The Day of the Scorpion (19 page)

General Rankin was the Area Commander. Teddie had come to the Area Headquarters in Pankot from the staff college in Quetta. It was not a good posting for an officer who had commanded a company of the Muzzafirabad Guides in Burma, acted as second-in-command of the depleted battalion during the retreat. From Quetta he might have had a G2 appointment, or at least a posting to the staff of an active division. He admitted this himself. He hoped and believed the posting to Pankot was only temporary. The one good thing about it, he added, was that it had brought him and Susan together.

Before Susan it had brought him Sarah. She and Susan, both mustered into the Women’s Auxiliary Corps, worked as clerks at Area Headquarters which had stationed itself permanently in Pankot for the duration to avoid the confusion and pressures of the yearly move from Ranpur to the hills and back again. Corporal Sarah Layton was the first of the two Layton girls he noticed, and for a time it seemed that he would prove to be the exception to the rule which, according to interested observers in Pankot, made it almost inevitable that any man first taking an interest in Sarah Layton would presently cool off her and start paying attention to Susan, who admittedly was prettier, livelier, always
to be counted on to do what Pankot people described as making things go. The result was that one was never sure which group of men Susan would next be seen as the sparkling centre of, only certain that from time to time, in these groups, there would turn up a man who, briefly, had been conspicuous as a companion of her quieter, elder sister. Once he had succumbed to Susan’s more obvious attractions he became one of a crowd; one ceased to notice him and, as a consequence, did not mark his disappearance. Susan, it was assumed, took none of her men seriously. They came, direct or via Sarah, danced attendance, and were replaced.

When Teddie Bingham showed signs of being Susan-proof it was to Sarah rather than to himself that he drew attention. The ladies of Pankot discussed this interesting situation over bridge, committee-teas, behind the counter of the canteen of the Regimental Institute for British soldiers of non-commissioned rank, and behind the scenes at rehearsals for their amateur theatricals. It was, they agreed, time that Sarah Layton settled down. She was all of twenty-two. She was very presentable, quite pretty, and well behaved. Her background was excellent, in fact impeccable within the context of Anglo-India in general and Pankot in particular. She was practically born in Flagstaff House (the senior ladies reminded those less well-endowed with detailed knowledge of Pankot history), her mother was a Muir, her maternal grandfather had been G O C Ranpur; her paternal grandfather had a distinguished career in the Civil, she was related by his second marriage to old Mabel Layton, and her father – now a prisoner in Germany – had commanded the 1st Pankot Rifles in North Africa.

And, in herself, Sarah Layton was upright, honest, and, one imagined, a tower of strength to her mother. Mrs Layton, it had to be admitted, had not borne up under the strain of separation from her husband with the case and cheerfulness one had the right to expect of a senior military wife. One found her vagueness and general air of distraction difficult to deal with. It had become an aggravating duty, where once it had been a pleasure, to partner her at bridge, for instance. She was not alway meticulous about paying her losses, either. Fortunately, a hint to Sarah Layton was known to be
effective. It was rumoured that native shopkeepers like Mohammed Hossain the tailor, and Jalal-ud-din, the general merchant, had taken to referring overdue accounts to Sarah as an insurance against painful accumulation. Honorary secretaries of ladies’ committees on which Mrs Layton sat had become used to mentioning the dates and times of meetings to Sarah, because this seemed to be the best way of reducing the odds against Mrs Layton turning up. On top of all this, there was – how should one put it? – a tendency in Colonel Layton’s lady towards over-indulgence with the bottle.

Sarah Layton, it was obvious, was the temporary rock on which the Layton household had come to rest, and it seemed unfair that her mother should be demonstrably more alert to the existence of her younger daughter. One could not exactly describe Mrs Layton’s attitude to Susan as fond – one gave her credit for retaining, in public, a proper manner of emotional detachment from the affairs of her children – but if one assumed fondness behind the manner then Susan, clearly, was the favourite daughter – and seemed to know it. That she knew it was, perhaps, the one major flaw in the bright little crystal. The minor flaws – vanity and pertness – were probably marginal evidence of the existence of this major one. But one forgave her in any case. She could not help it if people were attracted to her. It would be unnatural of her to pretend this was not so and only a girl with a remarkable capacity for self-effacement would not take advantage of it.

All the same one was sorry for the comparatively – and it was only comparatively – less attractive sister. One had never doubted that eventually she would come across a man who, looking for more than a casual flirtation, would prefer the things she had to offer. What made the association between Teddie Bingham and Sarah Layton so especially interesting to the ladies of Pankot was the fact that Teddie, in their majority opinion, was really rather good-looking; that is he was if sandy reddish hair and pale eyelashes weren’t on one’s personal list of things in a man one found disagreeable. The qualification was made and accepted because one lady, a Mrs Fosdick, said she was allergic to men with red hair and that she always counted pale eyelashes a sign of weakness
and untrustworthiness. Another lady, a Mrs Paynton, said nonsense, pale eyelashes denoted an exceptionally amorous nature, and if that is what Mrs Fosdick meant by weakness and untrustworthiness she was all for it. The ladies smiled. Their interest in Teddie Bingham thus aroused in regard to a specific point, they turned to a reconsideration of Sarah Layton and agreed that in life it was the quiet and unassuming people who in the end surprised one most. One had to remember, too, that both the Layton girls had come back out with, as it were, the dew of maidenhood still fresh on their young faces. Parents in India, reunited with their daughters, were well aware of the attendant dangers. On any station there were never enough young girls to go round. Even the plainest poor creature might expect attention from young men fired by climate and scarcity. The girls were fired by the climate too, and the sensation of power over herds of – as it were – panting young men could easily go to their heads. The first year was the one to watch out for. A girl needed her parents then. Wise parents stood by and let a girl enjoy the illusion of having her head in the first six months. One might expect anything up to six announcements that she had met the one man in the world for her. In the second six months one had to shorten the rein because this was the period when having found and discarded six Prince Charmings she could be expected to select as a seventh a man who had shown no interest in her at all, probably because he was already spoken for and had dropped out of the game of romantic musical chairs.

When the year was up and a girl had been through a complete cycle of seasons, it was time for her parents to take a hand. It was remarkable how docile the girls became, how easily they could now be led into the right sort of match. The second year was the year of engagements and marriages; the third year was devoted to maternity. With the first grandson or grand-daughter one could sit back with a sigh of relief that one’s duty had been properly done.

The war had disrupted this ideal pattern. The Layton girls, for instance, were among the last girls to come out as members of what old Anglo-Indian wags used to call the fishing-fleet. These days one only got people like nurses. On
the other hand the supply of men had become a torrent of all sorts where once it had been a steady dependable flow mostly of one sort only – the right. (Pankot, for instance, was full of the most extraordinary people.) One felt, as it were, besieged. Through the smoke and confusion one tried to maintain contact. One sought the reassurance that the old nucleus was still established at the centre. It was heartening to know that the elder Layton girl seemed to have chosen a man one could describe as pukka. He was a Muzzy Guide. His father had been a Muzzy Guide. If his association with Sarah Layton developed as one hoped, one could then say that Colonel Layton’s departure from the bosom of his family long before the end of that first traditionally difficult year when a girl stood in need of the steadying hand of a father as well as of the guiding hand of a mother, had not had any real ill-effect. One might congratulate Sarah Layton on her own good sense.

In this way the ladies of Pankot, at bridge, at tea, behind the counter of the canteen of the Regimental Institute and in rehearsal breaks in their production of
The Housemaster
, discussed the various ramifications of Sarah’s friendship with Teddie. They seemed to have set their hearts on an engagement. One could – they said – always do with a really good wedding, and with a Layton girl involved one could expect a reception at Flagstaff House, perhaps count on the General to give the bride away. Life had become a shade drabber each successive year of the war. One was lucky if the Governor and his Lady spent more than May and June in the summer residence. Last year, 1942, when all that turmoil was going on down in the plain, there had hardly been even the shadow of a season. As for home comforts, those too were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The influx of troops, the establishment of training camps, the departure of one’s own menfolk, had driven one out of one’s rightful bungalows to pig in at Smith’s Hotel, the club annexe, or, if one was luckier than other grass widows, into (in Pankot idiom) grace and favour bungalows such as Mrs Layton and her daughters occupied in the vicinity of the old Pankot Rifles depot, although that meant one spent a fortune in tonga fares just to go to the club for morning coffee. By rights, the station felt, Mrs Layton and her daughters should have been living in
Rose Cottage. As it was there was insufficient room there because old Mabel Layton, who had bought the cottage some time in the thirties, shared the place and expenses with Miss Batchelor, a retired missionary (and a born spinster if ever there was one) and both of them seemed destined to live for ever. On the whole, though, one envied the retired people who had their own places, although some of them had been reduced to taking in paying-guests, and as they died off the military requisitioned their bungalows for use as nurses’ hostels and chummery messes.

Meanwhile, one coped and made what one could of any occasion that might briefly bring back memories of what life in India had been like before the war. In the heat generated by their expectations of the wedding, warmth was felt for the Laytons as a family and a symbol. One forgave Mrs Layton her vagueness, her forgetfulness, her understandable little indulgences. After all, she was still an attractive woman. Better a few too many chota pegs than the possible alternative.

The news that Teddie Bingham and Sarah Layton were no longer to be seen in each other’s company came as a sad disappointment. Hopes that they had merely had a tiff and that a reconcilation would spur them on to a mutual declaration of affection were dashed when Teddie turned up at a club dance as a member of a trio of officers escorting Susan. It was calculated that he had more than his fair share of dances with her, including the last waltz. It was noticed that Sarah was not at the dance at all. Mrs Paynton reported an encounter with Sarah in Jalal-ud-din’s shop the morning after and having received – in response to her friendly inquiry after Captain Bingham’s health – an evasive reply that was barely polite. As Mrs Paynton said, Sarah Layton had always been punctilious in her observance of the rules laid down for the exchange of pleasantries – although (and perhaps the others would agree with her?) when one came to think of it she had never seemed entirely relaxed. In the present circumstances one had to make allowances. On the other hand perhaps one ought to consider more closely what it was about a girl who consistently lost men to her younger sister. Young men being what they were, nine times out of ten their
desertion of Sarah in favour of Susan could be explained readily enough. But Teddie Bingham, surely, had been the one extra time, and ten out of ten suggested there was more to it than Susan’s good looks and jolly temperament proving too strong as competition.

‘If you ask me,’ young Mrs Smalley said – and hesitated because she was never asked and had not been asked now. But she had searched for just such an occasion to make her mark with this group of her elders and betters. So, flushed but determined, she contined – ‘the trouble is she doesn’t really take it seriously . . .’

After an appreciable pause Mrs Paynton inquired, ‘Take what seriously?’

‘Any of it,’ Mrs Smalley said. ‘Us. India. What we’re here for. I mean in spite of everying. In spite of her – well, what she was brought up to. I mean although men never talk about it they feel it, don’t they? I mean in a more direct way than even we do. I think they’re more sensitive than women are to, well, people – people like Sarah Layton. I believe that after a while they get a horrible feeling she’s laughing at them. At all of us. Oh – I‘m sorry. Perhaps I ought not to have said that . . .’

There was silence. The ladies looked at one another. Poor Mrs Smalley wished the ground would open and swallow her. She – a Smalley (for what that was worth) had criticized a Layton, in public. And had talked about –
it
. One never talked about
it
. At least not in so direct a way.

Suddenly Mrs Paynton spoke. Mrs Smalley stared at her. She thought she might have misheard. But she had not.

‘My dear,’ Mrs Paynton had said. ‘How extremely interesting.’ Now she turned to the others. ‘I’m not at all sure Lucy hasn’t put her finger bang on the spot.’

Trembling, Lucy Smalley accepted a cigarette from Mrs Fosdick.

‘It was last year I first felt it,’ she said, having been persuaded to explain in greater detail what she meant when she said Sarah Layton didn’t take ‘any of it’ seriously. ‘I mean whenever we talked about all those dreadful things that were going on in places like Mayapore.’ When she said ‘we’ she was speaking figuratively. She had rarely ventured a word herself. Because she had not, she had had more time to watch
and listen. Whenever Sarah had been present with Mrs Layton, Mrs Smalley had taken special note of her because Sarah was the one woman in the group Mrs Smalley could treat as junior to herself. ‘I thought perhaps she was a bit shy, so I always made a point of talking to her. It was never anything she said, but gradually I couldn’t help feeling she was thinking a lot. I thought that sometimes she was bursting to come out with something, well, critical of us. Just as if she thought it was all our fault. And yet not, well, quite that. I mean I don’t think she’s a radical or anything. I think the best way I can describe it is to say that sometimes she looked at me as if I were, well, not a real person. I mean that’s the reaction I had. She made me feel that everything we were saying was somehow a joke to her, the sort of joke she couldn’t share.’