‘Have you received word, dear, from that nice Captain Horne?’
The question jolted Commodore Watson from the catnap he was enjoying on the verandah of Rose Cottage. Sunday afternoons in Bombay were sedentary. Following morning service at St Andrew’s, there was little to do but pay calls on other English families or sit at home behind one’s own white walls, hoping that no callers would pull the bell at the front gate and demand to be entertained.
Two months had passed since Adam Horne had left Bombay. In that time Commodore Watson had received word from Governor Pigot in Madras—via Governor Spencer in Bombay—that Horne had arrived at Fort St George and left again in pursuit of the China Flyer.
In the past weeks, Watson had recovered from his attack of coup de soleil. His health had begun to mend just in time for the arrival from London of his wife’s niece, Emily Harkness, for a year’s stay at Rose Cottage.
Having received no reply to her question, Mrs Watson repeated, ‘Have you heard, dear, from that nice young Captain Home? I’m planning a party for Emily and would like to begin compiling the guest list.’ She raised her head from her embroidery.
‘Horne? What about Horne?’ Watson stretched in his deep cushioned chair. Since his indisposition he had been sleeping far too much. Quiet Sundays at home did little to help the lingering lethargy he suffered as an after effect of his illness, but it was too hot to take a walk out-of-doors to keep alert, and pacing through the cramped cottage made him feel like a caged animal.
‘I want to invite Captain Horne to a party,’ Mrs Watson went on in a louder voice. She had noticed that something seemed to have gone out of her husband since his illness; nowadays he seldom paid attention to what she said and even the testy bark had all but disappeared from his voice. Had he not yet fully recovered? Or was this new apathy merely a sign that old age was taking its toll? The only consolation was that he had not returned to his gin-drinking.
Mrs Watson turned to her niece. ‘Captain Horne’s a very agreeable young man. A good family, too, I understand.’
Trying to involve her husband in the conversation, she called across the tiled verandah, ‘Merchant bankers, aren’t they, dear?’
Watson squinted at the book he had taken from the table in an attempt to stay awake. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Captain Horne’s father,’ repeated his wife. ‘Isn’t the father in banking?’
‘Horne walked away from the bank. Turned his back on a fortune.’
‘I’m asking because I want to reassure Emily that all young men who come out to India are not rogues and cut-throats.’
Watson glanced at the girl arranging a sheaf of drawings on the table in front of her. ‘Looking for an eligible match?’ he teased.
Twenty-year-old Emily Harkness was slim, with blonde hair softly curling around her oval face. In the past three weeks her complexion had become a soft brown, despite the protection of a parasol; she was proving to possess a surprising—almost masculine—ability to withstand the Indian heat.
Studying the pen-and-ink drawings spread out in front of her on the wicker table, Emily answered, ‘I have no immediate plans, sir, for marriage. Nor for any other contract restricting my freedom.’
‘Hmmmph. That does not surprise me,’ replied Watson, reflecting that the girl would be a real tomboy if she weren’t so damned pretty, and as content pottering around the house as she was when she was out exploring the city.
Emily Harkness was both a blessing and a worry to her aunt and uncle. She went sight-seeing with groups of other young ladies, but she was equally happy poking through marketplaces and bazaars with her sketch pad, as interested in local faces and costumes as she was in seeing Bombay’s ancient shrines.
‘Don’t plan any gatherings for me,’ she insisted as she lifted a drawing of Elephant Rock from the collection. ‘You know how I hate society.’
‘Don’t say you hate society, dear,’ scolded her aunt, troubled by the girl’s modern use of strong words.
‘Let us say, Aunt, that I don’t feel the need to meet people every hour of the day. I’m quite content with my own company.’
‘But, dearest.’ protested Mrs Watson, ‘you have travelled a great distance to broaden your outlook. Certainly that includes making new friends.’
‘I am making many new friends. The Truscotts. Hannah Starett. The Catchpole sisters.’
‘All young ladies,’ observed the diminutive Mrs Watson.
‘I dare say, Aunt. Most of the men I have met here seem to be interested in one thing and one thing only—marriage.’
Watson peered over the top of the leather-bound volume, more interested in the women’s conversation than he was in the subject of his book—the social consequences of billeting Caesar’s troops during the Gallic campaigns.
‘Adam Horne is certainly not interested in marriage,’ he contributed.
Emily Harkness crumpled her drawing of Elephant Rock and stuffed it into the pocket of her smock. ‘Then, perhaps, sir, I should meet this mysterious Captain Horne. Men with marriage in mind never say what they mean—until after the wedding.’
The Watsons exchanged glances.
Miss Harkness continued, ‘Yes, I do believe I should enjoy making the acquaintance of a man who might say what he means without fearing that he will frighten off a potential helpmate.’
The girl had a mind of her own; that was as certain as her exceedingly pleasing appearance. Emily Harkness definitely enlivened a dull Sunday afternoon at Rose Cottage. But as for the advisability of introducing her to Adam Horne … Would these two headstrong people prove incompatible? Commodore Watson wondered. Or worse perhaps: would two social misfits like these merely reinforce the independent spirit in one another? Such a thing would be catastrophic for both man and woman.