The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (5 page)

“That is what we all feel when we are away,” Major Meredith replied.

“I see there is more trouble on the Frontier,” Colonel Onslow remarked.

Major Meredith smiled.

“Is there ever anything else?”

“But they say that Russia is only waiting for a suitable moment to march into Afghanistan and capture Herat.”

“We cannot allow that!” the General said positively.

“Of course not, Sir,” Major Meredith agreed.

“I thought we had settled the trouble with Afghanistan several years ago,” Mrs. Onslow remarked plaintively. “I cannot understand why we must have one alarm after another.”

“I will explain it quite simply,” Major Meredith answered. “In the North West the savage, aggressive tribesmen he in ambush behind every rock and every wadi, the Afghanistans brood behind the tribesmen, and behind them both stand the Russians!”

The General laughed.

“That is good, Meredith. Very good! I must remember that!”

“But what does Russia want?” Mrs. Onslow enquired.

“That is simple to answer,” Major Meredith replied. “The prize is India!”

“Do they really think they can conquer us?”

“They would certainly attempt to do so if they got the chance,” he said. “Geographically there is a protective mountain barrier round the North and West
face of India—the Karakorums, the Pamirs, and the Hindu Kush.”

“Well, then?” Mrs. Onslow questioned.

“Russia is greedy. We have no desire to advance from India against Russia because that would be beyond the range of our sea power, but Russia, as you well know, can make things very difficult for us and has already done so for the last ten years by stirring up trouble in Afghanistan.”

“I did hear,” Colonel Onslow said, “that General Komaroff has sixty thousand men only a day’s march from Herat. If that is true, though it may be a rumour, we should have to fight
.
”

“We are always fighting to prevent Russian infiltration, Russian aggression, Russian influence on the tribesmen,” Major Meredith said quietly, “and I do not think that things are more explosive at this moment than they have been in the past few years. Nevertheless we shall learn more when we reach Bombay.”

Orissa had listened fascinated by the conversation. Now she felt that she must have out-stayed her welcome and as Major Meredith turned to say something to Colonel Onslow, she bent forward to murmur in Lady Critchley s ear:

“I think I should go and see if Neil is all right”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Lane. Good-night,” Lady Critchley said.

Orissa rose quickly and moved away from the table before anyone realised that she was about to do so and there was no need for the gentlemen to rise to their feet.

She walked across the Saloon conscious as she did so that the other passengers having their coffee looked at her as she passed.

She managed to appear indifferent to their attention, but when she reached the door she hurried as quickly as she could to her cabin.

She entered, shut the door behind her and then
stood with her back to it as if it were a protection against what was outside.

“How could it be possible,’ she asked herself, ‘that Major Meredith should be on board this particular ship?’

It must, she thought, have been a chance in a million that they would ever encounter each other again. Yet her heart was still beating violently in her breast from the shock of seeing him so unexpectedly.

She thought now she should have looked at the Passenger List when she first came on board. It was, she knew, always pinned up outside the Purser’s office. Yet even if she had seen the name, what could she have done about it?

It would have been impossible to go ashore and refuse to sail, and equally impossible to remain in her cabin for the whole voyage.

But as it happened, everything was all right.

He had not re
cognised her—she was sure of it!

There had not been even a flicker of recognition or interest in his eyes and she felt if there had been she would not, agitated though she was, have missed it.

But she would have to be careful—very careful. Charles had said Major Meredith was “snoopy.” But there was not the slightest reason in the world why he should make enquiries about her. And if he did
—
who could tell him anything?

General and Lady Critchley had believed the story told them by the Adjutant, and there was no-one else who was likely ever to have seen her before or have any idea she was not who she pretended to be.

‘I am safe
..
. quite safe!’ Orissa told herself reassuringly as she started to undress.

Yet she knew it was impossible to dismiss Major Meredith from her mind. There was something disturbing about him; something even in the tone of his voice that affected her.

When she got into her bunk she went over in her mind all the things Charles had told her about him.

He was thought to have been responsible for Gerald Dewar’s death. That in itself was enough to condemn him, apart from the fact that he had had Charles “on the mat,” as her brother would have described it, which was certainly something Orissa resented.

‘He will spoil the voyage for me,’ she told herself, and then with her natural resilience she determined she would not allow him to do so.

She had escaped by a miracle. By some marvellous chance of Fate she had been spirited away from the misery, humiliation and degradation she had suffered these past years at the hands of her Step-mother.

From being, as it seemed to her, confined in a dark cupboard, the doors were suddenly opened to light and hope.

She was going back to India! She was returning to the land she loved and which had always meant home.

Already she imagined she could feel the sun and see the beauty which had remained in her mind all through her unhappiness in England like an oasis of wonder and joy.

She shut her eyes and thought as she had thought so often before of the heat, the colour of the fruit and vegetables and grain in the Bazaar, the smell of musk, spices and ghee, mustard oil and masala.

She could remember the silk shops with their gay bales piled high, the jostling, drifting crowds, the great, lazy, sacred Brahmini bulls, sacred to Shiva.

And over it all the brilliant, burning sun-shine, golden and blinding, enveloping her like the love for which she had been starved all these years in the cold and rain of London.

‘Forget Major Meredith,’ Orissa told herself. It is India that matters!’

CHAPTER THREE

The next day they ran into
bad weather.

When Orissa awoke she heard the straining shrouds and guy ropes creaking in the force of a high wind and the splash of the spray as it drove over the bows.

The ship was rolling and pitching and Neil began to feel sick from the moment he awoke.

He was tearful and irritable between bouts of vomiting and Orissa, aware at first of a queasy feeling, soon found she had no time to think of herself.

The Steward brought dismal accounts of the other passengers.

“All incapacitated, Ma’am,” he told Orissa. “It’s always the same this time of the year. The Dining
-
Saloon is deserted!”

It was impossible for Orissa to leave Neil, so the Steward brought their luncheon to the cabin, and she coaxed the child to eat something knowing it was better to be sick on a full stomach rather than an empty one.

She tried to amuse him by telling him a story but after a while he fell asleep and she decided it would be a good opportunity to have a little fresh air.

By now it seemed as if she had found her “sea-legs” and she no longer felt sick, but she had a painful headache from the stuffiness of the cabin.

She put on her cloak and bonnet and, after asking the Steward to look in every ten minutes or so to see if Neil had awakened, she started an unsteady passage to the more sheltered side of the ship.

It was not easy to walk and she had to hold on to whatever she could on the way.

However she had a longing for air and finally she let herself out onto the deserted deck which was heaving up and down beneath her feet.

It was impossible to walk about. The sea was so rough and the wind so strong that she knew that if she went near the rail her cloak might be whipped away from her, and certainly her bonnet would go at the first gust.

She could only therefore stand supported against the outside wall of the cabins sheltered from the rush and spray of the waves but still encountering some of the more violent blows of the wind which beat the tendrils of her hair against her cheeks so furiously that they hurt.

Yet she felt there was an exhilaration in it.

It seemed part of her own mood of getting free—of trying against impossible odds to escape from everything she hated in England.

The noise of the storm prevented her from hearing a door open and the first intimation that she was not alone came when a deep voice beside her said:

“I see you are a good sailor, Mrs. Lane.”

She turned her head to see Major Meredith standing there, his grey eyes on her face and she was instantly conscious that she must look untidy.

“I am proud to find that I am,” she answered. “I was not certain when I awoke if I would succumb like the poor little boy I am looking after.”

“He is all right?” Major Meredith enquired.

“He is asleep,” Orissa replied.

She had the stra
nge feeling they were making de
sultory conversation which was of no importance, when they should be speaking of other things.

Then she remembered how dangerous Major Meredith could be and how Charles was afraid of him.

She decided that because of this she must be as ordinarily polite and as pleasant as any woman in her position would be if a man of Major Meredith
’
s social consequence condescended to her.

A sudden lurch of the ship made her stagger for a moment and Major Meredith’s hand went out as if he would support her, but he did not in actual fact touch her.

Orissa looked away from him towards the green waves at one moment curving high and next swinging low in a swirl of white-crested water.

“You look as if you are enjoying it,” he said.

She thought there was a mocking note in his voice.

“I am,” she answered simply. “There is something exhilarating and exciting in the ship pitting its strength against all the might of the ocean.”

“You are not afraid?”

“I think I should only be afraid if we had to turn back,” Orissa replied.

“That is unlikely,” Major Meredith remarked. “But it surprises me that you are so glad to leave England.”

“Why?”

He seemed to consider a moment before he answered:

“Most women find life in India constricting and narrow. The majority long passionately for home.”

The word “home” brought Orissa sharp memories.

“To me India is home,” she said.

She had the feeling that Major Meredith was going to question her further, and because she realised this must not happen she turned.

“I must go back to my charge, he may be needing me.”

She had hardly completed the sentence before a violent roll of the ship made her lose her balance.

For one frightening moment it seemed as if she would slither down the sloping deck and be thrown against the railing over which the water was flooding.

She gave a little cry of fright, and at that moment a strong hand caught her wrist and pulled her back sharply so that she found herself in Major Meredith’s arms.

It all happened so quickly. The impact of his hard body against the softness of hers made it difficult to breathe and she found his face was very close to hers.

She was looking into his grey eyes.

Just for a moment time seemed suspended. Then with a little inarticulate murmur of apology, Orissa found it possible to reach the door.

Without looking back she hurried to her cabin.

Only when she was safely inside the State-Room to find Neil still asleep did she sit down, feeling as if she had been buffetted not only by the wind, but in some inexplicable way by Major Meredith.

She had gone to sleep thinking of him, afraid for Charles and yet at the same time convinced that he had not recognised her. There had not been the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Again this morning she was certain that he did not connect her with the woman he had seen creeping up and then down the dark stairs of the house in Queen Anne Street—otherwise surely he would have betrayed his knowledge in one way or another.

Nevertheless, because of the things Charles had told her about Major Meredith, because for her own sake he was a very undesirable acquaintance, she felt she must do her best to avoid him.

It was not difficult during the next four days when the weather in the Bay of Biscay was extremely rough, and even Orissa felt it was unwise to venture onto the wave-swept decks.

She suffered from being confined in the cabin with Neil, but it gave her a chance to get on with
making her new dresses in the pretty muslins she had bought
in London. She also refu
r
bished her green gown with the tulle and ribbons.

She found that Neil was quite happy to lie and do nothing if she told him a story, and it was easy to sew at the same time.

Her dresses progressed apace, and it was when they were nearing Gibraltar that Orissa thought of a different way to occupy what free time she might have. .

She had noticed the first night that there were a number of Indian passengers in the First Class Dining-Saloon.

She longed to make their acquaintance, to talk to them, and, most of all to find out if her knowledge of their language was still as good as it had been when she was a child.

At that time, because her Ayah talked to her in her own tongue, Orissa had found it as easy to converse with the natives as to talk English to her own family.

She was however well aware that Lady Critchley would think it very strange if she were to become friendly with the Indians on board, and she therefore thought of a better plan.

She went in search of the Purser, a red-faced, jolly man who was excellent at performing the most important part of his duties, which was to keep the passengers happy.

“I wonder if it would be possible,” Orissa said, “for you to find anyone on board who would give me a few lessons in Urdu.”

“Do you mean an Indian, Mrs. Lane?” the Purser enquired.

“Perhaps there is one on the Second er Third Class deck who would be grateful for a little extra money,” she replied. “I could not pay much.”

“I understand that,”
the
Purser said. “I will see if there is anyone suitable but if they are not travelling First Class, I shall have to ask the Captain’s permission for them to be allowed on this deck.”

“The lessons would have to be after I have put my
charge to bed,” Orissa said, “and that would mean that they would really have to be after dinner. I usually retire once the coffee has been served.”

“I have noticed that,” the Purser said. “You are not a card-player, Mrs. Lane?”

“I cannot afford to gamble,” Orissa said with a smile.

“Well, I will certainly see what I can do to help you,” the Purser promised, “and I am sure that as several people are getting off at Malta it will be easy to find you a cabin that you can use.”

“Thank you very much indeed,” Orissa said.

She felt excited at the idea of “rubbing up” the language which she knew must have grown rusty over the years. Yet it seemed that every word she had ever spoken was still vividly in her mind.

Sometimes when she was walking to school, or sitting alone in the dismal house at Eaton Place, she would deliberately name English objects aloud in Urdu, liking the sound of them on her tongue.

By the time they reached Gibraltar the Dining
-
Saloon was full again and Neil went down to luncheon with his grand-parents.

Despite Orissa’s resolution to avoid Major Meredith as much as possible, she could not help being aware that when he was present at meal times the whole conversation seemed charged with interest.

At Malta it was Major Meredith who brought the news that there had been a victory for the Nile Expedition at Abu Klea Wells.

“A victory?” the General asked sharply.

Everyone at the table paused to listen, their eyes riveted on Major Meredith’s face.

“General Stewart has reported that he has fought a successful battle twenty-five miles from the river.”

“Was it a big one?” the General enquired. “Apparently he had ten thousand natives against him,” Major Meredith answered, “but reports of what happened are not very detailed at the moment.”

Orissa thought of a battle involving ten thousand of
the enemy and found herself shivering. Very soon Charles would be fighting and she could not bear the thought of it.

“What news of General Gordon?” the General enquired.

“Apparently a message from the General dated December twenty-ninth stated: ‘Khartoum all right
—
could hold out for years!’ ”

“How did they get that?” General Onslow enquired.

“From what I gather it was written on a diminutive piece of paper that a native could secret about his person,” Major Meredith answered. “The report says the man was actually stripped by some hostile Arabs, searched and beaten, but he managed to get his tiny message to Korte.”

“Is there no news since December twenty-ninth?” Colonel McDougal enquired.

“If there is, they do not know of it in Malta,” Major Meredith replied.

The other news they learnt from the foreign newspapers that came aboard was that there had been a dynamite attack in the House of Commons and the Tower of London.

“Good gracious!” Lady Critchley exclaimed, “I cannot imagine what the world is coming to! Who could have done such a thing?”

“They call themselves the Irish Invincibles’ but they come from America,” Major Meredith informed her. “The Chamber in the House of Commons was practically wrecked and special damage was done to the Government Front Bench.”

“I can hardly credit such things happening in England!” Mrs. Onslow exclaimed. “One can hardly bear to think of the world and the mess it is in at the moment!”

“That is true,” Lady Critchley agreed.

“Although I must say,” Mrs. Onslow went on, “we ourselves should be thankful that we escaped fro
m
being ship-wrecked in that terrible storm.”

“I do not think we were ever in danger of foundering,” Colonel McDougel reassured her. “I saw in the newspapers a week ago that there were in fact four hundred and eleven fewer ship-wrecks last year than in 1883 and twelve hundred fewer lives were lost.”

“I also read that report,” Major Meredith remarked dryly, “and although the figures were encouraging, there were still three thousand people who perished at sea during the year!”

“Oh, do let us talk of something more cheerful,” Mrs. Onslow begged. “I am sick of wars and explosions, and of hearing of people being drowned.” Unexpectedly she smiled across the table at Orissa.

“I am sure, Mrs. Lane, that like me, you have been longing to see the news-papers so that you could read of the engagement of Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry Battenburg? That is far more interesting to us women, do you not agree?”

“Yes, of course,” Orissa had answered politely.

She could not say that she found it impossible not to listen intently to everything Major Meredith said.

It was not only that she wanted to hear the news he had to impart, and she realised that he was in a privileged position so that he had access to military information wherever they docked, but there was something in his deep voice she found irresistible.

After a number of meals in his presence she found herself watching for him coming across the Dining
-
Saloon and wondering why he seemed to be outstanding even though there was nothing particularly arresting about his appearance.

He was of medium height, his hair a nondescript dark brown, his features were clear-cut but not particularly distinguished.

His face was thin and his cheek-bones stood out because of it.