Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee [46]
It seemed a heartfelt observation, but she had no idea of its origin, or of its general applicability. He seemed to be drawing his evidence from the rich collection of furnishings. “They become unmanned. Sentiment, luxury … they all gain ascendancy.”
It would require a retinue merely to keep salt spray from pitting the brass and silver, the mildew from attacking the fabrics. Unless the shutters were permanently shut, birds and scorpions and every manner of loathsome creature from outdoors were free to enter.
“A man is judged by the fight that’s in him. He yields, or he resists. Your man, Mr. Gabriel Legge, is battle tested, I presume.”
“He has ofttimes been to sea, Chief Factor.” She followed his lead down the outer, half-covered balcony that Bhagmati had been standing on a few minutes earlier.
“Come, my dear.” The exposed side of the balcony, that part lined with brass pots of flowers, ran past rows of bedrooms, all decently furnished in the local style. At the end of the balcony a crude ladder of ship’s timbers and lashed-together rope thongs lay propped against the inner wall.
Cephus began climbing to the flat roof. Hannah followed. Bhagmati, the serving girl, stood silently at the far end of the balcony.
Indeed, Hannah had climbed to the top of the world. Not only did White Town command the highest land in the region, but Hedges’ house occupied the very pinnacle of the nob. The ocean, broad to its curvature with at least a dozen East Indiamen under full sail, filled the horizon, with the near perspective speckled by fishermen’s boats and one-sail dhows. The warm breeze sought out the last pockets of chill and damp from Hannah’s bones; it was a glorious moment of January sun and offshore breeze, loud jackdaws circling the rooftops. Potted trees even struggled to give off some shade. She closed her eyes, feeling at last that her travels were over.
He moved so silently, so quickly, his arms were around hers before she could catch her balance. His open mouth was trying to kiss her, to close over hers before she could scream, and she could hear his low, guttural threats and promises. “Saucy wench,” she heard, “knowing what’s best for a factor,” and “He’ll be gone, he’ll have his bibis, and your nights—” She struggled free now and pushed him away, and Cephus Prynne reestablished his guise of shabby, inoffensive officiousness, casually looking behind him, before she could scream.
“That gardener! Did I not instruct you to dismiss them all? I’ll have his hide, I saw him!” Cephus Prynne ran to the roof edge and shouted down, “Stop him, stop him, I say.” And he was over the side, down the rope ladder and running down the balcony to the main stairwell before Hannah could catch her breath.
4
ALL THROUGH 1695 Hannah Legge kept a diary modeled on the diary kept by Gabriel in his capacity as a factor instructed by his superior, Prynne, to reform the bookkeeping irregularities in the factory at St. Sebastian. The initial entries are of events; the descriptions of those events cautiously impersonal.
January 8, 1695: The two ships following arrived, vizt., (1) the Loyall Heron Captain Hope-for Johnson, Commander. (2) the Pride, Captain John Bendell, Commander. Though there was a fresh, my dear husband, accompanied by Mr. Higginbottham, came of to Captain Johnson, and received the Agents Packett from the Council at Fort St. George. Agreement was effected by my dear husband in the affaire of the landing of the Honourable Company’s treasure that had come in the two ships.
January 9: We had fresh winds. Mistress Ruxton entertained me last night as my dear husband was on board the Loyall Heron. She is a woman of good humour. Mistress Higginbottham may be of dour disposition.
January 10: We had fresh winds againe. Nevertheless my dear husband and Captain Hope-for Johnson disembarked wilfully and, praised be god, came on shoare. Captain John Bendell, his wife and three daughters remained on board the ship Pride.
January 15: Four days