Far Pavilions (24 page)

There was nothing prim or colourless about Belinda. She was as pink and white and gold as Ash's romanticized memory of Lily, as gay as Dolly Develaine of ‘The Seaside Follies’ and as seductively shaped as Ivy Markins, who had worked in a hat shop in Camberley and been so generous with her favours. She was also sweet and innocent and young (two years younger than Ash) and, in addition to a charming, wilful face that was set off to admiration by a wealth of pale gold ringlets, was the fortunate possessor of a small straight nose that wrinkled deliciously when she laughed, a pair of large cornflower-blue eyes that sparkled with interest and eagerness for life, and a kissable mouth made more inviting by the fact that a dimple hovered near each corner.

None of these assets would have aroused much emotion in Ash (beyond a natural feeling of admiration for a pretty girl), had he not discovered that Miss Harlowe, who like himself had been born in India, was delighted at the prospect of returning there. She had said as much one evening during dinner, when the
Canterbury Castle
had been at sea for close on ten days, and several of the older ladies, including Belinda's mother, had been lamenting the fact that they were journeying east once more. They had been cataloguing the many discomforts of life in India – the heat, the dust, the disease, the appalling state of the roads and the difficulties of travel – when Belinda had intervened with a laughing protest:

‘Oh no, Mama! How can you say such things? Why, it's a delightful country. I can remember it clearly – that lovely cool bungalow with the purple creeper climbing over the porch, and all the gorgeous flowers in the garden; the ones like spotted lilies and those tall scarlet ones that were always covered with butterflies. And riding my pony on the Mall and seeing lines of camels, and being carried in a dandy when we went up to the hills for the summer – those great tall pine trees and the yellow wild roses that smelled so sweet… and the snows: miles and miles of snow mountains. You've no
idea
how ugly Nelbury and Aunt Lizzie's house seemed after that; and her servants were always scolding me, instead of spoiling me like Ayah and Abdul and my syce. I can't wait to get back.’

This artless speech had displeased a Mrs Chiverton, who evidently deciding that young Miss Harlowe was a forward chit who had no business to intervene in a conversation between her elders, remarked dampingly that no one who had endured the horrors of the Mutiny would ever be able to trust an Indian again, and that she envied dear Belinda's happy ignorance of the dangers that must face any sensitive Englishwoman forced by circumstances and a sense of duty to live in that barbarous land. At which Belinda, wholly unabashed, had laughed, and throwing a sparkling glance around the men seated about the long table, said sweetly: ‘But only think how many brave men we have to defend us. One could not be afraid. Besides I'm sure that nothing of that nature could happen again' – and leaning forward she appealed to Ash, who was seated on the opposite side of the table and had been listening with interest – ‘don't you agree, Mr Pelham-Martyn?’

‘I don't know,’ replied Ash, incurably honest. ‘I suppose that will depend on us.’

‘On
us
?’ repeated Mrs Chiverton in a tone that told Ash he had made a suggestion that she not only found totally unacceptable, but coming from such a very junior officer, positively insulting.

Ash hesitated, unwilling to offend her further, but Miss Harlowe had rushed gaily in where an ensign feared to tread: ‘He means that provided we deal justly with them, they will have no reason to rise against us;’ here she turned to him again and added: ‘That was what you meant, wasn't it?’

It was not exactly what Ash had meant, but it was Belinda's use of the word ‘justly’ that made him cease from that moment to see her only as a pretty girl; and after that, despite the fact that strict chaperoning, a plethora of admirers and the crowded conditions that prevailed on shipboard made it well-nigh impossible to have any speech with her alone, he seized every opportunity that offered to talk to her or listen to her talk to him, of the land to which both were returning with such high hopes and happy anticipation.

Belinda's mother, Mrs Archibald Harlowe, was a stout, well-meaning and fluffy-minded woman who had once been as pretty as her daughter; but the climate and conditions that prevailed in India, together with her distrust of ‘the natives’ and fear of a second Mutiny, had not suited her health or her temperament. The heat and constant pregnancies had thickened a once admirable figure, her husband, now in his late sixties, was still only a Major in an Indian infantry regiment, three of the seven children she had borne him had died in infancy, and a year ago she had been forced to take her five-year-old twins, Harry and Teddy, home to England to leave them in the care of her sister Lizzie – for India was still regarded as a death trap for the young; cantonment cemeteries up and down the country being crowded with the graves of children who had died of cholera, heat-stroke, typhoid or snakebite.

Nothing would have pleased Mrs Harlowe more than to be able to stay in England with her darling boys, but after exhaustive discussions with her sister the two ladies had agreed that it was her plain duty to return to India: not her duty to her husband, but to her daughter Belinda, who at the age of seven had also been consigned to Lizzie's care. That had been ten years ago, and as Lizzie pointed out, the girl's chances of making an advantageous match in a small provincial town such as Nelbury were slight. In British India, however, eligible bachelors were two-a-penny, so it was only sensible to give Belinda the chance to meet and marry some suitable gentleman, after which her Mama would be able to return to her precious boys, and make her home with dear Lizzie until such time as Archie gained command of his regiment or was retired.

No one (with the possible exception of Major Harlowe) could have found fault with this programme, and Mrs Harlowe's confidence in her decision had been speedily vindicated when no less than eleven gentlemen out of the twenty-nine who had taken passages on the S.S.
Canterbury Castle
began to pay marked attention to her pretty daughter. True, these were for the most part mere boys; either penniless ensigns, junior Civil Servants or youthful recruits to Trade, and the five other unmarried ladies on board were not remarkable for good looks. But the gentlemen did include an infantry Captain his mid-thirties, a rich middle-aged widower who was the senior partner in a firm of jute exporters, and young Ensign Pelham-Martyn, who (according to Mrs Chiverton, the ship's gossip) was not only the nephew of a baronet, but sole heir to a more than comfortable fortune left him by his father, who had been a distinguished scholar with a world-wide reputation.

From the purely financial aspect, Mrs Harlowe considered that Mr Joseph Tilbery, the widower, was probably the most eligible prospect. But though his attentions to her daughter had been marked, he had not as yet made any declaration, and Belinda herself had been heard to refer to both him and the infantry Captain as ‘old fogies’. The ensigns and young Civil Servants were much more to her taste, and she flirted with them light-heartedly and enjoyed herself enormously, playing off one against the other and revelling in being young and pretty and admired.

The heady atmosphere of that long voyage had been further heightened for her by a romantic event – a wedding at sea. Admittedly the bride and bridegroom had neither of them been handsome nor in the first blush of youth, and as both were travelling steerage she had not previously laid eyes upon them. But the Captain, having been prevailed upon to exercise the powers invested in him as master of an ocean-going vessel, had married Sergeant Alfred Biggs of the Supply Corps, returning from leave, to Miss Mabel Timmins, travelling to Bombay to join a brother working for the Bombay-and-Baroda Railway, the wedding taking place in the First-Class Saloon in the presence of every passenger on board who could be crammed into it, and being followed by speeches and toasts drunk in champagne donated by the Captain. Later on, the entire company had danced on deck, and no less than three of Belinda's suitors had begged her to follow the bride's admirable example and spend the remainder of the voyage on honeymoon.

In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that if the other young ladies were unfriendly and their mothers openly disapproving, Belinda did not notice it. She had been cooped up in her aunt's house for ten long years, minding her lessons, stitching away at interminable samplers and saying ‘Yes, Aunt Lizzie’ and ‘No, Aunt Lizzie’, and the only young men she met (at strictly chaperoned parties) were the sons of her aunt's friends: awkward, gawking schoolboys who had known her since she was in pinafores and treated her as a sister. The transition from that confined and stultifying atmosphere to the delightful freedom of life on an ocean liner and the attentions of a dozen admiring young gentlemen was an exhilarating experience, and Belinda revelled in it and was perhaps as completely happy as anyone can hope to be in the course of one lifetime. Her only difficulty had been to decide which of her many admirers she preferred, but by the time the ship reached Alexandria she was no longer in any doubt.

Ashton Pelham-Martyn might not be as handsome as George Garforth (who, though gauche and really tediously shy, possessed a Grecian profile and Byronic curls); nor was he as witty or amusing as Ensign Augustus Blain, or as rich as Mr Joseph Tilbery of Tilbery, Patterson & Company. He was, in fact, rather a silent young man, except when he talked about India, which she encouraged him to do whenever her importunate admirers allowed her any private conversation with him, for he made it sound like her childhood memories of it: a magic place. He could, she found, be excessively charming when he chose, and there was something about him that she found fascinating: something different and exciting… and a little disquieting: the difference that lies between a wild hawk and a tame cage-bird. He was also undeniably good-looking in a dark, thin-faced way, and moreover a certain air of romantic mystery hung about him; there was some story of his having been brought up in an Indian palace, and that old gossip, Mrs Chiverton, had unkindly hinted that the swarthiness of his complexion and the darkness of his hair and lashes was possibly the result of mixed blood. But then everyone knew that Mrs Chiverton was a cat and would have been only too pleased if he had taken some notice of her own exceedingly plain daughter, Amy.

Belinda turned her sunniest smiles on Ensign Pelham-Martyn, who ended by falling helplessly and hopelessly in love, and by the last day of the voyage had summoned up enough courage to approach Mrs Harlowe and ask her permission to propose for her daughter's hand.

Ash had been in dread of a rebuff on the score of his youth and his unworthiness, and he could not believe his good fortune when Belinda's mother assured him that she had no objection at all to his doing so, and was certain that dear Bella's Papa would agree with her, as he too believed in early marriages. Though the latter statement was far from being true, for Major Harlowe, like most older army officers, strongly disapproved of young officers ruining their prospects and reducing their usefulness to their regiments by getting tied up too early to some girl who would inevitably take their attention off their work, and involve them in domestic trivia to the detriment of the men under their command.

The Major himself had been more than twice his wife's age and nearer forty than thirty when he married; but although Mrs Harlowe was not ignorant of his views, she had no hesitation in pledging his consent, for she had managed to convince herself that Archie must certainly wish to see his only daughter so suitably bestowed. After all, it was not as though the young people would have to live on an ensign's pay; Ashton's allowance was more than generous, and in a little more than two years' time he would come of age and inherit the whole of his father's fortune. So of course Archie must consent. Ashton might be still in his teens, but anyone could see that he was old for his age. Such a quiet, well-mannered young man. So devoted to Belinda – and so
very
eligible.

Mrs Harlowe shed a few emotional tears, and half an hour later, in a quiet corner of the forward deck while the sun was setting and their fellow passengers were changing for dinner, Ash proposed to Belinda and was accepted.

The engagement was supposed to be kept secret, but somehow it leaked out, and dinner was barely over before Ash found himself receiving the envious congratulations of his rivals and an assortment of chilly stares from the ladies; most of whom had already declared Miss Harlowe to be a shocking flirt and were now convinced that her mama, far from being the foolish but good-natured creature they had supposed, was nothing more than a shameless, scheming, cradle-snatcher.

Mr Tilbery and the infantry Captain had been particularly frosty, but only George Garforth had registered an active protest.

George had turned as white as a sheet, and after attempting to drown his disappointment in drink had offered to fight the successful suitor, though, luckily for all concerned, he had been taken ignominiously ill before his challenge could be accepted. Belinda had retired early, and George having been carried to his cabin, Ash had gone up to the deserted deck, where he had spent the night lying in a deck chair under the stars, dizzy with champagne and happiness.

It had been a wonderful night, and watching the dear, familiar constellations of his childhood wheel overhead, it seemed to Ash that whatever else he might forget, he would remember this night forever – and that he would never be so happy again. His first love-affair had ended in disaster, and it had taken him a full six months to realize that Lily Briggs, far from being a golden goddess who had miraculously fallen in love with him, was nothing more than an amoral slut who had amused herself by seducing a schoolboy. Yet because she had been the first woman he had ever slept with, he knew that he would never quite forget her. Her successors had been no more than brief, sordid adventures in sex, and soon he would not even be able to remember their names, and could only be sorry that he had ever known any of them. To have done so seemed in some way a betrayal of Belinda; but at least she need never know about them, and there were so many other things that he could tell her about: the whole fantastic story of his childhood, and all the secrets and sorrows and enchantments of those years.