By Eastern windows (22 page)

It was eerily silent.

Lachlan looked around him. Something in his head had stopped. Every sound in the whole world seemed to have stopped . . . he glanced up at the silent mynah bird as if wondering if he was having one of those dreams where everyone is speaking but no sound is heard.

He smiled slightly. Yes, that was it. He was still on board his ship, asleep in his cabin, having a nightmare.

He shook himself, and then looked at Dr Kerr with a twist of a dubious smile on his lips. ‘What did you say?’

‘Jane is gravely ill,’ Dr Kerr repeated quietly. ‘I can no longer guarantee her life.’

ELEVEN

Jane was beaming with a happiness that nothing could spoil, cheerfully making plans for the life of her child and unaware that her own life was in danger. She unwrapped a beautiful silver rattle she had bought and tinkled it in Lachlan's face. ‘Isn't it
sweet
?’

‘Sweet,’ he agreed, speaking with a palpable effort and managing a smile.
  

She laughed, unaware of the trembling of his hand as he pushed back a dark curl from her brow.

‘And now we can go back to Calicut?’ she asked

‘Well …’

A sea voyage, the doctor had recommended. A voyage of fresh sea air, and a holiday in a different and invigorating setting, might restore her.

‘Maybe not back to Calicut,’ he said. ‘At least, not for a while.’

‘Oh,
why
?’ She sat up on the sofa padded with cushions and stared at him in disappointment. Indeed, his entire attitude since his return yesterday had been very disappointing to say the least. Not over the moon about the baby, as she had expected, but inattentive, tired, abstracted.

‘I need a holiday,’ he said, looking into the pale face of his wife. Her frailness and pallor had shocked him on his return. She herself did not seem to notice it because it had come upon her in imperceptible degrees, day by day, and the reason she had lost pounds in weight, she believed, was simply due to the bouts of early morning sickness she had suffered.

‘It's the baby,’ she had assured him. ‘Mrs Oakes says many women lose weight in the early months.’

‘I need a holiday,’ he said again, ‘and after the Colombo and Galle campaigns, I have been granted leave to take one.’

Jane was staring at him, studying his face with concern. ‘You are ill … oh my poor darling!’ Her own selfishness assailed her. ‘While I have been lying here resting like the Queen of Sheba, you have been marching and fighting and suffering all the hardships of a soldier. Yes, you
must
have a holiday,’ she insisted, holding his hand in tight determination. ‘A holiday somewhere peaceful and relaxing and away from the Army. So where shall we go?’

Somewhere in the tropics, the doctor had said. No place cold or damp. Somewhere like India in the region of the tropics, but different and new and full of exciting sights for her to see and enjoy, after a voyage of healthy sea air.

‘Scotland,’ she said suddenly. ‘Why don't we go to Scotland? Wouldn't it be just wonderful if our child was born in Scotland, and I could meet your mother at last.’

‘No, not Scotland,’ he said,
 
‘not yet. The Atlantic can be very cold and choppy. And apart from that, the voyages there and back would take six to eight months before we spent even a day there.
 
My holiday leave is only for six months.’

‘
Take as long as you need, dear boy!
’ General Balfour had said compassionately. ‘
If a holiday will help Jane to recover, then have whatever time it takes to get her well again. She's an Army wife, after all.
 
Must look after our own.
’

Lachlan stood up and moved over to a cane bookcase by the wall where Major Oakes’military books lined every shelf. He searched for an Atlas, found one, and brought it back to her.

‘You choose,’ he said. ‘I honestly don't care where I go as long as I can enjoy a long and relaxing sea voyage with plenty of fresh air. Choose some place you would really enjoy seeing.’

The whole time she sat studying the Atlas, Lachlan stood by the window watching her. She turned page after page of the Atlas and seemed to be carefully studying each one. Then she turned another page and instantly her demeanour changed. She looked up at him, eyes sparkling.

‘China,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lachlan, I have always wanted to see China, haven't you?’

China was in the tropics.

‘Always,’ he said.

*

Nine days later, on the 17th May, they boarded the
Cambridge
and set sail for Macao, a peninsula of the China coast, south of the tropic of Cancer.

Bappoo, Marianne, and George Jarvis went with them, full of both fear and excitement at going out of India and seeing another part of the world.

‘Chin people small,’ Bappoo said authoritatively to George Jarvis, ‘but very wise.’ He pointed to his brain. ‘Very wise.’

‘How you know?’ George asked curiously.

‘Ship captain's servant tell me. He say Chin people very wise – but speak all time to confuse us.’ Bappoo pointed a warning finger at George and said cunningly, ‘So! – we no let Chin people confuse us!’

‘Confucius!’ Jane said smiling. ‘I think, Bappoo, you will find that the captain's servant was talking about Confucius, a Chinese philosopher of ancient times.’
 

‘
Chut!
’ Bappoo looked shame-faced as George peeled out a laugh and Lachlan restrained one.

After only a week on the sea Jane's spirits rose and the lovely blushing colour came back to her cheeks. Lachlan could actually see her recovery happening before his eyes.

After three weeks on the sea he wrote a letter each to Colin Anderson and John Forbes, eager to give his friends `
pleasing accounts of my Angel's improving health.
’

Captain Lestock Wilson was the master of the
Cambridge
, and as they sailed across the Indian Ocean towards the South China Sea, Jane won his approval with her good humour. Most of the women Captain Forbes had sailed with had spent all their time complaining in a weak and whining way, but young Mrs Macquarie was brave and hearty and always happy to sit up at night for dinner in the captain's cabin. She was very beautiful, very pleasant, and there was a wit in her conversation which rendered her truly fascinating in his eyes.

‘What is supposed to be wrong with her?’ Captain Wilson quietly asked Lachlan one day, while Jane was sitting in her cabin busily writing a list of the names of all the children of her friends for whom she wanted to buy toys and presents in Macao.

Lachlan shrugged. ‘The medical profession of Bombay is primitive, to say the least. They don't seem to have the slightest idea of what is wrong with anyone who is sick, and so they prescribe quinine and mercury for all. And buffalo milk, of course.’

‘Have you ever had malaria?’ Wilson asked.

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘I've had every fever including malaria.’ Wilson held up his two hands. ‘And I would need more than the fingers on these hands to count all the times I’ve been told I was at the door of death.’ He boomed a laugh. ‘And look at me now – still hale and hearty!'

‘It's terrible, just the same,’ Lachlan said, ‘the fright that doctors often give to people.’

‘Well, your fellow did at least recommend a sea voyage which is proving the correct remedy. What else did he recommend?’

‘Plenty of red wine...’

‘Oh, wonderful!’ Captain Wilson laughed, topping up their two glasses with more red wine.

‘Red wine,’ Lachlan repeated, ‘mixed with spices.’

‘Ugh! That doctor must want to make her sick again to keep up his fees!’

‘Mercury...’

‘Naturally!’ Wilson grinned. ‘Where would we be without good old mercury, eh? It doesn't do you a damned bit of good but it eventually burns the mouth off you just for spite.’

‘And three daily doses of tincture of yellow bark.’

‘Yellow bark?
 
That's a new one! What is that for?’

Lachlan shrugged. ‘Well, of course, Jane thinks all this medicine is to dispel her weakness and make her strong for carrying the baby.’

Lestock Wilson sat still. Now that was the sad part. The poor girl convincing herself she was pregnant.
 
He said: ‘When are you going to disillusion her, and tell her what the doctor said – that she has made a very big mistake?’

Lachlan sat back and sighed. `I’m not going to tell her anything, or believe anything that Dr Kerr has said. He’s made mistakes before. If she’s not pregnant, then in time she will realise that for herself. All I believe now is the evidence I see before my own eyes, that she seems well and full of health again.’

Lestock Wilson lifted his glass and grinned. ‘She looks healthier than both of us!’

*

Always one for rising early, Lachlan often went up on deck as the morning watch was relieved, the most peaceful time of the day. The sea and winds were calm and the ship simply ghosted along at no more than four knots an hour. One morning Jane joined him at the deck rail with a smile. He was surprised to see her up so early.

‘A beautiful day ahead, I think,’ she murmured.
 

Lachlan followed her gaze. The sea and the sky were very blue, the sun rising into a red dawn. At peaceful times like this he wished he were a poet. He looked into her face and smiled to see her looking so well.

‘And
what
is amusing you now?’ she asked.

He lifted her hand from the rail and kissed it, then held it against his cheek as he stared out to sea. Her returning health had given a life-spring to his soul. With Jane he had discovered there is a kind of love so true, so perfect, that just the thought of its end was enough to break the heart utterly. He could not have borne it, and now he would not have to. Thank God the doctor had been right about the sea voyage.

But then, he reflected, he should have known it was not in Jane's nature to go under at the first sign of sickness. It was her nature to be courageous and happy. And there was nothing mentally wrong with her. No imbalance that he could detect. So maybe she
was
pregnant. Yes, maybe she was … after all, she would know whether she was pregnant or not better than any doctor.

He turned to look at her and asked softly, ‘How is the future young general?’

She smiled and put a hand on her stomach. ‘Very well behaved. Not making me feel sick anymore.’
  

‘You truly feel well again?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You do look well.’

‘So do you,’ she observed, for he was the one she believed to have been ill. Both had spent weeks worrying about the other's health, and now both were very relieved.

And suddenly, as he looked at her, Lachlan was convinced that Jane
was
pregnant. That
she
was right and the doctor wrong. Women knew these things before ever consulting a doctor. His hand moved to join hers on her stomach, and it did feel roundly swelled; the familiar flatness he had known for years was gone.

‘How many months pregnant are you?’ he asked.

‘Five,’ she answered.

‘And when did you know for sure?’

‘When three months had passed, just before I wrote to you.’ She was looking at him strangely. ‘I have told you all this before, Lachlan.’

‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but I was not listening before.’

‘Thank you very much! I think I'll go back to bed.’

He caught her in his arms and held her, and with her he held the fullness of his life. And once again he felt the excitement and happiness he had felt that day in Ceylon, on the road from Point de Galle to Colombo, the day he had read Jane's letter telling him she was going to make him a happy, happy father.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, and kissed her on the eyes, the mouth, and the forehead, his lips covering her with love, until presently she put her hands to his face and kissed him back.

‘Is that what you came on deck to see?’ he said suddenly, looking beyond her.
  

‘What?’ She turned her head and stared. ‘Where?’

He pointed to a small black peak far into the distance. ‘China, on the horizon.’

She turned and gripped the rail in excitement.

‘Are you going back to bed,’ he asked at length.

‘No, I'm wide awake now.’ She linked her arm through his and they remained together, standing by the deck rail in the warm morning sun, looking towards China.

*

At daybreak on the 2nd of July, the
Cambridge
reached Macao. Captain Wilson sent word to prepare to disembark into a small boat that would take them into the harbour. The voyage from Bombay had taken six weeks.

All through the previous night a gale had blown against them, and now Lachlan watched Jane eating a hearty breakfast and wondered how she could possibly eat a thing with the ship rocking and lurching.