By Eastern windows

by Gretta Curran Browne

  When she had left the room, Elizabeth turned away from him. ‘Just say whatever it is you want to say.’

  ‘Elizabeth, why you are doing this? You were never obsessed with religion before.’

  She spun round, cut to the quick. ‘How dare you say that? I’ve always been a devout Presbyterian.’

  ‘Then why are you going to China with a group of English evangelists?’

  Confounded, she stared at him. Then her hand went to her head again and she stood in a dull pause. ‘Oh, what does it matter,’ she blurted out. ‘And why should it matter to you? You’re not my dutiful chaperone any more. ’

  ‘Marry me,’ he said gently.

  ‘What?’ She stared at him, her eyes unbelieving, then accusing him bitterly. ‘Is this yet another of your kind gestures?’

  ‘No, just a simple and sincere request.’

  ‘To marry you?’

  ‘If you would be so kind.’

  ‘But why?’ She was pale now, quite distraught. ‘It’s inexcusable to make such a request when you have no feelings of that kind for me. Or do you think, like Henrietta, that I cannot live anywhere in this world without a husband!’

  ‘I think’ – he took a quick breath – `that I do have feelings of that kind for you … it hurts me to realise that now. I never thought I could, or would, feel much affection for any woman again, but there are so many things I like about you, Elizabeth …’

  ‘Such as?’ she interrupted bluntly. ‘What are these many things you like about me? Please enlighten me? Go on.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘Do you think I came prepared with a list?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ she admitted.

  He paused, then with simple frankness. ‘The proposal is mine, Elizabeth, the answer is yours.’

  Elizabeth was so dazed and confused she could not take it in. She sat down and put her face in her hands. ‘Oh, I don’t know … I feel as if a hammer has struck my head … my decision to go was made with such certainty … I need time to think … oh, this is so unfair!’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dark clouds hung over the grounds of George Jarvis’s school in Edinburgh. Lachlan felt his anxiety increasing as he walked slowly up the drive to the main door. He glanced up at the clouds, heavy with rain, and hoped that George would understand.

  Minutes later he was standing in the hall of the school, his eyes moving over the numerous portraits of former Deans without seeing them, his mind preoccupied with the task ahead. He now faced a crisis of decision about George Jarvis, just as he had once done with Marianne.

  At last a student appeared, listened to his request, nodded agreeably, and then led him up a flight of stairs to a long corridor where he silently indicated a dark mahogany door.

  George Jarvis answered his knock with a smile of surprise, but instantly he sensed something was wrong and his smile faded. ‘What is wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Lachlan replied, walking into the room. ‘I’m sorry to drop in on you like this without warning.’

  ‘No, no, do not apologise for coming,’ George said. ‘You know I am always happy to see you.’ He gestured to a leather armchair for Lachlan to sit down. ‘Let me get you something to drink. Some hot tea?’

  Lachlan shook his head and remained standing, silently looking around the room, realising that George had been working hard before his arrival, his desk covered in open books. ‘I see I have interrupted your studies,’ he said.

  ‘It is a welcome interruption.’ George sighed. `It’s all so boring, and I already know it all.’

  Lachlan smiled. ‘You know it all?’

  ‘Yes,’ George replied simply. ‘Everything they teach me I have already learned in London. It is all very easy.’

  ‘Then why do I continue to pay such high fees for your education here?’

  ‘Yes, why?’ George queried. ‘I wonder that also.’

  Lachlan turned towards the window and saw the clouds had broken into a heavy rain. Of course George was very intelligent, he knew that. And according to his Masters he had always worked very hard at his studies, determined to acquire a sound education. But getting George Jarvis to admit to that was impossible. Even as a boy he could never be persuaded to pretend he liked anyone or anything he disliked.

  But George was no longer a boy, aA fact that had become clear to Lachlan after his return from London. He had not seen George for almost six months and only then, visiting him here in Edinburgh, did he see the change, and realised that George Jarvis was now a very different young man to the one who had arrived in England almost three years earlier.

  George had always been graceful in manner and handsome in looks, in a very Eastern way, but now everything about him was westernised. His black hair was as straight as silk, cut short in what Bappoo would call `the new Angrezi fashion’.

  In Britain, George Jarvis had changed from a native to a foreigner, a brown boy in a school of whites. Perhaps it had been cruel to place him at such risk of racial prejudice, but George had quickly proved in London, and also here in Scotland, that he could take very good care of himself.

  There were those, of course, who would forever damn George for the colour of his skin, but George had found a way of dealing with that type. He rarely got offended, preferring to laugh at them. But if bullies did persist in taking their prejudice beyond words, they soon learned to their cost that George Jarvis had not grown up in the slave trade, and then in a world of hardened soldiers, without learning something about self-defence. In the end, though, it was George’s own personality that had eventually won him many friends.

  So what was he to do now about George Jarvis, the young man? What would be best for him?

  Lachlan sighed, knowing the answer. George was an Arabic-Indian. He had been born in India and spent most of his life in India. So perhaps it would be best if George returned to India.

  ‘I think I would like some tea,’ he said, needing more time to think. ‘Will you arrange it, George.’

  ‘Of course.’ George agreed. ‘I am your servant.’

  ‘No, George, you are not my servant.’

  ‘Then what am I?’ George said offhandedly.

  Lachlan turned back to the window, pretending to look at the rain. In memory he saw again the small slave-boy he had taken from Cochin. The boy Jane had loved on sight. Since then the boy had become a part of his life, a part of his heart. More like a son than anything else. God knew it would break his heart to part with George Jarvis, but it was for the best.

  George said quietly, ‘Before I arrange your tea, first tell me how you are? What you have been doing, and why you have come here now?’

  Lachlan told him about Elizabeth and their forthcoming marriage. George did not seem in the least surprised. He said, ‘She will be happy now. And for you, it is time for you to be happy again also.’

  ‘What about you, George?’ Lachlan asked. ‘It’s also now time to decide your future. Have you given any thought to what you would like to do?’

  George looked at him silently for a long moment. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Have I what?’

  ‘Given any thought to what you would like me to do.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of what I would like, I’m asking what you would like to do?’

  Lachlan’s anxiety was turning to anger. George knew what he was trying to say, and how hard it was for him to say it, yet George was refusing to help him.

  ‘You do know, George, that once I marry, I can never again return to India. Not even if the Army wishes it. Not with another wife at my side. I could not do that now, and never again, … go back to India.’

  George’s dark eyes were expressionless. ‘But now you want me to go back to India.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want you to go back. I’m just trying to decide what is best for you, in the long term. You have an education now. The opportunities are numerous, and I will see that you are financially secure.’

  George’s face remained expressionless.
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  ‘You know that you would be happier in India, George. India is where you belong, and have always belonged. There is no need for you to stay here in Britain because you feel some duty to me. And the truth is, George, I think we both know that once you leave this school, life here in the West may be very hard for you, not only in Scotland but in England too. People will be prejudiced against you, and you won’t be able to deal with the entire world as easily as you have done in school. But in India … with your education and financial security, we both know how you would be treated … like a prince.’

  George smiled in a way that hurt Lachlan with a memory of times past. The boy had always insisted he was the son of a prince, and if he returned now to India he would surely be treated like one.

  George turned and sat down in the chair behind his desk. He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a book. ‘In my school,’ he said, ‘in London, and also here in Edinburgh … they made me read their Bible.’

  Lachlan hadn't known that, but it was hardly a surprise. He should have realised they would consider it their duty to convert the heathen.

  ‘There was one story in their Bible that I liked very much,’ George said. ‘I read it many times. … especially a little story of two women. Naomi and Ruth. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes, vaguely, but I can’t remember it. Why?’

  George opened the book in his hands and began to search until he found the right page. ‘The Book of Ruth,’ he said finally, and Lachlan realised the book he was holding was a Bible.

  ‘It tells of a famine in the land of Moab,’ George continued. ‘Naomi's husband and two sons died in the famine. One of these dead sons was the husband of Ruth. So both women are left alone with only each other. Naomi had great love for her daughter-in-law, but wanted to return to her own country of Judah. So she said to Ruth, "Go back now to your people. May God give love to you, as you have given love to the dead and to me. Go back now, to your people and your gods.”’

  Lachlan turned back to the window, deeply hurt.

  ‘But Ruth said, "Ask me not to leave you, or stop me from following you. For where you go I will go. Your people will be my people. And your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there also will I be buried.” And when Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to stay with her, she said no more.’

  George closed the book.

  A long silence fell within the room. Lachlan stared out at the rain, realising this was the day that George Jarvis had always feared, and had prepared himself to fight it by using a story from the Bible to explain his feelings: that no amount of money could influence his choice, and no degree of racial prejudice would frighten him.

  Lachlan felt a thickness in his throat, and an emotion of sheer relief. Thank God the decision had finally been made – and made by George – not him. His own decision would have been wrong, and too painful for both of them, he knew that now.

  He turned round. ‘Are you sure that’s what you really want, George? To stay here with me in Britain, no matter what?’

  George nodded. ‘Britain or anywhere else.’

  Lachlan finally sat down in the leather armchair and sighed. ‘I really do feel in need of that hot tea now. Will you bring it, George?’

  George Jarvis smiled. ‘Yes, my father.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Mrs Macquarie awoke at dawn and creaked out of bed slowly, feeling a bit shaky, but after a glass of buttermilk and an oatcake she walked it off by rambling down to the shore’s edge and watching the kelpers for a time, and then her eyes moved away from the kelpers to gaze out towards the old grey sea.

  Hours later she returned to the house to be greeted by her maid Morag, a little girl of only seventeen, who immediately scolded her for getting up before her and seeing to her own breakfast.

  ‘Ye canna be doing for yourself no more, Mrs Macquarie. Ye have to remember that you’re very old an’ very feeble an’ that’s why I’m here to look after ye.’

  She was not really that old, in her own opinion, and definitely not feeble. No, there was plenty of life in her yet. But Morag was tiresomely young and tiresomely tactless and she would have to ask Lachlan to please, please replace her with someone a wee bit older.

  She glanced at the clock, surprised to see it was ten minutes to eleven. She must have spent longer down by the shore than she had realised.

  ‘I need to tidy meself up,’ she said to Morag, and then she had moved eagerly up the short shallow stairs to her bedroom where she smoothed her hair and straightened her collar, before donning her best bonnet, and reaching for her finest shawl to wrap around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m away out again,’ she told Morag.

  The sun had risen over Oskamull hours earlier, bright and warming, lighting the ridge of the grey path down to the farm.

  Mrs Macquarie sat on a stone boulder by the edge of the field and gazed towards the eastern hill, just as Donald had done so many times in the past, waiting and watching.

  She had decided it would be more peaceful to wait for Lachlan outside the house, outside in the fresh air and silence, where she could sit and think of all the changes that had taken place during the past year. And aye, it had been a gleg year, a wonderful year, starting with Lachlan’s marriage to Elizabeth, and then with each visit seeing the gradual change in him, the gradual change in Elizabeth, both looking more and more relaxed in each other’s company, as if they had stopped being awkward and strange with each other, and had quickly become very close friends.

  She sat very still, her neck curved in lassitude, listening to the occasional bleating of the sheep as she smiled while remembering how much she had liked Elizabeth, and how she not been at all surprised when, only eleven months after the wedding, Elizabeth had given birth to a healthy baby girl.

  The sound of wheels … she looked up. Her heart jumped when at last she saw the horse and carriage coming down the grey road. Aye, it was Murdoch’s carriage to be sure, but she hoped to God that Murdoch himself was not in it.

  She stood up and hurried forward, and in the hustle and bustle of excitedly greeting her visitors, she felt a profound relief that nobody from Lochbuy had come with them. No, it was just Lachlan and Elizabeth and their two-month old baby daughter whom they had brought to meet her grandmother.

  Surprisingly, it was Lachlan who carried the bundle containing the child, holding it protectively while Elizabeth fussed with the driver, asking him to lift out her ‘baby bag’.

  Mrs Macquarie felt a melting of her bones as she looked into the tiny face of her first grandchild, a child with bright blue eyes and wisps of golden hair. ‘Bye, but she’s bonnie …’ she said slowly. ‘Oh, I didna expect her to be so bonnie …’ and as she lifted her hand to touch the tiny face, tears of joy began streaming down her own weather-beaten cheeks.

  *

  The Christening was to take place the following afternoon, with everyone from Lochbuy travelling to Oskamull for the occasion, including Reverend McBride who would ride over from Tobermory. His mother would not be forced to travel long journeys anymore, Lachlan had decided, so everyone else must get into their carriages or up on their horses and make the journey instead.

  ‘And ye say the McLeans of Lagganulva are coming in the morning to prepare all the food?’ Mrs Macquarie said to Elizabeth. ‘Bye, that’s kind of them. They were always good cooking women, the McLean’s. And are they happy to do it, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Very happy,’ Elizabeth assured her. ‘In fact, from the tone of their letter in reply to mine, I believe they would have felt very insulted if we had asked anyone else.’

  ‘Ah, that’s good to know …’ Mrs Macquarie sat for a long moment looking down at her hands in her lap, trying to remember another question she wanted to ask, and then it came to her and she looked up. ‘And who’s to be the godfather?’

  ‘George Jarvis.’ Lachlan carefully placed his daughter into her travelling crib. ‘George will be a fine godfather.’

  ‘George?’ Mrs Macquarie looke
d at Elizabeth. ‘Not Murdoch? I thought Murdoch woulda insisted on being the godfather.’

  ‘Well, yes, he did insist,’ Lachlan replied, ‘but Murdoch has nine children of his own to care for; and if, in the future, he was ever called upon to give his godfatherly help to my child, he would probably turn that help into an outstanding debt, but George will be very different in that respect.’

  Elizabeth smiled. ‘George simply adores her. Every move she makes seems to fascinate him, every little cry and he goes running. From the day she was born George has always referred to her as his “little sister”`.

  ‘Aye, oh aye …’ Mrs Macquarie nodded. ‘George is a fine young man … and a kind one.’

  *

  Later that afternoon, while she sat on the window-seat cradling her sleeping granddaughter, Mrs Macquarie watched through the window as Lachlan and Elizabeth took a stroll down to the shore, their manner of happy companionship heightening her own feelings of joy. The two were talking and laughing together, and then Elizabeth suddenly gave a little skip as if she was delighted to be going down to the water and breathing in the sea air.

  She smiled to herself … Elizabeth looked so fine and fit and not at all like a woman who had recently given birth.

  And Lachlan … well, he had travelled a long way to reach this time of love and happiness in his life … not as passionate as his love for the first girl, she supposed, but aye, it was a new kind of love she saw in his face now when he looked at Elizabeth, more calm and contented, as if all the scattered threads of his life over the years had finally knitted together back here in Scotland in a pattern of stability and completion … Aye, for him now, there would be no slipping back into the past. His new love for Elizabeth, and his adoration of this wee child in her arms, would ensure that.

  She came out of her thoughts and continued watching as the two figures, hand in hand, dwindled into the distance and disappeared down the grass-edged path towards the calm waters of the old grey sea.