Page 35 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
She dropped the burning bidi and ground it underfoot. He did the same. But as she moved around him, he caught her arm.
‘Yes, you were plucky,’ he said, ‘but I’d have to be blind not to see what a beautiful young woman you’ve become.’
She shivered at his touch and at the way he stood over her, looking into her eyes. She was sure she saw desire in his. Any moment now he was going to kiss her and her life as a woman would really begin. She had been yearning for this moment since the day she climbed out of his car at Belgooree, impatient to be grown-up, impatient to feel his lips on hers.
He swallowed hard and then dropped his hold, turning away.
‘Better get you back into the hall before MrsHogg sends out the cavalry to rescue you from the mad missionary.’ He ushered her forward.
Adela’s eyes stung as she held herself erect and walked purposefully back into the dance hall; she didn’t want him to see how much his rejection of her hurt. Her instincts had been wrong; his feelings for her were merely platonic. And if for a moment in the moonlight he had let himself think otherwise, she knew that Sam Jackman the missionary would quell such feelings. She was too young for him, and if ever he began to look for someone to marry, Adela, the would-be actress, would hardly be a suitable wife on an isolated mission. Besides, she wasn’t ready for marriage either; she wanted a lot more fun and experience of life before that. The world beyond school dazzled like the bright footlights of the stage, and she was impatient for it.
For the rest of the evening Adela threw herself into the dancing, accepting every invitation, even another waltz with Bracknall. She avoided Sam and wasn’t sure at what point he left the party.
‘He’s decided to travel back the night wi’ the moon being so bright,’ Boz explained. ‘Said tae thank you, but didn’t want to drag you away frae the dancing.’
Adela pretended not to care. There he was running away again, she thought in exasperation. Perhaps he just didn’t need the company of other people in the way she did. Sam was a puzzle. One minute he was open and friendly, the next impossible to fathom. She gave up trying to work out what it all meant and went back to dance a military two-step with Boz.
CHAPTER 6
The musical at the Gaiety was a huge success. For a week they played to a full house every night and for two matinees. Adela’s solo verse and tap dance in ‘Tea for Two’ got loud applause and wolf whistles from an overenthusiastic artillery captain, Jimmy Maitland, who spent his leave dating her. She accepted two invitations from him to tea dances at the Cecil Hotel and a picnic at the racetrack in Annandale, which was cut short by a thunderstorm.
Between her job at the Forest Office and theatre performances, she had little time for socialising, but squeezed in what she could. Forewarned by Sam and Boz about the predatory Bracknall, she made sure she was never left alone with him. Employed to help the junior officers sort dak in the post room, she soon took it upon herself to bring order to the chaos in the godowns, piled high with ancient camping equipment and abandoned kit left behind by former forest officers transferred to other areas.
‘Throw it out,’ Bracknall said without interest. ‘Some of it’s been here since the twenties– they won’t be coming back for it now.’
Adela lost no time in passing on some ancient hats and tennis racquets to the theatre props department; the men’s clothes and a couple of mildewed tents she had taken round to Fatima for her hill clinics.
‘I’m sorry that I don’t have time to help out at the moment,’ Adela said, tracking her down at the hospital.
Fatima smiled. ‘I quite understand, and these are very useful. Thank you so much, kind girl.’
‘Have you seen anything of Sam Jackman?’ Adela couldn’t resist asking.
‘Yes, when I was in Narkanda two weeks ago. He was very busy picking plums.’ Fatima’s look was enquiring. ‘Do you have a message for him? I could take a letter the next time I’m at the clinic.’
‘No.’ Adela blushed. ‘Well, just tell him that it’s working out well at the Forest Office, so he has no need to worry.’
When Maitland, the amorous Scottish captain, left Simla, pleading with Adela to write to him often, she was then pursued by a district officer from Patna who was recuperating from a dose of malaria. He managed to string out his sick leave, taking her riding to the forest glades of Mashobra on her Sundays off, until she discovered from Prue that he was married with two sons, and so ended the liaison.
By this time Adela and Deborah were rehearsing for a Noël Coward play. Adela had won a good speaking part of a society flapper while Deborah was playing the housemaid, a role she was determined to ham up for all it was worth to make up for her lack of dialogue. Tommy Villiers, the leading man, a clerk in the Public Works Department and an enthusiastic amateur actor, took a shine to Adela, telling her, ‘Whenever you get sick of these chaps on leave, my girl, then Tommy is ready and waiting in the wings.’
She liked Tommy, with his curly brown hair and breezy good-natured banter. Thirteen years older than her, but still single, he was one of those British who, like her, had grown up in India. As an actor he was unflappable, rescuing a scene when others forgot their lines and calming nerves backstage. He never got embroiled in theatre rivalries or spats.
‘You can take me to the pictures to see the latest Cary Grant film,’ she said, grinning, ‘but it doesn’t mean we’re courting.’
‘Strictly professional,’ Tommy agreed, ‘to brush up on our acting skills.’
He had a good tenor voice and organised a singing trio with Adela and Prue, naming them The Simla Songsters and organising impromptu performances at parties.
Sometimes Tommy joined Adela on outings with Prue and Deborah; they had an ever-shifting circle of friends, depending on who was on leave or out in camp. Deborah had moved into Fluffy’s home as a paying guest for the summer rather than go back to stifling Rangoon in Burma, before completing one more year at StMary’s. To the girls’ disappointment, the desirable young forester Guy Fellows had spent most of the monsoon season trekking up the Hindustan-Tibet road with Boz, supervising tree felling in remote camps at Kalpa and Purbani. As the Himalayan snows melted, the sawn timbers were launched from precipitous mountainsides into the churning grey water of the thundering Sutlej River and thrust downstream.
Prue had been to two dances with Guy before he joined the forest camp and was deeply in love. They discussed it one afternoon in Fluffy’s tiny garden, with its view to the distant mountains wreathed in mist.
‘He won’t be back till the cold season now,’ Prue said and sighed, ‘and Mummy and I will be back in Jubbulpore by then.’
Adela gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
‘Talking of which,’ said Deborah with a wink, ‘has anyone else had any “Jubbulpore” recently? Adela, you’ve been to see a lot of films with Tommy.’
