Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

‘Don’t say that, Uma.’

‘Dolly, listen to me. This man loves you. I am convinced of it. You must at least allow yourself to listen to him.’

‘Uma, I can’t. Not now. Not with the child coming. If it was last year. .’

‘Then you must tell him that yourself. You owe him that.’

‘No. Uma, no.’

Uma rose to her feet. ‘I’m going to send him here. It’ll only take a minute.’

‘Don’t leave, Uma. Please.’ She clutched at Uma’s hands. ‘Please don’t.’

‘This is something that has to be done, Dolly. There is no way round it. I’ll send him here. Then I’ll go to the house. I’ll be waiting. Come and tell me what happens.’

Rajkumar spotted her as he was picking his way round the tree: Dolly was sitting erect on the earthen bench, her hands folded neatly in her lap. He threw away his dying cheroot and put another to his lips. His hand was shaking so hard that it took him several tries to light a match.

‘Miss Dolly.’

‘Mr Raha.’

‘My name is Rajkumar. I would be glad if you would call me that.’

She mouthed the syllables hesitantly. ‘Rajkumar. .’ ‘Thank you.’

‘Uma wanted me to speak to you.’

‘Yes?’

‘But the truth is I have nothing to say.’

‘Then let me—’

She held up a hand to stop him. ‘Please. Let me finish. You must understand. It’s impossible.’

‘Why is it impossible? I would like to know. I am a practical man. Tell me and I will try to do something about it.’

‘There is a child.’

‘A child?’ Rajkumar removed the cheroot from his mouth. ‘Whose child? Yours?’

‘The First Princess is with child. The father works in Outram House. I too was once in love with him — the father of the Princess’s child. You should know this. I am not the nine-year-old girl I was in Mandalay.’

‘Are you in love with him now?’

‘No.’

‘Then the rest is immaterial to me.’

‘Mr Raha, you must understand. There are things you cannot change no matter how much money you have. Things might have been different for us in another time, another place. But it’s too late now. This is my home. I have lived all my life here. My place is here at Outram House.’

Now, at last, the hopes that had sustained him this far began slowly to leak away. He had said all he could. He could think of no other way to plead with her, and she silenced him before he could begin.

‘Please. I beg you, do not say anything more. You will merely cause unnecessary pain. There are things in this world that cannot be, no matter how much we may want them.’

‘But this can be. . could be, if only you would allow yourself to think of it.’

‘No. Please say no more. I’ve made up my mind. There is only one thing I want to ask of you now.’

‘What is that?’

‘I ask that you leave Ratnagiri as soon as you can.’ He flinched, then bowed his head.

‘I can see no reason to refuse.’ Without another word, he turned and walked away, into the shadows of the bearded peepul.

Sawant.’

Removing his binoculars from his eyes, the King pointed in the direction of the bay. A boat stood moored at the jetty, a large country craft of a type known locally as a hori: a deep-hulled catamaran with a single outrigger.

‘Sawant, he is leaving.’

‘Min?’ It was very early and Sawant had brought the King the cup of tea he liked to drink at daybreak.

‘The man who arrived the other day on the Bombay steamer. He is leaving. They are loading his luggage at the jetty.’

‘Min, there is no steamer today.’

‘He’s hired a boat.’ At this time of year, soon after the departure of the monsoons, there was a change in the prevailing currents and the waters round the mouth of the bay became, for a short while, exceptionally hazardous. During these weeks horis were the only sailing craft that would brave the swirling undertow that swept the coast.

‘Min.’ Sawant placed the pot of tea beside the King’s chair and backed quickly out of the room.

Apart from the King and Sawant himself, the house was still asleep. The anteroom where Dolly slept was just a couple of doors down the corridor. Dolly had the suite to herself now, for the First Princess rarely came upstairs any more, preferring mainly to stay in the gatehouse, with Sawant.

Pushing Dolly’s door open, Sawant slipped inside. She was asleep, lying on the same narrow cot that she had used for the last twenty years. Her hair had come loose during the night and lay fanned across her pillow. In repose her skin looked almost translucent, and her face had the serene beauty of a temple carving. Standing over her bed, watching the slow rhythms of her breath, Sawant hesitated.

Yesterday, on his way to his village on the estuary, Sawant had met a goatherd who was returning from the direction of the Residency. They had talked for a while, about the peepul tree, about the Collector’s memsahib, about the rich prince from Burma and how he was besotted with Dolly.

It was impossible to think of Outram House without Dolly; impossible to imagine Ratnagiri emptied of her presence. But better that than to see her waste away before his eyes. No, he owed her this. He kneeled beside her and raised his hand.

She was wearing a crumpled night-time sari. The cloth was white and it hung like a veil over her long slender limbs. He thought of the time when they’d sat together on his sagging rope bed, with his blood-stained langot draped over their interlocking limbs. Just as he was about to wake her, his hand froze. To think of being without Dolly: it was madness! He began to back away. But then again he stopped. No, he owed her this.

Suddenly she opened her eyes. ‘You!’ She sat upright, folding her arms over her chest.

He put a finger to his lips. ‘Quiet. Everyone’s asleep. Quick. Get dressed.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s leaving. Your man.’

Her eyes widened, in dismay. ‘So soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘But there’s no steamer. And at this time of year, I didn’t think he would be able to go.’

‘He’s hired a hori.’

‘But isn’t it too late now?’

‘No. They won’t be able to leave until the light’s better. Quick. You have to stop him. Too much has gone wrong for you, Dolly. Not again. Come. Quick.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll harness the trap and take you down to Mandvi. Quick.’

By the time she was dressed, the trap was outside, ready to go. Sawant had harnessed it to his fastest horse, a grey mare. He held out a hand to help Dolly in and then flicked the tip of his whip over the mare’s head. The trap lurched forward, and they went rattling down the hill, past the police lines, the gaol, the Cutchery. At the Jhinjhinaka bazaar, a pack of guard dogs ran howling after them as they went racing past. From a long way off they saw the hori, casting off its moorings and pulling away, under oar, into the bay.

‘Mohanbhai!’

He cracked his whip. ‘I can go no faster, Dolly.’

When they reached the jetty the boat was a long way gone, approaching the mouth of the bay. ‘Run, Dolly, run!’ Sawant leapt off and gripped the mare’s bit. ‘Run! Run!’

She ran down the jetty, waving: in the distance the boat was trying to manoeuvre its bows so that it would be able to slip through the shoals and currents ahead. Its stern bucked furiously as it approached the pounding waters of the open sea. In a few minutes it would be out of the bay. She waved again and just as she was about to give up the hori’s bows began to turn, away from the bay’s mouth. Circling all the way around the bay the heavy craft came back to the waterfront, pulling up at the end of the jetty. The hori sat high in the water and Rajkumar easily vaulted the distance between the boat and the jetty’s outermost plank.