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.
‘Oh, we all want to adopt that one.’ Tilly smiled.
Her mother beckoned her over. ‘Come here, Adela, and let’s talk about your future before the men come back. Your aunties and I have been putting our heads together.’
Adela gave a dramatic sigh as she perched on Clarrie’s chair arm. But secretly she was pleased to be the focus of their attention.
Clarrie was firm. ‘You’re too young to leave school yet, so you’re going to have to finish your education somewhere. Auntie Tilly and Auntie Sophie think you should have a choice.’
Adela eyed them with interest.
Tilly spoke first. ‘If you wanted to go to school in England – Newcastle, for example – you could live with your aunt Olive. I know you’re very friendly with your cousin Jane, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, we’re penfriends,’ Adela said, her excitement igniting.
‘Then you’d have a ready-made friend,’ said Tilly, beaming, ‘and you could go to my sister in Dunbar for holidays – meet up with my Jamie and Libby too. It would be lovely to think of you all getting together.’
‘Are there theatres in Newcastle?’
‘Of course.’ Tilly laughed.
Adela looked at Clarrie. ‘What do you think, Mother?’
‘It would be a very different life for you there,’ Clarrie said, her eyes glistening, ‘but if you wanted to go, your father and I would try and arrange it. I made a mistake over St Ninian’s. So wherever it is, I want you to be happy.’
‘And you, Auntie Sophie?’ Adela asked.
‘I have a different suggestion – well, it’s Rafi’s really.’ Sophie shook back her wavy blonde hair. ‘We think you should go and look at St Mary’s College in Simla – they are very keen on drama and the arts. It’s a daughter school of the main college in Lahore, where Rafi’s sister Fatima went. They take girls from all backgrounds.’
‘Simla?’ Adela gasped. ‘I’d love that.’
‘Your mother has certain reservations,’ said Sophie.
‘Is it too expensive?’ Adela’s face fell. From her mother’s startled look, she knew she had guessed correctly.
‘Rafi and I would be only too happy to help with fees,’ Sophie offered.
Clarrie held up her hands. ‘Wesley wouldn’t hear of it.’ She saw Adela’s disappointment. ‘But if you set your heart on going there, we would manage somehow. Perhaps you could live in the town more cheaply as a paying guest. I wish we knew people in Simla.’
‘You do,’ said Sophie. ‘Mrs Hogg – that colonel’s wife – is retired there.’
‘Is she?’ Clarrie remarked. ‘I thought she was in Dalhousie.’
‘She moved to Simla three years ago to be near friends after the Colonel died. We still exchange Christmas cards.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know she’d been widowed, poor woman.’
‘Do you mean Fluffy Hogg, who sailed to India with us in ’22?’ Tilly exclaimed. ‘I was terrified of her.’
Sophie laughed. ‘It’s true she won’t stand for any nonsense, but she’s not the least bit stuffy. She was very kind to me when I first came back to India – in fact, she was the only person in Dalhousie who would speak to me when things got difficult between me and Tam.’
Adela noticed glances pass between the women, but no one elaborated; they obviously didn’t want to talk about Sophie’s past in front of her.
Sophie smiled. ‘Anyway, she’d be an excellent chaperone.’
‘Yes, she would.’ Clarrie brightened. ‘And that would stop Wesley fretting about Adela too much.’
‘She sounds like a bit of a battleaxe.’ Adela was unsure.
‘Forthright, yes,’ her mother conceded, ‘but she’s one of those rare army wives who really loves and understands India. I liked her a lot when I met her on the ship over.’
Sophie winked at Adela. ‘I’m sure she’d love the company of a bright young lassie like you.’ She added, ‘Clarrie, I’d be happy to put you in touch with her.’
‘Thank you,’ Clarrie said, smiling in relief, ‘I’ll see what Wesley thinks of the idea.’
But Adela was fairly certain that whatever her father thought, her mother had already made up her mind. If they could afford it, she would be going to St Mary’s in the famous hill station.
With Rafi’s endorsement and the women’s enthusiasm for the idea, Wesley was easily persuaded that the Simla school was a good place for his daughter. Even James was approving. Letters were sent to the school principal and to Fluffy Hogg. Adela’s aunts and uncles left with hugs and words of encouragement. Back came an invitation from the school to Adela to be interviewed and sit an entrance exam. Mrs Hogg wrote return of post that she remembered Adela as an engaging child on the boat to India and would be happy to offer her a room in her small bungalow should she be accepted. The principal, Miss Mackenzie, was a friend of hers.
In late January, Wesley and Adela set out for Simla. The mohurer, Daleep, drove them to Gowhatty, where they began the long train journey via Calcutta, Patna, Lucknow and Delhi to the station at Kalka, where the mainline ended.
Adela spent hours gazing out of train windows, drinking in the sights of the North Indian plains: villages of mud huts shaded by banyan trees; boys herding cattle; women in bright saris washing clothes by rivers; hayricks as tall as houses; and the smoke from fires adding to the haze of an orange dusk. Arriving at Kalka on the third day, they transferred to the narrow-gauge railway and a small train pulled by a red-and-black steam engine that wound up into the Himalayan foothills. As they rattled through long tunnels and swept round precipitous bends, Adela’s excitement mounted.
‘There’s Simla,’ a fellow traveller pointed out as they rounded a curve and saw a spread of houses clinging to the steeply wooded hillside and a vast palace of turrets and towers rising above the treeline.
‘What is that?’ Adela gasped.
‘Viceregal Lodge of course,’ the official replied, ‘though it’s empty until the Viceroy comes up from Delhi at the end of the cold season.’
Then tantalisingly, the town disappeared as the railway line looped around another spur.
Some clerks in the carriage disembarked at Summer Hill station, which was the stop nearest to Viceregal Lodge; a few minutes later the train was pulling into Simla station, and porters were rushing to help passengers with their luggage. Wesley hired a rickshaw that pulled them through the town and along the Mall, lined with an eccentric hotchpotch of buildings, ranging in style from mock Tudor to Swiss cottage and Gothic Victorian. Adela squealed in delight as they passed the solid stone frontage of the Gaiety Theatre.
‘I wonder what’s showing? Can we go there later?’
‘Let’s get settled in first,’ Wesley answered.
He had booked them into Clarkes Hotel, beyond the Mall, with a dizzying view into the valley below. Adela was eager to explore the town and stretch cramped legs after sitting in trains for so long. As the short winter afternoon waned, they walked past a series of shops to the imposing Christ Church on The Ridge, at the top of the Mall, and then up Jakko Hill. Adela breathed in the scent of woodsmoke, thrilling at the sight of mellow sunligh
t glinting off windows and turning them golden. There were still banks of snow and icy patches on the north-facing paths, and out of the sun the cold air stung their faces. Reaching the temple to Hanuman at the top, they were greeted by the screech of monkeys swinging through the trees and leaping across the temple roofs.
In the fading smoky light, they could just make out the dark backdrop of mountains stretching off to the north and east. Lights were already being lit between the trees, betraying where bungalows nestled among the woods of pine and deodar.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Adela gasped. ‘Oh, Daddy, I really want to come here!’
He gave her a wistful look and then smiled. ‘Well, you better put on a good performance for the principal tomorrow, eh?’
Adela hardly slept. She was up early, washed, dressed and with her hair neatly tied back long before a breakfast of porridge and eggs, which she could hardly swallow.
The college lay on a hill spur to the north of the town, past the Lakkar Bazaar and along a ridge among some of the oldest buildings in Simla, including the original home of the viceroys before the vast baronial palace, Viceregal Lodge, was built at the other end of the town. St Mary’s was a rambling two-storey wooden building with covered-over verandas, surrounded by narrow strips of lawn and tennis courts that appeared to cling on to the cliff edge.
An older girl with short brown hair came stepping towards them with the poise of a ballerina and swept them inside, introducing herself as ‘Prudence Knight – but call me Prue.’
The principal was a middle-aged woman with a jowly face and a jovial smile. She bundled Adela off with Prue to look around the school while she gave Wesley coffee in her study.
Prue winked at Adela. ‘It’s so she can interview your father and make sure he understands the ethos of this place.’
‘Which is?’
‘Each girl is special and must be allowed to develop in her own unique way,’ spouted Prue. ‘The brainy ones get pushed to university standard, and the artistic ones can spend as much time in the art room or on stage as they like. I love painting and I’m allowed to go along to the Simla Art Club every week too.’
‘I love acting. Will I be allowed to join the amateur dramatics in Simla, do you think?’
‘Very likely.’ Prue was enthusiastic.
Adela clapped her hands with excitement. ‘I really hope I get in.’
‘Do you sing?’ asked Prue. Adela nodded. ‘Well, Miss Mackenzie loves Gilbert and Sullivan, so give her something of theirs as your party piece.’
Adela tried to concentrate on the entrance exam, but she couldn’t think of anything interesting to write about the topic of ‘My Family’, and the maths questions completely baffled her. All she could think about was how, if she came here, she could start again where nobody knew about her parentage, reinvent herself as thoroughly British Adela Robson, who was destined to become a film star. The last thing she wanted to do was to write about her family, her quarter-Indian mother or her dark-haired baby brother. It made her guilty to think how often she scrutinised Harry to see if he betrayed their Anglo-Indian blood. In panic, Adela ended up scrawling something about her tiger cub, Molly, and how an Indian prince had threatened to skin it. In place of equations she wrote out a list of tea pickings and leaf varieties just to fill up the page.
The look of dismay on the face of the teacher overseeing her exam made Adela want to burst into tears. Her chances of being accepted appeared to be dwindling as fast as the dew on the school lawn. When she was summoned into Miss Mackenzie’s study, Adela decided to be bold. Better to make an impression than not to be remembered at all was her motto.
Ignoring the chair she was offered next to her father, Adela marched right up to the principal’s desk, bowed and burst into a rendition of ‘Three Little Maids from School’ from The Mikado.
Miss Mackenzie gaped in amazement. When Adela finished, she glanced at her father, who obviously thought she had taken leave of her senses. Then behind her, in the doorway, Prue began clapping enthusiastically.
‘Well, goodness me,’ said the principal, ‘I wasn’t expecting that. But what a sweet voice you have, Miss Robson. You can sit down now. Prue, I imagine this was your idea of a bit of fun. You may go, thank you.’
Adela glanced round at the retreating girl, who winked at her as she went. Had she been duped into making a fool of herself? Adela was too anxious to sit.
‘I know you didn’t ask me to sing, miss, but I made such a mess of my exam paper and Prue said you liked Gilbert and Sullivan so I just wanted you to know I can sing and I really, really want to come here and it’s just the sort of school where I know I’d be happy ’cause Prue says if you like drama you can do as much as you want and I only ran away from St Ninian’s because they wouldn’t let me act and I got into trouble for standing up for Flowers Dunlop, but I would never run away from here—’
‘Adela!’ Wesley hissed. ‘For heaven’s sake, sit down and be quiet for once.’
Adela flopped into the seat next to him. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘Don’t be.’ Miss Mackenzie smiled. ‘Your entry was unorthodox, but entertaining. I think Prudence might have raised your expectations of St Mary’s somewhat. We do encourage creative subjects, but every girl who comes here must achieve a good level of academic achievement too. I’m sorry you were unhappy at St Ninian’s; it is a well-run school and I am a personal friend of Miss Black’s.’
Adela’s hopes plummeted. For the rest of the interview she tried to answer the principal’s questions, but her replies were faltering and short. Her stomach churned and her eyes smarted with tears. They left shortly afterwards, with Miss Mackenzie promising a swift decision. Trudging back past the well-stocked furniture stalls of the Lakkar Bazaar, Adela turned to her father and demanded tearfully, ‘Do you think Prue told me to sing to get me into trouble?’
‘Why would she do that?’ Wesley asked.
‘Perhaps she’s another school bully, like Nina Davidge.’
‘She didn’t seem like that to me,’ her father said, ‘and even if she is, you can’t spend your life avoiding people like that. You have to stand up to them.’
Wesley steered her back into town and declared they would treat themselves to afternoon tea at the Cecil Hotel and whatever was showing that evening at the Gaiety Theatre.
Adela revived as they ate cake and drank Darjeeling in the ornate and lofty dining hall while a string quartet played Strauss waltzes and foxtrots for those who wanted to dance.
‘Your mother would love this,’ Wesley smiled.
‘Come on, Daddy. Show me how it’s done.’
As Wesley swept her around the dance floor, Adela had never felt so grown-up. She noticed the interested glances from older women at her handsome father and felt proud of him.
Later in the theatre, they sat in the plush green seats of the stalls in front of the viceroy’s box and laughed at the antics of the amateur players, who were still doing the pantomime Cinderella. Adela determined that, even if she didn’t get into St Mary’s, she would one day return and perform on the Gaiety stage.
The next day, before leaving for Kalka and the long journey home, they called on Fluffy Hogg at her small bungalow, Briar Rose Cottage, on Jakko Hill. Although almost seventy and of solid build, Fluffy was fit and red-cheeked from constant walking, and her manner was breezy and welcoming. They sat drinking tea on her narrow veranda with a view north to the snow-capped Himalayas. The early-morning sun struck their peaks, turning them rapidly from rose pink to glistening white.
‘Don’t worry about the exam,’ the colonel’s widow consoled. ‘If Lilian Mackenzie thinks you are right for her school, then she will take you even if you wrote gibberish.’
Before they left, she showed Adela the simple bedroom that would be hers if she was successful. It was painted pale green, with a moss-green bedspread and faded curtains patterned in roses. There was a small writing table, an upholstered chair and a dark chest of drawers with an oval mirror a
bove. Hanging on the wall next to a brightly painted Tibetan scroll was a photograph of a young woman in a long riding habit, sitting side-saddle on a pony.
‘Me in Quetta,’ said Fluffy.
‘You’re beautiful,’ Adela cried.
Fluffy chuckled. ‘All girls are at that age.’
Suddenly there was a loud clatter across the corrugated-iron roof that made Adela jump.
‘Simla monkeys,’ Fluffy said, unperturbed. ‘If you come here, you’ll have to get used to those little devils. Keep the windows shut or they’ll steal your worldly goods.’
Adela glanced out of the window at the mountains retreating into a blue haze. A road wound its way along the hillside into the distance, already busy with carts, mules and porters.
‘Where does that go?’ Adela asked.
‘That’s the road to Narkanda and beyond,’ said Fluffy. ‘It goes all the way to Tibet.’
Adela’s heart leapt with excitement at the mention of the fabled name. When she turned round to face her father and the elderly widow, they could both see the yearning shining in her dark eyes.
A week after returning from Simla, Mohammed Din hurried into the sitting room, where the family were struggling to listen to music on the gramophone over Harry’s squalling.
‘I think our little tiger is hungry again,’ Clarrie said, plucking him from the cradle.
‘Sahib,’ interrupted Mohammed Din breathlessly, holding out a silver tray, ‘the chaprassy has been. There is a letter from Simla for Adela Missahib.’
Adela sprang out of her seat. ‘Thank you, MD.’ She grabbed at the letter and tore it open.
The khansama stood waiting as tensely as Adela’s parents. Clarrie bounced a fretful Harry in her arms. Adela felt sick as she unfolded the single page with the St Mary’s College crest embossed in blue at the top. She stared hard.
The Girl From the Tea Garden Page 7