Page 129 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden
CHAPTER 25
Belgooree, late July
Aweek after the emotional goodbye at Cheviot View, James’s flight home was arranged. In six days’ time he would fly from Calcutta. Libby was to accompany him to the city but was adamantly refusing to return back to Newcastle so soon. Her plan was to stay with the Watsons again but a letter from her Uncle Johnny explained that they were in the process of packing up and returning home too. They could put her up for a few days but would be gone before the fifteenth of August.
‘I can’t believe they’re leaving India!’ Libby cried. ‘What about poor old Colonel Swinson? He’s never known anywhere else.’
‘Well, at least Tilly will be pleased to have her brother back,’ said Clarrie. ‘Where are they going to live?’
‘Uncle Johnny’s buying a house in StAbbs,’ Libby replied. ‘So he’ll be near Auntie Mona in Dunbar – as well as Mother in Newcastle.’
‘Good fishing in the Scottish Borders,’ James said in approval. ‘I must say I’m glad to hear Johnny will be around – he’s a very decent chap.’
Libby found her father’s preparations for leaving – and now the news about the Watsons – unsettling. Perhaps Clarrie sensed it, for on the day before departure, she encouraged Libby and Sophie to go ridingto the waterfall and take a picnic. The jungle was dense and the waterfall thundering from the recent rain. They picnicked on a tarpaulin.
Sophie seemed preoccupied and a little subdued. Her appetite had deserted her.
‘You must be missing Rafi,’ said Libby.
Sophie gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, I’m not much fun at the moment; I do worry about him.’ She picked up a boiled egg and started peeling the shell. ‘It’s lovely to be here with you – I’m really glad you came back to visit, lassie. Rafi and I have missed all you Robsons so much. It’s a shame Tilly and the boys didn’t come with you but I suppose they’ve settled into life at home and don’t feel the pull of India like we do.’
‘No, they don’t,’ agreed Libby. ‘My brothers are happy where they are. I think Mungo might have considered a career in India once his degree is finished but there won’t be the opportunities now ...’
‘Not in the civil service,’ said Sophie, ‘but maybe in tea planting or business.’
‘Perhaps.’ Libby shrugged. ‘But Mother won’t encourage it. She wants to keep her sons close by.’
‘Well, Tilly’s always been a mother-hen.’
‘It’s strange,’ said Libby, ‘but coming back out here has made me understand Mother a bit better. I can see how unsuited she probably was to life on a tea plantation. She loves the city and culture, not the outdoors – a picnic at StAbbs is about as adventurous as she gets.’
‘She tried very hard to make a go of it here,’ said Sophie. ‘Cheviot View was always a very welcoming place.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Libby, ‘that’s how I remember it.’
‘And she adored you all,’ said Sophie.
‘I don’t think she ever adored me,’ Libby said with a pained smile.
‘Oh, but she did,’ Sophie insisted. ‘She missed you terribly when you were sent off to school. I think that’s why she mollycoddled Mungo, because she was so upset at losing you and Jamie.’
Libby had a pang of pity for the young Tilly having to make the long sea voyage home three times to surrender her children to the care of strangers in boarding schools. Unexpectedly, it came back to Libby how her mother had written letters to her on a weekly basis and how much she had craved the news from home. Surely they had been practical proof of her mother’s affection? Tilly had written far more than James had. Yet Libby had blamed her mother for abandoning her and had railed against the injustice of it for years. She had hated most of her school life and had made sure Tilly felt guilty for it. She had never thought of it from her mother’s point of view – the sense of bereavement Tilly must have felt returning to remote Cheviot View without them – and for the first time realised it was not her mother’s fault.
It was the practice of the British in India to send their children home to be schooled. Ghulam had once been scathing about girls like Libby being given a privileged education on the profits made by over-worked tea pickers. Tilly could hardly have stood against the social pressure to send her children away. Only a forceful woman like Clarrie could ignore such convention and have her children educated in India.
‘And what about you, Libby?’ Sophie scrutinised her with large brown eyes. ‘What do you want?’
Libby had been agonising over this very question for days.
‘In the long term,’ she answered, ‘I know I have to go back to Newcastle. I don’t have a home here any more – and perhaps I can help Dad settle back into life in Britain. He’s going to find it so hard after a lifetime out here.’
‘I’m afraid he probably will. I’m almost as fond of your father as I am of Tilly,’ said Sophie, her look reflective. ‘After my own parents died, your father was the one who rescued me and sent me to my dear Aunt Amy in Edinburgh. He arranged for the Oxford to pay for my schooling – he couldn’t have been more caring.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Libby.
After a moment of silence, Sophie asked, ‘And in the short-term? What will you do?’
‘I want to celebrate Independence Day with you at Belgooree.’ Libby smiled. ‘But before that I really want to see Ghulam again in Calcutta.’
