The Tigers in the Tower

by Julia Golding

  “We’re here, Sahira. Now what?” asked Bobby brightly. John, however, looked about the place as if it no longer held any surprises for him. As a rich boy, he’d doubtless been here many times.

  Sahira was aware that she didn’t really have a plan. Rushing here had been more a scream of fury that her one good thing – her tigers – were about to be ripped from her. After surviving the loss of her parents, she didn’t think she could bear that too. But Bobby was right: what did she have to find out first? “I need to find out if my tigers would be happy here.”

  “Yes, and then?”

  “Get the owners to match Jamrach’s offer.”

  Mr Evesham and Mr Darwin looked at each other, scepticism plain.

  “You understand this is a scientific venture, don’t you, Sahira? The aim is to educate, not make money,” Mr Evesham said gently.

  “He means they won’t be able to stump up the money,” Bobby said helpfully. “How much do you need? I could ask Papa to buy them.”

  His tutor clicked his tongue. “Bobby, please, don’t raise your friend’s hopes like that. Your father will not buy you tigers, no matter how much you badger him. He had doubts about getting you a puppy.”

  “I’ve got some money saved,” Bobby added.

  “Tigers cost hundreds of pounds, Bobby, not ten shillings,” John said in a low voice.

  Mr Evesham had caught sight of someone emerging from a pedestrian tunnel that ran under the carriageway through the gardens. “A moment. That’s Charles Spooner. He’s the medical attendant here. We can at least ask him about the first of your questions, Miss Clive.” He beckoned the young man over. They shook hands, clearly already friends. Sahira was getting the idea that the circle of people who were interested in animal studies was a small one and they all knew each other, particularly the ones of Mr Evesham’s age. The tutor made a quick introduction of the party. Spooner hesitated when he learned the little Indian serving boy was in fact a young lady, but he covered his surprise well. Mr Evesham explained the situation with a brevity that impressed Sahira.

  Spooner sighed and ran his hands through his thick dark hair, dislodging his hat. “I wish I could promise they would flourish here, Miss Clive. That’s the plan at least for all the animals – and why I’ve been appointed. The English climate, however – that’s against us. The animals do well enough in the summer, but we lose so many each winter.”

  “How many animals are there?” asked Sahira.

  “We’ve around 600 animals – 200 species – and yet I’m expected to know how to keep each and every one alive on just three days a week with them.” He gave a disgusted laugh. “It’s a battle I’m not yet winning.”

  “What happens in winter?” asked John.

  “We can only afford to house a few in heated buildings. We put some of the smaller ones with us in offices and storerooms. The bigger ones… well, they just have to cope. Come, I’ll show you.” He led them toward the first row of cages shaded by trees.

  “Do you have any big cats?” asked Sahira.

  “We have a little tigress, an old lion, and a young one but I’m struggling to keep them healthy.”

  “I fear you’ll continue to struggle,” said Mr Darwin, frowning at a young lion cub lolling in a moveable cage, paws dangling out of the bars, no better off than a circus lion, “because it’s not their natural habitat. They aren’t adapted to live in a cage, being fed with no need to hunt.”

  “True. When I dissect our losses I find a build-up of unhealthy fat around the major organs,” Spooner admitted.

  “Dissect!” She couldn’t bear that being the fate of her tigers.

  “I’m afraid it’s necessary, Miss Clive, or I’ll never understand how to save the rest.”

  Sahira’s hopes were fading. It seemed that fine gardens did not really change the plight of the animals.

  They rounded a corner and came to a bear pit. A girl in a pink dress, hair arranged in tight brown ringlets, gave a vicious poke at an arctic bear with the end of her parasol, encouraged by her giggling companions. The bear, who had been resting against the railings, stumbled to its feet and roared.

  Fury thundered through Sahira. “Stop it!” She grabbed the parasol from the girl and snapped it over her knee, bending thin wires and puncturing silk. She shook it at the girl. “How would you like to be poked, you… you vulture!”

  “That’s my best parasol!” squealed the girl. “Miss Aitkens, look what the dirty little foreigner did!”

  The girl’s governess swung around to take in the scene. “Arrest the boy!” she demanded, pointing at Sahira.

  “Arrest the girl!” snapped back Sahira, pointing at the bear tormentor. “She hurt that bear.”

  The bear roared his agreement.

  “Hear, hear!” cried Bobby, clapping his hands. “Send for a Peeler!”

  “You’ll be beaten for breaking that!” said the girl, with a sob.

  “Then I’d better punch you first to make it worth it!” said Sahira.

  Sahira found her fist caught by John from behind before she could land it in the middle of the girl-vulture’s face. “Sahira!” he warned. “That won’t help.”

  “But it will make me feel a lot better,” she said, still seething.

  “All the same. Girls don’t behave like that here.”

  They didn’t in India either, but what else could she do in the situation? Allow the girl to keep taunting a defenceless wild beast?

  Mr Spooner hurried into the middle of the argument before it got any uglier. He took the broken parasol from Sahira and offered it back to the governess. “Madam, if you can’t control your charges, I suggest you leave.”

  “There’s no sign saying we can’t touch the animals,” whined the girl.

  “Go ahead – put your stupid head in there,” hissed Sahira. “Let the bear take a poke at that!”

  “Miss Clive, please,” said Mr Spooner.

  “Miss Clive? That’s a girl? In that outfit?” The governess bristled. “Well, I don’t know what this place is coming to. I thought only decent people were allowed in here. The Fellows will hear about this!” She gathered up her little group of girls and marched them onward, looking for someone who would listen to her complaints.

  Sahira turned on the medical man. “How can you let them do that to the bears?”

  “How can I stop them?” Spooner asked. “I can’t stand guard all day.”

  He was right. It was a much bigger place than the Tower menagerie; keepers could not be on hand everywhere all the time. The cages weren’t designed to protect the animals but to expose them to the gaze and – it seemed – touch of the visitors. If they spent every day being tormented by the cruel and stupid then no wonder so many were dying; five minutes of such treatment had driven her to extremes. It was a terrible prison. Rama and Sita would hate it here – and they wouldn’t even have her to defend them.

  “They should put the people in cages and let the animals out,” she said.

  “A novel approach to animal handling. I’ll suggest it at the next meeting,” said Spooner testily. He looked down at the broken bits of parasol in his hand. “I think we’d better cut short our tour. Is there anything else I can show you on the way out?” But his tone was no longer welcoming; he was just being polite.

  “No thank you. I’ve seen quite enough,” said Sahira.

  Their party was subdued as the Peel carriage took Sahira back to the Tower.

  “I thought it would be different – better,” said Sahira. The Regent’s Park paradise was an illusion. Would it be right to argue with Mr Cops for the tigers to be sent there for a lingering death rather than a quick one at the hands of the hunters? Oh, why couldn’t Mr Cops just keep them? She’d make sure they stayed healthy at the Tower.

  But would they? a small voice in her head asked. What about winter? Willpower wasn’t enough to keep them alive.

  “The zoo will be better one day,” said Mr Darwin. “The men in charge don’t mean to be cruel. They�
��re trying, but frankly, none of them know what they’re doing and mistakes are inevitable. Keeping animals to study away from their homelands is a new idea.”

  “The animals should stay in their homes then,” said Sahira.

  “It’s too late for that. Your tigers, you brought them here, didn’t you?” Mr Darwin asked pointedly.

  “I wish I hadn’t!” Then they would still be in their jungle. Even if hunted, they’d have had more of a chance than here. And her parents – they’d be alive.

  Mr Darwin gave her an astute look. “You mustn’t blame yourself. I thought there were helpful lessons to be drawn even from what we saw today.”

  “Really, sir?” asked John. He looked up from his sketch of the poor Arctic bear. He’d caught the rage of the animal to perfection.

  “I don’t want to bore you with my ideas.”

  “You won’t bore us,” said Bobby, bouncing on his rear-facing seat.

  “It was why I asked you to come today, Charles,” said Mr Evesham with a smile as he laid a hand on Bobby’s shoulder to stop him fidgeting.

  That was all the invitation Darwin needed. “Well then. You know that the French naturalists have been telling us that the number of species we see today aren’t fixed – that there have been great animals in the past that no longer live among us?”

  “Really?” asked Bobby. “Like what? Dragons?”

  Mr Darwin smiled. “I can’t say anything about dragons, Master Peel, but Monsieur Cuvier of Paris has some excellent examples of fossilized bones of creatures who have disappeared. For example, he has some that look like they belong to a huge elephant. He named that creature a mastodon. He thinks there have been cycles of creation. Creatures live on Earth for a time and are then wiped out by a big event, like a flood.”

  “Like in the Bible, and Noah’s ark?” asked Bobby.

  “Yes, but much further back in time – and he thinks this has happened again and again.”

  “So the mastodon is completely gone?” asked John, now doodling an elephant-like creature on his pad.

  “Yes. He believes in extinction. But that’s not the only theory.”

  “It never is,” said Mr Evesham. “You natural philosophers enjoy disagreeing with each other.”

  Darwin continued: “There’s another idea that animals change to fit their surroundings. ‘Biological evolution’, they call it. Another Frenchman, Lamarck, said that animals acquire characteristics by using them, like a giraffe stretching its neck to eat the leaves higher up. He thinks using a certain part of the body makes the new abilities pass on to the next generation, and if an animal doesn’t use something it withers away, like the wings on an ostrich.”

  “So animals change, rather than go extinct?” asked Sahira, caught up in the discussion despite herself.

  “Perhaps. I’m not sure what to believe. Neither cycles of creation nor biological evolution seem complete explanations.” He paused, deep in thought.

  “No amount of stretching is going to make an animal flourish in a cage like that,” Sahira argued.

  “Agreed. Maybe the truth lies somewhere between the two ideas: extinction and change. I need to see them in their homes before I understand how this might work.”

  “Go travelling, Charles, that’s the best way,” said Mr Evesham. “Take your cue from Miss Clive here: she’s seen all the Indian species in the wild. I imagine she can teach you a thing or too.”

  “Perhaps you can answer one of my questions then. Why are tigers striped, Miss Clive?” asked Darwin.

  That was easy. “It breaks up their silhouette in the jungle. It gives them an advantage when stalking their prey,” said Sahira, looking out the window at the grubby children playing in the mud. They too were camouflaged.

  “Remarkable. ‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’ – that’s what the poet Blake asked about the tiger.”

  “Giving poetry lessons too now, Charles?” teased Mr Evesham. Sahira liked their easy friendship – envied them, in fact.

  “Have tigers always had stripes?” asked Bobby. “Or did they become like that by needing it – you know, like a giraffe stretching its neck?”

  Darwin smiled. “That, young Bobby, is an excellent question.”

  “And how would you get stripes or a long neck?” asked Sahira. “I might want to have a bigger nose like an elephant, but thinking about it, rubbing my nose, pulling it, that won’t make it happen.”

  “Another very good observation. Lamarck looked for a special nervous fluid in the body to achieve it, but never found it,” explained Mr Darwin. “We’re all going to have to look and think a lot harder if we’re going to solve that puzzle.”

  “A trunk like an elephant?” Bobby pulled hard on his nose. “That would be brilliant. I want one.”

  Mr Evesham smiled wryly. “You should concentrate first on developing the brain of a reasonably intelligent gentleman first.”

  “And the brain is something we can change,” said John, holding his pencil over his completed picture of a huge elephant. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  The coach drew to a halt. Sahira didn’t wait for anyone to hand her down like a lady as she knew John or Mr Evesham would try to do. Instead she hopped out and thanked Jenks, the coachman. She looked back at her new friends in the window. She felt a little embarrassed now, remembering how she had buffaloed her way into this outing.

  “Thank you for taking me.”

  “It was a pleasure,” said Mr Evesham.

  “And an education,” added Mr Darwin. “I wish you and your tigers all the best.” As she turned away, she heard him add, “Evie, old chap, I don’t suppose you know anyone setting off on a voyage of exploration soon, do you?”

  CHAPTER 17

  Ann and Emily were waiting for Sahira in the dormitory when she returned from her day at the zoo. Lately they’d been trying to be extra nice to her when she got home from work, hoping to win back her friendship. Joanna Newton had disappeared back to her life outside the orphanage so Sahira’s bed was hers once more, but that hadn’t repaired the broken trust between the three girls. Sahira found it hard to forget their betrayal.

  “How was your day?” Ann asked tentatively. She fingered one of her black spiral curls nervously before tucking it back behind her ear under the ugly mob cap they all had to wear.

  All except for Sahira. She’d refused to go back to wearing that – and, oddly, no one had argued with her.

  “Great,” she said sourly, “if you count learning that my tigers are to be sold and hunted for sport as good news.”

  “Oh, Sahira, no!” said Emily. “That’s terrible!”

  “Mr Cops is going to sell them to the highest bidder. I went to the zoological gardens – but that’s little better and can’t match the offer he already has from Jamrach.”

  “Would you like me to brush your hair?” asked Ann, offering what comfort she could. Clearly she thought the situation hopeless too.

  Sahira nodded. She was aching. Her ride across town, the anxiety that had eaten away at her, the frustration that she was powerless, all this had combined to make her feel wretched. Having someone tackle her hair would be welcome.

  Ann took the brush and began soothing strokes.

  Emily flopped back on her bed and held her hands up in front of her, twirling them like a nautch girl dancing. Homesickness clawed Sahira as she remembered parties with music and ladies twirling in silken saris, doves released into the blue sky, fountains tinkling in silver basins, sherbet and cinnamon sweetmeats. There had been laughter and love in her life once upon a time.

  “You know, Sahira, you could buy the tigers,” said Emily.

  The comment tripped up her memories, bringing her back to the present. “Me?”

  “Mr Cops paid you for them so why not buy them back?”

  Emily was right! How had Sahira not seen it for herself? “And then what do I do?”

  “Give them to the menagerie or the zoological gardens, I suppose, on the condition they don’t get
sold again.”

  “That’s a good idea. You could make it a temporary loan until you have enough money to ship them home,” suggested Ann, beginning on a plait.

  “But that will take years,” said Sahira.

  “Then it takes years,” said Ann calmly. She was always so patient.

  Emily sat up. She was more like Sahira, wanting to solve a problem today rather than wait for tomorrow. “I know: you could get your rich relatives to cough up for that part. Tell them you’ll do something really embarrassing if you don’t have the funds you need.”

  “Like what?” asked Sahira.

  “There’s so much you could do. Turn up at your cousins’ during a ball? Make it public knowledge you’re their relative? Chain yourself to the railing outside their house with a placard?”

  “But wouldn’t that be blackmail? And isn’t that wicked?” Sahira asked. She might not have worried if it were just her aunt injured, but there were John and his sisters to consider.

  “I rather thought shooting your tigers was worse. Sometimes you have to do a bad thing to prevent a worse thing happening.” Emily bit her lip, looking sheepish at the admission.

  Sahira guessed she was thinking about how they had reacted when Joanna was here, falling in behind the bully to save their siblings from the Newtons. Emily was right though. You did have to fight dirty at times.

  John would be disappointed in her. But she wasn’t actually going to carry out her threat – just make it so she could save her tigers. He’d come around eventually.

  In fact, if she offered to go home with Rama and Sita, her family would probably leap at the chance to get rid of her. She could travel with the tigers, make sure they were happy on the voyage, arrange for them to be let off in an uninhabited part of the coast, and then…

  Then they would disappear into the wild and she’d be alone.

  Sahira closed her eyes, fists clenched. This isn’t about you, she told herself. This is about Rama and Sita. She opened her eyes to find Ann and Emily both watching her in concern.