The Linnet Bird: A Novel (40 page)

“And why would her presence be a problem, Mr. Ingram?”

Without speaking, he led me down a wide hallway. I looked over my shoulder as we went, wondering whether to draw away from his grasp and join the others, wondering if anyone saw what would be interpreted as very unbecoming behavior. But everyone was filing in the other direction, their backs to us now, and I allowed myself to be led.

We went into a room, Mr. Ingram closing the shuttered doors behind us. It was a bedroom with a four-poster bed, the canopy of which appeared to be moreen. There were doors thrown open to the terrace at the back of the house.

“Is this your room, Mr. Ingram? This is entirely improper.” I noticed the punkah wallah in the corner, languidly pulling the rope. “What kind of woman do you think I am, that I can be expected to come into a gentleman’s quarters, and—”

He didn’t let me finish. “Let’s stop all this charade. You and I need to speak in complete privacy,” he said. Now there was something in his voice that made me realize that I had been right in my first estimation of him. As he turned to face me in the low light of the room, I saw that he had dropped the mask I knew I also wore when in the company of others. And I saw, in that instant, his true nature, recognizing that he carried within him the knowledge, heavy and solid as a rock, that he would get what he desired, at any expense.

“I see no point in avoiding the subject, Miss Smallpiece. The subject being, of course, your unfortunate discovery on the card evening at the Clutterbucks’.”

“Actually, I don’t know what there is to speak of,” I told him. “What you do—your preference and activity—can hardly be classified as a subject. At least not to me.”

Somers Ingram sat on a tufted stool, watching me with a stare similar to the one I had last seen in that moonlit hut. Sitting while I stood was a glaring indication that he was not giving me the respect he should, that he looked on me with an insulting brazenness. Growing uncomfortable under such scrutiny, I finally sat as well, primly, in a small armchair.

Although the evening air outside the open windows wasn’t hot, the room was airless, the atmosphere thick as the square petticoat of the punkah waved slowly over us. I heard the distant tinkle and scrape of the music stop. There was muted clapping, and then the familiar strains of a Mozart prelude began.

I waited, although my impulse was to rise with the haughty dignity I witnessed around me every day here, and leave the room, no matter what tactics Mr. Ingram chose to employ. He had no hold over me. I could leave of my own free will. And yet I didn’t.

“I know what you girls from the Fishing Fleet are like,” he finally said. “It’s all desperate speculation. You’ll do anything you can to find a husband, won’t you? The very idea of going home as a returned empty! Why, I’m assured it’s the most terrible threat hanging over your lovely heads from the moment you set your dainty foot on Indian soil. And so I’ve wanted to speak to you to ask if there’s anything I can do to make you forget about this little bit of business you stumbled upon. Could I, perhaps, introduce you to one of the men who haven’t yet had a chance to become acquainted with all you have to offer?”

“I need no help from you, Mr. Ingram,” I told him. “And, as I told you, how you conduct your life is no concern of mine. So there’s no reason to bribe me. I know how to keep my mouth shut. And there’s another thing that might interest you. I’m not at all the desperate creature you describe. I may not be as anxious to find a husband as you seem to believe.” There was something so condescending in his manner—his mocking tone when he spoke of the Fishing Fleet and Returned Empties—that I wanted to put him in his place, let him know I was not like the others.

He appeared undaunted, now daring to smile. But I saw the gleam of perspiration on his brow, the quick touch of knuckle to mustache that came when he was nervous. And it gave me confidence. He crossed his legs. “There’s no other point in coming to India as an unmarried woman, is there? Oh, I know there are those who use the guise of caring for a brother, or as company for a lonely mother, but we all know the truth. No single woman comes here with any other purpose save for an occasional weak-eyed missionary. And could this bold statement—that you
aren’t at all desperate
—arise from the fact that it’s painfully obvious you haven’t been doing terribly well with suitors? One can’t help but notice how often you sit alone.”

I didn’t drop my gaze. “I’m not here for that, I’ve told you. I came as a companion to my friend, Miss Vespry.”

“And you plan to return to England as soon as she’s found a likely match, then?”

I hesitated. Nobody had actually asked me what my plans were. “No. I’m not planning to return to England. At least not any time soon.”
There’s nothing for me to go back to, although I wouldn’t admit that to you.

“And?” His foot bobbed. “You’ll do exactly what here, when the busy Miss Vespry becomes a memsahib? Surely she won’t want you as a companion when she has a husband.”

“I’m not entirely sure. I . . . I’ve thought about enquiring. About various positions. I once had a very dignified position in a library. Through my own choosing, of course.”

He cocked his head. “You have been
employed
? And you would think that it would be possible to carry on like that here, in Calcutta? My, my, Miss Smallpiece. I wouldn’t let that get out. Such news would definitely be the end of you. You may as well take out an ad in the
Calcutta Gazette
that you’re unmarriageable material. Besides, no white woman is ever employed in India. And no white women stay unless they’re married, or have the misfortune to be a spinster daughter or sister. Surely you understand that, don’t you, Miss Smallpiece? Whatever are you thinking?”

I stood. “Really, Mr. Ingram, you are too rude. I don’t know why I’ve stayed to speak with you. We’ll say no more about—your indiscretion. I would never threaten you with it, even though of course sodomy is, let’s not forget, punishable by hanging, and we’ll do our best to ignore each other when we’re forced together in society.”

He shook his head, then tilted it to one side, narrowing his eyes. He hadn’t risen when I did, choosing to stay, disrespectfully, on the stool. “There it is again, Miss Smallpiece. You surprise me more with every passing day. How would you know that sodomy is a crime? For that fact, what do you know of sodomy, Miss Smallpiece? Even to know and utter the word—”

I raised my chin and started toward the door.

“There’s something about you that’s not . . .” He looked toward the open doors. “Not exactly . . .” He paused again. “I can’t seem to put it into words.” He smiled, but his smile was now little more than a slash beneath his mustache. “I’ve always considered myself a good judge of character. And now I believe it all ties together. The way the men make a wide berth around you. Your insistence on not being interested. It’s almost as if you don’t
like
men, Miss Smallpiece. Yes, I believe that’s what it is,” he said, nodding his head as if surprised by his own sudden intuition. “You may try to cover it, but now that I think about it, it’s quite clear. And the men sense it as well. There’s no other reason for their reticence, is there? It’s not that you don’t have a certain appeal, and while you’re not the picture of conventional beauty, you’re certainly as passable in appearance as any of the others. Let’s speak frankly, shall we, Miss Smallpiece?”

I was halfway across the room. “Why is it that you feel you can speak to me in such a rude and familiar way?” There was a warning buzz in the back of my head. I wished Faith would come looking for me. The distant music droned on. The punkah swung lazily overhead, and from the darkness beyond the terrace came the scream of a peacock, followed by the longing answer of a peahen.

Mr. Ingram emitted a barking laugh. “Familiar? Well, it’s not as though you haven’t seen me in a most familiar way, is it?”

At that moment a gecko fell from the rafters, dropping onto the sleeve of my pale lavender watered silk. I gasped at the surprise of it, brushing at the little lizard, but it clung tightly. Mr. Ingram swung into action; his breeding was intrinsic, and he acted as a gentleman without thinking. He crossed the floor in a few long strides and took hold of the gecko, and as he attempted to pluck it from my sleeve, the tiny creature’s claws remained caught in the delicate material, dragging the loose bell sleeve up to my elbow as Mr. Ingram pulled.

And then he stayed still, his hand closed around the fragile green body. I looked at his face; there was a curious expression there. Blinking, he used his other hand to disengage the harmless reptile from my sleeve, holding it gingerly between thumb and index finger.

“Take this,” he called, and the punkah wallah appeared out of the shadows and took the gecko from Mr. Ingram.

I arranged my sleeve, and saw that Mr. Ingram was still staring at my arm with that odd, thoughtful gaze. And then he grew pale, in spite of his sun-darkened skin, as if his blood had suddenly been sucked out of him by an unseen siphon. For one incredible moment I imagined he had been frightened by the gecko.

“Let me see that again,” he demanded. “That mark on the inside of your arm.” A far-off whisper, something that troubled me in his voice, set the faint buzzing still in my ears into a loud bell of alarm. Pounding heat rushed to my head; it was as if there was too much blood coursing through my veins, as if Mr. Ingram’s blood had been transferred to me. While he had blanched the color of suet, I was burning, flushed. My hands continued to flutter over my sleeve, smoothing and patting it as I ignored his request.

His eyes raked my hair, my face, and then, with no warning, he grabbed my hand and turned my arm over, roughly pushing my sleeve back up. He stared down at the smooth skin and my fish birthmark, and then he dropped my hands and took a hasty step away as if he had suddenly become aware of the putrid breath of contagion.

I put my palm on my birthmark, looking at him with consternation. “It’s just a birthmark, Mr. Ingram,” I said. “Hardly unusual.”

“I know that birthmark. I’ve seen it somewhere before.” His voice was low, the words weighted, as if an unseen hand were pushing on his Adam’s apple.

“Surely not,” I stuttered. And as another moment passed, with Mr. Ingram still scrutinizing me, that odd drawn look about his mouth and eyes, I knew the worst had happened. His next words confirmed the unspeakable fear.

“I’ve seen you before, I realize that now. Your face isn’t overly familiar, but that distinct fish marks you clearly. Although I chose not to speak of it to you, I did travel to Liverpool, and I regularly had the opportunity to keep company with all manner of men—and women. Although many of my memories of those visits are less than clear, some things stay with one, don’t you find?”

God, no, I prayed then. His sort didn’t usually frequent Paradise. Had he actually ever been a customer? Wouldn’t I have remembered him in the vast number of faces and bodies I had known? I always believed I remembered too much, in detail I wish I could forget.

I stood, waiting. I knew by the smile now playing about his still bloodless lips that he was confident that he knew about my past, and he would use it to destroy me. The smile also made it clear that it would bring him pleasure to do it. But why? I had assured him his secret was safe with me. It was true; I had no interest in anyone else’s secrets. I had my own to protect.

I straightened my shoulders, and unexpectedly felt the old pull of my scar as if it were a fresh wound. I would have to play it out, deny whatever he accused me of. “Whatever do you mean? I demand to know what you are implying, sir,” I said, trying for polite outrage, for genteel indignation, but to my horror I heard my old voice trying to edge its way out. I stopped, swallowing. Although I might, by complete consternation, be forced into a rough phrase, as I had with Mr. Ingram, I had really begun to believe that voice—not just the inflection, but the higher shrillness—was gone. But in that moment, when it erupted involuntarily, I knew that it—like Back Phoebe Anne and Paradise Street, was grimly ingrained forever, no matter how conscientiously I held that part of me at bay.

“I suggest you sit down, Miss Smallpiece. You’re not looking well, not well at all.”

I could see that the color had snapped back to his face, two hectic spots high on his cheekbones, and there was the heavy-lidded look about him as one sated by too much rich food or brutal sex. “Here. Let me help you,” he said.

He held my upper arms, walking me backward until my calves touched the seat of a chair, and I lowered myself onto it.

He watched me. Then he glanced around the room. The punkah wallah had crept back in from depositing the gecko off the terrace steps, and resumed his job from the corner, but I knew that to Mr. Ingram he was of no consequence. “Now I know what secret I’ve been seeing on your face, reading in your body. Now I know exactly what you are.”

There was a dark rushing at the back of my head. I heard, as if from a great distance, “Why, you really are a simple working girl, aren’t you, my dear? Although a post in a library is not the position I seem to remember you in.” He pushed up my sleeve and stroked my birthmark tenderly. My skin dimpled. “Now I know exactly what you are,” he whispered.

Not who you are, but what. A whore.

I had been found out. It was all over.