Dark Road to Darjeeling. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ warred upon his face. “I confess, I did not think them well suited,” Harry Cavendish said. “I like Jane—immensely. But she is so different from what Freddie was. There is something fine about Jane.”

      “Yes, that’s it precisely. She is simple and plain and good. Like water or earth,” I agreed.

      “That is why I am glad you have come, you and Lady Bettiscombe, particularly. A lady should have the comfort of old friends about her at such a time.” Whether he meant during her widowhood or confinement, I could not say, but it was a pretty sentiment either way.

      The conversation turned—rather naturally, I supposed—to tea then, and the coming harvest. The picking was very likely going to commence in a day or two, and I could see from his rising excitement that tea did indeed flow through his veins. But as we spoke, I sensed again an undercurrent of melancholy in him. It was nothing I could have pointed out to another, no peculiarity of manner or speech, but it was there, hovering just behind his eyes, some fear or sense of loss. And as I listened to him enthuse about the harvest, I wondered precisely how far this charming young man would go to become master of the land he loved.

      After breakfast I excused myself to the garden where I found Miss Cavendish still busily decapitating plants. She was dressed in a curious fashion, her costume cobbled together from bits of native dress, traditional English garments, and a pair of gentlemen’s riding breeches. It was a thoroughly strange, but eminently practical ensemble, I supposed, and when she bent, I noticed her chatelaine still jangled but there was no telltale creak of whalebone. She had forgone the corset, and I envied her.

      The garden itself was a glory, neatly planned and beautifully maintained. At the heart of it was a pretty arbour covered in climbing roses just about to bud. As lovely as it was in spring, I could imagine how enchanting it would be in full summer, with the heavy blossoms lending their lush fragrance to the air as velvety petals spangled the seat below.

      “You must be quite proud,” I told Miss Cavendish. “Have you a gardener as well to help with the heavy labour?”

      “Half a dozen,” she answered roundly. “It is a planters’ obligation to give employment to as many folk as possible, like young Naresh there,” she added with a nod toward a youth who had just come into the garden pushing a barrow. He responded to his name with a broad smile, and I was startled to see how handsome he was. One does not expect a young Adonis to appear in the guise of a gardener’s boy. He was tall for his age, perhaps sixteen or seventeen and very nearly six feet tall, and his features were regular, with a wide smile and a shock of sleek black hair. He looked like a young rajah, and as we regarded him, he gave us an exaggerated, courtly bow before he departed.

      “Silly boy,” Miss Cavendish said, flapping her hand. “Still, I do not ask of them what I cannot do myself and I do like to keep my hand in. Very wholesome for the body, fresh air and exercise, you know,” she added with a quick glance in my direction. I had little doubt she thought me entirely too refined. My hands were soft and white and my corset prevented all but the most restricted movement.

      “Indeed,” I murmured. “I cannot imagine there is a garden in all the valley half so fine as yours.” The praise, thick as it was, seemed to go down smoothly. She unbent from her clipping and gave me a grudging nod.

      “Well, that is true. Now, mind you the Reverend Penny feather keeps a very pleasant garden at the Bower with a rather nice collection of orchids, if one likes that sort of thing,” she added. I had little doubt she did not. Orchids were clearly too exotic and showy for her liking.

      “The Reverend Pennyfeather? Have you a church in the valley then?”

      “Not as such. The Reverend gave up a very nice living in Norfolk to come here and take up his late brother’s tea garden. He thought he would make a go of it, but of course there’s more to tea planting than putting a bush into the ground and calling it done,” she advised me, her blue eyes snapping. “I have offered him good advice, and to his credit, most of it he has taken. But he does not keep a firm hand upon his pickers, and they take advantage of him in terrible ways.”

      “Really?” I asked. I bent and began to gather a few of the fallen blossoms. She nodded in approval.

      “Mind you do not miss that bit of vine. It wants cutting back. What was I on about? Oh, yes, the Reverend Pennyfeather. Far too soft with his people. Pickers are like one’s children. One must be fair and firm, at all times, no matter the provocation.”

      “Provocation?”

      She flapped a hand. “They are the blackest devils when they think they can get away with something. They prune or pick too slowly, so one must pay them overtime wages. The women will weight the baskets with a few stones or other plants so their baskets will weigh out heavier than the next. Even the children will come at you with a bucket of caterpillars, demanding to be paid for picking them, even though it will be the same bucket they presented for payment the day before.”

      Her litany of complaints was extensive, but her tone was fond, and it was apparent that she did view her pickers as part of her own extended family, albeit as somewhat backward children. “Still, one does one’s best for them. We give them firewood and sound bungalows and medical care, and they respect us for it because we demand they keep things up properly. No unswept yards or untidy vegetable plots or sickly animals. The Reverend, on the other hand,” she added, lowering her voice to a confidential tone, “is as soft with his pickers as he is with his own family. That daughter of his fairly runs wild, and she’s two years past putting up her hair. She ought to have been married off by now.”

      “Is the Reverend a near neighbour?” I inquired, tucking the errant bit of vine into the trug.

      “Near enough.” She gestured toward the gate. “Out that gate and down the path, you will find a crossroads with a Buddhist stupa. Straight on, the road leads to the Bower, the Penny feathers’ tea garden. The right branch leads to a cluster of cottages, and farther on the pickers’ houses.”

      “And the left?”

      She stilled, then snipped savagely at a rosebush, destroying a perfectly beautiful bloom, whether by emotion or inattention, I could not say.

      “The left leads up to the ridge. There is an old Buddhist monastery up there.”

      “How interesting! I shall have to explore one of these days.”

      Miss Cavendish straightened, her lips pinched as tightly as a miser’s purse. “There is no call to do that. The monastery has a tenant now, and it is best to give him a wide berth. And mind you are careful if you do go out exploring. We’ve a tiger loose just now—a man-eater.”

      Brisbane might as well have come with me if he was so interested in hunting tigers, I thought bitterly. But before I could pursue this, she moved on to the wayward bough of a deodar. “That will completely block this path if I do not lop it off. I must have the saw for that. You will excuse me,” she said, striding away to retrieve her tools and leaving me to stare after her.

      I found Portia in the drawing room, wrapped in a fur robe and attempting to read. It was dank and chill, with neither fire to warm it nor sunshine to light it.

      “Why are you not sitting in the morning room? It faces east and the shutters are open and a fire has been lit,” I pointed out. “I almost didn’t find you mouldering away in here.”

      “That is the point,” she told me. “I am hiding from Morag.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ