Lydia, avoiding the men, rushed past and into the house. ‘I must see Andrew this minute. Where’s my darling boy? Ayah!’
Esmie noticed a look of awkwardness pass between the brigadier and superintendent; they were probably just as much at a loss as to what to say to Lydia as her friend was to them.
The servants were lined up too; Draman, Ali and the cook. Karo was behind, with her veil pulled across her face, a fretful Gabina in her arms. Esmie’s smile faltered as she sensed their unease. She turned to the padre.
‘Where’s Harold?’
The smile was gone from his face. He looked at her helplessly. McCabe stepped forward and cleared his throat.
‘Mrs Guthrie, we’re so terribly sorry. It was so sudden . . .’
Esmie’s pulse began to race. ‘What do you mean? What’s happened? Tell me where Harold is, please.’
Rupa came to her side and steered her towards a cane chair – Harold’s chair. ‘Come and sit down.’
Esmie shook her head. She didn’t want to sit in the chair where Harold should be. She wanted to repeat her question but her throat was too tight to speak. Rupa explained in a calm, professional voice.
‘Harold had a cut on his hand. It must have become infected during an operation. He fainted at work. It was septicaemia. He died that night of organ failure. We’re all so very, very sorry.’
Esmie stared in stupefaction. ‘Harold? Dead?’
‘There was nothing that could be done,’ Alec added.
‘A cut?’ Esmie questioned. ‘I knew he had a cut. I meant to tend it myself.’ Esmie began to shake. ‘I should have made him put on a clean dressing.’
‘This is not your fault,’ Rupa insisted.
Esmie felt faint. ‘When did it happen?’
‘The day after you left,’ said Rupa.
Esmie put her hands to her chest, trying to breathe. Harold had been dead for over a week and she had not known. All this time she had hardly thought of him – at least only fleetingly – and now he was gone. She gripped the back of Harold’s chair and swallowed down bile.
‘I want to see him. Where is he being kept?’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Guthrie,’ said the brigadier, ‘but we had to go ahead with the burial. In this climate . . . and we didn’t know—’ He checked his words. ‘We had no idea when you would be back. It could have been weeks.’
Esmie knew he had almost said, ‘if you would be back.’ They all thought she might never have returned. She so nearly hadn’t.
‘I’ll take you to the cemetery to see his grave,’ said Alec gently.
Grave. The word was so final; desolate. Esmie heard a stifled groan. She turned to see Tom’s stricken face. His eyes were welling with tears for his closest friend. She couldn’t bear his pain as well as hers.
‘Oh, Tom!’
She felt her knees buckle. In an instant, he was reaching out to catch her before she crumpled. His arms went around her as he supported her and helped her sit down in a chair that wasn’t Harold’s. Esmie held onto his hand like a lifeline, too shocked to cry.
It was then that she caught sight of Lydia standing in the doorway with Andrew in her arms, staring at them.
‘Esmie, what’s wrong?’ Lydia asked. ‘Why are you holding on to Tom?’
Quickly Esmie withdrew her hand. Neither of them could speak.
It was Alec who told her. ‘There’s been a tragedy. Harold’s dead.’
Chapter 41
Esmie remembered little of the following week. At night she couldn’t sleep. During the day she was disorientated with exhaustion and dozed for brief snatches that brought a temporary blessed oblivion. She wanted to work at the hospital but Rupa and Alec wouldn’t let her.
‘You need to rest,’ Alec insisted. ‘You’ve been through a terrible time and now this.’
Rupa said, ‘You’re in shock and you’re tired out. You might make mistakes. Be kind to yourself, Esmie. Spend time with Karo and Gabina or your Pindi friends.’
Esmie listened to Rupa, knowing how she had suffered a similar trauma with her husband’s sudden death four years previously. But she couldn’t bear to be around Lydia and Tom. It should have been comforting to have them there – Harold’s most long-standing friends – but it just made the loss of Harold the more acute. Lydia was constantly breaking down in tears and Tom’s stoical suppressing of his grief was even more painful to witness.
The day after their return to Taha, they had all gone to the cemetery together. That had been a mistake. At the sight of the freshly dug grave with its temporary wooden cross, Lydia had crumpled to her knees. ‘My darling Harold!’ she’d cried and begun to sob uncontrollably.
Tom’s face, scored with grief, had been too much. Esmie had left quickly, too numb to cry and wanting to get away from them. Alec was putting up the Lomaxes at his bungalow, but each day they came round to keep her company and to see Andrew. Esmie had suggested that the baby and his ayah stay on at hers.
‘Padre’s not used to having a baby under his roof – and I’m happy for Andrew and Sarah to be here for a few more days.’
But her real reason for keeping him close was that the six-month-old with his large blue eyes and gummy smile could bring her the comfort that the adults couldn’t. If he woke in the night, she would rock him back to sleep and sit with him in her arms, drawing strength from his trusting solid warmth. She knew the solace of Andrew’s presence could only be temporary but it helped her through the first dark days.
When the Lomaxes arrived after breakfast, Lydia would fuss over Andrew for a few minutes and then lose interest. She began to talk about Christmas, now only eight weeks away.
‘We must all go to Ebbsmouth for Christmas,’ Lydia declared. ‘I can’t bear the thought of you being here on your own.’
‘Esmie can come to us in Pindi,’ Tom offered.
‘And endure another Christmas having to eat soggy samosas with the inmates of the Raj Hotel?’ Lydia was scathing. ‘Esmie would hate that and so would I. It would be so much better at home. We can all stay at Templeton Hall – and we’ll invite Harold’s mother and aunt over too so they won’t be sad and on their own. What do you think, Esmie?’
Lydia looked at her eagerly. Esmie was at a loss as to what to say. She shrugged. ‘I really haven’t thought . . . It’s too soon to make any decisions . . .’
‘I know it won’t be the same without dear Harold,’ said Lydia, her eyes filling with tears, ‘but at least we’d all be together and Mummy and Daddy can make a fuss over us. Please say yes.’
Tom chided his wife. ‘Lydia, we haven’t even discussed this ourselves so Esmie can’t be expected to make up her mind. It’s too soon. Don’t press her.’
‘I’m not,’ Lydia snapped. ‘I’m trying to think what’s best for my friend and being stuck out here without Harold is the worst of all worlds.’ She turned to Esmie. ‘Don’t worry about the money; I can pay for your fare home. When we get back to Pindi we’ll book a passage for you too and you can decide in a couple of weeks if you want to go.’
Tom looked aghast. ‘Lydia, let’s talk about this another time. There might be no berths to be had anyway.’
‘If you’ve got the right money, there’s always a berth to be had,’ said Lydia. ‘I’m not forcing anyone to do anything but I’m going home for Christmas even if you’re not.’
Esmie could see from Tom’s shocked face that he had not been expecting such a suggestion. Would Lydia really travel back to Ebbsmouth without him?
At the end of the week, Esmie could bear no more of Lydia’s badgering her to return to Scotland with her. She told them both to go back to Rawalpindi.
She tried to explain. ‘I need to grieve alone – I hope you understand.’
‘Of course,’ Tom said, his look apologetic.
‘I wish you would come with us,’ Lydia said. ‘I hate the thought of leaving you here at the mercy of these wild savages.’
‘I’m perfectly safe here,’ Esmie insisted. She kept to herse
lf that she felt more at home among the local Waziris and the mission workers than she did with Lydia’s friends in Rawalpindi.
Lydia was baffled. ‘Surely you don’t want to stay on? You’ve done your bit for the mission.’
‘I need time to think things over,’ Esmie replied.
‘But what is there—?’
‘Lydia, leave it be!’ Tom cut her off.
Lydia said testily, ‘I really don’t understand you sometimes, Esmie. I’m only trying to do the best for you after you’ve helped me.’
‘I know you are,’ Esmie replied, ‘and I’m grateful. I just don’t know what I want to do yet.’
But Lydia grew more agitated. ‘Can’t you see how dangerous it is for a British woman to be left on her own in this primitive place? It’s dirty and full of disease and the men leer at you – and who’s to say you won’t be the next one to be kidnapped?’
‘Lydia, that’s enough!’ Tom berated.
She snapped back. ‘Well, I hate India! I can’t believe you’re not trying to help Esmie escape this backward place. Harold wouldn’t have wanted her to stay on without him.’
Esmie was winded by the remark. Lydia was probably right. Harold had only ever agreed to bring her to Taha as his wife and under his protection. She saw Tom trying to hold on to his temper in front of her. ‘That’s up to Esmie, not us,’ he said. ‘Now I think we should leave her in peace.’
To Esmie’s relief, Alec offered to drive the Lomaxes to Kohat the next day.
On the morning they left, Esmie found it hardest saying goodbye to Andrew. She held him for a long moment, breathing in his baby smell and kissing his cheeks.
‘Goodbye, wee man,’ she murmured. ‘I love you.’
It was Tom who stepped forward to take him, briefly kissing Esmie’s cheek as he did so. ‘Come to Pindi when you’re ready,’ he said, his eyes full of sadness.
She nodded, too heavy-hearted to speak. Lydia grabbed her in a tearful hug. ‘Please think about coming back to Ebbsmouth. We’ll make it just like old times, you and me.’
Esmie was pained at her words. Did Lydia really believe that they could ever go back to those pre-married days together and their girlish friendship? Esmie was a different person; the experiences of the past fourteen months in India and of the last two weeks in particular had changed her. She had been tested to the limits of her courage and endurance – and yet had come to love and admire the agrarian people among whom she worked and lived. She had struggled to make her brief marriage work but now she was a widow.
It struck Esmie suddenly that Lydia would never change. She would continue to rush through life, charming and hedonistic, loving and hurting people in equal measure. The way she talked about the local people with such disdain caused Esmie the most pain. Had she already forgotten how men like Malik, Mullah Mahmud and Zakir had risked their lives to rescue her? How the subahdar had negotiated on her behalf and Sergeant Baz had swiftly organised the prisoner exchange? It was the Pathans – those wild savages as Lydia called them – who had brought about her freedom, not the British. Esmie did not blame Lydia for wanting to get away from her traumatic experience by going home to her parents for Christmas but her condemnation of all things Indian was hard to stomach.
As she waved them away, Esmie felt a stab of pity for Tom having to cope with his wife’s capricious nature and thoughtless comments. But there was nothing she could do to help him.
November came and Esmie’s numbness over Harold’s death gradually thawed. She took to sleeping in his bed, reading and rereading his battered copy of Old Mortality, her face wet with tears. She was guilty at her neglect of his wound. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with Lydia’s disappearance and Tom’s presence, then she might have paid Harold’s condition more attention. She thought now of his glassy eyes and pallid face as they said their distracted goodbyes. They were the signs of sepsis, not emotion. She should have noticed.
It made her doubt her ability as a nurse. She felt useless and desperately alone. She tried to fill the empty hours writing airmail letters to Harold’s mother and aunt and notes to his friend Bernie Hudson in Peshawar and the Tolmies in Murree. She wrote a more detailed letter to her dear Aunt Isobel in Vaullay, seeking her guardian’s advice on what she should do.
She received letters of condolence from people in India she’d never met – friends and colleagues of Harold’s from the mission and his secondment to the army during the War. Esmie was touched by their kindness and of the nice things they said about her husband. But she also thought that she didn’t deserve their sympathy. Esmie was wrestling with her feelings. She knew that she was genuinely grieving for Harold and missed him greatly – but she also knew that the guilt she felt was partly because she had never truly loved him.
She and Harold had cared for each other but they hadn’t been in love. Esmie knew that if Harold had lived, she would have been questioning whether she could stay with him at the mission and continue in their platonic relationship. In the dark hours of the night she had to admit that the day might have come when she would have left Harold. She could hardly dare admit it to herself but once she had, then Esmie allowed herself to grieve for him properly.
She wept for the kind man whose work she had so admired, for his bashful modesty and genial nature. Yet she knew he had been a complex man who had struggled to suppress his nature and had hidden his unhappiness in a single-minded pursuit of his mission work. She was desolate that he had died so young when he had so much skill and compassion to offer the world – and she grieved that Harold had never been able to love and be loved in the way he had wanted.
A couple of weeks after the Lomaxes had returned to Rawalpindi, a letter came from Tom. She read it with shaking hands.
Dearest Esmie,
I know that there is little I can say to bring you comfort in your grief but I wanted you to know that I think of you daily and hope that you are keeping strong. I know you will be. You have more courage than the rest of us put together. Harold knew that – it’s why he chose you. He also admired and loved you, Esmie. I know from what you’ve told me that it wasn’t the way you wanted – or deserved – but he loved you greatly in his own way. He told me as much. So thank you for making my friend happy.
I miss him more than I can say. To me, Harold was the epitome of what a good man should be; moral and upright, hard-working and brave – but also kind-hearted and with a sense of humour. He might have been a little too competitive at tennis but we’ll allow him that!
He also saved my life. I’ve never told this to any family or friends, so I hope you don’t mind me unburdening to you now. When we were in Mesopotamia together – towards the end of the War – I reached the end of my tether. I refused to obey an order to carry out an execution of one of the Indian sepoys who had been charged with desertion and sentenced to death. I was court-martialled but Harold spoke up for me – pleaded with the tribunal to spare me from imprisonment or possible execution myself. He cited my good record with the Peshawar Rifles and in Mesopotamia and said he’d diagnosed me with shell shock. Yes, Esmie, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that. That was why I was so prickly towards you when we first met – I knew you’d spotted my weakness, just as Harold had.
One of the tribunal wanted to make an example of me, saying it would encourage mutiny among the sepoys if my insubordination went unpunished. Luckily for me, the other two were lenient towards me and I was given a week of field punishment instead. That was all thanks to Harold. He was a true friend to me always. I’m ashamed that I didn’t do more to stop Lydia spreading the myth that I was some sort of hero in the War. I was nothing of the sort. Harold was the hero – he never wanted his praises sung – but that is the mark of a truly heroic man.
What a ramble this is, Esmie. I’m sorry – I’d set out to write a note of condolence but find I’ve been pouring out my heart to you instead. You are so easy to talk to, Nurse Guthrie. I wish I could be with you in person.
I hope you are t
reating yourself kindly and that Alec, Rupa and Karo are all looking after you. Don’t be bullied by Lydia into making a hasty decision about the future. Whatever you choose to do or where you choose to go, I know it will be done wisely.
My warmest wishes always,
Tom
Esmie reread the letter again and again. She could hear his self-deprecating voice as he confessed to his wartime trauma. Tom may well have been under mental stress but his act of mercy on the sepoy was the deed of a brave man, whether at the end of his tether or not. Others in the army might have seen it as weakness of character but she didn’t. She admired him for it. No doubt, though, it must have spurred on Tom’s decision to leave the army and start a new life.
Esmie wondered what life was like for him now that he was back in Rawalpindi. He made no mention of the hotel or Lydia – or even Andrew. The purpose of the letter was to be able to talk about his dear friend Harold and to tell her that he thought of her. How comforting that was!
As the days passed, Esmie carried the letter with her and referred to it constantly. It was tender and compassionate and yet there was nothing of impropriety about it. He might be critical of Lydia but he wasn’t disloyal. It was the letter of a good friend and it helped her through the early days of dislocation and loss.
Aunt Isobel wrote too; a long loving letter that advised Esmie not to rush into any decision about her future but to take her time.
‘. . . you know that you are always welcome back here in Vaullay whenever you want, whether for a holiday or to live and work. My home is your home.’
Esmie began to think more and more of returning to Vaullay; a place where she could lick her wounds. She had done so before, during the punishing years of wartime nursing. But would it be fair on her guardian to go back without any clear idea that she would stay there long term? Would escaping to Vaullay just be running away from unhappiness? Then Esmie questioned what it was she would be running away from; was it just the sorrow of Harold’s death? The more she dwelled on it, the more she realised that going to Vaullay would chiefly be to put distance between herself and Tom in Rawalpindi.
The Emerald Affair Page 48
