“Then I’ll fetch him! I’ll fetch you the colonel. Just…stop trying to move the poor thing.” Then she shouts, “And the rest of you: go away! Leave it alone. This animal is not your property.”
Swallowing her disgust, Hannah turns and runs.
For George, gymkhana festivals give diminishing returns. The best bit is early on, when he directs the opening military maneuvers. It is a duty he enjoys immensely, leading the cadets in formation, putting them through the drills. Not a hair out of place. The crowd cries out in appreciation as the trumpets crescendo and, at the finale, cannons boom. Thwock. Thwock. The sound that all will be right in the world.
He turns to the crowd, hoping he will see Hannah in the audience. And fearing that, seeing her, he’ll lose his resolve. Arrangements have been made; he is hard-pressed to recall just how it unfolded. But concern is widespread. That is what he knows, and how he thinks he will start. Concern for you, Hannah, is widespread. Though this sounds too impersonal? All of us here are worried about you.
George is sitting trackside now with some of the other officers. Each of his damned horses has turned out to be slower than the last. He drinks and curses their lungs, ill-suited for tropical heat, and mulls over his wife’s disregard for propriety. Was it her unconventional upbringing? That ridiculous academy? His gut feels like someone is trying to cut through it with a butter knife. Foolish woman. Too young, perhaps, to realize what an opportunity she has on a frontier like this one, to perform above her class. To relocate herself socially. Leaning back in his chair, George closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing.
“Pinky, how long have you been out here?” It is Dennison’s voice, to his right.
“Three or four hours I should think.”
Oakeshott answers to George’s left. “Ten years, isn’t it?”
“Christ, that’s a lifetime in ordinary years, old boy!”
“We should be celebrating you, never mind Her Majesty.”
The officers laugh. George puts on a smirk he hopes will pass for good sportsmanship. Tallying the years in his head, it is in fact closer to thirteen since he set out for Malaya. It is surely some sort of paradox that the past three years—years in which he’s had the greatest means, the greatest respect of the Resident, the company of a beautiful young wife—have been outstandingly the worst. He opens his eyes and announces he needs a walk.
Past the north side of the racetrack, he makes out teams of Sikhs, their towelled heads in two rows, standing at the ready. A whistle shrills and sends them scurrying.
“Rather pointless skill, isn’t it,” mutters George. “Not as if one often needs to raise a tent at breakneck speed.”
Dennison and Oakeshott appear to be suddenly on either side of him. As they stroll, Dennison leans in toward him. “Let’s put in for the hill cottage, Pinky. We’ll bring our wives up, escape this dreadful heat for a week or two. What do you say?”
Oakeshott says, “Finch could supervise your hunt for you. He’s plenty of safari experience.”
George doesn’t respond to any of this. Is it Dennison who came to him last year? Oakeshott, or Dennison? Dennison, he thinks, who had been unfortunate enough to witness Hannah and her sergeant walking up the high street together, sopping wet, laughing, their clothes stuck to their bodies. Oakeshott must have a story, too; they all have stories. Who is the one who saw her at the docks, paying prostitutes to pose?
“So, will you have the head stuffed?” Oakeshott is saying. “Finch’s trophies have taken over the entire lounge of the Residency.”
“To Lucy’s chagrin,” sniggers Dennison.
Their chatter irks George. Their need to point out the obvious. They’re too young to have any tolerance for suffering. “I haven’t caught a tiger yet, gentlemen. I have matters pending.”
Waving them off, he shuffles away. Ahead, the sultan’s family is billowing in the breeze like a parachute. Standing next to Izrin is Resident-General Swettenham himself. Yes, those are unmistakably his pin-thin, navy limbs. A yellow cravat blooms at his throat. Has Swettenham come to pressure Izrin personally, about Dr. Peterborough’s request? More likely he’s come for the pomp, like everybody else.
The colonel steers away, too, from the sultan, the resident-general, all of them, veering back toward the tent-pegging competition. Dozens of color-coordinated Sikhs are still running about like trained monkeys. Where is he? Where is her trained monkey?
The team in white has nearly unfolded their canvas and is already fixing the poles together into a brace. George eliminates one sweaty face after the other until he’s located Sergeant Singh. Singh is bending to hook down the skirting that edges the canvas; his team is behind their rivals, with the hardest part still to come. They must position the canvas precisely over the main pole so its perimeter reaches the ground evenly, with enough slack on each side to fit over the brace, yet not so much slack that the peg wires become useless. With a deep-throated “three, two, one!” from Singh his team hurls the canvas over the central pole. So, he fancies himself a leader.
“Go, Perak!” shouts a filthy boy in a topknot. “Kick their Hindu-loving arses!”
A crowd of natives surrounds him: Indian mothers and sons, gangs of Malay children, a few Eurasian railroaders sprinkled throughout.
“George! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“You have?”
Hannah is standing before him, a hand pressed to her side. “The men at the track told me you’d wandered off.” Panting, she glances at the Sikhs in the clearing, hammering their pegs and hollering directions.
They watch the final seconds of the competition together. Sergeant Singh’s team wins. Hannah claps and cries, “Bravo!” as if she were at the theatre. For a moment, it looks as if she catches Singh’s attention.
“They’ve killed your tiger, George.” She turns him by the shoulders and points. “Look.”
He does see the commotion. It went unheard, drowned out by the cheering at the tent contest. “Sphectacular!” he slurs.
She purses her lips. “Come with me. They’re destroying the poor thing.”
Indeed, a throng of darkies seems to be pecking at it, the thing he still can’t quite see. The procession is carnivalesque. He feels Hannah’s fingers hook into his own as she pulls him along. It’s a good start, he tells himself. This is a good start. “I’m ill, Hannah. I don’t feel right.”
“You’re drunk.”
“No. Not so much. What I need…” I need your help. I need you to care for me.
“Sahib Colonel, tuan Colonel,” he hears the natives addressing him as they approach.
Soon after, he is face to face with the red-foamed mouth of the great carnivore.
Fifteen
In the cool of the evening, most of Finch’s guests are slumped in chairs on the patio or on the large deck, exhausted by the heat and the day’s activities. On the upper balcony of the Residency, George sips water, with a good view of it all. Though his eyes are mostly on Hannah as she picks her way through the flowerbeds, examining every frond and petal. He is utterly sober.
Doling out the wages, he discovered two of the Malays had died in the bush, fighting the tiger. Why should he feel bothered? They’d each of them agreed to the danger. They’d each of them taken half their wage at the outset. George had split the remainder of their pay amongst the survivors; he wasn’t about to give money to corpses.
“Those hunters must have left their dead friends in the bush.”
Beside him, Finch leans forward, elbows on knees. “Happen they couldn’t carry out the tiger and the men.”
“Happen they weren’t friends.” George chuckles, but not for long. Finch is known to be a Malay man.
“How’s your stomach?” Finch strokes his own rotund belly as if it were a pet. “Feeling any better?”
“I don’t know if I can go through with t
his, James.”
“What?” He looks alarmed.
“Tonight, with Hannah. She’s going to be…”
“Oh, with Hannah! Well. Lucy’s been like a dog on a bone with this, I have to say. And she’s probably right. Best to talk to Hannah before things get out of hand.” The Resident waves a houseboy over for a flute of champagne, then watches him saunter back to the door. “Everything is in place for Peterborough, isn’t it?”
“I told you yesterday. The girls have already begun heading out there.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. On foot, I suppose.”
“Long goddamned walk, isn’t it?”
“She’ll be humiliated, James. Maybe I should just have another word with her at home. A stern word.”
“Look. If she were the sort to feel shame, my dear fellow, she wouldn’t be up to all sorts in the first place.”
“If she isn’t the sort to feel shame, then how is this going to help?” he asks lamely.
Finch drains his glass. “Check in with Izrin, will you? See if they’re managing all right. Because they’re not going to come to us, these girls, if they have a problem.”
In the garden, Hannah picks something and winds it into her hair. Like a child, George thinks, always playing. She is nearly out past the last torches. “Yes, all right, see if they’re managing,” George echoes. “And if they’re not?”
Finch sighs and puts a hand on George’s knee. He’s often more touchy-feely than makes George comfortable. “I’m sure you can figure something out.”
“Why does Hannah feel the need to traipse into the darkest corners of your garden? What’s so bloody exciting about the unknown?”
The Resident bellows with laughter. As he gets to his feet, he says, “Ready, then?”
George shoots air from his nostrils. “Ready.”
Hannah picks a flower from the royal jasmine. Ordinarily she avoids cuttings, but the plant is flowering in abundance out where no one is there to appreciate it, past the torches and the congratulatory chitchat. She is well aware she should be socializing, but if the colonel is going to hole up somewhere, she’s not to going make excuses for him, or accept compliments. On the contrary, it’s with growing disgust and anger that she thinks of that poor, ruined creature, its mashed and maimed body.
And she feels a fair degree of responsibility, she must admit. It was their cow. He is her husband. Whatever his warped views of revenge and protection, she did not try to stop him from pursuing and killing an innocent animal. A majestic animal. She inhales the delicious scent of the jasmine before fitting the stem into her hair. The tiger was probably baited. By now she has heard enough speculation about this to believe it to be true. The wounds to its shoulder and flank were consistent with its falling into a staked pit. Plus, the timing was too perfect; a spectacle for the village’s largest celebration.
Making her way back towards the rambling mansion, Hannah scans the thinning population of guests. No sign of the colonel. Oh, why are they are even here if neither of them is feeling festive? She spies Lucy, fluttering about inside, passing out plates of cake. Hannah approaches and begins to make her excuses and bid their host goodnight.
Lucy feigns great distress. “Hannah, don’t go yet! Have some cake! At least have some cake,” she begs. Thrusting a plate into her hands, Lucy dashes off.
It is a lovely cake, in fact. Layers of pastry and custard and a sort of pinkish jelly. In the sweetness of the jelly is a hint of lychee.
“Good, isn’t it?” Hazel Swinburne is standing near enough to comment. “Too good for some people to appreciate.” She and Myrtle Something-or-Other are side by side, clutching empty plates and looking ill at ease. Edgar Swinburne sits behind the two women, his eyes drifting shut. “I’ve told you, he’s a district officer,” Edgar murmurs, “what else can the man afford?”
Hannah turns to see a young interracial couple standing awkwardly by the punch bowl.
“It’s just so very unlike Lucy,” Hazel comments. “Her hand must have been forced.”
“Hannah, dear.” Now James Finch is coming toward her. Hiding behind him is the colonel, his round eyes fixed on her last bites of cake, with Lucy bringing up the rear. George looks guilty. About the tiger? About his earlier drunkeness? “Step into the drawing room, will you?”
“Of course,” she replies to James, and follows them all through. To her surprise, Hazel, Myrtle, and Edgar pile in after her. The group of officers talking together in one corner of the room politely vacate.
“What’s going on?” Hannah sets down the plate of half-eaten cake. Lucy Finch has cautioned me against you, Eva’s words come back to her.
Before anyone answers her there is a knock on the door. Beatrice Watts, the minister’s wife, is ushered in by a housemaid. Beatrice is red-faced and wearing a simple sundress which is too plain and cheerful for evening wear. The colonel clears his throat as he steps toward Beatrice. He fails to speak.
“Mrs. Watts,” says Lucy, taking up the charge, “indeed, all of us have…”
“Concern for you, Hannah, is widespread,” the colonel says.
Does she detect a wry note in his voice? “What do you mean?” she says. “Concern for me is widespread? Why?”
“Now, now,” the Resident drawls. He is a big man, standing at six-and-a-half feet, and his voice seems to issue from his whole body. She’s always liked James Finch, always felt herself to be somehow under his wing, knowing that he could appreciate the challenge of being married to George. He bends and looks her in the eye, his bushy eyebrows pinching together. “Several residents have noticed you painting out of doors, in the village.”
She tries to recall having seen any British residents while she was out. “That may be,” she says. “I have been painting in the village.”
“Mrs. Watts, can you please relay for us what you saw the other day?” asks Lucy.
Beatrice clamps her arms to her sides and nods. “Yes, Lucy. I was passing through the lower quarter. As you know, the missionary church is situated near the wharf in the lower town and I was walking there to deliver Mr. Watts a tin of noodles which he forgot to bring with him for his duties that day at the missionary church. I happened to be looking over the carapace, toward the water, as I passed the area overlooking, indeed, the harbor front. For I do sometimes enjoy the glassy look of the river water.”
Hazel releases a sigh, prompting Lucy to ask, “What, Mrs. Watts, did you see at the base of the pier?”
Hannah is so angry she could swing for them all. They all know what the good lady has seen; they are waiting, rapt, to witness the shame and humiliation Beatrice’s disclosure is supposed to bring her. She draws herself up in anticipation.
“I saw Mrs. Inglis seated on the pier. In front of an easel. Painting.” Beatrice fumbles with her hands. “She was painting a…a lady of ill repute. A Malay, the girl looked to be, wearing a bright pink sarong. You know how they fold them for—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Watts,” Lucy interrupts.
Beatrice scans the little crowd apologetically. “Should I…?”
“Go,” the colonel says stiffly.
Beatrice glances warily at Hannah before exiting the room.
As the door shuts, James Finch starts chuckling.
“Dollymops, Hannah? I didn’t think you had an interest.”
“James!” Lucy objects. “There’s no need for vulgarity.”
“My dear, if I wished to be vulgar, I’d call the miserable wenches ‘harlots’ or ‘three penny uprights.’”
At this, Edgar starts laughing.
“This is not humorous in the slightest,” Lucy hisses. Hazel growls her husband’s name.
“I think we are missing the point here,” the colonel ventures, sounding uncertain.
From their mounts on the high, wood-paneled walls of the drawing room, Finch’s s
tuffed heads witness everything through their glass eyeballs. “Yes,” says Hannah. “I’m missing it. What exactly is the point?”
“I saw you as well, Mrs. Inglis,” pipes up Myrtle. “I saw her. Doing…something concerning in the public gardens.”
Hannah cries at Myrtle, “You didn’t think to mention anything to me this morning, about this great concern of yours. We spent two hours together!”
Myrtle bows her head.
“Go on, Myrtle,” says Lucy. “We cannot help the Inglises until all the facts are made plain.”
“Well…er…first Mrs. Inglis was painting out there, in the gardens. But she sprang up. Left her belongings strewn across the walkway.”
“Odd. Where did she go, do you know?” asks Lucy.
“She ran over to a policeman. The big tall one, who always seems amused by something?”
“Sergeant Singh.”
“But he wasn’t in uniform,” Myrtle adds.
“So there was no emergency.”
“Heavens, no! They stood talking for quite some time near the south gate. Deep in conversation.” Myrtle bites her lip, glancing at the colonel. “They…”
“Go on,” says the colonel, looking bullish.
“They were sharing a book. Passing it back and forth.”
Lucy says, “It was Myrtle’s impression that the book belonged to Sergeant Singh. And they were laughing together. At a certain moment, Hannah became quite emotional—”
“Goodness, how long were you spying?” Hannah snaps at Myrtle.
“Lucy, do we really need this level of…?” James mumbles.
His wife holds up a delicate hand. “Myrtle has also shared with me that she had the impression that you, Hannah, were pursuing Sergeant Singh.”
Hannah shakes her head. Dashing to the south gate, intercepting his exit. Of course she pursued him, though not in the way they are insinuating. “That is false, Lucy. And this is all nonsense. I would like to leave. I wish to go home to bed, as it’s been a very long day.”
They look at the each other, unsure what to do next.
The Parasol Flower Page 10