The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [83]
From the purely financial aspect, Mrs Harlowe considered that Mr Joseph Tilbery, the widower, was probably the most eligible prospect. But though his attentions to her daughter had been marked, he had not as yet made any declaration, and Belinda herself had been heard to refer to both him and the infantry Captain as ‘old fogies’. The ensigns and young Civil Servants were much more to her taste, and she flirted with them light-heartedly and enjoyed herself enormously, playing off one against the other and revelling in being young and pretty and admired.
The heady atmosphere of that long voyage had been further heightened for her by a romantic event – a wedding at sea. Admittedly the bride and bridegroom had neither of them been handsome nor in the first blush of youth, and as both were travelling steerage she had not previously laid eyes upon them. But the Captain, having been prevailed upon to exercise the powers invested in him as master of an ocean-going vessel, had married Sergeant Alfred Biggs of the Supply Corps, returning from leave, to Miss Mabel Timmins, travelling to Bombay to join a brother working for the Bombay-and-Baroda Railway, the wedding taking place in the First-Class Saloon in the presence of every passenger on board who could be crammed into it, and being followed by speeches and toasts drunk in champagne donated by the Captain. Later on, the entire company had danced on deck, and no less than three of Belinda's suitors had begged her to follow the bride's admirable example and spend the remainder of the voyage on honeymoon.
In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that if the other young ladies were unfriendly and their mothers openly disapproving, Belinda did not notice it. She had been cooped up in her aunt's house for ten long years, minding her lessons, stitching away at interminable samplers and saying ‘Yes, Aunt Lizzie’ and ‘No, Aunt Lizzie’, and the only young men she met (at strictly chaperoned parties) were the sons of her aunt's friends: awkward, gawking schoolboys who had known her since she was in pinafores and treated her as a sister. The transition from that confined and stultifying atmosphere to the delightful freedom of life on an ocean liner and the attentions of a dozen admiring young gentlemen was an exhilarating experience, and Belinda revelled in it and was perhaps as completely happy as anyone can hope to be in the course of one lifetime. Her only difficulty had been to decide which of her many admirers she preferred, but by the time the ship reached Alexandria she was no longer in any doubt.
Ashton Pelham-Martyn might not be as handsome as George Garforth (who, though gauche and really tediously shy, possessed a Grecian profile and Byronic curls); nor was he as witty or amusing as Ensign Augustus Blain, or as rich as Mr Joseph Tilbery of Tilbery, Patterson & Company. He was, in fact, rather a silent young man, except when he talked about India, which she encouraged him to do whenever her importunate admirers allowed her any private conversation with him, for he made it sound like her childhood memories of it: a magic place. He could, she found, be excessively charming when he chose, and there was something about him that she found fascinating: something different and exciting… and a little disquieting: the difference that lies between a wild hawk and a tame cage-bird. He was also undeniably good-looking in a dark, thin-faced way, and moreover a certain air of romantic mystery hung about him; there was some story of his having been brought up in an Indian palace, and that old gossip, Mrs Chiverton, had unkindly hinted that the swarthiness of his complexion and the darkness of his hair and lashes was possibly the result of mixed blood. But then everyone knew that Mrs Chiverton was a cat and would have been only too pleased if he had taken some notice