Rebel Queen (26 page)

Jhalkari wrinkled her nose. “What are you saying?”

“Rumi,” I told her. “We are the merchants now.”

T
hat evening, the twelve of us were told to gather in the common room. We sat around a long wooden table wondering what was going to happen, and when half a dozen waiters appeared with silver trays, Jhalkari and I looked at each other in horror.

“They think we’re going to eat together!” I exclaimed. I rose from my seat to try to find Major Wilkes just as he was coming in the door.

“They think we’re going to eat together,” I told him.

He stared at me and I stared at him, then I realized he didn’t understand. “Women don’t eat in front of men,” I said. “It isn’t done.”

“Ma’am,” he said very politely. “There will be many occasions in England when you’ll be expected to eat together. It’s a custom in England. You could take your food back to your room now,” he suggested. “But I’m afraid there will be times in London when you will either eat with everyone or go hungry.”

“So come and eat,” Arjun said lightly.

But I just couldn’t imagine doing this. Imagine farting on a
stage for everyone to hear; it felt that shocking. Now imagine you’re told you’ll have to do it all the time!

Jhalkari and I returned to the table, slowly, as I translated what Major Wilkes had said.

“So what are they serving you?” the major asked. He’d said before that he couldn’t imagine how vegetarians survived without lamb, or cow, or pig for eating.

The waiters removed the silver lids from the trays and steaming piles of strange foods were revealed.

“Ah! Quiche,” he said, pointing to the tray of yellow and green cakes. “And there’s something you know. Broccoli and carrots. I’m not sure what that is”—he was looking at a soup—“but bon appétit,” he said, which didn’t sound like English.

With that, he left.

There was no bread to eat with, no lentils or chickpeas or anything with protein. We looked at each other and laughed.

“This is what they eat?” one of the men said.

“No, they have meat mostly. They don’t understand vegetarians,” Arjun explained. He started making a plate, then handed it to me.

I flushed.

“Eat,” he said. “No one here cares.”

As everyone was trying out the tiny cakes, Jhalkari whispered to me, “I understand now.”

I looked around the room, but the men were engaged in conversations about ships, as if they had all dined with women and taken multiple sea journeys throughout their lives. “You understand what?”

“Arjun. He’s in love with you.”

I glanced at Arjun and felt suddenly light-headed, though not from the motion of the ship.

“Imagine what the rani will do for us if Queen Victoria restores
her to the throne of Jhansi? She might retire us from the Durga Dal. You would have the freedom to marry.”

“I don’t know. . . .” To find love at court and marry at twenty-one? It was an unbelievable dream.

“Sita, if it can happen for me, it can happen for you.”

“I don’t dare to hope for it,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I was never the one who was meant to marry. My sister—”

“Has been married and her dowry fortune paid. Sita, what if this is
your
chance?”

I felt a lightness inside of me that almost made me dizzy. And though I knew I shouldn’t hope for it, secretly I did.

I
n the mornings Arjun and I started practicing yoga. We sat on our blankets and watched as the sun rose over the ocean, sparkling over the cresting waves. In the afternoons, we read poetry together, and in the evenings, we gathered with the others to read the
Puranas
, our most holy Sanskrit texts. Suddenly, the impossible seemed less so.

It was an enchanted time.

Then, a day before we were set to reach England, Jhalkari came to me with shattering news. I could see from her face that something was wrong. I thought it might be the rocking of the boat, since it made us all sick at least once a day. But she requested that I sit with her in one of the small wooden chairs in our room, and then asked me when I had last spoken with Arjun.

“This morning,” I said. “We practiced yoga.” I couldn’t imagine why her face was making so many contortions, or why it was taking her so long to speak. So finally I said, “Jhalkari, what is it?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “We were just on the deck having a conversation about our futures—what he wanted for his life, what I wanted, what we would do if the queen granted our petition.”

Already a knot was forming in my stomach.

“When I asked him what he saw ahead of him, he said marriage.”

I exhaled. That wasn’t bad news. If the queen granted our petition, the rani would certainly give us her permission to marry.

But Jhalkari’s face was solemn. “Sita, I’m sorry, but when I asked him what sort of girl he might choose, he said one from the city.”

I didn’t understand. “What city?”

“Jhansi. He said, ‘I have my eye on someone from Jhansi.’ ”

It felt as if the breath had been ripped out of me. “He said
from
Jhansi? Jhalkari, are you sure?”

She lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, a sailor shouted, “Land ho!” the way they do in books, and everyone rushed up to the decks to see England for the first time. A heavy fog hung like loose gauze over the shore, but beyond it, rising into the mist, were the tallest cliffs I had ever seen. They were covered in green, trees so tall and thick that they looked like fistfuls of jagged emeralds. We were all silent, trying to imagine what sort of world we would find beyond them.

Arjun came and stood at my side, but I stiffened. “Beautiful,” he said.

When I turned, he was looking me. I lowered my gaze in shame. How could he stare at me like that and want another woman as his wife? It was no one’s fault but my own. I had allowed it, encouraged it even. I held my chin high, but the pain in my chest felt as if it would crush me. “Yes,” I said and walked away.
I joined Major Wilkes on the other side of the ship, and tried to look as if it were wind, not tears, in my eyes.

“December in England,” he said as I joined him. Just as he had in the port of Madras, he inhaled. England had a particular smell for him, the same as Barwa Sagar had for me. I believe this is how it is for all men who serve abroad. Their lives are full of waiting to go home, and after ten, twenty, even thirty years in a foreign country, they never truly feel at peace in their souls. “I have no idea what we’re doing in Jhansi,” he said to me, opening his eyes. “Or why any Englishman would even want to live there. No one wants you to convince our queen to leave India more than I do. Though I’d deny it if anyone said as much.”

I studied the major’s face, and he seemed to be in earnest.

He inhaled again as the ship docked, and I did the same, trying to smell what he did. But my thoughts returned to Arjun. How could he share books with me and practice yoga and then say he hoped to find a bride? I gulped the air, trying to clear my head. The cold wind was heavy with the scents of brine and the sea. It carried with it the sounds of the dock, crowded with merchants, sailors, and travelers disembarking from other ships. It was impossible to know what to look at first. All the carriages with their passengers in pretty bonnets and top hats, or the sailors who hurried to arrange the gangplank?

We stepped off the pier onto solid ground and I kept close to Jhalkari. It wasn’t fair to let Arjun see how much I hurt. He’d never made any declarations of love to me; never once mentioned marriage or how things might have been different. I let the new sights and sounds overwhelm me, and the twelve of us huddled together on the busy pier until Major Wilkes joined us by announcing, “We’ll be taking four carriages to London. It’s going to be a long journey.”

We wrapped ourselves in the fur cloaks the rani had gifted us, then sat four to a carriage. Jhalkari seated herself next to me, and with the soft ermine fur brushing her cheeks, she looked like the rani. We would probably never own such luxury again even if we lived another hundred lives. Across from us, Arjun and Wilkes took their seats. They pressed their backs against the soft velvet of the carriage, and I wondered if all Englishmen traveled this way. Then I thought of Arjun with a young wife from the city and my stomach felt tight again. It was a feeling I would have to learn to live with. He had never made any promises to me. I was the one who had been foolish.

“You’re going to be quite amazed when we reach London,” the major said.

But as the carriages lurched forward, we were already amazed.

The hills of England rolled on forever, dotted by churches and pretty stone villages. The major had closed the windows, but I could still smell the rich scent of burning wood as we traveled along. We passed through several crowded cities, and the noise reminded me of Jhansi. Women walked as freely as men, some even commanding carriages. They rode horses wearing skirts and sitting sideways; they laughed with their mouths open, showing their teeth like hyenas. But most outrageous: they wore dresses that displayed more than half of their bosoms.

“Did Mrs. McEgan explain to you about the queen’s court?” the major asked as we rode.

“Yes.” Unlike the rani, the queen only allowed certain members of society to be presented. Military men, religious men, physicians, lawyers, and any of their wives, were all acceptable. But businessmen, merchants, and their families—however wealthy—were not welcome. Did the Queen of England know that Jhalkari and I
had been born in a village, and that Jhalkari was a Dalit, no less?

“Then I assume you know that once we arrive, the queen will decide when to receive you. It may be today, it may be another day. Until then, enjoy the sights.”

How can I explain to you the excitement of seeing London for the first time? Everywhere we looked, there were women—barefaced, laughing, drinking cups of tea. Even with the bitter wind, their hats towered above them, all lace trim and feathers, like birds wanting to be seen. We passed Hyde Park where handsome couples walked children and tiny dogs. In Jhansi, such a park would be in daily use for weddings. Here, there was not a single wedding celebration to be seen.

“There goes Park Lane,” the major said as we rode. “Those are the most fashionable houses in London.”

A dozen families in Barwa Sagar could live in a house meant for a single family.

“And there is Fortnum and Mason, the grocer to the queen.”

The major had a comment about everything.

Then Arjun’s eyes grew wide and he took in his breath. I saw it at the same time: Buckingham Palace. It sprawled across our entire field of view, a majestic palace surrounded by sweeping gardens.

“I thought you might like to see this before we reached the hotel,” Major Wilkes said.

Everything I’d seen in Jhansi seemed small by comparison. We slowed briefly in front of the gates, and then the coaches took off toward Albemarle Street, where we stopped in front of a towering building with a sign that read
BROWN’S HOTEL
.

“
This
is where we’re staying?”

Wilkes smiled at me. “This is it.”

It was like a palace itself. A dozen men in black coats and white
lapels appeared to take away our luggage. Outside, the air was crisp and smelled of trees. Wilkes said it was the evergreens used to decorate the outside of the hotel.

“Then these garlands aren’t normal?”

“No. They’re for Christmas. Like those holly berries over there.”

Inside, the evergreens gave the reception room a delightful smell. Everything was bright and cheerful. We were shown to our rooms, seven chambers on the same hall, and told that dinner would be served downstairs in the dining room. Everything felt new and large and strange. The British wore shoes indoors, even though our rooms—like all the other rooms—were carpeted, and even the bathroom had a working gas lamp. I desperately wished that Anu and my father could see all of this. They wouldn’t have believed it.

That evening, at a long table trimmed with fresh evergreens and flickering candles, Wilkes told us not to expect any word from the queen for several days. “Think of all the petitioners who want to see her.”