The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [91]
Belinda had certainly done so. On the only occasion that George had nerved himself to make a bid for her attention, he had set about it in a manner calculated to irritate the mildest of girls, and she had been compelled to give him a sharp set-down that had sent him back into his shell, sore, blushing and humiliated. Yet here she was, advancing on him with an outstretched hand and a smile of such dazzling sweetness that poor George stopped in his tracks and cast an involuntary look over his shoulder to see who could be standing behind him.
‘Why, Mr Garforth. What a pleasant surprise. Are you travelling on this train? I do hope so. It will make the journey so much pleasanter if we have friends on board.’
George stared at her as though he could not believe his ears, and then dropping the packet of letters he held, he clutched her proffered hand with the fervour of a drowning man catching at a rope. The blood drained out of his face and his tongue seemed to tie itself into knots, but his inability to answer her did not appear to offend his divinity, for having freed her hand from his grasp she tucked it confidingly under his arm and begged his escort to her carriage.
‘If I had known that you would be on this train, I should not have worried,’ declared Belinda gaily. ‘But I confess I was a trifle hurt that you had not even said goodbye to me this morning. I looked for you everywhere, but the dock was so hot and crowded.’
‘D-did you?’ stammered George, finding his voice. ‘Did – did you really?’
They were approaching Ash and his disreputable friends, and Belinda laughed up into her escort's pallid face, and giving his arm a little squeeze, said: ‘Yes, really.’
The colour rushed back into George's face, and he took a deep breath that seemed to fill not only his lungs but his whole body with a heady exhilaration that no wine had ever given him before. All at once he felt taller and broader, and for the first time in his life, full of confidence.
‘I say!’ said George. He began to laugh, and Ash looked round and saw them arm in arm, laughing together as though neither had a care in the world. He started forward and Belinda said carelessly: ‘Oh, hallo, Ashton,’ and passed by with a casual little inclination of the head that was infinitely more wounding than any cut direct.
Ash followed them to the Harlowes' carriage where he found himself compelled to make his apologies and explanations to Mrs Harlowe, as Belinda seemed far too occupied with George to pay much attention to what he was saying – beyond telling him graciously that there was no need for him to apologize, it did not matter at all. Which not only took the wind out of his sails, but left him feeling uncommonly foolish.
He was to feel a good deal worse in the days that followed, for Belinda continued to treat him with maddening politeness when he presented himself at her carriage during the leisurely and frequent stops at wayside stations, and never once invited him to sit with them in their carriage, or take her strolling on the platform during the evening halts. This behaviour afflicted Ash and alarmed poor Mrs Harlowe, but its effect upon George was little short of electrifying. No one who had travelled out with him on the S.S. Canterbury Castle would have believed that the gauche, tongue-tied and over-sensitive youth of the voyage could have blossomed so swiftly into this talkative and assured young man, who squared his shoulders and threw out his chest as he walked in the twilight with Belinda on his arm, or mono-olized the conversation in the carriage.
Ash himself was far too crushed and remorseful to take offence at his love's behaviour, or even notice George's growing jealousy and truculence, for he had already convicted himself of almost every crime in a lover's calendar, and felt that no punishment could be too severe – except the unthinkable one of losing her. As for Zarin, finding that he could do nothing to lighten Ashok's mood, he abandoned the attempt, and consoled himself with the more congenial company of his fellow-countrymen until such time as