Flame Tree Road (17 page)

“It’s totally hypocritical,” agreed Samantha.

“I was talking to my brother, James, the other day,” said Estelle. “The bicycle, it seems, threatens men at a very deep level. Men fear that the pedaling motion will cause sexual arousal and lead women to promiscuity...”

The others burst out laughing.

“How utterly ridiculous!” said Isadora, wiping her eyes. “Surely you are not serious?”

“No, it’s really true,” insisted Estelle. “The fear is promiscuity will lead to women straying and break up marriages and our society will collapse like a deck of cards. Conclusion—women riding bicycles leads to collapse of society. End of the story.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “They make us sound like a flock of geese waiting to take off. Oh, for crying out loud!”

“But think about it seriously for a moment,” said Isadora. “Every culture has its own way to keep a woman helpless and dependent on a man. In China, they have foot binding, in England we have corsets. It’s all to the same end. Female bondage.”

“That’s an interesting topic,” said Samantha. “Estelle, why don’t you do a write-up for the
Archangel
on the female bondage theme? At least you won’t have to go undercover for this one.”

“You pulled off that one, you gutsy thing!” Isadora laughed. “There is no way I could have done it.”

“I dare say I enjoyed it,” Estelle said, twirling an imaginary moustache. “Maybe I should take up the job of a private eye. Bertie’s makeup man is a genius. I hardly recognized myself. You should have seen Bertie at that debate. He was so jittery sitting next to me, his eyes kept darting all over the place. If I got caught that day it would have been his fault.”

“You had no option but to go undercover,” said Samantha. “Given the topic of the debate, any female in the audience would have stuck out like a sore thumb. You would have never been able to take notes, for one.”

“There’s another union debate coming up in August on the topic of women’s suffrage,” said Estelle. “Maybe we should go in a group. What do you say?”

“I’ll go,” said Isadora.

“Me, too,” said Samantha.

“Very well, then,” said Estelle. “We can decide on a time to meet outside the union building. Hopefully nobody will recognize me as the same Monsieur Jolie.”

“Oh, I think you are perfectly safe,” Isadora reassured her. “I don’t think for a moment anybody imagined a woman would dare to enter the union disguised as a man. The idea is just too preposterous.”

“Thank God,” said Estelle, “we can all count on the gullibility of the male race. It doesn’t take much to pull the wool over their eyes, does it?”

CHAPTER

27

As he prepared for the union debate, Biren discovered the empty meadow was a fine place to practice his voice inflections and think aloud his arguments. The topic of the debate was the opposition of suffrage rights for women in Britain, and Biren was speaking against the motion. He knew it would be an acrimonious debate. Legislation to advance female equality seemed to threaten the bedrock of any society, east or west. It was surprising to see Britain, for all its imperial glory, industrial advancements, its railway and ocean travel, still harbored a rather dim view of women. Biren decided he would have to appeal to human decency and challenge the motion on moral and ethical grounds.

And so it was among the buttercups and daisies that Biren practiced his arguments. His audience, bovine and kindly, chewed contemplatively, and occasionally twitched their ears in agreement. At times Biren imagined he saw rapt awe in their faces, and occasionally one would nod. Encouraged by their confidence, Biren marched up and down the meadow, brandished his arms and shouted at the sky. It was very liberating.

A small movement behind a clump of trees caught his attention. A fox cub was keenly watching him. Biren stopped talking to observe it, and the cub slunk away. On the second day Biren was back in the meadows and so was the fox in the same place. Biren noticed that if he talked loudly and acted preoccupied, the fox remained in its place, watching, its oversize ears rotating with every sound. Biren ventured closer and closer until he was barely four yards away. It was a beautiful creature, with a rich auburn pelt, tawny eyes and a plump bushy tail.

Biren clapped his hands. “Shoo!” he shouted. The fox gave a little scamper and crouched, acting as though it wanted to play. It was inexperienced youngster; it still did not know the meaning of fear.

So busy was Biren talking to the cows and befriending the baby fox, he was not aware of another red-haired creature watching him. She, like the fox, was intrigued by the sight of a madman marching up and down among the wildflowers and talking to the sky.

* * *

During summer months, the People’s Playhouse held its performances on a jutting-out apron stage in a small meadow behind the stables of the Red Roof Inn. A carnival-like atmosphere sprang up around the playhouse. Pushcart vendors did brisk business with penny pies, and colorful stalls with streamers and buntings enticed people with games of lucky dip, coconut shy and hook-a-duck. The audience—farmers, shopkeepers and Cambridge students in various stages of inebriation—filled the ticketed, tiered seating, while the “groundlings,” or freeloaders, packed the straw and nutshell-strewn dirt area in front.

Twelfth Night
was playing to a full house and Estelle was running late. After stepping over several feet, she managed to find an empty seat just as the flamboyantly feathered Duke Orsino made his grand entrance surrounded by the lords of his court. A young courtier immediately caught Estelle’s eye. He had an intelligent face and very dark eyes. The young man only had a few short lines to deliver, and when he spoke one of his eyebrows arched more than the other. Estelle found she was looking out for him and watched him intently whenever he appeared onstage.

The audience broke into a rousing cheer and drummed their feet when Bertie barreled out as the comic Sir Andrew Aguecheek in his loud striped bloomers, buttoned orange doublet and monstrous ruff. One of the loudest people cheering in the audience was a chubby-looking fellow who hooted and clapped for all he was worth. That pomade-slicked hair and shiny suit was unmistakable.
Goodness
, Estelle realized with a shudder,
it’s that dreadful Sammy Deb.

Sammy was a classmate of her brother James’s at Harrow, and he once visited Grantham Manor. He obviously fancied himself a ladies’ man and tried to impress Estelle with his family’s wealth and connections in India. Sammy had courted her relentlessly for months, sending her gifts and writing flowery letters. He’d backed off only when she’d gotten engaged to the Jolly Pear. Just remembering Sammy’s sweaty advances made Estelle shrink back in her seat. She prayed he would not see her.

She shifted her gaze back to the courtier onstage. A handsome fellow, he was, rather exotic looking with his dark eyes and curly hair—a foreigner, no doubt. He stood to the side, not doing much, really, but it was a pleasure just to watch him. Why did he look familiar? She had seen him somewhere. Estelle sat up with a start—of course, he was the same fellow she had seen in the meadows, talking to the cows. It had to be him! He must have been practicing for his part in the play. But that hardly made sense. For all the dramatics she had witnessed, he should have had a lead role in the play, but all he was doing was just standing around. How very odd. Now she was even more intrigued.

* * *

Biren walked Sammy to a cab before heading back to the theater. When he returned to the green room he saw Bertie standing outside still in his clownish breeches, the elastic suspenders unlooped off his shoulders. He was talking to a petite woman. She had strong cheekbones and a casual elegance in the way she wore her red hair pinned into soft curls framing her face. From the easy familiarity of their exchange, Biren could tell they knew each other well. He was about to slip past when Bertie saw him and called out his name. The girl turned to look at him. She had pale porcelain skin, and when Biren walked up he noticed a small sprinkling of freckles over her nose. She studied him with a bold and lively gaze.

“Here is the fellow I was talking about,” Bertie said to her. “Biren, this furry creature is my cousin, Estelle Lovelace. Be careful—she bites. She’s a rabid feminist.” Bertie drew aside the curtain to the changing room, treating them to a peep show of unlovely male actors in various stages of undress. “I will leave you two to get acquainted while I get changed,” he said, and slipped inside.

Left with the bright and shiny Estelle, Biren fidgeted. He was unused to making conversation with English girls.

“You are renting the room above the stables, I hear?” she said conversationally. “Daddy’s peacocks make quite a racket. They are loud enough from the main house—I can’t imagine how loud they must be for you.”

“They have not bothered me much, to tell you the truth,” Biren replied. She was standing so close that when she moved he caught a whiff of something fresh and lovely, like orange blossoms in the rain.

“Bertie tells me you are one of the speakers at the next union debate. Are you speaking for the motion or against?”

“I am speaking for the motion.”

“Oh?” Estelle arched an eyebrow. “I am curious why an Indian man would be interested in the suffrage rights for women in Britain. Pardon me, but Bertie did mention you are from India. Your interest is purely academic, I gather?”

“It—it’s...rather personal,” stammered Biren, at a loss for words.

“I would love to attend the debate,” said Estelle. “Of course, I will be an outcast sitting up in the gallery with others of my lowly sex.” She made a woebegone face. “We females are not allowed in the main hall, you know, just in case we contaminate the Union.”

“It’s unfair, really,” said Biren passionately. The Union’s unfriendly attitude toward women no doubt fueled the resentment among female students, as evidenced from the stinging article in the
Archangel
. Then a surprising thought crossed his mind. E.L. Estelle Lovelace. Could she possibly be the author of the article? He tried to imagine her disguised as a man. With her hair tucked inside a hat, it was not entirely impossible. She’d make a very pretty man, for sure, but would she dare to sit through the entire debate in a disguise? Well, this woman wasn’t shy, he could tell. She had an alert playfulness that reminded him of the young fox.

Estelle gave him a mischievous smile. “The next time you need a sounding board for your debate, you don’t have to talk to the cows, you know. You can talk to me.” Seeing his startled look, she laughed. “Yes, I was crossing the woods the other day and saw you in the meadows. At first I thought you were off your rocker. Now I realize you were practicing for the debate. The next time let me know if you need an audience.”

Biren was flustered. “Thank you” was all he could say. “I will certainly keep that in mind.”

CHAPTER

28

Estelle hated the gloom of an uninhabited house. She had not bothered to air out all the rooms. It was too much of an effort; besides, Mummy had her own elaborate system of getting the house up and running. The dust covers—and there were several dozen—had to be removed in a specific order, washed, folded and put away in a linen cupboard somewhere in the attic; all the windows had to be opened, the curtains aired and sprayed with lavender mist squeezed from a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle.

It was a relief to see all the furniture hidden from view. Under the bumps of their custom-fitted dust covers was Mummy’s mishmash furniture collected over the years from Barrett Auctioneers. Mummy believed no room was properly furnished unless stuffed full of furniture and decorations. Estelle shuddered looking at the glass windows of curio cabinets crowded with knickknacks.

Her own bedroom and Daddy’s study were the only two inhabitable rooms in the house, the latter looking out toward the peacock enclosure and the stables beyond.

It was mildly disconcerting to know the Indian man was living on the grounds now. She felt herself staring out of the study window more often. The chestnut tree obstructed the view of the stables, which felt like a relief and a frustration at the same time. She wished she could part the leaves just a little to peep through and catch a glimpse of him.