The Mulberry Empire

by Philip Hensher

  ‘My dearest husband,’ she projected, her painted face tipped back.

  ‘My dearest wife,’ he crowed, and the entire house burst, all at once, into furious applause. They waited for it to die down, and then he spoke the last lines of Astley’s latest triumph, the reunion of General Sale and his brave wife.

  ‘So Britons shall never come to harm,’ he declaimed ringingly, ‘while hearth and home—’ he paused, grandly, ‘—and LOVE is warm.’

  The curtain began to fall slowly, to tremendous applause. Bella, too, applauded until her hands ached, and Henry, by her side, applauded, his eyes shining at what he did not understand. She applauded and applauded, and she, too, did not quite understand. There were many people in this audience who had seen this scene, over and over; it was quite the sensation of the Season, and sent all London out into the cold city with their certainty made warm. She had never seen it, and only when she was quite sure that she did not and would not care, had she consented to go. It was a treat for Henry, she told herself.

  She stopped applauding, and soon everyone did. It was so odd how applause came to an end; at one moment, it seemed as if no one wanted to stop, and the next, everyone had taken their signal, and left off. She wondered who the last person to clap his hands was; there must be a very last person, making a single clap, just after every other person had stopped, but it never seemed like that; it always seemed as if the applause all finished, all at once, by agreement. For a moment, as she took Henry’s hand and gathered her things together, she was that person. Going on applauding, alone, clapping her little hands together alone, while everyone else prepared to go; applauding the war, applauding heroism made small and put on stage. She, too, had been in the war, the real one, and perhaps she ought to be the famous Bella Garraway, impersonated on stage to music while thousands watched, their tears streaming down their cheeks.

  The audience was of the most mixed variety, and Bella clutched Henry’s hand tightly as they made their way out.

  ‘Who was that gentleman?’ Henry said when they were in the open afternoon air.

  ‘That was General Sale,’ Bella said. ‘He was a great hero.’

  Henry shook his head, irritably. ‘Not him,’ he said. ‘I meant the gentleman who was greeting you, Mamma.’

  She looked around; she had not seen any acquaintance. She searched the emotional crowd, and there she recognized Stokes. He caught her eye, and, smiling, came up to them.

  ‘Miss Garraway,’ he said, removing his hat. ‘And who is this fine fellow?’

  ‘How do you do, Mr Stokes,’ Bella said, smiling. ‘Say hello to Mr Stokes, Henry.’

  ‘An enjoyable way to pass an afternoon,’ Stokes said. ‘I often come to Astley’s.’

  ‘I would have thought it quite beneath your notice, sir,’ Bella said.

  ‘One cannot always live in the most elevated intellectual ether,’ Stokes said. ‘It entertains, it suffices to pass an hour or two. Poor soldiers! How they must have suffered!’

  ‘A very sad story,’ Bella said. Then she had a sudden whim, and said, ‘Tell me, sir, shall I see you at Lady Spencer’s rout this evening?’

  Stokes scrutinized her. For a moment, she feared that he was thinking of writing about her, so thorough was his gaze. ‘I had not thought you cared for such diversions, madam.’

  ‘We cannot always live in the – ah – the elevated intellectual ether of our own company, you know,’ she said, and smiled brilliantly at him. How nice to be witty again; she had thought it quite gone from her.

  He seemed a little confused, and bent down to Henry. ‘And you, sir,’ he said cosily. ‘Do you hope to be a soldier when you grow up, like General Sale?’

  ‘No,’ Henry said, and his little face shone with the memory of his quiet acres, of birds flying slowly over the still ponds of his own lands. ‘No, I’m going to be a farmer.’

  ‘A very sensible young man,’ Stokes said, straightening, and smiled warmly at Bella. ‘I hope to see you in a few hours, then.’

  ‘A very few hours,’ Bella said. Henry watched him go, and then turned his face up to his mother’s.

  ‘Mamma,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I think I only said that because of what he asked me.’

  ‘Asked you what?’

  ‘Because he asked me if I was going to be a soldier,’ Henry persevered. ‘He’s a nasty man, isn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ Bella said. ‘He’s the same as everybody else. It is disagreeable to think people nasty, Henry.’

  ‘But if he asked me if I was going to be a farmer,’ Henry said, ‘I would have said I wanted to be a soldier. I only wanted to contradict him. Mamma, can you be both? A soldier and a farmer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bella said, and then, not knowing why, she sank to her knees and embraced him. He had seen something simple there, and she had seen everything, every division and distinction and remembered small shifts; he had seen, as it were, the sea, whole and simple and terrible, and she had seen its myriad tints and depths, its shades and movements, all in a moment; seen her story, and his, and theirs, and ours, and understood it all. She had seen history’s vasty depths. It was fading now. She was glad of it. She held her son to her body, felt his limbs in their sailor blue, felt them straining as he pulled from her. She had dropped to her knees, and her face was by his, looking at what he saw, looking at the world from where he saw it. His hat had fallen to the ground, but neither she nor he made any move to retrieve it. His eyes were fixed on some distant spot; the child seemed to let his eyes fall on things, and not to look at them. There, there, was what he wanted to run to; he saw one thing, and then another, beyond that, and then another and another. She calmed him by singing, and for a moment it kept him, but her voice dropped, and she sang in his ears, and when she finished, he would pull from her and run into the world. But for the moment, she sang; like the low audience at the circus, she broke into song. She sang him a hymn, familiar, calming balm into his ears:

  And O thou Lamb of God, whom I

  Slew in my dark self-righteous pride:

  Art thou return’d to Albion’s Land!

  And is Jerusalem thy Bride?

  ‘Mamma,’ he said, puzzled, not turning to her, but she continued with her low voice; she poured that calming sound into his ears, and the gods sang along. She kept the tremble of fear she felt from her voice. He should not know what she felt, squatting there in the street: that she, too, had fear in her, and pain, and it was almost to soothe herself that she sang the old hymn into her son’s ears:

  Come to my arms and never more

  Depart; but dwell for ever here:

  Create my Spirit to thy Love:

  Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear.

  She felt him straining, to run from her into the street, and, knowing that one day he would run from her into the world, in sunshine and shade, to conquer, to discover, to find what he did not know and to find what he would never know, she felt her eyes grow hot. One day, he, too, would go into the street, to disappear among the disorder of humanity, to look for what he could never find, and as she watched Stokes go, his head lowered as if in shame, watched him be surrounded, lost in the crowd, she wiped her tears dry on her boy’s soft red hair, subduing his spectre to her fear.

  ‘Shall we go now, Mamma?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Bella said, holding him tight. ‘Lead your Mamma where you want her to go.’

  He squinted at the street before him as he decided. ‘That was a good circus,’ he said. ‘That was a very good circus. I liked the lions and the tigers best.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bella said. ‘That was a very good circus. And now where shall we go? Home?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ he said to his mother. Then he thought hard, and said, ‘Mamma? When we go, shall we take the omnibus? May we take the omnibus? My omnibus?’

  ‘Yes, my darling,’ she said. ‘Yes, today is your day, and, as you choose, home in your omnibus,’ and as she said the word your, and again, your, she felt inexplicably close to tears, thinking
of what she had lost, thinking of what she now had. In a moment they would go on, where they had to go. But not yet; they would not go home just yet. And as Bella stood up, and brushed her dress, before them, the street was as it always was, and it swallowed them; the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the lonely, and the wise, frightened and good, all at once, making their usual uproar.

  Good Friday, 2001

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  THESE WERE THE BOOKS IN ENGLISH I found most useful and tempting, which the reader in search of a more accurate account of the First Afghan War and Afghan history in general will want to read. I must acknowledge a particular debt to Jan Morris’s superb imperial trilogy, which first interested me in Dost Mohammed.

  Alexander Burnes, Travels into Bokhara and Cabool

  Col. William H. Dennie, Personal Narrative of the Campaigns in Affghanistan, Sinde, Beloochistan, Etc.

  Louis Dupree, Afghanistan

  Emily Eden, Up the Country

  Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul

  Lieut. Vincent Eyre, Journal of an Afghanistan Prisoner

  George Frampton, A Peep into Afghanistan

  Rev. G. R. Gleig, Sale’s Brigade in Afghanistan

  Benedict Grima, The Performance of Emotion among Paxtun Women

  Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game

  John Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan (the standard nineteenth-century history of the war, and still indispensable, largely because Kaye seems to have burnt a large number of inconvenient documents.* I used the third edition, with Kaye’s final supplements and footnotes)

  Mohan Lal, Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan

  Peter Levi, The Light Garden of the Angel King

  Colin Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier’s Life

  Patrick Macrory, Signal Catastrophe

  Charles Masson, Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Panjab

  Christine Noelle, State and Tribe in Nineteenth Century Afghanistan

  J. A. Norris, The First Afghan War

  T. L. Pennell, Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier

  George Pottinger and Patrick Macrory, The Ten-Rupee Jezail

  Florentia Sale, Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan (the edition I used, edited by Patrick Macrory, also prints Dr Brydon’s journal of his famous journey)

  The Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, Afghanistan of the Afghans

  Gordon Whitteridge, Charles Masson

  M. E. Yapp, Strategies of British India

  Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson

  * * *

  * He said a fire had broken out in his study.

  GLOSSARY

  Afrit a demon

  Anna an Indian coin of small denomination

  Beedee a small cigar

  Boy sometimes, a palanquin-bearer, from the Telugu boyi

  Chai tea

  Claque a group paid by a performer to express vociferous enthusiasm at the opera

  Coal-lighter a small boat

  Cutpurse a pickpocket

  Engelstan England

  Footpad a street robber

  Gig a small coach

  Griffin a new arrival in India

  Jemaudar in general, a leader; specifically, the second rank of officers in a company of sepoys

  Jezail a musket

  Juggernauth an avatar of the god Vishnu, or specifically the triumphant car under which devotees

  Kummur-bund a sash

  Kurta a long shirt

  Landau a large open carriage

  Linkboy an urchin employed to light the way of London gentry across streets

  Newab a lesser rank in oriental nobility

  Mahout the driver of an elephant

  Mohawk a violent delinquent

  Nazir a high native official, the master of the court

  Palanquin a litter, born by four or six men

  Qizzilbash a Persian inhabitant of Kabul

  Quluma an item declarative of Islamic faith

  Raree show a vulgar entertainment

  Sepoy a native soldier in the service of the British forces

  Sirdar a prince

  Syce a groom

  Tank an artificial pond or lake, possibly from the Gujurati tank’h

  Tantalus a lockable holder of decanters

  Tawkanah a system of underfloor heating, common in eastern Afghanistan

  Tiffin a meal akin to luncheon

  Tonjaun a variety of sedan

  Zenana the women’s quarters

  CAST LIST

  (+ means dead before the action begins; * marks a principal character)

  * Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, Pearl of the Age

  * Akbar, heir to the Dost

  * Alexander Burnes, an adventurer

  Dr Gerard, an adventurer

  * Mohan Lal, a guide

  The Newab Jubbur Khan, brother of the Dost

  Futteh, a singer

  The Mir Wa’iz, mullah of Kabul

  Sayad Atah +

  Khushhal, a storyteller

  Futteh Khan +

  * Bella Garraway, a heroine

  Colonel Garraway, an opium addict

  Harry Garraway +

  Charles, a valet

  Fanny, Lady Woodcourt, a hostess

  Sir Bramley Woodcourt

  Mrs Garraway +

  * Mme la Duchesse de Neaud, a courtier

  M. le Duc de Neaud

  Miss Gilbert, a spinster

  Miss Jane Gilbert

  * Stokes, a journalist

  King William IV

  Mirabolant, a chef

  Mullarkey, a manservant

  Stapleton, a novelist

  Mrs Meagles, a landlady

  * Castleford, a litterateur

  Chapman, a political economist

  Mr Thomas Carlyle

  * Miss Elizabeth Garraway, sister of Bella

  Emily, a maid

  Queen Adelaide

  Lady Porchester, a society beauty

  Lord Palmerston

  Mr Sandoe, a bookseller

  The Newab Mohammed Zemaun Khan

  * Charles Masson, a deserter and scholar

  Khushhal, a courtier

  * Hasan, an angel

  Ahmed, a vile old supplicant

  The worst of the wives, a Baroukzye princess

  * Suggs, a Sergeant-Major

  * Florentia Sale, an army wife

  * McVitie, the hero of the platoon

  Joe Hastings, a sidekick

  Mr Das, a shopkeeper

  * General Sale

  Miss Brown, a husband-hunter

  Elliott, a maritime valet

  Captain Taylor, a novice

  Mrs Robinson, a companion

  The Reverend Lannon, a cleric

  Mr Tredinnick, an old republican

  The Governor of St Helena

  The Governor’s wife

  The Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte +

  * Lord Auckland, the Governor General of India

  * Emily Eden, sister of the Governor General

  Fanny Eden

  An illustrious connection (rather disappointing) of Lord Palmerston

  * Elphinstone, a bore

  * Macnaghten, another bore

  Myra, a ladies’ maid

  * Shah Shujah-ul-mulk, deposed King of Afghanistan

  * Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjab

  Ali, a mahout

  Romesh

  Bustan

  * Frampton, the most senior of the junior adjutants

  Mrs Doughty, Castleford’s sister

  Admiral Doughty

  Mrs Bruton

  * Henry Garraway

  Mikhail Petrovich Layevsky +

  Nikolai Mikhailovich Layevsky, a Crimean landowner

  Agafeya Vasilevna Layevskaya, his wife +

  * Pavel Nikolaievich Layevsky, his son

  Pavel Mikhailovich Layevsky, his brother

  Stepan Mikhailovich Layevsky, his brother

&nb
sp; Arkady, a manservant

  * Masha, a cook

  * Vitkevich, an explorer

  Mohammed, a rather smelly boy

  Qasim, a boy

  Khadija, Masson’s landlady, a widow

  Jirinovsky, a Russian officer

  Stanchinsky, another Russian officer

  Oblovich, another Russian officer, a teller of dull tales

  Eldred Pottinger, the hero of Herat

  The Shah of Persia

  Yusuf, a chef

  The Russian ambassador to the Court of St James

  Princess Fanny, a hostess

  General Scherbatsky

  The Duke of Dorset

  Lord John

  Queen Victoria

  Musa, Akbar’s favourite

  Khadi, an Afghan prince

  Zemaun, an Afghan prince

  Nadir, son of the Newab Jubbur Khan

  Charles Burnes

  Dr William Brydon

  Sergeant Porter

  Digby

  Ahmed, a footman

  Mrs Sturt

  Mackenzie, an adjutant

  Trevor, an adjutant

  Aide-de-camp to General Sale

  Miss Anderson

  ERRORS AND OBLIGATIONS

  ANACHRONISMS AND PLAIN FALSIFICATIONS have on the whole been indulged in when it pleased me. The full story of the First Afghan War is too intricate and too peopled for a novel, and it was always my intention to write a fiction. My characters are often rather unlike, and sometimes, as in the case of Masson, very unlike their originals. (In reality a Londoner, an accomplished artist, he certainly never committed murder or sodomy in his life, and he, and his descendants, deserve my apologies.) Some of this high-handedness may be justified by the utter vagueness of the sources on the most basic matters – the best authorities, for instance, do not even agree whether Vitkevich’s first name was Yan, Ivan or Paul – but by no means all of it, and on the whole I have preferred my inventions to the known facts. Although some of the most apparently extravagant episodes in the novel are simple historical truth, much of the narrative is quite wrong, if viewed as an account of history, and a reader interested in the course of the First Afghan War will want to turn elsewhere to discover the real events. The reader should probably know that Dost Mohammed really did have a wife who called him ‘Dosto’ and ‘Slave’; a Company officer really did have a vision of the Army of the Indus as a gigantic funeral procession before its departure. Sometimes, the war threw up something I would never have dared to invent, and this is one of only two or three moments when I have directly quoted a participant in the war (the officer was Hamlet Wade). But much of the preceding story is complete invention: this is a pack of lies, though the outlines of my imaginary war occasionally coincide with those of a real one, in which people died.