The six-pounder and a howitzer were dragged away by Sikhs towards the Residency ramparts. Lieutenant Peterson shouted the order to retreat; the yellow fog had now cleared to a light, sparkling mist and the sepoys were re-grouping to launch a counter-attack. Now only Lieutenant Peterson himself lingered. He had found one of the sepoy ammunition stores, had quickly scattered a train of powder to it, and was now attempting to fire it. At last, he succeeded, swung himself into the saddle and was away. His horse cleared the sepoy rampart and sped like an arrow after his men across the open ground. Suddenly they saw him hit. He slid out of the saddle and bounced in the dust. Without hesitation both Harry and Fleury turned their horses and spurred back to where he lay. Fleury rode on to catch the reins of the Lieutenant’s horse while Harry tried to lift him from the ground. Then together they struggled to get him into the saddle, but again he was hit. They felt his body shudder as another ball struck him in the back and they were obliged to give up the attempt. At this moment there was a great flash and an explosion rang around the plain. Harry and Fleury knelt beside Peterson and shook hands with him for the last time, and as they did so the pallor of death came over his face. Fleury struggled for a moment to remove the locket from around his neck to bring back to his wife, but it was too securely fastened. Then they were both in the saddle once more and riding for the safety of the Residency rampart. They sailed over it at last, accompanied by a volley of musket balls.
16
In spite of his difficulties with the Eradicator Fleury came very well out of this attack. He and Harry had both behaved with great bravery in full view of everyone. The ladies in the billiard room, who had been reciting the litany throughout the attack, were chattering with excitement and could talk of little else. Perhaps, if one takes the long view, this gallant action might be seen as a solstice in Fleury’s life, for from now on as the days went by he grew steadily less responsive to beauty and steadily more bluff, good-natured and interested in physical things. So pleased was he, so busily engaged in modest assurances that anyone would have done the same in his place, that when at dusk he paid his usual evening visit to the Residency and found Miriam, Louise, Harry and Lucy (whom they had felt sorry for) waiting to lead him to a special celebration, his birthday had gone completely out of his mind. And it was a splendid affair, for Lucy, who was good at that sort of thing, had succeeded in begging a cup of sugar from one of the gentlemen working at the Commissariat...and this sugar, which none of them had tasted for days, made them as festive as if it had been champagne. They had saved some flour and some suet, too, and Miriam had bought a bottle of port wine from someone, and so they had made something which was not exactly a birthday cake, but more a birthday pudding, with “Happy Birthday, Dobbin!” written on top in pieces of broken sugar biscuit (Fleury’s brow darkened for a moment at “Dobbin” but evidently Miriam had forgotten) and the whole thing thoroughly soaked in port wine. Of course, the rest of the port wine they drank to Fleury’s health. As for Fleury, his eyes kept hurrying back to Louise to see if she were as happy as he was. How lovely she looked, and how gentle!
Louise was as happy as he was, almost. The only thing that slightly diminished her pleasure was the knowledge that she had an unsightly red spot on her forehead and another one, perhaps even a boil, coming up on her neck. In addition, she had been out in the sun without her bonnet, which she had given to a wounded Sikh, and her face had a much pinker look than she considered becoming.
But she was glad that the pudding was a success. It was she who had had to make it because Miriam had turned out to be hopelessly impractical when it had come to the point, the way capable, intelligent people often are when it comes to cooking and making things. And she was glad, too, that Fleury had turned out not to be a coward...of course, she had not expected that he would, but all the same, you could never tell and Fleury in some ways was so unusual...He had such interesting ideas, for one thing, and he knew everything. She could not think of anything he did not know and it was even a bit embarrassing to see how much more he knew than even the Padre, or the Magistrate, or her father, or even than the Collector. She sometimes thought him a little tactless and that he should sometimes pretend to be a bit more stupid so as not to make older people feel inferior. Perhaps that was why she had not liked him so much at first, and had thought him conceited. But now she thought him wonderful, and so personable, even though one had to admit that he smelled rather strong...but then they all did; it was so hard to keep yourself clean without the bearers to help. She herself had begun to smell rather disagreeable. She regretted this but without soap all her efforts to render herself odourless had proved vain...her only comfort was that she smelled less than many of the other ladies of her own class and, of course, than all those of the classes beneath her. It was the view of the billiard room that the artillery women could no longer be approached. But she was worried about that spot on her forehead and afraid that Fleury might start seeing her as she really was, and so she kept raising her hand to her forehead, as if in thought.
There was, however, a greater anxiety in Louise’s life than either her smell or her spots. She was concerned for her father, Dr Dunstaple. As the days went by he became more and more liable to fits of rage. Nowadays he could hardly open his mouth without abusing Dr McNab, whom he had taken to calling “the Gravedigger”. Louise had remonstrated with him but the Doctor was not in the habit of allowing his children to advise him on his conduct, least of all his daughters. He had flown into a rage, insinuating that she was “in league” with McNab. The Doctor had his fit of rage in his own drawing-room, in full hearing of the ladies cowering in the cellar below (as much in fear of his wrath as of the round shot which were slowly knocking the house to pieces around them). Mrs Dunstaple cowered there, too. She had never been able to do anything with her husband when he was angry, never, she sobbed.
So poor Louise, who loved her father very dearly, could only turn to Harry for help. But Harry listened to her in frank disbelief. Girls had a habit, he knew, of distressing themselves over things which did not exist. It was something to do with their wombs, so a fellow-officer had once told him. No doubt Louise was suffering from this womb-anxiety, then. He explained that if Father had started calling McNab “the Grave-digger” it was only from a robust sense of professional rivalry and nothing to worry about. Besides, McNab probably deserved it from all one heard.
Louise longed to confide in someone; above all, she longed to confide in Fleury; he would at least take her seriously; he would show concern. The trouble was that he would almost certainly be unable to refrain from some ill-advised action, such as taking her father’s arm as if they were equals and giving him a condescending lecture. That was unthinkable. She must conceal her worries from Fleury.
In the end it was to Miriam that she had told them, thinking: “Miriam is mature and sensible. She’ll know what to do.” And so she had approached Miriam, though diffidently because one has a natural reluctance to discuss family matters with those outside the family. Miriam had given her a sensible opinion to the effect that the obvious person to ask for advice was a doctor, hence Dr McNab himself! Who could be better? Louise had had misgivings about this at first. But it was certain that her father needed a doctor’s attention and that Dr McNab, who had suffered all his colleague’s slanders without a murmur, deserved an apology.
Dr McNab, his eyebrows raised considerately, had listened to what Louise had to say. “Aye, you must get him to rest, Miss Dunstaple. The poor man is overworked.”
“But how?”
“I wish I could tell you but I cannot. He’ll not take advice from me.” Then, seeing Louise’s distress, he added: “But perhaps we shall think of a way.”
Louise’s grief and anxiety did not prevent her noticing that, in common with certain of the other gentlemen, Dr McNab appeared to show an interest in Miriam. He treated her with a decorous gallantry, as if her presence beside him in a patched and mended dress of grey cotton, stockingless, hands rough from w
ashing her own clothes and hair full of dust, had been that of a lady in the most elegant drawing-room. When his eyes rested on her face an expression of good humour and sympathy replaced his habitually sad and grave demeanour. Louise had often noticed how thrilling it is to see a smile on the face of someone who does not often smile, particularly someone as grave as Dr McNab. She could not help saying to Miriam after this interview: “I think you have made another conquest among the gentlemen.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Miriam, laughing. “I don’t think I have made a single one. Besides, I have often noticed that the gentlemen only have eyes for you, my dear, and although men are not usually the most intelligent of creatures, this time for once they are right, because you are the prettiest girl in India. I can assure you that if I wanted to make conquests I should take care not to appear in your company.”
“You only say that because you’re kind, but you know that it really isn’t true. What gentleman in the world would not prefer your company to that of an empty-headed creature like me?”
“You must ask my brother that question,” said Miriam smiling and taking Louise’s arm to put an end to this unctuous exchange. “Let me tell you a secret. We shall both find, if we survive this dreadful siege, gentlemen who think each of us uniquely wonderful and who would not give a farthing for the other. Why? Who knows why? Because that’s the way of the world, that’s why.” And with this comment, which was further proof to Louise of Miriam’s superiority and good sense, the subject had been closed.
Now, although she was glad that the birthday pudding was a success, Louise found herself with yet another cause for family distress: the attention that Harry was paying to Lucy. Anyone who knew him less well than his sister might not have noticed how his manner had changed. How gruff he had become, how paternal, how full of authority!
“You’d better sit here, Lucy, where you can serve out the pudding and see that that young beggar Fleury doesn’t get too much, ha ha, even though it is his birthday.” And Harry had indicated a place on the floor beside himself. The party, as it happened, was taking place on the carpet of the Residency drawing-room, in the lee of a shattered grand piano; additional protection to their flanks was offered by the gorse bruiser which had been moved from the dining-room, a marble statue of Cupid sharpening his arrows on a stone (“How appropriate,” thought Louise grimly, “for poor, innocent Harry”), a colossal statue of the Queen in zinc, and a display case of lightning conductors for ships (as used in HM Navy); all of these objects had once graced the Crystal Palace.
“You sit there, Lou, and, Miriam, you sit there,” Harry was proceeding commandingly. “That’s right, everyone. That’s the spirit.”
Astonished by how insufferable her brother had suddenly become, Louise could not help thinking that Miriam, who was older and in every way more mature than Harry, must object to being ordered about by him...but she did not seem to; she seemed perfectly content to be given orders. Yet nobody seemed more content than Lucy. “Shall I do this? Shall I do that? Is that the right way?” she kept asking Harry, turning to him meltingly for more gruff instructions than could possibly be required. Although Louise was still glad that she had saved Lucy’s life by sending that letter to the dak bungalow she could not help feeling that she had been rather taken advantage of...If you save someone’s life you do not expect them to start promptly making mincemeat of your innocent brother’s affections with melting glances and flashings of pretty smiles. Not that Louise would normally have minded a pretty girl like Lucy capturing Harry’s heart...to have their hearts besieged and captured was, after all, at least one of the things that men were there for.
What Louise could not forget, however, was that Lucy had been dishonoured. This lovely and quite innocent-looking girl who was sitting there with them now cheerfully eating pudding had allowed, perhaps even encouraged, certain things to be done to her by a man; she had perhaps allowed her clothes to be fumbled with and disarranged...she might even perhaps, for all Louise knew, have been seen naked by him. The thought of Lucy’s delightfully shaped body, of which she herself had inadvertently glimpsed intimate parts in the billiard room (for Lucy was careless where modesty was concerned), exposed to the eyes of a gentleman, was very distressing to Louise. She was ready to be friendly and forgiving to Lucy, and she was ready to believe that the sin had been less Lucy’s than that of her seducer...but she could not believe it a good thing that Harry should become infatuated with her. That a man (let us not call him a gentleman) should have been permitted to view that sacred collection of bulges, gaps, tufts of hair and rounded fleshy slopes which, as clear as the tossing arms of the semaphore on Diamond Head, signalled their own message: “Womanhood”; on this, apply cosmetics of exonerating circumstances though you might, Louise could only put an ugly complexion, for it added up to the betrayal of her sex.
But now it was time for Fleury’s birthday present to be handed to him and, once again, although the idea had been Miriam’s, the hard work had had to be done by Louise. With the Collector’s permission they had cut the cloth off the billiard tables and made him a coat of Lincoln green together with a cap of the same material, garnished with a turquoise peacock’s feather.
“I say, he looks as if he has just come from Sherwood Forest,” cried Harry gruffly in his new insufferable manner. “Ho there, Locksley! Ha, ha!”
“Oh shut up, Dunstaple!” said Fleury, delighted with his new coat and secretly pleased to be compared with Robin Hood. He put the coat on and turned slowly in front of the ladies, exclaiming: “What a splendid fit it is!” and indeed it was a good fit, even though one arm seemed to be rather longer than the other (“That’s so he can fire his long-bow the more easily, ha, ha!” cried Harry obnoxiously, causing Lucy to swoon with laughter). “Thank heaven it fits, anyway,” thought Louise sadly. For some reason, she had no idea why, she suddenly felt close to tears. With one hand to her forehead, as if she were “thinking” again, she used the other one to give her collar a little tug to make sure no one could see her new boil, the one on her neck.
At this moment the Collector happened to pass through the drawing-room and seeing Miriam sitting with her brother and the young Dunstaples and Miss Hughes, could not help thinking how she still looked only a girl herself, even though she had been a widow for three years or more. They invited him to taste the birthday pudding, which he did, pronouncing it excellent and thinking: “What charming young people they are, to be sure. Why cannot every man and woman in India be so delightful to talk to?”
An expression of warmth had softened the Collector’s features as he knelt beside the group of young people to sample their pudding, but Miriam watching his face closely, saw the shadow return as he stood up. Perhaps it was the endless worry of the siege: he was always anxious, she knew, as dusk was falling, particularly at the beginning of a moonless night when the sepoys might make a surprise attack. Would there be a moon tonight? She could not remember.
But the Collector was still following his earlier thoughts and wondering how it could ever be that the hundred and fifty million people living in India could ever have the social advantages that made young people like the Fleurys and the Dunstaples so delightful, so confident, and so charming.
He left the young people and strode wearily through the hall, muttering to himself aloud: “Surely it’s impossible under any system of government or social economy?” The Collector frowned. A number of people lying on bedding in the hall among the lumber of “possessions” were watching him uneasily; perhaps they had seen him talking to himself. But again he thought: “Can it be that the Indian population will ever enjoy the wealth and ease of the better classes?” This was the melancholy question which had invited the shadow back over the Collector’s countenance and which, presently, pursued him out into the pitch-dark compound to watch the construction of a new line of defence and to assist in the nightly digging of graves.
17
The Padre had become harder and more cunning in the service of th
e Lord; otherwise it is doubtful whether he would have survived the first weeks of the siege. Nobody had worked harder than the Padre; he had done his best. But he was only one man, surrounded by sinners and himself a sinner, born of Adam.
As silk-worms secrete silk, so human beings secrete sin. There is a normal quantity of sin which, for their everlasting punishment, any community of erring humans cannot help spinning in the course of their lives. But what puzzled the Padre was the nature of the particular divine grievance for which they were now suffering such an extreme punishment. What could it be? He had asked himself this question many times as the days had crawled by. And now, suddenly, as he began to dig the first of the evening’s graves, illumination came to him. In the eye of his mind, whose blindness had been cured, the Padre again saw Fleury sitting among the children at Sunday school and shaking his head as if he did not believe in the Atonement. He paused in the act of digging, a heap of dusty soil on his spade. It could not be anything else. Their troubles had begun soon after the arrival of Fleury in Krishnapur.
He heard a footstep in the darkness. For a moment he thought that it must be Fleury himself, guided like a ram into a thicket. But it was the Collector carrying a spade. He had come to lend a hand.
“Three again tonight?”
“Alas!”
The Collector tried to remember who had died during the preceding night and day. One of these would be Peterson whose remains had been retrieved after dark; although only a few hours had passed the pariah dogs and vultures had already cleaned away the soft parts of Peterson’s face and the flesh from his arms, leaving only the hands; these hands on the end of his outstretched, skeletal arms, had the appearance of gloves and lent the corpse an air of ghastly masquerade. Another of the bodies would be that of Jackson, the soldier who had been singing the song about the Crimea in order to keep his spirits up in the hospital. Day by day his bursts of singing had become more infrequent until at last they had been silenced altogether. Jackson had spent his last days lying with flies fighting over his staring eyes in the middle of the stench and horror of the hospital. The Collector had tried to speak to him but had got no reply. He was not sorry that Jackson was dead at last. The other shrouded corpse was that of Mr Donnelly, an indigo farmer and a Roman Catholic, who had died of a heart attack.
The Empire Trilogy Page 70