The Mountain of Love Read online

  There was a carriage waiting outside to take them to the Residency.

  It was, as Kayla expected, a very grand and imposing building. The British always took great care to see that those who represented their country were impressively housed.

  There was a chattering of voices as a servant in white and red uniform showed Kayla and Christopher into the reception room.

  With its ornate carved ceiling and endless portraits of previous Residents, it seemed filled with colour and glitter.

  For a moment Kayla felt bewildered.

  Then she realised that the Resident’s other guests were all arrayed in brilliant hues, not only the women’s saris but the men’s uniform were colourful and their decorations rivalled their wives’ jewels.

  Never had Kayla seen so many huge emeralds, rubies, diamonds and every other precious stone. They were worn not only round the neck and wrists, but in the nose and ears and on the jet back hair of the Nepalese ladies.

  The Resident came forward and introduced them first to the Prime Minister and then to the rest of his guests, all of whom boasted long unpronounceable names. The dark eyes of the Nepalese flashed, their whole faces smiled and they chattered away to each other excitedly and they were absolutely delighted when they found out that Kayla understood their language.

  She was able to reply to them in their own tongue and therefore the lessons she had taken on the liner bore fruit and actually she had not found Nepali very difficult.

  They sat down to dinner served with the Nepalese equivalent to a footman behind every chair.

  Kayla realised as the dinner progressed that if she was enjoying herself so was Christopher.

  He was being exceptionally charming and pleasant to a very attractive Nepalese lady on his right and it suddenly struck her that maybe he would enjoy an older woman’s conversation more than her own.

  Perhaps, when they returned home, he would go off to Paris again by himself.

  She would be left alone in London or one of his other houses and she knew exactly what it was like to be lonely as she had been alone for so long with her grandfather.

  It had been a joy to be able to chatter away at the Captain’s table on board ship.

  And now the Nepalese were talking to her as if they found her irresistible.

  She could only pray that this visit would not end too soon and that while she was in Nepal she would be asked to many more parties.

  She enjoyed every single moment they were at the Residency.

  As they drove home, she exclaimed to Christopher,

  “That was a lovely evening! When I was alone with Grandpapa, I used to pretend I was at a party in London or anywhere else in the world where I could talk to people and they would talk to me.”

  “Did you have no visitors while you were at Forde Hall?” he asked in surprise.

  “If anyone did come, I was not allowed to see them,” Kayla replied. “You must understand that my grandfather was ashamed of me and determined, if possible, that no one should know of my very existence.”

  “Forget it, Kayla. It is over now and you will find that there are plenty of people to talk to in Nepal, especially when you move to the Resident’s house.”

  “Do you think you will be away for long?” “I have no idea how long it will take. I have been making enquiries and there is an expedition leaving here in about three days time.”

  Kayla felt her spirits drop.

  It was great fun to go to a party for one evening, but quite another thing to be left alone with strangers however pleasant they might be.

  Also it was rather frightening not to know how long she would have to stay with them.

  When they reached the hotel, Christopher suggested she might like something to drink.

  Kayla, however, told him that she would prefer to go to bed and then added,

  “Tomorrow I am longing to see something of the town. Please, please show me as much as you can before you – have to go away.”

  “Are you suggesting that you will miss me?” “Of course I shall,” Kayla replied. “It is one thing for people to entertain me for an evening, but quite another to have a lone woman foisted on them for an indefinite amount of time time. These last few days have been very thrilling and I hope there will be many more like them in the future.”

  “That is just what I want to hear,” Christopher added unexpectedly.

  They said goodnight outside her bedroom and then he opened the door for her.

  “Goodnight, Kayla. Sleep well.” “I am sure I shall.” He closed the door and she heard him go into the next room.

  Her situation made her feel rather uncomfortable.

  She had the large room as the hotel manager had obviously assumed that they would sleep together.

  Christopher was sleeping in the dressing room where there was only a small and not very comfortable-looking bed.

  Kayla wondered if she ought to offer to change places with him and then she thought, if she mentioned it at all, he might think that she was inviting him into her bed.

  She gave a shiver at the idea and undressed quickly.

  *

  It seemed to her that she had barely fallen into a deep asleep before it was morning and a maid was drawing back the curtains in her room.

  She jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

  As she expected the sun was on the mountains and they were even more brilliant than they had been before.

  The peaks were vivid against the blue sky and below them were white clouds hiding all but the very tips of the long range.

  It seemed to stretch from one end of the valley to the other and it was such a perfect sight that she stood for a long time, feeling as if she herself was moving through the clouds.

  To her the sun was the spiritual light of the Gods.

  Eventually she remembered that Christopher might be waiting for her and so she dressed herself hurriedly.

  When she entered the hotel dining room, she found he was eating his breakfast and reading a newspaper.

  He rose to his feet.

  “Am I late?” asked Kayla.

  “No, I was early,” he replied. “Only once have you kept me waiting for any length of time.”

  She knew without any further explanations what he meant – it was the night she had fallen asleep and not joined him for dinner.

  She blushed as she sat down at the table and did not look at him.

  She felt a little shy and then she noticed that his eyes were on her.

  “What are we doing this morning?” she enquired.

  “I thought I would take you to a Monastery where there are some ancient manuscripts that every historian wants to see when he visits Katmandu. Afterwards we might do some shopping.”

  Kayla looked intrigued.

  “I would love that and I have always longed to go into a Monastery.”

  “You will not be permitted to enter the part of the Monastery where the monks live, but you will be allowed into the library which I am sure you will find fascinating.”

  “Of course I will and it’s so kind of you to take me.”

  They drove in a funny-looking open carriage through Katmandu and Kayla was thrilled with all the endless golden Temples that seemed to outnumber the houses.

  They passed several magnificent white Palaces before they left the City behind.

  The road was very rough and they were continually passing peasants bringing in loads of wood on their backs, whilst others were carrying baskets of vegetables on the end of bamboo poles held over their shoulders.

  Finally the horses began to climb higher and higher.

  Above them on the side of the mountain, Kayla could see the Monastery.

  It looked exactly like the Monasteries her father had told her he had visited in Tibet.

  She thrilled with anticipation when they reached the gate, where a number of monks were waiting to greet them.

  An elderly Lama appeared wearing a pointed hood with lappets falling over his shoulder
s.

  He accepted graciously the present of a red silk scarf from Christopher. This, Kayla knew, served as a visiting card in the countries bordering the Himalayas.

  The Lama led the way inside the building and Kayla became aware that the monks were scrutinising her out of the corners of their slanting eyes.

  They walked through a passage that seemed almost like a tunnel and then at the end a door was opened into a room. It had a wide window overlooking the valley through which they had just come.

  Kayla had eyes only for the shelves that surrounded the room as she realised that these were the manuscripts.

  She could see, as she expected, that they were all wrapped in faded silk, although some in the Chinese manner were enclosed in narrow exquisitely decorated boxes.

  The Lama bowed to Christopher and then to Kayla and withdrew.

  “Look at all these treasures!” Kayla exclaimed when they were alone. “Thank you, thank you for bringing me to see them, Christopher.”

  “I thought they would please you, but I doubt if you can read many of them.”

  “I can try. I expect they are in Sanskrit, of which I can read a little.”

  “I cannot imagine how you can be so clever and know so much at your age, Kayla, but now, as I am the ignoramus, you must explain to me what you find so interesting.”

  Kayla went round the room picking up one book after another, while Christopher sat down by the window.

  Some of the books were very precious and written on palm leaves and some were so incredibly ancient that she was frightened to touch them.

  As she told Christopher what they were about, she knew he was interested.

  When they drove back, Kayla kept thanking him for what she enthused was a wonderful experience.

  They stopped in a busy part of the town and told their driver to go back to the hotel.

  “As we are now going to shop,” he suggested, “we will walk.”

  “You will be late for your luncheon,” Kayla teased him.

  “If we are, you will have to forgive me because I intend to buy you a present.”

  “You have already just given me one which is more precious than anything you could possibly buy.” “You certainly deserve one for riding so valiantly without once complaining you were too tired to carry on.”

  “I suppose really I complained that evening when I fell fast asleep.” “It was a very sensible thing to do.” He stopped outside a shop, which was filled with the alluring jewels worn by the Nepalese, endless rings, bangles, earrings and necklaces.

  “I am sure they are all very expensive,” Kayla said in a whisper.

  “That, at this very moment,” Christopher responded, “is immaterial.”

  They went inside.

  The shopkeeper, all bows and smiles, brought out one exquisite necklace after another and then he started on the bracelets and earrings.

  The table in front of Christopher was soon piled high with jewels.

  “Which of all these do you like the best?” he asked Kayla.

  “They are all far too lovely for me to decide,” she answered.

  “I think that I should give you something to match your eyes,” he proposed, “but I am not quite certain what colour they are.”

  “They should have been blue like Papa’s,” Kayla told him. “But because Mama was a Scot they have a touch of green in them.”

  “That makes things easy!” He then picked up a ring containing a large emerald surrounded by small diamonds.

  “Put out your left hand,” he said to Kayla.

  She did as she was told and then he slipped it on her engagement finger.

  “It’s lovely!” she cried. “But far too grand.”

  “On the contrary, Kayla, I think it’s most suitable as an engagement ring which I was not able to give you. You will also have a necklace and earrings to match it.”

  Feeling embarrassed at being treated so generously, Kayla tried to prevent him from buying the whole set, but he insisted.

  “You make me feel shy,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You can thank me later and now it’s correct for you to look at something else while I pay the bill.”

  Kayla thought he must be teasing her, as she replied,

  “I would indeed be most embarrassed if I knew how much you were spending.”

  She turned away and, as the shop was very small, she thought she would go outside and look at the display in the window.

  As she stepped out, she then had another idea.

  If Christopher was giving her a present, she would give him one in return.

  She had no money of her own, but she would borrow what she required from him and somehow and in some way, when they returned to England, she would arrange to pay him back.

  There were a number of other shops in the same street as the jeweller’s.

  She looked at the first one.

  It was selling small fish swimming in glass bowls of different sizes and shapes. They were rather fascinating, but impossible to transport home on a pony.

  There were two other shops that purveyed women’s clothing.

  Then she reached a third that had an array of fishing rods and horses’ bridles and saddles for sale in the window.

  Some of them were ornamented with coloured stones or silver carvings and Kayla thought that she might buy Christopher a riding whip and it would be a practical gift that he could use.

  She was just about to walk into the shop when a man emerged from an alley beside it.

  “Come lady,” he began in his sing-song voice, “show very beautiful present, very rare, very different.”

  He was speaking in a mixture of Nepali and Bengali with an occasional word of English.

  Kayla wondered what he was selling and if it really was something different.

  “Come quick, lady,” the man insisted.

  He ran a little way from her down the alley. Because she was curious, Kayla followed him.

  The passage was dark and narrow, but she could see sunshine at the far end.

  Then suddenly he stopped halfway down the alley and opened a door.

  “Look inside, lady” he then urged Kayla. “Very rare, very strange.”

  Kayla bent forward to see what he was talking about.

  Then, to her astonishment, he pushed her hard in her back.

  She staggered and almost fell to the ground.

  Then the door slammed behind her and she realised she had been trapped.

  “What are you doing to me? What is happening?” she cried out in terror.

  She turned round in the darkness, feeling for the door, which she found was made of thick wood.

  “Help! Help!” she shouted out as loudly as she could.

  But her voice seemed to be lost in the darkness.

  She remembered vividly that there had been no other doors in the alley as she walked down it.

  ‘I have been kidnapped,’ she told herself despairingly.

  Her father had told her how in the East there were always natives who kidnapped children or women and then asked for a large ransom before they would return them to their desperate relatives.

  He had always been very particular that Kayla held onto his hand or her mother’s when they were walking in the bazaars.

  Now she realised that she had been extremely foolish to walk alone down a dark alley and to fall so easily for the man’s blandishments.

  She wondered what would happen when Christopher came out of the jeweller’s shop to find that she had vanished.

  She would have carried on shouting if she thought that anyone might hear her.

  She was convinced that this was not the first time the man who had locked her in had kidnapped tourists and he would therefore have made certain that, however loudly they shouted in this dark cavern, they would not be heard.

  ‘How could I have been so foolish, so stupid,’ she berated herself, ‘as to follow him?’

  It was just that she wanted to b
uy something unusual and striking for Christopher as he was being so kind to her.

  Now it would undoubtedly cost him a great deal of money to rescue her by paying the man an exorbitant ransom.

  Then it flashed through her mind that perhaps this could be a good way out for him – one he had never thought possible.

  He had hated being married just as she had.

  Yet while he had thought of running away, he had been obliged to go through with the ceremony – or else be left to starve and perhaps go to prison!

  She could remember how furious he had been as he stood beside her in the Chapel and how she was so well aware that every nerve in his body was vibrating with anger at the position he then found himself in.

  ‘Perhaps he will just – leave me here,’ she thought, ‘and I shall be lost – for ever.’

  Then she told herself that she was being hysterical and unnecessarily morbid.

  Whatever else Christopher might be, he was most certainly a gentleman.

  No gentleman would ever abandon a woman in such circumstances especially one who bore his name.

  ‘What I shall have to do now,’ she told herself, ‘is to communicate with him in the same way the Indians do – with my mind.’

  Her father had often told her how the Indians used the power of thought. They had an uncanny way of knowing exactly what was happening to their families and loved ones even when they might be many miles away.

  “I remember one man,” her father had related to her, “who told me when I employed him as a porter in Bombay that his father was dying three hundred miles away. I thought it was just an excuse to leave me as I had already paid him a week’s wages.”

  “‘I tell truth, sahib,’ he said. ‘My father very ill. I go to him though when I reach him, he be dead’.”

  “And you did not believe him, Papa?” Kayla asked.

  “I did not believe a word of it in those days,” he replied. “I was young and thought every inconvenience was a terrible nuisance.”

  “So what happened?” “The man left and I never expected to see him again. Three months later, he returned. He brought me evidence that his father had died as he had forecast. After he had buried him and mourned with his family, he returned to work for me again.”

  Kayla was fascinated by the story and she wished she had a brother or sister with whom she could practise such thought transference.