Ryman, Rebecca (36 page)

She
flew home on the wings of the wind, convinced that she could have done so even
without a racing mount. She knew now that there could be no retraction from the
path she had chosen. The obstacles, the hazards, the pitfalls and come what may
Olivia brushed aside like inconsequential fruit flies. For this one love, this
only
love, she felt confident enough to take on the world.

In
any case, she had long passed the point of return.

Sir
Joshua was down with heat boils.

With
Calcutta's mild winter approaching, it was cooler than in summer and the boils
were less fierce than they might have been earlier. Even so, Dr. Humphries had
confined Sir Joshua to
his bed, which did little to improve his temper. He had insisted that papers
and correspondence be sent home to him daily from his office. His two unfailing
visitors on most days were Ransome and, much to Lady Bridget's chagrin,
Kashinath Das. In between office papers and his two visitors, Sir Joshua spent
much of his time exercising his temper on servants, members of the family and
absent offenders. In fact, his generally foul mood created domestic havoc and
reduced his wife's nerves to shreds. Not even Estelle was spared. Used to being
spoilt by a father she usually twisted around her little finger to achieve her
whims, Estelle was bewildered and desperately hurt by his sudden harshness.

"Papa
doesn't love me anymore," she whispered miserably one morning when she had
had a particularly stinging lash of his tongue over a footling crime. "He
called me a ... a s-selfish b-brat and said he'd bring his
c-crop
to me
if I didn't l-listen to M-Mama!" Shattered, she burst into tears.

Even
Olivia was shocked. That her impetuous cousin was both selfish and a brat she
knew, but threatened with an unjust corporal punishment she had never had,
Estelle was right to be outraged. Especially now with her newly acquired coming
of age, the novelty of which still sat on her with excessive pride.

"He's
very preoccupied with business problems, dear," Olivia nevertheless
soothed. "And he feels his boils are not only undignified but an infernal
interference with his badly needed presence in the office with that
investigation still continuing. Of
course
he still loves you,
silly!"

Estelle's
interest in her father's business affairs was as cursory as her mother's. Her
eyes glittered with malice. "I don't give a bloody tinker's
cuss
for
his business problems," she stormed in high dudgeon. "I will
not
have
anyone talking to me like that, not even Papa!" In a rare pet she stamped
out of the room, calling back over her shoulder, "I'm not a
child,
you
know. Papa might not appreciate that but
other
people do!"

Since
Olivia appeared to be the only person in the family with whom Sir Joshua kept a
reasonably civil tongue, it was she who was assigned much of his nursing. Lady
Bridget wisely stayed in the wings issuing instructions out of his presence.
Also wisely, Estelle took Olivia's advice to make herself as scarce as possible
while her father's difficult mood lasted, particularly after his unfair threat.

"Where
is that damn fool Munshi? Doesn't the ass know these have to return to Arthur
this very instant?"

Olivia
had completed her Hindustani lesson for the afternoon and, thinking that the
pouch of documents was to stay with
her uncle overnight, had sent Munshi
Babu home. Sir Joshua's roar, which reverberated through the bungalow the
moment she stepped into his sick-room, took her by surprise.

"I'm
sorry, Uncle Josh," she said, contrite, "but I have already sent him
back. I didn't realise that you still wanted him."

"Well,
of
course
I still want him, dammit!" His face turned purple.
"Arthur must have these today so that he can study them before he meets
that ignorant oaf from Parliament first thing in the morning. How the hell is
he going to put him in his place if he doesn't have the facts?"

Followed
a colourful dissertation on members of Parliament from Westminster and their
perpetual nose poking into colonial matters they knew nothing about since they
lived in the clouds ten thousand bloody miles up and away and couldn't tell a
tea-leaf from a stinging-nettle anyway. From that he progressed to the general
idiocy of everyone about and in particular to that of "that butcher"
Humphries, whose carbolic oil poultices stank of horse dung and even if the
heat boils didn't kill him, those infernal devices surely would. Finally,
having consigned everyone to an eternal fate of fire and brimstone, Sir Joshua
stopped for sheer want of breath.

"Well,
would you like me to take the papers to the office?" Olivia inquired,
taking advantage of the hiatus. "It's quite easily done and the journey
there and back shouldn't take long."

Deprived
of the pleasure of further complaint, Sir Joshua grunted. Then, seeing no
reason not to agree, he had the grace to look abashed. "You're a good
girl, Olivia, saner and more responsible than most. I wish you'd give some of
your good sense to your idle cousin. She sorely needs it, by Christ!"

It
was quite the wrong time to mount any defence of his absent daughter. Olivia
did not even try.

To
any other pair of eyes Clive Street was an ordinary, mundane thoroughfare with
little to distinguish it from other similar business centres in the city. To
Olivia, however, Clive Street was positively touched with magic. As always, she
craned her neck out of the window of the carriage as it passed by the Trident
offices as if she would find suddenly revealed some little detail of
significance she might have missed earlier. She had no idea when she would see
Jai Raventhorne again; "soon" could mean a day or a decade,
considering the man's contrariness. But now, just to be on the same street as
he might be was enchantment. Even this solitary crumb of comfort she hugged
close to her heart.

Arthur
Ransome was delighted with both the papers and her
visit.
"What a transformation the sight of a pretty face brings to our dull and
dreary work place, Miss O'Rourke! And how very kind of you to bring
these!"

The
establishment he dismissed with such nonchalant modesty was in fact one of the
better offices in town and the envy of many lesser merchants in Calcutta. It
was elegant, capacious and finely appointed, for Sir Joshua's taste for good
living was not to be denied even here. In its cool, high-ceilinged halls there
seemed always a sense of urgency, as if great decisions were being made every
minute of the day and fortunes bartered for commodities without which the world
could not survive. It was an atmosphere Olivia found quite thrilling. As they
settled down in Ransome's office for a few minutes of conversation, she decided
to use the interlude to her best advantage.

"Uncle
Josh told me all about the loss of the opium consignment," she began quite
boldly. "Is Mr. Slocum's investigation going well?"

Knowing
that his partner often confided in her, Ransome did not think to evade an
answer. "It is going like all police investigations go when it comes to
native involvement. In circles." He laughed grimly.

"They
have not progressed much?"

"They
have not progressed at all. Nor will they. When natives join forces against us
they use two very effective weapons— convenient amnesia and a surfeit of
witnesses all with contradictory accounts. What can poor Slocum do?"

"And
Gupta still insists it was the thuggees?" Privately, Olivia was ashamed at
how relieved she felt!

"Yes."

"You
don't believe him either?"

Ransome
snorted. "My dear Miss O'Rourke, when one has lived in this country as
long as Josh and I have, one develops an instinct about these matters. No, I
don't believe him either."

A
peon, smartly uniformed in white with a red turban and cummerbund, entered
bearing a tea tray with the solemnity of a priest making a sacred offering in a
temple. He laid the tray on the table between them, poured out two cups of
honey-coloured liquid, dropped a sliver of lemon in each with a silver
toothpick, and withdrew. The cups, obviously Chinese and heavily ornamented
with golden dragons, were as fragile as paper. Over the rim of hers, Olivia
surveyed her host of the moment and decided to probe further. "Do you also
consider that it was Kala Kanta who was responsible for the act of
dacoity?"

Ransome
looked briefly uneasy, then nodded.

"Will
Slocum ever be able to prove it?"

"No."
This time there was no hesitation. "Raventhorne has always had one prime
advantage over us, one that we can never match. He has India on his side."

Something
in his manner, calm and almost resigned, surprised Olivia. His acceptance of
the situation seemed so different from her uncle's mercurial reaction.
"Raventhorne's villainy doesn't incense you, Mr. Ransome? One way or
another, I believe your losses threaten to be heavy."

He
did not answer her immediately. Instead, for a moment he made a lengthy ritual
of chasing a solitary tea-leaf around his cup with a spoon, then trapping it
neatly and discarding it in the saucer. "Of course it incenses me,"
he finally said in a tone unusually quiet. "But it is, perhaps . . .
understandable."

"Understandable?"
She was quite astonished at an admission so unlikely and so generous. "How
so? Certainly that is not a view Uncle Josh takes!"

"No."
He turned thoughtful. "No. In his wrath, Josh is of course justified.
Without doubt, Raventhorne is the most vindictive, vengeful bastard I have ever
met . . ." He broke off with a look of remorse. "You must pardon my
language, Miss O'Rourke, but Raventhorne is the kind of man who excites strong
passions."

"Oh,
I've heard far worse in our saloons, I assure you, Mr. Ransome!" Now
highly intrigued, she bent forward to listen better. The opening that had
chanced her way was too tempting not to explore. "But then, why do you
feel that Raventhorne's crime is understandable?"

Ransome
drained his cup and lit up one of his much-favoured cheroots. "Raventhorne
has never made any secret of his loathing for the opium trade. To be quite
frank, Miss O'Rourke," he inhaled deeply and then breathed out with
deliberate slowness, "I myself have not much stomach for it anymore.
During the so-called Opium War way back in thirty-nine, being a patriot loyal
to my Queen and country, I fought as hard as the next Englishman, but I don't
mind confessing that some of the sights I saw shamed and disgusted me. The
yellow devils stood no chance against our superior fire power, naturally, but
the physical condition of many, stupefied with the poppy, was shocking."
He sighed heavily. "It was not a sight to be proud of, I can tell you
that, Miss O'Rourke. Each time I go to Canton I am reviled by what is
essentially our own handiwork. It is we who have made them slaves to this
nefarious addiction from which
there is no hope of respite." For a moment he
looked deeply disturbed but then with an effort he smiled. "However, every
good businessman knows that in the realm of hard commerce there is no place for
sentiment. We sell to make profits, not necessarily to benefit mankind. It is
the balance-sheet, not the conscience, that counts when it comes to the
crunch." He had spoken with a smile but underneath there was bitterness.

Olivia
sat up slowly and surveyed his face with renewed interest. Once again the sharp
difference between the two partners and friends seemed greatly obvious.
Contrasted to Sir Joshua's confidence and unvarying decisiveness, Ransome's
sensitivity appeared very unusual. The qualms he felt about the opium trade,
for instance, she could never think of ascribing to her uncle. She warmed to
Ransome even more. Also, the novelty of being able to talk so freely about Jai
Raventhorne was heady. "But when it comes to the crunch," she said,
picking up the thread again, "doesn't this Kala Kanta also have a
balance-sheet to consider? How can he afford a conscience when no one else
can?"

"He
has devised other means of making the sheet balance."

"But
surely you are not the only merchants engaged in this opium-bullion-tea
triangular trade. Does he also attack the others?"

"Certainly!"
His tone went very dry. "In that respect, I assure you, Raventhorne is
entirely impartial! During the Opium War, he aligned himself openly with the
Chinese. In fact, he personally helped in the gutting of English factories in
Canton, and assisted the Chinese commissioner in burning twelve hundred tons of
opium—
twelve hundred tons!
—belonging to the English at the special pits
dug for the purpose. That cost the community millions of taels, millions."