Love's Obsession by Judy Powell Read Free Book Online Page B

Eleanor might have been sisters, both short and slim waisted, quietly spoken, well mannered and educated. Jim was the boldest of the three. Short and gangly he had the sort of Celtic complexion that suffers in the Australian climate, or in a Cypriot summer. A square jaw gave him a seriousness that his grin dispelled. Like Eve, he loved animals and adopted cats wherever he went. He knew his mind and did not take kindly to orders.

Chapter 3
England, Cyprus and the Near East, 1930–38
    Jim Stewart sat with his luggage in the foyer of the Grand Hotel in Bombay, waiting for the Thomas Cook guide to take him to the railway station. After Jim’s bags had been loaded into the car they sped through crowds of men, women, children, cows and goats towards that grand building. People spilled over into the street and the guide pushed men and children aside, with Jim clutching his bags to his chest as they both leapt into the railway carriage. He gasped with delight when he saw the beautifully outfitted first class cabin on the Gujerat Mail . This was English Imperial India at its best, he thought, as he ran his hands over the leather seats and investigated the reading lights and fan, toilet, shower and adjoining accommodation for servants. But no bedding! His Trinity Hall scarf and overcoat across the seat became his bedding and his attaché case his pillow. Unorthodox certainly, but comfortable. He sat down, opened his writing case, and filed away the train’s menu to be included later in a letter to his father.
    At Karachi he added photos, which he cross-referenced, and a list of his luggage, all forty-four pounds of it, including pyjamas, plus fours and dinner suits. As the train rattled through a landscape of peacocks and monkeys Jim noticed that the fences were stone, unlike the familiar timber ones he knew in Australia. A scrabbling at his window shutter alarmed him and he was glad he carried a pistol to scare off intruders. Jim Stewart was ready for anything.
    Born in Australia, Jim Stewart had spent much of his childhood in Europe, his adulthood in England, and was well versed in travel between Australia and Europe. His family had money and influence, and as an only child Jim enjoyed the benefits of both.
    After completing secondary school in Australia he had enrolled in 1930, aged seventeen, at The Leys School in Cambridge, where he spent two summer terms in preparation for entry to the University of Cambridge. Both his father and uncle were old boys of the school and had business connections with one of the school’s founders. Jim brought with him a reference from the headmaster of his Australian school, who recommended Jim as ‘a boy of excellent character and of more than average ability’, 1 although his school report from The Leys provides a more measured view of his abilities. His history master thought that ‘for one so widely read, such work of his as I have seen, has been a little disappointing’, adding that ‘one has seen enough of it to be sure that he will do well at the Varsity and later on’. According to his English teacher, his writing was ‘clumsy’ and he was ‘far too confident and slapdash in his literary judgements … If he read more receptively and were a little humbler in his attitude, his work would gain immensely’. 2 Jim’s life at The Leys scarcely rated a mention in the school’s records. He shot at the rifle competition in Bisley in 1931 but his personal score was the lowest of the team. 3
    Having passed the matriculation examination for entry into the University of Sydney, both Jim and his father assumed he could avoid the Cambridge entrance exam, but the headmaster of The Leys demurred. The whole affair seems ill considered and chaotic. In a letter to Trinity Hall, The Leys headmaster admitted that he had not yet received information from Mr Stewart as to which Tripos his boy would be taking at the university, and the boy