Valentine felt a dreadful sense of guilt. Aunt Helena was all dusty, and her hat was crooked, and she had a smut on her cheek. And she was angry—she was certainly very, very angry. It was dreadful.
“I had to come—” She faltered. “I had to come and see Eustace.”
Mrs. Ryven stopped with her hand on the door.
“And why, pray?”
“I had to. I didn’t feel I could wait. I had to find out if he would marry me.”
Helena Ryven was not often taken aback; but she was at a disadvantage. She gasped.
“Eustace! You!”
And then, unbelievably, she felt the sharpest stab of triumph.
“What do you mean, Valentine?” she said in a controlled voice.
Valentine’s eyes were wet.
“If we get married, I can give it back, and he needn’t stop pulling down houses.”
Mrs. Ryven spoke lower.
“You said that to him?”
“Yes, Aunt Helena.”
Lower still, because she could not keep her breath steady: “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. She came.”
“Kathetine Hill?”
The door was opened from the inside. Eustace stood there, tall, pale, and severe. Mrs. Ryven passed into the room and shut the door.
Valentine did not know what to do. She didn’t want to go back to the kitchen. There was a chair on the other side of the hall. She went over to it and sat down.
She could hear Mrs. Ryven and Eustace talking in the dining-room, first one voice and then the other, but no words. There was something odd about hearing people’s voices when you couldn’t see them; it made you feel lonely. Yet on the island she had not really been lonely. She had been alone. There was a difference between being alone and being lonely.
She found herself thinking about Katherine Hill. When Katherine passed her in the hall, it was like a cloud of unhappiness going by. She went on thinking about Katherine.
Presently Eustace came out of the dining-room. He went down the passage towards the kitchen, spoke to Mrs. Fleming, and came back again. Valentine got up, and he shook hands with her politely, and said, “Good-bye—I’m afraid I’ve got to go out. Mrs. Fleming will look after you and my mother.” Then he went away. Valentine watched the door shut behind him.
Helena Ryven took her back to Holt after she had had a rest and a bath. She told her that she was too tired for conversation, and she let Valentine see how entirely she was to blame for her fatigue.
After they arrived at Holt Mrs. Ryven went to her own room. The feeling of being in disgrace got stronger and stronger.
After tea Mrs. Ryven reappeared. She was now sufficiently restored to point out to Valentine how badly she had behaved and how much trouble she had given. Valentine said she was very sorry. She was wondering very much about Eustace. Most of the time that Aunt Helena was talking, she could not help wondering about Eustace. He had shaken hands with her and gone away. He had never said whether he was going to marry her or not. It was very difficult to attend to what Aunt Helena was saying. But of course she was sorry. She said so. Then she said,
“Am I going to marry Eustace? He didn’t say.”
Mrs. Ryven made an impatient movement. Really the girl was too impossible.
“My dear Valentine, you mustn’t say things like that.”
“But I want to know. I asked him, and he didn’t say.”
“Valentine,” said Helena Ryven, “I want to ask you very seriously not to talk like that. It is not fair to yourself, and it is certainly not fair to Eustace, who would be horrified. Marriage is a serious thing. Girls don’t ask men to marry them, my dear. Don’t you know that?”
Valentine coloured a little, as a child colours when it is found fault with. They were in the drawing-room, with the windows open to the sunny evening air, Helena upright in a chintz-covered armchair, Valentine on the window-seat with the sun on her curls and on her bare brown neck. She had changed the green dress for a rose-coloured one.
“Don’t they ever?”
“Nice girls don’t,” said Mrs. Ryven. She still looked tired, but she had recovered her air of superior calm.
“But,” said Valentine, “but, Aunt Helena—Eustace didn’t come to Holt. And if he didn’t come, he couldn’t ask me to marry him—could he?”
“I think, my dear, we won’t talk about that. In fact, I want you to promise me that you won’t talk about it to anyone.” She paused and added, “Eustace is coming down to-morrow for the week-end.” Her voice was quite smooth, but her heart was full of triumph. Eustace was coming back to Holt. The week-end was merely a symbol. She looked at Valentine almost kindly.
Valentine meanwhile was considering. If Eustace was coming for the week-end, perhaps he would tell her whether they were going to be married. She felt that she would like to know. It would be nice if he came and they were all friends. And if she was engaged, she would have an engagement ring. And when she was married, she would have a wedding dress, and a veil, and orange-blossoms. It was very exciting. A soft, pleased colour replaced the flush that Helena Ryven’s rebuke had brought to her cheeks. She fixed an interested look on Helena’s face.
“When you were married, did you have orange-blossoms?”
Mrs. Ryven lifted her eyebrows.
“Yes—it was the fashion.”
“Isn’t it the fashion now?”
“I believe so.”
After a pause Valentine began again.
“Did you love Uncle Edmund very much when you were married?”
“People don’t ask that sort of question, Valentine.”
“Don’t they? I asked Mrs. Fleming, and she said she was a respectable woman. Isn’t love respectable?”
“I don’t think it’s very nice to talk about it.”
“Mrs. Fleming said she didn’t hold with love. Don’t you hold with it either?”
“My dear! What an expression! You shouldn’t talk to women like that.”
Valentine moved a little, following the shifting sun.
“In books people who are going to be married love each other very much. But Mrs. Fleming said that all a girl wanted was a steady young man who didn’t go into public houses. Eustace wouldn’t go into a public house—would he? Is he steady?”
Mrs. Ryven got up.
“My dear, you really must not quote the charwoman to me. When Eustace marries, his wife will be a very lucky woman.”
CHAPTER XXI
Eustace came down next day, and stayed for a week, during which Mrs. Ryven kept the house full of people. There were people to lunch and people to tennis, and there were two rather stately dinner parties.
Helena saw to it that Valentine wore her prettiest frocks. She praised her with a sort of cool candour, and was pleased to find the neighbourhood favourably impressed. When all is said and done, a pretty girl with a romantic story can hardly fail to make a good impression.
Kind Lady Needham declared herself charmed with “poor Maurice’s daughter.” “And surely, my dear Helena, Eustace is, may I say—I’m sure I’m such a very old friend—attracted. What an excellent thing it would be!”
The blunt Miss Bulger—Agneta Bulger, the golfer—wrung Mrs. Ryven’s hand and said in hearty tones, “Good for you, Helena, my dear! I always said you were a sport. Are we to congratulate Eustace?”
Mrs. Ryven allowed herself to say, “Not yet.” But she smiled.
Even Mrs. Wendle’s sharp tongue had nothing worse to say than, “Well, I congratulate you on la belle sauvage. Is it your doing? Or did she reach you civilized?”
“Valentine is very well educated,” said Mrs. Ryven. “I believe Mr. Bowden was a very distinguished man.”
“Edward Bowden? Oh, yes—I believe he was. My brother James knew him—a distinguished crank. Well, I’ll say this for the girl, she doesn’t look like a blue-stocking. Are she and Eustace going to make a match of it? Or is that too obvious?”
This time Mrs. Ryven did not s
mile. She said Valentine was a dear girl, and she allowed her glance to rest upon her affectionately.
Valentine only saw Timothy once all the week and then only for a few minutes. He came in to say that he and Lil were going up to town to stay with his mother’s people. There had been a letter from Jack Harding, and Lil was to go out as soon as she could get ready.
“Is she pleased?” asked Valentine.
Timothy nodded.
“Harding’s a good chap—he’ll make her a good husband.”
“Is he steady?”
Timothy laughed; the question came so primly.
“Very.”
“That’s what matters most,” said Valentine earnestly.
“It’s not a bad thing.”
“It matters more than being in love. Being in love is only in books—isn’t it?”
“Valentine—” said Mrs. Ryven in a warning voice; she had caught a word or two. She got up and joined them.
“Aunt Helena doesn’t want me to talk about love,” said Valentine.
Timothy said, “Shame!”
Afterwards he was to wish that he had walked Valentine away from Helena and got to the bottom of that prim, anxious questioning. He went away, and, busy and preoccupied as he was, there were moments all through the week when he saw Valentine’s blue eyes shadowed and earnest. They had no business to hold a shadow in their depths.
At the end of the week Eustace’s engagement to Valentine was given out. They had been together continually, and so much in public, that the announcement took no one by surprise. Valentine found herself treated with an unvarying grave politeness which she supposed to be the proper thing.
Eustace never alluded to her visit to town. On the last day of his stay he asked her to marry him, and when she said “Yes,” he kissed her forehead somewhere near her left eyebrow. And then he went and told Aunt Helena, and Aunt Helena kissed Valentine’s cheek.
It wasn’t at all like a proposal in a book. Eustace didn’t say, “I love you,” or, “I can’t live without you,” or even, “Darling!” He said, “Valentine, will you marry me?” and she said, “Yes.” And then neither of them seemed to be able to think of anything else to say, so he kissed her forehead, and then went and told Aunt Helena. It was all very solemn and depressing. But she began to cheer up after he went away.
That night she dreamt about the island.
Timothy heard the news when he got back. It staggered him. He had not always admired Helena, but he had not thought her capable of this. It shocked him a good deal. He went to Holt with a smouldering anger under his usual cheery manner. As luck would have it, he found Valentine alone, and some of his anger changed into surprise when he looked at her. She wore a pink dress. Her eyes shone, and her cheeks blushed. He didn’t quite know what he had expected, but not this.
“Timothy, I’m engaged! I’ve got a ring—it’s just come—Eustace sent it. It’s a lovely pearl. Look at it! Isn’t it lovely? I’m so glad you’ve come—I did so want to show it to someone. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Top-hole,” said Timothy.
Valentine gave a gurgle of laughter.
“Oh, what a lovely word! May I learn it?”
“I give it you for your very own,” said Timothy—“with my blessing. You can have it for a wedding present.” He smiled, but his eyes were intent; they saw nothing but a child’s pleasure.
“Six people have written to me already to say how lucky I am. They all say things about Eustace. One of them said he was one in a thousand. Do you think that any of them will write to Eustace and tell him that I am one in a thousand?”
“You’re one in ten million,” said Timothy, and he said it lightly; but his heart contracted.
“Am I? Am I really?”
“Yes,” said Timothy. His lips were stiff. One in ten million? She was the only one in the world. There was no other Valentine.
He heard Helena’s voice in the hall. He said quickly, “Are you happy, Valentine? Are you happy?” And Valentine said, “Yes.”
Then the door opened.
Valentine was happy for a week. Everybody she met said nice things. Aunt Helena was pleased with her. She had a lovely ring. And the houses in Parkin Row were going to be pulled down.
At the end of the week Eustace came down again, and as soon as Eustace came down, she began to stop feeling happy. He kissed her when they met and when he went away, and when he said good-morning and when he said good-night. He nearly always kissed the left side of her forehead. He had to bend down a long way to do it because he was so tall.
Valentine began to wonder why people in books liked being kissed. She didn’t like it at all. She asked Helena Ryven.
“Will Eustace go on kissing me after we’re married?”
“My dear, I do wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“But will he?”—with mournful persistence.
Mrs. Ryven’s conscience gave her a sharp stab. She said, “My dear, what a lot of nonsense you talk!” and went out of the room.
Valentine began to dream about the island nearly every night. She was always alone there. During the long evenings when she sat in the drawing-room between Aunt Helena knitting, and Eustace immersed in a book, she found herself thinking with longing of bed-time; because when she went to bed she would sleep, and be alone on the island—hot sun overhead; a wide blue sky, and a wide blue sea; the shimmer of the sun on the sea, gold on blue; and no one—no one at all—to call her, or to kiss her, or to say “Valentine” in the voice that meant she had done something that “wasn’t done.”
CHAPTER XXII
Eustace and Valentine were to be married in September. “Long engagements are such a mistake,” Helena wrote to Ida Cobb, who read the letter aloud at breakfast in the intervals of pouring out tea. She made the worst tea in England, as her son and daughter continually assured her. Henry Cobb did not complain, because in twenty-five years you can get used to anything—even dish-cloth tea.
Mrs. Cobb read Helena’s letter aloud.
“Long engagements!” she said—fifty years ago she would have been said to have bridled—“Long engagements indeed! She knows that the only chance to get them married at all is to get them married quick.”
“Oh—scandal-monger!” said Reggie.
Henry Cobb looked mildly over the top of The Times.
“My dear, it’s a most suitable marriage. Hullo! I see that ass Merrydew has been writing to the papers again—traffic noises this time—complains he can’t sleep at his club in the afternoon because of the flappers’ hoot—wants to have all women under thirty refused a driver’s licence—”
“Read your paper, Henry!” said Mrs. Cobb. “Helena’s absolutely unblushing about this matriage. I loathe suitable marriages.”
Reggie made a note on his cuff.
“That’s to remind me to make an unsuitable one, darling. What shall it be? A dope-fiend? Or the dustman’s daughter? I live to please! Meanwhile another dollop out of the garbage can!” He passed his cup.
Mrs. Cobb said “Reggie!” in a perfunctory way.
Marjory leaned forward, took a lump of sugar, and began to crunch it.
“Must have something to take the taste away,” she murmured. “That last cup was foul. You know,” she went on, with both elbows on the table, “you know, Eustace is all right if you get far enough away from him. His feelings are like the waves that that wireless man was talking about the other night—if you’re too close there’s nothing doing; but they come down hot and strong in Australia.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” murmured Reggie. “Never mind—the female brain should never be overtaxed.”
Marjory took no notice.
“That’s Eustace all over—I thought of him at once. He’ll freeze that poor kid till she might as well be Canterbury lamb, because she’ll be living with him. But if she was in a slum, he’d love her like anything. He does love his old slums, you know, and if Valentine was ragged and dirty, and hadn’t got an ‘h’ to her
name, she’d come in for her share. As it is, I’m sorry for her.”
Henry Cobb turned a sheet.
“My dear, that’s rather vehement. Everyone isn’t alike, you know—fortunately.” He gave his cup a little push. “Has your mother any more tea?”
“If you call it tea,” said Reggie gloomily.
“I shall ask Valentine to come and stay,” said Mrs. Cobb with the air of one who burns her bridges. “Helena probably won’t let her come,” she added.
Helena let Valentine come for three days. Eustace’s last week-end had not been a great success. She told herself that she would be thankful when the wedding was over. Meanwhile it wouldn’t do to have Valentine going about looking droopy, and Marjory could take her to have her riding habit fitted.
Valentine found the three days full of new impressions. Everybody was kind. They said the oddest things to each other, and they weren’t a bit polite; but nobody minded. She called Mrs. Cobb Aunt Ida, and Mr. Cobb Uncle Henry. They weren’t really her uncle and aunt, but they said it was all the same thing. And Aunt Ida came into her room after she was in bed and asked her whether she’d got everything she wanted, and tucked her up, and patted her shoulder. Mr. Cobb called her “My dear.” It was quite a different sort of “My dear” to the one that Aunt Helena said. When Aunt Helena said “My dear,” it nearly always meant that she wasn’t pleased.
Reggie teased her. He pretended to be frightfully in love with her, and he brought her silly presents that made everyone laugh—a little black woolly dog which jumped when you pressed a spring; and an awful black spider with scarlet eyes, which he hid in her table-napkin; and once, inside a great sheet of tissue paper, what looked like a bouquet until she opened it and found an enormous purple cabbage.
“You’re not to torment her,” said Mrs. Cobb with the fond smile which she kept for Reggie.
“Torment her?” Reggie was all outraged innocence. “I love her passionately. She’s going to throw Eustace over and fly with me—aren’t you, ducky?” Then he went down on his knees in the middle of the carpet. “Star of my existence—elope!”
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