‘They already have and they already do. Look, I’d better go. Please keep it to yourself for now. I don’t really want Clifford knowing I was there. He’ll only blame Jay or try to restrict what I can do.’
Dottie touched her hand. ‘Darling, I can’t let you go in this state. You’re actually shaking. Stay and have a bite to eat. Just a sandwich maybe?’
Later that afternoon Eliza busied herself in her darkroom, and when she wasn’t in there she lost herself in remembering what she had seen and what Dottie had said. When she thought of Jay she found herself warming to him even more than before. She had wanted to ask him again about destiny and couldn’t stop thinking about that either. Was it, like fate, something you had no control over? If it was, she could never agree with such a fatalistic view of life.
Her thoughts turned to Indira. She’d need to think of a way to encourage friendship with the girl rather than competition. After a while she undressed and lay on her bed, listening to the birds outside her window. At first the voices of the past wouldn’t let her go. First her father promising her he would wave, then Oliver just before he stormed out, slamming the door on the marriage and on his own life. But eventually, exhausted by a mix of grief and shock, she fell asleep.
A knock at the door woke her and, thinking it must be Indi or Kiri, she wrapped a loose silk robe around herself and went to the door, her hair completely dishevelled. To her surprise Jay stood there. They stared at each other and, as her cheeks grew hot, she pulled the robe more tightly over her breasts.
‘What do you want?’ she managed to say.
‘My mother wishes to speak with you.’
‘Why did you come to tell me? Have I done something wrong?’
‘No. She simply suggested it.’
Throughout this exchange she had held his gaze. Now he averted his eyes for a moment before looking back at her. ‘Eliza, I …’
‘Yes?’
He reached out and touched her hair. ‘You have beautiful hair.’
She smiled. ‘I think you may have told me before.’
There was something in his expression that made her feel more than she wanted to feel. But was he playing with her? She fingered the silver chain she always wore and the small gemstone that sat in the hollow of her throat, then touched the place where her pulse raced. In that moment England seemed very distant. In fact every time he looked at her, England felt more and more distant.
‘Will you wait in the corridor? Actually, hang on, you might take a look at these while I get dressed.’ She stepped back, picked up her contact sheets and handed them to him, her hands trembling. She mustn’t let him affect her like this.
While dressing she heard someone speaking in Hindi out in the corridor and went over to the door to see if she could hear what it was about.
First she recognized Jay’s low voice, but then a shrill female voice took over and, though she couldn’t make out the words, it became clear that the voice was Indira’s. Eliza did not consider herself beautiful but had experienced female envy before. When she was at boarding school a group of girls had held her down and chopped off her long hair. She’d lived in terror after that, and the last thing she needed now, where she was feeling so out of her depth, was to be the victim of another woman’s malice.
Eventually the corridor went quiet and, as Eliza emerged, Jay was pacing up and down while glancing at her photos.
‘Trouble?’ she asked.
‘Sorry, I didn’t get much of a chance to look at these but I really do understand what you mean about the poverty. We become inured to it, you see. Can I keep them for a while?’ He gave her half a smile and then shook his head. ‘You were right about Indira too. I’ve been blind.’
‘Always easier for an outsider to spot such things.’
He sighed. ‘I never encouraged her. I have no feelings of that kind towards her. It would have been absolutely wrong and I always think of her as a kid sister.’ He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. ‘When I marry it will have to be with somebody of equal birth. If anything happens to my brother I have to take over.’
Well, that’s pretty clear, Eliza thought.
‘As I said, if Anish dies, I succeed to the throne, though Chatur will do everything in his power to prevent that. There is a great deal I’d want to change, and right at the top of the list would be reducing Chatur’s role. But to do it I would have to conform to tradition.’
‘Of course. It’s nothing to do with me either way.’ She steeled herself not to show any emotion at his tone of voice or the content of his words, but what he’d said had taken her aback and she wondered if it had been a warning message for her too.
‘Now let’s go and talk to Laxmi. By the way, I have already spoken to Clifford Salter about thesati. He was shocked, as you would expect, and promises to look into it.’ He paused. ‘I didn’t mention you had seen it too. Should I have?’
‘No. I’d rather he didn’t know. I don’t want him to overprotect me.’
‘The fact is he will be able to do very little.’
Jay led her through the endless corridors and rooms to the blue vestibule she’d waited in when she’d first arrived.
‘Indi painted this room for my mother.’
