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There was a festival for some minor deity. Crowds were jostling on the wide, wet steps of the ghat, dropping chains of marigolds into the water, setting little earthenware saucers with lighted candles on the surface to bob away on the current. There was music and sweetmeat sellers and children shrieking with excitement.
Anusha let Nick swing her ashore, then stood, feet braced on the slippery granite while he paid the ferryman. ‘Calcutta at last,’ he said, slinging one bag over his uninjured shoulder and taking the other from her. ‘Now all I have to do is get you another half-mile and my mission is accomplished.’
He sounded pleased about it and she supposed she could not blame him, Anusha thought as she clutched his sleeve and followed him towards the river gate of Fort William. With the memory of Kalatwah so fresh, she found the low walls and star-shaped fortifications unimpressive, but there was nothing slack about the response of the guards on the gate or the efficiency with which they were brought inside and a palanquin was fetched. Either Nick’s name or her father’s worked like a magic charm, it seemed.
Anusha climbed into the palanquin, let the curtain drop and held tight to the sides as the bearers lifted the long curved pole on to their shoulders. Then they were off. ‘Nick!’
‘I am here. Are you all right?’ It sounded as though he was walking beside her.
‘Yes. It was...just very dark and very closed. I have become used to riding and to the river. The open air.’ Now she felt like a prisoner. But it would not be for long, she reassured herself. Their destination, Old Court House Street, was only behind the great government buildings and houses of the Esplanade, just north of the maidan, the wide expanse of grass that surrounded the fort. And she would never be a prisoner again, confined behind screens and guarded doors, forbidden to go out, veiled and hidden.
‘Nick.’ It was a whisper. She did not know what she wanted, but a hand pushed aside the curtain and curled over the edge of the window opening. Reassured, Anusha
put her own over it and felt the panic subside as she was moved, blind, through the streets.
* * *
‘We are here.’ His hand was withdrawn, the palanquin stopped and hung, swaying, there was the sound of excited, raised voices, the clang of a gate opening. ‘Call Laurens sahib, tell him the daughter of the house has returned.’
The palanquin was set down, the curtain drawn back. Anusha emerged blinking into a courtyard surrounded by high, white-washed walls, a wide veranda and the low bulk of the house.
‘That was where I saw you laid out like the dead,’ she said as Nick came to her side. It was all so familiar and yet different. The yard seemed smaller, the house larger. Trees loomed unexpectedly and all the servants who were hurrying towards her were strangers.
‘Anusha! Anusha, my dear child.’ The man on the veranda was her father and yet not her father. The strong voice was the same, the height and the width of shoulder, but his hair was grey now, no longer dark gold as she remembered, there were lines on his face and what was once a flat belly now had a little paunch.
Ten years. Did I expect him to look the same, not to have changed while I have grown up? She took a step forward. ‘Pa—’ No, Papa and his little girl have gone now. The hands that had lifted instinctively to him folded neatly together as she bowed her head and willed her wildly-beating pulse to calm. ‘Namaste, Father.’
He came down the steps beaming, took her by the shoulders and for one moment she thought he would lift her, swing her up for his kiss as he always had when he came home to her. But he had no need to lift her now. Her father stooped and kissed her on the brow.
‘You are so beautiful, my child. Just like your mother.’ She stiffened as she stood passive between his hands and he added, his voice tight with emotion, ‘It was a tragedy that she should have died so young—you must miss her very much.’
‘Every day,’ she said, meeting the grey eyes that were so like her own. What emotion do you feel, Father? Guilt?
His brows, still dark although his hair had greyed, drew together at her tone. Anger, puzzlement or both? He released her and pulled Nick into a rapid embrace. ‘Nicholas, my boy, thank you for bringing her back safe to me. I have been getting coded messages from Delhi, so I knew you were travelling alone. And we have been hearing news from Kalatwah—the maharaja has given up the siege and retreated. There has been no bloodshed.’
The relief was an almost physical thing and not until it hit her did she realise just how that worry had been filling the back of her mind, ever present like a large black vulture, patiently waiting for tragedy to strike.
