Ryman, Rebecca (63 page)

"But
then how will I ever atone?" She became agitated. "A promise to the
dead is sacred and I have achieved nothing,
nothing!
Sarah will never
forgive me. I have a duty to her." Her voice had risen, the words tumbling
out in a frantic rush.

"You
have duties to the living, Aunt Bridget, not the dead!" Olivia held her
down gently as she tried to sit up. "To Estelle, when she returns, and to
Uncle Josh. They—"

"Estelle
is dead too." Her throat rattled with an unpleasant sound. "As for
Josh, it is too late for him. It is too late for everything."

"That
is not true!" Olivia cried, struggling between impatience and panic.
"When you are both in England you can—"

"I
will never see England again. I can face nobody." The voice dropped and
she started to sob quietly again. "My life is both finished and
unfinished. There is nothing left."

She
was being blackmailed!
Olivia knew she was being held ransom for someone else's
guilt, someone else's omissions and commissions! Well, she would not stand for
it. How dare her aunt force her into corners, impose her will on her, cut off
her sole avenue of escape? "Your life is neither finished nor
unfinished," she grated harshly, almost shaking her aunt with the violence
of her resentment. "You have no cause to seek forgiveness for imagined
offences of yester-years, but if it is forgiveness you want, then as my
mother's proxy I forgive you a hundred times, a thousand if you wish."

Lady
Bridget fell silent. For a while she said nothing, but then she spoke again,
quietly and calmly. "Very well, Olivia. I accept your forgiveness on your
mother's behalf. But no one can force me to live if I don't wish to."

The
final nail was hammered into the coffin. Fate had defeated Olivia after all.
The diabolic melodrama that had begun that long-ago night on those steps by the
river was approaching its climax and she, for her sins, was its leading
performer. The time for indecisions was over.

Therefore,
when Olivia stepped into the splendid Kirtinagar coach on Saturday, it was with
a resolve that was as cold-blooded as it was inevitable.

"Are
you certain this is what you really wish, Olivia?"

If
Kinjal felt any sense of shock at what had been asked of
her, she did
not show it. Indeed, the cool eyes appraising Olivia showed only concern.

In
the warm welcome that had greeted her in Kirtinagar, Olivia had found no
recriminations, no complacency, no unspoken moral judgements. There had been no
need even for words as Olivia had flung herself into Kinjal's arms and burst
into a storm of tears against the comforting shoulder. "I should have paid
more heed to your warnings," Olivia had sobbed brokenly. "I am sick,
Kinjal, more sick than you can suspect. Unfortunately, my sickness is not one
that guarantees death."

"My
goodness, how defeated you sound!" Kinjal had exclaimed in an effort to
conceal her anxiety under a spark of humour. "What has happened to all
that fiery American spirit?"

"No
longer fiery but crushed." The wan smile Olivia allowed herself had soon
dropped. "I need your strength, Kinjal. It is only to you that I can
reveal my weakness, for I have nowhere else to turn. And I am tired, so
tired
of being silent and noble and a pillar of courage and forever resourceful.
I too want time to mourn, to indulge my sorrow, to consider my loss, to wallow
in self-pity if need be, to return myself to myself . . ."

They
had sat on the terrace of the Maharani's palace from which the view was
magnificent. Under a lather of roseate clouds the sun was slipping into the
lake; the scents of the evening were intoxicating. For Olivia, the return to
Kirtinagar was wounding— but then no more so than anything else in her life,
she reminded herself bitterly. Her need to talk was all-consuming.

"My
husband has taken the children for a picnic," Kinjal had said. "They
plan to camp near the mine where the debris is being cleared and to hunt for
deer in the forest. We will not be disturbed for a day or two. You can talk to
your heart's content."

The
source of Olivia's anguish was, of course, already known to Kinjal. Only the
details needed to be filled in. And oh, what bliss it had been for Olivia to at
last shed pride and pretences and to deliver the truth, the whole truth. In her
account she had omitted nothing, revealed everything, castigating herself with
an honesty that was almost masochistic. Kinjal had listened with patience and
with tacit understanding, her reactions devoid of anything but compassion. It
was only when Olivia had concluded and blurted out her eventual request that
the Maharani started to ask questions.

"Have
you thought about it carefully, my dear friend? Kinjal repeated. "Is this
truly what you want?" For the first time the serene eyes turned
reproachful.

Olivia's
mouth set. "Yes. I need help to forget Jai Raventhorne," she said
stonily. "The memories in my mind are hidden and with time they will fade.
What can no longer be concealed in my body needs to be excised and
discarded."

The
sloe eyes, shrewd and reflective, surveyed Olivia carefully. "And you
assure me that you have thought about it well?"

"I
have thought of little else these past few days."

"Then
you have decided not to return to your father for the time being?"

"It
appears to have been decided for me," Olivia said bitterly. "If my
aunt destroys herself, no matter how insane her reasons, how will I ever be
able to live with myself again clear of conscience? And I do love her, Kinjal.
She is my own flesh and blood. To abandon her now might be to sign her death
warrant." With a sob, she covered her face with her hands. "Oh, it is
all so unfair, all so cruel and iniquitous! If I stay on as I am, she will die,
not by her own hand but by the scandal of this noxious tumour in my womb. If I
go, then she will try again what she tried on Wednesday and, perhaps, with
greater success. What am I to do? What options do I have?"

Kinjal
took her hands and pulled them gently away from her face. "I can listen to
you, Olivia, talk to you, share in your sorrow and perhaps even lighten it
momentarily. What I cannot do is make your decisions. Those must be yours and
yours alone."

Olivia's
face again set. "I have already decided. Whatever my other options, I will
not nurture Jai Raventhorne's child in my womb."

"You
would knowingly destroy something that one day will have a life of its
own?"

"Yes."

"You
would cast aside the consideration that this is a child conceived in what was
once love?"

"Not
love, self-delusion! Love is not a word Jai Raventhorne includes in his vocabulary,
as you yourself impressed upon me not so long ago."

"But
you
include it in yours, Olivia. Can you forget that?"

"Yes.
But to forget it I must first exorcise him entirely from both body and
mind." Her voice broke. "I am shackled, Kinjal, within and without,
physically and mentally. At least this one shackle I can shake off to make my
burden more tolerable."

Kinjal's
gaze remained stern and unwavering. "You have never been a mother, Olivia.
You have never brought into this world a handful of flesh that is of your own.
Once gone, that
handful will never be again—you have considered the irreversible finality of
your decision?"

"That
handful will be flesh from two bodies, not one. To rid myself of its other
component I willingly make the sacrifice, if indeed it is one!"

"One
final question, then." A crease in the Maharani's forehead neatly divided
into two the vermilion spot she always wore. "Is it fear of public censure
that also motivates you? The shame that society can heap on unwed mothers and
their children?"

For
the first time Olivia pondered. "The answer to that question," she
then said, "would vary with the geography of my situation. In America, I
would not give a damn about public opinion and neither would my father or
Sally. But here," her expression filled with slow horror, "here in
India, I would rather kill the child than subject it to the unholy mercies of
Calcutta's social vultures ready to pick at any carrion that will provide a
tidbit of gossip. And they will pick clean whatever remains on the bones of my
poor, miserable aunt and uncle should I have my baby here. For myself I can
perhaps fight back, bite as hard as these harpies can, but would it be worth
it?" She swallowed her anger and balled her fists. "No, no,
no!
As
Jai once said to me in another context, the game is not worth the candle. And
in any case I have no great desire to bring to life the bastard of a
bastard."

There
was nothing left to be said.

After
a moment of silence, Kinjal smiled. "You are a brave woman, Olivia.
Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the past can be forgotten only if excised. It is
the future we must think of now. To wipe a dirty slate clean and start afresh
might be a sensible new beginning."

She
rose, beckoned a maidservant and proceeded to dispense rapid instructions.

The
old woman was like a crow, hunchbacked with age, and with long, hooked fingers
that felt like talons. As she poked and pried under the bed-clothes, Olivia
watched with nervous fascination the single large tooth that was contained in
the floppy, cackling mouth. Around them, maidservants hurried about on velvet
feet carrying brass vessels of hot water, banana leaves, bundles of twigs and
other leaves, hairlike roots with bulbous endings, bottles of coloured liquid,
and crude, hideous implements. A live
rooster, his scarlet cocks-comb looking
as though it bristled with indignation, was securely trussed inside a basket.
Near it rested an ominous-looking knife with a curved blade. In a corner of the
chamber a paraffin stove bubbled like a witches' cauldron with a viscous
concoction the colour of ebony. In the general gloam, even Kinjal appeared to
have taken on an unfamiliar, sinister appearance.

"What
is to be done now?" Olivia asked, running a dry tongue over her parched
lips.

"Whatever
is required to fulfil your wishes," Kinjal replied, her tone sombre.
"The old woman is knowledgeable and experienced. She says yours is an easy
case. She guarantees success. Can you give her the approximate time of
conception?"

Approximate?
Olivia almost laughed as, through a knot of sourness in her throat, she voiced
the time exactly down to the last minute. And as she did so, the languid, lazy
arabesques of their love-making leapt into the forefront of her mind, her
memory relentless in its clarity. In searing detail the images of those
once-precious moments started to dance before her eyes, every nuance vivid. It
was not Jai who had wanted to implant that devil's seed she was now cursing, it
was
she.
It was to pleasure her, to indulge her erotic whims, to sharpen
her own sensual gratification that he had let his essence flow into her
unimpeded. She had, she knew, conceived his child at that precise moment
because, passionately and unequivocally, that was what she had wanted.

Give
me a part of yourself. . .!

In
sudden despair, Olivia clung to Kinjal's hand. "Stay with me, stay with me
please—I cannot bear it alone."

Cool
fingers soothed her drenched forehead. "Yes, I will stay with you. The
woman asks if she should begin." Despite the physical contact, Kinjal
seemed detached and far away.