Alice felt her heartbeat skip. ‘What did he say?’
‘Something about pashm,’ said Sandy.
‘That’s it,’ Emily cried. ‘He said to tell George that he would send back some pashmina so that you could have a new shawl made for your wife.’
‘How kind of him.’ George smiled. ‘Isn’t it, my dear?’
Alice fought to bring her emotions under control. ‘Yes, very kind.’
She excused herself quickly and escaped upstairs to lie down.
What did it mean that John had come round to the house? Had he weakened at the last minute and wanted to see her or had Colin forced him to come out of politeness? Why did he mention having a pashmina shawl made for her? It could indicate that he really meant the gift to be from him or it might be a reproof to her that she should remember she was George’s wife and no other man’s. What would he have said to her? Alice would never know.
She turned her face into the bedcover, stuffed her mouth with it to muffle her cries and howled in misery until she was spent of all emotion.
CHAPTER 16
Bushahir Province, August 1836
John finally lost all patience with Vernon. ‘You may be content to fritter away the summer at the raja’s expense but there’s work to do. Did you secure the deal?’
John and Colin had come into Sanpore from camp to see if Vernon had made good his promise to pay for fifty sturdy ponies at the horse fair. Through Rajban, John had done the bartering with the Tibetan horse-dealers and then gone exploring high into the foothills towards the Tibetan border, leaving Vernon to finish the transaction. Vernon had tired of frugal camp life almost immediately and elected to stay downriver with the hospitable raja. John and Colin had been more than happy to leave him there but John now wanted the dealing to be over so he could be free to explore into Ladakh.
‘I’ve been working hard,’ Vernon said, dissolving into a fit of giggling. His eyes were glazed and unfocused. His lodgings in the rambling riverside palace reeked of opium smoke and liquor; a clawing, sickly smell that turned John’s stomach.
Vernon lay on a dirty divan, half-naked. As the Scots officers had arrived, a girl had scurried from the room, pulling a veil over her head.
‘So where are the horses?’ John demanded.
Vernon wafted a hand at him. ‘All in hand, Scotchie. Just come back later.’ He lolled on the grubby cushions.
John strode across the room and hauled him up by the arms. ‘Have you bought any horses at all while we’ve been away?’
Vernon tried to struggle free. ‘Still negotiating. Can’t rush these matters.’
‘Then give me the money and I’ll do it myself.’
Vernon laughed. ‘’Fraid not, Scotchie. Had to spend it. Got to live.’
‘You’ve spent it but got nothing to show for it?’ John cried.
‘Wouldn’t say that.’ Vernon grinned. ‘Had a different girl in my bed every night. You should have stayed and joined in the fun.’
John pushed him away in disgust. ‘That’s Company money you’ve stolen.’
‘Leave him to stew in his own filth,’ said Colin.
‘Don’t pretend you’re a saint, Sinclair,’ Vernon sneered. ‘Going after married women.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Vernon’s bleary eyes lit with triumph. ‘Saw you coming down Jakko Hill following pretty Mrs Gillveray. I was on my way home from Barrett’s billiard room but you were obviously up with the lark. So don’t criticise me for my tastes.’
‘Nothing happened between us,’ John said, flushing with anger.
Vernon sat up, sensing advantage. ‘That’s what you say,’ he smirked. ‘She seemed quite upset to me. Now you wouldn’t want Gillveray to find out you’d been playing with his wife’s affections, would you?’
‘You leave her alone!’
‘Or what?’
John lunged across the bed but Colin grabbed him and held him back.
‘He’s not worth the bruised knuckles,’ said his friend. ‘Come on, John. Let’s go.’
John stormed to the door, shaking with rage and annoyed with himself for letting Vernon antagonise him so easily.
‘Why are you so upset at the mention of Mrs Gillveray?’ Vernon called after him. ‘Spurned your advances, did she? I bet I’d have more success.’
Colin turned at the door. ‘Go back to Simla, Buckley, and explain to Major Raine why you’ve bought him so few horses but spent all the money. You’ll get no more help from us.’
By the end of August, John and Colin were in the high Spiti valley, a mountainous semi-desert of beige cliffs and grey-green rivers.
‘By the start of the cold season,’ warned Rajban, ‘the passes into Ladakh will close and not open again for six months.’
Colin thought it was time they turned south again. ‘My regiment leaves Dhera in November. Why not explore a way back via Rohru – down the Pabbar and Yamuna rivers – so we don’t have to return to Simla?’
They both knew what Colin was alluding to: avoiding having to see Alice again. But John was determined to press on into Ladakh in search of more supplies of pashmina and to document the high mountain passes. Delayed by Vernon’s antics in Sanpore, he knew that time was running out before the snows came and the passes closed.
‘Why not go further?’ urged John. ‘We’ve got two whole months left.’
‘It’s too risky,’ Colin warned. ‘That Company letter you carry won’t protect you from jealous Tibetan traders if they get a sniff you are after their pashmina trade. No one will believe we are merely after sport – there is precious little to shoot even here.’
John grinned. ‘I’m just a simple mountaineer after ibex and mapping a few high passes as I go.’
‘And if they catch you with your telescope and plane-books,’ replied Colin, ‘they’ll hang you as a spy.’
‘My friend,’ said John, ‘you have done more than enough for me. I’m forever in your debt for you coming with me this summer. We’ve had a grand time at the hunting and I’ve enjoyed your company more than I can say.’ He clapped Colin on the back. ‘I’m grateful of your offer to go back via the Yamuna – perhaps another time. It’s selfish of me to ask any more of you,’ John continued, ‘but I’m going to carry on. I’m at home up here and I’d rather spend the rest of my leave in the mountains. That way you can return to Simla if you wish.’
Colin gave him a pitying look. ‘If I do see Alice, is there anything you want me to say to her?’
John felt the familiar tension in his jaw at the mention of her name. Colin knew the full story. ‘What use are words? The past can’t be undone,’ John said resignedly. ‘I can’t settle for being Alice’s friend and nothing more – nor can I watch her nurse Gillveray’s child.’
‘I understand,’ said Colin.
Two days later, Colin departed with most of their porters as not many of them wanted to travel as far as Leh in Ladakh and John knew he could cover ground more quickly with fewer men and less equipment. On the spur of the moment, John gave Colin a package.
‘It’s the pashmina we got from the shepherd in Pangmo. See that Alice gets it.’
His friend gave him a long look.
John shrugged. ‘It means nothing. She can do with it what she pleases.’
Colin did not press him. They clasped hands and wished each other good luck.
John struck camp with Rajban, taking a handful of porters and four yaks to carry his survey equipment and tents. They rode swiftly north-west, stopping only to snatch sleep, eat and barter for supplies at tiny hamlets. Pushing on, they crossed the Zanskar mountain range at a high pass where the past winter’s snow still clung to the barren peaks. John’s head ached and he found it hard to breathe. As they climbed to another dizzyingly high pass, light bounced off the bald rock and dazzled the eye.
Finally, on a bright autumnal afternoon, they descended to the broad fertile valley of the Indus – that fabled river he had read about in Hercules’s dusty hist
ory books – and saw the town of Leh in the distance. They passed a flat-roofed monastery on the hillside, the sound of gongs and horns reverberating through the thin air. They had reached Ladakh!
CHAPTER 17
Simla, August 1836
John had been gone two weeks when Alice felt the first flutters of movement in her womb. Since his departure, she had been consumed with a private grief that she could tell no other; all these years John had loved her but was now lost to her for good. He had made it quite plain that he would do nothing to break up her marriage to George and that they must both live without each other.
George treated her warily, afraid to be too solicitous in case she rebuffed him. Did he suspect her attachment to the young Sinclair? Alice felt guilty that she might be hurting her husband’s feelings but could not shake off the grief she felt at the thought of never seeing John again.
The strange butterfly movements inside her made Alice gasp and put her hands to her belly. Could these be the stirrings of her unborn baby?
She sought out Emily, who was stretched out in a long cane chair on the veranda, fanning herself. Her friend was now huge with child and needed help getting out of a chair. Alice told her what she was feeling.
‘Of course it’s the baby,’ Emily said, smiling. ‘You’ll feel something every day from now on. My wee bairn is doing somersaults. Look at this.’ Emily smoothed down her gauzy dress and Alice saw a movement ripple underneath.
‘How amazing,’ gasped Alice.
‘It’s a foot or a fist.’ Emily laughed. ‘He’s going to be a man of action like his father.’
Alice’s hands went protectively back to her own stomach.
‘It’s exciting, isn’t it?’ said Emily.
‘Yes,’ Alice said in surprise, ‘it is.’
For the first time she felt a stirring of anticipation. She really was going to be a mother! The idea filled her waking moments and lessened the ache of emptiness when she thought of John. Alice determined she would try harder to be kind to George and confided in him that she could feel the baby. He looked ridiculously pleased and began to whistle again around the house.
A few days later, the air grew oppressive as a thunderstorm threatened. Alice cried off a trip to the Assembly Rooms. Her head ached and her stomach felt oddly tight.
‘I don’t feel well,’ Alice told George.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked in alarm.
‘Just the atmosphere,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll feel better once there’s been a good downpour.’
‘Shall I get the doctor?’
‘There’s no need.’ She winced as her stomach cramped in pain.
Upstairs in their attic bedroom, Alice lay listening to the storm break beyond the shuttered window. As it darkened, she got up and threw open the shutters to allow air into the stuffy room. She leant over the window sill and tipped her face to the refreshing rain, as if it could wash away the anxiety that nagged her mind. Something was wrong. She had felt no movement in her womb since the day after she had spoken to Emily about it and told George. George found her shivering by the window and chased her back to bed.
‘What foolishness is this? Your hair is soaking,’ he chided.
Alice curled up and hugged her knees, glad of her husband’s reassuring presence beside her. She drifted into a fitful sleep.
In the middle of the night Alice woke to a strange sensation. She had wet the bed. George, roused from sleep, lit a lamp.
‘My God, it’s blood!’ he cried.
The sheets were damp with it, as was Alice’s nightgown. She froze in horror.
‘What’s happening?’ she gasped.
‘I’ll get the doctor,’ said George, his look terrified. He scrambled into his clothes.
Emily and Sandy, woken by the clatter of George on the stairs, came along to help. Emily shooed Sandy out. She held Alice’s hand as she lay petrified in the bed.
‘Am I losing the baby?’ she whispered.
For once Emily was speechless and unable to offer reassurance.
If Alice had not been so distressed she would have been mortified with embarrassment as George returned with a doctor. She could hear servants having hushed conversations beyond the door.
Shortly afterwards, Alice felt something pass between her thighs – more than just the cramps – and then the mess was being bundled into a sheet and the sweeper called to remove it from sight. For the rest of the night she lay aching, stunned at the speed of the miscarriage. George did not know how to comfort her.
‘I’ll leave you to sleep, my dearest,’ he mumbled and went below. She heard sombre male voices talking quietly – perhaps Sandy or the doctor staying up with him to commiserate over a stiff brandy.
The next day, George said not a word about it. No one came to visit. Why should they? No one but the household knew and it was a subject never to be raised in polite society. George insisted she stay in bed to rest for a week. Alice wondered if he found it easier to have her out of the way or whether he was protecting her from awkward conversations around the dinner table.
Emily came to sit with her but Alice could tell she found it difficult.
‘It happens to such a lot of women, even this far on,’ Emily said, ‘but you’ll go on to have another one. The main thing is that you have been spared.’
Alice put on a brave face; Emily was trying to be kind. Alice guessed that the miscarriage might have increased her friend’s anxiety about her own baby’s imminent birth. It was a hazardous ordeal for both mother and baby. She put out her hand and squeezed Emily’s.
‘Thank you, but you don’t have to stay with me. Go and rest yourself,’ said Alice.
What she couldn’t say to her friend was how upsetting was the sight of her distended belly. It represented everything that had been so abruptly torn away from her. Only now, as she lay weak and tearful, did Alice realise how much she had wanted her baby. She had been so unwell at the beginning of her pregnancy and anxious about whether she would make a fit mother that she had not allowed herself to enjoy her pregnant state. Then had come the shock of seeing John again and the misery of his going.
Had she brought on the miscarriage with her impulsive behaviour? Perhaps if she hadn’t ridden out to meet John that morning she would still be with child. George had cautioned against any riding. Or what if she had caused it by allowing the rain to soak her hair the night of the storm? She had overheard George saying to the doctor that she had got chilled by opening the window. Did he blame her too?
Alice tortured herself with guilty thoughts until she could no longer bear to lie confined in the bedchamber. Ignoring George’s protests, she took to going for long walks around the hillside paths and up Jakko Hill to stare out at the far mountains and wonder where John was.
In the middle of August, Emily gave birth to a lusty baby boy with fair downy hair and a loud querulous yell. His cries filled the small wooden house both day and night. An ayah was employed to look after him when Emily wasn’t feeding him. He was christened Alexander Robert, after Sandy and also Emily’s father, and the Aytons grew besotted with their new son.
‘He’s got Sandy’s colouring,’ pronounced Emily, ‘and my eyes. And my father’s long nose. Just look at his strong legs. He’ll be an excellent horseman just like his father.’
When he wasn’t being paraded around the drawing rooms of Simla, baby Alexander lay in a cradle on the veranda being rocked to and fro by his ayah.
Alice tried her best to show interest and joy in the new arrival but the very sight of his squalling red face left her winded. His presence reminded her how hollowed out her own insides felt. She tried not to flinch when Emily was handed the baby for suckling. The house smelt of baby, of milk and posseting. The washing that hung drying in the servants’ compound was joined by swaddling clothes and tiny lacy robes, which tugged at Alice’s bereaved heart.
Emily never tried to make Alice hold Alexander, sensing that her friend found it difficult having the baby in the house. For th
at, Alice was grateful. But George was not so reticent. When the baby cried, he would seize him from his cot and stride about the veranda, joggling him till the wailing subsided. Alice found the sight of this even more upsetting than when Emily or Sandy took the baby in their arms. She despised herself for her resentment towards George for his delight in the Aytons’ son but could do nothing to stem it. It was only when disappearing with her sketch book or riding out along the ridge – she had taken to early-morning riding once more – that she found temporary relief from her sense of failure.
For a month, George slept in the tiny dressing room off the bedchamber and kept away from Alice at night-time. This pained her but she did not blame him. Perhaps he was frightened of making her pregnant again or was punishing her for the miscarriage. Yet she knew he wanted children as much as she did.
One night, after hours of lying sleepless, she got up and padded across the moonlit room, opening the door to the dressing room. George was sprawled on an army camp bed, his limbs flung out over the frame. She gazed at his face in repose; he looked younger than in the daytime when his face furrowed into worry lines whenever he looked at her.
She went over and gently shook him awake. He sat up startled.
‘What is it? Are you all right?’
She felt a pang at his ready concern. ‘Yes.’
‘Then what is it?’
Alice spoke before her resolve deserted her. ‘I want . . . Will you come and lie beside me, George?’
He hesitated. She saw his habitual frown return. When had her husband begun to frown so much?
‘I’m not sure that we should. Is it not too soon after . . . ?’
Alice felt a wave of sadness well up inside. There was a chasm opening up between them. She bowed her head, tears prickling her eyes.
‘I’m so lonely, George,’ she whispered. ‘I want you to love me again like you used to.’
He climbed off the camp bed and went to her, putting his arms gently about her shoulders. They hugged each other.
‘I’m sorry, my dear girl,’ he murmured. ‘I thought you no longer cared for me.’
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 21
