Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  ‘What did you say to that?’

  ‘Told him to follow the instructions—pass them on!’

  ‘Surely that was unwise,’ protested the Major. ‘You don’t know what they mean. As you said yourself this morning, they could be a warning, a threat, perhaps even an incitement of some sort. Surely you should have told the man to destroy them.’

  ‘That would have been useless. Even if he had obeyed me, there are countless others who would not. As it is, I learnt the words that accompany them, and have the assurance of any more information if and when the man comes by it.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a strange thing. Very strange,’ said George Barry in his slow, deep voice. ‘They are travelling about in the native lines too, y’know. If, as Wajid suggested, it is a method of relating distance to time, then perhaps they have discovered a most efficient posting system, for use in some future emergency?’

  ‘Yes. But I believe Henry was nearer it when he mentioned a warning, or even an incitement.’

  ‘And how have you deduced that?’ Cussens was amused, perhaps even a little patronizing, a fact marked by Oliver.

  ‘Because I am forced to live in the world I find myself in,’ he returned with irritation. ‘I hear things; I see things; sometimes I learn certain facts. I try to relate these, all these unrelated, or seemingly unrelated things, to reality—not to my own preconceived opinions. I know I cannot expect you to agree with my deductions, Henry. As one of Her Majesty’s officers, you find a great deal of what I believe is going on at the moment too absurd to be taken seriously, I know. But I also know that you have become aware, during these last few months, of a change in attitude among even your own sepoys.’

  ‘That’s to be expected,’ Major Cussens returned equably. ‘Of course there is some dissatisfaction with the consequences of annexation, the suspension of privileges and so on. But that is understandable under the circumstances. Things will shake down in due course, as they have elsewhere. Just give ’em time.’

  ‘What makes you so confident that time is ours to give?’ Oliver asked, then continued: ‘And the sepoy is not the only discontented man in India at the moment. Do you think the talukhdars, the men like Wajid Khan, are happy at their loss of power, privilege and income? That they can see our handling of their affairs as anything else but arbitrary, overriding and unjust? Most of all unjust! One of them, in particular, is a gentleman not to be trifled with, and I believe he has recently been on a long journey.’

  ‘The Maulvi of Fyzabad?’ put in George Barry.

  ‘Yes. Aman-Ullah, Maulvi of Fyzabad.’

  ‘A troublemaker, a fanatic, a bazaar lawyer—nothing more!’ said Cussens contemptuously.

  ‘He is a troublemaker. And perhaps a fanatic. But he is many things beside, some of them admirable, make no mistake. He is clever, unscrupulous, courageous; and, above all, a born leader. He is rebellious with his lot and has good reason to be.’

  ‘And what has he to do with this business of the chapattis?’

  ‘My guess is, perhaps everything. He is an intelligent and complex man. This seemingly mysterious passing up and down the country of a handful of unleavened bread, coming from who-knows-where, going who-knows-where, this is the sort of thing which Aman-Ullah would promote to bring disquiet to the ignorant mind. Perhaps the bread has some actual and decipherable significance for a few people in the know. More probably it is simply a method of fomenting suspicion, doubt, fear—a sort of sowing of the wind. We are agreed, are we not, that Wajid Khan knows more than he was prepared to tell us? Well, perhaps it is not without significance that one of his several estates adjoins that of the Maulvi outside Fyzabad!’

  ‘You think Wajid Khan …?’ I left my surmise unfinished.

  ‘I’m not in a position to think anything about him, but I’ll wager he could explain a lot of inexplicable happenings, if he cared to. He is a conventional, a most circumspect man, not fond of playing with fire. If he knows what is going on, I think it more than likely that every other landowner in the kingdom has the same information.’

  ‘A conspiracy?’ suggested George, without astonishment.

  ‘Let us say an expectation.’

  ‘Inflammatory nonsense, old boy!’ said Major Cussens with decision. ‘You have lived too long alone among these wallahs out here. You’ve lost your sense of proportion. Need a break—at Home!’

  My day had started with the sight of dim figures below me riding away, unidentified, into the darkness. It ended in the same way.

  I had formed the habit of opening my window when the night was fine and spending a few moments in the fresh air on my balcony before retiring. That night the great panorama of the snows was visible, the overcast sky of the morning had cleared, and a young sickle moon threw a timid glow over the splendid silver peaks. As I stood and admired them, wishing, as always, for a nearer view, three figures emerged from the darkness below me: Oliver Erskine, Major Cussens and a small native wrapped in a cotton sheet that glimmered in the light of a lantern he carried. Oliver and Cussens were talking in their normal voices but, because of the distance, I could not make out all they said. A few phrases came to me, however, as, making no secret of my presence, I leant over the balustrade.

  ‘… surely unnecessary! But if you feel you must…’ said Major Cussens.

  ‘Better soon than late, better late than never perhaps. It can do no harm for them to be aware. Old Buggins is a bounder, but he relies on me in this part of the country. Now he must make of it what he will. I have done my part.’

  ‘It will go into one of the endless reports he is preparing for Lawrence, and be forgotten!’

  ‘Probably, but that is his affair, not mine.’

  Just then Toddy-Bob appeared, mounted and leading another horse by the rein. Oliver passed a package of some sort to the small, white-clad native, who sprang up to the saddle of the spare horse with surprising agility and, after a few words from Oliver, touched his bare heels to the horse’s flanks and moved away with Toddy-Bob behind him.

  ‘… reliable?’ asked Major Cussens, as he and Oliver turned away.

  ‘Absolutely and unquestionably,’ replied Oliver with decision.

  ‘Well—a long day, and a good one,’ he grunted. ‘I’m for my bed. You?’

  ‘Better things!’

  They laughed together in the comradely fashion that I had first heard at the Residency ball. I seemed fated to eavesdrop on their conversations, I thought to myself with amusement. Perhaps it was that reflection that sent a fleeting memory of the content of that first overheard conversation through my head. What was it Oliver Erskine had said that night? Something about women—yes, ‘But when women are killed, it is massacre, murder and mayhem!’

  The two men chatted together for a few moments longer, then Major Cussens slapped Oliver on the shoulder and entered the verandah below me. Oliver looked after him for a moment, then turned and set off briskly across the garden towards the park. I watched his quick, easy stride with something like admiration. But surely he had had sufficient exercise for one day without taking a bedtime stroll?

  CHAPTER 8

  The Barrys and Major Cussens returned to Lucknow a couple of days later. The men preferred to ride, so Kate sat alone in the carriage but for the produce of Hassanganj that she was taking with her; it filled the well of the carriage and ranged along the opposite seat, vegetables and fruit and the roots of shrubs she had admired, rounds of spiced Hunter’s Beef from the Hassanganj kitchen, duck, quail and partridge (bound to be ‘well-hung’ by the time they were eaten) and the skin of a spotted deer, still hard and rather smelly, that Charles had shot and presented to her for her bedroom floor. Her high boots rested on a netted bag full of pineapples, and her bright blue eyes were tearful as she bade us goodbye. ‘Come back to Lucknow—soon!’ she said to me. ‘George and I don’t like all this talk of trouble, and this place is too isolated if anything should happen, woman dear. And Emily, she should be nearer to civilization at a time like this. Sure, and
don’t I know I’m a worrying old woman, and don’t I know that you couldn’t be in better hands than Oliver’s, but really now, George and I will be anxious till you get back to the city and we can keep an eye on you ourselves.’ I nodded, but had no opportunity to reassure her, for Emily crowded into the window frame to give her a final kiss in her turn.

  The big house was very quiet and dull when they had gone, and I found myself nervous of being left alone all day with Charles and Emily. Kate’s presence had provided a bulwark for us all against too great, too painful perhaps, an intimacy. Even on those rare occasions when Charles and I had found ourselves alone together, we had listened unconsciously for the quick tap of her boot-heels, or the hurried appearance of her black-bonneted, uncrinolined form round the corner of the house. Her presence acted, I suppose, like a beneficent conscience; she expected only the best from us all, and so we gave it. Now there would be nothing to control the irritation and ill-humour produced by frustration, misunderstandings, old grudges and even the lack of physical well-being. Emily grew heavier by the day and by the day more crossly conscious of her bulk and clumsiness; without the patient Kate to forestall her wants and run her errands, I knew I would be most tried by her fretfulness and lack of consideration. Now that we were alone, I could foresee an Emily less good-natured, less apparently contented than she had been since our arrival in Hassanganj. I had often wondered at this unusual mood of hers. ‘Och, but of course she’s content,’ Kate had said when I mentioned it to her. ‘Isn’t she carrying a child then, and isn’t that enough to make any woman content?’ But I knew otherwise. The few outbursts of temper Emily had allowed herself had always been connected in some way with the unwanted child.

  Yet she was uninterested in a return to Lucknow or our contemplated journey to the hills. It was enough for her, for the present, to bustle about the house in her apron, rattling the enormous bunch of keys, and at the end of a well-planned meal to earn the commendation of our host.

  ‘Dissham will seem very small and … well, unimportant after all this, won’t it, Laura?’ she observed one morning as we sat sewing on the verandah.

  ‘I don’t think so. Dissham is real. This is just a rather exotic interlude, for all of us. It will be pleasant to look back on, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps it won’t be only an interlude—for Charles and me, anyway.’

  ‘If you are thinking of old Mrs Flood’s hopes for Charles and Hassanganj, I should forget about it. It doesn’t look to me as though Oliver has any intention of sharing his inheritance with anyone.’

  ‘But he will have to think of the future. He’s not young, even now, and he can’t last for ever. It’s not likely that he will marry now, specially as he spends so much time out here in the mofussil and doesn’t seem to care for the companionship of ladies, anyway … even though he is always so considerate of us.’

  ‘There’s still time for him to change his mind about many things. He can’t be much more than forty.’

  ‘Oh, he’s only thirty-six—Charles knows. But what does age matter when he lives as he does?’

  ‘Well, perhaps. But don’t count on it,’ I muttered. ‘Many a woman has married a plainer face for the sake of a smaller fortune, remember!’

  ‘How many women would be willing to spend their lives out here, without neighbours, or society, or … anything?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it’s without anything,’ I countered judiciously. ‘A wife might change his tastes, though I think it unlikely, and anyway, look at you, you seem to be quite content out here?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes, I am. I hadn’t thought of that, and of course if one were married to him …’

  ‘Heaven preserve the woman!’ I said laughingly.

  ‘Why do you still dislike him?’

  ‘I don’t! Honestly! There are things about him, some things, that I positively admire. I don’t dislike him—now. He’s admirable in some ways. Impossible in others!’

  ‘Very like you, in fact,’ she announced, unexpectedly, with an elderly sniff. ‘Perhaps that is why you find him so difficult to get on with. You know you can’t pull the wool over his eyes.’

  ‘Emily Flood!’ I was as much surprised as indignant. ‘That’s very nearly an insult. There is absolutely no similarity of character between Mr Erskine and myself.’

  ‘But there is—or anyway I think there is. You both always think you are right, only you, Laura, are not as often right as he is, and you are both always, well, active and energetic—and full of opinions—though he is not as free with them as you are. But he has them, and sometimes when you are expressing some of yours, he looks at you as though he knows exactly what you are going to say. And finds it amusing too!’

  ‘Indeed! I have never observed it.’

  ‘Now don’t take offence, for goodness sake! You still tend to treat me as a child, and I’m not. I … I’ve done things, experienced things, and feelings, that you know nothing about, and when I show you I am not a child any longer, you get annoyed. And that’s something too: I expect I’ve always found it so easy to like, really like, Oliver because he has always treated me as … well as a woman. And I am!’

  ‘Oh Lord!’ I said inelegantly.

  For a while we were silent, each occupied with her own thoughts.

  The morning was warm and still. Rajah, the patriarch of the peacocks, stretched his neck, uttered his ugly cry and then set off in pursuit of one of his hens pecking peacefully further away on the lawn. A couple of hoopoes, disturbed by his impetuous progress, hopped a couple of feet into the air and returned to earth with their crests fanned out in alarm. A dove called in the neem trees edging the lawn, and the axle of a Persian well creaked and squealed monotonously.

  ‘What does Charles think of his chances here in Hassanganj?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Oh, Charles! Of course he sees it as inevitable—because he wants it. Especially now that he is accompanying Oliver on his visits to the villages and so on. Haven’t you noticed how he tries to talk knowledgeably about things he comes across—and makes such a fool of himself? Perhaps if he made his interest in the estate a little less obvious, or anyway the reason for his interest, he’d have a better chance. But I expect Oliver is really laughing up his sleeve at him all the time. It humiliates me so. Charles is so … unintelligent about things!’

  ‘But do you think he would really like to live out here, for good, I mean? How would he like the life and the work, if he knew there was no alternative?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to me much about it. I expect he’d be happy enough so long as Oliver was around to … well, show him the ropes … hold his hand, more or less. But I can’t imagine him out here running this huge place on his own. Can you?’

  ‘I believe it would suit him better than your father’s business.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. But could he manage it?’

  ‘Perhaps you underestimate him?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve always seen more in Charles than there really is!’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t see enough?’

  ‘I’ve seen more than enough! Believe me, I’ve seen much more than enough!’ And with that Emily bundled up her sewing, got to her feet with an effort, and went inside as hurriedly as her condition would permit.

  It was towards the end of March that Oliver announced he would be away from Hassanganj for three days collecting rents in outlying villages and inspecting the progress of a new road he was building.

  ‘Would you care to come, Charles?’ he asked. ‘We’ll be roughing it, of course. Hard riding all day, hard sleeping all night. No comforts and no company but mine.’

  ‘By Jove, I’d like nothing better! A chance to really get to grips with things,’ answered Charles with a show of enthusiasm that I suddenly saw was a little too patent.

  ‘Good!’ said Oliver, one eyebrow twitching very slightly. ‘Bring the minimum—but don’t forget your gun. It will be your job to supply the stewpot at night. And be
ready to leave at six.’

  ‘Tomorrow? It’s nearly eleven now!’

  ‘Tomorrow! Your preparations should not take long.’

  I got up early to pour the tea for the men’s chota hazri, and was just in time to watch the departure of the camping equipment, laden on two bullock-carts and accompanied by the usual retinue of chaprassis, gun-bearers, cooks, bearers, water-carriers and grass-cutters.

  Toddy-Bob had checked the gear twice over: tents, folding beds, chairs and tables, crockery, cutlery and cookware, big storm lanterns, guns and ammunition, bedding rolls, pitchers and bowls, and (for Oliver) a small, three-drawer military chest to serve as dresser, desk and strong-box.

  An elaborate idea of ‘no comforts’ I thought to myself as the carts lumbered away.

  There still remained a dozen men in the Hassanganj livery, mounted, armed and with swords in their belts, waiting for Oliver and Charles to set off. They were the bodyguard and would accompany Oliver, the newly collected rents, and Ishmial (who carried the money) wherever they went—a disquieting reminder to me of Rohilla raiders, dacoits and the uncertain temper of the times. Toddy-Bob, to his evident disgust, was to remain behind and take charge of the ladies’ comfort.

  ‘If there is anything you need, just let Tod know,’ instructed Oliver as he swung to the saddle. ‘And, by the way, later in the morning he will deliver a little surprise to Emily, a governess cart I came across in the coachhouse the other day. It’s being cleaned up and painted, and Tod has found a pony for it. Just something to pass the time, while Charles is away.’ And he looked directly at me in a manner I did not like.

  ‘How nice! She’ll be delighted. Have a good journey,’ I said coldly, and went indoors without bothering to wave them away.

  That was the first really hot morning of the summer. Emily and I tried to sew on the verandah as usual, but our palms got sticky with sweat and the thread so tangled and the material so grubby that we soon gave it up. While Kate had been with us, we had sometimes taken our work out to the fernery, but the heat brought out snakes and Oliver warned that such damp and shady spots were especially attractive to the horrid creatures. Characteristically, he had not warned us against using the fernery; only told us what to expect if we did. So we had stopped going there.