The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,36

Andy to waltz or quickstep.’

‘Why do you insist on calling him Andy?’ Lydia said sharply. ‘His name’s Andrew.’

‘Sorry.’ Stella blushed.

‘I don’t mind her calling me that,’ said Andrew.

‘Well, I do,’ said Lydia. ‘It makes you sound common. And Stella should be calling you Master Andrew – she is staff, after all.’

Stella exchanged looks with Andrew. She thought he was going to laugh and knew that that would only rile Lydia further. She hurried across.

‘Let me do that,’ she said. ‘You sit down.’

He nodded and went to sit with Minnie. Stella poured a small whisky from the decanter and filled the glass to the top with soda. She wondered how soon she might be able to escape to her room. She thought of Tibby and Dawan and how they had instantly made her feel at home. How she wished that she and Andrew were staying there. Now she was unsure whether she’d be able to visit again.

To her relief, Lydia downed her drink and declared that they should all go to bed early.

She addressed her son. ‘Tomorrow, your grandmamma and I are going to take you shopping and get you some decent clothes.’

Andrew’s face fell. ‘Do I need new clothes?’

‘None of them fit you – you’re like a runner bean – trousers halfway up your shins. Your father might let you run around like a savage but you can’t here. We’ll go to Edinburgh on the train – have lunch at Jenner’s or the Royal Over-Seas Club. We’ll have a fun day out together.’

‘Can Stella come?’ Andrew asked.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Lydia said curtly. ‘I’m sure Stella can make herself useful in the kitchen or helping Lily.’

‘Of course,’ said Stella, packing up her sewing.

‘And Stella,’ Lydia added. ‘Just remember, I don’t want you sneaking off to The Anchorage on your own – not with the odd characters that lodge with Tibby; people might talk. You’re my responsibility and I know your parents wouldn’t approve of you mixing with those bohemian types or making friends with an Indian man. Don’t you agree?’

Stella hid her dismay and nodded. She said her goodnights and hurried from the room. Mounting the stairs to the attic, she had a surge of homesickness. She had only been at Templeton Hall a week, yet it seemed an age – and another five weeks stretched ahead of enduring Lydia’s disparaging remarks and living in fear of the truth coming out about Tom and Esmie’s sham marriage.

This was nothing like the fairy-tale holiday to her homeland that she had imagined. How naive of her to think that Lydia would treat her as anything other than a servant – and one who thought herself above her station. She knew the woman saw her as an upstart Anglo-Indian who mixed too freely with Andrew. It came back to her vividly how, when the Lomaxes had lived at the Raj, Lydia had often been rude to the Duboises – especially to Stella’s parents – for being Anglo-Indian. She’d overheard Lydia in her haughty voice calling them ‘half-halfs’, the derogatory term used by many British for those who were of mixed blood.

Stella had hoped that being pale-skinned and fair-haired would have helped her be better accepted as British in the land of her forefathers. On the ship, she had mixed freely with other young non-Indians – Hugh had never asked her awkward questions about her background – and she thought it would be the same here.

It was true that the servants and Tibby had treated her kindly, but Lydia was determined to keep her firmly in her place. Perhaps that was the real reason why she didn’t want to take her with Andrew to the houses of her friends; she didn’t want them treating her as if she were British. Lydia might only have lived in India for a short time but she had quickly picked up the racial prejudices of some of her countrymen and women. Tom and Esmie were unusual in their easy acceptance of the Duboises as their friends.

Lydia, she feared, would do everything she could to isolate her at Templeton Hall and disrupt her friendship with Andrew. It struck Stella that Lydia was jealous of their close relationship. No doubt she would see it as her duty to make her son see the world as she did – and instil in him the idea that Stella was his social and racial inferior.

Sadness gripped Stella. She curled up on her narrow bed and squeezed her eyes shut to stem her tears.