Ryman, Rebecca (58 page)

Even
husks of human beings, after all the substance has been removed from within,
make demands. They have to be washed and clothed and fed regardless of
circumstances. The pursuit of survival is as shameless as it is persistent.
Time moves, the earth
spins, the sun rises and sets; the home might be a ruin but the household still
has to run. And for this small blessing, Olivia was grateful. With Lady Bridget
confined to her room and still compressed within her solitary self, unspeaking
and uncaring, the duties of maintaining a semblance of domestic normalcy
naturally fell on Olivia's shoulders. Like a sinking man chancing upon a piece
of drift-wood, she grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

News
of Estelle's hasty departure for England and of Lady Bridget's sudden
"illness" spread rapidly. Inevitably, a steady stream of daily visitors
followed. Early each morning Ransome arrived to whisk Sir Joshua off to his own
home, where he would be away from prying eyes, for his condition was still
pathetic. Since his presence at home during the day was not expected anyway, no
questions were asked about his absence. Lady Bridget, on the other hand, was
simply not allowed visitors yet, everyone was told. What alibis Arthur Ransome
presented at the office Olivia didn't know, but they seemed to be adequate for
the moment. For the moment. Those three words set the tone of the household
now, and what was most important for the moment was to avoid a scandal that
would surely take Lady Bridget to an early grave even if she survived her
daughter's monstrous elopement. The daily visitors with their probing
questions, their sly little observations, their expressions of deceptive
innocence— all these Olivia managed, if not with ease then certainly without
overt unease. Dr. Humphries, however, came under a different category
altogether. Arthur Ransome agreed with Olivia that they would have to take him
into their partial confidence.

There
is very little in life that can shock a family physician, especially one as
experienced and canny as Dr. Humphries. After Olivia had completed her recital,
he merely harrumphed and remained silent for a while. A bristly red eyebrow
rose minimally and he scratched his large sponge of a nose with the tip of a
finger-nail. "So that's what it's all been about, is it? Well, I've had my
suspicions, I can tell you that. I can't see Bridget in such a state only
because of the death of some old biddy of a friend or Estelle's departure on a
normal holiday." He frowned thoughtfully. "And you have no idea who
the man might be?"

"No,
none. Estelle doesn't seem to have confided in anyone, certainly not me. She
knew I would have tried to stop her. They obviously planned the elopement with
great secrecy to ensure its success."

Not
for a moment did the doctor doubt Olivia's sincerity. He
merely
tsk-tsked in detached disapproval. "Silly, straw-headed lass! She'll
regret it, of course. They all do. But often, the leisure to repent comes too
late to prevent a bun in the oven—if you'll excuse my frankness—and nine out of
ten times without benefit of clergy." He shook his head and pulled in a breath.
"How has Josh taken it? I can see what it's done to her poor mother."

"Very
badly. He's been drinking steadily. One more thing, Dr. Humphries ..." She
coloured slightly. "As you can see now, there is a desperate need for
total discretion on our part. For Aunt Bridget, especially, a scandal must be
avoided at all costs. Even the whisper of a rumour at the moment could be added
disaster for her."

He
smiled a little, catching the point immediately. "My dear, doctors these
days might not know much about the practice of medicine," he said drily,
"but not one that I know is idiot enough to share such a confidence with
his wife. Of course, how long you can keep this kind of thing under covers I'm
not sure. In India, if you happen to sneeze in Peshawar, everyone hears it
right down to Cape Comorin. But don't worry," his eyes twinkled, "if
Millie ever learns about this, it won't be from me."

He
refused bluntly to propagate the canard that Lady Bridget had been struck down
by some rare, mysterious tropical fever that might be contagious, but agreed to
help as far as not denying the rumour if someone else started it. He promised,
however, that he would confirm that he had forbidden her visitors for the
present. Well, so much for Lady Bridget's enforced withdrawal from the world,
Olivia thought, envying her bitterly; Sir Joshua's, on the other hand, was
easier to explain. His recent business troubles had taken a heavy toll on his
health, and now added to that was his wife's serious condition. That he was
also pining secretly for the beloved daughter who had never before left his
side was also natural. If he was drinking heavily, well, it was small wonder.
In his shoes, any man would.

Her
own situation Olivia had no time to consider, or made sure she had no time to
consider. As she went through her onerous daily chores—making as much work for
herself as she could—she charmed visitors, parried questions and devised new
lies and excuses. Always smiling till her jaws felt numb, she observed herself
in wonder. She should be sick of being a pillar of strength, of being noble and
virtuous and selfless and resourceful, as everyone never tired of telling her.
After all, she too had been bereaved; she too had been abandoned, deceived and
discarded.
Behind her patently cultivated façades too lay a living hell that should be
charring her to ashes. She should be sick of pretending to be invisible.

She
should be crying. Oh dear God, how very much she needed that!

But
no tears came. Within her she was a desert, vast and empty and parched, devoid
of any but the most elementary signs of life. Inside she seemed to have almost
withered and died. What she should be feeling was grief, anger, bitterness and
hate, but all she felt was fatigue. One small blessing kept her away from rank
insanity: the steady flow of mail packets from her father, from Sally and her
boys, from Greg—from all those who held meaning in a life that was remote but
not wholly forgotten. The letters became the pivot of her days, securing her
tenuous hold on reality, reassuring her that apart from this world there was
another to which she would return one day when all this was over.

Over?
No, that was the wrong word; it would never be over. The escape vital to her
salvation was not from this world of her doom but from herself, and that would
never be. In the meantime, in one of his letters her father wrote, "By the
way, you mention that you have not met any young man so far who has impressed
you. It is possible that this is no longer so, and I await your response
anxiously."

The
bitter irony of the inquiry should have made Olivia weep. It didn't. Instead,
it left no impression whatsoever.

The
laughable charade being played for the benefit of the society that Lady Bridget
feared so much could hardly continue indefinitely. But to flee suddenly into
some distant oblivion was impossible, for it would merely set wagging those
very tongues that Olivia was trying so frantically to still. But ten days after
Estelle's elopement, when the travesty of their lives had stretched their nerves
to the breaking point, Arthur Ransome decided that the need to escape was now
acute.

"To
hell with them all," he said in a rare burst of temper. "I will make
arrangements to spend a few days in the Barrackpore house. We can leave early
next week as soon as I have tied up some loose ends at the office."

Olivia
guessed what those "loose ends" might be but she
didn't ask any
questions; she no longer cared one way or the other. "Yes. That would be
fine. For what it might be worth, we do need to get away."

Physically,
Lady Bridget had recovered but her mind still seemed to be a blank. She spoke
little and cried not at all, at least not in anyone's presence. Refusing to
leave her room, she sat brooding for hours, eating only what was absolutely
essential for survival and responding to no stimuli that Olivia could produce
by way of conversation. Clearly but gently, Olivia explained to her the cruel
facts of their subterfuge and what had been told to Dr. Humphries. Lady Bridget
listened with an appearance of intentness, but since she made no comment it was
difficult to tell how much she had assimilated. She never mentioned Estelle,
and showed no reaction when her name was spoken. Neither did she ever mention
her husband. Outwardly she seemed serene but her eyes remained vacant, as if
not in the same dimension as the rest of her body. Only her hands moved
constantly, nagging at each other in her lap in some nervous frenzy of inner
restlessness.

On
Dr. Humphries's advice, Sir Joshua's articles of daily use had been removed
from the master bedroom into the second downstairs guest-room. "Both he
and Bridget need privacy from each other at the moment," Dr. Humphries had
said. "In any case Bridget hates the smell of liquor and I don't want my
patient asphyxiated with those damned fumes Josh carries around with him like a
perambulating distillery."

Of
course, Dr. Humphries did not know that since that first night, Sir Joshua had
not climbed the stairs even once. When he was at home he remained incarcerated
in his study, where only Rehman and Arthur Ransome ventured. Lost on either
side of a wordless world of bitterness, Sir Joshua Templewood and Lady Bridget
had ceased to acknowledge each other's existence.

The
decision to temporarily move to Barrackpore seemed to put Arthur Ransome in a
better frame of mind and his expression brightened. "I myself could do
with a fishing holiday," he muttered. "And the Barrackpore place is
very comfortable although Josh and Bridget hardly use it." Ransome and
Olivia were sitting by the cheerful fire sharing idle chatter after the day's
work was done. Sipping a mug of hot milk Olivia examined him with compassion;
if the past few days had been hard on her, they had not been easy on him
either. He looked worn and at the end of his tether. He spoke again.
"Slocum is prepared to bury the whole tedious business," he said
abruptly. "With the bird having flown, there's not much point in keeping
the cage."

They
had not touched on the subject for days. The distance
it had acquired
in Olivia's thoughts obviated the need for caution. "But they have not
found Das's body yet, have they?"

The
look he gave her was sharp. "He may not be dead."

"Uncle
Josh seems certain that he is. For my uncle's sake— yours too, perhaps—I hope
he is right. Alive, Kashinath Das could be a further embarrassment to you both,
considering that explicit confession." She said it all with admirable lack
of inhibition. With no more sides to take, she could afford to be blunt.

He
didn't insult her intelligence by denying it. "Yes," he conceded,
"he would. Where did you read the document?"

"Uncle
Josh has a copy."

He
did not question the plausible explanation. "So does Slocum," he said
sourly. He cogitated a moment, then nodded. "Yes, Josh is right, Jai has
killed Das. in view of his damning testimony, his part in this . . . this
tragic misadventure, it is unlikely that he could have escaped." He
lowered his eyes, depressed by the admission.

"And
the body will now never be found," Olivia commented.

"No.
It will never be found. You see, it has sailed with Raventhorne on the
Ganga,"
A
small sense of shock stirred in Olivia—that last night in port he had had
a
cadaver
aboard? While she was with him? "Josh guessed that, of
course, but Slocum could not have. He issued warrants for several other places
to be searched."