The Far Horizon

by Gretta Curran Browne

*

  Three days later, at the funeral of their child, George Jarvis stood silently with Lachlan and Elizabeth as the small casket was prayed over, and then Elizabeth placed a small white flower on the lid, and Lachlan reached out his hand to touch the casket, just one last time.

  And then, as George reached to gently touch the casket also, he heard himself whispering the same words he had heard so many times whispered by his own mother when he was a child.

  ‘Khudaa hafiz.’ God be with you.

  Chapter Two

  Fourteen months later, while their home in Perthshire lay basking in the warm glow of summer sunshine, Lachlan and Elizabeth sat down to breakfast but George did not appear.

  Elizabeth looked at his empty chair, and then up at Mrs Burgess. ‘Is George still in bed?’

  ‘No, he was up and out early. He said to keep him some oatcakes warm.’

  The housekeeper shook a batch of hot oatcakes onto a plate straight from the griddle-rack. ‘An’ I said back to him, “O’ course I will, George – but only if ye bring me some nice wild flowers back for ma kitchen.”’ She chuckled as she turned to leave. ‘No’ that I’m expectin’ him to bend down an’ pick me flowers, mind … but mebbe he will for Kirsteen, young and bonnie as she is.’

  Elizabeth watched the yellow butter melting on the hot oatcake she had cut in half. ‘That’s the fourth morning this week George has missed breakfast and gone walking for hours,’ she said to Lachlan. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s the sun.’ Lachlan was reading his post. ‘Coming from a hot country the sunshine is always like a magnet to George, especially after the winter snow and cold spring we’ve had.’

  A mile away George was strolling in the sun, enjoying its warmth and brightness. All around him the land was lush and green, shining and splendid, as happy to see and feel the sunshine as he was. This recent spell of brilliant warm weather, together with the walks that had accompanied it, had helped him to think, to make up his mind about his future.

  Relieved now that his studies and busy college days were finished, a new sense of quiet contentment suffused him as he wandered in the warm greenness of the island, the tranquil silence broken only by the occasional cries of the seagulls flying overhead. The air was fresh and sweet and he breathed it deep into his body, deciding to prolong his walk and take the long route back to the house, and with every step feeling even more certain about his decision. Now nothing was more vital than he should tell Lachlan what he wished he to do.

  Nevertheless, as he reached a small stream shaded by trees, he paused to gaze down at the water, pure and sparkling, then hunkered down to catch some in his palm and taste it. The cool wetness on his lips took his memory back to those days in the hot Egyptian desert when he had trudged through the sand dreaming of finding even the smallest rivulet of cooling water like this one, but even when he did find a small wet stream in that desert, it was always a mirage that vanished in a blink.

  He rose slowly, his vision focused on the sparkling water as he remembered the 77th’s long march across the burning desert to the Nile. After marching forty miles from Suez and then twenty miles into the basin of the desert, all their water had gone, and no sign of a well. No water to drink, and no water to cook the food.

  And the heat! Even the suffocating heat of India in the hot season could never compare to the blinding dry heat of the silent desert. But the torture of the heat was nothing to the craving thirst, a gravely thirst so painful that some of the soldiers began to cry just to lick their own tears.

  There was even a time when George thought he might die from the thirst and lack of water in his body, until he remembered an old Arab trick taught to him in his childhood by his mother from Morocco – to carry a small stone in the mouth, gently sucking it to activate the saliva glands which would keep the tongue moist when the thirst was bad.

  Quickly he had searched for a stone, and found one, and then passed the trick on to the soldiers. Formation lines were temporarily broken but nobody cared, not even the officers, and within minutes every soldier was searching for his stone, and when they found it, even if it did not quench the craving thirst, it greatly helped to ease the mouth from dryness.

  Two days later they had found the first of only two wells in that hundred-mile passage across the Egyptian desert; but by then, the desert had claimed three dead soldiers from the 77th.

  Sixteen he had been then, when they had left India to join other regiments of the British Army to fight the French in the battle for Alexandria. A battle the British had won.

  The soldiers of the 77th had been glad to celebrate the victory, glad to get away from the need to fight and the oppression of constant orders from the officers, relaxing in the cool shaded rooms in the houses near the bazaar where beautiful girls were willing to please them in exchange for money.

  So many beautiful girls to choose from, but George chose only one.

  She was nearer to his age, only seventeen. He could still see her beautiful young face, her soft dark eyes, her slender figure, her gentle smile … He had stayed with her in her shaded room for many blissful days, and one of those days had been his seventeenth birthday, he was sure of it, and he told her so. She had been exquisite and delicate, like a beautiful flower, and he had never forgotten her or the desert, because one had led to the other.

  Still gazing at the rippling water of the stream, he thought he heard a whisper of a sound behind him, and threw a look across his shoulder, surprised to see Kirsteen, the maid from the house, standing there watching him.

  He turned and looked at her with part impatience, part wry wonderment. This was not the first or even the third time she had suddenly appeared behind him this week. His eyes took in the fact that she had removed her apron and changed her dress. Her face had been lightly rouged on the cheeks and her brown hair, normally tied back, had now lost its ribbon and was hanging long and loose.

  ‘You are out walking again?’ he asked.

  She flushed self-consciously. ‘No, but Mrs Burgess was wondering where ye were, and why ye were out so long, with your breakfast getting cold an’ all. And Mrs Macquarie was asking for ye too.

  ‘And she asked you to come and find me?’

  ‘No, no … she didn’t ask me … but I always like to help the mistress.’

  ‘Then I shall head back immediately.’

  Kirsteen eagerly moved to follow him, falling into step beside him. ‘Back there by the stream,’ she asked, ‘what were ye thinking so silently?’

  George glanced at her with a slight smile. ‘What other way is there to think, except in silence.’

  She shrugged, undeterred. ‘But now ye are not thinking in silence, are ye? So tell me what ye were thinking?’

  ‘Nothing that would interest you, Kirsteen.’

  ‘Anything ye say would interest me, George, honestly it would. Is it alreet if I walk beside ye? I’ll not be in your way. And if ye prefer it, I’ll no’ say a word, honestly I won’t, I’ll just listen.’

  George smiled ruefully as Kirsteen walked beside him, talking non-stop, all the way back to the house.

  *

  Elizabeth was in the garden, walking up and down in a futile attempt to calm her fears.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me?’ George asked her.

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘Yes, George, you know him so well, I need your advice. Only you can help me to understand.’

  ‘You look distressed,’ George observed. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘No, no … not yet at least.’ She glanced quickly around her. ‘Let’s move further away from the house. Kirsteen is always hiding somewhere and listening to my conversations with you.’

  When they had reached the far end of the garden she sat down on a wooden bench under an oak tree, and George sat down beside her. ‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘what is it that I can help you to understand?’

  ‘This morning, during breakfast, Lachlan received a dispatch from General Balfour, asking him to report to him
as soon as possible.’ A rush of colour flooded her pale cheeks. ‘It seems there is an urgent need to discuss a new posting.’

  ‘A new posting?’ George pressed his lips together, restraining a smile of excitement. ‘To where?’

  ‘That’s just it – Lachlan won’t know until General Balfour tells him.’

  George nodded, believing he understood her problem. ‘That’s usually the way. Such information is rarely disclosed in a dispatch. But you are troubled because … you have no desire to leave Scotland now?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not what troubles me. If Lachlan wished me to leave Scotland and go anywhere else in the world with him, I would go, without hesitation I would go. But not … not …’ Elizabeth pressed a hand to her brow, covering her eyes with trembling fingers. ‘But not to India … anywhere but India.’

  A difficult silence followed. George said softly, ‘Because of Jane?’

  ‘Yes…’ Elizabeth admitted quietly, ‘because of Jane.’

  A soft rustling sound in the far bushes made George quickly glance round to catch a glimpse of Kirsteen’s brown hair amongst the greenery, hiding herself as she attempted to watch and listen.

  He glanced at Elizabeth and saw she had not heard the sound, but if she did become aware of Kirsteen’s presence she would be mortified and would probably dismiss the maid instantly.

  George felt a sudden anger and irritation, yet he contrived not to expose the girl, but this conversation was too personal, too private, to allow her to stay there.

  He stood up and put his hands in his pockets and strolled slowly towards the bushes as if giving thought to the problem before answering Elizabeth.

  At the bush, in the silence, he stood staring down at the hidden and crouching figure of Kirsteen and she stared back up at him with a smiling light in her eyes, as if she had achieved some kind of victory by drawing him into her secret and over to her hiding place, and not as if she was doing anything untoward or wrong at all.

  George sighed. These intrusions by the girl were becoming tiresome and unacceptable but Kirsteen was too young and too stupid to realise that.

  There was a stillness about him as he continued to stand and look down at her in the silence, but the thoughts in his mind must have shown in his eyes because the expression on Kirsteen’s face began to change to one of surprise and then dismay, until she began to slowly creep backwards towards the house and finally disappeared.

  Only then, when he was sure she had gone, did George turn back to look at Elizabeth who was lost in her own worrying thoughts as she sat on the bench twisting her fingers together.

  George had always liked Elizabeth, and now felt a very deep affection for her; but he knew he could never love Elizabeth in the way he had loved Jane, Lachlan’s first wife, that beautiful and happy young girl from Antigua who had clasped him tightly in her arms as an eight-year-old boy and told him he was now her child, and would always be protected by her love, and she had even legally giving him her own surname of Jarvis to prove it to him.

  In the time that followed he and Jane had gone through so much together, gone from Calicut to Bombay together, from Bombay to China together, and every minute of every day he had simply adored her … Jane Jarvis Macquarie … the greatest love, and the greatest tragedy of Lachlan’s Macquarie’s life.

  And therein lay Elizabeth’s problem now, Elizabeth’s dread of losing her hold on the husband she dearly loved as much as he had loved Jane.

  Elizabeth Campbell had been twenty-five-years old when Lachlan and George, leaving the heartbreak of India far behind, had arrived on the Isle of Mull and met her for the first time. She had been visiting Lachlan’s mother that day, and George had seen immediately that she was a young lady of the gentry, albeit the daughter of an impoverished estate run by her older brother in Airds.

  In the weeks that followed, George had seen the way Elizabeth Campbell had lost her prim reserve and bubbled with laughter and life when in the company of Lachlan.

  After that George saw no more of their relationship because he had been forced to go to college, so determined was Lachlan that he would receive a sound education.

  And yet, two years later, George was not at all surprised when Lachlan made an unexpected visit to the college to tell him of his proposal of marriage to Elizabeth Campbell.

  He and Elizabeth had found and enjoyed a special companionship with each other, Lachlan had explained, but he could not keep Elizabeth hanging on indefinitely as a friend and nothing more. They were both still young enough for a new start, but he had been honest with Elizabeth when he had told her that his love and his heart had been given and would forever remain with Jane, but he would endeavour to be the best husband he was capable of being, which might not be a very good one. Yet Elizabeth had accepted his proposal regardless.

  Cool, sensible, practical Elizabeth, she had not allowed his past to stand in the way of her happiness, and so far it had been a good match and a good marriage, marred only by the tragic loss of their beloved baby daughter.

  George returned to the garden bench and sat down and looked at Elizabeth. She was thirty years old now, tall and slender with russet hair and wide blue eyes and her manner was normally full of wit, no-nonsense and absolutely charming. But look at her now … her hands still trembling, her composure bowed low.

  It distressed George to see Elizabeth so upset, and it was only recently that she had come to terms with the loss of her child – so to relieve her of this new worry would not be breaking a confidence, but simply the right thing to do.

  ‘Elizabeth, you are worrying unnecessarily,’ George said finally. ‘It is all in the past now. Lachlan loved Jane then. He loves you now. That is all you need to think of.’

  ‘I feel…’ Elizabeth took a deep breath, ‘that in India it would all come back to him. The life he had with her there. All the memories would come back to him, and she would come back to him … not physically of course … but in a spiritual way. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ George’s vision was focused on some pink flowers growing at the far edge of the garden. ‘But I think you are wrong in your thoughts, and worrying without cause.’

  ‘Then help me to understand, George. You know him better than anyone, even better than I do, because you know his past, you were there! So why am I wrong, George? Why am I worrying without cause?’

  George was still gazing at the flowers. ‘Because Lachlan will never go back to India. Not even if the Army commands it. He would resign his commission if they insisted.’

  ‘What?’ A rush of colour came into her cheeks. ‘How do you know this, George?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Told you?’ Elizabeth frowned in puzzlement. ‘When did he tell you? You were not here this morning when the dispatch was delivered, and he had left by the time you returned.’

  ‘He told me, some weeks before his marriage to you,’ George said quietly. ‘It was a decision he had already made. He knew you were his future, and India was his past. He knew the two could never be combined.’

  Elizabeth sat back, as if a ton weight had been lifted off her lap, the relief making her smile happily and look lovely again. ‘Oh, George, my instincts were right, I just knew I should speak to you first, I just knew you would be honest with me.’

  George smiled at her, but there was sadness in his eyes and in his heart. He also would probably never go back to India, but his young mother was buried there, aged only twenty-two when she had died, and because of that India would forever be his motherland.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Was it you who put my name forward?’

  ‘No, it was nothing to do with me. I don’t enjoy such influence with the High Command.’ General Balfour sulkily thrust out his bottom lip. ‘I believe the culprit was Arthur Wellesley … or as he is now called, the Duke of Wellington.’

  ‘Wellesley?’ said Lachlan, surprised. ‘Wellesley recommended me for this?’

  ‘You served with him in India, didn’t you, sa
me as me. You know that his brother has now been appointed as the Viceroy over there? Oh yes.’ Balfour sulked for a second longer. ‘And I believe your name was also put forward by General John Moore. You served with him in America I believe?’

  Lachlan nodded. ‘We were lieutenants together in Canada and New York.’

  ‘He’s just been knighted, Moore, did you know that? Anyway, between the two of them, the Duke of Wellington and General Sir John Moore, they have persuaded the Commander-in-Chief that you are the best man for the job.’

  ‘I wish one of them had had the courtesy to consult with me first,’ Lachlan said through gritted teeth. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. ‘I mean …’ he said with a puzzled frown, ‘why would either of them think I would even accept a posting such as this?’

  General Balfour looked sympathetically at the fair tall man standing by the fireplace in absolute shock, and who wouldn’t be in a state of shock in his position? This was a posting for an old sea dog, like all the other old sea dogs – not for a man still in his prime – and definitely not for a professional soldier like Lachlan Macquarie.

  Balfour had known Lachlan since he was a young lieutenant just arrived in India, and he a colonel, his commanding officer. Even back then there was something about the young man that Balfour had instantly liked, and through the years and many campaigns their personal friendship had grown into something akin to uncle and nephew. Macquarie had a natural intelligence lacking in so many of the other young officers, young popinjays who had used their family’s wealth and influence to buy their gold-braided uniforms and positions, unlike Macquarie who had arrived in India without a penny and had earned every one of his promotions.

  And then there was that terrible situation with Jane … that had crushed him, almost destroyed him, but in time the steel had returned to his resolve and he was back in the game, leading his men across the Egyptian desert to the Nile to join the rest of the British troops in a battle with the French at Alexandria.

  Lachlan said irritably. ‘The Duke of York – ’