‘Same initials, the date ties in with the first one, so yes, I think it’s from the same hand – sadly not in the same condition.’
Wickedly, Brenda asked, ‘Refresh my memory about the one you bought at auction.’ Every V & A employee knew the ruckus Eliza had caused by spending half her department’s acquisition budget on one sampler.
Reminding herself to stay calm, Eliza recounted how she’d had to spend an obscene amount of money to secure the sampler signed by R. J. Williams – the very one Sarah Lester had taken from Lord Grey’s house and had given to Andrew Harvard to auction on her behalf.
Brenda, with her own budget to manage, tutted at the necessity of spending such a huge proportion of one’s annual budget on one item. She would love to believe that national treasures could be gifted to the nation, and not sold for profit. ‘Profit’ was a dirty word amongst the curators at the V & A. But she was also disillusioned at the sheer number of articles gifted to the museum which never saw the light of day, left wallowing in storage.
Eliza was a card-carrying unionist, more suited to communist Russia than democratic England, hence her compatibility with the museum and academia, a world where you were more likely to be rewarded for perseverance than excellence. Brenda, however, saw the value in selling off excess objects to fund the acquisition of more notable pieces. This continual squabbling over budgets would vanish overnight, should the V & A ever slough off their excess and focus on truly exceptional exhibits.
The two women commiserated over their drinks – one more honestly than the other – each sharing stories about the ill-informed public, the vapid young things in charge of marketing whom they blamed completely for the public’s insatiable appetite for entertainment instead of education, and the shameful way the auction houses conducted themselves.
Other staff ebbed and flowed through the staffroom, feet scuffing the old linoleum, the coffee machine whirring off and on in the background. Most ignored the two older women gossiping in the corner. Both V & A ‘institutions’, they kept their own hours and seemed to be above reproach, modern-day employment conditions completely unknown to them.
Finally, a much younger woman stopped at their table, a look of superiority on her face – the sort only the young can pull off – as she interrupted the older women.
‘Excuse me, Eliza, but we had a meeting scheduled for nine o’clock with the Learning Team, and the team are waiting for you now ...’
‘Goodness, yes, I’d forgotten.’ Eliza heaved herself out of her seat, beads jangling loudly. ‘Brenda, you must come by my office later this morning to see the sampler. I’d love to have your opinion. Sorry, Jasmine, I’m coming. Completely slipped my mind. You’ll never imagine the textiles we had donated to the V & A yesterday.’
The two women walked off, Eliza oblivious to the sighs the younger woman was holding back as she listened to verbal diarrhoea about tapestries and linen from a woman most at the V & A considered a dinosaur.
THE TOWN
Warden Price stood at the entrance to the Dunedin gaol. He should let the constabulary know he was in town, but was in no real hurry to lose anonymity. After the debacle in Waimate, the rest of the journey had been uneventful, and he’d merged seamlessly with the other travellers – disillusioned prospectors, families trailing behind their patriarchs, farmers riding into town to visit with the bank.
On the road, he’d been surrounded by young men, all still cocky enough to believe life owed them and would deliver, the concept of being rewarded for hard work as far from their mind as abstinence for the alcoholic, and he admired them for their resilience.
Running filthy hands through his wild hair, he attempted to make himself presentable. Sarah’s whereabouts weighing so heavily on his mind, he’d barely given any thought to what he’d do now that he’d arrived. All he had was the family name ‘Lester’, and the suggestion that they were related to his Sarah. Finding them would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, or an honest man in a gaol. He also had the name ‘Sinclair’, and he knew it wouldn’t be as much of a stretch to start his search with that name. It was peculiar how criminals achieved a level of fame, notoriety. Stories were never told of how kindly the elderly neighbour was. History never remembered how his generosity was legendary throughout the district; that his preserves were award-winning. But the gangs; the robbers and the rustlers, had songs sung about them, legends forged where the mere mention of their names had widows quaking in fear, their infamy transcending the centuries and the classes.
Fruitlessly he tugged at his shirt, and straightened his wool waistcoat, brushing off the evidence of his journey. Tendrils of curled fern still clung to his collar; thorns from the invasive yellow gorse had woven themselves into the fibre of his coat. Mounting the wooden steps, he entered the gaol.
Prisons had the same aroma regardless of their location. A foul stench of desolation, if desolation were capable of having a scent. Cramped spaces filled with a sector of society not known for their hygiene habits before they entered the penal system, culminated in rank bodies filling the limited accommodation, and their scent permeated through every corridor and doorway of the ad hoc gaol. The man on the formidable front desk was the sort you’d expect to be fronting any modern-day prison; huge, with hands like sledgehammers. The kind of man that could easily be on the other side of the bars but for the grace of God.
‘Morning, sir, what can I help you with?’
‘Good morning. My name’s Warden William Price, down from Bruce Bay. I’m in town and thought it best I check in with the authorities. Seems I’m in need of some assistance to track down a man who’s wanted for murder up on the coast.’
The desk sergeant stood up, extending his gargantuan arm across the counter, shaking Price’s hand with a firmness an arm-wrestling champion would be proud of.
‘Great to have you here, Warden. They’ll be pleased to have you round if you’re staying a while. Pretty damn sure we’ll be able to help you out. You got a place to stay yet?’
‘No, not as yet. Thought I’d stop in here first, then find the nearest hotel to check in and clean up.’
‘There’s The Queen’s Arms, but it’s pretty rough, with prospectors taking most of the rooms there. Probably better to try Wains Hotel on Manse Street. The Press Club meets there, so, as long as you don’t say who you are, you might be able to pick up something from them as well. Once they get a whiff of who you are, they’ll clam up tighter than a nun’s arse.’ Laughing at his own bawdy humour, he carried on chuckling as he sketched out directions to the hotel. ‘There you are. I’ll send someone over tomorrow to get you, once the boys are back from Clyde.’
‘Clyde?’
‘Ah, they’re escorting the gold back here. It’s pretty much just me, and a few others holding the fort here. Not sure we’d be able to hold back a mass breakout, but me,’ patting his sidearm, ‘and my trusty revolver would reduce the overcrowding by a good amount if they tried.’
Price nodded and, taking the crudely drawn map, left the premises, the stink of the gaol clinging to his skin. Outside in the wind, he was struck by the emerging freshness of the city. Everywhere new buildings were crawling upwards. Sawdust danced on the wind, its woody scent on a par with English roses, after the stench of the gaol. It wasn’t a far walk to the Wains Hotel, twenty minutes maybe. Supper and a wash had never been more welcome. Superstitiously, he raised his eyes to the heavens, and prayed for a room to be available.
With his horse stabled behind the gaol, he strode down the bustling road, taking in the prosperous shop fronts. Each had a generous window displaying their wares. Stopping for some time outside the window of Hislop’s Watchmakers, he admired the range of gentlemen’s pocket watches artfully displayed. Sterling silver half-hunters lay gleaming in the sunlight, and in the centre was a James McCabe pocket watch – an 18-carat gold, full-hunter minute-repeating pocket watch made by England’s best known family of watchmakers. The sort of watch which epitomised success, waiting for its n
ew owner – probably a boy from the provinces, flushed with the thrill of finding his first gold nugget, before time taught him that his first nugget was a collision of fate, never to be repeated; and before the year was out, that very same watch would find its way to the counter of the pawnbroker.
Shaking his head at the frivolity of man, he carried on towards Manse Street, passing the Shamrock Auction Rooms just as an auction had ended. Be-suited men flowed out the doors, their black suits and hats making them as indistinguishable from each other as grains of sand. Amiable chat swirled around him as he negotiated the black tide on the semi-formed footpath. Snippets of conversation reached him, nonsensical without context, like so many overheard conversations, which morph through Chinese whispers into damaging gossip, and character assassinations.
‘He’ll not last this one, too inflexible.’
‘Did you hear him last week? All fire and brimstone. Surprised we haven’t all been hit by lightning!’
‘If I wasn’t already assured of going to hell, he’d send me running there just to get away!’
The group laughed uproariously, slapping each other manfully on the back, none of them paying attention to the stranger among them.
Price shook his head; peculiar conversations, to be sure. City conversations.
The Wains Hotel appeared before him. Simple, solid, and with a “Vacancy” sign in the bottom of the window. Walking through the door, he was swallowed up by the simple structure.
THE SCHOOL
Delhi could be smelt before it could be seen. A myriad of pungent odours surrounded the gharry. Squalor mixed with an infinite number of residents and no discernible sanitation system mingled with aromatic spices, fragrant oils and carpets of flowers.
The smell was only swamped by the kaleidoscope of colour on every corner. Reds, yellows, greens. Copper browns and shimmering golds oozed from the pores of every building, as if a paint factory had been emptied over the city, streaking it blindly with a dash of paint from every tin and, even then, that could hardly begin to describe the colourful symphony on display in the streets of Delhi.
The Raja of Nahan was all but blind to the riot of colour and poverty beyond his carriage. They’d been delayed so long, his heart had begun to bleed with loss. There was no chance of finding Sarah in this teeming city now. He was certain she’d been dispatched back to England. He’d decided if that was the case, then he’d go too – although, deep down, he suspected he’d never actually follow through with that rash decision. ‘Foolhardy’ was not a term coined for him. He was not allowed to be so reckless, he had obligations. He was respected. He had no time for chasing English maidens across the oceans. Valid sensible arguments, but when has the heart ever known sensibility?
Banging the roof of the gharry with his lion-headed walking stick, he called to his driver to take him to the missionary school instead of his Delhi home. His heart was taking over his decision-making after all, the vice around his heart squeezing tighter and tighter.
‘School’ was too grand a name for the structure in front of him. Before today, he would have climbed back into his carriage without a second thought, and driven off; the education of the lower castes none of his concern. Now that he was here he cast an appraising eye over the school – the Anglican Mission School for the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel. A uniformed student popped out from the gate, astonishment written all over his face at the mirage of the opulent Raja standing at the gate, resplendent in gleaming golds, pearl strands encircling his elegant neck, his turban the same tint as his brocade coat. Whilst the Raja considered himself dishevelled, to the young lad he looked like a god.
Like a ghost, the boy disappeared, leaving the Raja standing puzzled on the street. A mere tilt of his head, and one of his servants scurried into the school yard, a haven of quiet in the teeming streets of Delhi.
Within moments, Alice Montgomery appeared with efficient haste. Widowed on the road from Kanpur to Delhi in the company of Sarah Williams so many moons ago now, she showed no sign of grief, save tiny extra lines at the edge of her kind eyes.
‘Good afternoon, sir, how may the Anglican Mission School assist you?’ Dressed in stark white, she was the angel to the Raja’s godlike appearance.
‘Good day. Would you be Mrs Montgomery?’
‘Yes I am. How may I help?’
‘Forgive me, Mrs Montgomery, for appearing unannounced, but I’m hoping you would be able to assist me with a personal issue?’
Alice smiled, and invited the Raja inside out of the heat, ‘Would your companions like to take refreshments inside while they wait?’
The comfort of his staff had never crossed the Raja’s mind, and he turned to look at his gharry-wallah, and the rest of his retinue, the heat casting a sheen on their dark faces.
‘Yes of course, that’s very thoughtful of you.’ Nodding at his staff, they scurried into action, moving the Raja’s belongings through the wide driveway into the courtyard of the school, now adorned by little faces wide-eyed at the windows of the classrooms, their immaculate outfits and haircuts making them peculiar clones of each other in ascending sizes.
It perturbed the Raja to have so many pairs of eyes witness his affairs of the heart, but he squared his substantial shoulders and entered the figurative lion’s den.
Alice showed the Raja into the administrative office, cooled by the ministrations of a punkah wallah, whom Alice dismissed gently, waiting until he’d left, before offering the Raja a glass of aam ka panna – green mango juice – and indicating a chair for him to take.
‘Thank you, you are very kind.’
‘Please, take a seat. You have had my name, but I fear I am at a loss as to why someone such as yourself would visit our small school?’
‘My apologies, madam, I am the Raja of Nahan, most recently arrived from Simla, on a matter of much urgency.’
At the mention of his point of origin, Alice’s face paled, as she anticipated the Raja’s next words.
‘I am calling upon this fine establishment to enquire as to the location of a dear friend of mine, who left Simla before I had time to speak further with her. I was afraid time was of such importance, that I have come straight here, without any attention to my appearance, or the required letters of introduction. I am truly sorry.’
Alice looked past the Raja’s bowed head towards the door, left slightly ajar by the punkah wallah. She could just see the dark head of her colleague Elaine Barker, hair shot with grey, her face unusually smooth for her years. Her age and experience should have emboldened her to enter the room, to be part of what was going to be a difficult conversation for Alice.
‘I’m not at all sure that we’ll be able to help. The only women here are myself, and my colleague Miss Barker. I’ve never quite made it to Simla, I’m not sure about Miss Barker.’ Summoning her eavesdropping friend she called out, ‘Have you ever been to Simla, Miss Barker?’
Elaine reluctantly entered the room, her sensible shoes silent on the tiled floor.
‘Elaine, let me introduce the Raja of Nahan. Your Highness, this is my colleague Miss Elaine Barker of Salisbury in England. We have been running this school now for some months. It was to be my husband and I, but unfortunately he lost his life in a carriage accident, and Miss Barker agreed to stay on as my companion.’
If the Raja knew any more of what had happened to the Reverend Montgomery on the road between Calcutta to Delhi, he kept his own counsel, rising instead to greet Miss Barker.
‘Indeed a pleasure to meet you, Miss Barker.’ Like honey dripping from a hive, his voice flowed around the two women, his presence reassuring, his intentions shining through purely.
Elaine wasn’t quite as taken with the Raja as Alice, having met minor Indian nobility on her previous journeys to and from India. She dropped an infinitesimal curtsey before joining Alice on one of the functional chairs scattered around the room. For a small office, there was an abundant supply of chairs in various states of dishevelment.
�
��Have you ever been to Simla, dear Elaine?’ Alice asked, trying to delay the inevitable.
‘Only once, but that was quite some years ago. I should think there are very few of my acquaintances still there, if any, I suspect.’
‘Ladies, I have to interrupt you. I don’t think I was quite clear with you; there is a particular lady I am seeking, and I was told she was sent here to recuperate from the shock of her brother’s murder; Miss Sarah Williams.’
Alice and Elaine exchanged what they thought were subtle glances, but nothing was lost on the Raja.
His heart racing, he all but forgot his station and pleaded with the two English women, ‘I was not wrong. Is she here? May I see her?’
Having never been in such an awkward situation before, the two women both spoke at once.
‘No,’ said Alice.
‘Yes,’ said Elaine.
In something akin to a farce, they clamped their hands in unison over their mouths, before Alice took the lead.
‘She was very ill when she came to us and spent time recuperating with us, but she is not here now.’
Technically true, but Alice didn’t want this man from Simla to see Sarah’s growing pregnancy. Suddenly the idea that perhaps the father of Sarah’s baby was this man, and not Sarah’s brother Simeon, filled her with relief, but did nothing to dampen the potential social damage to Sarah’s family name should word get out that she had slept with a native, regardless of his social status. It was a basic truth that in England, the mere hint of an assignation with a man of colour would ruin a girl. No, the course Alice and Elaine had agreed for Sarah Williams was the best one. A quiet birth, then shipped back to England, the baby named as Simeon’s child, with the story that the mother had died giving birth, and was being returned to England by his aunt. It was the best they could do in the circumstances. The best for Sarah, and ultimately the best for the baby. Alice frowned, appraising the Raja’s coffee-coloured skin. If this man was the father, would the baby take on the father’s hue? Or the mother’s porcelain white tones? It was in God’s hands now.
The Last Letter Page 17