Night Train to Jamalpur(72)

Eventually Lydia cut in, saying, ‘Tell Bernadette all that.’

‘But it would only encourage her,’ I said.

Lydia, who had been sitting on the sofa and drinking a beef tea made with milk (she had been drinking no end of that revolting concoction recently), had made no answer to this, except to slowly shake her head before taking another sip of her drink. Darjeeling, it seemed, was not doing her any good at all.

When Bernadette was delivered back to Cedar Lodge, I proposed that she and I go for a walk. She said she didn’t want to come; she had a jigsaw to be getting on with. I told her the jigsaw could wait. She said, ‘No, it can’t.’ I said I wanted to tell her about a game of golf I had just played with the R.K., and at this she had put on her coat again directly.

We walked, through failing light, towards that part of town called Chowstra, a pretty little colony of chalets and trinket shops. We walked into a wood-smelling tea shop, and I bought Bernadette a cup of cocoa.

‘I bet Raju’s ripping at golf,’ she said.

‘He’s very nearly as good as me,’ I replied.

‘But you’re atrocious at golf.’

The observation was grist to my mill, so I kept silent.

‘You talked to him about me, I suppose.’

‘The moment I mentioned your name, he immediately knew who you were. He said, “Yes, she’s the friend of Ann and Claudine.”’

Another silence.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Bernadette said. ‘You’re just trying to make me think less of him.’ And there were tears in her eyes.

I said, ‘I am being completely honest.’

‘Swear on your mother’s grave.’

My mother had died at the moment of my birth, as Bernadette well knew. She had often called on me to swear on her grave, and I did so again now. ‘And I am being completely honest when I say I found him a thoroughly likeable young chap. I’m sure he doesn’t keep a harem, and it was ridiculous of me to think that he did.’

‘Yes. It was.’

‘He and I hit it off pretty well. Did you know he has a keen interest in small-gauge railways?’

Bernadette was looking sidelong; but she was rallying, I could tell. There would be no more tears.

‘He’s planning to lay out one himself,’ I continued, ‘in the two-foot gauge. He and his father are more like company directors than minor royalty, and they run Suryapore very much on business lines, but also with one eye on the interests of the people. They pay their taxes as you said, and they give no trouble. They’re a model of the kind of rulers that the government wants to encourage. Now I don’t know how things stand between the two of you, but if you wanted to have him around for tea or something, then I for one would make no objection. In fact, I’d very much enjoy the chance to have another chinwag with him.’

Bernadette was looking at her empty cup. At length, she said with utter disgust, ‘A chinwag?’

As we walked back to Cedar Lodge, she said, ‘He has an interest in railways, you say?’

‘Little ones, yes.’

And we walked on in silence.

I did not believe that I alone had been responsible for Bernadette’s cooling towards him, but my approval of the chap had apparently sealed his fate, and I believed I had rescued my daughter from what could only have been a painful entanglement on both sides. But if the wife was pleased about this outcome, then she had not said so. She had appeared indifferent. Her gloomy mood had continued, and she was silent as she stood beside me now, on the gallery of the Gymkhana hall. Presently, she did a half-turn towards me to say something. I couldn’t hear above the pounding of the ‘jass’, but she moved away from me directly after. As a rule, the wife never gloomed for more than a day, and I was starting to think there was more to this than the matter of a return of cards.

I wandered down from the gallery, and through the hall. The band members were taking a breather, so I could hear the talk of the guests.

I heard, ‘They’ve overdone the servants. You can’t see the bloody wood for the trees.’ And I heard, ‘Do they ever go out and about, the purdah ladies?’

I stepped outside, and lit a Gold Flake. The evening was mild. Rickshaws awaited, and a couple of motors, but not the R.K.’s. Yes, he must have left already, and Fisher had not shown up at all. I crossed the road, from where I could look out over the downward portion of the twinkling town. It was a beautiful spot, but it had made my wife miserable – or something had.

I tossed away my cigarette stump, and re-entered the hall, where I saw Dougie Poole taking a drink from one of the tables that lined the hall. He was wavering somewhat as he moved away with it, and I wondered whether he had sobered up even for a moment since I had seen him last. I then clapped eyes on William Askwith. He was saying to a big, lobster-like man, ‘You get rather a mixed bag up here, now,’ and he was eyeing Poole all the while. In spite of the blankness of Askwith’s face, it was pretty clear to me that he thought Poole an unfavourable specimen. Askwith’s eye now fell on me with, perhaps, a different sort of blankness on his face. He approached with hand outstretched, and every appearance of amiability.