Kingdom Lost

by Patricia Wentworth

  Austin glowered at the sea.

  “All the same I’m sorry for the poor girl—but of course twenty years on a desert island don’t make you particular. When you haven’t had anyone to talk to at all, a man who says something about once a day is quite chatty. And then a girl can always do the talking herself. She’s got about twenty years of conversation saved up, and you’d be quite a good listener if you could manage to look a little less murderous.”

  Austin’s scowl became intensified.

  “What are you driving at?”

  “I’m giving you a real good tip. I know a bit about the Ryvens, and I don’t mind passing it on. If I’m right—and the letters beat me out—that girl’s going to be a bit of a human bomb when she turns up.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, anyone coming back after twenty years is bound to break the china. When it’s an heiress—” He paused and whistled expressively.

  Austin made no comment. He looked across the water to where the island showed, three miles away.

  “Your cue!” said Barclay, with a chuckle. “Cough it up! Say ‘An heiress?’ and put a proper amount of ingenuous surprise into your manly voice.”

  Austin said nothing.

  The heat was dropping slowly out of the day. The sun was low. The island looked far away and insubstantial, a painted rock on a huge blue waste of water; presently it would be gone.

  Barclay’s voice broke in—Barclay’s gross, fat voice:

  “We’ll take it as said. ‘An heiress?’—that’s you. And now I come along again, guide, philosopher, and friend, and I say, ‘Yes, my lad, an heiress, and a pretty warm one. And if you can’t make the running with a girl that’s never seen a man in her life barring the late Edward—who don’t count, being a don and in loco parentis—well, my friend, if you can’t make the running with a poor, benighted young female savage like that, Scotland don’t stand where it did.”

  Austin turned round.

  “Look here, Barclay!”

  “I’m too fat to quarrel,” said Barclay. “And if you assault me, the captain’ll put you in irons for mutiny on the high seas. You take my advice and weigh in. You’ll never get another chance like it—field all to yourself—girl as pretty as the front tow of a revue chorus—and a pot of money waiting for you at home. Go away and think it over! And don’t be more of a damned fool than you can help!”

  He watched Austin fling away, chuckled, and took a pull at his drink. A little breeze was springing up as the sun dropped. He too looked at the island and saw it fade.

  He began to think about old Nick Barclay. If he hadn’t been so fat, he could have explored the cavern. He wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to explore it. His feeling about the island never quite got into words. He had thought about it since he was a boy. He had wanted to prove that old Nick was right. Well, that was done. Nobody could say Nick Barclay hadn’t found the island now. That bit was done.

  The island faded. In his own mind he saw the island as he had always seen it; he had a feeling that he liked it better like that. He didn’t really want to explore the cavern.

  “Anyhow I’m too fat!” said Barclay with a chuckle.

  On the other side of the deck Valentine stood by the rail and looked out over the water. She neither leaned on the rail nor touched it. She was quite still, but it was not the stillness of rest. She stood poised and looked, not at the island, but north-east along the course that they were taking. The sunset was behind them, the sun just gone. Out of the east the dark came streaming like an impalpable tide; the horizon was already lost; the arch of the sky was a pale fainting turquoise which melted by imperceptible shades into grey.

  Valentine never turned her head. She looked into the dusk and saw it alive with adventure. People—her own people—Aunt Helena—Eustace, who was her own cousin and quite old. And, behind them, the whole world full of people and things which she hadn’t seen.

  As Austin flung across the deck, she came back, half across the world, quivering.

  “Come and talk to me! I want to ask about two thousand questions! Are you too busy to talk?”

  The last of the light showed her his angry look. When Edward looked like that, she always went away. But when Austin Muir frowned and towered over her with his hands stuck deep in his pockets, she didn’t want to run away at all; it gave her a feeling of pleasant superiority of which she was not herself fully conscious. She only knew that she wanted to make him talk to her; she wanted it enough to put a hand on his arm and hold his sleeve.

  “Please talk to me, Austin.”

  “Go and talk to Barclay if you want company.”

  “But I don’t want to talk to Barclay—I want to talk to you.”

  Austin looked down at the hand on his sleeve, a little brown hand with slim, strong fingers.

  “I thought you didn’t like being touched,” he said in an accusing voice.

  “I’m not being touched—I’m touching you. That’s quite different. Why are you angry?”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Edward said people shouldn’t tell lies unless they were obliged to—and not then unless they could tell them really well. You tell them very badly.”

  He gave a half angry laugh.

  “All right—have it your own way! I’m in a foul temper—I’m not fit to speak to.”

  “You’re in a temper with Barclay. But you needn’t be in a temper with me. What has he done to make you angry?”

  Austin twisted his arm away.

  “He’s a coarse brute.”

  “I like him,” said Valentine. “You don’t like him because he teases you. But I think it’s simply lovely to have someone to tease you.”

  “I’ll probably knock his head off some day,” said Austin gloomily.

  “Then you would be hanged,” said Valentine with extreme solemnity.

  Austin burst out laughing.

  “You are a funny kid!”

  “Now you’re not angry any more.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Not too angry to talk to me. Let’s sit on the rail and talk. I want to know all about everything.”

  “You can’t sit on the rail—it’s not safe.” Then, as she laughed, “Look here, if there’s any tommyrot of that sort, I’m off!”

  Valentine sighed.

  “I think you’re very domineering. May I lean on the rail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, dear Austin! How kind you are to me!”

  Her face, turned up to him, was a dim oval framed in ruffled curls. It was no physical sense that told him that there was sparkling malice in her eyes.

  Next moment she was leaning on the rail, her face to the breeze. Darkness had fallen; the water slipped by them in a black wash just flecked with foam; the sky above was deeply, darkly blue, with a powder of stars coming out upon it; the west had a line of dying fire. The island was lost.

  “Tell me about people,” said Valentine.

  “What d’you want to know?” He spoke indulgently now.

  “Every single thing—every single thing you can think of.”

  “That’s a pretty tall order! You see, I don’t know what you know.”

  “Well,” said Valentine in a considering voice, “I’ve read the Bible and Shakespeare, and Edward said they were enough to give you a liberal education and plumb the depths of human nature. That’s what Edward said.”

  “It sounds a bit high-brow,” said Austin.

  “What’s high-brow?”

  “Brainy—serious—intense—frightfully intellectual, you know.”

  He saw the dark head nod.

  “I don’t like Shakespeare very much—such dreadful things seem to happen to the people. But I like the way they talk.”

  “But, good Lord, you were reading Matthew Arnold out loud when I found you! He’s high-brow if you like.”

  “That,” said Valentine, “that was because Edward made me promise faithfully that I would read aloud every day if anything happened to him
; because he said, if I didn’t, I should forget how to talk, and turn into a real desert-island savage. So I read all the books we had one after the other, and I had just got to Matthew Arnold. But I do like him all the same. He feels like things look just before the sun comes up out of the sea—you know, all still, and the colour hasn’t come into them yet, and it’s so beautiful that you want to cry.” She spoke in a soft, breathless way.

  “What other books did you have?”

  “There were a lot of novels. Edward called them trash. And there was a book about wild animals, with pictures. So I know what lions and tigers and bears and elephants and walruses look like. But I don’t know what a cat looks like, or a dog, or a horse, or a cow. Edward tried to draw them, but he said they didn’t come out very like.”

  Austin really laughed this time.

  “Neither Barclay nor I can draw for toffee!”

  “I don’t want any more drawn cats—I want real ones—and pigs, and donkeys, and hedgehogs, and birds. I want birds dreadfully. And I want people most of all. I haven’t ever seen a lady. Think of that!”

  “You mustn’t say lady—you must say woman.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not done.”

  “Edward said lady.”

  “Well—er—you know—Edward was, not to put too fine a point upon it, a bit prehistoric.”

  “People don’t say lady now?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “I see. What else don’t they do?”

  “Well—”

  “What sort of clothes do they wear? I want to know that dreadfully. You see there was a book—I love it, but it makes me cry so I can’t read it—only I do! It’s called Rupert of Hentzau, and it has pictures in it by a man called Charles Dana Gibson—Edward said he was a famous artist. And the lady in it—” she stopped, tossed her head, and repeated with emphasis, “And the woman in it has got clothes like my aunt Helena in the photograph, all up here”—she put her hands to her throat—“and all down here”—a barefoot described a semi-circle—“and all in here”—her hands went to her waist—“very small and very tight. And my mother’s dresses in the box you brought on to the ship for me, they’re just the same. And Edward said that women’s fashions were always changing. And, please, can you tell me whether I shall have to be all tight and covered up, and my hair stuck up on the top of my head?” Her voice had become very earnest.

  “Girls don’t cover ’emselves up much. They don’t wear much more than you do.”

  “My things are all made out of the sheets that were on the Avronia. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sheets. Edward said they would last us both for clothes till we were quite old.”

  “Oh, Lord! Did Edward teach you to sew?”

  “He tried to. He said he’d darned stockings. I really found out how to do it myself. He said I’d better keep my mother’s clothes in case a ship came. Can you draw me a picture, so that I can make a dress?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  She sighed impatiently.

  “Do you think Barclay could?”

  “Look here—you oughtn’t to call him Barclay like that.”

  “But you do.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Girls don’t call men by their surnames.”

  “Why don’t they?”

  “They don’t—it’s not done.”

  Valentine sighed again.

  “He feels like Barclay and he looks like Barclay, and I don’t know his Christian name.”

  “You ought to call him Mr. Barclay.”

  “Well, I won’t,” said Valentine sweetly. “What were you so angry with him about?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Why do you stay with him if you don’t like him?”

  “I stay because I can’t get away. I don’t hate him badly enough to jump overboard. As soon as we get home though—I’d rather starve than go on with him.”

  “I wouldn’t. Why would you starve? Haven’t you got any money?”

  “Not a bean—till I get another job.”

  “I wonder if I shall have any,” said Valentine in an interested voice.

  Austin moved a little; the movement took him farther away from her. After a moment of indecision, he spoke:

  “Barclay says you’ll have a great deal of money.”

  Miss Ryven received the news with calm.

  “Oh, then I can give you half.”

  Her casual tone roused his temper.

  “Don’t talk rot! People can’t give each other money like that.”

  “But I’d like to.”

  There are disadvantages in dealing with pristine ignorance.

  “It doesn’t in the least matter whether you’d like to or not. A man can’t take money he hasn’t earned. Besides, a man can’t anyhow take money from a girl—it’s the sort of thing that simply isn’t done.”

  Valentine leaned over the rail. Deep in the black water a fitful phosphorescence gleamed.

  “You do say that a lot!” she said.

  CHAPTER V

  The yacht put in at Honolulu and stayed there for two bewildering days. Barclay sent Austin ashore on a double errand; he was to dispatch a long cable to Mrs. Ryven, and he was to buy Valentine some shoes and stockings to land in.

  “You won’t like ’em, kid—but you’ve got to have ’em.”

  Valentine gazed at his feet.

  “Will they be like yours?” Her tone was not enthusiastic.

  “You wait and see.”

  She twiddled her bare brown toes.

  Austin returned an hour later with tennis shoes and thick white stockings.

  “I don’t like them,” said Valentine. She regarded her feet with a sort of chilly interest. “I don’t like them at all.” She lifted up first one foot and then the other. “Barclay, they feel as if they weren’t me! They feel as if they had gone a long way off.”

  “They look fine,” said Barclay. “You come along with me and we’ll go shopping. Austin can meet us for lunch. We don’t want him—do we?”

  Valentine didn’t seem sure. She edged up to Mr. Muir and looked at him rather wistfully.

  “Aren’t you coming at all?”

  “He’ll meet us for lunch,” said Barclay.

  Valentine took no notice.

  “Austin—my feet do feel so funny—they feel all stiff. I think I shall fall if you don’t hold my hand.”

  Austin held her hand as she went down the gangway. It was something quite new to have her clinging to him. It pleased him.

  He watched her drive away with Barclay.

  Valentine had made herself a new dress to land in. The stuff had survived the island years. Marion Ryven thought it very pretty when she bought it in Auckland. It was a flowered muslin with a blue stripe and dotted pink roses, rather like a wall paper—a wall paper in a house that had stood a long time empty, for the white ground had gone yellow, and the blue stripes were discoloured. She had made the dress out of her mother’s flowing skirt. It had no sleeves, and the stuff hung about her in limp, uneven folds.

  Valentine smoothed the folds over her knees. The white cotton stockings were slipping down. She pulled them up. How could one run and walk in things that wouldn’t stay where you put them? Then, as the car began to move, she forgot everything except the newness and the wonder into which they were passing.

  Everything that she saw was new; everything that she saw was a thing that she had never seen before. New feelings and impressions came flooding in upon her like waves that followed one another so rapidly that they came tumbling down helter-skelter, throwing up such a confusion of spray and foam that there was no time to take her breath. People. Horses. A dog with yellow ears and wolfish eyes. Houses. A cat that sat in a window licking smooth banded paws. Trees, grass, and flowers. Bright vivid fruits that shone like jewels in the sun. Women and girls, and babies; little babies in their mothers’ arms. A boy who tossed a ball into the air—or was it a brilliant orange fruit? The boy was black; he grinned and s
howed how white his teeth were. Carts. More cars like the one that was carrying them along. And all these things seemed to swim in a whirlpool of noise. Everything in the new world made a noise. It made her feel giddy.

  Barclay looked at her curiously; he would have liked to know what was passing in her mind. If Valentine could have answered him, she would have said that nothing passed. All these new things came crowding into her mind and stayed there. She did not think about them yet; their mere impact made her giddy.

  Barclay did not speak to her.

  A block in the traffic held them up. As their car stopped moving, Valentine relaxed a little. The unknown had ceased to flow past her; it stood still. It was less bewildering when it stood still. She gazed across the street and saw a girl of about her own age standing on the raised step of a shop not a dozen yards away.

  The girl was slim and tall. She had pale gold hair; it showed in little curls on either side of her faintly tinted face. Her lips were very red. She wore a straight white dress that ended just below the knee; it was made of heavy silk; it had a narrow gold belt that matched the golden hair. Except for the belt, she was all in white. Her shoes and stockings were quite different to the shoes and stockings that clogged Valentine’s slim brown feet and legs. The girl turned her head, and Valentine saw her bare white neck, crossed by a row of pearls. Above the pearls the pale fine hair was cut quite short.

  Valentine drew a long, long breath. The car began to move. The fair-haired girl passed out of sight.

  Valentine looked down at the folds of the old limp muslin and saw how yellow it was; she saw the thick wrinkled stockings and clumsy shoes. Then she heard Barclay speaking.

  “Gosh, kid! What d’you want to look like that for?”

  Valentine looked up at him without speaking.

  “You had a good look at that girl. What did you think of her?”

  “Lovely!” said Valentine. The word took all her breath.

  Barclay laughed.

  “Would you like a rig-out like that? We’re going shopping, you know.”

  Valentine could only look.

  They stopped again, this time because they had arrived. Valentine saw a shop window full of beautiful and mysterious things. Barclay let her look for a moment and then marched her in. Some men might have found the situation an awkward one. Barclay carried it off in so easy a manner that it had no embarrassments.