The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,29

speaking about either of them.

Lydia spent the rest of the week taking Andrew out for drives around the county to introduce her son to various friends and acquaintances. Minnie accompanied them but Stella was left behind.

‘Make yourself useful and help Lily with the laundry,’ Lydia ordered.

Stella struggled to hide her irritation at her high-handed manner but did as she was asked.

Stella also offered to help Miss MacAlpine in the kitchen, but on the third day of looking for things to do, the cook chased her out.

‘It’s a braw day – you dinnae wanna spend it in a hot kitchen. Away you go and breathe in God’s fresh air, lassie. Take some shortbread from the tin.’

At a loose end, Stella went to the garage where Lydia had said there was a spare bicycle that she could use if Andrew wanted to cycle around the town. Finding it, she dusted it down, pumped up the tyres and decided she would visit The Anchorage. Tibby had said to call whenever she wanted. Cook gave her a tin of her deliciously buttery shortbread to take as a present and Stella set off into a blustery headwind.

Twenty minutes later, she arrived at a set of rusty iron gates and stopped to catch her breath. One gate was ajar, so she wheeled her bicycle through. Large trees swayed above, sighing in the wind. A grassy track twisted ahead through overgrown lawns dotted with daisies and buttercups, and she was assailed by the honey scent of warm grass and wild flowers that reminded her fleetingly of Gulmarg.

But this was nothing like Kashmir. Ahead lay the castle, its ancient stone looking pinkish in the sunshine. The building was a hotchpotch of pepper-pot towers, crenulations, narrow windows high up and large casement windows down below. Half of the front wall was covered in dark creeping ivy.

Stella hesitated. Perhaps she shouldn’t be coming here on her own?

‘Hello! Can I help you?’

Stella was startled by a voice in the trees. She stood clutching her bicycle as a slim dark-haired man in white emerged from the long grass. She gaped at him; he was wearing tight churidar pyjamas and a loose-fitting kurta.

He pressed his palms together and bowed in greeting. ‘Namaste.’

‘You’re Indian?’ she gasped in delight.

‘I am Indian by birth and a citizen of the world.’ He gave her a grave smile and extended his hand. ‘Dawan Lal from Lahore.’ He had a soft cultured voice and an intense look in his dark eyes.

‘Fancy that!’ Stella shook his hand, delighted to find someone from so near home. ‘I’m Stella Dubois from Rawalpindi.’

‘Ah, Tibby has told me about you – she’s been hoping you would visit.’

Stella smiled. ‘Oh, good. I’ve been at a bit of a loose end – Andrew has gone out with his mother again. I hope Miss Lomax won’t mind me coming without him?’

‘I’m sure she won’t,’ he reassured her. ‘Please, allow me to escort you to the house. You can leave your bicycle by the wall – it’ll be quite safe.’

‘Thank you,’ said Stella, taking the tin of shortbread she’d brought as a gift from the bicycle basket. They fell into step together. ‘So, you’re one of the artists who live in the castle?’

‘Some might call me an artist.’ He gave a deprecating smile.

‘What would you call yourself?’

‘A sadhu – a disciple – of Art.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. ‘Art cannot be contained in mere paintings or confined to the sketchbook. Art is all around us – it is in the glory of nature and in the exquisite architecture of a beautiful building.’

She let him chatter on as they skirted round the side of the castle, through a kitchen garden with neat rows of lettuce, onions and potatoes, and a glasshouse filled with ripening tomatoes. Dawan led Stella in through a back door, its paint blistered and peeling, and down a dark corridor. Faintly, she could hear a piano being played somewhere deep in the house.

‘We’ll try the kitchen first,’ said Dawan. ‘Tibby was going to make soup – we’ve a mountain of marrows to get through.’

They found Tibby in the barrel-roofed kitchen, down on all fours and peering into a cupboard. Dawan called her name.

She replied without looking up. ‘The mice have been into the oatmeal – droppings everywhere. Have you been removing the traps again, Dawan?’

He ignored her question and announced, ‘Tibby, we have a visitor. Miss Stella Dubois of Rawalpindi.’

Tibby leaned around and looked up. She was still wearing the same shapeless