River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [66]
Paulette’s acquaintance with George Chinnery’s ‘natural’ sons had arisen out of a fortuitous connection between Sundaree and her own beloved nurse, Tantima. Tantima was Jodu’s mother and she had looked after Paulette since her infancy: it so happened that she hailed from the same village as Sundaree, on the banks of the Hooghly. The two women had renewed the bonds of their childhood in Calcutta, when they both found themselves presiding over the households of unconventional and somewhat addle-pated sahibs. But there the commonalities ended, for Paulette’s father, Pierre Lambert, was always something of an outcast within white society, and his circumstances, as a mere Assistant Curator of the Botanical Gardens, were never anything other than extremely modest. George Chinnery, on the other hand, had earned fabulous sums of money while in Calcutta and his household was as chuck-muck as any in the city, with paltans of nokar-logue doing chukkers in the hallways and syces swarming in the istabbuls; as for the bobachee-connah, why it had been known to spend a hundred sicca rupees on sherbets and syllabubs, in one week …
An adoring lover, Chinnery had lavished luxuries upon his cherished Sundaree, giving her an outhouse on the grounds to share with the two sons she had borne him. She had also been given her own little retinue of retainers: a khaleefa, several ayahs and khidmatgars, and even a paan-maker, who did nothing but fold betel leaves to suit her tastes. This arrangement had suited them both – Sundaree because it allowed her the freedom to eat and live according to her fashion; and Mr Chinnery because it meant that his precious little passion-pit was readily available when needed, yet safely out of sight when sahibs and ma’ams came to visit.
Sundaree was herself quite a colourful figure and had once enjoyed her own share of fame and glamour: the daughter of a village drum-beater, she had made a name for herself as a singer and dancer – this was how she came to Mr Chinnery’s attention, for he had paid her to sit for him after attending one of her performances. On becoming pregnant with his child, Sundaree had stopped performing and taken with gusto to a life of indulgence, bedecking herself with expensive textiles and unusual kinds of jewellery. In her prime, she had had no compunctions about ma’aming it over Tantima, pitying her for her cramped quarters and cluck-clucking over the straitened circumstances of the Lambert household.
But all this had changed dramatically when it came to be known that the artist’s other family was soon to descend on Calcutta. As with many another bohemian, Chinnery was in some ways, extremely conventional – the possibility that his legal wife and children might learn about his Bengali ewe-mutton and her two kids, threw him into a panic. The delectable little butter-bun of the day before suddenly metamorphosed into a gravy-making gobble-prick: she and her two boys were summarily evicted from their quarters and packed off to a tenement in Kidderpore, where a khidmatgar would visit them occasionally to hand over a monthly tuncaw.
The arrangement deceived no one, of course, for amongst the sahibs of the city Mr Chinnery’s private life was a matter of almost as much interest as the fluctuation of prices at the Opium Exchange. Marianne Chinnery had found out about her husband’s other family soon enough, and to her great credit she had tried to ensure that they were provided for and that her husband did his duty by them. She had even arranged a church christening for the two little boys: known to their friends as Khoka and Robin, they were christened ‘Henry Collins Chinnery’ and ‘Edward Charles Chinnery’ respectively – which became a source of great hilarity to their playmates, who continued of course, to use their Bengali nicknames.
More usefully perhaps, Marianne Chinnery had also prevailed upon her husband to take the boys into