Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

Olivia cried. Sharing his anguish across the oceans and continents, she cursed again her inability to help him. There was also a letter from his mother.

  Freddie tells me nothing, but I fear he has lost you and I am heart-broken. You write that you have failed me. Perhaps it is a failure to be commonly shared. My disappointment is acute, but I am woman enough to understand that your fate has not been in your hands. I am now resigned to having that odious cousin some day appropriate Farrowsham and the title. The prospect is ghastly and still wounds me, especially since the eventuality might arrive sooner than I had anticipated. Freddie drinks incessantly.

  Cradling her head, Olivia surrendered herself to her grief. She had not informed Freddie or his mother about her pregnancy. With her stars, disaster lurked eternally around every corner; she could not raise their hopes only to dash them again. It was possible that someone had written to them already; there was no shortage of busy-bodies in town. And Peter Barstow too had sailed for England only recently. In due course he would certainly convey the news to the Birkhursts. Even so, Olivia prayed fervently that somehow they might not come to know until there was no risk of a bitter disappointment.

  Prayed!

  While abhorring rigid beliefs and bigoted superstitions, her father had nevertheless inculcated in her a strong faith in the essential benevolence of some force that controlled their destinies. He had spurned the hypocrisy of mandatory Sunday church-going. Although Olivia had accompanied her aunt willingly enough in this weekly duty, to her, true belief remained something less overt, more profoundly individual. That she could no longer accept that mysterious force as benign, Olivia felt her father would forgive were he to be privy to the maleficent mutilations of her life. But now, with Freddie's tortured words again burning holes in her conscience, Olivia abandoned her unbending postures to turn in desperate selfishness to the God she no longer trusted. She prayed for Freddie to be granted a son.

  In the meantime, the days swept by. There was only silence from Jai Raventhorne.

  With the mild, all too brief winter over, Calcutta was again turning piercingly hot. In homes and offices, overhead fan pullers doubled their efforts and slogged in relays, but the air, humid and heavy, merely moved around in turgid circles. Even the city's proliferating flies seemed struck with lethargy, easy prey to desultory swatters. Only the mosquitoes were fewer, as always, chased away by the crippling heat.

  With even the weather hostile, Olivia became horribly dispirited. For all her bravado, in retrospect her visit to Raventhorne's office was a wasted effort. Perhaps he was right; she had only made a fool of herself. Looking back, her petty little verbal triumphs had been meaningless. They would add up to naught. Raventhorne (as she herself had once assured him!) was a monolith hewn out of rock. Toughened by the bufferings of his lifelong fate, he was impervious to silly darts, unlikely to be even dented by her own childish little feints. Her rash adventure had brought her nothing save even more humiliation from a man she had recklessly challenged to turn adversary. Had he ever been anything else, she wondered? She had once confessed to him, half in jest, that she would hate to have him as an enemy—but that precisely was what she had dared him to become! She had misjudged his vulnerability and, in her miscalculations, she had exposed her own. He would hit even harder at Farrowsham and, thinking of poor Willie and his justified apprehensions, she filled with shame. Still sullen and horribly distressed, Willie had never questioned her about her encounter in the Trident office. Nor, with pointed disapproval, had Arthur Ransome. Both these omissions Olivia took to be what they were intended as—tacit reproaches for her unseemly boldness. To make some reparation, at least, she worked hard at launching the furniture project.

  Never one for wasting time once a deal was struck, Hal Lubbock was now satisfactorily installed in Ransome's house. The huge property was again a hive of activity. Hired draughtsmen already laboured over drawings of Chinese furniture at the Templewood house, and the Ling boys with their father had set up a carpentry workshop in the servants' quarters. Now wildly enthusiastic, Lubbock set about milking the last drop that promised profit. If the whirlwind methods of his partner made Ransome nervous and sometimes shocked his neat accountant's mind, they also impressed him. "There ain't no flahs on yours truly, pard," Lubbock assured Ransome. "Ah promised yuh top dollah, and that's what ah aim tuh delivah." Fascinated, Ransome nodded without having understood a word.

  Some of Lubbock's wheelings and dealings positively scintillated with ingenuity. Since furniture on board ships was sparse, passengers usually purchased cheap movables for their long voyages to make do. Arrangements were generally made through Company clerks, who earned handsome commissions as middlemen. Lubbock struck private deals with these clerks whereby he would pay well if allowed to supply the furniture, Chinese and exquisitely elegant, free to all passengers. All they had to do was to relinquish the furniture on disembarkation in Europe to Lubbock's waiting agents. The risk of loss or damage promised to be more than compensated for by the savings in packaging and freight.

  "By Jove, the chap's a genius!" Ransome was overwhelmed by the brilliance of the simple scheme. "I must confess, much to my astonishment, his enthusiasm puts new life in these old bones I considered dead."

  That the highly unlikely partnership was beginning to blossom brought great pleasure to Olivia. Not even the prospect of sharing his Englishman's castle with the brash Southerner seemed to faze Ransome anymore. All that remained for the venture to start functioning was to procure a stock of suitable teak and mahogany. Still no further offer had been received from Raventhorne for the derelict Daffodil!

  "I am inclined to let Hal start carving her up, Olivia. To wallow in sentimentality is foolish. Indeed, I am at a loss to understand why you persist in hoping that Jai will make another offer. Why should he?"

  They were seated in the Templewood garden over afternoon tea. The rambling, oversized bungalow presented a dismal appearance. When Ransome shortly vacated the two ground-floor rooms he occupied and moved into his erstwhile home with Lubbock, these too would be locked and the furniture dust sheeted. In the peeling yellow walls, shuttered windows stared blindly like sightless eyes. The scarlet bougainvillea over the portico, with no one to prune it, ran wild; the rose garden had long since withered. In the once immaculate flowerbeds where butterflies feasted now there were only weeds. Only the orchid gave a brazen splash of colour and still flourished untended, as if a living mockery mounted only for Olivia's benefit. She hated the sight of it, had often wanted to tear it down from its stubborn roots, but could never remember to do so when there was the opportunity. It was well that Estelle, shrinking from memories that her old home held for her, had finally decided to sell the bungalow, if some intrepid buyer could be found. Even if John were ever transferred back to duties at Fort William, Estelle would not be able to bear living here again.

  "No." Picking up the thread of their conversation, Olivia shook her head. "The Daffodil will remain as she is. Raventhorne will make another offer. I know it." The tenacity of her conviction surprised her. So far, the bait she had cast had not even been nibbled at. Her reason told her that Raventhorne would not budge; his pride would not allow him to. Yet, however strong her logic it was her instinct that seemed determined to prevail.

  The tube of ash at the end of Ransome's cheroot quivered, then dropped onto the white table-cloth. Carefully he brushed it onto his palm and discarded it on the ground. "Why did you go to see Jai?" he asked with no warning. He had not stirred the topic before. "Was it anything to do with the Daffodil?"

  "No."

  "You know that Jai is livid about the sale of my house to Lubbock?"

  "Yes. I daresay he is."

  "And about your own participation in the affair?"

  "Yes."

  Ransome sighed. "My dear child, I am neither noble nor am I pleased to be a martyr, but I have always recognised that Jai's vengeance against us is inevitable, even justified. You, on the other hand, have no personal enmity with the man
. It disturbs me greatly that you choose to suffer on our behalf. I wish you would not. He will harm Farrowsham further."

  Olivia shrugged. "Perhaps. But he can also be made to undo that harm." She saw no reason to tell him it was no longer his battle!

  "Made to?" He couldn't help a laugh. "No one has ever made Jai do what he has determined not to, or undo what he already has done. On what premise do you base your extraordinary assumption?"

  Olivia looked away, momentarily uncertain. "Not having a more rational explanation for you at the moment, I can only put it down to a . . . hunch. Trust me a while longer, Uncle Arthur. I promise I will clarify everything in due course. In the meantime, let us not make any hasty decisions."

  And with that he had to be satisfied.

  That night, alone and armed with a lantern, Olivia went down into one of her basement strong-rooms and unlocked a sizable tin trunk. From it she hauled out—glad that Dr. Humphries was not there to rebuke her!—a large object wrapped in gunny sacking and tied with rope. She undid the wrapping and laid the object on the floor. Then, sitting on a stool and wiping away the fine mist of sweat that covered her forehead, she examined the object with single-minded closeness. She again took note of every detail, marvelling anew at its simple beauty, the innocent grace of its lines, the spirit it seemed to embody of something earthy, something free and altogether natural. Had she been right in her conjectures? Was she reading too much into the few words her cousin and Ransome had let drop so casually? Could it be that she was depending unduly on that "instinct" and had miscalculated badly?

  But then she remembered her final look at that shocked, stricken face as she had left Jai Raventhorne's office, and her spirits started to revive again. No, she was not wrong in her conjectures; the nerve end he had exposed in his confusion was not a figment of her imagination. She was certain that Jai Raventhorne would make another bid for the Daffodil!

  It was time to precipitate the issue.

  "I fear that I have been wrong in my hopes," Olivia remarked to Arthur Ransome the next morning in his office. "It seems stupid to waste time waiting for something that might never come. If you so wish, let Hal Lubbock commence with the dismemberment of the ship."

  If Ransome was astonished at her sudden reversal, he was gentleman enough not to show it. Neither did he indicate to her his increasing suspicions about her motives. He felt he no longer had the competence to understand Olivia's curious methods, but he had promised to trust her. What he found himself unable to trust with gathering disquiet was the direction in which her strange compulsions appeared to be driving her. He did not approve of it any more than he could understand it. But, of course, he still asked no questions. Instead, he quietly accepted her suggestion and issued the requisite order.

  By six o'clock the following morning, Lubbock's team of carpenters was ready to start the massive task of taking apart the Daffodil. The abandoned ship lay beached on an upper stretch of the Hooghly, a sadly decaying reminder of the proud flagship she once was. Clad in dungarees and shirtless, Lubbock supervised the operations with exasperated gestures, irritated barks and many highly graphic expletives, which, fortunately, his workers failed to understand. A small crowd had collected to watch, since free entertainment of any sort was not to be scorned and the dismantling of a tea wagon didn't happen every day. Despite the two watchmen Ransome had hired to prevent arrant vandalism, much had already been pilfered from the vessel. Even now, a cheeky gang of urchins was having a field-day trying to snatch whatever was loose and salable, and having their ears frequently boxed for their boldness. But for all her diminished prestige, the Daffodil was made of stern stuff. She had been built to withstand the cataclysmic typhoons of the South China Sea; the punishment she received from the carpenters and their axes she accepted with hardly a dent in her hide. Lubbock jumped around like an excited kangaroo, swearing volubly at the slow progress but achieving little. The Daffodil groaned and creaked and her timbers shivered, but even by noon not much headway had been made.

  Ransome squatted on a nearby outcrop of rocks, huddled in studied silence. Some distance away Olivia paced impatiently under the pleasantly cool shade of a spreading banyan tree. Her face showed no anxiety but the suspense within her was acute. Was she to be bitterly disappointed after all ...?

  She was not.

  Shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon, Ranjan Moitra was seen hurrying onto the scene bearing a letter. It was addressed to Arthur Ransome and it was from his Sarkar. It was brief and to the point and its tone was unmistakably offensive. But the message it carried was clear enough: If dismemberment of the Daffodil could be halted, then Raventhorne was willing to negotiate better terms for the vessel.

  Ransome and Moira stared at each other in absolute silence. It was difficult to say which of the two was the more astonished.

  CHAPTER 20

  News of the eleventh-hour and totally inexplicable reprieve of the Daffodil swept Calcutta like the bubonic plague. It was alleged that Kala Kanta had paid an absurdly large price for the wreck—more gleeful grist for the gossip mills. If there was considerable perplexity in town, there was also much jubilation among the European community. Jai Raventhorne had publicly eaten crow! Why, it was not important to know; it was the how—and how thoroughly!—that needed to be remembered. Arthur Ransome was congratulated very soundly but also with low-voiced caution; it was true that the bastard's wings had been clipped but there was still plenty of beak and claw left to be considered.

  Two Europeans did not rejoice with the community. One of them was Willie Donaldson. "Why should he pay anything at all for the god-rotting wreck, let alone a small fortune? And that too after putting Ransome as close to the bankruptcy courts as any man can get?"

  Olivia sat examining some bills of lading in which her aide, Bimal Babu, had pointed out errors. "I'm afraid I have no idea, Mr. Donaldson. I'm as mystified as everybody else."

  Every hair of his bushy eyebrows quivered with scepticism. "Well, I have a wee idea it's something to do with Your Ladyship's visit to Trident. And, there's na a damned mother's son in town who does na believe it."

  "Really?" She spent a moment explaining the error to Bimal Babu and then dismissed him with the bills. "I can't help what people choose to believe, Mr. Donaldson. That's their business."

  He was not to be put off. "Rumor is, someone forced Raventhorne's hand. Rumour is."

  "I shouldn't imagine anyone could force Mr. Raventhorne's hand! At least, that is what you yourself have given me to understand. What possible pressure could I have brought to bear? I scarcely know the man. My visit was only to ask about our credit facilities."

  "Which," he pointed out with some perverse satisfaction, "are yet to be restored, I notice!" He scanned her impassive face through slitted eyes. Gad, she was a rum 'un, a real rum 'un! He would dearly like to know how she had swung it, and swung it she bloody had! He'd wager his best tartan socks on that, he would.

  Frowning, Olivia tapped a front tooth with the end of her pen. "No, they have not been restored yet," she admitted, then started to write again. "But they will, Mr. Donaldson. I assure you they will."

  He snorted. "Just because he's laid doon good shekels for a sieve na worth a row of beans?"

  "No. Because what Mr. Raventhorne has done, he's done out of the goodness of his heart," Olivia said with perfect seriousness. "Which goes to show that he does have one, after all." She dabbed what she had written with a blotter and blinded him with a smile.

  Donaldson wasn't sure whether he should laugh or go up in smoke. He settled for further sarcasm. "If he has a heart then it sure ain't like any I've known—unless our definitions differ."

  "In that case, maybe he's decided to repent." She smiled at the sarcasm but otherwise ignored it. "Let's just be grateful for the salvation."

  "It's Ransome that's benefitted from this miraculous salvation, na Farrowsham! You truly believe he's planning to let the Agency off the hook?" He expressed his disgust with a hoot.

&nb
sp; No, Olivia did not believe that, not for a moment. But she didn't have the heart to confirm his justified trepidation. "Let's not be unduly pessimistic, Mr. Donaldson," she comforted instead. "The worst may never happen."

  But they both knew that it would. When Donaldson related to his wife the day's events that evening, he described at some length a curious weapon called the boomerang, which was used by aborigines in Australia, he had heard. He had always been intrigued to learn how it worked. He had a horrible suspicion, he told Cornelia, that he was about to find out for himself in the very near future.

  In spite of his open relief and astonishment, neither did Arthur Ransome rejoice. Immediately he had no time to unravel his confusions or ask for explanations, for Hal Lubbock was hopping mad. In retaliation for being deprived of his timber he was threatening to storm Raventhorne's office with the specific intention of "re'rangin' his goddam nose on his goddam face," and it was with great difficulty that Ransome restrained him. It was only after fresh supplies had been secured from the timber market and several bottles of bourbon begged and borrowed from various quarters that Lubbock quieted and Ransome could sit down and ponder.

  That evening, filled with rare resolve, Ransome called again upon Olivia. "I think the time has come, my dear," he said decisively, "when I must be told what went on behind the sale of the Daffodil. Why does Raventhorne want the ship so badly as to offer such an unrealistically high price for it?"

  "He doesn't want the ship. He never has. He has no use for it. What he wants badly is something that was mounted on it."

  "Mounted on it?" Ransome looked blank. "What?"

  "The figure-head on the prow. Am I right in presuming that it was his mother who had chiselled it? At least, that's what you yourself once told me. Don't you remember?"

  He obviously didn't, for he continued to look utterly at sea. "I told you? When?"

  "A very long time ago. You said that she was good with her hands—she carved wooden toys and you bought some from her once, also a ship's mascot. At that time you had only one vessel, the Daffodil. If you had mounted it at all, it had to be on the Daffodil." From the crystal decanter on the sideboard, Olivia poured two glasses of Madeira and gave him one. "When I learned of this sudden bid for the ship, I recalled what you had told me. Without your permission, I'm afraid," she smiled an apology, "I went to see the ship for myself. The figure-head on the prow was obviously the work of an enthusiastic amateur, but it was very beautiful. It had a startling spontaneity about it. I could see that it had been executed with great feeling. And the figure itself, a female with her hands stretched above her head as if reaching out for something unattainable, was that of a young girl draped in a deerskin. Don't some tribal women cover themselves with animal pelts?"