The Linnet Bird: A Novel (54 page)

The soldier didn’t answer immediately, and that gave me courage.

“It was on the other side of Simla, wasn’t it? Because as I told you, I saw him nowhere near Annandale. He was going off toward the western hills.”

Now a shadow passed over the soldier’s face. “Why is it, Mrs.—Ingot, did you say? Why is it that you care what happens to this bas—pardon me, ma’am, to this filthy Arab?”

“Ingram,” I said, standing as tall as I could. “Mrs. Somers Ingram, of Calcutta. My husband is with the convenanted civil service. Although my heart does indeed go out to poor Mrs. Hathaway, there are, you must admit, a number of black horses in this vicinity. Did she say specifically it was a Pathan?”

The soldier looked even more uncomfortable. “Mrs. Ingram. Ma’am,” he said. “I’m only in Simla on leave. I have been asked to stand guard here, although not in an official capacity.” He was very young, with a pale downiness over his top lip. In all probability he was only a year or two younger than I, but I had purposely dressed in a suit of navy silk, a dark blue bonnet whose navy ribbons ended with white egret tips, and black kid gloves. I kept my chin raised and spoke to him with my eyelids lowered.

“And who is your superior, then? To whom may I speak about this matter?”

“That would be Major Bonnycastle, ma’am. But he’s not here; as I’ve explained, we’re not here in a military sense, ma’am. There’s never been any need for that in Simla before now.”

I glanced at the open door again. There was the clink of a chain, and the boot was no longer visible. “And so the Pathan will remain here until a commanding officer arrives?”

The soldier looked even more uncomfortable, blinking rapidly. “I don’t believe so, ma’am.”

“Then what would you do with him?”

The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny neck. “Please, Mrs. Ingram. This is not a matter for you to concern yourself about. He will be taken care of by those of us here, and none of the ladies will have anything to fear from the likes of him ever again. Now I must ask you to leave. This is no place for a lady.” And as if to prove his point, at that moment an aggressive black crow flew onto the roof of the hovel with a great coarse flapping. It opened its metallic beak and tilted its head, looking down at the plate. Then it let out a gasping croak and swooped low, grabbing a meat-covered bone in its menacing beak. Carrying it triumphantly, it flew over the head of the black horse, who shied, its flanks quivering.

I
TRIED TO TELL MYSELF
I had done all I could for the moment. I didn’t like to think that the soldiers would simply take matters into their own hands and hang the Pathan, but the young man’s blinking uncertainty had not been encouraging. Surely Olivia would never retract her story, or admit the horse wasn’t black after all, but brown or gray, that it hadn’t necessarily been a Pathan. I doubted she would say anything more, and she would never be questioned further.

Faith was sitting in the back garden when I arrived. She was clutching a sodden handkerchief, but I saw a new glow around her. There was something different in her expression that cheered me, although she was desperately pale. Mrs. Partridge had commented on Faith’s pallor only a few days before, asking her if she’d been eating clay for the purpose of whitening her complexion.

Neel lay on the grass at Faith’s feet, beside a pile of her books. The sight of the books encouraged me further.

“You’re looking better, Faith,” I said, truthfully, in spite of her paleness. “You mustn’t worry about the baby. No matter what, you know you have Charles and his love.”

“Yes,” she said, studying Neel. “Yes. I do believe, now, that everything will turn out for the best.”

I smiled at her. “Oh, Faith. I am terribly glad to hear you say that. I’ve been so worried about you.”

She finally looked into my face. “I want you to have these books, Linny,” she said, touching the leaning stack with the toe of her slipper.

“What do you mean?”

“I shan’t read them. You love books. You take them.”

“I couldn’t, Faith. Of course you’ll read them. Come on, come for a ride with me.” I stood and held my hand toward her.

“I don’t feel like riding, Linny. I have a number of things to do.”

What could she possibly have to do? “Please, Faith. We’ll take tiffin with us, and I know a place we can go. I have a map.”

“Not today.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

She was silent, but finally smiled. I realized I hadn’t seen her smile for a long time. It looked unnatural, more of a rictus. “Can we ride far, Linny? Into the mountains?”

“Perhaps.”

“All right, then. Tomorrow.”

“I promise you, Faith, we’ll have a lovely, lovely time.”

T
HAT NIGHT
I
DECIDED
that when Faith and I returned from our ride I would again go to the jail. Perhaps there would be a different soldier on duty, and I would plead my case to him. I felt a tiny surge of hopefulness about Faith and the slight enthusiasm she had shown when she talked about riding far into the mountains. Perhaps everything really was going to be all right for her, after all.

W
E WOKE JUST AFTER DAWN.
I left Neel with Malti and went out to the kitchen. Dilip was waiting for me, clutching a woven basket with leather straps. A warm wheat fragrance filled the hut. He must have been up in the middle of the night to make fresh chapatis.

“I told you it didn’t have to be anything special, Dilip. Just some cheese and fruit would have been fine.”

He tucked back his chin as if insulted, holding out the basket. I looked inside and saw the chapatis, saffron rice, a jar of melon and ginger jam, and a container of goat cheese with mushrooms.

I thanked him once, knowing he grew annoyed if I said too much. And then I fetched Faith and we walked up the hard-packed road to the Mall. The morning was beautiful, its stillness broken only by the shrill cry of a lone black-and-white hoopoe.

Because it was so early, the only person at the stables was the
syce,
wearing a threadbare tweed jacket over his long white dhoti. He had been squatting under a leafy tamarind but jumped up when he saw us and led out two ponies, flowers woven into their manes. He tightened their saddles and I tied the basket on the side of my pony, Uta, a pretty brown filly with white spots. Faith’s was a gray colt, Rami.

We led the thick-haired ponies toward the outskirts of town, and once we were on our way, I pulled a wrinkled scrap of paper out of my sleeve.

“What’s that?” Faith asked. She appeared composed, calm. The tightness of her features had relaxed. I marveled at the change that had come over her in a few days.

“It’s a map. A boy I know—Merkeet—who works in the spice bazaar drew it for me. I talk to him every time I buy food. Once, when I admired a hill woman’s burka, he told me that the women made beautiful beaded ones in Ludhiana, and they would sell them. Ludhiana, he claims, isn’t far at all. I thought we could go and visit it, then have our tiffin and ride back.” I studied the paper. “It looks like we follow this main ridge until we come to a stream.”

Faith spread her yellow skirt neatly over her knees on the leather sidesaddle. “Are you sure?”

“Yes—look. Here are the Himalayas, this is the road back down to the river. We can’t go wrong.” I felt similar to the way I had the time Faith and I had slipped away from Mrs. Waterton in the Maidan and ventured through the bazaar. This time we were to be away from the stern face of Mrs. Partridge, free to explore. To gallop and not care that our skirts blew up or our hair was tangled. Free to laugh out loud or to sing into the wind.

B
UT AFTER WHAT FELT
like close to two hours, I began to doubt Merkeet’s cartography skills. We had followed the ridge to a shallow stream, then let the ponies amble through the pebbly water until thick copses of trees on either side reached in closer and closer. Overhead, the sun grew warmer. Faith hadn’t spoken since we’d left Simla.

“I have a feeling that we’ll see Ludhiana just around the next bend,” I called back, not yet willing to admit that I may have made a mistake in going so far from Simla.

But the stream only trickled to a damp gully after the next turn, and with nowhere else to go, I steered Uta up into a narrow opening that I hoped was a path. We had to push thick scratchy branches away from our faces as the horses plodded along. And then, with no warning, we broke out into a daisy-covered field.

“It’s beautiful,” I shouted, gazing at the wide clearing. Trees enclosed the field on either side, but on one end it dipped down too low to be able to see where it led. The other end was edged with a jumbled pile of huge rocks. “Let’s stop here and eat,” I said to Faith, as she trotted up beside me on Rami. “And then I suppose we’ll follow the stream back, for I don’t think we’ll find Ludhiana after all.”

“All right,” Faith said, staring at the rocks. “You set out the food. I’m just going to have a look around.”

“Uta loves the daisies,” I called as she left, but Faith didn’t answer, urging Rami toward the rocky end of the field. I unpacked the food while my spotted pony snuffled happily, pulling up bunches of the flowers and munching them loudly. Faith rode back and sat beside me while I ate. It was windy in the field.

“Please, Faith, try to eat a little. You must,” I begged.

She took a chapati, but I saw that she only crumbled it into smaller and smaller pieces, distractedly making a small nest of it on the ground beside her. The wind lifted her skirt in a golden circle about her; her bonnet had become untied and slipped back, and her hair was tossed in all directions. She occasionally glanced toward the rocks.