Ryman, Rebecca (44 page)

Under
the cloak of darkness and the camouflage of the hectic gaiety and lights and
colour last night, she had not noticed the squalor. What she observed now in
daylight was the appalling deprivation and degradation that had lain beneath
the veneer. Garbage heaps, scattered and putrefying, stank to high heaven. On
either side of the court-yard there were open drains clogged with filthy slime
and attracting a million flies and cockroaches. The quarters themselves were
like ruins after a battle, with doors hanging loose and, in the walls, gaping
holes that had been carelessly stuffed with gunny sacking and rags to keep out
the rains. There were patches of green dampness everywhere and the stench was
foul. The litter from last night had been swept aside but with enough apathy to
leave plenty of residue. But what shocked Olivia most were the children, hordes
of them, rummaging enthusiastically within the rot, their skinny limbs like
sticks, their ribs showing in relief above their unhealthy pot-bellies, and
their skin in some cases covered with open sores. How was it that she had never
seen them, not one, out in the open before? Did they live hidden in the
brickwork like the cockroaches . . .?

Olivia
felt sickened. And angry. Why were these people satisfied to live in such
cesspools? If the Templewoods didn't give a jot for those who served them with
diligence, could the servants not bestir themselves to improve their lot with
their own hands? At home Olivia had seen plenty of squalor in the tenements of
New York and Chicago, but it was understood that everyone worked hard to get
out of that situation, to move on in the world, to do better and ever better
for themselves and their families. Why, even the cattle at home had more decent
accommodations! With the grim intention of collaring one of the sweepers,
Olivia marched boldly into the quarter nearest to her, watched all around by
silent, wondering eyes. The room into which she stepped was dark and reeked of
dampness, for it was without even a window. Eventually her eyes discerned a
huddled form
lying on the bare brick floor riddled with rat burrows. Sitting beside the
huddled form was a boy of about ten. As Olivia entered, the form stirred and
tried to rise; she saw that it was an old woman.

"What
is wrong with her?" Olivia asked in improvised Hindustani.

"She
is sick."

"I
can see that! Is she taking any medicines? Do you know what it is that ails
her?"

The
boy shrugged. "There is no point. She will be dead soon."

Shaking
with frustration, Olivia was about to argue when she felt a presence behind her
and, lightly, a hand touched her arm. It was Babulal. "Come, missy
mem," he said solemnly, "this no place for you. Lady mem very angry,
she no like you come here."

Olivia
felt another surge of anger but couldn't find the words for it. In any case,
Babulal had spoken in his pidgin English and, suddenly, it was like a snub, a
slap in her face. What he was trying to tell her was that this was their world,
not hers; and in it she was not welcome any more than they were in hers. Or, at
least, that is how Olivia interpreted it in her silent rage. Without another
word she turned and allowed him to lead her back to the garden. She felt
suffocated and helpless—rage against whom? Against the Templewoods for being so
uncaring? Against these wretched people for accepting these inequities without
lifting either a voice or a finger? Against herself for never having even
spared them a thought at all? It was all so hopeless anyway. For a while
Olivia's depression persisted. Haunted by what she had seen in that miserable
quarter, she brooded and tried to think of a solution. But only for a while.
Then, as the clock ticked away the remainder of the evening, she remembered
something her father had once told her: "The world is full of cruelty,
injustice, tragedy. If you can do something about it,
do
it; if not,
don't add insult to injury with armchair sympathy."

Pragmatism,
or convenient amnesia? There was no time now for Olivia to philosophise. The
clock that had been such a sluggard all day seemed now to positively race ahead
as dinner came and went. Sir Joshua's meal, as had become the custom, was
dispatched to his office in a tiffin box. Estelle did not appear at the dinner
table, being not yet home, and Lady Bridget toyed with her food in grim silence
as she ripened for another fight. As
soon as she could excuse herself with
decency, Olivia ran up to her room to prepare for her nocturnal adventure.

The
hands of the clock finally showed half past eleven. Heart thundering against
her ribs with sledge-hammer force, Olivia sat on her bed and waited. Dressed in
practical outdoor clothes and boots, she tapped her foot impatiently on the
floor, watching the clock face almost without blinking. Lady Bridget was by now
hopefully fast asleep, having long given up waiting for either her daughter or
her husband and having perforce to defer the battle royal till the morning.
Suddenly on the staircase outside, a floor board creaked and then there was
silence. Olivia exhaled with a relieved whoosh; evidently her cousin had
finally decided to come home. Another fifteen minutes, she said to herself, to
give Estelle time to settle in. Holding her breath, Olivia waited. Ten minutes
to go, five . . .

The
door of her room opened abruptly and Estelle walked in. "I'm glad you're
still awake, Olivia. I must talk to you about something important." She
walked to a chair by the window and sat down.

Olivia's
thundering heart crashed into her sturdy outdoor boots as she tried desperately
to fold her feet under the bed. Oh sweet heavens, not now, not
now . . .!
Couldn't
the selfish, thoughtless, irresponsible girl have returned earlier? All at once
she was seized by a blind, unreasoning fury. "I'm sorry, Estelle,"
she ground out, not troubling to conceal her anger, "but I was just about
to go to bed, and I'm extremely sleepy. Can't it wait until the morning?"

Estelle
hesitated.

"Look,
Estelle, if it's about the pantomime, I've already stirred the subject with
Uncle Josh. He's . . . he's thinking about it, but tomorrow ..."

"It's
not about the pantomime."

Something
in Estelle's tone silenced Olivia as she took note of the faded pallor, the
swollen eyes and the rigid stance that made her back as stiff as a ramrod.
Olivia felt another flash of irritation: Oh, damn! The silly girl had gone and
done something really unmentionable with that Smithers boy . . .

But
then the clock on the landing chimed. Midnight! Did the
immersions
continue after midnight? What if Bahadur decided that she wasn't coming after
all and left? What if Jai tired of the wait and decided likewise and she missed
seeing him altogether? She panicked and, grabbing her cousin by the shoulders,
urged her up from the chair.

"To
tell you the truth, Estelle, my head is bursting with one of those wretched
migraines or a cold or ... or something. I can hardly keep my eyes open, see?
If I don't go to sleep at once I fear I shall faint, collapse . . . and I won't
be able to concentrate on what you're saying . . ." Incoherently, she
babbled a string of excuses, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a jumble as
she almost pushed Estelle towards the door. "Tomorrow, Estelle, tomorrow I
promise. We'll talk all day if you like and all night too, I
promise
..."

For
a moment Estelle stared at her in surprise and hurt, then she shrugged.
"Very well. Tomorrow then.
Do
forgive me for having intruded on
your time, my understanding Coz. Good night."

Estelle's
sarcasm Olivia didn't even notice in her immense relief at her departure. She
saw nothing else but the clock as she waited ten more interminable minutes;
then she could wait no longer. She removed her shoes to hold them in a hand,
locked the door of her room behind her as quietly as she could, tiptoed down
the stairs praying that her uncle didn't choose that very moment to return
home, and ran into the formal dining-room. Five minutes later—through the
downstairs parlour, the billiards room and that back window she knew never did
latch properly—she was flying down the vegetable garden path at the rear of the
house, over the low wall and down the main road to the corner. Concealed by the
dappled shadows of a giant peepul tree stood Jai Raventhorne's carriage. Next
to it, patiently, waited Bahadur. With a small cry of relief, Olivia flung
herself inside through the door Bahadur quickly opened for her and collapsed
against the upholstery. She had already forgotten everything, everything else
in the world that existed, save Jai Raventhorne.

Olivia
did not think of Estelle again that night.

There
was no way Olivia could have known then as the carriage sped away through the
dark to meet the man who was her destiny that her summary dismissal of Estelle
was the worst mistake she was ever to make in her life. And the price she was
to pay for it was exorbitant, more exorbitant than she could ever have
imagined.

Olivia
could barely recognise him.

At
the jetty to which the carriage bore her, the Dassera moon seemed to douse the
world in its cold white light, making it eerily phosphorescent. Dancing silver
shards slashed the black of the river; small breezes gusted like spurts from
invisible bellows. Chained to a post of the wooden planked wharf awaited a
longboat from the
Ganga,
identified by a winking metal trident on her
prow. Beside it stood a strangely unfamiliar figure in cream silken dhoti and
kurta,
both edged finely with gold. A woollen shawl, embroidered and tasselled,
was draped over one shoulder. Under a luminous moon his ebony hair glistened,
smoothed back from his forehead with rare meekness to follow the curve of his
arrogant head and curl upended at the nape. He was barefooted.

Tangled
within her throat, Olivia's breath knotted further. In the delusion that she
could recall every line and crease of his face, each contour of his sinewed
body, she sometimes forgot just how compelling Jai Raventhorne's appearance
could be. Tonight he looked patrician, a
zamindar,
scion of some
aristocratic dynasty. Smiling a little, she told him so as, unspeaking, he
helped her into the longboat. "A man of two worlds," she breathed,
settling comfortably in a cushioned seat.

"Or
of neither!"

Opposite
her, his face was shadowed but she sensed that he did not smile. She was
disappointed that they were not to be on their own. Somehow she had assumed it
would be as always. But as the oarsmen started their smooth rhythms in the
water and the longboat started to move to midstream, she discarded the small
disappointment as ungracious. Jai Raventhorne sat no more than a foot or two
away from her. She could taste him with her eyes,
hear the muted undulations of
his breath and the crisp rustle of his silk. Even untouching, she could feel
his pulse as if it were her own beneath the warmth of a skin she almost shared
with him. It was enough.

"Where
are we going?"

"To
Shiriti Ghat. The immersions are best seen from the river." He noticed the
slight shiver she gave and frowned. "Why didn't you think to bring a
shawl?"

Snugly
clad in a thick tweed skirt and a long-sleeved woollen blouse, she had
considered that she would be sufficiently warm, but the damp gusts decreed
otherwise. "I did but I forgot when . . ." She stopped. Domestic
problems would be of no interest to him and, in any case, they were not to be
discussed with others. "When I left the house. I think I'd make a terrible
burglar. I almost fainted with nervousness."

He
made no return nor did he smile. He merely removed his shawl to arrange it
carefully about her shoulders. In the shadows she searched for his eyes in a
face that gleamed like bleached wood, but they told her nothing. She was
touched suddenly by a vague unease; tonight she could not fathom his mood, for
it seemed altogether unreadable. He was tense, this much she could discern,
although his taciturnity was not motivated by indifference, she assessed. His
invisible eyes, darting like fish, Olivia was certain, were missing nothing,
not a single nuance of her own thoughts. Even so she felt warm in his vision,
physically cosy in the embrace of a shawl that was of the softest
pashmina.
Against
her cheek it was like a caress. Discarding her unease Olivia smiled.

"Do
you perform the Durga rituals in your home?" However well read he might be
in philosophy he had never struck her as a man of religion.