Ryman, Rebecca (96 page)

"For
a purchase of the
Daffodil,
did you say?"

"Aye.
So the rumour goes."

"But
why . . .?" Olivia was bewildered. "Trident uses only clippers. As
she is now, the
Daffodil
isn't remotely seaworthy. What would Trident
want with a wreck like that?"

Not
particularly interested, Donaldson shrugged. "He could use her for
firewood, I reck'n.
When
Ransome's price dips to a penny and a
half." Reopening his ledgers, he proceeded to other matters.

But
throughout the day, Olivia's own conjectures proliferated. They all centered
around the curious question, why should Jai Raventhorne, of all people, want to
buy the
Daffodil,
of all ships! To take advantage of Ransome's state of
depression, then make profits on a resale? No, that was palpably absurd.
Subsequent profits, if any, would be a pittance; for all his faults,
Raventhorne didn't scrounge for petty gain. That much Olivia did know as a
certainty. Something about the snippet dropped so casually by Donaldson excited
Olivia. Raventhorne did nothing without good reason. Instinct warned her that
if the gossip was correct, behind his interest in a junk vessel belonging to a
company whose very name plate was anathema to him must lie a
very
good
reason indeed. But what?

The
answer, when it finally came, was from an expected source: Estelle. But it was
not an answer Olivia would have ever deduced for herself without her cousin's
unknowing help.

It
was the day before Estelle's return to Cawnpore.

John
had been generous in allowing his wife a longer stay in Calcutta than he had
originally intended. But, in his levelheadedness, he hoped that for the cousins
to spend time together would prove therapeutic for both. Having met and talked
at
length
with Raventhorne in England, John now knew a great deal more than he had
before. About Olivia's unhappy circumstances he had heard everything from his
wife. Between them the cousins had many misunderstandings to settle, much
rancor to dispel. And Estelle needed badly to unbottle her manifold guilt and
smouldering anger. In his warm letter to Olivia, John tactfully said only that
he hoped his wife's company had not been too much of a strain and that it had
proved mutually beneficial.

Yes,
Olivia conceded to herself, the interlude with Estelle had been mutually
beneficial. It had released them both from some tensions at least, and had
provided occasional light-heartedness. Olivia was genuinely glad that in her
spontaneous outburst Estelle had pin-pointed verbally that inner sore that was
causing her the most suffering. It was disappointing, of course, that from her
compulsive outpourings about Raventhorne, Olivia had not gleaned as much
"wheat" as she had hoped, but every little bit helped. If not
dramatically revelatory, the outpourings had given her many further insights
into the cracks and crevices of the man, many little sidelights that might
someday prove useful. He had talked, for instance, about Sujata to her cousin,
perhaps because Estelle had bluntly asked him about her. That little fragment
Olivia stored away carefully in her arsenal; discarded mistresses, especially
when disgruntled, were weighty cannon-fodder, after all!

On
Estelle's last evening in Calcutta, the cousins strolled the embankment after
supper, as had become their custom. The January night was bracingly chilly. It
made a pleasant change from the cloying humidity of the still, warm days with
their brassy sunshine. There were spectral mists on the river, enclosing them
as they ambled leisurely in a cool, dark tent of privacy peppered above with
stars.

"I
went to see Jai this morning." With Raventhorne back from Assam this too
was inevitable; even so, Olivia felt a mild sense of shock. She received the
information in silence. "He's still in a vile temper with me,"
Estelle continued with a sigh. "He hasn't forgiven me for that evening. We
had another flaming row. He was insufferably callous about what happened to
Papa." Even in the dark Olivia could sense the quiver of her lips.

Only
because of her own inner turbulence, Olivia blurted out, "Did he by any
chance mention Amos?"

Estelle
looked surprised. "No. Why should he?"

"Did
you?"

She
regretted the question instantly, but it was out. "No, of
course
not!"
Estelle was immeasurably wounded. "Can you still not bring yourself to
have at least
some
faith in me and the promise I have made?"
Contrite, Olivia touched her arm but she pulled back. "If you only knew
how
sick
I am of all these stupid acrimonies and animosities! My father,
the cause of them, is dead, dead,
dead!
Can't we
now
think of
repairing the damage instead of perpetuating it?"

"Uncle
Joshua's death, much as I mourn it, has nothing to do with my own 'acrimony,'
as you call it," Olivia pointed out a trifle coldly.

"Yes,
I know." Deflated again, Estelle sat down on a boulder and stared at the
river. "But all that's behind you, Olivia. If you . . .
we
made an
effort to forget, wouldn't our lives be less complicated?"

"By
forgetting, do you think those lives would be instantly refashioned into little
idylls of contentment?"

"They
could. If we
wanted
them to be!"

"And
how willing is your allegedly maligned
brother
to forget!"

Estelle
shook her head in despair. "He's as bad as ... as everyone else. Pigheaded
and self-destructive! I know he too has a lot to forget, to forgive, but had he
seen my poor father with his head blown away . . ." She stopped, unable to
dispel the vision, and shut her eyes tight.

There
was something heart-wrenching in Estelle's simplistic, artless blueprint for
universal regeneration and, impulsively, Olivia sat down beside her and laced
her arm through hers. "Then why not give up and leave us to our continuing
perversities to wallow in as we see fit?"

"No!
You can scoff as much as you like, dear Coz, but you will never convince me
that
you
are perverse." Resolutely, Estelle abandoned her grief.
"Nor, despite all his infuriating antics,
Jai.
Don't forget, now I
know him better than even . . . better than anybody else. He has hidden depths,
Olivia, depths in which there is such softness that you would be
astonished."

"Yes,"
Olivia agreed lightly, "I surely would!"

Estelle
clutched at the arm laced through hers. "No,
listen,
Olivia—what I
was trying to tell you the other day isn't a fabrication. When I mentioned the
word
sister
to him, it angered him, yes, but it also utterly bewildered
him. The concept of any relative, apart from his mother and her people, was so
alien to him that he was staggered. Initially, he rejected it with contempt. He
took to glaring at me by the hour, nervous and suspicious, as if I
might suddenly
spring up and bite him. But then, the thought of having me as a sister
intrigued him. Once and for all it cleared the air between us of all that silly
romantic rubbish," she had the grace to lower her eyes and blush,
"and paved the way for quite another relationship. I began to fascinate
him, I could see that. He began to actually
enjoy
the prospect of being
an older brother, solicitous and protective. And, of course,
authoritarian." With another remnant from earlier days, Estelle giggled, a
forgotten sparkle returning to her brilliant blue eyes. "It was then that
he started to mellow, to talk with relaxed restraint, to regret his unkindness
to me—although he never said so with words—and to arrive at the decision to
meet John, make frank explanations and then persuade him to still marry me. But
then, all at once," Estelle stopped, again uncertain as she cast an oblique
glance at her impassive cousin, "Jai changed again. It was very sudden and
it was after we touched some other port in Africa. He locked himself in his
cabin, refused to see me. He took to pacing the decks at night, obviously in
the grip of some terrible torment that threatened his sanity."

Remembering
those nights, Estelle was again stepped in melancholy. "I longed to reach
out to him, help him, comfort him, assure him of at least
my
love, for
he had no other. But he wouldn't let me come near. I have never known any man,
Olivia, so alone, so much in need of
someone.
In that stony citadel
there are cracks, Olivia," speaking with passion, she got up to walk about
restlessly, "gaping holes, soft spots easily penetrated. One I know is his
mother. The other, which I did not know then but do know now, is
you."

Olivia
congealed.
None of this means anything to me now. I don't want to hear it!
Gritting
her teeth, she continued to show indifference and, in fact, raised a hand to
her mouth to hide an extravagant yawn.

"Oh,
I know you're bored, I know you find this tedious—but tell you I must!"
However much she wanted to earn Olivia's total forgiveness, Estelle was not
prepared to abandon her defence of her brother. "I didn't notice it then,
but Jai talked—railed, rather!—about Papa, about Mama, about
Grandmama.
On
occasion, when he couldn't avoid it, he even talked about his mother, although
never in any detail. The one person he never mentioned, never even referred to
in passing, Olivia, was
you.
But when
I
spoke about you, which
was constantly, Jai would listen with the attention of one in a trance, his
eyes fixed, unwavering. Hindsight tells me that he was memorising every word
about you, every
syllable, hoarding it away like a squirrel gathering nuts for winter."

Frantic
to halt the flow, Olivia opened her mouth to lodge an indignant protest, but
Estelle would not have any of it. She silenced her with an aggressive gesture.

"All
this I
have
to tell you before I leave, Olivia!" Fearful of being
blocked, her gushing cataract of words gathered momentum. "But that
transformation in him, that sudden agony—it was only when I returned here and
saw
Amos
that the cause of it became clear. In that African port there
were other ships from Calcutta. The captains of the vessels were known to Jai;
he spent time with them. And it must have been then that he learned of your
marriage to Freddie Birkhurst. I can't see any other reason for his physical
and mental collapse." She paused to let that sink in, then leashed her
belligerence, content that she had made the point she sought to. "Anyway,
we proceeded to England. Embittered as Jai was, he made tremendous efforts to
win John's confidence, and eventually did. It was Jai who made arrangements for
the wedding, paid for it, bought me an elaborate trousseau, lavished gifts on
us and then, as a 'family friend,' gave me away. John's parents were not told
the entire story. They are simple people; they would not have been able to
understand or accept the whole truth. But, won over by Jai's silver tongue, his
inimitable courtesy and generosity, they asked no questions." In the
argentine dark, her eyes shone with tears. "If Jai once sought to break my
life, then it is he who also made it, Olivia. He
is
capable of
reparation, he
does
have a conscience. Mama's rejection of me, Papa's
too, has made him angry again, frustrated him, for he knows it was he who
instigated it. He will not forgive them ever, for that and for everything else,
but he knows now that
I
at least am on his side. With you also gone,
Olivia, as you will be one day, I have only Jai left whose veins share my
blood." Having said so much, she could not leave the vital rest unsaid.
"If I can forgive Jai, Olivia, then can you also not bring yourself
to?"

Estelle's
bold question, the question to which she had been building right from the
beginning of her visit, wafted away on the wind. She waited with trepidation
for an answer. It came and it was what she had, unhappily, expected.
"No." Just that one syllable of finality, nothing more. Saddened by
her failure, Estelle fell silent. And in her disappointment she saw that
whatever had been between Jai and her cousin was not available to her, perhaps
never would be. Nor was it, sadly, any of her business. Olivia yawned, this
time with genuine fatigue. "If you have nothing
more to say,
then can we think of returning so that we can both go to sleep? You have a long
journey ahead of you tomorrow."