The Linnet Bird: A Novel

by Linda Holeman

  I shook my head. Somers and I didn’t talk about anything anymore. In fact, we didn’t speak to each other at all, unless we were in the same room, with David.

  “To meet the enthusiasm for Chinese silk and tea at home, England had to pay in silver bullion. Now we want our silver back, and while the Chinese don’t want our textiles in exchange, they’re all too eager to pour it back out for opium. Arthur says several thousand tons of opium go up to Canton each year. All quite aboveboard. After all, the results of opium are no more than the pleasure derived from a glass of wine, or, for the men, their cigar after dinner.”

  “Is it sold here, in Calcutta, then, or did you bring it from Lucknow?”

  Meg shrugged, studying me. “It’s as easy to buy as tea, Linny. You just don’t get out enough. Goodness. I’ll have my box wallah bring some over, and you can arrange with him the quantity you want, and when you’d like it delivered. It is quite dear, mind. You can’t pay with chits; it must be rupees. Are you allowed your own money?”

  I smiled tightly. “I’ll have rupees.”

  “All right, then. Look for my man on Friday morning. His name is Ponoo. That’s his day to visit me; I’ll ask him to go on to your house afterward.”

  PONOO WAS A SQUINTING, neckless little man, missing all the fingers from his left hand. As well as opium, he carried tinned anchovy paste, French hair ribbons, and cooking utensils. I had occasionally used one of these peddlers when I didn’t want to leave the house because of the raging heat or a debilitating monsoon.

  Ponoo arrived just after ten on Friday, holding out a small can and naming a price. I quickly placed the rupees I had taken from the safe in Somers’s room into his fingerless hand. Somers didn’t know I knew about the safe, but of course I did. The safe and where he kept the key. Did he really think I never ventured into his bedroom while he was away? The safe was behind a false wall in his desk; I had discovered it out of sheer boredom one long rainy afternoon the first year of our marriage. He never gave me any money; I had to rely on signed chits to pay for everything, as did all the other wives. The chits were all sent directly to him, so he would know exactly what I had bought.

  In the safe were documents and business papers and a locked strongbox. It didn’t take me long to find the key to the strongbox in the pages of a book in Somers’s bookshelf. I had been stealing from Somers since the first few months of our marriage, hiding the money away in a place it would never be found, in a tin box to protect it from insects and damp. I don’t know why, except that it made me feel good. Every time I took a few bills from the stacks of rupees in the strongbox I felt the same power I had as a girl, slipping tiny objects under my bonnet and down my boots while a puffing man turned his back to wash himself and redo his buttons. Obviously Somers didn’t keep track of the amounts he put in and took out. I knew after the first time that he didn’t count—if he had, I would never have been able to steal any more, as he would have blamed either the servants or me, and I couldn’t have let any of them be punished for what I’d done. I would have been beaten, and Somers would have made sure I never saw the strongbox again.

  After the box wallah left I gave Malti more rupees and sent her to the bazaar to buy a hookah, ignoring her puzzled look. She returned with a small but splendid one, the stand and cup gleaming silver embossed with intricate dragons, and the mouthpiece an exquisitely carved piece of green jade.

  I promised myself that I would have only an occasional puff, when I was feeling particularly low. I stuck to my resolve for a week, but then smoked more and more. Ponoo became a regular Friday caller.

  I was careful to use my hookah only when David was asleep or outside with Malti, and never when Somers was home. Even with Meg’s assurances about the popularity and acceptance of the magical black balls, I felt uncomfortable about the enjoyment I derived from my White Smoke.

  Eventually I switched to a pipe. It was much easier to smoke than a hookah.

  June 24, 1837

  Dear Shaker and Celina,

  The Manchester-Liverpool Railway indeed sounds fine, as does your new home in the countryside of Cheshire. It must be lovely to be away from the noise and bustle of Liverpool, and enjoy the fine air and peacefulness.

  I am sorry I have not written as much of late. Time seems to stand still here. The quill slips between my fingers in the heat. The watered tatties and thermantidote are no weapon against the heat of the forge that masquerades as the sun. It brings on a lethargy that is impossible to describe. It makes even thinking difficult, a sad statement since the only real weapon to fight the climate is, it appears, the mind.

  The heat spreads, covering everything in its path as water over stones.

  I feel as if I am one of the leaves of our neem trees, dust laden, faded, hanging by a thin strand of a former steady stem. And should I submit, and drop to the walk below, I would instantly be swept aside by the waiting broom of a sweeper.

  David is growing. He is a lovely child.

  With my love,

  Linny

  P.S. There is something about the use of cinnamon I meant to tell you.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Hot Season, 1838

  I LOOKED DOWN AT DAVID, ASLEEP, AND CROONED TO HIM. “Nini, baba, nini.” Sleep, baby, sleep.

  He stirred restlessly, his golden hair plastered to his forehead. I smoothed it back, then wiped his face with a damp cloth and began again. “Nini, baba, ni—”

  “Linny! Stop that foolishness!”

  Somers leaned heavily against the doorjamb. His own hair was damp with perspiration, his shirt soaked down the front. I rose and pulled the netting down over the cot and nodded at the punkah boy, who pulled more vigorously on the fan.

  “Don’t wake him,” I whispered, once I was out in the hallway. “It’s hard to get him to sleep in this heat.”

  Somers shook his head. “Singing those damn Indian baby songs to him, like he was still an infant. Bad enough that Malti coddles him.”

  “All ayahs coddle their charges, Somers. That’s why they’re ayahs.”

  “And that’s why it’s a damn good thing the children can’t be with them any longer than their first five or six years. It’s not good for him.”

  I turned my head from Somers; the words sounded obscene coming from him.

  “He’s a great strong lad, past five now, and should be treated as such. The best thing that can happen to that boy will be when he goes home within the year.”

  I stopped breathing. I had refused to think about this fact. It was too overwhelming. What would happen? I could never bear to be parted from David, but I doubted Somers would allow me to accompany him back to England. He had made it clear, over and over, that I must always be under his supervision, and could have no freedom, implying I would immediately embarrass him.

  “Yes,” Somers went on now, “he needs some decent schooling, and to learn how to behave in a proper manner. The way you let him run around barefoot with the servants’ children is deplorable. And allowing him to chatter in Hindi . . . the natives’ tongues are peppered with improper words and immoral ideas. I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate his errant behavior.”

  How dare he call anyone immoral? Preaching about the servants and my own child when he himself was . . . the way he was. A brute who relished hurting young boys, who thought nothing of raising his hand to me.

  “At least he’s healthy and strong,” I retorted. “Isn’t that what’s most important? The graveyards all over India are full of English children.”

  I thought of Malti’s words, only yesterday, as we had stopped cutting flowers in the garden to watch David, babbling excitedly with the mali’s seven-year-old daughter.

  “My David-baba is not like an English at all,” Malti said, following his every move.

  David was darkened by the sun; he often forgot to wear his hated solar topee, yet his skin didn’t burn. He had a mass of shining blond curls and his black eyes sparkled as he chattered in Hindi about the huge toad he an
d the little girl had caught in the garden. She held the squirming creature firmly in both hands as David touched it.

  “Yes, David-baba is more like a little native, strong and unafraid, is he not, Mem Linny? He does not fall prey to the usual illnesses of the English babas here, and is not listless and nervous as they are. Come, my choti baba,” she called, “come. Give your ayah a kiss.”

  David frowned at us. “I’m not a little baby, Malti. Am I, Mother? I’m a warrior and I shall ride my horse to battle. The toad is our prisoner, the Emperor of China!” He and the girl ran off, and I thought, as I did each day now, how David was like his father, straight and proud and kind-hearted.

  I blinked now, looking at Somers in the dim hall. He’d changed so much in the seven years I’d known him, his once good looks completely gone now. He had put on ever more weight from overeating rich foods, his face was bloated from constant drinking, and he had grown a full beard, which aged him. What would happen to David—and to me?

  “MEM LINNY,” MALTI CALLED quietly at the bedroom door. “Your ladies are come now.”

  I opened the door. “Did you seat them in the drawing room?”

  “Of course. You are looking very pretty today, Mem,” Malti added, eyeing my ruffled gown. “You must wear your fine clothes more often.”

  I took a deep breath, then fixed a smile on my face and walked to the drawing room. “Hilda. And Jessica. How lovely to see you.”

  My visitors rose, taking turns pecking my cheek. They were wives of men in Somers’s office; it was a wearying game of polite visits back and forth simply because our husbands worked together.

  “Are you feeling better now, dear?” Hilda asked, her mouth a concerned moue. “Somers said you were poorly last week. We did so miss you at the Sawyers’ musical evening. It was quite a jolly affair, although of course the upper registers of Frederick Jewitt’s viola are still frightfully squeaky.”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, trying to remember when the Sawyers’ party had been, or if I had even heard about it. Somers didn’t tell me about events anymore, preferring to go alone. I knew he would pop in and then hurry away on the pretense of my being ill, although of course he rarely came home directly.

  “I must say, Linny, if falling ill would keep my weight down, I wouldn’t mind. How do you keep your waist so small? No amount of corseting can do that.”

  “She’s only had one baby, that’s what does it, Hilda,” Jessica retorted. “Believe me, there’s no such thing as a tiny waist after six confinements.” She looked down at her massive bulk, a rueful expression on her face, then immediately helped herself to a cream bun from the tray beside her.

  “Well, you must get busy, Linny, and give David a little brother or sister,” Hilda said, tapping my knee with her closed fan. Then she took a tiny hinged mirror from her handbag and inspected the frizzled fringe of orange hair that rose from her high forehead. “He’s, what—five now?—and before you know it he’ll be sent home, and you’ll need more children to keep you from being too lonely.” She snapped the mirror shut and returned it to her bag. “With my Sarah and Florence gone, I’d go mad without little Lucy. And by the time she leaves, Sarah should be finished school and hopefully returning to us.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, shaking my head as the khitmutgar offered me a glass of lemonade.

  “Did you hear what happened in the Maidan yesterday?” Jessica asked.

  Grateful for the change of subject, I leaned forward.

  “It was the oddest thing,” she continued, licking thick white cream from her thumb. “This . . . dark man, not an Indian, mind you, but dark, was on a huge horse and circling the Maidan. Some say he was peering at English women. I didn’t observe that, but can you imagine? The cheek. Quite upsetting.”

  Hilda took over. “I was there,” she said, triumphantly, as if she had performed a heroic deed. “None of us had any idea what he was looking for. Can you imagine? A big ruffian, having the audacity to take an interest in us. Guess he’s seen enough of his own sort, and was—what shall we say?—titillated by the look of white women. I tell you, I was quite shaken when he looked in my direction.” She touched her faded hair coquettishly. “Of course, he was driven away quickly, but—oh, what is it, Linny?”

  I stood, clutching my abdomen with trembling hands. “I suppose I haven’t quite recovered from whatever it is that’s been bothering me recently.”

  “Sit down, Linny. Breathe deeply. Hilda, finish the story.”

  “Well, he was bold as brass, not at all a gentleman. Of course, he couldn’t be. After all, he was one of those foreign breeds. And sitting on his horse as if he owned the square.” They both looked at me.

  “I’m sure you’ll excuse me.” I hurried out of the room. Faintness overtook me just outside the door, and I leaned against the wall, wishing to extract even a fraction of coolness from the plaster.

  “She’ll not last here much longer,” I heard Hilda say. “That frail, nervous sort never do. She’s worn to fiddlesticks. And there’s something odd about her eyes, don’t you think? Very dark. Too dark.”

  “I tell you, it’s her husband I pity. She must not be any sort of company for him at all, always so poorly. It’s no wonder there are no more children. He probably knows another one would kill her. Poor man.”

  I steadied myself and went to my bedroom. When had I become one of India’s casualties, one of the frail, nervous sort? They could have been describing Faith. Or the woman Meg was now.

  AFTER I HAD TUCKED David into bed that evening, I walked out into the front garden. I slowly approached the acacia tree beside the gate, running my fingers over its bumpy bark. In the air I thought there might be a mild suggestion of rain. Could the monsoons be coming early?

  At the sudden bark of a jackal from the darkness beyond the houses, there was a rush of rubbery wings. I tilted my head back to watch as bats, big as crows, rose from the acacia, their black ribbed wings cutting the fading sky. Leaning against the tree, I looked down the darkening, empty street, straining my ears for the sound of hooves. I knew I was being ridiculous. Every so often a Pathan rode through Calcutta. It meant nothing.

  I stayed there, my eyes fixed on the street that led to the Maidan. Finally the fireflies were dancing spots of light and the sky dark and furrowed, the moon resting heavily, and Somers called sharply from the doorway that I was to come inside.

  THE NEXT MORNING I sat in the verandah fingering the same page of my book over and over. I hadn’t been able to sleep more than an hour or two, and my head ached in a tiresome way. Malti arrived home from the daily shopping, and I saw that her face was dark with dismay, and she was muttering to herself as she placed a new bottle of ink on the escritoire.

  “What is it, Malti?” I said, coming through the flung back doors into the bedroom.

  Malti gave me a sideways glance. “Nothing, Mem Linny,” she answered, rearranging the paper and quills and books on the desk. She stopped and looked at me.

  “There’s something, Malti. You must tell me.” I licked my lips. “Did you . . . see anything today? Anything . . . unusual?”

  “I saw nothing,” she replied, her tone strangely curt.

  “Was there any new gossip, then?”

  Malti pushed the bottle of ink back and forth on the polished wood. “You do not usually inquire about the wagging tongues in the square.”

  “Well, today I’m asking. Did you overhear anything?”

  “It is not worth repeating, mem. Many of the ayahs have allowed their voices to grow as sharp as those of their mistresses. They do not have enough work to do, it appears, and so devise stories to pass the time.”

  I lowered myself to the chair beside the desk. “What are these stories, Malti?”

  There was pain on Malti’s gentle face. “It is just more silly talk of the man, Mem Linny, from the northwest frontier. The ayahs say he continues to ride about the Maidan, looking at the English ladies. It is said he has spoken a name.” She shook her head, her brow f
urrowed. “Can you imagine such nonsense? He will shortly be arrested. This kind of behavior is not acceptable, and—Mem Linny. What is it?” She looked down, and I followed her gaze. I saw that I was gripping her dark hands in my own.

  “Did anyone tell him where I live? Does he know where I am?”

  “Oh, Mem Linny, be still. Hush, hush. Do not be worried. It is only the bad memories of your troubled time at Simla which frighten you now. And surely the bitter hens simply wish to stir up trouble with their simple tale, for . . . Mem Linny? What are you doing?”

  I flew to the dressing table, pinning up long loose strands of hair, my shaking hands scattering hairpins over the floor. I buttoned the collar of my dress and whirled around to Malti. “Do I look presentable?”

  Malti’s face closed. “You are fine, Mem Linny, fine, as always.” Her voice was careful. “But come now, sit down. I will prepare your pipe. That will calm you. And then I will bring you a cup of your favorite tea.”

  “I don’t want my pipe. There’s no time. Come, come with me. David . . . David, where is David?”

  “He plays with the Wilton children until late afternoon, Mem Linny. Do you not remember?”

  “Take my reticule, Malti, and come, follow me.” I ran down the hall, turning to urge Malti to hurry. She trailed slowly, clutching the small taupe bag to her chest. As I approached the front door the chuprassi appeared, ready to open the door for me. He put his hand on the brass doorknob.

  “Please, Malti! There may not be much time. Can’t you walk any faster?” I gestured to the chuprassi, but before he could open the door it swung inward.