Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  There was much to do that night, our last night in the entrenchment. Our first instructions had been that we could take no baggage with us when we left, but along with the twenty-four hours’ grace forced from Sir Colin by the incensed ladies, permission was obtained to carry with us ‘a modicum’ of personal possessions.

  In this respect our little party was more fortunate than the still well-endowed ladies from the private houses for, owning nothing, we had no agonizing decisions to make regarding what should be left and what taken.

  All I had was a bundle with a few clothes and the copy of Marcus Aurelius, and in a pocket I had sewn into the inner side of my skirt a packet of Emily’s jewels, that Charles insisted I take with me for Pearl’s sake. In that pocket, too, was the black satin garter, and my mother’s ruby and pearl pin. What extra clothing Kate and Jessie had once possessed had long gone to provide bandages, slings or little dresses for Pearl. Everything else Kate owned had been burned in her bungalow in Mariaon and, as a private’s wife, Jessie had never had very much to carry with her on her peregrinations with the regiment.

  With our bundles safely tied, we set to work again on our letters, for there was no knowing when we would next have a table to write upon, and we had been promised that mail would be conveyed to Calcutta as soon as we had evacuated the Residency.

  After we had cleared away our final evening meal in a mood well compounded of nostalgia and anxiety, Charles came to accompany us down to the graveyard to make our last farewells to the dead. We took Pearl in to Mrs Bonner, so that Jessie could come with us. Minerva accepted Pearl into her arms with a girl’s ignorant enthusiasm for babies, as her mother, seated on her bed in a wrapper, was busy giving incoherent directions to her ayah on the packing of a vast quantity of clothing and other possessions scattered in disarray around the room. An air of great ill-temper pervaded the apartment, and we hurriedly made our escape before Mrs Bonner took in our presence.

  It was a dark night, snapping with cold; later there would be a moon, but now only a few large stars gazed down in icy calm upon our errand, as hugging our shawls and cloaks about us, we entered the sad acre where so many of our friends lay.

  At my request, Charles led us first to where Mr Roberts was buried, and we stood for a few moments in silence round the grave, while my mind took me back over the months to a rain-lashed deck and my mackinawed mentor imparting to me his knowledge and love of a country that had killed him. ‘Rest well, dear Mr Roberts,’ I said inwardly, ‘in a book-lined heaven, where all facts and figures are open to inspection and where no question remains unanswered.’

  We moved on and knelt for a moment where little Jamie had been buried in a box, his head resting on his pillow. Then we left Jessie to her farewells and Charles led us to the long mound beneath which Emily lay with the others who had died the same day. Kate had no grave to kneel beside; neither George’s body, nor Corporal MacGregor’s, had been returned for burial. So Kate knelt down beside Charles and myself, and later Jessie too joined us.

  No one that night regarded the pandy fire that threatened the graveyard; everywhere dim figures knelt in the darkness or stood, some weeping, some bowed but silent, some holding hands and praying aloud and together.

  Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my prayer …

  As on many other sorrowful occasions, Kate’s familiar voice started the great prayer, but this time I could not join in.

  I think I was made dumb by the acknowledgement of my own hypocrisy. I could not remember Emily—not as her mother and father or she herself, perhaps, would have wished me to remember her. I could visualize her, with effort, as she had been in death, dressed in her flowered poplin gown with the neat lace collar and cuffs, but her face remained a blur, an impression of the many faces I had since seen in death, never hers. Even her name now was only a word that roused in me a vague sense of guilt and vaguer regret. Yet Emily had been close to me, a part of my life for many years. Once I had known her well; once I had loved her; I had hated her for a time, pitied her often, understood her but seldom. She had been only nineteen when she had died, after great pain and in circumstances that lacked both decency and dignity. I had held her in my arms as a child and brushed her sodden hair when she was dead; I had witnessed her marriage, been present at the birth of her child. None of this now had reality. I could not remember her.

  Is this how life must end for us all, I wondered, with distaste more than fear? Nothingness—even in the minds of those who have loved us? Does it really take only a few months to erase the imprint of a personality on the lives and minds of those who loved it, knew it, helped to form it? Emily living, buoyant, gay, beautiful as she had been, that Emily was beyond my recalling. Only a few of her actions had any significance left for me. The fact that she had married a man I once had loved, and then loved in her turn a man who loved me. Poor Emily, she had been as prone to mistakes as I myself, and they were all I remembered her by, those mistakes and delusions.

  I sighed to myself as the others prayed. I would have to do better than this, I thought. This state of mind would not be acceptable in Mount Bellew. There would be so much discussion, so many anxious, loving questions. They would want to know whether she had been happy in her marriage, a contented bride and mother. They would want comfort and reassurance, not only about Emily’s life, but about her death. Where could I find the words, and where would they find Emily in the carefully chosen half-truths that would be all I could give them?

  Kate had finished her psalm and was weeping softly into her hand as she knelt. Jessie too was weeping, quietly and unexpectedly. Suddenly everything became too much for me. I covered my face with my hands and sobs wracked me. I felt myself overcome, not by death but by the cruel transitoriness of life. Emily had been as alive as I was now, yet soon almost the only record of her passing through this world would be the tenderly cherished but figmentary recollections I fabricated to comfort her family for her loss. Little Pearl would have no recollection of her mother, and Charles would soon find it more comfortable to forget any true memories he might have had of his wife. I cried because nineteen years of living could leave behind no more lasting memorial than a few carefully adjusted impressions of a character in a handful of mortal minds.

  I tried to control myself, feeling Jessie’s arm about me and hearing her soothing murmur, and realized suddenly that it was also for the living that I wept, and in longing, not grief. If my life must end as completely, leaving as little trace as had poor Emily’s, then I must live it. Such were my thoughts, as Charles got up and left us, overcome by what he supposed was my grief for Emily. It was a relief to be alone in that sad place with two women who had shared so much with me, and I sought for words to tell them what I felt.

  ‘I … I have been thinking, trying to think, what I can tell them at home, and oh, Kate … Jessie, how can I ever do it? I can never convey all that I should about poor Emily, and yet to do less is somehow to … kill her again. Oh, Kate, whatever can I do? There is so little of her left for them.’

  ‘Och, woman dear!’ Kate sniffed through her own tears, taking my hand in hers. ‘Why do you rack yourself so? All these explanations you have to make, these responsibilities you feel you must take, they are not yours rightly. Don’t you see that, yet? Do you not feel the wrongness in your going home, leaving matters as they would be here?’

  ‘Wrongness? But, Kate, I can’t stay out here. I told you so before. I can’t stay here!’

  I got to my feet clumsily and our three bedraggled figures made a small group beside the long grave in the starlight. The wind ruffled the leaden surface of the river below us, and somewhere on the far side of the entrenchment a shell exploded dully.

  ‘Laura, listen to me,’ Kate said, dabbing at her eyes with her cuff. ‘They have a saying out here, and it goes something like “to put words between oneself and the truth”. My dear, that is what you are doing, what you have been doing for an age past. Sure, what you think you feel for this
country at the moment is not important. It will pass. What you know you feel for Oliver is what matters, and all the rest, all this about your going home and not knowing what to say to your relatives and about the baby and all, why that’s just putting words between yourself and the truth. Laura, you must not leave Oliver. Face it. You must stay with him.’

  ‘Must I?’ Like a dutiful child I was willing to be instructed.

  Jessie put her large hand on my shoulder and drew me to her, again like a child in need of comfort.

  ‘Lass, we twa … we twa hae been weepin’ here in the darkness, and on many another night too, for the fine men we had once and hae lost. But you … do you nae see it? You’ve been weepin’ for a man that lives—and loves you and that you will nae tak’. Sair and lang is the weepin’ of a woman for a livin’ man, lass, worse by far than our weepin’ for the dead!’

  ‘She’s right, Laura. You know she’s right. Ours must be a long and heavy grieving for the men we loved, but yours … yours will be regret and remorse and a longing to undo the things you’ve done and that perhaps can never be undone. You must trust him to know where his life lies, Laura, and trust yourself to him too. Tears and a-plenty will always be given you; no need to buy them so dearly!’

  ‘Kate! Oh, Kate!’ I reached my hand behind my back and Kate took it, as I stood with my face buried in Jessie’s bosom and cried.

  ‘There now, lassie, there now! Weep well and then hae done with weepin’. Och, but he’s a braw man that loves you, and mind, Jess will tak’ the wee one home and be back in no time at a’ to keep ye company in the fine new house.’

  I groped for a handkerchief and, finding none, used the hem of my shawl on eyes and nose, indelicately.

  ‘Now, Jessie, don’t bully her. She must make her own decision.’ Kate reproved Jessie half-heartedly, and I turned and kissed her leathery, wrinkled cheek.

  ‘I have. I believe I have made my decision—with the help of you both. I suppose it could not be made any other way. I must stay with him, Kate, and trust him as you say. And, Kate, do you think you could go to Mount Bellew with Jessie and the baby and … and tell them everything, and why I am not with you?’

  ‘Sure now, and isn’t that just what I have been hoping I’d have to do? I can tell them all the truth I know of Emily, and that will be enough for them, and kind to them and easy on your conscience too, Laura. Your place is here now; you must not lose Oliver.’

  ‘I know, I know!’ I said, a sense of relief, of inevitability flooding over me as I spoke. ‘I must find him and tell him. There’s such a lot to explain to him.’

  ‘You will. Never fear. He’ll be bound to come to you in the morning, woman dear. In the morning!’

  CHAPTER 6

  The morning, however, did not bring him to me.

  The families and the schoolboys of the Martinière had been instructed to be ready to leave the entrenchment by ten o’clock on the morning of the 19th November, and by dawn the entire garrison was astir.

  During the previous two days, while most of Sir Colin’s troops had been busy clearing and then keeping open the route of the exodus to the Dilkusha Palace, our own men had been set to find carriages, carts or palanquins and the animals and bearers necessary for such conveyances as might be discovered. From the outbuildings of the palaces enclosed by the extended perimeter, a medley of equipages were dragged forth for inspection, but most were too badly damaged by gunfire or exposure to be roadworthy, and those that came to light within the old entrenchment were in even worse case. Camels, horses, mules and even donkeys had been rounded up and dragged to the muster, but their numbers were even more inadequate to our necessities than was the number of coolies and bearers who could be impressed into service, and it looked as though a good half of us would have to walk the four and a half miles to the Dilkusha.

  Charles had done his best on our behalf, but when by morning he still had only failure to report in his search for anything capable of carrying at least one of us and the baby, we resigned ourselves to a long tramp in shabby shoes, carrying our possessions with us. It was not going to be easy, but at least there would be three of us to take turns with Pearl.

  ‘It is truly dreadful!’ said Mrs Bonner, who was sitting in our kitchen with Minerva for the last time, while waiting to set off. ‘Such a total lack of organization. My husband has never seen anything like it. We should have been given more time to pack in the first place, and now to find we cannot take away even the few things we have packed because of lack of bearers! Why, I am having to leave behind some of my most treasured possessions: my mahogany sewing-box, the portrait of my father, my second-best set of cutlery and almost all our clothing and, really, it is enough to make one weep!’

  She sniffed delicately behind a lace-edged handkerchief. Both Mrs Bonner and Minerva were dressed correctly for travel in gowns of wool, plainly trimmed, with matching cloaks and bonnets. Minerva’s sleeves were a little too short, and Mrs Bonner’s gown was now a trifle large for her, but both were neat and clean and I eyed them with envious wonder.

  ‘But your servants will help to carry your stuff surely?’ said Kate, with scant sympathy for Mrs Bonner’s troubles. The Bonners had been assisted all through the siege by a faithful old ayah who had been wounded in the leg by the same exploding shell that had killed our goat and a sweeper, the last minion a true luxury we had been very grateful to share.

  ‘The servants? Oh, to be sure. But only the two of them. When I think of the eight we had when we moved in here, and four whole bullock-wagons of our things, almost my entire household goods, Mrs Barry, bar the furniture, of course. And now to be compelled to leave so much of it behind because of the hurried incompetence of … that carpenter from Glasgow!’

  ‘And have you not considered that to wait for more bearers might well cause you to lose your life as well as your cutlery?’

  ‘Nonsense! With all the troops flocking around? Major Bonner says Sir Colin just wants to get rid of us so that he can engage the pandies in a battle that will bring him even more glory than Balaclava. He was quite the wrong man to send to such a … delicate situation, Major Bonner says. He has no breeding. It’s not surprising, I suppose, that he has so little understanding of how a lady regards her sacred household possessions. Not surprising at all. Now, if it had been Sir Henry Lawrence, dear good gentleman that he was …’

  ‘I very much doubt whether anyone could do more for us than Sir Colin is doing,’ Kate retorted acidly. ‘I believe it is a miracle he got to us at all with all the Delhi sepoys now flooding the countryside and doing their best to stop him. He had only three thousand men left once the Dilkusha was taken, and you know the pandies are thought to have not less than thirty thousand. He led the charge on the Shah Najaf in person, they say, and it is scarcely his fault that there are no carriages nor horses to pull them.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he is a very doughty soldier. Very doughty. After all, he came up from the ranks, so why should he fear a charge or two as an officer? But his manners!’

  Mrs Bonner settled herself more comfortably and I knew we were to be treated to some further iniquity of Sir Colin’s.

  ‘Last night—I think I told you, did I not?—Major Bonner was included in Mr Gubbins’s dinner party to honour Sir Colin. Well, as you may imagine, although Mr Gubbins might have some private doubts about Sir Colin as an individual, in his eyes nothing could be too good for Sir Colin as Our Deliverer. Nothing! The table was covered with the best of linen and set with Mrs Gubbins’s finest silver and suite of Irish glass. There was fresh meat, vegetables and truffled sausages and all kinds of hermetically sealed delicacies, as well as wine, champagne and old port. Everyone had worked to make the occasion a fitting mark of gratitude and esteem.

  ‘Well, to begin with he was late—Sir Colin, I mean. Then he walked into the dining-room wearing the same blue patrol jacket and brown corduroy trousers he had on when he arrived here. A General Officer Commanding and … a Knight! And he couldn’t be bothered to ch
ange for dinner! Can you imagine it?’

  ‘I can. And I sympathize with it. This is scarcely the time for an observance of social graces, such as changing for dinner, Mrs Bonner.’

  ‘Well, that is as may be, though I am sure I would not agree with you. Standards are standards, after all, Mrs Barry, and should be adhered to, if possible, whatever the circumstances. But, as I say, that’s not the worst of it. He came to the table, sat down, looked around him at all the food and the servants bringing in the hot dishes, and the wine in the coolers, and … Mrs Barry, you won’t credit it, but he folded his arms and sat through the meal, the entire meal, mind you, without eating a mouthful or saying a word!’

  ‘He did what?’ I asked with unconcealed delight.

  ‘Refused to eat a morsel, and at the meal’s end demanded of Mr Gubbins why there should be so much in his household that was luxurious when the men in the hospital were denied even necessities. The ingratitude, Mrs Barry! The base ingratitude!’

  ‘Well, bully for Sir Colin!’ I crowed, lapsing into the schoolboy vocabulary of my cousins, and to Mrs Bonner’s great annoyance. ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard since the day Old Buggins’s plunge bath took a pandy shell.’

  Mrs Bonner’s pale eyes regarded me malevolently, and Minerva goggled in alarm at her mother’s known opinions being so rudely contradicted.

  ‘Mr Gubbins,’ went on Mrs Bonner sourly, and without necessity, ‘is the Financial Commissioner of the District and a gentleman. He deserved better at Sir Colin’s hands.’

  ‘Indeed he did, and I’m hopeful he’ll receive it—in time,’ I replied wrathfully. ‘Mr Gubbins is a selfish, self-opinionated, complacent and contentious fool, and I don’t care a button if he is Financial Commissioner. He is a hypocrite into the bargain, and when I think of our lads in the hospital having to manage with lentils and rice, despite stomach wounds and dysentery and even cholera, why I …’