Page 9 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

‘Yes,’ Rita agreed, ‘but only because Kishan and I will be going to Bombay. A month of theatre and concerts for me, and parties and dancing for the girls.’

‘Are Jasmina and Sabeena very excited?’ Sophie smiled.

‘Ready to burst,’ Rita said, and chuckled. ‘And I can’t wait to get Kishan away from all this.’ She waved a slim be-ringed hand in the air. ‘Before his mother poisons us all, or the Britisher brings in the army and hoists a flag over the house.’

Sophie laughed. ‘Aren’t you being a bit overdramatic?’

‘Me?’ Rita arched her eyebrows in mock surprise over large brown eyes. ‘Don’t pretend you’re not worried too. Why else did you have your ear to the door down there?’

‘I must admit,’ said Sophie, ‘that I’m looking forward to getting Rafi away for a few days. He works so hard.’

‘Next time you must come with us to Bombay.’

‘I haven’t been there since I arrived back in India over ten years ago,’ Sophie mused. ‘We’ve become like hermits in the woods.’

‘Well, you can let your hair down with your tea-planter friends, can’t you? They know how to party from what I hear.’

The coffee came and they sipped it as the sun grew stronger and the mist burned off to reveal a shimmering landscape of pools and jungle. Green-and-red parrots flitted between the trees.

‘Will Sanjay go with you to Bombay?’ Sophie asked.

Rita shrugged. ‘That is one of Kishan’s battles with the old witch and Henna.

He would like to take the boy, but they complain they don’t see enough of him as it is.

Kishan’s mother will refuse to let him go, but it’s me who will get the blame.

Sanjay will be moody and resentful, and the whole thing will give Kishan an ulcer. Happy families, eh?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Sophie gave a pained smile.

Rita was contrite. ‘Oh, my dearest, here I am complaining about my family when you have had such tragedy in yours. Don’t listen to me. Let’s change the subject.’

They did, but Sophie couldn’t help dwelling on her lack of relations.

Orphaned at six years old in India when her parents had died violent deaths, she had been brought up by a beloved aunt in Scotland, who had died when Sophie was twenty-one.

Though she had hardly any memory of her parents, it still made Sophie shudder to think that her own father could have shot her mother and then shot himself.

What drove a man to do that? In the aftermath of her parents’ tragedy, she had also lost her only brother.

He had been given away at birth and never been seen again.

It was a source of pain too that she and Rafi appeared unable to have children.

Once she had been pregnant to another man .

.. Sophie forced herself not to think of the dark circumstances of her miscarriage and her failed marriage to the forester Tam Telfer.

Yet she had Rafi, whom she adored; he was her family, along with her dear cousin Tilly, whom she was impatient to see again at Belgooree over Christmas.

When Rafi appeared with Kishan, Sophie leapt up and went to her husband. The warm smile he gave her was enough to banish the bluest of thoughts.

Sophie and Rafi were on the point of leaving for Belgooree when Sanjay appeared, clutching a cricket bat.

‘Come on, Rafiji.’ The handsome youth gave a winning smile. ‘You’re the best bowler in Gulgat. Stourton said he’d play too. Just for an hour. You don’t mind, do you, MrsKhan?’

‘We really need to be on the road,’ Sophie said, dismayed.

‘You can field,’ Sanjay declared. ‘You have a great throwing arm– shapely but strong.’

Rafi gave her a helpless look. She knew how he pitied the boy for losing his father so young.

Yet the Raja’s nephew was on the cusp of manhood; he was no longer a child, even if the adults around him still treated him like one.

His mother and grandmother overindulged him, while his uncle and Rita ignored or excused his outbursts of temper as something he would grow out of.

Even Rafi seemed blind to the boy’s manipulating charm; she could see how flattered he was to be asked to play cricket for the young prince.

Maybe she was being unfair, Sophie thought, and Sanjay was being naturally enthusiastic.

Strange, though, how he had waited just until their moment of departure to waylay them with his sudden cricket match.

‘Very well,’ she relented. ‘But we go this afternoon.’

On Christmas Day, Adela rushed down the drive when she heard the Khans’ car hooting on the tea garden track.

‘Happy Christmas! Where have you been?’ Adela jumped on board and squeezed in between Rafi and Sophie, flinging her arms about both and kissing their cheeks.

‘We thought you were coming yesterday. I’m so sick of baby talk.

Auntie Tilly’s never put Harry down for a minute.

I’m so glad you’re here.Now we can have some fun. ’

Rafi laughed and Sophie hugged her back. ‘Happy Christmas too, my darling lassie. Your Uncle Rafi got embroiled in a cricket match that lasted all day – that’s why we are late.’

‘Your Auntie Sophie caught out Sanjay,’ said Rafi, ‘otherwise we’d still be playing.’

‘Yes, that didn’t go down well at all,’ Sophie grimaced.

‘Who’s Sanjay?’

‘The Raja’s nephew,’ said Rafi. ‘Remember he once came on a hunting trip here with his uncle.’

‘Was he the boy who said he’d skin my tiger cub, Molly, if I let her out of the house?’

‘Sounds like Sanjay,’ Sophie said, rolling her eyes.

‘He’d have been teasing,’ Rafi defended.

‘He has a cruel streak,’ said Sophie.

‘Not cruel, just boisterous.’

‘He’s still behaving like a spoilt brat, yet he’s nearly a man. It’s high time you learned how to say no to him once in a while.’

Adela felt uncomfortable at their disagreement; it wasn’t like them. ‘Well, I remember him as rather good-looking and I was probably being a pest. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You’re both here, and that’s the best Christmas present I could have.’

Rafi ruffled her hair and Sophie gave her another kiss, and the topic of Sanjay was dropped.

Shrieks of delight greeted the latecomers as Sophie and Tilly hugged, Clarrie rustled up cocktails and the men swapped news.

Tilly’s youngest son, Mungo, leapt from chair to chair in a pirate outfit and set Scout barking madly.

Around a table set out on the veranda, they ate a huge lunch of chestnut soup, snipe, blackcock, quail, roast potatoes, greens and curried cauliflower, followed by plum pudding and brandy butter and gaudy sugary sweetmeats with coffee.

Wesley served up his best claret and a bottle of port he’d kept for ten years.

Adela knew her father was doing his best to impress his cousin James and show off Belgooree hospitality.

The conversation was loud and unceasing. Tilly talked of her son and daughter at boarding school in England, while James and Wesley discussed falling tea prices and the likelihood of production having to be cut.

‘Oh, James, you promised not to talk shop,’ Tilly protested.

‘And you promised not to bore about babies,’ James grunted.

Sophie intervened swiftly. ‘Tell the gossip from Assam, Tilly. Who is the burra memsahib at the club these days?’

‘Tilly of course,’ James joked.

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Tilly cried. ‘James never takes me these days.’

‘I take you to the film club once a month.’

‘Once in a blue moon,’ she retorted.

‘Well, you hate it there,’ James said. ‘You always complain about the men drinking too much and gambling away the housekeeping.’

‘Oh, talking of which’ – Tilly’s plump face was animated – ‘have you heard about young Sam Jackman, the ferry captain?’

Adela’s heart lurched at the sudden mention of Sam’s name. She caught a look pass between her parents.

‘Heard what?’ Clarrie asked.

‘He’s a captain no longer,’ said James.

‘Lost his boat in a card game a month ago,’ Tilly said.

‘Never!’ Clarrie exclaimed.

‘Silly ass!’ Wesley frowned, throwing Adela a glance.

‘Gambling went on all weekend apparently,’ James said. ‘Drank far too much. Let some clerk from a Calcutta shipping company win it from him. The man offered it back when Jackman sobered up.’

‘But Sam wouldn’t take it,’ Tilly added. ‘Said the man had won it fair and square.’

‘But the Cullercoats was his father’s boat,’ Adela gasped. ‘It meant a lot to him.’ Tilly eyed her in surprise, which made her go red.

‘Obviously not as much as we thought,’ said Wesley.

‘What is he doing now?’ Clarrie asked in concern.

‘Gone,’ said Tilly, ‘with that chattering monkey.’

‘Gone where?’ Adela asked in deep dismay.

‘No one knows. Just up and left,’ Tilly sighed. ‘It’s the strangest thing. He was always such a sensible boy. Don’t think he’s ever really got over the death of his father– they were very close.’

‘Don’t know why you had such a soft spot for him,’ James said. ‘He could be quite critical of us tea planters. Bit of a Gandhi-Congress supporter. Probably gone off to agitate somewhere else.’

‘Good luck to him.’ Rafi smiled. ‘Congress and India need young men of passion from all communities.’

‘And women,’ Sophie added.

James gave a wry look. ‘So speak the couple who enjoy life in an autocratic kingdom. You don’t have agitators coming in to stir up your workforce, do you?’

‘We feed them to the tigers,’ Rafi joked.

‘So you agree with Congress and their incitement to strike and damage our businesses?’ James pressed him.

‘No more than I agree with boycotts by the British, which damage Indian businesses,’ Rafi countered.

‘I agree with you there,’ said Clarrie. ‘The boycotts are petty.’

James pressed Rafi further. ‘Is that hot-headed brother of yours still causing trouble in Lahore?’

‘Ghulam has been out of prison and out of trouble for five years,’ Sophie came to Rafi’s defence. ‘He’s doing social work now.’

‘That’s good,’ said Tilly, ‘isn’t it, dear?’ She gave her husband a warning look. ‘And I’m glad to hear you are in touch with your family, Rafi.’

‘I’m not exactly.’ Rafi gave a wistful smile.