The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,10
imagine him teasing her: ‘You’re not my ayah, so stop nannying me.’
Not for the first time, Stella began to think about her relationship with the Lomaxes. She was part-employee, part-friend. She’d grown up with Andrew and was probably fonder of him than her own brother, Jimmy. For the past three years, she had come to The Raj-in-the-Hills to help out wherever she was needed. She was allowed in the kitchen by Felix, the flamboyant Goan chef, to make custard tarts and choux buns. She played piano for the guests after dinner or on wet days, and she helped the ayahs entertain the children while their parents went golfing or riding.
She was also a confidante to Esmie. Stella knew that her helping out at the Gulmarg hotel allowed Tom the leeway to either be the hospitable host or to retreat to his painting studio and be alone. Esmie encouraged her husband in his art, telling Stella, ‘He’s a fine artist and it’s good for his mental health.’
She was on the point of climbing out of bed to go and join Andrew outside when she saw him lick his finger and thumb and extinguish the cigarette stub. He retreated to the hotel annex, dropping the stub into a plant pot as he went. The moment had gone. She lay awake until it was almost dawn, puzzling over what was causing the boy to be so restless.
The next few days were hectic. Stella spent hours helping Karo, the Pathan sewing woman, make bedroom curtains out of the bolts of cloth from Saddar bazaar. She went over menus and checklists with Esmie and helped Tom paint some old bedside cabinets white. Bijal oversaw a top-to-bottom spring clean of all the rooms, made sure the mali had the gardens looking neat and that the syce had the ponies and mules ready for the guests arriving.
All the while, Andrew was confined to Tom’s office where he sweated over maths problems and science questions that Esmie had set him. On the fourth day, when Stella took him a glass of milk and a biscuit, he looked up hopefully.
‘Can you help me with this?’
Tom put his head around the door. ‘No, she can’t. Stella is helping Esmie.’
Andrew put his head in his hands. He had blue ink on his fingers from fiddling with his pen. ‘These are too difficult,’ he complained. ‘Can’t I read a book instead?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Tom.
Stella retreated with a smile of sympathy. Outside the door, she said to Tom, ‘Would you like me to take him for a walk? He’d be doing games if he was at school and maybe some exercise might help him concentrate better on his lessons.’
Tom grunted. ‘You sound like Esmie. Do you think I’m being too hard on him as well?’
Stella side-stepped the question and smiled. ‘He’s thirteen. His lessons are important but he also needs to let off steam. Give him an incentive to finish his equations.’
Tom sighed. He turned back and opened the office door. ‘Andy, we’ll go for a ride after tiffin,’ he said.
Stella heard Andrew yelp, ‘Yes!’
‘As long as you finish those questions now.’
An hour later, a message was brought up to the hotel to say that the chef, Felix Dias, had arrived in Srinagar a day early.
‘I’ll fetch him in the van,’ said Tom, ‘and I’ll pick up those oil paints I’ve ordered from the chemist while I’m in town.’
After a while, Andrew tracked the women to the linen room where they were counting sheets. He waved his ink-spattered jotter in triumph. ‘Finished! Time for riding. Where’s Dad?’
Stella and Esmie exchanged looks.
‘I’m sorry, Andy,’ said Esmie, ‘but he’s gone to collect Felix.’
Andrew’s face sagged in disappointment. ‘What? But he promised.’
Esmie smiled. ‘You can go out once he’s back.’
Andrew rolled his eyes. ‘You know he won’t be back till after dark.’
‘He might be.’
‘No, he won’t,’ Andrew retorted. ‘Here are your stupid answers!’ He threw the exercise book at her.
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ Esmie chided. Andrew turned and ran from the room. Esmie hurried to the door. ‘Where are you going?’ she called after him.
He didn’t answer as he bolted down the stairs. They heard him clatter across the hall and the front door bang shut. The two women looked at each other in concern.
‘He seems so angry with me,’ Esmie said helplessly. ‘I really don’t know what I’ve done.’
‘Let me go after him,’ said Stella.
Esmie put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Thank you, lassie.’