Theirs Was The Kingdom

by R. F Delderfield

  No such invitation had been offered him in more southerly and westerly regions, where it was taken for granted that he was there to work and not amuse himself, so he took occasional advantage of Broadbent's invitation and sometimes drove out with Mrs. Broadbent and her two stepdaughters. Once, joined by Broadbent after dinner, they all went into town to see the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera, H.M.S. Pinafore, at the beginning of its first provincial tour.

  He also accepted Broadbent's invitation to join him in a glass of whisky at one or other of the local taverns, making himself very drowsy in the afternoon after endeavouring to match his host drink for drink. He was given no chance to study the paperwork, for Shawe, the chief clerk, a crony of the manager, watched over his ledgers and day books like a miser guarding his coffers.

  Time passed pleasantly enough, however, and he came to enjoy Mrs. Broadbent's company, especially when her stepdaughters were out visiting, or at one of their singing or piano lessons in nearby Altrincham. Someone far less perceptive than George would have concluded that Laura Broadbent was not a happy woman, for Broadbent was absent all day and when he returned, usually pretty well oiled George would say, he lavished his attention on Lizzie, who seemed to be his favourite. His inspired geniality towards George, however, never wavered, and the latter found it difficult to decide why he found the man repellent. Privately Mrs. Broadbent admitted that he was a hard case, driving others as ruthlessly as he drove himself, and added that his first marriage had not been a success, the first Mrs. Broadbent having left him on two occasions before dying of an illness brought on, it was whispered, by her overfondness for port.

  “I don’t know why I should tell you that, Mr. Swann,” she said, colouring, “it just slipped out. That comes of having no one to talk to, I imagine, and I was always one for a bit of company before I married Harry.” She paused a moment, whilst George, anxious to hear more, made sympathetic noises. She went on, “He or the girls will have held their tongues about something else, for they’re on the way to becoming regular lah-di-dahs since he was made manager. But I was never ashamed of it. It's honest work, and you soon learn how to keep the men at arm's length, so long as you don’t mind them thinking you’re gormless. I’m talking about when I was a barmaid, at a place in the Shambles. They had a concert hall there, and first-class turns, try-outs for the big musical halls. I waited on the tables sing-song nights, and it paid well, what with the tips. I didn’t come to Harry empty-handed.”

  He said, unguardedly, “Why did you marry, then, Mrs. Broadbent?” She did not seem offended but smiled, so that her rather crumpled mouth curved upward instead of down. He saw her as her chorus-bawling customers must have seen her on a Saturday night at the Cock and Hen—a pretty, vivacious woman, who enjoyed her bit of fun and would likely extend a helping hand to anyone who needed it, drunk or sober.

  “Why do any of us get married?” she asked. “It's a man's world, there's no denying that. We’re brought up to look for it above all else, I suppose. He was a good-looking chap, and you’ve heard how he can talk when he's out to please. That wasn’t all either. He played his cards well, did Harry Broadbent, not forgetting the trump. A widower, wi’ two daughters, sore in need of a mother. Well, it didn’t take long to spot that as a misdeal. Those two girls of his don’t need a mother so much as a bottle of castor oil to improve their complexions and a switch to their backsides to teach them manners. They’d get that, the pair of them, if I had any say in bringing them up.”

  It seemed to him then, interested as he was in Laura Broadbent's troubles, that she was a little vindictive. “They aren’t so much to write home about, Mrs. Broadbent,” he said, “but they’ve been civil enough to me,” whereupon she looked at him very steadily and seemed inclined to elaborate her point, but then dropped her gaze, saying, with a shrug, “Aye, they have, so let it pass. They’ve had their orders, same as me. Especially that Lizzie.”

  She moved off then, on the excuse of attending to her baking, and did not seem disposed to renew the conversation later. From then on she went out of her way to mother him and in a way that made a direct appeal to his chivalry, so that he found himself beginning to dislike Harry Broadbent against all reason, and look forward to the time when he moved over the border to the Edinburgh base, his next port of call.

  It was February by then and he inadvertently let it be known that St. Valentine's Day marked his eighteenth birthday, regretting it instantly when Lizzie exclaimed, “St. Valentine's Day! Why, then we must celebrate!” and Mrs. Broadbent promised to bake a cake and set it with eighteen candles. But the day prior to his birthday he stumbled on a partial answer to one of the imponderables surrounding Broadbent and his change of policy in the Polygon.

  The manager had gone off early, taking Shawe the clerk with him, and during the breakfast break George wandered into the clerk's office to warm himself by the coke fire. Lying on the desk, apparently overlooked by Shawe, was the big ledger with its alphabetically listed sections, each devoted to a Swann customer in the region. Without looking for anything specific, he opened it at “B,” running his eye down the quarterly returns for Barlow, the packer. Then he noticed a loose slip of paper, pencilled with two short columns of figures that he identified at once as percentages of the daily yield of hauls credited to the warehouse. He looked at the ledger again and made a rough cast of the total since the first day of the year. The figure astonished him. It was far larger than that of any two other customers combined, and this caused him to check the slip of paper again, noting that each column was headed by an initial letter. One, the longer column, was equivalent to exactly five per cent of the total and was headed “B.” The other, representing three per cent, ran under the letter “S.” It did not take much intelligence to deduce that the “B” stood for Broadbent and the “S” for Shawe, the clerk, or that the percentages represented personal commissions.

  He knew the system of rewarding regional managers on turnover, Tybalt having explained it in London. Swann's senior representatives in the provinces were paid a quarterly percentage on their gross, reckoned by Tybalt himself. There was no provision made for managers deducting their own commissions, and, in any case, it was fixed at two-and-a-half per cent, not five, whereas clerks received a wage and did not qualify for commission. It all seemed to indicate that Broadbent, with Shawe as the jackal, was systematically helping himself to a substantial private commission, and this explained a good deal, notably the manager's eagerness to keep him at arm's length during office hours, Shawe's jealous hold on the paperwork of the yard, and above all Broadbent's prosperity, that could not be accounted for by his official income, however successful he had been in increasing turnover.

  He looked again at the paper before folding it and putting it in his pocketbook. At the bottom of the slip was the single word “Drayton,” and George recalled that Drayton was the name of the man who supplied the yard with forage. He turned to a page in the day book devoted to Drayton and found there the monthly sum expended for first-grade hay, making a note of the total and the price per bale. He then turned back to Barlow's entry and jotted down the daily totals on a pad, after which he went across the yard to locate Steedman, the head stableman.

  Steedman was in the tack room, making an inventory of harness, and in reply to George's query concerning forage he said the price of hay had come high this winter, owing to a wet summer, and all the teams used for short hauls were fed on second-class bales, delivered in bulk the first of every month. “It's poor stuff,” he added, “and I’ve complained to the Gaffer about it. It's well enough for a short period, but the teams will drop back if it continues indefinitely. Seeing you’re a privileged man up here, Mr. Swann, I’d take it kindly if you backed me in the matter. If the teams are under strength by early spring it’ll be me who gets the rap over the knuckles, not Mr. Broadbent.”

  George said he would discuss the matter with the manager and left him, wondering whether to double check on his suspicions by making a call on Barlow, but
decided against it. The slip of paper in Shawe's handwriting, plus the information concerning the hay, converted his suspicions to near certainties, warranting a report to Tybalt or his father. But then, reflecting on what might happen as a result of disclosures, he began to feel uncomfortable about his detective work, reasoning that not only Broadbent would be dismissed, and possibly prosecuted, but that also the penalty would extend to Laura Broadbent and Broadbent's daughters, none of whom could have been aware of what was going on at the yard or how Broadbent could afford a detached house, two servants, a carriage and pair, and regular pianoforte and singing lessons for the girls. Disclosures, so far as he could determine, would rebound upon the entire family, and whilst he had no special regard for the Misses Broadbent, he had a real affection for their stepmother, who had gone out of her way to make him welcome at Bowdon.

  The thought caused him to examine his attitude to Laura Broadbent closely. Was it, he wondered, more than affection he felt for the lonely, hard-pressed woman? She had stirred something in him that had not been there a few weeks ago. He could not say what exactly, except that it amounted to an awareness of women that had nothing in common with the feelings he had for his sisters, or the girls of the West Kent Hunt, with whom he had skylarked during school holidays. Laura had charm and a prettiness that grew on a man, together with other things that were new to him—an appreciation of her figure, of the way she moved, of the way she sometimes looked at him with a half-smile during one of Hester's warbling Irish songs, and, above all, that towering pile of Titian hair, fastened by a row of combs. It occurred to him then how exciting it would be to see Laura with her hair down, and the fancy excited him in a way that made him feel restless and at odds with himself. He thought, with a spurt of exasperation, “What the devil's happening to me up here? What is she to me anyway? A married woman getting on for thirty and married to a thief milking something like three hundred a year from the firm…” But he knew he lacked the inclination to sit down and write the report that, sooner or later, would have to be posted to Tybalt.

  Then he had another idea that at least had the advantage of postponing a decision for a day or so. On the following Saturday, only three days from now, he had arranged a visit to his grandfather, Sam Rawlinson. In view of what old Sam had said concerning Broadbent, he might look for guidance in this quarter, stressing the fact that the Broadbents, one and all, had been at pains to make him welcome during his stay. The decision relieved him of the pressure his discoveries had laid upon him, so that he spent the rest of the day helping to load waggons and unharness returning teams. It was heavy work and gave him something else to think about so that he was able, with no more than a qualm or two, to get through his dinner in the company of the Broadbents, take a soda bath, and retire to bed early, pleading stiffness after all that heaving in the yard.

  The next morning brought him a huge Valentine card, obviously from Lizzie, for it bore a local postmark and a verse that ran,

  I love but you

  Pray love me too.

  More to the point was a money order for two pounds from his father, a morocco leather cigar case from his mother, and an assortment of cravats, shirt studs, and other gifts from the younger children. Opening his parcels, he missed his train for the yard so that Broadbent went off in advance, and while the girls were upstairs he showed his gifts to Laura, who admired the cigar case but frowned when she saw the gaudy Valentine card.

  “I think that's right vulgar,” she said. “Harry must have put Lizzie up to it, for she hasn’t the brains to think of it herself. However, since it's your birthday, I’ve bought you a little something myself,” and she gave him a cardboard box containing a small gold seal in the shape of a wedge, inscribed with his initials and the Swann insignia. “It's for your watchchain,” she said, “all the fashionable young gentlemen are sporting fobs. Here, let me fasten it for you,” and she faced him, lowering her head to clip the shank of the seal on to his chain.

  It might have been her nearness and the heady perfume she used, or perhaps the need of a gesture to express his appreciation. It might even have had something to do with his feelings of guilt that he was likely to be the agent responsible for boosting her out of this comfortable home and setting her adrift with a jobless husband. Whatever it was, he surrendered to it. Holding her by the shoulders, he kissed the top of her head, instantly regretting it and expecting, if not a slap across the face, at least a rebuke for taking such a liberty with her.

  Nothing like this happened. All she did was to tuck the thin gold chain back into his waistcoat pocket, straighten herself, and say, with a smile, “That's not much of a birthday kiss, lad. Here, let me show you how,” and she threw both arms about his neck, inclined her full weight towards him, and kissed him full on the mouth.

  He had kissed girls before, perhaps a dozen or so at Christmas parties and hunt balls, but he had neither given nor received a kiss of this sort. It made his senses reel. Her mouth, soft as a petal, touched off a succession of sensations that were at once alarming and extremely pleasurable, so that he was at a loss how to proceed from this point on and was immensely relieved when, standing back, she looked at him with complete unconcern and said, gaily, “Why, lad, don’t look so sad about it! What's a kiss between friends on the day you come of age? Royalty don’t wait upon twenty-first birthdays, and you’re royalty up here, seeing whose son you are. Besides, it's time some woman kissed you as if she meant it. You’ve got to start some time, and what better day than this?”

  That was the rub, he thought, dismally. What day was it, apart from the one marking his eighteenth birthday? The day he would have to start thinking how much or how little he put into that report he would have to send to Headquarters concerning the secret commissions her husband was milking from Swann hauls. The day when he had it in his power to make paupers of all four of them. He said, hoarsely, “Listen, Mrs. Broadbent… Laura… I… I’d like to say something, something I want you to remember. I’ll be leaving soon. I’m moving to Scotland at the end of the month and maybe I won’t see you again. But whatever happens… whatever comes of my stay up here, I’d like you to know how much I appreciated your kindness. If it hadn’t been for that I would have cut this stint short and moved on almost at once. But you, well… you’re one of the nicest persons I’ve ever met. And one of the prettiest into the bargain!”

  He was astonished to see her blush, to watch the colour surge into her cheeks, and then, swiftly it seemed to him, ebb as she said, with a rather pitiful attempt to sound gay, “Well, thank you, George! That was a lot more than a watchchain seal merits. And far more than I deserve in the circumstances,” and without commenting on his hint, she walked quickly through into the kitchen quarters where he heard her call sharply to one of the maids.

  4

  George had been dreading the birthday dinner all day but when it was well launched, and he had swallowed three glasses of Madeira, the wine worked on him in a way that kept harassment at a safe distance. Broadbent was excessively jovial, and even Lizzie seemed worth looking at after her father had given her permission to drink a glass of the wine on top of the sherry she had used to drink his health. When George blew out the eighteen cake candles there was another toast, after which Broadbent, saying briefly he had a call to make, rose and filled George's glass with port, urging him not to hurry over his coffee for he would be gone some time and the ladies would entertain him. He then left, Lizzie accompanying him to the door and Hester helping to clear the table. For a moment or so he and Laura were alone in the room.

  He noticed then that she looked particularly drained and listless, so that he said, jocularly, “Here, take a glass of port. It's very good,” and poured it. George ignored her gesture as she said, in what seemed a very urgent voice, “Listen, George… I really must talk…” But then the front door slammed and Lizzie came bouncing back into the room, pretending to be tipsy on her one glass of sherry and one glass of Madeira, and Laura Broadbent, addressing her sharply, said,
“For heaven's sake grow up, Lizzie! Drink a cup of coffee. A big cup.”

  He was getting the slightest bit muddle-headed with all that food and wine, and the heat of the room, with its banked-up fire and windows closed against the cheerless night outside, but not too tipsy to miss the swift exchange of glances between Lizzie and Laura, so that he wondered if the day had seen yet another of their tiffs. Nothing more was said, however, and they all carried their coffee into the parlour, where the atmosphere was even more oppressive. Presently, after she had tinkled the piano for a spell, and Laura had left to carry the coffee tray into the kitchen, Lizzie poured him a generous brandy from a new bottle on the sideboard, saying that her father said he was to sample it, for it was a brand he had laid in on the advice of his vintner, Mr. Gossage.

  George sipped the brandy and it seemed to settle very comfortably on top of the port and Madeira, so that a haze of geniality surrounded him like a gauze curtain, enabling him to see Lizzie, lolling on the arm of his chair, in a role that was new to him. He had always thought of her as a sallow, rather angular girl, with very little that was prepossessing about her; but now, cheerfully admitting to himself that he was well on the way to being drunk, he reached out and pinched her thigh so that she giggled and told him to behave and finish his brandy before Laura came back, for she wouldn’t approve of him drinking brandy after all he had taken at table. He thought this likely and tossed it back, whereupon Lizzie exclaimed, shrilly, “Why, I do declare you’re bottled, George!” and when, unconvincingly, he denied it, “All right. Walk a straight line as far as the piano!” He did, but not as straight as all that. When Mrs. Broadbent returned they were both walking lines to and fro across the patterned carpet so that she said, sharply, “That's enough, both of you! George, upstairs to bed and sleep it off! You too, Lizzie, before you make a complete fool of yourself! I’ll see to the fires and gas.” But Lizzie replied, calmly, “Don’t forget father is out. If you draw the bolt at the front he’ll bring us all down with his knocking, the way he did last time!”