The Peacock Spring Page 6

  The day before, just before Edward left, she had asked again about the young man in the hut. ‘Who is it who lives down there at the end of the garden behind those flowers?’

  ‘Probably one of the malis, the gardeners,’ said Alix.

  ‘He’s the second mali,’ Edward had said. ‘I asked Chinaberry.’

  ‘Why does he live alone, not in the servants’ quarters?’ asked Una.

  ‘He’s a Brahmin,’ said Edward. ‘They don’t mingle.’

  ‘I thought Brahmins were priests, holy people.’

  ‘They are, but nowadays they have to be other things as well – politicians, lawyers, bankers, teachers.’

  ‘And gardeners.’

  ‘And gardeners, but they still keep their distance. Ganesh, our head gardener, has his own house in the bazaar. He has done well from the Americans and from the United Nations, has Ganesh. One day I will take you and Hal to visit his wife, if she will accept us.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’

  ‘We are untouchables, you know.’

  ‘Edward! What nonsense you tell the child.’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense. I want them to understand, Alix, get close to these people,’ but Edward had not known the second mali’s name.

  When Alix came back to the group under the trees, Snowball was quiet. ‘He just wants to see if you are firm with him,’ she told Hal.

  ‘Let her keep between you and me,’ said Captain Singh as Alix and Hal remounted.

  ‘You’re not coming with us?’

  ‘For a little,’ and, for the first time, he addressed Una. ‘If you have no objection, Miss Gwithiam.’

  ‘I?’ Una was startled. ‘Oh no – I mean, of course not.’

  ‘Don’t let Snowball dawdle or try any tricks.’ Alix was obviously not best pleased and, for once, spoke sharply to Hal. ‘Use your whip and your legs.’ Una rode apart – like a Brahmin, she thought, and smiled – but when they had ridden twice round, trotted, tried a slow canter, Alix asked, ‘Girls, would you mind if I let Maxim out? He needs a good gallop.’

  Sitting on their horses, Vikram, Una and Hal watched the flying orange-shirted figure scarcely moving in the saddle as the big horse thundered over the ground. ‘I had forgotten,’ said Vikram, ‘how stunning she is.’ His watching eyes were thoughtful – and determined, thought Una. ‘What a thousand shames,’ he went on, ‘she should have had to spend all those years with that fat slob Sethji.’

  ‘Seth …?’ Una had not caught the name.

  ‘Sethji. Chaman Lal Sethji. Sethji means “rich man”, and he is certainly that, but Miss Lamont did not get any riding with him, whatever else they say she did!’ He laughed and, He doesn’t realize how young we are, thought Una.

  ‘Why is he a slob?’ asked Hal. ‘What did he do to Alix?’

  ‘Hal, you’re not to ask questions.’ Una repressed her, then asked one herself. ‘Did you know Miss Lamont well?’ she asked.

  ‘In Calcutta and Delhi, everyone knows everyone.’ He seemed to have become aware he was talking to two young girls and, He is trying to pass it off, thought Una. ‘You mean “everyone who is anyone” in your world,’ she said and, for the first time, Captain Singh looked at her; perhaps he found her eyes shrewd because, with obviously more truth, he said, ‘Let us say I know of Miss Lamont.’

  Alix came trotting back to them, her cheeks glowing and, ‘If anyone ought to have a horse, it’s she,’ said Una.

  ‘Indeed yes. You should ask your father.’ Vikram slipped off the grey and went forward to help Alix dismount, but Una saw how skilfully she eluded his hand and, as if she had felt a warning, Una said, ‘Hal, you had better not ask Edward about the man Captain Singh called the fat slob.’

  Hal, though, had hardly taken in the name Chaman Lal Sethji. As the Captain and Alix/Miss Lamont came up leading their horses she asked, ‘Do you play polo, Captain Singh?’

  ‘Couldn’t you call me Vikram?’

  Hal dropped her lashes under his look – he has realized how pretty she is, thought Una – but it was no more than a fleeting glance; his eyes went straight back to Alix/Miss Lamont. As for Hal, it was clear she had never seen anyone in the least like this young prince before and, ‘Do you … Vikram?’ she murmured.

  ‘As a matter of fact I am playing this afternoon. Miss Lamont, why don’t you bring Miss Gwithiam and her sister?’

  ‘Una and Hal,’ murmured Hal.

  ‘No thank you, Vikram.’ Alix was crisp. ‘Come, girls, we must go home now. Good morning, Captain Singh.’ But Vikram did not go.

  ‘Miss Una, I appeal to you.’

  ‘Una is not interested in polo,’ said Alix.

  ‘But I am.’ A spice of devilment had seized Una. ‘I watched polo in Teheran and would love to see it again. Thank you, Vikram.’

  On the way home Alix was ominously silent until, ‘You did that,’ she said to Una, ‘because I asked you not to.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Una with a coolness she had not known she possessed. ‘I did it because we wanted to go. We’re not babies, Miss Lamont. If you don’t want us to do things you must give us a reason.’

  That seemed to drive Alix into a corner. ‘I can’t give you a reason.’

  ‘Then you can’t expect us to agree, can you?’

  ‘“Agree” is hardly the word to use between a governess and children.’

  Una shrugged.

  ‘Oh, don’t let’s spoil things,’ begged Hal, but already a kind of patball had begun between Una and Alix/Miss Lamont. No, patball is too direct, thought Una: it was more like two people playing at shuttlecock – and the feathers of a shuttlecock are sharp-edged.

  Alix, it seemed, kept house for Edward and, after breakfast, ‘I must see Christopher,’ she said. ‘Christopher and Dino and Ram Chand; give out stores, ask about flowers. Come and watch if you like.’ ‘Dino, Ram and Christopher have been butler, bearer and cook at Shiraz Road for years,’ Alix told Una and Hal. ‘They know far more about this house than I do,’ and she deferred to them, merely asking what they wanted from the store cupboards she unlocked.

  ‘Do you keep store cupboards locked?’ Una was shocked.

  ‘Always in India,’ said Alix. ‘Your servants would not respect you else. This big one holds UN’s stores for official entertaining. Sometimes there are business luncheons or dinners, mostly stag ones, then we shall have to keep out of the way. This small cupboard is private for Edward, his drinks and cigars and so on.’ Alix praised the vegetables, eggs, butter, meat and fish Christopher had bought fresh that morning; they were presented, invitingly arranged in a basket, for her to inspect. She praised last night’s dinner too, complimented Dino on the table, smelled Ganesh’s roses. Why then, Una wondered, was there such stoniness in Dino’s, Ram’s and Ganesh’s faces, such a surly look on Christopher’s?

  Alix ignored it. ‘Servants don’t matter,’ she said. Their mouths may be shut in front of us, was Una’s silent rejoinder, but they have eyes to see, ears to hear and minds of their own – as have I, thought Una.

  All the same, Alix’s presence in the house made it different from any she and Hal had known before. You sing about the house, thought Una, sing quite softly, I know, but the song has a lilt. You are a big woman but your step is quick and light, your hands deft and capable and your hair is so bright that, in the sun, it seems to be haloed. No wonder Edward likes to have you here – but Una snatched that thought back. Miss Lamont is here for us, not Edward – but was she?

  She watched Alix go through his ties, picking some out to be dry-cleaned, heard her scolding the washerman for a broken button on one of his shirts, then she sewed on another. ‘We didn’t think of touching his clothes,’ said Hal in wonder.

  ‘Well, it hardly came into your province, did it?’ asked Alix. Does it into yours? Una wanted to retort but, instead, ‘Edward likes to look after himself,’ she said.

  Alix calmly went on sewing. Then, ‘Don’t you think someone as burdened as Edward needs these little things done fo
r him?’ she asked. She looked up and must have caught the displeasure – or was it jealousy? – in Una’s eyes because, ‘Remember he doesn’t know I do this.’

  But he knows he is better looked after, more comfortable than he has ever been in his life. Una did not say it aloud but it was the unpalatable truth.

  They were to explore the Old City and, ‘Which shall it be?’ Alix asked them. ‘The Red Fort or the shops in the Chandni Chowk?’

  ‘The Chandni Chowk,’ said Hal, while Una said, ‘The Red Fort.’

  ‘Una is the eldest,’ Alix decided. ‘She shall have first choice,’ and, She’s placating me, thought Una. She doesn’t find me so easy, thought Una with pride. ‘Now you are here,’ said Alix with the same placation, ‘we must read some Indian history.’

  ‘Mrs Carrington gave me a book on Indian history as a parting present,’ said Una. She did not meant it snubbingly, but it sounded like a snub. ‘Then I am probably superfluous,’ said Alix.

  ‘Alas, no water runs in the channels now,’ said the student guide in the Red Fort. ‘The fountains do not play.’

  ‘The Moghul Emperors all made water gardens,’ said Una. ‘Babur, the first Emperor, even made the melon beds along the Jumna river.’ She was standing on one of the lawns of the Red Fort, looking at the shapes of fountains, domes and pillars against the blue Indian sky.

  ‘Here the Peacock Throne was kept … this roof used to be silver … look at this inlay in the marble.’ Una would have loved to linger, listening to the guide. One pavilion ceiling had inlays of morning-glory flowers in lapis lazuli; a panel had carnations in cornelian. Everywhere were carvings; the soft sandstone had even been cut into delicate trellis screens. She could almost smell the sandalwood, the attar of roses, and the sweat of bowmen, the stronger smell of horses, elephants, camels. Birds flew in and out of the buildings; some were ordinary birds but there were parakeets, as there were in the Shiraz Road garden, darting in their brilliance – and there ought to be peacocks, thought Una. Doves were cooing ‘as they must have done three centuries ago.’ Una scarcely knew she had spoken aloud but, ‘Miss Una doesn’t need a guide,’ teased Vikram.

  ‘I shall send you passes,’ he had said of the invitation to polo. ‘My sister, Sushila, will be there – she will like to meet you both. I will call her this morning.’

  ‘He has Americanisms as well as English,’ said Una when he had gone.

  ‘I don’t suppose he knows which is which,’ said Alix. ‘How could he? He hasn’t been out of India.’ She said it as if this gave her a secret satisfaction.

  ‘Not to school?’ asked Una. ‘I thought the young rajahs went to Eton or Harrow.’

  ‘Vikram went to Ajmer, the College of Princes.’

  ‘College of Princes!’ Hal’s eyes were starry but, remembering Edward and his passion for accuracy, Alix had to say, ‘They call it the Mayo College now.’

  ‘The Mayo College! Poor little prince!’ said Una, but Vikram did not look at all poor, either at polo – ‘He had at least four ponies,’ Hal was to tell Edward – nor when, in spite of Alix’s frown, he invited himself and Sushila back to Shiraz Road for tea. ‘I didn’t think you would be so easily impressed,’ Alix reproached Una.

  Sushila had come to them at the polo match and sat with them on the tiered benches. She was, Alix said, like her father, the Maharajah of Paralampur, thickset and heavy, with heavy spectacles. ‘I should have been the boy, Vik the girl,’ she said. ‘He is so very pretty,’ but Una found the little princess touching, far more likeable than her brother. They both spoke English without a trace of accent; true Indian, though, were Sushila’s nails with their brownish underskin, and she wore a small ruby stud in one nostril. Una forbore to mention it but Hal asked at once, ‘Did it hurt to put that ring in your nose?’

  ‘I was three months old,’ said Sushila, ‘so I don’t remember it,’ and Vikram taunted, ‘You haven’t even had your ears pierced, you backward girls!’

  ‘English girls of the upper classes do not have their ears pierced or wear earrings.’ Alix was lofty but, ‘Nonsense,’ said Una at once. ‘We shall have ours done tomorrow. Alix, will you take us to a jeweller’s?’

  ‘I will take you both,’ said Vikram and soon, ‘The Paralampurs seem to be with us every day,’ Alix complained.

  ‘We like them,’ said Hal.

  ‘Especially Vikram?’ suggested Una.

  ‘Of course.’

  All the same Una wished she could have come to the Red Fort with Edward, or alone.

  ‘This is the Emperor’s winter bath which took for each bath eight hundred pounds of wood to heat. The queen’s bath – see, the floor is inlaid with tiny fountains that jetted rose water.’

  ‘What are those niches for?’

  ‘Soap, I expect,’ said Alix.

  ‘Indeed, no, madam. Flowers were put there by day, mica lamps by night, so that the water flowed over colour …’

  To Alix, Vikram, Sushila and philistine Hal, the fort, for all its fame, was a place of old, dilapidated buildings and it was true the water channels and fountains were dry, the marble cracked, gold leaf peeling, paths littered with sweet papers and orange peel, pavilion floors stained red with betel-chewers’ spittle, ‘And those emperors and queens and people are all dead,’ said Hal, and yawned.

  ‘I like them better dead, particularly the lovers,’ but Una did not say it aloud; to her, if they were dead, their stories were safe: the Emperor Jehangir and his queen, Nur Jehan – Light of the World; Shah Jehan and his steadfast love for Mumtaz Mahal. One doesn’t think of an emperor being in love, thought Una, especially with other queens and hundreds of concubines in his harem – and Una thought of the queens in her chess set, the carved veils and roses in their hands; they too seemed steadfast.

  ‘Una’s in one of her trances,’ teased Hal.

  ‘She is entranced.’ The guide was delighted with his own cleverness, but Vikram laughed, Sushila and Hal giggled, and when, next day, Alix, hoping to please Una, said, ‘I thought we should all drive out with Chinaberry and see the Qut’b Minar,’ ‘I don’t want to come,’ said Una.

  ‘But Una, it’s fascinating.’

  ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘No-no, but it’s an architectural marvel, a tower of victory and there’s an iron pillar there; they say it might have been made for King Chandra Gupta in the fourth century.’ Evidently Alix had been reading the guidebooks.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Una. ‘You go with Hal. She’ll bear it if Vikram’s there. I will stay here in the garden.’

  A pause, then, ‘I’m sorry, Una, but you will have to come.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t leave you here alone.’

  ‘Alone? There are at least a dozen servants here.’

  ‘That’s partly why.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ said Una.

  ‘This is India. Other reasons apart, you are not accustomed to it; you don’t even speak the language; besides, I promised Edward,’ and, ‘Una, Una,’ pleaded Alix, ‘don’t be cross with me. I only do what I am told. You can argue it out with Edward when he gets back. Meanwhile—’

  ‘Meanwhile?’

  ‘Don’t spoil Hal’s time, our time. If you don’t want to go to the Qut’b Minar, let’s all go to the zoo and see the white tigers.’

  ‘White tigers?’ Hal, who had come in, caught the word.

  ‘Yes, these are animals you won’t see anywhere else.’

  ‘You will,’ said Una. ‘They have them in the Bristol Zoo in England,’ but as she said it she felt ashamed. It was hard, she acknowledged, that someone as beautiful and accommodating as Alix should have to pander to an ungracious schoolgirl.

  ‘You’re so horrid,’ said Hal, ‘you are lucky anyone should care about you,’ and Una agreed.

  Una had not expected flowers in a zoo but inside the gate was a great bank of verbena at least a hundred yards long; the zoo was set below Delhi’s Purana Kila, the older fort, and the gentle tints of its ancien
t stones set off the flowers, bougainvillaea and thousands of roses. In the long pools were swans, cranes and the coral-legged flamingoes, their feathers tinged with pink. ‘This is the most beautiful zoo I have ever seen,’ Una had to say.

  The tigers were ivory rather than white, ivory to cream; the stripes were sable, the ruffs white, white paws, the eyes jade-green, cold and cruel. The original pair were Rajah and Rani and there were some two-year-olds, a yearling and cubs, but the cages were pitifully cramped, the bambooed enclosures too small. Hal and Sushila laughed at the cubs’ antics; Una was wrenched with pity.

  ‘But you like them?’ Alix was anxious.

  ‘They are fabulous – like India; fabulosity itself!’

  ‘There isn’t such a word,’ Lady Srinevesan was to say. ‘But, Lady Srinevesan, there is,’ said Una. ‘I looked it up in the dictionary.’

  ‘You and your dictionaries!’ was Edward’s comment when he heard. ‘Here is a girl,’ he told an American delegate staying with them at Shiraz Road, ‘who would like the whole Oxford English Dictionary, all thirteen volumes of it, for her birthday.’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said Una.

  Lady Srinevesan had telephoned. ‘I want to give a little luncheon for Sir Edward’s girls.’

  ‘I won’t go,’ said Una.

  ‘But you must.’ Alix was shocked. ‘She’s a minister’s wife.’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t like her.’

  ‘You don’t know her,’ but Una had seen Lady Srinevesan – ‘and heard her,’ – at the Gymkhana Club.

  Vikram’s mother, Mrs Singh or Mrs Paralampur – ‘Or is she still called Maharani?’ – had asked Alix to bring Una and Hal there to play tennis with Sushila and some friends.

  ‘I thought clubs in India were British Raj,’ said Una.

  ‘Then Indians are more Raj than the British,’ said Alix. ‘The Gymkhana is a great meeting place on Sunday mornings.’ They had been asked for Sunday morning. ‘People go there to have coffee or drinks, play tennis, or listen to the band. In summer they swim and there is a stall where one can buy fresh vegetables and flowers.’

  ‘Can you?’