The Empire Trilogy (79 page)

“Oh, it's trying to bite me again!” she exclaimed. “You said you wouldn't let it!” And the rest of the visit passed pleasantly enough with Harry sitting on one side of her bed and Fleury on the other, each keeping a watch on one of her arms to prevent the mosquito from again ravishing the unfortunate girl.

Talking it over later, Fleury said: “Look here, we should be asking ourselves
why
Lucy won't come into the Residency...Instead of which we waste our time thinking of plans to kidnap her or reasons why life is worth living.”

“She won't come because she's ashamed of what that cad did to her. I should like to give him a deuced good thrashing.” Harry, lying on his mattress in the banqueting hall looked as if he would have given a great deal to have a horsewhip and the offending officer placed within reach.

“Precisely. She's ashamed. But above all it's the ladies who make her feel ashamed. I mean she doesn't seem to mind
us
. Now if we could get one of the ladies to go and visit her and act as if being seduced wasn't the end of the world...D'you see what I'm getting at?”

“That sounds a good idea...but who would go?”

“I'm sure Miriam would go willingly but she's got her migraine at the moment. You don't think we could ask Louise?”

“Oh, I say, she's my sister! And she doesn't know anything about...you know, being seduced and all that rot. She wouldn't be any good at all at that sort of thing.”

“But she doesn't have to know anything about it. She would just have to go along with us and ask her to come to the Residency.”

“Oh no, George, steady on. You probably don't know how
gup
spreads in India. One has to think of her reputation, after all. She
is
my sister, you know.”

And that seemed to be the end of the matter. But they both wondered whether one morning they would wake up to hear that Lucy had been found lifeless.

Fleury had been so busy with one thing and another that he had not had the chance of seeing very much of Louise. This was a pity because he still had not settled the question of the spaniel, Chloë. It was not a very suitable time to start giving people dogs. A dog must eat and perhaps food would soon be in short supply. On the other hand, although he did not care for dogs he had grown sentimental about the idea of Chloë as a gift for Louise: he wanted to see the golden ringlets of Chloë's ears beside Louise's golden tresses (afterwards, Chloë could be got rid of in some way or another).

At last, on the eighth day after the mutiny at Captainganj, Fleury found an opportunity for a private word with Louise. Harry, who was still busy reinforcing the banqueting hall, had sent Fleury to invite his sister to visit his battery, of which he was very proud. He found her attending the Sunday school which the Padre was holding in the vestry: it was her custom to bring little Fanny and then stay to soothe the smaller children if they became distressed by the Padre's explications. But hardly had Fleury delivered his message when Louise was obliged to hand him the baby she was holding in order to comfort another member of the Padre's audience. Fleury, who was unused to babies, was thus obliged to sit with the infant squirming on his lap and to listen to what was being said.

The Padre, who had decided, perhaps rashly, to address the children on the subject of the Great Exhibition, was telling them about the wonders to be found in the Palace of Glass: the machines, the jewels and the statues.

“And yet, children, all these wonderful things were only the natural products of the earth put into more useful and beautiful forms: trees into furniture, wool into garments and so on. Man is able to make these things but he isn't clever enough to make trees, flowers and animals. They must have been made by someone with far greater knowledge than us, in other words...”

“By God,” piped up a little boy with a shining halo of curls.

“Precisely. Only God could produce something so complicated in its structure and workings. Everywhere in the world we see
design
and that, of course, plainly shows that there must have been a
designer
...”

“Oh Padre!” cried Fleury who had unfortunately heard these words and was unable to let them pass, “should we not rather speak to these little ones of the love of God we find in our hearts than about design, production and calculation? Only too soon the materialism of the adult world will smother these innocent little lambs!” And as he uttered the word “lambs” he picked up the baby from his lap and brandished it in his excitement. For a moment it looked as if the unfortunate infant he was wielding might slip from his grasp and dash out its little brains on the floor...but Louise swiftly darted forward and took it from him before the disaster could occur. Discountenanced by this removal of his evidence Fleury watched the Padre turn pale.

“Mr Fleury,” he muttered. “I must ask you not to interrupt. I was merely proving the existence of God
by logical means
to these little ones, so that they might know that they are completely in His power...so that they might know that of themselves they are nothing but sinners who can only be washed clean by the Blood of our Lord.” The Padre paused. Fleury had dropped his eyes and was shaking his head sadly, whether in penitence or disagreement it was impossible to say. The Padre was silent for a little while longer wondering what heretical assumption could have just shaken Fleury's head for him. Could it be that he did not believe in the Atonement?

But the children were waiting so he began cautiously to talk about the lighthouse he had seen at the Exhibition, a splendid lighthouse with a fixed light and moving prisms. What did it remind him of?

“Of God,” piped up the little boy with glittering curls.

“Well, not exactly. It reminded me of the Bible. Why? Because I thought of the many lives it had saved the way a lighthouse saves men from shipwreck. The Bible is the lighthouse of the world. Those nations which are not governed by it are heathenish and idolatrous. Men without the Bible worship stars and stones. For example, ancient history gives an account of two hundred children being burned to death as a sacrifice to Saturn...which is, of course, the Moloch of the Scriptures.” The Padre surveyed the class. “You wouldn't like that, children, would you?” The children agreed that they would not care for it in the least.

Presently it was time for the Sunday school to disband. The Padre went to a cupboard and took out a large, flat wooden box. This box he brought over to the children and when he had opened it they uttered a gasp, for inside there nestled rows of crystallized fruit glowing amber, ruby and emerald. Some of the smaller children could not resist reaching out their tiny fingers to this box. But the Padre said: “I'm going to give you each a piece of sugar fruit, children, but you must not eat it yourselves, for we have been taught that it is better to give than to receive. Outside the gate you will see some poor Christian natives sitting on the ground...I shall now go to the gate with you and there you must each give your piece of sugar fruit to one of these unfortunate men.”

By this time there was only a handful of native Christians left. They sat in the dust with their backs to one or other of the tamarind trees which made an imposing crescent of shade around the gates. They were silent, too, for one cannot keep on wailing or humming indefinitely, and they looked as if they had given up hope of being offered protection. There were also one or two money-lenders, known as
bunniahs
, who had come along to buy up the “certificates of loyalty” as a speculative investment, at a price which varied between four and eight annas at first, but which soon dropped to nothing for a rumour was going about that now, at last, the sepoys were making a definite move to crush the
feringhees
in the Residency; that very evening they would advance from Captainganj and take up positions to attack at dawn. Apart from the
bunniahs
there were, of course, the inevitable bystanders one finds everywhere in India, idly looking on, wherever there is anything of interest happening (and even where there is nothing) because they are too poor to have anything better to do, and the least sign of activity or purpose, even symbolic (a railway station without trains, for example), exerts a magnetic influence over them which nothing in their own devastated lives can counter.

The ragged group of native Christians received the sugar fruit from their little benefactors expressionlessly and in silence. But when the children had gone back into the enclave they wasted no time in throwing it into the ditch for, although Christians, many of them considered themselves to be Hindus as well, indeed primarily, and had no intention of being defiled like the sepoys with their greased cartridges.

Fleury had contrived to walk back with Louise and Fanny to the Dunstaples' house. Because he was nervous of Louise he playfully tried to tease Fanny about what pretty dimples she had; but Fanny failed to respond and the teasing fell rather flat. To tell the truth, this was by no means the first time that Fanny had been used as a conversation piece by some lovesick suitor trying to get on a more relaxed footing with Louise, and she resented it. Presently she ran off, leaving Fleury feeling more awkward in Louise's company than ever.

Disconcerted, Fleury said humbly: “I'm afraid I must apologize, Miss Dunstaple, for that disturbance during Sunday school...and as for the baby which you so wisely took from me, to be honest I'd quite forgotten I had it in my hands.”

“Really, Mr Fleury, there's no need to apologize because there was no harm done, after all, though I must say that I do wonder if there is anything achieved by sending such young children to Sunday school.”

“I fear the Padre was angry with me for speaking out like that,” Fleury said. The rolls of fair curls which escaped from beneath Louise's bonnet seemed to him so like a spaniel's ear that, for a moment, he was able to imagine that it was not Louise but Chloë who was walking along beside him. Something told him, however, that it would not be a good idea to give Chloë to Louise, at least for the immediate future.

Louise was surveying him with a gentle frown. “I'm sure you're right, Mr Fleury, to plead for love rather than calculation to order our lives but...forgive me if I speak frankly...should you not also give a thought to the distress you are causing the poor Padre Sahib with your views?”

“My dear Miss Louise! I should never for a moment wish to cause distress to the Padre Sahib. But think how important it is that we should find
the right way to lead our lives!
And it is only by argument that we
can
find the right way...There is no other way to find the truth.”

“Alas,” said Louise, looking sad, “I sometimes wonder whether we shall ever find the right way. I wonder whether we shall ever live together in harmony, one class with another, one race with another...Will not the labouring classes always be resentful of our privileges? Will not the natives always be ready to rise up against the ‘pale-faced Christian knight with the Excalibur of Truth in his hand' as the Padre so picturesquely referred to him last week?”

Fleury was having trouble smothering his excitement; when he became excited he invariably began to sweat copiously and he did not want Louise to see him in such a disgusting state; it seemed unfair, the higher his spirit soared, the more his face, neck and armpits seeped...but such is man's estate.

“Oh Louise,” he exclaimed, “that is why it's so important that we bring to India a civilization of the heart, and not only to India but to the whole world...rather than this sordid materialism. Only then will we have a chance of living together in harmony. Will there even be classes and races on that golden day in the future? No! For we shall all be brothers working not to take advantage of each other but for each other's good!”

Louise was perhaps looking a little taken aback by the excitement she had suddenly aroused in Fleury. She was certainly looking with curiosity at his vehement, perspiring features. But Fleury with an involuntary groan of ecstasy had whipped a folded paper from the pocket of his Tweedside lounging jacket.

“These are the words of a very dear friend of mine from Oxford, a poet (like myself), who is now working as an inspector of schools...” And Fleury began to declaim in such ringing tones that a couple of native pensioners slumbering in the shade of one of the cannons started up, under the impression that they were being ordered to stand to arms.

“Children of the future, whose day has not yet dawned, you, when that day arrives, will hardly believe what obstructions were long suffered to prevent it coming! You who, with all your faults, have neither the avidity of aristocracies, nor the narrowness of middle classes, you, whose power of simple enthusiasm is your great gift, will not comprehend how progress towards man's best perfection...the adorning and ennobling of his spirit...should have been reluctantly undertaken; how it should have been for years and years retarded by barren commonplaces, by worn out claptraps. You will know nothing of the doubts, fears, prejudices they had to dispel. But you, in your turn, with difficulties of your own, will then be mounting some new step in the arduous ladder whereby man climbs towards his perfection: towards that unattainable but irresistible lodestar, gazed after with earnest longing, and invoked with bitter tears; the longing of thousands of hearts, the tears of many generations.”

Louise did not speak. Her eyes shone, as if with tears. She looked distressed, but perhaps it was simply the strain of listening to Fleury in such a heat. A pariah dog, half bald with manage, as thin as a greyhound, and with a lame back leg, which had been sniffing Fleury's shoes and had slunk away whining as he began to declaim, now cautiously came hopping back again to investigate. He aimed a kick at it.

“My brother has spoken to me of this poor girl in the
dak
bungalow,” said Louise hurriedly after a silence. “I'm afraid Father is rather angry with you for suggesting that I should go to the
dak
to persuade her to come here. But please don't think that I'm angry too. I think it right that a woman should go to bring the poor sinful creature back into the Residency...Isn't it punishment enough that she has been dishonoured? And no doubt it was more the man's fault than her own. And could it not be that she was more foolish than sinful? But, of course I know nothing of these matters as my dear brother is forever telling me.”