Dark Road to Darjeeling (8 page)

“A moment,” I said, catching her attention. “I am curious about your cook.”

Miss Cavendish gave a little sigh. “My father was devoted to his Irish mother. In her honour, he opened the Buddhist temple on the ridge to an order of nuns from Donegal. The sisters were unsuited to the life here and eventually abandoned the place, but for a while they ran the only school in the valley. Mary-
Benevolence was taught to read and write and to speak English there. She also converted to Catholicism, but it was from her mother that she learned the art of midwifery. She delivered all of the babies in the valley until the doctor came.” At the mention of the man, her expression hardened. “And it seems she may have to do so again.”

“Has he always been an inebriate?” I asked.

“No. He has not. He was a lovely gentleman, very quiet, devoted to his wife. Oh, he liked a drink from time to time, but when she died, he seemed unable to gather himself up again.” Miss Cavendish’s eyes were coldly unsympathetic. “He has a duty to the people of this valley, a duty he neglects in order to nurture his own grief. He would find a better remedy for his pain if he applied himself to his responsibilities,” she finished, thrusting her way past me towards the kitchens.

“Cold comfort there,” Plum observed, raising his brows after her.

“Yes, but she does have a point. Pain, grief, loneliness, they are quicksand. They will consume a man if he does not lift a finger to extricate himself.”

“If you struggle in quicksand, you die faster,” Plum corrected.

I waved an impatient hand. “You know what I mean. If a man in peril uses his wits and his natural ingenuity, he may save himself. But a man who gives up has already perished.”

The words cut too near the bone, I think, for Plum fell into a reverie, and we said nothing more of significance as the hours ticked away. From time to time we could hear voices from within Jane’s room, and once a terrible, prolonged sob. But at length Mary-Benevolence appeared, her face drawn but smiling.

“The child lives, and the mother as well,” she told us. I clutched at Plum’s arm in relief, and he squeezed my hand in return.

“Is it born?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. The pains have stopped and they both rest. She must not rise again until the child is born. Peaceful repose, that is what is required now.”

“Of course,” I told her. “We will do whatever we can to take care of her.”

Mary-Benevolence bowed her head. “I will bring her some refreshment to build her strength, and then she will sleep again. No visitors tonight, I think.”

“I understand,” I told her, suddenly happy that Jane’s care rested in the hands of this tiny, determined woman. “Thank you for all you have done for her.”

She looked at me in surprise. “But it is my duty. She is Mr. Freddie’s wife and she carries his child. She belongs to this house and to this valley now.”

With that, Mary-Benevolence padded away and Plum and I exchanged glances.

“I suppose we can do nothing more tonight,” he said. “I think I will take a tray in my room and go straight to bed. It has been exhausting doing nothing,” he added with a smile. I did not reprove him for his levity. Such relief after so much worry was disorienting, it left one light-headed and peculiar.

Plum hastened to his room while I wandered slowly after, stretching the muscles that had stiffened after hours of sitting in the hall. And as my body stirred to life, so did my mind, and I saw what I ought to have seen hours before: it was entirely possible that Freddie Cavendish had not been murdered at all.

I lay awake late into the night, pondering the implications of Freddie Cavendish’s death. If he had been treated by the doctor, perhaps it was simply mischance, a professional lapse of judgement that caused his death, and nothing more. We had seized upon Portia’s insistence that Freddie had been murdered, but what was there in the way of actual proof? A few vaguely unsettled letters from Jane that might well have been the product of a mind overwrought by grief and her condition. We had seen firsthand the kindliness of the Cavendishes. They had neither the warmth nor the affection of the Marches, to be sure, but they were dutiful and seemed to take every proper care of Jane as the possible mother of the heir to the Peacocks. True, Miss Cavendish seemed unwilling to relinquish the role of chatelaine, but I found it hard to fault her for it. She had ruled the household with a firm hand for decades, and it would be difficult to turn either her keys or her responsibilities over to a newcomer. Jane, for her part, had always left domestic arrangements to Portia and
busied herself with her pottery and her music. I could not imagine her counting the linen and poking her nose into the store cupboards as Miss Cavendish doubtless did.

Could the whole of the trouble then be laid at the door of the twin pressures of Jane’s widowhood and impending motherhood? I had seen enough of my own sisters become hysterical while they carried to know that it was not the most docile and sensible of times. And coming hand in glove with widowhood—I could not imagine the strain upon Jane’s nerves. They would be strung taut as bowstrings, and it would take very little more to make them snap.

No, there was no evidence as yet that Freddie had been murdered, and for all my excited sleuthing and recording of suspicious behaviour in my notebook, I had quite forgot the most important part of any investigation was to begin at the beginning. Clearly, the beginning here was determining the cause of Freddie Cavendish’s death. I buried my face in my pillow, deeply chagrined that I had started so wide of the mark, and doubly glad that Brisbane had not been about to see it. I should start fresh in the morning, I promised myself. I would ask the right questions of the right people, and I would learn all that I could about the mysterious doctor who had lost his wife to a man-eating tiger.

At last I slid into sleep, but even as I slept I heard the high, keening cry of the peacock, calling over and again in the night.

The next morning I arose full of determination and plans, all of which were thwarted almost immediately.

I had thought to call upon the doctor with a pretense of some minor ailment, but Portia flatly refused to leave the estate.

“Jane cannot leave the house, and I cannot leave Jane,” she informed me. The dark crescents purpling the skin under her eyes told me she had not left her the whole of the previous night.

“I slept in a chair,” she confirmed as she helped herself to breakfast. She took only a piece of toast and some tea. A lone stewed peach sat forlornly upon her plate. “Today I will have a small bed moved into her room, so I will be there in the night should she have need of me.”

“You will wear yourself to nothing if you do not get proper food and rest,” I said mildly. “And then who will nurse Jane?”

Her face took on the mulish expression I knew too well. “I am stronger than you give me credit for, Julia. I trust you will find something to amuse yourself.”

I toyed with my own peach. It had been well cooked, with a dusting of nutmeg in the syrup, but I had little appetite. “I had thought to call upon the doctor. It would be much more appropriate if you came with me.”

“Out of the question,” she said, but to mollify me she took a bit of porridge. “I have far too much to do. I have a trunkful of books I have not yet read. I can read them to Jane. Also, she would like to see the garden, so I must have her bed moved a little to give her a view from the window. And her linen ought to be changed freshly each morning. I will have to instruct the maids.”

Portia was a force to be reckoned with when given her head, so I sat back and merely sipped at my tea as she narrowed her gaze in my direction.

“What do you mean to do today, dearest?” she asked.

I thought a moment. “We still do not know if Freddie was murdered,” I said, casting a quick glance over my shoulder to make quite certain we were not overheard. “If this doctor is so incompetent, it might merely have been a bungled job on his part. I was so busy pondering motive I never bothered to find out precisely how Freddie died. That must be the first order of business.”

Portia nodded, but her gaze was faraway, and I knew the question of Freddie’s murder was nothing to her so long as Jane
was in need. I sighed. I was alone in my investigation, I realised, with no faithful companion to help me gather evidence or sort impressions.

Except perhaps Plum. He was at loose ends, I reflected, with neither occupation nor encumbrances. He was quick-witted and could be discreet if the importance of discretion had been impressed upon him. And he was charming enough to entice information out of anyone if he chose. Yes, he would do quite nicely, I concluded.

And just as I made up my mind to make a partner of him, Plum entered the breakfast room, resplendent in a cherry-coloured waistcoat and a cravat of striped green and white.

“It is a very fine day today,” I told him. “So fine it would be a waste for you to stay at the Peacocks,” I began with an eye to inviting him upon my investigations.

“Indeed,” he agreed. “And that is why I mean to begin my sketches of Kanchenjunga. I have in mind a series of paintings based upon the mountain, perhaps even a mural.”

He attacked his food with gusto. “And you?”

I summoned a bleak smile. “I suppose I shall pay some calls. Alone.”

Determined to pursue my investigations even if I must do so alone, I collected my things and left word with Miss Cavendish not to expect me to luncheon. The second cook provided me with a bit of flat Indian bread and some crumbling white cheese to put into my pocket should I have need of it, and I took up my parasol, buoyed by the thought of properly beginning my own investigation at last. I had just reached the front door of the Peacocks when I heard my name called. I turned to find Harry emerging from his office carrying a small bundle.

“If you mean to go abroad on your own, you must take this,” he advised me, unwrapping the bundle and holding out his
hand. Upon his palm lay a small pistol, a delicate feminine piece with mother-of-pearl inlaid upon the grip.

“It looks like a toy,” I observed. “A very pretty toy.”

“Pretty but lethal,” he corrected. “You were country-bred, so I presume you know how to fire it. Mind you’re careful. It is loaded.”

He brandished the pistol and I shied. “Is the valley so thick with brigands that I must go armed?” I asked with a forced air of jollity.

But he was stingy with his charming smiles that day, and I was struck by the seriousness of his expression. “Not brigands. Tigers, one in particular, as I am sure you have heard. He’s a nasty brute, and you are our responsibility. I have already made certain that Mr. March was armed before he left to go sketching. I would be remiss if I did not do the same for you, Lady Julia.”

I reached a tentative hand to take the pistol from him. “Forgive me, but I hardly think so small a gun could stop a tiger,” I observed.

“It is not for the tiger,” he said soberly. “It holds two shots. The first is for you should you be attacked.”

My mouth felt suddenly dry, my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth. I tried to swallow. “And the second?” I asked. I raised my eyes from the pistol in my hand to his grim gaze.

“There would not be time for the second. Believe me when I tell you not to hesitate. I have seen the alternative and it is not the sort of death any human being should suffer.”

I secured the pistol in my pocket. “I suppose I ought to thank you, Mr. Cavendish, for the loan of the weapon.”

“Pray God you never have to use it.”

He swung round on his booted heel and left me then, returning to his office and closing the door firmly behind him. I felt the weight of the pistol, small as it was, through the layers of petticoats. I sighed, wishing yet again that Brisbane had come. But he had not, and mooning about would solve nothing, I reminded myself firmly. I went in search of Jolly.

I had a few details to discuss with him, but he quickly sorted out what I required and in a matter of minutes presented me with Feuilly. The bird was wearing a collar and lead of thin gilded leather, walking sedately behind the butler. I blinked at the sight of them.

“I apologise, Jolly, if I was not clear in my request. I want to return Feuilly to his previous owner on behalf of Mrs. Cavendish. I need a basket of some sort, and a wheeled conveyance.”

Jolly inclined his head. “This thing is not possible, Memsa Julie,” he said with his usual courtliness.

“I thought there was a donkey cart,” I began. He bowed slightly again.

“And a goat cart as well, but alas, the donkey does not like the bird Feuilly.”

“And the goats?”

“The bird Feuilly does not like the goats. But these things are not of importance, for the path is too steep to admit either conveyance. A person must walk upon his own feet to see the monastery that faces the snows of Kanchenjunga.”

I cocked my head curiously. “You have been there, Jolly?”

“Of course, Memsa Julie. I received my letters there,” he said with an air of pride, and it occurred to me that this very correct servant doubtless spoke far more languages than I.

“When it was a school, run by the Irish nuns?” I inquired. Again, the sober nod. “Very well. Then you would know the path best, I suppose. And I must walk, leading that creature,” I said, raising a brow at the peacock. He fixed me with one large dark eye and I thought I saw malice there. “I do not think he likes me very much, Jolly.”

“No, he does not, but this must not distress you, Memsa Julie. The bird Feuilly does not like anyone.”

I smiled at him. “A small consolation. Very well, I will walk.”

One last bow from him and the bird Feuilly and I were on our way. Against all expectations, he followed sedately along, the plumes of his tail undulating softly in the dirt of the road. I kept up a soft flow of chatter, hoping to keep him calm so long as we walked. I had never seen a peacock attack, but that did not mean they were incapable of such a thing. If the murals on the walls of the dining room were anything to judge by, they were occasionally seized by great ferocity, and I had no wish to be on the receiving end of those menacing talons.

We passed a field planted with tea, the glossy green bushes stretching in tidy rows as far as the eye could see, and I noticed that the pickers were in the field, busily gathering the first flush of the harvest. They wore bright colourful clothes, with enormous wicker baskets strapped to their backs by means of leather thongs that circled their brows twice over. They bent and snipped off the upper leaves and buds of the plant, flinging the green matter over their shoulders and into the baskets without looking, with a skill born of long practise. It was mesmerising to watch, the peaceful rhythm of the pickers’ arms moving as if in a dance as the mist burned from the valley under the spring sun.

But I had not come to stare at the pickers, I reminded myself, and I clucked at Feuilly to hurry him along. In a few minutes’ time we reached the crossroads, marked by the Buddhist
stupa
Miss Cavendish had remarked upon. It was a sort of religious monument of the type we had seen many times upon our journey from Calcutta. They varied enormously, but always with a dome firmly upon a square base, the whole affair crowned with a spire from which stretched great lengths of rope tied with hundreds of squares of brightly-coloured fabrics—prayer flags, whipping in the wind to wing the prayers of the faithful ever upward. Next to the
stupa,
a child was playing near a bundle of laundry. I paused in my chatter to Feuilly to greet the boy. I
nodded, certain we did not share a language, but to my surprise he returned the greeting in my own tongue.

“Hello, lady. My granny says only foolish ladies talk to birds,” he said, nodding toward the bundle of laundry. As I watched, the bundle began to unfold itself a little, revealing a human form, thickly shrouded in white robes and veils. Next to the bundle sat a begging bowl and a bell, the traditional accoutrements of a leper.

I smiled to show I had taken no offense. “Tell your granny I have no coins with me today, but if she is here again, I will bring some tomorrow.”

The boy shrugged. “Granny believes all that passes is the will of the gods, lady. If the gods will it, she will come. If they do not, she will not.”

Suddenly, the bundle began to speak, a terrible gabbling sound, and I realised her tongue must have been claimed by the unspeakable disease. The boy listened, then turned to me.

“Granny says she would tell your fortune if you tarried a moment with us.”

I glanced up to the steep path that wound sharply upward toward the monastery and sighed. It would be a fairly long climb, and I wanted to be on my way before Feuilly decided to throw off his mantle of good behaviour.

“Tell your granny that I thank her for the offer, but I must attend to my business now.”

Again the gabbling sound, and again the boy translated. “Ladies do not have business at the house of the White Rajah.”

“This lady does,” I said tartly. I gave them a sharp nod and tugged at Feuilly’s lead. “Come, bird.”

I stalked up the path to the ridge, stamping out my annoyance with each step as I muttered at the bird. “Really, Feuilly, can you believe the effrontery? I do not require the commentary of leprous grannies on my activities. It is entirely my own
affair whom I visit, and for what purpose.” I continued on in this vein for some time, giving voice to my feelings, until at last we reached the gates of the monastery and I stopped to gape at the sight before me.

The monastery was a large building, much more spacious than I had realised from the vantage point of the valley below. It stood two full stories with a third story that formed a sort of cupola perched atop, the corners of the roofline swinging out into the wings of a pagoda. The windows and doors were trimmed in gold, or at least they had been once, for glimmers of the once-magnificent paint still shone. The rest of the exterior had been whitewashed and painted in exuberant shades of red and blue, with gilding to pick out the details of the animals that processed just under the roofline—dragons or demons, I could not tell which.