Ryman, Rebecca (112 page)

Olivia
dispatched a note to Hal Lubbock. If he would be so kind, he should have his
men ready for the demolitions on the day after the next.

The
moon sinks and then returns

The
severed branch grows again

Ponder
this, oh fool, and be not troubled

In
its own time everything ripens.

The
song of the
bauls,
a clan of singing minstrels in Bengal, was plaintive
and sweetly melancholy. The words were in a
dialect Olivia could not understand,
but a helpful passer-by translated them for her into Hindustani. Dropping some
coins into the hand of one of the saffron-clad singers, she urged her coachman
to drive on. The pearly moistness of a monsoon midday sat heavily in the air. A
light rain had come and gone. Left behind was the cool caress of a breeze but
also the inescapable pall of humidity. The ambling clip-clop of the horses'
hooves pulsed away time in regular beats, somehow making it malinger. Olivia
felt calm, a curious calm, nerveless and numb. Only the gripping cramp in her
stomach and the restless kicks of the baby disturbed the unrippled surface of
her mind.
Please God, don't
let the baby come yet, not yet . . .

For
the hundredth time she diverted the thought with reflection.

The
velvet bundle had been in her hands soon after midnight. Goaded by her own
private demons—as they all were, as they all were!—Sujata had not failed her.
She had completed her assignment with faultless skill. As proof of the new
ownership of that precious childhood repository, Sujata had left in the same
place the silver locket and chain that Olivia had given her for the purpose.
Once in possession of the bundle, Olivia had spent the rest of the night in
composing her letter to Jai Raventhorne. By seven o'clock in the morning,
Estelle had been away with it for delivery aboard the
Tapti.
Even though
its composition had taken much time, the letter itself was terse.

If
you will look inside the desk in your bedchamber, the second drawer to the
right, you will see why I am not as unequal an adversary as you believe. The
game and its rules you devise, but I am still a fast learner. I await your
response.

She
did not sign the letter. There was no need to.

By
eight o'clock Estelle must have made her delivery to Raventhorne; he would have
read it at a glance. It was now almost ten. Unable to stay at home while
waiting for Estelle to return, Olivia had spent the past three hours driving
around aimlessly in her carriage, trying to occupy her errant mind with trivia.
But now, frantic with impatience, she ordered the coach back to the house. By
the time she arrived home, Estelle had returned from her assignment.

"Did
you deliver it?"

"Yes."

"In
his hands?"

"Yes."

"And
. . .?" Distorted with anxiety, Olivia's voice sounded shrill.

Estelle
did not reply to her question. Instead, she stared at her hard, her face set.
"What did you write in that letter, Olivia?"

"It
was a private matter.
Tell
me, what—"

"Private
or not, I want to know what was in that letter!" Estelle's fists were
clenched. Beneath her apparent calm, anger lay waiting.

Olivia
shrugged. "I offered him an olive branch. A chance to make peace."
She brushed that aside and asked sharply, "What did he say? Tell me what
his reaction was,
tell
me, Estelle!"

"He
said nothing. Only his face went strange. Strange and dead."

Olivia's
breath untangled, exhaled and became normal. She sat down. "And then what
did he do?"

Estelle's
lips thinned with cutting scorn but she did not release her anger. "Then
he put the letter in his pocket and left the ship without a word." She
turned her back on Olivia and walked towards the window. "But before he
went he stood and looked at me, just looked. I have never seen that look on him
before, not even that first night on the
Ganga.
It was not even hate. It
went beyond that, and it terrified me." She spun back to face Olivia, her
expression stormy.
"Tell
me what was in that damned letter! I know
I'm somehow implicated. I have a
right
to know!"

"You
are not implicated," Olivia said dismissively, attempting to end the
conversation and turning towards the door.

"You've
used me again, haven't you, Olivia?" Estelle asked, trembling.
"You've again exploited the information I gave you in conf—"

She
was cut off by a knock on the door and Mary Ling entered. With an effort, both
composed themselves and Estelle took herself off to the other end of the room.
Olivia was not entirely annoyed at the interruption. "Yes, Mary? What is
it?"

"Begging
your pardon, Madam," Mary looked apologetic, "it's past the time for
Amos's fruit juice. I only came to fetch him upstairs."

"He's
already upstairs, Mary, We've both just returned to the house."

Mary
frowned. "He has not returned with you? Amos isn't in the nursery. I've
just come from there."

"Returned
with us?" Olivia looked blank.

"Yes.
Since you sent the coach to fetch him and the ayah, I presumed he must
have—"

"
I
sent the coach?" Olivia echoed. "Which coach?"

"Why,
the Maharani's, of course! I sent them off myself no more than an hour ago,
Madam." She stared at Olivia, puzzled.

"Why
on earth should I send the Maharani's carriage for Amos, Mary? Surely you are
mistaken! Amos must be upstairs . . .," she faltered. "He ... he
must
be . . .!" Dropping the purse she still held in her hand, Olivia
turned to run out of the room and up the stairs as fast as her cumbersome
weight would allow. Their argument forgotten, Estelle followed, and behind her
a pale-faced Mary.

The
nursery was empty. There was no sign of Amos.

Gasping
with the effort of her climb, Olivia clutched the doorway, her breath coming in
huge, gusty wheezes. "I didn't send any coach for Amos, Mary," she
whispered again and again in a stupor, "Why should I, why should I . .
.?"

"I.
. . w-wouldn't know, M-madam." Mary started to stammer nervously.
"They came at about nine. I had just finished the—"

"They?
Who?" Olivia went cold, her hands like blocks of ice. "Who, Mary,
who?"

Now
truly frightened, Mary began to tremble. "The . . . the Maharani's
coachman and the . . . other man. The note was very c-clear, Madam."

The
chill in Olivia's body produced a deathly calm. "Show me the note."

As
Mary flung herself at the waste-paper bin and started to scramble inside it,
Estelle still stood in the doorway watching in stunned silence, threading and
rethreading her hanky between shaking fingers. The note, when found, was just a
few words in an untidy scrawl.
I
am sending Her Highness s coach to
fetch Amos and the ayah.
The initials at the end of the note were a clear
O.B.
And the message had been written on Kinjal's unmistakable cream and gold
crested notepaper.

Upright
only by force of sheer will-power, Olivia kept persuading herself to discount
the reality:
I
will not panic, I will not panic.
It is a simple
misunderstanding. Amos is indeed at Kinjal's. Amos is in the park with some
irresponsible servant. Amos is in the servants' compound watching the cows in
the milking shed. No other explanation was possible!

But
then Mary gave a gasp and fumbled in the pocket of her
apron, mumbling
tearful apologies. "They also brought a letter for M-madam. I'm sorry, I
f-forgot to—"

Olivia
snatched the envelope out of her hand. It was addressed to her in a handwriting
she could not mistake. The note contained within the envelope was briefer than
hers but as clear:
You will not see your son again. You have my response.
There
was no signature.

Crumpling
into Estelle's arms, Olivia started to scream.

In
giving birth to her second son Olivia almost lost her life. The baby's position
in her womb was precarious, its arrival six weeks early and her body's
remaining reserves few. With her world blotted out, its light extinguished, she
was not aware of Dr. Humphries's valiant battle for her survival. Her own will
to fight had died even before the battle had begun. The numbed tract of grey
slush that was her brain registered only vague sensation. Half-formed creatures
scuttled occasionally from the hide-outs of her semiconsciousness to hunt for
footholds, but there
were
none in that limbo. Sometimes, through the
black layers of the shroud that cocooned her she could feel pain, terrible
pain, but only as if it were somebody else's. And also somebody else's was the
voice that, in those terrifying final moments of her ordeal, screamed in a weak
whisper, "Take it away before it cries ..."

Crushed
into pulp, beyond awareness and beyond endurance, Olivia slid away into deep,
deep unconsciousness. She was not to know yet that her moral debt of honour to
her husband and to his family had at last been repaid.

Nor
was Olivia to know yet that for those past two days and two nights, while
others fought for her to live, Arvind Singh had launched a massive man-hunt for
Jai Raventhorne. Throwing the might of his State into the search, he had sent
his agents foraging into every corner of the city and the countryside for any
snippet of information about Raventhorne and the child. There was none. No one
at Trident had any information about their Sarkar's whereabouts, or chose not
to have. He was no longer aboard the
Tapti,
still in port, nor was he at
either of his homes. The hunt was pervasive, but it was hampered by the need
for extreme secrecy. On this Kinjal had insisted. There were already too many
rumours about
Olivia; to expose her to more would make an even greater mockery of her poor
friend's sham of a life.

"He
has taken Amos to Assam," Kinjal said. "No one knows the hills like
Jai does. Pursuit would be impossible."

"How
could he have been so heartless?" Estelle cried, red eyed and stricken.
Whatever her other feelings, this act of villainy she could never forgive the
half brother she had defended so stoutly. "He could have at least sent
word that Amos is safe and not fretting."

"He
will not harm the child," Kinjal pointed out in an effort to provide some
morsel of comfort. "Wherever he hides them, he will care well for the
child."

"But
we both know that that is not the point, Kinjal." Estelle's tired, swollen
eyes brimmed again. "It is now
both
her children that Olivia is
losing. And it is
I
who started it all . . ." Quietly, she again
began to cry.

Kinjal
said nothing. What was there to say? Both she and Estelle had scarcely left
Olivia's bedside over the past forty-eight hours. Assisting Dr. Humphries had
been two experienced mid-wives from Kirtinagar, whose help he had gratefully
accepted. Mary Ling, a competent nurse trained by the doctor himself, ran up
and down tirelessly performing vital errands. Estelle had sat by her cousin,
holding her hand and cooling her perspiration-drenched face with damp napkins.
Because she did not show her face to strange men, Kinjal had remained in a far
corner, her features draped with a veil, acting as interpreter for the midwives.
It had been a frightening ordeal for them all, and Kinjal felt close to tears
herself as she and Estelle waited for the doctor to emerge from the birth
chamber. Yes, Olivia did stand to lose both her children, but the tragedy was
not hers alone; one way or another it was to be equally shared between Amos and
his parents. Sadly, what his parents were destined never to share was Amos
himself.

"Now,
young miss, what was the meaning of all those silly shenanigans in there,
eh?" Almost dead on his feet, Dr. Humphries bowed to Kinjal, waited for
permission to sit, and subjected Estelle to a look of great severity. Kinjal
quickly nodded and, exhausted, he slumped into a chair. "It is a mother's
reward after hours of labour to hear the first cry of her new-born. Olivia was
delirious. Dammit, what was the need for the infant to be carried away with
such unholy haste? I am extremely angry,
extremely!"