The Sandalwood Tree (13 page)

One morning, Felicity and this man helped the two Scottish missionaries fill bowls with sweetened rice porridge. The children waiting to be fed watched the ones who were already eating; their eyes tracked the food from bowl to mouth, and when they were served they ate slowly, carefully, as if the food were a sacrament. The room fell quiet while they ate, nothing to hear but the pulpy sound of chewing. While the children ate, the man glanced at Felicity, and she caught him. He looked away immediately and she stared at his profile, trying to make him look at her again, but he wouldn’t.

Another morning, she walked into one of the makeshift huts in the orphanage compound to comfort a little boy with a broken arm; she carried an embroidered feather pillow and a vial of Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup, and she stooped at the low entry, blinking
as her eyes adjusted from sun to shade. The cold man squatted next to a little boy sitting on a woven mat with his back against the wall, cradling one arm in a rag sling. The man was peeling an apple with his dagger and feeding the boy, slice by slice. He murmured something she couldn’t make out, but the boy smiled. They both looked up when she entered, and the boy stared, but the man lowered his eyes and went back to peeling the apple. She watched him slice the fruit, his concentration and precision, his tender mouth moving as he spoke to the little boy. Felicity thought he must belong to the warrior caste, having the gentleness of the truly strong.

She waited, bent over in the low doorway, with her pillow and her brown medicine bottle. It was a cramped space, and the man seemed to fill it completely. Finally, she stepped forward and knelt beside the little boy. It seemed to her that her split riding skirt rustled too loudly and her hands felt clumsy. Felicity maneuvered the pillow behind the boy’s back and the man tried to help without jostling the injured arm. In trying to position the pillow, their fingertips touched, and he pulled away so fast she gasped. She said, “Pardon me, I—”

“No, madam, pardon me.” He handed the boy the rest of the apple and abruptly left.

After Felicity had given the boy a dose of Mother Bailey’s, she walked out to the compound and saw the man chatting with Reverend MacDougal. The tall, lean missionary and his wife had come to India with a light in their eyes and one desire burning in their hearts—to educate and sanitize the baboo. They lived on rice and ideals and received funds from this wealthy Indian man standing in the compound and some obscure source in America. Felicity approached the men and saw the Indian’s expression change from calm to dread, but she stepped right up to him and said, “Sir, it isn’t polite for people to encounter each other so often without speaking.”

“I beg your pardon, madam.” He bowed. “My name is Singh.” His British English had no Indian lilt.

Reverend MacDougal said, “Mr. Singh keeps our doors open.”

“In that case, I’m honored to meet you. I am Miss Chadwick.”

Mr. Singh bowed stiffly, and then strode out of the compound to his buggy.

Reverend MacDougal said, “How peculiar. He was about to tell me when to expect the next rice delivery.”

The following week they arrived at the orphanage at the same time, and while Mr. Singh stepped down from his buggy, Felicity wheeled her pony around to block the entrance to the compound. Mr. Singh shaded his eyes and noticed how her coppery hair blazed against the blue sky. Her pony stamped and snorted and she said, “I don’t see why we can’t speak to one another like civilized people.”

“Indeed.” He paused, then said, “The weather has been exceptionally mild this year.”

A laughing dove burst out of a pipal tree and the pony’s head shot up. Felicity said, “Please don’t patronize me, Mr. Singh.”

His face remained blank. “I don’t understand what you want from me. But I would like to enter now. I have rice.”

Felicity pulled on the reins and steered the pony out of his way.

The following week, he arrived at the orphanage in time to see her walking into the compound. His horse whinnied to a halt, and he wondered how she had managed to teach a durzi to make those split skirts she wore. He’d never seen another Englishwoman in such a bizarre costume, but then he’d never seen another English-woman riding astride or working at the orphanage. She was strange; she was trouble, yet he thought about her all the time. He sat in his buggy, wondering whether he should wait for her to leave before he went in. But if she saw him sitting here, waiting, it might offend her. Damn woman. He’d even dreamed about her. He dropped the reins and jumped down.

She was sitting under a pipal tree with orphans crowded
around. Teaching them English. For what? But they all loved her; that was obvious. He walked across the compound, looking neither left nor right, but she called to him and waved. Now he would
have
to say hello.

After finishing his business with MacDougal, he steeled himself and walked toward her. Felicity watched him approach, and when he reached the shade of the papal tree she got up, saying, “I’m through for today. Will you join me for a cup of tea?”

The breeze moved the small hairs at the back of her neck, and something cold twisted in his stomach. He said, “Thank you, madam, but I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Her mouth set itself in a firm line. “It’s only a cup of tea.”

What was she doing? Would it be more dangerous to accept, or to refuse? And how could she still be so pretty with that stubborn look on her face? He heard himself say, “It would be an honor.”

They walked to a local chai stall and pretended not to notice everyone staring. A group of turbaned men sat on the ground, drawing perfumed smoke from a hookah, and even the smoke seemed to pause in a static blue haze while the brown and white couple sat down at the one small wooden table. They sat opposite each other on rickety three-legged stools, and he ordered masala chai.

The chai-wallah stirred milk and tea and spices into a tin pot and set it over a coal fire to boil. Felicity said, “It’s really quite silly, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Trying to avoid me. I don’t bite.” She snapped her teeth at him and he jumped.

“Madam—”

“Stop that. My name is Felicity. Haven’t you wondered why I live alone in the mofussil?”

“Do you?”

“Well, with a companion. But I’m not like other memsahibs.”

“I can see that.”

The chai-wallah served them tiny porcelain cups of steaming tea, and she took a sip. He cleared his throat. “Why do I see you so often at the orphanage?”

“I wish to be useful.”

“Commendable.” He sipped his tea and rubbed a damp palm over his knee.

“And you? Why an orphanage?”

He shrugged. “It was needed, and the Scots were willing.”

She finished her tea and set the cup down. “So. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

They did not make plans to meet again, but they both went to the tea stall on the same day at the same time the following week. He ordered tea and they spoke of the orphanage, of India, and of England. He learned that she had been born in India, and she learned that he had been educated in England. They sat staring at each other for a full minute before they got up and left.

The next time they met they could no longer pretend it was a simple coincidence to have found each other in the tea stall. Their conversation came out halting and self-conscious, and they cleared their throats and toyed with their teacups. When she coughed and then dropped her handkerchief, he retrieved it and she blushed. It was the silly ploy of a coquettish woman and she wanted to tell him it had been an honest accident; she had become a bit clumsy in his presence. He handed her the handkerchief, and their hands touched again, but this time, for the briefest moment, she rested her fingertips on his palm and a shiver ran up her spine. He murmured, “I am married.”

Felicity straightened her spine and looked him squarely in the face. Knowing marriages in India were arranged, she asked, “Do you love your wife?”

He looked away and she knew he was considering how honest he could be. Finally he said, “In India we do not marry for love.
Marriages are alliances formed for social or political or financial reasons. I met my wife for the first time on our wedding day.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his eyes hardened. “Our system is clearly understood by everyone and it has worked for a long time.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed and his shoulders sagged. “Love is problematic.”

“Indeed. But what a shame it would be to marry a stranger and then fall in love with another. One has a duty to be true to oneself, don’t you think?”

He stared at her and she sipped her tea. They sat in silence, disconnected from the life moving around them. Men chatted and smoked their bidis, tea bubbled in the pot, and people walked in and out, yet they were alone. Eventually, he said, “You are different.”

“Yes.”

They finished their tea and made their way through the cramped lane, squeezing past vegetable carts and dhobis with bundles of laundry on their heads. She paused to admire a gold-eyed mynah bird in a bamboo cage, poking her finger through to stroke the bird’s blushing breast. She said, “India is dirty and poor, and I love it. Is that odd?”

He smiled. “You’re asking an Indian.”

She gestured at the people pushing through the narrow lane. “Your people seem to ask little of life, but their gentleness has made them easy prey for conquerors.”

He looked away. “Perhaps it is wiser to bend than to break.”

“But you—”

Her voice stalled at the sight of Tyra MacDougal running straight toward them through the crowded lane. Her topee was gone and her thin dishwater hair flew around her panicked face. A group of young toughs with bamboo sticks followed hard at her heels. They caught her by the arm and threw her to the ground, and one tore the silver cross from her neck and threw it in the dirt. Tyra
kept her head bowed in prayer, and that seemed to enrage them more. One young man kicked her side, and she fell over, clutching her ribs. Another struck her head with his stick and a trickle of blood scribbled down her face.

Felicity moved toward her, but Mr. Singh held her back and ordered the young men to stop. The authority in his voice stilled one fellow, his stick frozen in midair, then Mr. Singh stepped forward and they all reverted to petulant boys, grumbling under their breath as they backed away. Felicity went to Tyra and knelt in the dirt to cradle her head. Blood smeared her white riding blouse, and Tyra stared at her with watery eyes. Felicity appealed to the young men. “How could you?”

A truculent young fellow shouted, “She wants to make us outcaste.”

“No.” Felicity shook her head. “She means you no harm.”

“Then let her go back where she came from.” He broke his stick in half with a sulky snap and walked away. The others followed.

They helped Tyra back to the mission, where she collapsed into her husband’s arms. Mr. Singh watched MacDougal tend to his injured wife and said, “If India ever stops bending …” He shook his head and looked away.

The following week at the tea stall, Felicity cleared her throat and said, “I have heard you have a silk plantation near Pragpur.”

“I do indeed.” Mr. Singh put his cup down.

She leaned across the small, scarred table. “Pragpur, like Simla, is another popular summer retreat for my countrymen.”

“I’ve heard that.” He tried to read her face.

She lowered her voice. “There is a British hotel there; I used to go there with my parents when I was a child. If I were to go next month, it would be deserted, with everyone at home for Christmas. Only a small staff would be there to see the place doesn’t fall down,
and of course they sleep in godowns apart from the main building. I plan to go there next month to enjoy complete privacy.”

“And how long must you journey for this blessed seclusion?”

“It is four days by buggy and dhoolie.”

“That is a long journey to take on impulse.”

“Not if you yearn for privacy as much as I do.” She moistened her lips. “Do you?”

He sat straighter, swallowed hard, and then gave a barely perceptible nod.

She continued as if it was settled. “I will take a room facing east. Those rooms have balconies overlooking the valley and high mountains. It is magnificent at any time, but under a full moon, it will be unforgettable.”