Ryman, Rebecca (100 page)

"Then
you are determined not to be fair?" She sighed, as if in disappointment.
"And I had come here this morning with
such
high hopes!"

In
the tautness of his jawline was the indication of a temper being stretched to
perilous limits. His eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure what little game you
happen to be playing, Olivia, but I find it singularly unamusing. I told you
once not to make the mistake of believing me to be
fair.
I am not. Nor
do I intend to be for your personal benefit."

"Yes,
I do remember. In fact, I have not forgotten anything that you
once
told
me, Jai." She matched both his purring silkiness
and the
sarcasm. "But your self-assessment is unduly harsh. You have always done
yourself the injustice of underestimating your considerable virtues." She
sat back to enjoy a fresh rise in his colour and a return of the perplexity.
"I, personally, have never had any doubts that you can be both fair and
reasonable," she paused to shift position, "given the right
combination of circumstances, of course." She changed position again to
lean an elbow on his desk and clasp her fingers. "I understand you have
made an offer for the
Daffodil?"

Her
abrupt question threw him momentarily off balance, which is what Olivia had
intended. Normally, she knew, he would not have given her an answer at all but,
already out of kilter, he voiced a terse "Yes."

"What
could the only man to sail clippers out of Calcutta want with a wreck like the
Daffodil?"
she inquired softly.

He
stiffened and stood up with such force that the ink-wells on his desk rocked
and a quill fell to the floor. He did not pick it up. "Whether it is your
habitual scourge of idle curiosity or whether Ransome has asked you to play
broker, it isn't any of your damned business. Now, if you will please excuse
me, I find I have no more time to waste."

"I
only ask the question all of Calcutta is asking." Olivia shrugged and made
no move to get up. "But you're right, of course. It isn't any of my
business." His show of anger didn't fool her. She knew she had hit a nerve
end and that it was raw. He was entirely taken by surprise. "As it
happens, neither is it yours anymore. It now lies between Arthur Ransome and
Lubbock."

"Lubbock?"
He was startled by what she had said and then angry that he had shown it, but
it was too late to take back. From behind lowered lashes Olivia studied the
nuances that chased each other across his face, and once again she exulted. No,
her estimates had not been wrong; that nerve end was even rawer than she had
hoped! Savouring triumph, she quickly pressed home her advantage.

"Yes,
Hiram Arrowsmith Lubbock—Hal to his friends. He's the cotton man from the Deep
South who boasts a camel might die of thirst crossing his plantation. He—"

"I
know who Lubbock is! Considering you've persuaded him to buy Ransome's
property, I take it he is also a surrogate for that bird that is no longer in
the net?"

The
slur incensed Olivia but, keeping her mind only on the main objective of her
visit, she somehow smiled. "If that is what you choose to believe—not that
that
is any damned business of
yours.
However, since you like
to know about everything in station, I must also tell you that the price
Lubbock offers for the
Daffodil
is far, far in excess of yours."

"Lubbock
is not a shipping man," he said contemptuously. "If this is a wily
trick to force me to offer more, you can tell Ransome that it will not work.
Now, get out of my office."

"Oh,
he doesn't want to
sail the Daffodil!"
Olivia laughed, still
showing no signs of wanting to leave. "He only wants her for the wood. To
make this Chinese furniture he plans to export. He says he's going to dismantle
every
bit
of the ship to ensure him a year's supply of teak and
mahogany. Somebody seems to have convinced him that there is a good market abroad.
Hal is remarkably enterprising, you know. He's not just
any
old cotton
man!"

Through
the explanation, Raventhorne had remained silent and unmoving, but beneath its
coppery veneer his skin had turned a shade paler. No longer were the eyes
distant and contemptuous; there was in them now a strangeness, a measure of
emotion, that he could not quite succeed in concealing. The emotion was pain,
just a streak, a shadow, but for Olivia it was enough. She had worked hard for
that pain and God knows it was her due. In her body every fibre began to
tingle;
quid pro quo, Jai Raventhorne, now it is my turn!
Callously, she
turned the knife again, digging deeper.

"There's
a figure-head on the prow of the
Daffodil
—perhaps you might not be
familiar with it—that Lubbock believes will fetch a good price as a carriage
mascot in Jackson. Or, perhaps, as a roof-top ornament for some rich Southerner
with a craving for English maritime gewgaws. Lubbock says it's amazing what
some Americans will pay for junk these days."

Raventhorne
had walked away to stand by the open window that overlooked the river. A squat
little schooner, Olivia could see, was offloading bales of something. One had
fallen into the water and a sharp altercation was in progress. It was at this
scene that Raventhorne seemed to stare fixedly, but Olivia could sense that he
saw none of it. The arrogant profile, moulded in stone now, was motionless
against the white of a far wall. With one hand he held the back of his neck;
the other was gripped tight around the window-sill. He seemed no longer aware
of her presence in the room.

There
was about the hushed moment a déjà vu and unconsciously Olivia's memory
quickened. With awesome diligence it raced back in time to when she had driven
herself to learn every shade, every whisper, of his changing moods. She
remembered
the despair when she failed or miscalculated, the absurd raptures when she did
not, the bounding joys of discovery with which she collected pieces of his life
and painstakingly joined them together to make pictures that would please her
or wrench her apart. She remembered the aches, the yearnings, the pitiable
little cache she treasured of half endearments given grudgingly with half love.
And she remembered the fulfillment. The memories, so long muzzled, frightened
her and caught her unaware. She was horrified at the knowledge that, cruelly,
they still clung to her brain like bubbles of air trapped forever in water.
Shaken out of her complacency, she felt disoriented, betrayed all over again.

Why
was my love never enough to heal you . . .?

"Get
out of my office." He did not turn to look at her. "I have no more
time to waste on you, Lady Birkhurst."

Slowly,
one by one, the bubbles of memory floated away, leaving her brain once more
unencumbered. The thin, wasted thread that had bound her momentarily to the
past snapped and freed her again from her bondage. She despised herself for
even that one instant of slavery. "With pleasure, Mr. Raventhorne. My
business with you is over. Thank you for seeing me, even though I have been,
alas, unsuccessful in my mission." This last she added with just enough
regret to make it an insult. She had not been unsuccessful. And Jai Raventhorne
knew it.

Still
standing at the window, he made no move to escort her to the door. "I had
hoped not to find you here on my return from Assam. Don't make a fool of
yourself again by seeking me out on flimsy pretexts." A cool river breeze
blew through the room but his white mull shirt clung to his back in damp
patches. He was perspiring freely, nevertheless he had enough control to keep
his voice uninflected.

"Why?
Does seeing me make you nervous?"

"No,
it makes me sick. And now you even look like a whore."

"Oh?
Because I wear Freddie's jewels, bear his title and carry his child?" She
laughed. "Surely by now you are used to the perquisites that whoredom can
bring."

"Yes.
I am. But I have known many whores who do not disgust me." It was now with
extreme effort that he was keeping himself in check. "I give you fair
warning, Olivia: Don't take upon yourself tasks that are beyond your tawdry
skills. And don't play silly games when you have no idea of the means to win
them."

At
last she stood up. "If you penalise Farrowsham, then I will
retaliate with
whatever means my 'tawdry skills' dictate. Your threats no longer intimidate
me, Jai Raventhorne. Don't make the mistake of believing that they will."
She crossed the room and halted by the door with a hand on the door knob.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" So as not to leave any doubt about her mission,
she now spelt it out. "You see, I
do
know what it is that you want
from the
Daffodil.
And I guarantee that you will never get it, except on
my
terms. Who knows? Maybe I too have a damned destiny of one kind or
another to fulfil."

She
walked out, slamming the door hard behind her. There could not have been anyone
in the Trident offices who did not hear it. Her last look at his face was the
most rewarding, for he evidently hadn't expected her to glance back over her
shoulder; his face looked stricken. She was satisfied with her day's work.

It
was in this lingering mood of belligerence that Olivia received her first mail
packet from Freddie. But reading his letter, short and pointedly impersonal in
its news, her mood changed to one of despondency. She was not deluded by Freddie's
curtness; behind the trivia, the awkward phrases and, indeed, in the spaces
between the lines, the letter throbbed with unexpressed pain. It was as if
instead of ink, Freddie had dipped his quill into his heart and written in
blood. In the last few sentences his anguish exploded. "I dream that some
morning when I am least expecting it, I will open my eyes from sleep to the
sight of you standing beside my bed holding a cup of tea. I dream, Olivia, I
hope incessantly and I pray, but in my heart of hearts I know that you will not
come . . ."

He
made no mention of Amos.

Olivia
cried. Sharing his anguish across the oceans and continents, she cursed again
her inability to help him. There was also a letter from his mother.

Freddie
tells me nothing, but I fear he has lost you and I am heart-broken. You write
that you have failed me. Perhaps it is a failure to be commonly shared. My
disappointment is acute, but I am woman enough to understand that your fate has
not been in your hands. I am now resigned to having that odious cousin some
day appropriate
Farrowsham and the title. The prospect is ghastly and still wounds me,
especially since the eventuality might arrive sooner than I had anticipated.
Freddie drinks incessantly.

Cradling
her head, Olivia surrendered herself to her grief. She had not informed Freddie
or his mother about her pregnancy. With her stars, disaster lurked eternally
around every corner; she could not raise their hopes only to dash them again.
It was possible that someone had written to them already; there was no shortage
of busy-bodies in town. And Peter Barstow too had sailed for England only
recently. In due course he would certainly convey the news to the Birkhursts.
Even so, Olivia prayed fervently that somehow they might not come to know until
there was no risk of a bitter disappointment.

Prayed!

While
abhorring rigid beliefs and bigoted superstitions, her father had nevertheless
inculcated in her a strong faith in the essential benevolence of some force
that controlled their destinies. He had spurned the hypocrisy of mandatory
Sunday church-going. Although Olivia had accompanied her aunt willingly enough
in this weekly duty, to her, true belief remained something less overt, more
profoundly individual. That she could no longer accept that mysterious force as
benign, Olivia felt her father would forgive were he to be privy to the
maleficent mutilations of her life. But now, with Freddie's tortured words
again burning holes in her conscience, Olivia abandoned her unbending postures
to turn in desperate selfishness to the God she no longer trusted. She prayed
for Freddie to be granted a son.

In
the meantime, the days swept by. There was only silence from Jai Raventhorne.

With
the mild, all too brief winter over, Calcutta was again turning piercingly hot.
In homes and offices, overhead fan pullers doubled their efforts and slogged in
relays, but the air, humid and heavy, merely moved around in turgid circles.
Even the city's proliferating flies seemed struck with lethargy, easy prey to
desultory swatters. Only the mosquitoes were fewer, as always, chased away by
the crippling heat.