Page 14 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’ She glanced at Sam and saw a look of pity in his kind hazel eyes.
‘Tell me, Mother!’
Clarrie clutched her stomach as she faced her. ‘Your grandfather Jock married your grandmother Jane Cooper from Shillong. She was the daughter of a British father and an Assamese mother. I spent my childhood being talked about in the cantonments and planters’ clubs as being four annas short of a rupee for having an Indian grandmother. I ignored their catty comments and I thought things were changing– but obviously they’re not. That’s why I’ve tried to shelter you from the cruelty of petty snobbery among some of the British here.’
Adela stared at her in bewilderment. ‘How can you have kept such a thing from me? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was for your own protection—’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Adela cried. ‘You were just too ashamed to tell me, weren’t you? I should have been told. You lied to me! I’m not like the others. Nina was right: I’m a two annas.’
Wesley pulled his daughter to him. ‘She isn’t ashamed,’ he insisted. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
Adela struggled out of his hold. ‘I hate you both! I can’t believe anything now. I bet you jilted Nina’s mother. You’re a blackguard just like she said!’
Wesley tried to grab her again. Sam leapt in front and seized his arm. ‘Don’t touch her!’
The two men struggled, knocking over a side table.
‘Stop it!’ Clarrie wailed. Suddenly she shrieked and doubled over.
Adela watched in horror as her mother crumpled to the floor. In an instant Wesley was at her side, holding her close.
‘Darling, are you all right?’ He kissed her hair and rubbed her back. ‘I’ll send MD for the doctor, shall I?’
‘The doctor?’ Adela gasped. ‘What’s wrong?’ At once she was full of fear that her mother was dying and she would lose her for ever. She couldn’t imagine life without either of her parents. ‘I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She threw her arms around Clarrie’s neck.
‘It’s not you, my darling,’ Clarrie groaned. ‘It’s the baby.’
Adela drew back.
‘What baby?’
‘The baby’s coming.’
Adela was stunned. Her mother was far too old to be having a baby, surely.
Her father gave her a sheepish look. ‘I thought you would have guessed.’ He turned to Sam. ‘Please help me get Clarissa to bed.’
Sam didn’t hesitate; he helped Clarrie to her feet and shouldered her weight.
Adela gulped. ‘I’ll go for MD,’ she said and fled from the veranda, calling for the khansama.
DrHemmings in Shillong was out on a call; all Mohammed Din could do was to leave a message. So Adela’s old nurse, Ayah Mimi, was roused from her quarters in the garden and hobbled in as quickly as she could to help with the birth. She found Clarrie shrieking in pain while Wesley paced and shouted orders, his fear infecting Adela.
‘She’s not going to die, is she?’ Adela cried, hovering by the bedroom door.
‘She is going to have a baby,’ Ayah said, issuing instructions to Mohammed Din for hot water and clean cloths. Then the door to the bedroom was firmly closed. Adela could hear Ayah giving encouragement while her father,insisting on being present, blasphemed and pleaded and cried endearments.
Sam came back from telephoning the school to find her weeping in a chair, big Mohammed Din trying to calm her with soft words and tea.
‘I feel so terrible,’ Adela sobbed. ‘It’s all my fault for saying those things. If M-Mother dies, I won’t ever forgive myself.’
Sam put an arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘It’s not your fault. Women don’t go into labour because of something that’s said– it’s just that it’s time for the baby to come.’
She looked into his face, her eyes swollen from crying.
‘But my father will blame me. He hates me now. I think he might have slapped me if you hadn’t s-stopped him. Daddy has never ever smacked me before.’
