Theirs Was The Kingdom (66 page)

He said, somewhat startled, “You live there? That’s a holiday home?”

“Oh, it’s not very grand,” she said. “We’ve only four servants, including the gardeners. In Eaton Place we have seven.”

For the first time he hesitated, saying, “Look here, Romayne, I’m not in the least sure your father would like you inviting a complete stranger in for breakfast. After all, look at me. I’ve slept rough three nights in a row…”

But she squeezed his arm in the friendliest fashion and said, “Don’t be so humble. You saved my life, didn’t you? At least, that’s what I shall say, and that’s surely worth a plate of ham and eggs, and some toast and honey. Besides, as to sleeping out, you’ve just had a bath, haven’t you?”

There was really no resisting her, so they went on up the short drive and through the open door below an impressive portico, where Maggie, presumably the housekeeper, pounced on Romayne from a door leading to the rear of the house, screeching at her in unintelligible Welsh, so that Giles held back, almost inclined to run for it. But then Romayne answered her in Welsh and soon they were laughing together, and he was hustled up the broad staircase to a dressing room, and ordered to take off his wet clothes and give Maggie his knapsack to be emptied and dried on the kitchen range while they had breakfast.

His protests that he had nothing to wear were swept aside, as Maggie produced some assorted garments from a huge press, saying they were clothes house-guests used when they came here to fish, but there were no guests here now and that he was not to worry, for “Sir Clive would be honoured to entertain an English aristocrat.” This, it seemed, was how Romayne had introduced him in the torrent of Welsh she directed at Maggie. Romayne then disappeared to change her own clothes, saying she would not be ten minutes, and left to himself he stared at his reflection in the mirror, deciding that he looked like a stage parody of an English sporting gent in his pepper-and-salt knickerbockers, fisherman’s jacket, flannel shirt, and mustard-coloured cravat.

Romayne was back in eight minutes, wearing a crimson velvet gown, with embroidered gold facings and gold buttons on the sleeves and revers. It suited her admirably, giving her a vaguely mediaeval look, although it occurred to him as being highly unsuitable wear for breakfast in the Welsh hills and he said so, adding that her father would think they were all playing charades. “Papa won’t be down for breakfast,” she said. “He never is, for he doesn’t go to bed until all hours. As to this, I wore it for you. It goes with knights and Camelot, you see.”

She said this seriously, so he studied her carefully as she bobbed about in front of the mirror. Although it was cut so short (as short as the hair of a Camelot pageboy) her hair, he decided, was one of her most attractive features, for it was as gold and sleek and shining as her buttons and fitted her small, neat head like the husk on a hazel nut, reaching her prominent cheekbones in two balanced sweeps and in a way that framed her face, enhancing the depth and blueness of eyes that were full of mischievous sparkle. The only feature that was at odds with her ebullient nature was her mouth, full and heavy lipped but so spoiled, he thought, that at any moment it promised to tighten, expressing frustration, disapproval, or perhaps hysterical rage. Her teeth, however, were quite perfect, very white, and evenly set, and the little tongue that peeped between them, as she admired herself in the glass, was like a pink dart. It reminded him of his initial impression of her when she emerged dripping from the river shaking her head, a highly strung spaniel, likely, indeed almost certain, to dash off here, there, and everywhere at a whistle from someone it loved.

Breakfast was a riotous affair. Watched over and encouraged by Maggie, they consumed what seemed to Giles vast quantities of porridge, eggs, bacon and sausages, pints of coffee, and toast spread with marmalade that Maggie told him she made herself. Romayne ate as much as or more than he but, notwithstanding this, kept up a flow of chatter about “her adventure,” as she described it, and the mountains, Maggie’s marmalade, their home in Eaton Place, London, and her formidable-sounding governess, who went by the name of Prickle, a dragon from whom, it appeared, she spent her life escaping. It was half an hour before Giles discovered that Prickle was a nickname, the governess’s real name being Thorne.

He enjoyed listening to her and the food was welcome indeed, for he was very sharp-set. The smell of bacon and coffee was delicious when he entered the heavily furnished morning room, with its gleaming silver, heavy mahogany furniture, and oil portraits of severe-looking men and disdainful-looking women, that Romayne said were Mostyn ancestors.

“Papa has always been secretly impressed by them,” she said, “because his family aren’t anything special, but I think they look terribly stuffy, don’t you?”

He did, and thought also that they looked the kind of people who would be likely to set mantraps for poachers. But the thing that interested him most about them was the similarity of their mouths to Romayne’s, and this made him slightly apprehensive, particularly as, at any moment, the factory-owning geologist was liable to appear and ask him what the devil he thought he was doing breakfasting with his daughter and wearing clothes reserved for his guests.

He need not have worried. Towards the end of the meal Sir Clive Rycroft-Mostyn did appear, a slightly built man of about fifty, with sharp, intelligent eyes, a fresh complexion, carefully combed grey hair, and a rather distant manner moderated, to some extent, by the excessive mildness he displayed towards his uninvited guest, as though his daughter brought rescuers home to be dried out every day of the week.

One of the most definite impressions Giles got of the man was that he had long since come to terms with Romayne’s eccentricities and his extreme tolerance was the result of self-restraint he seemed to practise. Everything Sir Clive said, and everything he did, was considered, as though he thought it fitting to bring the same deliberation to spreading a pat of butter on a piece of toast that he would to planning one of his industrial enterprises. He was the kind of man, Giles assured himself, almost certain to be rich and powerful, and probably ruthless into the bargain, incapable of being surprised in that he had discovered how to maintain a quiet ascendancy over everyone, including Romayne, towards whom he was affectionate but patronising, as though he was dealing with a lively ten-year-old instead of a handsome young woman. Towards Giles, however, he was gravely courteous, thanking him, a little ironically, for “saving” his daughter from being washed down river, but somehow implying that it was a service no one in his senses could be expected to make a song and dance about.

It was not until Giles’s surname had registered, and his host had time to ponder it, that his alert brown eyes showed a flicker of genuine interest, as he said, thoughtfully, “‘Swann’? With two n’s? No relation to
the
Swann, I suppose, the big transport concern?” When Giles admitted that Adam Swann was his father, Clive laid down his triangle of toast and became very much aware, saying, with great sincerity, “You must forgive my surprise, Mr. Swann. My daughter is not usually so discriminating. Yours is a famous enterprise, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, your father hauls for me in several parts of the provinces. He would know me well, I daresay, not so much in South Wales, where we use our own transport, but up in Clydeside, where we have shipping and mining interests. May I ask what brought you up here? Are you on holiday?”

But Romayne interrupted, saying, “A man doesn’t
walk
a hundred and fifty miles for a holiday, Papa! He’s footed it, all the way from Devon! He’s doing it for a wager, I believe.”

Sir Clive elected to take this seriously, for a wager involved money changing hands and this was a serious matter. “Is that true, Mr. Swann?”

“No, sir, it isn’t,” said Giles promptly, catching Romayne’s twinkle in the corner of his eye, “the fact is I am on a sort of holiday. I shall be joining my father shortly, but before I do I thought I should like to see the land he operates over. He has a flourishing branch in Wales. It’s called The Mountain Square on our company maps and right now I’m on my way into the cotton belt, and then north to Edinburgh, where we have our biggest branch.”

“You intend to walk the whole of the way?”

“Yes, sir. It seems to me the best way to see things.”

He said this defensively but Sir Clive nodded slowly, with approval Giles thought, so that he was not surprised when the industrialist said, “You are quite right, of course. I hope your father approves. I am sure he does, for what can a man learn about customers, real or potential, in the compartment of a train travelling at sixty miles an hour? My congratulations, Mr. Swann, on your perspicacity as well as your hardihood. Where did you attend school?”

“At West Buckland, on Exmoor,” Giles told him, “but before that I was at Mellingham a short time.”

“Mellingham? But that’s primarily a military establishment, is it not?”

“Yes, sir, but I preferred West Buckland. Partly because I’m very much a countryman and the country about there is as rewarding as this, although not as spectacular.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of the school,” Sir Clive said, mildly, smiling as Giles said, “No, sir, it’s not famous, like older and larger schools. But it was founded by a pupil of Arnold of Rugby and I very much enjoyed my time there.”

Sir Clive digested this half-rebuke, and Giles had the impression that Romayne was watching him approvingly, so that he thought, “He might have her well in hand but she doesn’t miss a thing about him either; or anyone else for that matter. They’re both as sharp as pins and the only difference between them is that he has the trick of hiding his thoughts…”

But then Sir Clive succceeded in surprising him, for he rose, extended his hand, and said, earnestly, “Thank you again for being of service to Romayne, Mr. Swann. There’s really no curing her. She’s always in some scrape or another, and perhaps it’s my fault and her mother’s. We very much wanted a boy, you see.”

“I’m sure you’re resigned to a daughter now, sir,” said Giles. Romayne cried “Bravo! Now isn’t that gallant of him, Papa? I’m sure he’s a reincarnation of Sir Galahad!” Then, turning back to Giles, “You just can’t put those damp clothes of yours on your back and march out of here. I won’t let you, you’d surely catch cold. He could stay on, couldn’t he, Papa? I could show him places about here he’d never find by himself!” Before Giles could protest her father said, very cordially, “Certainly he can stay if he wishes. I should be delighted if he did, for it’s time you met someone to teach you how to behave in public and private. Will you do us the honour, Mr. Swann? Be our guest for a few days, while the weather lasts? Romayne can walk you off your feet if she cares to and we’ve a couple of good hacks if you want to ride.”

“It’s extraordinarily kind of you, sir,” Giles stammered, “but really, I can’t help feeling I’m imposing on you. You don’t owe me anything at all, sir. Miss Rycroft could have pulled herself out of that river without any help from me.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” he said, and Romayne pouted, saying, “There now, you’ve spoiled it all!”

“Indeed he has not,” her father said, “for you should learn to take the will for the deed. How was Mr. Swann to know you were fooling? I daresay he was persuaded you were in real danger.”

“
Were
you, Giles?”

“Yes, I was. As I said, I thought you were a child.”

“She is a child, Mr. Swann. And a very spoiled one at that, as you’ve probably decided by now. She seems to have made a private vow never to pass beyond the age of fifteen. That’s so, isn’t it, my dear?”

“More or less,” said Romayne, equably, “sixteen and a half perhaps,” and they all laughed, at least Giles and the girl did, and Sir Clive smiled indulgently, as at someone whom he regarded as incorrigible.

“So you’ll stay, Giles?”

“Well… a short while… there is more I should like to see up here, and your father has been so kind…”

Romayne gave a whoop of triumph and pranced from the room, shouting something about getting the horses saddled for a jog into Caernarvon to see the castle.

Sir Clive said, the moment the door closed on her, “You’re probably thinking I’m ridiculously indulgent, Mr. Swann? Well, I daresay I am, but she’s all I have, for I never cared to marry again and it’s true I was anxious to have a son to follow me. Your father would understand that. He has several, or so I’m told.”

“Five, sir,” Giles told him, wondering at his source of information concerning the Swanns, but remembering it would be the business of someone with manifold business interests to have made a study of prominent hauliers.

“Five, by God!” Sir Clive said, suddenly becoming enthusiastic. “That’s the kind of investment every enterprising man should look for. Will you all go in to the business?”

“No, sir. Alex, my eldest brother, is already a captain in the army, and the youngest son, Edward, is only a toddler. My brothers George and Hugo may, George certainly. As for myself, I’m not fully committed. My father and I have… well, an arrangement. I am to try it until I’m twenty-one and then change horses if I wish.”

“You hanker after some other career?”

“Not really. I’ve thought about literature, teaching, and even politics. But at eighteen it’s hard to be sure.” For the first time Sir Clive Rycroft-Mostyn dropped his half-bantering approach, saying, “I was. At the age of six. It was then I decided to make money and I didn’t really care how. I still don’t. Your father would probably confirm that.”