Ryman, Rebecca (79 page)

The
moment the carriage rumbled up to the Templewood porch, Estelle came flying
down the portico steps. Throwing herself into Olivia's arms, she exploded with
noisy tears. "Oh, Olivia, my darling, darling Coz . . .
how
I have
missed you!"

Olivia
detached herself from the suffocating embrace. "Have you? Well, welcome
home, Estelle. And my congratulations. Where is your John?" She felt proud
of the ease with which she could actually smile.

"In
Madras with his parents," Estelle gulped, still tearful. "They
disembarked en route to see an ailing relative . . . oh, Olivia, there were
times I thought I would
die
without you to talk to . . ."

"But
you obviously didn't." Olivia removed Estelle's restraining hand from her
arm. "Where is Uncle Josh?"

"In
the back garden with Uncle Arthur." Saucer eyes swimming, Estelle again
grabbed Olivia's hand. "How
awful
Papa looks! I couldn't believe
it, he's lost
pounds
and
pounds . . . "

"Weight
isn't all that he's lost, Estelle." Olivia surveyed her coldly. "Come
on. Let's go and join them in the garden." Without giving her cousin
another chance to protest, she walked away.

Sir
Joshua and Ransome sat on either side of a wrought iron table sipping iced beer
and gazing silently in opposite directions. As Olivia
and Estelle
joined them, they rose. Ransome muttered some monosyllabic inaudibilities in
greeting and Sir Joshua nodded as Olivia kissed him on a cheek. She seated
herself next to Estelle and wondered what might be considered appropriate
topics of conversation at a family reunion as unwanted and as bizarre as this!
Had any dialogue already taken place between father and daughter? Certainly
there was no way of telling from her uncle's facial blankness, the vacancy of
his eyes and the customary slouch of his shoulders. As usual, he sat immersed
in silence, making no contribution to the conversation. Sombre faced and shifty
eyed, Ransome merely fidgeted with a key chain, saying little and looking
extremely ill at ease.

As
it happened, nobody's conversational expertise was unduly needed to fill what
might have been hideously gaping silences. Estelle took the lead in keeping the
small talk flowing smoothly. "You could have knocked me over with a
feather, darling, when I heard you had actually
agreed
to marry
Freddie!" She laughed a shade too loudly. "But then, I always did
maintain that you would, you know, Coz—truly I did. And my, my—Lady Birkhurst
already!
Oh, it's all turned out so ... so
perfect,
hasn't it?" She
clasped her hands and beamed.

"Yes.
Perfect." Olivia said.

"And
oh, Olivia . . .
why
did you not bring Amos with you? Could we fetch him
now, this very instant? I don't think I could
bear
to wait until
tomorrow." She pouted appealingly. Despite the coat of cosmetics, she
looked again like a little girl, but now not innocent—merely indecent.

"Amos
is away. He is with friends."

"Away?"
Estelle's face fell. "But you
knew
I was returning; could you not
have kept him back at least awhile?"

"I'm
sorry, the arrangements were made before we learned about your return,"
Olivia lied with practiced ease. "But I will try to bring him back before
you leave for Cawnpore. How long do you propose to stay?"

"John
has to report for his new duties in a month. He refuses to consider staying
longer." She gave a very wifely sigh. "Oh,
husbands!"

A
month! She would have to be without Amos for a whole month! Olivia filled with
dismay. Somehow, she forced herself not to react and asked instead, "And
how is Aunt Bridget? Well, I hope? You bring no letters from her?"

For
the first time ripples appeared in Estelle's smooth façade. Her eyes dropped,
as did her smile, and she looked fractionally
uncertain. Then, she nodded.
"Yes, Mama is well." She said no more.

During
the banal exchange, neither Sir Joshua nor Arthur Ransome had offered any
comments. But now, all of a sudden, Sir Joshua chose to speak. "So you
see, Arthur, how the divinities mock the hand that stayed?" He threw back
his head and roared with laughter. There was in his non sequitur and his
merriment something grotesque, and jarring; embarrassed, they all stared. Still
chuckling, he got up and wove his way back into the house. Ransome's eyes
followed him until his ungainly form in its ill-fitting clothes disappeared
from view; there was compassion and misery in those eyes.

"What
an odd thing to say!" Estelle exclaimed with an unsure laugh.
"Whatever could Papa be thinking of?" Without waiting for anyone to
vouchsafe an answer, she plunged into a voluble account of her explorations in
London, garnished lavishly with characteristic emphases and superlatives.

A
creeping sense of unreality started to disorient Olivia. She had the odd
feeling that they were all on a stage mouthing fictional dialogue in a mystery
thriller; the surprise ending would suddenly burst upon them and it would bear
no relation to what they were saying. Or, they were involved in a party
guessing game in which there were too many red herrings to find the true
answers. Listening to her cousin's inconsequential chatter, Olivia felt an
overwhelming sense of déjà vu; the clock again moved back and she was once more
perched on Estelle's bed munching ginger biscuits and sharing fantasies. It
seemed incredible to her that they could all be sitting here, in the Templewood
garden, pretending that nothing had changed, that their lives were still
intact, that there had been no shattering diversions of their desired
destinies. They were pretending that they were whole people again.

Almost
whole, but not quite.

Estelle's
exuberance was forced, a camouflage for twisting turbulences underneath. Her
voice was too shrill, her laughter too affected, her gestures laden with
artifice. Below the caked black kohl streaked with dried tears, her eyes shone
with too bright a sparkle. The stylish fuchsia velvet gown with its daringly
dipped neckline provided a veneer of chic, but the sophistication she tried so
hard to project could not conceal the nervousness she was not yet clever enough
to suppress. The truth was that Estelle was profoundly unhappy.

And
so she damn well deserved to be!
For Olivia it was impossible to evoke
even a fragment of sympathy.

Dreaded
as the prospect was, it was inevitable that at some point during the evening
Olivia would find herself alone with her cousin. As soon as supper was over—a
false, brittle affair dominated by Estelle's still pointless prattle—Olivia
found herself finally cornered. "I know how angry you are with me, Olivia,
but it is imperative that I talk to you."

"Talk?
You've been doing nothing
but
talk, my dear!"

Pretences
exhausted, Estelle ignored the taunt. "You cannot deny me the opportunity
to make explanations."

"If
explanations are due, they are to your father. You owe me none."

A
sob caught in Estelle's throat. "I have tried to talk to Papa but he does
not respond. He merely listens; he says nothing. I can't seem to reach him anymore."
She looked bereft.
"Please,
Olivia, don't turn me away!"

Heaving
a resigned sigh, Olivia shrugged. None of it mattered now, after all. If
Estelle could not reach her father, neither would she be able to ever reach
her
again! Grudgingly, she followed Estelle up the stairs. In spite of her
aunt's offhand instructions, Olivia had chosen to leave Estelle's room as it
was, thus depriving some deserving charity of no doubt much useful bounty. As a
consequence, the sense of déjà vu was again overwhelming. All of her cousin's
gewgaws were exactly as they had always been, but, grimly, Olivia hardened
herself against the onslaught of nostalgia. No matter how manipulative or
crafty her cousin's devices this time, she would not allow herself to be fooled
again. To each his own mess; whatever Estelle's might have been, she was not
about to make it her own.

Estelle
flung herself onto the bed, and her unhappiness erupted. "I cannot
bear
what has happened to Papa! Oh God, how he must have suffered!"

Olivia
avoided the enforced intimacy of the bed and positioned herself in a chair by
the window. "And that surprises you?"

Estelle
lay back and stared at the ceiling. "No, it does not surprise me. Not now,
not anymore," she said dully. "A year ago it would have. I knew he
would be livid, mad with frustrated fury and bitterly disappointed in me. I
thought he would cut me off with the proverbial farthing, command that I never
darken his door again, rant and rave and do all the things outraged fathers do
in those dreadful novels. And Mama," she threw her hands up in the air,
"would swoon and rush for her smelling-salts and moan interminably about
the scandal and what all her friends
would say behind her back." She
sat up and her eyes widened with horror. "I never
dreamed
that they
would just. . .
disintegrate.
I swear I didn't, Olivia! How could I
have, how
could
I have? I didn't know the truth, no one
told
me .
. ." She broke off as if uncertain how much more to say, unsure of the
extent of Olivia's knowledge. Staring out of the window, Olivia volunteered no
comment. "Oh God, oh God ... no, it has
not
turned out perfectly,
has it?" She flung herself down on her pillow and started to flail it with
angry fists. "It's all gone so wrong, so
wrong!
I meant it only as
an escapade to ... to teach them a
lesson . . .!"

Escapade!
Olivia
went numb with fury. Did this spoilt, stupid
bitch
have any idea how
much she was repulsed—yes,
repulsed!—
by her? "Oh, I'd say you
taught them a lesson all right! I do not doubt they have profited greatly from
your tutelage."

"Don't
mock me, Olivia, I beg you! You are the only sane and true friend I can turn to
now when it's all become such a confounded. . .
pickle.
" She turned
her face to the wall and began to sob quietly. "I lied to you and Papa in
my letter, Olivia— Mama refused to see me in Norfolk. Through Aunt Maude she
said that for her I was dead. She th-threatened to throw herself into the
Broads if Aunt Maude gave me shelter." The memory made her shudder.
"If it hadn't been for John, I would have gone out of my mind. His parents
don't know ... everything, but John does. I kept nothing from him." She
had the decency to at least lower her eyes. "We had a quiet wedding at his
home in Liverpool. I forged a letter from Mama to his parents pleading an indisposition
too severe to permit travel." Covering her face, she swayed back and forth
moaning to herself. "Oh, Olivia, there is so much, so
much,
I did
not know . . ."

But
you do now, don't you, precious!
Watching expressionlessly, Olivia
remained silent.

"Only
my John, my beloved John, has seen fit to forgive me. He . . .
understands." Noting Olivia's arched eyebrow, she pushed her chin out in a
familiar gesture of defiance. "Yes, he does, and I do love John! He does
not find it unacceptable that I should also love Jai, no matter how misguided
my running away with him."

Olivia
started to freeze; this was the line beyond which she could never permit
Estelle to venture,
never.
How dare the brazen hussy flaunt her
misbegotten love in front of
her
face! "No! That is your business,
not mine," she said sharply. "Keep it to yourself."

"But,
Olivia, I've been waiting
months
to talk to you . . .!" Estelle
was dismayed.
"I tried to write but I couldn't—it was all so complex, so damnably
confused. You must listen to me, Olivia, you
must. . .!"

"This
might be a surprise to you, Estelle, but there is now absolutely nothing in my
life I
must
do unless I wish to. I am no longer interested in your
affairs." She walked to the door and opened it.

"You
have a right to be angry with me," Estelle cried, leaping off the bed and
running to cling to Olivia, "my God, I do know that! Uncle Arthur told me
of the burden you carried alone, of your resourcefulness, of your nobi—"

"I
only did what needed to be done," Olivia said, each syllable icy.
"Now, please let me go."

"But
I want to know everything that happened
here!"
Estelle tightened
her grip. "Can't you see how much needs to be aired and repaired? I
cannot
do it without your support, my eminently sensible cousin."

"What
happened is no longer relevant; it's what
will
happen—to your father,
for instance—that matters. The responsibility of looking after him can no
longer be that of Uncle Arthur, have you thought of that? And you do know that
I leave soon for Hawaii?"

"Yes."
Her underlip started to quiver again. "Of course I will look after Papa,
who else is there? I will make him come to Cawnpore with us. But before that
something else must be remedied. Jai has been wronged, Olivia. You were so
correct in your—"

"I
told you, I'm not interested in hearing about Jai Raventhorne!" Outraged,
she wrenched her hand free. "I do not wish to hear either his name or his
alleged persecutions or, indeed, how you propose to remedy whatever it is that
you do wish to remedy. I no longer want to be
involved!"