Flowers For the God of Love Page 9

  She had the feeling that if it was known and gossiped about that there was anything strange between her and Rex, it would not only be a titbit that would circulate from the drawing rooms to the bazaars but might damage him in a way that would be extremely hurtful.

  Lady Barnstaple had made it very clear that almost every woman he met succumbed to his attractions and would be only too eager to be in her position as his wife.

  To be pointed at as a man who had been rebuffed by the woman who bore his name might make him a laughing stock.

  It was then, as they walked through the wide cool corridors, that another thought came to Quenella,

  If it became known that their marriage was in name only, perhaps Rex would be looked down on as a fortune-hunter, a man who had married his wife only for her money and had no other interest in her.

  Quenella had already mixed enough with her father’s contemporaries to know what they would think of a man who behaved in such a manner, having the use of his wife’s fortune while neglecting her as a woman.

  Because they were men of her father’s age they had often forgotten as they talked together that Quenella was present and listening to what they said.

  They were nearly all rich men and money loomed large in their lives and their conversations. They were well aware that they were envied by those who were not so successful in the race for the top and that money could become obsessive and a desire that exceeded all others.

  “Have you seen Crowford’s wife?” she had heard one of her father’s friends say once. “A fat old cow who looks like a Mexican squaw! God knows how he can tolerate her waddling behind him.”

  “He can tolerate her money all right!” Quenella’s father had answered. “Worth a cool five million if she is worth a cent!”

  He had laughed before adding,

  “Crowford shuts his eyes when he is in bed with her and starts counting. It makes her seem quite attractive.”

  There had been some rather derisive laughter at this and no one had realised that Quenella was listening. But now the conversation came back to her.

  For the first time since their marriage she thought not of herself but of Rex.

  ‘Nobody shall speak like that about him,’ she decided.

  They spent the night at Government House and the Viceroy gave a huge dinner party when they were the guests of honour.

  There was first the National Anthem and then a band played throughout the meal.

  Guests were lined up to receive the Viceroy as the Sovereign’s representative and the ladies gave him the low Royal curtsey as they were presented.

  Quenella had learnt that many innovations had been introduced even in the short time that Lord Curzon had been Viceroy.

  For the first time the house was lit by electric lights. He had also introduced electric lifts and there were electric fans in most of the rooms, while he had kept the old hand-punkahs in the marble hall and the State Departments.

  Quenella had heard him say,

  “I prefer their measured sweep to the hidden anachronism of revolving blades!”

  When Quenella was dressed for dinner in one of the most magnificent gowns in her trousseau, her lady’s maid brought her her jewellery box. Looking at the many splendid jewels that she had inherited from her mother and which had been a present from her father, Quenella hesitated.

  She was not certain what would be the correct gown for her to wear. She realised that there was no Aunt Emily to consult and she knew that she would hate to do the wrong thing at her first public appearance.

  Quenella and Rex’s bedrooms communicated with each other and there was also a sitting room for their private use.

  For a moment Quenella thought of telling her maid to ask Rex if he would meet her in the sitting room.

  Then she thought that it would be awkward.

  Feeling a strong sensation that she did not realise was one of shyness, she walked to the communicating door and knocked.

  For a moment there was no answer, then, just as she was about to knock again, she heard Rex’s voice call out,

  “Come in.”

  She opened the door and saw by the surprised look on his face that he had expected a servant to be standing there.

  He was fully dressed except for his evening coat and was wearing a stiff-fronted shirt with a high collar and hard cuffs.

  There was something very attractive about the white shirt above the black satin knee breeches and black silk stockings that covered his thin legs.

  He looked almost as if he had stepped out of a picture book of a man about to take part in a duel and there was, Quenella thought, something dashing and rather raffish about him that she had not noticed before.

  Then, because he had not spoken, she said a little ncoherently,

  “I-I want your – advice.”

  “But, of course,” Rex replied. “How can I help?”

  “I don’t – know what jewellery to wear tonight.”

  “I am sure that is not a difficult problem to solve. May I come and see what you have to choose from?”

  “Y-yes – of course,” she answered.

  He followed her into her bedroom and saw a large jewel case lying open on a chair beside the dressing table.

  The well-trained maid withdrew through another door leaving them alone and for a moment Quenella was uncomfortably conscious of the big bed with its curtains of mosquito net covering it like a bridal veil.

  For a moment she felt almost a sense of panic sweep over her. She was with a man and the last time –

  “Now let me see what you have.”

  Rex’s calm voice interrupted her thoughts as he looked into the jewel case, lifting the top tray to reveal the necklaces beneath, which matched the tiaras fashioned of the same stones.

  “It is a very representative collection,” he said with a twist of his lips.

  Then he turned to look at her in a manner that Quenella thought with reassurance was dispassionate.

  Her gown was of chiffon and lace over silk petticoats, which rustled when she walked.

  When she was in Paris, it had been designed especially for her by Worth, whom she had already learnt was, responsible for most of the gowns worn by the Vicereine.

  It was of white, which would have been expected of a bride and it had a simplicity and a chic that Rex, with his experience of women, recognised and appreciated.

  “Diamonds tonight, I think,” he said at length. “They will expect you to look young and bridal and at the same time to glitter.”

  He smiled as he added,

  “You can certainly do that and you might as well give everybody a treat while you are about it.”

  “Is that what – it will be?” Quenella asked.

  “You will also cause a great deal of envy, hatred and malice in a lot of female breasts and why not?”

  Quenella was listening and he added,

  “If you dress down, they will say you are dull or think it an insult. If you look like the Fairy Queen on top of the Christmas tree, they can merely grit their teeth and wish they could annihilate you.”

  Quenella laughed unaffectedly.

  “You make it sound like a game.”

  “Have you not learnt already that that is what it is, a game of one-upmanship? Tonight you are Number Two on the spiral staircase. When we reach Lucknow you will be Number One,”

  “You are making me nervous,” she said accusingly.

  “Put on that diamond bauble,” he said, “hang the necklace round your neck and tell them to keep their criticism to themselves. It never matters what people think, it is what they say to your face that is disconcerting”

  “Is that your creed?” Quenella flashed.

  “I never give my enemies the satisfaction of thinking of them,” he replied.

  He took the diamond tiara that had belonged to Quenella’s mother out of the jewel case.

  “Shall I help you to put it on?”

  “My maid will do it,” Quenella replied quickl
y.

  “Of course,” Rex agreed. “I will wait in the sitting room until you are ready.”

  He moved away through the communicating door and Quenella stood for a moment with the tiara in her hands watching him go.

  ‘I might have let him help me,’ she thought to herself.

  Then she waited for the shudder that such an idea would normally evoke in her.

  To her surprise it did not come!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “This is very exciting!” Quenella enthused.

  “Do you mean the train?” asked Rex, who was sitting opposite her.

  “No, I mean being able to see the countryside. It is just what I have been looking forward to.”

  They were travelling North-West to Lucknow and the Viceroy with unusual generosity had provided them with two coaches from his special train.

  Rex knew that the train had been built for the Prince of Wales’s visit in 1875 and by now it was beginning to fall apart.

  It consisted of twelve cream and gold coaches hauled by two steam engines and when the Viceroy used it to move about the country, civilian and military secretaries, two doctors and some hundred other members of the staff were housed on board.

  A pilot engine ran ahead and the whole length of the line was guarded by levies from each village.

  It was a great tribute to Rex Daviot’s importance and his new position that two of the splendid coaches had been attached to the ordinary train that carried a massive number of passengers.

  Rex was used to the hurly-burly of Indian Railway Stations, but to Quenella the crowd at Howrah was a fascinating new experience.

  There were families camping on the platforms, sleeping, cooking and eating, until it was their turn to become part of the crowds packed cheek-by-jowl into the Third Class carriages.

  There was a bedlam of noise from water vendors, newspaper boys, pedlars of rice and sweetmeats and tea-serving waiters, all jostling and yelling, their voices joining with the noise of the screaming children, shouting porters and whistling locomotives.

  It was in fact complete pandemonium.

  “Even so,” Rex remarked, “the trains run on time.”

  All hours of the twenty-four are alike to Easterners and their passenger traffic was regulated accordingly.

  They had been seen off by a great number of Officials and, of course, the Viceroy’s private servants in their red and gold uniforms.

  As they walked towards their sentry-guarded coaches, they heard long and furious arguments taking place between the Indian travellers and the Eurasian ticket collectors.

  Rex explained to Quenella that the natives believed that the tickets they bought were magic pieces of paper and were furious that strangers should punch great pieces out of their charms.

  It certainly amused Quenella when the guard approached to ask if he could have Rex’s permission to start the train. As he gave it solemnly, he saw that her eyes were twinkling with amusement.

  “Does that always happen?” she asked.

  “Always when the train carries an important Englishman,” he replied.

  They both laughed.

  “I cannot imagine such a thing occurring in England or in any other part of the Western world.”

  “In India the British are the conquering race and are treated with due respect,” Rex replied.

  But she knew that he was mocking himself.

  With a great deal of whistling steam from the engine sounding over everything else, they started off and, once they were away from Calcutta, gazing out of the window Quenella could see the varying aspects of the country as she wished to do.

  When they first left the City, the landscape was flat and much of it was waterlogged, but now Quenella could see the white bullocks at work in the fields and water buffaloes standing in the water tanks that were outside every village.

  She had occasional glimpses of a camel silhouetted against a cloudless sky.

  “It is what I thought India would be like,” she said after a little while, almost as if she spoke to herself.

  “Why?” Rex asked.

  She hesitated and he thought that she was choosing her words carefully.

  Then she said, almost as if she could not help telling the truth,

  “It is like coming – home.”

  He looked surprised and then he asked,

  “Why do you say that?

  “Because that is what it – feels like to – me. I have always wanted to come – East and I have known too that it was India that – drew me.”

  She thought he looked incredulous and then she said,

  “When I read the books you gave me, it was as if I had read them – before I and everything they told me was – already there – inside myself.”

  She made a little gesture with her hands.

  “Perhaps you don’t understand and it is difficult to put into words.”

  “But I do understand,” he said. “It is what I also feel and what I have always felt, that I belong.”

  She looked at him and he knew that her eyes searched his face as if she could hardly believe what she had heard.

  Then she turned once again to look out at the passing countryside.

  Later in the evening she went to her sleeping compartment to rest.

  “Have we been given coaches used by the Viceroy personally?” she had asked Rex.

  “No,” he had replied. “His consists of a bedroom, a bath and a saloon, comprising one carriage and the Vicereine has another to herself. Ours is used by the most senior guests travelling with them.”

  The compartments were obviously smaller and they were sharing a coach, but it was most comfortably furnished and Quenella had learnt from her maid that hot water for her bath would be taken out at prearranged points where it had been heated in huge vats.

  This was something to look forward to because it was very hot and Quenella undressed to lie on her comfortable bed thinking not of herself but of India.

  She felt a strange excitement creeping over her at the thought of reaching Lucknow.

  How could she have known or even imagined a month ago that she would be married and find herself in what she now knew was a very senior position in a country that brought her sensations she had never felt before?

  Undoubtedly they were there and she found herself thinking of the diverse people, each with their own Caste and religion, each part of the great crowded country, which even without the British was a power in itself.

  The Frontier ran from the Bay of Bengal to the Pamirs and on to Karachi and the sea coast was about three thousand miles long. One tenth of the entire trade of the British Empire passed through the Ports of India.

  It was fascinating, she thought, like one of the patchwork quilts she had seen old ladies making in English and American villages, where tiny pieces of hundreds of different materials in brilliant colours made up an intricate pattern.

  After her bath, which she enjoyed and tried not to think of the immense amount of labour it had involved, she put on one of the elegant loose-fitting tea gowns that had just come into vogue among the fashionable ladies in London.

  It had been invented for the hours of rest that were taken from teatime to the hour when they changed into something far more elaborate for dinner.

  It was always worn by those who entertained the Prince of Wales. To do so the lady who was to be honoured by his presence lay on a cushion-covered couch with the curtains drawn and the room sprayed with expensive perfume.

  There was a great deal of gossip about these tea parties at which the Heir to the Throne was the only guest and the hostess was beautiful and alluring enough to catch his ever-roving eye.

  But despite the way that those who were not so privileged looked down their noses, the tea gown was such a convenient garment that it had come to stay.

  Besides what woman could resist removing her tightly laced corset and being able to breathe freely for at least two hours?

  The tea gown that Quenella wore was a very a
ttractive one of pale lilac chiffon that swirled in frills round her feet and with it she wore a long necklace of pale amethysts set with diamonds.

  When she came into the sitting room and Rex rose to his feet, he thought that he had never seen her look more beautiful and there was too, he noticed, a different expression on her face from the one that he had become accustomed to.

  He hardly liked to admit it to himself, but he was certain that some of her reserve and icy coolness had gone and that there was a new eagerness about her that he had not noticed before.

  “There is so much I want to ask you,” she began.

  She sat down in an armchair at the table and opening a book she started at once on a long questionnaire about Vishnu, the Preserver of the Universe.

  Rex started by quoting from Vishnu,

  “I am the self in the inmost heart of all that are born

  I am the beginning, the middle, the end of all creation – ”

  “I am trying to understand that,” Quenella murmured.

  “Vishnu’s most important incarnation was as Krishna,” Rex told her.

  Quenella did not speak and he went on,

  “Krishna is, of course, the Hindu expression of personal human love. Girls think of him as the ideal man and lover and he has inspired much of India’s art.”

  As he spoke, he wondered if Quenella, having, he was quite certain, no desire to speak of love, would quickly change the subject, but instead she commented reflectively,

  “Krishna is actually the dancing God and is usually depicted playing a pipe.”

  “That is right,” Rex nodded.

  “Your book tells how avidly he is worshipped.”

  “I think everyone, whoever he or she may be, seeks love.”

  There was a short silence and then Quenella said,

  “Krishna surely exemplifies perfect love. Does anyone ever find that?”

  “I think it is what all human beings seek, the ideal that they hold in their hearts.”

  “Is that what – you want?” Quenella asked.

  He knew that it was an effort for her to formulate the question, and he deliberately replied in an impersonal tone of voice.

  “Of course, I am no different from anyone else. I have always sought the love that is expressed so clearly in the Sanskrit writings and I have hoped that Krishna would eventually bring me the woman of my dreams.”