As generally happened, Bob Bailey began to talk about the India he only knew through books, and this was a sign to Hester to tell the family something of her own recollections of that country. This time, she talked about the great city of Delhi; the Yamuna river which bisected it and the various bazaars which she remembered so well. She told them of the spice market in Khari Baoli street, with its huge sacks of herbs and spices being trundled along on narrow barrows, pushed by tiny dark and sweating labourers. As she
spoke, her mind reconstructed the scene so well that she felt she could smell the spices and see the colourful stalls piled with lentils, rice, nuts and tea.
‘But rice and lentils aren’t spices,’ Mrs Bailey said, leaning forward. ‘Do they sell all sorts?’
Hester laughed. ‘Yes, though everything there is edible,’ she said. ‘Now if you wanted household items, you would go to the Sadar bazaar. Believe it or not, they even sell saucepans, teacups and crockery by weight. It always used to make me laugh to see someone point out a big pan and ask the price, and the Delhi-wallah or stallholder put it on his scale.’
‘Tell about the trees and the flowers,’ Mrs Bailey said eagerly. ‘Do you know, when you told us about the spice market, I could smell spices, I swear I could! But we love to hear about the trees and flowers, and birds and beasts, don’t we, Bob?’
‘Well, Delhi’s pretty flat, but the North and South Ridges have a number of native trees on them: babul, arjuna, tamarind, peepul and neem trees. Shade is a valuable commodity in a country as hot as India, and the trees seem to attract what breeze there is, so the Ridge is a pleasant place to visit,’ Hester said. ‘A great many of the gardens are planted with flowering trees, too. The coral tree has brilliant scarlet flowers; the jacaranda is covered with wonderful blossom of the most brilliant blue in the spring and the amalta has bright yellow blooms. They make the gardens delightful and the houses and walls are often almost hidden by pink and purple bougainvillaea. The scent may not be as strong as the spices in Khari Baoli, but it is even sweeter.’
‘Wharrabout the animals and the birds?’ Ben asked eagerly. ‘When I have a pet shop of me own, I’m going to send away for all sorts of exotic birds. Pet shops
aren’t much good for lions and tigers and that, but birds are a different story. Go on, Miss Elliott, tell us about the animals.’
‘Well, jackals and nilgae antelope still live on the South Ridge; I know that because I’ve seen them myself,’ Hester told him. ‘And in the tombs of Hamayan and the Lodi gardens there are quantities of wonderful birds. Parakeets – you’ve seen parakeets in pet shops over here, Ben – sunbirds, bulbuls and bee-eaters are very nearly as common as sparrows are in England.’
‘Bee-eaters? And bulbuls? What do they look like?’ Ben asked excitedly. ‘Bulbuls don’t even sound like birds; nor do bee-eaters really.’
‘It’s difficult to describe them, apart from telling you that bee-eaters are just about every colour under the sun. But next time I come round, I’ll bring a book,’ Hester said, laughing. ‘I can see I shall have to educate myself on the flora and fauna of India; nothing less will satisfy you!’
Soon after that, Mrs Bailey had reminded them about their proposed trip across the water and Hester had fallen in gladly with the suggestion. The talk at the table had then revolved around New Brighton, a place which the girls had never visited, and so it was rather later than usual when Dick offered to walk them home. They usually left Elmore Street in time to reach Shaw Street whilst Miss Hetherington-Smith and Miss Hutchinson were enjoying their dinner and could be relied upon not to come snooping through the hall as the girls climbed the stairs to their own domain. As they hurried up Everton Brow, with Dick’s hand beneath her elbow, Hester had had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching her from the tall side window of Number 127 and hoped that
it might be Fletcher, or one of the maids. This hope was dashed, however, when she and Lonnie were tiptoeing across the hall towards the stair, as Miss Hutchinson had met them, a finger to her lips. ‘A word, Miss Elliott,’ she had hissed, and she and Hester had disappeared into the servants’ quarters, Hester first telling Lonnie to make her way up to the schoolroom. Hester had joined her there no more than ten minutes later, looking grave. ‘Miss Hutchinson has just told me that your aunt saw Dick Bailey accompanying us along Everton Brow just now,’ she had told Lonnie. ‘Miss Hutchinson said they finished dinner early tonight because Mr and Mrs Mullins from next door are coming in for a game of bridge. She said Miss Hetherington-Smith was setting out the card tables in the small drawing room when she saw us coming up the hill. She was very angry and seemed to believe that it was some sort of clandestine meeting. Miss Hutchinson advised us most earnestly not to go to visit the Baileys for a few days, so I think we shall have to cancel the trip to New Brighton. She thinks your aunt would consider them unsuitable friends for you, and might make this an excuse for dismissing me.’
Lonnie was disappointed, for she had been looking forward to the treat, but quite saw that it would not do to antagonise her aunt further. ‘But we can’t just not visit them,’ Lonnie had said, much aggrieved, ‘it would hurt their feelings and be awfully rude. Even
I
know that and you’re always telling me I’ve got no manners!’
Hester had laughed but agreed that it would certainly be most dreadfully rude to stop seeing them, particularly since the planned trip to New Brighton had been regarded by the whole family as a high
treat. ‘We’ll have to go round and explain that for the time being we shall be unable to visit Elmore Street or go to New Brighton,’ she had said. ‘I’ll go by myself one evening, when you are in bed and asleep, only you must promise me, Lonnie, not to get out of bed or do anything which might call attention to my absence. If I go in the evening, Dick should be there and I’m pretty sure he’ll understand. If you remember, he was worried that someone might see us together when he brought us home that first time, so he’ll realise that it isn’t our fault and won’t think we’re being – being snobbish or horrid.’
Lonnie had been sorry not to be included in the expedition to Elmore Street but had understood the gravity of the situation. When Hester returned she was sad, Lonnie could tell by the droop of her mouth, but she assured her charge that the Baileys had understood and sympathised. ‘Ben says if we go and look in Mr Madison’s window, he’ll nip out and stand beside us as though he were just a customer and we can let him know how things stand,’ she had said. ‘They were all so nice about it, Lonnie, which made me feel even worse. Dick said there’s a way round everything and he’s sure we’ll all meet up again when he’s thought of a plan.’ She had smiled down into Lonnie’s eager eyes. ‘He’s quite right, we’ll think of something. So cheer up! This is just a temporary set-back, not the end of a friendship.’
But that had been in August; now it was October and though they had chatted to Ben from time to time, Hester had been far too nervous to risk visiting in Elmore Street. Once, when they had been heading towards Heyworth Street, Lonnie had noticed the gardener’s boy dodging along the pavement behind them, as if on their trail. When he had seen her eyes
upon him, he had dived into a shop doorway and Lonnie had wondered if she had just imagined that he had been following them. When they reached home, however, Hester had asked Lonnie if she had seen young Greg lurking behind a pillar-box whilst they pretended to examine the pets in Mr Madison’s window, and Lonnie had known that her original suspicion was correct: the gardener’s boy had indeed been spying on them.
After that, it became a sort of game to spot young Greg, or Fletcher, or Edie the kitchen maid – and also to pretend ignorance of their presence. ‘It’s Miss Hetherington-Smith who puts them up to it,’ Hester said grimly. ‘Honestly, Lonnie, I’m doing my very best to please her, to be the sort of governess she wants for you, but it doesn’t seem to work. She must really hate me!’
‘I shouldn’t let it worry you; she can’t hate you as much as she hates me,’ Lonnie had said. ‘Every time she looks at me, I see it in her eyes – I can read her like a book! She thinks about how nice and quiet the house was before we came and how she had all Daddy’s lovely money to herself. She never had to send the maids up to the attics with hot water, or the milk and bread and other tea things, and when she walked into the garden she was always the only one there. She could cut roses or pick some tomatoes from the greenhouse, or just stroll around sniffing the flowers. But now Kitty and I are often out there and Mr Mimms chats to me and tells my aunt what a good little gardener I am becoming, so she can’t forget about me no matter how hard she tries.’
Now, sitting on Lewis’s window seat, Lonnie regarded a line of seagulls perched on the ridge of a roof just below her and thought, crossly, that
she had considered herself hard done by in India because she was not allowed more freedom. Yet when her father had told her that he was sending her to England, one of the things he had promised her had been a less restricted life. ‘Children in England go to school, visit their friends and play games in the park without needing adult supervision,’ he had assured her. ‘Provided you are sensible, you will be able to please yourself much more than you can here.’ He had lifted her on to his knee and given her a hug, then rumpled her hair. ‘Dear little Lonnie, I shall miss you most dreadfully, but it is for your own good, I promise you. You are beginning to look peaky and sallow and you are far too thin. You are a little English girl and you need the English climate, no matter what you may think. But as soon as you’re old enough I shall want you with me once more, so be sensible and make the most of your time in England. I shall write to you every week and shall expect you to reply as regularly, sweetheart.’
If I wrote to Daddy and told him that Aunt Emmeline sets spies on us and won’t let us visit our friends, I wonder whether he would tell her off and insist that we were left alone, Lonnie thought, still eyeing the large herring gulls only ten feet away from her. But she knew that she should not worry her father over something which he could not do anything about. She was in her aunt’s charge and at her mercy and could not expect her father, thousands of miles away, to intervene.
Sighing, she turned away from the window for a moment to see how Hester was getting on. Her governess was nodding, ferreting in her purse, whilst the shop assistant wrapped something up in blue tissue paper. I mustn’t expect Daddy to do anything
about his sister, Lonnie decided. It wouldn’t be fair, but oh, I do wonder what he’s doing now!
Leonard Hetherington-Smith was about to leave his office. He had run his business for so long now that he was able to leave it for quite lengthy periods, confident that his well-trained staff would be able to manage in his absence, and today he intended to put that confidence to the test.
After Lonnie and her governess had left he had gone up to the hills, feeling that he needed the coolness and quiet of his large and airy bungalow whilst he grew accustomed to being without his adored little daughter. At first, the bungalow had seemed
too
quiet, too peaceful. There had been no point in uprooting his entire household as he had done in the old days, when his wife and child had been with him, so he had only taken a couple of servants to augment the staff who spent the whole year in the hills. Naturally, however, the neighbouring properties had been full of Europeans who had fled from the heat of the plains, and as soon as it became common knowledge that Leonard was in residence invitations began to pour in. Parties, balls and masquerades were offered for his enjoyment, as well as picnics and expeditions of pleasure into the surrounding countryside. Leonard soon found himself at least occupied, and within a week of beginning to socialise once more he had met Rosalind Bright.
Rosalind had come out from England, a member of what the Anglo-Indian aristocracy rather unkindly called ‘the fishing fleet’: young ladies of impeccable lineage and considerable charm and good looks, usually from military families. Most had been sent by parents who had once served in India and were
keen to see their daughters suitably married to bright young men who would, in the years to come, both make names for themselves and earn a good deal of money.
Leonard had met Rosalind at a dance. The hosts’ bungalow being too small for such an event, it was held in the grounds, where coloured lights were strung from the branches of the trees and soft-footed servants padded amongst the small tables, offering the guests champagne, wine and exotic food.
Leonard had noticed Rosalind at once, partly because of her extraordinarily white skin and light, ash-blonde hair, and partly because of her gaiety. She was wearing smoke-grey chiffon which swirled as she moved and when Leonard asked her to dance, thinking to find a frail, ethereal spirit, he was both astonished and pleased to realise that, in fact, she was very down to earth. She joked and laughed with him, linked her arm in his to take a closer look at the fairy lights clustered in the trees, and agreed to meet him the following day for a ride in the pine woods, despite the fact that he was more than twenty years older than she.
A great many people in New Delhi considered Leonard to be immensely wealthy but he had never thought of himself as a ‘catch’, possibly because he and his wife had been married young. Even now, when he proposed marriage to Rosalind – which he did on their fifth meeting – and she accepted, it never occurred to him that it might be his money which had attracted her. After all, he lived in no particular style and spent no more lavishly than any other European in a country where the cost of living was low. If people sniggered behind their hands at this meeting of May and September, Leonard merely considered
that they were jealous. There were not many men of his age who could both captivate and capture someone as beautiful and as charming as Rosalind Bright.