The Satapur Moonstone Page 22

  “His English is the first point, not something that should be mentioned at the end.” Mirabai’s voice shook with emotion. “How can he study here and speak like an Englishman? And you went abroad for your education. Why do you recommend him staying in India?”

  The dowager maharani cut into the conversation. “India is best, but he should not study away from home. Basu teaches him everything that is necessary.”

  “I noted in my report that Basu-sahib can’t make the maharaja sit down and study,” Perveen said, afraid the conversation was going to be an endless circle of the queens’ restated desires. “And Basu-sahib doesn’t really have time for tutoring when he’s also performing the duties of a palace officer.”

  The dowager muttered, “Perhaps a new teacher could be brought—”

  “No!” Mirabai protested. “She said he needs to meet others who will become his friends and assist his interests later on.”

  At least Mirabai approved of some part of Perveen’s plan.

  “What good is that if he leaves Satapur and dies? You saw what happened to your beloved husband and your older son when they left these walls,” Maharani Putlabai said darkly.

  “We can pray for the maharaja’s safety, but we can never know what might happen. He could die within these walls, too.” Perveen paused, because she was going to ask for something that wasn’t in the original Agency plan. But she was the guardian; she had to do it. “Because of this, I would respectfully like to ask permission to take him with me to the circuit house until the school admission is arranged.”

  Mirabai exhaled. “I want him to travel away from here properly. Not with you in a dirty palanquin. He must go in a royal procession. Otherwise the people will be worried.”

  “What are you saying? I tell you, he is safe here!” thundered the rajmata. “You have no reason to steal him.”

  Perveen needed to speak the truth if the rajmata was to understand. Taking a deep breath, she said, “There may have been poison in a dish prepared expressly for me this morning. I did not eat it, but I believe that Bandar could have gotten into it. And that is why he is gone.”

  Putlabai glared at her. “If you believe this, why didn’t you tell my son? His Highness only said you were weak and worried.”

  There was a murmur and rustling in the back; the noblewomen were discussing this. Perveen felt anxious, knowing that the buffoon was outside the door. Would he guess that she’d allowed Bandar to eat the food?

  “Who do you think poisoned your food?” Mirabai demanded.

  Perveen spoke evenly. “We cannot know for certain whether it was tampered with. But I suspect such an act might have been undertaken by a person who didn’t want me to write the educational recommendation.”

  The maharani looked intently at her, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. “So someone wished to kill you. Yes, it sounds like a matter of poison.”

  Perveen did not feel reassured by the choti-rani’s sympathy. She might be trying to manipulate the situation, to steer Perveen toward declaring her mother-in-law the culprit.

  Trying not to look distrusting, Perveen pulled up the sides of her mouth into a half smile. “Now, I have listened to both of Your Highnesses. I understand from you that my recommendation is not what either of you had envisioned; however, I hope that you take some time to reconsider it. An important aspect of this plan is that the maharaja can grow up with continued love and guidance from both of you and return home on holidays. And there are good boarding schools with British faculty in Panchgani, which is relatively close. Have you heard of St. Peter’s School?”

  “But the only English who go to boarding schools in India are the children of shopkeepers and missionaries,” Mirabai hissed. “He is not part of that class.”

  Perveen had been starting to build a respect for the younger maharani, but she had no patience for Mirabai’s prejudice. “The British have built several small boarding schools expressly for Indian princes, but they have not been well regarded. I believe that if the school we choose has the right kind of environment, the prince will feel comfortable. And having boys around him on playing fields and in classes will make him more excited to study.”

  “Your plan pleases nobody.” The dowager maharani shifted in her seat and began coughing again.

  “You speak of asking many people—but why didn’t you ask my son?” Mirabai demanded.

  “Yes. He will surely wish to stay!” Putlabai snapped.

  “We did speak together. He told me he doesn’t want to go away,” Perveen said. “But he has not been anywhere except his uncle’s home, and that was years ago. I have confidence he will be very excited by the company and activities at a well-run school inside India.”

  “If he comes back for holidays here, he could die. Either along the way or inside these palace walls.” Mirabai looked imploringly at her. “Please send him to England.”

  Perveen felt a heaviness in her heart as she realized that not a single person in the palace would be supportive of her recommendation. “I am so sorry. I have been ordered to make the decision that I believe is best for the prince’s emotional and mental well-being. And the first school he attends is just the start of his formal education. He might go to England later.”

  “Never!” thundered Maharani Putlabai.

  Perveen had one last card in her deck. “Please think about this for a few days. If you still disagree, you can write to the Kolhapur Agency. A legal hearing will occur where you can plead your case.”

  “Plead?” the dowager maharani repeated incredulously. “Did you forget to whom you’re speaking? A queen does not plead for anything.”

  “‘Plead’ is not a term of disrespect, but a legal term. It means to argue for yourself. Often, people who do so employ a lawyer.”

  “And I don’t suppose you can recommend one?” Mirabai huffed.

  “You can ask Mr. Basu or Prince Swaroop for advice. It would be a conflict of interest for me to give you a name. But I must inform you that I am the only lady lawyer working within a thousand miles. It will have to be a man.”

  Mirabai put her hands to her head as if it hurt. “You know that we don’t speak to men except for a few who work in this household or are our relatives. You were sent here to help us because you were female, and you did not!”

  Perveen’s heart was pounding hard as she realized she’d have to refuse them in a world where nobody ever did. “It pains me that I could not find a solution that pleased both of you. But my task is to consider the prince’s need to grow into a wise and compassionate young man.”

  “Give me the papers you read from,” Mirabai commanded. “Both of them, English and Marathi.”

  Perveen went forward and handed them to her. Ganesan raised his long nose to sniff at the papers, as if he found them suspicious.

  “It is all lies!” Putlabai said, looking at her daughter-in-law, who was intently reading.

  Mirabai raised her head and regarded the rajmata. Perveen remembered an expression she’d read in a cheap English novel. If looks could kill. That was the manner in which the younger queen was regarding her elder.

  Perveen tried to still her inner discord without success. Shakily, she said, “I understand your feelings and will tell the government it may expect a rebuttal from you in writing.”

  “Enough of this useless chatter! I let you in because I trusted you,” said Putlabai. “You disgust me with your behavior. Go!”

  Perveen felt chastised, but she knew things would have been much worse if the dowager had denied her exit. It felt unsettling to be leaving Prince Jiva Rao behind. She’d proven a very poor guardian, indeed.

  As she walked out, she heard a whimpering sound. It was the dog, Ganesan.

  Was he upset with her, too?

  18

  Westward Ho!

  The circuit house lay to the west, which made Perveen’s depart
ure a race against the sunset. Would the men walk fast enough to reach the destination before they were trapped in darkness? She remembered how many unexpected bluffs there had been along the route, and she prayed the palanquin would not break again. Its failure on two previous trips was not a good omen.

  Before she’d climbed into the litter, she’d said her goodbyes to Aditya, who had handed her back the briefcase Maharani Putlabai had ordered him to take out of the zenana. Looking sadly at Perveen, he’d said, “Thank you for caring about Bandar. And it’s too bad they did not listen to your ideas.”

  Perveen was grateful for his kindness. She told him, “Perhaps time will allow them to think more.”

  The buffoon’s shoulders had sagged, and his face had looked ravaged. He’d appeared entirely different from the sly, joking man of the previous day. In a low voice, he’d said, “I heard you say you think Bandar was poisoned.”

  “It is a possibility. I’ve no idea who the poisoner could be,” she’d hastily added, remembering the knife he carried. She did not want him trying to administer justice.

  “Go soon, before the maharanis tell the guards not to allow it,” he had said in a low voice.

  So she’d gone straight out—without looking for the children to say goodbye and pushing down her feelings of unease.

  It had been a relief that her luggage was already loaded inside the palanquin. But before she climbed inside, she’d asked Lakshman to show her the repairs. Both carrying poles had been changed to heavy pieces of blackwood.

  “It’s heavier than bamboo, so it shall not break. But it takes more effort to carry.” His mouth had pulled down in a weary frown.

  Those words seemed to hint at trouble. “I do hope you had enough rest,” Perveen said.

  “We who walked with you were taken care of these last days. But the men who came this morning had little rest and meager food.”

  Chitra had said the food had been from a kitchen just for servants. “What kind of food did they receive?”

  “Some rotis and dal. Then someone else brought pohe—”

  “No!” she cried aloud. Realizing there were palace guards nearby, she blushed.

  “I told them not to eat it. It was not freshly made, and I wished the men not to fall ill before walking again.”

  Thank God. All she could do was smile at him, grateful for his shrewd thinking. But why someone would poison these men—who were no risk to anyone—was beyond her.

  Except for the fact that if they fell ill, she would not make it back to the circuit house.

  She climbed into the litter and pulled the curtains closed so she would not be seen by the dowager, who was surely at the window with binoculars. In her mind, Perveen apologized to Mirabai. And then, without realizing she was doing it, she reached inside the waist of her sari and found her kusti. Perveen moved her fingers along the sacred cord and began a private prayer for both the prince and princess.

  The men lowered the palanquin just a half hour into the journey. She could hear them grumbling, and she felt a rush of irritation. Weren’t they concerned about the timeliness of the journey the way she was? Or had they lowered the palanquin because it was close to breaking again?

  Lakshman came around to the window to speak to her. “The men are too hungry. They must eat.”

  Hungry men would not be strong, and she herself felt famished. “I understand. Where’s the nearest village?”

  “No village,” he said, his hands moving to fix the pleats in his lungi. “But just ahead is the old hunting lodge. It is where the royals used to hunt, before the tragedies. That is where we got the wood to fix the palanquin. The people did this work and must be paid.”

  So this was the real reason for the stop. But it raised another question in Perveen’s mind. “Why didn’t we pass this hunting lodge when we traveled to the palace?”

  “We came near it. Remember, you noticed the hunting tower. The way toward it often floods.” He made a diagonal gesture with his hands, indicating a slope. “That is why we go on the longer path to avoid it during rainy season.”

  “Very well.” An idea was forming in her mind. “I don’t mind stopping there.”

  The men shifted their duties, the ones who’d been carrying her giving their spots to the ones who’d flanked the palanquin. It seemed the palanquin was moving faster after the decision to go for food.

  Thirty minutes later, they had arrived. The hunting lodge was an extraordinary place, a timbered building that reminded her of some grand homes she’d seen in the English countryside, yet with Indian detailing: arched windows and a heavy brass door. The stucco was peeling and showing signs of disrepair, and the grounds had been planted with vegetables that she guessed fed the lodge’s staff, now that royalty no longer came to hunt. As the palanquin approached, a half-dozen children dressed in a strange assortment of rags and aged palace uniforms ran out of the lodge, followed more slowly by a few men.

  The palanquin was set down more gently than in the past, and Perveen emerged, wrapping her cashmere shawl over her shoulders before taking the brass cup of chai offered to her. The tea was hot but not sweet enough. She almost asked for sugar but then realized they probably had none. This place was far from any village, and if these people lived at an abandoned lodge, there was no employer who could make it possible for them to buy such a luxury.

  A sturdy man in rough peasant clothing was making millet rotis—millet, the grain that comprised part of the emblem of the royal household. She drank her tea and took the roti that was given to her first, a mark of respect. The bearers were served next and ate hungrily.

  After finishing her roti, she inquired about paying for the palanquin’s repair. An old man wearing a faded blue palace uniform quoted a price of six annas—much less than she’d expected.

  “Blackwood is a very fine wood,” Perveen said after giving him the coins. “If you have a grove of such trees, you could sell the lumber to carpenters.”

  “Blackwood doesn’t grow here,” the elderly man said, peering at her through eyes watery with cataracts. “It came from a broken carriage that was left behind a year ago.”

  “May I come inside the lodge?” Perveen asked.

  The group of men frowned and began muttering to Lakshman. He stepped forward and spoke in a low voice. “Baburam says no. It is their own place now, not for looking.”

  “I won’t report about what they’ve done with furniture and all that. It isn’t my concern. I just want to see where Pratap Rao was brought—after the tragedy.” She looked entreatingly at the aged Baburam, who hesitated and then nodded.

  All the windows were open to fresh air, but their ornate iron grates were dappled with a mixture of spiderwebs, dust, and dead-insect debris. Long gray cobwebs hung from large old chandeliers and the tops of the ornate moldings running along the ceiling.

  Except for a long mahogany table, most of the lodge’s furniture was gone. The stucco walls had empty, pale spaces where pictures had been removed. However, a tall portrait of a previous viceroy of India, Lord Chemsford, remained. A black line zigzagged over his long nose and down to the bottom of the portrait.

  Was this a sign of wear or a subtle piece of political commentary?

  Perveen turned from the dour English portrait to Baburam. Quietly, she asked, “Were you present the day of that hunting trip when the prince was killed?”

  Baburam nodded. “I have been here for fifty-two years. I was there then, as I am now. Keeping things safe.”

  Perveen reached into the purse she kept tied around her waist, just below her sari’s pallu. She pulled out two annas and put them in his palm. “There must have been a lot of rushing around the night before with the search party. Do you recall that?”

  Taking the coins and putting them in a pouch at his waist, he nodded. “We all searched. Prince Swaroop called for us to go out carrying torches. But we didn’t find him
that night. It was the next day.”

  “Who found him?”

  “The prince. He carried the boy in with his own arms. He was weeping as if his son had died.”

  “And what else happened?”

  “He told the engineer to ride off to fetch the foreign doctor. As if the foreign doctor could bring life to him!” He shook his head.

  “The engineer?” Perveen repeated his words, feeling a shock course through her. “What was his name?”

  “He did not say. He was a dark Anglo-Indian.”

  Perveen mulled over the fact that Roderick Ames was friendly with the Satapur royals and had never said a word about it at the circuit house dinner. Or maybe the situation was different; he could have been riding by and volunteered to help.

  “Had you seen this engineer before with Prince Swaroop?”

  Baburam shook his head.

  “Who else was on the hunt?” Perveen asked.

  “Prince Swaroop led it; also the buffoon was there, and six grooms and four beaters.”

  “Beaters?” Perveen repeated the unfamiliar word he had said in English.

  “These men chase the wild animals out of hiding.”

  Perveen felt sorry for the animals, but she needed to keep her focus on the people. It sounded as if there had been many men who might have had a chance to kill the prince—and also to find him. “Why would Prince Swaroop ask the engineer to fetch the doctor?”

  “I was not there, so I cannot say. But a British doctor is always required to declare cause of death for a maharaja,” Baburam told her. “He did not come until the next day, delaying the religious rites for the prince. And that brought misfortune. It is why the family still grieves.”

  Dr. Andrews might have been involved in a surgery or treating patients and been unable to leave immediately. But this delay was probably a chief reason both maharanis disliked him. She suspected that the physician had warned her not to ask questions because he didn’t want her to get an alternate view of his performance. What might he have missed? “I would be grateful to see the room where the maharaja was placed.”