she repeated on a small breath. “I cannot be leaving this mission.”
“You must go with the nursing matron. If it is discovered that you took the girl, they will be killing you.”
Laine moved to the door and called out to the other girls who lived in the house. “Put together a quick bag with Eshana’s belongings. She is leaving with me straightaway.”
But Eshana stiffened. “I will not be leaving. On the night she died, Miriam told me to bring healing. It was me who Miriam trained to be midwife.”
At her stricken look he softened his voice with reverence. “Eshana, you cannot bring healing to others if you are dead. Perhaps one day when it is safe you may return.”
Laine spoke across the clinic room. “He’s right, Eshana. We’d gotten away with it once, but the second time we were noticed. Come with me. The train leaves in an hour.”
Comprehension made war with discontent on Eshana’s face. “I cannot go. If Chandra is discovered here, the rest of this house will be in danger. Those who are frightened Hindu fanatics may easily decide it was Mala or Harmindar who stole the girl.”
Laine met his eyes. “She’s right.”
He stroked his beard. “I will see that the patient is taken back to the Hindu temple—”
“No!” Eshana’s voice rang out like the tolling of a temple bell. “She will suffer in their care. If she does survive, she will live a life of degradation.” Her eyes pleaded. “Can you not take her to your clinic? You keep a handful of patients overnight.”
Her voice rippled over him like the flutter of leaves in the breeze. Like India herself, a virtuous and nurturing female to be respected and revered.
“Eshana, the girl cannot stay at my clinic. My father would not be allowing this, and I have no dwelling of my own to care for her. I live with my family.” But the fear in her eyes tore at his pious sounding words. “Surely you had a plan for Chandra when she became well. Tell me where you took the girl you rescued several months ago, and I will take our patient there.”
“To Poona, the Ramabai Mukti Mission.”
“But that is not far from Bombay. You must go by train with your friend. It is meant to be.”
Eshana’s brow wrinkled. “How can I take Chandra in her present condition?”
Laine cut in. “We’ll take her with us, you and I, and care for her.”
“In second class? How would that be possible?” But like the light of a small lamp, renewed hope shone from Eshana’s eyes.
“There’s a fellow I know with the railway,” the English nurse added, though doubt lined her brow. “He’s been begging to take me dancing for a year or more. I’m sure I can convince him to help us.”
Jai released the full urgency in his voice. “Go. You must not be delaying.”
Eshana’s gaze latched on to his with a fierceness one would never expect in so gentle a woman, but she nodded and raced from the surgery.
While Eshana and the mission girls gathered a few belongings together, he and Laine prepared the patient for transport. He unhooked the intravenous drip, and Laine packed the instruments and medicines she would need. Thanks to the wisdom of the God without form, Laine had kept a tonga waiting outside. He took the patient in his arms and carried her outside as Eshana hurried down the stairs with the other girls following. The tonga provided enough room to lay the girl down on a mat.
He and Laine settled the patient and turned to Eshana. Long farewells would increase the danger to her, but still she embraced the three women who would remain at the mission. Mala and Harmindar had lived in this house for as long as he could remember. The Muslim woman, Tikah, wept in Eshana’s arms as if she were saying good-bye to her own flesh and blood.
Eshana climbed into the conveyance, her gaze clinging to the women standing on the stoop of the tall, four-story house. When she had looked her fill, her gentle eyes turned to him.
He was a fool, but at the last minute he jumped to the seat at the front with the driver. It might be many months, perhaps never again, that he would see Eshana. He would at least make sure they arrived safely at the train station.
He looked around them at a few hostile glances in the crowded bazaar. If they arrived safely at the train station.
SIX
If Maurice, that vain peacock of a railroad administrator didn’t agree to her request, then Laine would have to care for Chandra in second class. But if she could simper enough to make Maurice think she was madly in love with him, he might break protocol and allow the two Indian girls into first class. It would cost a pretty packet—all her savings.
She felt sorry for Eshana though. Miriam’s mission had been her heart and soul. And Eshana wasn’t pleased either at leaving the handsome Sikh doctor. Eshana had never been to the picture theater. She had no idea that Jai’s flashing dark eyes, between his dark blue turban and black beard, held the same romantic mystique of Rudolph Valentino in the film The Sheik.
The patient stared up at Laine as their tonga rolled at a sedate pace. For the first time it struck Laine with horror. They’d never asked Chandra if she wanted to leave Amritsar.
The words to mention this hovered on her tongue when a shout reached them from the crowd in the bazaar. “It is those devils who seek to destroy caste. The ones who stole the dancing girl.”
Jai ordered the driver to pick up speed. Their route to the train station wound too close to the Hindu temple for comfort. He sent another look over his shoulder at the men chasing their tonga, and urged the driver to go faster. At the crack of a whip the horse bolted to a gallop, and people began to jump out of the way, screaming and shaking fists.
Laine hung onto the cart with one hand, and Eshana did the same, while both of them tried to keep their patient from being jostled. If Laine still believed in prayer, now would be a good time to offer one up. But most likely, Eshana was praying hard enough for all of them.
Shouts grew to an uproar, and Laine’s mouth went dry.
They passed the temple, but a group of people began to run after them, shouting, “Police! Stop!” The lead woman from the temple girls’ quarters also dashed up the street. Her jiggling rolls of fat at the gap of her sari didn’t seem to be slowing her down any.
Just as they turned the corner, their conveyance outran the angry knot of people following. Outside the redbrick station Laine yelled to the driver to stop.
Jai jumped from the front and picked up the girl while Laine and Eshana tugged down the luggage. Their Muslim driver didn’t wait for payment but vanished into a swarm of tongas and rickshaws. He no more wanted to be questioned by the Hindu mob than Laine and Eshana did.
They ran under the brick archway, racing past the doors for the separate refreshment rooms for Europeans, Muslims, Hindus and women in purdah. Jai followed with the girl, and they darted past the offices, Station Master and Telegraph. Passengers from a branch line hurried across the footbridge. All the while steam pulsed from the locomotive of the Bombay Mail, a huge black metal animal with gold trimmings, straining to
