Kingdom Lost (27 page)

Her “What is it?” sounded impatient.

“Has Eustace come?”

“Yes—he got down for tea. Do you want to speak to him?”

“No.”

Timothy took a decision. Helena wouldn't say anything over the telephone, but she'd be bound to say something if he saw her. He said quickly,

“Can I come up this evening after dinner?”

“Come to dinner. I believe I asked you before.”

“No, I won't dine. I'll come up afterwards.”

“Just as you like.”

Could even Helena sound as indifferent as that if Valentine had spoken? He wasn't sure. It was torture to think that perhaps she hadn't spoken after all.

He dressed, ate what his housekeeper put before him, and walked the three miles to Holt because he could not face sitting at home whilst Holt dined.

Timothy came into the drawing-room at Holt and saw immediately that Valentine was not there. There was a fire, though it was a mild night. Old Miss Verrey sat close to it in her long old-fashioned black silk with a wisp of lace at the neck fastened by a brooch which contained her parents' hair. She was sipping her coffee with great enjoyment.

On the other side of the fire Laura Ryven in a bright petunia dress which showed the whole of her spine, or would have showed it if it had not been too plumply cushioned, was playing patience with a coffee-cup balanced on the green baize board which she held across her knees. Patience was a most wretched substitute for bridge, but it was better than nothing.

Helena Ryven was knitting. She wore black velvet and her old filigree pearls.

Janet and Emmeline were also knitting. They wore the dresses which had been their best, not last summer, but the summer before. They had been cleaned, and the stain on Janet's front breadth really hardly showed at all. It was unfortunate that Emmeline should have chosen a colour which had faded in the sun. But materials can no longer be relied on since the war.

Eustace sat beside Miss Verrey, who adored him.

Valentine was not there.

When Timothy had shaken hands all round, he asked where she was. Helena answered at once, “She's a little overdone, and I've sent her to bed. She's got to look her best to-morrow. Won't you have some coffee?”

Timothy helped himself to coffee. He did not sit down, but stood with his back to the fire and looked about him. Valentine had been sent to bed so that she should look her best to-morrow.… Now what exactly did Helena mean by that? Had Valentine spoken, or had she not spoken? Helena's face never told one very much. She would continue to behave beautifully whether the roof fell in or not.

He turned his attention to Eustace. Old Miss Verrey was telling him long rambling tales of his own childhood. He wore an air of aloof gloom. This was nothing new; he nearly always looked gloomy in the bosom of his family. But to-night Timothy thought he discerned a difference; there was a touch of decorum, a hint of restrained satisfaction, which suggested the heir at a funeral. Timothy thought that Eustace knew. Something in him hardened.

He put his cup on the mantelpiece, and approached his sister.

“Helena, could I have a word with you?”

Helena knew too. She didn't start or show anything that anyone else would have noticed, but Timothy, following her into her own sitting-room, was quite certain that he would not have to make any explanations. Helena certainly knew. He spoke on this assumption:

“What are you doing about it, Helena?”

Mrs. Ryven was putting one of the miniatures straight. It depicted Marianne Kinnaird, who had married Maurice and Edmund Ryven's grandfather in the thirties. Her husband frowned beside her on the mantelpiece in an admiral's blue and gold.

“What do you mean, Timothy?”

“Don't you know what I mean? I take it Valentine has shown you Bowden's statement?”

There was just a perceptible pause before Helena answered.

She said “Yes” gravely, and then asked, “How is it that you know anything about it?”

“Valentine showed me the statement—or rather I was there when she opened it. Bowden had made her promise only to open it in the presence of a friend.”

Helena seemed to be thinking.

“When was this?”

“I think I won't say. It's not to the point. I take it Eustace knows?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, that brings me back to my first question—what are you going to do about it?”

“Do about it? Nothing.”

Timothy controlled himself.

“Did Valentine tell you that she wished to break off her engagement?”

“She said something about it. She seemed to think that Eustace was marrying her for her money, and wouldn't want her without it, poor child.”

Timothy was thirty-four years of age, and during the whole of that time he had lived at close quarters with his sister Helena; yet it may be said that she staggered him. He wasn't going to lose his temper yet, but there was a gleam in his eye.

“That won't do,” he said. “You know as well as I do that she doesn't want to marry Eustace any more than Eustace wants to marry her.”

Helena lifted her eyebrows.

“It's a little late in the day to say that—and not, I think, in the best of taste.”

Timothy laughed. The laugh was an angry one.

“I want to see Valentine.”

“Then I'm afraid you can't.”

He changed his ground.

“Look here, Helena, what are you going to gain by forcing that poor child into a wretched marriage? You know she doesn't care for Eustace. You know Eustace doesn't care for her.”

“I don't know anything of the sort.” She hesitated. “It's not a thing I'd say to anyone else, but as a matter of fact it was Valentine herself who first proposed the marriage. I was completely taken by surprise; and so, I fancy, was Eustace.”

Timothy's eyes blazed and his jaw stuck out.

“And who dragged her through those beastly slums and worked on her feelings until she was ready to do anything that would let Eustace get on with his job? You say she suggested the marriage. Can you look me in the face and say you don't know why she suggested it? Good Lord, she was ready to do anything! She was ready to make herself miserable for life if it was necessary. She nearly cried for joy when she found the money wasn't hers, because she thought she'd get free. On the top of that, do you mean this marriage to go on?”

“Why, of course—what else? Really, Timothy! Are you suggesting that Eustace should throw the poor child over at the eleventh hour just because the money turns out to be his, and not hers after all?”

“I'm not thinking about Eustace”—Timothy's voice had roughened—“I'm thinking about her. She doesn't want to marry him, and she shan't.”

Helena Ryven looked at him with a faint sarcasm.

“My dear Timothy, you won't mind if I ask you why you consider it your business.”

Timothy met the sarcasm doggedly.

“It's my business because I care.”

“And no one else does?”

“Not about Valentine. You only care about Eustace, and about what people are going to say.”

Helena Ryven flashed into anger. Timothy had always had the power to anger her. She managed other people, but she had never been able to manage Timothy; not even when he was four years old, a blunt, obstinate baby, who always knew exactly what he wanted and couldn't be persuaded to want anything else. She lost her temper and lost her advantage.

“You've never understood Eustace or appreciated him.”

Timothy recovered his balance.

“Oh, yes, I have. You're wrong if you think I haven't. I give him marks for what he's been doing in those beastly slums. I can admire him all right when he's sacrificing himself. But you want me to admire him whilst he's sacrificing Valentine. It's not fair, Helena, it's not fair. And what's more, you know it. Everyone has a right to sacrifice himself, but no one has the right to sacrifice someone else. And Valentine's a child that doesn't know what she's doing. Good Lord, Helena, you don't need me to tell you that!” He came up to her with a hard, direct, insistent look. “That's true, isn't it? Don't you know it's true?”

Helena looked back at him indignantly.

“My dear Timothy, we are not on the stage. I gather that you are in love with Valentine. I suppose that is some excuse for the exaggerated view you are taking. But really I think it is a pity that you should make a parade of your feelings like this. In the circumstances, it seems to me to be in atrocious taste, to say the least of it.”

“It would!” said Timothy with a short laugh. “I think I'd better talk to Eustace.”

He went towards the door, and just as he reached it, Helena called him:

“Timothy—”

“What is it?”

“You can't make a scene now!”

“Can't I? You'll see!” He laughed again. “As a matter of fact, I've no more wish to make a scene than you have. But I shall certainly make one if I don't see Valentine and hear from her own lips that she wants to marry Eustace.”

The door close to Timothy opened as he spoke. Eustace came into the room. He looked from his mother to Timothy. Then he shut the door and crossed over to where Helena Ryven was standing with an unwonted flush in her cheeks.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“Timothy has apparently come here for the purpose of informing us that we do not know how to treat Valentine. He was announcing his intention of making a scene before you came in.”

Timothy stood just where he was. He spoke to Eustace:

“I've read Edward Bowden's statement. I came here to ask what you were going to do about it.”

Eustace looked as stiff as a poker.

“How could there be any question of what I should do?”

“Look here, Eustace! I only want to know one thing. I take it for granted that you want to marry Valentine. All I want to know is this—does Valentine want to marry you?”

“It is a little late in the day to ask that,” said Helena.

“Valentine,” said Eustace, “is, naturally, prepared to carry out her engagement. Mr. Bowden's disclosure would otherwise leave her in a very awkward position.” He spoke with offence and a certain air of not being entirely sure of his ground.

Timothy advanced a step.

“Look here,” he said, “this is without gloves! I'll admit that you're in a damned awkward position, but I'm not going to see Valentine sacrificed to save anyone's face. She opened that statement because she was so unhappy that she didn't know what to do. I think she didn't show you the first page—the page he made her sign—No, I thought not. It was a promise not to open the envelope unless things were so bad that they couldn't be any worse. Well, she read that through in my presence, and she opened it because she felt that nothing could be worse than for her to marry someone she didn't love, and who didn't love her. You don't, you know. You never did. You only wanted to get on with your work. And she, poor kid, thought it was her duty, and was killing herself to do it. D'you know what she said when I'd finished reading the statement to her? She said, ‘Then I needn't marry Eustace!' And she meant it.”

Eustace was fearfully pale.

“If you and Valentine—” he began.

“What are you going to do about it?” said Timothy.

“If you and Valentine have an understanding—”

“We haven't.”

“Then I think you had better leave me to manage my own affairs. Hadn't you?”

“Damn your affairs! You and Helena think of nothing else—your affairs, and what other people are going to say about your affairs. Cut it out, can't you? Valentine doesn't want to marry you, and I'm here to see that she isn't pushed into it.”

Mrs. Ryven commanded herself. Her colour remained high, but her manner was assured.

“I think, Timothy, that if you will cast your mind back to the occasion of our last difference, you will perhaps remember that you told me, not very politely, to mind my own business. If I was not permitted to remonstrate with you about your sister Lil's most undesirable engagement, I really do not see how you can consider yourself entitled to interfere in Eustace's affairs.”

“It's Valentine's affairs that I'm concerned with, Helena. Eustace can do anything he damn well pleases, but I mean to see that Valentine has a fair show. I mean to see her.”

“You can't—she's gone to bed.”

“Then in the morning—”

Eustace put his mother aside.

“I think you had better go away,” he said. “I have not any desire to press Valentine. I think I am the person to see her.”

“The whole thing is absurd! All girls panic at the last minute. Ida nearly ran away.” Mrs. Ryven laughed a little. “
Ida!
You're making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“I've got to see Valentine,” said Timothy.

“In the morning,” said Helena Ryven. She thought she could manage that. There would be a rush and a bustle, and even Valentine could hardly propose to go back on her word when the wedding guests were arriving. Besides, she wouldn't leave her alone with Timothy. She said, “To-morrow,” and smiled.

“Then I'll say good-night,” said Timothy.

Helena's smile sent the blood to his head. He was afraid of what he might do or say. He went to the door, and then turned.

“If I don't see her when I come up to-morrow, I'll stop her on her way up the aisle. If you want a scandal, you know the way to get one,” he said, and went out.

CHAPTER XXXII

Valentine drank the soup that Agnes brought her, and she ate some chicken, because Agnes said that if she didn't eat it, Mrs. Ryven would come up. Then she lay down in the dark and presently she slept. She did not know that she was going to sleep. She slipped into it suddenly and was submerged. No consciousness, no dreams; just a blank space. And then a sharp awakening.