Kingdom Lost (14 page)

Eustace did not answer. He turned to the table and wrote rapidly for a moment. As he looked up again, his mother was saying,

“When are you coming down?”

“I? Never.” There was both pride and distaste in his voice.

“I want you to reconsider that.”

He shook his head.

“Can you afford to indulge a personal feeling at the expense of your work?”

“How does my work come in?”

Helena chose her words carefully.

“Valentine is inclined to be deeply interested in it. She will have a very large income for the next five years, and at the end of that time she will be free to make any dispositions she thinks fit. She is, at the moment, a warm-hearted, impressionable child. I should like you to come to Holt and tell her what you have been doing with regard to the slum property.”

Eustace pushed back his chair and walked to the window. He was so near to Helena that she had only to lift her left hand from the arm of her chair and it would touch him. She had the feeling that he was a very long way off. When he turned round, his face had changed. It was less set.

“If she could really be got to take an interest, it would be something. Old Gray wouldn't let her do much out of income though. He's a mass of prejudice, and he'll have control until she's twenty-five.”

“Unless she marries,” said Mrs. Ryven. There was no expression whatever in her voice.

When she had gone, Katherine Hill came back with half a dozen letters for him to sign. Eustace wrote his name at the foot of each in a beautifully clear hand. When he had finished, he looked up. She was standing at the other side of the table, facing him, the tips of her fingers just resting on the bevelled mahogany edge. Her eyes were cast down. He reflected that Katherine was the only woman he knew who could remain perfectly still and perfectly silent. Other women fidgeted, moved things, patted their hair. If he kept Katherine waiting for half an hour, she would not move at all. He found his mother's question on his lips.

“Have you settled anything yet—about yourself?”

Without looking up she said “No—” in that rather deep, slow voice which was not like anyone else's.

He sat there with the signed letters in his hand and made no comment.

Katherine Hill lifted her eyes and saw what Helena had seen, and a little more. He looked ill; there were lines—quite new; his face had sharpened; he held himself as if he were carrying something heavy; the hand that was holding the letters held them over-tightly. She thought he had not slept since Valentine Ryven came to Holt.

“And you?” she said.

“I told you my plans. I am going to St. Luke's. I can still give service.”

A flash came and went in Katherine Hill's dark grey eyes. They were so dark, the iris so heavily ringed with black, that they looked black. But black eyes are brilliant and hard; it is only those dark grey eyes that have the trick of tragedy. That flash between the thick black lashes lighted sombre depths.

“Why don't you fight the case?” said Katherine Hill.

“There's no case to fight—there's no doubt at all. She is certainly Valentine Ryven.”

“That's what you all say. But how do you know? She's got a good case, and she's got Mr. Waterson on her side; but I've never heard of any case so good that a clever lawyer couldn't find a hole in it. You're taking it lying down.” She repeated the last words on a deeper, almost violent tone, “
Lying down
. Don't you want to fight? I should if I were you. I should want to fight to the last ditch. If I lost, I'd have the satisfaction of knowing I'd put up a good show.”

“No, I don't feel like that.” His tone was quiet and meditative, the greatest possible contrast to hers. “I don't feel like that—and I couldn't fight a claim which I am quite sure is a just one.”

Katherine had not moved at all. She said,

“No—” with a leap in her voice, “you don't care enough to fight for anything.”

“Don't I?”

“Do you? I don't think you do, or you'd
fight
—fight and be beaten—but
fight
!” She leaned just a little forward upon her hands—strong white hands, beautifully shaped and very strong. “I came along Parkin Row this morning, just to look at it. I looked at it—all those damned filthy refuse heaps of houses festering in the sun—all those horrible crushed, draggled women—all those verminous children. They can just go on as they are because you're too proud to fight!”

Eustace leaned back in his chair.

“That is not true. I would fight if there was any case. There isn't.”

“There's always a case! A lawyer would find you one. You haven't tried—you're just taking old Waterson's word.” She paused and then spoke his name strangely poignantly—“Eustace!”

Eustace Ryven was conscious of a sort of weary surprise. Katherine had never called him Eustace before. Until six months ago he had called her Miss Hill. Then, in an extra press of work, she had imported a friend to help them out, and with the friend saying “Katherine” all day long, he had slipped into saying it too. But she had never called him Eustace. He was just not quite conscious that it was months since she had called him Mr. Ryven. He was feeling too tired to speculate on why she used his name now; he was too tired to admit a new idea, combative and disturbing, into the arena in which he had already fought himself to a standstill. He was concerned, deeply concerned, to maintain a calm, indifferent front. Not to the world, not to Helena, not to Katherine, would he show the wound through which interest, zest, all that he really cared for, was slowly draining away.

He shook his head and, with the feeling that he must end the scene, took up a packet of envelopes and began to fold the letters he had signed.

Katherine lifted her hands off the table. The deep smouldering fire showed in her eyes.

“Of course there's an easy way out for you,” she said. She spoke low and steadily, her voice held in so that it had no vibration—a ghost of a voice.

“
I
?” said Eustace; and just for a moment his pain showed.

“You've only to marry her,” said Katherine Hill. And with the last word she turned and went out of the room; the door shut quietly behind her. A moment later the outer door shut too.

Eustace stayed without moving for half an hour. Then he addressed his letters and stamped them; after which he locked up the office and walked to his flat, posting the letters on the way.

Life seemed a tolerably drab affair.

CHAPTER XV

Austin Muir answered Valentine's letter by return of post. It was the very first letter that she had ever received. The housemaid brought it up to her when she came in to draw up the blinds and to say that her bath was ready. The blinds were already up, because, whatever the weather was, Valentine liked as much of it indoors as possible.

Austin's letter came after a night when the moon had walked beautifully over the black woods, and turned the dewy lawns into sheets of silver water. Then, with the dawn, there was a clouding, and the sun came up in a mist, all red, and for the space of half an hour the sky ran scarlet. After that a still grey day, just trembling into rain. The windows were damp when Agnes stood by them for a moment arranging the curtains. Then she went out and left Valentine alone with her letter.

Valentine took one jump out of bed and ran to the window.

The letter wasn't very thick. It must be from Austin, because she had written to him. It couldn't be from anyone else—oh, it couldn't. But if it were—

She sat down on the wide window-ledge and tore open the envelope very carefully, because she had never opened one before and it would be dreadful if she hurt Austin's letter. She wondered which day he would come. She wondered whether Barclay would come with him. Her fingers shook with excitement as she took out the letter and unfolded it.

“Dear Valentine”—Austin wrote a very neat upright hand—

D
EAR
V
ALENTINE
,

It was good of you to write, but I think I had much better not come and see you. It is better that we should not meet. If you don't realize that now, you will very soon. I've got my way to make, and we are not at all likely to come across each other again. Barclay has gone to America on business. I expect to be very busy from now on, as the General Election has been definitely decided upon. I will say good-bye now.
Yours sincerely,

A
USTIN
M
UIR
.

Valentine read the last words through two large unshed tears. He had promised—and he wasn't coming. It didn't even sound as if he wanted to come. He wasn't her own best friend—he wasn't her friend at all; he was “Yours sincerely.” And Barclay had gone to America.

She let the letter fall and went down beside it on the floor all in a heap, her arms on the sill, her face pressed down on them, quivering. The two unshed tears burned hot and wet against the back of her right hand, but no more came. It would not have hurt so much if she could have cried. But what she had told Timothy was true—unhappiness stayed in her heart; it had no easy outlet in tears.

She began to think miserably about the money. It was because of the money that Austin wouldn't come. Eustace didn't come either. Perhaps that was because of the money too—and Aunt Helena. She began to hate the money very much; and, for the first time, she thought back and saw the island as a place where she had been happy, a rock in a blue sea. She had had something there which had been taken away from her now. Helena Ryven—when she was on the island she always had her picture of Helena, wanting her, loving her—her picture of a playfellow—Eustace—a family like the nicest family in her nicest book. That was on the island.

She had stood on the deck of the yacht, whilst the island slipped away into the sunset, and dwindled, and was gone. She had not even watched it go; she had been looking so eagerly towards England. And in England, instead of finding the dream come true, she found that money mattered much more than anything else; it mattered more than people loving each other—and much more than being friends. She hated it with all her heart.

It was after breakfast that she asked Helena Ryven when Eustace was coming to Holt.

“I don't know, Valentine.”

“I would like him to come.”

“He is very busy.”

“What does he do?”

“I told you the other day what he had been doing. In his altered circumstances, he cannot of course go on with his plans of rebuilding the slum property. All the work has to be cancelled. It is naturally giving him a good deal to do.”

“Will he come when he has finished doing it?”

“I don't think so.”

Mrs. Ryven was at her writing-table in the little room which had always been her own sitting-room—a pleasant room furnished with quiet good taste. From the mantelpiece a row of miniatures gazed with simpering, high-nosed approval; the men in stocks, and well-frilled shirts, and coats of sage or prune or scarlet; and the ladies powdered, high-busted,
fichu'd
, and of an unearthly delicacy of complexion. On the chairs pale, dimly patterned linen covers. On the walls soft colour prints. At the windows straight wine-coloured curtains. Everything in the room seemed a long way off and a long time ago. Helena Ryven made one feel a long way off.

Valentine understood that Eustace Ryven would not come to Holt because she had taken Holt away from him. She said what was in her mind:

“He won't come here.”

Mrs. Ryven frowned. She took an envelope and addressed it. When she had stamped her letter she turned round. Valentine was standing by the mantelpiece; she looked pale and dejected.

“I have to go to London again to-morrow.” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”

“Oh, yes!” The dejection vanished; the blue eyes brightened. “Oh, Aunt Helena, how lovely!”

“We could lunch with the Cobbs,” said Helena thoughtfully.

Valentine sprang at her. She stopped just short of an impulsive embrace and stood with her hands clasped at her breast.

“And see Marjy and Reggie?”

“Probably. I believe Reggie comes home to lunch.”

“How lovely! And—and—shall I see Eustace?”

The silence did not really last very long. Then Mrs. Ryven said,

“I thought perhaps you might care to see something of what Eustace has been doing. After all, he has been in some sense your”—she paused, rejected the word steward, and, reflecting that she had only Valentine for an audience, used rather deliberately the grandiloquent, “viceroy—he has been your viceroy, hasn't he? Would you like to see what he has been doing?” Her voice sounded warmer, perhaps because her mind was not quite at ease.

Valentine flushed delightedly.

“Oh, yes! Oh,
yes
, Aunt Helena!”

Timothy and Lil came up to dinner that evening. Mrs. Ryven allowed her gaze to rest for a marked moment upon the bright green dress which Lil had evidently made herself. It was very bright and very short, and Lil had been very much pleased with it until Helena looked at it like that. It was not a frowning look or a disagreeable look; it was just a look. Yet Lil was instantly aware that her frock was not all that she had thought it, and that Helena, as usual, considered her lacking in taste and a social handicap to Timothy. Her colour rose unbecomingly and remained high.

At dinner she talked a good deal about Jack Harding, choosing the moments when the servants were in the room.

“He's getting on splendidly,” she declared as she helped herself to the
entrée
. “I went to see Mrs. Hambrough the other day—you know he's her favourite nephew—and she's so pleased with the way he's getting on that she's going to give us one of her famous eiderdowns—every bit made with her own feathers. She only gives them to relations she approves of, because they take ages to make and all the feathers have to be picked over by hand.” She turned to Valentine with a pleasant consciousness of having scored off Helena. “She's Mr. Harding's sister—a darling untidy old thing. Her husband has one of your farms.”