know your business better than I do. God knows why they need an
engineer here at all! Probably to be decorative, eh? Still, I’ll make
myself useful. I thought I might map the escarpment. Hasn’t been
done, you see. Of course, Pinckney, if you need advice, just ask away,
but I’ll probably be at sixes and sevens groping for an answer.” He
beamed at the delighted Pinckney, then looked at the rough country
through which the road led.
“This is fine landscape, isn’t it? Such a relief after the plains. It
reminds me of Scotland.”
“There are tigers here, Major,” Sharpe said.
“And there’s all kinds of fierce things in Scotland too, Sharpe. I was
once posted to Fort William and might as well have been in darkest
China! It was worse than Newfoundland. And speaking of America,
Sharpe, that young lady you sent me has travelled there. Extraordinary
thing to do, I thought, and I advised her to abandon the whole wretched
idea. There are bears, I told her, fierce bears, but she wouldn’t be
persuaded.”
“Simone, sir?” Sharpe asked, at first not believing his ears, then
feeling a dreadful premonition.
“A charming creature, I thought. And to be widowed so young!”
Stokes tutted and shook his head.
“She went to a fortune teller, one of those naked fellows who make
funny faces in the alley by the Hindu temple, and says she was advised
to go to a new world. Whatever next, eh?”
“I thought she was waiting for me, sir,” Sharpe said.
“Waiting for you? Good Lord, no. Gone to Louisiana, she says. She
stayed in my house for a week I moved out, of course, to stop any
scandal and then she travelled to Madras with Mrs. Pennington.
Remember Charlotte Pennington? The clergyman’s widow? I can’t think
the two of them will get along, but your friend said the fortune teller
was adamant and so she chose to go.” The Major was eager to give
Sharpe the rest of the news from Seringapatam. The armoury was closing
down, he said, now that the frontier of the British-held territory was
so much farther north, but Stokes had kept himself busy dismantling the
town’s inner fortifications.
“Very ill made, Sharpe, disgraceful work, quite disgraceful. Walls
crumbled to the touch.”
But Sharpe was not listening. He was thinking of Simone. She had
gone! By now she was probably in Madras, and maybe already on board a
ship. And she had taken his jewels. Only a few of them, true, but
enough. He touched the seam of his jacket where a good many of the
Tippoo’s other jewels were hidden.
“Did Madame Joubert leave any message?” he asked Stokes when the Major
paused to draw breath. What did he hope, Sharpe wondered, that Simone
would want him to join her in America?
“A message? None, Sharpe. Too busy to write, I daresay. She’s a
remarkably wealthy woman, did you know? She bought half the raw silk
in town, hired a score of bearers and off she went. Every officer in
town was leaving a card for her, but she didn’t have the time of day
for any of them. Off to Louisiana!” Stokes suddenly frowned.
“What is the matter, Sharpe? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.
You’re not sickening, are you?”
“No, no. It’s just I thought she might have written.”
“Oh! I see! You were sweet on her!” Stokes shook his head.
“I feel for you, Sharpe, ‘pon my soul, I do, but what hope could you
have? A woman with her sort of fortune doesn’t look at fellows like
us! “Pon my soul, no. She’s rich! She’ll marry high, Sharpe, or as
high as a woman can in French America.”
Her sort of fortune indeed! Simone had no fortune, she had been
penniless when Sharpe met her, but he had trusted her. God damn the
Frog bitch! Stolen a small fortune.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told Stokes, but somehow it did. Simone’s
betrayal was like a stab to the belly. It was not so much the jewels,
for he had kept the greater part of the plunder, but the broken
promises. He felt anger and pity and, above all, a fool. A great