Belonging (24 page)

Yesterday, the doorbell rang as I was coming down to breakfast. I opened the door and the postman handed me a letter. As I took it, I felt that mixture of dread and excitement that I always feel these days when I see my name on a letter. No one writes to me except Barbara. The letter was stamped and postmarked in England and addressed in a hand I didn’t recognise. I tore it open. Inside was another envelope, addressed to me in Jagjit’s father’s hand.

I went so white that the postman made me sit down in the hallway and went round to the kitchen to ask Enid to bring me some water. Hearing her fussing over me, Mrs. Beauchamp came out. ‘What is it, my dear? Not bad news, I hope?’

‘From his father.’ My lips felt as clumsy as they had when I first started speaking again.

‘Do you want me to stay with you while you read it?’

I nodded, took a deep breath and tore open the letter.

I burst into tears.

Mrs. Beauchamp put her arms around me. ‘My dear, I am so sorry.’

I pushed her away. ‘He’s alive.’

‘Alive? But my dear, how wonderful!’

‘That
is
good news, Miss,’ Enid said beaming. She always liked Jagjit.

‘It is real, isn’t it? The letter… it’s not a dream?’

‘No, my dear, it’s not a dream.’ Mrs. Beauchamp smiled.

‘Do you want me to pinch you, miss?’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary, Enid,’ Mrs. Beauchamp said. ‘Why don’t you take the letter upstairs and read it quietly, Lila? I’ll send a telegram to Simon. He’ll be so relieved.’

I went upstairs to my room and stood looking out at the slope of the Downs. It seemed right that the bluebells should be in flower – I could see clumps of them along the fence.

I stood holding the letter, reading and rereading it, my joy turning to bewilderment. How could he send me such a message? I thought of all the letters I written to him over the
years, without ever getting a reply, even after I had been told he was probably dead. Did I mean nothing to him?

I picked up Aunt Mina’s packet and ran out of the room and down the stairs, passing Mrs. Beauchamp at the bottom. She turned as I rushed past. ‘I was just coming up. Is everything all right?’

I tried to speak, but the fist-sized lump in my throat blocked the words.

‘Lila?’

I pushed the letter into her hand and fled past her out of the door and round to the back. At the fence I caught my skirt on the brambles as I scrambled through the gap. I wrenched at it, and felt satisfaction as I heard the material rip.

Back at High Elms, I walked past the cavernous downstairs rooms, neither home nor hospital now. The cream oil paint that covered the wallpaper was marked where electric wires had been ripped down, and with the scrapes of the beds and wheelchairs of those who had suffered and died there. I went up to my old room, which I had been allowed to keep when I was nursing there, and lay down on my bed. Muddled thoughts went through my head – thoughts of Father and India, of all the doubts and fears of the last few years. I saw that I had, without realising it, swung between two possible futures: Jagjit alive and myself married to him, or Jagjit dead and myself alone and grieving. I had never envisaged the possibility of Jagjit being alive and myself alone. Why did I never count?

Grief turned to self-pity and resentment and I fanned the flames. I would not cry. I was tired of not knowing, of always being in the dark. It was time to find out.

I shook the key out of Aunt Mina’s packet and went up to the attic.

Father died in October, shortly after Lila’s fourth birthday. Thinking of him has prompted me to start keeping a journal again, even if only temporarily. I have missed writing down my thoughts but have had little time for reflection, what with the demands of caring for Rebecca, an ageing father and a baby, as well as a new career.

I resigned from the I.C.S. shortly after Lila’s birth. The world of the ‘Heaven-Born’, as it is satirically referred to, is an exclusive and snobbish one, and Rebecca’s nervous state, together with rumours that I had ‘a touch of the tar brush’, made us pariahs. Clubs refused to admit me on transparent pretexts and we were not invited anywhere, which made my position as a civil servant untenable. A magistrate needs to be respected, and if Indians know his peers do not respect him one can hardly expect them to do so.

It was Gavin McLean, my old friend from school, who encouraged me to apply for the Political Service. They were looking for people to conduct a survey to establish the boundary of the Durand Line that had been agreed between us and the Amir of Afghanistan, and the fact that I had spoken
Hindustani since childhood gave me an advantage. Gavin of course, being half-Chinese, and a superb linguist, can pass for a Gurkha, Tibetan or Central Asian when occasion demands.

I was initially concerned about leaving the baby with Rebecca, for she continued, and continues to this day, to insist that Lila is not her baby but was substituted in the hospital. No amount of reasoning has been able to alter this conviction. I even named the baby ‘Lilian’ after Rebecca’s supposedly Irish mother, in the hope that this might placate her, but it has made no difference. Zainab and the servants immediately shortened it to ‘Lila’, a name I have always liked, and ‘Lila’ she has become to everyone but Rebecca, who rarely refers to her at all. I deeply regret that she will grow up, as I did, without the love of a mother, but Zainab dotes on her and lavishes on her all the love she has been unable to offer her own daughter. Right from the first, she took jealous possession of the baby, and as soon as she was fed her wet nurse was dismissed to the compound, and dismissed altogether as soon as Lila was weaned.

My greatest shame is that I have been complicit in the pretence that my daughter’s grandmother is a servant – a deception that she will surely one day reproach me with. But Zainab herself will never agree to tell Rebecca the truth, believing that being forced to accept it would make her worse. My argument – that it is not truth but lies and deception that feed suspicions and irrational fears – cuts no ice with her, but I cannot deny that she understands Rebecca better than I do.

Despite Zainab’s care, I was concerned at the long absences, sometimes of several months, that my new career has entailed, but Father assured me he would take care of the household and for the most part it was a success. Rebecca respected and loved him and he was kind to her, while Lila
adored being jogged up and down on his knee, playing at ‘horsies’, while using his beard as the reins. I knew he could not live forever – at eighty-eight he had reached a good age – but his death has hit me hard, for my admiration for him grew with every year. I always left the household in his charge with confidence, even when in the last year his wits began to wander and he imagined that I was his brother James and that Rebecca was Cecily. I believe there was a genuine affection between him and Rebecca. He had suffered from depression and guilt for so many years that I was grateful to her for providing him with some comfort and peace in his last years.

After his death she suffered another of those ‘brain fevers’, and once again her head has been shorn. When I went in to see her after it was done, I was so moved I could scarcely speak. She looked as she did on the day I proposed to her, when she seemed to me the embodiment of everything a man could desire in a woman.

I have been in two minds what to do, unsure whether, without Father’s supervision, I can safely undertake the extended travel my work requires. Zainab assures me that all will be well. I have discussed with her the possibility of returning to England and seeking treatment for Rebecca, but she is against it. She is convinced it will reinforce Rebecca’s conviction that I intend to have her confined in an asylum. And Zainab’s own life would be even lonelier than it is here for, although the other servants dislike her, in England there would be no one who even speaks her language.

I must admit it is a relief to remain here, for I love my work. The freedom of travel, the beauty of the mountains,
and mingling with the fierce proud tribesmen of the Northwest Frontier is fulfilling in a way the I.C.S. never was. All that matters in the Political Service is how well one does one’s job, and I have been fortunate in having Gavin as my friend and mentor. He is the cleverest man I ever met, and well respected in the service despite his mixed origins.

The game we play is a risky one, more like being a soldier – my original ambition – than a civil servant, though it requires more guile. Lord Curzon said earlier this year that the territories that lie between India and Russia are ‘pieces on a chessboard being played out for dominion of the world’. There is a real pleasure in using one’s wits and living on the edge of danger, but now that Father is gone I wonder if it is a game I should be playing. Like him, I no longer believe in our right to be here, and, if something were to happen to me, what would become of Lila, left in Rebecca’s care?

I have been thinking for some time of making Aunt Mina her legal guardian in case of my death. I do not think this would present any great difficulty, for Rebecca has never shown the slightest interest in Lila, and I have on occasion suspected that she may even have tried to harm her. There have been a couple of injuries that happened in my absence that Zainab explained away as accidents, though I have noticed that she now takes care to keep Lila away from her mother.

I have had another offer of help, too. Just before Christmas I bumped into Roland Sutcliffe here in Peshawar. His regiment is here at the request of the Amir to check the raids being made by the Waziris along the Frontier. We have not seen each other since I moved from Bhagalpur soon after our marriage, though we have exchanged the odd letter from time to time.

I invited him to tea and he came and was a great success with Lila, who took to him immediately. Her presence helped to ease the tension, for Rebecca froze him out, despite all his efforts at gaiety and charm. He is a captain now, but still unmarried and, judging by his conversation when I meet him alone, not much changed. He has been over twice since then and each time Rebecca has thawed a little and Lila has greeted him like an old friend. I suspect part of his appeal is that he too has a beard and allows her to climb on his knee and pull it, as Father did. He has offered to continue to visit in my absence and get a message to me if I am needed.

I shall miss Lila when I go back to work. Over the last couple of months we have spent a lot of time together, riding into the country, often taking a picnic with us and staying out all day. And, each time I return home to be greeted with that dazzling smile that Father said she gets from my mother, I thank God again for that doctor who told me a truth it must have been unpleasant to disclose, and by doing so saved her life. For her existence has more than made up for every other disappointment in my life.

It is eight years since I made the last entry in this journal. My life has been too busy to allow it. My work entails writing lengthy reports and since Father’s death I have tried to spend all my spare time with Lila. In recent years those dreams and depressions that used to plague me have recurred less frequently, but my recent discovery about Rebecca has revived them.

Last week, when Gavin and I arrived back from a mission, we were intercepted by a messenger who had been sent to
watch for our return. He warned us that the room we rent in the bazaar to change in and out of our disguises was being watched, so we decided to go straight home. I waited till the chowkidar had gone for his tea and then slipped in the gate. In the hall, I noticed Roland’s blue and gold striped puggree on the stand, but there was no sign of him on the verandah or in the drawing room. As I turned towards my room, I heard laughter coming from Rebecca’s bedroom. I wish now that I had gone in and confronted them, but I was aware of the need to change out of my disguise before the servants saw me.

I went to my room and changed quickly, scrubbing the dye off my face and hands as best I could before going back into the drawing room. I entered the corridor just as Roland emerged from Rebecca’s room, still straightening his uniform jacket. He looked startled to see me, but recovered quickly and said he had been paying a sick call on Rebecca, who was in bed with one of her headaches. I should have smashed my fist into his face – I am stronger now than I used to be and well trained in hand-to-hand fighting – but maybe the years of pretending to be someone I am not has become a habit, for instead I stood there making polite conversation until he took his leave.

Zainab, of course, must know. Nothing happens in this house without her knowledge, but I learnt long ago that, except when it comes to Lila’s welfare, her first allegiance is always to Rebecca. I have said nothing to Rebecca herself, because I know it would achieve nothing, but I wonder how long this has been going on. Was it right from the beginning? Did he agree to watch her for me, knowing all the time that he intended to seduce her? Has she held a candle for him all those years? Was even the short time when we seemed to be happy a lie?

I cannot blame her for taking from him what I was no longer prepared to give, for I have not spent a night with her since Lila’s birth, despite knowing that her whole sense of herself depends on her ability to attract desire. Perhaps it was cruel of me to marry her and then deprive her of the only thing that gives her a sense of worth; I thought of myself as her rescuer but all I seem to have done is transfer her to a prison with stronger bars.

What really hurts is Roland’s betrayal – that he should have pretended once again to be my friend, offered to care for Rebecca and my child, and then taken advantage of my trust and hospitality. And yet I have always known what he is like, known that he has no respect for marriage, and that deceit and secrecy just add spice to his adventuring.

I have been feeling very low since I discovered what a fool I have been. The knowledge that everyone in the house – all the servants and, of course, Zainab – must have known what was going on and were sniggering behind my back has been humiliating, and for the first time I have some sense of what Rebecca must have suffered all these years. You would think that might have made me more patient, but yesterday when she came to me with some trivial complaint about Zainab as she so often does, and begged me to dismiss her, I lost my temper and told her that I was sick of her lies and pretence and if she felt people were untrustworthy it was because she herself was incapable of honesty.

I suggested that she stitch into one of her precious embroideries the motto ‘The Truth Shall Make You Free’, then told her it was time that she faced the truth, however
unpleasant, that Zainab is her mother. I was just passing on to Roland when she began to scream at me and call me a liar, accusing me of being in league with her enemies, and then she became hysterical and threw herself on the floor and had a fit, with her teeth chattering and her limbs jerking.

Zainab came and took her away and dosed her with laudanum. She said nothing to me but I truly believe that if she could poison me and get away with it she would do it without a second thought. Fortunately Lila was out on her pony, although she has witnessed plenty of her mother’s hysterical outbursts over the years.

Last night Rebecca came to my room while I was sleeping. I woke, already aroused, to find her in bed beside me, using all her seductive wiles, and for a moment I was tempted to succumb – it has been a long time since I have been with a woman – but then the thought struck me that she must use the same tricks with Roland and I pushed her off.

She became hysterical again and screamed at me that she hated me, and tried to scratch my face with her nails. She was screaming so loudly that Zainab came. Between us we got her back to her room where Zainab quieted her, I suspect with more laudanum.

I went into Lila’s room to see if she had woken. She was sitting up in bed and I sat down beside her and said, ‘Don’t worry, darling. Mother has one of her headaches.’ She nodded, though I could tell she didn’t believe me. She is twelve now and too old to swallow these excuses. I realise it is time to get her away from here. I have telegraphed Aunt Mina to ask if she will have her. I am loath to send her away,
remembering how I hated it myself, but I am afraid of what witnessing these scenes will do to her.

I read to her for a while, then she played with my lucky Sussex stone and asked me to tell her again how I had got it. I told her my mother put it round my neck when I was born but I have never told her more – it is too sad a story for a child. I thought again of Father, trying to protect me, and how I resented him for sending me away. I will miss her dreadfully, but I know she will be safer in England. In any case, it is only a matter of time before I shall have to return myself.

It seems that Zainab was right about Rebecca, as she always is. Since I told her the truth about her mother she has been paler than ever, and as still as if she is turning to marble. I fear I have pushed her too far and that I must now seek treatment for her. They tell me there are doctors in London who have produced remarkable cures for hysteria, and they may even be able to wean her off the laudanum. But the thought of breaking the news to her and, if I am honest, the thought of returning to England and finding an ordinary job in some city office, both fill me with dread.