The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [467]
The Sahib had none; and Gul Baz, having served coffee in a brass cup, went away taking the almost untouched tray with him. The ship's bell sounded the watch, and from somewhere below and amidships Red, who had been celebrating with the Mate and old Ephraim, bellowed up a convivial good-night to which McNulty added something that Ash did not catch, but that appeared to amuse his companions. The sound of their laughter faded and not long afterwards the murmur of voices from the after-deck where the lascars gathered of an evening also ceased, and the night was silent except for the swish of the sea and the monotonous creak and croon of timber and hemp and taut canvas.
Ash sat listening to those sounds for a long time, reluctant to move because he still did not know how his wife would greet him, and he dreaded a rebuff. Today had seen the fulfilment of a dream, and this night should have been the crowning moment of his life. Yet here he sat, racked with doubts and tormented by indecision – and afraid as he had never been afraid before, because if Juli were to turn from him it meant the end of everything. The final and permanent triumph of Shushila.
As he hesitated, putting off the moment of decision, he suddenly remembered Wally declaiming lines written two centuries earlier by one of his many heroes, James Graham, Marquis of Montrose – ‘He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That puts it not unto the touch, To win or lose it all…’
Ash smiled wryly, and lifting a hand in a gesture of acknowledgement said aloud, as though his friend were actually present: ‘All right. I'll go down. But I'm afraid my deserts are minimal.’
The little cabin was brightly lit, and after the cool freshness of the night air unbearably hot and strongly tainted with the smell of lamp oil. Anjuli was standing by the open port-hole looking out across the shimmering beauty of the phosphorescent sea, and she had not heard the latch lift. Something in her pose – in the tilt of her head and the line of the long black plait of hair – reminded him so strongly of the child Kairi-Bai that almost without knowing it, he spoke to her by that name, whispering it very softly: ‘Kairi –’
Anjuli whipped round to face the door, and for the flash of a second there was a look in her eyes that could not be mistaken. It was gone immediately: but not before Ash had seen it and recognized it for what it was – stark terror. The same look that he had once seen in the eyes of Dilasah Khan, thief, traitor and sometime trooper of the Guides, when they had cornered him at last in a cleft of the hills above Spin Khab. And in Biju Ram's on a moonlight night three years ago, and more recently in the terrified gaze of five bound and gagged wretches in the chattri at Bhithor.
To see it now in Anjuli's was like receiving a sudden and savage attack from a totally unexpected quarter, and the impact of it made his heart miss a beat and drained the blood from his face.
Anjuli's own face was grey with shock and she said with stiff lips: ‘Why did you call me that! You have never…’ Her voice failed her and she put her hands to her throat as though there was a constriction there that prevented her breathing.
‘I suppose – because you reminded me of her,’ said Ash slowly. ‘I'm sorry. I should have remembered that you did not like me calling you by that name. I didn't think.’
Anjuli shook her head, and said disjointedly: ‘No. No, it was not that… I don't mind… It was only… You spoke so softly, and I thought… I thought it was…’
She faltered to a stop, and Ash said: ‘Who did you think it was?’
‘Shushila,’ whispered Anjuli.
The rustling, swishing water beyond the port-hole seemed to take up the lilting syllables of that name and repeat it over and over again, Shushila, Shushila, Shushila – And without warning, rage exploded in Ash, and he slammed the door shut behind him and crossing the cabin in two strides, gripped his wife's shoulders and shook her with a violence that forced the breath from her lungs.
‘You will not’, said Ash, speaking between clenched