195. Moon Over Eden Page 12

  “Tea is the one crop that can be picked six days out of seven all the year round,” he told her, “with the exception of two or three of the great Hindu festivals.”

  Before they reached the coolies working amongst the tea plants Dominica could already hear them.

  “The Tamils are noisy and very often quarrelsome,” Lord Hawkston said as she looked at him as if for explanation. “But they are good workers.”

  They drew nearer and Dominica could see that the tea pluckers had large round bamboo baskets slung onto their backs by means of a rope that passed around their foreheads.

  The women wore gaily coloured cloths wound Grecian fashion across their breasts and round their heads and padded where they took the strain of the rope on their foreheads, they wore a headcloth like a turban.

  In green, red, gold or white the effect of a hundred or more pluckers waist-high in greenery was, Dominica thought, very picturesque.

  She was fascinated by the speed and skill of the women picking the ripe leaves, always two and a bud, and gathering them in small heaps in the hand, then throwing them with a lithe quick jerk over their shoulders into the waiting basket.

  “The supervision of the work is in the hands of the men,” Lord Hawkston explained. “They are called Kanganies or Overseers.”

  There was a faint smile on his lips as he looked at them and it was with difficulty that Dominica prevented herself from laughing.

  The insignia of their rank was usually an ancient European-type jacket, a turban and an umbrella, a high sign of superiority, caught in the collar of the coat and hanging down their backs.

  “Four times a day,” Lord Hawkston went on, “the leaf is carefully weighed, each plucker’s tally being entered in a small account book by the kannackapiller.”

  He looked at the pluckers with an expression of pride in his eyes.

  “There is never any cheating. If the accounts are challenged, the coolies’ recording, for they know exactly how much they have picked, can be accepted as completely accurate.”

  Everyone seemed to be very happy and it was impossible not to notice how delighted many of the coolies were to see Lord Hawkston.

  There was a note of pleasure in their voices when he talked to them and Dominica was sure that they had a genuine fondness for him.

  It was very different when a little while later Gerald came trotting up to them.

  He was looking hot and the perspiration was running down his face.

  With what Dominica thought was an effort to impress his uncle he dismounted and walked round to the pluckers finding fault with their work and speaking to them in a tone of voice that made her instinctively grip the reins tighter.

  No one answered back, everyone went on working, but Dominica was sure that they resented Gerald’s hectoring manner, the loudness of his orders and his whole attitude of arrogant superiority.

  They watched the weighing of the tea outside a store that, Lord Hawkston told Dominica, had originally been built for coffee.

  All too soon it seemed to Dominica time passed and they rode back along a different route towards the house.

  Gerald was blustering and making long and garbled explanations as to why the tea production had fallen in the last year.

  He blamed the coolies, the Overseers, the weather, the plants themselves, while in fact, Dominica was sure that it was all a cover-up for his own inadequacy.

  Lord Hawkston said little, but she knew that he was feeling disappointed and upset that the plantation he had left in such excellent condition, thriving and improving month by month, should have gone backwards instead of forwards and would undoubtedly show a financial deficit instead of a profit.

  After a time, when his words evoked no response from his uncle, Gerald’s voice ceased, and Dominica was glad to ride in silence and look at the beauty all around her.

  She was fascinated to see that where the country had not been cultivated the jungle was even more beautiful than she had imagined it could be.

  There were varieties of immense feathery bamboos and she noticed low down in the valley giant fern trees rising sometimes to a height of more than twenty feet.

  Almost everywhere in the thick undergrowth there was the vivid blue of the nelu in a great sheet of colour and besides the magnolias there were myrtles and various varieties of camellia.

  When she was looking at one, entranced by the perfect waxlike blossoms, Lord Hawkston followed the direction of her eyes and said,

  “You know, of course. that the tea plant is a cousin of the camellia?”

  “No, I did not,” Dominica answered him, “but now that you mention it, they do look rather similar.”

  “Let me show you something even more beautiful,” he suggested.

  They rode on for a little distance and then he pointed to the katu-imbul or silk-cotton tree.

  Dominica had seen one in the gardens in Colombo, but here there were a dozen of them growing wild and the glorious trumpet-like petals were in an almost crazy profusion.

  The ground beneath the trees was carpeted thick with petals like a crimson rug and the branches of the trees grew out at right angles from the trunk like the yards of a ship.

  It was so lovely that she could hardly bear to leave it behind and ride on, but she told herself that whatever happened she must come again before the blossom finished.

  They reached the house and Lord Hawkston said as he lifted her down from the saddle,

  “You may think that we have returned early, but here as men breakfast soon after dawn it is usual for the midday meal to be at noon.”

  “Whatever the time is,” Dominica said with a smile, “I am hungry.”

  This was true because she had been unable to eat any breakfast as Gerald Warren had upset her.

  Now she tried to tell herself that she was being stupid and ultra-fastidious. He was Lord Hawkston’s nephew and she must try to understand him.

  ‘He is feeling awkward, as I am, about the arrangements that have been made for us,’ she thought.

  It sounded reassuring and sensible, but she knew that inside she shrank with every nerve in her body from the idea that she should mean anything to this hard-drinking young man or he to her.

  After luncheon Lord Hawkston insisted that Dominica should rest.

  “It is always a mistake to do too much on the first day,” he said. “The height, although one does not realise it, affects one after coming up from sea level. Besides Gerald and I are going for a long ride that will be too much for you.”

  She was disappointed, but she could not help recognising that he was being wise. In fact when she went to her room she lay down on the bed meaning to read one of the many books that she had found waiting for her, but fell asleep.

  She had not slept the night before and now she slept peacefully to find when she awoke that it was six o'clock in the evening.

  “You should have wakened me,” she told the servant when she rang for him to find out the exact time.

  “Durai say you should sleep, nona,” he replied. “You like bath?”

  “Thank you,” Dominica smiled.

  By the time she had had her bath it was getting on for seven o’clock and she put on one of the pretty evening gowns that Madame Fernando had included in her trousseau.

  Pale yellow, it was the colour of syringa, the bodice fitted her closely and was cut low at the front and at the back. There were tiny puff sleeves fashioned of yellow tulle, which was also draped round the full skirt.

  It seemed very grand and very décolletée for a quiet evening in the hills, but Dominica hoped that Lord Hawkston would admire her in it.

  Feeling a little shy she went into the sitting room.

  It was a long and very lovely room filled with treasures of native craftsmanship, which Dominica was longing to inspect.

  To her disappointment she found not Lord Hawkston but Gerald and he was alone.

  He had a glass of whisky in his hand and looked up apprehensively when she entered as if
he thought it might be his uncle.

  “Oh, it’s you, Dominica,” he exclaimed. “You are early! I have not yet changed for dinner.”

  “Did you enjoy your ride?” Dominica asked, crossing the room towards him.

  “Not much,” he replied. “I felt like a small boy who had forgotten to do his homework!”

  For the first time Dominica felt rather sympathetic towards him.

  “Was his Lordship very angry?” she asked.

  “I am in disgrace you know that. But don’t let’s worry our heads about it. There are other things we can do besides sit in sackcloth and ashes.”

  He put down his glass and said unexpectedly,

  “For instance you could start by giving me a kiss. We are going to be married, Dominica, but so far we have not had a chance of getting to know each other.”

  He put out his arms as he spoke and pulled her roughly towards him.

  Instinctively and without conscious thought she struggled and fought herself free.

  “No!” she cried. “No!”

  There was a tremor of fear in her voice.

  “Why not?” Gerald asked. “Are you playing hard to get, Dominica? After all, you have come here to marry me.”

  “Yes – I know,” Dominica said breathlessly, “but it is too – soon. We have only – just met. I-I have hardly spoken to you.”

  “That’s not my fault. And now that I have had a chance to look at you, I can say you are very pretty! What’s more, you have a very white skin. I like that. It’s a change!”

  As he spoke, he put his arms round Dominica again and kissed her bare shoulder.

  It happened so swiftly that she was unable to move away or prevent it. Then, as she felt the touch of his lips, she realised what he had said.

  “It’s a change!”

  A change from Seetha – a change from the girl who had killed herself because of him.

  Even as her whole being was revolted at the thought, Dominica felt his lips hot and greedy on her bare skin.

  “No! No!” she cried again and parted her lips to scream.

  As she did so, the door opened and Lord Hawkston entered the room.

  He had changed for dinner and, although he must have seen what was happening as he came towards them, his voice was completely expressionless.

  “You will be late, Gerald, if you don’t hurry.”

  Gerald took his arms from Dominica and she felt for one moment that she was going to faint.

  She put out her hands and just beside her there was the back of a chair and she held onto it.

  “I won’t be long,” Gerald said and walked away.

  Dominica fought for breath.

  She had her back to Lord Hawkston and did not turn round.

  She only knew that she felt a great relief because he was there and at the same time a sense of acute embarrassment because he had seen Gerald kissing her bare shoulder.

  What did he think? How could he credit that she would permit such a thing?

  Then she told herself that it was what he would expect. He had brought her here to marry his nephew and he would be glad that they were getting to know each other and that Gerald was attracted to her.

  Even as she thought of him she could feel the heat of his lips, could smell his spirit-laden breath and could feel the roughness of his arms as he pulled her against him.

  ‘I cannot – do it!’ she told herself. ‘I must – tell Lord Hawkston that I – cannot do it.’

  She heard him walk across the room to the window.

  “Have you seen the sunset?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  It checked the words that would have sprung to Dominica’s lips, words in which she would have explained how Gerald revolted her, how she could never let him touch her again and how she could not stay here.

  Then, as if someone was pointing an accusing finger at her, she remembered all that she owed Lord Hawkston!

  Her whole trousseau, which had cost an astronomical sum, gowns and bonnets for the girls, the kindness he had shown to her as they travelled here and how he was doing everything to make her feel at home.

  ‘How can I be so – ungrateful ? How can I explain that I must break my word and – go back on my – promise?’ Dominica asked herself.

  She felt the faintness that had come over her when Gerald released her was now passing, but she was still conscious of his lips on her shoulder where he had kissed her.

  She still felt a kind of sick depression inside but she told herself that she had to be brave.

  What else could she do, owing Lord Hawkston so much? And being so desperately and hopelessly in his debt?

  ‘If I worked for a hundred years, I could never pay him back for all he has spent on me,’ she thought.

  With an effort that was superhuman she walked towards him.

  As she reached his side, he stepped forward through the open window and out onto the Verandah.

  “Sometimes I think that this is the loveliest part of the day,” he said. “When I lived here alone I always used to try to be back in time to watch the sun go down and the stars come out. It is more beautiful and more moving than any play in a theatre could be and the sounds of the night have a music that to me are finer than the greatest opera.”

  Dominica knew that he was trying to soothe and reassure her. He was attempting, she was sure, to tell her that if she did not panic, if she used her common sense, then everything would be all right.

  But would it?

  Would she ever be able to endure Gerald near her, to feel him touching her and to let him kiss her?

  She reached out her hand to hold onto one of the pillars of the verandah and saw that it was trembling.

  ‘How can I tell him the – truth?’ she asked herself and knew that it was impossible.

  Chapter Six

  It was another uncomfortable evening with Lord Hawkston trying to make conversation and receiving little response from either Dominica or his nephew.

  Dominica did make an effort, but she found that it was increasingly hard to chatter and smile and impossible to prevent herself from shuddering when she looked at Gerald.

  It seemed to her, however, that Lord Hawkston was quite unaware that there was an undercurrent to the conversation nor did he seem to notice that Gerald had imbibed a great deal of whisky before he came back to the sitting room dressed for dinner.

  During the meal he ostentatiously drank the fresh lime juice that had been prepared for Dominica, but after dinner when he left the room for a few minutes, she was sure that it was because he was seeking another drink.

  They had coffee on the verandah and by now the sky was darkening and the stars were coming out one by one.

  There was a faint glow over the valley and she knew that in the depths of it the mists would be rising to cast a gossamer film over the tea plants.

  There was the sound of the torrent and the cry of the night birds besides the shrill note of the ‘flying-foxes’.

  These tiny bats, hardly larger than a thumbnail, swooped around the verandah as if they were inquisitive. Whenever the nights came on in a Ceylonese house they appeared in a flock, lured by some mysterious attraction.

  The moths, however, were too numerous for the party to linger long on the verandah and soon they returned to the sitting room.

  Lord Hawkston talked to Dominica for some time about the furniture that he had had made in different parts of the country and which had been brought to his house by various different means. One piece had been carried on the back of an elephant!

  All the time he was talking Dominica was conscious of Gerald sprawled in an armchair, doubtless wondering how soon he could obtain another drink without his uncle being aware of it.

  It was not yet ten o’clock when she decided that she would go to bed.

  She bade both gentlemen good night, curtseying as she did so and then went to her room feeling that it was a relief to be alone.

  At the same time she would have liked to go on talking to Lor
d Hawkston.

  She undressed and was ready for bed. Then having blown out the light she pulled back the curtains and opened the long windows onto the verandah that overlooked the lake.

  The garden was very quiet and peaceful. In the light from the starlit sky the water of the lake was luminous and the fragrance of the flowers almost overpowering.

  ‘It is lovely – so incredibly lovely!’ Dominica told herself. ‘If only one could be here with someone – ”

  She checked the thought before it went any further.

  What was the point of wishing for the impossible?

  If she stayed, she must stay with Gerald as his wife.

  She turned back into the bedroom as if the beauty outside hurt her.

  She crept into bed closing her eyes to try not to remember what she had felt when he had touched her, when he had kissed the whiteness of her skin and said with incredible insensitivity,

  “It’s a change!”

  How was it possible, she asked herself, for her ever to forget Seetha and that she had killed herself because this man had turned her away?

  ‘I will not think of it – I will not!’ Dominica told herself.

  And yet she felt almost as if Seetha was beside her, talking to her and telling her how much she had suffered.

  Suddenly Dominica knew the reason why Seetha had killed herself.

  It was because she was too ashamed at being turned away without any money to return to her village!

  It would mean that no man would marry her without a dowry. She could not face the scorn of her friends and relations and knew herself to be a failure.

  Death was preferable to disgrace and the torrent made death easy!

  ‘How could Gerald have done that to her?’ Dominica asked the darkness.

  *

  As Dominica left the sitting room, Lord Hawkston said to his nephew,

  “I have something to tell you, Gerald.”

  “What is it?”

  “I rose early this morning,” Lord Hawkston answered, “and I rode over to the village where Lakshman lives. I hoped to see him, but he was not there. However I discovered some important facts about him.”

  Gerald did not answer. He only looked at his uncle with a surly expression on his face as if he resented his intrusion into what he obviously felt were his own private affairs.