Jane Coverdale - The Jasmine Wife

Within the compound of her old home, the giant figs and magnolias had hung like canopies, protecting the delicate English flowers from the burning sun. At times, even roses and lavender were coaxed into bloom and, for a moment, it was possible to imagine it was England after all.

She recalled looking up, shading her eyes against the hazy sky, distracted by the sound of fighting vultures above her head. Then, as wild as the imaginings of a nightmare, the remains of a human arm had dropped with a sickening soft thud on the ground near her feet.

They should have known it wasn’t possible to keep India out, despite the high walls surrounding the house.

Sometimes, homeless widows who had banded together for protection, or cast off wives bearing scars left by cruel husbands, came to the gates to beg for food, knowing they would never be turned away without a decent meal or a moment’s comfort from their brutal and pitiable lives. Or an emaciated holy man, exhausted from constant travel but lit with a strange inner fire that seemed to sustain him through every human trial, would beg sanctuary in the cool garden in return for blessings on the household.

Then, again, they would be reminded that, outside their ordered and tranquil oasis, there was India: the real India, desperate, hungry and passionate.

Her mother’s face rose before her, the features hazy but idealised to perfection, an image fixed forever in her mind, as no picture of her survived to tell the truth of her loveliness.

She recalled the sensation of being lifted to sit on her mother’s lap, the rustling of silk, the fleeting fragrance of Attar of Roses rising from her clothes at her every movement, her high gay laugh, childlike still, as she ran barefoot across the lawn to join her little daughter in play.

To Sara she seemed to have always been a wraith, a fairy, with no more substance to her than a dream. Her father was a stronger memory, as she wore a miniature of his likeness in a locket around her neck.

The shape of his face was like her own, the full mouth and thick chestnut hair, but more real to her than his image was the faint memory of a pleasant aroma of sandalwood and tobacco, and how he had read his newspaper to her, and encouraged her to read books well above her age. It was he who’d encouraged her to speak Hindi, and to play with the village children so she could learn their ways.

He was kind to everyone, especially the servants, and spoke to her often, even as a tiny child, on the need to remember that all humans were created equal, at least in his home. And, even from the distance of time, she could recall a hint of bitterness in his voice as he spoke those words.

It was a message that had stayed with her throughout her life, and she had clung to it, as a gift he had left her, even though she was often reprimanded by her aunt for being too familiar with the servants.

Then, without warning, there were dim shadows and pain, a blurred image of a crouching figure by her bed, forcing bitter liquid through her clenched teeth. The hallucination intensified with the sounds of strange indistinct chanting, a fierce brown face close to her own, rising and falling through the mist.

Then, later, only six years old and an orphan now, dazed and frail still, being led away from the prostrate and weeping Malika.

Then a long sea voyage to England with an unknown English nanny, who held her hand in a tight grip as she waited on the doorstep of her Aunt Maria’s home, till the door opened, and she was brought inside to be taken care of.

No one knew how painful it had been to be uprooted from everything she had loved, to be left to find her way in a cold country, in the cold house of indifferent people.

There was rarely any discussion about her dead parents or the home she had left behind. It seemed there was an unspoken decision to put the whole episode out of her mind, and all memories must die with her parents. She recalled her aunt’s words whenever she dared to broach the subject. “Your father had a wild side … somewhat like you at times …” she would say with a reproving sniff, “and it was hoped India would bring him to heel. But things went from bad to worse … We knew little of your mother, only that he said she had some Spanish blood, which would explain those eyebrows of yours, and your father was determined to have her.”

She didn’t say, ‘in spite of the objections of the family’, though it was clearly implied.

“He broke with us as you know, and the first we knew of you was a letter telling us both your parents were dead. They found you in the servants’ quarters with an Indian woman and some barbarian priest. That’s how you came to be here, and that’s all we know of the unfortunate episode.”

Even her name had been considered too pagan for this new world. She’d been christened Sarianna as an affectionate salute to the country of her birth and had known nothing else. When it was dropped in favour of Sara, “a respectable English name”, she had been too young to protest. She’d become Sara Archer, though somewhere in the back of her mind was a vague recollection of another name, a name she couldn’t remember.

It wasn’t Archer, she was certain of that, and her aunt had no intention of enlightening her.

The subject was dropped, and it was unwise to attempt to raise it again, but Sara could see she knew more than she was prepared to tell. She just wasn’t going to, and now that she’d died after her long illness the name had died with her.

The mystery of her parentage didn’t seem to matter compared to the enormity of her loss. As a child, numb with shock, she went through the motions of living; of attending boarding school; of strict rules and petty punishments; of eating lukewarm, tasteless food, and learning how to stifle any show of ill-bred passion.

It was hoped she had been well and truly immunised against the more fervent emotions, though they hadn’t been entirely successful.

Her small rebellions showed in the letters of complaint sometimes sent home to her aunt.

“Sara is at times sullen and unruly. She runs when she might walk and seems to have no interest in the feminine arts. She has also been found reading a book of a nature we find unsuitable for a girl of her years and written by a Frenchman no less! She has been duly reprimanded, and the book confiscated. Her most serious misdemeanour is of riding a horse bareback outside of the usual riding lessons. You know what irreparable damage that may do to a young girl. Perhaps even blight her chances of a respectable marriage. Need I say more …”

Sara Archer, a good plain name for a good plain girl, though with her unusual colouring and high cheekbones she should have been a beauty, but, after years of stodgy boarding school food, she was overweight and cursed with sallow, dull skin made worse by the long English winters.

Her aunt despaired of the girl’s appearance, using every remedy short of powder and rouge, though, even with the daily doses of castor oil and cream of tartar to whiten her complexion, her skin remained lacklustre and dull. Her hair though had always been admired. In a plait it was as thick as a man’s fist, and even her aunt admitted grudgingly the colour was lovely, despite being more red than brown, and too heavy to crimp successfully with curling irons.

Though the cold weather was her chief enemy to beauty, it seemed her nose was always pink and swollen, her eyes constantly watering and her body stiff and ungainly.

She felt she was almost always shivering, except for the few brief, warm luxurious moments spent in bed in the morning before hastily dressing in her icy room then rushing downstairs for breakfast, where she sat as close to the meagre fire as she could, her hands clutched around her teacup, desperately trying to warm her chilblained fingers.