Ryman, Rebecca (90 page)

It
was a doubt that had been haunting Olivia from the moment she had seen her
cousin in the nursery. She battled not to voice it but her anxiety flared and
she could not stop herself. "And will you?"

A
great sorrow settled over Estelle. "You are justified in your distrust, I
know that. It is
I
who helped to deform your life, albeit unwittingly.
To even ask for forgiveness now is an insult. I accept that you can never
forgive me. But, for whatever you consider it's worth, I promise that I will
not be the one to inform Jai about his son." Wistfully, she smiled.
"Believe it or not, you are still the paragon I admire most. I could never
harm you knowingly. So, go to your father in peace, Olivia. Your secret is safe
with me."

She
fell silent and waited in hope for some sign of friendship, some final word of
affection as they parted for the last time. None came. Granite faced and
unforgiving, Olivia returned her pleading look with matching silence.

"Well,
farewell then, my heartless Coz." Disappointed, Estelle made a hollow
attempt at lightness. "I wish you two a safe journey home with much
happiness in Hawaii." Formally they kissed each other on the cheek.
Casting a loving glance at the sleeping child, Estelle suddenly laughed.
"Isn't it ironical, Olivia, that without even knowing of each other's
existence or destiny, both Jai and his son will have lived deprived of their
fathers?" With that final thought, she left.

The
irony of the thought, however, stretched even further. When she voiced it
Estelle was not to know that such a deprivation was not to be that of only Jai
Raventhorne and his son.

Three
days after they had departed for Cawnpore, a messenger brought for Olivia a
letter from John Sturges. Sir Joshua Templewood was dead. Sometime during their
first night away, as they camped in the compound of a dak bungalow near
Burdwan, he had walked out into the dense forest that surrounded the region.
There,
in solitary communion with nature and her prowling denizens, he had placed the
barrel of his revolver in his mouth, pointed it upward and shot himself through
the head. The act had been committed lying full length on a grassy verge with a
cushion carefully arranged beneath his head. Consequently, whatever mess was
made by his blood and brains had been efficiently absorbed by the cushion. The
attention to detail was not surprising; as everyone knew, Sir Joshua was in
essence an extremely neat man, fastidious almost to a fault in his personal
habits.

A
chowkidar,
keeping watch over the sleeping travellers, had heard the
shot and, fearing dacoits, had immediately alerted the party. It was as the men
were hastily taking up their weapons to repulse a possible attack that Sir
Joshua's absence was noticed. A search-party was mounted bearing guns and
lanterns. Deep in the bowels of the jungle in the direction from which the shot
had been heard, Sir Joshua's body was found, with the back of his head and half
his face missing. He had left no note to explain his act of self-destruction.
Perhaps he had recognised in his infallible perceptions that none would be
necessary.

It
was not until morning, John wrote, that a village carpenter could be located to
fashion a crude coffin, and a priest disturbed from his early duties at a
Burdwan mission and persuaded to administer the rites required for a burial.
Reluctant to sanctify a suicide, the priest had protested violently. He had to
be taken to the site by force and the simple and hasty interment conducted at
gun point. The grave had been dug deep because predators were forever on the
hunt for handy cadavers, and it was unmarked, save for a rough cross. The
ceremony concluded, the party had to hurry away by a different route to avoid
trouble with the local authorities and District Collector. Subsequently, two
witnesses had been bribed to swear to a more socially acceptable cause of
death, and a vaguely worded death certificate extracted from a drunken medical
officer in the mofussil in exchange for seven rupees and three bottles of army
grog. Estelle had not taken her father's death at all well . . .

John
had sent his message from their next stopping post. A similar letter had been
dispatched to Arthur Ransome. Should an obituary notice be placed in the
Calcutta newspaper? John left that, and its wording, for Ransome to decide.

Olivia
was horrorstruck by the news, then bereft and riddled with remorse. Buried in
the turmoil of her own situation, she had selfishly not even bid her uncle
farewell before he departed on his fateful journey! She had profoundly resented
much that Sir Joshua
had perpetrated upon them all in his arrogant intractability. But now that he
was gone she knew that she would miss him sorely, miss the many fulfilling
hours they had spent together. She had learned much from him; she would always
be grateful for his many kindnesses, his abundant generosity to her, and would
always mourn him. In the aftermath of the shock of his death by his own hand,
when her tears had been shed and the sorrow subsumed, Olivia had an inadvertent
thought: Lady Bridget would have approved of at least this, his final
thoughtfulness in avoiding a scandal by blowing out his brains away from
Calcutta.

Without
further delay Olivia hurried over to the Templewood house to be with Arthur
Ransome in his moments of ultimate grief. The house and servants were shrouded
in a pall of gloom, and poor Rehman and Babulal were inconsolable. Ransome,
however, was not at home. Aware that as soon as the terrible news became public
hordes of visitors would descend to unwittingly desecrate his solitude, he had
probably retired to some secluded corner elsewhere to grapple with his
irredeemable loss and shed his tears in privacy.

It
was a loss, Olivia saw now, that Arthur Ransome had expected for a very long
time. And he had been accurate in his calculated prediction: Of the two men,
one had to be eliminated; and now one had. Another victim? No, not this time. A
casualty, yes, but never a victim. Sir Joshua Templewood's pride would not have
ever allowed such an indignity.

Olivia
returned home and sat down immediately to write a letter to her cousin Estelle.

It
was during the next night that the bleeding started.

"Not
a healthy sign, my girl, not healthy at all." Summoned in the small hours
of the morning, Dr. Humphries looked concerned.

"Could
it be something serious?" A chill hand wrapped itself around Olivia's
heart. "Could there be any danger of . . . losing the baby?"

His
expression mellowed. "No, no, nothing like that. At least, not at the
moment. We'll have the haemorrhage checked in no time, but no more
burra
khana
jollifications and suchlike." He frowned his displeasure.
"What you will have to do now is
rest."

"Rest?"
She straggled up on an elbow. "For how long?"

"Oh,
not long. I'd say about a month." Whistling, no doubt to introduce some
note of good cheer, he set about preparing his medications.

"A
month!" Olivia blanched. "But I sail within a
week!"

"So
I hear. And right sorry we'll be too to lose you, my dear. But Hawaii or
Timbuktu or, for that matter, capers around that blasted Agency—they're all out
of the question. That is," he peered at her from beneath bristling
eyebrows, "if you don't want to risk losing the child. Do you?"

"No,
of course not." Miserably, Olivia laid back her head again. "But I
must also
leave ..."

"You
will, m'dear, you will." He patted her hand. "One month here or there
won't make all that much difference."

"I
can rest on the ship!" She grabbed his hand beseechingly. "I could
stay in bed every day,
all
the way to Honolulu. Mary will take good care
of me, you know that."

He
sat down and looked solemn. "There are storms in the Pacific, dreadful
storms, Olivia. I know, I've been in some. The buffeting is fierce. Not even
those in strong condition can withstand it. Few of the ships carry adequate medical
supplies, surgical equipment in case of emergency, if they carry doctors at
all. Willing to chance all that, my girl? If you are, then by all means sail.
With my blessings."

Olivia
was crippled with despair. "But if I delay now, it will be too
late!"

"Too
late?" Not knowing the problem, he looked puzzled. "Well then, just
have your baby here! It isn't the end of the world, you know. I may be a
grizzled old goat with rude bedside manners, but I've brought more confounded
little blighters into this station's bloody confusions than you memsahibs have
had hot breakfasts! Why all the silly fuss? Don't work up a lather for nothing;
it's bad for the liver." He dismissed the matter with a cluck and began
rattling off instructions to Mary. Then, having sent her off to the kitchen on
some errand, he sat down and yawned away his drowsiness. "Incidentally,
that tamasha of yours—damn fine bash, you know. Millie hasn't stopped talking
about it." He removed his glasses to polish them. "Wouldn't have expected
a tough old buzzard like Josh to turn chicken. But perhaps just as well. Not
every hostess wants murder on her menu, eh?" The news of Sir Joshua's
death had evidently not yet become common knowledge, although it soon would. In
the kindly doctor's seeming insensitivity, however, Olivia felt a stab
of pain. She
closed her eyes and turned her face away. "It was all that Wild West stuff
that brought on this little drama, wasn't it?"

"No,"
Olivia said bitterly, the sorrow cleaving her heart many pronged and many
sided. "But I see now that I've been living in a soap bubble. I should
have had the sense to see that it could not last forever."

"Soap
bubble?" Used to the babblings of patients, he paid scant heed to hers
and, as Mary returned, became busy again. Olivia submitted to his ministrations
without protest, barely conscious of them. It was as he was leaving that Dr.
Humphries sought to offer more salutary advice. "If I were you, I'd send
again for that giddy cousin of yours. I hear they're not long gone and are probably
still within reach of a swift horse and courier.
She'll
cheer you up
pretty fast, I wager!"

Olivia
gave an unhearing nod, but as soon as he left she succumbed to a despair so
violent, so fathomless and unrestrained, that it seemed to devour her. Stifling
her voice with a pillow, she started to scream. And continued to scream until
her bones ached and her throat rebelled and dried up in defeat.

Of
course, as always, nobody heard her.