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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Isabel, born into the British Raj, and Asha, a young Hindu girl, both consider India their home. Through mischance and accident their stories intersect and circumstances will bring them from the bustling city of Delhi to the shores of the Andaman Islands, from glittering colonial parties to the squalor and desperation of a notorious prison; and into the lives of men on opposing sides of the fight for self-government.As the shadow of the Second World War falls across India, Isabel, caught up in growing political violence, has to make impossible choices - fighting for her love for India, for the man she yearns for, and for her childhood Indian friend, in the face of loyalty to her own country.
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Seitenzahl: 608
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Daughters of India
JILL MCGIVERING
For Alice and Emily
Contents
Prologue
‘You are a good girl, Asha, and a brave one.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘You have your part to play. An important part. I know you will make your baba proud. And make me proud also.’
She couldn’t speak. She wanted to blurt out: already I have betrayed you and my baba both; I am serving that man, who condemned him to death. She stood, silent and ashamed.
He nodded as if he understood everything, as if he saw not just through the thick door but right into her soul. Her body ached from straining to reach to the peephole. It was hot and airless in the corridor. There was so much she needed to say, to confess to him, but she couldn’t find the words.
He said then: ‘Your madam. You are knowing who she is?’
She blinked. ‘Isabel Madam. Her husband sentenced my …’ Her voice faltered.
‘Her husband made your baba a martyr. That is true. But she herself, you know her?’
He lifted his hand. She couldn’t see but it seemed to her that he placed it flat against the wood of the door between them. She lifted her own and placed it too, flat against the worn wood on her own side, imagining that they could touch.
He began to whisper to her.
‘Do you remember that day, long ago, when you were a little girl only and your baba brought you to my uncle’s house? Rahul was there, my good friend, and he told you about the Britishers’ house with the mango and jamun trees where you and he were children? They cast out your baba and sent him to the slum, accused him falsely of being a thief.’
Of course she remembered. Her poor baba bore it all and never spoke of it.
‘That was your madam’s house. It was her people who destroyed your baba’s reputation. They set him on the long path that led him to a cell here and to death.’
Her hand shook on the wood. ‘Her people?’
He nodded. His eyes fixed on the peephole as if he could see her.
‘They are snakes, these people. Full of kind words but also of poison.’
The wood swam. She felt a sudden wave of sickness and leant her cheek against it.
He said: ‘Harden your heart against her.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I will leave her. Amit-ji will protect me. I’ll clean pans and cook for him.’
On the other side of the door, he let out a low sigh. ‘No, little sister. They are snakes but we are tigers. Be strong. Be fierce. And have faith. The day of the tiger is almost come.’
Part One
Chapter One
Delhi, 1919
The magnolia tree was too high. Its branches thinned and weakened and, now Isabel was near the top, they bowed where she placed a foot. She tilted her head and looked down through the falling shiver of leaves to the ground. The earth rose rushing towards her. Her stomach tightened and breath stuck in her throat.
‘Here.’ Rahul twisted back to her, stretched down a warm, safe hand.
She couldn’t move. Her knuckles whitened as she grasped the trunk.
‘Look up only.’ Rahul climbed down to her, a shield against the dropping empty air.
She gathered a bunch of thin branches in her hands like reins, steadied her breath and pulled herself higher.
They emerged, at the top, into another world and sat, pressed together, breathing hard, trembling. Leaves stirred all around. Far below, the ground swam. The compound lay mapped out, the buildings shrivelled and unfamiliar. Fear and glory knotted into one as she lifted her eyes and looked out across India, across the world.
Rahul pointed behind them, over the angled roof of the bungalow and far beyond.
‘That’s backwards.’ His voice was solemn. ‘Into the past.’
When she screwed her eyes and stared, she saw past generations, the darkness of the ancients.
He pointed forward then, over the garden’s boundary walls, out across the brown mud and lush vegetation of unclaimed land, of the jungle.
‘That’s forwards,’ he said. ‘Into the future.’
That evening, the light in the servants’ shack was dim, pooled round the lamp, which was too weak to reach the corners. She kept close to Rahul as he sat, cross-legged, among his brothers and sisters on the dirt floor. Dark heads hunched forward over food. Daal, rice and subzi sat on leaves on the ground. They balled it deftly to eat and she felt her own clumsiness as daal ran down her wrist and onto her knees.
The women whispered. The sweeper-wallah was in trouble. He was a shy man with a sad face. Isabel hardly knew him.
‘Where will he go?’ Mrs Chaudhary said. ‘His daughter’s just a baby.’
Isabel looked round. There was chilli in the subzi and her lips smarted.
The wooden door creaked open. The new houseboy, Abdul, wide-eyed.
‘Memsahib, at the door, calling Missy Isabel.’
She held herself so still that her body shook. She wouldn’t go.
‘Miss Isabel.’ Mrs Chaudhary spoke to her in English now. The boys lifted their heads. ‘Please be going.’
Isabel hesitated.
Rahul said: ‘But her food, Mama.’
Mrs Chaudhary shook her head, repeated. ‘Please, Miss Isabel. Please.’
Isabel was summoned the following day.
‘Where were you?’
Her mother sat at her desk in the sitting room, one long-fingered hand stretched across an open writing case and the other clasping the gold chain around her neck, gathering it into folds and kneading it. The mid-morning sun was already strong. It reached through the French windows and made the moving necklace sparkle.
‘Ayah says you ate with the servants. Is that true?’
Isabel’s round-toed sandals cut red half-moons in the wooden floor. She stood two, maybe three, steps from the fringe of the rug. She could jump it in one bound if she had a run-up.
‘Well?’
She shrugged. ‘I was hungry.’
Her mother sighed. ‘It won’t do, you know.’ The gold links of the chain scraped together as she bunched, then rolled them between her fingers. ‘Your father and I have decided it’s time for you to go Home. There’s a small school that’s supposed to be awfully good, just like a family, really.’
Outside, Cook Chaudhary hollered from the side of the house. Angry. The houseboy was for it.
‘Are you even listening?’
She forced her eyes to meet her mother’s and nodded. A bicycle bell rang down by the gate and someone whistled. It wasn’t Rahul, she knew his whistle anywhere. A delivery boy, perhaps. From town. Her toes clenched in her sandals, bursting to run outside to see.
‘If it hadn’t been for the war, you should have gone long ago. It’s a big change but you’ll soon settle.’
A thought struck her. The whispers last night. ‘Is the sweeper-wallah leaving?’
Her mother looked surprised, then frowned. ‘Where did you hear that?’
It was true, then. ‘Where will he go?’
‘I really don’t think—’ Her mother let her necklace fall. It bounced against her blouse, then swayed and settled. ‘He let us down very badly. That’s all.’ She turned back to her desk. ‘Your father’s quite right, Isabel. It’s time you went Home.’
Chapter Two
‘She’s a plain girl.’
Isabel lay stock-still and listened. The Misses Ellison stood in the shadows, just beyond the door. That was the voice of the elder Miss Ellison, a thin woman with a sharp nose. She wore black boots and a sweeping, high-necked dress, pinned with a polished black brooch. When they met an hour earlier, Isabel saw herself reflected in it, small, pale and wide-eyed.
‘She’ll get by.’ Her sister. A softer voice. The younger Miss Ellison had a fat bosom and powdered cheeks, doughy as buns. ‘They’re not without means, the Winthorpes.’
A sniff. ‘The wife’s the one with money. One of the Hancock girls.’
‘The cloth people?’
The door closed. Footsteps and fading voices across the landing. She stretched out her feet, wiggled her toes. The sheet was cold and damp. Miss Ellison had given her a glass of milk in the kitchen, then made her take off her travelling clothes, wash her face in a basin and put on her nightdress by the fire. The milk made a stone in her stomach. She shivered, wrapped her arms round her body and curled into a ball.
‘Are you plain?’ A girl’s voice, close by.
She turned towards the sound, strained to see. Another bed. Rustling as someone sat up. She blinked, clearing spangles of light from her eyes, peering. ‘Probably.’
The sitting shape of the girl emerged from the blackness. She had an abundance of fair hair. It fell in loose waves, making a cloud round her neck and shoulders. ‘I’m pretty,’ the girl said. ‘Everyone says so.’
A pause as Isabel considered this. ‘That’s lucky.’
‘I expect it is.’ She rose and feet slapped across the wooden floor. ‘Well, shove up, can’t you?’
The girl lifted back the corner of the blanket and sheet and climbed in beside her. She wrapped her arms round Isabel’s ribs, her compact body hard and warm. She smelt of camphor.
‘What cloth people?’
Isabel shrugged. ‘My mother’s people, I suppose.’
‘Did you really come from India? Isn’t it awfully far?’
She thought back to the sweltering train journey from Delhi to Bombay, the dull weeks on board ship, each a little cooler than the last, walking in endless procession round the worn planks of the deck with a party of other English girls, chaperoned by a hearty games mistress. When they disembarked at Southampton, the sky was dour with drizzle. Someone put a lid on the world, shut out the light, the sun, the air.
‘I shan’t stay long. I’m going back.’
‘I thought that too, at first. Ninety-three days till Christmas, did you count?’
‘Are your people in India too?’
‘Kettlewell. It’s in Yorkshire. We’ve got a farm and a beck runs right along the bottom of the garden. We had a governess but then my brother went off to school and I came here. I’m Gwendolyn but you can call me Gwen if you like.’ Her breath made a hot patch between Isabel’s shoulder blades. She put icy feet against the backs of Isabel’s ankles where they slowly thawed. ‘What’s India like?’
When Isabel closed her eyes, the blackness swayed, rocked by the lingering motion of the ship. As it settled, pictures appeared.
‘Hot. The lawn goes white in the sun,’ she said. ‘Ayah looks after me, mostly. And Cook Chaudhary. He makes me mango pudding.’
‘What’s mango pudding?’
‘Don’t you know?’ She turned her mind back to India. ‘My best friend’s called Rahul. And I’ve got a pony. Starlight. I go in for the children’s gymkhana. We got fifth last year.’
‘You can’t now though, can you?’
‘And there are monkeys. The babies hang upside down, clinging to their mother’s bellies. Their faces look wrinkled, like old men and—’
‘Fibber.’ The arms disentangled themselves and Gwen pulled away, slapped back to her own bed. The darkness settled into place between them. After a while, Gwen said: ‘We have cows, by the way. And sheep.’
Isabel lay very still, feeling the chill creep back along her spine. Gwen breathed lightly, not yet asleep.
‘Is it always cold here?’
‘Cold?’ A snigger. ‘This isn’t cold. Wait till winter.’
The Misses Ellison’s house stood on the edge of the moor and as the weather soured, the wind rampaged across the open expanse.
In those first weeks of autumn, the heather splashed purple across the moorland and the stretches of bracken faded from green to brown. In the mornings, the younger Miss Ellison walked Isabel and Gwen across the moor to the village to do her daily shop. Isabel’s ears buzzed with cold.
Miss Ellison walked briskly along the mud paths. Her laced boots made light prints in the mud. Isabel and Gwen, trailing behind, made a game of stretching their strides to match hers. The wind filled with drizzle and fired it into Isabel’s face. Her cheeks and fingers went numb and her nose ran, mingling with the rain.
In the village, the girls waited at the back of one shop after another while Miss Ellison made purchases. The shop assistants wore white aprons and straw boaters and slapped pats of butter with wooden paddles and shovelled sugar and flour out of lidded bins into shining brass scales. When Miss Ellison paid, the money and bill shot upstairs inside a tube to a ringing bell, only to zoom down again a few minutes later, rattling with change.
In the afternoons, they sat in the back room of the house with two stout girls with plaits, the daughters of the local doctor. The elder Miss Ellison taught reading, writing and sums. She slapped at their knuckles with a wooden ruler when she was displeased.
The younger Miss Ellison had a globe and taught them about the Empire which stretched round the girth of the world like a red corset.
‘Now, girls, where is Africa?’ She turned the world and made them point.
Isabel’s only interest was in India. She was proud of its size, a sprawling elephant of a country, very far from the tiny smudge of England.
A letter came from her father on thin, crinkly paper. It smelt of sun and spice. He drew a funny-faced tiger with thick whiskers, dressed in britches and a self-portrait, a man sporting a topee, snoozing in a chair on the lawn. His tone was jolly. He told a story about Cook mistaking salt for sugar and how horrid the cake tasted.
Isabel kept the letter under her mattress. At night, when Gwen slept, she hung out of bed, lifted the lip of the mattress and sniffed it until it lost the scent of India.
Gwen said Isabel must be sent home to India in July, for the long summer holidays. They calculated the days and began to count them off.
Then a letter came from Isabel’s mother.
Miss Ellison informs me that you and Gwen have become great friends, her mother wrote. We thought it would be great fun for you to stay with her family for the summer. I am sorry, darling, that I can’t be there myself but please be a good, polite girl and make me proud of you.
That night, Gwen slapped across the bedroom floor and wrapped her thin arms around Isabel.
‘It’s too bad,’ she said. ‘Really.’
The view from the window seat commanded the back of the house. Gwen was on the swing. Her ankles were crossed and her loose hair flew as she cut an arc through the air, time after time, in a steady rhythm.
Isabel shifted her weight and stretched out her legs. She pulled the cushion from its place in the small of her back and sat on it, easing off her buttocks.
At the end of the garden, beyond the dip that concealed the beck, lay a gently rising patchwork of fields. They were studded with cows and sheep and bounded by stubby lines of drystone wall, as if an artist had drawn the landscape in thick grey pencil before colouring it in.
A thin draught pressed in from the edge of the window. She pulled her cardigan closer round her chest and turned the page of the volume spread open across her knees. She knew the next picture well. The majestic elephant with flapping ears. A curtained howdah, decorated with gold and silver, crashed through the jungle on its back. A mahout, barefoot and brown-skinned, rode on its head, legs tucked behind the vast spread ears.
‘Put that book down. It’s not yours.’
She lifted her head. A staring boy in the doorway. He wore a blue short-sleeved shirt, serge shorts and sandals. His pale face was convulsed in a frown.
‘It’s not yours either. It’s Mr Whyte’s. Anyway, I asked him.’
‘It is mine. Practically. I’m his son and heir.’
Jonathan, then. Home from boarding school. She turned her eyes back to the picture and felt him hesitate. He took a few steps further into the room and looked round.
‘Where’s Gwen?’
She shrugged. ‘Playing out.’
‘You’re Isabel, aren’t you? You’re not as pretty as my sister.’
She raised her eyes and looked at him with cool confidence. ‘I’m an Indian princess.’
‘Liar.’ He sounded unsure. He turned on his heel and left.
She turned her attention back to the book. The next page showed a tea plantation. Indian ladies with silver studs in their noses and brightly coloured saris, indigo and sunshine yellow, plucked leaves and threw them into the wicker baskets slung on their backs like babies. She traced the outline with her forefinger, imagining the textures, the close, fetid smell of the tea, the warmth.
‘You better put that down. I’ll tell.’ He was back.
‘Tell all you like. I don’t care.’
He came closer and peered over her shoulder. He smelt of damp earth and sweat. When he reached out a hand to the book, his fingers were stained blue with ink. He turned a few pages and pointed to an illustration. It was a set of drawings of Indian snakes, ranged in size from small grass snakes to giant pythons.
He pointed to one of the largest. ‘Bet you’ve never seen a snake like that.’
‘My mother killed one. In the bedroom. Beat it to death with her hairbrush.’
His eyes widened. ‘Don’t believe you.’
She shrugged, turned back to the book. ‘Suit yourself, Know-It-All.’
‘Know-It-All yourself.’
She held the book away from him until he pulled a face and ran out of the room.
At five o’clock, the three of them sat together round the tea table. Jonathan’s eyes ranged over Isabel, looking to find fault.
The maid brought in a plate of thickly sliced buttered bread and a dish of blackcurrant jam and placed them on the cloth.
‘I’ll say grace.’ Jonathan watched while Gwen put her hands together and bowed her head. Isabel hesitated, then did the same. ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’ He turned to Isabel. ‘You didn’t say Amen.’
‘Did.’
Gwen looked from one to the other.
Jonathan helped himself to bread and took control of the jam dish.
‘You can have some.’ He spooned a dollop of jam onto his own plate, then another onto his sister’s. ‘Don’t let her.’
‘Why not?’
‘She shouldn’t be here.’
Gwen blinked. ‘She’s my friend.’
Jonathan glared. ‘I’m your brother.’
‘Keep your stupid jam.’ Isabel took a piece of bread and bit into it. ‘I don’t want it anyway.’
The maid walked back into the room with a jug of water and they fell silent. Afterwards, when the maid brought slices of fruit cake, Jonathan switched round the plates so Isabel had the smallest piece.
When they were finishing, Jonathan tapped a spoon on the edge of the glass to demand attention.
‘Notice is hereby given that Miss Isabel Winthorpe is sent to Coventry.’
Isabel didn’t know where Coventry was. She licked her finger and gathered up cake crumbs.
Jonathan looked at Gwen. ‘Cards, after?’
‘If you like.’
‘If it’s fine tomorrow, we could take a picnic up the fell. I’ll ask Cook to cut sandwiches.’
Gwen considered Isabel. ‘So she can’t come?’
Isabel felt herself flush. ‘I wouldn’t want to.’
Jonathan made a pantomime of looking round. ‘Who can’t come? Who do you mean?’
Gwen looked sideways at Isabel, giggled.
‘Is there someone else here? I can’t see anyone.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘You’re blind, then.’ Isabel hunched her shoulders. ‘Blind and stupid.’ Tears pricked hot. The bread in her hand blurred and swam.
When the others finished eating and scraped back their chairs, Isabel stayed alone at the table. The door banged shut behind them. A moment later, their muffled voices drifted through the wall from the sitting room. A shriek of laughter from Gwen. The thud of a chair.
Isabel counted to twenty, then followed. The others sat opposite each other at the felt-topped card table. Jonathan, his back to the door, slapped out two piles of cards. Their shoulders stiffened as she crept in but neither lifted their eyes to acknowledge her. She plucked the India book from its place in the bookcase, then retreated with it to the window seat, curled against the cold glass in the narrow hiding place behind the drawn curtain and touched the pages, one after another, in the semi-darkness.
The days settled into a pattern. Jonathan and Gwen disappeared outside together for hours at a time and came back muddy, ruddy-faced and triumphant. Isabel trailed around the silent house. Sometimes she splashed in the beck at the bottom of the garden, piling stones to make a dam, or sat alone on the swing, watching her feet rise up against the dappled green and black of the fell and slowly fall again.
In the house, she sought out new hiding places that allowed her to disappear. She lay in the thin gap between the back of Mr Whyte’s desk and the lip of the window sill or sat cross-legged under the writing bureau, concealed by its chair.
With four days to go before Jonathan’s return to school and six before their departure for the Misses Ellison, Mrs Whyte took Jonathan and Gwen into Skipton to visit the outfitters there. The weather turned and soured.
Long after they’d left, Isabel stood at the window and gazed out at the altered landscape. The fields smoked with low mist. The fell and the peaks above the valley disappeared in cloud. The cows shifted their feet and stamped and puffed steam.
Finally, when she sensed that they might soon return, she took her book and crawled between the legs of the writing bureau. She drew the spindly chair into place behind her and pulled down its cushion to form a screen between her hiding place and the rest of the room. It was draughty against the skirting board. Balls of dust clung to her socks like burrs. She drew her knees up, rested the book on her tilted thighs and began to read.
Doors slammed. Voices in the hall, first Gwen and her mother, then Jonathan chipping in with a short remark, a shuffling of coats and shoes. She looked at her watch. Another hour to lunch. They’d taken an early bus. The page in front of her showed the Indian jungle. It became fraught as she clenched the book, hunched her back more tightly against the wall and waited to be discovered.
The door opened. The sound of footsteps shifted from wood to rug and back to wood as someone crossed the room. She strained low against the floor and looked through the fencing of wooden chair and table legs. Jonathan’s polished, laced shoes. He stood at the window, looking out towards the hidden fell as she had done. She closed her eyes. He would sense her here, she was sure. He would know. Her breath and heartbeat boomed in the room.
A low scrape. He lifted the window by a few inches. Cold pressed in at once and the mild patter of drizzle. She strained to look. The feet turned and crept towards her. She was found then. She shrank against the wall and floor, bracing herself. The shoes stopped right in front of the bureau. She held her breath and closed her eyes. The shudder of a drawer opening, a rummage of papers, a vexed tut. The drawer closed and a second opened, then a third as he searched. He smelt of sweat and the woolly dampness of outdoors. His movements were stealthy. Whatever he wanted, it was a secret.
A sigh. He closed the final drawer and returned to the window. She pressed forward to peer round the edge of the desk to watch. He had a cigarette in his hand, one of his mother’s, stolen from her case. A match scraped, bloomed into flame, and the cigarette swam with smoke. He bent over, one hand just above his knee as if he were playing leapfrog, the other holding the cigarette, and smoked in sharp puffs, blowing balls of smoke out through the raised window to disperse in the mist.
As he smoked, his body softened. Its tension seemed to gather into wisps and float out of the house in the used smoke. She wondered what it felt like to smoke, how it tasted. It was oddly intimate to observe him, unseen. Her own body relaxed with his.
It happened in a second. Quick footsteps in the hall. The door flung open.
‘Jonathan!’ His mother. ‘What are you doing?’
The window shut with a bang. Jonathan coughed, spluttered into his hand. Finally he said: ‘Just letting a fly out.’
On her knee, the book tipped and slid. She grabbed to stop it falling to the floor.
His mother crossed to the table, turning her back on him. ‘I shan’t join you for lunch. Cook’s sending a tray up. I’m going to rest in my room this afternoon. I know the weather’s a bore. You’ll just have to amuse yourselves indoors.’
‘Of course.’ All the time she spoke, Jonathan waved a discreet arm, dispersing the smoke.
Mrs Whyte picked up her spectacles and book and turned back to him. ‘Another fly?’
He nodded.
‘Well, leave it, darling. Live and let live. Look after the girls, would you?’
She left the room. Once the door closed, Jonathan exhaled a stream of smoky breath, ran a hand over his hair. A moment later, he too rushed out and Isabel found herself alone once again. She stretched out her legs and bounced them on the floor. Her numb buttocks slowly prickled back to life as she rubbed them. She turned the page on the jungle. An ancient Indian fort with red clay walls appeared and she dipped her head to read the text beneath. Cigarette smoke lingered in the room.
A crack. A creaking floorboard, she thought. A wicker chair. The fort dated back to the seventeenth century. The Mughal era. She traced the word in her mind. A bubble drawing at the side of the page showed a grand Indian man in a red headdress. It was so neatly flush against his skull that it looked painted on. He was portrayed in profile with a pearl in his ear.
A pop and roar. Burning. She stretched forward to look. The waste-paper basket by the window jumped yellow and orange with flame. She shoved the cushion and chair out of the way and scrambled out on hands and knees, abandoning the Mughals. The stray balls of paper in the metal basket were alight. The rising heat caught her full in the face, pressed her back. She looked wildly round the room for water. Nothing. The flame, jumping, reached for the hem of the curtain.
‘Fire!’ The hall was empty. She ran down the backstairs to the kitchen. Cook would know what to do. ‘Fire!’
Jonathan stood beside Cook at the kitchen table. He picked at leftovers as Cook prepared lunch. ‘Don’t tell fibs.’ He scowled at her, went back to chewing a stray piece of ham.
‘In the sitting room.’ She turned to Cook. ‘The waste-paper basket.’
Jonathan dropped the ham. For a moment, he looked stricken. He grabbed a basin from the shelf beside the stove and filled it with water. ‘Take this.’ He pushed it into her hands. She stood, dazed, then turned and rushed back upstairs. Her dress grew a dark, cold patch at her waist where the water slopped.
The sitting room was transformed. The air swam with smoke. The waste-paper basket, now a red-hot cylinder, brimmed with fire. Above it, the curtain flapped. The material was singed and dotted with rising sparks. She threw the water at the fire, soaking her feet. A shot of sooty steam caught her in the face and blinded her. She twisted backwards.
‘Out of the way.’ Jonathan, shouldering her to one side. He hurled a bucket of water at the sodden remains. A splash, then a final exhausted pall of smoke. They stood back. A black mess of fire-chewed pulp and a charred waste-paper basket. The soft tissue at the back of her throat pulsated.
Cook rushed in, carrying a tin tray of water. She hesitated on the rug, stared at the debris. Mrs Whyte pushed in from behind her.
‘What on earth …? In heaven’s name!’
Jonathan drew himself up. ‘It’s all right, Mother.’
His mother stood between them now, staring down in horror at the singed floor, the quietly smoking heap of water and ash. ‘What happened?’
Jonathan rounded on Isabel. ‘Ask her.’ His eyes were cold. ‘I was in the kitchen. Isn’t that right, Cook?’
Isabel stared. He knew, surely. He’d been the one smoking.
Mrs Whyte raised her arm and pointed to the door. Her lips pressed into a tight line. ‘Go to your room, Isabel.’
Isabel opened her mouth to speak.
‘At once.’
As she left the room, the atmosphere in the room punctured and sank in her wake.
‘Dreadful girl.’ Mrs Whyte’s voice was a breathy whisper. ‘Never again.’
Chapter Three
Delhi, 1933
Isabel didn’t want to attend the party. The cold season was well underway and the gossip, the jokes, the faces were already stale. Isabel had been out riding much of the day. Now she wanted to bathe in a hot tub, curl up with a supper tray in her room and finish her book.
Her mother appeared in the sitting room late in the afternoon to find Isabel curled in a chair, reading, and plucked the book from her hands.
‘What’s this?’ The corners of her mother’s mouth turned down in distaste. ‘Politics?’
Isabel took back her book.
‘It won’t give you any advantage in conversation. This isn’t London.’
It wasn’t. She had finally been allowed to join her parents in Delhi after endless years of exile in England. Most recently, she stayed with her aunt in London where she was paraded at dinners and parties in the search for a husband. There were few eligible young men available. The Great War had depleted the stock.
Her mother settled into her chair, picked up a magazine and rang for tea. Isabel turned her eyes back to her book.
‘What are you wearing this evening?’ Her mother leafed through the magazine. ‘What about the blue with the sequins?’ She lifted her eyes. ‘Please, Isabel. The Cawthornes matter.’
Isabel closed the book.
‘You need to make more of yourself, darling.’ Her mother leant forward. Her eyes, as she looked Isabel over, were anxious. ‘Daphne says there may be good prospects. Bertie’s bringing two unmarried lieutenants.’
‘Poor things.’ Isabel smiled. ‘I bet the Broadside girls go. The lieutenants won’t stand a chance.’
‘The Broadside girls are very pretty.’ Her mother hesitated, choosing her words with care. ‘But you have lovely qualities, Isabel.’ She paused. ‘And a perfectly nice figure.’
Isabel said quietly: ‘I’d much rather you went along without me.’
‘Oh, Isabel.’ Her mother frowned, turned her eyes for a moment to her magazine. She turned a page, then looked up again. ‘And this time, please don’t give away your age.’
‘Is it so dreadful to be twenty-two?’
‘It would be dreadful to turn twenty-three without an engagement.’
Abdul brought in the tea tray. Her mother surveyed the sandwiches and scones and took control of the teapot. Yes, said Isabel, she would wear the blue.
The Cawthornes lived in a grand bungalow on the outskirts of New Delhi. The driver, his turban scraping the roof of the car, turned in through grand gates. As they curved round to the left, the approach came into view, lit by two lines of candles, which flickered in low terracotta pots. The front door stood open, throwing a stream of light across the steps and onto the gravel beyond.
They stepped out of the car. Isabel stood for a moment, breathing in the heavy fragrance of rotting vegetation, overripe flowers and recently watered grass. The strains of stringed instruments drifted through from the back of the house. On the far side, the jungle reached towards them with its thickly clotted darkness.
The houseboy took their wraps and ushered them through the entrance hall and central passageway towards the back of the house where French windows opened first onto the verandah, then gave way to lawns and flower beds below.
The main lawn was peppered with guests, standing in clusters, drinks in hand. The vivid colours of the ladies’ dresses and flashing jewels on milk-white throats shone against the sombre black and white of the gentlemen’s evening dress. Here and there, military uniforms flashed polished buttons. Flaming torches stood tall in the flower beds. Servants crept silently amongst the guests, carrying trays of drinks in white-gloved hands.
A marquee on the far side of the lower lawn hinted at dinner. Across from it, a trio of Anglo-Indians sat together in front of the rhododendrons and tickled the night air with music. Isabel found herself smiling. She had no doubt that some of the conversation, some of the people, would bore her. But this, with all its cloying scents and old-fashioned conventions, was the India she loved and she was grateful to be home.
‘You’re here! How marvellous! Now the party can really begin!’
It was Mrs Cawthorne’s standard greeting to everyone. She stepped forward to embrace Isabel’s mother. She was a plump woman, the daughter of an army major and wife of a colonel. Her own sons, both recently married, had secured commissions in Indian regiments. Isabel’s mother, who had seemed subdued in the car, now ignited and the two women fired off sparks of compliments and questions with easy graciousness.
Isabel hung back, watching and listening. Most of her parents’ friends, who’d once seemed such a dynamic force in India, struck her now as old-fashioned. All their stories were of past exploits. All their talk was news of those who had retired to England. Their only response to India’s current politics was a sad shaking of heads and frowns of confused disappointment.
She looked sideways at her father who stood patiently waiting as Mrs Cawthorne and his wife talked on. His eyes moved from one powdered face to the other but his thoughts strayed elsewhere, she could tell. His hair was thinning and his newly exposed forehead shone with sweat.
A servant paused to offer round a tray of drinks and she took a gin tonic.
She headed off alone towards the groups of younger people gathered on the far side of the lawn. Bertie and his army friends were horsing about, voices loud, faces ruddy. The Broadside girls, all attention, giggled at their sides.
Isabel joined a group nearer her own age, made up of two young married couples, including one of her oldest friends, Sarah, and her new husband, Tom Winton, and Frank, an IAS officer whose wedding date was fixed for the end of his current tour. Sarah was grilling him for details about his plans, which he clearly struggled to supply.
‘Tell Amelia to come out. I had our derzi stitch all the suits and dresses for our wedding. And the linen. Saved a fortune.’
Her husband, Tom, murmured something inaudible.
‘Besides,’ Sarah continued, ‘what’s the point of her being in London when she could be here, with you?’
Frank looked over her shoulder into middle distance. ‘Her parents are a bit jumpy, actually. Worried about these protests. They’ve been all over the papers.’
Sarah shrugged. ‘It’ll blow over. Just a few hotheads. Isn’t that right, darling?’
Tom nodded. ‘Lot of nonsense, if you ask me.’
‘One of our servants actually apologised to me the other day, after that train was attacked,’ Sarah went on. ‘Not real Indians, that’s what he said. He was dying of embarrassment.’
Tom said: ‘If you gave them independence, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.’
‘Chaos. That’s what would happen. Absolute chaos.’
‘She’ll be living here anyway, once we’re married. They’re being awfully silly.’ Frank sighed. ‘But they won’t listen.’
The conversation turned to events in Europe and the men fell to debating the new German Chancellor, Mr Hitler, whose party had done so well earlier in the year. Isabel let her eyes drift across the party, idly reading the gestures and expressions. The pungent smell of frying onions and spices wafted across the lawn from the marquee. Servants bustled in and out with laden trays of food.
Sarah leant in to whisper. ‘Who’s that?’ She gestured over Isabel’s shoulder.
A dark-haired man of perhaps thirty looked hastily away as she turned. He shifted his gaze to the man beside him with unnaturally fixed attention. He was tall and rather thin, in need perhaps of a good feed.
‘One of Bertie’s crowd?’
‘Not military, not the type.’ Sarah seemed amused. ‘Well, he seems to know you. He’s been staring at you for the last ten minutes.’
‘I very much doubt that.’
Isabel didn’t look again until Frank announced that they should all head to the marquee for supper. As they moved off, she glanced back. He was indeed watching her. His eyes slid at once to his feet. An attractive face and rather intense brown eyes. She padded across the lawn with Frank at her side. He was probably married anyway, with several children. Whoever he was, his shyness was a welcome change from the usual boisterous crowd.
The chit arrived at the bungalow the following day as Isabel and her mother sat together in the sitting room.
‘Miss Isabel Winthorpe.’ Her mother twisted to look across the room. ‘It’s from someone at The Grand.’
‘Really?’ Isabel frowned and rose to take it. The envelope was luxuriously thick with The Grand Hotel’s crest embossed on the fold. She examined the handwriting. Small, cramped letters.
‘Well, open it, Isabel. Don’t tease.’
She turned away from her mother, pulled open the flap and slid out the paper. It had the same velvety texture and The Grand’s address. The letter was a single paragraph.
Dear Miss Winthorpe,
I can only apologise for writing to you in so impertinent a manner. It was such a surprise, albeit a most pleasant one, to see you again last night that I took the liberty of asking Colonel Cawthornefor your family’s address. I fear you may think me awfully presumptuous but I wondered if you might do me the great honour of lunching with me, here at The Grand, on Thursday at noon? I leave Delhi next week and would dearly value the chance to see you before then, if only as a small token of apology for my regrettable behaviour in the past.
Yours in hope,
Jonathan Whyte
‘What is it, darling?’ Her mother, all attention, rose from her chair. ‘You’re pale as a ghost.’
She lifted the letter from Isabel’s hand before she could resist.
‘How nice! He sounds delightful. A little unorthodox, perhaps, but well-mannered. And The Grand offers such tasty luncheons. I do recommend the fish.’ She softened her tone, trying to gauge the mood. ‘Isabel? Who is he, exactly?’
‘Gwen’s brother.’ She saw it now. She simply hadn’t recognised him at the party, but those brown eyes, the even features … She shook her head. ‘I shan’t go. He was horrid.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘That first summer with the Misses Ellison when you packed me off to stay with Gwen’s family. They’re up in the Dales, miles from anywhere, remember? I never went again.’ She paused, remembering. ‘He must have been about ten.’
Her mother looked relieved. ‘All boys are terrors at that age. And he sounds so contrite, Isabel. He’s clearly embarrassed. You must accept.’
Isabel hesitated. He was about to leave Delhi, so if the luncheon was a disaster she never need see him again. She was curious to know why he was in India and, besides, dining at The Grand was always a treat.
All the way to The Grand, past the crowded broken pavements, the street stalls and roadside hawkers, the beggars, all set against southern Delhi’s ornate Victorian buildings, she thought how absurd it was to feel nervous. The lobby was hushed. Her heels clicked across the marble floor to the main restaurant and her hat bounced in and out of the gilded mirrors along the wall.
The restaurant was quiet, even for a Thursday. She stood for a moment, steadying her breathing, as the maître d’ greeted her. In the centre, an Anglo-Indian in evening dress sat at a baby grand piano and tinkled old-fashioned melodies. In the corner by the door, a mother and daughter sat together, parcels of shopping heaped beside their chairs. Three young women of about her own age chatted in low voices at another table. A group of middle-aged men impinged on the quiet by breaking into sudden laughter.
Her eye was taken by a movement in the far corner near the French windows, which led out to the verandah and the gardens beyond. A chair scraped and a man rose. She recognised him at once from the party. He lifted his hand to wave to her, then hesitated in mid motion, put his palm to his mouth and coughed. The maître d’ led her through the restaurant to join him, seated her on the opposite side of the table and unfolded a starched linen napkin across her lap.
Jonathan leant forward. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’
She turned to the nearby waiter, expecting him to hand her a menu.
‘I took the liberty of ordering for you.’ Jonathan spoke in a low voice. His eyes were intense. ‘The roast lamb with mashed potato.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Roast lamb?’
‘Of course, if you’d prefer something else …’
She shook her head. ‘First you seek out my address, now you know my favourite dish. What next?’
‘Let’s see.’ He nodded to the waiter. ‘Fetch a gin tonic for the lady, would you? No lime, no lemon, no ice.’
‘You have done your homework.’ She drew off her gloves, finger by finger, and draped them over her bag on the chair beside her.
‘And when it comes to dessert, a large slice of The Grand’s signature chocolate cake but without cream.’
‘Very impressive. Is there anything you don’t know about me?’
He drew a cigarette case from his pocket and offered her one, then leant forward to light it for her. The waiter brought their drinks and they sat for a while, sipping gin tonics and smoking. Isabel withdrew the pin from her hat and set it on top of the gloves. She ran her fingers through her hair to loosen it.
‘So tell me, what happened to Gwen? Did she take over the farm? She always said she would.’
He smiled. ‘She married a schoolteacher in Ripon. Did you hear? They’ve got a little girl. Eva.’ His features softened. ‘She always loved the Dales more than I did. My father was awfully disappointed when I set my sights on the IAS.’
The wine waiter presented him with a bottle of wine for approval.
‘You’ll have a glass of claret?’
The crystal glasses flushed red. She drew on her cigarette, felt her shoulders slacken.
‘It’s all your fault, you know.’
She looked up quickly. ‘What is?’
‘That I’m here.’ He drew on his cigarette, tipped back his head and blew a stream of smoke into the air above him. ‘Remember that book, the one you studied when you stayed with us? I took it back to school with me after the hols and read it myself. Wanted to work out what had fascinated you, I suppose. Anyway, I was hooked.’
She wasn’t sure how to respond. She drank the last of her gin tonic. ‘You don’t regret it, I hope?’
‘Quite the contrary. I love India. Everything about it. The vibrancy, the craziness, the people. Even the heat.’ A hint of awkwardness. ‘I see now why you missed it so.’
The waiter arrived, set up his tray table with a flourish and began to serve their lunch. Jonathan sat back and watched. He seemed unable to meet her eye.
When the waiter left, Jonathan lifted his wine glass. ‘I should explain why I wanted to invite you to luncheon. To give heartfelt apologies for being such an idiotic schoolboy all those years ago. And to say thank you. For opening my eyes to the Empire’s greatest treasure.’
She lifted her own glass to touch his. Those weeks in the Dales seemed so long ago, from another life. They picked up their cutlery and began to eat.
‘So you’re based in Calcutta?’
‘Port Blair.’ He ate politely, taking small bites. ‘The Andamans.’
‘Isn’t that terribly remote?’
‘It’s halfway to Siam. Absolute paradise. White-sand beaches, clear blue waters, splendid fishing. But untamed. The jungle’s full of savages, some of them completely uncivilised. And lots of convicts, of course. You know we have a fortified prison there? My bearer and cook are both murderers.’
‘The cook’s not a poisoner, I hope?’
He laughed. ‘Certainly not. Strangled his wife. Hard to imagine. He’s a pussycat.’
She took another mouthful of lamb. It was rich and succulent and the gin, chased down by the claret, added to a sudden wave of well-being.
‘Tell me about your life there. I’d love to know.’
He lifted his eyes from his plate. His expression was one of cautious excitement. ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to bore you.’
‘You won’t.’
She settled into her meal and he took control of the conversation. He spoke with increasing confidence and speed as he warmed to his subject, describing in some detail his work as an assistant commissioner and his ambition to clear further sections of jungle and extend agriculture on the island.
Isabel prodded him with questions but mostly she took the opportunity to study him. He had an intelligent face. His eyes shone as he talked. Most young men she knew seemed to think it fashionable to adopt a rather languid, cynical attitude towards India. Jonathan sounded passionate. He was still talking when the waiter discreetly removed their plates and offered dessert menus.
‘I’ve gone on and on, haven’t I?’ Jonathan looked suddenly embarrassed. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She shook her head, smiled and offered him a cigarette. They sat back in their chairs and started to smoke, sipping the last of the claret. The dining room was almost deserted. Only the businessmen still lingered at their table, chairs pushed back, blurred by a haze of cigar smoke.
‘I love long luncheons. I don’t have them very often.’
‘You will indulge me, won’t you, and let me order you some chocolate cake?’
‘Well, if you insist.’
The blinds on the French windows were lowered to shoulder height, the pink fabric of the top half glowing warmly with low winter sun, which protruded beneath to spread patches of light across the wooden flooring.
‘But only if you tell me how you know my favourite foods?’
‘Actually it was your friend, Mrs Winton.’ He blushed. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Sarah?’
‘I wanted to say hello at the party but I bottled out. I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Besides, that young man glued to your side seemed rather possessive.’
‘Frank?’ She laughed. ‘Heavens, no. Anyway, he’s engaged.’
‘So I discovered. After you left, I finally went over to speak to your friend, Mrs Winton. She was very friendly.’ He paused, leaning forward and watching her closely. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
She shrugged. ‘Why should I?’
It was almost three o’clock by the time they finished coffee. She reached for her hat and gloves and the waiter rushed forward to ease back her chair. Jonathan once again became agitated as they walked, side by side, towards the door and into the echoing lobby. When he spoke, his words tumbled out in a rush, as if rehearsed.
‘Would you do something for me? Unless you think it’s a terrible cheek. I don’t know Delhi, you see. I wonder if you’d do me a colossal favour and come out and about with me this afternoon.’ He hesitated, embarrassed. ‘But you’re busy, of course. I’m awfully sorry. It was—’
She tugged on her gloves, finger by finger. ‘Why not? That sounds fun.’
He smiled, a long, lovely smile that made his eyes shine.
She led him down the hotel’s broad drive to the gate and hailed a tonga there, directing it north towards the old city. As they clopped along, swaying lightly in their seats with the motion of the bony horse, the streets became narrow and dirty. The tonga vied for space alongside legions of overladen carts, stacked high with cauliflowers and bhindi and green pickles. They banged so close that she could smell the sweaty, steamy hides of the donkeys and bullocks that drew them. Thin men, all muscle, cycled through the shifting spaces, some with children or wives perched behind on the metal frame.
At a junction, she tapped the tonga-wallah on the shoulder and directed him in Hindustani. He swung the horse left into a stream of traffic and edged them across the chaos towards the mouth of a lane.
‘You speak better than I do,’ Jonathan said. ‘And I came third in the Urdu examinations.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s mostly street slang.’
‘Who taught you?’
‘I used to play with one of the servants’ boys. It wasn’t allowed, of course.’ She peered out as the tonga squeezed into the neck of the lane and drew to a halt. A mangy dog barked round the horse’s legs. ‘Anyway, brace yourself.’
The mud underfoot was sticky with animal dung and discarded vegetable scraps. The stink was undercut by an intense sweetness, a cloying smell of burnt sugar.
Isabel strode ahead. Boys on bicycles wobbled through the tide of pedestrians, ringing shrill bells. A ragged toddler, naked from the waist down, took a few unsteady steps before losing his balance and crashing to the ground. An older child, her face smeared with mud, rushed to push her hands under his arms and haul him up.
The shop was little more than a stall. A long wooden counter faced the street, covered with dishes of sweetmeats in bright colours. They were piled in elaborate pyramids and a young boy sat on a stool behind the counter, wielding a long switch, which he used to knock flies off the produce even as they settled.
Isabel greeted him with a namaste. The boy slipped from his stool and ran out towards the back, bare feet slapping on the wooden planks. Minutes later, the scrap of sacking across the doorway was swept aside and a man strode out, wiping his hands on a piece of rag. He put his hands together in namaste and bowed to Isabel.
‘Rahul, this is my friend, Mr Whyte.’
He glanced at Jonathan. ‘Namaste, ji.’
‘Hello.’
He was a young man but the belly pushing out the folds of his kurta was already rounded and his hands looked calloused by manual work.
Isabel turned from one man to the other as she spoke. ‘How is Sangeeta-ji? They married – is it three years now, Rahul? I was in London, you see. By the time I heard, I’d missed the wedding. They’ve got a son now. Abhishek.’
‘Very fine, thank you, Isabel Madam. And Mutter-ji also.’
‘His baba, Chaudhary, was our cook. Rahul and I played together all the time, didn’t we?’ She beamed. ‘A long time ago now.’
‘So many years, madam.’ Rahul gestured to them to go inside. ‘You are drinking chai?’
Isabel followed him through into a small, rough courtyard, Jonathan trailing behind. Sangeeta, Rahul’s young wife, stopped her sweeping and bowed her head with respect. A slight girl of perhaps fourteen crouched in the far corner. She held a short stick and was drawing shapes in the dirt to amuse Rahul’s baby boy. Her eyes, when they met Isabel’s, were piercing and hostile. She raised her dupatta to shield her face and withdrew into the building beyond.
Sangeeta set down her broom, crossed to add wood to the fire and blew the embers into life. The sickly smell of boiling sugar spilt out from a covered doorway in the far wall. In a thin line of shade, Chaudhary Madam, Rahul’s elderly mother, lay on a battered charpoy. She looked little more than cloth-covered bones. White hair straggled from her long plait.
Isabel picked up a stool and sat by the charpoy. She lifted the crude bamboo fan there and began to stir the air around the old lady’s face.
‘Rahul’s mother was so kind to me.’ She spoke over her shoulder to Jonathan. ‘Sometimes I trooped back with Rahul for dinner. She always welcomed me, gave me food.’ The old woman stirred and Isabel bent to touch her cheek. ‘It was a lark for me, being part of an Indian family. It was only later that I thought how little they had to eat. She probably went hungry because of me and I was too stupid to realise.’
Rahul brought a stool for Jonathan and placed it beside Isabel’s. Sangeeta stirred chai in a blackened pot on the fire and, having served them, picked up her son and swayed him on her hip as the two guests and her husband drank their sweet milky tea from clay cups and picked at a saucer of sweetmeats.
‘We ate a massive luncheon, Rahul. But I can’t resist.’ Isabel bit into one of the silver-topped sweets. ‘Jonathan, do try one of these. Kaju barfi. Delicious. It’s made with nuts, cashew nut. Now Rahul, tell me, how’s business?’
He pulled a face. ‘Like this, like that, madam.’
‘Not good?’ She nibbled at the sweets.
He glanced at Jonathan before he answered. ‘These protests. So many hartals, also. No sugar, no ghee, no customers. Everything becomes closed.’
Jonathan said: ‘If you really want to stay open, ask for police protection. The strikes would soon stop.’
Rahul shook his head. ‘It’s not so easy.’
Isabel said: ‘I don’t know why they have them. They seem to hurt the poor most of all.’
Rahul looked down into his chai. Isabel reached to take the baby from Sangeeta and set him on her lap. He reached for her hair.
‘He’s grown so much, Rahul.’
Sangeeta scolded the boy and tried to prise his fingers from Isabel’s fringe as Rahul muttered: ‘I’m sorry, madam.’
‘You should be proud. Look at that grip.’
Isabel tickled him and he squealed. She looked over, laughing. Jonathan stared at the ground, one hand holding a cup of untouched chai while the other pulled in a vague way at his earlobe. He looked large and clumsy and out of place.
By the time she and Jonathan left, the afternoon light was yellowing, made hazy by the smoke from cooking fires. The tonga nosed its way through a surge of traffic. Ahead, shopkeepers rushed to erect wooden shutters over their stalls. Mothers, heads and faces covered, rounded up children from the street and herded them home.
‘Is there a protest?’
‘Looks like it.’ Jonathan sat with his shoulder turned to her.
She reached over to him. ‘Look, I just thought you’d enjoy meeting them, that’s all.’
He shrugged, didn’t look round.
She added: ‘They’re lovely people.’
Bicycles and carts hurried past. She tapped the tonga-wallah on the shoulder and told him to hurry.
Jonathan said in a tight voice: ‘I must say, I’m surprised. It’s not safe.’
She didn’t reply. The tonga-wallah slapped his switch across the haunches of the bony horse and goaded it into a half-hearted trot.
‘That baby wasn’t clean,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what you might catch.’
The roadside began to look deserted. In place of the usual bustle, only a stray child in the gutter, a dog nosing through rubbish, then trotting on, a hawker pushing his barrow back home, head bowed under the weight. The quietness struck her as unnatural. Then, in the silence, something stirred. The echo of a distant noise. She strained to listen. A pulse of male voices, ghostly at first, then steadily growing. Chanting.
She faced him and raised her hand. ‘Listen.’
The voices grew louder.
‘It’s coming from the bustee.’
Jonathan looked anxious. ‘Tell the driver to get a move on, would you?’
Isabel focused on the chanting. The words weren’t distinct – the noise seemed to bounce off the clouds – but the tone was clear. It had the vehemence of a battle cry and it was moving rapidly towards them. She tried to think. They could turn off the main thoroughfare and enter the labyrinth of back lanes in the hope of avoiding the protest but it would be slow going. Or they could press on and try to get out of the area before the marchers appeared.
They emerged into a broad crossroads and the swelling sound burst suddenly all around them. The intersection, normally a clutter of vehicles and pedestrians, was deserted.
‘Look!’ Isabel pointed down the street that ran perpendicular to their own. A dark swarm of men flowed towards them, fists striking the air, voices strident.
Jonathan leant forward and struck the tonga-wallah on the shoulder. ‘Don’t just sit there! Go!’
The tonga-wallah brought his switch down on the horse’s back but even as the carriage lurched forward, figures detached themselves from the crowd of marchers and came running at full tilt down the street towards them, shouting and waving their arms. The horse, startled by the sting of the whip and the shouting, tossed its head and screamed. The first men were almost upon them. They were young, faces red and moist with sweaty excitement, waving staves and metal knives, which flashed in the fading sunlight.
Isabel jumped down from the carriage and ran to grab hold of the horse’s bridle. Its eyes rolled white in its large head, its mouth flecked with foam and spittle where it gnawed at the bit.
‘Hush, boy. Quiet now.’ She hung onto the bridle as the head shook, almost lifting her off the ground. The eyes fixed on her, then veered away in terror. The switch struck its flank and the horse shot forward a few paces, dragging Isabel with it. Hooves stamped and crashed as the horse danced at her feet. She clung on and reached an arm round its neck, trying to soothe it. ‘Hush, beauty. It’s alright.’
Jonathan jumped out of the carriage and ran to join her. He pulled at her hands, trying to prise them off the bridle.
‘Get back in the carriage.’
Isabel shook her head. ‘Leave me. I know horses.’
The horse was pawing and stamping but showing signs of quietening. She hugged its neck, patted it, whispered repeatedly in its turning ear: ‘Quiet now, boy. Hush now.’
Jonathan tensed at her side. The first men reached them, hot-blooded youngsters. A rank smell hung around them of toddy and ghee. Isabel turned and spoke politely in Hindustani.
‘We’re having trouble with the horse. Don’t frighten him.’
One of the young men jeered. The shouting crowd advanced behind them. Their words grew clearer: Jai Hindustan Ki! Inquilab Zindabad! Beside her, Jonathan squared up.
‘You’ve no quarrel with the horse, I hope.’ She made herself laugh. ‘He’s a very Indian horse.’
One of the men shouted: ‘Yes, under the yoke. Like all of us.’
