The Serpent's Shadow (6 page)

... her mother dancing in the garden, laughing, while Gupta played a tiny drum, her own stumbling, baby steps trying to imitate her; the jingle of the bells at her ankles, the flutter of the end of her sari....

... her mother's low, whispered voice, as the lamp flickered; a murmur of fantastic tales as Maya's sleepy eyes followed a gigantic moth circling round and round the lamp....

... a breath of patchouli and sandalwood, the featherlike caress of hennaed fingers....

Slowly Maya felt the tension of the day drain out of her as the memories filled her. Surya had murmured mantras to guide her through the relaxations of yogaic magics; Maya had the mantra of memory to ease her path to sleep.

When at last her eyes felt heavy, and she had to stifle yawns, she put the ball back into its cotton nest, closed the box, and prepared for bed. Once into her nightgown and about to go to sleep, she opened the door to her room just a crack, so that Charan and the mongooses could roam about at will. Sia and Singhe would slip in and out of her bedroom at least five or six times during the night as they patrolled; so far all they had found was a few mice, and once, a rat, but they dispatched those just as readily as a snake. And she would probably find Charan curled up with her when she woke.

Tomorrow is my day at Fleet Clinic,
she reminded herself, with a sense of anticipation. No more assisting, or nursing; she was a full physician now, and she might even have a surgical case! At the least, there would be a broken limb or two, perhaps a delivery, maybe a burn case—

Not too much enthusiasm,
her conscience warned, as she got into bed and turned out the light.
You might enjoy practicing your art, but remember that this is going to be at the expense of someone else's misfortune
,
Doctor Witherspoon
.

You're right,
she acknowledged the little voice with a twinge.
But—

No buts,
her conscience retorted, pleased with an easy victory.

As soon as her conscience turned its back on her, well satisfied with itself, she stuck out a metaphorical tongue at it like a naughty child and ran away to hide in sleep before it could catch her.

3

T
HE birds looked down on Maya and her guest with curiosity—all but Rajah, the peacock, who gazed at her with hopes of a biscuit from her plate. The mongooses were curled up around Maya's feet, hidden by the flounce of her skirt, and Charan sat primly in a third chair next to his mistress. This was the first time that anyone other than the “family” had been in the conservatory since the last of the workmen left, and all of the pets were intensely interested in the newcomer.

Maya handed a cup of tea across the tiny table to Amelia, who looked around her with a lively expression of interest. She had expressed approval of the office, envy of the surgery, and proclaimed that words failed her when it came to the conservatory. Since Maya's certification, Amelia had not only become more of a friend, Maya had gotten the distinct feeling that she was someone who could be trusted utterly. In fact, it seemed to her more and more often that Amelia was someone that Maya had known before. Surya, of course, would have said with that certainty that she
had,
that Amelia and Maya had been sisters or bosom friends or even mother and daughter in some long-ago time. Maya wondered what Amelia's reaction would be to that. She no longer thought Amelia would be confused; her friend's mind was too broad, too quick to apprehend a new idea for her to be puzzled by the idea of reincarnation.

She'd probably just nod and accept it
,
even if she didn't entirely understand what I meant by it
.

“This is a little Eden, and I cannot get over how polite your pets are!” Amelia exclaimed, handing Charan a plain biscuit in answer to his pitiful face and outstretched hand. Charan took it, bobbed his head once, and ran across the pavement to one of his favorite perches and began nibbling it at the edge, turning it around and around in his clever hands to preserve its shape. “I can see why you wanted this place. I wouldn't have thought I could find a spot so peaceful just off a busy street.”

“I know children that aren't as well-behaved as your pets,” Amelia continued with a smile. “Perhaps you ought to set yourself up as a deportment teacher as well as a doctor!”

“I suppose you could thank my mother for that, not me. They were hers originally,” Maya told her, crumbling another biscuit for Rajah, who bowed his head graciously to accept the offering from her hand.

Amelia hesitated, then replied, cautiously, “You've never told me much about her. She must have been a remarkable woman....”

Maya had already decided that this tea party would be a good time to open up further to her friend and see what came of it. She was tired of having no one to talk to except her household, most of whom really didn't understand half of what she told them. Granted, she wouldn't be able to tell Amelia about her magic—but it would be good to have a close friend near her own age and with most of the same interests.

So Maya laughed a little. “Remarkable? That's a rather pale word for my mother, considering that she defied her family, friends, and religion to marry my father, then continued to defy
his
people by being his very visible wife, rather than hiding away in his house and pretending she didn't exist.”

“Oh, my—that must have put the fur up on the back of the old cats.” Amelia put her hand up to her mouth, not quite hiding a smile, her cheeks turning very pink, but not from embarrassment. Amelia took an unhallowed glee in “tweaking the tails of the old cats.” She was deeply involved in women's suffrage, and any time there was a prank played that showed up the antisuffragists for the fools they were, it was certain that Amelia had a hand in it. “Good for her! I just hope they didn't make her life a misery.”

“Oh, the ‘old cats' rule Colonial society with an iron rod in India,” Maya sighed. “They managed to shut us out of the Club doings, the dances, and the rest of it. But love will break out, old cats notwithstanding, and there still aren't that many English women in the Raj. There are a good many native wives now, and by no means are they all the wives of Private Tommys. Mother wasn't alone, and neither was I; we had our own dances and club to go to and amusements—and our polo team beat theirs three times out of four.”

“Ah,” Amelia nodded wisely. “The Eurasians. I've read some little about them; I think they must be very brave people, when it all comes down to it. It's hard to defy society
and
manage to be happy at the same time. Are they all as handsome as you?”

Now it was Maya's turn to cover her lips, her cheeks flushing hotly. “Good heavens, Amelia, what a thing to say!”

“Well, are they?” The first thing that had attracted Maya to her friend was her artless candor, and it seemed that Amelia was determined to exercise that trait to the fullest today. Amelia waved her hand vaguely as she elaborated her question. “I mean, I've always heard it said that children of—I mean—when you have parents of two different races—and the male students at Royal Free—”

Amelia fumbled to a halt, finally realizing that she might have overstepped herself, but Maya laughed, fanning her cheeks to cool them, and over her head the parrot echoed her laugh. “I suppose, but it hardly matters,” she said with great candor herself. “No gentleman who wishes to rise in the colonial ranks would ever marry a woman of mixed race, and as for the Eurasian men—well!
They
certainly need not apply to the mama of an English girl!”

Amelia flushed, but her eyes sparkled. “I've half a mind to go find out for myself, once I've been certified,” she said with her chin raised defiantly. “Since no
proper
gentleman would ever marry a female doctor either! I want to be a doctor
and
a wife and mother, and I rather doubt I'm going to find that possible here. Perhaps someone whose parents have already flouted custom would find himself better able to do the same.”

Maya sobered at once. “Your talent and training would be welcome in India,” she said earnestly. “Half the English doctors of the male persuasion are so ham-handed they kill more female patients than they save, even here;
good
Western medicine is a rare thing there. You would be a godsend.”

“I'm not sure what to say,” Maya began hesitantly. “I can tell you that many quite eligible Eurasian gentlemen would pay you honorable court. For that matter, so would many eligible British officers and officials, though you might have to sift through quite a few toads to find the frog prince that will
allow
his wife to be herself.” She paused, tapping one finger on her cheek, thinking, as Amelia cast her eyes upward at that last phrase.

Amelia persisted. “Anxious mommas have been sending spinster daughters out to India for decades to look for husbands, haven't they? And they do seem to find them there.” She sighed and regarded her cup of tea pensively. “Today, at the Fleet, Doctor Stevens said that I have a real gift for handling babies and children and asked if I would mind being put on that duty on a permanent basis. I said yes, of course, that I'd enjoy that; and that it's a shame and a sin that no one has ever worked out medicine for children, that there's no specialty in children's medicine.”

“And Doctor Stevens said—?”

Amelia laughed. “You know she would agree with me! Especially after that row she got into with Browning, and him trying to claim children don't feel pain! So we agreed, and it started me thinking that I'd like to have some of my own.” A wistful expression crept over Amelia's face. “But—find a husband who'd accept that I'm a doctor with duties equal to his? Not in London. Not in all of England,
I
would think. Perhaps in Canada or America, but if I'm going to go abroad, I'd rather be among people who speak an English I can understand.”

Maya stirred her tea. “I really don't know if you could find a suitor who would accept that you are a doctor as well as his wife. India makes some men more flexible in their views, but it makes others more rigid. And you might find yourself alternately appalled and enraged by the way that native women are treated, even by their own men.”

“I'm alternately appalled and enraged by the way British women are treated by their own men,” Amelia replied crisply.
“Could
I set up a private practice there? Is there enough need for one?”

“You'd have paying patients enough,” Maya admitted, and took a sip of tea. “The Army surgeons are for the most part completely unsuited to treating women, and the military wives and daughters would be glad enough for a lady to confide in. There are high-caste women who cannot see a male physician by law and custom, though their lords and husbands are enlightened enough to value Western medicine, and those would pay you well indeed.”

“Hmm. Pay we certainly don't find here, do we? Well, all but you, that is, and there aren't too many of us bold enough to take your course.” Amelia tilted her head to the side. “Speaking of which, how is your practice?”

“I believe I'm seeing every dancer, actress, and singer within walking distance of this office,” Maya told her, not troubling to conceal her amusement. “Not to mention that I'm starting to attend to the kept women and mistresses of—I presume—our lawyers, brokers, and merchants.” She said it without a blush. Amelia giggled, but her cheeks were red. “It probably won't surprise you to know that I am introducing them all to the benefits of ... hmm ... limited births.”

“Good,” Amelia said with emphasis. “It will trickle down to their servants, and from there into the street. If I see one more woman at the Fleet with nothing more wrong with her than being worn to death with birth after birth—”

She snapped her mouth shut, but at Maya's nod of agreement, relaxed. “You should know that I share your opinion, dear,” Maya said quietly. “Even though we've never discussed it before at length, I'm sure you've noticed that I make a point to educate my female patients at the Fleet—” She paused, and sighed. “The trouble is, of course, that
begetting
children costs nothing, but
preventing
them doesn't.”

“Sadly true.” Amelia echoed her sigh, then took another scone, with an air of changing the subject. “So why did you leave India? I can tell that you are home-sick, more often than not, and what you've told me about needing lady doctors there goes for you as much as for me. And look at what you've done here! It's India in miniature, surely.”

Maya bent to add more tea and sugar to her cup, and gave Charan a second biscuit. “Not quite. The native ladies won't see me, at least not the high-caste ones; I'm half-caste, and they are as prejudiced against my mixed blood as any bigot here.”

“And being treated by our Colonial
ladies
as something a little below the invisible fellow who swings the
punkah-
fan rather than as a doctor would not be to my taste either,” Amelia filled in, with a grimace of distaste, and Maya nodded, pleased at her quick understanding.