The Hope of Shridula Read Online Free

birds daring enough to have built their nest in a corner of the roof awakened and offered their own morning call. "For the land of India I pray, Almighty God, with fear and trembling for what is certain to come."
    A young girl tiptoed up the steep stairs bearing a tray with a china teapot and a single cup painted with blue forget-me-nots. Carefully she placed the tray on the small table and turned to go.
    "Thank you, dear," Miss Abigail said.
    The girl flashed a sunny smile and skipped toward the stairs.
    "Lelee, wait!" Miss Abigail called after her. "Do stay and share the tea with me this morning."
    "I must not," the girl said. " Memsahib says I am to get right back to my chores."
    Miss Abigail sighed. Alone, she breathed in the fragrance of the steamy-hot tea, spiced with cloves and ginger and cardamom and just a pinch of pepper. Silky with rich water buffalo milk and sweetened the way she liked it with raw sugar. Chai, the flavor and aroma of Indian mornings. How accustomed Miss Abigail had become to it over the past forty years.
    The spicy tea, sunrise prayers from the rooftop, days of relentless heat—some things never changed. But so much else had. For many years, it was Miss Abigail who had run the English Mission Medical Clinic. Doctors came and went, but she remained the constant. She treated injuries. She bandaged the injured limbs of lepers. She saw the villagers through horrific epidemics. She also cared for any children who found respite in the mission compound—fed them, mended their bodies, told them stories of Jesus, and gave them their first lessons in English.
    No more, though. Not since Dr. William Cooper and his wife, Susanna, moved down from Calcutta. The first thing they did was order the construction of this small cottage and move her into it, well away from the real work of the clinic. The second thing they did was make plans to send the children away.
    Miss Abigail sank down into one of the two chairs and poured steaming chai into the single forget-me-not cup.
     

     
    Dr. William Cooper, readjusting himself uneasily in the great room of the clinic compound, sipped from his own cup of tea—English, not Indian. Unsweetened, the way he always insisted it be served, without "that disgusting gray cast of wretched milk." He sneaked furtive glances at his uninvited guest—an Indian man dressed in a western shirt worn loose over his native mundu sarong-like garment.
    "What is this pressing matter you wish to discuss with me?" Dr. Cooper asked. But before the Indian could answer, the doctor added, "Please do keep in mind that this is a British clinic. Must I remind you that it is firmly under the protection of his majesty, King George?"
    "Yes, yes, I am being most aware of that," the visitor answered, summoning up his best command of the English language. "This clinic, it is being treating the poor and ill for many years now, and we are being most grateful. But you are surely understanding that change is being underway in India. Unrest is being here, spread from the north of the country down to us here in the south. Now we, too, are experiencing turmoil of our own. With this agitation against you, the British, being increasing, I must to be most eagerly expressing words of great caution for you. It is true that threatenings are made against your safety."
    "Our safety! I cannot see as how the poor beggars we get out at this clinic could prove much of a threat to our well-being. We have been and shall remain firmly under the protection of the British Crown."
    "Yes, sahib, that is so. But as things are standing, I am being—"
    "I say, did you state your name to be Rajeev?"
    "Yes, sahib."
    "Well, now, that alone does not tell me much, does it? Who exactly might you be, Rajeev?"
    "I am being Rajeev Nathan Varghese. I am being a member of the most respected and most important landowner Varghese family. Surely you heard of us. My uncle Boban Joseph—he is being the most important man in the whole of the area.