Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  He merely grunted.

  Despite his pique, however, his pride of possession was fierce. Understandably. The Ganga was an extraordinarily elegant vessel with grace, beauty, speed and power written into every line of her sleek body. The ugly "cod's head and mackerel tail" of the tea wagons was nowhere in evidence. Her curved stem lengthened the bow above the water-line, and her raking masts carried tier upon tier of sail (thirty-three in all, she was told), now furled with neat cross-bands. She was three hundred and fifteen feet long, an astonishing dimension; the shining white hull was adorned with gold scroll-work, the wood all burnished Spanish mahogany with gleaming brass fittings. Being scoured and scrubbed even now as they watched from the quarter-deck were the long, pine-boarded decks holystoned further into pristine paleness by teams of Lascars on their knees armed with mops and buckets of sloshing water. Each of the Ganga's twenty-eight guns, of sparkling brass, was capable of firing at thirty-second intervals, a feat of ballistic superiority not to be scorned, Olivia was informed with forgivable arrogance.

  Raventhorne fondly patted the snout of one of the guns. "To sail without broadsides is plain suicide. There are as many pirates on water as there are brigands on land. The Ganga, as you can see, is a formidable adversary. There's no contingency she isn't prepared for." In recounting the virtues of his ship, his manner had improved appreciably. He actually smiled.

  Feeling wonderfully light-headed, Olivia abandoned her nervousness to follow him down a narrow companion-way. The prospect of being with him even an hour was insanely intoxicating, the element of risk spicing rather than subtracting from her enjoyment. Emboldened by his turn of temper, she pulled out a snippet from Estelle's fat dossier of gossip. "I believe you once had a price on your head?"

  "Once? You do me a disfavour! The Chinese put prices on the heads of most foreigners, prices that vary with the weather and are quite harmless. The English offer bounty for heads they believe will look good on their walls mounted alongside their game trophies. Whatever its worth, they considered mine would have been a handsome addition."

  "Then how did you escape being mounted?"

  "The bounty I offered them not to was more tempting."

  "You mean, you bought yourself a pardon?"

  "Why not?" He waggled a finger in her face. "Together with opium, the Company also makes generous profits out of selling respectability, when it suits them to do so."

  At the mention of opium, Olivia struggled inwardly. Should she now demand an explanation for the consignment he had looted from her uncle? Then she decided against it. However cutthroat prevailing business rivalries, they really were no concern of hers. Washed over with emotions that defied identification, logic or control, in her state of mental limpness she let the matter rest. Instead she remarked drily, "I doubt if anyone thinks of you as particularly respectable, pardon notwithstanding!"

  At that he laughed. "I'm as respectable as I'm ever likely to be, I suppose. I don't aspire to be more, not being a . . ." He hesitated.

  "A gentleman?"

  He laughed again. "Yes, that too. Come," he touched her hand as they stood watching two seamen coil a giant rope with such expertise that they seemed like precision machines, "let us go farther below."

  En route he explained at great length the working of the Ganga"s Kew barometer, that most invaluable aid of all sailors, this modern English model the most accurate one on the seas. Olivia did not understand everything about the bewildering nautical data he dispensed with such fluency—"dead rise amidships," "breadth of beam," "belaying-pins," "hawards and halyards"—but it didn't matter a jot. She understood that the vessel was a masterpiece of naval architecture and performance (if she could forget the fleeting sight of an unpleasant little eyesore on deck in the shape of a smoke funnel), and for the rest it was enough just to be where she was, in the company of a man breathtakingly dynamic, and the pox on his scruples! Merely listening to his voice, rich and resonant, she felt vibrantly alive. His exuberance stimulated her beyond belief, almost beyond tolerance; she was no longer embarrassed by what was indeed magnetic between them—that affinity! Unashamed, Olivia savoured it fully. Yes, she was captivated by Jai Raventhorne, spellbound by his personality. She could not help herself, nor did she want to now.

  "When she was launched a year ago from the Smith and Dimon shipyard in New York, not many believed she would ever sail successfully. Hah!"

  "Why ever not?" She ran a palm down a spar, smooth as silk, varnished so that she could see her face in its surface.

  "Because of her revolutionary bow line. The English scoffed louder than anyone else, until she docked in Southampton with an eighty-one-day run from Hong Kong under her belt. Then they sang a different tune! They confessed they had never seen anything like her, nor had hoped to. They wrote paeans to her in their newspapers, calling her a wonder of construction. The final accolade was a leader in the London Times." His smile turned even more complacent. "And she certainly had many extremely worried, I can tell you that!"

  "But surely the English too will build clippers of their own soon?"

  "Oh yes, they've already started, having to stay in the race." He knocked solidly on a panel of wood with his knuckles. "But they will never match John Willis Griffiths, who designed this. He's the best they have in your country." With his palm he caressed the satin-smooth wooden panelling in which their reflections shone. "The Ganga is not only a ship," he said softly, "she is poetry in motion." His brief show of emotion quickly turned into ill temper again. "All right. Enough about her beauty. Now let me show you some of the ugliness on board; then you will understand why I am like a bear with a sore head this morning."

  "Ugliness?" She almost ran behind him to keep up with his rapid pace as he swung down another companion-way. "I cannot imagine any ugliness amidst such perfection!"

  "No? Well, you will see."

  The bowels of the ship were dark and below sea level. They wound their way through a maze of corridors and climbed into a huge, shell-like capsule of a chamber in which, presently dormant, was a tangle of black boilers, pressure gauges, cranks and rods, all horribly encrusted with oil and soot. Facing them was the cavernous mouth of a coal furnace, now fireless but still belching noxious gases. Gone was the fresh saltiness of the sea, the reviving tang of clean air, the smell of varnish and newly washed decks; their nostrils stung with the odium of burnt oil, blistering paint and stale coal. Olivia started to cough.

  "This is the price one pays for alleged progress!" Raventhorne said bitterly. "This is what is turning my angel of sublime dignity into a god-rotting slut."

  Certainly it was an appalling sight. "But still the swiftest slut on the seas," Olivia reminded soothingly, clamping a handkerchief to her nose.

  He refused to be consoled. "My captain's account of the journey has destroyed whatever triumphs there are in the logbook. When the boilers work full blast the funnel spews smoke that coats the sails with black that is impossible to wash out. The pistons thunder, the furnace roars and the entire ship shudders with the vibrations of the paddles beneath the stern. The noise apparently is deafening, the heat like a blast from hell—and this is what coal does to my men."

  A sailor, obviously the stoker, came up to join them and silently tipped his cap with a forefinger. Amidst a mask of black, only his eyes showed white. Rivulets of sweat had made jagged lines down his face and bare chest and the odour he exuded was foul. He made a move to pick up his shovel but, with sharp Words, Raventhorne stopped him. The man paused and a row of white teeth slashed his face in a smile. Saluting smartly, he turned and scurried back the way he had come.

  Raventhorne cursed under his breath and kicked one of the boilers with such viciousness that something loose clattered to the iron floor. "These men are simple sailors," he muttered savagely. "They place their faith in the stars, the wind and God. Now we tell them to forget their traditional beliefs and pay homage to engineers!" His anger cooled and the lines of his face lengthened. "It is the end of a chapter, Olivia.
For me, perhaps for others too, the romance of the sea is no longer what it was. The wilful seductress still beckons, but her charm for me diminishes with each modern innovation."

  The depth of his emotion startled her. "Then why do you subscribe to a change that causes you such unhappiness?"

  He sighed. "Because like the rest of the rats, I too am part of the tedious race to which there is no end. I am on a treadmill."

  "You can get off it—"

  "No!" His reaction was sharp. "No. It is too late for that." Olivia had no occasion to press her point further, for he walked away.

  Their return path passed through what appeared to be the crew's quarters. Having seen the accommodation on the India-man on which she had arrived, Olivia was surprised at the comparison. The dormitory was neat and well scrubbed, and the tiered bunks had cotton mattresses, thick sheets and woollen blankets. There were portholes along a side bringing in fresh air, a rare luxury since most crews' accommodation was below the water level with no light and less air. Deviating from the path, Olivia investigated the rows of adjoining bath stalls and lavatories. They were clean and smelled strongly of carbolic acid.

  "Well, do I pass inspection?" Leaning in a doorway, Raventhorne looked on with a sort of resigned indulgence.

  "Not until I've examined the galleys. Most ship owners feed their men on cattle slop and vermin. I want to make sure you don't," she said, knowing that the kitchens too would be spotless.

  Watched by two astonished sailors in white aprons, Olivia went through the ranged vats of rice, lentils, wheat flour, semolina, oil and molasses, poking with a finger for signs of weevils or fungus. There were none. Everything was labelled, dishes and saucepans were sparkling clean, giving evidence of much elbow-grease, and there were racks for all the utensils and taps of running water over the huge sinks. Even the garbage pails were tidy with no messy remnants around which rodents and cockroaches prowled, as she had seen on the other ship. In the canteen next door there were trestle tables and benches and stacked metal bowls and mugs.

  "I see you do treat your men well," she said, impressed.

  "Why does that surprise you? Don't you think men deserve to live and work with dignity instead of with degradation like worms in a cesspool?"

  "Oh, I think they do but not many ship owners will agree."

  "That is because not many ship owners have lived like worms in a cesspool. I have. Come," he straightened and glanced at his pocket watch, "it is time for breakfast. Today we will be very English and feast off bacon, eggs and muffins."

  In the main cabin, just below deck, they were served breakfast by the discreet and attentive Bahadur, his Gurkha face as unrevealing as ever. The cabin was commodious and airy, arranged more like an office than a private chamber, well appointed for functional nautical living. There was a royal blue pile carpet, curtains over the portholes, scuffed leather furniture and, almost incidentally, a four-poster bed with cushions. The desk, a mahogany roll-top, was set against a shiny wood-panelled wall mounted with navigational maps and charts, and there were bookcases against another wall. There were no signs of opulence, as one might have been led to expect from the Ganga's smart exterior. In spite of the cabin's look of practical comfort, the keynote was still that defiant austerity that Raventhorne seemed to prefer in all his living arrangements.

  Olivia found it difficult to eat although the array of breakfast dishes could not be faulted. Opposite her, Raventhorne sat without joining in the meal, one arm draped across the back of a chair and the other resting on the table with an unsmoked pipe clasped lightly in his hand. Olivia found his gaze on her unnerving; it was indecipherable and once more, not intended to put her at ease. Raventhorne was a man who carried his tensions with him, and the space between them again crackled almost tangibly, making idle conversation an effort. There was nothing about him that was casual; he appeared perpetually on the point of saying something that she expected would unbalance her. Yet, her curiosity about him was unsatisfied. There was so much more to this man who had woven such an unbreakable spell over her that she felt she had to know. Kinjal's story was merely a framework, a skeleton, which she had an insatiable urge to now flesh out. Her opening came when Raventhorne answered one of her neutral questions with, "No, the American presence in the China trade is still limited in spite of the repeal of the Navigation Acts. The dippers will make a difference although not much in my opinion, but then I don't interest myself in the China trade any more, so my prognosis might not be accurate."

  "When you did interest yourself in the China trade," Olivia asked, spearing a last piece of bacon and avoiding his eyes, "what kind of ships did you sail?"

  "Sieves!" He grimaced. "The first was a brig we chartered from a ship graveyard. It had one rusty gun mounted on the fo'c's'le, a cask full of inoperative small arms and a basket of stones with which to bombard pirates when the triggers jammed." The recollection seemed to amuse him and the flash of humour brought to his face a boyishness it could not have known for years. "I was a damn fool, of course, but like a cat I have nine lives. I survived."

  Olivia's hopes fluttered; he seemed not to mind the probing. "You said 'we'; who were the others?"

  "In the main, my American partner."

  Raventhorne? But that Olivia dared not ask. "What was your partnership for?"

  "For a journey into Eldorado," he said with a dry smile. "We bartered furs for silks, teas and jade. The capital outlay was his."

  "And what was your contribution?"

  "Navigational expertise, muscle power," he finally lit his pipe and inhaled, eyes crinkled against the spiral of smoke he blew out, "and guaranteed rewards from the China Coast."

  "Guaranteed? What if there had been losses instead?"

  "Losses?" He looked vaguely surprised. "The thought never crossed my mind. There were no losses. That damn brig sank in the West River after our second trip, but by then we could afford something better and with each voyage our fortunes improved." A distant look came over his features. "Those were good days back in the thirties."

  Olivia sat back, enjoying from behind lowered lashes the sudden relaxation of his expression, the far-away eyes usually as restless as quicksilver. "Then why did you return?"

  It was the wrong question. His eyes snapped back into wariness, the softness again hardening into impassable granite. "Because India is my home," he said shortly, rising to his feet and waving a hand impatiently for Bahadur to clear the table.

  You had no home then, tell me the truth! Olivia wanted to cry out. What is this destiny you returned to fulfil, this corrosive canker that pulled you back?

  But she did not dare speak her thoughts. The gossamer filament between them was tenuous enough as it was; if it snapped altogether, she felt she would forever be shut out of his life with no more opportunity to share the shadows that lay beyond. She could not risk that, not any more. To be barred now from entering his secret, inner world would be to leave her own life incomplete.

  "Why do you want to know so much about me, Olivia?"

  The thrill of hearing her name on his lips was still unfamiliar enough to bring a flush to her cheeks. His quiet question from the other side of the room, where he stood staring out of a porthole, set her heart galloping again. "Because I know so little at the moment," she answered with perfect truth, her tone wistful.

  "Why is it necessary to know more?"

  "Because there is so much I don't . . . understand."

  He turned. "Such as?" He walked back to sit down again.

  "Such as . . .," she swallowed hard and took the plunge, "why you persist in hounding my uncle." Her chin rose and so did her voice. "You arranged for that opium consignment to be looted, didn't you?"

  For a moment he did not answer, but it was obvious that her bold question angered him. "I told you, I don't believe in selling death." He did not deny the accusation she had hurled at him in a second of rashness. "Have you ever been inside an opium den?" Desperately sorry that she had brought up the subject, she sho
ok her head. "Have you ever personally known an addict, been close to one, stood by and watched helplessly as death came, inch by inch, second by second?"

  The passion with which he flung the questions at her was consuming; there were tremors in his hands, and his expression was almost maniacal. Shaken, Olivia leaned over to lay a hand on his arm but, leaping out of his seat, he shook it off. "No, I haven't," she began in an effort to redeem herself in his eyes, "but I—"

  "Then go and first learn from experience. Why come to me with all your pious, mealy-mouthed accusations?" He was shouting at her and his tone was insufferably rude.

  Olivia felt her own temper stir in the unfairness of his attack. "I did not come to you," she cried, rising to her feet. "You tricked me into coming!"

  "Tricked but not forced." He controlled himself enough to lower his voice and edge it with ice. "You were free to leave my ship any time you pleased." He spun on his heel to stride up to the porthole. "Don't involve me in your petty inquisitions, Olivia. I dislike being questioned, especially by those who understand nothing of the East."

  "I am not an imbecile child," she grated, humiliated by his cavalier dictates. "If made to understand, there is no reason why I shouldn't."

  With a muttered oath he threw up his hands in frustration, then roughly combed back his hair with his fingers. When he spoke finally his voice was again level. "We are all afflicted by the same disease, Olivia. No one can boast immunity." He turned slowly to face her with a sickle smile that was as thin as it was dispassionate. "I do what I do because I must."

  Olivia's defiance collapsed. Through unalloyed impulse she had deliberately destroyed the few moments of rapport between them. Once again she had fallen prey to the curiosity he hated so much, and once again he had retracted out of her reach. His expression was closed, his eyes openly hostile. Close to tears, she sat down again and ran a hand across her eyes. "I am so totally confused," she whispered miserably. "I don't know what to do . . ."

  He wiped himself clean even of anger. "Shall I tell you what I think you should do?" He ambled towards his roll-top desk and leaned his elbow on it. "I think you should marry Freddie Birkhurst."