by Peg Kingman
The men had a different job. They had knives too. They sought the seedpods that were older still, the ones the women had cut three days earlier. And from these they carefully scraped off the sap, which had oozed from the vertical cuts and was now congealed—thick and amber-coloured; for this very sap was raw opium, the precious substance itself. The stuff of dreams. The price of all the tea in China.
They went up to the tent for their breakfast. The tea was ready; Sharada waited on them, moving around the table behind their chairs, pouring it steaming from the pot into their cups.
“Ah, tea!” cried Major Leslie. “And the stronger, the better.” He drank down his first cup and was poured another. “Well, it is good we made an early start. It will be cooler on the river, and we are only a short distance now from the boats.”
“Do you know, Major Leslie, whether my brother had a boat?” asked Catherine. “Or how did he cross back and forth between Ghazipur and his district here?”
“Certainly he had—quite a good little pinnace, and a well-trained crew. I remember my colonel once offered to buy it from him, but it was not for sale. It was lost too, alas, in that monsoon.”
“Indeed?”
“Oh, but a great many boats were lost then. You can have no idea, Mrs MacDonald, what a monsoon is like until you have lived through it yourself. There must have been a score of boats broken loose and wrecked on the rocks below the whirlpools that year—not counting the native boats, of course. Some of them were hauled off and repaired, but I daresay some lie there yet, washed up where they cannot be reached, and by now of course not worth the hauling off.”
“Was my brother’s boat found among them?”
“Not that I ever heard,” said Major Leslie after a moment’s consideration. “Of course it might have sunk, or been covered by shoaling sands; or it might have been wrecked much further down the river.”
“Of course,” said Catherine. Her teacup was empty. But Sharada had set down the teapot and was gazing fixedly out the open side of the tent, across the poppy fields. Down the glistening river.
“SHARADA IS ILL,” announced Grace the next morning to Catherine. “She is still lying in her bed.”
“Ill! What is the matter?”
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “She only lies there and does not speak. Will you send for a doctor?”
“I will go and see her myself,” said Catherine. Grace followed as Catherine made her way out to the little porch at the back of the house. Several Indian beds like low tables topped by thin mats were lined up there for the maidservants. On one of these lay Sharada, huddled under a light cotton coverlet. Her eyes were open, unblinking, but she only gazed at the wall. Under her bed were two large brass-bound trunks. Catherine placed her palm on Sharada’s forehead: cool, dry. Not a fever, then. But her face was swollen, her eyes puffy and red; and her hair tangled. “Shall I send for a doctor?” Catherine asked.
“No,” croaked Sharada.
“But what is the matter? Are you in pain?”
Sharada shook her head but did not reply. Did that shake of the head mean yes, or no?
“Is it the belly? Or the headache?” asked Catherine.
“It is my heart, my sorrow,” whispered Sharada with a great effort through dry, cracked lips. “I grieve, grieve…for my father has died while I was far away over the black water.”
“Oh, I am so sorry to hear of it,” said Catherine. “But shall I send for a brahmin to say prayers for him? Or a kind old woman to sit with you?”
“No, no, no,” said Sharada, and closed her eyes. “Please be leaving me all alone. I will get up later. But I cannot now.”
“Well…we are going out with Lady D’Oyly to see the palace ruins today, and the pavilion of the fountains. But I will come look in on you again when we return,” said Catherine.
They rode elephants for their day’s sightseeing, and Major Leslie served once again as their escort. To ride on an elephant was like riding on a mountain, so safe and high and solid. The elephants’ leathery feet shuffling on the pavements sounded as though they were wearing slippers.
They were carried first to the Company’s stud, and admired there the mares and foals in their paddocks and the virile stallions in their stone stalls. Then, remounting the elephants, they made their way to the ruins of the old palace of the former Nawab of Ghazipur. It was situated high on a bank overlooking the river, behind a sheer rampart with four bastions. There was a wide landing place for boats down below. The centerpiece of the place was a beautiful octagonal pavilion called the Chalis Satoon: the Hall of Forty Pillars. Here, in the central room, the servants laid out the picnic while Lady D’Oyly and Catherine and Grace and Major Leslie explored the delightful place. The graceful carved columns had formerly been plumbed for water, and everywhere were marble channels for water: rills, fountains, sprays, pools, and cascades. These channels were dry now, but Catherine marveled at the engineers who had made this place, at the care and work which had formed this design. Even Hector would have been impressed. There were no walls, but hooks for curtains still remained in the openings of the beautiful shapely arches which formed the many rooms. Exquisitely embroidered silk curtains would have been hung here, rippling in the breezes coming off the river. How delightful this place would have been on a sultry summer evening, with all its rills and fountains tumbling and purling and its silk hangings fluttering, and a band of musicians playing near the balustrade!
They sat down to their lunch in the shade of the central pavilion of the Chalis Satoon. The servants had hung up woven grass mats to windward, and splashed these mats with jars of river water at intervals. The hot wind blowing through the wet mats evaporated the water, and the air was cooled—a little; enough. “Ah!” said Catherine, fanning herself, “pleasant and ingenious, these grass mats! And they smell so sweet.”
“What, the tatties?” said Major Leslie. “Have you not yet encountered tatties, Mrs MacDonald?”
“Tatties!” said Catherine, “Are they called tatties? That’s what we call potatoes, at home.”
“How droll you Scottish ladies are,” said Major Leslie, and helped her to the cauliflower curry, the lamb stew, and the peas cooked with cheese. He made the servant bring her a glass of wine and a dish of sherbet. And afterward, when his hookah was prepared for him, he pressed her to try it; and was truly disappointed when she declined.
“I hope Sharada will be better when we return,” said Grace to Catherine when they had remounted their elephants after their picnic. “I do not like for her to be unwell.”
“You must be patient; she may not be quite like herself for a time,” said Catherine. “She must be sadly grieved at her father’s death.”
The other elephant, carrying Lady D’Oyly and Major Leslie, led the way. It was a relief to escape at last from Major Leslie’s effortful gallantry.
“Well, that is rather an odd thing, you know, Catriona,” said Grace. “An odd thing because, you see, it was four or five days ago that she learned of her father’s death, when we first arrived here in Ghazipur. Why is it only now that she is become so very prostrated? I do not quite understand that.”
“Is it so? Four or five days ago?”
“Aye, and it was three days ago that she went and fetched away from her aunt’s house the trunks. Did you see the trunks under her bed? She showed me what is inside them—native musical instruments and old books and that sort of thing, left to her by her father. She did not seem so exceeding sad then.”
“Hmm. It is odd.”
“But she was so strange yesterday when we were out along the river at Uncle Sandy’s place. Did you notice how scantily she translated for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Catriona, can you still not understand any Hindi at all?”
“Alas, I cannot. It is not so easy for everyone as it is for you.”
“I thought perhaps you were only pretending not to understand. But that old gardener had a great deal to say, which Sharada did
not translate for you.”
“Such as what?”
“Well, he said that Uncle Sandy paid every servant on the very day before the mudslide, paid each of them every last paisa of their wages. That is rather uncanny, I think.”
“Uncanny? Well, it is certainly very lucky for them.”
“And the chaprasi, you know, the message carrier, the real message carrier who was strangled by Thugs that very night—she did not translate that.”
“Strangled by Thugs!” said Catherine, shuddering. “Was he indeed?”
“Aye, and his body found in a well three days later. She told you none of that.”
“But I daresay she did not like to speak of something so terrible,” said Catherine.
“And about that pickax, the one the gardener was carrying over his shoulders. He said he found it on the morning after the mudslide. He found it next to the breach in the dam. Perhaps someone caused that mudslide on purpose.”
“Oh, Grace! What a thing to imagine!”
“And he said that he had left the pickax in his shed just the night before, when Uncle Sandy himself came in to send him away from there.”
“Mmmm,” said Catherine. “He said that? Well; I do wonder…that Sharada did not consider it worth translating for me.”
When they returned to the residency and dismounted their elephants and went inside, they found that Sharada was up and walking about again and attending to her duties, though she was not singing, and her eyes were dull and miserable. When she asked for the night’s leave to perform the special puja which was due to her father’s memory, Catherine granted permission, hoping that the ritual might help to purge Sharada’s sorrow.
20
very obvious to a knowing Ear
“I am so thirsty to hear anything you can tell me about my brother’s time here in Ghazipur,” said Catherine to Major Leslie that evening after dinner. Hot summer darkness settled into the corners of the big residency drawing room. Lady D’Oyly sat at the pianoforte, picking out a few chords, while a portly civilian in half mourning searched for a particular song buried in a thick stack of dog-eared music. Sir Charles D’Oyly leaned against the frame of an open window, talking with Mr Wade, another civilian connected with the political administration. A young Mrs Hill, who could neither think nor speak of anything but her new baby, had dined with them, and had sat with them for a few minutes after dinner, but now she went once more to check on the precious infant. “I would take it as a great kindness in you, Major Leslie,” said Catherine softly.
“Would you, Mrs MacDonald?” he said. He stroked his mustache and leaned forward so that the springs of the sofa creaked under his weight. “It would be my privilege to oblige you—I would be happy to tell you anything I know—but I was only newly arrived here then, still quite the griffin, and I don’t suppose I was ever in company with your brother more than once or twice. Mr Wade, there, is the fellow you might ask. He knows everyone and everything. I believe he was the fellow who actually undertook the investigation, after all that—ah, all that unfortunate business connected with that suttee.”
“What business was that?” said Catherine.
“Oh, ah, that—that suttee, you know, which your brother put a stop to, which caused all the fuss…” said Major Leslie uncertainly.
“But I have never heard anything about this,” said Catherine.
“Indeed! But, oh, but Wade is the fellow who knows all about it. Shall I ask him for you? Mr Wade!” he said, springing up from the sofa and fetching him.
“What is this I hear about my brother’s interfering in—in a suttee?” asked Catherine when Mr Wade had settled in Major Leslie’s place on the creaky sofa.
So Mr Wade told her. Some two years ago, not long after Alexander MacDonald had been posted to Ghazipur, he had been riding along the bank road above the river one morning and came upon the cremation grounds just as a funeral procession arrived, “with flags aflying and drums abeating. The pyre was ready-built, a goodly stack of dry wood, for these were not poor people but a family of goldsmiths with an enviable appointment to trade not only here in Ghazipur but also in Benares and Patna, and in Lucknow itself,” said Mr Wade. “They were come to cremate their brother, quite a young man. The corpse was handsomely decked out in garlands and fine garments. Your brother stopped to watch, of course, as anyone might.”
“Of course,” said Catherine.
“There was a considerable crowd gathered,” continued Mr Wade, “for the family was not only rich and well known, but word had gone about that the widow was to become suttee, so a great many people had come to see the thrilling event. And so after all the chanting and drumming and trumpets and poured offerings and all the rest, the body was laid upon the pyre, the spectators gathering in close all around. The brothers of the deceased then brought forth the widow from her palki, all dressed in red, like a bride, you know, for the Hindus do not call a wife a widow until her husband is actually burned. The girl was quite young, apparently—perhaps seventeen or eighteen—for these natives marry when they are mere children. Now, you must understand, Mrs MacDonald, that a widow who is determined to commit suttee is by Hindu law not permitted to take any food or drink after her husband dies; this is to ensure that she does it of her own free will and is not drugged or poisoned by the members of her husband’s family, who, of course, if she destroys herself, stand to recover any property that belonged not only to their kinsman but to her as well. And a good suttee will walk on her own two feet to the ghat, and perform her ablutions in the river for all to see, with calm resolution, so that anyone may testify that she has become suttee of her own free will.”
“Oh!” said Catherine.
“But in this case, you see, the widow was brought to the pyre in a palki. And then her brothers-in-law aided her in getting out of the palki, and aided her in walking to the pyre, for it appeared that she could not walk unaided. There was some murmuring about this among the crowd gathered to watch, for this proceeding was not just pukka, you understand. But one might suppose that the widow was overcome by grief and sorrow, or perhaps just by weakness caused by having no food nor drink, and not by dread nor any unwillingness to mount the pyre. So she managed to perform her ablutions—whether of her own accord or not it is not quite clear.”
“Just a moment, Mr Wade. How is all this known to you? I do not suppose that you yourself were present at the scene?”
“No, no; my knowledge is derived from taking your brother’s deposition later, after the event, as well as the depositions of other witnesses who were on the scene—though all the others were natives, some of them Hindu and others Muselmani.”
The steward carried in a tray with a teapot and cups; and at a nod from Lady D’Oyly—who was still engaged at the piano, Major Leslie now turning the pages of the music for her—the steward poured the tea and carried steaming cups of it to where Catherine sat with Mr Wade.
“I see. I beg you will proceed, Mr Wade,” said Catherine when the steward had gone away again.
“The sun was high by this time, for it was about noon. But your brother claimed that the widow seemed blinded, and she held one hand over her eyes. Pretty quickly the eldest brother put in her hand the lighted brand; and with it she ignited the pyre, just as she ought. Then, either with or without some urging or help from her in-laws—for your brother’s account differed on this from that of some of the other witnesses, who did not all agree—she mounted the pyre, and seated herself, and settled the corpse’s head on her lap while the flames licked up all about. She seemed to faint then, slumping over her husband. But then when a gust of wind made the fire roar up crackling, she came sluggishly to her senses and, struggling to rise, she crawled to the edge of the pyre as if to jump off. But the people roared at her and raised their sticks and would not let her jump off. She staggered to the other side to try that, her clothes and her hair catching fire by this time….”
Catherine sipped her tea; it was too hot still, and seared her tongue.
Mr Wade continued: “So apparently it was at this point that your brother spurred his horse through the crowd, trampling all and sundry, right up to the edge of the crackling pyre itself. It must have been a devilish steady horse. And he reached through the flames and snatched the widow and dragged her out of the fire. Then he galloped straight down the riverbank and into the water, holding the girl draped all but unconscious across his saddle, thus extinguishing the flames in her clothes and hair. The natives of course surged after him in a fury, but he set his horse out into the deep water where the current quickly carried them down and away, out of reach, not daring to come ashore again until he was a good distance down the river.”
“My Sandy!” Catherine said.
Mr Wade shook his head and grimaced. “Of course there was a great deal of trouble as a consequence. There was a complaint to the Resident; and an inquiry; and reparations to be paid. A considerable amount of diplomacy and baksheesh were required for smoothing and soothing. Your brother claimed the girl had been drugged; he said her pupils were so vastly dilated that she was blinded for days afterward, and he had acted to prevent a murder taking place under his very nose. The brothers of the deceased claimed he had interfered in a sacred Hindu rite and brought down shame and dishonour upon them all. Eventually your brother was fined and officially reprimanded—not for the first time, if I understand properly—and after a while the fuss died down, as fusses do.”
“What happened to the girl?”
Mr Wade frowned. “It’s an odd thing. It seems your brother got her as far as her father’s house, expecting them to take her in and keep her. But a widow who declares her intention of destroying herself, then fails to do so, is an embarrassment and an abomination. So even her own father was unwilling to have her for long, her presence bringing shame upon the house as well as putting the father’s reputation and livelihood at risk. Though your brother did not admit to it, I believe that he paid the father a considerable bribe to keep her there during her convalescence, while her burns healed. And it seems he looked in from time to time to make sure he got his money’s worth. But then the old man had to go back up to Lucknow, where he was a favoured musician at the prince’s court. And this was just about when the monsoon broke, and—and your brother was lost.”