Oxford Tea Gardens, Assam, 1899
Through the open office door, James Robson saw the chaprassy running barefoot up the dusty path. James’s heart sank. It would no doubt be another summons to Dunsapie Cottage to see his boss, Logan.
‘From Logan sahib,’ said the perspiring messenger, holding out a chit.
Cursing under his breath, James took it. The chaprassy stood, panting after a run in the heat, waiting to carry back a reply.
‘Tell the burra sahib I’ll come now,’ James told him with a wave of his hand. The messenger bowed and ran off.
Sighing, James turned to the bespectacled young clerk. ‘We’ll have to finish going over these figures later. Have them ready for me in an hour.’
Anant Ram nodded. James took a deep breath, jammed on his sola topee over his dark wiry hair and strode out of the garden office. The late afternoon heat hit him and he was momentarily dazzled by the whitewashed walls of the adjacent factory buildings. Beyond the neat lawns in front of the office, shimmering emerald-green tea bushes rolled away to a hazy horizon. He dismissed the idea of heading off to check on the withering of the latest batch of tea leaves. This was Logan’s third demand for him to appear at his bungalow that week. His senior manager was not a patient man, and James had been avoiding him since Logan’s return from leave a week ago.
How pleasant the past six months had been without the hard-drinking, womanising Scot. James had enjoyed his fourth cold season in Assam, with hunting trips and fishing, as well as the Christmas week of horse racing and socialising at the club, without Logan’s sarcastic comments and boorish behaviour. James was not a big drinker but liked to talk sport with his fellow trainee managers on the Oxford tea plantation, especially the amiable Reggie Percy-Barratt. Reggie was equally passionate about dogs and hunting, and although they lived an hour’s ride apart, he was James’s nearest neighbour.
James’s stomach clenched as he rode the few minutes to Logan’s home. Now the ribald comments would start again: Logan would bait James, challenging him to take advantage of the female tea pickers and join in drinking games at the club. Well, he would not be bullied into doing anything he did not want to do. He might be barely twenty-two but he was a Robson and he’d stand up to anyone.
Yet, as he dismounted at the steps of Dunsapie Cottage – a modest bungalow for such a senior manager, with a deep veranda and a red tin roof – James’s heart hammered. His shirt stuck to his back with sweat. Taking a deep breath, he pulled back his broad shoulders, stuck out his chest and mounted the steps.
‘Ah, Robson, at last!’ a voice called out from the shadowed veranda. Bill Logan, a lean, good-looking man in his early forties, was sprawled in a long cane chair. He didn’t stand up.
‘Sir,’ James answered with a nod. ‘Welcome back.’
‘Sit down,’ Logan ordered. He snapped his fingers at a hovering servant. ‘Whisky and soda for the sahib.’
‘I have work still to do,’ James said. ‘Perhaps just a nimbu pani—’
‘Nonsense.’ Logan cut him off. ‘This is a celebration. Your father would be ashamed at your lack of stamina. Work hard, play harder. That’s what James Robson Senior always told me.’
James masked his irritation. For all of his young life James had been in awe of his father and he knew he would never be as good a tea planter or businessman. But he resented Logan continually pointing out how he failed to be as formidable a character as his father.
‘Just a small one then,’ James said, forcing a smile.
What was there to celebrate? he wondered. He was bracing himself for a barrage of criticism but perhaps Logan had returned in better humour after his furlough in Scotland. Was his boss about to promote him? Word must have got back to him about how hard James was applying himself to his duties around the vast tea garden.
The Oxford Estates was one of the biggest tea plantations south of the Brahmaputra River, with a board of directors in Newcastle, England, and a reputation for full-bodied teas in the auction houses of London and Calcutta. James was ambitious and impatient; it was high time he was made an assistant manager. He put in twice the time and effort of the other trainees and his health was more robust. Reggie was far more prone to fever than he was and young Bradley had to take days off at a time because of his splitting headaches.
James sat gripping his glass and waited for the good news.
‘I’m engaged to be married,’ Logan announced, his thin moustachioed face breaking into a smug smile.
James gaped. This he had not expected. Logan was a confirmed bachelor who satisfied his sexual urges by helping himself to the young women from the tea pickers’ ‘lines’ – the native compound. As far as James knew Logan had never courted any woman from the European community in India. In fact, he was the subject of gossip among women at the club for siring a bastard son by his favourite native mistress and shamelessly allowing them to live in his compound. James, embarrassed by the treatment of the young tea picker, tried to avoid being drawn into such scandalous conversations.
‘C-congratulations, sir,’ James stuttered. ‘That’s marvellous news.’
‘Aye, isn’t it? She’s quite a beauty – fair looks, of course – and only twenty-one.’
Logan snapped his fingers again and told the servant to hurry and bring a photograph from the sitting room.
‘She’s very excited at the thought of being Mrs Logan and coming out to India.’ Logan’s smile turned into a grin of self-satisfaction. ‘And who can blame her?’ He gave an expansive wave of his hand. ‘She will be mistress of all this, with a houseful of servants and a life of leisure away from the strictures of her overbearing sister in Edinburgh. Her only duties will be to me.’
James took a swig of his drink, buying a little time to control his reaction. This was hardly a palace Logan offered his poor bride: the furniture was basic and the roof leaked in the monsoon. But as far as James was concerned, the one big advantage of Logan being married was that he would stop causing trouble among the tea pickers. With a Mrs Logan at Dunsapie Cottage the bullying manager would no longer be able to order women from the lines into his bed.
As if reading his mind, Logan gave a short laugh. ‘Aye, Robson, my days of “plucking” the tea workers are numbered. By December I shall be married to the delightful Jessie Anderson.’ He handed James the photograph in the ivory frame the servant had fetched. ‘Look at her.’
James hid his surprise. The young woman was beautiful. Shapely in a summer dress and with pale hair pinned up in loose coils, she stared back at him with a steady, half-amused gaze. James felt his heartbeat quicken. He swiftly handed back the photograph with a nod of appreciation. Privately he felt pity for her, marrying such an odious man.
‘Miss Anderson wants to be married in the Himalayas – she loves the snow – so I’ve suggested Murree in the Punjab.’
‘Would Darjeeling not be closer?’ James suggested.
‘Aye, it would, but Jessie’s wretched older sister is insisting on travelling out with her and seeing her wed. I’m not letting the witch anywhere near the Oxford. Amy Anderson is one of these unnatural women who talk about politics and think lassies should earn their own keep. A bad influence on Jessie. No, Murree will suit us well. Besides, they have some church connection there. A week or so in the hills and then I’ll despatch Amy Anderson back to Bombay and bring Jessie here to the Oxford.’
‘I’m very pleased for you, sir.’ James knocked back his drink, keen to be gone. ‘Is there any business you wish to discuss before I go?’
Logan seemed nonplussed by the sudden change of subject. ‘Business?’
‘I must get back to the factory . . .’
‘Ah yes, there is a matter of business I want you to attend to.’
Logan drained off his large whisky, went to the balustrade and bawled out, ‘Come here, Brat!’
Moments later, a squeal from the direction of the servants’ compound was followed by the scamper of feet and a small boy came bowling round the corner pursued by a native woman who was trying to catch him.
Logan’s mistress and child. The boy scrambled up the steps and reached Logan before his mother could scoop him to her. He flung himself at the manager’s knees with a giggle of delight. Logan ruffled his pale-brown hair.
‘Little scamp!’
James slid the tea picker an embarrassed glance but the girl had pulled her shawl over her head and was staring at the floor.
‘Go to your mother,’ Logan told the boy, pushing him off his legs. ‘Aruna, take the Brat.’
Aruna snatched at her son. The three-year-old squealed in protest but she held on firmly and soothed him with quiet words.
Logan turned to James. ‘Do you like children, Robson?’
James shrugged. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Pity,’ said Logan. ‘I was hoping you would take on the Brat.’
James gaped at him in disbelief.
‘Well, I can hardly keep him,’ said his boss, ‘when I’m to be a married man. How on earth would I explain him to Miss Anderson?’ He flicked a look at the girl and child. ‘I’ll make you a gift of Aruna, though. Someone to keep your bed warm up at Cheviot View. She is very biddable.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Aruna, show your face to Robson sahib!’
James watched, appalled, as Logan stepped forward and pulled the veil from her head. James had never taken much notice of her looks – she had the round, rosy-cheeked face of a hillswoman – and she stared up at him now with fierce, tear-filled brown eyes. James felt a wave of revulsion at his superior’s suggestion that he should take this hapless woman as his own plaything.
‘I’m sure you are joking, sir,’ James said, keen to defuse the situation as quickly as possible and spare this woman’s dignity. ‘I couldn’t possibly take this woman or her boy into my household. She’s a tea worker. It would cause resentment among my own servants.’
‘What a prig you are, Robson,’ Logan scoffed. ‘Your father was far more full-blooded.’
James kept his temper. ‘I’m sure she would be much happier going back to live in the lines with her own kind.’
James did not know if the girl understood his words; she looked at each of them anxiously. The grey-eyed boy watched with interest, his thumb jammed in his mouth. James squirmed. He wished to be anywhere but here. Why had his boss chosen him and not Reggie or Bradley? Then it struck James that Logan disliked him more because he was the son of the great James Robson Senior, whom everyone on the Oxford plantations and beyond admired. Even though James’s father was now back in England, Logan could not contain his jealousy and spitefulness.
James waited tensely while the older man considered his words.
‘Well, if you won’t have her, Robson,’ Logan said, ‘Aruna must go back to the lines.’
James was overcome with unexpected relief. Aruna would be safer back in the workers’ compound and away from his boss.
‘You will take her there at once,’ ordered Logan.
‘Now, sir?’ James asked in surprise.
‘Yes, now.’ Logan gave him a steely look, the bonhomie of moments before vanished. ‘And then you will get rid of the Brat.’
James thought he must have misheard. ‘G-get rid of?’
‘Aye, you heard me,’ snapped Logan. ‘I can’t have a bastard half-half growing up under my nose or that of my young wife.’
James winced. ‘Miss Anderson is hardly going to know—’
‘You know fine well how tongues wag at the club,’ Logan interrupted. ‘Some busybody will tell her. Besides, I don’t want him growing up here. If you won’t have him up at Cheviot View, then you must take him to an orphanage or some such place where they look after his kind.’
‘But he’s not an orphan,’ James gasped. ‘He has a mother and—’
‘That’s an order!’ Logan barked. ‘If you defy me on this, I can make your life hell at the Oxford.’
James was shaken. His callous boss was threatening his very future at the Oxford tea gardens – and all because of a wretched tea picker and her half-breed son. He felt suddenly furious. If Logan had shown some restraint – gone horse riding more often like the rest of the bachelors did instead of indulging base passions – then this situation would never have arisen. Logan was quick to condemn others for transgressing; he had made sure a tea planter from a small garden in the hills at Belgooree, Jock Belhaven, and his half-Indian wife along with their Eurasian daughters had been ostracised at the club.
James was on the point of refusing when Logan part-relented.
‘Listen, Robson. I’m thinking only of Miss Anderson’s sensibilities. You’re a decent young man; you wouldn’t want to see the burra memsahib embarrassed or put in an intolerable situation, would you? You can see what a sweet, innocent thing she is even from her photo.’ He held James’s look. ‘Do this for me, and I’ll make sure that you’re recommended as assistant manager at the next board meeting.’
James bit back his mutinous retort. With his stomach curdling with disgust, he nodded and turned away. Chivvying the perplexed Aruna, who still clutched her child, James led them away from Dunsapie Cottage.
Aruna appeared to accept her fate without complaint; she moved back to the lines and continued with her work in the tea gardens. Sunil Ram, the old punkah-wallah from Dunsapie Cottage, visited with titbits of food for her and the boy. James knew this because he found him there one morning when he came to take the boy away. Above the rows of crude huts, the air was thick with the smoke from open fires and the smell of cooking.
‘Brat’ was squatting next to Sunil Ram, laughing as the old man shared out a chapatti. Seeing the young manager, Aruna scrambled towards the child and held him close. James flinched at the defiance in her dark eyes, the fierceness of a mother’s love. His resolve failed and he walked on.
James put off doing anything about the boy, hoping that Logan would drop the matter and allow his son to grow up among the tea pickers. But one day, the boy found his way back to Dunsapie Cottage in search of his father. Logan summoned James.
‘This mustn’t happen again, Robson. Take a couple of days’ leave immediately and go to Shillong. The orphanage will be the best thing for the Brat. He’ll have an education and a Christian upbringing. A better life than here. That’s what I want for him. Do I make myself clear?’
James thought the man contemptible. Logan was now trying to justify his decision to cast out his son by pretending to have Christian sensibilities. The hypocrite! James looked around for the boy. He was sitting on the veranda beside Sunil Ram, helping the old man pull on the rope that worked the punkah. James called to him.
‘Come, boy, jaldi! Would you like a ride on a horse?’ James made horse noises and riding gestures.
‘Brat’ came willingly, with a toothy grin.
Word must have spread quickly around the tea workers, for James had barely had time to arrange a horse and trap and his bearer, Aslam, to arrive with provisions for the journey, when Aruna tore into the factory compound. At the sight of her son perched up beside Aslam, she flung herself forward and tried to grab the boy. ‘Brat’ laughed, thinking it a game. But Aruna yelled and clutched at his leg. He started to whimper.
‘He must come with me,’ James said in Hindustani. She didn’t appear to understand. James had no idea what tribal language she spoke. He flicked the reins.
‘Out of the way!’ James ordered. ‘Get her out of the way before she gets trampled.’
Men from the factory swiftly intervened to pull Aruna back. Her wails of distress pierced the air and sent a flock of parrots screeching out of the trees.
‘I’m sorry,’ James called over his shoulder. But his words were drowned out by Aruna’s screams and the boy’s crying. Aslam held tightly to the bewildered child, trying to calm him.
James quickened the pace of his horse. They picked up speed, dust rising in a choking cloud around them. The boy kept calling out for his mother till James shouted at him to be quiet. ‘Brat’ burst into floods of tears as Aslam cuddled the distraught boy. James ground his teeth. He could still hear the mother’s weeping from miles away. But he knew it could only be in his head.
James had not been to Shillong since the earthquake two years previously. A whole hillside of buildings appeared to have vanished; the native bazaar was reduced to a patchwork of makeshift stalls and huts cobbled together out of salvaged wood and tarpaulin. The government and military buildings had fared better – or had been rebuilt more swiftly.
He had to ask the way to the orphanage, only to discover there were two: one run by Catholic nuns and the other by Baptist Missionaries. On a whim he chose the nuns. They would be kind to the boy, surely?
The young sister who came to the gateway looked Eurasian. She eyed James with suspicion as he stammered out his flimsy story. Her look told him she thought the child was his.
‘D-dead, I’m afraid. Both parents,’ James lied. ‘They would have wanted him to come to a good Christian home like this, Sister.’
She took a look at the boy sucking hard on his thumb standing before her. Aslam held on to his other hand. Even to James’s eyes the child looked exhausted and miserable. After a moment’s hesitation, she ushered them inside the compound.
‘We can’t stay,’ James said in a panic. ‘We just wish to leave the boy in good hands and go.’
The look of rebuke on the nun’s face made James squirm with shame. ‘We can’t send you away without any refreshment,’ she replied. ‘Your servant too. I’m Sister Placid.’
Reluctantly, James followed the nun indoors, beckoning Aslam to follow with the boy. Sister Placid showed them into a gloomy hallway. She left James with the boy and took Aslam with her to the kitchen. The wait seemed interminable. ‘Brat’ was uncharacteristically silent. James wanted to say something encouraging but was stuck for words too. He couldn’t rid his mind of Aruna’s distraught weeping and cursed himself for allowing Logan to manipulate him into helping in his sordid affair.
Sister Placid returned with Aslam, carrying two glasses of mango juice on a tray. James took one. She beckoned to the boy to sit on a stool beside her while she helped him sip his drink.
‘What is your name, little one?’ she asked, her voice kind.
He sat staring warily up at her. She turned back to James.
‘What is his name and what native language does he speak?’ she asked.
James did not know the answer to either question. He could hardly admit he was known derogatorily as ‘Brat’. He searched for a suitable Catholic name to please her. A local saint from his home county in Britain sprang to mind: St Aidan of Lindisfarne.
‘Aidan,’ he said. ‘The boy is called Aidan and he understands English. That’s all I know about him. He was brought to our plantation.’
‘He is a Britisher.’ She said it more as a statement than a question.
‘I-I believe his father was Scots,’ James admitted, then cursed himself for saying so. Before she could ask him anything more, he drained off his drink and put down the glass. ‘I really must be off.’
‘But you must speak to Mother Superior about leaving the boy.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t delay.’ James searched his pockets and pulled out all the cash that he had and handed it over. ‘This is a donation to the convent.’
‘Thank you, Mr Robson,’ said the nun, her look steely.
James flushed at her use of his name. The wretched woman must have been questioning Aslam. What else had his bearer let slip? He put his hand briefly on the boy’s head.
‘Now, Aidan. Be a good chap and do whatever Sister asks.’
Aslam said something encouraging in another language, perhaps Assamese. The boy’s eyes filled with tears but he stayed mute.
James turned quickly away. ‘Come on,’ he hissed at Aslam and strode back through the convent entrance. They marched through the gate, and the chowkidar locked it behind them.
Climbing once again into the trap, James glanced back at the orphanage but the steps were empty. Nun and boy had not come to the door to watch them go. James’s insides were leaden as he whipped the pony into a trot. He waited for the surge of relief to come, but it never did.