Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  ‘Laura, are you …’

  ‘Yes, I’m here and well. You mustn’t worry about anything, just rest and get well and strong. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later, but now we are going to bring you some food and then you must try to sleep.’

  ‘Laura … Laura.’ His voice dropped away and his eyes searched my face wonderingly. Then he lifted his left hand and touched my cropped head.

  ‘No hair?’ he asked in a puzzled way. I had forgotten my hair, forgotten the curious sight I must present to someone unaccustomed to my present appearance.

  ‘I had to cut it off. Lice.’

  ‘Oh!’ He laughed silently. ‘Look funny.’

  I nodded in agreement. His hand slipped to my shoulder and stayed there. I covered it with my own and laid my cheek against his wrist. He sighed and closed his eyes; then in a moment and in another tone of voice said, ‘My arm’s done for.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ I protested immediately. ‘It’s a clean cut, it will mend in time.’

  ‘No. No good,’ he insisted quietly. ‘Sabre cut through the muscles. Useless. Useless now. Weeks ago, but …’ And he slipped back into unconsciousness.

  So he remained, on the borders of consciousness, for two days and nights. Sometimes he knew us all and spoke rationally. Then at other times he would address us by strange names, give us orders in Hindustani or English, mutter feverishly, flinch and toss himself about in the bed. Once he shot up, his eyes wide open in terror, and yelled, ‘Dive, damn you! Dive! Dive!’ Often tears slid out from his black lashes into the unfamiliar whiskers and, like many of the sick in the hospital, even his quieter moments were marked by groaned curses.

  Late on the first night Dr Darby came to see him at Kate’s request. Knowing of the doctor’s own terrible bereavement—he had lost his own wife and baby at Cawnpore—I protested at his being bothered, but Kate replied, ‘The work is what the poor man needs just now. It will help him more than sympathy.’

  So he came and cleaned the wound and redressed it, examined Oliver thoroughly and confirmed Oliver’s own diagnosis of the sabre cut. ‘He’ll never use that arm again,’ he said gruffly. ‘Muscles cut through and the bone chipped, which is why it won’t heal. Chips are probably still working their way out. Try compresses. Keep him quiet. Not much fever just now, and try to keep it down. You know what will happen if I have to amputate! Otherwise, he’s shocked and exhausted. Don’t worry about the unconsciousness; Nature’s method of keeping him still. He’ll mend in time. Or his arm will, anyway.’

  For those two days and nights, no thought entered my head that was not in some way connected with Oliver and the miracle of his return. I was with him almost constantly, poulticing the angry wound, cooling his head with water and vinegar to reduce the fever, feeding him when he was sufficiently conscious to swallow with a gruel of arrowroot, which the resourceful Toddy had somehow come by.

  It was Toddy, too, who told us of how and where Ungud had found Oliver. When Ungud had gone out for the third time, shortly before the arrival of the relief, he had heard from sources we could only guess at that a sahib had been living for some weeks in a village about halfway between Cawnpore and Lucknow, protected and tended by the villagers. The hint had been sufficient to make him find the village, only to be told that yes, a sahib had been there, wounded and ill, for many weeks, but that a couple of days previously he had insisted on setting out on foot to try to join General Havelock’s column. This was, so said the villagers, madness, for he was still ill and weak. They feared he must have been captured or killed long before he could meet his fellow countrymen. Ungud had tried to trace the fugitive’s trail as he returned to Lucknow, but without success. He did not forget the incident or the unknown man’s intention, however. When the relief arrived on the 25th of September, he heard that more than one white man had joined the force on the way up from Cawnpore; hope had revived and on the following day, early in the morning, he had set out for the city. He had found Oliver among a party of the ambulant sick and wounded in the last straggle of the rearguard. The rest we knew.

  ‘It’s a miracle in itself,’ I said, ‘that he wasn’t in one of the doolies of sick that were wiped out by the pandies.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Toddy was sceptical. ‘But ’e never give up, you see! Ungud never give up. Not like some of us!’

  Kate, Jessie and I took it in turn to watch beside Oliver all night, and I would start awake after the short rests Kate forced me to take and rush into the bedroom to assure myself that his presence was more than a dream.

  Charles visited us as often as he could during those first two days but never found his brother conscious. Toddy-Bob and Ishmial insisted that only they had the right to wash and change their master and for the rest of the time practically took root on the verandah, where they remained whittling and dozing night and day, all their duties forgotten and somehow evaded.

  Others also came to enquire and exclaim: Mr Roberts and Wallace Avery, acquaintances of the old garrison (I was astonished at the number who knew him and who because he was a survivor of Cawnpore suddenly chose to develop their acquaintance) and neighbours from the Gaol. Many strangers bereaved by one or other of the massacres at Cawnpore came to hear with sad pleasure of this one prayer that had been answered.

  ‘Mr Erskine, no less? Oliver Erskine of Hassanganj? How extraordinary!’ Mrs Bonner commented, quite forgetting a previous conversation in which his name and character had been mentioned.

  I had not seen Mr Roberts in a fortnight, and such was the change in his appearance that for a moment I almost forgot my invalid. He had been getting thinner all through the siege, like the rest of us. Even Mrs Bonner’s many chins now hung above her bosom flaccid as the sails of a becalmed ship. But Mr Roberts was more than thin; he had shrunk, shrivelled up, and his usually ruddy complexion was faded and blotched. His hands trembled constantly and he sniffed, twitched and blinked his red-rimmed eyes without ceasing. He remained, however, as polite and concerned as always.

  ‘Oh, thank God, Miss Laura! Indeed it is good to hear one piece of truly splendid news in this sad time, and there is no one of whom I would sooner hear it than Erskine. As remarkable a thing as I have yet heard. To have survived Wheeler’s entrenchment and the massacre at the river. But, then, he is a remarkable man, Miss Laura, a remarkable man, as I am sure you have discovered. A little eccentric, perhaps, and somewhat maligned by those unacquainted with him, but a remarkable man.’

  ‘I remember you saying something of the same sort, but perhaps a little less complimentary, on the ship one day. Do you remember?’

  ‘Remember? The ship? What ship was that?’

  ‘Why, Mr Roberts! The Firefly—the ship that brought us all out to India.’

  ‘Of course! Forgive me. My memory is not what it was, you know, and I seem to find it harder to concentrate these days. The privations, I suppose. I’m not a young man, after all. And I said … you say I mentioned Mr Erskine to you? On the ship?’

  ‘Yes. We were very curious about him. None of us knew much about him or how he lived and you gave us a little lecture about the zemindar’s life. I confess that at the time I only half believed you, but then, later, you rather hinted to me that Mr Erskine was a … a rogue, I think was the term.’

  ‘I said Mr Erskine was a rogue? Surely not, Miss Laura?’

  ‘Well, I believe the word was mine, but you did agree to the definition.’

  ‘How strange. Of course there were many people in Calcutta to malign a man whom I had, at that time, never met. But as you know, I have had much reason since to form the most favourable opinion of his capacities and his character. Much reason!’

  I had intended only to tease my old friend, to cheer him up and make him laugh at the memory of my ignorance and curiosity, but had only succeeded in upsetting him. He blinked, twitched his head and fingered his lips in anxiety.

  ‘Well, I also have had occasion to change my opinion of him,’ I said to soothe him. ‘I made many mistakes in rea
ding his character and now I am so thankful that I have the opportunity of admitting those mistakes.’

  He appeared not to have heard me, but after a moment he shook his head and said in a bleak way, ‘Yes, women do find him attractive, I believe. Attractive. It would be difficult for you to escape that attraction, living in Hassanganj as you did, and almost alone. Do not allow yourself to get too attached, dear Laura, to anything or anyone. Sooner or later one loses all, you know. Everything. Do not invest too much of yourself in another. It must end in pain. Always pain.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Mr Roberts! These are gloomy words. Surely this is a time for rejoicing and not mournful bodings of ill?’

  ‘Of course, you are right. And yet … and yet I hope you will remember what I said. It is a mistake to lose oneself, in love or business … or anything else. A grave mistake!’

  Before I could reply, he rose, took my hand and pressed it in his own dry and scaly one and walked unsteadily into the night.

  ‘Ah, poor man, poor man!’ sighed Kate, who had been sitting with us. ‘He’s in a bad way. And no way for anyone to help him.’

  ‘Is it the opium, Kate? He has aged ten years.’

  ‘The want of the stuff. Maybe if he can hang on another few weeks, he’ll be as good as new again, but …’ She shook her head sadly.

  On the third morning after his coming, Oliver opened eyes that were for the first time bright with interest and not fever. His forehead was cool and he asked for food, so we propped him up and gave him a mush of rice and lentils that Kate said would be more strengthening than the arrowroot. He ate hungrily, insisted on feeding himself with his left hand, and while he ate his eyes wandered around the room and from face to face. I suppose he was trying to get his bearings.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as he finished, pushing away the tin plate with an impatient gesture I remembered well. ‘I’m glad to see you have some food here. We had understood that you were starving.’

  ‘We’ve managed,’ I assured him, settling him more comfortably while Kate removed the plate and mug, and Jessie, having clucked her approval of his appetite, took the baby out for an airing.

  ‘Out!’ he gestured peremptorily to Toddy and Ishmial who were inclined to linger. As they left the room, he said, ‘Alive, well, even adequately fed!’ He shook his head unbelievingly, then placed my hand against his lips and kissed it. When he looked at me again, there were tears in his eyes but he only said, ‘Thank God!’ He turned his head away from me so that I would not see the tears and, still holding my hand, murmured, ‘So much I have to know. So much I don’t know. Tell me.’

  ‘Not now. When you are stronger. There’ll be all the time in the world later. Try and sleep now. It will do you good.’

  ‘Don’t leave me, will you? Sleep … is not always very pleasant just now. Let me wake to find you here.’ I told him there was nothing I would sooner do than remain with him, and in a few moments he fell asleep again, still holding my hand in his.

  There was a recurrence of fever that night but by morning he was again cool and sleeping peacefully. That day he seemed stronger, slept less and in his waking moments talked and asked questions to which he now demanded answers. He ate a respectable meal in the evening and then asked to be propped up in a sitting position for a while.

  ‘For a very short while,’ I assented officiously as I made him comfortable. ‘You must not try your strength.’

  ‘But that is just what I intend to do,’ he retorted. ‘Feel much stronger, pain’s less and tomorrow begins to look like something more than only a possibility. I believe I’m on the mend.’ He stretched his gaunt form under the blanket, flexed the muscles of his sound arm and arched his neck to relieve the tension in his shoulders.

  ‘Laura, come here.’ He patted the bed and I went and sat down beside him, realizing that for the first time our eyes were on a level. He looked large and bony and rather threatening, bulked up in the bed against the pillow we had devised of folded cloaks.

  A heavy storm of rain resounded on the flat roof of the Gaol and splashed in spray on the stone of the verandah, deadening the occasional far-away gun. The room was dank in the damp heat, quiet and dark. A saucer-dip on a box beside the bed threw shadows on the whitewashed wall but gave little light. Oliver’s long hand groped for the dip, then held it up close to my face. His gaze moved over my features, thin now and in their thinness plainer, and over my cropped untidy hair. Carefully he replaced the lamp, then stretched out his hand again and made it follow the route his eyes had taken a moment before, touching gently my brow, eyes and cheeks, my chin and hair, and at last lingering for a moment on my lips.

  ‘I cannot believe it yet,’ he said at last.

  ‘That you are here?’

  ‘And you with me.’

  ‘I know. I had given up hope.’

  ‘Of the relief?’

  ‘No—of you!’

  A pause. ‘Glad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I was right, then?’

  ‘So I discovered.’

  ‘When? How?’

  ‘Little by little. Now and then. Here and there.’

  ‘Elucidate!’

  ‘You are talking too much. We will go into it later, when you are stronger.’

  ‘Now, at once! Or I’ll get up and walk out!’

  ‘You couldn’t reach the door.’

  For answer he swung his legs out of the bed and made as though he would leave it.

  ‘Very well, very well,’ I agreed in real anxiety, for the sudden movement had made him sway in an attack of faintness as he rose. I pushed him back against his pillow, but gently, and replaced the blanket.

  ‘Be quiet and stay still and I’ll tell you …’

  He smiled and took my hand. ‘Go on, now tell me when you realized you loved me, for I always felt you must—eventually.’

  ‘It was during the first big assault against us. In July. I thought I would be killed before the day was out, and though I was frightened I knew suddenly that I was more frightened of not seeing you again than of dying. An awful feeling of loss, of lost opportunities. Nothing rational about it, of course, but they tell me there is little rational about love at the best of times. But … losing you was worse than death.’

  ‘I know, I know. I had that, too, and for such a long time.’ As though the memory of that time recalled too clearly its pain, he dropped my hand and placed his own over his closed eyes. ‘Go on,’ he prompted in a muffled voice.

  ‘But … but even before that, on the night that Emily died …’

  ‘Emily’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, she …’

  ‘Tell me later, go on …’

  ‘Everyone was frightened and ill and hopeless, and I was too. I didn’t know what was going to happen to us, how we would manage, and then I thought of you and I knew I had to stay alive, somehow, to … to tell you … well, all sorts of things. That I had been wrong about you and you had been right about me and …’

  ‘Not what I want to hear!’

  ‘And …’

  ‘Say it!’

  ‘Why can’t you say it first?’

  ‘I’ve said it. Don’t you remember? Outside the hut that hot morning when we were travelling here? Your turn. Say it, Laura!’

  ‘And—that I thought I could love you.’

  ‘Not enough. Admit it.’

  My hand was again captured and I found his amber eyes looking straight into mine. I was trembling despite the bantering tone in which this exchange had been conducted. He tightened his grasp on my fingers and almost pleaded: ‘Admit it! Once, please?’

  ‘I love you.’

  It was not so hard an admission to make after all; so I rushed on. ‘I love you. I believe I must always have loved you and I am sure now that I always will.’

  He leaned back and put my hand to his lips, eyes closed. Then, holding my hand ag
ainst his bearded cheek, he said, ‘Are you quite sure it is love? Could it not be pity? Finding me at last in this pathetic and pain-racked condition might have proved too much for your female sensibilities and have nothing to do with your heart.’

  ‘Pity? For you? Nonsense!’ I protested, in an effort to respond to his tone, though, gazing at his face with its closed eyes, marked with deep lines of suffering, the mouth set in a new habit of silent endurance, a face very different to the one I remembered, I was indeed very near to pity for him. Not only because of his physical pain, either, nor the tormenting memories for which a hand over his eyes was the best amelioration. There was something else now written on those familiar features that wrung my heart, a suggestion of bewildered guardedness, uncertainty, in short a lack of assurance most unlike the entrenched self-confidence that I had once considered so arrogant. He was vulnerable and knew himself to be so, and guessing this I realized that banter was no longer a defence but a hesitant invitation to pursue the conversation in greater depth.

  ‘I would not want to pity you,’ I said, seriously. ‘And you would not want me to. But cannot you accept my compassion—along with all the rest that I feel for you? It comes of an understanding that would perhaps surprise you. All those months of fencing with you in Hassanganj, while they delayed the acknowledgement of my love to myself, did help me to decipher your character, and some, at least, of your necessities. Were it not so, I could not read your need of me so plainly now. Oliver, I can love you just as well in your weakness and what you feel is your inadequacy, as I will when you are well and strong again. Let me accept you as you are. Oh, my darling, open yourself to me. I so much wish to be honest with you—in all my moods and tribulations.’

  I felt tears against the hand he held to his face, but the eyes remained closed, and quiet filled the room.

  ‘It has come true,’ he whispered at last, shaking his head in disbelief, and smiling slightly.

  ‘Oh, Laura! It is so hard to believe, after … that … that I should live to hear you speak as I so often wanted you to. With love. There were times in the entrenchment when I believe I would have died without protest had I had the memory of a few words of … of intimacy with you, to make me feel I had gained something in living. My memories, and I lived by them, were sweet—but there had been nothing between us like … this.’