Merryn Allingham - The Girl From Cobb Street

Two decanters were placed in the middle of the two long tables, and she could just make out the writing on the silver labels which hung around each bottle neck: Marsala and Port. A duo of waiters made their solemn round of the guests, the women being offered the marsala and the men the port. When every schooner was filled, her neighbour stood with glass raised and all the men followed suit.

‘The King Emperor.’

There was a muffled rumble as everyone mouthed the words and held their glasses aloft. Daisy took a cautious sip. The wine was thick and sweet and clung to her tongue. The other women seemed to have no problem with it but she was delighted when she saw Mrs Forester rise from her seat at the head of the second table, and could stop pretending to drink.

‘Shall we, ladies?’

And then all the women stood up, with Daisy following uncertainly. Edith led the way through yet another polished oak door to a much smaller room and stood waiting on the threshold.

‘This is the snug, Daisy. We have our coffee here, and the men will join us after the port has finished doing the rounds. How are you enjoying this evening?’

She managed to murmur something that sounded like enjoyment, and then she was being taken by the hand and walked up to yet another young woman. ‘I would like you to meet my daughter,’ Edith was saying.

A smiling fair-haired girl was at her mother’s side. ‘This is Jocelyn. Jocelyn, this is Gerald’s new bride, Daisy.’

The girl’s red lips opened to an even broader smile, showing two rows of perfect, white teeth. Her deep blue eyes sparkled with pleasure as she dispensed with the hand Daisy had offered, and instead clasped her warmly around the shoulders. Immediately Daisy smelled it. The perfume. She knew that perfume— Shalimar. The very perfume Gerald had bought from her counter at Bridges. Could you get Shalimar in Jasirapur? Somehow she doubted it. So where had it come from? Gerald had said the perfume was for his aunt and she’d thought then that it was a strange choice for an older lady. Now it seemed she might have an explanation: it had not been for his aunt, if indeed he had one, but for this girl. And there could be one reason only for such an intimate gift, she decided, and that was courtship.

Jocelyn continued to talk cheerfully but Daisy hardly heard her. Her mind was too busy roving over remarks that had earlier made no sense. Was that what Rosemary Laughton had meant when she’d said Gerald’s marriage had come as a surprise, that the regiment had expected something else? Had they expected Jocelyn to be his bride? Surely not, for she was the Colonel’s daughter and from Daisy’s small experience of Jasirapur, the social hierarchy was even more rigid than in England. Jocelyn would be destined for a man of much higher rank than Gerald. She was allowing her imagination to run amok, she chided herself. Yet there was also Amelia Simmonds. She had been surprised by the marriage, so surprised that she’d been flustered into incoherence.

‘And what have you been doing since you arrived?’ Jocelyn was saying.

Daisy brought her mind back with a jerk and tried very hard not to show how bad she was feeling. ‘Not a great deal. I’m still getting used to the weather. But I did go to the bazaar today and bought material for new dresses. I find I don’t have sufficient lightweight clothing.’

‘No one ever has sufficient,’ the girl said, echoing Anish’s words. ‘Have you spoken to the durzi ?’

‘I thought I might sew the dresses myself,’ she ventured, ‘but I didn’t think to bring patterns with me. Perhaps I can send for them.’

‘You don’t need patterns. All you need is a durzi , and I know the very man. I’ll bring him to you—tomorrow if you like.’

Her first reaction was to refuse, to make an excuse, say anything not to spend time with the woman she was beginning to think of as Gerald’s lover. But the girl was so pleasant and unaffected that rejecting her overture of friendship was difficult. She wondered if Jocelyn still cared for Gerald, and hoped it wasn’t the case. She might feel badly wounded, but she had no wish for the girl to be hurt too.

A second cup of bitter coffee was making the rounds before the men trooped through the door, some of them decidedly unsteady. Gerald was looking slightly flushed but came straight to her side.

‘You did well.’ She couldn’t imagine why, but if her husband was pleased, she was happy. ‘You were seated by the Colonel, you know,’ he whispered. ‘They must have thrown precedence out of the window tonight. Edith’s doing, I imagine. A great honour though. I guess it was because you’re fresh from England. It won’t happen again but the old boy seemed really interested in you.’

She was trying to think of a suitable reply when the room fell quiet. For some while it had been filled with loud chattering and the noise of chairs and stools being rearranged, until everyone was seated just where they wished. Then, breaking through the sudden hush that followed this burst of activity, a voice drawled, ‘She’s quite dark, don’t you think. Touch of the tar brush, I reckon.’

And what seemed like a hundred eyes swivelled in Daisy’s direction. She felt herself turn hot and red, and wanted more than anything to disappear through the battered floorboards. What had the woman meant? For naturally it had been a woman’s voice. The room buzzed furiously until Edith took charge of the situation, clapping her hands and silencing the wagging tongues.

‘Don’t forget, ladies, we’ll be taking the six o’clock train on Thursday. Come prepared with food and drink. And not too much luggage, please. The last thing we want are corridors overflowing with trunks.’

Voices subsided and passed on to quieter topics. But Daisy could not pass on. She felt Gerald sitting rigid beside her and couldn’t bring herself to look at him. The woman had meant her and everyone had known it. Was she too dark, too different? Her hair and eyes were a deep brown and her skin perhaps a shade darker than many of those she’d lived and worked beside, but she had never given much thought to her colouring. And neither had anyone else until this moment. What was the woman suggesting? That she was not English? She was as English as any one of them in this room, she thought indignantly. She had only one keepsake from her mother, a faded photograph but, beneath the starch of a nurse’s uniform, the woman portrayed was clearly English. But her father? Had he been English too? She had no idea. And she never would, for there had been only one name on the tattered birth certificate the orphanage had reluctantly handed to her when she left. She was an outsider and used to being so. As a poor girl without known family, it was inevitable. Miss Maddox’s friends had counselled her against favouring Daisy, and her fellow shop assistants had looked down their noses at a girl they knew instinctively was not one of them. But now apparently there was another reason for her exclusion. She was the wrong shade.

Mortified, she found she could no longer make conversation, no longer mouth the trivialities that seemed necessary to the evening. But rescue was close. Colonel Forester announced that he and Edith were about to leave and, as their departure was a signal for the rest of the company to make their way home, it was only minutes before Daisy was able to hide her burning face in the darkness of the night.

Rajiv had primed a solitary kerosene lamp to light the bungalow and she undressed by its shadows. Her heart was so full she could hardly get the breath to her lungs and tears were constantly pricking at her eyes. It had all gone so horribly wrong. She’d been highly nervous, terrified of making a mistake, but she had been managing the evening well. She’d smiled, she’d listened, spoken a little and swallowed food that made her feel ill. She had made a good impression or so she’d thought, and Gerald had been pleased with her. This would have been the time to tell him what she needed him to know. But then that one devastating remark and everything had been thrown into the air.