The India Fan (34 page)

hat just a plain, simple fact.

hat simple to clever you is profound to a numbskull like me. The point is, Dougal can wait to get home.

here is he now?

n Delhi. They are always going somewhere. It the old Company making its demands. I sick of the Company. Fabian is there, too.

n Delhi?

t the headquarters.

hy aren you there?

ell, we were in Bombay and wee to stay here for a while. I think in time we may be going to Delhi.

see.

ell, tell me about home.

t just as it was except that my father died.

heard that from Mama, and you were supposed to marry the good Colin Brady and keep up the parsonic tradition. I heard all about it from Mama. You were not very sensible, which meant that you did not do what she had planned for you.

see you are well informed in Framling parish matters.

ama is a great letter writer. Both Fabian and I get periodic missives from home. One thing she cannot see from there whether her orders are carried out or not which is a mercy.

he has always arranged everything. It is her mission in life.

he arranged my marriage.She looked a little sulky.

ou went willingly to the altar.

t seemed all right then, but I a big girl now. / decide what I am going to do.

sorry it didn work out well.

re you? You know, he ought to have married you. You have got on well. You would have liked all that talk about olden times. It is just up your street. I can see you getting excited because someone dug up a pot which was used by Alexander the Great. I wouldn care whether Alexander or Julius Caesar used it. To me it would just be an old pot.

oue unromantic.

That made her laugh. like that. I terribly romantic. I having quite a good time romantically, as a matter of fact. Oh, I so glad youe here, Drusilla. It like old times. I like to see you look at me disapprovingly. It makes me feel so gloriously wicked.

suppose there are admirers?

here always have been admirers.

ith disastrous results.

have already told you I am a big girl now. I don get into silly scrapes any more.

hat, at least, is a mercy.

oue looking prim again. What is it?

ou haven asked about Fleur.

was coming to that. What about her?

he is well and happy.

ell, what is there to be so disapproving about?

ust that you happen to be her mother and are somewhat casual about the relationship.

have to remind you, Miss Delany, that I am now your employer.

f you feel like that I will return to England at the earliest possible moment.

She burst out laughing. f course you won. I not letting you go now. Youe got to stop here and put up with it all. Besides, youl always be my old friend Drusilla. Wee been through too much together for it to be any other way.

I said, ou didn see Fleur before you left. In fact, have you seen her at all since Polly took her?

he good Polly didn want me unsettling her. Those were your own words.

ou know that Fabian is aware.

She nodded. e been lectured on my folly.

hope you didn think I told.

e said it was Polly who told, because he had come to conclusions about you. He seemed to be more angry about that than anything else.

e has been good,I said. e has deposited a sum of money for Fleur, to be used at Polly discretion for her education and all that. They are going to have a governess for her. She has to be educated.

hat fine. What have we got to worry about? And that dreadful Janine was murdered. That worked out very well.

or you perhapsardly for her.

lackmailers deserve their fate.

ave you thought of poor Miriam?

didn remember her very much. You were the one who was running round getting to know them all while I was in acute discomfort awaiting the birth. It was a horrible place and I so glad it all over.

hall you tell Dougal?

ood Heavens, no. Why should I?

thought perhaps you might want to see Fleur and have her with you though Polly and Eff would never allow that. Or ease your conscience, perhaps.

onscience is something one has to learn to subdue.

am sure that is one lesson at which you have excelled.

here goes Drusilla again. Oh, I mustn remind you of our respective positions or youl get huffy and I don want that. Besides, I like those stern asides. They are pure Drusilla. I glad youe here. What about this nanny Mama has sent out with you?

he is very good. I like her enormously. She is sensible and, I am sure, absolutely trustworthy.

ell, that what I expected, since Mama found her.

e got on very well.I started to tell her about our journey and the hazardous ride across the desert and the disappearance of Monsieur Lasseur, but I saw that her attention strayed. She kept glancing in the mirror and patting her hair. So I stopped.

I said, hat about the children?

he children?

h, have you forgotten? You have two born in wedlock. We have already discussed and dismissed your illegitimate offspring.

Lavinia threw back her head and laughed.

ypical Drusillaisms,she said. love them. I not going to give you the pleasure of being dismissed for impertinence to your mistress, so don think I am. You have been chosen for me by my determined mama and my overbearing brother approves of the decision so you will have to stay.

our brother?

es, as a matter of fact it was he who suggested it in the first place. He said to me, ou used to get along well with that girl from the rectory. You went to school with her. I daresay you would be amused to have her here.When he said that I didn know why I hadn thought of it before. I said, ow would she come?You know Fabian. He replied, y steam to Alexandria and then on from Suez.I didn mean that, of course. I said, hy? How could she?ell,he said, he a very erudite young woman. She could teach the children. That what genteel, well-educated young women of flimsy means dond the rectory girl is exactly that.

She laughed and I felt a foolish elation. He had suggested it. It must have been when he had come home and was courting Lady Geraldine that he had spoken to Lady Harriet.

I wanted to ask about Lady Geraldine, but I felt this was not the moment to do so. Lavinia, by no means clever academically, would be an adept at discovering one feelings towards the opposite sex.

So I just said, h was it like that?

oming from Mama it is like the passing of an Act of Parliament, and the approval of Fabian is like the signature of the Monarch. So, you see, it becomes law.

ou don always take their advice, I sure.

hat is why sin is so enticing to me. If I hadn such a forceful family it wouldn be half as much fun. My dear, virtuous Drusilla, so different from your erring friend, I can tell you what joy it is to have you here. It was delightful that the command from Framling should coincide exactly with my wishes. I going to have lots of fun.

hope there are not going to be more predicaments like

She put her finger to her lips. he subject is closed. I out of that one. Seriously, Drusilla, Il never forget the part you played in it. Then I snatched Dougal from right under your nose.

e was never mine to snatch.

e could easily have been. I reckon if he hadn suddenly become important in Mama eyes he might still be delving in his books and paying his snail-like courtship to you. He might not have arrived at proposing yet. Speed is not Dougal greatest strength. But the progress would have been steady and so right for him, really, and it might have been a solution for you. Better than that priggish old Colin Brady, whom you had the good sense to refuse. But then you would always have good sense. At the same time, Dougal would have been happier without his grand title. Poor Dougal! I could feel almost sorry for him. Swept off his snail path to marry the woman who was the most unsuitable in the world for him. Still, it was Mama decree and that is like the laws of Medes and the Persians, which you would know of.

I was suddenly very happy to be here. I felt life had been dull too long. I was alive again. Everything was strange, a little mysteriousnd Fabian had suggested that I should come.

I wondered why. For the convenience of the Framlings, of course. Lavinia needed a companion, perhaps someone to rescue her from the result of possible peccadilloes, of which there would certainly be many here, where there were more opportunities than there had been in a French finishing school. And I had proved myself very useful once. Fabian would remember that.

Therefore, one of the decrees, which had ordered the marriage of Dougal and Lavinia, was now extending to me. I was to leave everything and report for dutyo here I was.

I was afraid she would see my elation and connect it with Fabian, so I said, should like to see the children.

rusilla has spoken. I shall indulge her whim, just to show how pleased I am to have her here. I will take you to the nursery.

She led the way from the room up a staircase and we were at the top of the house, where the nurseries were two huge rooms with smallish, shrouded windows set in embrasures. There were heavy drapes, which gave a darkness to the room.

I heard voices and I guessed Alice was already there, making the acquaintance of her charges-to-be.

Lavinia took me to a room where there were two small beds, mosquito-netted, and there was the inevitable punkah on the wall.

The door to the communicating room was opened and a small, dark woman in a sari emerged. With her was Alice.

his,I said, s Miss Alice Philwright. Alice, this is the Countess.

ello,said Lavinia in a friendly fashion. am glad you are here. Are you introducing yourself to the children already?

t is the first thing I always do,said Alice.

They went into the room. The slight, dark woman stepped aside to let us pass. She looked apprehensive and I believed that she feared our arrival meant her departure. I smiled at her and she returned my smile. She seemed to read my thoughts and to thank me for them.

Louise was enchanting. She reminded me a little of Fleur, which was not surprising, as they were half sisters. She had fair, curly hair and delightful blue eyes; her nose was small and pretty, but she lacked the tigerish look which I had noticed when I first saw Lavinia, who at that time would have been very little older than Louise. She was a pretty child, but she had missed her mother great beauty. She was a little shy and stayed close to the Indian woman, to whom she was clearly attached. The boy was not quite two years old. He was taking his first steps and was a little uncertain of his balance.

When Alice picked him up he studied her intently and seemed to find her not unpleasing.

ouise will be your pupil, Drusilla,said Lavinia.

ello, Louise,I said. e are going to learn some wonderful things together.

She regarded me solemnly and when I smiled she returned my smile. I thought we should get on well together. I had always been attracted by children and although I had had little contact with them I seemed to have a natural empathy with them.

Lavinia watched us a little impatiently. I felt sad for her children. Their affection for the ayah was obvious, but Lavinia appeared to be almost a stranger to them. I wondered how Dougal was with them.

Lavinia did not want to linger in the nursery. She insisted on taking me away.

here is so much to arrange,she said. She turned a dazzling smile on Alice. can see you are going to manage everything perfectly.

Alice looked gratified and I guessed she was assumingcorrectlyhat there would be nor very littlenterference in the nursery.

I went to my room to unpack and I was aware of a feeling of exhilaration such as I had not felt for a long time.

Each day was a new adventure. I had decided that at first two hourstuition for Louise would be enough, and Lavinia was ready to agree with anything I suggested. I went riding with her in a carriage through the town, past the burial place of the Parsees, where their bodies were left in the dry, hot air that the vultures might leave nothing but their bones. I was fascinated by so much that I saw and I wanted to savour it to the full. Everything was so new and exotic.

Occasionally Alice and I ventured out together. We liked to walk through the streets, which were a continual fascination to us. We were assailed on all sides by the beggars, whose conditions appalled and distressed us. The deformed children worried me more even than the emaciated-looking men and women who exposed their infirmities to win one sympathy and cash. Alice and I used to take a certain amount of money out with us, which we would give to what we considered to be the worst cases, but we had been warned many times that when we were seen to give we should be pestered unmercifully. We accepted this and eased our consciences.

There seemed to be a plague of flies which ascended on the goods for display, on the white garments of the veiled women, on the pink and yellow turbans of the dignified gentlemen and, most disconcertingly, on the faces of the people, who apparently were so accustomed to them that they ignored them.

We watched the snake charmer piping his rather dismal tunes; we strolled through street after narrow street, past coolies, past water carriers with their brass pots on their shoulders, past donkeys laden with goods. Sometimes we heard the strains of unfamiliar music mingling with the shouts of the people. Most of the shops were frontless and we could see the wares spread out before us, presided over by their owners, who would do their best to lure us to pause and examine. There were foodstuffs, copper ware, silks and jewellry. Presiding over these last was a plump man in a glorious pink turban smoking a hookah. Cattle often lumbered through the streets. Small boys ran among us, often naked except for a grubby loincloth, like mischievous gnats darting around seeking the right moment to rob the vulnerable.

Alice and I bought some Bokhara silk, which we thought amazingly cheap and which was very beautiful. Mine was blue and pale mauve, Alice biscuit colour. Lavinia had said that my clothes were awful and that there was a very good darzi who made up materials with speed and efficiency at a very low price. She would help me to choose a style that would suit me and he would be only too pleased to come to the house. All the Europeans used him; all one had to do was tell him what was wanted. He could be paid the price he asked without the usual native haggle. Praise meant as much to him as the money.