The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (9 page)

“A little more.”

She wanted to argue but it was impossible to speak. It was easier to do what he wished. She drank some more of the brandy and no longer felt faint

“I...
am
...
sorry,” she tried to say.

“Sit still!” Major Meredith commanded. “You will be all right in a moment.”

She found it difficult to get her breath, and yet her brain was clearing. The faintness had gone and she felt the colour must have come back into her cheeks.

She was no longer desperately hot, on the contrary now cold, and she felt Major Meredith take her hands in his, rubbing them gently to warm them.

“You will be all right in a moment,” he said reassuringly.

It was true. In another minute or two Orissa realised that she no longer felt weak and helpless but quite capable of returning to her own cabin.

She drew her hands away and opening her eyes said in what sounded almost a normal voice:

“Thank you very ... much. I ... regret having been such
a...
bother to ... you.”

“It is no bother,” he said. “But surely you have enough sense.”

He stopped.

Perhaps because she still looked ill, perhaps because he felt that what he had to say was superfluous.

Orissa rose a little shakily to her feet. She walked across the Writing-Room and Major Meredith opened the door for her.

They stepped out onto the wide landing at the top of the stairs up which he had carried her.

“Thank ... you,” Orissa said once again in a low voice without looking at him.

Then as she would have left, the Doctor came from the Saloon.

“Hello, Mrs. Lane,” he greeted her. “How did you get on with your Indian patient? Did you persuade her to take my medicines?”

Without turning her head Orissa was aware that Major Meredith had stiffened beside her.

“Mrs. Mahla took them both, Dr. Thompson,” she said quietly, “and she was sleeping when I left her. I am sure she will be better in the morning.”

“Let us hope so,” the Doctor said jovially.

Then to Major Meredith he remarked:

“Good evening, Major. You see I have a very helpful assistant!”

Orissa did not stop to hear any more.

She walked to her cabin and as she shut the door she hoped that for the first time Major Meredith was discomfited.

The Doctor would tell him why she had gone down to the Third Class deck. He would learn that his suppositions, his insinuations were unfounded, and she hoped he would feel ashamed.

But nothing the Doctor would say could explain away the manner in which she had allowed Major Meredith to kiss her.

That was something which no-one could explain except herself and she could not find a solution.

She was still standing just inside her cabin when there came a knock at the door.

For a moment she thought that she had been mistaken. Then very quietly it came again.

She opened the door to find Major Meredith standing outside.

“I want to speak to you,” he said.

“No!” she answered. “It is too ... late. Besides
...”
She glanced in the direction of the State-Room next door which belonged to General and Lady Critchley.

“They are both in the Saloon,” Major Meredith said, reading her thoughts, “but I must speak to you—you know that
.
”

“There is nothing to say,” Orissa answered.

“Yes, there is,” he contradicted. “You know I have to ask your forgiveness. I have only learnt this moment that the Indian is your teacher.’

“I accept your apology for your ... behaviour last night,” Orissa said, “and now...”

She would have shut the door but Major Meredith held it open.

“You do not sound very forgiving,” he said accusingly, and there was laughter in his eyes.

“I am ... tired and I wish to go to ... bed,” she answered. “You cannot stay ... here talking to me, as you ... well know.”

“Is it not rather late in the day for you and me to worry about your reputation?” he asked.

Orissa knew to what he was referring.

He might apologise for his misunderstanding over Mrs. Mahla, but what he had thought about her being in Charles’s room all night still lay between them like a naked sword.

“Please leave me alone!” Orissa said. “We have nothing more to say to each other! Nothing!”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure!”

Her voice was positive and she knew that he was somewhat nonplussed by her determination to be rid of him.

He would have said something else, but there was the sound of voices in the distance and he turned his head to see who was approaching.

Orissa seized her opportunity.

She shut the door and he could not help hearing the key turn in the lock.

She stood listening and knew that for the moment Major Meredith did not move. Then she heard his footsteps going away down the passage and sank down onto her bunk.

He had apologised for one thing and she wished with a kind of fervour that could not be repressed that she could tell him how wrong he had been in his suppositions when he had seen her in Queen Anne Street.

“He will never know the truth,’ she told herself aloud and could not help hearing the note of despair in her voice.

The following day a breeze sprang up at dawn and the ship’s sails carried them forward at a greater speed than they had attained for the last forty-eight hours.

“
We should be in Bombay on time,” the General said when Orissa took Neil to see his grand-parents in the morning after breakfast.

It was so hot that she had put on one of the pretty new muslin dresses she had made herself. She was well aware that it became her and she looked very fresh and young in the sun-shine.

“You must be looking forward to seeing your husband again, Mrs. Lane,” Lady Critchley remarked.

“Yes,
of
...
course,” Orissa replied.

“He will be meeting you at Bombay?”

“I
...
expect so,” she answered.

“Then we must not forget to thank you for what you have done for little Neil,” Lady Critchley said. “He certainly looks better since he has been in your care.”

“Thank you,” Orissa said, surprised at Lady Critchley’s gratitude.

She took Neil’s hand to take him for a walk round the deck and before she was out of ear-shot she heard Lady Critchley say to the General:

“That is a very well-behaved young woman.”

Orissa could not help thinking with a wry smile that it was a pity Major Meredith could not hear Lady Critchley’s remark.

Then she thought with amusement how horrified Her Ladyship would be if she had any idea of how the Major had behaved.

‘It is a good thing they cannot thought-read,” she told herself, and forced her thoughts away from Major Meredith to concentrate on amusing Neil.

Although she felt inclined as it was growing near the end of the voyage to relax her rule of having dinner alone, she decided it would be impossible to encounter Major Meredith with an indifferent composure or indeed to bear the scrutiny of his grey eyes.

He would never learn how grossly he had misjudged her, and she could not help wondering whether, if they had met in different circumstances, he would still have wished to kiss her.

Had his action the night he had taken her in his arms under the stars been merely that of a man seeking amusement because it was easy and he did not have to exert himself to find it?

Or had he any different or perhaps deeper feelings where she was concerned?

That was a question to which she would never know the answer, Orissa realised despairingly and wondered because she could not help it if he had ever wished to kiss her again.

Even to think of it was to know that strange happiness of feeling secure and to relive the ecstasy which had made her whole body quiver.

Had that moment of rapture, that moment of glory, been only too commonplace where he was concerned?

Had she been just another woman whose lips he had sought? Just a female whose body perhaps attracted him fleetingly and whom he would forget the moment he set foot on dry land?

She could not understand why the idea made her feel so despondent; why, despite the fact that she hated him for his suspicions and the manner in which he had behaved, she wanted him to remember her.

‘My first kiss,’ Orissa told herself.

She had an uncomfortable feeling that never again would anybody be able to evoke in her anything quite so exquisite, so breathta
ki
ngly wonderful.

It was the last night on board that she came face to face with Major Meredith walking down the passageway towards her cabin.

She had been to the Purser’s office after dinner to collect some labels for the baggage.

She was sure that everyone else was in the Dining
-
Hall and that she would not be seen.

She had dined alone as usual and thought that at least after tomorrow there would be fresh food—fruit picked from the trees that morning, and meat and fish that had not been frozen.

However skilfully cooked, there was a sameness about the taste of food which had been refrigerated and which no sauce or gravy could disguise.

Because it was very hot and because all her things were packed, Orissa was wearing only a thin muslin day-dress and her hair was caught up into a big, loose chignon at the back of her head.

“Tomorrow you will see Mama,” she had said to Neil as she put him to bed.

He had gone to sleep clutching his painting-book because he was so frightened he would lose it before he could give it to his mother.

‘It seems strange,’ Orissa thought to herself, ‘that in some ways the ship has become so familiar during the voyage that it is like leaving a house that has been a home.’

She had grown used to the routine: to the Stewards, to the Purser and the passengers she met every day.

She had even grown to like some of those who always talked to Neil and to herself as they moved around the deck. She knew they were curious about her and would have questioned her closely if she had allowed them to do so.

After tomorrow she would never see any of them again. They were just “ships that pass in the night” and as easily forgotten.

With the exception of one,’ her brain said firmly.

It was true, Orissa thought, she would never be able to forget Major Meredith.

They would never meet again, but he had done something that she could never erase from her memory.

He had kissed her!

He was the first man to do so—the only man! She had the uneasy feeling that she would always compare what she felt when his lips touched hers with any kiss that she received in the future.

As Orissa walked down the corridor and saw Major Meredith coming towards her her heart gave a sudden, unexpected leap. It was almost as if it turned over in her breast and it was hard to breathe.

‘I do not wish to
speak to him,’ she thought, sud
denly panic-stricken, but it was too late to do anything about it.

“I was hoping to see you, Mrs. Lane,” Major Meredith remarked.

He came to a stop when he reached her and stood so that it was impossible for her to pass by him without having to push him aside.

Orissa raised her eyes to his face but she did not speak.

“Your husband will, I presume, be meeting you at Bombay.”

‘
I
hope
...
so,” Orissa managed to answer.

‘Is there anything I can do to help you after we have embarked?”

“No, thank you. There is nothing.”

Their words were conventional, spoken in low voices that seemed deliberately devoid of expression and yet, Orissa thought wildly, there was so much left unsaid.

She had a sudden crazy impulse to move towards him; to touch him; to ask him to kiss her just once more.

She wanted to be sure that she had not been dreaming or imagining the emotions he aroused in her that night under the stars. Then she told herself that he must not despise her more than he did already.

With an effort that was almost painful because she had to force it upon herself, she put out her hand.

“Good-bye, Major Meredith.”

She felt the hard strength of his fingers and somehow it made her quiver.

“Good-bye, Mrs. Lane. I hope you will be as happy in India as you expect to be.”