Page 49 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

‘May I have mine without milk please?’ Adela said, passing the cup on to her aunt.

‘We don’t drink black tea in this house,’ said Olive, ‘and that’s too milky for me.’

‘It’s all right, Mam,’ Jane said, hastily taking the cup from Adela. ‘I’ll have that one.’

She poured another cup without milk and gave it to Adela with a shaking hand. Jane then removed the napkin from the cake stand, revealing delicately cut sandwiches and slices of cake.

Adela took one of the sandwiches. ‘These look tasty.’ she said, smiling at her cousin. Biting into it, she found that the bread was dry; the sandwiches must have been made hours ago. The filling was fishy and bland. Adela swallowed it down, while Jane nibbled at hers and Olive didn’t eat.

‘Have another,’ Olive encouraged. ‘Looks like you need feeding up.’

Adela reached for a slice of Victoria sponge. It was dry too. She wondered how many times it had been brought out of a tin to sit uneaten on the plate.

‘Does your cook live in?’ she asked.

Olive gave a short laugh. ‘We haven’t had a cook for five years. Jane does the cooking. She’s never going to win awards, but it’s plain honest food you’ll get here.’

‘Lexy at the café taught me,’ said Jane. ‘She’s good at pastries and cakes.’

‘At Belgooree,’ said Adela, ‘Mohammed Din lets me stir the puddings sometimes too.’

‘Well, you’re welcome to help our Jane in the kitchen,’ said Olive. ‘In fact if you’re going to stop around for long, I’ll expect you to give a hand with the housework too.’

‘I don’t mind that,’ Adela replied, wondering what it would entail. Did they have any servants at all? Jane used to mention a maid called Myra that she liked. Did they have sweepers to clean out the toilets or empty the baths?

Olive asked about Harry. ‘Poor pet, he must be so sad. It’s a terrible thing for a lad to lose his father.

Lads need a man around the house. I went through hell during the Kaiser’s war when my Jack was taken prisoner.

The thought that he might die and George would grow up fatherless was more than I could bear. ’

Her words pained Adela. ‘At least Harry has Uncle James. He’s coming over regularly to help at Belgooree.’

‘James Robson, Tilly’s husband?’ Olive was taken aback.

‘Yes.’

‘While Tilly’s away in England? That doesn’t sound proper to me. But then Clarrie never cared what people said about us– not like I did. I’m the sensitive one. She just does what she wants.’

‘She doesn’t have much choice,’ Adela defended. ‘And it was Auntie Tilly who suggested it.’

‘Strange man, James Robson,’ said Olive. ‘Never any good at polite conversation and never had any time for us Belhavens.’

‘Well, he’s making up for that now, helping Mother with the tea garden.’

Suddenly Olive put out a claw-like hand and patted Adela’s knee. ‘That’s good. He didn’t have a good word to say about Wesley when he was alive, but at least he’s standing by family now.’

Adela changed the subject. She asked after Uncle Jack and his business.

‘Works like a Trojan does my Jack,’ said Olive, ‘but business has been bad since the Slump. I don’t know the ins and outs– he doesn’t like me to worry– but we’ve had to tighten our belts.

Still, he’s been in charge of Tyneside Tea since MrMilner retired five years ago, and I’m very proud of him. ’

‘And he has George to help too,’ Adela said, smiling.

She saw the transformation on her aunt’s face at the mention of George. Her taut features relaxed into a smile and her eyes glistened.

‘Jack couldn’t manage without our George; he’s a born salesman.

Got the gift of the gab, just like his father when he was first starting out.

Jack used to bring tea to the house in Summerhill where we lived and to see me.

That’s when we started courting. Your mam was married to old Herbert Stock– she’d been his housekeeper.

She never loved him, just married him for his money so she could start her own business. But me and Jack, we were a love match.’

‘Mother married the love of her life,’ Adela pointed out, ‘when she married my father.’

‘That’s very true,’ Olive conceded. She began to talk about George and his string of girlfriends.

‘Not sure he’ll ever settle down. He’s always spoiling them rotten, then gets bored and finds someone new.

Still, he’s only twenty-five. I wouldn’t want him rushing into marriage with the wrong lass.

I don’t think much of the current one mind. Barmaid at the cricket club.’

Jane spoke unexpectedly. ‘Joan is canny. She’s very sweet-natured.’

‘She sits there as quiet as a mouse– just like you,’ complained Olive.

‘George’ll get bored. He needs a lass who can string two sentences together, bonny, but not too bonny, and who can do more than pull pints.

She only got the job at the club ’cause she’s the groundsman’s daughter.

George needs to marry a lass from his own class with a bit of education. ’

Adela steered the conversation to Jane. ‘How about you, Cousin Jane? Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘Our Jane!’ Olive exclaimed. ‘She’s much too shy. No one’s ever come courting her. What about you, Adela?’

Caught by surprise, Adela flushed. ‘No, I don’t have anyone special.’

‘But you’ve had a few lads court you, haven’t you? You’ve said so in your letters to Jane. What was the latest one I saw– wasn’t it some Hindoo prince?’

Adela looked aghast at Jane; it hadn’t occurred to her that her cousin would show her letters to anyone else. Jane was blushing and biting her bottom lip, her look apologetic.

‘I acted with a prince at the Gaiety,’ Adela admitted, ‘but I’m not courting anyone.’ She quickly changed the subject. ‘I’d love to visit Herbert’s Café. Would you be able to take me, Aunt Olive? Mother told me how beautifully you decorated it.’

‘I’m not well enough to go painting walls any more. I’m bad with my chest.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Adela. ‘Mother said you’re a great artist.’

Olive smiled, pleased with the compliment. ‘I was once upon a time. But running a family and a house and looking after my Jack takes up all my time. Let alone the café. I haven’t had time for art in years.’

‘Well, while I’m here to help out, perhaps you could try dabbling again?’ suggested Adela.

Olive shrugged. Jane began to clear the tea plates and cups on to a tray.

‘I’ll take you to the café this afternoon if you like,’ her cousin offered.

‘I’d like that very much.’ Adela smiled, keen to get out of the depressing room and away from her aunt’s morbid preoccupations. She jumped up and began help.

‘No,’ said Olive. ‘We’ll all go later, when George can run us down the hill.

It’s me who should show you the café– I’m the one who’s been looking after it all these years.

Leave Jane to do these. You go and unpack.

You’re sharing her room. Jane, pet, show Adela where your bedroom is and help her with those heavy cases; then you can finish off here.

I’m going next door to see MrsHarris for a cup of tea.

I’ll keep an eye out for George coming back. ’

Jane’s room was tidy and spartan. Half the wardrobe and a chest of drawers had been cleared for Adela’s clothes, while a pull-out bed had been erected under the window and covered with a faded patchwork quilt of yellow, red and orange cotton prints.

Jane’s dark-framed bed was covered in a blue candlewick bedspread that matched the plain blue curtains.

There was nothing to show what interested her cousin– no photographs, no keepsakes on the dressing table– except for a pile of books on the bedside table.

They were library books: two history tomes, a travel book about Greece and two novels – South Riding , by Winifred Holtby, and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

So there was a streak of the romantic in her apparently inhibited cousin.

Bored with unpacking, Adela went to the window.

Below was a large backyard with a trough of geraniums and two outhouses, while opposite was an identical terraced row.

Beyond that stretched other ranks of brick houses, dipping away towards a smoky horizon and the River Tyne.

She unlatched the sash window and heaved it up.

The breeze billowed into the antiseptic-smelling room.

It was suddenly familiar: the mineral smell of coal fires.

It brought back a memory of having a bath as a very young child in front of a crackling fire in a cosy, brightly painted house.

Aunt Olive’s? It certainly wasn’t this dark, solidly respectable one.

While she was still unpacking and hanging up her dresses, Jane returned. At once she closed the window. ‘Mam doesn’t like the coal smuts flying in. Gets all over the house.’

‘Sorry, didn’t think. Where shall I put the empty suitcases?’

‘Put them out on the landing. George can store them in the loft later. You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll take the pull-out.’

‘Certainly not,’ insisted Adela. ‘I’m not going to turf you out of your own bed. It’s very kind of you to share your room with me.’

Jane gave a cautious smile. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay here. I’ve been really looking forward to you coming– so has Mam. She wants to show you off.’

‘Why would she want to do that?’

‘She’s always telling people how successful Aunt Clarrie is and boasting about being related to the Robson tea planters. You would think they owned half of India the way she talks.’

Adela laughed. ‘Well, Robsons can be a bit full of themselves, that’s true.’

‘Oh, that’s not a criticism of you,’ Jane said hastily. ‘It’s just Mam trying to put herself above the folk round here.’

Adela eyed her cousin. She sounded resentful. Perhaps Jane wasn’t as indifferent to Olive’s carping as she appeared.

‘Well, I’ll try and put on a good show of being the memsahib.’ Adela winked. ‘Anyway, I brought this for you. It’s not much, but you sounded so interested in India that I thought you’d like something to read.’

‘You shouldn’t have.’ Jane eagerly took the proffered gift, carefully unknotted the string and unwrapped the brown paper. She smoothed a slim hand over the cover. ‘ Simla, Past and Present , by Edward J.Buck,’ she read aloud. ‘Thank you. This looks really interesting.’

‘It’s got photos too.’ Adela sat down on the bed beside Jane and turned the pages. ‘That’s just round the corner from Aunt Fluffy’s cottage. The black and white doesn’t do justice to the landscape or the sunrise.’

‘I’m sorry about Mam and your letters,’ Jane said quietly. ‘I didn’t show them to her; she came in here and went through my drawers. She used to make me read them out to her when you and I were younger, but I stopped doing that– you know, when you started writing about lads and feelings and that.’

Adela went hot at the thought of her aunt knowing so much about her. She tried to remember what she had written about Sam and Jay. It dismayed her that her twenty-three-year-old cousin couldn’t stand up to Aunt Olive more.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Adela said. ‘We’ll just have to make up our own code in future. I did that with my school friends. Our code word for any action with boys was “Jubbulpore”.’

‘It won’t get much use around here I’m afraid,’ Jane said with a rueful smile.

‘Well, I’m going to make sure it does while I’m here,’ said Adela. ‘I’m going to make it my mission to find you some Jubbulpore this summer.’

For the first time she heard Jane laugh, a deep, throaty gurgle quite at odds with her shy, humourless appearance.