‘Oh heavens! They want us to take their children,’ Tilly gasped. ‘How can they be that desperate?’
‘We’re not stopping,’ Sam said. ‘There’s cholera.’
Nelson leapt from his shoulder and ran along the railings in agitation, bearing his teeth. Tilly could hardly bear to look but neither could she move or turn away. The desperation of the half-naked figures, shouting out in supplication as they sailed by, appalled her. Yet a small part of her gave thanks that she wasn’t one of them.
‘What will happen to them?’ Tilly whispered.
‘I don’t know but we can’t do anything,’ Sam said. ‘If we let one on, the rest would follow and capsize the boat. Nelson doesn’t understand that.’
They stood as the boat steered on and the fires and shouting receded into the pitch-black night. Nelson gave up his frantic dance and hopped back on Sam’s shoulder with a final shriek of protest.
Tilly stood clutching the rail feeling nauseous; never would she forget the wailing of the parents offering up their infants to be saved. She was glad of the dark so that the youth could not see the tears streaming down her cheeks. Whether she cried for the half-starved people on the smoky ghat or in relief that the danger to her unborn baby had passed, she could not tell.
Chapter 21
The next afternoon, they steamed into Gowhatty. The sun shone down on a festive crowd gathered on the ghat. A band was playing a military air, The British Grenadiers, which Tilly remembered her father singing. People were garlanded in vivid flowers of red and orange and skinny boys were cheering and waving.
‘Is it some special festival?’ Tilly asked, trying to spot James among the throng.
Adela craned forward in her father’s arms and giggled with delight. ‘Drums!’
‘A very special festival,’ said Wesley, ‘isn’t it, Clarrie?’
‘Yes,’ Clarrie grinned.
‘Tell me,’ Tilly said, ‘so I can seem knowledgeable to James.’
‘They’re waiting for a VIP.’
‘On our boat?’ Tilly was incredulous.
Clarrie slipped her arm through Tilly’s. ‘This fuss is for you.’
Tilly gawped at them. ‘Me? Don’t be silly!’
Clarrie laughed. ‘It’s true.’
Wesley chuckled. ‘It’s a good old-fashioned tea garden welcome for the new Robson Memsahib. You’re the star of the show.’
Tilly’s hands flew to her face. ‘How embarrassing! I’m no good at being the centre of things.’
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Clarrie assured, ‘just walk off the boat and go to James. Look, there he is.’
Tilly stared at where Clarrie pointed. A burly figure in a white suit and a large topee obscuring half his face was standing, hands on hips, waiting. The familiar bullish stance and jutting dimpled chin made her insides flutter with nerves.
‘Go on,’ Clarrie encouraged, ‘give him a wave.’
Tilly raised her hand in a tentative gesture. James caught sight of her, took off his hat and threw it in the air like an excitable boy. He caught it, and gestured eagerly for her to come ashore.
‘I’m coming!’ Tilly waved back with greater confidence and hurried to the gangway. ‘Thank you Captain Jackman – and Sam – for looking after us so well.’ She shook their hands and Nelson the monkey stuck out his paw. ‘And thank you too,’ she laughed as the animal tried to grab her hat. Nelson screeched in reply as Sam swung him out of reach.
Tilly hurried down the gangplank, flustered but excited by the rousing greeting on the quayside. James strode forward and shouted over the din of the band; a motley crew of veteran soldiers and youths in hand-me-down military jackets.
‘Welcome wife!’ he cried, clamping his hands on her shoulders and giving her a chaste kiss on the forehead. ‘Good journey? Come and meet the household.’
He whisked her in front of a line of smiling and bowing servants, who showered her with garlands of flowers and presented her with baskets of fruit. Their names went straight out of her head as she smiled and nodded and thanked them back, quite overwhelmed by their enthusiasm to greet her.
When Wesley and Clarrie disembarked, James ushered them all into a restaurant garden for refreshments. Tilly was aware of the tension between the men. As tea and pastries were served, Adela went chasing off after James’s dog, Rowan.
Clarrie said pointedly, ‘There were some sorry sights downriver. Those camps are a disgrace.’
James flushed. ‘I quite agree, but it’s the left wing agitators who keep them there in squalor to suit their purposes – give us a bad name.’
‘You can’t believe that,’ Clarrie was scathing.
Wesley gave her a warning look. ‘Now is not the time, Clarissa. James is our host.’
‘And very grateful we are for these fine refreshments,’ she said, ‘but we all live so far apart, there is no knowing when we will have a chance to talk of these things again.’ She turned to James and held his look. ‘It’s time that all us planters put our hands in our pockets and paid for the relief of these camps – pay for them to journey on – before the death toll gets an worse. Captain Jackman says that cholera is rife.’
James looked furious, barely hanging onto his temper. ‘And no doubt you and that busybody Jackman have the answer to our constant need for labour on the estates, as well as the deep pockets to pay for it?’
‘Yes,’ Clarrie replied. ‘The days of importing indentured labour are over – should have been long ago – and we should be nurturing the people we have here already. Give the workers decent housing and health, a patch of land to grow extra food and some schooling for their children, then they’ll want to stay and bring up their families here – the next generation of tea pickers.’
‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ Tilly chipped in. ‘There’s such distress in those terrible camps–’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, girl,’ James snapped, ‘you haven’t been here five minutes. And you Clarrie sound like you’ve spent too long swallowing the sob stories of the Bolshie press in England. I wish you were half as enthusiastic standing up for the British interest in India – it’s what gives us our living.’
‘Indian tea is what gives us a living,’ Clarrie replied.
‘Spoken like a–’ James bit back his retort.
‘What?’ Clarrie said, dark eyes blazing. ‘A native?’
‘Your word not mine.’
‘That’s enough,’ Wesley said, ‘we’ll not stay to be insulted. We’ve done as you’ve asked and brought Tilly safely here. Come on, Clarissa, we’re leaving.’
He strode off to fetch Adela, who wailed at being parted from the patient hound whose tail she kept grabbing. ‘Doggy, mine!’
Clarrie threw Tilly a look of regret. ‘I’m sorry. Take care of yourself.’
Tilly wanted to rush over and hug her – thank her for all she’d done for her – but she was shocked by the sudden argument and cowed by James’s dismissive remark to her. She didn’t want to provoke him further, for all their sakes. She stood feeling wretched as her friends gathered their daughter, said stiff goodbyes and left.
After they had gone, James calmed down. ‘My dear, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been short with you. It’s that woman; she knows just how to irritate. My idiot cousin is completely under her spell and can’t see sense when it comes to the tea trade anymore. He used to be such an astute man of business but she’s made him so emotional about everything – and emotion clouds reason – there’s no room for it in commerce. Our first duty is towards our shareholders and keeping the company solvent.’
‘And the tea workers?’ Tilly dared to ask. ‘Don’t you have a duty to care for them also?’
He gave her a sharp look but answered without anger. ‘Yes, of course. But if the company doesn’t prosper then the coolies are out of work. So what good does that do them?’
Tilly was happy to let the matter drop. She was feeling uncomfortable on her feet and longed to sit down, so was tha
nkful when James ushered her into an open car and they set off along a dirt track road, Rowan hanging over the back seat and licking her face. The servants had set off ahead with her luggage – two trunks of clothes, one of linen and two heavy with books, stamp albums and framed family photographs – in a series of carts.
‘Road’s new – so is the car,’ James was keen to show off. ‘Cuts down the journey to the Oxford Estates by a day. When I first came out to Assam, we had to go further by riverboat to Tezpur or ride horseback. Devil of a journey. Once got stalked by a tiger.’
‘Really?’ Tilly gasped, gazing around fearfully.
‘Don’t worry; this car will go faster than a tiger – at least on the straight stretches.’ Then he barked with laughter. ‘Tilly, your face! I’m joking. There are no tigers on the open road – they prefer to keep to the jungle. Now wild elephants are another matter. Can get very aggressive – tip us off the road and squash us like flies.’
‘James, stop it!’
He roared with laughter again and squeezed her knee. Rowan yapped in excitement and tried to scramble forward.
‘Down boy!’ James ordered. ‘He usually sits where you are but he’ll have to get used to the new pecking order.’
After three hours of bumping along on the uneven road, Tilly felt car sick. She had long grown tired of looking out over lush vegetation the colour of pea soup, the road often running high above the surrounding flat land on steep embankments. Dust blew up constantly from the unmetalled track, making her eyes gritty and her throat sore. They stopped at a dak bungalow – in the middle of nowhere it seemed to Tilly – where James’s bearer, Aslam, had tiffin waiting for them; a cold flask of lemonade, hard boiled eggs, cheese puffs and small dry cakes.
Tilly hoped her husband might suggest they stop at the government bungalow for the night but he was eager to be off and they left some of the servants to tidy up while they re-fuelled and pressed on, taking Aslam with them. The bearer sat in the back with the excitable dog, trying to avoid being licked and sat on. Twenty minutes later Tilly was shouting for James to stop; she just made it to the side of the road before she vomited back her lunch.
‘Poor girl,’ James said, patting her back and handing over a large handkerchief. ‘That’s it; get it all up.’
After that, she dozed and jerked awake and dozed again until the sun began to weaken, and the trees grew more regimented on the undulating landscape. Tilly sat up.
‘Are those tea bushes?’
‘Yes,’ James said. ‘Have you never seen any before?’
‘No, never.’
James smiled. ‘I take it all for granted now. But I remember seeing the gardens for the first time. Grand sight, isn’t it?’
Tilly thought the endless rows of fat green bushes rather monotonous – give her a golden and russet deciduous wood in autumn any day – but she feigned enthusiasm. At least it meant they must be nearing their destination.
Yet it was another hour before they passed the gates proclaiming they were now entering The Oxford Company Estates. They trundled up a long drive and Tilly cried out with relief at the sight of a neat bungalow and a series of long sheds all fringed with cheery flowerbeds.
‘How pretty!’
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ James said in bemusement, as if it had never before occurred to him.
He swung the car around the side and hooted as they passed the bungalow. A balding Indian with wire spectacles came to the door and saluted. Rowan barked and leapt out, rushing up to the man and licking him in greeting. To Tilly’s surprise, James waved and kept on driving.
‘Why aren’t we stopping?’
‘Not home yet, dear girl. That’s the office. Anant Ram is my chief mohurer – excellent bookkeeper.’
Tilly sank back in dismay. She couldn’t bear another minute in the bone-shaking car. A few minutes later, Rowan reappeared running alongside and James slowed to the let the dog jump into the back seat next to the long-suffering Aslam. Another thirty minutes of grinding uphill was made tolerable by the cooling breeze and the sinking of the sun into a spectacular sunset over the receding valley.
Distracted by its splendour, Tilly was taken by surprise at their abrupt arrival at a large two-storied thatched house perched on a slope and hidden in shadow like a bird of prey looming out of the dark trees.
‘Here we are Mrs Robson,’ James beamed, ‘your new home, Cheviot View.’
He helped her from the car, her legs so shaky she would have collapsed without his strong hold. They were greeted by a cheerful cook and James’s khitmutgar, which Tilly gathered was equivalent to a head valet. Aslam rushed ahead, thankful to be out of the car too, and set about giving orders.
They had prepared a large meal but Tilly could not face it. She ached all over, her stomach empty but nauseous, while her head pounded and her eyes streamed from the dust.
‘Do you think I could just have a lime juice and lie down?’
James looked crestfallen but Aslam immediately gave out orders to prepare a tray of juice and biscuits for the memsahib to have in bed.
Tilly followed James numbly through the gloomy house, which was dimly lit by occasional paraffin lamps, upstairs to the marital bedroom. Left to undress, she was too nervous of what might be lurking in the dark of the far bathroom – she had heard tales of scorpions under sponges – and was thankful to find in the bedside cupboard a chamber pot in which she quickly relieved herself. She would be so much braver in the morning, once she had slept off the terrible car ride.
Shortly afterwards, James found her already asleep, the refreshment tray untouched. Her auburn hair was still half pinned and stuck in messy tendrils to her plump cheeks. He thought her quite beautiful and marvelled again at how he had inadvertently managed to gain her as his wife. He remained sitting close by, gazing at the young woman in his bed.
Already it seemed astonishing that he had lived so long on his own. He was excited at the thought of waking up next to her, of feeling her heat like a warming pan, of repeating the intimacies of those wonderful two days of honeymoon. But perhaps, now that she carried his child, making love to her might be dangerous? Who could he possibly ask about such things?
He would do nothing to bring harm to either Tilly or their child. James was suddenly overcome at the thought of being a father. He cleared his throat; it wouldn’t do to get emotional.
‘Time for a nightcap,’ he said to his sleeping wife. ‘Just the one.’
James retreated to the sitting-room and its aromatic fire and poured himself a large celebratory whisky. Three drinks later, he was sound asleep and snoring in the large winged-back chair.
Chapter 22
Tilly awoke to the sound of James whistling The British Grenadiers. For a moment she had no idea where she was, then remembered the endless journey and the badly lit house; her new home, Cheviot View. She ached all over and did not have the strength to get out of bed.
‘James, are you there?’ she croaked.
The whistling continued in the adjoining room; snatches of military marches and music hall ballads.
‘James!’ she called out louder.
The singing stopped. ‘James!’ came a shrill echo, and then the whistling began again.
What was he playing at? Tilly struggled out of bed and stood on wobbly legs. Noiselessly, a young woman she hadn’t seen before appeared with a tray of tea, set it down on a rickety table, nodded and hurried out. Tilly pulled on her dressing-gown that had been unpacked and hung on the bedpost while she slept and went to peer beyond the door. The bedroom opened onto a small dressing room full of men’s clothing, which in turn led into a sparsely furnished sitting-room. As Tilly ventured into the far room she was startled by a sudden flapping of wings as a small brown bird shrieking ‘James!’flew at her
Tilly screamed and fell backwards. Aslam found her gasping for breath cowering in a faded chintz chair, trying to ward off the garrulous bird. James’s bearer coaxed it onto his turban then swiftly grabbed it and popped it
squawking back into its cage by the window, where it watched Tilly from a yellow-ringed beady eye.
‘Bad boy!’ the bird mimicked the scolding servant.
‘I’m sorry,’ Aslam explained. ‘Sahib lets Sinbad out in the morning when he is shaving and having chota hazri. He forgets to put him back. He will not harm you, Memsahib.’
‘Where is James?’ Tilly asked, feeling faint.
‘Sahib is down at the tea gardens. He says you must rest.’
‘When will he be back?’
Aslam gave a shake of the head. ‘Usually he is gone all day.’
Tilly refused his offer of food and retreated back to bed. James, when he returned in the late afternoon, thought her encounter with his pet bird highly amusing.
‘I won Sinbad at the races in Tezpur. He’s a mynah bird – one of the starling family – and they’re better mimics than parrots.’
That evening they ate in a musty dining-room downstairs, the shadows hardly pierced by the candlelight. Outside, the garden was full of screeching and barking from unknown creatures. Tilly’s nervousness increased when James placed a pistol on the end of the table, saying mysteriously, ‘Just in case.’
Half way through the soup course, there was a scuttling inside the room.
‘There’s something there in the dark,’ Tilly cried in alarm.
James sprang from his seat, lunged for the pistol and fired into the shadows. Tilly screamed at the deafening crack. James seized a guttering candle and held it high.
‘Got him!’
‘What is it?’ Tilly gasped, ears ringing.
‘Rat. Quite a big chap.’
Aslam appeared at once and summoned a kitchen boy to remove it. The boy swung it up by its tail and grinned, obviously impressed. It was the size of a weasel. Tilly thought she would be sick. She pushed away her food – it tasted strangely of kerosene anyway – and excused herself. Lying, curled up in bed with the paraffin lamp turned up high filling the room with bright yellow light, she felt this was the only place of safety.
THE PLANTER'S BRIDE: A story of intrigue and passion: sequel to THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER (India Tea Series Book 2) Page 21
