The Maharajah's Monkey (5 page)

We had urgent work to do, if we were to find out why Champlon had been kidnapped. You see, I didn't believe Peg's description of Champlon walking happily to the cab, I was certain that the Frenchman had not left my aunt of his own volition. Someone was coercing him. The mysterious Indian must be blackmailing him.

I was walking with my friends past the ancient sweep of St. John's College, when I had an interesting notion about the identity of the Indian in the canal barge. Was my idea likely? Could I have stumbled on something important? Suddenly a low whistle from Isaac drew me up short. A lady was leaning against the stone walls, her shoulders heaving, her face mostly hidden by hair. She pushed a strand away and I realized the woman was Miss Minchin. She had been crying. Her face was all crumpled, her eyes reddened. Her hands were playing convulsively with something, a scrunched-up piece of paper,
which I recognized with a pang of dismay as my forged love letter. She was completely oblivious to the stares of passers-by, lost in her own unhappiness.

“Not so clever now, are you?” a voice behind me murmured.

“I know, I know,” I said fiercely, to pre-empt a lecture from Rachel. “I shouldn't have written it.”

My friend's face expressed exactly what she thought. The others were also looking accusingly at me as if it was all my fault, when Isaac and Waldo had goaded me on so. Anger boiled inside me. It was a joke, a joke. At the same time my stomach felt hollow and I had an unaccountable impulse to burst into tears. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I wanted to howl but I was silent and I could feel that my face was sullen.

Why was it always me in the wrong? Why couldn't Rachel be nasty or insensitive for a change?

Rachel's burning eyes made my insides feel watery.

“I'll go over to her,” I said, my voice wavering a little. “I'll confess. Tell her I'm sorry.”

Rachel shook her head.

“No. That'll just make things worse,” she said. “I'll see Miss Minchin back. Be off! Home! Now!” With that Rachel glided over to the wall. We saw her put her hand on Miss Minchin's arm and our governess look up, bewildered.

I began the walk home. The two boys dawdled, avoiding my eyes and whispering. I didn't care anyway, I told myself. But in truth I felt awful. Who would guess that Miss Minchin would take a silly prank so to heart? We went past the colleges on to the broad sweep of road which marks the beginning of our suburb. Still my friends hung away from me, as if I had a contagious disease. Part of me paid no heed; if they wanted to shun me now, so be it. Then suddenly I snapped, and a wave of rage washed over me.

This disaster was their fault, just as much as mine. I hadn't wanted to make Miss Minchin cry.

Finally outside our villa in Park Town I could bear it no longer. I turned around and walked savagely up to them. They were standing close together, wearing the same serious expression.

“What?” I demanded hotly.

Waldo shrugged.

“You egged me on!”

“I never—” Waldo began but Isaac laid a hand on his arm.

“All right,” Isaac said calmly. “We're all responsible. We're all thoughtless. What we have to work out is how to make it right.”

“I'll apologize of course,” I muttered. “Tell her it was a joke.”

Waldo shook his head. “That won't help.”

“We've another plan,” Isaac added.

“What?”

“We, and especially you, Kit, are going to have to be extra nice to Miss Minchin.”

I nodded.

“It gets worse,” Isaac said, and he was not smiling. “You'll have to make it up to her. There's only one way you can really do it.”

“What's that?”

“You'll have to find Miss Minchin a husband.”

“I hope you're joking. How can I find her a husband?”

“Evidently, it is what she needs,” Waldo said, firmly. “The rest of us will help you. But you are going to find her a husband. We've already got one idea—your father.”

I stared at him, aghast. The very idea was impossible. Having to call the Minchin “Dear Mama.” Seeing her sickly face every morning for the rest of my life over the ham and eggs. I am sorry but I was willing to live with any amount of guilt rather than that. Anyway I could not see poor Papa married to anyone who did not share his interest in ancient Aramaic and the preservation of parchments. Truth to tell, I could not see him married
at all
.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?” Waldo said. “Your father is a widower. He's
lonely, Miss Minchin is lonely. They'd be perfect together.”

“Lonely? Whatever gave you the idea my father is lonely? He has
me
.”

Waldo exchanged glances with Isaac: “That's what I meant,” Isaac murmured.

“And he has his books!” I said, hotly.

Now they were looking at me. Wearing their holier-than-thou-faces. As if I belonged to a different—more selfish—species of human being.

I felt sick.

“
You
marry Miss Minchin if you're so keen,” I snapped.

“I'm too young,” Isaac protested hurriedly, quickening his pace up the stairs.

“I tell you, she marries Father over my dead body.”

“We might have to murder you then,” Waldo replied. He wasn't smiling and for a moment I wasn't sure if he was joking.

Opening the front door, I stumbled and fell, banging my knee upon the edge of a trunk. I groaned and looked around in bewilderment. Piles of luggage were strewn all over the hall, battered portmanteaux with rusty hinges and the labels of exotic destinations from Morocco to New York, leather handbags and carpet bags and bashed-about dressing cases and goodness knows what else. A foreign wind was blowing through our home. Our hallway looked less like an ordinary Oxford residence than some dusty way station in the African savannah.

“At once, Theo! I want it done yesterday!” my aunt's voice boomed and she swept into the hall, my father tagging behind her. Her frilly frock was gone, instead she was dressed in traveling clothes: serviceable tweed skirt and jacket, along with stout boots. Father was talking in so low a voice. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but from the nervous expression on his face, the gist was clear. He was pleading with Aunt Hilda. Begging her not
to do something. But from the expression on my aunt's pug face she wasn't having any of it.

“Here's Kit and her pack of hangers-on,” Aunt Hilda said, spotting us. “Well, my dear, I'm off. Going to take the train down to Portsmouth and away to India, on the boat tomorrow morning.”

“Pardon?” I stared at her. India again! It was becoming positively uncanny how strong the signs were pointing east.

“Are you a nitwit, girl? Can you not understand plain speaking?”

“But you haven't got the provisions for your expedition. You haven't even got a ticket!”

“Such trifles have never bothered Hilda Salter.”

“But, Aunt. How are you going to—”

“If you think I'm going to let Champlon steal all my best ideas and then rush to India before me, think again,” she interrupted. “The rotter was stringing me along, Kit. Playing me like a blooming pianoforte. All that flattery, saying mauve really brought out my complexion,” she stopped abruptly, her hurt plainly showing on her face.

“It does,” I lied, gently.

“What?”

“Mauve does suit you.”

“Piffle. The man was using me. And I, Hilda Salter, Pride of the Zambezi, the only woman to ever conquer
the Northwestern Frontier, fell for it.”

I put my hand on Aunt Hilda's arm and gently drew her into the living room. Unhelpfully, father followed us. Though she was chuntering away in the familiar Hilda Salter style, underneath she was unusually unsure. I could feel it in the way she let me guide her. I propelled her to a comfortable armchair and almost pushed her down into it. She needed to hear what I had to say.

“I've something to tell you, Aunt Hilda, something about Monsieur Champlon.”

“Get to the point, girl.”

“I've got to ask you something first. What makes you think Champlon has gone to India?”

“He was seen. At the station with some Indian
thug
he has hired. He directed all the luggage to be sent to Portsmouth, for the
Himalaya
. It's a P & O steamer sailing for Bombay tomorrow.”

It was my turn to stare: “It can't be true!”

“He gave the order himself. My groom happened to be at the station and saw him. Directed the porters to handle the trunks and supervise them on to the
Himalaya
. I know all about her. A fine steamer with the latest twin-cylinder engine. As sleek a boat as any in the Empire, blast it!”

“Language, Hilda,” my father tutted, while I reeled at her words.

All my certainties were collapsing around me. I'd been so sure Champlon was being blackmailed—or had been kidnapped by the strange Indian. But here was the Frenchman, by all accounts, ordering the luggage to be taken to India. It very much looked like he was in command of the whole operation and the man in the turban and the monkey, his minions. It didn't make sense. Why would Champlon desert my aunt? What did he have to gain by this strange behavior?

I told my aunt my news, the strange story of the monkey and the stolen piece of the ankh. She gasped at the sight of the ankh fragment.

“I've seen that somewhere before,” she mused, gazing at the ancient metal.

“We think it was stolen from Amelia Edwards … you know, the famous explorer.”

“Poppycock.” My aunt's face set at the mention of her rival. “That woman's no explorer. Tourist is a more accurate description.”

With that she turned her back on me and rang for the maid. With much muttering about how Champlon was clearly a thief as well as “a bolter!,” she ordered the girl to fetch the police. Sometimes I cannot follow my aunt's thinking. How could she blame Champlon for the theft of Miss Edward's treasure? The ankh fragment had been found on the barge, not in his rooms. But then again, it
did look as though he'd bolted. Perhaps he had been using my aunt, discovering all her secrets, milking all her wealthy patrons and then leaving her slap-bang in the lurch. Perhaps he really was a member of a gang that stole antiquities. If so—and I really wasn't sure either way—what a villain the man was!

But I had made up my mind about something. “I'm coming to India with you, Aunt Hilda,” I announced.

For the first time a smile crossed my aunt's face. “Very well,” she said. “S'pose you might be some help.”

I held out my hand to hers and we shook on it. In the background I heard spluttering. It was Father: his face red, his woolly hair in agitated disarray. He appeared to be dancing from foot to foot.

“Absolutely not, Kit,” he squealed. “The dangers: cholera, typhoid, the heat, bandits.”

“I'm going, Father.”

“No. I must insist on this. There's is no way you are going to India. You will stay here and continue your studies with Miss Minchin.”

“Papa, do not be under any illusions. I'm going to India.”

“India is no place for a young lady.” My father halted and looked at me His eyes were pleading, soft with emotion. “Dear Kit, please understand. You are the most precious thing in the world to me.”

Embarrassed, I tried to make a joke of it: “More precious than your library?”

“What?”

“Your books,” I explained “Do you really love me more than your books.”

“Yes, certainly.”

I laid a hand on his arm: “Listen to me, Father. I am not being stubborn.
I love adventures
.”

“You know I never insist on anything,” he pleaded. “This time I must. No father would let their child sail into danger.”

“Papa.”

“Do not attempt to tug my heartstrings, Kit,” he muttered as the bell rang and we heard the tramp of boots in the hall. The police had arrived to collect the stolen piece of ankh.

“Hilda will sail alone. You are most definitely staying behind.”

“JAM!” someone barked.

A lady in a saucer-shaped sun hat loomed over us as we reclined on the steamship
Himalaya
's prom deck, deep in the latest books. Before either Isaac or I had time to react, she snatched away our novels. What on earth was the woman talking about and why, come to think of it, was she wearing a sola topi? True it was burning hot, for we were in the tropics now, but there wasn't a speck of sun anywhere in the gloomy sky.

“Pardon?” I gulped.

“You have jam on your chin,” a familiar voice admonished me. Squinting upward, I saw my persecutor was Mrs. Spragg, the mother of the dreadful Edwin.

“What does the state of my chin have to do with you?” I protested.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

“I don't think Jesus spent his whole time washing his face.”

“Insolent girl,” she hissed. “Remember you are no longer just Kathleen Salter.”

“What?”

“Don't say ‘What,' say ‘I beg your pardon.' As an Englishwoman Abroad you have a duty to represent the Whole of British Womanhood to the Empire,” she pronounced, thrusting a handkerchief into my hand. With that she stalked away, in the direction of the first-class cabins. Taking our books with her!

“It's a plot,” I muttered, for the books she had stolen were thrilling penny dreadfuls. “She wants something exciting to read.”

Isaac groaned and turned over in his deck chair. It was a shame because it had taken a lot of persuasion to get him up here. He had spent all five weeks of our journey so far holed up in his cabin, moaning that the sea air was killing him. It was true a rash had spread over his face which made his skin look rather like a cooked chicken. But still, talk about making a fuss!