On Her Majesty's Orders E-Book

Vivian Stuart

• Herausgeber: Jentas Ehf
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Historical Romance
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 466

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

INTRIGUE. TENSION. LOVE AFFAIRS: In The Historical Romance series, a set of stand-alone novels, Vivian Stuart builds her compelling narratives around the dramatic lives of sea captains, nurses, surgeons, and members of the aristocracy. Stuart takes us back to the societies of the 20th century, drawing on her own experience of places across Australia, India, East Asia, and the Middle East.    The Sepoy Mutiny Visiting India, Emma Lindsay is caught up in the romantic whirl of her exotic surroundings. When she meets the dashing Capt. Hugh Richmond, he warns her to leave India right away. Torn between her attraction for this handsome officer, and his apparent cowardly concern, she determines to remain at all costs. But on the eve of Jawan Day ... the first destructive move is made, and Emma is soon trapped in a violent, blood-thirsty revolt!

Leseprobe

On Her Majesty’s Orders

On Her Majesty’s Orders

© Vivian Stuart, 1960

© eBook in English: Jentas ehf. 2022

ISBN: 978-9979-64-415-6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas ehf.

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FOR

ERROL F. GEORGE

whose family connections with India date back to the period covered by this novel and whose help and encouragement during the writing of it I gratefully acknowledge.

Chapter one

A small breeze, sweet with the scent of flowering shrubs from the cantonment gardens, ruffled the topmost leaves of the great banyan tree which grew beside the lychgate of the Adjodhabad Garrison Church.

There was an expectant stir from amongst the little crowd of dark-skinned native children gathered beneath its shade. They were sepoys’ children from the Native Lines, come to witness the pageantry of a feringhi wedding and agog with interest. One of them pointed, and the rest, scarcely able to contain themselves, gave vent to excited murmurings. Evidently the bride’s carriage had been sighted at last, on its way down The Mall.

For the past half-hour the children had watched a long line of carriages draw up, one after the other, in front of the gate. They had stared, open-mouthed, at the sahib-log in their wedding finery, at scarlet-uniformed officers and their ladies in crinoline and lace, and—some with awe but a few with derision—at the English children, as immaculate as their elders in muslin and velvet and white duck, as they had passed in slow procession into the church.

But now, they were aware, with the bride’s arrival would come the climax to the whole glittering occasion. Child-like, they clustered forward, straining for a glimpse of the last carriage and all of them pointing and exclaiming eagerly as their quick ears picked up the sound of trotting hoofs.

“Ai, ai, she is coming!” they said to each other and danced barefooted in the dust beneath the banyan tree. The flowers they carried wilted in the hot clasp of their small, careless hands and some fell, Unheeded, under their dancing feet. The children did not notice or worry. There would be enough, when the time came, to scatter in the bride’s path, enough and to spare. “She is coming,” they chanted. “See, she is coming!”

Fifty yards away and screened from sight by a thick clump of bamboos, a sepoy of the 76th Bengal Native Infantry Jay full length in the shadows, his musket by his side. He tensed as he heard the children’s shouts and a grim little smile played about his mouth. What he must do was for the Cause, he reminded himself. It was to be a sign, for those who doubted and wavered, a small foretaste of what was to come. But it behoved him to go carefully. The sign would be understood by his brothers, but it should not—indeed it must not—appear in the nature of a warning to those against whom it was intended.

Therefore it would be sufficient, Sepoy Bihari Lal decided, merely to disrupt the bridal procession when it left the church. There was no need for violence or bloodshed: the thing must seem to be an accident. He felt for the stock of his Brown Bess, his fingers trembling a little. His son was among the dancing children under the banyan tree, together with the first-born of Naik Ram Gopal, from whom he had received his orders. Both carried crudely fashioned garlands of white and orange flowers and both were laughing. Bihari Lal licked at lips that had suddenly gone dry as he watched them from his hiding place. . . .

Within the porch of the church, gloved hands demurely clasped, Emma Lindsay glanced across at the sepoys’ children and from them to the face of her cousin Lucy, who was the bride’s sister and, like herself, a bridesmaid. Lucy’s eyes were downcast, her expression remote, as if her thoughts were a long way away.

Emma touched her arm. “I fancy she’s coming, Lucy,” she said, her tone shy and a trifle diffident, for Lucy was her senior by almost three years and was wont, all too frequently, to receive her overtures of friendship with a repressive lack of interest. As if, Emma often thought indignantly, she were still only a schoolgirl, instead of the grown-up young woman of very nearly eighteen that, in fact, she was.

But today Lucy was in a more than usually tractable humour. She gave Emma a wintry little smile and said, smoothing the folds of her pale blue crinoline with practised fingers, “Then we must be ready for her, Emmy dear. We don’t want there to be the smallest hitch in our part of the proceedings, do we?”

“Indeed we don’t” Emma agreed, privately wondering what possible hitch Lucy could foresee in a ceremony that had been so minutely rehearsed only the previous day. Unless she were afraid that the twins . . . her gaze went, affectionately and without apprehension, to the two little pages. Ian and Douglas, twin seven-year-old sons of Captain Lake of the 76th, were standing silently beside her, resplendent in their satin page-boy suits. Whilst admittedly they had larked a little at the rehearsal, in the manner of small, high-spirited boys, they would, Emma felt sure, behave quite perfectly today. Both seemed very conscious of the solemnity and importance of the occasion, and their two round, well-scrubbed faces were the faces of angels, framed in neat haloes of red-gold curls.

She smiled at them and they both smiled back in swift unison, their bright eyes innocent of guile.

“Ian,” Lucy commanded in a penetrating whisper, motioning the nearer of the two to her side, “you had better stand by me, so that you will be ready to pick up the train.”

“I’m Douglas,” the little boy corrected, but, obediently, he moved into the position which Lucy had indicated. The two were identical twins and only their mother could tell them apart. Emma had long ago given up all attempt to do so, but Lucy, with discouraging lack of success, continued nevertheless to try.

The rumble of carriage wheels and a thin, twittering babble from the sepoys’ children under the banyan tree heralded the approaching Victoria. Peering out excitedly, Emma could just see the top of her uncle’s plumed shako and glimpse the scarlet and gold of his uniform coatee. Then it was obscured by a cloud of fluttering lace—Fanny’s beautiful Brussels lace veil, caught momentarily by the breeze as she prepared to alight from the carriage. She thrust it from her, catching at its flying, wispy folds and revealing her face for an instant, becomingly flushed and alight with happiness.

Dear Fanny . . . dearest, sweetest Fanny! How charming a bride she made, how lovely she looked. . . . Emma’s heart quickened its beat as she gazed at her cousin’s radiant face.

They had been close friends since their childhood and she hoped fervently that Fanny would always be as happy as she was at this moment . . . as happy and as confident of her love for Robert as she was now. Half fearfully, Emma found herself looking up the narrow, dimly lit aisle, past the packed pews, to where the bridegroom stood, his best man at his elbow.

Both, of course, were in full dress uniform—Robert in the pale blue and silver of the 2nd Oudh Light Horse, his best man in the knee-length scarlet and gold tunic of another irregular cavalry regiment, the 20th Bengal Lancers. They stood with their backs to her, two tall, ramrod-stiff figures, as erect and motionless as if, instead of being in church, they were on the parade ground. Each had his helmet tucked precisely into the crook of his arm, each wore a sash—silver in one case, dark blue and gold in the other—about his waist and each stood with his left hand resting on the burnished hilt of his sabre. Apart from the different colours of their uniforms, they looked very much alike . . . two strange, stiff soldiers of whom, suddenly, Emma found herself a little in awe.

Which was absurd, she chided herself. Admittedly she had met the best man, Captain Hugh Richmond, for the first time yesterday, when Robert had introduced him to them all. But Robert she had known when he was reading History under her father’s guidance at Oxford. Furthermore, she and Fanny had travelled out to India with him, in the same ship. The two girls, only recently released from school and under the care and chaperonage of Mrs. Lake, had been on their way to Adjodhabad, where Fanny’s father was stationed. Robert, fresh from the Honourable the East India Company’s Military College at Addiscombe, was newly commissioned into the Company’s Army of Bengal, his academic career abandoned owing to the untimely death of his parents. Himself on his way to Lucknow, he had jubilantly claimed acquaintance with her, Emma recalled, their common destination a pleasing and delightful coincidence, which they had quickly discovered and remarked upon. And then, to round off the coincidence, he and Fanny had met and fallen in love with each other, almost at first sight and as irrevocably as if their meeting had been predestined—as, perhaps, it had. . . .

Emma suppressed a tiny sigh. It all seemed a long time ago, when one looked back to that first meeting—probably because so much had happened in between and because the voyage had been so gay and eventful. In fact, however, it was a very short time indeed. They had left England in the steam-packet Palermo in September, 1856, just over six months ago, had reached Calcutta at the end of November, and now, at the beginning of April, Fanny was marrying her Robert.

It was like the ending to a fairy tale, Emma thought, her eyes suddenly moist with sentimental tears, although the romance had not gone entirely smoothly once they reached India. The young couple had been separated by only thirty-five miles, but at first Fanny’s father—Emma’s own Uncle George, who commanded the 76th Bengal Native Infantry—had refused to allow them to see each other. He had refused, with equal firmness, his consent to their marriage, on the grounds of Robert’s youth and his lack of prospects.

Promotion, as he had pointed out reasonably enough, was slow in the Company’s service, the pay of a junior officer quite insufficient on which to keep a wife, and Robert, although older than many of his rank, was still only twenty-one. Despite Fanny’s tears and her bitter, impassioned pleas, Colonel Lindsay had been adamant. With reluctance, he had eventually agreed to an engagement and removed his ban on their meeting whenever the opportunity arose. But that, he told Fanny, in tones that brooked no argument, was as far as any father could be expected to go, if he had his daughter’s welfare at heart. Marriage must wait until Robert should earn his promotion. And, as Fanny had tearfully confided to Emma, in the bedroom they shared in the big, rambling bungalow on The Mall, that might mean waiting for years and years. Perhaps even until they were both old and greyhaired, for how could Robert hope to earn promotion, when there was no war in which he could distinguish himself? The Crimean War was over and India at peace. Only by the intervention of Providence could they ever achieve their heart’s desire. It was so unlikely that Providence would intervene, wept Fanny, that she—who might have been so happy—was the most miserable and unfortunate creature alive. . . .

Emma, soft-hearted and devoted to her pretty cousin, had wept with her, as convinced as Fanny herself that years of frustration lay ahead of her. But Providence had not, after all, been blind to Fanny’s misfortune. Posted to Rajputana on temporary duty with a Queen’s regiment, Robert had attracted the notice of no less a person than Sir Henry Lawrence, and, to his own bewilderment, had found himself appointed to the great man’s staff, with his lieutenancy and a substantial increase in pay. From a penniless comet in an Indian cavalry regiment he had become, almost overnight, a young man with a future, singled out for advancement and in a position most adequately to support a wife. On leave from Rajputana at Christmas, he had called, for the second time, on Fanny’s father to renew his request for her hand, and the Colonel, to everyone’s delight, had given in with a good grace and welcomed Robert as his future son-in-law. With his new chief’s appointment as Chief Commissioner for Oudh, Robert’s stay in Rajputana had been brief indeed, and on his return to Lucknow preparations for the wedding had been hastily begun.

Fanny’s tears had ceased at last and she had devoted all her energies to preparing for her marriage, with Lucy and Emma as her willing helpers. Now, eager and lovely in her bridal array, she was advancing to the church porch on her father’s scarlet-clad arm. . . . Emma breathed another small, ecstatic sigh and went, smiling, to meet her. “Oh, Fanny . . . dearest Fanny! You look quite perfect, truly you do.”

“Do I?” Her cousin’s blue eyes lit up. “Bless you, Emmy. . . . Emmy, tell me, he’s there, isn’t he? He’s there, waiting for me?”

“Of course he is, dearest. Where else would he be?”

“Oh, I’m so happy, Emmy—so happy, I scarcely know what I’m saying. Indeed, where else would he be . . . today?” Fanny’s hand slipped from her father’s arm to touch Emma’s briefly.

It was typical of her to seek Emma’s reassurance, rather than that of her sister. Although Emma and Fanny were only cousins, they had spent most of their childhood together, at Oxford in the home of Emma’s parents, and at school. They were closer to each other, really, than either was to Lucy, on whom her mother’s death, three years before, had thrust the cares and responsibilities of her father’s household. The premature assumption of this onerous task had aged Lucy beyond her years, Emma thought, half pityingly, half resentfully. She glanced at Lucy now, as she came forward to adjust her sister’s train, and saw that, as always, the older girl was stiff and unsmiling, her mouth pursed in a tight line of faint but unmistakable disapproval and tier thin brows knit in a frown.

The train in her hands, she did not wait for Ian and Douglas to bend and pick it up but thrust it impatiently into their fumbling, uncertain fingers, with a whispered injunction to them to hold it carefully. Turning to Fanny, she said in a flat voice in which there was neither pleasure nor affection,

“You win remember to give me your bouquet, will you not, when the tune comes? Not to Emmy, as you did yesterday at the rehearsal.”

“Oh, yes, Lucy dear, of course I’ll remember,” Fanny promised dutifully, although it was obvious to Emma that she had not taken in a word of her sister’s nervous prompting. Her eyes were on the two tall, stiff figures standing together in the front pew, one of whom, as if sensing her presence, looked back over his shoulder to smile at her. Fanny’s lips parted silently. Heads turned expectantly as the organ began to play the Wedding March, and her father asked, his voice gruff as if he, too, were on parade, “Well, child, are you ready? It’s time we went in, I think.”

“I am quite ready, thank you, Papa,” Fanny answered, and again laid her white-gloved hand on his arm. He shortened his long stride to match hers and led her, with slow, impressive dignity, up the aisle to where her bridegroom waited. Ian and Douglas followed them, equally dignified, grasping the train so firmly that it seemed as if they never intended to be parted from it. Emma glimpsed their mother’s face as she walked behind them and saw the tears start swiftly to her eyes, bright with pride. Dear Mrs. Lake, how she worshipped her two small sons! She touched Ian’s shoulder gently and, remembering the role he had rehearsed, he came to a halt.

Robert, with a jingle of spurs, stepped to Fanny’s side and took her hand in his. They exchanged a swift, smiling glance and turned together to face the altar, a shaft of sunlight from the stained glass window behind it lighting their two bent heads and crowning them with molten gold.

Robert looked well in uniform, Emma thought. How he had changed since his undergraduate days when, a lanky boy who wore his hair too long and dressed untidily, he had attended her father’s lectures and taken tea with her mother and herself, in the quiet old house which overlooked the King Charles’ Quadrangle at St. John’s. He had filled out, gained assurance and maturity. The student had become a soldier, the boy a man. Because, following the fashion of the younger generation, he was clean-shaven, he still looked a trifle boyish, perhaps, but his lean young face had character in it and his mouth was firm and resolute and strong. He. . .

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. . .” The Chaplain’s voice, slow and resonant, broke into Emma’s thoughts, recalling her to the present.

This man and this woman . . . Robert and Fanny were to be joined together in Holy Matrimony. Soon she would lose her friend and confidante, with whom she had shared so many happy years. It was strange that she had not realized what it would mean to her until this moment. Emma caught her breath.

Soon Fanny would be Robert’s wife, separated from her by the barrier which must always stand between the married woman and the single girl, however close and affectionate their relationship might have been in the past. Fanny would attain, on marriage, the adult status denied to herself—denied, in spite of the social position she occupied, even to Lucy, who was the elder by nearly three years. As Mrs. Robert MacLeod, Fanny would be accepted as an equal by the other ladies of the station, admitted to their confidence and to their intimate tea-parties, to their talk of babies and other mysteries, in the knowledge of which she Would share and, in the sharing, make other friends, fresh ties, new loyalties.

Emma bit her lower lip, conscious of its sudden tremor. She had come out to India as Fanny’s guest, in order to stay with her family and bear her company. Her own parents had permitted her, not without reluctance, to accept her cousin’s pressing and oft-repeated invitation, so that the two girls need not be separated and so that their friendship might continue as it always had. But now, with Fanny’s marriage, the reason for her presence here no longer existed, Emma thought wretchedly. She was delighted, of course, for Fanny’s sake, that she was getting married, but the fact remained that it made her own position rather uncertain—even, perhaps, a trifle invidious.

Lucy, she was aware, tolerated but did not like her, for they had little in common. In the bustle and excitement of the wedding preparations, no mention had been made of the possible termination of her stay, and Emma herself had not given it a thought. But it occurred to her now, as the Chaplain’s voice droned on, that Lucy might welcome the suggestion that she should return home as soon as her passage could be arranged.

A wave of depression swept over her. She would have to suggest leaving, of course, that was the least she could do, but she felt tears well into her eyes at the thought of writing to her mother to say that she was coming home. How hateful it would be to have to abandon the colour and the excitement, the gay social whirl of India, and return to the quiet backwater, of her parents’ house! Oxford was a beautiful old city and in her heart she loved it more than anywhere else in the world, just as she loved her mother and father more than any other two people in the world. But . . . she had only been in Adjodhabad a few months, she hadn’t seen all that she wanted to see of India. She had done only half the things she had planned to do, less than half And, she reminded herself wistfully, if she once went home, it would be utterly beyond the bounds of probability that she would ever be given the chance to return. A visit to India happened, for most people, only once in a lifetime . . . if only Lucy had been more like Fanny, how much simpler everything would have been!

There was a movement by her side. Lucy nudged her with a warning elbow and Emma observed that the best man, the ring held carefully in his right hand, had come to stand beside her. She heard Fanny saying, in a small, tremulous voice she scarcely recognized, “I will.” And then, in response to the Chaplain’s, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” her uncle placed Fanny’s hand in that of the Chaplain, and stepped back.

The Chaplain joined Robert’s right hand to Fanny’s and, as if from an infinity away, Emma heard Robert repeat after him, “I, Robert Angus, take thee, Frances Mary, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part. . . .” He spoke quietly but with so much feeling that Emma felt tears come to ache in her throat.

Fanny made her vows shyly and almost inaudibly. The small, white, childish hand clasped in Robert’s big brown one trembled perceptibly as she made them, but she did not falter.

The best man stepped forward with the ring and then, with brisk military precision, resumed his place on Emma’s right. She glanced at him covertly from beneath her lids, wondering why Robert had chosen him to perform the office of best man at his wedding. Captain Richmond was, she imagined, at least ten or a dozen years Robert’s senior, and, Fanny had told her, although holding a military commission, he was not serving in the Army, having been relieved of his military duties in order to administer a civil district. She wondered where and in what circumstances they had met and become friends and then belatedly recalled the fact that Sir Henry Lawrence had introduced them, according to Fanny.

Captain Richmond was an inch or so taller than Robert, which made him well over six foot. He was a remarkably handsome man, Emma realized, quite strikingly so. His skin was deeply tanned and his hair and moustache so dark that it came almost as a shock to her, on meeting their direct and faintly questioning gaze, to observe that his eyes were blue. The deep, faraway blue of a seaman’s eyes, she thought, and then, finding her scrutiny returned, she lowered her gaze, flushing a little, and forced herself to return her attention to the marriage service.

Robert and Fanny rose from their knees. The Chaplain, his voice sounding weary now, for he was an old man, once again joined their hands and said, “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Emma bowed her head, silently offering her own prayer for their happiness, wishing for it with all her heart. Fanny was such a darling and she was so deeply in love . . . she heard the Chaplain give his blessing and then the choir’s voices were raised, boys’ voices, pure and lovely, unbelievably moving in that moment as they rose above the peal of the organ. “Operfect Love, all human thought transcending . . .”

Emma’s throat was so tight that she could only whisper the words, her eyes misted with tears.

She was dimly conscious of the Chaplain’s address, hearing the tired old voice as if it were part of a dream, watching Robert’s face and Fanny’s, seeing their two linked hands. But at last it was over and Lucy was nudging her again, urging her to look after Ian and Douglas and to see that they picked up the train. The twins turned righteously indignant faces to hers when she attempted to do so and she let them alone, ignoring Lucy’s low-voided, over-anxious suggestions by the simple expedient of pretending not to hear them. The wedding party, led by the bride and bridegroom, made its way into the vestry, two small, triumphant pages still manfully retaining their hold of the bride’s long train.

In the vestry there were kisses and handshakes and a few happy tears. Emma hugged Fanny ecstatically and found herself, a little later, drawn into Robert’s arms for an affectionate, brotherly embrace. “I shall never forget that it was thanks to you that I met my dearest wife, Emmy,” he told her, his smooth cheek on hers. “Bless you for that and bless you, too, for the way in which you comforted and sustained her when it seemed to both of us that this day would never dawn. We are counting on you to be our first guest, as soon as we are settled in Lucknow—are we not, Fanny my love?”

“Indeed we are, Robert dear,” Fanny responded warmly, and only then noticed that Lucy was beside her, waiting, in stony silence, for her kiss. She gave it and echoed Robert’s invitation, to which Lucy replied with a thin, perfunctory smile and a vague promise that she and Emma would avail themselves of it at the first opportunity. “Providing, that is to say,” she added, averting her gaze, “that dear Emmy is still with us by the time you are settled into your new home.”

“But she will be!” Fanny cried indignantly. “Of course she will. I declare, Lucy, that simply because I am married there is no reason for Emmy to leave. Why——”

Lucy cut her short. “Emmy may not want to stay on now that you are married, Fanny dear. It will be lonely for her without you, for I am kept too busy to be anything of a companion to her, as you know. And besides, if there should be trouble with the sepoys, as some people believe there will be, she might be most ill-advised to remain here. I feel sure that her parents would not countenance it.”

This was the first hint that Lucy had given of her feelings in the matter, Emma thought, and she felt the warm, unhappy colour flood her cheeks as she listened. But Lucy put a hand on her arm and ended on a more conciliatory note, “Naturally it will be for you to decide, Emmy. If you want to remain and your parents are agreeable, then nothing would please me more than that you should. Aunt Minnie and Uncle John have always been so very kind and hospitable to Fanny, and your visit to us was intended to be in the nature of some return for their kindness, as Papa must already have told you. We will talk about it later, shall we? This is neither the time nor the place in which to reach a decision—is it, Emmy dear?”

Emma wordlessly inclined her head. There was nothing she could say now, no plausible argument she could advance. If Lucy did not want her to stay on, then clearly it would be worse than useless to protest that she was enjoying herself and had no desire to put so premature an end to her visit. She had, of course, heard the rumours of trouble amongst the native regiments—everyone talked of it but few seemed to take the rumours seriously. Most people, her uncle included, indignantly pooh-poohed any suggestion that the unrest might become widespread.

And who, she wondered, as she watched him step forward in order to sign the register—who could conceivably be in a better position to know the truth than her Uncle George? After all, he was the commanding officer of a native regiment, with almost forty years’ service behind him and a lifetime’s experience of India on which to base his judgment. His faith in his men’s loyalty was undimmed, and certainly the little she had seen of the well-disciplined sepoys of the 76th had not led her to fear that they would mutiny. Besides, the other British officers who came to the bungalow or with whom she had talked at the Gymkhana Club on various occasions held exactly the same views. All had assured her frequently that the three regiments in Adjodhabad were loyal and would remain so.

There had been, it is true, an ugly incident in Berhampur in February and one or two isolated instances of violence in Calcutta and among the native troops stationed a few miles outside the city, at Barrackpore. Some of the officers’ bungalows had been set on fire, but this, Uncle George had said, was due to a misunderstanding over the issue of new cartridges which the sepoys, believing them to be greased with cow and hog fat, had refused to accept. Paid agitators had spread the lying tale that to bite off the ends of the new cartridges would destroy the soldiers’ caste. A similar story had been told of the issue of Commissariat flour and apparently a few hot-heads had stirred up trouble. But, Emma recalled, her uncle was convinced that it would pass, if it had not passed already. The 19th from Berhampur were being marched in disgrace to Barrackpore, where they were to be disbanded, as an example to the others—in fact, they had probably been disbanded by this time.

British discipline, which every sepoy in the Company’s service understood, would prevail, as it always had, her Uncle George had asserted repeatedly. His own men would, without doubt, accept the new cartridges when the time came—he would stake his life on it.

Looking at him now, Emma remembered her uncle’s words and the confidence with which he had uttered them. She knew that among his officers he had the reputation of being something of a martinet, but she was also aware, from what his native orderly, Lalla Ram, had told her, that his sepoys held him in high esteem on this account. Erect and soldierly in his scarlet and gold lace, he did not look his sixty-odd years or, indeed, anything approaching them, despite the fact that his hair was white and beginning to thin a little where once it had curled luxuriantly. The bristling military moustache and the long, carefully trimmed whiskers seemed somehow to emphasize the courage and forthrightness she knew him to possess, whilst undeniably adding to his air of dignity and assurance.

There was nothing to fear in Adjodhabad with her Uncle George in command—how could there be? Although it was typical of Lucy to pretend there was, if this happened to suit her own ends . . . and to pretend, also, that Emma’s visit to India was merely a return of hospitality, as meaningless and as easily terminated as an invitation to dinner or to take a hand at whist.

Emma moved away from her cousin’s side, and Fanny, who had been engaged in a whispered conference with Robert following the signing of the marriage register, caught her arm, drawing her further from Lucy’s hearing. “Emmy dearest,” she said earnestly, “you must not dream of leaving us, whatever Lucy says. Robert and I are resolved that you are to come and stay with us, the instant we have set our new bungalow to rights. It will not be long—we are to have a very brief honeymoon.” She glanced shyly up at her husband and then back, with affectionate tenderness, to Emma. “Try to bear with Lucy until our return—promise me you will, Emmy!”

“I will,” Emma promised eagerly, “if Lucy will let me.”

“She must let you. Robert shall speak to her—and to Papa. It will be all right, dearest, you will see. Lucy is jealous of our friendship, that is all—she always has been, you know, though she tries not to show it. When she has you all to herself, without me, she will be quite different, I’m sure. She will make friends with you then, Emmy, truly she will.”

Perhaps she would, Emma told herself, as the little procession started to reform and she found Lucy once more beside her. But it seemed doubtful. Lucy had never pretended to like her.

The organ burst into a joyful peal as Robert and Fanny began their slow, measured progress down the aisle. The two little pages, flushed with the pride of their achievement and the effort of keeping quiet for so long, needed no urging to pick up the train. Emma was about to follow them when a scarlet-clad arm, rich with gold lace, offered itself to her attention.

“I understand, Miss Lindsay, that it is my privilege to escort you,” the best man announced. She glanced up at him quickly, sensing a certain mockery in the deep voice, but Captain Richmond met her gaze with courteous gravity. He added, “I shall esteem it an honour if you will allow me to exercise that privilege.”

Emma accepted his arm, seeing, out of the corner of her eye, that Lucy had taken her father’s. From outside the church came the sound of a muffled explosion, but it was too faint to make much impression. Her companion stiffened, hesitated for a moment, but then moved forward again without a word. Side by side and in silence, they passed between the crowded pews and out into the sunlight, beneath an archway of sabres held aloft by a guard of honour of Robert’s brother officers, drawn up in two lines at the church door.

There was a short delay before the bride and bridegroom mounted their carriage, the sepoys’ children running out from the shelter of the banyan tree in order to scatter flower petals and offer the garlands they carried. It was a pretty, touching scene, proof—if proof were needed—of the goodwill existing between British and Indian in Adjodhabad, if nowhere else. And a second was to follow it, for, Emma saw, a dozen tall, bearded cavalry sowars from Robert’s regiment had unharnessed the horses from the bridal carriage and attached two of their own chargers to the shafts, with the evident intention of using them in order to pull it along The Mall. The rest bunched themselves about the carriage, as Robert handed Fanny into it.

This was a high compliment to pay and evidence of Robert’s popularity with his men. Emma had been long enough in India to realize that no one was more jealous of his dignity than the Indian soldier. Troopers of the rissala did not lightly risk incurring the derision of their fellows by turning their chargers into carriage-horses, even on such an occasion as this.

Robert’s regiment, the 2nd Oudh Light Horse, had only recently been posted to Adjodhabad from Lucknow and had, Emma knew, been recruited in Oudh, the rank and file being composed largely of the ex-King’s freebooters, the officers seconded, for the most part, from other regiments. Consequently this demonstration of loyalty was the more remarkable, coming from such men as these. She turned, her heart lifting, to her companion, but to her surprise she saw that he was frowning, his dark brows coming together in a forbidding pucker. “Is there something wrong?” she asked him uncertainly.

He shook his head, and an instant later his face cleared. “I do not think so. But, if you will excuse me, I should like to have a word with the Adjutant. He is with the guard of honour by the church door. I will rejoin you immediately, Miss Lindsay.”

He left her, and Emma, gazing after him anxiously, saw him engaged in earnest conversation with the officers whose raised sabres had lately formed the archway under which she had passed. Their faces betrayed nothing, although Captain Richmond’s frown had returned, she observed. But, when their own carriage made its appearance and he rejoined her, he was smiling and apparently perfectly at ease. Ian and Douglas, who were to drive with them, stood waiting impatiently by the carriage, and he lifted them in to it, making some joke winch set both boys laughing uproariously. When they had settled themselves side by side on one of the padded seats, he turned to Emma, holding out his hand.

“Permit me, Miss Lindsay.”

She took the outstretched hand, suddenly aware, as she did so, of the magnetism he possessed and of his outstanding good looks. He handed her into the carriage and jumped easily and lightly up beside her, calling to the coachman, in his own tongue, to drive on. As the horses clip-clopped briskly along the tree-shaded road, Emma ventured, greatly daring, “Captain Richmond, there was something wrong, wasn’t there?”

He eyed her speculatively. “What makes you suppose there was, Miss Lindsay?”

“Your face, the . . . the expression on it.”

“Am I so transparent? I must learn to guard my expression in future, lest you learn too much from it!”

“You are evading my question,” she accused.

His smile faded. “It was nothing, I assure you. Just a small mystery, which has now been partially cleared up. I heard a shot while we were in church, and—perhaps I look for trouble. Perhaps I expect it, before the time is ripe.”

“You . . . expect trouble?”

“Yes,” he answered briefly, “I do.”

“But the shot——” Emma stared at him, wide-eyed. “You said it was nothing, Captain Richmond. You——”

“Ah, that.” He sighed. “Apparently a sepoy discharged his musket in error. The bullet ricocheted and injured one of the horses drawing the bridal carriage. It was an accident, the man some distance away when he fired, so that there seems little possibility of its having been deliberate. Rather than risk delay or any other hitch, some of the sowars volunteered to draw the carriage and their Adjutant gave them permission to do so.”

“I heard the shot,” Emma said, “as we were about to leave the church.”

“That was the second shot,” Captain Richmond corrected. He lowered his voice, so that the two little pages might not hear what he said. “It was, unhappily, necessary to dispatch the injured horse, you see, Miss Lindsay. But I think we should not talk of it in front of the boys.

Emma flushed. “I should not have asked you about it, only I—I was worried.”

“So was I,” he admitted grimly, “for the moment.”

“Do you mind if I ask you another question, Captain Richmond?” His attitude puzzled her and she wanted to understand it.

“If it is no more difficult to answer than your last—ask away, Miss Lindsay,” Captain Richmond invited. His blue eyes searched her face, the expression in them more puzzling than ever.

Emma’s colour deepened under his scrutiny. “You said just now that you expected trouble. What exactly did you mean?”

“Ah!” His firm mouth tightened, became a thin, bitter line, pale and bloodless against the deep tan of his skin. “I am held to be a scaremonger by most of the senior officers here. In mess last night”—he again lowered his voice, with a warning glance at the two small boys seated opposite—“where I dined as Robert’s guest, I attempted to air my views and was, I regret to say, called one to my face by his commanding officer, Colonel Porteous—and others.”

“A scaremonger?” Emma echoed. “But why? Why should anyone call you that?”

He shrugged. “Because I am not satisfied, as they apparently are, that no danger of mutiny exists in the Army of Bengal, Miss Lindsay. That is why.”

“Do you mean”—Emma was appalled—“do you mean that the sepoys are not to be trusted?”

Captain Richmond inclined his head. “That’s precisely what I mean. Sedition is widespread among the native regiments. It will not easily be stamped out, even if the new cartridges—the official excuse for the unrest—are withdrawn, as they will probably have to be. There are other grievances, the annexation of Oudh, for example. Most of our recruits come from Oudh, you know, and they are very bitter . . . understandably so, in my opinion. The unrest is much greater than most people will believe. It is well organized and the priests are behind it, Muslim and Hindu alike. It is a bad sign when Mussulman and Hindu unite against a common foe, Miss Lindsay.”

“Yes, but . . . mutiny! Surely you cannot believe that the whole Army will mutiny?”

“A large proportion of it may,” Captain Richmond returned soberly.

“They will not mutiny here,” Emma assured him. “My uncle says that his sepoys are loyal and that they will accept the new cartridges without question.”

“Most commanding officers feel as he does, Miss Lindsay. They refuse to believe their men capable of disloyalty. Yet the 19th mutinied at Berhampur——”

“But they are to be disbanded, are they not?” Emma argued. Captain Richmond sounded, to her dismay, as convinced of his beliefs as her Uncle George had been of his own, with which they conflicted completely. “Are the 19th not to be disbanded?” she persisted, “as an example to the others—as a warning?”

He nodded briefly. “That is so, yes. But you cannot disband a whole army. There are half a million native troops under arms in India, Miss Lindsay—and only forty-five thousand British. Lord Canning has sent for British troops from Burma to even the score a little, but they are not yet here in sufficient numbers to count. Pray God they may come in time.”

“Captain Richmond, you cannot know. You——” Emma broke off, realizing that what she had been about to say might give offence. She had brought this argument upon herself with her impulsive question, had asked for his disclosures. Whilst she could not agree with him or believe that what he said could possibly be true, she did not want to offend him. He was entitled to his opinion, alarmist though it was, for he seemed to be sincere in all that he had told her. But obviously he was out of touch. “I mean,” she went on gently, “you have been away from your regiment, have you not? You have been seconded for political duties?”

Captain Richmond sighed deeply. His dark face looked strangely tired and unhappy as he said, “If you imagine that I have been away from the centre of things during my absence from my regiment, Miss Lindsay, then I am afraid that you are wrong. I have been acting as Collector in the district of Runpore, which, as you no doubt know, is in Oudh. There, I can assure you, I have been closer to the centre of things than any regimental officer is able to be. I have had dealings with ex-sepoys and new recruits, as well as with men on leave. And I have met them, not as one of their regimental officers but as a civil magistrate and administrator, to whom they are able to talk more freely. These men feel themselves betrayed, they are bitter and disillusioned, ripe for mutiny. The danger of it is very real, I give you my word. And it is very near, unless drastic steps are taken to avert it. I wish I could persuade you to believe me.”

Emma stared at him in frank bewilderment, her fingers toying nervously with a fold of her dress. Their carriage had almost reached the end of The Mall. It was only a short distance now to her uncle’s bungalow and already she could hear the strains of music coming from it, could glimpse the throng of white-robed native servants waiting by the big shamiana on the lawn. The music came from the band of the 76th—a sepoy band playing, with enthusiasm, a famous British march. She wondered why Captain Richmond should be so anxious to make her believe him, and, looking up into his face, she asked, “Captain Richmond, why should it matter to you whether or not I believe you?”

Impulsively, he reached for one of her hands, took it and held it lightly in his own. “I overheard your conversation with your two cousins in the vestry, Miss Lindsay.” His tone was serious and he seemed to Emma to be choosing his words carefully, weighing each one before he uttered it. “From which I gathered that there exists a possibility of your deciding to return to England in the near future. I sensed your reluctance to leave here, but from the bottom of my heart I beg you not to stay if you do not have to. There is nothing to keep you in India, is there—you have no husband, no children whom you cannot leave, no ties? And your parents are at Home, are they not? I fancy Robert told me they were.”

“Yes,” Emma admitted unwillingly, “my mother and father live in Oxford. But I am enjoying myself here and I have promised to visit Robert and Fanny in their new bungalow, when they return to Lucknow. I——”

“Neither of these reasons is sufficient cause to risk your life, my dear child!” Captain Richmond exploded. He sounded suddenly angry, as if he had lost patience with her, and his anger kindled her own. She gazed back at him resentfully.

“If the danger were as real or as imminent as you would have me believe, Captain Richmond, do you imagine for a moment that my uncle would allow Lucy to remain? Or that he would have permitted Fanny to marry Robert? He would have packed us all off Home if he thought we were risking our lives by staying, I assure you he would. If he does not consider that we should run away, I fail to see why you should suggest such a course to me. I am nothing to you—why, we are virtually strangers!”

“Yes, we are strangers,” Captain Richmond conceded. “But you are a woman. You and your cousins are three of thousands of defenceless women and children, for whose safety we soldiers will have to accept responsibility if there is an uprising. Do you have any idea of what that responsibility means to a fighting man, Miss Lindsay?” He glanced at the two little boys, seated silently opposite, and made an almost visible effort to control himself. “Our first duty will have to be your protection,” he went on harshly. “You will hamper us and tie our hands, you will make cowards of us, so that we shall not fight with the ruthlessness that may well be our only chance of survival. You will leave us with no hope of victory— you will defeat us before we begin! I do not blame the women whose husbands are here. They stay because it is their duty, because India is their home, because they cannot go. I recognize their right to remain with their husbands, if they choose, and even to keep their children with them, since few are in a position to send them Home. Although I confess, if I had my way, they would all be sent off to the hills without delay, where they would be safe under British guard.”

“They will not go,” Emma put in forcefully, “simply because you say they should—simply because you are afraid, Captain Richmond! They won’t go, any more than I shall.”

Captain Richmond spread his hands in a small, despairing gesture. “I am painfully aware of that But your position is not the same as theirs, is it? You are, on your own admission, merely enjoying yourself here. You will not enjoy a mutiny if it comes, Miss Lindsay—I give you my solemn word that you will not.”

Emma was furiously angry with him now. Never before in her life had she been spoken to as this man was speaking to her now, and never before had she heard such views expressed by a British officer. They were unworthy, a disgrace to the uniform he wore and the famous Company he served. Captain Hugh Richmond was not only a scaremonger, he was a coward and beneath contempt. She told him so, in a flood of bitter words, as the carriage drew up in front of her uncle’s bungalow and a servant came, salaaming, to lower the steps and assist her to alight.

She did not pause to consider her words or to spare him her withering scorn, and did not realize, so intense was her resentment against him, how loudly she had spoken until, meeting the round, startled eyes of the Lake twins, she knew that they had heard everything she had said to him. This realization did not abate her anger but it brought home to her the fact that they were not alone, a fact which, up till now, she had forgotten. Taking a child by each hand, she almost ran into the bungalow, her cheeks flaming, tripping once in her haste to put as great a distance as she could between herself and Captain Richmond.

She did not look back but sensed that he was staring after her, and her chin came up. What could have possessed Robert to invite him to act as his best man? she wondered indignantly. He was utterly despicable, a coward and a traitor to his own kind, he . . . Emma drew a long, painful breath. She hoped fervently that throughout the rest of the wedding celebrations she would not find it necessary to see or speak to him again.

And then she was being greeted once more by Fanny and Robert, and in the aura of their happiness her anger subsided and her heart resumed its normal beat. She clung to Fanny’s hand and they laughed together and Robert said, a note of eager pride in his voice, “You know, it was a rather splendid gesture my men made, was it not—drawing our carriage themselves, when the horse was injured? Splendid and somehow heartening, when there’s all this talk of disaffection. I confess I was so moved, I hardly knew what to say to the daffadar when we reached here and they all saluted my bride. Yet some people would have us mistrust them!”

“Robert——” Emma turned to him, seeking reassurance. “Robert, there is not going to be a mutiny, is there?”

“A mutiny, Emmy?” Robert shook his smooth fair head emphatically. “No, of course not. Who has been putting such an idea into your head? Surely you cannot imagine that men like mine would mutiny?”

As she remembered the smiling dark faces of the sowars who had clustered about the bridal carriage a little while ago, Emma’s doubts began to fade. Had not Robert’s men given tangible proof of their devotion to him? Had not the sepoys’ children come running, bearing garlands with which to deck his bride and flowers to strew in her path? They had . . . she had seen them with her own eyes.

Oh, Captain Richmond was wrong, completely wrong! She would try to forget what he had said to her, try—if she could— not to think of it again. He was out of his mind—he must be or he would never have spoken to her as he had.

She spun round, startled, as someone addressed her.

“Why, Miss Emmy, did I hear you aright? Were you talking of mutiny?” The tall young officer who had come up to her was smiling, his smile gay and untroubled, his eyes amused.

Ensign O’Donnell, was in her uncle’s regiment and, since her arrival in Adjodhabad, had established himself as her most devoted admirer.

Emma looked up into his handsome face, conscious of a sense of overwhelming relief at the sight of him. The younger son of an impoverished Irish peer, the Honourable Shane Dermot Aloysius O’Donnell was slim and red-headed, standing six foot four in his stockinged feet. Emma did not know him well, for his courtship had been shy and diffident and Lucy had discouraged it to the best of her ability, but she knew that he was no scaremonger. He was courageous and reliable, a young man to be trusted in any circumstances, and—he would tell her the truth.

“I asked Robert if there was going to be a mutiny,” she confessed, lowering her gaze. “I—I wanted to know, you see.”

Shane O’Donnell drew himself up to his full, impressive height, continuing to smile down at her with unruffled calm.

“And he told you there was not, of course! Indeed, Miss Emmy, it is an insult to the finest soldiers in the world to suggest that our sepoys are capable of disloyalty. They are not, I assure you.” He bowed, offering her his arm. “A glass of claret cup? Permit me to wait on you, Miss Emmy. You must be worn out with all this excitement and bustle—come, I will find you a seat.”

Emma went with him as Captain Richmond, a trifle pale and tight-lipped, entered the room. She walked past him with averted eyes, holding her hooped skirt closely to her, so that it might not brush against him as she passed.

Silently he watched her go, a small pulse hammering at the angle of his lean jaw. He was still standing there when Lucy came to call on him to propose the first of the wedding toasts. She had to repeat her request before he heard her.

Chapter two

A pale, waning moon had made its appearance in the night sky when Hugh Richmond, his mounted orderly at his heels, set out on the thirty-five-mile ride to Lucknow. The wedding festivities had ended some hours before, but he had delayed his departure in order to pay an official call on the District Commissioner, Mr. Andrew Bayliss.

Mr. Bayliss was an old friend, with whom he had served as assistant some years before, and he shared Hugh’s apprehension concerning the gathering storm and the horrors it might portend. Yet, in spite of the closeness with which their views on the situation coincided, the interview had achieved little. The Commissioner’s hands were tied, much as his own were, Hugh thought savagely—tied by the very men who should, by rights, be in the forefront of the battle.

As he rode at a brisk trot along the dusty, shadowed road, he went over their conversation, sentence by sentence, seeing again in memory his friend’s tired face and the lines of strain which had etched themselves across it.