The Far Horizon (2 page)

The housekeeper answered his knock, holding up a lamp to peer at him. ‘Ah, it’s ye at last George …’ she said in a tone of relief. ‘Thank God you’ve come.’

She silently beckoned for him to go into the parlour, the only room with a light on, and there he found Elizabeth sitting alone by the fire, tear-drenched and white-faced and looking as if she had lost a stone in weight.

‘Elizabeth?’

As soon as Elizabeth stood to greet him with open arms, more tears flooded down her face as she croaked, ‘I thought she was sleeping, George, I – I … Oh God, I
hate
this place now …’

‘Elizabeth …’ George moved to put his arms around her shoulders to comfort her but she moved him back. ‘No
, he
is the one who needs you now, George. You’re the only one who will know how to console him … you’ve been through this once before with him … so go, George, now,
please
, upstairs …’

You’ve been through this once before with him …
That was the moment George knew what had happened here, and why Elizabeth had so urgently sent for him. The shock, and then the sudden pain inside his chest was so fierce, so terrible, that he could have been physically sick.

‘Jane...?’ he whispered in disbelief. ‘Jane? Oh, no … no.’ He turned and quickly left the room, his quickening footsteps creaking the wooden stairs until he reached the wood-panelled hall that led to the largest bedroom at the back of the house.

Lachlan was sitting in the dark, staring unseeingly at the last few red embers in the fireplace as he held his baby daughter in his arms.

‘Lachlan …’

Lachlan slowly turned his gaze from the fire and looked at George. His was not an easy face for most people to read, but even in the dimness of the firelight, George could see the pain in his eyes, the same pain he had seen in his eyes in Macao in China, when his beloved young wife had died suddenly and without warning; only twenty-three-years old, and she, too, had been named Jane Jarvis Macquarie.

‘How?’ George whispered.

‘Pneumonia … this damnable winter … Christ, George; she’s only three months old. Is everyone I love to be taken from me so young?’

‘You love Elizabeth, and you still have her.’

‘Oh, poor Elizabeth … ’ Lachlan momentarily closed his eyes. ‘She is suffering, George, in great pain. Will you go and comfort her.’

‘No,
you
should go and comfort her,’ George said softly. ‘Elizabeth is the one who needs you now, not Jane. I will hold Jane.’

After a silence Lachlan nodded, rising carefully to his feet, reluctant to disturb his child, reluctant to let go of her; and then finally placing her little body in George’s arms and quickly turning away.

Alone, in the dimness of the room, George held the baby and looked down into her little face, remembering all the times she had gurgled up at him, her tiny hand reaching towards his face; and how her blue eyes would stare up at him, entranced, whenever he softly sang little songs to her.

He gently put his lips to her small cold face and began to weep silent tears. And with his tears came the realisation … if this was
his
pain now,
his
grief … how much harder must it be for her two shocked parents downstairs.

*

Three days later, at the funeral of their child, George Jarvis stood silently with Lachlan and Elizabeth as the small casket was prayed over, and then Elizabeth placed a small white flower on the lid, and Lachlan reached out his hand to touch the casket, just one last time.

And then, as George reached to gently touch the casket also, he heard himself whispering the same words he had heard so many times whispered by his own mother when he was a child.

‘
Khudaa hafiz
.’ God be with you.

Chapter Two

Fourteen months later, while their home in Perthshire lay basking in the warm glow of summer sunshine, Lachlan and Elizabeth sat down to breakfast but George did not appear.

Elizabeth looked at his empty chair, and then up at Mrs Burgess. ‘Is George still in bed?’

‘No, he was up and out early. He said to keep him some oatcakes warm.’

The housekeeper shook a batch of hot oatcakes onto a plate straight from the griddle-rack. ‘An’ I said back to him, “O’ course I will, George – but only if ye bring me some nice wild flowers back for ma kitchen.”’ She chuckled as she turned to leave. ‘No’ that I’m expectin’ him to bend down an’ pick
me
flowers, mind … but mebbe he will for Kirsteen, young and bonnie as she is.’

Elizabeth watched the yellow butter melting on the hot oatcake she had cut in half. ‘That’s the fourth morning this week George has missed breakfast and gone walking for hours,’ she said to Lachlan. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘No, it’s the sun.’ Lachlan was reading his post. ‘Coming from a hot country the sunshine is always like a magnet to George, especially after the winter snow and cold spring we’ve had.’

A mile away George was strolling in the sun, enjoying its warmth and brightness. All around him the land was lush and green, shining and splendid, as happy to see and feel the sunshine as he was. This recent spell of brilliant warm weather, together with the walks that had accompanied it, had helped him to think, to make up his mind about his future.

Relieved now that his studies and busy college days were finished, a new sense of quiet contentment suffused him as he wandered in the warm greenness of the island, the tranquil silence broken only by the occasional cries of the seagulls flying overhead. The air was fresh and sweet and he breathed it deep into his body, deciding to prolong his walk and take the long route back to the house, and with every step feeling even more certain about his decision. Now nothing was more vital than he should tell Lachlan what he wished he to do.

Nevertheless, as he reached a small stream shaded by trees, he paused to gaze down at the water, pure and sparkling, then hunkered down to catch some in his palm and taste it. The cool wetness on his lips took his memory back to those days in the hot Egyptian desert when he had trudged through the sand dreaming of finding even the smallest rivulet of cooling water like this one, but even when he did find a small wet stream in that desert, it was always a mirage that vanished in a blink.

He rose slowly, his vision focused on the sparkling water as he remembered the 77
th
’s long march across the burning desert to the Nile. After marching forty miles from Suez and then twenty miles into the basin of the desert, all their water had gone, and no sign of a well. No water to drink, and no water to cook the food.

And the
heat!
Even the suffocating heat of India in the hot season could never compare to the blinding dry heat of the silent desert. But the torture of the heat was nothing to the craving thirst, a gravely thirst so painful that some of the soldiers began to cry just to lick their own tears.

There was even a time when George thought he might die from the thirst and lack of water in his body, until he remembered an old Arab trick taught to him in his childhood by his mother from Morocco – to carry a small stone in the mouth, gently sucking it to activate the saliva glands which would keep the tongue moist when the thirst was bad.

Quickly he had searched for a stone, and found one, and then passed the trick on to the soldiers. Formation lines were temporarily broken but nobody cared, not even the officers, and within minutes every soldier was searching for his stone, and when they found it, even if it did not quench the craving thirst, it greatly helped to ease the mouth from dryness.

Two days later they had found the first of only two wells in that hundred-mile passage across the Egyptian desert; but by then, the desert had claimed three dead soldiers from the 77
th
.

Sixteen he had been then, when they had left India to join other regiments of the British Army to fight the French in the battle for Alexandria. A battle the British had won.

The soldiers of the 77
th
had been glad to celebrate the victory, glad to get away from the need to fight and the oppression of constant orders from the officers, relaxing in the cool shaded rooms in the houses near the bazaar where beautiful girls were willing to please them in exchange for money.

So many beautiful girls to choose from, but George chose only one.

She was nearer to his age, only seventeen. He could still see her beautiful young face, her soft dark eyes, her slender figure, her gentle smile … He had stayed with her in her shaded room for many blissful days, and one of those days had been his seventeenth birthday, he was sure of it, and he told her so. She had been exquisite and delicate, like a beautiful flower, and he had never forgotten her or the desert, because one had led to the other.

Still gazing at the rippling water of the stream, he thought he heard a whisper of a sound behind him, and threw a look across his shoulder, surprised to see Kirsteen, the maid from the house, standing there watching him.

He turned and looked at her with part impatience, part wry wonderment. This was not the first or even the third time she had suddenly appeared behind him this week. His eyes took in the fact that she had removed her apron and changed her dress. Her face had been lightly rouged on the cheeks and her brown hair, normally tied back, had now lost its ribbon and was hanging long and loose.

‘You are out walking again?’ he asked.

She flushed self-consciously. ‘No, but Mrs Burgess was wondering where ye were, and why ye were out so long, with your breakfast getting cold an’ all. And Mrs Macquarie was asking for ye too.

‘And she asked you to come and find me?’

‘No, no … she didn’t ask me … but I always like to help the mistress.’

‘Then I shall head back immediately.’

Kirsteen eagerly moved to follow him, falling into step beside him. ‘Back there by the stream,’ she asked, ‘what were ye thinking so silently?’

George glanced at her with a slight smile. ‘What other way is there to think, except in silence.’

She shrugged, undeterred. ‘But now ye are not thinking in silence, are ye? So tell me what ye
were
thinking?’

‘Nothing that would interest you, Kirsteen.’

‘Anything ye say would interest me, George, honestly it would. Is it alreet if I walk beside ye? I’ll not be in your way. And if ye prefer it, I’ll no’ say a word, honestly I won’t, I’ll just listen.’

George smiled ruefully as Kirsteen walked beside him, talking non-stop, all the way back to the house.

*

Elizabeth was in the garden, walking up and down in a futile attempt to calm her fears.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’ George asked her.

Elizabeth nodded. ‘Yes, George, you know him so well, I need your advice. Only you can help me to understand.’

‘You look distressed,’ George observed. ‘Has something happened?’

‘No, no … not yet at least.’ She glanced quickly around her. ‘Let’s move further away from the house. Kirsteen is always hiding somewhere and listening to my conversations with you.’

When they had reached the far end of the garden she sat down on a wooden bench under an oak tree, and George sat down beside her. ‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘what is it that I can help you to understand?’

‘
This morning, during breakfast, Lachlan received a dispatch from General Balfour, asking him to report to him as soon as possible.’ A rush of colour flooded her pale cheeks. ‘It seems there is an urgent
need to discuss a new posting.’

‘A new posting?’ George pressed his lips together, restraining a smile of excitement. ‘To where?’

‘That’s just it – Lachlan won’t know until General Balfour tells him.’

George nodded, believing he understood her problem. ‘That’s usually the way. Such information is rarely disclosed in a dispatch. But you are troubled because … you have no desire to leave Scotland now?’

‘No, no, that’s not what troubles me. If Lachlan wished me to leave Scotland and go anywhere else in the world with him, I would go, without hesitation I would go. But not … not …’ Elizabeth pressed a hand to her brow, covering her eyes with trembling fingers. ‘But not to India … anywhere but India.’

A difficult silence followed. George said softly, ‘Because of Jane?’

‘Yes…’ Elizabeth admitted quietly, ‘because of Jane.’

A soft rustling sound in the far bushes made George quickly glance round to catch a glimpse of Kirsteen’s brown hair amongst the greenery, hiding herself as she attempted to watch and listen.

He glanced at Elizabeth and saw she had not heard the sound, but if she did become aware of Kirsteen’s presence she would be mortified and would probably dismiss the maid instantly.

George felt a sudden anger and irritation, yet he contrived not to expose the girl, but this conversation was too personal, too private, to allow her to stay there.

He stood up and put his hands in his pockets and strolled slowly towards the bushes as if giving thought to the problem before answering Elizabeth.

At the bush, in the silence, he stood staring down at the hidden and crouching figure of Kirsteen and she stared back up at him with a smiling light in her eyes, as if she had achieved some kind of victory by drawing him into her secret and over to her hiding place, and not as if she was doing anything untoward or wrong at all.

George sighed. These intrusions by the girl were becoming tiresome and unacceptable but Kirsteen was too young and too stupid to realise that.

There was a stillness about him as he continued to stand and look down at her in the silence, but the thoughts in his mind must have shown in his eyes because the expression on Kirsteen’s face began to change to one of surprise and then dismay, until she began to slowly creep backwards towards the house and finally disappeared.

Only then, when he was sure she had gone, did George turn back to look at Elizabeth who was lost in her own worrying thoughts as she sat on the bench twisting her fingers together.

George had always liked Elizabeth, and now felt a very deep affection for her; but he knew he could never love Elizabeth in the way he had loved Jane, Lachlan’s first wife, that beautiful and happy young girl from Antigua who had clasped him tightly in her arms as an eight-year-old boy and told him he was now
her
child, and would always be protected by
her
love, and she had even legally giving him her own surname of Jarvis to prove it to him.

In the time that followed he and Jane had gone through so much together, gone from Calicut to Bombay together, from Bombay to China together, and every minute of every day he had simply adored her … Jane Jarvis Macquarie … the greatest love, and the greatest tragedy of Lachlan’s Macquarie’s life.

And therein lay Elizabeth’s problem now, Elizabeth’s dread of losing her hold on the husband she dearly loved as much as he had loved Jane.

Elizabeth Campbell had been twenty-five-years old when Lachlan and George, leaving the heartbreak of India far behind, had arrived on the Isle of Mull and met her for the first time. She had been visiting Lachlan’s mother that day, and George had seen immediately that she was a young lady of the gentry, albeit the daughter of an impoverished estate run by her older brother in Airds.

In the weeks that followed, George had seen the way Elizabeth Campbell had lost her prim reserve and bubbled with laughter and life when in the company of Lachlan.

After that George saw no more of their relationship because he had been forced to go to college, so determined was Lachlan that he would receive a sound education.

And yet, two years later, George was not at all surprised when Lachlan made an unexpected visit to the college to tell him of his proposal of marriage to Elizabeth Campbell.

He and Elizabeth had found and enjoyed a special companionship with each other, Lachlan had explained, but he could not keep Elizabeth hanging on indefinitely as a friend and nothing more. They were both still young enough for a new start, but he had been honest with Elizabeth when he had told her that his love and his heart had been given and would forever remain with Jane, but he would endeavour to be the best husband he was capable of being, which might not be a very good one. Yet Elizabeth had accepted his proposal regardless.

Cool, sensible, practical Elizabeth, she had not allowed his past to stand in the way of her happiness, and so far it had been a good match and a good marriage, marred only by the tragic loss of their beloved baby daughter.

George returned to the garden bench and sat down and looked at Elizabeth. She was thirty years old now, tall and slender with russet hair and wide blue eyes and her manner was normally full of wit, no-nonsense and absolutely charming. But look at her now … her hands still trembling, her composure bowed low.

It distressed George to see Elizabeth so upset, and it was only recently that she had come to terms with the loss of her child – so to relieve her of this new worry would not be breaking a confidence, but simply the right thing to do.