Ryman, Rebecca (66 page)

"Freddie
has an appointment with my uncle this afternoon." It was Olivia who
answered. "Isn't that right, d-dear?"

Freddie
beamed. "Oh, rather! Absolutely."

For
a long while Lady Birkhurst stared at her finger-nails as if suddenly realising
for the first time that she possessed them. Then
she inched her vast bulk back
against the cushions and nodded. "Well, as long as Sir Joshua and Lady
Bridget have no objections, especially to the undue . . .
haste,"
she
paused and filled the significant gap by reaching for her filigreed ivory fan,
"you both have my approval. I must confess, a wedding congregation of
twittering old biddies matching bonnets and blouses while sacred vows are
exchanged nauseates me." She smiled blandly in Olivia's direction. "I
am enormously relieved, my dear, that you have finally decided to put my son
out of his misery. His tiresome, hang-dog looks were beginning to quite ruin my
digestive processes. I see no reason why
he
should pine and
I
should be the one to bear the consequences. I happily give both of you my
blessings." A handkerchief was patted over each eye in turn and then a flabby
cheek was raised upward to receive their salutations. "We will, of
course," this to Olivia, "have occasion to talk at greater length
later."

Olivia
had absolutely no doubt that they would.

That
night Olivia sat down to write to Kinjal.

You
were, as always, right—a solution has been found and that handful of flesh is
not, after all, to be terminated. I am tempted to plead humanity, but I cannot
lie; for whatever it might be worth, my mango seed is the only proof I will
ever have that, if only for one night, I was loved by Jai Raventhorne.

And
to preserve that proof I am now in the process of perpetrating a vile fraud on
a man who least deserves it. For the dubious, hollow privilege of having me for
a wife, he is giving me his name. The wedding-ring that comes with the name
will give me a pretence of that very respectability I have always boastingly
despised. He asks for nothing in return. I will give him even less.

On
a crisp, late-January morning, when the sky was of sapphire and the sun a
brassy gold, Olivia Siobhan O'Rourke promised to love, cherish and obey the man
standing by her side till death did them part, and so became the Honourable
Mrs. Frederick James Alistair Birkhurst in the eyes of man and God. The brief,
austere
ceremony was held in the Templewood home and presided over by a cherubic young
chaplain from the Church of St. John's. The bride was given away by her uncle;
the best man was Peter Barstow. There were no bridesmaids and only a handful of
guests.

For
Olivia her wedding-day was also the day of her death. She felt nothing. The
dull rhythmic thumps of her heart indicated that she was alive, but to her they
held no credibility. Nevertheless, as is the bounden duty of every bride, she
looked radiant. The white organza hastily rustled up by Jane Watkins was of
lovely design (with side seams secretly let out during the night) over a full,
layered petticoat. The late dowager Lady Temple-wood's Brussels lace had been
fashioned into an exquisite train with diamante and a deluge of pink satin
rosettes. The bride's jewellery, much admired by all, was of diamonds: tiara,
three-strand necklace of graded marquis-cut brilliant whites, Christmas tree
earrings and a bracelet. A walnut-sized solitaire, a wedding gift from the
besotted groom, was on the third finger of Olivia's left hand just above the
narrow gold band for which she had sold her soul. The solitaire was only a
small part of what lay stored in endless velvet-lined boxes in the Birkhurst
mansion strongroom, the collection of pigeon blood Burmese rubies alone alleged
to be worth a king's ransom.

None
of Olivia's new possessions brought her any pleasure or pride. She was an
impostor, a confidence trickster who was extracting bounty under false
pretences. Even her magnificent dowry from her aunt, which included her own
mother's rejected share, Olivia could not look upon without shame and
embarrassment. Apart from the cascade of ornaments, she was also to have a
sizable bank balance with Lloyd's of London. She was overwhelmed, but her aunt
had cut off her protests with passionate determination.

"I
have waited twenty-four years for this moment, Olivia,
twenty-four years
—I
will not
allow
you to spurn this as your mother did! This is my bridge
to Sarah, my atonement for what she suffered. Are you going to deny me her
forgiveness when there are no other means by which I can obtain it?"

"No,
Aunt Bridget, but—"

"It
was
I
who forced Father to disinherit Sarah when she ran away with Sean.
It was
I
who forced her to live in America where deprivation and penury
ate into her health so that she died while bearing that still-born son she
wanted so much." Her face twisted with anguish and her eyes turned wild.
"I
killed
her, Olivia, can't
you see that? As sure as I know my own
name, I killed Sarah!"

Shaken
by the raw agony on Lady Bridget's face, Olivia did not have the heart to
protest more. For the first time, she saw the depths of her aunt's long
suffering, the incisiveness of her continuing guilt. Lady Bridget was a proud,
intractable woman; it could not have been easy for her to say all this now.
Without a word, Olivia capitulated. Drying her tears and regaining control of
herself, Lady Bridget now handed Olivia a black tin box together with its keys.
"And this," she said, again composed, "was to have been Estelle's.
This too I give you now." Like a clean slate, her face was wiped of all
emotion.

But
this Olivia could not let pass unchallenged. "I will not touch Estelle's
portion, Aunt Bridget," she said evenly. "It is unfair of you to
offer it to me. One day when Estelle returns—"

"She
will not return. Estelle no longer exists." It was said very calmly, with
no sign of the passion that had convulsed her only a moment ago.

Neither
do I exist!
Olivia
wanted to shout,
but no one seems to have noticed!
Somehow she
restrained herself. In any case, she was too dejected to do more battle.
Silently, she took charge of Estelle's dowry, privately appointing herself
merely its caretaker. Her own mother might have turned her back on her portion,
but Olivia could hardly see Estelle allowing her pride to deprive herself of
such bounty!

The
wedding breakfast, over which a transformed Lady Bridget presided with a return
of some of her erstwhile spirit, was as lavish as the ceremony itself had been
meagre. Encased in a stiff morning suit two sizes too large, Sir Joshua
perambulated among his guests in a daze that gave him the fortuitous defence of
absent-minded dignity. Ransome never left his friend's side, quick to step in
when a lapse of memory or an unwitting gaffe occurred. The handful of guests
included Willie Donaldson— Freddie's agency manager—and his wife, Cornelia, and
the Humphrieses, the Pennworthys, Peter Barstow, Hugh Yarrow, senior accountant
at Templewood, and Ransome, whose wife was away in England. The exclusivity of
the occasion had already caused much gossip in station and the Spin, for one,
had been heard sniffing, "Mark my words, there's something fishy going on
there. I can
smell
it."

And
then, of course, there was Lady Birkhurst. Enthroned on the largest chair in
the room, quite spectacular in her steel grey satin and ostrich feathers, she
sat in silence observing the proceedings with regal detachment. During the
ceremony she had
shed a discreet tear or two—whereas Lady Bridget had wept openly—but afterwards,
dry eyed and hawkishly attentive, she had kept Olivia constantly in her vision,
watching, watching, watching. Olivia's perpetual smile ran stakes through her
jaws, her throat undulated with her ever-present nausea and her eyes were
glassed over with the shine forced into them, but not for an instant did she
dare let her façade slip.

In
the moment of parting, Olivia clung to her aunt in sudden despair. The journey
that loomed ahead was terrifying, and she stood alone, absolutely alone, now
part of a chain of events that could never be reversed. Today was her
wedding-day—and her father and Sally, from whom she had never concealed
anything before, were not even aware of it! Nothing else identified for Olivia
with more sinister accuracy the underlying evil of this masquerade upon which
she was so firmly embarked.

She
had believed that she could feel no passion more violent than the love that she
had borne Jai Raventhorne. She recognised now that she had underestimated her
capacity for emotion. And overestimated her ability to forgive.

Olivia
was sick from the moment she boarded the
Seagull.
With each heave of the
ship in the swells and troughs of the Bay of Bengal, her stomach lurched in
harmony. She had agreed to a honeymoon in Madras mainly because she didn't care
one way or the other. But now, sprawled permanently on the canopied four-poster
in the owner's stateroom, since the vessel belonged to the Birkhursts, she
cursed herself. Waves of nausea sloshed around her body; once horizontal, she
despaired of ever becoming vertical again. It was common knowledge that Freddie
often used the ship to take his favourite doxies to Burma or Siam or Malaya.
How fervently Olivia wished it could have been one of them in her place now as
she was being buffeted so mercilessly to death!

Freddie's
ministrations were copious. "But you must
eat,
my darling," he
insisted with the best intentions in the world on their first evening at sea.
"Shall I fetch you some fish curry with coconut?"

She
turned over on her side to reach for the slop bowl and pleaded to be left alone
for a while. To her relief, Freddie quietly crept out of the cabin and
thankfully she slipped into sleep. Her
last waking thought was—Olivia Siobhan
O'Rourke has ceased to exist, both in name and in person.

It
was much later that, deep in exhausted slumber, Olivia felt a crushing embrace
choke out her breath. She woke with a cry, but it was drowned in the rasps of
Freddie's noisy breathing laden with the unmistakable fumes of alcohol as he
covered her mouth with wet, drooling kisses. Olivia went cold. "Freddie,
please...!"
Retching, she struggled violently to wriggle out of his grip.

"Please
. . . what?" Through a foul-smelling mouth he laughed, his hands on her
body everywhere at once. "My God, you looked delicious in all those yards
'n yards of . . . ," he hiccupped, "whatever. Nearly killed me to
hold myself back..." His mouth clamped down on hers so swiftly that she
couldn't stop his tongue snaking down her throat.

She
retched again, fought like a wildcat and, taking advantage of the slack in his
arms as he cursed, broke loose to slide away from him. "Freddie, you're
drunk!
And you smell
revolting . .
." Panting with fear, she crouched
on the farthest corner of the bed.

"Course
I'm
drunk!" With a lunge he grabbed her again and dragged her back. "You
think any damn fool would be sober on his
wedding
night, you saucy
little tease? Stop
wriggling,
blast you!" Huge hands, possessed
suddenly with more strength than Olivia could have imagined, clutched at her
breasts beneath her nightgown and squeezed hard.

Shooting
with pain, Olivia screamed but his ravaging mouth was tight on hers, biting and
nibbling and devouring horribly. Blind with panic, Olivia pushed hard.
"Freddie, not now, I beg you! I'm not well, I'm terribly ill, but tomorrow
... I promise, I give you my word . . ." Disgust and humiliation made her
sob.