The Midnight Rose (20 page)

“And these,” said the sales assistant, “are for the girls to wear for games, such as netball and hockey.” She held up a shapeless maroon tunic and large matching pants.

“Netball? Hockey? I don’t wish to know how to play these games,” said Indira haughtily.

“I’m sure you’ll love them once you have tried them, dear,” said Miss Reid, a fount of endless patience. “And you’re so good at outdoor pursuits. You’ll take to English ball games like a duck to water.”

“I’m very sure I won’t,” said Indira sulkily.

Miss Reid and I shared a look as she stomped into the changing rooms to try on the hideous tunic.

•  •  •

A week later, we were motored down to Eastbourne in Sussex. Indira sat next to me in the back of the plush Rolls-Royce, staring out miserably at the leafy English countryside, which I thought very beautiful. Autumn had begun to make its appearance; the leaves were turning
gold and the softness of the early-morning mists had a soporific effect on me. Miss Reid was accompanying us on the journey and sat in the front seat, chatting with the chauffeur. Eventually, we arrived in front of an austere gray building, which reminded me, perhaps unfairly, of Dotheboys Hall, the school where the young Nicholas Nickleby secures an assistant master’s post in Charles Dickens’s story.

The chauffeur unloaded our trunks from the boot at the front of the car, while Indira refused to move from the inside of it. Miss Reid and I climbed out and surveyed the school.

“Don’t be nervous, dear, I’m sure your time here will benefit you greatly. And,” she added as an afterthought, lowering her voice, “Indira is without her maid for the first time. She will have to
do
for herself while she’s here. Remember, you may not be a princess, but you are a well-bred young lady in your own right, a cousin to a maharani no less. Don’t let her treat
you
like a servant, will you?”

“I’m sure she won’t,” I said loyally.

Miss Reid had no time to say more, for a petulant Indira had followed us out of the car at last and was now sitting cross-legged on the gravel drive.

“Get up, dear!” chided Miss Reid. “And start acting like the young woman you’ve been so desperate to become in the past few weeks.”

Indira didn’t move. She simply crossed her arms tighter as if to make her point more thoroughly and stared silently into the distance.

I walked around the side of the car and crouched down next to her. “Come on, Indy, the other girls might see you and think you’re a baby. Besides,” I added, “it might be fun.”

“I hate it,” Indira growled, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. “No one in my family even cares that I’ve gone. Pa was too busy even to say good-bye. They just wanted to get rid of me.”

“You know that isn’t true. They all adore you, and your father especially would want you to make him proud. Listen,” I whispered, thinking on my feet, “you have plenty of money, haven’t you?”

She nodded.

“Right.” I used the last weapon in my armory. “Then if we don’t like it, we’ll simply run away and get on the first ship back to India. How about that?”

At this, she turned to me and her eyes lit up at the thought of such an adventure.

“Yes,” she said as she stood up finally and dusted the chalky whiteness
of the gravel from her skirt. “Now, that would make them sorry, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. Ready?” I asked her.

“Ready.”

And, fingers grasped tightly in each other’s hands, we walked up the steps and into the school.

•  •  •

Miss Reid had already warned us that we would be objects of fascination to the other pupils. Indian girls were still very much a rare sight at an English boarding school. For the first week, we steeled ourselves against the stares and whispers our presence engendered, and the giggling we heard when we were served chicken instead of their beef in the dining room. As the girls cold-shouldered us, we clung together for support. Especially at night in the drafty dormitory of ten, when Indira would climb into my bed so we could give each other a hug of warmth and comfort.

“I want to go home,” she would cry as her tears fell onto my nightgown. “Please, Anni, let’s do as you said and run away.”

“We will soon, I promise, but we have to stay long enough for your parents to realize that you really have given it a try.”

Indira wasn’t the only one who was miserable. I too, found my new life terrifying. I loathed the chill of the English dawn, when my bones froze and my body covered itself in involuntary goose bumps which didn’t disappear until Indira’s warm body curled around me at night. The bland English food, which seemed to be cooked in leftover dishwater, with no spices added, made me feel sick. And even though I had thought that my command of the English language and my comprehension of it was good, I struggled to understand the staff and the girls, who spoke so quickly and pronounced even familiar words so differently. When they asked me a question, I would stand, speechless, only realizing later what they had meant. The outdoor games with wooden sticks, conducted on wet, muddy fields, with a set of rules that were as confusing as they seemed ridiculous, were beyond me. I was never a ball player, so these were the hours in the day I dreaded most.

Due to the incessant English rain, everything smelled of damp. At night, no incense hung in the air as it had in the palace at Cooch Behar; all that shone above us was the harsh light of a naked electric bulb.

By the time the first two weeks were over, it was
me
who wanted to run away.

And then the history teacher, who had apparently been on leave of absence due to a stint abroad, arrived one morning in our freezing classroom to teach us. He was younger than the other teachers we’d had so far, and his skin was tanned a deep nut-brown.

“Good morning, girls,” he said as he entered the classroom. Dutifully we all stood up and chanted, “Good morning, sir.”

“Well now, I hope you all had a good summer break. I certainly did. I went out to visit my parents in India.”

The rest of the girls looked bored, but both Indira and I were immediately alert.

“And, it seems, we have two new pupils from that country. I believe that one of you is a princess. Now”—his gaze fell on Indira and me—“which one of you two would that be?”

There was sudden animated whispering in the classroom, as all the girls turned to stare at us, trying to guess which one of us it was. Indira raised her hand slowly. “I am, sir.”

“Her Highness Princess Indira of Cooch Behar.” The teacher smiled knowingly. “I visited Cooch Behar while I was in India two years ago and saw the wonderful palace your family lives in.”

This prompted another round of excited muttering and much staring from the girls.

“Yes, sir.” Indira lowered her eyes.

“Perhaps, Indira, you would at some point like to tell us the history of your family and how you live. I think all the girls here would learn a lot from your account.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you?” he asked, his gaze falling upon me. “Where do you live?”

“I live at the palace too, sir.”

“I see. And yet you are not a princess?”

“No, sir, I’m not.”

“Anni’s my best friend,” said Indira gallantly. “And my companion.”

“Jolly good, jolly good. Well, now, girls, I hope you’re helping Princess Indira and Miss Chavan feel at home. I’m going to tell you what I saw during my travels through British India.”

Once the lesson was finished, we were sent out to collect our yellowing bottle of milk for “elevenses,” as the girls called it, and for a
blast of invigorating sea air, which the British seemed to think was so essential. Normally, Indira and I would stand in a corner of the courtyard, surreptitiously pouring our milk away into the bushes. Today it was different. The girls followed us.

“Are you really a princess?”

“Do you live in a palace?”

“Do you have lots of servants?”

“Have you ever ridden on an elephant?”

“Do you wear a crown when you’re at home?”

The excited girls clustered around Indira as I stood on the sidelines and watched her as she smiled graciously and answered as many questions as she could. Later, when the lunchtime bell rang and we filed into the dining room, a girl named Celestria, who was the person everyone else in our class wanted to know, came over to Indira and me.

“Will you come and sit with us for luncheon, Princess Indira?”

“Of course.”

I watched as Indira moved away from me, talking to Celestria. Then she turned around and beckoned to me. “Anni must come too.”

Celestria nodded, but when we reached the long trestle table, the girls bunched up on the benches to make room in the center for Indira and Celestria. I was left at the end hanging off the edge.

In that hour, I watched Indira blossom with the attention and admiration she received. I couldn’t blame her for it. She’d spent her entire life surrounded by other people showing their subservience and acquiescing to her every whim. She had been born “special.” And I, Anahita, had not.

•  •  •

I will remember that first, harsh English winter as one of the most desolate periods of my life. As Indira grew in confidence, her exuberant personality began to assert itself and all the girls vied for her attention. She rose swiftly through the ranks to take her rightful place as queen bee as naturally as the sun rises in the sky every morning. Even though she did her best to include me, the other girls made it obvious that they weren’t interested in a mere companion, who didn’t exude the kind of sparkling charm that came naturally in spades to Indira. I became increasingly isolated and spent many lunchtimes in the library reading by myself, not wishing to embarrass Indira with my uncomfortable, hovering presence.

To make matters worse, as Indira’s body grew more swanlike, with all the bits that attached themselves at puberty fitting her height in just the right proportions and only adding to her elegance, hormones and the stodgy English diet merely made me sprout even further sideways. I had also noticed that when I was reading in dim light, I could hardly make out the words. I was sent to the school doctor, who prescribed a pair of ugly, thick-lensed glasses for reading.

Occasionally, Indira would still crawl into my bed at night and hug me.

“Are you all right, Anni?” she’d whisper softly in my ear.

“Yes, of course,” I’d lie.

She rarely noticed me in the daylight hours, when she spent time with her new aristocratic English friends. I felt keenly that I had somehow become a burden and an embarrassment to her. So I shut myself off into my world of books and longed for the moment in June when we’d return to the palace and all would be as it had been with Indira and me.

My heart lightened as spring came to England and we returned to the house in London for the Easter break. But even there, I saw less of Indira than I did at school, for she was invited endlessly to stay at her new friends’ houses and for tea at smart hotels.

One afternoon, she returned from such an event and found me reading on the bed in our room.

“Anni, I wonder if I could ask you an awfully big favor,” she began in her newly acquired English accent.

I removed my glasses and looked at her. “Yes, Indy, what is it?”

“Well, the thing is, Celestria’s parents are off to France and she was saying how terribly boring it would be staying at their house in the country with simply her governess for company. She’s asked me if she could come and stay here at Pont Street with us. And Ma has said yes.”

“How nice,” I managed to say.

“Well”—she sighed exaggeratedly—“the problem is, the only spare room we have is the old box room along the corridor. I can hardly put Celestria in there—she is the daughter of a lord, after all. So I was wondering, if you don’t mind
awfully
, whether just for the week she’s here, you’d consider moving in there?”

“Of course,” I answered.

In essence, I didn’t mind—I wasn’t concerned by moving to a servant’s
room. But that moment compounded the growing sense of fear and dread I’d had in my heart all winter. I couldn’t blame Indira; it was natural she would grow away from me. She was destined to join the ranks of the highest in society and one day become the wife of a maharaja, whereas I . . .

I didn’t know.

To make matters worse, as Celestria took her place in my old bed next to Indira, the rumblings of impending war grew louder. Everyone in London was assuring everyone else that of course the kaiser would not be stupid enough to launch an unprovoked attack on a neighboring country. All I could think was that if war did break out, we would surely be unable to travel back to India when the summer holidays began in two months’ time.

Indira’s parents sailed home a few days after Easter. Her father had state business to attend to in Cooch Behar. On the journey back to school at the end of the holidays, when I finally had Indira to myself, I broached the subject with her.

“Everyone says there won’t be a war,” she said, brushing my comment aside airily, “and besides, I’m sure we could stay at the house in Pont Street if need be. The season is meant to be fun in London, so I hear.”

I was shocked at her nonchalance. Could this really be the same girl who, only a few months ago, had cried over the fact that she’d miss her pet elephant? The air of faux sophistication, which Indira, being the great mimic she was, insisted on copying from her English friends, made me want to shake her hard in frustration.

Later, when we arrived back at school, and Indira asked if it was all right if she moved into a dorm with Celestria and her other friends, I agreed without protest. I had to accept that Indira had changed irrevocably.

The summer term passed much faster than the previous two, partly due to the fact that I had realized that Indira, at least for now, was lost to me. Charlotte, the girl who now occupied Indira’s former bed next to me, was sweet and friendly. Her father was an army vicar in the Christian church, serving abroad. Although I could never have another friendship like the one I’d shared with Indira, I felt that at least Charlotte and I had things in common. As her fees were paid for by the army, she took her education seriously, unlike many of our English classmates who saw school as a place to pass the time until they were
launched into society and a grand marriage. Charlotte had decided to become a governess when she left school.