The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [477]
The exhausted dai had given Shushila a strong sleeping draught, and as soon as it had taken effect the other women had crept away to spread the dire news to the waiting Zenana, while a trembling and reluctant eunuch had left to inform the sick Rana that he had become the father of yet another daughter. Anjuli had stayed for a while to allow the dai to get some rest, and had returned to her own rooms before Shushila awakened; and it was then that she had written that letter to Gobind, imploring his help for Shushila, and begging him to use his influence with the Rana to see if a nurse, an Angrezi one, could be sent for immediately to take charge of the mother and child. ‘I thought that if perhaps one of them could be brought to Bhithor, she might be able to cure Shushila of her hate and her rages, which were in some way a sickness, and to persuade her that no one was to blame for the sex of the child; least of all the child itself.’
Gobind had received that letter, but no European woman had been summoned to Bhithor; and in any case, admitted Anjuli, there would not have been time. The Zenana was full of rumours and those that came to her ears confirmed her worst fears: Shushila had not repeated her wild outburst against the child, but she still refused to see it, explaining her refusal by saying that the infant was so frail and sickly that it could not possibly live for more than a few days at most, and she dared not face further pain and grief by becoming deeply attached to a child that must shortly be reft from her.
But at least a dozen women had been present when the child was born, and all had seen it and heard its first cries. Nevertheless, the rumour that it was a frail and sickly infant who was not expected to live was repeated so often that even those who had good reason to know otherwise began to believe it; and soon there were few in Bhithor who had not heard that the poor Rani, having been disappointed of a son, must now suffer the added grief of losing her daughter.
‘I do not know how it died,’ said Anjuli. ‘Perhaps they let it starve to death. Though being a strong child that might have taken too long, so they may have chosen a quicker way… I can only hope so. But no matter whose hand did the work, it was done by Shushila's orders. And then – then the day after the child's body was carried to the burning-ground, three more of her women and the dai also fell ill and were taken away from the Zenana in dhoolis – for fear, it was said, that the sickness might spread. Later it was rumoured that all four died, though that may not have been true. At least they did not return again to the Women's Quarters; and when it became known that the ailing Rana had suffered a relapse, they were forgotten in all the turmoil and anxiety that followed, because at such a time who could trouble themselves to inquire what had happened to a few unimportant Zenana women?’
Shushila, who had recovered very quickly from her ordeal, flatly refused to believe that her husband's illness could not be cured. Her faith in her uncle's Hakim remained unshaken and she insisted that the relapse was no more than a temporary set-back, and that another month would see the Rana on his feet again and completely recovered: it was unthinkable that this should not be so. In the meantime she turned her attention to repairing the ravages of pregnancy and parturition, and regaining the slenderness that had previously delighted him, so that when he was well again he would think her as beautiful as ever – and have no eyes and no thoughts for anyone else.
Not until the very end could she be brought to believe that he was dying, and when finally she was forced to believe it, she tried to go to him so that she might hold him in her arms and shield him with her own body from this enemy that threatened him. She would fight Death itself for his sake – and she had fought with teeth and nails against those who had prevented her from running to his bedside. Her fury and despair