Ryman, Rebecca Read online

  "Indeed!" her mother exclaimed with cutting displeasure, and inwardly Olivia groaned; the giddy girl was really the limit! "If your cousin does carry a weapon, Estelle, perhaps it is because she is not aware that India isn't quite the Wild West yet, nor by England's grace is it likely ever to be. In the meanwhile, I would prefer you not to meddle in matters that in no way concern you." Sweeping out of the room she slammed the door behind her.

  Olivia glared at her cousin. "I wish you would stop championing my causes with such unnecessary fervor, Estelle! Your efforts always seem to end up making even more trouble for me—and for yourself. Now she knows I have a derringer and she's livid."

  "Oh, fiddlesticks! Mama bullies you the same as she does me, and I just don't think we should stand for it." Her blue eyes, so much like her mother's, showed no sign of repentance.

  "She doesn't bully either of us," Olivia said sharply. "She has her principles like everyone else, that's all." That she considered some of her aunt's principles absurd she had no intention of telling Estelle.

  "Principles, huh!" Estelle pouted and gazed thoughtfully at an orange. "It's all very well for you. You'll have to suffer them only for a year; I have to put up with them for life!"

  "Only if you choose to remain a spinster and, somehow, I can't really see that happening!" She grinned.

  Estelle tossed her flaxen curls with an air of disdain and jabbed her paintbrush into a pool of crimson lake. "I'll make sure it doesn't! When I'm eighteen, I shall do exactly as I please, so there!"

  "You do pretty much as you please right now."

  "Not as much as Polly does. Her mother lets her use lip salve and kohl and go to burra khanas with her beaux—and Polly's a whole six months younger than I am." The enormity of the injustice depressed her. She pushed away her water-colour, picked up the orange and started to peel it, scowling. "Uncle Sean never bullied you, did he? Can you imagine Papa letting me carry a derringer and taking me on a wagon train?"

  "There aren't any wagon trains in India," Olivia pointed out.

  Estelle dismissed the technicality with a wave. "If Uncle Sean always treated you as an adult, why can't they me? I'm not even allowed to eat what I want to when I want to without Mama making a fuss." She glowered at the orange segments, demolished them in a single mouthful and spat the pips out of the window with deliberate defiance.

  "But you still manage to," Olivia remarked drily. "What you can't have at table you bribe Babulal to give you later in the kitchen—and I've seen those biscuit tins under your bed, remember?"

  "Well, I'm not going to let Mama starve my body to death like she tried to crush my spirit, am I? I'll lay a wager Uncle Sean never—"

  "Our circumstances were quite different, Estelle," Olivia said hastily, uneasy in her cousin's persistent and misplaced admiration. Estelle was as lovable as she was exasperating, but Olivia had no intention of being blamed for inciting rebellion. "Now tell me," she changed the topic swiftly, "is Uncle Josh absolutely certain the ship will reach here in time? There's no chance of your dress being held up, is there?"

  Forgetting everything else, Estelle brightened. "Papa has promised he won't allow anyone to let me down. Oh, Olivia . . .," in her sudden change of mood she squealed, swept her puppy Clementine up in her arms and hugged it, ". . . I'd die, just die, if anything went wrong now. I'd never be able to look that silly Charlotte Smithers in the face again, not after everything she's been saying to Jane about my ensemble. Do you know what Jane actually had the gall to tell Mrs. Cleghorne, who told Marie who told Polly? She said ..."

  Olivia closed her eyes and stopped listening, satisfied that with the floodgates once again open her cousin's energies would all be expended on the most momentous future day of her life— her eighteenth birthday next month and the coming-of-age ball being planned for it. As the familiar torrents of gossip flowed out of an excited Estelle, Olivia allowed them to wash over her unnoticed, her monosyllabic responses all that Estelle desired.

  A year.

  Twelve months.

  Three hundred and sixty-five days—minus only sixty!

  Against the soothing murmur of Estelle's unheard chatter, Olivia's own familiar torrents of thought flooded her mind. How would she ever survive these three hundred and five remaining days of an exile that stretched ahead like a sterile desert, dull and joyless? She should never have come, never have given in to her father's well-meaning persuasions, insisted that he take her with him, as he had often done in the past. Glumly and for the thousandth time, Olivia decided that her coming to India had perhaps been a mistake . . .

  Which was an introspection very similar to the one Lady Bridget was indulging in as she absently supervised the pruning of the bougainvillea above the front portico. Had Olivia not taken so impartially and so equally from both parents, she mourned silently, there would have been no problem. That wilful stubbornness and hard set of the chin, those disarming hazel eyes so filled with innocent fire, that smile of blinding radiance that seemed to illuminate her face from within, the vulnerability behind the defiance—all these had come from Sarah. If one could overlook her disastrous taste in husbands, Sarah had many virtues even though high intellect and the ability to articulate it had not been among them. These, definitely, Olivia had acquired from her outrageous father. Whatever Lady Bridget's opinion of him—and it was unambivalent—she could not deny that Sean O'Rourke did have brains. That he chose to fritter them away in chasing rainbows Lady Bridget might have considered his business, had he not driven poor Sarah to her grave and defiled his daughter so thoroughly with his radicalism. Why, she had never even had an English nanny! And which high-born English gent would want to wed a lass who debated like a politician and gave a lecture where only a kiss was called for?

  Irascibly Lady Bridget rebuked the gardener for having let the vine grow wild and promised a deduction of four annas from his wages. But she remained abstracted. Certainly, Olivia's growing influence over Estelle was not Olivia's fault. Despite her fearsome spirit, Olivia was practical, resourceful, unspoilt and (when she chose to be) eminently sensible. That she had been allowed to run wild in a country already a wilderness was not her fault, any more than the fact that it was her less sterling qualities that Estelle chose to emulate. And it was her daughter's growing insurgency that alarmed Lady Bridget. English society forgave the Americans much because they didn't know any better; in an English girl born and bred amidst the most hallowed traditions of the aristocracy, radical behavior was neither easily forgiven nor quickly forgotten.

  As far as Olivia was concerned, Lady Bridget not only knew her duties but was determined to fulfil them to the best of her considerable ability. It was Estelle's future that was now beginning to cause her concern. Had it been a mistake, she wondered also for the thousandth time, to bring Olivia out here before Estelle was suitably wed? ...

  "Vindaloo? Oh, splendid." Estelle attacked the curry with gusto. "Is Papa going to be late again?"

  "Your father said not to wait dinner for him. He and Arthur will eat later in the study." Lady Bridget signalled Rehman, the chief bearer, to remove the serving dish from her daughter's purview.

  "It's that Sea Siren business again, isn't it?" Estelle adroitly outmanoeuvred the bearer to add one last spoonful of rice to her plate. "They say she was pirated because of all that opium on board."

  "Was she? Ask your father. I have no idea. Incidentally," she frowned, "Jane Watkins sent a note to say she's bringing both dresses in the morning. If you wish to still fit into them, Estelle, I suggest a little more restraint at table. I will not allow another gown for the Pennworthys' burra khana."

  "Oh, I'd forgotten all about the burra khana! But can I at least be measured for the green georgette, Mama? That is, if Olivia doesn't mind the beige."

  "No, I don't mind the beige." Olivia's heart sank—another dinner-party? Did folks in these parts have no other means of entertainment? Since she had arrived she had been to one, sometimes two, each week and more over weekends. "In any ca
se, I don't need another dress. I have more than I can use. Thank you."

  "Estelle has two other greens. I think you should have the georgette, Olivia," Lady Bridget said firmly, determined to make no differences between the girls. "Green suits you well, you know."

  "Oh, but it suits Estelle better," Olivia said, her eyes twinkling. "As the dashing Captain Sturges has no doubt already noted."

  Estelle blushed and tossed a napkin playfully at her cousin. "Well, who cares? It's you who has poor Freddie Birkhurst mooning like a lovesick duck, hasn't she, Mama?"

  "If Olivia has aroused the interest of Mr. Birkhurst," her mother said with a smug smile, "I see nothing wrong in that. Your cousin is a very personable, very eligible young lady with impeccable antecedents on ...," she almost said "on her mother's side" but thought better of it. "I should have told you earlier, Olivia, but it slipped my mind—Freddie Birkhurst has written to ask if he may escort you to the Pennworthys next week. Naturally I have been pleased to accept. I take it the arrangement finds favour with you?"

  With great restraint Olivia forbore from informing her aunt that it certainly did not! Freddie's obvious infatuation with her embarrassed and irritated her, as did the unilateral acceptance of his wretched invitation. "Do I have to go to the party at all?" Olivia asked bluntly, side-stepping the issue.

  "I thought young girls liked going to parties!" Inwardly Lady Bridget seethed again—what was wrong with this child? Had that wild Irish father of hers given her no social graces at all? "And it wouldn't do to disappoint poor Mr. Birkhurst now, would it?"

  "Olivia doesn't want to go because of Freddie," Estelle took it upon herself to explain. "She says he keeps staring at her and his eyes remind her of boiled gooseberries." She giggled and sucked noisily on a chicken drumstick. "They do rather, you have to admit, Mama."

  Under her breath Olivia muttered a strictly forbidden oath and her aunt bristled. "If Olivia finds Mr. Birkhurst's kind and entirely courteous attentions irksome, she is at perfect liberty to tell me so herself." She paused, but no response was forthcoming from her intimidated niece. "You see? Olivia has no such reservations. And I do think it's wicked of you to make idle mockery of the brave young men who sustain the outposts of our Empire with such dedication, Estelle!"

  It was a reproof for them both but, catching her cousin's eye, Olivia nearly giggled too. Everyone knew that if there was anything Freddie Birkhurst was dedicated to, it was devout self-indulgence. As for the Empire, in Freddie's own opinion, it could sustain itself very well without his help. Or, as many felt, better for that reason precisely.

  "Oh, Mama, stop worrying! You don't have to make matches for Olivia," Estelle offered without being asked. "She'll trap her own husband without even trying. Freddie isn't the only prospect in station ready, willing and able; they all are."

  A shocked silence ensued. Furious, Olivia broke it before her aunt could recover. Under the table her palms itched to smack her cousin's bottom. "I shall be very pleased to accept Mr. Birkhurst's offer," she said behind clenched teeth, somehow raising a smile.

  "It is kind of him to have made it." Crushing her cousin with a look, she excused herself from table and escaped into the back verandah.

  At last the storm had broken.

  In a clamour of thunder and lightning the still of the afternoon vanished to give way to whipping gales that raced across tree tops, making them dance like dervishes to rhythms dictated by arcane music. Jagged bolts of white light cracked open the skies, turning night into day bathed in eerie phosphorescence. Through the frenzied acacias at the foot of the garden, the Hooghly peaked and pranced as it joyously joined in the impromptu monsoon ballet, its waves rising in walls of animated abandon. If there was anything Olivia had come to love in Calcutta, it was these nightly seasonal rituals. Curled up in a cane chair in the verandah with Clementine in her lap, she sat and watched the play of earth and sky and water, comforted by an odd kind of security. Even half-way around the globe, a million years and miles away from her roots, this at least was familiar. The rolls of thunder, the gush of water down the drainpipes, the rain insects fluttering around the sconces, the rich smell of wet earth, the slush, the splashing sprays, the brilliant intensity of the nourished greens—these were the same here as at home.

  Home!

  Suddenly, she felt washed away again with nostalgia. Her eyelids started to sting and her throat hurt but, chewing hard on her lip, Olivia swallowed her homesickness. I will not cry, she vowed softly into Clementine's warm, musty fur. Come what may, I will not cry.

  It was past nine when carriage wheels rumbled up the drive and Sir Joshua's hearty bellow of "Koi hai?" sent the household again scurrying into activity as he rattled off orders in his fluent Hindustani.

  The storm had long subsided, leaving an aftermath of cool. Against a clear sky galleons of clouds skimmed tree tops, urged on by gentle wind. The inevitable chorus of cicadas and deep-throated frogs was in full concert around the verandah where Olivia still sat brooding. With the arrival of the master, fresh human sounds started up. Servants, barefooted and hushed, scampered up and down stairs like mice; overhead, punkahs squeaked as they circulated air, and in the pantry, under Lady Bridget's crisp supervision, glasses tinkled, crockery rattled and the pungent aroma of warming food arose. Sir Joshua's deep chuckles and Estelle's prattle floated in Olivia's direction from the front portico and a moment later heavy footsteps strode purposefully down to where she sat.

  "Jasmine threw you today?"

  "Well . . ." With a reproachful look at her cousin, Olivia lifted a cheek to receive Sir Joshua's peck. "I guess so."

  "Not hurt badly, I hope?"

  "Not hurt at all! Just a few grazes. Jasmine took that hedge so perfectly yesterday. I could have bet a silver dollar she'd do it again." Olivia made a wry face. "Fortunately, the ditch was full of water."

  "Fortunately?" Sir Joshua cocked an eyebrow. "Well, I could bet a silver dollar your aunt didn't see it quite like that! You had no business to try and turn poor old Jasmine into a steeplechaser. Don't risk it again, eh?" His eyes twinkled and he winked. "Let's keep that pioneering spirit on a shorter leash, shall we? I won't say more because I have no doubt Bridget has said it all. Had dinner?"

  "Yes," answered Estelle, "and there's chicken vindaloo curry with loads still left for you and Uncle Arthur." She nuzzled her father's arm fondly.

  "There is? What did you do then, starve yourself?" He laughed, patted his daughter's well-rounded behind and turned again to Olivia. "We had fun and games in the Chamber this morning. Those new tea levies seem to have opened a pretty can of worms, as you Americans might say. Come and join us later if you like. I'll tell you how we worthy boxwallahs become squabbling fishwives when it boils down to rupees, annas and pies." With Estelle still hanging on to his arm, he strode away.

  Olivia's spirits lifted, as they always did in the presence of her uncle, whom she liked enormously. As senior partner of Calcutta's largest tea exporting house, Templewood and Ransome, he was a merchant prince in stature, recently elected chief official of Calcutta's Chamber of Commerce. If Olivia found anything intellectually stimulating amidst the narrow confines of colonial society, it was the rough and tumble of the city's corporate life. Here, as in New York and Chicago, according to what her father had told her, murderous rivalries prevailed, especially in the China Coast trade where dog ate dog with neither compunction nor compassion and only the most primeval laws of the jungle applied.

  This complex, cold-blooded mercantile world fascinated Olivia. From her uncle she had learned much of the honourable East India Company, the world's largest trading establishment and bastion of English enterprise in India. From books borrowed from Sir Joshua's ample library, she had gathered that the rise of the establishment—known locally as John Company or Company Bahadur—had been spectacular. It virtually ruled India under charter from the Crown, or that part of India not ruled by the princes, and wielded immense power with its own army and the right to wage war if neces
sary. Founded in 1600 by eighty canny, hard-headed English businessmen, John Company capitalised with great profit on the open-ended wealth of the Orient: spices, silks, China teas, indigo, jute, cotton for Lancashire's mills, opium, camphor, shellac, perfumes and countless other commercially lucrative commodities. The cut and thrust of commercial life here reminded Olivia of her own country, where vast industries such as railroads, steel, and coal and other mining were burgeoning and competition on ever-expanding frontiers was as violent and fierce as in these imperial market-places.

  But if Olivia's interest in Calcutta's commerce amused Sir Joshua, it aggravated her aunt even more. After the men had eaten in the study, she cornered her husband in the bedroom when he came up for a wash. "I do wish you wouldn't encourage the girl, Josh, in these silly pursuits. Don't you consider her ideas forward enough as they are?"

  Standing before the mirror brushing out his mutton chop whiskers, Sir Joshua grunted. "The lass has a good brain between her ears. Let her use it if she wants to."

  "If she has a good brain between her ears let her use it to find a decent English husband!" his wife retorted. "She's here only for a year and she's not getting any younger. Would you approve of a spinster daughter almost twenty-three!"

  Having no particular opinion in the matter, he merely shrugged. He gave his whiskers a final pat and strolled out of the room, having no doubt dismissed the subject entirely from his mind. In the art of solemnly hearing his wife without listening to a word she said, Sir Joshua was something of a master.

  It was around ten that Olivia walked into Sir Joshua's study followed by Rehman bearing the coffee salver. Sir Joshua and his junior partner in the firm, Arthur Ransome, both held snifters of brandy and the air was thick with Havana cigar smoke. "Ah, there you are, m'dear." Lifting his chin Sir Joshua inhaled appreciatively. "I'm beginning to agree with Olivia, Arthur. There is a great deal to be said for Brazilian coffee."