Daughters of the Governor by Vivian Stuart

Author:Vivian Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas Ehf
Published: 2022-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

THE palace of Mirapur was ablaze with lights, as busy and as teeming with activity as a hive of excited bees. Dinner was to be served in the great open courtyard, and here, amidst tinkling fountains and masses of skilfully arranged flowering shrubs, long tables had been set up and servants in the Mirapur livery of grey and scarlet hurried to and from the kitchens with laden trays.

The tables gleamed in the lamplight, heavy with gold plate and gold and silver drinking vessels, decked with flowers and decorated with great bowls of exotically-coloured native fruits and sweetmeats. Here and there, an incongruous figure amongst the resplendently clad Palace khitmatgars, a lowly sweeper passed wielding a Flit gun, with which he sprayed industriously beneath the tables. Despite his efforts, the insects hovered in clouds about the lamps and would not be repelled.

Only on the raised dais at the far end of the courtyard were there no hovering clouds of winged creatures. The Raja’s own table stood on this, and here his British guests would be entertained, together with the Dewan and other important members of his court and household. The dais was protected by screen netting and the humming mosquitoes were unable to gain an entry. They buzzed impotently against the fine mesh until a well-directed stream of liquid from one of the spray-guns annihilated them.

From her window high above the courtyard in the women’s quarters Kathy looked down on the bustling scene, her eyes bright with eager anticipation. It all looked very strange and exciting, and the sounds and smells that were wafted up to her were strange and exciting too. The servants’ voices, as they called to each other, reached her faintly above the slow, rhythmic creaking of the handoperated punkah above her head. She heard the soft slithering of their feet on the tiled floor of the courtyard and then the quaint, high-pitched music of a native string orchestra, tuning up, was borne to her ears, and she leaned further out of the window, seeking to place the sound. But it was impossible, with so much coming and going below, and eventually she withdrew her head, hearing as she did so a curious twittering noise from the window of a room not far from her own. Startled, she leaned out again, and met the gaze of a dozen pairs of brown, kohl-ringed eyes across the intervening space. They were friendly, interested eyes, and Kathy found herself smiling back at them. The women of the Raja’s household were permitted, she knew, to watch the festivities from the seclusion of their own quarters, but custom decreed that they must not be seen and, of course, they could not take part in what was going on. They would eat their meal behind locked doors, screened from sight but able to look out—as she herself was now looking out—over the courtyard, unobserved but eagerly observing and probably as excited as she was, in spite of the fact that they were virtually prisoners.

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