The Far Pavilions (41 page)

He waved away Ash's assertion that there had in fact been no danger, and his sisters rose to make their bows while Unpora-Bai made approving noises from behind her veil, and Kaka-ji observed that modesty was a virtue to be prized above valour, and that it was plain that Pelham-Sahib possessed both in full measure. One of the serving-women then shuffled forward with a silver tray that bore two ceremonial garlands fashioned out of tinsel ribbon ornamented with gold-embroidered medallions, and first Shushila and then Anjuli solemnly hung one about Ash's neck, where they glittered incongruously against the drab khaki of his mess jacket and gave him something of the appearance of an over-decorated General. After which he was invited to seat himself and plied with refreshments, and as a singular mark of favour (for it is pollution for those of high caste to eat with casteless men) the company ate with him – though not from the same dishes.

Once Shushila-Bai had been coaxed out of her shyness, the party relaxed and spent a very pleasant hour nibbling
halwa
, sipping sherbet and talking; and even cousin Unpora-Bai, while remaining closely veiled, contributed her mite to the conversation. It had not been easy to draw out the younger princess and persuade her to talk, but Ash, when he chose, had a way with him, and now he exerted himself to put the nervous child at her ease, and was eventually rewarded by a shy smile and then a laugh, and presently she was laughing and chattering as though she had known him all her life and he was indeed an older brother. It was only then that he felt free to turn his attention to her half-sister, Anjuli-Bai – and was startled by what he saw.

Anjuli had been sitting a little behind her sister when he entered, and directly under the shadow cast by the hanging lamp; and even when she rose to greet and garland him, he had not really been able to study her, for she had kept her head bent and wore the peak of her sari drawn so far forward that its broad edging of embroidery shadowed what little he could see of her face. Later, when they were all seated, he had been too occupied with his efforts to coax the younger princess into joining in the talk between himself and her brother and uncle to spare much attention for the elder one. That could wait. And though Anjuli had so far barely spoken, her silence neither suggested the nervous timidity that appeared to afflict her young half-sister, nor conveyed the impression that she was uninterested in what was being said. She sat quietly, watching and listening and occasionally nodding in agreement or shaking her head in smiling dissent, and Ash remembered that ‘Kairi-Bai’ had always been a good listener…

Looking fully at her at last, his first thought was that he had made a mistake. This was not Kairi. It was not possible that the thin, plain, shabby little creature who never seemed to have enough to eat, and who, as he had once complained, followed him around like a starving kitten, could have grown into a woman like this. Mahdoo had got it wrong, and this was not the daughter of the old Rajah's second wife, the
Feringhi
-Rani, but of someone else…

Yet because her head was no longer bent, her sari had slipped back a little, and the signs of her mixed blood were clearly to be seen. They were there in the colour of her skin and the structure of her bones; in the long, gracious lines of her body, the breadth of shoulder and hip, and the small, square-jawed face with its high cheek bones and broad brow; in the set of the wide-spaced eyes that were the colours of bog-water, the tilted tip of that short nose, and the lovely, generous mouth that was too large to suit the accepted standards of beauty that were so admirably personified by her half-sister.

By contrast, Shushila-Bai was as small and exquisite as a Tanagra figurine or the miniature of some legendary Indian beauty: golden-skinned and black-eyed, her face a flawless oval and her mouth a rose-petal. Her small-boned perfection made her seem as though she were fashioned from a different clay from the half-sister who sat beside and a little behind her – and who was not quite as tall as Ash's first impression of her, for standing, he had topped her by half a head. But then he was a tall man, and her co-bride, Shushila, stood barely four foot ten in her heelless silken slippers.

The elder girl lacked the delicacy of the East, but that did not prove that she was the
Feringhi
-Rani's daughter…

His gaze fell on a bare arm that was the colour of warm ivory, and there, just above the golden bangles, was a crescent-shaped scar: the mark left by the teeth of a monkey, many years ago… Yes, it is Juli all right, thought Ash. Juli grown up – and grown beautiful.

Long ago, during his first year at a public school, Ash had come across a line in one of Marlowe's plays that had caught his imagination and stuck fast in his memory ever since: Faust's words on seeing Helen of Troy:
‘Oh thou art fairer than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!’
It had seemed to him then, and still did, the perfect description of beauty, and later he had applied it to Lily Briggs, who had giggled and told him that ‘he wasn't 'alf a one’, and later still to Belinda – who had reacted in a similar manner, though she had phrased her comment a little differently. Yet neither of them bore the least resemblance to the Maharajah of Karidkote's half-sister, Anjuli-Bai, for whom, thought Ash, astounded, those lines might have been expressly written.

Looking at Juli, it was as though he were seeing beauty for the first time in his life, and as though he had never realized before what it was. Lily had been blowsily attractive and Belinda had certainly been pretty – a great deal prettier than any of his previous loves. But then his ideal of feminine good looks – had been shaped by his childhood in India, and unconsciously influenced by fashion – Victoria's England, as may be seen from countless paintings, picture-postcards and illustrated books of the period, still admired large eyes and a small rose-bud of a mouth in a smoothly oval face, to say nothing of sloping shoulders and a nineteen-inch waist. The era of Du Maurier's stately goddesses, who were to usher in an entirely new fashion in beauty, had not yet dawned; and it had never occurred to Ash that any form and face so diametrically opposed to the Victorian – and Indian – ideal could not only be immeasurably more arresting, but make the prettiness he had hitherto admired seem slightly insipid. But though his personal preference was still for dainty and delicately built women such as Shushila, Anjuli's looks, which threw back to her Russian great-grandmother, were a revelation to him, and he could not take his eyes off her.

Becoming aware of his regard and embarrassed by it, she half turned from him and drew the peak of her sari forward again so that her face was once more in shadow; and Ash suddenly realized that he had been staring – and also that Jhoti had just asked him a question and that he had no idea what it was. He turned quickly towards the boy, and for the next ten minutes became involved in a discussion on falconry; and only when Jhoti and Shushila began to tease their uncle to let them go hawking on the far side of the river was he able to turn back again to Anjuli.

The two elderly waiting-women were already beginning to yawn and nod, for it was getting late. But though he knew that it was time he took his leave, there was something he meant to do before he left. He put his hand in his pocket, and a moment or two later reached out and made believe to pick something off the carpet.

‘Your Highness has dropped something,’ said Ash, holding it out to Anjuli. ‘This is yours, I think?’

He had expected her to look surprised or puzzled – probably the latter, for he thought it unlikely that after all these years she would remember either the luck-piece or the boy she had given it to. But she did neither. She turned her head when he spoke, and seeing the sliver of mother-of-pearl on his palm, took it with a smile and a brief murmur of thanks.

‘
Shukr-guzari
, Sahib. Yes, it is mine. I do not know how it can have -’

She stopped on a gasp, for she had put a hand to her breast; and Ash knew in that moment that he had been wrong. Juli not only remembered, but she still wore her half of the luck-piece where she had always worn it, hanging from a strand of silk about her neck. And she had just realized that it was still there.

Ash was suddenly aware of a disturbing mixture of emotions that he did not wish to analyse, and turning to Shushila-Bai, he begged her forgiveness for keeping her up so late and asked for leave to withdraw. Yes, yes, agreed Kaka-ji, rising with alacrity, it was quite time they all retired to bed; the hour was late and though young people might be able to do without sleep, he himself could not. ‘It has been a very pleasant evening. We must have other parties,’ said Kaka-ji Rao.

Anjuli said nothing. Nor did she move. She sat quite still, holding the missing half of her luck-piece clenched in her hand and staring at Ash with wide, startled eyes. But Ash was already regretting the impulse that had made him give it to her, and as he said his farewells he avoided her gaze, and leaving the tent walked back through the camp feeling angry with himself and wishing that he had thrown away the piece of pearl shell – or at least had the sense to leave well alone. He had an uneasy feeling that he had started something, the end of which he could not see, like a man who carelessly flicks a pebble at an over-hanging ledge of snow, and thereby sets in motion an avalanche that may overwhelm some hamlet in a valley far below.

What if Juli were to talk of the strange return of the missing half of her luck-piece? He had no way of knowing how many people were in her confidence these days, or how much she had changed. Nor had he any idea where her loyalties now lay, for the sad little Kairi-Bai of his Gulkote days appeared to have nothing in common with this bejewelled princess of Karidkote who was being conveyed to her wedding with such pomp and splendour, and it was clear that her circumstances had altered surprisingly and everything turned out well for her. As for himself, he had no desire to be identified in any way with the boy who had been her brother's servant. Janoo-Rani might be dead, but Biju Ram was still very much alive; and, in all probability, just as dangerous. He at least would not have forgotten Ashok, and were he to hear the tale of Juli's luck-piece he might well take fright and decide to deal with this Sahib as he and Janoo-Rani had plotted to do all those years ago with Ashok. And for the same reason – for fear of what he might know or guess; and, now that Lalji was dead, of the ghosts that he might raise…

Thinking of all this, Ash was uneasily conscious of a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach and a compulsive urge to look over his shoulder as he walked back through the camp. He had been a fool and once again, as so often in the past, acted on impulse and without giving due thought to the possible consequences of the action; which was something he had sworn to himself that he would never do again.

That night he slept with the tent-flap laced shut and a revolver under his pillow, having made a mental note to pay more attention to the siting of his tent, which at present could be too easily approached from three sides without disturbing either Mahdoo or Gul Baz, or any of his personal servants. From now on he would have their tents pitched in a half-moon behind his own, with their guy-ropes interlocking, while the horses should be tethered to the right and left instead of bunched together in the rear. ‘I'll see to it in the morning,’ decided Ash.

But the morning was still several hours away when he was awakened from sleep by the sound of a hand trying the fastening of the tent-flap.

Ash had always been a light sleeper and the stealthy sound woke him instantly. He lay still, listening, and presently heard it repeated. Someone was trying to enter the tent, and it was not one of his own men; they would have coughed or spoken to attract his attention. Nor could it be a prowling dog or a jackal, for the sound did not come from ground level but from higher up. Ash slid a hand under his pillow and drew out his revolver, and was easing back the safety catch when someone again scratched softly but imperatively on the canvas and a whispering voice called: ‘Sahib, Sahib.’

‘
Kaun hai
?’ (who is it?). ‘What do you want?’

‘No harm, Sahib. Indeed no harm. A word only -’ The speaker's teeth chattered from cold, or possibly from fear or nervousness.

Ash said curtly: ‘Speak then. I am listening.’

‘The Rajkumari… my mistress, Anjuli-Bai, says…’

‘Wait.’

Ash felt for the knot and unlacing the flap threw it back and saw that his visitor was a woman, a veiled and shrouded figure bundled in shawls, who was presumably one of the royal serving-women. He himself was more scantily clad, for his sole garment was a pair of loose cotton trousers, and the woman drew back with a startled gasp, disconcerted at being faced with a half-naked Sahib who clutched a revolver in one hand.

‘Well, what is it?’ demanded Ash impatiently. He did not relish being woken at such an hour and was ashamed of the fear that had stabbed through him in the moment of waking. ‘What is it that your mistress wishes to know?’

‘She wishes – she prays that you will tell her from whom you received a certain piece of pearl-shell, and asks if you can give her news of him… and of his mother also; and tell her where they may be found. That is all.’

And quite enough, thought Ash grimly. Was it only Juli who wanted this information, or had the return of the missing half of the luck-piece already been talked of in the camp, and could Biju Ram have sent this woman to question him?

He said brusquely: ‘I cannot help the Rajkumari. Tell her that I am sorry, but I know nothing.’

He made as though to close the tent-flap, but the woman reached out and catching his arm said breathlessly: ‘That is not true. You must surely know who gave it to you, and if so… Sahib, I beg of you! Of your charity, tell me only if they are alive and well.’

Ash looked down at the hand on his arm. The newly risen moon was in its last quarter, but its light was still bright enough to show him the shape of that hand, and he caught it about the wrist and holding it in a hard grasp, reached out and jerked aside the
chuddah
that hid the woman's face. She made one frantic attempt to free herself, and finding that she could not, stood quite still, staring at him and breathing a little quickly.