“I understand.”
She regarded me curiously. “I think you do. You have grown perceptive, Julia. And compassionate as well. But do not waste your pity upon me. I have made my choices, and God has seen fit to take me before I have seen thirty-five. I do not care for myself. It is Lucy I fear for. She will be quite lost without me.”
That I could readily believe. Lucy had always been looked after by someone, even when she worked briefly as a governess. There had always been a stronger personality overshadowing her, guiding her. Without Emma, who would be her lodestar?
“Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?” I asked her.
She moved one of her tiny bird’s-wing hands. “Open the window. For just a moment. Lucy will not permit fresh air, and it will chill me, but I so want to breathe.”
I rose and did as she bade me, watching as she drew in several deep, peaceful breaths of the cool mountain air.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice a trifle stronger. She shivered a little and I shut the window, tucked the quilts more firmly about her, and poked up the fire. She watched and said nothing until I was seated again.
“How curious to be tended by the daughter of an earl!” she exclaimed, ending on another of her peculiar wheezes. “There was a time I would have relished it,” she said, her expression dreamy. I wondered if the medicine for her pain made her a little curious in the head, but she seemed lucid enough. “I always envied you so. And how profitless that was! So many hours lost wishing for things I could never have. Take me for a warning, Julia. Do not long for what you cannot have. Accept what is and thank God for it, before he sees fit to take it from you.”
“Is that what you believe he has done? Punished you for ingratitude?”
“Among other things,” she said firmly. There was a sly smile playing about her mouth, and I wondered if she would ever own the blackest of her deeds.
“Have you made confession?” I asked suddenly. “I know there is no regular clergyman here, but perhaps the Reverend Pennyfeather—”
At that she began to laugh, ending on a cough that left her gasping and short of breath. She pressed a handkerchief to her lips and took a moment to collect herself.
“It was wrong of me to laugh,” she said at last, her voice much thinner than before. “But I will not catalogue my sins for the Reverend Pennyfeather’s judgement. They are my own and I will carry them to the grave.”
“I hardly think the Reverend would be judgemental,” I began, but she waved the handkerchief at me.
“No,” she said, more firmly this time, and I let the matter drop.
“Your room is pleasantly situated,” I told her. “You have a beautiful view of the peak of Kanchenjunga.”
Her eyes were soft as she looked at the snowy white wall of the mountain. “There are five peaks actually, did you know that? The name Kanchenjunga means ‘Five Treasures of the Snows.’ And no one has even circumnavigated the entire mountain yet. Is that not extraordinary? This great mountain hanging in the sky before us and no man has ever walked all the way round it because it seems to span the whole of the world. I should have liked to have walked up to that mountain, just to the base of it, and shake hands with its majesty. I make Lucy close the shutters at sunset and when the fogs come. I do not like to think of a sky without the beauty of that mountain.”
I had forgot how much Emma loved to travel. She had been enchanted by India during a youthful journey—seduced by the beauties of the country and one of its men, if family gossip was to be believed. But the Emma who might have danced with a Rajasthani prince was long since departed, and in her place was this feeble shell with only burning eyes to remind me of what she had once been.
“Plum is sketching the mountain. I will have him sketch a view for you to keep with you, so you may see it even without your window.”
“I should like that,” she said. She closed her eyes and took a few deep, laboured breaths. “I must remind myself to breathe. Such a simple thing. You would think I could remember it.”
She kept her eyes closed and in a few minutes, I could tell she was sleeping, a deep and, one hoped, peaceful slumber. I crept from the room to find Lucy emerging from the cottage kitchen with a tray laden with tempting morsels for her invalid.
“She is asleep now,” I told her.
Lucy gave a little sigh of relief. “It is difficult for her to rest. Your visit must have done her good if she was able to sleep.”
“I hope so.”
She bit her lip, as if trying to gather her courage, then burst out. “She does not think I know how little time she has left,” Lucy confessed, the words breaking from her as water through a dam. “I do not know what will become of me when she is gone.”
I hesitated, then decided to fling propriety aside. “Lucy, it is not my place to ask, but we are kinswomen and I would not be easy if I left you in dire straits. Do you have money to sustain yourself?”
She laughed mirthlessly and named a figure not too far shy of my own inheritance. “That is what Cedric left me, and I have spent only a few hundred pounds of it. It is easy to live cheaply here.”
“Good,” I said, but even as I uttered the word, I realised that managing the money might bring an entirely new set of difficulties to Lucy. “You must find a good man of business to settle your affairs,” I explained. I had not; in fact, I had argued vigorously with my father and eldest brother that I should be allowed to dispose of my inheritance as I saw fit. But I was a good deal older and I fancied a fair bit wiser than Lucy. “If you like, I can ask Harry Cavendish. I am sure he will know of someone in Darjeeling who can save you the bother of handling these things for yourself.”
At the mention of Harry she flushed a becoming shade of pink. “I have a gentleman who has been kind enough to express an interest in my affairs,” she said quietly. “He has been an excellent friend to me, and I know he will be a great comfort to me in my trials.”
The flush was telling but if she chose not to share confidences with me, there was little more I could do. I bade her farewell and took my leave, realising as I shut the gate behind me that I had scarcely breathed the entire visit at Pine Cottage.
The situation had been so different from what I had expected, so completely unthinkable, that I was grateful for the short walk to clear my head. I reached the fields to find the pickers hard at work, elegant arms stretching to the glossy leaves and back again. I seated myself upon a boulder and watched them for a long time, wondering what it must be like to work for one’s living. It looked so peaceful, this pastoral scene, but I knew such scenes could be deceiving. There must be mornings when these hardworking folk must long to tarry in bed, holding a loved one close, but instead they rose, day after day, to go into the fields and perform this same dance that their parents and grandparents had done. Did they never dream of a different life? Or did they even know a world outside this valley existed?
“You are looking pensive,” Portia said, coming upon me as I sat overlooking the fields.
“How is it you are alone?” I asked, settling myself anew to make a space for her upon the boulder.
“Everyone else is busy with the pooja,” she said, nodding toward the flurry of activity at the bottom of the field. “I saw you and said I would come and fetch you.”
I nodded toward the pickers. “Do you think they are happy?”
She regarded them a moment. “They smile rather a lot if they are not,” she pointed out reasonably.
“Yes, but is that because they are truly happy or simply because they do not know better?” I persisted.
“Introspective indeed,” she said, lifting her brows. “What is it?”
“Emma Phipps is dying,” I told her. “A malady of the breast.”
Portia pondered a long moment, then shrugged. “God’s way of settling old scores, I suppose.”
“That is very nearly what she said. But I wonder. So many people do awful things. God does not go around striking them down and calling it justice.”
“We do seem appallingly fortunate,” I told her.
“I know that look, Julia,” she said, her tone taking on a familiar elder sister note. “There is no call to feel guilty that we have money and others do not. It was an accident of birth—or marriage, I suppose. But it was not something we pursued, any more than we asked to have green eyes or an excellent ear for music.”
“I do not have an excellent ear for music,” I reminded her.
“Precisely,” she said with a touch of smugness. “You do not have everything, do you?”
“I suppose not,” I said slowly.
“You are hungry,” she said, looping her arm through mine and pulling me to my feet. “You are always pensive when you are hungry. Once you are fed, this introspective mood will fall away. You will see.”
I allowed her to lead me down to the rest of the party, not entirely surprised to find that a table had been carried out from the Peacocks and set in the fields. I had heard enough about the ways of the Raj to know that our countrymen liked their comforts far too well to picnic upon the grass. But this was no picnic. At the centre of the field was a sort of altar, a table laid with a snowy linen cloth and set with enormous silver bowls of camellia buds, the most perfect specimens of the early days of the tea harvest. There were other offerings as well, flowers—orchids from the Reverend Pennyfeather’s garden I was told—and fruit, with bowls of nuts and dainty sweetmeats, and sticks of incense perfuming the air with thick, heady smoke. In the centre of it all sat a fat, smiling deity, grinning his benevolence over us all, and the pickers jostled one another to do him reverence. The English stood a little apart as the natives performed their ceremony, a dignified and celebratory affair with a good bit of chanting in their own tongues and ritual bowing that entailed folding the hands together and raising them to the level of one’s heart.
“The gesture is called namaste in Hindu. It means that the Divine within me salutes the Divine within you,” Harry murmured to me.
“A lovely sentiment,” I returned.
He quirked me a smile only slightly touched with cynicism. “Indeed. The world would be a rather better place if we looked only for God in one another.”
I was surprised at his words, for I had not thought Harry particularly mystical, but the setting was enough to engender such feelings in anyone, I reflected, and I returned my attention to the ceremony.
It was over in a short while and I was glad of it. I had not understood a word, although the gestures were rather universal—worship and gratitude and supplication toward the plump little god seemed to be at the heart of it—but I was thoroughly famished and for the better part of half an hour, tantalising smells had been wafting past. Jolly had overseen the establishment of a sort of outdoor kitchen where great steaming pots were being stirred by a collection of staff he had brought with him. Once the pooja ceremony proper was concluded, Jolly and the handsome boy, Naresh, passed around tiny pastries stuffed with meat and glasses of cold elderberry wine. The Pennyfeathers were in attendance, and as I made the introductions between them and Brisbane, I noted his carefully neutral expression when Percival poked out his head and flicked his tongue toward a pastry. I took the opportunity to slip away and join Miss Thorne who stood on the edge of the group, watching her charges from a distance.
“You must tell me, Miss Thorne, is the weather always so cooperative for these affairs?” She started a little, and when I recalled her diffidence with Plum, I wondered if she was uncomfortable at being treated as a guest when she was the only person present in service.
“Yes, it is quite remarkable,” she told me. Her voice, which I had already noted was low and melodious, reminded me of Emma’s in happier days, and her face was even more striking in proximity. “I do not think it has ever rained during one of the Cavendish poojas,” she added.
“Oh? Have you been to many of them?” I seemed to recall that she was a native of this valley, but the question, which seemed innocuous to me, upset her a little, although she was too correct to betray it except by a sharp intake of breath and a paleness overcoming her cheek.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Please forgive me, Lady Julia, but I think Primrose is struggling with her sash. I must go and secure it for her.”
Primrose was at that moment twisting her hair around her finger and looking bored, but I said nothing and permitted Miss Thorne to make her escape.
Just then a gentleman arrived from the direction of the Peacocks. He was walking with the too-careful footing of a man who is often the worse for drink, but his eyes were clear and his hand, when he shook mine, was steady. Harry Cavendish made the introductions.
“Lady Julia Brisbane, may I present Dr. Arthur Llewellyn. Dr. Llewellyn, Lady Julia is a very distant cousin of ours and a dear friend to Mrs. Cavendish. She is visiting from England.”
“Welcome to our valley,” the doctor said. His voice was almost inaudible, but still I caught the soft lilt of the Welsh hills. He struck me as a man who was either very shy or utterly defeated. He wore the air of a toy that had been much-loved once but was now discarded upon the nursery shelf, left to gather dust and moulder away, uncared for and long-forgotten. It took me a long moment to realise he was scarcely older than I, and if his hair had been trimmed and his gaze forthright, he would have been very nearly handsome.
I cast about for a topic and the setting seemed the most appropriate. “This valley, it is a beautiful place, and I can well understand why you have settled here.”
I was mistaken. My admiration of the Valley of Eden struck a nerve, and the doctor’s eyes slid from mine. He fidgeted, picking at his thumbs, and from the look of them, this was a frequent occupation. They oozed a little blood around the edges, and I shuddered, thinking of how easily a tiny wound had claimed the life of Freddie Cavendish.
“It is a cursed place,” he said softly. I wondered if he thought of his wife, but before I could question him further, he diverted me. “I have just come from calling upon Mrs. Cavendish. She is in excellent hands. Mary-Benevolence has forgot far more about delivering babies than I have ever known.”
“Oh, I am glad to hear she is in such capable care,” I told him. Then, thoughtlessly, I said more brightly, “Ah, here is Jolly with some refreshment. A wine cordial. Will you join me, doctor?”
The gentleman blinked rapidly, backing sharply away. “No, I never touch the stuff. You will excuse me, I beg of you.”
He withdrew then, and I was left to puzzle after him. Why did the doctor claim not to imbibe, when the rest of the valley was so certain he did? I sipped at my drink and surveyed the group, and as I did, I was joined by my husband.
“The Phippses?” he inquired with the barest lift of his eyebrows.
“Emma is dying and Lucy quite possibly has formed an attachment to Harry Cavendish.”
If I had hoped to pique his interest, I succeeded. He delivered a soundless whistle and offered me a look of frank admiration. “Well-done indeed. I concede the power of female gossip.”
I pulled a face at him, and he gave me so warm a look of approbation that I forgot to be angry with him. “Emma has been ill almost since their arrival. She can have had nothing to do with Freddie’s death.”
“But Lucy,” Brisbane mused, “is a cat of a different colour.”
“Lucy! She is entirely stupid, Brisbane. And impossibly good, I daresay. She blushed at the merest mention of Harry’s name. I doubt she has even held his hand. If her scruples will not permit a love affair, I cannot think they would allow murder.”
“But the notion of the pair of sisters, one with the clever brain, the other with the willing hands, committing a murder together? You must admit, it is diverting.”
“Diverting, but hardly likely. Lucy is far too consumed with Emma’s illness. All she can think o
f is what will become of her when they are parted.”
“Precisely,” he said, the merest note of satisfaction threading his voice. “What if Emma knew of Lucy’s tendresse for Harry and wanted her settled with a proper home and a new husband? She could have induced Lucy to do away with Freddie. Then Harry inherits all and Lucy is mistress of the Peacocks.”
“Unless Jane is delivered of a son. Then they would have an infant to put out of the way. Surely you do not think Lucy capable of infanticide,” I said, feeling a sudden, unaccountable chill creep over my flesh.
Brisbane gave me an inscrutable look. “I think most people are capable of any number of horrors, given half a chance.”
I shook my head slowly. “I cannot think how we came to be married. I try to believe the best of people, whilst you are determined to think evil of them.”
He looked suddenly tired and a hundred years old. “I am an empiricist. I only believe what I have observed.”
“And you have seen too much evil,” I commented, brushing a long lock of tumbled black hair from his brow.
“A thousand dreadful things,” he said softly.
Before I could comment upon the quote—a chilling line from Titus Andronicus—we were joined by Plum, looking as sulky as I had ever seen him.
“What is the matter, dearest?” I asked. “Has Miss Thorne thrown you over already?”
He shot me a nasty look and smoothed his cerulean waistcoat. “I have had no opportunity to speak with her at all. She is entirely consumed with those wretched children.”
I strove for patience and missed. “Perhaps she, unlike you, remembers that she is not here as a guest.”
Plum drew himself up, affronted. “I beg your pardon?”
“You made quite a spectacle of yourself at the garden party. I doubt anyone else got three minutes’ conversation with her.”
Plum huffed his indignation and turned to start toward Miss Thorne. Brisbane’s hand upon his arm stopped him. “Let her be.”
Plum turned back around, his complexion reddening. “You have no call to interfere in my business, brother.” This last was so thick with sarcasm, I winced. Plum had never warmed to Brisbane, but neither had they ever engaged in open hostilities.
Dark Road to Darjeeling Page 12
