The Mountain of Light

by Indu Sundaresan

  Colonel Mackeson had never married; that is, he had not married an Englishwoman. He did, though, have a zenana of native women—three of them—with whom he had lived for twenty-five years, and who had borne him twelve children. He knew all of their names, had named them himself, and taught them English and some mathematics. They lived in a house he had built on the banks of the Hooghly near Calcutta. There were some officers in the army who knew of his wives and children, but most did not, because he did not travel with them and had never introduced them to his fellow officers’ wives.

  There had not been enough money for an English wife at first, and then, when the promotions came in, never an opportunity to meet one. Mackeson had been forced to spend his first home leave—ten years after he had come to India—in bed with a fever through which one of his wives had nursed him, or he would have died. When the next home leave came around, another ten years later, one of his children was sick with the cholera, and the boy had subsequently died, leaving a yawning hole in Mackeson’s heart. This boy he had taught to hunt, to fish, to sit on a chair, to drink tea from a cup’s rim and not slurp it from the saucer. Most of the men under his command, for a very long time, had been natives. Over the years the balance had changed, as the East India Company recruited more and more men from the British Isles, promising them wealth from an Indian tour (which had to last at least a few decades before it could be realized) and faster promotions than in the King’s army. This had been what had lured Mackeson also.

  He watched as other, younger men, with connections on the Governor-General’s Council, or the Court of Directors of the East India Company, or at court, leapt over him to higher ranks. But Colonel Mackeson was patient and unworried. Finally, he was asked to be a political agent in Peshawar while the Maharajah Ranjit Singh still ruled over the Punjab Empire. That led to other civil postings, and the final one—the one that had brought him to Watson’s Hotel in Bombay, sleepless and wide-eyed—was as political liaison of the Governor-General’s office during the Second Sikh War.

  Lord Dalhousie had come to India as Governor-General over two years ago. It wasn’t he who had recommended Mackeson for the post—he had hardly known any of the old India hands when he landed—but he soon came to rely upon the man, his dedication, his unhurried answers, his thoughtfulness, his proven bravery. Of Mackeson’s harem in Calcutta, Dalhousie neither knew nor cared. And it had been two years since Mackeson had seen these women of his family.

  Now this. He eventually rose from his bed, his arms stiff, his shoulders frozen, his neck muscles tense. The Punjab Empire had finally been dissolved, and there was no more pretense at the British government “holding” the throne for the young Maharajah Dalip Singh until he reached his majority. The Second Sikh War had put an end to that entire charade, and Dalip Singh had signed an official treaty giving up his lands, his right to rule over them, the jewels in his Toshakhana and the Kohinoor diamond. He had also been taken away from Lahore at Lord Dalhousie’s behest, for fear that the twelve-year-old Maharajah’s very presence would be an incitement to riot, to claim back the throne of the Punjab.

  Colonel Mackeson walked up to the verandah doors, brushed aside the curtains, and looked out into the street. Over the tops of the buildings, in the distance, he could see the dark blue waters of the harbor, and the intermittent twinkle of lights from the boats and ships clustered there. He put his hand on the door’s latch and opened it enough so that the breeze wafted in, mildly scented with frangipani flowers, and the pure breath of the sea.

  As political liaison for Lord Dalhousie, he had also carried the terms of the treaty to the child king, not sure that he should have been doing this. Surely it was better that Henry Lawrence, who had been Resident at Lahore before, and knew the Maharajah well, should have performed this task?

  If there was one thing Colonel Mackeson would fault Lord Dalhousie for, it had been this. The child had been brought into a room full of strangers and told that depriving him of his lands was the right thing for him, that he would be looked after, could keep some of his jewels, and would have an income for life. What more could he want?

  “But,” Dalip Singh had said, in the high voice of a child, “where’s Henry?”

  Dr. John Login had been left—when Henry Lawrence was taken away from Dalip Singh and Lahore—as the guardian for the fort, the treasury, and the child. This too Mackeson approved of; he had also thought Henry Lawrence too empathetic with the native people of the Punjab to remain there any longer . . . but Lawrence should have been there to hold the boy’s hand when he signed the treaty, to explain to him what was happening, to assure him that he still had a friend.

  And then Lord Dalhousie had taken charge of the Kohinoor diamond and come up with the idea that it should be presented to the Queen, that it rightfully belonged to the woman who was sovereign of British lands in Britain and abroad.

  Mackeson pulled the gold tasseled rope that hung beside his bed and waited for Multan Raj to knock softly and enter, when he said, “Aao.”

  “You cannot sleep, Sahib?” he asked after he had touched his forehead in a salaam.

  “No,” Mackeson said with a grin. “Tum bhi nahi so rahi ho?” You aren’t sleeping either? He didn’t notice the small smile that creased the man’s swarthy face, for Mackeson had learned all his Hindustani among the women of his zenana, and hadn’t learned the grammar well enough to realize that he spoke only in the feminine, as the women did. “A brandy, please. No water, just ice.”

  “I will bring the ice, Mackeson Sahib.” Multan Raj went out and shut the door. In the sudden darkness that came flooding back, and before his eyes became accustomed to the pale light filtering from the street outside, Mackeson remembered his conversation with Lord Dalhousie in the old Shah Burj, the tower in Lahore Fort. He had come upon the Governor-General holding the Kohinoor diamond, in its bracelet, and turning it this way and that in the sunlight until it looked like his hand was on fire. Mackeson had hesitated at the doorway.

  “Come, please, Colonel Mackeson,” Lord Dalhousie had said. “Take a look at this; splendid, isn’t it?” And he’d proffered the Kohinoor.

  Mackeson had taken the diamond, clutching it with both hands, afraid to drop it, overwhelmed by the sheer power that came out of a piece of rock. Kings had worn this, fought for it, held it ransom, held each other ransom for it. It had traveled all over India, had gone to Persia, had come back again to India, and he, who had started his life in the Company’s armies as a subaltern, now held this gem that would at some time in the future adorn his Queen.

  Lord Dalhousie had been observing him, a grave look on his face. “I think it should be given to her Majesty, not as a gift but as a token of surrender from Dalip Singh.”

  “If you say so, your Excellency.”

  Dalhousie’s mouth had congealed in a grim smile. “I wish it were just my say-so. I’m bound, you know, by the Court of Directors of the East India Company.”

  “Surely not? Her Majesty nominated you?” Here Mackeson had been daring, for it was common knowledge that the Company had few powers left in India—it had all been slowly shifting into the hands of the government. But, nominally, the Governor-General of India was still, as of now, answerable to the East India Company and the chairman of its Court of Directors.

  Dalhousie had run a hand through his sleek, brilliantined hair, tousling it, making him seem younger than his thirty-eight years. His face was flushed, a pulse throbbed at his temple, and his fingers interlaced and came apart—a sure sign that he was disturbed. He was so young, Mackeson thought, so fervent, so earnest, so insistent upon having his own way. So sure that he was right. Standing in front of the man who was his master—he had not yet been asked to sit—Mackeson felt aged. He was fifty-eight years old, had already lived in India since before the Governor-General was born, and had not been back to England since he left. He had looked down upon the Kohinoor and felt a pang of distress that it would not stay in the land of its birth.

  When he’d gl
anced up at Dalhousie, however, Mackeson’s face was tranquil, his thoughts hidden, even that last, fleeting, blasphemous notion banished into the recesses of his head.

  Dalhousie had begun to speak between clenched teeth, the words coming out with an effort. He’d waved his ink-stained hands in the air; he wrote all the time, in his journal, documenting every idea and action, copious letters to the Queen, to the Court of Directors, to the Parliament about his duties in India, how he handled them, whom he talked to, what he said. He had no guile, nothing hidden; so much information came out of Lord Dalhousie and went on its way to almost any man, or woman, in authority, that he was as transparent as if he were made of water.

  “The Court of Directors does not think I should send the Kohinoor to her Majesty,” he had said. “They consider it to be spoils of war, and that it should go to the East India Company, to pay for the Second Sikh War, and it should be broken down and the money split up as prize money to the soldiers who fought in the war. But there is the three million pounds sterling worth of jewels, shawls, and goods from the Toshakhana, which will be sold off at the auction houses in Calcutta. Why this also? This jewel should belong to the Queen, not as part of the state jewels, but as her own, from me.”

  “From the Maharajah to the Queen, your Excellency,” Mackeson had said faintly.

  “All right,” Lord Dalhousie had agreed. He hadn’t stopped talking, hadn’t realized the import of what he’d said and how he had said it. And that was precisely why—one of the reasons why in any case—the Court of Directors had had such strong objections to the Kohinoor diamond being given to Queen Victoria. Because Lord Dalhousie had considered that he was the one giving it; the Court of Directors thought they should be the ones instead. And, Mackeson thought, whether the boy king, Dalip Singh, actually wanted to give the diamond away or not, it should really come from him.

  “You’ll take it to England, Mackeson,” Dalhousie had said suddenly.

  “What?” Colonel Mackeson had backed away a few steps, the weight of the stone enormous now in his hands.

  “I can trust no one else to do this. You are the best man. I’ll send Ramsay along with you as a guard, an escort—two of you”—here Dalhousie had looked past Mackeson’s shoulder into the sunshine in the courtyard beyond—“and it should be safe. I’ll make sure it is. I would take it myself, if I could go back home right now, and I don’t want it here in India any longer. The sooner it leaves, the sooner the Indians will forget it ever existed.”

  That they wouldn’t, Colonel Mackeson had thought. He’d glanced down and cradled his fingers around the Kohinoor, and seen it glow warmly in his cupped palms. So the Kohinoor would leave India, and soon, as Lord Dalhousie had said; he made his notions into actions even as he uttered them. This, being the person who carried the Kohinoor to England, was an unprecedented honor, and Mackeson also knew that if he lost the diamond, his life would be worth less than nothing.

  “You must take it to the Court of Directors the morning after you land in Southampton,” Lord Dalhousie had said, his mouth twisted in disgust. “They insist upon presenting it to the Queen, as though it comes from them.”

  “Where do I sail from, Lord Dalhousie?”

  “Bombay’s the closest. But”—he’d pondered this for two whole minutes, his head sunk into his chin—“I will take it there myself.” A sudden grin had transformed his face into that of an adolescent—he was so young, Mackeson had thought again. “At least I can take it to Bombay, if not all the way to England.”

  “I will guard it with my life, your Excellency,” Mackeson had said.

  “Of course you will,” Dalhousie had said, holding his hand out for the Kohinoor and placing it upon his desk. Mackeson had saluted and slowly retreated to his quarters at the fort. He could tell no one of this, talk to no one, and he wouldn’t talk with that young puppy Ramsay, Dalhousie’s nephew.

  Multan Raj came in with the brandy, and as Mackeson drank it, he massaged his master’s feet, his skillful fingers kneading over his gouty left knee. The pain had been all right, even manageable, until he had come to Bombay that morning, when it had flared while he was checking into Watson’s, and then again, sporadically, at night, keeping him awake, thinking, wondering about his first trip to England in forty years.

  And then there was that little matter of the fire onboard the HMS Medea. Lord Dalhousie had been very insistent that the Kohinoor travel on her Majesty’s warship, not on a commercial steamer. But he had been equally adamant that the diamond stay no longer than necessary in India. Colonel Mackeson had inquired; it would be at least three months before another warship could be brought to dock at Bombay, and he feared that the Medea had somehow been compromised. He couldn’t contact Lord Dalhousie, who was on his way back to Calcutta.

  So, he’d booked passage for Ramsay and himself onboard the Indus, and though he did read the Bombay Herald that morning, Mackeson had missed seeing the delicious gossip about Lord Dalhousie having been in Bombay and having deposited the Kohinoor there.

  • • •

  On the morning of the departure, the dock sizzled with scurry and scuttle. The smokestack of the Indus punched into the sky, her decks were washed and buffed, the sun glanced off the gold epaulets of the captain and the officers of the bridge.

  Passengers began arriving at seven o’clock with their belongings, baskets, children, friends who had come to see them off. Horse-drawn tongas, palkis, and English carriages milled about the dock, spewing out their occupants to add to the crowd. Porters, clad in the khaki uniforms of the dockyard, scampered under the weight of the regulation boxes from the P & O handbook—twenty-six inches long, eighteen inches wide, eighteen inches deep in leather-bound wood clamped with brass. The ships would hold, easily, luggage of greater dimensions, but the outward trip to England involved crossing the desert from Suez to Cairo, and the only way to transport all the gear was to sling the boxes, one on each side, over the backs of camels.

  In a few hours, the top deck was littered with baggage as the ship’s crew ran around with lists. The cabins were tight, and most of the luggage had to go into the after hold. Was it all marked carefully, with the name, or at least the initials of the owner? Were the boxes numbered? Every three days at sea, the passengers would be allowed into the after hold to rummage through their boxes, so did they know exactly what was packed in each, so as to make this easier? No? Then the luggage was opened right there, repacked, the lists altered, a copy kept in the passenger’s pocket book, another given to the purser.

  In the midst of all the mayhem, as his porter brought up one box behind him, Colonel Mackeson first saw the young woman, serene, unruffled, her white-gloved hand resting on her luggage.

  “Can I be of help?” he asked.

  She raised long-lashed eyes to his face and he saw that she was not, after all, as young as he had originally thought her to be. Her waist was childishly trim, the swell of her breasts gentle under her stays, the skin on her neck unlined, but a little web of wrinkles, so fine as to be almost unnoticeable, creased around her eyes when she smiled at him. She had a small mouth, palely varnished in pink, and the pure complexion of a woman who has not allowed the sun to touch her. “My brother is somewhere, thank you; he’ll come by to take care of all this.”

  Her voice was low, and Mackeson had to lean in to listen to her words before they were snatched away and disappeared into the general ruckus.

  He bowed and offered her his hand. “Lieutenant Colonel Mackeson.”

  She laughed. “I’m not as accomplished, I’m afraid. Mary Booth.”

  “Miss Booth?” he asked.

  She nodded, looking down at her gloves after she had pulled her hand out of his. Mackeson cursed himself as he saw the frown pucker her forehead. She was unmarried, she wasn’t exactly young, she was returning home to England. This could only mean that she hadn’t found any man to marry her in India. He took a step back. It was ridiculous that this woman, like a freshly opened flower, full of perfume, with her
quiet movements, her candid gaze, could have been left alone by the thousands of bachelors in the Indian regiments and the Civil Service. There was a joke bandied about almost every mess hall that any new woman was proposed to first and then asked her name, before any other man got his chance. Why, if he’d seen her before . . . He took a deep breath. He couldn’t have done anything if he’d seen her.

  “Sahib.” Multan Raj stood at his shoulder. “The porter needs to know where to put the box.”

  “Of course,” Mackeson said. He turned back to Mary Booth. “Forgive me, I have to—”

  “Yes, please go, my brother will be here soon. He’s gone to get our cabin numbers; we had to book our passage late, you see, and they hadn’t assigned us the numbers.”

  “Until the voyage then,” Mackeson said, tipping his hat at her.

  “In a few hours,” she said, with a half smile that lifted one edge of her mouth, and in that moment Mackeson saw that perhaps he had misunderstood the lovely Miss Booth after all. Maybe she hadn’t come to India to get married, or if she had, she hadn’t found anyone who wasn’t a boor. His back straightened, the ache in his knee seemed to vanish, and he worked hard not to drag his foot as he moved away.

  Multan Raj accompanied him to the first-class cabin, which consisted of a long passageway, midship and upon the topmost deck, with two berths, one on each side of the corridor. There were skylights on a slim line along the ceiling, and light poured in. Mackeson’s one box was pushed under his berth, beside the desk, and secured to the wall of the cabin. He looked across the passageway and saw a leather bag with the initials W.H. stamped on it. For privacy, at night and during the day, there was a folding wooden screen slotted into the doorway that could be pulled across. There was also enough space for a washstand.