The Maharajah's Monkey

by Natasha Narayan

  “Evidently, it is what she needs,” Waldo said, firmly. “The rest of us will help you. But you are going to find her a husband. We’ve already got one idea—your father.”

  I stared at him, aghast. The very idea was impossible. Having to call the Minchin “Dear Mama.” Seeing her sickly face every morning for the rest of my life over the ham and eggs. I am sorry but I was willing to live with any amount of guilt rather than that. Anyway I could not see poor Papa married to anyone who did not share his interest in ancient Aramaic and the preservation of parchments. Truth to tell, I could not see him married at all.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?” Waldo said. “Your father is a widower. He’s lonely, Miss Minchin is lonely. They’d be perfect together.”

  “Lonely? Whatever gave you the idea my father is lonely? He has me.”

  Waldo exchanged glances with Isaac: “That’s what I meant,” Isaac murmured.

  “And he has his books!” I said, hotly.

  Now they were looking at me. Wearing their holier-than-thou-faces. As if I belonged to a different—more selfish—species of human being.

  I felt sick.

  “You marry Miss Minchin if you’re so keen,” I snapped.

  “I’m too young,” Isaac protested hurriedly, quickening his pace up the stairs.

  “I tell you, she marries Father over my dead body.”

  “We might have to murder you then,” Waldo replied. He wasn’t smiling and for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was joking.

  Chapter Five

  Opening the front door, I stumbled and fell, banging my knee upon the edge of a trunk. I groaned and looked around in bewilderment. Piles of luggage were strewn all over the hall, battered portmanteaux with rusty hinges and the labels of exotic destinations from Morocco to New York, leather handbags and carpet bags and bashed-about dressing cases and goodness knows what else. A foreign wind was blowing through our home. Our hallway looked less like an ordinary Oxford residence than some dusty way station in the African savannah.

  “At once, Theo! I want it done yesterday!” my aunt’s voice boomed and she swept into the hall, my father tagging behind her. Her frilly frock was gone, instead she was dressed in traveling clothes: serviceable tweed skirt and jacket, along with stout boots. Father was talking in so low a voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but from the nervous expression on his face, the gist was clear. He was pleading with Aunt Hilda. Begging her not to do something. But from the expression on my aunt’s pug face she wasn’t having any of it.

  “Here’s Kit and her pack of hangers-on,” Aunt Hilda said, spotting us. “Well, my dear, I’m off. Going to take the train down to Portsmouth and away to India, on the boat tomorrow morning.”

  “Pardon?” I stared at her. India again! It was becoming positively uncanny how strong the signs were pointing east.

  “Are you a nitwit, girl? Can you not understand plain speaking?”

  “But you haven’t got the provisions for your expedition. You haven’t even got a ticket!”

  “Such trifles have never bothered Hilda Salter.”

  “But, Aunt. How are you going to—”

  “If you think I’m going to let Champlon steal all my best ideas and then rush to India before me, think again,” she interrupted. “The rotter was stringing me along, Kit. Playing me like a blooming pianoforte. All that flattery, saying mauve really brought out my complexion,” she stopped abruptly, her hurt plainly showing on her face.

  “It does,” I lied, gently.

  “What?”

  “Mauve does suit you.”

  “Piffle. The man was using me. And I, Hilda Salter, Pride of the Zambezi, the only woman to ever conquer the Northwestern Frontier, fell for it.”

  I put my hand on Aunt Hilda’s arm and gently drew her into the living room. Unhelpfully, father followed us. Though she was chuntering away in the familiar Hilda Salter style, underneath she was unusually unsure. I could feel it in the way she let me guide her. I propelled her to a comfortable armchair and almost pushed her down into it. She needed to hear what I had to say.

  “I’ve something to tell you, Aunt Hilda, something about Monsieur Champlon.”

  “Get to the point, girl.”

  “I’ve got to ask you something first. What makes you think Champlon has gone to India?”

  “He was seen. At the station with some Indian thug he has hired. He directed all the luggage to be sent to Portsmouth, for the Himalaya. It’s a P & O steamer sailing for Bombay tomorrow.”

  It was my turn to stare: “It can’t be true!”

  “He gave the order himself. My groom happened to be at the station and saw him. Directed the porters to handle the trunks and supervise them on to the Himalaya. I know all about her. A fine steamer with the latest twin-cylinder engine. As sleek a boat as any in the Empire, blast it!”

  “Language, Hilda,” my father tutted, while I reeled at her words.

  All my certainties were collapsing around me. I’d been so sure Champlon was being blackmailed—or had been kidnapped by the strange Indian. But here was the Frenchman, by all accounts, ordering the luggage to be taken to India. It very much looked like he was in command of the whole operation and the man in the turban and the monkey, his minions. It didn’t make sense. Why would Champlon desert my aunt? What did he have to gain by this strange behavior?

  I told my aunt my news, the strange story of the monkey and the stolen piece of the ankh. She gasped at the sight of the ankh fragment.

  “I’ve seen that somewhere before,” she mused, gazing at the ancient metal.

  “We think it was stolen from Amelia Edwards … you know, the famous explorer.”

  “Poppycock.” My aunt’s face set at the mention of her rival. “That woman’s no explorer. Tourist is a more accurate description.”

  With that she turned her back on me and rang for the maid. With much muttering about how Champlon was clearly a thief as well as “a bolter!,” she ordered the girl to fetch the police. Sometimes I cannot follow my aunt’s thinking. How could she blame Champlon for the theft of Miss Edward’s treasure? The ankh fragment had been found on the barge, not in his rooms. But then again, it did look as though he’d bolted. Perhaps he had been using my aunt, discovering all her secrets, milking all her wealthy patrons and then leaving her slap-bang in the lurch. Perhaps he really was a member of a gang that stole antiquities. If so—and I really wasn’t sure either way—what a villain the man was!

  But I had made up my mind about something. “I’m coming to India with you, Aunt Hilda,” I announced.

  For the first time a smile crossed my aunt’s face. “Very well,” she said. “S’pose you might be some help.”

  I held out my hand to hers and we shook on it. In the background I heard spluttering. It was Father: his face red, his woolly hair in agitated disarray. He appeared to be dancing from foot to foot.

  “Absolutely not, Kit,” he squealed. “The dangers: cholera, typhoid, the heat, bandits.”

  “I’m going, Father.”

  “No. I must insist on this. There’s is no way you are going to India. You will stay here and continue your studies with Miss Minchin.”

  “Papa, do not be under any illusions. I’m going to India.”

  “India is no place for a young lady.” My father halted and looked at me His eyes were pleading, soft with emotion. “Dear Kit, please understand. You are the most precious thing in the world to me.”

  Embarrassed, I tried to make a joke of it: “More precious than your library?”

  “What?”

  “Your books,” I explained “Do you really love me more than your books.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  I laid a hand on his arm: “Listen to me, Father. I am not being stubborn. I love adventures.”

  “You know I never insist on anything,” he pleaded. “This time I must. No father would let their child sail into danger.”

  “Papa.”

  “Do not attemp
t to tug my heartstrings, Kit,” he muttered as the bell rang and we heard the tramp of boots in the hall. The police had arrived to collect the stolen piece of ankh.

  “Hilda will sail alone. You are most definitely staying behind.”

  Part Two

  Chapter Six

  “JAM!” someone barked.

  A lady in a saucer-shaped sun hat loomed over us as we reclined on the steamship Himalaya’s prom deck, deep in the latest books. Before either Isaac or I had time to react, she snatched away our novels. What on earth was the woman talking about and why, come to think of it, was she wearing a sola topi? True it was burning hot, for we were in the tropics now, but there wasn’t a speck of sun anywhere in the gloomy sky.

  “Pardon?” I gulped.

  “You have jam on your chin,” a familiar voice admonished me. Squinting upward, I saw my persecutor was Mrs. Spragg, the mother of the dreadful Edwin.

  “What does the state of my chin have to do with you?” I protested.

  “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

  “I don’t think Jesus spent his whole time washing his face.”

  “Insolent girl,” she hissed. “Remember you are no longer just Kathleen Salter.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t say ‘What,’ say ‘I beg your pardon.’ As an Englishwoman Abroad you have a duty to represent the Whole of British Womanhood to the Empire,” she pronounced, thrusting a handkerchief into my hand. With that she stalked away, in the direction of the first-class cabins. Taking our books with her!

  “It’s a plot,” I muttered, for the books she had stolen were thrilling penny dreadfuls. “She wants something exciting to read.”

  Isaac groaned and turned over in his deck chair. It was a shame because it had taken a lot of persuasion to get him up here. He had spent all five weeks of our journey so far holed up in his cabin, moaning that the sea air was killing him. It was true a rash had spread over his face which made his skin look rather like a cooked chicken. But still, talk about making a fuss!

  “Pull yourself together, Isaac,” I said. “Why don’t you do some inventing? Something to cure Miss Minchin would be a godsend.” For our governess was a fellow sufferer from seasickness.

  “I’m done with inventing,” he moaned melodramatically. “I will never invent anything, ever again!”

  If you have ever contemplated a steamer voyage to India, I beg you, do not. Your idea of the long journey to Bombay and the reality are, I am sure, very different. You may imagine a riot of shipboard entertainments: bowling and croquet in the afternoons, dances and theatricals in the evening, glittering saloons and bracing walks on deck with the captain. Most of all you may imagine sumptuous meals in the first-class dining rooms, with twinkling chandeliers and a menu that does not feature salt beef and more salt beef.

  Pray do not get carried away!

  In reality, life aboard the Himalaya was the last word in dullness. All the bores in England seemed to have flocked to our ship, the ladies being far worse than the men. I have never, ever, met such a stuffy, interfering lot. They would no sooner spot me than they would start spouting lectures. My insufficiently brushed hair, my dirty fingernails, my unladylike dresses, my forthright manner, my shabby shoes. There was almost nothing about Kit Salter that found favor with these memsahibs, the wives of tea planters and junior officials of our government in India. As far as they were concerned, I would let down the whole British Raj.

  It almost made me long for the times when I only had Miss Minchin to nag me.

  Before I go any further you may be wondering how I came to be aboard ship at all. Hadn’t Father specifically forbidden it? Well, it may not surprise you that poor Papa, confronted by the combined forces of Aunt Hilda and myself, gave way and consented to our voyage. In fact, it turned out he was keen to travel to India himself, for he had heard of a remarkable archaeological discovery he wanted to track down. So my friends and I sailed east, for it was not hard to persuade Rachel and Isaac’s absentminded guardian and Waldo’s spiritually inclined mother. Indeed Waldo’s mother began to trot out all sorts of romantic mumbo-jumbo on hearing of our trip, including the hope that her son would find “enlightenment” in India.

  Frankly, I was dying to reach Bombay. Dark clouds were looming over the horizon and the waters were choppy. It looked like we were in for some bad weather. Leaning over the upper deck watching the waves, I spotted a bowls game below in the third-class deck. I made my way down, when the worst of the busybodies, Mrs. Spragg, appeared. Clearly, she had pursued me to the lower deck.

  “Quite out of the question,” she declared loudly. Behind her I spotted the whey-faced figure of her son Edwin and behind him their inevitable guards. It seemed there was no school or tutor in the whole of England good enough for darling Edwin, so Mrs. Spragg had decided to take him back to India with her.

  “Pardon?” I stammered, unable to believe my bad luck. To be caught twice by Memsahib Spragg in one morning!

  “My dear Kathleen, you simply cannot mix with those on the lower deck. You are in danger of meeting steerage passengers and common sailors.”

  “That’s hardly a danger.”

  “What?” she spluttered, forgetting her manners.

  “I am merely going to play bowls.”

  “With them?” Mrs. Spragg asked, looking through her silver-rimmed lorgnette at the crowd enjoying the game. By this memsahib’s lights they were a common lot, in threadbare clothes with rough manners. I thought they were far better company than the ladies and gentlemen on top deck.

  “The young lady is a dab hand at the bowls,” a weather-beaten old salt who had overheard us declared. “She’s got a good eye and a steady hand.”

  “This is scandalous,” declared Mrs. Spragg, shaking her lorgnette at the sailor. “If Miss Salter behaves like this in our cantonment in Baroda she will be cut dead! No one will receive her socially.”

  “Not pukka,” Edwin said, with a sly glance at me.

  “Pardon?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Not the done thing.”

  “My dear Kathleen, as you have no mother, it is up to me to provide moral and social guidance.” Grasping me roughly by the arm Mrs. Spragg drew me away from the bowls game. “You must learn some decorum.”

  I bit down the rebellious words I wanted to spit at Mrs. Spragg, as I tried to wriggle out of her grasp. A moment later something hard hit me in the shin, causing me to topple over. It was Edwin, who had sent a bowls ball rolling straight for me.

  “I do beg your pardon, Miss Salter,” Edwin smirked, offering his hand to me. “I don’t believe I know my own strength.”

  I glared at the boy, knowing he had done it on purpose. Ignoring his outstretched hand, I rose. I could bear it no longer; I had to flee from the combined Spragg forces. It was especially irritating as I had a particular reason for going down to the lower deck. We had been aboard the Himalaya for weeks without a sight of Gaston Champlon, the strange turban-wearing Indian or the monkey.

  That Indian. As I mused on him, a sort of foreboding took hold of me. I am an instinctive creature. My mind flies about making connections. Sometimes, even if I say so myself, they are spot-on. Sometimes my guesses are, well, wrong. But this time, I felt so sure.

  This shadowy Indian. The missing evil Maharajah of Baroda. Somehow they were linked. Maybe the mysterious Indian was the Maharajah. Maybe he had kidnapped Champlon for some dreadful reason of his own. Or maybe the turbaned Indian was someone hired by Malharrao.

  My aunt, who I had counted on being my ally and teasing out my thinking with me, was strangely listless. Like Miss Minchin, who had spent the whole voyage being seasick, she’d mislaid her spine. She hadn’t even made a serious effort to find Champlon aboard ship—or plan what we would do once we reached India. Frankly, she was mooning about like a lovesick waif. Once she told me she believed the Frenchman had found passage on another ship. But I was not so confident. For a start there were no other ships sailing from Liverpool docks to India at th
e same time as the Himalaya. Furthermore, had not Aunt Hilda’s groom heard Champlon order their luggage to be sent on to the Himalaya? It didn’t make sense that he had suddenly decamped, sought a passage on another ship. They had no reason to believe that we were following them.

  No. I believed that Champlon and the Indian were far removed from the gracious first-class world of dining-, drawing- and ballroom. I believed they were hiding among the dirt of the steerage passengers. That was why it was vital that I should make friends down there. So I could really search the ship.

  But clearly today there were far too many busybodies on the warpath. I decided to return to my cabin. I shared a tiny space, equipped with three fold-down bunks, with Rachel and the Minchin. Sharing with Rachel was fun, but as you may imagine it was rather more difficult with my governess.

  I opened the door, letting in a shaft of sunlight which cut through the cabin’s stale air and gloom, only to be met with a groan.

  “Is that you, Kathleen?” a feeble voice inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Please shut the door immediately, my eyes can’t bear the light.”

  With that, the Minchin sank back on to her pile of pillows, eyelashes fluttering in her white, mute face. Beside her bunk—which was obviously the most comfortable in the crammed room—stood a tin bucket. With a sinking heart I saw my governess had been seasick again. The porthole window showed dark sky and boiling waves. We had been lucky to have got a port-side cabin, which are meant to be far more comfortable than those on the starboard side. I felt a surge of impatience with the Minchin. Why couldn’t she pull herself together and get up? Immediately though, I felt guilty. Ever since the affair of the love letter I had been trying to be nice to her. Besides, she did look very sick, poor thing.

  “Is there anything I can get you? A little beef tea? I can call for the steward.”

  “No. Nothing,” she groaned. “Last time I had beef tea it was cold and there were spots of grease floating on top. I was indisposed twice afterward.”

  “Indisposed?”