Of Marriageable Age (27 page)

Babies, when picked up by Savitri, stopped crying immediately. Mrs Lindsay had received several offers for Savitri to work as an
ayah
— a very young one, to be sure, but a reliable one, who spoke perfect English, and had English manners, and who had a gift for calming yelling babies. But Mrs Lindsay held on to Savitri. There was her education to think about. Mrs Lindsay was her patroness, and still had plans and high hopes for her. Perhaps, when she was older, more reasonable, when she needed money...

T
HE
C
OLONEL'S
carbuncles were in a very tender place, and prevented him from sitting down to tea, which he drank standing; after which he excused himself and wandered off the verandah in search of Mrs Lindsay's roses, for he grew roses himself, and loved them.

He met Savitri eating a marigold.

'Whatever are you doing, child?' he asked in astonishment.

'Eating a marigold, sir!' she said, looking up at him with her huge melting-chocolate eyes, and in all innocence, too, as if eating her mistress's marigolds was the most everyday thing in the world.

The Colonel, of course, knew about Savitri. He had thought the story of the Admiral's healing amusing, and had ever since referred to his friend's protégée as Little Lady Doctor. She was often around when he came to tea, and once he had heard her speak and been highly entertained, those fine meticulous English words emerging from that brown native mouth. It had been something of a shock — but a pleasant one.

Being basically a kind man, with grandchildren of his own whom he saw far too seldom, for they lived far away in England, he smiled at her and leaned forward to bring his large, ruddy face closer to her little brown one, and placed his hands on his spread knees for support. She smiled back, quite unperturbed. She was ten now, but had grown little in the last years so that she was still tiny, bony, fey, and dressed in her fluttering carnival colours she looked more the butterfly than ever. The Colonel's smile spread indulgingly.

'A marigold!' he exclaimed. 'My, how interesting!'

'Here,' she said, encouraged, and offered him a few petals. 'Try them!'

To humour her the Colonel placed the golden petals on his tongue, chewed them as if relishing the taste and said, 'Delicious, dear little girl! What a delicacy! Do you always do this?'

'No sir, and I don't think they taste so good, sir, but I'm eating them for health. You see, a bee stung me and my grandfather said to rub the bee-sting with marigold and to eat a few of the petals. Otherwise I don't pick the flowers. It hurts them.'

The Colonel smiled again and said, a little condescendingly, 'Well, well. Let's hope it's good for my health too, eh, Little Lady Doctor? A good day to you, and
bon appetit!'
He tipped his pith helmet, and then, changing his mind, swept it forward graciously and bowed down low to her, as to a society
grande dame
. She, having no hat or helmet to tip, held out her hand for him to shake, and curtsied politely, saying, 'Good afternoon, sir, and goodbye!'

When he shook her hand the Colonel felt as though he had touched a live wire, for want of a better description; a gentle live wire. It was a prickling, warm sensation, but altogether pleasant, and though he told no-one about the meeting with Savitri his mind wandered back again and again to the butterfly girl with the marigold, for days afterwards.

The little satellite carbuncles around the main big one began to recede. He wasn't quite sure, at first, but by the end of the first week there was no mistaking the fact — they were almost entirely gone. By the end of the third week the large one had disappeared too. The Colonel could sit when he came to tea. And only then he talked of the miracle, and Mrs Lindsay swelled with pride.

Hadn't she known! Her disappointment with Savitri fled and she knew, she positively
knew
, the girl had Powers. She simply refused to use them.

T
HE DAY
after his last exam Gopal eloped with Fiona. They took a train to Bombay, she travelling first class, he third, to avoid attention and discovery. They had had just enough money for their train tickets, plus the jewels Fiona's grandmother had left her, which she intended to pawn or sell in Bombay. They got no further than Victoria Station, however, and Fiona was brought back to Madras in disgrace. Gopal stayed in Bombay, where he was to attend university. He was a disgrace to the Iyers, and to the Lindsays an ingrate — after all they had done for him! Iyer almost got the sack, but he was the best cook around, so Mrs Lindsay gave him a good reprimand and kept him. But both families were shamed. Fiona must be removed at once.

Mrs Lindsay dropped everything and booked passages for Fiona, herself and eleven-year-old David back to England, a year earlier than planned. It was time he became a real boy, and it was time he dropped his obsession with Savitri.

Mrs Lindsay had put the incident of Savitri's prophecy to the back of her mind, but now and again it nudged forward and worried her. Best to separate them. David was too soft. He needed the challenge of rugby, horseback riding, maybe hunting. He'd have all that with Aunt Jemima, who kept a stable of fine thoroughbreds, and at the prep school Aunt Jemima had selected before he went to Eton. His mother would accompany him and see him well settled before she returned. Fiona was to go to finishing school in Switzerland, and an English husband was to be found for her. She should never return to India.

T
HAT YEAR
,
Thatha
died. Over the years he had taught Savitri all he knew about his remedies, but, he told her, the remedies themselves were only distractions, because people were faithless and needed physical props. Without the Gift the remedies were nothing. And Savitri had that Gift; or rather, it was in her, but it was not hers.

'Do not use it with
ahamkara,
'
Thatha
told her, and finally Savitri had a word for thought-body.

'Ahamkara
is impure,'
Thatha
said, and left his body.

T
HAT SEASON
V
IJAYAN
killed the king cobra. Mrs Lindsay, inspecting the garden, saw the snake and ordered Muthu to kill him, but Muthu slapped his cheeks in awe and refused, and so did all the Boys. Killing him would be inauspicious. Vijayan was the only one who obeyed her. He brought his cutlass and slashed the king cobra in two.

Savitri wept. It was most inauspicious. She thought that, somehow, it was all her fault. She had promised to protect him. The killing of the king cobra was so inauspicious Savitri knew that very bad times lay ahead for everyone.

M
R
B
ALDWIN
, now married, took on a new position with a new family and Savitri was sent to the English Medium School, where she quickly rose to the top of her class. But she was a strange girl, who made no friends. St Mary's was a girls' school, the pupils the daughters of upper-middle class Indians and lower class English, and all considered Savitri beneath them. She loved David, missed him, and wrote to him every week. She thought she might become a doctor — if such a thing was possible for girls. She had never heard of a lady-doctor. Not even in a book. She knew if she asked Teacher he would only laugh. And the years slipped by.

B
Y THE TERMS
of the agreement between the Lindsays and her father she was obliged to go to school only up to the age of fourteen. On her fourteenth birthday, Iyer set her to work in the kitchen. And even if she couldn't marry till she was eighteen, it was a good thing to scout around for a husband now, because otherwise all the good ones would be taken, and what was the use of her dowry if all she could buy with it was a widower, either with a brood of children, or an old one?

So in preparation for her marriage Savitri learned to cook, and she cooked well. She had duties in the garden, too, for Mrs Lindsay knew that flowers bloomed gloriously for Savitri, that they loved her touch and her voice. The roses grew fuller and brighter when she pruned them. Her hands in the earth nourished them, on the watering can quenched their thirst, and they thanked her with their beauty. Fairwinds had never been such a paradise.

H
EALINGS TOOK PLACE
, sporadically. The Colonel's carbuncles were only the beginning. As well as being able to stop babies crying by having Savitri pick them up, mothers found that when they changed their baby's nappies, a certain rash had disappeared and never returned, or a certain diarrhoea had mysteriously stopped.

Then, a mother herself was healed under inexplicable circumstances. This mother had been suffering from high fever for many days and she had “borrowed” Savitri to help out with the children, since she could not trust the two
ayahs.
The second morning Savitri brought a little brown glass bottle and said to the mother, 'I have brought something that might help you. May I make a little infusion for you?'

The mother knew of the rumours surrounding Savitri and gave her permission. She drank the bitter tea Savitri put into her hands, and by that evening she was up and about.

'You know, immediately I felt better. Immediately!' Her voice rose with astonishment as she told her friends, and Savitri's reputation spread. But soon it became obvious: Savitri was at no-one's disposal. She turned down every single application in the weeks following the mother's healing.

And then another healing took place, but to a patient who had not even asked for help; and besides, Savitri had not even known of the complaint, which was an intimate and unmentionable women's one which Mrs Hull would never have spoken of herself. But she too was a lover of roses and seeing Savitri in the garden went over to admire them and slipped into a conversation about roses. Their talk turned to plants in general, and Mrs Hull was amazed by Savitri's intimate knowledge of their properties. And then just by the way Savitri mentioned a certain root-powder which was 'good for women's ailments'.

Mrs Hull, who was a Theosophist, felt a rush of blood to her cheeks and a definite Knowledge. She asked sweetly and casually if she could try that root-powder, and Savitri, smiling, had run off home and returned with a sample wrapped up in a piece of brown paper and tied with string. 'A little each morning,' she told Mrs Hull, showing with thumb and forefinger just how much 'a little' was.

Mrs Hull was cured, and others. People whispered, and nodded, and wondered about her. 'She's like a butterfly,' Mrs Lindsay warned her friends. 'If you run behind her and try to catch her she'll slip through your fingers. But if you're still she might just alight on your shoulder.'

Mrs Lindsay had learned the hard way: not all the pleading in the world could make Savitri develop her alleged Powers. And not all the cajoling would induce her to accept 'a little gift of thanks’ for a healing. No, not even a
word
of thanks, or of praise. Indeed, thanks and praise seemed to embarrass Savitri.

S
HE DID NOT RECEIVE
a single letter from David. Every week she handed over her own envelope to Mrs Lindsay, on which was carefully written,
Mr David Lindsay, England.
She had asked Mrs Lindsay for David's address so she could write to him directly, but she had only replied gaily, 'Oh, no dear, don't waste your money on stamps. Just give me the letter and we'll send it on to him with our own post.'

At first she grieved for David. It was as if the very air she breathed had been cut off. And not hearing a word from him made things worse. Had he forgotten her? Had he forgotten their vow? She hadn't. She still had the cross he had given her as a pledge of their marriage, though she didn't wear it, for she knew her father would object. But why didn't he write?

Faithfully she kept up her own side of the correspondence. For years. And still he did not reply. She was sixteen when, working in the kitchen, she discovered the reason. There were two rubbish bins, one for mango and banana peels and other edible remainders which Iyer took to feed the cow, and one for papers and other combustibles which Muthu took away to burn.

She didn't have much to do with the latter but one day, throwing away a page of newspaper in which a pound of rice had been wrapped, she found in the combustible bin the scraps of a letter, with her own handwriting, thrown there by some careless maid. Her own letter to David.

On that day Savitri lost an entire heartful of innocence and trust. She learned how underhand and deceitful people could be. She learned the meaning of betrayal. And she learned that two could play at the same game, and that subterfuge was superior to openness.

At the very next opportunity, when Mrs Lindsay and the Admiral were out at a luncheon, she searched Mrs Lindsay's private desk, found David's address, copied it down, and wrote to him directly.

At the same time she continued to pass on to Mrs Lindsay other, harmless letters addressed to
Mr David Lindsay, England
, ones which Mrs Lindsay could read and tear up and throw away, suspecting nothing.

From that day on Savitri grew bold. She knew, of course, of the plans to marry her off as soon as she was eighteen, and to David she poured out her heart, reminded him of their pledge, swore eternal love, and begged him to come before then, or to write her father and ask for her hand, to come and save her. She was ready, she told him, to elope, just as Gopal and Fiona had done. She told him of his mother's deceit, told him of the years of waiting for a word from him, told him of her happiness at finally knowing it was not his fault...

'Perhaps you have written to me, also,’ she wrote, ‘and those letters, too, have been destroyed and burned? Never mind. All is well now. But, David, time is growing short! I am growing into a woman, and am to be married when I'm eighteen.'

This first letter grew to seven pages. She told him all the news.

‘
G
OPAL IS BACK IN
M
ADRAS
. He's teaching English at a boys' primary school but he's restless. He's not living with us any more, because he doesn't get on with Mani. Besides, it's getting a little cramped in our home. Mani was discharged from the army, because he was diagnosed with TB. He coughs a lot. He and Narayan are both married, their wives are living with us and Mani's little son.