Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  ‘How singular.’ Emily’s tone spoke her disapproval.

  ‘Well now, as to the native clothing,’ interpolated George Barry in his soft, slow voice, ‘when I first came out here, thirty odd years ago, it was the custom for everyone to get into pyjamas and a muslin shirt as soon as they were out of uniform. Damned sensible too, if you ask me. Much cooler than trousers and jackets and starched collars. Can’t think why the custom was given up.’

  ‘Can’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, George.’ Major Dearden spoke with marked irritation. ‘Because we’ve learnt that we have to put a distance between the native and ourselves. Doesn’t do to let them think we are taking on their ways. No, sir! They must take on ours! And they are doing so, they are doing so! Ten years ago you wouldn’t have seen a native in English kit. Now they are all adopting it, and a damned funny, dressed-up lot of beggars they look too. But it’s better that way than the other. We lose dignity, “face” as they say in China, when we adopt the native customs.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you’re right,’ agreed Major Barry without acrimony. ‘But all the same, can’t see what good it does for a man to be more uncomfortable than he need be. And it doesn’t seem to me that the Indian is anxious to learn the more important things we have to teach. We’ve made no significant difference to their way of thinking, after all, to their religions, caste, their ideas on marriage, for instance.’

  ‘We have abolished suttee,’ reminded Major Dearden with heat.

  ‘True,’ agreed George Barry imperturbably.

  ‘And done away with thugee.’

  ‘True again. But nevertheless, if I asked my bearer, Kulu, to take a sip out of my glass, he would sooner die than agree.’

  ‘Pshaw! It’s a filthy business this caste. Degrading and abominable!’

  ‘But inescapable nevertheless. For myself, I am not too happy about all this Bible-reading and praying that is going on now-adays. I think it makes for ill-feeling and misunderstanding. When I was a young man, we had our own ideas about such matters and allowed the Indian to have his. It was better so.’

  ‘You’ll soon be saying, as I believe your Mr Erskine says,’ Major Dearden turned to Charles as he spoke, ‘that there is no real difference between the teachings of Christ and … and … of Buddha!’

  ‘But then he does know what Buddha taught,’ pointed out Kate Barry wickedly, but Major Dearden preferred not to take the point.

  ‘Erskine may be considered an extremist by some,’ said Major Barry quietly, ‘but I would agree with him in thinking that we should have some respect, some consideration, for the native—that we should know more about the Indian’s beliefs and customs. As you say, Dearden, we have the responsibility for this country, and surely a good part of any responsibility is understanding.’

  ‘Understanding is one thing! Pandering to the debased and disgusting habits of these heathens is something else.’ Major Dearden was becoming heated. He glared at George Barry, summoning up his reserves, and we were all grateful to Captain Fanning, who suddenly broke in on a lighter note.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘talking about caste and all that, have you heard the latest from the lines? Some joker is putting it about that the widows of the men who died in the Crimea are to be sent out here by the Queen and forcibly married to the sepoys. To break their caste, don’t you see, and ensure their loyalty to the Raj. Laughed till I cried when I heard that one. How do they manage to think them up? I ask you—the widows of the Crimea of all people!’

  Even Major Dearden smiled.

  ‘One thing’s true though,’ he said. ‘This new General Service Order that’s just come out, making it obligatory for new recruits to go overseas if necessary—that’s going to cause trouble. Mark my words. I suppose it’s due to this business looming up in Persia, but whatever the cause, the Baba-log aren’t going to like it! No, sir!’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Emily unexpectedly. ‘What can be wrong with that? If they are in the Army, surely they must expect to go overseas sometimes, just as our men do?’

  ‘They have not been required to so far,’ explained Major Dearden. ‘Crossing the ocean, you see, the “Black Water” as they call it, breaks caste, Mrs Flood, like drinking from an untouchable’s cup. And when a man’s caste is broken, he is not only degraded in this life, but damned in the next. Until, that is, the gods and the holy, men have been propitiated with suitable offerings, ritual ablutions and I don’t know what else. A lot of childish nonsense, Mrs Flood, but something that you at least will not have to bother your pretty head about.’

  ‘It’s strange though,’ said George Barry thoughtfully, playing with a pepperpot, ‘this wave of anxiety about caste. It’s commonly thought that Canning took Dalhousie’s place in order to Christianise the country, and that the overland route has been opened up so that more and more women will come out, increase the white population and so undermine Hinduism. A variation, I suppose, of the Crimean widow theme. If they harp on it long enough, I suppose it could mean trouble of some sort.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, indeed.’ Captain Fanning nodded eagerly at the assembly, proud of having something to contribute. ‘And that’s another thing. Mr Erskine believes there is trouble on the way all right. I heard him say so. We were at a big levée together after a tiger shoot in the terai. He wasn’t speaking to me, mind you, but I overheard him say so to another chap—a civilian. He spoke in Urdu or Hindustani or something, and translated what he had said. A proverb it was, I expect.’

  ‘And what was the proverb?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Oh … something about “He who grabs the rice gets his hand burned.” ’

  ‘Scarcely original,’ sneered Major Dearden.

  ‘But pretty apt all the same,’ countered George Barry.

  CHAPTER 9

  Calcutta had been our initiation into the life of the British in India: a city rich, powerful and self-important, which, despite its distinctive situation and character, its particular advantages and its peculiar drawbacks, remained in essence a Western city placed fortuitously in the Orient. Its lack of antiquity, its architecture and its arrangement all bore witness to its European origin. Our time there had been interesting and on the whole enjoyable, but I hoped that life in an up-country station would prove more foreign and more exotic than that of the great busy seaport, and had persuaded myself that once away from the circles of governmental and mercantile interest, we would come to grips with the real India—the India of the Indians.

  In this hope I was largely disappointed.

  Life in Lucknow, I discovered, though certainly different to life in Calcutta, was not unlike that lived in any English cathedral city or large market town: enclosed, narrow and sufficient to itself. Here, however, instead of the churchly gossip of the Close that makes for entertainment in Norwich or Wells, the prevailing topics of conversation were the minor misdemeanours of regimental officers, the blunders of the civil authorities, petty scandals, and only occasionally the eccentricities of the natives. We were involved now in a small society (often I found myself castigating it as an infantile one), tightly knit and seldom broached by outside interests. Far from ‘Home’, but retaining punctiliously, often foolishly, the standards of ‘Home’; a society, though no doubt basically well-meaning, consciously, even proudly ignorant of the wider world in which it existed—buttressing its insularity with childish snobberies, and reft, even in itself, by sharp and acrimonious factions.

  Physically it was a pleasant world: a world of pretty bungalows in well-kept gardens, of high green hedges and cool avenues of trees. Its tempo was slow, relaxed and regular. Early parade for the men, followed by an hour or so in office or barracks, while the ladies paid or received calls. After tiffin, a sleep to combat the afternoon heat; then a drive or ride to one of the many parks or palaces, or perhaps a gathering at the bandstand, where a military band rendered the favourite airs of the day and one met friends and gossiped. Then home to dinner, followed by cards, music or perhaps an entertainment at one of the messe
s.

  Within a week I had discovered that even in so small a community there were three distinct parties or social levels. First there were the officers and families of the British (or Queen’s) regiments; then there were the officers and families of the Native (or Company) regiments; and quite apart from these, as well as somewhat superior in the social scale to both, were the officials of the Resident’s staff, who kept a haughty finger on the social pulse and sometimes deigned to share the others’ entertainments. In addition there were various tradesmen and professional men living in the city itself—English, Jewish and Armenian—who were of the British but not often among them.

  Of the vast Indian population that lapped the outskirts of cantonments, with all its diversity and complexity, its ancient culture and its cruel wrongs, I knew nothing, and it seemed I never would know anything. Our closed circle of whites lived in a world apart, touched at its fringes only by the anonymous, unfathomable lives of servants and sepoys. My own sole contact with the natives was through my Urdu lessons, for George Barry had procured me the services of one of the regimental munshis, and here, as in Calcutta, my devotion to my early-morning lessons was regarded with indulgent contempt.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have one of them near me, let alone sitting at the same table; it’s all I can do to give the servants their orders,’ shuddered Connie Avery when my lessons started, quite forgetting the long-suffering ayah who combed her hair, put on her stockings and buttoned up her boots.

  But, in truth, the orders Connie gave her servants were inadequate to ensure the smooth running of her household. She was negligent and uncaring in all her ways; her home was a place of physical discomfort and constant emotional upheavals, and I soon learnt to forgive Wallace Avery his almost nightly absences from his own dinner table.

  He was a good-tempered, shallow and gregarious man, and since his wife either could not or would not entertain his friends in his own home, he went to theirs. Connie seemed not to care. She was seldom visible between meals and disappeared almost immediately they were eaten, a habit that was disconcerting to Emily and myself, as we were thus left entirely to our own devices; had it not been for Mrs Barry, we would have led a very dull existence. Fortunately, Kate decided to take us under her wing, and while Charles accompanied Wallace to the various regimental messes for card-nights and billiard parties, she drew us into her circle of friends, who were just then busily rehearsing for the Christmas theatricals. Emily was found a part in the play, but I expressed my preference for behind-the-scenes activities and was put to work on the costumes.

  I was more than a little worried about Emily’s health, and was glad to see some return to her old spirits in her joyful participation in the theatricals. The climate of Lucknow was much more clement than that of Calcutta, but ever since our arrival in Oudh Emily had appeared lethargic and had quite lost the girlish rosiness of her complexion. She was no thinner than usual, but her face was drawn, and she had developed a propensity for nodding off to sleep in the most unusual circumstances. Most significant, to me, was the docility with which she accepted the restrictions and discomforts of the Avery household. She had found plenty to complain of even in the Chalmerses’ comparatively luxurious style of life because it did not quite suit her, but here, where I knew that matters must have pleased her a great deal less, she accepted all in disdainful silence. Naturally, many were the acid comments she made on poor Connie’s appearance and peculiar notions of hospitality, but she bore the charred beef, the undarned sheets and the lackadaisacal ministrations of the servants without criticism, appearing not to notice them. And when we drove out in the evenings in a smart carriage that Charles had bought soon after our arrival from an officer who had been transferred to another station, she would sit quietly beside me for an hour on end, only her eyes moving without interest over the unfamiliar but often beautiful landscape.

  Relations between herself and Charles were still strained. They had little to say to each other, in public at any rate, and Emily seemed relieved rather than otherwise that Charles spent so much time away from her in Wallace’s company.

  It must have been about a month after our arrival in Lucknow that Emily complained one morning of feeling ill. I made her stay in bed, and, haunted as I was by the tales of drastic illness and sudden death that made up a large part of Anglo-Indian conversation, was very relieved when she announced at tiffin that she had recovered, and ate an adequate meal. This happened again the next day, and the next, and it was not until the fourth morning, when Mrs Barry had dropped in to enquire after the invalid, that the simple explanation of her sickness was borne in on me.

  I had taken Kate to see Emily, who, pale and wretched, lay on her bed recovering from a violent attack of nausea. Kate sat down beside her, took her hand, ran an appraising eye over her features, and then chuckled in a most unsympathetic manner.

  ‘Well, by all the saints. And have you really no inkling of what ails you, m’dear?’

  Emily shook her head and moaned, ‘No. But I feel so wretched you have no idea.’

  ‘No,’ Kate agreed cheerfully. ‘Can’t say I have—but I have a pretty good notion of what is wrong with you just the same.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, my anxieties to the fore.

  Kate looked at me with twinkling eyes. ‘You’re a fine one to be put in charge of your young cousin, I must say. Why, my dear, I’ll lay a button to a barrel of beer that this young woman is about to become a mother.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Emily …?’

  Emily opened her eyes wide and regarded Mrs Barry with horror.

  ‘What did you say? Me? I’m going to have a baby?’

  ‘That’s my guess anyway. The symptoms are all there. And why not? Fine young girl like you, I’m surprised you haven’t started before this.’

  Emily let this sink in, her face stiff with anguish, as her mind recalled all the giggling, half-shamed gossip of the servant girls at Mount Bellew, and possibly of her own young friends.

  ‘It’s not true,’ she said at last in a whisper. ‘It can’t be! I won’t! I don’t want any baby. Not now and not ever! Oh, Mrs Barry, you are joking, aren’t you? Wha … how can I have a baby … here? It’s nonsense. It must be nonsense.’

  There was no mistaking the complete unbelief in that wide, shocked gaze.

  Mrs Barry stopped smiling and stroked Emily’s hand soothingly. ‘Well now, there’s no sense in taking on about it, m’dear. If it’s to be, it’s to be, and you will have to make the best of it. Maybe I am wrong after all, and the doctor will soon put us right. Anyway, you’ll feel much better shortly, and then you won’t mind so much if it is a baby.’

  She left the room to ask Connie to send in some tea, and I sat down on the bed and tried to find something to say. Emily was now in tears.

  ‘Oh, Laura! Please say it’s not true. Say it can’t be a baby. I don’t want a baby, Laura. I tell you I don’t want it—I won’t have it!’ she wailed, hiding her face in the pillow.

  ‘Well, maybe it isn’t,’ I tried to comfort her. ‘We can’t be sure. But it will be all right if it is, Emmie, almost all women have babies—even out here—and this sickness of yours will pass quite soon just as Mrs Barry says.’

  ‘But it’s not that, Laura. You just don’t understand. I don’t know how it …’ But the rest of the sentence was drowned in sobs. I patted her shoulder and tried not to realize that the baby would be Charles’s child too.

  ‘I won’t, I won’t! Oh, it’s all too horrible! Laura, pray that it’s something else. I think I would sooner have the cholera!’ She was pounding the pillow with her clenched fist, and the sobs gave place to a paroxysm of weeping. I feared hysteria, so I took her by the shoulders and shook her.

  ‘Emmie! Emmie, control yourself!’ I said harshly. ‘This is no way for you to behave.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is!’ she answered shrilly. ‘If … if you knew what I know now, and what I have … the horrid things I’ve had
to do … Oh, Laura, I hate him for it! It’s all Charles’s fault, isn’t it? If he hadn’t made me behave so … so disgustingly—if he had just left me alone! But he never would, even though he said once he’d never touch me again and I thought he meant it. But it’s horrid and I hate night time because of it. And now it’s made me have a baby and I hate the thought of that too, and of Charles and of everything. Laura, Laura, how could he? He knew I … I wasn’t like that … that I never wanted to … to, you know? Oh, Laura!’

  She heaved herself up and threw herself into my arms, burying her face in my neck as she had been used to when she was a little girl and her brothers’ teasing had been too much for her.

  ‘Oh Emmie, Emmie!’ was all I could say as she sobbed, her face damp against my neck.

  ‘But Emmie, you love Charles,’ I ventured after a time. ‘You married him. You must not think like that.’

  ‘No, it isn’t true. Not any more. I thought I loved him, Laura, but then I didn’t know about … about what he would want to do to me. Nobody ever told me about that! I’ve tried to be brave and bear my trouble on my own, but he knows I don’t love him—not as he wants me to. And then you see, he doesn’t love me either. Not really! He never seems to notice me really, you know. He doesn’t care about what I think, or what I want, or what I am inside—you know what I mean? It’s not me that is important to him, only that I am his. That’s what makes it all so … so disgusting. That’s what makes me hate him, that he can go on with … it, and all the time it might just as well be someone else. If he would only make me feel, well—special!’

  She detached herself from me and buried her face again in the pillows.

  She would be just nineteen when she became a mother, but my mother and hers had both been younger. Had they, I wondered, felt as she did? Had they, too, rebelled at the responsibilities consequent upon marriage, the duties of that state? Or was it true that Emily no longer loved her husband, had perhaps never loved him? Was it not only too probable that she had mistaken a girlish infatuation, the flattery of being sought by a personable young man, for love?