A Beggar at the Gate by Thalassa Ali

tempers, the coolies at Lord Auckland's camp had been forbidden to load them with breakables. This camel groaned aloud, its neck stretched out as if it were being tortured, while several men, unmoved, went on roping the crates to its back.
    Mariana hesitated, then, unable to bear the coming destruction, she clucked to her old horse and rode up to Lady Macnaghten.
    Whatever Charles Mott had been saying, it had not satisfied his aunt. “It is your fault,” she snapped as Mariana approached. “Go and tell them to bring Ali Baba to the house. And tell Sonu to come as well, and he is to bring Ali Baba's tack. I cannot have my horse using an ordinary bridle.”
    “Good morning, Lady Macnaghten,” Mariana offered, smiling as warmly as she could manage.
    Lady Macnaghten did not smile in return. Instead, she gave a chill little nod in Mariana's direction without taking her eyes from her nephew, who had ridden off toward the horses.
    “I see that some of your china is being put on a camel,” Mariana added, now unable to extricate herself. “That was not allowed at Lord Auckland's camp.”
    Her face averted, Lady Macnaghten continued to watch Charles Mott's progress as intently as if he were saving the world instead of delivering a message to a servant.
    For all the attention Mariana got, she might have been one of the coolies.
    Fighting fury, she clucked again to her old horse. Let the camel break everything.
    As she started off, one of the British officers strode up, red-faced and perspiring. “This is all my fault, Lady Macnaghten,” he barked apologetically, nodding politely to Mariana. “I had thought Ali Baba was to come with us. I had understood he is rather a fractious animal, and that—”
    “But he is not fractious, Major Alford, not at all.” Lady Macnaghten gave a tinkling laugh. “Like me, Ali Baba has delicate nerves. That is why I understand him so well. I would not dream of sending him with the baggage. ” She gave a coy shrug of her shoulders. “He's an English thoroughbred, after all, not a cheap cob like the horse Miss Givens is riding.”
    The major made a blaring sound, as if to exempt himself from that unkindness. Mott, who had returned, cast Mariana a look, not of commiseration, but of bitter triumph.
    “Come along, Charles,” Lady Macnaghten ordered. “You have provoked me enough already. Do not also make me late for my breakfast. And do please sit properly on your horse. I hate to be seen with someone who rides as badly as you.”
    She spurred her gelding and trotted with surprising clumsiness toward the main road. As she did so, the baggage camel gave one last bellow of pretended agony and lurched to its feet, sending the coolies sprawling into the mud and several of Lady Macnaghten's wooden crates hurtling to the ground, where they landed in a series of lovely, splintering crashes.

October 10, 1840
    H ow many times, Mariana,” her uncle admonished her three months later, as they stood watching the bank of the Ganges slide past them after lunch in the dining salon, “do I have to tell you to leave Lady Macnaghten alone? I cannot bear that insufferable female any more than you can, but you must not provoke her like that.”
    “I could not help it, Uncle. If she hadn't said it was a log, in that superior tone of hers, I wouldn't have—”
    “Oh yes you would. You have been waiting all this time to point out a half-burned corpse in the river. And you did not have to do it while she was drinking her sherry. It was only by luck that your aunt did not hear you. Why can you not be more forbearing,” he added, “when her husband has done you such an enormous service? Sir William was not required to reveal the truth of your marriage night to Lord Auckland.” He ran a hand through his fringe of hair. “And where was the need for you to be so short with her nephew over the soup last evening? He was only asking for the salt.”
    “It was the way he asked for it.” Mariana tugged her shawl