John went across. ‘Let me help you.’
‘Ta, lad, that’s canny of you. I’m gettin’ on in age and not half as fit as I was. I’ll let you out the side gate.’
When they had finished, the gatekeeper said, ‘You can shelter in the lodge till the rain stops.’
‘That’s kind of you but I should be getting back to Newcastle – I’m making for London.’
‘What’s that you say, Durham? I hear that’s a canny place.’
‘No,’ John said loudly, ‘London.’
The man looked at him with rheumy eyes, confusion on his face. ‘Is there summat you wanted?’
‘I’d hoped to see Alice Brown – I mean, Fairchild. But I saw her leave in the carriage.’
The old man grunted. ‘Aye, she still gets a lot o’ men coming to gaze on her, does Miss Alice.’
‘That’s not why I came.’ John bristled. ‘I was one of those she rescued from the Berwickshire and I wanted to see her before I go abroad – thank her in person.’
‘The Berwickshire? Well, you were a lucky lad.’
‘Do you think she’ll be back soon?’
The man shrugged and stared off down the muddy lane. He lifted his sodden cap and scratched his head of sparse white hair. ‘Aye, a lucky lad.’ After a long moment he fixed on his cap, hunched into his jacket and turned back to the lodge.
‘If you could unlock the side gate for me, sir . . . ?’ John reminded him.
He looked round at John as if surprised to see him still there. ‘Oh aye.’ He fumbled for a key on the ring he was carrying. ‘Follow me.’
As John stepped through the opened gate, the man said, ‘What was it you wanted, lad?’
Impulsively, John asked, ‘Would you give Miss Fairchild a message from me, please? Tell her that John Sinclair from Ramanish came to see her and wish her well.’
The old man gave a rueful look. ‘Me memory’s not what it was, lad. Best you come back and see her another time.’
‘I’m sailing for India in a few days,’ John said. ‘Please can you try to remember to tell her that John Sinclair called?’
‘I’ll try, lad.’
On the spur of the moment, John pulled the chain over his head that held his lucky coin and pressed it into the gatekeeper’s gnarled hand.
‘Give Miss Alice this Spanish coin,’ he urged. ‘It belonged to my great-great-grandfather Carlos – it fascinated her so I’d like her to have it.’
‘Spanish?’ the old man said, peering at it in suspicion.
‘It’s a lucky coin from Spain and it’s very old,’ John explained. ‘Please just give it to Miss Alice and she’ll know who it’s from.’
‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘Spanish, eh?’
John nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’
John rode away from Tolland Park, wondering at his foolishness in giving away his special coin, which was a link to his beloved home and family. What did he mean by the gesture and what would Alice make of it?
He gave up trying to fathom his hankering after the girl. He hoped the coin would bring her luck in life; for all his disappointment he still wished Alice to be happy. Now he must turn his mind to a new life abroad – without Alice in it. India beckoned. John urged his horse forward and cantered back to Newcastle.
CHAPTER 11
Tolland Park, 1833
Papa,’ Alice exclaimed, ‘Mr Gillveray is sending me a goat from Bengal!’
David Fairchild raised a bushy grey eyebrow and asked, ‘Does he not recall that we have such things in England already?’
Alice laughed. ‘This is a special kind – a Himalayan goat. He wants to replace Wellington the Second.’
Her father shook his head in incomprehension. ‘Is Tolland Park to become a zoo as well as a botanical garden, my dear?’
‘And why not?’ Alice smiled.
She dropped George’s latest letter on a side table and wandered over to the large drawing room windows. On the sweep of pasture beyond the terrace she could see her sheep grazing – a mix of breeds – alongside some Highland cows, an ancient breed of white cattle and a long-legged llama that had been rescued from a ship.
Her father had not protested at his ornamental lawns being put to such a use; neither had he minded her enthusiasm for turning the hot houses and kitchen gardens into a laboratory for the strange plants that she grew from seeds and cuttings sent from India by Gillveray. Alice knew her father would indulge her in anything she wanted and took delight in her filling the house with the exotic blooms that she managed to grow.
She had been surprised by George’s abrupt departure for India after the Colonel’s startling appearance five years ago. He had left without saying goodbye in person, only later explaining by letter his wish to return to India. ‘. . . perhaps it is vanity but I wish to prove that I still have the vigour of my younger self – and also to make a contribution to the advancement of botany.’
They had begun an affectionate exchange of letters.
‘What else does he say?’ asked Fairchild.
She returned to the letter and read through the pages of neat handwriting.
‘Oh, listen to this! He’s promising to send me some of those Camellia seeds I’ve been begging him for, so I can try to grow our own tea. Isn’t that wonderful?’ She read on. Her brow furrowed. ‘Oh dear, but then he will be away for a while. He’s going on a mission further east – to Java – to discover how the Dutch are growing tea. Do you think that will be very hazardous?’
‘He’s a sensible fellow,’ said her father. ‘But these long sea journeys are not without risk.’
Frowning, Alice stood up and re-crossed the room to the globe she kept on the table in the window. Her friends thought her eccentric for her obsession with geography and for displaying George’s old spinning atlas rather than a bowl of flowers or a china ornament. When word had reached George in Calcutta of her move to Tolland Park, he had sent instructions for it to be sent across from Black Harbour House as a gift for her new home.
‘Where is Java, Papa?’
Fairchild pulled himself stiffly from his chair and joined her. They studied the globe together.
‘There it is.’ He pointed. ‘Halfway to China from India.’
‘He’s hopeful of bringing back more seeds – and some expertise in tea-growing. He sounds very excited about it. He’s been experimenting with growing tea at the Company gardens but the conditions aren’t right in Bengal by all accounts. George – Mr Gillveray – says that moist conditions are good but elevation is also needed – hilly places where it gets cold for a month or two.’ She glanced at her father. ‘Am I boring you with all this? I just find it all so fascinating.’
‘You never bore me, dear Alice.’ He smiled. ‘You are the prettiest, most intelligent and loveable girl in the world. And I could listen all day to you talking about tea.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, Papa, you are terrible the way you spoil me.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘You do realise that you have ruined my interest in marriage. No other man would listen to me chatter on like you do or let me pursue my outlandish interests.’
He gave a chuckle of amusement. ‘Good,’ he declared. ‘I selfishly want you to live here till the day I die.’
‘And so I will,’ Alice promised.
His merriment evaporated. ‘My dear, you know I am jesting. I would never stand in the way of you marrying if that’s what you desired. It’s just you haven’t shown any interest in any of the eligible men of the county who come calling.’
‘I’m not interested,’ Alice said quickly. ‘Why would I give up my freedom here at Tolland and put myself under the rule of a husband?’
‘So you are truly happy here?’ her father pressed her.
‘You know I am,’ she assured him.
He grew reflective. In recent months her papa had been dwelling more and more on the past, reminiscing about her mother, Charlotte, and blaming himself for leaving his wife alone for years on end.
‘I still w
orry after all these years whether I did the right thing in rushing to Black Harbour to claim you as my own. The Browns’ – he hesitated – ‘they lost a daughter because of me.’
Alice felt a twisting inside, as she did whenever she thought of her former home.
‘Papa,’ she reassured him, ‘you are the kindest man I know. They would not have stood in the way of my good fortune in being acknowledged by you. Besides, my pare— the Browns had kept the truth from me. Things could never be the same again between us.’
Her father gave her a grateful smile. He would always need her reassurance that he had taken the right course of action.
‘Will you go and visit them soon?’ he asked. ‘Now that summer will allow an easy crossing.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alice said. She kissed his leathery cheek. ‘We’ll discuss it later. I want to check on the mangoes in the hothouse.’
As she stood in the artificial heat of the greenhouse, surrounded by orchids, bamboos and palms, Alice pondered her failure with her estranged parents. For the first two years at Tolland Park she had returned regularly to visit the lighthouse, taking her family gifts of lace, tobacco, books and clothing. Their joy at seeing her again quickly turned to awkwardness. Effie would not hear of her helping out in the kitchen.
‘Look at your lady’s hands,’ she would marvel. ‘What would the colonel say if we sent you back with them red and raw from kitchen work?’
Sam was always bashful, disappearing off after an exchange of greetings. Arnold was the easiest to talk to, and the most precious moments were when they sat down together by the black range with one of her new books.
‘Read to me, lass,’ he would instruct. ‘My eyes can’t focus as they used to.’
So Alice would read while he smoked his pipe and for a short while she could believe that they were still father and daughter. In her mind he was still her father – that was why she chose to call Colonel Fairchild her papa – and she missed their former closeness. To Arnold she was able to chat about her experiments in the garden with plants from the East and talk about Gillveray’s work at the East India Company’s botanic garden in Calcutta.
But Effie was baffled by Alice’s interests and seemed to resent Arnold and Alice’s ability to settle back into their old familiarity. She would never let Arnold sit for long.
‘There’s work to be done in the lamp-room,’ Effie would chide. She would question Alice on her life in society, wanting details of her new friends and suitors.
‘So when are you going to wed, lassie?’ she always asked. ‘Surely the Colonel wants you to make a good match? Are you putting off the young men with all this strange talk of Indian bamboo trees?’
On her first visit back, Alice had stayed a few days, sleeping in her old bed and rising to help in the lamp-room. But already she found it confining in the tiny, dark rooms. The lamp-room was the only place where she felt at home, relishing the wide vista of sea and sky. She had gazed out to the Black Needle and the reef and wondered how she had ever had the bravery to row across with Sam and pull those people to safety. But Effie had chased her back to bed.
‘We can’t have you getting a chill sitting up all night,’ she had fussed. ‘And it’s no good us getting used to you helping out when you’ll be gone back to Tolland in a day or two.’
So her trips to the Browns had dwindled until last year she had only visited once. Alice had been shocked to discover that Sam had met and married Liza, a quiet fisher-girl from Berwick, who was now living at the lighthouse and was expecting a baby.
‘Why was I not invited to the wedding?’ Alice had remonstrated.
They had all looked away in embarrassment, Sam muttering that it had just been a quiet affair.
Alone later, Effie told her, ‘We thought it might be difficult for Liza’s parents having members of the gentry being invited. They’re just simple fisher folk.’
‘Member of the gentry?’ Alice laughed in disbelief. ‘I’m still the same girl who used to live under your roof for eighteen years! I just wear different clothes.’
Effie had fixed her with a look. ‘No, lassie, you’re not. You don’t even sound like our Alice anymore with your high-born accent. We like to have you visit but you’ve chosen to live with the colonel and that’s the way it is. You’re a Fairchild, not a Brown.’
Alice had been deeply hurt and yet she could not blame her parents entirely. She did feel like a different woman from the girl who had lived at the lighthouse, and thanks to her papa she had been able to develop her enthusiasms. She had chosen to go and Alice supposed she must also have modified her accent to fit in with her papa’s world.
She had sought out her father in the lamp-room. ‘Do you feel I’m no longer one of the family too?’ she had asked.
Arnold had given her a long sorrowful look. ‘If I could change one thing in my life,’ he had said quietly, ‘it would be the night of the storm. That shipwreck took away more than those poor folk who drowned. They robbed us of you.’
Alice had felt the tears well in her eyes. She couldn’t argue because she had felt the same. If the Berwickshire had missed the rocks and got safely to harbour she would never have become famous and the colonel would never have known of her existence. She would never have met John or lost her heart to the Highlander who had vanished from her life as swiftly as he had entered it.
‘But it’s a selfish thought,’ Arnold had said, ‘for fate has brought you a new life. You must go and live it to the full, Alice.’
Standing in the hothouse, her brow damp from the warmth, Alice sighed. She had not been back to the island since that visit. She knew Arnold was right; she should not squander the new chances in life that she had been given.
Fingering the hard, shiny mango, Alice let her mind wander to India and John Sinclair. For the umpteenth time she wondered if that was where John now lived. Had he completed his training for the Company army and gone east? If so, it must have been about four years ago. Had he found a wife there? She preferred to think of him as a bachelor soldier living a spartan life. She had an image of him riding into battle on a mighty horse, wielding a sabre over his head and charging across a dusty sun-baked plain at ranks of turbaned warriors. But perhaps that was fanciful. From what George told her, soldiering out east these days was mostly tedious guard duty at barracks and forts, or skirmishes with hill tribes. George had written wryly about it.
The government is more interested in subduing the natives with missionaries these days. They have recently curbed the Company’s powers. We no longer have the monopoly on trade out east and our soldiers kick their heels confined to barracks. But why do you ask about our army, my dear?
Alice had never answered his question. She wished she could put John from her mind for good. Hankering after what she could never have was a fruitless waste of time. Better to live for the moment and enjoy the life she had been gifted.
Her spirits rose once more. She would suggest a ride with her papa through the woods and upriver. He liked nothing better than being out in the saddle and was still an expert rider, whereas his arthritic legs no longer allowed him to walk as far as she could.
Alice left the hothouse and stepped into the welcoming breeze. She saw Stephens the footman rushing down the path towards her, waving frantically.
‘What is it?’ she called. Perhaps one of the sheep had got into the vegetable garden again.
Stephens arrived out of breath and agitated. ‘Come quickly, mistress.’
‘Whatever’s the matter?’
‘It’s the colonel,’ Stephens said in distress. ‘We found him lying on the library floor.’
By the time Alice reached the library, panting and heart pounding, the servants had laid the colonel on a chaise longue. Their stricken faces told her the worst but she rushed and threw her arms around him.
‘Don’t leave me, Papa!’ she cried.
But he was already lifeless and cooling to the touch. Alice buried her face in his chest and sobbed in disbelief.
Later, when the doctor arrived, he confirmed that Fairchild’s heart had given out.
For days, Alice was in shock at the brutal swiftness of her papa’s death. She went into mourning and dealt with her grief by keeping busy. She organised his funeral at the local parish church and sat up late replying to all the many black-edged cards of condolence that came from neighbours and friends. Arnold came to the funeral and Alice insisted that he sat with her at the front. There was not enough family to fill a pew; two cousins of the colonel’s and their spouses, who had travelled from Country Durham. Alice clung to her father, grateful that he had made the journey.
‘Effie wanted to come,’ he said, ‘was dressed and ready. But she couldn’t face it. She doesn’t leave the island these days.’
‘I know,’ Alice said, and squeezed his arm in reassurance. ‘Tell her that I’m touched that she tried.’
It was when the funeral and courtesy visits were all over that Alice was struck by how alone she was at Tolland Park. She wandered the house, feeling her papa’s presence, yet every room was lacking it. She sat for long hours in the library – that room where he had spent so much time reading newspapers and playing cards with friends – and pretended that he had just popped out for a moment. But as the days and weeks went by, Alice was overwhelmed by the mansion’s emptiness.
She lost her appetite for riding, for it had been something they had enjoyed doing together and it made her ache for her kind papa. The only activity that brought her comfort was feeding and tending her animals. Afterwards, Alice would hide away in the hothouses and cry for her dead parents; even for the selfish Charlotte whom the colonel had adored.
Autumn came and with it arrived the Camellia seeds from George. She had written to Calcutta to tell him of the colonel’s death but knew he would still be away on his tea mission to Java and might not receive the news for months.
As Alice planted the handful of precious seeds in pots in the hothouse, she was engulfed with sadness. The day she had read about the seeds with such excitement was the day of her beloved papa’s death. Should she dig them up? To her, the seeds were tainted by the memory. If she hadn’t rushed off to the hothouse would she have been able to save the colonel? At the very least, she should have been with him in his final hour so she could have held his hand and told him how much she loved him. But instead she had delayed her return to the house with daydreaming about John and his life in India . . .
In the Far Pashmina Mountains Page 14
