The Foundling’s Daughter

by Ann Bennett

  ‘I need to go there myself. It isn’t something I want to ask of Mr Cartwright. Please, Matron.’

  Matron looks curiously at Connie, then her eyes soften. ‘Perhaps we can find a way to get you back there before too long. But it won’t be tomorrow. End of the week perhaps. Now eat up. You must keep your strength up, my dear.’

  Connie picks at her food, but she can’t concentrate on it. Now she has started thinking about the past, all those memories come rushing back to her, as fresh as if they happened yesterday. The thought that Cedar Lodge will soon be sold, along with the ghosts of the past, brings them back with fresh intensity.

  Suddenly she knows she can’t put the moment off any longer. She has been putting it off for seventy-five years. But now she forces herself to remember Anna, with her long dark hair and her brown eyes. Connie recalls the young woman’s distress and her tears as she handed Connie the little hardback book with its red cover outside the coach house that rainy night in the spring of 1934. Connie remembers Anna’s pinched expression, the rain streaming down her face, plastering her hair to her head.

  ‘Give this to him when the time is right,’ she’d whispered, handing Connie the book. ‘It might help him understand why I’ve done what I’ve done.’

  Connie knows that Anna didn’t intend anyone else to read it; not even Connie herself. Connie was just meant to pass it on, but she’d even failed in that task. What does it matter now, though? She’s never going to find him. Not after all this time. But reading the diary might help her understand what happened back then. Help her come to terms with her guilt.

  With difficulty, she eases her stiff body out of her chair and, holding onto the furniture, crosses the room to her sewing box. For the second time she pulls it open, and again takes out the trays of thread, boxes of buttons, folded squares of material. There it is, right at the bottom.

  She draws the diary out and feels for the tiny key on her filigree chain. Will it still fit? Miraculously the key slides into the minute lock. She turns it, and after a slight resistance the leather clasp falls open.

  Connie carries the book back to her chair and settles down. She needs a magnifying glass to read nowadays. She takes it off the table beside her. Poor eyesight isn’t going to stop her. Not now she’s decided. She opens the book, holds the magnifying glass above the opening page and begins to read.

  Nine

  Anna’s Diary

  Anna’s Diary

  Bombay, November 1931

  So here I am in Bombay at last. After all those weeks on P&O it feels quite strange to be on dry land again and no longer rubbing shoulders with that little troupe of shipmates with whom I became quite intimate. I will miss Colonel and Mrs Snape so much. And poor sad Mrs Dickens too, so distraught at leaving her little boy behind at boarding school. They were all old India hands though and went out of their way to take me under their wing.

  A little part of me wonders if they’d have been quite so friendly if they’d known about Father? Perhaps they would. Perhaps they knew all about it anyway and were too kind and polite to say anything. I did think I noticed a hush fall over the restaurant a couple of times when I came down to dinner. But maybe I was just imagining it.

  I’ll never forget the excitement at seeing India for the first time as we crowded against the ship’s rail and made out the thickening of the horizon and the faint blue-grey line of the mountains. When I sniffed the air I caught that exotic smell drifting on the warm breeze. Spices and wood-smoke mingling with sea salt and the bitter smell of drains. As we got closer to the hills, I could just about make out the glint of the white buildings of Bombay lining the bay, and then as we finally drew alongside the Apollo Bunder, I saw the majestic Gateway of India dominating the quayside, just as it does in all the picture books.

  The clamour of the docks was overwhelming. Porters rushing to and fro with luggage, beggars calling for backsheesh, street vendors shouting for trade. A great seething mass of humanity. Then miraculously in all that hue and cry as I leaned over the rail I spotted Auntie Nora, in the crowd, cool and serene in a white suit and solar topee, shading her eyes and searching the decks for me.

  She met me with a horse-drawn cart (a tonga she called it) for my luggage and as we jolted through the city she pointed out some of the landmarks.

  I was worried for the poor horse, with its ribs sticking out and its bare haunches. But Aunt Nora said, ‘You’ll soon get used to it. Just look around you. Poverty everywhere. There’s no room for concern about animals here.’

  And indeed, as I looked about me, all I could see were poor, down-trodden people going about their business, under the glare of the fierce, relentless sun. Whole families squatted under tarpaulins on the pavements, children begging at every crossing. Everywhere people swarming, and traffic crawling, the odd cow moving amongst the vehicles. And so much noise. Horns blowing, bells ringing, people shouting. It was deafening.

  Aunt Nora’s house is luxurious. Huge, echoing and cool with its shutters and verandas and marble floors. It’s set high on a hillside above the city and has a shimmering view of the bay. She and Uncle John have a multitude of servants to cater to every need. I hadn’t realised that they were quite so grand!

  After we’d taken ‘tiffin’ on the veranda, Aunt Nora showed me up to my room on the first floor. The bearer had already put my trunk in there. Like all the other rooms in the house it is cool and high with a fan in the ceiling and a big bed shrouded by a mosquito net. There’s a bathroom next to it with a huge enamel bath and old-fashioned lavatory.

  I took a long deep bath, wrapped myself in soft cotton towels, lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan as it whipped round above my head. I’ve been wondering what it would be like here for the whole voyage and how I would feel once I arrived. And the truth is, I don’t feel quite as I expected to. I feel strange. Strange and sad in a queer way, and curiously let down. After so long on board ship, it seems odd to be in one place. And life in this ordered, beautiful house doesn’t feel quite as I imagined India might be. It seems oddly cossetted and insulated. In short, it’s a bit too much like home.

  January 15th, 1932, Bombay

  I haven’t written for a while, partly because there hasn’t been much to say that’s interesting or new. I have to confess here (but only here) that I do feel a little disappointed with life in Bombay. I want to see everything India has to offer, but I don’t seem to be doing that. I’ve asked Aunt Nora a few times if she could take me to the bazaar, or to see a temple, but each time she rolled her eyes and made some excuse. Finally she said,

  ‘It’s just not done, Anna my dear. The communities don’t mix. We keep ourselves to ourselves. You need to understand India in order to survive here, my dear, and it’s clear to me that you don’t yet. Otherwise you simply wouldn’t have asked to go to those places. The Indians wouldn’t like it either. It would make them feel uncomfortable. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to stick with me and Uncle John until you get to understand the boundaries.’

  I sighed deeply but I could hardly protest. After all, she invited me here to get me away from all the trouble at home. I can hardly make too many demands on her. But it is frustrating all the same. Stuck up here in a house that could be in Surbiton or Tunbridge Wells on the hill above that fantastic, vibrant, tantalising city, where there is so much going on that I’d love to see and experience.

  Aunt Nora and Uncle John seem to shun the place. They’re determined to replicate their life in England out here. It feels to me as if they almost seem afraid of India. They hurry from the British quarter to the department stores and back in Uncle John’s great black car, their noses in the air, deliberately avoiding even looking at the pitiful beggars and grinding poverty that surrounds them.

  Aunt Nora prides herself on being the perfect memsahib. It’s true, she’s a very conscientious hostess. Her life is a constant round of bridge parties, tiffin at the club, charity events and visiting other memsahibs. I have accompanied her on those daily
rounds, and met ‘everyone who is anyone’ as she puts it, in Bombay. Although everyone is outwardly very kind, they all look at me in that certain way that lets me know that they know all about me and my family. It makes me feel an outsider. I don’t mind too much, though. I’m not sure that I’d want to be part of their inner circle anyway.

  Aunt Nora entertains three or four nights every week. As the wife of a senior civil servant she explained to me that frequent entertaining is expected of her.

  Since I arrived it feels as though every eligible bachelor in the vicinity of Bombay together with a good many more who were simply passing through have been paraded for dinner at Aunt Nora’s house. I’ve tried to make a few excuses and get out of these embarrassing occasions, but Aunt Nora is always insistent; she’s on a mission.

  ‘I promised your mother I would look after you and look after you I will. And looking after a young woman your age in India means finding her a husband.’

  ‘I don’t want a husband, Aunt Nora,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, every young woman wants a husband. Someone like you especially. You need a new start my dear,’ she says raising her eyebrows meaningfully. ‘There are so many eligible young men earning good money out here just waiting to be snapped up. You’ll be spoilt for choice. Then you can settle down out here. Far away from… well you know what I mean.’

  But none of the young men have shown any interest in me at all. Aunt Nora must be aware that I’m not at all what they are looking for: a companionable, no-nonsense, jolly-hockey-sticks sort of girl who will cheerfully join in with life on the cantonment, socialising at the club, whist drives, amateur dramatics and tennis. I know I don’t fit the bill. I like books and painting and walks in the country.

  Conversations at those stultifying dinner parties always centres on army gossip and sport. I often find myself drifting off, while the rest speak of polo or cricket or shooting tigers. I end up staring out of the window at the lights of the bay twinkling on the water, dreaming of what is going on in the city far below.

  And of course my age is against me too. At twenty-eight I’m older than many of the young officers and civil servants who come to the house. Although they’re far too polite to ask my age they must guess it, I’m sure. Not from my appearance, but from my detached manner. I must look as though I’m not even trying to please.

  I often wonder if Aunt Nora has told any of these empty-headed young men the real reason why I’m here in India. It doesn’t really bother me if they know. But I do know that I’m tainted by the scandal surrounding Father.

  Tonight, though, there was someone quite different for dinner. He was older than the others, and had a calm assurance about him that made him mildly interesting.

  Uncle John introduced him as Lieutenant Colonel Donald Foster and he sat next to me and asked me all about myself. Soon we were talking about writers and artists and the plays he’d seen in London when he had last taken home leave. By coincidence we’d both seen Private Lives by Noel Coward at the Phoenix Theatre.

  When he left, he took my hand and said gallantly, ‘It was delightful to meet you Miss Baker, I would be honoured if you would consent to accompany me out tomorrow evening for a drive.’

  It was a rather stilted way to ask and I nearly laughed, but stopped myself just in time as that would have been unkind.

  I accepted his invitation without any reflection. But now he’s gone and I’m alone in my room, I’ve been lying here on my bed, watching the ceiling fan turn above my head, trying to work out why I agreed to go out with him. I’m not in the least bit attracted to him. He seems to be nearer to Father in age than my own. I can hardly remember his first name, thinking of him only as ‘the Colonel’. I realise though that there is something that draws me to him despite those things; that in him I sense an echo of my own loneliness.

  January 16th, 1932

  This evening at precisely six o’ clock, the Colonel collected me in a shiny black army car, driven by an Indian chauffeur in uniform. Precision seems to be his watch-word. It is quite amusing that he seems to plan everything down to the most minute detail as though it were a military exercise. I imagine him writing down the steps carefully in advance in a little leather-bound notebook, seated at his desk in his spartan hotel room, his tongue between his teeth for concentration.

  I sat back on the leather seats of the old car and watched from the window as we glided down Marine Drive, along Apollo Bunder and through the darkening city. There is something magical about the twilight here. Office workers were rushing home along the crowded pavements, white Brahmin cows wandered on the roads and held up the traffic or slept in the middle of busy junctions. We drove past street hawkers, beggars, rickshaw-wallahs struggling with their loads, sweating in the heat of the steamy evening, past the redbrick gothic façade of Victoria terminus.

  It’s still only a few weeks since I arrived in Bombay and it is still astonishing to me, the sights sounds and smells an assault on my senses. As we drove, the Colonel pointed out places of interest, temples and street markets, hotels and government buildings. He seems to know the city intimately; such a contrast to Aunt Nora and Uncle John.

  I was surprised and impressed that the Colonel spoke to the driver in fluent Hindi. As we drove he told me had been born in Kandaipur, and that his own father had once commanded the regiment he was now in. He was sent back ‘home’ to school, but after military training at Sandhurst and a spell in the trenches during the Great War, he had returned to Kandaipur and the regiment as a junior officer.

  ‘So India is your home?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. We all call England home, but that’s just a word. I could never live there.’

  After our tour of the city, the driver dropped us at the Taj Mahal hotel where the Colonel treated me to a meal in the palatial restaurant. Afterwards we strolled along the waterfront and watched the stars dancing on the water of the bay, and the lights from the ships moored up, from which snatches of conversation floated on the steamy air.

  I was glad to be alone with someone who seemed to be content to accept me just as I am. He might be stiff and formal, but at least there’s no need to pretend with him. Even the long silences between us didn’t feel awkward.

  As we turned and walked back to where the car waited, he held out his arm, and after a moment’s hesitation I slipped mine into the crook of his.

  January 22nd, 1932

  Today the Colonel called for me in the morning. When Aunt Nora saw his car draw up she gave me a conspiratorial look. ‘I think you’ve finally bagged your man, my dear,’ she said.

  I felt myself blushing. ‘It’s not like that, Auntie.’

  ‘Oh but I think it is, Anna darling. Donald Foster’s been a mystery to us all for years. We couldn’t understand why he never married. He’s had plenty of opportunities. He must just have been waiting for the right person. He’s quite smitten with you. It was obvious from the moment he set eyes on you.’

  ‘Don’t, please…’ I muttered, tingling with shame, aware that the bearer had already opened the front door and that the Colonel was standing right there on the step and might hear what was being said.

  He had hired a private launch from Victoria Docks, and we sailed across the calm waters of the bay to Elephanta Island. The sea air was balmy and there was a fine mist over the bay. It was wonderful to be out of the British quarter and finally seeing something of the place.

  We landed on the island and strolled through a line of hawkers and beggars and into a cave temple with sculpted pillars at the entrance. I stood there and closed my eyes, breathing the incense and taking in the exotic mystery I could feel all around me. I clasped my hands together and turned to smile at the Colonel.

  ‘It’s wonderful. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.’

  ‘It is pretty impressive,’ he said, clearing his throat. He began to describe the history of the caves. I nodded and smiled politely, but wished he would stop talking and let me soak in the atmosphere.
It sounded almost as if he’d rehearsed it. He guided me through the whole cave complex, taking my arm gallantly to help me up steps or where the ground was uneven, all the time continuing with his monologue. By the time we had completed their tour of the caves, my smile was making my jaw ache.

  His bearer had prepared a picnic and had brought hampers and canvas chairs and a little fold-down table from the boat. We sat in the shade of a banyan tree on the little beach and ate egg and cucumber sandwiches and drank lemonade, looking out over the misty bay. The bearer stood behind the Colonel’s chair, waiting for orders. The Colonel fell silent as he ate his food methodically. I was relieved for that, but at the same time I was besieged by doubts.

  Had I misjudged him the other evening, or was his behaviour today a symptom of his nervousness? What was I doing coming out with him anyway? I knew I was there partly through curiosity and partly through boredom at being cooped up in Aunt Nora’s house. It troubled me though, that in coming out with the Colonel it might appear that I was complicit in my aunt’s matchmaking plans. As I finished eating I vowed that I wouldn’t mislead him anymore. I mustn’t do this again.

  As the car drew up outside Aunt Nora’s house, the Colonel turned to me and cleared his throat,

  ‘I only have until the end of the week in Bombay, Miss Baker. Then I must return to my regiment in Kandaipur. You haven’t said how long you’re planning to remain in India. I sincerely hope it will be a long stay. It would be a great honour if you would agree to come up to Matheran with me before I go back.’

  ‘Matheran?’

  ‘It’s a little hill station, only a few hours’ drive from the city. There’s a toy train that goes up to the town and there are wonderful walks and rides around the hill tops. The views are marvellous. Do you ride, by the way?’