Kingdom Lost (26 page)

“I told you about Edward's letter.”

“You didn't tell me what was in it.”

“I'm trying to tell you, Eustace. And I thought you'd be pleased—about our not getting married, I mean. You are pleased—aren't you? And you won't judge Edward harshly? Because that's what he specially said he hoped I wouldn't do—at the end of the letter after he had explained how he came to say I was Valentine Ryven.”

“
What?
” said Eustace in a different tone.

“I don't want anyone to be harsh about Edward, because—”

And then Eustace was standing over her with his hand on her shoulder.

“What are you talking about, Valentine?”

“Edward—”

“He wrote a letter. What does he say in it?”

She looked up at him fearlessly.

“He says I'm not Valentine Ryven.”

Eustace let go of her with great suddenness.

“Do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“He says you're not Valentine Ryven?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you then? There wasn't any other child on the ship.”

Valentine sat down on a chair and sorted out the sheets of Edward Bowden's letter. Then she got up and gave them to Eustace.

CHAPTER XXX

Eustace Ryven read. Edward Bowden's letter sitting at the writing-table. The room had been his, and the writing-table his. They had passed from him to Maurice Ryven's daughter. If this letter held the truth, they were his again. He read the letter from beginning to end, his face set in a grave composure, the hand that lifted each sheet and laid it down again steady and unhurried.

Valentine stood watching him with a feeling compounded of awe and disappointment. When he had put down the last page, he took up the first one again.

This was unendurable. She moved quickly.

“Eustace—”

He said “Ssh,” and went on reading.

Was he going to go through it all again? It appeared that he was, a lifted hand enjoining silence.

Valentine began to feel dreadfully discouraged. Why didn't he say something? Why didn't he look pleased?

He read right through to the end. Then he looked up without any change of face.

“We must have legal advice on this of course.”

“Why?”

“Colonel Gray must be communicated with. He's coming to-morrow, isn't he? We can speak to him then, and to Waterson.”

Valentine tried to think of all the things she had planned to say. They were gone; her mind felt quite empty, with a little wind of fear blowing to and fro in the emptiness.

“You had better let me lock this up. It's not the sort of thing to leave lying about. Has my mother seen it?”

“Not yet.”

“But you've told her?”

“No.”

He looked rather surprised.

“She ought to be told.” He paused, frowning. “I ought really to get hold of Waters on at once. I don't suppose—” He was speaking more to himself than to her.

“
Eustace!
” said Valentine in the loudest voice that she could manage. He ought to speak to
her
—he ought to say he was pleased—he ought to say something—he
ought
.

Something in her voice gained his attention. He looked at her, saw her flushed and in obvious distress, and hastened to be kind.

“There is no reason for you to be upset. This need make no difference so far as you are concerned.”

“But of course it will make a difference.”

“None that need distress you. If this is true, it will only mean, as far as you are concerned, that you won't have the burden and responsibility of managing a great deal of money. It won't affect you personally.”

“I didn't want the money at all, I never wanted it.”

“As my wife—” Eustace began; and immediately Valentine's fear became articulate.

“But we're not going to be married now.”

She saw Eustace look at her as he always looked when she said something which people didn't say.

“What makes you say that, Valentine?”

“Because we needn't. Don't you see, if I'm not Valentine Ryven, the money isn't mine at all, and you needn't marry me, because it will belong to you anyhow and you can do anything you like with it. Don't you see that?”

She had not the slightest conception of the affront her words conveyed. In her mind the situation was an entirely simple one. Eustace was marrying her to get the money, and if the money wasn't hers, there was no need for him to marry her.

Eustace was most profoundly shocked. He regarded marriage seriously, and he intended to be a kind, and certainly a faithful husband to his young cousin. He was conventional to the point of fanaticism. Marriage was largely a matter of family obligation, a matter of duty; personal inclinations and sentiments were irrelevancies, pleasant and lawful if they coincided with duty, wrong and to be suppressed if they did not; they were not, in any case, integral factors.

When Valentine put her point of view with the naïve crudity of a child or a savage, it was just as if a small glaring light had been turned upon him, and for a moment he saw, not himself, but her concept of him. He was marrying her to get the money; and if she hadn't got the money, he needn't marry her. He turned quite white with anger. Could she really suppose him to be prepared to jilt her brutally and callously on the eve of their wedding?

He controlled his voice with an effort.

“I don't think you know what you are saying, Valentine. There is not the slightest need to alter our arrangements.”

“But we needn't be married now—we really needn't. Don't you see?”

“I can see that you have no idea of what you are saying. We are certainly going to be married tomorrow. How can you suppose for one instant—” He checked himself. “People don't behave like that, you know.” He walked towards the door. “I think you had better talk to my mother. I'll see her first, and then she can tell you what I've just told you, that there's no need for you to worry. Whatever happens, you won't be affected personally.”

He went out.

Valentine stood in the middle of the floor. She felt what the child or the savage feels when its crude simplicity comes up against the barbed iron wire of convention—bewilderment, a puzzled striving, a terror of the unknown. Not for one instant had she dreamt that Eustace would still want to marry her. It was incredible—and incredibly dreadful.

She remained in this bewildered state until the door opened again and Mrs. Ryven came in. Then she looked up questioningly. Aunt Helena would surely be glad. Aunt Helena didn't really like her. She would be glad. She didn't really want her to marry Eustace. She didn't think her good enough.

She looked up, and she saw what Helena Ryven thought she was concealing—triumph. Her step was unhurried, her face quiet and concerned; but the eyes held that spark of triumph, and Valentine saw nothing else.

She sprang forward.

“Aunt Helena, you're pleased! You don't want him to marry me?”

It was the plain truth, stated plainly, and it naturally shocked and offended Helena.

“My dear, don't say things that you will regret. It's such a pity. I have told you that before, and just now it matters a good deal, because we all want to do and say just what is right—don't we? Come and sit down.”

Valentine remembered Timothy saying that on the day she came to Holt. People always wanted you to sit down, and then they talked and talked, and you couldn't get away. She sat on the very edge of her chair as if she were prepared to spring out of it at any moment.

Helena Ryven gave her an encouraging smile.

“Now, Valentine,” she said, “this has naturally been a shock to you; but you shouldn't—no, you really shouldn't have spoken to Eustace as you did. There are things one doesn't say.”

“What did I say?” Valentine's eyes were on her face.

“I won't repeat it. We'll all forget it, I think.”

Valentine frowned. It was a puzzled frown, not an angry one.

“I thought Eustace would be pleased. If the money isn't mine, he needn't marry me.”

Mrs. Ryven was silent for a moment. She was doubtless praying for patience.

“Listen to me, Valentine, and try, if you can, not to be so childish. If this had happened before you and Eustace were engaged, you might, or might not, have entered into an engagement.”

“Oh, we shouldn't!”

“Please let me speak. If it had happened a month ago, Eustace would naturally have been prepared to carry out his engagement; but it would have been possible to postpone the marriage for a little, if that had been your wish. As you are so young, it might have been all for the best. But now, the day before your wedding—believe me when I tell you that it is quite, quite impossible to do anything except go on as if nothing had happened. We shall consult Mr. Waterson, and the necessary legal steps can be taken. You understand?”

Valentine did not understand at all. Her heart was beating dreadfully. She had never found it easy to talk to Helena Ryven. Even if they used the same words, they meant different things. She felt the suffocating pressure of Helena's will. She couldn't speak, because Helena didn't want her to speak. Helena wasn't going to let her speak. She was going to drive her back into the cage and shut the door. She was going to make her marry Eustace.

She felt weak, frightened, and puzzled. Most of all she felt puzzled, because she had been so sure that Helena did not really like her. And if she didn't like her, why did she want to make her marry Eustace?

Mrs. Ryven looked at her with a sort of controlled kindness. It was true that she had never liked Valentine, but she could become fond of her if she no longer supplanted Eustace. She wanted Eustace to marry; and for some years she had been afraid that he would not marry. If this engagement were broken now in a blaze of scandal, he would probably never marry at all—and she wanted grandchildren, and an heir for Holt. She did not like Valentine; but then she liked very few girls. Valentine, at least, would have no modern fads about not having children. She did not love Eustace; and whilst Helena resented this, her reason told her that Eustace would not give the first place in his life to any woman, and that a girl who had few demands to make would suit him a great deal better than one who would expect him to play the lover.

Helena Ryven had the habit of thinking quickly and clearly. She never allowed emotion to interfere with her mental processes. She had seen at once that the marriage must go on, and she felt entirely competent to manage Valentine.

Valentine got up, went back a step, and said in a low voice,

“I don't understand.”

Helena followed her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Come, Valentine—you've had a shock. But I think better of you than to suppose that you mean to give way. I don't think you care so much for money that you will mind—”

“I don't.”

“I am sure you don't.”

“I can't marry him,” said Valentine. It was very, very difficult to say; but she said it, and felt at once that she might not have said it at all. It was just as if she had tried to make herself heard against the most raging gale that had ever swept the island.

Helena patted her shoulder.

“Now my dear—”

Valentine whirled round and caught her wrist.

“I can't, Aunt Helena! I
can't
!”

Mrs. Ryven looked at her calmly. It was a tiresome scene. But a girl was apt to be over-wrought on the eve of her wedding. She was not seriously alarmed.

“My dear, do think what you are saying. Have we been so unkind to you here? No, don't speak for a moment, but listen. It wasn't really very easy for us, you know. I want you to think what it meant to Eustace to have everything taken away from him quite suddenly, and to feel that his loss was bound to involve others. I think you will admit that he behaved well, that we received you, not only courteously, but kindly. Don't you think you owe us some return? You entered into an engagement with Eustace of your own free will—you were not urged or pressed in any way. If you do not marry him to-morrow, you will be doing him an irreparable injury. I am sure you had not thought of it in that way—and I want you to think of it. Everyone will say that he threw you over as soon as he found that you were not an heiress. It will be considered so disgraceful that he will never be able to live it down. He will certainly never be able to live at Holt. It would be bad enough for any man; but for a man of Eustace's high character and ideals it would be simply annihilating—he would never be able to live it down, and he would never marry.” The last words were less calmly phrased. They were the crux of the whole speech.

Valentine heard the even flow of Helena Ryven's voice. It numbed her. Every sentence made it more impossible for her to resist or even answer. The numbness dulled her fear; she began to feel cold and giddy. She gazed blankly at Helena and saw her waver. Next moment she slipped down on her knees and fell forward.

CHAPTER XXXI

Timothy had spent a busy day. He kept away from Holt because he did not mean to butt in. He would not feel free until Valentine was free. And she would have to free herself; it wasn't a thing that anyone else could do. He wasn't quite sure when Eustace was expected, and though he was so busy, the day seemed very long.

When seven o'clock came, he could bear it no longer. If he rang Helena up, she would be bound to tell him that the marriage had been put off. Eustace must have arrived hours ago, and the whole thing must have been thrashed out.

He got Bolton, and asked to speak to Mrs. Ryven. It might have been half a minute before she came, but it seemed as long as the whole of the long day.

“That you, Helena?”

“Yes—I was just going to dress. What is it?”

What was it? Hanged if he knew what to say—he hadn't thought. He had made sure that it was Helena who would have something to say. She was bound—