Page 22 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
With a squeal the boy ran over and took her outstretched hand. Adela wondered if she had said something wrong. She was enjoying having a grown-up conversation with her sophisticated aunt, but perhaps it was the mention of babies that she didn’t like. Her mother had said it was upsetting for Sophie and Rafi to be childless.
‘You’re right,’ said Adela as they swung Mungo between them up the path, ‘I should go somewhere else. And it’s not been the same at home since I ran away from StNinian’s. There was a terrible row with my parents. Did they tell you about it?’
‘Clarrie said there was bullying at the school and some unkind things said about the family.’
‘Which turned out to be true,’ Adela said with bitterness.
Sophie stopped. ‘Mungo, you run ahead and tell Uncle Rafi to put the music on.’ When the boy was out of earshot, Sophie scrutinised Adela. ‘Tell me what was said.’
‘That Dad left someone standing at the altar– the mother of the girl who was bullying me. And that I was a two annas because my mother was a half-caste. Did you know that about us?’
Sophie’s attractive, broad features creased in a frown. ‘You shouldn’t use language like that– they’re the words of a bigot and you perpetuate their prejudice by repeating them, Adela.’
Adela’s eyes smarted at the reproof. Sophie’s expression softened.
‘Yes, I knew your mother was Anglo-Indian– Tilly told me– but there’s no shame in that. Clarrie is the most amazing person. Tilly and I wish we could be more like her. You should be proud to have such a mother.’
‘That’s what Sam said.’ Adela gave a bashful look.
‘Sam Jackman?’
Adela nodded. ‘Yes, I forced him to help me escape school and then landed him in the middle of a family fight. Got him into trouble with StNinian’s too. He was so kind to me, but ever since then his life seems to have gone wrong. Do you think I’m to blame in some way?’
Sophie took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. ‘Stop being so dramatic. You are not to blame for Sam Jackman getting drunk and losing his boat. If you ask me, it sounds like he was looking for an excuse to get rid of it– he wouldn’t have given it up so easily if he’d wanted to stay a river captain, would he?’
‘Do you think so?’ Adela brightened.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then where do you think he’s gone?’
Sophie gave her a quizzical look. ‘Do I detect that there’s more than just passing interest in the young captain?’
Adela blushed and grinned. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Sophie put an arm about her. ‘Well, I’ll get Auntie Tilly to find out– she’s better than the telegraph system for picking up gossip.’
Back at the bungalow, Rafi wound up the old gramophone, and Mungo screamed with excitement throughout musical bumps. They followed this with blind man’s buff, hunt the slipper and hide and seek, while Mungo’s father snored under a newspaper and his mother fussed over a fretful baby Harry.
‘He’s teething,’ Tilly declared, plonking him into his pram. She and Clarrie bumped him down the path as far as the factory and back, with Ayah Mimi in attendance.
Tea was served, and later there was a supper of eggs, smoked trout and Clarrie’s ginger pudding (a Belgooree speciality), and then the friends sat up late sipping port, whisky and more tea as a huge moon lit up the plantation and the trees rustled with night creatures.
The following day there was a fishing trip to Um Shirpi, where the men fished, Sophie and Adela swam in the chilly river pools, and Clarrie and Tilly chatted and read books. A picnic was served in the early afternoon and they returned to the bungalow for a leisurely supper.
All week the friends went on expeditions: riding, shooting blackbuck and woodcock, walking the hill paths or just lazing on the veranda, talking. To everyone’s surprise James did not hurry away to join the other tea planters at the club for the seasonal races and polo matches. He seemed just as happy as Tilly to socialise with the Robsons and Khans and drink his way through Wesley’s cellar. With Clarrie’s encouragement, Wesley curbed his envy of his cousin’s success at the Oxford Tea Estates and sought his opinion on the Belgooree gardens. Together they inspected the pruning of tea bushes and the maintenance of the machinery that Wesley had introduced to the factory a decade ago.
‘It’s a relief to find someone who will talk tea with James,’ Tilly said to her female friends. ‘I drive him mad because I get so absorbed in doing my stamps that I don’t listen to what he’s saying half the time. This holiday is doing both of us the world of good. Thank you so much, Clarrie, for inviting us– we get so sick of our own company. But that’s the same for all couples, isn’t it?’
Sophie gave a wry smile. ‘It’s the opposite for us. Rafi is so busy running after the Raja and his family that I don’t see enough of him. It’s wonderful having him around to talk to at last.’
‘Well, maybe it’s different for you and Rafi.’ Tilly sighed. ‘But tea planters’ wives live in such isolation, don’t we, Clarrie?’
‘We do,’ Clarrie agreed.
‘If we didn’t have our children,’ said Tilly, ‘we’d go quite mad. I don’t know what I’ll do when Mungo has to go back home to school. It was hell leaving Libby at Easter. Oh sorry, Sophie. I don’t mean to keep going on about the children—’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ Sophie assured. ‘It would be worse if you felt you couldn’t talk about your children in front of me. And anyway I adore all your kids– especially that girl over there.’ She turned to Adela and winked.
