Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  You know that I am not by nature pious, but I prayed beside that terrible well, so close and open to the raking pandy guns, a prayer of thanksgiving that somehow you had safely slaked your thirst at it, a prayer for the forgiveness of mistaken foolish Wheeler, who unwittingly sent so many to their death at it.

  I am depressed, horrified, disgusted and amazed all at once. I am also awe-struck—not by the evident heroism, but by the magnitude of the stupidity of human beings. Is all history merely the outcome, the artificially hallowed outcome, of a chance concatenation of ignorance and arrogance in some one character?

  How did you survive, Oliver? The walls scarce reached my shoulders. How did you survive?

  Laura

  My dearest,

  It is over. I have no answers. I survived. How? you ask. Kismet, Ishmial would say. Luck would be Toddy’s answer. And I? Sometimes I refer myself to Providence, which then disquietingly asks the further question ‘Why?’ I do not know how, nor why. Only that it is finished, in fact and—as far as I can make it so—in my mind.

  Needless to say, I did not revisit the scene. In a way I find myself glad that you did, however. Now let us both lay the ghost of the place to rest.

  Tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning. In less than a week we will be in Allahabad, and I fear my resolution will carry me no further without a sight of you. Believe, my heart, that it is not a still-distrustful prudence that keeps me from you, but the certainty that a glimpse, a few hurried words, probably in the company of others, will not suffice me now. I would certainly embarrass you with my ardour! Besides, though we have resolved our respective difficulties of Charles and India, much still remains to be said that never has been said between us … or written. So I shall stay away for these further few days, until I can have you—to keep you.

  I caught a sight of you this morning, walking with Kate down a dusty sunny street. Limping slightly, you trudged along in the determined fashion I remember so well, both of you in the dismal garments you have worn so long—you with your mushroom of a hat, Kate in her old black bonnet and carrying her usual large umbrella. You put me in mind of a plucky small Bantam hen.

  Oliver.

  CHAPTER 10

  The column that set out from Cawnpore for Allahabad on that cold fresh morning in December was indeed much shorter than the one that had arrived there. It comprised now only the families, the sick and wounded and non-combatants of the Old Garrison, together with a few doctors and apothecary assistants, and was accompanied by a detachment of fighting men for protection. Most of the men who had effected the first relief under Outram remained in Cawnpore for battles yet to come, but the news that ‘Our Men’—the 32nd—were also to be left behind with Sir Colin’s force, was greeted with outrage. Bitter were the farewells between husbands and wives, who had blessed Heaven for allowing them to survive Lucknow together; anguished the grief of children parted at this late hour from fathers they realized too well they were lucky to have had so long. As we moved off, men ran beside the conveyances, still clinging to a wife’s hand, or a child’s, and for long after the last had reluctantly dropped behind, the sound of sobs could be heard, mingled with the more usual cacophony of movement.

  When we were a few miles out of Cawnpore, safely threading our way through a flat landscape of fields and frequent villages wrapped in accustomed morning quiet, we heard behind us the great guns of Sir Colin’s force start up in earnest against Tantia Topee.

  After that, the journey passed without incident. We slept in pitched camps, made good progress each day, ate adequately, found fresh milk awaiting the children when we halted, and heard guns no more. Of course there were delays, inconveniences and irritations, but there was an air of relaxation, almost of cheerfulness, about the column, despite the sorrow of the women of the 32nd. Halting in the early twilight, we found time to stroll through fields and groves; time, too, to exchange plans, which we at last found the courage to make; to seek out friends and discuss, with some assurance, the return to normal living.

  On more than one occasion I glimpsed Oliver aloft on his horse in the distance. I looked my fill but made no effort to attract his attention. A pleasant peace had invaded me, and I was content to wait his coming at what would be, for both of us, the proper time.

  Once he was riding beside the cart on which Wallace Avery was travelling, seated between his guards. Oliver, I believe, was attempting to make himself known to Wallace, but Wallace, all unaware, played with his fingers, nodding his head and muttering to himself with vacant smiles, like a child in a private fantasy.

  For General Outram and Brigadier Inglis had not, after all, been the last men out of the Baillie Guard, as Charles had told us. Nor yet were either of the two young aides who had lurked behind them, then exited simultaneously from the gate in a rugby tackle, so eager had each been to claim the strange distinction of being ‘last man out’. On that final night, as each post filed silently out through the gate, alone in some bright room in the Brigade Mess, Wallace, stupefied by drink, had slept in ignorance through the whole withdrawal. Hours later, waking to the terror of finding himself the only man alive in the silent ruins, he had run headlong through the deserted lanes, out of the Baillie Guard, through the maze of the palaces and, by good fortune, alone followed the path of the retreat. On the following morning, stragglers from the rearguard had come across him wandering in the fields and brought him on to the Dilkusha. He had managed to tell them what had befallen him, but by the time he reached safety, fear had crazed him, and ever since he had lived in a private world, where he talked endlessly to Connie and Johnny of his plans for sending them to England and listened, with delighted attention, to their replies. We did not learn of this last of poor Wallace’s disasters until we had reached the Alum Bagh. Then Charles had made it his business to see to the comfort of his relative and was often with him. In Charles’s presence, Wallace became, if not rational, at least soothed; to the rest of us he turned a bland but blank eye.

  As I watched Oliver bend down from his saddle to talk to Wallace, I remembered the vexatious cause of our interview in Henry Cussens’s bungalow so long ago. That IOU had been returned to me, but debts, it seemed, have always to be paid one way or another. Even by Wallace.

  For each of the four days of our march, the letters came and went. No longer a means of explanation only, now they explored, described and dwelt with delight on the passion we discovered for and in each other. Lovers’ letters, truly, they were meant for no other eyes; so I will fold them now and place them again in their box of fruitwood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. But seldom has the world looked more beautiful to me, more full of grace and golden goodness, than in those hard days of travel, my friends safe beside me, a bourne in sight, and in my heart a love confirmed.

  Allahabad stands at the confluence of two great rivers of northern India. Built on a promontory, at the very point where the turgid brown waters of the Ganges meet but do not mingle with the limpid blue stream of the Jumna, is the Fort, a massive Mogul structure, adapted and amplified by the British, in which most of us women were housed on our arrival in the town.

  It was late afternoon, and the winter sun lay low on the horizon, as we ended our journey. Military bands blared in greeting, banners fluttered, and throngs of troops and civilians lined the roadway, cheering as the convoy entered the great stronghold.

  The password for that day, so they told us, was ‘Heroine’.

  The waters were awash with bronze and gold, and the ancient stonework of the Fort took on a pinkish glow, as, marvelling, we trod the soft, mown grass between banks of sweetpeas and roses, and looked with silent wonder on a scene of peace and domestic comfort. Allahabad, too, had known its time of tragedy, its massacre of Europeans, its burning of bungalows. But that was in the past. The present was, to us at least, a plethora of unbelievable comforts.

  Once again Kate managed to ‘pull strings’ and have us lodged together with old friends. They inhabited fine quarters, whose spreading garden
was bounded by the battlements themselves.

  I had expected yet another whitewashed barrack, hastily evacuated by its normal occupants for our use. Instead, I was ushered into a spacious bedroom. There was rose-patterned china in the bathroom, and a dressing-room in which a long mirror caught the last of the light and showed me a woman only six months older but a lifetime away from the one who had last surveyed herself in a similar extravagant glass. The brass bed, covered with intricately crocheted cotton, intimidated more than it invited me, and even more frightening was the fact that it stood alone in the room. For the first time in half a year I would be sleeping in a room by myself.

  Dinner was to us a lavish meal, but none of us could do justice to it. Mrs Baines clucked and fussed and pressed us to try the various dishes, plying our plates with her own concerned hands. How could she guess that she was the first prettily dressed, assured and tranquil woman we had seen in months? That her gown of ruby silk, and the susurration of her many petticoats, were a greater wonder to us even than the roast duck and lemon tartelettes to which she urged us so insistently? And how could we explain to her the ambivalence of our sensations on finding ourselves at her generous table, holding in our minds the memory of the rickety board on which we had eaten so many unpalatable meals that had become, sometimes, almost sacramental in the sorrow with which we had taken them, or the deep and grateful joy?

  Looking at the strained faces of Kate and Jessie, I found in their eyes a reflection of the unease, the oppression that so many unnecessary appurtenances to living produced in my own mind. We shared a sadness and a strange nostalgia for a time, a way of life, even a hardship, that we knew was gone for ever. We were homesick for the Thug Gaol! The comfort in which we so suddenly found ourselves seemed artificial and false.

  We had learned how easily one can do without Turkey rugs, curtained lamps and silver spoons. But how could we learn to forgo the companionship, the community of feeling, and the concerted effort that had given such meaning to our lives?

  We were encouraged to retire early. Kate, Jess and I kissed each other goodnight quietly and went alone to our strange and solitary rooms. I was not surprised to see tears in Kate’s blue eyes and, having gained the privacy of my apartment, I could not contain my own. I went to the long window and looked out over the still night garden. The scent of nicotiana and stock wafted into the room; trees stirred gently in the river breeze and, beyond the Mogul bastions, the river itself soughed and sighed on its journey to the sea.

  Far away in the night, to the north of me, the ruins where in some real sense I had lost my life and found another, where I had learned what friendship is, and fear, and the wisdom of forgetting, those haunted shells of brick and plaster stood bathed in the light of the same waning moon that silvered the grass below me. My heart cried out to them, wanting again the terrible days I had spent in them. More frightened now in safety than I had ever been in siege, I called to them to stay with me, be with me for ever in memory—not as mourning but as inspiration.

  Nonsense—you will say, reader—homesick for hardship? And you will be right. It was not the hardship that was necessary, but the impulse to endure, to pit oneself consciously against the outrageous accident of our sufferings, to know that how we confronted our trials dictated how we thought of ourselves, as pawns or human beings. I, at last without the prop of that stringent necessity, was frightened by my weakness. So I wept there at the open window in the moonlight and river-rustle, for days and ways and friends gone for ever, and wished myself safe again in the definition of what they had required of me.

  I could not wear the frilled and hand-tucked nightgown and cap laid out on the bed, but put upon myself the ragged cotton I was accustomed to. The comfort of the bed prevented me from sleeping; too used to clamorous nights, I was oppressed by the quiet; for the first time in six months I was truly alone, and the knowledge unnerved me. When at length I fell asleep, I was still weeping.

  The first day in safety passed more easily than I had expected when I woke, unrested, to an elegant chota hazri served on a silver tray.

  I longed impatiently for Oliver, but at the same time almost wished he would stay away—at least until I was respectably dressed. I felt a certain shyness at the thought of seeing him again face to face, and felt that a becoming gown would encourage assurance.

  Naturally our shabbiness had not escaped the notice of our hostess, and after breakfast we discovered that derzis had been called for to take our measurements, and vendors bearing bales of piece goods, buttons, laces and braids had spread their wares on the verandah for our inspection. Mrs Baines produced a pile of Lady’s Magazines, and we were soon lost in the remembered but unfamiliar delights of choosing patterns and fabrics for new gowns.

  Not even an Indian derzi could be expected to produce a new garment in less than a couple of days, however, so Mrs Baines insisted that two of her own gowns be hastily altered for Kate and myself, while Jessie, large Jessie, was fitted out in a dress of black merino donated by a neighbour.

  ‘I am so glad I had something suitable—in black,’ the neighbour, Mrs Lyndhurst, remarked, as she laid the gown on a chair, Jessie being too engrossed in fashion plates to try it on immediately.

  ‘Black?’ Jessie looked her puzzlement. ‘Well,’ she said at length regretfully, ‘the good Lord kens I ha’ forgot I am a widow woman now!’ and pushed away the blue cotton I had been persuading her to choose.

  ‘Why, so you are—and I!’ Kate looked from Jessie to me. ‘We are in mourning, Jess and I, and had both quite forgotten it.’

  She smiled, no doubt at how inconsequential such conventions now appeared to us, but Mrs Baines and her friend regarded her in stony silence, disapproval of her want of proper feeling evident on their faces. Officially I was also in mourning, for Emily, though not as ‘deep’ as that of a widow. But I craved colour, and determined that the exact date of Pearl’s orphaning would remain a mystery until it was too late for reproaches.

  Within an hour, the borrowed gowns had been made over to fit Kate and myself, and with them, on our beds, we found the customary accompaniments of petticoats, camisoles, corset covers, pantaloons and stockings, together with a selection of heeled and buttoned boots, delivered by a bazaar shoemaker, from which to make a choice.

  Delighted with our borrowed plumage, it was natural to wish to show it off to our friends, and hearing the strains of a celebratory band concert taking place on the central grassed square of the Fort, Kate announced her intention of attending it.

  ‘But, my dear,’ demurred Mrs Baines as Jessie and I joined Kate with alacrity, ‘you are so recently widowed! Are you sure it would be quite the thing?’

  For a moment Kate hesitated; then she lifted her chin and, looking Mrs Baines in the eye, announced, ‘I’m quite sure, and so would George be.’

  ‘Well, of course, if you think it proper, and at a time like this I’m sure no one will think the less of you. But you cannot go out without bonnets and gloves. I will see what I have that will do for the present.’ With pursed lips she led us to her dressing-room, where Kate and I with unrepentant laughter tried on most of her bonnets before suiting ourselves, and Jessie, subtly made aware of her status as a common soldier’s wife, quietly accepted the use of a bandanna to tie over her hair.

  It was easy to discern the women of Lucknow among the crowd seated around the wrought-iron bandstand. Almost all had been solemnly clothed in black by their more fortunate sisters.

  ‘’Tis as though they do not approve of us being alive,’ remarked Kate. ‘As though death were a parlour game, and those who have lost their loved ones must be set apart from the rest of the players who have not scored such high points.’

  ‘Or a charade, in which those who have guessed the answer correctly must remain silent so as not to spoil the game for the rest,’ I agreed grimly. ‘We are not playing the game by their rules, Kate. We are expected to be downcast, pale and pathetic, like mourners in novels.’

  ‘After all th
at we have seen of death? And all that we need of life?’

  ‘They know nothing of that need,’ I pointed out.

  Mrs Bonner was seated in splendour with the Gubbinses and other notables of the siege. She bowed frigidly on catching my eye, but Minerva squealed her excitement on seeing us, and pushed through the crowd to kiss us and ask how we liked her new dress.

  Llewellyn Cadwallader deserted his schoolboy friends as soon as he spied us, and sat on the grass at my feet, chewing without cessation on a variety of sweetmeats produced from the pocket of his new tweed knickerbockers. Delighted to see him happy, well and clean, I let my hand rest on his shoulder, and was touched when this small mark of affection called forth the answering gesture of a cheek laid for a moment against my hand. ‘Miss,’ he breathed, looking up at me with his dark spaniel’s eyes, ‘miss—sometimes I really thought it’d never be like this again. Never!’

  ‘I know, Llew,’ I answered, patting the thin shoulder. ‘Me too!’

  Naturally I scanned the crowd for Oliver, though my better judgement told me that this was not a function to draw him. Probably he too was busy with tailors and bootmakers, but I allowed myself to hope that an At Home, to be held in our honour at the Baines’s bungalow that evening, would prove more inviting. When I remembered to look for Charles, I could not find him either.

  We were exhorted to rest after tiffin, while Mrs Baines, her friends and servants made ready for the At Home. I went to my room, its unaccustomed comforts already taken for granted, and tried to read a novel. But the print swam before my eyes and I could not concentrate. I was aware again of the ill-defined unease I had known the previous night at dinner. Was it only the sight of four glasses and a silver cruet at each place that had struck me as excessive? Were not the forms and fashions by which the ladies of Allahabad lived, and to which they paid such zealous service, equally unnecessary? The fuss about the varying degrees of mourning, of leaving the house bonnetless, of ascertaining whether the guests invited to the soirée were all of a rank acceptable to Colonel Baines’s rank—were not these preoccupations as absurd?