The Weeping Ash (26 page)

“You sent for me, ma'am?”

“Mrs. Paget here wished to thank you for saving her life,” his mistress said. “And I, too, wish to commend you, Andrew. You are a brave fellow! I should not have liked to jump at that horse's bridle as you did—I should have been too afraid of being pulled onto those iron spikes!”

“Ah, Your Ladyship don't carry the weight that I do!” the gardener answered, his serious face breaking up into the smile that Fanny remembered. She stretched out her hand to him, saying softly:

“I am very sorry that you did not continue working for us at the Hermitage, Talgarth; I was greatly distressed at—at what happened. But it was certainly lucky for me that you were in the park today! And I can see that there are better opportunities for you here. I am so deeply obliged to you for your bravery.”

“It was nothing, ma'am. I am glad to have been of use,” Talgarth replied quietly. He bowed over her hand, touched his forehead, and left the room again, his soft tread making hardly any sound on the carpet.

“Imagine being his wife,” sighed Liz, looking after him.

“Oh? Is he married?”

“No, he is not, and it always amazes me, for I am sure dozens of girls in Petworth are on the catch for him. My own maid, Clara, is fit to break her heart every time he brings me a posy—he never even looks at her! He thinks only of gardens. It would be like being wed to a woodland god! When he hands me a bunch of clove pinks or gillyflowers, I expect them to last forever and never fade.”

At this moment a footman came to announce that Mrs. Socket's carriage had returned to take the young lady to the Rectory.

“I hope it is the old cob between the shafts again,” said Liz, laughing, “though I feel thankful to that naughty Dapple for giving me the chance to become acquainted with you.” She kissed Fanny warmly. “Now, remember that you have a friend, my love, and one in George too—he thinks you are as pretty as a primrose, he said so! George is a great flirt but you may trust him never to go beyond the bounds of what is proper. The man I should perhaps warn you against is James Henriques.” Liz lowered her voice, and Fanny remembered the grizzle-haired man whose eyes had dwelt on her so uncomfortably. “He is a rake, a gambler, and a shallow-minded fellow—never trust him. However you are not likely to come across him again. Good-bye, my dear neighbor and friend—I hope that we may meet again before too long. I shall do my best to contrive it!”

“Good-bye—and—and I thank you, most sincerely!” said Fanny, whose mind was in a whirl, as the rector's two menservants carefully assisted her out to the carriage.

Liz strode wrathfully back into the Grinling Gibbons paneled room, where Lord Egremont and his friend were talking about old days at Pampellone's school, where they had both been as boys along with Charles James Fox; and reminiscing about the subsequent careers of various wild fellows and jumped-up counter-coxcombs, who had also been at the school with them.

“Though why you should care for such snobberies, Egremont,” said Major Henriques quizzingly, “you who allow your farm hands to play cricket on your lawns and your gardeners to make use of your library—you are a true Radical!”

“Ay, but there is a wide difference, James, between what one chooses to
give
and what one may not wish to have
taken
. This Buonaparte, now—it looks as if he is about to conquer Sardinia, without more than a bleat from the miserable Austrian—It is time someone took a hand to him.”

“It is time somebody took a hand to that miserable wretch Paget!” Liz declared. “That poor little creature is kept mewed up, more—more like a slave in a harem than a British Christian lady. You ought to have her odious husband put in the pillory, George, for people to throw rotten eggs at him!”

“I must admit I don't like the fellow, m'dear,” Lord Egremont peaceably replied. “But this is a free country, you must remember, where a man may use his own wife as he thinks best.”

“Which is why you never had one, eh, George?” suggested the major. “But
does
her husband use her so ill, ma'am? She looks to me like an engaging little charmer—when she ain't quite so big in pod—I'd have thought any husband would want to ply her with comfits and kickshaws.”

“Not that monstrous Paget,” said Liz. “I suspect he uses her quite villainously. I have told her that if she can endure it no longer, George, she must seek our protection.”

Egremont raised his brows.

“You might find yourself in devilish hot water, m'dear, if she should ever take you at your word. Suppose the incensed husband comes after our blood? Still, we'll jump that rasper when we come to it. Well, James? Have you lazed indoors long enough? Shall we ride out and look at my Southdowns? Rapley tells me this is the best year for lambs since '84; they have lost only three and they are growing fat as butter.”

“You are a cunning rascal, Egremont,” Liz heard Henriques say as the two men walked out of the french doors. “If I had a dear little bird such as that, nesting just outside my coverts, damme if I wouldn't encourage her to fly off from her keeper, by gad!”

“Stretch your own snares where you choose, James,” replied Lord Egremont without heat. “Never trouble your head about my preserves.”

* * *

Fanny, solicitously cared for at the rector's house, was put to bed by her hostess immediately after an early dinner. But it was many, many hours before she went to sleep.

During the night the little maid, Bisesa, died. Scylla was with her at the end. Shortly after the departure of Miss Musson for the palace an urgent message came from the hospital, asking for the sahiba, as the maid's condition had deteriorated alarmingly. Scylla sent Ram up to the citadel with instructions to find the mem if possible and summon her to the hospital but was not surprised when Miss Musson failed to appear. In the grief-stricken chaos at the palace it might not have been possible to locate her, or she might have felt that her duty to Mahtab Kour took precedence. Scylla herself hurried with old Abdul to the hospital. There she could see at once that Bisesa's fever had reached a critical point: her body was ragingly hot, the whites of her eyes had gone yellow, and every inch of her skin was now covered with the sores that had developed with such mysterious speed. These were now oozing bright yellow matter and were so painful that, even at the height of her delirium, Bisesa constantly attempted to rub or scratch them; her hands were being patiently held down by her sister and sister-in-law sitting on either side of the charpoy. There was practically nothing Scylla could do for the poor girl except dull her pain with opium, which she did. The fever reached its height shortly after midnight, and the girl's slender frame was simply not strong enough to bear it. Just before she died she had a moment's comparative calm, during which she opened her swollen gummy eyes and recognized Scylla, who was bathing her forehead with essence of rosemary.

“Oh, Mem Periseela! Truly I am sorry that I tried on the queen's gift—I knew I should not have done it—and now I am being punished—but indeed I did not think it so very wrong, not a great sin—”

“Of course it was not a sin, my poor child—in any case I am going to give it to you for your wedding robe—so you must make haste and get better!”

“I shall never be better, mem,” gasped Bisesa, and on that she died. The women around her bed instantly broke out into heartbroken wailing, but Scylla could only be glad that the unfortunate girl's sufferings were over. While trying to tend Bisesa, she had been too preoccupied to think about the pain of her own hands, but now, while old Jameela and the girl's relatives washed and laid out her body, Scylla went into the small closet where the medicines were kept and found some lotion of honey and gum arabic to rub on her blistered, stinging palms; she wondered, with a kind of exhausted resignation, whether by the next night she, too, would be in Bisesa's condition.

Rousing old Abdul, who dozed in the forecourt, she returned home and found that Colonel Cameron, whom she had left asleep in a basket chair, had woken and was pacing anxiously about the main room of the bungalow.

“You should not have left the house without informing me!” he said harshly. “At any moment now, insurrection and bloodshed may break out—this is hardly the time to be gadding around Ziatur in the small hours.”

Scylla raised her brows. She was, however, too weary to trouble about defending herself, though she was not sure by what right he berated her.

“Excuse me—I am very tired—I am going to bed,” she answered shortly, trying to move past him in the direction of her room.

“Where have you been?”

“At the hospital, with our maid, who was dying.”

Removing the burqa that covered her hair, she lifted her hands. Cameron exclaimed, as he saw them:

“Good God, girl! You cannot go to bed with your hands in such a condition as that! They must be treated! What is the matter with them?”

“I think I must have taken the infection from Bisesa,” she said tiredly. “You had better keep away from me.”

Sharply he questioned her about the maid's illness: when it had come on, what course it had taken, what clues, if any, Bisesa had let fall as to what might have caused it. “Did she mention anything she had eaten or drunk?”

“No, she gave us no clue at all. Her last words, poor child, were an apology for trying on my new sari. I had intended to give it her anyway—for her wedding,” Scylla said, her voice breaking with fatigue and grief.

“
Sari?
” he demanded swiftly. “You don't mean that red affair with the pearls—the one Mahtab Kour sent you?”

“Yes, why?”

“She had tried it on? Where is it?”

She gestured with her head.

Cameron strode into her bedroom and, snatching up a riding whip that lay on a chest, he gingerly poked aside the muslin wrappings and inspected the gauzy rose-colored garment, holding a lamp near it so as to get the sheen of its light over the fabric; then, raising a fold of material on the handle of the riding crop, he very cautiously sniffed at it.

“Mahtab Kour never sent you this,” was his verdict. “I'll stake my head it was that scheming snake Sada.”

“
Sada?
But why—?”

“It has been dipped in datura poison. You may think yourself fortunate, my child, that rose color does not suit your complexion—that you did not put it on,” Cameron said grimly.

Lifting the bundle of material, holding it balanced on the riding crop, he carried it into the garden, took out flint and tinderbox, and set fire to it. Then he stood watching it flare up until the last shred of gauze was consumed.

Returning to the house, “Have you any bread dough set to rise?” he asked Scylla.

“
Bread?
I daresay Habib-ulla may have a pan of dough—why, in heaven's name?”

Without bothering to answer, he went off to the kitchen and came back with a big earthenware crock of soft, raw dough, set to rise for the morning.

“Habib-ulla will be
very
angry,” Scylla said, half laughing, as Cameron pulled the soft dough apart into two large shapeless lumps.

“Doubtless he would prefer his memsahib to retain the use of her hands,” Cameron laconically replied. Having pulled and stretched the two pieces of dough into flat cakes about a foot square, he wrapped each piece around Scylla's inflamed hands, pressing the soft stuff close to the wrist. “Now I need some cloth; yes, table napkins will do,” and he bound these over the flaps of dough to hold them in place.

“What is datura?” Scylla inquired as he knotted the second napkin into place.

“Thorn apple. One of nature's deadlier poisons. The sari must have been steeped in a strong infusion; if you had worn it you must have died like your maid. Raw dough is a fair specific against its external use, fortunately.”

“Good God,” Scylla said slowly. “But why should Sada wish my death?”

Somehow the news came as no particular surprise to her. She had already felt convinced of Sada's hatred.

“Oh, why,
wh
y
? Who asks
why
in Ziatur?” Cameron said impatiently. “She wishes the Angrezi to leave; she believes you—or Miss Musson—might be a threat to her position. Now you had better try to sleep.”

“How am I supposed to undress myself with my hands tied up like plum puddings?” Scylla demanded.

“Unless you wish me or your brother to unrobe you, you will have to sleep in your clothes,” he replied coolly.

“I wish no such thing,” retorted Scylla, much affronted; adding, “Where is Cal, by the by?”

“Asleep.” The impatient, fatigued note in his voice made her study the colonel with some compunction. He looked deathly tired; his cheekbones seemed more prominent than ever, for his eyes were sunk back in their hollows; his dark red hair was in a considerable state of disorder and damp with sweat.

She said apologetically, “Indeed, I am very much obliged to you, Colonel, for your skill. I do not believe even Miss Musson knew of this remedy. My hands begin to feel better already.”

“Keep the dough on all night,” was his only answer. “Stay—you should have some brandy now. It will help you sleep.”

And, with the impersonal efficiency of someone administering a draught to a sick animal, he assisted her to swallow a sizable dram of cognac, holding the glass carefully to her mouth. Scylla protested and spluttered—she was not accustomed to drink spirits—but he sharply adjured her not to be a ninnyhammer and tipped the liquid down her throat.

“Now—go and lie down on your bed.”

She could only obey, observing to herself with some indignation that Colonel Cameron conferred his kindnesses like punishments; but no doubt he considered the Paget twins a dead bore, always having to be rescued from some predicament or other, and a thoroughly inconvenient responsibility; rather dismally Scylla reflected that he had reason to do so. Moreover it was all too plain that the placid course of their existence in Ziatur had come to an abrupt end. Being Miss Musson's old friend, Cameron no doubt considered that he had a duty to see her and her young companions safely out of the place; though whether he could bring Miss Musson to see the necessity of this would be another matter.

Having reached this unsatisfactory conclusion, Scylla succumbed to the effects of the brandy and the day's exhaustion and alarums; she fell into profound and dreamless slumber.

* * *

When she woke, many hours later, it was to find the bungalow empty and silent. Venturing to strip the bread dough from her hands, she discovered that the inflammation had gone down; Colonel Cameron's remedy had been remarkably efficacious. If only we could have used it on poor Bisesa! Scylla thought sadly.

Having washed and changed her clothes, Scylla went out to the veranda, where she found Cal, deep, as usual, in his epic poem on Alexander the Great. He nodded as she came out but hardly looked up. Of Habib-ulla, who brought her tea, melon, and chupattis, Scylla demanded:

“Where is the Mem Musson? Is she still at the palace?” and, learning that this was the case resolved to go immediately in search of the older woman.

“Shall I come too?” inquired Cal, who, having successfully reached the end of a canto and vaguely realizing that they were faced with an untoward situation, was prepared to render assistance, but Scylla said:

“No, thank you, love, for in any case you could not enter the women's apartments. You had best remain here, in case Miss Musson comes back by a different route and we miss one another.”

She pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves to protect her tender hands; the effect was bizarre with the burqa and hat.

“Well, don't be too long,” Cal said, “or I shall be uneasy about you. There's a devilish queer feeling about the town today.”

Scylla had noticed it too. A deathly hush lay in the streets; only the sound of wailing and fumes of incense filled the air.

In the palace the atmosphere was even stranger and more unnerving. Agitated whispers ran through the hush; distant gongs boomed; saucers of incense burned before every god and goddess in their niches along the winding corridors; and marigold petals were scattered everywhere, adding a sickly fragrance to the general miasma. Colored rice crunched under Scylla's slipper soles as she walked the accustomed route to the princes' schoolroom; not that she proposed to give them any lessons on such a day of mourning, but she wished to see them and offer her condolences on the death of their father, to whom they had been very attached.

No condolences were needed. She saw the princes indeed—and the sight was enough to drive the blood from her heart and the breath from her lungs.

Hideously swollen and distorted, with blackened faces and starting eyeballs, the boys lay sprawled together on a divan in their workroom. Ranju had died clutching at his stomach; Amur was doubled backward, his face contorted in a final rictus of agony. The room smelled acid with vomit. Both bodies were stiff and cold; it was plain they had been dead for many hours.

“Oh, God! My God!” Scylla whispered with dry lips. She turned to see Nuruddin, the Maharajah's physician, standing behind her.

“A very sad sight, is it not, Mem Periseela?” he greeted her smoothly. “Those two devoted boys, in grief for their father, both swallowed poison in order to follow him. Was not that a touching and beautiful deed?”

Scylla looked at him stonily. She remembered the tray of sweetmeats that Sada had sent the boys. She thought of the rose-colored sari.

“I do not believe they killed themselves,” she said. “I believe they were poisoned.”

“I must strongly recommend that you do not go uttering these thoughts aloud in the palace, memsahib,” Nuruddin replied. “Indeed, if you are a sensible young lady you will go directly back to your home; now, at once.”

“I wish to find Miss Musson,” Scylla replied curtly, and walked past him.

“You will find your friend with the Maharani Mahtab Kour. If you value
her
safety,” the physician said, “you will advise her also to return home.”

Mahtab Kour's part of the palace was even more shrouded in gloom than usual, and suffocatingly stuffy. Scylla paused at one point by a shuttered window and pushed the slats of the shutter aside to inhale a little outside air, but then she wished she had not done so. Outside, in a courtyard of the zenana, a huge pyre was being built; shuddering, she guessed at its purpose. Averting her eyes from it, Scylla hurried on.

She found Mahtab Kour, her portly bulk shrouded in white mourning robes, rocking to and fro, moaning and lamenting. Her women were about her, and all her immense quantities of jewels, robes, boxes of stuffs, cosmetics, carpets, chests of coins, diamond-studded slippers, silk shawls, embroidered bedspreads with jeweled fringes, silk floor cloths, and other personal belongings were being brought before her on trays, so that she could arrange for their distribution among various friends and relatives, who surrounded her with bowed beads, joining loudly in her lamentations.

A new pet slave girl (the little Persian, Laili, had died of her infected ears) huddled dolefully against her mistress, gazing up with large, hypnotized eyes at Mahtab Kour, down whose face tears incessantly streamed, who continually murmured invocations to the gods, at the same time continuing in quite a businesslike way to make arrangements for the disposal of her possessions.