Daughters of India

by Jill McGivering

  He led her through to his private office at the back and closed the door. It was a dingy room, dominated by a shabby wooden desk, which was piled with files and loose papers. He pulled out a rickety chair and they sat facing each other.

  Her mouth was dry. She sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘I failed him. I disgraced my baba’s good name.’

  ‘He drowned?’

  She nodded. It was her fault. She should never have left him.

  ‘It’s true, then.’ He spoke softly, almost to himself. ‘They took his body to the jail, that’s what people say.’

  Amit replaced his spectacles on his nose. His hands reached for a pile of papers on the desk at his side and began to shuffle them together. He didn’t look her in the eye.

  Finally, he said: ‘Tell me.’

  She stared at the papers and saw water there, saw Krishna-ji flailing as a growing torrent dashed him back against the rocks. She imagined him weakening, swallowing spray, then water, and finally becoming limp, floating, suspended in brine. She couldn’t speak.

  ‘It’s a shock.’ He nodded. ‘Asha, you did what you could.’

  She cried out: ‘He sent me away. I went for help.’

  Amit’s hand reached out and pat, patted her shoulder. ‘He was right to send you away. You have your own destiny.’

  She wiped off her hot face with her dupatta. Her breath came in gulps. Krishna-ji told her what to do. She must carry out his wishes. She got to her feet, straightened her crumpled clothes.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ He paused. ‘There’s space for you here, if you need it.’

  ‘I’m again with the Britishers. My madam was away but now she also is back.’

  ‘You could go home to Delhi, to your baba’s village even. I could help.’

  ‘One day, maybe.’ She considered. ‘Now, I need to be with the Britishers. It was Krishna-ji’s wish.’

  ‘May the gods give you strength.’ Amit put his hand on her head in blessing. ‘Be careful, Asha.’

  His face was full of concern. She thought: I divided my heart into two pieces, one for my baba and one for Krishna-ji. These people killed them both. What more do I have to fear?

  She planned with care, following the instructions that Krishna-ji gave her.

  One afternoon, she went into Isabel Madam’s room, opened her wardrobe and took a coat and hat. No one saw.

  When Isabel Madam went walking, Asha found letters and papers that her mistress had written and learnt to copy her handwriting. Education is our weapon, Krishna-ji said. She practised the forged note many times before she was satisfied. Then she sought out Bimal.

  Bimal hid himself in corners when the house was quiet. She knew the places. It took her only a few minutes to go from one to the other before she found him, curled in the servants’ quarters, dozing. His legs were folded under him, his head resting on his arms.

  ‘Bimal.’ She crept into the room and sat beside him. ‘Mango. Have some.’

  He lifted his head and looked at her with suspicion.

  She tore off a broad piece. The soft, sticky flesh hung along it in clumps. She flipped it inside out and pushed it at him.

  ‘Come. It’s good.’

  He uncurled his arms, took the mango slice and started to scrape off the fibres with his teeth. Juice ran down his chin.

  ‘Sweet, nah?’ She peeled off a second slice and sucked on it herself. They sat together and slurped, licking the juice off their lips and fingers.

  When the mango was almost finished, she said: ‘Bimal, I know what Sahib does to you. He’s a wicked man.’

  The boy stopped eating, became tense.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He does bad things to me, too.’

  Bimal’s eyes opened wider.

  She sensed his doubt and added: ‘Why do you think I ran away?’ She gave the mango skin a final chew, then threw it out of the doorway into the dirt. ‘We can help each other.’

  He stiffened. Finally he said in his thick accent: ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Madam wants to send us both on a very special errand.’ She put her fingers to her lips. ‘It’s very secret. No one must know. Ever. You must promise.’

  He put his head on one side, considering her.

  She leant in closer. ‘Afterwards, if you do as I say, Sahib will never be able to hurt you again.’

  The pharmacist was himself a ticket of leave and a friend of Amit’s. His shop was in a poor district of Port Blair, near the waterfront.

  Asha led Bimal to a nearby alleyway and they waited there until the light began to fade. The first shopkeepers carried out their wooden shutters and slotted them into place over shopfronts, rattling chains across doors and windows. Soon the pharmacist too would close up his shop and disappear to the poky back rooms where his wife and daughter stirred steaming pots of food. Pools of light stretched across the road, catching the faces, the figures of the people who passed by.

  Finally, Asha gave the forged note and some money to Bimal and sent him in. A moment later, she pulled Isabel Madam’s hat down over her face, lifted the collar of her mistress’s coat and stood in the shadows by the front of the pharmacy.

  Bimal was inside. His slight body hovered at the counter. On the far side, the pharmacist studied the note, then the boy, then turned to look across his shelves. Her heart hammered. Krishna-ji, she thought, I am doing this for you, just as you asked.

  Several minutes later, Bimal crept out with a paper parcel, tied round with string. She drew him into the shadows.

  ‘Did he give you a receipt? A paper?’

  He looked anxious. ‘Inside the parcel.’

  ‘Did he ask questions?’

  ‘As you said. Why did my madam want datura? Did she know how to use it?’

  ‘And you said?’

  ‘I said as you told me: for the weeds in her garden, maybe. Ask her yourself, if you like. She’s there, outside.’

  ‘And he looked? He saw me?’

  He nodded. ‘Then he again read the note and again counted out the money, then finally wrote the paper.’

  She nodded. ‘Good boy.’ She pinched his arm. ‘Now, do you swear on your own life not to tell a soul about this? Whatever happens.’

  His eyes widened with fear.

  ‘Swear on your life.’ Her voice became sharp. He was an easy boy to bully.

  ‘I swear.’

  She relaxed her shoulders. ‘Go back to the house now. If anyone asks where you were, say you were sleeping. I will come after.’

  She took off the hat and coat, brushed them both down and returned to the house to slip them back in Isabel Madam’s wardrobe. She unwrapped the parcel and hid the pharmacist’s receipt deep into the mess of papers inside her mistress’s writing case.

  Then she waited for the right moment, as Krishna-ji had told her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Isabel

  One Sunday, five weeks after her return, Jonathan disappeared for the day to join a seasonal fishing expedition organised by the chief commissioner’s staff.

  Isabel sat in the drawing room, reading. The shadows lengthened and, as she was thinking about going to bed, Jonathan’s boots sounded on the staircase. He appeared at the drawing-room door.

  Isabel lifted her eyes from her book. ‘How was the fishing?’

  His cheeks and nose were ruddy with sunburn. He stepped into the room and crossed to the balcony doors.

  ‘Didn’t catch much.’

  ‘Well, you caught the sun, at least.’

  He didn’t reply. He wanted something of her and she was uncertain what. Singh appeared and placed a measure of gin on the table alongside a squat jug of tonic, then withdrew. Jonathan poured a third of the tonic into the gin, stirred it well, then stood for a time in silence, looking out, drinking. The insect chorus grew.

  ‘We lost sight of the islands for a time.’

  He seemed to speak more to himself than to her. She
sat quietly.

  ‘When I looked down, through the water, I could see such a distance. A mile or more.’ He sighed. ‘There are hidden worlds down there.’ He trailed off. His lips fastened on the rim of his glass.

  She closed her book and shifted in her seat.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ His mood hardened.

  Isabel rose to her feet. ‘Do you want supper?’

  ‘I’ve asked Cook to fry fish.’

  She turned to the door. ‘Goodnight, then.’

  She left him there, a motionless figure in the gloom against a dark canopy of trees.

  A rap on her door.

  ‘Madam! Please!’ A man’s voice.

  ‘What is it?’ Isabel lifted her head from the pillow.

  ‘Madam!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ She groped for her dressing gown. Her feet scrabbled for slippers.

  ‘Burra Sahib. Bimar hai. Sick, sick.’

  Singh was always immaculate. Now, there in the passageway, he looked dishevelled, his beard uncombed.

  ‘Sick?’

  The door to Jonathan’s room was ajar. Inside, he lay on the bed, covered only by a cotton sheet. His red face was slick with sweat and he was thrashing, his head pitching from one side to the other, eyes closed.

  ‘Jonathan?’ She put her hand on his forehead. Burning.

  He moaned but didn’t speak.

  She turned back to Singh. ‘Fetch the doctor. Jaldee!’ As Singh made for the door, she called after him: ‘Wake Asha. Tell her to bring a cloth and cold water. Clean water. Make sure it’s clean.’

  She patted Jonathan’s forehead, his cheeks, his neck with a cool flannel. He seemed tormented, tossing under the sheet and grimacing.

  The doctor, a retired army surgeon, arrived with a coat fastened over his pyjamas.

  He examined Jonathan wordlessly, took his pulse, eased open his eyelids to examine the eyes.

  ‘Last night, did he have much to drink?’

  ‘A gin tonic. Maybe two.’

  ‘What did he eat?’

  ‘Fish, I believe.’

  He nodded. ‘Has he vomited?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘He was on that fool fishing expedition, wasn’t he?’ The doctor looked grim. ‘Bet he didn’t wear a topee.’ He rummaged in his bag and brought out aspirin powders. ‘We need to lower his temperature.’ He turned to Singh, a dark agitated figure in the passageway. ‘Fetch ice, boy.’

  For hours, they struggled to cool him. Isabel sponged Jonathan’s face and neck. His lips murmured but the words were unintelligible.

  Dawn broke, revealing the hard outlines of the bedroom furniture, the hollow contours of Jonathan’s face. Below, the first hawkers sang as they passed from house to house, calling on sleepy servants to buy brooms and pots.

  The morning sun reached through the gap in the curtains and drew a line across the bedroom floor. Jonathan gave a shuddering sigh, then fell silent. His cheeks became slack. The colour of his skin crept from white to grey. The doctor stepped back from the bed.

  ‘Would you like a moment?’

  She didn’t understand. ‘Should we try more aspirin?’

  The doctor looked dull with exhaustion. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that.’

  She looked down at Jonathan’s still body.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The doctor leant over the bed, lifted the top of the sheet and drew it up over Jonathan’s face.

  Isabel dropped the damp flannel in the water.

  The doctor got to his feet and closed his bag. ‘I’ll notify the chief commissioner. Is there a friend, someone to sit with you?’

  She shook her head. No friend. She looked at Jonathan’s body. It was a mistake. People didn’t die from fishing.

  ‘But what—?’

  ‘Heatstroke.’ He tapped his head. ‘He didn’t suffer long.’

  She said, as if in a dream: ‘So that’s it, is it?’

  The doctor helped her to her feet and steered her out along the passageway and into a chair in the sitting room. Asha followed. He gestured to Jonathan’s whisky decanter.

  ‘Pour her one of those, will you? Steady the nerves.’

  Asha rushed forward. As Isabel sipped, the rising fumes made her choke.

  ‘I’ll be back shortly.’ He turned to Asha. ‘Stay with her.’

  Isabel stared sightlessly at the gold braid that edged the settee. The doctor’s footsteps took him away. She had the odd sensation of looking down at herself, of watching the crisis unfold as if she were someone else. She was a widow, then. It made no sense. No sense at all.

  Mrs Copeland came.

  ‘You poor, poor girl.’ She kneaded Isabel’s hand between her moist fingers.

  She clapped her hands in Asha’s face and told her to fetch tea and be quick about it, then crossed to Jonathan’s desk and started to sift through the piles of papers there.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we need to make a list.’

  She settled herself on the settee, drank tea, ate Cook’s floury biscuits and scribbled notes with a stubby pencil. ‘What about his people?’

  Isabel shook her head.

  ‘There must be someone.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Parents? Brothers?’

  ‘A cousin came to the wedding. Bernard. He’s stationed upcountry.’ She tried to remember. It seemed a long time ago. ‘We married quickly, you see, in Delhi. There wasn’t time for his family to sail.’

  Mrs Copeland made a note. ‘They must be informed.’ She helped herself to another biscuit and bit into it, scattering crumbs across her plate. ‘Had he discussed his wishes?’

  ‘His wishes?’

  ‘I don’t wish to be indelicate, my dear, but arrangements must be made. You do understand. In this heat—’

  A funeral. Hymns and prayers and a coffin lowered into the fertile wet earth. It wasn’t possible. It was all unreal.

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, it wasn’t something—’

  ‘Of course not.’ She bent her head. The pencil made a soft scrabble across the paper. ‘I’m sure we can—’

  ‘Madam.’ Singh, at the doorway, all concern. ‘Please.’

  He moved to one side. A British police officer stood in the passageway. Two uniformed constables, Anglo-Indians, lolled behind him. They waited in silence.

  Mrs Copeland sat forward and whispered: ‘They’ve come to take him away.’

  Isabel thought of the silent body, its features hidden beneath the sheet.

  The police officer cleared his throat. ‘The chief commissioner has instructed me to proceed. I trust you have no objection?’

  Mrs Copeland answered. ‘Of course she hasn’t.’ She turned back to Isabel. ‘You haven’t touched your tea.’

  At noon, Mrs Copeland had Cook prepare lunch. Isabel sat in silence as Mrs Copeland ate.

  Afterwards, Isabel withdrew to her room. She lay on her back and watched the pattern of light on the bedroom ceiling. Mrs Copeland’s footsteps sounded up and down the passageway. Wooden shudders as she pulled open drawers in Jonathan’s study. The scrape of the middle one, which always stuck. The low flap of papers.

  Isabel closed her eyes. Her body, on the soft mattress, shook.

  Banging at the door. The walls were solid with shadow. Her mouth was dry. For a moment, she was lost, then she remembered. Jonathan was dead.

  ‘Madam.’ Singh’s voice. ‘Burra Sahib is come.’

  Sir Philip stood in the sitting room, turning his topee in his hands. Mrs Copeland was at his side. Their expressions were grave. Isabel had the impression, as she walked in, that she interrupted them.

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid.’ His face was tense. ‘I’ve requested a post-mortem. Thought you ought to know.’

  Mrs Copeland’s eyes were greedy on her face.

  ‘A post-mortem?’

  ‘Cause of death,’ said Mrs Copeland. ‘Apparently it’s not clear-cut.’

  Sir Philip frowned, rotating the topee steadily in his hands. ‘Best to be sure. I have to a
dvise you’ – he coughed – ‘better if you didn’t leave Port Blair for now.’

  ‘Leave?’

  Mrs Copeland: ‘I’m sure Mrs Whyte has no plans …’

  Sir Philip withdrew. The two women stood alone, awkward together. Finally Mrs Copeland crossed the room and guided Isabel to a chair.

  ‘I’ve told Cook to poach a little fish in milk.’

  ‘A post-mortem?’ Isabel imagined a knife cutting through Jonathan’s skin, through that same body that was once in her bed.

  ‘Best thing for shock. Poached fish. Mother swore by it.’

  For the next two days, Mrs Copeland wouldn’t leave. Whenever Isabel emerged from her room, Mrs Copeland appeared, large eyes glinting. She took control of the house, ordering the servants and dictating meals to Cook.

  In her room, Isabel lay for hours on her bed. The fingers of light on the ceiling shifted and shrank as the sun moved.

  On the third day, Sir Philip returned, this time accompanied by the British police officer. Mrs Copeland, peering out of the window, could hardly contain herself.

  ‘Six constables. Goodness. And a van.’

  Sir Philip wore a dark suit. He hovered at the drawing room door.

  ‘It is my duty to inform you that a post-mortem examination of the remains of your husband has revealed traces of datura in the viscera. Therefore I have registered his death as murder, under section three hundred and two of the Indian Penal Code.’

  It was his legal voice. She had heard it before, when he pronounced the final judgement on Asha’s father.

  ‘Datura?’

  The police officer said: ‘Poison, ma’am.’

  Sir Philip continued. ‘Isabel Whyte, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your husband, Jonathan Whyte.’

  The police officer shuffled his feet, then took a step forward. Isabel was seized by a rising wave of panic.

  ‘I’ll testify.’ Mrs Copeland seemed elated. ‘I’ve found evidence, in her writing case. She did it, all right.’ She turned on Isabel, her eyes full of spite. ‘Never liked her.’