‘Do you know what this is, Mr Reid?’
His eyes widened. ‘Is it …? Could it be …? A French letter?’
She boxed his ear playfully. ‘Oh you are too coarse, Mr Reid! Let us call it a capote — a topcoat for our brave sepoy, so that he shall never again have to suffer the ignominy of shooting his goolies into the air.’
She stooped to give Zachary a long, slow kiss. ‘I know how hard it has been for you, my dear, to so often deny yourself a proper spending. Your sacrifice has weighed heavily on me, and you cannot imagine how glad I am that you will not have to do it again.’
Zachary was touched, as much by the tenderness in her voice as by her gesture. ‘That is thoughtful of you, Mrs Burnham. Was the capote hard to get?’
‘Exceedingly, because I had to be so very discreet. Suffice it to say that on Free School Street there lives an Armenian midwife who is now considerably the richer.’
‘It was expensive then?’
‘Capotes are only a shilling apiece in England but here they cost twice as much — a whole rupee for one. And I got a few dozen of them so that they will last us awhile yet. Have you ever used one before?’
He shook his head. ‘Mere mysteries cannot afford such luxuries, Mrs Burnham,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard of them of course, but I’d never seen one till now.’
‘Nor have I any experience of them,’ she said, ‘but I will do my best to fit it correctly — you can help by lying on your back and holding your sepoy at attention.’
Crawling across the bed, she climbed over his leg and positioned herself between his thighs.
‘I am told that capotes are made from lambs’ intestines,’ she said, as she dipped her fingers into the bowl. ‘Is it not diverting, Mr Reid, to think that the animal that fills our bellies with mutton-gosht at dinner can also offer us this other service at night?’
She held up the length of intestine and slowly pried its lips apart, dribbling a thin trickle of oil down his stomach and groin. Then followed a few minutes of fumbling as she tried to slip the sock into place.
‘It is a slippery business, Mr Reid, and our sepoy is making it no easier with all his twitching and quivering. Can he not be made to understand that this is no time to practise a bayonet drill?’
Her face had sunk deep between his legs now, and he could see only her brow. A frown appeared on it as she concentrated on the ribbon: ‘Oh I have made a mess of it and must use my teeth to undo the knot. Hold still, Mr Reid, do not move!’
He was aware of the nipping of her teeth and the puffing of her breath: it blew on him like a warm breeze gusting against a flagpole. Throwing his head back he groaned: ‘Oh Mrs Burnham, please be done, or I shall be fetched and finished.’
‘On no account! Hold your fire!’
He felt the flight of her fingertips again, and then she gave a little squeal of delight: ‘Oh Mr Reid! I wish you could see the pretty little bow I have tied for you! I am tempted to fetch you a looking-glass so that you may admire it.’
‘No! Please — enough!’
‘Well, I assure you, my dear mystery, there is not a bonnet in the world that sports a better-tied ribbon: the bow sits upon your goolie-pouch like a wreath below a mast! The Queen herself has never had a finer flag hoisted in her honour.’
He was now at the end of his ratline: removing the bowl from his belly, he took hold of her arms and pulled her upon him. ‘And you, Mrs Burnham, have earned yourself a royal gun-salute!’
She laughed and kissed him on the tip of his nose: ‘You see, Mr Reid — you are not as poor in invention as you would have us believe.’
Afterwards, when the ribbon, now sodden, had been undone and the freshly filled intestine was back in the bowl, he said: ‘You are so expert in these arts, Mrs Burnham — I cannot but wonder how often you have done this before.’
She raised her head from the pillow and frowned at him. ‘But never!’ she cried. ‘I have never done this before, Mr Reid.’
‘But there have been others before me, have there not, Mrs Burnham? Lovers with whom you’ve deceived your husband?’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘No; never! I swear to you, Mr Reid, before you entered this boudoir, I had never been unfaithful, never foozled my husband. I was, in my own way, a virtuous wife.’
‘But you have told me yourself, Mrs Burnham, that you hardly ever share a bed with him. And I have seen for myself how ardent you are. Surely you have had your … wants?’
She smiled and raised her eyebrows. ‘What have “wants” to do with husbands and faithfulness, my dear?’ she said. ‘A mem has no want that cannot be satisfied by a long bath, in which she is waited on by maids and cushy girls — or even another memsahib. You may take my word for it, Mr Reid, mems are never happier than when the sahibs are away — which is just as well since they are always gone anyway, on their endless campaigns and voyages.’
Zachary’s mouth fell open, in disbelief. ‘You cannot mean it! Do you mean that your cushy girls give you shokes in your bath? Does Mr Burnham know?’
‘Well it is certainly no secret, my dear: intimate massages, by a nurse, was the cure that was prescribed for my hysteria, by the doctor. It is the standard remedy for the disease, you know, so I have always had to employ a maid or two to administer it. Mr Burnham is well aware of that and he does not disapprove — how can he, when a doctor has prescribed it? It may even be a source of satisfaction to him that he does not have to concern himself about my fidelity. And indeed, until a certain mystery entered my life I had never felt the slightest inclination to stray with any man — and it is amazing to me now, my dear, to think that when you first arrived here, I saw you as a rival, rather than a lover.’
‘You’ve lost me, Mrs Burnham — a rival for what?’
She smiled impishly and scratched him on the chin. ‘Well, my dear, you should know that the reason I was so peevish with you, when you first came here, was that I held you responsible for confounding my plans for Paulette. If not for you, I thought, she would have taken my advice and married Mr Kendalbushe, after which she and I would have been able to share many a happy goozle. I blamed you for dashing my hopes and was utterly resolved to punish you for your loochering; but such is kismet that it is you who are here now, and one day, when you leave me and run off with Paulette, I do not know who I shall be more jealous of — you or her.’
This strange notion cast Zachary’s head into a whirclass="underline" as so often with Mrs Burnham, he had the sense that he was floundering in waters that were far deeper and more turbulent than any he had ever been in before. Yet, strangely, instead of cutting him adrift it made him want her all the more.
She was perfectly well aware of this and gave a little laugh. ‘Ah, I see that our sepoy has heard the reveille and is ready to present arms again — although it is but a few minutes since he retired from the fray.’
He smiled grudgingly: ‘One thing I’ll say for you, Mrs Burnham — you sure know how to rattle a fellow’s rigging.’
Nine
Although Kesri had spent a fair amount of time in Calcutta over the course of his career he had never before been quartered inside the walls of Fort William, the citadel that kept watch upon the city across the treeless expanse of the Maidan. Sepoys were rarely billeted within the fort, which was garrisoned mainly by white soldiers. Indian troops were usually quartered in the Sepoy Lines, an area that was separated from the fort by a wide stretch of empty ground.
On his previous postings to Calcutta, Kesri too had stayed in the Sepoy Lines, where the conditions were similar to those of other bases and cantonments, with the sepoys being responsible for their own food and housing — the army provided neither barracks nor messes. Rank-and-file jawans either built their own huts or pooled their money to rent them, and their food was prepared by shared servants. Havildars and other senior NCOs usually hired individual hutments and were looked after by their personal attendants.