The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) (4 page)

“It is exceedingly tiresome and a worry for my daughter,” Lady Critchley said. “She had two other small children. Fortunately her husband will now be
in Bombay for some months. The climate there is not so oppressive.”

She had not thanked Orissa for undertaking the task of looking after little Neil but merely inferred she was lucky to have her fare paid, a sentiment with which she was quite prepared to agree.

But she could see that Charles had been right in saying that Lady Critchley would have been extremely annoyed if she had been expected to chaperon Lady Orissa Fane rather than give orders to
the
quiet, sub-servient Mrs. Lane.

There were the usual dramas before the ship sailed, including passionate good-
byes from t
hose who were being left behind; a great deal of confusion over lost luggage; stewards being shouted for and sailors hurrying in all directions.

Standing at the rail on the First Class deck to watch the late arrivals come on board, Orissa noticed there was quite a number of soldiers climbing up the gang-way onto the Third Class deck, their kit-bags hunched on their shoulders.

They were leaving some very tearful wives or sweethearts on the quay, and handkerchiefs were already wiping streaming eyes as a Band played and the non-travellers who had come aboard were asked to go ashore.

Unfortunately Orissa could not wait for the last moment to see the ship pull away from the quay.

It was very cold, it had also begun to rain and she felt sure that Neil should be kept in the warm.

Accordingly she took him to their cabin and tried to watch through a port-hole.

They were however on the wrong side of the ship to see very much, but when finally Orissa felt the engines start up and heard the sails being set, she knew she was saying good-bye to England.

She hoped it was for a very long time.

A Steward brought some tea to the cabin, but Neil was too tired to eat the elegant sandwiches or even
the cream cakes. He drank a little milk and Orissa realised his head was nodding.

The State-Room contained four berths but there would be no necessity to use the upper ones as there were only the two of them, in the cabin.

She rang for the Steward and had Neil’s bunk made up. Then she unpacked her own things and as she put them away in the cupboards and the deep drawers she realised with satisfaction that she would have plenty of room on the voyage.

The General and Lady Critchley were next door, but when they came to say good-night to their grandchild, he was already fast asleep.

“I am glad you have put him to bed, Mrs. Lane,” Lady Critchley said to Orissa with just a hint of approval in her tone.

“There was one thing I wanted to ask you,” Orissa said. “Would you wish me to have supper here in the cabin or downstairs in the Dining-Hall?”

Lady Critchley hesitated before she said:

“You will of course dine at our table, Mrs. Lane. You are after all obliging us by looking after Neil on the voyage. You are hardly in the same category as a Governess.”

It seemed to Orissa that her Ladyship was convincing herself of what was the right thing and in actual fact being extremely magnanimous to the woman she thought was only the wife of a petty official.

“Thank you,” Orissa said.

“You will of course ask the Steward to keep an eye on Neil while you are downstairs,” Lady Critchley went on. “But I understand from my sister that, whilst he is nervous and excitable in the daytime, he seldom had disturbed nights.”

When she had finished speaking, Lady Critchley swept back to her own cabin and Orissa with a little smile closed the door behind her.

It was quite obvious that Lady Critchley was being condescen
din
gly kindly to the little nobody who was obliging her by acting as a nurse-maid.

She wondered what Her Ladyship’s attitude would be if she knew her real identity. Then she remembered that Charles had told her on no account to let anyone find out “He has been so angelic to me,’ Orissa told herself, T must be very careful indeed.’

The Steward told her that dinner was to be later than usual the first night at sea.

“Takes time for the Chefs to get themselves organised,” he said, “but you’ll get good food on this ship. D’you know, Ma’am, the refrigeration chambers hold five hundred tons of meat and there’s an additional compartment that’ll hold five hundred tons more
!
”

“Good gracious!” Orissa exclaimed. “It sounds horrifying that we could possibly eat so much!”

“Well, it all depends on the weather, Ma’am,” the Steward said with a grin. “People who get sea-sick aren’t hungry!”

He picked up the tea-tray and added:

“But Ma’am, you’ll enjoy yourself tonight.”

Orissa changed into her best evening gown. Somewhere she remembered someone saying:

“First impressions are always important. People get a fixed idea of you in their minds and seldom change it.”

The gown, which was of peacock blue, had been a remnant that she could just afford at a sale in one of the big shops in Kensington. She had wanted it because it had reminded her of the lovely blue mosaics which decorated the mosques in India.

She had made it very simply with a huge bow as a bustle at the back, but because she had been rather short of material it clung very tightly over her figure in the front revealing the smallness of her waist and the soft swelling of her breasts.

She felt a little self-conscious when she was finally ready to go down to dinner, wondering whether Lady Critchley would think she was too smart or perhaps too dashing for her humble position.

But the alternative was either the red dress she had
worn the night her Step-mother had thrown her out into the snow, and which had stains on it which she had not yet had time to remove, or a green gown.

It was for this garment which was some years old, that she had bought the tulle and silk ribbons which she believed would transform it into something a little more stylish than it was at the moment.

The ship was very warm, but just in case she felt cold Orissa carried over her arm a scarf which had once belonged to her mother.

It was Indian and had silver paillettes sewn on to a thin net which sparkled and glittered with every movement.

She had arranged her black hair close to her head and, holding herself superbly with a little extra pride because she was nervous, she went from her cabin to the Saloon.

She had heard the General and Lady Critchley leave their cabin some minutes earlier and she found them as she expected in the large comfortable Saloon already holding court.

Shyly Orissa hovered on the outside of the circle when the General noticed her.

“Ah—Mrs. Lane, here you are,” he said ponderously. “I think it is time we went down to dinner.”

“The gong sounded some moments ago,” Lady Critchley said with a glance at Orissa to suggest that she was late.

Then like a ship in full sail she led the way down the stairs to the Dining-Saloon.

As it was the first night at sea everybody was in good humour.

There was the sound of popping champagne corks, and it seemed to Orissa as if everyone was talking at the tops of their voices in case they should not be heard above the noise of the engines.

She had expected the General and Lady Critchley to have a table to themselves, but it appeared that as the most important people on board, they were seated in the place of honour at the Captain’s table.

Tonight the Captain was not present as he was on the bridge taking the ship out to sea and there were a number of empty seats.

But there were a Colonel Onslow and his wife travelling to Alexandria, another Colonel who was joining the Nile Expedition at Port Said and lastly two couples of lesser Military importance who were en route to Bombay.

Lady Critchley was on the right of the Captain’s empty chair with the General next to her. Orissa sat on his right.

“Do you know India well, Mrs. Lane?” he boomed.

“I have not been there for some years,” she replied.

“Your husband is newly appointed then,” the General said. “I imagine he has gone ahead to get things ready for you.”

“Yes, that is right,” Orissa agreed.

The General having been conversationally polite then started a discussion with the Colonel travelling to Alexandria and the other officer journeying to Port Said.

They were all, Orissa found, of the opinion that the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, had been extremely tardy in waiting so long to dispatch an Army to relieve General Gordon.

“I can only hope they will not be too late,” the General said gloomily.

“I understand,” Colonel Onslow answered, “that General Gordon’s force in Khartoum consists of only two thousand Turks and six hundred black troops, while the Mahdi’s Army is estimated at fifteen to twenty thousand.”

“If Wolseley gets there in time,” the General said, “he will easily disperse an Army of untrained, undisciplined natives.”

“I believe they are having trouble in passing the Cataracts,” Lady Critchley remarked.

“They are,” Colonel McDougal replied. “Even so I cannot really see why it should have taken as long as it has.”

Orissa was extremely interested.

Her Uncle had known General Gordon well and often talked of his fantastic personality, his brilliance and his eccentricity.

Gordon’s successes in China, where he proved himself one of the greatest Commanders of Irregulars of all time, had made him a legend in his lifetime.

When after much hesitation and the toss of a coin he agreed to become Governor General of the Sudan he wrote:

“I go up alone, with an infinite Almighty God to direct and guide me.”

Then when a Fakir called the Mahdi—“the Expected One”—had declared a Holy War and overrun a vast amount of territory, Gordon was sent back to Khartoum with the main object of effecting the vacuation of the Egyptian Troops.

But in March 1884 the Mahdi’s huge army of Dervishes had closed round Khartoum and besieged it.

It was not until August that the unceasing pressure of public opinion, supported in private by the Queen, compelled the Government to agree that steps should be taken to relieve the beleaguered town.

On her way down from London in the train Orissa had bought
The Graphic
magazine and studied a picture of the Guards Division of the Camel Corps crossing the Bayunda Desert on their way to Khartoum.

They were commanded by Sir Charles Wilson and Major Kitchener and she found herself praying for her brother’s sake, if for no other reason, that they might reach General Gordon in time.

The Graphic
of the second week in January had also had some information about India describing the celebrations which had taken place when the new Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, had arrived in Bombay to succeed Lord Rippon. It had gone on to speak of trouble on the North-West Frontier.

This was something which Orissa had heard talked of incessantly in the
past, because her father’s Regi
ment was nearly always stationed in the Northern Provinces.

She longed now to ask the General what the situation had been like when he was last in India, but she felt that it might be unwise to show too obvious a knowledge of Army matters.

At the same time she felt certain that sooner or later the conversation would turn from the Nile Expedition to the trouble in Afghanistan.

Dinner was, as the Steward predicted, extremely good and when it was finished Lady Critchley announced:

“We will have coffee in the Saloon.”

She left the table having first invited Colonel Onslow and his wife to join them and also Colonel McDougal.

She very pointedly ignored the other people at the Captains table, and Orissa, following in the wake of Lady Critchley’s rustling grey bustle, felt rather sorry for
th
em.

She knew how snobby the English were in India and felt their fellow passengers would be longing on their arrival to tell their friends how intimate they had been with the G.O.C. Bombay and his wife—that is, if they ever got on such terms!

Coffee was brought by an attentive Steward and the General ordered brandy for himself and the two Colonels.

Orissa had decided that as soon as she finished her coffee she would be expected to retire to her cabin.

She was just about to rise to her feet when she heard the General say:

“Hello, Meredith, I heard you were on board. I was expecting to see you at dinner!”

It was with the greatest difficulty that Orissa prevented herself from starting violently.

At the same time she thought that her heart had stopped beating as, with deliberate slowness, she turned her head to see standing by their table the
man she had last seen on the stairs of Charles’s lodgings.

Major Meredith looked, she thought, even more formidable than he had in the dimness of the ill-lit landing when she had slipped past him to run down the stairs.

Then she told herself there was no need to panic.

It had been very dark and, while she knew who he was because Charles had talked about him, why should he connect her in any way with the woman he was now about to meet in the company of the G.O.C. Bombay?

Major Meredith shook hands with the General and then walked around the table to Lady Critchley.

“How nice to see you, Major,” she said in her usual cold voice. “I do not know whether you have met Colonel and Mrs. Onslow who are travelling to Alexandria?”

Major Meredith shook them both by the hand and was then introduced to Colonel McDougal.

It gave Orissa time to convince herself that, if she only kept her head and behaved quite ordinarily, Major Meredith would not recognise her.

“And this is Mrs. Lane,” Lady Critchley said almost as if it was an after-thought, “who is travelling to India and has very kindly consented to look after little Neil, my daughter’s child, whom we are taking back with us to Bombay.”

Orissa bowed her head but did not attempt to put out her hand. Major Meredith bowed in response.

His face was quite expressionless. There was not the slightest gleam of recognition in his grey eyes.

‘I
was right!’ Orissa thought elatedly. ‘He has not recognised me!’

“Sit down, Meredith,” the General commanded, “and tell me the latest news from Khartoum.”

“There was none when I left London,” the Major replied.

He had a very strange voice, Orissa decided. It was different from any other man’s.

It was very deep. It seemed, too, to have a resonance that awoke some chord of memory which she could not quite place, and then she told herself she was being imaginative.

“And what news from India?” Lady Critchley asked. “We seem to be out of touch ever since we have been home.”