The hated curling irons too were abandoned almost as soon as the ship had been out of view of the shore, and her hair had improved dramatically ever since, shining with a new life and colour now it was allowed to be as it was meant to be.
She reached up to smooth the heavy chignon held in a wide tortoiseshell comb and tucked a few loose strands under her hat. It was difficult to be neat in such weather, but she consoled herself with the thought that perhaps Charles wouldn’t notice … Men usually didn’t notice such things, but then, he was always so immaculate himself and he couldn’t abide untidiness in others.
Dear, dear Charles … Her face took on a faraway look as she cupped her face in her hands, her elbows on the rail. She hadn’t seen him for over a year, not since their hasty marriage on the day he’d left to return to India.
They had planned to have their honeymoon on board the ship, but when Sara’s aunt became gravely ill on the day of her marriage, Sara had no choice but to stay to nurse her till she died. But, even after her aunt being long buried, Charles wrote asking his bride to wait a little longer before joining him. His letters told of typhoons and outbreaks of hostilities amongst the natives, or cholera amongst his staff, then, finally, the need to wait till the end of the monsoon.
She’d decided she wouldn’t wait a moment longer, regardless of disease or bad weather, when at last, when more than a year had passed, Charles’s letter arrived and freed her from the home where she’d begun to feel she would never escape.
“You must take a passage on the Charlotte, leaving Liverpool on 22nd October. My friends Lady Palmer and her daughter Cynthia will accompany you. Unfortunately, Lord Palmer must stay in England for a few months longer, which means I am in charge here … a very good sign for my career. They’ve been in Paris shopping for Cynthia’s trousseau, after having become engaged to a young man who will be in time, a Baronet.”
He was clearly impressed with Miss Palmer, and he proved it with the following lines.
“I cannot stress enough the importance of you becoming friends with them both, my future may depend on it, and the long voyage will give you that opportunity …”
Sara’s thoughts drifted back to the world she’d left behind. The solid two-storey, red brick house near Hampstead Heath, set securely amongst pleasant oaks and a garden full of snowdrops and bluebells: a safe world of middle-class respectability, where no hint of worldly passions would ever be likely to enter.
After visiting on a regular basis for some weeks, Charles had come to the house to say goodbye before returning to India, and everyone assumed he’d come to ask for her hand. When he suggested a moment alone with her in the conservatory, her aunt could barely contain her excitement and rushed forward, taking both his hands in hers in a way to show he was already a member of the family. “Of course, my dear boy,” She smirked and winked till Sara thought she would die of shame. Though even she fully expected he’d ask her to marry him then.
But it came to nothing. He took her hand and held it for a moment, then said something about how he’d miss their amusing chats, and how he’d hoped she’d find time to write to him in India.
A terrible attack of panic overtook her. He was going to leave without asking her to marry him!
She thought of India, and how much she longed to go there, so she defied convention and took matters in her own hands. She swallowed her pride and prepared to lie.
She blurted out, “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to.”
He was clearly taken aback.
“I may be married soon, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to write to a single man.”
His face showed no emotion, though he flexed his hands behind his back as he paced amongst the potted begonias.
“Do I know the fellow?”
“No, he’s someone I’ve known for a long time.” She stared at her feet so he wouldn’t see her eyes.
“I promised him my answer within the week.”
“Does this mean you’ll accept him?”
“The family is very fond of him, and so am I really …” but here she hesitated, then sighed, hoping to plant a little seed of doubt in his mind.
“But he’s a highly respectable man with a bright future … so …”
She had almost begun to believe in her fictitious fiancé herself.
Charles left the house deep in thought, and Sara was convinced she’d never see him again.
“Well?” Her aunt met her at the door, her uncle standing behind with a foolish smile on his lips.
She tried to speak but no sounds came out. Her humiliation was too great. She rushed to her bedroom, her face averted, her aunt’s bitter words following her up the stairs.
“Whatever did you do wrong this time?”
Later, when she emerged, her face red and swollen with shame, her relations scarcely bothered to hide the fact they thought she was nothing more than a liability.
She thought back to that evening’s long, silent, unendurable meal, the air thick with disapproval. Her uncle’s furious tight-lipped sawing of the roast, his resentful way of handing her the plate without looking at her, and how he gave her less meat than usual.
Now there was no escaping the endless censure and, with the departure of Charles, there was nothing and no one to look forward to, just endless days of boredom or visiting her aunt’s stuffy friends and walking the pekes. She’d developed a hatred of the poor things.
The next morning, in an attempt to recapture her lost pride, she put forward the idea of going to India by herself.
“Hundreds of girls do it.” She raised her chin and glared, even though she knew she might have gone too far. “Why should I have to wait for a husband to take me …?”
Her uncle was moved enough by her outburst to put down his newspaper in a way calculated to increase her fear of him. “So, you would join a shipload of common shopgirls, to trawl amongst the rabble of India for a husband? Simply because you can’t find one here … or won’t,” he added, referring to the time when she had refused what was seen as a perfectly good offer from a country parson with a generous living because she couldn’t bear the way he blew his nose then examined the contents of his handkerchief.
For almost a week she was hardly spoken to; the outrage was too deep.
It was while she sat, frozen with humiliation, staring down at her untouched breakfast, that the maid had entered and announced Mr Charles Fitzroy was waiting in the library.
“Perhaps he forgot his hat?” her uncle remarked cattily as she flew out of the room. In the hallway she took a moment to tidy her hair and compose her face into what she thought was an expression of pleasant unconcern before she opened the door to face him once more. Even so, her voice came out husky and cracked. “Mr Fitzroy? I didn’t expect to see you again.”
He was standing by the window staring out at the garden, still covered in a thin layer of morning frost, then, with what seemed an enormous effort of will, he turned to face her.
“I’ve been thinking …” He took a deep breath and swallowed hard, unable to look at her while rolling his hat around in his hands. “Look, I can’t accept you’ll marry this other fellow. I had it in mind that you might marry me.”
She held onto the back of a chair for support. “You didn’t mention this before,” she answered at last, her voice shaking.
“It didn’t seem fair to ask you to give up your life here, but it seems if I wait any longer you are lost to me. Though if you love this other fellow …”
“No, I don’t love him,” she managed to blurt out, “I never have. I was going to refuse him.”
He took a step closer. “Are you going to refuse me?”
She had just enough self-control to pause for a respectable time before answering, then to allow him to take her in his arms and clumsily brush their lips together.
Then the relief, the blessed relief, to be able to announce she’d received a proposal of marriage from Charles Fitzroy, and that she’d accepted him.
It was deci
ded to arrange a special licence so they could be married almost at once, then sail for India together on the same day of the marriage, therefore saving the cost of a honeymoon.
Later, when the first throes of excitement had died down, Sara examined her reasons for accepting him. She was fairly sure she loved him, of course, although it had taken her some time to realise it. He’d been lured to the house by her ever-hopeful aunt, as had many other young men before him, and placed as an offering at her feet. Knowing she was expected to encourage him, she’d felt a stubborn resentment, telling herself he was no different from all the others.
Then, while they’d been playing tennis in the garden and he’d paused to take a breath, he was, without warning, suddenly illuminated. He stood with his shoulders back, his chest heaving from the pace of play, one hand on his hip and the other holding his racquet nobly by his side in the attitude of a Greek god. In the soft afternoon light, with the sun shining on his bright blond hair, he appeared almost unbearably heroic.
For a few moments it was as though the world had stopped spinning, and she remembered the flash of realisation.
I love him! I’m in love!
With that insight everything changed, and she couldn’t be easy around him any more. Just brushing her hand by accident on his caused such an intense mingling of pleasure and fear, she felt sure he must know. Even her laughter became forced and unnatural, and she couldn’t look into his eyes without blushing and turning away.
He was different to the other men in her narrow circle.
He was on leave from India for only a few weeks and brought with him into the stuffy air of parsons and bank clerks a lingering atmosphere of adventure and glamour. He told of cobras found asleep in the billiard room at the club, of tiger shoots and playing polo in the shadow of faded pink palaces. But, most of all, he intrigued her with his tales of the Indian people, their strange customs and powerful beliefs, transporting her back to her childhood and the world she so longed to recapture.
As a child she’d gone to bed each night hungrily devouring library books written by yet another female traveller, either fictitious or factual, braving it alone in foreign climes. The women she admired rode disguised in flowing robes on testy camels over vast deserts, or roamed the South Pacific in search of their tropical destiny.
She’d wanted to be one of those women, but how she would go about it was uncertain until Charles had appeared.
For Charles, it was a revelation to watch her shining eyes and rapt expression every time he spoke. It occurred to him it would be very pleasant to come home every night to such an infatuated creature. Though he couldn’t know it, it was not so much his masculine charm that caused her face to light up whenever he spoke of India. It was India itself and the prospect of adventure, or perhaps discovering something of her past, that held her spellbound.
He almost visibly shuddered when he thought about some of the girls he’d met in India. Like the other men in his crowd, he cast a calculating eye over the cargo of English girls, the so-called “fishing fleet”, who arrived every October and stayed till the beginning of the hot season in the hope they’d find suitable husbands. He found the idea of choosing from amongst them impossible, as even the plainest and poorest of them showed an unbecoming haughtiness. For the first time in their lives, these girls found themselves in demand, and were going to make the most of it, despite the fact most of them, in his eyes, were only just passable.
After a few years of rejecting all those put before him, he decided to return to England on his next leave and find a wife for himself.
Sara Archer was not exactly beautiful, though certainly far from plain; she was what was called attractive, despite being a little overweight. He thought she was too tall for absolute beauty, as he usually liked petite women. Her teeth were very good though, and her hair lovely, despite being of a colour he was not particularly fond of, as he much preferred blondes.
He thought her eyes were rather lovely, even though framed by thick, almost black eyebrows, but she was undeniably intelligent and highly accomplished. Several nights spent listening to her play his favourite pieces on the piano was proof of her talent, that and the fact she had lived in and survived India, when so many children hadn’t, made her a far superior candidate for marriage than any other woman he’d met in England.
Despite her shortcomings, he saw her as a potential wife because he was sure she adored him, even though she did at times have an annoying habit of contradicting him on matters he felt she should know nothing about.
Being an orphan only added to her charms. There was no doting parent to make demands on her time and take her away from her wifely duties and, despite the fact her parentage was a little cloudy, he’d been assured her father had been educated at Eton, was English through and through, and had left his daughter a small annuity for her personal use only, the comfortable sum of five thousand pounds, which would be his on the day of their marriage.
Though when faced with the real prospect of marriage, there was the sudden realisation he might not be able to please himself any more. He’d momentarily forgotten about the pleasures of his club, and the freedom bachelor life brought. It was pleasant to be always available to balance the table at dinner parties, and to be surrounded by admiring women hanging on his every word.
Then there was the thrill of big game hunting, the drinking till all hours with his male friends, whose company, he had to admit, he preferred more than any woman he’d ever met. And, of course, there were all the other delights India had to offer. A thrill ran up his back at the memory of past pleasures. There were indeed compensations for a life spent as a single man, and a wife would be sure to get in the way of all that.
He’d decided after all to return to India and resume the pleasant life he’d always lived. It was only when Sara had told him about her potential engagement to another man that he had felt a sudden pang of regret. Somehow, he’d always imagined her as his own to take or leave as the whim seized him, and now there was someone else in the picture he felt as though something had been stolen from him. The thought of the other man being in the way meant nothing to him. He felt sure she’d choose him over anyone else, regardless of the consequences.
When she agreed to marry him, though, it came as a shock. But, like a man, he accepted it and there was no turning back, despite at first an almost overwhelming urge to run in the other direction.
In the end, though, it was his desire for a son and heir that finally convinced him he’d made the right choice. And he liked her, really liked her. She’d be a splendid companion for him. Now, all she had to do was fulfil the role that was expected of her, and there was no reason why their marriage should not be a success.
For Sara, alone in her room at the end of the momentous day where she had at last fulfilled the destiny expected of her, she stood before the mirror and closely examined her reflection, running her fingers over her face as though to smooth away the lingering signs of doubt. The blinding realisation had come to her as quite a shock. She’d agreed to marry a man she didn’t really know and would go to the other side of the world to live with him.
Only a few months before, the question might not have arisen, but now she asked herself … What would the ladies from our Female Emancipation group say?
It was while she had been running errands for her aunt that Sara had been stopped by a young woman bearing a placard saying, “Women of the World Unite!”
She was almost mannish in her dress and clearly not wearing stays.
“Come on in,” the girl said, laughing. “We don’t bite, and you look like it might do you some good.”
The church hall was almost empty; even so, the speaker talked with a truth and passion difficult to resist. She spoke of the unfairness of the marriage laws, and why women should have the vote; the terrible injustices inflicted on their sex, and of the foolish and restrictive nature of the female dress. For Sara, it was the beginning of an understanding she had always been dimly aware of, b
ut, once enlightened, had changed her thinking from that day forth.
Now she saw tyranny everywhere, especially in her own home. It appalled her to see how her aunt had to pacify her husband in order to keep him content. Where once she’d grudgingly accepted the petty rituals of warming her uncle’s slippers before the fire, or listening silently while he expressed his opinions, she now eyed him with a deep and bitter resentment, longing to say what she really thought, but having to bite her tongue for the sake of peace.
The young woman in the plain blouse and skirt, known to her later as Mary, had shouted out her warnings with a raised fist, and Sara was very aware of the truth of her words.
Though she was sure she was in love with Charles, deeply in love even, and she was equally sure she was marrying a man who loved her. Also, it was three days before her twenty-third birthday, considered far beyond the turning point of being either an eligible young lady or a hopelessly lost old maid.
But it wasn’t just the fear of spinsterhood driving her to accept him.
There had been a terrible row, a row that had caused such a storm she felt it was impossible for her to stay in her aunt’s home a moment longer.
She had been secretly meeting with the Ladies Emancipation group under the pretence of attending bible studies with other so-called respectable girls when she’d been discovered.
Someone had mentioned Sara had been missing from the bible meetings for some time. Then a pamphlet on women’s rights had been found in her room and placed before her outraged uncle. For a moment she considered denying it was hers, then she admitted it and, what was more, admitted it proudly, and announced she would continue to go to the meetings no matter what.
For her uncle it was the final straw and he washed his hands of her, only making it clear he wanted her out of his sight as soon as possible.
Now, though, none of that mattered.
She could go back to India at last, India! Mother India! Her lost home that lately had haunted every thought and called her with an urgent and relentless cry, even as she slept.
The Jasmine Wife Page 2
