Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

‘Pretty well,’ I said, while Oliver added, ‘Confound ’em!’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine, Mr Erskine, that you are anxious for the welfare of your young relatives; this heat, y’know, apart from anything else.’ And though it was not yet six o’clock, Mr Roberts mopped his face and pointed out that the Brain-Fever bird was already calling, a sure indication that the day was to be a torrid one.

  ‘All the same,’ he went on, ‘they are certainly more comfortable here than they would be elsewhere, and probably a good deal safer too.’

  ‘You bring more alarms and rumours of war, then, Mr Roberts?’ I sighed and settled back for yet another recounting of the incidents and symptoms I had heard so much of recently. What would it be this time?

  ‘There are plenty of them about, Miss Laura,’ Mr Roberts answered, while Oliver watched him lazily through half-closed eyes. ‘I think I may safely say that this has been the most disquieting journey upriver I have ever made. Most disquieting. This business in Barrackpore, you’re heard of it of course, Mr Erskine? I remember how good your system of information is.’

  ‘Perhaps. There have been a number of incidents. Which one do you mean?’

  ‘At Barrackpore. A sepoy of the 34th Infantry, inflamed they say by arak or bhang, ran amok, tried to incite his fellows to mutiny and cut down a couple of his officers. Could have been serious; very serious. Fortunately, the man in command there—you will have heard of General Sir John Hearsey, of course—was sufficient to the occasion. With his two sons, undeterred by the fact that the sepoy was still armed, he rode out to where four hundred men of the 34th had stood by and watched the attack on their officers without protest. Seeing him approach, the sepoy, one Mangal Pandi, lost his nerve and turned his musket upon himself. He did not die then, but was executed some days later.’

  ‘Hm,’ commented Mr Erskine, ‘that was a mistake.’

  ‘What else could the General have done?’ retorted Mr Roberts with indignation. ‘The man had to be made an example of.’

  ‘That is very military thinking from you, Mr Roberts. Do you not see that this man—what did you say his name was?’

  ‘Pandi, Mangal Pandi.’

  ‘Mangal Pandi is now not only an example but a legend. Worst of all, a martyr. Making martyrs is a mistake, as the Jews once discovered to their cost.’

  ‘There was no alternative, surely? Particularly at a time like this.’

  ‘Most particularly at a time like this, it should have been avoided. Ignominious dismissal would have served General Hearsey as well, or penal servitude, or even an execution, delayed until the matter was forgotten.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you are right. It is disturbing. Very disturbing.’

  We sat in silence for a time. The Brain-Fever bird’s call reached a frenetic crescendo, and then gave way to the three-note despair of a dove.

  ‘You have had no trouble here, of course?’ Mr Roberts commenced again.

  ‘Not yet, but I’m sorry to say there is no “of course” about it. Hassanganj is unlikely to escape the flame once the tinder is lighted. If it is allowed to be lighted.’

  ‘But surely, oh, come now, Mr Erskine, matters are very different here in the mofussil to what they are in Calcutta, or any cantonment? Why, you haven’t even a police outpost on your land.’

  ‘No. If trouble comes for me, it won’t be from the military element. I have tried to be just and a fair landlord; my people are probably as contented as any in Oudh. No, if we encounter trouble, it will come from another direction—my neighbours on three sides.’

  ‘Ah, talukhdars all. I had forgotten. But your relations with them have always been good, have they not?’

  ‘Generally, but what will that matter if it comes to every man for himself? One of them, I think, I can be fairly sure of … Wajid Khan, Laura, if it’s any comfort to know it. But the other two are acquisitive gentlemen both. Certainly neither would hesitate to put a bullet in my brain if it would mean an extra parcel of land for themselves. And, frankly, I wouldn’t blame them. Resettlement is an injustice, and they feel it more than any.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Even if the trouble is confined to the Army, believe me, our friends the talukhdars of Oudh are going to make capital of it. They don’t care a damn about caste; all this rot about crossing the sea, defiled cartridges and so on means very little to them. Their grievance is a great deal more practical. They have been dispossessed of their rightful inheritance. Give them half a chance to win that inheritance back, by whatever means, and they’ll take it. As I would.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I take your point.’

  ‘In Oudh, at least, any form of insurrection could be rightly termed a war for independence, Mr Roberts. Would you not agree?’

  ‘I would agree that that is how the talukhdars will look on it.’

  ‘They will be waging it too, Mr Roberts; make no mistake about that.’

  ‘Well, I am grieved to hear of this. I confess I had given the matter no very serious thought and, bearing in mind the unique stability of Hassanganj in the past, the equity with which you have dealt with your people, and your rissal, of course, I had thought that you must be undisturbed. Now I can see why you should be anxious.’

  ‘My rissal, forsooth! Four dozen brigands with matchlocks. They could be bought by the next talukhdar for an extra rupee a month. They are mercenaries; Rohillas most of ’em. And mercenaries are for sale to the highest bidder. They bear me little personal loyalty; and they’d bear their next employer just as little. No, Mr Roberts, I am a realist. I cannot depend on the devotion of any but a handful of personal servants, and those I would not strain to the point of denying their own people.’

  ‘You have of course a perfectly legitimate title to your land?’ Mr Roberts spoke as though he doubted it.

  ‘Perfectly. A deed of gift signed by the Nawab Asaf-ad-Doulah in 1795. But what of that? The talukhdars around me consider themselves the rightful owners of their properties, but that meddling fool of a Settlement Officer Thomason decided he knew better and that the land belonged to the talukhdars’ tenants. Which it doesn’t, mind you. Neither by Mogul law, nor by Oudh law nor by decent common sense. Having been dispossessed by the superior and most worthy legislation of the British, do you think when their hour strikes, they are going to hold back from taking what belongs to a Britisher?’

  ‘No, I see your point. This issue has been somewhat obscured in my mind by the military aspects of the situation. But of course what you say is very true. Thomason’s measures were most ill-advised, even though he acted on behalf of the ryot, whom you must admit, has known little consideration from the talukhdars.’

  ‘Everything, Mr Roberts, has been done too hastily; and in ignorance and arrogance. Now it is too late to mend matters. What disgusts me most is the indignation with which the news of the trouble here will be received by our lawmakers in London. How furiously they will disclaim their mistakes and blame all on the base ingratitude of the heathen Indian who has the temerity to love his lands with just the same grasping fervour with which every noble MP loves his manor set in ancient English fields.’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed,’ Mr Roberts sighed, though he managed to look, in spite of the heat, very cool and contained in his pale grey breeches and alpaca coat.

  Heat haze already clouded the clear morning sky and, in the pause that followed, my eyes lingered on the long vista of lawns and gardens, giving way in the distance to wooded parkland and a glimpse of the top of Moti’s tower thrusting through the foliage of mangoes and sal woodland that formed the confines of the park.

  I had become so accustomed to it all: the vast spaces, the huge pink house, the army of servants, the quiet routine of the day. I knew the names of the gardeners now and of all the house servants. I knew how many children they had, and where they lived, whether in the servants’ quarters or in the village beyond the park. I knew, too, a little of how they lived, and how small the contentments were they cherished: a bare mud-walled room, a string bed, one
meal a day and, after work, a pull at the communal hookah while their children scrambled in the dust around them, and their friends told long countrymen’s stories of crop failure, water shortage and sudden flowering after God-given storm. I had learned a little about their gods, and I had an inkling of their fears: the fear of disease and unexplained death, enemies in this world and the next, uncountable, unnamable ghosts and bogies and hydra-headed devils, and the bunnia who owned them body and soul. And of their rare delights I knew something too: chanting processions to the temple or the mosque, marriages with cymbals and hand drums, bride and groom made modestly blind by strings of marigolds hanging before their faces, and a great bhoj to follow with mountains of sweetmeats and spiced pastries. From being strange, all these things had entered the fabric of my reality, woven day by day, in custom and monotony, into the warp and woof of my own mind.

  Peaceful, placid, simple! Could it be possible that I had been so wrong, that my people had been so wrong? Could these thin brown men, shanks gleaming in the sun as they tended flowers, really turn on us, betray us, kill us? That morning the thought was inconceivable.

  And then Mr Roberts turned to me and said he had recently come upon the Wilkins family again. They were in a small station a little to the east of us; the Major, like Wallace Avery, had been seconded to civilian duties.

  ‘It’s one of these new stations they’ve created. Merely a police post really, but Major Wilkins has a subaltern and a few sepoys under him, and a civilian assistant of some sort; so he is a happy man.’

  ‘How many Europeans are there?’ asked Oliver.

  ‘Six or seven, no more.’

  ‘Hmph!’ Oliver’s grunt expressed disapproval. ‘And there’s a woman there?’

  ‘Two,’ I informed him. ‘Elvira would never leave her Ma and Pa. Isn’t that right, Mr Roberts?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss Elvira’s there, and the poor young civilian looks rather hunted.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Oliver.

  ‘I did try to hint, you know, that the ladies might be better placed in Lucknow, but Major Wilkins wouldn’t hear of it. His men could be relied on, and so forth and so on. You know the usual attitude?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘For myself, well, the unrest is almost tangible, particularly here in Oudh, but our people either will not or cannot realize it. Up and down the river I have found the same extraordinary complacency in the face of flagrant insubordination. Among the military, that is. The planters know what is happening. And the civil administration—sometimes.’

  ‘Henry Lawrence realizes, thanks be to God,’ commented Oliver in a tone that indicated his respect for the newly appointed Chief Commissioner of Oudh. For Henry Lawrence had won the admiration of all who knew of the strength, efficiency and probity he had brought to his administrative duties in the Punjab. It was these qualities that had brought him now to Lucknow, to placate the talukhdars, reassure the sepoys and ameliorate the effects of the measures instigated by the Chief Settlement Officer, Mr Thomason.

  ‘Yes, indeed! I hear he is fortifying the Residency and laying in provisions in case matters deteriorate. It is something.’

  ‘Very little more than nothing,’ retorted Oliver. ‘A waste of time. The Residency is incapable of fortification. Think, man! How can you adequately protect a cluster of buildings like that, perched on the highest point in the area, one flank right on the river, the others deep in the city, none of it more than partially walled. It is a preposterous position to strengthen.’

  ‘It is all he can do.’

  ‘True. His battle was lost last year with annexation. Now all he can really do is keep matters from coming to a head; and if there is any man who can do that, it is Lawrence. But his jurisdiction is only Oudh. And there’s a hell of a lot of India outside Oudh, Mr Roberts, a hell of a lot.’

  Mr Roberts looked at me uncomfortably, not knowing how well used I was to Mr Erskine’s language.

  Having completed his business in the upper sections of the Doab, Mr Roberts was on his way downriver to Calcutta again. As an indigo trader, the waterways were the main transport for himself, no less than his commodity, and his life seemed to hinge on what he referred to fondly (and inaccurately, as there were several) as ‘The River’. The conversation soon reverted to indigo exclusively.

  He left again that evening.

  ‘I wish my forebodings on the ship had not been fulfilled, Miss Laura,’ he said as he shook my hand. ‘God only knows what is in store for us, but we must hope to meet again before long in happier circumstances. I shall look forward to renewing our acquaintanceship when things are better; at least you could not be in safer hands.’ And as he turned away to mount his horse, he threw me a half-whispered aside over his shoulder. ‘A great man in his own acres, Miss Laura! But where’s the hawk?’

  I laughed, and watched him ride away down the avenue.

  ‘You have a very good understanding with Mr Roberts,’ observed Oliver drily, as we went indoors. ‘What did he say to you as he left?’

  ‘A joke,’ I answered. ‘Just an intimate joke.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Mr Erskine.

  CHAPTER 3

  I remember the day Emily got dressed and came down for breakfast for the first time—Sunday the 10th of May.

  None of us had expected to see her and it was with relief that I greeted her appearance, for otherwise I would have had to endure once again the chastening experience of being the sole audience (alone I could hardly be termed a congregation) of Charles’s weekly prayer meeting. Oliver had been polite enough to stay and hear the lessons and collects read by his brother for the first two or three Sundays after Christmas of our stay, but had then decided that Sunday morning was the only time in the week when he could give the elephants from the indigo factory the sort of attention they needed; mahouts these days were not what they had been, and the elephants’ welfare could not be left to chance. So that had left me, during the time that Emily was indisposed, with the sole responsibility for the heartfelt ‘Ah-mens’ that Charles expected.

  That evening, when the sun had set, Charles took Emily out in her little white governess cart for an airing. As we watched them go slowly down the drive, Emily’s white dress glimmering ghostlike in the dusk, Oliver said: ‘Well, thank God for that. It won’t be long now before I can get you all out of the place.’

  ‘Oh, but she’s not fit to travel yet,’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s up and about, but she has no strength, Oliver. And we can’t take the risk of her … of her not …’

  ‘Not being able to feed the child,’ he offered helpfully.

  ‘Precisely. I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with us for some time yet.’

  ‘How much time, Laura? Before she can be put into a palanquin and sent to the hills? It will mean very little exertion for her—I’ll see to that.’

  ‘A fortnight, three weeks perhaps. I’m doing my best, Oliver. I’m trying to build her up, making her eat and so on. But we can’t take risks.’

  ‘Ha!’ exclaimed my host rudely. ‘Risks, the woman says!’

  ‘Oh, do be sensible,’ I said irritably. ‘For the last three months you men have done nothing but rumble and grumble to anyone who would listen to you about the trouble that is to come, but be honest now, and admit that in all this time there has not been even one really significant incident here, let alone an alarming one. I declare, I am tired of the whole business, all this hurried coming and going, the alarms and rumours, the atmosphere of tension and … and fear, and nothing ever happening!’

  ‘Would you want something to happen?’

  ‘No, of course not, and I don’t believe it will either. I’m not going to force Emily beyond her strength for the sake of your … your forebodings. You must just put up with us until I feel she is fit to travel.’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Is it only because of Emily’s health that you are so reluctant to leave Hassanganj?’

  ‘Certainly! What other reason coul
d I have?’

  ‘I can think of a couple. Leaving Hassanganj is the first of a series of steps that in the end will mean your severance from Charles. I have not forgotten that you intend to leave Mount Bellew and take up an—ah—“position”, I believe you termed it, when you get back to England.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Use your common sense,’ I flung at him without bothering to contradict his assertion.

  ‘No? Not that? Well then, could it be, I wonder, that you have become fond of … the place?’

  ‘Well, yes, I have. In a way. I like it here. And I’ll never live in this way again, I suppose. I’ll miss it. But not enough to want to stay on here once we can get away without endangering Emily,’ I added firmly.

  ‘Ah, well. It was just a thought. Pity. I’ll miss you too, you know,’ he said after a time. ‘And I don’t mean all of you: just you yourself.’

  ‘I can’t think why,’ I said morosely. ‘I’ve done nothing but bicker with you since we arrived.’

  ‘That’s what I’ll miss, I expect. I’ve enjoyed having a sparring partner.’

  ‘Then you’d better find another,’ I said ungraciously.

  The governess cart was in view again, and I went out to meet it, leaving Mr Erskine puffing his cheroot on the verandah.

  Then, a couple of mornings later, Charles dropped his hat into a shallow pool covered with scum and waterlilies when he was out after green pigeon. By now he seldom went out shooting—the heat made the sport less than inviting—but Emily had expressed a desire for jugged pigeon, and he had gone out to shoot her some birds. If he had used his common sense, he would have returned immediately after losing his hat, but doggedly he had ridden on through the open fields from grove to grove in pursuit of his quarry, and by the time he had got back to the house, not only were his face and neck beetroot red, but he was ill with headache and nausea.

  ‘Sun stroke—but mild,’ commented his brother without sympathy, and Charles was put to bed with a pad containing crushed ice on his head, and a lump of rocksalt to suck. I had fetched the salt myself from the sack in the cellar where it was kept, not knowing the use to which it was to be put; when I did, I protested that it would make poor Charles even more thirsty than he was.