Ryman, Rebecca (74 page)

"One
last time, Olivia dearest. . .
push
now as hard as you can. It is almost
over, almost over . . ."

One
last time Olivia pushed, and one last time she screamed. She felt as though the
slicing edge of a knife cleaved her lengthwise into two as something punishing
and pitiless exploded out of her body. She had no more strength left even to
breathe. With
a small gasp, mauled and battered beyond the limits of endurance, Olivia
slipped into unconsciousness, her energy drained. After twenty hours of
torment, she finally slept. It was the sleep of the dreamless dead. And in it
she was unaware that she had, at last, given birth to Jai Raventhorne's son.

Many
hours later Olivia woke to brilliant sunshine and fragrances of jasmine and
sandalwood and gentle herbal potions being prepared for the restoration of her
lacerated body. In a dim blur she saw the midwife, the experienced herbalist,
the maidservants, setting about their business with a calmness that astonished
Olivia. But then, they had seen birth and death a thousand times over; both
were part of the cycle of life and scarcely novelties. Deft hands changed
bloodied bed sheets, salved gaping cuts and removed all vestiges of the long
battle that had ended in an act of miraculous creation. The tempest had petered
out, and there was no more pain.

"Is
it over . . .?" Olivia breathed with no strength to ask more.

Something
cool and delicious touched her lips and she drank in great, thirsty gulps.

"Yes,
it is over." Kinjal's face resolved in Olivia's vision and her eyes were
filled with tears. "And it is also beginning. You have a beautiful
son."

A
strange feeling crept through Olivia. It was not pain, yet it was not far from
it. Kinjal laid a small bundle beside her on the bed. Ignoring the searing
spasm that was her reward for the effort, Olivia turned on a side and gazed
down curiously for the first time on the countenance of her baby. It was ugly
and crumpled, still not recovered from its nine-month-long compression, but
when she hesitantly touched its cheek with a finger, it felt as soft as the
underwing of a dove. The midwife waddled forward, adjusted the front of
Olivia's robe and nodded. Shyly, uncertainly, Olivia guided her breast, heavy
with milk and ache, towards the tiny orifice. Instantly, the puckered lips
opened and clamped firmly around her nipple. Olivia gasped; the sucking
movement that commenced immediately gave her the most incredibly sweet
sensation she had ever known. She was suffused with a joy so novel, so
overwhelming, that she could not hold back a sob. Tenderly, she brushed her
son's hair away from his forehead. Decimated with love, she pressed him closer
to her, unable to remove her wonder-struck gaze from his face. His eyes were
opalescent, ebony fringed. Wild and profuse, his hair was jet black.

Some
day he would be the image of Jai Raventhorne.

When
his feeding was finished, Kinjal removed the bundle from the bed and secured
the shawl around the baby's head. "Wipe your eyes. Your husband awaits in
the antechamber; you must not cry before him." Olivia did as told, not
aware that she had been crying. Fifteen minutes later, when Freddie tiptoed
nervously into the chamber, she was sitting propped up by pillows, her hair
neatly coiled into a chignon.

For
a while Freddie stood staring down at the crib in which the baby lay. Then,
pale faced, he bent down and kissed Olivia formally on the cheek. "Was it
very . . . bad?" His voice shook and his lips had felt stiff and cold on
her skin.

"No.
No more than is normal." Impetuously, she took his hands in hers.
"Thank you for coming, Freddie dear . . ."

He
flushed. "Oh, I couldn't have, ah, stayed away. Came as soon as I got the
message." He released his hands and forced his glance in the direction of
the crib. "Ah, jolly little beggar, isn't he . . .?" He turned to
leave.

His
stricken face twisted Olivia with pity—what could her transient pains be worth
compared to his lifelong yoke? "Please stay a few days, Freddie," she
begged. "The Maharaja would be delighted. There is good duck shooting on
the lake and plenty of billiards."

He
refused to meet her eyes. "I'd like that, truly, but Peter and some of the
chaps plan something by way of ... celebration. They would be awfully offended
if, ah, I were absent . . ." He threw her a wan smile.

Olivia
could imagine the ordeal for him of that "celebration"—coarse quips
about having sired a "son and heir," much back slapping and winks and
loud guffaws. She cringed and felt her throat constrict. "Freddie, I'm
sorry . . ."

He
turned and fled.

Quietly,
with her face hidden in her shawl, Olivia wept. Her child had been conceived in
reckless passion and nurtured through nine long months in frequent resentment.
What did she feel for him now that the abstraction had become a reality? She
did not know yet but she understood what Kinjal had meant: One intolerable
chapter had ended but another, as intolerable, had begun. For all her lies, all
her humiliating alibis, for this monstrous marriage, she had gained nothing; in
the very face of her son lived the unmistakable identity of his father. How ironic
remained the divinities and how cruel their sense of humour! If
the mills of
God ground fine, then truly the mills of Jai Raventhorne ground even finer.

Olivia
wept for her innocent son, for herself, for the ominous future. But most of
all, she wept for her husband. For the moment her baby's eyes were closed and
his telltale black hair was concealed by a shawl, but for how long,
how
long?

It
was time for more lies.

With
Freddie Olivia dispatched a letter to Dr. Humphries informing him of an
unfortunate fall in Kirtinagar that had precipitated the premature birth of her
baby. By the grace of God, she wrote, the Maharani's personal physician and an
experienced midwife were at hand. The baby had been delivered safely and they
were both now well. However, she had been advised to remain in Kirtinagar for a
month so that her child, naturally born small, could gain weight. Olivia also
sent letters to Arthur Ransome, Sir Joshua, Lady Bridget and her mother-in-law.
The letter she composed for dispatch to her family was long, effusive in tone
and filled with mendacious detail, which she knew would be avidly consumed. Of
all the lies she was forced to tell, those that she was transmitting home were
to Olivia the most sinful, for they trusted her implicitly.

Her
brief, serene idyll was now over. Ahead, the future towered with sinister
intent, alleviated only by her unalloyed wonder as she gazed for hours upon her
son. That such a small sample of perfection could have been fashioned inside
her body without her conscious participation was to Olivia a miracle. But that
he should visually give so little credit to the mother who had borne him was
something she resented bitterly. "Why should my precious little one be
made to bear a cross not of his making?" she asked Kinjal repeatedly.

"It
might not be a cross," Kinjal comforted. "Many of your race have grey
eyes and black hair. Nobody else is likely to make the connection between him
and Jai."

"Freddie
will," Olivia said, unconsoled. "Whatever little is left unbroken in
him will then shatter."

For
which not even Kinjal—angelic, caring Kinjal—could offer any reassurances.

It
was about ten days after the birth that Arvind Singh
requested
permission to visit Olivia in her apartment and give the child his blessings.
During her stay in the palace complex, the Maharaja had been a frequent
companion to her and the Maharani, for they dined together often in the zenana.
Olivia had enjoyed talking politics with him, giving him information about
Hawaii and America, and eagerly absorbing the intricacies of Indian rulership.
Though between them there existed a formality, the friendship had developed
well, but not enough to be able to talk about the sordid mine disaster and her
uncle's complicity in it. Even so, Raventhorne's name cropped up often, for the
Maharaja knew nothing of her involvement with him.

I
hope you never have occasion to regret your visit to Kirtinagar.
Did Arvind Singh
recall his distant warning uttered with such foresight? Awaiting his arrival in
her apartment, Olivia wondered.

"I
understand from my wife that your son is quite the most beautiful baby ever
born." Settling himself down in her verandah, Arvind Singh appeared his
usual charming self. "My children both agree with her."

"Well,
you must see for yourself," Olivia responded with a calm smile. "In
the meantime, may I offer you some Brazilian coffee?"

Over
cups of the aromatic brew they talked again about her work at the Farrowsham
Agency. The Maharaja reiterated his admiration for her ability to hold her own
in a world so preponderantly male. "I understand," he suddenly
remarked, "that you have also been assisting Templewood and Ransome in
their difficulties."

He
referred, Olivia knew, to the recent dispatch of their tea consignment. She was
not surprised that he had heard about it; his information regarding Calcutta's
day-to-day corporate affairs was remarkably thorough. "Yes. But what I
have done is negligible. The difficulties they face are not."

An
attendant delivered the Maharaja's hookah, which he arranged on the floor at
his master's feet. Arvind Singh puffed contentedly for a moment or two, then
observed, "Unfortunately, those difficulties they have brought upon
themselves. Forgive me if I am blunt, Mrs. Birkhurst, but Sir Joshua is lucky
that a major scandal was averted." He smiled drily. "The English are,
after all, adept at dividing others while remaining united themselves."

It
was the first time he had brought up the topic with such directness. Olivia was
startled, but because she now had so little interest in the matter, she could
take it in her stride. "Yes. My
uncle was misguided, tragically so. But
I must say in his defence that he was also provoked beyond the limits of
endurance."

"One
could say the same for Jai. He is not an ordinary man; he cannot be measured by
ordinary standards."

"However
extraordinary," she said with an edge, "surely all men need to
conform to some basic norms of decency?"

Arvind
Singh abandoned his hookah for the moment to stir his coffee. "Jai is
driven by forces that are difficult to comprehend at the best of times—"

"On
the contrary, he is driven by forces that are very easy to understand!"
she retorted, not letting him finish. "Every one of them is identifiable
as perversity, a need to destroy."

"True.
But there is hate on both sides. Sir Joshua—and the English—cannot stomach that
the son of a servant woman, a native tribal, has risen to beat them at their
own game."

"But
there are many others who have similarly risen from humble homes to be
accepted. Why generous allowances for your friend and none for the English?
Surely such wholesale condemnation comes from prejudice?"

Arvind
Singh laughed. "I had forgotten how difficult it is to win an argument
with you, Mrs. Birkhurst! The truth is that both Jai and your uncle are extreme
men. Their collisions tend to be explosive and the detritus widely
scattered." He stared reflectively at his cup. "Forgive me if I am
wrong, Mrs. Birkhurst, but at one time I was under the impression that you had
some . . . admiration for Jai. Certainly, he had a great deal for you." It
was an indication of their friendship that he could make such a comment without
embarrassment.

"If
I did have 'admiration,' as you put it," Olivia countered lightly,
marvelling at how well Kinjal had guarded her secrets, "then it was
misplaced. One way or another he has caused the disintegration of my uncle and
his family." Of her own disintegration, she said nothing. He would see for
himself in a moment.

He
spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "Well, let us just put it
all down to the misfortune of an alien presence in our country. It has produced
tensions that frequently detonate, that are like lava fighting to burst through
our soil. Sooner or later, the volcano will erupt."

On
the whole, Olivia was relieved by the switch to impersonalities. "You mean
a revolt? By the Indians?"

"Yes.
The revolt will have small beginnings, but the eventual conflagration will send
the entire country up in flames."