City of Bells (16 page)

             
Who can say why even that slight hope was not granted?  The mutineers were a disorganized army, subdivided into many groups, some more militant than others, all with their separate aims.  Perhaps the bloodthirsty lot that had killed the civilians in the other two boats caught up with the branch that was more inclined toward hostage swapping and took matters into their own hands.  Perhaps the kidnappers got tired of waiting for their demands to be met.  Either way, at some point, prompted by apparently no particular incident, the school was overrun.

             
Stories of precisely what happened next varied.  All were horrid.  There were rumors that the women were raped, which likely were true.  Rumors that they were crucified, which likely were not.  Stories of women hanged by their hair, children bundled together and burned alive.  There are some among the Raj who still believe that the youngest English children were taken as slaves and lived to this day among the natives, now adults and with no memory of their former families.  But whatever happened, it was a scene tailor made for revenge.  The army arrived within hours of the slaughter to find a schoolhouse splattered with blood, a well now so full of corpses that it was said the stench traveled for miles.  The mutineers were forced to lick the blood from the floorboards before being executed and the number of Indians killed in retaliation for Cawnpore was reported in Rayley’s papers to be “inexact.”

             
Inexact.  That meant thousands.  At least ten times the number of English who had perished, this Rayley knew without question.  Descriptions of men shot from cannons… or rather strapped over the mouths of cannons that were then fired, obliterating the victims in the most definitive manner possible.  This method of “blowing away” a man, leaving no trace of his body for burial or any such memorial service, was reserved for the worst of criminals and the report calmly noted that “there was an intense period of such activity in the fall of 1857.”  Were all those who were blown away mutineers?  Of course not.  In most cases, their sole offense was likely nothing more than the color of their skin.  For Cawnpore had sparked a kind of hysteria in the English of India, a hysteria which still had not entirely faded.  Created a mistrust between the Raj and its subjects which lingered to this day.

             
Rayley sighed.  Removed his glasses and closed the folder.  Hardly the best of bedtime reading, but reviewing the story of Cawnpore made him all the more eager to speak to Anthony Weaver.  Trevor’s interview with the Secretary-General had been but the first of several, for they planned a slow wearing down of the man’s haughtier, and Rayley made up his mind to press for the right to speak to him next. 

             
For there had been another notation in the report.

             
Not all the English of Cawnpore had made it to the fortress before the siege.  Some small pockets of farmers, either too far from the station to safely travel or too stubborn to believe the danger was real, stayed in their homes.  As the army made its way toward the city, Roland Everlee heard of such a stranded family.  A widow, a woman whose husband had died in the first days of the uprising, left alone with her five children.  

             
Everlee went himself to ensure that they were safe, ordering the rest of his unit to press on to the fortress.  He found the farmhouse but as he was packing the woman and her children into his cart, the luckless family was swarmed by a band of mutineers.  Everlee, the woman, and three children were killed in the yard of the house.  The other two children survived.

             
But… how? 

             
Rayley frowned at the report.  It was a typical military accounting - quite specific on some issues and maddeningly vague in others.  A five year old girl was spared, along with her infant brother, but there was no explanation for how these children might have found their way back to Bombay.  The city was two hours from Cawnpore under the best of circumstances and the roads had been cut by the rebels when the mutiny began.  But somehow, as if through divine manifestation, it was written that the children had been returned to Bombay. The baby boy died there some months later, the report droned on, in one of the city’s frequent cholera epidemics.  The girl was shipped back to an aunt in England.

             
It had always been said that Cawnpore yielded no survivors.  No eyewitnesses.  No one to tell its story.  Just an army of husbands and fathers returning to find the walls of a schoolhouse splattered with blood and their families gone, wiped from the earth.  A few farmers in the highest hills of the outlying districts never saw a single mutineer and thus likewise had no stories to tell.  The truth of Cawnpore, therefore, was to remain ever as inexact as the number of Indians who were killed in revenge.  An interim history, the language describing it uncertain, the official reports written by those who had merely been nearby or who had arrived too late to know anything for certain. 

             
That was, except for this lone child, this five year old girl.  Her family name was declared to be Sloane, her first name went unrecorded. She would be a grown woman now, Rayley reflected.  Near unto forty and it was doubtful she retained any memories of India or the family she had lost there.  And even if she did – even if she could shed some light on how two helpless children had somehow managed to become the only survivors of the Great Mutiny – how on earth would they ever find her?

***

              Geraldine sat in her own bed, the stack of old letters beside her.  They were in the order that Anthony had written them, and tied with a pink ribbon.  It had been many years since she had last untied that ribbon.  She had thrust this bundle into her valise at the last minute while packing, on the off chance that something within them might be useful to Trevor in his investigation.  Now, having read each one slowly, her lips moving as she whispered each word aloud, she knew Anthony’s letters held no clues, at least not of the sort that mattered to Scotland Yard. 

             
But they proved that he had loved her.

             
And that was, in some ways, the hardest thing to bear.

             
The people at the Byculla Club tonight had been united in their claim that the Weavers were thoroughly unlikeable people and Geraldine could certainly see how traits that were tolerable when they had been young – his tendency toward great speeches, her fluttery insistence that she was too delicate to survive even a moment of unfiltered reality – could harden into cruelty as they aged. But still, it made her sad.  Sad for Anthony and even for Rose.

             
No one mourned her.  And no one feared for him.  No one, that was, except his stepson.  Geraldine knew she and Michael Everlee were an unlikely pair.  If they had met in London they would have likely never shared a civil word between them and she still smarted with rage that Rayley had been thrown from the club.  But, improbable as they were, she also knew that she and Michael shared a rare objective: They were the only two people in all of Bombay who gave a tinker’s dam about the fate of Anthony Weaver.

             
Geraldine carefully sequenced the letters and retied the ribbon.  They stood proof that at one time there had been a different Anthony.  A young man with tenderness who had loved her.  Of course, he had loved Rose as well but Geraldine now knew what she couldn’t have known then – that it is possible for a man to love two women, to care for them and desire them in entirely different ways.  He had not lied to her.  He had been genuinely torn.

             
When I marry you,
he had written,
in that moment I shall become a different man.  A better man than I could ever be on my own.  For I am weak at times.  My darling, I hope you never have cause to know just how very weak a man can be.

***

              Trevor alone slept the entirety of the night.

             
Before leaving the Byculla, he had sent a telegram. Or rather he had given one of the Indian servants standing about a handful of coins and instructions.  Go to the telegraph office and send this message, these words he had scribbled on a sheet of Club stationery.  He told the lad to wait all the night if he must for a reply.  Bring it to me at the Tucker House, do you understand?

             
And the boy must have understood.  The number of coins Trevor had offered must have bought a kind of loyalty. 

             
For when he awakened at seven the next morning, Trevor found a note slipped under his door.  Scotland Yard had already replied to his inquiry.

Chapter Eleven

The Khajuraho Temple

9:20 AM

              Upon approach, the Khajuraho temple looked a bit like a wedding cake – tiered, glowing white, and ornamented with any amount of bric a brac.  The whole effect struck Emma as vanilla frosting, slathered on in great swirls and rosettes. 

             
They were expected, thanks entirely to Gerry.  She had spent her evening at the Byculla Club doing exactly what she did best – talking to the other old ladies and finding out the background story on all the particulars of the case.  Before they had been called into dinner, she had spent an hour in confidence with the same Mrs. Morrow who Trevor had so enjoyed meeting, and Mrs. Morrow, it seemed, knew all there was to know about the Khajuraho temple.

             
It was not currently in use as a Hindu house of worship.  This would have been clear even without Mrs. Morrow’s help, for as they were escorted inside the entryway, Trevor, Emma, and Gerry saw that the interior of the building was in complete disrepair. 
How apt
, Emma thought. 
What a perfect metaphor for the Raj. From the outside, it all looks quite the fortress – even beautiful if your tastes run toward the fanciful – but once inside, you can immediately see that it is falling apart. 

             
Mrs. Morrow had informed Geraldine that the English in Bombay would have loved to see the temple fall apart even further, for it was the site of some rather infamous mosaics.  Whether these mosaics were examples of art or pornography depended upon the eye of their beholder; opinions were split between those who argued that these particular temple walls – situated disconcertingly near the main road and thus visible to anyone foolish enough to pass that way – should be razed as a moral danger or preserved as an archeological marvel.  

             
Further complicating the issue was the placement of an orphanage within the temple property.  Years ago, when a wealthy Englishwoman had purchased the grounds, she had rather indulgently allowed a missionary friend of hers to use part of the property as a girls home for children who had been sired by British fathers and born to Indian mothers.  The result of liaisons which their fathers viewed as temporary dalliances and their mothers believed to be legal marriages, these girls were welcomed by neither the whites nor the natives and existed in a sort of nether world, living reminders of the perpetual mistrust between the two cultures.

             
The wealthy patroness soon died in one of the cholera epidemics which at times threatened even the most prosperous sections of Bombay, leaving her ultimate plans for the property unclear.  There were those who argued convincingly that her intention was to have the Khajuraho temple and all its vulgarities wiped from the face of the earth.  There were others who argued, just as convincingly, that the orphanage had taken root and was the source of good work and so now, decades after the death of the patroness, the girls school bearing her name still stood, shielded by these crumbling and controversial walls.

             
“More good sleuthing, Geraldine,” Trevor had said, as Gerry had related all this to them in Mrs. Tucker’s carriage on the bumpy ride over.  “And the current headmistress has agreed to see us?”

             
“She is most certainly looking for patrons,” Geraldine had answered.  “The upper class of the Raj has shunned her because of where the school stands and I get the impression from Mrs. Morrow that the poor woman is scraping by on next to nothing.   I shall make a donation and thus we shall be granted free access to everything she knows, including why Anthony would have been drawn to this place.”

             
“And she shall talk freely, you imagine,” Trevor had said.

             
“I don’t see why not,” Geraldine had answered, fanning herself against the slowly growing heat.  “If this Miss Hoffman is as cloistered a creature as Mrs. Morrow claims, she socializes with virtually none of her fellow expatriates.  She may be the only English woman in Bombay who remains unaware that a contingent from Scotland Yard has come to town.”

             
Now the three of them stood in the entryway, the ornamented white walls on one side of them and cracked plaster ones on the other.  Trevor was mulling over the fact he had never seen such a startling contrast between a façade and the reality which lurked behind it, when he heard footsteps.  The young girl who had let them in was returning, followed by a middle aged woman - thirty-five perhaps?  Forty? - whose long stride was accommodated by the rather startling fact that she was dressed in a man’s shirt and trousers.

             
This apparently was Leigh Ann Hoffman, headmistress to the school.

             
“I must apologize,” she said, walking directly to Gerry with her hand outstretched.  “I normally do not receive visitors in my work attire, but gardening, as I’m sure you can imagine, is best done in the morning.   I foolishly assumed you were like all the other English, determined to hold to the London custom of afternoon visits even in the Bombay heat.  The locals have a little joke about us, you know.  They say ‘only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.’”

             
“Indeed,” said Gerry, accepting the vigorous handshake and momentarily nonplussed.  She was normally the most unconventional person in any room and she wasn’t sure how to deal with this surprising creature.  “You needn’t apologize for your attire in this circle, but I am certain my note said that we could come in the morning.”

`
              “Yes, it quite possibly did,” said Miss Hoffman, now extending her grimy palm in the general direction of Emma.  “But in Bombay, when one says ‘morning,’ it always means ‘afternoon.’”

             
“Ah,” said Geraldine quietly, and then they stumbled through a round of introductions, after which Miss Hoffman ushered them back to what she called her private parlor.  This “parlor” turned out to be a collection of odd chairs seated on an open portico and through the broad white columns they could see perhaps a dozen young women toiling in a large garden.

             
“This plot of land represents a good part of our sustenance,” Miss Hoffman said, following Geraldine’s gaze, “so I trust you will further forgive me if I do not disrupt the girls at their work.  You don’t expect me to bring them over and have them sing to you or any of that nonsense, do you?”

             
“Certainly not,” said Geraldine.  “I am not that sort of philanthropist at all.”

             
Miss Hoffman looked at her levelly.  “Miss Morrow told me you have an interest in missionary work.”

             
“Not exactly,” Geraldine admitted. “I am not a great fan of organized religion, Miss Hoffman, although I do at times concede that some of the charities financed by churches do good work.  Based on what Mrs. Morrow has told me, I suspect your orphanage is a cause I would find worthy to support.”

             
“I prefer the term ‘school’ to ‘orphanage.’” Miss Hoffman said, pulling off her broad brimmed hat to fan herself.  “It stigmatizes the girls less, which is a crucial factor when it comes time to find them husbands.  And are you interested in mission work, Miss Kelly?”

             
“Even less than Geraldine,” Emma said.

             
“That is a pity,” Miss Hoffman said, with no apparent rancor. “For we very much need young strong women like yourself throughout the district to do the female share of the work.  The men handle the important things, and the female missionaries look after the native women, their babies, deal with issues of health and food supplies, that sort of thing.”

             
“Hmmm,” said Emma.  If issues of health and food were deemed trivial, she wondered what the important work of the men might be.

             
“Do you believe yourself to be typical of the women who come to India as missionaries?” asked Trevor.  He knew what Miss Hoffman’s answer would likely be, but they had to start the interview somewhere.

             
“We seem to all of his have been drawn here for different reasons,” the woman answered.   “Or if one was born into the Raj, as I was, we all have different reasons for staying.  Some come to fight what they perceive as moral wickedness ,while others are here to instigate reforms which they hope will improve the plight of the local people.  And thus the most conservative and most liberal souls of Britain work side by side in this hopeless endeavor.  We are a strange crew.”

             
“Hopeless?” Emma inquired.

             
“No one likes us,” Miss Hoffman said, with a sudden wide grin. It gave the impression that she enjoyed being disliked, or at least that she wore her expulsion from the Raj as a private band of honor. “The English look down on our work, the Indians resent it.  Our little Bible services and prayer groups are totally ineffectual in a land with so many religions, so many gods.   You can’t even begin to know who you’re working against.  There are the Hindus and Muslims, of course, but also the Parses, Sikhs, and Jains.  Our percentage of conversions is abysmally low.  In fact, I would say any missionary in India who tried to measure his success on a numerical basis would promptly go mad.”

             
“The same thing might be said of policemen in London,” Trevor said drily, earning him another grin from the woman, whom he was beginning to like more with each passing minute.

             
“If the work is pointless, why do you stay?” Emma asked.

             
“The mission life is all I know,” Miss Hoffman answered.  “And I like to imagine I am helping, at least a little.  These girls before us, of course… I raise them up and find them jobs or husbands as best I can.  And these wonders around me…the art in the temple… Ancient and irreplaceable.  As long as the school functions here, they can scarcely knock it all down around our ears and so I console myself that, at least for now, I am protecting these marvels from the Raj.”

             
“You mean the wall,” Trevor said.

             
“Among other things.  The mosaics are certainly the most famous of our treasures.”

             
"I’m surprised you admire them.”

             
For the first time, he saw a flash of indignation.  “And why would you say that?  Because a missionary must automatically recoil at the sight of the human form?  I assure, you,  Detective, that in the course of my work here I have seen many sights which would make you average church lady back in London blush to her roots.”

             
“I am sure you have,” Trevor said.  “And yet I noticed as we entered that the wall in question has been draped entirely in muslin.”

             
Miss Hoffman laughed.  “Oh that.  Just a little ruse, Detective.  A few days ago a local women’s garden club came to me demanding the leveling of the wall and I suggested that it would be faster and less expensive to merely cover it.  Shield passersby from the vulgarity.  Only I lacked the funds, you see.  And these fine ladies promised the money on the spot.  They asked how much I would need for the muslin and I named an outlandish figure, ten times what I predicted it to be.  And so now they can drive to the docks with no fear that their modest eyes will be accosted with the naked human form and meanwhile…I have enough funds in hand to feed my girls for a month as well as a reputation for reasonableness which may, let us all hope, lead to similar kind gifts in the future.  And most importantly, the wall still stands, its art intact beneath that ludicrous muslin drape.  Who knows?  In a week or so we may find that the wind has blown away the muslin and another financial contribution to the school may be requested and granted.  It is a situation which seems to work well for everyone involved.”

             
“How very practical you are,” Geraldine said, with genuine admiration in her voice.  “How resourceful are your strategies and how useful is your life.  If I had stayed in India, I might have ended up becoming someone much like you.”

             
“Or you might just as easily have gone down the well in Cawnpore.”

             
It was an extraordinarily harsh remark, so much so that Geraldine recoiled as if from a slap.  But Miss Hoffman, still serene, turned to Emma and Trevor with a smile.  “And would the two of you like to walk down and inspect the wall in question?  I assure you that underneath its veil of muslin, the face of the true India is still quite intact.”

***

              “What would your Mrs. Steel think of this?” Trevor asked teasingly.

             
She had told him of the books on the carriage ride over and now he was searching for any comment to fill the awkward silence.  While Miss Hoffman and Gerry remained in the portico, presumably to discuss the amount of the bank draft Gerry would be presenting to the school, Trevor and Emma had followed the overgrown path which led from the garden to the walls.  The muslin had come down with a single pull to reveal –

             
Well, it was sexual, most certainly.  And more directly so than either of them would have guessed.   When he had first learned of all the fuss the English ladies had raised about the immoral temple walls, Trevor had assumed they were exaggerating.  An exposed male shoulder, perhaps, or a flash of a feminine leg, all more suggested than replicated in the imprecise lines of the mosaic tile.