Knocking first, I entered; the injured man was propped upon pillows in his darkened bedchamber, his arm bound in a sling with copious bandaging at the end of it. I could smell herbs and wine from the poultice, incense from a small metal holder in the corner of the room. The walls here—my father’s old bedchamber, I realised, thought to be my dead uncle’s—had been converted almost entirely into shelves containing score upon score of books, many cracking like so many ancient stone tablets.
“You needn’t look like that, Miss Stone.” Mr. Singh’s voice was rusty but sure. “Charles stitched me up again, and I cannot imagine anyone taking greater care.”
“Without gloves, no less.”
“A triumph borne of misfortune, yes. He managed on the battlefield with far cruder measures, going so quickly from fallen to fallen.”
I perched upon the edge of the bed. Mr. Singh’s brow was strained, though not yet feverish, and his head was bare; his long hair glistened faintly, but seemed almost dry, and he smiled at my speechlessness.
“There was blood in it,” he rasped. “Highly dishonourable—it felt almost worse than my arm. One of the servants will be along shortly to tie it up again, for this . . .” He waved at his injured limb.
“Oh, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. Please forgive me,” I begged.
“For the loss of my hand?” He shook his head. “There is nothing to forgive—you were the one truly endangered, after all. At last I am able to offer a true sacrifice: a disfigurement upon the altar of justice. Or so I tell myself. Monkishness is second nature to me, but as to my hand—I was quite attached to it.”
“So often the way with hands,” I agreed, and then we were laughing like overwrought children, wrung to the highest pitch of nerves, and there were tears in my eyes when I added, “I am also sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“Yes, Charles told me.” He sighed, a devastated look clouding his strong features. “This is on my head, not yours.”
“You ought not blame yourself any more than Charles ought to blame himself for your sister’s demise.”
“I shall have to teach myself that wisdom slowly, Miss Stone, as did he.”
I wanted to ask if he had suspected Garima Kaur loved him, but thought the question cruel.
“What does the name Garima mean?” I asked instead.
“There isn’t quite an equivalent in English.” Shifting, he settled farther back into the nest of pillows. “A crossroads between dignity and pride, perhaps.”
“Do people’s names always seal their fates, or only in the Sikh culture?”
He smiled again, though it did not erase the lines of suffering etched upon his brow. “I sound superstitious, don’t I? I do think that when God gifts a parent with insight, a child’s name will reflect their soul. Take Jane Stone, for instance—it suits, does it not?”
“It’s the plainest of given names and an adopted surname,” I confessed.
“Ah. Is it really? Nevertheless, I believe you mistaken. We are so locked within ourselves, we often lack perspective on these subjects—I take it to mean a rock, an island in the midst of perilous seas, and Jane is from the Hebrew, you know.”
I had not known. “What does it mean?”
Mr. Singh’s eyes, though laced with red spider’s silk, twinkled thoughtfully. “Gift from a gracious God. I have found it, you will pardon me, not unfitting.”
Rather than stem my tears, this spurred more. “You are far too kind to me.”
“It is a great privilege, to have the opportunity of being kind to anyone. What is your real surname, if you’ll pardon my asking?”
“I don’t precisely have one—but it used to be Steele. I mean to tell Charles the whole story after Sack is dealt with; I shall give you a full account then, I promise you. Rest well.”
“Steele,” he mused as I quit his bedside. “Better and better—strength, resistance, a fighting spirit.”
“I’ll need all I have just to enter East India House again,” I said from his threshold. “Mr. Sack is a brute and I shan’t relish seeing him again, even with Mr. Thornfield there.”
“So that is the meaning of all this bustling.” Sardar Singh’s eyes narrowed into knife blades. “You are off to London. What do you mean to do there?”
“To give up the treasure,” said I, gently shutting the door.
THIRTY-THREE
“No—no—Jane; you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys.”