A Proper Education for Girls (11 page)

A few minutes later a man approached. He was not wearing the itchily tight-fitting clothes of a European, but Lilian knew at once that it was Mr. Hunter. Only a European would march with such confidence through the dark passages of a midnight bazaar. Mr. Hunter was dressed, as he had been when she had first encountered him,
in pyjama
trousers and tunic. A long, curved knife was stuck into his belt. He looked pleased when he saw her, and he eyed her male apparel with enthusiasm.

“I knew you'd come,” he said.

“Would you like to know what happened to me after you left my
father's house?” said Lilian. She watched Mr. Hunter's smile fade from his face.

L
ILIAN HAD HAD
plenty of time to think about what she might do should she ever meet the father of her dead child again. Nine months had passed as her body swelled beneath her dress and her father shouted and cursed and stormed up and down through the hothouse as though Mr. Hunter might still be crouched in hiding somewhere among the foliage, to be flushed out like a hare from a thicket. When she had sailed to India with her new husband, Lilian had found yet more opportunity to reflect on her experiences. Time, and distance, had lent her dispassion. She had misjudged Mr. Hunter, that much was certain. He had seduced her, and when he had slaked his appetite he had left to continue his plant-hunting expeditions without a thought for her welfare. Where he went, no one knew. Afghanistan, perhaps, or Peru—he had talked eagerly of all manner of distant and inaccessible places. That she was carrying his child when he disappeared he had been quite unaware. Of what happened to her once he had left, he seemed entirely ignorant.

And when the baby was gone, what had she felt? Sadness? Of course. Anger? Undoubtedly. Relief? She could not deny it. But then Lilian was no stranger to death. Not only had her brother, her mother, and her sister already “abandoned their corporeal envelopes” (as her father liked to put it), but the aunts (of whom there had once been many more) would also periodically expire, as though to remind those who remained of the innate frailty of the human condition and the fact that, for the Talbot household at least, the celestial gates were far more likely to be accessed than those wrought-iron ones her father had welded closed at the end of the park. It had felt good to punch Mr. Hunter, but revenge, she knew, must be more subtle, more lasting, and more hurtful than that.

“I understand there is a native concoction called
bhang,”
said Lilian. “I believe it's most stimulating. Do you know of a place where we can get some?”

Mr. Hunter nodded. He led Lilian down a passageway and through a low, dimly lit doorway.

The room beyond made her gasp. It was filled with smoke and loud with the sound of laughter and shouting and music. Everywhere she looked dark-faced men reclined on low settees, hookahs at their sides and small glasses of dark liquid before them. Some sported eye patches or torn ears or scars across their faces. Their lips glowed like embers in their beards as they talked and laughed and leered at the
nautch
girls dancing to the sound of a screaming pipe and a
sitar
. More girls wandered between tables like waiters or entwined themselves around uninterested card-playing men. Those not thus occupied lounged on cushions along the walls, their expressions bored, as though waiting for a train. The atmosphere was rancid with tobacco, sweat,
ghee
, and a sweetish musty smell Lilian could not place.

Mr. Hunter steered her around the edge of the throng. “Keep your head down,” he said. “And don't look anyone in the eye.” He found a booth adjacent to the door and ushered her onto a
charpoy
piled with cushions.

“Are we safe here?” whispered Lilian, as though suddenly becoming aware that she was no longer sitting in Mrs. Birchwoode's parlor.

“Not especially. But are we safe anywhere in India? I know everything seems serene when you're dancing away to the strains of Mr. Rutherford's renditions of Chopin, but make no mistake, this country is not England nor any part of England.” Mr. Hunter lowered his voice and leaned closer. “We're nearer to the foothills here in Kushpur than we are to Calcutta or even Bombay. Pathans, Sikhs, Baluchis, Afghan cutthroats—we have a lot of enemies. There will be some of these people here in Kushpur, in this bazaar. Perhaps even in this den of horse thieves.”

Lilian looked over her shoulder warily, as though expecting a Pathan, a Sikh, or an Afghan cutthroat to wave his saber at her. The Europeans in the cantonment were loathed and despised. This realization was strangely exciting. Lilian decided that she would let Mr. Hunter do the talking. She might learn all manner of useful things about India and about traveling through remote and undiscovered lands. Besides, she had yet to meet a man who did not enjoy the sound of his own voice above that of any other. How gratified he seemed that she showed such interest in his political ramblings. (And how relieved that she appeared to have forgotten the subject of home.)

Mr. Hunter talked on. Lilian looked up at him, her blue eyes wide, her lips parted in an expression of fascination and admiration. “How brave you are, traveling to these faraway places,” she said breathlessly. “And how well informed! You are quite an expert.” Already she could see that his cheeks were flushed, his gaze covetous with desire as he stared at the folds of her
khurta
. Her legs were outlined by the soft drape of her
pyjama
trousers, and she shifted them slightly, so that the fabric tightened, and contours of her thighs were more clearly revealed.

Mr. Hunter stopped talking. No doubt he was remembering what pleasures might be enjoyed between them, she thought. He licked his lips. “I was a fool to leave you,” he whispered.

Lilian took a fortifying sip of
bhang
. It would not take long to reel him in. She would lead him a merry dance, and then, if she took her time and played him skillfully, breaking his heart into tiny pieces would be a satisfying revenge. She composed her features into what she hoped was a look of lustful forgiveness and took a deep breath so that her breasts heaved briefly against his arm. “Oh, Tom,” she whispered, “don't let's talk about that. There's time for us now, don't you think?”

O
N REACHING THE SANCTUARY OF THE HOTHOUSE, THE
aunts gathered round Alice all talking at once.

“Is it really a letter from Lilian?”

“What does it say?”

“Where is she?”

“Is she well?”

“Is she coming home?”

Alice pulled the crumpled envelope from her pocket.

“Shall I read it, Alice dear?” said Old Mrs. Talbot extending a spindly hand. “I have a lovely reading voice.”

“What else is in there?” said Aunt Lambert, who had been staring hungrily at the envelope. “I can see the corner of something. Is it another letter?”

“I don't know,” said Alice. “I haven't had a chance to look at it properly. Perhaps it's just a crease in the paper.” She inspected the envelope. It was small, the single-sheet letter that had been inside it being folded over and over. But closer examination revealed that the front of it had been stiffened with thin cardboard. A part of this had curled away from the envelope. Alice picked at it with a fingernail, and the corner lifted further. “I think it's a photograph,” she said. “Or a card of some kind. It seems to be stuck.”

“A hidden picture!” breathed Aunt Statham. “Is it a picture of Lilian?”

“Edwin's so preoccupied with his own affairs he must be
neglecting his censoring duties,” muttered Aunt Lambert as the card came away in Alice's fingers.

Old Mrs. Talbot seized the empty envelope and examined it through red-rimmed eyes. “Why is the writing so faded and the paper so wrinkled?” She cried. “Oh my poor dear Lilian! Trapped in a strange and savage land with that maniac John Knox. Why I should not be surprised if it was the poor child's tears which had caused the ink to run so!”

“Surely not!” said Aunt Pendleton, holding a handkerchief to her lips.

“Read the letter!” cried Aunt Statham and Aunt Lambert.

Alice squinted at the photograph. She had taken Lilian's likeness, standing beneath the peach tree with a basket of its fruit at her feet, on the day that she left. Alice's eyes had been so raw with crying that she had been hardly able to see through the lens. Before her, in front of the camera, Lilian too had wept, her tears running down her cheeks and dropping onto the peaches' downy skins. Later on, distraught with loneliness, Alice returned to the place where they had spent those final moments alone. There, in the basket of peaches, she had found a pair of water droplets, caught in a velvet cleft, glinting like tears.

Alice kept that last portrait—an artificial memory fixed by ether and guncotton—in the pocket of her dress. She did not need it to be reminded of Lilian, though she looked at it so often that the card had soon become tattered and worn.

Now, Alice stared hopefully at the sepia image Lilian had sent from India. How she longed to see her sister's face again.

But Lilian was not in the photograph. Instead, it showed a group of men gathered round the body of a tiger. The man in the middle, a tallish, thin fellow, had his boot on the tiger's rib cage, his rifle cocked over his arm. Alice scanned the faces of the figures on either side of him but recognized no one.

“It's a tiger hunt,” she said. “That's all. A group of men holding guns and standing beside a dead beast. I can't think why Lilian
would send such a picture. And why would she bother to conceal it like that if that's all it shows? I don't understand.”

“Perhaps there's an explanation in the letter,” suggested Aunt Lambert.

“But Lilian would know that Father would read it,” reasoned Alice. “If she explained the picture in the letter there would be no point in hiding it.” She peered again at the photograph. It was small, an eighth-plate calotype and, as such, no bigger than a visiting card. The men in it were difficult to distinguish, their faces partly shaded by the
topis
some of them wore. Alice screwed up her eyes and held the photograph close to the end of her nose. The man on the far left of the group seemed familiar to her, but the upper half of his face was shaded by his hat and she could not be sure.

“Let me look, dear,” said Aunt Statham.

“Alice!” screeched Aunt Lambert. “Will you read that letter?”

Alice handed the photograph to Aunt Statham and turned to the disappointingly brief letter that accompanied it. The address had been torn off by her father, but the word “ushpur” was just about visible.

“Where's ‘ushpur?’” said Old Mrs. Talbot. “I thought she was going to Calcutta.”

“It's Kushpur, I presume,” replied Aunt Lambert. “It's up-country. Near Oudh. One of the Company's outposts, I seem to recall. There's a garrison, I believe, but the place is miles from anywhere. There will be few Europeans there, though things may have changed since my time in India. But perhaps it will all become clear when Alice reads the letter.”

“I doubt it,” said Alice grimly. “It's hardly even two sides long.” She held the paper up to the lamplight.

“Dear Alice,”
she read.
“How is it I seem to miss every letter you send? Despite this, all I wish is to be well again after this endless journey. Truly, sister, life can offer no sort of hardship that's as great as banishment
.

“Still, a surprise came yesterday
—
the sudden and unexpected (but
delightful) appearance after lunch of a certain Mr. Ravelston, tiger hunter! The fellow declares that all his beasts are everlasting, as he loves tiger-skin furnishings. How very amusing
—
if I don't acquire cushions you will surely think me remiss! Of course, my most beloved husband says he knows that almost nothing is as I perceive it. Nonetheless, I have offered Ravelston a commission. This simple plan is guaranteed to be of help in furnishing both this house, of course (for us together) and, come the summer, out at Simla. Then again, Alice, we may come up-country soon
—
October perhaps
—
if it is possible
.