The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [488]
The Guides were now his own Corps and an integral part of him, and he genuinely believed that the members of his own squadron were the pick of the Indian Army, and men such as Wigram Battye and Risaldar-Major Prem Singh the salt of the earth. He had been in action with them: learned in their company the terror and the fierce delight of battle, and seen men die – not just any men, the anonymous ones mentioned in brief official reports (‘Our casualties were two dead and five wounded’), but men he had known and cracked jokes with, and whose names and faces and problems were familiar to him.
He would no more dream of riding rough-shod over their customs and convictions, or doing anything that might bring the Regiment in which he and they had the honour to serve into disrepute, than he would consider pilfering from the mess funds or cheating at cards. Nor, in the first flush of his love-affair with the Guides and the Frontier, could he conceive of any worse fate than to be expelled from both. Yet if Ash had really married a Hindu widow, this was exactly what he was heading for – with whip and spur.
‘Well?’ asked Ash when he had finished and Wally had still not spoken. ‘Aren't you even going to wish me happy?’
Wally flushed like a girl and said quickly: ‘Of course I do. It's only…’ He did not seem to know how to end the sentence, and abandoned it.
‘That I have taken your breath away?’ said Ash with an edge on his voice.
‘Well, what did you expect?’ asked Wally defensively. ‘You must admit it's a bit of a facer. After all, I had no idea that those girls you were taking to Bhithor had anything to do with Gulkote, because you never said a word about that, and so I never imagined… Well, how could I? Of course I hope you'll be happy; you know that. But… but you're still well short of thirty and you know very well that you're not supposed to marry before then without the consent of the Commandant, and –’
‘But I have married,’ said Ash gently. ‘I am married, Wally. No one can alter that now. But you needn't worry; I'm not giving up the Guides. Did you really think I would?’
‘But once they know –’ began Wally.
‘They won't know,’ said Ash, and explained why.
‘Thank God for that!’ sighed Wally devoutly when he had finished. ‘How dare you frighten the daylights out of me?’
‘You're as bad as Zarin. He doesn't give himself away like you, but I could see that even though he knew Juli when she was a little girl, the fact that I had married her shocked him, because she is a Hindu. But I must admit I thought you'd be less prejudiced.’
‘What, me? An Irishman?’ Wally gave a short and mirthless laugh. ‘Why, a cousin of mine once wanted to marry a fellow who happened to be a Catholic, and you've no idea the row that blew up over that. The Protestants all went into hysterics about Anti-Christ and the Scarlet Woman of Rome, while the other lot called Mary a heretic and told Michael that if he married her he'd be excommunicated and everlastingly damned, because she wasn't prepared to turn papist herself and wouldn't sign an undertaking that any children she bore should be brought up as Catholics. Yet these were all adult and presumably intelligent people, and every one of them regarded themselves as Christians. Don't talk to me of prejudice! We're all riddled with it, whatever the colour of our skins; and if you haven't found that out yet, faith, I'm thinking you must have been born with blinkers.’
‘No, just without that particular form of prejudice,’ said Ash thoughtfully. ‘And it's too late for me to acquire it now.’
Wally laughed and observed that Ash did not know how lucky he was; and after an appreciable pause, said a little uncertainly and with an unaccustomed hint of diffidence in his voice: ‘Could you… can you tell me about her? What is she like? – I don't mean what does she look like, I mean what is it you see in her?’
‘Integrity. And tolerance – bardat, which Koda Dad once told me was a “rare flower”. Juli doesn't make