Zemindar Page 14

  ‘Heavens, I don’t know! I’d never have given it a thought, and if you are feeling well enough I don’t see why you shouldn’t. But I suppose people might talk, especially in a place like this where everybody knows everybody else’s business. It’s too bad.’

  ‘Well, if I can’t dance, I’m not going and that’s that. I’m not going to be stuck in a corner with all the old crows, fed on ices, and forgotten for the rest of the time. I won’t do it!’

  ‘Now don’t get fussed. The ball is only a little more than a week away, so I expect we’ll be able to manage it. The word will have got around, certainly, but so long as Charles doesn’t think about the propriety of the matter and forbid you to dance, there is nothing anyone can do to stop you. And I don’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to mention the subject to him afterwards, no matter how much they chatter among themselves. We must just contrive somehow that he doesn’t think about it beforehand, for if he does, I believe he might keep you from dancing; he is rather a “proper” fellow, after all, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ his wife rejoined sourly. ‘But they know everything about us. All of them. All about my father, and Charles’s partnership and the Company in Calcutta. Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they even knew just how much our income is, which is more than I do myself. And of course they know all about Oliver Erskine.’

  ‘Oh, do they?’ And with a memory of the strange face in the portrait in Calcutta, and my conversation with Kate Barry, I went on, ‘What did they have to say about him?’

  ‘Just the usual things. When were we going out to Hassanganj, and how long was it since Charles had met him and so on. They were quite put out that I couldn’t tell them more than they knew themselves, but went on about his being so rich, and his grand house and his horses, and what a recluse he was. That’s how they put it, though of course they meant he was unsociable. And I couldn’t even say we would be visiting Hassanganj, which was very awkward for me, as having come all this way we really should have had an invitation from the wretched man, and not getting one looks so, well, pointed, doesn’t it? I do wish Charles would forget about him and take us on to Delhi directly. I think I’ve seen enough of India now, and with this wretched brat on the way, I want to get home to Mother and Mount Bellew. But there was something about him, Laura, that I fancy Charles doesn’t know and wouldn’t like to know.’ She swung round and faced me so suddenly that I drew the brush across her forehead and nose. ‘Ouch! Mildred Myers, she’s the very fat one with rabbits’ teeth, you know? Married to that foxy-faced Myers with ginger whiskers who tried to hold my hand under the tablecloth at the Greshams’ dinner …’

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘Oh yes, lots of them do, you know. I used to think being married would put a stop to all that, but it hasn’t, not that it is of any consequence, but anyway Mildred told me, sotto voce of course, and out of sheer spite too, I’m sure, that he has a terrible reputation with women.’

  ‘Naturally. That is only to be expected. If people don’t know anything good about a man, they will certainly invent something bad,’ I said disingenuously, having in mind my conversation with Kate Barry on the way to the bazaar.

  ‘I don’t think it can be only that,’ Emily said dubiously.

  ‘I’m sure it is. He has probably put quite a parcel of doting mamas into a temper by not marrying their daughters, with the result that they are happy to believe he must be unprincipled. It follows.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s not girls, that is it’s not girls like us that he is supposed to be interested in. It’s native girls. “The browner the belles, the better he likes ’em.” That’s how that odious Myers woman put it anyway.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he is not the first, even if there is anything in it, and it would be wrong to judge him before we have even set eyes on him whatever the gossip,’ I said as prosaically as I could, for I was rather startled by this intelligence. We were then just at the time when to acknowledge an Indian wife or mistress was to invite the wrath of the authorities and the contumely of one’s peers; a generation earlier such associations were part and parcel of Indian life; later, though they still occurred, they were never mentioned. But at that time, although many eminent men had taken to themselves Indian wives, a floodtide of decorous middle-class opinion, brought out by the dim, prim wives and daughters of officers and civil servants making increasing use of the overland route, was beginning to sway judgement of such matters from tolerance towards outrage. I was sufficiently of my time, as a young woman, to share something of that outrage.

  ‘But, Laura, it would be awful if it were true, for then we certainly couldn’t go to Hassanganj.’

  ‘We haven’t been invited yet, my dear Em, and you’ve just said you wished Charles would forget all about going there. But if we are invited, there’s nothing to prevent us going, surely? Mr Erskine is not likely to flaunt his inamorata in public, is he?’

  ‘I don’t have the slightest idea what one does and does not do with inamoratas, but I do know that Charles would never permit it.’

  ‘Well then, we must hope to discover that these tales are nothing more than malicious rumour.’ And I added to myself, as I confessed to a growing curiosity about Mr Erskine and his palace in the wilderness, ‘Or at least hope that the rumours never reach Charles’s ears.’

  The ball at which Emily had been advised not to dance was the official opening of what, for want of a better word, I must describe as the ‘Season’. It served to announce the advent of the cold-weather gaieties as well as to welcome back to the station the ladies who had been to the Hills for the summer, and had for some time been the topic most in the minds of those who were fortunate enough to be invited. I had reconciled myself to being overlooked, for when Charles and Emily paid their official call on the Resident, I had not been asked to accompany them, Emily having been in one of her more intractable moods that day. However, Charles had asked for one of my cards to leave on Mr Coverly Jackson’s tray, and whether due to his thoughtfulness or Kate Barry’s influence, I was surprised and pleased when an invitation arrived for me as well as the others in the house.

  For days past the cantonment ladies had given little thought to anything but what they should wear for the ball. On every back verandah in Mariaon derzis squatted behind screens, stitching, ripping and altering gowns with dexterous haste, and liveried servants trotted from house to bazaar to house with snippets of silk, lace and ribbon for matching and comment. Emily had a lavish and expensive trousseau to choose from, so the question of what she should wear occupied both our minds for some time. At length she decided that nothing would do but her best blue taffeta, and even this was not quite as elaborate a toilette as she wanted so a derzi was put to work making a new tulle overskirt and train, and the basque was trimmed anew with part of her wedding lace. I was to wear the coral-pink silk that became my dark complexion best. Emily would have preferred to see me in white muslin and forget-me-nots like Elvira Wilkins on account of my spinster state, but my choice was made as much by necessity as taste, for my wardrobe, although enhanced by the Calcutta derzi, was still modest, and my resources too slender to warrant sartorial extravagance. In any event, as I reminded myself, I was a ‘companion’, and therefore required to look every day of my twenty-four years. But on that evening in early December when the ball took place, I found it difficult to think either of my inferior position or my advanced age. Perhaps the more benign climate, perhaps the smaller circle of acquaintances, lent this event more interest than any of the probably grander affairs I had attended in Calcutta, but I found myself anticipating the hour of our departure with some fervour.

  On my advice Emily banished from her mind the stringent dictates of her elderly acquaintance regarding dancing when expecting a child, and, since the days passed with no mention of the matter from Charles, her spirits soared and she threw herself into her preparations with excited zest. No one was to be allowed to outshine her at this ball. Every detail of her toilette was agonized o
ver until she was satisfied it could not be improved. I tried her hair in a dozen different styles before she could choose which suited her best and would do most justice to the little diadem of pearls with matching earbobs and bracelet which had been her father’s wedding gift. She wasted an afternoon and half the blooms in the garden making up and then discarding posies in various colours and combinations of flowers; and, so that she could dance every dance with comfort, she wore her new dancing slippers about the house for three whole days. I rejoiced to see her once again her giddy, self-absorbed but endearing self, and only wished her mood could outlast the ball.

  At last the great day dawned, and I watched the sky anxiously since nothing would content Emily but accompanying Charles to the ball in a high curricle. This equipage was unsuitable for the use of ladies in ball gowns, but Emily had her mind made up. If it had rained, she would have had to use the Avery buggy along with Connie and myself, and our ride would have been made miserable by grumbles about the cramped conditions, the dust and the sagging springs of the upholstery. Fortunately the weather remained fine and clear, though there was a chill in the air, and, as we bowled along the avenues of Mariaon, the first star appeared in a milky pink sky while the sun had yet to dip behind the dark foliage of the mangoes. Six o’clock seemed a strangely early hour for the commencement of a ball (especially as I learnt on good authority that we could not expect to be home before four in the morning) but there were advantages in setting off by daylight: we were enabled to glimpse the finery of our friends as they drove past us or we caught up with them. Soon we were part of a stream of carriages, gigs and landaus all making in the same direction; young officers on horseback called cheerfully to each other or saluted the ladies in the carriages as they galloped by, each of them with a syce running at his horse’s heels carrying a cudgel and a lantern to guard and guide his sahib home.

  Of course it was not the Cantonment Residency to which we were bound, but the City Residency across the River Goomti—more often called the Baillie Guard.

  In the middle of the last century, the first Resident appointed by the East India Company to further its trade with the Kingdom of Oudh had sited his house (with a consideration to prudence as well as prospect) on a bluff overlooking the Goomti, which formed the highest part of the surrounding country and gave him, as well as a fine view, the possibility of self-defence in time of trouble. Over the decades, as the position of Resident had grown in importance and power, other houses and bungalows, warehouses, barracks, a church, a gaol and a hospital had been built within the Resident’s compound, forming a self-contained community. At one time the compound was probably fortified and walled, but the walls had long since disintegrated or been built over, the only stretch remaining being that flanking the main gate or Baillie Guard, from which the little complex now took its popular name. As the buggy slowed to a snail’s pace in the press of traffic and we drove up the sloping roadway and under the arch of the Baillie Guard, I looked about me with no small interest and curiosity.

  At first glance I would have guessed myself to be in some Italian resort, for the buildings around me, simple structures washed in white or pastel pink, with jalousied windows and pillared porticoes, were much like those I recalled from my childhood home outside Genoa. Set in smooth lawns dotted with bright flowerbeds and shaded by massive mohurs, peepuls and neems, the lesser buildings clustered, but not too closely, around the Residency itself, a truly impressive pile three storeys high and boasting a fine hexagonal tower, from the summit of which, as it was not yet sundown, fluttered limply the red, white and blue of the Union Jack. Beyond this building, the lawns fell away to the riverbank, while on looking back as the carriage advanced to deposit us at the entrance, I glimpsed again the great domes and golden minarets of the city, thronging, it seemed, almost to the Baillie Guard itself.

  The place was en fête, from the drugget laid down on the steps to save the ladies’ delicate slippers, to the Chinese lanterns hanging in the trees and the horde of chattering, liveried servants clustered about the entrance to watch the arrivals.

  Immediately in front of us, Charles, who was driving the curricle himself, swept up to the entrance with something of a flourish, and in so doing managed to lock his off wheel in the wheel of another gig that was just about to drive away. There was a moment’s impasse as both drivers endeavoured to disengage their vehicles. Connie, grateful for the delay, fumbled in her reticule and took out a small flask, from which she took a couple of eager gulps behind a delicately raised hand. ‘Just to steady me, y’know,’ she said without embarrassment as I caught her eye. Meanwhile the driver of the other gig had jumped down and, while Charles kept his horse in check, put his shoulder to his own wheel and, clenching both hands around the rim of Charles’s wheel, exerted his strength in two directions at once, thus, little by little, freeing the two vehicles. When they once again stood independently on the gravel, he straightened his back, wiped the sweat from his forehead, rubbed his palms on the seat of his pants, and then, very deliberately, walked round the horses’ heads to face Charles.

  He was the oddest little figure of a man I had ever laid eyes on, perhaps in his late twenties, standing no more than five feet in his long yellow boots. His legs were bowed as a jockey’s, though his livery and tall hat indicated he was a coachman or groom. Long arms depended from shoulders that were disproportionately broad, and the head beneath the hat was a large one. His face was long and thin, and his eyes, small, black and as bright as boot buttons, were set so far towards his ears that I felt he could not possibly view any object with the two of them at once. He had a small flat nose, and his mouth was looselipped and wide; when he smiled he revealed a double row of large and glistening teeth as faultlessly regular as those of a healthy colt. He was smiling now. For a moment he inspected Charles, his equipage and his wife with dispassionate interest. Then, with his hands deep in his breeches pockets, he spoke: ‘You didn’t ought to ’ave done that, guv, really you didn’t. Now I sees you ’ave your lady with you, so I’ll say no more on this occasion. Very embarrassing it would be—for you! But mark this: if you can’t handle your ribbons better nor that, you ’as no business driving a high-wheeler—most perticular on a crowded occasion like this. Not safe you aren’t. Think what would ’ave ’appened to your lady ’ere, upended in a crowd of blackies.’

  ‘Sir!’ fumed Charles, jumping down from his seat, and doubling his fists aggressively.

  The little man held up one hand commandingly: ‘Now! Now! No offence meant. Just givin’ some kindly advice, see. Stick to a perambulator and you’ll be all right, guv,’ and with a jaunty salute in Emily’s direction, their rescuer stalked back to his own vehicle, mounted and swept off in superb style, leaving a chagrined Charles to stare after him, not sure whether to laugh or swear.

  There had been a few smiles and sniggers from the crowd of syces and coachmen near the entrance, and as we went up the steps Emily was almost tearful with mortification.

  ‘Oh, I’ll never feel the same again,’ she whispered. ‘Fancy anyone employing a ruffian like that—capable of speaking to a gentleman as he did to Charles. The … the villain!’

  ‘And he looked so like a horse himself, don’t you think?’ put in Connie with unaccustomed accuracy, while Wallace exhorted Emily not to give the matter another thought: the fellow was just a lout getting a cheap laugh from the natives.

  ‘He hadn’t a leg to stand on. It was as much his fault as mine,’ put in Charles with something less than truth, ‘but I certainly couldn’t bandy words with a groom, so I had to let him get away with it. Most unfortunate.’ And he ran a finger under his high white stock. Thus was masculine honour saved and, the business of the evening once begun, our discomfiture was soon forgotten.

  CHAPTER 12

  The reception rooms were already filled with people when, after leaving our cloaks in an upstairs room, we rejoined the men, made our curtseys and shook hands with our host the Chief Commissioner (as the Resident was called afte
r annexation), Mr Coverly Jackson. His manner towards his guests bordered on the disdainful, but since there were several couples behind us, we did not bother him with our conversation too long, and were soon free to find our own enjoyment.

  It was truly a most elegant occasion. The rooms were large and light, with long windows and high ceilings, the furnishings rich and comfortable. Fine polished floors, gleaming mahogany and mellow satin-wood, old silver and brocaded hangings were reflected in long mirrors set to catch the light of splendid chandeliers and countless candelabra, and everywhere there were flowers, massed on tables and sideboards, banked in pyramids in the corners of the rooms, and festooning the daïs on which the band was seated. Music was provided by the bandsmen of three separate regiments in turn, and I wondered if I were alone in my astonishment at how well our old airs were rendered by dusky musicians who knew nothing of the Western tonic sol-fa and had never read a note of music in their lives.

  ‘Oh, how very delightful it all is,’ sighed Connie. ‘I declare it makes me feel quite young again to hear the music and see all the pretty gowns.’ And her pale eyes came nearer to sparkling than I had ever seen them. Poor Connie, she had chosen to wear a dress of pale yellow muslin, rather limp and démodé, which did less than justice to her colouring. But Wallace was very smart and military in his tight blue pantaloons and jacket of blue faced with grey and silver.

  Dancing was already in progress as we wandered through the bright rooms in search of friends. The ladies, bell-hooped and crinolined, swam beneath the chandeliers in a tide of satin, silk and sarsenet of every hue, and the gentlemen, in tight pea jackets faced with flashing scarlet, yellow or silver, chests be-medalled, whiskers curled, served only to rival their partners in splendour, while here and there a lone civilian in sober black pointed a contrast.