Flowers for the God of Love

CHAPTER ONE - 1900-1

CHAPTER ONE - 1900The Hackney carriage drew up outside the India Office and a man with a sun-bronzed face climbed out and paid the driver.

As he walked up the steps, he found the door open and a young man who looked the exact prototype of a budding Diplomat hurried forward with outstretched hands.

“Welcome home, Major Daviot,” he exclaimed. “The Chief is waiting for you and I may add impatiently!”

He smiled as he spoke and there was no mistaking the look of admiration in his eyes.

“It’s very good to be back,” Rex Daviot replied.

They walked along the wide corridors embellished with pictures of Governors General, emblems of Indian rivers and Cities and various types of Imperial Statuary.

The India Office was not clubbable, it was old, powerful and sombre and it moved at a slow despotic pace.

With its huge library and its immense accumulated experience it knew more about India than any other Government Office anywhere had ever known about another country.

“What was India like when you left?” the young man asked.

“Very hot,” Rex Daviot answered with a smile that prevented the words from sounding sarcastic.

“We are all buzzing with curiosity about your latest exploit, sir.”

“I hope not!”

“You must realise, Major, that it is impossible to stop people from speculating, even if they have very little to go on. I can assure you that we have done our best to keep everything very secret.”

“As I would expect,” Rex Daviot remarked drily.

He knew even as he spoke that secrets had a mysterious way of leaking out in unlikely places and in India the people in the bazaars were usually aware of what was occurring long before the Commander-in-Chief had the slightest idea of it.

They reached a pair of impressive mahogany doors and the young man opened them to say with almost a note of triumph in his voice,

“Major Rex Daviot, sir!”

At the end of a very large room a man was sitting at a desk.

He rose with an expression of pleasure on his face and, as Rex Daviot entered, he came forward to greet him.

They met in the centre of the room, and Sir Terence O’Kerry, Head of the India Office, clasped the younger man’s hand to say,

“Thank God you are home safely! I was afraid that something might prevent it.”

Rex Daviot laughed.

“What you are really saying is that you are surprised that I was not assassinated or my disguise was not penetrated.”

“Exactly,” Sir Terence agreed.

“There were some uncomfortable moments, I admit that,” Rex Daviot said, “but here I am, safe and sound. You received my report?”

“I found it unbelievable and so absorbing that I thought I was reading the kind of adventure story I enjoyed as a boy.”

“I am glad it pleased you,” Rex Daviot said with a twinkle in his eyes.

They were dark grey eyes, a colour that he had found extremely useful when eyes of another colour might easily have betrayed him.

“I have quite a lot to say to you,” Sir Terence said. “Sit down, Rex, and let me start from the beginning.”

Rex Daviot looked slightly surprised, but he obeyed, seating himself in one of the green leather armchairs that flanked the mantelpiece.

Sir Terence sat down opposite him and began in a serious tone,

“I do not need to tell you how grateful we are and that your findings on this last mission will have very far-reaching repercussions.”

“I hope that you have been careful to discuss it with as few people as possible,” Rex Daviot said. “I want to go back and even the sand in India has ears!”

“You have already taken part in so many exploits that you cannot expect people not to look upon you as a kind of hero.”

“I hope they do nothing of the sort!”

“Well, Queen Victoria for one is ecstatic at what you have accomplished.”

“Her Majesty is very kind, but quite frankly I want to return as soon as possible and get on with the job. There is still so much to be done.”

“No one knows that better than I do,” Sir Terence replied, “but at the moment we have other plans for you.”

A quick frown appeared on Rex Daviot’s suntanned forehead and for a while his grey eyes seemed to turn to steel.

“Other plans?” he questioned.

“That is what I want to talk to you about.”

“I am listening, but I hope they will not prevent me from returning to the North-West Frontier.”

“They will not do that, but you may go there in a different capacity.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Queen herself wants to appoint you Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces!”

Sir Terence spoke quietly, but the effect on the man sitting opposite was almost as if a bomb had exploded at his feet.

“Lieutenant-Governor?” he repeated with a look of incredulity on his face.

“Her Majesty feels that is now your rightful place and I agree with her.”

“Why? Why?”

“Because you know as well as I do that you cannot go on forever risking your life and not paying the penalty. Your success has been fantastic to date, but – ”

“I should have thought,” Rex Daviot interrupted, “that that would constitute a very good reason for me to continue as I am now.”

“I may tell you that this appointment has the approval of the Viceroy.”

“I should have thought that he of all people would have opposed a change for the simple reason that I make things very much easier for his administration than they would be otherwise.”

“He is aware of that, but at the same time the position of Lieutenant-Governor has fallen vacant in somewhat tragic circumstances.”

Rex Daviot was silent.

He knew what those tragic circumstances were and he knew too that by being offered the position he could not have been paid a greater compliment.

Equally something within him rebelled against the formality, the protocol and perhaps as well the authority that such a post would carry.

No one knew better than he did how important it was to have the right type of man in Government House at a time when unrest on the borders of India was growing and the tribesmen were being incited continually and sometimes successfully by the Russians.

Although on his way home he had wondered who would be appointed to the North-west Provinces, he had never for one moment suspected that it might be himself.

Now, as he was silent, Sir Terence went on,

“I should add that if you accept the position Her Majesty intends to make you a Peer.”

“A Peer? For Heaven’s sake why?”

“For a number of reasons,” Sir Terence replied with a smile, “but first because in any other circumstances you would have received a high Military Medal for this last expedition. But that would only draw attention to you, which I know is the last thing you want.”

He paused before adding,

“It is usual for the Lieutenant-Governor to be titled and, as you know, the last six have been either Knights or Baronets.”

“But why a Peer?” Rex Daviot enquired.

“Her Majesty wished to show her appreciation and we could none of us think of a better way.”

“You make me feel embarrassed!”

“It is not often that I say this to a man in this room,” Sir Terence went on, “but you have not only been magnificent, you have also saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands of men who otherwise would have been ambushed and killed mercilessly in a way that does not bear thinking about.”

Sir Terence and Rex Daviot both knew that the tribesmen on the North-West Frontier did not allow their victims to die quickly,

The tortures and mutilations they inflicted on their prisoners would make the most hardened soldier vomit when he saw their bodies.

As if Rex Daviot found it easier to think on his feet, he rose from the chair he had been sitting in to walk to the window.

He looked out, but he did not see the grey roofs, the trees in St. James’s Park or the busy traffic,

Instead he saw bleak barren rocks behind which there might be a tribesmen with a gun or just as dangerous, a sharp-pointed knife that could be thrust into a man’s body without a second’s warning.

The North-west Frontier was one of the most legendary places on earth. No comparable area had seen so much bloodshed, intrigue, gallantry, savagery, patience or sacrifice.

There was silence before he said aloud,

“Will you convey my deepest respects and gratitude to Her Majesty and tell her that, while I deeply appreciate the honour she would confer on me, I must refuse it.”

“Refuse it?” Sir Terence repeated. “Will you give me a reason?”

“For your own ear it is quite simple,” Rex Daviot answered. “I cannot afford it!”

Again there was silence for both of them knew that the top positions in India from the Viceroy downwards were all a tremendous drain on a man’s private purse.

The Viceroyalty cost its incumbent so much money that no one was able to accept it without a private fortune of his own.

The same applied to the other great positions in the land, those of the Governors of Madras and Bombay, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces and the Ruler of the Punjab.

The Resident of Hyderabad was on a slightly lower scale, but even he had to augment the official salary, which in every case was not enough for the amount of entertaining required and the state that Government Representatives were obliged to live in.

“As it happens,” Rex Daviot said, “I have had some considerable expense to bear in my family, which has increased my bank overdraft to what I imagine must be the limit. So I will just remain as I am.”

There was no regret in his voice and Sir Terence knew that Rex’s astute and brilliant brain would have sized up the whole situation in the few minutes that he had been gazing out the window.

Having made his decision, he had set the whole matter to one side and would have no regrets.

“I had a feeling that this is what you would say,” Sir Terence said after a moment.

Rex Daviot turned round with a smile.

“You have known me for at least ten years, sir, so you know as much as I do about my private affairs.”

They were both referring to the fact that Rex Daviot’s father, before he had had a fall out hunting that had left him a semi-invalid, had run through the bulk of the family fortune.

It had left his only son and heir in the position where he had to rely entirely on his own resourcefulness.

Sir Harold Daviot had been born in the wrong century. He should have lived in the Georgian era when a buck was expected to be raffish and extravagant.

Sir Harold’s mode of living under Queen Victoria earned him the label of being eccentric and caused the more respectable members of Society to close their doors to him.

Rex Daviot was himself a throwback to his great-great-grandfather, who, an outstanding and magnificent soldier, had been a General in the Bengal Lancers at the time of Clive of India.

When Sir Harold had been stricken down and forced into a wheelchair, his son had quite quietly taken on the tasks of paying off his debts and of improving the family estate in Northumberland that had been sadly neglected.

He also found that he had to provide for a number of ladies on whom his father had bestowed his favours, only to leave them after he tired of them with his children and invariably penniless.

This was bad enough, but there were also the ever-mounting medical expenses to be found and because he was immobile and had little to do, Sir Harold had taken to gambling on racehorses in a way that he could certainly not afford.

Sir Terence was aware how uncomplainingly and good-humouredly Rex Daviot had shouldered a burden that would have appalled a man of weaker character and less sensibility.

Aloud he now said,

“You know I understand and sympathise and that is why I have a suggestion to put to you.”

“Another job?” Rex Daviot asked.

“Not exactly, but in fact it concerns the one you have just refused.”

“In what way?”

“That is what I am going to tell you.”

Because he knew that it was expected of him, Rex Daviot walked from the window back to the chair where he had been sitting.

“A cigarette or a cigar?” Sir Terence offered as he sat down.

Rex Daviot shook his head.

“Neither, thank you. I gave up smoking a long time ago. Indians have an acute sense of smell and the fragrance of an expensive Havana on a bearer or a rickshaw boy would definitely be suspect.”