Anne Belinda (23 page)

Miss Fairlie regarded her with a large smile.

“I ought to cut you dead,” she began—John saw Anne's knuckles whiten—“never coming near me once since we got back! Is that all the thanks I get for taking you to Spain a wreck and bringing you back in the pink? You're a monster of ingratitude! By the way, you know Clement Moore and Janet, don't you? I'm sure you've met. But Casilda's only just left school. Grossly unfair I call it. How old are you, you little wretch?” She turned to the flapper, who made a face. “Seventeen? Can't think what Clem and Jan are thinking about! I had to stare at a blackboard till I was nineteen, and then only escaped going to college because I failed six times running in matric.”

Anne shook hands with the Moores.

Mrs. Moore asked her if she felt quite strong again in the most uninterested voice in the world, whilst Aurora, in hearty tones, introduced “my cousin—no, not really my cousin—Anne's cousin, Sir John Waveney.” After which she dropped a heavy ungloved hand on Anne's shoulder and patted it.

“We're going up through the rock garden. Yes, Jan, you've got to! Clem and I can walk behind you and prod. Anne, have you and John seen the azaleas? Turn down that path and you'll walk slap into enough colour to make you drunk for a week. They smell like pre-war beer—but it's more high-toned not to mention that. Come along, Jan, there's quite a good seat at the top for you to feel faint on.”

She swept the Moores before her over a little rocky bridge that spanned the stream and led straight into a bewildering tangle of Osmunda fern and yellow iris.

Casilda Moore followed them for a dozen steps, then whisked round and ran back. She had round, blue eyes, as bright and hard as china beads. Her impudently cocked eyebrows were artificially darkened; they looked quite black against her fair skin. Her bright, uncovered hair shone in the sun. She came quite close up to Anne and said:

“Did you like Spain? Were you
really
there? We met Lady Marr at lunch last week. She
said
you were.” Her voice was as impudent as her eyebrows. She lifted her chin at John and went on with a giggle: “Did you live in a castle? A castle in Spain sounds so romantic! ‘
Chateaux en Espagne
'—we had it in our French idioms; only I'm so stupid I never can remember what it means. Something imaginary, isn't it? I hope your castle was a real one. Was it?”

Anne laughed.

“I never aspired to a castle.”

Casilda giggled again.

“I'll tell Lady Marr we met you,” she said, and ran across the bridge.

John took Anne roughly by the arm and turned with her down the path which Aurora Fairlie had pointed out.

“Little beast!” he said.

Anne said nothing. The path turned at right angles, and they were out of sight of anyone. A very high bank of azaleas rose before them, orange, apricot, flame, and white—orange that shaded to vermilion, flame that melted into rose, and white that passed through half a dozen shades of ivory, cream, and primrose into deepest chrome. A single rhododendron stood amongst the azaleas like a high rock in a sunset-coloured sea; its mass of pale purple bloom was the last enchanting note in the rainbow chord.

Anne saw none of this beauty, or saw it only as a blur through a film of stinging tears. John saw her pale, and felt her trembling. High walls of leaf and bloom were above them. To be alone with Anne and feel her tremble; to be so near that when she trembled he was shaken, too; to see how white she was—these things moved him into rash and unpremeditated action.

He said “Anne!” in a choked voice, put both arms round her very tight, and kissed the wet eyes. And when he had kissed her eyes, he kissed her soft, trembling mouth. And, just for an instant, Anne let him kiss her.

As the instant passed, she said “Oh!” in a little shocked whisper, and pushed him away. Even then he had one arm about her shoulders.

“Oh!” said Anne again; this time there was a little real anger in her voice.

John's arm dropped to his side.

“Anne darling! Don't cry!”

Anne snatched a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it hard against her eyes.

“I'm
not
crying!”

“Anne—don't! Someone might come!”

“I'm
not!
”

She withdrew the handkerchief for just long enough to inflict a glance into which she put all the angry reproach that she could summon. The fact that she was still crying rather spoilt the effect, and John was only conscious of an insane desire to kiss her again. He wanted to bang Casilda Moore on the head with a stone, and spank her as she ought to have been spanked for years. And he wanted to kiss Anne until she stopped crying and kissed him back.

He said, “Anne darling!” and Anne stamped her foot.

“I'm not! You're not to! I never said you could!”

“I can't help it—you are—how can I help saying it?”

“You're not to say it!”

She pushed the wet handkerchief back into her sleeve and began to walk away, keeping well in the middle of a very narrow path. With every step she took she became angrier with John. How dared he kiss her? How dared he touch her? How dared he think that she would let him kiss her like that?

A bright scarlet spot began to flame in either cheek. Her eyes were quite dry now, and very nearly as hard as Casilda's. The sweet heavy air, warm and moisture-laden, the scent of the flowers, the shade and sunshine, the colour and the bloom, all passed her by. It was she and John and burning anger who walked together on a straight path that led to nowhere.

They passed the azalea bank in silence, and found themselves on a broad, damp path under deeply shadowing trees.

“I want to go home,” said Anne.

CHAPTER XXX

They drove in silence out on to the London road and presently turned off to the right.

Anne went on telling herself how angry she was. She found it necessary to do this, because she kept thinking of things to say—the sort of silly, trivial things which were not at all in keeping with being aloof and dignified and very, very angry.

Through the tall, straight trunks of the pine-trees on either side of the road a pale glimmer of water showed. The shadows between the trees were very dark, but there were sun-spilled pools and streams of light, and hot, slanting golden beams that pierced the shade. The trees met overhead.

Anne found it fascinating to be carried so swiftly and smoothly from cold shadowed air into summer heat, and then back again to cold. It was like flying. If you shut your eyes, you could forget everything except that enchanted flight through the air.

“I am very angry with John,” she said firmly to herself.

There was a faint, delicious scent of wood-smoke.

“Aurora's a brick—isn't she?” said John. “I should think she was absolutely unique. I love her passionately; but the Casilda flapper wants shipping off to one of the countries where young women are made to work, and get beaten every day by a sinewy mother-in-law if they don't come up to sample.”

Anne looked haughtily at her own reflection in the wind-screen; she could see herself almost as well as if it had been a mirror. The little faded hat was undoubtedly becoming, but she was annoyed at detecting a faint quiver of the lips, which were meant to be severely set. By looking to the right she could see John's reflection. If he had looked in the least crushed, she might have relented a little; but the wind-screen offered her the picture of an entirely cheerful young man with a twinkle in his eyes. Anne therefore said nothing to John, but assured herself once more that she was very,
very
angry.

The road began to climb. The trees were no longer pines but beeches, emerald-green in the shadow, and gold-green in the sun. It was like driving up the aisle of some vast cathedral which had come alive and was praising God with the voice of all the green things upon the earth. It sang, “Praise Him and magnify Him for ever,” so loud and joyfully that Anne forgot to be angry any more; the sheer beauty of the place came in on her like a flood and made her joyful, too.

It was some time before John spoke again. Then he spoke quite suddenly:

“Have you many rings?”

Astonishment made Anne turn and look at him.

“Rings!”

“Rings.”

“What sort of rings?”

“Just rings,” said John. “What the catalogues call dress rings. I can't think why, but they do. I once got landed in a commercial hotel where the only literature was jewellers' catalogues. There were six of them. And I gathered that you began at the top with dress rings at anything from five hundred pounds to fifteen, and finished up with gem rings, which ran from fifteen pounds to thirty bob.
Have
you many rings?”

As she had forgotten about being angry, Anne laughed.

“No, I haven't.”

“Have you
any?
”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Well, we didn't seem to be talking much, and I thought we might as well talk about rings. Did you say you hadn't got any at all?”

“I've got two or three of my mother's, but I don't very often wear them. I mean”—her colour deepened—“I don't wear them at all. I suppose Jenny's got them.”

“What are they like? You ought to have them if they're yours.”

Anne's smile was so sad that he didn't know how to bear it.

“They're no good to me.”

“You ought to have them. What are they like?”

“There's an opal, and a little old pearl ring, and one with two diamonds and a ruby. I'll ask Jenny for them some time.

“You've never had an emerald ring? Emeralds are topping stones. Don't you think so?”

What was he driving at? He didn't think—he couldn't possibly imagine—that she would let him—

At this point in her thoughts Anne blushed scarlet, and John saw her blush.

“Did you ever have an emerald ring?” he asked in a laughing voice.

“No. Why should I? I don't like emeralds a bit.”

“Jenny does,” said John. “She has an emerald ring, hasn't she? I've seen her wearing one.”

“Her engagement ring.”

“Yes, I thought so.” He looked at Anne's reflection in the wind-screen. “Did you ever wear it?”

“Jenny's engagement ring?” There was no mistaking the surprise in her voice.

“You might have. Don't girls wear each other's rings?”

“Not—” Anne stopped short and put one hand quickly over the other. After a moment she said, in a different sort of voice: “Why did you ask me that?”

“Perhaps I wanted to know whether you liked emeralds.” He had been slowing down; he stopped the car now by the side of the road and swung round in his seat. “Perhaps I wanted to know what sort of ring you would like for an engagement ring.”

Anne's left hand, which lay uppermost, closed hard on her right. Without any effort at all, she was angry again—angry and rather frightened, not of John nor of herself, but of something which seemed to be pushing them both. She tried to look angrily at John, but the something that was frightening her would not let her look at him at all.

John's hand came down on hers.

“Anne, are you still angry? You can't go on being angry.”

“Yes, I can.” The words were defiant, but the voice that carried them was a trembling traitor.

“Why are you angry?”

There was no answer.

“You know I love you very much. You must know that.”

Anne shook her head. She was not angry with John any more; she was frightfully angry with herself. To have such a beating heart, to lose voice and words, to feel herself upon the edge of tears, just when she needed all her self-possession and all her nerve—it was unspeakably humiliating. She must say “No,” and she must say it with a dispassionate calm that would convince him that it was all quite hopeless. She must send him away in such a manner that he would never come back. And how was she to do this, when she could neither look at him nor steady her voice to a single word?

It was when she felt his arm about her that she gave a little sobbing cry and shrank into the corner of the seat.

“No! Oh
no!
”

“Anne darling—don't! Look here, I won't touch you if you don't want me to. Only it's so frightfully hard when you look like that. Do you mind—I mean really mind—if I hold your hand?”

Anne didn't mind at all—that was the devastating part of it. She wanted to catch tight hold of the warm, strong hand that covered hers; she wanted him to put his arm round her again and hold her against the world. With a very great effort she lifted her eyes and looked at him through a mist of tears.

“Please.”

John took his hand away at once and sat back.

“All right. But we've got to talk. I love you.”

“You mustn't!”

“What's the good of saying I mustn't? I do.”

Two of Anne's tears fell down into her lap. They did not soak into the rough crepy stuff, but lay on the blue and green pattern like shining drops of rain. Now that the tears had fallen Anne could see how obstinate John looked. He didn't look in the least as if he were making love; he looked quite frightfully determined, and his chin stuck out.

“It's no good,” she said rather shakily.

“Nonsense! I mean you don't love people because it's good, or because it's bad. You don't plan to do it—it happens. And when it's happened it's no good saying ‘don't' any more than if you'd fallen off the top of a house.”

Anne looked for her handkerchief, failed to find it, and blinked hard.

“So you see it's not the slightest use saying that sort of thing. I love you. You can't stop me loving you. I can't stop myself. I don't want to stop—I like it—I like it frightfully—I want to tell you all about it from the very beginning.”

Anne pulled herself together. It was like pulling something that was much too heavy to lift out of a very deep ditch; but she did it. She sat up straight and set herself to say what she had to say: