The Towers Of Silence (The Raj quartet) (59 page)

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I do apologize. Of course. Captain Merrick. My name’s Barbara Batchelor. I was
Mabel Layton’s
companion. I used to live here.’

She put out her hand and at once wished she had not; not because by doing so she broke one of the stuffier rules but because the arrangements he had to make to reciprocate were complicated. Taking his hat off again, revealing once more the raw geography of his face, he inserted the hat into the black leather glove, clamped its fingers and then put his one warm living hand in hers.

‘How do you do? Miss Layton mentioned you to me when she visited me in hospital. It must have been in connection with a Miss Crane. Is that correct?’

‘How clever of you to remember.’

‘Not really. Sarah told me her aunt Mabel’s companion had been in the missions and often talked about Miss Crane.’

‘Edwina and I were old friends.’

‘Were you in the same mission?’

‘The very same. The Bishop Barnard schools.’

‘They are highly thought of. Were you in Mayapore?’

‘No. I was in many places but never there. When I retired in nineteen thirty-nine I was superintendent in Ranpur.’

‘That must have been a very responsible post.’

She realized that she was trying to look at the right side of his face and the right eye and ignore the left. His short stubby colourless hair was stippled with grey on the left side and looked patchy. Had he been handsome? It was difficult to tell. She would have liked to touch the scarred side of his face and she had an equally strange desire to touch the gloved artificial hand and feel up the arm inch by inch to discover where the wood or metal ended and the flesh began. She thought she remembered Sarah saying it had had to be cut off above the elbow.

And she recalled then that Sarah had never liked him. Loving Sarah and believing in her though she did, she could not let herself be prejudiced in advance. He had acted with great physical courage; perhaps with moral courage too. His voice was wonderfully distinct; every word clearly enunciated. A man’s voice.

She turned to where the chairs should have been, intending to invite him to sit. The verandah furniture was gone. She had not noticed it consciously until now. ‘Oh, dear, they’ve taken away the chairs. We sat out almost every day even in December and January when it can be quite chilly in the shade even at midday. I suppose the chairs are inside. Mildred and Susan have been away since early September, and Sarah longer than that. She went to Calcutta with her aunt. Did she come and see you?’

‘I left the hospital there in mid-July.’

‘When did you reach Pankot?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Are you here for long, for a holiday?’

‘No, only for a week. I’m at the hospital for tests and fittings. But it’s a kind of holiday. I’m allowed a lot of freedom so long as I keep the appointments with the medicos.’

She glanced at the hand. Perhaps it was new and painful.

‘How disappointing for you that the Laytons aren’t here. And
they’ll
be sorry to have missed you. Especially Susan. She was tremendously grateful to you, for what you tried to do to save Teddie.’

Her voice had hit a patch of special roughness but she had also been hit by the terrible consequences for Captain Merrick of his heroic act, hit as never before because she hadn’t known the man or been able to imagine in detail the ruined face and the awful artificial arm.

‘My voice,’ she croaked, and hit her chest as if to dislodge an obstacle inside, and wished it were in her power to heal them both. ‘I had a very bad cold a little while ago and this is the result.’

A movement caught her eye.

‘Mali!’

She went to meet the man who had appeared on the verandah carrying a tray of coffee. Directly he saw her he set the tray on the ground and salaamed and then took both her proffered hands. His boy came up behind.

‘Are you well, mali?’ she asked in Urdu. ‘And your wife? And the chokra. Oh! I can see he is well.’

All were well, the mali said. ‘But look, Memsahib–’

He led the way past the high-grown plants on the balustrade to the steps where the view was not interrupted. She looked. And did not believe it.

All the central beds of rose trees had been dug up and turfed over. Lines of string and limewash mapped the place where a tennis court was being prepared. The roses in the beds that were left had been pruned down to bleak little skeletal bushes.

‘Tennish,’ mali said. There were tears in his eyes.

She turned from the sight of desecration and found Captain Merrick smiling at the mali’s boy because the boy’s eyes were fixed on the black-gloved hand. He looked up at her.

‘Have there been changes?’

‘It’s unrecognizable.’

‘I was thinking just before you came what a fine garden it is, but I could see some work was being done.’

‘It was once a mass of roses.’

‘It must have been beautiful.’

Beautiful was an unusual word for a man to use except about a woman. She was grateful to him for using it now. Her father had used it in similar contexts. Because of the poet in him.

The boy had taken up the coffee tray and the mali was unpadlocking the louvred shutters in front of the french windows of the living-room. He swung the shutters back and then went round the side of the house to the kitchen entrance.

‘Would you like to see inside the house, Captain Merrick?’

‘Only if you’d like to show it to me. I’m content in the fresh air.’

‘Then let’s stay here. He’ll be bringing out the chairs.’

The french windows were being unbolted from inside. With a creak one swung open and then the other. The mali came out with a chair she did not recognize; a dining-room chair. He set it down, went back in and came out with another. On his last journey he brought a basket-work teapoy which, like the chairs, must have come from the grace and favour. The chokra put the coffee tray down on this.

‘Thank you, mali. I don’t recognize the chairs.’

The chairs were from Brigadier Paynton Memsahib’s house. Brigadier Paynton Memsahib had flown home to bilaiti.

‘Yes, I know. What happened to our old table and chairs?’

The old table and some of the chairs were in the hall. The old sideboard was in the main bathroom. The rest of the chairs were in the mali’s shed taking up room. All the old stuff might be sold. It was because Mahmoud had put the chairs in the shed that he had found the trunk and caused trouble. All the living-room furniture was being recovered. The verandah furniture was in the bazaar being repaired and relacquered. The Indian carpet in the living-room was to be put in the young memsahibs’ bedroom and a fine new Persian carpet had been ordered from Bombay.

From his expression Barbie saw that the mali, loyal to the old order, was nevertheless impressed by the new. In time he would be impressed by the tennis court. Perhaps he already was and had only been upset for her benefit. That was very Indian. The tears in his eyes had been genuine but that was part of being Indian too.

They settled in the strange but elegant chairs and she dealt with the coffee. None of it mattered. For her Rose Cottage had ended with Mabel’s death. She could not see the future that Mildred apparently saw for it. A Persian carpet was a wild extravagance. Or perhaps it was simply an investment. The boy brought out another cup and saucer and a plate of rather soggy looking biscuits.

‘Roses or tennis balls,’ she said suddenly. ‘Which would you choose, Captain Merrick?’

He did not reply but took the cup of coffee in the one hand capable of dealing with it and which might still hold a racquet.

‘I’m sorry,’ Barbie said, choosing forthrightness. ‘Were you a good player?’

‘Pretty fair. I shan’t miss it though so long as I can ride. I’m teaching myself to get up on a horse from the wrong side. I’m hoping to get a mount tomorrow. You need an arm with feeling and control in it to get up, don’t you, for the horse’s sake as much as your own, but the rest’s a question of one sensitive hand and a couple of strong knees. Once I’ve mastered that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t train myself to play patball too.’

‘I think that’s very brave.’

‘Not at all. One’s scale of priorities and comparisons changes, that’s all. Actually it’s rather like being born again. Even drinking a cup of coffee presents unexpected problems.’ He smiled. ‘But it tastes better when you get it.’

He stuck the saucer between the black leather thumb and forefinger, clamped them, picked up the cup and drank.

Having drunk he set the cup back in the saucer, reached over, lifted the plate of biscuits and offered it to her. After she had declined he put the plate back on the tray, chose a biscuit, settled back and began to nibble at it. The cup and saucer were retained in that rigid grip. She noticed that he had taken the opportunity at some time to dispose of his hat by folding and placing it neatly into the right-hand pocket of his misty Harris tweed jacket. His trousers were fawn cavalry twill; the shoes chestnut brown with the high glassy polish of old shoes originally expensive and since well cared for. His flannel shirt was open at the throat. He wore a green silk scarf inside it.

Her eyes, taking all this in, now met his. He did not seem in the least embarrassed to be the object of such close scrutiny but met it with what she thought of as a manly composure. Nevertheless she was ashamed of herself. She had been examining him as though he were not real. He had finished the biscuit and now drained his coffee cup. She wondered, thinking of the liquid going down, what intimate problems he also had to resolve, and looked away, saddened rather than embarrassed, and uncertain whether to offer him another cup. She sipped her own coffee.

‘How are the Laytons?’ he asked.

‘Fine, I’m glad to say. I hear from Sarah sometimes. They’ve been in Darjeeling with Mildred’s sister.’

‘Mrs Grace. I met her at the wedding. Was the baby born successfully?’

‘Oh yes, didn’t you know?’

‘I saw Sarah in June but I’ve heard nothing since. The nurse who specialled me told me Mrs Grace rang once to inquire how I was. I believe she was coming up to Pankot and that was early in July if I remember right. The baby was due about then, wasn’t it? I suppose Mrs Grace was coming up for that?’

‘No, the baby was born prematurely. In June. A little boy.’

‘A boy? Teddie would have been pleased. And Susan?’

‘Susan was pleased too.’

‘I meant was she all right?’

‘She had a difficult time but she came through. She was very brave. She was here on the verandah and Mabel was working in the garden. I was out. There was no one else here. Susan saw her die. She acted marvellously. Ringing for the doctor first and then her mother. But the shock brought the baby on.’

‘Mrs Layton senior’s death was very sudden then?’

‘Very sudden.’

She looked at him. His good arm was bent, the elbow resting on the arm of the dining-chair – a carver’s chair, she supposed; her own had no arms – the good hand supporting his chin, one finger resting on his right cheek.

‘She died the day Sarah was in Calcutta.’

‘Yes.’ He moved the finger from his cheek to the corner of his mouth and then tucked it under the chin. ‘Sister Prior saw the notice in the
Times of India.
She thought it might be Sarah’s mother. She knew Sarah’s name was Layton and that she’d come all the way from Pankot to see me, and Sarah said she might come again after the operation but she never did. Sister Prior thought she’d had to rush back here. She kept it from me. I wasn’t shown the
Times
notice for a couple of weeks. Of course I realized at once who it was who’d died. I meant to write. But never did.’

‘Didn’t Sister Prior see the notice of the baby’s birth a few days later?’

‘I think she only looks at the deaths and marriages.’ He smiled. ‘Is there another cup of coffee?’

‘I’m so sorry. Of course. No – leave it there.’ She stood, poured the coffee. The cup and saucer were at a slight angle. She was careful not to fill the cup too full. She helped him to milk and sugar, then sat down.

He said, ‘You’re probably wondering how I knew to come to Rose Cottage.’

‘Why should I wonder that?’

‘Because the last time I was in touch with Sarah they were still at the Pankot Rifles address.’

‘Oh, I see. Well. I suppose someone at the Pankot hospital told you they’d moved.’

‘No.’ He glanced at the palm of his good hand. ‘I’ve not talked to many people at the hospital yet. But Teddie mentioned Rose Cottage quite a lot. Susan usually wrote to him from here, didn’t she? She used to put the Rose Cottage address on the flaps of the envelopes. He liked that. He liked to think of her in this setting. He said her father would inherit it when her Aunt Mabel died. But I’d forgotten that until I got to Pankot yesterday. I meant to get in touch with them at the other address or look them up in the telephone book. But as soon as I arrived I remembered about Rose Cottage and wondered if they’d moved in.’

‘So you came up to see.’

‘No, I came up to the club to sign on as a temporary member but the secretary was out. They said he’d be back about midday so I took a walk up the hill. As soon as I started passing bungalows with names like The Larches, Rhoda and Sandy Lodge I was pretty sure I’d come across Rose Cottage. I thought I was out of luck after I’d passed the last place. But suddenly here it was. So I came in. The mali was working at the front.’

‘You were fortunate to choose today. Mali was expecting me. Otherwise you’d have found the gate shut and padlocked. I came to collect my trunk. I expect you saw it.’

‘Yes, I noticed a trunk. Where are you living now?’

‘At the rectory bungalow. You saw the church spire? Well, it’s just behind there. You must visit us. And there will be lots of other people here who’ll be anxious to meet you.’