by Rumer Godden
‘Are you going to sleep again! Kya wabal ē jān – pest of my life,’ scolded Ravi. ‘Don’t you know you are a dead weight on my arm?’
‘Then don’t hold me.’
‘I have to hold you. The door isn’t safe.’ It was not safe. When the lorry had stopped and Ravi took his arm away, Una had tumbled out into a puddle. Of what? She could not see, but she could smell cess on her clothes.
‘We must stop and buy me a sari,’ but they were engulfed in people – men, and children. One moment Una was against a man’s hot burliness, against his spotless muslin shirt; the next, against the nakedness of a holy man; the ashes with which he had smeared himself rubbed off on her. She knocked against women: some execrated her; some pushed her on with a pat and a smile. Once she was against a baby and could feel its tiny helplessness between her and its mother. ‘Careful, Ravi, or I might crush it.’
‘Don’t talk English to me.’
‘But what is this?’
‘A procession.’
‘For Baisakhi?’
‘I don’t know. There are always processions in Varanasi. Fortunately it is going the other way.’
Una could see a banner, lettered and hung with marigolds; something was being carried: a corpse? a bridegroom? a god? Around it, people were chanting, beating on miniature cymbals.
‘Ravi.’
‘Hsst. A Hindu wife would not say my name.’
An old man pushed a bicycle over Una’s toes; strapped on to its handlebars were an iguana and a huge adjutant stork, both limp and dead. ‘Do they eat those?’
‘For God’s sake, stop asking questions.’ Una was banged, pushed, flung sideways, as Ravi pulled her through the crowd; a hand snatched at her bundle and clawed her as she tugged it back. Beggars followed the procession; a man, his leg withered, hopped with a stick; a malformed boy with a lolling head, was dragged in a home-made cart and a crone who whined seemed to fix her sightless eyes on Una, but, ‘Agē chelo!’ shouted Ravi. ‘Jao. Hāt jao – get away.’ He dragged Una into a wide alley; at the far end of its lane she could see a glint of silver – a river. The River Ganges, thought Una.
‘Who were all those people?’ Ravi had stopped for breath.
‘I told you I don’t know. A funeral perhaps.’
‘A funeral? They were singing, playing cymbals. I thought funerals were sad.’
‘Preconceived notion, but maybe it was a bridegroom procession – but probably pilgrims.’
‘Pilgrims! But I thought pilgrims were – reverent?’
‘Can you not be reverent and enjoy yourself?’ Ravi was still out of temper. ‘I told you – a holy day is a holiday.’ Remembering the dead iguana, the filth from the puddle, the clawing at her bundle, Una shuddered and, ‘I thought you loved India,’ said Ravi.
‘I do.’
‘Until your fastidious little nose is rubbed in her. I tell you, in the morning those same people will go at dawn to pray, to wash in the river ritually, immerse themselves, which is more than you will do, you hypocrite.’ How could Ravi, even in his fatigue and dirt, be so unkind? Una’s prickly heat spots seemed to be in her throat and eyes now, only they were prickly tears. She turned from Ravi and ran.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Where you said I wouldn’t go. To wash in the river.’
‘Una – come back. We are at my grandmother’s …’
‘In the river …’
‘Una, don’t be a fool.’
Her voice floated back to him: ‘Bring me a clean sari.’
‘You can bathe in the house,’ but she was already at the river steps.
It was a private ghat lit by one small flickering light: its steps of worn stone led deep into the water. There was no one else there and, dropping her veil and chappals on the steps, Una stepped down them until she was breast high and took off her bodice to let coolness flow round her. She could feel the current eddying; it must have been strong further out; even here it lifted her skirt so that it spread in a circle on the water – which was probably filthy – and she thought of babies’ dead bodies, ashes, and the bones Hindus called ‘the flowers’ and which the priests throw into the river; but nothing, at that moment, Una thought, was more filthy than she. Something sinuous caught round her waist, making her gasp, but it was soft and light, only a soaked garland of marigolds. The current took it away as the river took everything – no wonder it was sacred. Ganga mai – Mother Ganges: mother of rivers everywhere – cleansing, purifying.
The fun and excitement, the tiredness, sickness, aching, hunger and thirst, were running from Una like the water and she had a longing to let herself slip away too, calmly into this calm. It would save so much trouble. Why did she suddenly think of that? ‘Let go … Let everything go.’ It was as if her own voice commanded her, but Ravi spoke from above on the ghat. ‘You look like a water lily,’ said Ravi and indeed she glimmered white in the round leaf of her skirt.
‘Come,’ and now Ravi’s voice was soothing and kind. ‘I have been to the shops and bought you a clean sari. Come – my grandmother is waiting.’
Grandmother … Ganga mai … what did it matter?
In the clean sari, her hair blown in the river breeze – she had undone the strange plait – and hand in hand with Ravi, Una walked back up the alleyway until they came to a door, narrow, studded with nails and set in a high mud wall. Someone was watching for them because it opened and Ravi drew Una through. ‘Safe!’ he said in exaltation. ‘We are safe!’
Just after two o’clock the next afternoon, starting on his way back to Delhi, Ravi, as he stepped jubilantly through that door, came face to face with Edward.
Ten
‘Lady Gwithiam!’
Alix had come up the steps between the salaaming servants while Ganesh presented his celebration buttonholes: a red rose for Edward, white for Alix. ‘Salaam.’ ‘Salaam.’ They would not have done that for her yesterday. The hall was filled with amaryllis, white-belled lilies and, looking down the vista of the drawing room, Alix could see vases of them mixed with tall white larkspur; there were bowls, too, of white roses so that the whole house looked bridal. ‘Ganesh always knows which side his bread is buttered,’ Ravi would have said, but Alix drew a long breath of satisfaction and triumph as, with her hand on Edward’s arm, she turned, not towards the schoolroom wing down the verandah, but to what, in her mind, she called ‘the master bedroom’, where Monbad had already carried her cases.
The night in the guest house was over; she had sat patiently all evening with Edward watching the birds fly in from the Jumna river to the shallow lake – cranes, huge-winged, their long necks and legs stretched out; pelican; duck; while an adjutant stork waded in the water near them, steadily fishing. There was the call of the cock partridge Una had heard in the parade-ground rides, ‘pateela, pateela’; the honking of geese, and the sound of their wings as they took off from the water towards the fields where the wheat was being harvested. As the sun had sunk, the jheel water turned silver-grey so that the white birds showed ‘like pearls,’ said Edward.
Alix had made their dinner into ‘a feast for just us two,’ said Edward. She had brought his favourite champagne, Ruinart Reserve from Paris, ‘And I’m afraid we drank too much,’ said Alix.
‘Never mind. Never mind anything,’ Edward said and, in the morning, he had taken her face in his hands and reverently, yes, reverently, kissed her forehead, eyelids, lips and, for the first time, his love words were English. ‘Thank you, my darling and my glory.’
I have won, thought Alix in the hall. The scent of the lilies was ‘A bit overpowering?’ suggested Edward – but for her they were a waft of incense; she, the girl without a chance, half-caste – ‘Out-caste,’ she had said in bitter moments – condemned to be a housekeeper, governess and what Chaman Lal Sethji had called her, thief and whore. That was yesterday, all the days before yesterday – today was Baisakhi, a new beginning, and she was Lady Gwithiam. Alix lifted her chin a little higher, her hand clasped Edward’s
arm more firmly. She had won.
It was then that they heard the voices: one, loud, jolly, unmistakable, that Alix knew only too well – a chill went through her as if the sun had suddenly gone in. ‘Lady-sahib’s father and mother in the drawing room.’ Ram Chand said it in happy malice.
‘Father?’ stammered Alix. ‘I haven’t a father.’
‘It seems that you have now.’
Two corpulent figures as oversize as the amaryllis lilies were coming from the drawing room and, ‘Mumma!’ cried Alix, ‘Mumma! Mr Lobo!’ and then, ‘Typical of Alix,’ as Edward said afterwards, ‘My God, Mumma, where did you get those clothes?’
Gone was the dressing-up-box gown, the silk straw hat and boa that Hal had envied. Mrs Lamont was a vision in purple and orange – ‘You see, I too can wear trouser suit,’ – but hers might have been made to fit the whale Una had invented. She wore white sandals, the ruby polish on her toenails flashed, as did the plastic shine of her gargantuan white handbag. Mr Lobo was equally new and resplendent, but where his starched drill suit would not meet he had redeemed it by an indigo blue shirt vest. From his fingers dangled a small white-wrapped parcel. Cakes or sweets, Alix was sure. He bowed profoundly to Edward and Alix but Mrs Lamont advanced with outstretched arms. ‘Yes, here we are,’ she cried in ringing tones. ‘We have come to wish you. What a surprise, m’n? And you thinking I am in Naini Tal. Ha! Ha!’ When Mrs Lamont laughed it was truthfully like the shaking of a vast jelly – if jellies are ever bright purple. ‘A jolly jelly,’ whispered Edward to Alix who saw, with the same astonishment she had felt with Una and Hal, that Edward was not repelled but amused – and kind, as if he found her mother endearing. ‘My dear girl,’ he was to tell her, ‘do you think I hadn’t guessed that somewhere in the background you had relatives like these? I wasn’t born quite yesterday, and your mother is so natural,’ and Alix watched with a pang of envy as he allowed himself to be engulfed, pressed to the softness of Mrs Lamont’s bosom. Softness he could endure but strong scent and cheap face powder mixed with sweat was too much; Edward extricated himself as quickly as he could and emerged to shake hands with Mr Lobo, while Mrs Lamont embraced Alix.
‘Come, Ally, let me look at you. Ah! You have taken care of her, Sir Edward, and she really is Lady Gwithiam.’ Mrs Lamont wiped tears, tears of joy, she explained, that were making the same runnels in her powder as those tears of shame shed the last time she was in Shiraz Road. ‘Lady Gwithiam – we read it in the papers. My daughter’s wedding in the newspapers! They say it will be in the London Times. My little Ally – Lady Gwithiam. You could not be born as beautiful as you are for nothing, m’n?’
‘Mumma, please.’
‘Look at her, Basil, look!’ cried Mrs Lamont to Mr Lobo. ‘He has always seen what I see, believed what I believed,’ she explained to Edward. ‘Ah, Sir Edward – no, I must call you Eddie – if you knew how this brave girl has plotted and planned and toiled for this.’
‘Mumma!’ Alix was as shrill as her mother and, ‘Hush, Alix,’ said Edward. His hand came under her elbow. ‘Forgive our surprise but you see, Mrs Lamont, I thought you were happily settled in this home at Naini Tal.’
‘I wasn’t happy and it wasn’t a home.’ Mrs Lamont said it roundly. ‘Nor was I settled.’ She shook with mirth again, then she did not laugh. ‘Ally, my Ally thought she could put her mother in a home, out of the way with nuns.’ Mrs Lamont had acquired dignity. ‘I think you, Eddie, would not have done that.’
‘No, I would not have done that,’ and Alix knew he had ceased to be amused.
‘This gentleman, Mr Lobo, I have known for a long time. Ally too, though she does not choose to allow him.’ Mrs Lamont’s voice trembled a little. ‘He it was who used his savings and came to Naini Tal and took me, but do not think it was to trouble you. No, we shall not trouble Lady Gwithiam.’ Mrs Lamont’s chin lifted exactly as Alix’s lifted in moments of pride – or pain. ‘You are not the only ones to get married, m’n? This afternoon Father Gonsalves will marry Basil and me. We are going to live in McCluskiegung; that is an Eurasian settlement – this, of course, if you can lend us a little money to buy a bungalow. We invite you to our wedding – though you did not invite us to yours. In any case we have come by to wish you, and Basil has brought you some cakes.’ Mrs Lamont’s eyes were so brimming with tears that they looked like drenched pansies. ‘Do you not kiss me, Ally?’
‘Kiss her at once,’ Edward hissed at Alix, propelled her forward and said aloud, ‘I will too, if I may.’
‘Ah Edward! Edward! Yes, Eddie I shall call you.’ Once again he was submerged and Mrs Lamont was radiant. ‘We mustn’t be cross, m’n? So many, many times I have forgiven Ally and what is more? Come, Basil. You must kiss the bride. Now, why don’t we,’ she demanded, ‘have a nice wedding drink?’
‘A good idea,’ said Edward.
‘Then perhaps you will give us tiffin and we shall all go on to the church.’
‘Mumma, Edward has important work he must do.’
‘Nonsense. They must stay for – tiffin.’ Edward was stern with Alix. ‘Go and see what Christopher can conjure up. Tell Aziz to bring drinks.’
‘That is my generous boy. Did I not tell you?’ Mrs Lamont asked of Mr Lobo. ‘Largesse. Largesse. Did you see the ring he has given Alix. My God, what a ring! Eddie is noble and generous. Can I forget,’ she asked, ‘how ever since Ally has worked for you, week in, week out, you have sent me that whisky?’
‘Mumma! Be quiet Edward does not like such things mentioned.’
‘I shall not mention, I shall tell. Ally said not to thank you. Your right hand was not to know what your left hand did. Ha! ha! But I know and now it need not be secret, m’n?’
‘But – have I sent you whisky?’ asked Edward.
‘Who else? Each time Ally came to me she brought it – and none of your cheap Indian brands, the very best Scotch. Come – I must kiss you again.’
‘Scotch!’ Round the edge of the purple hat brim Edward looked at Alix standing – pilloried, she could have said – in the doorway.
‘I am a bad old woman, Eddie – I love my drink and you did not stint. My God, bottle after a bottle.’
‘Perhaps a dozen?’ His eyes, grey-green like Una’s, were cold.
‘At least a dozen. More.’ Mrs Lamont chortled. ‘God bless you, Eddie.’
‘You must excuse me, Mrs Lamont.’ Edward disengaged himself. ‘Alix is right. I have some work to do. She will give you luncheon and I hope it is a good one. My felicitations – on your daughter.’ Alix heard the irony in his voice. ‘Goodbye.’ He took her mother’s hand and kissed it, ‘and I hope you will be happy – you, too, Lobo. I will see about the bungalow. Goodbye.’ He passed Alix without a word.
‘Edward.’ She ran after him.
‘I will see you this evening.’
‘But … you must have something to eat.’
‘I don’t feel like eating.’
‘Edward.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Isn’t there … anything you can say to me?’
His hand removed hers. ‘Only that I thank God Una wasn’t there to hear.’ ‘She knows,’ – but Alix did not tell him that; at this moment, to Alix, Una was less important than a fly.
‘Where is Una?’
‘She must be still at Bulbul’s. She will ring. Edward, try to understand,’ and, at Alix’s anguished face, there was a shade of relenting.
‘Perhaps – presently – I can bring myself …’ He had to force the words out. ‘But to think you let a servant – let Dino …’ His own face contorted. With an effort he said, ‘Give them some food – and money. That’s chiefly what they came for. I will send Chinaberry back from the office with some cash. Then he can drive you to this – this ceremony and to catch the train to McCluskiegung.’
‘I should rather drive them myself.’
‘You are not to drive while you are in this state.’ Then he does still care a little. Hope came into Alix’s eyes, but went out as he said, ‘Do you think by
now Chinaberry doesn’t know?’
Alix’s shamed head sank lower as Edward stopped, hesitated and, as if he could not bear any more to be close to her, ran down the steps.
‘You must have a bath and change, wash your hair. Wash away all traces of Mumma’s abominable scent.’ Since Edward left her Alix had found it necessary to order herself like this. As soon as she had come in from the exhausting shameful afternoon she had flung drawing-room and dining-room windows and doors wide to let the smell drift out. ‘If you put on one of your new dresses – no, perhaps the mulberry one he loves – do your hair simply, be quiet, perhaps play to him …’ surely, surely Edward would forgive her, understand, see how circumstances had forced … ‘He must see, at least, I am a conscientious daughter, even if, at times, a cruel one.’ That came like an unwelcome echo. ‘I only did it to spare him,’ – ‘snare him,’ came the echo. Alix went quickly into the bathroom.
She came out on their bedroom balcony to dry her hair in the sun, brushing its length over the rail then tossing the brightness back. Its fall, the glorious colour and sheen, reassured her. Alix never went to a hairdresser and had her own scent, subtle, ‘so unlike poor Mumma’s.’ If Edward came in now how could he resist her? For the first time since they had heard Mrs Lamont’s voice, Alix smiled.
She became aware that there was an emptiness in the garden. It must be five o’clock. Through the open drawing-room door, she could see Aziz arranging the tea tray. This was garden-watering time and she called to Aziz in Hindi, ‘Where are the malis?’
‘Ganesh doing fresh flowers for dining table. Chota mali has gone to his village.’
Alix almost vented her pent-up temper. ‘How was he granted leave when we were not here?’
‘It was for his uncle’s funeral rites. There was no son.’
Alix, as well as Aziz, knew this was an incontestable reason. Then it struck her that the house was empty as well. Was Una not back?
