By Eastern windows (8 page)

Morley continued staring at the dance-floor where his young sister-in-law was happily dancing with her soldier . . . Macquarie? A Scot from the wilds of nowhere . . . the Scots had a reputation for being a stubborn race . . . but there was not a man in the world more stubborn than he was. And if Macquarie continued to push his luck, he would soon find that out.

THREE

The Ball had ended, all the dining and dancing over. The guests passed out of Government House into the warm night air.

‘I’m holding a picnic in the gardens of my own house on Saturday,’ said John Forbes. ‘For just a few chums. You will come, won’t you?’

Lachlan nodded inattentively. They were standing on the steps of Government House and his eyes were searching the departing crowd cheerily surging towards their carriages and tongas; but he could find no sight of Jane and her guardians.

‘Cricket will be played of course. So extend the invitation to Edward Grant too, will you. Good batsman is Edward, always knows the spot. Come at noon or thereabouts, but no later than one o’clock. Are you listening to me?’

Lachlan stopped searching and looked at John. `Aye, of course I’m listening. A picnic, on Saturday, yes, definitely.’

‘And Edward Grant.’

‘What about him?’

‘I want you to extend my invitation to him also. I’d invite him myself but I can’t find him, so will you do it for me?’

 
‘I will,’ Lachlan consented, giving up his search of the crowd. John Forbes took his leave, smiling all the way to his carriage as a sudden idea occurred to him, another favour for his young friend.

*

On Saturday, Lachlan expected to find about twenty-five men standing or sitting around on John Forbes's green lawn, but when he and Edward Grant arrived the place was packed, inside and out. The ‘picnic’ was in fact a sumptuous daylong feast served continuously by a troop of servants.

And
she
was there.

She was standing on the veranda, speaking with a woman old enough to be her grandmother. She seemed ill at ease, fluttering her fan and attempting to act in the genteel and refined manner of all young white ladies in India.

As soon as she saw him her whole demeanour instantly changed – leaning over the veranda rail to speak down to him with all the excited enthusiasm of a starry-eyed girl of sixteen.

 
‘Miss Jarvis!’ the lady behind her was outraged. A moment later Maria Morley appeared, dragging her young sister away from the rail; and from then on Jane was remorselessly chaperoned.

Fortunately, James Morley had not attended. Even so, it was only due to the constant efforts of John Forbes to distract Maria Morley's attention from her sister, persuading her to step forward and watch the wonderful Edward Grant take the bat, which enabled Lachlan to snatch a short time alone with Jane.

She seemed glad to be able to confide in him again. ‘Most of the women here seem to have never even
heard
of Antigua,’ she whispered. ‘All they talk about is England, England and dear old Blighty. Why do they call it that?’

 
‘
Belait
,’ he said smiling. ‘It’s the Hindi word for Britain, only very few of them can say it properly.’

 
‘The people here are so different to Antigua,’ she continued wistfully. ‘No laughter or fun in any of them, just rules and regulations and decorum at all times.’

‘Aye, that’s the way in British Bombay,’ Lachlan agreed. ‘In time you’ll get used to it.’

Jane shook her head in denial, then turned to him enthusiastically, ‘Tell me some more about your adventures in the West Indies. Banish my homesickness, if just for a little while. Did you like it there? Or did you simply
love
it?’

Ignoring the cricket, they stood talking together for some time, until Jane clapped her hands and laughed outright, a laugh so full of humour and unrestrained that all the women turned to look at her and it seemed, extraordinarily, as if the air had suddenly chilled. Her open and natural laughter appalled them.

Aware that such behaviour was not acceptable Jane pressed her lips together and lowered her head as if in shame, but smiling at him all the while out of her laughing brown eyes.

‘Jane!’ Maria Morley arrived, excused herself and her sister, and ushered the heavenly young creature away.

With perfect courtesy he had stepped aside, but he watched her go, back into the protective company of the women. No, he realised, she was definitely not a young lady who would fit in well with the society of British Bombay. There was too much of the Caribbean in her ways, as untamed as Antigua … She suddenly turned and looked over her shoulder, her dark eyes meeting his in one final smiling glance.

*

‘It’s not that I have anything against the man personally,’ James Morley explained to Jane the following morning. ‘It’s simply due to the fact that Macquarie is a junior officer who possesses no wealth or private fortune of his own. A penniless captain. And he’s been in India long enough to know the rules about place and position and wealth and courtship. So any interest he has thus far shown in you, m’dear, is clearly based on a desire to get his hands on your money.’

‘I have no money,’ Jane replied. ‘You have it all.’

‘I am simply
holding
it for you,’ Morley insisted. ‘As your brother-in-law and
  
guardian, and as your
only
protector here in India.’

 
Jane looked down as a small bird danced around her feet. She was sitting in a wicker chair on the partially-screened veranda leading from her bedroom and overlooking the back garden, wearing a lacy blue robe known as a ‘tea gown’, her lovely chestnut hair falling long and loose around her shoulders.

‘And you think …’ she said thoughtfully, `that I need protection from Captain Macquarie?’

‘I most certainly do!
 
Don’t you know that most of those soldiers only come out here to India in search of a fortune to take back to Britain? Why else would they put up with the unbearable heat? The incessant flies and the dust, the stupid natives?’

Jane was still watching the small bird thoughtfully. ‘Is that why
you
came to India, James?
 
In search of a fortune? Is that why you married my sister?’

 
James Morley almost chocked on his breath, just as his wife Maria appeared in the open doorway from the bedroom. ‘James, do let Jane finish her breakfast. She is not even dressed. It’s hardly seemly for you to – ‘

‘I was simply warning her about that soldier!’ James expostulated. ‘She needs to understand – ‘

 
‘No
you
need to understand,’ Jane said calmly, `that I am not the slightest bit interested in that soldier. I gave him a few dances one night, that’s all.’

Maria stared at her. ‘You’re
not
interested in him? Then why did you make such a disgrace of yourself at Mr Forbes’ house yesterday? Flirting with him like a floozy!’

‘I was bored,’ Jane confessed tiredly. ‘Bored with all the snooty women complaining about their servants, and bored with all the talk of how things are done so much better in dear old Blighty.’

‘Oh, Jane,’ Maria said reproachfully, ‘that is not a kind or polite way to speak about the British ladies here in Bombay. And if you are not interested in Captain Macquarie, then why put us through such worry? Why didn’t you just say you were not interested?’

‘I might have done, if he had once entered my thoughts in the time between the two meetings, but as he didn’t…’ Jane shrugged carelessly. ‘May I finish my breakfast now?’

‘Well, thank God that’s settled,’ James Morley said with relief, then added firmly, ‘But remember, Jane, in any future social gatherings, interested or not, I insist that you have nothing more to do with that soldier, not one word is to be spoken to him nor even a look in his direction. Is that understood? So now …’ he nodded towards her breakfast tray,
 
`carry on with your
chota,
carry on.
’

He left the room abruptly with Maria turning to follow at his heels. A wave of outrage swirled through Jane as she felt the injustice of his edict, the restraint of her freedom to even look at any person he did not approve of.

Minutes later she saw both of them again, walking in the garden, James still prattling non-stop and Maria nodding timidly in agreement with his every word. An incongruous couple in every way, a fifty-year-old man with his twenty-four-year-old wife.
 
He looked and acted more like Maria’s father than her husband. Why on earth had she married him? Where or what was the attraction?
 
But Maria
had
married him, and now she too was also was forced to put up with him.

She stood up and moved down the veranda, staring defiantly at the couple with her dark eyes. How dare they suggest that Lachlan Macquarie’s sole interest in her was due to her wealth, or as James always called it, her
fortune
?
 
How dare he demean Lachlan in such a way when she herself had already come to the realisation that no man in the world could be as mean or as money grabbing as her guardian.

She moved back into her bedroom, still thinking moodily. Well, if James Morley believed that he could order her in the same way he ordered his wife, then he obviously did not know her as well as he thought he did.
 
She was a child of the Caribbean and she was not shackled with the petty prejudices of all these self-important civil servants in the East India Company. And she had not come to India to be ordered about like a slave by her odious brother-in-law.

Sitting on her bed, she slipped her hand under the pillow and withdrew the letter she had received from Lachlan Macquarie the previous evening. A smile shaped her lips as she read his words, even though she had already read the letter a dozen times. Moments later she walked over to her small desk and sat down to write a long reply, explaining in all honesty about her guardian’s mandate that she was to have no further contact with him.

‘Of course, there is a valid reason why they dislike all soldiers, especially young officers, and hopefully one day I will be able to explain that reason to you, when you will then realise why it is foolish to take their dislike of you now so personally, but in the meantime …’

Later that day, chaperoned by her trusted
Ayah
, Jane left the house for her afternoon walk, heading towards the small park of gardens where, she had told Captain Macquarie in her letter, she would be taking a stroll at four o’clock.

*

Less than a month later, James Morley felt compelled to once again enforce his rule, although he had already decided that Jane’s unsuitable behaviour was not really her fault. It was all due to the fact that she had been brought up on a small, uncivilised island, where her mother had died young, and so the child was left to run wild in the care of black slaves who had spoilt her. Thank God that Maria had been sent to England for her education as a lady. Although why the same arrangement had not been made for Jane was still a mystery.

He asked Maria.

Maria shrugged. ‘It was simply impossible. She was only ten years old and had become too attached to Mammy Dinah, refusing to leave her, crying and running away until Papa was forced to send me on without her.’

‘And her schooling?’

‘Oh yes, she was well schooled, Papa saw to that. She attended the Missionary school at St John’s.’

‘Well, I intended to be very mild in my remonstrations with her,’ James said, ‘but as she got out of going to England for her education simply because she
refused
to go, I see now that I shall have to be very firm with her indeed. She shall not be allowed to refuse
me
.’

Throughout dinner he kept his eyes fixed on Jane, but she seemed unaware of his gaze, her mind miles away, not even answering when he finally addressed her.

‘Of course, Jane, I do realise this behaviour of yours is all due to your inexperience in society, but it has to stop.’

Jane finally looked at him.
 

‘Most afternoons you go out walking
,
is that not so?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Morley pulled the linen napkin from his neck, threw it on the table, and sat back in his chair. ‘The position of white women here in India is very different to Antigua,’ he said gravely. ‘In British Bombay it is not considered decorous or decent for a young woman to go out walking alone.’

Jane looked surprised. ‘But, James, I am never alone
 
– I am always accompanied and chaperoned by my
Ayah?
’

‘Not good enough.’ James flicked his hand dismissively. ‘These promenades of yours have to stop.
 
I forbid you to go out walking unless you are accompanied by your sister; and even then, I insist that one of the male servants accompany both of you.’

Jane flushed, as though he had struck her in the face. ‘But you cannot forbid … I have a right …’

‘You have no rights!
 
Until you are twenty-one or you marry, you are my ward. And as my ward you shall follow my rules and my advice. And do not for a moment consider
refusing
– because a refusal is something I will
not
accept. Is that understood?’