belonged to Abdullah, the Ghilzai chief.’
‘Raiza’s brother?’
John nodded.
‘But he’s dead,’ said Alice. ‘Vernon was jubilant about it. He said Abdullah’s widow had taken up the fight . . .’
Suddenly her heart jolted. She stared at John.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I think Abdullah’s widow has got her revenge. Whether she posed as a nautch girl or lured Buckley there with one, we’ll never know. But I think she left the knife there to show that Abdullah’s family honour was avenged.’
Alice reeled from the news. She would weep no tears over Vernon but she would not have wished such a violent end to his life.
‘They will cover up that it was murder,’ John said. ‘An army surgeon will say that his heart stopped. A scandal like this could set off further revenge killings and Avitabile doesn’t want that laid at his door – and neither does Pollock. He wants his men out of here and back into British India as soon as possible.’
Alice looked out over the sun-baked rooftops, the harsh light mellowing as the sun began to edge behind the stark western mountain range. Vernon was dead. The leaden feeling she had carried for so long in her chest was easing. She need never fear him again.
She turned to John and looked into his concerned face.
‘I’m free of him,’ she murmured. ‘I’m free.’
John cupped his hands around her face. ‘My darling Alice.’
‘There is nothing to come between us now,’ Alice said, feeling emotion welling up inside.
He kissed her tenderly and suddenly she convulsed in weeping. Tears of relief – of pain and shock too but overwhelmingly of relief – coursed down her cheeks.
John held her in strong loving arms and stroked her hair until she began to calm down.
‘Tonight we begin our life together,’ he promised. ‘The life we should have started years ago. But it’s never too late. We love each other and that’s all that matters now. I will always protect you and Lotty.’
‘And our baby,’ Alice said with a tender smile.
‘And the baby,’ John echoed, his green eyes lighting with joy.
She looked into his handsome face, thrilling at his passionate expression.
‘Oh, John,’ she said, feeling the tears coming again, ‘you’ve had my heart ever since we first met. Now that we’re together at last, we must never let each other go. Promise me that.’
He kissed her fiercely to banish any lingering doubt. When they broke apart, John’s look was intense. ‘Until my dying day, Alice, I swear to you I will never leave you.’
Alice thought her heart would burst with euphoria at his words. They stood, arms around each other, and gazed out over the eastern town towards the sunset and the west.
‘Some day,’ said Alice, ‘I’d like you to take me to Ramanish. I think Lotty would like it. Perhaps our child should be born there?’
She saw the emotion in John’s face at her suggestion. His voice was raw with feeling when he answered.
‘I’d like nothing more, my darling one.’
They fell silent as they watched the sun disappear and the bright evening stars begin to glint overhead. Alice knew they needed no more words to say what was in their hearts. They were as one – and from now on they always would be.
GLOSSARY
amir king, ruler
ayah nurse or nanny
bhisti water-carrier
caravanserai desert inn with a central courtyard for travellers
chaprassy messenger
charpoy string bed on wooden frame
dak post/mail
deodar Indian cedar
doolie shoulder-borne carriage on poles
durzi tailor
feringhi foreigner (derogatory)
ghat stepped riverside dock/landing
jampan sedan chair
jelabies sticky sweets
jezail muzzle-loading long-arm gun, used in Central Asia
mali gardener
nautch dance/dancing
pashm* fine, soft underfur of Himalayan goats
sepoy Indian soldier
sirdar a person of high rank
syce groom
zenana women’s quarter
* pashmina is the wool made from pashm goat hair
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The idea for this novel was inspired by my MacLeod ancestor, Lieutenant Donald MacLeod of the Honourable East India Company, who left his home on the Isle of Skye in the 1760s for a soldier’s life in India. My great-great-great-great-grandfather Donald died on a passage back to Britain, of wounds sustained in battle, and never saw Skye again. Although the novel is set a generation later, my hero is from Skye and seeks his fortune in the East India Company army.
The early life of my Northumbrian heroine, Alice, is inspired by the heroics of Grace Darling, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter who became a nineteenth-century celebrity for successfully helping to rescue passengers from the shipwrecked Forfarshire off the Northumberland coast.
The later part of the novel – the invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent horrors of the retreat and captivity of the women – is based on fact. Many of the background characters are historical people: the Sales, MacNaughtens, various senior officers, Mrs Trevor and her children, as well as most of the Afghan leaders such as Shah Shuja, Dost Mohammed and Akbar. The sources for the historical detail include first-hand accounts from Lady Sale and one of the captured political officers, Captain Colin Mackenzie.
The main characters are, however, completely fictitious.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As well as a nod to my MacLeod ancestor, Lieutenant Donald MacLeod – and to his Skye family who nurtured him – I’d like to thank some of the currently living. Husband Graeme has entered enthusiastically into the research, reading aloud to me over many cups of coffee and tea as I’ve delved into the early-nineteenth-century world of lighthouses, illicit whisky distilling, the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India and Himalayan explorers. Thanks for the excellent coffee!
Also many thanks to my great editorial team: Victoria Pepe for her enthusiastic support, Celine Kelly and Jill Sawyer for their professionalism and good guidance, and to eagle-eyed proofreaders Molly Powell and Janey Floyd. Also thank you to Bekah and the author relations team for their care of this author!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janet MacLeod Trotter is the author of numerous bestselling and acclaimed novels, including The Hungry Hills, which was nominated for the Sunday Times Young Writer of t
he Year Award, and The Tea Planter’s Daughter, which was nominated for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Novel of the Year Award. Much informed by her own experiences, MacLeod Trotter was raised in the north-east of England by Scottish parents and travelled in India as a young woman. She recently discovered diaries and letters belonging to her grandparents, who married in Lahore and lived and worked in the Punjab for nearly thirty years, which served as her inspiration for the India Tea Series. She now divides her time between Northumberland and the Isle of Skye. Find out more about the author and her novels at www.janetmacleodtrotter.com.
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 51