Page 1 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

PROLOGUE

Oxford Tea Gardens, Assam, 1899

Through the open office door, James Robson saw thechaprassyrunning barefoot up the dusty path. James’s heart sank. It would no doubt be another summons to Dunsapie Cottage to see his boss, Logan.

‘From Logan sahib,’ said the perspiring messenger, holding out a chit.

Cursing under his breath, James took it. Thechaprassystood, panting after a run in the heat, waiting to carry back a reply.

‘Tell the burra sahib I’ll come now,’ James told him with a wave of his hand. The messenger bowed and ran off.

Sighing, James turned to the bespectacled young clerk. ‘We’ll have to finish going over these figures later. Have them ready for me in an hour.’

Anant Ram nodded. James took a deep breath, jammed on his sola topee over his dark wiry hair and strode out of the garden office. The late afternoon heat hit him and he was momentarily dazzled by the whitewashed walls of the adjacent factory buildings. Beyond the neat lawns in front of the office, shimmering emerald-green tea bushes rolled away to a hazy horizon. He dismissed the idea of heading off to check on the withering of the latest batch of tea leaves. This was Logan’sthird demand for him to appear at his bungalow that week. His senior manager was not a patient man, and James had been avoiding him since Logan’s return from leave a week ago.

How pleasant the past six months had been without the hard-drinking, womanising Scot. James had enjoyed his fourth cold season in Assam, with hunting trips and fishing, as well as the Christmas week of horse racing and socialising at the club, without Logan’s sarcastic comments and boorish behaviour. James was not a big drinker but liked to talk sport with his fellow trainee managers on the Oxford tea plantation, especially the amiable Reggie Percy-Barratt. Reggie was equally passionate about dogs and hunting, and although they lived an hour’s ride apart, he was James’s nearest neighbour.

James’s stomach clenched as he rode the few minutes to Logan’s home. Now the ribald comments would start again: Logan would bait James, challenging him to take advantage of the female tea pickers and join in drinking games at the club. Well, he would not be bullied into doing anything he did not want to do. He might be barely twenty-two but he was a Robson and he’d stand up to anyone.

Yet, as he dismounted at the steps of Dunsapie Cottage – a modest bungalow for such a senior manager, with a deep veranda and a red tin roof – James’s heart hammered. His shirt stuck to his back with sweat. Taking a deep breath, he pulled back his broad shoulders, stuck out his chest and mounted the steps.

‘Ah, Robson, at last!’ a voice called out from the shadowed veranda. Bill Logan, a lean, good-looking man in his early forties, was sprawled in a long cane chair. He didn’t stand up.

‘Sir,’ James answered with a nod. ‘Welcome back.’

‘Sit down,’ Logan ordered. He snapped his fingers at a hovering servant. ‘Whisky and soda for the sahib.’

‘I have work still to do,’ James said. ‘Perhaps just animbu pani—’

‘Nonsense.’ Logan cut him off. ‘This is a celebration. Your father would be ashamed at your lack of stamina. Work hard, play harder. That’s what James Robson Senior always told me.’

James masked his irritation. For all of his young life James had been in awe of his father and he knew he would never be as good a tea planter or businessman. But he resented Logan continually pointing out how he failed to be as formidable a character as his father.

‘Just a small one then,’ James said, forcing a smile.

What was there to celebrate?he wondered. He was bracing himself for a barrage of criticism but perhaps Logan had returned in better humour after his furlough in Scotland. Was his boss about to promote him? Word must have got back to him about how hard James was applying himself to his duties around the vast tea garden.

The Oxford Estates was one of the biggest tea plantations south of the Brahmaputra River, with a board of directors in Newcastle, England, and a reputation for full-bodied teas in the auction houses of London and Calcutta. James was ambitious and impatient; it was high time he was made an assistant manager. He put in twice the time and effort of the other trainees and his health was more robust. Reggie was far more prone to fever than he was and young Bradley had to take days off at a time because of his splitting headaches.

James sat gripping his glass and waited for the good news.

‘I’m engaged to be married,’ Logan announced, his thin moustachioed face breaking into a smug smile.

James gaped. This he had not expected. Logan was a confirmed bachelor who satisfied his sexual urges by helping himself to the young women from the tea pickers’ ‘lines’ – the native compound. As far as James knew Logan had never courted any woman from the European community in India. In fact, he was the subject of gossip among women at the club for siring a bastard son by his favourite native mistress and shamelessly allowing them to live in his compound. James, embarrassedby the treatment of the young tea picker, tried to avoid being drawn into such scandalous conversations.

‘C-congratulations, sir,’ James stuttered. ‘That’s marvellous news.’

‘Aye, isn’t it? She’s quite a beauty – fair looks, of course – and only twenty-one.’

Logan snapped his fingers again and told the servant to hurry and bring a photograph from the sitting room.

‘She’s very excited at the thought of being MrsLogan and coming out to India.’ Logan’s smile turned into a grin of self-satisfaction. ‘And who can blame her?’ He gave an expansive wave of his hand. ‘She will be mistress of all this, with a houseful of servants and a life of leisure away from the strictures of her overbearing sister in Edinburgh. Her only duties will be to me.’

James took a swig of his drink, buying a little time to control his reaction. This was hardly a palace Logan offered his poor bride: the furniture was basic and the roof leaked in the monsoon. But as far as James was concerned, the one big advantage of Logan being married was that he would stop causing trouble among the tea pickers. With a MrsLogan at Dunsapie Cottage the bullying manager would no longer be able to order women from the lines into his bed.

As if reading his mind, Logan gave a short laugh. ‘Aye, Robson, my days of “plucking” the tea workers are numbered. By December I shall be married to the delightful Jessie Anderson.’ He handed James the photograph in the ivory frame the servant had fetched. ‘Look at her.’

James hid his surprise. The young womanwasbeautiful. Shapely in a summer dress and with pale hair pinned up in loose coils, she stared back at him with a steady, half-amused gaze. James felt his heartbeat quicken. He swiftly handed back the photograph with a nod of appreciation. Privately he felt pity for her, marrying such an odious man.