by Dilly Court
Twelve days after they left Suez, the Malta steamed into Bombay harbour. Having been dressed and ready to disembark since dawn, Tilly went in search of Miss Barnet in order to thank her yet again and to say a fond farewell, as Mrs Robertson and her Fanny were bound for Poona where Mr Robertson was the District Officer. She found Miss Barnet standing outside Mrs Robertson’s cabin surrounded by baggage, giving instructions to a seaman to handle everything carefully.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll meet again,’ Tilly said, close to tears. ‘I just wanted to say thank you, for everything.’
Miss Barnet’s severe face cracked into a smile. ‘Think nothing of it, Tilly. I’m just glad I was on hand to help.’
The cabin door opened and Mrs Robertson stepped out onto the deck. ‘Miss Barnet, I can’t find my dressing case.’ She stopped short, eyeing Tilly with an openly hostile expression. ‘Go back to your mistress, girl. This isn’t the time or place for servants to socialise.’
Miss Barnet flushed a dull brick colour, biting her lip, but Tilly was not going to stand for Mrs Robertson’s rudeness. ‘Excuse me, madam, but I am not a servant. My husband is Captain Barnaby Palgrave of the 3rd Rifles and I was just thanking Miss Barnet for the kindness she showed to me when I was ill.’
‘Well, I don’t know what business it was of Miss Barnet’s to tend to someone other than her employer. Good day, Mrs Palgrave.’ Mrs Robertson turned on Miss Barnet, curling her lip. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’ The cabin door slammed behind her as she left with a rustle of silk petticoats.
‘I’m sorry if I got you into trouble, Maud,’ Tilly said apologetically.
‘Not to worry, my dear. I’m used to Mrs Robertson’s funny little ways.’
Kissing Maud Barnet on her papery cheek, Tilly squeezed her hand. ‘Ta ever so, for everything you’ve done for me. You’re a brick.’
‘Keep your chin up, Tilly. And I hope you find your Barney very soon.’
The ship docked alongside Ballard Pier, and the first class passengers disembarked into a stifling heat and a mêlée of turbaned, dark-skinned coolies, white-coated dock officials and clamouring street sellers. It seemed to Tilly that they were caught up on a huge wave of humanity and being carried, whether they willed it or not, out of the dock building through a huge gateway that was more like the entrance to a castle than that of a public building. As they ermerged from the musty shadows, the heat and dust caught her by the throat and she felt for a moment as if she could not breathe. The stench of the land, the unforgiving glare of the sun and the cacophony of noise in the busy street was so totally unlike London that Tilly could hardly take it all in.
Having lost sight of the coolies who had charge of their luggage, Francis was growing more and more irritated. They were swarmed upon by a small army of vendors, waving their goods in their faces, chattering in their foreign tongue, their dark skins burnished-bronze and gleaming with sweat as they offered garlands of orange flowers, food and trinkets. Everywhere she looked, Tilly could see beggars: aged blind men, cripples and small children. Recoiling in horror, she saw a snake rear up from a grass basket, swaying like a reed in the wind as a man played tunelessly on a pipe.
Almost involuntarily, they were carried to the roadside where drivers jostled each other offering to transport them in victorias, tongas or rickshaws. Eventually, after a lot of haggling, Francis agreed the fare to Victoria station and they set off, with their steamer trunks and baggage stowed in a second vehicle following behind. Tilly leaned out of the open carriage, staring in fascination at the chaotic mixture of bullock carts, carriages and rickshaws, and the odd cow wandering unattended through the traffic. This strange new world was bathed in sunshine, sizzling with heat, and all around them there was a riot of colour: women in jewel-bright saris, colour-washed buildings, gaudily painted shop fronts and stalls spilling over with exotic merchandise. Even the horses, mules and donkeys were decked out in colourful harnesses jingling with bells.
Their arrival outside Victoria terminus took Tilly’s breath away and she could only stare in wonder and amazement at the splendid edifice. It was more impressive than the Houses of Parliament, more cathedral-like than Westminster Abbey, and quite the most beautiful building she had ever seen. By comparison, Liverpool Street station was nothing more than a gothic slum. Once again, they were surrounded by coolies clamouring and vying for their custom, and Francis picked the tallest and strongest-looking, sending the rest of them away.
Overawed and silent, Harriet and Tilly followed Francis into the magnificent building, followed by an entourage of chattering coolies. The noise, the odours and the heat all combined to make Tilly feel dizzy and disorientated, but the whoosh of steam from the engine and the smell of hot cinders brought back memories of London on a wave of homesickness. Francis left them on the platform while he went to purchase the tickets and when he returned, looking harassed and tired, he hustled them into one of the first-class compartments.
They had barely settled in their seats when a small, brown man wearing a turban and a wide grin opened the carriage door. ‘Chai, sahib?’ Then, seeing their blank faces, he added: ‘Tea for the memsahibs?’
‘Yes,’ Francis said, ‘thank you.’
‘I don’t know, Francis.’ Harriet looked doubtfully at the man’s grubby hands and the battered urn. ‘I’m not really thirsty.’
‘Harriet, we’ll be on this train for days,’ Francis said severely. ‘I suggest you get used to the Indian ways very quickly unless you want to starve to death or die of thirst.’
‘I’ll try some,’ Tilly said, holding out her hand for a cup. ‘Thanks, mister.’
‘Really, Tilly. You must learn to address your inferiors in the proper manner.’ Francis frowned at her over the top of his cup. ‘I believe the correct term is chai-wallah, but my man will do if you can’t think of anything better.’
‘Yes, all right. I didn’t know.’
‘It seems to me that you haven’t learned much during the sea voyage.’ Francis turned to Harriet, who had accepted a cup of tea and was sniffing it with her face screwed up in distaste. ‘For heaven’s sake drink the stuff. It’s been boiled; it won’t kill you. And Harriet, now that you’ve been physically detached from your new friend Susannah, I want you to instruct Tilly in the basics of speech and good manners. For her own sake,’ he added, as if regretting his snappy mood.
At first the train journey was exciting, as Tilly and Harriet peered out of the windows at the unfamiliar landscape, but after a few hours it had become tedious. Tilly felt her cotton dress sticking between her shoulder blades as sweat trickled down her neck and she longed for a wash in cool, clean water. She was feeling hungry and the constant clickety-clack of the iron wheels going over the points was getting on her nerves.
‘How far is it, Francis?’ Harriet demanded, mopping her brow with her hanky. ‘Will we be in Delhi soon?’
Francis looked up from his book. ‘It’s a thousand miles or more. We won’t reach Delhi until late tomorrow evening, at the earliest.’
‘Oh, no!’ Harriet’s bottom lip trembled. ‘I can’t bear this heat and I’m hungry.’
‘I’ve been told that we can buy refreshments on each station,’ Francis said, turning his attention back to his book. ‘Perhaps the chai-wallah will oblige.’
Tilly could feel the train slowing down and she pressed her face against the glass. ‘I can see a station. I think we’re stopping.’
Gradually the train reduced speed, and with a squealing of iron wheels on iron rails it slid to a halt. Tilly let the window down and leaned out. Sure enough, the platform was lined with food sellers and the tempting, spicy smell of curry wafted in on the hot air.
‘Where is that man?’ Francis demanded, slapping his book down on the seat.
‘I’m absolutely starving. You’ll have to go,’ Harriet said, hastily adding, ‘please, Francis.’
‘Certainly not. It’s a servant’s job and I don’t speak the language.’
Outside, Tilly cou
ld see servants, sahibs and Indians alike climbing down from the train to purchase their food. Drawing back into the carriage she held her hand out to Francis. ‘This looks like a job for me then, doesn’t it? Give me some money and I’ll go.’
Francis shrugged, thrusting his hand in his pocket and pulling out a handful of change. ‘If you think you can manage, you’re welcome to try.’
‘No wonder you didn’t last long in the East End,’ Tilly said, pocketing the money and opening the carriage door. ‘What’ll it be, Francis? Boiled beef and carrots or fish and chips?’ Chuckling at the startled expression on his face, Tilly leapt off the train and ran along the platform. By dint of pointing, she managed to order curry, rice and chapattis, and deciding that one street market was much the same as the next, even if you didn’t speak the lingo, she haggled over the price in a pantomime of gestures and facial expressions that seemed to go down well with the vendors. She returned to the carriage in a triumphant mood. Until now, Francis had treated her with restraint and thinly veiled disdain, as if she was neither good enough to have married his brother nor to mix with them socially, but as she handed out the food she was quick to note a gleam of respect in his eyes.
‘Thank you, Tilly. I wouldn’t have known where to begin.’
‘I may not know everything about manners,’ Tilly said. ‘But give me a market trader and I can haggle with the best of them.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Francis muttered, biting on a chapatti.
‘Don’t be such a snob, Francis,’ Harriet said, swallowing a mouthful of rice. ‘You did well, Tilly, and this food is quite delicious. Do you think you could find the chai-wallah? I’m really thirsty.’
It was the middle of the following night when they finally arrived at the bungalow situated next to the mission school. After almost two days of continuous train travel, Tilly was exhausted, dirty and longing to lie down in a bed that did not move. Francis, in one of his pedantic moods, had given Tilly and Harriet lectures on Indian customs, food and weather. He had informed them that this was the monsoon season, and as if to prove him right the heavens had opened and they had witnessed one of the heavy downpours that came suddenly, as if from nowhere and finished just as abruptly. The skies had opened just as they arrived at the bungalow and it seemed to Tilly as though someone was on the roof tipping buckets of water over their heads. It was not the warmest welcome they could have received to their new home, but their knocking roused a maidservant who showed them to their rooms. Too exhausted to care much about her new surroundings, Tilly was only aware of stark simplicity and dazzling whiteness in her room. She managed to summon up just enough energy to undress, leaving her wet clothes on the coir matting. Rummaging through her valise to find a nightdress, she slipped it over her head and crawled under the veil of mosquito netting to collapse on her bed.
She awakened to a new and exciting world, and the moment she stepped outside onto the bougainvillaea clad veranda, she fell in love with Delhi. Every morning, the dawn chorus of bird-song filtered into her white bedroom; the raucous crowing of the grey-hooded Delhi crows, the haunting cries of peacocks, the screeching jabber of parrots and the soft cooing of the little grey doves was so different from the sounds of the East End that it never ceased to thrill and enchant her. In the heat of the day, the scent of roses, jasmine and canna lilies filled the air and the garden was shaded by date palms and kikar trees, fluffy with perfumed yellow blossom. An old man, bent and gnarled, with legs and arms resembling knobbly twigs, tended the gardens. Tilly learned from Meera, the maidservant, that he was the mali. The dhobi-wallah did their washing, the pani-wallah filled the tin bathtub with hot water and the mehta, or sweeper, emptied the wooden commodes, or thunderboxes as they were jokingly nicknamed. It seemed that, small as the bungalow was, it needed a fleet of servants to look after just three people. Harriet, of course, was delighted to be mistress of a household once more, especially one that ran itself with quiet efficiency and courtesy.
The missionary school absorbed every waking moment for Francis, and Tilly thought that he seemed much happier now than when he was attempting to bring God to some of the roughest slums in London. Harriet was rarely at home, having renewed her friendship with Susannah Cholmondeley, whose father sent his carriage every morning to collect her so that she could keep his daughter company. At first, Tilly felt a bit jealous, and resentful of that fact that although she was Barney’s wife she was still not considered to be socially acceptable. Left on her own, she began to explore the area, marvelling at the neat rows of bungalows that could have been transported from the suburbs of London. She had never visited the suburbs, but she had sometimes sneaked a copy of Woman or the Illustrated London News from Mrs Blessed’s bookshelf to read by candlelight in her attic bedroom.
Despite the heat and the drenching rains of the monsoon, Tilly sometimes walked to the Red Fort, entering by the Lahore Gate and wandering in the comparative cool of the covered arcade in the Fort’s own bazaar. It was here one day that she met Meera, who looked at her aghast and insisted that she must return at once to the bungalow. Thinking that perhaps Harriet had been taken ill or some other disaster had occurred, Tilly went with Meera, only to be turned on as soon as they got through the door.
‘Memsahib. It is not proper for you to walk out alone.’ Looking like a small but very angry gazelle, Meera stared at Tilly, wringing her hands. ‘It is not safe.’
Taken by surprise, Tilly did not know whether to be amused or angry at this unexpected outburst. ‘Meera, if I can look after myself in the streets of London, I think I can manage in Delhi.’
‘No, memsahib. It is not right. It is simply not done!’ Waving her small brown hands, Meera grew more and more agitated.
‘Is that all? You mean it is not considered proper for English ladies to go out on their own?’
Meera nodded.
‘But I am not like most English ladies and I will not stay cooped up in the bungalow all day.’
‘Then I think I have the answer, if you will permit me.’ Without waiting for Tilly’s response, Meera glided away to return a couple of minutes later dragging a small boy by the hand. She pushed him towards Tilly. ‘This is my son, Ashok. He is a good boy and he will be your guide.’
Ashok stared up at Tilly with huge brown eyes, thickly fringed with black lashes.
‘He is very small,’ Tilly said doubtfully. ‘I don’t think I would be any safer with your son, Meera, than on my own.’
Ashok’s face split into an impudent grin. ‘I am strong for my size, memsahib, and quick on my feet. No robber would come near if I was with you.’
Staring at him, it was all Tilly could do not to laugh. In some ways, Ashok reminded her of her brother Jim; he was about the same age and just as cheeky, although far more beautiful, with his dark sloe-eyes, blue-black hair and delicately bronzed skin. Tilly realised that Meera and Ashok were both looking at her, waiting for her reply, and she smiled. ‘Where shall we go first then, Ashok?’
Every day, as soon as Harriet had gone off either alone or with Susannah to visit other friends who lived in the town, Tilly went out with Ashok at her side. In this way she was able to explore the walled city with its battered gateways, half-ruined almost fifty years previously during the Indian Mutiny. She marvelled at marble pavilions built hundreds of years ago for princesses; at palaces, mosques, parks and gardens. To Tilly, used to the grime, chaos and violence of the East End, this was an exotic paradise and would have been heaven on earth, if only Barney were here to share it with her.
Sometimes, early in the evening, when Francis was in his study and Harriet taking a nap before dinner, Tilly and Ashok would walk to the top of the Ridge, an outcrop of rock rising from the surrounding plains. From the vantage point of the Flagstaff Tower, she could look down at the walled city with its domes and minarets and the Red Fort with the river Jumna winding close to its walls. Ashok told her terrifying stories of the muggers, short-snouted crocodiles that lurked in the river, waiting
to snap up an unwary bather or an animal that had come down to drink its waters.
One evening, as they made their way back to the bungalow just before sunset, Tilly saw, in the distance, packs of jackals coming out to hunt. Listening to their baying calls, she shuddered; this was a beautiful place, an exciting place and dangerous. If only Barney were here. Ashok held up his hand to help her over the rocky path leading down to the plain, and when he grinned up at her, revealing a row of white teeth that gleamed in the gathering dusk, she was reminded once again of Jim. Despite her surroundings, she felt the sharp pang of homesickness for her family, for Barney and for the baby that she had lost. The wind came and then the rain, soaking them both before Tilly had time to put up the umbrella that she always carried.
‘Good heavens, Tilly. What on earth happened to you?’ Harriet was just crossing the hall to the dining room as Tilly came in through the front door, soaked to the skin and shivering, followed by an equally wet Ashok.
‘We got caught in the rain.’
‘The boy should have gone straight to the servants’ quarters. You know that, Tilly.’ Harriet frowned at Ashok, who scuttled off, leaving wet footprints on the red sandstone tiles.
‘Have a heart, Hattie,’ Tilly said impatiently. ‘The boy was soaked to the skin.’
‘You’d best change out of those wet things quickly, Tilly,’ Harriet said, frowning. ‘You know Francis doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and I think he’s got something to tell you.’
Five minutes later, dressed for dinner but having given up all attempts to do anything more fashionable with her wet hair than to fix it in a knot at the nape of her neck, Tilly hurried into the dining room. Francis was sitting at the head of the table, tapping his water glass with a spoon, and Harriet, sitting at the opposite end, gave Tilly a despairing look.
