A Proper Education for Girls (18 page)

“I have no idea whether my sister is well or not,” said Lilian bleakly. “I've not heard from her since I left England. Besides, I am most interested to visit the Punjab. There's a particular variety of blue poppy that grows in the foothills of that region. I'm hoping to paint these in their natural habitat. My sister is also fond of plants and far more knowledgeable on the subject of their names and habitats than I. Back home we used to tend my father's collection of botanical specimens—” She was about to add that, in fact, she and Alice had grown the blue poppies of the Punjab in the temperate house, that she had already painted these particular flowers in this artificial environment. Lilian had not needed Mrs. Birchwoode's bland
memsahib
conversation to bring Alice into her thoughts, but she had not realized what a pleasure it would be simply to talk about her. “My sister would adore India as much as I,” she said.

But Mrs. Birchwoode had turned to Mrs. Toomey. “Esme, my dear, speaking of travel, you must tell me how you plan on heading to Calcutta this year. Not by
dak
, surely.” All at once the ladies were discussing the pestilent nature of some of the
dak
bungalows and the number of dresses required for the forthcoming season.

“We must discuss your relocation, Fraser,” said Mr. Rutherford. “You'll be off after the rains, and they'll not be long coming now.”

“Of course,” said Selwyn. “Mr. Hunter has already provided me with some insight into the Punjab, but he told me nothing I didn't already know. Mr. Vine, you might like to add your opinion. What do you say about the journey?”

And so the group split into two, the ladies talking about the discomforts of the journey east, the men discussing the likely difficulties of a trip west. Lilian, excluded from both conversations, picked up her sketch pad and moved away toward the trees. When no one was looking, she pulled on her
topi
and disappeared.

Half an hour later no one noticed the appearance of the tiger at the edge of the clearing. At least, not until one of the bearers let out
a shriek and dropped the bottle of champagne he had unpacked on Mrs. Ravelston's instructions.

In an instant, the picnic site became a bedlam. The servants, who had been discreetly attending to the replenishment of the Europeans' plates, fled shouting and screaming in all directions. The ladies screamed and clutched at each other, struggling to stand up and follow the natives out of the clearing. On her feet at last, Mrs. Toomey flung herself into Mrs. Birchwoode's arms, but Mrs. Birchwoode was anxious to remove herself from the animal's line of vision. She pushed Mrs. Toomey and thrust her directly toward the waiting tiger, shoving her onto the collation of cold meats that the bearers had laid out. Mrs. Toomey screeched again, her arms flailing as she struggled to maintain her balance. Her shoe slipped on the remains of Mr. Ravelston's ham and cheese, and she crashed down into the picnic, burling like a spinning top through the discarded plates.

Mrs. Ravelston ran first to Mr. Vine, then to Selwyn, and then back to Mr. Vine—both of whom seemed rooted to the spot in fear—all the while emitting a high-pitched gibber. Mrs. Birchwoode, who was now hauling on Mrs. Toomey's arm in an attempt to pull her from the wreckage of the picnic platters, seized a parasol with her free hand and began to poke it, rapier-like, in the direction of the tiger.

“Shoo!” she cried. “Go on. Away with you. Shoo, I say.”

“Everyone stay together,” roared Mr. Vine at last. “Fraser, you're nearest, shoot the thing!”

“I can't,” cried Selwyn, fiddling with his rifle, his fingers clumsy with fear. “I don't know how it works.”

“Just point it and pull the trigger, man!”

But Selwyn had dropped the gun and was scrabbling in the grass to pick it up again. The tiger lowered its forelegs and thrust its nose forward. Behind it, coming nearer and nearer, with shouts and cries and rattling sticks the native beaters were making a fearsome racket. The tiger hesitated, as though weighing up the options of going
back the way it had come and facing the beaters, or going forward and through the remains of the picnic.

“It's going to spring,” screamed Selwyn.

“Shoot it!” bellowed Mr. Vine.

Selwyn was half crouched among the wreckage of shattered crockery, his knees slipping in melted aspic, his hands shaking with such violence that he could scarcely get the rifle to his shoulder. “Rutherford!” he cried weakly. But Mr. Rutherford had disappeared with the bearers and was nowhere to be seen.

“For God's sake, Fraser, shoot it,” croaked Mr. Vine.

Selwyn took aim. There was a roar as the shot echoed across the clearing. The screams of the ladies stopped abruptly, and all eyes turned to the tiger. The animal looked up momentarily, as though wondering where the shot had landed and why everyone had stopped screaming. Behind it, the sound of voices could be heard, raised in alarm. And then the tiger sprang.

Selwyn dropped his rifle and fell to his knees. All at once the roar of another gunshot reverberated across the picnic site. The tiger, already in flight, hit Selwyn like a bag of wet sand. It crushed him to the ground, its paws on either side of his head, its body and hind legs completely covering him.

Winded, and unable to breathe or move, Selwyn lay beneath the tiger's body, his eyes staring, his mouth open, the animal's jaws inches away from his face.

“It's too late,” screamed Mrs. Ravelston. “He's dead.”

“Get the animal off him,” cried Captain Forbes, who had appeared with the other officers in time to see Lilian emerge from the scrub behind her husband, put her rifle to her shoulder, and shoot the tiger directly between the eyes. “You're lucky you didn't shoot your husband in the back of the head,” he said to her.

“Selwyn was a good couple of inches to the left,” replied Lilian.

“Brilliant!” said Mr. Hunter. He looked at her with admiration mingled with disbelief. “I don't think I could have made such a shot myself!”

“Well done, Mrs. Fraser,” said Captain Forbes, gazing with unconcealed
admiration at Lilian's legs. Her dress was gathered up around her waist and tied there securely with a length of string. “Are those your husband's trousers?”

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Fraser, no!” said Mrs. Birchwoode.

Lilian gazed at the tiger. “I suppose it was quick,” she said. “The animal can't have been in pain for any length of time.” She glanced at her husband as he lay on the grass beside the massive bulk of the tiger, and she felt nothing. She looked up. Mr. Hunter's eyes were upon her, the expression in them a mixture of admiration and disappointment. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

Dr. Mossly held a flask of brandy to Selwyn's lips.

Selwyn downed a huge mouthful and gave a feeble cough. “I think my ribs are broken,” he wheezed. “I can hardly breathe. And … oh! My hand is bleeding! Look! I think the brute bit me as I went down. The pain is unbearable.” He began to sob gently into the grass. But no one was listening. Once it had been established that Selwyn was unhurt, everyone's attention had turned to the dead beast.

Mr. Hunter paced out its length. “It must be twelve feet long from nose to tail,” he said. “A huge creature. I suppose it was hungry, otherwise it would never have approached a party like that. We were foolish to assume that it would be too afraid to attack a group of us in broad daylight.”

“Poor animal.” Lilian stroked the tiger's dusty orange stripes. “He should have stayed in the jungle.”

“May I photograph you, Mrs. Fraser?” said Captain Forbes. “Standing over the tiger, with your rifle.” He smiled. “I shall send it to the
Illustrated London News
. ‘Mrs. Lilian Fraser standing over the Beast of Kushpur, minutes after she saved an entire tea party from certain death.’ What do you say?”

“At least make her take that hat off!” cried Selwyn feebly. “And those trousers.”

“You must stay as you are, Mrs. Fraser,” said a grinning Captain Forbes. “Perhaps you might even remove your skirts altogether.”

Selwyn collapsed with a groan. “My chest,” he panted. “Lilian, help me.”

But Lilian was being posed by Captain Forbes and did not hear him. She stood with Captain Wheeler, Mr. Toomey, and Mr. Ravelston on one side and Captain Lewis, Mr. Birchwoode, and Mr. Hunter on the other. The tiger lay at their feet. “Mrs. Fraser, put your boot on the brute's rib cage,” said Captain Forbes from behind his camera. “Now, everyone, you must stand absolutely still until I say you can move.”

F
OR MOST OF THE JOURNEY BACK TO
K
USHPUR
S
ELWYN
talked about the tiger. How it had eyed him before it sprang (hungrily), how it had felt being crushed beneath its huge weight (suffocating), the smell of its breath (putrescent), the texture of its fur (smooth, but dusty), the sight of its eyes when they were only three inches from his own (terrifying). Dr. Mossly had bandaged his grazed hand with a strip torn from one of the linen tablecloths, but Selwyn picked at it absently as he talked and scratched at his wrist where it was tied.

“I shall get the brute stuffed,” he said. “The whole animal. Have it posed as though about to spring. They can do that sort of thing, can't they? It doesn't have to be just the head? Mind you, the head is big enough. And it would look imposing on a plaque above the fireplace. Captain Wheeler tells me there's a fellow in the
sepoy
ranks who can do these things. For a fee, of course, but cheaper than in the bazaar. And what a rug its skin would make! Or perhaps we could cover a settee with it. Mrs. Birchwoode, you're a woman of fashionable taste, what do you think of the idea of a tiger-skin settee?” And he began to talk about the other animals he would shoot in the future, so that it soon became clear to everyone that he was speaking as though it were he, rather than Lilian, who had shot the tiger.

The ladies exchanged glances. Selwyn's face had grown vivid and shiny with sweat. “‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,’” he cried
suddenly. “‘In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ ‘Fearful symmetry’ ha, ha!” He looked at Mrs. Birchwoode, who was sitting opposite him, and licked his lips. “He was right on top of me, did you see? Right between my legs.”

“Indeed, Mr. Fraser.” Mrs. Birchwoode eyed Selwyn's blazing visage warily.

He leaned in closer. “Would
you
like to lie beneath a
beast
like that? I'll wager you would.”

“Mr. Fraser, I hardly think …”

“‘In what distant deeps or skies / Burnt the fire of thine eyes? / On what wings dare he aspire? / What the hand dare seize the fire? / And what shoulder, and what art / Could twist the sinews of thy heart?’” Selwyn's voice grew louder and louder. His face was crimson. “‘When thy heart began to beat, / What dread hand and what dread feet?’”

“Dr. Mossly,” muttered Mrs. Birchwoode in an undertone. “I fear Mr. Fraser is no longer in his right mind.”

Dr. Mossly was rooting in his bag. He produced a small bottle and put a few drops from it into a cup of water he had poured out and given to Mr. Rutherford to hold. “Laudanum to sedate him,” he murmured. “It's probably just the shock making him rather … confused. That and the heat, no doubt. Mrs. Fraser? If you would help him drink this? Make sure he takes all of it.”

B
Y THE TIME
they arrived at Kushpur, Selwyn was asleep. Dr. Mossly and Mr. Rutherford helped to carry him into the Frasers' bungalow. They laid him on his
charpoy
and set about removing his breeches and shirt, which were wet with sweat and filthy with dust from the fall he had taken beneath the tiger. They took off his boots.

“He's lucky he was unharmed,” said Dr. Mossly, untying the bandage on Selwyn's hand. Beneath the dressing were a slight cut
and a graze on the knuckles. These were the only injuries he had sustained.

“Keep him cool, if you can, Mrs. Fraser,” said Dr. Mossly, rubbing iodine on Selwyn's scratched knuckles. “And give him another dose of laudanum in a couple of hours, so that he gets a proper rest tonight. Don't worry. He'll be as right as rain tomorrow, you'll see.”

“Captain Forbes tells me that you took that shot without hesitating, Mrs. Fraser,” said Mr. Rutherford, as they left the bungalow. “He said he had never seen anything quite like your marksmanship, not in all his days on the parade ground. I'm sorry I was unable to be there to witness it.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
Selwyn ate a hearty breakfast and went straight out to give instructions to the
sepoy
who was to turn the tiger's skin into decorative furnishings.

On the seventh day after the tiger hunt, Lilian woke to the sound of rain.

Over the past week she had been expecting the monsoon—the burning winds had ceased and thick swathes of cloud had gathered overhead. But each day these clouds, watched eagerly by the Europeans from their verandas, had dispersed after only a few hours. The river had swollen within its cracked and dried-out banks, tempting observers with proof of rainfall and fresh winds in other, more northerly parts of the country. But then that too had subsided, and not a single drop of rain had fallen. Now the air was humid rather than dry.