Wives to Burn, page 7
Virginia waited near the door for a moment, gently clearing her throat at intervals. When nobody seemed to notice her presence, she ventured a few more steps into the room and said:
“I’m afraid I’m intruding.”
Shivaji Lal suddenly stopped waving his congress gaiters, slipped his feet into them, stood upright.
“Please come in,” he said.
Ahalya Bai Lal put down her flute, picked up a small box of Jaipur enamel beside her rocking chair, and came forward, her silver bangles jingling about her bare ankles. “Won’t you have some pan?” she offered. “I’ve just rolled it myself. The betel leaves are freshly picked.”
“Thank you,” said Virginia.
“What’s on your mind, Miss H?” Ganeshi Lal demanded. He continued to loll with important nonchalance in his leather chair, talking around the stem of his pipe.
Virginia wanted to say, You know what’s on my mind, because it’s on your mind and everybody’s mind. You were talking of it as I came in, I’m certain. She didn’t, however. Only yesterday these people had been her friends—queer friends, perhaps, but sincere, charming, who spoke her language and seemed to make sport of the old Kipling gap between East and West. Tonight they were strangers. Some barrier had arisen between them, as sudden and intangible as the formless mists which rose from the river at nightfall, obscuring, distorting, giving strange new shapes to familiar outlines. Something had happened which made her an alien in a hostile household. Little things which yesterday had been amusing peculiarities tonight assumed large and symbolic importance. The golden button which gleamed in the right wing of Ahalya Bai’s nose, the caste marks blazing on Shivaji Lal’s intelligent forehead, the red-rimmed teeth of the pan-chewer which showed when Ganeshi smiled—they were all big with outlandish meaning tonight. They were foreign, yet they were at the same time familiar, so that it was Virginia who was foreign, insignificant, the object of condescension. So she said meekly, foolishly, “It’s such a hot night, I’ve been out for a walk. I happened to be passing by…. Please don’t let me interrupt….”
The Brahman looked at her curiously. “We were engaged in a somewhat academic discussion of the deplorable decline of Shakkarpur since Kitchener removed the garrison away in 1906.”
“Since the collapse of the sugar market,” Ganeshi Lal corrected.
“Since chemical dyes have ruined our indigo plantations,” Ahalya Bai amended. “Industrial capitalism has killed Shakkarpur.”
“It’s too bad, really,” said Virginia in a monotone. And she was thinking, You’re lying, all of you. That’s not at all what you were talking about. How can any sensitive and intelligent person talk of anything else, when the sultry air is so full of impending trouble that you can already hear the mutter of the storm and smell the ozone of the approaching lightning! How can you talk of the Shakkarpur of 1906 when the Shakkarpur of today is a-tremble with the fanatical shouts of thousands of Moslem pilgrims, parading the image of Burak, the vehicle that carried Mohammed to heaven, spoiling for a fight with the thousands of Hindu pilgrims, come to do homage to Shiva! The slow progression of the calendars has brought Muharram and Shivarat together and there is hate in men’s hearts, instead of awe and reverence in their souls!
“You are not chewing your pan,” said the young Mrs. Lal. “You need not be afraid. I made it especially for you—without much lime. It will not make your teeth red.”
Virginia looked down at her hand which still held the pan—a small green cornucopia of a betel leaf neatly pinned with a clove. She had often indulged in this social digestive rite with her Hindu friends, and it had seemed as natural as an after-dinner cigarette. Now, however, she felt as though she could not possibly bear the taste of the areca nut inside the rolled leaf. She glanced at the Brahman again. His pale brown eyes were fixed upon her with a cold, piercing intensity she had never noticed before. She thought of hypnotists—Yoga—all the strange occult powers in which India was said to be steeped….
“Is he still there?” the Brahman asked.
“Who?” Virginia countered—although she knew very well without asking.
“The Sahib with the eyes of a rogue and the smile of a boy. Fred Oaks, of course.”
“No. He’s gone back to Seaside House.”
“Your brother is going to arrest him,” said the Brahman. “When? Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight,” Virginia blurted, before she had recovered from her surprise of the Brahman’s knowledge of what she had supposed was a secret.
“Tonight, eh?” Ganeshi Lal at last took the pipe from between his teeth, rose from his chair. “Then I’d better drop over and see him. He’ll be needing me. Pardon me while I get some papers together.”
The Brahman’s son slipped on his pongee jacket, buttoned it carefully, sauntered into the next room.
“I must be going, too,” Virginia said.
“Good night,” said Mrs. Lal.
“Salaam, Missy Sahib,” said the Brahman. Virginia thought she detected a trace of ironic condescension in his voice as he employed the respectful form of address used by Hindu servants in speaking to their European betters. He pressed the palm of his hands together in front of his face, in Indian-style greeting.
“Good night,” said Virginia. When she reached the street outside the house, she realized she was still holding the tiny cornucopia of pan in her hand. She flung it away, started walking.
Chapter Nine
An Unwilling Accomplice
Virginia did not know where she was going, but she felt an imperative need to walk, to breathe the night air, to think. She could not quite understand why she was so upset tonight—but she was. Her thoughts were in a turmoil. It could not be the prospect of Hindu-Moslem rioting, although she had a natural abhorrence of violence and bloodshed; she had gradually grown to feel an almost Oriental fatalism since she had been in India with her brother; and she had gone through the threat of similar disorders during the uprising of the Untouchables the year before with a sense of worry that was purely mental, with nothing of the emotional stress she now felt. It was not that she experienced any sense of personal danger. She knew that she would be the first to benefit by the limited police protection at the District Officer’s disposal. And it could not be that she was disturbed by what was happening to Fred Oaks, because she truly detested Fred Oaks. She hated everything about him, except, perhaps, his slow, disarming smile. Yes, and she hated his’ smile, too, because it was not really part of him, but something he wore like a flower in his buttonhole. Or was it that she hated herself for not hating his smile sufficiently? Whatever it was, for the first time since she had fled to the East, she wished fervently that she were back in England.
Virginia found herself walking in the direction of the sea. She passed in front of the Temple of Shiva, spent half an hour trying to lose herself in observing the noisy, wholesale rites going on in the square by the light of torches that flared yellow when ceremonial salt was thrown on them. When she grew ‘bored by the jostling hordes of pilgrims fighting for the privilege of having cow-dung ashes smeared on their foreheads by officiating Brahmans, she moved on. It was only when she reached the seashore that she remembered Fred Oaks’s admonition about not going home alone. At the seashore she saw Rhoda Curring.
Rhoda was hurrying along the beach, her copper hair flying in the wind. She was half running, half walking, between the high-tide mark and the wave line, where the sand was hard and her heels would not sink in. She passed within a few yards, so Virginia definitely recognized her. Then, in a few seconds, she was lost in the darkness.
The suddenness of the apparition and the recollection of what Fred Oaks had said earlier in the evening made Virginia’s heart skip a beat. There was nothing unusual in Rhoda’s walking along the beach, because she was headed in the direction of her own bungalow; but the sight of the sedentary, fastidious Rhoda running bareheaded through the night instead of lolling in a chaise longue with a cigarette in her mouth and a chota peg at her elbow, was indeed unusual. Virginia turned and started home immediately.
She was inside her own compound and was walking along the path past the badminton courts when a man stepped out from behind a jasmine bush directly in front of her. She stepped back in fright. Before she could scream, he had placed a large hand over her mouth. It was Fred Oaks.
“You, again!” she muttered through his fingers. “What—”
“You’re coming with me,” Fred Oaks declared. “I’ve got a job for you.”
Virginia resisted—but not for long. Fred had flung his right arm around her in a crushing grip, was leading her across the compound toward the lopsided one-roomed hut that served as headquarters for the watchman.
“Where are you going?” she gasped, when she decided that it was useless to dispute superior strength. “That’s the chokidar’s lodge.”
“It was,” Fred admitted. He said no more until he had pushed the girl into the hut and closed the door.
The, girl looked about her in panic. The watchman’s lantern was standing on the floor in a corner, still burning. The tiny room was foul with the hot smell of kerosene and the reek of rancid ghi. The watchman’s belongings, most of them, were still there—a cocoanut-shell hookah, a string-frame bed, some earthenware pots and brass utensils, a small stove that burned cow-dung cakes.
“Where’s the chokidar?” Virginia demanded.
“He’s left on an extended leave of absence.”
“Fred, what have you done to him?”
“Nothing.”
“The chokidar wouldn’t leave like this, without—”
“Wouldn’t he?” Fred grinned. “Two hundred rupees isn’t very many pounds or dollars—but it’s six months’ pay for the chokidar. He’s gone off to his village for a little holiday.”
“Fred, what—?”
“Listen to me. I’m going to stay in this lodge tonight, tomorrow and perhaps tomorrow night. I’ll be here at least until dark tomorrow, so I’ll need a few provisions. As soon as you can do it without being seen, I want you to bring me anything you can find in the kitchen—bread, some cold cuts perhaps, a chatti of water, a bottle of your brother’s best Scotch whisky if you can lay your hands on it surreptitiously.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind.”
“You’ll have to, Virginia. I’m in a jam.”
“It’s none of my doing.”
“But it’s going to be your undoing—unless you help me.”
“What rot!”
“Rot for you, maybe, but not for me. Fred Oaks has no intentions of rotting in jail.”
“I thought you had everything arranged with Ganeshi Lal—so they couldn’t hold you.”
“There’s been a slip-up. They want me for murder, now.”
“Murder? How ghastly! Who—?”
“A lady who arrived in Shakkarpur this evening: Lucy Steel.”
“You killed her, Fred?”
“No, but somebody did—in my room.”
Virginia’s lips moved, but she did not reply. She looked at Fred blankly, as if stunned. Then her long lashes fanned downward over her blue eyes and her young shoulders stiffened. She was making an obvious effort to summon all her dignity, to make her voice as impersonal as the official hauteur of her brother, as she said, “So you think I’m going to shield you, do you? You think I’m going to hide a—a fugitive from justice?”
“Certainly,” Fred replied.
“What’s to prevent my calling my brother? Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might very well pretend to do what you ask, and then simply turn you over to the police?”
“It has occurred to me. But you won’t do that.”
“And why not? Certainly not because you’ve squired me about Shakkarpur for the past month. Or because you’ve made a few cynical contributions to my work at the Clinic for Untouchables. I know you don’t care tuppence about helping the Untouchables—or anyone else, for that matter. You were simply amused because I was doing something my brother objected to, and you encouraged me merely because you thought the other people here would be shocked.”
“That’s right,” Fred chuckled.
“And you certainly aren’t presuming that I’ll shield you because—because I let you kiss me the other night!”
“Of course not. You weren’t really kissing me. You were showing gratitude to the map who promised to donate wheelchairs to Dr. Forsythe’s clinic.”
“Then what makes you think I’d raise one little finger to keep you from going to prison—if you belong there?”
“You can’t help yourself,” Fred grinned. “You’re an accomplice.”
“I’m nothing of the kind!”
“You’re an accomplice all right, even if you don’t know it. Those wheelchairs I ordered for you—for Dr. Forsythe’s clinic—they’re arriving tomorrow on the Mail from Madras.”
“Well?”
“Only they’re not wheelchairs. They’re rifles. And they’re addressed to you.”
Virginia blanched. She stepped back as though she had been struck. Her blue eyes blazed with reproach and anger, then grew soft and liquid with pain and disappointment. Her lip trembled. For an instant Fred was almost sorry for her. For an instant she was not a descendant of the Hattons who had built an empire, but only a little girl who had been hurt. Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she finally said:
“Why have you done this to me, Fred? Why have you—destroyed—” She stopped.
“Don’t say I’ve destroyed your faith. I’ve never given you any reason to have faith in me. I’ve told you frankly that I’m nothing but a scoundrel.”
“That’s just it! You have been so frank, so open, that I couldn’t believe you’re completely bad. I do like you, Fred. Or I did—until just now. But if you think that because you’ve involved me that you can force me to shield you—”
“I think it would be showing excellent judgment on your part.”
“You don’t know me, Fred.” The girl’s eyes flashed a challenge. Her chin tilted in what she meant to be defiance. It was not a convincing gesture. She herself must have felt it was not convincing, because she added boldly: “I’m not afraid—of you—of consequences—of anyone!”
“There are those rifles—addressed to you.”
“I’ll tell the truth about them!”
“Nobody will believe you, I’m afraid.” Fred sighed, but there was no sadness in it. “As you’ve just said, Virginia, you’ve been going around with me more than your brother approves of, and you’ve done a good many non-conformist things such as consorting with Hindus and other subject races, so that your fellow countrymen here will be only too glad to believe the worst of you.”
“You—you—!” The girl came at him, stammering, her fists clenched to stop the trembling of her hands.
“I’m sorry, Virginia, believe it or not,” Fred Oaks said, all the hard facetiousness gone out of his voice. “I’m sorry the way this has turned out. As I planned it, you wouldn’t even have known I was borrowing your name for my own sinister purposes. You would have signed an order for the transfer of the packing cases from the railway to the clinic. I would have looked after the transportation. Somewhere between the station and Dr. Forsythe’s, they would have disappeared. However, since this Miss Steel was inconsiderate enough to get herself murdered in my room, I’m obliged to ask for your unwilling co-operation. I can count on it, can’t I?”
The girl did not reply. Her lips tightened, her whole body grew rigid with the contempt and disdain which her eyes refused to express. She nodded curtly.
“Good night,” she said. “And good-by.”
She turned quickly and opened the door.
“You can bring those provisions any time before dawn,” Fred called to her back. “And if you can’t find any Scotch, brandy will do.”
The door shut with a bang. Fred looked at it for a hesitant moment, then opened it a crack. The thin blade of light that sliced the darkness illuminated Virginia’s appealing young figure for an instant before she vanished down the path. She was walking with a firm, proud step—as proud as any Hatton, Fred noted with a pang of dismay.
Chapter Ten
The Watchman’s Pipe
Bill Gabriel stepped outside the Shakkarpur station of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Around him, like so many heaps of soiled linen, a score of sleeping Hindus lay on the ground, huddled together in grotesque poses. Other Hindus squatted in groups about their household belongings—cloth-tied luggage, hookahs, brass pots. Big-bellied, naked children, astride their fathers’ hips, slept. As they talked, the waking men peeled wrappings of plantain leaves from moist lumps of cooked rice and ate. They were all waiting for trains that would pass next day—when, they knew only vaguely. Time was of such little importance.
Just beyond the circle of light from the insect-clouded station lanterns, Gabriel saw the dim outlines of a bund-ghari—a squarish carriage like a packing box on wheels, closely shuttered to protect purdah women against the profane gaze of strange males. He passed it without a thought and had taken perhaps fifty steps before he realized that the. ghari was following and that the nose of the broken-down horse was almost at his shoulder. He side-stepped, stopped. The ghari stopped, too. The wooden shutter dropped with a bang, and Gabriel jumped back, his hands plunged into his coat pockets.
