Page 47 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

Clarrie was suddenly overwhelmed by the young man’s candid, kind words and the warm, strong hands around hers.

She had heard so many platitudes of late– or worse were those who crossed the street in Shillong rather than deal with a grieving widow– that she thought she was immune to words of condolence.

But something about Sam’s directness and sincerity touched her to the core.

Clarrie bowed her head and sobbed, feeling her legs buckling like a newborn foal.

Sam pulled her into a hug and let her weep into his shoulder.

James squirmed with embarrassment and began to fuss. ‘Look here, Jackman, there’s no need to go upsetting her. Let’s get her inside.’

They all got in Sam’s car, and he drove them up to the bungalow. By the time they got out, Clarrie was once more composed and in charge.

‘I’m sorry. What must you think of me crying like a schoolgirl? It’s so kind of you to come and see us. You’ll stay for some refreshment?’ She disappeared to give orders for tea and tiffin to be brought on to the veranda. James turned to Sam while she was gone.

‘I really don’t think you should stay long, Jackman. MrsRobson is in a very fragile state. She’s just about coping, but she doesn’t need reminding of Wesley every second minute, so keep the conversation light– and brief.’

Sam regarded James with interest. He had little respect for the tea planter who had ruled the Oxford Estates with an iron rod for years.

Sam would never forget how, as a boy, he had seen desperate and dying coolies from the Robsons’ plantations hurling themselves into the Brahmaputra to try and escape slavery and starvation. But he wouldn’t be provoked.

‘It’s good to see that MrsRobson has you to advise her. Are you staying long?’

James felt the blood rush into his thick neck. ‘That’s none of your concern. I’m here to help Clarrie as long as she needs me.’

‘That’s heartening to hear. Is your wife visiting too?’

‘My wife has gone to England to take our son to school. It was her idea that I help out here when I can.’

James felt his anger quicken at the sardonic twitch of the young man’s eyebrow.

Damn him! He didn’t need to explain himself to Jackman of all people.

The young man was a dreamer who never stuck at hard work for long or faced up to responsibilities.

He hadn’t been fooled by Sam’s overnight conversion to missionary zeal, and it didn’t surprise him that he had fallen short of good conduct and gone off with some native woman.

At best he was a well-meaning fool, at worst a dangerous subversive who had no loyalty to the British in India.

Clarrie returned before he could needle the missionary about the Sipi scandal.

‘So what brings you back to these parts, Sam?’ Clarrie asked as they drank tea out of thin china cups. In Sam’s large hands the cup looked like it was from a doll’s set.

‘DrBlack’s sister, Gertrude, died suddenly, so I came back for the funeral to support the doctor.’

‘Oh, I am sorry. I hadn’t heard.’

‘You’ve had enough grief of your own to cope with,’ James said, glaring at Sam as if it was his fault for bringing more to her door.

Clarrie ignored James’s remark. ‘What will happen to the school I wonder?’

‘DrBlack is trying to sort things out and appoint a successor.’

‘Are you still at the mission, Sam?’ she asked.

He slurped and shook his head. ‘Not exactly.’

‘What does “not exactly” mean?’ James frowned.

‘I’m continuing much of the work I was doing– planting orchards, harvesting the fruit and helping the locals get it to market– but I no longer live at the mission house in Narkanda.’

‘Where then?’ asked Clarrie.

‘Further east, towards the Tibetan border at Sarahan.’

‘Is the mission still paying you a salary?’ James asked.

‘James,’ Clarrie reproved, ‘that’s none of your business.’

Sam met his look, unperturbed. ‘They buy the trees for planting, but I don’t take any money for myself. DrBlack kindly pays a small allowance out of his own pocket for me and my, er, dependents.’

James was disbelieving. ‘But you still manage to afford to drive a car?’

‘DrBlack’s car.’ Sam smiled. ‘He lent it to me so I could visit MrsRobson and Adela.’

‘Well, if it’s Adela you want to see, you’re too late there,’ James said bluntly. ‘She’s gone back to England. Sailed with my wife and MrsKhan.’

Clarrie saw the look of dismay on Sam’s face and felt a pang of pity. She didn’t know why James was being so prickly with the young man.

‘She’s gone to stay with her relatives in Newcastle,’ she explained. ‘I thought it would cheer her up to get away from here.’

‘And get away from that wretched Gulgat prince who broke her heart,’ James muttered.

This time it was Sam who felt himself redden around the jaw. ‘Prince Sanjay you mean.’

‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ Clarrie said with a pained look. ‘I can’t help blaming the prince for his actions. If he hadn’t insisted on pursuing the tigress, perhaps Wesley would be here today—’

‘Don’t think of it, my dear.’ James reached out a hand and grasped hers. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned him. Forgive me.’

Sam sat wrestling with his emotions. He had come here with high hopes of seeing Adela again and having a chance to explain everything, to get things straight between them.

The last sight he had had of her was her aghast expression at the Sipi Fair when he made his split-second decision to intervene in the marriage barter and stop Ghulam being caught by the police.

What else could he have done? At least he had saved Pema from certain slavery with a man who would have treated her as lesser than his hill dog, and she would never have to be at the beck and call of her abusive uncle again.

But to the British community– liberal and conservative alike– he had acted beyond the pale.

He, a missionary, had bought a heathen woman like chattel and taken her into his household.

‘Tell me about the time Adela visited the mission in Narkanda,’ Clarrie suddenly asked. ‘Her letters were short, but I could tell it was a happy time.’

Sam felt his gut twist with the bittersweet memory.

‘It was a happy time for me too.’ He smiled.

‘Your daughter is a natural with people; she made them feel better just by being around. And she’d make a good nurse – DrFatima was very impressed with her gentle but competent touch.

No amount of blood or gore seemed to put her off. ’

He stopped as Clarrie winced.

‘Really, Jackman,’ James protested, ‘in the circumstances.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset—’

‘No, please go on,’ Clarrie insisted. ‘I want to hear more.’

Sam told her about the clinics and how hard Adela had worked, her manner always cheerful. He talked of her interest in the Gaddi nomads and how she had taken Fatima to meet them and give them medicines, how the women had taken her to their hearts. Clarrie listened with rapt attention.

It was a side of her daughter she had never really seen.

She knew Adela could be fearless– reckless even– but usually it was in pursuit of enjoyment and self-interest. She had watched her daughter grow up into a beautiful pleasure seeker and worried that she and Wesley had indulged her too much.

But Sam had let her glimpse another side of Adela, one that put others first and was brave in helping those at the margins of society.

Clarrie had suspected that her daughter had only volunteered to help at the clinics in order to see Sam, yet Adela had proved herself courageous and compassionate.

Clarrie’s throat tightened with emotion to think how she had judged her daughter too harshly over Wesley’s death.

Now she was thousands of miles away and far from her arms. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to give her daughter a departing hug, pushing her instead towards Rafi’s car and telling her to hurry.

It was kind Sophie who had put her arm about the unhappy girl and steered her into the front seat beside Rafi.

Just as she was struggling with her thoughts, Harry crept in from the garden. He didn’t clatter around any more or jump around the furniture pretending to be a maharajah, so that often he startled her with his sudden appearance.

‘Hello, you must be Harry.’ Sam grinned and leapt from his chair, hunkering down in front of the boy by the veranda steps. ‘Adela’s told me all about you.’

Harry gazed at him with cautious dark eyes. ‘Is Delly with you?’

‘No, but she told me you like green sweets, so I’ve brought you this.’ Sam pulled a slab of pistachio-flavoured fudge from his pocket. ‘It’s gone a bit soft in the heat, but it tastes just as good.’

Harry glanced at his mother to see if he was allowed to take this from the stranger. She nodded with a smile.

‘This is Adela’s friend Sam. You can have a bit now, then save the rest for after supper.’

Harry unwrapped it and rammed the end of the bar into his mouth.

Joy spread across his solemn face. He sidled closer to Sam, leant on his arm and whispered, ‘My Daddy died ’cause a tiger ate him.

And Delly’s gone away to a new castle. Now it’s just me and Mummy and sometimes Uncle James.

Would you like to stay and be my friend too, Sam? ’

Sam ruffled the boy’s hair– Clarrie’s heart squeezed to see the fond gesture that Wesley had so often used– and said he would be happy to be his friend, but that he couldn’t stay because he had work to do.

‘I’ll come back and see you another time,’ Sam promised.

‘And bring me sweets?’ Harry asked.

‘Of course.’ Sam winked.

As Sam stood to go, Clarrie put her hand out and gripped his arm.

‘Thank you, Sam. You’re a good man. I can’t tell you how much your visit means to me, and I’m sorry Adela wasn’t here too. I know she would have wanted to see you.’

He gave a smile of regret. ‘I don’t deserve your praise, MrsRobson. “Good” is not a word that usually goes together with “Jackman”. But thanks.’

‘Will you go back to Sarahan?’ she asked.

Sam nodded.

‘To your native wife?’ James asked, his tone distasteful.

Sam answered with a defiant look. ‘Yes, to Pema.’

He enjoyed the scandalised look on the tea planter’s rugged face. Sam shook Clarrie’s hand, nodded to James and jammed on his green hat. He put out a hand to Harry.

‘Do you want a ride in my car down the drive?’

The boy brightened. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Come on then. You can toot the horn for me.’

Clarrie watched him swing the boy down the steps and into the Ford.

‘I’ll go with them,’ James said, his look grim.

Clarrie watched them go. She knew James disapproved of the maverick young missionary– ex-missionary– but she found him endearing.

It didn’t shock her that Sam had taken the Gaddi girl as his wife, but she knew how much the news would upset Adela that Sam remained with Pema.

Yet she felt grateful to Sam; he had given her a new way of seeing Adela and a way back to loving her daughter again.

For a while she had so resented her, part blamed her for the tragedy.

The sight of Adela’s green eyes– so distressingly like Wesley’s– staring at her full of misery and guilt had been more than she could bear.

She had felt only relief when Rafi had driven away, taking Adela out of sight.

But now she knew how unfair that had been.

When Adela came back in the autumn, Clarrie would make it up to her. They would be a proper family again.

James was returning with a bawling Harry.

Clarrie sighed. She knew Tilly’s husband was doing his best to be of help, and she guessed all his fussing was masking his own unhappiness at his wife’s departure with his youngest son, on whom he doted,but she was going to have to be firm and send him away.

She would not become a crutch for him while Tilly was absent.

Clarrie wanted above all to be left alone to grieve for Wesley in her own way.