The India Fan (51 page)

t is good to be with you, Drusilla. I have missed you. I often think of the old days at the rectory. Do you remember them?

f course.

our father was such an interesting man.

We were watching the children on their ponies and at that moment Alan passed. He was riding without holding the reins. The groom was beside him.

ook at me, Drusilla,he cried. ook. No reins.

I clapped my hands and he laughed joyously.

hey are so fond of you,said Dougal.

e grew close while we were in hiding. Both of them were aware of the danger, I think.

ow fortunate that you came through all that.

ou were with Tom and Alice.

es, they were in Lucknow. That was a time of real terror. We never knew, from one moment to the next, what was going to happen. I can explain to you what it was like when Campbell troops took the city. It was a hard struggle. They fought like demons.

ill Tom and Alice come home?

ot for some time, I imagine. Things are in upheaval over there. Everyone is anticipating great change. Tom will be needed and is sure to be there some time yet. But he has Alice with him. They get along very well together. Fabian will be home quite soon. I don know how it is all going to work out. He will want to see people in London. Everything is in a state of flux. There will be great changes in the Company and I don know how this will affect Fabian.

or Tom Keeping, I suppose.

om will be all right. He is a lucky man. Alice is a fine person.He looked a little wistful. ust imagine. They had known each other such a short time and there it was. They seem as though they were just made for each other.

suppose it happens like that sometimes.

o the lucky ones. To the rest of us He lapsed into silence and then went on, here should be no pretence between us, should there? We know each other too well. Drusilla, I have made a mess of things.

suppose we all feel that about ourselves at some time.

hope you don. Here am I adrift. A man with two children to whom sometimes I fancy I am a stranger.

hat could soon be remedied.

hey are so fond of you, Drusilla.

have been with them for a long time. They were my charges when I came to India and have been ever since. Then we went through that fearful time together. They weren aware of the enormity of the dangers, but even young children can live through a time like that without being affected. I represent a sort of rock to them, security, I suppose.

understand that. It is how they would see you. There is a strength about you, Drusilla. I often think of the old days. We were very good friends then. I can tell you how much I used to look forward to those sessions with you and your father.

es, we all enjoyed them.

e talked of interesting things important things and because we shared our pleasure we enjoyed it the more. Do you ever wish you could go back in time to act differently to change things?

think everyone does that now and then.

ine was not a happy marriage. Well it was disastrous really. You see, she was so beautiful.

don think I ever saw anyone as beautiful as Lavinia.

t was a blinding sort of beauty. I thought she was like Venus rising from the sea.

ou worship beauty, I know. I have seen your eyes when they rest on certain pieces of statuary or great paintings.

thought she was quite the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She seemed to be fond of me, and Lady Harriet was determined

h yes,I said. ou became very eligible overnight.

hat should never have happened to me. Well, she is dead now, and there are the children.

hey will be your chief concern.

hey will be brought up here, I suppose. They are well and happy here. I am not sure about the influence of the Framlings. I worry about them a little. I feel they might take their values from Lady Harriet. I am glad that you are with them, Drusilla.

love them very much.

can see that. But when Fabian returns I believe he will soon get married. I gather there is already some understanding with Lady Geraldine Fitzbrock. Not an official engagement yet but that will come, and Lady Harriet wants a quick marriage, so

es, I too have gathered that from her.

ell, it will be a little time before Fabian has children, I suppose. But the nursery will be theirs, and if his children are anything like him they will soon be dominating mine.

The subject of Fabian marriage filled me with deep depression, which I hoped I did not show.

He went on, wish I could take them away have a place of my own.

ou have, haven you?

rambling old place more like a fortress than a home. It came along with the inheritance. It would not be much of a home for children, Drusilla.

erhaps it could be made so.

ith a family children perhaps

ell, it is all before you.

es. It not too late, is it?

ome say it is never too late.

rusilla He was smiling at me.

I thought in panic: He is going to ask me to marry him, as my father thought he might all those years ago. He is thinking it could be a solution. I have already been a surrogate mother to his children and he knows that I will be interested in whatever he takes up. I am not beautiful hardly like Venus rising from the sea but I have other qualities. As Lady Harriet would say, I am a sensible girl.

Just at that moment the children ran up. Their riding lesson was over. I was glad of the diversion.

Louise said, not looking at her father, rusilla, I did the jump today. Did you see?

es,I told her. ou did it beautifully.

id I? Jim said it going to get higher and higher.

ight up to the sky,said Alan. id you see me?

es,I assured him. e both watched your father and I.

ou were very good,Dougal told him.

Alan smiled at him and jumped.

top, Alan,said Louise. She looked apologetically at Dougal. e always jumping,she added.

t shows he happy,I said.

ou wait until I do the jumps with my horse,Alan cried.

e will,I told him. I turned to Dougal. on we?

ou too?said Alan, looking doubtfully at his father. ou and Drusilla?

e shall be there,I replied.

Alan jumped again and we all laughed.

Then we walked back, Alan running on ahead and turning to look back at us every few seconds while Louise walked rather soberly between us.

Fabian was coming home. He was on the high seas and in a week or so he would be with us.

Lady Harriet was more excited than I had ever seen her. She was quite talkative to me.

have decided that I won ask Lady Geraldine just at first. He will pay too much attention to her and as I have not seen my son for a long time I want him to myself. Besides, it will be more romantic for him to go down to her. He should propose in her father house. Everything will be different when he comes. There will be no nonsense about the child from those two women. Fleur will be brought to her rightful home.

daresay she will want to have some say in her future herself.

mere child! What are you thinking of, Drusilla?

was thinking that perhaps I should consider my position.

our position! What do you mean?

thought Lady Geraldine might want to make changes.

n the nursery. I am mistress of this house, as I was when I came here as a bride, and I intend to remain so. Moreover, you teach the children very well and / am satisfied with their progress. Louise is getting on admirably. You have a gift for teaching. My governess was with me from my earliest days to the time when I had my season.

That was an end of the matter for her. But not for me. I could not stay. I certainly would not remain when Fabian was married to Lady Geraldine. I knew I had had ridiculous dreams. I suppose those days in India, which now seemed part of an unreal nightmare, had had their effect on me. Back in Framling I realized how impossible those dreams had been.

The Framlings were Framlings. They would never change. They looked upon the rest of us as pawns in a game, to be moved around as benefitted them. We were of no importance except in our usefulness.

During that week, while Lady Harriet went around in a state of happiness which I had never seen her in before, I was getting more and more depressed. I did not want to be here when he came home. I could not join the general rejoicing because of the suitable marriage he was making. Fabian would marry suitably, I was sure. He was as much aware of family obligations as his mother was. He had been brought up to regard them as all-important. I had not been mistaken when I had thought there was an attraction between us. There always had been with him as well as with me. I knew that he wanted to make love to me; but the question of marriage would never arise. I had heard whispers of past Framlings the vivid lives they had led, the romantic adventures which had nothing to do with marriage. They married suitably and that was all that was expected of them.

But that was not the life for me. I was too seriousminded, as Lady Harriet would have said, oo sensible.

I saw Dougal often. He did not ask me to marry him, but I knew it was in his mind. He was afraid to ask me outright, for fear I should refuse. I realized that Dougal was not the man to take quick decisions. He would always waver; others would have to make up his mind for him.

If I gave him that little bit of encouragement for which he looked, he would have asked me. Why did he want me? I asked myself. It was because I represented a certain security to him, as I did to his children. I would be the surrogate mother, for which post I had already qualified.

It would be convenient, wise no doubt. I could look to a peaceful life ahead with Dougal, quiet, pleasant, with a husband who would be considerate and caring and the children growing up with us. We would study together. I would learn a great deal. Our excitement would be in the antiquities of the world books, art they would give us our interest.

Perhaps I should grow like him.

He was seeing me as the antithesis of Lavinia, but he would never forget that outstanding beauty, which I believed he had marvelled at when he saw her.

Everyone would say I should be glad of the opportunity. hat is your life?they would say. re you going to spend it serving the Framlings?And what about Lady Geraldine?

Would she sense her husband feelings towards me? It could develop into an explosive, impossible situation.

I should have to go. Where? I had a little money, just about enough to keep me in a rather dreary, comfortless style. What a fool I was to turn away from all that Dougal was offering me.

And Fabian would be home in a day or so.

I could not bear to be there when he came.

I said to Lady Harriet, would like to go to see Polly again.

ell,replied Lady Harriet, hat is not a bad idea. You can tell them that Sir Fabian will soon be home and he will put a stop to their nonsense. They might as well give up Fleur with a good grace. Tell them we shall not be forgetful and shall reward them for what they have done.

I did not remark that that was the very way to stiffen their resolve, if it needed stiffeninghich it did not. But how could one explain such things to Lady Harriet?

I was happy to be with Polly again. I was taken back to my childhood, when she was there to soothe away my little problems.

It was not long before she sensed there was something on my mind. She managed in that skilful way of hers that we would be alone together.

et sit in the parlour,she said. ff won know. Besides, youe a visitor and parlours are for visitors.

So we sat there on the stiff, unused chairs with their prim antimacassars on the backs and the aspidistra on the wicker table in the window and the clock, which her father had thought such a lot of, ticking away on the mantelshelf.

ow, what on your mind?

h, I all right, Polly.

on give me that. I know when something wrong with you and that now.

ir Fabian is coming home,I said.

ell, it about time, I should think.

I was silent.

ere,she said. ell me. You know you can tell your old Polly anything.

feel rather foolish. Ie been so stupid.

in we all?

ou see, Polly, if you can imagine what it was like in India From one minute to the next we never knew whether it was going to be our last. That does something to you.

ou tell me what it does to you.

ell he was there and all those other people were, too, but it was like being with him alone. He saved my life, Polly. I had seen him shoot a man who was going to kill me.

She nodded slowly.

know,she said. e seemed like some sort of hero to you, didn he? You had this fancy for him. You always had it, really. You can fool me.

erhaps,I said. t was silly of me.

never thought he be any good to you. There was that other one.She looked at me. nd he goes and marries that Lavinia. I reckon youe better off without the both. Men theye chancy things Better none at all than the wrong one and, my, my goodness, the good ones don grow on trees, I can tell you.

here was your Tom.

h my Tom. Not many like him in this world, I can tell you, and he goes and gets himself drowned. I said to him, ou ought to get a job ashore, that what.But would he listen? Oh no. No sense, men, that about it.

olly,I said. had to get away. You see, he coming home and he is going to be married.

hat?

ady Harriet is making preparations. She is Lady Geraldine Fitzbrock.

hat a name to go to bed with!

he will be Lady Geraldine Framling. I couldn stay there. She wouldn want me.

ot when she sees he got a fancy for you.

t was only a passing fancy, Polly. He forget all about me if I was not there.

ou better get out of that place, I can see. There always a home for you here.

hat another thing, Polly. Lady Harriet says he will do something about Fleur.

hat about her?

he says they will stand by their rights. She the grandmother, you see.

randmother, me foot! Fleur ours. We brought her up. We had her since she was a few weeks old. Nobody going to take her away from us now. I tell you straight.