We were taken to the rooms that had been assigned to us. There were punkahs everywhere and I noticed there was no surreptitious idling here.

I kept thinking of one thing: I shall soon meet Dougal ... and Fabian.

Alice, with the ayah, took the children to their quarters. I was shown to my room, which looked down across the veranda to the stately pipal tree with its abundant green foliage. The garden onto which I gazed was beautiful. In the pond, water lilies and lotus flowers floated under a tall, feathery tamarind tree.

There was a feeling of serenity and peaceful beauty. Later I tried to tell myself that it was a brooding calm before the storm, but I believe that did not occur to me at the time.

After a while I went along to see how Alice was settling the children in. Their quarters were more spacious then those in Bombay. Roshanara was there. I noticed she shivered intermittently.

I said, "All will be well."

She looked at me pleadingly, as if I had the power to help her.

"I feel it in my bones," I added with a smile.

"My bones tell different."

I believed it was the overbearing Great Khansamah who had struck fear into her heart.

I said, "Stern fathers often have gentle sons. You see, they have been brought up strictly and perhaps suffered. It makes them kind and understanding."

She listened attentively. I thought: Poor child! What a sad fate to be given in marriage to a stranger. I, who had successfully evaded the efforts of Lady Harriet to marry me off to Colin Brady, could feel especially sorry for frail Roshanara.

Alice was delighted with the new nursery. She, too, was finding life strange and exhilarating; but sometimes I detected a wistfulness in her eyes and I guessed then that she was thinking of Tom Keeping. A thought struck me: He had come to Delhi; he worked for the Company. Perhaps we should see him again soon. That thought delighted me. Alice was such a good sort. She should have children of her own rather than lavish affection on those of other people who, as the ayah had stressed, could so easily be snatched from her.

After leaving the children I went back to my room. Lavinia was there, sprawling in one of the armchairs.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Just giving them a hand in the nursery."

"I've been waiting for you."

I did not apologise. I was a little irritated by her lack of interest in the children's welfare.

"You will dine with us tonight?"

"Oh, should I?"

"Dougal will be there. So will Fabian, I expect ... unless they are dining somewhere else, which they often have to do. Company business crops up."

"I see. But I am here as the governess."

"Don't talk nonsense. They know you. Dougal rather well, I fancy. There would be an outcry if you were put in the category of servant ... even higher servant."

"I don't suppose they would notice."

"Don't you fish for compliments from me. That's my province. I want you there. There'll be lots of boring conversation about the Company, of course. You and I can chatter on the side."

"Well, if I shall serve a useful purpose ..."

She laughed at me. "I wish we'd stayed in Bombay. Those awful dak things. They were horrible. I shall reprimand Dougal for not sending palanquins for us to ride in. I shall say it is an insult to the Company to have Company people's memsahibs riding around in those awful things. They might take some notice if I put it that way. Why couldn't we have stayed?"

"I know you hate to leave the romantic major and the aspiring captain behind."

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, they'll have a regiment here. They'll have to. This is, after all, the important place, where most of the business is done. Here and Calcutta ... I'd rather Delhi than there ... I must say."

"So there will be replacements for the gallant pair."

"There is no need for you to worry on that account. What shall I wear tonight? That's what I wanted to ask you."

She chattered on about her clothes and I listened halfheartedly, my mind on what it would be like to see Dougal and Fabian again.

I was soon to find out.

I saw Dougal first. I had found my way to the room that was a kind of anteroom to the dining room. Dougal was already there. I had a notion that he would have heard that we had arrived and was waiting for me.

He came forward and took both my hands.

"Drusilla! What a great pleasure."

He had aged quite a bit. He had lost that air of looking out on the world and finding it full of interest. There was a faint furrow between his eyes.

"How are you, Dougal?" I asked.

He hesitated just for a second. "Oh, well, thank you. And you?"

"The same," I said.

"I was delighted when I heard you were coming ... and so sorry to hear of your father."

"Yes. It was a great sadness."

"I shall always remember those days when we talked together." A wistful look came into his eyes. It had always been easy to read Dougal's thoughts ... though perhaps not always, for had I not believed at one time that he was growing fond of me? Fond of me he was. But not in the way I had thought.

And then Fabian came into the room and my attention was all for him.

He stood still, legs apart, studying me. But I was not able to read him as I did Dougal. I did see his mouth turn up a little at the corners as though he found something amusing in the fact that I was here.

"Well," he said. "Miss Drusilla Delany. Welcome to India."

"Thank you," I said.

He had advanced, and he took my hands, looking intently into my face as he did so.

"Ah ... still the same Miss Delany."

"Did you expect someone different?"

"I was hoping I would find no change. And now I am content." He spoke lightly. "What did you think of the journey?"

"Tremendously interesting. A trifle uncomfortable, but a stimulating experience."

"You take a philosophical view, I see. I knew you would, of course. And I do hope the interest and stimulation outweighed the discomfort."

Lavinia had come into the room. Both men turned to her. She looked beautiful, with her hair dressed high on her head and her somewhat diaphanous gown clinging to her superb figure.

I immediately felt like an insignificant wren in the presence of a peacock.

Dougal went to her and they kissed perfunctorily. It was not what one would have expected from a husband and wife deprived of each other's company for some months. I noticed the change in Dougal. He seemed apprehensive.

She turned to Fabian.

"Well, sister," he was saying, "you seem to look better than ever. I guess you are delighted that Miss Drusilla has joined you."

Lavinia pouted. "Oh, she disapproves of me, don't you, Drusilla?"

"I expect with reason," said Fabian.

"Drusilla would always be reasonable," added Dougal with an air of resignation.

"Of course, Drusilla is a paragon of virtue," said Lavinia mockingly.

"Well, let us hope that you profit from her example," added Fabian.

"We had better go in to dinner," said Dougal. "Great Khansamah will be annoyed if we do not."

"Then let us delay," said Fabian. "I believe that we should make the rules."

"He can be very difficult in many ways," Dougal reminded him. He turned to me. "He has complete control over the servants."

"All the same," protested Fabian, "I don't intend to let him govern my life. But I suppose the food will be spoiled if we don't go in. So perhaps Great Khansamah has reason on his side. We don't want to give Miss Drusilla a bad impression, do we?"

It was cool in the dining room—a large, salon-like place with French windows looking out onto a beautiful lawn with a pond, on which floated the familiar water lilies and lotus flowers. There was a faint hum in the air from the countless insects and I already knew that when the lamps were lighted the curtains would have to be drawn to prevent certain obnoxious creatures invading the room.

"You must tell us all about your journey," said Fabian.

I told them and mentioned our hazardous progress across the desert.

"Did you become friendly with any of your fellow passengers?" asked Fabian. "One does on ships."

"Well, there was a Frenchman. He was very helpful to us, but he was taken ill on the journey through the desert and we didn't see him again. We met someone from the Company. You will know him, I expect. A Mr. Tom Keeping."

Fabian nodded. "I trust he was helpful."

"Oh, very."

"And what do you think of India?" asked Dougal.

"I feel I have seen very little of it so far."

"Everything is different here from in England," he said a little ruefully.

"That is what I expected."

The Great Khansamah had come into the room. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt over baggy white trousers; his puggaree was white and he wore a pair of dark red shoes of which, I discovered, he was very proud. He wore them with an air that was meant to imply that they were a sign of his great position.

"Everything is to the satisfaction," he said in a voice daring us to say that it was not.

Lavinia smiled at him warmly. "It is very good," she told him. "Thank you."

"And the sahibs ... ?" he said.

Fabian and Dougal told him that it was very satisfactory.

Then he bowed and retired.

"He really has a great opinion of himself," murmured Dougal.