A Hanging at Dawn: A Bess Crawford Short Story Read online

  Nothing in that to raise an eyebrow. Except when one did the arithmetic and discovered that our soldier was indeed not only as young in years as Melinda had indicated, he was younger.

  And how the devil had she known that?

  Perhaps a more important question was, why was Brandon allowed to continue his training?

  I’d have wagered a year’s pay that Melinda had had a hand in that. For some reason, she had sent Brandon out to me, where he could succeed or fail on his own merit.

  Why had he enlisted? Why hadn’t he waited until he was a few years older and could go to Sandhurst?

  Clarissa was right. He never spoke of his family or reminisced about his childhood. No mention of his first pony or a favorite dog or a holiday taken with cousins or friends from school. Either he was orphaned a second time by whichever family member he’d been sent home to, or he had not liked them, to the point of running away to enlist as a common soldier as soon as he could pass, physically, the age requirement. I had the feeling it was the latter—that would explain the deep anger in him, the determination not to fail in his chosen profession, and his silence.

  My first thought was to tell Clarissa what I’d learned. And then I decided against that, for the simple reason that these were Simon’s secrets I’d uncovered, and I had no right to pass them on.

  On what would have been his actual eighteenth birthday, he was promoted to Corporal. And he accepted that promotion with a sudden shyness, as if he hadn’t expected it.

  A popular decision with the men, of course. I stood there watching them pound him on the back, offering to stand him a drink, and eager to begin the celebration, out of view of the officers.

  The Colonel, standing beside me, rubbed his chin, then said, “He’s an unusual lad. You’ve done well by him, Crawford.”

  “The material was there to work with.”

  “Have you suggested that he might return to England and apply to Sandhurst? I think he’s got the makings of a good officer.”

  Silently hoping to hell that they didn’t get Simon too drunk or into any other trouble as I watched them cross the parade ground in a rowdy group, I said, “I haven’t mentioned it, sir. Should I?”

  And had to admit to myself that if Corporal Brandon left for England, I would sorely miss him. On the heels of that thought, I tried to imagine what I would tell Clarissa. Or—God forfend!—how I could explain his going to Bess.

  The Colonel considered the question for a moment, then said, “Let’s see how he handles his new rank. What sort of officer he might make. Then we’ll know if that’s the right decision or not. But the Army will have a place for a man like that. And I’d be happy to sign the papers for him, when the time comes.”

  I waited a year, watched as he’d taken his new authority to heart, and after dinner at the house one evening, I put the question to him. Clarissa had left the table to send Bess to bed. We were alone with the port.

  I had no choice, really. He’d earned it, and it would have been derelict of me as an officer and a man not to give him the chance he deserved.

  His response surprised me.

  “Thank you, sir, for the offer. But I’m satisfied where I am. I’d rather stay, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’ve earned the right to decide your future. It would mean more money, more authority, more social position. You’d be giving the orders, not taking them. And I must be honest, Simon. I think you should take this opportunity. It could change your entire life in ways you may not yet understand.”

  “Then you’d rather I leave.” His gaze was steady on my face, and I couldn’t read what he was thinking.

  I looked for the right response. “It has nothing to do with what I’d like. I have certain duties as an officer. Among them is to do what is best for the men under me. If you tell me you would like to return to England, you’ll go with my blessing and my letter approving the change in your rank. If you stay here, I will not think less of you for turning this chance down.” I smiled, to take some of the tension out of the air. “God knows what Bess will say if you go, but I outrank her. Barely.”

  He smiled then, as I’d hoped he would.

  “Then I’ll stay, sir.”

  “Will you tell me, if at any stage you change your mind? I can make the necessary arrangements at any point in your career. You should know that.”

  “I’m not likely to change my mind, sir. But thank you for asking me. I appreciate that more than I can say.”

  Because his father had been to Sandhurst? I thought that might be behind his gratitude. But sometimes I’m wrong.

  Years later, I understood that what he’d found in India was a home he’d wanted for a very long time, and the family he couldn’t remember but had yearned for over ten tormented years.

  In 1910 his world—and ours—suddenly turned upside down.

  And I had had to watch the hands of the clock move slowly but inexorably toward dawn, and his hanging.

  Clarissa

  The odd thing was, I’d liked Simon from the start. He reminded me of Richard and the stories I’d heard about him at Simon’s age. That threshold between boy and man when ideals and growing pains clash. But Richard had had a very happy upbringing. There wasn’t that undercurrent in him that I very quickly saw in Simon.

  I’d been the one who had suggested to Richard that Simon take over the duties of protecting Bess.

  Out here, the dangers were quite real. I had no illusions about that—I’d seen the dead brought in. Orders kept the women and children on the grounds of the cantonment most of the time, but when one of us—officers’ wives or wives of the ranks—had to leave the compound, we were escorted. And none of us raised objections. We understood why. The largest or most experienced man was usually our escort.

  Bess had just turned five, precocious and spirited. It had occurred to me that perhaps her youthful enthusiasm for life might be just the thing to help Simon find his own feet out here, and possibly lessen some of the anger in him.

  Richard had said to me privately after he’d first brought Simon home as his batman, “He’s going to make a good soldier—if he isn’t shot first for insubordination. Do what you can with him, love. Between us we might succeed in saving him for the Regiment.”

  I’d laughed, but I knew precisely what he was asking. I’d married the Army along with Richard, and I knew just how it worked.

  Pairing Simon with Bess had proved to be a stroke of genius. I had the feeling that he hadn’t been brought up with brothers or sisters or even cousins. He didn’t understand her teasing at first, or her attempts to wheedle him into allowing her to have her way. But he was quick to learn! The change in both of them in six months’ time was remarkable. Bess was less accustomed to having her own way, less headstrong. And he’d learned to laugh with her. What’s more, it was far more successful than assigning one of the older Sergeants to ride with her or go into the bazaar with her. She had most of our Indian staff under her thumb—she’d learned to speak Hindi like a native from them, and Urdu from the outside staff and our gatekeeper, whose task it was to see that no one entered the compound without permission.

  I worried a little that she adored Simon quite so much. Soldiers were killed, invalided home, transferred. And she was only a child, and a very warmhearted little girl who saved spiders and crickets our housekeeper chased with a vengeance and a broom. She rescued wounded birds and did what she could for the wild dogs. I was grateful that we had a veterinarian for the horses, because she took him her patients and helped care for them as they healed.

  He’d complained at first. Insisting that birds were not his concern. I didn’t need to ask Richard to intervene on behalf of the beleaguered veterinarian, because Bess soon had the man under her thumb as well. Still, I drew the line at the snake she wanted to bring home, and in the end Dr. Winters kept it in a wicker cage in the stables until it could be released. I was never sure what had made the snake ill, but I was fully prepared to hold a funeral for it in a corner of
the compound that Bess had insisted we set aside for the patients that sadly hadn’t survived.

  Bess first met the Maharani when she’d had her last child. Bess was three then and wanted to bring the baby back with us. That had charmed the Maharani, and she’d insisted that I bring Bess with me whenever I visited after that.

  Bess treated the little Prince as if he were her pet, and it was sweet to see the two of them playing together. The difference in station never occurred to her, and as he learned to walk, she led him about the Palace, showing him everything that she herself found interesting, from the elephants to the kitchens. The cooks always had something for them, little cakes, a sweet dumpling boiled in syrup spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, or dates with almond centers and rolled in brown sugar. They returned to the nursery covered in sticky things, while the child’s bodyguard professed to know nothing about what they might have got into. The Maharani turned an indulgently blind eye.

  “He’ll be leaving for school in England soon enough. I want him to remember his home as a happy place,” she told me.

  “Not until he’s nine or ten,” I protested. “Surely.”

  She sighed. “In my great-grandfather’s day, he ruled. Now I acquiesce. The Governor-General wishes our young Princes to be educated in England. But let’s not look ahead. It will be here soon enough.” And she sent for music to cheer us.

  Of course, it was good politically to stay on terms with the nearby Indian Princes. But I liked the Maharani for herself, not because it was expedient. Their power had been reduced considerably, as the Maharani had pointed out. And sadly, the sons sent to England to learn to rule wisely were introduced as well to Society—Ascot, Biarritz, the pleasures of Paris—preferring these to returning home. All the while the winds of change were blowing ever stronger, and even the sources of their wealth were quietly drying up.

  The Maharani cared about her people, and they still looked to her for guidance. Often she helped where the Government and the Army could do little. Richard had said to me privately that in another generation, the Princes would be little more than empty titles—if they were allowed to keep those.

  How sad for the little boy running after Bess on the short, fat legs of babyhood, seeing only the pretty things all around him, the enormous white tusks on either side of the ornate gold throne, the ropes of pearls around his mother’s neck, and gardens full of birds and glorious roses. His squeals of joy and sweet laughter as the cool water in the fountains splashed over his hands and face were precious.

  Simon often accompanied me on these visits, after he became Richard’s batman. It was amazing the gossip he gleaned from the guards and servants while he waited patiently in the Palace grounds. Richard found it very useful, because sometimes the servants knew things long before their employers did.

  The same was true in the bazaars. While the box wallah dealt with my packages, Simon listened to the talk around us, taking the temperature of the villages in a way. He would sometimes steer me on a different path or to a different door, murmuring only, “It’s best if we go this way, ma’am,” or “I think today we might choose this shop instead.” And I heeded his warnings. It saved face, for the Army. Officially, smuggling and other wrongdoing had been stamped out, but people don’t change as quickly as laws. The Maharani’s officials would quietly deal with such civilian problems, while the Army remained officially unaware of them. It was a system that worked amazingly well.

  As Simon became more and more a part of our family, we had to be careful, Richard and I, not to appear to show any partiality for him. There were other men here with skills and abilities, and they had to be treated in exactly the same way. Fortunately, he was popular with the ranks, and that went a long way toward mitigating any ill will.

  It was like having a son underfoot. Both painful and a pleasure for me. I made sure to treat him like the soldier he was, rather than the frustrated boy who tried to show Bess how to play tennis in the garden. Because I could see the boy in him, slowly emerging from the frigid hold he kept on his emotions. I never spoke of this to Richard. But sometimes, sitting on the veranda, listening to the shouts and laughter and loud quarrels, I thought how wonderful it would have been for Bess to have grown up with a brother. We had tended to spoil her, and it was good for her to play with other children in the cantonment, to take her turn at games, to share her toys, and not be among adults most of her day. But Simon gave her something else—as he kept an unobtrusive eye on her well-being, her safety, and her manners, he’d also tell her there and then, in no uncertain terms, how she’d transgressed. The older men assigned to watch over her were gruff, showing their displeasure in offended silence. And because if she were too naughty, she lost the privilege of his company, she would argue to show her independence—then take Simon’s advice. I found it amusing to watch.

  I quietly worried when Richard went on patrol or rode out to deal with a problem among the tribes, which could easily end in bloodshed. Now I found myself worrying about both of them. I asked Simon once as we were walking through the bazaar, if he had any family in England.

  “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

  “How sad,” I’d answered, thinking how proud his parents might be, or cousins or aunts. Most of our men had families back in England.

  “Not really, ma’am. It’s easier. Not having to worry about them, you see. Only myself.”

  “Are your parents dead, then?”

  “When I was small. I find it difficult to remember them now. I had a photograph of them for many years. It’s gone now.”

  “How sad to lose something so precious.”

  But he didn’t respond. I was to learn much, much later that it was found among his things when he landed in Southampton and taken away. I never learned by whom.

  I was the one who had to tell Simon that his romantic feelings for the Maharani’s daughter could go nowhere.

  Parvati was pretty, vivacious, and sixteen. She and Bess would play shuttlecock or croquet on the lawns while Simon watched, and sometimes the two girls would sit on the veranda together as Parvati learned to play the sitar, laughing at Bess’s attempts to copy her.

  It wasn’t surprising that he should have been attracted to her.

  “She’s been betrothed since she was small. It’s how things are done here,” I told him gently. “The marriage will take place next year. And because we’re not a part of that family, there’s nothing we can do to prevent it.”

  “Does she love him?” he’d asked.

  “I believe she’s met him several times. It’s like the royal family at home, Simon. Arrangements are made almost when a child is born, sometimes. Not that it always works out that way,” I added, trying to be fair. “Queen Victoria for instance, had to marry someone the Government felt was suitable. As it turned out, this became a love match. But that’s a matter of luck, I should think. And she was quite lucky.”

  He frowned. “Were you in love with the Major?”

  It was a personal question that he shouldn’t have asked. But I smiled and said, “I was. We met quite by accident, you know. I had come to London to meet a friend from school. And he was visiting her older brother. I’ve often thought that if I hadn’t accepted Marion’s invitation, I might well have fallen in love with someone else entirely.”

  “You don’t really believe that!”

  “I do. If I hadn’t met the Major, I would have gone on with my life and in time met someone else I could love. Never knowing, of course, that there had been another choice.”

  “Would it have been the same?”

  I’d shrugged. “Who knows? But since I did meet the Major, it all becomes a little silly to dwell on.”

  “What if he’d been in love with someone else, when you met?”

  “Ah. I don’t know. I expect I’d have had no choice but to walk away. However hard it would have been. You can’t force someone to love you.”

  “No.”

  He’d taken it hard, because the girl was lovely and sweet natur
ed, and they were both young, when it hurts so terribly much. I could only hope that she hadn’t been aware of how he felt. I trusted Simon not to overstep his place, but she might have come to care without any attempt on his part.

  I added, “If you let her know how much you care—and she feels the same toward you, you will only make it harder for her to marry as her family wishes. It will be painful to walk away. But it will be the greatest kindness you can offer her. You will leave her free to believe she loves the man she marries.”

  “I’d never thought of it in that way.” But I saw the sadness in his eyes. “I’d had a feeling she might care for me.”

  “Shall I have someone else go with us to the Palace for a while?”

  He took a deep breath. “For a few days?”

  “Easily managed.”

  It was Bess who was upset that he wasn’t with us on that Thursday when we went to the Palace for tea with the Maharani.

  “He has duties besides riding with you and me,” I told her. “We can’t interfere with those. The Army needs him occasionally, you know.”

  But she hadn’t smiled. She’d only nodded.

  I never told her why he wasn’t with us for the next fortnight. Or how he felt toward the Princess. That was Simon’s business, not ours.

  When he began to accompany us again, Bess said only, “I missed you.”

  “Your father needed me,” he’d replied, smiling.

  “That’s different,” she’d replied. “I must have a word with him tonight.”

  I made certain to warn Richard to be prepared.

  We were rotated back to England for two years, and given three weeks’ leave when we arrived. Richard learned that Simon had nowhere to go and was planning to spend his leave in Hampshire at Regimental HQ.

  After conferring with me, he offered Simon the cottage that stood on the other side of the wood that began at the bottom of our garden. It was just at the edge of our property, and the last occupant was the housekeeper for Richard’s parents, who was offered it on her retirement. And she’d lived there until her death some years later. Simon was quite pleased, and before we were posted back to India, he asked Richard if he might buy the cottage and the land around it. The only stipulation that we put on the sale was that it would be sold back to us if ever Simon decided not to live there.