Page 10 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)
‘They still can’t accept me as Rafi’s wife,’ Sophie said, sighing. ‘Even after ten years. I told Rafi he should go and visit his parents anyway, but he won’t go without me.’
Adela saw them exchange tender looks.
Rafi brightened. ‘But Ghulam speaks to me,’ he said, ‘since the Raja paid for the lawyer who helped get him released from prison. And my youngest sister, Fatima, writes and tells me the family news.’
‘DrFatima,’ Sophie corrected. ‘She qualified earlier this year.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ cried Clarrie.
‘Isn’t it?’ Sophie smiled. ‘She’s working at the Lady Reading Hospital in Simla. I’m trying to persuade Rafi to take a holiday and visit her there– he hasn’t been back since his school days at Bishop Cotton.’
‘It’s finding the time.’ Rafi gave a rueful smile.
‘Oh, you must!’ Tilly encouraged. ‘I’d love to go. There’s so much theatre, and the air is so healthy.’
‘One day,’ chimed in Adela, ‘I’m going to perform there at the Gaiety.’
James said gruffly, ‘From what we hear, young lady, performing on stage has got you expelled from school.’
Adela flushed as silence fell around the table.
‘Not now, James,’ Tilly murmured.
‘Well, I thought we’d come here to give advice on Adela’s schooling,’ he said bluntly.
‘We don’t need advice,’ Wesley said, bristling.
‘And I didn’t get expelled.’ Adela was defiant. ‘I ran away.’
Abruptly Rafi burst into laughter. ‘Well, Wesley, if your daughter and my sister are a taste of things to come, the world is going to be run by women of spirit.’
‘Amen to that,’ Clarrie said, smiling. Wesley laughed, and the awkward atmosphere was broken.
Adela excused herself. She could see five-year-old Mungo,who had eaten earlier with his ayah, was growing irritable and bored. She swiftly took him off to the stables to see Patch. Sophie soon followed. She steered Adela aside, while Mungo helped the syce brush the pony’s tail.
‘You shouldn’t mind what Uncle James says,’ she said gently. ‘He means well, but doesn’t know how to be tactful.’
‘He’s right though,’ said Adela. ‘You have all come here to sort me out. I heard my parents talking about it– no one knows what to do with me, do they?’
‘It doesn’t matter what we think,’ said Sophie. ‘What do you want?’
Adela struggled with conflicting thoughts.
‘Part of me just wants to stay here for ever and be with Daddy and Mother, riding every day and never having to worry about grown-up things.’ She twisted her long plait.
‘But part of me is longing to be an adult and go out into the world and find adventure. Most of all I want to be an actress. Do you think that’s ridiculous? ’
‘Not at all,’ Sophie said. ‘You have a lovely singing voice and you were wonderful in that school play we came to last year.’
Adela’s stomach twisted with regret that she had thrown all that away. ‘When I’m on stage,’ she said, ‘it’s the most exciting feeling. I feel twice as alive. It doesn’t matter if there are five or fifty in the audience– I just want to make them happy.’
Sophie touched her shoulder. ‘Then you better go somewhere that’s going to give you that feeling. There aren’t many theatres in Belgooree the last time I looked.’
‘No.’ Adela laughed. ‘Just the veranda where I make Ayah Mimi and MD watch me tap dancing. Not that Ayah has any time to do that now because of the baby.’
‘Dear Ayah Mimi,’ Sophie said, her look reflective. ‘Brought out of retirement again for wee Harry.’
‘She never lets him out of her sight,’ said Adela. ‘I think she loves him more than Mother does.’
Sophie turned away abruptly. ‘Come on then, Mungo,’ she called. ‘Uncle Rafi is organising party games.’
With a squeal the boy ran over and took her outstretched hand.
Adela wondered if she had said something wrong.
She was enjoying having a grown-up conversation with her sophisticated aunt, but perhaps it was the mention of babies that she didn’t like.
Her mother had said it was upsetting for Sophie and Rafi to be childless.
‘You’re right,’ said Adela as they swung Mungo between them up the path, ‘I should go somewhere else. And it’s not been the same at home since I ran away from StNinian’s. There was a terrible row with my parents. Did they tell you about it?’
‘Clarrie said there was bullying at the school and some unkind things said about the family.’
‘Which turned out to be true,’ Adela said with bitterness.
Sophie stopped. ‘Mungo, you run ahead and tell Uncle Rafi to put the music on.’ When the boy was out of earshot, Sophie scrutinised Adela. ‘Tell me what was said.’
‘That Dad left someone standing at the altar– the mother of the girl who was bullying me. And that I was a two annas because my mother was a half-caste. Did you know that about us?’
Sophie’s attractive, broad features creased in a frown. ‘You shouldn’t use language like that– they’re the words of a bigot and you perpetuate their prejudice by repeating them, Adela.’
Adela’s eyes smarted at the reproof. Sophie’s expression softened.
‘Yes, I knew your mother was Anglo-Indian– Tilly told me– but there’s no shame in that. Clarrie is the most amazing person. Tilly and I wish we could be more like her. You should be proud to have such a mother.’
‘That’s what Sam said.’ Adela gave a bashful look.
‘Sam Jackman?’
Adela nodded. ‘Yes, I forced him to help me escape school and then landed him in the middle of a family fight. Got him into trouble with StNinian’s too. He was so kind to me, but ever since then his life seems to have gone wrong. Do you think I’m to blame in some way?’
Sophie took her by the shoulders and shook her gently.
‘Stop being so dramatic. You are not to blame for Sam Jackman getting drunk and losing his boat. If you ask me, it sounds like he was looking for an excuse to get rid of it– he wouldn’t have given it up so easily if he’d wanted to stay a river captain, would he? ’
‘Do you think so?’ Adela brightened.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then where do you think he’s gone?’
Sophie gave her a quizzical look. ‘Do I detect that there’s more than just passing interest in the young captain?’
Adela blushed and grinned. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Sophie put an arm about her. ‘Well, I’ll get Auntie Tilly to find out– she’s better than the telegraph system for picking up gossip.’
Back at the bungalow, Rafi wound up the old gramophone, and Mungo screamed with excitement throughout musical bumps. They followed this with blind man’s buff, hunt the slipper and hide and seek, while Mungo’s father snored under a newspaper and his mother fussed over a fretful baby Harry.
‘He’s teething,’ Tilly declared, plonking him into his pram. She and Clarrie bumped him down the path as far as the factory and back, with Ayah Mimi in attendance.
Tea was served, and later there was a supper of eggs, smoked trout and Clarrie’s ginger pudding (a Belgooree speciality), and then the friends sat up late sipping port, whisky and more tea as a huge moon lit up the plantation and the trees rustled with night creatures.
The following day there was a fishing trip to Um Shirpi, where the men fished, Sophie and Adela swam in the chilly river pools, and Clarrie and Tilly chatted and read books. A picnic was served in the early afternoon and they returned to the bungalow for a leisurely supper.
All week the friends went on expeditions: riding, shooting blackbuck and woodcock, walking the hill paths or just lazing on the veranda, talking.
To everyone’s surprise James did not hurry away to join the other tea planters at the club for the seasonal races and polo matches.
He seemed just as happy as Tilly to socialise with the Robsons and Khans and drink his way through Wesley’s cellar.
With Clarrie’s encouragement, Wesley curbed his envy of his cousin’s success at the Oxford Tea Estates and sought his opinion on the Belgooree gardens.
Together they inspected the pruning of tea bushes and the maintenance of the machinery that Wesley had introduced to the factory a decade ago.
‘It’s a relief to find someone who will talk tea with James,’ Tilly said to her female friends.
‘I drive him mad because I get so absorbed in doing my stamps that I don’t listen to what he’s saying half the time.
This holiday is doing both of us the world of good.
Thank you so much, Clarrie, for inviting us– we get so sick of our own company.
But that’s the same for all couples, isn’t it? ’
Sophie gave a wry smile. ‘It’s the opposite for us. Rafi is so busy running after the Raja and his family that I don’t see enough of him. It’s wonderful having him around to talk to at last.’
‘Well, maybe it’s different for you and Rafi.’ Tilly sighed. ‘But tea planters’ wives live in such isolation, don’t we, Clarrie?’
‘We do,’ Clarrie agreed.
‘If we didn’t have our children,’ said Tilly, ‘we’d go quite mad. I don’t know what I’ll do when Mungo has to go back home to school. It was hell leaving Libby at Easter. Oh sorry, Sophie. I don’t mean to keep going on about the children—’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ Sophie assured. ‘It would be worse if you felt you couldn’t talk about your children in front of me. And anyway I adore all your kids– especially that girl over there.’ She turned to Adela and winked.
‘Oh, we all want to adopt that one.’ Tilly smiled.
Her mother beckoned her over. ‘Come here, Adela, and let’s talk about your future before the men come back. Your aunties and I have been putting our heads together.’
Adela gave a dramatic sigh as she perched on Clarrie’s chair arm. But secretly she was pleased to be the focus of their attention.
Clarrie was firm. ‘You’re too young to leave school yet, so you’re going to have to finish your education somewhere. Auntie Tilly and Auntie Sophie think you should have a choice.’
Adela eyed them with interest.