Sir Geoffrey did not return to the subject of cottages as if he were discussing charity. He returned to it the way he returned to irrigation disputes and police budgets—because the province had started leaning on a single functioning mechanism, and mechanisms broke when demand became worship.
They sat in the west sitting room again, where the lake cooled tempers and the corridor kept voices soft. Harrington remained present, not as decoration, but as the Crown's hinge—proof that Sandalbar's order was not merely Jinnah's will made physical.
The Governor placed his cup down with deliberate care.
"You mentioned funds," he said, as if Jinnah had simply cited a technical constraint. "That problem will solve itself."
Jinnah did not indulge optimism. "Problems do not solve themselves. They are solved."
Sir Geoffrey's mouth tightened faintly—approval, not offense.
"Then listen to how this one will be solved," he said.
He leaned forward.
"The complaints reaching my office are not merely about access," he continued. "They are about status. The princely estates do not want to send one patient into your system like a supplicant. They want to bring a family."
Jinnah's eyes narrowed, attentive.
"They want their own courtyard," Sir Geoffrey said, plainly. "Inside your medical facility."
Harrington felt the weight of that sentence. Courtyard meant: wives, mothers, sisters, attendants, private cooking, private prayer, private arguments—an entire ecosystem imported into Sandalbar's clean machine.
Jinnah did not immediately react. "A courtyard inside a medical facility is not medicine."
"It is politics," Sir Geoffrey replied. "And you know as well as I do that politics is the price of medicine at scale."
Jinnah's gaze remained steady. "If they bring their ecosystem, they will contaminate standards."
Sir Geoffrey nodded once. "That is why you do not place them in your current wing."
He spoke the next words with the controlled certainty of a man who had already decided how he would defend the proposal in his own files.
"You will build a separate cluster," he said, "for Indian royalty and high-status families—entirely distinct from your existing cottages and women's wing."
Jinnah's expression did not soften. "Separate means duplicated staff, duplicated supply routes, duplicated discipline."
"Correct," Sir Geoffrey said. "And I am telling you the money for that duplication exists."
Jinnah waited.
Sir Geoffrey continued.
"These estates have cash," he said. "Not salaries. Not allowances. Cash. They have been spending it on doctors who cannot deliver, on private wards that rot behind velvet curtains, and on bribes that buy them nothing except delay."
He paused, then set the hook where Jinnah could not ignore it.
"They will pay to secure a place here," Sir Geoffrey said. "Not per visit. Not per night. To secure the right of entry."
Harrington watched Jinnah's eyes shift minutely, the barrister recognizing a structure that could be framed as law rather than favor.
"A membership," Jinnah said, carefully.
Sir Geoffrey shook his head. "Not membership. That word will poison you. It sounds like a party. It sounds like you are building a private court."
He leaned closer.
"Call it a retention fee," he said. "Call it a reserve fee. Call it a facility guarantee. An upfront payment that purchases one thing only: priority access under your rules."
Jinnah did not answer immediately. The shape of it was clear: a contract disguised as dignity.
"And the fee must be heavy," Sir Geoffrey added. "Heavy enough that it funds the infrastructure before the first courtyard is laid."
Jinnah's voice remained clinical. "Define heavy."
Sir Geoffrey's eyes sharpened.
"Enough to build the wing," he said. "Enough to equip it. Enough to hire your best doctors. Enough that you do not borrow, do not beg, and do not dilute your standards to save costs."
Harrington understood what the Governor was doing: shifting the burden away from the provincial budget and onto the offended pride of princes—turning complaint into capital.
Jinnah's mind moved to the next constraint, predictable and lethal.
"And what do I give them in exchange?" he asked. "If they pay a retention fee, they will demand ownership of the rules."
Sir Geoffrey's reply was immediate.
"You give them controlled luxury," he said. "Not control."
He lifted a finger, as if enumerating clauses in a document.
"You give them a private courtyard," he said. "A bungalow-style unit. A screened staff route. A separate entrance. You give them the illusion that they are not mixing with anyone beneath them."
Then he added, more quietly:
"But you do not give them the right to rewrite Sandalbar."
Jinnah's gaze held.
"And the women's side?" Jinnah asked. "If royals arrive with wives and mothers, the women's wing becomes a battleground."
Sir Geoffrey nodded, anticipating it.
"Build another women's wing," he said. "Not an annex. A second wing with its own matron, its own attendants, its own routines. Your current women's wing remains your disciplined model. The new wing absorbs the royals."
Harrington caught the precise choice of language: absorbs, like a shock-absorber. A political suspension system.
"And you," Jinnah said, looking directly at the Governor now, "will ensure the complaining estates accept the separation? They will interpret it as insult."
Sir Geoffrey's expression was almost amused.
"That," he said, "is my job."
He sat back, settling into the posture of a man about to deploy his office as an instrument.
"I will personally promote it," he continued. "To the princely estates who are writing to me, and to the ones who have not yet written but are listening. I will frame it as a service that prevents deaths, prevents scandal, and prevents them from begging me for exceptions each time a daughter's pregnancy becomes complicated."
Jinnah's eyes narrowed. "And you will not frame it as 'Jinnah's private kingdom.'"
Sir Geoffrey's tone hardened.
"I will frame it as Crown-enabled modernization," he said. "A leased system under liaison oversight. A medical facility expanded for provincial stability."
He glanced toward Harrington, as if the next line was for the administrator's ledger.
"Harrington will ensure the land arrangements remain clean," Sir Geoffrey said. "Leased, not owned. Liaison protocols. Taxation. All formal."
Harrington nodded once, already drafting the invisible paperwork in his head.
Jinnah considered the structure: royal money, Crown framing, leased land, separate wing, separate rules. A machine that could expand without losing its spine—if the spine held.
"And the doctors?" Jinnah asked.
Sir Geoffrey's eyes remained steady. "Hire the best," he repeated. "If a royal family pays a retention fee, they will not accept improvisation. Use their demands to justify your standards."
Jinnah was quiet for a moment.
Harrington could see the conflict behind the calm: Jinnah wanted systems that uplifted the village, not palaces for princes. But the Governor's offer was not merely money. It was insulation. It would protect Sandalbar's original wing from being consumed by status warfare.
Sir Geoffrey watched him, then spoke the final line as if placing a seal on the proposal.
"You told me you do not build half-systems," he said. "Then don't."
He leaned forward, voice dropping into the private register again—first names by default, consequences implied.
"Muhammad," he said, "take their pride and convert it into infrastructure. Let princes fund the standards that will eventually embarrass them into behaving."
Jinnah's mouth tightened faintly. Not agreement—recognition.
"And when this works," Sir Geoffrey added, "the complaints stop being complaints. They become endorsements."
He stood, signaling that the meeting was no longer exploratory.
"Draft it," he said. "Name the fee. Define what it buys and what it does not buy. Build the second women's wing. Keep the rules clean."
At the doorway he paused, letting the last sentence land with the weight it deserved.
"And leave the promotion to me," Sir Geoffrey said. "If they want to complain, they can complain to the man who offered them the solution."
When he left, the room did not feel relieved.
It felt armed—with a new kind of weapon.
Not rifles. Not speeches.
Contracts. Courtyards. And a retention fee heavy enough to turn aristocratic vanity into Sandalbar brickwork.