Theirs Was The Kingdom Page 9

  He slipped inside quickly, a wildly dishevelled young man about Stella's age, running his fingers through dripping hair and blinking nervously in the light of the kitchen lamp. He was, she could see, not only soaked to the skin but very embarrassed at finding himself in the presence of the mistress of Tryst in her bedgown and nightdress. She pushed the door to and he hastened to help her, silencing the long, whistling sough of the wind.

  “I saw a light,” he said, breathlessly. “I was going to shelter in the stables until someone stirred and I could ask for Mr. Swann…” and then a flush spread across his moist, tanned cheeks and she hit on a deeper reason for his obvious embarrassment. It was no secret at Tryst that he had been madly devoted to Stella ever since he brought her home with a bruised backside after a toss she had taken in the hunting field. That, however, would be years ago, when Stella was rising fourteen and the boys made far more of the incident than it merited, teasing Stella unmercifully about her straw-chewing swain until Adam had put a stop to it at Stella's request.

  She said, “Has anything happened at the farm? Has the river flooded again?” And he said, avoiding her eye, “No, Mrs. Swann, nought like that. Maybe it's best I talk to Mr. Swann.”

  “You can’t,” she said, suddenly glad of his company, “Mr. Swann is in Ireland, and you’re soaked through. Here, have some tea, I’ve just made it. The big oak came down and woke me up. Nobody else heard it but they’ll be stirring in an hour, so tell me what brought you here at this hour and in this weather?”

  He said, with a great effort, “Your daughter did, ma’am… Miss Stella…” and then, sullenly, “She isn’t that now, is she? Not since—marrying!”

  She learned something from the difficulty he had in getting that last word out, as if it pained him as much as losing a bad tooth. It also occurred to her to wonder if that calf-love episode, that had been the subject of so much family laughter, was as innocent as she had supposed at the time, but then, studying him closely, she noted his increasing embarrassment and decided that it must be, for a lad like him would hardly presume to make a bid for a girl with Stella's background. And even if he had entertained such a grandiose notion, Stella was not the kind of girl to give him the slightest encouragement.

  She said, sharply, “My daughter sent you? At this time of night?”

  “She's… she's at our farm. She didn’t want me to come, or not yet. But I thought… mother thought…” and he stopped his big hands seeking an anchorage on the mug she had placed in them a moment ago.

  Henrietta experienced an unpleasant shrinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. If Stella was at Dewponds Farm, within a mile of home, then she was in some kind of trouble. Bad trouble, she would say, having regarded Denzil's presence here at five in the morning. She said, carefully, “How does my daughter come to be at your farm? Don’t stand there fiddling with that mug. Drink it, lad, then go over by the fire and tell me exactly what's happened.”

  The edge on her voice helped him to make the effort. He took two great gulps of tea and drifted over to the hearth, setting the mug down on the slate chimney-shelf and rubbing his great, freckled hands one upon the other. “I found her,” he said, finally. “She saw my lantern up in Carter's Copse when I was out with the lambs. We had trouble and I was sitting up in the spinney hut… She came over the gate and called… She was in a bad state… she’d walked, you see, in all that wind and rain.”

  “Walked? From Courtlands? Good heavens, it's twenty miles, isn’t it?”

  “Not the way she came, across country. It's far enough, though. She was about done and soaked through and through.”

  “But why? In God's name why, boy?”

  “She ran away. She was making for here I suppose but then… well, she changed her mind and asked me to take her in. I roused Mother and the girls and they dried her off, gave her some soup, and put her to bed in Dulcie's room. She's there now. Asleep, I reckon.”

  It was as wild and improbable as one of her dreams about Alexander. As improbable, in its way, as her own mad flight the night Sam tried to marry her off to Makepeace Goldthorpe in exchange for a piece of land between mill and railway line. But Stella wasn’t being married off, and she had always thought of her as a weak-willed character, so it astounded her to discover that the girl had the spunk to run away and make her way home, irrespective of what had prompted the flight.

  She found herself looking at Denzil more sympathetically. Perhaps it wasn’t calf love that had prompted him to take charge of the drenched fugitive, to abandon his lambs to rain and wind and hurry her back to what must surely be a very startled and embarrassed family. She said, fighting her impatience, “Did she tell you anything, Denzil? Any reason why she should do a crazy thing like that?” and watched him carefully, interested to see the way he flung up his head, not perhaps defiantly but resolutely. “That rake Moncton! He's been treating her badly. His father, too, from what I could learn.” And then, dismally, “You won’t send her back, will you?”

  It was a direct appeal, and she was glad it had not been made in the presence of anyone else, who would be unlikely to acknowledge chivalry in a lumpish farmer's boy. She was grateful then to the wind for bringing down the oak and rousing her while everyone else slept. She said, quietly, “Finish your tea, lad. Dry yourself off a bit. Then tell me everything. Everything, you understand?”

  He seemed to consider this a moment and the air of distraction that had attended him ever since he crossed the threshold moderated. Deliberately, he squared himself, so that she was surprised to notice that he was as tall as Adam and even more strongly made. His rough clothes steamed as they clung to him and she thought, involuntarily, “Why the devil do we halter ourselves with all the fancy conceits that go along with money? He would have made a perfectly splendid husband for the girl, and taught her something worth knowing while he was taking care of her and giving me grandchildren I could be proud of…” but she said, prompting him, “I’m waiting, Denzil.”

  “She didn’t say much, or much that made sense anyway. She was fair worn out, and her clothes was in tatters. Besides, she was crying, and it wasn’t easy to follow her in all that wind.”

  “But you heard enough to decide to take her home instead of bringing her here.”

  “Aye, I did that, Mrs. Swann, and she can stay at the farm as long as she's a mind to. With your permission, that is.”

  “We’ll come to that. Meantime I’ll have to know at least as much as you know.”

  “It fair beats me how she could marry a man o’ that sort,” he burst out. “Or even if she wanted to, why you and Mr. Swann didden stop her, seeing she's not of age. They’re trash, for all that great place they live in, and all those fine horses they breed. People like us have always known it, but you wouldn’t, seeing you weren’t raised about here. I was near out of my mind when I first heard about it…”

  He stopped suddenly, the flush returning to his cheeks. “I’d best hold my tongue,” he concluded, “she's in enough trouble a’ready,” but then, reading Henrietta's expression, he went on, desperately, “There was never the least thing wrong about me and Stella. We’d meet from time to time, over on the downs, when I was ditching, or fetching the cows from pasture. She was always on her mare, and mostly she’d do no more than lift her crop and go her way. Not always tho’. Sometimes she’d rein in and pass the time o’ day. One time…” and he stopped again, glowering down at the smouldering log in the hearth.

  “This is between you and me, Denzil. I said I must know everything, but I give you my word it won’t go beyond these four walls. What happened that one time?”

  “Nothin’ really. I was mad enough to tell her what was in my mind, that she was just about everything to me. More’n Dewponds if the truth's known.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  His head came up again. “She just laughed and made me see what a dam’ fool I was, so I started walking off, but she slipped off the mare and called me back. She said she was sorry she’d
laughed that way and she was, too, otherwise why should she… She come right up to me then and kissed me. Just that once. Then she got up again and rode off without a word. That was the summer before last and whenever I saw her after that she was with one of the others. Mr. Alexander, mostly.”

  “And that's all?”

  “That's all, Mrs. Swann. I’ll swear on the book if you ask me to.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Denzil. Thank you for telling me.”

  She had a picture then of their association over the eternity of adolescence, a pretty, impossibly remote little madam, buttressed by wealth and a new social position, and a great gallant oaf like Denzil Fawcett, mooning his life away as he trudged about his tasks, lifting his head every now and again in the hope that he would catch a glimpse of her, perhaps exchange an odd word with her, a crumb of dry bread that would keep him going for another week or so. Any kind of crumb—a wave, a smile, or an odd word or two if she was in the mood to bestow such favours. And then that single moment of declaration, greeted by derisive laughter, and after laughter, no doubt, a flash of compassion on her part, followed by a lightly bestowed kiss, as though that would last the poor devil a lifetime. Anger rose in her, not for him certainly but for Stella, for the cold fish she had married and that rackety old father of his. But mostly for herself and Adam, who had let things drift to this pass, a daughter of theirs who had supposedly made a good match, running off into the night after six months as a bride and making for the one person from whom she could expect aid and comfort without conditions to go along with them.

  She said, “Wait here, Denzil. Pour yourself some more tea and give yourself a rub down with that towel while I’m dressing. We’ll roust out young Philip and he can harness the trap, but while I’m gone think of some excuse for my going with you, something the servants will likely believe.”

  He looked surprised and then hesitant so that she added quickly, “Don’t fret. I’ll not send her back but there's no point in her coming here either, for this is the first place the Moncton-Prices will look when they discover she's gone, if they don’t know already. I’ll bring some things she can change into, and I know a place where she can hide while Mr. Swann and I sort this out one way or another. Do you trust me that far?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? You’re her mother. You’d surely know what's best for her.” “Yes, I do,” Henrietta said, and left him, going through to the hall and up the stairs and noting, on the way, that the first glimmer of dawn was showing on the edge of the downs.

  2

  The vault-like stillness, the enduring silence of the house, and the terrible sense of timelessness it brought was not fully apparent to her until the January frosts had stopped the hunting and she lost contact with everyone she knew save Lester and his sharp-featured old father, and even their company was hard to come by, particularly when Lester's crony, Ralph Ponsonby, was about the place.

  Nobody save the old man ever addressed her unless she began the conversation and when she did they seemed to listen with ill-concealed impatience, so that they could get back to their racing gossip, or exchange one of their mysterious male jokes that made no kind of sense to her.

  She and Lester were never alone, not for a single moment, for he had a room of his own along the corridor and had used it every night, even his wedding night, when he had shipped so much wine at dinner, and during the billiards match he played with Ponsonby later, that the head stableman had to be summoned to put him to bed.

  The old man had stayed on, playing interminable games of patience on a board that rested on his knees, and in his gruff way had been considerate towards her, suggesting that she had a brandy and some of his shelled nuts before retiring to the great, dilapidated bedroom they had given her, where her trousseau was still waiting to be unpacked. She had no maid to help her. Women, if any were allowed above stairs, never seemed to come to this part of the house and that in itself was strange, for who made and aired the beds, and carried coals and hot water upstairs?

  The bleakness and anonymity of the house had pressed hard upon her that first night and even now she had not adjusted to it. She never ceased to compare its austerity to the warmth and cosiness of Tryst, with its gleaming surfaces and smell of age, its continuity that did not run contrary to the vitality of newcomers like the Swanns but somehow enfolded them and coached them in its ways, graciousness, and durability. Courtlands was old, though not so old as Tryst, but its smell of the past contained elements at odds with these things. It had never, it seemed, been loved and cared for, and in the lower rooms old dust had gathered in the fabric so that instead of pleasant smells, like lavender and resin that pervaded Tryst, there was a whiff of mildew and damp rot. There was no kind of scheme inherent in the fittings and furnishings, for here and there pieces had been sold off to pay racing debts and their removal had never been camouflaged, as where the wallpaper that had once backed a picture or a Welsh dresser remained its original colour, in contrast to grimed sections that had been exposed since they were pasted there a generation ago. The gardens were neglected, too, for the entire household revolved around the stables, the only part of the mansion in good heart.

  Loneliness, and a kind of dragging apathy, engulfed her from the first moment of coming here. The servants were mostly broken-down old horsemasters and ostlers, who seemed to regard the living quarters as a camp, and a temporary camp at that. But it was not the outward aspect of the place that troubled her so much as her isolation, a nineteen-year-old girl set down among so many ageing men, who paid her scant deference and seemed in fact to regard her as one of the young master's doxies temporarily lodged in the house, and likely, at any moment, to move on bag and baggage to make way for a replacement.

  She was not much given to self-pity and throughout those first few months had made a great effort to adjust to the translation from a background of cushioned comfort and hilarity, to one of near squalor and overall drabness, her happy childhood buttressing her against despair. But for all that, week by week, she sensed she was losing ground. Even Lester, who, now that he was her husband paid her no attention at all, admired her horsemanship and was amiable enough when they were mounted, but once the horses had been off-saddled and rubbed down he drifted off somewhere; either to supervise the training of one or other of his entries in the big steeplechase events, or to play billiards, or to drink and consort with his inseparable companion Ponsonby, a young man concerning whom she could discover nothing, beyond the fact that his stepfather had owned a horse that won the Derby and had once trained Lord Rosebery's racehorses, but who seemed now to have latched himself on to the Moncton-Prices.

  She had recognised Ponsonby as the major impediment to the marriage on that first, disconsolate night. It was Ponsonby, she was certain, who had talked Lester out of their honeymoon trip to Biarritz, now postponed indefinitely, for the flat season would open in a month or so and it was well known that the Moncton-Prices had entered their colt, Figaro, in the Epsom classic. She could forgo a cross-Channel trip in winter, but it was humiliating to hover on the extreme edge of this tight family circle waiting and waiting for Lester to use her as she had been led to believe all young men used their brides, particularly in the early days of marriage.

  She was by no means entirely ignorant of men and men's ways, having been raised in the company of two lively brothers not much younger than herself, and had thus come into contact with any number of their high-spirited friends at garden-parties, birthday gatherings, and Christmas celebrations at Tryst. At least a dozen of these young sparks had embraced her in odd corners of the house, and two or three of them had tried to adventure a little further but had been rebuffed, for Stella Swann had never, since putting up her hair more than five years ago, failed to put a realistic price upon herself as the eldest daughter of a man whose name was a household word; and she thought herself as fetching as any of the models used by Mr. Millais or Mr. Burne-Jones, or even Mr. Rossetti in their annual Academy exhibits.

  Sometimes
, once she had passed her fifteenth birthday and was beginning to think of herself as eligible, she would compare herself with one or other of the willowy heroines in these highly publicised paintings, telling herself that most of them, notwithstanding abundant tresses and large, soulful eyes, looked anaemic, whereas she, for her part, had just as much hair, a much healthier complexion, and curves in all the right places, so that it did not surprise her in the least that she was very popular in the ballroom, and much sought after at soirees and garden fetes organised by people like old Mrs. Halberton, the social lioness of the district.

  She knew that she was not in the least clever like her courtesy-sister, Deborah, whom she had always admired and continued to admire, even though Deborah now showed unmistakable signs of turning into a blue-stocking. But men were supposed not to love clever women, so with her looks and her figure, to say nothing of her skill in the hunting field, she did not think she would have the least difficulty in catching a young man who would adore her and pay her far more attention than her jovial money-grubbing father paid his wife, who nonetheless continued to look at him (on those occasions when he was there to be looked at) like a spaniel bitch hoping to be taken rabbiting on the downs.

  One man did look at her in that way. Poor, lumpish Denzil Fawcett, the farmer's son over at Dewponds, who had rescued her after a tumble in a soggy ditch the far side of Cudham one autumn morning, carried her all the way home, and then succeeded in making a great nuisance of himself when his sheep's eyes informed her brothers and sisters that she had made a conquest. But poor Denzil, who was really rather like Jan Ridd in Mr. Blackmore's highly recommended but tedious novel, did not qualify as a beau in the way Alexander's friend Bellchamber did; for Bellchamber's père owned a scent factory, whereas Roger Stanton, one of the subalterns of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons, who had brought her grandfather home after the Waterloo dinner, had an uncle in the House of Lords. She was rather sorry now that she had not encouraged Roger and used him a foil against Lester when the latter began to pay regular visits to Tryst, but he had arrived rather late on the scene, when she was more or less committed, and the prospect of being Lady Moncton-Price had put everything else out of her head.