Page 28 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

‘We need to speak,’ Fatima said, taking him aside. Adela observed them in the garden, heads bent together and talking intensely. Soon afterwards Sam packed and left.

In frustration Adela watched him go. She was sure that he felt something for her, but perhaps not as deeply as she did for him.

There was something about Sam Jackman that was always held in check, as if he didn’t trust himself to show his true feelings.

Or maybe she was wrong and he just didn’t share those feelings.

She drove herself at work, filling every minute so that she wouldn’t dwell on his absence.

Hunt stayed out of their way and ate alone in his room, though he did help Adela collect supplies for the nomads.

She persuaded Fatima to make a visit to the Gaddi encampment and take ointment, bandages, children’s clothes and blankets, as it was still cold up the mountain.

She liked the friendly, independent nomads, who welcomed them to their tented homes and sat around in the evening sun smoking hookahs while their women cooked and sang songs.

Only one man seemed to resent their presence and gave them hostile glances.

He appeared to be the guardian of the bold young woman with the braided hair who had befriended Adela previously, for he shouted at the girl for her curiosity.

The Gaddi girl– who was called Pema– stroked Adela’s wavy hair and creamy skin with smiles of appreciation.

Adela gave her two hair clips, which delighted Pema but enraged the older man.

He hit the girl with a stick and chased her inside the tent.

When Adela and Fatima protested, the man snarled at them to leave.

The others seemed afraid of him. How Adela wished that Sam could have been there to stand up to the bullying man; Adela was worried that he obviously mistreated Pema.

Lying at night on a camp bed in Sam’s room under one of his blankets, next to his bed where Fatima slept, Adela was consumed with thoughts of him. A week later there was still no sign of him.

Just before they were due to return to Simla, two agitated Gaddi shepherds appeared at the clinic carrying a young woman bundled in cloths and shrieking in pain.

While the woman had been sitting by the fire, someone had knocked over a cauldron of boiling water and badly scalded her right side from her hand to her cheek.

Adela gasped in horror. ‘It’s Pema!’

Fatima got to work immediately, tending and binding her burns.

‘From the looks of it they delayed bringing her here,’ Fatima said in frustration. ‘One of her wounds is infected.’

Adela tried to calm Pema and hide how upset she was to see her new friend in such agony. She kept watch at the clinic overnight. The men wished to take her straight back to the camp, but Fatima was adamant Pema should stay in their care.

‘She’s feverish and shouldn’t be moved; her injuries are serious.’

The young men said that they were due to move on very soon to Spiti, where they had grazing rights.

‘We’ll take good care of her at the mission,’ Adela promised. They seemed nervous about leaving the girl behind, but reluctantly went.

Fatima delayed their return to Simla, deeply worried about her patient. ‘Thinking of that bullying man,’ she said, ‘it makes me wonder if it was really an accident.’

That night Pema’s temperature soared and she babbled incoherently.

Adela stayed by her side, singing to her softly and wiping her brow, occasionally allowing one of the auxiliaries to take over while she snatched some sleep.

After three days Pema’s fever went, and she was comfortable enough to move up to the mission bungalow.

Even though her face was still half-hidden in a dressing, Pema rewarded Adela with her wide smile.

They made a bed on the floor in Sam’s room, where the girl was happier than on a framed bed.

Nitin, Sam’s cook, made her soups and dals that were easy to eat.

When he discovered she had a sweet tooth, he made her rice pudding with cinnamon and gur.

Through Nitin– a hills man who understood her language– Pema explained that her parents had died in an avalanche, so she belonged to her uncle. He was a strong, loyal man, but had a terrible temper, especially after drinking sur , their homemade liquor.

A few days later the belligerent uncle returned with half a dozen henchmen to claim Pema, insisting that they had delayed long enough.

Pema was upset at their abrupt arrival, but when Fatima tried to stall them, the uncle shouted at her and raised his stick.

Fatima prepared a bag of fresh dressings and impressed upon the younger men that they were for Pema and that her dressings had to be changed regularly.

The young Gaddi woman wept in distress as she said hurried goodbyes.

Adela gently hugged her and told her they would meet again.

She pushed a handkerchief into Pema’s pocket that was wrapped around a cheap chain Adela sometimes wore that Pema had admired.

She hoped Pema’s uncle wouldn’t take these from her.

There was nothing now to keep them in Narkanda. The next day Fatima and her helpers packed up the clinic and returned to Simla.

Sam returned two days later.

‘I can’t say I was sorry to see them go,’ Hunt said, emerging from the sanctuary of his room.

‘Those women took over the whole house, as well as the garden. What a noise they made, laughing and chattering till all hours. And we had a dozen ruffians at the door demanding the return of some shepherd girl. I know we’re here to serve the natives, Jackman, but in future they can stick to their clinic in the village, can’t they? ’

Sam was deeply disappointed to have missed them. He could just imagine the house ringing with Adela’s fits of laughter. How quiet it would be without her.

‘What shepherd girl?’

‘One of those Gaddies. Badly burnt. Terrible business, but that man who came for her looked like he would gladly cut all our throats. Anyway, they’ve all gone,’ Hunt said and sighed with relief. ‘Now we can have a quiet supper. It’s lamb chops. Bet you’re glad to be back.’

It was Nitin who explained the drama of Pema’s injuries, of her being rushed down to Narkanda and then recuperating at the bungalow.

‘DrKhan saved her life, and Miss Adela looked after Pema like her own sister. Now they are gone.’ Nitin gave a mournful shrug. He seemed as sad as Sam that the bungalow was empty of guests. Sam sat on his bed, pressing his face to a blanket that still held a scent of Adela.

He would have come back sooner if it hadn’t been for Fatima’s request that he seek out Ghulam.

On his way up the Sutlej Valley, Sam had come across the activist openly distributing leaflets in Nerikot, just as Fatima had suspected.

Sam had found Ghulam a highly persuasive man, and had given him sanctuary at the remote bungalow at Sarahan, knowing that Boz and his foresters would not be using it until midsummer.

Ghulam had rekindled in Sam his fierce anger at the injustice suffered by the poorest in India at the hands of the rich and powerful.

Ever since his boyhood, when he’d watched impotently as destitute and starving tea pickers had thrown themselves into the Brahmaputra River and tried in vain to reach his father’s steamer, Sam had raged that such things were allowed to happen.

It was why he had joined the mission. It was why he must remain single and dedicate his life to bringing about a better world.

Ghulam was the same, though he believed in revolution by force if necessary, whereas Sam was against violence.

Yet meeting Fatima’s brother had reminded Sam that only by being single-minded and without emotional ties could you hope to achieve such goals.

Sam steeled himself to put away the blanket and bury his desire for Adela. He knew that she cared for him– it shone from her beautiful green-brown eyes– but she deserved better. The warm-hearted Robson girl would find no difficulty in attracting others to her – of that he was sure.