Echoes of a Promise

by Ashleigh Bingham

  The mighty Nanga Parbat was demonstrating that it could no more hold the snow on its heights than she could continue to hold Peter in her life. He was lying on the other side of the world with all the love that she had poured into her letters placed next to his heart. She was here alone. Memories would remain with her, but the man who’d created them had gone to his rest. The moment had come for her to take the final step and call a silent goodbye.

  With her eyes closed, she lifted her face to the heavens and whispered his name.

  Exhaustion blurred Victoria’s impressions of their arrival at Nigel’s house late that night, but she remembered a line of tearful servants speaking to Pelham-Sahib in the local tongue, Urdu. Duleep, the head house servant, was the only one amongst them who understood English.

  But the gentle woman who led her upstairs needed no instructions. Clearly, she had been well trained by the late Pelham-memsahib to serve a good pot of tea and toast to a newly arrived guest while a warm bath was prepared and a feather bed made up with lavender-scented sheets.

  Victoria fell into it gratefully, and the sun was up when she woke to lie staring up at the plastered ceiling, trying to recall where she was. The hands on the clock showed that it was nine o’clock. What day was it? Did it matter?

  Unfamiliar scents and sounds drifted in through the shuttered windows and when she flung them open, the Vale of Kashmir lay before her like a green bowl cupped in the palm of the mighty Himalayas. Her bleary gaze swept the long, meandering lake and the unique little craft on it, the willow trees and poplars lining the banks, the tall, close-packed houses that she could see in the distance with brown-cloaked people going to and fro about their business.

  And here came a man in a blue jacket cantering briskly past their gate on a gleaming chestnut mare with a white blaze and four white socks. Her eyes followed the beautiful horse until it was out of sight, and she envied the man who was riding out on such a perfect morning.

  She rang the bell and Duleep answered, carrying a breakfast tray. He set it down on a table beside the window and held a chair for her.

  ‘Thank you. Is Pelham-sahib still at home?’

  ‘No, memsahib, he left very early for his office.’ He gave a nervous little cough. ‘Will memsahib be wishing to discuss menus for the week?’ He lifted the pot and began to pour her tea.

  ‘No, Duleep, I am here as a guest.’ She saw the relief in his eyes. ‘I won’t require any changes in your household routine.’

  Nigel had already prepared her for the protocol observed amongst the British residents of Srinagar. ‘Your first caller is sure to be Lady Phillips, a most charming woman. As the wife of the Resident, she’s the senior lady in Kashmir.’

  ‘And so I should wait in the house for her to call?’

  He’d nodded apologetically. ‘And the second call will be made soon after by the regiment’s senior lady, the wife of Colonel Moncrief. And then all the others will start arriving. As soon as they’ve introduced themselves you’ll be flooded with invitations to luncheons and musical afternoons, dances – and goodness knows what else. Maud was always kept busy.’

  His prediction was right. The Resident’s wife called that afternoon and Victoria liked her immediately. Lady Phillips, was a dainty woman in her middle years who seemed genuinely distressed by Maud Pelham’s tragic shipboard accident.

  ‘What a tower of strength that dear lady was in our little community, especially when we had the annual flood of visitors arriving to escape the heat on the plains. Mrs Pelham could always be relied on to arrange a splendid array of entertainments for them – concerts and croquet and debates on all kinds of subjects. We will miss her sorely.’

  Next morning, Colonel Moncrief’s wife, the senior lady in the military establishment, made her call. Mrs Moncrief was a sharp-faced woman who rarely smiled, but she did so several times while she was giving Victoria examples of the sound moral guidance that the late Maud Pelham was quick to pass on to young officers in the regiment.

  ‘Englishmen serving in India are always starved of suitable female companionship, you understand, Mrs Latham, and when the so-called fishing fleet arrives each year with eager young women who have failed to make a match at home, it can stir bad feelings amongst the officers. Some become despondent, rivalries quickly erupt, and occasionally hearts are broken. It can quite undermine morale in the whole regiment.’

  Victoria nodded. ‘Yes, I imagine so.’

  ‘Fortunately, Maud Pelham was a remarkable judge of character and she had no hesitation about stepping in to save many a young man from rushing into a disastrous alliance with a silly girl who was determined to go home with an engagement ring on her finger.’

  ‘Really?’ Victoria appreciated that insight into Maud’s line of thought. It made her feel slightly less guilty about any attempt she might make to manipulate Nigel’s choice of a new wife.

  Once Lady Phillips and Mrs Moncrief had made their calls, the other British ladies came in twos and threes throughout the next week. Victoria was required to do no more than chat, and Duleep was delighted to be kept busy serving tea and cake to the visitors.

  Victoria’s new acquaintances were eager for her to join their card parties, luncheons, croquet games, china-painting groups and book readings. Did Mrs Latham enjoy shooting?

  ‘You’ll find some very good game up there in the mountains at this time of the year. We’re setting up a hunting camp next week. Would you like to join us?’

  ‘Thank you, but no – I don’t ride and I know nothing about guns.’

  She heard the news that rehearsals for the Amateur Dramatic Society’s new production of The Scarlet Cloak were going well, and that the new ballroom being built onto the clubhouse at the polo field would soon be completed. A committee had plans well in hand for its inaugural ball on the Queen’s birthday.

  ‘How we all miss dear Maud at a time like this!’ Victoria often heard that remark. ‘Now there was a lady who knew how to organize a splendid function!’

  Victoria’s diary was soon filled with invitations, and though she told Duleep that she could easily walk the short distances to any of these houses in the cantonment, he clearly disapproved of the notion and insisted on rousing Maud’s little old syce to harness the pony trap for each visit.

  ‘Pelham-memsahib never walked!’

  As Victoria watched how her new acquaintances occupied their days, they reminded her of a tribe marooned on an island, snuggled tightly together, hugging their Englishness close, and doing their best to ignore the great tide of Kashmiri humanity swirling around them.

  They lived their lives in neat rows of well-tended gardens planted with English flowers, comfortable in bungalows filled with English furnishings, and servants for every domestic task. There was no reason why a memsahib would do a stroke of any kind of work, apart from organizing entertainment and trying to keep in step with everybody else.

  Most sons, and some daughters, were sent off to schools in England at the age of seven or eight. ‘Yes, it’s heartbreaking to part with them, Mrs Latham,’ said the regimental doctor’s wife seated beside her at lunch one day, ‘but children are inclined to become far too attached to the Indians if they remain here. Yes, they must—’

  ‘Shh!’ The magistrate’s wife frowned at the speaker and nodded towards a thin woman who was sitting nearby and staring expectantly out the window. ‘M’dear, please take care not to talk about children within Mrs Buckley’s hearing.’

  While the topic of conversation at the table quickly turned to the latest catalogue that had just arrived from England, the doctor’s wife whispered to Victoria that poor Mrs Buckley’s little daughter had been kidnapped several years previously. ‘Not surprisingly, Rose Buckley quite lost her mind with grief, and it’s only lately that she’s even been able to leave her house.’

  ‘That’s dreadful. How did it happen?’

  The doctor’s wife shook her head. ‘Child stealing is a very old and well-organized business in this part of the wor
ld. The kidnappers work swiftly and probably sell the child to one of the beggar masters in some big city. Or worse. Thank heavens, it doesn’t happen often now, but we must remain vigilant.’

  Victoria began to play tennis once a week; and three officers she’d met at a garden party called on her regularly as a trio. They flirted with her lightly, invited her to watch them play polo, and escorted her to the regimental band concert. She found their company pleasant enough, but when she gave them no encouragement, they went off to find other more lively targets.

  The people she met in the cantonment and the invitations she accepted were all perfectly pleasant and agreeable, and Victoria came to feel a prickle of guilt at her own desperation to escape from this tight little circle and explore further afield. Kashmir must offer much more than this corner of England, she thought. Where were the three marvellous old Mogul gardens that Martin had told her about?

  ‘Oh nobody visits them now, Mrs Latham,’ said Mrs Simpson, the rector’s wife. ‘My husband took me to the Shalimar Gardens once, but we found them to be in a very poor, overgrown state. I’m sure I saw a snake.’

  Victoria continued to wake early each morning, lying in the half-light and waiting for the now familiar hoofbeats to come pounding past the house. It was easy to recognize the sound of the splendid chestnut as it galloped off into the dawn, and by the time the man in the blue jacket came riding steadily back to town – always close to nine o’clock – she was up and dressed and standing at the window to watch him pass.

  No, she corrected herself. It was the beautiful horse that held her attention. Just who its stern-faced rider was, or where he went, was neither here nor there. There were often days when the sight of that animal tempted her to go out and buy a horse of her own, then have someone teach her to ride it. She needed to broaden her horizons and discover for herself what lay around the bend in the road. But the idea came to nothing.

  The more time Victoria spent in Srinagar, the more futile she saw her mission to steer a new Mrs Pelham into Nigel’s arms. He gave no signs of a particular interest in any of the pleasant ladies they met at the evening card parties and dinners they attended. After all, hadn’t Nigel told her plainly on the train that he was not a passionate man? And with Duleep to oversee everything in the house – even reminding Pelham-sahib of his appointments and laying out the appropriate clothes for each occasion – a new Pelham-memsahib in Nigel’s life seemed to be rather superfluous.

  Victoria wasn’t sure how long her visit to Kashmir would be, but she made a determined effort to step warily through the tangle of military and civil cliques which she saw constantly forming and reforming amongst the wives in the cantonment. It was a delicate business, but for Nigel’s sake she was careful to remain on good terms with them all.

  A feeling of impatience hit her again this morning as she stood at the window and watched the man on the chestnut horse riding past at nine o’clock. To date, she’d seen nothing of the city beyond the cantonment and the residency compound. On impulse, she sat down and wrote a note of apology to her tennis group, saying that she’d be unable to play today.

  ‘Duleep, I’m going for a walk into the market, so please have this note delivered to Mrs Chambers. I’ll be back for lunch.’

  She didn’t stop to hear his protest, but she suspected that he sent one of the young servants to shadow her into the old town – a jumble of lanes and tall, narrow brick buildings with timber balconies overhanging the street. It lay a mile away, sprawling around one arm of the lake and well out of view of the British community.

  As soon as she entered the lanes, she was struck by the intangible and rich odours of the place – the smell of humanity, sweet and sour, of dust and refuse and boiling ghee. Surprised stares were thrown her way, but they were not unfriendly, and she made her way slowly through the throng of men and veiled women, overloaded donkeys and handcarts bringing cherries, peaches and mulberries to the market.

  She was intrigued by everything she saw around her. Shops on either side of the street opened directly onto it, with men sitting cross-legged on the floor while they worked at their crafts. She was aware of being watched by families living above and when she smiled up at the women and children standing on their balconies, they called down a greeting. At least, it sounded to her like a greeting.

  She admired the rolls of fabrics in the silk merchant’s shop, as well as a display of the finest of woollen shawls woven with paisley motifs in the next one.

  A dentist, flanked by an audience, performed his work on a patient sitting on a chair in his doorway, while a few yards away, a barber was shaving a customer out on the street. A pile of jewel-coloured carpets caught her eye, and she paused to marvel at the speed of the grain merchant’s fingers as they flew to and fro, clicking the beads of his abacus as he sat crosslegged on the floor of his shop.

  A herd of goats trotting down the narrow road forced her to step aside quickly, and around the next corner she stopped at the sight of the familiar chestnut horse standing outside a woodcarver’s workshop on the opposite side of the lane. A lad held its reins while the rider was talking with the crafstsman inside.

  From this position, Victoria had her first clear view of the tall Englishman’s features. Whenever she’d seen him riding past the house, she’d always considered his expression to be somewhat forbidding, but now his sun-tanned face appeared to be – if not handsome – at least good-looking, despite the thin white scar running down one cheek. He looked younger, as well. And that was especially so as he flashed a wide smile when the toymaker brought out a brightly decorated wooden elephant standing well over eighteen inches high. She found herself smiling, too, when she saw the craftsman position a gold-painted howdah on the back of the toy. The Englishman picked up two small wooden figures to sit in it, and then a mahout to place astride the elephant’s neck.

  When the Englishman pulled the toy across the floor, she noted how cleverly the trunk had been made to sway from side to side as the wheels turned. What child wouldn’t be delighted with such a toy? She could just imagine how excited Emily’s little boys would be if she arrived home with a gift like that for them.

  The man gave a boyish laugh, ran the toy several times again up and down the small floor of the workshop, and then shook the toymaker’s hand.

  Victoria stood where she was until the painted elephant had been wrapped in calico and the man had ridden off with it. Then she approached the woodcarver and attempted – with every pantomime gesture she could produce – to tell the craftsman that she wished to buy a toy just like the one he had sold to his last customer.

  When the man shook his head repeatedly, she wasn’t sure whether it was because he was unable to comprehend her request, or whether he was refusing to oblige her. Finally, she gave up and retreated in frustration. If only she could speak a few words of Urdu – just a few.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Nigel, I’m afraid that I upset Duleep this morning.’

  He smiled when she told him during dinner that night about her unescorted visit to the markets and the impressions she brought away. ‘Strange smells, yes, but I found it all quite fascinating – and the people seemed to be friendly.’ She didn’t mention the Englishman she’d seen at the toymaker’s.

  He smiled and clicked his tongue at her. ‘Vicky, English ladies don’t go down there to shop. If you want to buy something, simply tell Duleep and he’ll have the merchant bring his entire stock up to display on the veranda for you. That’s the way it’s done here.’

  ‘Yes, but before I leave for home, I’d like to see more of the real Kashmir. Martin told me about the old Mogul pleasure gardens on the other side of the lake but the rector’s wife said that the one she visited some time ago was completely overgrown. What do you know about them?’

  ‘Haven’t seen them for years, Vicky. Not quite Maud’s cup of tea, you understand.’

  When Victoria tactfully suggested to her art group that a painting excursion to the Shalimar Gardens next wee
k would be a novelty, only quiet little Mrs Simpson, the rector’s wife, was willing to forego their usual Tuesday morning still-life exercise.

  Thinking that the outing might be beneficial for poor Mrs Buckley whose daughter had disappeared three years ago, Victoria asked her if she’d like to join them, too. But the suggestion only increased the woman’s distress. ‘Oh, no, I mustn’t leave the cantonment. What will my little Margaret do if she comes home and finds that I’m not here?’

  Duleep was clearly not happy when he heard that the memsahibs intended taking no servants on their outing in a shikara, the little canopied punt rowed by a manji standing at stern with his oar. But Victoria had made up her mind, and once he’d organized the loading of their picnic basket, rugs, umbrellas, Mrs Simpson’s easel and two satchels of art materials, he was forced to watch anxiously as the little craft pushed off from the ghat and skimmed silently out onto Dal Lake.

  Sunlight danced on the water and Victoria experienced a bubble of delight bouncing inside her as she lounged under the scalloped canopy while they drifted through a blaze of floating lotus blossoms with the flashing blue and gold and green of kingfishers and bee-eaters diving amongst them.

  She shared a smile with Mrs Simpson. On a day like this, it was such a relief not to have a companion who chattered constantly. With a frieze of snow-capped peaks circling the valley, the shallow labyrinth of waterways that made up Dal Lake meandered for miles, sometimes spreading widely, sometimes narrowing in places where arms of land reached from opposite banks and causeways were built across with little arched bridges for water traffic to pass under.

  She watched merchants in their shikaras rowing to and fro around the lake with baskets of fruit and vegetables, sacks of grain and flowers and doing business with farms and hamlets sitting on the banks. A melon-seller pulled close and held one out to them, but they shook their heads and he skimmed off towards a small farm on an island.