Far Pavilions (108 page)

Ash's chickens were coming home to roost with a vengeance, for Major Spiller, the Political Officer (who had never forgiven what he had taken to be a rude and insufferably high-handed letter, sent from Bhithor over two years ago), began by saying that he himself had received a similar telegram from the same source, and went on to comment at length – and forcibly.

He had already, wrote Spiller, had some experience of Captain, now Lieutenant, Pelham-Martyn in the past, and considered him to be an officious trouble-maker bent on creating a scandal and causing dissension. A few years ago the fellow had done his utmost to disrupt relations between the Government of India and the State of Bhithor (which until then had always been cordial in the extreme) and had it not been for his, Spiller's, firmness, he might well have succeeded in doing so. Now, once again, for reasons best known to himself, he was endeavouring to stir up trouble. However, as no reliance could be placed on anything he said, Major Spiller for one intended to treat these wild allegations with the contempt they deserved: particularly in view of the fact that those whose business it was to know what went on in Bhithor had assured him that the Rana's illness was no more than a slight recurrence of the malarial fever with which he had been plagued at intervals during the past few years, and there was not the least danger of his succumbing to it. The whole thing was a mare's nest, and it might be as well if Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn was given a sufficiently strong reprimand to discourage him from any further meddling in matters that were no concern of his; and it was inexcusable that…

Sir Ambrose had not bothered to read further, since the writer's opinion merely confirmed his own: Belinda had been right and that insufferable young blackguard was at his old tricks again. Sir Ambrose threw the entire correspondence into the waste-paper basket, and having dictated a soothing reply to His Highness the Maharajah of Karidkote, assuring him that there was no need for anxiety, sent a frosty letter to Army Headquarters, complaining of Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn's ‘subversive activities’ and suggesting that it might be as well if his present interests and past history were investigated with a view to his being deported as an Undesirable British Subject.

At about the same time as his telegram (together with Jhoti's, and the Resident's and the Political Officer's comments) was being consigned to the Honourable the Agent to the Governor-Genera's waste-paper basket, Ash was greeting a tired and dusty traveller who had arrived that morning from Bhithor.

Manilal had set out for Ahmadabad less than twenty minutes after Gobind had released the second pigeon. But while the pigeon had covered the distance in a few hours, Manilal had taken the best part of a week, for his horse had strained a tendon and thereafter he had been forced to go slowly, the roads being rutted by cart-wheels and deep in dust, which did not make for easy going at the best of times.

‘What news?’ demanded Ash, running down the steps as the tired man dismounted under the shadow of the porch. Ash had ridden out three days running in the hope of intercepting Manila!, and had become increasingly anxious when there had been no sign of him, or any reply from the District Superintendent of Police's friend in Ajmer (he had not been so sanguine as to imagine that his own telegrams would be answered). To tempt Fate, he had stayed indoors that morning, and towards noon Fate had rewarded him by sending Gobind's servant to the bungalow.

‘Very little,’ croaked Manilal, whose throat was dry with dust: ‘except that he was still alive when I left. But who knows what may have happened since? Has the Sahib warned the Government and Karidkote of what is toward?’

‘Assuredly, within a few hours of that pigeon reaching home. I have done all I could.’

‘That is good news,’ said Manilal hoarsely. ‘Have I your leave, Sahib, to eat and drink and perhaps rest a little before I talk further? I have not slept since the horse injured himself shying in terror at a tiger that crossed our path.’

He slept for the rest of the day and reappeared after sundown, still heavy-eyed, to squat on the verandah and tell Ash all that Gobind had not been able to send by pigeon-post. Apparently the palace physicians still said that the Rana would recover, insisting that he was only suffering an unusually severe attack of malarial fever to which he had been subject for many years. But in Gobind's view this was no mere fever, but a sickness of the body for which there was no cure, and the most that could be done was to administer drugs to relieve the pain – and hope to delay the end until the Government sent someone in authority to see to it that when he died it would mean one death only, and not three.

Gobind had apparently managed, by devious means, to establish contact with the Junior Rani through a serving-woman whose relatives were susceptible to bribery, and who was herself said to be much attached to Kairi-Bai. In this way several messages had been smuggled into the Zenana Quarters, and one or two had even been answered, though the replies had been short and uncommunicative, and told Gobind nothing beyond the fact that the Junior Rani and her sister were well which should have satisfied him, but failed to do so because there was something about those letters that made him uneasy perhaps the very fact that they were too cautious. Was Nimi, the serving-woman, not to be trusted, and did Kairi-Bai know or suspect this? But if that were so it could only mean that there was something that must be concealed… unless he was being needlessly suspicious.

Then the baby had been born, and on the following morning Gobind had received a letter from Kairi-Bai that was not in answer to one of his own. It had been a frantic plea for help, not for herself, but for Shushila-Rani, who was in a serious condition and must have attention at once – if possible, a European nurse from the nearest
Angrezi
hospital. It was a matter of the utmost urgency and Gobind must send for one immediately and in secret, before it was too late.

There had been a withered
dakh
flower enclosed in the letter, which is the sign for danger; and seeing it Gobind had been seized with the terrifying suspicion that the Senior Rani, having failed to produce an heir, was perhaps being poisioned – as rumour said the previous one had been –

‘Yet what could the Hakim-Sahib do?’ asked Manilal with a shrug. ‘It was not possible for him to do as Kairi-Bai desired. And even if he had been able to send such a message out of Bhithor, the Rana would never have permitted any foreign woman, doctor or not, to force her way into the Zenana and examine his wife. Not unless such a one came with a strong escort of soldiers, guns and police-Sahibs, or unless he himself could be persuaded to send for one.’

Gobind had courageously tried the latter course, but the Rana would not hear of it and was angered that such a suggestion should even have been put to him. He despised all foreigners as barbarians and would, if he had his way, have refused to allow any of them to set foot in his state, let alone have any personal contact with him. Had not he, alone among all his neighbouring princes, refused to appear at any of the durbars arranged by the Raj to announce that the Queen of England had been declared
Kaiser-i-Hind
(Empress of India), excusing himself on the grounds that he had fallen ill and was unfortunately unable to travel?

The suggestion that he of all people should now invite an
Angrezi
woman to come and poke her nose in his wife's affairs was offensive. Besides, what could a foreign woman possibly know of Hindu medicine and the arts of healing? There was nothing wrong with the Rani that rest and proper care would not put right, and if the Hakim doubted it he was at liberty to question the
dai
who had presided at the birth.

Gobind had taken advantage of this unexpected offer, and been favourably impressed by the midwife; though she had been strangely uncommunicative on the subject of her predecessor, old Geeta from Karidkote, and when questioned about the dead woman had muttered that she knew nothing – nothing at all – and hastily changed the subject. Apart from that, she struck him as a sensible woman with a sound knowledge of midwifery.

The
dai
had assured him that contrary to all expectations, the birth had proved an easy one. There had been no complications and the Rani was in good health. Her disappointment at the infant's sex had affected her spirits, but that was understandable as she had set her heart on having a son, and the astrologers and soothsayers, not to mention her own women, had foolishly bolstered her hopes by assuring her that the coming child would be a boy. However, she would get over that before long, and if the gods were kind the next one, or the one after that, would be a son. There was plenty of time for she was young – and also far stronger than her frail appearance suggested.

The
dai
had given Gobind a good deal of technical information on the subject of the Rani's physical condition following her delivery, and left him feeling reassured as to her health and no longer so uneasy as to her safety, since he did not believe that the woman was lying. He came to the conclusion that Kairi-Bai must have heard those ugly whispers about the death of the Rana's previous wife, and was in consequence afraid that now her sister too had borne a daughter she might be removed in the same way. This was highly unlikely, if only for the reason that Shushila-Bai was an exceptionally beautiful woman whom the Rana loved, while her predecessor, from all reports, had been plain, fat and stupid, and wholly lacking in charm.

Gobind had sent a reassuring note to the Junior Rani, but had received no answer; and a week later the baby had died.

There had been a rumour in the palace that the
dai
too was dead, though some said that she had only been dismissed following a dispute with the Rani's half-sister, who had accused her of failing to take proper care of the child. It was also said that the Rana, angered by the Junior Rani's interference, had given orders that she was to keep to her own rooms and neither see nor speak to her sister until further notice: an edict that Gobind feared would cause even more distress to the Senior Rani than the Junior one… if it were true.

But then a great many of the palace rumours were not. The Rung Mahal, said Manilal, stank of evil and bred rumours as a midden breeds flies, being crammed with idle courtiers, place-seekers and hangers-on, in addition to hordes of servants, none of whom had enough to do and therefore relieved their boredom by engaging in feuds and generally making mischief. ‘They sit about and chew
pan
and talk scandal – when they are not asleep,’ said Manilal scornfully. ‘And most of their talk is lies, for each one wishes to make out that he is privy to more than the others, and invents a tale to draw attention to himself and gain importance; and if the tale is a scandalous one, so much the better, virtue being too often very dull.’

Nevertheless the rumours had disturbed Gobind and he had done his best to discover if there was any truth in them, but however much the Rana's people might gossip among themselves about the affairs of the Zenana, they were at pains to avoid that subject when talking to the men from Karidkote, and the most that Gobind learned was that no one could be blamed for the baby's death. It had been an undersized and sickly little creature whose hold on life had been precarious from the start, and the Senior Rani was prostrated with grief at its loss, having become very fond of it once she recovered from her disappointment that it was a daughter instead of a son.

About the Junior Rani and the
dai
there had been no further information, and Gobind could only hope that if it were true that Kairi-Bai had again been parted from her sister, the Rana would soon rescind the order for the sake of the bereaved mother – unless of course, he had lost interest in her and was using this method of punishing both women: the one for interfering and the other for having failed to give him a son. That was more than possible.

‘But surely this serving-woman or her family could have given you or your master news of the Junior Rani? And of the
dai
too?’ said Ash.

Manilal shook his head and explained that although the woman Nimi had acted as a go-between in the matter of the letters, it had at no time been possible to have any speech with her, the Hakim-Sahib's only contact with her being through her parents who accepted payment on her behalf, and to whom he gave his letters and received the occasional reply. But either they knew nothing of what went on in the Zenana, or considered it safer to pretend that they did not.

‘They profess to being ignorant,’ said Manilal, ‘and we have learned nothing from them beyond that they have this daughter Nimi, who they say is devoted to her mistress the Junior Rani, but who is certainly rapacious, for she demands more and more money for each letter that she takes in or out of the Women's Quarters.’

Ash said: ‘If you have only their word for that, it may be that she does what she does for love, and knows nothing of the sums they extort in her name.’

‘Let us hope so,’ said Manilal earnestly, ‘for many risks are cheerfully undertaken for love. But those who take them only for payment may turn traitor if another is willing to pay more, and if it becomes known that the Hakim-Sahib is corresponding in secret with the Junior Rani, then I think all our lives will be endangered: not only his, but hers too – and mine also, together with the woman's relatives. As for the woman herself, her life would not be worth so much as a grain of corn.’

Manilal shivered involuntarily and his teeth made a little chattering sound. They had, he told Ash, learned nothing more when the Rana fell seriously ill, and before very long it became plain to all that the illness could be mortal.

‘Only then did we learn by a chance whisper overheard in the palace – and later through the open talk in the city and certain unseemly jests in the bazaars – that if he died his wives would burn with him; for save for his father, the old Rana, who died of the cholera, no ruler of Bhithor has ever gone to the pyre alone – and for him it was only because there had been no wives to become suttee as they too, and his favourite concubine also, had already taken the disease and died of it. But it seems that when his predecessor died, in the year that Mahadaji Sindia retook Delhi, fourteen women – wives and concubines – followed him into the flames; and before that never less than three or four and often more than a score. Now the wits say that this time there will be only two, there being no concubines but only catamites.’