Read Online The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) by Norah Lofts - Free Book Online

beautiful, not even peculiar. He would probably have dismissed her from his mind after the first ten minutes had Richard been in a better mood--or had she been more obedient to the orders Richard had given her before they set out.
    'God knows,' Richard had said, 'why he asked you to the palace at all. Damned insolence, no doubt. They never let their women show their faces outside their own quarters. And you'd better keep well in the background. Speak when you're spoken to, not otherwise.'
    He had judged it advisable to present himself in a state of complete sobriety, and the strain of that unaccustomed condition was showing before ever they set out. It grew fiercer with every minute of the long-drawn-out interview. For the first half-hour the Rajah asked all the questions, moving in circumambulatory fashion towards his real objective--the exact reason for Richard's presence in Kilapore, the terms and conditions of the concessions the Company wished to acquire. Then, for twenty minutes, Richard, who knew what he was talking about, and was anxious to make a success of his mission, held the floor, while the Rajah seemed to pay slight attention and in the end said, 'There would be much to think; sixty days of think in this head, in heads of old wise men to advise.'
    It was then at the beginning of the season of greatest heat and the prospect of spending two months far inland did nothing to calm Richard's nerves, which were screaming for the brandy oblivion they had been denied all day. He had said what was required of him, and said it well; let him now be dismissed.
    'Now you shall tell me much thing,' Surunda Ghotal said, and proceeded to ask all the questions; stupid little questions which his curiosity dictated and which were, to his mind, of much more urgent moment than the ones he had asked earlier about the East India Company and its advances to him. Any man but Richard Shelmadine would have realised instantly that here, by a stroke of good luck, was handed to him the key to Surunda's interest and friendship at least, but the arrogant perverse devil who ruled Richard was bored, impatient and affronted. There were things which a gentleman down on his luck must do, just to keep bread in his mouth and a roof over his head, but Richard Shelmadine had fulfilled his obligations when he had made his twenty-minute speech--in this fat old heathen's own language, which was more than most men could do. His answers grew shorter and brusquer; he said 'I don't know' or 'It would be impossible to explain' so often that Linda blushed with embarrassment and began first to supplement Richard's grudging answers and then to take upon herself the responsibility of making the first response to the endless questions. The Rajah seemed surprised, even a trifle ill at ease for a moment and Richard turned upon her his nastiest, most mocking grin. When the moment had passed Surunda focused his whole attention upon her, and during the next half-hour she did her best to give him whatever he wanted--a description of Windsor Castle; an explanation of what was a newspaper and how it circulated; a dissertation upon the jury system. Jasma had brought back with him from Fort St George two or three copies of The Times and The Spectator, all well over a year old by the time they reached Surunda's hands, and they had been his English textbooks, which, as he had mastered the language in which they were written, had also provoked his curiosity by their references to strange things. It was wonderful to find that this Englishwoman, so dull to look at, so disappointing, was in reality the thing he had often wished for--someone better informed than Jasma and willing to answer questions.
    He would gladly have talked to her for hours, but he was aware at last of the Englishman's mounting impatience, so he said, 'Many, many thing I have to ask. The Christianity, of that I would hear; as also of party politic and of turnpike road. Sixty days will be time if you will be