Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  Her inane chatter brought no change to Sir Joshua's expression. "Yes. That might be a possibility."

  "On the other hand, here the explosion killed a man. I guess that automatically means a charge of manslaughter?" She stopped and held her breath.

  He folded the chamois-leather neatly and slipped it back into its pouch, then sat back to appraise her over his half-moon glasses. "I see that you have been giving the matter considerable thought, m'dear," he remarked with what Olivia knew was deceptive mildness.

  Olivia shrugged. "No more than anyone else," she answered easily. "According to Mr. Ransome there is much conjecture and debate in station about the outcome of all this." She waved a hand across the newspaper. "Especially if the charge is manslaughter. A man could be put away for years for manslaughter, couldn't he?" Her heart throbbing painfully in her mouth, she waited for his response.

  Almost imperceptibly, his face changed once again; it became very strange, very still. He moved his gaze away from her to fix it midair between the desk and the wall. Lost within himself, he fell into a deep silence. Watching the change in him, Olivia tried to discern its implications and couldn't; even in his silence there was menace. With an effort, Sir Joshua roused himself from his reverie. "Yes," he said, his face again hard, the moment of solitude over, "if Slocum so chooses. It would be no more than the man deserves."

  "If Slocum chooses? Surely if Arvind Singh chooses to prosecute at all!"

  "Arvind Singh will prosecute. Slocum will see to that."

  "See to that? How?" She no longer cared what he might make of her questions, she had to have the answers!

  "How? For an intelligent girl you're suddenly asking pretty daft questions!" As if to make amends for his reprimand, he smiled. "My dear, Kirtinagar might be politically independent, but economically it is far from so. There is no industry in the State worth mentioning and there is much Arvind Singh needs to buy from us for the subsistence of his people. That," he pointed out softly, "makes him highly susceptible to pressure."

  Olivia started to feel sick. And frightened. What Ransome had said was true; whether or not the facts fit, they would be trimmed to the requisite size so that Raventhorne could be eliminated. "Then it is this Calcutta resident, Kala Kanta I hear, who will be deemed the guilty party?"

  "He is the guilty party."

  "And if he can present an acceptable defence for himself?"

  "He can present none that Slocum will accept."

  Who was her uncle to decide that? Olivia felt a stir of cold, consuming anger. But there was still one question, the most vital one, that remained unasked and unanswered. And it was on this answer that her entire life might depend.

  Forcing herself to stay calm, she walked to the glass-fronted cupboard and set the last of the bronze bells in its place. "As I see it then, the success of the charge rests upon those five eyewitnesses. Supposing, just supposing as a hypothetical possibility, that this suspect could prove beyond all reasonable doubt that he was not in Kirtinagar that night, that he was elsewhere. What then?"

  A flicker, a mere flicker, of uncertainty flashed in his eyes. She saw that this question had angered him more than any of her others. Even so, he remained in perfect control. "Hypothetically, such a contention, if proven, would invalidate the charge. Any fool can see that. But he was not elsewhere. Nor will he be able to prove that he was."

  Yes, a lynching had been arranged. The tree had been selected, the rope was already in place, the mob screamingly impatient for the swinging. Olivia rose, her path now clear before her. "I see now exactly what you mean when you say there is more than one way of catching a monkey!"

  If he noticed her contempt, he did not show it. Even if he had, it would no longer have mattered.

  CHAPTER 10

  There was barely an apology of a moon, the thin sickle still weak and faint. In the flickering, filtered light of the stars the boatman rubbed the drowse from his eyes and peered at Olivia in astonishment. She opened her cloth pouch and laid some silver coins on the palm of her hand.

  "Half of that now and the rest when you have brought back a reply for me." Her Hindustani was now reasonably clear and there was no ambiguity about the silver coins.

  The man's eyes glistened as sleep vanished from them and he nodded with alacrity. "Theek hai, memsahib, very well. The letter?"

  Olivia divided the coins in half, handed him his promised share and then an envelope. "Remember, I must have an answer."

  "But if the Sarkar is not on board?"

  "He will be," she said with more conviction than she felt. "The letter must be given only to him, no one else, achcha? Understood?"

  The boatman yawned and nodded, shrugging away his amazement at having been shaken awake in the middle of the night by a solitary mem who had no business wandering the streets on her own. Her sudden presence convinced him once more of what he had long suspected—that all white people were vaguely mad.

  The small rowing craft moved off on its journey across the river, leaving Olivia to the mercies of the cutting winds that seemed to pierce through flesh and bone to freeze the marrow. Pulling her heavy woollen cape more closely over her head, she placed Jasmine's night blanket on a dense knot of banyan roots and settled down to keep her vigil until the boatman returned. It was not yet ten o'clock but the streets were deserted, left to the scavenging mercies of stray dogs and huge bandicoots who scurried about making squeaking noises and rustling dead leaves. Occasionally there was a sharper squeal as some unwary smaller prey was undoubtedly caught and devoured on the spot.

  Hugging her knees and gathering her skirts closer to her legs, Olivia shivered a little, her eyes fixed to a distant spot across the inky river where the Ganga was anchored. In spite of the blackness of the night she convinced herself that she could discern the ship's ghostly outlines, its blobs of diffused yellow lights on the deck, and she shivered again. Somewhere in that tent of dark was Jai, perhaps even at this moment reading the letter she had composed immediately after leaving her uncle to his brandy and his dreams of perverse triumph. Nobody had seen her creep out of the house (how expert she was now in the art of furtiveness!) or saddle Jasmine to the snores of the groom and his son up in the hayloft. But even if someone had, it was immaterial. By tomorrow, all of Calcutta would know the truth, and the prospect exhilarated her! She was done with deceit and subterfuge; tomorrow she would climb to the top of the Ochterlony monument and declare to the world her love for Jai Raventhorne.

  A faint splash in the distance caught her attention and she was alert instantly; he was back already? With his reply? But when the boatman beached a few moments later and she ran down the slope to meet him, all he handed her was her own envelope. Unopened.

  "The Sarkar is not on board," he said with obvious regret, wondering if the absence of a reply automatically deprived him of the rest of his payment.

  Olivia's spirits crashed. "Who told you that? Who was it you saw on board?"

  "Since the Sarkar was not on the ship it was not necessary for me to go up on board." He pressed his elbows and winced. "I am an old man. My joints are not what they—"

  "Yes, yes, but whose voice was it that informed you he was not on the ship?" Olivia interrupted impatiently, almost crying in her disappointment. "Did you recognise it? Try to remember, did you?" There was only one slim hope left.

  The man pondered. "Well, it's difficult to—"

  "Was it Bahadur's?"

  His face brightened. "Yes, yes, it was his. I'd know it anywhere because he has often hired—"

  Olivia stopped him by opening her pouch and emptying whatever coins she had in it onto his palm. He gulped into silence, staring at the silver. She closed his trembling fingers around it. "All that is yours if you take me to the ship and wait there to bring me back."

  Galvanised, the boatman leapt back into his craft, his grin of delight reaching from one ear to the other as he hastily tucked the coins into a twist of his lungi. Spirits soaring again, her face flushed and the fire of s
uccess racing through her veins, Olivia clambered into the dhoolie. She knew her instinct would be right; if Bahadur was on board it could only mean that Jai was too.

  Hope, fear and mad longing washed over Olivia in successive waves as the little boat picked its way again across the river. Intermittently she felt anger. He had returned her letter without even wanting to know what she had to say! Did he think she was so foolhardy and with such little self-respect as to take this nocturnal risk without the greatest of urgency? But then, as the white hulk loomed ahead beneath the stars, Olivia's anger evaporated and her courage started to wane. Jai would be furious with her; he would refuse to see her. She closed her eyes in a moment of agony and, intimidated by the lunatic daring of her escapade, almost ordered the boat back.

  But then she stabilised herself. And it was too late anyway; with a boom that sounded like the hollow beat of a giant drum in the silence of the still night, the dhoolie had slid alongside the Ganga. In the still silence it sounded like the hollow beat of a gigantic drum.

  "Who goes there?" From above, the alert voice of the watch called.

  The boatman looked over his shoulder questioningly at Olivia, then, upon her whispered instruction, shouted back, "A lady."

  There was a startled pause. "What does the lady want?"

  "To come aboard."

  Another silence. "On what business?"

  Olivia nodded at him and the boatman funnelled his hands around his mouth to be better heard. "On business with the Sarkar."

  From above came sounds of whispered consultations, and her heart leapt—he was on board! Had he not been, the negative response would have been immediate. "The Sarkar does not wish to receive visitors."

  Olivia's mouth set in a grim line. Even as the blood pounded at her temples, she again prompted the boatman. "The lady would like the Sarkar to be informed that if the ladder is not lowered within five minutes she intends to climb up the anchor chain." The boatman turned to look at Olivia with undisguised awe.

  This time the confabulations were more prolonged and followed by the sounds of scurrying feet on deck. In the ensuing and seemingly endless silence, her heart sank with dismay on the chance he would decide to call her reckless bluff. But then the apprehension turned into triumph; the rope ladder snaked down the side, its wooden slats clattering noisily against the hull. A minute later she was being helped onto the deck.

  Bahadur's inscrutable eyes widened briefly in surprise. Then, remembering his manners, he bowed and folded his hands in respectful greeting.

  Nodding briskly, Olivia dusted her skirts. "Please inform the Sarkar that I would like to see him for a few moments." She spoke with the imperiousness expected of memsahibs in India.

  Bahadur hesitated, bowed again, then walked away into the shadows through a doorway that led below. With shaking fingers Olivia wiped the dampness off her forehead, her breath exhaling in small puffs of mist. Oh God, how would he receive her? Would he receive her at all? She was alone on deck save for the watch, who stared at her open mouthed. Catching her eye, he hastily shut his mouth and turned away. Warm yellow light fell from swinging lanterns, making the polished brass rails gleam. The tops of the towering masts were buried within swirling night vapours that obliterated whatever stars might have been visible. Pale faced, Olivia waited. Her business tonight was formal. She was determined to make it also brief. But however briefly, however formally, she was to see Jai Raventhorne again.

  Bahadur returned. As stone faced as she, he bowed again. "The Sarkar presents his compliments but regrets that he is not, at this moment, available." His eyes fell to the deck in embarrassment.

  "In that case, would you please find out from the Sarkar at which precise moment he will be available? I am in no hurry." She smiled pleasantly enough as she added, "I will wait all night if necessary."

  Bahadur bowed for the fourth time and returned to the doorway for an answer to this further inquiry. For a split second Olivia faltered; should she merely send in the letter and so eschew a doubtlessly unpleasant confrontation? But then she steeled herself again; to have come all this way and not see him? It was more than the weakness of her will would allow. Waiting only until Bahadur's form had melted once more into the shadows, she ran down the deck and slipped in after him. Keeping him within her sight, she followed him noiselessly down a familiar corridor, recognising it vaguely as the one leading to the main cabin. Bahadur halted at a door ahead but before he could raise a hand to knock, she had caught up to him, grabbed the knob and opened the door to plunge in. She heard him gasp behind her just as she shut the door in his face.

  Raventhorne sat at his desk, writing. Disturbed by the noise, he glanced over his shoulder with a frown. Just for an instant their eyes met, then he turned back and continued writing. There had been no apparent change in his expression. Leaning back weakly against the door, Olivia watched him in a silence so complete that the scratch of his pen on paper was resounding. He sat with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, one palm propped against the side of his head, his fingers splayed out in the untidy denseness of his hair. Under the desk his legs were stretched, the ankles crossed. His face in profile glowed in a pool of lamplight— the only light in the cabin—and was immobile in its concentration. Only his eyes moved as they followed the rapid progress of his pen across the paper.

  For all her determination, all her anger, all her gnawing reservations at having undertaken this undoubtedly futile quest, Olivia became limp with love and longing. Everything within her melted and twisted like candle wax in a flame. But resolutely she discarded the clutching fingers of weakness and firmed her features into an impersonal expression. Boldly, she walked up to the desk. He still did not look up. And when he did finally deign to speak, it was without interrupting his labours.

  "You should not have come, Olivia. You are making it very difficult for me."

  Difficult for him? Her inadvertent softness vanished. "I don't think you could be fool enough to consider this a social call," she said coldly. "I have come only because—"

  "I know why you have come. The noble gesture you feel constrained to make in my interest is not necessary."

  "Feel constrained to make? Did you think I would sit silent under the circumstances?"

  "If it is chivalry that has motivated this visit," a bare smile played on his mouth, "I am duly touched, especially in view of the illness from which I hear you have not fully recovered. You may now leave."

  A curl of anger started to spiral upward. "Touched! You mean there is something that can touch you after all?" She laughed scornfully, but he neither looked at her nor responded to the taunt. Olivia's anger expanded. "You could at least do me the courtesy of looking at me when you speak, or are you afraid to?"

  He completed what he was writing and, without hurry, laid down his pen. Then, leaning back, he stared at her expressionlessly. "No, I am not afraid. I am merely trying to indicate that although I appreciate your concern, I have nothing to say to you." He picked up the pen again and started to write. "Nor you to me."

  It was not easy to sustain control but, with an effort, she did. Pulling up a chair she sat down and crossed one leg over the other. "Are you aware of what you are being accused?" It was a rhetorical question asked with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  "I am constantly being accused of something. I'm not sure to which charge you refer."

  "Don't be so damned flippant! They want to charge you with manslaughter, if not murder."

  "Yes. I believe they do."

  "You mean to do nothing to refute the patently false charge? Present no defence at all even though you have one that is cast iron?" In her lap her hands strained at each other in an effort to keep still.

  Carefully, he blotted what he had just written and took a fresh sheet. "My defence is already taken care of. It does not include the shelter provided by your generous petticoats, which once before you accused me of misusing. Your reputation will remain unsullied."

  "You think I care a hang about my
reputation?" she cried in despair at his maddening obduracy. He gave no answer. "What ... is your defence going to be? Please tell me, Jai!"

  "Whatever it is, it shouldn't concern you." For the first time he showed a reaction but it was a flash of annoyance. "I meant it when I said I would not see you again, Olivia. I would be obliged if you would now leave me alone and go."

  The flow of ink, the rapid scribble and the infuriating scratch of the nib proceeded. Before Olivia's eyes descended a cloud of scarlet rage; already tightened to its limit, her temper snapped. Suddenly, she wanted to scream, to destroy and demolish this granite wall against which she was so needlessly banging her head. With a furious oath she sprang to her feet and snatched the pen from his hand. She flung it across the room with all the force she could summon. As it struck some unseen obstruction, it shattered with a metallic tinkle.

  "I haven't come all this way at night to be dismissed like one of your goddamned doxies, Jai Raventhorne! Who the hell do you think I am to be sent off packing—some two-bit whore straight off the streets like your Sujata?" She swung an arm and swept all the papers off his desk; like a flurry of broken-winged birds they fluttered away to scatter on the floor. "How dare you treat me as if I were some dumb, common slut—how dare you!" Choking on her wrath she turned her back on him to hug her trembling body into stillness. "My God," she spat out viciously, "you deserve to be lynched!"

  If he was intimidated by her outburst, he concealed the fact with admirable success. He got up, collected his papers from the floor and took his time rearranging them on the desk. "This is not your war, Olivia," he said quietly. "Don't get caught in the crossfire."

  She shut her eyes in gathering anguish. "If it is your war, it is my war. I am already involved."

  "I am giving you a chance to become disinvolved. Take it." Sitting down again he draped a casual arm over the back of the chair and faced her. "A few secret meetings, a few kisses exchanged . . ." He shrugged. "I can hardly believe those mean a lifetime commitment!"