THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER:A wonderfully moving story of courage and enduring love: First in the India Tea Series
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Her father’s ranting continued after the rider had gone – his ‘fever shouting’ as her mother called it – and it rang around the old house.
As she crouched in the dark too anxious to move, Sophie heard hushed women’s voices – urgent, tearful – and hurried footsteps making the uneven floorboards squeak.
A flash of pink sari dashed down the steps. Sophie jumped up.
‘Ayah Mimi! Wait!’
The woman turned, startled. She was clasping something; the kitten’s basket.
The next moment her mother was grasping her arm. ‘Quiet, let her go.’
‘Where’s she going?’
Her mother’s face looked pained, like she had toothache.
‘On an errand.’
Sophie was frightened. Ayah Mimi shouldn’t be going anywhere without her. And who was the shouty man who had upset Papa? And why did her mother look like she was crying? It was the worst birthday ever and she hated the noise and the bangs that seemed to be getting closer coming from the village, and the flaming torches licking the night sky. All this she wanted to say to her mother. Instead she burst into tears and wailed, ‘And I never got to play Hide and Seek!’
‘Hush, lassie,’ her mother said, briefly putting an arm about her. She pulled a cotton handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘Blow your nose.’
All at once, there was an explosion of noise at the compound gate. Sophie’s father started bellowing again. Her mother gasped. She turned and pushed Sophie across the veranda.
‘Go and hide now.’
‘Are we playing Hide and Seek?’ Sophie felt fear and excitement.
‘Yes, now quickly. Be still as a mouse and don’t make a sound.’
At once, Sophie felt better. ‘Don’t look,’ she grinned and scampered off.
She hid in the linen chest, burrowing deep into the spicy-smelling sheets. Listening out for her mother’s footsteps, all she heard was the muffled drumming and the crackle of fireworks. Her mother didn’t come; Ayah didn’t come. Only the rain came. Sophie heard it battering off the roof, louder than any village drums. The air cooled. Then she slept.
***
Finally they found the child curled up in a laundry chest, squinting at the sudden light. She was shocked and mute as they lifted her out, hair damp and matted against her flushed cheeks. But it was the eyes – dark pools full of terror – that shook them the most. It was a look that haunted and left them worrying just how much the girl had seen.
Chapter 1
Edinburgh, June 1922
Sophie Logan leapt up the spiral steps two at a time, the clatter of her shoes on the worn stone echoing up the gloomy tenement stairwell. She burst through the door of the second-floor flat, unpinning her hat, kicking off her shoes and calling, ‘Auntie Amy! I’m back.’
The sound of hammering stopped. ‘In here, dearie.’
Sophie peered into the chaotic room her aunt used as a workshop for furniture making, breathing in the smell of newly cut wood and varnish. Amy Anderson looked up, grinning under a mop of fading frizzy fair hair, her trim body enveloped in dusty overalls. The walnut bookcase was nearly finished.
‘Good day, dearie?’
‘Bedlam Auntie. I had to run the office while Miss Gorrie went over to Duddingston to interview a new cook for the home. The telephone didn’t stop ringing. What did people do before they were invented?’
‘Wrote letters and had a bit of patience,’ Amy snorted.
Sophie laughed. Stepping over planks, she ran her hand over the hand-carved decoration of flowers and leaves.
‘It’s beautiful – so lifelike.’ She put her nose to the wood and breathed in the nutty, spicy smell. Her insides fluttered at the spark of memory; the smell of trees, of India.
‘Don’t eat it,’ her aunt teased, ‘or you’ll spoil your supper.’
The memory evaporated. ‘Shall I put the kettle on, Auntie?’
‘A pot of tea would be grand. Oh, and talking of letters; there’s one come for you from Newcastle.’
‘Tilly?’ Sophie gasped in excitement. Her aunt nodded. ‘It’s about time. What are the arrangements for her twenty-first birthday?’
‘Believe it or not,’ said Amy, ‘I haven’t steamed it open.’
‘We’ll read it over a cup of tea,’ Sophie smiled. ‘The suspense must have been killing you.’
‘Cheeky wee madam,’ her aunt said with a mock wagging finger.
While the kettle boiled on the gas range in the tiny kitchen, Sophie dashed into the sitting-room, slit open her Cousin Tilly’s letter with an ivory-handled letter opener and stood in the light of the window to read it. There were reams of pale blue notepaper covered in Tilly’s neat slanting writing telling her in great detail of the goings-on in the Watson household and life in the bustling industrial city a hundred miles south of Edinburgh.
The cheery Watsons had been a lifeline for her when she’d been shipped back from India, orphaned and dislocated, and given into the care of her mother’s older sister Amy. Sophie remembered so little of her first six years: snapshots of colour – white light filtering through lime green leaves, the salmon pink of her Ayah’s sari – and a birthday without a party. She had long forgotten the faces of early childhood.
Her spinster aunt had tried her best to provide a home and soon involved her clinging niece in her every activity – suffrage meetings, Kirk on Sundays, trips to the timber yards – but it was the holiday visits to her aunt’s cousins in Newcastle that brought the laughter and words back to Sophie’s plump lips.
‘Cousin Johnny’s been posted to somewhere called Pindi,’ Sophie called out to her aunt. ‘Have you heard of it?’
‘Rawalpindi,’ Amy answered, appearing in the doorway. ‘It’s an army station in the north Punjab. Your parents married and honeymooned near there in a hill station called Murree.’
‘Did they?’ Sophie glanced at the silver-framed photograph on the mantelpiece of a handsome couple in elaborate wedding clothes. It always struck her how sombre they looked but Amy had assured her that her parents were merely keeping still for the camera.
‘Jessie loved it there,’ Amy smiled. ‘Didn’t mind that it was winter and snowing; it had a healthy Scottish bluster.’
‘Wasn’t that a long way from Assam?’
Amy shrugged. ‘Aye, but we had a church connection there – a mission with a boarding house – I suppose they got a good rate at that time of year. And your mother always loved the hills.’
Sophie waited for more; her aunt rarely talked about her mother in case it upset her but Sophie craved these nuggets of information. Amy nodded towards the kitchen.
‘Don’t boil that kettle dry.’
Later, with cups of tea poured and shortbread eaten, Sophie read out the long letter. There was talk of Tilly’s mother going to stay with her eldest married daughter in Dunbar for the summer where the sea air would do her chest good.
‘I’ll probably have to go with her,’ Sophie read aloud, ‘unless you can think up an excuse for me. What are the chances of Auntie Amy taking us to Switzerland on the train again? It was the best holiday I’ve ever had in my life. Beg her for me, will you?’
Amy Anderson laughed. ‘Tilly spent the whole time complaining about walking up mountains. But it was a grand trip, wasn’t it? It was thanks to the bequest from the Oxford Tea Company that we could afford to go.’
‘Yes, the company have been good to me, haven’t they?’
‘Well, your father was a respected employee – the company was only doing what was right by putting a bit in trust for you – seeing you through your education. And from what I hear, they’ve made huge profits during the War.’
‘Still, it was kind of them,’ said Sophie, returning to the letter.
‘Johnny’s dear friend Clarrie Robson is back on leave from Assam with her small daughter Adela. She’s just as much fun as ever and the girl is a pretty dark-eyed thing, already talking ten to the dozen. Clarrie’s handsome husband isn’t with her (more’s t
he pity!) but Wesley will be here in the autumn to take them back, when things aren’t so hectic in the tea gardens.’
‘Is that the woman who ran the tea room in West Newcastle?’ Amy interrupted. ‘What was it called?’
‘Herbert’s.’ Sophie nodded. ‘Named after her first husband. Her stepson Will was a good friend of Johnny’s, remember? Me and Tilly had such a massive crush on Will. I think it was the floppy hair – and he was always teasing us younger girls but in a nice way.’
‘Oh aye, the poor laddie who died after the war ended.’
‘Yes,’ Sophie sighed. ‘Tilly said Clarrie was heartbroken – and Johnny too.’
‘Well it’s grand that she found happiness again with one of the Robsons,’ said Amy.
‘Listen to this,’ Sophie read on. ‘Wesley’s cousin, James Robson, is also on leave in Newcastle, though he and Clarrie don’t really get on. It’s the first time he’s been back to England since before the Kaiser’s War.’
‘James Robson?’ Amy gasped.
Sophie looked up quickly. ‘Is he the Robson who worked with my father in Assam?’
‘Aye he is.’ Her aunt was giving her an odd look.
‘And?’
Amy hesitated. ‘He was the man who brought you back after your parents ...’ Her voice softened. ‘Don’t you remember him?’
Sophie shrugged. ‘No, not really. I remember the big ship and feeling sea sick, but that’s all. Tell me about him.’
But Amy said, ‘read on dearie, and see what Tilly has to say.’
Sophie went back to the letter.
‘He called on Mama last week with letters from Johnny and photos of the wedding in Calcutta. My new sister-in-law Helena looks ever so pretty. Apparently the wedding dress was sent for from Paris. Mama put on a brave face but she’s still upset that they chose to rush into marriage instead of waiting till next year when she could come out. But Helena’s family are mostly in Calcutta and Delhi so it suited them – and between you, me and the gatepost – Mama would never survive a trip to India with her bad chest. So I can’t blame Johnny for wanting to get on with it.
Mr Robson isn’t a bit like his cousin Wesley. Isn’t it funny how different members of the same family can be? He’s not as tall – more square like a prize-fighter – and he’s older – his hair has already gone grey, though his thick moustache is still brown. He’s what you would call weather-beaten and he couldn’t sit still for two minutes.
I don’t think he’s used to female company as he really didn’t have much to say for himself, except when Mama got him on to talking about dogs and horses. He’s missing his animals on the tea estate, especially his favourite – a retriever called Rowan. He made a real fuss over our fat Flossy and she seemed to take to him too. Mama said it was a bit of a relief when he went, but out of politeness, she insisted on him coming to my twenty-first birthday party next Saturday.
Come a day early if you can, so you can stop Mama and Mona fussing too much. You are so lucky not to have a bossy older sister – but Mona will be so much nicer to me if you are there! Auntie Amy is to come too of course. It won’t be grand, just a nice tea and a bit of dancing to keep you happy. I can’t wait to see you. Let us know on which train you plan to arrive.
Your loving cousin and best friend,
Silly Tilly.’
Sophie looked up, her brown eyes shining with excitement. ‘Let’s go on the motorcycle – give The Memsahib a run out.’
Amy rolled her eyes. ‘Lassie, I’m not sitting on that flapper seat for all the tea in India.’
‘I’ll get the garage to fix the sidecar back on again.’
‘You’ve never driven it that far before.’
‘Almost as far. We could stop off in the Borders for a night on the way. Miss Gorrie said I could take a few days off.’
Sophie was eager for the trip away; she had done little for her own twenty-first birthday a month ago, just helped out at a fundraising hop for Miss Gorrie and had a cake baked by her aunt.
Amy saw the determination in her niece’s face; it was useless to argue with her when she got an idea into her wilful pretty head.
‘So,’ said Sophie, pacing to the window, ‘we’ll get to meet this James Robson again.’ She was intrigued by the thought of meeting someone who had known her parents in India.
‘Aye, and you can thank him in person for his kindness to you,’ her aunt pointed out. ‘Even if you don’t remember it.’
Sophie gazed down the street opposite to the yellow gorse and green slopes of Salisbury Crags. She never tired of the incongruous sight of the rocky outcrop so close to the heart of the soot-blackened city. She was seized with renewed impatience to be out in the countryside again. She would never really be a city girl, however long she lived here; not like Tilly who loved libraries, theatre trips, shopping or just sitting in a fuggy parlour endlessly reading. Dear Tilly.
As Sophie folded the letter, she noticed a post scriptum scrawled on the back.
‘Johnny and Helena have invited me out to India. Mama thinks I should go. I think they are plotting to get me married off to someone suitable. What do you think I should do? You always come up with the right answer. We shall discuss it next week.’
Sophie felt a pang of anxiety.
‘What’s wrong lassie?’ Amy asked. She passed her aunt the final page.
‘Oh, I see,’ Amy said, understanding at once. ‘You’re worried Tilly will stay and not come back.’
Sophie nodded, gulping down the panic inside. She relied so completely on Tilly’s friendship that she couldn’t imagine her not being close enough for them to meet up every few months as they had done since childhood. India was so very far away.
‘Don’t go worrying about something that might never happen,’ Amy advised. She knew that underneath the smiles and chatter, her niece still had a fear of losing people close to her. She had learnt when young that bad things did happen.
‘You’re right Auntie,’ Sophie said, putting on a brave face and dismissing the thought.
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