Love on the Wind

Chapter One ~ 1883-1

Chapter One ~ 1883The woman walking along the deck was enveloped in the disguising robe worn by Muslims.

She moved slowly and carefully, avoiding the prostrate figures asleep who had drawn blankets over their faces so that they were unrecognisable.

Ever since the ship had left the Suez Canal for the Red Sea the weather had been hot and humid and many of the passengers in the Steerage Class left their overcrowded and airless quarters to sleep in the open air.

It was now two o’clock in the morning and, except for those members of the crew on the bridge or in the engine room, everybody in the ship seemed to be silent and asleep.

Walking quietly the woman reached the rail that ended at the stern and now there was only the foaming wash that poured up from the stern of the ship into waves, which ruffled the surface of the smooth sea and gradually vanished away into the night.

There was a touch of phosphorus on the water and the stars overhead were reflected until it seemed as if the sky met the sea and there was no division between them.

The woman held onto the rail and looked with sightless eyes into the distance.

The British flag was hanging limp from the pole because there was no wind and the air itself seemed heavy and almost as if that too was without life.

The woman pulled her robe a little closer around her and then, taking a deep breath as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she clutched the rail with both hands.

Her body seemed to stiffen into an alertness as she put her foot on the bottom rail as if preparing to heave herself over.

As she did so, a quiet voice came from behind her,

“I think it would be a mistake if you did that.”

She gave a little cry that was almost one of terror and turned round to see the man who had spoken. He looked like an Indian, wearing a turban and dressed in the poor unidentifiable clothes of a low caste.

She stared at him and in the starlight he could see the terror in her eyes and the trembling of her lips.

“It is very foolish to do what you are contemplating,” he said quietly. “Life is very precious.”

“Not to – me,” the woman replied involuntarily and added, “It has – nothing to do – with you – please go away!”

“That is something 1 cannot do,” he answered her, “and I have no wish to play the hero and to have to rescue you.”

“I do not – want to be – rescued.”

“It is unfortunately something I should feel obliged to attempt and you will definitely disrupt the passage of the ship and cause a commotion.”

She turned her face away from him and once again hung onto the rail.

“It is my – life,” she asserted almost as if she spoke to herself.

“The most priceless possession anyone could have. It would be stupid to throw it away so unnecessarily.”

“Unnecessarily!” she exclaimed with a sob.

Then, as if she no longer had any control over herself, the tears poured down her face and her body sagged as if she was about to sink to the ground.

Without saying anything the man picked her up in his arms and carried her back the way she had come, stepping over the sleeping bodies who had not moved or taken any interest in what had been happening.

After at first a shudder as if she would repulse him, the woman put her head on his shoulder and he could feel the tumult of her tears shaking her whole body.

She was very slim and light and he suspected that under her concealing robe she was wearing very little, perhaps only a nightgown.

He carried her into the bowels of the ship, along a corridor that was badly lit and then up a staircase to another deck.

Here the air seemed less oppressive and there were more lights.

Every cabin door was firmly closed as he carried her to the end of a long corridor where there was a small writing room that was empty and lit by only one light.

He put her down gently onto a chair and then, as she put her hands up to her face to hide it from him, the robe that had covered her head fell back.

He saw that she was fair and, as he had thought when he looked at her in the starlight, very young.

He sat down on a chair opposite her without speaking and after some seconds the girl, for she was nothing more, took her fingers from her eyes to ask,

“Why – must you – interfere?”

She had intended to speak angrily, but actually it was in a broken, breathless little voice.

“Suppose you tell me,” the man asked, “why you should contemplate anything so wicked and wasteful?”

His choice of words surprised her and, as she looked up at him, he thought that her tear-drenched cheeks might have been those of a young child.

“I want to – die!”

“Why so dramatically?”

“I could not think of any – other way that was – possible.”

She spoke simply and then wiped her tears from her cheeks with the back of her fingers before she said,

“I have thought it over – very carefully – I cannot go on – it is impossible!”

“Nothing is really impossible,” the man said. “However dark things seem at the moment, you must not forget that there is always the dawn.”

“Not for – me.”

“How can you be sure of that?” he asked. “Nobody can see into the future and there may be when you least expect it something very exciting and very beautiful waiting for you just round the corner.”

She shook her head and as she did so the robe she was wearing fell a little lower and he could see her fair hair was very long and waved over her shoulders neatly, he thought, to her waist.

She put her hands in her lap and sat with her shoulders drooping, slumped forward in an attitude of despair.

“Why not tell me what has upset you?” he asked. “You never know, together we might find a solution.”

She looked at him again as if she wondered if she could trust him.

Then, as she saw his dark eyes beneath straight eyebrows, his firm mouth and square chin, she exclaimed,

“I have seen you before!”

“Where?” the question was sharp.

“At Southampton.”

She was thinking as she spoke of how she had noticed him amongst the seething tumult on the quay just before the ship had sailed.

Piles of luggage were being taken aboard at the last moment, people seeing off their friends and relations, some smiling and some in tears. There was a throng of spectators, beggars, labourers, seamen and, because the ship was going East, a number of soldiers.

The gangways were filled with people moving on and off the ship whose engines were already turning.

It was then that she had noticed a man who looked like an Indian moving through the crowd. He seemed to be in no hurry and at the same time there was an assurance about him that other people lacked.

He walked up the lower gangway that led to the bottom deck and she thought as he reached it that he was the last person to step aboard before it moved away and the ship’s railing put back into place.

She had told herself he had cut it very fine and might have missed the ship altogether and yet there had been something about his carriage that told her he would not make a mistake like that, but would always get what he wanted.

Now she saw as she looked at him that he was frowning and it also struck her as strange that, although he wore a turban, he spoke perfect English.

She had always imagined that all Indians spoke with an unmistakable accent and a ‘sing-song’ note in their voices.

As if he knew what she was thinking, he said after a moment,

“I will make a pact with you.”

She did not answer and there was a faint smile on his lips as he continued,

“I will forget what you were intending to do tonight if I had not stopped you, if you will forget that you saw me at Southampton.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I am quite certain that you have no wish that I should inform whoever you are travelling with that you wished to leave the ship in such an unconventional manner.”

As if his words frightened, her she gave a little cry and replied,

“No – of course – not! If you tell my uncle he will be – very angry, very angry indeed – and he would – ”

She stopped and the man saw not only the terror in her face, but a red mark on her cheek which contrasted with the translucent whiteness of the rest of her skin.

Abruptly he asked,

“Who has hit you?”

She put her fingers up to her cheek and her eyes fell before his and her lashes were dark against her skin. For a moment she did not speak.

Then she said,

“Why can you not – understand that I – cannot go on as I am? I cannot bear it – any longer. Tonight he had a – ruler in his hand and I am – a coward.”

The tears were back in her eyes and the man bent forward to say very quietly,

“Why do we not start at the beginning and you tell me your name?”

He had a feeling that she was about to refuse and he added,

“It would be quite easy, if you will not tell me, for me to ask the Purser.”

“No, no! You must – not do – that! He might tell – Uncle Harvey.”

The man opposite her stiffened.

“Are you saying that your uncle is Sir Harvey Arran?”

“You know him? Promise me – promise me you will not say – anything to him. He would be very angry – and when he is angry – ”

She paused and the man said grimly as if he spoke to himself,

“He hits you!”

“He is – bad-tempered because he – lived in India for – so long. I-I think it has – affected his liver – and anyway he – hates me!”

“Why should he hate you?”

“Because since Papa and Mama died I have had to live with him and I am what he calls ‘an encumbrance’.”

“There is no one else you could live with?”

“I think some of – Papa’s cousins might – have me, but actually I think now that Uncle Harvey finds me – quite useful.”

“In what way?”

“I copy out the book he is writing – and that is what – makes him so – angry.”

“Why?”

The questions were authoritative and she felt that she had to answer them.

“His writing is – very hard to – decipher and some of the words in Urdu or Hindi are difficult to – spell. If I make a mistake, he gets – angry with me.”

The man’s lips tightened and after a moment he commented,

“So because you are useful he is taking you with him to India.”

“That is right. I have no wish to go – anywhere with him, but he would not let me – stay at home when I – begged him to let me – do so.”

There was silence.

Then the man asked,

“What is your Christian name?”

“Sita.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“An Indian name and one that, as I expect you know, is that of the Goddess who was proud, pure and brave.”

“Then it was obviously a mistake to call me after her, as I have nothing to be – proud about and as I have – already told you – I am a coward.”

“Nevertheless you must try to live up to your name. You have not told me why you were given it.”

“I was born in India. My father was in the Bengal Light Brigade.”

“You will feel when you get there as if you have come home.”

Sita stared at him.

Then she said,

“I don’t – believe you!”

“It is true and, when we reach India, you will know that I am right. Your uncle is going to Hyderabad.”

“How did you know?”

He did not answer the question but went on,,

“You have not yet given me your promise that if we meet again you will forget that you saw me at Southampton and here on the lower deck.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression in her eyes.

“We will meet – again?”

“I certainly hope so and when we do, Sita, I want to see you smiling and happy, looking like the Goddess you were named after.”

“That is – impossible!”

“You will find you are wrong. In the meantime I want you to promise me something else.”