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also the most confusing. The uprising came, you know. Not nearly as swift or unexpected as the
reports claim. As military men, Roland and Anthony were both aware there was discontent among
the native populace, but most of the reported trouble had been inland and it was widely believed that
the coastline, and thus Bombay, would be safe.” Geraldine grimaced. “Perhaps I should say that it
was widely believed that all the English in India would be safe. The men and women of the Raj were
rather naïve, you see. They thought that the Indians loved them unquestioningly, as children love their
parents. But Anthony knew better. He understood that the danger was real and much closer than
anyone was willing to admit. In fact, it is almost as if he had a premonition. Against all my romantic
and rather foolish protests, he insisted that I return at once to England.”
“And thank God that he did,” said Tom. Geraldine’s story had left him very nearly in
shock, as evidenced by the fact he had stopped drinking. As many evenings as he had spent in his
aunt’s home, he had never heard anything about a man named Anthony Weaver or even a voyage to
India. Had never known how close his beloved Aunt Gerry had been to being caught up in the
infamous Indian Mutiny of 1857, which had resulted in the murder of nearly 400 British, a sizeable
percentage of them women and children.
“What of Rose?” Trevor said.
“Roland wished for her to leave as well, but she was, at the advanced age of thirty-nine,
at last expecting a child and thus her doctors forbad the trip,” Geraldine said. “As it turns out, their
advice was sound, for she delivered safely in Bombay. But poor Roland was killed in the uprising
before he ever got to see his son, and then Anthony -“
Here she stopped and Tom was aware that around the table they were all holding their
collective breath. The candles had sunk into a puddle, and the light was nearly gone.
“The next time I heard from Anthony,” Geraldine finally continued, “was when I
received a letter explaining to me that he had married his best friend’s widow and was prepared to
raise Roland’s son as his own. He said that his loyalty to his captain surpassed all others, especially
in light of the horrid manner in which the man had died. Roland was a true hero, you see, impaled on
a host of swords as he sacrificed himself trying to save a woman and her five children.”
“And you never saw Anthony again?” Tom said. “Never heard from him at all until
yesterday?”
Geraldine shook her head. “As far as I know, neither Anthony nor Rose ever returned to
England, not even for a visit.”
“Because their rapid marriage was a scandal?” Trevor asked. The memories were
obviously painful, but it seemed a greater kindness to treat the story as a case study, and thus
impersonal. Offering sympathy over a jilting thirty years in the past would only insult a woman as
independent as Geraldine.
“It wasn’t a scandal at all,” Geraldine said matter-of-factly. “You must remember that
India is an outpost, a colony, with few British men and even fewer women. And the conditions were
far more primitive in the fifties. Rapid marriage and, if required, rapid remarriage were the norm.
No, I think it was because India offered a man like Anthony, who had ambition but limited resources,
a chance to make his fortune. Staying there must have suited him.”
“Did it suit Rose?” said Emma.
“Not quite so much, I’d imagine,” Geraldine said, with another small private smile, this
one of a manner Emma found impossible to interpret. “She complained of the heat and the bugs the
entire time I knew her and she never learned to tolerate the food. But my sources assured me that
Anthony rose up the ranks well enough through the years, so I suppose their creature comforts