Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  "If you please, Mr. Moitra. I need to see Mr. Raventhorne for a few moments." She opened her purse and, smiling cordially, handed him an exquisite ivory and gilt visiting-card. "I have already established that he is in his office."

  Ranjan Moitra swallowed hard. "Yes... no, er, I shall see..." Holding the card gingerly by a corner, he hurried away.

  Mesmerised by the splendid vision Olivia presented, the uniformed doorman seemed awestruck by her finery. He was not to know, of course, with what effort she sustained her assumed hauteur, or at what absurd speed her heartbeats galloped beneath the bodice of her cool, leaf green linen dress cut with such perfection. Outwardly she radiated confidence, the elegance of her appearance positively regal to those unused to such sophistication. Osprey feathers cascaded down from the crown of her wide-brimmed green suede hat raffishly tilted over one eye. A fine black veil obscured her features but not enough to conceal the arrogance in them. Even though it was the middle of the morning, discreet diamonds glinted around her neck and on her ears, reinforcing the imperiousness. Had it not been for the billowing folds of a very full skirt, the doorman would have certainly noticed that her legs shook badly and occasionally her knees knocked against each other.

  Moitra returned. "I regret, Your Ladyship, that the Sarkar is unavailable." He looked desperately unhappy. "He presents sincere apologies but is unable to see you this morning." His manner was deferential and suitably rueful but he could not meet her eyes. "Perhaps another time given prior intimation . . ."

  "Given prior intimation, Mr. Moitra," Olivia pointed out pleasantly, "I have no doubt your Sarkar would have arranged to be out. I require very little of his time and I'm afraid I cannot wait." Brushing past him, she walked out of the antechamber in which they stood and, giving him no further opportunity to protest, marched into the main offices beyond.

  "Your Ladyship . . .!" He hurried in after her looking hapless, trickles of perspiration starting to trail down his temples. "The Sarkar is truly engrossed at the moment. He cannot be disturbed, I assure—"

  "Engrossed or not, Mr. Moitra, he will have to spare me some time. My business is urgent." Halting in her majestic sweep down the central aisle of what was the clerks' room, she retained her pleasant smile but her voice rang with authority. "I too have other matters to attend to. Would you therefore be so kind as to announce me?"

  A hush had settled over the room as serried rows of clerical staff laid down their quills and sat back to listen with interest, all eyes on the extraordinary sight of Ranjan Moitra in confrontation with a white-skinned mem. For him, second only to the Sarkar in the Trident hierarchy, it was an impossible situation. He gulped again and mopped his dripping brow. "Perhaps tomorrow morning?"

  "No, Mr. Moitra, now."

  A ripple of astonishment floated across the staff sitting cross-legged on white floor cushions before the traditional Indian knee-high desks. Moitra flushed. It was unthinkable for him to lose face before his subordinates at the hands of a woman. "Very well," he said stiffly, pulling himself up and assuming an air of control, "I will again make a request to the Sarkar for—"

  "That will not be necessary, Ranjan." The quiet, measured tones came from an archway at the far end of the room. "I will see Lady Birkhurst. Would you kindly show her into my office?"

  Their encounter at her party had come as a surprise to Olivia. This one, however, she had planned carefully. Even so, she felt her audacity waver in the rush of blood that flooded her temples, and her hands turned clammy. "Thank you."

  As Raventhorne turned and vanished from view, she started to follow Ranjan Moitra in the path he had vacated, keeping her thoughts deliberately on the trivialities around her.

  For all its commercial prosperity, the Trident office was Spartan, like every other environment Jai Raventhorne inhabited. There were no outward indications of the power it enjoyed in the corporate structure of the city, no signs of that opulence so beloved of others who had made their mark in Calcutta's mercantile achievements. The accommodation was extensive, airy and immaculately clean, but arranged solely for function. The walls were whitewashed, the floors plain, uncarpeted and of sombre marble. The staff was all male and dressed like Moitra, in traditional dhoti and kurta, for it was well known that Raventhorne employed no Europeans on his immediate staff as a matter of hubristic policy. Raventhorne's personal office, into which Moitra ushered her now with due ceremony, was not appreciably different in character. There were no deep-pile Persian carpets, no triumphant trophies from conquests in other lands, no jade and porcelain antiques, no proud evidence of marksmanship mounted on the walls. Only in one corner was there a westernised seating arrangement of three chairs and a low table, perhaps as a concession to European visitors. And under domed glass were exquisitely fabricated scale models of Trident's fleet of clippers.

  As Olivia entered, Raventhorne rose briefly. It was, she deduced with some amusement, only as a concession to Moitra's presence. He did not extend his hand, nor did she offer hers. Politely, Moitra pulled out a chair for her so that she could sit facing Raventhorne at his desk. "Thank you, Mr. Moitra." She smiled her gratitude. "I find it difficult to stand for any length of time these days."

  So far, Raventhorne had suffered her presence impassively, with no identifiable expression to give away his thoughts. The deliberate reference to her pregnancy brought a slow flush creeping across his face. Catching it in her peripheral vision as she sat down, Olivia smiled to herself; behind that mask of studied off-handedness, Raventhorne was desperately uneasy! Apart from the flamboyance with which she displayed Birkhurst jewellery and the sartorial finery she could now well afford, what made him uncomfortable was the fact of her condition. A slow, acid anger built up inside Olivia. How easily he had absolved himself of all responsibility!

  "Well?"

  The offensively brusque question came as soon as Moitra had left the room. Olivia ignored it to make a small ceremony of lifting the veil off her face with unhurried deliberation. Having completed the task, through which Raventhorne sat with ill-concealed impatience, she turned her attention briefly to the chair upon which she sat. "Chippendale?" she asked, tapping a fingernail on the arm. "I'm surprised you didn't prefer something less European."

  His expression chilled further. "I can hardly believe this brazen expedition is merely to discuss furniture with me!" The hooded gaze flicked across her diamond necklace and his jaw tightened. "What is it that you want?"

  Olivia pondered. What was it that she wanted from Jai Raventhorne—apart from her life back? The anger expanded but she continued to smile cordially at him across the unfathomable abyss of hostility that divided them forever. "What I want is very simple. I want you to restore Farrowsham's credit."

  Astonishment flickered in the eyes Olivia would have given almost anything never to have had the misfortune to look into. It was evident that whatever else he might have expected, it was not such bald effrontery. He laughed. "And is that all?"

  "For the moment, yes."

  The smile snapped off his mouth as he glared at the ivory visiting-card that lay on the desk before him. "Well, that's settled easily enough—the answer is no. In spite of your newly acquired authority in your husband's Agency, there is a great deal you still need to learn about business methods, especially mine. Donaldson should have known better than to depute you as his emissary." He sat back and scowled.

  "Appealing to your finer instincts was my idea, not Donaldson's." She kept the mockery out of her tone, but that which was subsumed in the remark itself brought another flush to his face. "Donaldson doesn't believe that you have any. Finer instincts, that is."

  He raised a caustic eyebrow. "And you do?"

  "Well, we shall see. The fact is that you took the decision against Farrowsham out of petty pique. To penalise Freddie's Agency for no fault of theirs is iniquitous. I felt that, perhaps, if I appealed to you with due—what is the word I want? Ah yes, due humility—you might be reasonable enough to reverse your decision."


  She heard his indrawn breath, although it was very soft, and he started to look faintly, almost imperceptibly, puzzled as if suddenly out of his depth. Pleasant and noncommittal, she made sure that her own expression gave away nothing. Secretly, she exhilarated in his discomfiture. Within him somewhere—everywhere!—she could feel his creases of anger. He could not tell the direction in which she was going, but he knew that she continued to mock him.

  "I do not reverse decisions once taken." The clipped dismissal came with finality, but the puzzlement was replaced by a certain circumspection. "You should have had sense enough to be guided by Donaldson."

  "Then you are determined not to be fair?" She sighed, as if in disappointment. "And I had come here this morning with such high hopes!"

  In the tautness of his jawline was the indication of a temper being stretched to perilous limits. His eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure what little game you happen to be playing, Olivia, but I find it singularly unamusing. I told you once not to make the mistake of believing me to be fair. I am not. Nor do I intend to be for your personal benefit."

  "Yes, I do remember. In fact, I have not forgotten anything that you once told me, Jai." She matched both his purring silkiness and the sarcasm. "But your self-assessment is unduly harsh. You have always done yourself the injustice of underestimating your considerable virtues." She sat back to enjoy a fresh rise in his colour and a return of the perplexity. "I, personally, have never had any doubts that you can be both fair and reasonable," she paused to shift position, "given the right combination of circumstances, of course." She changed position again to lean an elbow on his desk and clasp her fingers. "I understand you have made an offer for the Daffodil?"

  Her abrupt question threw him momentarily off balance, which is what Olivia had intended. Normally, she knew, he would not have given her an answer at all but, already out of kilter, he voiced a terse "Yes."

  "What could the only man to sail clippers out of Calcutta want with a wreck like the Daffodil?" she inquired softly.

  He stiffened and stood up with such force that the ink-wells on his desk rocked and a quill fell to the floor. He did not pick it up. "Whether it is your habitual scourge of idle curiosity or whether Ransome has asked you to play broker, it isn't any of your damned business. Now, if you will please excuse me, I find I have no more time to waste."

  "I only ask the question all of Calcutta is asking." Olivia shrugged and made no move to get up. "But you're right, of course. It isn't any of my business." His show of anger didn't fool her. She knew she had hit a nerve end and that it was raw. He was entirely taken by surprise. "As it happens, neither is it yours anymore. It now lies between Arthur Ransome and Lubbock."

  "Lubbock?" He was startled by what she had said and then angry that he had shown it, but it was too late to take back. From behind lowered lashes Olivia studied the nuances that chased each other across his face, and once again she exulted. No, her estimates had not been wrong; that nerve end was even rawer than she had hoped! Savouring triumph, she quickly pressed home her advantage.

  "Yes, Hiram Arrowsmith Lubbock—Hal to his friends. He's the cotton man from the Deep South who boasts a camel might die of thirst crossing his plantation. He—"

  "I know who Lubbock is! Considering you've persuaded him to buy Ransome's property, I take it he is also a surrogate for that bird that is no longer in the net?"

  The slur incensed Olivia but, keeping her mind only on the main objective of her visit, she somehow smiled. "If that is what you choose to believe—not that that is any damned business of yours. However, since you like to know about everything in station, I must also tell you that the price Lubbock offers for the Daffodil is far, far in excess of yours."

  "Lubbock is not a shipping man," he said contemptuously. "If this is a wily trick to force me to offer more, you can tell Ransome that it will not work. Now, get out of my office."

  "Oh, he doesn't want to sail the Daffodil!" Olivia laughed, still showing no signs of wanting to leave. "He only wants her for the wood. To make this Chinese furniture he plans to export. He says he's going to dismantle every bit of the ship to ensure him a year's supply of teak and mahogany. Somebody seems to have convinced him that there is a good market abroad. Hal is remarkably enterprising, you know. He's not just any old cotton man!"

  Through the explanation, Raventhorne had remained silent and unmoving, but beneath its coppery veneer his skin had turned a shade paler. No longer were the eyes distant and contemptuous; there was in them now a strangeness, a measure of emotion, that he could not quite succeed in concealing. The emotion was pain, just a streak, a shadow, but for Olivia it was enough. She had worked hard for that pain and God knows it was her due. In her body every fibre began to tingle; quid pro quo, Jai Raventhorne, now it is my turn! Callously, she turned the knife again, digging deeper.

  "There's a figure-head on the prow of the Daffodil—perhaps you might not be familiar with it—that Lubbock believes will fetch a good price as a carriage mascot in Jackson. Or, perhaps, as a roof-top ornament for some rich Southerner with a craving for English maritime gewgaws. Lubbock says it's amazing what some Americans will pay for junk these days."

  Raventhorne had walked away to stand by the open window that overlooked the river. A squat little schooner, Olivia could see, was offloading bales of something. One had fallen into the water and a sharp altercation was in progress. It was at this scene that Raventhorne seemed to stare fixedly, but Olivia could sense that he saw none of it. The arrogant profile, moulded in stone now, was motionless against the white of a far wall. With one hand he held the back of his neck; the other was gripped tight around the window-sill. He seemed no longer aware of her presence in the room.

  There was about the hushed moment a déjà vu and unconsciously Olivia's memory quickened. With awesome diligence it raced back in time to when she had driven herself to learn every shade, every whisper, of his changing moods. She remembered the despair when she failed or miscalculated, the absurd raptures when she did not, the bounding joys of discovery with which she collected pieces of his life and painstakingly joined them together to make pictures that would please her or wrench her apart. She remembered the aches, the yearnings, the pitiable little cache she treasured of half endearments given grudgingly with half love. And she remembered the fulfillment. The memories, so long muzzled, frightened her and caught her unaware. She was horrified at the knowledge that, cruelly, they still clung to her brain like bubbles of air trapped forever in water. Shaken out of her complacency, she felt disoriented, betrayed all over again.

  Why was my love never enough to heal you . . .?

  "Get out of my office." He did not turn to look at her. "I have no more time to waste on you, Lady Birkhurst."

  Slowly, one by one, the bubbles of memory floated away, leaving her brain once more unencumbered. The thin, wasted thread that had bound her momentarily to the past snapped and freed her again from her bondage. She despised herself for even that one instant of slavery. "With pleasure, Mr. Raventhorne. My business with you is over. Thank you for seeing me, even though I have been, alas, unsuccessful in my mission." This last she added with just enough regret to make it an insult. She had not been unsuccessful. And Jai Raventhorne knew it.

  Still standing at the window, he made no move to escort her to the door. "I had hoped not to find you here on my return from Assam. Don't make a fool of yourself again by seeking me out on flimsy pretexts." A cool river breeze blew through the room but his white mull shirt clung to his back in damp patches. He was perspiring freely, nevertheless he had enough control to keep his voice uninflected.

  "Why? Does seeing me make you nervous?"

  "No, it makes me sick. And now you even look like a whore."

  "Oh? Because I wear Freddie's jewels, bear his title and carry his child?" She laughed. "Surely by now you are used to the perquisites that whoredom can bring."

  "Yes. I am. But I have known many whores who do not disgust me." It was now with extreme effort that he w
as keeping himself in check. "I give you fair warning, Olivia: Don't take upon yourself tasks that are beyond your tawdry skills. And don't play silly games when you have no idea of the means to win them."

  At last she stood up. "If you penalise Farrowsham, then I will retaliate with whatever means my 'tawdry skills' dictate. Your threats no longer intimidate me, Jai Raventhorne. Don't make the mistake of believing that they will." She crossed the room and halted by the door with a hand on the door knob. "Oh, I almost forgot!" So as not to leave any doubt about her mission, she now spelt it out. "You see, I do know what it is that you want from the Daffodil. And I guarantee that you will never get it, except on my terms. Who knows? Maybe I too have a damned destiny of one kind or another to fulfil."

  She walked out, slamming the door hard behind her. There could not have been anyone in the Trident offices who did not hear it. Her last look at his face was the most rewarding, for he evidently hadn't expected her to glance back over her shoulder; his face looked stricken. She was satisfied with her day's work.

  It was in this lingering mood of belligerence that Olivia received her first mail packet from Freddie. But reading his letter, short and pointedly impersonal in its news, her mood changed to one of despondency. She was not deluded by Freddie's curtness; behind the trivia, the awkward phrases and, indeed, in the spaces between the lines, the letter throbbed with unexpressed pain. It was as if instead of ink, Freddie had dipped his quill into his heart and written in blood. In the last few sentences his anguish exploded. "I dream that some morning when I am least expecting it, I will open my eyes from sleep to the sight of you standing beside my bed holding a cup of tea. I dream, Olivia, I hope incessantly and I pray, but in my heart of hearts I know that you will not come . . ."

  He made no mention of Amos.