Sharpe's Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799 by Cornwell Bernard

Author:Cornwell, Bernard [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Adventure, War
ISBN: 9780061804731
Amazon: 0061804738
Goodreads: 10210717
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 1997-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Every house in the city was prepared for the siege. Storehouses were filled with food and valuables were being hastily concealed in case the enemy armies broke through the wall. Holes were dug in gardens and filled with coins and jewelry, and in some of the wealthier houses whole rooms were concealed by false walls so that the women could be hidden away when the invaders rampaged through the streets.

Mary helped General Appah Rao’s household prepare for that ordeal. She felt guilty, not because she came from the army that was imposing this threatened misery on the city, but because she had unexpectedly found herself happy in Rao’s sprawling home.

When General Appah Rao had first taken her away from Sharpe she had been frightened, but the General had taken her to his own house and there reassured her of her safety. “We must clean you,” the General told her, “and let that eye heal.” He treated her gently, but with a measure of reserve that sprang from her disheveled looks and her presumed history. The General did not believe that Mary was the most suitable addition to his household, but she spoke English and Appah Rao was shrewd enough to reckon that a command of English would be a profitable accomplishment in Mysore’s future and he had three sons who would have to survive in that future. “In time,” Rao told Mary, “you can join your man, but it’s best he should settle in first.”

But now, after a week in the General’s household, Mary did not want to leave. For a start the house was filled with women who had taken her into their care and treated her with a kindness that astonished her. The General’s wife, Lakshmi, was a tall plump woman with prematurely gray hair and an infectious laugh. She had two grown unmarried daughters and, though there was a score of female servants, Mary was surprised to discover that Lakshmi and her daughters shared the work of the big house. They did not sweep it or draw water—those tasks were for the lowest of the servants—but Lakshmi loved to be in the kitchen from where her laughter rippled out into the rest of the house.

It had been Lakshmi who had scolded Mary for being so dirty, had stripped her from her western clothes, forced her into a bath, and there untangled and washed her filthy hair. “You’d be beautiful if you took some trouble,” Lakshmi had said.

“I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.”

“When you’re my age, my dear, no one pays you any attention at all, so you should take all you can get while you’re young. You say you’re a widow?”

“He was an Englishman,” Mary said nervously, explaining the lack of the marriage mark on her forehead and worried lest the older woman thought she should have thrown herself onto her husband’s pyre.

“Well, you’re a free woman now, so let’s make you expensive.” Lakshmi laughed and then, helped by her daughters, she first brushed and then combed Mary’s hair, drawing it back and then gathering it into a bun at the nape of her neck.

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