The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [104]
‘It grows late,’ said Koda Dad, ‘and if I am to get any sleep I must go, for tomorrow I set out for my own village before sunrise. No, no, my mind is made up. I wished only to see you, Ashok, and that being done I return to my own house –’ his hand pressed heavily on Ash's shoulder as he levered himself to his feet. ‘Old men become like horses; they like their own stable best. Farewell, my son. It is good to have seen you again; and when next you obtain leave, Zarin shall bring you across the Border to visit me.’
He embraced Ash and left, striding stiffly away into the shadows and disdaining the proffered help of his eldest son, who spoke briefly to Zarin, saluted Ash and followed in the wake of his father.
Zarin scuffed out the remnants of the fire and gathering up the cooking pots and the hookah, said: ‘I too must go now. Our holiday is over and my father is right – we would do better not to arrive together. The tonga will take you to the Adjutant Sahib's quarters where you should report your arrival. We shall see each other; but only in the way of work.’
‘But there will be other holidays.’
‘Beshak!’ (without doubt). ‘When we are on leave we can be what we choose. But here we are on duty in the service of the Sirkar. Salaam, Sahib.
He vanished among the tree shadows and Ash went slowly back to the road where the tonga waited in the moonlight, and was bowled away into the fort to report himself to the Adjutant.
Those first days in Mardan had not been entirely happy ones for Ash, a circumstance that probably accounted for much that was to happen in the future, since it altered, at the outset, his approach to army life, and intensified an inborn impatience for rules and regulations, and a critical attitude to the arbitrary decisions of his elders and betters.
He should of course have foreseen it all, though the fact that he had not done so was not entirely his own fault. At least three other people must be held partly responsible: his Uncle Matthew, who had naturally never dreamt of warning his nephew against engaging himself to be married before he had so much as joined his regiment, Colonel Anderson, who had given him a great deal of good advice but (himself a confirmed bachelor) had neglected to touch on matrimony, and Mrs Harlowe, who should have scouted the idea instead of welcoming it with such alacrity and instantly pledging her own and her husband's consent. In the circumstances Ash could hardly be blamed for thinking that lack of means, not years, was the sole reason why young officers were discouraged from marrying at the outset of their careers, and as this did not apply to him, that there could be no serious objection to his betrothal.
He was very speedily disillusioned, for Mrs Harlowe's worst fears had been realized. Her husband had taken an exceedingly poor view of the whole affair; and so too, when he heard of it, had the Commandant of the Guides. Ash's intention of riding over to Peshawar at the first opportunity had been forestalled by Major Harlowe, who had driven to Mardan two days after his arrival and had a private talk with the Commandant.
Both men had been in complete agreement on the subject of early marriages and the fatal consequences attending young officers who acquired wives before they had, metaphorically speaking, cut their wisdom teeth. Ash had been sent for and treated to an embarrassing lecture that had left him feeling bruised and humiliated and, worse, infuriatingly callow. He had not been refused permission to see Belinda – it would perhaps