Belonging

by Umi Sinha

  I cannot tell you how comforting it was to be able to talk to someone about Home. Arthur is always busy and last week we quarrelled and since then I have hardly seen him because he does not come home to sleep. I think he must be sleeping in the Lines with his men. I know you will disapprove of my mentioning our troubles, but I have no one else to talk to. Everyone here is so proper and constantly standing on their manners. Emily Tremayne seems nice, but her little girl Mabel is very sickly so she is always preoccupied, and in any case I could not talk to her about private matters.

  Be kind to me, Mina, for I so look forward to letters from Home that I cannot bear it if you are cross with me.

  Your loving Cecily

  5th September 1856

  Dearest Mina,

  I am glad to hear that Peter is excited about being sent to Palestine, although I know you will miss him sadly. But he always wanted to see the world and I can still picture him wriggling through the trees on his stomach, pretending to be Davy Crockett.

  You will be glad to know Arthur and I made up our quarrel, and I am slowly coming to learn something of his past. His parents died when he was very young and he and James were brought up by an uncle, who was not really interested in them, so they spent most of their holidays at school and have never really known family life. I felt so sorry for him when I heard that. I told him about our family and how much I missed you all, and how little I had understood of what married life involved. We even laughed about it. I told him that I wished to be a good wife to him and that I would try, and he was so gentle and kind with me that I think that Mama and Mrs. Welling must be right, and that perhaps in time I shall even come to enjoy it.

  And there is more good news! We have just learnt that Arthur’s regiment is being sent to Cawnpore, where James and Louisa are now, and that we will be leaving in November, when it is cooler, and travelling nine hundred miles overland. I am so excited at the thought of seeing them again and Arthur is happy that he and James will be together. Cawnpore is the biggest military station in India and many regiments are being transferred there because of the rumours that trouble is brewing in Oudh, but Arthur says there is no cause for worry as Cawnpore is under the command of General Wheeler, who is the finest soldier he could hope to serve under. The journey will take about three months so we shall not be in Cawnpore till early in February.

  Your excited Cecily

  22nd October 1856

  My dearest Mina,

  I know you will despair of me, especially after my last letter, but I discovered something on Saturday that was a terrible shock, for I had really thought that Arthur and I were becoming closer. But I have found out that he has been keeping a bibi, a native mistress, for years.

  I did not tell you that the reason for the quarrel I mentioned back in June was that Arthur asked if I thought I should ever feel towards him as he does towards me, and I said I did not know. (This was before we had that talk and made up the quarrel.) He knew that I did not enjoy married life as he did, and I know it hurt him. I tried to tell him that perhaps if he spent more time with me and we grew to know each other better my feelings might change. But I could tell that he was not really listening and as soon as I had finished speaking he shouted for his batman to saddle Warrior and rode off into the rain. He did not come back until the next morning, soaked to the skin and shivering, and I was afraid he would be ill again but he refused to rest, changed his clothes and went straight out to the Lines. After that, until we made up, he spent several nights each week and most Sundays away from here and I had no idea where he went. I assumed he was sleeping in the Lines but now I know he was seeing his mistress all the time, and everyone knew about it except me!

  I found out about it entirely by chance, for we were attending a farewell dinner before our departure for Cawnpore, and, after the ladies had withdrawn, I went to the powder room. As I entered it I heard two ladies talking – one of them Captain Melbourne’s wife Lucy, who gives herself airs because her husband is the stepson of a baronet. I overheard her say, ‘Poor little thing, I feel so sorry for her. He is so much older than she is and it’s evident to everyone that he hasn’t the slightest interest in her. Graham says he spends all his time at the Lines with his men and completely neglects her, and he’s always croaking about upsetting the natives and what they might do.’

  They did not see me come in and I did not want to interrupt their conversation so I remained by the door.

  ‘Well, of course he has different tastes after twenty-five years in India,’ Lucy Melbourne went on. ‘It’s a surprise he married at all. Everyone knows he has had the same bibi for over twenty years and Graham says he still sees her. He saw him one morning last month coming out of her house. Such a plain creature, too, and quite old, and his wife is such a pretty little thing, but then of course these native women have all sorts of tricks – ’ And then she saw me in the glass and stopped talking. Both of them looked so embarrassed and left the powder room so hastily that I knew at once that they had been talking of Arthur and me.

  You cannot imagine how humiliated I feel, Mina, knowing everyone has been gossiping and laughing about us. I could not face seeing them, so I sent a bearer to fetch the dogcart and to tell Arthur that I was not well and was returning home. He came out to meet me at once and insisted on accompanying me. On the way I could not hold back the tears. He asked me why I was crying, and when I would not answer he told the syce to drive out to a tank in the countryside. We walked up and sat and looked out over the water and he said, ‘Would you like to tell me what has made you unhappy?’

  I did not reply and he said he knew it was hard for me to be away from my home and family but that he thought we had been getting along better recently. When he said that, I felt such indignation that I burst out and asked why he had asked me to marry him when he already had a native mistress. He said that he was sorry he had not told me about her, but that when we married he had put her behind him and thought it best not to mention it because it would upset me needlessly. He had truly not intended to see her any more. It was only when he thought that I did not care for him, and never would, that he had gone back to her, but as soon as we made it up he told her that he would not visit her again.

  I asked how long he has known her and he said he met her soon after he came out here – nearly twenty-five years, Mina! – and that she taught him almost everything he knows about India. I asked if they have children and he said no, and that if they had he would have married her for the children’s sake. And he sends her money every month because she has given him the best years of her life.

  I could tell by the way he talked about her that he still cares for her and feels guilty for abandoning her, and I cannot stop thinking about it. They have lived together since before I was born, Mina, and she must know him better than I shall ever do! When I think of the things I have allowed him to do recently, and imagine him doing the same things with her, I feel I shall die of shame.

  I was mortified and angry, and told him that he had had no right to propose to me, and that he had become engaged to me under false pretences. I could tell he was upset, but he said that if I was really unhappy and wanted to go Home he would not prevent me, although it is too late to change our arrangements now. When we reach Cawnpore he will arrange my passage to England if I still wish to go.

  Since then he has slept in his dressing room, and I lie awake all night unable to stop thinking about it. The worst thing is that over the past few weeks I have truly grown to love and trust him. I know you will say that it is my duty to forgive him, but I cannot stop imagining them together and I know that every time he touches me now I shall think of him touching her that way, and I cannot bear it. I have not yet decided what to do, but I do not think I can continue living with him.

  Try not to think too harshly of me, Mina. I know in my place you would have acted differently, but I have never been as strong or good as you are.

  Your Cecily

  Lila

  At fifteen, altho
ugh I was not beautiful, as she was, I was starting to see something of Mother in the bones of my face, the set of my mouth. I began to dream of her, too. In the dreams I was back on the ship, leaning over the rail and watching the phosphorescence, when she swam up from the depths, one half of her face silvered by moonlight, the other in darkness. I recoiled and saw her do the same. Only when I woke did I realise that her movements had mirrored mine in every detail. I was her, and she was me.

  I would wake gasping for breath and lie there in the moonlight, remembering how, when I was small, she was the princess in the fairytales Father read me: pale, beautiful and distant. I used to stand in the doorway to her room as she sat at the dressing table, at first hiding behind the doorframe; but then the fascination would draw me out to watch as the two women talked, the one facing the mirror pleading and sad, the one in the mirror harsh and cruel, spitting out her words. It was always the mirror face who saw me: her mouth twisted, her eyes darkened, one more than the other, as she spat out ‘Jao! Go!’ the way she did to the servants, even to Ayah, who was closest to her.

  I could still make out the faint scar on my forehead just below the hairline, a reminder of the day I had followed her rustling silk skirts from room to room, trying to catch her, thinking we were playing a game. I must have been three or four. I could hear her whimpering behind her bedroom door and when I pushed it open her voice rose to a scream: ‘Please God, don’t let her come in! Please God, keep her away from me! ’ The room was dark – her curtains were always drawn – but sunlight was streaming through a narrow gap and refracting through something in her raised hand. Dazzled, I blinked and did not see her throw it, only felt the blow and then the warm wet on my face and saw the red spattering on to the white Kashmiri rug, and the chunks of cut glass that lay scattered round my feet. Afterwards Ayah told me it had been an accident and that I shouldn’t tell Father or he would be angry with her.

  I did not want to think about Mother, but it was becoming harder not to as my body began to change, outwardly and inwardly. Hair began to grow in places that had been smooth; my chest developed painful knobs of hardness, yet felt tender. I ached to be touched, and behind it all was a longing for something I could not name. It was no longer homesickness for my old life, for, although I still thought of Father, my memories of him had become fixed: pictures in an old album that had replaced the living images. The pain was no longer raw but distant, nostalgic. I missed it; in a strange way it had been comforting, keeping me connected to Father, and reminding me of who I was and where I had come from.

  When I stood at my window now I still heard that rhythmic vibration – the soundless voice that seemed to be telling me something I had always known – but it was fainter now and I feared to lose it. At night I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, and in the day my mood swung between elation and tears. Aunt Mina noticed the changes too, which made it worse. She began to concern herself with my hair and clothes, asking Mrs. Beauchamp for advice about the new fashions.

  I tried on my new outfits in front of the mirror – flounced muslin dresses in eau-de-nil, café-au-lait and dusky pink, chosen to complement my complexion and lip colour – putting my hair up this way and that, while talking to myself in my practice grown-up voice. Then I would resume my pinafore dress and my silence and go downstairs, wearing the sulky expression I knew would provoke Aunt Mina. At breakfast I pretended not to hear when she said, ‘Good morning,’ and slumped in my chair. One morning she gave me a lecture about being ‘sulky, superior and uppish’, and back in my room I whispered all the bad words I could remember in both English and Hindustani. I promised myself that as soon as I was old enough to earn a living I would leave Aunt Mina’s house and never see her again.

  I started spending more time with Mrs. Beauchamp, who was encouraging me to think about a career; it was important for a woman to be independent, she said, to have her own work, rather than being a parasite. She would have liked to take me with her to suffragette meetings but she knew Aunt Mina wouldn’t like it. Instead she lent me books to read, books like The Story of an African Farm and The Yellow Wallpaper, both of which disturbed me, although I don’t think I understood either of them then.

  The boys came back at the beginning of July and Mrs. Beauchamp sent the dogcart to collect me after lunch, as she always did when they were home. Aunt Mina stopped me as I ran down the stairs. I waited impatiently as she fussed. ‘Don’t forget your hat, Lilian. You really must start thinking about your complexion.’ I thought of Mother again: the only interest she had ever shown in me was to insist that I wear a hat when I was outside. She never went into the sun herself.

  ‘And you’re a bit old to be playing with those boys,’ Aunt Mina went on. ‘It was all right when you were younger but you’re not children any more. It’s time you made friends with some girls your own age. There’s no one suitable in the village, and I’ve been thinking it’s time you went away to school. It might rub off some of those corners. But you’d better go now, as Mrs. Beauchamp has so kindly sent the dogcart.’

  I was still having lessons in the mornings and doing my prep in the evenings but it was the holidays now. In previous years when the boys were home we had spent all day together, playing Seven Tiles on the Downs, crossing back and forth across the Dyke in the cable car, or taking the train into Brighton and spending long days at the beach, where we swam or walked along the promenade to Hove or Rottingdean. Sometimes we went out with a local fisherman to fish for mackerel, or picnicked in the gardens of the Royal Pavilion, which was closed up and no longer used; people said the Queen disliked it because of its association with the disgraceful behaviour of the Prince Regent.

  But Aunt Mina was right: it was different that summer. The boys were taller and the light had gone out of their faces, replaced by a brooding heaviness. At seventeen, Jagjit was well over six feet tall and he towered over Simon. His chest had broadened and the down on his face had grown into a patchy moustache and beard. His voice had deepened too, while Simon’s was finally beginning to break, which I could tell embarrassed him. I was shy and self-conscious around them and began to feel in the way, fearing that they had outgrown wanting to play with the silly dumb girl but were too polite to say so. Simon was impatient and snappy, while Jagjit put himself out to be nice. It wasn’t so bad when we were outside with something to occupy us, but on rainy afternoons we were trapped together in Simon’s old playroom, where we passed the time playing Parcheesi and backgammon.

  I began to dread these rainy days. All our old ease was gone and I found myself uncomfortably aware of Jagjit’s proximity. If our hands touched by mistake I snatched mine away and then blushed. I knew I seemed unfriendly, but I could not help myself, and knowing that Simon resented my being there made me even more self-conscious. It was excruciating, but I didn’t know how to extricate myself, so I started to take a book with me and spend much of my time on the window-seat, reading. Each time I told myself I wouldn’t go again, but when it came to it I found myself getting into the dogcart, hoping that this time it would be different, that we would fall back into our old ease with each other.

  One hot Saturday in early August, we decided to go to Brighton beach with a picnic. Being in the open, among the crowds and the activity, helped to distract us. It was almost like old times. We swam, and then the boys went off to skim stones while I lay back and closed my eyes and listened to the sea. I have always loved the sound of the sea, ever since I stood at the bow of that ship letting the wake wash the inside of my head clean.

  The waves were gentler, less continuous, on this fine, almost windless day, and I had to really focus to hear them behind the chatter of day-trippers, children’s voices and the cries of the gulls. The light breeze was delicious on my hot skin as I waited for a break in the pattern of sound and then began to concentrate. It started with a small rush from my right along the shingle, then a longer one from my left, then from the right again a surge, that built steadily to a rattling roar and then diminished,
ebbing away along the beach. For a moment or two there was silence; then it began again. It was like an orchestra with different instruments coming in, the sound building and dying away.

  There was a crunching of pebbles and I opened my eyes to find Jagjit lowering himself beside me.

  ‘You look happy, Lila. What were you thinking about?’

  I was surprised, not having known, until he named it, that happiness was what I was feeling. Without thinking, I parted my lips to answer, and saw his look of surprise and expectation. For a moment we held each other’s eyes, then thought came surging back, bringing consequences with it, and I closed my mouth. I saw the disappointment in his face, quickly masked.

  I touched my ear and gestured at the sea, miming waves with my hand.

  He smiled his lopsided smile, holding my eyes so long that I blushed. ‘Listening to the waves? Shall I join you?’

  He stretched out beside me and closed his eyes. I closed mine too and tried to concentrate again, but all I could think of was his body beside mine in his navy and brown striped costume, his long brown limbs stretched out along the pebbles. Our hands were almost touching.

  Silence. Then the small rush to my right. I imagined him hearing it too: the same flow and ebb through both of us. His little finger touched mine. The pressure seeming to deepen as the longer rush came from the left, a warm surge through my body, building to a crescendo as it rose into my throat and then ebbed away. The sun warmed me; the breeze stroked my skin, raising the hairs on my arms and legs. With each new sound a rush of warmth rose through my body, and I knew he was feeling it too. He turned his head and his eyes met mine, unsmiling. We looked and kept looking, beyond politeness, beyond embarrassment. Then Simon’s shrill voice, calling his name, cut through the sound of the waves, the squawking seagulls and the chatter.