Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  "Tell me about your father's death," Olivia said one evening after Christmas was over and the year 1850 ushered in with due aplomb.

  "No!" Estelle shrank back in horror, all her hidden sorrow contained in the force of that negative. "I can't . . . talk about it. Not yet."

  "But you must, my dear," Olivia insisted gently. "It is only talking about it that will make you accept it and set your mind at rest. To keep it imprisoned like this will only delay the healing."

  But Estelle buried her face in her hands and shook her head. Taking pity on her acute distress, Olivia dropped the subject.

  If, however, Estelle had her own reasons to cover her pain about her father's death, about her experience with Jai Raventhorne she had equally strong reasons to wish to reveal all. At first, refraining scrupulously from again risking her cousin's wrath, she made no mention of him. But then one day, inevitably, the name cropped up between them. Now it was Olivia's turn to recoil, but she didn't. As she had been steeling herself to ever since Estelle had arrived, Olivia showed no reaction save for cultivated indifference.

  "I only mentioned Jai because . . . because you said he didn't matter to you anymore," Estelle said uncertainly, again nervous.

  "He doesn't," Olivia assured her. "As far as I am concerned, feel free to talk about whomever you wish."

  Estelle was not to know that behind the generous invitation lay a motive, the same motive that had made Olivia such a willing listener to Ransome. To her, the past was not relevant anymore; it was the future. Soon Raventhorne would return from Assam. Working in the same business district, with an agency that dealt frequently with Trident, Olivia knew she would not be able to avoid encounters with him, even confrontations. It was not she who intended to incite those confrontations, but Raventhorne certainly would! He had already branded her the betrayer, stigmatised her motives, demeaned and abused her. He hunted for palliatives for a sorely damaged ego, and his vindictiveness, as she now knew, was even more open ended than she had imagined. She had to learn to fight him—and fight him well, to a standstill!—or else, in his uncanny perceptions and intuitions, he would somehow, from somewhere, drag out the truth about Amos.

  But to learn to fight such a man, Olivia realised, she needed more equipment, any instrument that might somehow help. Her armoury was slowly filling, but it was still woefully inadequate. During Estelle's one year with Jai, she had become close to him, won him over, as he had her. Estelle had seen him in unguarded moments, with defences down, in situations of revealing informality, when he had perhaps exposed himself without even realising that he had done so. Raventhorne had alienated Estelle's mother from her, been the catalyst for her father's death, almost succeeded in ruining her life—as he had planned to all along. What Olivia now burned with eagerness to learn was by what subtle processes Raventhorne's mind and intentions had changed. And how, with all his criminality, had Estelle come to actually accept and love him as a brother? Instinct told Olivia that the seeds of her own strategy would lie somewhere in Estelle's garrulous outpourings; she would have to listen very carefully and then do what Lady Birkhurst had once told her she had learned to do with consummate skill—separate the wheat from the chaff. Hardening herself to all other considerations, Olivia swallowed her distaste and encouraged her cousin's volubility.

  For her part, Estelle accepted the encouragement humbly, with gratitude, taking it as another sign of her cousin's generous forgiveness. So far, understandably, she had not had occasion to share her confidences fully with anyone. And to whom else but her beloved Olivia could she possibly strip her heart bare as frankly as she longed to?

  In Olivia's forced willingness to receive Estelle's confidences, there was also initial wariness. She remained alert for the offensive phrase, the subtle innuendo, the concealed sneer—but none came. Estelle showed neither slyness nor embarrassment in unveiling what she had once called her "escapade," only a passionate desire to withhold nothing from her tragically wronged cousin. Olivia had always envied Estelle's talent for taking even life's most deceitful manoeuvres in her stride. It now astonished her to see with what pragmatism and lack of ambiguity Estelle had assimilated her experience into the fabric of her thinking. It now appeared that in inverse ratio to her reluctance to talk about her father's suicide was her eagerness to tell Olivia all that she had experienced with Jai Raventhorne.

  Once she had learned to live with what he had revealed to her with such unfeeling bluntness, Estelle said, she had rallied fast. The hideous implications of their situation—which Raventhorne had not spelt out but which she understood fully—she accepted also, although with boiling anger. After he had released her from the master cabin, they again had ferocious rows, violent arguments. "I told him I was sick of his silly temper," Estelle said, incensed even by the memory of those humiliating days. "What had happened had happened. If all he said was true—and I knew that he had not lied at least about that—then it was time we learned to endure each other and he learned to treat me like a sister. Well, he was shocked. The word sister had not even occurred to him, you see. And then he was furious again, so I gave him an ultimatum—either that, or I would go on a hunger strike and starve myself to death. He laughed. He said he didn't give a broken farthing what I did with myself. For all he cared, I could jump ship and get lost on the African continent. As far as he was concerned, his purpose had been achieved."

  If parts of Estelle's reminiscences were undoubtedly hurtful to her, then there were some that she enlivened with her gifted sense of humour. This one brought an involuntary half smile to Olivia's lips. "You go on a hunger strike? That I would have to see to believe!"

  "Oh, I didn't really." The brief return of adolescent complacency in a face so drawn with unhappiness was somehow appealing. "I saw no reason to suffer because of his cussedness. I persuaded Bahadur—you know, his inseparable factotum—to bring me up dry rations that I could hide under the bed."

  This time Olivia was forced to laugh.

  "Jai didn't know that, of course. When he thought I had eaten nothing for four days, he was worried. Supposing I did die and he was lumbered with my body? At least, that's how he explained it when he himself brought me up a tray and thrust it under my nose. He pulled out his gun and held it to my head, tight with anger. 'Now eat!' he said through clenched teeth. 'If you don't, I swear I'll blow your brains out, whatever little you have of them.' Well, I ate of course. My goodness, how I ate! He hadn't needed to brandish that gun, but I didn't tell him that, naturally. In fact, I told him that I was not prepared to be treated like an encumbrance anymore. If he didn't keep me in the style to which I was accustomed, I would go on another hunger strike!" She smiled in remembered triumph. "That really alarmed him, you know. At first he raved and ranted and again threatened to spank me, but then suddenly he threw up his arms in surrender and sat down to roar with laughter." That recollection made her laugh too; then she turned wistful. "After that, Olivia, he became quite another person again. He was incredibly kind. I would not have believed him capable of such consideration, but he was. In time, he started to trust me, perhaps not entirely, but somewhat. He began to talk to me, loosen, ask me many questions, listen carefully to my answers, tell me things about himself."

  "With all that kindness and consideration," Olivia said with an inadvertent return of resentment, "did it not occur to you to write at least a few lines home?"

  Estelle's mood of brief abandon faded. Once more her face became pinched. "I tried to, Olivia. I tried several times, I swear, but I couldn't find the words. What explanations could I possibly give? How could I say in cold black and white everything that needed to be said? Besides, if I had to account for my behavior, then they too, Papa and Mama both, had to account for theirs." Her cheeks showed red with the force of her anger. "They had concealed the truth from me, such a vital truth. Had I known it earlier, would all this have ever happened . . .?" Her anger collapsed as fast as it had arisen; she remembered that the people on whom she expended it were no longer in a
position to repent. The effort to regain control was punitive, but somehow she managed. "Those mutual explanations could only be made face to face. Since Jai promised a return in six months, if I wished to return after I married John, I decided to let the matter rest until—"

  "What?" Olivia's exclamation of surprise slipped out before she could stop it.

  Equally startled, Estelle snapped out of her ruminations. "I only said, since Jai intended to return to Calcutta within six months with a swift turnaround from England ..." She faltered, again nervous. "D-did I say something wrong . . .?"

  With a low, mumbled incoherency, Olivia shook her head and buried her attention again in the crochet bonnet she was making for Amos. Six months! A drop in the ocean of time, and yet an eternity! How had he presumed that she did have six months to spare? That his offhand, unilateral decision would dovetail neatly into her own compulsions? And, having abandoned her without a word of explanation, did he really believe in his arrogance that she would still be waiting for him like a bonded slave purchased by some feudal plantation owner? Olivia curdled with fury, with bitterness, but no change was noticeable in the resolute serenity of her face.

  Nevertheless, she gathered up her sewing materials and replaced them in her wicker-work basket. She was, she decided, tiring of Estelle's recollections, tiring of the sound of Jai Raventhorne's name and of all the virtues Estelle had suddenly discovered in him. However profound her compassion for her bereaved cousin, that name buzzed in Olivia's ears like a poisonous insect with sting upraised. It threatened her mental equilibrium, infected her reason and, in the final analysis, it was offensive to her self-respect as a woman.

  "You look tired, Estelle," she said as lightly as she could so as not to wound her feelings. "And you distress yourself even more with all these heart searchings. We have all the time we want at our disposal—why don't we leave the rest for another day?"

  Anxious to please in any way she could, Estelle accepted her dictum at face value and with meekness.

  The days of mandatory rest, of enforced idleness, infused new strength into Olivia's mind and body. Eventually, even Dr. Humphries declared himself satisfied with her progress. What he categorically refused to even consider, however, was her tentative question about the possibility of sailing. She was certainly not well enough for that, he growled—but, if she insisted, he would allow her a few hours a day at the Agency. "Provided," he warned, "there are no more high jinks around town! We still have to be cautious. On the other hand, we don't want you to atrophy into a cabbage, do we?"

  Olivia bowed to his judgement with resignation. It would be self-destructive not to when she was bearing a child who depended on her own health, when that child would some day mean so much to so many. And then, even brief visits to the Agency were better than mental stagnation at home. Olivia realised that in elitist colonial society it was considered scandalously immodest for a pregnant woman to be seen in public. She had flouted the norm once and had received harsh criticism for her defiance. To do so again would be deemed tantamount to open rebellion—not that she gave a damn about that.

  "Oh, fiddlesticks!" It was Estelle who supported Dr. Humphries's suggestion with the most enthusiasm. "To hell with so-called propriety! No matter what one does here, someone always has something to say about it, so why worry? Besides, by going to the Agency you won't have to suffer all those who still call every day to give me their condolences."

  All of which was true. Estelle's daily visitors were a penance for Olivia although she had taken great care not to show that, especially never to her cousin. That Estelle should have noticed it anyway and endorsed the remedy touched Olivia, and she said so. Estelle went crimson with pleasure; even this scrap of approval she received with boundless gratification. Emboldened perhaps by Olivia's few words of praise, she ventured a step on territory she had never dared to invade before.

  "You're not ever going to join Freddie in England, are you?"

  The sudden inquiry jolted Olivia but she saw no cause for concealment. "No."

  "He knows the identity of Amos's father?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it because of that that he will not accept him?"

  It was an astute deduction, another sign of her maturity. "Yes."

  Olivia's intention had not been to give another turn to the knife already buried deep in Estelle's conscience, but her cousin was crushed with remorse. "For me, who deserves it so little," she whispered, "something at least has turned out well. But for you, with no crime, no blame, nothing has gone right. Oh, if only we could somehow go back in time and live it all again!"

  "If we could live it all again, nothing would be different," Olivia commented. "What the past teaches us is that the past teaches us nothing. Given second chances, we would all make precisely the same mistakes."

  Even though Estelle was by now used to her cousin's cynicism, the frequently acerbic remarks with which she spiced her conversation, she winced. How much Olivia had changed! Nothing truly touched her anymore. Like a land struck with drought, she had withered. So little took root in that infertile region of a heart once lush with plenitude. And how vitriolic her tongue, even when cruelty was unintended! This feral arrow, Estelle knew, was not aimed at her alone, but finding a vulnerable opening it entered and pierced deep.

  "Don't destroy all my illusions; leave me some to survive on!" The lid flew off Estelle's trapped sorrow; she cried out in anguished protest. "I want to believe that if I did live again, I would cherish Mama, inundate her with a love she could not deny, beg forgiveness for every harsh word I ever spoke. I would will them, Mama and Papa, to abandon their secret, and so avert all our wasteful tragedies. In this second incarnation I would be spared the knowledge that I took your life away, condemned my mother to an eternal limbo. I would not have as a companion as chronic as my breath the awareness that. . . that I conspired to kill my father!"

  Olivia was taken aback by the ferocity of the sudden eruption. "The blame is not only yours, Estelle, we all—"

  "Yes, we all contributed, I know—but that no longer consoles. It makes it even more painful. I have lost Papa and Mama, both of whom I did love to distraction but, shamefully, with them my resentments have not been lost. They lied to me, goaded Jai into terrible things, incited me to rebellion uncaring that I was a fool, a pampered child engrossed only in herself. And then they questioned my innocence. Papa looked at me like . . . like high-caste Hindus look at sweepers, as if I were untouchable. What a legacy he left me, Olivia! I can never forgive him that."

  Still startled by her cousin's bitterness, her burning sense of injury, Olivia allowed Estelle her say without comment. It had to be aired sometime; better now than to let it corrode her forever. All she ventured, mildly, was, "The brother you have found is also part of that legacy, Estelle. At least that you consider as a gain."

  "Yes—a brother hated by everyone, even you! Hated for many faults that were part of his legacy from his father. They shared the same moral contamination, hated the same weaknesses, turned sentiment into a crime. When I pointed that out to Papa, he merely hid behind that stubborn silence, but I know now that my defence of Jai enraged him more, reinforced his determination to kill him, convinced him finally that I was guilty. Oh, what a mess, what a mess we helped each other make of everything, Olivia . . . !"

  A mess. Yes, that it was. But what would Estelle have to say, Olivia wondered, if she could surmise how much more mess was now waiting to be added?

  Willie Donaldson was overjoyed to have Olivia back at the Agency, but he would have died rather than confess just how much he had missed her these past weeks of her indisposition. He already knew that she had no plans to leave station in the immediate future and this too delighted him. The incidental benefit of her decision to stay he was unlikely to miss either: The sacrosanct manse was not to be defiled by an alien presence after all! But once the formalities were over and he had finished bringing Olivia up to date with current developments, Donaldson revived a subject that was upp
ermost in his mind. The subject now not only disturbed him, it was beginning to alarm him seriously: her continuing loans to Arthur Ransome.

  "I appreciate, Your Ladyship, that personal considerations have much to do with your generosity." He was formal in the extreme. "No doot, poor Josh's untimely accident has added to Your Ladyship's sentiments. But," he loaded the qualification with meaning, "but, Your Ladyship must see that in my own sentiment for Caleb's Agency, I canna allow Farrowsham to become a target for any bloody lunatic in a danged fight that's not even ours. To me, such intervention is ootrageous!" He calmed down to turn earnestly persuasive. "Templewood and Ransome are finished. With Josh gone, irredeemably. We canna breathe life into a corpse, Your Ladyship, certainly na at the cost of ending in the mortuary ourselves."

  "They are not yet in the bankruptcy courts, Mr. Donaldson," Olivia reminded him, annoyed. "They still do have assets left. I mean to see that they get a square deal when they sell them."

  "Ransome is na exactly incapable, Your Ladyship! He's as old a hand at the bleeding game as any of us."

  "I know, but in his present frame of mind he's disinclined to fight. He'll make distress sales and lose the value of even those assets he has left. I merely loan him the wherewithal to survive until he can regain his equilibrium."

  "Assets, hah!" Donaldson snorted, as unconvinced as ever. "A hoose in Barrackpore falling to ruin, Ransome's bungalow for which na offer is likely to be received, likewise the Templewood hoose. The Sea Siren's already gone for scrap to Banaji's shipyard in Kidderpore, but even Banaji won't touch the Daffodil..."

  "Well, I happen to disagree, Mr. Donaldson. Those houses are still good, solid real estate properties and the Daffodil might be a wreck but she's far from done. Refurbished, she could still give yeoman service to some less affluent merchant."

  "You reck'n any sane sailing man would look twice at that toothless, worm-eaten old hag?" He made another sound indicating disgust. "Bar Raventhorne, of course. Na that anyone with his marbles intact would call that eccentric bastard sane!"