Coromandel! (23 page)

Don Manoel said, ‘You will, at least, think about these things, milord?’

He said, ‘I can promise nothing.’

‘Of course not,’ the Don said with a sigh of relief, as though Jason had already agreed. ‘Take time to consider. When you have had a little more experience with the wiles of these Eastern monarchs, I am sure you will understand.’ He coughed. ‘Milord, now that my poor daughter is no longer with us, may I have the privilege of knowing who you really are?’

Jason glanced up in annoyance. They were calling him a liar again. The Don said hastily, ‘I have a reason for asking--an important reason, and perhaps not unconnected with our other affairs.’

Jason said, ‘Everything I have told you is the truth.’

Don Manoel spoke to Father Felipe. The priest chuckled thinly and rubbed his hands. Don Manoel produced a bluff smile and said, ‘Come, milord, farm boys are not entrusted with missions of this delicacy. I know England, you must remember. And the tale of your being a common dancer in London! It was magnificent! But you may trust us with the truth.’

‘Why do you want to know?’ Jason asked. Don Manoel was getting more like Parson every moment. Soon he’d
have
to lie, or they would believe he was a liar.

The Don seemed embarrassed. He cleared his throat twice and then said, ‘What I am going to tell you may seem strange to you, milord. Your English customs are somewhat different in this matter, but among us a father arranges the marriage of his daughter, and, if he is well-to-do, provides her with an ample dowry. The gentleman she married would also expect a high position in his father-in-law’s household.’

Jason drank some wine quickly. He knew he would do better to keep sober, but he needed a nerve now that only more of this thick red wine could give.

The Don said, ‘In the case of a daughter who is perhaps not so beautiful as one would hope, or who has had the misfortune to be born with a limp or other defect of body, the dowry would be considerably increased. A father would only wish to feel sure, in such a case, that he was linking his blood with blood of an equivalent rank. We have been hereditary grandees for two hundred and fifty years.’

He paused expectantly. Jason grunted and ran his fingernails across the heavy crimson brocade on the seat of the chair, making a satisfactory rasping sound.

The Don said, ‘
My
son-in-law, for instance, would expect to become my principal lieutenant here. Let us suppose you were that man. Should we reach an agreement on the larger matters already discussed, there would be considerable advantages to you, to me, and to Catherine, if you were her husband and so my relative.’

Jason said, ‘You would force Catherine to marry me?’ He tried hazily to picture himself as the blind girl’s husband. It was impossible. She was--well, there was nothing particularly wrong with her. She was quite interesting, though sad. But how could he think of her or any other woman with the taste of Parvati’s lips sweeter than the wine on his tongue?

Don Manoel became more obviously embarrassed. He said, ‘I--really, I hesitate to tell the truth lest you should think my poor daughter is-- She is virgo Intacta, I assure you, and not at all forward or improper.’

Jason thought: No, Mistress Catherine isn’t forward. She was the only woman he could imagine who could ask to stroke his face and shoulders on first meeting, and yet not be thought forward or worse. She was different.

Don Manoel said, ‘It is she, Catherine, my daughter, who has insisted I speak to you.’

Jason took another gulp of his wine.

The Don said hastily, ‘I am not against the marriage--not at all, milord. I have just pointed out to you some of the advantages of such an arrangement. But I would never have urged it on my own account because there are also difficulties and disadvantages. You are not Portuguese, and the proposal may strike you as sudden, and therefore put you against it. You--are not a Christian--I
do
beg your pardon, milord, you are not a Catholic. Would you be willing to become one?’

Jason said, ‘No.’

‘I feared so. Then, my daughter is perhaps a little strange--not insane, you understand, but strange, from her unfortunate affliction. She sees more inside her head than outside, and there have been occasions when people who do not know her well have thought she was--’ The Don searched in the air with his hand and said, ‘Ah, I remember your English word--
soft
. They have called her a softy. No, milord, I would not have suggested this, but I love my daughter, and she has insisted that she has no other chance for happiness, and never will. It is strange, and touching to a father’s heart, especially when she has never before shown the smallest interest in men or marriage. But the marriage would be impossible if your rank--forgive me--is not as high as I suspect it to be. Therefore, milord, I ask your favour to tell me your real name and station.’

Jason got up and said, ‘I must go. I have an important appointment.’ He gathered up his new stiff red hat--one with a short brim, modelled after a blue hat which the chamberlain often wore. He wore Indian clothes mostly now. The big curved scimitar which he kept tripping over had been a gift from the commander of the Manairuppu garrison.

The two Portuguese got up with him, and waited expectantly. Jason went out on to the steps. It had stopped raining, and the garden smelled of earth and oranges. He said, ‘Thank you for the dinner, Sir Don. I will give your greetings to Simon the pearler next time I see him, Father Felipe.’

‘He was a good boy,’ the priest said, ‘but they slip back where they came from. The work of God goes slowly in Coromandel, like everything else.’

Jason said, ‘Good-bye. Please give my respects to Mistress Catherine.’

‘But--?’ the Don said, pleading, coming down two steps into the sun. ‘Your birth? Your rank?’

Jason said, ‘I am the bastard son of a tinker and a Salisbury washerwoman. Good day.’

He strode off down the path. That should stop the Don’s crazy scheming and bring the poor softy girl to her senses. He’d known he’d have to lie to be believed.

He slept uneasily in short spells, between hours of lying awake, and full of tension. When he was asleep he dreamed of Parvati’s clients, and when he was awake he thought over what he would say to the king. As soon as he returned from the Don’s mansion he had asked for an audience, because, somewhere along the slimy lanes, he had made up his mind what he must do.

He had followed the map to Coromandel, thinking that the mere following of such a strange and wonderful thing would be enough. Well, it wasn’t. That was a silly, childish idea he’d had before he found it didn’t pay to be a simpleton.

Then he’d made up his mind that the map was important because it would lead him to treasure. But what did he want to be rich for? So that he could marry Parvati and be an important man.

Well, he didn’t need money to marry Parvati. He needed the thing that the Portuguese called ‘caste’ and the Indians ‘colour.’ And to be an important man money was useful, but not essential. There was a surer way to become important. That was to become a leader here.

It would not be difficult. The Indians were stupid. They kept saying, ‘Impossible,’ to things that weren’t impossible at all. He had only to show the king that Manairuppu’s true interests lay in making an alliance with the other three kingdoms, and persuade the other kings of the same truth; and then the Portuguese would be driven out, and he, Jason Savage, the man who had thought of the plan and put it into execution, could hardly help becoming great and important. Why, he might be the chief minister of the alliance!

He got up and took a drink of water. Now he didn’t want to go back to the mat where Parvati lay. He went out on the balcony and leaned out over the dark city.

But if his plan succeeded, wouldn’t he be making it just as difficult for the English as for the Portuguese to get a foot-hold on this coast? Perhaps. But the English didn’t want such a hold. He’d heard the question being discussed many times on the voyage. They only wanted to trade, as they were trying to do in Surat on the other side of India. If the four kings could combine, trade would be opened up and much, increased. Everyone would benefit.

The problem of his caste was more difficult, because of the Indians’ mad insistence that a man could not become other than what he was. When they said it was impossible for him to marry Parvati, they meant that he was not of the right caste, and that she was married already, to the idol Shiva. God’s blood, he’d show them! He’d play their own game on them and tell them it was ‘written on his forehead’ that he must marry Parvati! Then what would they say, eh? And he’d use his power to force the priests to say that the idol intended to divorce her. What would they say to that, eh? Dick Whittington became Lord Mayor of London. Jason Savage could become high caste, chief minister, friend of the king, husband of Parvati--rich, famous, in love.

Near dawn he had a sudden exciting vision of warehouses full of silk and spice, of the ships of all nations riding at anchor in the Coromandel river, of white men and brown men trading on the wide square and himself under a big tent seeing fair play for all. They would have to build more jetties and open up a channel through the sand bar. Why, the provisioning of the ships alone would make the people richer. The great King of Madura, who was much greater than any of these four, and whose dominions lay to the south-west, might be persuaded to use the port. . . .

Parvati called softly, ‘Why are you awake, lord?’

He went in to her and told her all that he had been thinking, trying to make her see the reality and the wonder, and that all this lay in their hands to achieve. She listened quietly till he had finished, and then said, ‘It is impossible.’

For a moment Jason’s vision failed him. Then he shook his head obstinately and said, ‘You wait and see.’ He got up and began to dress.

But was Parvati, after all, a mere woman, like Mary Bowcher, who could not understand the truth of dreams? He knew she was not, from the nights they had talked together, holding hands. Stranger thoughts came to her than his imagination could encompass. She whispered of gods and hero-demons, and young men riding the clouds, and these fantastic things were more real to her than his sunset galleons. Yet surely a galleon, or a simple agreement between four kings, was more ‘possible’ than a man who drank up the purple sea?

Sugriva sidled in and whispered, ‘Lord, there is a man waiting in the passage to see you.’

‘What kind of man?’ Jason asked peevishly.

‘A colourless fellow,’ Sugriva said. ‘A black man who says he knows your lordship. Shall I send him away?’

‘Yes--no, let him wait until I have eaten.’ Jason smelled food cooking, and he was hungry. Besides, he told himself, the king may send for me at any moment, and I must not face this most vital audience on an empty stomach.

He ate leisurely and soon forgot about the man who was waiting to see him. After his meal he had his daily Tamil lesson with Parvati. This was the hour of the day he liked best, when she squatted down in front of him and said a sentence over and over, and made him repeat it until he got it right. After that she would arrange a host of oddments on the floor and name them one by one, and he would repeat the names after her. Sometimes she would take him into the streets, or go wandering through the palace, pointing and naming.

A continuous, annoying cough kept disturbing him, and he shouted, ‘Sugriva, stop coughing!’

The servant hurried in from the verandah and said, ‘It is not I, lord. It is that black man. I will send him away.’

Jason said, ‘Oh. Tell him to come in.’

He knew in his heart who it must be. He had known from the beginning, but had hoped he might be wrong. He had done nothing for the pearlers, and he could have if he had tried. He sat back on the cushions and waited for Simon to come in. Parvati left him, and he waited alone.

It felt bad, as though he had done something shameful, to see Simon the pearler edging in through the curtain, bowing at every step, his hands joined in front of him and his face nervous with the expectation of being rebuffed. Why did he have to be so helpless?

Jason sprang to his feet and went to shake Simon’s hand. ‘Simon!’ he cried. ‘How are you? You are looking well.’ Simon was not looking well, and he had a bad cough.

Simon’s drawn face slowly relaxed; then he smiled admiringly as he looked round. ‘This is what you deserve, Jason,’ he said. A fit of coughing prevented him from speaking for a moment, then he said between gasps, ‘You--are a--great man now. And you have Parvati the devadassi actually living with you, they told me!’

‘Yes,’ Jason said shortly. ‘We must have a long talk some time, but I am expecting the king to call me at any moment now, so--‘

‘The king!’ Simon said. ‘It is wonderful!’ He stood twisting his bare legs one around the other in the splendid apartment.

Jason asked how the pearling was going. Not good; their luck had deserted them since Jason left them. The weather was bad. Circuitously Simon came to the point. As he forced out the slow words Jason’s thoughts raced ahead for answers and justifications.

Simon said, ‘They told me to come and see you. All our people did. Because it is bad down there. It is always bad at this time of year. This year it is worse. We remembered you were going to speak to the king. We know that we said it was impossible, but we are foolish people of low colour. We thought perhaps you might have spoken to the king. We wondered ‘

Jason said earnestly, ‘Simon, I have.’ Oh, damnation on all of them! He had not forgotten. He would help them when he reached power. Why did they make him feel such a scoundrel?

Simon’s face lit up as Jason went on, speaking slowly, picking his words, tasting bitter anger against them as he told his lies. ‘I think soon I shall be able to persuade the king to do what I suggest. You understand that this matter cannot be hurried.’

‘Yes,’ Simon said. ‘We understand. Only, we are very hungry. Panailal’s woman died in the boat three days ago.’

Jason’s hand fidgeted with the hilt of his jewelled scimitar. He said, ‘I am doing my best, Simon. You must trust me.’ He found that his voice trembled.