‘How ...? I-I don’t understand,’ Tilly floundered.
Meera smiled and gestured for her to take the baby. Tilly froze. The memory of her outburst the night before was suddenly vivid. Shame at the overpowering desire to harm Jamie flooded over her. Aslam would have to tell James and then she would never be trusted with their baby again.
‘Please Robson-Mem,’ Meera said, offering up the bundle. He looked so comfortable in her assured hold.
Tilly shook her head. Meera tightened the cotton sheet around him, laid him in the cot, pulled the end of her sari over her head and padded to the door.
‘Meera,’ Tilly called out. The servant stopped but kept her head bowed. ‘Please,’ Tilly gulped, ‘will you show me how to – you know – feed the baby?’
She wasn’t sure how much English Meera knew – they had hardly spoken to each other in all these months – but the woman understood her desperation.
It didn’t take her long to show Tilly the best way to nurse Jamie; it was a simple adjustment in the way she held him that made it easy for his small mouth to latch on to her nipple. With gestures and Meera’s rudimentary English taught to her by Aslam, Tilly discovered that her servant had a two year old boy called Manzur whom she still suckled.
Tilly was ashamed that she did not know this; that the Ahmads lived in a compound beyond the garden in quarters she had never thought to visit, out of sight and out of mind. It had never occurred to her that Meera might be a mother or live a life separate from the household. Why was it, Tilly wondered, that she had busied herself in Newcastle with good works and visited some of the poorest housing in the city, yet had never set foot in an Indian home; a home for which she and James were responsible?
Tearful with gratitude, Tilly thanked Meera and tried to give her the shiny brass bowl she had bought from the itinerant hillsman. With a shy smile, Meera refused. Later, the servant brought up a meal of hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes chopped into flavoured yellow rice, a bowl of stewed fruit and more spicy tea.
‘Good for milk,’ Meera grinned.
Tilly discovered she was ravenously hungry and ate the lot. She realised how much her appetite had dwindled as her worry over Jamie had grown.
When James returned sweaty and tired at sundown, he was astonished to find Tilly up and dressed, waiting for him on the veranda with a chota peg of whisky and soda.
‘It sounds strangely quiet,’ he said with a curious glance.
‘Jamie is sleeping,’ she smiled.
Over the next few days and weeks, James could hardly believe the difference in the domestic scene, returning each evening to an increasingly energised Tilly and a son who was fattening out into a contented, if still in his opinion, rather ugly baby. He had no idea what had brought about the improvement in his wife’s mood and put it down to her settling into the job of motherhood. What he did notice was the bond growing between Tilly and Aslam’s shy wife – they seemed always to be together – but then he had chosen Meera as Jamie’s ayah, so that was hardly a surprise the girl should be so ever present.
Chapter 24
Tilly had never experienced heat like it. It muffled everything like a hot wet blanket, slowing down movement and making it hard to catch the breath. Rugs were rolled up and windows encased in fragrant grass screens, plunging the house into a gloomy half-light. Jamie’s cradle was stood in bowls of water to stop insects climbing its legs and teams of punkah wallahs took it in turns to pull the ropes of the massive cloth fans that stirred the soup-like air and kept the insects at bay.
Tilly suffered from prickly heat that felt like being stabbed with pins in the arms and chest, while at night, the noise of frogs and insects kept her awake. James often returned from riding round the tea gardens with leeches hanging off his legs and drawing blood, but seemed impervious to the discomforts. The tea gardens were busy with the lucrative second pickings and the factories were running at full tilt to process the leaves for packing and shipping before the monsoon.
‘Once the rains come,’ James told her distractedly, ‘the Brahmaputra turns into a sea and half the place gets flooded – then it’s a devil of a job to get anything down river.’
It was such talk of being further marooned by the threat of the approaching wet season that spurred on Tilly to accept Ros’s invitation to visit Shillong.
‘She says we can stay with her father,’ she told James. ‘Do you think I should go? It would be cooler for Jamie – he’s suffering terrible nappy rash.’
Talk of nappies made James hastily agree. He was proud of his son but found babies boring and didn’t know why Tilly didn’t hand over more of the tedious work to the ayah.
‘You’ll take Meera, of course,’ James agreed.
‘But that would mean separating her from little Manzur,’ Tilly worried.
‘Good God, woman; she’s paid to look after you and the baby. Aslam will keep an eye on his son and others in the compound will see to his needs.’
Just before Tilly left, a letter came from Sophie. It was full of relish for her new surroundings – Tam was posted to a rural plantation to the south of Lahore on the edge of thick jungle – and she was enjoying the freedom from the strictures of cantonment life.
‘We’ve given up the tenancy on our half bungalow in Lahore but I love it here. At Changa Manga we go hunting at dawn – Tam hires labourers to flush out blackbuck, but most of the time its partridge and duck that he bags. He’s bought me a rifle and has been teaching me to shoot, but none of the wildlife is in any danger from me! If Tam misses he blames it on inferior ammunition, if I miss it’s because I’m a bad shot! But I don’t care; it’s the riding through the forest that I love and watching the dawn come up and the light filter through the sal and acacia trees. This is the most beautiful country, don’t you agree?
Tam has created a mud tennis court – well really just a practice wall against the godown – but we go over to the Remount several times a week where they have a proper court, and play tennis against the men. My game has never been so good.
Sometimes I go with Tam on his trips around the other plantations and we camp or stay in other forest bungalows (I don’t bother going to Lahore as the city is getting far too hot now and I prefer to stay here). I know this place is a long way from Assam but it makes me think more and more of my childhood – I have vague memories of my father going hunting and my mother playing tennis. Have you asked James yet about what he remembers of my parents? I’m longing to meet wee Jamie. Perhaps we can manage some leave at the end of the year and come and visit? Some day, I want to see the Oxford estates and where I grew up. Does Dunsapie Cottage still stand?’
Tilly could feel Sophie’s yearning in the letter for any nuggets of information about her past. Sitting on the veranda that evening she read the letter out to James.
‘I didn’t know the Logans very well,’ he blustered, ‘I was just a young man making my way at the Oxford. Bill Logan was a senior manager – an experienced hand.’
‘And Sophie’s mother? What was she like?’
James answered with a shrug.
‘Was she anything like Auntie Amy?’ Tilly pressed.
‘Prettier than Amy Anderson,’ James snorted.
‘So more like Sophie then?’
‘I suppose so.’ James shifted in discomfort. ‘Sophie has a look of her mother.’
‘She looks beautiful in her wedding photograph,’ Tilly mused. ‘I bet she caused a stir among the planters when Bill Logan brought her to the Oxford.’
‘He was very possessive,’ James grunted. ‘If another man so much as looked at her–’
Tilly glanced at him in surprise. ‘James you’re blushing. I hope you didn’t give Bill Logan cause to be jealous?’
She meant it as a joke but James snapped, ‘of course not. He was a queer fish that’s all; wouldn’t allow anyone else to dance with Jessie at the race meetings, that sort of thing.’
‘Poor woman. How boring life must have been for her.’ She watched him take a s
lug of whisky. ‘Where is Dunsapie Cottage? I haven’t heard anyone mention the Logan’s place.’
‘Anant Ram lives there now. It’s down on the estate.’
‘Where we went for tea?’ Tilly exclaimed.
James nodded.
‘But I thought it was called The Lodge?’
‘The name was changed after the Logans died. No one wanted it, so we let Anant rent it.’
‘Why did no one want to live there? It’s not as if the Logans died in that house.’
‘How do you know that?’ James asked sharply.
‘Sophie told me it was somewhere in the hills.’
‘You know what people are like,’ James said hurriedly, ‘they think bad luck can be caught like a disease. Once it got around that the Logans had died of fever, the house was doomed. Besides, Bill Logan’s health had been deteriorating for a while. Anant had the bungalow exorcised by a local shaman or some such nonsense.’
‘Poor little Sophie; she must have been so bewildered by it all. To lose her parents and her home.’ Tilly sighed. ‘What happened to her ayah?’
James eyed her. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Sophie has a memory of being deserted by her nurse – just at the time she needed her most.’
James took a sip of his drink. ‘We wondered the same thing when we found her.’
‘What do you mean, found her?’ Tilly questioned. ‘Were you up in the hills too? Did you discover the Logans ...?’
‘It was a passing official – or maybe one of the servants – I can’t remember,’ James was evasive. ‘I was summoned from the tea garden.’
‘My Lord! How long was Sophie left alone with her parents dead and the wretched ayah gone?’
‘Not long.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Tilly!’ James protested. ‘Enough questions. I knew it would do no good raking up the past; you’re just getting upset. That’s why Sophie should stop trying to remember. She should put it behind her and get on with life.’
‘She is getting on with life.’
‘Good. Then don’t encourage her to dwell on her parents’ tragedy.’ He stood up. ‘Come on; let’s get to bed.’ He held out his hand. ‘If you’re going to run off and leave me for the next month, I want to make the most of our last night together.’
Tilly laughed and let the matter drop. She sensed that James was deliberately keeping something from her, but now was not the time to press him further. If there were things he did not want her to know, it would only be to protect Sophie from the painful truth. Perhaps her cousin had been left to fend for herself for longer than James would admit? How terrible for the small girl to be hiding out in some remote bungalow, prey to wild beasts and with no one to feed her. Tilly checked on Jamie to assure herself that her precious baby was safely asleep.
‘I’m going to miss you, my girl,’ James murmured in the dark, as he took her in his arms under the bed sheet and made vigorous love.
***
‘And you must go and take tea at The Pinewood Hotel,’ said Major Rankin, Ros’s genial widowed father, ‘after you’ve done the sights, of course. Lot of the old houses wiped out in the earthquake of ‘97 – such a pity – but Shillong’s still a pretty place to live. Now Rosalind, you won’t forget to take Tilly around the lake and point out the bird life?’
‘No Dad, I won’t. Are you sure you won’t join us?’
‘No, no, I’d only hold you up with my wooden legs. Quite happy just sitting here with the binoculars. Off you go and enjoy yourselves. I’ll keep an eye on baby and ayah.’
The friends set off down the steep path from the Rankins’ wooden house, the view of Shillong opening up below them.
‘And don’t forget to show Tilly the museum,’ Major Rankin called after them.
Ros waved back. ‘Course not.’
‘Has your father really got wooden legs?’ Tilly asked as they climbed into the waiting rickshaw.
Ros snorted with amusement. ‘No, it’s his joke; he’s just very arthritic.’
Tilly looked back at the old house with its intricately carved doors and balconies, seasoned almost black with time and weather.
‘He’ll be all right,’ Ros reassured, ‘Jamie, I mean.’
Tilly was glad her friend understood. ‘It’s the first time I’ve left him since he was born. I feel very strange; like something’s missing.’
‘Dad’ll make a fuss of him,’ said Ros, ‘and your ayah seems very competent.’
‘She is,’ Tilly admitted. ‘But it doesn’t stop me worrying.’ She told Ros about Sophie’s ayah deserting her and fleeing from the dead Logans.
‘That’s shameful,’ Ros agreed, ‘but Meera isn’t like that. I can’t imagine her being so callous, can you?’
‘No,’ Tilly felt bad for having doubts, ‘she loves Jamie like her own son. She even suckled him for a couple of weeks – but don’t tell anyone – James doesn’t know.’
After a week in Shillong, Tilly felt more at home than she had done in the long six months since arriving in India. After two weeks, she day-dreamed about moving there and persuading James to grow tea in the nearby hills instead of the hot and humid valleys of Assam.
She loved the bustle of the town; it was lively without being overwhelming and it had a library and quaint shops and a cinema. The wooded hills of pines and the picturesque lake reminded her of Scotland; the sounds of wood pigeons were familiar and a breeze blew through the Rankins’ elevated, creaking house that brought the scent of roses and made her determined to plant some in her own garden when the holiday was over.
Tilly missed James but she was in no hurry to return to the isolation of Cheviot View. She wrote to him daily and received the occasional hasty note in return, telling her how busy he was and glad she was enjoying herself.
It was on a hot, airless day in late June, when the young women were walking in the lakeside park with Meera pushing Jamie behind in his pram, that Tilly was startled by a shout.
‘Tilly! Tilly!’
A small girl with dark pigtails came bowling towards her, arms outstretched and sun bonnet flying off her head.
‘Adela?’ Tilly cried in astonishment, scooping up the child as she flung herself at Tilly’s legs. Adela giggled and planted a sloppy kiss on Tilly’s cheek and then wriggled to be out of her hold.
Clarrie and Wesley caught up with their daughter. Tilly and Clarrie hugged in delight. Tilly introduced Ros and explained their visit.
Clarrie went straight to the pram and peered in. ‘And is this Master Jamie? What a little poppet.’ In an instant she had the baby out and was rocking him in her arms.
‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a little brother for Adela?’ Clarrie winked at Wesley.
‘Put it back!’ Adela ordered, jumping in front of her mother and trying to grab the baby. Swiftly, Wesley lifted her out of the way and swung her up on his shoulders.
‘This little madam is enough for me,’ he replied, as Adela instantly forgot her jealousy and began to drum her hands on her father’s topee.
‘Where’s ‘Ophie?’ she demanded, eyeing Ros with suspicion.
‘She’s living in the jungle,’ Tilly told the girl, ‘with her husband Tam.’
‘Can I see?’
‘It’s not our jungle,’ Wesley said, ‘it’s far away.’
‘I want to see ‘Ophie.’
‘Not today,’ her father replied.
‘Yes Daddy, today.’ She banged a hand on his hat.
‘Today is your birthday,’ he said. ‘Don’t you want to see the jugglers and the acrobats?’
Adela squealed and kicked her legs with excitement.
‘Happy Birthday!’ Tilly exclaimed, tickling the girl’s sturdy calf.
‘Tell Tilly how old you are today.’
‘Five.’
Clarrie laughed. ‘No you’re not; you’re three.’
‘Three and five,’ Adela giggled. ‘Tilly come too.’
‘There’s a travelling show
of gypsies on the maidan,’ Wesley said. ‘You’re very welcome to join us.’
Tilly looked at Ros and her friend nodded. ‘I’ve some errands I want to run. Why don’t I meet you later?’
‘Yes,’ Tilly enthused, ‘we could all go to the Pinewood.’
Ros hesitated; she exchanged an embarrassed look with Clarrie. ‘Why don’t you come back to my father’s house for refreshment then Adela can play in the garden?’
There was an awkward pause. Tilly noticed Wesley’s look of annoyance and wondered what it meant. Was it possible Clarrie and Adela might be refused entry to the hotel for being Anglo-Indian or was Ros being over-sensitive?
‘That would be lovely,’ Clarrie said quickly, ‘thank you.’
With a wistful look, she put Jamie back in his pram and they walked on together.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t written much,’ Tilly said, still feeling guilty that they had snubbed the Robsons’ Christmas invitation.
‘Don’t be,’ Clarrie said, ‘I know how busy it is with a new baby. I’m just sorry I haven’t been to visit, but I didn’t want to make things awkward for you with your husband.’
‘It wouldn’t be awkward,’ Tilly flushed.
Clarrie gave her a look of disbelief. ‘Well, we hardly ever get out of Belgooree, let alone across to the Oxford. So it’s a real treat to find you here.’ She slipped an arm through the younger woman’s. ‘Tell me how you’re finding life in Assam. Are you settling in as well as Sophie in the Punjab?’
‘To be honest, if it wasn’t for this trip with Ros I think I’d have gone mad stuck out at Cheviot View. Does Sophie write to you a lot too?’ Tilly asked.
‘Yes. I don’t know how she finds the time, she sounds so busy.’
That afternoon, Tilly and Clarrie spent a happy time catching up and talking about their children. Adela was entranced by the tight-rope walkers and jugglers but buried her head in her father’s chest and screamed at the sight of the fire-eater swallowing flames.
THE PLANTER'S BRIDE: A story of intrigue and passion: sequel to THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER (India Tea Series Book 2) Page 23
