Fragrant Flower Read Free

the moment she could find no words with which to speak.
    This was something she had never anticipated, had never thought would ever occur in her life.
    She was only sixteen and therefore her heart was not engaged in any way, yet vaguely she had always thought that one day she would marry and have children – and that perhaps she would continue in her married life to be part of the Regiment.
    She had grown up in the shadow of it, proud of what it meant to her father and to the men he inspired with his leadership and who loved him because he cared for them.
    It was interwoven in her thoughts and in everything she did – the horses, the parades, the times when the soldiers moved station with their guns, their baggage wagons, their wives and families, and the innumerable army of ‘hangers-on’ who seemed as much a part of the Regiment as the sepoys themselves.
    She would wake in the morning to the sound of Reveille and she would hear ‘The Last Post’ echoing amongst the cantonments as dusk came and the flag was lowered on the flagpole.
    The Regiment was her home, a part of her life, and when she thought of the pennants fluttering from the lances of the Cavalry or the men whistling as they went about their work, she would find the ache that had been permanently within her since the death of her father was intensified.
    “One day,” she had said to herself as she left India, “I shall go back. I shall be with them again.”
    Now her uncle was telling her that there was to be nothing in her future except to wait upon her aunt and be reproved or abused a dozen times a day.
    It was not only her father’s crime for which she was being punished. Both her uncle and aunt made it very clear how much they had disliked her mother because she was Russian.
    “You will not mention your mother’s ancestry to anyone,” Sir Frederick admonished Azalea. “It was an extremely unfortunate choice at the time your father married, and I expressed my disapproval very clearly.”
    “Why do you disapprove?” Azalea enquired.
    “Because a mixture of races is never desirable, and Russians are not even Europeans! Your father should have taken a decent English girl as his wife.”
    “Are you implying that my mother was not decent?” Azalea asked angrily.
    Sir Frederick’s lips tightened.
    “As your mother is dead I will not express my opinion of her. All I will say is that you will keep silent concerning her Russian origin.”
    The General’s voice sharpened as he continued,
    “At any moment we may be again at war with Russia, this time on the North-West Frontier. Even without open hostilities they stir up the tribesmen, infiltrate our lines, and their spies are everywhere.”
    He looked contemptuously at Azalea’s pale face and added harshly,
    “I am ashamed that I must house and support anyone with their poisonous, treacherous blood in her veins! You will never mention your mother’s name while you are under my protection.”
    At first Azalea had been too miserable to realise what was happening to her. Then after a year, when she was no longer permitted to continue with her education, she found she was little more than a drudge and an extra servant.
    At seventeen, when her first cousins, Violet and Daisy, the twins, were excited about making their debut and going to Balls, she had become lady’s maid, seamstress, secretary, housekeeper and jack-of-all-trades.
    Now at eighteen she felt as if she had spent her whole life as a domestic servant and there was nothing to look forward to, except years and years of attending to the same chores, day in and day out.
    Then like a miracle out of the sky had come the news that the General’s command at Aldershot was over and he was to be posted to Hong Kong.
    Azalea could hardly believe it. And at first she was quite certain they would leave her behind.
    But she guessed that they were concerned to keep her under their eye – for the stigma of her father’s death was still to the General a