Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  Whatever her other considerations, Olivia's alarm was primarily for Freddie's health. It was already fragile and she had made a promise to his mother, a promise that she was being prevented from keeping. In her anxiety Olivia spoke to Peter Barstow. It was a mistake.

  "Stop old Fred hitting the juice?" he drawled, even more bored and supercilious than before. "My dear Olivia, that's the duty of a loving wife! Now, if he were getting at home what he gets in abundance at the Behind, he wouldn't have the need to drink, would he?" His thin smile was insultingly suggestive.

  She wanted to slap his grinning mouth but, with surprising control, desisted. "Get out!" she snapped instead, cold with disgust. "I think you must be the most despicable man I have ever known."

  "Despicable but honest, you'll grant me that at least." He again wore that shrewd, speculative look Olivia knew and hated. "You're too intelligent to have married Freddie for love, Olivia, too independent to have married for money, and not snobbish enough to have married for a title." He cocked his head to a side and smiled. "So, why did you marry Freddie? You know, I've been wondering about that a good deal ..."

  Her heart gave a lurch of alarm; she could no longer dismiss these barbed innuendoes with the contempt they deserved. Not after Arvind Singh's warning. If Peter Barstow had been wondering, perhaps so had others. Would Raventhorne . . .?

  "Yes, yes," Sir Joshua muttered testily, "of course you must have the christening here. Bridget will be livid if you don't."

  It was in answer to a question Olivia had asked several days ago. "Thank you, Uncle Josh. I. . . we've asked Uncle Arthur to be Amos's godfather."

  "That's all he's good for now, since he won't get off his butt and go to Canton!" He scowled, lost again in the mists of his mind. "It is this fellow Birkhurst you said you were marrying, isn't it?"

  "Yes, Uncle Josh."

  "And it's his mother who grazes like a cow in pasture, I believe?"

  She had to smile. "Yes, Uncle Josh."

  "And Birkhurst himself tends to pass out in strange gardens?"

  "Sometimes, Uncle Josh."

  He looked very grave. "Olivia, are you sure you know what you are doing?"

  "No, Uncle Josh," she said sadly, "I'm not sure that I do."

  "Well, if I've told Bridget once, I've told her a dozen times— little Estelle goes to boarding-school over my dead body. And if that imbecile woman with bad teeth and dandruff isn't the nanny Est—" Waggling a stern finger in the air, he shuffled off muttering to himself.

  Following with her eyes the bent, carpet-slippered body of this caricature of a man as he floated away in his lonely bubble, Olivia filled with rage. Estelle had been gone almost a year—and still not a word from her to the doting father she had turned into a travesty! Ensconced in that luxurious London residence with her indulgent paramour, was she too besotted to spare even a thought for her aging, ailing parent? Corroding with wrath—a wrath she seldom gave free rein to now—Olivia strode into the pantry to arrange a light luncheon for her poor uncle—a quarter boiled egg, some buttered toast and Babulal's much favoured jam roly-poly. Seething within, she laid out a neat tray while giving brisk orders to the ever-attentive Rehman. The modest meal ready, she picked up the tray and went into the dining-room to collect the cruet stand from the table.

  A fine layer of dust covered all the surfaces in this elegant room that had once seen so many splendid burra khanas, so much gaiety. There were cobwebs in every corner, the majestic chandelier no longer glittered and the large oil paintings on the walls hung awry under coatings of dull grime. Leaving the tray on the table, Olivia picked up a feather duster as a natural reflex and brushed off a pile of stray fluff from the cushion of a chair. Then, balancing on a stool, she straightened all the pictures on the walls. In the alcove, away from the other paintings, hung the portrait of the haughty and perpetually disapproving Lady Stella Templewood. It looked even more woebegone than the rest. In deference to her uncle's sentiments, Olivia picked up a dusting cloth and carefully wiped the surface of the painting, which had obviously not been cleaned in years. Standing on the stool, for the first time Olivia found herself at eye level with the imperious face of Sir Joshua's mother. She frowned and observed the face closely. Her hand stilled; for a long moment she remained entirely motionless, staring.

  Then, one by one, a million goose pimples started to erupt over her body; her skin chilled. The blood in her face drained, leaving it deathly. Within her grew a vast silence; her heart faltered, then leapt, then stopped altogether. In a daze she somehow stumbled down from her perch, unaware that she had done so. In order not to faint, she clutched the back of a chair, too stunned to think of sitting down. She did not notice when Rehman retrieved the tray and carried it out of the dining-room into Sir Joshua's study. She forgot that she had promised to sit with him while he ate. She forgot everything.

  Except for that portrait. And the shock of what the dead had just revealed to her.

  But when Olivia reached home, even that shock was wiped clear from her mind; Willie Donaldson awaited with grave news. A messenger had disembarked from an English vessel not an hour ago with word that Lord Birkhurst had passed away at his home in Suffolk. Freddie had been summoned home by his mother with the utmost urgency to take charge of his estate and its administration. The news, vital in all its implications, was already three months old.

  An escape!

  Keeping her sudden hope securely anchored behind a solemn front in view of Donaldson's grief at having lost a friend, mentor and employer, Olivia set about doing what Donaldson had tearfully requested, help him in locating Freddie. Unaware of his father's death, Freddie had not been found in any of his usual haunts or with any of his regular cronies. Quickly Olivia scribbled an address on a slip of paper; it was of her husband's most recent doxy on Armenian Street. Apart from a dark flush, Donaldson showed no reaction as he hurried away to do what was needed. Half an hour later he returned bearing Freddie in his carriage with all the blinds discreetly lowered. Snoring blissfully in his intoxicated stupor, Freddie was not to know until the following morning that three months ago he had become Baron Birkhurst of Farrowsham, eighth holder of the title, and one of the wealthiest men in Britain.

  The passing away of his father, for whom he had little love, left Freddie unimpressed. Over breakfast the next morning, his eyes blinked rapidly in an effort to focus on the voluminous mail packet the messenger had brought from his mother. Olivia's own letter from her mother-in-law had been warm, her concern evident in her oft-repeated hope that Olivia's child had been born safely. She looked forward, she wrote, to receiving them both at Farrowsham with Freddie.

  "Yes," Freddie muttered, trying to suppress a yawn, "I'd better leave right away. Has Willie reserved passage aboard a vessel sailing soon?" If anything, the prospect of a return to England cheered him considerably.

  I'd better leave . . .? "I believe he has. The Queen of Norway sails on the afternoon tide the day after tomorrow." Heavy with anticipation, Olivia's heart skipped several beats but she made no other comment.

  "Good." He got up, yawned again and went in to bathe.

  So much now needed to be done, as Olivia set about preparing Freddie's trunks for his long journey home, that there was little time to brood. Even so, her thoughts and conjectures raced. Would Freddie want to take her with him? Should she go if he did? Yes, oh God, yes! She had the second part of her bargain to fulfil; it might not be legally binding but as a moral obligation it was as shackling as an iron chain. Also, once in England only one ocean would separate her from America.

  For the first time in months, Freddie was forced to attend to his office. Matters concerning the plantation had to be given formal approval, legal papers had to be signed, dispatches had to be prepared to carry to London. To see to more mundane matters, Olivia remained at home, and read for the umpteenth time the letter from her mother-in-law. Nowhere did Lady Birkhurst remind her of her promise, but it was in the final sentences that her inviolate faith in Oli
via's honesty lay concealed. "I look forward immensely to your arrival (and that of your child) at Farrowsham. You will be good for me in my grief, good for Farrowsham and, most of all, good for my son. It is my hope, nay conviction, that you will never disappoint me."

  On the eve of his departure, Freddie returned home early from the office. For the first time in weeks they sat down to dinner together, and for the first time in weeks he was stone cold sober. Between them as they ate hung a pall of tensions that could not be pierced by meaningless conversational shafts. Like a caterpillar, Freddie had woven a cocoon around himself; he had excluded her from himself and it pained Olivia deeply. How much Freddie had changed! That the change had not been for the better, Olivia realised sadly, was a consequence of her wretched circumstances, not his. Like her, Freddie also was a victim, a bystander caught in the cross-fire of somebody else's war.

  "I will not be returning to India." The meal was over, the staff dismissed for the night. Both of them knew that whatever needed to be said could no longer be postponed, for there was no more time.

  "Yes." Composed outwardly, Olivia sat with her hands clasped in her lap.

  "Will you join me in England later?"

  Her heart leapt but she remained cautious. "Would you want me to?"

  "Yes, I would want you to. You know that I love you. As my wife, your place will always be at my side."

  To leave India, never again to face or fear Jai Raventhorne, to someday secure Amos even more completely in Hawaii . . .! "My promise to leave you whenever you wish still holds good, Freddie." She restrained soaring optimism to stay practical.

  "Whenever I wish? How neatly you throw the ball back into my court, my love!" He smiled but he looked tired and ill and, as he spoke, did not meet her eyes. Instinctively Olivia knew that there was more to come, much more. Even before he said it, her heart had already heard what it was. "If you join me in England, Olivia, then it must be ... alone." He stood up and walked away from her.

  "Alone?" she echoed, not surprised and yet stunned.

  He could not turn around to face her. "I know who your son reminds me of." Well, it had come, as she had always known it would one day. In some odd little way, it was to her a relief. Freddie whirled around, his face a mask of horror. "How could you, Olivia, how could you! My God, the man's not even white! The child you asked me to give my name to, the child you expect me to rear as my own, is one quarter native. . .!" Suffocating on his own passion, he started to splutter.

  Within Olivia something more withered and died. There was no longer any point in denials. Engulfed in her dull despair, she did not even feel pain anymore. "I cannot abandon my child, Freddie. You know that whatever he is, he is mine. You might not be his father but I am his mother. What you ask of me is impossible."

  "Don't I know that I am not his father!" he spat out, now furious. "Raventhorne is. Raventhorne—a half-caste gutter-snipe bastard! Holy mother of God—could you find no other man to open your legs to in this entire cursed city? Was there no purebred Englishman left in Calcutta on whom to bestow your generous favours?" Gripping her shoulders he shook her with a savagery of which she could never have thought him capable. "Why, you rotten slut. . .!" Demented, he scarcely knew what he was doing as he pushed her away so that she fell back onto the couch.

  Wearily, she lay back and made no effort to rise again. "For me Jai Raventhorne is dead, Freddie," she intoned mechanically out of habit. "And if he is not, then I pray that he soon will be. He no longer means anything to me."

  But crushed by his own misery, Freddie was beyond listening. With an anguished cry he collapsed into a chair and noisy, dry sobs racked his body. "Raventhorne possesses the only thing that I have ever wanted in my life. Christ, it's evil, malignant!" He was inconsolable. "I am not the man I thought I was, Olivia. I beg you to release me from my promise. I am not equipped to fulfil it. I do not have the moral strength, or the capacity to forget. Forgive me, Olivia, forgive me . . ."

  From a distance, separated from him by a space too vast to negotiate, Olivia watched his world crumble. They had all changed, or been changed, reduced to their basic components like Humpty-Dumpty, impossible to put together again. She rose to sit on the arm of his chair and stroke his neck, gently but with deadened impersonality, as if he were only an acquaintance. "I release you, Freddie dear, of course I do. You were good to me when I needed goodness most, I can never forget that. Whatever happens, I will never think less of you. It is my strength that lacks, not yours—my equipment that is inadequate. You see, my dear," she said bitterly, "not one of us is the person we thought, not one."

  He did not hear a word. Instead, he turned and grabbed both her hands. "I'll find a good home for the boy, Olivia, decent foster parents. I promise he will be well looked after, that he will lack nothing. You will be free to return here to visit him whenever you wish, for as long as you wish. I swear it, Olivia, you have my word!"

  Sorrowfully she shook her head. "I cannot do that, Freddie. Without Amos I would die. He is my life, my reason for living. You are asking me to cut out my heart and survive without it." Gritting her teeth, she made one final appeal, thinking only of the vow to which she was shackled. "If you let me take Amos with me, I promise he will never intrude in your life. You will not even be aware that he exists ..."

  "He exists in my mind, here." He tapped his forehead, laid his head back and closed his eyes. "Excise him from my mind, erase my memory, drug forever my consciousness, and I will agree." The grim silence between them filled suddenly with his laugh, a macabre rattle. "A bastard of a bastard, a touch of the tar-brush, and heir apparent to the barony of Farrowsham—Lord, what a joke!"

  "Amos will never be your heir! If you take us to England, I will give you a son of your own, I swear it!" Recklessly, she lowered herself even further, seeking escape, any escape.

  He shook his head. "Each time we lie together it will be with his bastard in between, a reminder that someone has already poached my preserve, or is it the other way around?" His disillusion was heart-breaking. "It is more than my weak flesh can bear, dear heart. Don't ask me to perpetuate the agony. I cannot."

  "It is my duty to provide you with an heir." Dull with failure, she spoke without emotion. "You cannot marry again."

  "I would not wish to marry again. For me there can never be any woman but you, Olivia."

  Despite her numbness, her eyes filled. "Bury the past, Freddie," she implored one last time. "Raventhorne means nothing to me, even less!"

  "Then give up his son."

  He waited for an answer. A seeming eternity passed without it coming. But then, they both knew that it never would, for it had already been delivered. Freddie rose, went to the door and opened it.

  "I have instructed Willie to provide you with anything, everything, that you might need by way of funds. As for the Agency, the plantation and the other Indian assets, you may utilise them with total freedom as you wish. Should you leave Calcutta, my instructions remain. I am making lifelong provision for you wherever you might choose to live. As for your son," a cloud flitted over his face, "he will, of course, remain my financial responsibility throughout his life. That obligation, at least, I am man enough to honour."

  "I want nothing from you, Freddie, not a penny!"

  He did not even hear her. "I would have taken anyone else's child, Olivia, anyone but a miscegene. I would like to make that clear." His shoulders sagged again. "If ever you can find it in your heart to do so, forgive me." He closed the door very softly behind him.

  It was the end of their life together. Such as it had been.

  The next morning, early, Willie Donaldson arrived to collect Freddie's baggage, all neatly packed and labelled, standing in readiness in the hallway. Freddie himself was not at home, having gone out again last night without returning. At noon, Donaldson came back to report that His Lordship had been found once more on Armenian Street and had had to be carried aboard the Queen of Norway, which was now away down the river towards the estuary.
Unknown to Freddie, Olivia had slipped a letter inside his portmanteau for his mother. Dear Lady Birkhurst, she had written formally,

  It is with regret I inform you that my debt of honour to your family is destined to remain unrepaid. I have also failed to bring your son the salvation that you had so generously expected, and I so unthinkingly promised ...

  It was not until much later that Olivia recalled another little irony. Now, it was she who was Lady Birkhurst.

  CHAPTER 16

  There was now nothing more to keep her in India. Thrusting aside her failures, Olivia resolutely vowed to look only ahead. She had tried—God, how she had tried!—but no one could fight so perverse a configuration of their stars and win. Her fate, Freddie's fate and their combined limitations had all conspired against them. But until now her life in India had been like that banyan tree forest with serpentine tendrils transfixing her to the ground. Suddenly and miraculously, she was free, at liberty to choose her own destiny. She could return home whenever she pleased! Dazed by this unsolicited and undreamed-of freedom, she was buoyant and light-hearted again, done once and for all with regrets and remorse and guilt. All at once she saw Freddie's departure in an entirely new light and with such relief that she could not help feeling almost ashamed. Ruthlessly she brushed away the past; not even the shock of what she had learned at her uncle's house that day disturbed her anymore. She no longer cared. It was not her secret to worry over unduly; let those whose it was be concerned!

  Letting only the bare minimum of a decent interval elapse, Olivia requested Willie Donaldson to make arrangements for her passage to Hawaii.

  In the meantime news of Freddie's precipitous departure and the reason for it brought the inevitable torrent of callers. Amusingly enough, the gentlemen all came with sincere condolences, but the ladies, green eyed with envy, concealed their chagrin beneath crocodile tears.