Page 10 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

‘Nonsense,’ said her mother. ‘You haven’t lived there since you were eight. And your brothers don’t miss it.’

‘Well,Istill think of Cheviot View and India as home,’ Libby said defiantly.

Tilly tutted with impatience. ‘Your father will have to come back sooner or later – now that the British are finally handing over India to the Indians. Isn’t that right, Adela?’

Adela sighed. ‘The tea planters are talking of nothing else at the moment. Mother is undecided. She’d really like to keep the Belgooree tea garden going so that she can hand it on to my brother Harry in a few years’ time. And your husband doesn’t see why the British can’t stay on indefinitely.’

‘James said that?’ Tilly exclaimed.

Adela nodded. ‘Not the civil servants or the army, of course, but he thinks the Indians will still want the British box-wallahs to help run the plantations and invest money in tea.’

‘And full independence might still be several years away,’ added Sam.

‘See, Mother,’ Libby cried. ‘Our life in India doesn’t need to be over.’

Her mother’s plump face looked anxious. ‘But, Adela, you and Sam have decided to leave,’ Tilly pointed out.

Libby noticed a look pass between Adela and Sam. She felt a sudden stab of guilt that she had forced them to return because of her complaints about the running of Herbert’s. Sam put an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

‘We want to start afresh,’ he said. ‘The mission I worked for before the War has folded and Adela didn’t want to live at Belgooree full-time.’

‘I love it on the tea garden,’ Adela explained, ‘but I’m not like Mother. She lives and breathes tea. I need the bright lights.’

‘My sentiment exactly,’ said Tilly. ‘Clarrie is the most remarkable woman I know. I don’t know how she runs Belgooree all by herself.’

‘She has good staff and my little brother is turning into quite a useful tea planter for all he’s only thirteen,’ Adela said. ‘And James still comes over quite a lot from the Oxford to help out.’

There was an awkward pause. Libby felt a jolt of alarm and watched her mother for signs of jealousy. Did it not worry Tilly that her husband spent so much time over in the hills at Belgooree with Clarrie Robson? Adela’s mother had been cruelly widowed when her husband Wesley had been gored to death in a hunting accident before the outbreak of war. Libby knew from Adela how devoted Clarrie and Wesley had been to each other.

But Clarrie had been on her own now for over eight years and, judging by a recent photograph Adela had sent, Clarrie was still an attractive woman in middle age. Besides, Clarrie was nearer James in age than Tilly was; Libby’s mother had been half the age of Libby’s father when she’d married him and first gone to India. Libby was uncomfortable with the thought that her father was spending all his free time with the capable Clarrie and not just the Christmas holidays. Libby felt a familiar twist of frustration at Tilly. It was all her mother’s fault for delaying her return to India and her husband.

Sam filled the silence. ‘I’m hoping to start a photography business here.’

‘How interesting!’ Josey said quickly. She had been keeping quiet behind a gauze of cigarette smoke. Tilly’s friend had a smoker’s grey pallor and nicotine-stained fingers but, Libby had to admit, the thirty-eight-year-old still carried off a certain bohemian style with her multi-coloured jumper and hair bound up in a silk scarf. ‘I have a contact on one of the local newspapers who might give you some work.’

‘Thank you,’ Sam said with a wide smile.

‘That would be so kind,’ said Adela. ‘And I promised Mother I’d sort out Herbert’s Café. Thank you, Libby, for alerting us that Lexy can’t cope any more.’

‘I didn’t want to worry you but something needs to be done,’ Libby said. ‘Poor Lexy can hardly walk five steps without having to sit down. Her chest is that wheezy. I’ve been helping out as much as I can but I’ve got my boring office job too.’

‘Lucky to have a job at all, sweetie,’ Josey said, stubbing out her cigarette in a brass ashtray.

‘It just takes a bit of effort, Josey,’ Libby said with a flash of annoyance in her dark-blue eyes. To her mind, their lodger had made no attempt since the end of the War to get paid employment or contribute to the housekeeping. She lived with them for free and it was she, Libby, who brought in enough to pay for Josey’s whisky and cigarettes.

‘You’re so much better at humdrum office work than me,’ said Josey, lighting up a fresh cigarette.

‘At any work,’ muttered Libby.

‘Now you two,’ laughed Tilly, ‘let’s not bicker in front of our guests.’

‘Are you still acting at The People’s Theatre, Josey?’ Adela asked.

‘I’m doing more directing these days,’ said the older woman.

‘We’d love to come and see one of your productions, wouldn’t we, Sam?’

‘Very much,’ Sam agreed. ‘I’ve heard so much about the theatre and I’ve been looking forward to meeting all the family and Adela’s friends.’