Ragtime In Simla

Barbara Cleverly

Sandilands 02

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

Contents

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|

|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|27|28|29|30|

Also by Barbara Cleverly

The Last Kashmiri Rose 2001

Carroll & Graf Publishers

An imprint of Avalon Publishing Group Inc.

161 William Street

New York

NY 10038 2607

www.carrollandgraf.com

First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2002

First Carroll & Graf edition 2003

Copyright © Barbara Cleverly 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN 0-7867-1246-5 Printed and bound in the EU

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

For Annie and Roddy and Tony

Chapter One

^»

Paris, 1919

Don’t stare, Alice, dear!’

Maud Benson (Universal Companions, Foreign and Eastern Travel Division) shot a glance of concentrated disapproval at her latest charge. Her charge remained wilfully oblivious and continued to turn her head excitedly, drinking in the strange sounds and bustle of the Gare de Lyon refreshment room, still elegant in spite of four years of wartime neglect.

Alice sighed and in pursuit of a world-weary image lay back against the buttoned leather upholstery of the banquette. Like the second barrel of a shotgun, inevitably came: ‘Don’t loll, dear!’

Alice continued to loll and turned to her companion with a mutinous expression. Fearing that she might just have gone too far (for the moment) Maud said in a placatory tone, ‘You need not, Alice, feel obliged to finish your cup of tea. The French really have no idea…’ The monument of corseted rectitude creaked forward slightly to take up her own cup and, while deploring the dire French habit of putting the water in the pot before the tea leaves, determined, nevertheless, to set a good example. ‘Always finish what is put in front of you’, even if it is a cup of badly brewed tea.

Alice didn’t take the hint but continued to stare enviously at the drink in the hand of the Frenchwoman sitting opposite. Frothy and pink, it fizzed seductively in a tall glass and Maud had no doubt, to judge by the appearance of the woman sipping it, that it contained alcohol. To her horror, Alice leaned forward and addressed the woman. In English public school French.

‘Excusez-moi, madame, mais qu’est-ce que c’est que cette … er… boisson?’

‘Alice!’ hissed Maud, bristling with indignation. ‘You don’t address a perfect stranger! What will she think?’

The woman in question put down the enviable pink drink and, after a moment of well-bred surprise, replied in scarcely accented English and with a charming smile of friendship. ‘It is called a Campari-soda. Very refreshing and very French.’ And without pause she turned to a passing waiter and said, ‘Monsieur, un Campari-soda pour mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît!’

Alice’s face lit up with a smile of guilty delight. Maud Benson closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

They were only three hundred miles into their journey and Maud shuddered at the thought that there were at least seven thousand more to be survived in the company of this girl. Alice Conyers. Time and again she had warned her charge, ‘This is France. You’re not in Hertfordshire now and the company is very mixed. You should avoid getting involved with strangers. And, above all, avoid a certain type of woman. Yes, woman. One learns to recognize the type. It’s easy to connect with such people but not so easy to disconnect. A good rule is “never talk to strangers”.’ She didn’t know what more she could have said. And yet… ‘For all the good I’ve done, I might as well have been playing the flute!’

Discreetly, she palmed a bismuth tablet into her mouth. A martyr to indigestion, she had learned to take this precaution at the first sign of stress.

Maud recalled the briefing her Principal had given her before this assignment had begun. ‘Out of the top drawer, Miss Benson. Rich family. Best of prospects. Your charge is going out to India where she is to assume the reins of power, it would seem, at the head of the family business – I’m speaking of the great commercial house Imperial and Colonial – at least, half the reins of power since she is, very sensibly, to share that eminence with a second cousin. Sad recent history – deaths in the family – so you must be prepared for a gloomy little companion, I’m afraid.’

(Maud felt a little gloom and becoming mourning would be preferred to this ceaseless chatter and frivolous curiosity.)

‘She is not straight out of the schoolroom, she is twenty-one years old, but has led a very sheltered life in Hertfordshire. Her grandfather’s executors have expressed a requirement for a highly dependable and experienced travelling chaperone and naturally they came to us.’

First impressions had been good on the whole. Though pretty enough (and this was always a concern), the girl had appeared sensible and well spoken. Her manners were those of the lady she was and rather old-fashioned. She seemed to have none of that brash giddiness that some modern young girls affected and which could give such trouble on board a P&O steamer. Her wardrobe consisted of entirely suitable clothes in mourning colours of black and grey appropriate to a girl who had recently lost not just her only brother on the battlefield mere days before the war had ended but also her father and mother to the flu the previous year. And, to cap it all, her grandfather, Lord Rupert Conyers, whose death, in the words of the Times obituary, ‘was occasioned by a fall from his horse while hunting with the Essex and Suffolk Foxhounds’ the previous December.

Maud had hoped for an undemanding run through to Bombay but was aware that the major challenge to effective chaperonage was in the three-week-long sea passage. The steamers were crowded with stylish young army officers returning to India from home leave. Many were looking for eligible wives, always in short supply in India. They had charm; they had slim, active figures and a look of suntanned alertness. Maud was well aware of the dangers and, in spite of her clever stratagems and unsleeping vigilance, had presided, in her time, unwillingly, over no fewer than three engagements (one, at least, most unsuitable) during her travelling career and had lost count of the number of broken hearts.

But she decided she need have no fears for Alice Conyers. The girl had confided early in their journey that she had the greatest hopes of marrying her second cousin, at present a junior officer in a native infantry regiment, thereby securing the dynastic future of the firm. A sensible arrangement, Maud had thought. In all the circumstances. Even a pretty and wealthy girl these days found her choice of husband very much restricted. The war had scythed down young men in their thousands and Alice had confessed sadly that she had met no one in England she could regard as a marriage partner. So, with no regrets behind her and a favourable prospect ahead, Maud thought, it should be an easy matter to keep Alice on a straight canter down the course. Provided, naturally, that she could keep ‘designing women’ – and she felt the description might well fit Alice’s new acquaintance – at bay and fortune-hunting men at arm’s length.