Zemindar

by Valerie Fitzgerald

  ‘He won’t get lost, Llew. I won’t let him. We’ll play games and I’ll tell him a long story. I’ll make quite sure he does not stray too far.’

  ‘All right! I’ll go then.’

  The Colonel Tucker with whom Charles was acquainted had kindly provided us with an assortment of unfamiliar goodies, among them the biscuits with which I was so lavish, and a box of notepaper that included the new ready-folded letter covers called envelopes. Hastily I wrote a note:

  O.

  I must speak to you, see you.

  Please come. Something to explain.

  L.

  I had neither wafer nor wax, but I tucked the sheet inside the neat little paper packet under Llew’s interested eyes, and sent him off with it. Even if curiosity proved too much for the boy and he read what I had written, I had committed no great indiscretion.

  Rather sooner than I had schooled myself to expect, Llewellyn was back.

  ‘Oh, man!’ (This was an expletive among the boys, not a form of address.) ‘Man! He’s way out in the new lines, near the 9th Cavalry. Miles and miles and miles away. But I found him, and, miss, he gave me a rupee for bringing you this.’

  Llew thrust a paw into a pocket and produced the same envelope I had entrusted to him earlier; it now enclosed another sheet of paper. I drew it out with hasty fingers as the boy watched.

  Explanations are only less embarrassing than apologies.

  The writing was unfamiliar and, for a moment, I feared my note had been delivered to the wrong party. Then I remembered that Oliver now wrote with his left hand, and his calligraphy was necessarily less than well-formed.

  ‘Are you very tired, Llew?’

  ‘Now! But maybe after tiffin I won’t be.’

  ‘Will you come back after you have eaten and take another note for me? Please? It’s very important.’

  ‘Man! Again? Oh, all right then, miss. This time I’ll take Sonny; we will pass the elephant lines and he will like that.’

  Thus, usually through Llewellyn, occasionally through Toddy-Bob, once or twice by Ungud, I managed to institute a private mail service between Oliver and myself.

  I have the letters still. Mine on the fine deckle-edged sheets from Colonel Tucker’s box, Oliver’s scrawled on the coarse absorbent native paper, on leaves torn from old ledgers or later on the monogrammed sheets from some officer’s brass-bound military chest, all now almost split where they were folded and bearing still the marks of their frequent anguished handling. I have them all.

  On that first afternoon, I replied to Oliver’s curt, dismissive words with frank importunity. I could not afford to allow myself to be put off by the tone of his note.

  Perhaps. But sometimes quite necessary. Thank you for the mare. She is named Rosinante—more excellent a beast than Bucephalus. Please come to me. Please! L.

  I think it better not to for the moment. Unravelled emotions are tedious things to knit together again. Allow me time. I am glad the mare was useful to you all. O.

  You are being childish, Oliver. Obstinate. Nursing your quite mistaken jealousy. Sulking like a pettish girl. I have an injured foot. Were I whole I would seek you out. To shake you. L.

  Have you not already shaken me enough? I trusted you to know your own mind—at last. O.

  I do, I do. More so now than when we spoke together on Germon’s roof. The rest is so easily explained. Do let me? L.

  Perhaps your ability to explain is not matched by my ability to understand. Have we not understood each other without words sometimes—before? O.

  Often and so sweetly. But now there are certain facts of which you are unaware. L.

  Facts are largely what one makes of them, are they not? Time, Laura. Time. O.

  But we have so little time left. I am very lonely and rather frightened. My foot is most painful. Can you not tell me at least why you will not come to me? L.

  Because of the loneliness, the sense of unaccustomed isolation to which you have introduced me. I have known little real loneliness until now. I find, with some annoyance, as you may guess, that in overthrowing my heart, you have invaded my mind. With you I found, for a time, a degree of companionship that I have seldom known with a man, never hoped for in a woman. I will not write like a romance-ridden stripling. I know I can find the comforts necessary to my sex and nature in other arms. But never the ease of mind that I have known with you. Yet, you have told me you cannot share my life in the way in which I must live it.

  I understand something of your revulsion for this country and its people; I can sympathize with your desire for the quiet familiarity of England; I can even believe that Charles will prove an adequate husband to you in the circumstances you seem to desire.

  Forgive me, if, having come to this conclusion, I prefer not to reopen a wound which needs only continued neglect to heal. O.

  The length of this note comforted me, despite the brusque dismissal of its closing.

  A couple of days after the evacuation of the Residency, the enormous camp at the Dilkusha was moved on the few miles to the Alum Bagh Palace. In the early hours of the day on which we travelled, Sir Henry Havelock died in the arms of his son, and, so it was said, with a prayer on his lips. I cannot pretend that the camp was plunged into instant mourning. Havelock had been too distant and cold a man for his death to elicit much emotion amongst us. Yet, as we paused in our packing on hearing the news, I was aware of an unhappy irony in his demise at that particular moment—the ultimate failure, as it were, for a man to whom failure, for all his Christian mouthings, was synonymous with shame. His body was carried to the Alum Bagh and late that night buried in secrecy beneath a tree, without headstone or marker, so that whatever force might overrun the park in battles yet to come Sir Henry’s mortal remains might rest undisturbed.

  Assembled in the Alum Bagh once again, the camp was re-erected and, for a further four days of cool November sunshine we waited for the order to march onward to Cawnpore. The women were sufficiently recovered in spirits to grumble vocally at the long delay, but Sir Colin, ‘Old Crawling Camel’ as his troops called him, would not be hurried by complaints. The Alum Bagh must first be secured against the enemy, while General Outram, with four thousand men of all arms, deployed his force over a three-mile front to keep the rebels of Lucknow at bay until we women had been safely escorted to Cawnpore and Sir Colin could return and make battle for the city.

  My foot was healing, but I still spent much time in a canvas chair. Through long afternoons, when doves called in the neems to remind me of Hassanganj, when hoopoes pecked at the earth at my very skirt, and the odd shabby peacock dragged its dusty tail across the scarred grass in safety only because we were now sufficiently fed, the great pink palace of the Alum Bagh stood bathed in golden light, dappled with the shifting shadows of its tall surrounding trees. Around me the myriad noises of the vast camp would hush to a languorous murmur, only the schoolboys and myself eschewing our cots and the afternoon sleep; and I would sit with my box of paper on my knee and remember and think and carefully choose the words and tone that I guessed must dictate the future course of my life.

  It was on the first of these peaceful afternoons that Llew brought me Oliver’s first communicative note. Promising to return for my answer in an hour, he had run off, jumping over the guy ropes of tents, whooping rudely like a baboon at smaller children he encountered on the way, pausing to kick a speculative toe at some gleaming object in the dust, or leaping suddenly upwards to snatch a clump of leaves from a low-hanging branch. Every line, every muscle in his small tawny body was informed with a singing zest in living that could be expressed only in exuberant movement. I smiled as I remembered the quiet, forlorn waif who had helped me so often in the hospital. He seemed to have forgotten all the terrible things he had seen so short a time before; even the memory of his lost father had receded from his mind.

  I read Oliver’s letter once again, then set about composing my reply:

  Very well then. Do not come yet. Perhaps for all my des
ire to speak to you, it is better so. But let me continue, at least, to reach you through these notes; do not put an end to them.

  Why are you still so mistrustful of my feeling for Charles? I have told you there is nothing between us and there isn’t, despite what you think you saw on the Gaol verandah. Here is what happened that night when you found us embracing. Make of it what you will.

  We had all been out to view the beacon lit here, on this Alum Bagh palace. I strayed away from the others—following the walls, enjoying the night and the strange scene of the entrenchment in darkness. Well, the long and the short of it is that I was attacked … assaulted, I believe is the technical term, by a wretched man with whom I had some unpleasant dealings in the hospital. Fortunately, Charles had come in search of me, and I was rescued with nothing more than my pride injured. Afterwards, we talked. Of you and of me, of the fact that I loved you. At the end, in a sort of sentimental gratitude, and because I know that Charles does love me in his way and I was sorry to have to hurt him, I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. That is what you found me doing. That is all that I was doing. But you strode off in a jealous rage and for two wretched weeks have been nursing your misconceptions and brooding over a wrong I never did you.

  I had come to the end of the page. I scrawled ‘PTO’ at the edge of the paper and turned it.

  My heart and intentions did change once, and an uphill struggle it was for them to do so. It took months, literally months, for me to concede that you had good qualities, let alone that they were those I wished for in a husband. Perhaps it will not take as long for me to be persuaded I was mistaken. L.

  Almost before I had time to hope for Llew’s return I found myself opening Oliver’s reply.

  As to Charles, I am sorry if I have been mistaken all along, but allow me to point out that it was a justifiable mistake. I have tried to explain to you why I feared your feelings for him. I had said, once, that the only thing that would prevent me from pursuing my suit would be your own admission that you preferred Charles. What I saw that night on the Gaol verandah (and interpreted wrongly, as you assure me) appeared admittance enough of your preference. So I kept my word and bothered you no further. Now, well, now we have discovered that it is not alone Charles, your feeling for him, my mistake regarding that feeling, that stands in our way, have we not?

  By the by, Toddy tells me of your scarlet slippers. He does not think it proper for you to be wearing them. O.

  Let there be peace between us now. There is no time for quarrelling. Tomorrow we march for Cawnpore. In a week or so we will be in Allahabad; then the steamers down to Calcutta and the ship home. Remember how few steps we have left. We still have obstacles to surmount, but if they are to be surmounted, let it be by these notes and soon, and not by the tardy Overland Mail. I have spent such aeons of my life waiting for news of you, news from you. Waiting for you. I could not do it again. No, I will not do it again!

  You do not care for apologies and neither do I. Let me, however, ask your forgiveness now for any hurt I have done you, and believe it was unwitting. I am so fatally good at giving the wrong impression. On the Gaol verandah you got the impression from my actions that I cared for Charles too much; and on Germon’s roof you gained the impression that I cared for you too little. The first, I hope, is cured and finished with; but the second …? I shudder when I realize how little understanding I had that evening of what you wanted to give me, of how callow was my response to your gift. Yet, believe me, I have learned something, a good deal, of life and you and of myself, even in the few weeks since that long conversation.

  Let me have a line before we set off. They say it will be 11 o’clock by the time we make a move, and that means 2 in the afternoon at the earliest; so let it be many lines. Did you know that Charles is not coming home with us? He is accompanying us as far as Allahabad to see us safely on our way and then returns to fight with Major Barrow’s Volunteer Cavalry. Laura.

  My dear,

  It is I that should ask your forgiveness. Yet, woman dear, is not all this beating of the breast between two humans a little unfastidious? Let us forget the wrongs, real or imaginary, we have done each other and start afresh. For you are right; we have little time to squander.

  My dear, if you but knew the joy with which I read that first note from you, or the effort it cost me to respond as brusquely as I did. My confidence was badly shaken, you see; I had to be sure you wanted to see me for more than some silly feminine desire for seemliness or to smooth out your own rumpled self-esteem. Day by day, as you have persisted in your dogged way to chip away at my carapace of misunderstanding, anger and hurt, you have displayed yourself to me thoroughly. I know you love me, Laura, but what are we to do about it?

  For a time (you may find it difficult to believe) I even tried to see myself living the sort of life you could share with a husband in England. I tried to persuade myself I could do it. I envisioned a decorous and comfortable villa, with elms, clipped hedges and neat lawns; an office somewhere, perhaps, to which I would repair each day, returning at evening to the embraces of suburban domesticity. Or better yet, a farm where I could at least have my horses and a day uncabined by the clock. I tried to convince myself I could learn to make do with a life lacking all those things that have made my life out here worthwhile. It was very hard on Tod and Ishmial, who felt the edge of my tongue every time I spoke to them.

  At last I realized I could not do it. I will never make a responsible English business man, nor yet a comfortable English squire.

  Laura, I have been as I am now, have lived in the same way for too long to adjust to English life. I will not try. Were I to do so, to try and fit your mould, your idea or vision of what makes for happiness, I would not succeed in subduing my own preferences or inclinations; only in perverting them. We would end in hatred, and I would by far sooner lose you than learn to loathe you. Memory is an inadequate comforter at best, but at least it can be sweet memory. Oliver.

  CHAPTER 9

  Toddy-Bob arrived with this last epistle on the next morning, just as Kate, Jessie and I were admiring a carriage, shabby but roadworthy, that had been placed at our disposal by the authorities to take us to Cawnpore.

  ‘Well … it’s better’n a doolie, there’s no gainsayin’ that!’ Tod agreed dubiously, as we asked him to examine the new conveyance. ‘I’ll just cast my blinkers over the axles and springin’ and that … make sure that it’ll ’old together for you.’ And he disappeared under the sagging body of the equipage.

  Two horses had also been provided, country animals, shaggy, wild of eye and badly matched in size. These, too, were carefully examined by our friend, with many sniffs of disdain and impolite reflections on their ancestry, but eventually passed as ‘prob’ly’ capable of getting us to our destination. He then had a few words with the native driver, compounded about equally of threats and promises, and finished with a brief resumé of the power, importance and wealth of the Lat-Sahib of Hassanganj, whose women we were declared to be and to whom the unhappy driver was now directly responsible for our welfare.

  ‘Doesn’t do to let ’em think you ain’t got no gentleman to look out for you,’ he explained. ‘They got no respec’ for females on their own, like. I’ll make it my business to keep an eye on you, drop by now and then, and remind ’im generally of ’is proper place.’

  Contrary to the pessimistic expectation expressed in my note to Oliver of the previous day, the march to Cawnpore began on time that morning. The families and the sick occupied the mid-section of the column but, even so, it was not too long after midday when we began to move out of the Alum Bagh park. There had been rain during the night, which had left the world fresh and sparkling, but which had also softened the ground on either side of the narrow, unmetalled roadway we were to follow, and our driver was exhorted sternly to drive in the very middle of the track or risk losing his vehicle for ever. He salaamed his compliance to this excellent suggestion to the officer giving it; then, with a great cracking of his w
hip over the unmindful ears of his lethargic steeds, shouted us into motion.

  On the slow drive out of the park and down the first mile or so of the open road, our way was lined by the officers and men who were to remain at the Alum Bagh until Sir Colin’s return. Time after time, strange hands were thrust into the carriage windows to wish us good luck and God speed; there were donations of fruit, of chocolate and a whisky bottle full of milk stoppered with grass, and a bundle of very out-of-date newspapers. ‘Good luck!’ ‘God be with you, ladies!’ ‘Safe home now and no harm to yez!’ ‘Tell ’em at home we’re still fighting, ma’am!’ ‘The best of good fortune to all you ladies!’ Thus, each in his own way, the men bade us farewell, and suddenly, above the creak of cartwheels, the tramp of feet, the yells of bullock-drivers and the thud of hooves on soft earth, the eerie note of the pipes was borne to us from a distance. As we came to a halt in the first of a long series of delays, the shrill notes grew louder, until the pipeband of the 93rd, kilts a-swing, spats twinkling, bonnet plumes waving, marched in fine order past us to take their place in the column.

  ‘Aye, ’tis a braw fine sight the laddies make!’ Jessie smiled with national pride, holding Pearl up to the window to watch them pass.

  Trying to find a comfortable corner among the broken springs of the carriage seat, I felt a deadening return of the old fear and anxiety, which I had almost forgotten during the few days of letter-writing and dreaming beneath the trees of the Alum Bagh. We were still a long way from safety. Fighting, so we had been told, had once again broken out in Cawnpore, that sinister city in which we hoped for an incongruous refuge. We knew no details, except that Sir Colin and an advanced detachment were making all speed to the town; but no accurate knowledge was needed to breed alarm in us. Behind us the pandies were now in possession of the Residency. They had destroyed the semaphore and had been seen through fieldglasses capering and dancing jigs of triumph on the roof of the Resident’s House. This last piece of information filled us all with sadness; it was a bitter thought that all our endurance and suffering had found its termination in the derision of an enemy that had never managed to subdue us. Fortunately, we did not learn until much later that the first action taken by the invaders of the old entrenchment was the desecration of our graves.