In the Far Pashmina Mountains

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Alice blinked away fresh tears. Her papa would not want her to be so maudlin; he would want her to plant the seeds and watch in excitement as they grew. Alice would keep a daily journal of the progress of the plants. It would give her a new purpose.

  The year 1834 came and Alice began to bear life without the colonel. After a year of mourning, she resumed social visits to neighbouring friends and took to daily rides around the estate. She continued to take an interest in the animals though increasingly left their daily care to her farmhands. The Himalayan goat, promised by George, had died en route – George suspected it might have been eaten by the hungry crew of a ship delayed by storms but Alice hated to think of such a thing.

  She was thankful to hear of George’s safe return from Java and wrote him frequent progress reports of the Camellia plants – or rather their lack of progress. Of the half a dozen seedlings, only two had survived. Of those, one was looking sickly and drooping while the other had so far remained healthy and had produced fresh buds that spring.

  I feel such a failure and am beset with guilt at your having entrusted precious seeds into my inexpert hands.

  George had written back.

  You mustn’t feel the least bit guilty, my dear. We struggle to grow them here in Calcutta. I am trying with seeds brought over from Java but with little success. However, I have very exciting news that I wish to share with you – you are one of the first to be entrusted with this knowledge so you mustn’t breathe a word yet! A Scotsman named Bruce has discovered the Camellia sinensis growing wild in Assam, to the north of here. We are having the seeds he has sent tested here in Calcutta. Previous samples he sent were rejected as not being the real thing – but I’m convinced by his descriptions that Bruce is right. If so, this could change everything for the Company. We could grow our own supply of tea here in India instead of having to pay a king’s ransom for Chinese leaf. Of course we would need to be sure that the quality is as good. Other samples, sent from Burma recently, provided a bitter-tasting tea. I wish you could be whisked out here on a magic carpet to give me the benefit of your superior tea-tasting skills!

  Alice lived in anticipation of George’s friendly letters, which now arrived more frequently owing to a pioneering overland mail service via Egypt. Waghorn’s service boasted of deliveries from India to Britain in ninety days. She was flattered that George chose to confide in her about his work but it was the allusion to her going out to India that made her insides flutter with nerves. Did he seriously entertain the idea of her joining him out there? She couldn’t possibly make such a journey, could she? Not as an unmarried young woman. Yet, thanks to her papa, she was now a wealthy heiress who could do as she pleased. Why should that not include travel? How exhilarating it would be to visit places on her spinning globe that had fired her curiosity for years.

  Alice had refused half a dozen marriage proposals in the past year and a half. She had just celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday with a small gathering of friends. One of her papa’s Durham cousins and his wife had paid a visit.

  ‘We think it is high time that you were married off,’ the Fairchild cousin had said bluntly. ‘My cousin David would have wished it. I can act as your guardian in the matter and I have a suitable husband in mind – a man of business and a friend of mine.’

  Alice had smothered a laugh of derision. ‘That’s kind of you, sir,’ she had replied, ‘but there is no need to trouble yourself. Papa never wanted me to marry. We agreed that I would dedicate my life to the advancement of natural philosophy – and sheep rearing, of course.’

  She had hardly been able contain her amusement as the Durham Fairchilds had left with bad grace.

  ‘As headstrong as your wayward mother,’ the cousin had spluttered.

  ‘Yes,’ Alice had agreed. ‘That’s what Papa loved about me.’

  Alice wrote to George regaling him with the encounter. Impulsively, she ended the letter with a postscript.

  I have never ridden a magic carpet, though it sounds the greatest of fun. I wish I too could see India. I envy you your time there.

  Alice was dumbfounded by George’s reply, which arrived in the spring of 1835. She sat down in a chair, quite winded.

  I have admired you for a long time but during these past few years of our corresponding as friends my admiration and fondness for you has bloomed into something more. Dear Alice, I know that in your eyes I must seem an old man, but I still have the feelings of one much younger. With each letter you send, I have waited in dread of you informing me of your marriage to some young suitor, but you never have. Could it possibly be that your reference to wanting to come to India might mean that you would consider a future with me? What I am trying to say, dear Alice, in my diffident way is: would you consider becoming my wife and making me the happiest man on earth?

  Alice spent a restless week pacing the elegant echoing rooms of Tolland Park and roaming the estate in an agony of indecision. Marriage to George? She had never entertained such a notion. As a girl she had been a little smitten with his patrician good looks and had basked in his attention. As she grew older, she had experienced a quickening of her pulse in anticipation of seeing him after long winter months of being stormbound on the island. But this was as much from the excitement of getting off the island for a day and having the pick of the books in his library as from the thought of being with George. Perhaps she had imagined herself in love with him. But the day she had set eyes on John Sinclair, she knew what real love felt like.

  She closed her eyes and felt a fresh ache of longing for Highland John. She could still conjure up his handsome face and green eyes shining with desire as if he were there beside her.

  Alice let go a pent-up sigh. John wasn’t there and never would be. Whereas George offered love and companionship and she knew he would keep his promise.

  ‘I don’t love him but I’m very fond of him,’ she said, resolution beginning to form in her mind.

  That afternoon, she sat down and wrote a reply to George accepting his proposal of marriage and telling him of her intention to sail out to India in the autumn.

  While awaiting his response, Alice went ahead and booked her passage to India with Waghorn’s – which was now taking passengers as well as mail – knowing that would shorten the sea voyage considerably. She would travel via the Mediterranean and overland through Egypt to Suez and then on to India by steamer. Her neighbours spoke with alarm about her decision but Alice was thrilled by the thought of seeing Egypt and experiencing a modern steamship – far more preferable than five months sailing around the hazardous Cape. She would leave from London in September. What point was there in delaying her future, now that she had made up her mind?

  That summer, Alice kept herself busy sorting out her affairs with the help of her papa’s land agent and his solicitor. She sold the mansion and part of its grounds to a shipping merchant. The dower house she kept for herself in case she should want to return to England in later life, and rented out the rest of the estate and farmhouses to her tenants. Letters kept arriving from George telling how ecstatic he was at her agreeing to be his wife and his plans for their future together. He was procuring a house for them in Calcutta – more suitable for married life – and giving up his bachelor quarters. He did not rebuke her for booking her passage via Egypt but sounded as excited as she was.

  Alice’s mind was only troubled by one thing, saying farewell to her foster family at Black Harbour Island. It was as she was contemplating how she could help the Browns at the lighthouse that Stephens interrupted her musings.

  ‘Sarah, Josiah’s widow, would like a word with you, ma’am.’

  The old gatekeeper – doddery, forgetful and with a mind that had regressed to early childhood – had died a month previously.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about my leaving,’ Alice assured the elderly woman, who was peering like an anxious bird from under her cap of black ribbons. ‘The lodge house is yours for as long as you live. My lawyer has arranged it.’

 
; ‘I’m that grateful, ma’am, but it’s not that,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s this.’

  With shaking hands, she held out a piece of calico tied into a tiny purse with a length of twine.

  ‘I wrapped it in this for safe-keeping. Would have come sooner but you’ve been that busy, they wouldn’t let me see you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Alice asked gently.

  Sarah shook her head, perplexed. ‘Just an old coin on a chain, ma’am. A week or two before my Josiah went to his maker, I found it in a waistcoat pocket – one that me husband hadn’t worn for years. When he saw it, he got in a right state about it. In his last days when he took to his bed, Josiah wouldn’t settle – me finding the coin seemed to upset him.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Sarah,’ Alice sympathised.

  ‘Kept going on about a Spaniard and how I had to give this to you.’

  ‘A Spaniard?’ Alice was baffled. She was on the point of telling the agitated widow to hang onto it as a keepsake when a memory resurfaced.

  Several years ago, she had had a garbled conversation with the gatekeeper. Josiah had started to tell her about someone who had come from Spain to see her, then he had lost the thread of his thoughts and trailed off. Alice had dismissed it as yet another stranger trying to intrude into her life and ask for money or marriage. There had been many such men in the first months of her living at Tolland Park. But if this was the Spanish man Josiah had been talking about, then this stranger had come bearing a gift. Her interest pricked, she would look at it before letting Sarah keep it.

  Untying the cloth parcel, Alice opened it out to reveal a worn coin and chain, dulled and discoloured from neglect. She rubbed the coin in the calico and held it up to the light.

  Alice gasped in shock. Her heart thumped. The coin bore a helmeted head.

  ‘Do you recognise it, ma’am?’ Sarah asked fearfully. ‘Josiah didn’t take what wasn’t his, did he?’

  ‘No,’ Alice said, breathless. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to keep it. He must just have forgotten.’ She gulped. ‘And yes, I’ve seen it before – or one like it.’

  Alice’s fingers trembled as she stared at the coin. Could it possibly be the same one as she had seen – and touched – lying on John’s broad chest? If so, then John had come here to see her.

  ‘Tell me more about what Josiah said,’ Alice urged.

  Sarah shook her head. ‘He wasn’t makin’ much sense, ma’am. Just kept going on about this lad from Spain and how I had to give you this.’

  ‘From Spain . . . ?’

  Then it struck Alice that it was the coin that was Spanish; perhaps Josiah in his growing confusion had remembered that the visitor had something to do with Spain.

  ‘He never said the Spanish man’s name?’ Alice willed the old woman to remember more. If only she had questioned Josiah more closely at the time instead of dismissing his attempts to deliver a message.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Sarah said with a sorrowful shake of the head. ‘He was talking little sense by the end.’

  Alice’s heart went out to the bereft woman; she had lost her partner of over fifty years.

  ‘Thank you very much for coming to tell me,’ Alice said, ‘and for giving me this.’

  Sarah bobbed an arthritic curtsy and left. Alice instructed Stephens to send round a basket of food from the kitchens for the old widow.

  She was left with her feelings in turmoil. Could it have been John? If it had, what had he wanted? Had he, like so many other men, come seeking her out once he knew that she was the wealthy daughter of Colonel Fairchild? Yet Alice did not want to believe John could have been so calculating. The man she had grown to love so quickly had thought nothing of riches and status. He had not been embarrassed to talk of running around barefoot with the other local boys in his village or of his humble origins.

  So if he had not been motivated by self-gain, why had he taken so long to attempt to see her, when he had neglected to write to her for nearly two years? Perhaps, on the eve of departing for India, John had had a change of heart and had regretted breaking his promise to her. Leaving the coin was his way of showing that he still thought of her. Or was it just a token of good luck? After all, he had left no note with it nor followed up with a letter.

  Alice had a string of sleepless nights as she tried to fathom what it all meant. After a week, exhausted and with her emotions wrung out, she determined to banish such upsetting thoughts. His visit – if it had indeed been John – had taken place six years ago. Even if he had wished to see her then, his feelings for her could have died long since.

  As the summer waned, Alice convinced herself that the stranger with the coin had not been John at all.

  On her final visit to the lighthouse before embarking for India, Alice took Sam aside. They went and stood on the bluff where they had played as children. He was now the father of a sturdy boy, also called Samuel, and Alice was touched to see how her brother delighted in his young son. He took him everywhere, riding high on his shoulders.

  ‘I’ve arranged with George that Beekeeper’s Cottage on the estate is to be given to your parents,’ Alice explained. ‘The time may come when Father won’t be able to work the light or Mother manage the stairs.’

  Alice had been shocked by the deterioration in Effie. She seemed to have shrunk, her back bent and her once plump figure diminished.

  ‘I want them to have somewhere to go to – it’s a pleasant place with a grand view of the sea – and I’ve made sure it’s all fixed up. But you can tell them in time. I know how proud they are, so I’ll leave that to you.’

  Sam gave her a bashful smile. ‘That’s kind of you, Alice.’

  ‘And I’ve left provision for you and Liza and Samuel—’

  ‘No, lass,’ Sam protested, ‘I don’t want your money. We manage fine on what the board pay us.’

  Alice kept to herself that it was George’s supplementing what Trinity House paid that helped them make ends meet. She reached up and tickled Samuel.

  ‘It’s for this special boy.’ She smiled. ‘Not his daddy and mammy.’

  Samuel wriggled and giggled. Alice kissed the boy’s soft, plump hand.

  ‘Well, in that case’ – Sam grinned – ‘I accept your help. Thank you.’

  She took her goodbyes, not lingering. A restless Danny was waiting to ferry her back to the mainland. He was still barely on speaking terms with his family.

  In the lighthouse kitchen, Effie gave her a fierce hug. ‘I wish you luck and a safe journey – though I can’t imagine why you want to travel to such a dangerous land.’

  ‘She’s getting wed to a good man, that’s why,’ Sam said with a wink.

  ‘Aye, you’ll be a wife at last,’ Effie said, consoled by the thought. ‘And I hope the Lord blesses you with bairns.’

  Arnold pulled gently at his wife. ‘Let her go now. The boat’s waiting.’

  Abruptly, Alice threw her arms around him. ‘I’ll miss you, Father!’

  She felt him stiffen and then his arms were pressing her to him. ‘I too,’ he croaked, and kissed her brow as he used to do when she was a child. Her eyes welled with tears. Her throat was so tight with emotion she could not speak. She merely nodded as Arnold broke away. The smile he gave her was filled with sadness and love. They knew that this might be the last time they ever met but were unable to say so.

  ‘God go with you, my daughter,’ Arnold said as she walked shakily towards the stairs.

  Sam went with her to see her into the boat, exchanging curt nods with Danny. Samuel squealed to go with them, but his father held him firmly back. They waved Alice away. It was to be her abiding image of Black Harbour Island; the sight of her brother and nephew – for that is who they were in her heart – standing waving on the rocky shore with the gleaming tower of the lighthouse glinting in the sunlight behind. Her former home, that symbol of a life she had once lived but lost long ago.

  Danny grew more talkative the nearer they drew to land; boasting about how well his boat business
was doing and Thomasina’s expansion of the post office into a dressmaker’s and fancy goods shop.

  ‘So it’s worked out well for us all, hasn’t it?’ Danny declared. ‘You’ve got riches beyond any lass’s dreams. Who would have thought you’d end up weddin’ the landlord, eh?’ But when she didn’t reply, an anxious look crossed Danny’s face. ‘You are happy about marryin’ Gillveray, aren’t you? ’Cause it preys on me mind a bit . . .’

  ‘What does?’ Alice asked.

  He shrugged it off. ‘Nothin’.’

  On shore, Alice could sense that he didn’t want her to linger. She had hoped to see William and Lucy but Danny did not invite her to visit his home. Instead she gave him some money for his children. He took it quickly.

  ‘Good luck, lass.’ Danny grinned and, turning his back, sauntered away up the street, whistling.

  She climbed into her waiting carriage and set off for Tolland Park. Suddenly Alice couldn’t wait to be gone and for her new life with George to begin.

  CHAPTER 12

  En route to India, 1835

  As the cart rattled over the stony ground, Alice’s teeth shook so violently that she thought she would arrive at the port of Suez toothless. Whatever had possessed her to take this route to India? The voyage through the Mediterranean had been stormy at times but she had a sturdy stomach used to the motions of the sea and she had not minded.

  But since landing in Alexandria nearly two weeks ago, agog with excitement to see Egypt, Alice longed once more to be at sea. She and her fellow passengers – mainly East India Company men and a few plucky wives – had been crammed onto barges for a canal journey to Enfe. There they had transferred to feluccas – primitive open sailboats – which had taken them up the Nile River to Bulac, the port at Cairo. They had entered the ancient city on donkeys. Alice had laughed out loud at the sight of Emily Ayton, a captain’s young wife she had befriended, shrieking in alarm as her animal took off at a trot.