Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  "Trident has cancelled our credit facilities. The letter from Moitra is on Your Ladyship's table. What they demand now is payment in full in advance of all consignments the clippers carry for us." His words didn't say so but the spaces in between them were rife with accusation. "And I reck'n that's only the start. I can give it in bloody writing." He put his head between his hands and stared at a fly trying to settle on the rim of his teacup on the desk.

  Olivia refrained from comment, but her spirits sank. Raventhorne had chosen to declare open hostilities after all! What he had fired as an opening shot was not a broadside, not yet. But the denial of the customary credit upon which all large business houses operated and based their finance management would be a drastic set-back. It would mean total reorganisation of their budget, possible losses in their investments and, for them all, an irritating state of confusion in the office at least for a while. Moreover, privately Olivia agreed with Donaldson although she did not depress him further by saying so—yes, this was only the start. More would certainly follow. Willie Donaldson knew Raventhorne's methods well; what he did not know, of course, was the reason for his sudden wrath. Or, indeed, his target! As with all of Raventhorne's battles, it seemed, innocents were to be slaughtered again; and this time it was Farrowsham's bad luck to be the ones caught in the cross-fire. It was not she who had asked for the fight. But if Raventhorne was determined to incite one, then so be it; he would get one worthy of whatever her capacities.

  All this Olivia pondered quietly as she watched poor Willie sit and wallow in his self-righteous gloom. That not even this loyal, devoted, blameless man was to be spared filled her with anger. But the face she presented to him as he finally looked up was clean of everything she felt inside.

  "Well, if that is what they want, I suppose we have no option but to comply," she said with an assumed air of resignation. "It's a damned nuisance, of course, but we do have the liquidity to pay in advance."

  Donaldson swore with more colourful abandon than usual before regaining normal speech. "It's na only a matter of bloody liquidity; of course we have that! Who better than us?" His chest expanded with pride as a reflex. "The point is I dinna want to tangle with the son of a whore! Why should we? We have na god-rotting bones to pick; it's Ransome's pile of dung, let him clean it up." He breathed noisily through flaring nostrils as if about to spit fire.

  It hurt her to hear poor Arthur Ransome maligned with such little justification. But, of course, Donaldson could not know how reluctant Ransome was to accept her continuing help. Nor could Olivia enlighten Donaldson as to the real reason for Raventhorne's fury against her. Donaldson would continue to curse Ransome, and his interpretation would be the one universally accepted by everyone in the business community. "Well, it would seem that it no longer is only Mr. Ransome's pile of dung," she said lightly. "But I see no cause for undue alarm. If we have to pay in advance, well, we'll have to, won't we?" She paused to smile. "That is, of course, for the time being."

  He stared, shocked by her offhandedness. "For the time b—?" Words failed him. "And how do we restrict it to the time being, may I inquire?"

  Olivia ignored his caustic tone. "Oh, don't worry, Mr. Donaldson. I guess we'll think of some way as we go along."

  The airiness with which she had evaded Donaldson was not in evidence when Olivia went to see Arthur Ransome in his office later in the day. Indeed, Donaldson might have derived some satisfaction from how worried she herself looked. She wasted no time in the usual formalities. Abruptly she asked, "Has Raventhorne made you a bid for the Daffodil?"

  He was not surprised that she already had the information. During the past year and a half he had developed a healthy respect for her skill at gleaning and gathering news around the commercial district. He made a face. "If you can call it a bid. An insult might be a better word. Why?"

  "Can you think of any reason why he should make a bid at all?"

  "Perhaps he can think of some use for her. I cannot."

  "And do you intend to take the offer?"

  Ransome shrugged. "Why not? So much has already gone, Olivia. The Daffodil is a white elephant, of no use to anyone. She'll probably never sail again, certainly never for me. And the days of the tea wagons are over. Now everyone dreams of sailing these clippers, which even Clydeside is building. Very soon the tea wagons will go for scrap anyway. Yes, I'm inclined to accept Jai's offer for whatever it is worth."

  Olivia sat back and drummed a tattoo on his desk, her face thoughtful. "Would you say that the Burma teak, the mahogany and the brass fittings on the Daffodil would collectively fetch more?"

  "You mean if she were dismembered?" He looked taken aback. "Well... I daresay they would." He sat back and, briefly, his expression turned dreamy. "The Daffodil was our first ship, you know, the first to carry our flag and to take us to Canton, the first to bring back tea chests for Templewood and Ransome. The others came later, but none of them meant to us what the Daffodil did. In any case, they've all gone too." He sighed. "No, I don't know why Jai would want the Daffodil. Perhaps, as the rumour goes, he does intend to make firewood out of her. To be frank, it no longer matters. What he does with it will be his business."

  "I have someone in mind who might pay better for her components, Uncle Arthur." Her eyes showed a glint. "If it's all the same to you, would you let me approach him first?"

  He searched her face with a frown, then smiled a little uncertainly. "Ah, I can almost hear those tireless little wheels spinning away inside that indefatigable brain! What are you thinking of this time, my dear—pulling another wee rabbit out of that magic hat of yours?"

  "No," Olivia answered with perfect truth, "what I am thinking of this time is Captain Mathieson Z. Tucker. And something he once told me."

  If there was much about Hiram Arrowsmith Lubbock that bewildered Calcutta's well-ordered, neatly defined society, the feisty southerner returned the compliment with hearty feeling. A prime exporter of best quality long-staple American cotton from Mississippi to Europe and England, Lubbock had arrived in station at the invitation of some conscientious officers of John Company. Bengal's cotton industry, which produced only short-staple cotton unsuitable for Lancashire's textile mills, was flagging; it was believed that an American expert might well help to revive it. Lubbock, on his part, had come to the Orient—as he had no qualms about informing all and sundry with what was considered vulgar openness—to make his second fortune in life. He had heard, he told anyone who cared to listen, that the streets of Calcutta were paved with gold. But from what he had observed so far (as he also informed all and sundry), if the streets were paved with anything, it was "what oxen perdoos jes' as waal in Calhoun as in Calcutta." And he was fed up to the teeth with his woeful lack of business activity. All he had done since he had arrived was to distribute a few ploughs, some hundred or so bushels of cotton seed and a negligible number of cotton gins. The men he dealt with in Writers' Building, Lubbock maintained, were indolent, ignorant and pompous, and couldn't tell cotton from candy-floss anyway. Now he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Orient was strictly for the birds. It was bad enough having to speak a foreign language (since he couldn't understand a word anyone said and vice versa), but from the time he had left the American ship that had brought him to India, he had not even had a decent drink of bourbon. And that, to Hal Lubbock, was the bottom line.

  Which was why it was only after he had consumed several glasses of his favourite brand that Olivia eventually decided to get down to business with him. The mandatory small talk had been dispensed with, a mutual sizing up concluded; now it was time for brass tacks. "I have a deal to suggest to you, Mr. Lubbock," Olivia began. "From what you have told me about yourself, I feel you will be interested."

  "A deal?" He looked somewhat taken aback. "What kinda deal, my'am?"

  "One that will, if tackled with imagination, fetch you top dollar, Mr. Lubbock. What I am about to suggest, however, might be a little out of your line."

  He stared into his
drink with a frown, then inched forward in his chair. "For top dollah, my'am," he said simply, "there ain't nothin' that's outta mah lahn."

  Whatever his battles with the Queen's English, "top dollar" and "a deal" were part of a vocabulary Lubbock understood perfectly. Deals and top dollar were what he had been making all his life. Indeed, to him they were what life was all about. For the first time since he had arrived in this goddamn country, he was being served a man's drink, talked to in a language that restored his faith in the human condition and entertained charmingly by a true-blue American gal from Sacramento. For the moment Hal Lubbock asked for nothing more. He listened entranced. When Olivia had concluded her detailed explanations, he sat back and mulled over what he had heard.

  "Furniture?" he asked, more than a little puzzled. "Yuh mean, chairs and things?"

  "Yes, precisely, Mr. Lubbock. Chairs and things. Lots of things."

  He scratched his abundantly brilliantined head for a moment, then laughed. "Waal, ah'll be goddamned!"

  Olivia decided in that instant that she liked Hiram Arrow-smith Lubbock. He was a huge, bull-necked man with a quick smile full of gold teeth, and his clothes were shockingly loud. But like all self-made men he was tough, shrewd, blunt and practical. It was a combination Olivia knew and trusted. The fact that he stood out in India like a mocking-bird among peacocks didn't bother her. Whatever his social inadequacies, for her immediate purpose she needed Lubbock badly.

  "Come, Mr. Lubbock." She turned brisk as soon as he had finished his fourth drink. "Let me show you exactly what I have in mind."

  The next hour was spent with obvious profit for, at the end of it, Hal Lubbock's expression of puzzlement had translated into positive interest. "Top dollah, eh?" He stroked his chin and reflected.

  "So I have been assured, Mr. Lubbock. Naturally you will wish to conduct your own investigations through your agents abroad."

  "Uh-huh." He was already busy scribbling rough calculations. "And yuh think this could be stahted raht away?"

  "Yes. Right away." He nodded, his eyes crinkled and shrewd. Olivia explained further. "So far, Mr. Lubbock, it seems no one has attempted such an export from here on any sizable scale. My informant has made a few sales himself and he sees an enormous potential in Europe and America. The markets might be restricted but I'm told the profits are not. Those who can afford it will pay generous money."

  Lubbock nodded again. "Wall, why not?" His golden smile twinkled in the lights of the chandeliers. "Ah'm as game for a good deal as the next man, my'am, and ah've nevah knocked a challenge. Besides, this sure tickles mah fancy, my'am, by God it does!"

  "Excellent." Olivia dazzled him with one of her own smiles. "But now I must mention a condition, one that goes with the deal. I hope you can consider it favourably."

  Confronted with a fresh bottle of bourbon, bought off an American ship at absurd cost purely for Lubbock's benefit, he beamed and turned expansive. "For top dollah, my'am, there ain't nothin' I cahn't consider favourably. Jes' lay it on the lahn, Yer Ladyship, jes' lay it on the lahn."

  "Furniture?" Arthur Ransome looked even more blank than Lubbock initially had. "Good grief, girl, what do I know about furniture . . .?"

  "You don't need to know anything, Uncle Arthur," Olivia assured him. "Lubbock will manage everything. You will merely be a sleeping partner—and, of course, an equal sharer of the profits."

  "But Lubbock is a cotton man! Why on earth should he want to start exporting Chinese furniture?"

  "Well, for two reasons. Primarily, he's a businessman. He'll put his hand to anything that promises good returns, and this does. And, the prospect of doing something nobody else has yet appeals to his sense of adventure. Captain Tucker told me that abroad elaborately carved Chinese furniture is considered exotic and a status symbol. All we have to do is supply the wood."

  "You mean, he plans to make the furniture here? In Calcutta?"

  "Yes. Mary Ling's father and brothers are professional carpenters. They trained in Shanghai and they're confident they can copy exactly the pieces that I have at home as well as those at the Templewood house. They even have the original Chinese lacquers and a source for future supplies."

  "By George!" Ransome gasped weakly. "You have been busy, haven't you! I hardly know what to say."

  "Just say yes. Lubbock will do the rest."

  Ransome relapsed into thought. With his shoulders increasingly stooped, his cherubic face now pinched and sallow, his eyes tired, he looked as desolate as the once bustling offices in which they sat. Most of the staff had been disbanded. Only Hugh Yarrow, Munshi Babu and one or two peons remained. The Canton establishment had already been closed. With no incomings, the heavy compensations being paid for the mine disaster had sucked their savings dry. Their only daily visitors were now incensed and impatient creditors. Even the Parsi landlord who owned the premises had given them notice to vacate. Very soon, Raventhorne's last wish would also be fulfilled; there would be no Templewood and Ransome name plate on the door.

  But, as he introspected, it was not on these familiar problems that Ransome's thoughts dwelt. Olivia's project, although for his benefit, worried him for reasons he could not pin-point. "This wood you want me to supply, I presume it is from the Daffodil?"

  "No, Uncle Arthur. It will be from the timber market. The Daffodil will be sold to Jai Raventhorne as she is, but only after he has doubled his offer." He sat up with a jolt and Olivia's eyes twinkled. "Or, possibly trebled it. We only have to maintain the myth of the ship's dismemberment for a while. In the meantime, Lubbock plans to make contact with you presently." As she got up, something kicked hard inside her stomach and she winced, but then the pang passed. Olivia smiled. It was an internal activity that never failed to give her encouragement. "Oh, by the way, Lubbock is willing to purchase your property. He feels the servants' compound and quarters would be ideal for a workshop. The house, of course, he plans to live in."

  Ransome gave a sharp intake of breath. "You used that as a condition for helping him set up this project?"

  "No."

  Ransome received her lie in silence but he did not challenge it. The bright gleam of triumph in her beautiful amber eyes, the small smile of complacency, the grooves of determination on either side of her mouth—all these again filled him with unease. He loved the girl dearly; he knew he could trust her with his life. In all their travails she had remained steadfast by their side, loyal and loving. But now he was worried, truly worried. Something other than what he had been told was brewing in that unusually sharp brain of hers. And right at that moment Ransome would have given a great deal to know what it was.

  Had he been in a position to know, he would have been even more disturbed. What was brewing in Olivia's brain at that moment was that it was now time to pay a visit to Jai Raventhorne.

  Willie Donaldson was aghast. "You canna go visiting a scoundrel such as Jai Raventhorne, Your Ladyship! Why, it's . . . it's na decent!"

  "Why not?" Olivia inquired, wide eyed with innocence. "Mr. Raventhorne is a business associate. He has been to my house socially and very formally introduced to me by my cousin. I shall be calling on him at his office during business hours, Mr. Donaldson. I can't imagine anything more decent than that!"

  He pinked. "I dinna mean . . ." He hid his embarrassment behind a cough. "Anyway, what might be the purpose of this sudden decision, if I may be bold enough to inquire?" By God, the American lassie was beginning to sorely try his patience!

  "I'm going to request Mr. Raventhorne to restore our credit."

  His jaw swung loose, exposing the wad of shag that was a permanent resident within. "Just like that?"

  "Yes. Just like that."

  There were times when Donaldson admired and respected his owner's wife enormously, but this was not one of them. Now he was in serious doubt of her sanity, and even more appalled. "He'll insult you, he'll . . . he'll show you the door! You've na experience of his tongue but, by Christ, I have. He's a right mean son of a bloody sea cook, l
ass, and that's a fact." As always when agitated, he dropped his formalities.

  "Show me the door? Oh, surely not, Mr. Donaldson!" Olivia looked shocked. "Why, he was charming with me at my party, charming."

  "I'm na talking of bloody parties," Donaldson raged, chomping furiously on his tobacco. "I'm talking of business, hard business. We know why he cancelled our credit—he's na going to restore it just like that!"

  "Oh, I don't know. He might. In my experience Mr. Raventhorne can be very reasonable when approached politely. What I intend to do is to appeal to his sense of fair play."

  "Fair p—?" Willie Donaldson turned speechless.

  "It's worth a try. If he refuses, well, we're no worse off than we are now, are we?"

  "It's the manner in which he will refuse—and he damn well will—that sticks in my craw, lass. For a Baroness of Farrowsham to be shown discourtesy by that uncouth, ill-bred—"

  "He will not show me any discourtesy, Mr. Donaldson. That much I assure you. Believe me, our Kala Kanta is not entirely without social graces."

  He gave up and, rigid with disapproval, shrugged. "As Your Ladyship deems best. My humble duty is but to advise as I consider fit."

  That night when Willie Donaldson related the day's events to his wife, as he always did each evening, he made no bones about his perturbation. "She's up to something devious again, my love. I'd give my last poond of haggis to know what it damn well is."

  "Och, the puir wee lass, Will," Cornelia Donaldson chided with a frown. "All alone at the mercy of that savage hellion— imagine!"

  Over the rim of his glasses and from behind his four-month-old copy of The Scotsman, her husband withered her with a look. "You dinna see that bloody glint in the lass's eyes, love. I did. If it's sympathy you want to dispense, I suggest you keep it for the savage hellion."

  "The Sarkar . . .?"

  Ranjan Moitra blinked owlishly behind his neat, gold-framed spectacles, unable to believe the evidence before his eyes. A lady in the Trident offices, a white mem? And that too, this mem . . .? Oh, great mother Kali—it was unthinkable!