Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  They measured each other for a moment in silence, and Oliver gave in gracefully. ‘Very well, but you’ll sit in the well of the cart with the ladies.’

  ‘And I’m really to get into this?’ Charles, in his turn, held up the offending garment as though it smelt.

  ‘You are. How else do you propose to hide those luxuriant yellow whiskers? To say nothing of your lovely blue eyes!’ Misfortune had not mellowed Mr Erskine’s tongue, I noticed, as Charles donned his burqha with disgust.

  ‘We will travel only at night; it is customary at this time of year and we will arouse no suspicion. But don’t speak to each other when we are passing anyone, keep your shoes covered by your skirts, and Emily, keep the baby under your burqha—that shawl is much too clean.’

  We set off. Oliver and Ishmial walked beside the cart and the rest of us crouched on the dirty boards of the floor. We were in no way remarkable from a score of other parties we passed: three veiled women and a youth, accompanied by their two stalwart menfolk. Only Toddy’s bare head struck a false note, and, by morning, that too had been covered with a dirty white turban. How or when he acquired it, I can’t be sure, but once we had stopped outside a village to water the bullocks and had discerned a party of travellers asleep in their cotton sheets not far from us. Perhaps they had the answer.

  It was a strange, almost mysterious experience, jogging along the immemorial ways of India while the great indigo arc of the night wheeled its burden of stars slowly above us, and the plain stretched away in its infinity of secret, unexplained life. A dozen times we passed through sleeping villages that might have been the same village, watched by the same ring-tailed, stark-ribbed dogs; shaded by the same groves; watered by the same shallow tanks; inhabited by the same population of skinny old men asleep on string beds beside the road. Villages that looked the same and smelt the same and gave the same inadequate protection to the same undemanding people. And, between the villages, stubbly fields, scrubby pasture and miles of wasteland broken by dry watercourses, with here and there, perhaps, the remains of a mud fort rearing a blacker bulk against the black of the sky. There was such a sameness in the dusty road, the nameless hamlets, the featureless dark landscape, that it became difficult to believe we were moving at all. When the sun gathered strength, we halted in a grove set some way back from the road.

  No stretch of country in India, however inhospitable in appearance, is quite devoid of humanity, so it was pointless to look for a place where our presence would not be discovered. The most we could hope for was to blend with our surroundings, and this our bullock-cart, our apparel, and the presence of Ishmial enabled us to do. While we exercised our cramped limbs by strolling through the grove, Ishmial went in search of food and Toddy-Bob built a fire in a stone chula at the base of one of the trees—evidence that the grove was a recognized stopping place for travellers. We breakfasted on hot milk and dry chapattis and lay down beside the cart to sleep, while the men took turns in watching the approaches to the camp. Sleep came easily, in spite of lying on the bare ground, and it was midday before the heat, the flies and the wails of the baby combined to awaken me. Ishmial and Toddy-Bob were busily employed at the stone hearth cooking, Emily and Charles sat some distance away with Pearl, but of Oliver there was no sign. Toddy said he was on guard, and jerked his chin in the direction of the road.

  I found him sitting cross-legged on the ground with his rifle across his knees, gazing abstractedly through the deep shadow of the trees towards the rutted white track, bordered by dusty lantana bushes and clumps of point-leaved cactus, that stretched its monotonous way through the parched land … back … back to Hassanganj. He made no move as I approached and sat down beside him.

  In the branches above us a troop of monkeys stilled into silence for their noon siesta, but a small grey squirrel, angered by our presence, skittered shrilly up and down the bole of a mango, scolding us, and a flight of green parrots broke the heat haze with a sudden scream of movement.

  Morosely, Oliver threw a pebble at the indignant squirrel.

  ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘and are you rested?’

  ‘Enough, but still uneasy.’

  He made no reply, but watched for the squirrel to emerge from its hole so that he could take another shot at it.

  ‘Are we going to manage it, Oliver?’ I insisted. ‘Do you think we will ever reach Lucknow?’

  ‘We will.’ And it was no mere reassurance. It was a statement of fact. I knew him well enough now to realize that he would disdain lying in order to comfort me, so hoped that we would never be in a position where his answer would be less optimistic.

  ‘In another two nights, three at the most, we will be in the outskirts of the city. By that time we should know something of the state of its inhabitants and can make our plans accordingly.’

  ‘Do you think … do you think they will be antagonistic?’ I winced inwardly at that weak word, but was afraid to use a more accurate one.

  ‘Probably. But, having got that far, we should be able to get through the city without undue trouble. So long as the Residency is still open, of course. That’s all that bothers me. Tomorrow we should get some idea of how things are going there. How is Emily bearing it?’

  ‘Well. Much better than I had expected. She’s hardly even grumbling, and you know how she loves her comfort … Oliver?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want to say how sorry I am. About all this. And the house … and everything! It’s a terrible loss, and I feel that if we hadn’t been with you, you … well, you might have found some way of saving it. You could have done something perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed. ‘But I don’t think so, and anyway, you were not responsible. Why do you feel you were?’

  ‘I know we have been in your way. You’ve said so often enough.’

  ‘I was anxious for your safety. I hoped that whatever was going to happen would happen after you were gone. That’s all.’

  ‘I … I hate to think of it all in ruins, all that you Erskines have built up in Hassanganj. I suppose women are more sentimental about their surroundings and possessions and so on, but when I remember your books, and Old Adam’s chair, and your grandmother’s beautiful things, I could cry. It’s such wanton waste. I think I mind almost as much as if it had been my home and not yours. All it took to make it.’

  ‘It can be rebuilt … and I’ll rebuild it.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll never be able to restore what you’ve lost.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t want to. Isn’t it always a mistake to try to go back, to replace what has once been got rid of?’

  ‘A mistake? Oh, Oliver, you’re joking! I don’t choose to believe that you are really uncaring of so much association and tradition.’

  ‘No,’ he said slowly, as though he had just realized it, ‘I am not uncaring; but I haven’t the time to care now. When I have, I think I will be grateful for the opportunity of a fresh start. I don’t think I’d be much good at patching up another man’s dreams. I’ll build my own … and not only with bricks and mortar. Great God, when I think of what I could do with this land, these people, given a little stability, a little time. I don’t want help; I can do without encouragement; I have money. But I need the opportunity! Perhaps, Laura, a phoenix will rise out of the ashes of the old house; perhaps this present turmoil is really the birthpangs of something better, something that we can’t envisage yet. I’d like to think so anyway.’

  I did not really understand him. I was thinking in concrete terms, of the house, of the garden and orchards, but I was glad he had sufficient resilience to take the loss of these things in an optimistic spirit. His next words enlightened me.

  ‘Do you know what the chief exports of Oudh are at the moment, Laura?’

  ‘Exports? No, however should I?’

  ‘Hmph! I thought not. I’ll tell you. Soldiers and gold embroidered slippers! Everything else that is produced in the State is consumed, or wasted, in the State. And every four or five years, ninety-eig
ht men, women and children out of every hundred go starvation hungry for eight months on end, often more.’

  ‘And so …?’

  ‘Well, don’t you see?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s the question of an economy! Until now, what with the old Nawab’s rapaciousness, and the talukhdars’ eternal quarrels, and all the mismanagement and general stupidity, it’s been as much as any man in Oudh could do to provide for himself and his family. But with a stable government, with taxation efficiently administered, with peace … and most of all with imagination, this province could be again the garden it once was, oh, a long time ago, but it was! There’s not much wrong with this soil, you know. It isn’t overworked to the extent that the rest of the Gangetic Plain is, and with good planning, good husbanding, an understanding of the rudiments of agriculture—why, it could flower. Almost every acre in Oudh could be put to good use, could grow sugar, indigo, gram, millet, vegetables and mustard, but how much of it is? You’ve seen yourself. Mile after mile of parched grass supporting a few skinny cows. Not because the land is inadequate, but because men are. Now, with the British in control, the railway will come to us, Laura. And that will mean transport of our goods, our produce, to other parts of India, and to the ports … to Calcutta. The railway will bring us a market, and force us to rise to the occasion. It will mean development, and development will mean a full belly for more people all the time. The Hassanganj I will build will have to be a very different Hassanganj. That’s why I don’t want to replace. I want to create.’

  The squirrel shot out of its hole and whisked up the bole of the tree, tempting Oliver, but he had forgotten it.

  ‘I admire your strength of mind,’ I told him. ‘For being able to think of such things now!’

  ‘Do you? But in truth it is cowardice. An escape.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said, sure that I did, and comforted to know that he was more capable of sentiment than he would have me believe. He turned his golden eyes on me, and for a moment regarded me in silence; then he shook his head slightly and smiled.

  ‘No,’ he said gently. ‘Remorse is not yet within your experience.’

  I did not answer, not wishing to trespass on his privacy. After a time, he said in his usual rather brusque tone of voice, ‘And anyway, it appears that the British are not at the moment in control, that no railway engine belching fire is likely to appear and whisk us to our destination, and that we had better apply ourselves to the problems of the moment. Tell me, seeing that you are so sentimental, did you bring Wajid Khan’s rakhri with you?’

  ‘Why yes, oddly enough. I only remembered it at the last moment. Do you think it really meant anything to him? I thought it was just a gesture.’

  ‘So it was. Old Wajid certainly never imagined any circumstances in which you could make use of it. But if you do, I am fairly sure that he will feel it incumbent upon him to make another gesture. Particularly if it is taken to him by someone who knows the significance of the thing. Indians are curious people. It’s difficult to tell just what they are going to take seriously and what they will dismiss if it suits their convenience. Especially an Indian like Wajid with a smattering of European education. I don’t believe he ever intended you to take his protestations of filial loyalty to heart, but he might well take them seriously himself. Honour and all that. And then again, he might not. Still, I’m glad you have it with you.’

  ‘I didn’t bring it with any idea of making use of it. It never occurred to me, but of course it might be of real value to us, mightn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t count too much on your “brother’s” assistance, Laura. The times are not propitious to sentiment and I can’t see Wajid risking his life for his own mother, let alone an honorary sister. The difficulty is going to be in getting you people through the city to the Residency, and it’s possible we may need some assistance there. If he’s in Lucknow, that is; he might be in Jamadnagar; if he has any wit, and the situation in Lucknow is worsening, he certainly will be. But it’s a thought. We are not in a position to despise any method of furthering our own purposes.’

  ‘How odd it is, all of this. How unreal! To be sitting under a mango tree seriously considering making use of an archaic Indian custom to save the lives of a group of harmless Europeans. Everything, since Hassanganj anyway, has been so peaceful. It seems to me that the peasants don’t even know there is trouble afoot. Look at that party making their way along the track … an old man, a boy, and a woman with a child on her hip. Do they understand what is happening around them, Oliver? Do they wish us dead? Do they hate us?’

  ‘No, and if I were to go out there and tell them who we were and ask them for food, they would probably take us to their village and shelter us for as long as we need. We have little to fear until we reach the city: the odd marauding band of mutineers or a party of dacoits made bold by the general unrest, perhaps, but those are easily detected. It’s on account of people like that that you are wearing a burqha and I’m in this absurd get-up, not because of the villages we have to pass through or the ryots we meet on the road. I’m ready to swear they’d not harm us.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I know them. I know their history. All their energy, for thousands of years, has been directed towards keeping themselves alive in situations like the present one. All they really want is just enough land to feed themselves, and the peace to nurse that land to fruitfulness. God knows, they haven’t had either commodity in sufficient quantity, ever, to risk it in purposeless violence. No, it’s not them; it’s the organized elements, like the Army, like dacoits and the criminals in the cities, whose only aptitude is the fostering of trouble—those are who we must be wary of.’

  The party of villagers disappeared round a bend, and the world stilled into the oppressive silence of great heat. Nothing stirred. Even the squirrel had pulled its bushy tail sedately into its hole in a knot of the tree.

  ‘I’ve an apology to make too, Laura. You’re in this mess now because of my lack of judgement.’

  ‘But how could you possibly have known when Hassanganj would be attacked? We all knew the situation, we all hoped that nothing would actually happen. And you did more for us than we could have done for ourselves.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. Old Wilkins, the evening before they left it was, suggested to Charles and myself that it might be a good thing if you all accompanied them to the city. In a sort of convoy. He knew I wouldn’t come, of course, but there was no reason why Charles, Emily and you shouldn’t go with him.’

  ‘I see. But you refused?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. It was Charles who wouldn’t hear of it. Oh, Emily’s health, his own health, God knows what else. He was acting for the best, I suppose. I have said often enough that it is impossible to make any sort of a stand at the Residency. I believe that still, but neither of us were to know we would have no alternative. All the same, when Wilkins proposed the matter, I could see some sense in it. I allowed myself to be overruled by Charles. And, whatever happens once you reach Lucknow, if you had been with the Wilkins, you would have been spared at least the discomforts and dangers of our present method of travel. For this I apologize. I should not have allowed Charles to have his way. I could have insisted on your leaving.’

  ‘Oh, don’t blame yourself. After all, none of us took Major Wilkins or his alarms very seriously, did we?’

  ‘I took his alarms seriously enough. It was his confidence in the garrison at Lucknow that I could not agree with. It seemed to me, or perhaps I only wanted to think, that there was more chance of safety in Hassanganj than in Lucknow. I was wrong.’

  CHAPTER 7

  We set out again just as the short Indian dusk fell, in that hour when columns of dust creep slowly across the darkening sky and indicate to the knowing the path taken by the herds as they pad homeward to the villages. The scent of that dust hung in the air and mingled with the acrid smoke of cowdung fires; the last of the sunlight slanted long rays low over fields and st
ubble pastures, glinted briefly on the shining leaves of the mangoes, and then was swallowed in the encroaching east. Freed from toil and sun, the villagers relaxed with their hookahs on housetops and in mud-walled courtyards; women with brass pots on their heads, babies straddling a hip, gossiped on the way home from the well, and the boys bringing in the herds yelled to each other and at their charges and played as they went a crude sort of cricket with a stick for a bat and a small wedge of wood for a ball. So pastoral and peaceful a scene seemed unlikely to be productive of violence, and I had no difficulty in accepting Oliver’s opinion that the ordinary countryfolk would do us no harm.

  The night passed slowly, peacefully, but in increasing discomfort. Now that we were somewhat used to our situation, and the fine edge of fear had been a little blunted by usage, we became aware of a multitude of petty trials hardly noticed the previous night. It was impossible to find a comfortable position on the hard boards of the bullock-cart. The burqhas were heavy and hot and, while they excluded air, they failed to keep out the dust caused by our own passage, which rose in a smothering cloud around us. The unoiled axles of the cart squeaked incessantly and every board creaked in nerve-wracking unison. I developed a headache and my throat and nose were sore with swallowed dust.

  At about midnight we made a halt so that Emily could feed the baby. The rest of us were glad of the opportunity to stretch our legs. We were surrounded by a wide vista of fields, grey and featureless in the starlight, broken here and there by clumps of dark trees. I was relieved to see no sign of life, no lights nor smoke nor passing human, and heard only a nearby jackal’s manic howl, answered immediately by the cries of his fellows a little way off. There was no moon, though the sky was pale with a myriad stars.