Flowers For the God of Love Page 6

  “Quenella – ” Sir Terence began.

  Even as he spoke, the door opened and she came into the room.

  She was dressed in the same gown that she had worn for her Wedding, except that over it she was now wearing a heavy velvet cape lined and edged with fur.

  On her head, instead of the hat trimmed with feathers, she wore a small bonnet that tied with ribbons under her chin.

  She looked lovely, so lovely that it was understandable that the frown on the Prince’s face vanished and his somewhat protruding eyes seemed to devour her.

  He saw that she was astonished to see him, but with a composure that was very admirable in the circumstances she curtseyed.

  “I have been trying to see you for days!” the Prince said in a voice that was intended only for her ears, “and I have called to find out why there has been no reply to Her Excellency’s invitation.”

  As he spoke, he was towering over her in a manner that most women might have found intimidating.

  But Quenella was entirely composed as she responded quietly

  “I expect my uncle has told you the reason.”

  “No, he has not done so,” the Prince replied in a disgruntled voice, “and I would rather hear it from your own lips.”

  As he spoke, he looked at her mouth in a manner that made Rex long to strike him.

  Without hurry and holding her head high, Quenella walked towards him.

  As she reached his side, she said,

  “I would like to introduce Your Royal Highness to my husband!”

  Her voice did not tremble and only Rex’s acute perception knew that underneath her control she was afraid.

  “Married?”

  There was no doubt that, the Prince was disconcerted.

  “Married?” he repeated. “How can you be married?”

  “My niece and Lord Daviot were married this morning,” Sir Terence explained, “and they are leaving this very moment for India. I feel sure that Your Royal Highness would wish to offer them your congratulations and good wishes.”

  He spoke in a warning manner that it was impossible for the Prince not to understand.

  Still he stood glowering almost like an animal that had been checked at the last moment when he would have sprung upon his prey.

  For a long moment it seemed that he just stood there.

  Then when Sir Terence was about to break the silence, his wife came into the room.

  “I was told that Your Royal Highness had called,” Lady O’Kerry said in the light somewhat artificial voice she used on social occasions. “How very kind of you, sir, and how delightful it is that you can wish our dear Quenella happiness in her new life.”

  She had curtseyed as she began speaking, standing in front of the Prince and therefore coming between his glaring eyes and Quenella’s pale face.

  Then, as she rose from her curtsey, it was impossible for him not to reply.

  “Of course. Lady O’Kerry,” he said, “but it is a great surprise. Why did no one tell me?”

  There was a suspicious look in his eyes, as if he felt that he had been deceived and cheated for some special reason.

  “Lord Daviot arrived from India only three days ago,” Sir Terence explained, “and yesterday he was obliged to visit the Queen at Windsor and receive her approval of his new appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces.”

  “You are really going to India?”

  “At this very moment,” Rex interposed before Quenella could reply. “And I am sure that Your Royal Highness will understand that we have to leave immediately if we are to catch our train.”

  He walked towards Lady O’Kerry, holding out his hand.

  “Thank you for all your kindness. I hope it will not be long before you can persuade your husband to visit us at Lucknow.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “There is nothing we would love more.”

  Quenella kissed her.

  “Goodbye, dearest aunt, and thank you for everything.”

  To follow her husband, who was already on the landing outside the room, she had to pass the Prince.

  He was looking at her and she had the feeling that he was like a man who, having received a blow when he least expected it, was furiously angry and cogitating how to exact his revenge.

  Quenella curtseyed.

  “Goodbye, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Then it is true?” he asked in a low voice. “Really true that you are going to India?”

  Quenella did not reply, she only turned towards the door.

  The Prince put out a hand as if to stop her.

  “Wait!” he said.

  Sir Terence moved quickly after Quenella.

  “If Your Royal Highness will excuse me, I will just see my niece to the carriage.”

  He did not wait for the Prince’s reply, but went from the drawing room, closing the door behind him.

  Already downstairs in the hall, Rex was being helped into his overcoat by an attentive footman and waiting, standing stiffly and almost at attention, was the Prince’s aide-de-camp.

  Nothing intimate could be said in the circumstances and Quenella could only kiss her uncle and again her aunt before she climbed into the waiting carriage.

  Rex joined her and Sir Terence and Lady O’Kerry with a handkerchief to her eyes waved goodbye.

  Rex settled himself in the corner before he said,

  “That was certainly an unexpected and unpleasant surprise!”

  “How dare he come uninvited and with the intention of forcing me to accept the invitation,” Quenella exclaimed.

  Now that it was over there was both anger and a distinct tremor in her voice.

  “Forget him!” Rex said. “Your paths will never cross in the future and, thick-skinned though he may be, he must know when he is beaten.”

  Quenella gave a little shiver.

  “I hope you are right, but I have a feeling that he is the type of animal who will fight to the end rather than admit that he is beaten.”

  “A particularly unpleasant specimen,” Rex remarked, “but I assure you that it is impossible for him in his position to do anything but accept the inevitable.”

  “You do not think that he can – hurt Uncle Terence?”

  “It would be difficult for him to do so now. He may try, but I doubt if he will make the attempt, since he has nothing to gain.”

  They drove for a little while in silence.

  And then Quenella said,

  “I suppose really I should be grateful to you for rescuing me from such an unspeakable creature.”

  “I think it would be embarrassing for us both to keep eulogising over what we owe each other,” Rex replied with a faint hint of amusement in his voice.

  “Personally I have always loathed being forced to say ‘thank you’ ever since at the age of six I was made to write to my Godparents before I was allowed to play with the toys they gave me for Christmas.”

  There was just the shadow of a smile on Quenella’s lips as she replied,

  “I suffered in much the same way, but I think it is a lesson in good manners that all children should learn.”

  Even as she spoke Rex was aware that the thought flashed through her mind that, as far as their marriage was concerned, there would be no children to be taught good manners.

  He was surprised that he could read her mind so easily and he knew that he had been right in his supposition when she turned her face away to look out the window and said too quickly for it to be a natural observation,

  “I hope we will not miss our train.”

  “We have plenty of time,” he replied, drawing out his watch and looking at it, “but I expect your uncle is rather like my mother, who always caught the train before the one on which she had intended to travel.”

  They both lapsed into silence and Rex wondered if this was the type of desultory conversation that he would have to endure for the rest of his married life.

  There would always be pitfalls and always be the dang
er of a faux pas or of remarks that had a double meaning that might prove embarrassing.

  “It is certainly better than missing it,” Quenella then added.

  He asked himself suddenly if it was all worthwhile.

  Was India really worth the sacrifice of his freedom?

  Then he knew that it was not only India that was responsible for his marriage but also the career that Sir Terence had taken so long to build up.

  For a moment he forgot Quenella and thought instead of a certain Pathan codenamed ‘C 17’ in The Great Game, whose reports had saved many lives and who would doubtless be waiting for him once he reached Lucknow.

  There was a Bengali in Calcutta, a humble little shopkeeper in Bombay and dozens of others spread over the vast seething plains of India who were all strands in the spider’s web in which the Russian flies found themselves caught when they least expected it.

  They were the people he could not let down.

  They were the people he trusted and who trusted him. ,

  He knew that they mattered more than a few uncomfortable moments with a woman whom he did not wish to marry and who did not wish to marry him.

  *

  The Liner that Lord and Lady Daviot travelled in was exactly like dozens of others that were carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers all over the world.

  A favourite map showed a small red blob for every British ship at sea, looking like thousands of corpuscles flowing through the veins of the world.

  Rex thought that he would recognise the passengers who filled the black-hulled Bezwada when they boarded her at Southampton.

  The Anglo-Indians were very easily discernible as were the brisk young cadets, fresh, pink and assured, and the brown stoop-shouldered veterans sickly from a thousand fevers.

  The tired ‘Indian’ wives with dried skins and pale faces returning to their husbands after a brief month or so at home in England to see their children who were at school there.

  There were of course the new recruits to the ‘Fishing Fleet’ giggling, fair-haired, bouncing young girls, hoping that India would bring them a man who would offer them matrimony, which was the beginning and end of their ambition.

  For hundreds of British families the voyage to the East was a part of life, like the beginning of term or an annual session with the dentist.

  They generally met friends on board ship and there were always, as Rex knew, endless manoeuvres to try to travel with the same crew who had looked after them so well on a previous journey.

  Apart from anything else, there was a feeling of adventure when one sailed on the Far East Service in Liners with high-sounding names, their high superstructures spick-and-span, look-outs alert on their flying bridges and the Red Ensigns fluttering from the sterns.

  Sir Terence had made all the arrangements and he had certainly used his influence to provide for Rex and Quenella at the last moment two of the best cabins and a sitting room between them.

  Rex realised as soon as they went aboard that, if he was a seasoned traveller, so was Quenella and he remembered that she had travelled a great deal with her father.

  She looked round their cabin and then asked the Steward to bring some small necessities that had been omitted.

  She chose quickly and without hesitation which pieces of luggage she required for the voyage and which should be consigned to the hold.

  Then leaving her husband to cope with everything else, she closed the door with a precision that told Rex that she was shutting out not only him but everything else that perturbed her and made her feel anxious.

  Rex had thought as they travelled down to Southampton that it did not auger well that the Prince had started off his marriage to Quenella with what was to all intents and purposes a scene.

  However he thought with satisfaction that they had handled the whole situation rather well, preventing His Royal Highness from saying anything that might be explosive and leaving him in no doubt that he was now a back number in Quenella’s life.

  Equally although it seemed incredible, Rex could not help feeling sorry for the Prince.

  He had known by the expression in his eyes that his whole being and all his feelings and desires were concentrated on Quenella.

  She had zoomed into such a position of importance in his life that it would be hard for him to adjust himself once again to the ordinary and the commonplace.

  Because Rex had studied men and because he had an understanding of them, he knew what it meant for someone like the Prince, an unimaginative German, to be knocked off his pedestal by what he called ‘love’.

  To be prepared to lay aside his dignity and forget everything except that he wanted a woman was an experience that would leave a scar for many years, if not for the rest of his life.

  It was difficult, even taking into consideration Quenella’s beauty, to understand how she could have had this effect without making any effort whatsoever to attract the Prince.

  Perhaps, Rex thought, it was her very indifference, her reserve and perhaps too the icy coolness that he found somewhat repellent, that had driven the Prince almost to the edge of madness.

  Whatever it might have been, Rex could not help hoping that this was not to be one of many incidents that would make their life together more difficult than it seemed at the moment.

  They had arrived on board an hour before dinner and five minutes before the bell rang to inform the passengers that the meal was ready, Quenella came from her cabin into the sitting room.

  By that time Rex had arranged everything more comfortably with the surplus luggage removed to the hold and books and papers unpacked and laid out tidily.

  There were flowers and fruit, which had been sent by Sir Terence and an open bottle of champagne, which was in a bucket of ice.

  When Quenella came into the cabin, Rex saw that she had changed for dinner, which was unusual the first night at sea.

  She had not, however, made the mistake of wearing full evening dress, which would have been a social gaffe, but wore an attractive gown of deep blue lace with two purple orchids from her bouquet fastened to her waist.

  “I thought you might enjoy a glass of champagne,” Rex began.

  “How kind,” Quenella replied. “But only half a glass, if you please.”

  He gave her what she required and then asked,

  “Are you feeling better?”

  She raised her eyebrows as if she was surprised at the question.

  “You could hardly be completely unperturbed,” he explained, “after both being married and enduring an encounter with a Royal and ardent swain.”

  He thought for a moment that she was going to be annoyed, but then she laughed,

  “It was not quite a usual day in my life.”

  “Nor in mine,” he replied, “so let’s drink to a less turbulent future at least until we reach India,”

  When they were sitting down to dinner, having adroitly avoided being placed at the Captain’s table, Quenella said,

  “I would like, if it is possible, not only for you to tell me about India while we are travelling there but also I would like to read something about it.”

  Before he could answer her she added,

  “I brought some books with me, but they may not contain what I want to know.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I naturally want to understand the people you will be ruling over and, if that sounds rather a large order, may I say that everyone has to start somewhere.”

  “They do indeed. I am surprised that your father never took you to India.”

  “Papa was so busy making money in other parts of the world,” Quenella replied.

  She gave Rex a glance from under her long eyelashes before she observed,

  “It would be difficult to imagine two brothers who could be less alike than Papa and Uncle Terence.”

  “In what way?”

  “Papa was extremely ambitious in a materialistic way, while Uncle Terence, I feel, is dedicated to an ideal.”
<
br />   Rex thought that this was intelligent and perceptive of her and after a moment he said,

  “That is true and one of the things you will find about India is that there are a large number of people, both British and Indian, to whom ideals mean more than anything else.”

  “That is what I want to find and what I would like to learn from you. It is a big undertaking, but I feel that perhaps India will mean a great deal to me personally.”

  “Why should you think that?”

  She hesitated a moment before she answered,

  “I have always felt very drawn to the country – and to Buddhism, of which I know a little and I am sure that there is a secret wisdom in Asia that the West has never known.”

  Rex was surprised.

  Of all the women he had talked to about India none of them, as far as he could remember, had taken any interest in what had always fascinated him and the Vedas and the Sanskrit, which concerned only the scholars and the whole religious structure on which Indian life in all its varied and colourful aspects rested.

  Aloud he said,

  “I have some books with me that I think you will find interesting. Then once we are in India it will be easy for you to find people to explain the different religions and the ideals behind them.”

  He thought even as he spoke that it was unlikely that Quenella’s curiosity would survive the social whirl, the gossip and the other trivialities that the British women filled their lives with in India.

  As most of them had little or no contact with the Indians themselves, it was inevitable that they had to fill their days with more mundane things, not the least amongst them being the changes in the climate and the inadequacies of the servants.

  As if she realised that he was trying to put her off and was not convinced that her interest was genuine, Quenella plied him with questions.

  They were intelligent and he answered them intelligently.

  But he was slightly sceptical, knowing from long experience that a woman would talk to him of what she thought interested him merely as a somewhat roundabout way of focusing his mind on her.

  Yet, if she was interested in him, Quenella had a strange way of showing it.

  When dinner was over, she rose and led the way back to their cabins.