by Umi Sinha
I thought of all the men who were still living in a waking nightmare and glanced at Simon. Tears were rolling down his face. I slipped my hand into his.
Like flowery fields the nations stand,
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ’tis night.
All over the church people were weeping now, not for Aunt Mina, but for the sons and brothers and husbands and lovers they would never see again.
The following day, after morning service, Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp met me in his study to go through the details of my inheritance. Looking at them, I realised they have aged. I have been so absorbed with Aunt Mina that I have noticed nothing else for months. Mrs. Beauchamp is as elegant as ever, though her hair has faded; she was wearing a narrow damask overdress in pale grey over a plain charcoal-coloured skirt. Mr. Beauchamp’s dark hair is streaked with silver, and I noticed a web of lines around his bright squirrelly eyes.
‘Your aunt made me her executor and left me with some information that she wanted passed to you after her death,’ he said, as he unlocked his desk drawer and took out a package of papers. He hesitated before adding, ‘Information about your mother.’ My eyes must have widened because he said quickly, ‘I understand your aunt told you that your parents had died of the cholera. I’m afraid that wasn’t true. I always felt you should have been told the truth, but your aunt wanted to protect you. When you reached twenty-one I urged her to tell you, but she felt it would not be fair when you were so occupied with your war work.’
I shivered and, looking down, saw the hairs on my arms were standing up. ‘You’re chilly,’ Mrs. Beauchamp said, concerned. ‘Shall I fetch you a shawl?’
I shook my head. ‘What about my mother?’ How was it that I had never wondered where she was, had shut her out of my mind so completely?
Mr. Beauchamp went on, ‘I’m sorry to say that after your father’s death…’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know how much you know, Lila…’
‘I know about Father,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
He looked relieved. ‘Well… it appears your mother never really recovered from the shock. Immediately afterwards she was taken…’ He paused.
‘She’s dead?’
He looked shocked. ‘No, no. She was taken to an Army hospital at Deolali… not far from Bombay. It’s a place where they hold people who have, er… nervous complaints… until they can be shipped back to England.’
They say her mother’s doolally. I remembered overhearing Cook – or was it Ellen? – saying those words.
‘Mother’s in England?’
He must have mistaken my shock for eagerness because he said, ‘No, I’m sorry, Lila. She was never brought here. For some reason she was discharged into the care of a native woman – I have her name here somewhere…’ He shuffled through his papers. ‘Ah, here it is – Zainab Khan – who undertook to look after her.’
‘Zainab? She was my ayah, and Mother’s too. But Mother always disliked her.’
‘That does seem strange. Possibly it was arranged by your aunt? They live at a hill station called Nasik and their rent and living expenses are paid out of your Father’s estate. The medical reports mention catatonia. I understand people with the condition do not suffer, but you probably know more than I about that from your time in hospitals.’
I thought of the catatonic patients I had seen: suspended, as though a wicked fairy had cast a spell on them. But in my mind Mother was the wicked fairy.
Mrs. Beauchamp put a hand on my arm. ‘We’re sorry to give you this news, Lila. It must be a terrible shock.’
‘As I said before,’ Mr. Beauchamp added, ‘I feel you should have been told all this years ago, and certainly when you came of age, but your aunt was of a generation who believed that the less said the better.’
‘Did she tell you? What happened… I mean, to Father?’
He hesitated. ‘She wasn’t sure whether you remembered. If you had forgotten, she didn’t want to remind you.’
‘How could I forget? He shot himself on his birthday. I saw him… just afterwards, I mean.’
They looked shocked. ‘My dear, how dreadful for you,’ Mrs. Beauchamp said.
Mr. Beauchamp cleared his throat. ‘Lila, are sure you want to go on now? Perhaps this is enough news to absorb for one day.’
‘No, I’d rather know it all.’
‘Well, I assume you will want to continue with the arrangements made for your mother’s care?’
‘Yes, it seems best, don’t you think?’
‘Unless you want to bring her here? Your aunt’s house – your house now – would be large enough to – ’
‘No.’
There was a silence. He said carefully, ‘Then might you want to visit her?’
‘I think not. Anyway, there wouldn’t be much point if she’s catatonic, would there?’
They exchanged a glance. ‘No, I suppose not. Well, erm… maybe we should discuss the Will,’ Mr. Beauchamp said briskly. ‘Your aunt has left you everything, as you probably surmised. I have copies of her Will, her bank accounts and investments here. And this for you.’ He handed me a thick yellow envelope.
I thought of the notebooks and letters that I had seen on her bureau all those years ago. ‘And the other family papers?’
He frowned. ‘She didn’t mention any other papers. Perhaps she refers to them in that envelope? All she gave me were the papers connected with your inheritance. Any family letters, photographs and so on must still be in the house. I believe most of the furniture was stored away when the house was requisitioned?’
‘Yes, it’s up in the attic.’
He nodded. ‘The house will, of course, require extensive renovation after its usage for the past three years, but, even taking into account the cost of restoring it, there should be enough left to give you an annuity that will meet your needs adequately. And then of course there is your father’s capital, although most of the income from that is taken up with provision for your mother as long as she lives.’
‘I understand.’
‘Of course, if you decided to sell the house and buy something smaller, that would increase your capital and give you a better income. I would not say you are wealthy, but you will certainly be comfortable even if you choose never to work again. In that respect you are more fortunate than many young women.’
He meant of course that, unlike many women, I shall not be forced to earn my own living. Since the war ended there have been repeated reminders in the press that most of us are doomed to remain spinsters and will have to support ourselves. And, perhaps to make up for it, in February 1918 certain women over thirty had finally been given the vote, ostensibly as a reward for our help with the war effort. I thought Mrs. Beauchamp would be triumphant but, as she said sadly, it is hard to rejoice when the cost has been so high.
‘But of course Lila will want to work,’ she said now. ‘You’re much too intelligent to sit at home doing nothing. And now you’re a woman of means you’re free to do as you wish. I know you had hoped to return to India, but might you be better off here? We need doctors too, and Simon is really very fond of you…’
I looked at her, astonished. Could she mean what I thought she did? I thought of the advertisements placed in the paper by women whose husbands or lovers had been killed, offering to make themselves useful by marrying and caring for incapacitated soldiers.
‘There’s no hurry to decide,’ Mr. Beauchamp said when I remained silent. ‘You’ve hardly had time to get your bearings, what with your war work and then nursing your aunt, and High Elms is in no condition to be occupied, even if you had the staff. What Amelia means is that we would be delighted, and so would Simon, if you continued to live with us.’
I was grateful for the offer. Even if it were possible for me to live at High Elms, I could not bear the thought of living there without Aunt Mina. I am surprised by how much I miss her, and regret all the years we wasted when we could ha
ve been a comfort to each other.
Mr. Beauchamp waved my thanks aside. ‘We’ve regarded you as part of the family since you were a child. You and Simon and, of course – ’ he paused and said in a sombre voice ‘ – Jagjit.’
‘Have you had… is there any news?’
He looked down at his hands, then back at me. ‘No, nothing. I’m sorry, Lila, but it’s been almost six months since the war ended. All the officers’ camps and most of the others have long been emptied and I think we have to accept…’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Beauchamp shake her head.
That afternoon, after Simon departed for London, I went up to my room and opened Aunt Mina’s envelope. It contained a letter and a small packet tied with string. The letter was undated but written, I presume, around the same time as her Will.
Dear Lila,
I am sorry that I could not be the kind of friend to you that I would have wished to be, but somehow I have always been backward when it comes to friendship. Cecily had the gift and she was generous enough to share her friends with me, though I always knew I was only a hanger-on. After she left, I failed to engage with the world the way I should have done. Perhaps it was a failure of courage. Even my fiancé, Peter, was inherited from Cecily, but perhaps if he had lived and we had had children things might have been different. But then a family is a hostage to fortune.
We have never talked of the terrible things that happened to our family in India, except once. It may have been a mistake not to have told you before, but I thought when you first came here that it would be better to let you build a new life, free of the past. I know George Beauchamp believed I had no right to keep your history from you, and he may have been right. In any case, you are now of age and an independent woman, and should you wish to know more you will find all the papers connected with that history in the bottom drawer of my writing bureau. I am enclosing the key with this letter.
I should warn you that you may find what you discover hard to bear. You are strong, though; I have known that since the day I met you. It must have seemed to you that I wished to destroy that strength, but the truth is I envied you. You have much of your grandmother in you. She always thought I was the brave one, but she was wrong.
Although I have left you the house, I would not wish you to remain at High Elms and live the kind of solitary life that I have lived. So much has changed in the last few years that I am no longer able to judge what is for the best in this new world. It may have seemed to you that I did not care for your independent spirit, or agree with your choice of friends, but what happened in India has haunted me all my life, and perhaps made me more untrusting and unforgiving than I should have been. However, to the best of my ability, I have always acted in what I felt were your best interests.
I hope that you find more fulfilment and happiness in your life than I have in mine.
Aunt Mina
Henry
7th January 1894
After twelve years of marriage to Rebecca I should have thought nothing would surprise me, but I arrived back last Tuesday to discover that she had broken into the drawer of my desk and made a bonfire of my diaries – all except the one covering my first three years back in India, which, ironically, was in an unlocked drawer with my childhood notebooks. I kept them locked up because, about a year after we married, she read one of the entries I had written about her and became hysterical. It was the first time I had seen her like that, and it showed me just how unstable she was. It had never occurred to me that she would read my private papers.
Zainab broke the news to me and when I asked if nothing had been salvaged – in my experience books do not burn easily – she said she had come on the scene too late to save them and the mali had poured water over them to put out the fire, which naturally would have made the ink run.
I am surprised to discover how much their loss has affected me. They have, after all, served their purpose of helping me to find expression for my thoughts. I had never intended that anyone else should read them – and yet I am angry – so angry that I have been unable to speak to Rebecca about it for fear of what I might say. I wonder if she knew how much they meant to me. I don’t imagine it even occurred to her to think about it, because the one thing I have learnt about Rebecca is that she is completely wrapped up in herself. I do not condemn her for it: it is a feature of many people who have suffered greatly that, far from being ennobled by it, they become completely absorbed by their own suffering and are incapable of imagining anyone else’s.
And there is no doubt that Rebecca has suffered. Five miscarriages would be enough to overstrain any woman’s nerves, even one without her disposition. And that loss, together with her dependence on laudanum, which no effort on my part or that of the various doctors we have had over the years can wean her off, has made her a creature completely ensnared in her own fears. She sees enemies everywhere. For example, she complains that the servants do not like or respect her, but she is so impatient and critical that it is scarcely surprising. I know that she is inexperienced in running a household; Zainab seems to have fulfilled that role in her father’s house, presumably having assumed it after Rebecca’s mother’s death. But the male servants resent being told what to do by a female one, and Hindus by one who is not only a woman but a Muslim.
Rebecca’s distrust of me started when she read the diary, burnt now, in which I had expressed concern about her mental stability and wondered whether, on my next long leave, to take her to England to consult one of the new mind doctors. Once she got that idea in her head, no amount of reassurance would convince her I was not taking her there with the intention of confining her in an asylum.
I have gradually come to realise that most of her feelings of persecution exist only in her own mind. It is true that other women do not take to her, but the rumours about our marriage are long behind us and it sometimes seems to me that it is her own secretive behaviour that creates the impression that she is concealing something. Then there is her irrational dislike of Indians, whom she accuses of cunning and dishonesty and all kinds of venality. In fact there is no one she trusts, even the woman who has brought her up from infancy and who is clearly devoted to her; nor I, who have done my best to protect her, mostly from herself.
Over the last dozen years, her conviction that everyone is gossiping about her has grown into a mania, with the result that we have been unable to remain in any place, or I in any post, for more than two or three years. Initially, in a new place, all is well. She takes on a new lease of life and with it her old bloom – at thirty she is more beautiful than ever and still possesses that magnetism that attracts men and alienates their wives. For a few months she basks in the attention and interest; and then she becomes convinced, usually with good reason where the women are concerned, that she is disliked and talked about. Then the fantasies begin: they are persecuting her, asking her impertinent questions designed to expose some disgraceful secret which they imagine she is concealing; the servants are plotting against her and spreading rumours about her. And so it goes on. Eventually there comes a time when she will not leave the house, then her room, finally her bed. The I.C.S. is a small world, and as people are transferred from place to place they carry stories with them – stories that have not done her reputation, or my career, any good.
The pregnancies have always occurred in the period soon after our arrival in a new place, when she is blooming and seductive. I still find her hard to resist, even though I am familiar with her little tricks: the slight upturn of the lips, accompanied by a sudden widening of the eyes and the small undulation of her hips. But it is no longer her power but her weakness that controls me. When I take her in my arms now, it is because I want to prove not my own worthiness but hers – to convince her that she is worth loving. Sometimes I find myself filled more with pity than desire, but I know it would crush what little self-respect she has left if she saw that she had lost her power over me. Her ayah and I have been the two fixed planets orbiting her sun
, marking her place in the heavens and keeping her from sinking into the outer darkness.
Re-reading the one surviving diary from our marriage, I am saddened by the difference between what she was then and what she has become, though even then there were signs that all was not well. I once saw a crow with a broken wing dragging itself along the ground while being eaten alive by ants; I put the poor creature out of its misery, and sometimes I almost feel it would be kinder to do the same for her. I have come home five times to news of another miscarriage – strangely they have always happened in my absence – to find her shut away in her room, half-mad and sedated with laudanum. We wean her off it and the cycle starts again. The doctors all say there is no apparent reason for her inability to carry a child to its term, and suspect it may be something to do with her nerves.
These days I feel nothing so much as weariness at the thought of what I will find when I come home.
20th March 1894
Rebecca is pregnant again. I am sick at the thought of another tragedy, another lost baby, another breakdown. I cannot believe I was weak enough to allow myself to be seduced.
It happened about a fortnight after I got back. I was keeping my distance from her, still angry about my diaries, and when she realised I was not going to go to her, as I usually do, she came to me in the night, pale and sad, and wept like a child, until I pitied her and took her in my arms. And then I did not have the heart to reject her advances. Afterwards I was angry with myself and prayed that she would not conceive, but God – if He exists – did not see fit to hear my prayers.
28th March 1894
I am so shaken that I do not know if I can write this. After all these years I would have thought nothing could surprise me, but since seeing the doctor yesterday I feel as though I have woken into a nightmare. He apologised for not informing me before but he has been away in England on a family matter and did not feel it was something he could reveal in a letter. He confessed he was in two minds about telling me at all but did not feel he could let the situation continue and did not want to go to the authorities.