The Maharani's Pearls by Charles Todd

The Maharani’s Pearls
    British Army Garrison, Northern India, when Bess Crawford was ten
    “ B ESS, FOR G OD’S sake, what are you doing?”
    It was my father’s batman—­his Army servant—­standing in the tent opening. I was sitting
     cross-­legged on the dusty carpet, and the fortune-­teller had just finished spreading
     out her cards.
    “Simon, please! I want to hear what she has to say.”
    “And your mother will have my head if I don’t bring you back to tea now .”
    “Pretend you haven’t found me—­keep looking for another few minutes. Please ?” I begged. “I know I must change before the Maharani arrives. It would never do
     to appear for tea looking as if I’d just come from the bazaar. But there’s still plenty
     of time.”
    “You will have just come from the bazaar. She arrived early. And you’ll have fleas before you
     leave, if not worse.” He pointed to the dog lying behind the fortune-­teller, busy
     scratching its shoulder.
    If the Maharani had just arrived, it would be at least another half hour before tea
     was brought in.
    “Simon—­”
    “I’ll be cashiered, Bess.”
    “Shhhh. It will only take another moment or two,” I begged, then I turned back to
     the fortune-­teller and said in Hindi, “Continue. But hurry, please.”
    She bent over the cards, frowning. “You will be in danger on the water,” she said
     in that singsong voice that gave the impression she was in a trance. But she wasn’t.
     It was part of the show one pays for when one has one’s fortune told. “And I see a
     great conflict, not now, but to come.”
    So far her guesses were on the mark. I was English, and there was always danger on
     the water as we took ship to and from home. As for a great conflict, my father was
     a British Army officer. War was his business, great or small.
    Simon, still in the doorway, said again, in a voice that brooked no argument. “Elizabeth.”
    I said to the fortune-­teller, “Quickly! Who will I marry? And will I be happy?”
    But her face had changed as she studied the tattered cards spread across the space
     between us.
    “The life of someone you care for is in grave danger. My child, you must go now. Before
     it is too late.”
    Simon’s life, for not bringing me posthaste to tea? She must have understood what
     he’d been saying to me. It wasn’t among his duties to play nanny to my father’s daughter,
     but occasionally it was necessary for someone to look for me when I strayed to the
     horse lines, the bazaar, the temples, and all the other far more exciting places than
     our quiet garden, and lost track of the time. It certainly wasn’t going to be my governess.
     Miss Stewart would have the vapors if she saw me now.
    She didn’t care for India very much. I suspected she’d come out to find a husband,
     and had taken a position as governess when she failed to meet a young man to her liking.
     She wouldn’t be the first young Englishwoman to do so. When we left for England on
     my father’s next leave, she would very likely go with us, and remain in London rather
     than travel back with us.
    I thanked the fortune-­teller, disappointed. I hadn’t expected truth and wisdom, but
     I’d hoped for something I could write about to friends who had been sent back to school
     in England. Half our native staff went to fortune-­tellers and believed in them. I
     had it on the authority of my ayah , the nursery-­room maid, that this woman was the best.
    I got up and walked to the tent opening, put out with Simon for spoiling my adventure.
     I said crossly, “I thought you and I were friends.”
    “So we are,” he said, clearing a path for me past the snake charmer and the man eating
     fire. “But I have a duty to your father, and by extension, to your mother. You should
     have guessed the Maharani would arrive early. She often does. You could have asked
     me to take you to a fortune-­teller tomorrow.” He pushed aside a sacred cow meandering