Her mistress let out a piercing scream as the dog threw itself into the air with a yelp of fear.
The poodle fell like a stone. At first sinking from sight, then emerging from the muddy sea where a little wet head could be seen swimming in useless circles just out of reach of the boats. Some of the Indians laughed.
Their lives were too harsh to care about the fate of one small dog, though the shrewd amongst them saw it as an opportunity sent from the Gods.
Sara watched transfixed as one old man stood with shaky determination in the prow of his boat, letting go of his hold on the side. He was a tragic knight, his armour a useless rag serving as a kind of cloak knotted around his painfully thin body and his weapon a gnarled walking stick. Sara cried out in a whisper, “Don’t! Please don’t!”
He was too old to be out competing with the younger men. He should have been resting under the shade of a tamarind tree, smoking a cheroot and enjoying the last years of his life in peace and tranquillity. But, with desperation driving him, fate had decreed otherwise.
His smile was of an unusual sweetness as he reached out towards the dog, murmuring words of comfort and encouragement.
But there lay his mistake; by now, the others had realised the value in saving the dog and all rushed at once to get to the prize first. A sudden lurch of the boat and the old man fell like a shot bird over the side, his ragged cloak black against the sky, barely making a splash. He recovered quickly and swam towards the dog, his arms stiff awkward paddles. There was a hideous battle, an almost comic game of catch-me-if you-can, as the dog seemed to almost deliberately swim further out of his reach.
“Mother! Do something! Poor Fanny!” Cynthia covered her eyes and fell back in a faint.
Lady Palmer called out the price of the dog’s life, and there was a sudden desperate jockeying to reach the dog first, and the old man was forgotten in the rush. An untimely swell from one of the larger boats drove him further away and he called out, a weak and almost apologetic cry. A couple of boats halted, looking first at the old man and then at the dog, but the prize made the decision an easy one.
The old man made a last feeble attempt to save himself, a hollow snatching at thin air, then there was a sudden jerk of his head as though something unseen was pulling at him from underneath the waves.
The thick water rose in a swell and he rolled with it. His face appeared for a moment, and Sara caught the full impact of the certainty of his own death.
Her scream seemed to recall him to life, and he struggled for breath with the last of his strength.
For a transient moment they made eye contact and in his look was a pleading that cut through to her soul. She leaned out towards him as far as she could, stretching out her fingers in a futile attempt to reach him, her eyes fixed on his.
“Try! You must try!” His eyes widened for a brief moment, then flickered and closed, as though resigned to his fate.
A cry, more like a sigh, rang out. “Prema!” Then, with a final thrashing on the surface, he sank under the yellow water.
There was a flurry of panic on deck as the captain ordered a lifebuoy to be thrown. It hit the water near where he’d disappeared, but the old man did not surface again.
The crowd rushed to the side of the ship, peering down into the old man’s tomb, some of them trying not to show how they were enjoying the drama and congratulating themselves on their good fortune to be alive while the old man was with his Gods.
Surely, Sara thought, suddenly hopeful, it’s a trick … The old man’s a fakir and any moment he’ll rise up and the crowd will reward him with a few coins. But he didn’t appear; his life was over in a terrible paltry moment.
The trip to the shore was made in an uneasy silence. The dog was back in her mistress’s arms, unaware of the catastrophe it had caused. Cynthia, though, was a little shaken out of her usual self-control.
“The silly old man …” Cynthia straightened the dog’s wet pink ribbon “… I do feel sorry for him, but what could he have been thinking of? And now he’s paid the price of his foolishness.”
Her mother sat close, patting her daughter’s arm with clumsy affection and murmuring, “My poor child, how dreadful it might have been.”
“It’s all right, Mother. Don’t fuss! It turned out all right after all. Fanny is safe, aren’t you, darling …” she cooed as she wrapped the wet squirming dog more tightly in her pink cashmere shawl.
“It didn’t turn out so well for the poor old man!” Sara spat the words with a bitterness she couldn’t hide. She couldn’t help it, even though she knew the words were the first nails in the coffin that sealed her social fate. Both women turned to her with unmistakable dislike—she had shown her true colours and they’d never forgive her.
She turned away, pressing her palms into her aching eyes, trying to drive the image of the old man’s last moments out of her mind.
“What was he trying to say to me? Prema? What could it mean?” Malika would have called it a bad omen and rushed to place an offering at the temple to ward off further bad luck, but she, as a civilised English woman, could only try to crush the horror of the event she knew would haunt her forever.
News of the disaster had reached the shore, though there were no obvious signs of grief from the crowd, only an air of quiet resignation. From some quarters there was almost an air of gaiety, as though the old man’s death, not necessarily a misfortune for him if he had lived his life well, had spelt good fortune for someone else.
The sharp-eyed boatman who’d saved the dog kept a watchful eye on Lady Palmer, following close on her heels, accompanied by a group of his fellow boatmen who congratulated him on his good luck with open envy.
Lady Palmer kept her eyes averted, her hands clutching her purse with a tight grip despite the man’s pleas for his reward.
“All in good time, all in good time,” she murmured while the man followed behind, all the while grinning and nodding around at the crowd who’d gathered in increasing numbers, sensing a chance for the British ladies to appease the Gods by paying generous baksheesh. The people crushed closer, hands out, grasping and desperate, begging and pleading for coins, fighting each other in the scramble to be noticed.
“Memsahib! Dear and good memsahib! Baksheesh! Baksheesh!”
Sara bit her lip as she began to feel a rising panic.
“Perhaps, Lady Palmer, you could pay the man and the crowd would go away.”
“Well, I would if I had any money,” the woman snapped in return. “It’s just that I don’t have any on me at this particular moment. Indeed, I never carry it. Perhaps you could pay the fellow.”
“Me? I don’t have any money … at least no Indian money, only English pounds and I don’t think that would do.”
“Well, give the fellow what you have,” Lady Palmer replied, dismissing the matter and considering her part in the business now over.
Sara opened her purse and the man moved closer, his eyes fixed upon the contents. She held out a pound note and in an instant the man snatched it out of her hand and at first stared at it with disgust before throwing it down in the dust with a cry of anger. Then, in a flash, a gnarled brown hand darted out through the crowd of dusty bare feet, picked up the note, and someone more knowing quickly disappeared with it.
The boatman then turned all his attention to Sara. Lady Palmer had been forgotten. “Give me!”
Sara was angry now, and wondered how it came to be that she was bearing the brunt of Cynthia’s selfishness and her mother’s stupidity.
The crowd surrounding the besieged women stared with curious fixated eyes made wild with hunger. They crammed more tightly against each other in a tight rancid mass of unwashed bodies, allowing small ragged, almost naked children to scamper like mice over their heads, while the women stood clutching each other for protection in the ever-decreasing circle. The over-excited children, leaping in a grotesque dance on the heads and shoulders of the people, called out in halting English, “Give me money! I have no mother!
I have no father!” thrusting their fingers in open empty mouths, while dodging angry snatches at their hard, thin legs from the furious onlookers.
Sara felt a furtive hand touch her thigh, then, as though being assured she was real after all, felt it again, this time with an added hard pinch.
She let out a faint scream of fear as she felt something hard hit the brim of her hat. Her first thought was that they were trying to kill her, then she looked up, astonished to see a glittering shower of coins fly high over her head, followed quickly by another, then another.
The children let out animal-like cries and flew after the path of the coins, followed by most of the crowd and leaving Sara standing alone in a cleared space. Though a number of the onlookers were so overwhelmed by the unfolding scene they froze on the spot, then fell to prostrate themselves at the feet of the man who stood before them, his legs sturdily apart and his commanding arms crossed over his chest.
Chapter 3
It was clear the blood of two races flowed through his veins, uniting to produce a man of such dramatic appearance Sara found herself staring at him in awe. He had the air of a person who was used to attention, so much so that he’d mastered the art of appearing to be unaware of the impression he was making.
He was taller than the average native Indian, and of a bulkier build, being broad-shouldered and thickset. His heavy masculinity was an odd contrast to his clothing, as he wore an almost transparent muslin kurta, through which could easily be seen the powerful contours of his chest straining against the fine fabric where it met his folded arms. A long white muslin dhoti hemmed with a wide band of gold thread hung around his waist and down to the ground in the manner of a Brahmin priest.
Standing out amongst the almost black servants, the unusual pale gold of his skin revealed at least one of his parents had European blood, though his hair was as blue-black as a leopard’s pelt. He wore it combed straight back off his forehead, falling almost to his shoulders in the style of a Mogul prince.
His European ancestry showed too in the colour of his clear light grey eyes, making the irises appear more intensely dark and hypnotic. Though there was nothing dreamlike about his expression and, despite his prophet-like clothing, he glared out at the world with ferocity from under his black winged eyebrows, and an expression that seemed to say, I defy you all!
There was something there too in the corners of his full, sharply defined mouth that hinted at contempt, but at whom or what Sara couldn’t tell.
Lady Palmer sniffed and turned away in an elaborate display of disapproval, even placing herself between him and her daughter as though his presence alone could be contaminating. Her behaviour did not escape the stranger’s notice, though, instead of being shaken by her obvious dislike, he seemed to struggle to hide his laughter.
Sara gave a slight bow of her head in his direction, hoping to initiate an introduction, but Lady Palmer didn’t attempt to even acknowledge the man.
He took a step closer and bowed. When he finally spoke, it was with a heavy accent as though English was his second language, though there was no sing-song note to his voice as with other Indian people. He spoke French with the accent of a Parisian.
“Pardonnez moi, mesdames. I apologise for the crudeness of my tactics, but, as you see, it is effective.”
Lady Palmer turned her face away from him without a word, and Sara, feeling the shame that should’ve been Lady Palmer’s, thanked him again with genuine gratitude.
A group of women in saris of gorgeous colours and wearing huge gold nose rings sat clumped together nearby, giggling behind their hands and pointing at Sara, their heads swaying like snakes as they came together to whisper their secrets. Little snatches of remembered Hindi came back to her. They were saying something about her hair and wondering if she used henna. The stranger heard them too and glanced in Sara’s direction, his eyes focused on her hair. She flushed bright pink, without knowing why, and stared down at her feet, as was her habit as a child when she was in trouble. He sensed her discomfort and smiled to himself in an unpleasant way, as though wondering how he could exploit the situation.
He appeared to reject the thought at once, feeling it was beneath him, and he raised his eyes heavenwards, as though the whole episode was nothing more than an unpleasant interlude he must endure. Then he turned to face the crowd, his palms held outwards like a prophet. “What is the problem here?”
No one seemed willing to answer now they had the chance, and after an impatient few moments he chose a quiet old man with the face of a saint and commanded him to speak.
The stranger’s face changed with the telling of the events, first showing only a raised eyebrow at the fate of the drowned man, then a sharp exhale from his rather strongly shaped Gallic nose. A slow scornful smile spread over his face as his eyes flickered towards the group of British women.
Lady Palmer held her face averted while Cynthia stood aloof, an image of picturesque innocence as she held Fanny in her arms. Only Sara seemed connected to the scene, with her purse ajar and her face flushed with guilt, showing she’d been responsible for the entire debacle. By now the crowd had turned resentful and some even shouted angry words in the direction of Cynthia, who held her dog closer to her chest.
The stranger clapped his hands and everyone stopped at once. He’d heard enough and his patience was at an end. He snapped his fingers and a servant hurried to his side. In a second the boatman was paid his due, and hurried away.
Sara felt she must say something, even if the others wouldn’t. “I’m sure Lady Palmer would be happy to reimburse you the money if you would leave your name and address.”
“She knows who I am …” the man gave her a slow and almost unpleasant smile “… and where I live.” He then bowed in an almost military fashion, before turning away from her with a final blank stare.
Something in his manner drove her to make him notice her. Perhaps it was a desire not to be included with Lady Palmer and Cynthia in his obvious dislike, so she summoned all her powers to confront him.
“Well, I do not, sir.” She smiled, hoping to charm him a little. “May I have the pleasure of knowing who I am indebted to?”
He glared back at her, fixing her with his strange hypnotic eyes, and she wondered if perhaps he was a prince and she’d broken protocol by even speaking to him at all.
“My name is Sabran. Monsieur Ravi Sabran.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t a prince after all.
“And mademoiselle … will you allow me to know your name?” This time his voice was soft, almost a purr, but Sara had the distinct feeling he was being polite against his will.
“Not mademoiselle … I am …”
Before she could finish speaking, an old man rushed to his side and spoke excitedly in Tamil while pointing to the crowd.
“Excuse me, mademoiselle …” He raised a hand to stop her, and she glared; he was clearly not listening to her at all.
“This matter is not yet at an end. There is another act to this tragedy.”
As though on cue, a woman pushed her way through the remaining onlookers and stood before them, her chin raised in wild defiance, her hard eyes darting from left to right, appraising the scene before her. Her skin was almost black, with wild uncombed hair flaring around her sharp fox-like face. Though, unlike the other Indian women, she wore her faded and torn sari blouse with a flared embroidered skirt worn low enough on the hip to show a beautiful and sensuous midriff, causing a few of the men to stare at her with lustful looks, despite her fierce and forbidding appearance. Sara recalled the tales from her childhood with vague fear. The woman was a Tribal; like gypsies, they were rumoured to be child stealers. She balanced on her bare hip a tiny girl, no more than a year old and naked except for a cheap gilt bracelet around her wrist, showing someone had thought her worthy of adornment, even though the woman held the child carelessly and without love.
The child, though unaware of this last cruel blow of fate to her short life, seemed
to know she was the cause of all the commotion, and sat, her body limp and hopeless, on the woman’s hip, looking around at an unfriendly world, her huge kohl-rimmed eyes too frightened for tears.
The old man began to shout once more and pointed at the baby with his stick, while Sabran listened, his hand held high to prevent interruption from anyone else.
Then, after the speech had ended, he thanked the old man with more coins and after a brief, almost disrespectful bow, turned to Cynthia, who, outraged that he’d dared to speak to her at all, clung to her mother’s arm for protection and stared back at him with her most haughty glare.
“This baby is the dead man’s granddaughter and has no other family. This woman was minding the child. He promised her a few rupees when he returned …” He added, with scorn he didn’t bother to hide, “And as there is no doubt he will not return, she thinks you should pay her for her lost earnings.”
Cynthia pouted, not looking at him but at the air above his head. “You must know what thieves these people are … It’s probably her own child and she’s hoping to profit by it,” Cynthia replied before turning away, the matter at an end.
Only a faint twitching around his nostrils betrayed Sabran’s anger at the insult. At first it seemed as though he might say something in return, but then he smiled to himself, a smile slow and somewhat sinister, as though he was imagining what kind of revenge he might inflict later and at his leisure. Sara caught his look and shivered. She felt the danger in offending him, even if Cynthia didn’t.
The woman was persistent. She came closer, holding the baby up for all to see, then made a sudden snatch at Cynthia’s gown. “Baksheesh!”
It was as though a spider had crawled on her dress, and Cynthia leaped back a step, appalled at the woman’s touch. “No! No baksheesh … You don’t deserve it, go away. Go away at once!”
Sabran spoke to one of his servants, who immediately threw a handful of coins at the woman’s feet.
The Jasmine Wife Page 4
