Ahead, the sun was rising above the rim of the plain into the dust-laden atmosphere. The Collector was in an expansive mood again: the motion of the open landau, the coolness and beauty of the morning filled him with confidence. He set himself to explain to Fleury about the character of rich natives: their sons were brought up in an effeminate, luxurious manner. Their health was ruined by eating sickly sweetmeats and indulging in other weakening behaviour. Instead of learning to ride and take up manly sports they idled away their time girlishly flying kites. Everything was for show with your rich native … he would travel the countryside with a splendid retinue while at home he lived in a pigsty. But fortunately, young Hari, the Maharajah’s son, had been educated by English tutors and was a different kettle of fish. To this information Harry Dunstaple added gruffly: “You have to be careful thrashing a Hindu, George, because they have very weak chests and you can kill them … Father says it’s a thinness of the pencardium.” Fleury murmured his thanks for this warning, indicating that he would do his best to hold himself back from the more fatal blows … but he privately hoped that the situation would not arise. He was still having difficulty adapting himself to his new “broad-shouldered” character.
In due course they turned off their road on to another track which ran between fields of mustard, shining yellow and green. Ahead of them what looked like a mountain of dried mud shimmered over a scanty jungle of brush and peepul trees; the Collector uttered a grunt of pleasure: evidently the sight of so much mud reminded him of his own “mud walls”. As they got nearer, the mountain of mud transformed itself into high, shabby walls, unevenly battlemented. The track led towards massive wooden gates, bound and studded in iron, set between square towers of mud and plaster. These towers were not solid, Fleury noticed as the landau passed between them, but hollow and three-sided with an open floor of rafters built halfway up. The hollowed-out space seethed with soldiers, some practically naked, others amazingly uniformed like Zouaves with blue tunics and baggy orange trousers and armed to the teeth with daggers and clubs. Many of the more naked of the soldiers were still reclining, however, on the Straw mattresses which covered the floor.
“Rabble,” said Harry with a superior smile. “Our Adjutant, Chambers, says they’re no more use in a fight than the chorus at Covent Garden. Over there is where the so-called Prime Minister lives.” The building indicated by Harry was in the French style with balconies and shuttered windows. It had an abandoned air.
They had passed into an outer courtyard, in the centre of which was a derelict fountain and a plot of grass where a hoopoe dug busily with its long beak. Pieces of wood, old mattresses and broken cartwheels lay around. To the left, between low buildings which might have been stables, stood another archway leading to the Maharajah’s apartments. They proceeded through into the next courtyard and halted by some stone steps to allow the young men to alight. Then the landau turned in a wide circle and bore the two silhouetted heads, one wearing a pith helmet, the other a bonnet, back towards the arches, beneath which they presently vanished.
Fleury and Harry had promptly been surrounded by a swarm of servants in an extravagantly conceived but grimy livery; in the midst of this chattering throng they made their way along a stifling corridor, up another flight of steps and out on to a long stone verandah, where they at last felt a faint, refreshing breeze on their faces. Beside elaborately carved doors a guard in Zouave uniform dozed with his cheek against the shaft of a spear. Their host awaited them within, the servants explained, and they found themselves pushed forward in a gale of muffled giggles.
The room they were thus urged into proved to be a delightful place, with an atmosphere of coolness, light and space; three of its walls were of blood-coloured glass alternating with mirrors and arranged in flower-shaped wooden frames; outside, green louvred shutters deflected the sunlight. Chandeliers of Bohemian glass hung in a line across the middle of the room with himalayas of crystal climbing between the lipped candleglasses. Along the fourth wall, which was solid rather than of glass, ran primitive portraits of several past maharajahs. These faces stared down at the two young Englishmen with arrogance and contempt … though really it was just one face, Fleury noticed, as he passed along, repeated again and again with varying skill and in varying head-dresses, composed of coalblack eyes which seemed to be all pupil, and fat, pale cheeks garnished with a wispy black beard and mustache.
Near a fireplace of marble inlaid with garnets, lapis lazuli and agate, the Maharajah’s son sat on a chair constructed entirely of antlers, eating a boiled egg and reading Blackwood’s Magazine. Beside the chair a large cushion on the floor still bore the impression of where he had been sitting a moment earlier; he preferred squatting on the floor to the discomfort of chairs but feared that his English visitors might regard this as backward.
“Hello there, Lieutenant Dunstaple,” he exclaimed, springing to his feet and striding forward to greet them, “I see you’ve been kind enough to bring Mr Fleury along… How splendid! How kind!” And he continued to give the impression of striding forward by a simulated movement which, however, only carried him a matter of inches towards his visitors and was a compromise between his welcoming nature, which urged him to advance and shake people warmly by the hand, and his status as the Maharajah’s heir, which obliged him to stand his ground and be approached. This mimed movement in the presence of inferiors entitled to some respect, which included all the British in India, had developed swiftly in the course of social contact with Europeans so that by now it had become not only quite unconscious, but also so perfect as utterly to destroy perspective. The result was that Fleury found himself having to advance a good deal further than he expected and arrived at his host somewhat off balance, his last few steps a succession of afterthoughts.
“Why did my dear friend Mr Hopkin not call to see me? I am hurt. You must tell him so. It’s most very unkind of him. How’s your wrist, Dunstaple ?”
“A little better thank you,” Harry said, rather stiffly, as they crossed a rich, dusty carpet scattered here and there with ragged tiger skins. Nearer at hand Fleury was startled to see that the face of their host exactly resembled that of the score of portraits on the wall; the same fat, pale cheeks and glittering black eyes surmounted a plump body clad, not in Mogul robes, but in an ill-cut frock coat. He had been watching Fleury intently and now, seeing that he was about to open his mouth, broke in hastily: “No, please don’t call me ‘Highness’ or any of that nonsense. We don’t stand on ceremony in this day and age … Leave that sort of thing to Father … Just call me Hari … There are two Haris, eh? Well, never mind. How delightful. What a pleasure!”
Fleury said: “I hope we haven’t interrupted your breakfast, but I fear that we have.”
“Not in the least, old fellow. A boiled egg and Blackwood’s is the best way to begin the day. Now, come and sit down. I say, are you alright, Dunstaple?” For Harry, stepping forward, had given a rather odd lurch and had almost plunged on to one of the ragged tiger skins. His face, now they came to look at it, was as white as milk, though given a superficial tinge of colour by the bloodstained glass of the windows.
“It’s nothing. It’s just the heat. I shall be alright in a moment. Damned silly!”
“Correct!” cried Hari. “It’s nothing. You’ll be alright in twinkling. Come and sit down while I get the bearer to bring refreshment. Where is he the wretched fellow?” And he hurried to the door shouting.