Page 89 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
Sam told her about the clinics and how hard Adela had worked, her manner always cheerful. He talked of her interest in the Gaddi nomads and how she had taken Fatima to meet them and give them medicines, how the women had taken her to their hearts. Clarrie listened with rapt attention.
It was a side of her daughter she had never really seen. She knew Adela could be fearless– reckless even– but usually it was in pursuit of enjoyment and self-interest. She had watched her daughter grow up into a beautiful pleasure seeker and worried that she and Wesley had indulged her too much. But Sam had let her glimpse another side of Adela, one that put others first and was brave in helping those at the margins of society. Clarrie had suspected that her daughter had only volunteered to help at the clinics in order to see Sam, yet Adela had proved herself courageous and compassionate.
Clarrie’s throat tightened with emotion to think how she had judged her daughter too harshly over Wesley’s death. Now she was thousands of miles away and far from her arms. She hadn’t even been able to bring herself to give her daughter a departing hug, pushing her instead towards Rafi’s car and telling her to hurry. It was kind Sophie who had put her arm about the unhappy girl and steered her into the front seat beside Rafi.
Just as she was struggling with her thoughts, Harry crept in from the garden. He didn’t clatter around any more or jump around the furniture pretending to be a maharajah, so that often he startled her with his sudden appearance.
‘Hello, you must be Harry.’ Sam grinned and leapt from his chair, hunkering down in front of the boy by the veranda steps. ‘Adela’s told me all about you.’
Harry gazed at him with cautious dark eyes. ‘Is Delly with you?’
‘No, but she told me you like green sweets, so I’ve brought you this.’ Sam pulled a slab of pistachio-flavoured fudge from his pocket. ‘It’s gone a bit soft in the heat, but it tastes just as good.’
Harry glanced at his mother to see if he was allowed to take this from the stranger. She nodded with a smile.
‘This is Adela’s friend Sam. You can have a bit now, then save the rest for after supper.’
Harry unwrapped it and rammed the end of the bar into his mouth. Joy spread across his solemn face. He sidled closer to Sam, leant on his arm and whispered, ‘My Daddy died ’cause a tiger ate him. And Delly’s gone away to a new castle. Now it’s just me and Mummy and sometimes Uncle James. Would you like to stay and be my friend too, Sam?’
Sam ruffled the boy’s hair– Clarrie’s heart squeezed to see the fond gesture that Wesley had so often used– and said he would be happy to be his friend, but that he couldn’t stay because he had work to do.
‘I’ll come back and see you another time,’ Sam promised.
‘And bring me sweets?’ Harry asked.
‘Of course.’ Sam winked.
As Sam stood to go, Clarrie put her hand out and gripped his arm.
‘Thank you, Sam. You’re a good man. I can’t tell you how much your visit means to me, and I’m sorry Adela wasn’t here too. I know she would have wanted to see you.’
He gave a smile of regret. ‘I don’t deserve your praise, MrsRobson. “Good” is not a word that usually goes together with “Jackman”. But thanks.’
‘Will you go back to Sarahan?’ she asked.
Sam nodded.
‘To your native wife?’ James asked, his tone distasteful.
Sam answered with a defiant look. ‘Yes, to Pema.’
He enjoyed the scandalised look on the tea planter’s rugged face. Sam shook Clarrie’s hand, nodded to James and jammed on his green hat. He put out a hand to Harry.
‘Do you want a ride in my car down the drive?’
The boy brightened. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Come on then. You can toot the horn for me.’
Clarrie watched him swing the boy down the steps and into the Ford.
‘I’ll go with them,’ James said, his look grim.
Clarrie watched them go. She knew James disapproved of the maverick young missionary– ex-missionary– but she found him endearing. It didn’t shock her that Sam had taken the Gaddi girl as his wife, but she knew how much the news would upset Adela that Sam remained with Pema. Yet she felt grateful to Sam; he had given her a new way of seeing Adela and a way back to loving her daughter again. For a while she had so resented her, part blamed her for the tragedy. The sight of Adela’s green eyes– so distressingly like Wesley’s– staring at her full of misery and guilt had been more than she could bear. She had felt only relief when Rafi had driven away, taking Adela out of sight. But now she knew how unfair that had been. When Adela came back in the autumn, Clarrie would make it up to her. They would be a proper family again.
James was returning with a bawling Harry. Clarrie sighed. She knew Tilly’s husband was doing his best to be of help, and she guessed all his fussing was masking his own unhappiness at his wife’s departure with his youngest son, on whom he doted,but she was going to have to be firm and send him away. She would not become a crutch for him while Tilly was absent. Clarrie wanted above all to be left alone to grieve for Wesley in her own way.
CHAPTER 16
