by M. M. Kaye
He caught Alex’s eye and took an involuntary step backwards, saying hastily: ‘No, no, I don’t expect he’d do such a thing. But as far as her reputation is concerned—’
Alex cut him short. ‘May I take it that you would be willing to allow her to remain here when I bring her back, Mrs Abuthnot?’
‘Of course I should. I know only too well that the dear child means no harm. It was only that she was upset by the news of Mr Barton’s illness and wished to go to his side without loss of time. One can understand that so well. The best of motives! But she may not wish to come back.’
‘Her wishes,’ said Alex through shut teeth, ‘have nothing whatever to do with the matter. I shall hope to be back at a tolerably early hour tomorrow, and if this matter has not been mentioned outside the house I see no reason why it should become known.’
‘You need have no fears on that score, my boy,’ said Colonel Abuthnot firmly. ‘We ain’t likely to blab about such an affair. Though if it were not for that fellow Carlyon fancying himself in love with the girl, I’d advise you to let well alone and let her press on for Lunjore. I daresay Barton may be persuaded to take a lenient view of the matter once he has her safe, and if you don’t try fetching her back it’s he who’ll have the handling of her.’
Alex, who had turned to leave the room, stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked back. ‘It is precisely on that account,’ he said savagely, ‘that I intend to bring her back. Lord Carlyon can go to the devil!’
The door slammed behind him, and Colonel Abuthnot, who had been giving the matter thought, said reflectively: ‘Damme if I don’t believe he’s fallen in love with the girl himself. Now look what you’ve done, Milly.’
‘Done? What have I done? I’ve sent him after her. Someone had to go. And of course he is not in love with her!’
‘You’re a fool, Milly,’ said Colonel Abuthnot affectionately. ‘Always were. Why else should he be in such a taking? He ain’t the type to lose his temper for nothing. Now there’ll be the devil to pay.’
‘What can you mean, George?’
‘Mean? I mean that if I’m right about him, and he overtakes those two before they reach Lunjore, he’ll murder that fellow Carlyon. And if he doesn’t, he’ll probably murder Barton!’
Mrs Abuthnot, who had borne enough, took refuge in a strong attack of the vapours.
Alex’s mood was so nearly murderous that Colonel Abuthnot’s prediction might have come unpleasantly near the mark had it not been for one factor that he had not taken into his calculations. The ford at Jathghat.
He had stopped at Ludlow Castle barely long enough to inform his host that he would be unavoidably absent, and to collect Niaz, a third horse and his revolver. He had proffered no explanation for his actions and had left, riding at a breakneck speed that had taken them far on the road by the time the moon was high. He knew that the carriage could not travel at any great speed owing to the poorness of the roads, and he imagined that it would halt at some dâk-bungalow for the night, so he calculated, with luck, on being able to come up with it well before midnight.
He had no very clear idea of what he intended to do when he did overtake it. Carlyon was bound to be difficult and he apparently had at least half a dozen servants with him. Niaz, however, could be trusted to deal with the latter, and as for Carlyon, it would give Alex the greatest pleasure to deal with his languid Lordship himself. He had not given much thought to Carlyon - beyond considering him a more suitable husband for Winter de Ballesteros than the Commissioner of Lunjore - and the murderous rage that had taken possession of him at the news of their flight had been almost entirely on account of Mr Barton.
If Winter had gone to Lunjore in the care of the Gardener-Smiths they could not have refused to shelter her and assist her to return to Delhi or Calcutta when she discovered, as she must almost immediately do, the impossibility of marrying the Commissioner. But if she were to arrive in Lunjore alone, with no one to turn to, there was no knowing what might happen. In all probability Mr Barton would see to it that any return was made impossible, and Alex had turned sick at the thought.
Even Colonel Abuthnot’s reference to Carlyon’s wanting the girl himself had done little more at the time than add to his fury; but now he remembered it again, and a cold fear took the place of that fury as he remembered also the scene he had interrupted on the evening of Winter’s arrival in Delhi, and the look he had seen in Carlyon’s eyes only last night. ‘If he has harmed her—’ thought Alex savagely. ‘If he has harmed her—’ He set his teeth and bent far forward in the saddle, riding as though he rode in a race, and with a recklessness that startled Niaz.
But he had forgotten the ford at Jathghat and the unseasonable clouds that Mrs Abuthnot had commented upon on the previous evening.
There had been rain in the foothills and on the plains beyond Moradabad and Rampur, and now, twenty-four hours and more later, the river had risen and was still rising. It had been dangerously high, though still fordable, when Winter and Carlyon had reached it some four hours earlier. But what had then been a ford of no more than fifty yards in length was now a brown, turgid torrent measuring a quarter of a mile from bank to bank, swirling sullenly past in the moonlight with an ominous chuckling gurgle that spoke of whirlpools and hidden currents.
Alex had been riding at a hand-gallop and paying little attention to the road, and he reined in hard at Niaz’s shout of warning and dismounted to stare at the ugly stretch of water in blank dismay. He knew that road only too well, and knew too that when the river ran high there was nothing to do but wait for it to fall again, since the nearest alternative route meant a detour of fifty miles, and over such country as to make it, on a normal occasion, a matter of less delay to wait for the flood-water to pass. But this was no normal occasion, for an interview with a sleepy villager aroused by Niaz had elicited the information that a memsahib in a carriage, accompanied by a sahib and several servants on horseback, had crossed the ford less than half an hour before it became impassable.
Alex swung himself back into the saddle, his face harsh and haggard in the bright moonlight, and turned north on the long detour to the nearest bridge.
Half an hour later a python slithered across the narrow and little-used track almost under the hooves of his tired horse. Shalini shied wildly and the low branch of a kikar tree slammed against Alex’s wounded arm. He hit the ground with the point of his shoulder, and in the fractional second before his head struck against the rocks by the roadside, heard his collar-bone snap as he went down into darkness.
24
Winter lay back in a corner of the carriage and closed her eyes. The setting sun shone in under the heavy leather hood above her with a golden glare, and the surface of the road was unbelievably bad. The carriage wheels jolted into ruts and out again, and every jolt threw her body sideways or jerked it back against the squabs until her head began to ache dully.
She told herself again that she was going to Conway and that in four days’ time - less if the roads improved - she would be with him at last. No more waiting: no more doubts or fears or loneliness. But the spell had begun to lose some of its first potent charm.
Perhaps it had first failed a little at the ford. The horses had jibbed at the swirling brown water and the coachman had looked frightened and had protested that it would be better to turn back or to wait until the water fell. For one inexplicable moment Winter had experienced a feeling of overwhelming relief. They would have to go back! The next second shame at such cowardice had stiffened her resolution and she had feverishly seconded Carlyon’s decision to cross.
The sight of the rising river had given Carlyon an exceedingly unpleasant shock, for the prospect of having to return to Delhi was not one that he cared to contemplate. Such an absurd anticlimax did not bear thinking of. The frightened faces of the coachman and the servants had infuriated him, but threats and bribery having prevailed, they had made the crossing.
Resting awhile on the far bank, they had watched th
e river rise steadily, inch by inch. ‘No more will pass that way for some days,’ remarked a villager who had crossed with them, and Winter had looked back at the swirling water and thought, ‘Now there is no going back. Now, whatever happens, we must go on.’ The thought had been oddly frightening. She did not want to go back. Of course she did not want to go back! Yet now, even if she had wanted to do so, the road was barred behind her and the flooded river lay between her and Alex. Alex - her mind shrank violently away from the thought of him as though it had touched something that could not be faced. She would not even think of Alex.
The road on the far side of the river had been almost worse than the one they had travelled on since leaving Delhi, but Carlyon had handed the reins of his horse to one of the syces and joined Winter in the carriage. She had had little speech with him since they had started out, for it had been impossible to carry on a conversation with anyone riding beside the carriage. Carlyon had seen to it that the horses kept up a creditable speed, and his behaviour during the brief halts had been courteous and considerate. But now that the river had been crossed and lay impassable behind them, his manner had undergone a noticeable change. Or was it only weariness that made her imagine that it had?
Ever since the scene in the Abuthnots’ bungalow that Alex Randall’s arrival had interrupted, Carlyon had appeared to avoid looking directly at her, and she had not again encountered that slow appraising gaze that had so often disturbed her on the journey from Calcutta. Now, however, as though the need for restraint were gone, she found that she could not look up without finding his eyes upon her.
He did not talk much and Winter, finding the silence obscurely alarming, did her best to keep up some show of conversation. As the sun sank behind the trees and the carriage began to fill with shadow she asked that the hood might be lowered so that they could get the benefit of the cooler air, for with the open sky above her and the accompanying servants in full view, she fancied that the uncomfortable tension would be largely relieved. But Carlyon, although he had stopped the carriage and complied with her request, had laughed and said: ‘Why? Are you afraid of what I might do?’
There had been no possible answer to that, and Winter had forced herself to meet his gaze calmly and with a faint touch of disdain that had aroused his admiration. Despite her youth and inexperience this was no vapourish miss who would fall into a swoon and capitulate to a show of masculine force. She would be a wife worth having. His gaze rested upon her with possessive appreciation, and it crossed his mind that he must remember to see that none of the horses were left unattended and within her reach. There was apparently a dâk-bungalow some few miles further on which they should reach before darkness fell, and though Winter had wished to travel by night, he had been able to make her see the impracticability of such a course; explaining that the horses would not be able to proceed without rest, but refraining from mentioning that he had no intention of travelling further than this particular dâk-bungalow.
The providential flood that had closed the ford behind them had solved one problem: he had felt tolerably certain that Randall at least would not take the news of their departure with equanimity, but now there was no longer any need to look over his shoulder or listen for the sound of hoof-beats on the road behind them. And though the dâk-bungalow would in all probability be no better, and possibly worse, than any they had met with on the long journey from Calcutta, it would serve. They would spend a brief, premature honeymoon under its roof. A wedding night that would only anticipate the wedding by a few days.
They might even, if the surroundings were not too sordid and the ford remained impassable, remain there for several days. Days that would be made idyllic by the possession of a loved and desired object that he had come to covet beyond the reach of reason. Then when the river fell they would return to Delhi and be married quietly and without fuss, and leave immediately for Bombay, from where they would take ship for England.
Winter would be frightened at first. Possibly even frantic, since she appeared to cherish a romantic and childish attachment for this man Barton which she mistook for love. But she would give way to the inevitable. Carlyon had a shrewd suspicion that the young Condesa possessed little knowledge, if any, of the physical aspects of marriage. So much the better, since she would be the more easily brought to realize, in the shock of the discovery, that marriage with any other man was now quite impossible. And he had no fear whatsoever that he could not eventually make her love him.
He was surprised to discover that he wanted her love almost as much as he desired her body. Perhaps the first would take a little longer to obtain, because he could not obtain it by force. But it would come to him in the end. Too many women had loved him for him to have any doubts on that score.
His annoyance on finding that the dâk-bungalow, when they reached it just before moonrise, was already sheltering what looked to be a large party, was considerable. It had not occurred to him that they might have company, and for a moment fury at such a disruption of his plans made him consider giving a reckless order to drive on. But both horses and riders were tired, and the next dâk-bungalow was twelve miles ahead. As he hesitated, his Calcutta bearer, who spoke sufficient English to make himself understood by his master, returned with the information that it was only an Indian lady and her servants who had broken her journey at the dâk-bungalow. There were rooms in plenty for his master and the Miss-sahib. Carlyon, who regarded all Indians with less interest than he would the furniture of a room, drew a sigh of relief and helped Winter to alight.
The dâk-bungalow was little different from a score of others he had seen. It stood back from the road in a compound containing a large and solitary neem tree and bounded by a low stone wall. A verandah ran round it on three sides, and the high, whitewashed rooms were almost bare of furniture. There was dusty matting on the floor and white ants had built long, thin, wandering tunnels of dried mud upon the walls and eaten their way through what little furniture the rest of the house had boasted. The string beds were of Indian make; wide, low cots without head- or foot-boards, that looked to be uncomfortable but were capable of providing an excellent night’s rest when not, as too frequently, infested by bugs.
Winter had not been able to bring any bedding, but Carlyon assured her that he had brought sufficient for both, and sent his bearer, to whom he had given certain instructions, to prepare her room. They ate a tolerable meal in the main room of the bungalow while the moon rose over the plain and someone - the khansamah said it was the Mohammedan lady in the room at the far end of the verandah - played a tinkling tune on a stringed instrument.
It was a haunting thread of sound, oddly familiar, and Winter found herself listening to it with a feeling that she had heard that particular plaintive tune before. She was tired, and anxious to get to her own room where she would be free of Carlyon’s disturbing gaze and the necessity to appear calm and composed, and the meal seemed interminable. She had excused herself as soon as it was over, and stepping out onto the verandah, had seen a ruth, a closed, double-domed cart, to which a pair of trotting bullocks were being harnessed.
‘It is the Begum Sahiba,’ said one of the bungalow servants in reply to Winter’s question. ‘She stopped only on account of a broken wheel, which has now been repaired. She stays the night at a village further on the road. She is from Oudh and returns to her home.’
Winter turned away and walked slowly to the door of her room, her wide skirts rustling on the dusty stone of the verandah. ‘I am from Oudh,’ she thought, ‘and I too am returning home.’ The thought gave her fresh courage and she turned and gave her hand to Carlyon, who had followed her, thanking him once more for his help and escort and bidding him good night.
Carlyon took her hand but he did not release it. He held it in a hard grasp with fingers that were feverishly hot and unsteady, and lifting it suddenly to his lips, he kissed it.
It was not a light gesture of gallantry, but a kiss as greedily passionate as the kisses he had forced on her
once before, and that the shock of Mr Carroll’s revelations, Alex’s perfidy and her frantic desire to escape to Conway had allowed her to thrust into the background of her mind. She tried to drag her hand away but he held it hard, kissing it again and again, moving his hot, hungry mouth against its cool softness. And when he lifted his head at last and looked at her, his cold eyes were cold no longer, but as hot and avid as his mouth had been.
He stared at her for a long moment, breathing hard and unevenly, a dark flush on his cheeks and his eyes bright with a feverish excitement that was as inexplicable to Winter as it was terrifying, and her body shrank and turned cold with a primitive fear and a misty comprehension that the passion she had aroused in him was beyond her control - and his.
She had been disgusted and shocked and furiously angry when he had kissed her that day in the Abuthnots’ drawing-room. But she had not been frightened. It had not occurred to her to be frightened, for it had happened in broad daylight and there had been a dozen people within call, and her only fear had been that Conway might find her thus embraced. But she was frightened now. So frightened that for an appalling moment she thought that she was going to be physically sick from the fear that cramped her stomach and dried her mouth. Then Carlyon had released her hand at last and she had turned and stumbled through the open doorway of her room.
She closed the door behind her and threw her weight against it, terrified that he might follow her. Her heart was racing and her teeth chattered as though with cold, and when at last she fumbled for the bolt her shaking hands could not find it. There seemed to be nothing there but an empty useless socket.
The absence of a bolt sent another sickening wave of terror through her, and she turned and ran across the room, stumbling and tripping on the coarse matting, and fetched the oil-lamp that stood on a rickety table beside the bed. Her hands shook and her hooped crinoline sent huge, swaying shadows up the walls as she bent to examine the place where the bolt should have been. The wavering light showed clearly where the clamps that had held it had been removed; and also that it had been recently done …
