Anne Belinda (19 page)

Anne found it all extremely trying. She never had any privacy; she had to live in the closest possible association with a dirty, foolish person; and nothing would induce Mrs. Brownling to sleep with the window open. There were moments when she regretted Holloway.

On Friday morning she took in a type-written envelope addressed to Miss Annie Jones. It was from John. He wrote:

“D
EAR
A
NNE
,

“I didn't give you my address. I meant to—it was awfully stupid of me to forget. Mind you let me know if you want anything. And don't forget about your promise, or about Thursday. I shall be just round the corner
at a quarter past two.

“Yours,

“J. M. W.”

Anne locked the letter up in her suitcase. It was the first nice letter she had had for more than a year.

“No one writes to me,” said Mrs. Brownling with an injured sniff. “But it was different when I was a girl. Girls don't seem to attract young men now like they used to. Did I tell you, dear, how I used to drive my father on his rounds in a nice, high-stepping dogcart with the wheels picked out in red? He was a doctor, you know, in a very good practice up in the north. And I'm sure you wouldn't
believe
the letters I used to get from young men. Did you say your letter was from your young man?”

“No, I didn't,” said Anne.

“Now I thought it was a man's writing.”

Anne laughed outright.

“Why, it was typed!”

“I always had a good eye for a young man,” said Mrs. Brownling complacently.

On Saturday there was another letter:

“D
EAR
A
NNE
,

“I don't think I gave you my telephone number. It might be useful for you to have it in case there was anything you wanted me for in a hurry. I hope you would ring up if there was.

“Yours,

    “J. M. W.

“P.S.—The best time to ring me up would be at breakfast-time, because I'm always in at breakfast.”

It was Mrs. Fossick-Yates who gave Anne the third letter on Monday. She looked at it first, and read the post-mark. Then she said, “Typewritten,” in the sort of voice in which counsel for the prosecution might present a particularly damning piece of evidence.

Anne didn't say anything. She took the letter and turned away; her finger-tips tingled a little. How foolish of him to write again—how terribly foolish! It must be confessed that she did not find the folly altogether unpleasant.

This time John wrote:

“D
EAR
A
NNE
,

“I hope you haven't forgotten about Thursday. I think I'll be there at two o'clock; because if they lunch at one, that would give you loads of time to get cleared up.

“Yours,

“J. M. W.”

Half an hour later, when Anne was polishing the dining-room table, Mrs. Fossick-Yates sailed into the room and assumed a majestic pose on the hearthrug.

“One moment, Jones.”

Anne straightened herself. The rubbing had brought a little colour to her cheeks. She wore a blue print dress, the value of which was to be deducted from her wages.

“Er—Jones,” said Mrs. Fossick-Yates.

“Yes, madam?”

“I think you should realize the—er—importance of dissociating yourself once and for all from any—er—connections you may have formed in earlier and less desirable surroundings.”

Anne said nothing.

“Correspondence with former associates is not a thing which I should expect you to encourage.”

Anne looked at her across the shining table. Why was she so horrid? Why couldn't she be decent? The first sharp stab of anger was gone. It just seemed silly, and a pity.

“Answer me, please!” said Mrs. Fossick-Yates.

“I don't know what to say.”

“I should like an undertaking that you will not correspond with your old associates whilst you are under my roof. I cannot help knowing that you receive letters daily, and I think it only kind to caution you. I will say no more.”

Mrs. Brownling said a good deal more:

“What coloured eyes has he got, my dear? Tell me that, and I'll tell you whether he's got a constant disposition. The first gentleman I was engaged to had the most lovely hazel eyes you ever saw; and he threw me over to marry a titled lady. I never saw a man so put about as my poor father was. He'd had losses, and bad ones, that week—I told you he was on the Stock Exchange—and I thought there would have been murder done, which isn't a thing that any young lady would like to have her name mixed up in, and so I told him.”

CHAPTER XXV

There was no letter from John on Tuesday. Mrs. Brownling appeared to be aware of the fact. She sighed heavily every time Anne came into the kitchen.

“I wouldn't take it to heart if I were you, dear. There's better fish in the sea than ever came out of it.”

“I'm not taking anything to heart,” said Anne laughing.

“There's many a broken heart that's hid by a smiling face,” said Mrs. Brownling, letting all the potato peel fall upon the kitchen floor. She peeled potatoes so badly that it was all that Anne could do not to take the knife out of her hand and do them herself. A potato that had passed through the hands of Mrs. Brownling was a gashed and mutilated object of about a third its original size.

“Not but what a broken heart's a hard thing to put up with,” she continued, dropping the potato. “I remember when I was engaged the second time, I thought I'd never get over it—after it was broken off I mean. He wasn't handsome; but he had a way with him. And when he stopped writing, which he did quite sudden, I'm sure if ever a girl had a broken heart, I did. So I can feel for you, dear.”

“There's nothing to feel about. Do you want this potato?”

“Put it in with the others. Well, dear, I won't say you're not right to be proud. Talk about pride, I'd an uncle, an army officer, that was almost too proud to live—military manners and a moustache, and all the girls after him. My poor mother worshipped him, but my father didn't hold with the army. He said lawyers saw too much of what came of it—He'd a very good law business that he came into from an uncle.”

“I thought he was a doctor,” said Anne.

Mrs. Brownling sighed heavily.

“He was, and he wasn't. I'm sure he might have been anything, he was so much thought of. But there, we all have our troubles, and least said's soonest mended—isn't it, dear?”

On Wednesday John wrote, apparently for the purpose of reminding Anne that the following day would be Thursday. He added that he was quite sure she could get out by a quarter to two at least, and that he would be waiting just round the corner at half-past one.

He had been waiting for an hour and a quarter when Anne came into view. He took her hand and said reproachfully:

“You
didn't
hurry.”

“Why should I?” said Anne. And then she smiled at him. “I always told you it would be nearly three before I should get out. You didn't really come at half-past one, did you?”

“Of course I did. Look here, it's a topping afternoon, and I've got the car. I thought we could run right out into the country.”

Anne had meant to be aloof and repressive, but she could not keep the blood from her cheeks or the sparkle from her eyes. To be carried smoothly and swiftly through miles and miles and miles of scented summer air; to see the sun on endless fields—after the flat and Mrs. Brownling's kitchen it was heaven.

John touched her sleeve as she got in.

“You haven't got a coat.”

“I don't want one on a day like this.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure.”

The car began to move; the grey streets along which she had walked wearily began to slip away like old, grey dreams. John sat by her side frowning.

She ought to have a coat. She ought to have her own clothes. They must be somewhere. She must have had clothes. He made a note to go and see Mrs. Jones again and find out about Anne's clothes. She ought to have a coat. It was all very well to-day, but he was going to take her for a lot more drives, and it wouldn't always be warm.

Anne's voice broke in upon his thoughts.

“Tell me about Jenny's baby,” she said.

“Jenny's baby?”

“You said you were at Waterdene. You must have seen the baby. Didn't you?”

“Of course I saw it. Jenny's frightfully proud of it. She shows it to everyone.”

“What is he like? Who is he like?” said Anne eagerly.

“Like? Oh, I don't know.”

“Is he like Jenny?”

“I don't think so.”

“Is he like Nicholas? Can't you tell me? I—I haven't seen him.”

The little quiver in her voice filled John with rage against Jenny and Nicholas Marr. Some of it got into his voice as he said:

“It's just a baby.”

Anne thought, “I've made him cross.” She wanted so dreadfully badly to hear all about the baby and all about Jenny; and now she had made him cross. And suddenly she felt tired and weak, and she was sorry that she had come. She shut her eyes on two hot tears.

John looked sideways at her and cursed the Marrs again. What did she look like that for? She hadn't any colour at all, and there was a little line of pain on either side of her mouth. He did not know that he loved Anne, but he wanted to kiss those lines away. He said, very angrily indeed:

“Does she give you enough to eat?”

Anne's eyes opened very wide. He saw that her lashes were wet. She said:

“Who?”

“That beastly Fossick-Yates woman.”

“Oh—why?”

“You don't look as if you were eating anything.”

“I am really.”

“What did you have for lunch?” And, as she hesitated: “I don't believe you had anything.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you have?”

Anne began to laugh because she suddenly remembered Mrs. Brownling's uncle with the military manners. She said: “Bread and butter.” And John fairly snorted with rage.

“I bet it was margarine! Was it—or wasn't it?”

“It was.”

“All right,” said John. “We can't talk about it here, because I've got to steer, and if I really let myself go we shall probably run into a tram. When we do get out into the country there are quite a lot of things I'm going to say.”

“You
are
like Mrs. Brownling's uncle!” said Anne.

They left the tram-lines behind, and presently there were no buses and fewer and fewer cars. The road was edged with trees instead of houses, and the blue sky looked down on a green world. They turned off on to a narrow road that climbed through a pine wood to an open moor.

John stopped the car, and they got out.

“First you're going to eat; and then we're going to talk. I brought a picnic basket because I thought it would be jollier to get right away like this.”

They sat down on the young green heather, with the sun-filled, pine-scented air all round them. The moor rose up behind to the bluest sky in the world. In front of them it fell away to woods and fields. On the far horizon a line of blue hills merged into a blue haze.

Anne did not know that she was hungry until the basket stood open and displayed its extravagant contents—a sort of combined lunch and tea. She did not eat enough to satisfy John, but she certainly ate more than she would have believed possible. After a year of prison fare and ten days of Mrs. Brownling's cooking, to eat civilized food again created the illusion of having stepped back into the old life.

She stopped being Annie Jones, and was Anne Waveney, with the clock put back a year. The scent of the pines, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the light fresh breeze that went softly by—all these things were outside the life of Annie Jones. Anne Waveney let herself savour them to the full, just for half an hour.

When they had finished their meal, John packed everything away with the neatness of a man who has lived much in camp and can put his hand to any domestic job as well as a woman, or better. John himself would certainly have said better. He shut the lid of the basket down, came over to Anne, and sat down on the green heather beside her.

“Now let's talk.”

They had been talking all the time lightly and pleasantly, but the moment he said “Now let's talk,” there was a constraint between them.

“The bother is I don't a bit know how to begin.”

“Don't begin.”

Anne's eyes were on the blue horizon mists. Anne Waveney's life was as far away from her as those far hills. She could not go back into the past and live it again. She had been dreaming of it for half an hour, and now she must come back. She would have liked to dream a little longer.

She looked into her dream and said:

“Don't begin.”

“I must.”

She turned with a sigh to meet his frowningly intent look.

“I haven't an idea how to begin, so I shall probably make a mess of it. You see, you've really only seen me once. I can't count the times you've forgotten, because, if you've forgotten them, as far as you're concerned they don't exist. Oh, Lord! I'm getting tied up! But this is what I mean: I expect I feel like a stranger to you. But I'm not a stranger; I can't feel like one, and I can't behave like one. And I can't give you time to get used to me, because something's got to be done at once.”

“I don't see that.”

“You would if you were me. Good Lord, Anne, just put yourself in my place for a moment. I come home; I step into your brothers' shoes; I take everything—I take the house you were brought up in, the place that was your home; and I can't even find anyone who'll tell me where you are, or what you're doing, or whether you've got anything to live on. And when I do find you, you're working your fingers to the bone for that perfectly awful Fossick-Yates woman. For Heaven's sake put yourself in my place and think what I feel like!”