Читать книгу Captured by Moonlight - Christine Lindsay - Страница 10

Under the wrought iron and glass ceiling of Victoria Station, thousands of passengers—English, Indian, and Anglo-Indian—departed and arrived each day.

Mercifully, Maurice, after a disgruntled good-bye, left Laine as soon as he’d escorted her from his train. Poor old bean, he hadn’t even tried to insist on dinner and dancing for his troubles. But they’d made it to Bombay without the notice of anyone from Amritsar. Laine suspected he was right. Those outraged would soon forget about this one young, untouchable girl. Sadly, there were too many poor little souls from nearby villages to take her place.

Turning from the booth, Laine checked the tickets for Poona while Eshana waited with Chandra. She tucked her own ticket for the Madras Mail into her bag. No one would notice two Indian girls in this hive of humanity thrumming with passengers, vendors screeching, railroad staff barking orders, and blowing whistles. Eshana and Chandra would disappear into the tapestry of India, and no one would be the wiser.

Laine waded through the crowd to them. If only she could have convinced Eshana to stay put in Poona, but Eshana remained adamant that she would return to Amritsar as soon as she’d safely delivered Chandra to Ramabai’s mission. Nor could she convince Eshana to come to Madras with her. Laine let out a huff. Obstinate little blighter. To think that Geoff blamed her for getting Eshana into trouble.

She had only minutes to talk to Eshana as the two of them settled Chandra in the carriage. “You should stay at this mission. Pandita Ramabai sounds a good deal like your Miriam.”

“Ramabai is a wonderful woman. I would most dearly love to work in her compound and care for the widows and children, but I will not waver. Nothing shall stop me from returning to Miriam’s mission.”

Laine straightened. “Please stay away for a while, a few weeks. Better still a few months. At least until Christmas or Holi. Let the situation simmer down in Amritsar before you return.”

Eshana drew the end of her sari over her shoulder in a slow sweep. “A few weeks are all I can be promising.”

“A few months then. Four.”

“A few weeks.”

She stuck out her hand as the last whistle blew. “A few weeks. Shake on it then. Now I must leave you. Take care of Chandra, and do write and let me know how you’re doing. You have my address? Right, it’s good-bye. No time for long drawn-out adieus.”

Eshana only gave her a smile and leaned forward to embrace her.

She returned Eshana’s hug, wiping the tiresome wetness from her cheeks. “All right. Cheerio. I imagine we’ll catch up with each other soon anyway.”

From the platform she waved to the two young Indian women staring out the window of the second-class compartment. She would have bought them first-class tickets, but of course that would never be allowed. At least they were off safe and sound.

She gestured to the porter with her luggage cart to follow her. After a quiet cup of tea, she’d find her own train, the Madras Mail.

~*~

The pony-pulled jutka rattled along the countryside of the Madras Presidency. Rust-red dirt flew up at Laine. She’d be a fine sight when she arrived with her hair, clothing, and every pore of skin stained with dust. After all this time it was good to be home. And good to be off the train, what with four days on the goods train and the last two on the Madras Mail.

On one side of the rutted track a rice paddy stretched out, a verdant green that almost hurt her eyes in the sunlight. Dotting the paddy, women’s saris—saffron, crimson, vermillion, peacock blue—shimmered in the light like beads on a bangle. Seeing this beauty again, she admitted she shouldn’t have let the painful memories stop her from coming back. Her roots to this southern land were as numerous and deep as those of the banyan tree.

Dr. Rory Johnson’s clinic lay beyond the next village as the road took her deeper into mango and banana groves, and the jungle. The brightly painted jutka decorated with marigolds would get her there before dark, and her blood ran warmer with anticipation.

As twilight approached, a perimeter of white-painted stones led her to a series of huts. The jutka stopped outside a single-story white bungalow as the keens and screeches of thousands of birds came from the surrounding umbrella trees. A tall, thin man with a shock of silver hair came out the front door, stooping below the lintel so as not to bump his head.

He walked toward her. Close up, his square-ish face was quite handsome under that gray hair. “You’re here at least. From Ada’s telegram we thought you’d have been here days ago. I’m Rory Johnson.”

She jumped down from the jutka. “Couldn’t seem to manage the right connections, I’m afraid.” No sense telling him about her lengthy journey on the goods train.

His grinning face looked at her askance. “What, the British-India railway not running on time? Must write a letter to the commissioner. But you’re here now, looking hearty and hale.”

She stood looking around her at his compound. “Those outbuildings, they’re more than just clinic rooms?”

His smile took ten years off him. “That hut is for my laboratory. Those two for examining patients and performing surgery, though I prefer to send patients to the city hospitals.”

“You don’t restrict yourself to cholera research?”

“Oh my, no. I’m the only doctor for miles. Vellore has some wonderful hospitals, but often we can’t get a patient there quickly enough. Those three other huts I keep for patients who need to stay overnight. And I can tell you, my sister who’s been chief nurse and bottle washer is overjoyed you’re here. You’re an answer to our prayers.”

Her feet drew her a few steps toward the huts. The desire to plunge into rudimentary nursing sang along her nerve endings.

“Oh no you don’t.” Rory’s call pulled her back from tramping toward the outbuildings. The smile stamped on his face eased her fears that she’d overstepped her bounds. “I have strict orders from Ada to look after you. She says you’re one of the finest nurses she’s worked with. So come this way. There’s plenty of time tomorrow to show you everything.”

While clutching two of her cases, he ushered her toward the house. About to follow him, the words stenciled above the door stopped her. “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” She knew the Bible verse only too well, having memorized it during Sunday school. Mild consternation filled her. She’d had plenty of experience with white-washed teetotalers in her childhood.

Rory looked back at her as she stepped into the house. Its mud-brick walls, a foot and a half thick, would keep the place cool during the heat of the day. A ceiling cloth kept insects and other unpleasant visitors from dropping down on them from the thatched roof. Chintz-covered sofas and chairs were placed around a selection of teak tables. With the descent of night, a servant in a white dhoti and his hair oiled flat hurried to light paraffin lamps. Outside, the evening grew noisy with crickets and frogs.

Instantly, she felt at home. She had stayed away too long, and she shook off the odd sense of déjà vu she’d felt the last mile in the cart. It had to be the humid winds that unsettled her. The promise of the monsoons ran in her bloodstream, like the tide coming in wave by wave. With the promise of rain came a line of poetry from one of Adam’s old letters. “And how am I to face the odds/ Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?”

Rory nodded her through the house, past a dining room and a gleaming mahogany table that sat empty, where alas no dinner was laid to the dismay of her rumbling tummy.

After lighting the lamps, the young servant bowed over his hands to her. “Praise the Lord.”

“Meet Devaram.” Rory pronounced over the small Tamil servant.

Devaram reached for her bags and in broken English added, “Welcome to Lavinia.”

“Lavinia?” Laine spouted. “You named this place after a woman in Roman mythology.”

A petite woman of about fifty, and shadowed by Rory’s towering frame, strode toward Laine with a smile to match her brother’s. “Lavinia is most definitely not our choosing. We’re far too down to earth for Virgil. I’m Bella, by the way. If left to Rory and me, we’d probably have named the place Great Expectations.”

As she spoke, Bella led them through to the back of the house. “Let’s get you settled.”

The bedroom, like the rest of the bungalow, was white-washed inside and out. Teak beams supported the ceiling, and a punkah hung from it, hardly moving the sluggish air. Mosquito netting draped over a bed with a rosewood headboard and a white cover.

Bella shooed Rory and Devaram out and turned to her. “I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here. We’ve needed a nurse in these parts for so long, but I’m positively over-the-moon to have another woman to talk to.” She gave a minute tug to the cover on the bed, readjusted a pillow. “I’m sure you’d like a bath. If I’d known you were coming today, I’d have arranged to have the water heated. As it is you’ll have to do with cold.”

“That will be lovely.” Laine ran a hand along the smoothness of the rosewood headboard.

Bella hesitated only slightly. “Thing is, we expected you days ago and hadn’t prepared dinner, not knowing you would turn up today precisely. As we are invited to the big house tonight, Devaram can whip up something if you’d rather not attend. You must be tired. All the same we’d love you to come.”

Laine sighed with relief. So that’s all it was, a bit of concern over dinner arrangements, and not that Bella didn’t want her here. “The big house?”

“The patron of this little medical compound. He’s been doing marvelous things with his plantation. A forward thinking man in many ways. It was during a bad cholera epidemic a year ago that he brought Rory and me out here.”

“But I’d love to join you for dinner. I’m absolutely starving. Can you give me a few minutes to wash and change?” She ran a hand through her dust-covered hair.” I’m sure I look like I’ve had a henna rinse...all over.”

Bella clapped her hands. “I was hoping you’d say that because frankly the work here is too hard for a fainting daisy.”

“Have I passed the first test then?”

Bella’s eyes held a gleam of mischief. “I believe you have. Dinner isn’t until eight, so you’ve half an hour.”

The bath didn’t disappoint. Though it was the typical galvanized tub, Bella seemed to consider scented soaps from England a luxury she could not live without. Laine lathered her hair with shampoo perfumed by peony flowers and sank below the water to rinse it. Her hair would dry in no time, probably by the time she got to the big house.

She couldn’t help deepening her voice at what Bella called the plantation owner’s residence. “The big house indeed.”

In her room she found that Devaram had ironed the navy skirt and cream chiffon blouse she had shaken out before going into the bathroom. She dressed and sat on the bed ready to put her feet into her walking brogues, and let out a sniff of disdain. It was so humid. Might she not wear something lighter? Perhaps that pair of shoes with a delicate heel and straps that crisscrossed the top of her foot.

A feeling of weightlessness came over her when she stood. Her hips actually undulated. Like a woman’s. First time in months she’d dressed to the nines, and she was out in the jungle with only a couple of middle-aged siblings to see her, and some grizzly plantation owner who likely soaked himself in whiskey each night. One of those Dutchmen of the old order, a remnant of Holland’s colonies in India before the British Raj took over.

Rory and Bella waited for her outside, and Rory assisted Laine into the cart. He jumped up beside Bella and took the reins to the single pony as the moon made a poor attempt to break through the gathering clouds. But the densely matted groves blocked out what little light the moon did shed.

As the cart lumbered along the track, night-blooming flowers released their perfumes. It almost seemed as if their scents were drawing them deeper into the coconut, banana, and mango plantation. With the fragrances came a feeling of intense sadness.

She shook her head of the foolish notion. It was probably the coming of the rains she felt in her bones. More likely, she was in the need of a good meal.

A mile or so away, lights beckoned through the thick belt of trees, outlining an extensive home and outbuildings. The roar of a large cat shook the jungle, silencing the other grunts and snuffles of the surrounding forests. Incongruously, Rachmaninoff’s Second concerto from a gramophone filtered out with its all-too-familiar composition. It wasn’t the prowling predator stalking nearby that set her teeth on edge. The warm evening heavy with moisture altered the notes of the concerto, so that they echoed discordantly in her ears. That, and the unwanted memories the music dredged up.

A lemon grove surrounded the buildings that included a smattering of thatched huts. Rory stopped the cart and left the reins to a barefooted servant in a white fastened coat and trousers. Bella and Rory moved toward the house, and Laine strolled behind them to the sprawling two-story building, its deep veranda supported by thick white columns.

A dissonant series of bass notes from the piano jarred with the haunting and higher notes of violins. The heels of her shoes crunched on the path of crushed limestone, setting her off balance. Off-key.

Closer to the house, light penetrated the shadows of the garden. She halted at the edge of an aureole of light that splayed on the lawn at her feet. As the night air slipped over her skin, waves of scent upon scent wafted—lemon, frangipani, jasmine...mimosa.

Rory called out to someone, but Laine couldn’t move.

It was a night for lovers. A night for the very first lovers when perhaps Eve had turned to her God-given husband.

With a hiss, the needle of the gramophone searched for its grove on the next recording, and a familiar line of poetry scratched through Laine’s mind. I recognize the signs of the old flame...of old desire.

She shook herself mentally. How foolish to let this sensuous night stir up longings she’d tried to forget.

Thunder rolled as Rory turned to wait for Laine while Bella took the steps to a small pavilion of fretted marble, set a few yards from the main house. Their host presumably sat within. He stood, and the flaming torches on the lawn behind him threw his height and slender frame into sharp relief. The shape of his shoulders. The slight angle at which he bent his head as he listened to their chatter coming up the path.

“Rory and Bella,” he called out in pleasure, “I should have sent the car to collect you. It’s going to rain. Can’t you feel it? Like Wordsworth wrote, ‘How beautiful is the rain. After the dust and heat.’”

The tiger roared again out in the jungle. And Laine froze as Eve might have frozen when the first heartache had entered the world and everything had changed between Eve...and Eve’s own Adam. Rory caught her gasp, his smile fading to a frown.

Still cloaked in darkness their host came down the steps of the pavilion, but he stopped suddenly. “I hadn’t realized you brought company.”

“It’s the nurse we need,” Rory said. “Remember, you and I talked about—”

“Of course.” Their host’s voice had gone a tad breathless. “It’s just, Rory, we hadn’t decided... You know how upsetting it is to...” He turned toward her, trying to make out her features in the gloom. In the dark his voice had turned warm again. “Never mind all that, we mustn’t make the lady feel unwelcome.”

As though she were cold, she shivered. His accent was that of an educated man, an accent molded by Oxford. Balliol College to be precise. A man who adored poetry—Wordsworth, AE Housman, Virgil—the only man in a million who would name his plantation after the Roman goddess, Lavinia. She should have known. He used to write so many of Virgil’s verses to her in his letters, words that had set her aflame then with longing for him to return from college.

He took the remaining steps to the ground. His white shirt open at the neck and his gray flannel trousers, the garb of a man who never had cared for stiff formality. Light from the house and the torches sought out and found the lean planes of his face, the dark hair sweeping off his brow that when over-long curled at the base of his neck. The sensitive mouth curved in a welcoming smile for his uninvited guest.

She counted the stones at her feet, and looked up. It was not a dream. For there he stood.

His smile froze as her own when she stepped into the puddle of light on the path. She rallied up all the nonchalance she could. “Hello, fancy meeting you here, Adam.”