Page 11 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)
Tilly spoke first. ‘If you wanted to go to school in England– Newcastle, for example– you could live with your aunt Olive. I know you’re very friendly with your cousin Jane, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, we’re penfriends,’ Adela said, her excitement igniting.
‘Then you’d have a ready-made friend,’ said Tilly, beaming, ‘and you could go to my sister in Dunbar for holidays– meet up with my Jamie and Libby too. It would be lovely to think of you all getting together.’
‘Are there theatres in Newcastle?’
‘Of course.’ Tilly laughed.
Adela looked at Clarrie. ‘What do you think, Mother?’
‘It would be a very different life for you there,’ Clarrie said, her eyes glistening, ‘but if you wanted to go, your father and I would try and arrange it. I made a mistake over StNinian’s. So wherever it is, I want you to be happy.’
‘And you, Auntie Sophie?’ Adela asked.
‘I have a different suggestion– well, it’s Rafi’s really.
’ Sophie shook back her wavy blonde hair.
‘We think you should go and look at StMary’s College in Simla– they are very keen on drama and the arts.
It’s a daughter school of the main college in Lahore, where Rafi’s sister Fatima went. They take girls from all backgrounds.’
‘Simla?’ Adela gasped. ‘I’d love that.’
‘Your mother has certain reservations,’ said Sophie.
‘Is it too expensive?’ Adela’s face fell. From her mother’s startled look, she knew she had guessed correctly.
‘Rafi and I would be only too happy to help with fees,’ Sophie offered.
Clarrie held up her hands. ‘Wesley wouldn’t hear of it.’ She saw Adela’s disappointment. ‘But if you set your heart on going there, we would manage somehow. Perhaps you could live in the town more cheaply as a paying guest. I wish we knew people in Simla.’
‘You do,’ said Sophie. ‘MrsHogg– that colonel’s wife– is retired there.’
‘Is she?’ Clarrie remarked. ‘I thought she was in Dalhousie.’
‘She moved to Simla three years ago to be near friends after the Colonel died. We still exchange Christmas cards.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know she’d been widowed, poor woman.’
‘Do you mean Fluffy Hogg, who sailed to India with us in ’22?’ Tilly exclaimed. ‘I was terrified of her.’
Sophie laughed. ‘It’s true she won’t stand for any nonsense, but she’s not the least bit stuffy. She was very kind to me when I first came back to India– in fact, she was the only person in Dalhousie who would speak to me when things got difficult between me and Tam.’
Adela noticed glances pass between the women, but no one elaborated; they obviously didn’t want to talk about Sophie’s past in front of her.
Sophie smiled. ‘Anyway, she’d be an excellent chaperone.’
‘Yes, she would.’ Clarrie brightened. ‘And that would stop Wesley fretting about Adela too much.’
‘She sounds like a bit of a battleaxe.’ Adela was unsure.
‘Forthright, yes,’ her mother conceded, ‘but she’s one of those rare army wives who really loves and understands India. I liked her a lot when I met her on the ship over.’
Sophie winked at Adela. ‘I’m sure she’d love the company of a bright young lassie like you.’ She added, ‘Clarrie, I’d be happy to put you in touch with her.’
‘Thank you,’ Clarrie said, smiling in relief, ‘I’ll see what Wesley thinks of the idea.’
But Adela was fairly certain that whatever her father thought, her mother had already made up her mind. If they could afford it, she would be going to StMary’s in the famous hill station.
With Rafi’s endorsement and the women’s enthusiasm for the idea, Wesley was easily persuaded that the Simla school was a good place for his daughter.
Even James was approving. Letters were sent to the school principal and to Fluffy Hogg.
Adela’s aunts and uncles left with hugs and words of encouragement.
Back came an invitation from the school to Adela to be interviewed and sit an entrance exam.
MrsHogg wrote return of post that she remembered Adela as an engaging child on the boat to India and would be happy to offer her a room in her small bungalow should she be accepted.
The principal, Miss Mackenzie, was a friend of hers.
In late January, Wesley and Adela set out for Simla. The mohurer , Daleep, drove them to Gowhatty, where they began the long train journey via Calcutta, Patna, Lucknow and Delhi to the station at Kalka, where the mainline ended.
Adela spent hours gazing out of train windows, drinking in the sights of the North Indian plains: villages of mud huts shaded by banyan trees; boys herding cattle; women in bright saris washing clothes by rivers; hayricks as tall as houses; and the smoke from fires adding to the haze of an orange dusk.
Arriving at Kalka on the third day, they transferred to the narrow-gauge railway and a small train pulled by a red-and-black steam engine that wound up into the Himalayan foothills.
As they rattled through long tunnels and swept round precipitous bends, Adela’s excitement mounted.
‘There’s Simla,’ a fellow traveller pointed out as they rounded a curve and saw a spread of houses clinging to the steeply wooded hillside and a vast palace of turrets and towers rising above the treeline.
‘What is that?’ Adela gasped.
‘Viceregal Lodge of course,’ the official replied, ‘though it’s empty until the Viceroy comes up from Delhi at the end of the cold season.’
Then tantalisingly, the town disappeared as the railway line looped around another spur.
Some clerks in the carriage disembarked at Summer Hill station, which was the stop nearest to Viceregal Lodge; a few minutes later the train was pulling into Simla station, and porters were rushing to help passengers with their luggage.
Wesley hired a rickshaw that pulled them through the town and along the Mall, lined with an eccentric hotchpotch of buildings, ranging in style from mock Tudor to Swiss cottage and Gothic Victorian.
Adela squealed in delight as they passed the solid stone frontage of the Gaiety Theatre.
‘I wonder what’s showing? Can we go there later?’
‘Let’s get settled in first,’ Wesley answered.
He had booked them into Clarkes Hotel, beyond the Mall, with a dizzying view into the valley below.
Adela was eager to explore the town and stretch cramped legs after sitting in trains for so long.
As the short winter afternoon waned, they walked past a series of shops to the imposing Christ Church on The Ridge, at the top of the Mall, and then up Jakko Hill.
Adela breathed in the scent of woodsmoke, thrilling at the sight of mellow sunlight glinting off windows and turning them golden.
There were still banks of snow and icy patches on the north-facing paths, and out of the sun the cold air stung their faces.
Reaching the temple to Hanuman at the top, they were greeted by the screech of monkeys swinging through the trees and leaping across the temple roofs.
In the fading smoky light, they could just make out the dark backdrop of mountains stretching off to the north and east. Lights were already being lit between the trees, betraying where bungalows nestled among the woods of pine and deodar.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Adela gasped. ‘Oh, Daddy, I really want to come here!’
He gave her a wistful look and then smiled. ‘Well, you better put on a good performance for the principal tomorrow, eh?’
Adela hardly slept. She was up early, washed, dressed and with her hair neatly tied back long before a breakfast of porridge and eggs, which she could hardly swallow.
The college lay on a hill spur to the north of the town, past the Lakkar Bazaar and along a ridge among some of the oldest buildings in Simla, including the original home of the viceroys before the vast baronial palace, Viceregal Lodge, was built at the other end of the town.
StMary’s was a rambling two-storey wooden building with covered-over verandas, surrounded by narrow strips of lawn and tennis courts that appeared to cling on to the cliff edge.
An older girl with short brown hair came stepping towards them with the poise of a ballerina and swept them inside, introducing herself as ‘Prudence Knight– but call me Prue.’
The principal was a middle-aged woman with a jowly face and a jovial smile. She bundled Adela off with Prue to look around the school while she gave Wesley coffee in her study.
Prue winked at Adela. ‘It’s so she can interview your father and make sure he understands the ethos of this place.’
‘Which is?’
‘Each girl is special and must be allowed to develop in her own unique way,’ spouted Prue.
‘The brainy ones get pushed to university standard, and the artistic ones can spend as much time in the art room or on stage as they like. I love painting and I’m allowed to go along to the Simla Art Club every week too. ’
‘I love acting. Will I be allowed to join the amateur dramatics in Simla, do you think?’
‘Very likely.’ Prue was enthusiastic.
Adela clapped her hands with excitement. ‘I really hope I get in.’
‘Do you sing?’ asked Prue. Adela nodded. ‘Well, Miss Mackenzie loves Gilbert and Sullivan, so give her something of theirs as your party piece.’