Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  The pattern that emerged from all this was clear; It was Raventhorne's hand that was blocking each avenue to make it into a dead end. Of that Olivia was now certain. The harassment was part of his tactics to delay the demolitions, to divert her energies elsewhere, to dissipate her manual resources. Refusing to either be intimidated or to waste her stamina further on useless anger, Olivia instead invoked her logic in a mental climate of calm and examined her options. She could refuse to repay Mooljee with such ludicrous dispatch, but then she would have to return the tiara to him. He would instantly foreclose the mortgage, sell the tiara and cheat her out of a sum much higher than his wretched loan. She could use Farrowsham funds to tide her over in the crisis or apply to Clarence Pennworthy's bank for another loan against the tiara. Both these last two options Olivia rejected. She would not break her vow not to touch Freddie's money for a war strictly her own. And although Pennworthy would certainly sanction her the loan, perhaps even without collateral, he was also Trident's banker. Just as Mooljee disliked "the Eurasian," Pennworthy did too; but, as Arthur Ransome had once pointed out to her, when it came to the crunch, business was business. Both also feared Kala Kanta, and Pennworthy would cunningly invoke as much red tape as possible to delay actually handing her the money.

  It was this silent observation that brought to Olivia's mind another of Ransome's long ago remarks. Raventhorne, he had said, had one matchless advantage over the Europeans: He had India on his side. Now, for the first time, Olivia was struck by the stunning validity of that contention. So far, Raventhorne had succeeded admirably in outplaying all her gambits. It was only much later in the day that Olivia suddenly saw one that he had missed, and she pounced on it. "He might have India on his side," she exclaimed, eyes shining again, "but not yet America!"

  "What?"

  Olivia didn't realise she had spoken aloud until Estelle, following all the frenetic comings and goings with gathering alarm, jerked out her monosyllabic query. Olivia laughed. "I was merely wondering why I had not thought of it earlier."

  "Thought of what?" How Estelle was beginning to distrust that secretive little smile on her cousin's lips!

  "Why, the Seventh Cavalry, of course!"

  While Estelle gaped in incomprehension, Olivia signalled Salim to order her carriage and gathered her purse and shawl. Estelle ran up to her and clutched at her arm. "Olivia, please don't goad Jai into any more recklessness! You cannot match forces with him, he is far too well prepared."

  Olivia stopped in her tracks and gave her a long, thoughtful look. "No. Forces I cannot match. I do see that now. But what I can match—and adequately!—are wits. There, my dearest Coz, we are far from unequal."

  As Olivia had known he would, Hal Lubbock was delighted to grant all her requests not only without hesitation but with enthusiasm. Yes, he had heard of the vile troubles her Agency was being subjected to by that son of a bitch Raventhorne, and yes, of course he would help—any danged way she suggested. "The gah sure needs his essentials trimmed, beggin' pahdon for mah language, my'am." He added generously that if he, Hiram Arrow-smith Lubbock, could be of any service whatsoever, whah, it would be his danged pleasshah to oblige, bah God it would! A loan? Lubbock laughed. That sure would be no problem; as much as she wanted, anytime. But was that all? For a moment he looked quite disappointed.

  "No, that is not all, Mr. Lubbock," Olivia said. "There is something else."

  He brightened. "Jes' name it, my'am—want the gah's teeth knocked back into his throat?"

  Olivia smiled. "Thank you for the offer, it really is a temptation! But no, that isn't it. What I would be most grateful for is a loan of your workmen. I will need them only for two days, three on the outside."

  Lubbock looked astonished. "Yuh want some furn'ture built?"

  "No. I want some structures demolished. I know that is not their usual line, but they're strong, hard-working and there are plenty of implements in your workshop to suit my purpose. I think they will do the job quite satisfactorily." Still baffled, Lubbock agreed without question. "Thank you kindly, Mr. Lubbock. I will let you know when."

  "Sure, but ah could easily start raht away, if yuh want," he suggested hopefully.

  Olivia cogitated, then shook her head. "No. There is one more matter that needs to be settled before I commence the demolitions. One last thing, Mr. Lubbock," she paused briefly, "there is likelihood of some . . . trouble at the Templewood site. May I also request your presence there with a shot-gun?"

  Lubbock was ecstatic. He hadn't had a single good fight since he had arrived in India and it was about time he did. "Black or white, my'am, bustin' asses is what yours truly does best, and ah owe yuh one, ah surely do!"

  If her business with Lubbock had gone smoothly, the second errand that Olivia had devised for herself was fraught with uncertainty. Lubbock she had met openly; her second visit would have to be in stealth and at night. It might be a confrontation and she dreaded it. The letter that her bearer, Salim, had delivered had brought only a noncommittal, lukewarm response. The meeting she sought had not been refused outright. But, Olivia knew, there would be rancour, possibly insults and innuendo. Whether or not she was successful in her quest, she would lose self-respect. But she was prepared for that, for if she achieved her purpose, what she stood to gain was more, far more.

  For one, she would have proved that not all of India, perhaps, was on Jai Raventhorne's side after all.

  Sujata received her with no outward sign of surprise, for she too was prepared. The midnight eyes, still smooth as satin, seemed startled only at Olivia's odd apparel, a burqua such as Muslim women wore to conceal their bodies and faces. Many visitors, especially men, came to call only under cover of night in equal secrecy. Accepting, if not understanding, Olivia's need for stealth, Sujata merely shrugged and, with that sublime grace that was part of her profession, silently invited Olivia into her house. They passed through an archway curtained with glass-beaded strings into a salon, large and dimly illuminated. Impatiently Olivia divested herself of her cumbersome outer garment wet from the spitting rain, since she had chosen to walk part of the way. A servant boy brought in a chair, the only one in evidence. Sujata herself reclined on a somewhat sad-looking mattress. She was as alert as a snake but otherwise inscrutable. Somehow, the minor courtesy of a chair seemed to constitute a snub. It underlined the difference between them, conveyed a delicate contempt.

  Positioning herself in the chair, Olivia ignored the slur. "Thank you for consenting to see me. I hope you will forgive the intrusion." She spoke in fluent Hindustani, her face expressionless. "I have come with a proposition that might be of interest to you." She allowed herself the flicker of a smile. "Its benefit will be mutual."

  It had not been difficult for Salim to locate Sujata's kotha, her courtesan's premises. She was well known in the neighbourhood, and local gossip about her proliferated. But in her profession, it was obvious to Olivia, her success had been modest. It was said that she paid her dues on time and entertained a few regular customers but that her heart was not in her business. The triple-storied house was owned by her but called for repairs; some walls showed exposed brickwork, others badly needed a coat of whitewash. The furnishings, once brocade perhaps, were threadbare; the bolsters and cushions displayed evidence of darning. In a corner, on a well-worn Persian carpet, stood neatly arranged musical instruments, perhaps the very ones Olivia had seen in the Chitpur house.

  "Oh?" Sujata's low laugh was insolent. "I would not have thought that the lady memsahib and I could have anything in common."

  It was the first time Olivia had heard her speak. She was faintly surprised by the sweetness of her voice, but then she remembered that she was a singer. "On the contrary, Sujata," she said softly, scrutinising closely the woman's smooth, sandalwood face. It was vibrant with colour but beneath the cosmetics and the contrived smoothness, there were lines. The satin eyes showed hard ripples of discontent, no longer liquid with love. The coral mouth with which Olivia had once shared Jai Raventho
rne's kisses was puckered into a pout of sourness. She no longer looked young. Perhaps not even twenty-five, she was already tarnished, the shine gone. Strange that this too should be mutual, Olivia thought! "On the contrary, Sujata," she repeated with greater emphasis. "There appears to be a great deal that we do have in common."

  Sujata laughed again, a jarring sound. A malicious glance swept over Olivia's stomach. "The lady memsahib likens her situation to mine? I hardly deserve such mockery! Yes, we have both been discarded," a flash of vicious triumph, "but how different our fates are! Could it be that blinded by wealth, fame, a husband, children, all that a woman desires—the lady memsahib has not noticed?" Breathing hard, she turned her angry face away. "Unlike you, I am not married, nor ever can be. Used for three years, I am fit only for this, a profession of shame but the only skill that the Sarkar taught me. Unlike you, I will never have children. Those I might will also live ingloriously, despised for want of a father." Kohl-laden eyes spilled over with hate and a deep, inner burning. "You are a white mem. Your kind protects you. You survive the abandonment well, lady memsahib, but don't rub salt into my wounds."

  "You are wrong, Sujata," Olivia spoke as gently as she could bring herself to. The hate she no longer cared about; it was the anger that interested her. "I too have wounds of my own. What we share is a common cause. Perhaps we both have many private fires to douse."

  "I do not have the strength to settle scores with him," Sujata said bitterly. "He is like an elephant, I merely an ant." Reaching for a well-used silver receptacle at her elbow, she spat into it.

  "But if you did have the strength, would you be prepared to use it?"

  Sujata stared, suspicious and uncomprehending. "Yes. I do not know what the lady memsahib means, but yes! If I had the strength, I would use it." Her lips thinned; she looked coarse again. "I would cut out his heart and eat it for reducing me to this!"

  "I can give you the strength. It will not be difficult." Taking out a small silken bag from her purse, Olivia started to open it. "Together, we could be invincible."

  Speechless at what Olivia now held in her hand, a pair of exquisite emerald earrings, Sujata stared riveted. Against the white of Olivia's palm they glittered like green fire.

  "These are yours if you can achieve what I want."

  Sujata tore her eyes away from Olivia's hand and swallowed. "What is it that I must achieve?" she whispered dazedly.

  "Something quite easy, but patience! First I must be assured that you possess the requisite information."

  Having had time—even a few seconds—to think, Sujata was now cautious. "I spoke in haste," she muttered, suddenly nervous. "I would never cut out his heart and eat it."

  "You will not be required to! Tell me, do you know the Chitpur house well?"

  The question startled Sujata. "The Chitpur house? Of course I know it well! I was sole mistress of it once." Her chin rose with an unconscious pride that was somehow pathetic. "Why?"

  "Would you be able to enter it without anyone knowing?"

  Her eyes widened. "Yes, but the Sarkar—"

  "The Sarkar's ship is being provisioned. Temporarily he resides on board. Bahadur also. The house is negligently guarded, particularly at night. The watchman sleeps, three of the staff are down with the flux and the dogs are also on board the ship. All this has already been ascertained." If Sujata had learned one skill from her Sarkar, she herself had learned another: how to secure and use information as a weapon. The two men she had hired to watch the Chitpur house round the clock and supply her details about the woman she now faced had not come cheaply; but the small fortune she had paid them had provided rich dividends. With luck, the dividends would be even richer. "I presume that you are still familiar with the Sarkar's personal apartment?"

  Sujata looked at her with contempt. "Naturally. I shared it with him."

  "And his personal belongings?"

  "Everything he possessed was in my care." Again that flash of unaware pride, but then the wariness returned. "He has nothing of value because he values nothing material, except for his guns. If stolen, these too he could afford to replace a hundred times. Evidently, the lady memsahib does not know the Sarkar as well as she pretends!"

  "There is something that he does value." Olivia dismissed the taunt; it was not to trade insults with this sorry woman that she had spent painstaking days building her dossier of information and risked this visit. "It is this that I wish retrieved. That is, if you can find it."

  "If it is there, I will find it. The Sarkar locks nothing." Despite her boast, she looked uneasy and her slitted eyes were questioning, but she could not keep them away from the silken pouch. "A childish prank will only irritate him, no more . . .," she said uncertainly.

  "You might know his body well, Sujata. I am better acquainted with his mind. If anything can be relied upon to mortally wound him, it is only this childish prank."

  "The lady memsahib talks in riddles," Sujata muttered, turning sullen at the slur suggested by Olivia's remark. Still in the grip of greed, however, she did not think to retaliate. "Before I can give an answer I must know more. I must know everything."

  "No! I must have your answer first.

  "But the lady mem doesn't understand!" Sujata cried. "I am frightened of the Sarkar. If he ever found out—"

  "He will not find out your involvement. The blame will be mine. He will not even think to suspect you." She scanned the frightened face thoughtfully. "I have been informed that you wish to leave town and go to Benares where your mother lives. With these," she picked up the pouch of jewellery, "you could afford all that you wish. You could vanish, leave behind forever this life that you despise. You would no longer be dependent for a living on the lust of men who revolt you. Some day you might even marry, have children." Relentlessly, Olivia continued her cajolings. "You could start that music school that I learn is your life's ambition."

  "How have you come to know so much about me?" There was again fear in Sujata's kohl-smeared eyes. "And why?"

  "It doesn't matter how. The why I have already explained." She opened the silk pouch and dangled the earrings casually.

  Hypnotised by the flashes of green fire, Sujata remained riveted, all her yearning concentrated in her eyes. Then, with a wail she buried her face in her palms. "Once I had everything, everything! Then you came, and nothing was the same for me again. I lost it all. I was cast out on the streets like an old rag. All because of you, white-skinned memsahib! He is of my world, not yours." She was distraught. "Why did you not stay with your own kind and let me keep what was my due?"

  "He did not cast you out onto the streets," Olivia said with cold disdain. "The whole bazaar knows that it was he who set you up in this kotha, he who gave you everything you possess."

  "But he robbed me of my self-respect, of my future! How can I ever face my community again, my mother, my brothers? As the Sarkar's woman I was somebody; now I am nothing!" Desolate, she rocked back and forth on her heels, moaning softly.

  Olivia's heat died as quickly as it had arisen. Yet another victim! With an effort she pulled herself together. "Just tell me, Sujata, yes or no?" she asked, feeling soiled and tired.

  In control of herself again, Sujata wiped her eyes with a corner of her veil. "I committed the sin of learning to love him. In our profession it is not allowed. For that I must atone. Once I would have cut out my tongue rather than wound him with a harsh word. Today I offer to cut out his heart!" In her painful self-discovery, she gave a small, sour laugh, then said with a sigh of defeat, "My answer is yes. Tell me what I have to do."

  The flame of the single lamp in the room spluttered. It seemed that the fuel was exhausted. Amidst the darkening shadows, Olivia replaced the earrings in the pouch. She had not intended to part with them until the bargain was completed, but now she rose and laid the pouch on the mattress beside Sujata. "Yes. I know what you mean, Sujata. We have more in common than you think."

  She sat down again and began to dispense her precise instructions.<
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  "Raventhorne will na damage our property," Willie Donaldson said. "But I saw the commandant anyway."

  "You went to Fort William?" Olivia asked.

  "Aye. This morning. Should trouble arise, they will help."

  Donaldson abhorred the situation Farrowsham was in, even more so the fact that there was much that was being kept from him. But, all said and done, he could never let his Agency down, nor the Birkhursts. If Farrowsham was threatened, then that to him was the clarion call. He was honour bound to answer it and do his best.

  "What does our man on the Tapti report?" In Calcutta's cutthroat corporate world, everyone had informers in everybody else's camp. Donaldson was too shrewd a trader, too seasoned an India hand, not to also have his own spies at Trident. Raventhorne's establishment was tightly knit, hard to penetrate, but then greed being a universal vice (sometimes virtue), with his persistence Donaldson had managed to secrete one wily Indian clerk into Trident's shipping department. The man was now on board the Tapti helping the stevedores with the provisioning. Yes, Raventhorne had superior muscle power, but he was not as invulnerable as he thought!