Read The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) for Free Online

handkerchiefs were already wiping streaming eyes as a Band played and the non-travellers who had come aboard were asked to go ashore.
    Unfortunately Orissa could not wait for the last moment to see the ship pull away from the quay.
    It was very cold, it had also begun to rain and she felt sure that Neil should be kept in the warm.
    Accordingly she took him to their cabin and tried to watch through a port-hole.
    They were however on the wrong side of the ship to see very much, but when finally Orissa felt the engines start up and heard the sails being set, she knew she was saying good-bye to England.
    She hoped it was for a very long time.
    A Steward brought some tea to the cabin, but Neil was too tired to eat the elegant sandwiches or even the cream cakes. He drank a little milk and Orissa realised his head was nodding.
    The State-Room contained four berths but there would be no necessity to use the upper ones as there were only the two of them, in the cabin.
    She rang for the Steward and had Neil’s bunk made up. Then she unpacked her own things and as she put them away in the cupboards and the deep drawers she realised with satisfaction that she would have plenty of room on the voyage.
    The General and Lady Critchley were next door, but when they came to say good-night to their grandchild, he was already fast asleep.
    “I am glad you have put him to bed, Mrs. Lane,” Lady Critchley said to Orissa with just a hint of approval in her tone.
    “There was one thing I wanted to ask you,” Orissa said. “Would you wish me to have supper here in the cabin or downstairs in the Dining-Hall?”
    Lady Critchley hesitated before she said:
    “You will of course dine at our table, Mrs. Lane. You are after all obliging us by looking after Neil on the voyage. You are hardly in the same category as a Governess.”
    It seemed to Orissa that her Ladyship was convincing herself of what was the right thing and in actual fact being extremely magnanimous to the woman she thought was only the wife of a petty official.
    “Thank you,” Orissa said.
    “You will of course ask the Steward to keep an eye on Neil while you are downstairs,” Lady Critchley went on. “But I understand from my sister that, whilst he is nervous and excitable in the daytime, he seldom had disturbed nights.”
    When she had finished speaking, Lady Critchley swept back to her own cabin and Orissa with a little smile closed the door behind her.
    It was quite obvious that Lady Critchley was being condescen din gly kindly to the little nobody who was obliging her by acting as a nurse-maid.
    She wondered what Her Ladyship’s attitude would be if she knew her real identity. Then she remembered that Charles had told her on no account to let anyone find out “He has been so angelic to me,’ Orissa told herself, T must be very careful indeed.’
    The Steward told her that dinner was to be later than usual the first night at sea.
    “Takes time for the Chefs to get themselves organised,” he said, “but you’ll get good food on this ship. D’you know, Ma’am, the refrigeration chambers hold five hundred tons of meat and there’s an additional compartment that’ll hold five hundred tons more ! ”
    “Good gracious!” Orissa exclaimed. “It sounds horrifying that we could possibly eat so much!”
    “Well, it all depends on the weather, Ma’am,” the Steward said with a grin. “People who get sea-sick aren’t hungry!”
    He picked up the tea-tray and added:
    “But Ma’am, you’ll enjoy yourself tonight.”
    Orissa changed into her best evening gown. Somewhere she remembered someone saying:
    “First impressions are always important. People get a fixed idea of you in their minds and seldom change it.”
    The gown, which was of peacock blue, had been a remnant that she could just afford at a sale in one of the big shops in Kensington. She had wanted it because it had reminded her of the lovely blue mosaics which decorated the mosques in India.
    She had made it