The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [351]
The ladies of the station, who had begun by taking considerable interest in the newcomer, ended by agreeing with the junior officers that he was either deplorably dull or insufferably conceited – the verdict depending on age and temperament – and in either case, no asset to station society; an opinion that had been reinforced by his shameless conduct in inviting a vulgar individual, apparently the skipper of a cargo-boat, to dine with him at the English Club (Red Stiggins had been on a brief business trip to Ahmadabad and had encountered Ash by chance in the city).
This episode had put an end to any further attempts to entice or dragoon Ash into attending purely social functions, and thereafter he had been left to go his own way and do what he pleased with his spare time, which suited him very well. He spent a large part of the latter in studying, and much of the rest exploring the countryside beyond the city, where the ground was littered with the relics of a great past, now overgrown by creepers and almost forgotten: old tombs and the ruins of temples and water tanks, built of stone that had been quarried in hills many miles to the north.
The great peninsula of Gujerat was for the most part flat and without scenic interest, and because of its abundant rainfall, a lush and fertile land, green with crops, banana groves, mango, orange and lemon trees, palms and cotton. It was a country very dissimilar to the Rajputana that Ash remembered so vividly, yet the low hills that bordered it to the north-east marked the frontiers of the Country of the Kings, and on the far side of them – barely more than a hundred miles as the crow flies – lay Bhithor. Bhithor and Juli…
He tried not to think of that, but it was difficult not to do so during the slow, furnace-like months of the hot weather, when the day's work must begin at first-light if it was to be done before the temperatures reached a point that made any form of physical or mental activity almost impossible, and the hours between mid-morning and late afternoon were spent indoors with the shutters closed against the heat and the glare, with nothing to do but keep still – and if possible, sleep.
The majority of citizens, and all the Europeans, seemed to find no difficulty in doing one or the other, but to Ash these hot, idle hours were the worst part of the day… too much time – aeons of it – in which to think and remember and regret. Therefore he studied Gujerati in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, and mastered the language at a rate that astonished his munshi and won the admiration of the sowars… and was still unable to keep from thinking unprofitable thoughts.
He should have grown used to that by now, for he had been plagued in this fashion for over a year. But somehow it had been easier to accept the situation as irrevocable when hundreds of miles separated him from Juli and there was nothing in his surroundings to remind him of her. Besides, Rawalpindi, even after Wally's departure, had provided some palliatives – half-a-dozen good friends, his horses, and an occasional weekend in Murree from where he could see the Kashmir snows… Even the feud with Crimpley and his friend Raikes had had its uses. It had at least served as a distraction, and almost without his knowing it, the pain of loss had begun to ease a little and the gnawing sense of restlessness to decrease, until there had actually been times when he had come through an entire day without thinking of Juli at all.
But here in Ahmadabad that was no longer so and sometimes he wondered if space, as measured in miles, could have an effect on thought. Was it because he was now so much nearer to her in terms of distance that the memory of her was again so vivid and so continuously in his mind? From here Bhithor was only