Zemindar (4 page)

We were close enough to the shore to observe a road running through groves of trees and along which travelled a diversity of traffic, when a sudden curious noise, between a blast and a wail, made me start and caused Mr Roberts, who had just joined me, to laugh at my discomfiture.

‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s only a conch—a large shell which is held to the lips, so’—he cupped his hands against his mouth—‘and blown into. Probably some holy man in that little temple there honouring his patron deity.’

‘Then I hope for the sake of the deity’s eardrums he doesn’t often get honoured,’ I said, making room for Mr Roberts beside me.

‘That is one of the most typical sounds of India,’ he said. ‘That and the sound of dogs barking in the villages at night. When I am at Home, I can never get accustomed to the absolute quiet of the English night, particularly in the country. For so many years I have been used to the ceaseless rumble and murmur of Indian nights, the dogs, the squeak of unoiled cartwheels—people here generally travel by night, you see—the crickets, the hoot of the nightjars, and in the rains the deep croaking of the toads. All the sounds that spell familiarity to me.’

He paused reflectively, and then went on: ‘But I expect you will find it all very disturbing at first; it is so unlike anything you have been used to. I do hope you are going to enjoy your stay in India.’

‘I am sure I shall, Mr Roberts, thanks largely to your kindness in sharing with me your knowledge of the country. Besides, I am very adaptable. It has always seemed to me to be a waste of time not to make the best of what comes one’s way.’

‘An estimable philosophy, Miss Hewitt. I have often admired your gift of contentment—rather a rare quality in young ladies.’

‘Thank you, Mr Roberts—but whatever strengths there are in my character, I owe to my father. He was a very remarkable man, and I was not the only one to find him so. Though he has been dead seven years, I still find myself calling to mind his most original maxims. He used to call them his “entirely un-English maxims!”’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, well, there was one he was very fond of, by which indeed he guided his life, and which has landed me in no end of difficulty from time to time: “Caution should always give way before curiosity.”’

‘Ah!’

Mr Roberts was a little disconcerted, so I hurried on. ‘He was an artist, you see, every inch an artist, though never a successful one and not even a very good one. He was a dilettante, I suppose. Very, very unlike the uncle with whom I have made my home since his death—Emily’s father. He couldn’t bear England, always said it was too cold, climatically, intellectually, spiritually, to support human life! So we lived in Italy, outside Genoa, and after my mother died, when I was very young, he married an Italian lady. I have learnt to love England, but Italy is still the home of my heart.’

‘You have achieved quite an odyssey in your young life, then. All the way from Genoa to Calcutta. Or rather, I should say Lucknow, as I take it you will accompany your relatives up-country?’

‘Certainly. I am looking forward to it. There is a large English community in Lucknow, is there not? But in spite of that it is an Indian city?’

‘Very much Indian—not at all like Calcutta, as you will find. Calcutta, though it has of course a large native population, is in essence a European city, and a very new one as these things are counted in India. The architecture, the plan of the city and so on are all European in concept, with certain modifications, due to the climate of course. But Lucknow is all Indian. The buildings are imposing, enormous—romantic, I suppose. Its architecture is a somewhat debased form of Mogul, and since it was until so recently an independent kingdom, British influence has not yet made any impact on the city itself. It has, like other native kingdoms, had a Company connection for many years, but the majority of Europeans are either on the Resident’s staff or in the Army, and the Army people live in their own cantonments, some distance from the city proper.’

‘Good. I am glad to hear that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to see the real India—the Indian India.’

‘As to that—well, you will have an excellent opportunity if you visit Mr Erskine on his estate. And, after all, your cousin’s husband intends to make his half-brother’s acquaintance, so what could be more natural than a visit to his estate?’

I should have remained silent. One should not discuss one’s connections with even the kindest of acquaintances, but something—perhaps the novelty of the scene, which impelled a strange feeling of being somehow ‘out of myself’—prompted me to try and discover more of this enigmatic half-brother of Charles’s.

‘There is a great deal more to be known of Mr Erskine than you divulged to Charles last night, is there not, Mr Roberts?’

Now I am not coquettish by nature or acquirement, but I confess to trying to sound a trifle pert when asking this question. I must have succeeded, for Mr Roberts showed no sign of annoyance but merely smiled in a conspiratorial fashion.

‘A great deal more, my dear young lady,’ he agreed, ‘but you must not expect me to divulge it to you!’

‘Oh!’ Naturally enough, I was left with the impression that what there was to divulge was less than flattering, so I could not leave it there. I thought of attempting the sort of pout that Emily was so good at when disappointed, but realizing that this would make me plainer than usual, smiled instead.

‘May I ask you some questions then?’

‘Fire away!’ he replied, confident that I would discover nothing of interest in this fashion.

‘You know Mr Erskine only by hearsay?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Do many people know of him then?’

‘In certain circles.’

‘He is influential?’

‘Again—in certain circles!’

‘He cannot be a young man.’

‘From where I stand he appears so.’

‘And yet he cannot be old, either?’

‘From where you stand he would probably appear so!’

‘He is rich?’

‘Unbelievably!’

‘Popular?’

‘Hardly!’

‘Is he, Mr Roberts … is he a rogue?’

‘Now that would depend on your definition of the word.’

‘
Touché!
’ I laughed, and gave up.

We were silent for a while and in the stillness I again became aware of the heat.

‘But now, to return to the subject of Lucknow, and to your desire to see the “real” India, I must confess that I wish your visit could have taken place at a happier time.’

‘But what is wrong with the present?’

‘Nothing. For the moment. It is the immediate future that I fear. I am uneasy at the idea of any party of young and—you must pardon me—ignorant Westerners venturing so far into the hinterland these days.’

‘Will you tell me the reason?’

‘I don’t believe I have one. Merely an intuition backed by experience.’ He paused, with his hands in the pockets of his white alpaca jacket and his eyes on the dully glistening water. ‘But I think I have lived in this country long enough to have learnt to trust my instincts, and a sort of sixth sense tells me that we can expect trouble of some sort in the near future.’

‘But you must have been given some cause to think so?’

‘You must not allow me to alarm you, Miss Hewitt. Remember that I am not an Army man, nor yet in the employ of the Company. But for all that I have a very wide experience of the country and a fairly sound appreciation of its people. India has been my home since I was sixteen, and I speak and write more than one of its languages. My work, as you know, requires me to travel much, and over the past two years I have heard many things that caused me uneasiness—not great things, mind you, apparently the official mind finds them entirely too trivial for notice. But I have become aware of a restlessness—almost something of perturbation in the mind of the ordinary man that was not there, and this I swear, five years ago. The atmosphere of the country has changed.’

His face was serious and his eyes sombre as he spoke.

‘I cannot pretend to understand this, but I know it is so, and I fear that in the months I have been away matters may have disimproved—particularly where you are going. The Kingdom of Oudh.’

‘Because of the annexation?’

‘Precisely.’

We had heard before leaving home that Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General, after repeated warnings to the Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh to mend his profligate and extravagant ways or lose his throne, had at length implemented his threats, deposed the Nawab, and annexed the kingdom. ‘A good thing too—and high time!’ I remembered my uncle commenting. ‘Damned feller is demented!’

But that was all I had heard, and if there had been discussion about the rights and wrongs of this seemingly high-handed action they certainly did not take place in our immediate circle. Mr Roberts himself had enlightened me considerably as to the system of government obtaining in India, both the British territories and the independent native kingdoms, and how it was that the East India Company, ‘a parcel of penny-catching traders’ as he called them, had come to be the effective rulers of the whole vast country. So I knew that the British presence in Oudh was of over a century’s standing, and that the influence of the Company had over the years, and due to the increasing decadence of the Nawabs, extended into the administration and government of the kingdom, as indeed had happened in several other territories. But such was still my ignorance, it had not occurred to me that the annexation might cause trouble.

‘The natives are then averse to the measure?’ I asked.

‘Naturally!’ Mr Roberts said drily. ‘For many reasons, but perhaps for none that are immediately apparent to the Westerner’s outlook. Shortly before we sailed, Miss Hewitt, I received a communication via the overland route, informing me of conditions in the newly annexed state. Within a month of the Nawab’s leaving Lucknow, my correspondent was able to discern a marked and expressed dissatisfaction among that section of the population upon which we British most depend—the Army. Perhaps you do not know that for many years past more than two-thirds of the Company’s native soldiery—sepoys we call them—a corruption of the Persian word
Sipahi
—have been recruited from the State of Oudh. The men of Oudh have flocked to the Company’s banner in such numbers that it is scarcely too much to say that mercenary militarism is the main industry of the kingdom, as it is certainly the most profitable. Hardly a family in Oudh but does not receive a few rupees a month from one of its members serving in the Army, and when these men retire they take their pensions back to their villages.’

Mr Roberts rose to his feet and stood with his back to the rail and his hands on his lapels, a stance that could not fail to command attention.

‘One of the chief incentives for this enthusiasm to serve the Company—the Government, that is—was that since the middle of the last century there has been a British Resident at the court of Lucknow, the deposed Nawab’s court, you understand. This functionary, in addition to his duties of watching the interests of the Company’s trading affairs in the kingdom, was in charge of all matters pertaining to those citizens of Oudh who had enlisted in the Company’s Army—and of their families at home. These men were thus peculiarly privileged, particularly in matters involving the native law. You will not see the force of this until you understand that a love of litigation is inherent in the Indian character, amounting almost to a passion. At the same time the native courts of law are notoriously corrupt. When you put together these two facts, you will begin to see the advantages of serving with the Company and thus assuring oneself of the offices of the British Resident as advocate and arbiter.’

‘Yes, I think I begin to understand. But then what has gone wrong? Is the kingdom not in a happier condition now that all alike enjoy a juster government?’

‘It is not as simple as that. As you realize, the people are now subject to a system of laws which is more just, but it is the fact that the law is uniform and common to all that is causing the dissatisfaction among the sepoys. Two-thirds of our native Army, so my correspondent informed me, are now disgruntled. Corruption, after all, cannot be done away with by the stroke of a pen. When these men were far from their homes for long periods, they could be sure that their land, their interests—for instance their rights of inheritance, should a father die—would be protected by the very special and necessary privileges of their position in the Company’s Army. Now the Company is in control, and theoretically such privileges and safeguards should no longer be necessary, but human nature being what it is, and the mills of statecraft grinding almost as slowly as those of God, the sepoys are in a worse case than ever before, and no longer have the hope of redress through a greater power.’

‘You think then that the trouble you anticipate will come from the Army?’

‘I do not know what to think. But I fear that if I am right, then that is where the trouble will start. In the Army. Trouble there has always been in this country. Drought, famine, disease—these are everyday happenings. Also tribal jealousies and religious fanaticism. These we have been able to meet and deal with in the past with the help of the Army. But if the Army itself is the cause of the trouble, then, Miss Hewitt, may God help us all.’

‘I see,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘But then, surely, have you not forgotten that we have our own troops here as well—British troops?’

‘No, I have not forgotten. I am remembering only too well that there are some 35,000 Queen’s troops scattered all over this huge country in small and isolated pockets. There are more than 300,000 native sepoys, and when the sepoy fights, he has the incentive of fighting for his own rights, his own little patch of soil—his own country. If, that is, he fights at all.’

I got up and walked over to the rail, and as I went my shadow was short and very black on the soap-stoned planks of the deck. Watching the river flow past in oily brown eddies, and hearing, as I had so often heard over the last many weeks, the creak and rasp of the ship’s timbering, the slap of canvas against the booms, the shouts of sailors, and now the monotonous chant of the leadsman crying the fathoms, I felt a little chill of foreboding run up my spine, and thought with longing of the calm security of Mount Bellew. Would I ever know enough of this great brooding land stretched below its flat, dun-coloured sky to feel safe and at home in it?