Under the Jeweled Sky (10 page)

“You'll want your father to give you away, though?”

“Why? He abhors England. He's perfectly well settled where he is and I wouldn't dream of dragging him all the way here.”

“Not even for a wedding?”

“Especially not for a wedding. I wouldn't be able to say those vows and look him in the face after what we lived through, and I certainly wouldn't want him to start getting all old-fashioned about marrying his daughter off in style. It would cripple him. We could go and visit him together afterward.” She looked at him. “When we get to India.”

The whole palace seemed to have woken up in a bad mood. This was generally the way things had been going lately; such were the mounting politics of the household. Without the Maharaja's indomitable presence, the palace lost something of its discipline, the various departments picking fights with each other and giving vent to old rivalries. Passions were quickly inflamed and tempers frayed at the slightest tug. It was unsurprising, given the general sense of uncertainty that seeped like a thin mist through the corridors of treasures.

The entire estate had become something of a tinderbox, what with all the trouble going on the length and breadth of the country. Knives were out and there was always some whispering going on in corners, short, staccato arguments igniting out of nowhere. Everyone was at it, from the Maharaja himself right down to the sweepers who attended to the cleaning of the latrines.

Two months after Partition, the monsoon had finally petered out, replaced by long hot days that irritated even the mildest of temperaments. That the Maharaja had gone away again only made things worse. For one thing, they were all supposed to be staying put until things had settled down, if only to keep an eye on their little patch of the new dominion and assert some semblance of authority now that the British had pulled out. After all, a king was still a king, even if only in title, and everyone preferred to turn a blind eye to the small matter of a republic having no need of sovereign rule. This was no time to dwell on such small details, the brief flash of jubilation in August quickly overshadowed by the abominations of violent disorder.

• • •

Perched on the ledge of one of the latticed porticoes that ran the length of the palace's grand facade, Sophie looked out across the immaculate gardens, watching the
malis
tending to the shrubs in the morning sunshine before the heat became too much. Counting how many had been sent out today, she tried as best she could to occupy her mind rather than searching for Jag's familiar figure. Her heart couldn't muster a smile, and everybody seemed so grumpy. Some trouble or other must be going on in the palace, the stress of it being passed down the ranks like a bad penny until it had ended up at their breakfast table this morning. One moment, all was well, as her father tucked into his soft-boiled egg; the next, in came their bearer, insisting that the doctor must abandon his plate and come to the
zenana
at once. Her mother had shot him a hostile glance as he threw his napkin to the table and took up his bag before following the bearer out to the waiting bicycle rickshaw. An entire fleet of them, all painted the Maharaja's particular shade of cornflower blue, pedaled constantly about the palace grounds, delivering people and packages around the estate. The ensuing slam of her mother's teacup was the precise moment that Sophie realized that today was going to be a difficult day. Veronica had emitted a crashing sigh and started up with a string of complaints before pushing her toast aside and marching away from the table under a cloud of indignation, shutting herself in her rooms.

Sophie found herself scouring the distance, trying to decipher every figure, hoping that one of them would walk her way, smiling a familiar greeting. But nobody did, so she sat and waited, her eyes tiring. It had become hard for Jag to slip away; there was so much work to be done. Sometimes he managed only a few minutes when she had waited for over an hour, and she would be left feeling bereft after one fleeting kiss. She longed to see him, to talk to him, to feel his arms around her, unable to tear her mind's eye from that night in the water garden when they had made love under the jeweled sky. It was as though the scales had been lifted from her eyes, the world renewed, and she could think of nothing else.

• • •

Fiona Ripperton's dressing room overlooked the blue courtyard, so called because of the three-tiered fountain that sat at its center, the clover-leaf pool lined with blue tiles, fired in the palace's signature color and decorated with white glazed images of fish and birds. The shallow covering of water in the upper two tiers carried an unhealthy green tinge. The fountain had stopped working a month ago, an invisible crack having opened up somewhere beneath the tiles. The only way to fix it would be to dismantle the whole thing, but it seemed that nobody wanted to take responsibility for doing it, and now the water had become stagnant, attracting clouds of mosquitoes, which meant that Mrs. Ripperton could no longer sit with the window open, much to her irritation. She had asked Mr. Ripperton if he might have a word with whoever it was who was in charge of such things—the Maharaja would be bound to have someone on his staff whose job it was to solely maintain the palace's numerous ponds and fountains—but nothing had been done about it. Mr. Ripperton had told his wife that there were far more pressing issues to attend to, and the division of duties was still unclear after the departure of the Moslem staff who had chosen to leave. Perhaps she should suggest that the fountain be used as a planter instead and filled with flowers, marigolds probably, which seemed to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Mrs. Ripperton inspected her appearance, puffing on a little extra rouge, dabbing a spot of perfume behind each ear, while Sophie sat quietly on the silk chaise, leafing absently through an out-of-date magazine, lost in her own thoughts. Mrs. Ripperton watched her in the mirror. The poor girl had seemed so miserable lately, wandering around looking quite forlorn. Her face appeared drawn, her complexion dulled. Even Dr. Reeves' wife Kay had said that Sophie hadn't been her usual sunny self recently. Mrs. Ripperton had almost exhausted her repertoire of tried and tested ways to cheer the girl up: deliberately making silly mistakes when they played checkers, seeing to it that Sophie could sweep the board with a dramatically triumphant move; flagging down a pair of the blue bicycle rickshaws and bribing the drivers to race the two women through the grounds with the promise of a prize for the winner. Yet it seemed that nothing could shift the cloud that followed her around. Perhaps she was homesick, yearning for this last month or so to be over with quickly so that she could get out of this place and return to England, to a normal life.

Mrs. Ripperton wondered if Sophie knew that her father had been in their apartments yesterday evening, talking to her husband about the possibility of staying on at the palace. Mr. Ripperton had told her to keep it under her hat. Poor Sophie. She would no doubt greet the news very badly indeed. In the meantime, Mrs. Ripperton would do all that she could to see that the time passed as painlessly as possible. She clipped on a pair of earrings and spoke to Sophie's reflection in the mirror.

“Do you want to put on a little lipstick and rouge, dear?”

Sophie shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really,” Sophie said.

“Good for you,” Fiona Ripperton agreed cheerfully. “Why bother gilding the lily?” Sophie smiled at her. Of course she would like to wear a little lipstick now and then, to experiment with powder and rouge and a dark pencil for her eyes, but her mother had forbidden it. She had caught Sophie trying on her lipstick one afternoon when she thought her mother was asleep and had told her that she looked like a tart, then had stood over her while she scrubbed her face with soap and water.

“There.” Mrs. Ripperton stood up. “How do I look?”

Sophie closed the magazine and ran her eyes over Mrs. Ripperton's sturdy figure, draped in the sort of dress that her father referred to as a frock. It wasn't quite her usual attire for an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon. She normally wore something much simpler, without the fussy floral pattern or the unnecessary extra length. She looked a bit odd, Sophie thought, but then again she was getting on a little and had perhaps arrived at that time in life when one dressed to please oneself. Old ladies had a habit of doing that, cobbling together outlandish outfits as though they had rummaged through a child's dressing-up box.

“You look lovely,” Sophie said. “That's a very nice dress.”

“Do you think so?” Fiona Ripperton glanced back at the mirror and reappraised it. “Rip says it gives him quite the headache. Are you ready, my dear?”

“Ready?” Sophie's heart sank. Oh, what now? What did she have to do before everybody realized she just wanted to be left alone? Mrs. Ripperton was starting to drive her around the bend with her incessant shows of well-meaning. It seemed that wherever she turned, there she was, waiting to drag her off to the mission or to challenge her to another interminable game of gin rummy. Admittedly, the rickshaw race had been fun, but she had been deliberately sullen with Mrs. Ripperton afterward and had felt bad when she saw the pained expression on Fiona's face as she got out of the rickshaw and said that she felt sick. She didn't mind sitting in her apartments, though, particularly Mrs. Ripperton's dressing room, where she was allowed to poke through all the lovely things on the dressing table: the jars of perfumed creams, the silver-topped scent bottles. She had magazines too, lots of them, sent from America, filled with pictures of the latest styles and advertisements for all manner of things for the modern woman. Sophie enjoyed browsing through them, deciding what would suit her, making mental lists of the things she would order, if she were able to. She put the magazine down. “Ready for what?”

“I have a most interesting little diversion lined up for us this afternoon.” Mrs. Ripperton lowered her voice conspiratorially. If this outing didn't get a smile out of Sophie once and for all, she would jolly well eat her own hat. Veronica Schofield would no doubt have a blue fit if she found out what they were up to, which made it all the more exciting. “But I was thinking—perhaps it would be best not to mention it to your mother. I don't think she would approve. Let's tell her we spent the afternoon in the library learning about the history of British India and the colonies, shall we? That should do the trick.”

Sophie knew that Mrs. Ripperton was right. Her mother was notoriously disparaging of anything that did not involve the church or the mission. She had never set foot in any part of the palace unconnected with the necessities of her daily life and clearly had no intention of ever doing so, as though the very air within its walls would pollute her upheld beliefs.

“Where are we going?” Sophie asked.

Mrs. Ripperton winked at her. “The prison block.”

Sophie's eyes widened and she wasn't sure if she felt excited or aghast. The prison block, as she had heard some of the wives call it, was considered a heathen place, a place of slavery and shameless goings-on where women were kept behind locked doors for the sole purpose of satisfying the Maharaja's lust. No man, other than immediate family, was permitted to enter, and even then only by special dispensation unless it was the Maharaja himself. Fiona Ripperton never referred to the women's palace as the prison block, and this was the first time Sophie had heard her use the term, although it was clearly delivered with a good pinch of humor and an air of subterfuge. Sophie's mother referred to it as the
harem
, barely able to form the word on her offended lips.

“I sent a note to the First Her Highness,” said Mrs. Ripperton, “asking if she would like to meet you, and of course she said yes. Who wouldn't? So pinch a little color into those pretty cheeks of yours and I'll lend you my string of pearls. You can't possibly turn up completely unadorned. They'll think you a pauper!” She took the pearls from a drawer and fastened them around Sophie's neck. “There. Nothing too fancy. One can't possibly compete with the Maharani and her ladies anyway.”

• • •

Guided along by a silent lady-in-waiting, it was all Sophie could do not to stare open-mouthed at the opulence of the
zenana
. They had passed through a series of antechambers, marking the end of the outside world, separating the women's palace, the architecture changing to a careful construction of windowless spaces with mirrored walls, delicate fretwork panels and shielded openings placed way up high beyond the reach of prying eyes. There were no secret doors here, no hidden panels or telltale lines in the marble. Sophie wondered if the dark passages extended this far into the palace, if she and Jag had passed behind any of these rooms, her hand held tightly in his. Perhaps he was there now, following her silently, listening for her footsteps.

Slow-moving
punkahs
waved regally from the high ceilings and enormous latticed arches, cooling the thin air as it moved through the women's palace, taming the rising heat of the season. Rich perfume filled the rooms, deep notes of sandalwood and tuberose, thin trails of incense lifting from pierced brass ornaments placed intermittently on the floor. Freshly plucked flowers floated in wide stone dishes filled with crystal-clear water, punctuating the way to the First Maharani's apartments, walls of pink marble inlaid with delicate designs of blue lapis lazuli and green agate, paintings hung upon them. Sophie kept her eyes averted, thinking of the painted faces of the men and women entwined together in the pictures gracing the walls of the Maharaja's personal study. She had seen them only once, peering into the panels until she realized the nature of the depictions before turning quickly away, cheeks burning.

Two silk-upholstered seats, balloon-backed mahogany in Victorian style, had been provided for Sophie and Mrs. Ripperton, while the First Maharani lounged on a raised dais covered in fine rugs, propped up on enormous cushions of bright jade green and saffron yellow, surrounded by her colorful retinue of ladies-in-waiting, who sat around her, two of them massaging her hands with perfumed oil, her wrists heavy with golden bangles.

Much to Sophie's surprise, the Maharani's command of English was unshakable. On occasion, there would be a sudden break in the conversation and she would speak to her ladies in dialect, translating any salient or amusing points that had passed. Sometimes they would begin to converse among themselves, pausing to stare at Sophie or at Mrs. Ripperton before chattering on or breaking into gales of laughter.