Sunset at Scandal Point

Chapter 8

Cindy had been able to gather the story of her 18-year-old aunt who had visited Shimla from the accounts shared by her family members and the letters sent from India by her aunt that she had read. Based on the inputs Cindy had, she had generated some images of Liz, her aunt, with the help of AI. It was a wild goose chase, though. Actually, Cindy was looking at Liz, a free spirited girl, as her own self in a different era. That's why it is so much of interest to her.

Her aunt, Liz, had earned a seat on a ship sailing to India as the companion of the family of a British official known to Major Smith, Liz's brother in law who had lost his wife to cholera and had a 3 year old son to be looked after. Liz was a distant cousin of Smith's wife, and she desperately needed support since both her parents were dead.

As for the time period, Liz was headed to Shimla in the the second half of the 19th century, which was perhaps the 1870s or thereabouts. Liz had come to India purportedly to take care of her cousin's toddler son. However, she did not have much of an option as both her parents were dead, and she had not inherited a fortune. As for her study, she had somehow finished school. Perhaps she would find a groom for herself from among the young Britishers living in India working as a civil servant or an army officer or as a planter somewhere up in the tea gardens of the Himalayas—that's what everyone who wished her well during departure fancied for her. Misfortune followed her since her sea voyage began. The family that bore the expenditure for her sea voyage to India treated her like a menial servant, and she was not keen to continue with them once they landed in Bombay. So, Major Smith, her distant, recently widowed brother-in-law was her only hope, who she thought would make her feel welcome in this country that was so far-off and so different from Britain.

Her only fear was that her brother in law might wish to marry her in order to have someone permanently in his household to raise his son. He was 36, way older than her, who had just turned 18 when she boarded the ship to Bombay. If such a thought crossed her brother in law's mind, she would not know how to say 'no' to him.

Those days marriage itself was a lifelong career just like in Jane Austen's novels. And in the Brtish Raj, the concept of the Fishing Fleet did exist wherein a shipload of eligible young women arrived on the shores of India to go husband hunting. India was quite different from Britain as far as lasting of the marriage was concerned. With innumerable mysterious diseases that often proved fatal, early death of either the husband or the wife could not be discounted. Many a time death brought an opportunity to come out of a marriage that had not worked well for either of the spouses. Remarriages were quite acceptable and considered normal. Fate presented a woman often a chance to bury the memories of ill treatments by a husband gone crazy in hot weather of a foreign country as soon as a remarriage proposal came up.

Liz had not, however, arrived by such a Fishing Fleet. She had to earn her voyage by taking care of some entitled travelers of privileged gentry who had done well for themselves in the system that thrived on exploiting the colony.

She was not disappointed when she arrived at Major Smith's residential quarters, which had a retinue of staff both male and female. There was nothing much for her to do except perhaps sing lullaby songs for her nephew or tell him some stories, as an ayah did everything that a four year old kid needed. The orderly took her luggage to a large room that opened in the backyard. So, she realized that she would be having a room to herself that had quite a few racks full of books. Major Smith was on a tour and would not be back till the next month. With so many servants at her beck and call, everything was just a shout away.

What the cook or khansama cooked was something entirely different from what she had eaten so far in her life. The very first day, she asked the ayah to join her for lunch in the backyard, which she reluctantly accepted.