The Tigers in the Tower

by Julia Golding

  And here the duke was, trying to take over the control of Mr Cops’s little kingdom just because he thought the animals got in the way of the garrison! Hero though he was for the majority, Sahira decided that she didn’t like him.

  Wellington passed the letter to the man in the maroon jacket. “Peel, we had better return to parliament. The news about the King’s health is grave.”

  The gentleman scanned the contents, then pulled a face at the boy.

  “I’m sorry, Bobby; I’ll have to cut short our excursion.”

  “May I not stay, Father?” asked the boy. “I won’t be any trouble and I really want to see the tigers.”

  Mr Cops approached. “I’d be happy to see the lad gets home safely, sir.”

  “All right, Cops. I’ll leave the carriage for him. May I ride with you, your grace?” Peel asked.

  “Of course, Peel. I’ve been wanting a word about your London police force. I’ve had a few complaints,” said the duke sternly.

  “Teething troubles, only to be expected,” Peel replied, his voice wavering slightly.

  The two politicians went off together, their minds back where they should be – on managing the complicated matter of running the nation. That left Bobby with Mr Cops. Sahira could hear him firing all kinds of questions at the keeper about the upkeep involved in housing tigers.

  “Do they only eat fresh meat? I’ve heard they prefer to live alone, is that true? Is their skin striped or is that only the fur that grows out of it?”

  Mr Cops tried as best he could to answer the barrage until he spotted Sahira.

  “Young man, let me ask your questions of my tiger expert here.” He beckoned her forward. “Can you satisfy the lad’s curiosity?”

  She bowed. “I will try.”

  The boy’s attention was now on her. “Oh, how perfect: a real Indian! And you speak English!”

  She resisted a smirk. If Mr Cops wanted her to play the part of a native tiger expert to win friends for the menagerie, then she would fulfil the role to the best of her ability. “Yes indeed, sahib.”

  “Sahir…” Mr Cops swallowed the last syllable of her name. “Take Master Peel here to see Rama and Sita. I’ll join you in a moment.”

  Bobby Peel kept up his flow of questions as Sahira led him to the tiger cage. He had clearly been wondering about many things, from the number of cubs in each litter to how long a tiger’s whiskers were. He diligently noted her replies in a little notebook.

  “Wait a moment: I’ll just put that in my nature diary.” He flicked through the pages too quickly for her to read but there were many entries. “I love animals. I want to be a naturalist when I grow up and study them. Do you think a tiger cub would make a good pet?”

  “Do you want to reach adulthood with both hands or only one?” she replied.

  “I take that is a ‘no’ then?” He sighed and scribbled something down. “Your English is very good – almost as good as mine.”

  Sahira decided to be charitable and assume he meant that as a compliment, but she couldn’t resist adding, “I imagine my Hindustani and Persian are somewhat better than yours.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, you are splendid! My friends would enjoy meeting you. They’ll think me a top chap for inviting you to one of our parties. Will you bring some of your animals to my house and meet them? They’re great fellows, all our age. My brothers will like to see your animals too, though Will might squeak a bit. He’s only just out of the nursery. Do come. We play cricket in the square. Do you know how to play?” Bobby asked, gesticulating excitedly.

  Sahira shook her head, feeling as if she were caught in a stampede.

  He nodded sagely. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. No matter: we can teach you. We always recruit from the younger servants to make up a decent team on each side. The tigers might be a bit too much for our house – Mother wouldn’t approve – but can you bring some snakes and a monkey or two?”

  He appeared to be taking her agreement for granted. Sahira tried to be diplomatic with her refusal. “You’ll have to ask Mr Cops. I doubt he’d allow me.”

  Bobby waved that away. “Oh, he will. My father is Home Secretary, a very important man in the government. Your master will want to keep him happy.”

  That might be true but Sahira didn’t like the boy’s assumption that he could order her about in his father’s name. “All the same, I can’t come.”

  His dark eyes flashed. He was not a boy used to being turned down and certainly not by one of her station in life. “That’s preposterous! Don’t tell me you have something better to do? Father will pay you for your time.”

  “I cannot come, Master Peel, because it would be quite inappropriate.”

  He frowned. “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “I’m afraid not. You see, sir, I’m not who you think.” She unwound the turban, letting her hair fall free, and bobbed a curtsey. “Sahira Eleanor Clive, daughter of Captain Clive of the East India Company.” It was worth exposing her true identity just to see the look on Bobby’s face. “I doubt your friends will vote you top chap if they find out they’re expected to play cricket with a girl. Now, if that’s quite settled, let me introduce you to my tigers.”

  If Sahira thought her revelation would dampen Bobby’s interest, she was sadly mistaken. After getting over the initial shock, he turned his questions on her. In desperation, she went out the main gate to the wharf along the Thames in hopes of shaking him off among the fishermen and boatmen, but to no avail. He was like a clinging vine caught on her tunic. How long had she been in the country? Why did she have tanned skin and reddish brown hair – had she been out in the sun a long time or was that her normal colour? Was her mother really an Indian lady or had she made that up, because she didn’t look very Indian now he had a closer look at her?

  Sahira stopped him there. “What does an Indian look like?”

  He waved that away as if it were self-explanatory. “Well, dark hair and skin, but not as dark as an African, and not curly.”

  “Then you’ve not met many people from India, have you? Some, mainly in the north, are as fair skinned as you with pale blue and green eyes; the ones in the south can have skin as dark as a coffee bean. Some have curly hair; some straight. I see as much variety among the people there as I see on the streets of London.”

  That did silence him for a moment. But then he started up again. “I will amend my notes. I like learning new things – thank you. So, when you grow up, will you be the wife of a man with many wives, or just the one?”

  Sahira found his question impertinent. “I’m as much English as I’m Indian. I’m to stay here now.”

  “Ah, so just one husband.” He noted that down.

  She put a hand over the page, tempted to rip it from him and throw it in the nearby river. “Stop that! I am not a menagerie animal to be studied.”

  Bobby bit his lip; it was finally getting through to him that Sahira was upset by his questions. “Am I being too curious? My mother always says I am like a runaway steam train.”

  “A what?”

  “Oh, I’ll show you. They are quite the most marvellous things ever invented.” Diverted on to a new enthusiasm, he rifled through his notebook and showed her a drawing of a strange cylinder-shaped vehicle with a pipe at the front. “They’re opening a railway line for passengers from Liverpool to Manchester soon and Father says we can go and see it if I’m good.”

  “But what does it do?” Of all creatures she had seen, it looked most like her beloved elephants.

  “It uses steam to drive the wheels and the vehicle rockets along a track at twenty to thirty miles an hour! Can you imagine it?”

  She couldn’t. “A cheetah can run faster.”

  “Oh much.” Bobby nodded. “But not with a load of cargo and passengers. It’s the beginning of a new age. We won’t recognize the world very soon.”

  Sahira didn’t recognize this one already so wasn’t as pleased by that prospect as Bobby Peel appeared to be.

  H
e must have read her expression correctly so tried another tactic to convert her to his point of view. “Just think – if you could have a boat powered by steam, you could go home to India without worrying about winds and tides. You could get there in weeks – not months! Wouldn’t you want to be able to come and go as you liked?”

  But Sahira had nothing to go back to – no one to wait for her at the end of that journey. She kicked a pebble into the Thames.

  “I’m as out of place as the Tower’s polar bear.” She was speaking mainly to herself but Bobby overheard.

  “What polar bear?” Bobby paged through his notebook, scanning the pages for some reference to the bear in question.

  Perhaps telling him this tale would get him off the subject of his unsettling ideas of the future? Sahira thought. “He’s my favourite character in the Tower stories my father told me.” She sat down on an upturned basket. “Did you know that Henry III kept in the Tower a polar bear, as well as three leopards-who-might-have-been-lions, and an elephant?”

  Bobby looked up, glued to her words. “Is that true?”

  “Oh yes. A present from King Håkon of Norway.”

  “Fancy that: a polar bear! I’ve never seen one.”

  “Nor have I, but I’ve seen a picture in a book.” She used her hands to illustrate her idea of a polar bear. “They are huge and white and live up in the snowy north. They are very fierce creatures so being its keeper was a position for a brave – or desperate – man.”

  Bobby was quite caught up now in the story, hugging his knees to his chest as he perched on a basket next to her. “But they kept it in a cage surely – like your tigers?”

  “Ah – no. It used to spend its days right here.” She gestured to the wharf. “The city fathers complained about how expensive it was to feed the bear so they came up with another solution: let the bear feed itself from the fish in the Thames.”

  Bobby looked doubtfully at the muddy waters.

  “You have to remember that the Thames was a cleaner river and the city very small. It was full of fish – especially fine salmon, just what a polar bear most likes to eat when he can’t get seal. Tethered by a chain, he used to swim from the bank, or just dip in his paw,” she mimicked his action, “and up would flip a glistening fish.” Her hand was now a fish. “Then with a chomp of his great jaws,” she clapped under Bobby’s nose, “he would gulp it down and laze happily in the sun.”

  Bobby laughed. “Oh that is marvellous! You simply must come to tea with my friends and tell your stories.” He looked her up and down with a quizzical expression. “But perhaps you could wear a dress?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Still buoyed up by the excitement of spending a day with the menagerie animals – especially her dear tigers – Sahira arrived back at the orphanage. Bounding through the halls, she was in too much of a hurry to worry about the cold looks she attracted. She didn’t blame the others: she understood that she already was singled out by her heritage and now here she was, disappearing each day to a place of marvels. What was time in a stuffy classroom compared to helping with the animals?

  On reaching the dormitory, Sahira’s mood was brought rapidly down to earth. It was plain that someone had attempted to break into her trunk. The brass around the lock was covered in telltale scratches and the catch unfastened as the lock picks had done their job. Only the excellent work of the carpenter in Hyderabad had prevented the would-be thief from getting inside. As with many mysteries in India, the trunk was not as simple as it seemed to an outsider. Not only was it secured by a conventional lock, a deterrent to idle interest, but there was a second wooden bolt that had to be released by sliding part of the decorative edging of dancing monkeys aside. None of this would withstand an axe or a chisel, so Sahira resolved to remove the trunk to the Tower and beg a corner of a storeroom from Mr Cops. After all, if the King kept his Crown Jewels there, then her little Indian trunk should surely be safe?

  Sahira found Ann and Emily in the nursery playing with their baby brother and sisters. Ann had two little curly-headed girls on her knee; Emily was building a castle out of blocks for a rosy-cheeked boy with hair the colour of treacle. This was part of their life Sahira had not yet seen and she now understood why they both felt so lucky to be in the orphanage. It was her turn to feel envious – this time of anyone who had a family.

  “Sahira! How were the tigers?” asked Emily, her cheeks flushed. Sahira hoped Emily wasn’t embarrassed to be caught playing with her little brother; she thought it a charming scene. The little boy knocked down the tower Emily had so painstakingly built him. He gurgled and clapped his hands.

  “They’re better now they’ve seen me.” Sahira sat cross-legged and began to construct a temple for the little boy to demolish.

  “So what happened? It has to be more interesting than what we did: sewing and yet more sewing,” said Ann, while her sisters stared at their visitor with wide-eyed fascination.

  “Not much,” Sahira balanced two bricks against each other to form a precarious archway. They fell down before the little boy could reach them but that didn’t matter: he laughed anyway. “I cleaned out a few cages, talked to some of the other keepers… oh, and I met the Prime Minister.”

  “What!” exclaimed Ann and Emily in unison.

  “Not that I was introduced. I happened to see him taking a tour with his followers.”

  “Oh my – even so,” said Ann enviously.

  “But I did get introduced to the Home Secretary’s son and have been invited to his house with my snakes to play cricket,” added Sahira, delighted by their reaction.

  “Oh, but you can’t!” said Ann.

  Sahira tried to maintain a straight face. “Why not?”

  “You don’t have any snakes,” said Emily matter-of-factly.

  “I’m sure I could borrow some.”

  “But only boys play cricket.” Ann imparted this as if it were a great secret.

  “He thought I was one – a boy, that is.”

  “Oh, Sahira, I don’t think…” Poor Ann always worried that Sahira was going to get into trouble.

  She grinned. “Don’t fret: I set him right. But I’m still invited to tea.”

  “Will you go?” Ann asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. He was a bit annoying really.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a crash and a scream from far below, swiftly followed by the sobbing of a child. Ann and Emily fell silent, listening. Their brother and sisters clung to them.

  “What’s going on?” Sahira whispered.

  Ann exchanged a look with Emily. “It’s Cook. She’s been on one of her little trips down Gin Lane.”

  Sahira must have looked confused because Ann explained further. “Emily means she’s been blind drunk for a day now. Gets her wages on a Saturday and spends most of Sunday drinking them. Today is hangover day and we all suffer, but most especially Ned.”

  “You stupid boy!” shrieked Cook down in the depths of the house. “You’ve made me drop the supper and now it’s not even fit for the pigs!”

  They didn’t hear Ned’s reply but they could imagine his “it weren’t me, M’um” and cries as she went after him with her wicked wooden spoon.

  “Can’t we do anything?” Sahira asked.

  Ann shook her head.

  Emily hugged her brother. “What do you think we could do? We’re just orphans.”

  But Sahira didn’t feel “just” an orphan, whatever that meant. She had spent the day with tigers. “I’m going down there.”

  Ann caught hold of her skirts. “We can’t change things. You have to accept it. Bad things happen in this place.”

  Sahira felt she had already closed her eyes on too many abuses. “But they shouldn’t.” She tugged herself free. “Stay upstairs if you must, but Ned is my friend.”

  “No, no, I’ll come too,” Ann relented, setting her sisters down on the rug. “Stay here, darlings; I’ll see you later for your bedtime story.”

  Emily silentl
y followed her lead and the three girls hurried down the stairs. All of the other orphans had gone into hiding, apart from the Newtons, who were leaning over the bannister and listening in to the commotion in the kitchen below with great hilarity.

  “What do you think? Booted out this time for certain?” asked Alf.

  “Nah. A shilling he just gets a beating,” replied Tommy.

  “Done.” The brothers shook on it.

  Sahira swept past them. They were both such toads. Actually, now she thought about it, toads were nice creatures and didn’t deserve the comparison; the Newtons were worse than ticks. Yes, that suited them – bloodsucking, disease-bearing pests. She burst into the kitchen to find Ned cowering in a corner while Cook loomed over him, a huge spoon in hand. Before anyone could stop her, Cook brought it down on Ned’s back.

  “You’re nothing but f-filth! Nobody wants you, nobody loves you. You should be glateful – grateful – I give you this roof over your head!” she spluttered.

  Sahira wrenched the spoon from Cook’s hand before it could descend for another blow and threw it across the room. Cook wove on her feet, not quite sure what had become of her weapon. She looked at her empty palm in surprise.

  “Cook, you are a disgrace,” Sahira told her smartly, just as her mother used to dress down the servants if they displeased her. “You are drunk. Sit down and have a cup of tea. You need to sober up.” Ann moved quickly to pour her a cup from the teapot that stood warming on the stove.

  The cook gaped at the girls like the fish lying ready for gutting on the table.

  “Ned, can you stand?” Sahira helped him to his feet. He was shaking.

  “Oh, Sahira, you’re going to be in so much trouble!” he protested.