The Tea Planter’s Wife (24 page)

‘Well, never mind that now. Run to the kitchen and say Mummy wants two kitchen boys to help her. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Mummy.’

‘And bring them here, straight away. Tell them it’s an emergency.’

‘What’s an emergency?’

‘This is, darling. Now hurry.’

The man was attempting to lift the girl again, but when the child shrieked in pain, Gwen shook her head and he seemed to give up. He glanced back in the direction of the labour lines and flapped his hands about, seeming anxious to be gone, but she couldn’t let him take the girl in that condition.

A few minutes later, Hugh came back with two kitchen staff. They spoke in rapid Tamil to the man and he replied in the same way.

‘What are they saying?’

‘They spoke too fast, Mummy.’

When Gwen indicated they were to lift the child, they did so, one holding her under her arms, the other by her legs. As she began to wail, they took a few steps in the direction of the labour lines.

Gwen told them to stop, and pointed back at the house.

The kitchen boys exchanged uneasy glances.

‘To the house, now,’ she said, in what she hoped was understandable Tamil, and Hugh repeated it, sticking his chest out and trying to look like the master.

Gwen led them to the boot room, cleared the table of junk and indicated they should put the child there. The man had followed them in and now stood shifting from foot to foot.

She pulled up a chair. ‘Hugh, tell the man to sit down. I’m phoning for the doctor.’

The butler, hearing the commotion, appeared at the door with a houseboy, but drew back at the sight of the Tamil father and child.

‘These should not be here, Lady. There is pharmacist, out in the tea bushes. You must call the factory.’

‘I’m calling the doctor,’ she repeated, and marched into the hall, past the astonished butler.

Luckily, John Partridge was in his surgery near Hatton, and it
didn’t take him long to arrive. Gwen answered the front door and he came in huffing and puffing, and smelling of pipe tobacco. ‘I came as fast as I could. An injured child, you say.’

‘Yes. She’s in the boot room.’

‘Really?’

‘I didn’t want to move her more than necessary. I think she might have a broken ankle.’

When he entered the room, she heard him gasp quietly.

‘You didn’t say she was a Tamil child.’

‘Does it matter?’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not to you or to me, but still –’

‘They say there’s a pharmacist who deals with emergencies, but I thought she needed to see a qualified doctor right away.’

She held the child’s hand while the doctor examined her.

‘You were right,’ he said as he straightened up. ‘If this had been allowed to heal without being properly set, she would have been crippled for life.’

Relieved, Gwen let out her breath slowly. She couldn’t admit that the longing for Liyoni had stayed with her, though she didn’t believe she only wanted to take care of this girl because of that.

‘Have you plaster of Paris in the house?’

She nodded and instructed a houseboy to fetch it. ‘Laurence and Hugh make models with it.’

He then examined the child and patted her hand, before speaking to her in her own language.

‘I didn’t realize you spoke the language so well.’

‘I worked in India before coming here, picked up a smattering of Tamil there.’

‘I’m ashamed to say I have little of the language. The household staff always speak to me in English, so I have almost no chance to practise. Would you mind telling the father what you’re going to do? I’m assuming he is the father.’

The doctor spoke a few words and the man nodded. He glanced up at Gwen. ‘He is the father, and he wants to take her home now. He has a job cutting back the overgrown areas and
he’s worried he’ll be in trouble for bringing the child in here. He’s right, McGregor won’t like it at all.’

‘To hell with McGregor. She’s just a little girl. Look at her face. Tell the father you have to set her ankle.’

‘Very well. Really, she shouldn’t be moved for a day or so.’

‘In that case, I insist she stays here until she is well enough to be moved. We’ll put a couple of camp beds in here and the father can stay too.’

‘Gwen, it might be better if the man goes back to the labour lines. He won’t want an unexplained absence. Not only will his wages be docked, but there is a danger he’ll lose his job.’

She thought for a moment. ‘McGregor did say there would be job losses.’

‘Well, then. Is it agreed? I’ll tell him he can go.’

She nodded and the doctor explained the situation to the man. The father nodded and squeezed the little girl’s hand, but when he turned his back and left the room, her face crumpled.

John Partridge glanced at Gwen and coloured slightly. ‘I’m afraid I never got to the bottom of that mix-up over your prescription. I’m so sorry. I’ve never made a mistake like that before.’

‘It doesn’t matter now.’

He shook his head. ‘It has worried me. I’ve only ever prescribed the higher strength for people with terminal conditions.’

‘Well, there was no real harm done and, as you can see, I’m as right as rain. I’ll leave you to your task, John. Come along, Hugh.’

‘I want to watch.’

‘No. Come with me now.’

A little later she was jolted from her pre-luncheon rest by the sound of Verity and Savi Ravasinghe returning from a walk round the lake. She stood up and caught sight of her reflection in the window, with what appeared to be the shadow of a girl slightly behind her.

‘Liyoni,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper. She spun round. Nothing. A trick of the light.

She had desperately hoped that Verity and Savi Ravasinghe would have been gone and was barely able to look at the man as he entered the room.

‘I hear we missed all the drama this morning,’ Verity said, then sprawled on a sofa. ‘Do sit, Savi, it makes me nervous when people hover.’

‘I really must be going,’ he said with an apologetic smile.

Verity pulled a face. ‘You can’t go unless I drive you.’

Gwen swallowed her anxiety and prepared herself to cope with the small talk that would get her through. ‘I’m sure Mr Ravasinghe must be itching to get back to his work. Whose portrait are you currently painting?’

‘I’ve been in England, actually. I had a commission there.’

‘Oh, I hope it was somebody terribly important. Did you see much of my cousin?’

He smiled once more and inclined his head. ‘A little, yes.’

She tried to look at him dispassionately; thought again how attractive he must be to single women – good-looking, charming and, of course, very talented. Women liked that in a man, the same way they liked a man who could make them laugh. She admired his skin, so beautifully burnished with a hint of saffron, but it brought back the horror of what she knew must have happened. It was followed by a flash of anger so extreme she felt as if she’d been physically attacked. She clenched her fists and turned away, a band of tension tightening her chest.

‘Actually, it was your cousin he painted,’ Verity said with a smile. ‘Isn’t that absolutely fabulous of him? I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.’

Gwen swallowed. Fran had not told her.

‘Did you hear what I said, Gwen?’

She turned to face the man. ‘That is wonderful, Mr Ravasinghe. I shall look forward to seeing it when I’m next in England. There seems to be so much else to do, I’m not always able to keep in touch.’

‘Like rescuing injured Tamil children. Is that what you mean,
Gwen?’ Verity had spoken with an innocent look on her face and raised her brows, then smiled at Savi, as if to communicate something Gwen was not intended to understand.

Something snapped in Gwen, so much so that she didn’t care if they could see she was actually shaking.

‘I didn’t particularly mean that. I meant being a wife to Laurence, looking after Hugh and running the household, especially now that we have to keep a close eye on what we spend. The accounts, Verity. You know. And all the money that went missing. I wondered, actually, if you might be able to throw some light on that.’

At least her sister-in-law had the decency to redden before she glanced away.

‘Mr Ravasinghe, Verity will take you to the station now.’

‘That’s just it,’ he said. ‘There aren’t any trains at this time.’

‘In that case, Verity will drive you to Nuwara Eliya.’

‘Gwen, really –’

‘And to avoid any confusion, I mean right now.’

She turned her back on them both and marched over to the window again, so taut she felt as if she might easily snap in two. She watched a heron fly low just above the layer of white mist rising from the lake and listened until they both got up and left. As she heard the squeal of tyres she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, the relief warming her skin and softening her muscles. She felt poised at the point when life shakes itself up, and you have no idea where you’ll be standing when it settles in a new pattern, or whether you will be standing at all. What she did know was that now Laurence was not around, the battle lines had been drawn.

The next day was a Poya day, a Buddhist public holiday which happened at each full moon, and because it was so quiet Gwen overslept. Laurence always gave the household staff the day off, so that they could visit the temple to worship. For true followers it was a fast day or
uposatha
. For others, it meant shops and businesses were closed, and the sale of alcohol and meat was forbidden.

Most of the workers were Tamil, and therefore Hindu, but some of the household staff, like Naveena and the butler, were Sinhalese Buddhists. Laurence found it improved relations to close the plantation down on the twelve or thirteen times a year that full moon came around. And, of course, on the Hindu harvest festival too. It meant less division among the workers, and ensured everybody had a break of sorts.

First thing, Gwen checked on the little girl, with Hugh and Ginger at her heels. Hugh carried his favourite bear under his arm and, once in the room, held out his best Dinky toy to the girl. She took it, turned it over and spun the wheels, then broke out in a wide grin.

‘She likes it, Mummy.’

‘I think she does. Well done. It was nice of you to bring some toys for her.’ Gwen didn’t say, but thought that the little girl probably had no toys of her own.

‘I wanted to make her happy.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I’ve brought the bear too. And I asked Wilf, but he didn’t want to come.’

‘Why was that?’

Hugh shrugged in that comical way little children do when they look as if they’re trying to be adult.

She watched the two children for a moment. ‘I have some work to do. Would you like to play in my room?’

‘No, Mummy. I want to stay with Anandi.’

‘You can, but don’t ask her to move about. I’ll leave my door open so that I can hear you. Be good.’

‘Mummy, her name means happy person. She told me yesterday.’

‘Well, I’m pleased to see you two getting on so well. Now remember –’

‘I know. Be a good boy.’

She smiled and drew Hugh to her for a hug before she left the room.

In the hall, she listened to her son and the girl rattling on in Tamil, followed by the sound of laughter. He is a good boy, she thought as she went to her room to catch up with her correspondence.

After an hour or so the sound of raised voices disturbed her. Once she’d made out McGregor’s Scottish accent, and realizing she should not have left Hugh and the Tamil child alone, she hurried to the boot room.

The door to the courtyard was open and Gwen could hear that the shouting was originating there. When she glimpsed McGregor shake his fist at a woman wearing an orange sari, she took a breath and scanned the room. In one corner, Hugh sat on his bottom, arms wrapped round his knees. With a pinched face, and biting his lip, he looked as if he was trying not to cry. The girl was sitting up, tears spilling down her cheeks and dripping on to her open palms, almost as if she’d positioned her hands to catch them.

McGregor must have heard her come in, because he turned round with a blazing face.

‘What the devil is going on here, Mrs Hooper? As soon as your
husband turns his back, you bring a labourer’s child to the house. What were you thinking?’

Gwen was surprised to see Verity come in, then squat at Hugh’s side.

‘I didn’t realize you were back,’ Gwen said, ignoring McGregor, but she couldn’t help feel that Verity had been waiting for an opportunity to alert the man.

Gwen went to Hugh. She leant over him and ruffled his hair. ‘Are you all right, darling?’

He nodded but didn’t speak. With a deep breath, she straightened up, took a step towards the man and folded her arms. ‘You have frightened these children half to death, Mr McGregor. Look at their faces. It’s inexcusable.’

He spluttered and she noticed his fists were clenched. ‘What is inexcusable is you interfering once again with the plantation workers. I’ve done my best to help you, given you gardeners, smoothed the waters for the cheesemaking, and you repay me like this.’

She stiffened. ‘Repay you? This is not about repaying you, or anyone else. This is about a little girl with a broken ankle. Even the doctor said she would end up crippled if it was not set quickly.’

‘The Tamil do not use Doctor Partridge.’

She felt her jaw twitch. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, listen to yourself. She is just a child.’

‘Is there a reason you care about this girl?’

She stared at him blankly.

‘Do you know who her father is?’

‘I recognized him, if that’s what you mean.’

‘He is one of the main agitators on the estate. You may remember he put a nail through his own foot once, in an effort to claim wages he hadn’t earned. He probably broke the child’s ankle himself.’

By now Gwen was almost shaking with a mixture of anger and fear. ‘No, Mr McGregor, he did not. She fell from the cheese-room window.’

‘And you know this how?’

She held his gaze, wishing she hadn’t said that. ‘Can we just concentrate on getting the child home safely?’

‘What was she doing at the cheese-room window? The workers are not allowed near the house. You know that.’

Gwen felt her face burn.

‘You’d better not tell him,’ Hugh piped up.

McGregor glanced into the room and spoke in a clipped tone of voice. ‘What had you better not tell me? What was she doing at the cheese-room window?’

‘I …’

There was a tense silence.

‘I think she may have come for some milk.’

‘Mummy!’ Hugh shouted.

‘Come for some milk! Let me get this straight. You are telling me she was stealing?’

Gwen stared straight ahead and felt absolutely awful. ‘I didn’t see her. It’s just that she had milk on her dress, the window had been left open and there was milk spilt on the cheese-room floor.’

Hugh came outside to stand at her side. He slipped his hand into hers. ‘She took the milk for her little brother,’ he said. ‘Her brother isn’t very well and she thought it would make him better. She’s very sorry.’

McGregor grimaced. ‘She certainly will be, and so will her father. No doubt he put her up to this. The father will be flogged and docked a day’s wages. I will not have my workers stealing from the house.’

Gwen gasped. The man seemed completely impervious to human misery. ‘Mr McGregor, please. It was only a little milk.’

‘No, Mrs Hooper. If you let one get away with it, they will all try. And I might add that I fail to understand why you are taking such a keen interest in this one girl. Remember how many there are of them. We have to rule them firmly or there will be chaos.’

‘But –’

He held up his hand. ‘I have nothing else to say on this matter.’

‘He’s right,’ Verity said. ‘There are fewer floggings than there used to be, but even now they are sometimes necessary to remind the workers who is boss.’

Gwen had to work to control her voice. ‘But they have rights now, don’t they?’

Verity shrugged. ‘Sort of. The minimum wage order raised wages for plantation workers and made subsidized rice prices compulsory, but that’s it. Mind you, we already provided subsidized rice three years before that. Laurence has always been fair.’

‘I know.’

‘But, you see, there’s nothing in the ordinance to prevent a flogging.’

The woman in the courtyard, who had hung back during this exchange, spoke again, and Gwen went over to her. She noticed her hair parted in the middle, her wide nostrils, her pronounced cheekbones and the gold earrings in her long-lobed ears. Under the orange sari, she wore a clean cotton blouse. It looked like she’d dressed especially to come to the house.

‘What is she saying, Hugh?’

‘She has put on her best clothes and has come to take Anandi home.’

‘Tell her to go back. It’s too far for the child to hop on one leg. Verity and I will take Anandi round in the car. She can put her leg up on the back seat.’ She glanced at Verity, who looked dubious.

‘Verity?’

‘Well, all right.’

They spent the evening quietly. Nothing more had been said about Savi Ravasinghe’s visit, though Gwen remained unhappy, partly because of that and partly because of the incident with McGregor. She assumed Verity had been the one to tell him, as there was no reason for him to be up at the house on a Poya day. It wasn’t really cold, but a fire was comforting, so Verity made it up, and as the servants were off-duty, Gwen prepared a simple meal of eggy bread, followed by jaggery pancakes filled with coconut and fruit.

Gwen left the curtains open, watching the moonlight shining on the water. Something about its soft, silvery blue surface reminded her of the spirits in the Owl Tree and the dew pond at the top of the hill at home. Under a full moon it gleamed in the same way, and she’d always thought there had been a feeling of other-worldliness about the Owl Tree at night.

‘Look, Mummy, I’m eating my carrots,’ Hugh said. ‘And so is Wilf.’

She glanced at his plate. ‘Those aren’t carrots, they’re oranges.’

‘Don’t oranges make you see in the dark too?’

Gwen laughed. ‘No, but they are good for you. All fruit is.’

‘Shall I play?’ Verity said, rising from her chair.

While Verity played, Hugh sang along to wartime marching songs, making up most of the words when he didn’t know them, and thank goodness he didn’t know some of them. He wanted Gwen to sing too, and looked at her with eager eyes, but she shook her head, claiming she was tired, though really she was simply sick at heart.

After Hugh was packed off to bed, Gwen crouched by the fire, poking it to let in air.

Verity leant back against the leopard skin. ‘I do like moon days.’

Gwen didn’t really want to talk, but if her sister-in-law was making an effort to be friendly, she had to try. ‘Yes. I quite like fending for myself. I just pray we don’t end up losing the plantation. It’s bad enough that Mr McGregor will have to lay off so many workers.’

‘Oh, he’s already done that. Didn’t you know?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, the day before yesterday.’

‘He told you and not me?’

‘Don’t read anything into that. He’d have told you if you’d asked, I’m sure.’

Gwen nodded, but she wasn’t so sure.

Because she’d felt so low, Gwen had taken to her bed during the
afternoon while Hugh was resting, so there was still a subject she hadn’t broached. She didn’t know if McGregor had carried out his threat to flog the man, and tried to imagine what Laurence would have done if he’d been here. Would he have left it to McGregor, or would he have intervened? To her knowledge there had not been a flogging while she’d been living at the plantation.

She rubbed the back of her neck but could not rid herself of the tension. ‘Do you know if McGregor carried through his threat?’ she eventually said. ‘Was the man flogged?’

‘He was.’

Gwen groaned.

‘It wasn’t pretty. His wife was made to watch.’

Gwen looked at her, trying to take it in. ‘You surely didn’t see it?’

Verity nodded. ‘The woman squatted on her haunches and made an awful moaning sound. She sounded like an animal.’

‘Oh God. You went? Where was it?’

‘At the factory. Come on. Don’t think about it. Shall we play cards?’

As she bit her lip to hold back her tears, Gwen felt raw.

Some hours later, Gwen lay awake and could not get the flogging out of her mind. Shadows played about the bedroom as she went over the part she had played. Had she only helped the child because of Liyoni? As the thoughts spun, she felt lonely and longed for Laurence’s arms round her.

There was an unusual sound outside – a muffled noise – not loud enough for her to be able to make out where it was coming from. She went through to check on Hugh in the nursery, but he was fast asleep, as was Naveena, and as Gwen listened to the old ayah’s gentle snores, she made a mental note to decide on a proper bedroom for Hugh. Not a baby any more, he needed space for his growing collection of toys, plus a little desk to do his dinosaur drawings. Back in her bedroom, she opened the shutter and peered out.

At first she saw nothing unusual, but as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight she made out a trace of tiny lights, too far away to see clearly. She thought nothing of it, assuming it was something to do with the full-moon holiday, so she closed and fastened her shutter, but left the window ajar.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke again the noise was louder. There was a faint sound of chanting, the voices rhythmic and almost musical. It sounded strangely magical and although it seemed to be coming from somewhere fairly nearby, she wasn’t afraid. Now that she was awake, and still thinking it was part of a full-moon ritual, she decided to look. It was probably nothing; it might even be that the sound had simply carried on the breeze.

She opened the shutter to peer out then stared at the sight of dozens of men marching along the path beside the lake. The dark figures looked deathly in the moonlight, but it was the smell of the smoke and kerosene from their flaming torches, and maybe some kind of pitch or tar, that really worried her. She quickly shut the window, ran through to close Hugh’s window, and woke Naveena.

‘Take Hugh upstairs to the master’s room, please, and wake Verity.’

She ran along the corridor and into the drawing room, where she stopped short. Through the open curtains she stared out at the blue moonlit garden. Beyond it, the smoke and yellow flames of the torches lit the faces of the men, and had turned the air above the lake brown. When it seemed as if the men were passing the house, she exhaled in relief and dashed over to close the curtains. Just then, a man came into view on the other side of the windowpane and, with a leap, his face loomed inches from her own. He glared at her, with wide eyes set in a shiny, dark-skinned face. Dressed only in cloth wrapped round his lower body, his long frizzy hair stood out round his head, a living incarnation of the mask Laurence had given Christina.

As he raised his fist and stared back at her, she froze, too
terrified to move, though her heart was pumping harder than ever. He carried on staring and did not move off. She couldn’t bear to look any longer and, with shaking hands, forced herself to close the curtains to shut him out. She didn’t know if there were more like him coming up behind, ready to surround the house, but if there were, what should she do? She felt sick at the thought of Hugh being hurt, and ran to fetch Laurence’s rifle from the gun cupboard.