The Empire Trilogy (65 page)

But the Collector admired pretty women and could not feel hostile to them for very long. If they were pretty he swiftly found other virtues in them which he would not have noticed had they been ugly. Soon he began to find Miriam sensible and mature, which was only to say that he liked her grey eyes and her smile. “She has a mind of her own,” he decided. “Why can't all women be widows?”

Fleury and Miriam sat opposite the elder Dunstaples in the carriage, beside little Fanny. Their space was confined because the ladies' crinolines ballooned against each other leaving very little room for a gentleman to stretch his legs with discretion. Even Fanny's slender legs were lost in mounds of snowy, tiered petticoats.

“How pleasant it is to be ashore again after those five interminable months at sea! How one misses the trees, the fields, the green grass! But, of course, Miss Dunstaple, you yourself must have experienced this very same ordeal by water and here I am speaking as if I were the only person ever to have come out from England!”

Fleury had regarded this as the beginning of a pleasant conversation but somehow his words were not well received. Louise's lips barely moved in reply and her mother looked quite put out. Had he made a blunder? It surely could not be that Louise was “country born” and had thus never been to England, a condition that he had heard was much misprised in Indian society. But alas, this seemed to be the case.

The carriage had slowed down to pass through a densely populated bazaar. Fleury gazed out at a sea of brown faces, mortified by his mistake. A few inches away two men sat cross-legged in a cupboard, one shaving the skull of the other from a cup of dirty water. A cage containing a hundred tiny trembling birds with black feathers and red beaks crept past. To Fleury India was a mixture of the exotic and the intensely boring, which made it, because of his admiration for Chateaubriand, irresistible. Now there was shouting. They had arrived at the
ghat
.

The boat which the Doctor had engaged turned out to be a very dubious prospect indeed; a mass of leaky, rotting timbers roughly oblong in shape, manned by Dravidian cut-throats. But never mind, it was not far across the Hooghly; over the water the soaring trees of the Botanical Gardens could be seen.

“Look, there's Nigel!” cried Louise, just as they were going on board, and clapped her hands with pleasure. A scarlet uniform could be seen glimmering in and out of the white muslin of the crowd and presently a young officer on horseback with a barefoot groom running along beside him clattered up to the
ghat
. He dismounted hastily and leaving the
sais
to cope with the horse scrambled on board, saying breathlessly: “Fearfully sorry to be late!”

Mrs Dunstaple greeted him a little coldly. Evidently Louise had not told her that she intended to invite Lieutenant Stapleton and she was not altogether glad to see him. Out of the corner of his eye Fleury saw Mrs Dunstaple frowning at her daughter and nodding surreptitiously in his direction. He remembered then what the Doctor had said about Louise and her prospects. So that was it! Mrs Dunstaple was afraid lest one of these eligible young men should become discouraged by the presence of the other. Fleury was pained to see Louise glance in his direction and then toss her head and look away, as if to say: “Why should I care whether he's discouraged or not?” Although discouraged, Fleury stared at the river, pretending to admire the view. Lieutenant Stapleton, who had evidently expected to be the only young male on the expedition, seemed himself rather taken aback; when the two young men were introduced he merely mumbled wearily and eyed Fleury's crumpled but well-cut clothes with sullen envy.

No sooner had they reached the mud banks on the other side than a commotion ensued; the ladies discovered that while sitting in the boat the hems of their dresses had sopped up a certain amount of bilge water. With many moans and complaints they retired to a glade at a discreet distance with a maidservant to wring them out. When at last they returned, the party moved off, trailing a crowd of grinning servants. The gardens displayed few flowers but many enormous trees and shrubs. Their way led past the Great Banyan and Fleury was filled with awe at the sight of its many trunks joined together by branches into a series of spectacular gothic arches. He had never seen a banyan tree before.

“It's like a ruined church made by Nature!” he exclaimed with excitement as they passed by; but the Dunstaples failed to respond to this insight and, while they were all trying to decide on a suitable place for their picnic, he thought he saw Louise and Lieutenant Stapleton exchanging a sly smile.

From time to time, as they progressed through the trees, they crossed green glades where young officers were already picnicking with their ladies; but when at last they found a glade that was uninhabited Mrs Dunstaple declared it to be too sunny. In the next glade there was yet another party of young officers drinking Moselle cup with what the Doctor clearly took to be vivacious young widows. Fleury saw him look at them wistfully as he prepared to pass on with his own party...but the young officers hailed him, laughing, and asked did he not recognize them? And it turned out that they were not only acquaintances but even the best of friends, for these young men were normally stationed at Captainganj; they had been to the musketry school at Barrackpur to learn about the new Enfield rifles that were making the sepoys so cross, and had taken the opportunity of visiting Calcutta for a bit of civilization, and were naturally delighted at bumping into Dr and Mrs Dunstaple and, of course, Miss Louise, and what about that young rotter Lieutenant Harry Dunstaple who had faithfully promised to write but had not put pen to paper? They would deal with the rascal when they got back to Krishnapur in a few days...and nothing would suit them but that the Dunstaples' party should join them.

Their ladies, it turned out, were not vivacious young widows at all, but girls of the most respectable kind, the sisters of one or other of the officers; so everything was taking place with the utmost propriety.

The officers had already made several dashing assaults on their own hamper, a converted linen basket which seemed to contain nothing but Moselle cup in a variety of bottles and jars. The Dunstaples had brought several hampers, more than one of which bore the proud label of Wilson's “Hall of All Nations” (purveyors by appointment to the Rt. Honourable Viscount Canning), for the Doctor obviously believed in doing things properly. The young men could hardly restrain themselves as the Dunstaples' bearers unpacked before their eyes a real York ham, as smooth and pink as little Fanny's cheeks, oysters, pickles, mutton pies, Cheddar cheese, ox tongue, cold chickens, chocolate, candied and crystallized fruits, and biscuits of all kinds made from the finest fresh Cape flour: Abernethy's crackers, Tops and Bottoms, spice nuts and every other delicious biscuit you could imagine.

With his hands palpitating his coat tails the Doctor surveyed his bearers at work and pretended to be unaware of the young men's interest, waiting until the last moment before declaring with mock diffidence: “I'm sure you young fellows don't feel like a bite to eat, but if you do...” at which a mighty cheer rang out, causing Mrs Dunstaple to look round in case they were drawing attention to themselves, but similar gay sounds were echoing from the glades around them; only a few ragged-looking natives had made an appearance and were sitting on their heels at the edge of the clearing, gazing at the white sahibs.

The young officers, in return, insisted that everyone should share their Moselle, of which they had an over-supply; indeed, sufficient to render themselves and their ladies insensible several times over. Soon a general merriment prevailed.

As for Louise, she looked quite ethereal in the dappled sunlight and shade, but it made Fleury sad to see her surrounded by gluttony and laughter; she was holding up the thigh of a duck one end of which had been wrapped in a napkin, not to be nibbled at by herself but to be wolfed at in an exaggerated and droll manner by the heavily mustached lips and somewhat yellow teeth of one of the officers, whose name was Lieutenant Cutter and who had been one of her particular favourites the year before in Krishnapur, it seemed. And not content with having everyone helpless with laughter by this behaviour Lieutenant Cutter became more droll than ever and threw back his head to howl like a wolf between bites.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was asking Captain Hudson about something which had been on his mind for a few days: namely, what was all this about there having been trouble with the sepoys at Barrackpur in January? Had he and the other officers been there at the time?

“No, that had all quietened down by the time we got there. But it didn't amount to much in any case...one or two fires set in the native lines and some rumours spread about defilement from the new cartridges. But General Hearsey handled things pretty skilfully, even though some people thought he should have been more severe.”

Here Mrs Dunstaple cried out petulantly that she wanted an explanation, because nobody ever explained to her about things like defilement and cartridges; she could remain as ignorant as a maidservant for all anyone cared, and she smiled to indicate that she was being more coquettish than cross. So Hudson kindly set himself to explain. “As you know, we load a gun by pouring a charge of powder down the barrel into the powder chamber and after that we ram a ball down on top of it. Well, the powder comes in a little paper packet which we call a cartridge...in order to get at the powder we have to tear the end off and in army drill we teach the men to do this with their teeth.”

“And so the natives feel themselves defiled...well, good gracious!”

“No, not by that, Mrs Dunstaple, but by the grease on the cartridges...it's only on balled cartridges of course...that is, a cartridge with a ball in it. You empty in the powder and then instead of throwing it away you ram the rest of the cartridge in on top of it. But because it's rather a tight fit you have to grease it, otherwise the ball would get stuck. With the new Enfield rifles, which have grooves in the barrel, the balled cartridge would certainly get stuck if it wasn't greased.”

“Bless my soul, so it was the grease!”

“Of course it was, that's what worried Jack Sepoy! Somehow he got the idea that the grease comes from pork or beef tallow and he didn't like it touching his lips because it's against his religion. That's why there was trouble at Barrackpur. But now Major Bontein has suggested a change of drill...in future, instead of biting off the end we'll simply tear it off. That way the sepoys won't have to worry what the grease is made of. As it is, the stuff smells disgusting enough to start an epidemic, let alone a mutiny.”

Hudson added that there had been yet another spot of bother on the twenty-seventh of February, at Berhampur, a hundred miles to the north where the 19th Bengal Infantry had refused to take percussion caps on parade; the absence of any European regiment had made it impossible to deal with this mutinous act on the spot...Now the defaulting regiment was slowly being marched down to Barrackpur for disbandment. But there was no cause for alarm and, besides, now that everyone had finished eating, a game of blind man's buff was being called for.

Everyone cried that this was a splendid idea and in no time the bearers had cleared the hampers to one side (and then been cleared away themselves) and the game was ready to begin. One of the ladies, a plump girl who was already rather hot from laughing so much, had duly been blindfolded and now she was being turned round three times while everyone chanted a rhyme that one of the officers, who had decided as a pastime to study the natives, had learned from the native children:

“Attah of roses and mustard-oil,
The cat's a-crying, the pot's a-boil,
Look out and fly! The Rajah's thief
will catch you!”

With that they all darted away and the young lady blundered about shrieking with laughter until at last her brother, who was afraid that she might have hysterics, allowed himself to be caught.

This brother was none other than Lieutenant Cutter, a very amusing fellow indeed. As he lunged here and there he kept up a gruff and frightening commentary to the effect that he was a big bear and that if he caught some pretty lass he would give her a terrible hug...and the ladies were so alarmed and delighted that they could not help giving away their positions by their squeals, and they kept only just escaping in the nick of time.

But soon it became evident that there was something rather peculiar about Lieutenant Cutter's blunderings. How did it happen that far from blundering impartially as one would have expected of a blindfolded man, time and again he ignored his brother officers and made his frightening gallops in the direction of a flock of ladies? Perhaps it was simply that he could locate them by their squeals. But how was it that he so frequently galloped towards the prettiest of all, that is to say, towards Louise Dunstaple, and finally caught the poor moaning, breathless creature and gave her the terrible bear-hug he had threatened (and how was it, Fleury wondered, that he had so plainly become animally aroused by this innocent game?) Lieutenant Cutter had been cheating, the rascal! He had somehow or other opened a little window in the folds of the silk handkerchief over his eyes and all this time he had only been simulating blindness!

And so the merriment continued. What a wonderful time everyone was having...even the ragged natives watching from the edge of the clearing were probably enjoying the spectacle...and how delightful the weather was! The Indian winter is the perfect climate, sunny and cool. It was only later that evening that Fleury remembered that he had wanted to ask Captain Hudson, who had looked an intelligent fellow, if he thought any more trouble was to be expected...Because naturally it would be foolish for himself and Miriam to visit the Dunstaples in Krishnapur, as they intended, if there was to be unrest in the country.

The Collector had been astonished, on hearing of the mutiny of the 19th at Berhampur, at the lack of alarm in official circles over this development. Later he heard that General Hearsey had been obliged to address the sepoys at Barrackpur to reassure them that there was no intention of forcibly converting them to Christianity, as they suspected. The English, Hearsey had explained to them, were “Christians of the Book”, which meant that nobody could become a Christian without first reading and understanding the Book and voluntarily choosing to become a Christian. It was believed in Calcutta, though not by the Collector, that this speech, delivered in their own language in strong, manly tones by an officer they trusted, had had a beneficial effect on the sepoys. The Collector, in the meantime, had arrived at a painful decision. In spite of his anxiety to return to Krishnapur after his wife's departure he had decided that it was his duty to stay in Calcutta for a few more days to warn people of the danger that he himself had first perceived in those ominous chapatis he had found on his desk.