Jane Steele (15 page)

At nine o’clock, when we were both nodding, I recalled that I was a severe governess, the hired instructor of a rich man’s charge, and rang the bell. Sahjara went meekly enough with the scarred woman when I promised to take a full tour of the stables upon the morrow, and I found myself in the company of Mr. Singh, blinking exhaustedly at the indigo tapestries which had replaced the choleric portraits along the staircase.

“Your room has been made ready and your trunk brought up, but do not hesitate to ring,” Mr. Singh said as we ascended. I did not have to feign unfamiliarity with my surroundings—the bones of Highgate House remained, but its skin had been shed.

“I expect the coach shall have worn me clean through.”

“So often the way with coaches,” he intoned.

“Is Sahjara a relation of Mr. Thornfield?”

I imagined slight hesitation before Mr. Singh replied smoothly, “No. Miss Kaur is the daughter of an old friend. As I said, if you need anything, ring for Mrs. Garima Kaur—our housekeeper, whom you saw before—and she will attend you. Though she speaks little English, she will understand you if you make a request.”

Pausing, I asked, “Sahjara is . . . her daughter?”

Mr. Singh turned on the landing, his candle illuminating the edge of his tall turban and the hollow crescent of a smile. “Ah, no indeed. Sikh men take the name Singh, as I do, and Sikh women the name Kaur. It is our custom.”

“Are all the domestics Sikhs, then?” I asked innocently, my heart tensing for his answer.

“Indeed we are, Miss Stone. I hope that will not prove a problem.”

“Oh, of course not,” I assured him as I thrilled with satisfaction. “I hope to learn a great deal more.”

We continued up the staircase from which the oil portrait of my uncle Richard Barbary had used to stare cunningly. At last, Mr. Singh swung a door open. They had readied Aunt Patience’s room for me. It was not Aunt Patience’s room any longer, however; the silver lamps gleamed, the corners were full of ferns, the heavy velvet hangings on the bed replaced with magical violet and lilac ones in such dye shades as I had never before seen, and where once a few niggardly coals had gasped for breath, the hearth laughed and crackled.

Wrenching my stupefied gaze from the silent white tiger skin roaring at me from the floor, I turned to thank Mr. Singh.

“Oh, and . . .” I added. He stopped, raising his chin. “Mr. Thornfield spoke of limits regarding where I’m allowed to go within the house?”

Mr. Singh’s beard bobbed. “The cellars are under construction,
and it is hazardous to explore them. The rest of Highgate House, including the attics should you require storage, is at your disposal—it is only the underground which is kept locked whilst alterations are in progress.”

Obviously, the house was much changed; and yet, the back of my brain still prickled at this. When Jane Eyre first tours her new home and hears the tragic laugh she supposes Grace Poole’s, the author writes,
but that neither scene nor season favoured fear,
I should have been superstitiously afraid.
I was not afraid; but the fierce possessiveness I felt for Highgate House made me long to relearn it from plaster cracks to stone foundation. Being barred from a portion felt galling.

“I shall conduct all remaining introductions in the morning—say, after Sahjara has shown you the stables?” Mr. Singh prompted when I said nothing.

“Yes, of course. Here I stand peppering you with questions which can wait for the morrow—though of course those questions will likely only lead to fresh ones.”

“So often the way,” said he, and this time I knew it for a subtle jest, “with questions.”

A key reposed in the lock and, dizzied at the prospect of experiencing genuine privacy for the first time in my life, I turned it.

Revolving as I crossed the room, drinking in pillows edged with seed pearls and the filigreed birds hanging upon the walls, I suppressed a shudder.

The last time I was here, I requested to be placed in the hands of Mr. Munt.

So much had changed; I now knew myself a thousand times better, as if I were a textbook I had studied, but being at Highgate House conjured everything from the graceful dips above my mother’s clavicle to Edwin’s damp palms.

One memory at a time
would be a welcome diversion: so many together are agonising.

With arms of lead, I tossed some water on my face from the pitcher and braided my erratic waves of hair, donning my nightdress. On an impulse, I went to the window and drew back the sheer amethyst curtains
—
there was the diagonal line of our cottage’s gable in the moonlight, seen through silhouetted trees. Biting my knuckle, I studied it until I knew that I must turn away or else pretend to have caught a head cold come morning.

As my eyes shifted, they snagged upon the drive, a ribbon of heather within the slate, and I thought of Charles Thornfield.

Indeed, once my mind latched upon him, I stood for several more minutes, wondering what business my mortal enemy had that would take him away from his clearly beloved ward; I at last collapsed, worn to a bone shard, upon my deceased aunt Patience’s feather bed.

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world: cut adrift from every connection; uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.

I
have no doubt but that you will find your way,” Mr. Singh assured me, pouring a cup of clove-scented tea at the kitchen table. “We cannot be what you expected to find.”

The December morning had been frigid, a pristine lace veil draped bridelike over the grounds. Sahjara had met me before the stables, wearing her riding habit, raven’s-feather eyes gleaming. Her enthusiasm for equestrianism was no hardship—I felt pure satisfaction when I tugged back the familiar wooden gate, splinter prone and rust smelling, and entered the stable. After Sahjara gathered that horses were neither averse to me nor I to them, she blithely wondered did I always look so happy when I stood beside a stallion’s muzzle, smiling at its single visible eye?

The answer was
yes
, of course, but then Sahjara departed to work with her riding coach, and I rendezvoused with Mr. Singh in the kitchen only to behold the entire domestic staff.

Agatha
, I thought, suppressing a fresh gush of panic despite assurances the household was entirely foreign.
She would say nothing,
surely—she would never betray my confidence, once she learnt I meant to claim what’s mine.

Agatha, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“I hope meeting us all at once was not too terribly overwhelming.” In the satiny winter light of midday, I realised that Mr. Singh was younger than I had supposed; he could not have exceeded Mr. Thornfield’s five and thirty. The beard framing his mouth lent the impression he was always mildly smiling or lightly frowning, both somehow solicitous expressions.

“Oh, no.” Sipping my tea too soon, I scalded my tongue. “It was lovely.”

It was not; I was wholly ignorant of how governesses are expected to behave. We had been groomed for the profession at Lowan Bridge: so was my first step to steal food, tell lies, or thrust a letter opener into someone’s gullet?

“They were gratified by your open nature, fearing a traditionalist. You already seem quite at ease with Sahjara. I don’t suppose I need tell you she is beloved by us all.”

I smiled, shaking my head. I had now formally been introduced to Mrs. Garima Kaur, the housekeeper with the terrible white mark on her brow, who indeed spoke scant English but listened with such care it hardly mattered; Mrs. Jas Kaur, the cook; and eight additional Singhs and Kaurs, the remaining house servants and grooms, all of whom fascinated and overwhelmed in equal measure.

During some confusion I gathered had to do with the cellar workmen, Mrs. Garima Kaur leant into my face as if consulting a mirror and murmured, “Quiet. Afraid?”

“Why would—no,” I stammered. “Only anxious.”

Garima Kaur was a gaunt woman with severely stark bone structure, her cheeks hollow beneath dark eyes so deeply set one could not help but see the skull beneath. Without the silvery streak across her
brow, and with a stone more flesh on her skeleton, she might have been beautiful—as it was, she was only striking. She stared straight into my mind, or so it felt.

She cocked her head, the scar glinting at the same instant as an unreadable smile. “Mr. Sardar Singh—good. Nothing bad. You, how in English?”

I had no notion.

“Safe. Mr. Singh. Do not worry, do not worry,” she repeated, using a phrase she must have just learnt.

It might have been dreadfully alarming, save that it was not; butlers have the run of every estate, and to be assured by the housekeeper that ours would not infringe upon my virtue was rather companionable.

“I won’t worry,” I assured her, touching her sleeve, and I noted she wore no wedding ring. It was common practice for housekeepers to go by
Mrs.
without husbands, however, as a token of respect. “You are unmarried, then, Mrs. Kaur?”

Her lips pursed. “Yes, Miss Stone. You?”

“I can’t think of anyone who would marry me,” I joked, and Mr. Singh returned to finish the introductions.

Now we sat alone in the kitchen, Mr. Sardar Singh and I. All the hanging copper pans and cast-iron pots remained the replica of my memory’s; they were augmented, however, by queer skillets and glazed vessels, and where once only salt and pepper had reposed, a sunset blaze of glass-jarred spices sat next to a heaping bowl of onion, garlic, and gingerroot, all emitting a perfume so overwhelming that I had already sneezed twice. For good measure, I did so again.

“Bless you,” my companion said smoothly. “I already informed you last night we must keep away from the cellars, Miss Stone.”

Yes, and now I am determined to visit them.

“And now you know everyone here by name.”

Would that were true.

“Should you have any further questions, I am your man,” he concluded, mouth tipping upwards as he spread his hands.

“Mr. Thornfield is a most . . . peculiar individual,” I attempted, feigning interest in my teacup.

“So often the way with individuals.”

Chuckling, I added, “He treats Sahjara like a princess.”

“Well, she is a princess, so that is quite natural.”

My eyes shot up to find that Mr. Singh’s were equally mirthful. “You cannot—no, it is impossible.”

“Not merely possible but true.” Mirroring me, the butler watched the vortex created by his spoon. “We Sikhs call ourselves the pure ones. You were bemused by our names last night—men belonging to the religion are baptised
,
you would say, with the surname Singh, which means
lion
. Women are baptised with the surname Kaur, or princess.”

“Every Sikh female is a princess?”

He took a sip of tea. “You must think us altogether mad.”

“No!” I exclaimed so fast that droplets splashed into my saucer. Embarrassed, I set the cup down. “I mean to say, I think I could grow fond of Sahjara, and I intend to do well by her.”

“That is gratifying to hear. Mr. Thornfield is not incorrect in calling her the Young Marvel, though he sounds ever in jest—her name means
daybreak
, and she truly does throw the curtains open, doesn’t she? You seem too restless for tea, Miss Stone—no, no, I taxed you with social necessities. Might you enjoy a short tour?”

Eagerly, I agreed, and we pushed back our chairs that I might enjoy a tour of my own estate.

“The music room remains relatively intact, but some minor
alterations have been made,” said Mr. Singh, sliding back a glass-paned door a few minutes later.

The walls were covered with scores of minuscule framed artworks which had been rendered in such fine detail that I imagined I peered through an enchanted telescope. In one set, the same cottage was depicted in high summer, brilliant autumn, blue winter, and lush spring; in another, a saint with a beard and turban stared as if the viewer’s soul were being weighed upon his scale; in others, lovers clasped each other with such enthusiasm any governess ought to have been shocked.

I barely remembered to flare my nose in dismay.

“This is Mr. Thornfield’s collection of Punjabi miniatures.” Mr. Singh either had not noted my pretended disapproval or did not care, for he smiled as he reached my side. “His eye for worth is exceptional, having been raised in Lahore. See this portrait of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the way the furnishings are patterned so lovingly, but his face most carefully rendered of all?”

“Mr. Thornfield is from Lahore?” I asked, latching on to undeniably the most intriguing word in this statement. “How is that possible, the East India Company only having arrived there some five years ago? Or so I read in the newspapers—I supposed Mr. Thornfield English.”

Again I sensed a tick of the clock before Mr. Singh spoke. “He was born there, to a British entrepreneur, but he studied medicine at the British and Foreign Medical School and then Charing Cross Hospital before he returned to the Punjab. Ah, you would not have known he belongs to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of London, of course. Yes, Mr. Thornfield is a man of medicine. This particular painting is moving for us—Amritsar, the Sikh holy city where our sacred book resides.”

It was a gilded palace at the end of a pure white pier surrounded
by sapphire waters—an impossible place, a dream breathed from a dawn pillow.

“To have left this behind—you must miss it very much,” I mentioned, wisely refraining from commentary regarding homes from which I myself had fled.

“God has his seat everywhere,” Mr. Singh returned without inflection, as if quoting a text.

“I thought from the advertisement that Mr. Thornfield had been in the wars?”

An invisible shutter closed over Mr. Sardar Singh’s face. “Who has not been in a war? Yes, Mr. Thornfield trained as a doctor but obtained an army commission after military training at Addiscombe.”

Mr. Singh strode off and I pursued, anxious lest I had given offence on my second day. We turned left down a corridor, right down another, until I knew we stood before the billiards room, and he rested his fingers upon the door handles.

“Forgive me, I never meant to—”

Air burst into my face as the butler revealed the room; but I could not enter, such was my astonishment at the narrow fraction I beheld.

“After you, Miss Stone,” Mr. Singh demurred.

A steel palace, the inside of a diamond—how shall I best describe a billiard room transformed into a war display? Swords—straight, curved, broad, tapered—lined every wall, polished to a sheen echoing the pain of the blade itself. Their handles were inset with ivory carvings, their hilts embellished with golden flourishes, their points angled into queer triangles or hollowed into deadly sickle shapes. Shorter daggers hung above the liquor cabinet, and the hearth was festooned with weapons I could scarce comprehend—tri-pronged silver objects with needlelike points, axes so beautiful I could not
fathom using them, bizarre metal circlets which gleamed at us like eyes. I had never viewed such a fascinating collection of murderous devices.

“Oh,” I breathed, delighted.

“Do they interest you?” Mr. Singh sounded pleased. “These are the weapons of the Khalsa, and I’m afraid we are all quite adept with them.”

“Mr. Thornfield has a cuff like yours,” I noted, too alight with inquisitiveness to care whether I was being rude.

“You are observant. Yes—he is a Sikh, just as I am.”

“However is that possible?”

“There is no Hindu; there is no Mussulman,” he answered, and I again had the impression he quoted scripture. “If there is no Hindu and no Mussulman, and all can form a single brotherhood, then there is no Christian either. I beg your pardon, as that is not a popular opinion in this country.”

I could reach only one conclusion: Mr. Charles Thornfield was improbably born in the Punjab, took medical courses, gained a military commission, and at some point embraced an entirely foreign culture. The master of the house (temporarily, anyhow) was the pitied and often despised sort who had allowed his Britishness to fade in the searing desert sun, politeness and gaslight and snobbery leached into the dunes. During my newspaper scoutings, I had often glimpsed accounts of such hapless folk, as we were forever at war with
somebody
: London was pockmarked with men who professed a respect for the Buddha, women who had converted to—horror of horrors—vegetarianism.

“I shock you, Miss Stone.”

I laughed. “You don’t, on my life you don’t. Which of these are you best with?”

Mr. Singh emitted a happy puff through his nostrils, pointing at
one of the shining metal circlets. “That is a
chakkar
—a steel throwing ring honed into a blade. Members of the Khalsa used to hurl these at their foes before enemies rode within striking distance. Now experts are almost unheard-of.”

“Save yourself.”

“I am considered passable,” he demurred, but his eyes sparkled.

My attention snagged upon something still more extraordinary, and I approached where it hung above a rack of billiard cues. The object had a rosewood sword grip; where the blade was meant to emerge, however, a metal band was coiled in upon itself and tied with thick black leather, so that it resembled a hilt attached to a lengthy ribbon of steel wound into a tidy ring.

“What on
earth
 . . . ?” I stretched to the tips of my toes to look more closely.

“What excellent taste you have in exotic weaponry, Miss Stone.” Instantly I relapsed onto my heels, wondering whether it was too late to affect disapproval. “No, no, I cannot fault your appreciation for what may be the most extraordinary collection of Sikh artefacts in England. This is an
aara
, and only highly advanced warriors are trained in them. Essentially, you regard a combination of a whip and a sword—when unrolled, the metal strip divides flesh as if it were butter. I need hardly add that foolhardy fascination with this weapon leads only to missing fingers or worse.”

I allowed my pupils to lose their focus in the
aara
’s shining whorls—half recalling all the times in London when a strange man had approached, the jaundiced light of malice in his eyes, and imagining that I could have snapped the blackguard’s head off from twelve feet distant.

“Will you show me, sometime, when your schedule permits?”

“I regret I must decline.” Mr. Singh held the door open for me, signalling a need to return to his tasks. “I was once considered formidable with the
aara
, I admit, but fell out of practice. For that
pleasurable spectacle, you will have to await the return and good humour of Mr. Thornfield.”

•   •   •

I
’ve finished, I
promise
. Now I must see that Dalbir’s hoof has been tended properly.”

Five days later, Sahjara and I sat in a converted schoolroom which would have elevated most eyebrows—draperies of orange and amber embroidered with flowering trees lined the walls, conjuring an impossible forest when outside all was grey and snow-softened. There were also chalkboards, paper and ink, drawing utensils, plentiful books, and a pianoforte which look neglected and obligatory.