The Secrets of the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Libby’s insides jolted. ‘For me too? I haven’t decided . . .’

  ‘Surely you’ll want to come home with me?’ said James. ‘Heavens, girl! You’ve spent the last two months badgering me to make the family complete again, so I’m doing what you want. It is what you want, isn’t it? For your mother and I to be in the same place at last and you to be with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Libby, unsure how she really felt. ‘But two weeks! Your decision is so sudden – you never talked it over with me. I don’t want to travel back that quickly. I want to stay for the Independence celebrations.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ he demanded. ‘They’re not our celebrations.’

  ‘They are for Libby,’ said Clarrie quietly. She hadn’t spoken since they’d sat down for breakfast. ‘She was born here after all.’

  Libby exchanged a grateful look with the older woman, noticing the smudges of tiredness under her pretty eyes. It struck her that Clarrie had taken the strain of having them to stay for weeks while trying to keep her business going and now had responsibility for looking after Sophie too. She must be just as worried as they all were about the future. Belgooree was her life: her family home and her living. She had a young fatherless son to bring up and a daughter on the other side of the world. Yet never once had she heard Clarrie complain or burden others with her troubles.

  Her father seemed annoyed at Clarrie’s reproof. ‘It’s not the same and you know it.’

  ‘Well, I, for one, will be throwing a party on the fifteenth,’ said Clarrie defiantly, ‘and I hope Libby will be here to join in if she wants to.’

  ‘I second that!’ cried Sophie, throwing an arm casually around Libby’s shoulders and squeezing her in a hug. ‘I’ll still be here no doubt. We’ll have fancy dress and games and lots of cocktails and dance to all Clarrie’s ancient rag-time records.’

  Clarrie laughed. ‘Not so ancient.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful.’ Libby smiled. ‘I’ll make sure I’m here for that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sophie. She got up from the table. ‘Harry and I are playing tennis in half an hour. Want to join us?’

  ‘I’m giving Nitin a lesson this morning,’ said Libby. ‘Maybe play later?’

  ‘Of course, lassie.’ Sophie smiled and sauntered off, whistling.

  James sat back with a sigh. ‘I can see I’ve been outmanoeuvred by women again.’

  Libby exchanged an amused look with Clarrie.

  Things moved quickly after that. By the end of the week, Manzur sent a message to say that the house packing was nearly complete and he was eager to get the trunks and furniture transported downriver before the Brahmaputra swelled to twice the size in the monsoon.

  Clarrie loaned Libby and James a car and sent her servant Alok to see to their meals on the way. They set off before dawn and were pulling up at Cheviot View by mid-afternoon. Libby’s initial excitement at seeing her childhood home again soon turned to dismay. The downstairs rooms were stacked with furniture, rolled-up carpets and battered trunks bulging with household goods.

  Upstairs, the sitting room was denuded of its bookcases, pictures, family photos and dusty curtains. Worse still, her bedroom was bare but for a pile of discarded mosquito nets. The heart of the house had been dismantled and packed away. It no longer felt like home – just a tea planter’s bungalow waiting for a new occupant.

  Libby ran outside and down the garden steps to the pond below and burst into tears. Manzur found her there. His young face looked stricken.

  ‘Libby-mem’,’ he said, handing her a pressed cotton handkerchief, ‘your father sent me.’

  Libby grabbed at the handkerchief, grateful but embarrassed, and blew her nose. ‘Th-thank you, Manzur.’

  ‘It’s hard for my parents too,’ he said. ‘This has been their home since they married.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Libby, feeling ashamed that she had not thought of that. ‘And yours.’

  He gave a sad smile. ‘Do you remember making a den in the roots of the banyan and you said it was a secret cave.’

  Libby gave a tearful grin. ‘Yes, and Jamie said it was impossible to have caves in a tree and that I should go away and play with my dolls.’

  Manzur’s smile broadened. ‘And instead you sneaked higher up the tree when we were making mud pies and threw sticks on to our mud castle, saying you were a warrior princess come to attack.’

  Libby laughed. ‘So I did!’

  ‘And after that Jamie let you play castles with us,’ said Manzur. ‘I always admired you for standing up to your brother.’

  ‘I must have been a nuisance,’ she said, blushing.

  ‘Only sometimes,’ he said, his brown eyes shining with amusement.

  Libby turned and looked up at the bungalow. Its shuttered windows made it look like a slumbering beast.

  ‘I’m not sure I can bear to spend the night here,’ she sighed.

  ‘You can come to The Lodge,’ he suggested. ‘There is a spare room for your father and I can give up mine . . .’ He stopped, his face flushing.

  ‘That’s sweet of you,’ said Libby, briefly touching his arm. ‘I’ll see what Dad wants to do.’

  But her father dismissed the idea at once. ‘No need,’ said James hastily, ‘we can camp out on the veranda for one night. Say our farewells to the old place.’

  Libby felt a flicker of relief. She didn’t really want to return to The Lodge after the disturbing episode when Flowers thought she had seen a ghost.

  That evening, they invited Manzur to take dinner with them at a camp table on the veranda, with Aslam in charge of the serving. Afterwards, James insisted that Aslam join them for a smoke.

  ‘We’ll share a hubble-bubble pipe like we did when I was a young planter and we went out in camp,’ said Libby’s father. ‘Do you remember being so young, Aslam, my friend?’

  Aslam touched his heart. ‘We are still young in here, even if we are white on top,’ he joked.

  The men sat on the floor on a rug and shared a water-pipe. Libby curled up in a camp chair and watched them. She had never seen her father so relaxed and casual with his oldest servant. He hadn’t drunk as much as usual at dinner either. The trappings of the sahib had been boxed away and it was as if her father had shed the burdens of keeping his distance and playing the master. Here, in the sultry night with only the sounds of the jungle around them, his world was reduced to sitting on a rug smoking and chatting with an old friend.

  As the kerosene lamp hissed, Libby sat in the shadows and listened to them reminisce about long-ago hunting trips and treks into Burma, and of people long dead or retired. James’s voice was animated as he talked about his younger days; she drank in his stories of adventure. This was the father of her childhood.

  ‘Do you remember when we tracked that tiger for three days?’ said James.

  Aslam nodded. ‘With Fairfax sahib.’

  ‘And we’d decided to give up when – blow me down – the beast comes strolling past our camp at breakfast time! And we all went scrambling for our guns.’

  Aslam chuckled and said, ‘Except Fairfax sahib, who carried on shaving.’

  James guffawed. ‘Dear Fairfax. They were made of sterner stuff in his day.’

  Libby asked, ‘Is he the Mr Fairfax in that nursing home in Tynemouth that Mother still visits?’

  ‘Yes,’ her father replied. ‘It’s good of her to bother.’

  ‘Soon you’ll be able to see him again too,’ Libby said.

  ‘I suppose I will,’ said James. For a moment, his expression in the lamplight was reflective and then he was carrying on with further anecdotes.

  Libby’s eyes watered to think of how this would be their very last night at Cheviot View – in all likelihood her father’s last visit to the Oxford tea gardens – and then that chapter of his life would be over forever.

  This was not how she had imagined it being during all those years of exile when she had yearned to return here. She had been so fixated on getting back to Cheviot View that
she hadn’t really stopped to think what life would really be like as a grown woman here. Her mind had been full of rosy memories of riding, tennis, swimming and exploring, of films at the clubhouse and cook’s kedgeree.

  Libby chided herself for not thinking beyond her fairy-tale memories. After a short time back at her old home, she had realised it was just a bungalow – albeit with a breathtaking view of shimmering greenery – inhabited by a lonely, careworn father and reduced numbers of loyal, ageing staff.

  Libby hadn’t expected that. But neither had she expected to find India in such a ferment of change nor guessed at the diverse friendships that she would make. Least of all could she have possibly imagined that she would fall heavily in love with a charismatic, sensuous, amusing, infuriating, passionate Indian revolutionary called Ghulam Khan.

  Tonight, as her father shed his responsibilities as a tea planter and master, she felt she was finally shedding her childhood – that distant, idealised world she had clung to and that had helped her get through the grey years in England.

  Libby slipped out of her chair and round the side of the veranda. Taking a thin cotton sheet that was shrouding an old wicker chair that was to be left behind, she lay down on the floor wrapped in the sheet and fell asleep to the low hubbub of the men’s voices.

  The next morning they didn’t linger. Libby had wanted a final dawn ride but James seemed eager to be gone. The horses were being sold to Dr Attar and two other young planters who enjoyed shikar.

  The syce and the mali were going to work for the doctor. The other servants were being pensioned off and given train fares to return to their relations.

  They lined up on the terrace. James went stiffly along the line shaking hands and giving out presents of money and keepsakes from the house. Libby followed, half embarrassed at playing the memsahib and half in fear that she would break down crying. In return, the servants hung garlands of marigolds around their necks and wished them well.

  Her father stopped when he got to Aslam. James’s chin wobbled. The old servant looked him in the eye and Libby could see the sadness in both their faces.

  ‘Aslam, you have been . . .’ James said, his voice breaking, ‘a good . . . faithful friend . . . Thank y—’ His voice cracked. He swallowed hard and then his strong craggy face crumpled like a small boy’s.

  Aslam touched him gently on the arm. ‘Thank you, Robson sahib. Peace be with you, all the days of your life.’

  James stifled a sob and, stretching out his arms, embraced his old bearer. Libby’s eyes filled with tears at the sight. She had never seen her father so demonstrative or emotional with Aslam.

  She turned to Meera and at once they were hugging like they used to do. The years fell away and Libby was eight years old again being comforted by her ayah because she was having to leave Cheviot View and didn’t know when she would be coming back. Only this time it was she, Libby, who was a head taller than Meera as they clung to each other and wept quiet tears.

  ‘We’ll meet again, I promise,’ Libby said, as Meera dabbed both their eyes with the hem of her shawl.

  ‘You will always be my daughter,’ Meera said softly, her brown eyes full of sorrow.

  Libby thanked her and stumbled away after her father. At the car, Manzur was waiting. He must have anticipated their being upset for he said, ‘Let me drive you down to the offices.’

  Libby nodded in thanks. Her father sat in the front. No one spoke as they drove slowly down the drive. James did not turn around but Libby craned for a last view of her old home and the waving servants. She glimpsed the lawns and the pond and her mother’s canna lilies. Her nose filled with the scent of her garland. She closed her eyes and tried to commit the final poignant sight to memory.

  Libby had no appetite for any further goodbyes, so said she would wait by the car with Alok while her father went to say his farewells to the plantation staff in the large factory compound. He had declined a retirement party or any fuss.

  Manzur reappeared having escorted James into the building. Even before their journey started, Libby felt drained by emotion and the heat.

  ‘Libby-mem’,’ he said, ‘I wanted to tell you something in private.’

  He looked at her with his dark eyes, so like his mother’s. As he led her out of earshot of Alok, Libby felt her insides flutter, nervous at what it might be.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Once your father has gone – and my parents are safely in Bengal,’ he said, ‘I am going to resign from the Oxford.’

  ‘What?’ Libby gasped. ‘Why would you do that? Are you worried you won’t be safe here?’

  He gave a dry smile. ‘I’m not running away from danger,’ he said. ‘But since your father decided to retire I have been thinking of my future. I don’t want to be a tea planter. That was your father’s idea – and I will always be grateful for what he has given me. Your father is a good man – a courageous man. But I want to choose my own life.’

  Libby stared at him. She had never seen him so determined in speech and manner. ‘Dad will be sad to hear that – he thinks you will make an excellent manager.’

  Manzur said, ‘Please don’t tell him yet. I don’t want him to worry about it or make his leave-taking any harder. When I have a new job I will write and tell him.’

  Libby asked, ‘You want to be a teacher, don’t you?’

  Manzur nodded. ‘Yes. I would have left the Oxford five years ago and taken a teaching job if your father hadn’t persuaded me to stay.’

  ‘Insisted you stay, more likely?’ Libby said with a quizzical smile.

  ‘It was thanks to Robson sahib that I became a tutor at Belgooree,’ Manzur reminded her. ‘So he found a way for me to do both. Those times at Belgooree were the happiest I have known. That’s why I know I want to be a teacher.’

  Libby touched his arm. ‘You’ll make a very good one. Harry is your fan for life. And an inspiring teacher is the best gift a child can have.’

  Manzur grinned at her, his cheeks dimpling. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I wish I was as certain about what I wanted to do,’ Libby sighed. ‘I never really thought beyond getting back out to India – and now I find that dream is suddenly coming to an end and I don’t have a home here any more. I want to be useful but I’m not sure how.’

  ‘You could be a teacher too,’ Manzur suggested. ‘Your father is proud at the way you are teaching typing to the Belgooree clerk.’

  ‘Is he?’ Libby glanced at him in surprise. ‘He’s never said that to me.’

  ‘Robson sahib is not one to waste words or flatter,’ said Manzur, ‘so when he does speak, it is praise indeed.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Libby agreed.

  She fell silent, thinking about her father. In his fragile mental state he needed someone to care for him and she worried that her mother would not be sympathetic enough. Perhaps she really could be of some use to her father helping him settle back in Newcastle. She didn’t want to leave India – her heart felt leaden at the very thought – but in the short term it seemed to be the only course open to her.

  ‘Perhaps when I get back to Britain and my family, I’ll discover what it is I’m destined to do in life.’ Libby grimaced. ‘I hope it’s not just a return to the typing pool.’

  ‘You will find your own path.’ Manzur smiled. ‘Just like you always did when we were children.’

  Shortly afterwards, James joined them. Her father was red-faced with emotion.

  ‘I’ll drive first,’ Libby offered. She turned to Manzur and shook his hand. ‘Goodbye, friend,’ she said, ‘and good luck in all you do.’

  He held on for a moment, his hand felt warm and had a wiry strength.

  He smiled. ‘I hope we meet again, Libby-mem’.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said and disengaged her hand.

  Soon they were driving off down the plantation road and the buildings of the Oxford Estates – where her father had spent all his working years – receded into a sea of green tea bushes until they disappear
ed completely in the shimmering heat.

  ‘Good man, Manzur,’ said James. ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Libby replied.

  ‘He’ll make a fine manager one day,’ said her father. ‘He’s the future here. Good reliable intelligent men like him.’

  Libby could hear the emotion in his voice. She kept quiet.

  ‘We haven’t all been good men out here,’ James said, ‘some bad apples in the barrel. But I’ve tried my best.’

  Libby reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘I know you have. Manzur was just saying what a good and courageous manager you’ve been.’

  ‘Did he say that?’

  Libby smiled. ‘Yes.’

  James let out a sigh. ‘No, not always.’

  Libby waited for him to say more. Perhaps now, on the long journey together, her father might confide in her. But after that, he fell into silence as Libby drove. Was there something that still nagged at his conscience – some secret about his time at the Oxford that he couldn’t bring himself to tell her? She longed to ask him but didn’t want to upset him more than he already was. Perhaps he didn’t want to say anything with Alok sitting in the back of the car. Or maybe there was nothing to divulge and his erratic behaviour was due to the stress of getting too old for his job and knowing that he would have to return to England and face his estranged wife. Part of her wanted him to unburden his secret to her as a fellow adult, but part of her feared what he might say. Libby realised she would probably never know.

  As they got further away from Cheviot View and nearer to Belgooree, Libby held on to the secret that Manzur had just entrusted her with, and let her mind wander to what she would do next. There was less than a month till Independence. Her desire to get back to Calcutta to see Ghulam, before she had to follow her father to England, was like a feverish itch.

  Libby determined she would not leave India without seeing him again.

  CHAPTER 23