by Peg Kingman
He paced to the window and back before saying, “I would advise against it. Certainly not with Major Leslie, of all people.”
“And why not with Major Leslie?”
“You would do better to find another escort.”
“I do not know what you mean, Mr Fleming. It is a most fortuitous arrangement for all concerned, perfectly suitable in every respect. Major Leslie is a gentleman, an experienced soldier, and well versed in traveling about the country.”
After a pause, Mr Fleming said, “One might easily be deceived by appearances. But as I am not in a position to repeat any particulars, I will only say that you would do better to find another escort.”
“Such as yourself,” she said.
He bowed and said, “At your service, Mrs MacDonald, no later than the twentieth of October, Providence willing. We finish loading our cargo within these two days. Your brother cannot go to the China Sea with an opium cargo alone, without me. He certainly cannot manage the negotiations; it is an excessively delicate business. Nor do I dare venture upon the open ocean without him, this first sea voyage; for he is the only one who thoroughly understands these engines and propelling devices. So you see, Mrs MacDonald, it is entirely impossible that either one of us can afford to take you up to Assam now; nor indeed any sooner than October.”
“Alas, Mr Fleming, I seem not to have made myself clear. I do not ask you even to consider making any such sacrifice. I am resolved to go to Assam immediately; and I am entirely resigned to making the journey without you. Indeed, even if you were to offer to throw away all your season’s profits and engage to carry me up there this minute—why, sir, even then I should decline!”
“Well, that is magnificent of you, and plain speaking too,” he said. “At last. You have kept yourself very much aloof from me, Mrs MacDonald, for a very long time now, for months.”
“We have all been very much occupied with our own affairs, I suppose,” said Catherine.
“Nonsense. I have seen that you are angry with me; and I can only suppose that it has to do with some misunderstanding regarding that unfortunate woman who lives at my house in Serampore. But you have been avoiding me at every turn.”
“Sir, any discussion of your private affairs can only cause pain and embarrassment to us both. Pray do not mention it. It can have nothing to do with me.” She rose, looking for the bell to summon her maid; but he picked it up himself and held it muffled.
“I will not be dismissed,” he said. “It is high time we had some plain speaking between us. Are friends so plentiful with you that you would send me away, Mrs MacDonald? Is it so very common a thing with you to find so kindred a soul as yours and mine are kindred? Are such friendships so frequent with you that you will refuse to hear me?”
Of course not; such a friendship was the rarest miracle in the world. She never expected it to happen again, not after losing James. She could say nothing to him, for a thick lump rose in her throat, and she set her stony face away from the window so that he should not see, and guess.
He said, “You cannot imagine, Mrs MacDonald, how astonished and overjoyed I was, during the course of our voyage, to discover in you so rare, so valuable a character. I had no expectation of ever meeting with such a woman as yourself, so richly endowed in courage, kindness, dignity, in generosity and magnanimity of spirit. So congenial in wit, in strength and resiliency! In quickness of perception and apprehension! I never imagined that such a woman existed. But before we ever reached Calcutta, I foresaw the difficulty: How was I to communicate to you the existence of my poor ward? Miserable Harini! I could not commit the cruelty of evicting her, shuffling her off to some lodging. I would not condescend to dissemble, nor to conceal her existence. How unfortunate that she is not old and ugly! The only honourable course was frank honesty, and to trust in your discernment.”
“Oh, discernment! You pretend to discover in me a bit of discernment! How generous! Perhaps I have a little more of it than you had supposed—enough, indeed, to resent being made a fool of by pre-arrangement with your missionary friend!”
“Do you resent that I asked Dr Carey to tell you her history? But what more reliable and informed a witness could be found than Dr Carey?”
“Dear old Dr Carey! The most innocent and most biddable of old men, I daresay! What sort of fool do you take me for, sir?”
“Oh, this skepticism is unnatural in you, Mrs MacDonald,” he cried. “You are no skeptic by nature, I know. For if you were, you could never have convinced yourself that Alexander is still alive. You, who have ventured all the way to India—you, who intend now to penetrate the jungles of Assam, and all this on the scantiest of evidence—how can you remain so unwilling to believe me, so unable to trust in my good faith?”
“Sir, I have known you for only a matter of months. But I have known my brother Sandy all my life. I know what he is, through and through.”
“Yes, you know him to be duplicitous! And therefore you can easily believe that he has deceived us all. But not every man is deceitful. Surely, surely, you cannot think so ill of men in general, and of me in particular, that you are unable to conceive of an innocent relation between a man and a woman.”
“Between you and that woman?”
“I give you my solemn word.”
“But I do not want any solemn words from you, sir. What can you possibly expect of me? Am I to appreciate some compliment in your declaration, if that is what it is? In your proposal to add me to your collection of damaged beauties? I am afraid, sir, that even damaged as I am, I cannot fall in with your plan for me. Even damaged as I am, I am better than that!”
“I do not understand you! Damaged? What can you mean?”
But that was not a thing Catherine could explain to him. She had not meant to say it. “Pray leave me at once!” she cried. “How fortunate it is that our paths now diverge, and we need never encounter each other again. Sharada! Come in here at once!” she called out, and Sharada came in and stood behind Catherine. Catherine felt herself trembling.
“I hope you will find your brother,” Mr Fleming said. He was pale, and his voice nearly choked in his throat. “I hope you will find him, because if he is indeed alive, he can assure you of the truth of what I have told you. Perhaps you will believe him.”
The door shut behind him, and Catherine burst into tears. Had she really said all that? Spoken those words? She had, and her whole body ached. A vision of the sea blue cameo glass vase in his cabinet at Antwerp hovered just above the periphery of her mind’s eye, especially the shattered stumps where both its arching handles had been broken off. What sort of man could treasure so damaged a thing?
“But what a pity, memsahib!” said Sharada. “That is a good man. Even you must see so much as that. And his steamships are so very much better than that soldier’s little boats.”
“How dare you?” sobbed Catherine. “Go away!”
22
the most despicable Idoea
In her stifling tiny cabin aboard the pinnace which Major Leslie had hired for the passage to Goalpara in Assam, Catherine packed her ears with cotton wool. On the other side of the thin cabin partition, Mrs Hill’s six-week-old baby howled. In fact, it howled day and night, despite the full-time attentions of its mother and ayah, and the part-time attentions of Catherine, Grace and Sharada. It was bald and livid, requiring to be held, rocked, nursed or walked constantly. Whenever it did fall asleep in someone’s arms at last, and was laid gingerly into its cradle, it writhed itself awake again within ten minutes and resumed screaming. The days were blazing hot now, and the nights hardly cooler. The miserable baby was a hot heavy damp burden, passed around among all the females on board. Catherine envied the servants following on the overloaded baggage boat, laden with provisions and Major Leslie’s horses. Surely it was more peaceful there.
The cotton wool muted the baby’s howls only a little, but now Catherine could hear her own blood coursing through her veins, pounding disturbingly. It was impossible to read or rest
in the suffocating cabin, even with the shutters closed against the brazen afternoon sun, but she did not want to go up into the open air of the shaded roof deck. Major Leslie was probably there.
Sharada let herself into Mrs Hill’s little cabin and shut the door gently behind her. On the narrow shelf above the bed she set down a glass filled with a murky fluid. The miserable infant arched backward in its mother’s arms; its face was distorted, bright red, swollen by rage, its stretched mouth hoarsely screeching. Its tiny fat fists had escaped from its swaddling and were thrashing the air. Young Mrs Hill was crying, too, tears running down her exhausted wan face. Her dress was in disarray, wet with milk, the bodice open as though her engorged breasts had burst it. Both nipples were raw, inflamed; and an alarming patch of red spread across the top of her right breast.
Sharada took the howling baby from Mrs Hill and tucking it over her left arm, bounced it vigorously. Mrs Hill wiped her nose with the back of her hand and said, “It hurts. He is so rough and angry. He howls until I give him the breast, then as soon as the milk comes he will not suckle. And now there is this painful red place, here. What is wrong?” and her tears began again.
Gently Sharada pressed the swollen red place, and Mrs Hill flinched. “Very sore, just there?”
Mrs Hill nodded and cried, wiping her nose. The baby subsided a little; the rough bouncing surprised him perhaps.
“And hot?”
“Oh, yes; and here and here—so painful and sometimes bleeding, I fear.”
“Yes, yes. They will become tougher as you continue. And this hot sore place—well, I have brought you some medicine. You must be letting him suckle no matter how it is hurting. That is the best cure. But this medicine will diminish your pain, and it will calm the baby, too.” Sharada took two of Mrs Hill’s clean cambric handkerchiefs from her trunk and handed her one. Then she twisted one corner of the other and dipped it into the cloudy-looking liquid she had brought; this she put to the infant’s mouth. He started, surprised. Then his tongue came out, and Sharada teased it with the wet cloth. He sucked it. “I have sweetened this with cane juice. Otherwise it is very bitter. Look, he is taking it. A little more I will give him. Then you must drink the rest. I will bring more for you in a few hours. There. There, there…”
And within thirty minutes, Mrs Hill and her baby were asleep. It was quiet aboard the pinnace at last.
“Just a water of poppy trash, not very strong at all, with some cane juice to make it sweet,” explained Sharada to Catherine. “It is calming the baby’s bowel, soothing and settling his intestine, for that is what is hurting him. And it will mute Mrs Hill’s pain from her sore nipples and from the infection in her breast until that is drained and cured by nursing. It will let them both rest. I gave the baby just a little poppy water from a cloth to get him started. But now he will receive all he needs through his mother’s milk.”
“How did you know what to do?” asked Catherine. “Do you know about babies?”
“Oh, everyone knows this. It is the same as we do for a cow with a sore udder.”
“But how do you happen to have some of this poppy trash about you?”
“But I always have some; it is so very useful! We often put a small amount of poppy into a dish that is especially hot, especially spicy, so that the stomach will not be disturbed. Just a little—not enough to make you sleepy, only for soothing the digestion. Did you not realise?”
Later in the afternoon, after she had heard the door of Major Leslie’s cabin open and close, Catherine went up to the roof deck. As she expected, she found only Grace there. Grace was sitting cross-legged on the smooth wide deckboards whittling at something on her lap; a litter of pale greenish chips and curls lay around her.
“What are you doing?” asked Catherine, sinking into a cane-backed chair and spreading her canvaswork across her lap. It was a stifling thing—too heavy and hot. She rooted in the workbag at her side, looking for her needle.
“I am trying to make a sort of a flute from this length of cane,” said Grace. “Sharada made one, this other one—isn’t it handsome?—and she showed me how to do it. But it is not so easy. It is not so easy to blow it either. You must blow just so. It is all a matter of controlling the breath, Sharada says.”
“Well, don’t cut off your finger,” said Catherine, threading her needle with with gray silk.
“I’m not a baby, Catriona.”
“Thank goodness for that. We’ve babies enough aboard.”
“Aye, poor creature. I don’t see why people want them. I wonder if I was so horrid as that.”
“Surely not yourself, my dear. Let me see that knife, pray.”
Grace held it out to her, and Catherine took it and turned it over, recognising it, knowing it. These uncanny apparitions no longer shocked her. “Where did you get it?”
“Sharada.”
“Mmm. It is your uncle Sandy’s sgian dubh, you know. His knife. Someone has sharpened it, however.”
“Can you be sure?”
“Certain sure. I gave it to him on our fifteenth birthday.” Catherine closed her eyes and let herself drift. Their fifteenth birthday. It was pleasant to remember that, more pleasant than the other thoughts that intruded when she did not want them…Mr Fleming. No, not that again. Think of…oh, think of Sandy playing his pipes on the hill when they were fifteen, the year he won the piping prize. Won his copy of Joseph MacDonald’s Compleat Theory. The letter from Mr Fleming was stowed now deep in her trunk. Oh, don’t think about that again. The letter he had brought to her on the morning of their departure.
Catherine opened her eyes. Featureless riverbank slid past: trees, and faint blue hills rising beyond in the hazy distance to the north. Another village. A ruined temple on a mound undercut and collapsing into the river. A willowy woman carrying a water jar on her head, walking barefoot up the narrow path from the riverbank.
But she knew that letter by heart. It didn’t matter how far away from her she put it, how deep in her trunk she buried it.
“Accursed thing!” said Grace. “I’ve gone and cut the hole too big. My fingers will never grow fat enough to close that.”
“Language, Grace. Don’t say that.”
“Sharada says it.”
“Don’t you say it. Unbecoming.”
Grace snorted.
Dear Mrs MacDonald,
I trust that your natural sense of justice will compel you to read this letter, despite the ill opinion you have formed of me. I perceive that you are determined to proceed to Assam, and will not be deterred by anything I can now say. I beg you will be careful of the dangers to be encountered there; and I hope that your usual prudence will serve you, with regard to the officer under whose protection you travel.
“Ah! Here you are, you two fair ones,” said Major Leslie, coming up onto the deck. “And so diligent, too! Pray excuse me for appearing in my white jacket; you must not think it is carelessness or disrespect, but only a practical accommodation to the heat.”
“Certainly,” said Catherine. “It is nearly as unbearable for us to see you in your scarlet woolen coat as it must be for you to wear it. I suppose your stock and collar will not admit of any relaxation?” For his stock was tightly wound, and his collar was a little too high; its points extended halfway up his long side-whiskers, producing an effect a little like the blinders on a carriage horse.
“You are all consideration, Mrs MacDonald. But I am quite accustomed to it.” He settled himself into the other chair and crossed his legs in their tight white uniform breeches. He tapped his fingernail on the arm of his chair for a moment, then said, “Odd that ladies’ dresses are so well suited to this tropical climate but so poorly adapted at home, whereas men’s clothing is just the opposite—that is, well suited to our cool, rainy climate at home but ill adapted to these tropical latitudes. Curious, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so; as though we had sprung from different climates,” agreed Catherine.
“A lady’s gown is admirably suited for t
he…one must not say ‘display’ one might say rather the ‘exquisite unconcealment’ perhaps…of every feminine charm. Still, in cold weather, it leaves those same rosy charms at the mercy of the unmerciful elements—the lovely neck, the round arms, so very exposed. The fabric of the garment itself so thin and light. And the dainty little red satin ribbons there, about the body—”
Red? “They are green,” said Catherine, disliking his close inspection of the ribbons under her bosom, and his references to lovely necks, round arms, and thin fabrics.
“Are they? Well, now you know my secret: all my life I have been colour-blind.”
And tone-deaf, too, thought Catherine; for more than once she had heard him tunelessly whistling. She knew also—having by now sat down to several weeks’ worth of meals at the same table with him—that he was peculiarly insensitive to his food. He could distinguish sweet from sour (and preferred sweet), salt from bitter (and preferred salt); but any subtler flavors were lost on him. In short he was oddly devoid of taste in all respects. His conversation was similarly awkward and ponderous, and she suspected him of preparing remarks in advance. Catherine had thought at first that a shyness prevented his conversing quite freely and naturally with her, yet he did not avoid her company. Quite the contrary; he seemed to seek her out at every opportunity.
He soon launched, as usual, onto the great subject of his shooting and sporting successes, of which he had an apparently inexhaustible stock of stories. Here he was fluent: “Two buffalo were killed in the water by villagers in boats,” he declared happily, “and three more on shore by the men of the detachment…”
Catherine’s attention drifted again:
I hope that you will find your brother alive and well. He said little about his travels in Assam, but he did on one occasion tell me that he had formed connections with an important family of chieftains in, I believe, the Khasiya Hills, or perhaps in Jyntea or Cachar; and he referred to them as The Princes of Tea Root. Possibly this was only his joke, but I mention it here because even so insignificant a hint as this may be useful to you in your quest.