White Mughals (69 page)

He then makes what is his first reference to the Begum for several weeks:

Khair had been receiving the odd message from Henry ever since they parted company, but with each month that passed, his letters to Masulipatam were becoming increasingly irregular. Soon there began the first of a succession of complaints from Khair that she was being neglected, complaints that Russell, characteristically, sidestepped, putting the blame on his younger brother and on Sharaf un-Nissa: ‘Be very particular too in mentioning me in all your letters to the Begum;’ he tells Charles,

He goes on to say that Khair is clearly lonely in her mother’s absence in Hyderabad, and says that Charles should tell Sharaf un-Nissa to hurry back to her daughter’s side in Masulipatam: ‘She promised me to stay only a month at Hyderabad, and you must insist on her leaving in the beginning of April. Do not, on any account, permit her to remain beyond that time, even if she should express a desire to do so.’
⁶¹

But despite his protestations to the contrary, there is no doubt that Khair was indeed beginning to move from the centre of Russell’s world. It was not just that she appears increasingly infrequently in his letters; there is also a measure of conscious disengagement: when Charles writes to tell his brother that there has been a dispute over the seizure of Bâqar Ali Khan’s property—presumably it has been resumed by Mir Alam’s government following the old man’s death—Henry counsels him not to get involved: ‘I do most strongly insist that no consideration whatever may induce you to intervene, on any occasion, on behalf of any member of her family. You would not do so without being liable to a charge of impropriety.’
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Henry also fails to react with proper sympathy when Charles and Sharaf un-Nissa both write to tell him that the latter has failed in her attempt to persuade Mir Alam to revoke Khair’s banishment. This was a heartbreaking moment for both mother and daughter, the confirmation of all they had feared; but Russell takes it all easily in his stride. Referring to Sharaf’s news he remarks merely:

In a later letter, after Sharaf un-Nissa has headed back to Masulipatam to break the news of Mir Alam’s decision to Khair, Russell merely observes: ‘I am glad that Shurfoon Nifsa Begum has returned to Masulipatam. The man’s conduct towards her has been perfectly consistent, and therefore ought not to cause surprise … [and confirms] the necessity of [the Begum] remaining at Masulipatam … I think it was discernable [in advance] that the Meer should treat her as he has always done.’
⁶⁴

So saying, Russell returns to describing his Madras social life. And as the rounds of parties continue, one figure in particular takes the place of Khair in his correspondence: a beautiful, rich Anglo-Portuguese merchant’s daughter. Her name was Jane Casamajor.

Jane is first mentioned as a friend of Thomas Sydenham’s younger brother George: ‘If George Sydenham is arrived [in Hyderabad],’ Henry writes to Charles in March 1808, ‘tell him that Jane Casamajor has been alarmingly ill indeed; and though better today, is not yet even pronounced to be out of danger.’
⁶⁵

When she recovers, Russell goes to see her: ‘Yesterday I called at the Casamajors to congratulate them on the recovery of Jane … [She] looked delicate and feeble … [and] has been very ill indeed … I believe that for several days her medical attendant thought it very precarious which way it would terminate.’
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Jane eventually made a full recovery, and as March gives way to April she takes up an increasingly large amount of space in Henry’s letters. She is, he assures Charles, ‘an extremely fine girl and the family is altogether the best at Madras’; but he quickly adds that

For the ball, which was a masquerade, Russell had got Charles to send him some of James Kirkpatrick’s old Mughal robes, which James had kept at the Begum’s house in the old city and which he appears to have worn when he came to relax there, and also at informal occasions at court.
⁶⁸
There had been moments in Russell’s past when it seemed he might have followed James in his journey across cultures; but in the end he was a very different man to his principal. Moreover, and crucially, he was from a very different generation. James was among the last of the English officials in India who found it possible to truly cross cultures. The new Imperial ideas that Wellesley imported from England—ideas which Henry Russell had absorbed when he first arrived in Calcutta—made it increasingly difficult for individuals to make the leap from Britain to India, from Georgian to Mughal, from Christianity to Islam. India was no longer a place to embrace and to be transformed by; instead it was a place to conquer and transform. The British attitudes to Indians and Indian culture that Russell absorbed in the Calcutta of 1800 were never entirely shaken off by his time at James’s side in Hyderabad. James had worn his Mughal clothes for everyday use around the Residency and for his other life in Khair un-Nissa’s
deorhi
in the old city; now Russell wore them merely as fancy dress. In the brief period separating the two men, an important historical line had been crossed.

Shortly after the ball, Russell writes that he has not visited Jane for nearly a week: ‘Excepting once in the evening on the Mount Road, I have not seen Jane since I went there last Sunday. This is Friday. Is not my self command wonderful? But perhaps I shall call there tomorrow morning. It is surely the pleasantest home in Madras... ’
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By the middle of May, rumours about Russell and Jane have reached Charles in Hyderabad, and he writes to his brother to ask if there is any basis in the stories doing the rounds. Henry is horrified, and asks for more information about the detail of this gossip: ‘I am now placed in a most cruel and painful predicament; and if her feelings and pride are half so great as mine are I am sure she must feel as distressed as I do’ at these stories in circulation, he writes. He goes on to deny having given Jane any grounds for believing he would marry her, and says the rumours Charles has been hearing are wholly incorrect:

Only a week later, Russell’s tone is very different, and he finally admits what has been obvious to everyone in Madras for months. In the middle of a letter to Charles he suddenly bursts out: ‘Jane! Dear Jane! What shall I say of her? That I feel my danger growing more imminent every day, and that the swain who deliberates is undone. When I am absent from her I feel that an immediate permanent separation would ultimately eradicate any affection I have formed for her; but in her presence, I am conscious of the influence of a fascination which is altogether irresistible. Of such a separation I see no Prospect.’ He tells his brother of a dinner party the night before: ‘I said nothing with my tongue that could appear like Love; but I fear my eyes and my manners were beyond my control and that they may have betrayed to anybody who would take the trouble to observe them, that I was far from being insensible to the charms of my companion … the truth of the matter is that I am in Love... ’

As for the Begum, Henry’s mind was clearly made up: ‘If anything comes of this flirtation,’ he tells Charles breezily, ‘I shall request you to take Masulipatam in your way, as you come here; and will, before that time, write to you fully on that subject. The duty you will have to discharge will, I fear, be a very painful and distressing one; but for my sake I am sure you will undertake it.’
⁷¹

Painful and distressing it certainly would be. But not for Henry Russell. The following evening, less than two months after he first met her, he asked Jane Casamajor to marry him.

One month later, on around 20 June 1808, Charles Russell set off from Hyderabad on yet another errand for his brother. This time, however, the task in hand involved a rather longer journey, and a rather more upsetting business, than the fetching and packing of Hyderabadi women’s garments, a task on which he had been intermittently engaged on his brother’s behalf for the past two years. His job now was to go to Masulipatam and break the news of Henry and Jane’s marriage to Khair un-Nissa, a woman he had yet to meet, but with whom (again at his brother’s request) he had been corresponding every three days or so since January.

Charles had earlier received a long letter from Henry, telling him that his proposal of marriage had of course been accepted by Jane, and giving him detailed instructions on how he was to deal with the delicate task of informing Khair that she had been abandoned: ‘the task you will have to perform will be arduous and painful; most arduous to you, and most painful to me. But it is necessary.’
⁷²
Two days later, obedient as ever, Charles set off to Masulipatam, intending to head on to Madras to meet his future sister-in-law after he had done his brother’s bidding.