The Strangler Vine, page 16
‘I see.’
‘It is a charge that goes against all my training and instincts.’
‘It would be a most awkward position to find oneself in.’
‘This is in strictest confidence, Mr Hogwood. I have become quite anxious about Blake. I felt confident at first because, well, because he asked me to make my recovery as slow as possible, so as to give him more time here. I thought that must mean that he was investigating Mountstuart. But he seems to be entirely preoccupied by the Thugs. He disappears at all times of the day and night, and refuses to tell me anything. And he seems determined to enrage everyone. Feringhea mentioned a breaking machine. So Blake asked Mauwle about it.’
Hogwood grimaced. ‘How did Mauwle respond? It is the case that they are very sensitive about all that. Jubbulpore is not perfect. I know the Major can seem arrogant. When one is left to run things as he has been, so far from civilization, one comes to rely upon oneself and one’s own judgement. Also, the fight against Thuggee has been hard, the things we have seen, the way it has insinuated itself into our lives … but I swear, I’ve seen nothing that would lead me to believe a breaking machine exists, nor anything else of which the Major should be ashamed. And he has many fine qualities – great qualities, even – as I think you would agree.’
I nodded. ‘That is not all. A few days ago I discovered Blake had done something that truly alarms me. He seems to have broken into the prison.’
Hogwood looked at me in astonishment. ‘He what?’ He paused and rubbed his forehead. ‘Broke into the prison? How odd. I am sure that none of the prisoners has escaped.’
‘Apparently that was never his aim.’
‘I had considered Mr Blake an intelligent man, even if he is not one of us – a gentleman, I mean. You know, this all reminds me of Mountstuart’s visit.’
‘They knew each other, a long time ago. But I do not think they were friends.’
‘How can I advise you?’ he said, rubbing his head again. ‘I suppose you should tell the Major, but Mr Blake may end up in the lock-up, or worse. On the other hand, it does not seem that he has actually done any real harm, and your Colonel Buchanan evidently takes a rather cautious view of him. You are off tomorrow – you could say nothing. I wish the Major had spoken to you, but he was sorely provoked. If you warned him, at least he would be able to counter any wild accusations from Blake. In the meantime, I swear I shall not say anything of what you have told me.’
I thanked him, almost more confused than before.
‘Watch out for yourself, Avery. If you go to Doora. It is a dangerous place.’
I had not sat down at a dinner table with ladies since I had left Calcutta, and I had missed it. Just like her husband, Mrs Sleeman had a talent for order and organization. In the soft glazed light everything in the room seemed to glow or shine: the polished mahogany of the dinner table, the porcelain and silver, the crystal candlesticks, the light reflected off the long looking-glass – a little tarnished by the elements – the ladies’ pearls. Outside, the insects hurled themselves against the muslin stretched across the windows. There could not be, I thought, another room like this, such a grand but comfortable haven of familiarity and Englishness, for hundreds of miles in any direction.
There were twenty of us at the table: the Major and Mrs Sleeman, Hogwood, Pursloe, Mauwle, the doctor and various officers and engineers from the new cantonment and their wives, two district officers from south of Jubbulpore and two recently arrived planters and their wives.
No one had mentioned the hanging, and I realized, with some relief, that no one would.
‘I know it is usual now to serve many European courses,’ the Major was saying, ‘but I find such dishes very hard on the constitution. I cannot work on a diet of pudding and roast beef in thick English sauces. The native habit of eating little meat suits me. Amelie and our regular guests are kind enough to humour me, although Lieutenant Mauwle takes a rather different view of the subject.’
‘I do, sir,’ said Mauwle, lifting his glass to him.
Meanwhile, the planters’ ladies had primped themselves and gazed at Blake all evening, trying to gain his attention. I wished they would not, as he was in an unfriendly and uncompromising mood. He had slung himself along the back of his chair, his arms crossed, his chin pointing into his chest, and his expression did not suggest he welcomed questions.
‘There is a great mystery about you, Mr Blake,’ the slightly larger of the planters’ wives said, simpering a little. ‘Try as we might all night, we have not been able to discover what brings you to Jubbulpore.’
‘I cannot say, madam,’ Blake said. ‘Major Sleeman has expressly forbidden discussion of the matter.’
The lady persevered. ‘Oh!’ she said, and mouthed the word ‘Mountstuart?’, arching her eyebrows questioningly. Her husband coughed and nudged her, and several awkward conversations were suddenly struck up. The khitmatgur filled my glass with chilled claret. The second planter’s wife, sitting on my right, began to whisper loudly.
‘Is it true? Is it the poet that brings you here? We so wished to meet him, but we never had the opportunity. We are told he behaved very badly. But no one is to speak of it. You must tell me what you know. Has he disappeared? Do you think he was murdered by the natives? Or did away with himself in a fit of melancholy?’ She giggled. I raised my hand for another glass of claret and buried my face in it so I should not have to answer, until her husband shushed and frowned her into silence.
‘Lieutenant Avery,’ Mrs Sleeman broke in. She was perfectly dressed in white muslin with not a hair out of place. ‘I am sure you have many stories from Calcutta society. It is an age since we heard any of the gossip. Do tell us what they are talking of.’ The tone was charming but steely. I brought forth my Calcutta chatter, carefully skirting around the subject of Mountstuart’s book, and kept the planters’ wives entertained for some time. After several glasses of claret I could not exactly tell them apart, but they were determined to enjoy themselves and were very good-humoured, and that was a relief. Occasionally I looked over to see Pursloe, silent and mulish next to his aunt, who talked briskly across him. Eventually I exhausted my store of tales and we began to listen to the doctor, who was expatiating on the School of Industry.
‘It is not really a matter for the dinner table, I admit,’ he said, ‘but in my opinion the regime is far too liberal. To be honest this is the case at the prison too, where the vast majority of Thugs serve their sentences. The only real discomfort is that of breathing the noxious prison air, which is, admittedly, foul. Their hard labour is not hard enough.’
‘Is it not?’ said Blake.
‘Not in my opinion, sir. They are simply deprived of their liberty.’ These last words tumbled into silence: the rest of table had become quiet.
‘You are responsible for the health of the inmates, are you not, Doctor?’ Blake said. I had been praying that he would speak all evening, and now I longed for him to remain silent. ‘They die, I’m told, at a rate of two or three a week of dysentry and fever, and thus far not a single Thug sentenced even to the shortest seven-year stretch has lived to see release.’ The doctor looked furious.
‘I cannot but wonder where you came by such misinformation – and at your naivety, Mr Blake,’ the Major said. ‘The spread of disease is a problem for prisons everywhere, from Bombay to London, and I think you would find a gaol in a native state a great deal worse. You cannot lay the blame on our doctor. And you have seen how seriously we have addressed these things in the School of Industry.’
‘To which only a very small proportion of your prisoners are sent.’
‘Let us agree this is not an appropriate moment to discuss such matters,’ said the Major.
‘Oh, Mrs Sleeman,’ cried one of the planters’ wives. ‘Tell your husband not to cast us all as shrinking violets. We are starved of good and lively conversation and we are all fascinated by the Thugs.’
Mrs Sleeman laid a hand on her husband’s cuff.
‘Well, well,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘What I can say is that in our new School of Industry cleanliness and sanitation will be admirably maintained. And that we plan to counter the future threat of Thuggee by educating our Approvers’ sons to cultivate the virtues of benevolence and conscientiousness. We shall win them from the evils of Thuggee.’
‘But they will still be natives, untrustworthy, incessant liars,’ said one of the planters. There was a murmur of agreement.
‘I protest,’ said the Major. ‘One cannot generalize in such a way. It is true that many natives do not understand “truth” in the way that we do. The Thugs do lie incessantly – it has been a great problem in the Courts. But this is not simply because they have no moral understanding. Over the years at this table we have often debated the capacity of the natives, especially the poorer sort. Some believe that they are not capable of feeling in the same way that we do. I used to think this. I have learnt they are wary of us – I wish they were not. Their own native governments have mistreated them for generations, and we do not make sufficient effort to understand them. But we can win them to the light and drive out ignorance and superstition by showing them the benefits of civilization, by demonstrating we are worthy rulers. By – for example – making the roads safe for them to travel. What native princeling has done this?’
‘You are too soft-hearted, Major Sleeman,’ said the other planter.
‘Major Sleeman,’ said Blake, ‘is there not a contradiction between your conviction that the natives lie, and your reliance on the testimony of your Approvers?’
‘I do not see one.’
‘It is the case that the Company has done much more than any native prince to bring order and prosperity to this land,’ said the first planter.
‘Has it?’ Blake said.
‘Mr Blake,’ said Major Sleeman impatiently, ‘you must agree that the Company has brought great benefits to India. You who are familiar with so many of its languages, and have seen so much of it, know better than most what it has accomplished.’
The whole table turned to Blake, save me. I prayed for some blessed interruption: for the ceiling to fall down, for a large snake to enter at the window. I drank a long draught of claret.
‘At one time I would have agreed with you,’ said Blake quietly. ‘But I am no longer so sure. I have seen corruption and chaos in the native states, just as you have. I marched with the Company into Assam and Manipore, Bahalwapore and Mysore. But after more than sixteen years I cannot say that the natives’ lot is any better than it was before. Why should we be surprised? The Company came to India to profit from it. I appreciate, Major Sleeman, that your governance has brought peace to a region blighted by wars, but all around I see the natives poorer for the existence of the Company. And even here, the natives are anxious and angry.’
The table went deathly silent.
‘I would dispute your conclusions, Mr Blake,’ said the Major crisply. ‘After twenty years of peace, the ryots of this territory are far better off.’
‘Would they agree with you?’
‘Of course, they complain,’ the Major said. ‘But that is because they have forgotten what life was like under the Marathas. They say they cannot grow enough, and they say it is because they are encouraged to perjure themselves in our courts, or because of the eating of beef, or the prevalence of adultery or the impiety of the surveys we make of the local populations. The truth is over twenty years of peace their families have grown and they do not let the earth lie fallow.’
‘But I see something different: I see the Company demanding higher and higher rents,’ said Blake softly. ‘I see the old relations between landowner and peasant broken. The Company has turned the zamindars, the landowners, into its rent collectors. They extort money from the peasants however they can, no matter how bad the harvest has been. I see men arrive in Calcutta every day, driven off the land and starving, or indentured as all but slaves because they cannot pay their rents. They are forced to plant indigo and opium poppy when they should plant food. The Company extends its rule and the country becomes poorer.’
‘When you say “men”,’ one of the planters’ wives said, ‘do you mean natives?’
Blake stared at her.
‘You are a Jacobin, sir!’ said her husband.
‘You cannot truly believe that, Mr Blake?’ said Mr Hogwood.
‘Just now the Governor General’s party and an army of 10,000 are travelling north up the Grand Trunk Road into the famine areas north of Allahabad. What will that 10,000-strong column do, do you think? Bring bread and honey to the starving natives? Or pass through and onward like a plague of locusts?’
The company looked at Blake as if he were mad and dangerous. And I realized that he did not care at all. Across the table Hogwood caught my eye.
‘Mr Blake, you are jaded indeed,’ said the Major.
‘Maybe I have seen too much.’ He stood up. ‘Gentleman, ladies, I bid you good night.’
I stood too. I had to follow him. ‘Major Sleeman, Mrs Sleeman.’
But Blake had already taken off into the night. As I waited for my horse, I could hear the Major talking to his guests.
‘Of course, some of their superstitions are very picturesque,’ he was saying. ‘My dear Mauvli, who advises me on Mahommedan matters, tells me that lightning is a flaming arrow that Allah throws at his foes. Our local zamindar, the little Sarimant of Deori, of whom I am most fond – he is the most polished, graceful and elegant creature, all rose-coloured silk and azure satin – insisted when we had our influenza epidemic some years ago that we must get the local guroo to choose a couple of goats and to chase them out of town into the forest. Scape goats, you see.’
The company laughed, and part of me wished I was back in the dining-room, laughing too.
Our packs lay on the bungalow’s drawing-room floor – the sum of our meagre baggage. Blake sat on a chair, scribbling in a notebook. He had put off his European clothes and donned kurti and dhoti. He looked grizzled and creased, and the scar on his brow bulged a little more than usual. He looked, indeed, more like himself.
‘Was that necessary?’
Blake did not answer.
‘Why will you not talk to me? Have I not shown that I deserve it?’ I said. ‘Have I not reported everything I have seen and heard? Did I not discover what Mountstuart did here – though you show little enough interest in it?’
‘You did. And I’m grateful for it.’ He returned to his scribblings.
‘You enrage the Major, you insult his guests, you disappear for hours and say nothing. And for God’s sake, Blake, you broke into the damn prison! Just explain it to me. Just a few words and I would willingly accept it all.’
He did not even raise his head.
‘Do you truly not care how these people regard you? What is it that you so dislike about Jubbulpore?’
‘Everything.’
I went to bed. I rose at first light and walked out of the bungalow. Outside the gates two natives stood guard. I told them to take me to the Thuggee bureau.
Part Three
Chapter Ten
The road to Doora followed the meanderings of the Son River. On its far side we could see verdant rice and millet fields, bounded at their lower ends with mounds of earth to hold the rainwater after the monsoons. Beyond them the rocky sides of the Kaimur hills stretched north. Tributaries splashed down the rock into small waterfalls and rushing streams. My arm was healing well enough, though hours of riding made it ache.
Blake and I barely spoke. With the native robes had returned the old coarse manners – the unshavenness and the taciturnity – and I was not inclined to press my company upon him. For myself, I was in a state of gloomy brooding, my head full of contradictions. Now we had left Jubbulpore, my recollections of it were less rosy, and I was surprised at the relief I now felt, but I feared there would be little for us in Doora. Blake’s silences exasperated me, but I worried over what I had said to Major Sleeman.
Mir Aziz reckoned it would take five days to reach Doora. On the first night when we pitched camp, he brought out his huqqa, lit it and said, ‘If Chote Sahib permits, I will teach him Hindoostanee. I am excellent moonshee.’ In truth, it was the last thing I wished to do, but it seemed churlish to refuse and I was touched by his kindness. And so, in front of Blake and Sameer, I was forced to expose my tiny reservoir of Hindoostanee words, the knowledge that Mir Aziz meant well fighting a rising testiness as Sameer laughed loudly at my ignorance and Blake barely seemed to notice. It was the same the following night, but after Mir Aziz pronounced the lesson at an end, I asked him if he would tell me his story, and he agreed. He had been born, he said, in the kingdom of Oudh and had left his village at sixteen to travel to Bengal with his two uncles to join the Company’s army. One uncle, he said, had been a jack-of-all-trades, a hakim, a healer of sorts, a writer of akhbars, and a sometime moonshee and teacher of languages. He had taught Mir Aziz to write and some knowledge of figures.
Before he came to Bengal, Mir Aziz said, he had never seen a white man.
‘I wished to take service with the Bahadur Company, but I was most frightened. We had heard the sahibs were born from an egg and were terrible giants who stood many gaz high. The European ladies were said to be fairies or, if old and ugly, witches who would cast spells upon us.’
‘Were you disappointed when you saw them?’
‘A little disappointed, Chote Sahib. The first sahib I saw was very young and soft-faced, like a woman. No whiskers. A young officer with a skin the colour of milk, short of stature. He is not filling me with fear. Among us, a warrior must have a beard. But he could speak my tongue and he could write a page faster than I could mix the ink, and his house was four times bigger than that belonging to the headman of my village. His eye was sharp like a hawk. And he gave me this,’ and he pointed to his tulwar with its handsome leather and silver scabbard.
