Golden Afternoon

by M. M. Kaye

  The trouble started when Saadat, running true to the tradition of too many Mogul royals, suddenly turned against his young brother Nunni-mia — who until then had been regarded as the heir apparent — and with him, his mother the Begum. I can’t remember what the quarrel was about, or who started it. But from what I know of the intrigues that seem to be an integral part of zenana life, I would say, at a guess, that some rival pretty lady had managed to steal the heir’s affections, and was scheming to get a son of hers installed as heir apparent. Whatever the reason, Nunni and his mother fell from favour and the Begum suddenly found herself virtually a prisoner in Tonk, unable to leave the state.

  None of this would have happened if the old Nawab had been hale and hearty, for Nunni was his favourite son and he doted on the boy. But the old man, whose health had been failing for some months, was now seriously ill, and a gang of courtiers, counsellors, palace favourites, servants and hangers-on had suddenly begun to reassess their positions and change their loyalties in light of the fact that there would soon be a new ruler in Tonk. As a result, any number of old alliances were broken and new ones formed; spies and tale-bearers proliferated, helping to stir up trouble, and ‘Nunni’s’ Begum turned to Tacklow for help.

  As the heir apparent, Nunni had been expected to finish his education at the College of Princes in Ajmer, but in order for him to do so, his name must be put down in advance as a prospective pupil, and a sum of money paid over to the school — presumably to cover a certain amount of the fees in advance. This sum Saadat had suddenly refused to pay, saying he had not yet decided who should be his heir! And since without it Nunni could not be entered as a pupil, ‘Nunni’s’ Begum was anxious to pay it herself. But because she herself was not allowed to leave the state — and probably because the poor woman no longer knew whom she could trust — she wanted Tacklow to sell some of her jewellery for her, and see that it was paid over to the school.

  This was something that Tacklow was not keen to do: he was well aware of how involved and dangerous intrigues in palace circles could be, and he had no desire to find himself being accused of persuading the Begum to part with her jewels, and pocketing the proceeds himself. And in the middle of all this, the poor old Nawab lay dying.

  At first Tacklow would call at the palace once or twice a day, to sit beside the Nawab’s bed holding his hand and talking to him; they had always been good friends, and the old man said that his visits made him feel better. Tacklow himself was sure that if only he would call a European doctor to treat him, there was a good chance that he would recover. But the Tonk hakims (doctors) bristled with rage at the very idea, and when Tacklow pleaded with Saadat and some of the senior councillors to allow an English doctor just to see the invalid and give an opinion, he found his own visits to the palace sharply curtailed. In the end, the old man himself asked to see an English doctor, and Tacklow sent for the nearest one: I don’t remember where that would be, or what the doctor’s name was. He was probably stationed in some outpost of Empire like Deoli. But when he arrived, Saadat said that his father had changed his mind and was ‘too ill to see him’. Or Tacklow, either.

  The doctor stayed in Tonk for a day or two, waiting on the chance of being called to see the Nawab, and in the end was allowed to. But he said the case was hopeless, although he too thought if the old man could be taken into an English hospital and be treated with European drugs, and allowed some peace and quiet — and fresh air — there was a chance of him recovering. But his room was crammed with relations, courtiers and servants, not a breath of fresh air was allowed into it, and his hakims were dosing him with water (in which strips of paper bearing charms or verses from the Koran written in cheap ink had been boiled), gold leaf, and even more expensive decoctions which contained emeralds and other precious stones that had been pounded to powder, or pearls dissolved in vinegar, ‘medicines’ that only a King could afford to take, and which, because of their value, must do the patient some good. Tacklow, who was fond of the old Nawab, tried to make the doctor stay a bit longer. Just in case … But the doctor said he had wasted too much time in Tonk already, and had too many other patients who were in need of care.

  Despite all the peculiar nostrums, the old man hung on to life and raised enough energy to insist on seeing Tacklow, whom he begged, for the sake of their friendship, to look after Nunni and see that he was entered for the College in Ajmer. Apparently he had managed to see the Begum — or, more likely, she had managed to force her way in to see him — for he seemed to know all about the plots that were being woven to push Nunni aside. He also begged Tacklow to do his best for Saadat, who, he suspected, was also in danger of being pushed aside and superseded by another member of the family: ‘Stay with him until he is safely seated on the gudee and cannot be deposed,’ pleaded the old man, ‘and promise me that you will not let Nunni or his mother be cheated out of their rights.’

  Tacklow promised. What else could he do? But having regarded Saadat as the sole trouble-maker, he was somewhat shaken by the suggestion that there might be another candidate lurking among that swarm of brothers, step-brothers and sisters, and busy plotting a coup d’état that would oust both Saadat and Nunni from the succession. Tacklow was inclined to take that piece of tale-bearing with a large pinch of salt. But just in case there was something in it, he took the precaution of removing the keys to the Treasury and locking them up in his office safe, to ensure that when Saadat became Nawab of Tonk he would not find that a large proportion of its contents had mysteriously disappeared. Which but for Tacklow, very nearly happened, since within the next few days not only one group of anti-Saadat relations and their supporters demanded the keys to the Treasury, but two. And both were livid when they discovered that they had been impounded by Kaye-Sahib.

  At this point Saadat, faced with the imminent prospect of power or a possible coup d’état, came to see Tacklow and begged him to stay on as President of the Council of State and, metaphorically speaking, hold his hand until such a time as he was firmly settled on the throne and had learned how to deal with the problems of rule and an unruly family.

  Tacklow’s contract with the old Nawab had still some months to run and he had been looking forward to the end of it. He had not enjoyed living in such a remote part of Rajputana. The heat and the dust-storms, the lack of electricity and made roads, the loneliness — most of all, of late, the loneliness. This last would not have worried him in the days when he was a carefree bachelor. On the contrary, as anyone who has read The Sun in the Morning will know, he enjoyed it. But Mother had changed all that. He was that rare creature, a one-woman man, and having found his one woman and fallen in love with her on sight, he remained in love with her for the rest of his life. He quite literally adored her, and every letter he ever wrote her was a love letter. There cannot be many women whose husbands still write to them, after a quarter of a century of marriage, as ‘My own dear, darling Love …’

  He had accepted the job in Tonk because he had two unmarried daughters on his hands, and a wife who loved the fun and gaiety, and the freedom from household chores, which life in India offered in the time of the Raj. But oh, how he missed us — Mother most of all. I used to think that I meant as much to him as he did to me. But that was before I read (some five or six years after Mother’s death) the letters that he wrote to her during the Tonk period, when they had been separated so often, and I realized that her happiness was the most important thing in the world to him, and that I came a very poor second.

  Tacklow had often written of a much-cherished plan of his for the two of them to return to China to spend a summer together in Pei-tai-ho, where they had spent a blissful honeymoon all those years ago. They would, of course, have to take the girls with them, unless those two decided to settle for one young man instead of several, and got married. But even if they didn’t, there were plenty of young men in North China. And plenty of aunts and uncles with whom they could all stay until he could find a suitable house to rent and to live in.

&
nbsp; Judging from some of the letters Mother kept, this had been a longstanding dream of his; and had the old Nawab not offered him that job in Tonk, the chances are that he would probably have moved on to China when his work on the Treaties was finished. But with his children having a whale of a time in India, and his darling Daisy urging him to accept the Tonk offer so that she could stay in India for a few years longer, I think he felt that he would be letting us all down if he refused.

  Now, once again, with retirement and the prospect of a second honeymoon beckoning him, he wrote to Mother to tell her of the promise he had given the old Nawab, that he would do his best for Saadat — and for Nunni and the Begum (which might not be so easy since, if rumour were true, their interests could well conflict). Also that Saadat was pressing him to stay on for a further term as President of the Council of State when his term of office ended. This would mean at least two more years in Tonk. Probably three, and it was not a prospect he looked forward to. What did Mother think?

  Mother was delighted. So much so that she even dashed off a hasty note to Saadat, with whom she had always been on the friendliest terms, thanking him for the offer and saying how pleased she was at the prospect of a further spell in Tonk, etc. It was a personal letter between friends, and one that should never have been treated as an ‘official document’ and filed as ‘evidence’. She hadn’t stopped to think before she wrote it, and plainly did not consider it to be of enough importance to mention to Tacklow: but Saadat showed it to one Abdul Karim,* a nasty piece of work, who passed it on to the Major. Nor apparently had she paid any attention to that remark of Tacklow’s about ‘not looking forward to the prospect of more years in Tonk’. She probably didn’t even notice it, for the surviving letters written during this period make harrowing reading — if one reads between the lines. He never actually asks her to come to Tonk; but the fact that he is worried and lonely, harried by rumours of plots and counter-plots and the discovery that he can trust no one — that there is not one single person with whom he can discuss the situation in confidence, certain that whatever he says will not be distorted, and that someone will not soon be spreading a twisted and unrecognizable version of it throughout the city — is clear in every line.

  He needed Mother at this time more than he had ever needed her, or anyone else, before. And he says as much, by implication, in every letter, even going so far as to say things like, ‘If by chance you find that you could get away, you could always get the night-train from Delhi, and I could meet you at Sawai-Muderpore, or Sirohi, and we can drive back to Tonk from there. But I quite see that you are tied by the girls, who can’t be abandoned on their own …’

  Why not, for heaven’s sake? I was twenty-one! — coming up twenty-two. We had plenty of friends in Srinagar who would have kept an eye on us, and with Kadera and Mahdoo as well, we could have been left on that houseboat in perfect safety. I’ve never been able to forgive Mother for not going to him when he needed her so badly.

  To cut a long story short, the old Nawab died, and Major Barton turned up in Tonk to represent the AGG Rajputana at the various ceremonies and festivities that accompanied the enthronement of the new Nawab of Tonk, His Highness Said-ud-Daulah Wazir-ul-Mulk Nawab Hafiz Sir Mohammed Saadat Ali Khan Bahadur Sowlat-i-Jung, GCIE. In other words, our old friend Saadat. And when that was completed, the Major, who on this occasion had elected to put up in the No. I Guest House, sent for Tacklow and told him that His Highness the Nawab-Sahib had informed him that he, Sir Cecil, had been ‘putting pressure’ on him, Saadat, to extend his term of employment in the state for a further three or four years. But since His Highness had no desire to do any such thing, he had asked Major Barton to speak for him, and to see that Sir Cecil vacated his house and left the state as soon as possible.

  Tacklow, staggered by being given the sack in this abrupt and ungracious manner, could only suppose that some palace underling had been creating mischief on purpose, and hastened to tell the Major that he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He had had no intention of staying on in the job for longer than originally requested by the old Nawab. It was the old man who had asked him to stay until Saadat had learned the ropes, and Saadat himself who had implored him to stay on for at least a second term. There had been a mistake.

  When, to his horror, the Major insisted that the only mistake had been his, Tacklow’s, in thinking that he could ‘twist Saadat round his little finger’, Tacklow lost his temper and insisted that the allegations should be repeated in the presence of the new Nawab. This was something the Major had obviously expected — he’d have been stupid if he hadn’t. Saadat was waiting in a nearby room, and was produced almost immediately. Tacklow said that, furious and insulted as he was, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for the wretched man. He seemed miserably embarrassed, and he wouldn’t look at Tacklow. Barton asked the questions and the Nawab said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to all of them until there was one totally insufferable one relating to the keys of the Treasury, made at the suggestion of Abdul Karim, the original snake-in-the-grass, that money and jewels were ‘understood’ to be missing from it. Saadat, presumably remembering how Tacklow had saved it for him, and knowing full well that but for Tacklow he would almost certainly have inherited a bankrupt Treasury, replied surlily that since he had no detailed knowledge of what was in it, he could not possibly be expected to know if anything was missing.

  That question was hastily dropped. But he had endorsed the others, and when he had finished, Tacklow said to him, ‘Nawab-Sahib, you know that this is not true. You cannot have forgotten so soon what you have said to me. Tell the Sahib the truth. For the sake of your honour!’

  Well, he hadn’t got any of course — not when it came to having to choose between beginning his reign by getting on the wrong side of the Assistant to the AGG Rajputana, and sacrificing Tacklow. For in the hierarchy of the princely states of India and the pecking-order of the Foreign and Political Department, an ex-Indian-Army Officer — even an ex-Head of Intelligence — once he has retired, cuts no ice compared with a working Assistant to the AGG Rajputana. It was perfectly obvious, of course, that the Major had been infuriated by the news that the newly enthroned Nawab had asked Tacklow to stay on in the same job. And equally obvious that he had not only shown it, but having scared the living daylights out of the poor man, shown him a way of escape by suggesting that it must have been Tacklow’s fault, since he, the Major, was unwilling to believe that such an idea would ever have occurred to the Nawab; unless, of course, Sir Cecil had put it there, and bullied him into accepting it …?

  It could only have been something on those lines, and I imagine the unfortunate Saadat must have jumped at it. The only person who was stunned by all this and literally couldn’t believe his ears was my poor Tacklow. For, having no conception of the offence that had been caused during that wretched stay in Ajmer, it never once occurred to him that the Major had avoided us ever since because he hated our collective guts, and he was totally unprepared for the sheer hatred that showed plainly along with the accusations. When Saadat wouldn’t answer him, he turned on the Major and said: ‘Since one of us must be lying, will you please tell us which one you believe?’

  ‘I believe the Nawab,’ said the Major.

  Tacklow, even less willing to believe his ears, said, ‘You are calling me a liar, in fact?’

  ‘I am telling you that I prefer to believe the Nawab,’ repeated the Major, and walked out of the room, followed by Saadat, who turned his head at the last moment and, looking at Tacklow for the first and the last time, gave him an imploring look accompanied by a faint shrug of the shoulders and a slight spreading of the hands that Tacklow said was an obvious apology and a plea that Tacklow would please understand why he couldn’t help doing this. After which he scuttled away in the wake of the Number Two Seed Rajputana, followed by the Snake, who probably slithered.

  Well, that was all. A minor affair, you may think. But it shattered my darling Tacklow, who had always considered that anyone
who took it upon themselves to govern a country and a people not their own must make it a matter of the highest importance to be just and truthful in all their dealings. That was Rule Number One with him; and to be told to his face, in the presence of the Nawab and one of his underlings, that he was a liar was as shocking as though a bucketful of pig-swill had been publicly flung in his face.

  What he ought to have done, of course, was to leave immediately for Simla — or at least for Ajmer — and laid his case in person before the Top Brass. Instead of which, being Tacklow, he sat down and wrote to various senior officials who could have dealt with it. This meant that Major Barton got in with his own carefully doctored version well before Tacklow’s letters were delivered. After that he hadn’t a hope. Every single one of the men to whom he wrote wrote back to say, in effect, that he didn’t have to worry, since no one who knew him would ever believe for an instant that he had bullied the Nawab into retaining his services, or lied to Barton. The very idea was so absurd that not one of his friends or acquaintances would take ‘that fellow’s’ word against his — But … why on earth hadn’t he gone at once to Simla or to Ajmer with his story, instead of letting ‘that fellow’ get in first? Didn’t he realize that the F and P was practically a mafia when it came to backing their own members, and that they would stick together like glue?

  Of course they were right. Barton got in first with a basinful of lies and soft soap (he may even have told the truth, and relied on his boss, as a ‘member of the Club’, to back him!). Tacklow kept all those letters. They were in the file labelled the ‘Tonk Affair’, and when I burned it I kept back one of them: because it was from a great friend of Tacklow’s, and because I liked him. His name was the Hon. Sir Alexander Muddiman and he had, I think, been a member of the Viceroy’s Council. I still have it.