China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

her very much; and she imagined him as the country gentleman she would shape him into once the unfortunate if necessary business of making money in the China trade was done.

It was the end of summer when Trader came to call for a final time before he returned to Calcutta. The Lomonds were also due to return, but ten days later. Trader came alone this time. He was already sitting and chatting to her mother in the garden when Agnes came out to greet him. As she approached, she noticed something different about him. The sling was gone, and his left hand was free of its dressing.

She saw her mother give her a look that seemed to say “All’s well.” Trader rose politely from his chair. Her mother called out: “John has his other hand back, all healed, thank God!”

And so it was. One could see a scar or two, but that was all.

“I’m so glad,” said Agnes.

She sat down.

“That only leaves the eye,” said Trader. “Bit of a mess, I’m afraid. But I wear the eye patch, of course.” He smiled apologetically. Agnes noticed he’d gone rather pale.

Then he took the eye patch off.

The doctors had done their best. Perhaps a London surgeon could have made a cleaner job of it. But the shards of glass had done terrible damage as they cut through his eye. One great cicatrix carved its way down from his eyebrow to his cheek. Two others crossed it at different angles. Across the socket where his eye had been, the flaps of skin had been sewn together like crazy paving.

He put the eye patch back on. Agnes stared. She hadn’t seen it before.

And received a look from her mother that would have stopped a bolting horse dead in its tracks.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Lomond—she sat very straight and calm—“when one’s spent so much of one’s life with the army and seen so many people with the most terrible injuries, one realizes how grateful one should be to have only one. You have good health, all your limbs, every advantage.” She smiled. “And the eye patch looks rather dashing, you know. I suppose, to a woman, it’s a sign that someone’s a man rather than a boy.” She turned to Agnes. “Don’t you agree?”

Agnes bowed her head. There could be no mistaking her mother’s meaning. This, she was showing her daughter, is how to be a lady. From a duchess on a great estate in England to a colonel’s wife in some remote hill station in India, it was all the same. Grace under pressure. Considering the feelings of others. Good posture was always a great help. That’s why girls were taught not to droop.

“I do,” said Agnes, collecting herself as best she could.

“John was telling me that Charlie wants him to take part in a play he and his friends are getting up,” her mother calmly resumed. “He was asking me what I think.”

“Charlie and I are supposed to be a pair of officers, one always drunk and the other always sober,” Trader explained. “The trouble is, we both want to be drunk.”

“I really don’t know,” said Agnes, and forced a smile.

“Are you good at being drunk?” asked Mrs. Lomond.

“Charlie’s had much more practice,” he answered promptly.

“Perhaps you should take turns,” Mrs. Lomond suggested. “You could be drunk one night, he the next. Or is there to be only a single performance?”

“What a good idea,” said Trader. “Why didn’t we think of that? There will be two performances, by the way.”

And so they continued, as tea was served, and Agnes pretended to listen.

She understood. He’d known he must show her his eye. He couldn’t hide it from her until they were married. But why did he have to wait so long?

Because he hoped that if he waited, she’d come to know him first, come to love him for himself, so that she wouldn’t mind the eye. He’d waited in hope that she would love him. Damn him. If only she had loved him, it would all have been all right.

When Colonel Lomond joined them, Trader remarked to him apologetically that he’d showed the ladies his eye. “Bit of a mess, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Let’s have a look,” said the colonel, as if it were a bee sting. So Trader lifted the eye patch again. “It’s healed, I see,” Lomond remarked. “Won’t give you any trouble now. I shouldn’t give it a thought, if I were you.”

—

After Trader had gone, and Agnes and her mother were alone, Mrs. Lomond gave her a nod of approval. “You did very well, Agnes,” she said. “I was proud of you.”

“Mother, I can’t!” her daughter suddenly cried. “That awful hole where his eye should be. I had no idea. It’s hideous.”

For a moment Mrs. Lomond was silent. “You must,” she said firmly. “It’s not so important. And you certainly won’t think about it after you’ve been married a while.”

“How can you say that?” Agnes wailed.

“My child, I’m sorry to say this, but it’s time that you grew up. When you marry someone, you commit to love them, honor and cherish them. We love our husbands for their character, including their faults. I don’t mean great wickednesses, but the small faults we all have. And we love each other in body as well as soul. And the body isn’t perfect, either, but we love it because we love the person. You’re really quite fortunate. John Trader is a very handsome man. He has one blemish. Not a very large one, I may say, as these things go.” She paused. “So you must love that blemish, too. For his sake. That is your gift to him. By doing that, you’ll earn his love and his gratitude. It will actually be a bond. If you can’t, you will have an unhappy husband. And then you will be unhappy, too. And in my opinion, you won’t deserve to be happy.”

A silence fell between them.

“Mother, I don’t think I can,” said Agnes finally. She