Shadow of the Moon

by M. M. Kaye

  A description of this scene would, Alex considered, only lead to further misunderstanding, and if the Commissioner’s betrothed had indeed found herself growing attached to Lord Carlyon, the problem would probably solve itself without any further interference on his part. He could only hope so, for if the girl did not marry either Carlyon or Barton, he could see himself being landed with the unwelcome task of finding a suitable chaperon to escort her back to Ware.

  He said aloud: ‘The Commissioner informed me that he would be writing to you. I feel sure you may expect a letter either tomorrow or the next day, although the posts in this country are not always to be relied upon.’

  Winter was saved from replying by the arrival of Mrs Abuthnot, who embraced Alex warmly, exclaimed in horrified accents over his wounded arm, and would not hear of him leaving before dinner: ‘One of the servants can take a message immediately to Mr Fraser, who I am persuaded will spare you to us for an hour or so,’ said Mrs Abuthnot firmly. ‘ No, of course you must stay, dear boy. Lottie and Sophie will be quite delighted to see you. Colonel Abuthnot has only just this moment told me that you were here, or I should have come in before. I was seeing some of the trunks unpacked. And where is Mr Barton?’

  ‘In Lunjore,’ said Alex. ‘He was unable to come.’

  Mrs Abuthnot turned to Winter with a sympathetic haste that set her crinoline whirling. ‘Oh, my love, how cruelly disappointing for you! It does not seem right that work should always be considered of more importance than us poor women. But you will have to get used to it, dear. There are times when I barely get a chance to speak two words in the day to Colonel Abuthnot. But it is particularly disappointing for you when it is your wedding that must give way to pressure of work. When will Mr Barton be arriving? I do trust he is not ill, Alex?’

  ‘No,’ said Alex, and explained the alteration in the Commissioner’s plan to the best of his ability. Mrs Abuthnot was desolated to hear that dear Winter would not be able to be married from her house after all, but at least it meant that she would not now miss Lottie’s wedding, as the Gardener-Smiths intended to stay on for that and would be leaving the day afterwards …

  Alex had remained to dinner (it had been hardly possible to avoid doing so) and Carlyon had not been pleased. He was not accustomed to playing second fiddle in any society, and this novel experience, in his present mood, annoyed him considerably. As a result, he drank more than was suitable to the company he was in, and lost a great deal of his languid ease of manner. He considered the Abuthnots to be making an entirely unnecessary fuss over this exceedingly ordinary and, as far as he was concerned, unwelcome guest, and was coolly insolent to Captain Randall. But the fellow appeared to lack the intelligence to know that he was being put in his place, and Carlyon’s contempt increased in proportion to his irritation. He had been used to hearing high-ranking officers of the Horse Guards speak slightingly of officers in the Indian Army, and he knew that many British regiments would not accept officers who had seen service there. Presumably because they supported his own view that anyone in the Indian services was bound to be a middle-class mediocrity. He could not understand what Ware was about to permit a member of his family to travel to such an outlandish and impossible country, for the purpose of marrying some petty official of the East India Company.

  Carlyon had intended to seat himself next to Winter, but she had slipped past him and taken her place between Colonel Abuthnot and this Captain Randall, while he himself was seated between Mrs Abuthnot and Lottie, both of whom directed far too much of their attention to the newcomer. He took some comfort from the fact that Winter at least appeared to take no interest in the man and did not speak to him at all except on the few occasions on which he addressed her directly. Sophie, on the other hand, who had never been more than shyly polite to Lord Carlyon, appeared unable to take her eyes off Captain Randall and blushed pinkly whenever he spoke to her or so much as glanced in her direction.

  Taken altogether, it had proved a tiresome evening, and the only pleasant thing about it, in Carlyon’s view, had been the information that the young Condesa’s future husband would not now be coming to Delhi, which would necessitate her remaining with the Abuthnots for a further three weeks. Fate appeared to be playing into his hands after all. It had been stupid of him to rush his fences as he had done earlier in the evening. That had been partly due to drink and partly to the overmastering emotion that the girl’s unusual beauty had aroused in him. But he would have to be more circumspect if he wished to avoid committing some bêtise that would result in Colonel Abuthnot requesting him to remove from the house.

  The Colonel was a cheerful and kindly little man who obviously thought and made the best of everyone and everything, but Carlyon imagined that he would be quite capable of acting firmly should the occasion warrant it, and he did not wish to put it to the proof. He was not so sure that he had, after all, overstepped the mark where Winter was concerned. True, she had struggled, which was probably due to maidenly modesty more than anything else, but she had not screamed. Perhaps next time …?

  21

  Lottie was to be married at St James’s Church in Delhi on the twenty-sixth of the month, and preparation for the wedding kept the ladies of the household in a constant ferment over silks and muslins and the mysteries of feminine underwear.

  There were also expeditions and picnics, parties and balls, and Carlyon received a flattering amount of attention from the garrison, and was even asked to call upon the ragged old ghost who lived surrounded by a tatterdemalion court in the Palace within the Red Fort of Delhi - Bahadur Shah, descendant of the House of Timur and last of the Moguls. But Winter remained as elusive as ever and Carlyon’s exasperation mounted daily.

  His temper was not improved by the frequent addition of Captain Randall to the party, since he found that his first and instant dislike of the man increased with every sight of him. The contempt he had at first felt for him had vanished, and try as he would he had been unable to recapture it. There was a look in Captain Randall’s coolly observant eyes, and something in his bland manner, that disconcerted and frequently infuriated Lord Carlyon, but it was difficult to pick a quarrel with a wounded man, and in addition to carrying his arm in a sling Captain Randall was not an easy man to quarrel with. He appeared to be entirely uninterested in Lord Carlyon and his proceedings. Nor did he seem particularly interested in the social gaieties of the Delhi season, and Carlyon was frequently puzzled to know why he troubled to accept invitations to affairs that he so obviously found tedious.

  Alex was finding this hard to explain to himself. The business that was occupying him in Delhi consisted mainly of the collecting, correlating and checking of evidence in a contested case of accession of territory by lapse, and the bulk of the documentary evidence was being dealt with by the clerks of Mr Fraser and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe. He therefore found himself with a fair amount of time on his hands, and the Abuthnots were pressing with their invitations; but he had previously experienced no difficulty in refusing equally pressing invitations, and he was not entirely sure why he did not refuse these.

  Was it only because of that irksome feeling of responsibility that he could not rid himself of? Or because he was aware, without quite knowing why, that Winter was frightened and unhappy? She certainly gave no outward signs of being either, but there was a difference in her that had not escaped him. She had lost that look of expectation, and was once again the withdrawn, wary child of the early spring … the girl who had seemed to him to possess something of the stillness and caution of a wild creature who freezes into immobility at the approach of danger, hoping to be overlooked among the protective colouring of its surroundings.

  There was nothing that he could do or say to help her back to the happy expectancy of the voyage, but he sensed that in some way - perhaps because she looked upon him as a link between herself and Conway Barton? - his presence reassured her, and in this he was partly right. Winter had understood and forgiven Conway’s failure to meet her at Calc
utta, for Captain Randall had not been in Lunjore then and possibly there was no one competent to be left in charge of affairs. But if Alex was able to take over the work that was to have brought Conway to Delhi, then surely he could have been left in Lunjore for a matter of a week or ten days in order to allow Conway to come here?

  She knew that it was disloyal of her to even think such a thing. Conway must be right, and of course duty must come before personal happiness: he had never failed to impress that upon her in his infrequent letters. Yet she could not help feeling that just this once he might have arranged things so that he could have left his desk for a few days to come for her. If he had been in ill-health she could have understood it better, but Captain Randall had denied that he was ill, and in a letter that arrived a few days later Conway had mentioned only pressure of work. He was, he explained, anxious to clear up the more pressing business of the district so as to enable him to take a really adequate spell of leave for their honeymoon. The letter was a more affectionate one than Conway usually wrote and it had dispelled much of her unhappiness. But despite this she was conscious of a return of that frightening feeling of loneliness and insecurity that had been so familiar a part of her childhood, and which had so nearly vanished with the arrival of the letters that Captain Randall had brought to Ware.

  Winter suspected that Captain Randall was inclined to regard her as a somewhat tiresome responsibility, but she could not help feeling grateful for his continued presence in Delhi, if only because it protected her from Lord Carlyon’s more than unwelcome attentions. When Alex was there she could forget about Carlyon and relax from the strain of being perpetually upon her guard. She knew that if she were to tell Mrs Abuthnot of the attack he had made upon her on the day of their arrival in Delhi he would instantly be asked to terminate his visit, but since she did not feel capable of facing her kind hostess with such an embarrassing task, she had kept silent and taken pains instead to ensure that there should be no repetition of the incident.

  That she was bent upon avoiding him, and was not merely being coy, was gradually borne in upon Carlyon, and he began to realize that vanity and self-assurance had led him into making a grave tactical error. Far from awakening Winter to the delights of dalliance he had only disgusted and frightened her, and if he were not careful he would lose her to the nonentity after all. But he could not make his apologies and set himself right with her in the presence of others, and it seemed as though he were never to see her alone.

  His opportunity came at a ball when he stood up with her for a waltz that she had been unable, in the interests of politeness, to refuse him, and he made the most of it. He attributed his unforgivable conduct on the day of their arrival to the brandy and laudanum drops which, he explained, he had taken as a precaution against a suspected bout of fever. He abased himself, and employing all his considerable charm and facility of address, begged for forgiveness. Having received it, he proceeded with confidence to make her a proposal of marriage.

  He was fully aware, said Carlyon, of the impropriety of addressing such a proposal to an engaged lady, but he must beg her to make allowances for a man deeply in love. The fact that she had not seen her betrothed since she was a child had given him grounds for hoping that she might bring herself at least to postpone the wedding, in order to allow him time in which to make her change her mind. He had expressed himself with fervour and humility, and had received in return an unqualified refusal that contained nothing which he could conceivably take as encouragement to persist in his suit. The music had ceased, and Winter had not granted him a second dance.

  She had been touched by the humility of Carlyon’s apology, and disagreeably surprised by his subsequent proposal. But having left him in no doubt as to her feelings she had expected him to leave the Abuthnots’ house and Delhi more or less immediately, since if, as he had assured her, she was his sole reason for being there, there could be no further point in his remaining.

  Carlyon, however, had not removed. Instead he had written her a carefully worded letter, delivered to her by his bearer, in which he had assured her that he had not intended to distress her, promised never to mention the subject again or enact her any more tragedies, but hoped that he might be honoured at least by her friendship though he must be denied that nearer relationship he had so ardently desired. If he could at any time be of any service to her, his life was at her disposal. He remained—etc.

  Winter could not help feeling that she had misjudged Lord Carlyon, and she had smiled at him shyly when they next met. But she was ignorant of the feelings that had prompted the writing of that letter, and had she had any inkling of them she would have been considerably alarmed. For Carlyon was in an exceedingly dangerous mood, and he had written that letter with no other motive than the hope that by doing so he might prevent the little Ballesteros from pressing for his removal from Delhi. He had every intention of removing shortly, but he had made up his mind to take her with him.

  Having much to his own amazement decided that he actually wished to marry the girl, it had never occurred to him that she would not be willing to jilt the nonentity to whom she was betrothed once she discovered his intentions to be honourable. He had never proposed marriage to any woman before, and possessed sufficient vanity and bland self-assurance to consider that to do so would be to bestow a very considerable honour. To have his offer incontinently refused was something he had never considered to be remotely possible. He could not believe that she meant it … she was leading him on! Yet there was no point in leading him further than a proposal, and she had had that …

  Carlyon had passed from stunned incredulity to dangerous rage. His languid manner had always disguised a hot and uncertain temper and now suddenly he lost control of himself. He wanted the girl. Wanted her more than he had ever thought it possible to want anything, and by God, he would have her! No clod of an Indian-service official was going to stop him.

  His plan was quite a simple one. Make his peace with Winter, and having made a few necessary arrangements, carry her off and compromise her so that she would be glad to marry him. The clod might cause a little trouble at first, but Carlyon could always use his influence to procure him some advancement, and as he had not seen his prospective bride for six years there could be no question of love on either side. The man was obviously only interested in her fortune, and Carlyon was sufficiently rich to apply a generous gold-plaster to any wounds he might receive.

  Now that Winter would be staying for Lottie’s wedding it had been decided that she as well as Sophie must be a bridesmaid. They were to wear pale blue muslin profusely decorated with satin bows and quilling, and diminutive bonnets of blue straw trimmed with roses. The wedding-dress was pronounced an admirable fit, and Mrs Abuthnot, watching her elder daughter try on her bridal array before the looking-glass, shed motherly tears and announced that she did not know how she should support the loss of her dearest, sweetest Lottie.

  ‘But you will still have me, Mama,’ comforted Sophie.

  Mrs Abuthnot embraced her and said tearfully that it would not be long before Sophie too would be wearing a wedding-gown.

  ‘I do not think I shall ever marry,’ said Sophie with a small unhappy sigh. ‘I shall stay single and be a comfort to you and Papa.’

  ‘Nonsense, dear!’ said Mrs Abuthnot bracingly. ‘Lottie, my love, I really think that we shall have to change your hair-style a little. I am not sure that it would not look better dressed a trifle more forward to suit the wreath.’

  ‘Let me do it,’ said Sophie. ‘No, don’t sit down Lottie, you goose. You will crush the folds.’ She mounted precariously on a small stool and placed the wreath with its filmy yards of veil on Lottie’s golden head, wondering as she did so if she herself would ever wear a wedding-dress. Would Captain Randall ever look at her as Edward looked at Lottie, or as Lord Carlyon - Sophie was not unobservant - looked at Winter? Sophie doubted it. Captain Randall treated her more as though she were a pleasant child still in the schoolroom, or, worse, as thoug
h she were his young sister.

  ‘But I will grow older,’ thought Sophie hopefully, ‘and perhaps it will be different next year.’

  There was a sound of stir and bustle in the hall and Mrs Gardener-Smith’s voice was heard to say in plangent tones that she would show herself in. The next moment the door opened and the lady herself swept in, accompanied by Delia, exclaiming that she was sure that dear Mrs Abuthnot would forgive this unceremonious entry, but the butler had told her that the Memsahibs were trying on clothes for the shadi, and as she would not dream of dragging any of them away from such an absorbing occupation, she had come to add herself to the admiring audience. She turned her attention to Lottie and uttered a startled shriek:

  ‘My dear! How can you! Pray take it off at once!’

  ‘Why, what is the matter?’ inquired Lottie, bewildered. ‘Do you not like it?’

  ‘Oh, my love, sweetly pretty! But you must not wear your bridal gown and veil before you dress for the church. It is vilely unlucky. Surely you know that? Pray remove it immediately. The veil at least. One may safely try on the dress or the veil separately. Indeed one must do so, or how is one to know that they will suit? But both together - never!’

  Mrs Abuthnot said a little sharply: ‘How very absurd. I am sure that I tried on all my bridal clothes before I was married.’ But Lottie, who had turned quite pale, hurriedly removed the veil and wreath.

  Lottie was at that stage of love when it seemed to her that so much happiness could not possibly last; that it was too shining and wonderful to be true, and that she must walk on tiptoe from day to day lest some jealous fate should snatch it from her in envy. She would wake at night terrified for Edward because there were so many things that could happen to people in this cruel country. So many men who had laughed and joked one day and been dead the next. Oh, if only she could marry Edward tomorrow! Every hour that he was out of her sight something terrible might happen to him. If only the days would not go so slowly …