They stayed the night in a Dak bungalow in the Province of Gwalior.
Brucena found it difficult to sleep and lay awake praying that Ian would be safe and that she would soon be in his arms again.
As every moment passed, she felt that her love for him increased. He seemed now to fill her whole world and there was nothing else but him.
Even the beauty of India had ceased to move her and all she could think about was his voice, the safety of his arms and his lips on hers.
When they drove on the next day, she could not imagine how her cousin and Amelie could seem so unconcerned when she felt herself growing more tense and more worried every mile they moved further away from Gwalior with no sign of the man she loved.
‘I always thought love must be a happy state to be in,’ she thought to herself, ‘But this is an agony worse than any physical pain, because my heart can suffer far more than my body.’
They reached the boundary of Gwalior State and the gorges and hills were left behind. Now everything was flatter, except that there were more mango groves and soon they would come to the sugar cane that Cousin William had planted.
Just over the border there was a Dak bungalow more comfortable than most of those that they had spent a night at on their way to Gwalior. Here, to Brucena’s surprise, they were to stay longer.
William Sleeman explained that he had a number of officials to see and he also wished to inspect the boundary between the two Provinces.
Brucena was quite certain that this concerned the Thugs, but it did not make it any easier not to worry ceaselessly because Ian had been left behind and there was still no sign of him.
Amelie was quite content to rest for a few days, not rising until it was nearly luncheontime and then sitting on the verandah out of earshot of her husband, who was entertaining local dignitaries, but glad that he was near her.
Brucena rode with two Cavalrymen in attendance when Cousin William could not accompany her, then when it was cool she would walk restlessly up and down the road outside the Dak bungalow, looking always in the direction of Gwalior and wondering what was happening as the days passed and there was still no news of Ian.
Surely, she told herself angrily, Cousin William should have left at least two Sepoys with him.
Then she knew, without having to be told, that Ian was working in disguise.
She was aware that the invitation to shoot was just an excuse to stay behind. But even so she could not bear to think of him disguised as an Indian amongst the crowds in the old town of Gwalior.
What would happen if he was discovered?
She felt almost sick with worry and it was impossible to stop herself from thinking of him and praying for him every minute of the day and night.
She told herself that she must trust him to return to her safely, as obviously William Sleeman did.
But there were so many things that might go wrong. What did it matter, she asked herself, if the Thugs flourished and multiplied a thousand fold as long as Ian was safe?
Cousin William might have dedicated himself to the suppression of Thuggee, but she was concerned only with the safety of one man – the man she loved.
*
They had now stayed four days at the Dak bungalow and, since Cousin William and Amelie had given no signs of continuing their journey, Brucena, feeling that she would go insane if she became inactive, walked determinedly out onto the road.
“Where are you going, dearest?” asked Amelie, who was sitting in the shade of the verandah.
“For a walk,” Brucena replied,
“You must not go out of sight,” Amelie cautioned.
“I have to go somewhere,” Brucena replied. “Being cooped up here, thinking and worrying, is driving me crazy!”
“I am so sorry, dearest, but he will be all right, I promise you.”
“How can you know?” Brucena enquired. “How can you have any idea of what may be happening to him? If he does not come soon, I shall go and look for him.”
“Do you think you would recognise him?” Amelie asked quietly.
“I should recognise him anywhere. I should know instinctively that he was there.”
She felt the tears come into her eyes as she spoke and, because she was a little ashamed of them, she began to walk along the dusty road.
“Don’t go too far,” Amelie warned her again, “or I shall send a Sepoy after you.”
Because she was angry Brucena merely tossed her head and walked on.
She had not bothered to put on a hat, as no one would see her, but she carried her sunshade to protect her from the sun, which had lost much of its strength as it was growing late in the day.
The road, long and dusty, stretched away into the distance and she thought that perhaps Ian was at this moment in prison in Gwalior, perhaps being tortured to make him reveal the secrets he knew about the Thugs.
If he was, what could anyone do? And if they could not rescue him, then he would die, as so many men had died in the service of India.
‘It’s not worth it! It’s not worth it!’ Brucena cried in her heart.
But she knew that to men like Cousin William and Ian, India was worth every sacrifice it demanded of them, even if it meant giving their very lives for it.
‘I have no answer to that,’ Brucena told herself.
She realised that, deep in her thoughts, she had walked quite a little way from the Dak bungalow and now, because she did not wish to upset or worry Amelie, she must turn back.
She looked towards Gwalior and sent out a prayer for Ian’s safety.
‘Take care of him, God, and bring him back to me,’ she prayed. ‘I love him and without him there would be nothing left in my life except emptiness. Keep him safe, O God, keep him safe!’
The tears were back in her eyes with the intensity of her feelings.
Then, as she was turning back resolutely in the direction of the Dak bungalow, she saw, coming down the side of a small incline where there were a few scraggy trees, a man and a child driving a goat in front of them.
It was a large she goat with its udders full of milk and it was moving slowly and reluctantly, as if it had no wish to go any further.
Brucena looked at it perfunctorily before glancing at the man, who was wearing a dirty torn dhoti and then at the child.
Quite suddenly she stood very still.
The little boy was in rags, but there was no mistaking that small beautiful face or the huge long-lashed eyes.
For a moment she thought that she must be dreaming and that her imagination had distorted her vision.
Then she looked again at the man in the dirty dhoti and gave a little cry of joy that seemed to be carried on the evening air.
She started to run towards them.
Chapter Six
“You are – safe! You are – safe!”
That evening Brucena said over and over again the same words that she had cried out when she had run towards Ian and, regardless of his appearance, flung her arms round his neck.
He looked into her eyes and she never noticed the dirt on his darkened skin or the ragged condition of his clothes,
“I am safe,” he told her quietly. “I told you to trust me.”
All she knew was that he had come back to her and nothing else in the whole world mattered.
“I was – frightened – so very frightened! But you have – brought the little boy back with you. How did you – manage it?”
She looked down at her small friend as she spoke and he had the same smile on his lips that he had given her the first time they had met.
“His name is ‘Azim’,” Ian informed her, “and he is very tired. We have walked a long way and very quickly.”
“But the she-goat protected you,” Brucena suggested in a low voice.
“I can see you are very knowledgeable” he replied, “but I think we should go to a place of safety as soon as possible and – ”
Before he could say anything more, Brucena gave a little cry.
“You – mean they are – following you?”
“I hope not,” he answered “but I never believe in taking chances.”
“Cousin William and Amelie are at the Dak bungalow,” Brucena explained. “Let’s go there at once.”
They moved forward, a strange party, Brucena in her pretty light gown, Ian and the child looking like the poorest beggars and the goat driven relentlessly forward when all she wanted to do was lie down.
Azim was given into the care of Cousin William’s personal servant, Nasir, who had been with him for many years and, as Ian disappeared to wash and change, Brucena sat down beside Amelie to tell her how frightened she had been.
“It is indeed frightening, ma pauvre petite,” Amelie agreed, “but William gets upset if I worry about him too much and you will have to hide your feelings as I have learnt to do ever since we were married.”
“It’s agonising to feel that someone you love is in danger and you can do nothing about it,” Brucena said in a low voice.
“C’est l’amour,” Amelie smiled. “Love is wonderful, but it can be extremely painful as well.”
“That is what I have – found,” Brucena agreed.
She wondered how much agony the future held for her if she was always to be apprehensive every time Ian was away from her.
But when he came out onto the verandah wearing his uniform and looking conventionally English, it was impossible to think that she had seen him only a short time before looking like the lowest Caste Hindu.
And she recognised, when her eyes met his, that any suffering was worthwhile so long as he loved her.
After a dinner that Ian made amusing by telling them in the most light-hearted way of his and Azim’s adventures on their journey from Gwalior to the border, the servants cleared the table and left.
As Amelie also went from the room and her husband followed her, Brucena asked Ian in a low voice,
“Tell me what – really happened.”
Ian moved to sit beside her and took her hand in his.
“I am not being unkind, my precious,” he said, “when I tell you that I never talk about my exploits once they are over. It is not that I don’t trust you. It is just that, in this campaign in which your cousin and I are engaged, there are so many things that are best left unsaid.”
“But I want to know,” Brucena persisted. “How did you spirit Azim away? Surely the man who kidnapped him and tried to – kill me – attempted to prevent you from – taking him?”
Ian was silent for a moment and then he said,
“Let me set your mind at rest by telling you that he is not in a position to frighten you again ever!”
“You mean he is dead?”
“Yes.”
Ian said the monosyllable reluctantly and Brucena gave a little cry.
“You killed him! I am glad. At least he will no longer abduct little boys and murder their mothers.”
“You are sounding very bloodthirsty, my dear,” William Sleeman remarked.
He had come back into the room without Brucena being aware of it and she gave a little start as he spoke.
“I am sure Ian is telling you that which is best forgotten.”
Brucena thought that there was a note of reproof in her cousin’s voice and she said quickly,
“That is exactly what Ian was saying. But you can understand that I am very curious.”
“An emotion that should certainly be discouraged where we are concerned,” William Sleeman said. “I want to talk to Ian and I am going to give you exactly twenty minutes alone with him. Then I suggest, my dear, that you go to bed.”
“Oh, Cousin William! That is not fair,” Brucena objected. “Twenty minutes when I have waited four days – or is it four centuries – for him!”
“Twenty minutes,” William Sleeman said firmly and left them alone.
Brucena turned to Ian, a question on her lips.
He took her in his arms, drew her close and declared,
“Why waste time in talking when I want to kiss you more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life?”
Before she could reply, he kissed her until everything seemed to disappear but him.
She felt as if again he carried her into the sunshine and the light and they were both enveloped in a glory that is part of the Divine.
She no longer felt human, afraid or anxious, she only knew that with Ian’s arms round her she was immortal and so was he.
In her heart was a rapture that was so spiritual and so perfect that they themselves were part of the perfection of it.
Only when Ian raised his lips from hers did Brucena say, her voice seeming to come from a very long way away,
“I – love you! I love you – and I still cannot – believe that this has happened to me so – suddenly.”
“I found myself thinking the same thing the last few days,” Ian told her. “And yet, as Azim and I climbed cliffs, forded rivers and hid at night in mango groves, I felt all the time that you were beside me, guiding me and helping me and, however dangerous anything was, we passed through it because you were there.”
“Did you – really feel – like that?”
“It is impossible to explain what a difference you have made to me. Always before I have been very much alone and I believed that was how I wanted my life to be, self-sufficient, dependent on nothing and nobody but myself. Now everything has changed because I met one beautiful young woman who looked at me with angry eyes.”
“I was angry,” Brucena admitted, “but it did not last. I wanted you to – approve of me.”
“Now you know I not only approve but think you are the most wonderful person that ever existed and there need be no more misunderstandings between us.”
“How could there be?” Brucena asked. “Please – please – take care of yourself, Ian. If anything – happened to – you – ”
She gave a little shudder.
“You have to learn to trust me,” he murmured.
“You know I – want to do – that, but it is very – difficult when I am so – afraid for you.”
He kissed her and she was able to say nothing more.
Then reluctantly he took his arms from her and said,
“My Commanding Officer is waiting for me.”
“It is unfair of William to take you away.”
“I think he has something important to tell me and I have many things to tell him,” Ian replied. “You will have to learn to be a soldier’s wife, my darling.”
He pulled her back into his arms and a little later, thinking over what he had said, Brucena felt that Ian had spoken seriously and with intent.
As a soldier’s wife she had to learn that his duty came first.
*
Lying in the small narrow karpoy, or native bed, in a room that was little more than a square wooden box, Brucena told herself that, although she might protest, she was only too willing to do anything that was required so long as she could be married to Ian.
She had often thought of the man she might marry, but always he had been anonymous, a blank face even in her imagination.
Now Ian filled her world.
She knew that her dreams had come true and all her ideals had materialised in one man.
‘I must have known instinctively that he was somewhere in the world waiting for me,’ she told herself, ‘and that was why I could never contemplate even for a moment, whatever Amelie might have said, marrying Lord Rawthorne or anyone like him. I suppose in my heart I have never wanted position or power or wealth and I have always known that love was the only thing in the world worth having.’
She thought that William would have claimed that it was part of her romantic Cornish blood and the Fairy stories of Cornish heroes that her mother had told her when she was a little girl.
Deep in her subconscious they had remained, so that the men she met and the man she thought she might meet sometime in her life were measured against the Knights, the Saints and the warring Kings who were
an integral part of Cornish history.
‘I suppose one day,’ she thought, ‘Cousin William will be considered a hero for what he has done for the suppression of Thuggee, but perhaps Ian will play another courageous part in the development of India.’
She was wondering what that could be when she fell asleep and, when she next opened her eyes, it was morning.
She sprang out of bed quickly because she knew that the quicker she dressed the sooner she would see Ian and she wanted that more than anything else.
Now that he had joined them they set off to Saugor as soon as it was possible.
When they reached the white bungalow surrounded with its flowers, to be greeted by the smiles and salaams of the servants, Brucena felt that it really was like coming home.
Nasir, Cousin William’s servant, had already suggested that the cook at the bungalow would, he was sure, be happy to adopt Azim,
Apparently he was very devoted to his wife, who had given him two sons and three daughters, all of whom were now old enough to leave home.
“She is still a young woman,” Nasir had said, “but she can have no more children. It is a great sadness”
“I will certainly talk to them about it,” William Sleeman promised. “I like them both and think that Azim would be very happy with them.”
Brucena felt almost wistfully that he was such a dear little boy that she would like to adopt him herself. But she knew that such an idea would present innumerable difficulties and she was wise enough to know that he would be happiest with people of his own Caste.
He had enjoyed the journey back to Saugor because not only did he not have to talk, although Brucena had discovered that Ian had carried him a great part of the way from Gwalior, but he was allowed to sit on the box of their carriage, where he could watch the coachman drive.
This not only delighted the child but also left them with more room in the carriage for Amelie.
Brucena also helped solve this problem by pointing out that she would like above all else to ride as Ian intended to do.
A horse was found for her and they rode either beside the carriage to keep out the dust or a little ahead of it, while the detachment of Cavalry rode behind them.
Terror in the Sun Page 11
