A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (27 page)

Rowan nodded, leaving Bronowsky to guess what opinion he himself held about the future of the states. Since he had
accepted Malcolm’s invitation to officiate at the transfer of Mohammed Ali Kasim to the protection of the Nawab, he had been checking on Mirat’s status. There was no political agent actually resident in the state. Mirat’s relationship with the crown was conducted through the Resident in Gopalakand and this was old Robert Conway, whom Rowan knew only by reputation. It had surprised him a bit when Lady Manners mentioned him as an old friend of hers. Holding a high opinion of Lady Manners he decided there was probably more warmth in Conway than people usually admitted, but even she had described him as an unemotional man with rigid views. Bronowsky would not find it easy to communicate with him, nor – Rowan imagined – was Conway a man who would encourage Bronowsky in what he called his search for the most advantageous position for his prince. From what Rowan heard of Conway he suspected the Nawab would be encouraged to believe that he would be abandoned only over Conway’s dead body and the dead bodies of every member of the Political Department.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s hope the venerable gentleman stays clear. Some other time you must tell me about the stone. It does seem a bit far-fetched to go to all that trouble. I suppose he’s safe now.’

‘Who?’

‘Miss Layton’s friend – Merrick.’

‘Frankly I doubt he was ever in much danger. Harming a white man in this country is a hazardous occupation. But I agree he’s probably safe from further persecution, if only because he’s probably long since served his most useful purpose from Pandit Baba’s point of view. His own purpose – well – that is another matter. And who can say what is the purpose of a man like that?’

Rowan stretched. ‘Perhaps just to do his job.’

‘Few men have aims as simple as that.’

‘Are he and Miss Layton old friends?’

‘As I remember they met only at the wedding. He wasn’t even a close friend of the bridegroom. What you might call a last-minute substitute for a best man who was ill. No one knew he was the Merrick in the Bibighar Gardens case until the wedding-day. He’d kept it dark, but it came out then
because of the stone and because I identified him at once directly I heard this Captain Merrick had been in the Indian Police. The stone, by the way, hit the poor bridegroom. Why do you ask?’

‘Only that she seemed such a nice girl and that it would be tough on her if they’re committed to one another.’

‘Committed to one another?’

‘Engaged, for instance.’

‘Tough on her because of his lost left arm?’

‘She didn’t strike me as the sort of girl who would back out, and it would be hard on her, wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh, I agree. I doubt that Miss Layton would back out. But such a thing hadn’t occurred to me.’ With the ebony cane clasped in both hands he raised it to his chin and put his head back, gazed at the ornate ceiling. ‘Committed. Such a thing hadn’t occurred to me. There would hardly have been time for such a relationship to develop when they were in Mirat and no opportunity for it to have done so since, except by correspondence. No. I doubt there could have been time for a relationship of that nature even to begin, even if everything else had been normal.’

Tapping his chin with the silver knob of the cane Bronowsky continued to contemplate the view above his head. Rowan waited.

‘But I see why it might occur to you,’ Bronowsky went on. ‘That she was just back from a long journey undertaken for the reasons she gave but also for her own private emotional satisfaction.’

The ceiling ceased to interest him. He looked at Rowan but still tapped his chin.

‘Let us hope you are wrong. It would be a somewhat onesided affair, I should say. Unless, in Mirat, I was mistaken, which is always possible.’

‘Mistaken in what?’

‘In my assumption that he didn’t really like women.’

Rowan said nothing.

‘It is what makes the Mayapore case interesting. It was interesting from the beginning but in a rather cliché-ridden way. Well, there was this girl, this poor Miss Manners, recently out from England, untutored in and unsympathetic
to the rigid English social system here. Good-natured and intelligent – a little like Miss Layton but in comparison with her an innocent abroad, so far as India was concerned. For a time she lives with her aunt Lady Manners in Rawalpindi, a liberal-minded old lady whose husband once governed Ranpur and incurred the hostility of the die-hards with his pro-Indian policies. Nowadays the old lady has almost more Indian friends than she has British, they say. Her niece, this Miss Manners, is invited by one of them, a Lady Chatterjee, to stay with her in Mayapore where the social structure is even tighter and more provincial than in Rawalpindi. And in Mayapore she becomes friendly with an Indian boy. Not one who moves in the small official circle of socially acceptable Indians but one out of the black town. Cliché number one. The princess and the pauper, but with a racial variation on the theme. And then there is cliché number two: the boy although now a pauper is really a gentleman, brought up in England entirely and educated at an English public school. A family misfortune alone accounts for his presence on the wrong side of the river, from which from time to time he ventures into the cantonment in the capacity of a humble reporter for the local English language newspaper. The friendship with Miss Manners ripens but almost clandestinely because there are so few places where she cango that he can go. But she is impatient of these artificial barriers, so they are noticed together. She is warned against the association. She ignores the warning but the friendship is now under a strain. In other words, cliché number four. And then, what really is the boy after? Cliché number five. The warning proves more than merited, or so it would seem. One night she is attacked and assaulted. She swears she did not see her attackers. Later she swears that although she did not see them she knows who they were not – not in other words the kind of boys who have been arrested who of course include her young Indian friend. Who in Mayapore doubts though, or doesn’t guess who led them? Certainly the head of the police does not doubt. Within an hour of her return home after the assault her boyfriend and his companions were in custody. But now comes cliché number six. The head of the police himself has a regard for Miss Manners of an even tenderer kind than he
would feel for any girl of his own race who gets into trouble. How tender a regard? No one is sure but it is whispered that he loves her or loved her once and was spurned. He does not actually deny it. In confidence he will tell you that his erstwhile regard for Miss Manners made it that much more difficult for him to keep a properly detached view and ensure that all his actions are performed dispassionately in the service of justice. Such manly frankness is appealing. If in the past there were people who had marked him down as not quite pukka, as not really out of what you English call the top drawer, they admit that in this business his behaviour has been impeccable as well as energetic. So the story seems to go, proving yet again that if fact is no stranger than fiction it is just as predictable. But did the story go like that? I think not quite. When I met him I talked to him at length and as we talked I got this other impression that Miss Manners had never really interested him at all, that he had scarcely noticed her until her association with the Indian boy had begun, and that he could not avoid noticing her then because he had had his eye on the young man for a long time. The young man was an obsession, an absolute fixation. Perhaps even Mr Merrick does not fully appreciate all the possible reasons why.’ Bronowsky paused. ‘Perhaps that is cliché number seven. At least in life if not in tales. Cliché number eight is that with a job to do in a few hours from now you should get some rest. I will ask the steward to wake you at 4.15, shall I?’

‘Thank you.’ Rowan reached for his briefcase.

‘I hope it isn’t only good manners that have kept you up. For me sleep is a waste of time, it being my seventieth birthday, although strictly speaking that was yesterday. I’ve enjoyed our talk. I shall cheat for a few hours more, drink some more champagne and read Pushkin.’

As Rowan got up Bronowsky said, ‘You’d better disregard what I said, unless the question of those boys ever crops up at Government House. I hate to think of them lying forgotten in some inhospitable jail, if they were innocent. I do hope you are wrong, by the way.’

‘Wrong?’

‘About Miss Layton’s reasons for going so many miles to see the wounded hero. I believe he has a number of admirable
qualities but none of them strikes me as likely to promote the cause of anyone else’s happiness. Not even his own. He is one of your hollow men. The outer casing is almost perfect and he carries it off almost to perfection. But, of course, it is a casing he has designed. This loss he has sustained – the left arm – even this fits. If he regrets the loss, presently he will see that he has lost nothing or anyway gained more in compensation. What an interesting thought. I am tempted to say that had he not suffered the loss he might one day have been forced to invent it.’

Rowan smiled. ‘To the extent of removing part of a limb?’

Bronowsky laughed.

‘But absolutely!’

For a while he gazed at Rowan and then said sedately: ‘I speak metaphorically, naturally.’

Bathed and dressed Rowan went back to his sitting-room. Jaiprakash poured him the second routine whisky-soda, the one he used to wash down the evening dose of pills. He picked up the telephone and asked for the Pankot number. The operator said he would ring him back when a priority call on the Pankot line had been cleared: probably in ten minutes. He asked to be put through to the mess steward. He ordered a tray and a tankard of beer. He did not feel like going into the dining-room. He then rang the signals office and checked how long he had to get a package down to go in the night bag to Area Headquarters in Pankot. The answer was an hour and a half to be on the safe side.

The telephone rang almost as soon as he’d put down the receiver. He picked it up again. Through atmospherics he heard the male operator in the exchange downstairs saying that the Pankot number was on the line and distantly a woman’s voice saying ‘Hello? Hello?’ The crackling ceased abruptly. The connection sounded a good one. He asked to speak to Miss Sarah Layton.

‘Speaking.’

‘Sarah, this is Nigel. Nigel Rowan.’

‘Oh, hello.’

‘I got your letter.’

‘That was quick.’

‘I’ve done what you asked.’

‘Already? How good of you.’

‘I’m sorry to ring. Is it inconvenient?’

‘No, of course not.’

But she sounded a little guarded.

‘I thought I should let you know what I intend to do. If it’s all right just say yes. It was only a matter of collecting some envelopes and a package. I’ll get them done up and sent in the bag tonight to Area Headquarters. I don’t think there’s anything important. The Reverend Mother said you may decide to throw the lot away. I’ve rung just to make sure you knew to be on the look-out for them. If I mark the package private and personal will it reach you without any problems?’

‘Yes, that would be fine. I’m awfully grateful.’

‘She’s nice, isn’t she? The Reverend Mother.’

‘Yes. Just vague on the phone.’

‘How are things?’

‘Pretty good.’

‘I’m longing to hear about the party. The one in Bombay where the drinks got locked up.’

‘Oh, the Maharanee’s.’ She laughed, sounding relieved to get off the subject of Miss Batchelor. ‘If there’s such a person. She didn’t put in an appearance.’

‘Which Maharanee was she supposed to be?’

‘I’m not sure Count Bronowsky ever told us. He referred to her as Aimee.’

‘Aimee? Was this at a place called Sea Breezes on the Marine Drive?’

‘Yes. Do you know her?’

‘She’s the ex-Maharanee of Kotala. Has Bronowsky known her long?’

‘I got that impression.’

‘The old Machiavelli.’

‘Why?’

‘We talked about the Maharajah in June last year, the night you and I first met. He never mentioned knowing the ex-wife.
Kotala was the Maharajah I was telling you about a few weeks ago. The one my uncle had the trouble with.’

‘Really? I wish I’d met her.’

‘She’s someone I try to avoid.’

‘But you’ve been to the flat in Bombay?’

‘No, only to her place in Delhi. I remember the name Sea Breezes because she was always sending notes from there when I was in Bombay with
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last Christmas. I thought Sea Breezes rather funny because she has a reputation for being hermetically sealed-in whereever she goes.’

‘The flat was breezy enough.’

‘Perhaps the room she was hiding in wasn’t. She told me in Delhi she hated fresh air, light, the sound of doorbells and talking on the telephone and that her idea of true repose would be to have a magic wand to conjure up a party and make it disappear when she was fed up with it. You were lucky only having the drinks locked up. When she was Kotala’s wife they say she kept a tame leopard and made it snarl to order. It could empty the palace of unwanted guests in one minute flat. When it bit one of his favourite girlfriends he sued for divorce. He wanted to cite the leopard as co-respondent but decided not to because it was a female leopard and people said he’d only be able to accuse it of alienation of affections.’

‘Oh, Nigel.’

He smiled. ‘It’s true.’

‘You’re making me think your uncle was right after all. Actually she did have a sort of leopard, but he was on our side and warned us about the drinks being locked up. So we beat a dignified retreat before it happened. He was rather nice. His name was Perron.’

‘Perron? Don’t tell me he was a sergeant in the French Army.’

‘He had two different uniforms, but he was a sergeant in both of them, yes.’

‘Whatever is she up to? Raising an army? Anyway she’s got her history mixed up. She’s a Rajput not a Mahratta. The Rajputs weren’t a bit keen on Sergeant Perron.’

‘You know all about him too?’

‘The Perron who succeeded De Boigne.’