Theirs Was The Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page A

joined his father in what he advanced as a filial endeavour to recoup the summer’s flat-racing losses on the autumn steeplechases. Henrietta had not been informed whether their string of successes had resulted in keeping the creditors at long range, but she was in no doubt at all as to what had induced the Moncton-Prices to marry into trade. That much, she supposed, must be general knowledge in the area, but nobody, seemingly, found it degrading, not even Adam, who argued that men like Sir Gilbert, whilst they were almost always short of ready money, could never be hounded beyond a certain point, so long as they owned land and had family ties with influential people at Court and Westminster. On the whole, he told Henrietta privately, he approved of the match. Marriages of this kind, he said, were recognised as a means of national compromise nowadays and Stella, a tradesman’s daughter, would be unlikely to do better down here in the country if that was the life she hankered after. It was out of the question to give her a season, like that accorded the daughters of deeply entrenched county families. In twenty years or so, seasons would be obligatory on the part of successful tradesmen’s daughters, but changes of this kind took time. As it was they were still the prerogative of people who inherited money.
    So they were married in this same church in September and Stella, pink with triumph, drove away behind a pair of matched bays to Courtlands, and Henrietta, thereafter, held her peace. She did not even inform Adam that he had entirely misunderstood her concerning her doubts. They had nothing whatever to do with the mountainous losses of the Moncton-Prices at Newmarket and Epsom, and even less with young ladies’ seasons and the rituals of husband-hunting in London drawing rooms. They were instinctive and deeply personal, arising out of her own discoveries concerning the nature of men and marriage, that told her good manners in public, a generous settlement, and the prospect of a title were threadbare substitutes for a shared sense of humour and the prospect of a romp down the years with a lusty, tolerant husband. She would have been more likely to make a determined stand had she not long since made up her mind that Stella—whilst undeniably pretty, graceful, and an expert in croquet, dancing, and small talk—was very short on humour and therefore unfamiliar with the hidden meaning of the word “romp” as applied to marriage. Had she not been she would have shied away from a mincing, rather effeminate beau like Lester, and possibly gone as far as climbing out of the bedroom one night and running off to Gretna Green with someone like that lumping great farmer’s son, Denzil Fawcett (or Follett, was it?) who had been mooning after her—poor, deluded oaf—since she had put her hair up when she was thirteen. For that, or something like it, was what Henrietta would have done in her shoes, but mother and daughter had very little in common, and perhaps Stella did not deserve anyone better than Lester Percy Maitland Moncton-Price and the clutch of long-nosed children he was likely to give her. She was certainly not equipped to appreciate the fearful ecstasies of near abduction, shared adventure, and breathless submission to a man like Adam Swann, who had shed a family tradition like a housewife discards an empty peapod and gone about making his own way in the world with a gusto that would shake the dust from any number of Moncton-Prices. It was very difficult, she supposed, to view this kind of thing through another woman’s eyes. For herself, looking back, she would have felt cheated had she been denied the pleasure of finding a man for herself and learning for herself how to anchor him.
    She stole a cautious sidelong glance at daughter and son-in-law, seeking confirmation of her suspicions that some of Stella’s colours were beginning to fade and found it, or thought she found it, in appraisal of Stella’s waistline.