Midge ran up the steps and, ignoring everyone else, threw her arms round Nancy in a storm of weeping, her pretty face congested and wet with tears.
‘Goodness me!’ said Nancy placidly. ‘What’s happened to you?’
‘Oh, Nancy! You won’t believe! Something awful’s happened! Oh, why did it have to be like this? I was so happy – everything was utter bliss – and now I’m miserable. Miserable! I’m very sensitive – everybody says so and a shock like this could kill me! Don’t laugh! It could! A doctor once told me I was emotionally fragile. Fragile!’
‘Well, I’m not sure I would pay too much attention to that diagnosis,’ said Nancy, ‘but why don’t you tell us what’s the matter?’
Andrew, composed, favoured Nancy with a broad wink. Dickie Templar, looking concerned but outwardly calm, eyed Midge with affection from which amusement was not absent. He went over to her, kissed her cheek, rubbed at a paint stain on her nose and said, ‘Good morning.’ Midge burst into further floods of tears.
Nancy sank down on to a long chair and Midge came and firmly sat on her lap.
‘It’s Daddy,’ she said, ‘and I hate him!’
‘You don’t hate him,’ said Andrew.
‘I do,’ said Midge and, turning to Nancy, ‘you’d hate him too if you were me. It all began when I told him that Dickie had asked me to marry him.’
‘Has he?’ asked Nancy, throwing a look at Dickie.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Midge impatiently. ‘A long time ago. Coming through the Suez Canal…’
‘What did you say?’ Joe asked.
‘Well, I said yes, of course,’ said Midge. ‘Didn’t I, Dickie? Straight out. What else would you say – “Oh but this is so sudden”? It wasn’t sudden at all – I’d known it was coming since Malta. But Daddy was horrid. Just as horrid as he possibly could be! “You’re far too young… You’ve only just left school… You don’t marry the first man you meet…” And then – what a beastly thing to say – “You’re just like your mother.” I want to be like my mother! She came to a sad end, I know, but that wasn’t her fault. It sounds as if she had a lot of fun. I want to be like her and I want to marry Dickie! Nancy, you and Andrew are my guardians. I know Daddy’s left me to you in his will, he told me so, so you’ve got to speak to him! It’s your duty!’
Tears began again. Joe looked at Dickie Templar with interest and their eyes met. He was wearing stiff Gurkha shorts, bare feet thrust into nailed sandals and a white shirt open at the neck. He looked, Joe decided, strong, brown, handsome and just what any girl aged eighteen would want to marry.
Dickie said, ‘Now come on, Midge, you took the poor man by surprise. I mean – for God’s sake – give him a chance! He hadn’t seen me for twelve years – I might be the biggest rogue in Christendom for all he knows and whether we like it or not, you are only eighteen and you have only been back in India five minutes. We must give him time. I love you. I won’t go away. I won’t say I don’t mind waiting because I do but I can bear it. You can bear it. We can bear it. We’ll be all right. I’m not daunted. “Faint heart never won fair lady”, you know.’
‘Oh, Midge,’ said Nancy, tightening her arm about her, ‘it sounds like the voice of sense to me. I’ve not had the chance to say it yet so I’ll say it now – I think you’ve got a good chap there.’
‘And I’ll add – don’t ruin everything by going off at half cock,’ said Andrew. ‘Diplomacy. That’s the only way. You’ll only alienate Giles if he thinks you’ve come telling tales to us. What’s he doing at the moment?’
‘He was showing me how to do silk painting. I was enjoying it. We were having a good time until he spoiled it.’
‘Well, I suggest you go straight back as though nothing’s happened, pick up your brush and start painting again. We, meanwhile,’ he indicated everyone present with a wide gesture, ‘will put our considerable skills to discussing your problem and finding a way to its solution.’
‘That’s an outstandingly good offer, Midge, when you look at the talent on show,’ said Dickie. ‘Go back, love, and reassure him. Listen to what he has to say. And, above all, don’t go throwing down any gauntlets that someone else will have to pick up. After all, he’s been waiting for his daughter to come home and she’s hardly unpacked her bags before she announces her intention of marrying an unknown Gurkha. You must allow him time!’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll do what you say, Dickie. But I don’t think he cares a button about me,’ said Midge morosely.
Chapter Twenty-One
They all stood and watched Midge walk slowly back through the street, dragging her heels and pausing to cast a last reproachful glance back at Dickie before she turned the corner.
‘Are you really the guardian of that bundle of trouble?’ Joe asked.
‘Not exactly,’ said Andrew. ‘Midge wouldn’t understand the distinction but I am Prentice’s executor and trustee. People in India die quite often and quite suddenly, especially the military. It’s safer to name an official by his position and there’s always a Collector of Panikhat. And, for the moment, I am he.’
The calm that followed the tornado of Midge’s appearance was welcome to all. Andrew called for another pot of coffee and, as though by agreement, they settled themselves at the table on the verandah. Discreetly, Andrew took charge of the coffee and dismissed the servants.
‘Joe,’ he said, ‘if I read your expression correctly, you have something to tell us.’
Dickie Templar stirred uncomfortably and started to get to his feet. ‘Look, if you chaps are about to have a conference or something, I’ll make myself scarce for a while…’
‘No!’ said Joe abruptly. ‘It is important that you stay. What I have to say concerns you, your future and your past very closely.’
Dickie looked puzzled. Nancy and Andrew exchanged glances.
Joe produced his notebook. ‘Templar, I have a list here of names which I copied from the mess records last night before the Manoli binge. They refer to the night of the 17th of March twelve years ago. It was a Saturday and it was the night the Prentice bungalow burned down. There were five officers of Bateman’s Horse dining that night. Their names are: Carmichael, Forbes, Simms-Warburton, Somersham and Templar.’
Nancy sat up with a jerk and Andrew put down his coffee cup very carefully. Neither spoke.
‘Take your time to remember and tell us exactly what happened that night. As I say, it is vitally important.’
Dickie was silent, his expression grave. Finally he said, ‘Important for whom? For you?’
‘For me, yes, certainly, but mostly for you yourself.’
‘Well, this is all very mysterious. And, quite honestly, it’s not something I have any pleasure in thinking back on. But if you have to know I’d better tell you, I suppose… It’s Prentice, isn’t it? Has he been talking? Has he asked you to rake all this up again? Is he trying to use this as a wedge between me and Midge?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Prentice has said nothing to me. As far as I am aware he has never spoken of it to anyone. Just try and recall the events of that evening if you can.’
Dickie paused for a moment, focusing on the past.
‘There were five of us dining in the mess that night. Most of us had cried off going to some awful Panikhat Week event – a midnight picnic, I think.’ He shuddered. ‘Being eaten alive by mosquitoes while you ate cucumber sandwiches and drank tepid champagne wasn’t my idea of fun. All the same, I wish now I’d gone… There we all were in the mess, some of us pretty drunk – no, I have to say, somewhat paralytic. I was not. In fact I was fed up with the rest of them. I didn’t like the Greys officers and they didn’t like me. They’d adopted the terrible practice of not speaking to junior officers and not expecting junior officers to speak unless spoken to. A lot of regiments used to be like that and cavalry regiments especially. I got fed up with them. “Snobbish, conceited, ill-mannered louts,” I said to myself at the advanced age of eighteen! I went off to have a pee to get away from them and looking out of the window I saw, for God’s sake, that the bloody place was on fire. Was anyone taking any notice? Not as far as I could see. Drawing a deep breath, I went back and told them. While they were drinking themselves senseless, the cantonment had caught fire. What were they going to do about it?