Not Yet Drown'd

by Peg Kingman

  Aboard Castor, Hector was engrossed by some interesting aspect of the packing or the bearing where the shaft passed through the bow, and Grace was leaning over his shoulder and pointing at something. Harini had awakened; she was talking spiritedly with Sharada, who sat coiled at the edge of Harini’s litter. Catherine made her way along the bank to Dr Carey’s summerhouse perched above the river, and looked out to where the sun, setting now in an orange haze, made a broad swath reflecting in the river. Behind Catherine on the broad grass path under the avenue of blooming mango trees, Dr Carey and Mr Fleming walked together, talking now in low confidential tones.

  When it was time to go, Dr Carey himself came to fetch Catherine from the summerhouse. “I am so glad to have met you, Mrs MacDonald,” he said as he escorted her back along the bank toward the landing place. “Although my acquaintance with your brother was unfortunately brief, he left a vivid and memorable impression. He was a person of great talents and, though still young, of considerable accomplishments. There is no telling what he might not have done if an inscrutable Providence had allowed him to remain among us. I know that Mr Fleming thinks so, too. And he has also told me how glad he is to have made your acquaintance—indeed, to have gained your friendship.”

  He stopped at the top of the steps leading down to the water. No one stood near them, and he went on in a lower voice: “Now, Mrs MacDonald, do permit an old clergyman one small liberty. I see that you are skeptical and sore, but appearances notwithstanding—and I admit that the situation appears neither regular nor respectable—still, permit me assure you that there is nothing improper in our friend’s relations with that poor lady.”

  After a nearly imperceptible pause, Catherine said, “Thank you for your praise of my brother, Dr Carey. It gives me pleasure to hear him spoken of so kindly. But as for what you tell me of—of Mr Fleming, I must know: Is it at Mr Fleming’s request that you make this declaration to me?”

  He drew a deep breath, considering, before he replied: “He did ask me to tell you the history of Harini. He is too modest to speak of his own good deeds; and I would be sorry to see him punished for them. But I see your skepticism welling up again, stronger than ever. I am not such an old fool as I appear. I have been married and widowed and have brought up children, and have buried children, and alas, grandchildren. I am no one’s dupe. I cannot force your belief, and I don’t know anyone who can. But if you will not be convinced by any assurance from me, I beg you will consult your own knowledge of the man, your own knowledge of his character.” He nodded toward the boat.

  Catherine saw that Mr Fleming was just stepping aboard Castor and calling to Hector, “Are we fit to cast off? The mosquitoes are out in force!”

  “We are,” replied Hector. “We have just been examining that seal, and my niece has suggested an improvement that had never occurred to me.”

  “Ah, the entire family is so richly talented!” said Dr Carey as they descended the steps to the water and he courteously handed Catherine aboard.

  Catherine was in turmoil, deeply agitated. She gazed fixedly at the bank as it slid past in the last light, seeing nothing, but acutely aware that Mr Fleming stood at his ease not far away, hands in his pockets, talking with Mr Anderson, the engineer. She would have so liked to believe Dr Carey’s assurances!

  She was still trying to calm herself when they arrived at Serampore. Here Mr Fleming and Harini went ashore to remain at his villa.

  Once Mr Fleming was not nearby, Catherine became calmer, and the pounding of her heart gradually eased. She consoled herself with her secret—still a secret—her growing assurance that Sandy was alive somewhere in this exquisite, dazzling, frightening country, in this land of gold and beautiful women and tigers and opium poppies and deadly snakes. She was glad that she had never spoken to Mr Fleming of this secret intuition of hers. After all, what was he to her? Nothing, nothing at all.

  The river was glassy smooth, inky black. Castor and Pollux steamed easily downstream, back down toward Calcutta, in the warm, fragrant dusk. Hector was as happy as she had ever seen him. He and the captain of Castor indulged themselves at last in a race; and Hector was exultant as his pet Pollux gradually drew ahead.

  18

  Cut with Strength & prodigious Quickness

  “Oh, ice!” cried Catherine. “Do let us have a wee bit, Hector. We are utterly suffocating, Grace and I. Who could ever have credited such heat? The mercury stands at ninety-three degrees on the veranda, and it is only half past ten. Ah, put this on your neck, Grace. Oh, wherever did you get ice, Hector?”

  “Mr Fleming brought it just now. This very ice—oh don’t, Catherine, you’ll drip all over my charts—this very ice is to be our first cargo. It has been carried from the glaciers of North America by that American brig which came up yesterday. It is Mr Fleming’s great coup, you see; we are contracted for its carriage up the river, right up to the Company’s station at Patna. There it should fetch a great price, for what little ice they are able to make, up in the country, is poor stuff, soft and quick to rot; nothing at all like these massive clear blocks cut from the ice fields of Juneau. But of course, speed is of the essence. We are to cut up the river in the most dashing style. The record for a passage up to Patna stands at thirty days.”

  “Something tells me that you expect to do it faster.”

  “Mr Fleming has engaged to deliver that ice to Patna within twenty-one days.”

  “Oh, Hector!”

  “Oh, Catherine!” he retorted. “And we embark as soon as the ice is transferred aboard Castor and Camber—within these forty-eight hours if the stevedores can be got to work with a good will.”

  “Where is Patna? How far is it?”

  “Here it is on the chart. It is just about five hundred miles—first up the Hoogly, then on the Ganges.”

  “In twenty-one days!”

  “And the ice melting away every minute in this infernal heat. Pray have the people bring my tiffin down to me at the river, my dear. I certainly shan’t have time to come back here for it.”

  Away he went, but then he came back in to tell her what he had forgotten: “Mr Fleming says that you and Grace are most welcome to remain here, on the premises, in our absence if you would rather not go into lodgings. Mr Morris would look after you.”

  Catherine did not respond. Rather, when he left again, she turned back to his chart, spread across the table. Tracing her finger up the broad winding Ganges, she saw Ghazipur, not so very far above Patna. Ghazipur, the very heart of the Company’s fantastically valuable opium monopoly. Ghazipur, where Sandy was said to have died.

  Ever since the pleasure outing to Mr Fleming’s villa at Serampore—so unpleasurable!—Catherine had avoided him. Whenever he came to the Crawford & Fleming premises to consult with Hector, she was careful to keep out of his way. Twice, at the shipyard with Hector, she had seen him approaching, and she had abruptly slipped away. He had sent several invitations—to a nautch, to a durbar. She had replied with terse little notes: “Mrs MacDonald regrets that she is unable to accept Mr Fleming’s invitation.” It was not that she wished to rebuke him, but only that she could not find any way of being in his presence. She tried not to think of him, and during the daylight hours she usually succeeded. As far as she could tell, Hector was oblivious to all of this.

  But now, under her finger, lay an opportunity to make her way up to the opium districts where Sandy had, or had not, died. She had to go there if she could. For this she must somehow set aside her unwillingness to encounter Mr Fleming. She must find some way of being indifferent to the nearness of him.

  “Let the two of us go up to Patna too, shall we?” she said to Grace. “Pray bring me my lap desk, my dear. I shall have to write to Mr Fleming about it directly.”

  Her letter was difficult to compose. It required three drafts, over as many hours, with a pause to see that Hector’s tiffin was taken down to him. The letter she finally sent was polite and impersonal, but not quite so remote as the notes in which she had
referred to herself as “Mrs MacDonald.”

  When this request had been written and sent at last, Catherine had herself and her maid ferried across the river to Calcutta, as her errands were now suddenly urgent. She bought more floss for her canvaswork: several shades of green, a considerable quantity of blue and russet, and some gray. The ordinary wool worsted that was so common at home was not to be found in the bazaar here; but with Sharada’s help she bought silk yarns instead—thick, twisted, lustrous strands of deep-dyed silk. As she recrossed the river to the shipyards of Howrah, she consigned to Captain Robbins, of the homebound ship Alacrity, the last of the bagpipe music which she had finally finished copying out, for Mary’s safekeeping in Edinburgh.

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS nearly midnight before Hector came back from the shipyard, he found Catherine and his supper waiting for him. She still had not received any reply from Mr Fleming.

  “Now, Catherine, what is all this nonsense I hear from Mr Fleming?” he demanded.

  “What nonsense, my dear?” she said as she spooned the mutton stew over the fragrant rice on his plate and set it before him.

  “And I am vastly annoyed that you have gone around me in this matter, gone and made a nuisance of yourself to him,” he said. “Why did you not mention this—this preposterous notion of cruising up to Patna—to me rather than annoying him with it?”

  “Is he annoyed?”

  “I am annoyed! It is the most ridiculous thing!” he declared, stabbing fiercely at the mutton. “You and Grace should only be very much in the way. Nothing could be more undesirable than to carry passengers on this first passage. Neither of the ships is fitted out for the comfort of passengers—lady passengers in particular. And I suppose you should require an attendant of some sort as well, your maid, which makes three—”

  “Aye, certainly. I have already spoken to her about it. As it happens, she is a native of that region and would be very glad to go up and see her old father there once more if he is still alive.”

  “But Catherine, it is out of the question. There is no room, and we shall have no time or energy to spare for keeping females comfortable and safe and well fed. Not to mention amused. You would find it not at all amusing, I daresay.”

  “Amusing! Do you imagine it is amusement that I seek?”

  Hector set down his glass firmly. “But what in the world do you seek, Catherine? What sort of life do you expect ever to make for yourself and that child in India, of all places?” He gestured about the room in general, at India in general.

  Someone was singing, out in the town surrounding the shipyards, the heart raised up on the voice. Drunk, or heartbroken; or both.

  “Everyone has to be somewhere,” said Catherine at last.

  She offered the dish of mutton once more, and Hector heaped a second helping onto his plate next to the spicy potatoes. “It has a very strong taste, this mutton,” he observed with his mouth full.

  “That’s because when it walked into the courtyard at noon, bleating, it was a goat,” explained Catherine. “With a Roman nose and long drooping ears.”

  Hector went on, “If you do not like to remain here in Howrah, nor to take lodgings in Calcutta, Mr Fleming would offer you and Grace the use of his villa up at Serampore. Only he thought you would not take it, that you would not like to go there—though I cannot see why; I thought it exceedingly pleasant.”

  “Of course I will not go there.”

  “Aye, Mr Fleming said you would not; but I do not see why.”

  “Oh, Hector! Surely you cannot have failed to notice the ‘housekeeper’?”

  “So that is it—the crippled girl. Did you want him to give her up? Throw her out? Would that make you happy?”

  “Of course not. It is nothing to do with me. But I certainly will not go there.”

  “You have been skittish as a ghost lately, Catherine. Flitting away whenever Mr Fleming appears. Of course I have noticed! I am not yet rendered insensible. And now, suddenly, you beg he will carry you and your female train up to Patna. What is in Patna to induce you to overcome your aversion?”

  Catherine checked herself, and considered for quite a long moment. A bat squeaked in the eaves. At last she said, “A fine fair question. It is not Patna. It is Ghazipur. I must go up there, Hector. I must see the place for myself.”

  “The place…?”

  “Where, they have told us, Sandy met with his accident.”

  “Why, my dear? It can do you no good, no good in all the world, to see the place itself. You cannot bring him back to life; it can only cause you more sorrow.”

  “But I think quite differently, Hector. I do not expect to bring him back to life. You see, I do not feel that he has parted this life. I cannot just believe in this accident.”

  “Still, Catherine! Still, after nearly two years, are you unable to bear this fact?”

  “It is not a fact. His body was never found. And he went to some trouble to send me that parcel, you remember, containing the tea and the shawl—and the bagpipe tunes with the message that he is Not Yet Drown’d.” Furthermore, though she did not say this to her skeptical scoffing scientific brother, she could feel that Sandy was not dead. If he were dead, she would know it. And she did not know it.

  “My dear, you are only grasping at straws in the wind. Surely if Sandy had intended a message, he could have sent us a clearer one than that. Why so obscure? So cryptic? Why no further word since then? And for what purpose behind it all?”

  “I do not know yet; I cannot be sure. But it has something to do, I think, with those plants he brought down from Assam, which may possibly be not Camellia but genuine Thea, after all. I do not understand it yet. But I must look for the people who knew him up in Ghazipur.”

  Hector shook his head slowly, sadly. “I should very much like to believe that you are right,” he said, “but it is impossible. It is only the dear wish of your wounded heart, Catherine,” he said gently. “I do not blame you for it. You have had to suffer terrible losses these two years, and I think you have been amazingly brave, my dear—brave and resolute.”

  His tenderness made tears well up, and Catherine had to look away, blinking, until her vision cleared again. He was so seldom tender.

  “But,” he continued, “you ought to take this time while I am away to resign yourself, my dear. It will be so much better for you once you have arrived at a state of resignation.”

  “Hector!”

  “No,” said Hector. “No. I will not take you there. The decision is mine; Mr Fleming says he leaves it up to me. He has no objection to your coming with us; but I have. No, Catherine. No passengers on this first voyage.”

  BUT IN THE morning, everything changed.

  Catherine, and breakfast, and her fresh arguments for Hector were all ready by eight o’clock. From the open windows of the breakfast room, she could hear someone being let in at the main door, below. She listened a moment, then, supposing it must be Mr Fleming, hastily beat her retreat. Just then the khansaman ushered in the entirely unexpected Mr Sinclair.

  He had hoped to find Mr Fleming here, he explained, apologising for the earliness of his call; and it was urgent. “I wish to secure a passage up the river as soon as possible,” he said, “and as I knew that Mr Fleming’s two new steamships were to attempt a record, I thought that would be just the thing for me. The court at Lucknow is my destination; but I shall easily be able to secure a passage from Patna up to Lucknow.”

  “But how very sudden!” said Catherine. “What of your commissions here? All your good prospects? What of the portraits of the judge’s children?”

  “Have you not yet heard over here in Howrah? Oh, Mrs MacDonald, it is a shocking thing; everyone who can will fly from Calcutta. The cholera is here. My three cross little yellow children and their father all perished yesterday, and their mother just before dawn this morning. All dead, all within these twenty-four hours.”

  Hector walked in carrying a letter just in time to hear this. “Good morning, Mr Sinclair,” he s
aid. “A passage out of Calcutta? I have just received word from Mr Fleming about this outbreak of the cholera. Well, we had not intended to take any passengers on this maiden voyage, but under the circumstances you are welcome, sir, to take your chance with us if the risks of an unproven vessel do not deter you. My sister and niece will be aboard, too. We will be crowded, I fear, and there is no foreseeing what difficulties we may encounter. You will not expect comfort and ease, but certainly this is no season to remain here.” He shook hands with Mr Sinclair; and then he pressed Catherine’s hand too. She met his eyes; was it an apology that she read there?

  “Pray come and sit down to your breakfast,” she said, and poured coffee for them both, and passed them the eggs, and the griddle cakes made of potatoes. “But how did you hear of this attempt to set a new record, Mr Sinclair?” she asked once their plates were well filled.

  “Everyone in Calcutta knows,” said Mr Sinclair. “It was the talk of the town yesterday morning, before this other alarming business was known. There is a pool; in fact, I had laid down a small sum myself.”

  “A pool!” exclaimed Hector. “Is there nothing on which these idle people will not lay wagers?”

  “How do the odds stand?” asked Catherine of Mr Sinclair.

  “I believe the prevailing view is that the heat of the boilers will melt all the American ice before you ever get so far as Patna. So I got pretty favourable odds, and I stand to make a nice sum,” replied Mr Sinclair. “I shall be happy to shovel coal myself if it comes to that!”

  THUS, ON THE first of April, when Castor and Pollux set off up the broad river—riding deep in the water, so heavily laden were they with clear cold blocks of ice packed into layers of clean rice straw and mats; and as much coal as they could carry besides—Catherine and Grace and their maid were aboard Pollux with Hector. Mr Fleming and Mr Sinclair were aboard Castor. It was in fact a setting of sail, not a firing of the steam boilers, for the wind was fresh and favourable. To make the contest more interesting, that portion of the American ice cargo which could not be fitted into the cramped holds of Castor and Pollux had been loaded onto the river merchant brig Spur, which set sail with them. Bettors waved from the ghats. The April Fools’ Ice Race was on.