Becoming Lola Page 2

  Edward moistened his cracked lips with his tongue. ‘Don’t be angry with her, my love. Eliza, if you are good, you can help me paint a picture when I’m better.’

  She looked up. ‘Can we paint a tiger?’

  He smiled but his eyes were full of pain. ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon, I promise.’

  A spasm of coughing silenced him. A few moments passed before he recovered sufficiently to speak again and when he did, his voice was barely audible. ‘Soon.’

  Elizabeth mopped his forehead and straightened up. ‘Say goodbye to Papa, Eliza, and go with your ayah. She will look after you now.’

  *

  When they reached Dinapore late the following afternoon, Eliza and her ayah were forgotten in the confusion of unloading the boats. Forlorn on the dusty quayside, Eliza balled her small fists and dug her knuckles into her eyes to keep out the sun. Pinpricks of red light danced in the darkness. The ayah hovered at her side, not daring to follow Elizabeth Gilbert and the small group of native bearers who, under the supervision of the garrison doctor, had carried Edward off in the direction of the bungalow that served as a hospital.

  ‘Eliza?’

  A voice behind them made the ayah jump. Eliza took her knuckles out of her eyes and looked round. She saw a tall, spare woman with grey hair knotted at the nape of her neck. She wore a high-collared dress that was little different in colour from the parched ground; a black lace parasol shaded her face.

  ‘I am the Resident’s wife. You are to come with me, child. Your mama is busy and can’t look after you just now.’

  She held out her hand as Eliza stared at her. ‘I hope I shan’t have to tell you everything twice,’ she said with a frown.

  Eliza shook her head.

  ‘Then come along.’

  A palanquin carried by four Indian servants conveyed them to the Residency. Eliza peeked through the curtains at the neat, straight lines of bungalows with their wooden verandahs. As they neared the Residency, the bungalows grew larger and the Residency itself boasted an upper floor and a shallow portico flanked by stone columns.

  That night, Eliza slept in a small room overlooking a patch of withered grass at the back of the house. Apart from a rush-seated chair and a four-poster bed made of bamboo and draped with a mosquito net, the room contained no furniture. The next day, she played with the dolls that the Resident’s wife found for her. There was still no sign of her parents.

  A little before four o’clock, her ayah put the dolls away. Eliza squirmed as her hair was brushed. ‘Want to play,’ she complained. She grabbed the hairbrush and threw it across the floor.

  ‘Eliza must look pretty to go to the drawing room,’ her ayah wheedled.

  ‘Don’t want to.’

  ‘Resident Memsahib is waiting.’

  Eliza’s lower lip quivered. ‘Papa?’

  The ayah looked troubled. ‘Please, little memsahib, be good girl.’

  Eliza folded her arms across her chest and pouted, but she ceased to resist as her ayah finished tidying her hair and washing her face. The woman stood back. ‘Finish, we go now.’

  In the drawing room, the Resident’s wife sat on the best chair in a circle of other ladies. Eliza noticed their dresses were not nearly as pretty as her mother’s. They all looked up when she came in and the Resident’s wife gave her an encouraging smile.

  ‘Ah, here is Eliza. You may come and sit with us, child.’

  Eliza crossed to the footstool the Resident’s wife indicated and sat down. Tea was brought in and the ladies talked as they sipped from bone china cups. Eliza nibbled at the macaroon she had been given; it was dry but sweet. None of the ladies addressed a remark to her, but she noticed how from time to time their eyes swivelled in her direction. She fidgeted on her stool. The dress her ayah had made her put on felt itchy and hot compared with the loose, cotton shifts she was usually allowed to wear.

  She licked the last crumbs of macaroon off her fingers, got up, and went over to where the Resident’s wife sat. ‘I want to go now,’ she said in a high, clear voice.

  A collective intake of breath ruffled the polite surface of the gathering. All the ladies put down their cups and stared at her. In the silence that ensued, Eliza felt the blood rush to her cheeks. ‘Please,’ she faltered.

  The Resident’s wife frowned. ‘Very well, you may go child, but I do not wish to hear such rudeness again.’

  The visit was not repeated and for the next two days, the ayah and Eliza remained alone. Hardly an hour passed without her asking when her father would come to play with her, but each time, her ayah spread out her long fingers in the helpless gesture that was becoming all too frequent. Misery hollowed a pit in Eliza’s stomach. No amount of treats and songs consoled her.

  *

  On the third morning, as her ayah dressed her, the door of the bedroom opened. The Resident’s wife came in with a black dress over one arm. Her expression was solemn. ‘This was my daughter’s,’ Eliza heard her murmur to the ayah. ‘It will be too big for Eliza, but you must do the best you can with it. I’ve told the servants to provide you with pins and a needle and thread.’

  Eliza noticed how the ayah’s hands trembled as she took the dress. She felt a stab of alarm. ‘Why must I wear that?’ she asked sharply.

  The Resident’s wife came to stand beside her and rested a hand on her head. Eliza peered up at her. The expression on the woman’s face was softer than before. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, it’s because of your papa.’

  Eliza looked at her blankly. ‘When will Papa come back?’

  ‘He won’t come back, my child. His sufferings are over. He died last night.’

  Eliza’s face crumpled. She remembered that the snake had died. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Papa must not die when she needed him.

  The Resident’s wife cleared her throat. ‘I think it will be best if I leave you now. Your mother will come to see you soon I’m sure, and in the meantime, you have your ayah.’

  She walked to the door then turned. ‘You must be very brave, child.’

  When she had gone, the ayah opened her arms and drew Eliza into them. She buried her head in the folds of the woman’s sari and, convulsed with tears, clung to her familiar, warm body. Nothing would ever be right again, she knew it.

  *

  In spite of the Resident’s wife’s words, Elizabeth did not come for several days and it was the ayah who comforted Eliza when she woke crying in the night. When her mother visited at last, she looked different. A plain black dress had replaced the pretty silks and trimmings she usually wore. Her face seemed more lined than it had been and her eyes were red.

  ‘You must be a good girl,’ she said, resting her hand on Eliza’s shoulder. She turned to the ayah. ‘We’ll return to Calcutta as soon as the next supply convoy comes downriver. Until then, you and Miss Eliza will stay at the Residency. If you need anything, the memsahib will help you. I shall have no time. I have a great deal to do.’

  It was a Sunday morning when the garrison turned out to welcome the supply convoy. Eliza stood on the quayside with her mother and the Resident’s wife as the boats came in. The lead boat bumped the dock and some of the crew jumped off to secure the ropes fore and aft. With a scraping sound, the gangplank lowered and passengers began to disembark. Among them, Eliza saw a tall man who walked in their direction, striding purposefully past the stacks of crates and boxes waiting to be loaded. He looked older than her papa and he was not as handsome but he wore the same red coat. Instead of fair hair, his was dark and wispy, so that the top of his head gleamed in the sunshine. It reminded Eliza of an egg.

  ‘Why, Lieutenant Craigie, what a pleasure to see you again,’ the Resident’s wife beamed. ‘Your sojourn in Jaipur was not too uncongenial, I hope?’

  He kissed her hand. ‘A great pleasure to see you too, ma’am.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Politics and treachery have been my lot, I fear. I was glad to depart.’

  The Resident’s wife turned
to Elizabeth. ‘May I introduce Lieutenant Patrick Craigie, who has been Her Majesty’s Representative to the Maharajah of Jaipur these past two years? Lieutenant Craigie, this is Mrs Gilbert.’

  Craigie bowed. ‘At your service, ma’am.’

  ‘Mrs Gilbert and her daughter are to travel to Calcutta with you, Lieutenant Craigie. Perhaps you would be so kind as to look after them? They are recently bereaved.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear it.’ He gave Elizabeth a solicitous look. ‘Please accept my deepest condolences, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Lieutenant Craigie. We’ll do our best to be no trouble to you.’

  ‘I’m sure you could never be that,’ he said gallantly. He looked down at Eliza. ‘And what’s your name, child?’

  Eliza didn’t reply.

  ‘Don’t be rude, Eliza,’ Elizabeth snapped. ‘Answer when you’re spoken to.’

  ‘It’s no matter. Perhaps she’s a little shy.’ His smile was kind and Eliza ventured one in return.

  ‘There, that’s better. I’m sure we’ll soon be great friends. Now ladies, I fear I must excuse myself and make my report.’ He bowed again. ‘Since we’re to travel together, may I take the liberty of calling on you later, Mrs Gilbert?’

  Elizabeth inclined her head. ‘I’d be delighted.’

  Chapter 2

  In her darkened bedroom, Eliza woke to the swish of a punkah fan. She curled her arms behind her head and stretched like a cat, listening to the bluebottle that buzzed fatly against one of the window panes.

  Three years had passed since her mother had married Patrick Craigie and set up home with him in Calcutta. At first, tongues had wagged among the couple’s new acquaintances, but the more charitable had observed that a widow with a young child to bring up would be foolish to forgo the opportunity of an agreeable husband and financial security.

  ‘And whatever else Mrs Craigie is,’ the wife of one of Craigie’s brother officers remarked, ‘she is not a fool.’

  Eliza only knew that a bewilderingly short time seemed to pass between her father’s death and the day when she stood in the English church in Calcutta, dressed in a white muslin frock with a posy of flowers that rapidly wilted in the heat in her small hands, watching her mother exchange vows with this tall, kindly man of whom she soon grew fond.

  ’Eliza baba waking?’ The ayah let go the cord of the fan and came over to the bed.

  Eliza wriggled across and wound her fingers around a lock of the woman’s dark, shiny hair. She tugged it as if it were a bell pull. ‘Want drink, want sherbet!’

  The ayah disentangled herself. ‘The memsahib will be angry if she hears you talk baba talk.’

  Eliza giggled and stuck out her tongue.

  ‘Naughty girl.’ The ayah wagged her finger, but her chuckle robbed the words of meaning.

  Eliza jumped into her lap, her small fingers tickling and jabbing at the ayah’s ribs.

  ‘I go, I go,’ the ayah gasped, slipping out of her clutches. The hem of her purple sari skimmed the waxed floor as she disappeared in the direction of the kitchens. She returned a few minutes later with a frothy drink that smelt of mangoes and cardamom. A delicate china bowl, decorated with gold and blue birds, held soft pink and acid green jellies, liberally dusted with powdered sugar, and fragrant with the odour of rosewater.

  Eliza crammed a handful of the sweets into her mouth and drank some of the sherbet. Sugar stuck to her hands and licks of froth smeared her mouth. The ayah waited until she had eaten and drunk all she wanted before bringing a cloth and a bowl of warm water to wipe her clean.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in the shade of the verandah. Only the drone of insects in the bushes disturbed the silence. The porter slept at the gate and the mali snored under the great peepal tree that stood in the centre of the courtyard. His head was slumped on his chest and the rake he had been using that morning lay idle at his feet.

  A light breeze arose and Eliza watched it spin the leaves of the peepal, making the sunlight dance in the crown of the tree. She snuggled up to her ayah, smelling the familiar, comforting scents of her warm brown skin and the nut oil she used to make her hair shine. ‘Tell me who lives in the peepal tree,’ she demanded through the peppery wad of betel her ayah had given her to chew. She had heard the tale a hundred times before but she loved the ayah’s stories.

  ‘Memsahib will be cross.’

  Eliza pouted. ‘Tell me.’

  The ayah lowered her voice. ‘You won’t be afraid?’

  Eliza shook her head. Her dark curls bounced.

  ‘It’s the Munjia, but he only lives in lonely peepal trees, not in this one. When people come by in their tongas and bullock carts, he rushes out to frighten them.’ The ayah lowered her voice. ‘You must never yawn under a peepal tree. If by mistake you do, you should cover your mouth with your hand or snap your fingers in front of it, in case the Munjia rushes down your throat and gives you a bad pain in your tummy.’

  Eliza’s brow wrinkled. ‘I wouldn’t be scared of the old Munjia,’ she said resolutely. Her attention wandered to a squirrel monkey near the verandah. It held a blackened husk of corn it must have stolen from the kitchen refuse and was gnawing at the few remaining kernels.

  The ayah heard the tap of footsteps coming from inside the house. She scrambled to her feet and a moment later, Eliza’s mother stood at the double doors that opened out from the drawing room. She held Eliza’s copy book in her hand. ‘What’s that in your mouth, Eliza?’ she frowned.

  Eliza put her hand up and palmed the wad of betel but a tell-tale stain of red remained on her lips. Her mother darted forward and prised her fingers apart. ‘Betel!’ She flashed a venomous look at the ayah. ‘How many times have I told you Eliza is not to chew it? Go and get a cloth to scrub out her mouth.’

  The ayah scuttled away.

  ‘So you are disobedient as well as lazy and stupid, Eliza. Your tutor has complained to me again that you won’t copy your alphabet. How do you expect to learn anything if you won’t do as he tells you?’

  ‘I hate Mr McAllan. He smells bad.’

  ‘I won’t tolerate such rudeness, Eliza.’

  Eliza pouted. ‘He does.’

  Her mother’s slap took her by surprise. She felt her throat tighten and her chest heave. She threw herself onto the floor and flailed the boards with her fists. A long scream burst from her mouth. When she had no more breath left, she snatched another gulp of air then screamed again. In the commotion that swelled around her, she was dimly aware of an angry voice and sharp fingers that dug into her shoulders and shook her violently.

  She could not tell how much time passed before the voice and the shaking stopped but eventually, she was too exhausted to scream any more. In the silence that ensued, she felt a gentle hand rub her back and heard a low voice murmur soothing words in her ear. She opened her eyes to see her ayah kneeling by her side. Her mother had gone.

  *

  She did not come again that day or the next. Eliza felt uneasy: her mother was often angry but her anger had never lasted so long before. That night, after her ayah had settled her down in her bedroom, she crept out from under the mosquito net that draped her bed and tiptoed into the passage, her bare feet soundless on the teak floor.

  In the drawing room, the doors leading to the verandah stood open and she heard her mother and stepfather talking outside. She slipped into the shadow of the muslin curtains and listened. Elizabeth’s voice sounded shrill and indignant in comparison with Patrick Craigie’s calm, Scottish burr. Eliza could not pick out every word of the conversation but she understood enough to chill her. Her mother wanted to send her away. Numb and cold, she crept back to bed. There, cocooned once more under the milky canopy of the mosquito net, she lay listening to the familiar creaks of the old house and the cries of the night outside. Surely, she tried to reassure herself, her stepfather would speak up for her? He wouldn’t make her go.

  The next day, she was with her ayah in the garden feeding slices of
mango to her grey parrot when Patrick came to find her. His serious expression made her heart lurch. Perhaps he agreed with her mother after all. He smiled awkwardly and scratched the parrot’s head. ‘Let ayah put Polly back in her cage now, Eliza. I want you to take a walk with me. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  For some time, they walked in silence then at last, he spoke. ‘Your mother and I have decided the time has come for you to go to school, Eliza.’

  ‘Here in Calcutta?’ she asked, feeling a rush of hope.

  He shook his head. ‘We’re not staying in Calcutta. I’ve been posted up country. I had hoped you might stay with us for a little while longer, but my new posting changes everything. It would be impossible to make arrangements from Meerut. It’s more than a thousand miles away.’

  ‘So where will I go?’

  He heard the note of dismay in her voice and had to stifle his own doubts. ‘I’ve asked my family in Scotland to take you in and see to your education. I know they’ll make you very welcome.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There there, child, you’ll be happy in Montrose, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Can I take Polly?’

  ‘It’s a long way to Scotland, Eliza, and very different there. It wouldn’t be a good place for poor old Polly, much better to leave her here. I promise she’ll be well looked after. Now, let’s go and find your ayah again. She’ll know how to cheer you up.’

  The ayah looked anxiously at Eliza when they returned. She had never seen her so subdued. With a muttered goodbye, Patrick Craigie left them together.

  Silently, Eliza went to the parrot’s cage and opened it. The bird cocked its head to one side and shuffled up and down the perch, ruffling its feathers. Eliza put her hand into the cage. In a few moments, the bird calmed and let her take it out and hold it close. She bent her head, breathing in its musty scent. The tears that swam in her eyes brimmed over and fell in hot rivulets down her cheeks. If Polly would not be happy in Scotland, why ever should she be?