The Linnet Bird: A Novel (48 page)
Read The Linnet Bird: A Novel Online
Authors: Linda Holeman
“I am not invited to the same events as you, Linny.”
“But I often go out with Malti to individual pursuits. They have a small library at the Calcutta Club.”
“Charles is not allowed to be a member.”
“But I could bring you there as a guest.”
Faith shook her head. “It’s all too wearying,” she said then, and when I left, twenty minutes later, she was distracted, fussing about the littered table and worrying that Charles’s dinner would not be prepared to his liking.
A
LTHOUGH THERE WERE
aspects of my life in Calcutta that I chafed against, there was much that I loved. I did spend many happy hours at the library. Although the selection of English books was small, there were some lovely volumes. Mr. Penderel, the elderly man who supervised the library, came to know me. I think he was pleased to see anyone come through the doors, as there was never anyone else there when I arrived, every fourth or fifth day, to take out another two books. After a few months he began to put aside the books newly arrived by ship, letting me have first chance at them. The first time he saw me inspecting the binding of a particularly lovely book, he frowned.
“I assure you, Mrs. Ingram, there are no mites in the binding. I check each one thoroughly before I put it on the shelves, and again when someone takes it out and returns it. I care greatly about preserving the books in this blasted climate.”
“Oh, I wasn’t looking for mites, Mr. Penderel. I was looking at the detail. There’s a curious stitch just here”—I showed him the curved detail—“that I haven’t seen before.”
“Well, now,” Mr. Penderel said, his eyes lighting. “Are you interested then, in the world of books for themselves?”
“Oh yes,” I told him. “I’ve studied the manner in which books are created for—well, since I was very young. I’ve always enjoyed this pursuit.”
Mr. Penderel hastened to bring out a variety of books then, and we spent a good half hour discussing the finishing and stamping. I found myself stimulated by that conversation more than any I’d had in a long time.
I must say that between visits to the library, and seeing Faith when I could, combined with Somers’s frequent departure from our home for his own pleasures, I began to believe—those first months of my marriage—that I was as close to a quiet contentment as I might have ever been.
July 18, 1831
Dear Shaker,
The end of June brought the red-hot
loo
—the winds from the west. The wind carries dust. This fine silty dust is impossible to escape; it is as insiduous as a smell, finding its way indoors around cracks and fissures. It lodges in my eyes, ears, nostrils, between my teeth. It seems my senses, too, are choked with dust. Even the servants appeared restless.
At its most severe the force of the wind is such that flimsy buildings are torn from the ground and trees bent almost in half. It is said that it brings madness for the English; perhaps it does—a temporary madness, for the incessant moaning burns into the brain in a monotony in what I imagine might be similar to brain fever. When it stops, everyone stands very still, listening, for it is the quiet that now appears to carry a threat.
With the end of the winds comes the first monsoons, which descend without warning. It’s as if the skies have opened and unceremoniously dumped buckets of warm water over the city. The streets run with muddy rivers, making walking almost impossible for me, with the heavy trailing skirts and layers of petticoats and crinolines I am forced to wear when I leave the house. The daily downpours of solid roaring walls of water last for a few hours, then stop suddenly, turned off as abruptly as they started. The hot, saturated air is difficult to breathe, and at times I feel as if I am trying to catch my breath through a soaked piece of gauze. After a short respite of surprising blue sky and the appearance of a floating, shimmering sun, new clouds sulkily gather, the blue turns an ominous slate gray and within moments the heavy beating melody of the monsoons returns with jubilant renewed force.
Green mold, often as bright and glistening as emerald, grows up overnight and covers anything that is made of paper, cloth, or leather, even in the house! I learned what the mysterious stack of tin-lined boxes I found in one corner of an empty bedroom are for, and store my clothing in them. If no callers are expected, the servants cover all the furniture with sheets. I spend most of my time in the verandah off my bedroom.
Flies swarm through the open windows by the dozens, and an amazing assortment of flying, creeping, and whirring creatures seem born from the wet air itself. Last night at dinner I recognized silverfish, white ants, stink beetles, caterpillars, and centipedes all busily working their way over and around the table. It is difficult, of course, to eat. The fluttering over the food begins the moment it is uncovered, in spite of a horde of boys with their fly whisks. One of the servants stands behind me with a tablespoon, with which he scoops off the larger beetles and bugs that land on my shoulders and hair. Somers has taken to having most of his meals at the scrupulously clean and almost sealed Gentlemen’s Lounge at the Civil Service building.
I could never admit this to anyone but you, Shaker, but I find many of the insects fascinating. Some of the moths are graceful and delicate, with wings of spun gold. I trapped a very formidable centipede, green and yellow striped and over ten inches long, and kept him in a huge glass jar for over a week. Every morning I dropped in leaves and watched with respectful awe as he munched through his meal. Even the flies, Shaker—the flies!—are not the common bluebottle of England. Many have bodies of deep burgundy or rich green.
I have learned to swathe the bed in voluminous folds of very sheer muslin, and before climbing in every night, I pull back the sheets and perform a thorough examination to make sure I won’t be joining a sleepy scorpion. Then I check the heavy linen canopy over the top of the bed, assuring myself it is firmly in place. I was awakened most unpleasantly one night when a dung beetle the size of a walnut dropped onto my face from the rafters on the first and last time that I was careless in my nightly inspection. I have also discovered, with not a little dismay, that a bath sponge makes an ideal home for a scorpion.
I take my dose of quinine—a horridly large spoonful—each morning, shuddering at the bitter taste. I have been warned that malaria strikes most often in the wet season. Somers fell prey to the disease his first year here (more than five years ago), and is subject to bouts of it.
When he is ill he prefers I stay away, and is attended to by the servants. But I have heard his moans, his hoarse whispers of his bones being twisted by a huge and violent hand, and of the relentless kettle drum keeping up a beat in his head until he thinks he might go truly mad. Although he has spoken little of his parents to me, in his delirium he cries for his dead mother as if still a child. And in the next instant he shouts curses upon a cruel father, whose memory obviously haunts him.
During his last attack he shivered so violently that he chipped one of his own teeth. Poor man!
On that cheery note—!—I shall close, with the promise to write again, dear Shaker.
Yours,
Linny
I carefully avoided writing more than a few lines about Somers, for what is there to say? I didn’t believe, at the start, that he was a completely evil man, simply one who was totally self-absorbed. We continued to treat each other as disinterested though polite neighbors who shared the same house. Occasionally he spoke cruelly to me, hurling insults, but usually it only happened after he had drunk more than usual, or perhaps was disappointed in a rendezvous. And the following day he would apologize by way of a small gift—some trinket or bit of jewelry, something impersonal that he could send one of his coolies to Taylor’s Emporium to purchase. I saw, at these moments, that Somers did indeed understand that his behavior had been uncalled-for, and although a genuine smile or kind word would have meant more to me than another showy, useless novelty, it seemed to be the only way he knew to tell me he was sorry.
At odd moments I would find him studying me, but he would always look away quickly, denying, when I asked him, that something was on his mind that he wished to speak of. I sensed a deep and underlying unhappiness in Somers, which he covered with his charm and bravado. Once I tried to ask him more about his childhood in London, about his mother and father, but he refused to speak of his past.
It would appear that he didn’t wish to discuss any aspects of his life, not only past, but present as well. And likewise he wished to know nothing of how I spent my time. When I asked him about his work, he said it would be of little interest to me. When I tried to tell him of the books I was reading, and of my conversations with Mr. Penderel at the Club’s library, he appeared bored with my prattle. And so, on the odd evening when we found ourselves alone together—when we did not entertain or Somers did not go out on his mysterious assignations, or we did not find ourselves at yet another evening at the Calcutta Club or the home of another couple—we spoke of household and servant issues, of the plans for entertaining, and of social events we had been invited to. We spoke of no matters of the mind, or of the heart.
It was after the monsoons abated, and we were into the delightfully temperate cool season, that the downward spiral of our marriage began. I had been in India almost a year.
Somers had taken advantage of the weather to go with a few other men on a hunt, and had been gone almost three weeks. He came home burnt a plethora of shades and immensely weary, sullen at the lack of a trophy, blaming the incompetence of his coolies to beat the bushes. He recounted that although there was a rich assortment of game—tigers, panthers, sambars, pigs—the coolies had been easily spooked after one was killed by the unexpected swipe of an injured tiger.
“Damn cowards,” he added. “Clambering up trees at the first answering rustle to their beating after that. Letting the big game get away.”
“But surely they had reason to be—”
“There’s no excuse, Linny. It’s a job they’re paid to do.” We were in the drawing room, with its hushed and formal atmosphere. He paced in front of the damask sofa, where I sat with the book I had been reading before his arrival. He was in the worst temper I had ever witnessed, and I kept quiet while he ranted about the miserable time he’d experienced. Finally he shouted for the servants, and many came running. He demanded bath water be brought to his room and gave instructions for a hearty English meal to be prepared for dinner, ordering many courses, which included a saddle of lamb and roast beef and gravy with Yorkshire pudding. He took a bottle of port from the cabinet and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon.
In early evening he invited me to join him for dinner, and the meal was served with its usual pomp on Sèvres dishes and fine polished silver. Somers kept a glass of watered Madeira beside his plate, sipping from it with every bite, and summoning the
khitmutgar
to continually top it up.
As he rather clumsily cut his meat, chewing slowly but with obvious relish, I took a sip of water from my delicate crystal goblet and shoved my slab of pink beef around.
Eventually Somers looked up. “Meat not done well enough for you?” His words were slurred; I had never seen him quite this intoxicated. I wondered if it was the beginning of another malaria attack.
“I ate a late tiffin. And I find this a heavy meal.”
“Well, call for something else. Rahul,” he said to a boy passing through the room carrying a stack of clean napkins, “take Mrs. Ingram’s plate away.”
The boy looked at the table. His eyes widened and he lowered his head.
“Take her plate, Rahul,” Somers instructed again, slowly and loudly.
His head still down, Rahul backed away.
“Somers, you know he can’t,” I said. “Call for someone else to—”
But instantly Somers pushed back his chair with a loud scraping and jerked toward the boy. He grabbed the thin arm roughly, and the napkins fluttered to the floor like released doves. “When I tell you—”
I ran to Rahul’s side, prying Somers’s hand off his arm. “Leave him alone.”
“He must obey when I give him an order.” Somers’s neck and face were a dull red, and his grip tightened even further. “This one doesn’t like to take orders. I found that out earlier today, didn’t I, Rahul?”
