The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [475]
But Shushila was unaware of the correspondence. Having seen her half-sister's reply to the first letter, she had apparently come to the conclusion that imprisonment and harsh treatment had reduced Kairi to such a state of cowed subjection that there was nothing to be feared from her, and now Anjuli was informed that provided she did not enter the Senior Rani's apartments or the gardens, there was no reason why she should not go freely about the Women's Quarters again if she chose to do so.
As the time of the confinement approached, the Zenana women became infected by a heady mixture of anxiety and excitement, and the tension mounted daily until even Anjuli, a disregarded spectator, was disturbed by it and began to fear what its effect must be on her highly strung sister. But to everyone's astonishment, Shushila alone remained immune from the mass emotion. Her spirits had never been higher, and far from giving way to nerves as anyone acquainted with her would have expected she continued to glow with health and beauty, and apparently had no qualms. Only Anjuli, learning of this from the chatter of the women, suspected that the reason for it could be traced to those two miscarriages, both of which had occurred so early that they could not in fact be termed ‘miscarriages’ at all.
She thought it probable (and in this she was right) that Shu-shu had been encouraged to believe – or had persuaded herself to believe? – that the comparatively mild discomforts she had suffered then were all that she need expect now, and that neither the new dai nor any of her women had summoned up the courage to undeceive her. It was when the labour pains began that the real trouble would start – and this time there would be no Geeta to help her, and no loving half-sister to cling to for comfort and support.
Shushila's pains had begun shortly before ten o'clock on a warm spring night. And all through the following day, and for part of the next night, her agonized screams rang through the Zenana Quarter and echoed eerily along the colonnades surrounding the gardens. At some time during that interminable day one of her women, grey-faced from fear and lack of sleep, had come running to Anjuli and gasped out that she must come at once – the Rani-Sahiba was calling for her.
There had been nothing for it but to obey. Though Anjuli was under no illusion as to why Shushila should suddenly wish to see her: Shu-shu was in pain and very frightened, and it was the pain and fear that had impelled her to send for the one person who had never failed her and whom she knew, instinctively, would not fail her now. Nor was Anjuli ignorant of the risks she ran in entering her sister's apartments at such a time. If anything went wrong someone would be blamed for it, and it would not be the gods or natural causes, or any of the Bhithoris: it would be pinned on her. This time it would be Kairi-Bai, ‘the half-caste’, who from spite or jealousy or a desire to be revenged for the way in which she had been treated, had put the Evil-eye on the child or on its mother, and would be made to pay for it.
Yet even knowing that – and had it been possible to refuse to go to Shushila which it was not – she would still have gone. Only someone deaf or stony-hearted could have remained unmoved by those harrowing screams, and Anjuli was neither. She had hurried to Shushila's side, and for the remainder of that agonizing labour it was to her hands that Shushila had clung; dragging at them until they were sore and bleeding and imploring her to call Geeta to stop the pains… poor Geeta who had supposedly broken her neck in a fall, over a year ago.
The new dai who had replaced Geeta was a capable and experienced woman, but she lacked her predecessor's skill with drugs. Moreover she had never before been required to deal with a patient who not only made no attempt to help herself, but did everything in her power to prevent anyone else from doing so.
The Senior Rani flung herself from