The Great Unknown

by Peg Kingman

  The Nawab’s more important guests presently retired to a breakfast laid out for them in an inner room; and the less important guests, such as Constantia’s mother, regaled themselves upon a lesser—but still sumptuous—repast in a larger outer room. Constantia shared the food from her mother’s silvery platter, beautifully arranged around the edge like the numbers on a clock face. There was a sweet made of honeyed carrots: delicious. Afterwards, Constantia’s mother convinced a khansaman to show her and her companions the other rooms of the handsome mansion, and of course Constantia went, too. Constantia did not like to lose sight of her beautiful mother, especially in such a crowd as this. The khansaman who led their little party from one room to the next spoke very good clear English. Dil Kusha, he explained, meant Heart’s Desire. The palace had been built for the Nawab by an Englishman some forty years earlier, to a plan identical to that of a famous English palace.

  What palace was that? demanded someone.

  Alas, admitted the khansaman, at this particular moment his memory failed him; at this particular moment he could not quite recall its name. But after a moment’s thought, he ventured to assert that it had been a work of a famous English architect whose name was Sahib Fonnabrew.

  This too met with uncomprehending silence, until someone cried, “Ah! Vanbrugh, you mean; Sir John Vanbrugh.”

  Blenheim, suggested someone, doubtfully.

  Surely not, said another. This house is not at all like Blenheim.

  Grimsthorpe Castle, proposed someone else.

  No, said the khansaman unhappily, he did not think that was it. He had been told that the palace whose name just now unfortunately eluded him had burnt down some time since . . .

  “Oh! Seaton Delaval!” declared Constantia’s mother, and the khansaman was delighted, for this was certainly the precise and correct name which he had momentarily forgotten. Constantia felt very proud of her mother, who was as clever as she was beautiful.

  Seaton Delaval! Seaton Delaval! How lovely it felt in the mouth, and how musical to the ear, this beautiful name! So beautiful a name must belong to a beautiful place. “But I knew Seaton Delaval very well,” explained Constantia’s mother to the Rani Anibaddh, who walked with her, on her right side—for Constantia, as always, kept hold of her mother’s left hand. “When I was a girl . . . I am from Northumberland, you know. And I remember very well the night when—when it burned. But I had the strangest presentiment of familiarity, upon coming into this palace! I could not say just what it was that seemed familiar. Yet now I do recognise . . . And the river, there! Just as Seaton Delaval overlooks the sea, the shore of the North Sea—so this palace overlooks the river. What is this river called? The Goomtee? What an amusing name!” she exclaimed, and laughed. Constantia knew from the laugh that her mother was excited; and she tugged her mother’s hand just a little, to remind her that she, Constantia, the Fair Flower, was there.

  “Fireplaces, even here?” said Constantia’s mother. “I wonder at that, in this climate.”

  Constantia’s mother was distrustful of fire. She never would bank a cooking fire and leave it, not even when she would have to make one all over again an hour hence. Before going to bed at night, she always made sure that every flame had been extinguished. Constantia was not allowed to bring a lamp into their bedroom. “Nay, hinney, you don’t want it,” her mother would say gaily. “Close your eyes a moment; then, when you open them, you’ll see in the dark, as a tiger does.” Or, if Constantia, complaining of cold, wanted the comfort of a fire, her mother would say, “Cold? Not this. A January in Northumberland, now: that is cold. Here, snug this about yourself,” she would say, and wrap Constantia in one of the striped silk shawls she had woven herself. The shawls were not very expertly woven, nor very warm; but after she had tucked the tickly fringe under Constantia’s chin, she would pat and rub her thin shoulders in a most kind and comforting way.

  Another palace, in Lucknow: Moti Mahal—Pearl Palace.

  Servants had raised umbrellas and canopies over the portico, and all during the hot afternoon, the Nawab’s guests were treated to the spectacle of animal combats staged upon the the banks of the Goomtee: a tamasha. The Nawab’s pleasure barge sailed back and forth upon the river, upstream and down, bearing the band of royal musicians, who pounded upon gigantic kettle drums and blew nine-foot-long trumpets. The barge was shaped like a fish; it had golden scales, and was bedecked with brilliant pennants and canopies. Constantia had never dreamed of anything so sumptuous, of such crowds of people, of such sunlight and dust and noise. The Khasiya hills were nothing like this.

  But tigers, elephants, buffaloes, and rhinoceros were all well-known to her, for they roamed all over those hills. Within a large enclosed court built against a wall of the Pearl Palace, half a dozen well-grown young buffaloes milled about. At the drop of a banner, a hatch in the wall opened, and a pair of heavy tigers was turned loose among the buffaloes. “Oh! It will be a slaughter!” cried Constantia’s mother and, gripping Constantia’s hand, she craned forward over the parapet, the better to see. Constantia was only just tall enough see if she stood on tiptoes; but the tigers did not leap instantly upon the buffaloes as she had expected. Instead, they slunk around and around the walls seeking any gap by which they might escape, their long heavy tails carried low. Eventually the tigers lay down, not far from one another, panting through open mouths. Constantia studied them. She had never seen a tiger like this: lying down; lying still; vulnerable to examination, suffering the gaze of all. Constantia felt sorry for them, and sorrier still when the buffaloes formed ranks against them. Three or four buffaloes lined up, massy armoured heads low and, shoulder to shoulder, advanced slowly across the enclosure upon the unoffending tigers, pausing to snort and stamp their heavy hooves from time to time. Still, the tigers would not be provoked, and remained lying down. They would not look at the buffaloes, and only the tips of their long tails snapping up and down in the dust betrayed their agitation. Constantia marveled at their self-command. But when at last a phalanx of stamping buffaloes approached within a few feet of the smaller of the tigers, the alarmed tiger lifted a paw—and was promptly tossed into the air upon the horns of the largest buffalo, landing painfully upon the horns of another—was tossed again—gored—impaled—then dropped, to writhe bleeding in the dust for just a moment until the buffaloes closed upon it, and trampled it to tatters—to stillness. Within ten minutes, the other tiger had met a similar fate.

  Oh! the poor creatures! Constantia had never felt sorry for a tiger, and had never expected to. In the Khasiya Hills, tigers were an ever-present threat; to venture out after dark was to invite a tiger to dine. Nor were the daylight hours entirely safe, not even in the villages, for tigers sometimes snatched up children playing on their own doorsteps in the sunshine, and carried them off. Constantia was never allowed to run about alone after dark, and prudent adults avoided it too, unless for irresistable, inexplicable, but excellent reasons of their own, such as her mother had.

  Yet even tigers, Constantia now saw, were not invincible.

  Other combats followed, in the enclosure below the palace: bears against bears (comical); rams against rams (the shock of impact when they crashed head to head was like an earthquake); hyenas against a remarkably vicious horse (which trampled three hyenas and retired victorious); and a python (which pursued, crushed, and swallowed a goat).

  But these matches, it turned out, were only preludes to the main event of the day: the elephant fights. These were to take place on the far bank of the Goomtee, a flat dusty plain, and safely removed from the important guests crowding the Pearl Palace’s rooftops, but just too distant, alas, to be seen quite clearly. Multitudes of the common people had gathered on the far bank, too, at what was supposed to be a safe remove (unless it might prove to be within harm’s way) to see what they could: occasional tumults, through clouds of dust.

  Presently two immense bull elephants were brought out, to a great fanfare of trumpets and drums. The elephants appeared so wel
l-matched in every respect that they might have been brothers; and perhaps they were, for they showed no inclination to fight, despite the urgings and goadings of their mahouts. Indeed, why should they? They were then made to swallow balls of human earwax—a stimulant which, as is well-known, enrages even the most pacific and sweetest-tempered of elephants. But when this, too, failed, their mahouts retired them to opposite ends of the pitch, while a beautiful female elephant was brought to the central ground between them. Then the bull elephants were turned round once more and, perceiving now in one another not a brother but a rival, battle was joined at last.

  It was at first merely a shoving match, but as they grew angrier, their tusks and trunks came wickedly into play. With their thick trunks entwined, they grappled, squeezed, wrestled and twisted at one another, as determined and deadly as pythons. It went on for some time, and it was very exciting to see; and riveting—except to Constantia. To her, the thick groping intertwined trunks were horrible and disturbing. She relinquished her mother’s hand and went to sit down upon a ledge nearby in the hot shade; closed her eyes to shut out the glare, and thought of home: cool high green wet hills; rushing streams; butterflies. When a cry went up from the spectators around her, a collective gasp, she opened her eyes. What had happened? Something shocking, something terrible; what was it? She peered over the parapet, at distant veils of dust. There were several brilliant flashes, followed by a sound of explosions; rockets and fireworks were thrown at the battling elephants, to separate them, and one of the elephants was with difficulty turned by his mahout and ridden down to the edge of the water. The other elephant pursued, still furious—but where was his mahout? There was no little figure clinging to his back. A knot of people had gathered on the trampled ground where the elephants had been, clustering around something dark on the yellow sand.

  “It was certainly deliberate,” said an English voice, above her head. “I saw it perfectly. It stepped to one side, and set its foot upon the fellow quite deliberately.”

  And that put an end to the tamasha that day.

  Later, everyone had returned to yet another palace nearby, called La Constantia, where the Nawab’s European guests lodged. Muslims never slept there, because the embalmed corpse of the Christian general who had built the palace still lay in a mausoleum vault beneath it, a permanent desecration. Constantia did not much like the idea herself of sleeping above his moldering corpse. The general’s personal motto was carved in stone above the magnificent doorway: LABORE ET CONSTANTIA. Constantia was glad that the palace was not called Labore instead; glad that she herself was not called Labore.

  The handsome English balloonist had somehow returned, sunburnt and celebrated. Everyone sought an opportunity to address a few words to him: questions; congratulations; invitations to repeat the feat at other venues nearby; or to tell him of other balloon ascents they had seen. If they could not speak with the young man himself, they addressed his uncle instead, who traveled with him as an assistant. Constantia was of course holding her mother’s hand when he was introduced, when he made his bow to her mother, for the second time that day. Constantia was afraid that he might ask her name too, for gentlemen sometimes did, when they met her mother. But he didn’t notice Constantia at all. He was smiling at Constantia’s mother and she was smiling, too; and even when other people, with the press of their introductions and remarks, separated him from them, Constantia could see that he was still looking about, from time to time, for her mother. Of course he did! She was the most beautiful woman in the room. Always; in any room.

  Livia, at Constantia’s breast, had fallen asleep, and a line of thin blue milk dribbled from the corner of her mouth, fallen open now against Constantia’s freckled breast.

  Why did nursing make Constantia think of her mother? Was it the constant company of her own breasts? Her memories of her mother always included the pillowy freckled plumpness of her mother’s bodice, just at Constantia’s (then) eye-level. Very low-cut bodices had been the fashion in those days; remarkably low; but the fashion had changed since then, and no one went about décolletée nowadays, except to a ball. Until now, Constantia’s own figure had never had the plumpness of her mother’s. But now for the first time in her life her milk-swollen breasts did resemble her mother’s. Perhaps that was why nursing these babies made Constantia remember her mother.

  But it was not only her mother. It was everything. Every thing.

  In the guest quarters at La Constantia that night, Constantia had sat up abruptly, suddenly awake; what sound had roused her? It seemed to echo still in her mind’s ear: the quiet click of the door latch. There was only a rumpled shawl on her mother’s side of the bed. Constantia slid from the bed, crossed the room, and opened the door just enough to see down the long corridor. There were shaded lamps and, at intervals, servants sleeping on mats. She opened the door further and stuck her head out to see in the other direction—and there she caught the briefest glimpse of her mother’s back, just as she whisked around the corner, and was gone. Constantia nearly cried out, terrified of being abandoned, left alone here by her beautiful mother, but knew that her mother would be angry, and bit back her distress. Instead, she ran after her, on silent bare feet. She might have lost her in the next reception room, quite dark; but then a rectangle of light had suddenly gaped in the far wall, and her mother’s form was silhouetted in it for a moment as she had slipped through a far doorway into a better-lit place beyond. The rectangle of light was extinguished, but Constantia had taken her bearings; she crossed the large empty hall and found the far door almost immediately. Silently she then followed her mother across a moonlit verandah; down another long corridor; up a stair. There she crouched in her nightdress upon the shadowed landing at the top, for this stair led only to a rooftop pavilion, open all around to the night air. Moonlight spilled between the slender pillars which held up the curvy roof shaped like a parasol, and laid dark moonshadow arabesques across the pale marble flagstones.

  Constantia’s heart battered against her ribs, and thrummed in her ears, so that she could hardly catch the sound of her mother’s voice, her excited laugh. Another shadow disengaged from one of the pillars, and came forward, and caught at her mother. A man. A man was there.

  Constantia listened with all her ears, but they weren’t speaking. They had melded into a single figure. For a moment the single figure divided into two; then again became one. In the bright moonlight, Constantia could see their arms: entwined; grappling. Like pythons, crushing; like the trunks of embattled elephants. Terror rose in Constantia; terror for her mother, terror for herself, if her mother should be crushed and destroyed by this man with whom she was locked in mortal combat. Constantia couldn’t help it; a whimper escaped her. Instantly the two figures broke apart, and her mother was at her side. Quite unhurt. “You followed me!” whispered her mother.

  “I was afraid,” Constantia had sobbed, humiliated.

  The man turned aside, harmless. As the moonlight fell across his face, Constantia recognised the handsome English balloonist.

  Even now, remembering, with Livia asleep at her breast, Constantia felt a tide of heat rise in her. It was a return of the humiliation she had felt then; but it also had other feelings in it. She assayed them: Shame, at her then-ignorance. Embarrassment, to match her mother’s. A married woman’s understanding, now . . . no, more than that; a sharing, now—of the amorous urgency which had moved her mother, then. Which had moved her mother, always! And last, late, but increasingly, there was a deep sorrowful compassion for the frightened, perplexed, powerless child she herself had been. Childhood for some, it seemed, was happy and carefree; but not for Constantia. These Chambers children, for instance, seemed quite happy—except for Tuckie, who thought too much. Constantia studied Livia’s still-formless pudding-face, asleep, slack. Pink curved wet lips; the dimple in her chin. And wanting for nothing, at this moment. For nothing at all.

  7

  A narrow snip of blue silk grosgrain ribbon.

  A squar
e of vermilion velvet, frayed.

  A scrap of plain grey linsey-woolsey.

  Four inches of grubby apron-string.

  A swatch of moth-eaten tartan in green and blue.

  A tatter of red worsted.

  A splinter of wood.

  A patch of worn leather.

  WERE THESE THE identifying tokens left pinned to the blanket of a baby relinquished on the kirk steps—in case its mother might someday find herself in a position to return and reclaim it?

  Not at all; they were authentic relics of Bonnie Prince Charlie himself, preserved upon the end boards of “The Lyon in Mourning,” the eight-volume manuscript collection of journals, narratives, and memoranda relating to every circumstance of the Forty-five Rising, compiled by Bishop Forbes—and now the cherished property of Mr Chambers.

  “Supposed to have been snipped from his Garter ribbon,” said Mr Chambers to his daughters, as he smoothed the blue silk ribbon. He was arranging these eight volumes, open, upon the library table, so as best to display these precious relics attached to their end-boards. “And the velvet is from the hilt of his sword. What do you deduce from that, Lizzy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lizzy.

  “Jenny?”

  “Don’t know,” said Jenny.

  “Twinnies do not know, and do not wish to know,” said their father. “Polly, did you ever hear of a sword with velvet to its hilt?”