Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  Olivia smiled again. "When?"

  "Soon."

  Already she trembled with mortifying impatience. "How soon?"

  "Very soon."

  "How will you know where I am?" she asked rapidly, feeling inept but unable to let go.

  "I always know where you are," he said with a return of the gentleness that demanded she forgive him everything.

  And she did. Instantly. However, his casualness, his ill-concealed reluctance, wounded her somewhat. In silence she mounted Jasmine but then once more he lifted the injury right out of her mind. "You can never know, Olivia," he murmured against the palm of her hand as he kissed it, "just how much I want to see you again."

  Over the small kiss he folded her fingers, placed her hand back carefully in her lap and slapped Jasmine hard on the flank. Olivia knew that he stood and watched her ride away until she was lost to his sight.

  She flew home on the wings of the wind, convinced that she could have done so even without a racing mount. She knew now that there could be no retraction from the path she had chosen. The obstacles, the hazards, the pitfalls and come what may Olivia brushed aside like inconsequential fruit flies. For this one love, this only love, she felt confident enough to take on the world.

  In any case, she had long passed the point of return.

  Sir Joshua was down with heat boils.

  With Calcutta's mild winter approaching, it was cooler than in summer and the boils were less fierce than they might have been earlier. Even so, Dr. Humphries had confined Sir Joshua to his bed, which did little to improve his temper. He had insisted that papers and correspondence be sent home to him daily from his office. His two unfailing visitors on most days were Ransome and, much to Lady Bridget's chagrin, Kashinath Das. In between office papers and his two visitors, Sir Joshua spent much of his time exercising his temper on servants, members of the family and absent offenders. In fact, his generally foul mood created domestic havoc and reduced his wife's nerves to shreds. Not even Estelle was spared. Used to being spoilt by a father she usually twisted around her little finger to achieve her whims, Estelle was bewildered and desperately hurt by his sudden harshness.

  "Papa doesn't love me anymore," she whispered miserably one morning when she had had a particularly stinging lash of his tongue over a footling crime. "He called me a ... a s-selfish b-brat and said he'd bring his c-crop to me if I didn't l-listen to M-Mama!" Shattered, she burst into tears.

  Even Olivia was shocked. That her impetuous cousin was both selfish and a brat she knew, but threatened with an unjust corporal punishment she had never had, Estelle was right to be outraged. Especially now with her newly acquired coming of age, the novelty of which still sat on her with excessive pride.

  "He's very preoccupied with business problems, dear," Olivia nevertheless soothed. "And he feels his boils are not only undignified but an infernal interference with his badly needed presence in the office with that investigation still continuing. Of course he still loves you, silly!"

  Estelle's interest in her father's business affairs was as cursory as her mother's. Her eyes glittered with malice. "I don't give a bloody tinker's cuss for his business problems," she stormed in high dudgeon. "I will not have anyone talking to me like that, not even Papa!" In a rare pet she stamped out of the room, calling back over her shoulder, "I'm not a child, you know. Papa might not appreciate that but other people do!"

  Since Olivia appeared to be the only person in the family with whom Sir Joshua kept a reasonably civil tongue, it was she who was assigned much of his nursing. Lady Bridget wisely stayed in the wings issuing instructions out of his presence. Also wisely, Estelle took Olivia's advice to make herself as scarce as possible while her father's difficult mood lasted, particularly after his unfair threat.

  "Where is that damn fool Munshi? Doesn't the ass know these have to return to Arthur this very instant?"

  Olivia had completed her Hindustani lesson for the afternoon and, thinking that the pouch of documents was to stay with her uncle overnight, had sent Munshi Babu home. Sir Joshua's roar, which reverberated through the bungalow the moment she stepped into his sick-room, took her by surprise.

  "I'm sorry, Uncle Josh," she said, contrite, "but I have already sent him back. I didn't realise that you still wanted him."

  "Well, of course I still want him, dammit!" His face turned purple. "Arthur must have these today so that he can study them before he meets that ignorant oaf from Parliament first thing in the morning. How the hell is he going to put him in his place if he doesn't have the facts?"

  Followed a colourful dissertation on members of Parliament from Westminster and their perpetual nose poking into colonial matters they knew nothing about since they lived in the clouds ten thousand bloody miles up and away and couldn't tell a tea-leaf from a stinging-nettle anyway. From that he progressed to the general idiocy of everyone about and in particular to that of "that butcher" Humphries, whose carbolic oil poultices stank of horse dung and even if the heat boils didn't kill him, those infernal devices surely would. Finally, having consigned everyone to an eternal fate of fire and brimstone, Sir Joshua stopped for sheer want of breath.

  "Well, would you like me to take the papers to the office?" Olivia inquired, taking advantage of the hiatus. "It's quite easily done and the journey there and back shouldn't take long."

  Deprived of the pleasure of further complaint, Sir Joshua grunted. Then, seeing no reason not to agree, he had the grace to look abashed. "You're a good girl, Olivia, saner and more responsible than most. I wish you'd give some of your good sense to your idle cousin. She sorely needs it, by Christ!"

  It was quite the wrong time to mount any defence of his absent daughter. Olivia did not even try.

  To any other pair of eyes Clive Street was an ordinary, mundane thoroughfare with little to distinguish it from other similar business centres in the city. To Olivia, however, Clive Street was positively touched with magic. As always, she craned her neck out of the window of the carriage as it passed by the Trident offices as if she would find suddenly revealed some little detail of significance she might have missed earlier. She had no idea when she would see Jai Raventhorne again; "soon" could mean a day or a decade, considering the man's contrariness. But now, just to be on the same street as he might be was enchantment. Even this solitary crumb of comfort she hugged close to her heart.

  Arthur Ransome was delighted with both the papers and her visit. "What a transformation the sight of a pretty face brings to our dull and dreary work place, Miss O'Rourke! And how very kind of you to bring these!"

  The establishment he dismissed with such nonchalant modesty was in fact one of the better offices in town and the envy of many lesser merchants in Calcutta. It was elegant, capacious and finely appointed, for Sir Joshua's taste for good living was not to be denied even here. In its cool, high-ceilinged halls there seemed always a sense of urgency, as if great decisions were being made every minute of the day and fortunes bartered for commodities without which the world could not survive. It was an atmosphere Olivia found quite thrilling. As they settled down in Ransome's office for a few minutes of conversation, she decided to use the interlude to her best advantage.

  "Uncle Josh told me all about the loss of the opium consignment," she began quite boldly. "Is Mr. Slocum's investigation going well?"

  Knowing that his partner often confided in her, Ransome did not think to evade an answer. "It is going like all police investigations go when it comes to native involvement. In circles." He laughed grimly.

  "They have not progressed much?"

  "They have not progressed at all. Nor will they. When natives join forces against us they use two very effective weapons— convenient amnesia and a surfeit of witnesses all with contradictory accounts. What can poor Slocum do?"

  "And Gupta still insists it was the thuggees?" Privately, Olivia was ashamed at how relieved she felt!

  "Yes."

  "You don't believe him either?"

  Ransome snorted. "My
dear Miss O'Rourke, when one has lived in this country as long as Josh and I have, one develops an instinct about these matters. No, I don't believe him either."

  A peon, smartly uniformed in white with a red turban and cummerbund, entered bearing a tea tray with the solemnity of a priest making a sacred offering in a temple. He laid the tray on the table between them, poured out two cups of honey-coloured liquid, dropped a sliver of lemon in each with a silver toothpick, and withdrew. The cups, obviously Chinese and heavily ornamented with golden dragons, were as fragile as paper. Over the rim of hers, Olivia surveyed her host of the moment and decided to probe further. "Do you also consider that it was Kala Kanta who was responsible for the act of dacoity?"

  Ransome looked briefly uneasy, then nodded.

  "Will Slocum ever be able to prove it?"

  "No." This time there was no hesitation. "Raventhorne has always had one prime advantage over us, one that we can never match. He has India on his side."

  Something in his manner, calm and almost resigned, surprised Olivia. His acceptance of the situation seemed so different from her uncle's mercurial reaction. "Raventhorne's villainy doesn't incense you, Mr. Ransome? One way or another, I believe your losses threaten to be heavy."

  He did not answer her immediately. Instead, for a moment he made a lengthy ritual of chasing a solitary tea-leaf around his cup with a spoon, then trapping it neatly and discarding it in the saucer. "Of course it incenses me," he finally said in a tone unusually quiet. "But it is, perhaps . . . understandable."

  "Understandable?" She was quite astonished at an admission so unlikely and so generous. "How so? Certainly that is not a view Uncle Josh takes!"

  "No." He turned thoughtful. "No. In his wrath, Josh is of course justified. Without doubt, Raventhorne is the most vindictive, vengeful bastard I have ever met . . ." He broke off with a look of remorse. "You must pardon my language, Miss O'Rourke, but Raventhorne is the kind of man who excites strong passions."

  "Oh, I've heard far worse in our saloons, I assure you, Mr. Ransome!" Now highly intrigued, she bent forward to listen better. The opening that had chanced her way was too tempting not to explore. "But then, why do you feel that Raventhorne's crime is understandable?"

  Ransome drained his cup and lit up one of his much-favoured cheroots. "Raventhorne has never made any secret of his loathing for the opium trade. To be quite frank, Miss O'Rourke," he inhaled deeply and then breathed out with deliberate slowness, "I myself have not much stomach for it anymore. During the so-called Opium War way back in thirty-nine, being a patriot loyal to my Queen and country, I fought as hard as the next Englishman, but I don't mind confessing that some of the sights I saw shamed and disgusted me. The yellow devils stood no chance against our superior fire power, naturally, but the physical condition of many, stupefied with the poppy, was shocking." He sighed heavily. "It was not a sight to be proud of, I can tell you that, Miss O'Rourke. Each time I go to Canton I am reviled by what is essentially our own handiwork. It is we who have made them slaves to this nefarious addiction from which there is no hope of respite." For a moment he looked deeply disturbed but then with an effort he smiled. "However, every good businessman knows that in the realm of hard commerce there is no place for sentiment. We sell to make profits, not necessarily to benefit mankind. It is the balance-sheet, not the conscience, that counts when it comes to the crunch." He had spoken with a smile but underneath there was bitterness.

  Olivia sat up slowly and surveyed his face with renewed interest. Once again the sharp difference between the two partners and friends seemed greatly obvious. Contrasted to Sir Joshua's confidence and unvarying decisiveness, Ransome's sensitivity appeared very unusual. The qualms he felt about the opium trade, for instance, she could never think of ascribing to her uncle. She warmed to Ransome even more. Also, the novelty of being able to talk so freely about Jai Raventhorne was heady. "But when it comes to the crunch," she said, picking up the thread again, "doesn't this Kala Kanta also have a balance-sheet to consider? How can he afford a conscience when no one else can?"

  "He has devised other means of making the sheet balance."

  "But surely you are not the only merchants engaged in this opium-bullion-tea triangular trade. Does he also attack the others?"

  "Certainly!" His tone went very dry. "In that respect, I assure you, Raventhorne is entirely impartial! During the Opium War, he aligned himself openly with the Chinese. In fact, he personally helped in the gutting of English factories in Canton, and assisted the Chinese commissioner in burning twelve hundred tons of opium—twelve hundred tons!—belonging to the English at the special pits dug for the purpose. That cost the community millions of taels, millions."

  Despite the staggering figures, Olivia was not surprised; the act of defiance was certainly characteristic of Raventhorne's uncaring bravado. "Is that why there was a price on his head in India?"

  "Yes." It didn't occur to him to question the source of her information. "Raventhorne has always sailed under an American flag. Since it was only British ships that were forbidden from entering the Pearl River during the hostilities, he and others were allowed free passage by our Royal Navy through their blockade at the mouth of the river. Many American and other captains acted willingly as our agents to carry our opium through with impunity—for handsome commissions, of course. Raventhorne never did. In fact, he blatantly attacked any ship he could that carried a cargo of opium even though America was not involved in the War. Can you blame us for baying for his blood?" For an instant he scowled and then, surprisingly, he broke into quiet chuckles. "Well, we didn't get it, not a lick, not a drop. Instead, we got the wily scoundrel as a competitor and a neighbour to continue making our lives a misery." His chuckles blossomed into hearty laughter. "Oh, I hate his guts just like everyone else, Miss O'Rourke, but I also have to give the devil his due. He might be as slippery as a cobra and just as venomous, but what he doesn't lack is gall. By heavens, he certainly doesn't lack that! And God knows he does have reason to hate the blasted poppy considering his ..."

  He stopped so suddenly that Olivia was startled. His laughter cut off as if sliced with a knife and his mouth snapped shut like a clam. Flushing a deep red, he stood up abruptly.

  "Considering . . . what?" With her heartbeats thundering within her rib cage and her blood racing, Olivia stubbornly remained seated, refusing to accept this as the termination of their conversation. "Considering what, Mr. Ransome?"

  But the moment had passed, the revelation—whatever it might have been—aborted. With a small, awkward laugh, Ransome shrugged and turned bland. "Considering his knowledge of Canton's opium dens," he said smoothly, then swiftly turned the topic around. "Josh tells me you yourself have had an encounter with Raventhorne."

  "Yes." Inwardly Olivia sighed; she knew he would not now reveal to her what he almost had. She added quickly, too quickly, "The encounter was quite accidental."

  "But of course!" He looked surprised at her explanation and she blushed. "What else could it have been? I hope there is no recurrence of the event, Miss O'Rourke." He looked stern. "Raventhorne is a most unsavoury character, most unsavoury."

  It was a judicious moment to leave and, a little reluctantly, Olivia suggested that she do so. Outside it was dark and the street was crowded with home-going carriages. As Ransome courteously saw her to hers and bid her good night, he coughed and muttered, "I would be grateful if you would not repeat our conversation to Josh, Miss O'Rourke. As you know, his attitudes to some things vary greatly with mine."

  "No, of course I will not," Olivia hastened to reassure him, smiling inwardly at the unlikelihood of such a dialogue with her uncle. Then, once again emboldened by the oblique reference to the subject of Raventhorne, she dared to inquire, "Has there been any further information from Kirtinagar about the coal proposal?"

  "No. It seems that Arvind Singh is tempted but his friend remains adamant. Since the capital investment in the mine is mostly Raventhorne's, the matter appears to have reached an imp
asse. Our agent informs us that there is much friction already between the two."

  "Friction?" Olivia tried not to show her dismay.

  "So Das maintains. Now we have to wait and see which Arvind Singh values more, his irrigation project or his friendship with Jai."

  Jai! Ransome's use of the first name went unnoticed by him, but it surprised Olivia. Indeed, it had risen to his lips with such naturalness that it confirmed a suspicion now taking firm root in her mind: Arthur Ransome knew more than he had chosen to reveal to her, much more! That undertone of sympathy, the lack of anger with which he appeared to accept Raventhorne's wrongdoings and now the slip with his first name—yes, they all added up to more than casual knowledge of the man.

  But for the moment there was neither the time nor the opportunity to make further inquiries. In any case, Olivia was deeply distressed by the news that Raventhorne's friendship with Arvind Singh appeared to be in jeopardy. That the relationship was threatened because of the wretched coal, Olivia saw as a tragedy of even greater proportions. Love, trust, compassion, companionship—all these had been denied Jai Raventhorne, either by whimsical fate or by consequences of his own quirks of character. Could his stars now be so cruel as to also snatch away the one friend he had? And all because of a business dispute she saw as absurdly trivial?

  Had Olivia been privileged to hear a discussion taking place between her uncle and Kashinath Das at precisely the time that she was with Ransome in his office, she would have perhaps had even greater cause for worry.

  "But then, since the consortium is not willing to increase the offer, you wish to take your . . . other option?" Das was saying as he stared solemnly at his English patent-leather shoes. "It would be a simple matter to arrange."

  Sitting on his bed propped up against a mountain of pillows that he pummelled frequently to lessen his discomfort, Sir Joshua muttered a curse. "Simple? Don't be an ass, Kashinath. Nothing you Indians arrange can ever be simple! Besides, we have yet to receive formal word from Arvind Singh of his refusal." Picking up the handbell from his bedside table, he rattled it vigorously.