Ryman, Rebecca (62 page)

Sitting
in the garden with her ever-present Bible resting in her lap, Lady Bridget
heard Olivia out with surprising calm. When the announcement had been delivered
and the explanations were over, Olivia hugged her aunt. "You have been so
good to me, Aunt Bridget," she whispered with a catch in her voice,
"and I have been happy with you, truly I have, but now I must return to my
father."

"Yes,
I know, my dear, I know." Absently, her aunt kissed her on the cheek.

"And
you will soon be leaving for London," Olivia hurtled on so as not to lose
her advantage. "Perhaps Uncle Josh can be persuaded to go with you. You
have always wanted that, haven't you? You could be in Norfolk for the spring
and the daffodils, with the Broads again alive with Sunday picnickers."
Emboldened by her aunt's look of frowning concentration, Olivia ventured
further. "You and Uncle Josh have only each other now; both of you have
suffered equally. Can you not bring yourself to forgive him?"

She
shook her head vigorously. "It is for the good Lord to decide that. The
vengeance is only his."

Vengeance?
Olivia suppressed a stab of irritation. "What is done cannot be undone
now, Aunt Bridget; it can only be accepted. You will have to someday accept
Estelle's elopement, however obnoxious you might find it." Her tone
hardened. "And someday, maybe, Estelle will return to you—"

"Return?"
Lady
Bridget half rose to her feet. "Do you think I could ever accept her back
after this?
After this . . .?"

Her
vehemence, the ugly distortion of her features, her whole demeanour, startled
Olivia. Even now, when they were tasting the dregs of a common despair, when so
much had already been lost and so little was left, her aunt could still
pronounce moral judgements? "Everyone deserves forgiveness for one mistake
in life," she persisted earnestly. "Surely you must now find it in
your heart to forgive Estelle too." The gallantry with which
she was
defending someone who had helped to destroy her own life brought a sour smile
to Olivia's lips. How open ended was her pious selflessness!

Lady
Bridget retrieved her fallen Bible and rose to her feet. "You are a noble
girl, Olivia, but you have understood nothing,
nothing."
Tucking
the Good Book under her arm she walked away, her expression one of utter
contempt.

Olivia
started to pack.

In
her own desperate need to be gone, she closed her mind to all other thoughts
and considerations. Yes, she felt deeply for her aunt and uncle, but each of
them had come into this world with a separately predestined burden of woes
graphed individually on a chart of fate. She could not now afford to consider
any burden save her own, the burden that she carried within the confines of her
body. She hardened herself against even those thoughts of Jai Raventhorne that
arrived uninvited in various unexplored recesses of her mind. He was gone. She
would never see him again, nor did she especially want to. That fragment of her
life he had taken with him would not be missed much longer; she would make it
dispensable. For the moment all she wanted was to flee, to escape to where her
home truly was, and to cast herself and her sorry load into the arms of her
beloved Sally. Her situation frightened Olivia—oh God, how terribly it
frightened her!

An
Australian ship that had recently arrived in port for repairs was moving on
soon to the Pacific and would most certainly call at Honolulu. Arthur Ransome
had spoken to the captain, who had agreed to take on a single lady passenger
from Calcutta provided she could be ready to sail at short notice. Delirious,
Olivia plunged into a flurry of preparations with renewed vigour for more than
one reason; Freddie Birkhurst was deluging her with frantic letters beseeching
her to see him. Olivia knew that she would have to, of course, but not until
the very last moment when nothing, nothing, could go wrong with her plans.

To
provide salve for a badly scarred conscience, Olivia convinced herself that the
Templewood household and its inmates were now securely on the path to normalcy,
or at least an acceptable form of it. Sir Joshua was still a shockingly diminished
man with prolonged spells of vagueness, but Ransome had persuaded
him to attend
the office for short periods each day and the enforced mental exercise appeared
to be therapeutic. Lady Bridget had started supervising the gardeners again and
her daily arguments with the cook were heartening. All in all, she seemed to
have accepted Olivia's imminent departure without excessive reaction. At least,
since that day in the garden when the initial announcement was made, she had
not referred to the subject.

Among
the letters Olivia wrote prior to the sailing date was one to Kinjal. It was
not an easy letter to write. Kinjal must know, of course, that Raventhorne had
sailed away. Whether she also knew of the extra passenger he carried was
impossible to ascertain, but as a point of honour Olivia felt that Kinjal must
be told everything. In the end she wrote asking only if she could come and
spend a day or two in Kirtinagar before her ship sailed. Kinjal's response was
immediate. She was heart-broken, she answered, that her dear American friend
was to desert them all so soon, but with her usual discretion she neither
commented on nor questioned Olivia's decision. A carriage would arrive from
Kirtinagar to fetch Olivia on the following Saturday, which, the Maharani hoped,
would be convenient.

As
it happened, it was not only convenient, it was desperately necessary. On
Wednesday, a week prior to Olivia's sailing date, Lady Bridget locked herself
inside her bath-room and tried to kill herself.

"What
the hell have you been thinking about, Josh? Can't you see, man, she has to be
taken away from this infernal country?"

Exhausted,
sweating profusely and livid with anger, Dr. Humphries sat slumped in a chair
downing a stiff whisky. Nobody could think of voicing an answer as they all sat
white faced and shaken in the Templewood parlour. Hands clasped tightly in his
lap, Sir Joshua stared stolidly at the carpet.

"You
can't keep her here anymore, Josh." Anger removed, the doctor's tone was
now emphatic. "That was as close a shave as any I've seen. It was only
because her hands shook badly that she couldn't entirely sever the blood
vessel, and if Olivia hadn't chanced to hear the crash of Bridget's fall in the
bath-room it might have been a very different tale indeed. As it is she's lost
a dangerous quantity of blood."

Sir
Joshua still said nothing but Ransome shook himself out
of his stunned
torpor. "Yes, of course Bridget must go home and Josh must be the man to
take her. I've been telling Josh that for weeks."

Dr.
Humphries rose, walked to where Sir Joshua sat and put a hand on his shoulder.
"She'll try again, you know," he said bluntly. "They always
do."

He
went but left behind a chill, sinister silence that no one had the courage to
break. Standing by the window staring out blindly, Olivia remained numb. What
if she had not heard that crash? What if nobody had? What if her aunt did try
again? The ayah, taking her afternoon siesta on the landing, had remained dead
to the world. A dozen more maidservants would be a dozen times more useless.
Lady Bridget, now more than ever, needed constant attendance. Would the hired
nurse Dr. Humphries had promised be adequately vigilant? Within herself Olivia
screamed with anguished protest:
It's not my responsibility, it's not my
problem! God knows I have my own . . .

Nobody
heard her screams. Like all her others, these too were destined to remain
buried in silence.

"If
Bridget wishes to return to England," Sir Joshua finally offered a
comment, "I have never indicated any objections."

"But
you can't stay here on your own, man! You couldn't manage a
day
without
Bridget." Ransome sounded utterly fed up with him.

Sir
Joshua pierced him with a look. "I
intend
to stay on! I am
perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Besides," his voice fell into
a mumble, "I have things to do here; Bridget knows that."

"Don't
talk rot, Josh! There is nothing you have to do here, absolutely nothing."
Ransome's rebuke was unduly sharp. "You know I can deal with whatever is
left of the business." Without replying, Sir Joshua got up clumsily and
shuffled out of the room. Ransome tossed up his arms in despair. "What is
one to do? What
is
one to do? He won't listen to anyone, the stubborn
fool!" Then he brushed the subject aside and attempted a smile. "And
you, my dear? Are you all packed and ready for next Wednesday?"

"Yes."
Olivia did not turn to face him.

"Is
there any way in which I can be of service?"

"Thank
you, no. You have already been most kind."

"I
am arranging dry provisions and some comfortable furniture for your voyage. The
conveniences on board are, I regret, woefully inadequate, as you know."

Again
Olivia murmured her thanks, fighting off surging tides of claustrophobia.
Slowly, she was being lowered alive into a
coffin. One by one the nails were being
hammered in. It was dark and dank and she could scarcely breathe. From all
around forces were converging and conniving to trap her within that coffin and
then leave her to suffocate. "What will happen to them when I'm
gone?"

Ransome
shrugged. "I will be as persuasive as I can with Josh, and hope for the
best. The nurse, Humphries assures me, is sane, responsible and alert, so we
must keep our faith in that. And in God. But if Bridget does stupidly try to
harm herself again ..." He trailed into silence, unwilling to complete the
sentence.

Olivia
allowed the silence to expand before she could bring herself to ask dully,
"After this Australian ship sails, when might be the next departure for
the Pacific?"

He
could not conceal the spark of hope that leapt into his eyes. "There are
many sailings from here to San Francisco via Honolulu. I could try for
something suitable in, say, a month or two."

A
spasm rippled through Olivia's body. A month or two! No, that was utterly out
of the question! Already the flatness of her stomach was being rounded into a
telltale mound. Come what may she
had
to leave next Wednesday. She made
no further offers; an unkept promise was more cruel than no promise at all.
Quietly, she slunk out of the room.

With
her poor, damaged wrists heavily medicated and bandaged, the colour of her skin
deathly pale, Lady Bridget lay unmoving on her bed. Her eyes were open but they
were unseeing. Next to the bed sat Mary Ling, the half Chinese nurse Dr.
Humphries had summoned and briefed without delay. She was a bright young thing
no more than twenty-four or -five but, according to the physician, highly
competent. And, he further assured them grimly, the girl knew how to keep her
mouth shut. Dismissing the nurse from the room for the moment, Olivia sat down
on her aunt's bed. "How do you feel, Aunt Bridget? Is there anything you
would like me to fetch you?"

Lady
Bridget gave no response, her sightless eyes fixed to the ceiling. But then she
moaned and tears started to trickle down the side of her cheeks. "I have
failed you; I have failed Sarah. I am sending you back as denuded as you came
..."

The
voice was whispered, an effort, but the words were clear enough. Olivia
trembled with renewed shock. "You have not failed either of us," she
whispered back passionately. "And you are not
sending
me back. I
return of my own free will because I must, Aunt Bridget, I
must..."