Treachery in Tibet

Alice Fonthill screwed up her eyes against the glare of the sun and looked about her in wonder. On her way by rickshaw from the railway station she had ridden past a succession of white, neoclassical mansions, standing amidst carefully cultivated gardens – the homes of rich Indian merchants but also the stately offices of the bureaucrats who were making the British Raj function so smoothly at the birth of this new century. Calcutta, the capital of Imperial India, had indeed become a city of European architecture and style, even if the stately houses were a gilded carapace concealing behind them the hovels of the Indians who serviced them. Yet the building at whose entrance she stood now made her jaw drop.

As befitted an experienced journalist, Alice had done her homework. Government House, she knew, had been built in the time of Governor General Wellesley, the brother of the soldier who was to become the Duke of Wellington. It had cost the East India Company
£63,291 – a huge sum that had prompted the recall of Wellesley. She had read that some 700 servants were housed within it now to attend to the cares of the Viceroy and his family. As the representative in India of the King Emperor, the man deserved nothing less, of course. The pomp and power of the Empire were encapsulated in him. He demanded, no, he
deserved
an imperial palace.

Alice gazed at the massive stone edifice that seemed to stretch for almost a mile on either side of her, as she stood at the huge archway that guarded its entrance. She took in the tall windows that gazed down on terraces, statues, gardens and, in the semi-distance, two ornate carriages drawn by magnificent horses that waited by a side doorway, presumably at the Viceroy’s pleasure. It was the size of the thing that impressed. In truth, the building lacked elegance. It sat like some grey, stone battleship, a bit reminiscent of Buckingham Palace but without the Georgian symmetry.

She had asked to be dropped at the archway so that she could collect her thoughts before proceeding further. But now she rather regretted it, for she would be forced to walk some 200 yards at least in the hot sun down the gravelled driveway before reaching the entrance to the house itself. Tiring and rather demeaning, for Europeans rarely walked far during the day in Calcutta. And certainly not English memsahibs.

Never mind. Alice Fonthill, née Griffith, of
The Morning Post,
London, was never one to observe the proprieties. She adjusted her parasol slightly, hitched up her skirt and gave the giant Sikh guarding the entrance her brightest smile.

‘Good morning,’ she beamed. ‘What a lovely day! I have an appointment with the Viceroy, Lord Curzon.’ She presented to him the
letter in which the Viceroy’s secretary had confirmed the appointment and waited courteously while the man looked at it, certainly more impressed by the crest at the top of the notepaper rather than its contents, for it was most unlikely that he could read. If, however, he was unimpressed by the fact that the memsahib had not been driven up in style, under the archway and through the grounds of the palace, like most of its visitors, he gave no sign.

Springing smartly to attention and saluting, he gestured down the drive. ‘Entrance to house is straight ahead, madam. You will be escorted.’ He turned and barked an order to a younger but equally resplendent Sikh, who had materialised as if by magic, and saluted again.

Alice nodded her thanks and fell in behind her escort, marvelling at his erect bearing, and the vivid colours of his sashed uniform and towering turban. As she walked, treading delicately and slowly on the gravel so as not to perspire unbecomingly, she reflected once again on the essential colourfulness of all things Indian. Not, mind you, the eternal greyness of the hills and ravines of the North-West Frontier, where she and her husband, Simon, had fought in the great Pathan Revolt some six years before, but here, in the heart of the subcontinent, where, in the cities and villages, the bazaars and streets buzzed with life and brilliance. There, long swathes of cotton and gauze were invariably draped on display in hues which sang the skills of the dyer; garishly coloured dishes – almond curd,
balushahi
sweetmeats, boluses of spiced mutton, gleaming piles of white rice – stirred the taste buds; the brilliant saris and
salwar kameezes
of the women complemented the trinkets of silver, turquoise and even gold that they inspected so contemptuously on the stalls. And the evocative
smells everywhere! Even now, as she walked towards Government House, soft fragrances of tea and spices wafted towards her from the Hooghly river.

Alice folded her parasol as she and her escort reached the house itself. The young Sikh murmured something in Hindi to the equally sumptuously caparisoned soldier at the door, who stood on guard, sabre resting on his shoulder. She tried to recall how many men were in the Viceroy’s personal bodyguard – as many as 400, wasn’t it? – and then she was ushered into the blessed cool of a gigantic hallway.

Blinking to become accustomed to the shade, she caught glimpses of tall rooms gilded with marble, mahogany, gold, velvet and silk, beneath huge crystal chandeliers, before a slim, young Englishman in grey morning coat came striding towards her.

‘Ah, Miss Griffith, good morning,’ he called, as he approached, his hand outstretched. Alice paused for a moment, then realised that, of course, as a correspondent of
The Morning Post,
she had used her maiden name. She extended her white-gloved hand and the young man bowed low over it. ‘Willoughby, ma’am,’ he said, ‘the Viceroy’s second secretary. His Lordship is expecting you, of course. Did you have a pleasant journey?’

‘What? Oh, from Sibsagar, you mean? Yes, thank you. The worst part was getting to the town. From there, it took two days by rail, of course, but the train, though slow, was well on time. Sometimes we feel that Assam is rather a forgotten part of India, you know. We are rather remote.’

Willoughby smiled, revealing a flash of white teeth beneath his luxurious moustache. ‘Oh good gracious no. The subcontinent would be virtually nothing without its tea. And, indeed, so would England,
don’tcha know. You tea growers are certainly not forgotten here in Calcutta, ma’am, I assure you of that.’

As they chatted inconsequentially, the secretary led her through what seemed like a succession of marbled halls and Alice was conscious of turbanned attendants, their white robes slashed diagonally with scarlet sashes, bowing low like automatons from nooks and crannies as they passed. Eventually, they came to a cool, smaller anteroom and Willoughby gestured to a low couch, sumptuously cushioned in cream velvet.

‘Do take a seat, Miss Griffith,’ he said. ‘His Lordship is detained by a … ahem … rather unexpected Indian visitor at the moment, but he is aware that you are here. He won’t keep you a moment. I won’t offer you tea, because I know that the Viceroy will like to receive that with you, but would you care for, say, a little lemon juice while you wait?’

Alice smiled gratefully. ‘Oh, that would be ideal. Thank you.’

As Willoughby departed – he seemed to glide, rather than walk, she noted – Alice settled back in the cushions and sought in her handbag for her powder compact. She was glad to have a moment to herself before she met Curzon. Aware of the man’s reputation for aloofness and his typical politician’s dislike of the press, she remained surprised that he had so seemingly readily agreed to her request for an interview. She had put it down to the reputation of her newspaper as a solid supporter of the reigning Tory government back home and, perhaps … she smiled immodestly at the thought … at the fame that she and her husband had garnered over the years from their adventures throughout the Empire. Simon Fonthill had gained a following, not altogether welcomed by him, as a result of his exploits
as a quite irregular army scout over the last three decades, while the redcoats of the Queen had pushed back boundaries all over the world. He had been appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath after penetrating the Mahdi’s lines at Khartoum and had risen to acting Brigadier General in the recent war against the Boers in South Africa, gaining a Distinguished Service Order. And his adventures had been shared and reported upon by his wife.

But Alice’s smile broadened slightly as a possible other reason for the ease with which she seemed to have gained admission to the Viceroy’s guilded presence reoccurred to her. Despite his reputation for reclusion and pomposity, Curzon, she had heard, was not above casting his eye upon a pretty face. Oh, as a married man to an American heiress now for some eight years, no hint of scandal had been attached to him. But, as a titled and handsome bachelor, his predilection for female company had become well known and his mistresses were legion.

Alice now, then, looked at herself critically in the small mirror of her powder compact. As a woman forging her career in the distinctly masculine world of journalism – she was not the only female war correspondent in London’s Fleet Street, but distaff competitors were few – she had never been averse to using her looks to help her get ahead. The face that frowned back at her now from the small oval glass was no longer young, alas. But, she had to admit that, at nearing fifty, maturity had dealt her no harsh blows.

Her cheekbones were high and clear cut, her mouth full, her eyes of a rather challenging grey and the skin which most women of her age would have carefully protected from the sun with cream and powder, now glowed back at her with a sheen that reflected her
outdoor life: unfashionable but by no means unattractive. Her hair betrayed only the faintest of grey streaks and remained lustrously fair. In fact, if it had not been for a rather squareness of jaw that betrayed determination, Alice Griffith could still have qualified as a beautiful woman.

Nevertheless, her frown remained as she dabbed onto her cheeks just a touch of powder to tone down that ridiculously healthy glow. Interviewing Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy of India, was not going to be easy – not with the questions and radical views she intended to put to him, anyway. She would need all the help she could get.

Alice was well aware that, beneath the notoriously haughty and supreme confidence exuded by the man, there lurked a scholar, a politician of conviction and a person whose knowledge of Central Asia and the trouble spots of the Middle and Far East was probably unsurpassed in the corridors of Westminster. His precocity had been marked when, while still at Oxford, his speeches in the Union there had been quoted in Parliament. A life-long Conservative, he had entered the Commons in 1886 by winning the seat of Southport in Lancashire. He first visited India in the following year and then had travelled twice round the world and been published extensively. In the nineties he had journeyed 2,000 miles
alone
on horseback in Persia and later, on his way to stay with the Amir of Afghanistan, no less, he had climbed to an altitude of 14,000 feet, up to the plateau of the Pamirs, to visit the hidden valley of Hunza. Now, however, it seemed that those cold eyes of his were fixed on the strange, lost world of Tibet – and Alice was here to find out why.

She snapped the compact shut and gratefully accepted the tinkling
glass of iced lemonade presented to her. She was stealing a quick look at her notes when a cough announced that Willoughby had returned.

‘So sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Griffith,’ he announced. ‘The Viceroy has managed to … er … get rid of his unannounced visitor and is looking forward to seeing you now. Do let me take your lemonade in for you.’

Ah, thought Alice. Young man, you will go far …!

She entered a much larger room that had all the grace and elegance of those that had preceded it and, as she did so, a tall, matchingly elegant man rose to greet her from behind the desk at its far end. He advanced towards her with hand extended, walking stiffly erect, as though on parade. Alice remembered that an accident in his youth had injured his spine, so leaving him in intermittent pain and forcing him to wear at all times a steel-braced corset. This, she knew, had helped to bequeath him the reputation of being lordly and condescending – perhaps undeservedly?

As Curzon bowed over her hand, Alice gave him the curtsy that was owed to him as the Queen’s representative in this huge land and looked up into his face. It was, as she had been led to expect, undoubtedly handsome. Some four years younger than she, the Viceroy too had worn well, despite the pain of his injury. His fair hair had now receded somewhat and had been brushed back severely to reveal the noblest and most scholastic of brows. His cheekbones matched hers in their sharpness and his lips were chiselled, giving his face a lean and sensitive appearance. The reputation for haughtiness, she reflected quickly, was obviously enhanced by eyes of an indeterminate colour that seemed cold and unreceptive, belying the warmth of his smile.

‘Mrs Fonthill.’ His voice was mellifluous, of course, but quite grave and formal in tone. Then: ‘Oh, but perhaps I shouldn’t address you so. Are you Miss Griffith today?’

Alice produced her best smile once again. ‘It really doesn’t matter, Lord Curzon. It really is rather flattering for this married woman to be able to revert to … what shall I say … my maiden status, whenever she wants to.’ (Dammit. The unintended double entendre made her sound coquettish. Far too early to play that card!)

She hid her momentary embarrassment with a cough. ‘But perhaps, as I am here as a correspondent for
The Morning Post,
Miss Griffith would be most appropriate.’

‘As you wish, dear lady. When I received your letter I realised that I had been reading with interest and admiration your despatches from various parts of the Empire for some years now and it is a pleasure to meet you at last.’ He had retained her hand and she now withdrew it very slowly, perhaps even a little languorously. She had played this game before.

‘Oh, that is more than kind of you, Your Excellency. And I am most grateful to you for sparing the time in what I am sure is a very busy day.’