Shadow of the Moon (26 page)

Winter had spoken a few stiffly formal words of thanks when he had shaken hands with her, to which Alex - his eyes on a massive clock at the far side of the room - had replied briefly that he was happy to have been of any assistance to her. He was quite obviously in a hurry and impatient to be off, and having swallowed half a glass of champagne with absent-minded haste had shaken hands with the assembled company and left. The rattle of his carriage wheels died away on the long drive, and Winter was astounded and disturbed to find that the sound brought her a sudden feeling of being alone and unprotected. Which was of course absurd, for was not Colonel Abuthnot here to take his place and see that she came to no harm?

But as the slow days dragged by she was surprised to find how much she missed him. Not the man himself, but the feeling he had given her that as long as he was there she was safe. She had not stopped to analyse it, and she would not do so now. But the fact that he had gone, and that it would never again be any part of his duty to see to her comfort and safety, did not bring her any feeling of relief, but rather a vague sensation of insecurity and loss. Which must, she decided, be because he had been a link with Conway.

14

Edward English left for Meerut on the day following his momentous interview with Colonel Abuthnot, and Lottie found what comfort she could in planning her wedding, which was to take place late in October. But their stay in Calcutta was by no means spent in idleness, for the kindly Shadwells arranged numerous entertainments for their guests, and cards of invitation for balls and assemblies, including a State Ball at Government House, arrived at the house on Garden Reach in an apparently never-ending stream.

Mrs Gardener-Smith and Delia were also in Calcutta, for Colonel Gardener-Smith having obtained three months' leave, they had decided to remain there for a week or two in order to rest and recuperate after the long voyage, and they had driven over several times to visit the Abuthnot ladies and accompany them on shopping expeditions to the city.

Calcutta, as the capital and headquarters of the Governor-General and the Council, and seat of the Supreme Government, had a reputation to keep up in the way of gaiety, and the State Ball had been a revelation to Lottie and Sophie, who had never attended such a function before. Even Winter, accustomed to the almost unrelieved black and white attire of the men who had danced at Ware and in the London ballrooms, had imagined for one dazzled instant that the Governor-General was giving a fancy-dress ball.

Men in the gorgeous dress-uniforms of regiments whose names were rarely heard outside India, regiments of Cavalry, of Irregular Horse, of Bengal Infantry and Artillery - men wearing the pale blue and gold of the Light Cavalry, the canary yellow of Skinner's Horse, the green of the Rifle companies and the scarlet of Infantry regiments - vied with the shimmering silks and frothing tarlatans of feminine ball-gowns in richness of colour and glitter of gold lace, and outnumbered the women by six to one.

Moving among them in more sober attire, crows among a flock of peacocks, were the rich Calcutta merchants - men such as Mr Shadwell - or, distinguished by ribbons and orders, the members of the Governor-General's Council and high officers of the East India Company. Indian guests, many of them ablaze with jewels and wearing brightly coloured brocades and muslins, their dark faces often no darker than the sun-burned skins above the high tight collars of dress uniforms, mingled with the company but did not dance, and Lottie commented with surprise on the fact that there were no Indian ladies present.

‘In the East, women are kept in their proper places,' said Colonel Abuthnot with a twinkle. ‘An Indian gentleman would consider it highly improper to allow his womenfolk to gallivant about in public semi-naked. As for permitting
them to be clasped about the waist to prance to music in the arms of a strange man, such a thing would be unthinkable.'

‘George, how
can
you speak like that!' - Mrs Abuthnot was genuinely shocked. ‘Surely you do not disapprove of dancing? As for being semi-naked, that is the
grossest
exaggeration, and I wonder at you for saying such things before your daughters.'

‘I did not say that I disapproved of dancing, my love,' retorted Colonel Abuthnot mildly. ‘But I confess I have often thought that our Western dances must appear exceedingly abandoned when viewed by Eastern eyes. And you must admit that modern fashions display a great deal of the female form.'

‘No such thing!' declared his wife indignantly. ‘Why, when one considers that our grandmothers thought a mere slip of wetted muslin sufficient for evening wear, I cannot imagine how you can regard the present fashions as immodest.'

‘Oh, I will concede that they are an improvement on the fashions of the Regency,' admitted the Colonel, ‘but it never fails to surprise me that a woman who feels it necessary to conceal herself from the waist downwards in a vast cage of skirts and whalebone, should be able, without a blush, to make such a display of arms, shoulders and bosom. Not, as a European, that I have any complaint to make. I merely wonder what our oriental friends think of it.'

Mrs Abuthnot looked ruffled, but the retort that she had been about to utter died at the sight of Delia Gardener-Smith who happened to pass at that moment on the arm of a scarlet-coated officer, for Miss Gardener-Smith so amply bore out the truth of Colonel Abuthnot's statements. The hoops of Delia's crinoline supported at least twenty yards of lime-green taffeta trimmed with blonde, and her wide, swaying skirts permitted only the barest glimpse of small satin slippers; but the tight-fitting décolleté bodice allowed for a lavish display of plump white bosom and dimpled shoulders.

Mrs Abuthnot flushed uncomfortably, and furtively twitching her light lace shawl closer about her own ample shoulders, cast an anxious eye over her own two daughters. But neither Lottie nor Sophie, small-boned and fragile, could have lent even the most revealing of gowns a look of abandon, and the bodices of their modest pink and blue tarlatan dresses were provided, unlike Delia's, with discreet fichus and small puffed sleeves.

Winter's dress was a different matter, for she wore one of the trousseau ball-gowns selected by Lady Adelaide; a white moiré-antique of imperial magnificence, draped with flounces of Brussels lace looped up at intervals with pearls, and with a bodice cut every inch as low as that worn by Delia. But the carriage of her slim shoulders, and the tilt of her small head with its weight of smoothly netted black hair, had an unconscious dignity that forbade any comparison with Miss Gardener-Smith's lavish display of dimpled flesh.

Mrs Abuthnot, her stout and comfortable person suitably arrayed in
gros-vert
taffeta shot with black, confided in an uneasy whisper to Delia's mama that it was an odd circumstance that toilettes which had seemed unexceptional in England should appear almost daring when worn in the East: ‘I suppose it is because there are so many Indian guests present tonight,' she concluded unhappily.

Mrs Gardener-Smith bristled slightly and observed that for her part she considered the present fashions quite
charming
, and that several people had complimented her upon Delia's appearance. Lady Canning indeed had been more than kind.
Such
a pleasant creature! - although to be sure it was a pity that she had elected to wear crimson, as it made her appear sadly pale. It was probable that she found the climate trying, this being her first visit to the East. As for the Governor-General, though Mrs Gardener-Smith had not yet spoken to him, she considered that he too did not look to be in the best of health.

Lord Canning's health, as it happened, was excellent; but he was having a troublesome time. He had hoped for a quiet term in office in succession to the dynamic Dalhousie whose reforms were said to have launched India on an era of enlightenment and progress, but India was proving a bed of thorns rather than roses.

The new Governor-General, a remarkably handsome man in his early forties with a noble brow and a somewhat womanish mouth, had taken over the reins from Lord Dalhousie less than eight months previously, and had early discovered that his predecessor's confident prediction that all was well with India was unfounded. Dalhousie had enlarged the bounds of Empire to a previously unthinkable degree, but there had been no corresponding enlargement of the number of Company's men needed to control and administer it. The Bengal Army had been stripped of officers, who had been sent on special service to administer newly acquired districts, act as judges, build roads and bridges or pacify revolting populations, and efficiency in the regiments had suffered in consequence. A situation to which the new Governor-General was not blind, but which he found himself unable to rectify.

The annexation of Oudh had been one of the last acts of Lord Dalhousie's reign, but the settling of the province had fallen to Lord Canning, whose appointment of Mr Coverley Jackson as Chief Commissioner of this newest of the Company's possessions had not proved a happy one. Mr Jackson appeared to be more interested in conducting a lively paper war with his subordinates, Gubbins and Ommaney, than in the affairs of Oudh. Mr Gubbins, equally irascible, had entered with enthusiasm into the combat, and the hapless province - the main recruiting ground for the Company's Sepoy Army - was left to limp along in chaos while its chief British administrators expended a large part of their time and energy in mutual recrimination and in formulating charges and counter-charges which they dispatched almost daily to Calcutta.

To add to Lord Canning's worries war clouds were massing over Persia, and he knew that if war were to be declared he would be required to send troops from India which could be ill spared. There was also the problem of Wajid Ali, the deposed King of Oudh, who had settled in Calcutta, bringing with him a large following of relatives and retainers who lived a life of idleness and occupied themselves with intrigue and the formulation of endless complaints against the British officers in Lucknow who, they alleged, were inflicting disgraceful suffering and indignities upon the dispossessed nobles of the state, plundering their possessions, turning their women into the streets, and using their palaces to house horses and dogs.

The Marquis of Dalhousie, sailing away from India towards an early death, imagined that he had left behind him peaceful agricultural acres reclaimed, in effect, from the savage forests of medievalism and barbarity. But the dragon's teeth that had been sown in them were springing up under the feet of his successor, and Lord Canning watched his carefree guests dancing the waltz in the ballroom of Government House with an abstracted eye and a mind that was on other matters.

Colonel Abuthnot, who was no dancer, left his wife to gossip among the older women and keep a watchful eye upon Lottie, Sophie and Winter, and removed himself to the more congenial company of several like-minded gentlemen who were smoking a quiet cigar in an ante-room some distance from the ballroom. His appearance was hailed by a portly civilian whose high stock seemed to be in some danger of choking him:

‘Hullo, Abuthnot - you're just the man I wanted to see. Fallon here has been talkin' a lot of twaddle about disaffection among some of the regiments around Delhi way. That's your part of the world, ain't it? I've told him that he's too credulous by half. The Army's as sound as a bell!'

‘Well … there have been rumours of course,' admitted Colonel Abuthnot cautiously, ‘but I have certainly had no trouble with my own men. ‘Evening, General. ‘Evening, Fallon.'

‘Pah -
rumours
!' snorted the stout civilian scornfully. ‘There are always rumours. Wouldn't be India without 'em. But it's only the alarmists who go quackin' about, takin' them seriously.'

Colonel Fallon's bronzed countenance took on a distinct tinge of purple. ‘I resent that aspersion, sir! I am no alarmist. But neither am I a Government ostrich burying my head in the sands of complacency. I tell you that there are dangerous ideas stirring among the sepoys. Ideas that we have fostered ourselves - or done nothing to prevent. Grievances that we have given insufficient attention to.'

‘Such as what, sir?' demanded the first speaker bristling. ‘The sepoy is better fed, better treated and better paid than ever before.'

‘Ah, that's the trouble,' cut in an elderly man with fierce white moustaches, who wore the uniform of a famous Bengal infantry regiment. ‘They used to
be as tough as hickory sticks in my young days; but nowadays we pamper 'em. Yes, by God! we pamper and pet 'em as though we were running a demned girls' school instead of an army. The whole thing's going soft.'

‘Not soft,' snapped Colonel Fallon. ‘Rotten. Rotten from top to bottom. Half the younger officers don't even know their men, and the rest of them are for ever being removed from regimental duty on special appointment to civil posts - or the staff. Then there's all this damned Brahminism. We should have done something to limit it.'

A tall handsome man with cold eyes and a marked air of fashion added a languid voice to the discussion: ‘Brahminism? Pray enlighten an ignorant globe-trotter, Colonel Fallon. I was not aware that there were political parties in this country.'