The Lion Rock

by Sally Wenteorth

  Taking a firm hold of Cordelia's elbow, he led her into the coo! shade of the factory and started to tell her how the tea was processed, climbing up steep flights of stairs that were more like ladders, to the upper floors where the drying racks were and then down again to see the more mechanised part of the operation and finally to the white-tiled testing room where the different grades of tea were tasted. By this time he was puffing a bit and there were patches of colour on his cheeks.

  Trying to keep any sign of concern out of her voice, Cordelia said carefully, 'Looking at that tea makes me feel thirsty; is there somewhere where we could try it?'

  The guide had followed them all round, hovering in the background, and now she said, 'Oh, yes. We offer cups of tea to our visitors in the tourist centre.. Or there is a place outside if you prefer it.'

  'We'll take it outside.'

  They walked out and sat under the shade of a circular, thatched-roof building that was open on all sides. It looked out over the deep valleys and steep hills of the tea plantations, the colour of the bushes giving the hills a uniform green appearance. Cordelia sat with the sun hot on her back and wished her father would stop going on about the lack of improvements that had taken place since his time. 'They've hardly brought in any mechanisation,' he was saying disparagingly. 'They could treble their rate of production and packing if they used modern methods. Too many of the processes are still done by hand.'

  'How big did you say this island is—about the size of Scotland?' Cordelia asked him.

  'About that.'

  'And there are over fifteen million people living here?' .

  'Yes.'

  'Then,' she pointed out reasonably, 'perhaps it's better for them not to be mechanised. If they brought in machines they would throw thousands of people out of work and the state would have to keep them out of the extra profit they made from the tea factories. It's a Catch 22 type situation.'

  James Allingham looked at her coldly. 'And since when have you become an economics expert?' he demanded sneeringly.

  A flash of anger shone in Cordelia's eyes, but she was prevented from making the sharp retort that came to her lips by the return of the guide with a tray with cups of tea of different grades for them to try. The girl fussed over them, still polite and smiling despite her father's rudeness. He asked her if they still had the records of people who had worked at the plantation and seemed more put out than the answer warranted when the girl said that they only kept the records for three years. When they had tried the tea, which he pronounced as 'inferior quality rubbish', he turned to the girl and told her that he wanted to see round the manager's bungalow.

  'But that is a private house,' the girl protested.

  'Nevertheless I want to see it. I was the manager of this place myself before it was stolen from the rightful owners by your government. I used to live in the manager's house and my daughter was born there. I want her to see it.'

  'Oh, no, please,' Cordelia protested. 'It may not be convenient.'

  'Then they'll have to make it convenient,' her father snapped. 'I didn't come all the way here to be fobbed off by some native girl!'

  Cordelia flushed with embarrassment and walked away from him. If she hadn't she would really have let go and told him just what she thought of his boorish manners. The door of the tourist centre was open and she went in. There were some other people there, sitting around drinking the tea, enjoying their holiday. Cordelia was beginning to wish she'd never come. She bought a few packets of the best grade tea to take back as presents, but her mind wasn't really on it, she was just wondering how she was going to get through the rest of their visit here without losing her temper.

  The next hour was as bad as Cordelia expected it to be. They had to wait some time until the girl came and said they could go to the bungalow, her father growing more impatient by the minute, and he ruined any enjoyment she might have found in seeing the house where she was born. The wife of the present manager, whose home and privacy he was invading, he treated as if she was some usurper who was trespassing in a house that still belonged to him. He pointed out to Cordelia things that had been added since his time and spoke loudly and disparagingly of the alterations. 'These people are little more than peasants,' he informed her. 'They don't know what civilised standards are.'

  Cordelia bit her lip and somehow held on to her temper, knowing that to lose it in front of strangers would only make things worse. The manager's wife was obviously puzzled and upset by his attitude, but she remained unfailingly polite, even offering them more tea and cakes which James Allingham brusquely refused. They looked round the garden, which Cordelia thought was lovely, but in whose flowers and beautiful, exotic trees he could only find a poor comparison, and then, to her relief, they left. But, to add insult to rudeness, as they went out he gave the poor woman only a cursory word of thanks and dropped a twenty- rupee note on to a table as a tip. Cordelia hadn't remembered the bungalow, but she thought she would never forget the look on that woman's face as long as she lived.

  She managed to control her feelings until they were back in the car and driving away, but then she turned to face her father and said furiously, 'How could you behave so rudely? Just because you happened to be the manager of that plantation once it doesn't give you the right to treat the people there now like dirt, does it? And to throw down money for that woman after you'd barged your way into her home—it was…' her anger almost choked her, 'it was disgusting!'

  Her father glared at her. 'Who the hell do you think you're talking to? And just what do you think you know about these people? They're just one generation removed from peasants and they have to be kept in their place. And they never do anything unless it's for money. You'll soon find that out. They're a greedy, lazy rabble, the lot of them!'

  'The ones I've met have been polite and friendly enough.' Cordelia started to argue back, but he turned on her and shouted her down. He started to get very red in the face and the car swerved wildly as he took a corner too fast and swung it back on to the road. A car coming the other way hooted furiously and Cordelia remembered that he'd been ill. Gripping her hands into tight fists, she forced herself to sit in silence and not answer back, her mouth pressed grimly shut, and eventually James Allingham calmed down a little, although he still drove too fast in angry defiance of her criticism.

  They had lunch at the Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya. The town had been built during the British occupancy as a hill station and looked like any English town—it even had a golf course and a racecourse. The Hill Club was a large building of grey stone that looked rather like an English manor house in the Cotswolds except for the statues of lions on either side of the entrance portico and the elephant's foot umbrella stand in the hallway. They had a drink in the bar before going into the large, polished oak dining-room where lunch was served to them by very correct waiters in white jackets and sarongs. Cordelia stuck to food she recognised, but her father asked for curry, insisting on having it very hot. He drank a lot of beer to go with it, several times asking for his glass to be refilled.

  Afterwards they had coffee, but James Allingham was soon on his feet again. 'I want to drive round the town before we go back,' he said eagerly.

  Cordelia followed him willingly enough; he had seemed more at ease at the Hill Club, a place that he had frequented during his time in Sri Lanka and which had remained much the same. But the changes that had taken place in the town brought his anger flooding back.

  'Look at that!' he pointed out furiously. 'They've turned one of the best homes around into a damned hotel!' And he complained about other places that had been neglected. 'They've let the whole place go to rack and ruin. I bet nobody's lifted a finger since we were here to stand over them and tell them what to do all the time.' He slammed his fist down angrily _on the steering wheel. 'They've even closed the bloody racecourse!'

  Abruptly he turned the car and started driving fast out of the town. 'I'm getting out of this place! I should never have come back here.'

>   They went back the same way as they had come, along the road that climbed up into the hills and snaked along in steep hairpin bends.

  'Oh, look!' Cordelia exclaimed. 'Those two little boys with the flowers are racing us by running straight down the hillside while we go round by the road.' She watched and laughed delightedly when the two boys arrived panting on the lower road and looked at them with expectant grins as they drove up. Her father drove right by without even glancing at them, but the boys plunged gamely across the road and down the path while the car went round the next hairpin. The boys were there ahead of them again on the lower level, both panting for breath. 'There they are. Stop a minute so that I can give them something.'

  But James Allingham drove straight on again.

  'Why didn't you stop?' Cordelia asked in surprise and disappointment.

  'I'm not encouraging those kids. There are enough of them begging from tourists and making nuisances of themselves already.'

  The two boys started to run down to the next stretch of road and Cordelia, her patience snapping, said tartly, T don't know why you wanted to come back here when you obviously hate the place and the people so much. Or is it that you're just a masochist?'

  'Don't try and pin labels on me, girl,' her father returned angrily. 'Especially when you don't know what the hell you're talking about!'

  'Then why did you come back? You obviously aren't enjoying yourself, and you're rude to the people even though they're very friendly and

  'That's the trouble,' James Allingham shouted in sudden vehement anger. 'They're too bloody friendly! Always smiling at you and talking to you and making you feel that you want to get to know them. You have to keep them at a distance, do you hear me? You have to push them away before they get tod close!'

  He was shouting at her now and had gone red in the face. To Cordelia's horror he suddenly began tq clutch at his collar, beads of sweat grew on his forehead and he started to make great gasping noises as if he couldn't get his breath.

  'Dad!' Cordelia cried out in fear and horror as he held both hands to his chest and gave a great cry of agony, then he slumped forward, falling across the steering wheel.

  'Dad! Dad!' She screamed in terror, realising that the car was running out of control. Desperately she grabbed the wheel, but her father's weight made it impossible to steer and he was too heavy for her to push out of the way. They were going downhill, approaching the next hairpin and the steep drop down the hillside. Acting by pure instinct, Cordelia grabbed the handbrake and jerked it on. The car slowed but didn't stop because her father's foot was still on the accelerator. With a sob of despair, she threw herself down and reached across to push his foot off the pedal, then she put both hands on the hotbrake and rammed it down as hard as she could go. The car slowed, came to a stop, and for wonderful moment she thought that they were safe, but then it teetered and slid over the edge, falling on its side as it careered down the hillside.

  Curled up as she was on the floor, Cordelia wasn't thrown about too much, she hung on to the gear lever, but her left hip was banged repeatedly aginst what was now the floor and once her arm came up against something sharp and she cried out in pain. Her father fell down across the seat and was partly lying on top of her. His eyes were closed and he seemed quite unconscious. For a few paralysing minutes, as the car plunged on, and Cordelia was crushed under his weight, she thought that he was dead. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the car seemed to hit a harder surface, it rocked and then came to a standstill. Tentatively, almost forcing herself to do so, she managed to free one arm and put her hand on her father's Chest. Faintly she felt it move, felt him breathing.

  The two little boys with the flowers were the first to reach them. They climbed on the car and wrenched open the door, talking at the tops of their voices in a language she didn't understand. They were too small to help, but soon they came back with some men, workers on the tea estates. It took four of them to lift her father out and Cordelia got trodden on more than once as she was still pinned underneath. When it was her turn to be pulled out, she found that her legs wouldn't support her. She collapsed on to the grass and knelt there trembling. Looking around, she saw the great swathe that the car had cut through the undergrowth growing on the hillside until it had come to rest on a lower section of the road just before the hairpin. They had been lucky; she had managed to slow the car enough so that it just slid down instead of speeding over the edge and hurtling down from one level to the next all the way down the hill.

  Quite a crowd had gathered round them now. A brightly painted lorry loaded with coconut fibre had stopped and the driver and his two passengers ran over and started shouting at the people who were standing round. Everyone was talking terribly loudly, waving their arms about and calling to others who seemed to appear from nowhere. They had laid her father on the grass and Cordelia crawled over to him. His face was grey and his breathing was very shallow. Several men and women were standing by him, but no one seemed to he doing anything.

  She looked round wildly at the crowd of dark faces that stared at her so curiously. 'Please - somebody get an ambulance. Telephone for an ambulance!' Her plea came put on a high, hysterical note and for a moment the noise ceased as they all turned to stare at her. Then they all started talking volubly again, at her, at each other and she couldn't understand a word.

  'A doctor! You must get a doctor.' Cordelia staggered to her feet and only then became aware that her hip was terribly painful. Someone put out a hand to steady her, but she shook him off angrily. She pointed wildly at her father. 'He needs a doctor. 'Can't you understand? Where's the nearest telephone?'

  But it was no "use, they couldn't understand her, and even if they did, they had probably never used a telephone in their lives. She began to stagger along the road, reeling unsteadily, her head swimming, with some wild idea of walking to the nearest tea factory and using their phone to get help. Some men ran after her and caught hold of her, trying to pull her back, jabbering at her in Sinhalese. Tears of frustration ran down her cheeks. 'Leave me alone. I have to get help,' she muttered as she tried ineffectively to free herself.

  Then she heard the sound of a car approaching and felt a great rush of hope as it came nearer and she saw a white man sitting in the front seat. It came to a stop and she somehow managed to shake off the hands that tried to restrain her and ran, limping, towards it. She reached it just as the door opened and a man stepped out. He was very tall and broad, and Cordelia's immediate impression of him was one of immeasurable strength. She almost fell against him and he caught hold of her, easily supporting her weight.

  'What is it?' he asked sharply, his voice deep and wonderfully English.

  'It's my father—he's hurt! The car crashed. Oh, help me, please help me!' she begged him, her eyes, dark with fear and panic, looking desperately into his.

  The Englishman turned his head to snap out an order to the person he was with, then turned back to her. 'Don't worry,' he said reassuringly. 'I'll take care of him.'

  She had been right about his strength, it was there in every hard line of his face, in every intonation of his voice. Fortunately she recognised it and placed herself within it, letting the shock and fear take its toll as she fainted into his arms.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When she came round, Cordelia found that she was being carried along, her head resting against a man's chest. For a moment she stayed still, taking the masculine smell of tangy aftershave and the feel of the cool, clean cotton of his shirt beneath her cheek. She knew where she was and what had happened, knew that it must be the Englishman who was carrying her, but her head felt strangely giddy and heavy and it took her a moment or two before she could lift her eyelids and raise her head enough to see the strong, clean line of his jaw level with her eyes.

  He must have felt her move, because he bent his head to look at her. His eyes were a very clear blue-grey under rather heavy lids.

  'So you're back with us,' he remarked. 'Is your leg paining you very m
uch?'

  'No, no, it's all right.' She answered rather dazedly, not sure whether or not she'd complained about her leg, 'My—my father?' She tried to lift her head and look round.

  'Easy.' The man's arms tightened. 'We've already got him in the car.' He came to a stop and set her gently on her feet by the open front door of car. 'Shall I lift you in or can you manage it yourself? I've felt your legs and you don't appear have broken anything, but I expect you're bruised pretty badly.'

  'No, I can manage.' Cordelia got into the car, trying not very successfully to stifle a wince of pain from her hip. Her father was stretched across the back seat, his head supported by a slim, wiry native. He was still unconscious, but she could hear his breath coming in wheezing, loud pants as if something was restricting his chest.

  The Englishman had gone round to the driver's side and got in beside her. Cordelia turned to him and said anxiously, 'Is he all right like that? Shouldn't we wait for an ambulance? I'm sure he'd be much more comfortable lying down.'

  'I expect he would,' the stranger agreed rather wryly. 'Unfortunately there are no hospitals nearer than Nuwara Eliya, and it would take at least an 1 hour for an ambulance to get here and then another hour back to the hospital. So I think it will be best if we go to my house instead. It's quite near, will only take us about ten minutes.'

  He had started up the car while he had been speaking and drove gently along the rutted, twisting road. At the bottom of the hill, he turned off the main road into a narrower one for about a mile and then paused to sound the horn in front of a pair of tall gates which were almost immediately swung open from within by two men in native sarongs. The Englishman. drove on between flowering shrubs and trees for another couple of hundred yards, then drew up outside a large, white-painted bungalow.

  A native servant girl came out to meet him and was sent inside again to quickly prepare a bedroom. Cordelia got out, but could only keep out of the way and watch anxiously as they gently manoeuvred her father out of the car and carried him inside the house. She hobbled after them into a large, sunny sitting-room and sank into a chair, feeling completely useless, but quite sure that her father was in capable bands. She leant back in the seat, feeling suddenly sick and trembly. Her father had looked so white, so ill. Her hands began to shake and she closed her eyes tight to try and shut out the mental picture. 'Here, drink this.'