Vikram laughed out loud. “Sister, Grace has had more to be thinking of than sorting out the servants. Come, have some homemade lemonade.”
Rhya ignored her brother and put up her hand to wave away the tray of tall glasses. “That is our first task, Grace. Once you sort the servants and they know who is in charge, you will command this whole coffee estate and it will not matter what Vikram Fernandes has to say.”
Grace allowed herself to be pulled along to the kitchen as Emma and Rosa sat together on the swing seat, making it screech loudly.
“Mama is quite something. Do you know she has been telling everybody Emma is Grace’s daughter and you have met a lovely woman in Europe? She won’t tell anybody the truth.”
Vikram, sitting into his favourite rattan chair, shook his head. “Rhya has a lot to contend with. We must accept what she can and cannot cope with. What does it matter what others think? We know the truth. If it keeps Rhya happy, then so be it.”
Emma paced across the veranda, leaning on the steel balustrading. “So like home, yet so different when the clouds fall off the mountains, swirling down to the trees, making everything ghostly.”
“You like it here?” Vikram asked.
“The coffee estate and India, I love them both.”
“Maybe you will come to India and live here.”
Emma smiled at her father. “Maybe I will, but first I have to decide what to do with the Dublin house.”
“You will sell it?”
“I could, or I thought Angie might like to rent the space for more bedrooms for her business.”
“It could finance your life here.”
“That is what Andrew, my father’s— I mean the judge’s partner said.”
She looked embarrassed and Vikram stood beside her and took her hand. “Each one of us has a complicated history, Emma. Don’t be afraid to call the judge your father.”
“You will have to meet Andrew. He is a lovely man.”
“Which proves there is someone for everybody,” Vikram laughed as he turned to Rosa. “And you – are you happy, my Rosa?”
Rosa curled up her feet under her. “Now, yes.”
“What of Anil? He has handed in his notice.”
“We were not happy. I can’t say I missed him when I was in Ireland. I grabbed the bull by the horns – that is what Emma said I should do – and I kicked him out. Really, it finished between us a long time ago. I threw him out, gave him one hour to pack his bags. The sorry fellow is living with his brother in Delhi.”
“Maybe it is for the best, my Rosa. Real love could be around the corner.”
“In this faraway location, I very much doubt it.” Rosa laughed and Vikram thought there was so much of the woman who had raised her in this girl.
*
Vikram got dressed in his silk kurta early. Rhya shooed him away as she walked into the bedroom.
“You must give us time to dress, Vik, and tell the boy we will eat early.”
He heard her talk gently to Grace and he felt complete joy to hear the hum of happy conversation emanating from the room as Rosa and Emma joined them.
It could all have been so different. Grace did not blame him at all. She had not told him what her life was like in the asylum, and he doubted she ever would, but he saw it in her every day: her childlike delight in being able to walk from room to room, stepping out on the grassed lawn in front of the bungalow, letting the dog lean into her, her hand gently caressing the dog’s ears, her inability to order the manservant about, the way she jumped when anybody walked up behind her, the way she cried after he made love to her. All he wanted to do now was stay here, in this quiet place, surrounded by the coffee plants, the trees and the mountains, amidst the sound of the birds, the waterfalls and the wildlife, to just sit together and be.
So caught up was he, he did not at first hear Rosa call him.
“Vik, may we present Grace,” she said, sweeping her hand wide as if she was introducing somebody on stage.
Nervously stepping onto the veranda, Grace stood in front of him, her white and gold sari perfectly draped across her light frame, her blouse with sleeves to the elbow edged in a deeper gold. Her hair was wrapped into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and there was a shy smile on her face that he remembered from decades earlier. As he held out his hand to her, she stepped towards him. It was then he saw his mother’s thick gold jewellery around her neck. He had once seen her, a vision in a gold ballgown. Now, cloaked in white and gold Indian silk, the sari draped in soft pleats, he could honestly say he had never seen Grace so beautiful, so serene and so happy. His heart soared to see her so lovely in front of him.
Emma, in a deep-blue sari with a red border, followed, her walk a little more awkward than her mother’s, her shoulders hunched, as if she was unsure of how to hold herself in a sari.
Rosa caught her hand. The two sisters, one in blue, the other in purple, walked to Vikram.
Rhya, wearing a new sari in deep-green silk, hung back. Vikram turned to her.
“Rhya, you will always have the right to stand with us, you surely know that.”
Her step was light as she quickly walked across to the rest of the family.
Vikram turned to Grace. “I promised a long time ago that we would be together in Chikmagalur. I wanted you to come with me. Here, in this beloved place, I will make that promise again in front of those who matter to us most and in front of these hills which have waited so long for us and which now shield us, in this cocoon away from the rest of the world.”
The clouds had lifted, so he took her hand and they walked to their favourite spot, where, through the tall trees shading the Robusta plants, they could see the roll of the mountains as they stood on lookout over the estate. At their height was a rich blue-green against a blue-grey sky, where small scuffles of clouds lingered.
Vikram called to the servants and the older one shouted to two boys, who ran over, holding a bench between them, placing it for Grace to sit.
Vikram sat beside her and took her hand.
“Grace, nothing I will ever do will make up for the wrongs done to you, but I pledge here in this place of my heart, I am yours, to eternity and beyond. Let our family bear witness and let the hills bear witness to this simple but heartfelt pledge to you, that not a day will go by, in all the years I hope we have together, when I will not try to make it up to you.”
Tears puffed up inside her and she stroked his face, her fingers lightly caressing his wet cheeks.
“You do not have to make up anything, Vikram, but I accept your love and return it thousands over.” Gently, she kissed him. “Vikram, you, and this place especially, have set me free.”
“Even when the clouds hem us in and the trees resemble ghostly soldiers standing sentry?”
She reached over, taking his two hands. “This is it, Vikram, the place and dream that kept me going. Now, it is our time to live it.”
He hugged her and Rhya pursed her lips in dissatisfaction, to think any woman would want to stay in this wilderness full-time.
A breeze rose up through the Robusta plants, rumpling the feathers of the birds and tousling the leaves on the trees, swirling across the hill, scattering towards the mountains.
“We are all home,” Rosa whispered, taking Emma’s hand.
The twin sisters turned together and walked towards the old estate house, letting the others follow behind.
The Judge's Wife Page 24