‘My happiness would have been assured by ruining the life of the woman I love?’
‘Ha ha,’ Aljai laughed. ‘What a fool you are. Caty loved you. No doubt she still loves you. How could she love anyone else?’
Richard stared at her, unable to comprehend her words. ‘But…she told me…’
‘That she loved Peyraud? Who do you think sent her to you that night? Peyraud. He knew he could not defeat you in a duel, that he would be killed. So he took Michael, and he told Caty that if she did not go to you and persuade you not to fight, he would kill the boy. The boy was kept by one of his men until after you had left Agra, with orders to cut his throat the moment you drew either pistol or sword.’
Richard slowly lowered himself to the divan.
‘Peyraud boasted of it to me, after you had gone,’ Aljai said.
Richard raised his head. ‘And you could not send word of the truth to me?’
‘What good would that have done? Your opportunity to kill Peyraud was gone. Had you invaded, we would have had a full-scale war here in Sardhana. I could not permit that.’
‘You always think only of yourself,’ Richard said bitterly.
‘I always think of my country and my people,’ Aljai said piously. ‘There is no need to be angry with me, my Richard. I did not know of the subterfuge until it was too late. Nor is there any use being angry with Caty. She was faced with a terrible choice, but she made the only one she could: she preserved the lives of both her husband and her son. You should be proud of her.’
Oh Caty, he thought. Caty, who had loved him all this time. Caty whom he had almost come to hate, thinking she had betrayed him. How could he have doubted her, failed to trust in his love for her, and hers for him?
Oh, Caty.
He went in search of Thomas.
*
‘Well, faith and begorrah,’ Thomas declared. ‘So the little Scots girl loved ye all the time. I suppose the Begum’s tellin’ the truth?’
‘Why should she not?’
‘I’d hate to have to pin that one down to a reason for anythin’.’
‘I believe she is telling the truth, George.’
‘Sure and why not, if it makes ye happy? Now, Dick me boy, the Begum’s back in the saddle as it were, and these people of hers are proper cowed. I reckon we just have time to make it home before the monsoon. Right?’
‘Wrong,’ Richard said. ‘I want to march on Tippoo Sahib.’
Thomas stared at him, then slowly reached for the jug and poured them each a mug of rum. ‘Ye’ve been standin’ around in the sun without a hat, lad.’
‘George...’
Thomas drank deeply, and leaned forward. ‘Dick boy, I’ve told ye before, women’ll be the death of ye. If I weren’t around to take care o’ ye...’ He held up his hand as Richard would have protested. ‘Hear me out. Your Caty has been another man’s wife for a long time. Too long, even if she still dreams o’ you. And she’s goin’ to be his wife for a while longer, before you can catch up wi’ him. The combined armies of the Company, the Nizam, and the Scindhia made peace with Tippoo before they’d take on the fortifications of Seringapatam. How many brigades d’ye reckon they disposed? Thirty? We have ten battalions, and that’s supposin’ we leave Hansi without a soldier on guard.
‘But supposin’ we had thirty brigades. How do we get to Mysore? Only by marchin’ across the Scindhia’s territory, and then the Company’s territory, and then the Peshwa’s territory. Now tell me, d’you reckon any o’ them’s goin’ to be happy about that? Next thing, we’ll have the whole of the Deccan up in arms against us. I didn’t carve this jaghir out o’ the jungle to throw it away. And I don’t reckon ye’ve any right to ask me to do it.’
Richard sighed. But he knew his friend was right. There was absolutely no way the Hariana army could march into Mysore without setting the whole peninsula alight.
‘You’re telling me I must abandon her, and my son? I’ll not do that, George. I know you’re right about the army. So I’ll go alone.’
‘Yell not,’ Thomas said. ‘If I have to put ye under arrest, ye’ll not do it, Dick lad. I’m not letting ye go to ye death.’
‘I joined you voluntarily. I can leave any time I like.’
‘Dick, boy, Dick! For God’s sake. We joined each other, involuntarily, the day we bust out o’ here with Hanif. We’re yoked together. And together we’re goin’ to carve ourselves an empire. When we’ve done that, then we’ll see about Master Tippoo.’
‘When?’ Richard asked miserably, because he knew that again George was right. He could never, alone, get in and out of Seringapatam with Caty and Michael.
‘Dick...’ Thomas got up and rested his hand on Richard’s shoulder. ‘Ye have it all. Ye’ve two lovely wives, four children, wealth, power...don’t throw all that away.’ He refilled their mugs. ‘Drink and war, that’s what we’re here to do, Dick lad. Let’s get back to Hansi, and talk about the Punjab.’
Diary Of The Mistress Of General Richard Bryant, 12 December 1794
Richard is back and my heart should be singing.
His expedition was a triumphant success. The Begum Sombre is replaced on her throne—and not brought back here to plague Tanna and myself, thanks be to Heaven!
Her detractors are executed, and peace is restored.
And I am utterly miserable!
I do not truly understand what has happened, but so far as I am able to gather, it appears that the woman Richard first ‘married’ and who bore him his son, who appeared to repudiate him and made him go through that ghastly charade of a duel, and whom therefore he determined to hate…all of which was unknown to me when I eloped with him eight years ago…was really acting a role to save their son from death.
Now she has been carried off into Mysore by her French husband, and Richard is desolated. He is also very angry, and equally with George for not permitting him to go to her rescue.
And he is more in love with her than ever! What a catastrophe. Just when I was certain that I had at last conquered him.
He will look at neither Tanna nor myself. He will not look at the children.
He scarce speaks even to Hanif, much less George. I am the most unhappy woman on earth.
And it is raining!
13: Wellesley
‘Ye’ve to pull yerself together,’ Thomas said severely. ‘’Tis impossible, and ye know it. If ye still hanker after the girl—and I’ll tell ye straight, ’tis unnatural after bein’ separated for more than a dozen years—then diplomacy is how we must set about it. We’ll send an embassy to Tippoo demanding her return to her rightful husband, together with her son. How about that?’
‘Do you suppose it’ll make the slightest difference?’ Richard demanded. ‘Tippoo is certainly aware that I was the agent who created a combination against him.’
‘Ye’re right there. No, it wouldn’t do any good. But it might make ye feel better.’
‘It would make me feel worse. And if Tippoo were to find out that Michael is my son he’d probably have him executed. No, George, if we can’t go down and take her back by force, we can’t do anything.’
‘Except carve ourselves a few more jaghirs, eh? By God, Dick me boy, we’ll carve ourselves an empire one of these fine days. The very moment you reckon the army’s up to it, we’ll cross the Sutlej and have at the Sikhs. Meanwhile, enjoy that magnificent woman ye brought up from Bombay. She worships ye, man, and ye’ve not sufficient time for her. No man could ask for anything more than what ye’ve got.’
*
Thomas was right, Richard thought. No man could ask for anything more. He knew he was hankering after the unattainable. With Aljai in his arms and Caty at home he had still hankered after Barbara. Now Barbara was his, and probably Aljai too if he chose, yet he dreamed only of Caty.
And what of Michael, whom he last saw as a babe in arms? He would be a young man now, but one who didn’t even know his own father.
And all this time, too, the very thought of Peyraud
was like a heavy stone tied round his neck.
*
Barbara was delighted to have him at home again. She had feared that he would return with the Begum, and she had heard plenty of tales of the Begum’s beauty.
Tanna had been less concerned. She never changed, but remained the docile, loving girl he had taken almost by accident. But she too was no longer a child. Her body had thickened, in evidence of child-bearing. But for this he honoured her, because were they not his children as well?
Barbara, childless still, remained to some extent the girl with whom he had first fallen in love. She took care of her figure, and had studied with delight the Hindu arts of eroticism; she had become a lover fully equal to Aljai at her best. In her early thirties, she remained an exceptionally beautiful woman.
‘I love you,’ she told him. ‘I loved you since the day I first saw you, but had not the wit to know it.’
He grinned at her. ‘Do you record all of that in your journal?’
‘I have,’ she said seriously. ‘Over the years. I have been very honest with myself.’
‘But you left much of that behind in Bombay.’
‘Oh, but,’ she said, ‘they are in the vault of the bank, waiting to be reclaimed.’
‘Do you suppose you will ever do so?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to return to Bombay?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said seriously. ‘Sometimes I think I would, but only with you, Richard.’
‘Then it will never happen. I don’t see myself ever being invited to return.’
‘But the diaries are there. And they will come to light one day.’
‘And what will happen then?’
She laughed. ‘It will cause a few blushes, believe me. Often enough they caused me to blush as I wrote them.’ And then she did blush. ‘They still do,’ she confessed. ‘Sometimes.’
*
Life in Hariana was very peaceful, now that Thomas’s fearsome reputation had grown so as to protect his borders with his very name.
Richard spent his time drilling his troops, and recruiting as well. He still reckoned that his principal task was to create a force which could successfully oppose the Scindhia, not undertake some mad adventure in the north.
And for the first time in his life he was discovering domestic peace, as well. If the thought of Caty and Michael remained a constant ache in his heart, he could not fault the love with which he was surrounded. Best of all was the very real affection that had grown up between Barbara and Tanna.
Equally for the first time was he able to enjoy his children. Lucy and Margaret were in their teens now, pretty girls with slender golden-brown bodies and lively minds, charming in their eagerness to please their father. George was a sturdy little boy whose only ambition was to be a soldier like his father and his namesake. And baby Henrietta—no longer a baby, but always considered so by the rest of the family—was a constant delight.
As the age of thirty became a distant memory, Richard began to see himself sinking gracefully into a peaceful middle-age, if he was allowed to.
News drifted up from the south. Lord Cornwallis had retired, and been succeeded by Sir John Shore. Tippoo Sahib was continuing to build his army, apparently ignored by the Company. News drifted in from Europe as well, of the excesses of the Terror in France—‘I wonder how de Boigne is gettin’ on with them Jacobins?’ Thomas asked—and then of a young general named Bonaparte gaining great victories in Italy under the new French flag, the tricolour.
In the midst of these immense events, the news that Warren Hastings, after a trial lasting eleven years, had finally been acquitted of any maladministration in India was somewhat anticlimactic.
The French war with Great Britain, as opposed to the French war with the rest of Europe, still remained a matter of naval actions, expeditions against West Indian islands, and futile landings in Holland. It seemed that the French republican government had no interest in India, until the day an envoy arrived from Gwalior.
A letter came from Perron, written in French. Thomas had Richard read it to him in translation.
‘To George the Victorious, Ship Sahib.’
‘He wants something, the bugger,’ Thomas grunted.
‘Controlling as you do the land of Hariana, closer to Delhi than ourselves, you must be aware of the chaos and disarray that exist within the court of the Great Mughal. There is now no central authority in all India worth the name. Soon the entire subcontinent will have reverted to a state of anarchy.
‘In these circumstances, His Excellency, Scindhia of Gwalior, Mahadoji of that name, deems it to be his duty to his illustrious ancestors and to the honour of the Indian people, to take upon himself the responsibility for restoring order and good government throughout the land.
‘It is the intention of His Excellency, the Scindhia Mahadoji, to advance upon Delhi with all his forces, place the Great Mughal in honourable retirement, and assume control of this great and bountiful land.’
Richard whistled.
‘He’s got gall,’ Thomas agreed.
‘With this end in view, Maréchal Perron, commander in chief of the armies of the Scindhia, invites his good friend Ship Sahib, Viceroy of Hariana, to place his army at the disposal of the said Maréchal Perron for the accomplishment of this supreme task. Maréchal Perron has no doubt that when the banners of Hariana and Scindhia march side by side, as they did before Sohawalgahr, victory will be assured.
‘Maréchal Perron looks forward to hearing from Ship Sahib as to the precise moment his army will be ready to march.’
Richard laid down the letter. ‘Now there’s an unforeseen development.’
‘I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before,’ Thomas said. ‘Mahadoji is the nearest; besides, he’s talked of himself as Protector of the Throne for years. Now he wants to sit on it himself. But we’re in his way, Dick me lad. And if he tries to go round us, we lie on his flank, especially if we expand into the Punjab.’
‘What are you going to reply?’
‘I’m surely not goin’ to agree to set the Scindhia on the Mughal’s throne! Next thing he’d be rulin’ all India, us included. Ye’ll write Monsieur Perron, Dick, and tell him that his plans are being carefully considered, but before we can undertake any joint military action on the scale he proposes, there are certain local difficulties we must deal with first.’
‘And what happens if he won’t wait?’
‘Then we’ll have to fight the bugger. But every day counts, Dick lad. Our armies are still building, and we still have that reputation we gained so long ago. Monsieur Perron will have to think long and hard before he marches on Hansi.’
*
Mahadoji Scindhia died unexpectedly, and was succeeded by his fifteen-year-old nephew Daulat Rao Scindhia. Placing a young boy on the throne of the Great Mughal was out of the question, at least for the forseeable future.
And Perron never replied to Thomas’s temporising letter.
‘He hates our guts,’ Thomas said. ‘I’d not be surprised if the whole idea of setting the Scindhia on the throne wasn’t his. He’d have become a kind of Lord High Chamberlain, runnin’ India.’
‘For France,’ Richard pointed out soberly.
Suddenly that was no longer a mere nightmare. News reached Hansi that a French army, led by the redoubtable General Bonaparte, had crossed the Mediterranean, seized Egypt, and was invading Palestine and Syria. Rumour had it that the young republican intended to repeat the deeds of Alexander and march right the way to India.
‘But even Alexander never got this far,’ Thomas pointed out.
‘Alexander didn’t have several thousand trained and officered mercenaries waiting to welcome him,’ Richard countered.
‘Now there’s a point,’ Thomas mused. ‘I wonder what John Company’s goin’ to do about that.’
The Company reacted very promptly, spurred on by the government of William Pitt, who were beginning to regard their Indian possessions, even if held in the name of a private trading concern, a
s being of considerable value. Sir John Shore was hastily retired, and a fire-eating Anglo-Irishman named Wellesley, who had recently become Lord Mornington, appointed in his place.
It soon became apparent that the orders under which Cornwallis had laboured, to act only on the defensive in his relations with the various Viceroys, had been cancelled. Wellesley’s brief was clearly to put an end to all French influence in the subcontinent.
He went about it in a perfectly straightforward way, beginning with the Peshwa. He informed the titular head of all the Marathas that while he and the Company had no intention of expanding in India, or interfering with anyone’s independence, he must insist that all Frenchmen serving with the armies of the Peshwa be dismissed immediately and returned to their homeland.
‘That’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons,’ Thomas remarked when the news reached Hariana.
To the astonishment of all India, the Peshwa agreed to do as the new Governor-General demanded. Many people supposed he was temporising, and had little intention of actually dismissing his French officers, but the mere fact of his having acceded to the demands of the British without protest caused a stir.
Everyone waited to see where Wellesley would turn next. Thomas and Richard certainly never expected it to be them. They were thus utterly taken aback when one of Hanif’s colonels rode into Hansi to say that a British envoy was on his way to the capital.
*
On Thomas’s instructions, Richard turned out his entire army in review order, the ten battalions divided into three brigades with the artillery separate, Hanif in front of the cavalry, Hopkins in front of the artillery, and Birch and Hearsey the infantry. Richard commanded the whole.
Meanwhile, Thomas had ordered that Hansi be placed en fête, and flags and bunting fluttered from every building as the British approached.
The officer in command appeared to be hardly thirty years of age although he was clad in the red jacket and the insignia of an infantry colonel. He sat straight in the saddle, and his bicorn hat served to elongate the already hatchet-like face, dominated by the long, thin nose.
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