A Great and Terrible Beauty

Page 6

She'd taken a long, appraising look at me, with my freckled skin and unruly mane of red hair, my sullen face, and decided that a proper finishing school was what was needed if I was ever to make a decent marriage. "It's a wonder you weren't sent home years ago," she clucked. "Everyone knows the climate in India isn't good for the blood. I'm sure this is what your mother would want."
I'd had to bite my tongue to keep from asking how she could possibly know what my mother would want. My mother had wanted me to stay in India. I had wanted to come to London, and now that I'm here, I couldn't be more miserable.
For three hours, as the train made its way past green, hilly pastures, and the rain slapped wearily at the train's windows, Tom had slept. But I could see only behind me, whence I'd come. The hot plains of India. The police asking questions: Had I seen anyone? Did my mother have enemies? What was I doing alone on the streets? And what about the man who'd spoken to her in the marketplace--a merchant named Amar? Did I know him? Were he and my mother (and here they looked embarrassed and shuffled their feet while finding a word that wouldn't seem too indelicate) "acquainted"?
How could I tell them what I'd seen? I didn't know whether to believe it myself.
Outside the train's windows, England is still in bloom. But the jostling of the passenger car reminds me of the ship that carried us from India over rough seas. The coastline of England taking shape before me like a warning. My mother buried deep in the cold, unforgiving ground of England. My father staring glassy-eyed at the headstone-- Virginia Doyle, beloved wife and mother peering through it as if he could change what had happened through will alone. And when he couldn't, he retired to his study and the laudanum bottle that had become his constant companion. Sometimes I'd find him, asleep in his chair, the dogs at his feet, the brown bottle close at hand, his breath strong and medicinally sweet. Once a large man, he'd grown thinner, whittled down by grief and opium. And I could only stand by, helpless and mute, the cause of it all. The keeper of a secret so terrible it made me afraid to speak, scared that it would pour out of me like kerosene, burning everyone. "You're brooding again," Tom says, casting a suspicious look my way.
"Sorry." Yes, I'm sorry, so sorry for everything .
Tom exhales long and hard, his voice traveling swiftly under the exhalation. "Don't be sorry. Just stop."
"Yes, sorry," I say again without thinking. I touch the outline of my mother's amulet. It hangs around my neck now, a remembrance of my mother and my guilt, hidden beneath the stiff black crepe mourning dress I will wear for six months.
Through the thinning haze outside our window, I can see porters hustling alongside the train, keeping pace, ready to place wooden steps beside the open doors for our descent to the platform. At last our train comes to a stop in a hiss and sigh of steam.
Tom stands and stretches. "Come on, then. Let's go, before all the porters are taken."
Victoria Station takes my breath away with its busyness. Hordes of people mill about the platform. Down at the far end of the train, the third-class passengers climb off in a thick tumble of arms and legs. Porters hurry to carry luggage and parcels for the first-class passengers. Newsboys hold the day's papers in the air as far as their arms will stretch, screeching the most enticing headlines. Flower girls wander about, wearing smiles as hard and worn as the wooden trays that hang from their delicate necks. I'm nearly upended by a man buzzing past, his umbrella parked beneath his arm.
"Pardon me," I mutter, deeply annoyed. He takes no note of me. When I glance to the far end of the platform, I catch sight of something odd. A black traveling cloak that sets my heart beating faster. My mouth goes dry. It's impossible that he could be here. And yet , I'm sure it's him disappearing behind a kiosk. I try to get closer, but it's terribly crowded.
"What are you doing?" Tom asks as I strain against the tide of the crowd.
"Just looking," I say, hoping he can't read the fear in my voice. A man rounds the corner of the kiosk, carrying a bundle of newspapers on his shoulder. His coat, thin and black and several sizes too big, hangs on him like a loose cape. I nearly laugh with relief. You see, Gemma? You're imagining things. Leave it alone .
"Well, if you're going to look around, see if you can find us a porter. I don't know where the devil they've all got to so fast."
A scrawny newsboy happens by and offers to fetch us a hansom cab for twopence. He struggles to carry the trunk filled with my few worldly belongings: a handful of dresses, my mother's social diary, a red sari, a white carved elephant from India, and my father's treasured cricket bat, a reminder of him in happier days.