Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  Lucknow and its life were behind us.

  BOOK II

  HASSANGANJ

  ‘How plain does it appear that

  there is not another condition of

  life so well suited for

  philosophizing as this in which

  thou now happenest to be.’

  Marcus Aurelius

  CHAPTER 1

  Our approach to Hassanganj was made on a clear evening in mid-December. Smoke rising from stubble fields, the scent of burning leaves and an underlying sharpness in the air told of autumn, but otherwise the gentle luminosity of the fading sky and the pastel colouring of a temperate west recalled more a spring in England than the approach of the brief Indian winter.

  The road from Lucknow had been appalling, rutted and seamed, and if not inches deep in mud then equally thick in fine white dust, so that our progress had been both uncomfortable and slow. We had spent two nights in dak-bungalows as dirty and infested with insects as those we had encountered during our journey up-country from Calcutta, and were now near the end of our third full day of travel. Mr Erskine had meant well by sending us his coach, but we soon realized that we would have made better time in the light dak-gharis of that previous journey. Rain had fallen each night, and several times our heavy vehicle had got stuck in miry watercourses or sunk axle-deep in dirt roads that had suddenly turned to swamps. The country was more thickly wooded as we moved north towards the mountains; the heavily cultivated landscape of the first day gave way to long stretches of dark forest or close-cropped grazing land. The crops looked good, but the villages were often rundown and neglected, and twice in the second day we had passed small homesteads burnt to the ground—pathetic remains of some poor peasant’s lifelong work. Hanging like a monkey from the postillion’s perch behind us, Toddy-Bob had poked his head in at the window on each occasion to inform us cheerfully: ‘Rohilla raiders around!’

  ‘Raiders?’ Emily was apprehensive.

  ‘Yes’m. Big blokes. Six-footers. Rohilkand. Next province. Very fierce! Bastards!’ Toddy’s natural ease of expression was syncopated by the jerking of the coach.

  ‘No need to worry,’ Kate reassured us. ‘Probably is the work of Rohillas, but since the kingdom was annexed, they have only descended on this part of the country in small bands. There was a time when they were a real menace; they can still be a nuisance, but it is unlikely that Oliver would have allowed us to travel with so small a company had there been anything much to fear.’

  ‘So our martial escort was sent along for more than effect?’

  ‘Sure and aren’t they a part of the Hassanganj rissal? The Erskines’ private army, woman dear. It used to number several hundred, in the old days, and very necessary it must have been, too. I dare say Oliver has done away with all but a few score now—just enough to see his rents reach the bank in safety—and escort his newfound relatives to Hassanganj. Very well trained and disciplined they are, or were when old Mrs Erskine was still alive and George and I used to visit her.’

  ‘Good God, a private army! Whatever next?’ exclaimed Charles with disapproval.

  ‘Och, but as I say, there’s no need to worry in these days. ’Tis a relic of past glories; no more.’

  I hoped Kate was right, but my mind was not lightened by observing the number of mud forts, walled and moated, which reared up from the fields of sugar cane, gram and millet. Many were now merely ruins, but whatever their condition, they hinted too strongly of a country accustomed to war and unrest, and I observed as much to Kate.

  ‘There’s never been peace, what we would call peace, in these parts. Not since anyone can remember, anyway. The last few Nawabs have been rather less than estimable in character, or even strong. While they luxuriated in their palaces in Lucknow, the villagers, poor divils, were subjected to every sort of extortion, bullying and knavery—from their own landlords, the talukhdars, y’know, and from the Nawab’s tax-gatherers and from these Rohilla raiders. Why, I can remember only a few years ago all these little forts you see in the fields were surrounded by great thickets of bamboo. Bamboo made an excellent stockade: musket bullets just ricocheted off the canes, doing no harm, d’you see, and most rent and tax collection, to say nothing of the “perks” demanded by the Rohillas, were extracted at gunpoint. Our last Resident, John Sleeman, had the bamboo razed in an effort to make the talukhdars less willing to resist the Nawab’s men, but the little wars and skirmishes continued all the same.’

  ‘And Mr Erskine engaged in them?’ I asked.

  ‘Lord love you, yes! What else was the man to do—when it was necessary? Not that it has been necessary too often since Oliver took over. Rumour has it that he entered into some sort of concordat with the Rohillas. Even took a number of ’em into his rissal, so they say, by way of good faith. But I’m sure there have been times, even quite recently, when he had to put up a fight to maintain his boundaries, protect his water, that sort of thing, y’know.’

  Kate, apparently, saw nothing peculiar in the thought of an English gentleman, in this enlightened age, doing battle for his lands like some medieval warrior baron, but her casual explanation had brought a new dimension to our visit to Hassanganj.

  ‘Mind you,’ she continued, unaware of the effect her words had on her hearers, ‘he’d have more sense than to fiddle with his dues to the Nawab, and the Nawab’s people would know better than to interfere with him, so there’d be no trouble in that direction. But the talukhdars around him, and the big zemindars, well, naturally they’d resent a white man having his possessions and position, and ’tis they no doubt who gave him most bother—when they were able. They’ve been dispossessed themselves, though, now—this man Thomason, the Chief Settlement Officer, thinks the land should belong outright to the tenants, d’you see—so they’ll be having troubles enough for the moment without turning on Hassanganj.’

  ‘But how extraordinary,’ Emily breathed, her blue eyes wide with wonder.

  ‘Thoroughly primitive!’ Charles averred belittlingly.

  ‘Och, no doubt of that! But ’twould be folly, Charles, to judge matters out here by the same yardstick you use at home. Not only conditions are different, remember, but the people. Their expectations, their requirements. Most of all their necessities. I think you will find it to the Erskines’ credit that all down the years they have respected the people’s own necessities—not the necessities the government at Home feel the people ought to have!’

  I could see that Emily was greatly taken by this unexpected aspect of Mr Erskine’s existence in Hassanganj. For myself, I tended to agree with Charles that force of arms was a lamentably primitive way of settling differences, but held my peace, knowing that an Emily subject to romantic excitement was easier to deal with than an Emily suffering from imaginary fears. Small wonder, though, that Mr Erskine had developed so authoritative a manner, brought up as he had been in a private kingdom capable of making private wars. It was an explanation, I told myself, even if not a justification of his autocratic manner.

  Late on that third afternoon of our journey, Toddy-Bob told us that we had crossed the boundary and were now in Hassanganj. I had understood that we were approaching the ‘hills’—the Himalaya mountains—but there was no sign of them, and hardly an incline had broken the monotony of the countryside we traversed that day, which had been as flat as a tabletop, interrupted only by topes of ancient mangoes or the deep gashed banks of a seasonal watercourse. We were all weary, bored and consequently dozing, when Toddy hung into the window and announced, ‘Nearly there—the house!’ and pointed to a smudge of deep pink just visible among dark trees in the distance.

  At once we began to settle our appearances, hampered by close quarters and the movement of the carriage. I patted my hair smooth and replaced my bonnet. As I raised my eyes, something on the skyline, glimpsed through the dusty window, caught my attention.

  ‘Those clouds on the horizon are remarkably still, aren’t they?’ I asked Kate. ‘They look almost solid.’


  Kate glanced out of the window.

  ‘Clouds!’ she smiled, ‘Those are no clouds. The snows are out to greet us.’

  ‘The hills!’ I exclaimed, trying to clean the window with the palm of a dirty glove to see better.

  As I looked the ethereal forms took on substance before my eyes. Streamers of pale cloud, low in the sky, shifted swiftly and for a moment allowed me a glimpse against the fading blue of the purple flanks of the foothills, crowned by the snowy serrations of the great peaks behind them, and at their feet a line of dark forest. Then the vision was gone again, leaving only the intermittent hint of icy pinnacles apparent in the shredding clouds.

  ‘The Himalayas!’

  ‘No less,’ Kate confirmed. ‘The terai—that forest at the base of the foothills—is only half-a-day’s ride from Hassanganj, but the snows themselves, of course, are a weary way from anywhere. We’ll have a great view of them all the same; better than if we were closer. Early morning and sunset, that’s when they appear, like haughty princesses out for a brief airing, then gone again, leaving only the memory of their shining splendour. Och, but they are a beautiful sight.’

  I strained my eyes and willed the hills to reappear, but the ‘princesses’ would not relent and, as I settled back in my seat, I found we were passing through tall wrought-iron gates flanked by a small lodge and attended by two men dressed in the same livery as those who accompanied us. The house was approached by a long avenue of jarmin trees winding through what was obviously a large and splendidly maintained park. But for the downhanging tails of monkeys busy with the jarmin fruit and the eruption of a flight of screaming parrots from the trees, we could have been approaching a gentleman’s residence in any county of England. Deer nibbled the grass among the long evening shadows and peacocks dragged furled tails in haughty isolation as we bowled past groves, plantations and well-fenced paddocks. Then, rounding a corner, the avenue came to an end, and the house rose suddenly before us, visible in all its eccentric size across a wide expanse of grass.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Charles, voicing my sentiments exactly.

  ‘What … what is it?’ wondered Emily, after a moment’s shocked silence.

  ‘Well may you ask!’ laughed Kate.

  Sheer size was the first amazed impression. The place was vast. And then the bewildered eye moved from feature to feature, searching among the embellishments for the enlightenment of a plan. It found none. Turrets and cone-topped towers, castellations and battlements, lancet windows, arrow slits and mullioned casements, wrought-iron roof ridges and decorated gableends, flying buttresses and gargoyled gutters all jostled each other in energetic incongruity, obscuring any original design the edifice might once have boasted. Torrential rains, great heat and sudden frosts had weathered the pinkish stucco to an appearance of age, and the lower walls were covered thickly with climbing plants. The sinking sun touched the myriad windows and turned the panes to gold, and from a dozen decorated chimneys white woodsmoke unfurled into the evening air.

  Enormous, eccentric, the unexpected appearance of this mansion in the middle of the Indian plain was electrifying, and Kate was still chuckling her appreciation of our astonishment as we drew up at last beneath a pillared portico. A small, fat native, his livery emblazoned with the Greek diphthong OE, as were those of our guards and the doors of the coach we had travelled in, sprang up as we halted and struck a mallet on a bronze gong hanging on a tripod in the portico. His warning, though a mark of courtesy, was unnecessary, for our host was already standing at the top of the steps leading on to the verandah, with behind him at least a dozen servants in the now-familiar livery.

  ‘A great man in his own acres,’ Mr Roberts had once said, and while I waited for the carriage steps to be put to the door I sat back quietly to observe Mr Erskine’s demeanour in his own domain. He stood with his hands behind his back and watched the preparations. Only when the steps were in position and the door open did he come forward to assist Emily. Then he was all that was most affable and welcoming, but that small moment of aloofness, while he waited for his myrmidons to set the scene, served once again to confirm me in my opinion of his arrogance.

  Mr Erskine kissed Emily dutifully, Kate affectionately and bowed correctly over my hand. ‘You are very welcome, Miss Hewitt,’ he said, raising his head to meet my eyes. ‘India awaits your closer acquaintance.’ There was a gleam of humour in his eyes which did not leave me quite comfortable. But if he had not forgotten my chagrin in Major Cussens’s bungalow, it appeared that he had also remembered my aspirations at the ball. My smile was warmer than I had intended it to be.

  Inside as out, we felt minimized by the size of the house. Beyond the glass doors, which stood open for our welcoming, stretched a wide corridor so long one could only guess it ended. But whereas the external aspect of the house suggested nothing so much as the fantasies of an opium-eater, its interior was fitted out with every indication of taste that wealth and a refined eye could provide. Rich hangings, fine old furniture, silken carpets, exquisite lamps all indicated an elegantly cultivated mind, although they were, for the most part, of a style that has become outmoded during the rule of our present Queen. The corridor, it is true, was hung with so many stuffed heads of wild beasts and mounted antlers that Emily gasped as she entered, and I, my attention caught by the bared fangs of a tiger’s snarl, was hardly aware of the white skull of an elephant that hung in the vestibule immediately above a carved chest of Chinese ebony. But in the morning room, where wine awaited the dusty travellers, an Aubusson carpet reflected the moulding of the ceiling, and the goblets from which we drank were of fine Venetian crystal.

  So much I was able to take in during the few moments spent in conversation with our host before we were shown to our rooms.

  In my bedroom, a large apartment on the first floor with doors leading on to an upper verandah, I found an ayah pouring a bath for me before a blazing log fire. Her name, she said, was Bhujni. She had one wall eye and was badly scarred by smallpox, but seemed a cheerful creature and was spotlessly clean. As she moved about the room, unpacking my dressing-case and arranging my few toilet articles on the dressing-table, many glass bangles jangled on her wrists and with every movement she exuded a pleasant smell of freshly starched muslin and the coconut-oil with which she glossed her hair to the appearance of satin.

  A bullock-wagon laden with our trunks and bandboxes had left Lucknow a few days before. Now I found my gowns, all neatly pressed, hanging in the wardrobes, my linen freshly starched, and my lace laundered, gently bleached in sour milk, and then stiffened just sufficiently in sugar and water. Bhujni, beaming a black-toothed smile, was delighted by my appreciation of her efforts, but shocked when I put her out of the room while I took my bath. I allowed her to button up my gown, however, and help me with my hair. As soon as I was ready, I descended again, impatient to see more of the extraordinary mansion.

  At the bottom of the broad staircase I hesitated, wondering which of the many doors would lead to the drawing-room, but almost immediately a servant appeared from nowhere on noiseless bare feet and opened the appropriate door.

  The length of the room and the height of the ceiling only confirmed my first impression of the size of everything in Hassanganj. At each end of the room fires blazed, but only one of the three chandeliers was alight—that nearest to where I entered. I stood for a moment taking in the main features—the fine marble mantels, the long doors draped in velvet, the polished floor scattered with glowing Persian rugs—and was immediately attracted by two portraits, one of a man of middle age, the other of a young woman in a high-waisted gown of white muslin, which hung to either side of the mantel mirror.

  I stepped nearer to examine them, guessing they must be the likenesses of Mr Erskine’s grandparents. I had a vivid recollection of the last time I had examined a portrait—in Calcutta—and looked to find in the masculine features before me now some hint of resemblance to that other. I was disappointed.

  The elder Mr Erskine had
been a man of middle height, stockily built and, by the time the portrait was painted, inclined to corpulence. His round face was ruddy with good health and no doubt good living. He was dressed in the fashion of the time, with a high stock, white cravat and frilled shirt. His eyes were dark and gleamed with humour as much as intelligence. I had the impression that he was rather uncomfortable in his silken waistcoat, and that the cocked eyebrow and wry smile were directed as much at himself as at the world in which he found himself. I knew at once that I would have liked him both for his character and for his company.

  I crossed before the fire to look at the companion painting. How difficult it was to believe that anyone so young, so graceful, so beautiful, should live on and become a grandmother—perhaps arthritic, fat and cross, as grandmothers sometimes are. The girl could not have been more than eighteen at the time she sat for the portrait. She was all simplicity, purity and innocence, from the soft white folds of her gown to the short, artlessly perfect curls of her well-shaped head. The curls were of bright, dark gold and framed a face heart-shaped and delicate. Her eyes, too, were of bright, dark gold. Her grandson’s eyes.

  ‘Her name was Danielle. She was my grandmother.’

  Mr Erskine’s voice came from immediately behind me, and I spun round alarmed.

  ‘I surprised you. I’m sorry. You were absorbed in the portrait.’

  ‘I … I thought I was alone,’ I said foolishly, made awkward by his presence.

  ‘I was as surprised to find you here. I understood that ladies’ toilettes were protracted affairs. I came in to look around, see that everything is as it should be. It’s a long time since we have entertained ladies at Hassanganj. I hope that all is comfortable for you upstairs?’