The Sandalwood Tree (25 page)

I have invited him to come whenever he wishes & as often as he likes
.

February 1858

This morning I received an envelope from Jonathan; it contained money & regrets that he would not be visiting again. There can be only one reason: he is too ill. But so soon!

March 1858

The news has come at last. His mother wrote a brief message to inform me that her son, Jonathan Singh, has died. The woman writes in a beautiful hand, & her English is flawless. She included the customary amount of rupees & I realised, with a start, that she is Charlie’s grandmother
.

I wrote her a thank-you note. Then I took a chance on her goodwill & asked whether her son might have kept some of Felicity’s ashes, as they sometimes do. If so, I asked if I might be allowed to take possession of them
.

I do not understand my longing, but having Felicity’s remains nearby would give me comfort
.

March 1858

Oh, God! To think I had regarded those people as civilised! I attended Jonathan Singh’s cremation, intending to beg his mother for Felicity’s ashes, if she had them. I persuaded myself that in that moment of watching her son reduced to ash she would appreciate my need
.

I stood apart, with the other women, wishing not to disrupt the ritual in any way. But before I could discover which of the white-shrouded women to approach, Jonathan’s widow emerged from the crowd in a red wedding sari & climbed upon his pyre. She lay on the corpse as though in a trance & they covered her with wood. A rich family can afford enough wood to burn even two bodies quite thoroughly
.

I watched, horrified, as this wealthy family piled many layers of wood on top of the living woman, & then put fire to four sides of the pyre. She did not move or make a sound as two men held the ends of long bamboo poles to keep her pinned under the wood. The flames rose up around her & I thought she must have fallen unconscious, overcome by smoke, but then she screamed. It was a raw, piercing, animal sound & one of her arms shot out from under the wood. But she was too weighted down to escape, & those closest to the pyre appeared ready to keep her in place. The bodies blackened & shrivelled, melting & fusing together. Did the fire cause her muscles to twist & contract, or did she writhe & struggle that long?

It is an ancient practice called suttee, an abomination, & I recoil at the memory. The Crown has outlawed it, but there is no way to stop isolated cases. It is not as if we are in the habit of monitoring these barbaric rites. I stood transfixed by the roar of flames whilst the charred air scratched my throat. The smell of burning flesh was acrid & unnerving. A cry escaped my throat when, near the end, the chief mourner, with his hair shorn, broke the blackened skulls to release the souls. Did they do that to Felicity?

My mind has exploded & I cannot hold a thought. Now, at the beginning of the hot weather, even as the punkahs go up, my teeth chatter
,
my body shivers & I cannot get warm. Charlie cries & cries & I cannot comfort him
.

April 1858

I cannot rid myself of the images; I dream of suttee & wake with my heart pounding. It sickens me to take that family’s money now, & I do not want to raise Charlie in this heathen land
.

I must put away my pride & write to Mother
.

April 1858

I’ve confessed! Felicity, Jonathan, Charlie, the suttee—everything. I’ve asked forgiveness for my headstrong behaviour in the humblest words I know. I’ve begged in the most contrite tone to be allowed to return to Rose Hall with Charlie. And I have made the ultimate compromise—I have offered to marry any man of my mother’s choosing & sworn never to utter a word of complaint
.

I hired a photographer to make a portrait of Charlie to send with my letter. I dressed him in his hand-embroidered christening gown & topped it with the yellow jumper I made. He smiled for the camera, & who could resist that face? I had a copy made to keep for myself. Sometimes I gaze on it after he has gone to sleep for the night & my hand wanders over his smile, his twinkling eyes & his dimpled hands. I kiss the picture, but only on the edges so as not to damage it
.

I estimate three to four months for my letter to reach England & the same again for an answer, although Mother might respond immediately by telegram. Perhaps I should allow an interval for her to consider my plea. She will be getting what she has always wanted—an obedient, properly married daughter—but she will need to convince herself that she is being magnanimous. I have a bit of money put aside, & by September I should have enough for the passage to England
.

Felicity & Jonathan are dead, & now Charlie is my son. I will make him an English gentleman & tell him, again & again, how brave & good his parents were. I will never let anyone hurt him
.

May 1858

He has both front teeth now, they dazzle against his smooth cocoa skin. He eats enough for three babies. I think he does, but of course I have nothing for comparison. Hakim even cooks in the new kitchen, preparing the soft lamb meatballs & tamarind chutney that Charlie loves, whilst my son plays at his feet
.

Charlie’s appetite astounds me. I have to ration his portion of rice pudding when Hakim makes it with saffron & sultanas; I swear the child would eat the entire pot if I let him
.

He crawls fast, & laughs gleefully when I come after him. Today he pulled himself upright on a chair, & soon he will be walking. Imagine the amazement on Mother’s face when I stroll off the ship with this beautiful child!

June 1858

Last week I felt unaccountably lethargic. Perhaps the hot weather is sapping my strength. The grass tatties are up & watered & the punkah waves day & night, but I feel drained. Perhaps I should hire another ayah, but I don’t even have the energy to conduct interviews. Playing with Charlie has become especially fatiguing. Yesterday, I was unduly short with him for being petulant. But the poor child has prickly heat, & I must make a greater effort
.

I had one particularly hard day when I found myself imagining nightmarish scenarios—myself falling desperately ill, dying, & leaving Charlie with no one. God forbid. But the next day I felt much better. Who knows what ephemeral afflictions are borne on these Asiatic winds. Moods & maladies will come & go, but I must not be impatient with darling Charlie, & I must not let morbid visions carry me away
.

Charlie has stopped his play in the marigolds to listen to the bamboo wind chime on the verandah. He’s such an attentive child! I’m sure his intelligence is well above average. I know all mothers think that, but with Charlie there is no doubt
.

July 1858

I am in a whirl. The voyage will require much preparation. I have been diligent about budgeting & already have almost enough for our passage, but
there are other considerations. The amount of clothing needed to keep Charlie clean & dry will require three trunks. Then there are his glass nursery bottles & his playthings. Should I bring my own rice & sugar in case rations run short aboard ship? Perhaps I should consider keeping a goat in the hold to ensure fresh milk. But then I would need a goatherd & provisions for the goat, & what does one do with an Indian goatherd in Yorkshire? I would have to pay to send him back
.

Will I be able to find Katie? Should I even try?

I must send to Simla for more Mother Bailey’s Syrup, oh, & I’ll need plenty of soap & Jamaican ginger-root for seasickness. Should I take Lalita? Would she agree to come? I know I must be forgetting something …

No matter. When we get to England all problems will be resolved & all hardships forgotten
.

August 1858

I must make arrangements to close up the house. The landlord is a Scotsman & will expect everything to be left in good order. Easier said than done. Charlie, in his teething agonies, gnawed the teak arm of that lovely brocade chair. He also left an appalling stain on the dhurrie rug when he had an upset stomach. The brick wall in the kitchen has darkened from cooking smoke, but I believe that is to be expected & not for me to refurbish, especially since we built the kitchen at our own expense. I wonder how much notice I am required to give before departure. I cannot give the landlord a date until I hear from Mother
.

Oh, to see the moors again. I will bundle Charlie in a warm jumper & take him walking in the woods. I cannot wait to see his face when he witnesses his first proper Christmas, the house decked out with holly & a long table lit with tapers & heaped with roast goose & sugar-plums. We will make snow angels & eat roast beef & Yorkshire pudding, & I will give him a gaily painted nutcracker. I wonder how long he will believe in Santa Claus?

September 1858

The house is in good order, but there is simply nothing to be done about the teeth marks in that chair arm. Perhaps no one will notice. Lalita & Khalid
have begun packing my things & I am organising Charlie’s. He goes through so many pieces of clothing in a day that I am having more made so that we have enough whilst en route downriver. The durzi sits on the verandah with his caged mynah, sewing tiny shirts & hemming nappies. All day long we hear the whine & clatter of the new machine, of which he is inordinately proud
.

I wonder which of Charlie’s toys will keep him best occupied in the dhoolie? That will be a trying six days!

I have put off writing to Mrs Singh about our departure for fear she might object to my taking her grandson away. In quiet moments I know my fear is baseless. The woman has never even asked to see him, & I am glad. If ever she saw how wonderful, how beautiful he is, she might want to keep him, & what a snarl that could be
.

I have no idea what the laws are in this country regarding children, if there are any, but he looks Indian & I am not his natural mother. Still, she has not met him, & that is for the best. I will give Charlie a good life in Yorkshire. I will shore up his spirit to withstand any prejudice he might encounter. A proper education will compensate for much, & I will see that he gets it. Will he like cricket? His temperament is agreeable & he will surely have many friends
.

As for Mrs Singh, I will wait until the last minute before I write to her. I do not think she will be sorry to see me go, but I hope to be packed up & on my way by the time she gets the news
.

September 1858

All we really have are our stories, & before I leave I will wrap this journal against the weather & put it in the sandalwood tree. This is my story, or at least some part of it, & I trust to fate that the right person will discover it. If such a thing should come to pass, I hope that whoever reads my words will benefit from them in some way, as the stories of Fanny Parks & Honoria Lawrence set Felicity & me on our rightful paths
.

1947

I
put aside the question of how Adela’s journal might benefit me. And I put aside the question of how she could be buried in Masoorla if she went back to England. And I put aside the question of how, if she didn’t go back to England, she could have raised a half-caste child alone in India, and what might have happened to him. I put it all aside to devote myself to the quest for Spike.

Martin had confirmed that the boy carried Spike around with him daily, and that the family did indeed live in one of the worst bustees around Simla. We would go there at dinnertime, when they would most likely be at home, but it would not do for us to pull up in a car, looking too rich, or by coolie rickshaw, looking too colonial. A tonga wouldn’t fit through the narrow lanes of the bustee, so we settled on a bicycle rickshaw. I would even wear a skirt and cover my hair with a scarf. We would lay down a full day’s pay in cash—the equivalent of a month’s wage for a laborer—and say a respectful thank you as well as namastes and salaams, whatever they wanted. If we saw the boy, we would try to smile at the little thief as we gave him the yo-yo and candy and kites we had bought him at the Lakkar bazaar.

We did not tell Billy about it, but the expedition to retrieve Spike had been talked about at the Club, and Lydia had offered to sit with him. At first, we resisted the idea of leaving Billy with Lydia, but we owed Edward a huge debt for staying out all night to find him, and after learning that they’d lost a child in the war we felt terrible for both of them. Martin said, “I don’t think even Lydia can turn him into an imperialist in an hour. And if he’s bored, he’ll forget about it when we give him Spike.”

Lydia and Edward were waiting in their suite at the Hotel Cecil. I hadn’t seen Edward since the day Spike had been taken, and we’d never really had a conversation since that uncomfortable meeting in the bazaar when I’d mentioned Amritsar. After Edward found Billy, Martin had sent over a bottle of Scotch, but I owed him my personal thanks as well as an apology. When we walked into the room, Edward put out his hand. I took it and said, “How can I thank you? And after I—”