Zemindar (21 page)

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Kate. ‘And d’you know, I think we have here the perfect place for you to take a private caper, and Charles, with any luck at all, need know nothing about it. Look; there’s plenty of space in there, a good floor and not a soul in sight. George Barry—to your duty!’ And taking each by an arm she led them into the small deserted room, then came back to me smiling delightedly.

‘I had my heart set on seeing that girl dance this evening,’ she said. ‘Now just cross your fingers that Charles doesn’t get back before the music stops.’ I crossed my fingers purposefully. Knowing that if Charles were to discover his wife’s crime I would certainly be held a party to it, I wished him very fervently away; but nothing that night was to induce the Fates to favour us. Emily, enchanting in her pale blue, restored to good nature in George’s arms, had taken no more than a couple of turns around the room, when I found Charles beside me, taking in the scene with a wrathful eye. Kate raised her eyebrows at me, and I prepared for the storm.

‘What is this?’ he asked unnecessarily.

‘My doing entirely, Charles,’ Kate broke in with a rueful sigh. ‘No one is going to see the child dancing in there, and if they do, it’s only with my old George. What possible harm can there be in that? Now, do be sensible and let Emily enjoy herself in peace. Come away from that door. I declare you are positively
glowering
!’

She drew him out of Emily’s sight.

‘I did not wish to spoil her enjoyment,’ Charles said stiffly, ‘but she knows what my views are, and I cannot think, Mrs Barry, that you acted rightly in inciting her to go against them.’

‘Come now, Charles Flood,’ Kate chuckled, undismayed by his tone, ‘I’m far too old a warhorse to be put in my place by a bit of a lad like you. Now you listen to me … you must learn to bend to that wife of yours occasionally, or you’ll find yourself in a peck of trouble, and that’s a promise. She’s no more than a child, and you’ve behaved like a disagreeable old gaoler all evening. Don’t take the matter so seriously, for heaven’s sake! Now, you let her have a good romp in there, and then take her home—and no scolding mind, or you’ll undo all the good I have done.’ And while Charles looked dignified disagreement, she turned away from him to watch the dancing in the other room.

He turned to me.

‘I am surprised that you should have allowed it, Laura,’ he said, more in sorrow than in anger.

‘Oh, Charles, do be sensible! I didn’t allow it, I could see it coming all evening. Emily was determined to get her way, and you have Kate to thank that she is getting it so inconspicuously.’ He looked puzzled for a moment, as though he wanted to say more about my laxness, but then thought better of it.

‘Would you ever have thought that Emily could become so contrary—become such a wrong-headed little … vixen?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ I said in a reassuring way. ‘She gave every indication of it even as a child. And you mustn’t forget her condition. It makes the best of women difficult.’

‘But this … this is beyond all bounds! She has deliberately flouted my known wishes.’

‘And not for the last time either, Charles. She has wishes of her own, remember. I really do think you are making too much of the whole matter.’

‘But, Laura, surely you cannot justify…’

I know not how he completed the sentence.

The sound of a deep voice, heard already that night but now directly behind me, arrested my attention as completely as if I had never heard another.

‘Kate? Kate Barry? Is it you … in this diabolical maelstrom of gaiety? I had thought you possessed of more sense!’

Kate’s reply was delayed by surprise. I heard a gasp, then a hesitant footstep on the marble flag, then an exclamation of assured recognition.

‘Oliver! Oliver Erskine! It’s really you?’

Somehow, I had known all along that it must be.

Forgetting Charles, I turned round in time to see the black-coated civilian who had been talking to the officers bend down to kiss Kate Barry, both of whose hands he held in his own, and, as he straightened up, my eyes were held for a moment by the curious hazel eyes that had so intrigued me in the portrait in Calcutta.

The face had matured. The lines around the sardonic mouth had deepened, and the furrows across the broad forehead were more marked; the finely moulded lips were compressed more firmly together now, and the whole face must have thinned down, for the high arched nose was more obvious than in the portrait. The eyes, however, under the heavy dark brows, were the same, but even more speaking and charged with expression. He was of rather more than average height, but lightly built, and his figure gave an impression, not of force, as did his features, but of energy and disciplined power. He seemed to me to be near his fortieth year.

‘Why, Oliver, you wretched boy! No one has seen hide nor hair of you for I don’t know how long, and then you just turn up like this at the most opportune moment imaginable.’ Kate laughed in delight as he looked down at her.

‘Come now, Kate, when was I ever opportune?’

‘Never, it’s the moment! Come here.’ And she led him to where Charles and I stood looking on.

‘Now!’ Kate stood between Charles and his brother, regarding both with huge enjoyment. ‘This is quite an historic moment. Can you guess what I am about to do, Oliver?’

‘Certainly not,’ with a humorous emphasis and a glance half of apology for Kate’s high spirits towards us.

‘I thought not. Well then, I am going to introduce you to your brother, Mr Charles Flood!’

‘The deuce you are!’ And Mr Erskine turned his full attention on Charles, who was as startled by this intelligence as he, though how Charles could have failed to see the resemblance to the portrait was beyond me.

‘Well, how d’ye do, Charles? I am in Lucknow this week expressly to make myself known to you. But it is pleasant to be introduced by so old a friend as Mrs Barry. This is certainly something of an occasion as she promised.’ And he shook Charles warmly by the hand. He then bowed towards me. ‘And the lady is no doubt your wife? Emily, I think?’

The hazel eyes narrowed a little as his glance flicked over me in a manner which I was just experienced enough to recognize as appraisal, though his attitude was all courtesy.

‘No, oh, no!’ I thought Charles spoke in quite unwarrantable confusion, but before he could say more Emily and George were fortunately with us, Emily wreathed in smiles and George perspiring freely.

‘The most heavenly waltz I’ve ever danced, Charles, and I don’t… oh!’

She stopped and looked at the newcomer; her memory of the portrait was stronger than Charles’s, for after a moment’s hesitation she put out her hand and said, ‘Why, this is your brother, Charles. Mr Erskine.’

‘Yes, dear. Oliver, allow me to present my wife, Emily.’

‘Allow me to congratulate you, Charles,’ said Mr Erskine, as he took Emily’s hand.

‘And this,’ Charles continued, ‘is Emily’s cousin, Miss Hewitt. Miss Laura Hewitt.’

‘I see. Then I was mistaken,’ said Mr Erskine as he bowed to me. ‘I am so sorry.’

The words meant nothing in themselves, but there was something in the tone that made me glance up sharply as I rose from my curtsey. He could have meant that he was sorry he had made a small social blunder. Or that he was sorry I was not married to Charles. Or that he was sorry Emily was. I inclined to the last interpretation. Mr Erskine’s eyes, it seemed to me, had rested just a little too long on Emily, in interest possibly and certainly in admiration, and for the purely feminine reason of disliking a snub, even an imagined one, I felt my antipathy towards the man in the portrait thoroughly justified.

‘But now tell us, Oliver,’ said Kate, ‘how have we managed to miss each other all evening? Where have you been hiding yourself that we haven’t seen you?’

‘Well, dancing isn’t one of my favourite pastimes, and I suppose we have missed each other because I have spent most of the evening playing cards with a couple of bachelor cronies who, like me, and unlike Charles, have no charming wife to consider. I had just determined to take my leave when I caught sight of you here.’

‘Well, you certainly can’t leave now, can you? You must stay and become acquainted with your relatives. Really, I cannot remember ever having been present at such a dramatic occasion, but the two of you just stand there coolly and say how d’ye do! What provokingly unsentimental things men are, ain’t they, Laura?’

‘Not at all,’ Mr Erskine assured us all. ‘I am floored by the surprise, and I have no doubt that you, Charles, are the same. But now, surely this is a meeting that calls for some special celebration. Join me in a bumper at the expense of the benevolent Mr Jackson, won’t you?’

He summoned one of the servants still hovering in the background with a tray of glasses. We helped ourselves, and Mr Erskine proposed a toast: ‘To a newly united family,’ he said, and to me the note of mockery in his voice was patent. However, we all drank dutifully while he surveyed us over the rim of his glass, with one eyebrow cocked. I in turn surveyed him, but surreptitiously, buttressing my distrust of him by observing that he was indeed as ‘ugly’ as Emily had once pronounced him.

‘I intended to call on you in Mariaon in the morning—you remember you gave me your address when you wrote from Calcutta. You are comfortably placed?’

‘Exceedingly,’ said Charles shortly—and untruthfully.

‘We are staying with my cousin Wallace Avery and his wife,’ added Emily, at last finding her tongue. She had been watching her new relative like a bird mesmerized by a snake, and I remembered that she had said she would be terrified of him. Not that he seemed very terrible now. On the contrary, he was putting himself out to be amiable. It was Charles who was sullen and unapproachable, though whether because of his wife’s stolen dance, or his brother’s lack of urgency in making himself known, it would be hard to say.

‘I am glad you are comfortable,’ Mr Erskine assured Emily. ‘Will you be staying long in Lucknow?’

‘Our plans are still … uncertain,’ returned Charles, although the question had been asked of Emily.

‘Well, I hope that you will have time to visit me in Hassanganj before you return to England. You cannot return to Mother without doing that much at least; she tells me that she wishes to hear at first hand just how the old place is doing, and I will be pleased to have you whenever you are free. We cannot let this opportunity pass without getting to know each other, now can we?’

Charles looked glumly into his glass, while Emily assured his brother that of course they would be delighted. They had heard so much of Hassanganj … they were looking forward to it.

‘And now, speaking of getting to know each other,’ Mr Erskine put down his glass, ‘may I have the pleasure of this dance, Emily? You cannot object to your brother addressing your wife so familiarly even on so short an acquaintance, can you, Charles?’

‘Of course not. But my wife is not dancing.’

‘Indeed? I thought I observed her waltzing very gracefully with George here as I approached your party?’

‘But …’ began Charles, but Emily broke in: ‘Oh, pay no attention! Charles and I have had a little tiff. He is … jealous!’ She laughed. ‘But indeed, I should be most happy to dance, and since you are so close a relative I am sure he can have no objection.’ And the wretched girl took his arm.

Mr Erskine had the grace to look nonplussed, but could do nothing but lead Emily onto the floor of the public ballroom, whither she had determinedly turned. They were soon lost to sight among the gyration of the dancers. At last she had really got her way.

‘Oh, Lud! Now what on earth possessed her to behave in such a manner towards you, Charles?’ said Kate as they disappeared. ‘I declare the chit needs a spanking. That was too much!’

‘It is of no consequence.’ Charles threw himself on to a sofa and folded his arms across his chest.

‘You must expect such things when you are married to a girl as pretty and high-spirited as Emily,’ George said comfortingly. ‘Why, I remember Kate at the same age, and the dance she led me in those days.’

‘Away with you!’ returned his spouse. ‘I was never a beauty. But after all, though she has been a little rude to Charles, there is surely no harm in her dancing.’

‘I sincerely hope not, madam,’ said Charles wrathfully, ‘but as I see it, not only is my wife’s reputation for common decency at stake, but she is risking it in the company of a man who, from all I hear, has a thoroughly bad reputation himself!’

So that, then, was what had made Charles’s reception of his brother less than warm: the masculine gossip of the mess rooms.

‘Oh, Charles, Charles! You are wrong to judge Oliver Erskine by the envious tattling of cantonments.’ Kate’s wrinkled face was red with annoyance and she tugged at the high, boned lace at her neck to relieve her irritation. ‘It is true that … that at one time … and a long time ago it was, mark you, he had a … a reputation for entertaining the wrong type of young woman. But there’s not a lady here, nor a husband, mark you, who could accuse him of any lack of courtesy, discretion or dignity in the way he has always treated … well, his own class of woman! Never has there been a hint of anything that could sully the name of gentleman. What you have heard in the messes here—a great deal of it anyway—is the ill-natured hyperbole of less well-positioned men, anxious and eager to belittle a strong and independent character. Nothing more. Absolutely nothing more!’

‘That’s true enough, Charles,’ George put in, in his slow, soft voice. ‘Never a hint of ill behaviour with the ladies of Lucknow, and a good deal of the rest, to my mind at any rate, merely the ill-natured doing-down of men a lot less fortunate, and less worthy than he is.’

‘Perhaps. But the name he has earned for himself remains, whatever the lapse of time or the extenuating circumstances. I cannot approve of my wife dancing with him under these conditions.’

‘It looks to me as though you have little option,’ exclaimed Kate tartly, and then more softly, ‘Och now! Look at the pair of them will you, boy? Isn’t it patent and obvious that the girl is enjoying herself… and he too, by the look of him.’

‘No doubt!’ Charles agreed, glowering at the dancers. ‘But yet his neglect and ill manners regarding Emily and myself, ever since we arrived in India, has been most apparent. I cannot see why I should be expected to give him the benefit of the doubt. As far as I am concerned, the less I see of him the better!’ And Charles turned away with every appearance of having dismissed the subject from his mind for ever.