By Eastern windows (12 page)

Swimwear was a thing unheard of for English ladies, so Jane swam as she had so often done since childhood in the Jarvis's secluded cove in Antigua, naked, with her chestnut hair floating loose to her waist. To Lachlan she was a glorious mate. He dived beneath her, swimming under her body then surfacing suddenly before her, kissing her wet lips in an ecstasy of passion. ‘I love everything about you,’ he said. ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she laughed, because he had said those same words to her all those months ago on the night James had seen them kissing in the garden at Government House. ‘But my brother-in-law will never allow it,’ she repeated, ‘because he thinks you’re a
rogue!’

And then she fled from him, back under the water, her figure moving as smoothly as if she had been born under there, while his eyes gazed into the blue depths following her rapid flight.

Finally, with sighs of regret, they left the peace and freedom of Goa and returned to the bustle and noise of Bombay, just in time for the start of the Christmas social season.

*

The early months of their marriage passed like a romantic dream. But all dreamers eventually wake up.

Married only ten months, on a morning after another lavish evening of entertaining a score of guests, Lachlan faced the fact that he was nearing bankruptcy.

He had seen it coming, but had not known what to do about it. He sat at his desk and looked in despair at the list of expenses that far exceeded his income, all due to the large and costly circle of society in which they now moved in Bombay, where every family of any consequence must live in the same style and opulence as their neighbours did.

‘A poor way to live,’ he muttered.

The weekly liquor bill alone was astronomical in his eyes, although no more than normal in the world of British Bombay. In the past seven days alone his guests had easily seen off twelve dozen crates of Madeira, eight dozen crates of claret, six dozen brandy, ten dozen of gin, and fifty-three bottles of port. Not to mention the tons of food required each week.

Something about it all shamed him. This gluttony, this waste, this over-indulgence in every luxury while most of India was starving, and most of the people on Mull were scraping together every penny just to survive. He had made a mistake, a big mistake, trying to live the life of a rich British officer and compete with the nabobs of the East India Company.

The cost of love? The cost of making Jane as happy as he possibly could? He added it up ... and saw that he was over nine hundred pounds in debt. Just the word ‘
debt
’ sent a chill through his heart. And that debt did not take into account the money he had already drawn to pay the lease on his mother's farm in Scotland which had been due for renewal, as well as the quarterly rent. But then he had
always
paid the rent on his mother's farm, from the age of fifteen, from the first month he had landed in America, and ever since.

He sat for hours at his desk trying to find a solution. Naively, he had hoped that as the years passed, no more than another five, he would have saved enough money to enable himself and Jane to return to Britain and establish a home in Scotland. It was a lovely vision of a future life that often occupied them in idle and happy planning: a home in the western isles, a large grey-stone house in which, Jane had already decided, every room would display a rich and beautiful Indian carpet.

Save! How could he save when every month he was spending almost three hundred rupees more than he earned?

‘A hard way to get rich,’ he muttered.

*

By the evening his worries were blocking off all other thoughts, but he kept them from Jane who was still suffering spates of sadness due to Maria’s departure from India a few days earlier.

Maria had simply gone on a holiday to England in order to visit two other sisters there, but she would be away for almost a year, and Jane had clung to Maria as if the ship was taking her no further than the bottom of the ocean. At the end, himself and James Morley had been obliged to pull the two sisters from each other’s arms in order that the ship could set sail.

James Morley … Lachlan scowled as he thought of Jane's irascible brother-in-law who had begun to show signs of renewed disapproval of Jane's marriage. But Maria Morley had begged Lachlan, before she sailed, to do everything possible to keep on good terms with her husband, and not to discommode him in any way, if only for the sake of dear James's liver.

Only a month after Maria's departure, Lachlan was given harsh evidence of the deplorable state of dear James's pickled old liver.

Morley stormed into the office at Army Headquarters which had been given to Lachlan upon his appointment as Major of Brigade, waving a letter in the air as he screamed: ‘How dare you, sir!
How dare you!
’

The young lieutenant who had been sitting before Lachlan's desk rose to his feet and diplomatically left the room, closing the door very quietly behind him. The sound of his boots could be heard marching down the corridor as the two men looked at each other.
  

‘Mr Morley…’ Lachlan said in a carefully subdued voice, ‘kindly remember that you are on military premises now, and we do not like our quiet corridors disturbed by the screaming of irate civilians.’

‘Don't you dare act the supercilious staff officer with me, sir! I know what you are, Macquarie. What I always thought you were. A conniving fortune hunter! And now you've proved it by trying to get your hands on Jane's money!’

Lachlan looked at Jane's brother-in-law with a contempt he made no further effort to conceal. ‘Your accusation, Mr Morley, is offensive, and I have warned you once before that my tolerance has a limit.’

Morley threw down the letter written on expensive English bond. ‘There's the proof! There it is! You, sir, have made an order upon the London bankers, Messrs Francis and Gosling, to provide the money for a London-made carriage that you intend to purchase and have shipped out here to Bombay! As well as silver and plate engraved with the
Arms of Mull!
’

 
Calmly, Lachlan read quickly down the single sheet of paper. ‘The carriage,’ he said, ‘was in fact ordered before our wedding by Jane, as was the request to Messrs Francis and Gosling to make payment. As soon as I learned of it, I wrote to the London carriage makers cancelling the order.’

‘And the silver and plate?’

‘That was also ordered by my wife, wishing as she did, to have her silver and plate adorned with the Macquarie Arms, and that I allowed to go through.’

‘And who did you expect to pay for it? You are well
  
aware that the marriage contract forbids you to touch Jane's money or any of the interest accruing from it.’

‘And I have not done,’ Lachlan replied in puzzlement. ‘What the hell are you accusing me of?
 
Jane has not sought to use any of her own money either, she knows she cannot do so until she is twenty-one.’

‘So where did she hope to get the money for her fancy carriage then?
 
For her silver and plate?’

‘From the thousand pounds I gave to her as a wedding gift. The thousand pounds that you insisted I also deposit with Messrs Francis and Gosling. It’s Jane’s money to spend however she likes, and she has chosen to spend some of it on purchases for our home.’

‘No, sir, you are mistaken!’ Morley shook his head in vigorous protest. ‘If you had taken the time to read the marriage contract carefully, you would have seen that the contract forbids her to touch even the interest on that thousand pounds.’

Lachlan looked at Morley as if unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’
 

‘The money you deposited with Messrs Francis and Gosling is now invested in English funds,’ Morley said, ‘and that sum and all accruing interest from it cannot be touched without first receiving the written
consent
of Jane’s trustees, who are myself and Mr Tasker.’

‘You mean … she has no access
 
… even to the wedding present I gave her?’

‘No – not without the written consent to Messrs Francis and Gosling of myself and Mr Tasker.’

Lachlan was silent for a moment. ‘Mr Morley,’ he said finally, ‘I have been very fair and agreeable to all your requests, foolishly fair, I see that now. Surely you know that Jane ceased to be your ward from the day she married me. And surely you also know that in any other marriage, a wife's money and property becomes her husband's from the day of the wedding – by law.’

‘Then you must recourse to the law, sir, because that's the only way you or Jane will ever get your hands on any of
  
that money. You see, Mr Thomas Jarvis of Antigua who still holds most of Jane's money in his charge has refused to hand it over, until a guarantee is obtained from her trustees that the money will be used
only
and
solely
for the benefit
 
of any
children
his sister may have. The care of Jane herself and all her wants and needs are your financial responsibility now.’

Morley's eyes were dark with malice. ‘So you will have to meet the bill for her silver and plate yourself, won't you? Messrs Frances and Gosling won't meet it, I assure you. If you want silver engraved with the Macquarie Arms, it will have to be paid for with Macquarie money, which shouldn't present too much of a problem to a man who has no savings, and yet has been living these past months and entertaining all Bombay in the style of a man of fortune! Yes, indeed, sir, like
a man of fortune
. Or one who shortly expects to gain one.’

‘So you –’ Lachlan’s eyes flashed, ‘a pugnacious old nabob, along with that arrogant slave-owner in Antigua, still believe I only sought to marry Jane for her money?’

He looked at his brother-in-law with an expression of profound and final repugnance. ‘Get out –
now!
 
Out of this office and out of this building!’

‘I have not finished yet,’ Morley shouted. ‘I have more to say and I will leave when I desire and not before! I don't think it has escaped your notice, sir, that I have considerable influence around here, especially with – ‘

Lachlan had risen from his chair and crossed to open the door from where he beckoned to two soldiers of the 77th standing sentry down the corridor who came at the double. The soldiers looked at the captain's face and saw something his visitor had obviously not seen – Macquarie's urge to
   
kill and his desperate struggle for control.
  

‘Sir?’

‘Escort this man out. And if he attempts to delay then lift him up and
throw
him out!’

The two sentries glanced at each other – like most soldiers they despised the civil servants, and the pleasure of throwing one out a door was a dream of pure fantasy – but if an order was given.

‘Yes, sir!’ They moved each side of Morley and caught an arm. ‘Come along, sir.’

Outraged, Morley roared, ‘By God, you'll not get away with this, Macquarie! I shall go straight to the Governor-General about you!’

‘You can go to damnation if necessary!’ Lachlan replied savagely, ‘Just make sure you never come near
me
again!’

‘I shall go straight to General Balfour – ‘

‘
Out!
Before I kill you!
’

The two sentries moved into action, tightening their grip on Morley’s arms. ‘Come along, sir. Time for you to leave.’

*

It was some hours before Lachlan could inwardly muster a sufficient command of himself to set out on the journey home and break the news to Jane. But it was imperative that she should know, and without delay, that whatever arrangements
she
might wish to make to see her brother-in-law in the future, James Morley would never again be allowed to enter Lachlan Macquarie's house, nor Lachlan Macquarie's life, ever again.

She would cry her eyes out ... if only because of Maria.

And then he would have to tell her that she could not have her silver and plate, because they had no money, and were on the brink of penury.

‘Oh, hell,’ he said dismally.

His horse rounded the last bend onto the tree-lined avenue leading to the large and secluded white house that was his home. He frowned at the sound of hooves and wheels, checked his horse in a pause, and then turned his head in slow disbelief as a carriage sped past him with the window curtains tightly shut.

It was Morley's carriage. The restless dog had got here first!

*

At the house he heard her footsteps running along the veranda even before he had dismounted and relinquished his horse to the care of the
syce
.

He turned and looked at her speculatively, and knew the devil had done his worst. She was standing on the step waiting for him, tense and upset. He removed his hat and pushed a hand through his hair as he stepped onto the veranda.

‘Lachlan!’ Her voice was breathless. `Lachlan ... James has been here, he's only just left.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘Don't look so tragic, my love.’