Dear Deceiver. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ a soft light brown. ‘Why all the questions? Do you wish to go to England?’

      ‘Not without you, but I think I might like to go on a visit, just to see what it is like.’

      ‘One day, perhaps, you will, when you are grown up and very rich, then it will not matter what the gossips say.’

      ‘What do they say?’

      He had said nothing for a whole minute and she had begun to think he did not intend to answer her; when he did, his voice was so low she could hardly hear him. ‘They say that I have besmirched the name of a noble family, that I am responsible for a man’s death, that I am a coward, that I have no honour.’ He paused and then added softly, ‘But it was honour which bound me as surely as chains.’

      She hadn’t understood then, nor even now when she was old enough to comprehend the meaning of the words. Her answer, spoken from the heart of a child, had pleased him. ‘Papa, you are the bravest man I know.’

      His eyes had taken on a faraway look as if he were in another place at another time. Then he had hugged her and set her down. ‘Don’t worry, child, it was all for the best. I met and married your mother, here in Calcutta, and not for a single second have I ever regretted that. India has become home and I would have it no other way. I shall die here and no one in England will mourn me.’ He had put on a cheerful voice, but she had detected the note of sadness and knew he would brood over it until the end of his days.

      ‘Have your servant pack a bag and come with me now,’ Mrs Goodwright said. ‘You can stay with us until you leave.’

      ‘Thank you, ma’am, but I would rather stay here. There is so much to do, arrangements to make.’

      ‘Of course. But if you change your mind, you know you are welcome.’

      Emma hadn’t contemplated leaving Calcutta, not even then. It had taken another shock to force her to consider it. She had gone to see Mr Chapman, who looked after her father’s legal and financial affairs. Papa had never spoken of money to them and, as they had never been stinted, she imagined they would be comfortable.

      She realised how wrong she was before she had been in his office five minutes. Apart from small bequests to the servants, her father’s will left everything to her and Teddy equally. This was no surprise, but what took her aback was the tiny amount involved.

      ‘Your father was always generous and never saw the need to husband his resources,’ Mr Chapman said. ‘He was indifferent to money and never bothered to collect his debts, though he was always scrupulous in paying his own.’

      ‘But surely he must have done some trading?’ she queried, knowing that it was common practice for Company employees and soldiers to supplement their pay with private trade. Some of them had become very wealthy by it. ‘Everyone does that in India, don’t they? Silks, spices, precious stones, opium, bought and sold for profit.’

      He smiled at her over the top of his spectacles, which were perched on the end of his nose. ‘The days of the nabob are passed, Miss Mountforest. Company employees, whether civilian or soldier, are no longer allowed to trade privately. Oh, I know it is still done, but if your father was ever engaged in it, I know nothing of it.’

      ‘He was obviously a great deal more scrupulous about such things than his contemporaries,’ she said. ‘An honourable man.’

      ‘Yes, indeed.’

      ‘I believe he received an allowance from England,’ she said. ‘Will that continue?’

      He looked embarrassed and shuffled the papers on the desk in front of him as if reluctant to speak. ‘The allowance was paid to Major Mountforest by his father and was conditional on his never returning to England,’ he said. ‘It ceased when his brother succeeded to the title.’

      ‘My uncle stopped it?’ she asked, in disbelief.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then what are we left with, my brother and I?’

      ‘A small pension from The Company. It may be enough to live on if you are frugal. It is certainly not enough to pay school fees.’ He paused, then went on in a kindly voice, ‘I am so sorry, my dear; perhaps you should write to your uncle. I cannot believe he will hold his brother’s sins against you. As soon as he knows your circumstances, I am sure he will send for you to go and live with him.’

      ‘The sins were not my father’s but his brother’s,’ she retorted. ‘I would not go to him.’

      ‘Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, you may have to,’ he said, as Emma stood up to leave. ‘It might be as well to swallow your pride and make the best of it, for what can you do here?’

      She returned to the bungalow where Teddy, red of eye and puffy of cheeks, had been going round touching everything—the ornaments, the pictures, the tiger’s head—as if by doing so he could convince himself of the enduring nature of things, that if everything around him stayed in exactly the same place, their father might still be alive.

      It worried Emma, because he hardly spoke and was certainly in no mood to make plans which would mean altering their way of life. She delayed saying anything, hoping he would come out of his grief and listen to her, though what she was going to tell him, she did not know.

      Instead she set about finding work. Everyone was kind to her, though critical of her father who had been so shortsighted as to think he was immortal, and him a soldier too! But it didn’t alter the fact that no one had anything to give her to do for which they were prepared to pay her and Mrs Goodwright wanted to know why she had changed her mind about returning to England when it was so obviously the thing to do. She could not, of course, tell her the true story, nor admit that they simply did not have their passage money.

      Her prevarication came to an end very suddenly a month later, when, in the middle of the biggest downpour Calcutta had seen for years, she received notice to quit the bungalow.

      She took it to Captain Goodwright, whom she found at the fort, hoping he might be able to help her. ‘I cannot believe anyone could be so callous,’ she said. ‘It is only a month since…’

      ‘I know, my dear, but the bungalow is the designated quarters of a major and there is one coming soon to replace Major Mountforest. You do understand, don’t you?’

      ‘But where are we to go?’

      ‘England,’ he said. ‘I really think you should consider it. The war in Europe is over at last and Napoleon has been sent into exile. There would be no danger.’

      Exile: her father’s, Napoleon’s and now her own, for that was what it seemed like to her. She left him quickly before he could see her tears; the first she had shed since the day she learned of her father’s death. And now they had come, she could not stem the flow. People were looking at her with curiosity and she sought shelter among the trunks of a banyan tree on the Maidan, where she allowed herself the luxury of a good sob, watched by a couple of monkeys, who were sitting in its branches.

      Later, when her ribs ached and her handkerchief was sodden, she stopped. Feeling sorry for herself would not achieve anything, but letting herself go had done her good. She emerged from her hiding place, straightened her back and walked home, unaware of the horses, carts of produce, fiacres, tongas, ekkas and pedestrians that eddied round her, nor the steady drip of water from trees and rooftops, which soaked СКАЧАТЬ