Page 38 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

Tommy sighed. ‘Yes, she’s been busy with her wagging tongue. Nothing too bitchy, just little titbits dropped now and again with that sorrowful look in her blue eyes that she’s so good at. She’s a pro that one.’

Adela gulped. ‘So you know ... you know things ... about my family.’

Tommy nodded. ‘She’s made sure they all know about you being Eurasian– says your granny was a tea picker or some such.’

Adela felt bile in her throat. She swallowed it down and said with emotion, ‘My great-grandmother was an Assamese silk worker– a skilled woman– and my grandmother was a teacher. My mother is a successful businesswoman who has run her own tea rooms in England and tea gardens in India. Why should the likes of Nina Davidge look down her long nose at me? Tell me that, Tommy!’

Tommy gave her a look of pity. ‘You know why, Adela.’

She gave a bitter smile. ‘’Cause my family have let the side down? ’Cause I’m not a pure-blooded English girl?’

‘It’s cruel, but that’s the way a lot of British still think. They like to feel superior– it’s been fed to them with their mother’s milk.’

‘Is that the way you feel, Tommy?’ Adela challenged. ‘Is that why you don’t want me in your play either?’

‘I would have let you audition if you’d bothered to turn up.’

‘Would you really?’

Tommy dropped his gaze. ‘Sit down a minute, will you?’ Adela stood where she was, defiant. ‘Please.’ He tugged her gently into a seat and sat beside her.

For a moment or two he said nothing. He looked around, making sure there was no one else there listening in.

‘Villiers isn’t my real surname,’ he said, his voice so low she had to lean in to hear him. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was adopted as a baby. My parents– my adoptive parents– had lost three babies, and my mother couldn’t bear the thought of another pregnancy, so they went to an orphanage and chose me.

’ Tommy gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I must have been the palest skinned and the fairest haired they could find among the half-castes, ’cause that was what the orphanage was for: the babies the Brits disowned or the Indians were too ashamed to keep. ’

Adela struggled to take in his startling revelation. All this time they had been friends yet never known that they shared the same secret. She covered his hand with her own. ‘Sorry, Tommy. I had no idea.’

‘Of course you didn’t. We all keep it locked up inside like something shameful, scared witless in case people find out.’

‘That’s the worst thing,’ Adela agreed, ‘the shame you’re made to feel. Why should it matter so much?’

Tommy shrugged and let out a long sigh. Adela squeezed his hand.

‘But you don’t know that you’re Anglo-Indian, do you? Your parents might have been British and died or something.’

‘Highly unlikely,’ Tommy grunted.

‘But possible. Have you ever gone back and tried to find out?’

‘Why on earth would I do that? I’m a proud Villiers through and through,’ he mocked himself.

‘Do you know where the orphanage was?’

Tommy laced his fingers through hers. ‘Your neck of the woods I think. My father was posted to Shillong with the Public Works Department for a couple of years.’

‘When was that?’

‘They think I was born in 1907. There was a bit of the jitters going on around then– fifty years since the Indian Mutiny– and all the British were worried about attacks. Plenty of Eurasian babies being abandoned; my parents had the pick of the crop.’

Adela gasped. ‘How strange.’

‘What is?’ Tommy asked.

‘It’s something I discovered a couple of years ago when I was home.

My family told me of a tragedy that happened at our house– before we were living there.

My Auntie Sophie and her parents were staying at Belgooree in 1907.

Something terrible happened. Her father was ill – sick in the head – he must’ve been ’cause he shot his wife and then himself, leaving poor Sophie orphaned at six years old.

But there was also Sophie’s baby brother.

Their ayah – who later became my nanny too – said he was taken to an orphanage in Shillong.

’ She looked at Tommy critically. He had brown eyes and light brown hair.

Was there a passing resemblance to Sophie? He was staring at her aghast.

‘My God,’ said Tommy, ‘what an awful story.’

‘Isn’t it? Mother says Sophie still longs for the brother she never knew.’

Tommy gave her a look of disbelief. ‘Don’t tell me we could be related.’

Adela smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie is no blood relation. But what if you were that baby—?’

‘Doesn’t do to dwell on what ifs,’ Tommy cautioned.

‘I suppose not,’ Adela sighed. ‘So can we carry on being friends?’

‘Of course.’

‘But won’t you get sent to Coventry for fraternising with the enemy?’

‘I like living dangerously.’ Tommy grinned and kissed her fingers.

She kissed his cheek. ‘Things would’ve been a lot simpler if we could just have fallen in love with each other, wouldn’t they?’

Tommy looked rueful. ‘A lot simpler.’

Despite Tommy’s promises to remain friends, Adela soon found that her presence at the theatre was unwelcome. Nina was outwardly friendly, but the other girls were cool towards her. She waylaid Deborah outside StMary’s.

‘You know half the things Nina says about me are untrue.’

‘So half are true,’ Deborah mocked.

‘What difference does it make?’ Adela was impatient. ‘We’ve been friends for years. I’m still the same person I was a month ago, so why are you treating me like a leper?’

‘Because you’re not the same, are you? You should have been honest with me– with all of us– letting me think you were, well, like the rest of us.’

Adela’s look was scathing. ‘I thought our friendship was stronger than that.’

Deborah appeared uncomfortable. ‘If it was just up to me—’

‘It is just up to you, Deb. No one is forcing you to break our friendship– not even Nina can do that. The choice is yours.’

‘Don’t make me choose,’ Deborah said in annoyance. ‘Nina has been really nice to me, and her mother has offered to let me stay there after school finishes. My parents are pleased with the idea. Why don’t you just make a bit more effort to be kind to Nina?’

‘Kind to Nina?’ Adela was incredulous. ‘The girl who made my life hell at school.’

‘So you say,’ Deborah retorted. ‘Nina tells it differently. She still has a scar on her finger where you bit her. Sounds like you were the one out of control.’

Adela felt sick at the way Nina had twisted things round to make her seem like the bully. Now she was doing her best to turn her Simla friends against her too. She gave Deborah a helpless look.

‘Listen,’ said Deborah, ‘just keep a low profile until all this hoo-ha with the prince and the shootings dies down. I’m sure in time we can all go back to being friends again.’

Adela nodded, although she knew Deborah was just placating her to avoid a further scene. Deborah smiled in relief.

‘So what was it like?’

‘What?’

‘Being with Jay? Bet he’s an expert lover like they say.’

Adela was winded by the unexpected remark. She answered without thinking. ‘You make it sound sordid, but it’s not. We love each other.’

She turned and walked away quickly before Deborah could show her disbelief.

In early June a letter came from Sophie.

My dearest lassie, We have been thinking of you such a lot, Uncle Rafi and I.

We have read the newspaper reports about the riots in Nerikot with great alarm and are greatly concerned about Jay’s involvement.

I know you have a soft spot for him, my darling, so I thought you would want to know that he is back in Gulgat at the palace.

I fear he has taken advantage of your affections, but he will tell us little, if anything, of his time in Simla.

It is Fluffy Hogg who wrote and told us you had stayed at Eagle’s Nest. I hope you will be home for your eighteenth birthday and that we can all spoil you on your special day– especially if you will be away in England for a while afterwards.

Tilly is growing ridiculously excited at the thought of your trip home together– she misses Jamie and Libby so much and can’t wait to see them again.

It makes me rather wish Rafi and I were coming with you too.

I should love to see Scotland again, though I have no relations left there since my Great Uncle Daniel in Perth died.

Come home soon– it’s been far too long since we hugged and chatted!

Give our greetings to MrsHogg. I imagine Boz is away on tour in the hills, but send love to Fatima. Your adoring Auntie Sophie xxx

Adela sat down on her bed and wept. She had been waiting an age for word that Jay was safe, for him to return to Simla to be with her, but now he was hundreds of miles away in Gulgat.

How long had he been there? He had not even sent word himself, but left her to hear of his return second-hand!

Did he think so little of her? Or perhaps he was still in danger and was lying low?

Maybe Sophie shouldn’t have told her and was putting him at risk by writing it down in a letter; the authorities could have intercepted and read it.

Adela read the letter again, so full of tenderness, and felt ashamed at resenting Sophie for breaking the news.

Jay had fled from the hills without a thought for her; otherwise he would have sent a message himself or tried to see her one more time before parting.

Adela curled up on her bed and wept until she felt hollowed out.

That evening she sat on the veranda with Fluffy watching an electric storm. It crackled and rent the sky into jagged pieces. She told her guardian about Jay being in Gulgat.

Fluffy didn’t seem surprised. ‘I rather suspected he had left the area.’

Adela felt her eyes sting again with unwanted tears. ‘Perhaps it was too unsafe for him to be seen in Simla,’ she said, searching for an excuse.

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Fluffy. ‘What do you want to do now, my dear?’

Adela thought bleakly how her life in Simla had collapsed around her so swiftly: she was outcast from the theatre group, gossiped about along the Mall and deserted by Jay.

She had given up her job and neglected her duties at the hospital in favour of a social life of dances, dinners and riding expeditions, revelling in the limelight and encouraging Prince Jay.

And worst of all, Sam lived close by in the hills and yet forever beyond her reach.

‘I think I should go home to Belgooree,’ Adela said quietly. ‘What do you think?’

‘I agree, and I think it will make your parents very happy.’

Adela felt a stab of guilt at how little thought she had given her parents and brother these past months.

She had been having too much fun and had hardly spared the time to reply to their long, affectionate letters.

A scribbled note shoved into an envelope with Fluffy’s longer epistles was all she had given them.

‘You’ve been so good to me, Auntie. The person I’ll miss most in Simla is you.’

Fluffy smiled. ‘I’ll miss you too, my dear. You’ve been such a good companion. Noor and I will find the house very empty without you.’

‘Quiet, you mean.’ Adela gave a sad smile.

‘You know you can come back any time you want.’ Fluffy gave one of her direct looks. ‘But I think you are ready to move on. Go and pursue your ambition to be an actress. Don’t let the petty-minded of Simla put you off.’

Adela felt her heart squeeze. ‘Auntie.’ She swallowed, forcing herself to ask, ‘When did you find out about my ... about Mother’s parentage? Was it just since Nina came? That’s not why you want me to go, is it?’

Fluffy looked at her, shocked. ‘Goodness me, how could you think such a thing? I’ve always known about it– ever since I met your dear mama on the boat coming out in ’22 and you were a wee thing rushing about on deck like an eager kitten.

Some of the women were unkind to her, but she put them in their place with her polite but firm manner.

It didn’t bother her that they knew she was Anglo-Indian– at least she didn’t show it– and it shouldn’t bother you. ’

Adela gave a teary smile at Fluffy’s brusque, wise words; they eased a fraction of the emptiness she felt. She leant across the wicker sofa and hugged her stout benefactor, breathing in her smell of camphor and lavender. ‘Thank you, Auntie. Thank you for everything and more.’