Danger in the Desert Page 8

  Malva giggled.

  “This whole scenario is really quite ridiculous. But it is your story and your idea. Therefore I can only hope that I act my part so well that I not only gain the applause of the audience but also yours.”

  “Well, whatever you may say or think, we will at least be extremely comfortable on this yacht. Although, as you have already pointed out, I may have to redecorate it. I might find it very useful when I want to escape from the chatter of the gossips.”

  “Let’s hope we will give them as little as possible to chatter about.”

  Malva smiled before she added,

  “When I was dancing in London, I used to see them whispering to each other as they sat on the dais. I always wondered who was the victim they were tearing to pieces or dismissing as quite impossible.”

  “Do they threaten you that much? I must say that they terrify me and I only have to enter a ballroom to know that they were chattering about the lady who accompanied me.”

  “I suppose they have nothing else to do,” Malva said. “The only thing which brightens their days is what they consider bad behaviour on your part and the worse it is the better they are pleased.”

  “You are absolutely right, Malva. I can imagine only too well what they would say if they knew where we were at this very moment.”

  “Let’s hope that no one is in any way interested in us or wonder where we are until we return to London.”

  For the moment she spoke seriously.

  “You are not to worry yourself,” Royden told her. “I am quite certain that no one has the slightest idea that we are not in the country riding amongst the buttercups and concerning ourselves only with country matters.”

  He paused for a moment before he commented,

  “If you ask me, they are actually counting up the affaires-de-coeur I have had in the past years and shaking their heads because I refuse to settle down as my father wishes me to do and then produce an heir to follow in my footsteps when I enter the grave.”

  “You make it sound miserable,” Malva answered. “Actually who could not be very happy in such a beautiful house as yours and, of course, it should be filled with the patter of small feet and the nurseries should have children riding on a rocking horse and a nice old-fashioned Nanny knitting by the fireside.”

  Royden threw up his hands.

  “You are now worse than my father,” he said. “The answer I have to give you is to enjoy your freedom while you can, as I intend to do, and don’t even think of any alternative.”

  He spoke almost sharply.

  And Malva realised that he was not yet at the stage when he could laugh at himself.

  ‘Of course he must settle down and have a family, the bigger the better,’ she thought to herself.

  She had always thought that The Towers was too large for one man on his own. He should have youngsters racing each other through the corridors and the laughter of shrill young voices pouring out from every room.

  Malva’s sympathies were with the Earl.

  At the same time she had no intention of marrying anyone rich and however important unless she loved him.

  ‘I have to find love,’ she mused, ‘and perhaps on this voyage when we are running away from marriage, I will find a man who will love me for myself, just as I will love him. Then I will be prepared to marry him however poor he may be and however inconsequential in the Social world.’

  She realised that this was something she could not say aloud to Royden.

  Therefore, while they toured the rest of the yacht, she made him laugh at everything she had to say about the French influence and the ornate decorations and also the crew who looked very different from what one might have expected of an English crew.

  ‘At least this will give us something to talk about,’ she reflected.

  She knew if she was honest she would be afraid that the conversation with Royden might lapse and they might well become bored with each other’s company long before they could turn round and sail back to England.

  Because Royden wanted to go onto the bridge with the Captain after they had looked over the whole yacht, Malva went to her cabin.

  Taking off the dress and coat she had travelled in, she lay down on the bed.

  It was a very comfortable one and she expected that the mattress had feathers in it rather than rags.

  It was quite obvious that the actress who was the previous owner had been determined that her guests should be as comfortable as she herself intended to be.

  Malva had put in her luggage, as well as her pretty dresses, several books she wanted to read and she was only hopeful that there would be a library of some sort aboard the yacht.

  To her delight there were quite a number of books in the cabin next to the Master one. Granted the majority were in French, but fortunately she could read French as well as English.

  Some of them were just romance stories which she usually found were too frivolous to be really interesting.

  But there were also, to her delight, some history books of different countries where the yacht had called at one time or another including half-a-dozen in English.

  She thought that she would have plenty to entertain her when Royden became disenchanted with her company.

  There were some French magazines as well which were amusing if nothing else and she took a selection of books and magazines to her cabin.

  It was much later when they were finishing dinner and the Stewards had cleared away everything except the liqueurs Royden was drinking that Malva said,

  “I was thrilled to find books aboard the yacht and now you have bought it I think that you should enlarge the library at every Port we stop at.”

  “That is certainly an idea,” he agreed. “Actually I did notice that we had a small library when I was buying the yacht.”

  He laughed as he added,

  “Knowing that you are your father’s daughter I was quite certain it was one of the comforts you would require if you were on board for any length of time.”

  “You are quite right,” Malva answered, “and Papa would be the first to agree with you. Actually you may not know that he brought back books with him from every country he visited including several volumes written in the most fantastic languages, which I tried when I was quite young, to understand.”

  “In which case then you will doubtless be able to instruct me on anything I don’t know about the countries we will be visiting,” Royden replied. “I will, of course, be very grateful to you, Teacher!”

  “Now you are making fun of me, but books do make a huge difference in our lives. It would be miserable to be in a strange country of which you know nothing and not have a book to tell you its history and the difficulties it has incurred since it was born, so to speak.”

  Royden chuckled.

  “Now you are frightening me. If you are going to be very erudite, I will jump off at the first Port and go to find some amusing people to travel with us who will make us laugh at the simple things of life rather than the miseries of some strange countries’ developments.”

  “I apologise and I will not preach to you,” Malva muttered.

  She kept her word and at dinner they laughed at a great number of subjects but nothing too personal.

  When she retired to bed, she thought how lovely it was to be at sea and to feel the waves splashing against the side of the yacht.

  She knew that tomorrow they might be in the Bay of Biscay and he would laugh at her if she was as seasick as he expected her to be.

  ‘I will show him I am as good a sailor as he is,’ she determined as she fell asleep.

  *

  The next day, as Royden had predicted, the sea was very rough.

  The waves were breaking over the bow of the yacht which seemed to have to plough its way through them as best it could.

  Malva then ran from side to side to see the waves breaking against the yacht as if it was a toy being tossed from one to the other.

  She was fascinated by the
scene and the fact that the sun was shining made it all the more absorbing.

  When they had luncheon, she loved all the delicious dishes the French chef had cooked for them.

  Only when they had finished, did Royden say,

  “You are remarkable. I would have bet a thousand pounds that you would have been lying prostrate by now. But here you are enjoying not only the sea but the superb food we have been served.”

  “Which is delectable,” Malva said, “and I would hate to miss any of it.”

  “At this rate you will eat us out of house and yacht before we even reach Gibraltar!”

  “I would hope not, Royden. I have never had such wonderful food as this except in Paris restaurants. Then, as I was much younger, I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I do now.”

  “As we both enjoy France, Malva, I know we will enjoy the French part of Africa. I intend to brush up my French while we are on board, so perhaps we could speak to each other in that language.”

  “I find that rather depressing,” Malva answered. “I like being English, I am extremely proud of being English and although I speak, I am told, very good French, it is always rather an effort. So, quite frankly, I would rather talk to you in my own language.”

  “I was only teasing,” Royden admitted. “I agree with you that it is much easier to be witty and amusing in English than it is in any other language.”

  “The French would challenge you at that,” Malva said, “and they always fancy that their double entendres are different to anyone else’s.”

  “I suppose they are. Equally a good English joke, although sometimes rather coarse, is generally amusing.”

  They argued this statement over a number of other countries.

  Malva had to concede in the end that Royden was right and the English, although somewhat rough in many ways, had a wit that was preferable to anyone else’s.

  “I suppose it is only because we are English that we say so,” Malva pointed out. “And we are always eager to grab anything we can from other countries if we only have the chance.”

  “They try to grab everything they can from us,” he countered. “In fact I often think that we are too generous not only with our money and what we grow but with our thoughts and feelings which, of course, are described not only in books but in our speeches.”

  “I think more important than anything else,” Malva said, “is that, when you or my father go abroad, we give people an impression of England which they find hard to forget. I have seen letters Papa has received from other countries and they all admire him enormously, not only for his speeches but because they look on him as a perfect English gentleman.”

  “A phrase we invented in the reign of King George IV,” Royden replied, “who you remember was known as ‘the first gentleman of Europe’.”

  “It is just what we in England have tried to be ever since,” Malva said. “What always pleases me is that not only are people like you who are blue-blooded described in that manner. If a shopkeeper or some farmer dies who has always been a good citizen and a man who has kept his word and helped his fellow members, they speak of him as ‘a gentleman’ and it is exactly what he was.”

  They talked about many fascinating subjects during dinner and afterwards.

  When he went to bed, Royden admitted to himself that he had enjoyed the meal and the company of Malva far more than he had expected to do.

  In fact he had thought when he left London that he would, except for the yacht itself, find all the time he spent away dreary and a waste of his time.

  Now he told himself to his own surprise that he had enjoyed the conversation at dinner more than anything he had enjoyed for some time.

  So he was thinking unconsciously of witty remarks and provocative questions he would ask Malva tomorrow.

  *

  They stopped at Gibraltar.

  Malva was thrilled with the monkeys as any child might be.

  She was even more delighted at the many beautiful products that came from Japan which could be bought in the small shops.

  Because her father had given her plenty of money to spend on the journey, she bought herself a beautifully embroidered shawl and various other items that came from China including a present for him.

  “I have spent a small fortune,” she told Royden when they returned to the yacht. “But I am sure that every penny has been a good investment. One day these things which are so lovely will not be on sale anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because I am afraid that they will be gobbled up by the many grand shops in London, Paris and other Cities. After all Gibraltar is really only a passing place for ships and will soon be forgotten.”

  “I suppose you are right,” Royden replied. “The objets d’art I have brought back from various parts of the world are, in fact, becoming rarer every year.”

  “I thought when I was walking round your home the other day,” Malva said, “the beautiful snuff boxes your grandfather brought back from Russia will, I am certain, now that snuff is no longer fashionable, gradually fade out of existence and we will only have collections like yours where we can admire them.”

  “I did not think of that before and, of course, you are right,” Royden admitted. “My grandfather collected, as you know, special items from all over the world. It is what I am determined to do until I have all I want, which as you say are growing rarer and rarer every year.”

  “So we must make the best of them while we can,” Malva replied. “I beg of you to take me to the Bazaars in the lands we visit that are not overrun by tourists, but are patronised by local and so are considered very precious.”

  “I shall enjoy that. In fact I know where there are small out of the way towns which make local products that are bought only by the country people themselves and are seldom discovered by those who merely drop in from other lands.”

  “Now we have a task that will make our journey far more exciting than it was when you first planned it,” Malva enthused.

  It passed through Royden’s mind that most women would want to talk about themselves and their beauty and they would not be the least concerned with the indigenous products of other countries.

  However, as the idea amused him, he proposed,

  “I will take you to a place on the coast of Africa, which I found by mistake, but which I think you will find entrancing.”

  “Why was it by mistake?” Malva enquired.

  “Because I was lost and it suddenly began to pour with rain and I wanted somewhere to shelter. As you know rain in Africa is a thousand times more drenching than it is in England.”

  “I have read that,” Malva replied. “Tell me what you found.”

  “I will take you to it which is far more interesting,” Royden told her. “But you will find the products that are made by the local Arabs are not only beautiful but original and completely different from anything you can find in Europe.”

  “Please don’t forget to take me there as soon as you can,” Malva urged him. “Because I will then spend all my money and will have to borrow yours!”

  “I daresay I will be able to oblige you, but, if I was behaving as I should do with a lady guest, I should be only too pleased to give her anything she may desire however expensive it might turn out to be.”

  Malva laughed.

  “I have always been told that the French beauties are very grasping, but I would expect that really applies to the beauties of every country where you have been talked about by the gossips.”

  “The trouble with you,” Royden said, “is that you know too much about me already while I know nothing about you that I can use as a retort!”

  “I am glad about that,” Malva answered. “But I am sure you will soon find it easy to hold your own when we come to challenging each other in words and fighting a mock battle with innuendoes!”

  Royden smiled.

  “Is that what is going to happen?” he asked.

  “It always does in bo
oks. Although I have not had a chance until now to prove it true, I am quite certain it will be possible.”

  “If I fight you with words, I might, because you have read so much and speak a number of languages, be the loser and that, as you know, would cause a problem.”

  “A problem?” she queried.

  “Of course, in a proper romantic book the man is always the winner and it is only with love that he comes anywhere close to being defeated because women are so much subtler than he is. And they use everything, however crooked, to get their own way.”

  “If that is your experience,” Malva replied, “I am rather sorry for you. I think women should be attractive but also considerate and, of course, gentle towards the man they love.”

  She paused for a moment before she added,

  “Mama said often enough ‘a man must be Master in his own house,’ and that, of course, is true. A woman, if she is really feminine wants the man to be the conqueror in every way even though she is clever enough to make him feel that he has to fight for what he really longs for.”

  Royden stared at her in astonishment.

  “Am I really hearing all this from anyone so young and I thought so inexperienced?” he asked.

  “You must say it is the right way to look at things if you are a woman,” she continued, “and it is only a stupid woman who would fight to get her own way in little things, and lose the most vital one of all – her husband’s heart.”

  She spoke softly.

  Royden stared straight at her as if he could hardly believe that she was real.

  ‘How could it be possible,’ he now asked himself, ‘that someone so young could talk so sensibly about issues that often worry me?”

  “Now you are beginning to frighten me,” he said aloud.

  “Why do you mean?” Malva enquired.

  “Because you are talking too intelligently and too sensibly for you to be real. I always thought girls of your age giggled when they talked of love and were concerned only with waiting for a Duke to drop down from Heaven at their feet and ask for their hand in marriage.”