101. A Call of Love (3 page)

The Purser put his Register down on the table so that Lord Kenington could examine it.

“There’s an empty cabin next to yours, my Lord,” he said, “but I was, in fact, keeping it for a passenger who is coming aboard at Gibraltar.”

“Then maybe this passenger could be put elsewhere or in the cabin now occupied by Miss Warde.” He knew that if he had been anyone else, the Purser would have insisted that the cabin next to his was too good for a young girl and it should therefore be reserved for the distinguished personage embarking at Gibraltar.

Equally he was well aware that there was no one else on board who could equal his own prominence.

So he was not surprised that the Purser was not prepared to argue the matter with him on the subject

“Very well, my Lord. I’ll now tell the Stewardess to move Miss Warde’s belongings into the cabin next to yours. If you’re sure that Miss Warde can pay the extra price that we charge for our best cabins.”

“Thank you and see that it is done immediately. I will tell Miss Warde how accommodating you have been and I am sure that she will be very grateful.”

He walked away, not aware that the Purser had turned to his assistant to say,

“Here’s a pretty mess to say the least. If Watkins knows I’m interfering with what he thinks is his fun, he’ll kick up a right row at Headquarters and I’ll be the one for the high jump!”

The Assistant Purser looked round to make sure he was not overheard before he replied,

“Money or no money, Watkins is an unpleasant bit of work, as well you know.”

Lord Kenington had now gone back to where Aisha was waiting for him.

When he reached her, she jumped up and asked,

“Have you been able to move me, my Lord, or is the ship too full?”

“I have been able to move you,” he replied.

She gave a cry of relief,

“Oh, how kind of you, but do you think he will find out where I have gone? The Purser may tell him.”

“You are being moved into the cabin next to mine and I think you can trust me to deal with any man who behaves in such an offensive manner. As a matter of fact I understand he is a big shareholder in the P & O Company.”

Aisha gave a cry of horror.

“In which case, he probably feels he owns the ship and may refuse to allow me to be moved.”

“I think however rich he may be,” Lord Kenington said, “he will not wish to quarrel with me.”

“No, of course I had forgotten for a moment how important you are. Your name is in all the newspapers day after day and I have often wondered what you were like.”

Lord Kenington smiled.

“What am I like?”

“The kindest and most helpful man that I have ever known. You might easily have thought I was very forward to ask for your help. But I knew instinctively you were the only person who could assist me. Papa always says, ‘never be afraid of doing what is right’.”

“I see that your father gives you excellent advice.”

“I only hope he is taking care of himself,” Aisha replied. “As perhaps you know, he goes on very difficult and dangerous missions, so naturally I worry about him.”

Lord Kenington remembered now where he had heard about Major Warde.

He was one of the people who had been active in starting what was known as
The Great Game
. It was one of the extraordinary organisations that had been created recently.

He knew, as only a very few others knew, that the authorities in India were greatly worried by the infiltration of the Russians into Asia.

The Cossacks, riding fast horses and taking their victims by surprise, had advanced considerably in the last two or three years and they were now uncomfortably near to the frontiers of India. It had all begun in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Russian troops had started to find their way Southwards through the Caucasus, then inhabited by fierce Muslim tribesmen, towards Northern Persia.

At the start, like Russian’s great march Eastwards towards Siberia two centuries earlier, this did not seem to pose any particular threat to British interests.

No one took Russia too seriously in those days and their nearest frontier posts were too far distant to threaten any danger to the British East India Company’s territory.

Then, as Lord Kenington knew, in the early 1800s intelligence reached London that was to cause considerable alarm, both to the British Government and to the East India Company’s Directors.

Many politicians, especially the authorities in India, were now certain that the Russians intended to try to wrest India from Britain.

And that was the reason why Lord Kenington was going to India.

“I want to know what you think they are planning to do,” the Prime Minister had said to him. “And whether, if a Russian force did reach India after overcoming all the obstacles on the way, we would be strong enough to drive them back.”

The Prime Minister was talking to Lord Kenington alone, as he was well aware that there were members of the Cabinet who thought that he was being hysterical and that it would be impossible for Russia to withstand the British Army if they were forced into a man to man fight.

But Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, was undoubtedly troubled.

When he sent Lord Kenington to India he had said,

“I want to find out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I know that is what you will bring me back, however incredible it may seem to some of the people here who never wish to face up to these matters of urgency until it is too late.”

There had been a scathing note in his voice as he spoke the last words and Lord Kenington was well aware that he was having trouble with his Cabinet. There were those who did not wish to spend too much money or send too many good men out to India.

He promised the Prime Minister that he would find out the truth, but he could not help wondering whether it was possible here and now to anticipate what might happen in the next ten or twenty years.

He had therefore brought with him a great number of books and he hoped they would tell him more about India than he knew at the moment.

And he had certainly not expected his voyage to be interrupted by an extremely pretty and frightened young woman.

He could not tell her that she must fight her own battles and that he could not be involved in them.

He felt that her fear was well-founded, just as he knew the type of man Arthur Watkins was – a girl as pretty as Aisha and travelling alone was an irresistible attraction to a man like him.

‘I suppose I will have to take care of her,’ he said to himself.

As they sat down side by side, he saw an expression of gratitude in her eyes and yet he knew that he had had no choice in the matter.

“Tell me exactly what you have done, please tell me, my Lord?” Aisha asked with a sense of urgency.

“I have told the Purser to move your things into the cabin next to mine. If that man comes hammering on your door, I will hear him and I will tell him, which is difficult for the Purser to do, to behave himself.”

“Have you really done that?” Aisha asked wide-eyed. “How very kind it is of you! I knew when I saw you that you would not fail me and I am sure that he will be too frightened to make a noise outside your cabin.”

“There is no need for you to worry any more about it and I think it would be wise if you had your meals either at the Captain’s table or with me.”

“Of course I would much rather be with you, my Lord. As it happens, Mr. Watkins is sitting at the Captain’s table and I am sure he would move into the seat next to me.”

She gave a little shudder before she added,

“Last night when he had sat down opposite me, he looked at me in the most horrible manner. I thought, when I hurried away immediately after dinner that I would be free of him. But he came and hammered on my door and I was very very frightened.”

“I am sure you were, Aisha. “But I promise you that will not happen tonight. Now I need some exercise. Are you going to stay here or will you walk round the deck with me?”

“If you are quite certain I will not be any trouble, I would love to walk with you. I am too nervous after what happened to walk alone.”

“You must of course exercise your legs, as I intend to exercise mine. Therefore let’s walk together.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” Aisha cried. “I promise not to talk if you prefer to be silent. Papa has always said I am a very good listener.”

“Then you will listen to me when we have our meals together, but now let’s concentrate on exercising our legs while the deck is comparatively clear and the waves are not splashing over to make it slippery.”

“Do you think that is what will happen when we go through the Bay of Biscay?” Aisha asked.

“I am afraid so, but it’s calm in the Mediterranean.”

“I am so looking forward to seeing it all. Papa told me in his letters how beautiful the Mediterranean looked on his way to India. Now I am going to see it for myself, just as I will see India instead of only reading about it.”

“Is that what you have been doing Aisha?”

“Of course. It’s no use going to a place unless you learn first everything you possibly can about it. Although Papa has told me quite a lot, I know there is an enormous amount for me to learn. I have brought two books with me which I hope will tell me a great deal about subjects I am ignorant of at the moment.”

“I have quite a number of books with me which I am sure would interest you,” Lord Kenington suggested.

Aisha gave a little cry of pleasure.

“If you lend them to me, I promise to be very very careful with them. It’s difficult, living in the country, to find all the books one wants to read and I was hoping that the Dean, who was coming to India, would have a small library with him, as it would be a new life that he has never lived before.”

Lord Kenington laughed.

“Most people,” he said, “are content with what they see and hear and don’t investigate any further. But I feel that you are doing the right thing, which is learning about India from the many good books written on the subject.”

“Some of which you have with you,” Aisha added, “and thank you, thank you for saying I may read them.”

It passed through Lord Kenington’s mind that the average girl did not read anything at all serious. Those he had talked to, who had been pressed on him by ambitious mothers, had usually read nothing, except maybe the latest novel or more likely the social pages of the newspapers.

He thought that Aisha was certainly different and, if her father was the man he was thinking about, he too was very different.

He did not wish to ask her any questions at this stage, but he was fairly sure that Major Warde was one of the people he had hoped to meet when he reached India.

He was wise enough not to follow to the letter the Prime Minister’s instructions and he intended to consult the Viceroy and members of his staff about the position and also to talk to the men who had conceived and put into action
The Great Game
.

It was, he had learnt, run by a number of Army Officers and some Indians who had no wish to be trampled on by the Russians.

‘I will know much more when I reach India,’ Lord Kenington said to himself.

At the same time he could not help thinking that by befriending Aisha Warde he would gain the gratitude and confidence of her father and Major Warde, unless he was mistaken, would be an extremely important contact.

*

He and Aisha spent the rest of the afternoon reading comfortably in the sunshine.

Then they went to change for dinner.

Aisha was ready well before the time that Lord Kenington said they would go to the Saloon together.

She left her cabin to take back to the library the book she had borrowed when she came aboard.

When she looked at it more closely, she had found it was badly written. The only merit it had was that the illustrations in it were fairly good.

Now she had the choice of the books belonging to Lord Kenington she had no further use for this book and she thought she would put it back on the shelf from where she had taken it.

She walked into the library and, as there was no one there, she went straight to the shelf and put back the book.

Then, as she turned round, she saw with a jerk of horror that Arthur Watkins was standing in the doorway, watching her.

He was a very unprepossessing man of over forty. His hair was already growing thin and there were lines on his face that were clear signs of debauchery.

Equally he was very sure of himself because he was so rich and he had in fact made a fortune where other men had failed dismally.

He found pretty young girls irresistible and he spent a great deal of time and money on them.

When he saw Aisha coming aboard, he had thought that she was quite the loveliest girl he had seen for a long time and he had therefore hoped to enjoy the voyage far more than he had expected.

And so he was determined not to be frustrated.

It was sheer willpower that had raised him from what was almost the gutter to the position he was now in and he had, as flatterers told him, reached when he was not yet forty, a position most men would have given their eyes to hold.

‘I am clever, and no man, and certainly no woman, can get the better of me,’ he had often said to himself.

He was supremely confident that long before they reached Calcutta he would have taken possession of the very pretty and attractive young woman who was climbing the gangway just ahead of him.

That she was alone, yet travelling First Class, was a pleasant surprise and, as Arthur Watkins told himself, that would make things very much easier than they might have been otherwise.

He had therefore, at the first opportunity after the ship had moved out of Port, spoken to Aisha, who had answered him politely, as she had obviously been brought up not to be rude to anyone.

He had asked her whether she was going to India and whether she had visited the country before. Then she had slipped away from him to her own cabin before he realised what she was doing.

When he had seen her at dinner, he had thought again that she was exceptionally attractive.