I looked at him aghast. “I don’t think it’s my company she wants!”
“No? Very well, just so,” he mumbled and strolled off, muttering to himself.
Rachel had materialized by my side and we watched my father amble away. Excitedly, I told her the news about Miss Minchin. We were free! Liberated from lessons, though I didn’t expect my swottish best friend to see it that way.
At that moment someone brushed against my sleeve, it was Prinsep. He didn’t bother to apologize, just flashed me a foolish smile and hurried on to the Minchin. He had plainly heard the good news.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” I gushed to Rachel. “I suppose I can take the credit for finding Miss Minchin a husband after all.”
“Well done,” Rachel said. Her voice was just a little sarcastic. I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“It was you, wasn’t it? You suggested to the Dewan that Miss Minchin could stay behind.”
“I may have had something to do with it,” Rachel murmured, mysteriously. “Look, that coolie is running off with my bag. You there, boy!” She broke into an unladylike gallop after the man. “Stop!”
Part Three
Chapter Sixteen
We traveled for three thrilling weeks after leaving the Maharajah’s palace, chugging through the parched deserts of Rajasthan and up into the foothills of the highest mountains on earth. For Father, our journey was the purest misery. We were barely out of Baroda when his stomach began to gurgle. By the time we reached the Himalayas and shifted from train to swaying carriage, he was as pale as a lily, though sadly for the rest of us he didn’t exactly smell like one. Poor Papa couldn’t help noticing how we all tried to avoid sitting next to him. The rest of us sighed at the lovely scenery: snow-capped mountains, plunging hair-pin bends, forests clinging like cloudlets to tumbling precipices. Father spent the whole time staring at his shoes, when he wasn’t stopping the carriage to vomit—or worse—by the wayside.
The only thing he was grateful for in the hills was the cool, fresh air. I breathed in lungfuls of the stuff, a relief after the stickiness of the stifling plains below. Simla was a lovely sight: a town shaped like a crescent moon, perched amid rhododendrons and oaks, on the steeply terraced hillside. I spied graceful houses and Gothic churches. The perfect place to regain our strength, before pressing onward to the mountains just visible through the mist.
I was confident that Father would recover when we rented rooms in a small boarding house. But, poor thing, he actually seemed to get worse. Admittedly, our lodgings, run by a complaining Irishwoman, were rather gruesome. Stuffed dead animals were everywhere; looming over the dinner table as you gulped down the mulligatawny soup, leering from above the mirror as you washed your face. Mummified lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, hares. No wonder Papa had given up and retired to his bed.
The mummy of a tortoise, its nose poking out of its shell, was placed on the wall above father’s sick bed. Father and the tortoise were strangely alike. Both gray, sickly-looking and wrinkled.
“Papa, do not be too brave,” I said. “Shall I call the doctor again?”
He groaned a refusal—but spoke no word. I wondered how much further he could carry on. Clearly he was going nowhere today. His only comfort was that he was not the only invalid. In the next room was Monsieur Champlon, harrying the maids by ringing his bell every few minutes demanding more pillows or soda. I believe fear was behind his unreasonable behavior. He was scared the Baker Brothers would seek him out for special punishment, for, after all, he had defied their attempts at blackmail.
But I had little attention for Champlon. Most of my worry was reserved for Father. Was it wrong to ferret secrets from a sick man? All through our journey to Simla I had longed to pry out the mystery that Father and Aunt Hilda shared, but had been unable to collar him alone. What were they looking for in the mountains? What clue did the map contain? Were Aunt Hilda and our enemies after the same treasure? Even though Father was sick, I had to be ruthless. I might not get another chance to find him alone.
“Papa,” I said placing my hand on his shoulder and speaking in my gentlest voice. “Must you seek this treasure in Tibet?”
“Hilda has told you?” he asked, startled.
I nodded my head. Well I didn’t say anything, so I wasn’t strictly lying.
“It is more Hilda’s quest than mine,” Father said. “Though the gains could be enormous.”
I was thinking rapidly. How could I ask a question that would reveal the treasure my aunt sought and yet not reveal my ignorance?
“How big is it?”
“How should we know?” Papa said. “What a strange question.”
“Tell me … please.”
At that very moment, just when I was accomplishing something, Aunt Hilda’s voice boomed from downstairs.
“Kit. Hurry up.”
“One moment.”
“Get your boots down here at once—or I go without you!”
Cursing her sense of timing, I pecked at Father’s brow, which was slippery with sweat, and dashed downstairs to join her. I emerged with relief into the cool mountain air, a relief after the fug of sickness in father’s bedroom. Forests of fir, rhododendrons, pine, spruce and cypress surrounded Simla. This was the summer capital of the Raj—which meant that in the hot months the top British officials of the empire abandoned the sweltering plains to do their business here. I’m sure they had work to do, after all it cannot be easy running the greatest Empire in history. But Simla was also for pleasure. These officials certainly found plenty of time to stroll along the Mall, dressed in sola topis and cream linen suits, smoking cigars, dawdling and gossiping.
The Mall was broad and gracious, lined with colonnaded shops and stucco dwellings. It was singularly devoid of natives, apart from liveried rickshaw drivers, for they were forbidden on Simla’s grandest road. No wonder that homesick Britons loved Simla. Indeed, the low bungalows, with their neat gardens, roses and apple trees, were like a little piece of home. “Surrey in the Hills,” the one place in India where there were more memsahibs than sahibs. Dressed in their finest calico, twirling their parasols, the ladies paraded. The “Fishing Fleet” was out in force today. It was said if a lady couldn’t “hook” a husband in Simla, she had better give up angling.
I was just about to remark how pleasant it was in the foothills of the Himalayas when I saw something that made my heart sink. Bearing down on us was a palanquin, one of those wooden seats carried on poles. A couple of staggering native bearers carried Mrs. Spragg, whose head was peering out of the muslin curtains. The revolting Edwin and his insignificant father walked alongside. I was about to suggest to Aunt Hilda that we duck down a side alley when she sighted the woman:
“Hello, Spragg,” Aunt Hilda hailed her. “Whole lot of you run away to Simla? Quite right too! You’re in hot water at the palace.”
“How dare you!” Mrs. Spragg snapped, while her exhausted bearers lurched to a stop. “Edwin has an excess of intelligence which makes him a little playful at times. It was a boyish prank, that’s all.”
“The Dewan had that powder tested,” I protested. “It was arsenic. Miss Minchin would have been very, very sick if she had drunk that sherbet.”
“Nonsense. You’re making too much of it.”
“It could even have killed her.”
“High spirits,” Mrs. Spragg snarled, while Edwin smirked. “Anyway, where would Edwin get arsenic from?”
“It’s quite easy to get it off flypaper if you—” Edwin began, in an I’m-just-being-helpful voice, but his mother shushed him hurriedly.
“Anyway we must be off. We’re staying with the Viceroy as you know, and Lady Mayo expects us for elevenses.” Turning to me she asked, “Where are you lodging?”
I mentioned our guest house and Mrs. Spragg wrinkled her nose, as if I suddenly smelt bad. “A native area,” she said. “I’ve spoken to you before, Kathleen, about your habit of befriending th
em. It really does let down the Raj. White men have to stick together if we are to maintain our prestige. We can’t let Indians get too close or they’ll start thinking we’re friends and take liberties—”
“Far better to poison the lot of them,” Aunt Hilda smiled, a little too sweetly. “A tot of arsenic in the lemon sherbet does the job.”
This was too much for this memsahib. Pretending she hadn’t heard, Mrs. Spragg stuck her nose in the air and swept off, with a flurry of puffing bearers, dragging her husband and son in her wake. Aunt Hilda watched them go, grunting a little. Then she turned to me:
“Of course we’re the greatest Empire in the world! But golly, narrow-minded snobs like that give us a bad name. If she wasn’t swanning around pretending to run this place, Mrs. Spragg would be stuck in some frightful bungalow in Esher. Just remember that!”
With that Aunt Hilda stomped off. I raced after her but was brought to an abrupt halt by a curious sight. A gaggle of ragged Indian children had gathered round an odd contraption. A loop of cord had been strung on four-foot-high sticks which had been stuck at regular intervals down the plunging side of the hill. As I watched, a tin can zoomed down the cord. Was this a local game, I wondered. Then one of the children moved and I saw Isaac’s curly head. He was kneeling down, just about to send another can rattling down the hill.
“Isaac!” I called. “What are you doing?”
He turned round and saw me. “Inventing, of course!”
“What are you inventing?”
“A transport system. We’ll turn these little cans into little passenger boats. Use steam propulsion and hey presto! Journeys that now take hours could take minutes!”
I stared at the little glittering cans, fascinated. Isaac did have a point, though it would take a lot of steam power to get the passenger boats back up the hill.
“I’m going to call it the Telepherage,” he said. “Or maybe the cable horse.”
My aunt was watching the scene with some impatience. “Wonderful idea, Isaac,” she said. “I might even put some money into it. Now, Kit, are you coming or not?”
Without waiting for an answer she was away, turning off the Mall down a side-street and then down an even narrower one to the native area called the Lower Bazaar. The houses were closer here, huddled together. The Mall might have looked like Esher but in this poky street, assailed by the scent of spices, we were definitely in India. We wandered down dirty, teeming alleys seething with natives, till we eventually reached a wooden house. The frontage was carved with beautiful wooden fretwork in the oriental style, though it was now shabby. A sign said:
THE CURIOUS SHOP
BASHIR ALI DEALER IN RARE GOODS
A bell clanged somewhere in the gloom as we entered. As my eyes accustomed to the darkness, I saw a golden Buddha rising from the shadows, its stomach fat as a watermelon, its smile sinister and serene. Other strange objects loomed: a Tanka—a rich Tibetan cloth painting of the wheel of life—decorated with snarling demons. A Chinese dragon carved of translucent jade with emerald eyes. A bronze statue of Kali, the Indian goddess of death, wearing a necklace of severed arms, her stomach ringed with skulls. She leered as she danced over her fallen enemy. Curling Arabic letters in gilded wood. An icon showing the Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus in her lap.
China, India, Arabia, Russia—it seemed as if the continents and the cultures of the world all met in this shop. Priceless statues thrown higgledy-piggledy with worthless pieces from the bazaar. It was like the nest of a greedy magpie, attracted by anything that glitters. I smelt adventure and mystery. The Dewan had directed us here, telling us this place dealt in much more than curiosities. He had let several hints fall about Bashir Ali: the man was an adventurer, he bought and sold everything from horseflesh, to rubies to state secrets. But though he was a trickster we could trust him with our lives. There were few people who knew more about the Himalayas than this old scoundrel.
“YOOHOO!” My aunt bellowed. “Anyone at home?”
There was no answer, but I had the feeling that someone was watching us. Then I saw smoke curling out of a dark alcove next to the Buddha. With a start I spied an old man, smoking a hookah. He had long pigtails and a face like a pickled walnut. His eyes gleamed, red. I had the feeling that this man was measuring us, weighing what we were worth to him.
“Excuse me,” I asked the man. “Do you know where Bashir Ali is?”
“I am he.”
“I’m Hilda Salter, the famous explorer,” my aunt interposed. “This is my niece Kit.”
“Pleased to meet.” Bashir Ali nodded.
“We have come to ask for your help. I will pay you well for your time.” My aunt removed a couple of golden rupees from her purse and put them on a table at Bashir Ali’s side. He didn’t accept or reject the money, just inclined his head, while his face remained as expressive as a marble statue.
“We have been sent to you by the Dewan of Baroda.”
The change was instant. Bashir Ali didn’t smile, but it seemed as if stone had come to life. He had become human.
My aunt explained our mission. The man listened, not committing himself. Only when she had finished and had begged for his aid did he finally speak.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes?” Aunt Hilda asked.
“I vill help you. You are friends of the Dewan.”
“We need a guide and a translator,” I burst out. “Will you take us?”
Bashir Ali grinned, showing crimson gums, stained by paan, the nut that is chewed everywhere in India instead of tobacco. You constantly see men spitting into the gutters, which run red, as if flowing with blood.
“I am only old fellow. You need someone young, someone who knows the mountains like yak. There is von person for you.”
Slowly he rose from his chair. As he emerged from the shadows I could see him more clearly. He was tiny—smaller than me—and had on a yellow satin coat, richly embroidered with flowers and birds. Perching on the back of his head was a small round velvet cap. An odd costume. I did not know if it was Tibetan, Indian or Arabic, or a mix of all three.
Bashir Ali produced a quill and a bottle of ink and swiftly drew a map. A good road out of Simla, traveling up the hillsides toward the pilgrim town of Badrinath, and then onwards to a mountain hamlet called Mana. After Mana, he marked a diversion with a violet cross, near the enormous blank space on the map that was Tibet. This was the place where we would find our guide. He was a man named Yongden, a lama, a Buddhist hermit, who would take us over the dangerous border and up into the dizzying heights of Tibet. Yongden knew the trails into Tibet like no other man alive. Snowbound passes sixteen thousand feet above sea level, villages built on land that soared higher than any mountain in Europe.
The roof of the world! If we succeeded in entering Tibet we would be the first Britons to ever set foot in that legendary land.
“The way is very, very dangerous,” Bashir Ali said. “Some would say you are fools. I do not. I see your hearts and they are pure.” He paused and smiled. “So, perhaps, you are fools with pure hearts.”
I was already excited, picturing the travails of our coming journey, as we left Bashir Ali’s shop and plunged back into the back streets of Simla. I chattered on about our success with that strange Oriental gentleman and the even odder-sounding monk, but my aunt was curiously distracted. She was not listening to me. We were just about to exit the dingy lanes on to the main street when my aunt did a very curious thing. I had seen a flash of red high up, at one of the grubby windows that overhung the street. The vivid crimson of a soldier’s uniform, a weather-beaten white face topped by a mustache to rival Champlon’s. Aunt Hilda stopped in her tracks, looking flustered—and maybe even a little guilty.
“You trot on home, Kit,” she said. “I’ve … let’s see … I need to buy some sugar.”
“We have tons of sugar!” I exclaimed. There was no grocery shop anywhere in these alleys as far as I could see. “If you need more sugar, I’ll come with you to th
e market.”
“Just once in your life, Kit, do as you’re told. Off with you.”
A little hurt, I went. What on earth was Aunt Hilda up to? Passing a doorway with a deep arch, I ducked in. Furtively, I peered out at my aunt. She didn’t go in the direction of the market at all. Instead, she turned and pushed open one of the doors into a crumbling house. A second later she had vanished.
Looking up at the window I saw the soldier’s tunic again and another flash of the mustache. Had Champlon a rival for my aunt’s heart? Or was she engaged in some other furtive business? My aunt was a woman born for plotting and scheming. Whatever she was up to, she certainly did not want me to know.
The mysteries were piling up.
Chapter Seventeen
I should have been bustling about getting ready, for we were leaving Simla this morn. Instead I was gazing absently at myself in the bathroom mirror. The tiger-scratch on my cheek bothered me. In the past few weeks the scar had turned from livid red to mottled purple. It was finally fading a little, but was of such a curious shape, like a question mark, and it drew unwelcome attention. No wonder Waldo teasingly called me “Scarface.” Suddenly I heard a shriek fit to curdle the blood. I dropped my brush and ran helter-skelter down the stairs. The scream had seemed to come from my bedroom. I went in and stopped dead on the threshold.
“Rachel!” I said, aghast.
She was standing by my bed in her slip. For a moment I wondered if I was seeing things, for my friend had transformed into a fury. Her hair was writhing, eyes flashing furiously as she brandished an antler she had broken off a stag’s head. As I looked on, she shrieked again and threw the antler at the window. It crashed through the pane, sending glass scattering across the room.
“Rachel … what are you doing … exactly?” I asked, advancing cautiously into the room.
“I think I hit it,” she panted, glaring at the empty window.
I followed her glance. “There’s nothing there … my dear.”
The Maharajah's Monkey Page 12