The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [369]
He had pledged Sarji to secrecy after telling him as little as possible and even that little was not strictly accurate), and Manual had left next morning, taking with him half-a-dozen bottles of Potter's Sovereign Specific for the Relief of Indigestion and two of Jobbling & Sons' best castor oil, together with an assortment of fruit and sweetmeats and a large wicker-work basket that appeared, on inspection, to contain live poultry: three hens and a cockerel – the fact that it also contained two pigeons being unnoticeable, owing to a cunningly contrived false bottom and the presence of the clucking fowls.
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‘Anyone would think there were no eggs to be had in Bhithor,’ sniffed Gul Baz, watching the Hakim's servant ride away. ‘And being a fool, he will certainly have been cheated over the price of those chickens.’
Gul Baz was glad to see the back of Manilal, and afraid that his visit might have the same depressing effect upon the Sahib's spirits that the Hakim's had done. But he need not have worried. Manilal's news had lifted a crushing load off Ash's mind, and his spirits soared. Juli was safe and well – and she had ‘not found favour with the Rana’.
The relief that those few words had brought him had been so great that hearing them he had, for a moment, felt light-headed. All the intolerable things he had imagined happening to her – the thought of what she might be called upon to endure, and the ugly pictures that would rise before his mind's eye whenever he could not sleep – none of them were true. She was safe from the Rana; and perhaps Gobind was right and once the child was born, Shu-shu would cease to cling to her sister and the Rana would divorce her and send her back tQ Karidkote. She would be free. Free to marry again…
Lying awake in the dark after returning with the pigeons, he had known that he could wait now; and without impatience, because the future that had looked so bleak and meaningless was suddenly filled with hope, and there was something to live for again.
‘Pandy seems to be in pretty high feather these days,’ remarked the Senior Subaltern a week later, glancing out of a mess window as Ash ran down the steps, vaulted onto his horse and rode off singing ‘Johnnie was a Lancer’. ‘What do you suppose has come over him?’
‘Whatever it is, it's an improvement,’ observed the Adjutant, looking up from a tattered copy of The Bengal Gazette. ‘He hasn't exactly been a ray of sunshine up to now. Perhaps someone has left him a fortune.’
‘He doesn't need one,’ put in a married Captain a shade sourly.
‘Well, he hasn't been, because as a matter of fact I asked him that,’ confessed the first speaker ingenuously.
‘And what did he say?’ inquired the Adjutant, interested.
‘Snubbed me. Said he'd been given something a damn' sight better: a future. Which I imagine was his way of saying “If you ask a silly question you'll get a silly answer” – in other words, “mind your own business”.’
‘Did he, by Jove?’ said the Adjutant looking startled. ‘I'm not so sure about that. Sounds to me as though he may have heard something, though I'm blowed if I know how he could have done. We only got it an hour ago, and I know the C.O. hasn't passed it on yet.’
‘Passed on what?’
‘Well, I suppose there's really no reason why you shouldn't know, now that Pandy obviously does. He's to return to his own regiment. An order to that effect came by this morning's dâk. But I imagine that someone at Military Headquarters in 'Pindi blabbed in advance and one of his friends passed on the good news a week or so ago, which would account for his sudden rise in spirits.’
The Adjutant was mistaken. On the contrary, by the time Ash learned of his impending departure the entire mess and most of the rank and file