The Tigress of Mysore

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The Tigress of Mysore Page 22

by Allan Mallinson


  ‘I’m excessively obliged, Annie; but I assure you that it’s for me to judge. You should have no concern on that account. But I can’t judge without information.’

  Annie nodded. ‘Well, Colonel, I couldn’t but look at her frequently, as we dined and afterwards – and it was easy to do so unobserved, for her eyes were not on me, for I am a mere servant after all – and I believe I observed someone who was … apprehensive. Not merely regarding her visitors; but that is very difficult to judge, is it not?’

  ‘Indeed? That is a most telling observation.’ And, were it so, one that he himself might – ought – to have made, except that, sitting next to Suneyla, he could scarcely have subjected her eyes to searching examination. ‘Fairbrother, what think you?’

  His friend smiled absently. ‘I think that Miss Gildea has expressed it admirably. The fatal gift of beauty.’

  Hervey sighed. Even if it were true – the beauty certainly was, but there was no knowing its lethality – it was hardly helpful. But then, that was Fairbrother’s great worth: he didn’t set out to be helpful, ever; only frank.

  ‘And what did you make of that sourness at the end – summoning the nautch girl.’

  ‘I wondered for whose benefit she spoke.’

  ‘Did you indeed?’

  Hervey lapsed into thought.

  ‘Papa, where is Mr St Alban?’

  It was a simple question, and a welcome one therefore. ‘He’s visiting with Colonel Bell, who was here when last I was. Or rather, he’s trying to discover his situation, for I wish to visit with him too.’

  Granite started to prance. Georgiana settled him with a check to the reins and more leg, wishing she could do so from astride rather than in this antiquated side-saddle. ‘He does that when there’s a snake.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Malik said, and he’s the best of syces. And a krait just slid into the grass there.’ She nodded to their right, perfectly calmly.

  ‘Miss Hervey is excessively observant,’ said Fairbrother, smiling broadly.

  ‘How do you know it was a krait?’

  ‘It’s always a krait, says Malik.’

  Hervey frowned. Was every Indian a fatalist?

  At three o’clock Georgiana and Annie went to the zenana to take tea with the ladies of the court. It was a cool, quiet place about the size of a tennis court, set well apart, high-ceilinged and with trickling water to fill the silences, for it was not a place entirely of chatter. It was a place of domestic industry. The ladies were indeed skilled at embroidery. They showed their visitors their work and gave them samplers to demonstrate their own. Few words were necessary, and both Georgiana and Annie were sparing in what they revealed of their Hindoostanee. The ladies themselves spoke almost no English, except for Mira Bai, wife of Colonel Bell – tall, handsome, the image of a high-born Rajpoot, and about forty or forty-five years old. The others deferred to her, as if she had seniority beyond her years.

  There were many easy smiles and gestures, and many expressions of pleasure that hardly needed translating. An hour and more passed agreeably for all, and then jasmine tea was brought, and sweetmeats – too sweet, indeed, for Georgiana’s or Annie’s taste, but which they accepted with many a ‘mehrbanee’. Mira Bai slipped out as the tea was poured, which put Georgiana on her guard, but after ten minutes she returned – with the Ranee.

  They stood and made namaskar, Georgiana and Annie curtsying. The ladies of the court looked troubled, however, eyes lowered as if anxious not to meet the Ranee’s. All except Mira Bai. She beckoned to Georgiana.

  Georgiana approached the Ranee and curtsied again, Annie likewise, but the Ranee brushed her away roughly, which her ladies saw (and looked away even more nervously).

  Georgiana held her countenance nevertheless. The Ranee’s manner softened somewhat, and she asked her to sit with her by the trickling pool in the corner. Mira Bai withdrew with Annie to join the ladies of the court, who’d taken up their sewing again. ‘All is well,’ she said to her, softly.

  The Ranee sat by the edge of the pool and bid Georgiana do the same. ‘Why is Colonel Hervey’s wife, your mother, not here with you?’

  Georgiana was about to say she was with child, but checked. ‘She is not entirely well, Your Highness. The heat: it became very tiring.’

  Suneyla stared hard at her, the eyes Georgiana had found pleasingly large windows on the soul now hostile.

  ‘Have you not seen Fort William then?’

  ‘No, ma’am, not yet.’

  ‘But you are to go there?’

  ‘I know of no plans, ma’am. My father desires to return to Madras as soon as may be.’

  ‘Are there a great many soldiers in Guntoor?’

  ‘Highness?’

  ‘I have heard there are many soldiers,’ she said, but this time absently, as if trying to make nothing of it. ‘It must be delightful for a daughter to see her father at the head of so great a number.’

  Georgiana was unsure whether she ought to dissemble, for if the Ranee had heard there were many soldiers, she must believe it. And what would be the consequences of denying something that might already be proved? Was the Ranee testing her? And if so, why?

  ‘Highness, there are a great many, yes. They have been hunting down the dacoits.’ And then she thought to – as it were – flush out the game by frankness. ‘But I understand that a great many more are soon to arrive.’

  This appeared not to alarm Suneyla but somehow to encourage her. ‘It is as I thought.’

  But Georgiana did not know what she thought – other than that Chintal’s spies did their work well. ‘Ma’am?’

  Suneyla fell silent for a moment, then made a gesture to the walls and her ear, and lowered her voice further. ‘Miss Hervey, please give this message to your father: The hamadryads that he and I once observed in the forest are nothing to the court here. I am ready to consider any proposal.’

  Georgiana stiffened.

  Annie saw, and went to her at once.

  Suneyla rose. Annie braced for the assault.

  But Suneyla smiled warmly and took her hand. ‘My dear, we have had such delightful talk, Miss Hervey and I.’

  Mira Bai was now close. Suneyla turned to her and said, in English, ‘It is accomplished.’

  ‘How exactly did you learn of it? Common knowledge, do you suppose?’

  Hervey had been tightening Minnie’s girth strap. St Alban had found him just as he was about to leave.

  ‘One of the bodyguard, just after I’d returned from Colonel Bell’s. He said there was a great commotion in the palace, the dewan much agitated, and most others.’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘Bestial.’

  ‘He said all the palace knew the story of Begum Sumroo, and if the Ranee could do to the nautch girl as the Begum did to one of her ladies, then she could do to any.’

  ‘Quite.’ Hervey wondered if he ought to go to the zenana. There was no reason to suppose that Georgiana was in any danger, but something as capriciously cruel as this …

  ‘Do you know of this Begum, Colonel?’

  ‘A very little. She was at Bhurtpore when we took it by siege. She’d brought her troops to assist Combermere – not that he needed any more. She was just after plunder. I saw her once – a hag, no less, though she was supposed to have been a beauty in her day. But that’s by the bye. Mind, if the Ranee’s imitating her methods …’

  ‘What do you propose to do, Colonel?’

  ‘What can I do? The Ranee entombs a nautch girl beneath her own bedchamber so she can hear her groans. You might imagine there’d be someone in the palace who’d take objection.’

  ‘I gained the distinct impression that fear would overcome any objection.’

  ‘Just so. Torture one; frighten a thousand.’ He turned suddenly and took the reins from the syce. ‘Edward, go see that Georgiana’s safe. Have a corporal with her till I’m back. I shan’t know how to proceed until I’ve spoken with Bell. Let’s hope he’s as forthcoming as you say.�
��

  Colonel Bell’s quarters were just as St Alban described: a fine old ghar in several acres of rhododendrons on the southern fringe of the city. There were hoopoes pecking on a very passable-looking lawn, a table and half a dozen cane chairs in the middle, and children playing – fairish-skinned children but dark-haired, the usual issue of British officers and their Rajpoot bibis.

  The colonel greeted him warmly, rising from his chair with the help of a stick and calling for his bearer to bring lime water. St Alban had said he thought the old warrior might have ‘gone Hindoo’ – although he hadn’t quite made namaskar – but although he wore a long white dhoti and mogul slippers, and shooed his children away in an accent that was more Dehli than Fort William (or, indeed, his native Scotland), it was not long before Hervey could fancy himself at the Horse Guards.

  ‘Read of yer doings at Coorg, General. Admirable economy of effort. Sit ye down.’

  Hervey told him the rank had been contingent on command of the field force, and that he’d thereby reverted, and that he’d simply not supposed his name would be known anywhere outside the military pales (a full despatch had been printed in the usual places) – and if it had been known, had soon been forgotten.

  ‘Oh, it was read of here with great attention, I assure you. Indeed, as soon as I mentioned it to the Ranee she insisted on seeing it for herself.’

  ‘The Ranee?’

  Colonel Bell laughed. ‘Of course! I imagine every ruler of every princely state’s read it. They’d like to know how their little kingdom’s to be annexed!’

  Hervey suddenly realized there was two and two to be put together. If the Ranee had read accounts of Coorg she’d have seen his rank as brigadier-general. If he were now colonel but with general rank about to be granted again, it would suggest another field force was assembling. And if another field force was assembling …

  He measured his words carefully. ‘It makes for salutary reading, I suppose. Sic semper tyrannus?’

  ‘Ah, so you suppose the Ranee to be a tyrant?’

  Hervey shrugged.

  ‘You don’t suppose she might retain an interest in one who served her father so well?’

  Hervey frowned. ‘And in consequence saw her banished to the forest of the Gonds?’

  ‘These things are taken as part and parcel of life in India, Colonel Hervey. But you’ll concede, will ye no, that the appearance of General Hervey at any prince’s seat will set the doocots aflutter?’

  ‘I am a colonel of light dragoons. I am not a general.’

  Colonel Bell smiled. ‘I ought to congratulate you on your brevet, by the bye.’

  ‘You are indeed well informed.’ But otherwise Hervey was inclined to keep his peace, doubting the colonel could be persuaded even on such a demonstrably provable fact as his rank.

  ‘And so?’

  ‘The Ranee suggested I call on you.’

  ‘I know. She told me.’

  ‘Ah, forgive me. I hadn’t known you were in her service still.’

  ‘I was never in her service, Hervey, if you recall. I commanded the subsidiary force – temporary as it was – in the pay of Fort William.’

  ‘That much I did know, yes, but when the force was withdrawn, I understood you to have transferred to her court.’

  The colonel smiled again. ‘More lime water?’

  Hervey was beginning to wonder if there really had been any purpose in the Ranee’s sending him here – beyond the natural decencies towards an old and infirm fellow-soldier and -countryman (except that the colonel was not so very old: his hair was streaked with grey; it wasn’t white. And his stick, Hervey judged, was more ornamental than essential).

  ‘You have a delightful establishment here.’

  ‘Indeed I do, and a hundred-year lease. I regret that my wife is in attendance at the palace today, but I insist you meet her during your stay.’

  ‘She’s one of the Ranee’s ladies? Was she at the banquet last evening?’

  ‘She was, and said she observed you there but hadn’t opportunity to be presented.’

  Hervey thought it odd. If the Ranee was so keen he meet the colonel, why not arrange for his wife to be presented?

  ‘Colonel, there is something I would speak of. I have just learned that the Ranee has perpetrated a murderous cruelty on one of last evening’s nautch. I cannot pretend – I don’t wish to pretend – that I know nothing of it.’

  Colonel Bell inclined his head. ‘How did you come by this?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge in the palace, evidently.’

  The colonel smiled. ‘Accha.’

  What a word was ‘Accha’: Hervey had even found himself using it of late. It encompassed so much. ‘And so?’

  ‘And so her design is working.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Ranee has asserted herself.’

  Hervey recoiled. Had Bell been so long in India as to be bereft of all Christian sentiment? ‘You condone the interment of a young woman for such a purpose?’

  ‘I assure you, Hervey, I don’t condone it for any purpose. Nor does the Ranee.’

  ‘Then the story is false?’

  ‘Of course it is. Purposefully so. Bhikoba, the girl, is here, if you must know, and tonight she’ll be away to join the rest of the nautchers back to Nagpore.’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘You’d better explain, if you will.’

  ‘Just so. Last evening – you found it agreeable.’

  ‘It was a fine evening altogether.’

  ‘Shreemati Bell said the Ranee was much taken by Miss Hervey. She, the Ranee, hopes very much to become more acquainted.’

  ‘I’m gratified. Georgiana liked her much too.’

  ‘She also said the Ranee found you wholly unchanged – in both appearance and manner – and was delighted by it, and hoped that you and your party would stay for as long as you pleased.’

  ‘Well, I’m gratified to hear that too, but the business of the agent won’t require more than a few days.’

  ‘The Ranee also wished to know of Mrs Hervey, but I had to confess I knew nothing.’

  ‘She is well.’ (He’d venture no more. He wanted no hostage information, and there was the business of the agent …) ‘You knew him, the agent, I suppose – and the manner of his death.’

  ‘The fellow was a sot. Choked in his own vomit.’

  ‘Is that certain?’

  ‘It was I who found him. And believe me, after years in India I have an eye for mischief.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you must have.’

  ‘And not only was he a sot, Hervey, but a corrupt sot to boot.’

  ‘Corrupt? How so?’

  ‘Every one of his despatches was read first by the dewan in exchange for gold.’

  ‘And you don’t think he might have sent unseen the despatches that were unfavourable? It is not unknown.’

  Bell shook his head. ‘Nothing leaves Chintalpore without the knowledge and approval of the dewan. You’ve been chasing thugs these several months, have you not? They command the roads in Chintal on the dewan’s behalf. That’s why there’re so many of ’em active in the Circars and Nagpore – and Haidarabad – with let of the dewan, because they intercept those whom he wishes and give ’im a share in their loot. They could be rounded up in weeks if he wished it – there’re more than enough troops in the bodyguard alone – but they’re too valuable to him.’

  ‘How did you come by what we were doing in the Circars?’

  The colonel smiled again. ‘The dewan. Tyrants can’t survive without spies. You must know that.’

  ‘Elizabeth and Burghley?’

  ‘Hah! You quite mistake the matter, Hervey. Elizabeth was the ruler, not Burghley. The Ranee rules merely at the pleasure of Ashok Acharya, on his behalf indeed. She daren’t express so much as an opinion without his approval. As for doing anything, or even going any- where …’

  ‘You’re saying that she’s captive in her own state? Sounds deuced reachy.’

  ‘How woul
d you describe it then, General?’

  Hervey simply raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You had a hard ride for the boar yesterday, I understand.’

  ‘Ye-es?’

  ‘The rissaldar pressed you hard.’

  ‘Tried to unseat me, I’d say.’

  ‘Then let me tell you those were his riding orders.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘The Ranee, of course. She wanted to see if you were the same man.’

  Hervey sighed heavily.

  ‘You can hardly blame her, since she proposes to place her life in your hands.’

  Hervey’s face was all incredulity. ‘She wants me to rescue her from her own devices?’

  ‘I’ve already told you: she’s no more her own mistress now than she ever was – from the outset, when she was brought back from the forest of the Gonds when her father died. It was bad enough with her first dewan, but Acharya is beyond evil. Doubtless you saw a few rubies at the palace last night; they’re nothing to what he’s been spending on the army – his army; they don’t answer to other than him. What do you know of them? I’d hazard you don’t know the half – that his artillery, for instance, now consists of over fifty pieces, and very well worked. How many of horse? I’d hazard too that you wouldn’t put it at more than five hundred. Two thousand, I tell you. This is what Acharya’s been doing these five years. His next move will be to contrive the removal of the Ranee, to take power completely.’

  Hervey grunted. ‘The fatal gift of rubies.’

  ‘You might say that.’

  ‘I can’t deny it’s a very contrary testimony to that which I’ve heard. Why now, though, am I hearing it?’

  ‘Because your coming here has presented an opportunity that she – we – hadn’t imagined would ever present itself, her very best chance of throwing off the chains. And that she now fears for her life.’

  ‘Evidently with cause, and for some time. But what is all this of Mysore? How does making mischief there serve Acharya’s purpose? It can only antagonize Fort William.’

  ‘It serves to justify increase in the army. He has to have some pretence of legitimacy with her. In the end, though, her forfeit life’s the stake, and this he’s always subtly reminded her of, though of late he’s become brazen. Doubtless you’ve heard of the snake pit at the palace?’

 

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