Page 26 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
A week after returning from Simla, Mohammed Din hurried into the sitting room, where the family were struggling to listen to music on the gramophone over Harry’s squalling.
‘I think our little tiger is hungry again,’ Clarrie said, plucking him from the cradle.
‘Sahib,’ interrupted Mohammed Din breathlessly, holding out a silver tray, ‘thechaprassyhas been. There is a letter from Simla for Adela Missahib.’
Adela sprang out of her seat. ‘Thank you, MD.’ She grabbed at the letter and tore it open.
The khansama stood waiting as tensely as Adela’s parents. Clarrie bounced a fretful Harry in her arms. Adela felt sick as she unfolded the single page with the StMary’s College crest embossed in blue at the top. She stared hard.
Adela looked up. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, and then gulped.
‘Well?’ Wesley demanded. ‘Put us out of our misery. Are you in or not?’
A huge grin spread across her face. ‘Yes–yes– I’m in! I’m to start after half-term in March.’
‘Oh, my darling, well done!’ Clarrie cried above the noise of the baby.
Wesley jumped out of his seat and hugged her. ‘My clever girl! Let me see.’ He took the letter and read it. ‘By Jove, Clarissa, they say they’re looking forward to having her.’
‘Of course they are,’ Clarrie said, beaming, ‘and they’ll be lucky to have her. Oh, come and give me a hug!’
Adela went to her mother; it was an awkward hug with Harry in the middle. Within a couple of minutes Mohammed Din had returned with celebratory glasses of nimbu pani– Adela’s favourite lemon drink– and ginger biscuits. He smiled and congratulated her too.
‘Thank you, MD. I’ll miss you all, but I’m so excited about going.’
As the khansama handed round the drinks, Wesley gave a toast.
‘Although we don’t want you to leave us, Adela, your mother and I would rather have you a three-day train ride away in the Punjab than a three-week sea voyage away in England.’ He smiled. ‘No running away this time though,’ he warned. ‘Your mother and I won’t have you back a second time– you’ll just have to join the circus.’
‘Oh, Wesley!’ Clarrie chided. ‘Congratulations, dearest Adela.’ She smiled and raised a glass in one hand while clutching her son with the other. ‘You will always have a home here with us.’ Clarrie kissed the baby’s head. ‘Won’t she, Harry?’
Adela noticed the adoring look on her mother’s face as she spoke to the baby. Clarrie put down the drink. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to go and feed him.’
‘Little monster,’ said Wesley, but his expression was one of pride.
With a stab of envy, Adela watched her mother disappear to the bedroom, humming a tune to pacify Harry. She knew her parents would not miss her half as much now that they had Harry. It would never again be just the three of them, always four. Perhaps that was part of the reason why she was looking forward so much to a future in Simla. But what excited her the most was that she was being offered a fresh start in a school far away from her tormentors at StNinian’s, with countless possibilities to act on a real stage. Adela could not wait.
StMary’s College, Simla
June, 1935
Dear Cousin Jane
Thank you for the lovely homemade birthday card with fifteen cats on it! Airmail takes just over a week to get here now, so it arrived in plenty of time. You are very artistic, and cats are one of my favourite animals. I know you are always busy in the café, so it’s kind of you to paint the picture in your spare time. I’m sorry to hear that Aunt Olive is bad with her nerves again. Just as well you have a good manageress in Lexy. I think Lexy’s idea of changing the name from Herbert’s Tea Rooms to Herbert’s Café is a good one– much more modern. I’m sorry to hear that her friend Jared Belhaven has died though. Wasn’t he some sort of cousin of ours?
Is Cousin George still courting the usherette at The Stoll? Uncle Jack must be doing really well if he’s taken over from MrMilner in the running of the Tyneside Tea Company. Well done, Uncle Jack! Is that why you’ve moved to a bigger house? Send me a photo or do a drawing of it when you can.
My best friend, Prue, has been exhibiting at the Simla Art Show this month and I’m in a production ofSaint Joannext week. We’re performing it in Davico’s Ballroom because it holds a much bigger audience than the school hall. I was hoping to be Saint Joan, but they gave the part to Deborah Halliday– I’m sure it was because she’s got blonde hair. But anyway I’m Brother Martin, a young priest who is kind to Joan at the end. At least I’ve got a part. Also I’m singing in the end-of-term concert. I’m so excited because Auntie Sophie and Uncle Rafi are coming to hear me. They’re visiting DrFatima (that’s Rafi’s sister), who works at the hospital and lives in a flat in Lakkar Bazaar so she can be near her work. She’s very beautiful for a doctor.
Sometimes I go and visit the sick with her and help make the patients cups of tea. MrsHogg (‘The Fluff’, as Prue calls her) thought it would be a good idea if I did some volunteering work, so I do that on Saturdays after classes. Sometimes Prue comes with me, and DrFatima says we are very useful, especially on the purdah wards, where the women can’t be seen by male doctors or any male staff at all. DrFatima also goes into the hills and takes her travelling clinic to very remote places. Maybe next year I might go too.
The town is filling up with visitors. The Delhi government lot have been here since the middle of April, but now there are army and civilian wives escaping the heat of the plains, and young single officers on leave– some of them very handsome! You wouldn’t believe the amount of flirting that goes on, and there are dinner dances and entertainment almost every night. I see the partygoers passing below the bungalow in rickshaws dressed up to the nines in satin and sequins (the men in white mess kit or tails) and they often wake me up on their return, laughing their heads off or singing. The lights of the rickshaw lamps bump up and down in the dark like fireflies as the rickshaw-wallahs pull their passengers up the slope. It looks so romantic. It makes me think of Sam Jackman. I still wonder a lot about what happened to him. Perhaps Auntie Sophie will have news of him.
I can’t wait till I’m allowed to go to parties– real grown-up ones– where I’ll have a dance card filled with the names of young men dying to dance with me! Aunt Fluffy says I have to wait till I’m seventeen. Although she does hold dinner parties that I’m allowed to be at, the guests are usually pretty old and talk a lot of politics, but she often has Indians to dinner, like DrFatima, who isn’t in purdah, or Indian Army officers that Colonel Hogg used to know. There’s a really jolly Sikh officer called Sundar Singh who used to be with Rafi in the Lahore Horse. He’s here on some survey. He’s had a sad life, as his wife died in childbirth, and he doesn’t get to see his son much as he’s being brought up by Sundar’s sister near Pindi, but he’s full of fun and always telling jokes and I think he’s a bit smitten with DrFatima– though I don’t think Sikhs are allowed to marry Moslems, which is a bit of a pity, as he makes her laugh, which is quite hard work because she is a serious sort.
I’m allowed to go to the pictures. Last week Sundar took Aunt Fluffy, DrFatima and me to seeThe Merry Widow. It was wonderful and I’ve been pretending I’m a Maxime’s dancer and practising steps ever since. Aunt Fluffy complains that I make more noise upstairs than the monkeys on the roof!
Write to me soon and tell me how you are. Give my love to Aunt Olive and I hope she cheers up soon.
