THE PLANTER'S BRIDE: A story of intrigue and passion: sequel to THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER (India Tea Series Book 2)

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  They arranged to meet Ros at the entrance to the British cemetery; it was a short cut up the hill to the Rankins’ house. A hot wind was beginning to blow dust from the baked pathways and clouds were amassing above the far mountain range. They found her arranging a posy of flowers in a vase in front of a grave near the gateway.

  ‘My mother’s,’ she explained, her eyes tear-filled.

  Adela slipped her father’s hand, rushed over to a flowering creeper and plucked a large white bloom. She ran back and squashed it in the vase beside Ros’s neat bunch of flowers.

  ‘For your mummy.’

  Ros looked at Clarrie. ‘How does she understand?’

  Clarrie smiled. ‘She does the same on my parents’ grave – they’re buried at Belgooree.’

  Ros kneeled down and pulled Adela into a quick, self-conscious hug. ‘Thank you, sweet girl.’

  Tilly glanced away, her eyes filling up. She stared hard at the grave stones opposite, trying not to cry. She was still so weepy since having Jamie.

  The name made her start: Logan. Tilly wiped her eyes and peered closer. It was just a simple stone, half hidden. She pushed aside a clump of long grass. Her heart lurched. William Logan – departed this life May, 1907. Underneath it read: Jessie Anderson, wife of William, with the same date of death. May they rest in peace.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Clarrie asked, going to her side.

  ‘Sophie’s parents,’ Tilly gasped.

  The others gathered to look.

  ‘What are they doing here in Shillong? It’s nearly two days from the Oxford.’

  It was Wesley who stated the obvious. ‘They must have died near here.’

  Chapter 25

  The talk each day was of when the rains would come. Tilly was warned that the area around Shillong was one of the wettest in the whole of the Indian sub-continent. She longed for it to come; to remember what rain felt like, to bring freshness back to the air and earth – and to maroon her for longer in the hills away from the sticky heat of the tea gardens.

  She dwelled daily on the mystery of the Logans’ final months somewhere nearby and their swift death. With Ros’s help she tidied up the grave, and took a photograph with her friend’s Box Brownie to send to Sophie.

  Why had James never mentioned that the Logans were buried here? Especially as he knew she was going to be visiting, and had been full of questions about them, asking for any details he could give her. Did he not know that that was where their bodies had been taken? But he had been involved in rescuing Sophie; he must have known that they lay in the British cemetery in Shillong. It was puzzling why everyone was so reticent about the Logan family. Perhaps they had not been much liked?

  Merry on sherry at Christmas, Muriel had let slip that Sophie’s mother was too flirtatious for her own good.

  ‘Old Logan hated her talking to any of the men. Even when she was having a difficult birth with Sophie – wouldn’t let the doctor in – chased him down the steps. Mind you, he was Indian, so I have some sympathy.’

  One day, when visiting the library, Tilly got chatting to one of the librarians.

  ‘I’m trying to find out more about my friend’s parents who died here in 1907. Do you keep newspapers from that far back? I was wondering if there might be a death notice or something. A double death like that might have been newsworthy, don’t you think?’

  The librarian, a retired policeman with a passion for Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries, was intrigued. He disappeared for ten minutes and came back with a heavy bound tome of editions of the Shillong Gazette from May 1907. Plonking it on a stand, he heaved it open.

  ‘What was the date of death, did you say?’

  ‘The gravestone just says May.’

  ‘Well, better start at the beginning then.’

  He hovered over Tilly while she scanned the first newspaper for notifications of death.

  ‘Course it was a tense time around then,’ he said, pulling the ends of his handlebar moustache in thought.

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Fiftieth anniversary of the Mutiny, May 1907. Jittery time for us British.’

  Tilly looked up in surprise. ‘But that was old history, surely? You weren’t in any danger of an army uprising.’

  ‘Not from the army – but plenty of agitators wanting to stir up trouble – using the anniversary as a spark to set off unrest and turn Indians against their masters. Busy time for us police – following up rumours of plots.’

  Tilly thought it all sounded far-fetched. ‘Plots?’ she queried in amusement.

  ‘No laughing matter,’ said the librarian. ‘The planters in particular were worried about an uprising among the coolies. There’d been signs, you know.’ He tapped his nose conspiratorially.

  ‘What signs?’

  ‘Strange patterns left on trees – round pats of dung and hair – that people thought was code for an uprising just like the passing round of chapattis had been a sign for the Mutiny. A lot of the planters got windy at that – sent their wives and families away home to Britain for safe-keeping. Those that couldn’t, battened down the hatches. On the night of May the tenth – the date the Mutiny had started – a lot of the British gathered their families in the clubs and the men took it in turns to guard them.’

  ‘How long did that go on for?’ Tilly asked, astonished there should have been such panic. She would have been scared half to death.

  ‘Just a night or two. When the planters saw that nothing was going to happen, they soon went back to their homes and got on with their business. Mind you, us police were rushing about all over the place, making sure everyone was safe. I spent most of the month up at Tezpur.’

  ‘By everyone you mean the ex-pats?’ Tilly said dryly.

  ‘Of course.’ He sucked at his moustache. ‘That might explain why your friend’s parents were hiding out in the hills.’

  ‘They weren’t hiding out,’ Tilly insisted, ‘they were there for their health. And besides, the Logans weren’t set upon by rampaging coolies. They died of enteric fever.’

  ‘Still,’ he said, his eyes lighting at the thought of mystery, ‘you can’t dismiss a link between their deaths and the Fiftieth Anniversary, in my opinion.’

  Tilly thought that she could. She found his lurid speculation distasteful. All she wanted to find out was where Sophie’s parents had been living and died, so that her cousin could come and see for herself and lay their ghosts to rest. Tilly went back to scouring the newspapers.

  ‘Take a look at the eleventh or twelfth,’ he persisted.

  Tilly stifled a sigh and turned to those editions. If there was no mention of the Logans then he might go and leave her in peace.

  Triumphantly, she pointed out that there was no such entry for either date.

  ‘Try the thirteenth.’

  Tilly turned to the next edition. Before she got to the death notices, the old policeman jabbed a finger at a heading near the bottom of the page.

  “Tragic deaths of planter and wife.”

  Tilly’s insides curdled. The librarian pulled out a magnifying glass, edged her out of the way and began to read out. ‘ “The bodies of William and Jessie Logan were discovered on Sunday the Eleventh of May at White Blossom Cottage by planter James Robson and Superintendent Burke.” Ah Burke, I remember him, good man, hard as nails.’

  Tilly’s heart beat faster at the mention of James but she was not going to fuel this man’s curiosity by admitting James was her husband.

  ‘ “It’s believed”,’ he continued, ‘ “that the couple died of enteric fever and passed away on the night of May the Tenth”.’ He banged the newspaper with his magnifying glass. ‘See, what did I tell you? Anniversary of the Mutiny! There’s something fishy going on here.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Tilly said in annoyance. ‘It’s pure coincidence. Is that all it says?’

  He returned to the paper. ‘ “They leave behind a six year-old daughter, Sophie, who is being cared for by the
management of the Oxford Tea Estates, where the deceased Mr Logan was a manager”.’

  ‘Poor Sophie,’ Tilly said, feeling a fresh wave of pity for her brutal loss.

  ‘ “The bungalow at Belgooree, which belongs to the Oxford Tea Estates, has been fumigated and boarded up”.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Tilly asked in shock.

  ‘Fumigated and–’

  ‘No, the bit about the bungalow. Did you say Belgooree?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s about an hour away in the Khassia Hills.’

  Tilly felt suddenly very hot and faint. ‘Yes, I know that.’

  Chapter 26

  Changa Manga, Punjab

  Day after day, the sun shone with a brassy burnished glare; the fields were hard and parched, the grass burnt brown. The windows and doors of the forest bungalow shrank in the heat and dust blew in to cover everything; it lay in cupboards, made the food gritty and got up sleeves, under collars, and into ears, eyes and shoes. Useless to wash, when the dust permeated the basin, soap, towels – even turned the water black. Sophie did not remember such dust or heat from her childhood.

  ‘Ink’s dried up in the bloody pen again!’ Tam came in from the hut that passed for a forest office. ‘How am I supposed to do all that dak? And that useless punkah wallah is either asleep or pulling so hard that my papers blow all over the room.’

  ‘Try paperweights,’ Sophie suggested.

  ‘And the bloody punkah squeaks every time he pulls it; I’ve got a splitting headache.’

  ‘I’ll get Hafiz to oil the rings. Come and sit in the shade and have a pomegranate juice.’

  ‘I need a portable typewriter,’ Tam grumbled. He drained off the glass that Sophie poured him without sitting down. ‘I’ve too much to do before the timber auction. I want to ride out to the depot. I don’t trust them to sell the right stacks of logs and last time they gave it to the merchants before they’d paid up.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You’ll fry.’

  ‘Then we’ll fry together.’

  Before he could argue further, Sophie went and changed out of her frock – it crackled with electricity as she pulled it off – and put on her jodhpurs, a baggy white shirt and wide-brimmed topee.

  They rode out along the canal, Tam on his grey mare and Sophie on a black pony she had borrowed from the Remount. She wore gloves to stop her hands being scorched by the bridle; sweat glued her clothes to her body. But she would rather be out riding through the jungle with Tam than stuck at the bungalow with her husband in a foul mood.

  She worried and watched for a return of the fever that had plagued him six months ago. He drove himself relentlessly with work; up before dawn to check on the plantations, returning after several hours for a late breakfast and then out again before the heat got unbearable. In the afternoons he would wrestle with reports and figures in the office and then ride over to the resin factory, the depot or the irrigation works to check on progress before the sun set.

  Gone were the days at the tail end of the cold season when they had hunted buck in the dawn or dusk, gone camping upriver and swum in cool water, played tennis at the Remount and socialised with the horse-handlers.

  She saw Tam grow increasingly exhausted and short-tempered. He tried to alter his diet, spurning tea and toast at breakfast for grapenuts and buttermilk for energy, but it led to vomiting and diarrhoea. They cut out meat that turned putrid too easily; Hafiz ordered up vegetable curries and chutneys to lift his master’s jaded palate until Tam complained they were giving him nightmares. He would wake screaming out in terror shortly after falling asleep. When Sophie suggested they sleep outside, Tam said it wouldn’t be seemly to behave like the servants.

  ‘I need to get better at Science,’ he had berated himself. ‘It’s my own weakness that makes me so tired.’

  ‘It’s the heat,’ Sophie had said. ‘It’s no good fighting the Indian climate. Take more rests and drink plenty of juice.’

  ‘I wish there were some fellow Christian Scientists here like in Lahore, then I could draw strength from their example.’

  So Sophie tried to follow the exercises for Tam’s sake. He seemed happiest when they sat on the veranda at night reading a lesson from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. It made him relax. Afterwards they would go to bed and lie under the mosquito nets while Tam made love quickly, mechanically and Sophie tried not to mind the discomfort. He would sigh with relief and be instantly asleep while she would lie awake for hours listening to the bark of jackals and incessant croaking of bullfrogs, until the squeaking of the well announced the start of a new day.

  She thought she would have been better at sex and wondered if she was a disappointment to Tam. Sometimes she caught him eyeing her with a strange look – was it pity or regret? – then he’d brush her forehead with a chaste kiss and hurry off.

  Arriving at the timber depot, the yard was deserted. Tam dismounted quickly and started shouting for the manager. Sophie took the horses under the shade of a mulberry tree to a muddy pool of water diverted from the canal.

  ‘You should be patrolling the stacks!’ She heard Tam bawling inside the shed. He emerged with a bleary-eyed manager trying to placate him.

  ‘Do I have to do everything myself? Where are the guards?’ Tam stalked off towards the piles of freshly cut logs and firewood. ‘What’s that burning smell?’

  Moments later, noise erupted from behind the stacks. Tam reappeared, dragging a skinny labourer in ragged dhoti and turban.

  ‘Smoking! Bloody smoking! You could have the whole place on fire, you useless Crim!’

  Tam threw him to the ground, his face sweating and contorted with rage. Striding over to his horse, he seized his riding whip and ran back. The man threw up his arms and cried out in fear. Tam raised the whip and brought it down on the man’s arms.

  ‘No Tam!’ Sophie screamed. She was frozen in horror. Tam lashed out again, the whip catching the man on his shoulders and back.

  The manager stood back, his face impassive. Sophie could see he was not going to intervene. She ran forward and grabbed Tam’s left arm.

  ‘Stop it, please stop!’

  He threw her off.

  ‘Get away, woman!’

  Sophie stumbled, lost her balance and fell backwards with a thud on the hard ground. She lay winded in the dust. The manager hurried over and peered down.

  ‘Are you all right Telfer Memsahib?’

  Abruptly the whipping stopped and Tam was at her side, pushing the manager away. ‘Don’t touch her.’ He reached down and pulled her into a sitting position. ‘Come on lassie, deep breath. Up you come.’

  He was still breathing hard from his frenzied state, but she saw the contrition in his face as he helped her to her feet and into a chair on the depot veranda. The whipped man ran off. Sophie burst into tears. The manager brought hot sweet tea.

  Tam spoke to his manager. ‘My wife doesn’t understand how things are here – the severity of that man’s crime – perhaps you would like to explain to her?’

  ‘Very bad man,’ the manager nodded. ‘Criminal Tribes man. All are not to be trusted. Telfer Sahib is a good man to give them jobs but they still do bad things – it is in their nature. He smoke when told not to – very bad crime – he could burn down whole depot then all hell break loose and we have big forest fire on our hands.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Tam said. ‘By rights I should have ordered him to be flogged – a far worse fate for him than a couple of flicks from my whip. But it’s better to deliver swift justice so that his fellow Crims will think twice about lighting up their filthy cigarettes when on duty.’

  Sophie looked at them both with incredulity, appalled at their callous words. Tam might have regretted rough handling her, but felt nothing for the man he had just horse-whipped – and neither did the manager. To them the unfortunate tribesman was contemptible and belonging to a class so far beneath them he was almost sub-human.

  She closed her eyes, trying not t
o wonder how often such incidents took place. She prayed it was a one-off. They left her sipping tea while they went to inspect the log stacks for the auction. When they finally left, Sophie was stiff and sore, trying not to wince at the pain when sitting back in the saddle. Back at the forest bungalow, she asked a surprised Hafiz to arrange for a tin bath of hot water in the bedroom.

  ‘I know it sounds mad in this heat,’ she grimaced, ‘but I’m stiff from all the riding.’

  Tam disappeared across the garden to the office to finish the day’s dak. She lay back in the tub and let the warmth suffuse her body till the water went tepid. She emerged pink and glowing, dressed in a pair of Tam’s baggy silk pyjamas. Indians had the right idea about loose clothing in the heat. The sky was a blaze of orange, shadows creeping across the garden.

  ‘We have visitors, Telfer-Mem,’ Hafiz announced. They could hear horses’ hooves winding slowly through the trees.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Sophie laughed, ‘they’ve caught me in pyjamas. Better go and tell Telfer Sahib we have guests. Maybe the canal bungalow is full and they need a room for the night.’

  A rider appeared, followed by a pack pony being led by his servant. As she peered from the veranda, she gasped in astonishment. The broad-shouldered man was bare-headed, the last of the fierce sun lighting up his stubbled chin and glinting off his smoked glasses.

  ‘Rafi?’ she called out.

  He raised a hand in greeting, his handsome face breaking into a broad smile. Sophie’s insides flipped over. He dismounted and handed the reins to the Telfers’ syce, giving his horse a quick and grateful pat.

  ‘Are you having a pyjama party?’ he teased, walking up the veranda steps.

  ‘Not unless you’ve brought music,’ Sophie answered, her heart racing.

  ‘I have, as a matter of fact. I’m travelling with my gramophone.’

  ‘Wonderful!’

  They shook hands self-consciously. Sophie hoped he didn’t feel her shaking. She couldn’t read his expression under the dark glasses.

  ‘What brings you here? Lahore too unbearably hot?’

  ‘Bracknall is doing a tour before heading for the hills. He wanted a fluent Urdu and Punjabi speaker with him. I have my uses even to the exalted B.’