Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  ‘Thirsty?’

  Oliver held out his flask as I climbed out of the cart, unfolding my aching limbs with care. I threw back the face-flap of my burqha and accepted a drink.

  ‘We’ll stay here till the child falls asleep,’ he said as he pocketed the flask. ‘That’s a grove of peepul trees across that field. It will be cooler there than waiting here. Coming?’

  I hesitated. The grove was some distance from the road.

  ‘Oh, come on! Nothing to be nervous of. The others will be here with Emily and don’t you trust me? To protect you, that is?’

  I smiled in the safety of my replaced face-flap and followed Oliver as he jumped across a drainage ditch and struck out towards the trees, taking a narrow path snaking through the stubble.

  ‘Yes, peepuls. They call them “travellers’ friends” in these parts. I’ll show you why.’

  It was a large grove, the trees so tall I presumed they were very ancient. At the foot of one of the largest was a domed and white-washed shrine such as one becomes accustomed to finding in out-of-the-way spots in India. A garland of yellow marigolds, wilted now, had been thrown over the dome, and two or three earthenware saucers stood before it.

  ‘The spirit has been pleased with the offerings,’ Oliver said, pointing to the empty dishes. ‘That is something you must remember about these places. The food offered to the spirits by the pious attracts snakes. So always be careful.’

  ‘Not really very friendly to travellers, after all,’ I commented.

  ‘Merely an unavoidable hazard. Look at these.’

  He reached up and picked a frond of leaves from a low branch. They were shaped rather like ivy but with an elongated point.

  ‘See the pointy tips? That’s what makes the difference to a man sitting under a peepul. These trees water themselves, all year round. The leaves retain moisture as it is drawn up from the soil, and at the merest whisper of a breeze the points shed droplets of water to keep the earth above the roots damp. It’s always cooler, and fresher, under a peepul than any other tree. The name is justified I think … despite spirits and snakes.’

  We sat down on the ground at some distance from the shrine. I was anxious to test his pronouncement, so threw my burqha back over my shoulders, leaving my face and arms open to the air. Above us the leaves stirred and shivered as restlessly as aspens; looking up through the boughs to the starlit sky, seen as patches of light through the foliage, I was conscious of a mist-like moisture striking my skin, and within moments was cooler.

  Oliver stretched himself on the ground with his arms folded behind his head.

  ‘There’s usually a holy man of some sort attached to a place like this; he extracts a toll from wayfarers for the use of the grove. Keeps himself alive on their offerings.’

  I looked around apprehensively, fear at once returning.

  ‘Nothing to worry about. If there were one here, he’d have been out to visit us by now, and anyway he’d be unlikely to wish us ill … so long as we paid him!’

  I relaxed again and surrendered myself to conscious enjoyment of the coolness. Whatever his shortcomings, Oliver Erskine was a reassuring person to be with.

  We sat in silence for some time. I thought Oliver had dropped off to sleep. My headache had abated and I dreaded returning to the cart. In the whispering quiet of the trees, the silence that lay between my companion and myself was deeply peaceful, deeply pleasant.

  Then Oliver rose suddenly on one elbow and listened intently to the small noises of the night.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ he asked quietly, but not whispering. ‘That soft regular creak?’

  The grove was quiet but not silent. The leaves susurrated softly, bough creaked sometimes against bough. There were small rustlings in the sparse undergrowth, and occasionally a bird would shuffle on its perch or a fruit bat squeak as shrilly as a mouse. The jackals, too, seemed in uncommonly good voice that night. I would not have remarked the noise myself, but heard it as soon as my attention was drawn to it. It was a sound a shop-sign or a hanging lantern might make on a still night.

  ‘Can’t place it. What can it be?’ He got to his feet. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find out what it is.’ He reached for my hand and pulled me up.

  There was no suggestion of alarm in his tone, but fear was ever present and my heart thumped as I followed him, though I would not let him know it. He walked freely and without stealth, and I took care to follow him closely, eyes on the ground, for there was no path and it was dark beneath the trees.

  We had almost reached the far side of the grove when, all at once, he stopped dead, swung round and, gripping me by the shoulders, propelled me in the direction from which we had come.

  ‘Don’t look!’ he implored, but the agonized exclamation came too late.

  In the second that he had stopped abruptly before me I looked up in surprise and, before even he had turned round, my eyes had taken in the ghastly thing swinging rhythmically from a branch at the edge of the trees, the powdery starlight sufficing by its very inadequacy to emphasize the horrors of death by hanging.

  It was a woman who swung there. The remnants of a gown dropped from her in shreds, telling eloquently of the talons of the vultures and the snarling leap of the jackal. Long hair still hung from the oddly angled head.

  Only a swift impression, a glimpse—but enough! In an instant I had plumbed a hell of degradation. Supported by Oliver’s arm, I stumbled away, knowing in the deepest part of my mind that I would be a different person always, living for ever in a more cruel world, because I had seen what I had.

  After a few paces we stopped. I was shivering and it seemed natural to allow myself to remain in the circle of Oliver’s arms.

  ‘Forgive me! I should not have brought you out here … but I didn’t know!’

  ‘I know, I know,’ I whispered, shivering, into his velvet waistcoat. ‘I’ll be all right in a moment … pull myself together! The … the shock. It is so … so horrible, so horrible!’

  ‘I’m a fool. I knew something was exciting the jackals and, as we walked here, I noticed a group of vultures sitting at the edge of the trees. Full, I suppose. But I thought they were just waiting for some wretched animal to die before finishing it off. But … God! I couldn’t have guessed!’

  ‘No, we couldn’t have guessed.’

  I burrowed my face into the velvet, trying to erase the image etched upon my inner eye, as I could so easily blot out the dark world around me. I felt Oliver’s arms tighten around me, and he put his face to my hair. ‘Woman dear!’ He whispered Kate’s phrase, not now in polite derision, but I could not stop shivering, and so we stood for a long moment.

  ‘Oliver,’ I whispered at last, ‘it was a woman, wasn’t it? A … a white woman?’ I felt him nod his head.

  ‘Poor, poor woman.’ I wished I could cry, but no tears would come to cleanse my eyes. ‘We cannot leave her there, can we? We must bury her. We must call the others and bury her decently.’

  ‘No time,’ he answered gruffly. ‘We’ve got to get on now as fast as we damned well can. That didn’t happen any too long ago …’

  ‘But we can’t leave her like that … it’s, it’s obscene! I beg of you, don’t leave her. It might have been one of us, it might have been me and …’

  ‘Don’t be a fool. Don’t say it!’

  He put his hand over my mouth roughly and his voice was trembling. For a second his eyes held mine, then he took away his dirty hand and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘It will never be you, Laura,’ he said with effortful calm, ‘I will never let it be you.’ And then he gathered me to him again and we stood together for a moment, bewildered and perhaps, for once, equally defenceless.

  ‘Guv’nor?’

  Toddy-Bob’s hoarse whisper from the darkness was unmistakable, and we stepped quickly apart.

  ‘Guv’nor?’

  ‘Here, Tod.’

  ‘Thank Gawd! I was wonderin’ what ’ad ’appened to you. We ought to be movin’.’

  Tod
dy walked towards us in the shadows and I saw his arrival as the work of Providence.

  ‘Please, Oliver … let’s bury the poor thing now that Tod’s here? Please,’ I urged earnestly.

  ‘We’ve nothing to dig with,’ he answered, weakening, ‘and the ground is as hard as iron.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave her hanging there. If we could just get her down and cover her up with some decency, with stones, branches … anything?’

  ‘It won’t save her from the …’

  ‘I realize that. But for anyone to see her like that! I cannot go away and leave her, Oliver.’

  ‘Very well then. But we must be quick. Tod, come and help me, and you stay here, Laura.’

  ‘Oh no! Not on my own! I’ll come with you … I won’t watch.’

  ‘Come then, but for God’s sake let’s get it over with,’ he said angrily, moving away.

  ‘What’s up, Guv? What’s ’appened?’ Toddy-Bob regarded us both with suspicion as we walked towards the edge of the grove.

  ‘A woman has been murdered. Up there at the edge of the trees. Hanged. A white woman.’

  ‘Gawd’s truth!’

  ‘We, Miss Laura here, wants us to dispose of the remains. There’s not much we can do, but I suppose we ought to do something.’

  Toddy-Bob whistled his emotion but was otherwise silent as we retraced our steps.

  While the men worked—Toddy had to climb the tree to cut the rope and ease the body to the ground—I stood with my back to the scene a short distance away so that I would not hear too much. A jackal howled once, very close, and the rustlings in the undergrowth were full of menace as I knew we were watched jealously by predatory eyes. When Toddy climbed the tree, two or three vultures perched in the topmost branches flew off with a clap of heavy wings to join their fellows outside the grove and wait patiently until the intruders had removed themselves, and their own digestive processes allowed of further gorging. There would be no quiet grave for the victim, but at least we would have done what we could.

  So I tried to comfort myself as my eyes probed the darkness around me, and so it was that I discovered the others … but these were lying on the ground in a shapeless huddle of slack limbs, like two dolls thrown in a corner by a petulant child. They were a mere few yards from where I stood, but it was the buzzing of the flies that attracted my attention. Here at the edge of the trees the darkness was less intense, and a sudden concerted movement of the mass of winged bodies, disturbed by something unknown to me, caught my eye.

  I think I had a presentiment immediately of what I would find, but I walked towards the buzzing heap, half caught in the tangled roots of a peepul, because I was unable to keep away. I could have cried out. I could have waited until Oliver and Toddy-Bob had completed their grisly task. But like a woman in a nightmare, I went where my limbs took me, drained of all emotion but an overriding desire to make a certainty of mere suspicion. I have no idea when that suspicion entered my head but, gazing down with a sort of mesmerized horror at the evilly moving mound, I found it confirmed. I would have known who they were—no, who they had been—even without the jacket with the silver numerals. She had been so proud of ‘the Major’.

  After a long, dreadful moment I turned away blinded by sudden tears, and sick. Was it really only two days before that we had said goodbye on the sunny, early-morning verandah at Hassanganj? Elvira had been so cheerful at the prospect of a return to Lucknow and the Major’s last words had been ‘I’ll be sure to drop in on my way back to my station.’ Perhaps, had I been capable of thought, I would have admitted that both the Major and his daughter obviously shared the mortality of us all. But that Mrs Wilkins, vigorous, vulgar, overwhelming Mrs Wilkins, should meet an end at all, let alone such an end, was unthinkable. ‘My, what grand relatives you have!’ I almost heard her voice. And again, from long ago: ‘I’m a saving sort of woman and it will be ready for you when you want it.’

  I turned away, shuddering with nausea, and leaned my face against the bole of a tree, where for a time I shivered and heaved with sheer physical loathing of the repulsive remains bared to my eyes when the flies rose. The vultures, the jackals, the flies and the heat had all done their work. Most of the clothing had been torn away and lay in stained rags around the bodies, and some of the limbs were almost bare of flesh. The bellies, of course, had been ripped open, and the soft flesh of thighs and breasts and cheeks. The eyes had gone.

  I steadied myself and gathering my skirts close, picked my way carefully away from the bodies, then stumbled into a run as though distancing myself from the dreadful sight might somehow erase it from my mind. I had gone no more than a few yards when I stopped. Among the shreds of clothing lying on the bloodstained litter of leaves and fallen twigs, I had seen something, a gleam different from the dull shine of the leaves or the cotton that had been Mrs Wilkins’s dress. At first I could not remember what it was, nor why the fact that I had remarked it should be of importance in that horrible moment.

  I still do not know what primitive instinct of self-preservation came into play, but then I forced myself to walk back to where I had come from, and covering my mouth and nose with my hands, bent and searched the tragic debris until I found what I was looking for.

  Nausea flooded over me. I was cold yet sweated profusely and my hand as it reached down trembled violently. The black satin garter was stained with dust and another substance I would not name to myself, but was almost intact except for the fastening which had given under the wrench of talon, claw or tooth.

  By now I was weeping hysterically; I stumbled away, threw myself down behind some bushes, well out of range of sound and smell, and was most violently sick. Afterwards, I lay with my face in the dust and cried, and so Oliver found me, how long afterwards I cannot say.

  ‘Come,’ he said gently, lifting me to my feet. ‘Come, Laura, we must go now. We have covered her over with stones and branches, and her parents.’

  ‘You found them?’

  ‘When we were looking for you.’

  ‘It was the Wilkinses,’ I told him unbelievingly. ‘The Wilkinses.’

  ‘Yes, it was the Wilkinses, but there is nothing more we can do for them now, Laura.’

  ‘The Wilkinses … the Wilkinses …’ I kept repeating as Oliver brushed the dust from my clothing and with his fingers combed the hair out of my eyes.

  ‘Come … we cannot waste any more time now and, truly, we have done all we can. It is finished now, and we must look to ourselves. Come, Laura, you must make the effort!’

  I let him lead me out of the horrible grove without speaking, though my mind continued to repeat ‘The Wilkinses!’ He walked with his arm round my waist, his other hand holding my two cold ones very close. He almost carried me, and all I could think was: ‘It was the Wilkinses.’

  CHAPTER 8

  My mind was too shocked to allow of personal fear as Oliver led me back to the track and settled me, still crying, in the cart. He told the others, brusquely, of the reason for our delay. Emily cried too, but not for long, and she soon dozed. Charles, who must have had a more accurate idea of what we had found in the grove, tried to comfort me but I could not rid myself so quickly of my experience. For most of the night I sat with my head bent on my knees weeping sometimes, sometimes silent, fighting a lonely battle with memory, imagination and conscience.

  Only much later, when the stars had disappeared and all the world lay black and very still before the dawn, did I find time to wonder whether only the jackals and the vultures had marked our presence in the grove. Then fear awoke and banished every other sentiment. I had gathered from words muttered over the body of poor Elvira, as Oliver and Toddy-Bob worked, that both were puzzled as to why the corpses had not been more thoroughly dealt with by the vultures. ‘Couldn’t have happened long ago or there would be nothing left to bury,’ I remembered Oliver saying.

  ‘But they should ’ave passed by ’ere yesterday evenin’, guv,’ Toddy had objected.

  ‘Something might
have delayed them, an accident to the carriage, or to one of the horses, perhaps.’

  ‘More like they was took yesterday and left waitin’ like, till the varmints makes up their minds what to do with ’em!’

  ‘Perhaps. We’ll never know now, but I don’t like the thought that this lot are still in the vicinity, Tod, I don’t like it at all!’

  Now, jolting along in the warm darkness, I recalled the anxiety in Oliver’s tone, and the recollection heightened my fears. Each time we met a group of villagers making their dogged, dusty way, just as we were doing, I shrank back into my burqha, wondering whether this would be the moment of discovery. I no longer had much faith in Oliver’s estimate of the peasantry; every silent, sheet-shrouded figure we met was menacing. Since leaving Hassanganj, we had travelled by side roads and narrow tracks in order to avoid a press of traffic, but once a party of armed men galloped past us in a hurry. They hailed us, and I closed my eyes in agony, waiting for the denunciation. However, Ishmial responded to the hail with good nature, and the men continued on their way without pause.

  Due to the long delay in the peepul grove, we made bad progress that night and, instead of halting at sunrise, pressed on our way until mid-morning. Then we turned off the track in the middle of an unprepossessing waste of barren land, and continued until we found a tree under which the cart was halted and the bullocks unyoked and tethered to pasture. Taking his rifle, Oliver set off to look for shelter and, after an eternity in the sweltering heat, returned to say that he had discovered an abandoned hut that would afford us more adequate shelter from the sun. We ate the remainder of some food from the night before; then while Toddy stayed with the cart, Ishmial strode off to find a village and fresh provisions and the rest of us wearily made our way towards Oliver’s shelter.

  The hut, a one-roomed edifice of mud and gaping thatch, had probably once been a shelter for cattle, or perhaps for the herdsmen, though there was nothing left to betoken human occupation. Compared to the scorching fields, however, it was cool and hid us effectively from prying eyes, an attribute we were grateful for when at about midday, a herd of cattle passed in the charge of three or four small boys and the inevitable collection of ring-tailed dogs. Hearing the dogs bark a little way off, I resigned myself to discovery within moments. They would surely scent us and investigate the hut. But the same thought had struck Oliver. He motioned us to stay hidden, then walked out of the hut rubbing his eyes as though he had just woken from sleep, and crouching in the gloom we overheard a long, laughing conversation take place between the boys and himself. He came back still grinning.