Summary
In the saffron dusk of colonial India, where the Ganges exhales ghosts and the bungalows sweat nostalgia, Rosamond English—an ivory-skinned memsahib with a heart tuned to the minor key of memory—receives the telegram that cleaves her life in two: Captain Harry English, her meteoric first husband, has been pulverised by Afghan shrapnel. Widowhood drapes her in crepe, yet the Raj insists on sequins; she capitulates to a second matrimony with Sir Arthur Gerardine, a walrus-moustered baronet who treats love like an invoice and passion like a polo handicap. Years ossify into a gilded cage in Calcutta until Rosamond, suffocated by the oleander-scented hypocrisy of empire, flees to fog-bitten England to assist dewy Lieutenant Belhune in immortalising Harry via hagiography. Each inked anecdote re-ignites the phosphorescence of her loss; every diary page drips with salt and saffron until the mere sight of a laden dinner table—its obscene abundance of water and mutton—detonates her psyche. Collapsing into febrile delirium, she begs the household’s impassive Indian servant to intercede with the gods for Harry’s resurrection. The turban unfurls, the dusky skin is wiped away like greasepaint, and the supposed ayah reveals the scarred but living captain: a deus-ex-machina dressed in khaki, conjured by grief and answered by fate. Sir Arthur, recognising the cosmic rebuke, evaporates into the mists of his own irrelevance; Rosamond, resurrected, stands in the candle-glow of a love that death itself could not file away.
Synopsis
In India, Rosamond English learns that her husband, Capt. Harry English, has been killed in battle. After a time, she marries Sir Arthur Gerardine but is unable to forget her first husband, and gradually her love for him is rekindled, especially when she contrasts him to the pompous and elderly Sir Arthur. Rosamond returns to England to aid Lieut. Belhune in writing a biography of Capt. English, but this only serves to increase her mental anguish. When Sir Arthur arrives with his Indian servant, he notices a deterioration in his wife's condition. After spending a day reading the captain's diary, in which he remarked that food and water were scarce, she comes to the dinner table terribly distracted. The sight of the plentiful supply of food and water makes her hysterical, and she is confined to her bed. In her delirium, Rosamond requests that the Indian servant pray for Capt. Harry's return, and the prayer is answered when the servant reveals himself to be the Captain in disguise. Rosamond is healed and Sir Arthur departs.
