'Listen, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary slowly, 'if you think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, let me tell you, you're half a clock off course.'
'Oh, I know y'for what y'are Mannikin,' the first mate growled. 'Ye're a snob's cat, full o'piss and tantrums. I'se seen the likes o'yer before with yer pretty face and yer purser's grins. I know y'mean nothing but trouble, for y'self and fer me. Best y'get off this barkey while y'can: save me as much pain as yer goin'ter save y'self.'
'I'm just here to do a job, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary stonily. 'And nothing's going to stop me doing it.'
The first mate shook his head: 'Too soon to tell Mannikin. It's a couple of days yet afore we weigh. Time enough that something could happen to help yer change yer mind.
For the sake of preserving the peace, Zachary bit back the rejoinder that sprang to his tongue and ate the rest of his dinner in silence. But the effort of keeping himself under control left his hands shaking, his mouth dry, and afterwards, to calm himself, he took a couple of turns around the main deck. Bursts of animated conversation were welling out of the fo'c'sle and the galley, where the lascars were eating their evening meal. He stepped up to the fo'c'sle deck, leant his elbows on the saddle of the jib-boom, and looked down at the water: there were many lights flickering on the river, some hanging from the sterns and binnacles of moored ships, and some lighting the way for the flotilla of boats and dinghies that were weaving between the cables of the ocean-going fleet. One of these rowboats was pulling towards the Ibis with a number of drunken voices echoing out of it. Zachary recognized the boat as Jodu's, and a twinge shot up his spine as he remembered the night when he'd sat in it, arguing with Paulette.
Turning away, Zachary peered into the looming darkness upriver: he knew that Paulette was in a village somewhere north of Calcutta – he had been alarmed to hear from Jodu that she had been ill and was being looked after by friends. When the boat pulled up beside the schooner, he was powerfully tempted to jump into it and row off, to go looking for her. The impulse was so strong that he might have obeyed it, if not for one thing: it stuck in his craw that Mr Crowle would imagine that he had succeeded in running him off the Ibis.
Fifteen
With the rains over, the sunlight turned crisp and golden. The dry weather speeded Paulette's recovery and she decided to leave for Calcutta, to put in motion the plan that had been gestating in her mind through her illness.
The first step required a private meeting with Nob Kissin Baboo and she gave the matter much thought before setting off. Burnham Bros.'s main offices were on Calcutta's fashionable Strand Road, but the firm's dockside premises were in a dingy corner of Kidderpore, a half-hour's boat ride away: this distance Baboo Nob Kissin Pander was required to traverse almost daily, in the discharge of his duties, and being of a thrifty turn of mind, he chose usually to travel on the crowded kheya-boats that transported people up and down the waterfront.
The Burnham compound in Kidderpore was a large one, consisting of several godowns and bankshalls. The shed that served as the gomusta's private daftar lay in one corner of the compound, adjoining a lane. When prospective clients wished to avail themselves privately of Baboo Nob Kissin's services as a bespoke moneylender, it was there, Paulette knew, that they went to meet with him. This, for instance, was what her father had done – but for herself, in her current situation, the risks attendant upon venturing into a property owned by her former benefactor were too great to make this a comfortable option; she decided instead to waylay the gomusta as he stepped off his ferry, at the nearby ghat.
The ghat in question – known as Bhutghat – proved to be ideal for her purposes: it was narrow enough to be kept easily under watch, and sufficiently busy for a lone woman to loiter without attracting attention. Better still, it was overlooked by an ancient tree, growing on a knolclass="underline" the tree was a banyan and its hanging roots formed a beard so dense as to offer easy concealment. Slipping inside this tangled thicket Paulette came upon a root that had looped down in such a way as to form a swinging bench. Here she seated herself, rocking gently, and watched the ghat through a gap in the carefully draped folds of cloth that covered her face.
Her vigil almost came to naught, for the gomusta was so changed, with his long, shoulder-length hair, that he was nearly gone before she recognized him: even the way he walked seemed different, with smaller steps and swaying hips, so she took the precaution of following for a minute or two before she accosted him with a sibilant whisper: Gomusta-babu… shunun… listen…
He spun around in alarm, looking from the river's edge to the nearby lane. Although Paulette was well within the ambit of his gaze, his eyes, which were lined with a thin touch of kajal, passed without check over her sari-shrouded face.
Paulette hissed again, but in English this time: 'Baboo Nob Kissin… it's me…'
This surprised him even more but brought him no closer to recognizing her; on the contrary he began to mutter prayers, as if to ward off a ghost: Hé Radhé, hé Shyam…
'Nob Kissin Baboo! It is me, Paulette Lambert,' she whispered. 'I am here, look!' When his bulging eyes had turned in her direction, she whisked her sari momentarily off her face. 'You see? It is me!'
The sight of her made him leap backwards in shock, so that he landed heavily on the toes of several passers-by – but the drizzle of abuse that rained down on him went unheeded for his attention was transfixed on Paulette's sari-shrouded face. 'Miss Lambert? Why, I cannot believe! You have turned up in my backside? And wearing native garbs also. So nicely you have hidden your face I could not tell…'
'Shh!' Paulette pleaded. 'I pray you, Baboo Nob Kissin, please abase your voice.'
The gomusta switched to a piercing whisper. 'But Miss, what you are doing in this nook-and-cranny, kindly can you inform? We all are searching you left and right, to no avail. But never mind – Master will rejoice like anything. Let us return back right now-itself.'
'No, Baboo Nob Kissin,' said Paulette. 'It is not my intention to go to Bethel. I searched you out for it is with you I must most press-ingly speak. May I pray you to spare a little time to sit with me? If it will not too much derange you?'
'Sit?' The gomusta directed a disapproving frown at the mudsplattered, refuse-strewn steps of the ghat. 'But this locality is sorely lacking in furnitures. How to sit? Our saris – I mean, our clothings may become soiled.'
'Do not fear, Baboo Nob Kissin,' said Paulette, pointing to the knoll. 'Up on that monticule we can put ourselves in the shelter of the tree. Personne will see us, I assure you.'