Page 85 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
It was the night the monsoon had started in earnest, rain battering the corrugated-iron roof like a thunder of kettledrums. Adela lay howling with the covers thrown off, glad of the noise that drowned out her noisy grief. Halfway through the night, wide awake, she went to the window in her nightdress and opened the shutters. Within seconds she was soaked through, her hair like wet ropes about her shoulders, the cotton nightdress stuck to her body like a watery shroud. She invoked the gods of the monsoon to come and take her, to strike her down with a lightning bolt.
‘Why take my dad when you should have taken me?’
Three days later she was in bed with a fever, alternately shivering with cold and burning with heat. Her mother sent for DrHemmings.
‘It’s her own fault for standing out in the rain,’ Clarrie said fractiously. ‘As if I haven’t got enough to worry about.’
DrHemmings prescribed tablets for Adela’s headaches and an embrocation for her sore shoulder, which was still swollen from her fall from the elephant.
‘Get MD to give her hot sweet tea and plenty of infusions to sweat out the fever.’
Ayah Mimi came in to nurse her. A week later Adela was up and about again, wobbly on her feet but calmer. The old ayah’s tender care had been like a balm to her bruised heart, and she saw more clearly how hard her mother was struggling to keep the plantation and household going. It was no wonder she had no energy left to console her guilt-ridden daughter.
‘What can I do to help, Mother?’ Adela asked.
‘Be kind to your brother,’ Clarrie replied.
After that, Adela did her best to be more patient with Harry, taking him on the front of her pony for rides and down to the thundering waterfalls and swollen river pools to watch the villagers hauling in fish in their nets.
‘What are we going to do, Mother?’ Adela asked one evening after Harry had been put to bed. ‘Are we still going to visit Aunt Olive in July?’
‘You must go,’ her mother said, ‘but I can’t– not now.’
‘I’m not leaving you here on your own,’ Adela protested.
‘I won’t be on my own. Harry will keep me company, and I have all our friends and helpers around me here.’
Adela swallowed. ‘But it’s you that Aunt Olive wants to see. I could stay here and look after things for you.’
Clarrie gave a soft snort. ‘Running Belgooree is about more than riding around the gardens and drinking first flush.’
Adela winced. ‘I know that but—’
‘I appreciate you offering, darling, really I do. But I’ve decided I’m going to stay and make a go of things. My life is here, and it’s all I want to do. I’ve written to Uncle James and Tilly. James has kindly agreed to help out when I need it– with negotiating prices and dealing with the Calcutta agents– and he’ll come over once a month to make sure I haven’t taken to the bottle.’ Clarrie gave a wry smile.
‘So it’s all arranged?’ Adela was astounded.
‘Yes, as much as it can be.’
‘But you’ve never asked me what I want to do.’
Clarrie avoided her look. ‘No, I haven’t. I suppose I assumed you would still want to go to England. I don’t want you to feel tied to this place, and I know it can never be the same now without your father. You do want to visit Aunt Olive, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so. But not without you.’
‘Well, I can’t go just now. You must see that.’ Clarrie finally met her look. ‘I want you to go. I think meeting the rest of your family will be good for you.’
Adela swallowed. ‘So you don’t want me here?’
Her mother didn’t answer directly. ‘I’ve suggested to Sophie that she might like to take my passage instead. I know she would love to see Scotland again, and you would like her companionship, wouldn’t you? I know how close the two of you are.’
Adela’s spirits lifted a fraction. ‘Yes, I would like that– but only if you really can’t come.’
‘That’s settled then,’ Clarrie said with a look of relief. ‘I expect a reply back from her any day.’
By the second week in July it was all arranged. Clarrie’s ticket had been transferred into Sophie’s name, and in two days’ time Rafi would come and collect Adela and drive them both to the railway station at Gawhatty, where they would meet up with Tilly and Mungo at the start of the long journey to Britain.
On the final afternoon Adela had planned a ride to the waterfall and a picnic, but Clarrie was delayed at the factory, so Adela ended up knocking a tennis ball about with Harry until it was too late for the trip. They ate late. Adela wanted to sit up talking to her mother, but Clarrie resisted.
