The Girl From Cobb Street. Merryn Allingham

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      She returned the letter to its place. This had nothing to do with Gerald after all. The letter evidently belonged to a private soldier, one of the young men in Gerald’s regiment. He’d told her how close relationships were between officers and their men, how they knew where each man came from, what his family were, had maybe even visited his village. In times of trouble the officers would be relied on. Gerald was looking after Jack Minns, helping the boy to sort things out. Feeling relieved, she sank into one of the two cane chairs. It felt as uncomfortable as it looked but fatigue was catching up with her and she hardly noticed. She should go to bed but she wanted to be sure she would see Gerald when he returned for lunch. They had barely spoken since their wedding vows and she was hoping for time together, an hour or two to talk, to explain, to recapture the emotion that had made them lovers.

      The silence in the room was complete and, despite her determination, her eyelids drooped. As she began the slow drift into sleep, a thought burrowed its way into her mind, and jerked her awake. It was a thought she didn’t want but it would not be dislodged. Hadn’t Gerald said that all the men under his command were Indians? They would be unlikely to have the name of Minns or to hail from Spitalfields. So why did he have this missive?

      She got to her feet and walked back to the desk, fingering the letter again, turning it this way and that, trying fruitlessly to solve the conundrum. A wave of irritation hit and she wiped her forehead dry for the twentieth time that morning. She was getting obsessed by trivialities because she was too hot and too tired to think rationally. But as she turned to replace the letter, the thought that she had married a man of whom she knew almost nothing, returned with unwelcome force.

      ‘Lunch is ready, memsahib.’

      She jumped at the sound of the voice. The man was only a few feet from her, his eyes fixed on the letter she’d been holding. She had not heard him approach on bare feet and had no idea how long he’d been watching her.

      ‘Thank you, Rajiv.’ It was a struggle to keep her voice calm. ‘The sahib isn’t home yet and I’ll eat when he arrives.’

      The servant bowed his head slightly, his eyes cast downwards, refusing to meet her glance. Then as quickly as he’d appeared, he vanished through the side door, which led directly to the kitchen.

      When he’d gone, she slumped back into the wicker chair, her heart thumping a little too loudly. She hadn’t realised the man was in the room. Had he been spying on her? He had seen her hand on the letter, but did he realise she knew its contents? She must talk to Gerald as soon as possible, admit that she’d been reading his correspondence. There was probably no mystery to it, there was probably a simple explanation. But … a siren voice whispered in her ear. Her husband just might have some small thing to hide and if he did, it would make her own confession that much easier.

      Another half hour dragged by. The ugly Victorian clock half-hidden in the corner of the room chimed twice and she made a decision. Rajiv appeared almost immediately she rang the small brass bell, as though he had been waiting just the other side of the door, and her feeling of unease intensified.

      ‘I’ll eat now, thank you,’ she said briefly, ‘but we should keep some food aside for your master. He’ll be here soon, I’m sure.’

      ‘The sahib does not come.’ The man turned to go and she caught at his gown. He looked coldly down at her hand and she retrieved it immediately. ‘What do you mean the sahib isn’t coming. How do you know?’

      ‘He send message.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘This morning.’

      ‘This morning? You knew that he wasn’t coming and yet you didn’t tell me?’

      He said nothing and his face was mask-like in its lack of expression. He would always win a contest of wills, she realised, and it was pointless to remonstrate. Instead she gave him her first order and surprised herself with her curtness. ‘When you’ve cleared the dishes, I would like to take a bath. Please see to it.’

      She was perturbed by Rajiv’s animosity. He was a servant with whom she must share her home, whether she liked it or not, and she felt troubled for the future. She knew just how awkward a difficult servant could be for those who shared the same roof. In Bryanston Square one diminutive maidservant had set the whole household by the ears. Ethel had taken the greatest offence when Daisy had been promoted to be Miss Maddox’s personal attendant. As the longest-serving parlour maid, she contended, she was next in line for advancement and the job should have gone to her. She swore she would make Daisy’s life miserable and was as good as her word. Silly, trivial things like hiding Miss Maddox’s special soap, or rumpling her mistress’s silk underwear after Daisy had spent hours ironing it, or spilling coal dust on the carpet after she’d cleaned and tidied her mistress’s bedroom. Worst of all, Ethel had caused division among the servants themselves; if you were for Daisy, you were against her. Daisy had never sought approval from her fellows but the result of Ethel’s poisonous campaign was to turn much of the household against her and make her life even lonelier.

      At least Rajiv wouldn’t be doing that in this household of one. And he was efficient, she had to grant. Within minutes she heard bathroom taps being turned and a pile of sparkling white towels appeared on her bed. Minutes more and she’d slid gratefully into the oval zinc tub and breathed a deep sigh of pleasure. The luxury of hot water! Her knees were bunched, the water barely covering her lower limbs, but she gave herself up gladly to its delights. She would put his unfriendliness out of her mind and savour the fact that, in the middle of a working day, she had the leisure to enjoy this slow bathe.

      When finally she regained the bedroom, she saw that her soiled dress from yesterday was no longer where she’d abandoned it and the contents of her suitcase had been hung in the cupboard on an ill-assorted clutter of hangers. Perhaps it was a peace offering. She hoped so, though it no longer seemed to matter. She was utterly fatigued. Outside the heat was reaching its crescendo but she hardly felt it. She sank limply down onto the bed. In the distance she thought she heard the sound of water, water splashing faintly over the hanging mats of fragrant grass. The slightest breeze was playing across their surface, sending a sweet-smelling coolness into the room, and rocking her gently to sleep.

      It must have been the sleep of the dead, for when she next woke it was the middle of the night. She stretched her arms wide but there was no answering body lying close. She lifted her head from the pillow. Gerald wasn’t there and in the stabs of brilliant light which stippled the room, she could see that the bed beside her had not been slept in. She panicked. Had he suffered an accident and this was another message Rajiv had decided to keep from her? She peered down at the watch she still wore on her wrist. It showed four o’clock, which meant she had slept at least twelve hours. But where was Gerald? Surely if anything bad had happened to him, she would have learned it by now. In the distance she could hear the screech of night birds and the barking of dogs, echoing from village to village for miles around. Should she go looking for him? He couldn’t be too far away. But then another sound intervened, much closer this time. A rasping cough. Gerald? No, it couldn’t be Gerald. It was the cough of someone who smoked heavily and it seemed to be coming from the garden. She slipped noiselessly out of the bed and over to the window, guided by the pinpricks of light which shone through cracks in the woven tatty. Very carefully she rolled up the edge of one of the plaited blinds and gazed out across the veranda to the jungle of garden beyond. The sky above was black but studded with diamonds, the starlight piercing in its clarity and illuminating the scene as though it were the stage of a theatre. You could read by those stars, she thought. The garden stretched before her, silver and magical, the tall grasses erect and hardly moving. She must have imagined the noise after СКАЧАТЬ