The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (7 page)

He was disappointed with her. She fitted in with none of the descriptions he had been given, nor did she immediately strike any impression of her own; just a female creature--not beautiful, not even peculiar. He would probably have dismissed her from his mind after the first ten minutes had Richard been in a better mood--or had she been more obedient to the orders Richard had given her before they set out.

'God knows,' Richard had said, 'why he asked you to the palace at all. Damned insolence, no doubt. They never let their women show their faces outside their own quarters. And you'd better keep well in the background. Speak when you're spoken to, not otherwise.'

He had judged it advisable to present himself in a state of complete sobriety, and the strain of that unaccustomed condition was showing before ever they set out. It grew fiercer with every minute of the long-drawn-out interview. For the first half-hour the Rajah asked all the questions, moving in circumambulatory fashion towards his real objective--the exact reason for Richard's presence in Kilapore, the terms and conditions of the concessions the Company wished to acquire. Then, for twenty minutes, Richard, who knew what he was talking about, and was anxious to make a success of his mission, held the floor, while the Rajah seemed to pay slight attention and in the end said, 'There would be much to think; sixty days of think in this head, in heads of old wise men to advise.'

It was then at the beginning of the season of greatest heat and the prospect of spending two months far inland did nothing to calm Richard's nerves, which were screaming for the brandy oblivion they had been denied all day. He had said what was required of him, and said it well; let him now be dismissed.

'Now you shall tell me much thing,' Surunda Ghotal said, and proceeded to ask all the questions; stupid little questions which his curiosity dictated and which were, to his mind, of much more urgent moment than the ones he had asked earlier about the East India Company and its advances to him. Any man but Richard Shelmadine would have realised instantly that here, by a stroke of good luck, was handed to him the key to Surunda's interest and friendship at least, but the arrogant perverse devil who ruled Richard was bored, impatient and affronted. There were things which a gentleman down on his luck must do, just to keep bread in his mouth and a roof over his head, but Richard Shelmadine had fulfilled his obligations when he had made his twenty-minute speech--in this fat old heathen's own language, which was more than most men could do. His answers grew shorter and brusquer; he said 'I don't know' or 'It would be impossible to explain' so often that Linda blushed with embarrassment and began first to supplement Richard's grudging answers and then to take upon herself the responsibility of making the first response to the endless questions. The Rajah seemed surprised, even a trifle ill at ease for a moment and Richard turned upon her his nastiest, most mocking grin. When the moment had passed Surunda focused his whole attention upon her, and during the next half-hour she did her best to give him whatever he wanted--a description of Windsor Castle; an explanation of what was a newspaper and how it circulated; a dissertation upon the jury system. Jasma had brought back with him from Fort St George two or three copies of The Times and The Spectator, all well over a year old by the time they reached Surunda's hands, and they had been his English textbooks, which, as he had mastered the language in which they were written, had also provoked his curiosity by their references to strange things. It was wonderful to find that this Englishwoman, so dull to look at, so disappointing, was in reality the thing he had often wished for--someone better informed than Jasma and willing to answer questions.

He would gladly have talked to her for hours, but he was aware at last of the Englishman's mounting impatience, so he said, 'Many, many thing I have to ask. The Christianity, of that I would hear; as also of party politic and of turnpike road. Sixty days will be time if you will be kind to tell me. One thing there is to ask now.' Richard gave an audible sigh. 'In your house there are servants?'

'Here in Kilapore, you mean, Your Highness?'

'In Kilapore, yes. Servants are obtain for you?'

'Yes. They were--I think--hired with the house.'

'That is not good. Tomorrow I shall send one to rule them. He is a man of...it is the knowing how to do...experience.' He produced the word triumphantly. 'One who went with my son to Fort St George and learned in the house of Mr Mackintosh. Very stern. He shall rule and none shall rob you.'

'Thank you,' Linda said earnestly. She cherished the hope that in the house of Mr Mackintosh the stern man might have acquired a little English; then she could give orders without bothering Richard.

With an effort which brought a look of abstraction to his face the Rajah sought for some formula of dismissal and finally found it.

'Sir and lady,' he said, 'I beg your leave to retire yourselves.'

On the way back to the hired house Richard said, 'You prolonged that ordeal by at least an hour.'

'I know,' she said meekly. 'But we wanted to please him, and I thought your long speech had tired you.' It had long become second nature to her by this time to avoid trouble by placing the most favourable interpretation upon Richard's actions whenever possible. Criticism merely led to quarrels.

'I could make that speech in my sleep! I just could not be bothered to answer his damned silly questions. I'd told him all that he needed to know--and he could hardly be civilly attentive to what did concern him. He's stupid, like all the rest of the apes, and anxious to exhibit his two words of English, and to show his power. Making us sweat it out here for two months while he makes up his mind, when he knows damned well what his answer will be.'

'And what will it be?'

'He'll concede. If he hadn't decided he would have asked a few questions about terms and conditions instead of about Windsor Castle and newspapers.'

Before she spoke again she hesitated, reluctant to offer a contrary opinion and so worsen Richard's mood; but perhaps he should be warned, perhaps it was her duty to mention what she had noticed.

'I couldn't follow, of course, what you were saying, but I kept my eye on him, and he did seem, as you say, fidgety and inattentive. He was listening, though, and every time you mentioned Bholobad his hands clenched.'

'Avarice, my pretty one. Bholobad is the Company's ace of trumps in these negotiations. The Rajah of Bholobad has doubled his income in three years' trade with the Company.'

But she had placed her own construction upon Surunda Ghotal's reaction to the word, and when, at the end of sixty days, his answer had been a point-blank refusal to trade on any terms at all she had not been surprised. Bholobad might be the place where the Rajah's income had doubled, but she remembered, and so did Surunda no doubt, that the Rajah who enjoyed the enhanced income was not the same one who had ruled the state and received the Company's first emissary. The course of events had followed a pattern by now well established; concessions were granted, the Company moved in; some trivial dispute was fanned into a brief bloody civil war, and when that was over the Company's own chosen candidate was on the throne. He might enjoy more income than his predecessor, but he had no power at all.

During the two months of his pretended indecision Surunda had shown several signs of favour to his uninvited guests; he had sent them gifts of fruit and vegetables from the palace gardens, put a litter at their service so that in the brief, less-scorchingly-hot hour of the late afternoon they could take drives and gain from the moving air at least the illusion of freshness; he had invited them to bathe in the palace pools.

Yes, he had been kind; and for that reason she had now come to take a courteous leave of him. He had completed Richard's ruin, but he had done it unintentionally.

Seeing her arrive alone, Surunda Ghotal nodded knowingly to himself; then as she drew near he smiled. 'Good afternoon, Meesis Shel-ma-dine. Please to sit.' He indicated a second couch, set at some distance from his own.

'My husband asks you to excuse him. He has many things to arrange. We leave early tomorrow morning.'

'Ah, he is angry to me. I am understanding. And you? You are also angry to me?'

'No. I am sorry, naturally. If my husband had succeeded in persuading you...' But there was no point in completing that sentence. Richard, in the end, had used every bit of persuasive power; had even changed tactics and used charm--all to no purpose. It was over. 'You did as you thought best,' she said. 'And was I not wise?'

'That is difficult to say, Your Highness. Sometimes, as I look about, I am bound to think that in the end the Company will rule all India. At least you have put off the day when they move into Kilapore; and'--her lips moved in a small smile--'if you use all the time you have gained as energetically as you have used this last two months, when the struggle comes you will be in a strong position.'

'What are you meaning of the last two months?' 'On our drives in the afternoons I have noticed two new forts--one on the road to Chilpuddy, the other on the road to Dorhea; they have risen so fast I think the men must work all through the night. And many soldiers have arrived from somewhere.'

'Your eyes are keen,' he said approvingly. 'Yes. They have said to me, using sweet words, Give us Kilapore to do with as we did with Bholobad; and I have said, No. One day they will say to me, Now we will take Kilapore as we took Bengal; and on that day I shall say, Attempt it. But it is not of such things we should speak on this last day. Please to refresh yourself.'

She looked at the little table near the couch; it bore a tall, slender silver flagon and a thin beaker of porcelain, and three small dishes piled with the highly flavoured, violently coloured sweetmeats which all Indians loved. She had tasted similar ones on a former visit and been nauseated by their oversweetness, so today she merely poured herself a beakerful of the slightly acidulated, effervescent liquid which in the palace served in place of wine. She was grateful for its coolness.

'So tomorrow you go. That is sad; for me, very sad. Where do you go?'

'First to Fort St George, of course. And then, as soon as possible, back to England.'

'So? Meester Shel-ma-dine, he works no more for the great East India Company?'

She said steadily, 'We have been in India for five years. There are things in England which need my husband's attention.'

The quaking feeling of sickness which always assailed her when she was forced to think of the future made even the cool bubbling liquid nauseating. She set down the beaker and pressed her handkerchief to her lips. England, which should have meant such different things, stood for a return to the shifts and debts, the sordid lodgings, the dubious means of survival which had been their lot before some influence had been exerted to find Richard a place in the Company's service.

'You have been very kind to answer such many questions,' Surunda Ghotal's voice broke in on her dismal thoughts.

'And you have been very kind to us. Most especially I thank you for lending Mee to rule my household; it has made everything very easy for me.'

'I now wish to make you little gift. For gratitude. And for memory. There is a word...'

'A keepsake,' she said. Involuntarily her eyes went to his tunic; today he was wearing the one with the emerald buttons, each of the four matched stones as big round as a guinea and set in a circle of diamonds. All very well for Richard to laugh--the gift of one such button would make all the difference. She thrust the thought away and said, with truth: 'I have no need of a keepsake to remember you, Your Highness. I shall always recall our conversations with pleasure and your kindness with gratitude.'

'And I shall remember all things you teach me.' He leaned forward as much as his bulk and outstretched leg allowed and regarded her steadily for a moment. 'One thing,' he said, 'you are teaching me is from you to me alone. Other people may have told me what is turnpike, but this thing is from you to me alone. In history of India, here and there I am hearing of women, one or two, very few, Ranee or Begum with young son maybe, one or two with husband, very clever, come to great power and ruling most well: Always to hear this I am laughing. In my palace are many women, and always when a new one comes--now no longer, for me--but in past time always I am asking myself, Is this one to be like those of whom in history I am hearing? And it is not so. Not once. Never. And still I am laughing because of the stories. You are understanding me? I wish you to know that now I am not laughing. In days to come when I am hearing of women so clever I am saying to myself, Ah, there is woman with mind like Meesis Shel-ma-dine; with mind to understand and eye to see and tongue to say wisely. And for this reason, as well as for memory, I make you now this gift. Please to come with me.'

Tales of the legendary, fabulous wealth of the Indian potentates were commonplace in Company circles; tales of chests full of gold, of rubies as large as pullets' eggs, of great diamonds that were blinding to look at. Such tales were lent substance by known facts; the state elephant of the Rajah of Bholobad, for instance, on really great occasions had worn four anklets, each four inches wide, crusted with emeralds and sapphires. As Surunda reached for the heavy gold-topped staff which he used for his rare essays in walking, Linda permitted herself to hope. It was just possible that he was now about to lead her to his treasure-room and give her a 'keepsake' that would make Richard laugh in quite another key.

As Surunda took his first shuffling steps across the pavilion, she thought of something else; something she had often wanted to say to him but had never quite dared.

'Your Highness, there are two doctors in Fort St George; one, Dr Adams, is very clever. He would come to see you, I am certain, and he might do something to make you less lame. May I ask when ...'

'No, no,' he said testily. 'My doctors do well; I am living these many years.'

Well, she thought, at least he is consistent; he will have no business with the English and asks no favours. India for Indians, and Indian doctors for Indian legs wounded by Indian spears.