The Midnight Rose (22 page)

“I’d love to, yes.”

I floated upstairs to wash before breakfast, feeling happier than I had for months.

•  •  •

Despite my misgivings about being unable to return to India, that first summer at Astbury was one I will never forget. Even though war descended in earnest on 28 July, we remained relatively untouched by it as Donald was too young to join up. As food shortages began, we hardly noticed, as the estate, with its thousands of acres of fertile farmland, was self-sufficient.

One particular event that brought home to me the suffering and change others were facing was when Selina, Lady Astbury’s daughter, came back home to live with us. Her husband, a captain in the British Army, had been posted to France. They had only been married for just over a year and Selina was eight months’ pregnant with their first child.

Sometimes in the afternoons I would find her sitting in the orangery, which housed the many exotic plants that generations of Astburys had brought home from their travels to foreign climes. I recognized some of them from my mother’s leather-bound notebook of remedies and began to take cuttings from them, then grind them with my
shil noda
, after leaving them to dry in the sun. On my forays around the garden and sometimes out onto Dartmoor, I’d found further unusual herbs and plants, and having asked for spare jam jars from the kitchen, my collection was growing.

“What do you do with all these cuttings you take, Anni?” asked Selina one humid afternoon in the orangery as she fanned herself in her chair and watched me with apparent interest.

I was unsure how to answer, fearing she might find me strange, but I decided to tell her the truth. “I make healing medicines from them,” I said.

“Really? Did you learn how to do this in India?”

“Yes. My mother taught me.” I didn’t want to enlarge on the
subject, worrying she might think me some kind of witch doctor.

“My goodness, how clever you are,” she replied with genuine admiration. “I know my father was a great believer in the local remedies when he was posted in India. Well, if you have any special potion to hurry this baby into the world, I, for one, would be grateful.”

I studied the shape of her belly, saw that the child she was carrying had dropped lower in the past few days, which meant the head was already down.

“I don’t think it will be long now.”

“Really? You can tell?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “I believe so.”

•  •  •

Sadly, despite her heartfelt protestations the day we had first arrived, I saw Indira less frequently than ever. Lady Astbury had consented to her plea that friends should be invited down from London to keep her company. I had a feeling Lady Astbury had an ulterior motive in this; after all, it would soon be time for Donald to choose a bride from the ranks of well-bred young British women. The introductions Indira provided on his very doorstep were likely to be valuable.

“Never have so many beautiful young girls”—Lady Astbury pronounced it “gels”—“flooded through our doors before,” she announced to me one day as I encountered her on the grand staircase. “Anahita, dear, would you run upstairs and just check that the maids have remembered to put flowers in Lady Celestria’s bedroom?”

“Of course,” I said, and scurried off to see if they had.

I didn’t like Lady Astbury, and I knew she didn’t like me. She had lived in India when her husband was the Resident of Cooch Behar, and I gathered from the things she said that she had loathed every second of it; she treated me as little more than a serving maid. Her superior attitude to my countrymen and women—“dirty little heathens,” I’d heard her call us once—exacerbated her disdain for me. I knew she was a strict Catholic and went to Mass in the hall’s chapel every day.

For me, her rigid formality and intrinsic arrogance summed up the very worst of the British. Indira, of course, was royalty, and had been brought up in a Western style. Lady Astbury was able to treat her as an equal . . .
just
.

Despite the fact that I too was related to Indian royalty, more and
more, I found I was running errands for Lady Astbury. She would often ask me absentmindedly to “run along” and find her embroidery for her, or collect a book from the library.

This situation was intensified because of the staff crisis in the house. With so many of the men from the servants’ hall leaving to fight in France, the maids had double their usual workload. Not wanting to appear rude and ungrateful, I always acquiesced to Lady Astbury’s requests. It wasn’t a hardship helping the maids, who were a sweet, friendly bunch and glad to have another pair of hands to change a bed or dust a room.

In the first few days at Astbury, I’d gone down to dinner in the formal dining room with Indira but found myself ignored, which made me uncomfortable. Then, on the fourth night, a tray had been brought up to my room in the attic, and I’d taken the hint. I was not unhappy about it, as my wardrobe did not contain the miasma of formal English clothes needed for such nightly occasions, and I didn’t like to mention my lack of them to Indira.

Tilly, one of the maids, on her nightly journey up the endless staircases to bring me my tray in the attic, commented that I must be lonely eating my supper all alone. She suggested I might prefer to eat with the rest of the staff in the kitchen. As I knew this would also save her legs from the climb upstairs, I agreed. From then on, I ate downstairs with the servants every night, answering their constant questions as all of them were fascinated by my life at the palace in India.

On one occasion, the cook, Mrs. Thomas, complained of the arthritis in her hands. I asked her whether she would like something to help with the pain and inflammation.

“I doubt it’ll help,” she commented, “but it’ll do no harm either, I’m sure.”

Using my
shil noda
, I ground down a calamus root I’d found growing in the orangery and then added water to create a paste. That night, I showed Mrs. Thomas how to apply the paste to her hands.

“You must do this twice every day for a week, and I think it will help.”

Sure enough, a week later, Mrs. Thomas was telling everyone what a “miracle worker” I was. This quickly engendered a stream of kitchen “customers,” who would ask me to mix them a remedy to help with all manner of aches and pains. I was happy to help, and it gave me a chance to put what I’d learned from Zeena and my mother into practice.
I also enjoyed the other servants’ genuine warmth and acceptance—it had been a long time since I’d felt that.

But the main reason I was so happy that summer, so happy that even Indira’s cold shoulder and Lady Astbury’s treatment of me could not lower my mood, was my morning hacks with Donald Astbury.

The day after our first ride, I’d sprung out of bed the next morning, wondering if he would be at the stables as agreed.

“Anni!” he’d said, smiling. “Up for another ride?”

“Yes.” I’d nodded eagerly, and we had saddled up, then flown off across Dartmoor in the soft sun of the early morning. From then on, we met almost every morning. During those rides, we began to form a friendship.

In complete contrast to his mother, Donald was warm and open, and I felt I could talk freely with him about my life. He was genuinely fascinated to hear about India, its customs and culture.

“My father always loved India and its people,” he explained. “Unfortunately, my mother didn’t, and that’s the reason they returned to England when Selina and I were very young. Sadly, my father died five years later. Mother always blamed India for killing him, and admittedly, he did suffer from recurrences of the malaria he caught there, but in the end, he died of pneumonia. He said it was the English weather that didn’t suit him. He was a very good chap. Always trying to help somebody or other.”

“Are you like him?” I asked as we lay on the rough Dartmoor grass, allowing our panting horses to take a drink from the brook.

“My mother always says so. I don’t think she approved of what she termed his bleeding heart—Father was always on a mission to help the less fortunate, often to the detriment of our own bank account. He also held no account of creed or color, whereas my mother is a little more . . . traditional in her thinking.”

During those rides on the moors, he talked to me of his fears for his own future because of the war, and how he worried about his ability to take over the management of the Astbury estate in a few years’ time. It would pass to him when he came of age, at twenty-one.

“There’s hardly enough money to pay the costs on the estate as it is,” he said, sighing, “let alone restore the hall—some of which hasn’t been touched for a hundred years. Mother inherited it, you see. Father wasn’t really a businessman, nor was it ever imagined that he should die while I was so young. So I rather think that Mother’s buried her
head in the sand. Or, should I say more accurately, the chapel. I don’t want to be the one to tell her how difficult things are, but it’s doubtful that even her God can help us.”

I looked at him and felt humbled that, though he was only sixteen, the weight of the world seemed to be on his shoulders.

“So many lives depend on me to earn their family crust.” Then he rolled over and grinned at me. “Well, looks like there’ll be nothing for it but to marry a rich heiress! Come on, it’s time to ride back.”

After Donald had disappeared into the house to change for breakfast, I’d rarely see him until the following morning. His daytime activities were taken up with amusing Indira and her friends with luncheons, tennis parties and riding far more sedately than we did together through the park. I doubted he ever spoke of our morning rides—I certainly didn’t. It was another secret I kept to myself during those long, balmy English summer nights.

A
t the end of August, a couple of days before Indira and I were to return to school, Selina went into labor. The maids were up and down the stairs with towels and hot water. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense with the normal mixture of anticipation at the arrival of a new baby and trepidation that all might not go well for her.

“Dr. Trefusis is returning from the hospital in Exeter. Only Lady Selina would have picked a Sunday evening to go into labor. Let’s hope he arrives here soon,” Mrs. Thomas said, rolling her eyes.

An hour later, Tilly, Selina’s maid, came downstairs looking pale. “She’s in a terrible state up there, rolling around the bed in agony and screaming her head off. I don’t know what to do to calm her down. What can I give her, Mrs. Thomas? I’m worried the baby’s stuck or something.”

“Have you called for her ladyship?” Mrs. Thomas asked.

“Yes, but you know you won’t get Lady Astbury anywhere near the birthing room. I reckon she paid someone else to give birth to hers for her!”

“Lady Selina must be tired,” I commented from my usual chair in the corner of the kitchen.

“She’s exhausted, Miss Anni, she’s been going at it for the past six hours,” Tilly explained.

“Then you should take her some sugar water to help keep her strength up,” I advised quietly. “And have her move around as much as possible.”

All eyes in the kitchen turned to me. “Have you ever seen a baby being born, Miss Anni?” asked Mrs. Thomas.

“Oh, yes. I watched my mother many times when she went out to help the local women during their labors.”

“Well, any port in a storm,” said Mrs. Thomas. “Miss Anni, would you go upstairs with Tilly, who’ll ask Lady Selina if she’ll see you?”

“If you’re sure,” I replied, rising nervously from my chair.

“She can only say no, can’t she? Sounds to me like she needs all the help she can get. Off you go, dear.”

I followed Tilly up the stairs, and as I waited outside Selina’s door, I could hear the moans from within.

Tilly poked her head around the door and beckoned to me. “She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, so come in anyway.”

I walked into the bedroom and saw Selina lying flat on her back, her face white, sweat matting her hair.

“Lady Selina, it’s Anahita. I’ve helped bring babies into the world before. Would you mind if I tried to help you?”

Selina raised an exhausted hand, which I took as a sign of her consent.

“First, we must prop her up on her pillows so she can drink the sugar water, and then run downstairs for some damp flannels to place on her forehead. Tie her hair up as well,” I told Tilly, “she’ll be cooler.”

Once we had both gently persuaded Selina upright and Tilly had forced some of the sugar water down her, I felt for her pulse, which was racing.

“Lady Selina, may I examine you? I need to know how far on you are.”

She gave a reluctant nod, her eyes still closed.

I lifted her nightgown and examined her and felt immediately that she was only four fingers dilated. She needed to be ten before she could even think of pushing.

“Lady Selina, the baby is ready to come, but your body is not ready for it. I want you to stand up with me and walk. I promise you gravity will help. Can you do that?”

“No, no . . . the pain, the pain . . . ,” she moaned.

“Well, let us at least try.”

Putting my arm underneath her back, I heaved her upright, turned her legs to the side of the bed and, with all my strength, lifted her to a standing position. “There, now we will walk,” I said. “It will also help the pain.” Slowly, I made her put one foot in front of the other and we began to pace to the other side of the bedroom.

“There, you’re doing very well,” I said encouragingly.

For two long hours, I led Selina up and down her bedroom floor, breathing with her, whispering words of encouragement. The perpetual motion calmed her and her pulse began to steady.

“I need to push!” she announced suddenly.

This was the moment I knew all should be ready and I motioned for Tilly to lay towels on the bed. I helped Selina lie down on top of the towels. “Don’t push for now, Lady Selina, pant instead, like a thirsty dog . . . like this . . .” I made a series of quick, shallow breaths and smiled encouragingly at her as she began to imitate me. I quickly checked she was dilated sufficiently to let the baby come through. Satisfied that was indeed the case, I instructed her that the next time she felt she must push, then she should, as hard as she possibly could. A scream shattered the still night air as I saw the baby’s head appear at the opening.