He asked at once for Madame, and when she appeared he was frankness itself.
“Mademoiselle has been in a shipwreck.”
“Juste ciel!” said Madame Marie.
“She therefore requires everything. Now the question is, what can you do about it?”
Madame Marie was plump and voluble. She appeared to think that if monsieur would permit, she could supply mademoiselle in such a manner as to satisfy monsieur.
Barclay mentioned a hundred pounds. He allowed Madame to translate it into dollars and sat down to wait with exemplary patience; he was, in fact, quite pleased and amused.
Valentine followed Madame into a small room that was completely lined with mirrors. A girl in a draggled muslin dress moved to meet her. The girl was bare-headed; she had ugly, clumsy things on her feet; her round brown arms were bare to the shoulder. For a moment she did not realize that she was looking at herself. Then, as she turned, she saw a whole procession of girls, all in the same flowered muslin, the same thick stockings and shoes. They went away into the far distance, heaps and heaps of them, each one smaller than the last, each one moving when she herself moved.
After a dizzy moment she felt a thrill of interest. She had never seen the back of her head before; she had never really seen herself like this. It was interesting. Then she remembered the fair-haired girl, and the colour ran hot into her cheeks. She whirled round and saw all those other Valentines whirling too, and found Madame Marie looking at her inquiringly.
“If mademoiselle would remove her dress—”
Valentine slipped it off. Her only other garment was the one she had worn on the island. It had a hole for her head and holes for her arms, and it hung to her knee. It was made of cotton sheeting that had turned a yellowish grey with age, and it was sewn together with the large clumsy stitches of a child.
“To lose everything in a shipwreck!” said Madame Marie. “Mon Dieu! What an experience! To lose all one’s clothes—could there be anything more terrible? Rosa—vite! Julie!” She began to pour out orders in French.
Rosa and Julie ran to and fro and produced the most bewildering and mysterious things. Valentine, pale, silent, and spell-bound, allowed herself to be dressed, undressed, and re-dressed with the most perfect docility. Madame Marie took the measurement of her foot and sent out for shoes. She produced stockings that were so fine and thin that you could hardly see them. She clothed Valentine in layers of exquisite and diaphanous garments.
“Enfin, mademoiselle—now we can begin,” she observed, and Rosa and Julie began to run to and fro again, bringing frocks, coats, hats.
“For the hat, the question asks itself, does mademoiselle shingle?”
Valentine turned upon her the eyes of a puzzled child.
“The hair, mademoiselle—how will you arrange it?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked away and saw the turn of her head reflected in all the mirrors. She was wearing a plain white frock of heavy silk. Her dark hair fell in curls on her shoulders. That was wrong. She had only one idea—she must be like the girl whom she had seen for a moment in the street. She could not turn her dark hair pale, but she could have it cut all close and fine at the back, with a little point in the middle and curls on either side of her face.
She put up her hand and looked back at Madame.
“I want it cut here, quite short—and here”—her hands went to her temples—“like this.”
“Le shingle!—parfaitement! Ah—that is a fashion that is always going. But it does not go—it is too convenient, yes, and too becoming. It will certainly become mademoiselle.”
Barclay was summoned, and was pleased to approve. He found himself drawn into consultation.
“I don’t know a thing about women’s clothes. This is all very pretty, but you dig her out something she can wear if it’s snowing when we get to England!”
“Snow, monsieur! In July?”
“It’s been done,” said Barclay with a Briton’s gloomy pride in his climate.
The bill that he presently paid was for a good deal more than a hundred pounds.
Valentine came out into the street in all the agonizing discomfort of her first high-heeled shoes. But she was walking on air. She had a white dress and a white hat, and lots and lots of lovely things besides. Barclay had given her all these beautiful things. Her eyes shone in a way that actually caused him some embarrassment; never before had he been looked at with quite that sort of worshipping gratitude. She did not speak; she looked at him, her blue eyes dark with all the things for which she had no words.
They went from shop to shop. In one an earnest, talkative little man cut her hair; in another Barclay bought her a trunk to hold her beautiful new things.
They met Austin Muir for lunch. It was the most thrilling moment of Valentine’s day. She did not know that it was going to be, but it was. She saw his face change, and her heart began to beat in an odd, bewildered fashion.
“Well,” said Barclay, “I’ve earned my lunch. If there’s another man in this hemisphere that says he deserves a good lunch more than I do, I’ll call him a liar. After a morning like this I’m going to have the best lunch the hotel can raise, if I put on another half stone for it.”
Barclay enjoyed that lunch greatly. He was hungry, the food was good, and he was able to derive considerable pleasure from the spectacle of Mr. Muir being polite to Miss Ryven, and Miss Ryven being polite to Mr. Muir.
Valentine behaved beautifully. Edward’s instructions had extended to table manners; but she was being very, very careful. She watched Barclay, and she watched the other women, whilst Austin Muir watched her. She ate very little, and never, never for one moment did she forget her beautiful new clothes.
They had their coffee on a wide, shady verandah. Valentine sat on the edge of her chair with her hands in her lap. Presently she said, “Austin—”
The spell-bound feeling was wearing off. The natural Valentine thirsted to know what Austin thought about her new clothes. The most exciting thing in the world ceases to be exciting unless there is someone to share it.
She said “Austin” in a low, earnest voice and looked at him between her eyelashes.
Mr. Muir had also been collecting himself. He said, “What is it?” without any excess of politeness.
Valentine edged her chair nearer his.
“Austin—do you like me?”
“Why?”
She flushed a little. It was a flush of annoyance.
“Austin—”
“Well?”
The natural Valentine emerged.
“Why—because of my new clothes, and my hair, and everything. Don’t I look lovely?”
Mr. Muir opened his mouth to speak.
“Austin, if you’re going to say anything horrid—”
“Why should I be going to say anything horrid?”
She edged a little nearer still.
“You might have been going to say that I mustn’t talk about my clothes. Edward always said that a lady didn’t, and that it didn’t matter what she wore, because she would still be a lady. But I don’t think I want to be a lady if I can’t talk about my clothes. So it’s no good saying things like ‘It isn’t done,’ because I’m going to do it.” She dropped her voice to a thrilling whisper. “Austin—I’ve had my hair cut off! Austin, I’ve had it shingled! Austin—do you like it? Austin—it’s cut quite short at the back like yours.”
“What a pity!”
“No, it isn’t.” A new sort of sparkle came into her eyes. “It’s what’s done. That ought to please you. Doesn’t it?”
“Not specially.”
“Austin, do say you like it!”
“I can’t see it.”
To his horror, she pulled off her hat, bobbed the shorn head at him, and said,
“You can see it now. Do you like it?”
All the other people on the verandah were looking at them.
“I say, put your hat on again!”
“I wan
t to know if you like it—and my dress. Barclay thinks I look lovely—he said so.”
Austin’s frown deepened.
“You’d better take care not to believe everything Barclay says.”
Barclay, very comfortable in a long chair, looked at them benevolently. He was not near enough to hear what they said, but he had caught his name.
“Which of my ears has got to burn?” he asked.
Valentine had not put on her hat again; it lay on her lap. She nodded across it at Austin.
“He heard what you said.”
“He didn’t.”
“I think you’re horrid to Barclay. I love him.”
Mr. Muir scowled.
“You’d better tell him so.”
“I shall when I want to,” replied Miss Ryven.
CHAPTER VI
Barclay received an answer to his cable before they left Honolulu. It was of an economical length and ran as follows:
“Waterson family solicitor will meet on arrival Ryven.”
Valentine looked at the words with a troubled expression.
“Who is it from?”
“Well, I cabled to Mrs. Ryven.”
“She doesn’t say she is glad.”
“Well, my dear—”
“Why doesn’t she?”
“Did you expect her to be glad?” said Austin Muir.
Barclay turned on him.
“Look here, Austin, you’re not on in this scene—see?” He tapped the paper. “Cables are very expensive things. I’ve known a man sit up half the night to boil a forty-word telegram down to twelve. People don’t say things like ‘I’m glad to see you’ in a cable, my dear, unless they’re just chucking money away.”
Austin attacked Barclay on the subject afterwards.
“What’s the good of letting her think Mrs. Ryven’s going to be pleased to see her?”
“Well—I don’t know,” said Barclay. “Seems to me she’ll find out soon enough.”
“She ought to be told.”
“What are you going to tell her? You don’t know anything—you’ve nothing to go on. My view is that there’s no sense in looking for trouble.”
After they had left Honolulu behind them Valentine developed a violent thirst for information. There were a good many novels on board. She read them through and used them as the basis for innumerable questions, some of which Barclay found embarrassing. He dropped one book into the sea, much to Valentine’s annoyance.
“I couldn’t understand any of it,” she said.
“Thank the Lord for that!” said Nicholas Barclay.
“But I want to understand everything!”
“Little girls don’t want to understand that sort of thing.”
If he meant to divert her by calling her a little girl, he failed. She kept to the point.
“What sort of thing?”
Barclay’s skin was too leathery to reveal a blush, but he experienced some of the sensations which accompany the act of blushing.
He said, “Er—”
“What sort of things?” said Miss Valentine Ryven impatiently.
Barclay said “Er—” again.
Valentine looked at him severely.
“Wasn’t it a nice book?”
“No, my dear, it wasn’t.”
“Then why did you have it?”
“Gosh!” said Barclay; he mopped his brow. “You stop giving me the third degree and hop along and get yourself another book.”
“Perhaps that won’t be a nice one either.”
It ended in Barclay consigning about half his library to the Pacific Ocean.
In the intervals of reading novels Miss Ryven practised the art of wearing shoes and stockings. It was not an easy art. She could wear them, and she could walk in them; but she was robbed of two-thirds of her spring and grace. She practised daily, and Barclay gave her dancing lessons—like most fat men he danced extremely well—and Mr. Muir, who was not a great performer, was set to change gramophone records whilst Valentine, in Barclay’s arms, learnt to avoid treading on Barclay’s toes or tripping up over her own. He became daily less cheerful and avoided Valentine.
It was not really very easy to avoid Valentine, because Valentine did not want to be avoided. When she had finished her dancing lesson with Barclay she wanted Austin to play deck quoits or to come and make a third at one of the card games for which she was developing a passion.
They played poker and vingt-et-un for counters, Barclay delivering some really fearful homilies on the subject of girls playing for money.
“I like his nerve!” said Austin after one of these sermons. “He’d go the limit any day of the week!”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it’s like his nerve to lecture you about playing for money. His trouble is he can’t get people who’ll play as high as he’d like to.”
“Does he play high with you?”
Austin laughed rather bitterly.
“You can’t get blood from a stone! I haven’t got a bean.”
He found himself involved in an explanation of the word bean, with excursions into other synonyms for money.
The days and weeks slipped by.
The last day of the voyage found the weather still fair and warm. Austin had certainly not intended to watch the sunset with Miss Ryven. But things which we have not intended to do are apt to happen when an undercurrent of desire pulls against intention. He leaned on the rail and watched a yellow sun sink into a bank of haze.
“Do you remember when we left the island?” Valentine spoke with her head turned away from him. She watched the haze brighten into smoke of gold.
Austin remembered quite well.
“You never even looked at the island,” he said.
“I didn’t want to look at it.”
“No—because you were glad to leave it behind. To-morrow you’ll be glad to leave us behind.”
Valentine went on looking across the water. The gold dazzled. The sky was blurred.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true. You’re like that—you want to get on to the next thing. I don’t blame you.” He paused. Perhaps he expected a protest. When no protest came, he went on, his voice dropping and hardening. “I only hope you’ll like the next thing when you come to it—that’s all.”
Valentine turned round. In the clear twilight he could see that her eyes were bright and her lashes wet; there was colour in her cheeks.
“Why did you say that?” she cried.
“Because I hope you won’t be disappointed.” The words were rather flung at her.
“You mean something horrid—you mean you’d like me to be disappointed so that I’d think how nice you were and want to be back on the yacht! And you’re not nice at all—you’re horrid!”
Austin Muir folded his arms and leaned against a stanchion.
“You say that because you don’t like being told the truth—women never do—they always want someone to butter them up and tell them lies so that their feelings shan’t get hurt.”
“I don’t want to be buttered and told lies.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t!” Her cheeks burned. She stamped her foot.
“Well then, what about a little truth for a change? Personally, I think it’s unmoral to tell lies. I told Barclay all along that you ought to know the truth; but he simply shirked it because it was unpleasant. That’s Barclay all over.”
Valentine’s left hand clenched on the rail.
“What do you mean?”
Austin jerked his head back.
“What’s the use of it anyhow? I call it rotten to let you go on believing a lot of fairy tales right up to the last minute. It’s bound to end in your getting a most awful jolt.”
Valentine began to feel frightened; she stopped feeling angry. That was one of the things that frightened her. The colour began to leave her cheeks. She said,
“Why don’t you tell me what you mean?”
“I�
�m going to, because I think you ought to know. Look here, Valentine, do you really suppose that these relations of yours are going to be glad to see you?”
“Oh!” said Valentine. She might have cried out just like that if she had slipped and fallen.
“Well, is it likely they’re going to be pleased?”
She recovered her breath.
“Aunt Helena said in her letter—”
“Twenty years ago! Have a little sense and think what it’s going to mean to have you turning up like this. Barclay says there’s a place—a house, you know, and land that belongs to it—a good bit of land. Well, they’ve lived there for twenty years. Barclay says there’s money. Well, they’ve had the spending of it for twenty years. Then you turn up, and they’ve got to hand over the place and the money and everything. And you’re fool enough to think they’re going to be pleased.”
He stopped, and there was a silence. He had not meant to say so much. His heart thumped against his side. He was angry; but he didn’t know why he was angry.
“I don’t want to take anything away,” Valentine said in the smallest thread of a voice. “I don’t—” The thread of voice broke.
“How can you help it?” said Austin scornfully.
“I won’t take anything away.”
“You’ll have to.”
“I won’t. I only want them to be pleased—to like me. I thought they’d be pleased.” She made one of her sudden movements and caught his arm. “Austin, you were being horrid! Say you were just being horrid! Say you didn’t mean it! Austin—say it isn’t true!”
She pressed upon him, shaking his arm to and fro.
He began to say, “It is true”; and then quite suddenly he found that he wasn’t speaking at all, and that his other arm was round her. He felt her strain away and then lean forward against him. He heard himself say angry, broken things.
“You’ll go away—you don’t care a damn—why should you—I haven’t got a bean—you’ll go away—you’ll never think of me again.”
The hands that had been shaking his arm closed on it convulsively. She was trembling in his arms, shaking and sobbing as if she had been no more than a passionate, wounded child. He found himself kissing her, her hair, her neck. Her face was hidden.
Kingdom Lost Page 4
