The Linnet Bird: A Novel

by Linda Holeman

WE MET NEXT at a soirée at the Calcutta Club later in January. His skin was even more darkened, as if he had spent recent time outdoors. While surrounded by others we exchanged opinions on expected subjects: the weather (cool and pleasant), architecture (the renovation of some of the rooms at the Writers Building), Indian politics (the rumors of difficulties with the administration of the rajah of Mysore), and news from home (the exciting prospect of steam navigation).

  As others drifted away and we found ourselves alone near one of the high doors, I commented on his appearance. “You’re looking very well, Mr. Ingram,” I said. “Have you been taking some sport?”

  “Yes, I hunted all last week, enjoying the glorious weather, which is not to be with us much longer, I’m afraid. We must take every advantage of it. Do you enjoy riding, Miss Smallpiece?”

  I ran my finger along my cuff. “Not terribly.” I had never been on a horse. Were we never to have a conversation where I wasn’t put on my guard?

  “I would think you would like to get out in the sun and wind of the cool season, gallop along and have a look about. Have you had that opportunity yet?”

  I shook my head. If he only knew how I longed to have more than a look about.

  “Would you care to join a small party? A number of my friends, as well as ladies such as yourself, with Mr. and Mrs. Weymouth accompanying us, are planning an outing next week.”

  “I think not, Mr. Ingram. Thank you so much for your invitation, but . . .”

  “Please put aside coyness, Miss Smallpiece. It doesn’t suit you, much as I reminded you in the recent past.”

  “I’m not being coy,” I said, annoyed that he would assume he could judge my behavior.

  “Really? Then what is it? Do you know how clearly your expression gives you away? You’re almost scowling. I can see you arguing with yourself. What is it that’s stopping you from agreeing to join me? Come now, Miss Smallpiece. I’d like the truth. I can tell you are more than a little anxious to be in my company.”

  Now I was far more than annoyed; I was furious at constantly being pushed into corners by this impossible man. His presumptuous haughtiness that I wanted nothing more than to spend my time with him brought angry heat to my face. “A lady does not need to explain herself,” I said, fiercely, leaning close enough to smell the faint apple scent of his hair pomade.

  “A lady does not forget herself, either,” he said, openly chastising me. “Do I detect a tone of rudeness?” He tut-tutted.

  “I do not appreciate your manner, sir,” I said, my voice low. “I can assure you I do not forget myself.” I leaned even closer. “Ever.”

  He raised one eyebrow in an infuriatingly cocky manner. “Really?” His eyes bore into mine. Then he whispered, having the nerve to let his lips touch my cheek, “I don’t believe you.” His breath was warm, his manner far too familiar as he put his hand on my forearm. His fingers gently stroked the sleeve of my dress.

  Blood roared in my ears. His face was only inches from mine, a small smile on his mouth as his hand remained on my arm. A condescending smile, one that presumed that I was like all of the other silly girls, that I would grow faint at his nearness, swoon into his arms in shock at his daring. How I found him attractive and yet hated him, with his insolence and his absolute certainty of his charm.

  I moved my face a fraction of an inch closer to his, the blood still pounding in my head, my face hot. “Mr. Ingram,” I whispered, my jaw tight, and he waited, turning his head slightly, so that I might speak into his ear. I was trembling with a sense of power, of how I would show him that he couldn’t toy with me. “Take your damn hand off my arm.”

  He pulled his head back as if I’d slapped him. And in that instant I knew what I’d done—what Somers Ingram had driven me to do. I had managed to spend the last two months here acting like the lady I was pretending to be every moment—no matter how I struggled with it inside. And now, in such a brief conversation, this man had made me forget who I was supposed to be. He had thrown out a challenge, and stupidly, I had risen to it.

  Somers Ingram looked directly into my eyes, and what I saw there made me close mine momentarily. No. How could I have been so foolish? I had worked too hard.

  “Did I hear you correctly, Miss Smallpiece?” he asked, finally removing his hand and stepping back. There was something akin to triumph in his face. His expression made it clear that he had accomplished what he’d hoped to do, that he’d managed to get what he’d wanted from me, perhaps all along.

  “I—I . . .” I raised my gloves to my burning cheeks. Perspiration trickled beneath the tight lacing of my stays.

  Glancing around to ensure that we were still unobserved, Mr. Ingram now took my fingers in his hand, lightly, but again, in a manner far too intimate. He ran his thumb to the center of my palm, and even through my glove the pressure of his caress made me shiver. Then he said, in a voice that was low and pleased, “My dear Miss Smallpiece, I do believe the last time I heard such language was in a Turkish bathhouse in East London.”

  There was nothing for me to say. I looked down at the carpet.

  Mr. Ingram let go of my hand and stepped a respectable distance away. “Don’t worry about it, Miss Smallpiece. I find your . . . openness of expression, shall we say, refreshing. I’m not above plain talk myself, given the right circumstance. So, I take it that is a definite no to the riding invitation?”

  I turned on my heel and left in a rustle of skirts, hoping for the impression of dignity.

  ON JANUARY 31 the Clutterbucks hosted an evening of cards to which the Watertons, Faith, and I were invited. I was in good spirits this evening; I had actually persuaded Faith to slip away from the Maidan with me, for a full half hour this afternoon. The usually watchful eye of Mrs. Waterton had been diverted when she ran into an old friend, down from a posting in the north, and she and the friend became lost in conversation as Faith and I sat on a bench facing them. When I politely interrupted, asking whether Faith and I might stroll through the Maidan together, she nodded absently.

  As soon as we were out of Mrs. Waterton’s view I steered Faith toward the outside path of the Maidan. And then, linking my arm in hers, I pulled her along, between the row of waiting rickshaws and palanquins. Faith was hesitant, but I kept a firm grip on her.

  “Linny! Linny, stop. Where are we going?” she asked, her face flushed and anxious.

  “I don’t know. That’s the beauty of it.” I laughed.

  “We can’t, Linny. What if someone sees us? What if something happens to us? What if somebody—”

  I ignored her halfhearted cries, and within a minute we found ourselves in a market of sorts. Everywhere were flowers—I especially recognized roses and marigolds—piled randomly together. There were fruit and vegetables that I’d never seen. I stopped in front of one cart, pulling off my gloves to caress the smooth, elongated shapes heaped there, some white as ivory and others a deep purple. The turbaned man who crouched upon his heels beside the cart jumped up, taking a particularly gleaming purple one and pushing it at me. I shook my head, no, no, and hesitantly told him, in Hindi, that I had no money. But he shook his head back at me, gently setting it into my hands and then performing a salaam, and I understood it to be a gift. I bowed my head at him, and he nodded in a dignified manner.

  “What is it? What will you do with it?” Faith asked, clinging tightly to me.

  “I don’t know the answer to either,” I said, “but I couldn’t insult him by not accepting it.”

  We followed narrow paths in the market. I breathed in the smell of cooking oil and garlic and tobacco. I recognized ginger and cloves, but there were too many other spices I had no name for. There was the glorious scent of sandalwood one moment, the acrid odor of burning cow dung the next, and Faith covered her nose with her gloved hand as we passed the braziers where women cooked flat, doughy shapes. I realized I was hungry, and I longed to stand in front of a brazier and chew on whatever it was the women were paddling so efficiently about in their hands before thro
wing into a flat pan to bake. I heard snatches of foreign-sounding music created by unknown instruments, and over all was the tinkling and ringing of all sizes of bells and the creaking axles of bullock carts.

  I stopped, Faith bumping into me, and stood still, closing my eyes and listening, breathing, letting it all soak into my skin.

  “Why are you stopping, Linny? Do you know how to get back to the Maidan? Oh dear, look at that child. Is he all alone?”

  I opened my eyes to see a naked child of about two, tottering about with short steps on the hard-packed mud underfoot. A red string was attached to his wrist. I followed the string and saw it was tied to the wrist of a young mother who held an infant against her sari while she haggled with a merchant over the piece of bright yellow cotton in her other hand.

  “No. Look, there’s his mother.”

  The child came right to my skirt, stopped, and looked up at me. He closed his small fist around the dotted poplin of my dress. I smiled and put my hand on his dark head. His hair was silky.

  “Don’t touch him, Linny,” Faith said, under her breath. “You may catch a disease.”

  “He’s just a baby, Faith,” I said. “Look how beautiful he is.”

  “It’s shameful, though. He’s completely without clothing.”

  The child now looked at the gleaming purple vegetable in my other hand. He let go of my skirt and reached both hands toward it. His eyes were huge, a luminous black, and he made a small cry that is the same sound that babies of all worlds make when they want something.

  I put the vegetable into his outstretched hands. There was a jerk on the thread at his wrist as he took it, and I looked from him to the mother, and saw her watching, her face concerned. I smiled at her, and her face relaxed and she returned the smile. Faith tugged at my sleeve.

  “We must find our way back, Linny. Too much time has passed. Mrs. Waterton may start to look for us, and it won’t take her long to realize we’re not in the Maidan.”

  “All right, all right,” I said, casting one more look at the child, who now toddled on his little bowed legs to his mother, laughing, holding out the vegetable.

  I instinctively understood the way the market ran; it was not so very different from the markets I’d hurried through every day as a child in Liverpool. Faith sighed with relief as the tidy, carefully sculpted shape of the Maidan came into view.

  “Aren’t we wonderfully wicked, Linny?” she’d said, at ease now that we’d survived what she obviously saw as a bold foray. The chaos of the market receded behind us, leaving only a faint memory of sounds and smells. “Mrs. Waterton would have a fit of dyspepsia if she knew what we’ve been up to.”

  “Let’s make sure she doesn’t find out,” I said, and smiled at her. In that moment I felt the old Faith was stirring under the tight cover the new Faith wore. I put my gloves back on and raised one to my face. It carried a trace of the smoky, spicy scent of the India I wanted to know. I linked my arm through Faith’s and we hurried on.

  AS WE ARRIVED at the Clutterbucks’ I was still filled with pleasure from the afternoon’s unexpected and very minute taste of freedom. There were a number of guests, and within moments Mr. Ingram and I ran into each other in front of the open verandah doors. And even though I felt a tiny jab of pleasure somewhere in my chest at the sight of him, I was nervous about the way I’d behaved the last time we’d met. I didn’t wish to speak to him, didn’t want him looking at me in that familiar, suggestive way that made me react badly. I was afraid that he would spoil my mood.

  All I wanted, at this moment, was a breath of air. The Clutterbuck rooms were crowded and the air filled with the scents of women’s perfume and the large vases of oleander branches and jasmine and Queen of the Night that sat on every surface. But Mr. Ingram would not let me pass without speaking, even though I turned my head in the other direction.

  “Well, Miss Smallpiece, it is wonderful to see you again,” he said, the picture of politeness.

  “And you, sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant, not meeting his eyes. A definite tension hung in the air.

  A slender young attendant in crisp white pants, jacket, and turban, hovered near us with a silver tray of fluted glasses filled with crimson liquid. He appeared nervous, stepping from foot to foot, and the glasses shivered against one another almost inaudibly. I noticed a fine line of perspiration running from under his turban. Finally he moved forward, holding the tray in my direction but looking at Mr. Ingram.

  “Claret? Or perhaps Madeira?” Mr. Ingram said to me.

  “No, thank you,” I said, and yet the server stayed where he was. Mr. Ingram finally took one of the glasses. Still the boy stayed. Mr. Ingram dismissed him with a quick murmured sentence in Hindi that I couldn’t make out.

  At that moment our hostess clapped her meaty hands and announced that we would break into pairs for a game of whist.

  “If it’s all the same to you, Miss Smallpiece, I think I’ll slip out for a cheroot. I’m not terribly interested in card games that don’t involve a major gamble.” He flashed his practiced smile, setting his full glass on a nearby table.

  I nodded, not sure of my feelings now, watching him disappear through the open doors. He had acted as if nothing unpleasant had passed between us only ten days earlier. I breathed deeply, reassuring myself that he would have the manners never to mention my vulgar display.

  I played a few hands of whist, but was restless and edgy, and felt I might bite through my tongue if Mrs. Clutterbuck, with her low drooping bosom and donkey’s bray of laughter, asked what was trump one more time, or moaned that she was destined to receive only the pip cards, never the court. I begged off the rubber, slipped out through the open patio doors, and descended the deep, broad stone steps into the villa’s back garden.

  The garden was lovely, with its array of chest-high canna, and beyond, a stand of temple frangipani with delicate, almost sculptured flowers giving off the heavy fragrance that always surprised me, coming from such delicate blossoms. The full moon was white, round, and swollen, shining over it all. I stopped in the middle of the garden, putting a frangipani blossom behind my ear, and looked at the sky. I felt odd, suddenly, very light, as if I might rise up into that starry night sky. It was vertigo, a dizziness that was unsettling and pleasant at the same time. I smiled, thinking of the gentle hospitality of the merchant who gave me the vegetable, of the silkiness of the child’s hair, and then I held out my arms and slowly twirled, there in the moonlight. I felt that something cold and hard and dark, deep inside of me, was coming undone, releasing. And I realized, with surprise, that what I was feeling was happiness. I am happy, I thought. I am here, in this garden in Calcutta. I am Linny Gow, and I am here, now. I am not waiting, not dreaming of another life. This is my life. “I am happy,” I said, into the tangled beauty of the garden. The words sounded odd in my mouth, full and round, silvery and bright, as if they were catching the reflection of the moon. It seemed that I had been holding my breath all my life, my chest tight with the effort. And now, when I breathed out those words, I am happy, my chest was able to expand.

  I steadied myself, standing undisturbed on the moonlit grass. I couldn’t possibly go back to the loud, stuffy drawing room. I slowly made my way down the path to the servants’ quarters, the simply built godowns huddled against the back wall, where there was the constant muffled thrum of voices and the slow beat of a drum. Outside one hut a young woman sat with her back against the rough wall and nursed her baby. She jumped up when she saw me, trying to cover her breasts with her sari and salaam at the same time, the infant losing the nipple and wailing thinly in startled protest. Please, I tried to tell her in my stilted Hindi, please, continue. As I wound my way along the path I passed men and women squatting around rush lights set on the dirt outside their huts, talking in low voices. They all rose and fell silent as I walked by. I smiled at each of them, greeting them, knowing I was making them uncomfortable by venturing past their quarters, but I didn’t care. There was one fina
l hut and, as I could see in the flood of moonlight that made everything as clearly outlined as day, a narrow path beside it that would loop back in the direction of the house. I was glad I wouldn’t have to retrace my steps and disturb the servants a second time.

  The hut sat alone, slightly distanced from the others. As I passed the open doorway, the familiar sounds of coupling made me stop and look in. I instantly made out two figures, moving in rhythm on a mat, and I should have immediately kept on my way. Why didn’t I? What human curiosity made me want to watch the couple in this private moment for even an instant? I believe now that it was that loose, bright hold of the joy I possessed at that moment, the realization that I could feel this way, that created my lack of inhibition. I stopped, listening to the harsh quick breath of one, answered by the other, and realized, in that same second, that it wasn’t a man and woman, as I had assumed, but two men. My eyes adjusted enough to see that one was on his knees, supporting himself with his elbows, his small slender body gleaming darkly in the moonlight. The other, larger and more strongly built, was kneeling behind him, wearing a white shirt whose pearl buttons winked as he grasped the thin hips in front of him, driving himself in with urgency.

  Before I could step away, or even avert my eyes, the man performing on the other turned his head, as if somehow aware of my presence, and I stared into the face of Somers Ingram. He stopped, midmovement, the drumming from somewhere behind me seeming to grow in intensity, and the other person—I recognized him now as the young serving boy from the drawing room—also looked toward the door, and cried out in alarm. Mr. Ingram roughly pulled away from the boy, who rolled onto his side, grabbing his shirt and throwing it over his turban and face.

  It was too late to pretend I hadn’t seen them. “I’m so sorry for intruding,” I said, the words stilted, almost comical, in my own ears. What could possibly be said, given the situation? “I’m really terribly sorry. I . . . was lost,” I went on, feebly, and Mr. Ingram simply stared at me, not even attempting to cover himself, his arousal still obvious as he sat back on his heels.