Companions of Paradise (13 page)

October 15, 1841

W
e hear that General Sale was wounded in the Khurd-Kabul pass, this time in the leg,” Charles Mott volunteered from his seat beside the British officers’ cricket field. “Otherwise, the First Brigade has done wonderfully well.”

A second man, a captain of the 13th Foot, did not take his eyes from the game. “Of course,” he put in, “it was a pity about that night attack on Colonel Monteith's encampment, with so many of our men killed. Thirty-five, if I remember correctly.”

“Monteith should have punished the Afghan traitors in his camp who let the attackers past the sentries,” observed another officer, “but in any case, the pass is now cleared, and that is what matters.”

“We hear,” Charles Mott added, “that within a few days, the whole distance between Kabul and Jalalabad will be open to our own caravans, and of course to you, Sir William, as well, when you return to India.”

Sir William Macnaghten stopped talking to the wan-looking General Elphinstone, and offered his nephew by marriage a satisfied nod.

“Yes, indeed, Charles,” he said.

Conversations in the cantonment had centered for weeks upon Sir William's new posting as Governor of Bombay. Lady Macnaghten, who had only recently finished decorating the Residence in Kabul, was already deeply concerned about her future, far grander house.

“I cannot imagine how I shall survive it,” she had confided gaily to Mariana.

In front of Mariana, his arms windmilling, a curly-haired lieutenant galloped down the cricket pitch. Behind him, the two brown Bibi Mahro hills rose sharply against a hard, blue sky. An equally brown village climbed the slope of the nearer hill. What, Mariana wondered, did the occupants of that village make of the British and their game?

She smiled absently at someone's remark about the young bowler's peculiar style, but her mind was not upon the cricket. A glass of pomegranate juice in her hand, she sat still, imagining what she would say to Harry Fitzgerald when they met.

From the look of it, that meeting would take place any moment. Not only had he returned to Kabul the previous day, he was here, at the cricket game. She frowned, aware of his blond presence as he strolled to and fro among the spectators, greeting old friends and cheering on the bowler.

Now that General Sale and the Eastern Ghilzais were fighting on the road to Peshawar, it would be some time before Ghulam Ali could make his way back to Kabul.

She would not know Hassan's feelings until he returned.

Word of Fitzgerald's arrival had, of course, come from Lady Macnaghten.
You are to be present tomorrow afternoon at the cricket field near the Darwaza Sirdar
, she had instructed Mariana in the previous day's hand-delivered letter.
Do not worry about your appearance. Vijaya will be coming to you before lunch.

Mariana had made a point of not mentioning Fitzgerald to her family, but silence had done her no good. For weeks, as his return to Kabul approached, Aunt Claire had repeatedly cautioned her to keep her eyes lowered and remain silent about her past.

“And you must,” she had added, raising a plump finger for emphasis, “be discreet in what you say. You have, my dear Mariana, the very dangerous habit of speaking your mind. That liberty, I remind you, is reserved for
married ladies only.”

Lady Macnaghten had been no less involved. Undistracted by the effort of choosing silk for the Bombay Government House dining room, she had peered critically at Mariana's face and fingernails, and instructed her to burn her favorite gray afternoon gown.

“You simply cannot wear that dreary color again,” she had insisted; “I have some lovely lemon silk that will be perfect for you. And the tiniest bit of cochineal powder will do wonders for your cheeks.

“You must use
all
means available to enhance your appearance,” she continued, ignoring Mariana's shocked stare at the suggestion that she paint her face. “Cochineal is a wonderful native invention. I am told on great authority that in the morning, after all those tiny red insects have been set free, the muslin bag is inspected very carefully. If even one of the little creatures has died in the night, the whole of it is thrown away.

“You always look pretty when you take the trouble,” she concluded. “The same cannot be said of everyone. Do make use of your good looks before it is too late.
No one will ever know,”
she added with a wicked little smile.

The crack of a bat was followed by shouting. Mariana turned, looking for Fitzgerald, and saw him leaning against a tree in his buckskin breeches and blue jacket, his smooth head bent as he listened to something his companion was saying. Would he hold his head at the same angle when she told him she could neither accept nor refuse his proposal, and that he must wait for an indeterminate length of time for her reply?

Would he actually ask her to marry him?

He started in her direction. As he approached, still talking to his friend, she turned hastily to the cricket, begging him silently not to sit down in the unfortunately empty chair beside her.

“May I join you, Miss Givens?”

He was bowing above her. His friend had disappeared. “Of course you may, Lieutenant,” she replied helplessly.

The folding chair groaned as he sat down. “It is a pleasure to see people enjoying themselves,” he offered, smiling a little stiffly. “Kandahar may have wonderful melons, but otherwise, it is a great, stony wasteland.”

She kept her eyes on the game, uncomfortably aware of his bulk and the creaking of his chair.

People were looking at them. Beneath her parasol, Aunt Claire made a fluttering gesture, signaling either encouragement or warning. Lady Macnaghten frowned and patted her hair significantly.

“Have you enjoyed the Kabul summer?” he asked.

“In a way, yes.” Mariana offered him a cautious smile. “The weather has been glorious and the fruit lovely. After two years in India, I had quite forgotten what cherries taste like.”

“I must say I am very happy to be—” His voice trailed off.

He was staring into space, his square, freckled hands tight on the arms of his chair.

The last thing she wanted was a clumsy, fearful suitor. Suddenly repelled by the musty scent of his blue woolen jacket, she searched about her for reinforcements, but found the rest of the party, even her aunt, otherwise occupied. Even Charles Mott was deep in conversation with Fitzgerald's friend.

She took in a calming breath. “I hear there was fighting on the road to Kabul,” she ventured.

“There was.” He turned to her, his face intense. “Miss Givens,” he said abruptly, “what have you been told about our battle in the Zurmat valley?”

She blinked in surprise. “I have heard,” she replied, “that someone called Colonel Herring had been killed near Kandahar, that a force had been sent to avenge his death, and that the attackers seemed very brave at first, but melted away after a few artillery shots.”

“They did melt away. And when they went into the hills, we blew up their forts. But for all our apparent victory, we did not kill any of them, nor have they surrendered to us.”

She frowned. “Everyone here believes the Afghans are cowards who cannot withstand our artillery fire.”

“I do not think that is the case.” He leaned closer to her and dropped his voice. “They have no heavy guns of their own, which means they are unused to being fired upon. They withdraw when they first encounter our artillery, but I believe they do so only to discuss their next move.”

Mariana studied him. His eyes, as green as hers, were unafraid. No longer clenched, his hands now rested on his knees. They were covered with dry lines, as if they had been well used. He had not been thinking of her at all.

“This has already happened, in the Kohdaman valley,” he added. “I can see clearly that the Afghan fighting style is very different from ours. Their warriors appear, then retreat, then appear again, and each time they come back,
there are more of them.

“We, of course, march out openly, in our red and blue uniforms. We fight in an orderly fashion, in columns and squares. They go into battle in ordinary clothes the same color as the dust and the rocks. Their movements are impossible to predict. They come unexpectedly, from nowhere, do what damage they can, then vanish like ghosts, or they snipe at us, invisibly, from behind rocks. They have no fear of our guns, whatever our people may say, and no chivalry. They descend upon our wounded like vultures. Sometimes they even cut off—I am sorry,” he said hastily, seeing the look on her face. “This is no proper conversation for a lady.”

He dropped his eyes. “I have no one to speak to about this. Whenever I have tried to discuss it, I am called a croaker. I am only telling you because we talked about military matters so often before—”

Her revulsion gone, she resisted an impulse to lay a hand on his arm. It had been months since an English person had spoken seriously to her.

Perhaps, for now, he would be her friend.

“I am certain that we can beat the Afghans,” he continued, interrupting her thoughts, “but to do so, we must outwit them. I fear we have dangerously underestimated them.

“I am very worried, Miss Givens,” he added, “very worried.”

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

Turning to her, he stared for an instant at the front of her gown, as if he were gazing at the flesh beneath her bodice. “I could not bear,” he said huskily, “to know you were in any danger.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” was all she could manage.

A moment later, Harry Fitzgerald excused himself, and was gone.

Twenty feet away, Aunt Claire regarded her with a small, fashionable, and unmistakably triumphant smile.

“I AM so pleased,” cooed Lady Macnaghten as she rode beside Mariana on the way back. “I thought you made a handsome pair, you and your lieutenant. What were you speaking of with such concentration?”

“I hardly remember,” Mariana replied vaguely.

“And you were looking quite nice, but a curl of your hair had come loose. The whole time you were speaking with Fitzgerald, it hung irritatingly down over your left ear.

“And now,” she continued, shifting uncomfortably in her sidesaddle, “you must pursue your advantage. Be ready at all times for him to call on you. And for goodness sake, there is no need to show
all
your teeth when you smile.”

October 19, 1841

I
n the five days since Harry Fitzgerald's return, he had called on Mariana three times. Three features had characterized each of those visits: Aunt Claire's simpering idiocy, Fitzgerald's patient good manners, and Mariana's growing irritation.

While her aunt's efforts to safeguard Mariana's good name had protected her from any upsetting declaration he might have made, her breathless reminiscences about her childhood in Sussex were agony to listen to.

“My aunt, Claire Woodrow,” she burbled over sherry one afternoon, as Mariana fidgeted beside her, “my father's elder sister after whom I was named, came to live in Weddington when I was small. Her husband had recently
died
, you see”

Saved from the work of conversing, Fitzgerald had offered no more than a series of bland smiles. When he stood up to leave, Mariana followed him, her lemon silk skirts rustling, then turned and faced her aunt after the front door had closed behind him.

“I do believe,” her aunt sighed, “he is the
handsomest
—”

“Handsome he may be,” Mariana said pointedly, “but must we talk of ourselves
all
the time he is here?”

Aunt Claire drew back, her chins trembling. “But what on earth should we talk of?”

“Him.”
Mariana sighed. “You wish me to marry Fitzgerald, but we know nothing about him.”

Her own vetting, she knew, was a cold, unloving exercise that, in the end, would cause someone hurt. It pained her to hear the lilt in her aunt's voice, and the little humming noises she made as she busied herself about the bungalow.

While Aunt Claire sang to herself, Mariana waited for Ghulam Ali.

Where was he now? Was he on his way back from India, preparing to travel safely through the passes after Jalalabad, now that General Sale had cleared the way? Was Hassan's reply to her hidden in his clothes, or had Hassan sent back no reply but only silence, the bitterest answer of all?

If only she had sent Ghulam Ali sooner, he would have returned safely and she would already know….

Until she knew the truth of Hassan's feelings, she would remain as she was, trapped between hopefulness and resignation.

THAT EVENING, as she tightened her stays in preparation for another of Lady Macnaghten's dinner parties, Mariana steeled herself to learn more about Harry Fitzgerald.

She knew that he was the younger of two brothers, both serving in India, who had lost their father when they were very small, and that a kindly uncle had later purchased commissions for them in the Indian army. When Aunt Claire had actually asked him a question about himself, Mariana had also learned that his mother had been ill for some years. When he spoke of her, his expression had softened, revealing, Mariana hoped, a capacity for tender feelings.

She had known since they first met that he was a thinking officer, as ardent a student of military strategy as she had been, and loyal to the men in his battery. He had suffered without complaint when false gossip had damaged his reputation. These were good signs, but they told Mariana nothing of how he would treat her if they were married. Would the Bengal Horse Artillery mean more to him than she or her children? Would he forget her existence once she was his?

It was not uncommon for Indian army officers to be posted to remote corners of the country. In some cases, their wives had been the only European women in small stations. Left alone with no one to talk to while their husbands campaigned for months on end, some of them had lost their minds. Who knew how many might have been saved if their husbands had thought to send them to friends or relatives.

She would not ask for Fitzgerald's love, because she could not offer her own, but she must know he would not be as cruel as that.

One woman who had endured that experience had been the dauntless Lady Sale, who seemed none the worse for it. The woman must be made of iron.

Mariana sighed as she dropped her best rose-colored evening gown over her head, then struggled with its tiny covered buttons. Whatever Fitzgerald was, if she understood him in advance, she would be better able to bear her fate.

The party, an extravagant affair featuring roast boar from a recent hunt, was a compromise, for it followed several attempts by Lady Macnaghten to organize a dance. Her latest effort had been abandoned at the last moment due to disturbances in the Kohdaman valley which had kept Sir William and the army too occupied to participate.

Everyone would be in attendance this evening save for Lady Sale, who never went out when her husband was away, and General Elphinstone, who had been confined to his bed since the cricket match.

“Why, good evening, Miss Givens.” Charles Mott bowed before her, his hair fashionably mussed into the appearance of a dish mop, his coat so wasp-waisted that it was a wonder he could breathe.

As she replied to his greeting, a man who had been standing with his back to her spun about and frowned in her direction. Lady Macnaghten caught his look as she rustled past.

“I am sure, Sir Alexander,” she fluted, gesturing with her fan, “that you remember Miss Mariana Givens.”

Burnes bowed. Mariana inclined her head, hoping he would be gone when she looked up, but he was not. Instead, he stood in front of her, his Clan Campbell tartan as resplendent as Charles Mott's dandified clothes. His round face held no shame, only keen interest. “I take it,” he said smoothly, “that Miss Givens has learned to speak a little Persian.”

“I would not know about that.” Her interest waning, Lady Macnaghten swept off to greet another guest.

Burnes leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I also take it that Miss Givens enjoys an occasional jaunt into the wicked city of Kabul. I find that most interesting. Of course I was shocked when I first heard—”

Before he could finish, or Mariana could think how to punish him, Aunt Claire appeared and clutched her above the elbow. “
He
is here,” she stage-whispered, pointing with urgent indiscretion toward the drawing room doorway.

Five minutes later, a hand on Fitzgerald's arm, Mariana stood waiting to go in to dinner.

This was no time to think about Burnes. Dining at Fitzgerald's side would offer her the investigative opportunity she sought, although she had already noted how little attention he paid to her best gown, her carefully arranged curls, or even the hint of rosy cochineal powder Vijaya had applied to her cheeks. Instead, he glanced at her pleated bodice with such unnerving hunger that she had taken a hurried step backward.

Servants crowded the edges of the dining room. A liveried serving-man in a starched turban pulled out her chair. She sat down before Lady Macnaghten's gleaming silver and drew in her skirts, grateful that she was not sitting next to Alexander Burnes.

If she had been, she would have feigned a sudden, piercing headache.

From the moment they sat down, Fitzgerald began to talk, freely, in an undertone, about the military situation in Kabul. “The city smiths are making weapons by the dozen,” he murmured, as Lady Macnaghten laughed gaily at the table's end, “but not for us. They refuse our requests in an insulting, ill-mannered way. I understand they spat at the feet of one of our officers. And I wonder about these—

“What is the matter with Burnes?” he added, as Mariana stirred her mulligatawny soup. “He has been staring at you all evening. I beg your pardon for the indelicacy, but has he begun calling upon you in my absence?”

“No,” Mariana answered emphatically. “He has not.”

Dinner proceeded with all the usual clatter, conversation, and excess of wine. Lady Macnaghten, her cheeks suspiciously rosy, flirted her fan at one end of the table; her husband smiled at the other. Burnes drank even more than usual.

“—spreading a rumor that we are planning to seize the tribal chiefs and send them to
London
!” Mariana heard him say. “Of course I put that ruffian Abdullah Khan in his place. I called him a dog, and threatened to crop his ears. It did him no end of good. As for the aged Aminullah Khan, if I ever meet him, I shall wait for the right moment, then put out my foot and trip him up!

“I shall enjoy seeing the palsied old creature crawling about as he tries to get up again!” he added, over the laughter of his fellow guests.

As three servants burst through the door, carrying the roast boar on a great wooden plank, an apple in its jaws, Burnes leaned across the table toward Mariana.

“What,” he asked loudly between the silver birds, “did you say your name is?”

“My name,” she said tartly, “is Mariana Givens.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Givens.” He smiled loosely. “We have something in common, you and I.”

For an angry instant she felt trapped. Then Harry Fitzgerald put a calming hand on her arm and leaned heavily over his plate. “I do not believe, Sir Alexander,” he said in a level tone, “that the lady understands what you mean.”

Buoyed by his support, Mariana offered Burnes a level green gaze. “Nor,” she said evenly, “do I
care.
”

His pale face stricken, Charles Mott looked despairingly from Fitzgerald's hand to Mariana's face.

Sir William Macnaghten coughed noisily at the table's end. “The boar has arrived!” he announced.

Burnes subsided into his seat. Fitzgerald turned to Mariana. “I do not like that man,” he said, “but you have nothing to fear from him as long as I am here.”

He smiled at her in a way she had almost forgotten, beautifully, crookedly, his chin raised. “And I hope that will be a very long time.”

“Why on earth were you so short with the Resident?” her aunt inquired on the way home. “Whatever has
he
done to deserve such rude treatment?”