Free The Letter by Sylvia Atkinson Page A

had access to the most influential society in the district.
     
    *  *  *  *  *
     
    The low roofed clinic in Bareilly housed a pharmacy and was the only one in the area with separate facilities to treat the poor. Ben was joined by two other experienced doctors and a recently qualified junior. They trained proficient medical orderlies who were often poached by the military hospital. Every day the line of patients grew longer, sometimes stretching out into the narrow road. Margaret wanted to help but Ben forbad it. Instead she busied herself raising money at tea and garden parties to fund the enterprise.
    Liberal Indian society found her amusing; donated money but avoided any references she made to Aakesh. Margaret didn’t know why but she did know that caste was supreme, providing a strict framework for social interaction.
    She had learned so much since she landed in India seven months ago and grown accustomed to life with a mainly absentee husband. Indeed it was a relief to be freed from Ben’s constant instruction. Although her health was much better she was still troubled by the vagaries of the climate. Materially she wanted for nothing but she had to ask. This was galling for in effect she was trapped without personal money and tolerated by British women because of her husband’s powerful position.
    In Britain and its territories class was extremely effective at politely marginalizing outsiders while keeping the native population in their place. Margaret wasn’t certain what her place was. She often thought of her family in Scotland but this was unsettling, weakening her resolve to make the most of the life she had chosen.
     
    *  *  *  *  *
     
    Margaret was enjoying a rare evening with Ben, “Charuni I have built an English House for you with furniture and fittings from abroad. You will keep your own servants when we transfer there.”
    “Transfer… !” She echoed incredulously. “Where is this house?”
    “Where else but in the grounds of Aakesh…”
    Pregnant again, Margaret was terrified of giving birth without her mother’s support. The summer months’ soaring temperatures and dripping humidity made her irritable. Bathed in torrents of sweat, it was as much as she could do to sit still. She’d planned to have Muni with her at the birth and, if there was an emergency, the military hospital was nearby.
    “I didn’t need an English house to meet your mother,” she said petulantly.
    “Charuni, Charuni…” Ben said, shaking his head as if she was a child. “My mother is in charge at Aakesh. She runs it according to our tradition. I wanted you to have a separate place of your own before we reached there.”
    Margaret didn’t understand what he meant. She didn’t want to live separately from Ben’s family. Divided from her own she expected to find the support and companionship she badly needed from his. “It’s the baby…” she explained. “I’ve waited this long to meet your family. I’d rather wait a little longer in Bareilly until after the birth.”
    Unfortunately this brought another rebuke from her husband, “Are you forgetting that I am a doctor… as good as any with the British? I will be with you. We move in a week.”
     

Chapter 12  
     
    Aakesh 1936
     
    Cloudless blue sky and flat fertile fields stretched way into the distance on either side of the road leading out of Bareilly. Occasionally, copses of ancient oak-like trees with a few optimistic traders crouching beneath bountiful leaves drew Margaret’s attention from the discomfort of the journey.
    “Aakesh…” Ben proclaimed as they approached the drive of a magnificent stone mansion dominating the landscape, surrounded by a high wall. Carved balconies arranged in tiers ran round its upper storeys and everywhere there were trees: thick leaved banana, banyan, pomegranate, limes, lemons, oranges, apples, peaches and grove upon grove of mangoes.
    He reeled off the family’s assets: land as far as the eye