The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [378]
‘Oh fiddlesticks!’ interrupted his wife. ‘Of course it's Ashton – it's so like him. He was always getting mixed up with things that were none of his business; and with natives, too. Now here he is doing it again. It must be him. It couldn't be anyone else. I wonder what on earth he's doing in this part of the world? Do you suppose he's still…’ She broke off, and leaning back in her chair, surveyed her lord and master with a dissatisfied eye.
Time and the climate of India had not been kind to Sir Ambrose. They had changed him from a portly, self-satisfied man into an obese, bald and insufferably pompous one, and Belinda, studying that purple countenance with its fringe of grey whiskers and plethora of chins, caught herself wondering if it had been worth it. She was Lady Podmore-Smyth, the wife of a tolerably rich and important man, and mother of two healthy children (both girls, which was not her fault though Ambrose seemed to think otherwise) and yet she was not happy.
Life as a Resident's lady had not been nearly as amusing as she had imagined: she missed the gaiety of a military station in British India, disliked the whole tedious and painful business of child-bearing, found her husband dull and existence in a native state boring beyond words. ‘I wonder,’ mused Belinda aloud, ‘what he looks like now? He used to be very handsome… and so madly in love with me.’
She preened herself complacently, sublimely unaware that the years had been even more unkind to her than they had to her elderly husband, and that she was no longer the slim slip of a girl who had once been the belle of Peshawar, but a stout matron with faded blond hair, an acid tongue and a discontented expression. ‘Of course, that was why he did it – ran away from his regiment I mean. I've always known that he did it because of me and that he went in search of death; or to forget. Poor Ashton… I have often thought that if only I had been a little kinder –’
‘Rubbish,’ snorted Sir Ambrose. ‘If you have given so much as one moment's thought to him from that day to this, I confess I should be exceedingly surprised. As for his being madly in love with you… Now, now, Belinda, there's no need to make a scene about it; I'm sorry I mentioned the fellow. I should have known better… I am not shouting –!’
He stamped out of the room in a fury, banging the door behind him, and was not best pleased when his Personal Assistant's inquiries disclosed that the author of that impertinent telegram was indeed none other than the Ashton Pelham-Martyn who had once aspired to his wife's hand and subsequently caused a great deal of talk by behaving in a manner that could only be described as unbalanced. Nor was his temper improved when later on the Political Officer's reply to his request for comments on the contents of the telegram arrived.
Ash's chickens were coming home to roost with a vengeance, for Major Spiller, the Political Officer (who had never forgiven what he had taken to be a rude and insufferably high-handed letter, sent from Bhithor over two years ago), began by saying that he himself had received a similar telegram from the same source, and went on to comment at length – and forcibly.
He had already, wrote Spiller, had some experience of Captain, now Lieutenant, Pelham-Martyn in the past, and considered him to be an officious trouble-maker bent on creating a scandal and causing dissension. A few years ago the fellow had done his utmost to disrupt relations between the Government of India and the State of Bhithor (which until then had always been cordial in the extreme) and had it not been for his, Spiller's, firmness, he might well have succeeded in doing so. Now, once again, for reasons best known to himself, he was endeavouring to stir up trouble. However, as no reliance could be placed on anything he said, Major Spiller for one intended to treat these wild allegations with the contempt they deserved: particularly in view of the fact that those whose business it was to know what went on in Bhithor had assured him that the