Almost English
1886, Quetta, India (present-day Pakistan). On a frosty, windy day, in a bungalow, newlyweds Lily and Stephen Turner huddle for warmth under a blanket on kitchen chairs in front of the coal stove. Suddenly, upon hearing the walls rumbling and shaking, Stephen, recognizing it as an earthquake, grabs Lily, and they rush out of the cottage onto the open ground as their house tumbles, crushing all their life’s possessions.
Pretty, Scottish Lily is the daughter of a British Army warrant officer. The handsome Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) Stephen, although having attended school in England, is still a sub-overseer on railway-line construction. He is constantly passed over for better-paid junior clerical positions that the Raj has opened to natives. He had met Lily at church and, fortunately, been invited to tea by her mother. Lily and Stephen fall in love and, defying the norms of that period, marry. They must overcome bigotry and hardships to survive.
Barbara Sibbald has put her journalistic and novel-writing experience to good use in penning this captivating bio-fiction novel based on the lives of her maternal great-grandparents, Lily and Stephen. She began researching her family’s genealogy and was thrilled to find the grave of her first ancestor in India, Stephen’s British grandfather, who had a common-law Indian wife, in a Calcutta cemetery. Sibbald’s visit to her mother’s family in Scotland yielded treasured letters, photos, paintings, and artifacts of Lily and Stephen. Sibbald has used this wealth of information in the story to transport us to the settings and listen to the people’s dialogue and thoughts. She has highlighted the reality that educated Anglo-Indians fared no better than the natives under the Raj. We learn much about the benefits and harms of colonialism, and about Indians’ aspirations for self-rule, from the characters’ drawing-room discussions. Highly recommended.
