“Contradictory. First, Saint Paul writes that there will be misery. Then he says that everything will be good.”
“Wrong. Everything will work together for good,” Miles clarified. “You see the difference? Suffering will come to each of us. But in a Christian’s life, all events—whether positive or negative—will work for good in the end.”
“That is quite a promise. But I can’t see how it applies to your pursuit of the pure and pious Miss Lowell.”
Miles leaned back and contemplated the question. “It is true that I’m not the ideal gentleman,” he admitted. “Perhaps I did have devious motives in asking Beth to go to India with me. And one might even argue that I purchased this Bible for all the wrong reasons…”
“You’ve utterly condemned yourself, Miles,” his brother said. “Carry on.”
“But that’s it, you see. We are condemned, all of us. And yet, those who call themselves Christians are actually free of the fate they deserve. Not only that, but according to Saint Paul, they’ve got God Himself working to put their lives into good order. Even through the struggles. It all comes out right in the end.”
“Lucky us.” Malcolm took the Bible from his brother’s hands and began to reread the underlined words.
“I believe,” Miles said, “that God intended for Beth to meet me in the Nairobi airport. Or if we can’t go quite that far, at least we can predict that God is going to use this trip to India to her benefit. And all because she’s such a religious person.”
Beth relaxed her grip on the tablecloth. “Oh, for pity’s sake, I’m not all that religious. Religion is the outer trappings that go along with a person’s faith—the church or temple or mosque, style of worship, prayer rituals, stuff like that. I have trouble with the religious aspect on a regular basis, and my faith often feels pretty weak.”
“Come on,” Miles said. “You’re better at it than most people. You read your Bible, carry it with you everywhere, run your race.”
“And you never yoke,” Malcolm put in.
“I try to follow Christ,” Beth said. “But look what I’ve done in the past few months. I’ve hurt my mother by flying off to meet my birth father—a man whose name she wants never mentioned again. I’ve argued with her, yelled at her and totally disregarded her wishes. I’m unwisely sitting here with two people I hardly know, and I’m recklessly heading off on a weeklong trip with one of them. Does that sound like a prudent thing to do? My brothers think I’m nuts. When I told them what was going on, they both advised me to drop the issue and accept the family I grew up in as my own. Oh, sure, I’ve prayed about this and read my Bible and talked to Christian friends, but the bottom line is that I’m doing what I want to do. I’m being selfish, and that’s not Christ-like in the least.”
Both brothers stared at her as though she’d been speaking a foreign language.
“Well, that does it then,” Miles said. “I must cancel the trip at once.”
“Absolutely,” Malcolm agreed. “I won’t let my brother go off to India with such a careless, self-centered creature.”
“Indeed, I can’t imagine spending even another minute with someone so egotistical and proud.”
“She’s cruel, she is. Ignoring her brothers’ advice. Disobeying her mother.”
“We’ve never done anything like that, have we, Malcolm?”
“Certainly not. We’ve always been good boys.”
“Personally,” Miles said, “I never make a move without consulting you, Mum, the board of governors, the Queen and God.”
Beth’s shoulders loosened. “All right, that’s enough.”
“I’d never go looking for my missing relations in the face of such familial disapproval,” Malcolm said.
“Nor sit in a restaurant with someone I’d only known for a month.”
“It’s her yelling at her mother that bothers me. We never yell, do we, Miles?”
“Well, there was that awkward time when Mum ran off to Australia with the polo captain. I believe you and I might have done some yelling. A jolt in the family structure does tend to bring out the worst in a person. Do you know what I mean, Beth?”
“Yes,” she said. “Okay, maybe I’ve behaved normally under the circumstances. I just wish I could be sure I was doing the right thing.”
“But you are,” Miles reminded her. “Everything works together for the good of Christians.”
“That doesn’t mean you can blindly go around doing anything you want. Christians are those who ‘love God and are called according to His purpose for their lives,’ remember? But I don’t know what God’s purpose is in all this. I really can’t figure it out.”
“Neither can I,” Miles said. “And I think that’s the beauty in it. In the end, all you’ve got is faith.”
Rain spattered the windshield, droplets flying left and right with the motion of the wipers, as the small black car labored up the steep foothills of the Himalayas. Beth sat in the back, gazing out at emerald-green ridges and distant, mist-shrouded blue mountains. Occasionally, the car passed a person climbing the winding road. A Buddhist monk in a bright orange robe. A woman bent beneath the heavy basket on her back. An old man with a cane, nudging the roadway for rocks that might make him stumble.
Beth and Miles had taken a jet from London to Calcutta. A propeller-driven plane flew them to Bagdogra airport, where a Wilson Teas car was waiting to take them the three-hour drive up to Darjeeling. At the wheel was the company’s Indian liaison rather than a chauffeur, which gave Miles the perfect opportunity to discuss business while Beth tried to collect her thoughts. The two men chatted about tea production, labor issues, the coming monsoon rains and the state of the world tea market. Beth listened for a while from the backseat until eventually she tuned them out and concentrated on the scenery.
But the view didn’t take her mind off her worries. She hadn’t heard from her mother since leaving the awful phone message. Though Beth knew she should have called again while still in London, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The thought of Jan’s tearful, accusing voice on the other end of the line was just too much.
This was all a mistake. Even the discovery of the tea set and the note inside it had been in error. From that moment, nothing had gone right. Beth and her mother had shouted at each other and wept and apologized and tried to make everything just fine. But it wasn’t. Beth walked through each day feeling disoriented, as though she had inadvertently put on someone else’s skin one morning instead of her own. She had been so confident, so sure of herself. Now she wasn’t even positive who she was. Did genes and DNA even matter, after all? Was a person’s upbringing all that really counted?
Again, she felt sick at the thought of how her father would feel if he were alive. The betrayal. The disloyalty. And after all he had done for Beth.
“You’re looking a bit pale,” Miles said over his shoulder. “Feeling ill? Darjeeling sits at over 7,000 feet. Thinner air, you know. And the road is tortuous.”
“I’m all right.” She studied his eyes, filled with concern. How attractive he’d seemed to her when they were apart. And even now, just a casual glance from him sent a tingle up her spine. But how dumb. How immature. There were thousands of nice-looking men in New York. She shouldn’t have let one Brit with blue eyes send her spiraling.
“We’re almost there,” he told her. “Too bad we’ve got clouds today. We’re just at the start of the monsoon season, but if we’re lucky, we’ll have break in the mists and get a look at Kanchenjunga.”
Almost there. Beth laced her fingers together and squeezed. She had no idea what to say when she met him. Thomas Wood. Why had that name taken hold of her and possessed her? She wasn’t a Wood. She was a Lowell, a proud Lowell.
“Is the Wilson Teas estate near town?” she was asking just as her cell phone warbled. “Oh, excuse me a moment…Hello? Beth Lowell speaking.”
“Beth, it’s your mother. I hope I didn’t wake you up. I’m not sure about the time difference.”
; “Mom?” She looked at Miles. His eyes softened. He reached across the seat back and laid his hand over hers.
“Are you in India?” Jan asked.
“Yes. We’re on our way up the mountains toward Darjeeling.”
“Oh…so you haven’t…”
“Not yet.”
“Well, then.” There was a moment of silence. “I guess you’re safely back on the ground anyway. I hope your flight was good. Are the roads there fairly decent?”
Before her mother could babble on further, Beth blurted out what was on her heart. “Mom, listen, I’m sorry about that message I left on your machine. I should have told you in person what I was planning to do.”
“It’s all right. I guess nothing you do can surprise me now.”
Beth bristled, but she tried to keep her voice calm. “I realize this wasn’t how we left things when I visited there the last time. You told me how you felt, and I really did listen.”
“Yes, well, perhaps your mother’s opinion doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it matters. Very much.” The car took a hairpin curve, and Beth thought for a moment she might be sick.
“You’re cutting in and out, honey, so I guess I’ll say goodbye. I hope everything goes all right for you there.”
“Mom, please don’t hang up yet. Just listen to me for a minute, okay? I didn’t want to disappoint you. That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to call earlier. I knew you’d be hurt, but I felt I had to make this journey. I needed to know.”
“Know what? You already know what Thomas looks like. You know where he lives and what he does. You know he’s married. What else is there?”
Could Beth actually say what had been hammering in her brain when she made her travel arrangements? I need to know that my father is a Christian. I need to make sure he shares my faith. I have to be certain of his eternal destiny. It sounded lame. Like a weak excuse for thoughtless behavior.
“You want to know what he’s like, don’t you?” her mother asked. “Well, I could have told you that. Thomas Wood is a selfish, egotistical man. He has his own goals, and he doesn’t care about anything else. Or anyone but himself.”
Beth suddenly gripped Miles’s hand more tightly. She could almost hear the words her mother hadn’t spoken. Thomas Wood is like you, Beth. The two of you are just the same.
“Oh, dear. Wait,” Jan said, a tremor in her words. “Just a second. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t intend to say that to you. I wanted to tell you…something else. Let me start over.”
Closing her eyes, Beth could almost see her mother’s face before her. But Jan wasn’t perkily spouting pithy quotations or snapping off retorts to put her daughter back in line. What did the woman look like now—this mother whose voice had traveled halfway around the globe to reach her daughter’s ear?
“Thomas was a good man,” Jan began, repeating the words she had written on the note her daughter found inside the teapot. “And he was…he was very dear to me. I felt terribly wounded when he left for Sri Lanka the second time. It seemed like he was choosing his career and his love of adventure over me…and you. But he didn’t know about you. So that’s not fair. I can’t hold him responsible for it. Oh, Beth, what can I say that will help you feel better? He was talented. He was brave. He was funny. He was passionate. He was very smart, too. One time he told me he thought he could learn to grow tea better than anyone else, and see? I bet he has.”
Beth tried to respond, but she found no words.
Her mother continued. “The thing I need to remind you, Beth, is that…you have to remember that Thomas didn’t know anything about your existence. I didn’t tell him I was pregnant before he left. I didn’t send him a letter when you were born, or contact him during the years while you were growing up. Thomas came back to Texas a couple of times to visit his family, but I never saw him, and I never let him know about you. His mother didn’t tell him, either. Nanny agreed to go along with my wishes, because I offered to let her see you as much as she wanted if she would keep the secret. And so she did, even though it hurt her not to be able to tell her son that he was a father. I know it did. But I didn’t care, you see, because I was selfish, too.”
“Now, Mom, please don’t—”
“No, let me finish, Beth. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m the selfish one. And it’s all right that you’re in India. Truly, it is. I hope you have a good experience there…a good meeting…and I hope you like him. But he won’t be prepared, so I’ve been worrying that you might get hurt. Oh, Beth, sweetie, I don’t want you to be wounded over this. I’ve caused you enough pain, honey. I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
Beth held her breath for a moment, hardly able to absorb the gush of words that had flowed from her mother’s mouth. She was holding Miles’s hand as though she were perched at the lip of a cliff, and one slight puff of breeze would send her off the edge.
“I’m sorry, too, Mom,” she said. “I’m sorry for hurting you.”
A sniffle echoed across the miles. “Well, I guess that’s how it is sometimes when people love each other.”
“I suppose so.”
“Just stay safe. And be good. And call me if you want to talk. And how is…how is Miles?”
Beth lifted her focus to the blue eyes that gazed back at her. “Miles is fine. He’s nice.”
Miles held out his free hand and gave Beth a little nod. “Let me have a word with dear ol’ Mum, will you please?” he murmured.
Without telling her mother, Beth handed him the cell phone. He put it to his ear. “Am I speaking to the mother of the charming Beth Lowell?” he asked. His mouth widened into a smile. “Excellent. Miles Wilson, here. Mrs. Lowell, do permit me to assure you that your daughter is in very good hands. I mean to keep her under lock and key and only let her out when I’m certain she is prepared to behave herself properly.”
At the sound of Miles’s mischievous tone and cocksure British accent, Beth felt her tension begin to melt. She sank into the seat.
“That is absolutely correct,” he said. “She’ll be staying in a company guesthouse with room for no more than one occupant. She’ll be fed a wholesome diet, and I shall see that she is taken out to tour the estate, receive her daily exercise and breathe the fresh air of the Himalayas. I promise you that I shall introduce her to our staff members—particularly our production manager—in the most discreet manner, and I shall ensure her welfare and contentment at every possible moment. You have my word that nothing dreadful will happen to your lovely daughter, and she will be returned to you as whole and happy as she ever was…perhaps even more so.”
A long breath deflated Beth’s lungs as Miles went on chatting with her mother. She rested her head on the seat back and gazed out the window again. As he spoke, a pearl-gray cloud suddenly dissolved, and a slice of golden sunlight lit the car, the road, the valley below and far, far up in the distance, the peak of a snow-covered mountain.
“Perfect,” Miles said. “I shall make certain that she telephones you at least twice daily. Your daughter is willful, Mrs. Lowell, but what else can one expect from such an exquisite and unique creature?…right, then. Signing off.”
He gave the phone back to Beth and followed her eyes to the window. “Aha. Just as I’d planned. Here we are in Darjeeling—and Kanchenjunga has come out to greet us.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jan spread the letters across the table on her screened porch. Four blue envelopes, onionskin paper, strangely colorful stamps, her address in squared black-ink words. He had written only four times, and she had never replied. Why had she even bothered to keep them? Hidden at the bottom of her cedar jewelry box, they had lain untouched and almost forgotten.
Almost.
Today, she would start at the beginning. A bright red cardinal in the dogwood tree near the porch whistled as she reached for the first of the letters. Thomas had written it not long after arriving in Sri Lanka to begin his full-time job. Jan, who had been vomiting every morn
ing, yelling at her family every afternoon, sobbing her eyes out most of each night, had barely been able to focus when her older brother brought the letter into her bedroom.
“It’s from Thomas,” he had announced, thrusting out the pale blue envelope with its red and navy stripes around the edges. “Pull yourself together, Jan. Everybody’s getting really sick of you.”
“Get out of my room!” she had screamed at him. “Just leave me alone. I hate you! I hate everything about this stupid family!”
As the door shut behind her brother, Jan had blinked through her tears at the letter in her hand. Now, all these years later, she again studied Thomas’s odd penmanship. Blunt and hard-edged and earthy, like him. She slid the letter from the envelope. The photograph fell out, just as it had the first time. Thomas stared into the camera, his long, wild, brown hair trimmed into a neat, grown man’s style. He wore a khaki-green uniform shirt with an embroidered logo on the breast pocket. Two tea leaves and a bud. Verdant fields of green plants stretched out behind him. He was smiling.
“Dear Jan,” he had written. She read the words again, imagining him writing them and remembering herself reading them.
I’m here on the estate and settling into my job. I live in an apartment with three other guys. One is an intern from Tanzania, and the other two are Sri Lankans. We can’t understand each other, so we don’t talk much.
It’s boring at night. The manager put me out in the field again, like I was last spring, but I am hoping to get to work in the factory pretty soon. I want to see how it runs and figure out if I can make some improvements.
I know you were really upset with me for deciding to take the job, but I wish you could get over it. You would like Sri Lanka. I still want you to come out here for a visit. I’ll pay for as much of your ticket as I can afford. My relatives gave me quite a bit of money for graduation, and it’s in a savings account in Tyler. My dad can get into the account and help you buy the ticket. I told him to do whatever you asked.
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