The Empress of India (10 page)

Or then again, no beating about the bush. Perhaps the more direct
approach: “Peg, m’dear, you’re eighteen years old now. Don’t you think it’s time you considered getting married?”

He might say that, but he couldn’t even imagine the words coming from his mouth. Then again he might say to his beautiful, blond, gray-eyed daughter, “Peg, every young unmarried officer in my command is under your spell. I do wish you would do something about it.”

But then, could he bring himself to say that, she might well answer, “But, Daddy, what would you have me do?” And he would have no reply, since, as far as he could see, she was not casting any spell beyond bland indifference to the lot of them.

“M’dear,” he said.

She turned in her seat to face him. “Yes, Father?”

“What do you think . . . you know . . . I mean, as a father . . .” He could feel himself getting red in the face. Why should talking seriously to his beloved daughter be worse than facing a board of inquiry from the War Department? He didn’t know, but there it was. “That is, d-dash it all, how do you think I, as a father, am doing? That is, with you, as a . . . er . . . daughter?”

Seeing by his expression that he was in earnest and a humorous response wouldn’t suffice, Margaret thought about it seriously for a long moment. That was her way: Humor sprang to her lips unbidden, but when a serious reply was required, a serious reply was forthcoming. Sometimes all too serious.

“I haven’t had much experience, you know, with other fathers,” she told him, patting his knee gently. “But from what I can tell, you’re right up there, bung-ho, a top-drawer dad.”

“Is that good?” he asked.

“The best,” she assured him, and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Well,” he said, with a feeling that he’d accomplished something, although he couldn’t have said what. “Glad to hear it. I do my b-best, you know.”

“I know.” Margaret adjusted the bodice of the green satin dress she was wearing, and straightened the pink silk flowers that decorated her shoulder. Then she took a small hand mirror from her purse and carefully examined her face. “I just wish we’d arrived in Calcutta a week earlier, so I would have had time to go to the dressmaker’s before this evening. I’ll probably be the only woman there in last year’s dress.”

“M’dear,” St. Yves said, “there won’t be a man in the room who won’t think you’re the most b-beautiful woman for ten leagues in any direction. And they’ll be right.”

Margaret laughed. “Thank you, dear Father,” she said. “But you must surely know that women don’t dress to please men; they dress to impress or annoy other women.”

The carriage pulled up in front of Government House, a massive hundred-year-old building in classical Anglo-Roman style, somewhat grander than the average palace; the sort of structure that the British nobility back home had been building as country houses through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A native footman standing by the oversized front entrance popped over to the carriage, popped the carriage door open, and popped the steps into place. St. Yves adjusted his dress sword and his jacket, tucked his hat carefully under his arm, and descended from the carriage before helping his daughter down onto the wide green carpet that had been laid from the curb to the large double doors.

The majordomo, who awaited them at the entrance, was a splendid personage from his ornate gold-laced tan turban and short, thick, black beard to his long, thin, pointed-toed shiny black shoes. Over his puffy tan pantaloons he wore a green and white dress jacket with oversized gold buttons and a pair of tails trailing almost down to his ankles. “I greet you with much gladness, General sahib,” he said, eyeing St. Yves’s uniform. “Welcome to Government House. The viceroy would speak with you ever so briefly before the dinner gong is struck.”

“The viceroy wants to see us?”

“That is so.” The majordomo gestured and a short, dark footman detached himself from a line of waiting footmen and trotted over. The majordomo whispered something in the footman’s ear.

“Pliz to follow me,” the footman said, making a small but expressive come-along gesture with his right hand.

The footman trotted confidently ahead, and they followed in his wake. “Well!” Margaret said. “Why does Sir George want to see you?”

“Haven’t the slightest,” St. Yves told her. “We’ll know soon enough.”

Margaret hitched the skirt of her dress up slightly to negotiate the steps of the wide marble staircase. “It will be quite a conversation-stopper when we’re back in England,” she said. “I can say, ‘Shortly before I left India I was at Government House and the viceroy told me—in confidence, of course’—oops!”

“Oops?”

“I almost tripped. Do you suppose, Father, that you could get Sir George to tell me something in confidence? Some slight, unimportant thing of little consequence?”

“You must ask him,” St. Yves said. “I’m certain he will oblige.”

“Pliz to come this way,” the footman said at the top of the staircase, pointing down a long corridor to the left with dark wood doors evenly spaced along the green walls. He promptly trotted off in the direction of his pointing finger.

“You were at Boxley with him?” Margaret asked.

St. Yves looked at his daughter. “B-Broxley. Yes, sort of. He was three years ahead of me.”

“So you weren’t close?”

“No, that’s so.”

“But you call him ‘Messy.’ ”

“That’s so. And he calls me ‘Tubs.’ But we weren’t close.”

“Tubs?”

“Yes,” St. Yves said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I wasn’t always as, ah, slender as I am now.”

“I see,” his daughter said, having the wisdom not to laugh, or even smile.

The doors along the corridor had small brass plates with names on them: “Mr. Ffaulks,” read one; “Mr. Abernatty,” the next; “Sir Toby Bentham,” after that, and across from them one that said “Customs,” and one that said “Writers,” and then an unmarked one, in front of which the footman stopped.

He knocked on the door, three precise knocks, and then pushed it open. “Pliz,” he said, standing aside for them to enter.

The room was a good-sized library, with walls full of books, a long table down the center, a small desk at the far end, a pair of red damask-covered easy chairs, and a scattering of wooden chairs with tooled-leather seats and backs. Sir George Demassis Montague, Her Britannic Majesty’s Viceroy for her Indian Empire, in a fluffy dress shirt, chalk-white trousers, and high black boots, was sunk deep into an easy chair, his feet up on a wooden chair he had pulled over for that purpose, reading a book. The rest of his viceregal regalia, a red jacket with gold braid, a wide plum-colored sash, and a chest full of medals, was hung carefully over the back of another chair. A dress sword with several large gemstones in the pommel rested in its gold scabbard on the desk.

A ruddy-faced man of average stature, with reddish brown hair, a prominent nose, and wide sideburns that almost met at his chin, Sir George had the knack of commanding loyalty from his subordinates and respect from those he dealt with; a fact that came as a continual surprise to him. As St. Yves and his daughter came in, he put the book aside and pushed himself to his feet. “General St. Yves,” he said. “Tubs. Good to see you.”

“Messy,” St. Yves said. “It’s been a while.”

The viceroy reached for his jacket. “Djuna!” he called. “Where is that boy? Ah, well.” Philosophically, he struggled into his jacket by himself.

“No need to dress on our account, Your Excellency,” St. Yves said.

“Only polite,” Sir George said. “Besides, it’s almost time to go in.” He beamed at Margaret. “Your daughter, I assume.”

“My daughter Margaret,” St. Yves affirmed. “Peg, Sir George Montague, my old schoolmate, who has made something of himself since leaving B-Broxley.”

“It all comes of having the right parents, don’t you know,” Sir George said, struggling to fasten the sash over his jacket. “Hard work and a certain flair for the diplomatic”—he let go of the sash, and it promptly bounced up to his chin—“combined with a tendency to tell other people what to do, are all very well, but arranging to have a father who is an earl, even an Irish earl, can make all the difference.”

“Here, allow me,” Margaret said, stepping forward and pulling the lower end of the sash into place.

“Thank you, young lady,” the viceroy said. “I don’t want to give the impression that I can’t dress myself, but this fancy dress costume I’m called upon to wear requires assembly and construction. One can’t simply get into it, one has to build it around oneself. There’s the sword that goes with it, but I absolutely refuse to wear the sword this evening. It will bang and clatter about my legs, and serve no useful purpose, and probably trip me up at some inopportune moment. If there’s to be any swordplay, I’ll let your father defend me. He’s much better at it than I am, no doubt, anyway.”

St. Yves clutched the handle of his dress sword. “I doubt if this thing’s sharp enough to do much damage,” he said. “B-but you show me which of Her Majesty’s civil servants you wish skewered, and I shall make the attempt.”

“Really!” Margaret said, stepping back to examine her handiwork. “You are a pair of bloodthirsty gentlemen.”

The viceroy took a pair of white cotton gloves from the pocket of his jacket and slipped them on. “But well dressed,” he said, “and with excellent manners.” He examined himself in the slender mirror in the wall behind his desk. “Thank you, my dear,” he said.

“We should precede you into the hall,” St. Yves said.

The viceroy lowered himself into the chair behind his desk and waved them into nearby chairs. “I must speak with you before we go in,” he said. “Please sit down.”

“Certainly, Your Excellency,” St. Yves replied.

Sir George nodded. “Two things,” he said. “The first is official.” He turned to Margaret. “It’s also confidential. I won’t ask you to leave the room, that would be rude, and we English gentlemen may be blood-thirsty, but we are never rude. So I will merely ask you not to mention it to anyone until, ah, until you reach England.”

“Asking me to keep a secret is never ‘mere,’ ” she told him. “But”—she made the mark of a large X across her chest with her forefinger—“I solemnly promise that whatever secrets you may share with us will never be divulged by me. Never.”

“Excellent,” Sir George said, smiling. He turned his gaze back to General St. Yves. “You are returning to England momentarily, I believe.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. The Highland Lancers have been relieved, as you know. The men will be embarking on the troopship
Egypt,
probably at the end of this coming week. Most of the officers, particularly those with family here, will be taking whatever passenger ship leaves soonest after the
Egypt
.” St. Yves smiled a wry smile. “The passenger ship will be more comfortable and faster, but Her Majesty’s government will not pay for mere comfort for enlisted men. Or for officers, either, if it comes to that, but we can afford the passage. So we’ll p-probably be waiting on the dock for the men when the
Egypt
arrives.”

Sir George leaned back in his chair and stared steadily at St. Yves. “In this case,” he told him, “you and your officers and some of your men will be traveling on
The Empress of India
. Rather fitting, all things considered. Her Majesty’s government will reimburse you, since you will be on the queen’s business.”

“I see.” St. Yves thought this over, but no possible reason for this unexpected governmental munificence came to mind. “I sense that you are
about to tell me something that I will not like,” he told the viceroy, “although what it might be exceeds my grasp.”

There was a knock at the door, and a small young man in an oversized turban and baggy shirt and trousers came into the room.

“Ah, Djuna,” the viceroy said, “there you are. Where were you when I was trying to fix this sash? Never mind, it’s done now; this charming young lady did it for me.”

“So sorry this babu was called away, sahib,” Djuna said, bowing several times briefly, giving the general appearance of one bobbing for invisible apples. “So happy that the memsahib was able to help. The job of personal secretary to the sahib viceroy involves affixing cravat and sash, making tea, tending to visitors, beating shoe-wallah for not properly shining shoes, chasing away native job seekers and mendicants who would invade viceroy’s office pleading for baksheesh. All is time-consuming, and sometimes functions overlap. I sincerely abase myself.”

“First of all, you’re my valet, not my personal secretary,” Sir George said crossly. “You can’t go around making up any title that pleases you. Last week it was—what was it?—social assistant. What on earth is a social assistant? Second of all, if I ever catch you beating the shoe-wallah—do I have a shoe-wallah?—I will personally beat you severely.”

“Yes, sahib, you will,” Djuna agreed. “There is native person to see you. A merchant of some sort, perhaps; although there is something of the hill tribesman about him. He says he has news. I have put him in the waiting room to your office.”

“At this hour?” the viceroy grumbled. “Tell him to come back during the day.”

“He says it is important even now. He says, ‘To be or not to be.’ Is quote from famous English playwright-wallah Shakespeare.”

“Ah!” the viceroy said. “Bring him some tea and have some food sent to him. Tell him I’ll be with him in a bit.”