Ryman, Rebecca (57 page)

Gratefully,
Olivia accepted Arthur Ransome's offer to stay another night. In his
level-headedness, his sense of perspective and proportion, she saw the sane
balance that she herself needed so desperately to sustain. Also, his presence
was vital for other selfish reasons; how long before her own pretences shredded
in their flimsiness? His presence was a barricade between two parts of
herself—one thinking and feeling, the other mechanical. Soon, the dividing line
between them would start to dissolve; she would begin to feel again, and the
prospect filled her with dread. Therefore, like a child dragging its feet on
its way to school, she welcomed even a brief span of remission.

After
a meagre meal of soup and Welsh rarebit, they sat in the formal drawing-room by
a blazing log fire while Rehman, an expert masseur, pressed comfort into
Ransome's gout-ridden legs. Lady Bridget had refused even a mouthful and, once
more mildly sedated, lay alone in her room flitting in and out of her solitary
nightmares. Sir Joshua remained in his study, drinking. But tonight not even
his staunchest friend and supporter had the heart to protest. "Let him
drown in it as best he can," Ransome said with sad resignation. "He
will never need it as much as he does now, poor devil."

For
a while they talked only of trivialities as a means of keeping away the yawning
silences during which insidious little thoughts pounced. It was after Olivia
had sent Rehman off to prepare the bed in the downstairs guest-room that the
subject could no longer be ignored. "He is using that misguided child as a
means of reprisal," Ransome said in a voice still quivering with shock. "It
is an abomination he has perpetrated, Olivia, an abomination!"

"Estelle
is no longer a child. She knew what she was doing."

She
said it but despised herself for it. Her cousin's pinched, achingly unhappy
face swam before her eyes; Estelle had desperately wanted to talk to her. It
was she who had turned her away. Estelle had pleaded silently for her help; it
was she who had been unwilling to provide it when most needed. Would their
fates have been any different had she listened to Estelle? Now she would never
know and it was the not knowing that would be the most difficult to live with.
If she had persisted with her uncle and persuaded him to let her do that
wretched panto, would Estelle have taken a step of such extreme rebellion? If,
if,
if!
Angrily, Olivia snapped the serpentine line of her unwanted
conjectures— what did if's and but's matter now when he was gone,
gone,
gone!

She
got up. "I think I will go to bed now, Uncle Arthur. Perhaps you should
too. It has been a . . . strange day."

Drawn
together by a shared affliction, they had unconsciously slipped into a less
formal mode of mutual address. The "Uncle Arthur" brought a flush of
pleasure to his cheeks. "Yes, that it has, that it has. The day has
revived too many memories for me, opened too many wounds for me to entertain
thoughts of sleep. But by all means go to bed, my dear. I'll sit here for a
while."

Olivia's
eyes stung with fatigue but the prospect of closing them and letting loose the
menagerie of her own fearsome memories was suddenly terrifying. She sat down
again. With no awareness of having solicited any inquiry at all, she asked,
"What did Aunt Bridget mean by saying, 'I know why your hand stayed'?
Stayed against whom?"

Ransome
closed his eyes. "It is old history, Olivia, let it lie."

She
felt a stab of anger. "If it is old history, then why is it not dead? Why
is it allowed to desecrate lives even today?"

He
pondered that for a while, then nodded. "Perhaps you are right. Too much
has lain hibernating for too long." He placed another log on the fire and
waited for it to catch. "There was a
time when Josh could have whipped Jai
to death, but he stayed his hand. You see, Olivia, Jai was only eight years old
then."

Olivia
sat very still. "You . . . knew him as a child?"

"Yes.
I knew him as a child." There was an odd flatness in the way he said it.
"We were all there that day—Josh, his mother, Bridget, myself. Something
happened. Josh took out his hunting crop and gave the child a lash, just one.
Then his rage lifted and he stopped. He realised what he was doing."
Ransome shook his head sadly. "Now I too find myself wishing he had not
stayed his hand . . ."

That
scar. Against her cold, stiff lips Olivia once more felt the toughened ridges
along which she had laid a hundred kisses, wanting to erase them with her love.
The slicing pain of the moment returned, but only for an instant; biting her
lip until she felt the salt of her blood, she extinguished the emotion.
Raventhorne's warts and weals and scars were no longer any part of her life.
That hibernating history, whatever it might have been, must not be revived. But
then she heard a voice say, "Tell me how it happened." Was the voice
hers? She couldn't tell.

"We
would have all perhaps been better off with Jai dead," Ransome said
heavily, "but. . ." He fell silent and looked away.

"But?"
Wildly she thought, why am I encouraging this,
why?

"But...
he was wronged. However soulless, however cursed, however misbegotten, Jai
Raventhorne was wronged." He laughed mirthlessly. "But then, Jai
Raventhorne has always been wronged. He is one of those creatures of warped
destiny who will always be wronged." He stared deeply into the blazing
fire. "You see, Olivia, Jai was born in my house."

Whatever
it was she had expected to hear, however little she wanted to hear it, it was
not that. For a moment she could only stare at Ransome in incredulity. Despite
the heat of the fire, her extremities felt cold.

"He
was born in the servants' quarters at the back. His mother was a young tribal
girl from the hills. One day my bearer found her near my gate on the verge of
collapse. She was destitute and hungry and in an advanced state of," he
coughed, "impending motherhood. With my permission the servants gave her
shelter, and the child, an obvious half-caste, was born that very night. I
remember it was raining. It was the monsoon season, you see." With
fumbling fingers he pulled out a cheroot from his pocket and lit it.
"Later, when she recovered, I let her stay on with her child. I don't know
why I did that. Perhaps it was to salve my
own conscience at what had been
perpetrated upon her by one of my own kind. In any case, she worked for her
keep in the gardens. She was good with her hands, I remember, good with plants
and growing things, with whittling wood, toys and ships' mascots and things. I
recall we bought a mascot from her once." Realising he was digressing, he
stopped and coughed again. "The servants told me she never revealed her
name. They used to call her
malan,
gardener's wife."

Unaware,
Olivia's hand crept up to touch the chain around her neck. Jai Raventhorne had
uttered his first cry, drawn his first breath, opened those grey eyes to first
light—in a servants' quarter? Like the one in which she had seen that emaciated
old woman coughing her life away? Had she died after all? She should have
returned to help, but she never had. She had forgotten all about her. Was that
how Jai's nameless mother had also died?

Steeped
in his own bygone world, Ransome noticed neither Olivia's silence nor the
whiteness of her face. "I didn't like him, you know. Even as a child there
was something . . . menacing about him. He seemed to have some inner, arcane
device to look inside one's mind, and it was most disquieting. Indeed, Jai
never really was a child. From the day he was born he was like a. . .
man.
It
was weird, eerie." He shivered a little as if someone had just walked over
his grave. "He never spoke to me, never smiled. He only stared—accusing,
resentful, simmering always with some hidden anger. I hated that stare, hated
it. It made me uneasy. Finally I forbade his mother to let him near the main
house when I was at home."

Olivia
roused herself to ask, "And the whipping . . .?"

"Oh
yes, the whipping." Ransome had been speaking rapidly, compulsively, as if
relieved to be jettisoning an obstruction in his gullet, but now he quietened
down and spoke slowly. "Josh, Lady Templewood and Bridget had come to
dinner. There were just the four of us. After the meal Bridget happened to go
into the pantry to fetch something or call someone, I forget which, and came
face to face with the boy. He was in the act of stealing a plate of food.
Bridget was startled. When she rebuked him, he called her a vile name. Bridget
slapped him and, like an animal, he went berserk. He leapt at her and dug his
teeth into her hand, drawing blood. Bridget screamed. We all ran into the
pantry and as Josh did so he grabbed his hunting crop. He saw the blood on his
wife's hand and went blind with rage. He lashed at the boy and at the boy's
mother, who had run to shield him. He
cut them both badly. There was blood
everywhere." Ransome was again agitated, his staring eyes witnessing the
entire scene in his mind.

"Of
course, the boy fought back like a rabid dog—teeth bared, throat growling,
nails scratching. Hearing the commotion the other servants came running, trying
to take the boy away. His mother pleaded with her son to stop, sobbing and
protecting him from a second blow. Josh had raised his crop again but then,
suddenly, his hand remained where it was above his head and his enraged vision
seemed to clear. Poised to strike again, he hesitated, uncertain. Bridget stood
in a corner crying quietly. Josh's mother, Lady Stella Templewood, leaned
against the dresser observing the scene in silence. As Josh stilled his crop,
she raised an eyebrow and commanded imperiously, 'Kill him, Josh. A gentleman
hunter does not leave wounded prey.' She spoke as she always did, precisely,
dispassionately, and with the same decisiveness with which she had fashioned
her son's career and moulded his remorseless ambition into a scourge. I'll
never forget that moment, Olivia, never. Or her expression. She was the most
cold-blooded, self-seeking, determined and dominating woman I have ever
known." He inhaled deeply and wiped his damp face with his handkerchief.
"It was a moment of madness. I had to stop it. She controlled Josh
totally, you know. In his daze he might have obeyed instinctively, as he always
did, but I sprang up to restrain him. Was I right to do so?" He grimaced.
"Today, I wonder."

He
rose to stretch his legs and poured himself a drink from the decanter Rehman
had thoughtfully left on a table. He cocked an inquiring eyebrow in Olivia's
direction but she shook her head.

"That
night mother and son both disappeared." Ransome sat down again and
continued. "I had sent for a doctor. Regardless of anything else, the boy
and his mother were badly cut; the wounds had to be treated. But they left
before the doctor could arrive. The servants formed search-parties and braved
the storm, but they could find no trace of them. Later," he shrugged,
"nobody bothered very much. I must confess that I was not unrelieved. The
boy was trouble right from the start; he stole, told lies, was insolent and ill
behaved. I was glad to be finally rid of him. Besides, these people are tough.
They are used to living violently. They run the streets in packs, biting and
scratching their way through life, licking each other's wounds when the need
arises. I had no doubt they would survive." He raised a weak
little smile
and gulped down the rest of his drink. "It seemed of no great importance
at the time one way or another."

Olivia
got up to douse the fire, now only smouldering embers. Carefully she put the
fire-guard in place, returned the poker to its container and swept up the ashes
that had spilled out onto the carpet. Ransome watched her in silence, taking in
the unhurried way in which she moved, the competence with which she brought
order to the hearth. "Josh and Bridget are fortunate to have you with them
in their darkest hour of need, my dear," he remarked, feelingly. "In
all this miasma it is only you who remains calm and eminently
resourceful."

Olivia
laughed. It was the first time she had done so in a seeming eternity. The
sound, even though soft, grated on her ears and appeared hideously out of
place. She suppressed her laugh to contain her misplaced amusement in a smile.
"But then that's understandable, isn't it?" she remarked lightly.
"After all, it seems it is only I who have no axes to grind with Mr.
Raventhorne, isn't that right?"

"No,
it is not!" he protested. "You have had your holiday ruined through
no fault of your own. Jai has not been fair to you either."

"Perhaps
you are right, Uncle Arthur," Olivia agreed with a shrug. "In which
case he has been
most
fair—he has left equal portions of misery for us
all."

Finally,
she was alone again in her room. Sheer exhaustion made her feel light-headed.
She welcomed her crushing fatigue because it promised a sleep that would be
dreamless. Sharp little thoughts, evoked by Arthur Ransome's reminiscences,
were starting to scratch again for entry into her mind, but she did not let
them in. Not yet, she whispered fiercely into her pillow,
not yet!
There
was still work to be done, little chinks to be cemented with more fabrications,
holes to be plugged, the world to be faced.

And,
intent on further self-flagellation, she had to talk to Arthur Ransome again.
But that night her sleep was not dreamless.