sparse and dry, the whites of his eyes saffron-coloured, his lips and finger-tips a smoky purple. He was, at forty-eight years old, a very ugly old man; just as Linda Shelmadine, at thirty-three years of age, was a plain, prematurely aged woman. It was not admiration for one another’s physical attributes which made the link between them, it was something more subtle—the recognition of the other’s intelligence, and a shared measure of what Richard had called that ‘inquisitive puppy-nosing-into-everything’ quality.
Until the arrival of the Shelmadines in Kilapore, Surunda Ghotal had never seen a European woman, but he had heard about them from three independent sources. A member of his harem—and he had collected his women much as he had collected the items of his huge menagerie —had once, as a very sick child, been nursed by Portuguese nuns in a convent at Goa. To the best of her ability, years after, she had described them to her lord and master. Then, some years before the English East India Company had seen in Kilapore a possible field for exploitation, the French East India Company had sent one of its agents to spy out the land, just as lately Richard Shelmadine had been sent—and the Frenchman had shown Surunda Ghotal the little painted miniature of his mistress which he carried with him; and that woman had looked to be an entirely different breed of creature from the women whom the concubine described. Finally there was the evidence of his own eldest son, Jasma, whom he sent, in the year 1794, into Fort St George, to live incognito, with orders to get himself some job which would bring him into close contact with the English, and to learn the language. ‘Moved I more easily I would go myself,’ Surunda had said. ‘I observe that they move with the inevitability of the locust swarms, and in your time, if not in mine, they will arrive in Kilapore. It will then be to our advantage to know what is said, since it is evident from what has happened in other places that hired interpreters have a foot, as they have tongue, in either camp. You will live,’ said Surunda Ghotal, with his little
I
secret smile, ‘miserably, being unknown and in a state of servitude; therefore you will learn swiftly in order to escape. And you will then return and teach me.’
The scheme had worked well. Anxiety to return to Kilapore, combined with the Indian facility to acquire at least a superficial knowledge of any subject quickly, had soon put a term to Jasma’s exile. The long sessions during which he endeavoured to impart what he had learned to his father were agony to them both, since it was unnatural for a son to instruct his father, and impossible for him to correct him. Nevertheless, by the time Richard Shelmadine—entrusted with the task of negotiating with the Rajah solely on account of his knowledge of Hindustani—arrived in Kilapore, Surunda Ghotal had acquired enough English to make himself understood by Linda Shelmadine, and in the end was able to regard his efforts as well worth while. She never knew that his demand for her to visit him, his very courteous reception of her, had been prompted by sheer curiosity; and she never guessed that behind his good manners, on that first occasion, an enormous amazement lay hidden. Jasma, among a thousand other observations, had given his report of those few intrepid European women who had ventured out with their menfolk to Fort St George. He said that they feared the sun always, and frogs sometimes, but were otherwise extremely bold; they took no interest in their surroundings but lived like trapped birds in a cage, awaiting the day of release; and, like birds, had two voices—the loud one in which they gave orders, the soft one with which they addressed their mates. Surunda’s concubine from Goa had been impressed by, and anxious to emphasise, the complete sexlessness, the unselfishness, the otherworldliness and peculiar physical appearance of the Western women she knew, while the visiting Frenchman had, quite justly, emphasised precisely the opposite qualities in his particular specimen; so it was with the nearest thing to excitement possible to his sluggish nature that Surunda had heard of the arrival of an Englishwoman as far inland as Kilapore. At last his curiosity
was to be satisfied.
He was disappointed with her. She fitted in with none of the descriptions he had been given, nor did she immediately strike any impression of her own; just a female creature—not beautiful, not even peculiar. He would probably have dismissed her from his mind after the first ten minutes had Richard been in a better mood—or had she been more obedient to the orders Richard had given her before they set out.
‘God knows,’ Richard had said, ‘why he asked you to the palace at all. Damned insolence, no doubt. They never let their women show their faces outside their own quarters. And you’d better keep well in the background. Speak when you’re spoken to, not otherwise.’
He had judged it advisable to present himself in a state of complete sobriety, and the strain of that unaccustomed condition was showing before ever they set out. It grew fiercer with every minute of the long-drawn-out interview. For the first half-hour the Rajah asked all the questions, moving in circumambulatory fashion towards his real objective—the exact reason for Richard’s presence in Kilapore, the terms and conditions of the concessions the Company wished to acquire. Then, for twenty minutes, Richard, who knew what he was talking about, and was anxious to make a success of his mission, held the floor, while the Rajah seemed to pay slight attention and in the end said, ‘There would be much to think; sixty days of think in this head, in heads of old wise men to advise.’
It was then at the beginning of the season of greatest heat and the prospect of spending two months far inland did nothing to calm Richard’s nerves, which were screaming for the brandy oblivion they had been denied all day. He had said what was required of him, and said it well; let him now be dismissed.
‘Now you shall tell me much thing,’ Surunda Ghotal said, and proceeded to ask all the questions; stupid little questions which his curiosity dictated and which were, to his mind, of much more urgent moment than the ones he
had asked earlier about the East India Company and its advances to him. Any man but Richard Shelmadine would have realised instantly that here, by a stroke of good luck, was handed to him the key to Surunda’s interest and friendship at least, but the arrogant perverse devil who ruled Richard was bored, impatient and affronted. There were things which a gentleman down on his luck must do, just to keep bread in his mouth and a roof over his head, but Richard Shelmadine had fulfilled his obligations when he had made his twenty-minute speech—in this fat old heathen’s own language, which was more than most men could do. His answers grew shorter and brusquer; he said ‘I don’t know’ or ‘It would be impossible to explain’ so often that Linda blushed with embarrassment and began first to supplement Richard’s grudging answers and then to take upon herself the responsibility of making the first response to the endless questions. The Rajah seemed surprised, even a trifle ill at ease for a moment and Richard turned upon her his nastiest, most mocking grin. When the moment had passed Surunda focused his whole attention upon her, and during the next half-hour she did her best to give him whatever he wanted—a description of Windsor Castle; an explanation of what was a newspaper and how it circulated; a dissertation upon the jury system. Jasma had brought back with him from Fort St George two or three copies of The Times and The Spectator, all well over a year old by the time they reached Surunda’s hands, and they had been his English textbooks, which, as he had mastered the language in which they were written, had also provoked his curiosity by their references to strange things. It was wonderful to find that this Englishwoman, so dull to look at, so disappointing, was in reality the thing he had often wished for—someone better informed than Jasma and willing to answer questions.
He would gladly have talked to her for hours, but he was aware at last of the Englishman’s mounting impatience, so he said, ‘Many, many thing I have to ask. The Christianity, of that I would hear; as also of party politic
and of turnpike road. Sixty days will be time if you will be kind to tell me. One thing there is to ask now.’ Richard gave an audible sigh. ‘In your house there are servants?’ ‘Here in Kilapore, you mean, Your Highness?’ ‘In Kilapore, yes. Servants are obtain for you?’ ‘Yes. They were—I think—hired with the house.’ ‘That is not good. Tomorrow I shall send one to rule them. He is a man of … it is the knowing how to do … experience.’ He produced the word triumphantly. ‘One who went with my son to Fort St George and learned in the house of Mr Mackintosh. Very stern. He shall rule and none shall rob you.’