Виктория Холт: Secret for a Nightingale

“But I am educated. I read a great deal. I have learned such a lot.”

“It is not only book learning, my dear child. It is the social graces how to mix in society … real society, not what we have here.

No, my dear, there is no way out. If there were I should have found it, for the last thing I want to do is lose you. You will write to me. We will be together through our letters. I shall want to know everything that happens to you. I may come to England for a long leave eventually. Then we shall be together. In the meantime you will go to school and the rectory will be your home during holidays. Time will soon pass. I shall miss you so much. As you know, since your mother died, you have been everything to me. “

He was looking straight ahead, afraid to look at me, afraid to show the emotion he felt. I was less restrained. One of the things I had to learn in England was to control my feelings.

I saw the sea, the hills, the white building through a haze of tears.

Life was changing. Everything was going to change . not slowly as life usually did, but drastically.

There had been more than a month to get used to the idea, and after the first shock I began to experience a glimmer of excitement. I had often watched the big ships coming into the harbour and seen them sail away. I had seen boys and girls take farewells of their parents and depart. It was a way of life and now it was my turn.

Mrs. Fearnley was busy with her arrangements and lessons were not so regular.

“There is little more I can teach you,” she said.

“You should be well up to others of your age. Read as much as you can. That is the best thing you can do.”

She was cheerful, looking forward to going home. She was to stay with a cousin until, as she said, she ‘found her feet’.

It was different with my ayah. This was a sad parting for her and for me. We had been so close closer than I had been to Mrs. Fearnley.

Ayah had known me from the time I was a baby. She had known my mother, and the bond between us had grown very strong since my mother’s death.

She looked at me with the patient acceptance of her race and said: “It is always so with the ayah. She must lose her little ones. They are not hers. They are only lent.”

I told her she would find another little one. My father would see that she did.

“To start again?” she said.

“And where is there another Su-Su?”

Then she took my hands and looked at them.

“They are like lotus blossoms,” she said.

“Slightly grubby ones,” I pointed out.

“They are beautiful.” She kissed them.

“There is power in these hands.

It must be used. To waste what is given is not good. Your god . my gods . they do not like to see their gifts despised. It will be your task, little one, to use the gifts which have been given. “

“Oh no, ayah dear, you imagine there is something special about me because you love me. My father says that that little boy liked to have me kneel beside him and that was why he seemed to forget his pain.

That was all it was, my father says. “

“The Colonel Sahib is a very great man, but great men do not know all… and sometimes the beggar of the lowest caste has certain knowledge which is denied the greatest rajah.”

“All right, ayah dear, I am wonderful. I am special. I wilt guard my beautiful hands.”

Then she kissed them solemnly and raised her soulful eyes to my face.

“I will think of you always and one day you will come back.”

“Of course I’ll come back. As soon as I have finished with school I’ll be here. And you will have to give up everything and come back to me.”

She shook her head.

“You will not want me then.”

“I shall always want you. I shall never forget you.”

She rose and left me.

I had said goodbye to all my friends. On the last night father and I dined alone. It was his wish. There was a hush atmosphere in the house. The servants were subdued and watched me silently. The Khansamah had excelled himself with one of his favourite dishes which he called yakhni - a soil of spiced lamb which I had always particularly enjoyed. But I did not on that evening. We were too emotional to want to eat and it was as much as we could do to make a show of eating and afterwards to tackle the mangoes, nectarines and grape^ which were set before us. ^ It seemed that the entire household was in mourning for my departure.

Conversation was stilted on that last night. I knew that my father was trying hard to conceal his feelings, which he did admirably of course, and none would have realized how moved he was except that his voice was brittle and his laughter forced.

He talked to me a great deal about England and how different it was from India. I should have to expect a certain discipline at school, and I must remember, of course, that I was a guest of Uncle James and Aunt Grace, who had so kindly come to our rescue and offered us holiday hospitality.

I was rather glad when I could retire to my room and lie for the last time under the mosquito net, sleepless and wondering what the new life in England would be like.

The ship already lay in the bay. I had looked at it many times and tried to imagine what it would be like when that ship sailed away with me in it. But it is hard to imagine a place without oneself.

The day came. We said our goodbyes, and there we were on board, in the cabin Mrs. Fearnley and I were going to share. The moment had come. We stood on deck waving. My father was standing very straight, watching.

I threw a kiss to which he responded. And I saw my ayah. Her eyes were fixed on me. I waved to her and she lifted a hand.

I longed for the ship to go. This parting was too sad to be prolonged.

The excitement of the journey helped me over the sadness of saying farewell to those I loved. Mrs. Fearnley was a brisk and quite pleasant companion. She was determined to carry out the promise she had made to my father to take great care of me and scarcely let me out of her sight.

I knew I was going to be desperately homesick for my father, for my ayah and for India. Going to a new home was not all I had to face.

There was school as well. Perhaps it was good that there would be so much change, so many new experiences that I should have less time to brood. Everyone was kind, but in a remote sort of way.

Mrs. Fearnley in due course delivered me to the rectory before she departed with the cousin who had met us at the docks with the air of a person who has performed an arduous task commendably; and I said goodbye to her without much emotion. It was only when I was alone in the room with the j low ceiling, the heavy oak beams and the latticed window ? looking out on the churchyard that I realized the enormity of my aloneness. On the ship there had been too many experiences: the wonder of sailing on a sea which could be wildly turbulent or smooth as a lake; meeting my fellow passengers seeing new places Cape Town with its magnificent bay and mountains; Madeira with its colourful flowers: Lisbon with its beautiful harbour such experiences had helped to banishj fears of the future from my mind. That little room was to become so familiar to me. Everyone tried to make me feel at home. Uncle James, who was very dedicated to his work and was so serious, tried so hard to be . I jolly that his attempts at lightness were always laboured and had quite the reverse effect of what he had intended. Every morning he would say: “Hello, Susanna. Up with the lark?” And if I did a little work in the garden: “Ha, ha, the labourer is worthy of his hire.” Such remarks were always accompanied by a funny little laugh which somehow did not belong to him. But I knew he was trying hard to help me settle in. Aunt Grace was rather brusque, not because she wanted to be but because she rarely showed her feelings, and faced with a lonely child she found the situation embarrassing. Ellen was kind in an absentminded way, but she was twelve years older than I and completely absorbed in her father’s curate, Mr. Bonner, who would marry her as soon as he found a living. “’, For the first weeks I hated school and then I began to like it. I became something of a celebrity because I had lived in India and, in the dormitory after lights out, I was prevailed” upon to tell stories of that exotic land. I revelled in the popularity this brought me and invented the most hair-raising adventures. That helped me a great deal during the first weeks. Then because I was up to the standard of my age group thanks to the meticulous care of Mrs. Fearnley - I was accepted. I was neither dull nor brilliant, which is a far more lovable attribute than being very good or very bad.