Jane Steele(81)

Volume Three





TWENTY-THREE



Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it.


I did not awaken for many hours, though neither did I sleep; my consciousness thinned into a filmy half-awareness, and when I did feel the slow burn of sunlight drifting across my face, I heard a chair creak.

“Jane?”

“Is there water?”

“Of course.”

Mr. Thornfield seemed never to have quit the room. Thirst quenched after the glass had been held to my lips, I discovered I was not as hurt as I had supposed. Yes, I had killed a man in front of two respected friends; yes, I had then acted like an abominable weakling; but, no, my cranium had not cracked, only torn, and I found myself staring glassy-eyed at a haggard Mr. Thornfield.

It would do him discredit to pretend he was unmoved, but I hesitate to set down how distressed he was in fact, his countenance as pale as if he were the one who had been strangled.

“I thought when I saw you with that pepperbox* against your throat . . .” He made an abortive movement. “Jane, I hardly know how to speak to you.”

“As the governess would suit.” I sighed, shifting my knees.

“No, it bloody well would not. As the woman I acted a cad towards in the morgue downstairs, or the woman who saved my skin last night?”

“Please don’t, sir. You never acted a cad, and I never saved you.”

“You saved me sure as God saved Isaac.”

My mind could not seem to light upon important subjects, only trivial ones. “How do you know that story?”

“Sardar could write a book entitled A Thousand and One Useless Meditations. He knows all when it comes to retribution and forgiveness.”

“Not all, or he’d have taught us both to stop hating ourselves. Who was it I killed?”

“Jane, I am hesitant to—”

“Don’t I deserve to know? Sahjara and I both were at risk, and had you not arrived when you did . . .”

His flinch told me he knew I was right, but he took his time: pouring a pair of neat Scotches, passing me one.

“I am all attention, sir.”

Mr. Thornfield’s chest gave a small heave, and then he abruptly drew his hand over his mouth and sat down close beside me on the divan.

“Where should I begin?”

“Try the beginning.”

“What was the beginning? The wars were years in coming,” he said softly. “Believe me or don’t, or ask Sardar, but it didn’t even occur to the British to conquer the Punjab until the Sikh ruling class started dangling it in their faces as if they were cunchunees.* It was too well fortified, y’see. The Khalsa army was the best in the world, and they wanted to march—on Delhi, on London. Geography was never their top marks, bless ’em, but so long as they stayed in the Punjab, they were unbeatable.”

“Yet they were still beaten.” I sipped the amber liquid. “Mr. Singh called the Company rapists, and the Sikh royalty their pimps.”

Mr. Thornfield nodded as his knuckles met his lips. “I can still see the Khalsa parading on the doab* when I was thirteen: a hundred thousand strong marching in such perfect order a Geneva watch would have dashed itself to pieces forthwith. Sapphire turbans, red feathers thrusting from round steel helms, emerald jackets and scarlet jackets and indigo jackets, every jab of the light infantry’s bayonets into the sandbags precise enough to kill a gnat. If you’ve never seen dozens of war elephants draped in crimson, there ain’t a way to describe what happens to your stomach. As for the horses—if you watched their white chargers at parade exercise, you could almost grasp why ‘He made intuition his horse, and chastity his saddle’ is in the Guru.”

“How could the monarchy have wanted to throw away its own empire?”

“They didn’t want to throw away their empire, that would have been ridiculous,” he drawled. “They wanted to keep it—keep the palaces and the stuffed coffers and the all-night debauches with man, woman, and donkey—and throw away their army. You build a fighting force that strong, what do you suppose they’re keen to do after breakfast and a spot of coffee?”

“Fight,” I realised.

He nodded, staring at his sleeve. “When the royals figured out they’d created an uncontrollable army, they got the trots, and arranged for John Bull to slaughter ’em.”

“You cannot mean that is truly what happened?” I exclaimed, horrified.

“I can, I was there. Anyhow. There were too many ghastly betrayals to recount, and when the Director of the Company understood that the area was about as stable as a rocking horse, years before the fighting started, he began to send . . . emissaries.”

“Spies,” I supplied.

“Oh, Jane,” he said warmly, and for a spear-flash moment, he was here with me and not long ago and far away. “Spies, yes. The Company soldiers always rather despised the politicals because the latter gorged over greasy state dinners and the former got shot full of holes, but some of these were good eggs.”

“John Clements,” I suggested, remembering the half story I had been told regarding the funeral.

“Aye, save he’d the brains of a fly whisk. In any event, Lahore grew a bit thicker with white men, though never so’s you’d notice unless you were British yourself.” The smile he attempted fell yards short of the mark. “I noticed, though, and my mother and father—didn’t they fleece the sheep. ‘Oh, have you seen the Pearl Mosque yet?’ and then, ‘If a pipe’s in your line, guv’ner, won’t you share one with me?’ and before long they were rooking the lot. One of these Company interlopers was, as you know, a consummate worm by the name of Augustus Sack. Sack’s assistant was John Clements, and the third player in this happy pantomime . . .”