The Jasmine Wife

by Jane Coverdale

“Surely you are not as superstitious as all that? She’s just a little girl. She has no power over the future.”

  “Perhaps, but what can I do? It is fate. Ah! Here she is.”

  A young woman appeared, leading the child by the hand. Her baby face showed pride in her faltering steps as she looked around for approval. He laughed and waved a hand in her direction, almost a proud father.

  “What do you think? She is very pretty, no? Who would have thought it, under all that dirt?”

  “She is very pretty. Yes.”

  It was almost as though she was seeing a different child. Now the head wobbling on her little shoulders seemed in proportion to the body, the skin plump with health. Even the expression in her eyes, once vacant with hunger, glowed with a new life and intelligence. As usual when she was deeply moved, Sara couldn’t find the words and she cursed herself for not thinking of something profound enough to express her thanks. She swallowed hard and stared at the floor but could only say, “To see her like this …”

  He didn’t appear to mind her incompetence and seemed to understand.

  Sara bent down to take her in her arms, but the child turned away and began to cry.

  “Come, come,” he said. “I must prove to Mrs Fitzroy that I’m a suitable guardian, once and for all.”

  He took the child and cooed a few soothing words. She stopped crying at once and began to laugh, putting out a tiny plump hand and grabbing at his hair and pulling hard. After releasing her grip, he turned to Sara. “As you see, I am more in danger of being ill-treated than she is … Here, take her.”

  He handed her back to the nurse. “That’s enough. I have to admit to being bored very quickly with people who cannot speak. Bring her back in an hour. She can eat with us, as a special favour.”

  They both watched her being led away and laughed when she forgot how to walk and sat down heavily on her little bottom.

  When she thought he wasn’t looking, Sara turned her gaze to study Sabran for a moment. Here was a puzzling thought. She wondered how such a man, who appeared to be so harsh and uncompromising, could find pleasure in the antics of a little child. She knew men hid their softer side under a hard outer shell. It was a simple answer, but she knew Sabran was more complicated than that. She felt, no matter how well she might know him, she would never truly know him, as she knew she would never know India and all her numerous mysteries.

  He turned to find her eyes still fixed on him and gave her a strange twisted half smile, almost as though he had triumphed over her in some way, and that smile made her wary of him once more.

  “Now, what is this request you ask of me?”

  Sara found it difficult to speak at first, then the words tumbled out in a rush. “I lived in your house in Madras as a child. It belonged to my parents …”

  “Your parents lived in my home?” He stared at her with something like horror in his eyes. “That is most strange.”

  “Yes, very. A strange coincidence.”

  “You say a coincidence? I don’t think so. We are connected by fate in yet another way.”

  He seemed deeply concerned and distracted by the thought and returned to playing with his sandalwood beads while he watched her, with more interest now than before.

  “You see, the graves in your garden belong to my parents. I’d like very much to be near them …” Tears were pricking her eyes and making it difficult to speak.

  He took pity on her and tried to make it easier. “The graves say Radcliffe. But I heard you were a Miss Archer.”

  She wondered for a moment how he knew that, then realised he must have been talking to Lucy.

  “Yes, but my father changed his name to Radcliffe, for what reason I can’t tell.”

  “Yet another mystery. And the child buried with them?”

  “My sister …”

  “I’ve often wondered about them … I’m very sorry.”

  For a second she imagined him, a stranger standing by her family’s grave. Somehow, it made their resting place seem less lonely.

  “You lost everyone …”

  “Not quite everyone. Malika, your servant … who cares for the house …”

  He sat upright again, his interest aroused. “Malika? Ah! She is a character, no?”

  “Yes! She was my ayah as a child … from the day I was born.”

  “Your ayah? That is remarkable, non?” Again, his face changed and his voice was almost inaudible when he spoke. “It is indeed fate that has brought you back to India …”

  He leaped to his feet and walked around the room, excited now. “The other servants laugh at her because she talks of your family as though they are still alive … and you want her back with you, of course …”

  “You may find this hard to understand, but she was closer to me than my own mother.”

  “No, I don’t. As you can see …” He placed both hands on his heart. “My own mother was Indian.” His dark eyes watched her for any sign of contempt, but she showed no sign of it. Her eyes held his steadily.

  “Then you’ll let her visit me sometimes?”

  “If that is what she desires, of course, but I don’t think she will leave the house for long, not even for you, and, as I said, I will never sell my house to your husband, even if he would agree to buy it, which I very much doubt. Forgive me, but I have my reasons. If it were you alone, perhaps I would consider it”

  “Then there is nothing I can say to change your mind?”

  “Not while you are the wife of Charles Fitzroy, and I’m sure that situation is unlikely to change.”

  This time she became angry and rose to leave. “What do you want me to do? Leave my husband? You want me to throw away my marriage, just like that!” She snapped her fingers. Tears of frustration formed in her eyes. “What is the alternative for me … to live as an outcast? In that respect Englishwomen are no different from Indian women!”

  She stopped, feeling she had gone too far and acutely aware of how he watched her, his eyes more intense than ever. She looked for signs of sarcasm but saw none. Instead he took her hand and kissed it very gently, only saying, “Forgive me. Please, don’t go.”

  He made her sit while she composed herself, only muttering, “I’m sorry. I must be tired.”

  There was a long painful silence till Haria came into the room and stood before them both. “Everything is ready. Prema will join you in the garden.”

  He rose from the couch and took her by the elbow.

  “Before we do, I have a matter I want to clear up.” He led her down a long hallway, out into a wide courtyard at the back of the house.

  As she stepped outside, she saw before her, at the foot of the steps, almost naked and wrapped only in the loincloths worn by beggars, prostrate in the burning sun, on their stomachs with arms outstretched and heads bowed, every one of the proud guards who had dared to treat her with disrespect. There was not a sound or movement. They lay as though dead.

  He walked amongst the prostrate bodies with a look of deep contempt on his face. “What do you want me to do with them?”

  “You go too far.” She stared at him in disbelief. He stood like a lord before them, his black eyebrows knitted together and his arms crossed over his chest. This again was another facet of the man. He was nothing more than a barbarian.

  “Their behaviour was inexcusable. They will stay like that till tomorrow if you request it, without food or water!” he shouted.

  “I do not request it. Please, monsieur, let them rise at once.”

  “You can tell them yourself. It will hurt them more to take an order from a woman.” He spat the bitter words over their heads and one or two of the men flinched.

  “I’ll spare them that indignity. I want no part of it.” She turned and hurried inside to calm her agitated feelings. She swore she could never like such a man. She heard the short sharp sound of his hands clapping, then, moments later, he joined her to stand beside her in the darkened hall, near enough to feel the still powerful charge of anger emanat
ing from his body.

  “You think I’m nothing more than an uncivilised monster, don’t you?”

  He was so close she could feel the little gasps of warm air from his mouth on the back of her neck.

  “Yes. There’s something cruel about you, and harsh. You frighten me.” She shivered, afraid to turn to look into his eyes.

  “I have my reasons.” His voice flowed over her like honey now, soothing and reassuring. He took a step closer still; surely his lips were now only an inch from her throat.

  “India is a dangerous place. I must have absolute control over my men and total obedience from them.”

  She turned suddenly to confront him. “What is it you do, Monsieur Sabran, that is so dangerous you need to keep a private army?”

  The question shocked him at first, but he recovered quickly. “A private army?” he scoffed as he took her arm in his. “I play polo, madam, and, as you know, I always play to win.”

  Chapter 21

  When Sara returned in the early evening, after lingering too long in Ravi Sabran’s seductive garden, the hotel felt curiously silent and empty, and for this she was grateful, as she’d hoped to be able to slip back to her room without being seen. Then a door slammed when she was halfway up the stairs and the distraught manager burst out of his office wringing his hands, almost in tears.

  “They have all gone, madam …” he cried. “The ladies have gone … because of the typhoid!”

  It seemed that, despite his pleas, Lady Palmer and her daughter, their faces covered in handkerchiefs soaked in lavender oil and the carriage piled high with purchases from the French merchants, had left for Madras at noon, after hearing of an outbreak of typhoid in the town.

  “They have left you a note, madam,” he said as he handed it to her, unable to look in her eyes for fear of what her reaction might be.

  He need not have worried. Instead of the anger he’d expected, Sara burst into wild derisive laughter as she read Lady Palmer’s note.

  “I cannot risk my daughter’s health by waiting for you any longer. In any case, after seeing you in town in a native rickshaw, exposed to God knows what disease, for whatever foolish reason you may have, I have no choice but to leave you to find your own way back to Madras.”

  “There is something else, madam.” The manager was encouraged by Sara’s reaction to the letter to break the news without fear. “Our hotel is now in quarantine and you cannot leave. The doctor has just left. One of the servants is ill. You cannot leave, madam.”

  At breakfast a few days later, Sara found two letters waiting for her on her plate. One was from Charles. He spoke of his concern for her health, then, further down the page, a lecture for not having been at the hotel when Lady Palmer had decided to decamp.

  “It seems you have been rightly punished for your continuing insistence on some absurd form of independence. Lady Palmer has also informed me of your encounter with Sabran, and frankly I am seriously displeased you chose to dance with him in a public place knowing how I would disapprove. My only consolation is knowing you are in quarantine and cannot receive visitors …”

  She didn’t bother to read further but, in a wild, childish fit of anger, tore the letter to tiny pieces with trembling hands, all the while telling herself there must be a way, somehow, to be independent from him. The thought was momentous though, and she needed time.

  Later, when she’d calmed down a little, she opened the other letter and found it to be from Ravi Sabran, telling her of his intention to visit her later that day, having just discovered she’d been left behind at the hotel. She smiled to herself. It was a constant source of wonderment how well informed he seemed to be about even the smallest piece of news.

  “I blame myself entirely. If I hadn’t persuaded you to stay longer, you would have left with the other ladies, and it is my duty now to entertain you.”

  She considered writing to tell him he would probably not be admitted to the hotel, then she realised Ravi Sabran was a law unto himself, and a mere matter of quarantine would not stop him visiting her if he wanted to.

  When he found her later that evening, she was wandering alone through the lush hotel garden, pausing now and then to admire a bloom or to trail her fingers in the fountain. He stood back a while to watch her, knowing she was unconscious of his presence. Despite the stifling heat, he had never seen anyone so coolly unaffected, dressed as she was in a white silk gown gathered in a soft bow at her throat, though showing a hint of her slim arms and shoulders through the fine fabric.

  For a moment he was struck by how absurdly English she appeared, but also so charmingly feminine. A wide black band decorated with a cluster of mauve velvet violets trimmed her small waist, and he remembered she was wearing a similar dress when he had seen her for the first time.

  Though, with a sure instinct, he knew as he watched her straighten the delicate petals between her long slim fingers, she’d dressed then to please her husband, but now she’d dressed to please him.

  That knowledge made him want to go to her and take her in his arms and tell her how lovely she was. He took a step towards her, then stopped when she looked up, her face in shade under her parasol so he couldn’t see her expression.

  She welcomed him with a finger on her lips, motioning him to be quiet. “You shouldn’t be here, monsieur,” she said in a severe voice. “Someone might see you, and it could be dangerous for you to come near me.

  “Yes, it could be most dangerous for me if I go near you,” he said, his voice softening. Then he added, “So I will keep my distance, for both our sakes.”

  She turned away from him, thrown into confusion by his words. “Well, since you’re here, you might as well stay and amuse me.”

  She let herself relax back into a garden chair while she waved a painted silk fan before her flushed face. “I’ve been thinking how little I know about you, Monsieur Sabran. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your family while we wait for tea.”

  He was silent as he admired the curve of her slim wrist as she gently flicked the fan through the still, humid air.

  Then he dragged a chair as close to her as thought proper, ignoring the warnings of contamination. He lit one of his fragrant cigarettes.

  “Are you sure it would not bore you too much?”

  “Boredom is not a word that springs to mind when I think of you, monsieur.” She laughed.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she thought of him often, but instead he returned to the subject of his family. “My father has retired to the French countryside, where he has a vineyard; his poor health would not allow him to stay here any longer.”

  “Your mother is not with him?”

  “My mother died when I was ten years old.” His voice faltered as he changed position in his chair, while inhaling deeply of his cigarette, as though he wanted to crush an unpleasant thought.

  “I’m sorry.” She was shocked to see how affected he obviously still was at the mention of his mother.

  “Her death is something I don’t like to reflect upon.” Then he turned to Sara, his eyes darker than ever. “You see … she killed herself.”

  “Oh!” she gasped out loud and, without thinking, put out a hand to comfort him.

  He leaped to his feet and began to pace before her, running his fingers through his long dark hair, his hypnotic eyes dark with pain. “Forgive me. I should not have told you.”

  “We are friends, are we not?”

  “It is my place to amuse you, not burden you with my own demons.”

  “Please, continue.”

  He spoke as though wanting to get the unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible. “I was sent to the English school in Madras to be educated, and she couldn’t bear to be parted from me. My father wanted me to become a gentleman, and he felt the British would do that. Even though he was French he admired them very much, mostly for their apparent self-control. I was a wild little boy and he wanted me to learn self-discipline.

  It was while my f
ather was in France she tried to see me at the school but they refused her. She waited outside the gates for days, till at last they drove her away with a beating. They wouldn’t believe she was my mother, as she didn’t speak English well. She went home and poisoned herself. I think the shame of the beating was too great for her, especially as she was from an aristocratic family. That, and knowing in her heart she could never be accepted by the society she found herself in.”

  “I’m so sorry.” A slow stray tear ran down her cheek. “Your poor mother … This country seems to encourage the most bitter of tragedies.” She was so upset by his story she had great difficulty in maintaining control over her emotions, and only succeeded by twisting her handkerchief into knots.

  They sat together without speaking for a few moments, then he rose to leave. “I’ll come again tomorrow, if you’ll let me.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll be free around five.”

  He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Free? I did not know there was anyone left in the hotel to socialise with, unless you count that rather dull parson who seems to be marooned here with you as well.” He nodded over his shoulder to where a middle-aged man was reading a newspaper under the shade of a mango tree, at the same time keeping a watchful eye on Sara and her guest.

  She couldn’t be certain, but she sensed a sudden alertness in Sabran’s manner. Perhaps even a slight hint of jealousy.

  “The poor man is not the least bit dull, and I’m very happy he’s here with me. No, it’s not a person who takes up my time, but an occupation. I have my writing to keep me busy.”

  “And may I ask what you are writing?”

  “A series of stories about life in India. I thought, perhaps, as I find this country so fascinating, someone else may as well. You might find this odd, but I have a desire to be financially independent.”

  Her words were so wistful and her expression so darkened by a troubling thought, he knew now for certain there was a hidden strain on her marriage.

  “I don’t find it strange at all. You don’t strike me as the type of woman who would be satisfied with the usual accepted pursuits of the English lady. There is something unawakened and restless about you. Perhaps writing is the answer.”