Far Pavilions (135 page)

If she could only manage to speak to him, or to smuggle out a letter to him explaining her predicament, surely he would not refuse to help her? Even if he could do nothing himself he could appeal on her behalf to Jhoti and Kaka-ji, who had always been fond of her and would demand that she be sent back to Karidkote. Or perhaps he could get in touch with Ashok, who could be counted upon to rescue her even if Promila Devi were to be replaced by ten dragons and the entire palace guard.

But try as she would, she could think of no way of getting in touch with Gobind; and she knew that he for his part would never be permitted to cross the threshold of the Zenana however high he might rise in the Rana's esteem; not even if Shushila were dying. Nevertheless she refused to despair; as long as he was in Bhithor there was hope – someday, somehow, by some means, she would be able to make contact with him. Then one warm evening, when the lamps had just been lit and the courtyard was a well of darkness, it seemed that her faith was to be justified for Nimi, bringing in the evening meal, had brought also a letter from the Hakim…

It was, as she learned later, the second that he had written to her. But the first had not reached her, for on his arrival in Bhithor Gobind had sent two letters: one to each Rani, with enclosures from Kaka-ji and their brother the Maharajah. He had sent them openly by the hand of the head eunuch, and both had been taken to Shushila, who had read them and torn them up, and returned a verbal reply that purported to come from both Ranis.

This third letter, addressed to Anjuli, had also been handed to Shushila, and as its contents were innocuous (it asked only for an assurance that both sisters were well) it occurred to her that it might be a good move to let Kairi read it and answer it herself. If the answer contained nothing unsuitable, then it would satisfy the Hakim and keep him from making further inquiries: and if it did, it could be used as proof that Kairi-Bai was a traitress who was plotting to stir up trouble between Bhithor and Karidkote, and attempting to blacken the names of her husband and her half-sister.

The letter had been carefully re-sealed and given to the foolish servant girl Nimi, with instructions to hand it to her mistress after dark and to say only that she had received it from a stranger who had stopped her as she was returning from a visit to the bazaar, and promised her much money if she would hand it to the Junior Rani when no one else was present and bring back an answer when she next went out into the city. The girl had been made to repeat the story until she had it by heart, and warned not to add anything to it – or to answer any questions that her mistress might put to her, on pain of having her tongue torn out. On the other hand, if she did as she was told she would be suitably rewarded…

The horrifying threat, coupled by the promise of a reward, should have been more than enough to ensure obedience. But though Nimi might be ignorant and timid, she was not devoid of commonsense and she happened to possess more character than the plotters gave her credit for. Anjuli-Bai had been kind to her (which was something that no one else, not even her parents, had ever been before) so not for worlds would Nimi harm her – and that harm was intended she was sure. Why else would she have been commanded to relate this foolish tale of a stranger, and threatened with torture if she failed to do so? She would deliver the letter, but she would also tell her mistress exactly how she had come by it, and what she had been told to say – leaving it to Anjuli-Bai in her wisdom to decide what to do about it.

That last had not been easy. Anjuli feared a trap and could not be sure who was setting it: was Nimi playing her false, or was the girl's story true? It it was, it confirmed those doubts she had about Shushila, and meant that Shushila had indeed turned against her… It was still hard to believe that, yet harder to believe that Nimi was lying, and if she was not…? Perhaps it would be better to play safe and do nothing at all. Yet on consideration, Anjuli realized that if Nimi had not warned her, she would have been only too ready to believe that the letter had reached her in the way described, and would have answered it. Therefore she could be reasonably certain that if she did nothing, Nimi would be suspected of putting her on her guard, and probably tortured into confessing as much.

Paper and pen having been procured, Anjuli had composed a courteous and colourless reply, thanking the Hakim for his inquiry and assuring him that to the best of her knowledge her sister the Senior Rani was in good health, and she herself was well. Nimi had duly delivered the note to Shushila, who had read it and sent it on to Gobind; and the next time Nimi visited her parents she had dropped the suggestion that if one of them could devise a method of approaching the doctor from Karidkote in secret, there might be much money to be made by using her as a go-between – an idea that had not been her own, but Anjuli's. The bait had been snapped up, and thereafter Nimi had carried other letters from Gobind to the Junior Rani, and Anjuli had replied to them though still with extreme caution, for she could not be sure that Nimi was not watched, or that this might not be another and more devious trap.

But Shushila was unaware of the correspondence. Having seen her half-sister's reply to the first letter, she had apparently come to the conclusion that imprisonment and harsh treatment had reduced Kairi to such a state of cowed subjection that there was nothing to be feared from her, and now Anjuli was informed that provided she did not enter the Senior Rani's apartments or the gardens, there was no reason why she should not go freely about the Women's Quarters again if she chose to do so.

As the time of the confinement approached, the Zenana women became infected by a heady mixture of anxiety and excitement, and the tension mounted daily until even Anjuli, a disregarded spectator, was disturbed by it and began to fear what its effect must be on her highly strung sister. But to everyone's astonishment, Shushila alone remained immune from the mass emotion. Her spirits had never been higher, and far from giving way to nerves as anyone acquainted with her would have expected she continued to glow with health and beauty, and apparently had no qualms. Only Anjuli, learning of this from the chatter of the women, suspected that the reason for it could be traced to those two miscarriages, both of which had occurred so early that they could not in fact be termed ‘miscarriages’ at all.

She thought it probable (and in this she was right) that Shu-shu had been encouraged to believe – or had persuaded herself to believe? – that the comparatively mild discomforts she had suffered then were all that she need expect now, and that neither the new
dai
nor any of her women had summoned up the courage to undeceive her. It was when the labour pains began that the real trouble would start – and this time there would be no Geeta to help her, and no loving half-sister to cling to for comfort and support.

Shushila's pains had begun shortly before ten o'clock on a warm spring night. And all through the following day, and for part of the next night, her agonized screams rang through the Zenana Quarter and echoed eerily along the colonnades surrounding the gardens. At some time during that interminable day one of her women, grey-faced from fear and lack of sleep, had come running to Anjuli and gasped out that she must come at once – the Rani-Sahiba was calling for her.

There had been nothing for it but to obey. Though Anjuli was under no illusion as to why Shushila should suddenly wish to see her: Shu-shu was in pain and very frightened, and it was the pain and fear that had impelled her to send for the one person who had never failed her and whom she knew, instinctively, would not fail her now. Nor was Anjuli ignorant of the risks she ran in entering her sister's apartments at such a time. If anything went wrong someone would be blamed for it, and it would not be the gods or natural causes, or any of the Bhithoris: it would be pinned on her. This time it would be Kairi-Bai, ‘the half-caste’, who from spite or jealousy or a desire to be revenged for the way in which she had been treated, had put the Evil-eye on the child or on its mother, and would be made to pay for it.

Yet even knowing that – and had it been possible to refuse to go to Shushila which it was not – she would still have gone. Only someone deaf or stony-hearted could have remained unmoved by those harrowing screams, and Anjuli was neither. She had hurried to Shushila's side, and for the remainder of that agonizing labour it was to her hands that Shushila had clung; dragging at them until they were sore and bleeding and imploring her to call Geeta to stop the pains… poor Geeta who had supposedly broken her neck in a fall, over a year ago.

The new
dai
who had replaced Geeta was a capable and experienced woman, but she lacked her predecessor's skill with drugs. Moreover she had never before been required to deal with a patient who not only made no attempt to help herself, but did everything in her power to prevent anyone else from doing so.

The Senior Rani flung herself from side to side, shrieking and screaming with ear-splitting abandon and clawing wildly at the faces of those who strove to restrain her, and had it not been for the timely arrival of her half-sister she would, in the
dai
's opinion, have ended by doing herself a serious injury or going out of her mind. But the despised co-wife had succeeded where everyone else had failed, for though the screams continued they were less frequent, and presently the frantic girl was striving to bear down as the pains waxed and to relax when they waned, and the
dai
breathed again and began to hope that all might yet be well.

The day ebbed into evening and once again it was night; but few in the Women's Quarters were able to sleep, while those in the birth-chamber were unable even to snatch a mouthful of food. By now Shushila was exhausted, and her throat so sore and swollen that she could no longer scream but only lie still and moan. But she continued to cling to Anjuli's hands as though to a life-line, and Anjuli, aching with weariness, still bent above her, encouraging her, coaxing her to swallow spoonfuls of milk in which strengthening herbs had been brewed, or to sip a little spiced wine; soothing, petting and cajoling her as she had done so often in the past.

‘…and for a while – for a short while,’ said Anjuli, telling the story of that frenetic night, ‘it was as though she was a child again and we were friends once more, as in the old days; though even then I knew in my heart that this was not so, and that it would never be so again…’

Apart from Shushila's uninhibited and hysterical behaviour, there had been no major complications, and when at long last, just after midnight, the child was born, it came into the world very easily: a strong, healthy infant who bawled lustily and beat the air with tiny waving fists. But the
dai
's face paled as she lifted it, and the women who had pressed forward eagerly to witness the great moment drew back and were silent. For the child was not the longed-for son that the soothsayers had so confidently promised, but a daughter.

‘I saw Shushila's face when they told her,’ said Anjuli, ‘and I was afraid. Afraid as I have never been before: for myself… and for the babe also. For it was as though the dead had come back to life and it was Janoo-Rani who lay there: Janoo-Rani in one of her white rages, as cold and as deadly as a king cobra. I had never seen the resemblance before. But I saw it then. And I knew in that moment that no one in the room was safe. Myself least of all… Shushila would strike out like a tigress who has been robbed of its cubs – as she had struck twice before (yes, that too I knew now) when she had been disappointed of a child. But this time it would be worse: this time her rage and disappointment would be ten times greater, because she had carried this child for its full time and been assured that it must be a son, and having endured agony beyond anything she had ever dreamed of to give it birth, it was a daughter.’

Anjuli shuddered again and her voice sank to a whisper. ‘When they would have given the babe to her, she stared at it with hatred, and though she was hoarse from screaming and so weak that she could barely whisper, she summoned up breath to say: “An enemy has done this. It is not mine. Take it away and kill it! Then she turned her face from it and would not look at it again, though it was her own child, her first-born: bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh.I could not have believed that anyone… that any woman… But the
dai
said that it was often so with those who had endured a hard labour and were disappointed of a son. They would speak wildly, but it meant nothing; and when they were rested and had held their infants in their arms they came to love them tenderly. But but I knew my sister better than the
dai
did, and was even more afraid. It was then I think that I came near to hating her… yet how can one hate a child, even a cruel one? – and children can be far crueller than their elders because they do not truly understand -they only feel, and strike out, and do not see the end; and Shu-shu herself was little more than one. But I feared her… I feared her…’

The exhausted
dai
had given Shushila a strong sleeping draught, and as soon as it had taken effect the other women had crept away to spread the dire news to the waiting Zenana, while a trembling and reluctant eunuch had left to inform the sick Rana that he had become the father of yet another daughter. Anjuli had stayed for a while to allow the
dai
to get some rest, and had returned to her own rooms before Shushila awakened; and it was then that she had written that letter to Gobind, imploring his help for Shushila, and begging him to use his influence with the Rana to see if a nurse, an
Angrezi
one, could be sent for immediately to take charge of the mother and child. ‘I thought that if perhaps one of them could be brought to Bhithor, she might be able to cure Shushila of her hate and her rages, which were in some way a sickness, and to persuade her that no one was to blame for the sex of the child; least of all the child itself.’

Gobind had received that letter, but no European woman had been summoned to Bhithor; and in any case, admitted Anjuli, there would not have been time. The Zenana was full of rumours and those that came to her ears confirmed her worst fears: Shushila had not repeated her wild outburst against the child, but she still refused to see it, explaining her refusal by saying that the infant was so frail and sickly that it could not possibly live for more than a few days at most, and she dared not face further pain and grief by becoming deeply attached to a child that must shortly be reft from her.