The Jasmine Wife

by Jane Coverdale

  “Well, bring it in.”

  Lakshmi entered the room as she always did, her eyes cast down, smiling her usual puzzling half smile, but her flashing eyes missing nothing. Sara had the feeling she’d been standing outside the door for some time before knocking. She handed him the note, at the same time bestowing on him one of her lovely smiles.

  He smiled in return as he watched her back out of the room, her body bent almost double as she gave blessings, while Sara wondered what she could do to have the same look of approval applied to herself.

  “I have to meet a fellow,” he said, dismissing her after reading the note. “We’ll discuss this when I get home.”

  Later, when Charles had retreated to his club, Sara called Shakur to her. “Why didn’t you bring the letter yourself? Why did you send Lakshmi to do your job?”

  Shakur answered with an innocent smile. “Because, madam, when the sahib is angry we always send Lakshmi. He is never angry with her.”

  Sara scanned his face for signs of sarcasm but there was none. He was simply stating a fact and, for the first time, she began to seriously suspect there might be more to her husband’s relationship with Lakshmi than he was willing to admit.

  Chapter 27

  After a bitter, almost sleepless night, Sara woke the next morning determined at all cost she would leave the house and never return, but the old weakening illness had come back, this time worse than before.

  “My dear Mrs Fitzroy …” Her doctor fussed over her, straightening the pillow while making reassuring noises. “You are suffering from the same malady as many other Englishwomen who come to live in India and find themselves unsuited to the climate. I’ll give you a month or two more and if you don’t improve I recommend you leave India at once for a long period abroad.”

  His words came almost as a relief to her, despite her love of India. She was a jasmine wife after all, and she felt a deep sense of failure, but a trip back to England due to poor health would at least be a way out of her hateful marriage. But it seemed impossible she could leave now, when there was so much to keep her in Madras. Malika had regained a firm hold in her heart, but there was Prema too and, much to her helpless shame, Ravi Sabran held her there also. She had no right, but the thought of never seeing him again brought on a kind of panic that in her illness tortured her with wild thoughts. Did she really desire him as Charles implied or, even worse, did she love him? These tormenting thoughts revisited her over and over, though she was too weak to try to resolve them with any rational plan, so the days passed in a blur, so hot even the birds were stilled in the air. The leaden silence was broken by the rhythmic sound of buckets of cold water hitting the grass curtains outside the darkened windows in what seemed to be a vain effort to cool the house.

  With nerve-racking regularity the water hit the window with a dull splash, though the sound seemed amplified a hundred times over, making her want to hide her head under the damp sheets.

  Charles was more than usually attentive, spending an hour or two by her bedside each day, encouraging her to eat the thin meat broths recommended by the doctor to build up her strength. He seemed to have forgotten the ugly scene over her visit to Sabran and seemed genuinely anxious for her.

  “Mutu has made a special soup for you, darling. You must try to eat it.” He took the bowl from Lakshmi, who had crept into the room almost unnoticed and placed it before him on the bedside table.

  Before leaving, she gave Malika, who was crouching in the corner of the room, a look of deep resentment and hatred.

  He held the spoonful of soup to Sara’s lips, his expression so concerned and gentle it seemed unkind not to oblige him, despite it tasting so unpleasant.

  “Well, perhaps just a little …” She tried to smile, though she was wary of him still and secretly longed for the time when he would leave her alone. She swallowed and made a face.

  He laughed. “It isn’t that bad. I know, I tasted it myself.”

  Malika sat silently in the corner of the room, ready to take over, her eyes downcast under her sari shawl. She only looked up when Charles spoke to her before he left for the day, and it shocked Sara to see the naked fear written so clearly there.

  He stood over the woman, his legs apart as she knelt at his feet.

  “Make sure madam finishes the soup! You want to see her well, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sahib.”

  “Well, see that you do.”

  He gave her a final look of absolute contempt, then left the house at last, with a great deal of banging and shouting orders as he did so. Sara listened to the sounds of his retreating boots on the pavement outside, then all was quiet and she fell into a deep exhausted sleep.

  The soup stood cold on the bedside table till Malika crept forward to take it away, careful not to wake her mistress. She lifted the bowl to her nose, inhaled deeply, then crossed to the window and threw it into the garden, before waiting by the bed till Sara awoke.

  Later, while she was brushing Sara’s hair, she began, with difficulty, to speak. “I will look after you till you are well. Here in this room. Remember when you were a child? I took care of you. It was I who made you better. I will again. But only I can cook for you.”

  “Mutu will be unhappy.”

  “Let him send his food. I will decide if you can eat it.”

  She was so determined Sara agreed. She was too ill to do anything else.

  The woman smiled, satisfied at last. Then she frowned as a dark thought flew across her face. “I do not like Lakshmi …”

  “She’s a little jealous because I would rather have you with me. That’s all.”

  “I do not trust her; she thinks she is mistress here.”

  This time Malika drew blood, and again Sara was concerned. It was true the girl used her beauty to control the men. She’d seen it herself with her own husband, and at times she thought it might be possible that Charles had a secret desire for her, but still it seemed unlikely that Lakshmi could have any real power over Charles. Too often she’d heard him on the subject of Indian women. “Too dirty for my taste” and “as black as boot polish”. Horrible words that made her cringe with dislike for him.

  Even so, she would take Malika’s advice. “When I’m well, I’ll find a new place for her.”

  Malika smiled, then looked around the room as though someone might be hiding there, before lowering her voice to a whisper. “A letter has come for you. It is on the hall table.”

  “A letter for me?” Sara brightened a little. “Can you bring it to me?”

  “I cannot … It would make Shakur very angry.”

  “Then ask Shakur to bring it to me.”

  “He will not … The master …” Again, her eyes avoided Sara’s.

  “What do you mean? What about the master?”

  This time Malika found the courage to look into Sara’s eyes. “The master does not like you to have letters. Shakur must first give all your letters to him. He decides which ones you can have.”

  Sara stared, and for a moment was unable to speak. Then she berated herself for being a fool, though she had never suspected Charles would ever stoop so low.

  “Will you bring me the letter?”

  “I cannot. Shakur will tell the master and then he will not let me see you. He said I must do as he says or he will have me thrown into the street.”

  Sara tried to sit up, stirred into life by her anger, but fell back onto the pillows. “Get the letter for me. Nothing will happen to you and, anyway, Monsieur Sabran will take care of you always. I promise.”

  Malika hurried out into the hall, returning a minute later with the letter hidden beneath her sari.

  It was from Ravi Sabran and she clung to it like a lifeline from the outside world.

  “Dear Mrs Fitzroy, I know you have been ill …”

  She managed a small weak laugh as she wondered how he knew.

  “I will be in town on business and I have the child with me. It would be pleasant to receive you again in your father
’s home, but of course I will understand if it is impossible for you …”

  She would go, of course. Her promise to Charles meant nothing now. If anything, it would breathe new life into her. It would be wonderful to sit in her mother’s cool garden again. After experimenting with raising her head from the pillow, the dizziness was so acute she fell back, tears of frustration burning her hot eyes. She reached for her writing pad and in her misery wrote a letter without the usual formalities. It was as though she was writing to a dear friend, her only lifeline to the outside world.

  “I’m so ill I’m afraid I may not live. If that should be so, promise me you’ll always take care of Prema and Malika? Forgive me for my morbid thoughts, but this has been weighing on my mind.”

  “Take this … and give it to Monsieur Sabran, but don’t let anyone see you.”

  The woman hurried away, the letter hidden under her sari, while Sara fell back into bed, a prisoner of her illness, overwhelmed with the thought that her dreams of freedom and happiness had come to nothing.

  Chapter 28

  The sickness passed and for the first time in two weeks Sara was strong enough for a walk in the morning air. She’d eaten nothing but what had been cooked by Malika, or what Malika had deemed fit to eat from the kitchen, mixed with a daily dose of mysterious herbs drawn out of a secret hiding place in her sari.

  Sara was certain she owed her life to this concoction, though her doctor still said her symptoms had been nothing unusual in Englishwomen in Madras.

  “You’re looking better,” Charles said as he walked into the room and placed a letter before her on her dressing table.

  “I have my beautiful girl back again.” He leaned over and placed his hand where her negligee had fallen open to expose her breast.

  She flinched at his touch and crushed the now familiar rising sense of revulsion, then reached for the letter, though her pleasure was mingled with concern that it might be from Ravi Sabran. She’d waited for his reply and had to admit to being disappointed and a little angry she hadn’t yet heard from him.

  “A letter? For me?” Her smile faded when she saw it had already been opened.

  He beamed back at her. “It’s from your friend the Maharaja; he asks you to visit at his palace. You’ll have to go.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “Of course. Married people have nothing to hide from each other.”

  She threw the letter down on the dressing table. “Then why did you hide letters for me from Monsieur Sabran?”

  He showed only the faintest sign of concern at her words. His smile faded and for a moment he seemed to struggle with his emotions. “I did that for your own good. I am protecting you from a relationship that could hurt you very much.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hurt me’?”

  She tore at her hair with her brush, her eyes flashing angry lights, trying to release some of her fury.

  “Apart from his dubious political associations, Sabran has a reputation with women: an unsavoury reputation. There have been many rumours, often more than rumours. I would tell you but it’s unfit for a decent woman’s ears.”

  She bristled. “It sounds like gossip to me. You’ve been listening to Lady Palmer. He’s never behaved in any way at all other than as a gentleman, and it doesn’t excuse you keeping correspondence from me.”

  “I did it for your own good; in some ways you’re very naïve.”

  “I consider that an insult.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry.”

  To her surprise, he leaned over to kiss her on her bare shoulder, then sat in a chair next to her dressing table, crossed his legs and lit a cigarette, smiling at her all the while. She felt her anger rise, despite his good humour.

  He kissed her again, this time on the base of her neck. “It was wrong, I admit it. Forgive me?”

  He flashed his most contrite smile but as she turned away from him she felt her heart harden; she would never forgive him.

  “You seem very pleased about me going to the palace,” she said, while watching his reflection in the mirror.

  “The pearls are nothing compared to what you might have if you play your cards right. Don’t refuse him or we’ll miss our chance and he might not ask you again.”

  “Really, Charles, you sound almost greedy.”

  This time his good humour faded, his voice was cold now. “I’ll write to tell him to expect you at once.”

  He left the room without waiting for her answer, and Sara realised that she was unable to bear him now. The very sight of his handsome face made her uneasy.

  There were so many reasons to hate him: his constant criticism, his neglect of her. But, most of all, it was his threatening behaviour towards Malika that left her feeling so repulsed, and she began to count the hours till she could be apart from him from that moment on.

  Chapter 29

  As the train left the coast and climbed higher the choking yellow dust from the plains gradually vanished, to be replaced by dark green foliage so thick it crept to the very edge of the tracks and, in parts, tangled amongst the rails themselves.

  Sara found herself laughing out loud for the first time in months when an elephant wandered onto the tracks and, paralysed by the sight of the steam engine, refused to move till finally coaxed away by the engineer with a bunch of bananas.

  They stopped at busy little stations crowded with children selling fresh fruit and tea, clamouring at the open windows of the train, pushing their thin arms and sticky, fly-covered wares into Sara’s face, while Malika tried unsuccessfully to shoo them away, though Sara, uneasy at the sight of so much desperation, bought things she didn’t really want to distribute amongst the other passengers.

  Charles had kissed her goodbye with more warmth than usual and, despite everything, she felt a pang of regret at parting from him. Regret for her unhappy marriage and her lost dreams of mutual love. She had no plans beyond her stay in the palace, though in her present state of mind she felt it would be impossible to return to him.

  She wondered if he would miss her very much but, even as he waved goodbye from the front steps and before she was out of sight, he’d turned back towards the house and smartly ran up the steps and disappeared inside. He had already begun to think of more important things.

  Late the next afternoon the train halted at a tiny village at the base of a low mountain range. For a moment she experienced a sense of isolation so acute she almost wished she hadn’t come. Malika was tired and fretful after the long journey and there was no one to greet them except a group of curious villagers, who gathered about her with looks of such awe she was overwhelmed with sudden shyness.

  After a few minutes of anxious waiting in a tiny dusty room attached to the station, a richly dressed servant wearing a blue turban appeared, hot and breathless, before her. He threw himself down at her feet and it was only with much encouragement he was persuaded to rise. “Forgive me, madam. He is coming … He is coming …”

  A few minutes later strange sounds could be heard in the distance, a discordant mixture of trumpets and drums mingled with the sounds of many voices.

  “Come, come …” The servant ran ahead, urging her forward. “Come, madam.”

  Sara hurried to the open door, then stopped, her mouth open. An elephant, heavily decorated with colourful embroideries dotted with semi-precious stones, waited patiently outside the station amongst a crowd of musicians and servants.

  And there, sitting in a palanquin under a fringed umbrella atop the elephant, sat Ravi Sabran.

  The elephant dropped to its knees and Sabran swung down from the palanquin with the ease of a circus performer. He took off his hat and bowed low. “My dear Mrs Fitzroy, welcome to Chittupur.”

  “Monsieur Sabran!” She was too shocked to be angry at first. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Forgive me for being late. Unlike a horse, it is difficult to persuade an elephant to go faster and, as I am a complete coward in such matters, I did not care to argue wit
h it.”

  “If I’d known you would be here I wouldn’t have come.” She lapsed into silence, almost overcome with conflicting emotions. Being alone with him would expose her to all kinds of speculation if anyone should find out. But it was more than that; she was secretly pleased to see him. In fact she had longed to see him for some time, but he had also exposed her to danger, and that danger was mostly from herself.

  “I was sent by the Maharaja himself.” He laughed, hoping to soften her look. “He would have come, but he’s too fat to fit in the palanquin.”

  She ignored his attempt at humour and turned away, determined to go home on the next train. She began to march towards the waiting room.

  There was a touch of mischief in his voice when he spoke. “If you are thinking of returning to Madras, my dear Mrs Fitzroy, there is no train till the day after tomorrow. You have no choice.”

  Then, without a word and too tired to argue, she stormed back to where he stood, his arms folded over his chest and with an amused smile on his lips, and reluctantly allowed him to help her into the palanquin.

  He watched her face out of the corner of his eye, then shrugged his shoulders in a very French way, deciding it would be best to hold his tongue.

  The elephant rose to its feet and her heart almost failed her when she saw how far it was above the ground. She wanted to clutch his arm and hang on, but on no account would she give in to her fears except for a small involuntary squeal.

  “It is not too uncomfortable, I hope?” he said at last.

  She would not look at him but kept her face averted, all the while clutching the sides of the swaying palanquin while looking down at the beast below her as they crashed along the jungle path.

  He tried again. “I can see you are angry with me.”

  After a moment she turned to him, her face flushed under the shadow of her hat. “So you were behind the Maharaja’s invitation.”

  “You said you were ill, so naturally I thought perhaps a change of scene would be good for you.”