Under the Jeweled Sky

by Alison McQueen

  “Then there is nothing to be done. There is talk around the palace. I refused to believe it. My son would never do such a thing. Who would do such a thing?” Jag’s father turned to him in disbelief. “You have brought shame upon us. And now we will have to pay the price.”

  “But Father…”

  “I will request an audience with the head of household tomorrow.” He picked up a wilting bloom from his dead wife’s shrine and held it in his hand. “I will tell him that we have done the Maharaja a great wrong and beg his forgiveness. Then we shall gather up our things and leave the palace with our heads hung in shame.”

  “No!”

  “We cannot live here, not now that you have brought this disgrace upon us. I shall pray that the gods forgive you. As for me, I am not sure that I ever will.”

  “No! It is not like that!”

  “Enough!” his father said. “I have spoken.”

  “Listen to me!” Jag stood his ground. “There has been no wrongdoing. I love her as deeply as you loved my mother. How can that be wrong?”

  “Love?” His father’s anger exploded upon him. “How dare you speak of love! You know nothing! Love is meant only for those who are betrothed and married by the will of their parents and the blessing of the gods. That is what love is. It is about a lifetime of devotion to each other, to the sacrifice of your own life if that is what is demanded of you. Only when you have known the suffering I have known can you look a man in the eye and tell him you know what love is.”

  “But I do know.”

  “Enough!” Jag could not remember a time when he had seen his father enraged like this, his hands shaking. “You will never speak another word of this! Do you understand? And you will stay right here until it is settled. You are not to leave this room for one minute, or I swear I will bring the wrath of the gods down upon you. My own son!”

  • • •

  Mrs. Schofield slid a spoonful of sugar into the coffee she didn’t want and feigned polite interest in the conversation that circled Mrs. Ripperton’s sitting room. Any talk of politics was considered vulgar, as was the mention of the terrible massacres that had taken place up and down the country. With the newspapers and palace whispers filled with little else, this had the effect of obliterating any real sense of authentic exchange. Few topics remained on safe ground, so all conversation had to be carefully orchestrated and skillfully conducted away from anything that might cause one of the women to breach etiquette and fall from her perch. An unspoken discomfort filled the room now that they had all been relegated from ruling class to mere guests in this country, as though a collective sense of guilt was being pushed under the carpet, the lumps disguised with rigid smiles and wistful conversation about the old days.

  The prison block remained a popular topic behind the dainty teacups. That women should be incarcerated like that for the rest of their lives was proof indeed of how much this country had yet to learn and how backward its people were. The subject was a welcome source of endless tattling, filled with high-minded opinions and much shaking of heads, yet there were some among the wives who privately could think of far worse things than to live in luxury in the exclusive domain of female company with nothing much to do all day but please oneself and order servants around while trying on fabulous jewels.

  Mrs. Ripperton pressed a piece of shortbread upon Mrs. Schofield and steered the conversation toward the story she had picked up, sharing the report that the Maharaja’s intended new bride suffered from a rare congenital disorder that had left her covered in hair from head to toe. Nobody had any idea where Mrs. Ripperton got her information from, but she was always the bearer of the latest interesting snippet of news. Anyone would have thought that she had the First Maharani’s ear, although that couldn’t possibly be the case. None of the wives would lower themselves to visiting the zenana. For one thing, they would be expected to stoop to a low curtsey and to call the Maharanis Your Highness, and that would never do.

  Mrs. Schofield stifled an inward sigh. Among the many rumors doing the rounds of the palace and its six hundred staff, a whisper had circulated as far as the ADC’s room that her daughter had been holding secret liaisons with a boy, the son of one of the Maharaja’s personal bearers. Mrs. Ripperton had taken Mrs. Schofield aside to tell her what she had heard and to assure her that she had quashed it as nonsense. There was always some tongue-wagging going on in corners, disgruntled servants making trouble and spreading malicious lies, and Mrs. Ripperton had said that one of the maids had probably been behind it. Mrs. Schofield had received the report stiffly, holding her face in check while her blood boiled.

  • • •

  Dr. Schofield paced his study, the low afternoon sun slicing through the shutters, casting bright slats across the room, catching the sparkling airborne dust. Sophie sat miserably in the chair while he hauled her over the coals as his wife had demanded.

  “How many times must we tell you not to fraternize with the staff?” Dr. Schofield pulled his tie from his collar in exasperation. “It really won’t do, Sophie. You know that we have nothing against these people, but you must learn to keep yourself to yourself. What on earth were you doing there?”

  “Nothing.” Sophie stared down at her hands clasped nervously in her lap. She felt sick, down to the pit of her stomach.

  “There’s no such thing as nothing, my girl, and you know what the servants are like. They’re never happier than when they’re going around spying on everyone and spreading poison about the sahibs. We’re not the most popular people after all the trouble that’s gone on, and now you’ve given them enough ammunition to make us look ridiculous.” Her father sighed heavily. “It really was a very irresponsible thing to do, darling. A girl of your age? You should know better.”

  Mrs. Schofield took up the baton, this time shouting, cheeks flushed with fury. “Do you have any idea what would happen to any girl caught alone with a boy in this country?” This humiliation was simply the last straw. She had died a thousand deaths when Mrs. Ripperton told her, her skin still shrinking with the disgrace of it. She could have sworn that she detected a note of schadenfreude in the woman’s voice. It seemed to her that Mrs. Ripperton had waited a long time for this, to make a mockery of her and her family, just as she always knew she would. They were all the same, the British women out here, spouting their high ideals while forgetting their own morals. Not only was Mrs. Ripperton a shameless glutton, she was a busybody too, and a ruthless gossip. Mrs. Schofield had no doubt that Mrs. Ripperton had probably been the source of the rumor in the first place. What she hadn’t banked on was that the rumor might actually be true.

  “We were only talking,” said Sophie.

  “Talking?” her mother demanded. “What could you possibly have to say to a boy like that? You stupid, stupid girl! You are not to speak to him anymore, do you hear me? I will not have people ridiculing us or questioning my daughter’s conduct. These people may be heathen, but no Indian girl would dare be caught alone in the company of a boy. Her whole family would be ruined.”

  “I’m not Indian,” Sophie mumbled.

  “More’s the pity,” her father said, attempting to deflect his wife’s anger. “Otherwise you might have exercised better judgment. Really, Sophie.” His tone softened. “What on earth are we to do with you?”

  “You should have thought about that before you dragged us out here!” Mrs. Schofield snapped at him, venting her frustration. It was all very well for him. He was thoroughly occupied most days, being taken hither and thither, enjoying the high regard that doctors do, whereas her days stretched out interminably. She simply couldn’t understand all this India business. It was a ghastly, disease-ridden place, its people either crawling through squalor or living like Croesus. As for the Maharaja, he was the most ridiculous figure she had ever seen, preening like a fat peacock, keeping a harem of sluts for his pleasure. She had glimpsed him on one occasion, during one of th
eir barbarian festivals, looking like a spoiled, overfed tribesman in his gilded finery, riding atop a caparisoned elephant in his giant silver howdah. The pomposity of it all was grotesque, from the way he threw coins into the gutter for children to scrabble over in the filth, to the manner in which he transported his heathen wives in sheeted palanquins. It disgusted her. Some took to the place like a duck to water, of course, but they were the kind of people who didn’t really belong anywhere else, lame or eccentric types who would have a hard time fitting in with polite society at home. Quite a few of them were clearly soft in the head, that blasted Ripperton woman included. And as for the ones who had gone native, well, the less said about them the better.

  “You should have left us behind instead of dragging us out here,” said Mrs. Schofield, her shrill voice piercing right through her husband. “You have no idea just how out of place one feels here. It’s exhausting. And as for you.” She started on her daughter again. “You are not to speak to that boy ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “If we knew who he was, we would have him dismissed immediately.”

  Sophie had remained tight-lipped on the matter of Jag’s identity, saying that she did not know what his name was or his role in the household. She flatly denied that he was the son of the Maharaja’s bearer, her face so highly colored anyway that she felt sure that the lie would pass unnoticed. The Maharaja had lots of bearers. All she would say was that he was a boy who she had bumped into on occasion and that that was all she knew.

  “You are never again to see him, do you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Sophie stared at the rug, unable to look at her mother. She had seen so little of Jag lately that it felt like less of a lie. And when she had seen him, it had been unbearable, the two of them burning up inside. She would feel herself trembling as they whispered to each other, hidden in the shadows of their secret passages, his arms around her as they made promises they couldn’t possibly hope to keep.

  “I think that’s quite enough for one evening,” Dr. Schofield said, bringing the subject to a close. He had been planning to speak to Veronica tonight about the matter of their staying on. She wouldn’t be happy about it, but he had no doubt that he could make it sound palatable, attractive even, given reasonable conditions and a fair wind. Yet the moment had gone. That had been evident the second he stepped in through the door to find his wife in a state of high anxiety, screaming like a banshee, and his daughter aflood with tears. The brooch would just have to stay in his pocket for the time being, a gift he had picked up to soften his increasingly brittle wife. One of these days, he would stop bothering.

  • • •

  Lying in her bed waiting for sleep to come, Sophie finally felt herself drifting off, the faint night breeze seeping deliciously through the open window, playing with the thin suggestion of the mosquito net that shrouded her bed. A small sound crept into her half-sleep, like a pin dropping to a marble floor. She sank deeply into her pillows, yearning for her dreams to take hold.

  Tap. Her eyes opened. Again came the noise, a little harsher, tap-tap, and the skittering of a tiny stone as it rolled across her bedroom floor. She looked to the window and blinked herself awake. In the dark, moonless night, the leaf-thin curtain twitched and in came another pebble, bouncing sharply and rattling away.

  Sophie flew out of bed, wrenching the mosquito net aside, snatching up her dressing gown and throwing it about her shoulders. She lit a candle, cupping the flame with her hand, illuminating the room in a soft glow, her bare feet crossing silently to the window in quick strides. Pulling back the curtain, she peered out, looking for movement below. Jag stared up at her from the shadows.

  “Jag!” Overjoyed as she was to see him, she found herself immediately overwrought and covered her mouth, aware that her parents were just a few rooms away, the terrible dressing-down and subsequent row between them still ringing fresh in her ears three days later. He had never dared to come near their quarters before, and if they were to be found like this, there would be untold trouble. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “Come down!” he said. “I have to talk to you.”

  “I can’t! My parents are still up.” Sophie glanced anxiously over her shoulder to the closed door of her bedroom. “Where have you been? I’ve been searching everywhere for you!”

  “Yes, you can! You must! It’s important!”

  “Somebody told my mother about us. Now they’ve said I’m not allowed to see you or speak to you and they won’t let me out of their sight.”

  “I know,” he said, his hands clenching into tight fists. “That is why I have not seen you. We have to talk. We must hurry before I am missed.”

  For a moment, Sophie thought she heard a movement at her door. She raised a hand of warning to Jag and rushed inside, listening intently, waiting until she was sure that the danger had passed before returning to the window.

  “There is no way for me to get out,” she said. “We will have to meet tomorrow. Somewhere that nobody will see us. Just tell me when and where and I will wait for you. But right now, you have to go. If you are caught, my mother will have you dismissed. Hurry! You must go.”

  Jag put his head in his hands and let out a small cry of anguish. He turned this way and that, as if looking for some secret passage that might take him to her, but there were none in this part of the palace. “Please!” he implored her. “You must come down.”

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “We are leaving,” he said.

  “What?” Sophie felt her chest turn over. “When?”

  “Tomorrow, first thing. My father asked the Maharaja to release him so that he can return to our family.”

  “No!” Sophie cried softly, hands flying to her face. “You can’t leave me here on my own!”

  “I have no choice,” he said grimly. “I cannot leave my father. It would kill him.”

  “Jag! Please, no! What will I do without you?” Again she threw a glance behind her, in the hope that there might be some escape. But there was none.

  “We can write to each other,” he said.

  “But how? We will be leaving soon too, and I have no address to give you, and nobody will allow me a letter from you anyway.”

  “Then you must write to me,” Jag said.

  “How will I know where you are?”

  “I have an aunt who lives in Amritsar. That is where we are going. My uncle is a shoemaker.” Jag took a scrap of paper from his pocket. “I have written the address.” He bent to the ground and picked up a stone, wrapped the paper around it, and threw it up to the window, where it sailed past Sophie’s shoulder, landing with a dull thud on the rug behind her. “This is as much as I can give you.”

  “No!” Sophie said. “Please! I don’t want you to go. What if I cannot find you? What if you cannot find me?” She felt sick, so sick that her skin became clammy. “We might never see each other again.”

  Jag knew this to be true, but in that moment there was nothing else he could think of to say. “Don’t worry,” he said, yearning to hold her as her face betrayed its despair. “We will travel quickly and safely, and as soon as we arrive I will get a message to you. I will get a message to you before you leave here.” Sophie began to cry. “Don’t cry, Sophie! Please don’t cry!” She pressed her face into her hands, unable to speak.

  In the distance, voices came through the darkness. Jag looked over his shoulder, his face twisted with desperation. “I have to go,” he said. Sophie reached behind her neck and undid the clasp of her necklace, a small gold locket that held a picture of her parents.

  “Here.” She held her hand out of the window, dropping the locket down to him. “This is all I have to give to you.” He caught it easily and held it tight.

  “I will find you, Sophie. I promise. You’ll see.”

  And with that, he tu
rned and disappeared into the darkness, Sophie watching after him long after his shadow faded from view.

  Through the open window, night moths flew in, heading toward the candle’s flame.

  11

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mrs. Schofield glared at her daughter. “I hope we’re not going to be subjected to another one of your enormous sulks today. That won’t get you anywhere, young lady. I have a good mind to pack us up and leave him to it. Of all the selfish—”

  “Mother, please.” Sophie continued to try to reason with her mother, tiring as it was, when all she really wanted was to go to her room and lie down. Whether it was due to the heat or the grief of her loss, she didn’t care. Wrung out and tearful, she didn’t have the energy for this today, her mother sapping every last shred from her. “He only wants what’s best for us.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He wants only to please himself. He couldn’t give two figs about anyone else. It’s this godless country. Put a man here for ten minutes and all of a sudden, his wife’s opinion counts for nothing. It’s a disgrace. He knows very well how we hate it here.”

  “I don’t hate it here.”

  “Of course you do. I’ve seen your sniveling. I’m not blind. You’re just taking his side, as usual. I’ve told him, one year. That’s all. Just one year and we will be going straight back to England whether he likes it or not. And if he doesn’t like it, then we’ll damn well go without him. I’ve put up with far more than I should have done, and now I’m expected to stay here indefinitely on his whim? He’s the most selfish man I’ve ever met. I knew very well that it was a mistake to marry him, and I wasn’t wrong.” Mrs. Schofield counted her blouses and made an angry note on her list. She didn’t trust the dhobi wallah and kept a detailed inventory of every last little thing that was taken for laundering. “And I do wish you’d stop moping around.” She picked up the blouses and shoved them angrily into a drawer. “You should be at the mission, putting your time to good use.”