Ryman, Rebecca (56 page)

Olivia
smiled. "Don't worry, Dr. Humphries, I think he knows that already."

It
astonished her vaguely that she could still smile, talk normally, plan, devise
and improvise. And yet feel nothing.

The
answer to her second note that morning arrived soon after the luncheon hour,
not that there were any appetites to be satisfied. The tray that had been sent
in to Sir Joshua had been removed, untouched, by Rehman an hour later. Olivia
fed the heavily drugged Lady Bridget a few spoonfuls of soup but it was a
wasted exercise and she soon abandoned it. She herself felt sick at the thought
of food and contented herself with yet another cup of strong black coffee.
Charlotte Smithers's reply to her note brought further relief. No, she had not
borrowed Estelle's box of water-colours, Charlotte wrote. Estelle had obviously
made a mistake if she thought she had. And while they were on the subject of
borrowings, could Estelle please be reminded to return her silver sandals since
she needed them for the panto rehearsals. No, Olivia concluded, Charlotte knew
nothing either.

Another
hurdle cleared. And another brick placed in position in the edifice of illusion
behind which the Templewoods could shelter themselves briefly in peace. Peace?
She almost laughed at
her strange choice of words; would there ever be peace again in this house for
any of them?

"Oh,
Christ. . .!"

Before
Olivia's eyes, Arthur Ransome shrivelled. His colour turned puce and, unable to
breathe momentarily, he opened and shut his mouth like a fish out of water.
Bubbles of cold sweat speckled his forehead and his expression was horrified.
It was only after he had gulped down two pills from a bottle in his pocket that
he seemed able to speak again.

"Why
didn't you summon me earlier?" With a shaking hand he returned Estelle's
letter to her. "I had no idea, no idea at all . . ."

They
were in the garden sitting on an iron bench by the embankment wall, away from
the house. "I didn't want to alarm you any more than you would be later
anyway. I know you had urgent business to attend to, with Uncle Josh
incapacitated."

He
groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Poor Josh, poor Bridget ...
oh God! How will they ever be able to survive this?"

Olivia's
expression remained stony. "Before you see them I think you must know
everything I have been doing. That is why I brought you out here so that we
could talk in private away from the servants."

With
clinical precision, Olivia proceeded to give him a blow-by-blow account of her
activities that morning. She presented her account with neither ornamentation
nor any comment of her own. Ransome heard her through without interruption,
looking increasingly ill as the sordid saga of lies and deception continued and
he realised all the ramifications of what had transpired. "We will have to
discover which ship sailed for Europe yesterday," she concluded. Yesterday?
Was it only twenty-four hours since the world had come to an end? How
extraordinary! "I hope there is one or we will have to concoct fresh
explanations."

In
spite of his daze Ransome nodded, having taken her point with alacrity.
"Yes. I will see to that. One of our consignments was billed aboard a
Danish schooner. It
was
due to sail yesterday. But is it certain that
Estelle wasn't seen by anyone before she sailed?"

"I'm
sure she wasn't," Olivia said calmly. "I think Raventhorne must have
covered all her tracks well." With what admirable sang-froid she had said
his name!

The
full horror of their situation finally began to dawn on Ransome. "That
Jai, even Jai, could have perpetrated such an evil, such an obscenity
. .
.!"
His features contorted with repugnance.

"He
could because he was driven into a corner. Both you and Uncle Josh know it
better than anyone else." Olivia was astonished at what she had said—she
could still find words in his defence? For a moment she seriously doubted her
sanity.

Ransome's
shoulders sagged. "Yes. He was driven. He has always been driven.
Retaliation, heaven knows, is justified, but not like this, not like
this!"

"There
are no rules in wars of attrition, Mr. Ransome," she said with disdain.
"If you do not bar holds, then why should you expect your adversaries
to?"

"I
don't know," he muttered unhappily. "Perhaps I didn't expect them to.
God knows there is enough blood on everyone's hands already."

"Yet
some of the guilty will remain unpunished!"

"No,"
he said forcefully shaking his head. "No! Can you envisage a punishment
worse than this for us?"

"Perhaps
not," Olivia said evenly. "Nor for the innocent."

He
looked even more wretched. "The innocent! Yes, it is foolish, innocent
Estelle and her mother who will suffer the most."

She
let it pass, too spent and weary for verbal fencing. It was too early for
anger. Or, maybe, too late.

"I
must go to Josh and Bridget." With painful slowness Ransome rose to his
feet. He looked dreadfully ill. "I have no words for their comfort, only
meaningless platitudes, but I must make the motions." He paused to take
her hand and press it. "It is you who are a pillar of strength to us all,
my dear child. May the good Lord bless you for bearing with such sanity a cross
not of your own making."

Olivia
smiled.

Evening
came and went. Arthur Ransome remained closeted in the study with his friend,
solacing perhaps only by his presence. Olivia did not join them. Instead, she
sat patiently by Lady Bridget's bed, knowing that her aunt's time for awareness
was fast approaching. Her consciousness could no longer be kept deadened with
sleeping draughts. Reality, however harsh, could not be held at bay for very
much longer. Estelle had gone, possibly
forever. Her mother and father had to
learn to live with that. However deep the submerged grief, it had to be brought
to the surface, allowed full play and then controlled so that the healing
process could start. The "healing" process! Olivia considered that
with amusement; after an amputation, was anyone really whole ever again?

Lady
Bridget moaned, softly at first then with gathering strength. Now and then she
thrashed her head from side to side, fingers clawing at the air, lips forming
and unforming jumbles of sound as her drugged brain groped for reason.
Disfigured and puffy, her face looked like that of a stranger. Her condition
was pitiable, her immediate future would be even more so, but Olivia watched
with impassivity, wanting only for the crisis to come and then go.

And
when it did come, she was ready for it. As if with the release of an invisible
spring, Lady Bridget suddenly shot into a sitting position and screamed.
Gripping her shoulders on either side, Olivia pushed her down again and held
her there. "Hush, dear, hush. I'm right here beside you."

With
enormous force Lady Bridget flung off the repressive hands and screamed again.
"My baby, oh my little baby . . .!" Sobbing hysterically, she sat up
again and, rocking herself back and forth, relapsed into incoherent animal-like
whimpers, her face between her hands.

Forcing
steel into her heart, Olivia retreated to sit down again. It had to come;
however cruel, it had to. Nothing could be more brutal than to deny her this,
her legitimate grief. Lady Bridget screamed again and there was something
maniacal in the sound. Olivia felt her skin erupt in goose pimples and her hair
stood on end, but she didn't move from her seat. The door opened suddenly and,
wild faced, Ransome and Sir Joshua stood framed in the doorway with a whole
tribe of servants behind them.

"Bring
her back to me, Josh, bring my baby back . . . have pity, oh have pity . .
.!" Lady Bridget held out her arms beseechingly towards her husband, tears
pouring out of her demented eyes.

Sir
Joshua stood still for a moment, then went and sat down on the bed and took her
hands in his. "Bridget..." He could say nothing more.

Behind
him Ransome shut the bedroom door, then limped to the window and stood silently
in front of it. Lady Bridget's pleadings turned into incoherent gibberish as
she threw herself back on her pillow and started to pummel it savagely. It was
not a
pretty sight; Sir Joshua merely sat and stared at her in stupefied silence as
if he could not fully understand what was happening. Ransome, unable to bear
her agony, made a move towards the bed but Olivia stopped him. "Leave her
be, Mr. Ransome. Let her expend whatever must be expended. It is the only way
she will accept it later."

Ransome's
hands dropped. Features twisted in shared pain, eyes glistening and dim, he
nodded and then returned to the window. On the bed Lady Bridget's intolerable
convulsions continued, her sobs huge and turning hoarse. Olivia felt her own
eyelids smart with the tears she knew she must not shed yet. The effort to hold
them back burned her throat, and sharp finger-nails cut deep cracks in the
palms of her clenched fists, but her iron control remained intact. Like a man
in a dream, Sir Joshua blinked in bafflement, as if uncertain who the woman he
faced was. He again groped for her hand. "Bridget . . .?"

She
recoiled as if stung. Hysterical and crazed, she cowered back into the
bed-clothes and, without warning, started to scream. "Don't you come near
me, do you hear? Don't ever come near me again, Josh! It's you,
you,
I
hold accountable; it's
you
who has invited this . . . this
putrescence
on my baby, you and your—"

"Be
quiet!"
In
his lightning return to sanity he straightened and towered above her, vicious
and ugly in his own unleashed rage. "There will be no more accusations
hurled, Bridget,
not one word more!"

Next
to Olivia, Ransome went rigid, even his breath forgotten. In great, gusty
heaves Lady Bridget fought for air, silenced by the whip-lash command but only
for a fraction of a second. The venom in her eyes, which never left her
husband's face, matched the venom in his. Between them, all at once, there was
such abhorrence that Olivia was stunned. With slow, deliberate movements Lady
Bridget sat up again. "No, Josh," she hissed, lips pulled back in a
snarl, "I will not be quiet! Not now, not anymore." Each word she spoke
was spiked with poison, her eyes wild with hate. "You think I can ever
forget what I saw in you that day? That look that bore the seed of this evil,
this . . .
malignancy?
I
know
why your hand stayed! I saw
everything that day, Josh,
everything."
The pupils of her eyes
dilated and sparkled. "You cheated me out of my
life,
Josh. Can I
ever forgive—"

The
sound of the flat of his palm against her cheek was as sharp as a rifle shot.
Balanced on the edge of her bed, Lady Bridget fell back with a gasp and the unspoken
words rattled and then died in her throat. For a split second no one moved or
could
move. Then, with a shocked oath, Ransome forgot his affliction and hurled
himself at Sir Joshua. "For Christ's sake, man, have you gone clean out of
your flaming mind?" He gripped both arms and tried to pinion them to Sir
Joshua's sides.

With
effortless ease Sir Joshua shook off Ransome's hold. He advanced a step, hand
still stretched out, as if to repeat the blow. Insane wrath was creased into
every line of his face as he stood and stared at his cringing wife nursing her
cheek with a palm. Suddenly his shoulders slumped; his trembling torso stilled
and his face crumpled. Visibly he receded into himself, his colour fled and he
lowered his eyes. "I'm . . . sorry. Forgive me . . ." Dazed again and
once more swaying on his feet, he awkwardly shambled out of the room. Lady
Bridget moaned, pressed her face into her pillow and quietly started to weep.

It
had been a scene of harrowing rawness, its ugliness never to be forgotten.
Olivia felt physically sick. What animals Jai Raventhorne had made of them all!
And how flimsy were their veils of pretence!