Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn Read Free Book Online

for he said so must have the earth itself appeared to Adam and Eve.”
    She left off then to ring for Jolly and dinner was served. To my astonishment, there was not a single course, not a single dish, to speak to our surroundings. We might have been dining in a rectory in Reading for all the exoticism at that table. The food was correctly, rigidly English, from the starter of mushrooms on toast to the stodgy bread pudding. It had been cooked with skill, to be sure, but it lacked the flavour I had come to appreciate during my long months of travel. I had learnt to love oily fishes and pasta and olives and any number of spicy things on my adventures, and I had forgot how cheerless British cooking could be.
    Harry gave me a conspiratorial nod. “It is deliberately bland because we must preserve our palates for tasting the tea. There are bowls of condiments if you require actual flavour in yourfood,” he added. I spooned a hearty helping of chutney upon my portion to find it helped immeasurably.
    Over dinner, Miss Cavendish related to us the disposition of the valley.
    “We are the only real planters in the valley,” she said proudly. “There is a small tea garden at the Bower, but nothing to what we have here. Theirs is a very small concern,” she added dismissively. “Almost the whole of the valley is entirely within the estate, and we employ all of the pickers hereabouts. Doubtless you will see them along the road, although I will warn you they can be importunate. Do not give them anything.”
    Portia bristled. “Surely that is a matter best left to one’s own conscience,” she said as politely as she could manage.
    “It is not,” Miss Cavendish returned roundly. “With all due courtesy, Lady Bettiscombe, you do not have to live amongst them. Our policies towards the local people have been developed over the course of many decades, and we cling to them because they work. Money is of no use to them for there is nothing to buy.” She warmed to her theme. “There have been planters, English planters, who have been foolish enough to meddle with the ways of the mountain folk. When it has gone awry, they have found themselves without pickers. The natives simply vanished, passing on to the next valley and leaving them with a crop and no one to pick it. They have failed and lost everything because of one moment of misguided compassion,” she said sternly. “That will not happen at the Peacocks.”
    I noticed Jane said little, simply picking at her food. I wondered if she felt poorly, or if her nerves had simply gotten the better of her, and I was as relieved for her sake as mine when the meal was over, signalled by Jolly ringing his gong and announcing, “Dinner is finished.”
    We rose and Miss Cavendish turned to us. “We keep planters’hours here, I am afraid. We seldom engage in evening entertainments, and you are doubtless tired from your journey. We will say good-night.”
    Upon this point we were entirely agreed, and the party broke up, each of us making our way upstairs with a single candle, shielded with a glass lamp against sudden draughts. A sharp wind had risen in the evening, and the house creaked and moaned in the shadows and every few minutes, a piercing shriek rent the night. “Peacocks,” I reassured myself, but I shivered as I made my way to my room where Morag was sitting, wide-eyed upon the edge of the bed.
    “Devils,” she muttered.
    “Nonsense. The place was named for peacocks. Doubtless there are still some about. They put up a terrible fuss, but they will not hurt you.”
    She fixed me with a sceptical eye and I knew capitulation was my only hope if I expected to sleep.
    I sighed. “Very well. You may sleep in here tonight,” I told her. If I had expected her to make up a sleeping pallet at the hearth, I was sadly mistaken, for no sooner had she helped me out of my gown and locked away my jewels than she dropped her shoes to the floor and climbed into the great bed, taking the side