The Sandalwood Tree (11 page)

This week the punkahs will come down
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1856–1857

F
rom the Journal of Adela Winfield

October 1856

Lady Chadwick has gone home to Calcutta, which will be quite busy & gay with balls & dinner parties until next March. She sent word, offering to escort Felicity & me downriver for the season, but we declined, & she did not press us. It is only a matter of time before Mother & Father get wind of my refusal to participate in the husband hunt, & I don’t know what they will do. If they suspend my allowance I shall be completely dependent on Felicity
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The new kitchen is almost finished & we have decided to mark it somehow as our own. We rejected carving our names into a wood beam, sharing a horror of people who visit interesting places & disfigure them with their own uninteresting names. But this is our kitchen—even Hakim wants no part of it—& it seems right to put some personal element in it
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Last night Felicity came out to the verandah with some of the letters that have gone between us, including one she did not post after hearing that I was en route to join her. She also showed me an amusing sketch she made of me riding astride in my split skirt, & she suggested secreting all these papers in the kitchen’s half-finished brick wall. I liked the idea immediately. It pleased
me to think that part of our unconventional story would be preserved in our unconventional kitchen. Like cave paintings left by early humans, a simple message—we were here—left without fanfare, not knowing who might stumble upon it
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We pried a brick out, placed our ribbon-tied packet behind it, & replaced the brick with a bit of fresh mortar. Not the most professional job, but it will hold. We were quite pleased with ourselves & went out to the verandah to smoke the hookah
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That night, lying under my mosquito netting, I thought about this bungalow standing here in the mofussil, under the sandalwood tree, long after Felicity & I have departed. It came to me that death steals everything but our stories, & I felt the urge to leave a fuller account of ourselves, here, in this house where we have been happy. Fanny Parks & Honoria Lawrence left stories that have meant much to Felicity & me. I shall do the same & leave it to fate to determine whom my words might touch
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I’m not yet sure how to accomplish it, but I will keep it in mind as I write
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November 1856

Through her activities at the orphanage, Felicity has met an Indian chap who shares her affinity for the downtrodden. That is fine, as far as it goes, but it seems he has led her to unsavoury parts of the native quarter, even into bustees, to offer blankets & laudanum to the old & infirm. This seems a dangerous enterprise for a young white woman, especially now when we hear reports of rising tension between the sepoys & their British commanders. These sepoys are well-trained, well-armed Indian soldiers & if they, in their great numbers, should rise up against a handful of Britons we should find ourselves in dire straits
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Add to this all the old resentments against the Raj, the simmering bitterness that causes cooks to defile the sahib’s dinner, & water bearers to slide a snake into the bathtub. One sometimes wonders whether the servants, sitting quietly round their fires in the godowns, are hatching revolution. And in the midst of this, Felicity fraternizes with an Indian as if they were intimate friends. It is worrying
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They see each other at the orphanage, but messages come & go & she does not show them to me. She says they are notes of thanks from the missionaries, but when she reads them, I see a light in her face that no missionary could inspire
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This familiarity is perilous for both of them, but she dismisses my concern as she dismisses all my worries. This difference of opinion has occasioned a subtle rift between us. We endeavour not to speak of him, but he is much on my mind
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November 1856

Diwali is the Festival of Lights & never have I seen India more enchanting. Diwali means “rows of lighted lamps,” & for five days every stall, every house, every rickshaw & every tree is ablaze with small clay oil-pots set with cotton wicks. Crowds of people dressed in their finest make puja to the light, which symbolises victory of good over evil within the individual
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During Diwali, the sun god, Surya, is worshipped, but Hindoos define God as the Unknowable, their many gods being only symbolic intercessors, much like Christian saints. They greet each other saying “Namaste,” which means, “The god in me bows to the god in you,” & I find the reverence of this custom more affecting than the most sincere handshake. Diwali celebrates the inner light that dispels ignorance & brings joy
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How I wish Katie could see this. I recall the delight on her dear face every time she learned to read a new word. She would run her work-hardened hands through her black hair, her curls bouncing wildly. Sometimes she would laugh, & I never failed to be charmed by the lightness of her voice, like a bell, always coming as a surprise, juxtaposed as it was against her rough exterior
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I will always love Katie & Felicity, but one is lost to me and the other can be naught but my sister. Still, I have love in my heart; that is a gift, & I am grateful
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Felicity & I hung lanterns & fire-pots inside & outside the house, & when the servants brought us baskets of carrot halwa & almond cakes, we gave them baksheesh in exchange
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Felicity’s Indian friend also brought us a basket that reminded me of
treasure from a shipwreck, an elaborate affair heaped with fresh fruits, chutneys, glazed lotus seeds, Persian dates & bunches of marigolds in leaf cups. Well, he is a wealthy man. I thanked him as I thanked the others, but Felicity held his hand in both of hers, & I had the impression that something unsaid passed between them
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At night, we sat on the verandah with marigolds in our hair, & watched fireworks breach the night sky, spitting like fat in a fire, & I was touched. On the darkest night of the year in one of the most destitute countries in the world, people celebrate the light. We retired to our beds humbled by their indefatigable hope
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November 1856

Felicity’s cough has worsened & she has expressed a wish to go up to Pragpur to take the pure, high-country air. But when I asked Lalita to begin packing for us, I was shocked to hear that Felicity intended to go alone. She made light of it, saying, “Someone must stay to keep the servants from absconding with the house,” & she kissed my cheek sweetly. “I promise to make sketches of everything,” she said, “& I shall return fit & kicking.”

But there is something evasive in her demeanour. I do not understand
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December 1856

I miss her
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December 1856

Felicity returned in the pink, & all my fears have vanished
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The air has gone frigid & we shiver luxuriously in the snapping cold. There is nothing more delightful than to sit in the sunshine, wrapped in an Indian shawl, & admire the distant peaks. Those mountains! When God gave us speech, he did not expect us to talk about the Himalayas. They appear like a mirage, an hallucination painted on the sky & at the sight of them one can only babble foolishly or remain silent
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In the evening the drawing room looks cheerful with a fire crackling in the grate. The moon on these clear winter nights is startlingly bright, & it is a
pleasant novelty to embroider our pillow covers by moonlight. Can this crisp white moon be the same one that hides behind grey clouds in London? A local woman with bangles on her arms, bells on her ankles & a ring in her nose sells us goose feathers to stuff our pillows. These bejewelled women in their vivid saris look like tropical birds fluttering through a dusty landscape, & I believe the earth gods must have conceived the notion of gold when first they beheld brown skin
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December 1856

Christmas! We have decorated the bungalow with pine boughs & Lalita created a rangoli on the tea table, a marvellous display of red poinsettias & wild orchids arranged in concentric circles. We sat on the verandah singing “Adeste Fideles” & the servants once again came bearing baskets of fruits & cakes, & we again gave them baksheesh
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Felicity’s Indian friend visited, this time with a surprising basket filled with tins of mincemeat, sardines & smoked oysters, a bottle of tawny port & a wheel of genuine Stilton, all nestled in a bed of marigolds. He must have sent to an import shop in Calcutta months ago to accomplish this Christmas miracle. His largesse was surprising, but Felicity gushed on & on like an excitable girl. It made me uncomfortable
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Felicity & I went to the bazaar & bought heaps of sultanas & raisins for the plum pudding. At the spice merchant’s stall, we bought cinnamon & nutmeg scooped from sacks & weighed on a copper scale. We also purchased plenty of raw sugar to make the golden syrup for treacle tarts
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While Hakim roasted a peacock, which he later carved like an Oriental assassin wielding a sword, we made pudding & tarts in our new kitchen. As I set the bread crumbs to soak, Felicity coughed a hoarse, bleating cough & my back stiffened. She assured me she only had something caught in her throat, but I don’t believe her
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January 1857

Some new element of secrecy has come over Felicity. Sometimes her silence is weighted, as if she verges on revealing some momentous thing, but
when I ask, she shakes her head & wanders outside to feed her pony an apple. It is a puzzling new aspect to her & I cannot say I like it. I feel left out
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She is coughing again & has discontinued her work at the orphanage lest she infect someone. I would not be surprised to learn that her charity work in foul hovels has caused her relapse. I never liked the idea of her going to noxious bustees full of beggars & lepers. I fear the air in those quarters is contaminated with zymotic poisons
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The servants are talking about arson in Calcutta. It would seem some sepoys are seriously disgruntled
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January 1857

Felicity has taken a dramatic turn downward. It is a wrench to see her glide, oh, so slowly, through the house with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. She is pale & her lovely hands look like twigs
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Surely this is a recurrence of consumption, & yet it is different from the last siege. I am feeding her up on beef tea & buttermilk, but she continues to languish. I pray it is only consumption, which she has already survived, & not one of the dreadful afflictions common to this land
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I proceed as I did in England, hanging the camphor ball over her bed & insisting on a daily dose of tartar emetic to strengthen her blood. But her body does not respond, & I am baffled. In the mornings she vomits. She is chronically fatigued, & often lies abed in her chemise for hours. Her monthly courses have stopped as they did when she was ill in Yorkshire, & she moves around as though under water
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I sent a message to her mother, & she in turn sent the station doctor, who arrived that night, drunk & stumbling. He staggered up the verandah steps, asking where he might find the patient. I said, “Don’t you usually find them in bed?”

As he held Felicity’s wrist, he belched. Then he asked, stupidly, “How are we feeling, young lady?” When she said, “Perfectly fine,” he seemed relieved. “Very good then,” he said. “I’ll let your sister know you’ve recovered.”

“I think you mean her mother,” I said tightly
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He shot me an irritated look. “Rest tonight & if you’re not up & about tomorrow, I’ll come back & bleed you.”

“Lovely.” Felicity treated him to one of her wonderful smiles
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I saw the useless blighter to the door, & he asked, “Shall we have a peg for the road?” I gave him a short whisky just to be rid of him, & then went in to Felicity, who seemed to think the drunken fool quite comical
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The next day Lady Chadwick arrived in a smart victoria pulled by a sleek black pony. She picked her way through our overgrown verandah with distaste, & filled our doorway with her crinolines. She swept through our little drawing room, making it appear suddenly small & shabby, & went to the foot of Felicity’s bed. “I hear you are once again on the road to recovery.”

“Yes, Mother. Thank you for coming.”

It was a ten-minute visit but awkward enough that it seemed to last for hours. Now Felicity says the only visitor she will receive is the Indian. Thank God we live out in the mofussil where there are no prying eyes to make something ugly of their innocent, if ill-advised, friendship
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The Indian. I am reluctant to use his name, as if relegating him to the anonymous masses will make him disappear, or at least seem less important. When speaking to him, I call him sir, & he bows politely & calls me madam. Our exchanges are brief & cold & it is I who keep them so. Heartless, I know, but there it is. I was happier when it was only Felicity & I
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