Wilful Impropriety (39 page)

She took two or three careful breaths, her busk pressing back against her ribs.

“My heart is broken, you know,” she said.

Her voice was quiet and sounded somehow far away, and for a moment she was afraid of how it must seem, to sound so sad about some governess (she was still so often foolish, about little childish things).

But he didn’t laugh at her. He laced his hands together, looked at the ridge of his folded knuckles. He was flushed, just at the tips of his temples.

“But a broken heart can mend,” he said. “I am sure that someday, you will find someone for whom you care.”

She tried to imagine that day. She tried to imagine walking into a ballroom in London and seeing William, and her heart turning over; she tried to imagine seeing some sparkling Countess laughing and glittering with diamonds, like in one of Miss Hammond’s novels.

But it was only Miss Hammond she thought about, Miss Hammond waltzing across the empty room, one inch of her petticoat showing, where she had picked up her skirt to pretend the glory days had come again.

“William,” she said, stopped. She was trying to put words to something that still ached too much to name.

She tried again. “You are very kind, but my heart is a contrary creature—I dare not give you any expectation.”

He nodded, as if there had been worse things, and took a breath or two, and then he looked over at her.

“With no expectation,” he said, “I would be honored to be your friend, if you need one, in London or anywhere else.”

The tips of her fingers went a little warm, as she looked at him, as if they had been singed and were coming to life.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t know how to dance the mazurka unless I keep the time for you,” she said.

“Quite so,” he said, solemn.

After a moment, he smiled.

After a moment more, so did she.

My name is Ashna, and until this morning I was one of the many servants employed by the memsahib and her husband. The husband died three days ago. Now the memsahib lies bloated and motionless in her bed, black flies sticky on the sheet someone pulled over her corpse. Her yellow hair spills out from under the sheet and down to the floor. I’d like to cut off a handful and wave it in victory. Never again will she berate us, belittle us, or treat us like mangy dogs in our own village. But it’s impossible to feel triumphant about anything. This is a house of death, and any survivors have fled to the hills.

All that’s left are rooms filled with the memsahib’s treasures—her silver combs and gold jewelry and the money chest my older sister Saidie said she keeps under the floorboards of her closet.

On my knees in the stifling heat, I push aside a dozen fine dresses and pointy shoes. Foreigners are so fussy and strange with their fashions. The loose board is in the far corner, held in place by one lonely nail. The wooden chest beneath is stuffed with English paper money. I tuck as many notes as I can into my waistband, replace the chest, push the board back into place, and hurry out to the dining room—

The girl is there. The missie sahib. The ugly, disagreeable child that I’ve helped feed and wash and dress for two years now, ever since I came here as but a girl myself.

“Where is everyone?” she demands from the doorway. “Where is my breakfast?”

She’s in her sleeping gown, and her hair is messy, and if she knows her parents are dead she doesn’t seem to care. On the dining-room wall beside her hang small paintings of the land neither she nor I have ever been—England, where the Queen lives in a dozen different palaces and chops off your head if you break the law. To get there, you must cross an ocean filled with magnificent whales. Once you arrive, they fill you with pastries and roasted nuts and haggis. In England girls can go to a fine school, just as the memsahib did, or ride enormous trains through wild forests, or live in cities that are alive with music all night long.

Mary stomps her foot. “Answer me, Ashna! Don’t just stand there and look stupid.”

If I flee, she might raise enough noise to alert a patrol. It would be easier to put a pillow over her face. She’s too small and weak to put up much of a fight. No one has ever loved Mary Lennox, and no one would miss her. But Saidie would say, “She’s just a child.” Saidie, whose heart was bigger than a mountain.

“Is miss very hungry?” I ask.

“Of course I am! No one brought me dinner and no one brought me breakfast, and if my old ayah is gone then where is my new one?”

Her ayah was Saidie. Saidie, who died yesterday morning after days of vomiting and moaning and shriveling up, no matter how many offerings I made to the goddess of cholera. She was nineteen years old. After our mother died she became a second mother to me, but I never thanked her.

In Hindi I say to Mary, “You are as selfish as the memsahib and deserve to be all alone.”

“Speak English!” she orders, her face turning red.

As patiently as possible, as humble as I can, I say, “I am your new ayah. I’ll bring you breakfast, and then we’ll wash and then we’ll play a game. Please wait in your room.”

Before she can answer, I hurry to the kitchen. The cupboards are open and in disarray. Dirty dishes are stacked in the sink and a pitcher of milk has gone sour on the table. Through the windows I can see hungry dogs roaming in the compound between the house and the empty servants’ huts. There’s nothing here to feed the girl. She’ll fuss and complain, and meanwhile I should be on my way to the hills, away from this rot and sickness—

The front door opens and a man calls out, “Hullo! Mrs. Lennox!”

I peek around the corner. Three Englishmen have entered, their army uniforms dusty and faces grim. One of them, Barney, is tall and red-haired and not much older than I am. Twice he’s kissed me under the shade trees where no one could see us. I like his kisses, all firm and sweet. I also like how he smells, leather and gunpowder and strong English soap. When he looks at me he doesn’t see a poor country girl, good only for labor. He sees someone pretty and smart, he says, ready for great adventures.

“Who are you?” demands Mary’s voice, shrill.

“My goodness!” says the oldest of the soldiers. “There’s a child!”

The best thing would be for me to slip out the back door now, while I can. But this might be my last chance to see Barney for a long time.

I step into the hall and bow and say, “The sahib and the memsahib both fell very ill. There was nothing we could do.”

The oldest soldier says, “Who are you, then?”

“My ayah,” Mary announces crossly. “She’s supposed to be bringing me breakfast. I’m famished and I’m thirsty.”

I dart a quick glance to Barney. He isn’t looking at me at all. He’s watching Mary with a soft-hearted look on his face. The memsahib rarely allowed Mary in her company, and few people outside the house have ever seen her. He probably considers her to be a small, helpless thing in need of sympathy. He doesn’t know yet that she has the heart of a snake.

The third soldier has drifted away and found the mem sahib’s bedroom. He returns with a green cast to his complexion and shakes his head. “No good news there, Colonel.”

“What are we to do with you, I wonder?” the colonel muses.

They decide to take her to the clergyman, who lives in a bungalow nearby. As the only servant left, it falls to me to make her presentable and pack her things in a suitcase. “I want my white dress,” Mary says. “I want my blue mirror.” She doesn’t say anything about her dolls or other toys. Finally the bag is packed and the soldiers lock the house behind us, though I don’t think that will deter the thieves soon to come calling.

Barney doesn’t say anything to me until we are all walking down the road with his companions and Mary at the forefront. I get to carry the suitcase.

“Ashna, what will you do now?” he asks, his voice low.

“What should I do?” I murmur. “My people are gone.”

He thinks about it for a moment. “Stay with the child. Keep her happy. The family back in England might reward you handsomely.”

I don’t need any more reward than the money I’ve stolen, but I can’t tell him that.

“I’ll come see you,” he promises. “Tomorrow or the day after. You’ll wait for me, won’t you?”

I quickly squeeze his hand. He looks pleased, but not bold enough to kiss a native girl out here where other soldiers might witness us.

The Reverend isn’t happy to see Mary. He and his wife have five quarrelsome children of their own that shout all day and run around in dirty feet. The colonel appeals to first his sense of decency and then his sense of greed with a promised donation to the church. I’m part of the deal as well. Before the day is over I’ve been put to work scrubbing the floors, and seeing to the smallest children’s needs, and ironing the clergyman’s shirts. Over tea, Mrs. Reverend worries and frets. She tells her husband that people are said to be dying in the hills and villages everywhere.

“The Lord will keep us safe,” he tells her.

Their god won’t keep me safe, though. He has rules about robbing people. Lord Vishnu would not approve either, nor would the prophet Mohammed, nor any of the lamas who travel the road to Lahore. Perhaps I should donate it to the Buddhist monks who come begging with their bowls. But that would only arouse suspicion. I decide to confide in Barney, but he doesn’t visit on the second day, or the day after that, or even the day after that.

Meanwhile the Reverend’s children take an instant dislike to Mary, and she to them, so all she does is sit in her room and command me to entertain her even when Mrs. Reverend wants me to wash the dirty clothes.

“You’re my ayah, mine!” she rages when I try to excuse myself. “No one else can have you.”

The Reverend loans me a missionary’s Bible to read to Mary each night. I don’t like it. It’s in English, not Hindi, with many unfamiliar words to stumble over. Mary is no better at reading, having constantly driven away the governesses who came to the house. Barney promised to teach me more, but that was long ago, before the hot season. He hasn’t come to see me at all since we came here. I pray that he hasn’t fallen ill. When I see a flash of uniform in the lane a few days later my heart jumps, but it’s the British colonel.

“Her uncle in Yorkshire sent a telegram asking that we return Mary to England with her ayah,” he says.

“The girl?” Mrs. Reverend asks, startled. I think she wants to keep me. “How odd.”

“Miss Lennox needs a servant, of course,” the colonel says. “Someone loyal enough to have stayed behind when all the others fled.”

He doesn’t ask me if I want to go. The English are always making decisions and then presuming we agree with them. Staring at the stars that night, I test the idea in my head. Saidie’s last words to me were, “Live a good life, Ashna.” I don’t think she meant leaving our entire country, sailing away on an ocean full of whales, and living in a land full of white people with funny rules and stiff clothes.

Or maybe she did.

But what of Barney? He hasn’t come or sent word. Surely he has plans for our future. The next morning, at dawn, I walk to the garrison and ask for him. They keep me waiting at the gate. The sun is hot on my head and I haven’t had any breakfast. After a long time, a young corporal tells me Barney has been transferred to the Punjab.

“Perhaps he left a letter,” I say.

The corporal averts his eyes. “Sorry. He left nothing.”

When I return to the bungalow, Mary screams at me for running away, and Mrs. Reverend puts me to work scrubbing every pot in the kitchen.

I could slip away in the night to some place far from here. Find a husband, bear him a dozen children, live my life in the endless cycle of dust and monsoons.

Instead I go to England. To find a good life, just as Saidie wished.

•   •   •

The trip by steamship will take two weeks. We are sent in the company of an army officer’s wife. She cares only for her own son and daughter, a set of twins she is taking home to enroll in a boarding school. The English frequently show their love for their children by sending them far away. The twins don’t like Mary and Mary doesn’t like them, and to all of them I’m invisible unless they need me to fetch, clean, or fix something. Each night I get to sleep in a blanket on the floor.

But the ship! It’s enormous and bewildering, full of noise and motion that’s much more splendid than anything at home. Day and night, the smokestacks churn out embers and smoke. Many passengers fall seasick, but to me the movement is like a splendid dance between wood and steel and water. We pass through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea and to the Atlantic Ocean. I know all of this because of Khazin, one of the Lascars who serve as sailors and servants. Whenever possible I meet up with him on the little corner of deck reserved for nonwhites. He teaches me about currents, which are like rivers in the ocean, and how the captain navigates by using a sextant and charts.

“Have you seen many whales?” I ask him.

“As many whales as there are beautiful specks in your eyes,” he says.

I let him kiss me on the mouth. He tastes different than Barney—more like coffee and tobacco, like someone who has experience of the world. I rise up on my toes to reach more of him, but a lookout from above calls out a stern rebuke. He reports me to the officer’s wife.