The Red Thread Read Online Free PDF Page B

young frame of Lilian Aratoun. She said little but twice asked Takouhi whether her brother, Tigran, was well, and when he would be visiting Singapore again.
    Meena Shashtri wore a green and gold sari . She had been widowed after her third child had been born. Her husband, for whom she had not much cared, had had the good manners to die and leave her in charge of the family fortunes, of which she took prodigiously good care. She spoke good, clear and very correct English in clipped but lilting tones.
    It was the owner of the lovely eyes and the pink sarong , though, who had the most intriguing tale. Sharifah Kapoor had been part of the old sultan’s harem, brought here from Rhio—the islands to the south, she explained for Charlotte’s benefit. Though the sultan had grown so fat he rarely went near the women, his wife would often fly into rages and take sticks to the pretty young girls. After a particularly vicious attack one day, thirty-one of them agreed to run away. One early morning they made their way out of the harem at Kampong Glam which was, in any case, poorly guarded. They turned up at the police station and appealed for mercy. Despite angry objections from the sultan, the governor, having seen the state of their backs, arms and faces, granted them freedom. Many went off with merchants, some to be concubines in the Chinese houses, but Sharifah had gone to live with her now husband, Kapoor, a policeman who was Robert’s top sergeant, his jemadar .
    Red-haired and freckled, Elizabeth Scott was a well-developed thirteen-year-old. She was a bonny creature with a fiery look which seemed to increase the heat in the room. She burned very easily in the sun and, like Mrs Keaseberry, went everywhere with a bonnet and a parasol. This last information she had imparted with an air of superiority, as if a tendency to burn in the sun were a sign of good breeding. She had the singular distinction, much appreciated by her and some of her acquaintances, of being the niece of Captain William Scott, the harbour master, himself a cousin of the famous author, Sir Walter. She had dressed this morning in a shade of fuchsia which merely added to the overall picture of a furnace. She said little, but when she spoke, Charlotte could hear her strong Scottish accent. She and her elder brother had arrived only a few months ago, after the death of their mother, to reside with their uncle. Despite her predisposition to dislike everything Scottish, Charlotte felt sorry for the girl’s situation which so closely mirrored her own.
    Evangeline Barbie perfectly illustrated why few white women cared for the tropics. She was thin from frequent fevers, her skin ravaged by the harshness of a life spent in the service of the natives and of God in regions ruder and lonelier than Singapore. She had married once, but he had died regrettably young. Now in her fifties, she was resolutely cheerful. ‘One must make ze best of zings,’ she said with a brittle laugh.
    Annie da Silva, though herself English, was entirely at home in Singapore. The fifth Mrs da Silva had been born and bred in India, had never been to England and didn’t care to go. She had met her husband in Calcutta and, though he was her senior by more than twenty years, was very happy to be rid of that city, which she considered unhealthy, and to live in the cleaner climes and breezier town of Singapore. She took care of her twins and Mr da Silva’s younger children, and had little to do with the rest of the brood, who looked after themselves. She hadn’t expected twins, she had explained, and loved the name Isabel, which was her mother’s, so had simply named them both a variant of it. Neither she nor the girls seemed to find anything odd about this, and the girls rather enjoyed the confusion it generally created.
    Charlotte’s gaze now rested on Takouhi Manouk. She was the coolest-looking woman in the room. The Europeans were trussed up like wheat