The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,30
purple hat she’d worn at the railway station.
Her face creased in a smile. ‘Stella, how delightful! Have you brought Andrew to see me?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Stella. ‘He’s out with Mrs Lomax. He’ll be annoyed I’ve come without him – I should have waited, shouldn’t I?’
‘Not at all,’ said Tibby, standing up. Wearing a man’s riding jacket over a flowing scarlet dress embroidered with flowers, she padded barefoot across the flagstones.
Stella handed over the tin. ‘Miss MacAlpine made you some shortbread.’
‘Delicious! My favourite, thank you. We’ll make sandwiches – I think there’s jam, and some boiled eggs left over from breakfast. Let’s eat al fresco. I’m ravenous. Do you eat eggs, Stella? Or you can have cheese – if Dawan hasn’t fed it all to the mice. We’ve gone vegetarian since Dawan arrived. He’s Hindu.’
‘I have no religion except Art,’ said Dawan gravely. ‘Shall I make some tea?’
‘That would be kind,’ said Tibby, peering into a large bread bin. ‘Oh dear. The boys must have used all the bread for toast this morning. Shall we have oatcakes instead?’
Stella thought of the mouse droppings in the oatmeal.
‘Why don’t we make a salad with the egg?’ she suggested. ‘I see you’re growing tomatoes and lettuce. Perhaps we could spice it up with some onion and herbs and a bit of ginger. Do you have ginger?’
‘What a good idea,’ Tibby enthused. ‘Do you hear that, Dawan? Someone else who likes ginger. A woman after your own heart.’
‘Of course she eats ginger,’ said Dawan. ‘She was raised in the Punjab.’
‘We might steal you away from the Templetons,’ said Tibby, lighting up a cigarette. ‘I have absolutely no artistic flair in the kitchen.’
‘You do us proud, Tibby,’ said Dawan. ‘We eat simply but well – and you have an amazing talent for growing marrows.’
Tibby blew out smoke and roared with laughter. ‘Oh dear, I was supposed to be making soup, wasn’t I? I got distracted by the mice.’
Stella went with Dawan to pick some lettuce and tomatoes, and came back with cucumber, red onion, parsley and thyme too. She set about making the egg salad while Tibby, cigarette bobbing up and down at the corner of her mouth, hunted out an old wicker picnic basket and Dawan boiled up a pan of tea, milk and sugar to fill a thermos.
‘That’s how my brother Jimmy likes his tea,’ said Stella. ‘The Indian way.’ Breathing in the aroma, she had a sudden pang of longing for home; it was over a month since she’d left Rawalpindi and she was missing her family.
Tibby must have sensed her homesickness. ‘Come on; let’s find a sheltered spot in the grounds and you can tell me all the news from India.’
Tibby led them to a tumbledown cottage overlooking the cliff – a former lookout – and Dawan spread out a rug on springy grass in the lee of the gable end.
Eating and chatting with Tibby and Dawan, Stella relaxed. She realised how tense Lydia made her feel, never quite knowing what mood she would be in or whether some casual remark that Stella made would offend her. Most of all, she enjoyed being able to speak about her home and family – subjects that Lydia also objected to – and talk of Tom and Esmie. Tibby wanted to hear all about her brother – whom she affectionately referred to as Tommy – and how things were going in Gulmarg. She made Stella feel she could say anything without it being taken the wrong way, and so found herself talking frankly about the upset over Andrew’s dismissal from school in Murree.
Tibby shook her head. ‘It seems very silly of the school to let a spat between the boys get out of hand like that.’
‘Gotley’s father – a major in the Peshawar Rifles – threatened to report Andrew to the police for hitting his son. Esmie thinks it was the major who filled George’s head with the lies.’
‘How unfair,’ Tibby exclaimed, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Tom was a hero in the war and no coward. He did his bit for the Rifles. What a pity Andrew rose to the bait – he should just have ignored the wretched Gotley.’
Stella sighed.
‘Is there something else to this incident?’ Tibby asked, her hazel eyes full of concern. ‘There is, isn’t there?’
Stella hesitated, glancing at the Indian.
‘Anything you want to tell me you can say in front of Dawan,’ Tibby said. ‘He is very discreet – and I tell him everything anyway.’