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

  Rafi’s face broke into a tender smile. ‘Let our new life start today then, my love.’

  Under the dazzling wintry sun, they remounted the grazing ponies and left the jungle clearing, hand clasped in hand, to face the future together.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Some Anglo-Indian Terms

  ayah nanny

  babu clerk (derogatory: Indian with veneer of education)

  boxwallah merchant (derogatory: British in trade not profession)

  burra memsahib senior lady (burra meaning big)

  chaprassi messenger

  charpoy wooden bedframe strung with hemp

  chota hazri breakfast

  chota peg alcoholic drink

  chowkidar night watchman, guard

  daftar forest office

  dak post, office work

  dak bungalow rest house for travellers

  dhoti loincloth

  ghat quay

  hartal labour strike, general strike

  jungli from the jungle, wild

  khitmutgar head valet, server at table

  koi hai! Is anyone there? (Routinely a call to servants)

  maidan open ground/field in a town

  mali gardener

  memsahib madam, female sahib

  mofusil countryside, provinces

  mohurer head bookkeeper

  munshi language teacher

  pukka first class, proper

  punkah cloth ceiling fan

  purdah seclusion of women from men/strangers (lit: curtain)

  rajah landowner

  sadhvi holy woman

  sahib sir, master

  shikari hunter, guide

  syce groom (of horses)

  tonga two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage

  topee sun hat

  wallah person, worker

  yak dan storage chest

  zenana women’s quarters

  THE PLANTER’S BRIDE is the second novel in the India Tea Series. The first is THE TEA PLANTER’S DAUGHTER.

  1904 INDIA: Clarissa Belhaven and her younger sister Olive find their carefree life on their father’s tea plantation threatened by his drinking and debts. Wesley Robson, a brash young rival businessman, offers to help save the plantation in exchange for beautiful Clarrie’s hand in marriage, but her father flatly refuses. And when Jock Belhaven dies suddenly, his daughters are forced to return to their father’s cousin in Tyneside and work long hours in his pub.

  In Newcastle, Clarrie is shocked by the dire poverty she witnesses, and dreams of opening her own tea room, which could be a safe haven for local women. To provide a living for herself and Olive, Clarrie escapes her dictatorial cousin Lily and takes a job as housekeeper for kindly lawyer Herbert Stock. But Herbert’s vindictive son Bertie, jealous of Clarrie’s popularity, is determined to bring about her downfall. Then Wesley Robson comes back into Clarrie’s life, bringing with him a shocking revelation ...

  Set in the fascinating world of the Edwardian tea trade, THE TEA PLANTER’S DAUGHTER is a deeply involving and moving story with a wonderfully warm-hearted heroine.

  Reviews:

  ‘Irresistible’

  Sunderland Echo

  ‘A wonderfully moving, deeply emotional tale’

  Daily Record

  ‘Trotter uses her experiences and imagination to bring strength and depth to her novels. Another thought-provoking book’

  Lancashire Evening Post

  ‘Another action-packed, emotionally charged page-turner’

  Newcastle Journal

  ‘A moving saga set against the backdrop of the thriving tea trade in turn-of-the-century Tyneside’

  Peterborough Evening Telegraph

  ‘A gripping and heartrending novel... An unforgettable novel of courage, suffering and enduring love’

  Bolton Evening News

  Extract from THE TEA PLANTER’S DAUGHTER

  CHAPTER 1

  Assam, India, 1904

  ‘Gerr out!’ bellowed Jock Belhaven from his study. ‘And take that stinkin’ food away!’

  ‘But sahib, you must eat—’

  There was a splintering crash of china hitting the teak door frame.

  ‘Try to poison me, would yer?’ Jock ranted drunkenly.’Gerr out or I’ll shoot you, by heck I will!’

  In the next room Clarissa and Olive exchanged looks of alarm; they could hear every word through the thin bungalow walls. Olive, round-eyed with fear, dropped the bow of her violin at the sound of their father smashing more plates. Clarrie sprang up from her seat by the fire.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll calm him.’ She forced a smile at her petrified younger sister and dashed for the door, nearly colliding with Kamal, their Bengali khansama, retreating hastily from her father’s study, his bearded face in shock. A stream of foul abuse pursued him.

  ‘Sahib is not well,’ he said, quickly closing the door. ‘He is snapping like a tiger.’

  Clarrie put a hand on the old man’s arm. Kamal had served her father since his army days, long before she was born, and knew the raging drunk beyond the door was a pathetic shadow of a once vigorous, warm-hearted man.

  ‘He must have been to the village to buy liquor,’ she whispered. ‘He said he was going fishing.’

  Kamal gave a regretful shake of his head. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Clarissa.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said hastily. They listened unhappily to the sound of Jock swearing as he threw things around the room.

  ‘Your father is not to blame,’ Kamal said. ‘It is the ague. Whenever it is attacking him, he drinks to stop the pain. He will be right as rain in a few days.’

  Clarrie was touched by the man’s loyalty, but they both knew it was not just bouts of fever that bedevilled her father. His drinking had grown steadily worse since the terrible earthquake in which her mother had died — crushed by a toppling tree as she lay in bed, pregnant with their third child. Now Jock was banned from buying alcohol at the officers’ mess in Shillong and treated warily at the tea planters’ club at Tezpur on the rare occasions they travelled upcountry for a gymkhana or race meeting. No longer able to afford cases of whisky from Calcutta, he was dependent on cheap firewater from Khassia villagers or bowls of opium to numb his despair.

  ‘Go and make some tea,’ Clarrie suggested, ‘and sit with Olive. She doesn’t like to be on her own. I’ll deal with Father.’

  With a reassuring smile at Kamal, she took a deep breath and knocked firmly on the study door. Her father shouted back in a jumble of English and Bengali. Bravely, Clarrie opened the door a crack.

  ‘Babu,’ she called, using the affectionate name from her childhood, ‘it’s me, Clarrie. Can I come in?’

  ‘Gan t’ hell!’ he snarled.

  Clarrie pushed the door open and slipped inside. ‘I’ve come to say goodnight, Babu,’ she persisted. ‘I wondered if you would like some tea before bed?’

  In the yellow glow of the oil lamp she could see him swaying amid the wreckage like a survivor from a storm. Mildewed books torn from their shelves and shards of blue and white china — her mother’s beloved willow pattern — were scattered across the wooden floor amid a splattered mess of rice and dhal. A fried fish lay stranded at his feet. The room stank of strong liquor and sweat, although the air was chilly.

  Trying to hide her shock, Clarrie moved into the room, stepping over the mess without comment. To draw attention to it now would only madden him. In the morning her father would be full of remorse. He watched her suspiciously but his protests subsided.

  ‘Come and sit by the fire, Babu,’ she coaxed. ‘I’ll get it going again. You look tired. Did you catch any fish today? Ama says her sons caught some big mahseer in Um Shirpi yesterday. Perhaps you should try there tomorrow. I’ll ride out and take a look, shall I?’

  ‘No! Shouldn’t be out on yer own,’ he slurred. ‘Leopards. . .’

  ‘I’m always careful.’

  ‘And those men.’ He spat out the word.

  ‘What men?’ She stee
red him towards a threadbare armchair.

  ‘Recruiters — sniffing around here — bloody Robsons,’ he growled.

  ‘Wesley Robson?’ Clarrie asked, startled. ‘From the Oxford Estates?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jock cried, growing agitated again. ‘Trying to steal me workers!’

  No wonder her father was in such a state. Some large tea estates like the Oxford were ruthless in their quest for new labour to work their vast gardens. She had met Wesley Robson at a polo match in Tezpur last year; one of those brash young men newly out from England, good-looking and arrogant, thinking they knew more about India after three months than those who had lived here all their lives. Her father had taken against him at once, because he was one of the Robsons of Tyneside, a powerful family who had risen from being tenant farmers like the Belhavens, making their money in boilers and now investing in tea. Everything they touched seemed to spawn riches. The Robsons and the Belhavens had had a falling out years ago over something to do with farming equipment.

  ‘Have you seen Mr Robson?’ Clarrie asked in dismay.

  ‘Camping over by Um Shirpi,’ Jock snorted.

  ‘Maybe it’s just a fishing expedition,’ she suggested, trying to soothe him. ‘If he was recruiting for the tea gardens, he’d be round the villages dishing out money and opium as if he owned the place.’

  ‘He’s trying to ruin me.’ Jock would not be mollified. ‘Old man Robson was the same — put me grandfather out of business. Never forgive ‘im. Now they’re in India — my India. They’re out to get me—’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ Clarrie said, guiding him quickly into the chair. ‘Nobody’s going to put us out of business. Tea prices are bound to go up again soon.’

  He sat watching her, hunched and gaunt-faced, while she blew gently on the dying embers of the fire and added sticks. As it came alive again with a crackle, the room filled with the sweet scent of sandalwood. She gave her father a cautious glance. His chin was slumped on his chest, his hooded eyes drowsy. His face was emaciated, the skin as creased as old leather and his head almost bald. But for his European clothes, he looked more like a Hindu ascetic than a soldier turned tea-planter.

  She sat back on her haunches, feeding the fire. In her mind’s eye she could hear her mother’s silvery voice gently chiding her: ‘Don’t squat like a common villager — sit like a lady, Clarissa!’ It was sometimes hard to conjure up her mother’s face these days; her cautious smile and watchful brown eyes, her dark hair pulled into tight coils at the nape of her neck. There was a photograph on her father’s desk of them all taking afternoon tea on the veranda; baby Olive on her father’s knee and an impatient five-year-old Clarissa pulling away from her mother’s hand, her face blurred, bored with keeping still for the photographer. Yet her mother had remained composed, a slender, beautiful pre-Raphaelite figure with a wistful half-smile.

  Ama, their old nurse, told her that she grew more like her mother the older she got. She had inherited Jane Cooper’s dark complexion and large brown eyes, while Olive had the pale red hair and fairer skin of the Belhavens. The two sisters looked nothing like each other, and only Clarrie’s appearance betrayed the Indian ancestry of their mixed-race mother. Sheltered from society as they were, growing up at Belgooree, she nevertheless knew that they were marked out in British circles as mildly shocking. Many men took Indian mistresses, but her father had broken ranks by marrying and settling down with one. Jane Cooper, daughter of a British clerk and an Assamese silk worker, had been abandoned at the Catholic orphanage and trained as a teacher at the mission school in Shillong.

  As if that were not offence enough, Jock caused further embarrassment by expecting his daughters to be welcomed into Anglo-Indian society as if they were pure English roses. And to cap it all, this jumped-up soldier from the wilds of Northumberland thought he knew how to grow tea.

  Oh, Clarrie had heard the hurtful comments at church and clubhouse, and felt the disapproval of the women from the cantonment in Shillong who stopped their conversations when she entered the shops of the bazaar. Olive hated these shopping trips, but Clarrie refused to let small-minded people upset her. She had more right to live here than any of them and she loved her home among the Assam hills with a passion.

  Yet she shared her father’s worry over the estate. The terrible earthquake of seven years ago had ripped up acres of hillside and they had had to replant at great expense. The tea trees were only now reaching maturity, while the market for their delicate leaves appeared to have vanished like morning mist. The insatiable British palate now demanded the strong, robust teas of the hot, humid valleys of Upper Assam. She wished there was someone she could turn to for advice, for her father seemed intent on self-destruction.

  Clarrie glanced at him. He had dozed off. She got up and fetched a blanket from the camp bed in the corner. Her father had slept in here for the past seven years, unable to enter the bedroom in which his beloved Jane had died. Clarrie tucked it around him. He stirred, his eyes flickering open. His look fixed on her and his jaw slackened.

  ‘Jane?’ he said groggily. ‘Where’ve you been, lass?’

  Clarrie’s breath froze in her throat. He often mistook her for her mother in his drunkenness, but it shook her every time.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ she said softly.

  ‘The bairns.’ He frowned. ‘Are they in bed? Must say goodnight.’

  As he struggled to sit up, she pushed him gently back. ‘They’re fine,’ she crooned. ‘They’re asleep — don’t wake them.’

  He slumped under the blanket. ‘Good,’ he sighed.

  She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Her eyes smarted with tears. She might be only eighteen, but she felt weighed down with a world of responsibilities. How long could they go on like this? Not only was the tea garden failing, but the house needed repairs and Olive’s music teacher had just put up her fees. Clarrie swallowed down her panic. She would talk to her father when he was sober. Sooner or later he would have to face up to their problems.

  Returning to the sitting room she found Olive crouched in a chair hugging her knees, rocking back and forth. Kamal stood by the carved table in the window guarding the silver teapot.

  ‘He’s sleeping,’ she told them. Olive. stopped her rocking. Kamal nodded in approval and poured Clarrie a cup of tea while she went to sit beside her sister. She put a hand to Olive’s hair and stroked it away from her face. The girl flinched and pulled away, her body taut as piano wire. Clarrie could hear the tell-tale wheezing that preceded an attack of asthma.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Clarrie said reassuringly. ‘You can carry on playing now if you like.’

  ‘No I can’t,’ Olive panted. ‘I’m too upset. Why does he shout like that? And break things. He’s always breaking things.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean to.’

  ‘Why can’t you stop him? Why can’t you stop him drinking?’

  Clarrie appealed silently to Kamal as he set her cup on the small inlaid table beside her.

  ‘I will clear it all up, Miss Olive. In the morning all will be better,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll never be better again! I want my mother!’ Olive wailed. She broke off in a fit of coughing, that strange panting cough that bedevilled her during the cold season as if she were trying to expel bad air. Clarrie held her, rubbing her back.

  ‘Where’s your ointment? Is it in the bedroom? I’ll fetch it. Kamal will boil up some water for a head-steam, won’t you, Kamal?’

  They rushed around attending to Olive’s needs, until the girl had calmed down and her coughing had abated. Kamal brewed fresh tea infused with warming spices: cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger. Clarrie breathed in the aroma as she sipped at the golden liquid, her frayed nerves calming with each mouthful. The colour, she noticed thankfully, was returning to Olive’s wan face too.

  ‘Where’s Ama?’ Clarrie asked, realising she had not seen the woman since lunchtime. She had been too busy in the tea garden supervising the weeding to notice.

&nb
sp; Kamal gave a disapproving waggle of his head. ‘Swanning off down to village doing as she pleases.’

  ‘One of her sons is ill,’ Olive said.

  ‘Why didn’t she say anything to me?’ Clarrie wondered. ‘I hope it’s nothing serious.’

  ‘Never serious,’ Kamal declared, ‘always toothache or wind. But Ama flies off like mother hen.’ He made a squawking noise.

  Clarrie snorted with laughter and Olive smiled. ‘Don’t mock,’ Clarrie said. ‘She fusses over you as much as any of us.’

  Kamal grinned and shrugged as if the ways of Ama and her kind were beyond his comprehension.

  Soon after, they all retired to bed. Olive snuggled up close to Clarrie between chilly damp sheets. On nights when their father was fuelled with alcohol, the thirteen year old always begged to share Clarrie’s bed. It was not as if Jock ever barged in and woke them, but any night noise — a hooting owl, the scream of a jackal or the screech of a monkey — set Olive trembling with unfathomable fear.

  Clarrie lay awake long after Olive’s noisy breathing had settled into a sleeping rhythm. She slept fitfully and awoke before dawn. There was no point lying there stewing over problems; she would go for an early morning ride. Creeping out of bed, Clarrie dressed swiftly and left the house, making for the stables where her white pony, Prince, snorted softly in greeting.

  Her heart lifted as she nuzzled him and breathed in his warm smell. They had bought him from Bhutanese traders on a rare holiday in the foothills of the Himalayas, after her mother died. Her father had found Belgooree intolerable for a while and they had trekked for several months, Olive being transported in a basket slung between poles, her anxious face peering out from under a large raffia hat. Clarrie had fallen at once for the sturdy, nimble pony and her father had approved.

  ‘Superior sort, Bhutan ponies. Of course you can have him.’

  Clarrie had ridden him almost every day since. She was a familiar sight around the estate and the surrounding forest tracks. Hunters and villagers called to her in greeting and she often stopped to exchange news about the weather, information on animal tracks or predictions about the monsoon.