“Afterwards you needed a legitimate way back into the Punjab, though, and so signed up for military training at Addiscombe. What happened in the interim?”
“Sardar’s letters had been played plenty close, but I could tell something was rotten,” he answered. “He mentioned that Karman and Lavell had actually married; he also said she gave birth to a baby named Sahjara, but I was too melancholy for more detail. After Charing Cross and the Aldersgate Street Dispensary were through and I’d earned a place at the Royal College, I spent a single year at Addiscombe because I knew the Punjab was about to blow like a powder keg, and I’m not puffing myself up but complimenting Sardar’s early tutelage when I say that was record time. The Company sent me straight back to Lahore, and when I arrived . . .”
I watched as his face turned to stone.
“Lavell was living it up royally. Relations there aren’t the same as in England, the elite have plentiful concubines—even the women take lovers. But Karman’s husband was hilt deep in every back-alley cat he could find, and when he wasn’t drunk, it was hashish or opium. My parents were appalled and shut him out, but it isn’t as if buying double the shite poppy can’t sustain the habit. Meanwhile, he was practically setting fire to Karman’s money, and the last straw came when Sardar spied one of these sloe-eyed tarts waltzing through the marketplace wearing a necklace that belonged to his sister. Karman had the typical Sikh taste in baubles, by which I mean she had a disgusting pile of ’em. It was an emerald choker that got away.”
“Did Augustus Sack do nothing about this?”
“Sack wasn’t his superior, and anyway he was winning a fortune off Lavell at poker—Karman’s fortune. Lavell couldn’t sink low enough for Sack’s taste.”
“I imagine you wanted to thrash the hide off him.”
“Oh, I threatened to, Company be damned, but we went to Karman first.” Mr. Thornfield’s mouth wrenched regretfully. “She wouldn’t hear a word against the blackguard. She was drunk when Sardar and I arrived, which wasn’t exactly surprising, and she was glad to see us as ever, but she waved it all off, saying when the Khalsa marched to Delhi we would all have twenty fortunes to spend, that he was the father of her child and a man who liked to take his pleasure where he found it, and that she was no better, and that we were a set of old hens.”
“What did you do?”
Mr. Thornfield placed his brow in his hand. “We stole her jewellery collection.”
This, then, was the terrible crime; perhaps it was the Scotch, I pray so, but I laughed. An instant later, Mr. Thornfield was chuckling in the helpless way people have when it is either that or put a pistol in your mouth.
“I know,” he groaned. “Jane, Jane, Jane. We thought we were protecting her, and the war broke out the next day. This was December of eighteen forty-five, and the Khalsa army began their march to Ferozepore. Lavell was still stationed in Lahore at the time, and raised all holy Hades when he discovered his candy dish missing.”
“What did Karman have to say about it?”
“That’s not a tale worth the telling.” His jaw clenched briefly. “Sardar hid the jewellery in a Khalsa military-issue satchel in a secret compartment in his own rooms. Then everything fell apart. The war scattered us, for all it was only three months long. Sardar, bless him, was never part of the Khalsa army and remained in Lahore doing business. Lavell went to Amritsar, the capital, and the Director ordered Sack and Clements to consult with the generals at Ferozepore. After the Company won Ferozeshah, thanks to the Sikh royals castrating their own military, I was called to Ludhiana to provide my services as a medico and Punjabi translator. Are you following me clearly?”
“Yes,” I answered, thinking only, What terrible fate befell Karman Kaur that you will not speak of?
“I was involved in the Battle of Sobraon, which was decisive.” His voice was brittle as glass, and suddenly I remembered Sack’s words, his implication that Mr. Thornfield had been severely hurt in the conflict. “Sack and Clements arrived just as the fighting ended, in an advisory capacity, though I can’t speak as to their movements because I had been injured—sweet Jane, don’t look like that, it was only a scratch from a tulwar across my back and upper shoulder, just here, but the blasted cut was infected and I spent a hellish fortnight hardly aware of myself. Clements was at my side whenever he could be. I never forgot that. It was a kindness.”
“Then I am grateful to him,” I whispered.
Mr. Thornfield’s eyes creased in acknowledgement. “After I recovered, as treaty preparations were finalised, I returned to Lahore. Both Lavell and Karman had been killed in the interim. Lavell played one dirty trick too many and ended up with a sliced throat in Amritsar, and when I have occasion to meditate upon that, Jane, my heart is filled with gladness and song.”