Theirs Was The Kingdom (96 page)

Then, in a single moment of time it seemed, Helen’s worst fears were confirmed and she had proof that the Jolly Miller game had indeed gone very much awry. A slightly bewildered Joanna appeared on the threshold of her bedroom after midnight one night and asked if she could discuss something very important. Helen, opening the door wide and almost bundling her sister inside, was aware of a dragging sensation in the pit of her stomach. She had no doubt at all that Joanna was here to tell her Rowland had at last made his intentions clear and she said, eagerly, “Why, of course. Everyone’s asleep. Come in and tell me, do! It’s Rowley, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” said Joanna glumly, and Helen thought it strange that a girl who had just received a proposal, however long delayed, should look so indecisive and woebegone. There was a coal fire in the grate and Joanna seated herself in the wicker chair before it, leaving her sister to perch herself on the edge of her bed.

“Well? Go on, go on!”

“He asked me. He asked me tonight, when you and Clint and his sisters were in the stables looking at Clint’s new mare. He said he would have proposed long ago if he hadn’t been waiting upon his examination results.”

“Oh, never mind his dratted examinations, get to the point Joanna! What did
you
say?”

But at that Joanna looked amazed. “What did
I
say? Well, what could I say but no?”

“No? You mean you… you
meant
no?”

“Well, of course. I wouldn’t dream of marrying Rowley, nice as he is in many ways.”

One of Helen’s ears popped and for a moment she could hear nothing but a loud, unpleasant buzzing sound that made her feel dizzy and slightly sick.

“You’re as definite as that?”

“Certainly I am. I simply said I wouldn’t dream of marrying him because I didn’t love him, and anyway, I was quite wrong for him. I certainly can’t see myself as a missionary’s wife, living in some awful jungle or faraway island, full of creepy-crawlies and cannibals. I mean, it’s a positively ridiculous notion, isn’t it? I’m not even religious, or not really. I believe in God of course, and all that, but devoting one’s whole life to it… well, it would be like being a nun. And even if I was in love with him I should have to be absolutely sure he did his doctoring right here in England, where we could keep our friends and entertain, and I could come home whenever I wished.” She broke off, as if suddenly aware of Helen and Helen’s stricken look. “Whatever’s the matter with you? You look quite ill. Are you bilious or something?”

It was understandable that Joanna should forget Rowland Coles for a moment, and switch her mind to her sister, still perched on the edge of the bed, mouth open and gaze fixed on a point level with the mantelshelf that supported a single ornament, a bucolic-looking shepherd embracing a reluctant nymph, one of the many porcelain figures Adam had scattered about the house. Instinctively Joanna followed her sister’s gaze but could find nothing in the group to account for her sister’s expression. She got up, crossed to her, and shook her by the shoulder, by now convinced that Helen was sickening for something.

“What
is
it, Helen? What on earth’s come over you, girl?” The shaking, or perhaps the edge on Joanna’s voice, had some effect. The somnambulist’s gaze did not fade exactly but wavered, as Helen gave a shudder, raising both hands to her face and pressing them there as she wailed, “
Why didn’t I know?
Why wasn’t I
sure
? One is supposed to be sure of something as important as that but I wasn’t…” and she turned a despairing gaze on her sister. “All this time! Ever since he bandaged me in the lodge after that spill. Why, it’s quite monstrous, for I was in love with him from the very beginning, from the moment he touched me. And now he’s proposed to you, and you’ve turned him down! Don’t you see what an awful fix we’re in, Jo?”

It seemed, however, that Joanna did not, for after contemplating her sister a moment longer she began to laugh, quietly at first but soon so immoderately that she had to grab the corner of her dressing gown and hold it against her face, reasoning no doubt that laughter of that volume would awaken the household on both corridors.

“Oh, dear…!” she managed to gasp, at last. “Oh, dear, what geese we are, Helen! And both of us believing we were so artful, and could make things happen any way we wanted to.” But then, because there was no sign of Helen appreciating the humour of the situation, natural affection reasserted itself and she grabbed her sister’s hands, dragged her upright and over beside the fender, saying, “For heaven’s sake, don’t
take
it that way. See how much worse it would have been if I had accepted him! Why, if you really mean what you say, if you aren’t fooling yourself that is, you could quite easily make him fall in love with you.”

“Oh, no I couldn’t! Do you think I haven’t tried? Nobody could make Rowland Coles do anything, and anyway he’s obviously in love with you and was, even before we met that time.”

“Rubbish! Just listen to me, Helen. I’ve got to know Rowley and it’s not me he wants so much as a wife to keep him company in those awful places he intends going to, and as I told him—for his own good that is—no girl I know will take kindly to that prospect, even if she’s dying for a husband, as most of our set are.”

“You said
that
to him?”

“In as many words. Wouldn’t you have?”

“No!”
She almost screamed the word. “No, I most certainly wouldn’t, Jo! Because it wouldn’t be true. Not of me, and not of any girl who wanted… well… wanted adventure, something exciting to happen, something to take her out of the round of parties and dances and shopping expeditions and fox-hunting, and all the silly things we’ve thought of as important since we got out of the schoolroom! Why, if Rowland Coles had asked me to marry him, I wouldn’t have hesitated a minute. I would have gone
anywhere
with him, anywhere at all. Among cannibals, even, because that’s just the kind of man I admire and respect, and I see now I must have sensed this about him all the time, without actually knowing it, or maybe because I couldn’t bear to admit that he wasn’t in the least bit interested in me.” But at this point misery engulfed her like a vast, soggy blanket, and she subsided on to the bed, her mouth puckering and tears of frustration welling, so that Joanna found herself remembering the irrepressible Helen of the days when they shared a bedroom and discussed beaux with the indifference of a couple of drovers speculating beside a bullock pen at a market.

She said, briskly, “Oh, cheer
up
, Helen! It isn’t the end of the world! You’ve got time to change his mind, for he isn’t going for months. Why, the London Missionary Society has to approve of him…”

But love, it appeared, had transformed Helen, for she jumped up at that, saying, in withering tones, “How
can
you talk like that? What kind of person do you think he is, for Heaven’s sake? Do you think he’s like… like Clinton, out for all he can get, without committing himself, and without a serious thought in his head? Do you think someone quite splendid like Rowley would change his mind about who he wanted to marry, like changing trains at a station?”

“Yes,” Joanna said, calmly, “that’s exactly what I do think. And if you’ll calm down a bit, and condescend to listen instead of carrying on like a hysterical housemaid, I’ll explain why. He’s been long enough coming to the boil and I’ve had plenty of time to find out everything about him, so there!”

This at least had the effect of checking Helen somewhat, so that Joanna saw no reason, at that stage, to enquire further into her sister’s tacit admission that Clinton had been exceptionally venturesome. Not that it surprised her. She had thought him very saucy from the moment she first met him, but it was interesting to learn just how saucy in this roundabout way. She wondered momentarily how far Clinton had ventured with Helen and how much encouragement he had received in return. They were neither of them without experience in these matters, and it occurred to Joanna that it would be a more rewarding occupation to resist Clinton than to wear oneself out attempting to stimulate Rowley, a task that had occupied her, intermittently, for more than half a year. She said, “Now listen to me, Helen. We could do something about this providing you’re serious and don’t get put off by a lot of silly nonsense about Rowley’s highmindedness. He isn’t any more highminded than the next man, and this missionary business is no more than an adventure to him. The fact is, he sees a doctor’s life in an English country town as too dull for his taste… no,
listen
, I can assure you I
know
what I’m talking about… Oh, he’s kind and well-meaning, and he’ll make a splendid doctor, and a good husband too, I’ve no doubt, but if you made up your mind to catch him you could, I’m quite sure of that! And why not? You’re brainier than I am, just as pretty, and you’ve got a better figure!”

“He doesn’t think so,” Helen said. “He put arnica on my knee that time and saw most of me but it didn’t impress him the slightest bit.”

“Why should it? He was looking at you as a doctor, wasn’t he? Listen, just you leave this to me. I’ll really put my mind to it and I’ve already got an idea of how to go about it. But before I decide there’s something I’ve to know about Clint and I’m not just prying, you understand? How fast
is
he? I mean, when there’s just the two of you?” She was intrigued to see her sister colour.

“About as fast as a man could be, I imagine. If a girl gave him the slightest encouragement, goodness knows how it might end. But what’s Clint’s forwardness got to do with it?”

“More than you suppose,” Joanna said, smiling, “so now just go to sleep and don’t worry! It’ll turn out just as you want, so long as you let me plan it for you. There now!” as she kissed her and gathered her dressing gown about her, “Not a word of this to anyone, you understand? Not one single word!”

She went out, closing the door softly, and slipped along the corridor to her own room. It was some time since she had felt so light-hearted. Seven months of lugubrious courtship on the part of an embryo missionary had given her a feeling of already having joined the married set, women who had put fun and frolic behind them and did all their gossiping and scandalizing behind fans.

4

The characteristics of two parents and a mixed foursome of grandparents had been carelessly scattered among the children of Adam and Henrietta Swann. Here and there traits could be spotted, but mostly they remained hidden, revealing themselves occasionally as a flash, a salmon leaping a weir, a chink of light beaming from a suddenly opened door. Adam’s singlemindedness; Sam Rawlinson’s preoccupation with machines; the old Colonel’s gentleness; the Celtic gloom and compensating high spirits of Henrietta’s Irish mother. All filtered down, one way or another, to the second and third generation, and possibly Joanna Swann’s sensuality, coupled with her artfulness, was another by-product of mixed blood that could be traced back to Irish and Gascon ancestors, whose names she had never known.

Alone among the Swann girls, Joanna had her mother’s propensity to contemplate the male animal as a mate rather than a husband. Marriage, as such, had never occupied a prominent position in her thoughts, but this did not mean that she was not absorbed in the mating process, and had been, ever since an enterprising sixteen-year-old had slipped his hand inside her bodice after catching her in the broom cupboard during a hide-and-seek game at a Christmas party. Phoebe Fraser’s unremitting efforts to alert her charges to the terrible risks of rousing the half-slumbering beast in men had, to an extent, backfired in Joanna’s case. Like her mother before her, she was intensely curious about men and men’s appetites concerning women, and this curiosity had added spice to her many flirtations, from the age of about fifteen upwards. The exciting incident in the broom cupboard had gone some way to explain the reckless ardour of the average male, whenever he was given an opportunity to indulge it, but several other incidents of a similar nature had been withheld or watered down during discussions on the subject with Helen or other intimates, for she had a private conviction that most women were boobies when it came to handling a man. Now, faced with a direct challenge that promised to exercise her wits to the full, she began to formulate a plan that promised more fun and more excitement than had ever come her way in the past, but it occupied the better part of a week to enlist Helen as an accomplice. Once committed, however, she thought her sister could be relied upon to play her part with the dash she had shown in earlier conspiracies between the two girls.

By then mild spring weather had arrived and there was no difficulty in persuading Rowley, recently freed from the tyranny of his finals, to organise a railway picnic to the village of Hildenborough, down the line from Tonbridge, where a couple of traps could be hired for a drive out to Penshurst Place.

The temperature favoured the plot. It was as warm and sunny as June when the four of them collected the traps from a local stable and set off down the winding road to Penshurst, the village selected by Joanna for the complicated manoeuvres she had planned.

They paid a yawning loafer to turn the hacks loose and let them graze while they had their picnic, Joanna leading the way up the long slope “to see the spread of primroses,” she said, “that grew more thickly here than anywhere else in Kent.” As regards the primroses, no one was disappointed. The entire hillside, a mile long and a quarter-mile deep, was starred with them, and the view from the ridge, taking in the splendours of the great Sidney mansion in its park of three hundred and fifty acres including the wood-fringed mere and the famous Penshurst oaks, was very impressive.