“Did they offer you no assistance?”
“The most they would do was provide a guardian to send Sahjara to my paternal aunt’s house in Cornwall, for she started at every shadow in Lahore, and I was still in the employ of the Director. Sardar thought of accompanying her, but his mother was ill at the time, and fresh fighting loomed, so we put Sahjara in the frankly doting care of a wounded lieutenant returning to his family. That put Sack off long enough for the second Sikh war to break out, and there you have it. After I inherited this place, I sold my commission, and Sardar and I were bumping across the desert from Suez to Cairo in the back of a wagon to take the steam route here from Alexandria.”
I pulled at my hair, wanting the dull ache. “Do you think Sack tired of waiting and sent Ghosh on this occasion as well?”
“Very likely. I’m only glad he’s stone dead in the morgue downstairs.”
“Did Sahjara ever wake?”
“Yes, but we bundled her off with Garima Kaur, so she’s quite snug, thank heaven. If anything should have happened to her here . . . Jane, I am forever in your debt. I’ve never managed to do as much for her.”
“You gave up your home for her, sir. You gave up everything.”
“Ridiculous. Christ, if I never see the Punjab again, it’ll be too soon. I have her, and Sardar, and this house, and that’s a deuced sight more than I merit.”
I thought of Clarke long ago, our fleeing to London and her telling me I was home, and was so deep in lightless conjectures I nearly missed Mr. Thornfield saying, “And now a true friend in you, Jane.”
Suddenly nauseated, I shivered. A wall which has been well constructed with strong stones and good masonry can defend against many a dire circumstance; but put a single crack in that mossy edifice, and a former fortress is as good as a pile of rocks.
They knew me for a killer; Clarke’s words regarding Hugh and Bertha Grizzlehurst rang in my ear as if her lips were pressed to the lobe.
She’ll never be able to look him in the face again without knowing—can you imagine the torment?
“Jane, wherever you’ve gone to, please come back to me, or anyway what’s left of me at the moment,” a rough voice pleaded.
Standing unsteadily, I shook my head. I must have looked a fright, traces of blood on my gown, mermaid hair snaking its brown waves all about my waxen face. I set the glass down and made for the door.
“Let me—”
“I’m fine on my own.”
“You most certainly are not.”
“Alone, I want to be alone.”
“You really do, and for the first time I’ve ever observed. Is this to be the end of the peculiar smile I see form whensoever you spy me? I can imagine it all too easily—no warm tilt of your head, no spark of light in your eye. Do you think me a blackguard following that terrible account, Jane?” he questioned raggedly, the edge of his sleeve painted ivory by the brightening dawn rays bleeding through the curtains.
“I think you an eyewitness,” I gasped before I could stop myself, but he did not know what I meant, he could never ever know what I meant, so I ran from the room and up the stairs and locked the door and did not emerge again that day.
TWENTY-FOUR
He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I thought of what I left!
After a sleep which felt more like drowning than rest, tempests tossing me, I awoke to discover it was dark. Silently, I crept to the door, gazing out into the corridor; no one was there, but a tray of bread and cheese and fruit had been left, and a bottle of wine, and I quickly collected these, shutting myself in once more.
Tying my messy hair into a painful braid, I stoked the fire which had burnt down to coals. The sustenance was accompanied by a note:
Dear Jane,
I should have set myself as guardian over your gate forever, save that I cannot know whether I inspire feelings of safety and security in you or dampen them, and immediate arrangements must be made. You shall not be disturbed, I vow, and should you wish to disturb any of us, a bell rung will be answered upon the instant. I cannot help but live in hope I might be called for personally, but already owe you far too great a debt to make any further presumptions.
Sahjara is from home, staying with Mrs. Garima Kaur in the cottage with the grooms rotating watches over them. Whilst investigating last night’s siege, we thought it best; should you wish to repair there, arrangements would be made with all haste, and the place has been thoroughly cleaned and heated.
It grows less and less bearable to consider denying you any wishes, come to that, save only those beyond my power—if you can imagine a way I might ease the burden a good woman like yourself should never have had to bear, I beg you to command me.
Your servant,