Kingdom Lost (2 page)

“No—I'm afraid we haven't.”

“What a pity! Edward said—”

Austin felt inclined to say, “Damn Edward!” Instead, he mopped his brow.
A nice lady!
Good heavens! She might have been six years old. He tried to reconcile the nice lady with Matthew Arnold, failed, looked up, and found the bright blue eyes fixed on him with passionate interest.

“How red your face is! Edward said—”

“Look here,” said Austin, “who are you, and what are you doing here? “Then, abruptly, “Is that water salt or fresh? I'd just about give the world for a drink.”

“It's quite nice and fresh,” said the girl; and with that he was on his knees scooping up the coldest water he had ever touched. He had the fleeting thought that it must come from very far below—some spring too deep to be warmed by all this dizzy heat.

He rose from his knees to repeat his question:

“Who on earth are you—and what are you doing here?”

The answer came at once in a most serious voice:

“I'm not doing anything—I'm just living. I'm Valentine Ryven.”

“How did you get here?”

“On a ship, like you did—only of course I don't remember it.”

“You don't remember it?”

“Because I was a baby. The ship was wrecked. It was called the
Avronia
. And nobody was saved except Edward and me.”

Austin found himself frowning.

“Are you telling me that you've lived on this island ever since you were a baby?”

“Of course I have.”

“For”—he sized her up—“eighteen or nineteen years?”

“Twenty years,” said Valentine mournfully.

Austin had a spasm of unbelief. The island; the hen; Matthew Arnold; and the palm-trees—he was hanged if he was going to be hypnotized into believing in a perfectly preposterous story just because it was pushed at him in this preposterous setting.

“Are you trying to pull my leg?” he said, and was aware of the words falling back as from a blank wall.

Valentine looked at him inquiringly.

“I didn't understand that.” She seemed interested. “I expect there will be a great many things that I don't understand.”

He mopped his brow again.

“Do you mean you've really been here all your life?”

“Of course I do.” She paused, and then suggested hospitably, “You may come a little nearer if you like. There's a stone there that's quite comfortable to sit on. You look so hot.”

“I am hot,” said Austin.

He made his way to the stone and saw the girl swing herself lightly down until she reached the water level. She sat clasping her knee and leaning forward. The pool was between them.

“Are you English? What is your name?”

“Scotch,” said Austin. “And my name is Muir—Austin Muir.”

“Edward said the Scotch were a very reliable people. Are you reliable?”

“I hope so.”

“Edward said I must be very careful.”

It is to Austin's credit that he restrained himself.

“Who on earth is Edward?”

“I told you. He was on the ship. He saved me when I was a baby, and he brought me up. He was a Fellow.”

“A Fellow?”

“Of Trinity.” She spoke with innocent pride. Then she drooped and looked into the water. “He always said people would come some day. He wanted to go back so much. He—”

The hands that were clasped about her knee tightened; he saw the knuckles show white against the brown. Her voice did not shake; it just left off. She became as motionless as the stone.

Embarrassment kept Austin silent. Presently he saw her pose relax.

“It was three months ago,” she said.

He spoke then:

“Do you mean—you've been here alone for three months?”

“Yes—I counted very carefully. Edward always said that if anything happened to him, I must be very, very careful. He said if I wasn't careful, when the ship came, there wouldn't be any place for me in a modern civilization—and he said one of the most important things was not to lose count of time—so I counted very carefully.”

“A modern civilization.” The phrase called up a pedagogic shade. Austin began to believe the odd story, and then fell back into scepticism. The hen—what about the hen? He fired the creature point blank at Valentine.

“Look here, you're having me on. What about the hen? Hens don't grow on uninhabited islands, you know.”

He had said this to himself so often in the last half hour that it was an immense relief to say it out loud.

“A hen?”

“Yes, a hen.”

She nodded.

“Semiramis, I expect. She
will
get over the wall.”

Austin frowned portentously. She
was
having him on; he felt sure of it.

“Look here, why don't you tell me the truth? Don't you see that the hen puts the kibosh on this yarn of yours?”

He was prepared for anger, but not for glowing interest.

“Is that slang? Edward didn't know any—or at least hardly any. Do say it again!”

Austin did not say it again. He looked angry and said stubbornly, “Hens don't grow on uninhabited islands.”

Valentine nodded again.

“No, they don't. And wouldn't it have been dreadful if we hadn't had the hens—and the cocoanuts? Edward often said—”

Austin interrupted her.

“What are you talking about?”

“About the cocoanuts and the hens. They were on the ship.”

“Oh—they were on the ship. And how did they get here?”

“Edward brought them. First he brought me, and then he brought the hens. He tried to bring a goat, but it fell into the sea. And then he brought the cocoanuts. Wasn't it a mercy they
grew
?”

Austin stared. Was it possible?

“I thought you said the ship was wrecked.”

“Yes, it was—it struck on the rocks.” She pointed away to the right. “It's all straight cliff now, but there were rocks then, and a sort of beach. The ship stuck there for two years, so Edward had plenty of time to get things away. I don't remember about it—I don't remember anything before I was three. The big storm was when I was two and a half. The ship went then. Edward thought the island was going too, and when the storm was over, it had sunk twenty feet, and the beach was gone, and you couldn't see the rocks. If you've got a ship, you'd better be careful.”

“He brought things away from the ship?” said Austin. “Papers—and things like that? You mean you can prove all this?”

She looked at him rather reprovingly.

“Of course. Didn't you believe what I was saying?”

“You can prove it?”

“I've got all my mother's papers. Edward said I must keep them
very
carefully.”

Austin got up.

“Where are they?”

Valentine swung her foot and looked down into the water.

“Where are they?” he repeated.

He saw a little colour come into her face. Then her eyes lifted in a searching blue gaze. He was aware of being weighed in Edward's balance. He met the gaze half angrily.

Valentine unclasped her hands and sprang up.

“I want to see your ship! Take me first of all to see your ship!” she cried.

CHAPTER II

Valentine, scrambling with him over the rough ground towards the edge of the cliff, became imperceptibly less guarded and on the alert. Scrambling is perhaps the wrong word; she was extraordinarily sure and light on her bare brown feet. She had breath enough to talk with too, and she talked more and more freely.

Austin found himself believing every word of the strange, naïve tale. Twenty years ago, in the early spring of 1908, Edward Bowden, Fellow of Trinity, author of
England and the Renaissance, England and the Feudal System
, and half a dozen other standard works, had been taking a prolonged and rambling holiday necessitated by overwork. He had found himself ultimately on the
Avronia
, bound from New Zealand to San Francisco.

On the same boat was Mrs. Ryven, a young widow with a child six months old. She had lost her husband in New Zealand and was returning to England by way of America because her only brother had settled in California and she wished to spend some weeks with him. The ship encountered a terrific hurricane and was carried out of her course. At a moment when she appeared to be sinking the passengers took to the boats.

“Edward said he thought he would drown peacefully with the ship, so he didn't get into a boat though they wanted him to. And the boats all upset and everyone was drowned—only someone had asked him to hold me whilst they got my mother into a boat—he said she had fainted—so he did. And a great wave came and broke the boat to bits; and he doesn't know why he wasn't carried away—but he wasn't. And he crawled inside the companion and waited for us both to be drowned—and we weren't. Edward said when he found there was no one else left on the ship, but only him and me, he was very sorry we hadn't been drowned too. He said he didn't think we could be saved and it seemed to be taking such a long time. He said the wind kept carrying the ship along and banging it about, and he thought every minute it was going to go down—only it didn't. Everything was broken and flung down, and he had to crawl about and find something to feed me with, because I was hungry and screamed all the time. Edward hadn't ever had anything to do with a baby before. It was dreadful for him—wasn't it?”

Austin agreed. He was not imaginative; but a deserted ship, a hurricane, a baby, and an Oxford don struck him as making a pretty appalling combination.

“He found milk in tins, and afterwards he found there was a goat. And then we came to the island—I
think
it was three days after—Edward didn't like talking about it very much. The ship stuck on the island, on the little beach I told you about. It jammed there, tight. There wasn't anything on the island then—not anything to eat, except some sea-birds' eggs. I
am
glad we didn't have to live on sea-birds' eggs, because they taste like bad fish. There were lots of things on the ship. Edward got them all off. And he planted the cocoanuts, and they grew. He said he couldn't attempt to describe what he felt like when he saw the first little cocoanutshoot.”

“Where does the water come from?” asked Austin.

“It's a very deep spring. There's a hot one and a cold one. You can boil eggs in the hot one—Oh! Is that your ship?”

They had reached the edge of the cliff. The yacht lay beneath them, motionless on the unmoving water. Valentine gazed with all her eyes, standing so near the dizzy edge that Austin instinctively put out a hand to steady her. At his touch the wild thing showed again; her sideways leap literally brought his heart into his mouth. One moment she was there with his hand just brushing her arm; the next she was a couple of yards away on the brink, leaning seawards, her eyes darkly startled and her colour high.

“Look out!” he said, and in a flash she had gone farther still.

“Don't touch me! You mustn't!”

Austin found himself furious, partly because she had really frightened him.

“I don't want to touch you. I was afraid you'd fall.”

She laughed then for the first time, a pretty laugh full of young scorn.

“Fall!” she said. “How silly!”

“It would be quite easy. You'd better be careful.”

He saw her face change, whiten, her eyes cloud fearfully.

She said, “Edward fell,” in a small whispering voice.

Austin said, “Oh—”

“There's a place we fish from. You have to climb down to it. He fell—into the sea.”

“For heaven's sake come away from that edge!” said Austin, and saw her take a long breath.

“
I
shan't fall,” she said.

She looked again at the yacht, bending forwards.

“I've never seen a ship. It looks so small! I thought they were bigger. Edward said—”

“This isn't a ship—it's a yacht. She belongs to a man called Barclay. I'm his secretary.”

He looked down as he spoke, and could see Barclay's deck chair with Barclay's bulk spreading in it. It came to him that Barclay would certainly chaff his head off when he came back with his story. He had decided to suppress the hen; but he couldn't very well suppress Miss Valentine Ryven.

“Is he nice? Tell me about him.”

“He weighs fifteen stone, and he's worth a lot of money. I wouldn't mind having half of it.”

“Why doesn't he give you some?” said Valentine.

“He does—he gives me two hundred a year to write his letters and put up with his manners.”

“What a nice lot! Isn't it?”

He laughed angrily.

“Didn't Edward tell you about money?”

“Of course he did. I can do pounds, shillings and pence, and francs, and marks, and dollars. Two hundred pounds is”—she screwed up her eyes and agonized in calculation—“is five thousand francs!” Her eyes opened triumphantly. “There!” she said. Then, a little more doubtfully, “That's right, isn't it?”

With an overpowering shock, it came home to Austin that there stood a benighted young savage for whom the Great War had never been. She lived in an Edwardian world where twenty-five francs went to the pound and the map of Europe was what it had been in Queen Victoria's days. Doubtless Edward had wasted much valuable time in drawing obsolete frontiers in the sand—a highly appropriate medium.

He opened his mouth and gaped, taking in the implications slowly. Nineteen hundred and eight—nineteen hundred and eight—the Wrights made their first flight in 1908. She wouldn't know what an aeroplane was. She wouldn't know about wireless. The war—wireless—aeroplanes—a hundred and twenty-five francs to the pound—the blessings of Bolshevism—cross-word puzzles—and jazz. He gaped, and recalled her phrase—no, not hers—Edward's phrase, parroted: “There wouldn't be any place for me in a modern civilization.”