Chapter Two

  An Interesting Evening

  “Don’t look now, but here comes Eloise.” Midge had finished his pudding. Isabella looked up to see Eloise Molesey, a symphony of yellow satin, making her way towards them. “I said, don’t look up,” he hissed. It was too late. Eloise was upon them. She sat down without being asked.

  “Now then, you two, I want you to come to the library after dinner and meet some friends.”

  Isabella looked at Eloise. Eloise and her mother, Lady Molesey, had been on Isabella’s voyage to England the year before and she and Eloise had little liking for each other. However, since Isabella’s heroic rescue of the heir to the throne of England, Eloise had been prepared to overlook Isabella’s previous behaviour, so she could have a friend she might boast about.

  “Who?” Isabella shovelled the last of her melon into her mouth. Eloise wrinkled her nose.

  “Livia Denier and Rose Pelham.”

  Isabella looked up.

  “Isn’t Livia Denier the one who’s not allowed to do anything? Kept locked in her cabin, or something awful.” Isabella chased the last piece of melon around her bowl with her spoon.

  Eloise raised an eyebrow. “So you do pay attention sometimes, Isabella.”

  Midge kicked her under the table.

  “I always listen to what you say, Eloise.”

  Eloise opened her fan and leaned forward.

  “Well for once you are right. Livia’s been given special permission to come and play cards with us in the library. My mama knows her mama and told her Livia’d be perfectly safe.”

  “Safe from what?” asked Midge, rolling melted candle wax into pellets and frowning.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Midge,” Eloise replied dismissively.

  “I don’t want to play cards with a load of girls.” His blond brows met in a scowl.

  “Well you can go to bed then,” snapped Eloise.

  For once, Midge was at a loss for words.

  The library was a long low-ceilinged room and the walls line with books. Lanterns sat on the little card tables dotted around the room, so each had its own island of light. Candles had also been lit and outside a giant moon hung over the lights of Mombasa, and the scent of lemon wafted through an open hatch. Shadows flickered on the books, and low murmurs and hushed laughter came from the card tables around them. Servants in white hurried back and forth with drinks and cards and cigars. Even though Isabella had visited it a few times before, the room still felt very grown-up, as if full of things that were completely unknown to her.

  “Oh look, there’s Mama.” Eloise pointed with her fan to a table in a corner.

  Isabella heard Midge sigh under his breath as he took his seat at the table and fiddled with the deck of cards whilst looking out the window. Isabella, meanwhile, watched the door. She’d heard a great deal about Livia Denier who, because of her spectacular beauty, was rumoured to be kept under lock and key by her parents. Of course, keeping her hidden had the opposite effect on the ship’s community, in that whenever she was allowed out in public there was always a fuss or a little ripple of interest wherever she went. It looked like tonight was going to be no exception. Lady Denier, stern in high-necked-grey lace, had tried to enter surreptitiously, but all around the room people had stopped what they were doing to watch her progress. Though of course it wasn’t Lady Denier they were watching – it was her daughter.

  Livia Denier had the prettiest face Isabella had ever seen. She was like a porcelain doll with pale skin unmarked by sun or wind and huge blue eyes framed by long black lashes. Her nose was small and straight and her mouth was shaped like a rosebud. But it was her hair that was so extraordinary; neither white nor gold but a combination of the two, it fell in a shining mass halfway down her back, drawing in all the light around it to form a sort of halo. Tonight it sat in a loose bun on top of her slender neck, a nod to the fact she was seventeen and nearly an adult. The girl who walked behind her wore bottle green. As the girls took their seats at the table, the low hum of conversation resumed. Lady Denier tapped Livia sharply on her shoulder.

  “I will be back for you in thirty minutes.”

  “But we were going to play cards.” Livia’s eyes were wide with pleading. Isabella wondered how her mother could resist her.

  “Thirty minutes, Olivia.”

  Livia’s head dropped.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Eloise, for once, remembered her manners.

  “This is Livia Denier and this is Rose Pelham.”

  The girls smiled at Isabella.

  “We’ve heard all about the adventure you had with Princess Alix,” said Livia. “How exciting Eloise could introduce us.

  “By the way, Livia, how did you manage to ditch your governess” asked Rose.

  “Miss Flynn has met with a nasty case of Delhi belly.”

  “She was all right this afternoon,” said Rose frowning.

  Rose’s face reminded Isabella of a monkey’s in that the distance between her chin and her forehead wasn’t very great, which gave her a squashed appearance. Her skin was sallow and her chin-length hair was the vague shade between brown and blonde. Her small olive eyes never stopped moving.

  Livia took an amber cordial from a tray offered to her.

  “Yes, but she was struck down very quickly. I don’t like her, but even I felt sorry for her. I even gave her some medicine from one of the stewards.” Livia sipped her drink.

  “What did you give her?” Isabella asked without thinking.

  Livia looked a little surprised. “It was melon stalk and the steward said it would work like ipecac.”

  “Ugh,” said Eloise. “I almost feel sorry for her, too. Ipecac is the worst.”

  Isabella smiled and relaxed a little now the conversation was on more familiar ground.

  “The very worst,” she offered. “But you can stop ipecac working if you want to, by drinking cow’s milk.”

  “Really?” Rose’s tone was cool and her eyes slid sideways to Isabella. “I had no idea. How did you know that?”

  “My ayah was a healer.”

  “What’s an ayah?” asked Rose. “What a funny word.”

  Livia sat up. “It’s an Indian name for a nanny, isn’t it, Isabella?” She seemed very pleased she’d known the answer.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So did she teach you all her secrets?” Eloise’s expression was hungry and she shuffled closer to her. Isabella was overwhelmed by the smell of lemon hair wash. Typically Eloise had never shown an interest up until now. “Do you know, Isabella, how to make a love potion?”

  “Eloise!” Livia nudged Eloise’s yellow flank with her elbow. “Is that all you can think about?” She inclined her head to the other side of the room where a table of six young officers cast glances in their direction.

  Isabella was glad the room was dark so her pink cheeks would be less noticeable.

  “Which one is he?”

  “The one with the moustache,” replied Eloise breathlessly, “but don’t look straight at him or he will know we’re talking about him.”

  Isabella smiled to herself. She knew some stories she could tell Eloise. Many daughters of officers would make the journey to India to find themselves a husband. Many of them became engaged before the journey was over. More than once she’d heard her father speak of the “husband-hunters” in an angry tone.

  “Why do they make you so cross, Papa?” She’d been eleven. “Isn’t it nice for them to have wives with them?”

  Her father had peered at her over his paper-strewn desk.

  “Not when I’ve got to look after a new wife as well as a new soldier. You know how hard it can be for the new men out here. Imagine what it’s like for the women. Most of them are little more than girls.”

  All the British soldiers posted to their camp were felled by the heat; heat that chewed them up and spat them out. They would either die of dysentery or plain old heatstroke; or they survived and became thinner and tougher, their eyes permanently narrowed against the sun. These were the men who would make India their home.

  Men like her father.

  Isabella glanced over at the group around the card table again. They looked so young, their skin pink and white, their faces smooth and unlined.

  “Like lambs to the slaughter,” she murmured, unaware for a moment that she had spoken aloud.

  “Did you say something?” Rose was leaning in towards her with a funny look on her face.

  Isabella’s cheeks flamed again. “No, sorry. I was miles away.” She reached for her drink, hoping to hide her confusion.

  Livia handed her some cards.

  “Here you are, I’ll show you what to do.”

  “I say, if we took you to that bazaar thingy, could you try and make me a love potion?”

  Isabella laughed and the others laughed with her; the awkward moment was broken.

  “Yes, Eloise. All right.”

  “Excellent. Tomorrow after breakfast, then?” Eloise turned to Livia. “Will your mother let you come if Mama chaperones us?”

  Livia took a deep breath.

  “She might. I can try.”

  “I heard you was engaged, Miss Livia.” Midge was organising his cards so he didn’t notice Livia’s hands go still and Rose’s eyes snap upwards, like a turtle’s.

  “Who told you that?”

  Midge put down a queen.

  “I think it was Billy Leadbetter.”

  Isabella kicked Midge under the table. Livia’s eyes jumped to where her mother sat with Lady Molesey and took a deep breath.

  “It’s all right, Isabella. He’s right.”

  “Livia!” Rose’s voice was shocked and her little eyes moved this way and that from worry.

  “I know, Rose. You and I have talked of it, but I want to see what Isabella thinks.”

  “About what?”

  “About my arranged marriage.”

  “I heard you got a picture,” said Midge placing a jack down on the table.

  Isabella frowned. Where did he get his information from? Livia looked at Rose who burrowed in her pockets and took out a miniature and gave it to Livia. Wordlessly Livia handed it to Isabella. It was of a man in full army dress. He was mostly in profile but there was no mistaking the ice-cream slump of his shoulders or the caving of the cheeks around the beaky nose; the sunken eyes. Isabella swallowed and looked back at Livia.

  “He’s too old for you.”

  Maybe Livia had been expecting her to say something polite and Isabella’s directness caught her unawares, but Livia’s chin wobbled and crimson crept up her neck to her face.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” hissed Rose. She fished out a handkerchief.

  “I haven’t done anything. Why would Livia, who looks as if she could marry anyone she likes, have to marry this old man?” Isabella could feel her cheeks growing hot with the injustice of it.

  “Because he’s a duke,” hissed Rose again.

  “So?” Isabella glared at Rose. She didn’t like the way Rose looked at her.

  Livia’s voice was like rain on glass.

  “I was supposed to marry his son, but he died of the cholera and left his father with no heirs. I am to provide some more. Or so I understand.” There was silence. Rose took Livia’s hand. “Mama keeps me under lock and key so I’m delivered safely.” There was another pause. “I’m worth a lot of money.” Livia’s face was bleak, all the prettiness drained from it, and Isabella had a premonition of what she might look like after a life in India, married to an old man, her infant children buried in the unforgiving Indian ground. Isabella shivered.

  “Look out, now.”

  Midge’s urgent mutter brought her attention back to the table. Lady Denier stood next to them, stately like the figurehead of a ship.

  “Bedtime, Livia.”

  Livia flushed again with embarrassment and Isabella’s heart went out to her. She and Rose left the table. The whole room stopped to watch as they did so.

  Isabella and Midge stayed playing until the candles burnt down. The wind outside had dropped and the orange shadows grew longer as the flames guttered in the lanterns. Isabella pushed her chair back and stretched. The conversation on the table behind washed over her. It was a moment before she realised the men were speaking Hindi. They sounded drunk.

  “Go on then, man. Show it to us.”

  “Shhhh.”

  There was a smothered laugh and Isabella nudged Midge’s foot with her own and inclined her head backwards. Midge pushed himself up so he could see over the crimson rim of her high-backed chair and she peered around its edge.

  “Go on.” There was more laughter. “Give it to me.” There was a gasp and the sound of a small object rolling on the polished floor and then Isabella felt something come to rest against her shoe. As she bent to pick it up it was as if the world around her receded. Her fingers closed around the object’s heavy coolness, felt its weight as it sat, entirely satisfying; a perfect fit in her closed fist.

  She brought her hand close to the lantern so she could have a closer look, but she’d known what it was from the moment she’d set eyes on it.

  It was a diamond.

  A sparkling teardrop of such beauty Isabella couldn’t tear her eyes away. The light from the lantern played through it, causing tiny spectrums to reflect onto Midge’s face, catching his eyes then the gold in his hair as if a thousand fairies had stamped their feet in a vigorous tattoo.

  “Gaw lummy. Is that what I think it is?” Isabella could only nod. “Can I see it?”

  Isabella’s hand unclasped like the shell of an oyster opening on a pearl. Midge’s eyes were round with wonder. A shower of sparks shot from the fire and landed on his shoe. A burst of light came through the window from far away, so the roofs of the port were visible for a split second, like a distant jumble of gravestones. Midge lifted the diamond to his face and peered through it. His whole face was lit by its glow and time shrank back and he was once again the little boy she’d met on the streets of London one year before. Midge looked at her, the diamond still cupped next to his face, and he smiled. He handed it back to her.

  “I think it would be better if you gave it back.” The voice behind them spoke English and belonged to a tall figure in the white uniform of the Madras Cavalry. To Isabella he looked insubstantial, as if the light passed right through him, but that may have been because his skin was so white and his eyes so pale a blue, they too looked white. Isabella blinked and held the diamond out to him.

  “Of course. Sorry.” She dropped it into the man’s hand, feeling her fingers reluctantly uncurling and the sudden emptiness.

  “It’s cursed, that diamond.” Midge’s voice was funny, strained, and he was frowning.

  “Why do you say that, young man?” The tall man turned his pale eyes on Midge, but Midge seemed to recover himself and looked as if he wished he hadn’t spoken. A soft-footed waiter cleared the table in front of them, and left the scent of wood polish in the air. The man sat down in a deep velvet chair next to Midge. “It happens you’re right.” His voice had the careful precision of the very drunk. The man’s comrade peered over from his own seat.

  “Go on, Remus, tell them. It’s a great story.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed.

  “It’s not a story.”

  His friend held up his hands, laughing.

  “Whatever you say.”

  The man turned back to them.

  “I am Colonel Remus Stone and this” – he rolled the diamond lovingly around his palm – “has travelled a very long way. Have you heard of Golconda?”

  Isabella sat forward. “The diamond mines in South India?”

  The man nodded. “Exactly. The greatest diamond mines in the world.” There was an overwhelming pride in his voice and Isabella shot a look at Midge, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was watching Colonel Stone. “When I was little, ships from all around the globe would wait at port to carry our diamonds. Diamond traders would fight each other in the streets for the rights to the best stones – I used to love those fights. Golconda had been blessed by the goddess Kali and her people worshipped her. They built her a temple and a giant statue in her likeness with two huge rubies for her eyes and the most beautiful diamond ever mined was placed on her forehead to represent her all-seeing third eye – the Eye of Kali. Kali’s priestess was a woman of great beauty and purity, and the Maharajah forced her to be his wife, but she was never happy. Even worse, when the old Maharajah died she was forced to commit suttee, even though she had a young son.”

  “Suttee?” asked Midge.

  “The practice of wives burning with their husbands on the husband’s funeral pyre.”

  Midge looked blank.

  “When they’re still alive,” added Isabella.

  Midge grimaced.

  “That’s backwards, that is.”

  “It’s also illegal,” added the man’s friend.

  “So then what happened?” urged Isabella.

  Colonel Stone took a deep drink from his glass of port. His lips and teeth were stained dark.

  “The new priest of Kali promised to save her, but the day of the suttee he was nowhere to be found. The Maharani stood in front of her husband’s funeral pyre and cursed the goddess she had served so faithfully and who’d deserted her in her darkest hour. Then she threw herself on the fire and was burned. It is said she made no sound.”

  A little group had formed around them; servants tired at the end of the night, drawn by the hypnotic quality of Stone’s voice. Mrs Rodriguez, Isabella and Midge’s escort, who’d been looking for them, sat down quietly. The boat moved a little and the candle next to Isabella went out.

  “What happened to the priest?”

  “He’d run away, taking the Eye of Kali with him.”

  “That’s terrible,” breathed Isabella.

  Colonel Stone’s voice was hushed and his white eyes were glazed.

  “Not as terrible as the curse the Maharani left behind.”

 

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