Page 4 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘No, you shouldn’t have. It’s not a tradition– just something Nina made up. We usually just make apple-pie beds and lock the new girls in the laundry room and pretend it’s haunted.’
‘It doesn’t matter– any tradition will do,’ Flowers said, shaking her head. ‘I just want to fit in here.’
‘There isn’t a part for you,’ Nina said callously. ‘It’s all about Queen Elizabeth the first and Mary, Queen of Scots. I’m Queen Bess and Margie’s going to be Queen Mary. We’ve already decided.’
Adela looked up at them, stunned. They were standing over her desk, where she was struggling with equations, her jotter a patchwork of holes where she’d rubbed out her miscalculations. Everyone else had finished their prep and gone to the common room. Margie glanced away; even she looked sheepish.
‘That’s not fair!’ Adela protested. ‘You can’t just choose the best parts– it has to go to a vote.’
‘We’ve voted. After the hockey match. You weren’t there.’
‘I didn’t know—’
‘Well, now you do.’
Adela was suddenly filled with rage at the injustice. She leapt up and grabbed Nina as she tried to walk away.
‘Why are you being so mean?’ she cried.
Nina went rigid, as if her touch was contagious. ‘Get off me, or I’ll scream for help.’
Adela let go. ‘Just tell me! Why can’t we all be friends?’
Nina’s face puckered into a look of disgust. ‘You’re not like us; you never will be. You pretend to be British but you’re not.’
‘Of course I’m British. Just because I was born in India doesn’t make me Indian.’
Nina gave a malicious little smile. ‘You don’t know, do you, Tea Leaf? I can’t believe no one’s told you.’
‘Told me what?’ Adela’s stomach knotted. The glint in Nina’s pale blue eyes was frightening.
‘You’re two annas short of a rupee– ask your mother.’ She leant forward and hissed, ‘And your father is a blackguard who jilted my mother at the altar, so I’ll nevereverbe friends with you!’
With a toss of blonde ponytail, Nina turned her back on Adela. ‘Come on, Margie, we’ve got a rehearsal.’
Adela, shaking with shock, watched them march from the room.
That night Adela lay awake, tormented by Nina’s hurtful words. What did she mean by them? Two annas short of a rupee was an insult thrown at Eurasians– or Anglo-Indians, as mixed-race families, such as Flowers’, now called themselves– but she, Adela, had no Indian blood. The Robsons were British through and through, and her mother was the daughter of Jock Belhaven, English soldier turned tea planter. What incensed her even more, though, was the slur on her father’s character; he would never jilt anyone at the altar and he had only ever loved her mother. Auntie Tilly in Assam said it was well known among the tea planters how Wesley Robson adored his Clarissa and had even given up his career at the prestigious Oxford Tea Estates to run the remote tea garden in the Khassia Hills just to please the beautiful Clarrie Belhaven.
The next day, tired out and short-tempered from lack of sleep, Adela confronted Margie in the washroom.
‘You don’t believe all this nonsense about my parents, do you? You’ve met them, Margie. You’ve always said how much you like them.’
Her former friend looked uneasy. ‘I shouldn’t be speaking to you.’
‘Margie! Just tell me you don’t believe Nina.’
Margie gave her a cool look. ‘I do believe Nina.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause I’ve heard MrsDavidge say as much. She tells Nina everything.’
‘What did she say?’ Adela blocked her way. ‘Tell me. I have a right to know.’
‘Very well,’ Margie said. ‘Don’t say you didn’t ask for it. MrsDavidge said she was engaged to your father, but he left her in the lurch and went off with a box-wallah’s half-caste daughter who’d been married before.’
‘Box-wallah’s half-caste ...?’ Adela felt winded.
