The Maharani's Pearls by Charles Todd Page B

the Maharani was beautiful. Slim and attractive, her dark eyes
     lined with kohl to make them even more exotic, she wore silks woven with gold and
     silver threads, and the ends of her saris were almost stiff with heavy, shimmering
     embroidery. The pearls she wore were legendary—­long ropes that must weigh on her
     neck, and the most perfect I’d ever seen in size and quality. On her fingers were
     huge stones set in gold. Burmese rubies caught the light, along with first water diamonds,
     sapphires, and even a large square-­cut emerald. But she wasn’t at all stuffy. She
     sat in my mother’s parlor as comfortably as if she were on the silk and jewel-­encrusted
     cushions in a room three times this size.
    As I took my place beside her, I realized she’d dismissed her servants—­they were
     probably having their own tea in my mother’s sitting room—­and that was another sign
     that the two women had been holding a very private conversation.
    My father came in soon afterward. Tall and handsome in his uniform, he bent over the
     Maharani’s hand and kissed her fingertips. She laughed up at him, and patted the seat
     on the other side of her. “Come and tell me what you have been doing.”
    My father, a major at this stage in his career, entertained her with humorous stories,
     and she laughed and clapped her hands in delight.
    “Richard, you make soldiering seem so amusing. And all the while I know you are lying
     to me in the politest possible way.”
    He laughed as well, and then with a glance toward me, sitting quietly as I turned
     the pages of the new book she’d brought me, gave her his view of what was happening
     politically. None of us ever forgot the dreadful Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, even though
     it was decades in the past. We never took our safety or the loyalty of the men who
     served in the army or worked in our houses for granted. I’d been trained from childhood
     to obey instantly if there was the least sign of trouble. The irrefutable fact was,
     the British were outnumbered thousands to one, and we could as easily be murdered
     in our beds as not, if anything went wrong.
    It was one of the many reasons parents sent their children to England and safety,
     to be educated and brought up far away from India. My parents, wiser than most, had
     kept me with them.
    The Maharani listened intently to what he was saying, and then suggested that my father
     might like to accompany her on a walk in the gardens to see the roses. My mother understood
     that this wasn’t an idle flirtation—­it was their only chance to speak freely without
     being overheard.
    When my father had escorted her through the double doors giving onto the verandah,
     my mother said to me in a low voice, “It’s as well you know, my dear. That cousin
     of the Maharajah’s has been causing a great deal of trouble again over some of the
     reforms being put into place. His Highness has sent his wife to visit us as an opportunity
     to tell Richard what’s happening. He’ll know how best to advise Colonel Haldane and
     consider what we can do to help.”
    “Will they be all right?” I asked anxiously. For I was very fond of the Maharani and
     I liked her husband as well. He’d been educated in Britain, and his friends there
     had called him Harry. His son, my age, and his daughter, a year or so older, had been
     my playmates since I was in leading strings.
    “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” my mother told me, but there was a tiny echo of doubt
     in her voice.
    I said, “Is there anything that Father can do? Or the colonel? To support the Maharajah?”
     But that I knew could be a double-­edged sword, giving his enemies cause to claim
     he lived in the pocket of the British. It had been difficult, persuading many of the
     Indian princes to give up their feudal power for the greater good, relinquishing so
     much authority to the British Crown. The Maharajah’s son, like his father, was to
     be educated at Eton, leaving in