195. Moon Over Eden Read online

  He spoke a little quizzically. He knew that in no other house in Colombo would the lady of the house scrub her own floor.

  The colour rose once again in Dominica’s face.

  “I think Papa might be too proud to allow you to pay the wages for what – ostensibly would be his own – servant,” she said hesitatingly.

  Then she added,

  “No – that is not true. I think really that if you gave Papa the money for Mallika he would be sure to divert it to some family whom he considered to be more deserving than his own. In which case Faith would still have to clean the house or leave it dirty.”

  There was a faint smile on Lord Hawkston’s lips as he said,

  “I see I must find another solution. You shall pay Mallika with the money I give you for the purpose. Will that be more satisfactory?”

  “It would indeed,” Dominica replied with a little lilt in her voice. “But you are – sure you can – afford it?”

  “Quite sure. As it happens, Dominica, I am what you would consider a rich man, so you need have no qualms about accepting from me not only the money for Mallika’s wages but also for the trousseau we are now going to buy.”

  Dominica drew in her breath.

  She seemed about to say something and then changed her mind.

  “I will go and change,” she said. “I would not wish to keep your Lordship waiting.”

  She left the kitchen before he could reply.

  Lord Hawkston looked round him, noting the primitive stove, the bare floor, the hard chairs and the cheap china stacked on the dresser. Then he went from the kitchen into the sitting room where he had interviewed the Vicar and Dominica the previous day.

  He had not to wait long.

  He heard Dominica’s footsteps hurrying down the uncarpeted stairway and she came into the room less than five minutes after leaving him.

  She had changed into the dress that she had worn in Church, the same ugly black bonnet covered her hair and there were black cotton gloves on her hands.

  “I am sorry I was not ready when you arrived, my Lord,” she said in a tone as if she was still reproaching herself for being so tardy.

  “Where are the rest of your family?” Lord Hawkston enquired.

  “They are all with their teachers with the exception of Faith who has accompanied Papa because I was coming out with you. It meant that she could not have her French lesson.”

  She thought that Lord Hawkston looked faintly surprised and added by way of explanation,

  “Mama insisted that however poor we were we should all have a good education. Sometimes Papa resents how much he has to pay and he wanted to stop Faith’s lessons as soon as she reached the age of eighteen. But I persuaded him to let her continue for the rest of this year.”

  “You sound as if you missed your lessons,” Lord Hawkston commented.

  “More than I can ever say,” Dominica answered. “It was like stepping into another world.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “If only I could get some more books!”

  A thought struck her and there was a sudden light in her eyes as she asked,

  “Will there be books at your plantation?”

  “There were quite a number of them when I left, but what you cannot find on my bookshelves can easily be supplied. There is, I well know, a bookshop in Kandy and several in Colombo. You must tell me what your interests are, Dominica, I would like to hear about them.”

  As he spoke, he walked towards the front door, which was open, and she could see the carriage waiting outside.

  Dominica could not help a little thrill of excitement as she stepped into the Governor’s well-padded Victoria and the footman put a light rug over her knees.

  Lord Hawkston seated himself beside her.

  “What do you like reading?” he asked.

  “Everything,” Dominica replied, “but especially the histories of other countries and most especially about England.”

  “You have never been there?”

  “No. Mama used to tell us what she did as a girl and of the Manor House where she lived in Gloucester. It all sounded fascinating.”

  “Do you like Ceylon?”

  “Of course. It has always been my home and I love Colombo, the people, the flowers, and the sea. Mama always said that if we went to England we would miss the sunshine, but there would be many compensations.”

  “And what did she think those are?” Lord Hawkston asked in a slightly sceptical voice.

  “I think Mama felt her roots were in England and that therefore the country – was a part of herself. I am sure that she was right and nationality is something far deeper and more fundamental than merely having a certain type of passport.”

  Lord Hawkston glanced at Dominica in surprise.

  This was not the sort of remark he had expected from a young girl.

  “So you want to travel?” he remarked.

  “With my body, as I have travelled so much with my mind,” Dominica replied. “But of course, my mind is the far cheaper method!”

  She laughed as she spoke and Lord Hawkston noticed how it changed and illuminated her face.

  They drove past the Racecourse on the sea front in silence and then Dominica enquired,

  “Having lived for so long in Ceylon, where do you feel that you belong?”

  “That is a question I have often asked myself,” Lord Hawkston responded. “When I had to leave Ceylon two years ago, I felt that I was leaving everything that was familiar, everything I thought of as home. And yet, once back in England, I found so much that mattered to me because it was a part of my childhood, my adolescence and the time when I first thought of myself as a man.”

  “And so you loved it just as you loved Ceylon.”

  “I suppose that is true,” Lord Hawkston agreed, but almost in surprise, as if he had not thought of it that way before.

  They had now reached the more crowded streets teeming with every variety of Oriental race and costume.

  There were the Ceylonese, the men as well as the women wearing their hair tied behind in knots, the women adding elaborate hairpins and there were the darker-skinned Tamils who came from India.

  Hindus of every Caste jostled Moormen of Arab blood who introduced coffee to Ceylon, Afghan traders, Malay Policemen, long-nosed Parsees, narrow-eyed Chinese and there were Eurasians of Dutch or Portuguese or English descent.

  It was all a kaleidoscope of movement, colour, noise and confusion.

  “Where are you taking me?” Dominica asked.

  “I have learnt from the Governor’s most able and efficient Secretary,” Lord Hawkston replied, “that the smartest and most important dressmaker in Ceylon is Madame Fernando.”

  Dominica turned to look at him with large eyes.

  “So she is, but I must warn your Lordship that she is also very expensive.”

  “I have already assured you, Dominica, that you shall have the best and most beguiling trousseau that any girl could wish for. I therefore intend to introduce you to Madame Fernando, explain that the bills are to come to me, then leave you to choose what you and she think most suitable.”

  Dominica drew in her breath and turned her head to look straight in front of her.

  Lord Hawkston was sure that she was thinking excitedly of what she would purchase.

  What girl dressed as she was, in the cheapest material the marketplace could supply and made, he was quite certain by her own hands, could resist the lure of clothes which, if the Governor’s Secretary was to be believed, were worn by all the smartest and most fashionable ladies in Colombo?

  They reached Madame Fernando’s shop, which displayed nothing in the window except an exceedingly smart bonnet trimmed with large ostrich plumes of crimson and blue.

  It was obviously just decorative rather than anything that a lady would wish to wear, but Dominica looked at it with what Lord Hawkston thought were appreciative eyes and he wondered for the first time if he was wise to trust her taste.

&n
bsp; Then, as the footman jumped down from the box of the carriage to open the door for them, Dominica turned impulsively.

  “Please,” she said to Lord Hawkston in a low voice, “will you choose what I should wear? I am sure that I will make mistakes and you will be ashamed of me.”

  Lord Hawkston was surprised.

  He had planned exactly what he would do after he had left Dominica at the shop and where he would go before he returned to collect her.

  He had never envisaged for a moment that he would be called upon to sit in a dressmaker’s choosing gowns for a young woman, or to take an active part in providing her with a trousseau other than writing a cheque in payment for it.

  Then with a faint smile on his lips he made up his mind.

  “Why not?” he asked more to himself than to Dominica. “After all I have always believed that if one wants a thing done well, one should do it one’s self. I will, as you suggest, stay with you, Dominica, but don’t blame me if we have conflicting ideas as to how you should appear.”

  He saw the gratitude in her eyes and knew that she had not only been worried about making mistakes but felt shy at being in such a grand shop by herself.

  Madame Fernando was, Lord Hawkston was prepared to admit, somewhat overpowering and he soon realised that, if he had not stayed with Dominica at her request, she would have had little say in the choosing of her trousseau.

  French by birth, Madame Fernando had come to Colombo as the young bride of a Portuguese planter.

  She had, however, soon grown tired of life on a plantation and had come to Colombo to procure orders for underclothes, which she embroidered skilfully for any lady who required them. She was fortunate in securing the patronage of the Governor’s wife and from that moment her success was ensured.

  At first she worked night and day to complete the orders she received and then she engaged the help of Ceylonese girls whom she taught to embroider as well as she could herself.

  In ten years she was established as a dressmaker with a shop, a large staff and a Bank balance that increased year by year.

  It was fortunate for her husband that the Bank balance was there when the coffee disease destroyed his plantation overnight.

  Disgusted and disillusioned with Ceylon, he wished to return to Europe, but his wife however refused point blank to go with him.

  She was happy in Colombo and she had also several attentive admirers she had no intention of leaving.

  In the end Mr. Fernando went home without her. There was no question of a divorce as both of them were Catholics and Madame Fernando was quite certain that he would find plenty of charming ladies to console him in Lisbon.

  Now Madame Fernando with shrewd eyes took in every detail of Lord Hawkston’s appearance and she had already been informed by one of her receptionists in awestruck tones that he had arrived in the Governor’s carriage.

  “May I be of assistance, monsieur?” she asked in an ingratiating voice that had never lost its broken accent.

  “I am Lord Hawkston and I need your help.”

  Madame Fernando dropped a curtsey.

  “I am yours to command, my Lord.”

  “This young lady, Miss Dominica Radford, is to marry my nephew, Mr. Gerald Warren. She needs an entire trousseau.”

  There was a decided glitter of excitement in Madame Fernando’s eyes as she replied,

  “It will be a pleasure to dress anyone so charming as Mademoiselle.”

  She glanced, however, as she spoke at Dominica’s gown and then looked away as if its material and shape made her shudder.

  “There is one difficulty,” Lord Hawkston explained.

  Madame waited a little apprehensively.

  “It is that we wish to leave not later than early on Thursday morning for Kandy, which means that Miss Radford must have enough gowns ready by then to travel in. The rest can be sent after her.”

  Madame Fernando drew in a deep breath of relief.

  She had been half-expecting that Lord Hawkston was going to say that he could not afford to pay at once for all the things he desired. To hurry, however, would cost him more as the seamstresses would have to work late into the night to complete the orders.

  But that was of little consequence.

  “I have some dresses ready or half-finished that I am sure would suite Mademoiselle to perfection,” Madame Fernando said. “May she put them on for your Lordship’s approval?”

  “We are in your hands, madame,” his Lordship replied with an air that Madame Fernando could not help thinking was extremely attractive.

  She said as much to Dominica as she took her to a dressing room, after she had given a dozen orders to the young Ceylonese girls to bring her what was required.

  “My Lord, your uncle-in-law to be, mademoiselle, has an air très distingué. He is obviously, how you say in England, a great gentleman.”

  “He is very kind,” Dominica answered, “but I would not wish to choose, madame, always the most expensive.”

  “Don’t worry your head over such things,” Madame Fernando said soothingly, “the cost is between Monsieur and myself. But first for you to show my gowns to perfection we must start with the right foundation.”

  She helped Dominica out of her dress and gave an exclamation of horror as she saw the plain calico underclothes beneath it.

  For the first time in her life Dominica was laced into a corset, which gave her figure an elegance that she had not thought possible.

  “You are thin, mademoiselle,” Madame Fernando said. “That is good, but the shape must be right, a very small waist, the suspicion of a bosom and well-moulded hips.”

  She attended to Dominica as she spoke and when finally what she called the foundation of her gowns was achieved, Dominica could hardly believe that silk could feel so soft against her skin or that silk stockings could make such a difference to her legs.

  Finally a gown was put over her head, which made her gasp with astonishment.

  Of soft pink silk it seemed to accentuate the lights in her hair and the purity of her skin.

  “It is too rich – too grand,” Dominica protested, overawed by the frills and flounces, the small bustle and the little train that swept out behind her.

  “I shall never have an occasion to wear anything so elaborate,” she gasped.

  “Let’s show you to my Lord,” Madame Fernando suggested. “There are a number of others for him to see if he does not like this one.”

  Dominica went out into the salon very shyly.

  As she saw Lord Hawkston sitting at his ease in a damask-covered armchair, she felt that it had been audacious to ask him to stay with her and yet she doubted that she could have faced being left on her own.

  Madame Fernando was to her mind terrifying and she was certain that Lord Hawkston would never have understood what gowns she had been compelled to buy unless he had actually been present at the transaction.

  She awaited his verdict, her eyes on his face.

  “Charming,” he said at once. “It suits you, Dominica. Do you like it yourself?”

  “I shall never have occasion – to wear such a gown,” Dominica protested.

  “I told you that my nephew was a gay young man. I am certain that he will want to take you into Kandy and you will find he has friends you will visit in the neighbourhood.”

  He turned towards Madame Fernando.

  “That one must certainly be included in the trousseau, madame. What else have you for me to see?”

  Dominica tried on six other gowns all of which Lord Hawkston insisted on buying and then a number of others were held up for his inspection, the majority of which he approved.

  Finally Madame produced her pièce de résistance, a Wedding gown of white lace so beautiful and so alluring that when Dominica looked at herself in the mirror she could hardly believe that it was her own reflection.

  There was a veil and a wreath of orange blossom.

  “We shall have to alter your hairstyle, mademoiselle,” Madame Fernand
o admonished her. “It’s too severe, too harsh for a young lady of your age. I will send you a hairdresser. He will show you what is a more fashionable style.”

  “N-no, don’t engage him until I am ready to receive him,” Dominica said hastily.

  She could not help thinking how horrified her father would be if he found a hairdresser in the Vicarage.

  Equally she knew that Madame Fernando was speaking the truth in saying that the style that she did her hair in was not in keeping with the elegance of her new gowns.

  To please Madame, who was very insistent, Dominica loosened the hair over her ears, made it fall from a parting in the middle in a soft wave on either side of her forehead and pinned it at the back into a chignon.

  “That is better,” Madame approved. “But you need curls on the top, mademoiselle, especially in the evening. They are very becoming.”

  “I will think – about it,” Dominica faltered.

  But somehow she felt that Lord Hawkston would agree with Madame Fernando.

  She was well aware that he was not buying such delectable gowns entirely for her own satisfaction. She knew that he wished to make her look as attractive as the girl who had jilted his nephew and whom he therefore could not take with him to Kandy.

  ‘I expect she is very pretty,’ Dominica thought.

  She wished that she could have seen the lady who had transferred her affections elsewhere as she would have some idea on what to model herself on.

  Then she decided that to be a mere copy of another woman who had not honoured her word and had failed not only Gerald Warren but also his uncle would be a mistake.

  For one thing it might annoy Lord Hawkston if he thought that she was equally frivolous and untrustworthy.

  ‘I will be myself,’ Dominica decided. ‘I am Mama’s daughter and Mama always said that we each of us have our own personalities, our own characters and our own standards. I will try to make the best of myself, but I will not try to imitate anyone else.’