Dark Road to Darjeeling. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ The bird was wearing a collar and lead of thin gilded leather, walking sedately behind the butler. I blinked at the sight of them.

      “I apologise, Jolly, if I was not clear in my request. I want to return Feuilly to his previous owner on behalf of Mrs. Cavendish. I need a basket of some sort, and a wheeled conveyance.”

      Jolly inclined his head. “This thing is not possible, Memsa Julie,” he said with his usual courtliness.

      “I thought there was a donkey cart,” I began. He bowed slightly again.

      “And a goat cart as well, but alas, the donkey does not like the bird Feuilly.”

      “And the goats?”

      “The bird Feuilly does not like the goats. But these things are not of importance, for the path is too steep to admit either conveyance. A person must walk upon his own feet to see the monastery that faces the snows of Kanchenjunga.”

      I cocked my head curiously. “You have been there, Jolly?”

      “Of course, Memsa Julie. I received my letters there,” he said with an air of pride, and it occurred to me that this very correct servant doubtless spoke far more languages than I.

      “When it was a school, run by the Irish nuns?” I inquired. Again, the sober nod. “Very well. Then you would know the path best, I suppose. And I must walk, leading that creature,” I said, raising a brow at the peacock. He fixed me with one large dark eye and I thought I saw malice there. “I do not think he likes me very much, Jolly.”

      “No, he does not, but this must not distress you, Memsa Julie. The bird Feuilly does not like anyone.”

      I smiled at him. “A small consolation. Very well, I will walk.”

      One last bow from him and the bird Feuilly and I were on our way. Against all expectations, he followed sedately along, the plumes of his tail undulating softly in the dirt of the road. I kept up a soft flow of chatter, hoping to keep him calm so long as we walked. I had never seen a peacock attack, but that did not mean they were incapable of such a thing. If the murals on the walls of the dining room were anything to judge by, they were occasionally seized by great ferocity, and I had no wish to be on the receiving end of those menacing talons.

      We passed a field planted with tea, the glossy green bushes stretching in tidy rows as far as the eye could see, and I noticed that the pickers were in the field, busily gathering the first flush of the harvest. They wore bright colourful clothes, with enormous wicker baskets strapped to their backs by means of leather thongs that circled their brows twice over. They bent and snipped off the upper leaves and buds of the plant, flinging the green matter over their shoulders and into the baskets without looking, with a skill born of long practise. It was mesmerising to watch, the peaceful rhythm of the pickers’ arms moving as if in a dance as the mist burned from the valley under the spring sun.

      But I had not come to stare at the pickers, I reminded myself, and I clucked at Feuilly to hurry him along. In a few minutes’ time we reached the crossroads, marked by the Buddhist stupa Miss Cavendish had remarked upon. It was a sort of religious monument of the type we had seen many times upon our journey from Calcutta. They varied enormously, but always with a dome firmly upon a square base, the whole affair crowned with a spire from which stretched great lengths of rope tied with hundreds of squares of brightly-coloured fabrics—prayer flags, whipping in the wind to wing the prayers of the faithful ever upward. Next to the stupa, a child was playing near a bundle of laundry. I paused in my chatter to Feuilly to greet the boy. I nodded, certain we did not share a language, but to my surprise he returned the greeting in my own tongue.

      “Hello, lady. My granny says only foolish ladies talk to birds,” he said, nodding toward the bundle of laundry. As I watched, the bundle began to unfold itself a little, revealing a human form, thickly shrouded in white robes and veils. Next to the bundle sat a begging bowl and a bell, the traditional accoutrements of a leper.

      I smiled to show I had taken no offense. “Tell your granny I have no coins with me today, but if she is here again, I will bring some tomorrow.”

      The boy shrugged. “Granny believes all that passes is the will of the gods, lady. If the gods will it, she will come. If they do not, she will not.”

      Suddenly, the bundle began to speak, a terrible gabbling sound, and I realised her tongue must have been claimed by the unspeakable disease. The boy listened, then turned to me.

      “Granny says she would tell your fortune if you tarried a moment with us.”

      I glanced up to the steep path that wound sharply upward toward the monastery and sighed. It would be a fairly long climb, and I wanted to be on my way before Feuilly decided to throw off his mantle of good behaviour.

      “Tell your granny that I thank her for the offer, but I must attend to my business now.”

      Again the gabbling sound, and again the boy translated. “Ladies do not have business at the house of the White Rajah.”

      “This lady does,” I said tartly. I gave them a sharp nod and tugged at Feuilly’s lead. “Come, bird.”

      I stalked up the path to the ridge, stamping out my annoyance with each step as I muttered at the bird. “Really, Feuilly, can you believe the effrontery? I do not require the commentary of leprous grannies on my activities. It is entirely my own affair whom I visit, and for what purpose.” I continued on in this vein for some time, giving voice to my feelings, until at last we reached the gates of the monastery and I stopped to gape at the sight before me.

      The monastery was a large building, much more spacious than I had realised from the vantage point of the valley below. It stood two full stories with a third story that formed a sort of cupola perched atop, the corners of the roofline swinging out into the wings of a pagoda. The windows and doors were trimmed in gold, or at least they had been once, for glimmers of the once-magnificent paint still shone. The rest of the exterior had been whitewashed and painted in exuberant shades of red and blue, with gilding to pick out the details of the animals that processed just under the roofline—dragons or demons, I could not tell which.

      As I stood, mesmerised by the sight of the place, I noticed the garden gates swung upon their hinges in mute invitation. I looked past them to the ruins of a once-beautiful garden. The statuary had crumbled and the walls had fallen into decay, but the vines and plants were still lush and fruitful, and the path to the door had recently been clipped.

      I hesitated. “There is nothing to be nervous about, Feuilly. We are simply calling upon the old gentleman with an eye to gathering some information. Perfectly harmless,” I reassured him as we ventured forward. I heard a rustling in the bushes and then a shriek rent the air, reverberating in the high mountain silence around us.

      It was only another peacock, but I started, treading upon Feuilly’s tail for which he scolded me soundly with a brusque noise I had not heard him make before.

      “There is nothing quite like an angry peacock to put you in your place, is there?” came a gentle, rueful voice from the doorway of the monastery—a gentle, rueful British voice. I could not see into the shadows, but a hand reached out and beckoned. “Come in and take tea with me, child. Chang will see to the bird.”

      I dropped the lead, perfectly happy to be rid of my pretense at last. “Farewell, Feuilly,” I murmured as I passed into the house.

      The room I entered was a sort of gallery, set with windows the length of it to overlook the garden. СКАЧАТЬ