The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  Of course there were excitements to be had, but they were contrived for sport, not to test a man’s courage in a good cause. There were tiger hunts from the safe and massive vantage-point of an elephant’s back; Richard would have taken part, but Sunara’s loving eye (once again) discovered an ancient statute forbidding any member of the royal house to hazard himself in this fashion, and when the converging ring of javelin men closed in upon the quarry, Richard could only be a far-off spectator. He could fish for shark, of course; he could watch teams of oxen straining mightily in a tug-of-war; he could even wrestle in the midsummer games – though there was some doubt as to whether he could lose. But he could not venture into danger, nor into any role that was more than decorative and formal.

  Above all, he could not fight, and he could not rule – not by so much as a finger’s snap. If he had had a ship, he might have had some useful sport with the pirates, who still infested certain parts of the northern coast, and whose fleets of two hundred or more prahus lay in wait for ships in the narrows between Makassang and the Celebes, and tore their prey to pieces like the piranhas of the Amazon. But Richard had no ship of his own to fight such a sea battle; and as for land battles, the Rajah would have none of them. The country, he said, was quiet; Selang Aro was driven into hiding, and as for Black Harris – Black Harris knew better than to turn soldier and make a second attempt on the Sun Palace. Things were best left as they were, in guarded peace.

  The Rajah was equally adamant, and irksomely so, about Richard’s position in the royal household. His bearing daily proclaimed that there was only one Rajah, and therefore only one ruler; the Tunku of Makassang, though a favourite son and honoured son-in-law, was not to trespass beyond this, into the realm of kingship. The Rajah had, on one occasion, made the fact plain, with mortifying clarity.

  It chanced that Richard, on one of his visits to Prahang, the capital, had been approached by a suppliant who claimed that he had been unjustly threatened with imprisonment, for a debt that was no debt at all, but an arrant swindle by one of the city’s thriving moneylenders. Richard, impressed by the man’s story – though wretchedly poor, he had the stamp of honesty in his bearing – made some inquiries, and brought the two disputants face to face in his presence. He had no difficulty in deciding which was the swindler and which the honest man, and he gave a ruling which set the suppliant free and put the moneylender under pain of severe penalty if he practised such iniquities again. The reaction of the spectators left no doubt that the matter had been justly dealt with.

  He thought no more of it. But reports of his intervention reached the Rajah that same evening, and when Richard returned to the Sun Palace, he was called to account, in an interview which set his temper on edge.

  ‘I do not understand how this came about,’ said the Rajah, coldly, in the manner of a schoolmaster, when Richard had answered his queries and set out the facts. ‘You exceeded your authority – indeed, you have no authority in these matters. There are courts of law, and in certain cases there can be petitions to the Rajah – myself. But these private hearings – there is no such procedure in Makassang.’

  ‘The man came to me for help,’ explained Richard reasonably. He was in good humour, as he always was when he returned to the palace and to Sunara. ‘Why should I deny him? He said he had been wronged–’

  ‘Every debtor has been wronged.’

  ‘But this was an honest man.’

  ‘An honest man should approach the courts.’

  ‘He was too poor for that.’

  ‘He was too clever.’ Richard suddenly realized that, behind the cold façade, the Rajah was violently angry, and he sharpened his own mood to meet it. ‘He could not face the court with his story, so he came snivelling to you. He knew that from you he would win, not justice, but a verdict which would sit well with the crowd.’

  ‘But that is ridiculous!’ said Richard, astounded.

  The Rajah froze. ‘You forget yourself.’

  ‘I ask your pardon, your Highness … I meant, of course, it is unfair to suggest that I would come to such a judgement, in order to court popularity.’

  ‘You had no right to come to any judgement.’

  ‘But I was acting as your agent, your own representative. After all–’

  ‘You are not my agent. You are my son-in-law. You have married my daughter,’ the Rajah went on cuttingly. ‘You have not married Makassang … So we will have no more of these courts and judgements.’

  ‘Can I take no part in ruling, then?’ asked Richard, near to anger himself and determined to do his share of plain speaking. ‘Does the title of Tunku mean nothing?’

  ‘While I live, no one else rules,’ answered the Rajah. ‘And Tunku means prince, as you are well aware. It does not mean rajah. We have no other word for rajah,’ the old man added sarcastically, ‘and no other man, either.’

  The ill-tempered snub ended the audience, and Richard was left to salve the wound to his self-esteem as best he could. A few months earlier – even a few weeks – he would not have tolerated such treatment, nor listened to a lecture such as had not been read to him since brother Miles used to voice his disapproval, in the old days at Marriott. But now it seemed to matter less; he had other things to set in the balance, against the jealous dominion of a royal father-in-law; and whenever his pride was thus lacerated, he had Sunara to anoint it … There were necessary excuses to be made, also. Where the Rajah was concerned, he knew, such outbursts were largely a matter of mood; the old man was given to sudden rages, and this interview – estimating it fairly – was a likely occasion for rage. Richard realized that, in assuming the office of judge, he had probably overstepped convention and, also, the law; his motives had been pure enough, but that would weigh nothing with an old man whose life had held more than its share of intrigue and manoeuvre.

  The mention of ‘popularity’ had been the key to this. The Rajah had come to feel safe and secure on his throne; he had, at this stage, no enemies for Richard to fight; he must be thinking himself far above the vulgar need for rescue – he could even be regretting the fact that he had heaped unnecessary honours on a man who might, in certain circumstances, take advantage of them. Richard’s following among the people was beyond question; and it was reflected – though not by his own wish – in a palace faction which already led to occasional quarrels among the servants, minor wrangles over precedence among the retinues of courtiers. The idea that Richard Marriott might come to usurp even a small part of the royal prerogatives would certainly set the Rajah to thinking troublesome, nagging thoughts.

  Richard, taking his customary ease in the garden, shrugged resignedly. The outcome was the same, in any case, whether he chafed at the restraint or let it run off his shoulders. His part in Makassang was limited. In this toy kingdom, he had become something of a toy himself. He ruled nowhere save in the marriage bed. There were times when the role irked him intolerably, and other times – such as now, with Sunara approaching him across the lawn – when only a fool would be discontented.

  He had never ceased to marvel at her grace and beauty, newly revealed to him every day; not his eyes, not his body which had come to know hers so well, could ever tire of this enjoyment, or reach satiety. Now, as she moved across the green carpet of turf towards him, and he stood up to greet her, he wondered anew at the perfections which could be found in so small a frame. Now three months with child, her body was still unaltered in its outline; and her face, the focus of her loveliness, had gained from marriage and from love a glowing happiness which shone, not for him alone, but for all the marvelling world. Its pallor, which before had seemed remote and cool, had been translated by some sensual alchemy into radiant animation. Especially, she moved in a fashion which declared one pleasure above all others – her pleasure in being a woman.

  She came near, and they smiled at each other in loving welcome. Her eyes moved swiftly from his face, to the garden chair he had been sitting on, the tall glass of sangaree conveniently placed, the angle
of the sun and the shade of the palm tree overhead. It was part of her love, to see that the rest of the universe cherished him as he deserved. She bent down, to brush away a leaf which had fallen on the table. Then, straightening, she said: ‘Are you comfortable? Have you all that you want?’

  ‘I have everything, Sunara … Did you take your proper rest?’

  She smiled again, sitting down in the chair next to his. ‘I have rested, I have even slept. I have pretended to be an invalid. I have drunk my milk and eaten my boiled fish. I have done all that you ordered, Richard.’

  To call him Richard was in the middle range of their intimacy. To the world, she spoke of him as ‘the Tunku’; at all other times, in public or private, he was Richard. Only in bed did she use, with fervour or with contentment, the word ‘Tuan’. It was often the most strangely exciting part of their passion, thus to be called ‘Lord’ at a moment when he was in fact the lord of so sweet a dominion.

  ‘These things are important,’ he chided her gently. ‘The child must be strong, from the moment he is born.’

  ‘Alas, I thought you were concerned about me,’ she said, in pretended ruefulness.

  He put his hand over hers, and caressed it. ‘Until the day I die,’ he assured her. ‘But he can only be strong if you are strong.’

  ‘Spoken like a man,’ she answered. She looked round her, shading her eyes against the glare which the bay below them threw back at the afternoon sun. ‘Another wonderful day … If it were not for the crops, one could pray that the monsoon never comes … I cannot tire of this view.’

  ‘It is perfect, as usual.’

  She was quick to catch something from his voice. ‘Too perfect, Richard?’

  ‘How could that be?’

  ‘One grows tired of perfection.’

  He nodded: what she said was too much in agreement with his secret thoughts to be passed over. ‘I suppose so … I was thinking yesterday of one thing I would greatly love to see. As a change, as a surprise.’

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘Snow.’

  She turned to him, searching his face in amazement. ‘And I have never even seen it once … Is that what you miss, in Makassang?’

  ‘I miss nothing, my darling. It was just a stray thought – a wish for contrast, I suppose. In truth, the country is beautiful, whether it changes or no, and if I have you, I have everything.’

  She persisted. ‘But you miss England?’

  Suddenly he had to tell her, without dissembling. ‘I miss – I miss doing, Sunara! I was not born to sit in the sun, drinking sangaree and gazing at the view! I am thirty years old, not eighty … There are times when I feel myself growing older by the hour, with nothing done and nothing to show for all the years going by.’

  ‘But you have done so much. And surely there are many diversions, here in Makassang. You need not sit idle, unless you choose.’

  ‘Diversions!’ He could not help his forceful emphasis on the word. ‘Oh yes, there are diversions enough. I suppose I should not complain. After all, I am only out of employment until the next banquet!’

  There was silence. He had hurt her, as her face showed plainly; she was staring out across the bay with deeply troubled eyes. He would have recalled his words if he could, for he loved her too much to inflict such careless wounds; but he could not recall his mood, which remained constant in its mixture of boredom and frustration. It was the word ‘diversions’ which had sharpened his discontent intolerably; it was the gross idea of killing time again – as if a man should be satisfied to squander the heavenly gift of life on the sweet nothings waiting to be plucked from the languorous air … He turned towards her, and found that she was already regarding him, her expression changed from pain to a loving thoughtfulness.

  ‘You have never said such a thing to me before, Richard.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said contritely. ‘It is a bad mood, nothing else. Please forgive me, and forget it.’

  She shook her head. ‘I think I was waiting for you to say it. And it is more than a mood, or you would not have spoken as you did. You must have been thinking of this for a long time. Is not that so?’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘It is something that has been growing.’

  ‘You must tell me these things … I know that you have little to do, these days, save to enjoy life, and that is not enough for a man like you. Of course, it is in the air here … Andrew Farthing used to call it Makassang fever – the urge to do nothing in perfect surroundings.’

  ‘I am sure he was not subject to it.’

  ‘Oh, indeed he was! But as soon as he felt it coming on, he would be up and doing.’

  Richard sighed. ‘Fortunate Andrew Farthing.’

  ‘It was his cure for sadness.’

  ‘What sadness was that?’

  ‘Principally, the death of his wife.’

  ‘His wife!’ exclaimed Richard, astonished. ‘I knew nothing of that. I had been thinking of him as a solitary figure. So Andrew Farthing was married?’

  ‘He came here when he was thirty-five,’ answered Sunara, ‘long before I was born, with his wife. They were newly married, and very happy. She was lively and pretty, they say, and singing all the time … They built a mission house here, and had permission from my grandfather to preach the Christian gospel, if they wished. But then Andrew’s wife died, within three months, in childbed.’

  Richard shivered involuntarily, and pressed her hand. ‘Nay, Sunara, do not tell me such stories, and do not think of them either!’

  ‘Oh, I shall not die. I love you, and life, too much … But when Andrew Farthing’s wife died – I had the story from my father – he was mad with grief, and inconsolable. He cursed Makassang, and everything in it, and he planned to sail for home immediately, having buried all his hopes, all that he loved. Then he changed his mind suddenly, in the course of one night, and stayed on with us.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘It is said that some children came at dusk to place flowers on his wife’s new grave, and he saw them, and asked them roughly why they did it, and they answered: “If we love her, she still lives.” It touched him beyond belief, and he told my grandfather: “I came to preach the love and the pity of Christ, and here they are preaching it to me,” and so he stayed, and worked here for more than thirty years.’

  ‘And his work?’ asked Richard. He had been deeply moved by the story. ‘How did he spend his working day? With more than preaching, surely?’

  ‘Oh yes. He came as a preacher, but in the end he was everything to us. Schoolmaster, doctor, judge, comforter. He started a mission school in Prahang, and he taught generations of children their letters, and much else as well. He had a little hospital, and the garden round it was thronged from morning till night. People would even bring their children to be touched, though it made him very angry, and he pretended to curse them with Scottish curses. And he went among the lepers … He was a saint, Richard, and he did so much for us. And yet, to the very end – this was when I knew him – he was a disappointed man, not a happy one.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because there was so much left undone.’ She turned to him again. ‘And it is true, Richard. A man of ideas, a man of energy, could do great things for Makassang.’

  ‘I am sure of it.’

  ‘You could do these things.’

  ‘I do not think your father would like that, Sunara.’ His tone was light, but underneath it his mood had grown suddenly sombre; the contrast between the dedicated labours of Andrew Farthing, and his own butterfly existence, was mortifying, even disgusting. ‘He has made that much clear, as I told you. I am not to take any part in ruling.’

  ‘There are other things besides ruling.’

  He laughed shortly. ‘I am not fitted for teaching, or for curing lepers with a touch!’

  His tone was bitter, reflecting his mood; the story of Andrew Farthing had shamed him. Now, perversely, he did not even know if he wished to exert himself, to do anything for Makassang
. It was not his own country; it had been made clear that he was a stranger in it. A far-off echo from the past came to mock him – the words of his old tutor, Sebastian Wickham, as the two of them said their goodbyes at Marriott: ‘When you find your kingdom, make sure you use it well.’ He had found it, and he was indeed using it well – as a plaything for a thousand idle hours.

  Perhaps he had contracted Makassang fever already.

  Sunara, watching his troubled, angry brow, touched his arm, and said: ‘You are fitted for everything that a man can do. And I love you.’

  In the distance, at the edge of the lawn leading to the Steps of Heaven, a small figure appeared, followed by a watchful larger one. It was Adam, and his attendant nurse Manina. The boy had grown sturdy; he ran and jumped with the best; he had settled into the strange world of Makassang as if he had been born to it. Only the palace peacocks – he was staring, in fascination, at one of them now – still caused him to marvel and, perhaps, to quake … He saw that Richard and Sunara were watching him; but he surveyed them without recognition, unwinkingly, until Manina bent and prompted him, and he waved his hand, and the two of them waved back. Then he turned to his study of the peacock again, and, when the peacock strutted away, to the absorbing mysteries of a gardener’s barrow full of plants. He was alone in his private wonderland, talking to peacocks, talking to plants and leaves.

  ‘He is waiting for his brother,’ said Richard.

  In the succeeding days and weeks, each one so dismally the twin of the last, Richard had endless leisure for the confused, uneasy thoughts which he had partly revealed to Sunara. The things he might have wished to do seemed to be denied him; yet he was not sure if he would really welcome a change, or if he were sinking, gently yet decisively, into the fatal pleasures of indolence. He still dressed and comported himself royally; he walked through his magnificent, facile role as Tunku of Makassang; he treated his father-in-law with respect, and kept his counsel on any matter save the most trivial. He played with Adam, and made love to Sunara as often as they chose, since they took an undiminished delight in this. But loving, however sweet, and talking, however soft, and the watching of one son and the waiting for another, was not enough for a man. All it did was to make him wonder whether, in fact, a man was what he still remained.