A Proper Education for Girls (9 page)

After a moment Mrs. Ravelston gave a nervous titter. “It's like that play we saw last season. Remember, Libby? At the theater in Calcutta. And yet, is that a knock I hear or a voice outside?' and everyone looking at the door.”

To hide her smile, Lilian motioned to a bearer to bring more refreshments. But Mrs. Birchwoode had noticed Lilian's amusement and had clearly had enough. She set her tea cup down with a sigh and gathered up her skirts to leave. Used to having their every move sanctioned by Mrs. Birchwoode, the other ladies began to follow suit.

And then, in the kafuffle that followed, as
ayahs
and bearers were located, as husbands shook each other's hands and tea cups rattled onto trays, a man appeared in the doorway. No one heard the bearer announce him and no one noticed he was there until Mrs. Birchwoode's daughter, Frances, pointed and let out a squeal. “Is that him? But he doesn't look like a cutthroat at all! He looks just like one of us!”

“Fanny, please,” grunted her father.

“Allow me to introduce Mr. Hunter,” said Lilian. “Mr. Hunter and I met in the bazaar yesterday afternoon. He is a plant specialist and travels widely throughout India to gather his specimens. Do come in, Mr. Hunter. Please, sit down—if you can find a seat.”

“Are you all here to greet me?” asked Mr. Hunter, looking around the room with a smile. “How very kind.”

There was a moment's silence, while fourteen pairs of eyes took in the man before them. Although nobody mentioned it, they were all relieved (though also a little disappointed) that rather than resembling a bandit from the deepest recesses of the bazaar, Mr. Hunter looked as though he had just emerged from a gentlemen's club on Kensington High Street. The beard had been replaced by a pair of sleek black side whiskers, the vermillion leer by an even unstained smile. The betel-splattered native clothes had disappeared, and instead he wore a fashionably cut, if somewhat densely woven, woolen frock coat and what appeared to be a brand new pair of calfskin breeches. Despite the fact that Mr. Rutherford's thermometer outside in the compound was touching on ninety degrees, other than a certain fidgetiness of demeanor (which could have been occasioned by the weight of so many eyes resting critically upon him) Mr. Hunter seemed unperturbed by his change in apparel.

“He's as dark as a native,” whispered Mrs. Birchwoode to Mrs. Ravelston. “But that'll be the sun from his travels. He actually looks quite respectable. Just as well, really. It would never do to have one of us dressed as a
badmash
, not even for the purposes of traveling incognito.” She watched Mr. Hunter bow low over young Fanny's hand. “He seems quite charming. Very tall and handsome. Perhaps Mr. Vine was mistaken.”

Mr. Hunter bowed and smiled at the ladies appreciatively from between his glossy side whiskers; the men nodded and shook his hand, muttering gruff welcomes.

“So, Mr. Hunter,” said Selwyn, “my wife has told me nothing at all about you, though I understand you have met before. At her father's house.” He eyed his wife craftily. “She mentions the place so seldom, one would think she had forgotten all about it.”

“How could one forget Old Talbot's place,” said Mr. Hunter. His eyes, which were dark beneath black brows, twinkled. He looked at Lilian and smiled as he spoke. “The Collection, as I recall, took up every inch of space, every shelf, corner, and wall of that house. Why, even the room I inhabited during my stay was home to various pieces in Mr. Talbot's museum—an ingenious invention called a ‘tempest prognosticator,’ to be precise, and twenty or more stuffed animals. Indeed, sir, I awoke every morning to stare into the glassy eyes of a nine-foot-tall grizzly bear. I used to hang my shirts on its outstretched paws. There are few men who can say they have had a grizzly bear as a valet!”

There was a titter from the ladies, but looks were exchanged. How bizarre it all sounded! “My wife's father is very learned. A freethinker,” Selwyn explained hastily. “His enthusiasm for the diversity of man's achievements is commendable.”

“Indeed,” replied Mr. Hunter. “Many of the pieces in his Collection are the finest examples of artistic and scientific achievement.” He looked again at Lilian. “His
botanical
collection is particularly impressive.”

“Mr. Hunter himself was responsible for some of its finer specimens,”
said Lilian. “Many of the plants are species from the furthest corners of the world and are difficult to acquire and almost impossible to cultivate. But Mr. Hunter is not a man to be put off by the impenetrable or unattainable. Such flimsy excuses! Indeed, the harder to win a prize, the harder he will try to get it. Isn't that so, Mr. Hunter?”

“A commendable attitude,” said Mr. Toomey “Leave no stone unturned, eh? That's the spirit.”

“Precisely.” Mr. Hunter looked at Lilian over the rim of his teacup.

I
N FACT
, L
ILIAN
was thinking about the time she had first met Mr. Hunter. He had been taking tea with her aunts in the conservatory and had been sitting, as he was now, on a low settee between two middle-aged ladies. The passing of time, she now observed to herself, had made little difference to his appearance. His whiskers were as sleek and glossy, his eyes still sparkled beneath black brows, and his smile still flashed white in his tanned face.

Mr. Hunter had met Lilian's father at a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge. He had been lecturing on his expedition to South America. Mr. Talbot, who was at that time preoccupied with Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans, had decided, on Lilian's own recommendation, to add examples of botany to his collection of South American artifacts. Mr. Hunter had been invited to stay at the great house for as long as he saw fit—perhaps until he had written his book on flora of the Andes or until his plant specimens had become established in the conservatory. Certainly, at least until Mr. Talbot's interest in him waned.

As Lilian and Alice expected, after only one or two visits to the sweltering atmosphere of the hothouse, their father had focused his collecting interests elsewhere. Mr. Hunter was left to his own devices. It was a situation that suited everyone: Mr. Talbot obtained some of the rarest orchids cultivated in England; the aunts were
delighted to find the heating in the conservatory turned up; Lilian and Alice learned much about horticulture and botany that they had only guessed at before. And Mr. Hunter had two young female assistants to help him with his work. In what seemed like no time at all the weeks turned into months. Mr. Hunter, Lilian, and Alice spent every day in each other's company.

“And did you know the word ‘orchid’ is derived from the Greek word
orkhis
, meaning testicle?” Lilian remembered Mr. Hunter asking them one day, as he gently separated two tubers.

Alice said yes, of course, their father expected them to know such etymological details. Lilian had lowered her gaze to the orchid tuber she held in her own hands.

“So many flowers and plants are named after human anatomy,” continued Mr. Hunter after a moment. “Amorphophallus, for instance. Clitoria. Chenopodium vulvaria and, of course, hymenaea.”

Alice had stared at him, as though surprised to find their botany instructor suddenly transformed into this lewd taxonomer.

Lilian had nodded. “I suppose so,” she murmured.

“All the same,” continued Mr. Hunter. “I doubt whether quite so many orchids would grace the parlours and conservatories of England if their mistresses knew its name was so … descriptive.” And he had taken Lilian's hands in his and parted the tubers with her, the wet soil sliding over their tangled fingers.

A month later, Mr. Hunter had gone.

D
R.
M
OSSLY BUTTONHOLED
Lilian while she stood in a reverie beside the tea tray. She struggled to pay attention. It seemed the doctor was asking about the possibility of her starting Bible readings in the hospital. “To raise morale.”

“But aren't most of your patients natives?” Lilian asked distractedly. “Wouldn't they prefer a reading from their own scriptures?”

Dr. Mossly's face turned red. “Mrs. Fraser,” he whispered, “what are you saying?”

“Oh, I was only meaning … I was only meaning that I'd be delighted.”

“Splendid. I have some Eurasians in too. And some native Christians, of course. They'll be particularly keen.” Dr. Mossly rubbed his hands together and began describing the importance of morale for a speedy recovery. From this he went on to explain why the native Hindu constitution was particularly susceptible to lowering fevers and depression (their general indolence and lassitude was to blame) and why so many of them suffered from cataracts (a lack of beef fat in the diet was answerable) … Lilian regarded him bleakly but made no comment. Dr. Mossly, however, was used to women saying nothing when he talked to them. He began to describe the mechanisms in place for maintaining ward hygiene.

Lilian found she could only smother a yawn by taking a mouthful of boiling tea. Her throat burning, she stole a glance at Mr. Hunter. He was now in conversation with Mr. Vine, and he did not appear to see her. She sighed and gazed out of the window. Dr. Mossly's words circled her head, before flying like dust out into the sunlight to be lost on the great plains that surrounded the cantonment for miles. Lilian imagined herself drifting with them, out of the window and into the searing sky, turning on the oven-hot breeze to look down at Kushpur … down at the three-legged pariah dog, scabrous and almost devoid of hair, that sniffed at one of the bundles outside the dispensary … down at the bazaar in the native town teeming with a confusion of colors, sounds, and smells … down at the crowd assembled at the burning
ghat
on the river, the flames circling the ankles of the deceased even as another carcass, white with
ghee
from a more economical but less effective cremation, floated past … The conversations of the English, the same wherever they went, ebbed and flowed around her like a sleeping draft. There was only one person in that company whom, she knew, would be finding everything as absurd as she did. By now he was talking to her husband.

“My wife paints plants,” Selwyn was saying. “Though what she can find that's worth painting in that jungle of a garden is
beyond me. She used to wander off looking for the wretched things—flowers and such—on her own, but I soon put a stop to that. If she must go out she has to take a bearer with her.”

“Oh, indeed,” Mr. Vine interrupted. He smiled at Lilian and shook his head as though in despair at the willfulness of womankind. “Anything could happen. Thugs, thieves, bandits. But she should really stay inside altogether. You wouldn't want to see a rose as precious as your lovely wife wilt and wither in this infernal heat.”

“If you require a flower, Mrs. Fraser, you have only to ask me for it and it shall be yours.” Mr. Hunter bowed and flashed her a brilliant smile.

“How kind,” said Lilian. “But I wouldn't dream of troubling you.”

“Don't encourage her, Mr. Hunter,” cried Selwyn. “She spends enough time scribbling in her notebooks and making sketches of weeds, as it is. Her bedroom is filled with paintings. And it's plants she paints, always plants. Why on earth she doesn't paint something else, I'll never know. A still life, perhaps—that'd keep her indoors. Or a sunset—she could do that from the veranda.”

“You must be careful, Mrs. Fraser,” said Dr. Mossly “When the rains come the very air itself becomes sodden. Your paintings will become mildewed—if they are not devoured by white ants in the meantime.”

“I'm quite aware of that. I intend to send my completed work to England before the monsoon comes.”

“Ah, of course,” said Mr. Hunter. “To your father. Or your sister? How are they both? Well, I hope.”

Lilian didn't answer. Her hand was throbbing from the punch she had given Mr. Hunter the day before (she could see the bruise on the side of his mouth where her fist had struck him), and she had a sudden urge to cuff him again. She had no idea whether Alice was well or not. In fact, the last time she had seen or heard from her, Alice had been crying. Her face, wet with tears, had been buried in a sodden handkerchief, her hand raised in farewell as Lilian was bundled into a carriage with Selwyn and Dr. Cattermole. What
would Alice say if she knew that Lilian was standing before Mr. Hunter once again? The cup of tea in her hand trembled, though her expression remained indifferent.

Selwyn blundered on. “And how long will you be in Kushpur, Mr. Hunter?” he asked.

“A few weeks. A month, perhaps. But I may stay longer. It's not always up to me. The seasons dictate my timetable. The rains may keep me in one place, the thawing of the winter snows may send me to another, the spring equinox has me wanting to be everywhere at once.”

“And you have had some adventures up-country, I take it?” Mrs. Birchwoode said. “That would account for your … your native costume yesterday?”

“If sleeping beneath the stars and traveling by foot through the Himalaya is an adventure, then yes. If drinking from the melt-water of a glacier and bartering your boots for a few pieces of dried mutton is an adventure, or if standing on the roof of the world and seeing the sun rise pink and lilac over the mountains is what you live for, yes again. But if sleeping with a bullock in your tent to keep warm appals you, or if traveling for weeks without a decent cup of tea and a freshly starched collar simply to locate a new plant species seems like the most uncomfortable employment, then no.” He smiled. “I leave you to be the judge.”

Mrs. Birchwoode simpered appreciatively. “How terribly exciting,” she breathed. “I would like an adventure like that.”

“What?” snorted Mr. Birchwoode. “Do without tea, my dear? You wouldn't last two minutes! As for bartering your boots—I imagine the sunrise would prove a poor substitute for the loss of such fashionable accessories.”

Mrs. Birchwoode ignored him. Selwyn gave a thin smile. Lilian found herself being scrutinized by the mirthful eye of Mr. Birchwoode. “Not like you, Mrs. Fraser, eh? You could show Mrs. Birchwoode a thing or two. That's it, my dear,” he shouted at his wife, “why not go with Mrs. Fraser the next time she's off about the countryside on Captain Forbes's horse? That'll be an adventure for
you! No need to sleep beside a bullock and you'll be back in time for tiffin!”