Joe spent his time wandering in the rose gardens and duly made his way back into the house in time for lunch. Walking across the wide landing to the Governor’s apartments, he heard the voice of Midge Prentice long before he saw her.
A cheerful unending babble of reminiscence. Joe paused outside the door and listened, curiously attracted by that little voice and even more by the reality when he opened the door. Recognisably the daughter of Dolly Prentice, recognisable from that old and faded photograph. Though Midge had her father’s dark colouring she had the same upswept eyes, the same pretty face and the same quality that Kitty had described as ‘elfin’.
The Governor made the introductions and Midge said at once, ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Commander. Now you can tell me what you think! I think it’s beautiful! I think it’s just what he will like. What do you think?’
She produced from a box and from its tissue paper wrappings a small ivory statuette. A figurine of an outstandingly erotic subject. Conventionally, two figures, their eyes half closed in bliss, were carved in convolute embrace and twisted ingeniously through 180 degrees at the waist.
‘There,’ said Midge once more. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think he will be absolutely charmed,’ said Joe, aware that he was only saying that he would himself be absolutely charmed. What the austere Prentice would make of it Joe could only speculate.
‘It must have cost a lot of money,’ said Uncle George with resignation.
‘Oh, it wasn’t too bad,’ said Midge. ‘I worked it out in pounds as best I could. I think it cost about thirty shillings. They were so nice about it when they saw I was with you from the flag on the car – they just let me sign for it.’
Uncle George began to look a little strained.
They sat down to lunch and Midge’s account ran on. She was now describing a fancy dress dance. ‘There we were,’ she said, ‘Betty Bracegirdle and me. She went as a Red Indian and I went as a cowboy. We won the prize easily and we did a lap of honour round the room and everybody cheered!’
‘And have you,’ asked Joe, ‘left a train of broken hearts behind all across Europe?’
‘No,’ said Midge morosely. ‘Not a train. Only one.’
‘Tell us about him,’ said Nancy as was no doubt expected of her.
‘Oh,’ said Midge, ‘it wasn’t a him, it was a her.’
‘A her?’
‘Yes.’ And, with a fluttering of downcast eyelids and a hand theatrically on the heart, ‘It was me. My heart was broken. Oh, he was so nice! He taught me to play piquet. If you’re on a boat, everybody plays cards in the morning – mostly boring bridge or double boring poker but he taught me to play piquet. We taught other people and after a bit all the best people were playing piquet with us. It was – the fashionable thing to do!’ And, to Joe, ‘Do you play piquet?’
‘Yes,’ said Joe, ‘as a matter of fact, I do.’
‘We must play some time,’ said Midge. ‘I’m used to dancing on most nights but now he’s gone off back to his regiment, leaving me forlorn, eating my heart out. No wonder I look so pale!’
‘He’s gone back to his regiment? After a tearful parting, no doubt,’ said Nancy.
‘Oh yes,’ said Midge. ‘Was there ever such a tearful parting!’
‘And this Paladin,’ said Uncle George, ‘this hero, this maritime Lothario, has he a name?’
‘This knight in shining armour!’ Midge giggled. ‘Oh, he’s got a name all right. And if he comes down to see me all will be revealed. He’s tall, dark and handsome… absolute blissikins! You’ve no idea! Oh, goodness, I do hope Dad likes him! He ought to!’
Her audience fell silent. All in their different ways were speculating as to how Giles Prentice would receive this unknown officer who seemed to have found his way into the doubtless inflammable heart of Midge Prentice. Midge Prentice, Dolly’s daughter. With Dolly’s looks and, it would seem, with Dolly’s propensities.
After several hours sitting together in Andrew’s car, to Nancy and Joe’s relief Midge finally fell silent and fell asleep, her head companionably resting on Nancy ’s shoulder. It was dark when they arrived in Panikhat and when they drew up outside Prentice’s bungalow.
A tall and slender figure, Prentice stood illuminated by the advancing headlights with the air of one who had been patiently waiting. Midge fell out of the car and ran towards him. Prentice dropped on one knee with his arms outstretched. Silently Nancy and Joe agreed to stay in the car. They waited until Midge’s voluminous luggage had been taken out and transferred to the house then, on a word from Nancy, Naurung slipped in the clutch and the big car stole silently out of the compound leaving Midge and Prentice on the verandah, each with an arm round the other, Midge, predictably, doing all the talking, Prentice all the listening.
‘Well,’ said Nancy, ‘what did you make of that? What did you make of Midge?’
‘I thought she was an absolute poppet,’ said Joe sentimentally.
‘You would!’ said Nancy. ‘I thought she was an absolute menace! Not Dolly’s daughter for nothing!’
‘I wonder,’ said Joe, ‘what Prentice will do to launch her in Panikhat society?’
‘I think I can guess! It’s Manoli Day for the regiment on Friday. It’s always held on the third Friday in March. Silly sort of thing really but in the Sikh War the regiment were, I must think, caught with their pants down and had to turn out in the middle of the night mounted any old how in their pyjamas – a sort of midnight steeplechase. It was, in fact, quite a gallant episode and they did whatever it was they were called upon to do (I don’t know the details) and ever since then they’ve given a ragtime dance on the anniversary of Manoli Day. And the proceedings are followed by a sort of ragtime steeplechase. It used to be quite a dangerous ride – still is, I suppose – and someone got dreadfully injured one year. Since then they’ve restricted the numbers – six or eight or something. Names picked from a hat by the Colonel.
‘Tell you what – I’ll invite Prentice and Midge to dinner before the dance. I’ll invite you too. Young Easton and Smythe seem quite jolly – I’ll ask them. Young company for Midge. Perhaps I’ll ask Kitty to balance the numbers. She’ll certainly be intrigued to see Dolly Prentice mark two! I’ll see what I can fix. Yes, come to the dinner and come to the dance.’
Joe sighed. ‘And what must I wear for this horrible entertainment of yours? Pyjamas?’
‘No, no! Mess dress. Your white jacket, blue cummerbund, black tie, mess trousers over boots with box spurs – just the usual. Don’t worry – we’ll provide the pyjamas!’
Chapter Sixteen
Joe had not slept well. The journey to Calcutta had tired his body but it was the evidence he had turned up and the new theories beginning to bubble in his mind that kept him awake. And there was something unidentifiably alarming in the figure of Midge Prentice. Something she had done or said had, at a subconscious level, left him in dread for her. Or was it something Kitty had said?
He plodded his way through the night, irritated to an equal degree by his thoughts and by the mosquito bites from Calcutta. In a despairing effort to cool himself he thought about his flat in Chelsea, its large windows open and a chill March breeze blowing through. There would be a thick mist over the Thames, there might even be the remains of snow clinging to the rooftops and, for a moment before he drifted into sleep, he heard the familiar hooting of a river barge.
But he had awakened to the usual bugle sounds and the noises of the station coming to life. He moved from his warm damp bed into a lukewarm bath and on to breakfast. For once the copious Panikhat breakfast served with clockwork precision at seven o’clock had lost its charm. So it was that, in his mood of indecision, he was glad to receive a chit handed in by a bearer from the office of the Collector and with a disproportionate spurt of excitement he recognised Nancy ’s handwriting. He read: