Ryman, Rebecca (71 page)

"But
why? Surely the property is on prime land and valuable?"

He
gave her a curious look. "Templewood and Ransome have become pariahs, my
dear. People fear that anyone who trades with us or helps us in our travails
will be punished by Trident, as I had explained to you once earlier."

Olivia
now recalled a brief conversation she had had with Ransome in Barrackpore to
which she had then paid scant attention. "But that is absurd!" she
exclaimed indignantly. "What more can he possibly want from you? Has he
not done enough harm already?"

"There
is still something he wants." Ransome spoke without anger. "Our name
plate. He will not rest until we are driven into the bankruptcy courts. That he
has avowed."

"Raventhorne
wants to drive you out onto the
streets?"
She was appalled that
this evil man's vindictiveness should be so total.

"Yes,"
Ransome said simply. "Oh yes. He wants us to end where he himself began,
you see. I suppose you might call that poetic justice." He laughed a
little. "And it appears that he will succeed. With Josh now incapable of
business, our credit is no longer considered good. Even Pennworthy's bank will
not discount our bills since there is no incoming. Besides, Trident banks with
Pennworthy and he too has to guard his interests. In the meanwhile, one errant
consignment of our tea lies rotting. It arrived here in Calcutta instead of
going directly to London from Canton, due to a shipping error. Nobody now is
willing to transport it to London for fear of reprisals when Raventhorne comes
back, and neither will the domestic wholesalers touch it."

When
Raventhorne comes back.
How Olivia was beginning to detest that
ever-recurring phrase!

"I
had no idea things were so dismal for you," she said slowly, greatly upset
by the extent of his dejection. Her own spirits plummeted. "Can you think
of no solution to your troubles?"

He
shrugged. "Perhaps there are ways out, Olivia. Ten, even five years ago, I
would have fought tooth and nail but now I no longer have the energy. Or the
will. I'm beginning to feel my age, and that's no help." He got up to
stretch his stiffening legs. "We've had a damn fine life, Josh and I, and
I have no regrets. We've made enormous sums of money and we've spent enormous
sums of money. Now perhaps it is time to pack it in. There are younger men,
better men, coming into the tea trade. Indian tea will some day prosper and
there will be no need for the China Coast. Gone will be the excitement, the
adventure, the thrilling sense of conquest. Tea will become just another crop,
and I don't much fancy being a farmer. Maybe Josh is right, maybe steamships
will be de rigueur soon and the sailing vessels will vanish. Life will become
routine, humdrum, and I for one want no part of it. Frankly, it appalls me . .
."

Olivia's
own depression turned into flaming anger. There was nothing Raventhorne had
left untainted, undiseased, in his masterly plan of wholesale destruction. For
the first time she truly
appreciated the aptness of his accursed symbol; he had indeed done the Lord
Shiva proud!

Over
the following weeks Olivia saw in the city how ubiquitous were the reminders of
Jai Raventhorne. Reminders, that is, quite apart from the one within her that
supped on her blood and lived off the very breath of her lungs. Almost daily
she passed the Trident offices with their blank façade and mocking windows. One
day, she again saw Raventhorne's dun gelding with white stockings being ridden
by one of his minions across Tank Square. Farrowsham's own ledgers abounded
with mention of Trident, and bills and receipts bearing Raventhorne's sprawling,
arrogant signature were plentiful. In Raventhorne's absence, Trident was
managed by his trusted and loyal lieutenant, a Bengali called Ranjan Moitra, a
dapper young man always immaculate in white dhoti, shirt and shawl, with open
sandals on neatly kept feet. Moitra visited the Farrowsham offices regularly.
Olivia had yet to speak to him but he never failed to bow low to her whenever
their paths did cross.

One
morning when Olivia was on her way to John Company's offices in Writers'
Building to obtain some information for Donaldson, a beautifully ornamented
palanquin passed by her. Fleetingly, through a break in the curtain covering
the doorway, a face peeped out and Olivia halted in her tracks; it was
Sujata's! For an instant their eyes locked. Then Sujata's kohl-laden gaze
dropped to the slight mound of Olivia's stomach and remained there. The ruby
red lips curved in a derisive smile and across her face flashed a look of such
venomous dislike that Olivia stood transfixed. The palanquin passed on but that
smile—so ugly and so knowing—troubled Olivia through the rest of the day.

If
her work at the Farrowsham Agency provided Olivia with much needed mental
stimulation, it seemed to upset Freddie increasingly. "What do I do with
myself while you're gone?" he grumbled churlishly at dinner one night.
"I miss you when you're not here."

"But
I'm gone only while you're asleep, dear," Olivia pointed out with
patience. "More or less. I like to keep Uncle Josh company occasionally or
he lunches alone."

"Well,
I lunch alone too!"

"Not
often, Freddie. And I'm always at home in the evenings."

"Even
so, I do miss you," he insisted stubbornly, then turned wistful. "Do
you ever miss me, Olivia? Tell me truthfully, do you?"

She
spent the next half hour assuring him that she did, and the better part of the
night trying to prove it. Freddie's sexual appetite, Olivia had discovered, was
prodigious. Many of his demands when locked in passion revolted her, but with
grim stoicism she fulfilled them through the simple expedient of divorcing her
mind from her body. She trained herself to pretend she was someone else and
thought of the act of copulation only as a street bitch might do, forcing
herself to turn as promiscuous, as wanton, as her husband demanded. The growing
round of her stomach made the act even more distasteful, but she performed it
dutifully, like a penance. With many protestations of love Freddie always
declared himself satisfied, but Olivia knew that he pretended, too, and that
the gathering dissatisfactions festering unknown to him within his body would
not remain unexpressed for long.

On
nights like these Olivia felt she would gladly sell her soul to be able to love
Freddie even half as much as she had once loved Jai Raventhorne.

Those
leisurely drives down the Strand were still something Olivia enjoyed
occasionally. Sometimes Freddie accompanied her; at other times when he was out
with his friends, she went alone. Calcutta's riverine port always bustled with
excitement and activity, especially when new arrivals were scheduled. Watching
the hurry and scurry, breathing in the heady tang of salt, reading the boldly
displayed labels on crates of cargo, Olivia somehow felt alive again. Instead
of a castaway marooned forever in an insular wilderness, she felt that she was
again part of the real world somewhere within which there was still America.

One
evening she was taken unawares by an alarming sight: a three-master painted
white, flying a familiar saffron flag with a black motif! Her stomach, never
stable these days, heaved. Was it, could it be, the
Ganga?
Memory flew
back eight months to Estelle and her opera-glasses; only eight months had
elapsed since that day so clearly etched in her memory, but it seemed as
if in another
lifetime, another age altogether. In a trance, Olivia stopped her carriage and
stepped down. There was chaos and confusion everywhere, but suddenly through a
gap in the crowd she spied Ranjan Moitra, Trident's manager. With a sheaf of
documents in his hand he was arguing vociferously with a Customs official. On
an insane impulse, Olivia picked her way through the throng towards him. Moitra
saw her immediately and, surprised, stopped in midsentence to bow with
elaborate deference.

"Please
to come this side, Madam," he said, hurrying towards her, then guiding her
away with the stiff, traditional courtesy Bengalis always showed to women.
"These coolies are uncouth louts with no manners."

What
Olivia planned to say she had no idea but, urged on by some force beyond her
comprehension, she smiled and allowed herself to be escorted away. "Thank
you, Mr. Moitra. I notice that one of your ships has arrived today," she
said casually, her breath shallow.

"Indeed
it has, Madam." His chest puffed out with pride. "It is from Boston
that it comes,
your
Boston," as if there might be a hundred others,
"and it brings cotton gins and tobacco leaf." Emboldened by Olivia's
flattering interest, he waxed eloquent about excise officials, his opinion of
whom was the same as Donaldson's although he expressed it in less colourful
terms.

"Well,
let me see," Olivia murmured after Moitra had said his piece, "that
is a clipper, is it not?"

His
chest expanded further. "Yes, oh yes. Only Trident sails American clippers
out of Indian ports."

"Of
course." Her heartbeats accelerated madly. "And this one is called
the. . .
Ganga,
if I am not mistaken?" To stop herself from
fainting, she clutched at the iron rail behind her back.

"No,
this is the other one, the
Jamuna,"
he clarified. "We have
many American clippers, Madam Birkhurst. As Madam might recall, the
Ganga
has
a steam engine. That vessel remains in New York."

"And
the owner . . .?" Throwing caution to the winds, in her lingering dread
Olivia turned reckless.

"Also.
The Sarkar—that is, my employer—remains with the vessel, I believe." He
patted a plump mail parcel in his hand. "In New York our packet teas are
selling like your cakes that are very hot." He allowed himself a small
laugh in his pride of achievement.

Olivia's
gaze was riveted to the parcel in Moitra's hand. For
a mad moment
she was certain she would snatch it away from him, tear it open on the spot and
devour its contents. But then, aghast, she stifled the lunatic impulse and
recollected her balance. She recalled that for all she cared, Jai Raventhorne
could be at the bottom of the Hudson River. "Indeed!" Her voice
chilled as she punished Moitra for her own insanity. "I am pleased that
Trident goes from strength to strength, Mr. Moitra, but you can hardly expect
me
to jubilate with you." With a freezing smile, she walked away.

Still
annoyed with herself for having solicited the pointless conversation, Olivia
nevertheless derived some comfort from one small discovery: Not even Ranjan
Moitra, trusted confidant of his employer, knew of her cousin Estelle's
presence on board the
Ganga.
From a purely selfish standpoint, this was
good news indeed. Obviously, if one were clever enough, secrets could be kept
even in a village such as Calcutta!