Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  A paragon of unlikely European elegance, Jai Raventhorne was formally and impeccably dressed. His suit, English and three piece, was of dark burgundy and fashionably cut. A cream silk shirt, ruffled down the front, was framed by black velvet lapels. The black cummerbund circling his slim waist was pleated with precision. As his ankles, crossed casually, moved, the gold buckles on his black patent leather shoes caught the light of a chandelier and twinkled. Gone was the riotous ebony hair; trimmed and brushed scrupulously back, it had been tamed into uncharacteristic submission. The picture he presented was of a high-born English gentleman supremely at home in his natural habitat, an elegant drawing-room. A forgotten vision flashed across Olivia's mind as she observed the scene—that of a dirty dish-washer by the well of a roadside tavern. But this time, she did not discard the vision out of hand. Instead, she scrutinised it from afar, with detachment. She discovered that her scrutiny brought no sudden twists of the heart, no involuntary wrenches. All it brought was cold anger. Impatiently, she cleansed her mind of the past, consigning again to oblivion that which oblivion deserved. She had a need to survive this evening, and survive it with triumph. That need would not go abegging. Jai Raventhorne would never be allowed to touch her again.

  Holding her head even higher, she nimbly ran down the remaining stairs.

  "Did you invite him?" As soon as she descended, Arthur Ransome cornered her. He looked far from easy.

  "No. Estelle did."

  "She had no damn business to, not without at least forewarning us. He docked last night, I learn. Tomorrow he goes to Assam."

  Raventhorne had not glanced at her even once but Olivia knew instinctively that with some invisible, inner stare, he had her skewered in his vision. For all his offhandedness, she could almost physically feel that hateful pewter gaze dissecting her as if with a scalpel bent on merciless surgery. With an effort, she pried her own eyes away from the bar. "Why has he come?" she demanded in a fierce whisper.

  "I have no idea." Ransome shrugged but his frown deepened. "There is some motive behind it, there must be. I don't mind confessing that I am distinctly worried."

  "Estelle's liaison with him might not be common knowledge, but your enmity is. Surely he would not—"

  "Oh, I'm not concerned about the enmity. Not here anyway." He grimaced. "The world of commerce is pragmatic, Olivia. If all those who hate each other's guts in office rooms ceased to drink together, there would never be another social occasion shared in station! No, it's not as simple as that, my dear. There is something else, I fear, that does not smell quite right."

  "Perhaps." She gave a vinegary smile. "After all, whatever the assumed civilities, Raventhorne can hardly be called the most popular man in town!"

  "On the contrary," Ransome returned drily, "I would say that with at least half your guests, Raventhorne is extremely popular."

  He referred, of course, to the ladies. Giggling, fluttering eyelashes and simpering coyly, many hovered close to the bar counter, making no secret of their hopes of earning some attention. The displays of coquetry disgusted Olivia. She made a gesture of contemptuous dismissal. "Oh, I don't mean them, they are immaterial. I mean the men."

  "I do not exclude the men either. Personal grudges are all very well, my dear, but business is business—never forget that. There's not a man here who does not, however indirectly, have dealings with Raventhorne's Trident. Kala Kanta puts many shekels into many coffers when he wants to. No, however great the private temptations, I daresay he is unlikely to be murdered publicly on your priceless Persian carpets." But despite his laugh, he continued to look worried.

  Olivia could no longer avoid circulating. Moving away, she walked towards the group farthest from him and the bar counter. But each step she took was like treading on knives: Even with her back to Raventhorne, she could feel his eyes—Amos's eyes!— follow her like a tail attached to her body. Between his stare and that of Estelle (watching warily from a safe distance), Olivia began to feel impaled, her flesh singed and branded. Her nerves started to falter. Recklessly, she downed two more glasses of sherry.

  She started to float. Once again the feeling of fantasy was strong, a bubble enclosing her in the dreamy ether of unreality. Was it true that this was happening, or was it an illusion, a mirage, a nightmare merely come alive? She was actually in the same room again with Jai Raventhorne. To touch him with her eyes all she had to do was turn. If she traversed the length of the room, she could reach for his hand. At one time she had sold her soul to do both; now she did neither. Instead, she called for some more sherry, demolished another glassful and asked for dinner to be announced.

  And inwardly she laughed. To think she had presumed that Estelle could not keep her secrets well!

  Savagely, Olivia took hold of her mind again and latched it on trivialities. Had the cruet stands been refilled with fresh mustard? Were the flowers wilting because the fires were too hot? Should she risk sending the pomfret galantine around twice; was the French cheese too ripe, the English Stilton not ripe enough? The boom of the silver dinner gong rumbled funereally through the reception rooms, the band struck a last chord and, eagerly, two by two everyone streamed into the dining hall resplendent with candelabras and silver and crackling crisp white napery. The repast that Olivia had arranged was quite splendid, with game soup, chicken curry in coconut milk, black mushroom pilaf, sheeps' trotters with chick-peas, toad in the hole, hams, sides of roast beef, salted venison, roast duck, mounds of delicately steamed vegetables, compotes and pies, lemon meringues, American chocolate cake with clotted cream and deep sprinklings of nuts. There were compliments galore as everyone ate and drank heartily. Everyone, that is, except Estelle and Jai Raventhorne.

  Ensconced in an alcove, they conversed with apparent unconcern. Estelle's cheeks were high with colour, her eyes alive with sparkles. Raventhorne's gaze was glued to Estelle's face as he sat cradling a brandy between his palms, but Olivia was not fooled. She knew by the crawl of her flesh that she was still tightly encapsulated in that damnable vision, held ruthlessly within those pupils that saw without watching. I don't need eyes to see you . . .

  I must not let go, I must not let go!

  No, this excess she would not forgive Estelle, not ever!

  "What a superlative evening, Olivia!" Across her overflowing plate, Betty Pennworthy leaned forward to gush. She dropped her voice. "And, my dear, what a coup to have enticed our reclusive neighbour into coming! Just as well Josh—"

  "Betty!" Her husband cautioned her with a frown. "It is not for us to comment upon what is not our business." To underline his point he thrust his empty plate forward, tacitly demanding a second helping.

  "Doesn't he want to talk with anyone except Estelle?" Susan Bradshaw wailed. "All he does is drink—what a waste! Can you not persuade your prize guest to be kind to us too?"

  "Mr. Raventhorne is the guest of John and Estelle. It is to them that you must direct your appeal," Olivia answered with a flinty smile. "My own influence in the matter is minimal."

  "Oh, look!" The Hendersons' recently arrived daughter gave a little cry. "He's drained his glass. I do believe he means to head our way at last! Oh, do you think I dare?" she asked no one in particular. "Yes. I do. Coming, Polly?"

  Even the very superior Charlotte seemed flustered. "Oh dear. My hair, it's in such a mess! I wonder if I should ...?" Muttering to herself, she hurried off in another direction.

  A tall freckled girl with ginger-coloured hair and a green bow in it sighed. "Isn't he quite the best-looking man at the party, Clive?" she asked her escort with supreme lack of tact. "I don't believe he has a trace of native blood in him, truly I don't."

  "Well he has," Clive Smithers snapped. "Besides, he's a cad, a thorough swine. I can't imagine what Estelle and John are up to. Come away, Hattie, before you make a fool of yourself." Considering the gossip about the Smithers's own ancestry, the remark was amusing. But then, such precisely were the ironies rampant in Calcutta's social self-delusions.

  W
herever Olivia moved, she heard and overheard comments about Raventhorne—some malicious, others gleeful, but all charged with excitement. Why had this arrogant half-caste bastard suddenly decided to grace the English drawing-room in which he had sworn not to be caught dead? The endlessly repeated question that worried Ransome was beginning to worry Olivia too. Yes, why?

  Whirling around the dance floor in the arms of a deferential young Port Trust official whose name she could not recall, Olivia wanted to plug her ears to stop the snatches of conversation that wafted past.

  "... dare to show his face? Poor Oli—"

  "... hardened rogue, my love, hardened ..."

  "Oh Ted, you're jealous! You couldn't fit a cummerbund over . . . now then, could you?" Giggle, giggle.

  "Everyone's saying [whisper, whisper] isn't it awful?"

  "—erican, after all. So uncaring of scan—"

  "Really, Archie! To hell with the half-caste when he has such . . ."

  By the time she could escape onto the verandah and be alone, Olivia was limp. Weakly she leaned against a pillar, shivering but not entirely with the cold. Whatever the circumstances, she had not been prepared for the shock of this evening, for the defeat of not being able to beat Raventhorne to the draw. Taken by surprise and lulled into a fool's paradise, she had not bothered to retain her defences, to predetermine reactions, to make herself totally immune to his presence. This Olivia now admitted to herself. To hate was not enough, not nearly so! By natural progression, that hate had to evolve into indifference, and she was not yet entirely indifferent to him. Both love and hate meant an expenditure of energy, of time and thought. She resented that expenditure, even during the hour or two more that she would have to spend with him under the same roof.

  From behind the pillar Olivia had a partial view of the dance floor. Raventhorne was now dancing—dancing!—with Estelle in his arms. Olivia had rarely seen him smile with such ease. Or such warmth. Barely reaching his shoulder, Estelle gazed up at him with her heart pouring out of her eyes. Olivia felt sickened with the obscenity of it all. Her stomach heaved and she could not contain it. Holding her mouth, she ran silently into the garden to be ill behind a bush bursting with white winter blossoms. Skirting the house, she then ran to the kitchen to rinse out her mouth and lubricate her ragged throat with a drink of water, watched by her astonished staff. By the same route she returned to the verandah.

  Where Jai Raventhorne awaited her.

  "Why does the refined Baroness Birkhurst need to be sick in her garden?" he asked with cloying softness.

  Olivia froze. She had not envisaged so private an encounter away from the insulating presence of others. For an instant she lost contact with her mental moorings, but only for an instant. "Perhaps because," she replied in a lightning recovery, "some of her guests reduce her to it." She moved to walk past him but he had her by the arm.

  "Even though she had pledged to accept them for what they were?"

  He had the nerve to resurrect that? Olivia wrenched her arm free to stand and survey him through narrowed eyes. Her punctilious investigation was a therapy; it gave her time to recover more fully. She had never before seen him so formally dressed. She was glad she had done so now; the paragon of sartorial perfection wiped out forever that haunting vision of a deprived menial so callously defrauded by fate. And in the act of their flesh touching, even minimally, she felt a revived sense of outrage. And courage. Staring contemptuously into the mother-of-pearl eyes that were his accursed legacy to her son, she asked, "Why have you come?"

  "Why? I could not refuse Estelle."

  "Estelle is a conniving minx!" She hadn't meant to say that but it was out and irretractable.

  "Most women are. Some are conniving sluts." Olivia stiffened, but he manacled her wrist so that she could not walk away. "Which is the second reason why I am here. I couldn't resist the temptation to see Lady Birkhurst in the luxurious habitat she had long selected for herself with such relentless duplicity. How diligently you set your sights on Freddie Birkhurst, with what accuracy and how swiftly!"

  She had tasted his gall many times before; its flavour was sharp in her tongue's memory. Even so, the magnitude of his insolence and the inequity of his presumptions swept her with blind fury. But, with miraculous calm, she caught the tail of her rage before it could flare. If she had to pay him back at all, it was in his own currency. And he had not yet mentioned Amos! "Supposing I were to say that a choice between decency and degradation, if offered, is not to be spurned?" she inquired with scathing sarcasm.

  "You had already chosen to tolerate what you call degradation, and chosen freely."

  "Free choices operate in both selection and rejection!" She could scarcely believe that even with his nerve he could flaunt recriminations. "And a few kisses here and there hardly constitute a lifetime commitment, do they?"

  His own words of so very long ago thrown back in his face elicited no overt reaction. "I left a letter for you. It could not be delivered. The man died of cholera. By the time it was relocated, it no longer mattered. Now I see that it would not have mattered anyway."

  A letter? Olivia stared at him dumbfounded. A letter...? And that was all he had considered necessary to obliterate an act of callous betrayal? To repair the cavernous breaches in her life, to replace a future he had stolen and carried away with him? She went rigid with renewed fury.

  "And what was it that you wrote in that conveniently lost letter, Jai? With what euphemisms did you inform me that as your mistress you had replaced me with an equally willing cousin?"

  She had the vicious pleasure of seeing him flush, and the taste of first blood was uncommonly sweet. "By marrying your pet loon you have lost the right to the contents of that letter. It was not addressed to Lady Birkhurst."

  "Ah, but you see, idle curiosity is still my predominating vice!" she tossed off with a light laugh. "Surely it deserves to be indulged one last time for past services rendered so well and so willingly?"

  In her mockery, his flush deepened. "You disgust me, Olivia!" he breathed, icy with anger.

  "I?" she mocked further, sickened by his fulsome lies, his alibis and excuses. Anything in that undelivered letter would have been too little, too late. In any case, she didn't believe that it existed. "I? Who have so devoutly sanctified your insanities and obsessions, treated as holy ground all those dark areas I once longed to illuminate? Why, surely you do me an injustice!" Filled with aversion, she hid behind the device of another laugh.

  Below his temple a wayward pulse throbbed. "You also once promised to trust me, Olivia."

  For a moment she was stunned; even he in his arrogance couldn't mean that! Between them the words hung in the air as if a phrase of the music inside had somehow detached itself to float out into the verandah. Then they fell with a crash into her consciousness and she jolted back to life. She wondered wrathfully if he toyed with her, taunted her. Yes, she had promised to trust him once. And she had! She had trusted him totally, with everything, her all—had he forgotten? Had he any conception of where she would have been now with the hollow rewards of that misplaced trust? She almost blurted out the question but then choked it back; obviously he hadn't, and for that she must remain forever grateful. For if he knew the answer to that, then he would also know about Amos—and that he must not ever! In her fragile imbalances she sought refuge in more flippancy. "Did I? I don't remember. Just as well. In any case, cast-off mistresses are known to be notoriously fickle."

  "So I have come to learn!" He was tight with leashed rage. "How else would you have netted that prize buffoon with such admirable dispatch and celebrated instant motherhood?"

  Her pulse skipped. "Well, maybe better a prize buffoon than a prize profligate!" she threw back with gathering breathlessness. "You cannot deny that a bird in the net is a more attractive bargain than some perverted prospect frolicking out of reach in far-away bushes." With a coy smile she added, "And you did recommend Freddie highly to me once, remember?"

  "And now that that b
ird is no longer in the net," he sneered, the cracks in his composure widening, "no doubt the vacancy in your bed has been filled by other willing surrogates?"

  "Why not?" Brazening her way further she turned the knife a little more. "Once a slut, I guess always a slut!" How amusing that both her husband and her child's father had chosen the same word with which to condemn her! But the insults no longer stung; she had passed beyond them. Frantic to steer him away from even a suggestion of Amos, she did not care how rashly she vilified herself, or allowed him to.

  In the semi-dark of the verandah his eyes smouldered, but before he could spit out a retort a small group wandered out through a French window amidst much laughter and gaiety. For a moment they stood chattering within earshot before moving away into the garden, but that moment was all Raventhorne needed to repair the damage to his control. "It is considered good etiquette in your elevated circles," he said then with a return to arctic formality, "to dance at least once with one's hostess before leaving a party." Expression once more cemented, he held out a hand.

  Olivia shied back, taken by surprise. Dance? With Jai Raventhorne? Oh no, no! "I'm sorry. I have promised this dance to—"

  "Whoever he is he won't mind."

  "But I do mind . . .," she started furiously, only to be sliced off by his ruthless grasp of her elbow. Ignoring her comment, he propelled her firmly but subtly back into the ballroom and, aghast, she had no option but to submit. To protest within earshot of others was, of course, unthinkable. As it was, their reentry was greeted with looks of unabashed curiosity. A pressure around her waist informed Olivia that his arm had been positioned, and that too securely. Their fingers touched, his breath brushed her ear in a closeness that to her was intolerable, and then he was guiding her smoothly across the flagged marble in a catchy waltz. In a breathless daze, Olivia marvelled with irrelevant surprise—who would have believed that Kala Kanta could be so competently versed in such palpably European frivolity as dancing? Deprived of even the will to protest further, Olivia surrendered herself to the inescapable and briefly closed her eyes. Her head swam. The feet tapping in rhythm to her madly pulsating temples seemed to have a will of their own. Behind closed lids she struggled for control and, when she opened her eyes, her breath was again even. Her gaze was level with the nut brown column of the neck she had kissed so often that she could almost taste it, but forcibly she concentrated her attention on his cravat, silken and fringed, and his coat buttons of beaten gold fashioned into seashells. What she could not ignore, however, was the deep, evocative muskiness of his skin. It was so intensely familiar that she thought she would faint. Against him she stumbled.