Page 39 of The Sapphire Child
Stella crushed the letter to her chest and let out a squeal. Hugh still liked her! More than that, he pined for her. She read the letter again, savouring the words. He thought her pretty and missed her. And all this time she’d thought that it was Moira who had caught his interest. But he made no mention of the chaperone. She must have been mistaken in thinking there had ever been anything between Hugh and Moira. Stella berated herself for turning cool towards him and wasting the final couple of days avoiding his company because Moira was always around him.
She closed her eyes and conjured up Hugh’s broad smile, wavy brown hair and the way his dark-blue eyes creased when he laughed, which was frequently. Once, when he’d got soaked by a water game on deck, he’d pulled off his shirt and she’d seen his sinewy body, the skin pale in contrast to his sunburnt neck and forearms. She’d experienced a delicious frisson at the sudden exposure of bare skin and the way his firm muscles had stretched as he’d shed his wet shirt.
So, he didn’t have a sweetheart waiting for him in Ireland. It struck her that she didn’t really know much about Hugh, and Andrew hadn’t been able to tell her many details either. He’d mentioned that he came from farming stock and that’s why he’d applied for the Agricultural Service in India. He’d called his family Anglo-Irish, which she’d gathered meant they were Protestant and had links to England.
She hadn’t mentioned that she was Anglo-Indian because she knew he wouldn’t see that as the same thing at all; she was not equivalent to him socially. Yet he hadn’t struck her as a man who would mind that she might have a trace of Indian blood far backin her lineage. But should she be frank and tell him before they embarked on a friendship?
She dismissed the unsettling thought. He liked her for who she was – and she liked him. They could write to each other and see what happened when they both got back to India. There was nothing improper in that. She felt a thrill at the thought of striking up a courtship by letter with the handsome Hugh Keating.
Stella could hardly eat that evening. All she wanted to do was go to her room, compose a letter to Hugh and write up her diary for this momentous day. She was hopeful she might be able to slip away after supper and not join the others in the drawing room. Thursday was the evening that Minnie went out to visit a widowed friend, MrsGuthrie, so perhaps Lydia would be content to play a quiet game of cards with her son. Stella found it increasingly difficult to sit in the same room as Lydia and listen to her litany of woes or waspish comments about anyone who wasn’t a Templeton.
The bell rang, summoning her to the drawing room, and her heart sank.
Stella could tell straight away that Lydia was drunk. Her face was flushed, her eyes unfocused and her voice was loud. Stella went to a corner chair and opened the sewing box she’d brought with her.
‘Put that away and sit down here,’ Lydia ordered, pointing at the chair opposite her.
Stella hesitated. Andrew glanced at her over his game of patience and she saw the tension in his face. Her pulse quickened as she forced a smile and perched on the sofa.
‘So, tell me,’ said Lydia, ‘who’s been writing to you from Dublin?’
Stella quelled her annoyance. It was none of her business. But if Lydia knew it was from a young unmarried Irishman from the ship then she might make things awkward for her. No doubt Lydia would write to Tom or even her parents about it and prevent her writing back to Hugh.
‘It was from a MrsFrench,’ said Stella. ‘We met on the boat but I forgot she came from Dublin.’
She caught a disbelieving look from Andrew. Well, it was only a half-lie. The letter had come from MrsFrench’s Dublin home and that’s to whom she would reply.
Lydia seemed disappointed and gave a wave of her hand. ‘I always find the Irish rather garrulous, don’t you?’
‘Friendly people, I’d say,’ Stella replied.
Lydia picked up her empty sherry glass and handed it to her. ‘Be a dear and fill this up again.’
Stella took her time going to the table with the decanter and half-filling the glass. There was no Minnie there to try and restrain Lydia’s drinking. Handing back the glass, she asked, ‘Would you like me to put on some music, MrsLomax?’
‘Not tonight,’ Lydia said. ‘You’ve had enough stimulation for one day, according to my son.’
Stella looked across at Andrew and saw the heat creep into his cheeks.
‘Oh yes.’ Lydia gave a drunken laugh. She was slurring her words. ‘He’s told me all about you playing golf and the vulgar paintings that Indian man hangs in the dining room. I hope the old colonel’s spinning in his grave.’
Stella thought it best to say nothing.
‘I must say, I think it quite extraordinary of Tibby to have you all trooping around the old tower and poking into bedrooms as if she were showing off some grand country house. I can’t think what the Langleys must really have thought of it. They were impeccably polite but it doesn’t exactly show the Lomaxes in a good light, does it? The place is so down-at-heel and yet Tibby behaves as if her family are still of high standing. I bet she boasted to the Langleys that the Lomaxes are descended from Robert the Bruce. Did she, Andrew?’
He looked up in interest. ‘Are we descended from Robert the Bruce?’
Lydia swigged her sherry and huffed. ‘I doubt it. But the Lomaxes always looked down their noses at us Templetons – even though we could have bought them out lock, stock and barrel.’
‘I’m proud to be a Lomax,’ Andrew said, with an intense look in his eyes that reminded Stella of Tom. ‘We’re a family of warriors and I want to be one too. Noel was really impressed – he wishes he was one of us.’
Lydia’s expression darkened. She polished off her drink. ‘Warriors?’
‘Yes.’ Andrew grew animated. ‘My great-grandfather helped put down the Indian Mutiny and my grandfather fought the Afghans – he was a friend of General Roberts of Kandahar. Even Dad told me that.’
‘Did he now? And what else didDadsay?’
Stella was uneasy at the icy tone.
