Selina Suhla Craig had watched her husband’s ship disappear over the horizon. As she stood on the wharf, she conceived her plan. It may take him a year or more to get to Scotland, but I will go there first and be well established before he arrives. Another ship will be leaving in two months’ time. Such a venture would surely be worth any of the trials that I might encounter along the way. And I cannot trust him to send for me. Yes, she reaffirmed her decision, how clever, how smart I am. If she hadn’t been resourceful and aggressive, she wouldn’t have been educated in the Queen’s school, wouldn’t have been chosen to be the secretary for the Craig Shipping Lines, nor would she have succeeded in gaining the wealthy ship owner’s attention, becoming his wife and the vessel for his child.
She considered it a blessing when she received word before she left that he had died. The report stated that he had succumbed from head injuries received during a storm at sea. Now as heir to his estate she planned to, on behalf of her unborn child, lay claim to the ships, his manor and the jewels. Yes, he had told her of the emeralds, each the size of an eye, concealed, the story went, somewhere in the mansion. Story or not, she believed in them. Hadn’t everything else about Robert been true? Why not the gems?
The Billy Khay groaned and labored, tossing its cargo and passengers about as if it were straining to abort them. Selina, wedged securely between the rib and the narrow shelf that supported her cot, resisted the spasms of the ship. If ever there was a doubt in her mind about her journey to Scotland, it was at that moment. But as she breathed in the damp salt air and tasted the bile that filled her mouth, Selina swore by her life that she would be the Mistress of Wistmere.
* * *
A blinding rain cloaked the harbor and all but beat the passengers back onto the ship when it arrived in Scotland. With unsteady steps Selina and her servant boarded a coach to take them over the moorland to Wistmere. Stretching herself across the cold leather seat, Selina breathed a deep resentful sigh. How she longed for her soft bed and a warm fire.
A concern creased Mayeya’s brow. Having gotten so large with child, her mistress had ceased being physically abusive, now only berating her with her tongue, and in two languages.
“Are you ill?” The child-maid dared to ask.
Selina glared at her, and Mayeya slid further away, her bag separating her from her mistress. Then she remained silent.
Ignoring her servant, thoughts of comforts filled Selina’s mind, a hot perfumed bath, a steamy cup of tea, and the softness of a silky sari around her instead of a linen one. In spite of the cold and the rough ride, Selina fell asleep. Her dreams weren’t those of bodily pleasures but were plagued with shadows and dark faces with illuminated eyes and sharp teeth. She was jolted awake as the carriage came to a halt, and the driver threw open the door.
“I canna’ go on,” he yelled over the storm. “I must turn back!”
“Turn back? What do you mean? I cannot go back!” Selina’s words were barely distinctive over the howl of the wind.
“Then ye’ll have to be gettin’ oot here, lassie.”
The driver cared little that the foreign passengers couldn’t navigate the uneven terrain with its unavoidable stubbles of grass and ankle deep mud holes. Nor did he care that he discharged his passengers in a deluge that would soon soak through their feeble cloaks and chill them to the marrow.
“I’ll be takin’ your trunk back with me. It’ll be stored until ye come for it. But here be your bags.” He tossed them to the ground.
Half of his shouted directions were lost in the screeching of the wind and the groaning of the coach wheels as he turned the rig around. With blithe disregard, he pointed out the muddy route which they were to follow, and then he and the carriage disappeared into the driving rain, back the way he had come.
Jerking her maid’s wrap from her, Selina draped it around her own body. The girl didn’t say a word. She picked up the bags, ready to do as she was bid. The black mud sucked at her ankles and the cold slapped her with reality. Tears poured down Mayeya’s cheeks. She had been wrong about Scotland. It was a thousand times worse than India!
They hadn’t gone far when Mayeya saw a flickering light through the sheeting rain and strained to make out its source. Like a flaming pillar it beckoned to her as if it were the eye of the god Surya, offering warmth and light. She pointed it out to her mistress. Leaning on Mayeya, Selina set her course toward it and, as she did so, she cursed the coachman who was afraid that “the bloody mud will swalla’ the carriage”.
“Cowardly man,” she spat. The curse that followed was in Hindi.
Mayeya scanned the desolate moor which looked like the remote bowels of the sea, its grass being pushed to and fro by impassioned currents of wind and rain. Once her mistress stumbled, and she made an attempt to catch her. But Selina knocked her hand away as she gained her footing.
“Indra!” Selina screamed. “Do not follow me! Go plague my enemies!” But the Hindu god of thunder and rain ignored her as if it were his intent to disavow
