The Peacock Spring (6 page)

She herself seemed to have gone back in time, hiding from grown-ups and with a governess. Even the drum sound belonged. ‘Una, baba, come and watch the funny monkeys.’ Una remembered
how they somersaulted in their patchwork clothes, walked on their hands, held one out for praise and how, given a slice of orange, they seized and pouched it, first picking out the pips with minute
black fingers.

Across the grass from where she stood and behind a screen of poinsettias, a rough nasal voice was chanting or singing; there were catcalls and bursts of laughter, and soon Una was looking
through the bushes to a row of garages with, above them, what must be servants’ rooms; some were lighted – she could see clothes hung below the ceilings on a string, pots of marigolds,
a mirror. Her nostrils caught whiffs again familiar: the smell of a hookah – hubble-bubble – and of biris, the pungent native cigarettes, and on the concrete forecourt lit by the
outside garage lights, she saw a small crowd, all the house servants and, perhaps, some of their friends. The butler, Dino, and two men – the other table servants? Una hardly recognised them
without their turbans – were smoking the hookah; others, among whom she identified the old bearer, Ram Chand, smoked biris, but all of them were watching a space where a pair of monkeys
capered as their master, in dirty white clothes and a dark red turban, sang, jerked their strings, commanded, or rattled his drum. If Una had shut her eyes she could have been back again, squatting
on her heels as she still could, brought by Jetti, her Nepali ayah, to watch the monkeys.

Were they funny? No more now than when she was three did Una know what story the man was chanting, the monkeys acting; she was too far away to see them well but she heard guffaws, the
men’s excited laughter. Perhaps I ought not to be here.

Then a car drew up, its door slammed and Edward strode into the courtyard. The drumming and chanting ceased abruptly; the hookah was left, biris stubbed out, turbans hastily reached for.
‘Turn that man out at once!’ Edward spoke in English and Una could tell he was angry. ‘I will not have such things in the compound. Ram Chand, Dino, you ought to be ashamed of
yourselves.’

If he finds me here he will be angrier still, thought Una and disappeared like a wraith but, as she came back into the garden, she found she was trembling, and still hearing the drum, the
guffaws, Edward’s angry voice. ‘Well, people like obscene sights, you know they do,’ she told herself, but with monkeys, poor pitiful monkeys! I’m glad I couldn’t see
it, but I hate all humans, thought Una.

Then, in the gathering dusk, she saw a light at the far end of the garden. It was coming from behind another screen of flowers, a tall hedge so fragrant that its white flowers flooded the air
with scent. Una stole closer to look. Behind the screen was a thatched hut, low to the ground with a courtyard of sun-baked earth; it had a standpipe with a tap and a small bush in a pot. Mats were
hung over the entrance but two were rolled up showing a lighted room, and she knew there was one servant who was not watching the monkeys.

Yet was he a servant? The young man was sitting cross-legged on a mat at a floor desk on which he was writing – or not writing. He seemed to write a word, then gaze into space, his eyes
looking directly at Una, though she was sure he had not seen her or her pale dress among the flowers. She saw his lips move and caught a murmur; he was trying over something to himself. Close by
him a brazier burned red; every now and then he stretched out his hands to warm them over the coals.

His lamp, unlike Miss Lamont’s, did not make a pool of light; it was only a wick in an earthenware saucer of oil, the saucer shaped like a leaf, a shape Una had seen in museums. But he
ought to have a better light to write by, she thought.

Hem had said the same thing, and sharply. ‘This is ridiculous, Ravi bhai, when you have electricity. You will ruin your eyes.’

‘I like the soft light,’ and Ravi grew cross. ‘You don’t understand. To write poetry, surroundings must be poetical. You are a dolt.’

‘And you will go blind.’

The light was flattering; it threw a circle on the page on which Una could see characters; he was writing in one of the Indian languages and, from the narrow lines, it seemed to be a poem; his
hand, holding what she thought was a wooden pen – Ravi would have told her it was an old-style reed pen: ‘Why not a quill or an ink brush?’ Hem had teased – was lit to amber
brownness and made a shadow on the page; the light caught his chin and the side of his young face, absorbed and utterly at peace. Against the amber colouring of his neck, the shawl he wore wrapped
round his shoulders looked shiningly white and Una noticed he had a flower, a rosebud, behind one ear.

‘Come, Hal, let us hear from you,’ Miss Lamont had said after dinner, then coloured, annoyed with herself. Try as she would, every now and again one of these little Eurasian
colloquialisms slipped from her – she lived in dread of catching her mother’s perpetual ‘m’n’. ‘Why not? You are Eurasian,’ Una and Hal would have
said.

In the big drawing room, firelight flickered over the pale colours of sofas, chairs and curtains – I had forgotten we had fires in India, thought Una. There was a smell of wood ash, of
sweet peas again from Ganesh’s bowls and vases, and the familiar smell of Edward’s cigar.

Una had seldom seen his face as tranquil as, with her beside him, he leaned back in his chair smoking, watching and listening.

‘Hal can sing, Edward – really sing!’ Miss Lamont had exclaimed. Hal sang as naturally as a bird. Signor Brazzi, the visiting singing-master at Cerne, had had the wisdom to do
little more than guard her voice ‘and teach her to breathe,’ he had said and, ‘She should learn languages seriously.’ But Hal had no intention of learning anything
seriously. She simply sang.

‘A lady sweet and kind.’ That, Una knew, was how Miss Lamont already appeared to her young sister.

But Miss Lamont was not ‘passing by’. She was unmistakably here.

‘Now you sing,’ Hal said to her, and the fuller voice, rich after Hal’s treble, soared into the room as Hal, leaning on the piano, gazed at this dazzling new love.

That poem should be sung calmly, detached as the night, thought critical Una. She makes it sound like honey, but Edward was rapt. ‘This is how I met her,’he whispered to Una.
‘She was engaged to play and sing at a party in Calcutta.’

‘But – she’s not a professional?’

‘No, but she had to make every penny she could, poor girl.’

‘Every rupee . . . every thousand rupees?’ Una had not meant it to sound so insulting, but the effect was instantaneous.

‘If you cannot appreciate . . . and cannot behave . . . I suggest you remove yourself and go to bed.’ Edward was at his cutting coldest; Una had seen many people shrivel under that
– but for Edward to speak to her in this way, even if she had provoked him, was . . . was incredible – Una was almost too stunned to think – and for an outsider, a Miss Lamont!
– but as she stared at him with disbelieving eyes, it became a curt command. ‘Go to bed.’

It was an hour before he came to her, an hour of turmoil for Una, but at least he came. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Edward. ‘All this work makes me on
edge.’ He stroked her forehead, straightened her pillow. ‘Go to sleep, my silly, and stop thinking,’ and he stayed with her.

Edward had thought she was asleep when she opened her eyes and, ‘Who is it who lives in the hut at the end of the garden?’ she asked.

‘Is there a hut?’

‘Yes. Who lives there?’ and Edward had to say, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘I have to go to Japan today,’ Edward announced at breakfast next morning.

‘Today!’

‘Yes, unfortunately.’

‘But we have barely unpacked,’ said Una. ‘Never mind. I have always wanted to see Japan, especially Kyoto.’

‘You? What is this to do with you?’

‘But you said . . .’ Una stared at him. ‘You wrote we should travel with you.’

‘When I’m on leave, not working. Cheer up,’ said Edward briskly. ‘I shall only be gone two or three days.’ He got up. ‘You have Miss Lamont. You can spend the
time getting to know one another.’

‘Thank you,’ said Una.

‘That’s nice and gracious,’ Hal scolded her when Edward had gone. ‘Think how Alix must have felt.’

They were to call her Alix; Una decided immediately it should be Alix/Miss Lamont. It was difficult, though, to keep to that; Alix knew so well how to disarm.

At first light the morning after Edward went, Monbad, the young house bearer, came along the verandah with a tray of tea, toast and bananas. ‘Toast and bananas
now
!’ Una
said.

‘You will see, you will need them and breakfast too.’ Alix/Miss Lamont had come into the room. ‘We are going riding. Hurry up and dress.’ She herself was in jodhpurs and
an orange silk shirt – ‘and jodhpur boots,’ Hal whispered enviously. They only had walking shoes.

‘You can ride?’ Una had not meant it to sound rude, but Alix’s colour rose and, as she drove them, she said, ‘I have ridden since I was four. My father taught me. He was
in the cavalry, the Lancers.’

In spite of herself Una was impressed. ‘The Lancers used to have gorgeous uniforms,’ she said.

‘The President’s Bodyguard do still; gold-braided turbans wound round a golden
kulla
– that’s the peaked cap; they wear white-and-scarlet tunics, white breeches,
Napoleon boots with golden spurs. Each man must be at least six feet tall and, when they ride in state, they have snow-white sheepskins under their saddles. They are on duty when, for instance, the
President holds an investiture. Probably Edward will take you to one, then you will see them standing down the room with their lances and pennants. Before Independence they used to stand guard like
that in the ballroom at viceregal balls.’

‘Did you go to viceregal balls?’

‘Heavens! I was too young, only a little girl. My mother would have gone,’ said Alix, perhaps a little too quickly, ‘except that we lived in Pondicherry. Pondicherry was
French, not British, so we only had Government House.’

‘Did your mother go to Government House?’

‘Naturally,’ but, That’s a lie, thought Una. ‘You will see the troopers.’ Alix had turned the conversation. ‘We shall be riding at the Bodyguard’s
parade ground.’

‘But are we allowed to?’

‘Certain people have permission – diplomatic families, members of the Polo Club.’

Diplomats they were used to, but polo . . . ‘Una, can you believe it?’ asked Hal. ‘At this time, at Cerne, we should have been doing PT before breakfast!’

The early morning was chill enough to be exhilarating; sunlight, though pale, seemed to spin round the car as they drove; every garden showed ‘showers of flowers,’ and gave glimpses
of lawns and roses; creepers flowered over walls and gates and house pillars – And this is still January! thought Una, marvelling. Each roundabout had flower borders. ‘Delhi is called
the city of fountains and flowers,’ said Alix.

‘Parts of Delhi.’ Una might have said. The roads were as busy and crowded as ant passages, with workers on their way to offices, shops, hotels; hundreds of brown legs, thin for the
most part, walking or pedalling bicycles or rickshaws, or driving phut-phut taxis. The street cleaners sent up dust with their twig brooms, and little piles of leaves smoked on the sidewalks giving
off a clean acrid smell. Alix turned off the road and bumped along a side track with white notice boards lettered ‘private’ and where, beyond clumps of trees, the green space of the
parade ground opened; sure enough there were the troopers, wheeling and circling.

‘But where are the sheepskins? The scarlet and gold?’ They had to laugh at Hal’s disappointed face. ‘Silly, you don’t think they
work
in full dress,’
said Una. The uniforms were a drab grey-green. ‘But the turbans are still splendid,’ she said; they were, dark red, long-ended. ‘And see how these men ride,’said Alix. The
parade was over and they were ‘schooling young horses,’ she explained. ‘But come, let’s look at ours,’ and she added, ‘I can’t tell you how disappointed
Edward is not to be here at this moment?’

‘What moment?’

‘When you are introduced to your horses.’

‘Our . . . what?’ And, ‘You mean . . . we have horses?’

‘Look.’

The three were waiting under an acacia tree which dappled their coats with shade and light as the grooms held them, ready to snatch off the checked-cotton horse-cloths – lettered G, Una
noticed. Alix stopped the car, Una and Hal tumbled out, and the horses turned their heads, cocking their ears; one of them whinnied a welcome as Alix went near. ‘This is Una’s.’
The mare was a pale dun, her coat rippled with sable, darker colour in her mane, tail and slender legs. ‘She is called Mouse,’ said Alix. ‘She’s a little mettlesome, but
Edward thought you could manage her; and this is Snowball, for Hal.’ A snowy-white pony with something of a palfrey in his thicksetness, wide neck, flowing mane and tail.

For once Hal was speechless and Una so silent that Alix asked, ‘Don’t you like them?’

‘
Like
them!’ said Hal.

‘Of course we like them. It’s just,’ said Una dizzily, ‘that . . . it’s such a surprise.’

‘But you have ridden before.’

‘At school and in the holidays in Persia, but the horses did not belong to us. We never dreamed of having our own.’

‘Not at Gwithiam?’ There was awe in the way Alix said that name.

‘We’re not – we weren’t – that kind of people.’

There was a third horse, a big handsome chestnut, and, ‘Is that yours?’ Una asked Alix.

‘That’s Edward’s Maxim.’

‘Edward’s! He has a
horse
?’

‘Why not?’