Ryman, Rebecca (28 page)

"What
Mr. Birkhurst needs," Lady Bridget said, firmly getting down to brass
tacks, "is a wife."

Olivia's
eyes shut in a storm of embarrassment; Estelle's back was towards them as she
gazed intently into a glass-fronted display cupboard with an arrangement of
enamelled French snuff-boxes, but her shoulders shook silently. Lady Birkhurst
shifted positions to swivel her lorgnette in Olivia's direction and examined
her closely. "Ah yes," she murmured. "That too." Olivia
simmered in silence but there was little she could do to escape the meticulous
scrutiny. "I understand you are from our colonies across the Atlantic,
Miss O'Rourke?"

It
was the first direct question Olivia had been asked. "Yes, Lady Birkhurst,
but America is no longer a colony. We declared our independence way back in
1776."

There
was a short silence. Lowering her lorgnette, Lady Birkhurst set about polishing
it briskly; Lady Bridget merely gazed out of the window as if fascinated by a
crow. "Once a colony, always a colony," the baroness declared,
challenging a denial. "It is a matter of principle. I take it you do miss
your home?"

"Well,
I—"

"Olivia
adores to travel, Lady Birkhurst." Her aunt's interruption aborted
possible further indiscretions. "Alas, like other gentlemen of
achievement, her dear father can spare little time for it himself. Olivia is
delighted with the opportunity to be with us for a year."

"Hmmm."
The lorgnette polished to her satisfaction, Lady Birkhurst replaced the energy thus
expended by helping herself to a slice of cherry cake. Back in her window seat,
so did Estelle. If there was one person in that room who was warming towards
Lady Birkhurst as a kindred soul, it was Olivia's cousin.

"The
O'Rourkes live in California, but of course Sean has residences elsewhere as
well, isn't that right, dear?" Olivia opened her mouth more in amazement
than to issue an indignant denial, but her aunt forged ahead anyway. "Had
my beloved sister been alive, she would have ensured that Olivia came out
properly in a manner befitting their station. With so many other corporate
responsibilities, poor Sean has little time for social conventions." She
sat back and dabbed each eye with a puff of lace.

"Quite."
Lady Birkhurst nodded in sympathy, a large glass bowl of fruit now claiming her
entire attention. "I was greatly disappointed at having missed the mango
season this year. Caleb's health is far from satisfactory and he insists that
no one can tend his carbuncles as well as I can. I'm never sure whether to be
flattered or not. However," she leaned forward as if about to deliver a
message of unique importance to the gathering, "what has truly caught my
fancy now is a funny little thing called an alligator pear. I don't remember
ever having seen any in Hogg's market. Are you at all acquainted with this
quite delicious novelty, Lady Bridget?"

"Alligator
pears?" Lady Bridget was instantly alert. "Yes, I do know them. I
understand they are being cultivated in the south by some adventurous army
wives who secured the seeds from a passing Brazilian. Could you possibly tell
me how much
you paid for them, Lady Birkhurst?" The glint in her eye boded no good for
Babulal.

Lady
Birkhurst looked at her son and Freddie looked blank. "Haven't the
foggiest idea, I'm afraid, but I could easily find out for you."

Lady
Bridget was unlikely not to strike while the iron was hot. Nor, for that
matter, to kill two birds with a single stone. "Perhaps, with your
permission, I can find out for myself." She rose with alacrity. "In
any case, Estelle and I have been looking forward to inspecting your kitchen
house, Mr. Birkhurst. Would you be so kind as to lead us to it?"

"What
an excellent idea!" Lady Birkhurst looked pointedly at her son.
"Rashid Ali is greatly concerned about termites. They get into everything,
he says. With your own vast experience, Lady Bridget, perhaps you could give
him some advice. And of course Freddie will escort you and Estelle there."

"Oh,
splendid!" Not quite sure what was happening, and looking a little
bewildered, Freddie nevertheless rose to the occasion. "I'm not absolutely
certain which the kitchen house is but I daresay we can sniff our way to it
eventually,"

They
trooped out in single file with Estelle casting her eyes heavenward and
surreptitiously extracting another biscuit for sustenance en route while
Olivia's spirits plummeted downward into her dainty blue sandals purchased that
morning to match her dress. She was furious with her aunt for letting her into
a situation she found so utterly untenable, and waited with visible anger for
the dreaded inquisition to commence.

"Would
you care for an apple, Miss O'Rourke?" Olivia shook her head. "You
need to put on some fat, my dear. Your hips are far too narrow. Good breeding
stock is never lean and hungry like Shakespeare's Cassius, and the secret lies
in the haunches. Here." Lady Birkhurst patted her own ample derriere, and
Olivia looked away. "Tell me, did the tiger shoot come up to your
expectations?"

Olivia
gasped. She
knew
the truth about her weekend?

Lady
Birkhurst reached for a grape and placed it delicately between her teeth.
"I remember my first shoot in the jungle way back in twenty-two. We never
even saw a whisker of the wretched tiger, but one young cavalry officer in our
party got carried away and shot a shikari in the knee. There was an almighty
uproar over that. The poor man had to face a court martial, give the hunter all
kinds of compensation and then be posted
in some remote swamp infested with
crocodiles. Ruined his engagement, too—the girl wouldn't hear of settling down
in a bog. So much for true love." She bit into a second grape.

Olivia
swallowed, red faced and still speechless.

Lady
Birkhurst's watery blue eyes twinkled faintly. "Don't worry, Miss
O'Rourke, we all tell social white lies on occasion. It's quite the accepted
thing, I assure you. If I had been in your shoes I too would have chosen a
shoot rather than a dismal luncheon at the Tolly with a lot of stuffed-shirt
gas-bags and all that horse dung."

Finally,
Olivia's breath released itself with a whoosh. "I enjoyed the shoot very
much, Lady Birkhurst," she said steadily. "We managed to bag the
tiger. It was a man-eater."

Lady
Birkhurst nodded her approval, then laid a plump, spongy hand over Olivia's.
"I would rather you did not tell your aunt that I saw through her little
fabrication. It would embarrass her and I would not like to do that. Now, to
come to my next question, what do you think of Calcutta?"

Olivia
hesitated but only briefly; if her aunt refused to take her attitude seriously,
she would see that no such misapprehension remained in Lady Birkhurst's mind.
"To be frank, Lady Birkhurst, I am not much taken with it although India
as a country I realise is fascinating."

"Indeed!
May I ask what your objections are to Calcutta?"

"Well,
in the main, I find society here narrow, frivolous and quite uninspiring,
especially the ladies. I am not used to an environment in which there are so
many restrictions, not that my aunt and uncle have not been kindness itself to
me," she added hastily. "My life here is marvellously comfortable in
every way. It is just the artificiality of our existence so divorced from the
surrounding realities that I find difficult to adjust to." She was
surprised that she should be talking so openly to an Englishwoman she had met
not two hours ago, but if she didn't say all this now she knew she might never
have another chance before matters got out of hand.

"Upon
my word!" Lady Birkhurst peered narrowly into Olivia's face, flushed and
defiant. "I see that you
do
have a mind of your own!"

"I
am sorry if I have been blunt, Lady Birkhurst, but in America that is our way.
I do not mean to give offence, I merely wish to be perfectly straight in my
answers to you."

Quite
unexpectedly, Lady Birkhurst laughed. It was a strange sound, almost a cackle,
and her pendulous jowls shivered
like blobs of blancmange. "Well,
good for you, my dear! I like women who show spirit and call a spade exactly
what it is. For one, it saves time. We will get on well, Miss O'Rourke, I can
see that." Raising an imperious finger, she summoned a uniformed bearer.

As
she dipped each finger delicately into the bowl of warm water the bearer laid
before her, Olivia examined her hostess with interest for the first time. With
her obvious eccentricities she fitted into no mould Olivia had seen so far in
Calcutta, and her attitudes, to say the least, were most unusual. She was a
very large woman with a strong, decisive voice, and her hair, white and shiny,
was arranged in a series of tight curls in a style far too young for her. Waves
of loose flesh hung everywhere, from under her chin right down to her flabby
wrists, and the hanging jowls gave her the look of a rather mournful spaniel.
Her appearance, to all intents and purposes, was formidable, but her small,
button-like eyes that dug deep into heavy lids showed signs of a humour Olivia
would not have earlier considered possible.

"Are
you serious about returning home when your year is up?" Lady Birkhurst
dried each finger-tip with a napkin and sat back again.

"Quite
serious."

"And
the prospect of extending that period does not appeal to you under any
circumstances?"

An
unexpected and flash image rose in Olivia's mind's eye of Jai Raventhorne, but,
angry with herself, she discarded it immediately. "No. Much as I enjoy
being with my uncle and aunt and, of course, Estelle, I have to think of my
father, who is alone in . . ." She stopped; in view of her aunt's dreadful
fictions, was it wise to mention her father?

"I
see." Lady Birkhurst seemed uninterested in her father. "Now tell me,
Olivia—I may call you that, may I not? All these formalities are so tedious and
goodness knows I get enough of them at home with Caleb's pompous friends in the
House of Lords." With some difficulty she heaved herself onto a side so
that she could face Olivia. "What do you think of my son?"

The
bald question, without either preliminaries or warning, winded Olivia. With all
Lady Birkhurst's forthrightness she had not expected so frontal an attack.
"I . . . he . . . that is . . ." She faded into scarlet-faced
silence, threading fidgety fingers through each other.

"Freddie
is, of course, besotted with you," Lady Birkhurst proceeded calmly,
"which is hardly surprising. You are most
presentable and I myself have
seldom seen such long legs on an English girl. So far, my son's taste in women
has been, frankly, deplorable. However," she paused to offer Olivia a
sweet mint from a silver bowl, took one herself and continued, "I have the
impression that Freddie does not appeal to you as much as you do to him—am I
right?"

"I...
hardly know how to answer that...," Olivia muttered unhappily.

"Answer
it with perfect frankness. I would appreciate it." A sudden shudder
rippled through her huge frame and she sank back into the cushions. "My
son, Olivia, is the most sought-after bachelor on two continents. He can have
the pick of London and colonial society, and why not?" She snorted.
"His family is wealthy, titled, with a seventeenth-century seat in Suffolk
and one of the most elegant estates in England. Freddie will one day be the
eighth Lord Birkhurst of Farrowsham since our two other children are girls. In
the marriage market that alone makes him a plum prize." She paused to let
it all sink in. "At the same time I am also aware that my son is an idiot,
unblessed by anything even closely resembling intelligence."

"Oh,
that is perhaps—"

Lady
Birkhurst stayed Olivia's gallant attempt at protest with an impatient gesture.
"I have long since come to terms with the truth, Olivia. Freddie is not
only a fool, he is an inebriate, a weakling and a dedicated debauch." She
emitted a short laugh that had no humour. "It no longer wounds me as it
once did, Olivia. I am a confirmed realist, which is why I know that if Freddie
marries one of his own—rich, spoilt, mindless and self-indulgent—he will be
destroyed." The diluted, darting blue eyes went as flat as her tone.
"Freddie is headed for perdition. He drinks like a fish, whores like a
randy beggar and abuses his body without remorse. I am not a prude, Olivia, far
from it. I accept that young men need to expend certain energies in order to
expand others. When Caleb was younger, his doxies were black, white, blue and
brindle—and in plenty. But Freddie's constitution is weak; it cannot tolerate
his excesses much longer. If he is not leashed soon, within a year he will be
dead."

Olivia
was shocked. Yet, beneath the seeming lack of emotion with which Lady Birkhurst
had made her terrible pronouncement, she sensed the profound sorrow of an
embittered mother. Determined as she was to reject the ludicrous proposition,
sheer compassion silenced Olivia for the moment.

"For
his salvation Freddie needs a woman of strength," Lady Birkhurst
continued in
the same unvarying tones. "A woman of character, of good horse sense,
sober, and unused to frivolous luxury. Whether or not she loves him is
irrelevant. As long as she takes care of him, stiffens his spine, accepts and
forgives his faults, which are many, and of course provides him with an heir, I
will be content."