Before the Rains

by Dinah Jefferies

  ‘I can hardly believe a place like this could really exist.’

  He laughed and squeezed her hand. She leant back against him and could feel his heart against her back.

  ‘The entire place is surrounded by forests, lakes and, as you can see, the hills. When the rain ceases I’ll show you the lanes and alleyways of the old city.’

  ‘The lake palace looks as if it has stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale.’

  ‘It’s the Royal Summer Palace.’

  ‘Can we swim? After the rains?’

  ‘If you don’t mind the odd crocodile.’

  One moment there were only a few drops of rain, but then they heard an almighty crash of thunder so loud it seemed as if the world shook with fright. And only then did the heavens open. Sheets of rain hammered down upon the town below them, smashing on to the lake, and everywhere the dry earth began to release an incredible aroma of long-held sweetness. She heard Jay speak but could not make out his words above the tumult.

  They stood and watched for another hour, the rain still falling as if the storm might consume all the water in the world, and the sky still flashing continually. Soon the air had turned white with a curtain of rain so thick it obliterated the view of the town, the lake, and the palace. Only when the thunder ceased did he turn her round. Now that dusk was falling and with the depth of the rain she could barely see his face, but for his glittering eyes.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked. ‘This is just a lull.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

  As he led her back into the palace Eliza asked where the owner was and did he mind them being there.

  ‘He’s an old friend, and don’t worry, it’s all arranged.’

  ‘You knew I’d come?’

  ‘I hoped.’

  Once they reached their room she took in an enormous four-poster bed, its curtains still open.

  ‘Do you want to close them?’ he asked.

  She shook her head and walked over to the wide windows. ‘Let’s keep these curtains open too,’ she said.

  ‘And the windows open so that we can still hear –’

  She laughed. ‘You are such a romantic, Jayant Singh Rathore.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  She ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. He pulled her off him and led her away from the window towards the bed. When she lay back against the pillows he pulled up her skirt and then rolled down her stockings, his fingers touching her legs as he went. ‘Silk?’ he said.

  ‘My only pair. Dottie gave them to me.’ But she could not contain her laughter; as if the joy in her whole being had been long suppressed and now it had no option but to burst from her, taking her over, and making her shake and shudder. He laughed too, and before long she was laughing and crying at the same time and he was drying her tears. When she finally stopped he finished undressing her, then stared at her.

  ‘So, so pale,’ he said, ‘like porcelain.’

  Filled with the intoxication of the night, she was conscious of feeling released, from what she wasn’t sure, but it was wonderful and like nothing she had ever experienced before.

  ‘My turn, to undress you,’ she said.

  ‘I want to touch you first.’

  She closed her eyes as his fingertips moved so, so gently over her skin, starting at her toes and ending with her eyelids, the sensation so exquisite she became completely lost in it. There was something about Jay that was eternal, like the land he came from, and, when she was with him like this, she felt drawn into his world, as if she too belonged in this space of everlasting moments and no time.

  After she had undressed him, they made love. It was long and slow and Eliza had no idea how much time had elapsed. Outside the thunder crashed, providing a backdrop to her thumping heart, and when it was over she lay next to Jay, both of them sticky with sweat. She wondered if she needed to say something, but felt her love for him so intensely she dared not speak for fear of ruining the dizzy moment.

  They were to make love more than once that night. As the storm continued to rage and the wind blew rain even through the edges of the window frames, they became urgent, and with the flavour of him on her tongue Eliza decided that these were the most exciting and beautiful moments of her entire life. The sounds they made could never be heard on the outside, consumed as it was by the monsoon, but she wouldn’t have cared if the ear of the world had been on them. She thought of the people in the city below, all of them smiling with relief and delight that the rains had come, and wondered how many babies would have been made that night.

  The next day, during a more prolonged lull, Jay took her down into the old city. She was amazed by how much the water had risen as they walked along the eastern shore of Lake Pichola, surrounded as it was by palaces, temples, bathing ghats and the soft ochres and purples of the wooded Aravalli hills.

  But it wasn’t just the lake. Rivers of water streamed down the narrow gullies and lanes that led down to the lake; everything was wet and glittering in the morning sunshine. He explained that the city was often referred to as the Venice of the East, and that its usually tranquil lakes were surrounded by gorgeous gardens.

  ‘It’s magnificent during the monsoon season and, as Udaipore has five major lakes, they all fill up. As you can see, the palaces look sparkling too.’

  ‘This has to be the most romantic setting in all of India.’

  He laughed and reached for her hand. ‘We’re in the right place then.’

  ‘Is it all right to walk like this in public?’

  ‘You care what people think?’

  ‘I meant that it’s different here. You’re not supposed to, are you?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone cares. Once the rain comes a kind of wildness rises in the people. It gets into the blood and all the usual constraints fly out of the window.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s so much cooler now.’

  He made a sweeping movement with his right arm. ‘Look at it. This city was founded by the Rajput king Maharana Udai Singh II in 1559.’

  ‘It is wonderful, but is that it?’ she asked. ‘Is the rain over?’

  He looked surprised. ‘I should certainly hope not. We need considerably more. This is just enough to rejuvenate the hills and turn them green, but we need to fill up our new lake at home.’

  ‘Gosh, I’d almost forgotten.’

  And he was right. The monsoon rains began to fall again and that second evening she noticed how much it had lightened his state of mind. How could she not have realized how worried he must have been that the rains might not come at all? Accustomed, as she was, to England’s perpetual rainfall, it was so easy to forget that here it could signal the difference between life and death.

  They passed another wonderful night together and spent much of it talking in the dark, the way that lovers do in the exploratory stage of a love affair. It was different to the way it had been when they had last been together at his own palace. This time they opened themselves up to more honesty than ever before. He told her how as a child in England he had cried into his pillow at night, how he had hated the bland English food and the terrible British snobbery. And he told her how sad they had all been when Laxmi lost her little girl, their sister.

  ‘I think that’s why we all became so fond of Indi. Not that she could ever take my sister’s place. It was hard for Laxmi. Your child is an actual part of you. What do you do with the part that is lost?’

  ‘I don’t know if my mother ever felt like that,’ she said.

  She told him that she had never thought her mother loved her. And she told him that she had never enjoyed one moment of intimacy with Oliver and that she had dreaded going to bed at night. Once Oliver was asleep she used to go to the living room, where she sat up most of the night, and then she’d sleep in the day when he was gone. She cried and said she hadn’t known it could be so different, and then, with the constant sound of the rain in the background, Eliza fell asleep.

  They were interrupted early the next mo
rning by loud knocking on their bedroom door.

  Jay climbed out of bed, grabbed a robe and as he opened the door Eliza pulled the sheet over her head. She had never been so happy, but it was one thing for the servants to be aware of their relationship and quite another for one of them to see her undressed and lying in Jay’s bed. She heard the door close and then Jay’s footsteps. She was surprised when he didn’t come back over to the bed, so she pulled the sheet from her face, only to see him standing stiffly at the window and staring out at the view in silence.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, her stomach tightening and her voice revealing a trace of anxiety.

  He twisted back to her and held out a sheet of paper. ‘Here,’ he said in a dull voice. ‘Read it.’

  She slid out of bed and went over to take it from him, and then she read, hardly able to comprehend what this might mean for them.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  ‘I have to go.’ He looked at her so sadly a chill ran through her.

  ‘Now? You have to go now?’

  He nodded glumly.

  ‘But you’ll be back?’

  ‘Let’s sit down.’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘As you have just read, Anish is dead and I have no choice but to go. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, but knew she sounded like a sullen child.

  ‘I may have to take the throne as quickly as possible.’

  ‘But you’ll come back?’

  He shook his head again. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to. At least not immediately.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘We’ll sort something out.’ He put a wallet on the bedside table. ‘In case you need money.’

  ‘What? Sort out what?’ she said, ignoring the money.

  ‘Eliza, I don’t know yet. All I know is there is a horse waiting for me and I must go.’

  ‘You aren’t going to ride in this weather?’

  ‘Safer than the bike.’

  ‘Safer?’

  She sat down on the chair in the window and could hardly believe this had happened. ‘You have lost your brother, and your mother and Priya must be terribly upset. I understand they need you.’

  ‘It isn’t just that,’ he continued. ‘If I don’t do this the British will take over our kingdom. They have been itching to get rid of Anish and this may well be their chance.’ As he began quickly to dress she watched numbly, knowing he was right and there was nothing she could do.

  ‘And us?’

  ‘Let’s just see how the land lies. I’ll arrange for a car to take you to my palace as soon as the weather allows. It’s best you go there for now while things are in so much upheaval.’

  ‘And then you’ll come?’

  ‘For a while, but I may have to live at the Juraipore castle, at least at first.’

  ‘Will I go there too?’

  He closed his eyes for a moment and didn’t speak.

  ‘Jay?’

  He came over to her and held her tight but she pushed him away. ‘You mean we won’t even be able to live together. You will marry some Princess or other?’

  Again he didn’t reply.

  She stared at him, horrified by what all this might mean, and longing for some words of comfort. Despite the pity she felt for his loss, a burst of anger shook her to the core.

  When he still didn’t speak, she turned and ran from the room and from the fort, but most of all from Jay. In blinding rain, she strode along the hilltop and, as tears scalded her cheeks, she did not care that she could barely see the ground before her. Lost in the darkness of the raging storm, she turned her anger against herself. What a naïve idiot she had been to have been seduced by a romantic location.

  By the time she returned, soaked through and utterly bedraggled, he had gone. It was what she’d wanted: she couldn’t have borne to see him again. But now that he really was gone, she felt as if her heart might split in two. She felt so soiled and ragged there was no hope of finding a way to soothe herself, no way to alleviate the hurt. The most wonderful time of her life had turned into the worst. It had felt natural to love Jay but it had led to this. Her solitary childhood had skewed everything that came after, but Jay had been able to reach her. How could she ever accept that it was over? As she stood alone in the bedroom they had shared, her spirits deflated, and her hopes shattered. What was she to do with the love that had suffused her entire being? Where was it to go? She thought of what he had once said – ‘you have to be ravaged by love to truly know it’ – but it was no consolation. She knotted her hands together, twisting and turning them in distress.

  She refused food for the rest of the day and, as the light faded, she stared out of the window and watched the sky grow purple and then black. Maybe one day she might remember these nights in Udaipore and it would not hurt. Maybe one day she might finally forget the beat of his heart as they lay, skin to skin. He had touched her body but, more, he had touched her soul and now nothing was normal any more. With the stale dust of the desert gone and the earth softened by rain, it hurt to have shared the monsoon with him, and then for it to be lost.

  34

  On her first morning back at Jay’s palace Eliza unpacked her small case, then stared around her at the room. She felt profoundly sad and sorely treated too, and had been pleased not to have to face Dev upon her arrival the evening before, especially after the long journey, during which they had been frequently hampered by intermittent rain. The blue Aravalli hills had been grown over by more green than before, and now the vista from her bedroom window also sparkled with fresh life. For a few moments it had been good to watch the opalescent dawn and the sun rising over Jay’s land, but now her heart was heavy.

  She pictured her arrival at the castle in Juraipore the previous November: the beautiful high-ceilinged room where she had first seen Jay with his hawk and thought him an intruder; the rooms where Laxmi had entertained her; the jewels, daggers, and priceless crystal-ware glittering in Jay’s mother’s cabinets; the marble bathrooms where the concubines had washed her hair; the tunnel she had crept through with Jay when they had been on their way to the Holi celebration in the town. She thought until her head was whirling, images and feelings crashing into one another, and then she stopped. To go any further hurt too much.

  After she had dressed and breakfasted – Jay kept a skeleton staff even when he was away – she pulled on her boots and walked through the garden and orchard towards the newly completed lake. The scents from the still moist land almost made her reel and the air was wonderfully sweet. It was as if the rain had transformed everything; the wild flowers, the leaves on the trees, and the mossy aroma of the earth itself seemed to compete for her attention. But it was the sight of an enormous stretch of water shimmering in the morning light that made her gasp. The silvery lake had filled just the way Jay had hoped it would, the damming and fortifications had held, and Eliza could see that the sluices were all in place. When open, the water would run off along specially constructed channels across Jay’s land and to the edges of several villages. It was a phenomenal success, and Eliza’s heart lifted from seeing it and knowing the part she had played. She knew Jay intended to excavate the land for a further lake during the coming year and had plans for even more, and this had all started with her own chance remark the very first time he had brought her here.

  She recalled that time, as she always did, with horror at the poor woman’s awful fate, but also with sorrow at the memory of her very first stirrings of attraction for Jay. Wrapped up in herself, she gazed at the water, listening to the bleating of a flock of goats in the distance, and didn’t hear footsteps coming up behind her, but then the person coughed and she turned round.

  ‘So you are here,’ she said and groaned inwardly.

  Dev didn’t answer immediately, almost as if he was making up his mind about what he ought to say. ‘You will find what you are looking for here, if you allow yourself,’ he eventually said, and she was surprised by it.
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  ‘I’m not looking for anything.’

  ‘We’re all looking for something. I saw you arrive last night. I thought I’d let you settle in.’

  She remained still and, looking steadily, studied his face. Something about him was different. His bright look had dulled and he seemed troubled and tired. She hoped that Jay’s trust in the man had not been misplaced, but still she found it hard to forgive his part in the plot to implicate Jay in wrongdoing.

  ‘I thought …’ he said, but then fell silent.

  ‘Thought?’

  ‘Marrying Mr Salter, aren’t you?’

  Her skin prickled with annoyance at the mention of Clifford’s name and she answered curtly. ‘Not sure how that is any concern of yours.’

  Dev shook his head. ‘It might have been better if you had never come back here.’

  ‘To India …’

  He nodded and she watched his eyes – she could see the barely concealed hostility in them, though she was aware that there was something more that hadn’t been there before. She had made up her mind to try to see the best in Dev for Jay’s sake, and though he didn’t make it easy, she had to admit she was curious.

  ‘You’re looking after the estate for Jay?’

  ‘My penance. I assume he told you.’

  She nodded but didn’t speak.

  ‘Jay and I go back a long way. What I did was wrong, but he has forgiven me.’

  She gazed at the ground and shook her head. ‘I don’t understand how you could have done it, especially when he has been so good to you.’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ He said no more and, when she glanced up at him after that evasive answer, he turned his back and walked off.

  Eliza returned to her room intending to repack her bag. She didn’t want to stay on with Dev her only company, so she sat on the bed thinking. One thing was painfully clear: she must seal tight her heart and keep occupied, but, though there was no longer anything for her here, it was hard to leave, especially as the tang of sandalwood still lingered in the room. However, she eventually got to her feet and began to gather her clothes into a small pile at the bottom of the bed.