A Proper Education for Girls (20 page)

D
UE TO THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY,
S
ELWYN WAS BURIED
the day after he died.

Lilian had never been to the Kushpur Christian graveyard and she was surprised by the number of European gravestones, most of which marked the resting places of women and children. In the intervals between downpours, a grave had been dug for Selwyn between Mrs. Clara Wilbury, beloved wife of Captain Charles Wilbury, and Mrs. Thora Bonhope and her three tiny children. At thirty-six, Selwyn was the oldest person to be buried there. The ground was thoroughly waterlogged, and the pit into which Selwyn was eventually lowered had partially filled with water. The coffin, when it reached the bottom, was completely submerged. A disconcerting belch of air escaped as it slipped out of sight, a thin stream of bubbles continuing to break the surface even as Mr. Rutherford read aloud from his prayer book and sent a handful of sodden earth plopping into the hole. All the while the rain fell, roaring into the open grave.

T
HE COLD SEASON
brought with it a certain amount of relief to the Europeans. Selwyn's had been the only death that year—an unusual occurrence, said Dr. Mossly to those assembled round Mrs. Toomey's dining table, as there was almost always someone carried
off by heat stroke, dysentery, malaria, or typhus. Even worse, their old enemy cholera usually ravaged the native town and sometimes found its way into the Europeans' compounds.

“The Hindus have some idea that by saying prayers over a bullock and then driving it into the river to swim over to the other side, it will take the disease with it,” said Dr. Mossly knowledgeably “The natives on the other side simply drive the beast back again. And so it goes on, the poor animal driven to and fro across the river again and again until it's too weak to climb out and simply floats away.” He laughed. “Of course, the cholera continues to kill them off, no matter how many bullocks they send into the river. Absurd, isn't it?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Mr. Vine. “Why, I've told them time and again that it's miasma that causes the cholera—damp mists and foul air, an atmosphere characteristic of the bazaar, particularly during the monsoon. But do they listen? Of course they don't! A week later you see them forcing another of these poor creatures into the water.” He shook his head. “Rational explanations fall on deaf ears. One can only pity them in their ignorance.”

Lilian looked Dr. Mossly, but he was smiling and nodding in agreement. Miasma and foul air? She frowned. But not three years ago, in his celebrated removal of the handle of the Broad Street pump in Soho, Dr. Snow had proved that cholera was a waterborne disease. She remembered her father returning from the Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge to report this news. Such a claim, her father said, had consequences for the entire water supply and sewage system of England. Determined to demonstrate the truth of this in his own home, Mr. Talbot had then torn out every water pipe, drain, and cistern in the great house. Alice and Lilian had taken baths in the ornamental pool of the hothouse, swimming together through the lily pads and water hyacinths. Afterward, Lilian had sketched Alice as the Lady of Shalott, reclining on the island in the center of the pool. Her damp hair, the color of loam against her bare skin, had coiled about her head and shoulders like plant roots.

“‘I am half sick of shadows,’” Alice had said, smiling up at her. “We both are, aren't we? Just like the lady. Sick of being trapped in these ‘four grey walls and four grey towers.’ Still, at least we have each other. We don't need a ‘loyal knight and true’ when we have each other.”

Oh, Alice
, Lilian thought now.
I'll save you from the shadows. What use are men, when they bring us only pain and unhappiness?
She looked across the table at Mr. Hunter and then at Mr. Vine (who was still holding forth about “miasmic clouds”).
And they talk such nonsense too
.

Lilian hesitated. Should she challenge the magistrate's etiological certainty? Would Alice have remained silent at such mistaken-ness? But then the moment was past, and Mr. Vine was observing that there was a ball at the Residency in a few months' time and were not the ladies looking forward to it, and had they ordered new silks from Calcutta for the
dharzi
to turn into dresses and sashes? The ladies' faces brightened. There were new ladies present. As members of the “fishing fleet,” those women sent over from England in search of husbands, they were familiar with the latest fashions back home and had much to share with their up-country
memsahib
sisters on this subject. And of course, remarked Captain Wheeler to Mr. Birchwoode in a gruff and manly way, the pigsticking season would shortly be upon them …

Dish after dish was brought in and laid on the table. Tureens of soup, warm bread and freshly churned butter, glistening roast fowls, two enormous mutton pies, two entire roast lambs, heaps of vegetables, and mounds of potatoes gleaming with butter followed by fluffy rice puddings and fruit tarts shining with syrup, bowls of lush mangoes and cream and melon syllabub and copious quantities of Burgundy and claret.

“So, Miss Bell, what news from home?” said Mrs. Birchwoode, belching discreetly behind her napkin as she began her assault on a mountainous slice of mutton pie. Miss Bell was a cousin by marriage of Mrs. Ravelston's sister. She had only recently arrived in Kushpur and was due to stay until the end of the cold season.

Miss Bell smiled nervously, as though unsure what was expected of her. “Oh, very little.”

“Come now, there must be something you can tell us. Last year Miss Stanford brought news of the cage crinoline. What a boon such an undergarment has proved to be. I for one was greatly relieved to dispense with so many heavy petticoats, and the old horsehair crinoline is quite a thing of the past. So tell us, Miss Bell, are skirts wide or flat? Are waists high or low? Are shoulders in or out? Indeed, what new and shocking fashions have you seen at home?”

“Well, since you ask”—Miss Bell leaned forward—“some women have been seen in London wearing”—she lowered her voice—“divided skirts!”

“Good heavens!”

“An American fashion, I believe.”

“Indeed. And is it catching on, this ‘divided skirt?’”

“Oh, no! It's considered to be rather shocking.”

“And have you seen one with your own eyes?”

“No. But I know a lady whose sister's maid saw one. And there was a picture in the
Englishwomen's Domestic Magazine
—”

“Ha!” shouted Mr. Birchwoode, who had overheard this exchange. “Divided skirts? Whoever heard of such a thing! You ladies'll be smoking next, and wearing trousers and demanding to be lawyers and doctors and politicians!” He grinned at Miss Bell. “Tell me, have you seen any women with cheroots between their teeth? I'll wager you have!”

Miss Bell looked at her plate, unable to think of anything to say one way or the other.

“There already is a woman doctor,” said Mr. Toomey. He winked at Miss Bell. “What do you make of that, Dr. Mossly? Are you ready to make room for a lady officiating at the bedside?”

“It will come to nothing,” said Dr. Mossly. “I hear this woman doctor—perhaps she should be termed a ‘doctress’ or ‘doctrix’—is an American lady. Like their immodest fashions, such things may shock and disgust, but they don't become the way of the world.”

“But women may prefer the ministrations of their own sex,”
said Lilian, glad that her new status as a widow granted her conversational license. As a married woman she had been expected to acquiesce to her husband's opinion; as an unmarried woman she had been expected to have no opinion worth hearing. Now, she could say almost whatever she chose. “Modesty prevents many of them from admitting a male doctor's attentions,” she continued. “Even when in the most acute physical distress. Especially during childbirth, or some other womanly condition.”

“Believe me, my dear,” interrupted Mrs. Birchwoode, “when one is in the throes of childbirth, one wants the reassurance of a knowledgeable doctor. And, naturally, doctors are men.” She smothered a yawn, so that Lilian wondered how she had found the energy to give birth at all. “If you had had a child, my dear, you would understand.” The married women around the table, most of whose surviving children were back in England enjoying the rigors of a decent education, nodded sagely.

Lilian felt her face burning. “But how can a man possibly know more about childbirth than a woman?” she cried. “How can he know about her pain and suffering? Her feelings for her unborn child? Surely a woman doctor—a woman midwife even—would have more understanding of these things than any man. His knowledge of physiology and anatomy is all very well, but the question is as much about sympathy and empathy as it is about the mechanics of the event itself.”

The men at the table shuffled their feet uneasily. Mr. Hunter, who had remained silent throughout, stared at Lilian in astonishment. He had no idea her views on childbirth were so forceful.

For a moment, no one said anything. Then Miss Bell cleared her throat. “Quite so,” she murmured. She smiled nervously at Lilian. “Mrs. Fraser would find that she is not unusual in holding such views back home. There is plenty of talk about it, in London at least.” She took a deep breath, and added bravely: “And I think … I think a lady doctor is a good idea.”

“Bravo,” cried Captain Forbes. He clapped his hands. “Mrs. Fraser, you have a new champion. Well spoken, Miss Bell. Will you
storm the citadel and take a medical degree? Perhaps you might purchase a divided skirt after all. And Mrs. Fraser too. A most practical garment, I imagine. I'm sure the
dharzi
would run you one up in an instant, if you give him your measurements.” He opened his cigarette case and offered it across the table. “Cheroot, ladies?”

Lilian caught his eye, and she and the captain laughed. A relieved Miss Bell joined in.

Lilian shook her head. “Thank you, Captain Forbes. I prefer the hookah,” she said. “But only after dinner, of course.”

“So I hear,” said Captain Forbes.

T
HE LUSH EMERALD CARPET OF THE COLD SEASON HAD
barely covered Selwyn's grave before two unexpected suitors, Mr. Vine and Dr. Mossly, made their intentions clear. This was greatly to the irritation of the fishing fleet, who thought Lilian had had her chance at matrimony and, having carelessly lost a partner, should now get off the field and allow other, needier young ladies the opportunity to capture any unattached men.

Mr. Hunter also registered his disappointment. “Tell them you can't marry either of them,” he said. It had been months since his arrival in Kushpur, and since their embrace beside the veranda (which had been cut frustratingly short by the monsoon rains) she had permitted him no further intimacy. His employers in England were beginning to wonder what he was waiting for, so long had he been stalling them with excuses about the weather, the terrain, and the difficulty locating bearers of a suitable quality. But despite her limited encouragement, or perhaps because of it, he could not tear himself away. “Tell them to stop sniffing around you like dogs.”

“I shall tell them no such thing,” said Lilian. “Mr. Vine is—”

“Old. And boring. And have you forgotten how he disapproves of you? You would hardly be allowed out of the house if you were married to him. There would be no more wanderings in the bazaar, no more trips on Captain Forbes's horse.”

“Mr. Vine acts from a sense of rightness and with a view to my own safety. Besides, there is always Dr. Mossly.”

“That old fool! Why, he knows nothing about anything.”

“Dr. Mossly is a very kind man,” said Lilian.

“Kind? The reason half of the Europeans in this place are beneath the ground is thanks to him.”

Lilian shrugged. “I have not made up my mind one way or the other.”

“You could marry me.”

But Lilian simply smiled, and looked out of the window.

I
N THEIR QUEST
for Lilian's attention, a rift had grown between the doctor and the magistrate. Dr. Mossly and Mr. Vine no longer strolled about the
maidan
together in the evenings. They no longer partnered each other at whist at Mrs. Birchwoode's. They did not visit each other to smoke and chat on the verandas of their bungalows. Mr. Vine regarded Dr. Mossly's attention to Lilian's health as bothersome and unnecessary. Dr. Mossly viewed Mr. Vine's concern for Lilian's financial and legal status to be meddlesome and intrusive. They eyed each other with resentful suspicion, and monitored Lilian for any signs of favoritism.

And yet, there were a number of subjects, had they but known it, upon which they were in accord, chief of these being her friendship with Mr. Hunter and her increasing affection for all things Indian. Indeed, it was soon widespread intelligence that in the privacy of her own home the widow Fraser wore native clothing. Mrs. Fraser's
dhobi
had reported as much to Mrs. Birchwoode's
dhobi;
had shown him the
saris
and
pyjama
trousers he had been sent to wash. In the end, Mrs. Birchwoode, Mrs. Toomey, and Mrs. Ravelston had been obliged to pay Lilian an impromptu visit. They had found her, as reported, in the loose flowing fabrics of the bazaar, her feet bare, her hair undone. More shocking still was the fact that she was not even wearing black but a vivid mixture of green and turquoise (they would never have admitted it, but the colors had suited Lilian's sun-bleached hair and tawny skin perfectly). There
was a distinct whiff of tobacco about her, and the hookah the absent Mr. Gilmour had favored had, quite clearly, been in recent use.