A Beggar at the Gate (7 page)

July 13, 1840

A
bba! I will see my Abba!” Saboor chanted as he bounced on Mariana's bed. “Abba,” he repeated, smiling into her face as if his prescience were perfectly normal.

No one had told him, not even Dittoo.

Saboor's capacity to read other people's thoughts did not appear often, and when it did it came at odd times, as if clairvoyance were not an inherent talent of his, but a gift bestowed upon him according to some incomprehensible plan.

He had not, for example, guessed that her old language teacher, whom he adored, was leaving them, but he had fretted for days before her uncle's latest bout of fever.

When she had asked her old
munshi
about Saboor's curious ability, he had smiled.

“These things,” he had replied vaguely, “are not for us to know, Bibi. But we should remember that Saboor is the grandson of Shaikh Waliullah.”

Not for us to know.
Mariana caught the bouncing child and pulled him onto her lap. “Yes, darling,” she murmured, forcing a smile, “you will soon see your Abba.”

THE NEXT day, one hand holding a large black umbrella over her head to fend off the rain, Mariana sat upright on Uncle Adrian's oldest, fattest horse, watching Lady Macnaghten's baggage train being prepared for the long overland march from Bengal to Afghanistan.

She had risen early, before her aunt and uncle were awake. After waving away Dittoo's offer of coffee and a slice of bread, she had commandeered a horse no one would miss and set off to the muddy open ground where the caravan had assembled.

Her own modest goods had been delivered the previous afternoon to one of the yawning storerooms fronting the rain-soaked ground, but it had not been worry about Saboor's comfort or anxiety about her boxes of foodstuffs, her trunks, or the elderly settee donated by Miss Emily that had driven Mariana from her bed so early in the morning. It had been curiosity about the journey ahead of her.

How many elephants would the baggage train require? Would those elephants travel all the way to Afghanistan? How large was their armed escort to be? How many coolies would they have? How many servants, blacksmiths, carpenters? Were the tents of Lady Macnaghten and her party to be separated from the rest of the camp by a high canvas wall, as the tents of the Governor-General Lord Auckland's party had been two years earlier? If so, where would Mariana's tent be, inside the private compound, or outside?

It would be outside, she concluded as she rode through the rain. The news of her uneventful wedding night, although it had come from Sir William Macnaghten himself, had so far shown no sign of improving his wife's opinion of Mariana and her family.

Mariana shifted her umbrella as she passed a heap of folded canvas tents. Before her, rows of half-loaded donkey and bullock carts and scores of kneeling camels waited, surrounded by the bundles and boxes that spilled from the surrounding storerooms and lay heaped in muddy piles. At one side, a trio of soporific elephants knelt under a dripping tree.

While the mahouts sprawled lazily on their elephants’ necks, scores of half-naked coolies stacked canvas-wrapped furniture and crates into carts, and tied boxes and baskets onto the backs of bored-looking camels. The ground rang with the familiar sounds of a traveling camp—the staccato shouting of natives, the groaning of camels, the harsh braying of donkeys.

As well as tents and furnishings for Lady Macnaghten and her party, the caravan was to carry everything she would require for her house in Kabul, save for her best china and wineglasses, a pair of Bohemian crystal chandeliers, and two dozen cases of brandy. These precious items were to go by steamer with the English party, up the Ganges to Allahabad, a means of travel that would spare them all three months of hard, cross-country travel. Because Lady Macnaghten's things were not to be used by anyone but herself, other furnishings had been added to the camp's baggage for the other travelers and for the dining tent, which required a table and chairs for twelve as well as china, linen, and candlesticks. Less elegant but still necessary were the kitchen tents with all their equipment, and the camp food, including stores for the English palate: coffee, crates of wine, sugar, and hundreds of jars of pickles and chutneys and preserved fruit.

Lady Macnaghten's horses were traveling with the camp, as were many of her one hundred and forty servants, their wives, and their children. They, the workmen, the gang of coolies, and the drivers of the animal wagons made up a population of some nine hundred souls, all to be managed by four young and harried-looking English officers, borrowed from the army for the purpose, who now rushed to and fro among the piles of baggage, calling out orders.

Separate from the baggage train, a company of eighty native sepoys with four of its own officers waited at a distance with its own pack animals, tents, fodder, and supplies.

Of course, all of this paled before the enormous traveling camp that Lord Auckland had taken to the Punjab, for his baggage train with its three complete bazaars, its large army, and its countless pack animals had been fully ten miles long.

Last of all, Lady Macnaghten would be no substitute for Lord Auckland's two sisters, whatever
their
failings might have been.

A skinny boy in a muddy loincloth led a string of camels past Mariana. She yawned, glad that she had sent Dittoo to Uncle Adrian's storerooms to find the carpet, the bolsters, and the little carved table she had acquired in the Punjab. Whatever unpleasantness this journey might bring, her tent, at least, would have a comfortable native floor arrangement.

Besides Dittoo and her palanquin bearers, Mariana would have a sweeperess to brush her tent floor and empty her chamber pot, and, unexpectedly, the albino courier.

“Let him come with us, Mariana,” her uncle had suggested. “He seems a resourceful man, and he speaks Punjabi, which may prove useful when we get closer to the northwest.”

She tweaked her damp veil from her face. Within hours all these carts, pack animals, and walking men would set off, taking the old northeast route from Calcutta to the River Ganges. At the river, they would turn west, and follow the Gangetic Plain until they reached the city of Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, both sacred to Hindus. There they would stop and await the English party's arrival by steamer.

Joined by Lady Macnaghten and her companions, they would then turn their faces to the northwest, and set off on the long, final leg of their fifteen-hundred-mile journey to Kabul.

It was nearly seven o'clock. Mariana was hungry for her breakfast, but there was one thing she wanted to do before leaving the ground: she must examine the elephants.

She clucked to her horse, disappointed to find that only three of the great animals were to accompany Lady Macnaghten's camp. Should the camp find itself forced to ford a swollen river, the elephants would have no difficulty in ferrying the English party across, but they would also be expected to extricate any baggage wagons that became caught in the mud. Having only three animals to do all that work would mean wasted time. Mariana sniffed. If she were in charge of this expedition, there would be more than three elephants in Lady Macnaghten's baggage train.

As she stopped a safe distance away from the first elephant and opened her mouth to awaken its sleeping mahout, an English voice rose behind her.

“There he is, just as I told you,” Lady Macnaghten announced in a high, irritated tone.

She sat stiffly on a bay gelding, impeccable in a gray riding habit, pointing to a beautiful black horse that stood tethered with a dozen others. Despite the dampness and the heat, her hands were encased in butter-yellow gloves.

She turned to her nephew, who slouched in his saddle beside her. “What a fool you are, Charles,” she said sharply, her voice carrying easily across the space between herself and Mariana. “That one is Ali Baba, of course it is!

“I particularly told you,” she added, “that Ali Baba is
not
to travel with the baggage train. I said that he is to come on the steamer with
me.
I
do
wish you would listen when I give you instructions.”

Not wishing to eavesdrop, Mariana searched for a way to escape, but saw none. What she did see was a camel being loaded with wooden crates that clearly held some of Lady Macnaghten's china or glass. As baggage camels were famous for their tempers, the coolies at Lord Auckland's camp had been forbidden to load them with breakables. This camel groaned aloud, its neck stretched out as if it were being tortured, while several men, unmoved, went on roping the crates to its back.

Mariana hesitated, then, unable to bear the coming destruction, she clucked to her old horse and rode up to Lady Macnaghten.

Whatever Charles Mott had been saying, it had not satisfied his aunt. “It
is
your fault,” she snapped as Mariana approached. “Go and tell them to bring Ali Baba to the house. And tell Sonu to come as well, and he is to bring Ali Baba's tack. I cannot have my horse using an ordinary bridle.”

“Good morning, Lady Macnaghten,” Mariana offered, smiling as warmly as she could manage.

Lady Macnaghten did not smile in return. Instead, she gave a chill little nod in Mariana's direction without taking her eyes from her nephew, who had ridden off toward the horses.

“I see that some of your china is being put on a camel,” Mariana added, now unable to extricate herself. “That was not allowed at Lord Auckland's camp.”

Her face averted, Lady Macnaghten continued to watch Charles Mott's progress as intently as if he were saving the world instead of delivering a message to a servant.

For all the attention Mariana got, she might have been one of the coolies.

Fighting fury, she clucked again to her old horse. Let the camel break everything.

As she started off, one of the British officers strode up, red-faced and perspiring. “This is all my fault, Lady Macnaghten,” he barked apologetically, nodding politely to Mariana. “I had thought Ali Baba was to come with us. I had understood he is rather a fractious animal, and that—”

“But he is not
fractious,
Major Alford, not at all.” Lady Macnaghten gave a tinkling laugh. “Like me, Ali Baba has delicate nerves. That is why I understand him so well. I would not dream of sending him with the
baggage.
” She gave a coy shrug of her shoulders. “He's an English thoroughbred, after all, not a cheap cob like the horse Miss
Givens
is riding.”

The major made a blaring sound, as if to exempt himself from that unkindness. Mott, who had returned, cast Mariana a look, not of commiseration, but of bitter triumph.

“Come along, Charles,” Lady Macnaghten ordered. “You have provoked me enough already. Do not also make me late for my breakfast. And do please sit properly on your horse. I hate to be seen with someone who rides as badly as you.”

She spurred her gelding and trotted with surprising clumsiness toward the main road. As she did so, the baggage camel gave one last bellow of pretended agony and lurched to its feet, sending the coolies sprawling into the mud and several of Lady Macnaghten's wooden crates hurtling to the ground, where they landed in a series of lovely, splintering crashes.

October 10, 1840

H
ow many times, Mariana,” her uncle admonished her three months later, as they stood watching the bank of the Ganges slide past them after lunch in the dining salon, “do I have to tell you to leave Lady Macnaghten
alone?
I cannot bear that insufferable female any more than you can, but you must
not
provoke her like that.”

“I could not help it, Uncle. If she hadn't said it was a log, in that superior tone of hers, I wouldn't have—”

“Oh yes you would. You have been waiting all this time to point out a half-burned corpse in the river. And you did not have to do it while she was drinking her sherry. It was only by luck that your aunt did not hear you. Why can you not be more forbearing,” he added, “when her husband has done you such an enormous service? Sir William was
not
required to reveal the truth of your marriage night to Lord Auckland.” He ran a hand through his fringe of hair. “And where was the need for you to be so short with her nephew over the soup last evening? He was only asking for the salt.”

“It was the way he asked for it.” Mariana tugged her shawl about her. “I do
not
like Charles Mott.”

“You should remember that Lady Macnaghten dotes on that young man, for all that she treats him badly. If I were you,” he cautioned, “I should be civil to him, and stay out of her way.” “I shall do my best,” Mariana replied darkly.

IN EARLY October the heaviest of the rains were past, and the water level of the Ganges had begun to drop, but the river still ran swiftly. Murky and brown from its load of up-country silt, it poured across the breadth of India, until it reached the great delta where it emptied into the Bay of Bengal, its remaining silt discoloring the waters for more than four hundred miles.

Sixty-eight miles north of Calcutta, the river altered its course from time to time, as it always had, to accommodate the occasional collapse of its banks. Hundreds of white storks stood on the broad expanses of sand that formed the river's shores, while flocks of small birds wheeled and dipped above them. Crocodiles by the dozens swam low in the water there and basked on the riverbanks, while porpoises danced out in the river and jackals howled behind the villages.

Only the tall, isolated hills above Sikri-Gali and the birds and the crocodiles saw the steam paddleboat clatter past on its way to Allahabad, its two tall funnels sending a billow of black smoke into the dusty sky. Two square, barge-like flats creaked behind it, attached to the steamer by thick chains. The first flat accommodated a load of salt and rice, fifty servants, a dozen horses, and a massive pile of crates. The second, fitted out with six passenger cabins and a spacious dining room, carried Lady Macnaghten, her nephew Charles Mott, Mariana, her aunt and uncle, a young couple on their way to Kanpur, and an Italian painter bound for Delhi.

After the departure of the baggage train, Lady Macnaghten's preparations for her journey upriver to Allahabad had consumed nearly three more months. The Bohemian glass chandeliers and the two dozen cases of brandy had not arrived until the end of September, causing Lady Macnaghten to put off her departure twice.

“It's fortunate I'm not a fashion plate, now that we are allowed only three trunks each,” Mariana had put in crossly as they prepared at last to depart.

“If Lady Macnaghten fears there will be insufficient room for her things, she has the right to curtail our baggage,” Aunt Claire replied stiffly. “After all, Sir William is a very important official.

And, Mariana, fond of clothes or not, you have plenty of nice things, although you make very poor use of them. Why must you wear great brown boots with that sprigged cotton gown?”

Mariana yawned. This afternoon they would pass by the Colgani Rocks: something to describe in a letter to her father. She was, after all, traveling on one of the world's great rivers, whose near-magical waters were said to remain clean, healthy, and healing despite the dead bodies covered with busy, carrion-eating birds that floated on its surface.

She smiled to herself at the memory of the corpse that had so gratifyingly appeared before lunch. Remembering the horror on Lady Macnaghten's face, she stepped out onto the deck and found her uncle at the railing.

Ahead of them on the groaning flat reserved for the baggage, Lady Macnaghten's beautiful Ali Baba tossed his glossy head while Saboor stood watching him at a distance, his hand in Dittoo's. In front, hauling them both, the steamboat pulled close to the river's shore, abreast of a loaded barge that was moving slowly upriver, dragged by a team of exhausted-looking coolies with a towline harnessed to their chests.

“There are the rocks.” Uncle Adrian shielded his eyes and pointed to four tall islands in the middle of the river. “How strangely they are formed, rock on rock, covered with all those trees!”

Her eyes on Saboor, Mariana sighed. “Uncle Adrian,” she murmured, “I know we have spoken of this before, but I fear I shall die of sadness after we leave Saboor at—”

With a high-pitched cry, Saboor jerked his hand from Dittoo's and began to climb hurriedly over coiled ropes and chains, his little face contorted with anxiety. Before Dittoo could follow him he darted across the baggage flat to Ali Baba's side and jumped up and down, too close to the horse's nervous hooves, sobbing as he danced, his small hands flapping as if he suddenly needed to fly.

“Ali,” he wept, “Ali Baba!”

Uncle Adrian stared. “What is wrong with the child? Mariana, you
must
do something about these sudden—” he began, but she was gone before he could finish, running full tilt toward the shifting gangway between the passenger and baggage flats, as warning cries came from the shore.

On the bank, the coolies had stopped hauling the barge. Instead they pointed, shouting, to the river. Terrified that the high-strung Ali Baba would hurt Saboor, Mariana had lifted her skirts and hurled herself at the groaning gangway before she understood what the little boy had somehow foreseen—that the towline of the barge had snapped, and that the barge, low in the water, heavy with a load of stones, was now loose on the river. Caught in the current, it bore down with increasing speed upon the steamer, while its suddenly freed coolies watched helplessly from the shore.

The steamer captain appeared, red-faced, on the deck, bellowing orders. A moment later, clanking with effort, the steamer turned and pulled toward the middle of the river in time to save itself, but too late for the baggage flat behind it. Turning, the steamer had towed the flat straight into the path of the barge.

Most of the dozen horses had been tethered on the side of the flat that now faced away from the oncoming barge. Between them and danger, the orderly pile of Lady Macnaghten's baggage, her good china, her chandeliers, and her brandy, had been well secured to the deck of the flat with a web of chains. Only one thing was in real peril: her beautiful, fractious Ali Baba who had been separated from the others because of his temper. The horse now stood alone, save for the frantic child, in the path of the oncoming barge.

Sensing the danger, he began to stamp and toss his head while a score of servants, each one clinging to chains and ropes for safety, shouted at the child to stop his anguished dance, and at the clumsily approaching Dittoo, to hurry, hurry.

Mariana reached Saboor before Dittoo did, snatched him up and pushed him, struggling, into her servant's arms. As Dittoo staggered backward toward the shifting gangway, she raced back to Ali Baba's side.

“Come back, Mariana, don't stay there!” her uncle cried out from the passenger flat.

Working rapidly, his groom had already begun to unknot the ropes that held the horse captive.

“Leave him tied, Sonu!” Mariana shouted over the noise of the steam engine and the yells of the other servants. “He'll be safer if you—”

Her voice was drowned out by a shattering crash, as the barge struck the flat at its center, lifting it momentarily out of the water. Flung backward onto the deck, Mariana scrambled to get away from the horse, who now had only one long halter rope to control him. Half loose, Ali Baba backed, plunging, toward the edge of the flat, as the barge, after one or two more halfhearted bumps, began to slide away down the river.

“Don't let him—” she began, but before the words were out of her mouth, the stallion had lost his footing. One of his hind legs, then the other, went over the side. Halfway into the water, dragged along by his unbroken halter rope, he screamed, his neck stretched to its full length as he fought to regain the flat, his forelegs catching in a tangle of ropes on the deck.

At Ali Baba's head, Sonu struggled fruitlessly to haul him back by his mane. As Mariana got hurriedly to her feet, she saw someone with a shock of white hair race toward her, a long-bladed knife in his hand.

“Yes, Ghulam Ali!” she shouted. “Cut the ropes!”

The albino pushed past her, and with swift motions severed first the entangling ropes on the deck, then the strangling halter. The groom ducked, still holding on to the horse, as the severed ropes snapped into the air. Ali Baba gave one last gurgle of fright, then slid backward over the side, his forelegs scrabbling on the deck until the last.

“Let go of him, Sonu!” Mariana shouted, but the groom did not hear her. Still clinging to the horse's mane, he, too, dropped into the current.

Side by side, while Saboor wailed behind them from Dittoo's arms, Mariana and Ghulam Ali watched horse and man swirl away together in the brown water.

People began to gather. The servants now crowded the edge of the flat, chattering and staring after the lost horse and groom. The passengers emerged from their cabins. From the roof of one of the cabins, Charles Mott picked his teeth and gazed down upon the scene.

“What
is
going on?” Lady Macnaghten appeared at the railing of the passenger flat, blinking a little in the sunlight, her hair a tiny bit out of place. “What were those thundering crashes? Why has Miss Givens been screaming like a banshee?”

“I fear there has been an accident, Lady Macnaghten,” Uncle Adrian announced. “A barge has come loose and struck the baggage—”

“Ali Baba!” she gasped, staring at his empty stall. “Where is my husband's horse?”

“I am sorry to say that he has gone over the side.”

“Over the
side? Into the river?”
For a moment she stood still, a hand pressed to her mouth, then she pointed accusingly at Mariana. “This is
your
doing isn't it?” she cried. “I should have known it was you. I distinctly heard your voice telling someone to cut the rope.
You have drowned Ali Baba!”

Still breathing hard, Mariana smoothed the front of her crumpled, tar-stained gown. “The horse would have been killed if the rope had not been cut,” she replied evenly. “Ghulam Ali's quick action may have saved his life.” She raised her chin. “Horses
do
swim.”

“But he was
Sir William's
horse!” Lady Macnaghten's own chin wobbled visibly. “You should have asked
me,
but instead you simply cut his halter rope and pushed him into the river!”

“I did not—” began Mariana.

“It makes no difference now,” Lady Macnaghten cut in mournfully, “whether Ali Baba lives or dies. All that matters is that he is gone, and I shall have to tell my husband. I had,” she added, pulling a lace handkerchief from her sleeve, “expected to ride him every day, after we reached Allahabad.”

Her handkerchief to her face, she turned abruptly away and hurried to her cabin, her fashionable shoes clicking against the planking of the deck.

Mariana took Saboor, still sobbing, into her arms and looked upward. Mott still watched from the roof, a sour smile on his face.

“OF COURSE she did the right thing,” insisted Dittoo that evening, as he and Ghulam Ali sat together on the riverbank where the servants had cooked and eaten their evening meals. “Who but a fool would think otherwise?” He raised his hands as he spoke, extending his fingers to emphasize his words.

Over the albino's shoulder, the anchored steamer rocked quietly on the starlit river, its flats creaking behind it. Around him, the grass fires of the other servants, of uniformed footmen, grooms, and grasscutters, were strung like bright jewels along the river's bank.

Ghulam Ali was no fool, whatever Dittoo might imagine. “Your memsahib should not have rushed onto the baggage flat,” he pointed out wisely. “I was already coming with my knife, to cut the horse free. I myself would have caught hold of the child and kept him safe. She should have waited on the passenger flat with the rest of the foreigners and let me do the work.”

“But my memsahib is no ordinary foreigner,” Dittoo protested. “She is very brave. She rescued Saboor Baba twice from Maharajah Ranjit Singh.” He glanced over his shoulder, then motioned the albino to lean closer. “She did it with magic,” he whispered. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Ghulam Ali drew back.

“Didn't they tell you this at Qamar Haveli?” Dittoo went on. “Did they not say that Memsahib used sorcery to steal Saboor Baba at the Golden Temple?” He nodded gravely. “She made him disappear into the air in front of the Maharajah's palanquin of colored glass. Everyone saw it happen. I was there when Baba arrived by magic in her tent. Later,” he concluded grandly, “she had only to look once upon Maharajah Ranjit Singh himself, and he offered to marry her!”