The cook excelled himself that evening and the dinner party was deemed to be a great success, with Duleep bringing out the best dinner service and overseeing every detail. Later, Nigel opened the pianoforte in the drawing room and invited their guest to play.
‘Yes, Mr Pelham, I do play, but not at all well, I’m afraid,’ Kitty said, when he led her to the piano stool and propped up the score of a popular song in front of her. ‘I’m afraid it’s been a long time since I touched a keyboard, but I’ll do my best.’
Victoria sat listening as Kitty began to play and sing – hesitantly and rather poorly at first. But when Nigel surprised them both by joining in with a pleasant tenor voice, her nervousness started to fade and she fumbled over fewer wrong notes. They even began to harmonize during several sentimental songs, and after they’d sung Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes once, they sang it again.
‘Delightful, Mrs Cameron.’ Nigel swallowed hard. ‘Thank you, but I mustn’t tire you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pelham. I’m not at all tired.’ Her dimples deepened.
‘Then perhaps you’d care to walk into the garden with me to see the Night Flowering Jasmine? It’s doing exceptionally well this season.’
‘Oh! Yes, I noticed a beautiful perfume in the air when we arrived.’ She looked towards Victoria. ‘Will you come, too, Mrs Latham?’
‘Er – yes, of course. But please go ahead while I get a shawl.’ She took care to walk upstairs very slowly, found a wrap for her shoulders, and walked downstairs even more slowly. A dish of bon-bons standing on the drawing room table distracted her as she was passing it, and choosing the right one to slip into her mouth was a process that couldn’t be rushed. After that, she took her time in choosing another.
When she at last stepped out onto the garden path, the fragrance of the blossoming vine drew her towards the far end where two figures stood facing each other in the moonlight. Even at a distance, she could tell that any initial interest that either Nigel or Kitty might have had in the blossoms had vanished. They were standing apart, but reaching out to each other with fingers entwined.
For a moment, astonishment held Victoria rooted to the spot and she felt like an intruder. Perhaps she should slip back to the house?
‘Oh, there you are, Vicky,’ Nigel called, when he became aware of her presence. ‘Do come over here and enjoy this glorious perfume.’ He and Kitty stepped apart, though neither stopped smiling.
And at the end of the evening Nigel drove Kitty home and Victoria was already asleep in bed before he returned.
He was looking particularly cheerful the next morning at the breakfast table. ‘Victoria, m’dear, I’ve invited Kitty and the boys to lunch on Saturday. Will that be convenient for you?’
Victoria smiled. ‘Splendid.’
Fortunately, Kitty also brought the boys’ ayah to lunch that day. Together, this patient lady and Victoria, along with Duleep, kept the four-year-olds occupied at the far end of the garden to ensure there was little interruption to the engrossing conversation that Nigel and Kitty appeared to be having under the willow tree.
After that day, letters began to pass between them frequently, and Nigel sometimes found a reason to call on her of an evening.
Only two weeks after their first encounter, Nigel Pelham, Deputy Controller of Revenue in the State of Kashmir, did something that he’d never done before in his whole career. He absented himself from his official duties for no reason other than to spend a whole day of diversion and pleasure in the company of Mrs Kitty Cameron, picnicking in the solitude of the Shalimar Gardens.
He returned to the house that evening engulfed by love for a lady who had clearly returned his affections. Victoria noted that the outing appeared to have left him looking ten years younger.
‘Vicky, I can’t describe how I feel when I’m with her. I could climb mountains. Fight a tiger! And she asks for nothing but to share my life.’
Victoria smiled to herself as she recalled Nigel having told her once that he was not a passionate man. But, clearly, that was before he and Kitty Cameron had found each other. How dear Aunt Honoria would have applauded this delightful romance.
Barely a month after their first meeting, the engagement of Mr Nigel Pelham, widower, and Mrs Kitty Cameron, widowed mother of four-year-old twins, was announced.
The English community was agog and the ladies tut-tutted over their teacups. Surely the forestry officer’s pretty cousin was far too young and disorganized to take Maud’s place? And what havoc would those two unruly lads cause in Maud’s well-ordered home?
Victoria held her tongue because it was clear from the moment they’d met that any wear and tear inflicted on the fabric of Maud’s house would be well and truly compensated by the joy that Kitty and her little boys were bringing into Nigel’s life.
‘Can you believe it, Vicky, there’s a difference of only fifteen years in our ages,’ he said to her, apropos of nothing one evening, as he closed his eyes and smiled to himself, clearly lost in pleasurable thoughts.
Victoria wrote to Emily and Martin about the surprising turn of events in Nigel’s life, and said that she now intended to stay on in Srinagar for the wedding.
Kitty and her boys are like a breath of fresh air that is blowing all the old cobwebs away from Nigel. Whenever the naughty twins are with him, they behave like lambs – well, most of the time. Kitty herself is a truly sweet-natured soul, and not in the least demanding, but Nigel insists that the whole house must be refurbished before she comes to live here. And he is the one who is organizing the changes and replacing all Maud’s dark velvet curtains and coverings with Kitty’s choice of chintz roses, roses, roses on everything.
I’ve grown very fond of Kitty Cameron. She might have the looks of a Dresden doll, but she has many unexpected strengths. I know that she’ll make Nigel a very happy man.
Even to Emily and Martin, Victoria would never reveal the tale that Kitty had confided to her one afternoon as they sat together watching Nigel throwing a ball to the twins.
She talked about her first marriage and revealed that it had been a misery, almost from its beginning. Once they arrived in India, her new husband’s heavy drinking had turned him into a beast, and for ten years she’d been forced to endure his violence.
‘He seemed to take pleasure in beating me and I was terrified of him. In a drunken rage one day, he threw me down the stairs and that caused me to lose my first baby. I loathed him. Deeply.
‘He built bridges for the railways so we always lived in isolated places where I had no one to turn to, and he soon drank away the little money of my own that I had to start with. For years I tried to stand up to him as best I could, until the twins came into the world. But when he began to hurt them too, I prayed to see him dead.
‘Then, one day as I was standing by the river, I saw him stagger down to the opposite bank and order the little punt to bring him across. There’d been heavy rain in the hills and the water was running so fast that the old ferryman didn’t want to cast off, but George used his riding whip to persuade him. The punt capsized halfway over and I saw my husband thrown in to the water.
‘Think what you will of me, Vicky, but I confess that I felt nothing – absolutely nothing – when I saw him floundering in that torrent. While I stood there on the bank and watched him being swept out of my life forever, I sent my thanks to whichever river deity had heard my prayer and smiled on me that day. I felt no grief then, or at any other time – simply enormous relief to know that I’d become a widow.’
‘Thank you for trusting me with that, Kitty.’ Victoria had squeezed her hand. ‘All I can say is that I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the courage you showed during those years, and I think Nigel is a very lucky man to have found you.’
‘Of course, I’ve told him everything, so now I intend to close the book on that chapter of my life and spend the rest of it being the best wife that he could ever wish for. Oh, Vicky, don’t you think that Nigel is the most the wonderful man y
ou’ve ever met? Every day he goes out of his way to find fresh new ways to make me happy.’ She coloured. ‘Do you know that he’s even planning a new nursery for – well, for some time in the future.’
Victoria smiled to herself. Kitty Cameron had been talking about the man who – not long ago – had been called dreary by the cousins at Cloudhill.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kitty’s charm soon softened any apprehension that Duleep might have had about the impending arrival of a new mistress in Pelham-sahib’s house. She’d been quick to reassure him that when she and the boys came to live here, there would be absolutely no changes required in his splendid domestic routine. But would it be possible sometimes to have an early dinner served under the willow tree in the garden? And could the downstairs windows be opened as soon as the sun was up each morning? And would he translate her recipe book for the cook? There was a lamb dish on page seventeen which she thought that Pelham-sahib was sure to enjoy.
Victoria smiled to herself and stepped away from the daily buzz of activity in the house. A tailor with his sewing machine now seemed to be permanently encamped on the floor of the veranda, busily stitching acres of new curtains, while painters and upholsterers moved from room to room creating chaos.
As often as possible, she escaped from it all by borrowing Maud’s pony-trap and having the little syce drive her away from the cantonment. She’d already begun to withdraw from the tight little groups of wives and their activities.
‘Sorry I won’t be able to come for cards this week. With so little time left here, I need to do a little sketching in the hills before I leave Kashmir.’
This became her standard excuse to avoid being caught up in the renewed swirl of tea parties and luncheons that the ladies of the cantonment were organizing for a fresh wave of new arrivals from the hot plains.
Victoria had never had any great enthusiasm for art. And very little talent, either, she reminded herself as she perched on a boulder and looked down on the long, narrow valley running beyond the little stream rushing over rocks at the foot of the hill where she was sitting. Up on the road behind her, Maud’s fat little horse stood dozing in the shafts of the trap, while the thin little syce lay curled up on the seat, snoring.
She sketched the outline of the hill across the valley and tried to draw its tree-covered folds running down to the long stretch of green grass below. The lake and the Shalimar Gardens probably lay not far beyond that hill, she calculated. Holding the sketch pad at arm’s length to study what she’d done, she screwed up her nose at the wretched effort and threw the book onto the ground beside her.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and let her mind drift while the white clouds overhead slowly changed shape until they began to resemble a flock of woolly sheep. Perhaps she should consider buying a sheep farm. In Australia?
The sound of pounding hoofbeats suddenly brought her back to earth and she sat up straight to watch the familiar chestnut beauty sweep into view around the hill. From having seen him on the cricket field, she knew that the rider was Captain Wyndham, but who was the small girl he was holding in front of him on the saddle? Was she the child with the elephant who had collided with her in the Shalimar Gardens?
Once onto the flat, the captain urged the horse into a gallop and both the man and child were laughing as the horse flashed past her vantage point.
It wasn’t long before she heard the galloping hoofs again echoing from the rocks, and the horse thundered back along the valley floor with her legs stretched and her coat shining like molten gold in the sunlight. For one moment she seemed to be almost flying over the grass, and in the next she tripped, staggered, and seemed unable to right herself. Victoria saw the captain whip his feet from the stirrups at the first stumble, then as the horse crashed, he and the child were tossed to the ground, both tumbling awkwardly and rolling.
‘Oh, no!’ Victoria sprang to her feet and began to slip and slide her way downhill over the loose rocks and, lifting her skirt, she dashed through the fast-flowing ankle-high stream to reach the scene. Initially, the man and the little girl were not moving, but, by the time she’d raced across the valley, Captain Wyndham had raised himself into a sitting position and was holding the unconscious child in his arms, rocking her.
Not far away, the chestnut squealed in agony, lying on her side and thrashing as she struggled to stand on a damaged foreleg. Broken bone protruded through the skin.
‘Belle, Belle – oh, God! Annabelle, open your eyes, sweetheart. Look at me.’ The man seemed unaware that Victoria had reached his side.
‘Captain, I think the child should be kept still,’ she said gently, kneeling beside him and putting a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Don’t move her like that – just let her lie quietly.’ She picked up one of the little hands to feel the fluttering pulse, then rubbed the fingers between her own. ‘Sir, I’m going to untie your scarf and wet it in the stream so we can wipe the blood from her forehead.’
His face was ashen, making the thin white scar on his cheek barely noticeable. He made no response, but the look of dread in his eyes tore at her heart when she reached across the little girl to untie the knot under his chin. She ran across to the stream to wet his scarf in the icy water and, back beside them again, she wiped the child’s brow, then held it against the bleeding wound on her scalp.
‘You hand is hurt, sir. Is there a handkerchief in your pocket that I could use as a bandage?’
‘No.’ Only then did he show surprise at finding her beside him. ‘What the devil— How—?’
‘I was up there, sketching,’
His frown deepened and he jerked his head towards the pitifully thrashing, squealing horse. ‘Well, for God’s sake, go over there and put the poor creature out of her misery.’
Victoria looked at him dumbly. ‘I – I can’t. I know nothing about – I’ve never handled—’
‘Oh, Lord! Just get my rifle from the saddle, put the muzzle between her eyes and pull the blasted trigger. It’s loaded.’ His jaw tightened. ‘She can’t be left to suffer like that.’
Like an obedient child, Victoria stood and, with her knees turning to straw, she went to the stricken animal lying there, all white of eye and foaming mouth. Terrified, she heaved great gulping breaths as she dodged the flailing legs to snatch the rifle. For a moment she looked down at it in her shaking hands, felt its weight and glanced across to the captain, hoping for some signal or direction. Or a little encouragement. But his gaze was still on the child’s face.
Gathering every ounce of her resolve, she moved cautiously to the mare’s head. ‘Oh, you wonderful, beautiful creature, please, please forgive me. It breaks my heart, but I must, I must do this.’ Perhaps it was coincidence, but the animal ceased its violent struggle at the sound of her voice and watched her as she placed the muzzle carefully between its eyes, braced herself, held her breath and squeezed the trigger.
Silence. Nothing happened. She clamped her lips to stifle a wail of panic. The captain was still looking the other way. She’d never handled a gun before. What was she to do now? Common sense whispered that there must be a safety catch somewhere on this weapon. Where? Her damp hands shook even more when she turned it and located a lever beside the breech. It moved smoothly when she lifted it, then positioning the muzzle between the mare’s eyes, she tried again.
This time she forgot to brace herself and the rifle’s recoil slammed the butt painfully into her shoulder and sent her staggering backwards. But the bullet had done its job and the mare lay still at her feet.
For the next few moments she could do nothing but stand and stare in horror at what she’d accomplished. She’d killed this glorious animal! Her numbness quickly passed and she began to shake. She wiped a sleeve across her eyes, swallowed hard and turned away to carry the rifle back to the captain.
The little girl in his arms was whimpering and he shot a glance up at Victoria. ‘Quickly, look at this – see? Watch her eyelids.’
The dark lashes fluttered and the
child’s eyes opened a crack. ‘Oh, Papa, it hurts. It hurts, Papa.’
The man kissed the little girl’s forehead and Victoria saw the moisture in his eyes. Then, still holding the child across his arms, he climbed to his feet.
Victoria knew that the sound of the gunshot was sure to have woken the sleeping syce, and, sure enough there was the little man already scrambling down the hill towards them. ‘Captain, I have a vehicle waiting on the high road. Can I take you and the child wherever you need to go?’
‘Thank you, but no. I’ll carry her – not far. But if you would be so good as to slip the strap of the rifle over my shoulder?’ By the way he moved it, she could tell that he was in pain.
At last he looked across to the mare. His lips tightened and she saw the misery in his eyes. ‘She was— I am most grateful for your assistance, ma’am.’
Victoria didn’t trust her voice not to break if she tried to speak. So they simply looked quickly at each other and exchanged a nod, then turned their backs and walked away in opposite directions.
Climbing back up the steep hill to the pony trap was made more difficult by the fact that she seemed to have little control of her limbs and her vision was blurred by unstoppable tears. She’d never be able to forget the expression in the mare’s eyes as she held the rifle against her forehead. She couldn’t bring herself to look back on what she’d done. It was too awful. But just then, she glimpsed the begum’s big Sikh servant come running from what she deduced must be the direction of the lake.
Pieces of today’s puzzle kept teasing her as the pony clopped its way slowly back to the cantonment. There was obviously much more to Captain Wyndham than the gossips of Srinagar realized. A little girl named Annabelle had called him papa, and she was, without doubt, the child with the painted elephant whom Victoria had seen being taken out to the begum’s houseboat near the Shalimar Gardens.
Echoes of a Promise Page 10
