The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,152

part of.

‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘That’s thoughtful of your mother.’

‘Mamma hates being on her own,’ said Andrew. ‘Though I can’t quite see her living under the same roof as Felicity – or vice versa.’

‘Do they not see eye to eye?’ Stella asked.

He pulled a rueful expression. ‘You know my mother – she likes to be the queen bee and my fiancée is showing all the signs of being the same. Mind you,’ Andrew added, ‘Dickie Mason has been visiting more frequently since Grandmamma’s funeral which is making Mamma happy. I’m thankful for that. Makes me feel less guilty that I’m not there to comfort her.’

Stella said, ‘It must be very difficult for you to be away from home for so long.’

He gave her a strange look. ‘I’m beginning to wonder—’

‘Lomax!’ They were interrupted by a cry from John Grant. ‘I need a dram. The major got to checkmate before I’d hardly made a move.’

Behind him, Major Maclagan chuckled. ‘You must still be a little light-headed from the malaria, Lieutenant. I have to take advantage while I can.’

They settled into wicker chairs and summoned drinks from the bearer.

John said, ‘The major has very kindly asked us if we’d like to accompany him up to Chakrata tomorrow and stay for a couple of days.’

‘Really?’ Andrew’s eyes widened in surprise.

The major nodded. ‘Your friend has shown such an interest in my work and I could show him around the spruce and fir plantations.’

‘I must say, I’m very keen,’ said John. ‘And we don’t have to travel back to Chota Nagpur till the end of the week.’

‘If you’re feeling strong enough?’ Andrew queried.

‘Feeling tip-top, Lomax.’

Andrew glanced at Stella and she smiled in encouragement, willing him to accept. She held her breath.

‘Then yes,’ Andrew agreed. ‘I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend the rest of my leave.’

The resthouse at Chakrata was a simple whitewashed bungalow with blue wooden shutters and a tin roof, but with a breathtaking view through a break in the fir trees to far snow-peaked mountains. The slope in front was white with marguerites.

‘Margo and I sledged here before the war,’ Maclagan reminisced.

Stella saw Andrew’s expression of longing. ‘Does it make you think of Gulmarg?’ she asked.

Andrew nodded and Stella saw sadness well up in his eyes before he turned away from her.

That afternoon, the major hired local ponies for them all and a couple of hillsmen with mules to carry and cook their food and bring back any timber samples he wanted taking from the forests.

After a short explore around the nearby deodar forest, they retired to the bungalow for an early supper of rice and curried fowl, tinned pears and fruit cake, washed down with a local milk drink called lassi. By lamplight, Maclagan and Grant settled down to a game of chess and a tot of whisky while Andrew wrote home. Stella would have liked to talk further with Andrew but didn’t want to interrupt his letter-writing and so took herself off to bed, falling asleep to the murmur of the men’s voices.

Andrew got up from the table, abandoning the half-written letter to his mother.

‘Just going for a breath of air before turning in,’ he told the chess players.

The air was cool and smelt of the forest. The mountain peaks looked ethereal in the moonlight. The Himalayas – how he had yearned for them and was ecstatic to be finally among them. With soft lamplight spilling out of the whitewashed bungalow, he was transported back to the Gulmarg of his childhood. What a happy childhood it had been. In the clarity of the mountains, Andrew realised how much he had missed India and his family here: his dad, his Meemee . . . and Stella.

He couldn’t write a letter home feeling as he did now; it would have been too full of his joy at being back in the foothills of the Himalayas and in Stella’s company. Whatever he’d written he wouldn’t have been able to hide those feelings, and his mother would undoubtedly have guessed at the source of his happiness. She would probably have been upset and jealous too – and perhaps would have told Felicity.

Felicity and his life in Scotland now seemed so remote, so cold and dull, whereas the mountains and forests of India heightened his senses, making him feel alive and full of energy – and dangerously in love.

He looked at the bungalow and the curtained room where Stella was sleeping. The shock and delight of coming across her in Mussoorie