Keeping Bad Company

by Caro Peacock

  Of the two companions who had travelled out with him, he lost touch with The Soldier. The other one, The Merchant, to nobody’s great surprise, decided to leave the Company and join an importing and exporting business, trading mostly in the Far East. He rose rapidly to be a partner. The Soldier became a captain, The Merchant flourished and The Griff was promoted. It was not a promotion that many men coveted because it involved going a long way from Calcutta to a small princedom in the Maratha or central region of India. The area was disorderly, under constant attack from local warlords. For some years the soldiers of the Company had been waging campaigns against those warlords in support of the various princes. For the princes, that support proved expensive. The Company would send in groups of advisers who had to be paid from the royal treasury. The Griff was sent to join one such group. The name of the princedom is of no matter. It does not exist any more.

  Even at the height of its powers it was no larger than a moderately sized English county. Its religion was Hinduism, its ruler a maharajah who entertained his Company advisers with tiger hunts, music and dancing girls, presents of jewels. He was a shrewd and jovial man, inclined to laziness, but that was no great matter because his country was fertile and rich from the spoils his ancestors had won. Like all the native princes he kept his own army, but his was largely for show. Their ceremonial drill, involving lines of elephants, magnificent horses, foot soldiers in silk tunics as bright as orchids, was something to be seen. So were the womenfolk. They were permitted quite a degree of freedom and were said to be some of the most beautiful in India, a claim the present writer would not dispute.

  While the clever old man lived, all was well, but he died and was succeeded by his only son, a weak and pleasure-loving young man in his early twenties. He wanted to be a greater man than his father and was easily flattered into thinking that could be achieved by show and extravagance. Most of the flattery came from his British advisers. The young prince was persuaded into importing frivolous luxuries from Europe: gold and silver plate, Wedgewood china dinner services, English boots and saddlery. Little of what he bought was as fine as what he could have had from India, but it was foreign, so to him desirable. After a while, his supply of ready money began to run short. No matter. His advisers had English merchant friends who were happy to advance him loans. After a while, when they began to hint that repayment might be convenient, the prince was embarrassed. Again, his advisers had a solution: the opium poppy.

  Up to that point, it had been little cultivated in the principality. Now the lilac and purple tide flowed over it. It flowed over the prince too. It paid for his fripperies from Europe, but after a time he wasn’t concerned about those so much because he’d become a slave to the poppy and wanted only his silk cushions and his opium pipe. He took little interest in the affairs of his realm, but that was all right because the kind Englishmen from the Company were quite prepared to take care of them. The Griff looked, but did nothing. He had grown older, learned cynicism and taken it for wisdom. Then something happened that catapulted him back to being The Griff of many years before. The poppy prince was going to war. His slightly larger neighbour had defied and insulted him by invading an area of border land and there was nothing for it but to fight. I knew that piece of land. It was wretchedly rocky and unproductive. You could ride across it in ten minutes and hardly notice it. I went to the senior man among our team of advisers.

  Griff: This is madness. The prince can’t care about the bit of land.

  (In fact, we both knew our prince didn’t care much about anything apart from his pipe and his nautch girls.)

  Senior: Then it’s just as well we’re looking after his interests for him.

  Griff: His army’s useless.

  Senior: Ours isn’t.

  Griff: The land’s not worth a dog’s life, let alone a man’s.

  Senior: If we tolerate one encroachment, the neighbour will take the whole thing and we can’t have that, can we?

  No, we couldn’t have that. Because the neighbour didn’t take the whole country. We did. On the verge of war, the prince came out of his opium dreams long enough to beg his English advisers for help. Obligingly, they sent in their army. The battle lasted one and a half days. By the end of it, five Indians had died and one of our officers had suffered a sword slash in the arm. Conclusive and glorious victory for the prince – until the bill for the Company’s help was presented. The use of an army does not come cheap, and there were other debts. The only way out was for the prince to sign away his country to the Company’s care, with full powers to make laws and levy taxes. The prince kept his title and castle, with full complement of servants, nautch girls, elephants and horses.

  Then there were the jewels. The old maharajah, with his shrewd eye, had amassed one of the finest collections in India. Diamonds and rubies, mostly, with a few good emeralds and sapphires. Some of them set in fantastic shapes of tigers, peacocks, horses, others kept in their purity in fine muslin bags, only brought out to dazzle visitors. It would be hard to put a price on them because, even in this country of jewels, there weren’t many comparable. I’ve heard men suck their teeth and mention hundreds of thousands. Pounds, that is, not rupees.

  The jewels went. Where did they go? But I’m getting ahead of my story. For our Griff – almost mad with frustration at not being able to prevent this unnecessary war – there was another consequence of it. He met again his two old . . . should we say friends? That was how the world saw it at any rate. Three men, now in their thirties, who’d travelled out to India as youths on the same boat.

  ‘Amazing coincidence . . .’

  ‘All new men together . . .’

  ‘Had desks side by side in the Writers’ House at Calcutta . . .’

  ‘Heard you’d become a sadhu, Griff. Joking of course. Dashed good to see you again.’

  Not so amazing. With men travelling as much as we did, India was a country of coincidences. So it wasn’t very surprising that my old colleague, The Soldier, had turned up as an officer in the regiment of the Company’s army that saved the prince’s strip of useless land for him. Slightly more surprising, perhaps, that The Merchant – on some never quite explained mercantile sortie into this part of the country – happened to run into his old friend The Soldier on the eve of the campaign and stayed to cheer on his victory. But these things happen. One certain thing is that they were not dashed pleased, or pleased in even the slightest way, to encounter their so-called friend, The Griff. The way their faces fell on meeting him gave him his first smile for weeks. Still, some of the more senior advisers turned out to be good friends of The Merchant so the victory celebrations went on for some time.

  By now, my lamp was guttering, empty of oil. I waited in the dark for it to cool enough for refilling. It was past one o’clock and cold, the fire almost out. I lit a candle from the embers to give enough light to fill and relight the lamp, wrapped myself in my cloak and went on reading. It looked as if Mr Griffiths might have paused in his writing at the same point, because from then on the writing was still legible but looked more hurried, as if writing against time. ‘The Griff’ became simply ‘I’. Perhaps he would have changed it if he’d had more time, or perhaps not.

  Fountains of diamonds, emeralds, rubies arced into the night. Fireworks, brought all the way from China. The military band, made up of native soldiers, played British marches with an oriental touch that turned them to a strangely wistful sound. The air was popping with firecrackers and rifle shots. In the occasional lull, loud British laughter came from the open windows of the prince’s rooms.

  ‘I wish they were all in hell,’ the princess said.

  Her room was almost in darkness, with only a few small lamps glowing, but washed at intervals by the rainbow flares of the fireworks. The air smelled of jasmine, from the white flowers framing her window or from her perfume. Both perhaps. She sat on a heap of big silk cushions, her legs folded under her like a cat’s. At least, that’s how he imagined they’d be. He couldn’t tell
for sure because the folds of her sari spread round her, silk on silk. She’d pushed back her scarf and let her hair down in a loose plait, twined with a rope of gold and small pearls. The princess must, by then, have been in her thirties. Still beautiful, a fool might have added. There was no ‘still’ about it though. Just beautiful. She’d been married at fifteen years old to a much older man. By her twenties she was a childless widow, come back to live with her brother. All very proper and pious – except piety was not one of her virtues.

  ‘Not a very Indian wish,’ The Griff remarked.

  He was sitting by the window on another heap of cushions. She’d sent her servants away some time before. She made her own rules and had nobody to accuse her of impropriety.

  ‘Hell is one of the better Christian ideas. There should be a place to send one’s enemies.’

  Her voice was low and quiet. They were speaking English because the princess preferred it.

  ‘Are they all your enemies?’ The Griff asked, gesturing towards the bright windows of the prince’s wing.

  ‘Not my brother, I suppose. He can’t help being a fool.’

  ‘But the rest?’

  ‘Your Company. Jan Company – the noble company, that’s what we used to call it. Noble! Boxwallahs and badmashes. Travelling salesmen and ruffians. And thieves.’

  The Griff said nothing.

  ‘You’re not denying it, then? Thieves?’

  ‘I’m not denying it.’

  ‘They’re stealing my country.’ Another silence. ‘You’re not denying that either?’

  ‘I’m not denying it.’

  ‘But you don’t do anything about it. You watch and do nothing.’

  ‘I tried to persuade them.’

  ‘Persuade!’

  More silence, then whooshes of shooting stars.

  ‘So what do you want me to do,’ the Griff said at last.

  ‘I want you to persuade them to set aside my brother and make me ruler.’

  ‘But he’s the lawful ruler . . .’

  ‘He’s not the ruler any more, not in any way that matters. He never had much brain and what he had has been eaten away by opium.’

  ‘But if the English really rule the country, what’s the point in any case?’

  ‘They might not always rule. The Grand Moghuls ruled once and where are they now?’

  ‘Why would the English want to depose your brother? They like things as they are.’

  ‘They might not like things so much if my own army rose in support of me.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Why not? The commander of our own soldiers is on my side. At a nod from me, he’d bring his men out in support and put my brother under house arrest.’

  ‘And he and his men would instantly be shot down by the Company soldiers.’

  The princess smiled, adjusting the end of her pigtail where the string of pearls was coming loose.

  ‘The Company’s soldiers are Indian after all. Suppose they refused to fire on my men?’

  ‘They wouldn’t.’

  ‘Quite sure of that, are you?’

  No, The Griff wasn’t quite sure. He knew little about the army, but he did know how deep the fear of a mutiny went. The whole of British India depended on the Company’s native soldiers obeying orders. The princess stood up and, apparently casually, moved to a pile of cushions closer to him. The perfume was hers, not the jasmine’s.

  ‘There need be no firing, no fighting. My army comes out in my support. Your officers do nothing, waiting for orders.’

  ‘They wouldn’t do nothing.’

  ‘A day’s hesitation, that’s all it needs. The Company has time to think and decide that rather than fight, they’ll accept me as ruler. What does it matter, after all? The ruler is nothing but a bird on the elephant’s back. And a woman is easier to control than a man, even a fool of a man.’

  Her smile softened the bitterness of the words. The Griff looked at her with more thoughts running through his head than he could manage. Among them was the idea that she’d been thinking about this for some time. He believed her claim that her country’s not very effective army was on her side; half believed in her influence with the Company’s army as well. Deeper than anything was the guilt at what his people were doing to hers. One man can’t put right a wrong done to a whole country. Perhaps – just now and then – he can do it for one person in that country. And there would be justice, of a kind, in replacing the all-too-compliant brother with a woman who might be more than a match for the Company schemers. His thoughts weren’t logical, he sees that now. But he wasn’t an old man then.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

  And she told him. Over the next few weeks, he should prepare the minds of the other Company advisers, impress on them the princess’s friendship to the British, the increasing imbecility of the prince. Sooner or later, the prince would be overthrown, perhaps by somebody less tractable. Wouldn’t it be better to get it over now, by a mere woman who could so easily be controlled?

  ‘Even conveniently married off, perhaps,’ she said.

  His heart lurched.

  ‘Married to some neighbouring princeling? Would you want that?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  That was all her voice said, but her eyes were looking into his, so close that he could feel her breath on his face, and what her great dark eyes said was something else altogether.

  Once in his life, every man should be in love and plotting a palace coup. An eagle must feel like that, high up above the mountains with senses that can pick out the shift of a single pebble on a scree slope. I spoke my words in some receptive ears. They sounded good sense to me and seemed to make sense to others. I became more sociable with my own kind, even seeking out the company of my old friends, The Soldier and The Merchant. Of course, I said nothing to them about the plot, but from the occasional remark they let out, I could tell that the princess had been doing her work well. She kept mostly to her own wing and did not come out in society much, but everybody seemed impressed by her. One night The Soldier remarked that it was a pity her brother didn’t have more of her intelligence and The Merchant agreed with him, adding that she seemed to have a surprisingly good grasp of business, for a woman. Later, The Griff reported to the princess.

  ‘You should be careful,’ I told her. ‘If they think you’re too clever, they won’t want you.’

  She only laughed, touched my neck with her light fingers in the way she had. Only much later, when it was all over, did I start wondering how The Merchant and The Soldier had developed their good opinions of her.

  We failed. After all those weeks of preparation, the thing was over in a matter of hours. One damp dawn, her soldiers in their bright clothes with their pretty horses, surrounded the quarters where the British were staying, calling for independence and the princess. The officers of the Company’s army didn’t hesitate. They lined up their soldiers and gave the order to fire over the rebels’ heads. The order was obeyed. That was all it needed. Nobody died. A couple of men were injured when bullets ricocheted. The rebels were marched away, technically under arrest. They were released later when the prince agreed to pay a fine to the Company for their extra trouble. The Griff ran to the princess.

  ‘I have two good horses waiting downstairs. We must hurry. No luggage.’

  She looked at him, not a trace in her expression of the tension of the last few hours.

  ‘Hurry? Why? And where?’

  ‘Before the officers come to arrest you. If we get to Bombay before the news of this does, we can embark on a fast ship and be in England by the time . . .’

  Her smile was tolerant, as to an excited child.

  ‘What would I do in England? Of course they won’t arrest me.’

  She was right. It was never even discussed. As far as the princess’s part in the regrettable incident was mentioned at all, it was as a figurehead for overambitious officers in her brother’s army. Her friend the old commander was sent into comfortabl
e internal exile. And The Griff? He was sent back to Calcutta. No blame attached to him, at least not officially. Since the princess was not to be blamed for the incident, a Company servant could hardly be accused of conspiring with her. Still, they all knew. For the rest of his career in India, The Griff was to be kept on a short lead. No advisory missions to remote princedoms. No politics. A desk life was all he was given and – largely – all he wanted. It took him some time to recover from those few weeks of being an eagle. When he did, his consolation was his Indian studies. If he couldn’t help the country, at least he could try to understand it a little.

  The Princedom disappeared a few years later. Or, to put it more officially, the growing incapacity of the prince made it desirable, for administrative reasons, to amalgamate judicial and fiscal functions with those of the neighbouring principality. (That same principality, by the by, that had gone to war over a strip of useless land.) All done in a calm and gentlemanly manner, but as arrant a piece of robbery as ever committed by any highwayman on Hounslow Heath. The Company ran everything. The prince stayed in his palace, not knowing or caring. The Griff asked a man he could trust, more or less, about the princess.

  ‘They’ve given her an estate of her own with an old castle, quite comfortable, usual complement of servants, elephants, peacocks and so on. Doesn’t go out and about much, I gather.’

  If she’d summoned him, The Griff would have left his desk and gone, no doubt about that. But she didn’t.

  And the jewels went, those glittering tigers, ruby and emerald snakes, great diamonds, and to this day nobody knows where. They were not part of the Company’s official booty. They never figured in the accounts in Calcutta. The prince – or more likely his Indian friends – believed they had gone to Calcutta and petitioned now and then to have them back. On one of those occasions, a worried adviser to the governor came to my desk and asked if I had any idea what had become of them. I told him, in all honesty, that I had not. By that time The Merchant was in Canton, becoming one of the biggest men in the opium trade. The Soldier had been brought low by one of those liver ailments that so often follow fevers and been invalided home to England. It remains a mystery. There is little now that can be done to put much of this right, but if the foregoing helps my countrymen to see what is being done in their names, so that at least such things may not happen in the future, then this life has not been entirely wasted. Perhaps, even now, some small part of the injustice may be put right at last. That is the devout wish of the writer who signs himself The Griff.