Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald Read Free Book Online

have to offer you, so, believe me, it’s yours for the asking. The jewels will be safe enough there,’ and she patted her leg chuckling, ‘for I’m a saving sort of woman, can’t abide waste, whatever my other faults may be. I’ll not squander ’em, so they’ll be ready for you when you want ’em.’
    It was difficult to know what to say. I was overwhelmed by shame at the arrogance and lack of feeling that had allowed me to jeer—only in my own mind, I was relieved to realize—at these two warm and genuine women, whose lack of education and social finesse were so amply compensated by honesty and generosity. I did the only thing possible under the circumstances. I bent down and kissed Mrs Wilkins’s patchouli-scented cheek, and then, turning, did the same to Elvira.
    ‘Our address,’ gulped Elvira, dabbing at her eyes and handing me an envelope. ‘It’s the regimental headquarters, and will find us wherever they send Papa.’
    ‘Thank you. I don’t know what else to say, but thank you! I do sincerely hope we will meet again, and I shall certainly always remember your kind offer.’
    I backed towards the door, and left the cabin with Mrs Wilkins’s last words following me: ‘You deserve well, Miss Hewitt. God grant you only good!’

CHAPTER 4
    It was late afternoon when we eventually got ashore. The port of Calcutta was thronged with vessels and we dropped anchor in midstream among a multitude of ships from every nation: big three-masters from Holland, Portugal and distant China and a British man-o’-war towered over a jostling crowd of skiffs, bumboats, fishing-smacks and out-riggered canoes. We were all packed and ready to disembark long before the small boats came alongside to take us off, and crowded the rails inspecting the river traffic, marvelling at the opium ships, the tall tea-clippers, the neat small steam packets that were now used for coastal trade, and most of all at a large American vessel, ungainly and ugly, which Mr Roberts said was propelled by means of a steam-engine on its upper deck.
    Despite our readiness and my impatience, we were the last of the passengers to leave the ship, Charles having decided to wait until a large tender that the Captain had ordered came to take us and our baggage ashore together, so that we would not have to await our possessions’ arrival on the dockside.
    I was sorry to see the last of Mr Roberts, and hoped that he would indeed call on us as promised. The Wilkins ladies went ashore with the washed-out soldiers, Mrs Wilkins waving a pink-and-purple-striped parasol until they were obscured by the hull of another ship.
    In spite of the bustle on deck as sailors readied the hatches for the unloading of cargo, and officers with lading bills passed busily too and fro making calculations with stubs of pencil and hailing each other for information, I felt curiously lonely and lost standing at the rail for the last time as the shadows grew long and the swift dusk descended. Our time aboard had been a little lifetime in itself, distinct from everything that had gone before and from everything that would follow. Soon it would have no more importance—as the promises of Mr Roberts and the Wilkinses would perhaps have no more importance. At that moment I doubted that we would ever see each other again. The tide of daily life would soon wash over the small indentations left by their personalities upon ours and ours upon theirs; in a matter of months we would find it difficult to remember their names, impossible to recall their faces and would have forgotten, most probably, even those things that most irritated and annoyed us in each other, and that had sometimes assumed such disproportionate significance during the confinement of the long voyage.
    Emily, however, knew no such sentiments. She was assured, now that we had the tender to ourselves, of making her arrival in Calcutta a moment of some glory, and was concerned only with the set of her gown over her hoops and