by Olivia
Estelle locked the door behind them. "You should not have mentioned that name," she whispered severely, her own face pale. "It is not permitted in this house, not that you could have known that."
"But why?" Olivia's bewilderment remained. "What has he done, this . . . this Raventhorne?" Unconsciously, she followed Estelle's example and lowered her own voice.
"I don't know, nobody tells me anything." With an aggrieved sigh, Estelle reached under her bed to pull out a biscuit tin. "All I know is that everyone hates him."
"There has to be a reason," Olivia persisted. "What has he done to deserve such universal hate? Is it something to do with business?"
"I suppose so." She started to munch on a ginger biscuit. "They say he's unprincipled and unscrupulous and a blackguard without morals. Besides, he hates us too."
"Us?"
"The English. They also say he's plotting to turn us out of India." She laughed scornfully. "You see? He's mad as well."
Olivia digested the information thoughtfully. "Then he is not . . . English?"
"Good Lord, no!" Estelle looked horrified. "He's Eurasian. If he were English he'd have a good bit more sense." She picked up a second biscuit and, with a sly glance at the door, lowered her voice further. "What did you talk about with him? Anything interesting?"
However fond Olivia had become of her cousin, she certainly wasn't fool enough to answer that truthfully! With her penchant for avid gossip, Estelle kept nothing to herself for more than five seconds. "Oh, this and that. Nothing very much. Tell me, what is his background? I mean, what is it that he does in business?"
Estelle shrugged. "No one knows much about his background, not even Mrs. Drummond—and there's precious little that misses her!" She looked briefly envious. "He has this tea business, like Papa. And he has his own ships, which are better than everyone else's tea wagons. That's one reason for hating him."
Well, that made sense considering the fierce rivalries in the city. What didn't make sense was why, not being a European, he chose to live in the White Town, especially in view of his avowed contempt for the English. "And the other reasons?"
Pleased at suddenly being considered the repository of useful information, Estelle preened herself. "Well, Mrs. Drummond says he grows his own teas in Assam and, you see, we can't. We have to get ours all the way from China to send to England. He sends his to America, which is what sticks in everyone's craw."
For a moment Olivia wondered if Estelle was making all this up. Surely, no one had yet grown tea in India successfully enough to send it anywhere. Then something stirred in her memory. "Is he the man they refer to as Kala . . . something?" she inquired slowly.
"Yes, Kala Kanta." Estelle looked surprised. "Did he tell you that?"
"No, of course not! Uncle Josh and Mr. Ransome were talking about him the other night." Which made the matter more perplexing: If the men could discuss him freely, then why should her aunt's reaction have been so extreme? "Does Kala Kanta mean anything in Hindustani?"
"Yes, kala is black and kanta is a thorn—clever, isn't it? Black like a raven and because he's a thorn in—"
"Yes, I do get the import, Estelle," Olivia said, impatient to learn more. "I accept that the man is a villain and universally hated, but that still doesn't explain why Aunt Bridget had to swoon at the mere mention of his name! Can you think why?"
Estelle clucked. "No one can understand the way Mama's mind works; certainly I can't. Look at the pet she gets into about Polly Drummond and her mother. I mean, what's wrong with having gentlemen friends if one is a widow? And why shouldn't Polly use cosmetics and wear lace underwear if her mother lets her? Clive Smithers says—or so Charlotte told me—he's even kissed her once when—"
"The English hate him but they still maintain business relations with him?" Olivia cut in firmly, not interested at the moment in listening to Estelle's familiar list of grievances. "Isn't that odd?"
With an effort, her cousin pulled away her thoughts from problems she considered far more pertinent. "They have to," she sighed, consoling herself with the last biscuit in the tin. "Those clippers of his are so fast that the holds are always full of cargo. And he has warehouses that people hire to store their teas and indigo and all that. They can't afford to ignore him."
"But then if he is a business colleague, whether liked or not, why is he never seen at burra khanas? Surely he's invited to them."
"Oh, he's invited all right," Estelle said with a short laugh and a knowing gleam in her eyes, which were alive with sudden interest. "It's he who maintains that he wouldn't be seen dead in an Englishman's drawing-room. Everyone knows there isn't a pukka mem about who wouldn't give her best wig and whalebones for J— this man's favours. Polly says he has a native mistress who actually lives in his house with him, and Dave Crichton told Mrs. Drummond he has positive proof that when Barnabus Slocum's sister from Brighton went missing last year and wasn't seen for a week, she was with him—not Dave but this man we're talking about—for seven days and seven nights. The Slocums told everyone she had gone to the hills." She gasped for a fresh supply of air and smiled triumphantly.
Overwhelmed by this barrage of unsolicited gossip, Olivia subjected her cousin to a stern look. "Considering you're not allowed to even mention his name in this house," she remarked drily, "you seem pretty well informed about the man!"
Estelle tossed her head and pouted. "Well, you're the one who is dying of curiosity. I'm only repeating what I know, what everybody knows. He doesn't give a hoot who says what about him so why should you?"
"Oh, I don't! And just to get this straight, I am not 'dying of curiosity' about the much-talked-about Mr. Raventhorne. I'm only trying to figure out why I should have upset Lady Bridget so much." She frowned and sucked on a lip. "But I haven't really, have I?"
"No, nor will you, I promise." Estelle swallowed a yawn and stared into her empty biscuit tin with regret. "If I were you, I'd forget all about it. Mama is unpredictable at the best of times; it's useless trying to get to the bottom of her mind. And in any case," she opened her mouth and yawned fully, "you're not likely to meet him again, are you?" She slipped under her sheet and pulled down the mosquito-netting.
"No," Olivia agreed slowly with a hand on the door knob. "I'm not likely to meet him again."
Unaccountably, she felt a small twinge of regret.
Future prospects notwithstanding, some form of apology was certainly due to her aunt, Olivia decided. Next morning—Sir Joshua having left for work earlier than usual—she found Lady Bridget alone in her bedroom sipping tea.
"I'm extremely sorry about what happened last night, Lady Bridget," she began without preamble as soon as a cold cheek had been presented for the morning kiss. "If I hurt or offended you in any way, it was entirely without intention."
Lady Bridget's cup rattled once as her hand shook. She did not look up to meet her niece's eyes. "You are in no way to blame, child. I do know that. It's not...," she swallowed, "not anything to worry about, but some ... explanation is due to you. Josh will speak to you later. I ... we will consider the matter closed . . ." Her voice faded and she turned away, again visibly agitated.
For the moment there was nothing more to be said. The subject was not referred to again through the day.
Even though it was too soon to expect mail from her father, Olivia had got into the habit of writing to him almost every day. She also wrote regularly to Sally and her boys, to other friends she had left behind and to her father's spinster sister in Dublin, his only surviving relative still close to him. While she waited impatiently for mail packets to start arriving from home and from Honolulu, she found the enforced discipline therapeutic, for it assuaged her homesickness. Normally she enjoyed writing letters, but this morning, somehow, her concentration wavered. Instead of her thoughts dwelling on what they should, they kept wandering back to Jai Raventhorne.
What lingered most in retrospect was not the physical man but the atmosphere he had created around himself of something amorphous
and indefinable. There seemed to have emanated from his person a strange nervous, darting energy, almost a turbulence, that on those river steps had packed the space between them with tension. Beneath his occasional insolence there had been an underlying hostility that baffled Olivia. No, she had not been comfortable in his presence. As for his scandalous reputation, she paid it little heed; among her father's friends she could name at least two whom various sheriffs would be happy to accommodate as their guests, and there were many drawing-rooms in Washington where her father himself was strictly non grata because of his free and frank political opinions. The reason Jai Raventhorne intrigued her was because not even in America had she met a man so out of tune with the majority.
When Sir Joshua's summons finally came, following a noticeably awkward atmosphere at dinner, Olivia was expecting it. Even so her breath quickened; she felt riven with anticipation as to what exactly was to be revealed. As usual, her uncle sat at his enormous mahogany desk, its surface littered with ledgers and papers, sipping his favourite port and puffing on a cigar. He had changed into his blue silk dressing-gown and his feet were encased in carpet slippers. Even at ease and dressed informally, he radiated power, both mental and physical, the dominant set of his chin giving little indication of his modest beginnings as the humbly brought-up son of a penniless baronet and a low-paid writer with John Company.
"A tot of port, m'dear?" Olivia accepted the offer with a nod and positioned herself opposite him at the desk. It was, after all, for him to decide the direction of the conversation. "Young Marshall returned yesterday from Hankow with some weird tales about the hongs. One or two might amuse you," he began, handing her a glass. "The Russians buy their teas in Hankow, you know. Any idea how long it takes them to make the round trip? Sixteen months! Hah! And we complain because it takes us less than six!"
The anecdotes that followed, Olivia sensed, were to put them both in an easier frame of mind, for he too was far from comfortable. The stories were related with humour and wit and she listened with attention, joining in with his intermittent laughter willingly. It was only after several tales had been recounted and much scorn poured on the Russians that he sat back, lit another cigar, threw up a perfect smoke ring and said, "About last night, Olivia . . ."
Again her breath went tight. "I have been hoping for an opportunity to apologise, Uncle Josh. I am so terribly sorry for—"
"It was not your fault." He waved away her expressions of remorse. "You only delivered an innocent message. How were you to know with what malicious intent it was dispatched?"
Malicious intent? What dark plot could possibly be contained in a few words of harmless greeting? But waiting for more, Olivia refrained from comment.
"This man," Sir Joshua did not repeat the name as he picked up a pencil and idly toyed with it, "is a scoundrel, a debauch and a charlatan of the first order. That he should have had the audacity to accost you—"
"He did not accost me," some inner devil prompted Olivia to point out, "it was genuinely a chance encounter. I went out for some air at the same time that he happened to be walking his dogs."
The amendment did not please her uncle. He frowned. "Regardless of the circumstances, he should have known better than to overstep his bounds to speak to you. He is known as a manipulator, a master of evil designs habituated to turning even the most simple of situations to his best advantage. Was his manner towards you courteous?"
Olivia took both the seeming over reaction and the abrupt question in her stride. "Perfectly. There was no reason for it to be otherwise." It was, she considered without compunction, a justifiable lie. To reveal the reality of their abrasive encounter would be to invite even more trouble.
"What was it that you talked about?" There was a strange watchfulness, even anxiety, in Sir Joshua's eyes as he questioned her.
Olivia hid a sense of irritation—did it matter? "We merely made idle talk," she replied evenly. "It appears that he had read some of my father's writings in American journals. Mostly we discussed those."
Whether it was in her imagination or not, Sir Joshua seemed to loosen. His wariness dropped; he steepled his fingers against his chest and smiled. "In that case I am relieved. It is not often that he chooses to play the gentleman, which is of course why your aunt went into such an unholy flap last night. You are well aware of the high moral standards she maintains and how assiduously she values social propriety in all matters. It shocked Bridget that a scalawag of such despicably low calibre should have had the gall to actually hobnob with you, her own flesh and blood." He gave a quick laugh. "Of course it was absurd of Bridget to faint, utterly ridiculous! But then, we must make some allowances for her little whims and excesses, must we not?"
For all his apparent earnestness, his good-humoured indulgence for his wife's "whims and excesses," Olivia knew that her uncle prevaricated. He had not told her the real reason for her aunt's distress. Torn for a moment between tactical withdrawal (which would be wise) and a bold attack (which would not), Olivia eventually settled for the latter. "This Mr. Raventhorne," her chin firmed as she fearlessly mouthed the forbidden name, "who exactly is he and what exactly does he do?"
"He is in the tea business." The curtness of his reply gave ample indication of his reluctance to pursue the subject.
"On the China Coast?"
"No. He grows his own."
So, Estelle's snippets of gossip were not wholly incorrect! Ignoring her uncle's obvious displeasure and assuming innocence, Olivia pressed on. "He does? But did you not tell me that European planters in Assam are having serious labour problems and that it would be years before China tea could be grown domestically with commercial success?"
"He does not fall in the category of European planters." It was with difficulty that Sir Joshua appeared to be restraining his exasperation. "He cultivates indigenous Indian tea trees, not Chinese."
This time she had no need to simulate surprise. "Indigenous Indian tea trees? I had no idea that tea plants are also native to India!"
"Assam has had native tea trees for centuries," he said impatiently as he swung forward to place his hands palm down on the desk, "but that is neither here nor there in the present context. The reason why I have brought up the subject of Raventhorne," his mouth twisted with distaste, "is because I felt that some explanation was due to you of your Aunt Bridget's silly melodramatics yesterday. I could see that you were frightened out of your wits," he raised a small smile, "and as such an apology from me was certainly in order. Will you accept it, my dear, and forgive us for having alarmed you unduly?" Olivia had no choice but to nod her acquiescence, albeit reluctantly. "In that case, shall we now consider the entire unfortunate matter closed?"
Matter closed. Her aunt's words exactly! What was it about this man that made him such a pariah? Now, of course, there was no possibility of probing further. "By all means," she murmured, hiding her disappointment.
"Tell me, m'dear," suddenly, he was all smiles again, "are you truly happy with us?"
The sharp change in topic took Olivia aback. "Why, of course I am!" she cried, flushing. "Why do you even need to ask, Uncle Josh?"
"Because sometimes I do get the impression that you are not, that life here is not entirely as you would wish it to be."
She was dismayed by his perceptions and hastened to refute them. "Apart from the fact that I miss Papa, I assure you I am marvellously content. How could I not be in your kindness and generosity to me?"
He nodded absently. "Yes, all said and done I must say you have adjusted remarkably well considering how different your environment must have been at home. Well, Bridget and I enjoy having you with us and Estelle, of course, admires you no end." He flicked a tube of cigar ash off his lapel and sighed. "We've rather spoilt her, you know. The truth is, she came to us so late in life that neither of us quite knows how to handle her. We tend to be over protective sometimes, but we mean well."
"Estelle is not yet eighteen," Olivia answered quickly. "She will grow up in time, but . .
." Taking advantage of his sudden mellowness, she dared broach a subject brewing in her mind for a while. "Could not you and Lady Bridget see your way to giving Estelle a little more, well, independence to manage her own affairs?"
"Independence?" He looked surprised. "Bridget says the little minx has far too much already!" He chuckled. "She certainly gives her mother a hard time now and then, I understand, but then that is a daughter's privilege, I'm told. In any case, all that is Bridget's domain. Talk to her about it when you can." He waved away a domestic triviality he considered of no great consequence as his eyes twinkled and his lips trembled with restrained merriment. "Now tell me, what do you think of this fellow Birkhurst? Does he please you in any way?"
"No." Olivia met his look squarely.
"Oh dear, Bridget will be disappointed to hear that! She's rather set her heart on making a match of you two. I daresay you are aware of her ambitions?"
"I would be a congenital idiot not to be," Olivia retorted drily. "And so would everyone else in station." Including, she added in her mind, the noxious Mr. Raventhorne!
Sir Joshua laughed. "Well, I don't mind confessing that I carry no brief for any man who can't hold his liquor. There's no better measure of a gentleman than that."
"Goodness, I sure am pleased to hear that—I was beginning to think that everyone was part of the conspiracy!"
"On the other hand," he waggled a warning finger, "let us not forget that old Caleb Birkhurst's Agency House practically mints its own currency. Caleb prefers to live the life of a nabob in England, but the wealth he continues to amass here is still considerable. That indigo plantation in northern Bengal alone is worth a fortune, to say nothing of the Esplanade manse. Does all this not impress you?"
"No." Better frankness now than unpleasantness later. "I have nothing against Mr. Birkhurst, but his wealth and titled family make him no better and no worse in my reckoning." She gave an impish smile. "I hear despite everything that he is still considered the station's prize buffoon."
