Dear Deceiver. Mary Nichols
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She reined in and sat straight-backed in the saddle to look about her, waiting for her brother to draw up alongside her. The sun was rising and a small trickle of perspiration ran down between her shoulder blades. Later it would rain, as it did every day at this time of year. Then the temperature would drop a few degrees and it would pour down in torrents, which was hardly less uncomfortable than the torrid heat which preceded it.
It would run in rivulets down the hard-baked roads, making puddles in the cart tracks. The trees would drip, the gutters overflow, and the usually sluggish River Hooghly would threaten to burst its banks, as it had done on numerous occasions before.
But Emma and Teddy were used to it; their concerns were not over the weather, which was predictable, but over the prolonged absence of their father, Major Edward Mountforest, on active service against the Gurkhas who were attacking Indian lands from the hills of Nepal.
‘It’s no place to fight a campaign,’ Teddy said, repeating the dissenting views he had picked up from some of his classmates at Fort William College. ‘Nothing but rocks and ravines, bare mountains and raging torrents. It’s practically impossible to get supplies and artillery through without the problem of knowing there’s likely to be a marksman behind every boulder.’
Emma laughed, bringing her green eyes to sparkling life behind the veil of her riding hat. ‘It wouldn’t do for the Colonel to hear you say that. It’s tantamount to treason.’
‘He’s with Papa, as well you know, so he cannot hear. And Papa thinks the same because I heard him say so before they left and all he got for his pains was a dressing-down and a hint he was lacking in courage. Papa a coward! Why, he’s the bravest man I know. He would never duck a fight if he thought the cause was just.’
‘I know, Teddy,’ Emma said softly, aware that her brother hero-worshipped their father and missed him every bit as much as she did. ‘Let’s go back; perhaps we shall have news of him today.’
They turned towards the fort where the horses were stabled and handed them over to a syce to unsaddle and groom, then walked side by side past Government House to the residential area to the north where their bungalow was situated. Sita, their house servant, would be preparing their breakfast. Teddy, as always, was hungry, but hunger left him as soon as they came within sight of their verandah, for there was an officer standing on it, watching for their return.
‘It’s Captain Goodwright!’ Teddy exclaimed. ‘They’ve come back.’ He began to run, followed by Emma, impeded by her lightweight riding skirt, which she gathered up in her hand.
By the time she reached the verandah, Teddy was already bombarding the Captain with questions. ‘Where is my father? Did we win a great victory? How long did it take the regiment to get back?’
The Captain turned to greet Emma before attempting to answer. ‘Good morning, Miss Mountforest. I come on behalf of Sir David…’
Emma’s heart sank into her riding boots; the poor man looked so uncomfortable, his usual cheerful expression so gloomy, she knew at once something was wrong. ‘Please come inside where it is cool,’ she said, forcing herself to sound calm as she led the way into the house. ‘You have news?’
‘Yes.’ He paused to swallow. ‘I am afraid I am the bearer of sad tidings.’
‘Papa?’ queried Teddy. ‘Tell me at once. What is it?’
The Captain overlooked the arrogant tone of the boy’s voice because it was laced with anxiety and he was sorry for him, but Emma felt constrained to exclaim, ‘Teddy!’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘It is I who am sorry, my boy. It is my painful duty to tell you that your father, Major Mountforest, fell in battle.’
‘Fell?’ Emma queried, clenching her hands into fists to stop them shaking. ‘You mean he is…’ she gulped ‘…dead?’
‘Yes. I am sorry. They were ambushed, taken by surprise in a narrow pass to the north of Gorakhpur, and all perished, a hundred good men.’
Emma sank into a chair, unaware that Sita had come in and put the tea tray down on a low table or that the punkah-wallah, who sat outside on the verandah, had ceased his rhythmic pulling on the cord of the punkah—the heavy matting which covered the open window of the bungalow—and the cool breeze the movement created had suddenly stopped.
It was a moment of stillness in which no one spoke, for each was remembering the man who had been a gallant soldier and a beloved father. It did not seem possible that they would never see him again, not even in death, for in the heat of India, interment followed swiftly upon demise; and bringing bodies back for burial was out of the question.
‘Are you sure?’ Teddy asked, unable to believe the news. ‘He might have survived, he could still come home. If he was caught by the rains, the roads might be washed away and the bridges would certainly be down. It might take him months to return.’
‘No, that isn’t possible,’ the officer said. ‘A few grasscutters, who had been sent out to gather fodder, rushed back when they heard the gunfire, but too late. There was no one left alive. They were the only survivors.’ The Captain turned to Emma. ‘Miss Mountforest, if there is anything I can do for you, please ask. My wife will visit you later and discuss what is to be done, but I expect you would like to be alone now.’
‘Yes. Thank you, Captain.’
He left, but she was hardly aware of his going. The only sound was her own ragged breathing and Teddy’s muffled sobs, smothered because he believed it was unmanly to cry. In another room to the rear of the bungalow, Sita was wailing and another servant was reciting a prayer in Hindi, over and over again. Teddy rose suddenly and fled from the room.
Emma started after him but changed her mind; he would not wish her to witness his tears. She sat, looking with unseeing eyes at the tigerskin rug on the floor at her feet. Her father had shot the man-eater years before when it had been terrorising villages in the interior. He and Chinkara, his Indian servant, had brought it home on the back of a bullock cart, laughing together like a couple of schoolboys. She would never hear their laughter again.
Her own grief suddenly overwhelmed her. And as she wept the day’s rain began, a sharp patter which grew in volume to a crescendo, beating against the punkah, thumping on to the verandah, swishing like a fast-flowing river, down the road outside. It was as if the very earth was crying with her.
It was a full hour before she roused herself, scrubbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and took the tea tray back to Sita.
Sita, who had long ago been converted to Christianity, always remembered her Hindu origins in times of stress. ‘He has gone to his next life,’ she said, looking up from kneading chuppatti dough. ‘And it will be a better one, for he was a good man, and surely Chinkara is with him there, looking after him still. You must look to Teddy-Sahib. He is the master now.’
‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ Emma attempted to smile, for the idea of Teddy, the schoolboy, taking over the management of their lives would have been amusing in other circumstances. There was no doubt in her mind who would have to pick up the reins and make the decisions. And for that, she must remain strong and not give way to the grief which was eating away at her heart and mind, making thinking objectively almost impossible.
But when she forced herself to try, her head was filled with a thousand questions, the most important being: how could they manage without Papa? It was not the housekeeping that troubled her, for she had been doing that for years, but whether they would be allowed to remain in the bungalow which belonged to the East India Company and, if not, where would they go? She imagined her papa had left some money, but was it enough to keep Teddy at college? Was there a pension?
There was also the vexing question of Calcutta Society, which might turn a blind eye to her living alone when her father was simply away campaigning; but when the officers’ wives learned he was never coming back, they would be round like flies, giving her gratuitous advice, the gist of which was that she should not live alone with