Theirs Was The Kingdom (9 page)

Nothing happened and she could see no evidence of the damage, although she was absolutely certain it was the oak, one of her favourite trees that stood only a few yards beyond the paddock rail, a veteran all of three hundred years old that must have seeded itself from the spur above the house about the time that old pirate Conyer made up his mind to build a house for the Cecil girl, forbidden the company of a penniless suitor.

The prospect of seeing the great tree prone and splintered saddened her. All the time she had lived here it had been a symbol of permanence, a reminder that she and that Cecil girl had a great deal in common, both having married the same kind of man in the face of parental opposition. She knew she would not sleep now although the gale was slowly blowing itself out, satisfied, no doubt, now that it had inflicted permanent damage on the old place. She lit the lamp again, looked at her watch, and found it was just after five. Slipping into her woollen bedgown, she went out on to the landing where there was a candlestick left for emergencies, reasoning that it would be light in an hour or so and she could make herself tea in the kitchen and pass the time doing a laundry check while she waited to review the storm damage from the drawing-room windows. She lit the candle and carried it, guttering madly, down the broad staircase and through the swing door that led to the big stone kitchen.

It was far more cheerful in here. A log glowed fitfully in the downdraught of the chimney. The old iron kettle, hanging on its spit above the grate, held water that was close to boiling, so she tipped it, filling the smaller kettle and balancing it on the log while she fetched tea, milk, and sugar from the pantry. The kettle lid was rattling before the cup was set and it was whilst carrying kettle to teapot that she first heard the rattle of the door latch.

The sound startled her until she remembered that the gardener’s boy slept in the loft over the stables and had therefore almost surely been roused by the crash of the oak. She called, sharply, “Is that you, Philip?” and crossed to the door, laying her hand on the bolt. But the voice that answered was not Philip’s but a deeper one, charged with agitation and calling urgently, “No, ma’am, it’s me! Denzil Fawcett, from Dewponds. May I speak to you, ma’am?”

Dewponds was the farm a mile or so up the river, the nearest to Tryst of a spread of farms occupying a ripple of hollows this side of the woods; and Denzil, she recalled, was the only son of Stephen Fawcett, the farmer, a rather morose man, who was on guardedly friendly terms with Adam, both having served in the trenches before Sebastopol. She guessed then that the gale, as well as bringing down the Conyer oak, had inflicted more serious damage on the farmhouse, and that Denzil had been sent for help. She called, “Wait, I’ll open up!” and drew the bolt, using her shoulder to prevent the heavy door opening its full width.

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.