The Mulberry Empire

by Philip Hensher

  There was a marvellous emptiness about this party, all in all; there was never any kind of lure found necessary, and no fascinating fashionable guru of the variety that lesser entertainments found so indispensable would ever be promised on the invitations of the Duke of Dorset. Nor, in fact, did Stokes know a great number of people here, but he strolled through the groves with a feeling of some satisfaction. To know nobody here was as sure an indication of the social purity of the gathering as it would be in a costermongers’ tavern, and it was with a feeling of positive irritation that he found himself acknowledging the bow of Castleford. The idea that a vulgar companion from the old days might have followed in his wake, and slipped through the doors just as they were closing firmly shut, struck him as inconceivable, and he wanted, more than anything, to ask the blunt question of what on earth he thought he was doing there.

  ‘I thought I should know nobody here,’ Castleford began companionably. ‘Tremendous pleasure to see you, a great man like you.’

  Stokes bowed coldly, before recollecting himself. After all, he could not wander about in solitude for the entire party. ‘I don’t remember seeing you here before,’ he said.

  ‘Nor I you,’ Castleford said, apparently equal to this. ‘Very dull, these things. I wish Royalty would know its place, and stay there; they are the ruin of a perfectly good party, in my view.’

  ‘Sir?’ Stokes said.

  ‘In the old days,’ Castleford said comfortably, ‘the old King would stay in St James’s and those who cared to would make the pilgrimage, and come away feeling very much the better for it. Now – well, look—’ he waved his arm in a half-circle, ‘—they come out, and turn what might be a perfectly pleasant party into a gigantic exercise in tedium. Really, it reminds me of nothing so much as a hen-coop once the fox has got in. Half of them stiff with terror, and the other unable to keep still with frantic excitement. But you are so great a patriot, these days, I hardly expect you to agree.’

  Stokes bowed. If only someone he knew would come within reach, he could leave this tedious reminder of his former self. ‘You are less than generous, Castleford,’ he said mildly. ‘It is not precisely enthusiasm, I think; certainly, I look inside myself and my emotions are not at all those of a startled hen.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Castleford said. ‘No enthusiasm whatever, Stokes? You are not swept away in this tide of patriotic fervour?’

  ‘I feel a sense of honour, perhaps,’ Stokes said. ‘Your sister is well?’

  ‘Quite well, thank you,’ Castleford said. ‘In the country, I believe. I recalled you were always rather an enemy of acquisitions in the Orient, Stokes, but, you know, on reading your recent effusions, I start to feel my memory must be at fault.’

  ‘I confess, I had not always thought the Indian expeditions as wise as now appears, but – well, Castleford, you will know far better than I the value of these new acquisitions of Her Majesty. New markets – you see the point of that? Come, Castleford, a fellow can change his mind.’

  ‘Of course,’ Castleford said. ‘But I was always a proponent of Empire, you recall. Great heavens, is that not—’

  It was, indeed, Bella Garraway, and Stokes, briefly taking his leave of Castleford, went to greet her.

  5.

  The world is waiting to be born. A new Queen in London, her little teeth gleaming at her suitors in her ballrooms. In Boston, far on the other side of the world, the stevedores are saying something they never heard before one year ago; they unload a ship, and chalk O.K. on the side of it. Ten miles from them, no one would understand it, but they like this, a jocularity they never think will spread into every language in the world, given time. The dancers, at this moment, are still dancing to something their grandfathers would recognize, and tonight’s ball will finish with a novelty which is no novelty, a decorous old round dance, this season’s sensational ‘Kabul Cotillion’, but in other parts of Europe, the orchestras are assembling to make sounds never dreamt of before, and men, with their ink and their manuscript paper, are dreaming, they are plotting ways to bring the old eighteenth-century dream of harmony, civility and proportion to an end for ever. Emily Eden sits with her pencils, and sets down in laborious chalks and tints what she can see, tidying up and making picturesque the sights of the world; soon, a Frenchman will do something which will make her effort seem pointless, and before long, when the Europeans want to record the fabled East, they will take a box of M. Daguerre’s, point it, and that will be good. England is being carved up, with lines of steel and thundering, steaming engines, pouring smoke into the blue English air, and the deer of the English parks look up, and run as fast as they can from the roar.

  Akbar wants his father’s lands returned, and that is the extent of his desire, and he never thinks that his act will change the world, as surely as photography. After Akbar, no one will look at the world again in the same way. Our lands are ours, they will start to say, and the tale of Akbar in his splendour will be told from shore to shore, wherever men embark from ships and start to rule. From now, the poor bewildered people will hear of Akbar, and they will know that they are not helpless, that they can rise up, and take back what was always theirs. And Akbar will fulfil the desire of the English, to lose their Empire, will drive them back with their engines and their photography, their post offices and their belief in the equality of men; he will make his people poor again for no reason. They do not know that the English would give them civilization, and they do not care; they want only to be Afghans. The world is changing. For now, we are in a London ballroom, full of a dream of glory, but the world is already altered, and takes no account of the wishes and dreams and pride of men. It starts to change, now.

  6.

  Even the orchestra talked of Kabul.

  As the third viola was accustomed to point out while they rosined their bows in the back bedroom of some town house, turned into an impromptu band room for the evening, orchestra was a flexible term. Some of these here dances stretched to no more than four or five players, the squire having the front to whine about the idea, the very idea (as the third viola said, his voice rising in mockery) of them taking a break, and no supper neither. And what the point of that was the Lord only knew.

  But tonight the old Duke had done himself proud, with an orchestra which would do in any theatre in town, bassoons, drums and even a trumpet, and four fiddles to a part, as the orchestra all agreed, taking their break in the Duke’s library. ‘You see,’ the third viola, the oldest hand in the business, explained seriously, ‘there are them as think one fiddle looks too stingy, and stretch to two, never thinking that, it stands to reason, two fiddles on their own, they can’t play in tune with each other, now, can they? But four – now that’s an orchestra. This is what I call a party. It brings the old Prince to mind, it really does.’

  The trumpet player blew a rude noise through his mouthpiece, as if testing it, and the others all sniggered. ‘My old pa saw the Regent,’ the contrabass said. ‘He said he was like a great sausage, all corseted in and lumpy. Laugh? He said he couldn’t help himself. And the old sod never paid up, that’s what my old pa always says.’

  ‘You be quiet and don’t talk about what you don’t know,’ the third viola said. ‘He knew how things should be done, I’ll tell you that for nothing. And your old pa didn’t know one end of a bow from another, so, begging your pardon, even if he was here, I wouldn’t give his opinions the house room they don’t deserve.’

  The trumpet, having assembled his instrument, began very solemnly to play the Last Post. The third viola broke off and glared at him. ‘No, I’ll tell you a story,’ he went on, ignoring this interruption. ‘It was the day the Regent came and he spoke to me. I’ll tell you the story, the proudest day of my life, and then you’ll know what sort of man he was. Well …’

  Orchestras are as full of storytellers as an oriental bazaar, and the musicians listened contentedly to the long-familiar tale of the third viola’s triumph. Still, just as in society, men have their season of tri
umph, when audiences cluster about them, and the moment was not his. The star of the moment waited on one side for his moment. For years, the bassoonist had been a man of no note, and now, strangely, he was not; for as long as anyone could remember, whenever he timidly ventured a story of his past, it had been as good as a signal to the others to start putting their parts in playing order. These days, he was a splendid old fellow, and when he played at the circus, even the conductor sometimes remembered his name. It was odd that a year ago, the fact that he had been a soldier in India for most of his life had counted against him, when you considered how these days everyone hung on his every word. So he listened to the third viola’s boring story with an air of content, warbling away in the instrument’s highest register as if attempting to see just how disagreeable a noise he could make with the old thing.

  The third viola finished, and looked around; the performing habits of musicians are hard to break, and he might have been waiting for applause.

  ‘My old father,’ the contrabass said with tremendous withering scorn, ‘said he could never understand how some fat old man could make such a spectacle of himself. Those were his words. A great sausage, that’s what he always called him, fat as a pig in a frock, and so pleased with himself, you’d think he was about to burst.’

  ‘Ten minutes, gentlemen,’ the bandmaster said, popping his head round the door.

  ‘It was ten minutes ten minutes ago,’ the flute said.

  ‘No, it was five minutes ten minutes ago,’ the trumpet said. ‘So George, what kind of place is this Kabul, then?’

  The bassoonist paused, set down the instrument and leant on it, like an old wise farmer with a walking stick. ‘I never saw it,’ he conceded, relishing the sudden attention. ‘Never got that far. They say it’s a fine place, a fine rich place. And when they say that of a place in the East, they mean it. I’ve seen places as’d make your eyes water with the gold and the beautiful women—’

  ‘Niggers, though, George,’ the trumpet pointed out.

  ‘Don’t be so ignorant,’ the bassoonist said. ‘I could tell you a story or two of the women I’ve seen. There was one day in the bazaar in Calcutta – you, you ignorant bastards, you won’t know what a bazaar is, but you’ve got your dick-shone-airies, ain’t you – and I was minding my own business when this dirty great black with a mace comes down the street and behind him, six little fellows all carrying this litter, and I stands to one side to let it pass, they’ve got a word for it, I forget, and they all stop by me, and the silk curtain opens, and there’s this little face, a princess, a rani, as they’d be calling her, looks out at me, and, blow me down, she says, “What’s your name?” and I tells her, and the curtain falls and it goes on. What that was all about I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll never forget that face to my dying day, and I’d walk from here to Calcutta if I thought I’d ever lay eyes on anything like that again. Worth conquering the world for, a face like that. Tonjaun, that’s what they call them, tonjaun.’

  ‘Tonjaun, George?’

  ‘That’s what they call the litter she was in.’

  ‘Ah,’ the trumpet said. ‘But you never went to Kabul.’

  ‘No,’ the bassoonist allowed. ‘But I know one thing. There’s no other nation on earth could have done what we’ve done, marched in and taken charge, and no other nation could set it to rights like we’ll do.’

  ‘Makes you proud to be an Englishman,’ the third viola attempted, to general derision.

  ‘Fine lot of judies out there, I dare say,’ the trumpet said.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the conductor said, coming in again, and the orchestra stood and prepared to return, for their moment.

  7.

  ‘Soon we’ll be ruling the world,’ a languid young man just behind Bella was saying with the appearance, at least, of irony. ‘Railways from here to Cathay, no doubt.’ And as they stood there, the ball drifted past them, offering them tiny fragrant nosegays of thought.

  ‘Georgina Frampton’s son, you know, is there, but she is quite sick with worry,’ another, higher, more fluting voice floated over. ‘And when you come to think of it, a son lying dead, and no word of it for months or years. A terrible burden for the poor woman.’

  ‘Five thousand a year, or so they say—’

  ‘Most sadly changed—’

  ‘I confess, Her Majesty was so good as to confide that—’

  ‘Not since the Regent—’

  ‘Not since Waterloo—’

  Bella had more or less finished reassuring Stokes with a general account of the soundness of her health and expressing her obligation for his kind solicitude when Lord John again appeared. She introduced them to each other.

  ‘I am charged to show you my father’s new acquisition,’ Lord John said. ‘You see, Miss Garraway; I come to fulfil my promise to you. And you, too, sir, if it would interest you. I would not keep you from your supper, of course, but there is too great a crowd at present, and I can promise that even a mob of hungry dowagers cannot entirely devour the feast before we reach it. Would that interest you? My father,’ Lord John was continuing, as he led Bella and Stokes from the door of the supper room into an empty corridor, ‘is a great antiquarian, as you must know. His only interest, indeed, as I am sure he would eagerly confess. How much more interested in any number of dead Queens than the one who has been so good as to honour us tonight. I am charged – silently charged, you understand, but I understand his wishes – with taking his most honoured guests to glimpse his latest splendid acquisition.’

  ‘I am prepared,’ Bella said. Lady John, she thought; Lady John.

  But the room was not empty; bending over a glass case was the Duke himself, whose departure from the ballroom no one had noticed, and by him the little figure in red. They raised their heads and turned; Bella dropped the deepest of curtsies and Lord John and Stokes, composing their faces, bowed solemnly.

  ‘Most interesting, Duke,’ the Queen said, smiling in her ugly unconvincing way. ‘A most valuable addition to your interesting collection.’

  ‘Sir, I fear I am disturbing Her Majesty,’ Lord John said seriously. The Duke stood, unmoving, with a black look on his face.

  ‘Not at all,’ the girl said. ‘Please, Duke, continue. Most fascinating.’

  ‘If we may,’ Lord John offered. ‘Sir, I thought to share your new treasure with two of your guests – Mr Stokes, you know, cares so much more for the life of the mind than for dancing, and Miss Garraway—’

  ‘Quite,’ the Duke said. ‘With Your Majesty’s permission? A rare find, a precious thing. The best authorities have examined it at length and conclude it to be a fragment of the poetess Sappho. A very rare thing, but my librarian is convinced of its provenance, and I cannot recall so very important an object being offered to me.’

  ‘A national treasure,’ the Queen said. ‘Sappho, did you say?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the Duke said. ‘I believe there is a fanciful poem on the subject by the modern poet Pope, but little is known of her or her works, and this is a significant addition.’

  ‘Stop hovering,’ the Queen said over her shoulder to the new entrants. ‘I detest hovering. Come here, come here.’

  The three of them advanced, and looked into the case. On a bed of white linen four feet by two lay a tiny scrap of papyrus, brown and ragged. Bella bent over as the Queen pressed her nose, almost, against the glass, and saw that on the little scrap were some marks; she looked some more, and saw that they were two Greek letters – chth – and the beginnings of a third.

  ‘Chth,’ the Duke said. ‘Most interesting. Of course, it is not at all clear what sort of poem this could have formed part of, or, indeed, what word it might have once begun, or ended, or … But it must be regarded as an extremely interesting discovery. Fish, perhaps.’

  ‘Fish, cousin?’ the Queen said, raising her head; they all followed her.

  ‘The Greek word for fish contains this concatenation of letters, Your Majesty. But there are other can
didates – darkness, for instance, or rather, more specifically, the darkness of the earth, or the underground, you know, a very interesting and pregnant word, or …’

  ‘So disappointing,’ the Queen said. ‘Not to know exactly what was in the late poetess’s mind, when she took her stylus …’

  The four of them bowed again at this unexpected display of regal learning.

  ‘… and set down a poem in the full flood of inspiration. But perhaps I am too romantic, sir – it could be, could it not, that if she were writing of fish – fish, you said – that this is no more than a fragment of the poor woman’s instructions to her cook?’

  They all laughed, deferentially.

  ‘No, I prefer to think,’ the Queen went on, evidently gratified at the compulsory success of her sally, ‘that it was set down in the full flood of her inspiration. Chth,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘And fish, too, may be the subject of a most romantic poem, after all. Now I recall – the poetess flung herself into the sea, did she not?’

  ‘That has been the belief of the modern era,’ the Duke said.

  ‘Chth. Chth. Chth,’ the Queen repeated as she turned and, Duke in tow, went towards the door, for all the world as if she were clearing her throat. ‘Most interesting.’

  She, Bella suddenly thought, will be Queen for ever. She raised herself from her profound curtsy and watched the door close behind the tremendous scarlet woman. Not twenty, and an age, a lifetime of Empire before her, and she knows it. Chth. Chth. Chth.

  ‘I shall never forgive myself,’ Lord John breathed, collapsing into an armchair and giggling mildly. ‘Had I known—’

  ‘I believe you knew perfectly,’ Bella said, sitting down more decorously. ‘And you shall forgive yourself, but I shall not. The Queen—’