A Garland of Marigolds Read online

  I hardly knew where to begin. “I know very little about India,” I said.

  He smiled, and I could see a very clear likeness to Camilla.

  “That might be a great deal better than knowing too much,” he said dryly. “All you’ll have to do is produce a bonanza crop of maize!”

  In spite of myself I laughed, remembering what Camilla had thought of his previous assistants.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  There was a soft knock at the door, followed almost immediately by Camilla.

  “All fixed up? How very satisfactory!”

  Her brother grabbed her by the hair. “You were listening at the door!” he accused her.

  Camilla managed to look dignified if slightly resentful.

  “Of course. Now all we have to decide is when we’re leaving—” Gideon stopped her with a look.

  “You, young lady, are going back to school.”

  Camilla made a face at him. “That’s what you think!” she growled. “I’m not a child any longer!”

  “Then don’t behave like a spoiled brat!”

  Outraged, Camilla turned to me for support.

  “Suki, isn’t he impossible! Tell him I’m going with you to India. Tell him you need me! You’ll need another woman about the place, won’t you?”

  “I think,” I remarked loudly to no one in particular, “that Camilla behaves with great dignity and restraint.”

  Gideon Wait turned on me. “Are you backing her up, by any chance?”

  “Well,” I temporized. I had just got the job and I didn’t want to lose it before I saw India. “She does seem a little old for school.”

  “She’s seventeen! She only just scraped through her O levels. Why, she has hardly any education at all!”

  “I don’t think she’ll need much,” I said firmly. “She isn’t the academic type. She put the children to bed very nicely, and she probably does lots of things very well indeed—”

  “And I’m not in the least interested in the Queen Anne period!” Camilla finished for me. “She’s dead!”

  Gideon looked from one to the other and laughed.

  “Very well,” he said. “She can come to India! But she’ll be your responsibility!” He poked an accusing finger in my direction before hugging his sister to him. Helplessly I watched them, wondering what I had taken on. Camilla was really very young and sweet, and surely she couldn’t come to very much harm in an obscure village in India?

  Camilla held out her hand to include me in the little group. “How nice that you’re staying for supper,” she said.

  Packing was a nightmare. The days were full enough. Camilla obligingly filled any gaps with her endless questions and even more endless lists of the things she considered quite essential to take with her. Daily, I drastically pruned the pile of things I had decided to take myself and tried to persuade her to do the same. But Camilla was already one of those women who either travel with nothing more than a pocket handkerchief or ten bulging trunks. Nothing in between appealed to her, and only Gideon’s threat of refusal to take her with him at all produced a more reasonable list of her requirements.

  But at night I was alone and would wander through the streets of London, retracing the walks I had taken with Timothy. Down that cul-de-sac, beneath the third street lamp on the right, he had kissed me once, and I remembered and I wept. It seemed strange that he should now be in a different country and I would soon be going to India. During the day two years seemed a very short space of time, but in the evenings it seemed an eternity.

  I cried a great deal before we left for India and seemed to grow plainer every day. Gideon thought so, too.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded curtly one day, when he came across me lurking in the hallway.

  “I ... I’m sorry,” I apologized.

  He put a hand on my shoulder and propelled me toward the light.

  “I thought so! Burning the candle at both ends, I suppose? Camilla has more sense. You’d better get some color in your cheeks before we go, or I shall be tempted to leave you behind!”

  “It’s none of your business if I’m a bit pale!” I retorted sharply. His fingers dug into my shoulder.

  “Oh, isn’t it? Well, I’m making it my business!” he said, his voice harsh with exasperation. “Are you ill, or are you letting your emotions get the better of you?”

  I swallowed. “Someone I know has gone to America,” I told him woodenly. “It’s left a bit of a gap, I suppose.”

  To my surprise he was quite kind.

  “You’ll get over it,” he said roughly. He smiled down at me and his dark eyes were warm and friendly. “He probably isn’t worth all the misery.”

  I smiled. “It’s temporary misery,” I said quietly. “He’ll be back in two years.”

  “And you’re waiting for him?”

  Too honest to lie, I shook my head.

  “There are no strings attached,” I said abruptly.

  His sympathy died and he looked amused.

  “Well, thank heavens for small mercies!” he exclaimed. Then flicked my cheek with his finger. “You’re not much older than Camilla, are you?”

  Indignantly, I regarded him with something approaching hatred. I wished passionately that I hadn’t told him anything at all.

  “Does it matter?” I asked languidly. “As long as I can grow maize?”

  His laughter rung through the house.

  “Not a rap!” he agreed.

  And Timothy did seem to matter less as we neared the day of our departure. On the last day, when we finally shut the suitcases and said goodbye to our families and friends, I didn’t think about him at all. The only emotion I felt as we made our way to the airport, was a burning sense of anticipation coupled with a juvenile feeling of panic that I might lose either my passport or ticket. Hurry I thought, India, here I come!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mother India! I pressed my nose against the window and tried to see Delhi beyond the enormous gray wing of the airplane. From the air the topography of India had surprised me. There were so many empty spaces. Somehow I had always imagined the subcontinent to be crammed full of people.

  I hardly felt it at all when we actually landed and taxied across the tarmac. Along with the other passengers, I struggled to my feet, smiling at my stiffness and trying frantically to find all my hand luggage. Camilla and Gideon were on the other side of the aircraft. They looked almost comically alike as he leaned toward his sister and cracked a joke in her ear. She glanced across at me and laughed, and I was annoyed to discover that I was hurt. It was one thing to be excluded from their family group, it was quite another to be the butt of their humor. Was this a sample of what I had to expect for the next two years, I wondered grimly. I thought about Timothy with an increasing sense of panic as I realized that already his features were a trifle blurred in my mind.

  The doors were flung open and the incredible heat from outside rushed into the body of the plane. The sunlight danced in a haze of heat along the edge of the runway. Camilla grimaced and made her way to my side.

  “Super flight!” she exclaimed ecstatically.

  “Yes, I suppose it was,” I agreed.

  She grinned, not taken in for a minute by my lack of enthusiasm.

  I looked around the fairly modern airport buildings. “It isn’t quite what I expected.” I said.

  Her eyes danced. “You wait! Gideon has been telling me about the village. He says we shall have to sleep on the local string beds and we’re lucky to have them! Does that sound more romantic?”

  I laughed. “Certainly!” I agreed amiably.

  “Here comes Gideon now!” she went on happily. “I suppose it’s the customs next.” Her eyes fell on a group of Indian women dressed in colorful, flowing saris. “There,” she exclaimed, prodding me in the ribs, “there’s some local color for you!”

  Gideon’s dark eyes met mine.

  “Disappointed already?” he asked me smoothly.

  I flu
shed. “It isn’t that,” I assured him hastily, but he wasn’t even listening. He had taken off his coat and was swinging it easily between his fingers as he walked toward the terminal. The heat, which had already reduced my crisp cotton frock to a rag, had apparently no effect either on him or his clothes.

  Camilla and I followed more slowly, determined not to miss anything. A couple of men, dressed in jodhpurs and long coats, stood in sober conversation by the terminal entrance. Beyond them was a wild-looking character, his hair uncut and unbrushed, his clothing no more than a sheet knotted over one shoulder. His staring eyes gave him the appearance of madness, and I carefully avoided him.

  It was only when I had passed the man that I realized Gideon was watching me with disapproval.

  “Perhaps you and Camilla had better go outside while I see to the formalities,” he said sharply.

  Determined, I shook my head. “I’d rather make sure of my own luggage,” I said coldly.

  We stood facing each other like a couple of boxers looking for an opening.

  “What’s the matter with you two?” Camilla asked, puzzled.

  Feeling rather foolish, I turned away and began to walk with her toward the street entrance. A row of taxis had drawn up outside. The chauffeurs squatted in a circle, gossiping the time away. They looked up when I appeared in the doorway, jumping to their feet and running toward me, each one anxious that I should choose his cab. I moved back out of sight as they gathered around the door.

  At that moment another car drew up outside and a fair young man came rushing into the reception lounge. He went straight across to Gideon and slapped him on the shoulders.

  “So you’re back!” He said with an American accent. Gideon swung around, a wide smile on his face. “And not alone!”

  The American glanced about him with interest. “Anyone I know?”

  Gideon beckoned to his sister and introduced the young man. “Camilla, my love, this is my assistant, Joseph Groton. Joseph, my young sister. I brought her after all!”

  The American shook her hand warmly and then turned to me. His hair was fair and his eyes were so blue that I could hardly believe they were real. There was a touch of weakness in his face, or it might have been the traces of a childhood illness. It had left his mouth too wide and not quite under control, but it was not too obvious, and to me it was oddly touching.

  “And this lady?” he asked, a particularly charming smile breaking up his face. By contrast Gideon’s quick frown seemed all the sterner.

  “A new employee, Miss Susan King,” he introduced us briefly.

  “In what capacity?”

  I laughed, and the American laughed with me at the abruptness of his own question.

  “Cereals ... maize mostly, I expect, but I’m hoping for wheat as well.”

  “I daresay we can oblige you there.” He turned to me again, saying “Irrigation and beat-up machinery are my specialities.”

  I could have hugged him, he was so normal and nice. He bent over and picked up my bags which had now been cleared and started to move off with them to the waiting taxi.

  “We must get together,” he told me lightly. “Two innocents abroad like us should deal famously together.”

  “I’m sure we shall!” I agreed, quite as enthusiastic as he.

  He grinned. “Sticky journey out?” he inquired.

  “Not so much that as a sticky arrival,” I replied dryly.

  Joseph Groton was immediately sympathetic. He, too had obviously suffered from Gideon Wait and he was glad to have a fellow sufferer, somebody he could grumble with, without it meaning too much.

  “It’ll be swell having you about!” he said. “What’s the kid like?”

  “I like her,” I said simply.

  “That’s good enough for me!” said Joseph. He swung the luggage into the trunk of the taxi and went back inside for the remaining pieces. When he returned, Camilla was eagerly dancing beside him.

  “Have you ever been so hot in your life?” she demanded of me. “When are the monsoons expected? This isn’t normal, by any chance, is it?”

  “It depends on the time of year,” her brother informed her. “It’s cooler at the village.”

  “We’re a good bit higher than Delhi,” Joseph added by way of explanation.

  “And when do we get there?” Camilla demanded. She was tired and was suffering badly from the unaccustomed and oppressive heat.

  “We’re spending the night in Delhi,” Gideon announced.

  Joseph looked at his superior in surprise.

  “Oh, but surely, sir—”

  “Delhi!” Gideon snapped.

  Camilla and I hurried into the taxi, trying to make ourselves as insignificant as possible.

  “Gideon’s feeling the heat, too,” Camilla confided in my ear as we settled down.

  “Nonsense!” I retorted with some asperity. “Look at that beautiful, creaseless shirt and then look at our dresses!” Camilla giggled. “He has been stroking your fur the wrong way! I’ll tell him to tread more carefully!”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!”

  She giggled again. “We’ll see!”

  “Camilla,” I begged desperately, “please don’t say one word to him. I’ll never forgive you if you so much as remind him that I exist!”

  Her dark eyes mocked me, and it was with great difficulty that I remembered she was only seventeen.

  “Now I wonder what that means?” she said.

  Fortunately I didn’t have to make any comment because at that moment the men squashed themselves in on top of us and the taxi moved off, with a curious limping motion, toward Delhi. I had never been close to Gideon before and the experience was a curiously unnerving one. His frame was as hard as the unpadded sides of the taxi and there was little to choose as to which was doing the more damage to my own more sensitive frame.

  The road from Palam Airport ran through miles of deserted land. I craned my neck to see the state of the soil, but all I could see was empty country, lying idle, the occasional tomb and a few obviously new housing developments.

  Then we were in New Delhi itself, a large, sprawling garden city, with lots of trees and large flower gardens and, apparently, not many people.

  “Disappointed?” Gideon asked. His mouth was so close to my ear that I jumped despite myself.

  “I can’t see very much of it,” I answered.

  He leaned back obligingly and pointed out the main sights to me. “That’s the Prime Minister’s house.”

  I peered around him in time to see the white stuccoed house with its guards in white and crimson with terrific, highly starched turbans.

  “Where are all the people?” I asked aloud, and then wished I hadn’t, because it sounded so silly and naive.

  He smiled and his face lost all trace of its former hostility. “It surprised me at first, too,” he admitted. “Actually most of the people are in Old Delhi, but Indian crowds are always silent. I’ve seen several millions crowding onto the banks of the river on a holy day and there’s hardly been a sound.”

  I felt a tingling sensation of excitement at the picture his words conjured up, but I had no time to daydream then, for the taxi arrived at the hotel. We drew up with a flourish, the doors flew open and suddenly we were standing on the burning pavement outside the imposing Victorian entrance to the hotel. A doorman stepped forward with incomparable dignity.

  “Sahib Wait, you are expected, sir,” he greeted us. “And all your party,” he added expansively.

  We were led toward the reception desk and then taken to our rooms in a very grand procession. It appeared that each of us had been allotted separate rooms that looked out onto a mutual terrace where we could all meet for breakfast.

  Camilla, highly delighted with her new surroundings, sighed with satisfaction. “I can almost believe we’re here.”

  Her brother grinned.

  “We’ll go across into Old Delhi and then you’ll completely believe it!” he told her.

  “
Is it terribly old?” she asked him, her eyes round with excitement.

  “Well, no, I suppose not,” he admitted. “There have been nine Delhis within historical memory, which is one of the reasons one can spend so much time getting from one place to another. New Delhi was built by the British, Old Delhi by a Moslem overlord, and the rest are mainly of archaeological interest only.” Camilla eyed him uncertainly. “You planned this deliberately, didn’t you? So that we should see it?”

  Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “There won’t be much time once we start work,” he explained. “I’m afraid it may be dull for you.” But Camilla shook her head, her eyes glowing.

  “Never!” she averred. “I’m completely happy to be here.” He smiled at her with real affection.

  “Good,” he said.

  I moved away from them and went into my own room. It was large and spacious, and I was secretly rather impressed that it should have been allotted to me. The bed was enormous, a relic from a previous age, elaborately carved with trumpeting elephants. Over it hung a mosquito net, tied in a neat knot to keep it out of the way. On the floor were several Indian rugs and a number of rickety tables with collapsible legs. I fingered them experimentally, admiring the heavy worked-metal tops, especially the one made of copper that glowed almost pink in the dim light. Evening was approaching.