Anne Belinda (10 page)

John did not accompany the Marrs to Greystones. He went for a tramp after lunch and walked round Tenstone Hill. He came back very cheerful, and turned in at the lodge gate whistling. A taxi was waiting in the road outside, the driver immersed in a newspaper. He was just past the turn of the drive when he heard footsteps on his right. Someone was coming through the bushes at a sort of stumbling run. He turned, went back a yard or two, and looked up the path that left the drive to wander amongst dark yews and hollies. It was down this path that someone was running; and in a moment he saw that it was a woman. She came down the path with hurrying, halting feet, her hands stretched out before her as if she were pushing something away.

John stood where he was and waited for her to come to him. And as she came, he recognized her. It was Anne Belinda. The likeness to the child of nine years ago was dead; only the ghost of it lived in Anne Belinda's wide, blind eyes. The likeness to Jenny was gone as if it had never been. And yet John recognized her beyond any doubt. It was Anne.

She stumbled against him and stopped dead, her groping hands clenched on his arm, her face quite close to his, her eyes drowned in anguish, not in tears. The sight of her moved John to the depths. It was as if she were walking in her sleep, separated from him by some horrible dream; for though she was touching him, holding him with desperate fingers, it was plain that she neither recognized him nor knew what she was doing. For the moment she was deaf and blind to outward things. What image was before her eyes, or what voice in her ears, he could not tell. It was not his image, or his voice.

She held his arm with the force of agony, and he laid a warm, steady hand on her shoulder and let it rest there, waiting. A long, full moment passed, and then, as they stood there on the edge of the drive, there came to them from the direction of the lodge the sound of voices—Pamela Austin's high ringing laugh.

Anne gave a quick gasp, and he felt her quiver. The shoulder upon which his hand weighed had been rigid; now it shook. She gasped again, and this time there were words in the sobbing breath: “Don't I—let—” She pushed him from her and gave back a pace.

The voices were very near, just round the turn of the drive. John went to meet them, and found Derek and Pamela in their usual high spirits. Pamela greeted him with a scream of joy:

“Come and do the Charleston up the avenue! Derek's rotten on gravel. I say it gives it snap. Come along and show him.” As she spoke, she burst into song at the top of a piercing soprano.

Derek instantly began an imitation of fighting cats, and the three of them danced past the danger-point and up the drive until John professed himself out of breath.

“You must be in rotten training! I don't get blown like that.” Pamela's voice was full of scorn. “Hi, Jenny, where are you off to? Come and dance!”

Jenny's white figure had appeared with almost startling suddenness. She came out between two pyramids of yew and stood there looking back over her shoulder.

Pamela and Derek began to run, but John turned and went down the drive again. He heard a chatter of voices receding. As soon as he was out of sight, he quickened his steps. But when he came to where the path turned off, it was empty. He walked up it, following its windings until he came to the dark clearing with the holly walls and the window which looked to the river.

There was no one there. The place oppressed him. The shadow of Anne's grief lay upon it. It was here that she had been hurt—how deeply, grievously hurt—and by whom?

A second winding path led from the clearing on the farther side. John thought of Jenny coming out between the pyramids of yew. If Jenny and Anne had met and parted in this place, what had happened between them to send Anne stumbling down that nearer path blind with misery?

John walked down the path that Anne had followed, and hurried to the gate. The taxi was gone. A furious anger because Anne had been so near and he had let her go blazed up in him. Why hadn't he gone back along the path with her? Why had he let her go out of his sight?

The lodge-keeper's bicycle leaned against the wall beside the gate. John helped himself to it without scruple. He had no idea of when the next train left Dene Vale, but he meant to catch Anne if it was humanly possible to do so. He made record time over the five miles of roughish road, only to hear the engine whistle when he was still a hundred yards from the gate of the station yard. When he dropped the lodge-keeper's bicycle and pushed past the porter, who demanded a platform ticket, the train was well under way. It afforded him a very good view of the back of the guard's van.

He rode slowly back to Waterdene. Anne had come and gone. He had seen her, touched her, and lost her within so small a space of time that it seemed like one of those flashing dreams that break the monotony of sleep. He was left with no reasoned thought, but with two or three very vivid impressions—Anne's grip on his arm, her cold rigid grip; the pain that blinded her eyes; the little heart-shaped mole between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. He remembered that little mole; he remembered seeing it on the brown childish hand nine years ago. He was aware of having been very deeply moved. He was also aware of a steadily rising anger.

His determination to find Anne Waveney had from the first been whetted by the opposition which he encountered. Why could no one give him a straight answer? Why could no one tell him the truth? Fear, tact, evasion, lies—he was sick to death of them and in a mood to speak his mind roughly. Last night, now—Jenny must have been lying to him then. He tried to remember exactly what she had said, and discovered how little it amounted to. She had tried, as they had all tried, to put him off. She had hinted—oh, more than hinted—that Anne was out of her mind. And she had cried. Strangely enough, it never for one moment occurred to John that what Jenny had hinted might be true. He was quite sure that Jenny had lied to him, though he didn't know why. As he walked up the drive, he hummed tonelessly:

“Cassidy was a gentleman,

Cassidy did me brown.

Cassidy's wife wears a diamond hat

And pearls all over her gown.”

He came up to the house with his mind very strongly made up. He would be fenced with no longer. When he told Jenny, as he meant to tell her, that he had actually seen Anne, she could hardly refuse to give him Anne's address.

He walked into the middle of the group that was having tea on the lawn under the biggest cedar and took a cup from Jenny without speaking. Derek and Pamela were throwing buns at each other with the maximum amount of noise and laughter. The sun shone warm and soft on the bright green of the grass. Pamela's scarlet frock dazzled in it. John looked at Jenny as he took his cup from her steady hand. She had very pretty hands, smaller than Anne's and whiter, much whiter. Her brown eyes smiled up at him.

“You've walked too far—you look quite fagged, she said.

“Oh, I didn't walk very far.”

He took the vacant chair beside her and began to drink his tea in an abstracted silence. That Anne and Jenny had met he felt sure. If he had had any doubt before, it was gone now. Jenny had been crying; there were faint marks under her eyes, and the dark lashes through which she had looked up at him were not quite dry. Jenny cried rather easily. She had cried last night when he talked to her about Anne. Anything might have made her cry. But all the same he was sure, quite sure, that she and Anne had met. He drained his cup and set it down.

“Can you let me have Miss Fairlie's address?” he said quite casually as he turned.

“But she's in Spain!” Jenny flushed a little as she answered him, and her eyes widened.

“Yes—her address in Spain.”

“I don't know—she's always travelling about. You don't take sugar, do you?”

“Yes, please. But when you write to your sister, how do you address the letters?”

“Poste restante, Madrid,” said Jenny, and gave him his cup so full that the tea slopped over into the saucer.

John emptied the saucer upon the grass. As the last drop fell, he said:

“Anne's still with her—with Miss Fairlie, I mean?”

Jenny said, “Of course,” and said it a shade too quickly; the words were no sooner across her lips than she felt cold with fright. If by any chance John had seen Anne. He couldn't have seen her. He might have passed her in the drive; he couldn't possibly have recognized her.

Pamela's voice broke in, calling to John:

“Where on earth did you go to after our dance? You ought to have sat out with me and told me how well I did it.”

“I had something to see about.” John's tone was as non-committal as it well could be.

“Well, you've missed the great bun contest. I'm three up on Derek. And I'm thinking of going in for the world's championship. I'll back myself to catch buns and dance the Charleston against anyone. Oh, I say, that's an idea! Me doing the Charleston whilst Derek throws buns at me and I catch them in my teeth. It would make a perfectly ripping stunt. Come on, Derek! Let's show them!”

Everyone looked round laughing at the long, undulating scarlet figure. She swayed this way and that, opened her wide mouth to its widest extent, and actually caught Derek's first bun with a dexterous snap. The next one hit her in the eye, but she caught it as it fell and hurled it back amid shouts of “Rotten shot! Play the game!”

There was so much noise going on that the sound of Miss Aurora Fairlie's massive tread and the inevitable creak of her stout shoes passed unnoticed.

It was John who saw her first. He looked round at Jenny and saw the big, square-built figure standing a couple of yards away, feet well apart, hat tilted back from the large brick-coloured face, and hands clasped upon a very manly looking stick.

Before he could speak, Miss Fairlie said, “Hul
lo
, Jenny!” And Jenny sprang up with a little scream:

“Aurora!”

“My good child, don't look so scared!”

“I thought you were in Spain,” said Nicholas Marr.

“Crossed yesterday. Beastly tossing. Why does one travel? I shall stay at home and knit.”

“How did you come?”

“Car, of course. You don't catch me going in a train in a blessed country like this, where the roads are like billiard tables. Oh, Lord, I'm dry! Give me some tea.”

Jenny linked an affectionate arm in Aurora's.

“Come up to the house, and I'll give you some there. This isn't fit to drink.”

“I'm not particular. It's wet—and I'm dry.”

She laughed loudly, poured herself a cup of tea, and drank it off standing, regardless of Jenny's protestations:

“Oh, Aurora,
don't!
Come in. Please come in!”

“Don't!” said Miss Fairlie loudly. “You're pinching me! It's ripping out here. I don't want to come in a bit.”

Jenny's “Aurora—please” reached no one's ears but Miss Fairlie's, but Nicholas came to his wife's assistance.

“Come along in and see the boy. No one's allowed food or rest in this house until they've told Jenny he's the finest baby they've ever seen. We'll feed you when you've perjured yourself sufficiently, but not before.”

With his hand on one arm and Jenny's on the other, Miss Fairlie submitted to being walked off.

John stood looking after her. First Anne; and then Aurora. What on earth did it all mean? He would have given something for ten minutes' conversation with Miss Fairlie now, before Jenny had her innings. As they neared the house, he saw Nicholas leave the two women and hurry on, presumably to order fresh tea.

Aurora turned upon her cousin at once.

“What's all this to-do?” The small slaty eyes, set unbecomingly amongst sandy lashes, were shrewd and a little annoyed. “You pinched me black and blue down there. What on earth for?”

“I had to see you alone.”

“Oh, did you? And why?”

“I'm going to tell you. Aurora,
please
not here.”

“What on earth have you been up to?”

“Nothing! Nothing!”

“H'm!”—Aurora's grunt sounded very cross—“the sort of nothing which means something too bad to talk about, eh?”

“No, no! Come in here. This is my room. No one will come in, and you can have tea comfortably. They'll bring it in a minute.”

“Jenifer Marr, you didn't lug me away from a perfectly good tea on the lawn to babble about buns in a boudoir.”

“Aurora—
please
.”

The admired Lady Marr felt uncommonly like a school-girl in a scrape.

“Oh, come off it, Jenny! Lord—I'm hot!” She pulled out a silk handkerchief of Spanish colouring and mopped a frankly perspiring brow. “My good girl, if you've anything to say, say it, and don't gawp at me; for I can't stand it. Get it off your chest!”

“Aurora, did you get my letter? No, I know you didn't.”

“Then why ask me if I did?”

Jenny's colour rose sharply.

“Aurora, you're making it so difficult!”

Aurora laughed.

“My good girl, that's what people always say when they're boggling over something that isn't going to sound very pretty. Better let me have it plain. If it's anything ugly, it won't look any the better for being dressed up.”

“I
did
write to you,” said Jenny with tears in her eyes. “I
did
write—but the letter came back.”

“What did you write about?”

“I wrote about Anne.”

“The deuce you did!” said Miss Fairlie. “And what has Anne been doing?”

An indescribable look of painful hesitation crossed Jenny's face. Something in the look startled Miss Fairlie.

“Why, Jenny,” she said, “you don't mean to tell me that Anne—”

Jenny burst into tears.

Oh,
yes!
” she said. “And I've told everyone that she's been travelling
with you
in Spain.”