Raj Quartet by Paul Scott -- Division of the Spoils

[straudetwo]

Join us as we continue our discussion of the Raj Quartet. We will be reviewing and finishing Towers of Silence,  the third book of the Raj Quartet.

Discussion Leader ~ straudetwo

To continue  - with a few personal thoughts about the opaque relationship between Mildred and her daughters.

The term 'dysfunctional families' was unknown when Paul Scott wrote his books. But I submit to you that such families existed and that the fictional Laytons were one of them. They were not  "demonstrative", Sarah said.
In and of itself,  that's not unusual.  But there was more to it in case of the Laytons, I believe.

First there were the "years of unavoidable separation", which the Layton girls spent in England from age five or six until their return to India in 1939, and which had left an indelible mark on both of them. 
Not long after their return, Col. Layton and the regiment went overseas (from the regimental base station at Ranpur) with such haste that the only accommodation he found in the hill station in Pankot for his wife and daughters were the quarters in the grace and favour, the military housing Mildred detested.  For years she had coveted Rose Cottage and expected that under the circumstances Mabel Layton Sr.  would invite her and the girls.  No such invitation came.
That was the root of the growing resentment toward Mabel (well hidden) and the  contempt toward Barbara Batchelor, openly displayed.

Scott sketched his characters, major and minor, with a sure hand and in great psychological depth. Mildred is called "emotionally arid" - among other things.  No other character (including Merrick!) is depicted in more withering, unflattering terms.

Sarah soon observed Mildred's drinking; it fell to her  to "tidy up" after her mother, figuratively speaking, i.e. pay Mildred's bridge debts and see to affairs of the house.   Always protective of Susan, Sarah became even more so after Teddy's death; before and after he birth of the baby, when she became the "rock".  However, there is no mention that Mildred ever really talked with either daughter about things we would call "meaningful" in today's parlance.
Moreover, whatever Mildred judged to be inappropriate or undesirable was either white-washed; made light of;  ignored;  or deliberately erased and forgotten,  as if it had never happened, never to be referred to again.
Exactly that is what took place when Mildred discovered Sarah's pregnancy after the visit in Calcutta. Mildred exhorted Aunt Penny and ordered her to "undo" what had happened. The subject was never mentioned again.  Not surprisingly,  Sarah found it harder to forget, let alone to 'erase', the memory. 

The visit in Calcutta is narrated - brilliantly and without sensationalism -  in the last dozen or so pages in Volume Two, The Day of the Scorpion.

To be continued

[Gumtree]

Scott sketched his characters, major and minor, with a sure hand and in great psychological depth. Mildred is called "emotionally arid" - among other things.  No other character (including Merrick!) is depicted in more withering, unflattering terms.

You're right about Scott depicting Mildred so scathingly though I hadn't consciously thought about it in those terms before. I was always waiting for some saving grace to be uncovered in Merrick but not in Mildred - Scott convinced me totally as to her character.

I think the majority of Raj families were to some degree dysfunctional and have always put it down to what I consider to be their unnatural lifestyle - firstly with the children at school in England for years at a time and secondly the life the women led on the military post where they tried to combat boredom by filling their idle hours playing cards and drinking gin - these factors are scarcely conducive to a productive and rewarding life. The strict heirarchy occasioned by the men's rank also produced an unnatural environment for social interaction. I wonder that any family can really survive under such conditions - No wonder Mabel decided to opt out and work her garden. It is really only with the war that Sarah suddenly has any real purpose or occupation apart from picking up after Mildred and watching out for Susan.

[Aberlaine]

I was involved with the discussion of the first book of the Raj Quartet.  I've just found books three and four on Bookins.com and they're on there way to me.  I'd like to read the third book before I start commenting on the fourth book, but Traude's summary of the story up to the beginning of Division of the Spoils may have to do.

I'll be back when my books arrive and I've had a chance to catch up with the posts.

Nancy

[straudetwo]

Gumtree and Nancy, I'm grateful for your posts. They were my Joy in the Morning ! I believe that's the title of a book, but it expresses my feelings perfectly.)

I'll answer more fully later.
Again, thank you both.

[straudetwo]

Thank you again.  Now to respond more fully to your posts.

Gumtree, how true.
It had not occurred to me before that the lives of the other military family were much like the Laytons'; they too were dysfunctional.  With the children an ocean away, how could a real family unit be sustained?   Children who returned to India as young adults have been described as "orphans of the raj".
But how would parents learn of  possible abuses in foster homes, if indeed they were told?  Who would do the telling and how long would it take for such a message to get back to India?

There were such cases: In Something of myself Rudyard Kipling tells us that he was a victim in his first foster home in England, and that he suffered from insomnia for the rest of his life as a result of abuse there.  His parents sent him and his sister to England when Rudyard was six and his sister three (!) years old.

In Volume two, The Day of the Scorpion, Sarah recounted her and Susan's early years in Ranpur (where the servants slept on the threshold); about school in England, living in the city with Aunt Lydia (who disliked India);  about summers in the country with great-grandfather Layton; about a visit there from Aunty Mabel, and about her struggle to understand the family connections, spcifically that Mabel was not an aunt but the second wife and widow of Col. Layton's father, buried in Ranpur.  Wondering where she belonged and where home was, Sarah drew a family tree of the Layton and Muir branches in an exercise book,  marking where family members resided, in England or in India, respectively.

After the return to India, Sarah  came upon the old exercise book and realized that she still wondered about the family, where she herself belonged, where home was.  There is more introspection in the chapter we are currently reviewing. 
By contrast (and I beliee by design),  Susan's image is much less distinct. She is depicted as totally self-absorbed, pretty, an enthusiastic dancer,  much admired by the young eligible officers on the station -- yet strangely distant.  More is revealed about her in the other volumes  but she remains undefined, almost ephemeral.  It is never made fully clear what caused her withdrawal and her catatonic silence after the attempt to kill her baby.

In this chapter, Sarah's thoughts on the day of Col. Layton's return to Rose Cottage provide the reader with a much clearer picture of Susan's monumental insecurities and total lack of identity.  Further details will emerge later in this chapter. 

Gum.   I agree on Paul Scott's characterization of Merrick. He seems intent on making the reader see Merrick  almost a hero manqué.  Merrick's homosexual tendencies are never identified as such, but in the Chapter "Orders of Release", in The Day of the Scorpion,  the reader learned that Merrick had sodomized  Hari Kumar in prison in Mayapore.  (Reportedly, questions about Scott's sexuality have been raised in Britain.)

Following Hari's interrogation in Premanagar prison by a British lawyer, Nigel Rowan, and an Indian lawyer, Mr. Gopal, he was quietly discharged.

Aberlaine/Nancy. You will be welcome to join us any time you like and feel prepared.

To be continued

[Frybabe]

the reader learned that Merrick had sodomized  Hari Kumar in prison in Mayapore. 

Hmmmm! I don't remember the bit specifically about Hari being sodomized, but I do remember his interrogations in prison were very painful.


I had a mind to do a comparison of Sarah and Susan, but I am pretty brain dead right now.  I will say that I am closer to Sarah in temperment/personality than with Susan. I forget - is Sarah the older of the two? I am the first of three girls. I was expected to be more responsible and be an example for my sisters. Sarah is responsible, reliable, practical and is more internally motivated. Susan is almost the opposite isn't she? Susan seems more flighty, and externally motivated in most things she does. Her subconscious and sometimes conscious efforts are all geared to gain the attention and adoration she needs to validate her existence.

[straudetwo]

Hello, frybabe, how good to see you!

I was doing one last check before calling it  finally a day. And there was your post. Thank you.

Yes, Sarah is the elder by one year.  After finishing school, she took a secretarial course while waiting for Susan to finish.  I try hard not to develop a dislike for any character --  at least not right away   but find it almost  impossible where Susan is concerned - perhaps because there is so little is there ?

In 1939 Aunt Fenny and Uncle Arthur, Major Grace, spent a holiday in England  and on their return took their nieces home with them.

BTW, isn't it amazing how much people smoked and drank then, Paul Scott himself reportedly included?

Good night

[Gumtree]

Traude: Merrick as hero manque
Your comment touched a chord with me as that is exactly how I see Merrick.  Not only is he frustrated in his career ambition - being sidelined after the Mayapore affair and unable to transfer from the police to the army - but he is unfulfilled in his personal life as well. I think Scott uses the injuries Merrick  suffered - the loss of his arm and the disfiguring burns  - as metaphors to intensify the sense of his being maimed and that he is maimed in more than one way.

As for Susan and Sarah: In some ways these two girls could be myself and my younger sister...I am the elder by three years and have  always been the  reliable and practical one while she is the flighty, lazy and beautiful one. I have a reputation of being calm in a crisis and doing what has to be done - my sister collapses in tears and thus becomes the centre of attention causing more stress in the process. I love her dearly but there are times !!!  I think such a situation between siblings is not uncommon and indeed, Frybabe has expressed the existence of a similar situation in her family. So it would seem that Scott described a realistic relationship in which Sarah led and Susan followed. I think somewhere Susan makes a comment to the effect that: 'she didn't have to think because she had Sarah to do her thinking for her'

Susan's mental incapacity is something of a mystery - she always appears to be playing a part and doing what is expected of her but I have not noticed an explanation of the underlying cause unless it is  that she too is maimed perhaps simply by being 'an orphan of the Raj' and not having the fortitude to cope with her situation.

[kidsal]

I am not to sure where everyone is in the book?

[straudetwo]

To continue
The echo of the rape in the Bibighar Gardens and the arrest of those believed culpable of the crime reverberates through this novel.  The events are told in Daphne's diary (volume 1),  and parts are retold in the successive volumes by other participants, among them - most prominently - Merrick himself.

Mayapore was shaken by both this commotion and the riots,  but an embarrassing scandal was avoided because Daphne and Hari remained silent.  Daphne had devised the plan in a desperate effort to shield Hari.  it worked - to an extent.  There were instant rumors and doubts about the  guilt of the accused,  but there was not enough proof to warrant their criminal prosecution.   When the prisoners were asked whether they had been maltreated, they all denied it - fearing reprisals, of course, if they had not.

Disapproval and contempt in the cantonment for Daphne and Lady Manners were automatic.
But there was enough reason to believe that Merrick had overstepped his boundaries, and the powers that be transferred him to a backwater province  to make him harmless.  Little did they know!  The hindus, on the other hand, neither forgave nor forgot. They were out to destroy him. And he knew it.

The most detailed account of what happened that night in the Bibighar Gardens comes from Hari Kumar himself. And it is in Volume 2, The Day of the Scorpion, beginning on pp. 231 et ff. in my old paperback. 
Lady Manners, Daphne's aunt and widow of a former British Governor, had petitioned the then Governor, Sir George Malcolm, on behalf of Hari.
About two years after being arrested, Hari was granted a Hearing on May 15th, 1944, in complete secrecy,  and arrangements were made for Lady Manners to  hear and see the proceedings through a grille from a secluded upstairs room in the prison.  Lady Manners' escort was Captain Nigel Rowan, an aide to the Governor's,  and we'll see both later in the current chapter.

In the hearing in what amounted to an interrogation,  all the facts and the background were laid bare - old school friend Colin's coming face to face with Hari  on the maydan in Mayapore  and seeing right through him without any sign of recognition - the reason for Hari's getting drunk that night;  Hari's rescue by Sister Ludmila;  Merrick coming to the Sanctuary  the next morning and plucking Hari off just like that as he is washing off his hangover under the water pump; and all the rest of it. 
Most important is the information about the abuse in the local police station when Hari was first arrested,  stripped and examined  ("inspected", he recalled it)  for more than an hour by the fully dressed Merrick, inapproriately touched by him,  without a doctor present, shivering in the air-conditioned room.  More graphic violations by Merrick are detailed in that chapter, none need to be reiterated here. 

Hari had not been told what the hearing was about and answered the first questions by Nigel Rowan in Urdu and had to be jogged.  THEN came the revelation: the perfect king's English out of the mouth of a brown Indian face. In fact,  it was a Chillingborough connection, except for different years, and not brought up.

The most damning testimony was taken without the recording secretary present.   Hari was asked whether he wanted to repeat  it later but declined.  Very elaborate care was taken to  fashion two separate reports, both secret.   Hari was released without fanfare.  But what could Hari do after this harrowing experience with the only thing he had, perfect English?

Gum ,  about Susan, "she had once confessed to Sarah that she felt like a drawing that anyone who wanted to  could come along and scrub out; that there was nothing to her except this erasable image. The first psychiatrist, Captain Samuels, had shown no special interest when Sarah mentioned it. ...
But the image had stayed in Sarah's mind as an explanation of  her sister's self-absorption and self-dramatization.
She did not understand what had made Susan feel so inadequate ..."

The question about nature vs. nurture is still out there. 
How important, how dominant are our genes? 
Can we reform, or CONform, to another's wishes/plans for us? 
(I have personal reasons to ask, but that doesn't' mean you have to answer ...
Would Susan have had the same insecurities if she had been raised with the family?

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Welcome back, kidsal!  Good to see you !!

I saw our post just when I checked my last message for typos. (Some might still be here, but it is late ...)

We are covering (using the term loosely   )the chapter "Journeys into Uneasy Distances" and filling gaps, also
talking about the characters as we perceive them so far.

Goodness gracious, a whole hour lost tonight! Mercy.

Thanks for posting

[straudetwo]

Here to continue.
I was happy and grateful for your posts.  It is helpful, I believe,  even necessary, to pause and check how far we've come in our understanding and where we are in the narrative.  Reams have been written about the Quartet  and about the author - especially after the TV series brought it to the attention of a much larger audience. Comparisons were made with E.M. Forster's book A Passage to India which,  interestingly, was made into a TV series around the same time.

The Quartet deals with the same theme,  i.e.  the British presence in India, and recounts in every volume the history of the British presence in India several times over  (notably the Rebellion of 1857 and Amritsar in 1919), up to World War II and beyond to the partition of the India in 1947.  The narration is not linear,  not fully chronological, and the reader is given multiple perspectives.  A bit demanding.  That is the reason for taking a look back now and again.
Here in this place we are following the characters and their interaction - more than history and ideologies. It's a large enough task  , don't you think?

Merrick of course is a pivotal characters.  A man on a mission, with a grammar school background,  yet defiant  and fiercely determined to make good in India - as he did, with any and all means at his disposal.   We've seen how he made himself indispensable during the riots in Mayapore and how highly Brigadier Reid thought of him; we've seen how he  insinuated himself into the lives of the Laytons.  He emerged from the remote post to which he had been banished with a commission as an intelligence officer and the rank of major -  clearly a person with the aura of  importance.  At this point in the story he has (1)sole control of C. Layton's Havildar, who may or may not be a traitor;   (2) plans to have Guy Perron transferred to his own department, and (3) is moving to gaini direct entry into the Layton clan,  yes direct entry .
Ostensibly  through Edward, the 'Little Master' -  who cried when Col. Layton lifted him up into the air on the first greeting - and who LOVES  Merrick without reservations.

But the next scene now shifts to Ranpur and Nigel Rowan.

To be continued
 



 

[hats]

I am a bit confused. Which book are all of you reading? I know it's not the first one. I would like to join in with you, if just to lurk and read. I know it's not the first book. Excuse my confusion.

[Frybabe]

Hi Hats,

We are on volume 4, but we digress a lot and go back over bits of the previous volumes to refresh our memories and remind ourselves from where or what previous actions have bearing on the "present".

[hats]

Frybabe, thank you. The title of the fourth work is right in front of me. Thank you. I hope to get a copy.

[Eloise]

Hello everyone, Traude, thank you for keeping us up to date on the story. I am reading it, but slowly, and with your posts I can recall what went on in the first volume. Just a couple of hints and it all comes back to me. New characters come into the picture that were just briefly mentioned before are becoming more prominent in the story and I like that continuity. I don't want to search my brain to know why we are reading something that doesn't seem to belong. Anyway I am with you and enjoy reading everybody's posts. 

[straudetwo]

Hats, Frybabe, Éloïse, kidsal,  everybody:  My apologies for answering so late.
And thank you, Frybabe, for answering Hats' question for me. It made by absence less glaring. 
Hats, it is a very special pleasure to see you back.
hank you all for being here with me. Without you we couldn't HAVE , this exchange!

Hats, yes, what we are focusing on  is volume 4 of the Raj Quartet. All four volumes have individual titles. The title of volume 4 is A Division of the Spoils. The volume deals with the period from 1945 to 1947,  ending with the Partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. 

In volume 4 the reader meets OLD characters,  some in the then "present" time, some merely referred to,  but also NEW characters, like Guy Perron.  An overwhelming array of people marches across the pages of these novels; they all carry the story forward, many are unnamed (like Barbie's 'Unknown Indian') and a great many never are heard from again. They form the "background", not unlike the chorus in an opera, but in an immense line stretching to the end of vision and becoming blurred.

Some events in which the "old" characters were involved in the previous volumes are brought up again in volume
4 - events of which the "new" characters could have no knowledge.  That requires a lot of REtelling by the author, as you have seen,  and he obliviously relished l o n g conversations, which could qualify as speeches.  In fact, sometimes we simply have to put the book down and let the information gel for a time, just as Ḗloïse has indicated. Thankfully, we can take the time.

That is what makes it necessary for me to go back to retrace a specific connection in context as to when it had happened. I don't consider it a divergence from what is actually happening "in the moment" of volume 4, but rather a clarification, elaboration,  ultimately an amplification of the circuitous path Paul Scott has taken.
The four volumes are a continuum,  but it all fits together, not a single stitch is dropped in the  intricate fabric of the story.

It seems to me that we are not unraveling this novel so much as reassembling it,  perhaps like putting shards of colored glass in varying sizes back on a vast canvas whose details have long faded and whose once magnificent frame is splintered.  Hats, as the wonderful puzzle solver you are, would you say that is a possible analoygy? 

In Chapter 1 of this volume, we accompanied (vicariously, of course)  Guy Perron, whom we had just met   ,  to a  party at the home of a Maharanee,  named Aimée; were later privy to the discovery of a murder - in reality a failed suicide, and were justifiably anxious to learn whether Major Merrick would be able to entrap Perron in his (Merrick's) net.  There is no immediate answer.  But the date is important: August 7, 1945. 

We are currently going over the events described in Chapter 2, "Journeys into Uneasy Distances".  Scott shifts gears,  forward in time, way forward beyond 1947,   and then brings us back to August 7, 1945, the day after Hiroshima ...  not yet directly ahead,  but through the thicket of long introspective passages by Sarah, and flashbacks to significant events of which the returning paterfamilias Col. Layton knew only what he was told, if he was told at all.  We are going to discover later that he did not know that Susan had a breakdown and was in a world of her own in an institution.  At the moment in the story Susan is at least functioning.

Those of you you have Volume 2 called "The Day of the Scorpion" on hand  will find some chapters compelling.
A reader coming straight from reading  "The Jewel in the Crown" might find the beginning of "The Day of the Scorpion"  slow and, at first glance,  even somewhat disconnected from volume 1, for some aspects were not prominently mentioned before,    for example the independent princely states, their precarious status and their role. However,  the fictional Mirat, one such princely estate,  is the scene of crucial action in volume 2, and again in volume 4, yet to come.

No one but Scott has described the sights, sounds, scents, immensity, the glorious architecture and the concomitant abject poverty of India in more vibrant,   exquisite language.

To be continued

[Eloise]

Traude thank you for your informative posts, it gathers the story together and I love this:

It seems to me that we are not unraveling this novel so much as reassembling it,  perhaps like putting shards of colored glass in varying sizes back on a vast canvas whose details have long faded and whose once magnificent frame is splintered

[straudetwo]

Éloïse, many thanks, chère amie.

T

[kidsal]

Have made some notes:
1.  Rampur - grave undug, Pankot - grave dug in too much of a hurry? What does this mean?

2.  8th day - What did God do?  Great question!

3.  The greatest distances are between those people who are related.

4.  Why was Rowan taking a "dose of pills?"

5.  What did Rowan and Governor Malcom do about Harry?  Have I forgotten or have we been told?

[hats]

Thank you, Traude. It's taking me awhile to settle in. I'm trying.

[straudetwo]

Dear Friends,   I am so glad to know/see you all here and I welcome your questions . Special thanks to our last posters.

Kidsal Absolutely, Q&A are essential, always, how else could we get to the core
of things?
Hats, your presence, like everyone's presence, counts. It's  my reason to go on and I appreciate it.  We need not, and we should not,  hurry. There is so much to reflect on, to savor, even to discover about our world and human behavior, which obviously never changes

Will be back
Meanwhile loving thoughts to all across time and distance.

[straudetwo]

Here I am back.
Had to wait for my daughter's  Sunday call.  Her regular calls brighten my Sundays and the looming week ahead. I treasure them.

Kidsal  Good questions.
1. Ranpur was the seat, garrison, headquarters of the Pankot Rifles. Pankot was the summer residence in the hills where everybody fled to when the climate in R. became unbearable.

Mabel wanted to be buried next to her husband, Col. Layton's father,  in Ranpur.  Barbie knew it,and so did no doubt DIL Mildred - there was very little she did not know about.   But, and most likely out of spite, Mildred had Mabel hastily buried in Pankot instead. That was the wrong grave, dug too soon in the wrong place.  There's no record in Volume 4 of conversations between Mildred and her husband, Col. Layton just returned.  But from the brief passage you mentioned the reader learns that Mabel's remains were transferred to Ranpur to a freshly dug grave.

2. and 3. are super questions to consider, but we each have to find our individual answer.
Does anyone want to try?

4. Rowan suffered  from the intestinal problem that affected so many British in India. That's why he took those pills.  Probably the same kind Merrick gave Teddy to "cement" him from the 'runs'.  The same malady affected  Captain Purvis, we recall, who took those pills by the handful.  We know that Paul Scott himself had the illness throughout his (short) life.

5. Nigel Rowan was an aide to H.E. (His Excellency) Sir Malcolm in a department having to do with politics, a job Rowan is trying to get out of, as we are about to see.  Of course Governor
Malcolm knew what happened in Mayapore and Merrick's heavy-handed actions  - for which he was banned to the hinterland, temporarily.

Lacking details, the reader must assume that it was Lady Manners' plea that finally prompted a reaction  from the Governor about Harry/Hari and the other young people who were taken prisoners on that fateful night.  The codefendants were eventually released, but on that day in the prison, significantly ONLY Hari's case was taken up.

So Rowan, a lawyer,  was charged with the task of interrogating Hari. And an interrogation  it was, not a hearing. Hari was not informed beforehand and, as it turns out, knew nothing about Daphne's death. It is not made clear whether the Governor was handed the ACTUAL minutes that detail Hari's abuse by Merrick in Mayapore, or the sanitized version - from which the abuse history was omitted.

How could one not be moved by the scene of Lady Manners and Rowan in the limousine, its shades drawn as they near the prison; Lady Manners fingering a mugshot of Hari whom she has never seen (which she handed  back to Rowan);  the  hollow corridors of the prison and the stale air;  the sudden blast in the air-conditioned little room where Lady Manners watched and listened, the secretive staging of the whole thing ... ?

Please ask any other questions,  I am here. Thank you.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Continuing.
We are getting to subsection III in Chapter 2, volume 4.

Col. Layton has returned to Pankot and to re-vamped Rose Cottage, where a large tennis court (hardly used) has replaced Mabel's lovingly tended rose bushes.  The Colonel is weary and preoccupied about the Havildar suspected of treason who's firmly under Merrick's control and held incommunicado.

Edward, Susan's son, the Little Master,  has taken a shine to Merrick. 

Sarah and her father resume the habit of earlier years: morning rides, mostly in silence.
Nigel Rowan is coming to Pankot from Ranpur with a mission.
Merrick is in Delhi waiting for Guy Perron to join him. But Perron has put his Plan B in motion.

It sounds like a mystery - and it is. And the suspense pulls us along.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Continuing


with Nigel Rowan, an aide to the current British Governor of the region, Sir George Malcolm.
His appointment was to be temporary but then extended.  His quarters in Government House are on the top floor where the temporaries live, where the stairs and corridors are narrow, and  the bathrooms have no running water.  By now he is the oldest inhabitant and the two uniformed Indian servants consider themselves in his personal employ.  He knows their histories, weaknesses, aspirations; he helps them in their personal matters; and settles their disputes.  He had never felt himself cut out to be a good regimental officer, but he was enough of a soldier to miss the contact with the men for whose welfare he was responsible.  The servants are the surrogates.

Upstairs two servants are waiting for him;  one gets the room key off the board and unlocks the door; Rowan hands him the key to hi liquor cabinet and a drink is poured.  The other  servant turns on the lights and the fan in the sitting room and the bedroom and summons the bhishti whose sole duty is it to carry the hot water up from the basement. That has been the routine since Rowan was appointed to the job. He is off duty for 24 hours, and that, too, is the weekly routine.

While Rowan waits, he checks the mail, briefly goes over a copy of the upcoming agenda, which he himself has prepared. In the pouch is private mail, and a letter from Sarah.
It is a long one and printed in its entirety. Paul Scott stresses the date, August 11, 1945  - five days since Miss Batchelor death on August 6, 45. Since then another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. An end to the war is in sight.

To be continued

[hats]

Hi Traude,

It's very refreshing and exciting to see you with an ongoing book discussion. Finally, I am becoming, almost, organized. My book, Division of the Spoils, is coming today. I will start reading tonight.

I haven't read Vol. one - three. I feel that in the process of reading Vol. 4, I will come to understand the earlier books. I will definitely go back to the earlier books at a future time. Thank you for being here.

[hats]

GumTree,

Sorry to hear about the fires.

[straudetwo]

Hello, Hats, welcome  back. I've been thinking of you yesterday and today, just as I was working on how to  best present my next post here.  (Telepathy may well have been a work, and I hve had that happen before.)

I'm just so glad you posted and that you have the book.  The support and feedback I receive sustain me.  Thank you.

Back soon.

[straudetwo]

To continue. First a few generalia.

Early on it became evident in the first volume of  the "Raj Quartet", titled "The Jewel in the Crown", and in every volume thereafter,   that the narration is not straightforward,  nor chronological.   There's not only one narrator but several.  None of them is necessarily unreliable, actually far from it.

There are many detours, flashbacks, fast-forwards, much introspection by different characters and, for the reader,  a lot of virtual walking with the narrator du jour through (some typical) towns and the streets of the cantonments the British had established.  But believe me,  the author is a master in the art of weaving an intricate story; he is in full control of the multiple threads,  and he does not let go until the bitter end.

At this point in the story we are still in August of 1945, the atomic bombs have been dropped;
Japan has not declared surrender; the situation is unresolved; tension are high.  There are immediate concerns in India itself.  And Nigel Rowan plays an important role.

He is in Ranpur on his weekly 24 hr. furlough routine.   A skilled,  trusted aide to the British Governor, Sir George Malcolm,  he has  successfully handled two very delicate, secret missions  for His Excellency, (1)  the interrogation of Hari Kumar  (which resulted in Hari's quiet release), and (2) representing the Governor during the release of the prominent Indian political leader MAK, Mohammed Kasim (father of Sayed and Ahmed) from Fort Prenagar into the custody of his kin, the Nawab of Mirat,  in June of the previous year.

On that night Rowan sat in the Nawab's special coach in the train station of Ranpur on his way to Prenagar with Count Bronowsky.  That is where fate led him to meet Sarah Layton.
(Let me mention quickly that Scott has given great weight to fate/destiny.)

Readers may recall that at that time Sarah had traveled to Calcutta to visit, in her sister Susan's behalf,  the gravely injured Merrick who was present when Susan's husband, Teddy Bingham, was killed.  Sarah was staying with her Aunt Fenny and her uncle Arthur, Col. Grace, recently entrusted with the task of encouraging British officers to stay on in India after ...  On the evening of the hospital visit Sarah was introduced to Captain Clark, an opportunist,  if ever there was one.
On her return to Aunt Fenny's that evening in Calcutta, Sarah found a message from Pankot that Susan had gone into premature labor. She left at once.  On her  layover in Ranpur Sarah saw and walked over to the Nawab's special carriage, waiting on a separate track and  Count Bronowsky  by the door.  He did not immediately recognize Sarah, in uniform, but soon enough remembered her from Susan's wedding in Mirat and brought her into the carriage.  That's where she met Nigel Rowan.
I believe it was necessary to refer to this background so that we could understand what is to follow in the story line now.

To be coninued

[straudetwo]

To continue
Another of my occasional personal remarks, if I may.

Paul Scott took about nine years to write the Raj Quartet - between 1966 and 1975, and I for one have no doubt that he wrote with what they call his "life's blood". 
He was meticulous  and always consistent in even the most minute details, and insistent on driving home an especially relevant  point - often more than once.  And I feel duty-bound to
recount at least the most significant events and happenings of the protagonists, carefully, as succinctly as I can, but without hurry.

We know that Scott received his "just due" in the form of the coveted Booker Prize in 1977 only after  the publication  of the last book, "Staying On". it is considered a sequel to the Quartet.   He did not live to see the TV and Masterpiece Theatre productions. The full recognition and world-wide fame came posthumously.

Now to get back to Nigel Rowan in his quarters in Ranpur, supposedly off duty for 24 hours, eating dinner from a tray the servant brought up from the mess, washing down the handful of pills with the second drink.  Before him is an  envelope with Miss Batchelor's last papers which had been handed to him earlier that day by the Mother Superior of the Samaritan Hospital in Ranpur.  Barbie had spent the last months of her life there in voluntary silence, not recognizing
anyone.

He calls Sarah in Pankot to give her the news and promises to send Barbie's papers by official pouch with the overnight train.  A short time later the phone rings,  it is Hugh Thackery, the Governor's secretary, who tells Rowan "HE wants a word".  The Governor and his entourage are back from Delhi where they attended the  Conference of Indian leaders mentioned on the first page in volume 4.  It was unsuccessful because there no unity was achieved between Muslims and Hindus leaders on how to handle the next important steps

Rowan goes at once.  And the reader follows willingly, vicariously gazing at thet grandeur of Government House;  the halls and imposing formal rooms; upstairs to the magnificent private residence,  to the anterooms, the hustle and bustle of the staff; lat the personal chamber.

The Glovernor reports on the failure of the Conference.
And  says that there may be a crisis:  MAK, one of the most influential Indian leaders and so far politically uncommitted,  is traveling to Pankot for the burial of his personal secretary. It is feared that the visit could be used for political purposes and lead to unrest, protests, or violence.

Rowan is charged to take the night train to Pankot accompanied by Mr. Gopal,  the Indian lawyer who was present at Hari's interrogations a few months earlier.
He is to carry a letter handwritten by the Governor and, through Mr. Gopal, to try and arrange the hand delivery of the letter to MAK.
All the details have been seen to, Mr. Gopal  is informed and waiting to be picked up.

"By the way", says the Governor, "Im losing you ... They're asking you back to the Political 
Department   . I know you will be pleased.  I will miss you, though."

A two-car escort takes Rowan and Gopal  to the station; the official carriage has been put on the train.  At the last-minute three unexpected passengers break through the cordoned-off area and demand to be allowed to board the special carriage.

To be continued

[straudetwo]

Continuing.
We've seen that Rowan is capable of handling any situation, no matter how unexpected, difficult or absurd.  As the Governor's  Special Emissary he has ample experience.

His problem of the moment is how to accommodate three extra travelers who are "overflow" on the train that's full to capacity, but they do carry a Government order. However,  only one of them is an officer -- it's Merrick, now a Lieutenant Colonel, accompanied by his Indian servant and Sergeant Perron.  Another officer is raising a fuss on the platform and the British Movement Control Officer, new in the job, echoes the other officer's complaint. Rowan overrules them both.

Knowing all about Merrick (even as Merrick knows little if anything about Rowan), Nigel Rowan is intrigued.  Mr. Gopal,  the Governor's other emissary and Hari's Indian interrogator,  knows all about Merrick and Mayaapore as well,  but has no desire to meet Merrick in person.  He takes his bedroll, his tiffin set and his umbrella and moves to an old aide's room.

In their phone conversation Sarah had mentioned a Sergeant Perron  but Rowan thought she was joking - until she said that Perron (a few years younger than Nigel) remembered him quite well from Chillingborough.

And there are the three.  Merrick with his swagger cane, his servant in an extraordinary outfit, wearing a cap of gold thread swathed with stiff white muslin, an embroidered  waistcoat over a white tunic gathered at the waist by a belt; tucked into the belt a miniature axe on a long shaft decorated with silver filigree; a clean-shaven, pockmarked face, kohl-rimmed eyes.
"A bazaar Pathan, handsome, predatory, a man instinctively to be distrusted."

Following behind is Perron,  towering over them,  unsmiling and fairer than Rowan remembered him from the olden days,  when Guy was known as "a spot of trouble".

The "tiffin"  in "tiffin set" (personal luncheon tableware) is etymologically derived from "tiffing". 
I've not found a definition of "Pathan", but the meaning is rather clear.

The end of this chapter will be reviewed next.

[Frybabe]

Traude, Pathan is a tribal designation/affiliation. We are more likely to hear of them referred to as Pashtun these days. They are mostly native to Afghanistan and Pakistan. I read recently that the Pashtun tribes are about 65% Taliban (religious fundamentalist). Persian, I am sure, can give us a more in depth portrait.

If I find an illustration of Pathan tribal dress I will attempt to post it. I assume by "bazaar Pathan" Scott means to convey that the fellow is dressing to the hilt for the part and may or may not be a true Pathan.

[Frybabe]

While trying to find  some illustrations of native pathan dress, especially ceremonial, I ran across this little bio of the only Pathan to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in WWII.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7996508

[straudetwo]

Frybabe, thank you for your posts and the information.
I know about the connection to the Pashtuns and their tribal standing,  e.g. in Afghanistan.  James Michener elaborated on that in his book "Caravans", one of the discussions we held in the Books on SN several years ago.  The Pashtuns are known for their tribal loyalty and principle.

However,  there is obviously something hideous, actually  revolting,  about Merrick's "Red Shadow", Perron's nickname for the man,  an intimation of pure evil, reinforced because of his relationship with Merrick.
In fact,  Rlowan's distrust is borne out later in this chapter when the Red Shadow turns out to be a voyeur, a procurer of the worst sort, and a thief,  hardly the traits one would associate with a Pashtun!

That made me think there might be a more specific definition for the type of Pathan Scott describes here.
Thanks also for the link.  We can assume that's exactly how one of Col. Layton's Indian Officers looked and dressed.

[Frybabe]

I am sorry to say that I have read very little of Michener. In fact, after looking at his list of books, practically nill. My Dad had Tales of the South Pacific which I started but never finished. The book has long since disappeared. I do have Iberia but have never read it. Shame on me for not reading a native Pennsylvanian. Double shame on me, I haven't read any Pearl Buck either.


I couldn't locate a pix of Pathan dress contemporary to our story except for military. However, here is a link to some illustrations dating from the second half of the 19th century which look somewhat like the discription Scott gave.

http://www.khyber.org/pictures/historypaint.shtml

[straudetwo]

Frybabe,

Thank you very much for the link and the portraits of the Pashtoons.   The 'turbans' in the very first picture could very well be of white muslin.

There was an earlier reference to a Pathan, and I just found it.
It is in Volume , The Towers of Silence, in Part 3,  in the chapter "The Silver in the Mess" .

Teddie has found a broken woman's bike outside the quarters he shares with Merrick. Both Merrick and  Hosain, the Indian servant they share (and who is much more attentive to Merrick than to Teddie) are out.  Teddie begins to feel sick and simply wipes off the strange chalk marks left on the steps. By the time Merrick returns Teddie is in acute discomfort.   Merrick takes one look and asks "Oh, Mirat tummy?" and then brings out some "stuff" that he promises will help settle Teddie's stomach.

"Ten minutes later Teddie felt ephoric and they went to the mess together.  At dinner he drank beer. Afterwards he drank several brandies and Merrick drank one. Without Merrick to guide him he might have lost his way in the maze of covered walks.  By the time they got back to their room Teddie was satisfactorily several over the eight, but still on his feet. He protested when Merrick  helped him take off his shoes. He did not remember getting into bed.

He woke with a thick head when Hosain roused them at half past seven with morning tea, and recalled a dream that had been so vivid it hardly seemed like a dream at all but obviously was because it couldn't have happened that he woke in the middle of the night and saw an Indian - a Pathan in a long robe -  standing in the middle of the room."

I remember reading James Michener's Tales from the Pacific, or a similar title, which were made into a movie.  The only other book  I read of Michener's was "Caravans" - an excellent yarn - which we discussed in SN in December of 2001, when the eyes of the world were on Afghanistan after the horrible events of 9/11. 
The book is fiction,  set in 1946 and it probably has some historic ackground.
More than once during the discussion I found myself wondering if people in authority had read or knew of the book. 

Oops, doorbell.  Back shortly

[straudetwo]

Back for a moment.

Michener was known for doing extensive research on his books, many of which are veritable tomes.  He wrote "Caravans" in 1963 and it is definitely of manageable length.  The topic was perfect for the times, of course.

I'm expecting the grandchildren and will try to get back later.

[straudetwo]

My silence was involuntary.
On Monday I had appointments for bloodwork etc. in preparation for a semiannual checkup.  On Tuesday the local book group met and, when we parted at about 4 p.m.,  I took a fall in the hostess's driveway and ended up in the ER.  That's more than 48 hours ago, and I am beginning to feel more like myself again.
My apologies.

I will be back.

[Frybabe]

Sorry to hear about your fall, Traude. I hope you didn't break anything.

Yes, I remember the episode you just mentioned. The broken bike, I thought, was symbolic (Hari Kumar). I thought the "dream" of the Pathan standing in the middle of the room was kind of spooky. The scene added to the general sinisterness of  Merrick's behavior/personality.

 I think that the only point in the series that I felt Merrick let his guard down and revealed a little about himself was when he sat on the porch with Sarah one evening.  It seemed at that point that he was trying to make an emotional connection (sympathy? understanding?). I think that was when they were staying in Mirat, but I forget exactly.

[Gumtree]

Frybabe The scene with the Pathan standing in Teddy's room didn't strike me as spooky - I just thought Merrick had made sure that Teddy was thoroughly intoxicated so that he (Merrick) would have the freedom to have a guest in the room. I imagined the guest to be the servant who paid more attention to Merrick's needs than to Teddy's. It certainly didn't occur to me then that it was Merrick dressed as a Pathan.