She Came Back (2 page)

Philip Jocelyn rang up at eight o’clock. “Who’s that?… Lyn?… All right, tell Aunt Milly I’ll be down to lunch tomorrow—or perhaps not till after lunch. Will that disorganize the rations?”

Lyn gurgled.

“I expect so.”

“Well, I shan’t know until the last minute. Anyhow I can’t make it tonight.”

“All right. Just wait a second—someone rang you up this morning.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t give any name—only asked if you were here, and when I said you were up in London she wanted to know when you would be back. I said perhaps tonight but most probably not till tomorrow, and she rang off. It was a long distance call and the line was awfully faint.”

She heard him laugh.

“The Voice on the Telephone—our great serial mystery— to be continued in our next! Don’t be apologetic—I expect she’ll keep. Give Aunt Milly my love. I kiss your hands and your feet.”

“You don’t do anything of the sort!”

“Perhaps not—it’s a sadly unpicturesque age. Goodbye, my child. Be good.” He hung up.

Lyndall put down the receiver and came back to the fire. She had changed into a warm green housecoat, and Mrs. Armitage into a shapeless garment of brown velveteen with a fur collar which was rather the worse for wear.

Lyndall said, “That was Philip.”

“So I gathered.”

“He doesn’t know whether he’ll be down for lunch tomorrow.”

Things like that never worried Mrs. Armitage. She nodded, and said with what appeared to be complete irrelevance,

“What a good thing you and Philip are not really cousins.”

Lyndall bent forward to put a log on the fire, her long, full skirt flaring out from a childish waist. The glow from the embers stung her cheeks. She murmured,

“Why?”

“Well, I just thought it was a good thing. Jocelyns are all very well, and poor Louie was very happy with Philip’s father—he was a most charming man. But that’s what it is with the Jocelyns—they’re charming. But you can have too much of them—they want diluting.”

It was at this moment that the front door bell rang.

Anne Jocelyn stood on the dark step and waited for someone to come. The taxi which had brought her from Clayford turned noisily behind her on the gravel sweep. Then it drove away. The sound receded and was gone. She stood in the dark and waited for someone to come. Presently she rang again, but almost at once the key turned in the lock. The door opened a little way and a young girl looked round it. When she saw that it was a woman standing there she stepped back, opening the door wide open.

Anne Jocelyn walked in.

“Is Sir Philip back?”

Ivy Fossett was a little bit flustered. Visitors didn’t just walk in like that after dark, not these days they didn’t. But it was a lady all right, and a lovely fur coat. She stared her eyes out at it and said,

“No, ma’am, he isn’t.”

The lady took her up sharp.

“Who is here then? Who answered the telephone this morning?”

“Mrs. Armitage, and Miss Lyndall—Miss Lyndall Armitage. It would be her answered the phone.”

“Where are they?… In the parlour? You needn’t announce me—I’ll go through.”

Ivy gaped, and watched her go. “Walked right past me as if I wasn’t there,” she told them in the kitchen, and was reproved by Mrs. Ramage, the rather more than elderly cook.

“You should have asked her name.”

Ivy tossed her head.

“She never give me a chanst!”

Anne crossed the hall. The parlour looked out to a terrace at the back. The name came down, with the white panelling, from the reign of good Queen Anne. The first Anne Jocelyn had been her god-daughter.

She put her hand on the door-knob and stood for a moment, loosening her coat, pushing it back to show the blue of the dress beneath. Her heart beat hard against her side. It isn’t every day that one comes back from the dead. Perhaps she was glad that Philip wasn’t there. She opened the door and stood on the threshold looking in.

Light overhead, the blue curtains drawn at the windows, a wood fire glowing bright, and over it the white mantelshelf with The Seasons looking down, and over The Seasons, The Girl with a Fur Coat. She looked at her steadily, critically, as she might have looked at her own reflection in the glass. She thought the portrait might very well have been a mirror reflecting her.

There were two people in the room. On the right of the hearth Milly Armitage with a newspaper on her lap and another sprawling beside her on the blue carpet. Untidy, tiresome woman. Never her friend. Of course she would be here. Well dug in. Nous allons changer tout cela. Down on the hearthrug, curled up with a book, that brat Lyndall.

The paper rustled under the sudden heavy pressure of Milly Armitage’s hand, the book pitched forward on to the white fur rug. Lyndall sprang up, stumbling on the folds of her long green skirt, catching at the arm of the empty chair against which she had been leaning. Her eyes widened and darkened, all the colour went out of her face. She stared at the open door and saw Anne Jocelyn stepped from the portrait behind her—Anne Jocelyn, bare-headed, with her gold curls and her tinted oval face, pearls hanging down over the thin blue dress, fur coat hanging open.

In the same moment she heard Milly Armitage gasp. She herself did not seem to be breathing at all. Everything stopped while she looked at Anne. Then irrepressibly, incongruously, there zigzagged into her mind the thought, “Amory painted her better than that.” When this came back to her later it shocked her horribly. After more than three years of privation, suffering, and strain, who wouldn’t look different— older? A rush of feeling blotted out everything except the realization that this was Anne and she was alive. She ran forward with a half articulate cry, and Anne opened her arms. In a moment Lyndall was hugging her, saying her name over and over, the tears running down her cheeks.

“Anne—Anne—Anne! We thought you were dead!”

“I very nearly thought so myself.”

They came across the room together.

“Aunt Milly! How good to see you! Oh, how very, very good to be here!”

Milly Armitage was embraced. Struggling with a horrid rush of completely disorganized emotions, she kissed a cheek which was thinner and considerably more made-up than it had been three years ago. She couldn’t remember ever having been embraced by Anne before. A cool kiss on the cheek was as far as they had ever got or wanted to get. She stood back with a transient feeling of relief and endeavoured to find words. It wasn’t that there weren’t plenty of things to say, but even in this moment of shock she had a feeling that she had better not say them. Philip—she mustn’t say or do anything which would hurt Philip. A sense of immeasurable disaster hovered. Three and a half years was a long time to be dead. Anne had come back. Awful to come back and feel that you weren’t wanted any more. “The living close their ranks.” Who said that? It was true—you had to. Under this high-flown strain, something quite homely and commonplace. “Gosh! Why did she have to come back?”

Lyndall was saying, “Anne darling—oh, Anne darling! How lovely that you are alive!”

Mrs. Armitage remembered that she had been brought up to be a gentlewoman. With grim determination she set herself to behave like one.

It was getting on for four o’clock of the following day before Philip Jocelyn came home. He was intercepted in the hall by Milly Armitage.

“Philip—come here—I want to speak to you.”

“What’s the matter?”

She had him by the arm, drawing him down the hall towards the study, which balanced the parlour on the opposite side and was comfortably far away from it. Like most rooms of the name it had never been much studied in, but the walls were lined with books and it had a pleasant lived-in air, with its rust-red curtains and deep leather chairs.

When the door was shut, Philip looked curiously at his Aunt Milly. He was very fond of her, but he wished she would come to the point. Something had obviously happened, but instead of getting on with it and telling him what it was, she was just beating about the bush.

“We tried to get on to you, but they said you’d left the club.”

“Yes—Blackett asked me to go down to his place. What’s the matter? Where’s Lyn? It’s not got anything to do with Lyn?”

“No.”

Milly Armitage said to herself in a distraught manner, “You see—he thought about her at once. He’s fond of her—he’s been getting fonder of her every day. What’s the good of it now? I’m a wicked woman… Oh, lord—what a mix-up!” She rubbed her chin with a shaking hand.

“Aunt Milly, what is it? Anyone dead?”

Mrs. Armitage restrained herself from saying, “Worse than that.” By making a tremendous effort she contrived merely to shake her head.

He said with some impatience, “What is it then?”

Milly Armitage blurted it right out.

“Anne’s come back.”

They were standing close together beside the writing-table. Philip had his coat over his arm and his hat in his hand. He stood there, fair and tall like all the Jocelyns, his face longer and sharper than the type, his eyes the same dark grey as Anne’s, the eyebrows marked like hers but crooked where hers were arched, his hair burnt almost flaxen by the Tunisian sun. After a moment he turned, dropped his hat into a chair, laid his coat across the back, and said softly,

“Would you mind saying that again?”

Milly Armitage felt as if she were going to burst. She said it again, separating the words as if she were speaking to a child,

“Anne—has—come—back.”

“I thought that was what you said—I just wanted to be sure. Would you mind telling me what it means?”

“Philip—don’t! I can’t tell you if you’re like that.”

His crooked brows went up.

“Like what?”

“Inhuman. She’s alive—she’s come back—she’s here.”

His voice grated for the first time as he said,

“Have you gone out of your mind?”

“Not yet, but I expect I shall.”

He said quietly, “Anne’s dead. What makes you think she isn’t?”

“Anne. She walked in on us last night. She’s here—she’s in the parlour with Lyndall now.”

“Nonsense!”

“Philip, if you go on saying that sort of thing to me, I shall scream! I tell you she’s alive—I tell you she’s in the parlour with Lyndall.”

“And I tell you that I saw her die, and I saw her buried.”

Milly Armitage checked an involuntary shudder. She said in an angry voice,

“What’s the good of saying that?”

“Meaning I’m telling lies?”

“She’s in the parlour with Lyndall.”

Philip walked over to the door.

“Then suppose we join them.”

“Wait! It’s no good taking it like that. It’s happened—better let me tell you. Someone rang up in the morning—yesterday morning. Lyn told you on the telephone.”

“Yes?”

“It was Anne. She had just landed from a fishing-boat. She didn’t say who she was—only asked if you were here. Last night at about half-past eight she walked in. It was a most frightful shock. I don’t wonder you can’t believe it. Lyn had been looking at Amory’s picture of her only a little time before, and when the door opened, there she was, just as if she had stepped out of it—the blue dress, the pearls, the fur coat. It was the most frightful shock.”

He turned away and opened the door.

“Anne’s dead, Aunt Milly. I think I’d like to go and see who it is in the parlour with Lyn.”

Neither of them spoke as they went across the hall. It was Philip who opened the door and went in. He saw Lyndall first. She was sitting on the arm of one of the big chairs on the left-hand side of the hearth. She jumped up, and he saw behind her in the chair the blue dress of the portrait—Anne Jocelyn’s going-away dress—Anne Jocelyn’s pearls hanging down over the stuff, Anne Jocelyn’s curled gold hair, the oval face, the dark grey eyes, the arching brows. He stood looking for a time that none of them could have counted. Then he came forward in a quiet, deliberate manner.

“Very well staged,” he said. “Let me congratulate you on your make-up and your nerve, Miss Joyce.”

She got out of her chair and stood facing him. “Philip!”

He nodded briefly.

“Philip. But not Anne—or at least not Anne Jocelyn. I suppose Annie Joyce was christened Anne.”

“Philip!”

“That doesn’t get us anywhere, does it? May I ask how you thought you could get away with a fraud of this kind? Very ingenuous of you, but perhaps you thought I’d be abroad—or better still a casualty, in which case I suppose you might have brought it off. It seems to have gone down with Lyn and Aunt Milly, but it doesn’t go down with me, and I’ll tell you why. When Anne was hit I picked her up and I got her into the boat. She died there. I brought her body home.”

She kept her eyes on his face.

“You brought Annie Joyce home. You buried Annie Joyce.”

“And why am I supposed to have done that?”

She said, “I think you made a mistake—it was Annie who was hit, but I screamed. She was holding on to my arm. You had gone ahead towards the boat. The bullet went between us—I felt it go by. Annie let go of me and fell down. I screamed. Then you came back and picked her up. You may have thought it was I. You may have made a mistake in the dark—I don’t know—I don’t want to say. It was dark, and they were firing at us—you could have made a mistake. I thought you would come back for me, but you didn’t.”

Philip said softly, “So that’s your story—I left you on the beach?”

“I think—no, I am sure—you only thought that you were leaving Annie Joyce.”

“That’s a pretty damnable thing to say—” He checked himself. “This is what happened. I carried Anne to the boat. There were those other people who tacked on—the Reddings.” He turned to face Lyndall. When he went on speaking it was to her. “Murdoch and I took his motor-boat over. When we got there Theresa Jocelyn was dead and buried and the Germans were in the village. I went to the château whilst Murdoch stayed with the boat. I gave Anne and Miss Joyce half an hour to get any valuables together, and Anne said there were some other English people hiding at a farm, couldn’t I take them too? She said Pierre would go and tell them. I said how many were there, and she wasn’t sure— she thought two of them were children. She sent for Pierre— he was Theresa’s butler and factotum—and he said there was Monsieur and Madame, and a son and daughter not quite grown up. The farm belonged to his cousin, and he seemed to know all about them. I said all right, they could come, but they must be down on the beach within the hour. Well, they were late—they were the sort of people who would always be late for everything. We waited, and by the time they turned up the Boche had spotted us and the balloon was going up. I was a little way ahead, when Anne screamed. I went back and managed to get her into the boat. It was pitch dark and there was a lot of shooting. I called out to Annie Joyce, and got no answer. Murdoch and I went to look for her. By this time the Reddings were calling out to us. Murdoch came past me carrying someone—I thought it was Miss Joyce. When we’d got everyone in we counted heads. There was Murdoch, and myself, a man, a boy, and four women. And that was right—another of the women had been hit. We pushed off. Anne never recovered consciousness. She was shot through the head. We were half-way over before I found out that Miss Joyce wasn’t there. We’d got our six passengers all right, but the Reddings had brought their French governess along. She had a bullet in the chest and she was pretty bad. We couldn’t go back. It wouldn’t have been any good if we had. Anyone on the beach would have been picked up by the Boche long ago—he’s thorough. Well, there you have it.” He turned back to Anne. “That is what happened, Miss Joyce.”

She was standing against the mantelshelf, her left arm carelessly laid along it, the hand drooping. There was a platinum wedding-ring on the third finger, and, overlapping it, the big diamond-set sapphire that had been Anne Jocelyn’s engagement ring. She said in a frank voice,

“I am very glad to know. It has hurt all this time not knowing how you could have left me. Because it wasn’t Annie Joyce you left—it was me. You can imagine what I felt like when you didn’t come back. I couldn’t understand it, but now I see that it could have been the way you say—you could have mistaken Annie for me in the dark. I believe you when you say that you thought it was I whom you carried to the boat. I don’t know how long you went on thinking that. I suppose you could have gone on for a long time—in the dark. I suppose—” She broke off, dropped her voice, and said with distress, “Was she—much disfigured?”

“No.”

“And in the morning you still didn’t recognize her? I suppose—well, I suppose it’s possible. There was a strong likeness. It must have been possible, because it seems to have happened. I won’t think, or let anyone else think, of the only other possibility.”

Philip said, “You know, you interest me very much. Won’t you be a little more explicit? I’d really like to know about this other possibility.”

“I’d rather not put it into words.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

All this time Milly Armitage had been just inside the door. She came forward now and sat on the arm of her usual chair. She really felt as if she couldn’t stand any more. Her head was buzzing and the furniture had begun to flicker. Lyndall hadn’t moved. Her hands held one another tightly. There was no colour in her face. Her eyes had a horrified look.

Anne said, “Very well. I didn’t want to say it—I don’t ever want to think it, Philip. But the other possibility is that you buried Annie Joyce as Anne Jocelyn because you would be pretty sure that I was dead, and if you had to admit that you left me behind, it wasn’t going to look too well, and the death wasn’t going to be any too easy to prove. It might have been years before the legal question could be cleared up. There would have been quite a strong temptation to take a short cut—wouldn’t there?”

Philip was grey under his tan. His face had sharpened, his eyes were cold and angry. Milly Armitage found herself wishing that he would swear, or shout. Her father and her husband had always made a lot of noise when they were angry. There was something homely about it. She wished that Philip would make a noise.

Instead he said quite softly,

“So that’s the line. I see—I mistook Annie Joyce for Anne in the dark, and when I saw what I’d done I stuck to the mistake so as to be able to get my hands on Anne’s money. Is that it?”

She looked away. Those icy eyes were hard to meet.

“Philip—don’t! I didn’t want to say it—you know I didn’t— you made me. But it’s what people will say if you stick to this impossible story. Oh, don’t you see I’m trying to help you? Don’t you see that for both our sakes we’ve got to put some sort of face on it? It’s got to look like a genuine mistake. Do you think I want to believe it wasn’t? It must have been, and that’s what people have got to believe. You hadn’t seen me for three months—I’d got thin with all the worry—the likeness to Annie was confusing, and a dead person—” she gave a sudden violent shudder—“a dead person doesn’t look like any living one. Philip, please don’t take it like this! We’re saying all the wrong sort of things to each other! I’m saying all the wrong sort of things—just because it’s so important— just because I want to say the right ones. Philip!”

He stepped back a pace.

“You’re not my wife.”

Milly Armitage couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. It was a wonder that she had held it so long. Her eyes on the hand with the sapphire ring, she said,

“Anne’s wedding-ring had an inscription inside it, hadn’t it? I remember you told me.”

“A. J., and the date,” said Philip.

Anne slipped off the sapphire, slipped off the platinum ring beneath it, crossed to Milly Armitage, and held it out on her palm.

“A. J., and the date,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Nobody moved. Lyndall felt as if her heart would break. The three people she loved most in the world were there in that silence together. It wasn’t just a silence. It was cold, it was suspicion, it was distrust— and that icy anger of Philip’s which cut to the bone. She wanted to run away and hide. But you can’t hide from a thing which is in your own mind. It goes with you. You can’t hide from it. She stayed where she was, and heard Philip say,

“Anne took off her wedding-ring when she went to France. We quarrelled about her going, and she took it off.”

Anne stepped back.

“I put it on again.”

“I’ve no doubt you did—when you made up your mind to this impersonation. Now perhaps you will give us your story. You’ve had mine. I suppose you’ve got one ready. You had better let us have it.”

“Philip—” Her voice broke a little on the word. She slipped the ring back on her finger and stood up straight. “I’m very glad to tell you my story. Aunt Milly and Lyn have heard it already. Pierre helped me to get away from the beach. There was a cave—we hid there until the shooting was over. I had sprained my ankle very badly. The Germans came down and searched, but they didn’t find us. When they had gone away we went back to the château. I was very wet and cold, and I was beginning to be ill. By the time the Germans came to search I was in a high fever. Pierre told them that I was Annie Joyce, and that I had been living there for ten years with my old cousin who had just died. He said there had been another English lady there, but she had gone away when she heard that the soldiers were coming. They sent a doctor to look at me, and he said I had double pneumonia and couldn’t be moved. I was ill for a long time. They left me alone. When I was all right they sent me to a concentration camp, but I got ill again and they let me go back. That’s all. I just lived there with Pierre and his wife. Fortunately Cousin Theresa always kept a great deal of money in the house. We kept finding it in all sorts of places—lavender-bags, pin-cushions, between the pages of books, rolled up in the toes of her slippers. When it seemed to be coming to an end I began to feel desperate.”

“Why did you never write?”

“I was afraid. They were leaving me alone, and I didn’t want to do anything that might stir them up. But I did write— twice—when Pierre said there was a chance of getting a letter smuggled across.”

“Are you very surprised that these—letters—never arrived?”

She met his look with an open one.

“Oh, no—I knew it was only a chance. Then a week ago I was offered a chance of getting over, myself. I had to put up all the rest of Cousin Theresa’s money, but I thought it was worth the risk. I landed with nothing in my purse except a five-pound note which I had taken over with me. There isn’t a great deal of change left out of it now, so if you’re thinking of turning me out, I’m afraid you will have to provide me with funds until Mr. Codrington has handed my own money over to me again.”

Philip considered this in a cold fury. He couldn’t turn her out penniless, and she knew it. But every hour she spent under his roof was going to help her claim. If he turned out himself… He was damned if he would turn out of Jocelyn’s Holt for Annie Joyce.

There was hardly any pause before he said, “Anne’s money.” And none at all between that and her reply, “My money, Philip.”