Dark Road to Darjeeling

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Invigorated by my newfound certitude, I covered the distance to Pine Cottage swiftly and made my way to the front door. I rapped softly so as not to disturb Emma, and after a long moment, the door was opened.

  “Miss Thorne!” I said, with some expression of surprise. I did not expect to see the young woman at Pine Cottage, and even less did I expect to see her in native attire. Hitherto she had always been properly costumed with all of the dignity her position demanded, but now she wore the more fluid and colourful habiliment of her people, and the effect was striking. From the bright blue of her draperies to the armfuls of jangling brass bracelets, she looked like the very embodiment of one of the more glamorous Hindu goddesses.

  But even as I admired her appearance, she was shaking her head. When she spoke, the voice was the same, but with a slightly different inflection, lighter and more lilting than I had heard before, and although the features were identical, there was some difference in her expression. Miss Thorne had always exhibited a cool and dignified detachment. Now she seemed somehow more comfortable and approachable. She smiled broadly, revealing small, perfect white teeth.

  “No, lady. You mistake me for my sister, the governess to the Pennyfeather children.”

  “Oh, how stupid of me! I did not realise she had a sister.”

  “Yes, lady. We are twins,” she supplied. “I am Lalita.”

  I wondered how their fates had been so different. They were both in service, but one wore native dress and was clearly a house servant while the other perched near the top of the domestic chain as a governess with starched petticoats and shoes that no doubt pinched. I looked to this girl’s feet and saw she wore gilded leather sandals.

  Noticing my gaze, she laughed. “We are very different, my sister and I. May I show you in, lady?”

  I hesitated. “I have come to see Lady Eastley. Is she at home?”

  I meant the phrase in the social sense, of course. It was customary for ladies to send word by means of a servant that they were “not at home” even if they were sitting in the next room. It was a polite fiction to win a lady a bit of privacy if she felt indisposed or simply not inclined to be social.

  I did not expect that Lucy would employ the formula with me, but Lalita shook her head. “She is not, lady. I am here to sit with Miss Phipps.”

  “Oh. In that case I will not keep you.”

  She did not seem in any great hurry to be rid of me, and she flicked her eyes upward in the direction of Emma’s room. “Miss Phipps sleeps now. She has had strong medicine and will not wake for hours yet.”

  “Well, I have been walking some distance, and perhaps it might be nice to sit a moment,” I told her, seizing the opportunity to engage her in conversation.

  She hesitated, doubtless over where she should put me. She could not offer the kitchen as it was below my station, and she could not join me in the sitting room as it was above hers.

  “I will sit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind,” I told her. “I should like to take off my boots for a moment and I cannot do so in the sitting room.”

  She smiled again and led the way to the kitchen. Like every other room in the cottage, it was small and cosy. It was fitted out as an English kitchen might have been, rather than in the Indian fashion with a separate cookhouse. Here there were many little conveniences arranged—enamelled egg whisks, copper bowls, pots of herbs, and a wire basket of eggs.

  Within moments I was seated at the well-scrubbed worktable, easing my boots off and curling my toes. Lalita disappeared, then returned with a large china basin of cool water scented with rose petals. She knelt and placed it at my feet, pausing a moment to neatly turn back my hems to keep them dry.

  “How kind of you!” I exclaimed.

  “These hills are difficult on English feet,” she laughed. “It takes a year to toughen them,” she added, displaying the layer of hard callouses upon her own feet. She bustled about the little kitchen and I sat, luxuriating in the refreshment my feet were receiving. After a moment, she presented me with a frothing drink. I sipped at it, tasting honey and spices floating upon a cloud of cream. A bright tang saved it from being cloying.

  “Delicious. What is it?”

  “Lassi. Yogurt frothed with honey and spices. Every woman blends her own, and mine is very special.”

  “It is indeed. You seem quite skilled in the kitchen.”

  She preened a little in satisfaction. “It is all I have ever wanted, to tend the cooking fires and to make people’s stomachs joyful.”

  Now that I had her in conversation, I could see the differences between the girls plainly. Miss Thorne, for all her obvious beauty and her grave dignity, had forced herself in to the mould of a proper English governess. Lalita retained her Indian roots. Even her speech was different, more poetic and flowery in the lovely way of most Indians.

  “And do you cook for the ladies here at Pine Cottage?”

  “Sometimes. I was cook to Dr. Llewellyn and his unfortunate lady for some time.”

  “I have just come from there,” I told her. A shadow passed over her face, and I wondered if she had harboured some soft feeling for her employer. “He is in rather a difficult state.” She said nothing, but her averted eyes told me more than enough. I pressed on. “I have promised to send food from the Peacocks. He has no one to care for him at present.”

  Suddenly, whatever feelings she had kept buried burst forth. “He has pushed aside all who would care for him. He wishes to die, and nothing can save a man when he is determined to die.”

  Her face was flushed and she moved to the larder to fetch a ball of dough she had already prepared. While I watched, she rolled out the dough into small circles, filled them with a savoury mixture of meat and spices, and deftly closed them again with a fluted edge. The work seemed to calm her. It was rhythmic and even, like the pickers in the field, and I wondered if she had ever worked among them.

  “Where did you learn to cook, Lalita? That smells divine.”

  She relaxed a little, perhaps relieved to have the subject changed from Dr. Llewellyn and his misfortunes. “I learned at the Peacocks. There was a Bengali cook who was very knowledgeable and I learned much.”

  “At the Peacocks! It is a small place, the Valley of Eden,” I mused. For some reason it struck me as exceedingly interesting that Lalita had once lived at the Cavendish estate, perhaps at the same time Fitzhugh Cavendish was paying out sums of money to her sister. If Miss Thorne had been his mistress as I suspected, perhaps providing Lalita with the training to be a cook had been a boon he had offered. Or perhaps it had been part of the price of her favours, I thought nastily.

  “Small indeed,” she agreed, neatly pinching another little meat pie together.

  “Where else have you cooked? For the Pennyfeathers?”

  “I am their cook now, lady.”

  I blinked. “I thought you worked for Lady Eastley and Miss Phipps.”

  “Lady Eastley would like that, but I have refused a permanency here. So long as my sister is at the Pennyfeathers, so will I be there as well.”

  I wondered briefly how Miss Thorne liked having her sister working in the same establishment. On the one hand, there would be a sisterly bond, a camaraderie, from holding employment within the same household. On the other hand, for a governess to have a cook for a sister was something of a breach of decorum. A housekeeper perhaps, or a ladies’ maid, but not a cook. I wondered if Miss Thorne was acquainted with such niceties or if she overlooked them.

  Lalita went on. “I come here only to help when Lady Eastley has need of me. She prefers to do much of the work herself as it keeps her busy. She has only a few staff,” she added with a little moue of disapproval. In India, English folk were expected to have enormous staffs, due in part to the religious restrictions that forbade certain groups from certain jobs, but also because the comparative wealth of the English meant they had an obligation to employ as many as they could. I had come to understand that any English household who kept less than the requisi
te number of staff would be viewed with resentment and suspicion by the native folk, and might even have difficulty in keeping them. It was no different in England, I reasoned, where the country estates were expected to provide employment for the local villagers and country folk rather than sending to London.

  “It is generous of the Pennyfeathers to give you the time to come here,” I observed.

  She waved a floury hand. “Memsa Pennyfeather is always busy with her cameras and the Reverend-Sahib has his books and his garden. So long as food appears, they do not care what I do.” That the Pennyfeathers did not closely supervise their staff should have won them disrespect, but there seemed to be a genuine fondness in Lalita when she spoke of her employers.

  “Does Lady Eastley have you come often?”

  She shrugged. “Once or twice each week.” She hesitated, then apparently in the mood for confidences, she pitched her voice low and said, “I think she has a lover.” Her voice ended on a giggle, and I raised my brows.

  “Indeed?” I felt my pulses quicken. This was the first glimmer of confirmation I had had for my own suspicions upon the point, and I considered the possible candidates. Harry Cavendish was the only eligible bachelor in the valley, although I supposed the doctor, as a widower, was technically marriageable. His present state left little to speak for him, I mused with a shudder, imagining poor Lucy tripping to his house with a basket of delicacies.

  But I had not passed her on my way, and unless she knew of some other more discreet path, she did not have a rendezvous with the doctor.

  Harry, however… I fixed a slight smile to my lips, tipping my head to invite confidences. “Is her lover handsome?” I asked her.

  She giggled again, but said nothing.

  “Will she be able to marry the gentleman?”

  She darted a look around to make certain we were still alone in the tiny kitchen. “I think she means to. She will not do so yet, of course,” Lalita added piously. “Not until Miss Phipps is no more. Lady Eastley will not leave her beloved sister. But when she is gone, then will Lady Eastley follow her heart.”

  “Is that why she keeps her lover secret? To hide it from Miss Phipps?”

  Lalita nodded vehemently. “Yes, lady. She would not hurt her sister for all the world.”

  That certainly sounded like Lucy. She was not overly burdened with intelligence and she was a romantic. It would appeal to her to conduct a clandestine relationship until she was free of the burden of Emma and could marry. It would never occur to her that Emma might be comforted by the knowledge that once she passed Lucy would be cared for, I thought with some exasperation.

  I sipped the last of my lassi and dried my feet, resuming my boots with a wince. We bade each other a friendly farewell, and I turned for the Peacocks, turning over all I had learned that morning.

  Just as I reached the crossroads, I realised with a sigh that the leprous old granny was back again with her garrulous little companion.

  “Hello, lady!” the boy called. I stopped and dropped a few more coins into the bowl that the gabbling old woman thrust into my path.

  “There you are. I hope it helps you,” I told her. I made to move on, but she reached out a hand to grasp my skirt. I felt a wave of revulsion rise in my throat, but thanks to a merciful heaven, her hands were decently covered and I saw nothing of her disfigurements.

  She said something to the little boy and he listened intently, then turned to me. “She says you walk a crooked path in a crooked wood, lady.”

  I pursed my lips. “Right now I am trying to walk a very straight path home, thank you.”

  The bundle of rags spoke again, the voice rising and falling in a singsong rhythm. The boy smiled as he listened to her.

  “She says she likes that you wear blue today, lady. It is the colour of the Lord Shiva’s skin.”

  The old woman’s voice dropped then, wheedling out a few bars of melody, a strange, warbling tune from these mountains, eerie and unlike anything I had ever heard.

  “What is she singing?”

  The boy shrugged. “It is a folk song of her own making. The words are these, ‘Black is white and white is black, raven is dove, and none shall go back.’” He smiled again, this time giving me a conspiratorial nod. “It is nonsense, lady. She blesses you for your charity,” he added with a nod toward the bowl.

  I gave them both a polite nod of farewell and went on my way, but for the rest of the afternoon the strange little tune played over and again in my head.

  After a hearty luncheon, I repaired to my room to finish writing up my notes. I was extremely pleased with the morning’s business, and as I wrote, I pondered the question of how much to share with Brisbane. I was a little sorry for him that his enquiries in Calcutta had not borne fruit, but not sorry enough to show him the contents of my notebook. I felt at a distinct disadvantage in our race to unmask the killer, and I meant to keep every possible snippet of information that came my way.

  Of course if he asked me directly, I should tell him, I reasoned smoothly. But since it would very likely not occur to him to ask me if Lucy Eastley had an excellent motive for murder or if Harry Cavendish himself might have easily killed his cousin in order to inherit the tea garden he meant to modernise, it was hardly my fault if I did not tell him. I could not be expected to remember everything, I decided.

  I wrote up my notes, then left the notebook on the bedside table, stacked casually between a Brontë novel and a Baedeker’s guide to India. It was innocuous-looking enough that I doubted he would give it a second glance. On second thought, I knew Brisbane had read enough Poe to be familiar with the ruse of hiding things in plain sight, so I took up the book again, wrapped it in a nightdress and shoved it deeply under the mattress.

  Buoyed by the morning’s work, I went to visit Jane. I had seen little of her since she had been forced to her bed, and I was happy to find her propped against a mountain of pillows, playing two-handed whist with Portia. A basket of sewing and a stack of novels crowded the bedside table at her elbow.

  “Julia!” Jane exclaimed. “You are just in time. I am about to win another hand.”

  Portia gave an inelegant snort. “Every hand for the past two days. I owe her seven thousand pounds,” she told me. “I do not know how, but she must be cheating.”

  “Of course I am cheating,” Jane said calmly, “but you would never strike an expectant mother, so I intend to take full advantage of the situation.”

  Portia pulled a face, and gathered up the cards. “I will go and see about some tea. Julia, mind you don’t let her fleece you as well. I may have to move in with you and Brisbane when we go back to London as it is.”

  She left, giving me a significant look as she passed. “Proceed, but with a care,” she murmured. Jane and I settled in for a chat.

  “It is so good to see you,” I told her. “I confess, when you left us, I was not certain we would ever see you again.”

  She plucked at the coverlet, her cheeks flushing painfully. “I still regret it. I never meant to hurt anyone, least of all Portia. I was just so desperate.”

  I picked up a baby garment from the top of the sewing basket and set a few stitches of my own. Uneven, but then the child would have something imperfect to know its Auntie Julia by.

  “I thought you were happy with Portia,” I said.

  “I was.” She paused, searching for the words. “When you and Brisbane decided to marry, was there no one who tried to make you feel bad about your choice?”

  I snorted. “Half my family, and the rest simply looked on disapprovingly. The blood of old eccentricity may flow in our veins, my dear, but the Marches are shockingly regular when it comes to marriage. Brisbane is the first man whose reputation is besmirched by trade to marry into the family.”

  “I cannot imagine Bellmont approved,” she said.

  I wrinkled my nose at the mention of my eldest brother. A viscount, a prig, and a Tory member of Parliament, he was the most conventional of my siblings. He had wished me we
ll and made the proper noises about my happiness, but he, along with most of my family, was deeply scandalised that I had married a man polluted by the exchange of money for services. Never mind that Brisbane had once handled an investigation that had earned him the gratitude of the highest in our land and himself was the descendant of dukes. To some members of my family, Brisbane would always stink of the shop.

  “Yes, he tried to be supportive, bless him, but I could see him standing at the wedding, calculating what it would cost him in lost prestige to have a brother-in-law in trade. And Father, who if you will remember, actually counselled me to have an affair with Brisbane, was rather shocked when I consented to marry him. It all seems so terribly pointless and stupid. We are grown, the pair of us, we are independent of everyone else, we have no one’s happiness but our own to consider, and yet still folk will judge us—”

  I broke off to find Jane regarding me with knowing eyes.

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice.

  “That is precisely how it was for us. But if next year, Brisbane earns the gratitude of the Prime Minister again and is ennobled for his pains, everyone will forget where he came from and what he is. All of that disapproval would simply melt like a spring snow. For Portia and for me, our liaison was easier to conceal should we wish, but it would never have met with the fullest approbation of society. When we fell in love, I did not care. I was romantic and young and Portia was—” She broke off, smiling, “Portia was the woman I wanted to be. Glamorous and kind and so exciting to be with. She made me feel like the sun shone only for me. And eventually I came to realise that I did not want to be her, I wanted only to never leave her side.”