It might also be good for her and Harold to take a holiday. Esmie determined to press her husband to take time off from his work and for them to go and stay at the Raj Hotel. They had been thrown together more than ever in the past month and the stress of their time in the hills and its abrupt ending was taking its toll. Harold had resumed his old habit of sleeping apart as if the intimacy they had shared in Kanki-Khel had never been.
He avoided her by dashing off to work early and returning late. He didn’t criticise her for staying away from the hospital but she felt she had somehow let him down. She couldn’t rid herself of the guilt that she had brought hostile attention to the mountain clinic by intervening in the lives of both Karo and Zakir. If she had stayed in Taha as Harold had originally wanted, would the clinic at Kanki-Khel still be open?
The one thing that eased her conscience was a visit from Sergeant Baz.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you safely back in Taha,’ Esmie said. ‘I feel terrible about putting you and your men in danger but I am so grateful for your prompt action in saving us.’
The gruff sergeant would take no credit. ‘I was only doing my job, Guthrie Mem’.’
‘What news do you bring? Is Zakir safe?’
The bearded Pathan gave away no emotion but she thought she saw his look soften. ‘The army is in control once more, memsahib. I set Zakir free. By the time the fighting was over, he had disappeared. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what became of him.’
Esmie was upset to think of the troubled youth escaping through the gunfire. She could only hope and pray that he had been rescued and shown mercy by fellow Otmanzai. Baz’s visit left her with a heavy heart and she couldn’t help dwelling on what might have happened to Zakir.
When Harold came home that evening, he was more sanguine. ‘At least he is no longer incarcerated in a prison cell like a criminal,’ he said. ‘You saved him from that fate, my dear. We must believe that God has taken care of him.’
It came as a surprise and a relief when Harold returned the following day, announcing that he had wired the Lomaxes, telling them they would arrive in Rawalpindi the day after tomorrow. Bannerman would drive them to the station at Kohat for the early train.
‘But I never wrote to Lydia confirming we were coming for Christmas,’ Esmie said. ‘I wasn’t sure you wanted to . . .’
‘I wrote to Tom accepting,’ said Harold. ‘The brigadier thinks it’s a good idea to spend the holidays in Pindi. Things are too uncertain here. It may be that I’ll return alone after Christmas and you can stay on with Lydia. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, my dear?’
Esmie felt too worn out to argue. She didn’t want to think beyond the next few days and the prospect of having a change of scene. She was heartened that Harold thought the same without prompting from her. Rawalpindi would do them both good. The men needed each other’s company as much as she needed Lydia’s. The four friends would be together again and she looked forward to them recreating the camaraderie of the previous summer. Esmie tried to quell her nervousness at the prospect of seeing Tom. Excitement fluttered in her belly. She tried to convince herself that it was in anticipation at seeing Lydia and staying at the Raj Hotel.
Chapter 20
The Raj Hotel, Rawalpindi, 23rd December
The tonga carrying the Guthries from the station drew up outside a low, freshly white-washed building with a pale-blue balustrade marking it off from the busy road. A garish red sign with gold lettering hung on the blue gate, proclaiming the Raj Hotel and its proprietor, Captain T Lomax. Esmie’s stomach curdled with nerves. Beyond, two palm trees shaded its attractively pillared entrance and a peacock strutted across a pocket of lawn, heralding their arrival. They had caught an earlier train than planned so no one had been there to meet them at the station.
As Harold paid off the tonga driver, a plump boy came dashing down the hotel steps, a young porter at his heels, and bowed at Esmie.
‘I’m Jimmy,’ he grinned. ‘You’re Mrs Guthrie; I’ve seen your photo in Mrs Lomax’s rooms. We weren’t expecting you until this evening. Pa wanted to fetch you in the car.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Esmie said. ‘We made good time to Kohat and caught the earlier train.’
‘No need to apologise. Can I take your case? Sunil will take the other one.’
‘Thank you.’ Esmie smiled. ‘Are you one of the Duboises?’
‘Yes, I’m the eldest. I’m twelve. My sister Stella is seven. We tossed a coin to see who’d come and meet you and I won. She’s getting the baroness ready for afternoon tea. She has about four changes a day.’ The boy chuckled. ‘The baroness, not my sister.’ As he picked up Esmie’s small case he said, ‘This isn’t very heavy. Are you not staying long?’
‘Well, I don’t have a lot of clothes to choose from,’ Esmie replied in amusement.
‘Don’t you?’ Jimmy asked in surprise. ‘Mrs Lomax has heaps of outfits. She has to put half of them in one of the spare bedrooms. I bet she’d lend you some – or my mother will. She’s petite like you are, Mrs Guthrie.’
‘Jimmy!’ a male voice barked from inside the hotel entrance. ‘Come on, lad! Don’t leave the VIPs waiting in the street.’
Jimmy rolled his eyes. ‘That’s Fritters – Mr Fritwell – he’s a bit bossy. But it’s just because he can’t wait to meet you. We all can’t. Pa says you’ve been to the Frontier. Is it true you had to run for your lives and nearly got killed by Pathans?’
Esmie was taken aback that the boy and his family knew so much. Harold must have written to Tom about it. At that moment Harold joined them and Esmie was saved from further questions as a well-groomed Anglo-Indian in a suit and lilac cravat appeared and bowed them inside.
‘Mr and Mrs Guthrie, we’re honoured to have you at the Raj.’ He beamed. ‘I am Charlie Dubois, the manager of the hotel. You must make yourself utterly at home.’
As they entered the hallway, Esmie had the sensation of stepping into a green grotto that had been enthusiastically decorated for Christmas. From floor to ceiling it was painted sea-green, and sprouting between the rattan tables and chairs were massive ferns adorned with gaudy paper streamers. Several people stood up and others waved hello as if they had been expecting them. A tall man with a long craggy face and a smoker’s pallor grinned at her and extended his hand.
‘I’m Ansom,’ he introduced himself, pumping her hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Mrs Guthrie. We’ve heard all about your heroics – the War in Europe as well as nursing on the Frontier – yes, very pleased to meet you indeed.’ He let go and ushered her towards his companion. ‘Meet my good friend Fritters.’ Ansom then moved on to greet Harold.
One after the other, the residents claimed Esmie’s attention and welcomed her to the hotel. Presiding over them all was Charlie Dubois, like some impresario in a theatrical production. She was charmed and overwhelmed by their friendliness.
Charlie said, ‘I shall go and alert Mr Lomax to your arrival. He is just returning from a ride.’ He hurried away through open French doors that led onto a shaded courtyard.
Esmie, her heartbeat increasing at the mention of Tom, was distracted by someone tugging at her sleeve. She turned to see a pretty blonde girl beside an older woman in an old-fashioned plum-coloured tea dress.
‘Mrs Guthrie, may I introduce you to Baroness Hester Cussack?’ asked the girl.
Esmie was entranced at the regal figure with the delicate porcelain-pale features under a headband bearing a single lime-green ostrich feather. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Esmie guessed that her young companion must be Stella Dubois though she looked nothing like her brother or father. Perhaps the mother was fair.
‘And you must be Stella?’ Esmie smiled at the girl.
The girl’s face dimpled. ‘Stella Maria Dubois,’ she said and bobbed in a curtsey.
‘Stella is a little angel,’ said Hester. ‘My lady-in-waiting. Aren’t you, darling?’ She fondled the girl’s hair.
‘Esmie.’
> Esmie swung round at the familiar deep voice and saw Tom in riding clothes striding through the French doors towards her. Her insides fluttered at the sight of his handsome aristocratic face – perhaps a little more gaunt, but creased in a smile.
‘Welcome to the Raj,’ he said, taking her hands and kissing her cheek. ‘I wanted to be here to meet you but you beat me to it. How was your journey?’
Her face burned from the unexpected kiss and she found it hard to catch her breath. ‘Fine, thank you,’ she managed to say.
He nodded. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’
For a moment he held her look. She had forgotten quite how startlingly blue his eyes were against their black lashes. His gaze was full of warmth and she was suddenly tearful, realising how much she had missed him.
‘And you,’ she said, embarrassed by how husky her voice sounded.
Briefly he squeezed her hands and then let go, turning to Harold. The men wrung each other’s hands with enthusiasm. Esmie was touched to see their eyes glinting with emotion, testament to their long and deep friendship.
A scream from the staircase made them all look up.
‘Esmie! Harold!’ Lydia squealed. ‘Why did nobody tell me you were here?’ She hurried down the stairs, flinging her arms wide and rushing at them.
Esmie and Lydia embraced each other, setting off a chorus of cheers from the residents. Lydia pulled away and dabbed at her eyes, ignoring the offer of a lace handkerchief from the woman wielding an ear trumpet.
‘You look wonderful,’ said Esmie, admiring Lydia’s modern beige dress and her glowing complexion under neatly coiffured hair. She didn’t look matronly at all.
‘And darling Harold!’ Lydia greeted him with a peck on the cheek and hooked her arm through his. ‘You don’t know how happy I am to see you both.’
Harold blushed at the attention. ‘And we’ve been looking forward to it too.’
‘Did Dubois collect you in the car?’
‘We arrived early so jumped in a tonga,’ said Harold.
‘A tonga! How dreadful. I would have come myself but I was resting before tonight.’
‘A tonga was perfectly fine,’ Esmie said in amusement. ‘It gave us a chance to see a bit of Pindi at a leisurely pace.’
‘Through that awful Saddar Bazaar, I bet,’ said Lydia with a shudder.
Tom said teasingly, ‘Well, they’re here safe and sound, and haven’t been sold into slavery on the way.’ He touched Jimmy on the shoulder. ‘Please take the cases upstairs and show our guests to the Curzon Room.’
He turned to Esmie and she thought his look softened. ‘Once you’ve settled in we’ll have afternoon tea in the courtyard.’
She smiled. ‘That sounds lovely.’
‘Goodness me, no,’ Lydia contradicted. ‘It’s far too gloomy at this time of day. I’ll have Dubois send tea up to our flat so we can have a proper catch up in private.’ She threw a dismissive glance at the residents.
Tom faltered. ‘Well, if you’d prefer . . .’
‘I do,’ Lydia said firmly.
‘I’ll go and tell Charlie,’ Tom said and beat a retreat through the French doors.
‘Come on, let’s go upstairs,’ Lydia said, leading the way with Harold while Esmie followed behind.
‘See you at dinner!’ Ansom called after them. Esmie waved and nodded.
‘No, you won’t,’ Lydia called. ‘We’re going to the Club.’
‘Ah, jolly good show,’ Ansom replied, sinking back into his cane chair.
Out of earshot, Lydia said, ‘I warn you now, they’ll drive you potty.’
‘They seem a cheerful lot,’ said Esmie, ‘and so friendly.’
‘Nosey more like,’ Lydia retorted. ‘They’re always trying to find out my business. I can’t bear it. The sooner Tom agrees to us living in the civil lines, the better.’
Esmie was awkward at her blunt opinion being expressed in front of Jimmy Dubois and wondered what the boy thought of it.
‘Do they all live here permanently?’ Harold asked.
‘That lot do, yes,’ said Lydia. ‘It’s like living in a nursing home – smells like one too at times. That’s where half of them should be, of course. But Tom won’t do anything about it. You would think we were a charity not a hotel. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve got you two here and that’s all that matters. From what Tom tells me, you both deserve a good holiday. We’re going to have such fun together.’
Near the end of a long corridor painted pale green, Jimmy stopped outside a brown door.
‘The Curzon Room,’ he announced, throwing open the door with a proud flourish.
Lydia rolled her eyes and gave a brittle laugh. ‘It was Tom’s idea to name the rooms after famous viceroys. But don’t expect the luxury of the Viceregal Lodge – or the view!’
Tom stood under the jacaranda tree in the courtyard, smoking furiously. A bird kept up an incessant squawking above his head. It put him on edge when he was trying to calm his nerves before going up to the apartment for tea. Myrtle had made a Victoria sponge cake in honour of the Guthries’ arrival. He knew he should be up there changing out of his riding clothes but he was reluctant to join them, even though he was eager to see Harold and hear all his news in detail.
But he was finding Lydia increasingly irritating. She found fault in everything he did. In her eyes, he spent too much time with the Duboises and the residents instead of with her yet she didn’t want him at her card parties or trips to the Club. One minute she complained he didn’t go out enough and the next that he went out riding too often. He suspected Lydia must have complained to Dickie Mason that he went riding too frequently with Tom, for the young lieutenant was always finding excuses not to join him in Topi Park these days. Perhaps Mason had begun to be influenced by the opinion of the other officers in the army cantonment that Tom was persona non grata for turning his back on the Peshawar Rifles. Or was it possible that the truth had leaked out about his army career ending under a cloud in Mesopotamia? There was no one in Rawalpindi who knew him from there, so he quickly banished the thought. Lydia must never hear of it or she would never live down the shame.
Lydia argued with him daily about the hotel. He was dismayed at how quickly his wife seemed to have adopted the prejudices of the British in India, looking down her nose at the mixed-race Duboises and speaking imperiously to the Indian servants in a tone she would never have used with the servants at Templeton Hall. He blamed it on her friendship with the waspish Geraldine Hopkirk, the brewery manager’s wife, who was obsessive about social rank and critical of all things Indian.
Lydia endlessly badgered him about moving out of the hotel to live near other British civilians.
‘I want to live with our own kind, not have to rub shoulders with natives and half-halfs. The smells from the bazaar turn my stomach and Geraldine says if I live here much longer I’ll start speaking with a chee-chee accent like Myrtle Dubois. I know she’s only teasing but it doesn’t do our standing in Pindi any good to be mixing with their sort.’
If Tom defended the Duboises it only seemed to rile Lydia further and make her all the more determined to move to the civil cantonment. She was rude to the residents – except for Fritwell who was ex-army – and increasingly arranged to eat out with friends at the Club or at Geraldine’s. Why had his wife chosen such a woman as her closest friend? The plump and garrulous Geraldine was the biggest gossip in the cantonment; the antithesis of Lydia’s long-time friend, Esmie.
Oh, Esmie! Tom ground out his cigarette with a sigh. One look into her beautiful grey eyes and his stomach had knotted in familiar longing. She had looked tired and a little strained – who wouldn’t after her recent ordeal? – and yet her face had shone with kindness and her rapport with the residents had been instant. In comparison, Lydia’s prettiness seemed superficial and her bonhomie contrived. Would Esmie see a difference in her friend or was his jaundiced view a result of weeks of worry over the hotel and trying to keep his wife happy?
>
Even in bed he seemed to be failing to satisfy her. They hadn’t had sex for over a month – not since their drunken love-making the night of the brewery dance – and Lydia had rebuffed all his attempts at intimacy since. That was why he went riding so often, to release his pent-up frustration, in the way he had learnt to do as a young subaltern on remote pickets on the Frontier.
He wondered if he could confide in Harold about his present unhappiness. Or would his oldest friend be embarrassed by such talk? Harold had always had a soft spot for Lydia and might feel disloyal discussing her behind her back. Maybe Esmie would be a good influence on Lydia. But how would he feel if Lydia unburdened herself to Esmie about her disappointment in their marriage? It would pique his pride if Esmie was to look upon him as a failure too.
Tom pulled back his shoulders. His problems were his own and he should be the one to deal with them. He and Lydia would find a way to rekindle their former passion for each other. He would just have to work harder at making her happy. Tom crossed the courtyard, his insides clenching as if he were about to go into battle.
Chapter 21
‘Don’t eat too much cake,’ Lydia warned. ‘Or you won’t enjoy dinner at the Club.’
‘It’s delicious,’ said Esmie, licking jam from her fingers and relaxing back onto the comfortable cream sofa.
‘Old dragon Drummond would have slapped your hand for that.’ Lydia laughed and mimicked their former headmistress. ‘“Use your napkin not your tongue, Miss McBride!”’
‘It’s too good to waste a single crumb,’ grinned Esmie.
‘Goodness, life really must be primitive in the mofussil if you get excited over Myrtle’s sagging sponge cake.’
Esmie eyed her friend. She seemed on edge, her comments either falsely hearty or a little too biting. Lydia had hardly stopped talking about Rawalpindi society since they’d gathered in her airy sitting room. Her life seemed to consist of one long string of social engagements. Perhaps it had been the same at home but she didn’t remember Lydia being quite so particular about people’s social backgrounds. Lydia rattled off the names of all the most important people of the army town as if Esmie should know whom she meant. While Harold and Tom were deep in conversation about the situation on the Frontier, Lydia had yet to ask Esmie anything about her life in Taha.
The Emerald Affair Page 23
