The retention-fee discussion had ended the way most of Geoffrey's conversations ended when he was satisfied: not with applause, but with a quiet shift to the next file.
He let the tea be poured. He allowed a few seconds of polite silence—just enough to signal that what came next was not casual.
Then he looked at Jinnah across the table and said, in the tone of a man naming an administrative nuisance that had become a political liability:
"Muhammad, I have a cantonment problem."
Jinnah's expression stayed level. Harrington, seated a little behind, saw what he always saw in Jinnah at moments like this: the mind moving from courtesy to structure.
"Schooling," Geoffrey continued. "For our own families."
Lady Margaret's attention tightened at once. This was not a matter that stayed in offices; it lived in drawing rooms, in letters sent back to England, in the brittle mood of officers' wives who had learned to endure heat but not uncertainty for their children.
"You know what cantonment schools are like," Geoffrey said. "Overcrowded when a unit arrives, hollowed out when a unit leaves. Dependent on who happens to be posted where. Quality is inconsistent, supervision worse, and every complaint arrives on my desk as if I am personally teaching arithmetic."
He paused, then added what made it sharper.
"And if parents lose faith in the school, they send their children away—Simla, hill stations, sometimes out of the province entirely. It fractures families. It turns a posting into a punishment."
Jinnah listened without interrupting.
Geoffrey leaned forward.
"This place," he said, "is at the sweet spot. Close enough that families can visit. Far enough to be quiet. And it already has what the cantonments do not."
He did not say "standards" yet, as if that word would admit too much.
He said instead:
"Control."
Jinnah set his cup down with deliberate care.
"You are asking for a boarding school at Sandalbar," he said.
"Yes," Geoffrey replied. "A proper one. Convent style. A matron with credentials. Routine. Discipline. A predictable curriculum. A structure that does not fall apart because one man is transferred."
Lady Margaret's mouth tightened slightly, not from disapproval, but from recognition: the difference between a school and an arrangement.
Geoffrey held Jinnah's gaze.
"I will take responsibility for the land," he said. "I will take responsibility for approvals. And I will take responsibility for staffing—teachers selected through proper channels, not whoever happens to be available."
He let the weight of that sink in. This was not a request for charity; it was a Crown project offered into Sandalbar's machinery because the Crown's own machinery could not produce the result.
"What I require from you," Geoffrey continued, "is simple."
Jinnah's eyes narrowed a fraction. Simple demands were rarely simple once they met reality.
Geoffrey stated them cleanly, like terms.
"Keep fees low," he said. "Low enough that it does not become another racket in the province."
His voice sharpened slightly on the word racket, as if he had tasted too many of them.
"And allow families to visit on weekends," Geoffrey added. "Regularly. Predictably. I want parents to be able to see their children without begging for exceptions or turning a visit into a campaign."
Jinnah said nothing for a moment.
Inside his mind, Bilal's voice arrived with its usual dry opportunism.
A boarding school means parents. Parents mean weekends. Weekends mean the Lodge—rooms, pantry, tea service, the shop. This isn't only education. It's a river of revenue.
Jinnah kept his face still, not granting Bilal the satisfaction of an outward reaction.
Geoffrey watched him closely, then spoke again—softening, but only slightly.
"It will become famous," he said, "because it will carry your standards. Not government standards. Yours."
He gestured faintly toward the estate beyond the windows—the quiet order, the controlled movement, the absence of improvisation.
"Families already talk," Geoffrey continued. "They say Sandalbar feels more like home than most postings. They say their children sleep properly here. They eat properly here. They follow routine here without being shouted into it."
Lady Margaret's eyes flicked to Jinnah.
"And," Geoffrey added, "it is at the right distance. That matters more than you think. Close enough for a Saturday visit. Far enough that it remains a school, not a social club."
Jinnah finally spoke, voice calm.
"If I agree," he said, "you will protect the school from departmental interference."
Geoffrey gave a thin, almost tired smile.
"I am asking you to build something that makes my administration look competent," he said. "You may assume I will protect it."
Jinnah nodded once—small, controlled.
"Draft the framework," Geoffrey said. "Capacity. Fees. Visiting rules. Discipline structure. I will handle the rest."
Jinnah's reply was quiet, precise.
"Then you will have a school," he said, "that does not produce educated children."
Geoffrey frowned slightly. "What does it produce, then?"
Jinnah's gaze held steady.
"It produces predictable adults," he said. "That is what Punjab lacks."
For a moment the room was still.
Then Geoffrey exhaled, as if admitting to himself that this was why he had come all the way to the Lodge in winter fog: not for vacation, not for hospitality, but because Sandalbar was beginning to do what the province could not.
"Good," he said. "That is exactly what I am buying."