An Absent Wife (5 page)

“Where is my wife’s body?” Lysander asked with increasing annoyance as he sat in the Colonial Office’s Calcutta headquarters.
There was a fan over his head moving air around the space, operated by a man standing on the other side of the room. It did nothing to dissipate the heat in his body. His vexation and the blasted heat of the place were making him feel faint. He never fainted, but this unrelenting humidity was taxing in ways his body couldn’t handle. He hated feeling weak and this place made him feel less than at his best.

“I have spoken to the medical staff
who cared for the couple—” Mr Parsons caught himself and winced, “sorry, your wife and her...companion.” Lysander closed his eyes with the embarrassment and sheer unbelievability of this whole situation, which had quickly turned into a farce. “A Doctor Smith had seen them both and they were both quite ill.”

“And then?” Lysander pressed.

“We received word from the hotel that the pair had passed away.” Mr Parsons produced a note and placed it in front of him. Lysander leaned forward, reading the note. It stated simply that two of the hotel’s guests had died and it stated their names.

“In the case of cholera,” Mr
Parsons went on, “it is imperative that the infectiousness of the bodies is handled at the earliest opportunity to minimize the spread of contagion. Normally bodies are brought back to the coroner, but in the case of highly infectious diseases, it is important to deal with the bodies immediately. The coroner does sometimes depend on the input of dependable witnesses. I am sorry to have to discuss such delicate and uncomfortable topics.”

“I
don’t care about discomfort, Mr Parsons. What makes me uncomfortable is not knowing where my wife’s body went. You are telling me that the hotel manager was the last, and the only person to see my wife’s body.”

“We can only assume that she was taken to another place to be cremated.
We do not have a crematorium of our own as local practises have served sufficient for these rare moments...” Mr Parsons trailed off. “I will make some inquiries along the river to see if we can locate where her body was...where her pyre was.”

“And what of the woman?”

“What woman?”

“The one w
ho attended the cremation of Mr Ellingwood.”

“Perhaps one of the hotel staff?”

“Come now, Mr Parsons, there are no white women serving at the hotel.”

“Another guest perhaps?”

“Following the cholera victims through the city? I dare say not.”

“Then what are you saying, my Lord?”

Lysander didn’t answer, but had a suspicion boring through his mind. It had been his first thought when he’d first heard that there was a woman watching the cremation, and there was no female body. But on further thinking, he had dismissed it. His wife was a stickler for etiquette and for following every archaic rule of propriety; he couldn’t see her knowingly doing something like this. Then again, he had never expected her to run off with a lover either.

Maybe it had been his wife watching her lover’s pyre.
Maybe she had mistakenly been declared dead and was innocently unaware of the mistake. But then where was she? Perhaps she was on her way to England. The thought made him angry—he had come all this way for a simple clerical error. This only fed into the underlying anger that she had done this—embarrassed him in the way she had. He was fairly sure he would never forgive this further imposition.

Bidding
goodbye to Mr Parsons, he returned to the hotel and the peaceful tranquillity it presented in the middle of the sheer chaos that was Calcutta. He needed a bath; he could smell the smoke of the riverside sticking to his clothes like the clothes stuck to his body, wet with sweat.

Lysander requested the attention of the hotel manager when he arrived back, after ordering a gin and tonic in the bar.

“I understand you saw my wife’s body after her death,” Lysander said as the man appeared.
The man didn’t respond immediately.

“Yes,” he said after a moment of silence.
“And I wish to relay my deepest condolences.”

Lysander nodded, but there was something in the man’s
demeanor—judgement.

“And you are sure you saw her?”

“I didn’t look very closely, but I am sure it was your wife’s body. Again, I am very sorry for your loss. If that is all, I am afraid I must go attend to some repairs.” He smiled discreetly and withdrew. Lysander decided that he didn’t entirely trust this man—there was something in the way the man regarded him, but then maybe that wasn’t out of line considering his wife had been living here with another man. Perhaps a bit of judgement was to be expected under the circumstances—it would be were the roles reversed.

Returning
to his room, Lysander went through his late wife’s possessions. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Surely if she’d left, she wouldn’t leave all these things behind. Clothes, toiletries and even jewelery. He noted that the wedding band wasn’t there, but then he wasn’t sure she would have brought it with her when leaving to live with another man. It must be back at the Hall, he assumed. Then he noted that there wasn’t a hair brush. There was a comb amongst Mr Ellingwood’s effects, but no hair brush amongst his wife’s. While he didn’t know his wife well, he knew women well enough to know they cared for their hair. There was the possibility that his wife would have used Mr Ellingwood’s comb, but not for the period of months they were together.

It could of course have been stolen, but then the
jewelery was still present. The realisation only confirmed suspicions he couldn’t quite have formulated before. There was no body of his wife, a woman had been watching Mr. Ellingwood’s cremation and now the most crucial item of women’s personal care was missing. It could possibly be that his wife was alive and that she had conducted a deception; although this could all be his imagination conjuring fantastical turns of events.

He didn’t know what to do, feeling boxed in at every turn.
His wife was either alive and deceiving him, or she was dead and lost. He didn’t honestly know what was required of him, but something was—he had to deal with this. Either way, he had to find her before he was free of this whole affair.

The hotel manager was indisposed when he next tried to seek him out, making Lysander narrow his eyes when the message was conveyed to him. He had a feeling that he would get no more assistance from the man and if he did, he wasn’t sure he could trust it. If his wife was alive, this man had possibly attested to her death knowing it was a deception.

He further mulled
over the character of the woman who would do such a thing, the character of the woman who was his wife, in name if nothing more. He wasn’t entirely sure which outcome he wanted, but it would probably be easier if she was deceased. A deception of this magnitude could not be born; it signified a flaw in character beyond anything tolerable.

Returning
to the train station, he made inquiries regarding lone women buying tickets, but there were none fitting the description of his wife. The only other place was the port. He gritted his teeth through the rickshaw ride, past the cacophony of life existing on the streets of this city. He was getting a bit more accustomed to the complete assault on his senses each time he left the lush green surroundings of the hotel, and familiarity of what was outside was alleviating some of the distress.

Occasionally he would pass others
—British men and women in their light dresses and suits—heading off in rickshaws to whatever business they had. He tipped his hat to each in an odd gesture of familiarity with people he had essentially not met before, but the foreignness of the place encouraged an odd sense of familiarity even with perfect strangers—perhaps because they lived with the same exotic experiences here.  The same had been true with the other guests at the hotel. There was a feeling of camaraderie brought on by the fact that they were British in a foreign place. A few of the hotel guests were residents living there on a permanent or a semi-permanent basis, like Adele and Samson had—working here and raising their families. It was Britain, but it was different—the rules were different and the lines of demarcation within English society appeared to be much more blurry here.

The port was as busy and unpleasant as he expected.
There were people, goods and carts moving in every available space. It took him a while, but he found a spectacled young Indian man in the port building to help him make enquiries amongst the passenger agents. The man encouraged him to sit in a chair while a glass of tea was presented to him.

Sitting back, Lysander
watched the frantic activity across the dock area while he waited for the man to return. It took close to an hour, but the young man returned to confirm that there had indeed been a young woman by the name of A. Ellis, traveling alone during the time period in question—to Adelaide.

Lysander frowned.
Adelaide?
he repeated to himself. He couldn’t really see Adele traveling to Adelaide. It couldn’t possibly be further away from London. She had no ties with Adelaide—or even with Australia. It didn’t make sense; she would cut off any support she had, travel to the ends of the earth and for what? The only thing he knew about Adelaide was that there was gold there; although he could hardly see her as a gold prospector. The whole notion of Adele traveling to Adelaide was ludicrous.

He queried if there were any other young women
traveling alone, but there were none, except a diplomatic wife traveling to Peking. He dismissed the idea of the diplomatic wife, but the other was harder to dismiss. Adelaide would be a place where someone would go to shed their identity. He wasn’t ready to believe it was Adele, but he had to concede that there was something in his gut that identified with this person.

Seeking
out another rickshaw, he made his way back to the hotel to change and refresh before his supper with the Viceroy.

Lysander arrived at Gove
rnment House shortly after dusk—a massive building not much different from many stately homes back in England. His carriage drew up in front of a large sandstone staircase, where staff were waiting to assist. An aide showed him the way to the Brown Dining Room, where the evening’s event was being held. The halls held portraits or paintings of a myriad of royals and also previous Viceroys.

It had been a long day and he was both tired and hungry.
If it had been up to him, he would have preferred staying close to his room, but when such distinguished persons extended invitations, it was plain rude to decline, particularly on short notice for no discernible reason.

“Warburton, good to see you,” Viceroy Mayo said as he was shown into the brightly lit dining room holding a collection of people.
There were women in elegant and light silk dresses and men in light suits made for the climate. He considered whether he should have some made for himself, but his short stay didn’t justify a new wardrobe and he didn’t want to stay to wait for it to be ready. “Ghastly business about your wife.”

“Yes,” Lysander agreed as he was delivered a drink on a
silver tray.

“Has Parson
s been able to locate her?”

“Not that I have heard.”

“Then I hear the woman had a habit of getting lost,” the Viceroy said. Lysander knew it was a statement indicating that the Viceroy was aware of her presence in Calcutta and the circumstances in which she was living.

“So it seems,” Lysander returned non-
committally. He’d grown used to veiled comments about his wife over the last ten months. It was embarrassing, but there was nothing he could do to counter the accusation—it was true after all.

“I am sure Parson
s will find her, or rather where she was joined with the river as the locals say. He is having the Imperial Police Service assist with scouring the city. I have no doubt they will find some further information shortly.”

Lysander had met Lord Mayo on a number of occasions
previously. He’d made an appearance in London on a frequent basis as it had always been a part of his role as the Secretary for Ireland. Lysander knew he was an excellent administrator and the position of Viceroy was well-deserved and well-allocated. “Come eat.  You can tell us of any gossip from London.”

It was a pleasant supper and he relayed what he knew for the benefit of the ladies present.
He usually didn’t pay close attention to the stories that amused women, but he told them what he could. When they asked him about the latest fashion, he was frankly lost.

“Now for some whiskey while the women refresh themselves,” Lord Mayo said.
The men moved over to a set of chairs along a stretch of the balcony that surrounded the large building. The heat was pleasant this time of night—not stifling, but a warm breeze that was welcome after the harsh sun of the day.

The men talked about some reforms aimed to educate the general local
population while they sipped Irish whiskey that Lord Mayo had shipped over throughout the year. “One must have some home comforts or one goes mad,” he explained as he urged the servers to refill their glasses. “It is good to see you, Warburton. What do you think of our fair city?”