The Tea Planter’s Wife (33 page)

‘That was kind of you,’ she said with a smile, and felt overcome.

The look on his face puzzled her and his voice was gruff when he replied. ‘Partridge told me of her condition. I know you’re
fond of her. To be honest, I’m rather getting used to having her around too.’

Gwen swallowed, unable to trust herself to speak. There was no reason to bring about this change in Laurence’s attitude towards the child and, though pleased, she also felt confused. He came up and linked his arm with hers, and they both watched Liyoni’s progress in the water.

‘We mustn’t let her swim too far,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry. At the slightest sign of a problem I’ll be there. Once you’ve lost people you love it makes you realize how much family matters.’

‘Do you mind telling me what actually happened that day? To Caroline, I mean.’

His voice was strained when he replied. ‘You already know.’

‘Yes. But I wondered … I’m sorry for asking, but you said it wasn’t at the lake. I wondered where she drowned? You’ve never actually said.’

‘Because I hate the place. She slid into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, holding Thomas in her arms. It would have been impossible for her to swim and hold a baby at the same time. Naveena witnessed it.’

Gwen tried to imagine how Laurence must have felt, but the sorrow was too dark and too nameless.

‘Instinct told Naveena something was wrong. That’s why she followed Caroline. If she hadn’t, I don’t suppose we’d ever have known exactly what happened. I sometimes wonder if it might have been better not to know.’

Gwen thought about what he’d said, hesitating before she spoke. ‘Your mind might have invented things.’

He nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘Naveena wasn’t able to stop her?’

Laurence looked at the ground and shook his head. ‘It all happened too quickly.’

‘Who found them? Was it Naveena?’

He placed a hand on his chest as he took a deep breath, then stared at her. For a moment he looked older. She hadn’t noticed before the additional grey in his hair.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to tell me.’

He looked down at her and, shading her own eyes from the sun, she gazed into his eyes.

‘It isn’t that …’

‘What then?’

He shook his head. ‘Naveena came to fetch us. McGregor found Thomas, I found Caroline. The strange thing was she was wearing her favourite dress. An oriental silk in vivid sea green. She was dressed as if for a party. It seemed like a statement.’

Gwen’s heart constricted at the thought of it, but she didn’t speak, and for a while, neither did he. He seemed preoccupied. She felt he wanted to say more and waited.

‘The rapids pulled them apart almost immediately. Thomas was found only twenty yards away, but already dead.’ Laurence wiped his forehead with the side of his hand. ‘Just before she left the house she had packed away all of his clothes in the trunk you found.’

‘I am so very sorry,’ Gwen said, and leant against him.

Sorry in so many ways, she thought, and there was so much more she longed to say. She wanted to tell him the truth: wanted to tell him that when she’d overheard him on the phone she’d known it was Christina; wanted to, but did not. She concentrated on her breathing and kept it to herself. This was not the time.

On Sunday evening Hugh was packed off back to school, and early on Wednesday morning McGregor drove them both to Colombo to meet Fran. Once there, Laurence told Gwen to stay in the centre as there had been one or two scuffles in the city’s poorer outskirts.

She frowned. ‘I’m not frightened of a crowd.’

‘I mean it, Gwen. Just go to the store and come straight back to the hotel. No wandering in the bazaar.’

While Laurence was busy arranging for the increased loads of tea to be shipped to the west coast of America, where it would be packaged in a new facility Christina had organized, Gwen took care of some essential shopping. The last person she expected to see that evening was Verity, drenched in perfume and wheeling drunkenly on to the verandah at the Galle Face, waving a cigarette in the air.

‘Darling, there you are,’ Verity said, giving her a twisted smile and slurring her words. ‘I heard you were coming, but I’m afraid you’ve missed your cousin. She left with her husband yesterday.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Gwen said as she reluctantly walked over to her sister-in-law. ‘Fran doesn’t have a husband.’

‘She does now,’ Verity said and threw herself into a nearby chair. ‘Phew, I’m out of puff!’

An air of disorder hung about Verity: her thin brown hair, plastered to her skull, looked like it needed a good wash, and her clothes were crumpled.

Gwen stretched out a hand. ‘Get up. I’m taking you to your room. People are looking. You can’t stay down here in this state.’

‘Haven’t got a room.’

‘In that case, where did you spend last night?’

‘This chap I met. Quite nice really. Had blue eyes.’ She paused, deliberately it seemed, for dramatic effect. ‘Or maybe they were brown.’

Gwen bristled, as she knew Verity had intended she should. There wasn’t a hint of contrition about her, and she was behaving as if the terrible scene at home had never happened.

‘I don’t give a fig about some chap, whatever the colour of his eyes,’ Gwen said. ‘You’re coming up to our room, right now.’

She managed to manoeuvre Verity to the left-hand stairs without too much fuss, but when they were halfway up, the girl stopped and stood still.

‘Come on,’ Gwen said and gave her a push. ‘We’re not there yet.’

Verity, standing on the next step up, looked down at Gwen and prodded her in the chest. ‘You think you’re so smart.’

Gwen glanced at her watch and sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m smart at all. Now hurry up, I want you to sober up before Laurence gets back. You know very well he has refused to see you, and getting yourself in this state won’t help him change his mind. About a gallon of coffee should do it.’

‘Nope. You need to listen to me first.’

As they eyed one another, Gwen’s spirits plummeted. This wasn’t going to be easy. She was itching to see Fran, but first, after an afternoon in Colombo, with her hair and clothes full of dust, she needed a hot bath. As she thought of her cousin, she wondered if Verity could have been telling the truth and, if so, who Fran had married without whispering a word.

‘So, are you listening?’ Verity said, interrupting her thoughts and arching her brows.

Too close, Gwen smelt Verity’s bad breath and sighed, unable to able to keep the sarcasm from her voice. ‘Out with it then. What startling revelation have you got for me?’

‘You won’t be laughing in a minute.’ Verity took a step and wobbled.

‘Come on, let’s get you upstairs double quick. Come on. Chop chop, before you fall down the stairs.’

Verity stared at Gwen and muttered something.

‘You are about as clear as mud. What is it?’ Gwen said.

‘I know.’ Her eyes narrowed as she smiled.

‘Verity, this is becoming tedious. You’ve already told me about Fran. Now come on, before I lose patience.’

Gwen attempted to push her up the stairs, but Verity nodded her head very slowly and, staring back with a look of intense determination, clutched the handrail and held her ground.

‘I know that Liyoni is your daughter.’

In the silence, Gwen stood absolutely still. Her mind seemed unnaturally clear. It was her body’s reaction that was letting her down. The burst of heat, when it came, left her with bees
buzzing in her head. She suddenly knew what it felt like to be consumed by the desire to kill. With just two little steps, and one little push, Verity would be gone. A drunken fall, a terrible accident. That’s what the papers would say. As the strength of her feelings consumed her, she reached out a hand. Just a couple of steps up and one little push. Then the thought vanished as quickly as it had risen.

‘That’s shut you up, hasn’t it?’ Verity said and began to climb the steps.

Gwen, now short of breath, tried to inhale, but with the shock squeezing the air out of her, she’d forgotten how to breathe. She clung to the banister, opening and closing her mouth in panic. It flashed into her mind that, gasping as she was, she must look like a dying fish. The ridiculous image seemed to prompt her lungs to remember what to do and she managed to regain control.

She followed Verity to the landing, took a step forward and pointed out their door, not trusting herself to speak. Verity barged past, her gait uneven, then sprawled in an armchair in the room, staring morosely at the patterned parquet floor. She glanced at Gwen, who was distracting herself by folding and unfolding Laurence’s shirts in an attempt to stop her heart banging against her ribs.

‘You’ve folded that one three times. I said you wouldn’t be laughing.’

‘What?’

‘I heard you talking to Naveena. Just before you brought the chee-chee mongrel child to live in Laurence’s house.’

‘You must have misheard. Now I’ve called for some coffee and you’re going to drink it and stop this silly nonsense.’

Verity shook her head, dipped into her bag, pulled out a sheaf of charcoal drawings and waved them in the air. ‘It was actually these that told me all I needed to know.’

Gwen’s heart jolted and, conscious that her voice would shake and give away how frightened she was, she ran over and tried to tug Liyoni’s drawings from Verity’s hand.

‘Oh no,’ Verity said and pulled away. ‘I’m hanging on to these.’

One ripped and Gwen bent to pick up the fragment, giving her a few seconds to compose herself before she stood and faced Verity again. ‘How dare you go through my private things! In any case, I don’t know what you think you’ve found.’

Verity laughed. ‘I read this fascinating article about a woman in the West Indies who had given birth to twins of different colours. She had slept with her husband, of course, but also with the master. I think Laurence would be interested. Don’t you?’

There was a long stretch of silence, during which Gwen could hardly believe what she was feeling. Anger, yes, and fear too, but there was something else. A terrifying hollowed-out feeling she’d never quite felt before. From the drawings Verity would have seen that Liyoni had been learning to write in the tiny village school – and that on the last couple of drawings she had written about a white lady her foster mother had told her about. A white lady who, one day, might come for her. Naveena had translated it for her, but Gwen knew that Verity was able to understand Sinhala.

‘If he asks Naveena outright, she will tell him, you know,’ Verity said.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Gwen said, more to herself than Verity, and opened the window. She tried to calm her racing pulse by looking down at the long stretch of lawn that extended from the hotel, the road that passed through it, and at the wisps of plants that grew in cracks in the sea wall. But when she heard the sound of children laughing as they flew a kite, it brought tears to her eyes.

There was a knock at the door.

‘There’s the coffee. Will you be mother?’ Verity said. ‘It does seem rather apt, and I am just too tired to move.’

When the waiter had left, Gwen poured the coffee.

Verity sipped hers. ‘I have a proposal for you. A way out, if you like.’

Gwen shook her head.

‘If you promise to get my allowance reinstated, I won’t tell Laurence.’

‘That is blackmail.’

Verity inclined her head. ‘Up to you.’

Gwen sat down and scratched around for some kind of response that would put a stop to this. She gulped the scalding coffee and burned her lips.

‘Now, changing the subject, wouldn’t you like to know who Fran has married? I take it you don’t already know?’

‘If this is another of your hurtful lies …’

‘No word of a lie. I saw them together, and when she saw I’d clocked the rings on her finger, what could she say? A massive diamond, the engagement ring, surrounded by sapphires, but also a telltale band of gold. The man had one too, though he tried to keep his hands behind his back.’

Gwen folded her arms and leant back, wondering what was coming next. ‘So who is he?’

Verity smiled. ‘Savi Ravasinghe.’

Gwen watched the sunlight flickering on Verity’s face and struggled to suppress her desire to throttle the woman.

Verity laughed. ‘The father of your brat – because he is the father, isn’t he, Gwen? He must be. You don’t know any other men of colour. Apart from the servants, of course, and I don’t think even you would stoop that low. You may have everyone fooled, Gwen, but I see through you.’

Gwen felt like howling, and the only clear words she could hear in her head were:
please, please – don’t tell Laurence
.

‘Florence said she saw you going up the stairs with Savi at the ball, and you went to see him on your own when Fran was ill. He now co-owns Fran’s share in the plantation. Laurence won’t be too happy about that, and if I tell him about your daughter too, well – I’m sure he’ll let me come home.’

Gwen stood up. ‘Very well. I’ll have a word with him about your allowance.’

‘So it is true? Liyoni is your daughter.’

‘I did not say that. You’re twisting my words. I just want to help you.’

She knew her voice had sounded artificial, and it was confirmed when Verity threw back her head and roared with laughter.

‘You are too transparent, Gwen. I didn’t really overhear you and Naveena. One day the child was sitting near you, the sun lit your faces in a particular way, and I saw. She has your bone structure, Gwen. Then I noticed her hair. Normally it’s tied up or plaited, but she’d been in the water and it had dried in ringlets, just like yours.’

Gwen tried to interrupt.

‘Hear me out. After that I watched you together and your feelings for her became obvious. I searched your room one day when you were in New York, and I found the box and the key. Now why would you hide the drawings of a native child, Gwen? Why would you treasure them? Keep them under lock and key?’

Gwen felt the blood flood into her face as she bent down to pick up a piece of fluff from the floor.

‘I felt sure when I found the drawings, but in any case your response now has told me all I needed to know. It was Savi Ravasinghe, wasn’t it? He’s the mongrel girl’s father. Wonder what your cousin will make of that!’