The Empire Trilogy (66 page)

Fleury had only met the Collector on one occasion and at the time, unfortunately, he had not realized that he was meeting someone who would soon provide an interesting topic of conversation for despairing drawing-rooms. During the two years the Collector had spent in England at the beginning of the decade he had been an active member of numerous committees and societies: the Magdalen Hospital for reclaiming prostitutes, for example, and the aristocratic Mendicity Society for relieving beggars, not to mention any number of literary, zoological, antiquarian and statistical societies. That, of course, was entirely as it should be; anyone of his private means would have done the same. But Hopkins had gone further. Not only had he returned to India full of ideas about hygiene, crop rotation, and drainage, he had devoted a substantial part of his fortune to bringing out to India examples of European art and science in the belief that he was doing as once the Romans had done in Britain. Those who had seen it said that the Residency at Krishnapur was full of statues, paintings and machines. Perhaps it was only to be expected that the Collector's efforts to bring civilization to the natives would be laughed at in Calcutta; but now here he was again, almost as entertaining, in the role of a prophet of doom.

In no time he became a familiar figure in Calcutta as he traversed the city paying calls on various dignitaries. If someone happened to see him making his way along Chowringhee he would say to himself: “There goes Hopkins. I wonder who he's going to warn this time.” The Collector's foretelling of the wrath to come, based largely, people said, on his actually having
eaten
the chapatis he had found soon became a great source of amusement. Fleury, among others, followed his progress with amazement and relish. It even became something of a vogue in Government circles to be called on by the Collector and more than one host entertained his dinner guests with an account of how the Collector had buttonholed somebody or other to predict disaster. And when he visited you he would launch into a confused harangue about the need for civilization to be brought nearer to the native, or something like that, mixed up with gloomy predictions as usual. But as the days went by and people continued to see him driving here or there in Calcutta or stalking with lonely dignity across the no longer very green expanse of the
maidan
or even standing deep in thought beside the river at about the place where the great Howrah Bridge looms today, there came a time when they scarcely noticed him any more.

Gradually, as the weather grew hotter and the list of dignitaries whom he evidently believed it unwise not to warn grew no shorter, the Collector began to take on a frayed appearance, even though his shirt remained as white and his morning coat as carefully pressed. Then, in April, another story about the Collector went the rounds, though where it originated was a mystery. It was said that although he was still to be seen criss-crossing the city, he was no longer paying calls on anyone. During those first few days after his wife's departure everyone Fleury came across, if they had not been visited themselves, at least had a friend, or a friend of a friend, whom the Collector had visited “to draw his attention to the grave state of unrest in which the native finds himself”. But now, if you asked in any of the drawing-rooms you frequented, there would be plenty of people who had seen the Collector on the road but nobody would have heard of him having reached a destination.

Moreover, now that the sun was scorching hot during the middle of the day the Collector was frequently to be seen (you would have seen him yourself if you had been out and about in Calcutta at that time) standing at the roadside in the shade of a tree, he would be standing there lost in thought (thinking, people chuckled, of a way to get a new civilization to advance with the railways into the Mofussil to soothe the natives) like a man waiting for the end of a shower, though, of course, there was not a cloud in sight. But whatever the reason for these long pauses under trees they certainly fostered the belief that the Collector had given up paying warning visits to people. But why, in that case, he should not simply have remained at home, no one could explain.

Of course, there was another explanation that nobody suggested. Now that it was no longer considered to be the height of fashion to be called on and warned by the Collector (indeed, it was thought to be rather ridiculous, for if he had waited this long before coming you were clearly not very high on his list of influential people) a number of those he visited were no doubt declining to see him on the grounds that they were too busy.

And then, one day, quite suddenly, he had disappeared. Evidently he had decided to leave Calcutta to its ignorance and had returned to Krishnapur to take up his duties. For a time nothing more was heard of him.

The cemetery where Fleury's mother was buried is still to be seen in Calcutta, in Park Street, a short distance from the
maidan
. Nowadays it is an astonishing and lonely place, untended and overgrown. Many of the more ambitious Victorian tombs tilt unevenly, others have collapsed or have been deliberately smashed. Very often, too, the lead letters have been picked out of the inscriptions, a small tax imposed by the living on the dead. Near the gate a couple of destitute families huddle uneasily in huts they have built of sticks and rags; no wonder they are so ill at ease, for even to a Christian the atmosphere here is ominous.

In Fleury's day, however, the grass was cut and the graves well cared for. Besides, as you might expect, he was fond of graveyards; he enjoyed brooding in them and letting his heart respond to the abbreviated biographies he found engraved in their stones...so eloquent, so succinct! All the same, once he had spent an hour or two pondering by his mother's grave he decided to call it a day because, after all, one does not want to overdo the lurking in graveyards.

This decision was not a very sudden one. From the age of sixteen when he had first become interested in books, much to the distress of his father, he had paid little heed to physical and sporting matters. He had been of a melancholy and listless cast of mind, the victim of the beauty and sadness of the universe. In the course of the last two or three years, however, he had noticed that his sombre and tubercular manner was no longer having quite the effect it had once had, particularly on young ladies. They no longer found his pallor so interesting, they tended to become impatient with his melancholy. The effect, or lack of it, that you have on the opposite sex is important because it tells you whether or not you are in touch with the spirit of the times, of which the opposite sex is invariably the custodian. The truth was that the tide of sensitivity to beauty, of gentleness and melancholy, had gradually ebbed leaving Fleury floundering on a sandbank. Young ladies these days were more interested in the qualities of Tennyson's “great, broad-shouldered, genial Englishman” than they were in pallid poets, as Fleury was dimly beginning to perceive. Louise Dunstaple's preference for romping with jolly officers which had dismayed him on the day of the picnic had by no means been the first rebuff of this kind. Even Miriam sometimes asked him aloud why he was looking “hangdog” when once she would have remained silent, thinking “soulful”.

All the same, one cannot change one's character overnight simply to suit the fashion, even if one wants to. Some obstinate people in Fleury's predicament prefer to retain the one they started with, and are content to regard their own era as philistine, or effeminate, or whatever it is that they themselves are not. It only becomes a real problem if you fall in love like Fleury and want to seem attractive.

For a day or two Fleury became quite active. He had his book about the advance of civilization in India to consider and this was one reason why he had taken an interest in the behaviour of the Collector. He asked a great number of questions and even bought a notebook to record pertinent information.

“Why, if the Indian people are happier under our rule,” he asked a Treasury official, “do they not emigrate from those native states like Hyderabad which are so dreadfully misgoverned and come and live in British India?”

“The apathy of the native is well known,” replied the official stiffly. “He is not enterprising.” Fleury wrote down “apathy” in a flowery hand and then, after a moment's hesitation, added “not enterprising”. Unfortunately, this burst of energy did not survive the leaden facts which he was given to illustrate the Company's beneficial effect. When told of the spectacular increases in Customs, Opium and Salt revenues he fell into a stupor and not long after was to be seen stretched listlessly on a sofa once more, deep in a book of poems.

Dr Dunstaple had been prevailed upon by Louise and by Mrs Dunstaple to let them delay their departure for Krishnapur until the last ball of the cold season had been held. Louise could then be bridesmaid at the wedding of a friend that very same evening in St Paul's Cathedral. The Doctor sighed. Another few lucky pigs had escaped his spear. He was not fond of dancing.

In the town hall the temperature was well over ninety degrees, the high windows stood open, and punkahs flapped like wounded birds above the dancers. Although Fleury could not imagine how one could dance in such a heat Louise had filled her card in no time at all; by the time he came to make an application to his dismay there remained nothing but the
galloppe
. He passed the back of his hand across his brow and it came away glistening, as if brushed with olive oil. Nor could the ladies look cool; no amount of rice powder could dull the glint of their features, no amount of padding could prevent damp stains from spreading at their armpits.

Pointing out one marvel after another, the musicians, the magnificently liveried servants, the delightful buffet amid the flowers and chandeliers and potted palms, the Doctor strongly recommended Fleury not to ignore this elegant scene when it came to choosing examples of civilized behaviour for his book. This was civilization of a sort, it was true, agreed Fleury, but somehow he believed that what was required was a completely different aspect of it...its spiritual, its mystical side, the side of the heart! “Civilization as it is now denatures man. Think of the mills and the furnaces...Besides, Doctor, everyone I talk to in Calcutta about my book tells me to look at this or that...a canal that has been dug, or some cruel practice like infanticide or suttee which has been stopped...And these are certainly improvements of course, but they are only symptoms, as it were, of what should be a great, beneficial disease...The trouble is, you see, that although the symptoms are there, the disease itself is missing!”

“A beneficial disease!” thought the Doctor, glancing with dismay at Fleury's flushed countenance.

“Hm, that's all very well but...Here, have one of these.” The Doctor proffered Fleury his cigar-case, adding, by way of a subtle compliment: “I'm afraid they're not as good as Lord Canning's though.” He watched Fleury anxiously. He had heard, though it might be only a rumour, that Fleury had cornered some poor devil in the Bengal Club and read him a long poem about some people climbing a symbolical mountain.

Perplexed by this reference to Lord Canning, Fleury took a cigar and ran his nose along it thoughtfully. His eye came to rest on two lovely, perspiring girls nearby as one of them exclaimed: “I hate men who hop in the polka!” At any London ball he might have over-heard the same remark. Moreover, he had heard that wealthy Indian gentlemen also gave balls in Calcutta in the civilized European manner, even though at the same time they despised English ladies for dancing with men as if they were ‘
nautch
' girls, something they would certainly never have permitted to their own wives. There seemed to be a contradiction in this. It was all very difficult.

The Doctor had taken Fleury by the elbow and was guiding him towards the buffet. And where was Mrs Lang this evening? Fleury explained that Miriam had refused to come with him, not because she was still in mourning but because she considered it too hot to dance. Miriam had a mind of her own, he grumbled.

“What a sensible young woman!” cried the Doctor enviously, wishing that his own ladies had minds of their own which told them when it was too hot to dance.

They passed a row of flushed chaperones alongside the floor; the incessant movement of fans gave a fluttering effect to these ladies, as of birds preening themselves. Their eyes, starting out of the pallor of heavily powdered faces, followed Fleury expressionlessly as he strolled by; he thought: “How true that English ladies do not prosper in the Indian climate! The flesh subsides and melts away, leaving only strings and fibres and wrinkles.”

Now there was a stir in the ballroom as the word went round: General Hearsey had arrived! The throng at the edge of the floor was so great that the Doctor and Fleury could see nothing, so they mounted a few steps of the white marble staircase. There they managed to catch a glimpse of the General and the Doctor could not help glancing at Fleury and wishing that his son Harry was there in his stead. Harry would have given anything to set eyes on the brave General whereas Fleury, his brain poached by theories about civilization, could surely not appreciate the worth of the man now making his slow way through the guests, many of whom came forward to greet him; others who had not made his acquaintance rose out of respect and bowed as he passed.

But the Doctor was doing Fleury an injustice for Fleury was no less stirred than he was himself. Fleury suspected himself of being a coward and here he was in the presence of the man who, in front of a sepoy quarter guard trembling on the brink of revolt, had ridden fearlessly up to the rebel who had just shot the adjutant. To the warning of a fellow officer that his musket was loaded the General had replied in words already famous all over Calcutta: “Damn his musket!” And the sepoy, overpowered by the General's moral presence, had been unable to squeeze the trigger. No wonder that, for the moment, Fleury had forgotten about his theories and was feasting his eyes on the elderly soldier below, on the General's thick white hair and mustache, on the manly bearing that made you forget he was sixty-six years old. And as the General, who was talking calmly to some friend, but whose face nevertheless wore a tired and strained look, lifted his eyes and rested them on Fleury for a moment, Fleury's heart thudded as if he had been a hussar instead of a poet.