The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [97]
By dusk on the second day the repairs to the road were completed and the passengers rounded up and re-embarked, and shortly after moon-rise the gharis rattled forward upon the last leg of the journey to Jhelum, where there was a British military cantonment of some size.
The Jhelum River was running high and swiftly, swollen by heavy autumn rains in far-away Kashmir, and there was nothing in the sight of that turbulent brown flood to remind Ash of the quiet river that had carried Sita away from him so many years ago. The town itself, together with the cantonments, lay on the far side, but as there had been a military exercise that day, there were a number of British officers idling on the near bank waiting for boats to ferry them back, and Belinda viewed the younger ones with lively interest and thought how very different (and how much more exciting) these cheerful, sunburned young officers were from the stolid and soberly clad townsmen of Nelbury, who, viewed in retrospect, might have belonged to a different race from these gaily uniformed men whom the furnace summers and bitter Khyber winters, warfare, responsibility and hard exercise had welded into a type that had become as instantly recognizable as a Red Indian or the cowboys of Texas.
The very sight of them served to restore Belinda's spirits, which had sunk considerably during the last day or two. The mounting tedium and discomfort of the dusty, interminable journey had depressed her, and the group of young officers on the bank was a welcome reminder that civilization and gaiety had not been left behind. No pretty girl need ever feel bored or neglected with so many men to squire her to picnics and partner her at dances, and it was almost a pity that she had engaged herself to marry Ashton. But then she was in love with him, and so of course she wished to marry him; though perhaps not too soon. It would be pleasant to be free for a few years longer and to enjoy all the delights of being courted by half-a-dozen young men instead of only one; and it wasn't as though Ash would even be in the same station. He would be miles away in Mardan and probably unable to ride over and see her more than once a week at most, yet as an engaged girl she would be unable to accept invitations from other men; that would be considered shockingly fast.
Belinda sighed, admiring the scarlet coats and luxuriant moustaches of the young officers, and somewhat naturally did not spare a look for the older ones, as she was not expecting to see her father. Even if she had been, she would not have recognized him. The man she dimly remembered had seemed a giant to his seven-year-old daughter, while the small and elderly gentleman who now appeared at the door of their ghari was an unimpressive figure, and Belinda was as shocked as she was startled when her mother uttered a piercing cry of ‘Archie!’ and warmly embraced the stranger. Could this really be the alarming autocrat of whom her resolute Aunt Lizzie and her stout and voluble Mama had so often said, ‘Your Papa would never permit it ’?
But if Belinda was disappointed in her Papa, it was plain that he was far from disappointed in his daughter. She was, he told her, the very image of her dear Mama at the same age, and it was the greatest pity that the Brigade would be going off on manoeuvres so soon, for he was afraid she might find Peshawar a trifle slow with all the young sparks away under canvas. But by Christmas