“Look, he’s coming up the hill.” He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. “I’m stopping the truck, and we’re going to get out. I promise he’ll be much more intent on me than on you. I’m his boss, remember?”
Swallowing at nothing, Beth pressed her dry lips together. She wouldn’t be able to talk. Her mouth was parched, and her knees felt like noodles. She couldn’t even think how to pray.
And now Thomas had climbed up to the road. She could see him better, and he looked like the boy in the senior photograph from the high school yearbook…only the hair at his temples was gray and deep lines fanned out from the corner of each eye. But he was tall enough. Square enough. The high cheekbones and long, straight nose, the Adam’s apple…
“Mr. Wood?” Miles had stepped out of the truck and was walking to meet him, hand thrust out in greeting. “Miles Wilson. London office. Pleased to see you.”
Beth sat rigid, small breaths hopping in and out of her scorched mouth, her nostrils dilated as though she were choking. Thomas Wood shook Miles’s hand and reminded him they’d met before.
“A few years back,” Thomas said. “The big Christmas party at the main house. You were here with someone…a girlfriend, I think. The whole event was fairly crazy. A lot of alcohol. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me.”
“Ah.” Miles gave Beth a guilty glance. “And I should very much like you to meet another…friend. Beth?”
Feeling like the Tin Man without his oil can, she managed to open the truck door and step out onto the road. She willed her mouth into a smile and forced her feet to move forward one after the other.
“Beth Lowell,” Miles was saying. “This is Thomas Wood. He’s in charge of production here in Darjeeling. The fields as well as the factory, I believe?”
“That’s right.” Her father thrust out his hand. “Thomas Wood. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lowell.”
She stared at it too long. His hand, the fingers that had caressed Beth’s mother. The palm that had pressed her against him. The knuckles a deep brown from years of exposure to the tropical sun. The hand that was somehow connected to Beth even without a touch.
“Hello,” she murmured. She set her hand in his, and he wrapped those large, brown fingers around it and gave a firm shake.
“You’re an American,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
Too late!
He perked up. “I was raised in Texas. Tyler. Ever been there?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“As have I,” Miles spoke up. “Dallas, at any rate. Fascinating city. The businessmen wear cowboy hats and boots with their Armani suits. A bit humid in the summer months. Beth is a travel consultant of sorts. We met in an airport in Kenya. Do tell him about your work, Beth.”
“I handle global transitions for a New York moving company.” To her surprise, the words came out perfectly. “Basically, I help our customers settle comfortably into a foreign country.”
“She finds houses for them,” Miles explained. “Hires household staff. Locates schools and country clubs. Immensely helpful. Wilson Teas would do well to make use of her services, don’t you think, Mr. Wood? I’m certain you didn’t have such assistance when you first came to Darjeeling.”
Thomas lowered his head and chuckled. “I was sent over from the Sri Lanka estate years ago when the former production manager suddenly quit. Lawford put me into one of the guest bungalows for a while. When I got married, I moved into one of the bigger houses. To tell the truth, I was too busy to realize it was a transition. But I’m sure most people could benefit from your services, Ms. Lowell.”
“Lucky for us to have such an adaptable employee as you, sir,” Miles observed. “My brother, Malcolm, told me you constructed a home here for yourself and your wife.”
Thomas’s expression sobered. “I built the new place three years ago. After she died.”
“Dreadfully sorry, Mr. Wood. I had no idea you’d lost your wife. Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I’m pleased to know you’ve got a place where you can feel comfortable, and I do wish to convey my thanks and congratulations for the excellent work you do here. I’ve been remiss. As president of the international division, I should have spoken with you long before now, Mr. Wood. Malcolm tells me that our Darjeeling tea continues to bring some of the highest prices on the market. And equally important, we’ve operated at a substantial profit from your second year as production manager to this day. Well done, sir.”
“I can’t claim the credit, Mr. Wilson. Lawford handles the office work—the books, the payroll, the markets, all that.” Thomas Wood had turned his head and hooked his hands into his back pockets, Beth noticed. He was studying the women who had gone back to their plucking, as though he didn’t trust himself to look Miles in the eye. She wondered if the mention of his wife’s death had caused the reaction.
“We can’t have success without good tea,” Miles pointed out. “I’m told you’re actually involved in the propagation and breeding of tea here at Darjeeling. I can’t think how you have time for it while overseeing the labor and the factory.”
“Hybridization is a hobby of mine from way back. My family owned a big rose nursery in Tyler, and I studied agriculture at school. Once I had things running a bit more smoothly here, I thought I’d see if we couldn’t breed out some of our problems and make our stock more healthy. Camellia sinensis is a fascinating shrub. You’d think we couldn’t discover anything new about it, but I’m still learning.”
“Excellent, Mr. Wood.”
“Please call me Thomas.” He turned to Beth, his voice lighter and his expression more cheerful. “If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Lowell, I need to head over to another field and talk to the women. There’s some kind of rivalry going on between that group and this one here. They tell me it’s all about how I’m assigning the fields—who has to walk the steepest hills. But I’ve got an informer who says they’re feuding over a man.” He laughed, chest-deep. “It’s always something.”
“Women,” Miles echoed.
Beth knew she should rise to the challenge, but she had hardly been able to keep breathing the whole time Miles was talking to Thomas Wood. He was real. This man. Her father by birth. She drank him in like a thirsty child, trying to absorb and know everything about him. He had endowed her with those dark brown eyes, that long face, the olive skin. He was smart. Inventive. Good with people. Adaptable. Had he given her those things, too? She ached to throw her arms around him and feel his embrace. At the same time, she wanted to run away as fast as her legs would carry her.
Who was he? Who was she? What was she supposed to do now?
“Right, then,” Miles spoke up, taking her arm. “Listen, Thomas, might I entice you to dinner with us this evening? We won’t be in Darjeeling long, and I should like to make it up to you for focusing so much attention on Lawford’s end of things. I’d enjoy hearing more about your hybridization program. And I certainly want to hear how you sort out these pesky troubles with your labor.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m busy tonight,” Thomas said. “It’s Wednesday. Church.”
“Church?” Beth blurted out.
His dark eyes turned on her. “There’s a prayer service in the factory dining hall on Wednesday evenings. You’re welcome to come.”
“Thanks,” she managed.
He faced Miles again. “How about tomorrow for dinner? I’m free then.”
“Tomorrow will be perfect.” Miles attempted to turn Beth toward the truck. “Seven, then. We’ll meet at the main building and drive into Darjeeling. Perhaps you can show us some of the local color.”
“Be glad to.” He smiled. “Thanks for dropping by, Mr. Wilson. And nice to meet you, Ms. Lowell.”
“Beth,” she said.
“Beth.” He repeated the word. Then he turned and walked back down the road.
Chapter Fifteen
“On the floor?” Beth wh
ispered the question as she slipped into the darkened room. Miles held her hand and led her to an unoccupied straw mat.
“We’re in India,” he reminded her.
They sat down together, cross-legged, and she was thankful she’d chosen to put on a full skirt that afternoon following her shower. In every window of the factory employees’ dining hall sat a shallow clay bowl filled with oil. A white cotton wick transferred oil to the flame that cast a soft, glowing light about the room. A stick of fragrant sandalwood incense on a low table near the front of the room sent gray smoke upward to waft around the fan that rotated slowly at the center of the ceiling. Close by, a young woman with black hair and a pale, creamy yellow sari sang a hymn that Beth recognized. The tune was one she had heard in her home church in Tyler as well as at the services she attended in New York. But the words must have been in an Indian tongue.
For a moment, Beth glanced around the room in search of Thomas. Unable to locate him in the dim light, she bowed her head and listened to the hymn, saying the words to herself in English. Miles had released her hand, but she could feel his knee pressing into hers. She was thankful for his presence.
Miles had finally discovered the door—Christ—that led onto the straight and narrow path of faith. Though he hadn’t yet stepped through, Beth realized he was changing already. His warmth and sincerity had taken on a deeper dimension. He had gone out of his way to make the trip to India a good experience for her. During their encounter with her father, he had stepped in to ease Beth’s awkwardness and cover her stumbles. After an early supper that evening, he had suggested they attend the prayer service. The man both Miles and his brother had termed a boorish cad had disappeared. In his place stood a witty, kind, charming gentleman who might sweep Beth right off her feet if she weren’t careful.
Having upset her mother, met her birth father and acknowledged her attraction to Miles, Beth felt herself approaching overload. She silently prayed for clarity, discernment and, above all, peace. When the hymn ended, she lifted her head to find Thomas settling behind the low table where the incense burned. He opened a Bible and began sorting through a sheaf of notes.
She turned to Miles in surprise. “He’s the minister?” she whispered.
“Apparently so.”
When Thomas began to speak, a shiver ran down Beth’s spine. He was leading the service. Her father! She tried to listen as he spoke first in English, then in Hindi, then mingling the two languages in a way that both she and his audience seemed to understand. He directed the small group of men and women gathered in the room to a passage in I Corinthians. While Miles fumbled around with his Bible, Beth quickly flipped through hers and located the first chapter and the eighteenth verse of the epistle. She shared her book with the man beside her as Thomas read aloud the words of Saint Paul.
“‘I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God.’”
In a low but strong voice, Thomas explained that God’s way of thinking is different from the way the rest of the world thinks. “In fact,” he told the group in the room, “the truth that God sent His only Son to die on a cross sounds silly to many. Why would God care enough about man to come to Earth in human form? If He really was God, why did He allow people to nail Him to a cross and kill Him? How could it be possible to die and then come back to life? Why would Christians risk everything to tell others that God has done this thing for them?”
As he spoke, Beth reflected on the familiar message of Christianity and tried to imagine what she would have thought on hearing it for the first time. She had always known about Jesus on the cross, she realized. A God who died and came alive again sounded perfectly natural to her. It hadn’t required much faith for her to believe in something that all her life she’d been told was the truth.
Nor did it take much effort to practice her faith in this Christian God. Beth hadn’t ever faced any danger for being a Christian in Tyler, Texas. And if a few New Yorkers lifted their eyebrows at her strict devotion to her beliefs, they certainly didn’t persecute or torment her for them. In fact, saying you were a Christian in the United States required practically nothing from people—not even the guts to actually follow through and live by Christ’s teachings.
Beth leaned forward with her elbows on her knees just as Thomas lifted his head and focused his gaze directly on her. “My wife,” he said evenly, “suffered and died for her faith in Jesus. Her family killed her because she dared to speak aloud the message of the cross. Many of you knew Nirmala and loved her as I did. Many of us are here tonight because she was willing to give us a message we once thought was foolish. When we listened and understood, the message completely changed us, didn’t it? It transformed us into men and women who are entirely different from the way we were before.”
He looked down at his Bible again. “Saint Paul goes on to write that the people in the country where he lived were offended by the message or thought it was nonsense. In verses 25-29 Saint Paul explains that God’s so-called ‘foolish’ plan is much wiser than the wisest of human plans.
“‘Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God.’
“I am one of those foolish, weak people,” Thomas went on. “I have no power. Some might believe I am powerful because I have the job of production manager for Wilson Teas—but please understand this work was given to me by God. I, myself, am nothing. The Lord brought me here to Darjeeling and allowed me to meet the staff doctor, Nirmala Shah. Nirmala is the one who explained to me that I could never be good enough to win God’s love. I could never be smart enough or powerful enough to get into Heaven by my own efforts. Nirmala showed me that I deserved death for the wrong things I had done in my life. And believe me, I had done a lot of wrong things.”
As Thomas spoke of his past sins, Beth flinched inside. She was the direct, living result of this man’s wrongdoing. How would he feel if she mustered the courage to tell him who she really was? Might he view her as his sin come to life? Standing there in front of him, Beth would be the evidence that the consequences of his transgressions lived on.
No human—not even the most faithful and pure—could escape the fact that there were penalties to sin. By sacrificing Himself on the cross, Christ had taken away the ultimate punishment of damnation and eternal separation from God after death. But smaller, earthly results of human wrongdoing lived on. Disease. Pain. Estrangement. And unexpected grown-up daughters.
“When I finally understood the meaning of the ‘foolish’ message Nirmala had told me,” Thomas was saying, “everything became clear. I saw that nothing I could do would ever erase my past. Only Jesus could do that. Like Nirmala, I became His servant and began to worship Him as the Lord of my life.”
He paused and looked around the room before continuing. “In the ninth verse of chapter two, Saint Paul tells believers that ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’ That is true. Here on Earth, God blessed me by allowing me to marry Nirmala. Even though she was killed, I know I’ll see her again in Heaven. That’s where Jesus waits for us with all the wonderful things He has prepared for those of us who love Him. I wonder if we could spend our last minutes here tonight thanking God for letting us understand the truth that so many others believe to be foolish. Could we tell our Lord Jesus Christ how grateful we are for the things He has done for us here on Earth? Could we praise Him for all that He has prepared for us in the future?”
As she bowed her head again, Be
th felt Miles rise beside her. She glanced up to see him slipping out the dining room door into the darkness. Her heart ached as she listened to the voices in the room, one by one speaking in a language she couldn’t understand. But God understood. He knew.
Jan had chosen the little girl with hair the color of rich molasses and eyes like glistening black pebbles in a stream. A plain wood frame from a hobby shop in Tyler fit the drawing perfectly, and a pale green mat accented the color in the grass where the child crouched to examine a black-and-yellow caterpillar. Jan laid the sheet of heavy sketch paper facedown on the framed glass and began to press the clips that would hold it in place.
“She reminds me of your daughter.” Jim Blevins spoke up. Having dropped by for a glass of lemonade, he had settled on a kitchen chair while Trixie sniffed for crumbs under the table. “Was that on purpose?”
Jan picked up the frame and turned it over to study the pastel chalk picture. To her surprise, the child did look like Beth.
“You know, I never thought of that while I was drawing her,” she said. “It was the caterpillar. I found it on a leaf out in my garden, and suddenly right there in my mind was a skinny, dark-haired girl poking at it with her finger. But now that I think of it, Beth loved caterpillars and worms. She brought them to me all the time. I was mortified, but John thought it was wonderful. He would put the worms in the rose bed, and he’d kill the caterpillars.”
“Killed ’em? I hope Beth didn’t see that.”
“Oh, no. She never knew. Most of the caterpillars she brought in were the destructive kind. Beth thought they were so pretty with all their bright colors, but they were eating our tomatoes and cabbages and corn. John said our daughter’s hobby was a lot safer for the environment than insect sprays, and we ought to hire her out to the neighbors.”
Jim chuckled as Jan gazed at the picture. “Maybe this is Beth,” she said. “I’ve been trying to paint my daughter for months, but—”
Leaves of Hope Page 20