The Palace Tiger

Chapter Ten

Joe awoke to a discreet cough at his side and the tinkle of china on a tray being placed on a table at the foot of his bed by a cheerful Govind who made his way to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Joe just managed to find his voice in time to prevent him from drawing back the curtains to let in the full searchlight of an Indian early morning sun. His brain was still in the middle of a double declutch but he felt certain there were aspects of the night he would not wish to have illuminated until he was fully in control of events once more.

He lay low until Govind had disappeared. Where to start? His headache was not as bad as he feared it might be. Even more encouraging — there was no one sleeping on his couch. Or ever had been, to all appearances. All was neat, cushions back in place and surely that was his bathrobe hanging on the door? He sat up and called out softly, dreading to hear a reply: ‘Are you there, Madeleine?’

No reply.

Relief washed over him and for a moment he was tempted to allow himself the delusion that the events of the last evening had never occurred. The discovery of a still-warm place on the other side of his bed, an indented pillow and several golden hairs in that indentation brought an even more unpalatable scenario to mind. He’d drunk too much champagne but surely he would recall the intimacy implied by his finds? He felt about guiltily under the covers for other clues but found nothing more incriminating than a folded square of writing paper.

‘Didn’t Nancy ever complain that you talk in your sleep?’ was the short message.

Almost as a signature the sound of a small aeroplane passed overhead. For a moment he thought it might be Madeleine heading off for Delhi but the plane circled and returned before flying off again towards the Aravalli hills.

There was something he had to check on, he remembered, and, scrambling from his bed, he searched about in the waste paper basket and in all the corners where she might have abandoned an empty champagne bottle. There was only the one he remembered finishing himself. Madeleine had, he calculated, in spite of appearances — the husky gin-fogged voice, the mistimed gestures — actually drunk in his presence about a thimbleful of wine. Her first glass had been spilled on the floor, he remembered, and the bottle was chill and must have been almost full when he arrived.

Madeleine was putting on a pretence of drunkenness. But why would she do that? Protective colouring perhaps? Drunks are never taken seriously. They are disregarded, an embarrassment; people look the other way when they enter a room. People underestimate them. He sighed as he realized that he had been misled into behaving like this towards Madeleine himself. And this had clearly been her intention. Poor little Madeleine, widowed and drowning her grief in a bottle. A common enough solution in India and therefore an easy deception but, if the drunkenness was a deception, what about the grief?

Joe wondered again about Madeleine’s ambivalent attitude to her circumstances. She had loved her husband by all accounts whilst hating his home and family. If something had happened to upset the balance in her life. . But, of course, something had happened. Something of earthshaking proportions for Madeleine. The oldest son had died. At a stroke, Prithvi the gadabout socialite who was quite prepared to spend the larger amount of his time living with princely abandon in Europe or America with his adored young wife was now next in line for the throne of Ranipur. Had he succumbed to pressures put on him in the weeks following his brother’s death, pressures to devote himself to the serious business of ruling, to return to family traditions, take an Indian wife to ensure the succession? How secure had Madeleine’s marriage been latterly?

She had the technical skill and the opportunity to cut just the right number of steel threads to send her husband plummeting to the ground. Had she grown weary after two years of the stifling palace life of a princess — and a despised and disregarded princess at that? She had said something last night that had stayed with him through the mental fog into which he had descended. ‘I’ve got my ticket out of here!’ She was going to persuade the maharaja, by fair means or foul, to allow her to leave and not empty-handed. He wondered what exactly the ‘ticket’ consisted of.

Perhaps her brother Stuart could shed a light on all this? Joe looked at his watch. Six o’clock and he was due to see him at nine. Time to do justice to the pot of coffee and the pile of toast Govind had just brought in. He thought he would leave the lid of the silver chafing dish which undoubtedly contained eggs in some form or another firmly in place. He’d enjoy a cool bath and then a head-clearing walk in the freshest air he would experience that day, heading out to the polo ground perhaps, keeping well clear of the women’s quarters and the town. Half an hour later, he put on the white shirt, the light box cloth trousers and the riding jacket Govind had selected for him, snatched up a topee and set out.

The sun was already beating down fiercely when he walked out of the palace at seven. As he strolled out on to the verandah looking across the undulating polo ground an elegant figure in riding habit mounted on a gleaming black Arab mare spotted him, turned and came on towards him.

Third Her Highness was followed by a syce riding an equally fine horse a few yards behind. The red silk tunic and turban and the black trousers he wore had been carefully chosen, Joe guessed, to complement the white jodhpurs and black jacket of his mistress. Even the white egret pecking his way in their wake across the lawn seemed to involve himself in the frieze they presented. Raising a foot, the bird offered a hieroglyphic profile and stalked forward. Unconsciously, Shubhada echoed its movements, tilting an imperious nose that would have looked impressive on a coin.

‘Commander Sandilands. Good morning,’ she called. ‘I was surprised not to see you exercising earlier.’

‘I overslept, Your Highness,’ he said with a disarming smile. ‘Unused as I am to Rajput hospitality I indulged too recklessly in all the good things the palace has to offer.’

Oh what the hell! If the palace grapevine was all it was cracked up to be she’d probably heard he’d defeated a Russian grand master and slept with a whole boardful of chess pieces.

‘Then I recommend a short canter.’ She turned and spoke to her syce who dismounted and led his horse over to Joe. ‘Shall we?’

Luckily for Joe the horse was well into its morning exercise. He thought he would have had quite a struggle to control the magnificent animal coming straight from the stables.

Shubhada led the way at a canter along the polo field and Joe began to enjoy himself, thankful that he’d remembered to put on the topee against the sun. It occurred to him that he was taking part in a very unusual scene. Maharanees like Shubhada would at any time in the past and, as far as he was aware, in the present, be kept well away from the eyes of any man and yet here she was riding off with him with the ease of any Western girl.

She stopped and dismounted at the far end of the polo field in a shady grove of acacia trees and Joe joined her, hitching their horses to a branch. He was curious to know why she had arranged this time alone with him. He wondered whether she knew the true nature of her husband’s illness. He would have very much liked to know how her own future would be affected by his death. He asked none of his questions. Even in riding clothes she was regal and a Scotland Yard officer knows his place.

She went to sit on a fallen tree trunk and pointed a finger at the other end. Joe sat down and waited.

‘I wonder if you are aware, Commander,’ she said finally, ‘of the seriousness of my husband’s condition?’

Perhaps this interview wasn’t going to be as awkward as he had anticipated.

‘I am, Your Highness, and may I offer you my — ’

‘Yes, you may,’ she interrupted, ‘but when the time comes. You will hear more from his physician, I am sure, but we are thinking that he will not last out the summer. We ought, of course, to have moved him to Switzerland where we would normally spend the hot season but his doctor has advised against it. Udai would not survive the journey apparently. And, naturally, as ruler, he prefers to die where he has lived, here at the heart of his kingdom.’

‘A devastating loss for many people,’ Joe murmured.

‘Far more than you can ever know,’ she said. ‘But the ones who suffer most at these times of change are the ruler’s wives. And, of these, the youngest, childless wife has most to lose.’

He looked at her, taken aback by her sudden frankness.

She smiled. ‘I think you don’t like me very much, Commander. There is no reason why you should. You are a stranger here, you owe me no loyalty or affection but — I’ll tell you something — I’m very glad that you’re here! I was educated in Europe and, believe me, in the small academic and aristocratic worlds in which I moved in London, Paris and Geneva one came to accept the security of a well-policed community. I know you have no jurisdiction here in Ranipur but, by your presence, you remind me that the ordered world in which I grew up is still available to me should I need to retreat to it.’

What was this? A veiled request for another ticket out of the state? In a few gallant phrases, Joe encouraged her to depend on him to do whatever was in his power to ease her burden.

She smiled. ‘Remember you said that, Commander! I shall!’

Emboldened by the new, more approachable persona she was showing him, he dared to ask her how she had come to meet the maharaja.

Her smile broadened. ‘I wish I could tell you it was a romantic meeting. . you know. . his eyes caught mine across the crowded floor of a hunt ball. . I hurried to help him up when he fell from his polo pony. . but no. It was an arranged marriage.’

Sensing she had her audience in the palm of her hand, she continued. ‘My father is himself a raja in a southern state. An enlightened man where gender is concerned. His own mother, my grandmother, ruled the state during her son’s minority with frightening efficiency for many years. .’

She saw Joe’s surprise and added, ‘There are one or two states where the succession is through the female line — Travancore and Cochin, for example, and women have ruled in Bhopal for generations. Indeed, the Tiger Queen of Bhopal came out of purdah the more efficiently to work with her people when the country was in the throes of a dire famine and that not so many years ago. Many ranees followed her example. My father saw no reason not to raise his three daughters — I’m the eldest — out of purdah and with all the advantages available to his sons. We girls learned mathematics, science and languages alongside our brothers. I rode and hunted with them. Indeed, I do believe I was a much better sportsman than any of them.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, dear! I don’t know the feminine of “sportsman”!’

Joe pretended to reflect for a moment. ‘I rather think it’s “sportsman”, Your Highness.’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘So, it wasn’t until I was shipped off to a girls’ academic establishment in Brighton that I learned that girls were considered a different and inferior race. I have never accepted that. More importantly, nor did my father. He had many requests for my hand in marriage and consulted me on each. He was perfectly agreeable to refusing them all as it would have entailed a life of indulged slavery. I would have disappeared into a zenana where I would have led the life of a recluse.’

Joe was stricken by the idea of this beautiful and vital young girl being hidden away for the sole pleasure of one man.

‘By my twenty-first birthday with my younger sisters conventionally married off (to their satisfaction — they were not coerced) my father and I had acquired a reputation for choosiness and the offers began to dry up. Then Pa met an old friend in London. Udai Singh, he remembered, was an easy-going soul, well travelled, clever, and enlightened when it came to the position of women. My father had not until then considered him as a suitable match for me because he was of my father’s generation, comfortably married with two wives already and grown-up heirs. He was not looking for a third wife. But he was introduced to me and,’ she smiled at a memory, ‘that was that. Coup de foudre. On his part at any rate,’ she added bluntly. ‘It was not ideal. I was destined to be more than just a third wife but. . well. . Udai is very rich — and, as you see, he lets me live exactly as I want to live.’

‘You enjoy the best of both worlds, Your Highness,’ he said and dared to add, ‘But how long will it last? Is there anything in the future that could alarm you?’

‘I’ll say!’ she said with unexpected energy. ‘This freedom you see me enjoying is an illusion! When Udai dies and the men are at each other’s throats fighting for their place on the gaddi what do you suppose happens to the widows? We cannot remarry, you know. In the past there was always the funeral pyre as a quick solution to the problem and I’m sure it is an option that First Her Highness would choose if the interfering British still allowed her to do that. They outlawed the practice many years ago.’ She looked at him enquiringly, wondering how far he understood India with its rules written and unwritten, its customs upheld or suppressed according to Western morality. ‘Royal wives tend these days to find themselves under guard — oh, a very discreet guard, of course — when their husbands die. Udai will go alone to his funeral pyre. And rightly so.’

‘But you would say that his wives will be left more than usually forlorn?’ Joe prompted.

‘A wife can only continue to hold on to power and respect for her position if her son inherits and she becomes regent during his minority. And now the sons of the first two wives are both dead, First and Second Her Highnesses might as well both be dead. It was always a sadness for Udai that he had so few sons. Many daughters (expensively married off!) but only two sons survived infancy and, in his own way, each was a disappointment to his father.’

She tapped her boot with the riding crop in some agitation then said, ‘Udai had begun to acknowledge that neither Bishan nor Prithvi was going to please him. I think one of his reasons for marrying me was to renew the chance of filling the royal cradle with a series of strong, acceptable sons. But sadly. .’ She looked away to hide her emotions.

‘And now the two main players have been swept from the board, the palace strong men are jockeying for position?’ Joe said.

She laughed. ‘How you mix your sporting metaphors, Commander! But, yes, you’re right! Udai has many ambitious cousins here at court who would like nothing more than to be named as his heir. He has countless relations out there in the moffussil,’ she waved a deprecating hand in the general direction of the desert beyond, ‘to say nothing of his so able elder brother! So many players! I sometimes think this whole succession problem could be worked out on a chessboard! And never forget that more than one of the strongest pieces are representing the interests of the British Government. Sir George Jardine is definitely a player.’

‘A knight! He’d be a knight!’ said Joe. ‘Two steps forward, one to the side, always going over your head!’

‘Of course! And Sir Claude? Now he prefers to move tangentially, sneaking up on his target crabwise. . he’d be a bishop!’ she said, almost playfully, joining in his game. ‘But all we plodding, powerless pawns can do is keep our heads down and sacrifice ourselves for our royal master,’ she added bitterly.

Joe considered the clever face looking mournfully into the distance and wondered why she was attempting this bluff. Pawn? Plodding? Powerless? No. He was looking at a black queen. The most powerful piece on the board. And this was no nautch girl in spangled tiara pretending for the space of a game to have power. This was a diamond-crowned woman whose power came from within and he had no doubt that when her moment came she would swoop about the board in any direction she chose and weaker pieces would topple. No one would be safe from her gliding attack. Watch out, Claude!

‘Is it at all reassuring to have the Vyvyans at your elbow?’ he asked. ‘They would seem to represent a certain security, a familiar London way of going on. Claude strikes me as being the best the civil service has to offer.’

Did her lip curl slightly as she replied? He thought it did. ‘A true product of Haileybury. He does — what would you say? — everything by the book, and, yes, that, in its way, is reassuring. You always know exactly where you are with Vyvyan. But that can be a problem when you realize that where you are with him is many leagues behind his master, the British Government. Don’t be deceived by his bonhomie, his easy way with the natives, Commander — he’s a dog with one master. He talks with open-minded concern about the well-being of the state of Ranipur and its inhabitants, he makes suggestions for improvements to our lives but he’d cheerfully have us all shot from cannon if His Majesty’s Government gave the command.’

Joe was taken aback by the sarcasm in her tone and turned the conversation. ‘And Lois Vyvyan? Is it a comfort to have available the company of an educated and sophisticated woman?’ Joe asked.

‘Oh, Mrs Vyvyan,’ she replied with a shrug, ‘Lois is as cultured as her pearls!’

Startled by the casually cruel remark and unsure how to respond, he remained silent.

‘Minor aristocracy fallen on hard times,’ she enlarged on her remark. ‘Her father was a military man. . army, I believe. . Sir Alistair Graham. Lois has done well for herself landing Claude Vyvyan. A well-qualified, good-looking chap like him could probably — should probably — have aimed for an heiress of some sort. I don’t imagine that your government pays him much, though his prospects are good. A wealthy wife would have been a great asset to him. I fear Claude made the mistake of marrying too early in his career.’

Joe was amused. Again, the tones of Queen Mary came vividly to mind. She had discussed the domestic arrangements of one of her footmen with just the same tone of proprietorial concern.

‘But you are too good a listener, Commander. I see I shall have to beware or you’ll ensnare me into admitting it was I who stole the Koh-i-nur diamond! We should return to the palace where I understand you have a busy morning of interviews arranged.’

His audience was over. Joe was being dismissed. He rose to his feet and extended a courteous hand to help her up and then brought her horse over to her. She waited for him to put out his hand again to hoist her up into the saddle and with a regal inclination of the head urged her horse into a showy trot heading in the direction of the stables.

‘Now what the hell was all that about?’ Joe wondered.