The Secrets of the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Adela smiled back. ‘I’d like that. James has told me about her. She sounds a nice woman.’

  ‘She is,’ said Joan. ‘She’s not snobbish like the other gentry. Must be ’cause she’s American. And generous too. She gave me this dress; it’s from New York. Says so on the label.’

  ‘It suits you,’ said Adela.

  ‘And I help do her hair,’ said Joan. ‘She used to have it very old-fashioned.’

  ‘They’re best of friends already,’ Tommy said proudly. ‘And the Gibsons’ son thinks the world of Joany too – he follows her around like her shadow.’

  ‘Like my shadow,’ Joan repeated.

  ‘Joany’s a natural with kiddies,’ Tommy said proudly.

  Adela felt her nausea returning. ‘Help yourself to tea and sandwiches, won’t you? I must help Sam with the games.’

  ‘And Mrs Gibson bought the dress Bonnie’s wearing,’ Joan continued. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’

  Adela thought it was rather fussy, and the small girl was already tripping on its hem trying to run about.

  ‘Bonnie looks very pretty,’ Adela answered as she turned to go and help with the children.

  Amid the shrieking and laughter, Sam was pairing up the children to play ‘Oranges and Lemons’. Bonnie rushed up to Adela and seized her hand. ‘You play with me, Auntie Delly!’

  ‘Love to,’ said Adela, kissing her on her matching pink hairband.

  They marched round in a chaotic circle, Sam leading the raucous singing. Bonnie squealed with delight when she and Adela were caught in Sam’s arms as the music stopped.

  ‘Again! Again!’ Bonnie cried.

  After that, they played musical bumps and Sam tried to teach them the hokey-cokey. The children ended up running into each other deliberately and an older boy stepped on Bonnie’s dress which made her fall over and bang her knee. She burst into tears. Sam scooped her up and declared it was time for birthday cake.

  At the sight of Jane carrying in a large iced cake with candles lit, Bonnie’s wailing quickly subsided. While Sam sat her at the head of the table and Bonnie blew out her candles, the other children scrambled for seats and were soon tucking into the birthday tea.

  Adela tried to quell her queasiness by sipping tea and eating cake. The smell of the paste sandwiches and pork pies was turning her stomach. She watched Sam as he showed the children a trick he did with his hands that made it look like his thumb was falling off. He was so good with the children; he would make a loving father to their child. Adela felt a flood of affection for her husband. She couldn’t wait for the party to be over and to have him to herself so she could tell him her news. There was no doubt in her mind now that she was carrying their baby.

  Charlie continued at the piano during tea, playing popular tunes. Some of the parents were gathering around him, singing along.

  ‘Get Adela to sing for you,’ Sam called out, giving his wife a smile of encouragement.

  Lexy, who was sitting beside the piano clapping along to the music, shouted, ‘Gan on, hinny; give them a Toodle Pips special.’

  Adela took little persuasion: hearing her old favourites being played made her want to get up and dance. Soon she was singing ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’, followed by other songs that had proved popular during the recent war. The café rang to the sound of voices joining in the chorus and Charlie’s enthusiastic piano playing. Nobody seemed to mind the children racing around the café, jumping off the chairs and playing ‘tiggy-on-high’ while the adults sang their nostalgic songs.

  Eventually, it was time for the café to close and the party to end. Bonnie burst into tears. ‘I don’t w-want to go home!’ she blubbered. ‘I w-want to stay with Uncle Sam!’

  Joan and Tommy had to coax her away with promises that Sam and Adela would come and visit her very soon. Her Aunt Jane produced a sticky toffee apple which brought a smile back to her face.

  With the guests gone, they began to clear up.

  ‘We can finish this,’ said Jane, ‘if you two want to go. You’ve earned a rest after the games and sing-song.’

  Sam was helping Lexy to her feet. Lexy said, ‘Aye, you look done in, hinny. Get yersel’ away home.’

  Sam gave Adela a concerned look. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

  ‘I’m fine; we’ll stay,’ said Adela. ‘It won’t take long if we all give a hand.’

  ‘Come up and see me before you go,’ said Lexy, making her way towards the stairs as Adela began to brush crumbs from the tablecloths. Sam and Charlie pulled the tables and chairs back into their usual positions. Charlie stooped to pick something from the floor.

  ‘Must have come off when the children were playing,’ he said, holding up a chain to the light. ‘Or maybe it belongs to one of the mothers.’

  Adela glanced round; she noticed Lexy had stopped too and was staring at the upheld pendant.

  ‘Give it to Jane,’ said Sam. ‘They’ll come back for it when they realise they’ve dropped it.’

  ‘Doesn’t look worth the bother,’ said Charlie. ‘Just an old pebble of some sort.’

  Adela saw the chain glint in the light, a pinkish stone dangling from it. Something about it made her peer closer.

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Adela.

  Charlie held it out to her. ‘Is it yours?’

  Adela’s heart fluttered. She took it from him and laid it on her open palm. Her heart began to pound. She ran a finger and thumb over the smooth pink stone. It was almost heart-shaped. Adela’s breath stopped in her throat. The chain was familiar too, with its old-fashioned catch. She sat down quickly. How was this possible? It didn’t make sense!

  ‘Darling, are you all right?’ Sam asked at once, coming to sit beside her.

  Lexy turned back from the stairs. ‘Adela?’

  Adela stared at the necklace, trying to catch her breath.

  ‘What is it?’ Sam asked, putting a hand to Adela’s clammy brow. ‘Are you going to be sick?’

  Adela couldn’t speak. Pressure like an iron weight was building up in her chest, smothering her.

  ‘Fetch a glass of water,’ Lexy said to Charlie, as she lumbered towards Adela. Charlie rushed off into the kitchen where Jane and Doreen were washing up.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Lexy, lifting the necklace from Adela’s shaking hand. Lexy scrutinised it and then looked at Adela, her eyes widening in shock.

  ‘It’s Clarrie’s, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. ‘I remember her wearing it.’

  Adela nodded, her throat tightening with emotion.

  Sam looked baffled. ‘How can that be? Is this yours, Adela? I’ve never seen you wear it.’

  Adela struggled to speak. ‘Yes, it’s mine,’ she croaked. ‘Mother gave it to me . . .’

  ‘So when did you lose it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Before the War,’ she whispered.

  ‘Surely it hasn’t been lying here all this time?’ Sam said in astonishment.

  ‘No,’ said Adela. She felt herself begin to shake all over. She wasn’t sure if she was going to faint or be sick.

  Sam’s arm went around her. ‘Well, at least you’ve got it back now.’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Lexy softly.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Sam asked, frowning.

  At that moment, Charlie reappeared with a glass of water. Lexy took it from him.

  ‘Just give them a minute, will you?’ she asked. Charlie nodded and retreated through the kitchen door which swung behind him.

  Adela looked at Lexy, her heart thumping.

  ‘Go on, lass,’ her old friend encouraged.

  Adela swallowed hard. ‘Mother was given this necklace by the swami who lived in the clearing above Belgooree – for good luck and protection. When I came to England in ’38 she gave it to me for the same reason.’ She struggled with how to tell him the next detail.

  ‘And?’ Sam said gently.

  Adela met his look. His eyes were so full of compassion that it gave her the courage to tell him the truth. ‘The day John Wesley was ta
ken away I – I wrapped the necklace in his blanket and told Maggie to ask the mission women to keep it with him. It was my most important possession and it was all I had to give him. I hoped it would keep him safe . . .’

  She tensed, expecting to see his expression change to disappointment or resentment at her mentioning John Wesley again. But Sam laid a hand tenderly on her head and pulled her to him, cradling her against his strong shoulder. Adela’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘But how’s it got here?’ Lexy asked, baffled.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Adela tearfully. ‘Did you see one of the mothers wearing it?’

  ‘No,’ said Lexy with a shake of the head. ‘But someone here today must know where it came from.’

  Adela’s heart began to pound. She tried to recall all of the children who had been at the party. Perhaps one of the girls was a step-sister to John Wesley? Or was one of the women who had been singing around the piano her son’s second adoptive mother? But maybe none of them had anything to do with her boy and the necklace had been given away or sold years ago to raise funds for the mission.

  Yet something that Tilly had said about the Belgian Segals gave Adela hope that they had kept the swami’s stone with her son. When Tilly had rescued the infant from the Anderson shelter after the bombing raid, she said he had been found with a small box of possessions; from what she could remember there were a handful of photographs, keepsakes and a floppy miniature teddy bear.

  Adela felt sure the kind Segals would have kept the necklace and that this would have been handed on to whoever had taken on her son next. What if it was someone who had been there that very afternoon? Adela was suddenly overwhelmed by the shock. Bile rose in her throat. She tore herself from Sam’s hold and bolted for the kitchen door.

  Clamping a hand over her mouth, Adela didn’t stop until she was out in the backyard breathing in gulps of air. Her head spun. Her throat watered. Adela doubled over and retched into the gutter. She couldn’t stop. She vomited until her insides felt hollow and sore. Even though her eyes were tight shut, she was aware of Sam there beside her, holding her hair away from her face and rubbing her back.

  When the spasms finally stopped, Adela felt so weak she would have collapsed if Sam had not been holding her firmly in his arms. He stroked her hair. Adela realised that she was still clutching the necklace tightly in her hand. It pressed into her palm, a painful reminder of all she had lost. Her longing to find John Wesley returned with a new ferocity. Yet would her marriage survive if she started searching again? What on earth did they do now?

  ‘You mustn’t upset yourself like this, Adela,’ Sam said in gentle reproof.

  Adela looked at him with a mixture of tenderness and sorrow.

  ‘Sam, this isn’t just because I’m upset,’ Adela said, feeling utterly drained. ‘It’s because I’m pregnant.’

  CHAPTER 36

  Belgooree, mid-September

  After a week of anxious waiting for marauding gangs to appear in the district, nothing had happened. Libby began to hope that Stourton’s unsettling visit had been for nothing.

  Yet rumours were rife around the tea garden that there had been terrible atrocities in neighbouring Gulgat. Whole villages had been torched and the Muslim minority had been butchered or had fled to East Pakistan. Abandoned houses that were still standing were being given to Hindu refugees escaping in the other direction. There were tales of these Bengalis arriving with horrific wounds and mutilations. Each new wave of displaced, traumatised Hindus appeared to provoke a fresh round of attacks on Gulgat’s dwindling minority of Muslims.

  Libby sent a telegram home: Sorry will miss holiday stop still with Sophie at Belgooree stop all well stop love Libby.

  She didn’t want to give them any cause for worry about her safety or reveal that they were marooned at Belgooree by fear of the troubles in Gulgat spreading. She would write later when the situation had calmed down. But Sophie no longer went for rides and kept mainly to the house or compound. Libby kept her company, though she insisted on helping Clarrie each morning in the office.

  ‘I have to do something,’ she protested. ‘And I’m not the target.’

  Clarrie had given her a worried look. ‘A group of angry men aren’t necessarily going to know what the wife of Rafi Khan looks like – only that she’s British,’ she warned. ‘I don’t want you going further than the factory either.’

  Clarrie had agonised over whether to allow Harry to return for the new school term in Shillong or to keep him at home and let Manzur tutor him again. In the end she had decided that it was best to keep things as normal as possible and the boy had gone back to school, eager to see his friends. It was arranged that he would board there until Christmas. All the women had been sad to see him go. Harry had shrugged off their attempts to hug and kiss him, though he’d hung on to Breckon and shed tears when parted from the dog.

  Each day Libby checked the dak for a reply from Ghulam, but none came. She knew with the upheaval of people and the unforeseen chaos of Partition that services had been badly disrupted. In some parts of the country post lay uncollected, trains stood idle awaiting firemen to shovel coal, police forces were depleted and milk went undelivered. Perhaps Ghulam had never received her letter. Or had something happened to him? How she worried about his safety in Calcutta!

  Then one sultry afternoon, as Libby and Sophie dozed on the shady veranda, Libby jolted awake to the sound of distant firecrackers. She sat up and listened. In the jungle beyond the compound, birds flew into the air screeching. There was a sound like a rumble of thunder before a downpour but there was no stirring of wind in the trees that normally preceded a monsoon storm.

  ‘What is it?’ Sophie asked, sitting up.

  ‘That noise . . .’ Libby said.

  They both strained to hear.

  ‘Sounds like rifle fire,’ said Sophie.

  They scrambled to their feet and went to peer over the veranda railing. The glare dazzled Libby’s eyes. At first she saw nothing. Then something caught her eye; some movement in the pearly sky. It looked like a cloud. Then she realised what it was.

  ‘Something’s burning,’ she gasped. ‘Over there on the hill.’ She pointed.

  Sophie stayed calm. ‘It could just be charcoal burners.’ But she went inside to fetch binoculars.

  Returning, Sophie gazed at the distant plume of smoke. ‘It’s difficult to say what it is.’

  ‘The road to Gulgat is in that direction,’ said Libby. ‘I’m going to find Clarrie.’

  ‘Send Alok,’ said Sophie.

  But Libby was already leaping down the veranda steps and running down the garden path. Halfway down the drive she heard gunshot again, nearer this time. She arrived at the factory, breathless. Clarrie was in the tasting room.

  ‘I think there’s trouble on the Gulgat road,’ Libby panted.

  In the short time it took for the women to emerge from the building, word had spread from the village of a disturbance a dozen miles away.

  Banu rode up from the gardens. ‘Goondas from Gulgat,’ he reported grimly.

  Libby’s heart thumped in fright. Clarrie calmly began issuing instructions. She told Nitin to ring and alert the police in Shillong. She closed the factory and office and sent the staff home. She issued her managers with firearms. Banu went to call in the tea pickers from the gardens and rally his family, sending Nitin to protect the Robsons. As Clarrie and Libby hurried back with Nitin to the bungalow, Clarrie was ordering the compound to be secured.

  They found Sophie watching anxiously from the veranda.

  ‘Banu thinks there are two truckloads,’ said Clarrie. ‘Maybe a score of troublemakers. It’s nothing we can’t handle.’

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Sophie said in distress. ‘I should have gone when Stourton warned me.’

  ‘How is this your fault?’ said Clarrie. ‘They can’t know you’re here. They’re a paid mob out to make trouble where there’s been none.’

  They had barely got the iron and me
sh gates of the compound shut with Nitin’s help when they heard the commotion on the garden road. Men were shouting and yelling. It was no more than half an hour since Libby had awoken to the first sounds of trouble. She was appalled at the speed at which danger had arrived at their door.

  Clarrie ordered Mohammed Din to hide his family in the house and then handed him a gun with which to protect them.

  ‘Where’s Manzur?’ Libby cried.

  The women looked at each other in alarm. The garden school lay beyond the compound.

  ‘Banu will be making sure he’s safe,’ Clarrie said. ‘And he’s got Breckon with him.’

  She handed them both hunting rifles. ‘You know how to handle one of these, don’t you?’ Clarrie asked them.

  ‘Aye,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Not really,’ said Libby.

  Clarrie smiled in reassurance. ‘It won’t come to that. Here, take Wesley’s old revolver – just something to scare them off.’

  Libby felt nauseated by fear. It was the same feeling of helplessness that she had experienced in Amelia Buildings, knowing that a man had been brutally and randomly murdered in the street below. What she wouldn’t give to be back in Calcutta with Ghulam now! She had never felt more vulnerable.

  The commotion grew louder as more men arrived. Looking through the binoculars from the veranda Libby could see them milling around beyond the gates. Most looked young, dressed in grubby dhotis and vests. They were wielding lathis and knives, and shouting angrily. One let off a gun. Others seized the mesh of the gate and violently shook it, trying to find a way through.

  Libby felt her insides go to jelly. She marvelled at how Clarrie and Sophie kept calm and reached for their rifles.

  ‘Do you recognise any of them?’ Clarrie asked Sophie.

  Sophie took another look through the binoculars. ‘That older man – the one in an army jacket – he’s one of the palace police. Name is Sen.’ She passed the field glasses to Clarrie.

  ‘He’s standing back letting them get out of control,’ said Clarrie in disgust.

  ‘But he’ll be in charge,’ said Sophie.

  The demands of the men grew into a chant.