Shadow of the Moon (3 page)

The Conde Ramon had of recent years withdrawn himself more and more from the world outside the high white walls that bordered his estate, and save for a handful of old friends, of whom only a few were European, he lived a life of retirement and seclusion. But even into this quiet backwater there crept ripples of fear and unease, so that when Lady Emily Barton had suggested that his daughter accompany their party to the hills, he had accepted the invitation with gratitude and urged his young son-in-law to agree to Juanita's departure.

It was cool among the pine trees and rhododendron forests of the hills, and here life appeared to move at a more peaceful and leisurely pace than in the teeming plains. Beyond the folds of the foothills rose the higher ranges; line upon line of wild, jungle-clad hills with behind and above them the changeless snows, their white, ethereal peaks unmoved by Time or the hurrying feet of History. Yet history was being made and the times were changing.

Far away in a small rainy island at the other side of the world a King died, and a young girl scarcely out of the schoolroom, who was to give her name to one of the greatest periods of British history and in time to be proclaimed Empress of all India, ascended the throne of Great Britain. The Victorian age had begun.

* * *

When the monsoon rains broke over the burning plains of India, Juanita would have returned to Lucknow. But Wali Dad and her mother-in-law Aziza Begum forbade it. ‘Stay yet awhile, beloved,' wrote Wali Dad, ‘for there is evil work afoot in this city and I am uneasy as to what is toward. Though my house is dark without the light of thy presence, nevertheless the thought that thou, my Heart and my Life, art safe from all danger, is of great comfort to me. When this evil is past I will come and fetch thee away.'

So Juanita stayed in the hills while far below, in the hot, humid capital of Oudh, Colonel John Low pleaded by dispatch and letter for the replacement of Nasser-ood-din by another of the royal house, rather than the annexation of his kingdom by the Company.

Colonel Low, like many of his contemporaries in the ranks of ‘John Company', was alarmed and dismayed at the direction the affairs of the Company had taken. The Honourable the East India Company - ‘John Company' - was a company of merchants and traders. They had come to India to buy and sell, and trade and profits were what they desired. They did not want an Empire. Yet slowly and insidiously, or so it seemed, an Empire was being thrust upon them.

In the days of the Great Moguls a British ship's surgeon had successfully treated the badly burned and beloved daughter of the Emperor Shahjahan, and when asked what he wished for in reward, had requested permission for the British to trade in Bengal. Those first small trading posts had flourished and paid rich dividends, but in their very success they had aroused the envy and resentment of other traders from beyond the seas.

The French, the Arabs, the Dutch and the Portuguese were also rivals for the golden prizes of Indian trade, and the British merchants, in order to protect their factories and their lives, had been forced to arm themselves and to hire mercenaries. They had in time succeeded in defeating their rivals and in establishing a monopoly of trade, but as their interests grew and expanded, and more and yet more factories and warehouses were built, the need for larger forces for their protection grew also; for the times were troublous ones, and India a medieval medley of small and warring states riddled with corruption, trickery and intrigue. The ‘Company of Merchants' made treaties with many of these petty kings, and on behalf of their allies fought with others, while their arms, of necessity, kept pace with their profits. The Genie of Force had been let out of the bottle and it became impossible to replace it. Instead of reaping a harvest of gold, as they had in the early years, the Directors of the East India Company found themselves pouring out treasure upon what had become no less than a vast private army, and acquiring, in order to protect their trade, a huge and ever-enlarging Empire.

It was Robert Clive, one-time clerk in the service of the Company, who conquered India and propounded the revolutionary theory that if a country is taken over from its rightful owners, then it must be governed for the
greater benefit of those owners and not merely to the advantage of the conquerors; and the erstwhile merchant adventurers found themselves, to the dismay of many of their members, dealing more and more in territorial administration and less and less in trade. Their armies policed the land and they appointed Governors and Residents and Political Agents to dispense law and justice to this vast country to which they had come to barter and remained to conquer, and their profits dwindled away.

‘No man goes so far as he who knows not where he is going,' said Oliver Cromwell. The men of ‘John Company' had not known where they were going, and they had travelled a long and far road from the days of the seventeenth century and those first small trading settlements on the coast of Coromandel. They had defeated Tippu Sultan, ruler of Mysore, and divided and apportioned his territory. They had defeated the Mahrattas and the Gurkhas, and deposed the Peishwa and added his lands to the Presidency of Bombay. Was the ancient Kingdom of Oudh now to go the same way, and its rule pass from the hands of its royal house into those of the Company? Colonel Low, for one, was resolved to do all he could to prevent it.

The whole question of India, he considered, was getting out of hand, for the greater the Company's territorial power and possessions, the less profit in terms of trade. ‘John Company' was not only losing money, but was heavily in debt, and it was out of the question that they should take over the sole government of Oudh. Besides, he did not believe that the people of Oudh, though they had little love for their vicious kings and would welcome the fall of Nasser-ood-din, would approve of the rule of a foreign company in his stead. They would only see it as another example of Western aggression and the barefaced theft of more territory, and there would be riots and up-risings - and once more the profits of trade would be swallowed up in unprofitable wars. Yet Nasser-ood-din must be deposed.

But even as Colonel Low pondered the question, one aspect of his problem was solved for him. On a hot night in July Nasser-ood-din Hyder died by poison; and immediately all Oudh was in a ferment. The succession was in dispute and the streets of Lucknow surged with gangs of lawless troops ready to strike in support of their particular nominee, and only the firmness and courage of Low and a handful of British assistants saved the seething city from a bath of violence and blood. Eventually, with the consent of Lord Auckland the Governor-General, an aged and crippled uncle of the late King ascended the throne of Oudh. The city quietened, and Juanita returned to the pink stucco palace in Lucknow.

Juanita's brother was back from Spain: a tall stranger whose gay laughter awoke unaccustomed echoes in the quiet of the Casa de los Pavos Reales.

The warm, drenching rains of September washed the city clean, and October brought in the brilliant days and cool nights of the Indian cold weather. The Bartons returned to Lucknow where they were to spend a
month with the Resident, and Sabrina, paying a call at the House of the Peacocks with her Aunt Emily, met Marcos de Ballesteros.

It was of course inevitable that they should fall in love. Marcos, dark-haired and romantically handsome, with his gay laugh and the novelty and charm of one newly come from that most charming of countries, Spain, and Sabrina Grantham who had, surprisingly enough, not been in love for over a year, and who was so small and slim and blondly beautiful.

‘My niece, Sabrina—'

‘My son, Marcos—'

They had stood looking at each other in the cool white hall of the Casa de los Pavos Reales where the orange trees grew in tubs as they do in Spain, and where the sunlight, filtering through the lemon trees planted about the house, filled the hall with a green, aqueous light.

Marcos too had read Milton, and the same lines that Ashby had quoted so many years ago at the cradle of the infant Sabrina rose now in the mind of the young grandee of Spain:

‘
Sabrina
!' thought Marcos, staring at her entranced. “‘
Sabrina fair - listen where thou art sitting, under the glassy, cool translucent wave
” Yes, she is like a mermaid. A water nymph.'

‘He is like a Knight of the Round Table,' thought Sabrina. ‘Like the picture of Sir Tristram in that book in Grandpapa's library.'

They stood and looked at each other and fell in love.

2

Juanita's daughter was born, and the old, old lullabies of Spain and France and Hindustan were sung above her cradle.

‘
Hai mai
!' sighed Aziza Begum to her friend Anne Marie, ‘rememberest thou the day thy daughter was born? So also do I. I am now an old woman, very fat and slothful, but it is as though it were yesterday. The years go swiftly: too swiftly. But there will be many more grandchildren for thee and me, and surely the next will be a son …'

For Sabrina it was a time of enchantment: a page cut from a fairy-story. But Emily was full of anxiety and foreboding. Emily was staunchly and stubbornly British; possessed of all the ingrained insularity of her race. Her two children had both been born, lived their brief days and died in this hostile foreign land, and had been laid to rest in this alien soil. She did not find India beautiful or exciting. She saw it only as the graveyard of her children; an uncivilized and barbaric country with a medieval standard of morality, sanitation and squalor that it was the divinely appointed but distasteful task of men like Ebenezer to govern and control and lead into the path of enlightened Western living. It was therefore not surprising that she viewed the attachment between her niece Sabrina and Marcos de Ballesteros with disapproval, and persuaded herself that it was no more than a passing infatuation that would fade as others had faded.

But this time Sabrina was in love: in love for the first time in her life. No one looking at her could doubt it for a moment. She walked as though her small feet barely touched the ground and it was as though an almost visible aura of happiness surrounded her. To Marcos, accustomed to the dark-haired women of Spain and France and his father's adoptive country, Sabrina's golden loveliness seemed like something out of this world - rare, fragile and exquisite. When they were together, in whatever company of people, it was as if they saw only each other; heard no other voices speak.

Emily awoke to the dangers of the situation too late (though had she but known it, even one moment after their meeting would still have been too late), and she prevailed upon Ebenezer to put forward the date of their departure from Lucknow. The Bartons had planned to visit the old Mogul capital of Delhi before proceeding to Calcutta, where they would remain until the spring, when Sabrina was to return to England. But Sabrina, who had once been delighted at the prospect, now viewed their impending departure with blank dismay and pleaded to be allowed to remain in Lucknow.

Emily had remained firm and Sabrina had wept stormily. And four hours later Marcos had asked for an interview with Sir Ebenezer Barton and had requested his permission to ask his niece for her hand in marriage.

Sir Ebenezer was for once at a loss. He both liked and respected the Conde de los Aguilares, and thought his son a very pleasant and well-mannered young man. He also knew the Conde to be immensely rich and of the best blood of Spain, and his wife Anne Marie to be descended from the old nobility of France. In many ways Marcos must be considered a most eligible match. But there were drawbacks; the greatest of which, in Sir Ebenezer's eyes, being that Marcos was what Sir Ebenezer termed to himself ‘a foreigner' - by which he did not mean so much the young man's French and Spanish ancestry, but his mode of life, which was foreign to the English point of view. Many men like Sir Ebenezer Barton lived and worked and often died in this country that the ‘Merchants of London trading to the East Indies' had conquered. But they never thought of it as ‘Home'. To Marcos however, and to his father, mother and sister, India, and in particular the Kingdom of Oudh, was home. Marcos had returned to it from nine years spent in Spain and Europe, and it had been for him a home-coming. And his sister had married an Indian - a man of an alien faith.

‘You desire my permission to ask my niece for her hand in marriage,' said Sir Ebenezer heavily, ‘but have you not already asked her without that permission?'

‘No,' said Marcos, very white about the mouth. ‘I had not thought of it. I mean - I could not have done so without speaking first to you, but it seemed a thing that need not be said. I have known it from the first moment I saw her. I had meant to speak to you, but …'

Marcos could not explain even to himself, much less to Sir Ebenezer, the remote and enchanted world in which he and Sabrina had seemed to move ever since that first moment of their meeting. Of
course
they would one day marry and live happily ever after - what a foolish question! And because Marcos was his father's son, he would not say the formal and unnecessary words until he had duly asked the formal and necessary permission to speak them. Meanwhile it was enough for both of them to realize that they had found each other. It was from this dream-like state that Emily's decision to remove instantly to Delhi had aroused them.

Sir Ebenezer hedged, playing for time. He was in no position, he said, to grant or withhold permission for his niece's marriage: that responsibility rested with her grandfather, Lord Ware. Marcos must wait until such time as the Earl's views could be made known, which would be of necessity a matter of a few months.

‘But Sabrina is twenty-one,' said Marcos. ‘She is of age. I have requested this interview with you only because it is correct that I should do so. If it is true that you cannot grant or withhold consent, neither can Lord Ware. Only Sabrina can do that.'

‘He can disinherit her,' said Sir Ebenezer drily. ‘The bulk of his property that is not entailed is to come to Sabrina.'

‘She will not need it,' said Marcos. ‘You know that my father is rich and that I am his heir. Sir Ebenezer, I beg you to permit me to address her.'

‘And if I refuse?'

Marcos's gay laugh rang out suddenly. ‘Then I ask her without it. I am sorry, but I cannot help myself. When you wished to espouse the Lady Emily, if permission to address her had been refused, what would you have done?'

Sir Ebenezer cast a reminiscent eye over that long-ago summer in Hampshire when he had fallen in love with his Emily, and was betrayed into a smile.

‘Never did ask for it, my boy. Asked her straight out. But then that was quite a different thing, you know. Emily wasn't a chit from the schoolroom. She was of age.'

‘So is Sabrina.'

‘There is a vast difference between twenty-one and thirty-three!' retorted Sir Ebenezer with an unconscious lack of gallantry.

‘Not in the eyes of the law,' said Marcos.

‘Lady Emily will not hear of it,' said Sir Ebenezer, cravenly shifting his ground. ‘She has set her heart on removing to Delhi immediately. She had hoped by doing so to avoid a declaration.'

‘Am I then so undesirable a
parti?
' demanded Marcos bitterly.

‘No, no,' said Sir Ebenezer unhappily, ‘it is not that. It is that she would have wished … Sabrina's grandfather would have wished the child to marry someone who resided in England. Your home is here, and if she marries you it is here that she will live her life. That will seem a sad loss to those of her family who love her most dearly. You do not realize how great an affection my father-in-law has for Sabrina. It would be a cruel blow to him if she should remain in this country.'

‘There is no reason why we should not visit England on occasions,' said Marcos with the buoyancy of youth.

‘That is not at all the same thing. To see someone you love once in six or eight years, and then only for a few brief months, is not enough.'

‘But I too love her!' said Marcos passionately. ‘Am I to sacrifice my happiness and hers so that her grandfather may be made happy?'

‘Oh, well,' said Sir Ebenezer, giving the matter up. ‘I cannot think what my father-in-law will say to all this. What a plague and a problem women are!'

He wondered what he was to say to Emily: Emily was going to be difficult.

Emily was more than difficult. She was distraught. ‘You should have made him see how impossible it is - how unthinkable! Oh, what will Papa say? How could you consent to such a thing?'

‘But my dear, I have not given my consent. I could not do so even if I
wished. I am not Sabrina's guardian, I am only her uncle by marriage. Besides, the girl is of age, so we can only hope that your father's wishes may count with her. She must at least wait until his views are made known.'

‘We will remove to Delhi immediately,' said Lady Emily. ‘And if Marcos attempts to follow us I shall send Sabrina home to Papa, even if I have to take her myself.'

‘But I cannot go with you,' said Sabrina, starry-eyed with happiness. ‘I am going to marry Marcos.'

‘You are going to do no such thing! I refuse to allow it.'

‘You cannot stop me. Darling, darling Aunt Emily - do not be unkind. I am so happy. I never knew that anyone could be so happy. Do you not wish me to be happy?'

Emily wrung her hands and wept.

Sabrina would not leave Lucknow and Emily could not remove her by force, since as Marcos had already pointed out, she was of age and could therefore marry whom and when she wished. She had agreed, however, to make no plans until her grandfather's wishes were made known.

Emily, Sir Ebenezer, Marcos, Conde Ramon and Sabrina all wrote to the Earl of Ware, and Marcos wrote to Rome for a dispensation for his marriage. Emily cancelled her visits to Delhi and Calcutta and remained in Oudh. Her husband went, but he went alone.

The Christmas mails from England brought with them the news that Huntly - Herbert and Charlotte's only son - was to marry Julia Pike, the daughter of one of Charlotte's oldest friends. The wedding would take place in the spring and the Earl wrote to urge the immediate return of both daughter and grand-daughter so that they should be at Ware for the wedding of his only grandson. Sabrina, said the Earl, had stayed quite long enough in the East and it was high time she returned home. He added a postscript to the effect that Captain Dennis Allington had recently married the daughter of a wealthy cotton-manufacturer from Manchester.

Although Emily had known that these letters could not possibly contain the answers to those that had been dispatched homeward less than two months ago, guilt had made her eye the packet that bore her father's handwriting with considerable apprehension. But now she stood for a long time holding the pages in her hand and looking out of the window through a screen of blazing bougainvillea to where the distant domes and minarets and jostling roof-tops of the Indian city met the intense blue of the Indian sky, her thoughts four thousand miles away …

Huntly! That fat, solemn silent baby, Herbert's son who had been born the year before Waterloo … the year before Johnny died … And now Huntly was to marry Julia Pike. ‘Well, if she is anything like her mother, I am sorry for Huntly,' said Emily. ‘Sabrina, dear child,
could
you not consent to go home in the spring? Just for the wedding? It will look so particular if you are not there. And then you could discuss your own affairs with Papa at the
same time. So much more suitable in every way. You and Marcos are both young. You can afford to wait for a few months, and it would mean so much to your grandfather … and to Huntly, of course.'

‘Huntly? Pooh! Huntly does not care a fig for me or I for him. Uncle Ashby once said that Huntly was a cold fish, and he was right. No, Aunt Emily. If I go to Ware it will be as Marcos's wife. I love Grandpapa. He is a darling. But he is an old tyrant too, and I don't trust him.'

‘Sabrina! What a dreadful thing to say.' Emily was genuinely shocked.

‘But I mean it. Look how he behaved over Dennis Allington. Oh, he was right about Dennis, I know. But do you not see, Aunt Emily, even though he was so fond of me, he could send me away to India just to get his own way?'

‘That is not fair, Sabrina,' said Emily. ‘He did it only to prevent you from making a very great mistake. He wished to save you from unhappiness.'

‘Oh, I know, Aunt. But it was not only my happiness he was thinking of. Supposing I had been really in love with Dennis? I was not, but suppose that I had been? He would not have cared. I was only to marry when he decided and whom he decided, and he was prepared to do anything to get his own way. If I went back to England now he'd try to stop me from marrying Marcos. He is a darling old tyrant from the Middle Ages, and I am afraid of him.'