Chapter 21

Eliza slept badly and woke with her gut churning. But one thing became clear; she couldn't just leave it like that. She ached to see Jay, needed to talk with him again, though how much of this was genuine and how much the attraction of forbidden love she couldn't be sure. She washed and dressed quickly and then with a racing heart and sweating palms went to find him. After repeatedly knocking at the door of his apartment and getting no reply there was really only one place left, and that was his study. She marched back along the main corridor, feeling increasingly that she was making a mistake, but as she approached the study she saw that the door had been left slightly ajar. No going back now! So she gathered her courage and pushed it open, expecting of course to see Jay. Inside the room a startled-looking Dev seemed to have risen hastily from where – judging by the angle of the chair – he'd been sitting at Jay's desk and typing. Eliza took the scene in and assumed he was waiting for Jay, though something about it niggled. 'How did you get in?' she asked. 'The door was unlocked. Jay lets me use his typewriter sometimes.' 'When did you arrive?' she asked, but now noticed that he looked genuinely ill at ease, as if he'd been wrong-footed by her arrival. 'Last night,' he said, with a quick smile, and, recovering his composure, he folded the papers he'd pulled from the typewriter. 'Where's Jay?' 'Who knows? He went off on his motorbike at the crack of dawn.' 'Really? Where to?' Dev shrugged. 'Didn't say. He does this from time to time, usually when he has something on his mind. Or if he's out of sorts. He might have gone to see how the irrigation project is coming on.' 'Well, I'd better get along,' Eliza said, as she took a step back towards the door. 'Lots to do.' 'Are you packing? Jay told me you were leaving.' Eliza paused, not wanting her departure to be a subject of gossip, nor to make it real either. 'Nothing is settled.' 'Look, I have a bike of my own. Rode it here in fact. A bumpier ride than Jay's and no sidecar, but if you're willing to hang on, you could come with me to Jay's palace. See if he's there. Take some photographs of the progress.' 'I'm not sure,' Eliza said, hesitating, not wanting Jay to think she was chasing after him, but then she caught the memory of the scent of a desert morning and an irrational impulse took over – with nothing to lose, she found herself agreeing. 'I'll have to take the heavier Sanderson camera, plates and a tripod. It's cumbersome and harder to use, but it might be best. Will there be room on the bike?' 'We'll strap it on.' A couple of hours later, under a glittering sky, Eliza was clinging on as Dev rode far too fast along the dusty desert tracks and bumped over tussocks of grass amid the many thorn trees. After a mile or two she wrapped her scarf around her head, covering her mouth, and hoped to avoid the clouds of sand and dust. The bike was smaller than Jay's and much noisier, and by the time they arrived at Jay's palace, the sun was directly overhead and every bone in her body had been jolted. The building lay somnolent beneath the haze, silent and seemingly empty. She attempted to smooth down her tousled hair, aware that she must look a fright, and it made her think, once again, that this mightn't have been such a good idea. She wondered at the dull thud of her heart, for her an obvious sign of unease – she had wanted to come and did not regret the impulse, but really, what would Jay think of her turning up like this? 'Is it all right to have come here without asking first?' she asked, trying not to sound pathetic. He just laughed. 'Come on. Let's take a peek at the work in progress.' 'Shouldn't we find Jay first? Let him know?' 'If Jay is here he'll soon realize we've arrived.' They walked round to where Eliza had sat with Jay all those months ago and, almost expecting to see him sitting there, she hardly knew how to cope. Was he really engaged or about to be? It made her feel a little sick that she had let him kiss her, had encouraged it even. She followed Dev through the tangled gardens and then a small orchard, finally arriving at the place where a massive amount of work was already under way. Hundreds and hundreds of yards wide, an oblong pit had been partially dug out, although the rest remained clearly unfinished. Eliza looked at the rock-hard earth and was shocked by the enormity of the task. There was still masses of digging to complete and, soon enough, time would run out. She spotted that building work had been started close by: presumably one of the walls to keep the water from leaking. The pit was empty, of course, but with scant rain the previous two years Jay had to get this first lake finished. 'He'll need to get a move on if the reinforced banks are to be ready,' Dev said. 'Have you been here during a monsoon?' 'When I was a child. I hardly remember.' 'It's wonderful. When the heavens open, there is wild laughter and joy. The end of suffocating heat.' 'And water.' She pointed at Jay's dug-out lake. 'He hopes to dam a small river and build a massive embankment with marble steps down to the water. But I know when that's done there's a much larger lake that he's planning, half a mile wide and half a mile long.' 'But nobody is working now?' Dev said. Eliza shook her head and, with a heavy heart, glanced at the steam-powered shovels lying abandoned. She struggled not to show how much she ached over what must be Jay's bitter disappointment. 'There's been a funding delay,' she said, once she had controlled her distress. 'Just a minor delay?' 'I don't know. Shall we walk round?' As they began to walk around the edge of the newly dug area, Dev appeared to be lost in thought. Eliza didn't mind. She was thinking too, and wondering how it must feel for Jay to see the work lying abandoned like this. She longed to comfort him, but had a hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach when she thought she might bump into him at any turn. 'Is it British funding that has dried up?' Dev eventually said. She nodded. Dev stopped walking. 'So who has been organizing it?' 'Clifford Salter.' Dev snorted and then gazed out at the empty pit. Eliza could feel that he was holding back whatever was going on inside him, perhaps in deference to her, but then the truth hit her. 'You don't like me, do you?' she said. 'With good cause, wouldn't you say?' She raised her brows. He shrugged and they carried on walking. 'The truth is I have nothing against you personally, but the British are no longer welcome. In the twelve years since Amritsar there has been bitter resentment. There are disturbances everywhere now.' 'I know what happened at Amritsar was awful.' He almost seemed to groan aloud. 'Awful? Is that what you call it?' 'What else?' 'The British fired at thousands of Indians during a peaceful demonstration over a deeply unfair law that decreed that no more than five Indians could gather together. When the meeting took place to protest, the British troops opened fire. They left 379 Indians dead and 1,500 wounded. They were sitting targets, trapped within a walled park.' He paused. 'I think that was a little more than awful.' She tried to imagine the terrible scene and felt sick at the loss of so many lives. 'All this in retaliation for the murder of three Europeans and one British woman who had been molested. They ordered Indians to crawl on the ground in the street where the English woman had been attacked.' She looked up at him and saw how fired up he had become. 'Humiliation never goes down well.' He gave a bitter laugh. 'Above all else the British hate the thought of our dark lascivious hands touching the flesh of a white woman. To them it is an abomination.' 'I understand how angry you are, I really do,' she said, but thought of Jay kissing her. 'How could you possibly understand?' She hadn't known what to say and knew it had been a weak response. But she didn't want to be seen as a representative of British domination and had felt compelled to say something. 'Back in the day the Brits would choose the prettiest girls from the villages to use as their whores. Then later the girls were thrown out. The families couldn't take them back after they had been so defiled. What do you think that did to people? So yes, people are resentful.' 'I'm sorry.' 'You think that helps?' Eliza shook her head. 'I think Indira's mother might have been one of those women taken by the Brits and then thrown out when she became pregnant.' 'You think Indi's father was a British man? Is that what everyone thinks?' He shrugged. 'She's paler and we know nothing about her. Indi's grandmother has never spoken about her granddaughter's origins. Shame would do that.' They started to walk along the edge of the pit again and Eliza was glad. She wanted to see Jay but at the same time she didn't want to hear the truth about his engagement. So far there had been no sign of him, but her head was still ringing with Laxmi's words. 'Her mother might have been one of the used and abused. I'd marry Indi myself, but my mother would have a dozen fits at the thought.' 'And your father?' 'Long gone.' 'I'm sorry.' He stared at her and a shadow passed over his face. 'Me too. The Indian relationship with the British has gone through many phases. But now it's time for us to claim our birthright.' 'You believe that?' 'I do, and many of the British do too. Even back in 1920 Montagu said that you couldn't remain in a country where you were not wanted.' 'And what are you personally doing to speed our withdrawal?' 'I'm not active these days. I tried to get Anish to give permission for a protest march but he wasn't keen. Anyway, didn't Jay tell you? I'm all talk.' 'That's not what I heard.' 'And your meaning?' 'Just rumour. You know.' 'I wouldn't be surprised if the British have pulled out of this –' he grimaced as he waved in the direction of the lake – 'by design.' 'Why would they?' 'Has Jay already incurred debts?' She bit her lip but didn't reply. 'That could discredit Jay and cause trouble at the palace. It's no secret they want to get rid of Anish, and if Jay is discredited there'd be good reason for him not to take the throne either.' Eliza thought about what Clifford had said. The British did want to depose Anish, so it was conceivable that financial trouble for Jay and ensuing trouble at the castle could work in their favour. 'So what now?' she said, lifting her upturned palms. 'You tell me.' Jay had not been at his palace after all, and once they had returned to the main castle of Juraipore Eliza decided to slip down to the listening tube on the lowest corridor. She knew Jay had taken to listening in from time to time, but it was awkward for him to be seen down in the bowels of the palace. She'd gone on her own a few times but the room had always remained in silence. Until today, and today something was going on. She heard a deep sigh and then heavy breathing. Then she heard a man's voice. Perhaps Jay had come home, wherever he had been? 'You don't seem happy today. Have you grown bored with me?' There was the murmur of a woman's voice and then it sounded as if something crashed to the ground. The man was cursing and the woman was laughing. Eliza recognized that laugh. 'The door is locked and I have left the key in the lock. Nobody will know.' 'Not in here. I told you, not in here.' 'Don't you want to imagine I'm your adored Prince Jay? I thought it would excite you to be in here.' Eliza realized the man was Chatur, and she was certain he was in there with Indira. She replaced the picture on the wall and ran to Jay's quarters, hoping that he had actually come home. But the castle was huge, and even using the secret passage it was easy to take a wrong turn. It took nearly ten minutes, and when she did arrive there was no one there. She dashed to his study without stopping to consider if her haste was strictly necessary. It hadn't sounded as if Indi was actually in danger, but Eliza couldn't imagine any woman choosing to be alone with a ruthless man like Chatur. The study door was locked, so she thumped hard, hurting her hand in the process. 'Who is in there?' she called out. No reply. She waited for five minutes, and when she spotted Jay coming along the corridor she blinked rapidly and a lump developed in her throat. 'I thought you were leaving,' he said. She shook her head. 'I'm not going.' Then she put a finger to her lips and moved a few paces from the door. 'I overheard Indira with Chatur,' she whispered. 'He was in there trying to have sex with her, I think. Certainly trying to do something.' 'Against her will?' 'It didn't sound like she was trying to stop him. I think she just wanted to go somewhere else.' 'She wouldn't want to be overheard in there.' Jay walked up to the door and turned his key in the lock. He opened the door but they could both see that the room was empty. He went in, followed by Eliza, who was now beginning to wonder if she'd imagined the entire episode. Jay glanced around. When he spoke he kept his voice low. 'Everything seems to be in place.' After taking a few steps behind the desk he bent down, then held up a shard of broken glass. 'My clock had a glass face.' He glanced at his desk. 'It's missing.' Eliza also spoke in a whisper. 'I thought I heard something crash.' 'Dear God, what has she got herself into now? Better come into the corridor,' he said and opened the door. Once out in the corridor he looked around and continued to speak in hushed tones. 'What will you do?' she asked. 'Inform Chatur that I know what's been going on. That should put a stop to it.' 'Can't you get rid of Chatur?' 'I wish. Only Anish can do that.' 'So tell him?' 'He won't take my word for it, and it might only make trouble for Indi. I'll think of something.' 'You are very protective of her.' 'Apart from her ageing grandmother, she is alone in the world.' 'That's all?' 'I'm very fond of Indira, though not in the way you once thought. I blame myself for that. I'd become accustomed to thinking of her as a sister. I've been trying to distance myself a little, but I don't want to hurt her.' Aware that her face was reddening, she turned away. 'Especially now that you're about to be engaged,' she managed to say, despite being blown about by confused emotions: fear, disappointment, embarrassment, but, worst of all, longing. He threw back his head and laughed. 'You, my dear friend, have been listening to my mother. Let's get away from here.' They went to her rooms, where he sat on the small sofa. 'Sit with me, Eliza. I promise I am not engaged, nor do I wish to be. Now tell me that you're really not leaving us? Leaving me?' Her heart somersaulted with relief and she smiled. 'I'm staying.' Even though she knew there could be nothing permanent with Jay, at least he cared that she might be leaving and, as she sat down next to him, she took a very deep breath. He picked up her hand and turned it over, then traced the lines on her palm. 'Can you see my future?' she said. 'Not yet,' he said, 'but maybe soon.' She felt a strange humming in her head and lifted her other hand to smooth the hair from his temples. Watching his beautiful amber eyes, she marvelled at the intensity she saw boring into her. He let her palm go and took hold of her other hand, then he lifted it to his lips and gently kissed her fingertips. She loved it when he touched her, though he had never touched her like this before. The closer he was to her the more alive she felt, the love, the hope and the heat chewing up her mind until she felt empty of fear.