Ryman, Rebecca (9 page)

For
a moment Olivia wondered if Estelle was making all this up. Surely, no one had
yet grown tea in India successfully enough to send it anywhere. Then something
stirred in her memory. "Is he the man they refer to as Kala . . .
something?" she inquired slowly.

"Yes,
Kala Kanta." Estelle looked surprised. "Did
he
tell you
that?"

"No,
of course not! Uncle Josh and Mr. Ransome were talking about him the other
night." Which made the matter more perplexing: If the men could discuss
him freely, then why should her aunt's reaction have been so extreme?
"Does Kala Kanta mean anything in Hindustani?"

"Yes,
kala
is
black and
kanta
is
a thorn—clever, isn't it? Black like a raven and because he's a thorn in—"

"Yes,
I do get the import, Estelle," Olivia said, impatient to
learn more.
"I accept that the man is a villain and universally hated, but that still
doesn't explain why Aunt Bridget had to swoon at the mere mention of his name!
Can you think why?"

Estelle
clucked. "No one can understand the way Mama's mind works; certainly
I
can't. Look at the pet she gets into about Polly Drummond and her mother. I
mean, what's wrong with having gentlemen friends if one is a widow? And why
shouldn't Polly use cosmetics and wear lace underwear if her mother lets her?
Clive Smithers says—or so Charlotte told me—he's even
kissed
her once
when—"

"The
English hate him but they still maintain business relations with him?"
Olivia cut in firmly, not interested at the moment in listening to Estelle's
familiar list of grievances. "Isn't that odd?"

With
an effort, her cousin pulled away her thoughts from problems she considered far
more pertinent. "They have to," she sighed, consoling herself with
the last biscuit in the tin. "Those clippers of his are so fast that the
holds are always full of cargo. And he has warehouses that people hire to store
their teas and indigo and all that. They can't
afford
to ignore him."

"But
then if he is a business colleague, whether liked or not, why is he never seen
at
burra
khanas?
Surely
he's invited to them."

"Oh,
he's
invited
all
right," Estelle said with a short laugh and a knowing gleam in her eyes,
which were alive with sudden interest. "It's
he
who maintains
that he wouldn't be seen dead in an Englishman's drawing-room. Everyone knows
there isn't a pukka mem about who wouldn't give her best wig and whalebones for
J— this man's favours. Polly says he has a native mistress who actually lives
in his house
with
him,
and Dave Crichton told Mrs. Drummond he has positive proof that when Barnabus
Slocum's sister from Brighton went missing last year and wasn't seen for a
week, she was with him—not Dave but this man we're talking about—for seven days
and seven
nights.
The
Slocums told everyone she had gone to the hills." She gasped for a fresh
supply of air and smiled triumphantly.

Overwhelmed
by this barrage of unsolicited gossip, Olivia subjected her cousin to a stern
look. "Considering you're not allowed to even mention his name in this
house," she remarked drily, "you seem pretty well informed about the
man!"

Estelle
tossed her head and pouted. "Well, you're the one who is dying of
curiosity. I'm only repeating what I know, what everybody knows.
He
doesn't give a
hoot who says what about him so why should you?"

"Oh,
I don't! And just to get this straight, I am
not
'dying of
curiosity' about the much-talked-about Mr. Raventhorne. I'm only trying to
figure out why I should have upset Lady Bridget so much." She frowned and
sucked on a lip. "But I haven't really, have I?"

"No,
nor will you, I promise." Estelle swallowed a yawn and stared into her
empty biscuit tin with regret. "If I were you, I'd forget all about it.
Mama is unpredictable at the best of times; it's useless trying to get to the
bottom of her mind. And in any case," she opened her mouth and yawned
fully, "you're not likely to meet him again, are you?" She slipped
under her sheet and pulled down the mosquito-netting.

"No,"
Olivia agreed slowly with a hand on the door knob. "I'm not likely to meet
him again."

Unaccountably,
she felt a small twinge of regret.

Future
prospects notwithstanding, some form of apology was certainly due to her aunt,
Olivia decided. Next morning—Sir Joshua having left for work earlier than
usual—she found Lady Bridget alone in her bedroom sipping tea.

"I'm
extremely sorry about what happened last night, Lady Bridget," she began
without preamble as soon as a cold cheek had been presented for the morning
kiss. "If I hurt or offended you in any way, it was entirely without
intention."

Lady
Bridget's cup rattled once as her hand shook. She did not look up to meet her
niece's eyes. "You are in no way to blame, child. I do know that. It's
not...," she swallowed, "not anything to worry about, but some ...
explanation is due to you. Josh will speak to you later. I ... we will consider
the matter closed . . ." Her voice faded and she turned away, again
visibly agitated.

For
the moment there was nothing more to be said. The subject was not referred to
again through the day.

Even
though it was too soon to expect mail from her father, Olivia had got into the
habit of writing to him almost every day. She also wrote regularly to Sally and
her boys, to other friends she had left behind and to her father's spinster
sister in Dublin, his only surviving relative still close to him. While she
waited impatiently for mail packets to start arriving from home and from
Honolulu, she found the enforced discipline therapeutic, for it assuaged her
homesickness. Normally she enjoyed writing letters,
but this
morning, somehow, her concentration wavered. Instead of her thoughts dwelling
on what they should, they kept wandering back to Jai Raventhorne.

What
lingered most in retrospect was not the physical man but the atmosphere he had
created around himself of something amorphous and indefinable. There seemed to
have emanated from his person a strange nervous, darting energy, almost a
turbulence, that on those river steps had packed the space between them with
tension. Beneath his occasional insolence there had been an underlying
hostility that baffled Olivia. No, she had not been comfortable in his
presence. As for his scandalous reputation, she paid it little heed; among her
father's friends she could name at least two whom various sheriffs would be
happy to accommodate as their guests, and there were many drawing-rooms in
Washington where her father himself was strictly non grata because of his free
and frank political opinions. The reason Jai Raventhorne intrigued her was
because not even in America had she met a man so out of tune with the majority.

When
Sir Joshua's summons finally came, following a noticeably awkward atmosphere at
dinner, Olivia was expecting it. Even so her breath quickened; she felt riven
with anticipation as to what exactly was to be revealed. As usual, her uncle
sat at his enormous mahogany desk, its surface littered with ledgers and
papers, sipping his favourite port and puffing on a cigar. He had changed into
his blue silk dressing-gown and his feet were encased in carpet slippers. Even
at ease and dressed informally, he radiated power, both mental and physical,
the dominant set of his chin giving little indication of his modest beginnings
as the humbly brought-up son of a penniless baronet and a low-paid writer with
John Company.

"A
tot of port, m'dear?" Olivia accepted the offer with a nod and positioned
herself opposite him at the desk. It was, after all, for him to decide the
direction of the conversation. "Young Marshall returned yesterday from
Hankow with some weird tales about the hongs. One or two might amuse you,"
he began, handing her a glass. "The Russians buy their teas in Hankow, you
know. Any idea how long it takes them to make the round trip? Sixteen months!
Hah! And we complain because it takes us less than six!"

The
anecdotes that followed, Olivia sensed, were to put them both in an easier
frame of mind, for he too was far from comfortable. The stories were related
with humour and wit and she listened with attention, joining in with his
intermittent
laughter willingly. It was only after several tales had been recounted and much
scorn poured on the Russians that he sat back, lit another cigar, threw up a
perfect smoke ring and said, "About last night, Olivia . . ."

Again
her breath went tight. "I have been hoping for an opportunity to
apologise, Uncle Josh. I am so terribly sorry for—"

"It
was not your fault." He waved away her expressions of remorse. "You
only delivered an innocent message. How were you to know with what malicious
intent it was dispatched?"

Malicious
intent? What dark plot could possibly be contained in a few words of harmless
greeting? But waiting for more, Olivia refrained from comment.

"This
man," Sir Joshua did not repeat the name as he picked up a pencil and idly
toyed with it, "is a scoundrel, a debauch and a charlatan of the first
order. That he should have had the audacity to accost you—"

"He
did not accost me," some inner devil prompted Olivia to point out,
"it was genuinely a chance encounter. I went out for some air at the same
time that he happened to be walking his dogs."

The
amendment did not please her uncle. He frowned. "Regardless of the
circumstances, he should have known better than to overstep his bounds to speak
to you. He is known as a manipulator, a master of evil designs habituated to
turning even the most simple of situations to his best advantage. Was his
manner towards you courteous?"

Olivia
took both the seeming over reaction and the abrupt question in her stride.
"Perfectly. There was no reason for it to be otherwise." It was, she
considered without compunction, a justifiable lie. To reveal the reality of
their abrasive encounter would be to invite even more trouble.

"What
was it that you talked about?" There was a strange watchfulness, even
anxiety, in Sir Joshua's eyes as he questioned her.

Olivia
hid a sense of irritation—did it matter? "We merely made idle talk,"
she replied evenly. "It appears that he had read some of my father's
writings in American journals. Mostly we discussed those."

Whether
it was in her imagination or not, Sir Joshua seemed to loosen. His wariness
dropped; he steepled his fingers against his chest and smiled. "In that
case I am relieved. It is not often that he chooses to play the gentleman,
which is of course why
your aunt went into such an unholy flap last night. You are well aware of the
high moral standards she maintains and how assiduously she values social
propriety in all matters. It shocked Bridget that a scalawag of such despicably
low calibre should have had the gall to actually hobnob with you, her own flesh
and blood." He gave a quick laugh. "Of course it was absurd of
Bridget to faint, utterly ridiculous! But then, we must make some allowances
for her little whims and excesses, must we not?"

For
all his apparent earnestness, his good-humoured indulgence for his wife's
"whims and excesses," Olivia knew that her uncle prevaricated. He had
not told her the real reason for her aunt's distress. Torn for a moment between
tactical withdrawal (which would be wise) and a bold attack (which would not),
Olivia eventually settled for the latter. "This Mr. Raventhorne," her
chin firmed as she fearlessly mouthed the forbidden name, "who exactly is
he and what exactly does he do?"

"He
is in the tea business." The curtness of his reply gave ample indication
of his reluctance to pursue the subject.

"On
the China Coast?"

"No.
He grows his own."

So,
Estelle's snippets of gossip were not wholly incorrect! Ignoring her uncle's
obvious displeasure and assuming innocence, Olivia pressed on. "He does?
But did you not tell me that European planters in Assam are having serious
labour problems and that it would be years before China tea could be grown
domestically with commercial success?"