The Linnet Bird: A Novel

by Linda Holeman

  I walked to the wide windows and looked at the darkness beyond. Suddenly the country was threatening, dark and watching. “Even if I were to agree to this ridiculous proposal, how would we keep our true relationship hidden? For there could be no pretending that we could ever care, even the slightest, about each other.”

  “Quite simple, really. We’re both experts at living lies. We’ll live as man and wife under the same roof, but spend as little time together as possible. We don’t even have to share dinner, unless we have company. My job here”—he smiled, snapping his fingers at the khitmutgar, who stepped forward, lighting a flint match—“keeps me very busy. I’m often away for weeks. And I like to go off to the jungle, hunting. So we won’t have to see each other for much of the time. When we are forced together while in public, or in the presence of guests in our own home, your life will appear to be that of the proper bride. You’ll want for nothing.

  “I ask only two things of you,” he continued. “Firstly, you must never breathe a word about whatever it is I might do, or with whom. Of course that’s understood. And secondly, should you ever, ever, revert to your ways, even once, and disgrace me with your whoring, you shall be out of my home in less time than it will take for me to smoke this cheroot. Out with nothing but the clothes on your back. I’ll not be cuckolded.”

  He sucked deeply on the cheroot as the khitmutgar held the match to its tip. I watched his handsome face in the brief glow of the match, and in that sudden flare of light I wondered what it would be like to rise to this daring challenge. In the next instant I shuddered involuntarily, imagining what hell he would make my life, and how I would forever be made to dance to his tune. I turned away from him.

  “Linny? Do you understand completely?”

  “Oh yes. Yes, Mr. Ingram, I do.”

  “And you’re in agreement with the plan?”

  When I didn’t answer, Somers came to stand behind me. “There’s a ship, the Bengal Merchant, sailing for home in three days. You could be on it, in disgrace, if you don’t answer carefully.”

  I TOLD MR. INGRAM I’d need time to weigh my decision carefully. And in the early morning of the third day I packed my trunks and sent my ayah to wake Mrs. Waterton and tell her I was leaving. Then I went to Faith’s room and woke her, sitting on the edge of the bed as I told her of my decision.

  Her face first registered complete disbelief, followed by confusion, then disappointment and sadness. “You’re leaving Calcutta? Now? But . . . but why, Linny? I don’t understand. And—well, I thought our spoken commitment was that you would be my companion, until . . . until either I went home or, more hopefully, had reason to stay. It’s only February; the season isn’t officially over until the beginning of April, and there’s even time after that.” She was still in her bed, now staring at the floor. “I thought you loved it here. You told me that you loved it, Linny, loved it. That you’d never felt so wonderful, and now—now you’re just up and leaving. Do you really want to go back to Everton and your cousin and aunt that badly? Is it that you miss them? You’re homesick?”

  I clenched my back teeth, but before I had a chance to answer, Faith continued.

  “No one, but absolutely no one starts the tiresome voyage home again after such a short time. It’s unheard of. You haven’t given it a chance, that’s it. And—and . . .” She looked around wildly, as if hoping to draw reasons for me to stay out of the air. “And my father will be ever so displeased. He’s on his way here right now, aboard a ship that is due to arrive sometime within the next few months. He only gave his consent to all of this—to me coming the season ahead of him—because I spoke so endlessly and highly of you. And now if he comes, and you’re not here . . . he shall report to Mr. Smallpiece, to your guardian, that you’ve broken your part of the bargain, and his embarrassment—your cousin’s—will be your burden to bear. So you can’t leave, Linny. You simply can’t.” She scrambled out of bed, grabbing my arms so that I was forced to stand too, facing her. “Please. Say you’ll stay. Just for me.”

  I looked at her pretty face. How she had changed, starting the moment we had left the docks at Liverpool. I had kept waiting for her to adjust to the strangeness of all that was India. But it seemed she had fallen out of step, somehow, even with the atmosphere of England smothering us here in Calcutta. She had become ever more complacent, less outspoken, perhaps even fearful, while I had found my place in the world. Faith was out of her element, and I was in mine. Or had been.

  “I can’t explain to you why I have to go.” I prayed that once I left, without telling Mr. Ingram, he would say nothing. But then again he might decide, simply out of spite—remembering his expression, that smug knowledge that he would get what he wanted—to go ahead and start the stories about me.

  “But the season isn’t out for another six weeks. Two months or more, as I said. There’s still time.”

  “For what?”

  “For someone to show interest.”

  “I know someone will, Faith. Aren’t you seeing Mr. Snow quite regularly?”

  “I meant for you, Linny. Time for someone to ask you for your hand. You mustn’t despair.”

  “That’s not it,” I said. “I came to be your companion. It wasn’t my intention to marry here. I told you that before we left. I just thought I might . . . stay . . .” Again, my reasoning was flimsy. I walked out of Faith’s room. Crying, she followed me out to the waiting palanquin, wearing her dressing gown. We were followed by Mrs. Waterton, her clothing obviously thrown on in a great hurry; it was clear she wasn’t wearing her stays. She wrung her hands, her face a crumpled mask of dismay. I saw Mr. Waterton poke his head out the door, looking mulish, and then he retreated back inside.

  “This doesn’t look well on us, dear. It’s as if we haven’t made you happy here,” she said. “Mr. Vespry entrusted Faith—and you—to us. And now you’re leaving, with no traveling companion for the voyage home. I don’t know of any married women on the Bengal Merchant at this point. It’s not right, just not right at all. These things have to be planned, with all kinds of arrangements.”

  “I sent the chuprassi to book my passage, and will use the return ticket bought by Mr. Vespry. I promise I can look after myself,” I told her, thanking her for her hospitality. The palanquin runners loaded up my luggage, and I left. I looked back at the two women standing outside the beautiful villa, gleaming whitely in the morning sun. Mrs. Waterton fluttered a handkerchief, while Faith covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking as she wept.

  I left the curtains open as we rode through Calcutta. It was my first and last time to ride through the city, alone, and drink in India through all my senses.

  Again, as at the dock that first day, it was the vividness of color that was so astounding. The light was yellow. I thought of the blue light of England, and how it made everything appear slightly worn. A soft, soporific light, creating a life that was standing still, accepting. Here, in this brilliant light, my eyelids felt burned away, making it impossible to close my eyes. We passed the last house on Garden Reach, then turned up a smaller street. Here the houses were still in the European fashion, but smaller and meaner. The roofs were thatched, the walls stained with mildew. These were the homes of the employees of the uncovenanted civil service, the men who were Eurasian, who were born here and tainted with Indian blood, no matter how distant the union had been. That bloodline ensured there could never be any hope to rise above the uncovenanted rank in the Company. Half-caste children ran about—grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the pairing of the native women and men from the John Company, before British women were allowed to come to this wild and dangerous country. Some of the children were startlingly European looking, others darker and more native.

  Finally we were at the docks. They were teeming, swarming with life and noise as they had been when we arrived. I thought of the morning Faith and I left Liverpool, how the dull fog had swirled about us, dampening our clothes and skin and chilling us in the silence. I imagined
arriving there again, in the same fog, trudging out to find a carriage, and then the ride to Whitefield Lane, past Paradise Street and then Bold Street and the Lyceum. I imagined the look on Shaker’s face, the light in his eyes when he saw me. And then I imagined myself years later, still living in Everton, a withered old woman in a black coat and bonnet turning green. I imagined my own face, my eyesight failing and my penmanship losing its firmness as I bent over the recording cards at the Lyceum, obediently hidden behind the stacks.

  I stood beside my piled luggage, my ticket in my hand. From nowhere a near-naked sadhu, a holy man, twirled and shouted his way through a crowd of uninterested women in fuchsia, turquoise, and orange saris. The sadhu’s body gleamed blue-black under its covering of smeared wood ash, and his dense, wiry hair hung like twisted ropes, the parting on his scalp vermilion dusted. I recognized the three horizontal lines painted with a thick white substance on his forehead, indicating that he was a follower of Shiva, the god of death. As he leaped about, closer and closer, the layers of beads on his chest danced and clattered. He came straight at me, as if he had been searching for me, and I stared into his bloodshot eyes. He shouted something into my face, spraying me with saliva, and his breath was rank with the smell of betel and stomach rot. I didn’t understand the words, but I knew the meaning. It was a warning, a premonition. A man in an army uniform and solar topee pushed him rudely away from me, asking if I was all right. I nodded, but couldn’t speak.

  I understood the portent of the sadhu.

  I RETURNED IN A PALANQUIN. When the door was opened by the chuprassi, he stared at me, then behind me, with a look of modified horror at my lack of decorum at calling at a gentleman’s house, unchaperoned.

  “I wish to speak to Mr. Ingram,” I said. “Is he still at home?”

  He nodded, but stood, immobile, blocking the door.

  “Come now,” I said, pushing past him and into the entrance hall. “I must see him. Please summon him for me.” When the man still didn’t move, I started through the house, to the room where Mr. Ingram and I had last spoken. By the time I reached the hallway a small herd of servants trailed, obviously distressed with my boldness.

  I stopped in front of the shuttered door, my hand raised to knock. But a breeze rattled the shutter before I had the chance, and there was movement inside; perhaps my shadow had been cast into the room, my presence announced.

  “Hazi? Is that you? Have you got my clean collar?”

  I pulled open the shuttered door. “No. It’s me, Mr. Ingram,” I said, and stepped inside the room with the moreen canopy, firmly shutting the door on the concerned servants.

  Somers Ingram stood behind his desk. He wore only his trousers and an unbuttoned collarless shirt, the cuffs undone. His hair, lacking its usual pomade, curled about his ears and neck. In spite of what had passed between us, I was still struck by his appearance.

  I felt the closed door at my back.

  Mr. Ingram came toward me, his face unreadable. “To what do I owe this early morning visit?” he asked.

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  He came closer. I smelled soap, the starch of his shirt. “And?” I could see now that although he was trying to hide it, there was a shallowness in the rise and fall of his bare chest that belied his attempted nonchalance.

  “I agree to your terms.”

  “To be my wife,” he confirmed, and his voice came out with less than his usual surety. When I nodded, he raised the knuckle of his index finger to his mustache in that tiny, quick way I had come to watch for. And in seeing his body’s involuntary reaction—his breathing, his voice, the touch of his mustache—I felt a small sense of pride, of accomplishment, for I knew then that no matter how he tried to act as if my decision meant little to him one way or another, that my final answer had been the one he’d actually hoped for.

  “You’ve made the right decision, Linny. For don’t you see? We are the same. We both hide something, and we both must stay at the level of acceptance we have attained here. It will go much easier on both of us this way. There need be no sham between us; we understand each other. Do you not see it this way?” he repeated.

  I didn’t answer, turning my face from his. While it might be true that he found a part of me loathsome, as I did him, there could be no denying that for all his bluster, I saw that I did hold some power over him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  February 15, 1831

  My dearest Shaker,

  It is difficult to compose this letter, only because it is one I never expected to write to you. I know that by the time you read this you will have only just received my initial packet of letters, telling you about my new life here. I wrote those letters with a heart full of joy, with the lightness of shaking off an old life and beginning one anew. And now this brief page is written in a different vein, with a heavy heart. There is no other way to say it but this: I am to be married within a fortnight. Of course, by the time you read this I expect I shall have been married for months.

  It was a completely unexpected and, as you must know, unforeseeable, event. The words I spoke to you last summer, before I left Liverpool, were true. So please dismiss from your imagination romantic trysts, passion, or even the hint of friendship. This is not a marriage that involves any emotion for either the gentleman or myself. It is a marriage of convenience. I can say no more, although I know you are now thinking—a marriage of convenience? Did I not speak this phrase to her myself, suggesting that this could have worked for us? But Shaker, there is more to this, so much more. There are things I can never explain, a hard, linked chain of events from my past that precipitated this union, each link rusted, forever fixed. And it is due to that dark time that I must become Mrs. Somers Ingram. He is a gentleman from London, in the employ of the East India Company.

  I can write no more at this time. As is apparent from the appearance of this letter, my hand is far from steady. Please forgive me, and please, please dictate a letter in reply. I await each posting from England with great eagerness. Although you may not have forgiven me enough to wish to correspond, at least my letters have not been returned, and I take this as an agreement to this one-sided correspondence. Should you feel that contacting me is impossible, I will understand. But again I beg you, please, Shaker, do not cast me from your life, for in many ways, I feel that I need you even more now.

  With deepest affection,

  Linny

  Writing to Shaker was the most difficult aspect of marrying Somers, even more difficult that trying to explain my decision to Faith. After I had given Somers my consent and we’d discussed when the event would take place—of course, as soon as possible, as Somers wanted no dillydallying or false courtship rituals—I returned to the Watertons’. I found Faith, pale and listless, on the verandah. A servant stood behind her, fanning her with a peacock fan. She sat up straight, her mouth falling open, as I stepped through the doors.

  “You didn’t go, then? You’ve changed your mind?” she asked, jumping to her feet.

  I nodded.

  “I knew you couldn’t abandon me, Linny. I just knew it.” She gave me a quick hug.

  “I must tell you of my plans, Faith,” I said. “Sit down. Please.”

  She lowered herself to the rattan settee. The boy immediately resumed his fanning. “Plans?”

  Taking a deep breath, I sat beside her and took her hands in mine. “I’m to be married, Faith.”

  Her fingers contracted, and I felt the bite of her nails against the backs of my hands. “Married? But . . . but to whom? There’s been nobody—”

  “I know. It’s come about quite suddenly. It’s Somers Ingram.”

  Faith frowned, then shook her head. “Somers Ingram? Mr. Ingram?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s never even come to call. I’ve hardly noticed you speaking to him or dancing with him more than a few times. I . . . I don’t know what to think, Linny. What to say.”

  There was silence, except for the soft swoosh of the beau
tiful fan.

  “The wedding will be in two weeks. February twenty-eighth. Somers—Mr. Ingram—says it must be before the approach of the hot season.”

  At that Faith wrenched her hands from mine and stood, an odd expression on her face. “Well. You are a sly boots. I see you’re capable of doing quite well for yourself, after all. And here I was, pitying you.” She was bristling with anger now. “It appears you’ve been working some black Hindu magic behind my back—behind all our backs. It’s well known that Mr. Ingram has been quite unattainable—and he is certainly a handsome and charming catch, as you obviously know. And with his senior position in the service—well, Linny, you will find yourself quite a senior lady, won’t you? You will even be above Mrs. Waterton in rank.”

  I swallowed. I had not for one second thought of my own position as Somer’s wife within Calcutta society.

  “Apparently a number of girls have tried for a match with him, but he wasn’t interested,” Faith went on. “There is the usual rumor of course—that he has a black mistress—and then . . . the other rumor.”

  “Which is?” Was the secret Somers Ingram thought he kept so well hidden common knowledge after all? But Faith’s next sentence assured me this wasn’t so.

  “That he might like a woman with a naughty edge; that he’s looking for more. And perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye, Linny. What is it, exactly, that has so attracted Mr. Ingram to you where the rest of us have failed? And why is it that you felt you had to hide everything from me? Why have you been so selfish?”

  “It isn’t like that at all, Faith.”

  “It isn’t? You didn’t bother to confide in me for one moment, to tell me you were even interested in Mr. Ingram. And there I was, making a fool of myself with him only a few weeks ago, thinking that if Mr. Snow was too shy to come forward, Mr. Ingram certainly seemed attracted. You must have been laughing at me the whole time.” She bunched her skirt around her and swept past me, stopping at the verandah doors. “Well, don’t expect me to attend your wedding, Linny Smallpiece, for I no longer consider you a friend. I should have listened to my instincts, and to everyone in Liverpool who advised me that you might not be a suitable companion. Did you know that, Linny? That I was cautioned against becoming too close to you by more than one? And I thought they proved right only hours earlier today, when you told me you were leaving India, and me. But now this? This? Showing me up, marrying before I’ve had a proposal? You, whom I rescued from that dreary library and even more dreary existence in that awful, provincial Everton, bringing you here out of the goodness of my heart and with the purse of my father. You made it perfectly clear that you had little interest in marriage, for some completely unknown and ridiculous reason. And now you dare to be the first of our entire fleet to become engaged—and with a wedding date set in such a hurried, preposterous manner? It’s as if everything you’ve said is a lie. And it’s too much for me, Linny. Just too much.”