A Sahib's Daughter (35 page)

“All the arguments you made to me about family and customs didn’t take my feelings into account. It’s my life, and I shall choose how to live it. I cannot succumb to your outdated ideals of propriety at the cost of my happiness. I have already sacrificed the woman I love to please you. Please do not insist upon my marrying a woman I feel nothing for and who shows contempt for me before we are even married.”

To his surprise, his parents didn’t put up any opposition.

“In that case, we will go and tell them personally that the wedding is off. Ravi, believe it or not, your happiness is important to us. I shall telephone Ashok and Pushpa and say we need to see them immediately. Your mother and I have also observed this girl, and we realize that she probably will not make you happy.”

Sunil picked up the phone realizing that there was no time to lose.

As he dialed the number, a servant came to the door and told Ravi that his friend Mark had come to see him. He was waiting downstairs in the living room.

“Mark, Samira’s brother?” Ravi said. “What could he be doing in Delhi?”

He ran down and greeted Mark. They were delighted to see each other.

“Ravi, my friend!” cried Mark. “It’s good to see you, pal.”

In the year since they had met, he had matured and grown more striking in appearance.

“So, are you a married man? Should I be congratulating you?” he asked Ravi.

“Actually, no I’m not. And I’m not going to be, either. Long story. And what brings you into town this time of year? Isn’t it the middle of term?”

“I’m staying at the house of a friend from college. Hey, man, we can’t talk here.” Mark lowered his voice, conscious of people moving in and out of the room. “Can you come and meet me this afternoon? I’ll write the address down for you. It’s not too far away.”

“Sure, Mark. I’ll be there as soon as I can get away,” said Ravi, totally mystified. “How is Sammy, by the way?”

“She’s fine, really fine. So I’ll see you later? I have a taxi waiting. I have to run.”

Ramona had asked Mark to fly to Delhi to take care of Samira and the baby when she arrived in Delhi from London. He had been shocked and amazed by the series of events she described. He had telephoned Anita Dutt for Ravi’s address, not altogether sure what he would achieve by coming to see him, but he felt compelled to visit the father of Samira’s baby at the very least. Besides, he wanted to see Ravi again. Samira had no idea he was going to see Ravi, and he was certain that she would never have agreed to it. Anita had not known the exact date of the wedding, just that Ravi was in Delhi to get married.

Meanwhile, at Radhika’s house, the atmosphere was tense. She had locked herself in her room and wouldn’t speak to anyone. Her parents had been told about her treatment of Ravi by one of her aunts. So, they were not altogether surprised when the phone rang and it was Sunil requesting a meeting.

“The sooner the better,” he said. “It would be better for all concerned.”

They arrived within the hour. The couples greeted each other politely, but not cordially, and entered the living room which had been cleared of all relatives and visitors.

“Well, Ashok,” Sunil said, “I am sure you heard about the incident between Radhika and Ravi earlier today.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashok, “Merely a lover’s tiff, I’m sure. We parents should not interfere in these matters.”

“Please do not tell me what I should or should not interfere with,” Sunil said, sternly. “The situation is far more serious than that. Your daughter has shown great disrespect to my son. It is not a good sign when someone who is soon to be a wife lacks respect for her husband before they’re even married. I have to tell you that my son is very displeased, especially as the incident took place in front of other family members.”

“We will ask Radhika to apologize to him at once,” her mother said. “No harm done. She is feeling the pressure of all the marriage preparations.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunil said, forcefully, “but this was not an isolated incident. Her attitude has been consistently negative. My son’s mind is made up. I am very sorry to inform you that he has decided that he cannot marry her. And we, as his parents, support his decision.”

Pushpa let out a wail of despair, rocking backwards and forwards in her chair. Her eyes flashed with fear, and she wrung her hands.

“This cannot be. This surely cannot be. Ashok, tell them. It’s only two days till the wedding. Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” she kept repeating the words as she rocked.

Ashok looked down, shaking his head, not trusting himself to speak, thinking of all the money he’d spent and the months of planning. They would never live down the disgrace.

“Let’s go, Poonam,” said Sunil. “The matter is over.”

They swept out of the house and into the car, leaving behind a hushed silence as the family tried to come to terms with the fact that suddenly there was to be no wedding. Radhika would not be the center of attention in front of three hundred guests. There would be no shamiana, no brass band and no handsome bridegroom.

Sunil’s hands trembled on the steering wheel as they drove home.

“I will send them a sum of money to cover half the expenses,” he said to his wife. “I feel that part of the responsibility for this situation is mine, and I should take my share of the blame. I should never have pushed Ravi into this marriage. I was wrong to interfere with his life and to cause him to lose the woman he loved. But that part I will just have to live with. I’m sorry we had to cancel the wedding, but it would be worse to continue with it, just for the sake of the occasion.”

“I’m happy you feel that way,” said Poonam. “I think Radhika will suffer acutely from a loss of face, but it might be a lesson she needed to learn. Ravi is the person I feel most sorry for. I know he was hoping that Radhika would turn out to be the kind of woman we thought she was. Now, he has to go back alone, and I’m afraid he might never want to get married now.”

“The best thing for us to do is to stop interfering. Fate will take its course. Ravi has proved to be quite capable of looking after himself,” said Sunil.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, full of regret and wishing more than anything for their son’s happiness. Ravi was waiting for them anxiously, hoping they’d had the strength to stand up to any opposition from Radhika’s family.

“They were not at all happy,” Sunil told him. “But it’s done. Now, we have a lot of work ahead undoing all our plans.”

Ravi breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I know that was not an easy thing for you to do. I acknowledge and appreciate your support.”

He asked if he could borrow the car to visit his friend Mark.

“I promise to help with making phone calls and sending messages when I return,” he said. “But he’s an old friend I really want to visit. He won’t be in town for long.”

He wondered what had become of Samira and if she was still travelling around Europe with Justin. He could never have offered her that kind of life. If only he had stood up to his parents a year ago, when they first raised their objections! They would not be in the position of extricating themselves from this mess. As for him…he would not allow himself to think about how his life might have turned out.

He found the house where Mark was staying and rang the doorbell. A servant let him in and went to fetch Mark. There was no one around, but he saw that there was a baby in a pink crib in the corner of the room. He bent over the child who was gurgling and kicking her feet in the air. The baby turned her head and her soft, green eyes smiled into those of the man smiling down at her. Ravi was enchanted. He had the strange sensation of having seen the child somewhere before.

He heard someone walk into the room and turned around. Incredibly, it was Samira, looking lovelier than ever, and obviously equally shocked to see him. His heart leapt and he stood, nervous and unsure, unable to take in the fact that it was really her.

“I don’t understand,” he said, looking around. “What are you doing here? Where is Justin?”

“It’s a very long story, but I’m not with Justin any longer. What are you doing here?”

“Mark came to see me earlier today. He said he had something to say to me…you’re not?”

“No, we broke up. And what about you? Are you married?”

“No. I couldn’t go through with it. I was still in love with someone else.”

“Oh?” her voice faltered.

“I never stopped loving you,” he whispered, finally allowing the full depth of his feelings to sweep through him after months of self-denial.

“Nor I you,” she said. “I only agreed to marry Justin because you…well, didn’t want me.”

“But now you’ve left him?”

“I had to leave him.”

“Oh?”

Samira gazed down at the baby who chuckled and giggled up at them.

“And who is this cute little lady?”

Samira bent down, picked up the child and presented her to Ravi.

“This cute little lady is Jasmine. She’s just one of the many reasons I had to leave Justin. Ravi, this is your daughter.”

Ravi looked at the child in total amazement. He turned to Samira who was watching him intently to gauge his reaction.

“I have a daughter?” he gasped. “How is it possible?”

“I seem to remember a night under the stars.” Samira smiled, “And the scent of jasmine in the gardens of Ranikot where I met a certain precocious young man.”

He took his child and held her in amazement breathing in the scent of her cheek. Then he held out his arm to gather Samira into his embrace and felt her arms around him, and she was kissing him, the way she kissed him every night in his dreams.

EPILOGUE

Darjeeling, 1979

In Darjeeling, Prava and Ramona sat down to lunch in the dining room of the Planters Club, celebrating Ramona’s forty-fifth birthday. They were both impatiently counting the days till the arrival of Samira and baby Jasmine.

“It was a good idea to ask Mark to go to Delhi to take care of them,” Prava said. “It can’t be easy to travel such distances with a baby.”

“He said Jasmine is the image of Ravi,” said Ramona, who had spoken to her children on the phone when Samira arrived in India. “What an unfortunate series of events for poor Sammy.”

“I wish I could wave a magic wand and reunite her with Ravi,” said Prava. “I don’t think she ever stopped loving him. If only I had such powers.”

“Ravi is probably married by now and will never know he has a daughter. We have a lot to discuss when Sammy gets home. My heart breaks for her. I blame myself for encouraging her relationship with Justin, when we really knew nothing about him. I realize I was distracted by Charles’ retirement and our move. What a snake he turned out to be!”

She missed her daughter intensely. The prolonged separation had come at a time when she was just beginning to relate to Samira as a woman, and from her letters it was obvious she had been through many new experiences over the past year. She had left home as a child and was now returning with a child of her own.

“Things will work out,” said Prava. “You worry too much, darling.”

Finishing his lunch at the next table was a distinguished, fine-featured British Sahib who they could tell was Scottish by his accent. He smiled and nodded at the ladies as he paid his bill and prepared to leave.

“Are you an ex-planter?” Prava asked him.

“Aye, that I am. I was in a plantation here in Darjeeling. I used to travel everywhere and go hiking in the mountains in Sikkim, Bhutan, and Kalimpong. Best years of my life, so they were.”

“How wonderful that you came back. Are you travelling alone?” Ramona asked.

He looked at her, a beautiful woman with almond eyes, milky skin and a certain delicacy to her features.

“Alas, I’m alone,” he said. “I never had a wife or children. It’s my biggest regret. All I have are my memories. This is the first time I’ve been back since I left oh…forty-six years ago.”

A faint feeling of recognition stirred in Prava’s mind.

“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay Mr….” she said, although she already knew the answer.

“Sammy Mark Raymond. Delighted, I’m sure.” He smiled politely as he walked out of the room.

Prava looked at Ramona to see if she had grasped the significance of the names, her daughter who had never known what it was to have a father. She turned to regard the man walking away, who had yearned for a child yet never knew he had one, who had wanted a wife yet never married and who had cheated
her
of a partner for most of her life.