She watched him as he joined Cynthia and Charles on the terrace. He welcomed his daughter with an affectionate smile and Charles with a friendly pat on the back. It made a pleasant family scene, though he looked at Charles for a moment before glancing back at Sara, his face showing an odd mixture of pained displeasure and curiosity, then he turned away, leaving her feeling abandoned and alone amongst Lady Palmer’s many guests.
“Whatever did you say to Lord Palmer?” Charles asked when they arrived back home at last.
She flung herself, exhausted, in a chair and kicked off her shoes.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he wanted to know all about you, where we met and all that … who was your aunt et cetera … Of course, I assured him your background was impeccable.”
While gritting her teeth she tore the pins from her hair, longing to throw them across the room. She was preoccupied with what Lord Palmer had said about her parents. What had they done to make him react in such a way?
“What a snob you are, Charles. What would you do if you discovered my background wasn’t so impeccable? Throw me out in the street to beg?”
“Well, I know it is, so the occasion will never arise.” He laughed as he kissed her on the back of her neck.
There was a discreet knock on the bedroom door and Malika’s gentle voice called out, “Madame do you need help with your gown?”
His face changed colour at once. He fixed his gaze hard on the back of the door, his eyes bulging. “No, she does not! Go away!” he shouted, almost trembling with rage.
“Please, Charles, everyone will hear.” Sara opened the door a crack and saw the old woman crouching in the hallway, unsure what to do.
“Go to bed, Malika,” she whispered, “I don’t need you tonight.”
He came up behind her and shut the door with a loud bang. “Whatever possessed you to bring her here? Her eyes are everywhere.”
“Because you said she may come. She will only stay a day or two.”
“That’s a mercy at least. Send her back as soon as you can. I can’t bear her creeping about.
‘“Well, she will be ‘creeping about’, as you put it, every now and then. I’ve been banned from visiting her because you don’t trust me outside of my home so she must come here. Or have you forgotten?”
For a moment it seemed he might flare into anger again, then he calmed himself a little. “All right, there’s no need to make a fuss!”
Then, still glaring at the door as if it might suddenly burst open, he mixed himself another nightcap from the sideboard and drank it down fast, before turning to Sara to unlace her corset. She could tell by the look in his eyes he wanted her, and she hurried to hide her nakedness with her dressing gown.
In a sudden rush, he pushed her back on the bed and pressed his wet, whisky-smelling mouth on hers. She froze at once, turning her face away and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Really, Charles, I wish you wouldn’t drink so much; it turns you into a beast.”
He stood up, angry with her now. “I’ve been meaning to ask why you don’t show any signs of having a child yet. You are all right, aren’t you?”
She didn’t look up at first but rubbed at an ugly imprint of his fingers he’d left on her arm. She wouldn’t be able to wear short sleeves till it faded.
“I don’t think it’s unusual.”
“Well, if it doesn’t happen soon, you’d better see a doctor.”
He began to take his clothes off to get into bed with her, and her stomach revolted at the thought of it.
Her voice came muffled from the pillow where she’d turned away from him.
“I want to sleep alone tonight. You hurt me, and I don’t want you here.”
At first it seemed he might fly into a rage, but his words were cold and calculated as he stood over her. “You know I could divorce you for that!”
She lay still till she heard the door slam behind her, then she jumped up and turned the key in the lock, relieved to be alone at last.
After sleeping late, she woke to find he’d left a letter saying he’d decided to join his friends from the club on a tiger shoot and would be away for at least a week. A wild uncontrolled thought came into her head.
She had a sudden urge to flee, anywhere, as long as she could escape him. She rushed to the secret cash box she kept in her drawer and found it empty of everything but a note.
“Try not to leave money about, my dear. You know what thieves the servants are.”
Chapter 24
It was while Charles was away that she met with Ravi Sabran again. She’d been wandering through the maze of little shops and silk warehouses lining the narrow, forbidden laneways of Blacktown and had been lured inside her favourite store by the owner, Mr Chandran, who promised her a refreshing tea and the sight of a special bale of rich green silk newly arrived from Pakistan.
“To suit your beautiful hair, madam,” he said in his high sing-song voice. “The silk was woven with you in mind.”
An Indian lady had taken a long chestnut strand out of its chignon to match the colour against the fabric when Ravi Sabran came into the warehouse, as usual surrounded by his gang of courtiers.
“Mrs Fitzroy, I beg your pardon.” He clapped his hands and his men scattered. It was almost as though he’d broken into a harem, so strong was the reaction. Then she realised it was the sight of her hair unbound before strange men that was considered to be so improper.
She began to feel it was improper herself and hurried to push the vagrant strand back into her neat chignon. Then she looked up to face him but couldn’t meet his gaze, and he too seemed shaken by their encounter.
When he found his tongue at last, his voice was more than usually husky, as though the words were sticking in his throat. “You must buy the silk. It is as Mr Chandran says, and woven with you in mind.”
“I think perhaps the weaver had someone in mind with more money than I.” She laughed, fighting desperately to regain her composure.
“Even so, you must have it.”
He ran his fingers over the silk, then frowned and dropped it, as though being reminded of something unpleasant.
The ritual of the pouring of the tea stemmed the flow of conversation till Chandran broke the uneasy silence. “Ah, monsieur! Your suit is ready.” He snapped his fingers at his assistant. “Go and get Mr Sabran’s suit.”
Chandran grinned as he looked from one to the other, quickly assessing the tension in the air and smiling to himself. It was unusual to see the great Ravi Sabran thrown into confusion.
“Ah! Monsieur, you know our most charming Mrs Fitzroy?”
Sabran made an effort, though his voice was soft and almost hoarse.
“Yes, we have met before, many times.”
She knew instinctively he was affected by her presence after all, and that knowledge made her heart jump in a peculiar way. She avoided his eyes; it was too dangerous.
When she found her voice again it was light and careless. She returned to the safety of more conventional topics. “And how do you find this weather, monsieur? I thought you said nothing would make you return to Madras.”
“Unfortunately, despite the fact that all the tailors in Pondicherry are French, I cannot find anyone I admire nearly as much as my old friend Chandran, and since I consider a well-tailored suit one of the chief necessities of life, I sacrifice my discomfort in favour of style.”
He shrugged his shoulders in a very French way and smiled.
“I don’t believe you.” She laughed. “I know you’re not quite as frivolous as you like to pretend.”
“I have business in Madras, of course, but there is something else pressing.” He turned and captured her with his dark gaze. She felt herself being drawn towards him, unable to pull away. He smiled very briefly, a strange smile, difficult to read. She thought perhaps he might be laughing at her, and it was enough to break the spell.
“I really should go.” She rose to her feet, her heart
pounding. His presence was too unsettling, and she wanted to be alone to steady her thoughts. “I’ve been here too long already.”
He put a hand up to halt her. “No, stay for a moment. There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
She sat down again, almost grateful to put off her leaving, and waited while he took a mouthful of tea.
“It concerns the child.”
“Prema? Is she ill?”
“No, no, not ill. As I said, Maya is most affected by the child, seeing her as an omen of sorts, and she has insisted I consult my astrologer regarding her. He has chosen the eighteenth of this month as an auspicious day for a birthday celebration. Does this suit you? Can you come to the house?”
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “The eighteenth? This is May is it not?”
“It is.”
“Then, as usual, monsieur, you have managed to astound me. The eighteenth of May is my birthday also.”
A cloud of concern crossed his face. “It cannot be.”
After his first reaction his tone was fatalistic. It was almost as though he was thinking aloud. He ran his fingers through his black hair, at the same time pressing his forehead hard with the palm of his hand as though he was trying to crush an unwanted thought.
“We must accept it. I have consulted the Brahmins and that is the date they chose. It is most strange.”
She laughed at this. “Why are you so concerned? It’s only a coincidence, unusual, yes, but still only a coincidence.”
“Because now it is clear to me, once and for all, that Prema is an omen. She was meant to cross your path and mine, for good or ill. Now you must come to her birthday. You are meant to come.”
She watched him for a moment before replying. “It may not be possible.”
She thought of Charles and his words of warning: “You know nothing about this man … and what he’s capable of,” and, worst of all, “You can never visit that child again and I’ll consider it an act of treachery if you do.”
She looked up and saw his eyes contemplating her. There was nothing in his expression that spoke of pity, but she felt, somehow, he knew what it would cost her to agree.
She rose to leave. “I will see you on the eighteenth.”
Even as she said the words she knew the repercussions of openly defying Charles, but at the same time she felt it was fundamentally unfair of him to impose such a sanction upon her. It struck her how trivial his demands were, compared to carrying out a dying man’s wish, and she would stand up to him and take the consequences of her actions willingly, even if it meant the end of her marriage. A shadow of emotion swept over her then as she now realised how much she longed for her marriage to be over. Up to that moment she hadn’t really dared to seriously consider such an event could actually happen.
“Madam?” Sabran was watching her, puzzled by her silence as well as the expression on her face.
“Forgive me, monsieur. I was deep in thought.”
He kissed her hand and, as he did so, he looked up at her with veiled eyes and, as usual, his look was inscrutable.
Chapter 25
She was alone in the wooded grove sheltering the tombstones of her family, as Sabran, seeing the flowers she’d brought to place on the graves, had retreated on some pretext of business inside the house.
Slipping into the past once more, she saw herself as a child on birthdays long ago, when she would wake earlier than usual, to be bathed and dressed in her best white muslin in readiness for the unique favour granted her only twice a year, at Christmas and on her birthday. Her parents climbed the nursery stairs and joined her in her special breakfast of banana pancakes sprinkled with sugar.
How different was her life now; it seemed there was so little laughter, so few moments of happiness.
A chorus of frenzied screeching from the tamarind tree above her head snapped her back into consciousness. A chattering group of wild monkeys were watching her with hard red eyes, swinging on the branches with what seemed like menacing intent. She knew they were waiting to snatch the offerings of bananas and rice Malika had left at the little shrine of Shiva she had placed before the headstones.
She stood rigid with fear, knowing they could be rabid and their bite fatal. But in an instant one of the larger monkeys swung down before her and crouched a few feet away with bared teeth. She remained completely still, not knowing what to do, but the small timid act of moving one foot backwards enraged the rest of the tribe into action. They hung suspended from the branches, gibbering or leaping to the ground, surrounding her, stamping on the spot or making crazed threatening forays to where her dress swept the ground, snatching at her hem with long spider-like fingers before retreating a safe distance to jeer.
She was reminded of the irony of her situation. It was rare to find herself alone in India, and yet when she longed for the comforting presence of another human being she waited in vain. There was silence in the garden and, except for a soft chattering coming from the house, not another soul was in sight.
A loud screech from the monkey before her made her jump. There was something strange about its behaviour and Sara panicked, thinking perhaps it did have rabies and had gone mad. The rest of the tribe fell silent and moved away to watch from a distance. Then she saw the creature was nursing the ragged corpse of her dead baby. Every now and then the mother groomed the little rotting body and pieces of matted fur came off in her hands. She seemed to be puzzling over this great tragedy while looking up at Sara with eyes mad from grief. Sara shivered in the heat. It was as though the creature could see through to her soul.
A faint noise behind her broke the spell, and with wild screams of outrage the monkeys fled.
She turned her head to see a girl standing alone on the terrace steps. At first Sara thought she was an illusion, her nerves were so tested by her encounter with the monkeys. The girl wore a gold sari, the silk so fine it floated around her exquisite form in the gentle breeze from the sea. Above her glistening almond eyes, strands of fine pearls and precious stones hung over her forehead and around her perfect creamy neck.
She was a living, breathing statue of the goddess Parvati, a fitting consort to Shiva, god of love.
The appearance of Sabran on the terrace brought the moment back to earth. The apparition smiled as he held out a hand towards her, and he in turn gazed enraptured at the face before him. He led the goddess down the steps and, as the girl came closer, Sara saw she had pale green eyes, in India a sign of the highest beauty, and in a well born girl more valued than white skin. The girl dropped to her knees, while holding both of her hands to her forehead. “Welcome, madam.”
“No, please don’t.” Sara put out a hand to raise her.
“You are Maya, are you not? I’ve seen you once before, and have never forgotten how lovely you are.”
The girl shook her head and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. She spoke in halting broken English, as though she had practised for some time.
“You are very beautiful, madam …”
Sabran smiled. “It seems you please each other.”
He escorted them both to a bower under a tree, adorned with a rich Turkish carpet and scattered silken cushions, where Sara was asked to take her seat in a carved wooden chair that had once been her mother’s favourite. She ran her fingers over the wood; there was a carving of a rose, with the tendrils creeping up the arms of the chair. She smiled when she remembered her own childish fingers tracing the pattern when her mother was alive. For a moment she was almost overwhelmed with sadness for what she had lost, and a large tear escaped down her cheek. She wiped it away, hoping no one had seen her, then, looking up, she caught him watching her.
She was determined not to ruin the day with sorrow, so she smiled almost gaily at him through her tears. “How beautiful they have made it, how very beautiful!”
He smiled in return, relieved, and took his place next to her, while Maya, rejecting a western chair with a girlish laugh, curled up by his side.
He cl
apped his hands to signal the beginning of the proceedings and at once the musicians began their intoxicating plaintive sound, spinning a web around the senses and banishing any remaining ghosts of the past.
Champagne appeared before them, offered by a servant dressed in the whitest of linens adorned with a scarlet sash and turban.
“This is from my father’s winery. It’s very good, I think. You will share a bottle with me?”
She laughed. “I feel I must.”
Maya waved it away with a flutter of her tiny hand, but she made encouraging signs to Sara to accept. She whispered in Sabran’s ear and he translated her words.
‘“Your pleasure will be my pleasure”.’ Then he took the girl’s hand and kissed her fingers. His eyes only briefly glanced into hers, but Sara could see the understanding between them. She had to turn away, so intense was their passion. Her heart twisted within her, and a pang very like jealousy threatened to ruin her happiness.
Sabran turned to Sara and raised his glass. “To everything you wish for on this happy day, and for every day of your life!”
It was a generous toast and she was grateful for it, and it made her birthday special. She realised too the lavish arrangements were more for her than for Prema, and because of that she was thrown into confusion. It was plain he wanted to impress her, but for what reason? He had introduced her to his lover, and had shown her by his every deed how much he loved Maya, so he clearly was not carrying a secret passion for her. It was all very confusing.
The champagne held the perfume of violets from the south of France, and after drinking the first glass it was as if she was in a dream.
The sea beyond the garden wall rolled over the stony beach, making a sound like a deep sigh, and unconsciously she sighed aloud with it. Sabran turned to stare at her and gave her a look so searching she felt as though her every thought was exposed to him. For a brief dazzling moment nothing else existed; it was as though she had found herself in a magical land that could disappear in an instant.
Then the sharp clap of hands brought her back to reality. An ayah appeared and placed Prema beside her with strict instructions to be on her best behaviour.
The Jasmine Wife Page 22
