Ryman, Rebecca (94 page)

In
the cosy downstairs parlour of the Birkhurst residence, the least formal of the
reception-rooms, a tall conifer stood in a wooden tub, and it was splendidly
decorated with coloured streamers, glass baubles, silver fairies in twinkling
tinsel, gold stars, snowy white cotton wool, a cardboard Santa Claus and his
reindeer, and banks of mistletoe and holly purchased with scandalous
extravagance from Whiteaways. The house was filled with music and song and
seldom heard gales of laughter. On Christmas Day the Donaldsons, the
Humphrieses and, of course, Arthur Ransome had been guests at a veritable feast
of traditional fare produced with uncanny skill by Rashid Ali and the specially
summoned Babulal. There had been gaily wrapped gifts for everyone, including
the servants and their families, particularly the children. There had also been
crackers and fireworks, boisterous carol singing and generally uninhibited
revelry such as had not been witnessed in years at the austere, under-inhabited
mansion.

It
was Olivia's second Christmas in India. And so different in spirit from that
miserable occasion of twelve months ago in Barrackpore, which no one now could
rustle up the courage to remember!

But
if it was different in spirit, the credit for making it so, Olivia conceded
readily, went entirely to her cousin Estelle. Her response to Olivia's letter
had been warm and pathetically eager, and her return to Calcutta gratifyingly
prompt. Olivia was shocked to see the change in her cousin. In her consuming
sense of loss she had shed weight, the abundant vitality subdued and the
sparkle sadly diminished. In the week Estelle had been here she had seldom
talked of her father. It was only when she had first arrived that she had not
been able to control her grief; she
had thrown herself into her cousin's
arms, clung to her like a limpet and wept like a frightened child suddenly
finding itself lost and alone at a fairground. But then, after that, she had
resolutely cast her own feelings aside to cater to those of her ailing cousin.
That she cried privately in the solitude of her room, Olivia knew; sorrow was
never far from her eyes, but she kept it hidden. In her palpitating and durable
guilt at having contributed so heavily to Olivia's misfortunes, Estelle spared
no effort to make reparation in a hundred different ways. She waited on Olivia
hand and foot, anxious to please and to earn that forgiveness she despaired of.
And with the grim determination of a bulldog she had set about bringing good
cheer to a house that so badly needed it.

The
Christmas festivities and frivolities had been her idea. "A
quiet
Christmas?"
She had echoed Olivia's desultory suggestion with horror. "Why, Amos will
never forgive us that! If only for
his
sake, we must make it as merry as
we can no matter what our own feelings." Olivia could not deny that she
had been touched.

In
fact, Olivia could not deny that it was Estelle's effort and initiative that
had brought about their rapprochement with such painless ease. If during the
first day or two there had been stiffness between them, it had by now melted
considerably. Estelle forcibly suppressed her own depression to work hard at
lightening Olivia's; whatever the cost to herself, it must have been heavy. The
smoothness with which their badly jarred relationship was being patched up was
a relief to Olivia. She had not been entirely fair to Estelle, and her cousin's
inability to sustain grudges made it easier for her own conscience. Besides,
with this truce there was at least one less tension in their lives. Also,
Estelle had been spending long hours with Arthur Ransome; therefore, by now
there was no doubt that she too knew everything, and it was another relief not
to have to pretend with her.

The
tedium of Olivia's enforced convalescence weighed heavily on her. Estelle's
high spirits and spilling vivacity, however forced they might be, made her an
amusing companion, and the confinement to barracks less difficult to bear. In
her year away, and with the gruesome tragedies and traumas she had had to bear,
Estelle had matured. Outgrown largely were the compulsive flow of trivialities,
the irritating prattle that centered forever around herself, the torrent of
gossip about Calcutta's tiresome follies and frolics. Now there was restraint
in her conversation; finally, Estelle had attained that adulthood she had
always
craved. But what an exorbitant price she—and others—had had to pay for it!

"Tell
me about your father's death," Olivia said one evening after Christmas was
over and the year 1850 ushered in with due aplomb.

"No!"
Estelle
shrank back in horror, all her hidden sorrow contained in the force of that
negative. "I can't . . . talk about it. Not yet."

"But
you must, my dear," Olivia insisted gently. "It is only talking about
it that will make you accept it and set your mind at rest. To keep it
imprisoned like this will only delay the healing."

But
Estelle buried her face in her hands and shook her head. Taking pity on her
acute distress, Olivia dropped the subject.

If,
however, Estelle had her own reasons to cover her pain about her father's
death, about her experience with Jai Raventhorne she had equally strong reasons
to wish to reveal all. At first, refraining scrupulously from again risking her
cousin's wrath, she made no mention of him. But then one day, inevitably, the
name cropped up between them. Now it was Olivia's turn to recoil, but she
didn't. As she had been steeling herself to ever since Estelle had arrived,
Olivia showed no reaction save for cultivated indifference.

"I
only mentioned Jai because . . . because you said he didn't matter to you
anymore," Estelle said uncertainly, again nervous.

"He
doesn't," Olivia assured her. "As far as I am concerned, feel free to
talk about whomever you wish."

Estelle
was not to know that behind the generous invitation lay a motive, the same
motive that had made Olivia such a willing listener to Ransome. To her, the
past was not relevant anymore; it was the future. Soon Raventhorne would return
from Assam. Working in the same business district, with an agency that dealt
frequently with Trident, Olivia knew she would not be able to avoid encounters
with him, even confrontations. It was not she who intended to incite those
confrontations, but Raventhorne certainly would! He had already branded her the
betrayer, stigmatised her motives, demeaned and abused her. He hunted for
palliatives for a sorely damaged ego, and his vindictiveness, as she now knew,
was even more open ended than she had imagined. She had to learn to fight
him—and fight him well, to a standstill!—or else, in his uncanny perceptions
and intuitions, he would somehow, from somewhere, drag out the truth about
Amos.

But
to learn to fight such a man, Olivia realised, she needed more equipment, any
instrument that might somehow help. Her armoury was slowly filling, but it was
still woefully inadequate. During Estelle's one year with Jai, she had become
close to him, won him over, as he had her. Estelle had seen him in unguarded
moments, with defences down, in situations of revealing informality, when he
had perhaps exposed himself without even realising that he had done so.
Raventhorne had alienated Estelle's mother from her, been the catalyst for her
father's death, almost succeeded in ruining
her
life—as he had planned
to all along. What Olivia now burned with eagerness to learn was by what subtle
processes Raventhorne's mind and intentions had changed. And how, with all his
criminality, had Estelle come to actually accept and love him as a brother?
Instinct told Olivia that the seeds of her own strategy would lie somewhere in
Estelle's garrulous outpourings; she would have to listen very carefully and
then do what Lady Birkhurst had once told her she had learned to do with
consummate skill—separate the wheat from the chaff. Hardening herself to all
other considerations, Olivia swallowed her distaste and encouraged her cousin's
volubility.

For
her part, Estelle accepted the encouragement humbly, with gratitude, taking it
as another sign of her cousin's generous forgiveness. So far, understandably,
she had not had occasion to share her confidences fully with anyone. And to
whom else but her beloved Olivia could she possibly strip her heart bare as
frankly as she longed to?

In
Olivia's forced willingness to receive Estelle's confidences, there was also
initial wariness. She remained alert for the offensive phrase, the subtle
innuendo, the concealed sneer—but none came. Estelle showed neither slyness nor
embarrassment in unveiling what she had once called her "escapade,"
only a passionate desire to withhold nothing from her tragically wronged
cousin. Olivia had always envied Estelle's talent for taking even life's most
deceitful manoeuvres in her stride. It now astonished her to see with what
pragmatism and lack of ambiguity Estelle had assimilated her experience into
the fabric of her thinking. It now appeared that in inverse ratio to her
reluctance to talk about her father's suicide was her eagerness to tell Olivia
all that she had experienced with Jai Raventhorne.

Once
she had learned to live with what he had revealed to her with such unfeeling
bluntness, Estelle said, she had rallied fast. The hideous implications of
their situation—which Raventhorne had not spelt out but which she understood
fully—she
accepted also, although with boiling anger. After he had released her from the
master cabin, they again had ferocious rows, violent arguments. "I told
him I was sick of his silly temper," Estelle said, incensed even by the
memory of those humiliating days. "What had happened had happened. If all
he said was true—and I knew that he had not lied at least about that—then it
was time we learned to endure each other and
he
learned to treat me like
a sister. Well, he was shocked. The word
sister
had not even occurred to
him, you see. And then he was furious again, so I gave him an ultimatum—either
that, or I would go on a hunger strike and starve myself to death. He laughed.
He said he didn't give a broken farthing
what
I did with myself. For all
he cared, I could jump ship and get lost on the African continent. As far as he
was concerned, his purpose had been achieved."

If
parts of Estelle's reminiscences were undoubtedly hurtful to her, then there
were some that she enlivened with her gifted sense of humour. This one brought
an involuntary half smile to Olivia's lips.
"You
go on a hunger
strike? That I would have to see to believe!"

"Oh,
I didn't really." The brief return of adolescent complacency in a face so
drawn with unhappiness was somehow appealing. "I saw no reason to suffer
because of
his
cussedness. I persuaded Bahadur—you know, his inseparable
factotum—to bring me up dry rations that I could hide under the bed."

This
time Olivia was forced to laugh.

"Jai
didn't know that, of course. When he thought I had eaten nothing for four days,
he was worried. Supposing I did die and he was lumbered with my body? At least,
that's how
he
explained it when he himself brought me up a tray and
thrust it under my nose. He pulled out his gun and held it to my head, tight
with anger. 'Now
eat!'
he said through clenched teeth. 'If you don't, I
swear I'll blow your brains out, whatever little you have of them.' Well, I ate
of course. My goodness, how I ate! He hadn't needed to brandish that gun, but I
didn't tell him that, naturally. In fact, I told him that I was not prepared to
be treated like an encumbrance anymore. If he didn't keep me in the style to
which I was accustomed, I would go on
another
hunger strike!" She
smiled in remembered triumph. "That really alarmed him, you know. At first
he raved and ranted and again threatened to spank me, but then suddenly he
threw up his arms in surrender and sat down to roar with laughter." That
recollection made her laugh too; then she turned wistful. "After that,
Olivia, he became quite another person again. He was incredibly kind. I would
not
have believed him capable of such consideration, but he was. In time, he
started to trust me, perhaps not entirely, but somewhat. He began to talk to
me, loosen, ask me many questions, listen carefully to my answers, tell me
things about himself."

"With
all that kindness and consideration," Olivia said with an inadvertent
return of resentment, "did it not occur to you to write at least a few
lines home?"

Estelle's
mood of brief abandon faded. Once more her face became pinched. "I tried
to, Olivia. I tried several times, I
swear,
but I couldn't find the
words. What explanations could I possibly give? How could I say in cold black
and white everything that needed to be said? Besides, if I had to account for
my behavior, then they too, Papa and Mama both, had to account for
theirs."
Her cheeks showed red with the force of her anger. "They had concealed
the truth from me, such a
vital
truth. Had I known it earlier, would all
this have ever happened . . .?" Her anger collapsed as fast as it had arisen;
she remembered that the people on whom she expended it were no longer in a
position to repent. The effort to regain control was punitive, but somehow she
managed. "Those mutual explanations could only be made face to face. Since
Jai promised a return in six months, if I wished to return after I married
John, I decided to let the matter rest until—"

"What?"
Olivia's exclamation of surprise slipped out before she could stop it.