by Tara Haigh
Puteri nodded, put the documents away and climbed onto his carriage. Before he departed, he gave her a final encouraging smile, but it missed its mark. Ella tried to calmly consider what he might have told Marjory. He would almost certainly have mentioned that Rudolf had a female companion who was staying at Lee’s boarding house. Armed with that information, Marjory could easily draw her own conclusions, since she had arranged for Ella’s luggage to be fetched from The Dragon’s Breath. Ella felt nauseous. At the same time, she wondered why Marjory had extended her condolences in this way, without letting on that she already knew her. Presumably because she didn’t want Puteri to draw a connection between Rudolf and the woman who had lodged in her guest house. It was hard to predict what the consequences of that would be.
Two Malay sailors, whom Ella hadn’t noticed until now, were squatting on their haunches in front of the wagon. They looked at her enquiringly, and seemed to be waiting for her to bid farewell to the coffin.
She stood motionless at the back of the wagon. Should she say a prayer? She couldn’t think of one. Perhaps she could recite an Our Father? No, not for Rudolf, after he had betrayed her so shamelessly. Why did those two men keep staring at her so expectantly?
Ella decided to give Rudolf a final message to take with him.
‘I don’t know why you did it, but may the Lord have mercy on your soul,’ she whispered. Then she made the sign of the cross – not for religious reasons, but to signal to the two sailors that they could go about their work.
They clearly got the message, stood up and climbed onto the wagon to lift the coffin down. At the end of the pier, the ship waited to accept Rudolf’s mortal remains.
Ella turned away and looked up to where Amar was sitting. Puteri presumably hadn’t recognised him at that distance, and Amar’s cart was also standing beneath a grove of palm trees, which meant his face was scarcely visible from here. Puteri had probably taken him for a coachman whom she had hired to bring her here. To be on the safe side, however, she scanned the road leading up from the harbour to make sure his carriage had gone. He was already making his way back towards town. Just then, Ella’s eyes fell upon a second vehicle standing on the side of the road, a little above where it curved down to the port. She couldn’t believe her eyes. There was no doubt about it: that was the Fosters’ coach.
Amar saw it too and confirmed that it belonged to the Fosters. Ella found herself burning to know what they were doing here.
‘She’s spying on you.’ Amar’s theory made sense. Marjory must have learned from Puteri when and where Rudolf would be handed over to Ella. Why did she care? Did Marjory want to find out whether Ella was leaving Malacca? Whatever her reasons, her curiosity appeared to be satisfied, for the coach had now turned around and was heading back up to the main road that led out of town towards the north.
Amar was confident that their light and manoeuvrable cart would be able to catch up with the Fosters’ slow, heavy coach. It wasn’t a risk-free endeavour, for the track that wound its way back up to the main road had sections that fell away to a sheer drop, which it would be wise to navigate slowly and carefully. Yet Amar seemed not to care. Ella would never have thought that their cart could travel so quickly, though at one point their wheels skidded and they only narrowly avoided the edge of the road.
Ella had the impression that the coach ahead of them was speeding up. There were still two switchbacks between them, but they were already close enough to see that the driver was Raj – who else? As long as the two vehicles were both travelling uphill, the greater their chances were of catching up. And it was working. The gap between them was gradually closing, and by the time the coach rounded the next corner, they were right behind it.
‘We need to catch them before they reach the road,’ Amar shouted above the din of hooves and wheels clattering on the hard ground. Clouds of dust whirled up and enveloped them. Ella held a cloth in front of her nose, but the dust stung her eyes.
Raj turned to look back at them. He undoubtedly knew now who was behind him, and could see that they were trying to intercept him. They were still on steep ground, so Raj had no way of going any faster. The coach was simply too heavy. Instead, he veered from left to right to prevent them from overtaking. After all, that was the only way they could stop the coach and confront Marjory.
Raj’s manoeuvres were unsuccessful. The coach lost its balance, and for a moment, it teetered on two wheels, a hair’s breadth from disappearing over the edge. That forced him to straighten up into his original course, giving Amar the opportunity to inch past before the coach reached the turning onto the main road. Then he pulled hard on the reins. Their horse bucked and reared, but the cart came to a stop, rolling diagonally into Raj’s path as it did so. Raj had to brake to avoid a collision.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he yelled furiously.
Ella dismounted, and Amar followed her.
‘I want to speak to Marjory. Right now.’ Ella knew she was inside the coach, for if Marjory had sent Raj to the harbour on his own, he would have gone on horseback.
‘Drive on. You have no right to stop us,’ Raj answered.
Ella felt certain he was putting up a front, and that he was only speaking in such a harsh tone because Marjory was sitting inside the coach. She ignored his demand.
Raj leapt down from the coach box and blocked her path. By now, Amar had reached him too.
‘Marjory. I know you’re in there. I never took you for a coward,’ Ella called out towards the coach.
‘Why don’t you try and talk some sense into her?’ Raj ordered his former foreman.
‘She has good reasons,’ Amar replied.
‘I must insist that you leave,’ Raj threatened in an authoritative tone, though Ella could tell he found the situation difficult. He was obviously torn between his duty to serve his mistress and the sympathy towards Ella that he had shown in the past.
‘Let us through,’ Amar demanded.
Raj grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, but Amar knew how to defend himself, even though Raj was a head taller than him. He freed himself from Raj’s grasp and shoved him aside with surprising force. Raj quickly recovered his balance and tried to throw himself bodily onto Amar, but quick as a flash, Amar leapt to one side. Raj’s fury fell into thin air, and he just managed to steady himself on a wheel of the coach, which began to wobble.
‘Stop!’ Marjory’s command rang out unmistakably from inside.
She climbed out and confronted Ella with a venomous glare.
‘You are making a grave mistake, Miss Kaltenbach.’ Her threat was emphasised by her icy voice. Even Amar and Raj were now frozen to the spot.
‘What did you want at the harbour?’ asked Ella bluntly. She wasn’t going to let Marjory scare her.
‘To make sure that you would disappear from our lives once and for all,’ Marjory hissed.
‘Why? What have I ever done to you and Heather?’ asked Ella.
‘You lied to us. Your whole charade. You passed yourself off as a Dutchwoman to inveigle yourself into our confidence.’
Ella couldn’t contradict her, nor even offer an excuse.
‘You keep poking your nose into matters that are none of your business.’
‘What did Rudolf want from you? What did he tell you? You might be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the police, but not over mine. I know why he visited you. Did he ask for money? How much did he want?’ Ella felt her rage mounting, and her tone was correspondingly aggressive.
‘He talked nothing but rot,’ said Marjory coldly.
‘And did he have to pay for it with his life? Or did you get somebody else to poison him?’ Ella was gaining momentum.
‘You should keep your vivid imagination under control and take the next ship back to your homeland. There is nothing left for you here. Otherwise . . . well, there are ways and means . . . And now tell this rebel, under whose spell you have evidently fallen, that he should stop obstructing the way.’ Having issued her ord
ers, Marjory turned to climb back into her coach.
‘Why are you so afraid of the truth?’ Ella called after her.
Marjory froze, but kept her back turned. Ella could see she was inwardly shaken.
‘How can you be so heartless? Richard is my father, isn’t he? You can’t bear the thought of it. Was it you who insisted that he dispose of his illegitimate child? Why are you so afraid?’ she went on.
‘What do you want? Money?’ said Marjory quietly, without turning round.
‘I was looking for my family . . . but what I’ve found disgusts me. Money? Richard has already paid me enough.’
Marjory paused, then turned to face her. She looked as though she had aged by years in mere moments. Never in Ella’s life had she seen a face so filled with hate – a hatred that seemed to be eating away at her. Marjory’s complexion had assumed the colour of white oleander, and her whole body was trembling.
‘Get out of our lives,’ she croaked. Then, calling to Raj, she got into the coach.
Raj shot a hopeless look at Ella. He had to follow Marjory’s orders and drive on. ‘Please clear the way,’ he said to Amar, who looked at Ella to confirm whether he should do as Raj asked.
Ella nodded. Amar mounted the cart and drove a few yards forward onto the main road to let the Fosters’ coach past. She walked back to their cart and Amar gave her his hand to help her onto it. Was she imagining it, or could Ella hear wailing from inside the carriage?
The Fosters’ coach trundled past – but just then, when it was only a few feet away from the road, the door flew open.
Ella’s heart nearly stopped. It was Heather. She had a desperate look on her face, and called out to her: ‘Ella!’
Heather’s voice sounded like the howl of a wounded animal. She called out again, but her voice was already much weaker. A pair of black-sleeved hands clawed at her. Ella saw that Heather was crying, but then her mother pulled her back inside. The door slammed shut as the coach turned onto the main road.
‘No!’ Heather was still audible, though the coach was rapidly receding into the distance.
Ella sat as if paralysed on the cart. Amar put his arm around her. Heather’s desperate cries had been so harrowing that Ella was still trembling.
‘You have to try to forget about her. Promise me you’ll try,’ Amar urged her.
‘How can I?’ Tears trickled from Ella’s eyes. ‘She’s my half-sister, and you saw for yourself what she has to endure from her mother,’ she sobbed.
‘Heather is a grown woman,’ said Amar calmly.
Ella knew that Amar was right, but Heather’s cries still echoed in her ears. How could she ever forget?
For the last hour at least, Ella had been lying utterly exhausted in Amar’s arms, staring out from the veranda at the palm fronds as they waved in the wind. The noise they made reminded her of surf crashing onto a beach. Despite her serene surroundings, she could find no peace. It felt as though Heather’s pain had been passed on to her. Why was Marjory torturing her so? Ella had seen no sign of this behaviour during her stay with the Fosters.
Amar could think of nothing else either. ‘It was as though she’d lost her mind. Like you, I can’t help but wonder what Marjory is so afraid of,’ he brooded.
‘Perhaps she’s scared of being disgraced . . . She doesn’t want people to talk about her, and she feels ashamed that her husband betrayed her – and yet that doesn’t make any sense either. There has been gossip about him for a long time already. Mary told me that Richard was known to be unfaithful, but in these circles, people would have turned a blind eye,’ Ella reflected.
‘He’s also been dead for so many years now. Nobody speaks of him any more. When I started working for the Fosters, I didn’t even know his name,’ said Amar.
‘His name really never came up?’ Ella asked.
‘No, not once.’
‘Then I expect she never forgave him, and wanted to erase him from her life. Rudolf must have reminded her about the events of the past and reopened old wounds,’ she reasoned – though deep down, she sensed that this explanation was too simple.
‘So you really believe that she might have had something to do with Rudolf’s death? That she did it out of fear that her past would be brought back to light?’ Amar asked.
‘Perhaps we should go to the police. Officer Puteri did offer to help me,’ Ella suggested.
‘But what would that achieve? He wouldn’t be able to prove anything. All the coroner said was that there were symptoms that resembled the effects of poison. There’s no point in thinking about it any more. Fate will punish her somehow, if she did do it,’ said Amar.
Ella knew he was right and pushed all these thoughts to one side – but that soon began to make her head throb. She tried to come to terms with the idea that she might never find out the truth. The only thing she felt certain of was that she had a half-sister – and yet Heather had now slipped irretrievably out of reach.
‘This whole voyage . . . Pointless,’ Ella sighed defeatedly.
‘What will you do now? Will you go back to Hamburg?’ asked Amar anxiously, running his hand through her hair.
‘Don’t be silly. How could I ever go back now?’
Amar smiled in relief and kissed her on the brow.
‘Besides, I can work here, and probably achieve more than I ever could among those stubborn doctors in Hamburg.’
‘And there I was, thinking you might want to stay because of me.’
‘Because of you?’ asked Ella with a grin. That earned her a second kiss – this time on the lips. For a moment, it helped her to forget everything. The soft whispering of the palms played its part in that too – but then the calm was shattered by the clattering of carriage wheels and the thud of hooves. They could always hear approaching vehicles from a long way away, but whenever a coach passed the short drive to Mohan’s house, the noise normally faded into the distance more quickly than it had appeared. This time, however, the sounds grew louder. There could be no doubt that the carriage was coming directly towards their refuge.
Amar let her go and looked out onto the road. Ella followed his gaze, and couldn’t believe her eyes.
A large coach was pulling up to the house with a British soldier sitting on the box. Three more armed soldiers got out, along with Lieutenant Bennett. One didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to see that this didn’t bode well.
Ella followed Amar outside.
‘I’m here to place you under arrest,’ announced Bennett, squaring up to Amar.
Amar was every bit as bewildered as Ella. The arrest had to be connected to Mohan’s rescue – but nobody had seen Amar there. Was that why he managed to remain so calm?
‘What am I accused of?’ he asked.
‘Being a ringleader in the resistance, rebellion against the British Crown, and abetting the escape of a prisoner of the British Army,’ answered Bennett formally.
Ella’s heart nearly stopped still.
‘I’ll have to handcuff you,’ said the officer, pulling out a pair of manacles.
Amar offered no resistance.
‘Where are you taking him?’ asked Ella.
‘To the prison in Johore.’
‘Who issued the arrest warrant?’ she demanded. She was surprised that they were taking him to the local jail when the local police were not involved in the arrest.
‘The governor himself.’
So Compton was behind this. Amar gave a contemptuous smile.
‘Don’t worry. The accusations are absurd. The truth will come out,’ Amar tried to reassure her.
Ella reached for his hand. Hopefully not for the last time.
Amar looked straight into her eyes, and then climbed into the coach. His smile was meant to be encouraging, but all the same, Ella was afraid that she would never see him again.
CHAPTER 17
To sit alone in Mohan’s house and idly wait for news was out of the question for Ella. She immediately struck out for town to speak with Edward Compton pers
onally. After all, it was he who had ordered the arrest. On the way, however, she wondered whether she ought to talk to Officer Puteri first, since the local police were the ones conducting the investigation into the attack on the prison wagon. Then again, how could Puteri go against the will of the governor? Ella realised she would probably get nowhere with Compton either – even if she offered him her hand in marriage and agreed to ride with him on his beloved railway through the north of the peninsula for the rest of her life. But she might be able to find out what evidence the British had against Amar.
The governor’s house was marked on her map, and a quick glance had been enough to tell her that it stood close to the centre of Johore.
From a distance, Ella could already see that the colonial headquarters perfectly suited Compton’s lordly pretensions – indeed, the equivalent building in Singapore was presumably a royal palace, for that was the governor’s official residence. His abode in Johore was an opulent, two-storey stone building with the Union flag hanging over the entrance, and the gardens behind it were surrounded by an eight-foot iron fence capped with sharp spikes.
She brought the cart to a halt in front of the villa and marched up to its entrance, which was guarded as though Queen Victoria herself were living inside. Yet Ella refused to be cowed.
‘I want to see Edward Compton,’ she declared to one of the two young soldiers stationed with rifles outside the entrance.
He merely gave her a contemptuous look. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ he asked.
‘No, but the governor and I are very well acquainted,’ Ella intimated.
It worked. The other officer disappeared into the building.
She used the time to find her horse something to drink. There was a trough filled with fresh water close to the building, but she kept looking back at the entrance to see if the officer had come back.
He beckoned her sooner than expected, with a gesture that was more peremptory than polite. Ella didn’t care – the main thing was that the governor was willing to see her.
Compton left her waiting in his office. Men who liked to show off their power seemed to love playing games like this, and so Ella had plenty of time to examine the décor. The furniture looked like it belonged to a French king, with plenty of gilded wood. An oil painting of Queen Victoria hung on the wall, and there was a crystal chandelier on the ceiling too, of course. Compton evidently fancied himself as an absolute monarch.
