He was about to give another order, then he changed his mind and walked from the dining room across the passage to Chandra’s door.
He knocked sharply, but there was no answer and now, wondering if perhaps she had gone roaming as she had the night before, he lifted the latch and looked inside.
For a moment he thought that no one was there, then to his surprise he saw Chandra lying on the floor almost at his feet.
He looked down at her thinking she must have fainted and then he saw that she was asleep.
Her hands were tucked under her cheek and with the exception of her hat she was still wearing the clothes she had worn all day.
Lord Frome looked at her for a long moment, at the long lashes, dark against her pale skin, the strange colour of her hair that waved on either side of her oval forehead and the perfectly curved lips which seemed to have a faint smile on them.
He saw now that she was sleeping, her breath coming slowly and evenly, and he realised that it was the sleep of utter exhaustion.
Bending down he picked her up in his arms and laid her on top of the quilt on the bed, her head against the pillow.
As he moved her, she made a little murmur and seemed almost to cuddle against him as a child might do with its mother.
But she did not wake and he knew that she was completely unconscious of anything that was happening.
When he took his arms from her, he thought suddenly that she seemed very small, slight and rather pathetic.
Because he had been hating her, she had seemed in his mind to be a large dominating woman determined to get her own way, standing up to him in a manner he most disliked.
But now instead she merely looked very young and very vulnerable.
He stared at her for a long moment, then realising that she was still wearing her riding boots beneath the full skirt of her habit, he pulled them slowly from her feet.
She never even stirred as he put each small foot back on the quilt.
Then he looked round.
Over a chair where Mehan Lall had put it, there was a warm blanket.
Surprisingly gently for such a big man, Lord Frome spread it over Chandra and then he went from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
*
Chandra awoke because there was a noise far, far away in the distance and she wondered why it should seem so irritating when she had no wish to hear it.
Then she realised that there was someone knocking on the door and opened her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked, speaking in English because she was too sleepy to remember where she was.
“Five o’clock, Lady Sahib,” she heard the voice of Mehan Lall call and remembered where she was and what was happening.
She was in Nepal and last night –
She sat up trying to remember what had happened last night and found that she was wearing the coat of her riding habit and that she was covered with a blanket.
She could not have done that. She remembered feeling desperately tired and thinking that she must undress. But what had happened?
She could not remember and automatically she pushed the blanket aside to get out of bed and, as she did so, she saw her riding boots.
They were on the floor beside the bed.
She knew then that someone must have taken them off, someone who had lifted her onto the bed and covered her with a blanket.
But who could it have been?
She knew that Mehan Lall would never have touched her without permission.
No Indian servant would dare touch a white Memsahib.
That left only one person – and it seemed too incredible to contemplate.
Because she knew that time was passing, Chandra began to undress and redress herself.
She had intended anyway today to put on a thicker habit than she had worn yesterday, knowing that they would be high on the very top of the lofty Chandragiri Pass which was thousands of feet high and white with snow.
Her riding habit was on the top of her trunk and she pulled it out and with it a warm scarf for her neck.
She would also want, she knew, the sheep-lined coat that had been attached to her saddle.
Only as she took off the clothes she had worn all night did she realise how stiff she still felt and how much her body ached.
‘He will despise me, because I collapsed,’ Chandra told herself. ‘I must appear quite ordinary this morning.’
It was a tremendous effort to dress quickly and pulling her boots on again was a superhuman task. But she managed it and, when finally she left her bedroom and went into the room where breakfast was waiting, it was to find that Lord Frome was not yet there.
Thankfully she sat down at the table and drank a whole cup of coffee before she attempted to eat anything.
She felt it would give her strength and she felt too it would enable her to face him knowing what he must be feeling after last night.
When she heard his footsteps before he entered the room, she felt her heart give a sudden thump in her breast and a feeling of shyness and uncertainty sweep over her.
It was something she had never felt before and she told herself that it was just shame because she had collapsed through sheer physical exhaustion, but it was, in fact, a defeat that should never have happened.
“Good morning, Chandra!” Lord Frome said in a voice that sounded less disagreeable than usual.
“Good morning,” Chandra managed to answer.
“I am glad you are early,” he said conversationally as he sat down at the table. “I want you to have the most magnificent view of Kathmandu which you will get within an hour of leaving here.”
“I am looking – forward to – seeing it.”
She wondered why it was difficult to speak and why the food she was eating seemed to stick in her throat.
She could not look at Lord Frome directly and she was aware that his eyes rested on her face, as if he reassured himself that she was not going to be a nuisance and was well enough to travel.
“Did you have a good sleep last night?” he asked.
Because she felt that he was taunting her, reminding her of how ignominiously helpless she had been, she felt the blood flood into her cheeks.
“Yes – thank you.”
Then, because she was sure he was gloating over her, she added,
“Thank you for – looking after me. I realised it could – only have been you who took off my – boots and – covered me with a – blanket.”
“As my guest, I could hardly leave you lying on the floor all night,” Lord Frome replied.
She thought he spoke dryly. Equally she had the feeling that he was rather surprised that she should have admitted his help and thanked him for it.
They sat in silence for a moment and then Lord Frome asked,
“You feel well enough to go on?”
Chandra was so surprised at his consideration that she looked at him wide-eyed.
As if he knew what she was saying without words, he added,
“I realise now I drove you too hard yesterday. It was inevitably a tough day, but I made it worse.”
“I should not have been so – foolish if I was not so badly out of – practice,” Chandra said quickly. “We have not been able to afford horses for a long time.”
She saw that she had astonished him.
“Not afford horses?” he repeated. “Then how do you go anywhere?”
Chandra smiled.
“We stay at home,” she replied. “Papa has never wanted to do anything but work and, as I have already told you, I work with him.”
Lord Frome seemed to be choosing his words before he replied,
“But surely that is a very restricting life for a young girl?”
“I have not minded because I have been with Papa,” Chandra answered, “but in the days when we had more money and Mama was alive, we used to travel and that was very exciting.”
“And you really tell me you have not ridden for some time until the day before yesterda
y?”
“Only very occasionally when one of our neighbours was kind enough to lend me a horse.”
“You are making me feel that I have been somewhat brutal.”
“No, please – it’s not your fault. I told you I could do everything my father could do, but I am sure Papa would have been less tired than I was last night.”
“I rather doubt that,” Lord Frome said, “and I can only apologise.”
She looked at him in astonishment and then because she felt shy, she said quickly,
“I know you want to – start.”
“You are quite certain you have had enough to eat?” Lord Frome asked. “After all, you missed a meal last night – not that it was very appetising!”
Chandra gave a little laugh.
“Soup, chicken and caramel pudding!” she said before she could prevent herself.
“I cannot remember, but I have a suspicion that was what it was,” Lord Frome agreed and added,
“If you are ready, I think we should be on our way.”
They went outside and for the first time Lord Frome inspected Chandra’s pony to see if the girths were as tight as they ought to be and the saddle in the right place.
Everything appeared to be in order and, when she had mounted, he swung himself onto his own pony and set off ahead.
He had been right in saying that it was a stiff climb and when they came to the top of the hill, there in the rising sun lay the great range of the Himalayas, their peaks vivid against the blue sky, while far below them the valley was still shrouded in swirling mists.
There was a long descent and now Chandra could see below them the gigantic terraces cut into the sides of the mountain which were, in fact, rice fields following the curving lines of the slope.
Amongst them were tiny houses, little brown huts roofed with straw, isolated in little groups and with minute paths.
As they came lower, there were numbers of carriers moving towards them, their strange gait was half a walk, half a run and carrying on their backs enormous burdens of food, spices, paprika and Nepalese home-made paper from Kathmandu into India.
There was still a long way to go, but now that they were actually in the vale of Kathmandu, it seemed as if the journey was almost over and all the difficulties were behind them.
There was only a simple track to ascend and descend the slopes.
There were valleys with improvised bridges which seemed so insubstantial spanning roaring torrents hundreds of feet below that Chandra would close her eyes in alarm and just hope that her pony would carry her across them to safety.
It grew warmer and warmer and she soon discarded her sheepskin-lined coat and considered taking off her riding jacket.
She had read in her father’s books that, although Nepal was referred to as a Himalayan land and ‘the roof of the world’ it had an ideal climate and, as she saw more and more beauty around her, Chandra began to think that Lord Frome was right in referring to it as a ‘little Eden’.
It was afternoon before they reached Kathmandu and she realised it was in fact a City of Palaces and Temples.
It seemed impossible that so many beautiful buildings could be clustered together in one small place and the Nepalese people themselves added to the Fairy tale feeling.
The men wore their curved knives, the kukri at their waists. The women had full skirts and long black hair in which they wore a large red and yellow flower and festooned their arms and necks with many ornaments of different coloured glass.
They also had a hanging gold ring in the nose and a dozen small bronze rings at the edge of each ear.
“It is a beautiful place, full of beautiful people!” Chandra exclaimed aloud and Lord Frome, who was only a few paces ahead of her, turned his head.
“We have managed to get into Eden,” he remarked in a dry voice. “Let’s hope there is not an angel with a flaming sword waiting to turn us out.”
“Indeed I hope not!” Chandra cried.
She stared with delight at a huge statue in the centre of the Square of Kala Bhairab, ‘the Terrible Black One’, with a severed head in his hand, trampling on a newly-conquered demon.
They rode on until they came to the British Residence where Chandra gathered they were to stay.
As soon as she saw it, she was not surprised that Lord Frome felt he must be respectable, for it was a very spacious and imposing edifice in the Indian Gothic style with castellated edges to the roofs and pointed turrets at each corner.
The huge Gothic windows were reminiscent of a Cathedral and, when they entered the huge oak door, Chandra almost expected to find an atmosphere of sanctity inside.
Colonel Wylie was a genial man who seemed delighted to welcome Lord Frome. Although he was obviously surprised to learn that he was married and had brought his wife with him, he was too polite to say so.
Chandra was taken up to a large and impressive bedroom, but she could do nothing but run to the window to stare out at the view of the City and beyond it at the Himalayas.
‘I am here!’ she told herself. ‘I am here and I thought it would be impossible that my plan would succeed!’
She felt a prayer of gratitude rise within her because not only had she reached Nepal but now her father would be able to get well in the warm climate of Cannes.
She knew too that ever since the Lama had told her that he had many years of work in front of him, her anxiety on his account had gone.
Some people might think it absurd that she could believe so easily what a man she had never seen before, but who she had been told was holy, had said to her.
But Chandra had known Saddhus and Gurus in India and, although some of them were fakes, she had grown to know instinctively when one of them was genuinely dedicated to a life of prayer.
She knew that she could not have been mistaken in what she felt radiating from the Lama and she knew too when he said he would pray for her and she would be protected, that he had been talking in all seriousness.
At the same time, now that she was in Kathmandu, she felt slightly afraid of her own involvement with the emerald that Nana Sahib had stolen.
Such jewels were too notorious for there not to be a great number of people to know about them.
How was it possible that perhaps one of the most valuable of them all, the emerald that had come from the Monastery at Sakya-Cho, could be entrusted to her and no one be aware of it?
If it was known that she was carrying it out of the country, Chandra was sensible enough to be aware that her life would not be worth the flick of a coin.
Then, as she felt a little tremor of fear inside her, she looked at the far distant peaks of the Himalayas and told herself that she was only a very small part of the wheel of life – the wheel in which everything had its place and every deed its reward or retribution.
It was only right that the Monastery should have back their precious stone which to them was sacred and, if in helping them, she could undo some of the wrong that Nana Sahib had done, then she should feel privileged by the opportunity.
‘I will not be afraid,’ Chandra told herself.
Equally she felt helpless and alone in a strange country, while her father, the only person she really loved, was thousands and thousands of miles away.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Nepalese maid suggested to Chandra that she should rest while she unpacked in another room.
Thankful to be able to do so because she was still aching from the long ride, Chandra climbed slowly into bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
She awoke with a start because someone spoke to her and she found that her maid trying to tell her that her bath was ready and it was time for her to dress for dinner.
She felt, as she awoke, that she had come back from a long, long distance and she wanted more than anything else to turn over and go on sleeping.
But she knew that however fatigued she might be, she must appear at dinner and play the part of Lord Frome’s wife.
She realised that near
her bedroom was a bathroom, which was a modern innovation she had not expected to find in Nepal and she wondered if it had been added to the Residency by Sir Brian Hodgson or the Resident who came after him.
Whoever had built it, it was a joy to soak in hot water scented with lotus blossom and to feel a little of her stiffness begin to ebb away.
Nevertheless, as she dried herself, she realised she was very tired and she hoped that she would be able to retire early and have a good night’s sleep before the real work on the object of their journey started.
She was looking forward not only to seeing the Sanskrit manuscripts and the Monastery in which they were located, but also to showing Lord Frome that she was not as useless as he thought she would be.
She could not help feeling that she had ‘lost face’, as they would say in the Orient, because she had collapsed last night.
At the same time she told herself proudly she had not hindered him or delayed their arrival in Kathmandu which she might easily have done.
He could not really complain about her, although she was quite certain that he was still resenting the fact that she was a woman rather than a man.
Having finished her bath, she went into the bedroom to find her maid laying out on an armchair the gown she was to wear this evening.
Only as she saw it, did Chandra realise that being so tired she had not asked the maid to press it.
In consequence, having remained packed since she left the ship it was creased and looked even shabbier than it was already.
She explained to the maid what she wanted and the Nepalese girl with a smile hurried from the room carrying the gown on her arm.
Wrapped in her plain wool dressing gown with her hair hanging over her shoulders, Chandra went to the window and was once again irresistibly drawn by the view over the City.
Now the peaks of the Himalayas were shrouded in cloud and she knew that she would have to wait until dawn to see them again in all their glory.
There was a knock on the door and, thinking the maid had returned very quickly, Chandra automatically called out,
“Come in.”
Then to her surprise it was not the door onto the passage that opened, but one she had not noticed before. Now, as Lord Frome entered, she knew it must communicate with the bedroom next door.
Love in the Clouds Page 10
