A Modest Independence

by Mimi Matthews

  Mira hurried to the door and cracked it open. She exchanged words with whoever was on the other side in murmured Hindustani.

  Not Tom, then.

  “Who is it?” Jenny asked when Mira shut the door. “Someone from the hotel?”

  “Yes, madam. He says I’m to tell you that a lady has come calling. She requests an audience with you here in your room.”

  “Here?” Jenny’s brows lifted. “Did this lady give a name?”

  “He says she will not.”

  “That’s odd.” There were only a handful of ladies it could be. The Planks or the Hardcastles or, perhaps, one of the ladies Jenny had met in Calcutta. But if it were truly one of those redoubtable memsahibs, they’d have surely sent along their card. And they’d have wished to meet in the hotel’s salon, not in her private room of all places.

  Jenny chewed her lip. “You’d better tell him to send her up,” she said at last. “But not now. I’ll need time to dress and repair my hair.”

  Mira conveyed as much to the hotel footman through a crack in the door. She then returned to help Jenny into a dinner dress of fine mull muslin.

  When Jenny had purchased the gown from Mrs. McTavish’s shop in Calcutta, it had been plain cream in color, but Mira had lately added shimmering black embroidery to the hem and front of the skirts, giving the whole of it a much more striking appearance.

  “How it glistens.” Jenny smoothed the skirts over her crinoline.

  “For dancing,” Mira said.

  Jenny managed a slight smile. She wouldn’t be doing much dancing in Delhi. Not now that Tom was leaving her. “Your talents are wasted on me, Mira. You do know that, don’t you? There are hundreds of ladies in London who could show off your creations better than I do.”

  Mira ducked her head, blushing. “Shall I arrange your hair, madam?”

  “No, thank you. I can do it easily enough.” Jenny wandered to the pier glass across the room, swiftly plaiting her tresses and rolling them into a chignon at the nape of her neck. The timing couldn’t have been more propitious. No sooner had she inserted the final hairpin than there was a soft rapping at the door.

  She waited as Mira went to open it, expecting she knew not what. She prayed it wasn’t Mrs. Plank or one of the other ladies she’d met on the Indus or the Bentinck.

  However, when the door was drawn open, it didn’t reveal Mrs. Plank. A much smaller lady stood on the threshold. She was clad in a frothy, floral-printed muslin gown, her face completely covered by a heavy veil draped down from the brim of her stylish straw bonnet.

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Anstruther?”

  Mrs. Anstruther waited until the door was shut behind her to sweep her veil back from her face. Her complexion was pale, her brow damp with perspiration. “Do forgive the excess of caution, Miss Holloway. I’m counting on no one noticing me. My husband isn’t aware I’ve gone. I must return to the villa before he realizes.”

  Mira withdrew to the opposite side of the room to give the two of them privacy. It made little matter. Mrs. Anstruther didn’t appear to take any notice of the maid’s presence.

  Jenny motioned to an empty chair. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Mrs. Anstruther shook her head. “I haven’t the time. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Why have you come, ma’am? And why all the secrecy?”

  “My husband won’t permit me to speak of Lord Castleton. I daren’t mention his name.” Mrs. Anstruther proceeded to pace back and forth in front of Jenny, her skirts stirring a faint breeze in the stagnant heat of the hotel room. “Whatever my husband told you about his lordship—”

  “About his death?”

  “What?” Mrs. Anstruther cast Jenny a look of blank confusion.

  Jenny saw no need to spare the woman. “Your husband said that Lord Castleton was killed while storming the walls of Jhansi. That he was nearly cut in half by a rebel sepoy’s blade.”

  Mrs. Anstruther’s countenance went from waxen to white. “Yes, he’s told me that. He’s said that Lord Castleton’s body was thrown into a pit with the bodies of unknown soldiers. Do you… Do you suppose it’s true?”

  “Have you reason to doubt him?”

  “He might have made it up to torment me.” Mrs. Anstruther wrung her hands. “My husband has accused me of the vilest things, Miss Holloway. He believes Lord Castleton and I—” She broke off, turning to look at Jenny. “I’ve come to tell you that it isn’t true. Lord Castleton was not my lover. He was my friend. He sought only to lift my spirits when I was at my lowest ebb.”

  “And that was all?” Jenny shouldn’t have asked. This part of Mrs. Anstruther’s history with Giles had no bearing on anything. It was their own private business and nothing at all to do with her.

  But Mrs. Anstruther seemed eager to speak of Giles. As if she wanted—needed—to exorcise his ghost. “I confess I did attempt to press a greater intimacy on him at one time, but he rebuffed my advances. He was very kind. Very understanding. But he didn’t come to visit me so much after that and he didn’t respond to all the little notes I sent him. When I tried to call on him at the cantonment in Poona, he wouldn’t even see me.”

  Jenny felt an unwilling surge of sympathy for the woman.

  So that’s how it had been. A one-sided infatuation that had embarrassed Giles—and Colonel Anstruther, too, if she had any guess. It was somehow worse than a love affair. To have one’s wife openly pining after a fellow who didn’t want her.

  “I get so very lonely, Miss Holloway. The colonel and I have so little in common, you see. He isn’t much of a companion for me. How can he be at his age?”

  It was none of Jenny’s business. She kept reminding herself of that fact. Nevertheless… “He doesn’t mistreat you, does he?”

  Mrs. Anstruther gave a dismissive flap of her hand. “No, indeed. But I can do nothing without his permission. He controls everything in my life. Even the bit of money left to me by my father.” She gave a colorless laugh. “You are wise to remain a spinster, Miss Holloway. Would that I were in your position, to go where I liked and see whom I liked. I would go far away from this place and never come back.”

  At that grim pronouncement, Mrs. Anstruther lowered her veil back over her face. “You will tell the Castleton’s solicitor, won’t you? Whatever my husband said to malign him, Lord Castleton was a gentleman until the very end.”

  Jenny nodded. “I’ll tell him.”

  “And…if you will extend my condolences to Lord Castleton’s sister. He spoke of her often in the fondest terms.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Mrs. Anstruther inclined her head. “Goodbye, Miss Holloway.”

  “Goodbye.” Jenny stood in the doorway, one hand at her necklace, watching Mrs. Anstruther as she disappeared down the hall.

  The Westbrook Hotel was not only one of the most luxurious European hotels in Delhi, it was also one of the most conveniently located. From the hotel’s entrance it was only a short distance to St. James’s Church, the legendary Cashmere Gate, the telegraph and post offices, and the railway station.

  In the heavy heat of the early afternoon, Tom had walked to the station with Ahmad, but as it had in Calcutta, the dinner hour brought cooler weather. After conducting his business at the station, he hailed a gharry-wallah to take them back to the hotel.

  The rickety little vehicle jolted through the busy streets, navigating through carriages, palanquins, and crowds of pedestrians.

  Tom gazed out the window at the passing traffic, lost in his own thoughts.

  He’d heard Delhi described as the Rome of India. It was said to be the grandest of cities, filled with the remnants of ancient Mughal splendor. He had seen as much during his brief travels about the city. Amidst the ruins of ages gone by stood brilliantly colored architecture, embellished with enameled tiles, gilded domes, and minarets. There were lush garde
ns, mosques, and the famous Red Fort, a walled bastion of red granite flanked with turrets and sculptured gateways.

  It was there, in the Fort, that the last Mughal Emperor had been tried for aiding and abetting the mutiny. The British now used it as a garrison. Soldiers could be seen coming and going amongst the native residents of the city.

  There was no sign of latent hostilities. Not that Tom had seen. He nevertheless detected a subtle tension between the Indians and the British. There were hard feelings on both sides, undoubtedly. There must have been. But whatever those feelings were, they seemed to bubble somewhere beneath the surface, sensed but never expressed.

  Tom recognized the emotions well enough. Indeed, the vibrations of bitterness and resentment might as well have been a second language to him. He’d come of age butting his head against injustice.

  How long before another uprising took place? Before the Indians successfully ejected the British?

  No, he thought grimly, India wasn’t a place he could ever live comfortably. Not even with Jenny.

  “If we’re not needed during dinner, I’ll take Mira out to see the city,” Ahmad said.

  “You won’t be needed.” Tom had things to discuss with Jenny. The more privacy they had, the better.

  Back at the hotel, Ahmad lingered to speak to the gharry-wallah while Tom made his way inside.

  He passed through the Westbrook’s tiled courtyard. Like the courtyard at Mr. Vidyasagar’s hotel in Calcutta, it boasted a fountain, tables, and a surfeit of greenery. That, however, was where the similarities ended. Instead of a quiet sanctuary, the Westbrook’s courtyard was awash with the sounds of screeching parrots. They flew from one side to the other, screaming and squawking. They weren’t alone. Crows cawed from the nooks and corners of the walls and sparrows hopped about the floor, searching for crumbs.

  It was exotic in its way.

  Exotic enough to tempt Jenny.

  She was there near a low palm tree, her head tilted back as she looked up at a green parrot preening itself on the ledge.

  He stopped where he stood. His heart stopped as well. She was lovely, simply lovely, in a dinner dress of cream and black, her auburn hair caught up in its familiar roll of plaits.

  No one could tell that hours ago she’d been sobbing her heart out.

  Sobbing over him.

  Tom still couldn’t quite believe it.

  He smoothed a hand over his hair and gave a futile tug to his wrinkled waistcoat. This wasn’t how he’d planned it. He’d wanted time to change for dinner. To put on a freshly pressed suit, to shave and apply some Macassar oil to his perpetually rumpled hair. But there was no time to worry about such things. Not with Jenny standing a mere few feet away.

  “Jenny?” he said her name quietly as he approached.

  She turned her head. Her mouth trembled on a smile. “Tom.”

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Feeding nuts to this wretched parrot. You wouldn’t know to hear him now, but only five minutes ago he took a cashew directly from my palm.” She dusted her hands off. “Have you only just returned from the railway station?”

  There was an odd catch in her voice. An echo of the emotion she’d expressed earlier when she’d wept so piteously into his handkerchief. He’d never felt such tortured confusion as he had in those moments, crouched down at her feet, at once so indescribably grateful that it was he she was weeping over, and yet, at the same time, so utterly ravaged that he could do nothing to take away her tears.

  Nothing that he could think of then.

  Now, however…

  “Yes,” he said. “Only just.”

  “With Ahmad?”

  “He’s gone to fetch Mira for an outing. And you’re already dressed for dinner, I see. I’m unforgivably behind the times, as usual.”

  “We’re not on a schedule.” She moved away from the wall, her skirts swaying around her legs like a bell. “Shall we sit down and talk awhile?”

  Tom glanced at the tables scattered about the courtyard. Two soldiers sat at one of them, smoking cheroots. At another, an older lady and gentleman engaged in low conversation. The rest of the tables were empty. “If you like.”

  “It’s private enough here.”

  Not as private as her room. Or his. But Tom wouldn’t argue the point. He gestured to an empty table at the far side of the courtyard, opposite the rippling marble fountain.

  Jenny preceded him there, waiting as he pulled out a chair for her and cleaned the seat with his handkerchief. “Parrots aren’t the tidiest of creatures.”

  Tom grimaced. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Some ladies in London keep them as pets.” She sat down, arranging her skirts all about her. “They’re quite fashionable. One can even train them to talk.”

  “Do these parrots talk?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. I daresay no one has taken the trouble to teach them.”

  He sat down beside her, angling his chair so he could look her in the eye. “Enough about parrots. There’s something I wish to tell you.”

  “And something I wish to tell you. I had a visitor while you were gone.”

  “Did you?”

  “It was Mrs. Anstruther.”

  Tom listened in stony silence as Jenny recounted the particulars of the lady’s visit.

  When she’d finished, she sat back in her chair. “Well? What do you think of that?”

  What he thought was that, though in this case Giles may not have been the rank seducer he’d been portrayed as by Colonel Anstruther, it didn’t follow that his behavior with other ladies had been exemplary. One need only look to Jenny’s experience to know that. Giles had kissed her, leaving her to believe Tom knew not what.

  True, she hadn’t been weeping over the man today. But he had hurt her. Hurt her enough that she’d crumpled up his final letter and thrown it away.

  Such events loom large in the life of a young woman.

  It certainly put a different complexion on the matter.

  “I have several thoughts,” he said. “The first of which was what prompted me to visit the railway office.”

  Some of the color left her face. “You’ve booked passage back to Calcutta.”

  “No. Not back to Calcutta. I—”

  “To Bombay, then. You could find an East India Company ship there to take you home, even faster than the P & O ship that brought us to Calcutta.”

  “Not to Bombay, Jenny. Good lord, do you think I’d book passage home without telling you?” He withdrew a folded square of printed paper from an inner pocket of his coat and smoothed it open in front of her.

  She stared down at it in surprise. “Mr. Vidyasagar’s map.”

  “I did book passage at the railways station, but not to Calcutta or Bombay. I purchased tickets for all of us on the morning train”—he tapped a location on the map some distance from Delhi—“here.”

  “To Jhansi?” Her gaze lifted to his. “Why? We already know how Giles died.”

  “Are you that confident in Colonel Anstruther’s account?”

  “I don’t want to be. He’s an odious man. Had I suspected he was being untruthful, I’d have been ready to leave for Jhansi without delay. That was my plan, anyway. But nothing can alter the fact of Giles’s death. I suppose we might learn more about what happened to his body, but it isn’t as if it will change anything.”

  “It will allow me to stay with you awhile longer.”

  Her blue-green eyes softened. “Oh, Tom. Is that what this is about?”

  “In part, yes,” he admitted. “I said I’d stay with you until we found out what happened to him.”

  “Which we have.”

  “We haven’t. Not beyond all doubt.”

  Her brow creased. “You’re trying to humor me. You think I’m going to fall apart when you go.
To take to my bed sobbing. Naturally you would think so after witnessing my behavior this morning. But honestly, Tom, I can assure you—”

  “Perhaps it isn’t only your feelings I’m considering. Perhaps I’m being selfish. I’m not ready to part from you, either, Jenny.” He cleared his throat. “Besides which, I don’t enjoy leaving a task unfinished. There’s still more to be done before I can feel confident of Giles’s fate.”

  She held his gaze, her eyes searching his. For a moment it seemed as though she would say something of an intimate nature. Something about the inevitability of his broken heart—and of her own. But when she spoke, it was only of Giles. “Have you a legitimate hope that he’s alive?”

  “A slim hope. But a legitimate one, yes.”

  “On what basis?”

  “Consider the facts as we know them. It was hot as Hades. One hundred and thirty degrees, Anstruther said. The men were taking ill from it. Their brains were addled. Anstruther himself admits to being unwell after the fall of the city. He had to be removed to the hill country to recover. That alone would be enough to put his memory of Giles’s death into question. But there’s more.”

  “Such as?”

  “The battle was fought at midnight. It was dark. There was cannon fire and smoke from burning buildings. Even if Anstruther wasn’t heat addled, how could he have made a positive identification? I don’t doubt he saw Giles on the wall before he fell, but inside the city it was chaos. How certain could anyone be of a man’s identification? Or that he was dead and not merely fallen into a faint from loss of blood?”

  “Do you really believe all of that?”

  “It’s certainly a possibility, and Jhansi is only two days away by rail and van. What do you suppose Lady Helena would advise us to do?”

  Tom’s conscience gave a rebellious quake. On the train to Marseille, he’d promised Jenny he wouldn’t manipulate her. Mentioning Lady Helena’s name was the closest he’d come to breaking that promise. And it was no accidental slip. He knew full well what he was doing. He was using her devotion to her friend to force her hand. It was badly done of him.