Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  On the seventh evening Wajid Khan sent word that he could not visit us as usual since his wife was ill.

  The message was brought by the servant girl, who had been put at our disposal because of her slight knowledge of English. She was a pathetic little creature whom I guessed to be a half-caste on account of her yellowish complexion and dark grey eyes. We were informed that she had spent the first few years of her life in a mission in Agra (hence the English) but, beyond that, she would tell us nothing of herself or how she had come to find employment in a Muslim household.

  ‘It is the smallpox,’ she added, when she had conveyed the message about Wajid Khan’s wife verbatim, her eyes wide with apprehension. ‘It will sweep through the house now like an evil wind. Many will die!’

  ‘Smallpox? Are you sure?’ Charles’s voice was sharp with alarm.

  ‘Already one has died. One of the servants. It is smallpox!’

  The girl glanced quickly from face to face, then backed out of the room salaaming, leaving us alone to face this new peril in our own way.

  ‘We must get out,’ Charles said quietly when the door had closed behind her. ‘It is suicide to stay here. If one of us were to fall ill, what chance would we have of recovery without a doctor or civilized attendance, or even medicines?’

  ‘Quite. But how?’ I asked. The door the girl had used was our only communication with the rest of the house, and we had learnt that a large man with a curved sword in his belt always locked it behind her. There was the other little door in the courtyard, but it too was locked, as I had discovered.

  We discussed our predicament from every angle, wracking our brains for some solution to the problem; not for the first time I cursed the fate that had separated us from Toddy and Ishmial. If we could only get word to them, then perhaps they could obtain help for us from the Residency. Sometimes it seemed that they must surely go to the Residency on their own initiative to report our whereabouts, but in cooler moments I knew this to be unlikely. After all, no harm had come to us, and we had no real justification for thinking that any would. Not until now.

  When Wajid Khan failed to appear on the third evening running, we sent him a message by the girl, saying we would like to speak to him. He made no response, so Charles wrote a note on the flyleaf of his Bible. The girl—her name was Ajeeba—assured us that she had delivered it, but we received no answer. Several more days passed, days of such acute frustration and anxiety that I do not care to remember them. Closely confined, ignorant of all that was taking place around us, ridden by unformed fears, the three of us gave way to nerves and bickered and squabbled among ourselves like children. Everything was an annoyance. Of course the heat was now almost unbearable. The rains were due to break any moment; the sky was leaden and heavy with unshed water, but still the searing wind of the Indian plains, the loo, kept us indoors even during the early mornings, so hot it was, so laden with cinder-like particles of dust that stung the flesh and burnt the eyes.

  But whatever the inclemency of the climate and the uncertainty of our position, we did not make sufficient effort to behave with dignity or calm, and at length the only way we could keep the peace was by keeping to ourselves. I would retire to one room with Marcus Aurelius, Charles to another with his Bible, and Emily would sit on her little stool with Pearl, crooning and crying until her loneliness drove her to one of us for comfort. Poor Emily; she had so few resources, and always sooner or later she would hark back to Hassanganj, and how happy she had been there, and how she was sure that Oliver would have found some way out for us.

  ‘If he had done his duty by us, we wouldn’t be here now!’ I snapped back more than once, and Emily would sigh and say, ‘I can’t think why you dislike him so much. He was always so kind, and I remember thinking, when we saw his portrait in Calcutta, I thought I should be frightened of him. Oh, I do wish he were with us.’ And she would wander away to annoy Charles.

  At the close of a day so stifling that I had lacked even the energy to open my book, but had lain on my bed half dead with heat and ennui, Ajeeba told us that the Begum was dead.

  She was weeping quietly as she spoke, standing in the warm light of the lantern with the big brass tray containing the remains of our meal in her arms. A very hot curry had rendered me a little less inert and, impelled more by curiosity than sympathy, I decided to try to draw her out. We did not know which wife it was that had died, and I had an uneasy remembrance of Ishmial telling us that we would be safe so long as the Burra-begum spoke for us. I did not want to ask a direct question, so resorted to circumlocution.

  ‘I am sorry to see you weep. The lady must have been a kind mistress to you.’ The girl nodded, sniffing. ‘Have you worked for her long?’

  She nodded again. ‘And my mother also.’

  ‘Your master must be very sad. But she was not his chief wife, was she?’

  ‘Of course she was!’ The girl was indignant that I should be so ignorant, or perhaps because of professional pride. I suppose there was more honour in serving the chief wife in such a household than any of the others.

  ‘She was the mother of the heir, as well. She … She …’ The girl gulped. ‘She had promised me a dowry. Because my mother died in her service and I have no father. She had promised it to me!’

  ‘And now what will happen? Will you lose your position?’

  ‘There are other begums.’

  ‘Will they give you your dowry?’

  The girl shook her head violently, and I knew what had elicited the tears.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ I said politely.

  She looked me directly in the eye, and said with malice, ‘You will be in trouble now too. It was the Burra-begum, my mistress, who pleaded for you, because of what you had done for her son. And she sent me to wait on you; that is why I am here now. But the next wife is jealous for her own son. She has no cause for gratitude to you.’

  ‘How do you mean pleaded for us?’ I asked coldly. ‘One would think we were in some sort of danger, but Wajid Khan would never hurt us. We are rakhri band.’

  ‘Huh!’ grunted Ajeeba. ‘That was before! Now he is frightened. He thinks that when the Maulvi, and the others, know that he has sheltered feringhis in his house they will be very angry. He is frightened for his property. The Maulvi has greedy eyes for land. He is doing all other things like the other great men of Oudh. He is raising levies on Jamnabad, many men are to fight for him, many are already here, in the back courtyard; they sit and smoke and tend their weapons and say what dreadful deeds they will do when the fighting starts, and it will start very soon now. It will be worse than Meerut, worse than Delhi, it will be much worse, for there will be many more men, more sepoys, and the talukhdars and zemindars will lead them, so that it will be like the old times. Such killing!’ And the wretched creature licked her lips and forgot her tears.

  ‘The Maulvi?’ That must be the man whom Oliver had mentioned as being the neighbour of Wajid Khan near Fyzabad; the man from whom Wajid had probably learnt more than he cared to tell of the chapattis, the Maulvi of Fyzabad.

  ‘Yes,’ the girl went on, after a moment. ‘All things my master does like the other great men of Oudh, and more, much more, for he is one of the greatest. But when they find that he has sheltered the infidel, then who knows what will happen? He has much to lose, and what man wishes to risk his possessions for strangers?’

  ‘We do no one any harm,’ I pointed out reasonably. ‘And it was Wajid Khan himself who wished us to stay here until he had arranged a way of taking us to the Residency. We have nothing to fear.’

  ‘So?’ But the girl was not convinced. ‘There have been other feringhis, in the bazaars there is much talk of them, who also have taken refuge in the houses of our people, and then one day, who knows why, word gets around, trouble is caused, then they are led out and … zut!’ She drew her finger across her throat. ‘They are dead!’

  Fortunately Charles had taken Emily into the courtyard for a breath of fresh air. There was a ring of c
onviction in the girl’s words, so that I could not delude myself that she was merely repeating bazaar gossip.

  ‘Well,’ I said gravely, trying to give the impression that I was suddenly cast down, ‘that will be a pity because we were going to reward you handsomely for your services to us—when we got to the Residency. Now perhaps you will have to do without your reward as well as your dowry.’

  I turned away, but from the corner of my eye saw her stiffen, and a look of cunning come into the meagre yellow face. I continued out of the room, satisfied that if there were any hope in that direction, the next move must come from her. I said nothing of this conversation to the others, beyond telling them that the Begum was dead.

  Sleep eluded me that night. I lay in the oppressive darkness of the empty room and listened to the distant stir of countless human beings pursuing their secret lives by flickering lamplight in the malodorous lanes and crowded bazaars beyond the wall. Sometimes the thin notes of a bamboo flute would rise above the murmur of movement; sometimes a woman would shriek, or a child cry, or a dog yelp as it was kicked out of the way, and the throb of drums rose and fell in incessant accompaniment. The dull unceasing mutter should have been soporific but my mind was too active to allow me to sleep.

  Endlessly I turned over all the implications of our presence in the house of Wajid Khan, in an effort to anticipate what was to come. Would he ever let us go? Could he afford to? I tried to put myself in his position, to understand him without emotion and without judgement, and remembered every word he had spoken in an effort to determine his motives. He was not a cruel man, of that I was sure. He had a gentle nature, was indolent and anxious always for the easy way out. But he was not very intelligent either, and his silliness, coupled with his love of ease and his fear, would make him an easy target for a stronger character. I recalled uneasily the disquieting interest of the fat man, scratching his belly on the courtyard verandah, and the smart, over-confident young servant with his impudent curiosity. How many more were there like them in the household, men, and women perhaps, much more capable than Wajid of strong feeling, of single-minded passion, of long-suppressed hatred, relatives jealous of his position, retainers harbouring a grievance, ready to threaten him if he did not dispose of the feringhi? So long as the Burra-begum had been alive, we were safe, even if imprisoned. But with her death, our lives were jeopardized. Little by little, our presence, already an affront to his relations, as he had himself admitted, would become an affront to him too, as they worked on him for our undoing. He would hesitate, demur, argue, complain querulously at not being master of his own house; he would storm and swear, probably even shed tears of self-pity because his family could not appreciate the dilemma in which he found himself. But slowly he would be worn down. One night, some hot night such as this, he would throw his hands to heaven, shout so that all could hear that he never wished us to be mentioned in his presence again, and someone would interpret this as Wajid in his shrinking soul wished it to be interpreted. I had learned myself that for most of us it is not the deed but the witnessing of it that really strikes home. He would know nothing of what followed, of course. Had he not commanded that we were never to be mentioned again? But on some breathless night, or on an afternoon when all the household slept the sleep of great heat, a handful of men would come in, lead us out of the house, and then … well then, as Ajeeba had expressed it, ‘Zut!’ All would be over.

  At dawn I rose, red-eyed but alert, convinced that our only help lay in arousing the avarice of shifty little Ajeeba. It was not a hope of robust proportions.

  Some cat-and-mouse instinct made me take care to be unavailable when Ajeeba was in our rooms, but that night she hung about busying herself with trifles until she could speak to me alone. She came to the point with admirable bluntness, and I was hard put to it to disguise my relief that she had brought up the subject.

  ‘I cannot take you to the bilaiti Residency,’ she muttered, half an eye cocked at the door, behind which the eunuch stood. ‘But I could help you if you give me money. Here. Now.’

  I was so nervous I was almost taken in. Later, I was to thank God for the sudden flash of wit that made me reply, ‘How would that be possible? We have no money here. We would first have to get it from our friends in the Residency.’

  ‘You have none?’ She didn’t believe me.

  ‘None,’ I answered shortly. ‘Did you not see how we came, in borrowed clothes and borrowed palanquins?’

  ‘Your friends would surely give you money? You do not lie?’

  ‘Why should I? And how do I know that you would be able to help us, supposing we need help?’

  She thought that over.

  ‘I think you will need it,’ she said coldly. ‘Just now, Wajid Khan is heavy with grief: he thinks of nothing but the Burra-begum. But in one or two days, he will remember you again, and then who knows what he will do?’

  I shrugged indifferently. ‘I cannot help that. Jo hoga, so hoga’—What must happen, will happen.

  Happily she was not easily deterred.

  ‘You could get word to your friends, no?’

  ‘How? I do not see my servants, and whom else could I trust?’

  ‘Me?’ It was half entreaty, half suggestion.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head firmly. ‘You would take the money and go away to your village, leaving us here to Wajid Khan’s mercy. Oh, no!’

  She protested her innocence, but she was a poor actress, and I had uncovered the weak plottings of her avaricious little mind. She looked at me with marked respect, coupled with uncertainty, as she vowed her innocence of any evil intention.

  I held up my hand for silence, and took a thoughtful turn around the room.

  ‘There may be a way,’ I said judiciously. ‘Perhaps there is a way after all, if you are willing to help us.’

  She waited breathlessly for me to explain myself, but I turned away from her again, and once more paced the length of the room.

  ‘Do you know where our servants are: the big Pathan and the small man with the horse’s face?’

  She nodded, contemptuously I thought. ‘They were here, in the house. I saw them sometimes, but a few days ago they went away.’

  ‘Away?’ I echoed, hopes dashed.

  ‘Yes, not far away though. They live in the bazaar. This I have heard said.’

  ‘You could find them?’

  ‘Of course! They are strangers; everyone will know where they live.’

  ‘You could take them a note? A chit?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Very well, we will see. If you bring me back a note from them in the morning, I will know you are to be trusted, and then I will send them to the Residency for the money. They will get the money; there is no doubt of that. But you will have to come with us for at least part of the way before you are paid. You understand?’

  Again she nodded, this time with resignation.

  ‘If I do this, I will have to go with you. I could not come back here. They would kill me!’ This was a point I had overlooked but it appeared to be an added safeguard. ‘But first: how much money? Remember that I risk my life and lose the only house I have known. This is much to do for infidels, and I must have much reward.’

  ‘Three hundred rupees. One hundred for each of us. That is a great amount.’

  I did not know what would constitute a fortune to such a girl, but was going on the worth of three or four pearls from Mrs Wilkins’s garter, for the amount of cash we had with us was trivial. Apparently, and much to my relief, my premise was more than adequate, for the girl licked her lips and agreed to the amount so quickly that she probably felt I would think better of my generosity.

  ‘Good. Then wait a moment and I will write.’

  I tore out the back page of Marcus Aurelius and, with a stub of drawing pencil that had been in the pocket of my dress when I left Hassanganj I printed a short message to Toddy-Bob, instructing him to send me something to indicate that he had himself received the note. It would be too easy for it
to find its way into other hands, and I had to be very cautious.

  ‘You read English, I suppose, as you have been in a mission school?’ I said holding the paper out for Ajeeba’s inspection in a gesture of trust that was far from sincere. She took it and examined it minutely, but then, to my satisfaction, shook her head and returned it saying, ‘Once I read, but now no more. It is many years since I was in mission, but I remember the prayer of Esoo Masie.’ And she began to intone with downcast eyes and swaying body: ‘Our Father, which art in heaven …’

  There was no way of sealing the note, so I folded it and gave it to her. If it found its way into the hands of the fat uncle on the verandah, or the sly young servant, it would be the end of us. On the other hand, if it got to Toddy, well, he would at least know that all was not well with us. I knew a crushing moment when I wondered whether Toddy himself could read, but remembered having once seen him spell out the sporting column of an old newspaper on the verandah at Hassanganj. In any event, I was sufficiently sure of his resourcefulness to know that if he had difficulty in deciphering my note, he would find somebody trustworthy to read it for him, even if it meant going to the Residency.

  His answer was in my hands at six o’clock next morning.

  ‘Dear Miss, We come out here because things looked hot in the house. Waiting your orders, yrs, respctfl. T.Bob.’

  Immediately, knowing this time that I was truly laying my head in the lion’s mouth, I wrote another note, telling Toddy to delude the girl into thinking that he was off to the Residency to obtain money, and asking him to fix as safe a rendezvous as possible for the following night.