We had a wonderful time at the brewery last Saturday. I don’t mean literally at the brewery! (The main brewery is up in Murree, by the way, and the soldiers drink gallons of the stuff). But there’s a very entertaining deputy manager, Hopkirk, who threw a fancy-dress party at the brewery house. There’s a tank in the garden (a swimming pool, to you and me) and lots of us ended up going for a dip fully clothed – it was a riot!
I’m getting terribly sad thinking about Mummy and Daddy leaving soon. Please can’t you come and stay for a few days? Surely you’re not needed ALL the time? I’m going to need you once my dearest parents have gone. Even just writing about it sets me off crying . . .’
Esmie wrote back saying how busy she and Harold were, that she was sorry they wouldn’t be able to visit Rawalpindi before the Templetons left but to send them her love and to have a safe journey home. With Harold’s agreement, she added that they were very grateful for the invitation for Christmas and would try and come then.
By early November, all of the army patients had been discharged or transferred from the mission hospital and, to Esmie’s joy, the female ward began functioning again for the benefit of the local women. Their workload was still heavy but the numbers of out-patients had dwindled and they were no longer dealing with casualties from the summer conflict.
Harold began making plans for travelling to Kanki-Khel to reopen the clinic in the hills. It was decided that this would only be possible under a police guard.
‘I’ll take Alec with me,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t he be more use here with Rupa?’ asked Esmie.
Harold looked surprised. ‘I’m sure she can cope with you here to help her.’
At once, Esmie said, ‘I’m coming with you, Harold.’
‘That’s far too risky,’ he replied.
‘So who is going to treat the women up there?’ she challenged. ‘I imagine they are even more conservative about who gets to see them than they are in Taha. Besides, my Pashto is just as good as Alec’s now.’
‘But I would worry about you all the time,’ he protested.
‘And I’ll worry about you all the time if you go without me. Please,’ she appealed. ‘We came out here as a husband and wife team, remember? Wherever you go, I go too.’
Abruptly, he laughed. ‘Oh, Esmie, my dear; you are a remarkable woman. I still can’t quite believe I’m married to you.’
‘Does that mean we’re going together?’ she asked with a smile.
Harold nodded. ‘If I can double our escort, then yes; we’ll go to Kanki-Khel together.’
Esmie was beginning to love her home at Taha. Getting up early, she would pad barefoot onto the veranda and watch the sun steal up through the veil of mist that cloaked the valley, enjoying the chill of the November air. By midday, the sky would be bright blue – not as harsh as in September – and the temperature would be pleasant. Harold had warned her that it would be getting cold in the mountains and they would need to take warm clothing and blankets. She had almost forgotten what cold weather felt like.
Soon after she had persuaded Harold to let her accompany him to Kanki-Khel, they had heard that the cavalry unit would be pulling out and returning to their base in Rawalpindi. Esmie would miss the lively company of the young officers and it made her all the more impatient to get on with their mission into the hills to re-establish an outpost clinic.
Before leaving for Kanki-Khel, the Guthries had a final lunch party for the cavalry officers, along with the brigadier who was staying on in Taha.
‘I’m so grateful for your kindness to me, Mrs Guthrie,’ Dickie Mason said, with one of his disarming smiles that made his cheeks dimple. ‘I can’t thank you and the good doctor enough.’
‘It’s we who should be thanking you,’ said Esmie, smiling back. ‘You’ve enlivened our dinner table. It’s been a pleasure having you here. Hasn’t it, Harold?’
Her husband nodded. ‘A pleasure,’ he echoed. ‘But I imagine you’ll be pleased to get back to Pindi and a bit of civilisation.’
Dickie shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine we’ll find a more hospitable home or better company than here, sir.’
‘Well said!’ cried the brigadier.
Esmie laughed. ‘Oh, I can see that chivalry in the cavalry is still alive and well.’
‘I’m most sincere,’ Dickie insisted. ‘Rawalpindi will be new territory for me and I don’t know a soul there. I’m looking forward to the polo and racing though. Do you ever visit, Mrs Guthrie?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t been there either yet,’ Esmie confessed. ‘Though we plan to visit friends there at Christmas.’
His face brightened. ‘Then please be our guests at the mess when you do. It would be an honour to return your generous hospitality.’
‘How kind,’ said Esmie. She glanced at Harold, knowing his lack of enthusiasm for formal dinners.
‘We’d certainly like to come and watch some polo,’ her husband replied. ‘The regiments in Pindi are second to none for horsemanship. But there’s no need to make a fuss of us.’
Esmie saw Dickie’s eager look falter. She detected an underlying vulnerability in the lieutenant – so outwardly self-assured – and knew he was still grieving for his beloved sister. He was searching for friendship and a sense of home, and her heart went out to him.
Dickie couldn’t know how trying Harold found alcohol-fuelled banquets and, fearing the young man might be feeling rebuffed, she said, ‘You must go and visit our good friends the Lomaxes – they run the Raj Hotel on Nichol Road. Captain Lomax is a dear friend of my husband’s and Mrs Lomax is a friend of mine from schooldays. They are good company and I’m sure will introduce you to others in Pindi.’
‘Yes,’ Harold agreed. ‘Tom Lomax was a very good polo player before he hung up his spurs – he was in the Peshawar Rifles.’
‘The Rifles!’ Dickie’s eyes widened with admiration. ‘They’re legendary. I’d very much like to meet him. Thank you.’
Esmie had a moment of doubt. Should she warn the young officer of Tom’s jaded views of the army? She decided not to. She didn’t want to prejudice Dickie against Tom before he met him.
On the final morning in Taha, before embarking for Kanki-Khel, Esmie did her dawn ritual of standing on the veranda. She breathed in the smell of dewy earth and acrid smoke from the early fires lit in the servants’ compound. She had asked Karo if she wished to return to the hills with them – perhaps to her own kin if she would be safe there from her husband’s family. But Karo had been adamant she didn’t want to go and Esmie didn’t press her. Rupa had promised to keep an eye on Karo and Gabina while Esmie was away.
Her friendship with the widowed Rupa had deepened the more they had worked together and Esmie had broken down the woman’s initial reserve towards her. A couple of times, when Harold had been working particularly late at the hospital, Esmie had gone round to Rupa’s small bungalow in the hospital grounds and shared her supper. Rupa was an enthusiast for food and often got her cook to produce family recipes of fish steamed in chutney or spicy chicken curry.
‘My family turned their back on us when my husband converted to Christianity,’ Rupa had confided. ‘We were Parsees – I still am, I suppose.’
‘Is that why you’ve stayed on in Taha?’ Esmie had asked her.
Her friend had looked reflective before answering. ‘One reason, yes. But I also feel closer to my husband here – though I could never go up to Kanki-Khel where he was . . .’ Her voice had tailed off, her expression harrowed. Then with urgency she said, ‘You must take very good care of yourself up there. Promise me you won’t take any risks.’
Esmie had promised.
Gazing out over the low rooftops of the cantonment, she watched the native quarter emerging from the mist and the slender spire of a minaret poking through date palms. As she heard the early call to prayer – a sound she loved – a conversation came back to her of Tom talking with enthusiasm about the old town in Rawalpindi. ‘You can hear the singing fr
om the temples right across town.’ Was he waking at this very moment to the cry of the muezzin? Did it still thrill him? She hoped that he was enjoying being a hotelier and wasn’t regretting his decision to leave the Peshawar Rifles.
Esmie wondered whether there was some deeper reason for him turning his back on his old regiment and life on the Frontier and not just his cynicism about war. Perhaps it was too bound up with the death of his first wife – had Mary died in Peshawar? Esmie realised she didn’t know where it had happened, just that her death had been sudden. Was she buried in Peshawar – that fortress town on the edge of the notoriously dangerous Khyber Pass that led to Afghanistan?
Esmie’s stomach knotted. She was about to venture into the wild and lawless borderlands herself. Harold and Rupa both would rather she didn’t go but Esmie was gripped by that old feeling she used to get on nursing service; half fear, half exhilaration. Somewhere deep in her past, her parents must have instilled in her the obligation to go and help people in need no matter how dire the circumstances or at what personal risk. She felt keenly that she was doing this work for her parents – because their lives had been cruelly cut short and their vocation left unfinished.
Did Tom feel a similar sense of obligation to his long-dead mother? Was that why he had defied his father and chosen a peaceful profession because he was striving to live up to the gentler qualities of warm-heartedness and kindness that he remembered in his mother?
Esmie had no way of knowing. She just hoped that the troubled former captain was finding a new peace of mind at the Raj Hotel. Taking a deep breath, Esmie turned from the view. Enough of contemplation. She must get ready for the trip. The mountains beckoned.
Chapter 17
The Raj Hotel, Rawalpindi, November
Striding in to the cramped hotel foyer after an afternoon’s riding, Tom was startled by a sudden loud eruption. Some of the residents were already lounging in cane chairs in the dimly lit hallway, sipping pre-dinner pink gins under the fronds of over-exuberant ferns. One or two paused in conversation as the noise came again.
‘Achew!’
It was Charlie Dubois sneezing; a sound that was more like a bellow than a sneeze.
Greeting his guests as he weaved his way past chairs, tables and brass urns, Tom found his manager hanging on to the reception desk for support while blowing his nose on a large white handkerchief. His eyes were streaming and his usually round smiling face was pasty and sweating.
‘You look terrible,’ said Tom in concern.
‘I’m fine, sir,’ Charlie croaked and made an attempt to stand erect. He was as immaculate as ever in suit and bow tie but looked on the point of fainting.
‘Sit down, Charlie,’ Tom insisted, steering him onto a cane stool. The normally ebullient man didn’t protest.
‘Maybe just for a minute,’ he conceded, wiping his brow.
‘You must get yourself to bed,’ ordered Tom.
Ansom, the cheerful retired railway engineer, called over. ‘That’s what we’ve been telling him, Lomax.’
Fritwell, his portly companion and a former army quartermaster, huffed. ‘He’s been sounding like a twenty-gun salute all afternoon. We’ll all be dying of the same lurgy if he stays there much longer.’
Ansom gave a loud laugh. ‘We’d all rather have Mrs Dubois looking after us, wouldn’t we, Fritters?’
Tom knew how they liked to tease the manager about how lucky he was to have secured the attractive Myrtle as his wife. But they had a point; Myrtle was far more efficient than her talkative husband, kept a sharper eye on the staff and tried heroically to balance the books. She stayed in the background while her husband played the welcoming host but would sometimes come in after dinner and play piano for the guests.
Charlie looked at him with glassy eyes. ‘My wife’s been called over to help her sister – she thinks Rose’s baby is coming. Shall I send for her, sir?’
‘No, of course not – she’s needed more there. I can stand in tonight,’ said Tom, ‘and Jimmy can help me.’
Fritwell snorted. ‘Good luck with that, Lomax. Jimmy Dubois will be out playing cricket till the cows come home.’
Tom smiled. ‘He’s a good boy and he can man the desk.’
‘There’s no nee— Achew!’ Charlie’s protestation was drowned out by another enormous sneeze.
Just at that moment, Stella, the Dubois’ seven-year-old daughter, appeared on the stairs accompanying Hester Cussack.
‘Ah, the Baroness!’ Ansom cried. ‘Led by the star in our firmament; young Stella! Stella, you must persuade your father to go and lie down. He won’t listen to us crusty old koi hais.’
The young girl grinned and nodded but kept at Hester’s side, holding up the worn hem of her evening gown to prevent her tripping. Punctuated by Charlie’s sneezing, the tall widow made her stately way downstairs, one step at a time, her strings of pearls glinting in the lamplight. Her thick grey hair was coiled into a style that had been fashionable a generation ago and she clung onto Stella with slim arms that were hidden in long black evening gloves. Her aquiline features still looked regal and Tom could imagine how she had turned heads in her youth.
Ansom had told him she’d been married to an Austrian baron and gentleman explorer. Fritwell said he’d heard she’d been lady-in-waiting and confidante to the queen of Sikkim. Lydia, rather cattily, repeated the gossip from the Club that she was the daughter of an Irish navvy and had been a chorus girl who had deserted her soldier husband for an Armenian businessman. Liking her, Tom didn’t care.
Tom hurried forward to help, winking at Stella in encouragement. With her pretty green eyes and honey-blonde hair, the girl looked like neither of her parents. Perhaps her fair looks were a throwback to some British forebear. But she had her father’s engaging personality and her mother’s quick thinking. At seven, she was mature beyond her years and a great favourite with the permanent guests.
‘Good evening, Baroness,’ said Tom, proffering an arm and taking over from Stella.
Fritwell beckoned and raised his voice. ‘Over here, Baroness. We’ve saved you a seat.’
‘Ah ha! Thank you, darlings,’ said Hester with a gracious nod of the head.
Tom hid a smile. The chairs were only ever half filled. This area of the hotel had been commandeered years ago by the small clique of long-time residents, from where they could see all the comings and goings of the hotel as well as the street outside. Lydia’s attempts to confine them to the residents’ sitting room at the end of the corridor had so far failed. Like cats they padded back to their favourite seats and could be found at any time of the day snoozing under copies of the Civil and Military Gazette or sharing a convivial drink.
‘Here we are, Baroness,’ said Tom, helping her into a lumpy chair that was covered in chintz cloth and padded with mothball-smelling cushions. Stella rearranged Baroness Cussack’s hem to hide her dilapidated slippers.
‘Thank you, darlings,’ said the baroness, reaching for the glass of sherry on the carved table between her and Fritwell. ‘Santé!’
‘Good health!’ said Ansom.
‘Bottoms up!’ said Fritwell.
Tom turned to Stella. ‘Can you run and find Jimmy for me? I want him to take over reception. We’ve four more booked in tonight, arriving on the evening train. I’m ordering your father to bed. I’ll do the meet and greet tonight.’
Stella gave him a questioning look. ‘But Mr Lomax, I thought . . .?’
‘Thought what?’
‘That you were going to the Brewery dance tonight with Mrs Lomax.’
Tom stifled an oath. He’d completely forgotten. He glanced at the clock above the desk. It was almost six o’clock and they were due for drinks at the Hopkirks’ in an hour. Riding around Topi Park this afternoon with the pleasant young Lieutenant Mason had been a chance to forget the daily concerns. They had talked about their shared love of hunting and fishing and Tom had promised they would go on shikar in the Himalayan foothills during the cold season. He hadn’t
thought of his homesick wife all afternoon, let alone the dance. Tom felt engulfed in guilt.
‘I better go and talk to Mrs Lomax,’ Tom said hastily, ‘and explain the situation.’
He glanced at Charlie who was mopping his feverish face with a damp handkerchief.
‘Stella, you help your father,’ said Tom.
She hesitated. ‘I could go and see if Mummy is still needed at Auntie Rose’s.’
Tom felt his jaw reddening. The girl might be young but she was well aware of Lydia’s moods and how the boss’s wife could dissolve into tears at the slightest upset these days. Would Lydia be more annoyed by Tom missing the dance or at Myrtle Dubois stepping into the role of hostess at the Raj? To him, Charlie’s wife was a godsend, and yet Lydia had instantly taken against Myrtle for thwarting her attempts to modernise the hotel. The redecoration kept being delayed and old furniture thrown out would reappear days later disguised with different cushions or counterpanes with explanations such as it was the baroness’s favourite chair or had belonged to Mr Ansom’s mother. Tom found himself constantly caught in the middle of their skirmishing, trying not to show favouritism to the practical level-headed Myrtle while also placating his wife.
Tom shook his head. ‘No, Stella; we can manage without your mother. The health of your aunt and her baby are more important than me missing a dance.’
‘Darling,’ said Hester, ‘go to the ball. The children can look after us.’
‘I’ll go along later,’ said Tom, seizing a piece of writing paper from the desk and scrawling a quick message. He handed it to Stella. ‘Give this to Jimmy and tell him to take it at once to Lieutenant Mason at the Westridge Barracks. And, Charlie,’ he said, pulling the manager to his feet, ‘go home.’
The Emerald Affair Page 19
