#Jampan no hi

[ayanos-pl]

赤染晶子『じゃむパンの日』（palmbooks）ちょっと前に図書館で「推しの一文」という催しをやっていて、そこで借りたら、こんな栞が挟まっていた。自分の「推しの一文」を見つけてみるのもいいかも。巻末の岸本佐知子との交換日記で爆笑。飄々としたユーモアと確かな観察眼が魅力的な書き手でした。

Akiko Akazome „Jampan no hi (Dzień drożdżówki z dżemem)”

Akiko Akazome „Jampan no hi (Jam bun day)”

[triviareads]

Peccavi (In which the Bridgertons Talk About India)

1846

It had long since gotten dark by the time the family slowly traipsed into the drawing room at Bridgerton House. Dinner had ran overlong, perhaps due to the gaiety of the younger set, and the unwillingness of the older set to quash it, even as Aunt Sophie had quietly told them her and Benedict received a letter from Alexander, their son, who was now serving under Sir Hugh Gough somewhere in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. The pallor in Sophie’s expression and the dark shadows marring the skin under her eyes indicated nothing good, although none of the family had pressed further with all the children about.

But now, the younger, unmarried cousins had been chivvied off to bed, and Charlotte, along with the remaining family, eyed Sophie and Benedict with some trepidation.

“We didn’t want to say anything more in front of the children,” Aunt Sophie said at last, “but we received a letter from Alex, dated some months ago. He said, then, that they were preparing for war.”

Charlotte’s gaze flickered questioningly towards her husband Lord Clairmont, who looked unsurprised. But Charlotte could not help but shiver, faced with the sheer lack of knowledge her aunt, uncle, all of them, were in possession of, even as Alex was in danger, hurt, possibly dead an ocean away.

Charlotte’s mother spoke first.

“I’m sure he’ll be alright, Sophie. He is such a brave boy,” Kate said in soothing tones to her distraught sister-in-law. “He was always that way- brave, honorable, sensible- the first one in the family to enlist.”

“Besides,” Benedict added, in a seeming attempt to not only comfort his wife, but himself, “Alex is a commissioned officer. He certainly won’t be in the first line of defense. The native troops are there for that.”

“I know,” Sophie whispered. “But I cannot help but wonder- cannot help but think what could have changed since then-” she broke off, her breath hitching.

“Why is this happening?” Aunt Daphne asked quietly. “Why now?”

“I don’t know- well-” Sophie sniffed and unfolded the letter once more, “-He did mention some disagreement- infighting within the Punjab state, I think, but I could hardly make sense of it.”

“Their military is disordered, corrupt, according to Alex,” Benedict stated grimly. “They are a danger to all of them.”

“And so,” Uncle Michael sighed heavily, “It is up to our lot, as usual, to step in and keep the peace.” Michael had briefly been a colonial administrator under the Marquess of Hastings, during his tenure as Governor-General, in Madras.

“And the Company has its own interests too, Uncle,” Edmund added after a beat. “Is that not why they annexed the… Sindh Province, I think? Or what the war with the Chinese was about- the continued trade of opium?”

“Ghastly habit,” Aunt Lucy murmured.

“Free trade must prevail, my love,” Uncle Gregory, who had done rather well for himself by way of such investments, reminded his wife. “We are still Whigs.”

(Charlotte supposed free trade went hand-in-hand with the enormous profits the government was reaping off of this continued trade).

“There is… a greater purpose to all this,” Lord Geoffrey Findlay-Watt, cousin Caroline’s husband, said suddenly. He was generally a quiet man, jovial and happy to cede his share of attention onto others. This prompted everyone to look at him with rapt attention. What Geoffrey did for the Foreign Office was still a bit unclear, although they never really bothered to inquire further. For all all intents and purposes, Lord Geoffrey was merely a third son of a marquess who had become a part of the government bureaucracy.

“There has long been sentiment among certain elements within the government that Russia seeks to steal away our colonies in the east, especially India. They do this by invading much of Central Asia, slowly expanding their sphere of influence, cutting off our trade routes, port access, and such. The British government has a vested interest in preventing our crown jewel from falling into their hands.”

"Thus our efforts in Afghanistan and Sindh,” Lord Clairmont murmured.

Lord Geoffrey finished with, “A Russia-controlled India, indeed, a Russia-controlled Asia, would be nothing short of disastrous for the empire.”

“And so we make war instead,” Charlotte concluded from this little speech.

“We make war to make peace,” David corrected with the partisan fervency he had acquired after four years in the Commons as an MP of East Sussex.

Charlotte raised a brow at this statement. “You’ve been listening far too much to Palmerston,” she told David.

Charlotte's father turned to her with an odd look on his face. “And how exactly would you know of Palmerston’s rhetoric?” Anthony asked.

“She’s been the audience of many of his speeches, sir,” her husband spoke up for her, glancing at her and adding with the air of an inside-joke, “both directly and otherwise.”

Ah yes, one of Palmerston’s favorite methods of opinion-collecting: Whisper some policy or idea in the formidable Lady Palmerston’s ear, and she would proceed to casually mention it in during a party and gauge all the reactions before returning to her husband with this valuable intelligence.

“Of course,” Simon mused, “Pam was always been inclined to take the… active approach.”

Anthony rolled his eyes. “Aggressive, you mean. Although if you asked him, he would admit only to being a loyal servant of the Queen and Country.”

Palmerston, Charlotte had always thought, was many things, but his only loyalty was to himself.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Simon said, “particularly when the Tories seem to shy away from any sort of conflict.”

It was Benedict who scoffed and said, “Whatever peace Peel and Aberdeen may profess to want, that does not discount the fact that we are at war, however far away it may be.”

“And now, soldiers like Alex will have to suffer for it, oceans away from their home,” Sophie concluded bitterly.

Charlotte’s brows furrowed. She understood the worry a mother felt for her son, but they had all known he was a soldier, hadn’t they? Hadn’t they known that war was perpetually on the horizon for a man in his profession?

(What was the old line from Horace as he spoke of war- ah, dulce et decorum est … she winced, suddenly recalling the second half of the stanza).

Then again, despite bearing two children herself, Charlotte often wondered why she did not possess the maternal instinct all her aunts naturally seemed to have in spades.

“Things could very well change, Aunt,” Oliver Crane was saying in soothing tones. “The conflict in these princely states could be resolved as quickly as they started. I have seen it with my own eyes. Many of them are merely quarreling over successions and such, and can be speedily appeased.”

Charlotte exchanged looks with her husband. If Lord Geoffrey’s work at the Foreign Office was generally a bit of a question-mark to the family, most of them had absolutely no idea what it was Oliver did. Charlotte knew a bit more than most of them, thanks to her husband. Brilliant, academic prize-winning Oliver had been introduced to the likes of Lord Geoffrey and Lord Palmerston before he had even graduated from Cambridge, and he had gone off to the East under mysterious circumstances, neither as a tourist nor as a soldier. (And Charlotte had her suspicions that his line of work was not precisely diplomatic in nature).

“Oh yes, I forgot you spent some time there, Oliver,” Sophie said. “Where is it that you were again? Anywhere near-” Sophie consulted the letter she was gripping onto, “-this Punjab?”

“Here and there,” Oliver replied vaguely. “I spent some time in Shimla near the end of my tour- I believe that is somewhat close.”

“Shimla?” Uncle Michael said suddenly, looking up from his whisky.

“Do you know of the place, Uncle?” Oliver asked.

A grin split across Michael’s handsome face. “I was there back in ‘22! This was, of course, when hardly any of our lot ventured there- just a group of civil servants like myself, or chaps looking for adventure. Now I hear it has become rather like Brighton.”

“I can attest to that,” Oliver said dryly. “The governor-general, all his attaches, and soldiers regularly summer there now, and of course, where the gentlemen go, the ladies follow. They have quite the merry time, from what I’ve seen.”

“Like a marriage mart in the tropics?” Kate asked smilingly, seemingly determined to bring some levity into their serious drawing room conversation and cheer up her sister-in-law.

“Yes, they now hold balls, concerts, picnics and all manner of diversions up there.”

Even Sophie could not could not hide her fascination with this notion of a little English city tucked away in the Himalayas.

“I remember when Shimla was not much more than the few odd cottages in the jungle, and villages around it,” Michael reminisced, closing his eyes as an almost-tranquil smile graced his lips. “There are those who liken it to England, because of the weather and such, but for me, there was nothing like it- the coolness of the hills even when the land around it would get blazing hot, the fiery sunsets and the long-moon nights, how you could stumble across some ledge high in the hills, and when you looked out, it felt as though you could see all the world before you.”

“It sounds beautiful,” Kate murmured, entranced- the entire room seemed to be. Only Aunt Francesca smiled indulgently up at her husband, as though he had recalled these tales a thousand times.

"And the people!” Michael went on. “Why, I have never met a more obliging race of people. Every morning, they would trudge up from the villages in the foothills, and perform their daily tasks. I remember one could not even take a carriage around the hills, so narrow were the paths, and instead, the ladies would sit in a jampan, a sort of sedan-chair, and four Native men would carry them ‘round. I have yet to meet more hard-working people than them.”

Sophie spoke after this little speech, sounding pained, “I find it curious how you could praise the same people who are currently waging war against us, against people like your nephew.” She looked at her brother-in-law, her moss-green eyes steely.

Before Michael could respond, Kate said quietly, “Come, Sophie, even you know that civilians and soldiers are not one and the same, even if they hail from the same lands.”

“Besides,” David said with confidence to his aunt, “They will not remain the enemy for long, soldier, civilian, or otherwise.”

“What will they be, then?” Charlotte could not help but ask her cousin. She looked around at all of them- Oliver, Geoffrey, Michael, David, her husband- all of them, caught up in the machinations of the Empire, and wondered what knowledge of the future they held.

Something glittered within David’s gaze when he replied. “One among ours.”