The Satapur Moonstone Read online

  “However, your traveling expenses would be on par with a commissioner’s. All rail travel will be first class, and you’ll be able to stay in rest bungalows for ICS officers as needed. There will either be some horseback riding or palanquin travel.”

  “A palanquin is one of those awful boxes on poles, isn’t it?” She had a dislike of closed-in spaces.

  “Sandringham suggested it. He says that part of the route is not easily negotiated by horses. Local men handle the palanquin, start to finish. And you’ll enjoy the scenery as you travel.”

  She raised a cynical eyebrow.

  “The Sahyadri Mountains are beautiful beyond compare. This month is post-rainy season. It is at least fifteen degrees cooler than Bombay.” He finished with a flourish, reminding her of the hawkers near the Royal Bombay Yacht Club who proclaimed the splendor of the tourist boat ride out to Elephanta Island.

  Gentle rains in the mountains sounded better than the hot winds of early October in Bombay, but she didn’t want to seem too excited. “There’s always a load of contract work at our office. Making twenty rupees sitting at my desk isn’t hard to do in a day’s time.”

  He was silent for a moment and then grunted. “Understood. I’m fairly sure I can persuade them to commit twenty-five rupees per day.”

  This was phenomenal. Keeping a poker face, she said, “Duly noted.”

  Her happy reverie was interrupted when Alice strode onto the veranda, showing no signs of having washed hands or face. “Hallo, Perveen! Here you are!”

  “Sorry. Your father invited me to breakfast. I hope you weren’t worried that I’d vanished.”

  “Not at all. Has he convinced you to take the job yet?”

  “What? You knew about it?” Perveen’s gaze went from her friend to the smug-looking Sir David.

  “Why else do you think we’ve been riding around the ring all week?” Alice yawned. “I’ve been refreshing your skills.”

  “How dare you trick me?” Perveen hooted with laughter. She was relieved and excited, but she didn’t want Alice to keep secrets from her. “You’re a dreadful excuse for a friend.”

  Alice grinned and said, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  2

  A Visitor to Khandala

  Aditya, the official jester attached to Satapur Palace, was feeling sore from a long horseback ride. Satapur Palace was four hills away from the Khandala Railway Station. Because of the thick fog and broken, muddy paths, the journey had taken six hours instead of five. The sun had just risen when he’d set off on a short, sturdy gray mare. People had traveled the narrow path for centuries, so it was easy to see where to go; but the long summer’s rains had left it treacherously slippery. He had been in a constant battle to keep the nervous horse moving forward to reach Khandala Station.

  Now he sat half-hidden in the shadow of the station’s roof. He preferred traveling to trying his jokes on the palace’s people, who had given up laughing years before. He’d had a cup of tea and was smoking his third cheroot. There were no travelers waiting to board, but sticking to the schedule, the train would still stop. He anticipated the people on board would step out and exclaim at the beauty of the tall, silent green hills, the streams of water running down them like silver tears. All this nonsense he’d heard before.

  The horn sounded well before the black steam engine train chugged up to the platform. A young conductor opened the door and jumped out, and a small flood of local boys appeared from out of the trees, quickly tying red scarves around their heads to signify their status as coolies approved by the stationmaster.

  Khandala was most popular in spring, when it was a delightful respite from Bombay’s heat. In rainy season, the hill station became unreachable. The rains were so long and hard that the train, which ran a steep route from Neral Junction, temporarily stopped.

  Aditya watched an elderly man totter out of the train’s general section, followed by two more men and a family.

  The conductor was poised at the steps of the first-class carriage, looking impatient. A boy sprang down, easily balancing a small trunk on his head. From the warm brown leather and geometric golden pattern, Aditya recognized it as Louis Vuitton, a brand favored by both Europeans and wealthy Indians.

  Aditya moved out of the shadows to get a closer look. A dainty foot in a beige leather boot emerged before its owner: an Indian woman swathed in a butter-yellow sari embroidered in blue and gray paisley designs. She wore a white lace-trimmed blouse underneath her silk sari, which made her look like some of the wealthy Parsi women he’d seen at the races and society parties in Poona. Yet instead of a delicate parasol, she carried a brown bridle-leather briefcase.

  He gaped at the briefcase, not quite believing his eyes. It must have belonged to her husband, who was surely coming off the train, too. Her husband would be the P. J. Mistry, Esquire, mentioned in the letters the maharanis had received.

  But nobody else stepped off the train.

  As if feeling his gaze, the woman turned. Impertinent greenish-brown eyes regarded him from above a hooked nose—a Parsi nose; of that he was certain.

  Aditya felt deflated. His body was sore from the long journey, and now the lawyer everyone was worried about hadn’t come.

  The lady turned from him to speak to the coolie who’d unloaded her suitcase. She gave him a coin; although Aditya could not see what it was, he guessed it was more than the usual paisa, because the boy had pressed it to his forehead and was beaming like a fool.

  Idly, he wondered why she was going on holiday by herself. Perhaps she was meeting someone; Khandala was popular with Europeans and wealthy Indians.

  A man dressed in shabby brown clothing came out of the train’s third-class compartment, carrying a sack marked with the symbol of the Imperial Mail. He dropped it on the platform.

  As if on cue, the region’s only postal cart, a small wooden stagecoach driven by two locals, Pratik and his teenaged son, Charan, came up the rough path. Aditya was friendly with them, but he drew back because he didn’t want them to call out to him.

  “You’re late!” The stationmaster rebuked them loud enough for Aditya to hear. “It’s not just letters that are waiting. There is a memsahib.”

  “What is late, and what is early?” was the amiable response of Pratik. Pratik lumbered down from the driver’s seat and took a long stretch before accepting the bundle of mail.

  Aditya was startled to see Charan approach the woman. Aditya could not make out her reply, but Charan began gesturing as if she should follow him. When she reached the postal cart, the boy pulled down the back gate. From his watching place, Aditya could see the woman’s shoulders curling downward as she looked inside. Perhaps she was afraid.

  Aditya soon realized the woman traveler had stooped for reasons of practicality. She placed her right foot on Charan’s hands, which he had clasped together, making a step for her. In the next instant, she’d tumbled into the back of the postal cart, clutching the briefcase to her chest. As she fell, her sari flared, and he glimpsed cinnamon-colored skin over the top of her kidskin boots. This was a titillating sight, something he could exaggerate into an unseemly joke for the palace.

  Charan latched the back of the wagon and went swiftly to the bench seat at the front. Aditya watched as the young man seated himself next to his father and took the sack of mail between his ankles.

  Pratik rapped the horses with one stroke of his whip, and they were off.

  3

  The Agent of Satapur

  “Miss Perveen Mistry?”

  Perveen opened her eyes, and then shut them fast in response to a harsh white light.

  “Welcome to Satapur,” boomed a cheerful English voice. “I hope you aren’t feeling poorly?”

  “No, I’m fine. I must have dozed off,” Perveen said, struggling into a sitting position. How undignified she must have looked—she hadn’t meant to a
rrive this way, especially in front of the Englishman who was presumably the Satapur agent. “I can’t see you with that light in my eyes.”

  The light swung away from her eyes. “Sorry! I’m Colin Sandringham. I’m here to walk you up to the circuit house. That is—if you’re P. J. Mistry, Esquire.”

  She was confused because Sir David had mentioned the man having a disability. “I am indeed. And it was most kind of you to meet me. It must have been a dismal wait in the dark.”

  “Oh, I was on the veranda until ten minutes ago. I saw the lantern and knew it had to be the postal cart. Pratik, how are you?” He said the last bit in English-accented Marathi.

  The postman answered, “Well enough. I also have letters for you.”

  “What time is it?” Perveen wondered how long she’d been sleeping.

  “It’s about six-thirty,” Mr. Sandringham said.

  Perveen stretched her legs down the four feet of space between the cart and the ground. As she touched the earth, she felt the telltale sinking of mud. She bit back the Gujarati curse that came to mind. She was wearing brand-new beige kidskin boots that buttoned up to the ankle, a special pair that her mother, Camellia, and sister-in-law, Gulnaz, had helped her buy a day earlier in Bombay.

  “How practical!” Camellia had enthused. “They cover the whole foot and even the ankle. With all the traveling in the mountains, they will serve you better than sandals.”

  “But you mustn’t wear them in the palace!” Gulnaz warned. “English boots don’t suit saris. The palace’s maharanis will probably wear jeweled slippers. Perveen, you can borrow the ones from my wedding trousseau. I hardly wore them.”

  Perveen wistfully remembered her own bridal trousseau: dozens of fine silk saris, embroidered cashmere shawls, and fancy slippers like the ones Gulnaz had. Four years earlier, Perveen had abandoned the loot in Calcutta, along with her marriage. In her new life as a lawyer, she dressed practically—but she sometimes missed what she’d once owned.

  “I’m not worried about you being in a palace,” Camellia had fretted. “As Pappa said, when stories go around about this job, it could promote the law firm. But I worry about you traveling alone in the wilderness. If something happens, you might never be found!”

  “It won’t be like that,” Perveen had promised. But if her mother had known she’d traveled three hours in the back of a postal cart—treated like luggage, rather than a lady—she’d want Perveen to turn right around and go back to Bombay.

  Perveen stood, stretching. The closed-in cart had been musty with the scent of damp paper. Now she breathed in refreshing cool air. Sir David had been correct about the weather. She wondered about the rest.

  Mr. Sandringham’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Can you see well enough to follow me up to the circuit house?”

  “Yes. I’m glad to stand and move about.” She rotated her ankles, feeling her feet come back to life.

  “Please follow me closely; there are obstacles along the path. We’re a quarter mile away, and we’ll walk near a bluff with a rather steep drop. What did you bring?”

  She knew from experience it was important not to let her Swaine Adeney briefcase out of her hands. “I’ve got two pieces. I can carry my briefcase myself, but I’m afraid the trunk is too heavy.”

  “Charan and Pratik will bring it up—and in thanks I’ll offer them a chance to stay the night. Rain has been coming in fits and starts, and I wasn’t sure if the cart would make it.”

  “Do you typically bring people up by postal cart?” she asked, following along in the wake of the bobbing lantern he held. He leaned toward his right, where she caught sight of a walking stick. So he was lame; that was hardly what she’d call being crippled.

  “I’m afraid tonga carts are only at the station when weather is dry. But the post comes on every train, and it’s met by these two postmen. Hence, we’ve developed a system.”

  “That seems efficient.” She didn’t want to say the ride had been comfortable, because it hadn’t been. But there was no reason to complain. She was still in shock that the Kolhapur Agency had confirmed her to serve as a “lady legal investigator.” They must not have heard she was a supporter of Mohandas Gandhi, the freedom activist who was agitating throughout Bombay against British products. Perveen’s father, Jamshedji, had been worried about Perveen’s attendance at Gandhiji’s most recent public meeting. If the government thought that Mistry Law was aligning itself with political protest, the firm’s property taxes could be raised. It had happened to others.

  But Perveen was thrilled that Gandhiji had spoken to her directly in their shared language, Gujarati. He’d asked if she could encourage more women to join the cause.

  The maharanis she was about to meet were fabulously wealthy. Would she be brave enough to bring up the idea of supporting the freedom movement? Would that be in conflict with her assigned job to recommend a plan for Prince Jiva Rao’s education and to understand the family’s sentiments about the state’s development?

  Absolutely it would be.

  Perveen sighed inwardly and kept her eyes on the dark shape of Mr. Sandringham.

  “When the sun’s shining tomorrow, you’ll see some spectacular views!” he called back to her. “It’s thick jungle, but from Marshall Point, one can see the five surrounding hills.”

  “Yes,” Perveen said, feeling slightly breathless from the uphill climb. She wasn’t used to exerting herself.

  “It’s only a bit farther.”

  Indeed, they’d come up to a stone path lined by torches illuminating the way to a massive house with a steeply pitched roof. A lantern hanging from the porch’s center shone on a dark brown monkey settled inside an eave. The nestled monkey had a fluffy lion’s ruff of golden hair.

  Perveen sighed with pleasure. “I’ve never seen that type of monkey.”

  In the half light, Sandringham smiled. “He’s a lion-tailed macaque. I call him Hanuman, after the monkey god in the Rāmāyana.”

  Perveen had noted earlier he spoke some Marathi, and now it sounded as if he’d read the Hindu epic. “He has a most intelligent face,” she said, keeping her eyes on the monkey, who looked impassively at her. “And he looks so calm. He’s quite different from the gray monkeys one sees in the city.”

  “Those gray monkeys—the rhesus—always look absolutely disgusted with us.” With a snort, he added, “It’s as if they’re pointing out we’ve destroyed their habitat. But there are no paved streets or high buildings here. Hanuman’s family lives in the trees out back, and they have plenty of sources of food.”

  As the two of them came into the warm golden light of the veranda, Perveen saw Mr. Sandringham in full. He was a young civil service officer, perhaps still under thirty, although his wire-rimmed glasses gave him an aura of intellectualism. But he did not wear the typical linen suit that ICS officers like Sir David did. Instead, his lanky frame was clothed in a rumpled white shirt with an ink stain on the chest pocket and wrinkled khaki jodhpurs tucked into riding boots. Sandringham looked like a scholar who’d stumbled into the jungle—and his uses of zoological nomenclature and the Rāmāyana added to that impression.

  She belatedly realized he was also studying her. He blinked behind his glasses and said, “It’s the oddest thing, but you look familiar. Where have we met?”

  There were Parsi families who socialized regularly with the British for the sake of advancement, but the Mistrys weren’t like that. Perveen’s only British friend in India was Alice Hobson-Jones, whom Perveen had met during her Oxford days. “I don’t recall a meeting. Have you worked in Bombay?”

  “No, all my postings have been in the mofussil.”

  “If you’ve been in the countryside, we haven’t met.” She shrugged, wanting to put the matter to rest. She had liked him better in the dark, when he’d been talking about monkeys and the land.

  A thin, silver-haired old man wearing a ho
mespun lungi and vest came out of the bungalow and took the trunk on his head. He turned neatly and practically skipped up the stairs and into the house.

  “Who is that spry gentleman?” Perveen inquired as she went up the few stairs that led to a long, wide veranda covered in red and green encaustic tiles, more practical than wood in such a damp climate. Behind the veranda, the whitewashed circuit house was a long, utilitarian rectangle with a dozen doors facing outward. The windows were covered by heavy shutters—more defense against the rains.

  “Rama. He’s the head bearer, who cooks and does . . . other important things.”

  “He seems very strong for an old man!” Perveen wondered what the other important things he did were. She followed Mr. Sandringham, whose limp was now clearly visible. She wondered if he’d been hurt in the war but decided it was too personal to ask.

  “Your room is on the end here. I’m sure you’ll want time for rest and washing up. But first, let’s go into the office so you can sign the guest book. We maintain records of all who’ve stayed here going back to the 1870s.”

  The high-ceilinged room was lit only by a hurricane lamp burning on the table. There was a series of glass-doored cabinets with books and folios stored within, and a big teak desk with a marble top. Mr. Sandringham ushered her toward the desk and the book lying on it, its leather cover smudged with mildew. He opened it up to a page full of names written in many variations of cursive handwriting, followed by dates, addresses, and short personal messages. The last line showed a visitor with a date in the previous week. He was Graham Andrews, MD: a doctor, most likely in the Indian Medical Service. The names above Dr. Andrews’s were also English. Perhaps she was the first Indian to stay in the circuit house. It was the kind of thing her father would have been proud of, but that made her uneasy.

  Perveen picked up the waiting fountain pen, filled it with ink, and neatly wrote P. J. Mistry and the address of the firm on the line.