Daughter of Empire (14 page)

But there wasn’t much time for reflection. Patricia announced that she was pregnant and celebrating her good news proved a welcome diversion. My parents and I were summoned for tea at
Marlborough House with Queen Mary, who sat so upright everyone felt compelled to do the same. Wearing a turban and enormous diamonds, she listened with great interest as my father explained what
his role was to be, adding that Grandmama strongly disapproved of the politicians sending him out to do their dirty work. Queen Mary laughed delightedly at this. ‘Oh, dear Victoria,’
she said. ‘Ever the bluestocking. And never afraid to say what she thinks.’ My father smiled – we were all very proud of my grandmother’s reputation.

The last ten days passed in a blur: updates from my father’s viceregal staff on the growing unrest and political disagreements he was going to encounter on arrival in India; a visit on
behalf of the King from the Duke of Gloucester to invest my father with the Order of the Star of India and the Grand Cross of the Indian Empire (a heart-stopping moment – on arrival, he
realised that the decorations had been left on the back seat of the taxi. Luckily they were retrieved); a farewell cocktail party for over seven hundred people at the RAC Club, then a goodbye
dinner with Patricia, John and Cousin Philip, during which he told us that he had renounced his titles and become a naturalised British citizen, another P. Mountbatten to add to the confusion.

At last, on 20 March 1947, my parents and I drove down to Northolt in a royal car bulging with bodies, bags and dogs, closely followed by a bunch of well-wishers. We posed for the press in front
of the old York aircraft, and as the flashlights popped and I looked over to my waving sister, I thought back to the photographers at JFK when I had left New York and how all that now seemed like a
lifetime ago.

9

T
he cabin of the York was not pressurised, and as the plane bucked and fell among the air pockets, I was dreadfully sick. Landing in Delhi, my
first impression was of heat and haze. I had only a few moments to pull myself together, put on my hat and gloves and hope that I looked presentable for the waiting photographers. My parents left
the plane first and I followed, reeling slightly into the heat and wondering if I should risk making my white gloves grubby by wiping the dust off my face before I shook hands with the great many
people awaiting us.

I went ahead with the staff in the cars and as we arrived at Viceroy’s House, the sight of the dismounted members of the bodyguard on each of the wide imposing steps took my breath away.
They were all Sikhs, tall, handsome, bearded men, resplendent in their black and gold turbans, scarlet uniforms with white breeches and shiny black thigh boots. I curtsied to Lord and Lady Wavell
and was introduced to their daughter Felicity, then watched as my parents arrived in a state landau escorted by the mounted Viceregal Bodyguard.

As was traditional, we had only one evening with the Wavells before they departed. I could do little but listen as Felicity brought me all her files then began: ‘The Viceroy’s House
compound houses five hundred and fifty-five domestic servants, drivers, gardeners, electricians and grooms together with their families, so the compound holds around five thousand in total and we
have a school and you will have to be the chief visitor for the school. And there is a clinic . . .’ Furthermore, I was to succeed Felicity as the president of the Lady Noyce School for the
Deaf and Dumb, which taught about seventy children aged between six and eighteen, who, without the protection of the school, would be unwanted and helpless. More files were banged down in front of
me. It transpired that Felicity also worked part time at a canteen for the Allied forces. ‘But’, she said, ‘that’s all fairly straightforward so I’m sure you can work
that one out for yourself.’ I could only smile politely. Felicity, in her twenties and recently married, seemed well equipped to cope with all these responsibilities, but I wasn’t sure
about any of it. Fresh out of school, not yet eighteen, with no training or skills beyond typing and speedwriting, I felt somewhat out of my depth. And she hadn’t even mentioned all the
student leaders who were about to be released from prison whom my father wanted me to contact.

India was on high alert, tense and fractious. The tragic violence of three days of rioting that followed Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946 had left over twenty thousand dead on the streets of
Calcutta, Muslim and Hindu alike. The background was complex. India had long wanted self-government. Ever since British rule had weakened during the First World War, and following his return from
South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi had convinced much of the population to push for independence through non-violent disobedience, which had, until now, been very effective. The Muslim League had been
agitating for a sovereign state for all Muslims – to be called Pakistan – since 1933. The British had been loath to lose India, but during the Second World War they had been forced to
go begging to the country for help. In 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps had been sent with an offer to Gandhi: Britain would grant India the status of a self-governing dominion after the war if India were
to support the Allied effort. Gandhi had refused – it was immediate independence or nothing – and stalemate ensued. Meanwhile, his Quit India Campaign was gaining momentum, and with
India’s rising expectations came mounting tensions, culminating in the riots, following which Mr Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, strengthened his calls for the creation of Pakistan.
Churchill had forbidden Lord Wavell even to talk to Gandhi, so his influence had been severely limited. After the riots, Attlee decided that independence could no longer be postponed but he needed
a new Viceroy to see it through. According to the prime minister, my father was the right man: ‘an extremely lively, exciting personality’ with ‘an extraordinary faculty for
getting on with all kinds of people . . . blessed with a very unusual wife’.

So, unlike any other incoming viceregal family, we were not there to uphold the laws and traditions of the Empire but to dismantle them. The swearing-in ceremony was short but impressive. It
took place in the Durbar Hall, and my parents processed in to the flash of photographers’ bulbs as if they were film stars – which they could have been as they looked so handsome
together, my father in white full dress naval uniform and my mother in a long slim white dress. The new Viceroy and Vicereine took their places on the thrones but immediately seemed to be dwarfed
by the surrounding pageantry and architecture. I sat watching, amazed to think that only four days before we had been bustling about the freezing, grey streets of a post-war London in the grip of
austerity. I recalled Yola’s story about my mother’s encounter at a ball in the 1930s with a fortune-teller who told her: ‘One day you will be sitting on a throne, not an ordinary
throne but a real throne nonetheless.’ At the time, my mother had dismissed this as ‘absolute bunkum’.

The tour of our new home, Viceroy’s House, took over two hours to complete. Our bedrooms and private sitting rooms were so far from the dining room that you had to allow ten minutes to get
there. I soon realised that the house, Luytens’ masterpiece, was like a hotel in which you might never see the other guests who were staying. In fact Patricia had warned me of this as she had
visited my father while he was staying there during the war. She had had great fun with the ADCs, and they had asked her whether she wanted to stay on for a bit. When she said that the Viceroy
hadn’t invited her, they told her not to worry, he would never know.

But even if you were unlikely to come across other guests, you were never exactly alone as there were so many servants milling around, with their precise tasks and roles. All the staff were male
and all wore the headgear denoting their rank, as well as the Viceroy’s personal badge on their chests. I soon learned to distinguish between them: the bearers were the personal servants who
wore dark blue in winter and white in summer, always with white turbans;
kitmagars
waited at table;
abdars
were the butlers and wine waiters (at dinner parties I loved to watch the
head
abdar
raise his hands to either side of his turban as a signal for the serving of the meal to begin); the
chaprasis
ran messages and looked after the offices; the
syces
looked after our horses; the
dhobis
did the laundry; the Mughs from South India did the cooking, and I was surprised to discover there was a chicken cleaner who did nothing other than
prepare chickens for cooking. Small boys in spotless white uniforms and caps acted as ballboys at the tennis courts and there was a whole team of drivers to service and chauffeur the viceregal
cars. A position on the viceregal domestic staff ran in families and was highly prized, with periods of service ranging from fifteen to thirty-five years or more, and the service was faultless. My
father, who would write himself memos and leave them on the floor of his study so that he would be sure to see them, was utterly thwarted by the efficiency of the servants, who would instantly
throw away anything so untidy. Apart from a large number of outdoor gardeners there were twenty-five indoor gardeners to attend to the flower arrangements.

I had never had a lady’s maid, let alone a man, to look after me, but I inherited Leela Nand, Felicity’s bearer. When he said matter-of-factly: ‘Last lady much taller,’
my heart sank. But then he smiled and his eyes danced and I saw in that instant that there was hope for us. He was charming, as wrinkled and brown as a walnut, and it became clear as he bounded
around the room with such energy and enthusiasm that walking was not an option for him. Everything he did was accompanied by giggles, sudden sulks or even disturbing outbursts of tears. He
wasn’t always talkative, but when he did start, it would be a long while before he finished. My height was apparently not my only shortcoming. A couple of days later I was desperately
searching for something that he had secreted in the most unlikely of places and he asked me whether I was going to box his ears. When I looked surprised and said: ‘No, of course not, Leela
Nand,’ he seemed quite affronted. ‘Viceroy’s daughter should,’ he said. After a few days, however, we began to understand each other, and within a few weeks, the delightful
and ever-present Leela Nand had become the most familiar element of my new life in India.

Leela Nand sewed beautifully and all my clothes were mended whether they needed to be or not. His special pride was darning. One morning he showed me the heel of a white tennis sock. I gazed at
it with what I hoped passed for an expression of profound admiration, then I chose my words with care. ‘That’s beautiful work, Leela Nand. It must have taken you hours to do.’ I
paused, and then with mounting courage continued: ‘But don’t you think it might have been better if you had used white cotton instead of red?’ He looked at me, troubled by my
stupidity, and said, very gently: ‘But no one could have seen it if I had done it in white.’

They were all great characters. My father’s Muslim bearer, Wahid Beg, was an avid reader. He had been taught to read English and he read everything there was to read, including the
telephone directory. As this took a while, and my father often came into the room to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, completely absorbed in a list of local names and addresses, Wahid
Beg was always careful to put a marker in place before closing the book.

On the first evening after the Wavell party had left my mother took me sightseeing to Humayun’s tomb, a sixteenth-century red sandstone Mughal mausoleum. She pointed out how much things
had changed since she had become engaged to my father at the Viceregal Lodge in 1922. In the intervening years, New Delhi had been designed and built together with Viceroy’s House, where we
now lived, eight miles from Old Delhi. The contrast between the widely spaced houses and government buildings, arches and parks of New Delhi and the noise, colour and diversity of Old Delhi,
crowded with bullock carts, holy cows, horse-drawn tongas and thousands of bicycles that brought traffic to a near-standstill, could not have been greater. For the first time too I was witnessing
the vastly contrasting scales of poverty and wealth in this country – the grandeur of the Viceroy’s household somewhat alarming in its extravagance.