THE PLANTER'S BRIDE: A story of intrigue and passion: sequel to THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER (India Tea Series Book 2)

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ encouraged Wesley, pushing a cup of hot sweet tea into her hand. ‘You can stock up on pins before the train journey.’

  Boz grinned. ‘Tam calls Martins, the wee Martini – says he needs mixing with a large gin to stiffen his backbone.’

  Sophie smiled at them both. ‘Thank you for cheering me up.’

  Soon afterwards, Wesley handed over care of Sophie’s luggage to Boz and she took her farewell of Clarrie’s handsome husband, promising to visit them at Belgooree whenever she should travel to Assam to see Tilly.

  ‘The Khassia hills are very beautiful,’ Wesley said, ‘with great riding. Bring Tam; the fishing is excellent. It’s how I met Clarrie,’ he flashed a wicked smile. ‘But that’s a long story.’

  It took hours to get Sophie’s baggage through customs and then to secure a berth in a coupé on the long haul mail train up north to Lahore. Boz seemed to spend hours haggling over the weight of her trunk, the insistence that she travelled first class and the endless paperwork of chits and passes.

  The booking finally accomplished, Boz took her to the newly opened Grand Hotel, with its domed tower like a lighthouse, and treated her to a meal of lamb cutlets, greens and potatoes, washed down with pale ale. They bumped into Ella Holland with her stocky balding husband and discovered they were travelling on the same train as far as Amritsar. Sophie was cheered by the news.

  ‘So when is your wedding day?’ Samuel Holland asked Boz.

  ‘Oh, no, he’s not my fiancé,’ Sophie said hastily. ‘Tam couldn’t come.’ She saw the look of surprise – or was it disapproval? – pass between the Hollands and felt a wave of embarrassment. It hadn’t occurred to her that dining with Boz unchaperoned might be seen as bad behaviour. Ella had enjoyed having fun on the boat with the young unattached men, but now with her husband she seemed shy, less assured.

  ‘He’s ill,’ Boz lied to dispel the awkwardness, ‘so sent me instead. I’m tae be Tam’s best man and I must deliver Miss Logan safely to her eager bridegroom or my life will no’ be worth living.’

  ‘Oh dear, I do hope he’ll be fully recovered for the wedding,’ Ella said with a pitying look.

  Sophie wished she hadn’t told Ella quite as much about her hopes and dreams about a future with Tam, or how thrilled she was that Tam had promised to meet her in Bombay, take her to the famous Hanging Gardens and buy her a wedding ring.

  Sophie and Ella arranged to meet up on the train later.

  Outside again in the glaring sunshine, Sophie watched the S.S. City of Baroda steam back into open waters and wondered if Tilly was among those standing at the rail waving to the crowds on the quayside. She felt a stab of loneliness at the thought of her oldest friend sailing away to a different life and envied her the companionship of the kind Robsons.

  ‘I’ve a couple o’ things to buy from the Army and Navy Stores before the train leaves,’ Boz broke into her reverie. ‘Do you want tae come or would you rather sit in the lassies’ waiting room at the station?’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Sophie said, smothering the thought that she should have been with Tam taking a taxi out to Malabar Hill to watch the sunset over the Arabian Sea. There would be other sunsets, she told herself firmly.

  They took a cycle-rickshaw through the wide palm-lined streets of the Fort area towards Colaba, past elaborate colonial buildings gleaming in the sun and on into the seething town. Sophie was mesmerised by the sights and sounds: large black motor cars tooting to get past bullocks pulling carts laden with dusty sacks, the cries of street vendors sitting behind multi-coloured piles of spices and vegetables, women on the steps of a temple with mounds of vivid yellow marigolds, the jangle of bells as cyclists dodged wandering cows.

  Sophie gasped as a bright green parrot swooped right in front of them and landed in a tree behind a high wall. Through its iron gates, Sophie glimpsed a cool courtyard with a water tank before they swerved on down the street. She wanted to stop and clamber down and explore behind the high wall where the parrot lived. It made her feel like a child again. A holy man with matted hair, dressed in a tattered orange cloth and clutching a metal teapot, stepped through the traffic unharmed like a prophet parting the waves. Three women in colourful saris – blue, saffron and pink – followed in bare feet. A slim ankle, the dark skin, the ring glinting in the young woman’s nose. Sophie’s heart missed a beat.

  ‘You all right, lassie?’ Boz asked in concern.

  ‘That woman ...?’ Sophie realised she was clutching his arm. ‘Sorry.’ She let go at once.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he smiled.

  ‘She reminded me of my Ayah, that’s all. Silly, ‘cos if she’s still alive, Ayah Mimi will probably be grey and toothless by now.’

  ‘If this is too much for you,’ Boz said, ‘we can go to the station.’

  ‘No, I’m enjoying it.’ Sophie insisted. ‘And I want to buy some more medicines to go in my first aid box. Mama always used to stock up whenever she went to town.’ She caught her breath. ‘I don’t know how I remember that.’

  ‘Must ha’ been a big event tae gang tae the toon,’ Boz said. ‘Shillong was it? Or Calcutta.’

  ‘Shillong I think – it always seemed to be raining and we would have tea in a grand room with a bear’s head on one wall and a tiger’s on the other.’

  ‘Scary for a wee lassie, eh?’

  ‘No, I used to talk to them.’ Sophie saw his amused expression. ‘I didn’t have many friends,’ she laughed.

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘William Boswell, stop flirting with me,’ she tapped his hand, unnerved by his tender look. ‘Or I’ll have to tell my fiancé.’

  ‘Sophie.’ Boz looked suddenly serious. ‘How much has Tam told you about himself?’

  ‘Lots,’ she said. ‘I’ve met his family and I know all about his life in Edinburgh and his letters tell me everything about the new job.’

  ‘Has he spoken about France – about the war?’

  ‘No, not much,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I don’t think he likes to think about all that – none of you do, surely?’

  Boz didn’t answer.

  ‘I did once try to ask him about the scar on his head – how he got it – but he wouldn’t say.’

  The look on Boz’s face made her uneasy.

  ‘How did he get it?’

  ‘I shouldna’ have said anything. It’s up to Tam tae tell you.’

  ‘Now you’re making me worried,’ Sophie said. ‘What should I know? Please tell me.’

  Boz looked hot and uncomfortable. ‘Our Division were clearing enemy trenches – the Germans were on the run. Tam got bored wi’ too little for us mortar boys tae do, so he gets us a lift on an infantry lorry – takes us up the line. It’s all chaos but we end up in this bombed oot village – trying to help this family o’ Frenchies hiding out in a cellar. God knaws what they’d been surviving on. Well, turns out not all the Boche boys had gone sae quickly – set off a couple o’ shells as they retreated. Tam got hit by a piece of shrapnel – burned a hole in his helmet.’

  ‘Oh, dear Lord!’ Sophie gasped.

  ‘The worst of it was,’ Boz said in a tense voice, ‘they were bloody gas shells. I pulled Tam oot as fast as I could, but we both ended up in hospital wi’ sickness and that. Tam didn’t gang back to the Front again – he spent the last three months of the war in hospital then convalescing.’

  ‘And you?’ Sophie whispered, appalled.

  ‘I recovered sooner – didn’t have his head injuries – so I was back with the artillery when the armistice came.’

  In the bright teaming town, Sophie could hardly imagine the horror they had experienced. She slipped her gloved hand in Boz’s sweaty palm.

  ‘How terrible. I’m so sorry.’ She searched his face. ‘Why are you telling me this now?’

  Boz hesitated, then said, ‘Tam is my greatest pal – he saved my life early in the war and I saved his near the end. We’ll do anything for each other. But he’s no’ the same sinc
e the gas attack. He gets headaches awfu’ bad and sometimes he can lose his temper over nothing. His judgement isn’t always the best. When he was in France on the last–’

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ Sophie interrupted. ‘But I don’t need to hear any more tales. It changes nothing. I know the war is bound to have affected him in some way – I’ve worked with the Red Cross and seen how the men’s minds were scarred as well as their bodies. It just makes me love him all the more and want to take care of him. You can’t make me change my mind about Tam, however hard you try.’

  Boz gave her a sad look. ‘I wasnae trying tae do that, lassie.’ He pulled his hand away. ‘Tam Telfer is a lucky, lucky man. And you, Miss Logan, will be good for him.’

  After that, they talked no more about Tam and there was a reserve between them that hadn’t been there before. Sophie was thankful when they climbed aboard the clanking dusty train that evening and she fell exhausted into the sanctuary of the women-only carriage. Peering out of the window at the lively orange sellers trying to catch final trade as the train shunted forward, she saw families setting up stoves on the open platform for their evening meal. She caught a whiff of acrid wood-smoke mingling with the buttery aroma of spicy cooking, and a jolt of familiarity rushed through her. It was a smell she had all but forgotten and yet it immediately brought back the India of her childhood. Sophie breathed in deeply. Her eyes flooded with tears. She sat down trembling.

  ‘Don’t worry dear,’ said a plump women who had introduced herself as Mrs Porter, ‘we’ll soon be out of this smelly place. Best shut the window, Betty.’

  The woman’s young daughter sprang up to do so.

  ‘No please leave it,’ Sophie said, her voice wavering. ‘I like the smell. It reminds me I’m home.’

  Chapter 16

  Sophie was on a sun-bleached veranda overgrown with flowering creepers. Her mother was there too, in a red dress, bending down, in a waft of perfume, to kiss her.

  Don’t go, Mama!

  We won’t be long darling.

  Her father, in evening dress and smoking a pipe, laughed and pushed her back into the dark house.

  Back into bed, you little scamp!

  Don’t leave me, Papa.

  But her parents vanished and she was left in the pitch-black interior, muffled in blankets that smelled of camphor. She couldn’t breathe ...

  ‘Wake up, Miss Logan!’ a hand shook her shoulder. ‘You’re safe with us. Just a bad dream. Best not to make such a noise.’

  Sophie came awake with a start. Her carriage companion, Mrs Porter, was peering at her through horn-rimmed spectacles. It took her a moment to realise where she was; on the top bunk of a swaying train heading for Lahore.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gasped.

  Seven-year old Betty Porter was perched on the end of her bed. ‘Were you dreaming of bandits with scimitars coming to chop your head off?’

  ‘Betty, be quiet,’ her mother chided.

  ‘You were screaming,’ Betty said. ‘Did they throw you down a well or tie you up and set fire to your house?’

  ‘Betty!’

  ‘Well, that’s what they do to memsahibs; Johnny Tinker says so.’

  ‘Johnny Tinker tells fibs.’

  ‘No he doesn’t, Mother. His father is a policeman so he knows everything that’s going on.’ She turned back to Sophie. ‘Johnny says that bandits are very clever at dressing up like ordinary people so you can’t really trust any of the natives. Even that man in the uniform who came in with the hot water – he could be a bandit ready to slit your throat–’

  ‘Stop it now,’ Mrs Porter ordered. ‘Of course he isn’t a bandit. Now come down at once and leave Miss Logan alone. I’m sorry,’ she said to Sophie, ‘my daughter has too much imagination. I don’t know where she gets such thoughts.’

  ‘Don’t worry, she isn’t bothering me,’ Sophie, sat up, relieved to be awake. She eyed Betty. ‘And bandits don’t frighten me either – I can spot the real ones straight away.’

  ‘How?’ Betty asked, her face expectant.

  ‘Because my family used to be bandits too.’

  The girl gasped, ‘really?’

  ‘Yes, they were Scottish Reivers and used to raid across the border into England and steal cattle and burn down houses.’

  Betty’s eyes widened. ‘And cut the throats of the little children?’

  ‘Only if they were annoying and wouldn’t let them get out of bed and have breakfast.’ She made a lunge at the girl.

  Betty squealed and scrambled off the bunk. From the safety of the opposite seat she stared at Sophie. ‘Tell me a story about your bandit family.’

  ‘Betty!’ her mother said in exasperation.

  ‘Tell me a story about your bandit family, please,’ said Betty.

  ***

  The journey passed more quickly than Sophie could have hoped, thanks to the lurid chatter of Betty Porter with her blonde pigtails who demanded stories all day long. Sophie was glad that she had absorbed so many of the family tales from Auntie Amy, and what she couldn’t remember, she made up. Mrs Porter was content to sit and crochet.

  ‘It’s wonderful having a new supply of wool; I’ve stocked up with half a suitcase. Isn’t the lilac pretty?’

  ‘Isn’t it too hot for woollens?’ Sophie asked, aware of how sweaty she felt in her limp cotton dress in the stuffy carriage.

  ‘Not on winter evenings. And if you go to Dalhousie or Murree in the cold season, you jolly well need your woollies.’

  When the child had an afternoon nap, Sophie was content just to gaze out of the window and watch the plains of India hurry by; green fields of winter wheat being irrigated by teams of oxen pulling water from wells; villages of beige thatched huts and mud temples, labourers (men and women) carrying baskets of mud from the riverbanks to make bricks. People walked in the sun under umbrellas and skinny tan dogs rushed up to the moving train and barked.

  As dusk came, Sophie observed the changes: cows being driven home by small boys with switches, women filling jars of water for the evening wash, men under feathery trees smoking hookahs. She went to the restaurant car for refreshment and met up with Boz and the Hollands for an evening meal. Boz kept them amused with comments about his fellow passengers in Second Class; mostly soldiers and Indian clerks.

  ‘The Tommies spend their time trying tae fleece the natives at cards and end up having to beg them for cigarettes. And the jokes – too blue to repeat in front o’ the lassies – but we’ve had a few sing-songs.’

  ‘Well at least you can join in those, having been a soldier,’ Sophie grinned.

  Boz rolled his eyes. ‘Aye, I just hope we all get some sleep the night.’

  Having slept deeply on the first night on the train, Sophie found sleep eluded her on the second. She peered out of the latticed shutter at a land bathed in moonlight, ghostly trees dotted among the rolling white hills, and thought how much closer she was getting to Tam with each clanking mile.

  Morning came and a breakfast of tea and toast that Sophie could barely swallow.

  ‘You were grinding your teeth in the night,’ Betty complained. ‘I thought a wild animal had got into the carriage.’

  Sophie made a growling noise and lunged for the girl, squeezing her tight around the waist. Betty screamed and giggled.

  Having waved the Hollands away at Amritsar, promising to keep in touch, she was too excited to sit; Lahore was the next stop.

  ‘You must call on us, dear,’ Mrs Porter said, as they got ready to disembark. ‘With Mr Porter being in the Agricultural Department we sometimes have to move around the Punjab, but as long as we’re in the Lahore cantonment you’re most welcome to visit.’ She handed Sophie an address card. ‘I can’t wait to get home and have a hot bath – wash all this dust off.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sophie was grateful for new friends. ‘And you must come to us once we have a house. Tam’s trying to rent a bungalow in Davis Road but I imagine we’ll be travelling a bit too with his job being in forest
ry.’

  ‘Will you be going into the jungly mountains where tigers and leopards eat people?’ Betty asked.

  ‘Betty,’ her mother sighed.

  ‘Very likely,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll try and bring you back a tiger cub so you can train up your own man-eater.’

  Betty laughed and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, yes please!’

  The train began to slow and passed out of the glare into the vaulted, smoke-filled station. Boz appeared with a young porter to help the women with their luggage. Jumping down from the train, Sophie scanned the crowded platform for sign of Tam.

  ‘Daddy!’ Betty squealed and flung herself at a ruddy-faced man with a large ginger moustache. He picked her up and gave her a kiss.

  ‘My, you’ve grown a head taller!’

  Sophie turned to Boz. ‘Where’s Tam? I can’t see him.’

  ‘Over there,’ Boz said, pointing at a man in khaki shorts and shirt pushing his way towards them.

  For a moment Sophie thought Boz must be mistaken. The man was gaunt-faced and sallow, his hair sparse and his clothes hanging loose. He had lost so much weight. Then Tam caught sight of her and his face lit up in his familiar grin. He strode towards her.

  ‘Who is this film star? I was expecting Miss Logan.’ He held out his arms.

  ‘Tam!’ Sophie hid her shock and fell into his hug. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘I hope Mr Boswell has looked after you properly?’

  ‘Of course he has.’

  ‘It was maddening not to be able to fetch you myself.’

  ‘Well I’m here now.’

  ‘And looking more bonny than ever.’ With a quick kiss on her cheek, he let her go and shook Boz’s hand. ‘Thank you. I owe you a chota peg or two.’

  ‘Or three or four,’ Boz chuckled. ‘But it was nae bother.’

  Sophie introduced Tam to the Porters and as soon as he heard they were heading for the cantonment, immediately took command and organised their luggage onto a bullock cart and people into tongas; the Porters in front and the others following. As they trotted briskly in their two-wheeled carriage up the wide Mall in the winter sun, Sophie gazed in awe at the imposing buildings. At a junction they passed in front of a huge building of dazzling white pillars.