Eliza looked at the blue flowers, leaves and filigree scrolls picked out in gold, rising up the walls and trailing across the ceiling.
‘She is amazingly talented.’
Laxmi came out at that moment and held out a hand to Eliza. ‘I’m pleased to see you. My son has been telling me about your trip.’
Unsure which bit of the trip she was referring to, and listening to the unsteady rhythm of her own heart, Eliza nodded.
Once within the inner principal reception room she saw that it was beautiful. Like a gleaming mirrored palace orsheesh mahal, all the walls were adorned with inlaid coloured glass mosaic, with winged angels painted on the ceiling and gilded plasterwork. She gazed in amazement. It was like nothing she’d ever seen, and the floor was piled high with silk cushions, though Laxmi indicated that they were to sit on chairs. Eliza perched on the edge of a red velvet upright affair, while Jay sprawled on a chaise longue.
‘I understand you have an idea about irrigation,’ Laxmi said.
‘It was just a thought.’
‘And a good one, though my eldest son, Anish, might not agree, but since Jayant spoke to me about it this morning I have thought of little else. It seems to me that if we are to keep the people on our side we have to make their lives easier; if not, the British, or the rebels, will easily persuade them to turn against us. As you know, it is already happening in some parts of the state, and this kind of unrest can only increase. I fear for our kingdom and I have been waiting for Anish to take action but, as he has not, I feel I must take matters into my own hands. So now I have come up with a plan and wish to unburden myself.’
Jay raised his brows. ‘Prepare to be shocked.’
‘My idea is this. We have considerable family jewels in our vaults. If we are able to obtain a promise of British funding, I would happily cover the initial costs of an engineer to develop a plan for the project.’
‘We should be honest, Mother.’
Prompted by Jay, Laxmi shrugged. ‘Very well.’
‘Eliza, my mother’s idea is that once the engineer had worked up a plan, we would mortgage some of the family jewels on the understanding that the British loans will materialize at a later date.’
‘But this would have to remain between the three of us,’ Laxmi added. ‘My elder son can know nothing of the mortgage. Jayant assures me we can rely on your discretion.’
‘Of course.’ Eliza thought for a moment. ‘You’ll need to know that the project will be approved and that there will be money available before you begin.’
‘Exactly, and that’s where you come in. If you are able to discuss the project with your Mr Salter and persuade him to organize the rubber-stamping of the necessary permissions, that would go a long way towards securing those loans. He might even help with finding the financiers who will back the project.’
Eliza hadn’t expected Jay to take her off-the-cuff remarks so seriously, but felt delighted that he had. ‘I don’t know how much influence I have, but I’ll try.’
They discussed the idea for another half hour and then, when Jay left for a polo match, Eliza got to her feet.
‘Stay, Eliza. Now that you’ve got to know us a little, are there questions you need answering?’ Laxmi asked, indicating that Eliza should sit again. ‘Is there anything you’d like to know?’
Eliza was pleased. What had happened had left her feeling anxious about her own safety at the castle, but at the same time she couldn’t rid herself of the thought that she needed to know more if she was ever to feel at home here.
‘I’d like to understand more about your culture,’ she said, though at the back of her mind the image of the flaming funeral pyre would not fade.
‘The castle culture? Or the strict etiquette that governs our relationships?’
Eliza thought about it and decided to say nothing about thesati. ‘Well, both, but I meant the rituals, the prayers. The gods. What are they for? There seem to be so many.’
‘We are a custom-bound society, but ourpujasor prayers give us meaning in what might otherwise be a meaningless world. We are Hindus. It is not a religion, though some people think it is. It is what we are born to, a way of life.’
‘But if these gods don’t really exist?’
‘What is real is a matter of interpretation. They exist in our minds and hearts. That’s where they matter. They give us the structure within which we live our lives. Not all of it is good, but we know where we are. We know our place in the world. Can you say the same?’
Eliza thought of the villages, where narrow dusty lanes twisted and turned with just a drainage channel dug out daily along the middle of the street. Despite the poverty she’d loved the baked clay houses, the sleeping cows and dogs and the tiny black-eyed children who’d watched as she’d wandered. She’d admired the incredibly graceful women: tall, straight-backed, heads and faces covered in the lightest muslin shawls. They were all as far from England as they could be, far in time and space but further still in dignity and tradition.
‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ she said, returning to Laxmi’s question, though it wasn’t strictly true. In some ways she had no idea where her place in the world really was, and she longed to tell Laxmi how terrible it had been to see the widow-burning and that it made her feel vulnerable because she too was a widow. She so wanted to be honest with this generous woman. Tell her the truth.
‘Now what can I do to help you settle in here even more?’ Laxmi was saying. ‘You still have a look of anxiety in your eyes, and you still have many months if you are to complete a year of our lives here in Juraipore.’
‘I’d like to be shown around the entire castle. The fortress too. I have no idea how to get from one place to another and I don’t really want to have to rely on other people all the time.’
