Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  "Oh, I see. In that case, have you any idea when that is likely to be?" It was tossed out so lightly, so casually, that Moitra's response came without hesitation.

  "The Sarkar's plans are always not to be predicted, Madam." He shrugged. "He has travelled much in England and in Europe. Three months back he was in his rented London residence. It would be best to await his return."

  "Fine. I will take the matter up with Mr. Donaldson." A residence? For Estelle and himself . . .? Nevertheless she felt enormous relief. Moitra's next remark, however, startled her.

  "Do not be misled, Madam," he said, suddenly on the defensive, "For one with so deprived a childhood, the Sarkar has no yearnings for material possessions. He acquires residences only for business reasons."

  Concealing her surprise, Olivia regarded him thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. "You were acquainted with him in childhood?"

  "Indeed! Had my father not found the Sarkar lying badly wounded in the gutter, he would not have lived. The Sarkar was only eight years old at that time. It was a white man who had beaten him, although he would not say who. The Sarkar's hatred for your race is therefore not entirely unjustified, Madam." Still on the defensive, he spoke with feeling.

  Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle! "Oh, really?" she murmured.

  "Yes, Madam. My father was a renowned ayurved, an herbalist. He cured the Sarkar's wounds and made him live with us for two years since he had neither home nor family." Reticence forgotten, Moitra now wanted only to present his beloved Sarkar in as favourable a light as he could. His efforts to make reparation on behalf of his employer were vaguely touching.

  No family? What about his mother? For a split second Olivia's thoughts flashed to a drawer somewhere in the house where the forgotten locket lay, but then she dismissed the memory. How ironic that all this information should suddenly arrive on her desk unsolicited! But old habits die hard and she heard herself asking, "He left after two years?"

  Moitra smiled sadly. "Yes. We never knew for where. My mother was very upset. But," his smile widened, "the Sarkar had not forgotten us, Madam, not for one moment! Twelve years afterwards, he came back to us. We could not recognise him. Now he had become a man, a gentleman! Since then, his generosity to my family has been boundless. To me he gave a job in his new company. I have been with him ever since." He cleared his throat and added quietly, "Your dislike of the Sarkar, Madam, I understand, for he has ruined your esteemed uncle. I beg of you now to understand also my love for him."

  He rose, gave a jerky little bow, and left.

  By pumping Ranjan Moitra, Olivia had got the information she wanted—that Jai Raventhorne was unlikely to return in a hurry. The rest of the information had come gratis. Olivia was astonished, and pleased, at how little it had affected her. Where once it would have whipped her emotions into an inferno, it now left her with no reaction at all. It was a small triumph but it was significant; truly, she had dismissed Jai Raventhorne from her life forever.

  CHAPTER 15

  Once more the rains came.

  And again the leaden skies swung low, obliterating the sun but soaking up the intolerable humidity like a sponge. The heat was crippling. For Olivia the punishment of the oppressive weather became a penance. The weight of her belly pushed down into her sensible shoes, making her ankles bloat, and every effort seemed too much. It was no longer possible to go out in public even in carefully designed clothes; she had to stop work. Also, it was time to escape to Kirtinagar.

  "But why Kirtinagar?" Freddie asked, dismayed. "I don't trust those native quacks. Surely Dr. Humphries should be in attendance."

  When Olivia explained to him the reason, he fell silent. Then, with a curt nod, he walked out of the room. Olivia's eyes brimmed. Whether or not her sins would some day be visited upon her child, they were destined certainly to be visited upon her blameless husband.

  "Don't worry about Josh," Ransome assured her when she expressed concern about him. "I shall be with him. But tell me, my dear, is it necessary to undertake this trip now? Would it not be better to leave it until after your child is safely born?"

  "I am in excellent health, Uncle Arthur," she reassured him gently. "The journey will in no way endanger me. You see, the Maharani is keen to hear all about the first women's rights convention held last year in Seneca Falls in America. My father has sent me copies of the speeches made by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, which the Maharani anxiously awaits and wishes to discuss. Also," she smiled at his perplexity at the elaborate lie, "I need to be away for a while. Calcutta sometimes depresses me."

  He seemed surprised. "But why? God has given you a good life, my dear child; be happy in it. It is time you stopped carrying burdens not your own. Suffering by proxy is noble, but your own life beckons. But yes, if you need a respite then of course you must go."

  Her own life! It seemed that she had almost none left and whatever little there was had long since ceased to make sense.

  To which sentiment Kinjal reacted strongly when Olivia repeated it to her a few days later. "Your life makes perfectly good sense to me," she scolded, very cross. "What makes even better sense is for you to now be serene, to rest mind and body so that your baby is born happy. Whatever remains of your term is to be used as you wish. You have no obligations to anyone here, only to yourself."

  It was good to be back in Kirtinagar. The place made no demands, called for no pretences, required no alibis to be manufactured. Here, at last, she could be free—free even from herself.

  The weeks that followed were for Olivia sublimely blissful. If her mind flowered in the freedom given her of thought and action, so did her body. With the simple yoga exercises that Kinjal taught her, her physical aches and pains diminished. The tensions melted away and, gradually, she began to feel marvellously well. With the library once more at her disposal, Olivia spent long, carefree hours reading about Hindu philosophy and the astonishing knowledge of the ages that was part of India's complex heritage. No one, not even Kinjal, busy with her own affairs and with her two children, intruded on her privacy. Arvind Singh, now totally immersed in the repairs to his mine, was as discreet, as unquestioning, as his wife. If he was aware of Estelle's elopement with his friend, he never mentioned it. In any case, for herself Olivia had stopped caring; it was all dead history and, like all things dead, worthy only of burial.

  What Olivia enjoyed greatly were the hours spent with Kinjal's son and daughter. Tarun, twelve, was a serious, sombre-eyed lad whose education as heir apparent was the consuming passion of his parents' life. Tara, the girl, was nine. Cheerfully extroverted, she lacked any trait that could even remotely be called serious, although she too was subject to an education schedule as arduous as her brother's. All in all there was a normalcy, a cleanness, about Kinjal's household that made Olivia's days idyllic. For the first time since she had come to India, she could do what she had done so rarely: laugh. With all restrictions removed, she could roam freely, absorbing the flavours of a rural India of which she knew little. She walked miles, watching farmers and fishermen and weavers toil at their labours, and was once more struck by the harmony of an environment that was true to itself. Life here was like an ocean; waves rose and waves fell, but none disturbed the oneness of the larger space to which they all belonged.

  If only she could live on like this, free and unfettered! She had seldom been so content even in America. Tomorrow existed only when it arrived and, for the moment at least, there were no hard realities. She wished it could go on forever but, of course, it could not.

  Olivia's baby was born at midnight.

  Outside the elements were wild. The monsoon storm roared through the trees, flattening them like blades of grass. Inside, there was the fury of another storm as whipping pains marked the end of Olivia's transient paradise, gained only to be lost again in the imminent creation of another life. The waves of pain, cutting in their sharpness, struck in rhythms, ever-accelerating rhythms, that crushed her mind to pulp and shredded her body into ribbon
s. Something living tore and clawed and punished her flesh in tempestuous temper, determined not to leave a single fibre of her being undestroyed. Repeatedly Olivia screamed, and repeatedly it was Kinjal's soothing voice that reached out to her midstream in the river of her torrential pain.

  "Hush, hush ... it will not be long now. Breathe deeply, push hard, harder ..."

  The savage hammer blows continued. Swimming in and out of blood red mists, Olivia pushed harder and ever harder, gasping with agony and liquefying into sobs. Cool hands swabbed the sweat slicks off her face; expert fingers poked and pried and pulled. Around her there were sounds that melted and merged into a symphony of whispers, of sloshing water, of confabulations clothed in urgency.

  "One last time, Olivia dearest. . . push now as hard as you can. It is almost over, almost over . . ."

  One last time Olivia pushed, and one last time she screamed. She felt as though the slicing edge of a knife cleaved her lengthwise into two as something punishing and pitiless exploded out of her body. She had no more strength left even to breathe. With a small gasp, mauled and battered beyond the limits of endurance, Olivia slipped into unconsciousness, her energy drained. After twenty hours of torment, she finally slept. It was the sleep of the dreamless dead. And in it she was unaware that she had, at last, given birth to Jai Raventhorne's son.

  Many hours later Olivia woke to brilliant sunshine and fragrances of jasmine and sandalwood and gentle herbal potions being prepared for the restoration of her lacerated body. In a dim blur she saw the midwife, the experienced herbalist, the maidservants, setting about their business with a calmness that astonished Olivia. But then, they had seen birth and death a thousand times over; both were part of the cycle of life and scarcely novelties. Deft hands changed bloodied bed sheets, salved gaping cuts and removed all vestiges of the long battle that had ended in an act of miraculous creation. The tempest had petered out, and there was no more pain.

  "Is it over . . .?" Olivia breathed with no strength to ask more.

  Something cool and delicious touched her lips and she drank in great, thirsty gulps.

  "Yes, it is over." Kinjal's face resolved in Olivia's vision and her eyes were filled with tears. "And it is also beginning. You have a beautiful son."

  A strange feeling crept through Olivia. It was not pain, yet it was not far from it. Kinjal laid a small bundle beside her on the bed. Ignoring the searing spasm that was her reward for the effort, Olivia turned on a side and gazed down curiously for the first time on the countenance of her baby. It was ugly and crumpled, still not recovered from its nine-month-long compression, but when she hesitantly touched its cheek with a finger, it felt as soft as the underwing of a dove. The midwife waddled forward, adjusted the front of Olivia's robe and nodded. Shyly, uncertainly, Olivia guided her breast, heavy with milk and ache, towards the tiny orifice. Instantly, the puckered lips opened and clamped firmly around her nipple. Olivia gasped; the sucking movement that commenced immediately gave her the most incredibly sweet sensation she had ever known. She was suffused with a joy so novel, so overwhelming, that she could not hold back a sob. Tenderly, she brushed her son's hair away from his forehead. Decimated with love, she pressed him closer to her, unable to remove her wonder-struck gaze from his face. His eyes were opalescent, ebony fringed. Wild and profuse, his hair was jet black.

  Some day he would be the image of Jai Raventhorne.

  When his feeding was finished, Kinjal removed the bundle from the bed and secured the shawl around the baby's head. "Wipe your eyes. Your husband awaits in the antechamber; you must not cry before him." Olivia did as told, not aware that she had been crying. Fifteen minutes later, when Freddie tiptoed nervously into the chamber, she was sitting propped up by pillows, her hair neatly coiled into a chignon.

  For a while Freddie stood staring down at the crib in which the baby lay. Then, pale faced, he bent down and kissed Olivia formally on the cheek. "Was it very . . . bad?" His voice shook and his lips had felt stiff and cold on her skin.

  "No. No more than is normal." Impetuously, she took his hands in hers. "Thank you for coming, Freddie dear . . ."

  He flushed. "Oh, I couldn't have, ah, stayed away. Came as soon as I got the message." He released his hands and forced his glance in the direction of the crib. "Ah, jolly little beggar, isn't he . . .?" He turned to leave.

  His stricken face twisted Olivia with pity—what could her transient pains be worth compared to his lifelong yoke? "Please stay a few days, Freddie," she begged. "The Maharaja would be delighted. There is good duck shooting on the lake and plenty of billiards."

  He refused to meet her eyes. "I'd like that, truly, but Peter and some of the chaps plan something by way of ... celebration. They would be awfully offended if, ah, I were absent . . ." He threw her a wan smile.

  Olivia could imagine the ordeal for him of that "celebration"—coarse quips about having sired a "son and heir," much back slapping and winks and loud guffaws. She cringed and felt her throat constrict. "Freddie, I'm sorry . . ."

  He turned and fled.

  Quietly, with her face hidden in her shawl, Olivia wept. Her child had been conceived in reckless passion and nurtured through nine long months in frequent resentment. What did she feel for him now that the abstraction had become a reality? She did not know yet but she understood what Kinjal had meant: One intolerable chapter had ended but another, as intolerable, had begun. For all her lies, all her humiliating alibis, for this monstrous marriage, she had gained nothing; in the very face of her son lived the unmistakable identity of his father. How ironic remained the divinities and how cruel their sense of humour! If the mills of God ground fine, then truly the mills of Jai Raventhorne ground even finer.

  Olivia wept for her innocent son, for herself, for the ominous future. But most of all, she wept for her husband. For the moment her baby's eyes were closed and his telltale black hair was concealed by a shawl, but for how long, how long?

  It was time for more lies.

  With Freddie Olivia dispatched a letter to Dr. Humphries informing him of an unfortunate fall in Kirtinagar that had precipitated the premature birth of her baby. By the grace of God, she wrote, the Maharani's personal physician and an experienced midwife were at hand. The baby had been delivered safely and they were both now well. However, she had been advised to remain in Kirtinagar for a month so that her child, naturally born small, could gain weight. Olivia also sent letters to Arthur Ransome, Sir Joshua, Lady Bridget and her mother-in-law. The letter she composed for dispatch to her family was long, effusive in tone and filled with mendacious detail, which she knew would be avidly consumed. Of all the lies she was forced to tell, those that she was transmitting home were to Olivia the most sinful, for they trusted her implicitly.

  Her brief, serene idyll was now over. Ahead, the future towered with sinister intent, alleviated only by her unalloyed wonder as she gazed for hours upon her son. That such a small sample of perfection could have been fashioned inside her body without her conscious participation was to Olivia a miracle. But that he should visually give so little credit to the mother who had borne him was something she resented bitterly. "Why should my precious little one be made to bear a cross not of his making?" she asked Kinjal repeatedly.

  "It might not be a cross," Kinjal comforted. "Many of your race have grey eyes and black hair. Nobody else is likely to make the connection between him and Jai."

  "Freddie will," Olivia said, unconsoled. "Whatever little is left unbroken in him will then shatter."

  For which not even Kinjal—angelic, caring Kinjal—could offer any reassurances.

  It was about ten days after the birth that Arvind Singh requested permission to visit Olivia in her apartment and give the child his blessings. During her stay in the palace complex, the Maharaja had been a frequent companion to her and the Maharani, for they dined together often in the zenana. Olivia had enjoyed talking politics with him, giving him information about Hawaii and America, and eagerly absorbing the intricacies of India
n rulership. Though between them there existed a formality, the friendship had developed well, but not enough to be able to talk about the sordid mine disaster and her uncle's complicity in it. Even so, Raventhorne's name cropped up often, for the Maharaja knew nothing of her involvement with him.

  I hope you never have occasion to regret your visit to Kirtinagar. Did Arvind Singh recall his distant warning uttered with such foresight? Awaiting his arrival in her apartment, Olivia wondered.

  "I understand from my wife that your son is quite the most beautiful baby ever born." Settling himself down in her verandah, Arvind Singh appeared his usual charming self. "My children both agree with her."

  "Well, you must see for yourself," Olivia responded with a calm smile. "In the meantime, may I offer you some Brazilian coffee?"

  Over cups of the aromatic brew they talked again about her work at the Farrowsham Agency. The Maharaja reiterated his admiration for her ability to hold her own in a world so preponderantly male. "I understand," he suddenly remarked, "that you have also been assisting Templewood and Ransome in their difficulties."

  He referred, Olivia knew, to the recent dispatch of their tea consignment. She was not surprised that he had heard about it; his information regarding Calcutta's day-to-day corporate affairs was remarkably thorough. "Yes. But what I have done is negligible. The difficulties they face are not."

  An attendant delivered the Maharaja's hookah, which he arranged on the floor at his master's feet. Arvind Singh puffed contentedly for a moment or two, then observed, "Unfortunately, those difficulties they have brought upon themselves. Forgive me if I am blunt, Mrs. Birkhurst, but Sir Joshua is lucky that a major scandal was averted." He smiled drily. "The English are, after all, adept at dividing others while remaining united themselves."

  It was the first time he had brought up the topic with such directness. Olivia was startled, but because she now had so little interest in the matter, she could take it in her stride. "Yes. My uncle was misguided, tragically so. But I must say in his defence that he was also provoked beyond the limits of endurance."