Kingdom Lost (10 page)

When she wanted to do something she wanted to do it at once. It simply didn't occur to her to wait or to go through the door and down the staircase into the dark shut-in hall. The window was so much the nearer way; and to Valentine, who had climbed the island cliffs since she was a child, it was quite an easy way.

She did put on some clothes; but clothes were as yet either a vanity or a protection from cold. It was warm already, with the warmth that comes on a still summer day after rain; and as far as vanity was concerned, she was at the moment much more passionately interested in all this new green world than in the adornment of Valentine Ryven.

She discarded her night-gown, chiefly because it was long and would be in her way, but she would not put on any of the dresses which Barclay had given her, because she thought they would get spoilt in those wet, deep woods. It ended in her fishing out one of the island dresses made from the
Avronia's
sheets; and in this, bare-armed and bare-legged, she climbed out of her window with the help of a water-pipe in the near angle of the wall and the thick brown stem of the old wistaria which almost hid it.

She ran across the paved terrace, down the steps, and reached the long green stretch of turf that fell by an easy slope to the woodland. Last night's rain lay in a thick pearly dew. It bathed her feet deliciously. She ran on, and half way down the slope turned to look back at the house.

In yesterday's downpour she had not really seen it at all. It stood now above her, just touched by the rising sun, and looked at her with rows of blind, curtained windows. It was one of those square Georgian houses, beautiful in proportion and mellowed by sun, wind and rain to a most perfect harmony with its surroundings. The green of wistaria and Virginia creeper covered the entire front.

Valentine looked at it with awe. It held so many stories. Helena Ryven had told her that the house stood on the site of an older one which had been burnt down. Some of the furniture and a few of the portraits had come from this older house. She stared, trying to picture the two houses, one gone into smoke and ash, the other watching her. And all of a sudden she was frightened, and ran without stopping until she reached the trees.

It was more than an hour later that she came to the river. Sometimes she had walked, and sometimes stood quite still watching a bird, a squirrel, or a rabbit. The woods were enchanted woods, full of the loveliest wonders—ferns; lichen; a spider's web with the dew making rainbows in it; shy little furry creatures that could stay as still as she could and run even faster. She was seeing everything for the first time, and seeing it between rain and sun, with the bloom of dawn upon it.

When she came to the river, she remembered Timothy. He lived by the river, he and Lil. There was only one house in sight, a little picture-book cottage, all thatch and gables and pink climbing roses, sitting in a garden quite full of blue and pink and purple flowers. The garden ran down to the water's edge. She wondered if it was Timothy's house.

She sat down on a branch of willow and dabbled her feet in the water.

CHAPTER XI

Helena Ryven rang Timothy up at half-past seven, and he had only to hear her voice to know that she was angry. Helena angry was Helena even more restrained than usual. A feeling of boredom came over him. When Helena was restrained, it generally ended in his wanting to smash the furniture.

“She's gone,” said Mrs. Ryven slowly and distinctly.

“Who has gone?”

“My dear Timothy, I do
not
want to mention names.”

“Oh, very well—if this is a guessing game—”

“I want you to go and look for her at once.”

“Why me? What's wrong with Eustace? It seems to me—”

“Eustace went back to town last night. He naturally did not wish to stay here. Will you go at once?”

“Good Lord, Helena! I might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay. If the girl's gone for a walk, why fuss? She'll come back when she's hungry.”

Helena's voice became colder.

“I should not have rung you up if it were merely a case of a walk.”

“Well—what is it a case of?”

A pause. Then, icily:

“As far as I can make out, she has gone without any shoes or stockings.”

“Well, it's nice and warm—she won't hurt.”

“I must really beg you to be serious. She must have climbed out of the window, because everything downstairs was shut up. It is extremely important that someone should find her and bring her home at once. We can't have her wandering about without shoes and stockings or anything.”

“
Or anything?
My dear Helena—”

“Don't be a fool!” said Helena Ryven. “Please go and look for her. I suppose even you can see that we don't want to set everyone talking.”

Timothy got out his car, threw a coat of Lil's into it, and went off to look for Valentine, who might be anywhere within a ten-mile radius, or beyond it, if she got up really early.

That he found her in about twenty minutes was due to the fact that she was looking for him and had remembered approximately what he had told her about the position of his house. She was getting hungry, when she heard the car and moved away from the willow-tree to see where the sound was coming from.

She had come down through the woods to the river. About a hundred yards farther along, a winding road took a bend and ran for a mile or two above the stream. The car came round the bend, slowed down, and stopped.

Valentine called out, “Timothy!” and ran up the sloping bank.

“Oh, my hat!” said Timothy to himself.

Valentine came up to the car, running with an easy grace. Her hair hung in curls of a really startling wildness; her drenched sleeveless smock was stained and torn, her bare legs were scratched, and from one deepish cut a trickle of blood ran down to her wet foot.

She shook the curls out of her eyes, scrambled over the hedge, and jumped down on to the running board with a laugh.

“Oh, Timothy, I was looking for you!”

“Well, you've found me,” said Timothy. “Oh, Lord! Where
have
you been? Here—put this on quick!”

He fished out Lil's coat and held it up.

“I don't want it—I'm quite warm.”

“Put it on!” said Timothy.

He thrust it on her, and she began to laugh.

“Is it Lil's? I shall make it all wet. Are you going to take me to see Lil?”

“I'm going to take you straight back to Holt. Helena's raging.”

At Helena's name she changed, stopped laughing, and drew away.

She said “Why?” in a quick, breathless way; and all at once Timothy didn't want to take her back to Holt—not looking like that anyway.

“Oh, get in!” he said. “Look here, I'll take you back to have breakfast with Lil if you like. I can telephone to Helena, and Lil can lend you some clothes to go home in.”

“Lovely! Oh, Timothy—”

“What?”

“I didn't know anything could be as lovely as this!” Then, with a droop in her voice, “Is she angry? Why is she angry?”

Timothy started the car.

“I think she was frightened. She'll be all right by the time you get back.”

She gave a sigh and snuggled down into Lil's coat. They were turning and going back along the river's edge. The little picture-book cottage was being left behind. She leaned out to look at it.

“I thought you lived there. I was watching to see if you would come into the garden.”

“That's old Trent's cottage. Pretty—isn't it!”

“I wish you lived there. I wish I lived there. I don't think I want to live at Holt.”

“Holt belongs to you, Valentine,” said Timothy seriously.

She said “No,” saw his look of surprise, and found troubled, stumbling words of explanation: “It doesn't belong to me—I don't see how it could. It belongs to all those other people, it doesn't belong to me.”

“What people?”

Did she mean Helena and Eustace?

“All the old people. After you went away and Eustace, Aunt Helena showed me their pictures and told me stories about them.”

He thought, “Funny child—but rather nice.”

“What's bothering you?” he said.

She looked startled.

“Why does that bother you?”

“It doesn't—bother.”

“Something does.”

He took a quick sidelong glance and saw her flush and look away.

“There isn't room for me,” she said in a very low voice.

There was a silence.

Yesterday Timothy had been sorry for her. Today he did not feel exactly sorry. He had been angry and bored—fed up. And then, with extraordinary suddenness, he had stopped being angry and bored. He wondered shrewdly whether it was Holt that gave her the crowded feeling, or Helena. Helena had a way of making one feel crowded.

“Timothy—” said Valentine.

“What is it?”

“Why did you say that Lil would lend me some clothes to go home in?”

“Well—”

“Aren't these proper clothes?”

“They're very wet.”

“That's not what you meant.” She fingered the hem of her smock where the coat fell away. “It's what I wore on the island. I didn't want to spoil the dress that Barclay gave me. He gave me some lovely dresses. But they all got dirty on the yacht except the one I had on yesterday. So I thought—I was afraid—”

Her flush had deepened. He saw to his horror that her eyes were wet.

“I say—it doesn't matter.”

He heard a little woe-begone sniff.

“Edward said I should have to be so very careful when I came to England. He said it was folly to run counter to the established conditions of English society. He said—” Her voice wobbled.

Timothy fairly shouted.

“I say, I'm awfully sorry—but it did sound so funny!”

He looked round at her apologetically and found her laughing too.

“Oh, Timothy, you are nice!”

“Am I?”

He wondered a little what her standard was.

The road began to leave the river. It took an upward slope. The fields on either side of it were Timothy's fields. Now they bent towards the river again. A tall holly hedge rose like a black wall on their left.

Timothy turned in between grey stone pillars.

“Is this your house?”

He nodded.

The drive was like a green tunnel. Under yesterday's rain it would have been black. To-day the sun shone through the crowding foliage like light coming through a stained glass window.

The car came out of the tunnel and stopped in front of a low white house with a thatched roof. The walls were almost hidden by climbing roses, and a very large lavender bush bloomed on either side of the front door.

Timothy Brand had inherited from his father one of those old small manor houses which are fairly plentiful in the south of England. The land that went with it had steadily dwindled in value, and if Mr. Brand had not been able to leave his son some hundreds a year from other sources, Timothy would have been forced to take his farming tastes to one of the Dominions.

As Valentine jumped out, the door opened and a girl in a bright blue cotton dress ran to meet them. She had fair hair rather like Timothy's, and a peaked thin face which looked pretty when she was flushed with excitement; her eyes were a very bright pale blue. She looked at her coat on the strange girl. And then Valentine made one of her quick movements.

“Oh, Lil! You are Lil, aren't you? Timothy has brought me to breakfast. And I've made your coat wet—and Timothy says you'll lend me some proper clothes.”

“She's drenched,” said Timothy. “Take her away and give her something dry to put on.”

Valentine followed Lil Egerton up a staircase with heavy oak newel posts into a whitewashed bedroom that had bright blue curtains at the casement windows.

Lil stared as the coat came off. What clothes!

“Have you been in the river?”

“No—only in the woods. I didn't think there was anything so lovely—” She broke off, slipping out of the wet smock and displaying a pink Parisian undergarment to Lil's astonished eyes. “And there were creatures—do you think I had better wash my feet?—There was one with a bushy tail that ran up a tree and held up his paws and made such a funny scolding noise. Do you think he was a squirrel? Edward told me about squirrels, but I've never seen one. Oh, thank you! It was the long thorny things that scratched me.”

“What does it feel like?” said Lil suddenly.

She had poured water into a bowl and was watching Valentine's quick movements.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything,” said Lil with a wave of the towel she was holding. “I wanted to see you before you got used to it all. I'd have given anything to be there when you arrived yesterday, but of course Mrs. Ryven—”

“Why do you call her Mrs. Ryven?”

Lil tossed her head.

“I'd like to see her face if I were to call her Helena!” She laughed. “She's Timothy's half-sister, and I'm Timothy's half-sister. But she's always taken particular pains to make it quite clear that I'm not a relation, so I wondered when I was going to be allowed to see you.”

Her antagonism to Helena Ryven was so plain that Valentine was abashed. She took the towel and sat down on the floor to dry her feet. After a moment she looked up sideways, as a bird looks at a crumb which he does not feel quite sure about.

“I've never talked to a girl before.”

“How do you get on with Mrs. Ryven and the great Eustace?” Lil never took hints; when she wanted to know things she asked about them and went on asking.

Valentine finished drying her left foot in silence.

“Well—how did you get on with her? Of course Eustace is frightfully good looking. But I never know what to talk to him about—he won't be bothered, you know. Did he talk to you?”