“Why don’t you fight the case?” said Katherine Hill.
“There’s no case to fight—there’s no doubt at all. She is certainly Valentine Ryven.”
“That’s what you all say. But how do you know? She’s got a good case, and she’s got Mr. Waterson on her side; but I’ve never heard of any case so good that a clever lawyer couldn’t find a hole in it. You’re taking it lying down.” She repeated the last words on a deeper, almost violent tone, “Lying down. Don’t you want to fight? I should if I were you. I should want to fight to the last ditch. If I lost, I’d have the satisfaction of knowing I’d put up a good show.”
“No, I don’t feel like that.” His tone was quiet and meditative, the greatest possible contrast to hers. “I don’t feel like that—and I couldn’t fight a claim which I am quite sure is a just one.”
Katherine had not moved at all. She said,
“No—” with a leap in her voice, “you don’t care enough to fight for anything.”
“Don’t I?”
“Do you? I don’t think you do, or you’d fight—fight and be beaten—but fight!” She leaned just a little forward upon her hands—strong white hands, beautifully shaped and very strong. “I came along Parkin Row this morning, just to look at it. I looked at it—all those damned filthy refuse heaps of houses festering in the sun—all those horrible crushed, draggled women—all those verminous children. They can just go on as they are because you’re too proud to fight!”
Eustace leaned back in his chair.
“That is not true. I would fight if there was any case. There isn’t.”
“There’s always a case! A lawyer would find you one. You haven’t tried—you’re just taking old Waterson’s word.” She paused and then spoke his name strangely poignantly—“Eustace!”
Eustace Ryven was conscious of a sort of weary surprise. Katherine had never called him Eustace before. Until six months ago he had called her Miss Hill. Then, in an extra press of work, she had imported a friend to help them out, and with the friend saying “Katherine” all day long, he had slipped into saying it too. But she had never called him Eustace. He was just not quite conscious that it was months since she had called him Mr. Ryven. He was feeling too tired to speculate on why she used his name now; he was too tired to admit a new idea, combative and disturbing, into the arena in which he had already fought himself to a standstill. He was concerned, deeply concerned, to maintain a calm, indifferent front. Not to the world, not to Helena, not to Katherine, would he show the wound through which interest, zest, all that he really cared for, was slowly draining away.
He shook his head and, with the feeling that he must end the scene, took up a packet of envelopes and began to fold the letters he had signed.
Katherine lifted her hands off the table. The deep smouldering fire showed in her eyes.
“Of course there’s an easy way out for you,” she said. She spoke low and steadily, her voice held in so that it had no vibration—a ghost of a voice.
“I?” said Eustace; and just for a moment his pain showed.
“You’ve only to marry her,” said Katherine Hill. And with the last word she turned and went out of the room; the door shut quietly behind her. A moment later the outer door shut too.
Eustace stayed without moving for half an hour. Then he addressed his letters and stamped them; after which he locked up the office and walked to his flat, posting the letters on the way.
Life seemed a tolerably drab affair.
CHAPTER XV
Austin Muir answered Valentine’s letter by return of post. It was the very first letter that she had ever received. The housemaid brought it up to her when she came in to draw up the blinds and to say that her bath was ready. The blinds were already up, because, whatever the weather was, Valentine liked as much of it indoors as possible.
Austin’s letter came after a night when the moon had walked beautifully over the black woods, and turned the dewy lawns into sheets of silver water. Then, with the dawn, there was a clouding, and the sun came up in a mist, all red, and for the space of half an hour the sky ran scarlet. After that a still grey day, just trembling into rain. The windows were damp when Agnes stood by them for a moment arranging the curtains. Then she went out and left Valentine alone with her letter.
Valentine took one jump out of bed and ran to the window.
The letter wasn’t very thick. It must be from Austin, because she had written to him. It couldn’t be from anyone else—oh, it couldn’t. But if it were—
She sat down on the wide window-ledge and tore open the envelope very carefully, because she had never opened one before and it would be dreadful if she hurt Austin’s letter. She wondered which day he would come. She wondered whether Barclay would come with him. Her fingers shook with excitement as she took out the letter and unfolded it.
“Dear Valentine”—Austin wrote a very neat upright hand—
DEAR VALENTINE,
It was good of you to write, but I think I had much better not come and see you. It is better that we should not meet. If you don’t realize that now, you will very soon. I’ve got my way to make, and we are not at all likely to come across each other again. Barclay has gone to America on business. I expect to be very busy from now on, as the General Election has been definitely decided upon. I will say good-bye now. Yours sincerely,
AUSTIN MUIR.
Valentine read the last words through two large unshed tears. He had promised—and he wasn’t coming. It didn’t even sound as if he wanted to come. He wasn’t her own best friend—he wasn’t her friend at all; he was “Yours sincerely.” And Barclay had gone to America.
She let the letter fall and went down beside it on the floor all in a heap, her arms on the sill, her face pressed down on them, quivering. The two unshed tears burned hot and wet against the back of her right hand, but no more came. It would not have hurt so much if she could have cried. But what she had told Timothy was true—unhappiness stayed in her heart; it had no easy outlet in tears.
She began to think miserably about the money. It was because of the money that Austin wouldn’t come. Eustace didn’t come either. Perhaps that was because of the money too—and Aunt Helena. She began to hate the money very much; and, for the first time, she thought back and saw the island as a place where she had been happy, a rock in a blue sea. She had had something there which had been taken away from her now. Helena Ryven—when she was on the island she always had her picture of Helena, wanting her, loving her—her picture of a playfellow—Eustace—a family like the nicest family in her nicest book. That was on the island.
She had stood on the deck of the yacht, whilst the island slipped away into the sunset, and dwindled, and was gone. She had not even watched it go; she had been looking so eagerly towards England. And in England, instead of finding the dream come true, she found that money mattered much more than anything else; it mattered more than people loving each other—and much more than being friends. She hated it with all her heart.
It was after breakfast that she asked Helena Ryven when Eustace was coming to Holt.
“I don’t know, Valentine.”
“I would like him to come.”
“He is very busy.”
“What does he do?”
“I told you the other day what he had been doing. In his altered circumstances, he cannot of course go on with his plans of rebuilding the slum property. All the work has to be cancelled. It is naturally giving him a good deal to do.”
“Will he come when he has finished doing it?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mrs. Ryven was at her writing-table in the little room which had always been her own sitting-room—a pleasant room furnished with quiet good taste. From the mantelpiece a row of miniatures gazed with simpering, high-nosed approval; the men in stocks, and well-frilled shirts, and coats of sage or prune or scarlet; and the ladies powdered, high-busted, fichu’d, and of an unearthly delicacy of complexion. On the chairs pale, dimly patterned
linen covers. On the walls soft colour prints. At the windows straight wine-coloured curtains. Everything in the room seemed a long way off and a long time ago. Helena Ryven made one feel a long way off.
Valentine understood that Eustace Ryven would not come to Holt because she had taken Holt away from him. She said what was in her mind:
“He won’t come here.”
Mrs. Ryven frowned. She took an envelope and addressed it. When she had stamped her letter she turned round. Valentine was standing by the mantelpiece; she looked pale and dejected.
“I have to go to London again to-morrow.” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”
“Oh, yes!” The dejection vanished; the blue eyes brightened. “Oh, Aunt Helena, how lovely!”
“We could lunch with the Cobbs,” said Helena thoughtfully.
Valentine sprang at her. She stopped just short of an impulsive embrace and stood with her hands clasped at her breast.
“And see Marjy and Reggie?”
“Probably. I believe Reggie comes home to lunch.”
“How lovely! And—and—shall I see Eustace?”
The silence did not really last very long. Then Mrs. Ryven said,
“I thought perhaps you might care to see something of what Eustace has been doing. After all, he has been in some sense your”—she paused, rejected the word steward, and, reflecting that she had only Valentine for an audience, used rather deliberately the grandiloquent, “viceroy—he has been your viceroy, hasn’t he? Would you like to see what he has been doing?” Her voice sounded warmer, perhaps because her mind was not quite at ease.
Valentine flushed delightedly.
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes, Aunt Helena!”
Timothy and Lil came up to dinner that evening. Mrs. Ryven allowed her gaze to rest for a marked moment upon the bright green dress which Lil had evidently made herself. It was very bright and very short, and Lil had been very much pleased with it until Helena looked at it like that. It was not a frowning look or a disagreeable look; it was just a look. Yet Lil was instantly aware that her frock was not all that she had thought it, and that Helena, as usual, considered her lacking in taste and a social handicap to Timothy. Her colour rose unbecomingly and remained high.
At dinner she talked a good deal about Jack Harding, choosing the moments when the servants were in the room.
“He’s getting on splendidly,” she declared as she helped herself to the entrée. “I went to see Mrs. Hambrough the other day—you know he’s her favourite nephew—and she’s so pleased with the way he’s getting on that she’s going to give us one of her famous eiderdowns—every bit made with her own feathers. She only gives them to relations she approves of, because they take ages to make and all the feathers have to be picked over by hand.” She turned to Valentine with a pleasant consciousness of having scored off Helena. “She’s Mr. Harding’s sister—a darling untidy old thing. Her husband has one of your farms.”
Mrs. Ryven began to discuss prayer-book reform in a quiet well-bred voice.
After dinner she asked Lil to sing. Something indefinable in her manner conveyed the impression that she preferred Lil’s music to Lil’s conversation as being the lesser of two evils. Miss Egerton, in reply, jerked the piano open, drew off two much disapproved of bangles, which she put down with the largest amount of jingle, and banged out her preliminary chords in a way that made Timothy frown.
Valentine had never heard anyone sing before. She wasn’t quite sure that she liked it; it gave her a curious shaken feeling; the air round her seemed to be shaking too, quivering as the hot air used to quiver when the sun beat on the island.
Lil had a good untrained voice, fresh and perfectly in tune. She sang Billy Boy, and Green Broom, and the pretty country variant of The Keys of Heaven called My Man John:
“Oh, madam, I will give to you the keys of my heart,
To lock it up for ever, that we never more may part.
If you will be my bride, my joy, and my dear,
And you will take a walk with me anywhere.
“Oh, sir, I will accept of you the keys of your heart,
To lock it up for ever, and we never more shall part.
And I will be your bride, your joy, and your dear,
And I will take a walk with you anywhere.”
When she had finished singing, she stayed at the piano, playing any scraps of tune that came into her head. She had stopped thumping. She loved the piano at Holt far too much to go on thumping it. She thought, as she always did, “I should like to steal it,” and went on playing because she couldn’t make up her mind to stop.
Mrs. Ryven crossed the room and began to look for something in the drawers of a walnut tallboy. She proceeded to sort through a tangled mass of wool. Maggie Brown’s stockings were finished, and she wished to make certain whether she had enough of that particular wool to make her another pair.
Valentine got up out of her chair and knelt on the hearth-rug close to Timothy. There was a little fire, and she wanted to get near it. She also wanted to talk to Timothy, because she simply had to tell someone about Austin’s letter. That was the funny thing; she had lived for twenty years on the island with Edward, and she hadn’t ever wanted to tell him anything. It wasn’t that nothing ever happened, because things did happen—very exciting things happened. It was very exciting when Sophronisba hatched out thirteen chickens; but she hadn’t wanted to go and tell Edward about it. It had been rather fun waiting to see when he would notice the chickens for himself—Edward wasn’t at all a noticing person. But now she wanted someone to tell things to. Perhaps it was because she had always planned to tell things to Aunt Helena—only you couldn’t, you simply couldn’t.
She knelt beside Timothy and said in a little shy voice,
“I wrote to Austin.”
Timothy looked kindly at her. She had on a blush pink frock with frills. She was looking pale; she had hardly spoken; he had been wondering what was wrong. He looked at her kindly and wondered whether it was Austin’s name or the firelight which made her seem less pale all at once.
He said, “Did you?” and she nodded.
“Yes—I wrote to him, and he wrote to me.” She paused, and added, with a drop in her voice, “It’s the first letter I’ve ever had.”
“Was it a nice one?” said Timothy, very much as he would have said it to a child.
“No.” Then, after a pause, “It wasn’t nice—not at all.”
“Wasn’t it? I’m so sorry.”
“He isn’t sorry,” said Valentine.” He said Barclay had gone to America. And he says he won’t come down and see me, though he really promised he would.” She blinked vigorously. “He did. He promised he’d come—and now he says he won’t. He says he had much better not come—he says it is better that we should not meet—and he says we are not likely to come across each other again.”
Timothy felt an unregenerate desire for five minutes’ conversation with Mr. Austin Muir. He felt that he could say quite a lot of things in five minutes that would help to relieve that young gentleman of the good opinion which he obviously had of himself.
“Look here, Val,” he said, “I shouldn’t worry about him.”
“I’m not worrying. But it hurts—here.” She pressed a hand against her pale pink bodice. “There isn’t anything to worry about, because it’s all settled. He won’t ever come and see me now, though he did promise.” She fixed her eyes on Timothy. They were round, and dark, and solemn. “I know why he won’t come.”
“Why?”
“It’s because of the money. He said so on the yacht—he said I’d be too rich. That was when he kissed me.” Timothy felt unaccountably angry. What a blighter! “He wouldn’t have kissed me if he hadn’t been fond of me, Timothy—would he?”
“Well—” said Timothy. He had on more than one occasion kissed damsels for whom he had no very special affection. This did not, of course, interfere with his conviction that Austin Muir was a low hound.
“It was the
back of my head he kissed, really,” said Valentine, still gazing at him anxiously.
In addition to being a low hound, Timothy now considered Austin Muir to be a damned fool.
“Perhaps that makes a difference,” said Valentine.
“Perhaps it does,” said Timothy with a gravity that did him credit.
Valentine shook her head.
“I don’t think so really. I think he was fond of me, but he wouldn’t let himself be because of the money. I think he thinks too much about money—I told him he did. Having a lot of money doesn’t stop you wanting to be happy, and it doesn’t stop you wanting people to be fond of you. Aren’t people ever fond of a girl who has a lot of money?”
Timothy looked at her. His eyes twinkled and said something, but she didn’t quite know what it was. It was a kind thing. She thought Timothy was kind. His eyes twinkled, but he said in quite a solemn voice,
“I don’t think you need worry about that.”
“Perhaps I’m not the sort of person that people are fond of.” This was a dreadful thought, but it had occurred to her more than once lately.
“Perhaps you are,” said Timothy.
“Do you think I am?”
“I shouldn’t wonder.” Then, just as Helena came back with her arms full of wool, he bent forward and whispered, “Don’t be a goose!”
CHAPTER XVI
Next day Valentine went up to London with Mrs. Ryven. They went by train because Helena considered driving a waste of time. Valentine would have liked to go in the car; the train was exciting too, but she had the wonderfully keen sense of smell that wild things have, and the smoke from the engine offended it.
The day was clear and fine. The smoke which smelt so nasty was blown across a cool blue sky that was blurred by no other cloud. The wind came lightly out of the east and brought a sparkle of cold to meet the warmth of the sun. Valentine wished the roof off the train so that she might see the bold, clear arch of the sky. She wanted to feel quite close to the blue, and the wind, and the sun.
The day was going to be one of those days that you never forget, even when you are quite, quite old. Sometimes they come suddenly, and sometimes you know about them beforehand—and it is much, much nicer when you know about them beforehand. The day that Austin came to the island was one of the sudden days, and the day that Edward—fell. They begin like other days, and you don’t know that anything is going to happen until it happens; and then you know that you aren’t going to forget it any more, even if you live to be as old as the very oldest people in the Bible. The other sort of day, the sort that you know about beforehand, is a much better sort; you keep on getting happier and happier, and more and more excited—only sometimes the thing isn’t as nice as you think it is going to be. Coming to Holt had been like that—and getting her first letter.
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