Keeping Bad Company (4 page)

‘Griffiths wants me to bring you to see him.'

Here was a surprise. Then I thought I could guess the reason.

‘You've been discussing me with him?'

‘Yes.'

‘And all the things you found out from Daniel Suter and Amos Legge?'

‘Yes.'

This time I managed to stop myself flying into a rage. Tom had no business to discuss my affairs with anybody else, but he had no friends or relatives around him to share his problems, so perhaps it was natural to confide in an older man whom he admired. I was sure that I knew the purpose of the proposed visit. Mr Griffiths would support Tom's plan for taking me to India on a husband hunt. Well, I could listen and say a polite no. Also, if I'm honest, I was curious to meet this combative Mr Griffiths.

‘When?' I said.

‘I'll call for you tomorrow morning at eight o'clock.'

‘Isn't that a little early for visiting?'

‘He's living out at Richmond. We'll take the stage from St Paul's.'

He drank tea with us, but wouldn't stay the night. He had things to discuss with men from the Company about his appearance before the parliamentary committee. He seemed sad and preoccupied and it went to my heart to know that I could do nothing to help him.

Next morning Tom brought a cab to collect me. The journey to St Paul's was too noisy and the stagecoach too crowded to have any chance for conversation, which was something of a relief. When Tom took off one of his gloves I noticed that the nails were bitten down to the quick, an old habit. When we came to Richmond he handed me down from the coach and gave me an assessing look. There was nothing for him to criticize. I was wearing my grey-and-blue wool dress and a bonnet so sober it was practically Quakerish.

‘Well, am I respectable enough to meet your Mr Griffiths?'

He hesitated.

‘Liberty, I don't want you to have the wrong impression of him. He may seem eccentric, but I promise you he's as good a hearted man as you could wish to meet.'

‘Well then, I shall be respectful of him. More than that I won't promise.'

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but led the way across the green towards a neat brick-built cottage with a front garden that was a froth of wallflowers and forget-me-nots.

‘Is it his?' I said.

‘I believe he's rented it.'

In living so far out of town, Mr Griffiths must be taking great pains to distance himself from his Company colleagues.

We walked up the red brick path and Tom knocked on the door. It was opened at once by an Indian lad wearing a turban, tunic and white trousers. He was clearly expecting us and showed us into a sunlit room overlooking the garden. The man standing to meet us there reminded me of a heron. He was thin and angular, shoulders a little bowed. His face was clean-shaven and as brown as oak bark, with a bony wedge of nose and eyes that were probably grey, but had a bright and lively look that made them seem blue. His hair was bright silver, worn almost collar-length, but neat. He was simply dressed in a grey cutaway coat over a shirt and neckcloth of dazzling whiteness and a plain grey waistcoat.

‘Tom, my boy, it's good to see you.'

He looked at me and smiled, but waited correctly for Tom to introduce us.

‘Miss Lane, it's a pleasure to meet you. If you take that chair there, the sun won't be in your eyes. You'll join me in a cup of tea?'

His voice was pleasant and cultivated, rather old-fashioned. The tea was brought in by the lad as soon as he'd finished speaking. It was served in small cups without milk and had a startlingly fresh taste. As we sipped and made polite conversation – the company on our stagecoach journey, the pleasantness of an English April – I looked round his room and liked it. The architecture was as rustic as you'd expect in a cottage, with great ceiling beams that threatened the head of anyone more than five and a half feet tall, with mostly plain wooden furniture. Books and maps were everywhere and the open desk crowded with papers and pens. I noticed that the inside of our host's index finger was deeply ink stained and there was an ink spot on his otherwise immaculate shirt cuff.

We finished our tea. Mr Griffiths turned to my brother.

‘Tom, since it is such a very fine day, I'm sure you won't object to taking yourself off for a walk for half an hour or so, while your sister and I enjoy a
gup
.'

‘Gup?' I said.

He smiled.

‘It's what Indians say for gossip.
Gup
, or even
gupgup
. Expressive, don't you think?'

I glanced at Tom and saw from his face that Mr Griffiths's more-or-less order to absent himself had come as a surprise to him. Still, since Mr Griffiths's silver hairs made our being alone together respectable, he could hardly object. Tom gave me a look that told me, as plain as speaking, to behave and allowed himself to be shown out.

‘May I?'

Mr Griffiths was politely waiting for my permission to sit down. When I nodded he sat at the chair by his desk. His long-fingered hand wandered towards one of the pens as if it didn't like being parted from it. I steeled myself for the likely lecture about what a fine young man my brother was and how it was my duty to go with him to India.

‘You're fortunate in your brother, Miss Lane. He's as fine a young man as I've ever encountered.'

I sighed mentally, staring down at my gloves. Just as I'd expected.

‘And I hope you won't resent the fact that he's told me something about the remarkable life you've been leading.'

No use saying that, yes, I did resent it. One of my gloves was developing a split in the seam.

‘I'm afraid he's worrying a lot about his evidence to the committee. He feels he's being used as what one might call a witness against me,' Mr Griffiths said. ‘I've told him that all he can do is speak the truth and trust me to deal with the consequences.'

‘Tom will always speak the truth,' I said, looking him in the face now.

‘Yes. To quote our Bard, he is “as true as truth's simplicity”. But then, is truth always simple, do you think?'

He was looking at me as if he really wanted an answer. This interview was not going quite the way I'd expected.

‘Yes, I think truth is simple,' I said. ‘It's what we do to hide it that makes things complicated.'

He nodded, as if that had confirmed something.

‘You see, Miss Lane, there are things I can't talk about to Tom.'

‘What kind of things?'

‘Who killed Burton and how that jewel came to be on my desk. Any talk we had about that would be only speculation, and unfair to Tom. His best way out of this is by telling the truth of what he heard and saw, pure and simple. He's all too ready to do battle on my behalf, and wreck his own future. I don't want that. But you're in no danger of having to give evidence to that committee, so I can talk to you.'

He saw the look of surprise on my face and added courteously, ‘If you'll permit it.'

‘But what can I do?'

I was mainly bowled over with relief that we weren't talking about Tom's plans for me.

‘Share some thoughts with me. It's clear from what your brother says that you have an original way of looking at things.'

‘I'd like to help you if I could, but . . .'

‘I'm not asking you to help clear my name. I don't care one iota whether my name is cleared or not in the eyes of those rogues and fools who make up public opinion. It's not a murder trial and the committee can't hang me. But I do want to understand what happened.'

He waited, looking at me in a deliberately droll way, like a spaniel waiting to be thrown a biscuit. He might have been trying to hide the seriousness of his request so it would be easier for me to refuse.

‘But this all happened with people I don't know, in a country I don't know and, I suppose, months ago.'

‘Yes, it's more than six months since Burton died. Things move slowly between England and India. And yet your brain doesn't move slowly, does it, Miss Lane? I have a distinct impression that there are things you'd like to ask me.'

‘You told Tom that the diamond hawk belonged to a lady. How did you know that?'

He'd invited questions but this one surprised him. His eyebrows went up.

‘I'd seen a lady wearing it a long time ago.'

‘How long ago?'

‘Twenty years.'

‘May I ask who the lady was?'

‘Her identity is irrelevant to any of this. Twenty years is a long time ago to most people.'

The barrier was polite, but firm. No progress down that path.

‘So how did it come into Mr McPherson's possession?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Was it one of the jewels his assistant was bringing him?'

‘So we're led to believe. I believe your brother has told you the sequence of events. He discovered the hawk on my desk. We took it to the Governor. McPherson later identified it as one of the collection that Burton would have been carrying.'

His eyes were on me, waiting for the next question. For all his courtly politeness, I had an idea that he was testing me.

‘Is there any reason to doubt that it was?' I said.

‘I know of none.'

‘Does it strike you as strange that Mr McPherson should have left his assistant to carry a valuable consignment of jewels by road?'

An emphatic nod.

‘Very strange. Most people thought so.'

‘Shouldn't they have expected an attack by bandits?'

‘Possibly, yes. Though the roads of India are safer on the whole than you might imagine. That's one of the achievements of the Company. Still, in a country where wealth is so unequal, men will try to cure their poverty by violent means.'

‘Did Mr Burton have an armed guard?'

‘No. Only half a dozen servants. There was some sense in that. If you were moving something valuable by road, it might be safest not to draw attention to it. Safety in few, rather than safety in numbers.'

‘Only they weren't safe. Somebody knew about the jewels,' I said.

From where I was sitting I could see Tom on the garden path. He stood, trying to see into the room to find out if we were still in conversation. Griffiths didn't notice him. After a while he walked away, presumably to make a few more circuits of the Green.

‘Somebody would have known,' Griffiths said. ‘I want to explain something about India, if I may, without trespassing on your patience. Every European there, even the most humble, is surrounded by an army of servants. Even his servants have servants. Your
mali
, your gardener, will have a boy to carry the watering cans and that boy will give another boy a few mouthfuls of chapatti to fill the cans for him. Your syce will have three or four boys at least to do the hard work around the horses that's beneath his dignity. The kitchen of even a single man will employ enough people to staff a fair-sized inn in England. Mostly, they're invisible to Europeans.'

‘Not noticed because there are so many?'

‘Exactly. Fine people in England make an affectation of not noticing their servants but in India it's truly the case. If we even began to think about all those people we depend on for our daily lives we might lose our confidence altogether, and that wouldn't do, would it.'

‘So you think McPherson's or Burton's servants would know about the jewels being transported?'

‘That's what most people thought, yes. Apart from the poor man killed, the other servants with Burton ran away and were never found. A lot of people concluded they were in league with the robbers.'

‘And yet you've come under suspicion for having something to do with it.'

He might well have taken offence, but his openness made me risk it. To my relief he beamed at me, like a tutor encouraging a pupil.

‘Is it so surprising? Tom will have told you I threatened McPherson?'

‘Yes. But surely nobody suggests you rode out at the head of a robber band.'

He laughed.

‘Ah, but you see, Miss Lane, I didn't need to. My influence among the natives is so strong that I only have to crook my finger and they'll go out and kill whoever I please. It's all part of this annoyance with me for actually liking the company of the Indians and learning their customs. As far as some people in the Company are concerned, it's like being in league with the devil.'

‘As bad as that?'

‘Very nearly. There's fear at the bottom of it, of course. If the Indians realized their power, they could sweep our military bands and our magistrates and our bridge parties off the face of the country more easily than a dog shaking off fleas. In their hearts, the Europeans know that and if they think about it, it scares them.' Then he seemed to check himself for being too serious and smiled again. ‘Miss Lane, forgive me for being heated. I must keep my rhetoric for this.' He gestured with his pen holder towards a considerable pile of paper on his desk.

‘My pamphlet.'

It looked like a fair-sized book.

‘On McPherson?'

‘On the opium trade. It's already wrecked the Indian farmers, stupefied tens of thousands of poor addicts and if it goes on like this, it will have us at war with China. All it needs is the order from the government and hundreds of men will die to protect the fortunes of McPherson and his like. I'm hurrying to finish my pamphlet, so that I can publish while the committee's still sitting. If I do nothing else in my life, I want to wake the country up to what's being done in our name.'

‘What about your position with the Company?'

‘This is a higher duty than to the Company. As soon as this inquiry's over and my pamphlet out, I intend to resign my post and go back to India as a private person. I'll have done what I can and shall spend the rest of the days that are left to me studying.'

Tom was walking down the path now, with a determined air.