Zemindar (78 page)

I went to the baby’s box and picked her up. The explosion had wakened her but she was not crying. As I raised her in my arms, she chortled and made a grab for my hair. I buried my face in her soft neck and, doing so, remembered the odd certainty of survival that had overwhelmed me on the night that Emily was buried. I felt it still. I knew it was irrational, childish, probably silly too, but I was absolutely certain that whatever I need fear it was not death. Not now, at any rate.

Curiously comforted by this inner assurance, I went to Kate with the baby in my arms.

‘It’s all right, Kate,’ I said, as her sad blue eyes regarded me over the blue beads. ‘Truly. I don’t know how I know it, but we will be all right. Believe me. You mustn’t give way now, my dear. They’ll never get at us, Kate; our men won’t let them. So come now, we’ll go into the bedroom, shut the door and windows and wait until it’s over.’

‘You don’t understand, Laura dear. You don’t understand,’ she said tearfully as she got to her feet. ‘If we are breached …’

‘But I do understand, and a mine exploding does not necessarily mean a breach. At least, we can hope that it does not, can’t we?’

‘But there is no way our poor men could fight them off, don’t you see? There are too few of us … and I … I don’t want you to be … !’

‘I am not going to be ravished, raped or slaughtered—or if I am, I refuse to think about it beforehand! Now come, Kate darling, pull yourself together. It is just not like you to give way so. Let’s go and sit on the beds and make ourselves comfortable.’

‘I know. I’m so sorry. I’m just a stupid old woman, but I’m so frightened for you and … and the baby, poor mite!’

I do not know what crazy reasoning prompted me to take Kate into the inner room. Only a cotton curtain, hung from a bamboo pole, separated it from the kitchen. Kate, however, seemed to derive some obscure comfort from the move, and settled down on her string cot while I put Pearl back into her box.

I made sure the single barred window was fastened, then returned to the kitchen and secured the two rickety doors that led on to the front and courtyard verandahs; but before doing so, took a quick peep outside. There was nothing to be seen. A thick fog of smoke and dust obscured everything and our long verandah was totally deserted.

The rest of the day is in one sense a blur and in another sense the most vivid memory I have to carry me through old age.

It was too dark in the little room for me to do anything but sit with folded hands on my bed, listening to Kate’s endlessly repeated prayer and the soft click of the blue beads passing through her thin mottled hands. Pearl, most amiable of infants, slept quietly until, at midday, I roused myself to give her milk. We had no heart for food ourselves. Mrs MacGregor had not called in for her milk that morning, and I wondered how the day was going with her and with sick little Jamie in the fetid darkness of the cellars beneath the Resident’s House—the
tykhana
.

Outside, the noise of battle increased and it was soon apparent that our assailants had encircled the entire entrenchment. The din became deafening, even in the small, shuttered room, as explosions shook the plaster from the ceiling, rattled the wooden doors in their frames and, on one occasion, forced the window inward against the bar that fastened it so fiercely that it never again closed completely. A concentrated and vicious cannonade, such as we had not before experienced, screamed and shattered into the shaky buildings surrounded by their ephemeral protection of mud, bamboo and sacking. Ball, shell, grape, canister, rifle and musket, the enemy used them all. Our building was hit several times. Just after I had fed Pearl, an eighteen-pounder dropped through the roof of the verandah and landed with a great thud on the stone not far from our rooms, then rolled harmlessly into the mud, where later we discovered it. Not long afterwards a shell burst in the inner courtyard, and only a few moments later another exploded in front of the Gaol, showering our doors and shuttered window with shrapnel. For six long hours we crouched in the dark trying to make out from the sound only which way the battle went; twice during those hours, the thunder of the guns was rivalled by the shrill note of bugles, of drum beats mounting to a crescendo, the frenetic skirl of fifes and the pandies’ menacing roar of
‘Din! Din! Din!’
Each time Kate murmured grimly, ‘That’s another force they’re bringing up!’ Then the firing would grow stronger until the martial music was drowned by the yells of the attackers, the shouted commands of our own men and the screams of the wounded.

‘Hail Mary … Our Father … Glory be. … Amen!’

Kate prayed, sometimes with closed eyes, sometimes aloud, but unflaggingly.

I listened to her. I believe I tried to unite myself to the intention of her prayer, but prayer in such moments avails me little and I did not follow her example. The breathless heat in the small room sometimes weighed me down into a doze from which I would waken gasping, half smothered by my own sweat. I fetched a pitcher of water and a rag with which I tried to cool Pearl’s body and refresh my own face. For the most part, however, I had only my thoughts, my memories and half-forgotten hopes to help me through the long succession of apprehensive hours.

Where was Oliver Erskine? Where could he be? A prisoner of the Nana in some noisome prison in Cawnpore, or safe with Moti’s family, sleeping away the afternoon of this fevered day under a tree in some pleasant courtyard? Could he have tried to return to Hassanganj, be living in some shed or storeroom in the park, trying to gather his people around him and rebuild already what had so recently been destroyed? Or could he, after all, have escaped downriver from Cawnpore to Calcutta, there to constitute himself a thorn in the flesh of every complacent civil servant unlucky enough to run across him? I had no way of knowing, or even guessing, and shortly memory and imagination took the place of conjecture in my mind.

Now that I knew the reason why he had left us at the outskirts of Lucknow, it had become difficult to think of this ‘desertion’ with anger. It was a foolish, quixotic thing he had decided to do, yet I was glad he had done it. To be more accurate, I was glad that he had thought it necessary to do it. That single act indicated a sensitivity to the needs of others which, though I had discerned it in his character before, I had not fully appreciated.

Emily had appreciated it, though. How many times, I wondered, had I heard her say, ‘Oliver’s so thoughtful … so considerate.’ Now, as in my mind I played out the memories of our pleasant days in Hassanganj, I recalled a score of incidents that instanced that consideration of others, and of myself. Why was it that I had blinded myself to his merits with such enthusiasm? Could it have been fear? Had he always held an attraction for me that I was reluctant to admit because of the unlikelihood that I would have any attraction for him? Had I insisted on dwelling on his shortcomings only to save myself from being overlooked or superseded in the regard of a man I could love?

He had told me he loved me, and had added that I had missed the many hints he had given me of his feeling. At the time, and for many days thereafter, there had been small leisure or opportunity for me to examine this surprising assertion, but what had remained in my mind through the weeks of separation were his last words to me as the palanquin was lifted and I was borne away to the house of Wajid Khan: ‘Never fear, Laura, I will come to you—for you!’ They had reverberated around me, the echoes of those words, in the steamy courtyard on the night of Emily’s death, and at last I realized that it was they alone that had filled me with the strange certainty of my own survival. Had I not found, after all, the best possible reason for clinging to life? I was in love.

Love was something, so people said, that must grow slowly and sweetly, nurtured by knowledge, appreciation and shared experience. When I considered the matter, it was plain that I had gained a pretty thorough knowledge of Oliver Erskine, that my appreciation of him had advanced greatly since the early days of our acquaintance, and that we had certainly shared some of the most curious experiences ever to fall to the lot of law-abiding English folk.

True, a barrier of misunderstanding and misinterpretation still stood between us; that must come down before we could grow towards each other. But honesty forced me to admit that all the misinterpretation and most of the misunderstanding had been on my part, not his, and even as I did so, the last wavelets of both ebbed swiftly into the tide of the forgotten past, leaving my mind clear and acceptant as new-washed sand.

Certainly Oliver lacked all those qualities that made Charles the man he was. Oliver could never be considered genial, kindly or open. He was inclined to be dictatorial, was quick-tempered and careless of moral convention. Yet there were other excellences than those exhibited by Charles. Oliver was himself and, I admitted without a qualm, more than Charles would ever be. Oliver had imagination and insight; he was slow to judge and, for all his anti-social protestations, tolerant of others; he was quick to act and decisive in action; there was a strength in him that I both admired and feared; yet he was capable of true gentleness. He was the last man in my acquaintance to whom the tender epithet ‘lovable’ could be applied; yet now, quite suddenly, I knew myself to be in love with him.

A sudden rush of feeling, compounded of regret for my past shortsightedness and of an aching desire for his presence so that I could amend matters, brought tears to my eyes. I let them fall unheeded. In that dark room, on a face dripping with perspiration, no one could have remarked them.

The acknowledgement of my love, total now, flooded over me like a golden, light-filled warmth, filling me with joy. ‘I love him! I love him!’ I kept repeating to myself, as the cruel cacophony of the battle continued outside. ‘I love him … and he loves me. I know it. He loves me!’

Made restless by my inward and inexpressible delight, I went into the kitchen and paced its length from front door to back door with quick blind steps. I heard nothing of what occurred beyond the fastness of these rickety planks, saw nothing of the smoke-grimed murky room they guarded. All I could see now was Oliver—my love—and all of life in a new light.

I did not allow myself to dwell on the old tower and Moti, but fled delightedly back to memories of things we had shared and enjoyed together. The morning rides through the dewy fields; my struggles with Urdu, and Oliver pretending to read at his desk as I worked, but always aware when I was in difficulties; afternoons when we wrestled together with catalogues, inventories and plans in the library; and evenings when we sat alone with our books before the fire, the only sound a falling log or the rustle of a turned page. Why, I could reconstruct an entire day of happiness from these piecemeal memories. I made up my mind to live that happy day over on each of the days I must exist through before I next saw him; and such was the euphoria of my mood, that scanty memory seemed almost enough to keep me in the state of bliss I then experienced.

Briefly I was recalled to the present by another blast close to our window. Pearl, whom I had placed on my bed, stirred and whimpered. I went in to her and soothed her with a little water; then returned eagerly to the ecstasy I now found present in my most prosaic memories. My mind’s eye followed Oliver with love, as he strode swiftly about the house and grounds of Hassanganj or sat on his great bay gelding, one hand on his hip, straightbacked and commanding. I watched his lean brown hands on the reins, heard his voice, smiled at his laugh, looked again curiously into the strange tawny eyes under their heavy brows, those eyes that had last looked into mine from a face grimed and stubbled with beard but full of searching tenderness, full of understanding love.

That, I decided, was when I had learned to love him, though I would not then admit it. On that morning when he had ridden away from me to risk his safety and perhaps his life for his child.

At about three o’clock the firing slackened and by four o’clock the entrenchment was for the second time that day filled with an unnatural quiet.

Kate had dozed, exhausted by her praying, and I, lost in my new-found joy, remained unaware of the silence until she sat up and called out, unbelievingly, ‘Laura, it must be over! Listen! Listen to the quiet! We must have beaten them off, Laura. We’re safe. Our lads have beaten them off!’

Recalled unwillingly to the moment, I unbarred the kitchen door and the two of us stepped hesitantly on to the verandah, blinking in the harsh sunlight.

Along the verandah, other doors opened and other women, many with babies in their arms or holding children by the hand, crowded out. They were as ignorant and as anxious as ourselves, and the sudden silence kept them speechless as their eyes, like ours, searched for information. That silence, after so much noise so long continued, was as painful to our ears as the strong sun was to our dark-accustomed eyes. It was almost frightening.

Over the entrenchment a dense pall of smoke wreathed and wraithed between and around the shattered buildings, and the stench of cordite was such as to overpower the more usual smell of putrefaction.

As we became accustomed to the light and the smoke, figures became apparent in the haze, men, exhausted and silent, sitting in the shade of a wall, or stretched on the muddy earth, still holding fast to smoking muskets or rifles. Some walked slowly to their billets, black-faced and red-eyed; some limped; some stumbled and remained where they fell; some helped a comrade, some carried stretchers to the hospital; some just sat where they had stood, heads bowed between their knees, shoulders heaving with exertion. All were quiet. Cheers should have rent the smoky air, wild hurrahs of triumph. But fatigue had felled them when the enemy had failed; and now that the impetus to movement was over they collapsed where their knees buckled under them in motionless silence.

I ventured down the verandah steps and moved hesitantly through the smoke a little way, picking a path between the debris and mud. Soon I recognized a familiar figure stumbling towards me, and ran forward to intercept him, since he seemed not to have noticed me.