The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell [14]
To the Doctor it seemed like evidence of the domestic tragedy he had feared for his friend. Perhaps George was insane? It certainly seemed disturbing that he had not gone hunting with Harry. And then, playing a violin to the owls that swooped across the starlit heavens, well, that did not seem very normal either.
The ladies were discreetly watching from an upstairs window the following morning when a rather grimy gharry stopped in front of the Dunstaples’ house in Alipore. Even Louise was watching, though she denied being in the least interested in the sort of creature that might emerge. If she happened to be standing at the window it was simply because Fanny was standing there too and she was trying to comb Fanny’s hair.
“Oh dear, you mustn’t let him see you or whatever will he think!” moaned Mrs Dunstaple. “Do be careful.” But she herself was peering out more eagerly than anyone.
“Here he is!” cried Fanny as a rather rumpled looking young man scrambled out of the gharry and looked around in a dazed fashion. “Look how fat he is!”
“Fanny!” scolded Mrs Dunstaple, but in a halfhearted way for it was perfectly true, he did look rather fat; but his sister looked beautiful and made the ladies gasp by the simple elegance of her clothing.
If the ladies were a little disappointed by their first glimpse of Fleury, the Doctor was definitely cheered. His misgivings had increased overnight so that when Fleury turned out to be a relatively normal young man, the doctor prepared himself to take a cautiously optimistic view of his friend’s son. But in no time caution gave way to outright satisfaction, and so pleased and confident did he become, so grateful that Fleury was not the effeminate individual he had been expecting, that he even began to hint to Fleury about the manly pleasures he might find in Calcutta...Young men have wild oats to sow, as he very well knew from having sown a few himself in his day...and he began to count off the pleasures of the city: the racecourse, the balls, the pretty women, the dinner parties and good fellowship and other entertainments. He himself, he hinted, forgetting that Fleury’s sister was a widow, as a younger man, had spent many a happy hour in the company of vivacious young widows and suchlike.
“But no native women,” he added in a lower voice. “Not even as a youngster, never touched ‘em.”
Taken aback to find his father’s friend personified in this jovial libertine, Fleury did his best to respond but secretly wished that Miriam were there to keep the conversation on more general topics. Miriam was being received by the ladies upstairs. They were still dressing, it seemed.
The Doctor was explaining, as they strolled up and down the drawing-room, that, alas, he and his family would soon be leaving for Krishnapur...though, actually, this was more a cause of despair to the ladies than to himself, for the pig-sticking season had been under way since February and would only last till July...indeed, the best of it was already over, because soon it would become too hot to lift a finger. Besides, he had to get back to save the cantonment from the attentions of a newfangled doctor called McNab who had recently been imposed on the military cantonment at Captainganj. His face darkened a little at the thought of McNab and he began to crack his knuckles in an absentminded sort of way. “As for Louise and her prospects,” he added confidentially, forgetting that Fleury had been numbered amongst them, “if she’s so hard