Anne Belinda (28 page)

“Anne sends her love.

    “Yours,

“J. M. W.”

Anne lifted her eyes from the page, caught a glimpse of John's chin, sighed, and said:

“What a hurry you're in!”

“Of course I'm in a hurry.”

He took away the letter, put it in its envelope, stuck down the flap, and rose.

“I'll just go out and post this.”

“John, please don't!”

“I won't be a minute. I want Jenny to get it by the first post, because I've got to-morrow all mapped out. Directly after breakfast I shall go down and see Mrs. Jones. Then I shall do Carruthers. By the way, I'm telling him to open an account for you at Lloyds'. They'll want your signature, but we can see about that on Tuesday. Carruthers will pay in five hundred pounds to start with. Then I shall have some lunch and push off to Waterdene.”

Anne gazed at him with an odd helpless feeling. With the letter in his hand he crossed to the door. At the door he turned.

“You'd better see Mrs. Fossick-Yates directly after breakfast to-morrow and tell her that urgent private affairs are tearing you away from her. Aurora will expect you here by tea-time. If you haven't come, she will come and fetch you. But I think it would be just as well if Aurora and Mrs. Fossick-Yates didn't meet. I don't think they'd get on very well, and Mrs. Fossick-Yates might get ideas in her head about Annie Jones going to stay with an explorer. So I think you'd better get here for tea. I'll roll up about seven. Aurora has asked me to dinner.”

He went out and shut the door behind him with decision.

Anne put her chin in her hand and wondered why she wasn't angry. She felt that she ought to have been angry. She ought to say that she wouldn't have a banking account, or stay with Aurora, or be engaged. On the other hand, when she did say these things they did not seem to make any impression. She felt limp, and weak, and rather happy.

Horrocks opened the door and began, slowly and disapprovingly, to bring in tea.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Carefully mapped-out days do not always conform to plan. John interviewed a tearful, incredulous, protesting Mrs. Jones, and a silent and shocked Mr. Carruthers. After which he lunched and took the road.

Jenny would have had six hours in which to tell Nicholas the truth. He drove through a light drizzle, feeling cheerful and determined, and quite unconscious of the fact that his letter had not reached Jenny. It lay in the hall at Waterdene with half a dozen others awaiting the return of Sir Nicholas and Lady Marr from a week-end visit.

John drove up to the house five minutes after Jenny had picked up her letters and run upstairs to the nursery.

“Sir Nicholas is in the study,” said the butler. And to the study John followed him.

Nicholas was pulling a spaniel's ears. He said, “Down, Jess! Steady, old lady!” and turned as charming a smile on John as if their last interview had never been. “She nearly eats me when I've been away.”

John's cheerful confidence received a slight shock. Was it possible for a man who had just—well, in the last six hours—been told something which was bound to be a bit of a facer to look quite so unconcerned and easy as Nicholas was looking?

“What will you have?” said Nicholas with his hand on the bell.

“Oh, nothing, thanks. As a matter of fact, I've really come down to talk business.”

“The last man who did that wanted to sell me some dud shares in a non-existent mine,” said Nicholas.

“It's not money. By the way, I wrote to Jenny. Did she have my letter?”

Nicholas seemed to find this a little crude. His eyebrows rose.

“I really haven't any idea.”

“I wrote to tell her that Anne and I were engaged,” said John, and did not know that his voice held a challenge.

“Anne!” said Nicholas.

“Anne Waveney.”

Nicholas lit a cigarette and flicked the match neatly into the waste-paper basket on the far side of his writing-table. He said, “Good shot!” and then, “Well, well.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that I suppose you know your own business.”

“I suppose I do. But I think this is your business and Jenny's as well as mine.”

Between two puffs of smoke Nicholas said, “Hardly.” He sat on the arm of a chair, cigarette in hand, and looked at the toe of his boot. His smile was still quite pleasant.

John had a moment of uncertainty. Nicholas didn't seem to know. Jenny hadn't played up. Well, she'd had her chance. Nicholas had got to know, only—The moment of uncertainty flickered out.

“It's certainly Jenny's business. Whether it's yours or not is just a matter for you and Jenny to settle. No, wait a minute, I want to get it off my chest, and I'd like you to listen. I thought Jenny would have spoken to you, but it seems she hasn't.”

“Jenny knows my views. I haven't altered them. Perhaps it'll save trouble if I say straight away that I shan't ever alter them.”

“I'd like you to listen if you don't mind. Anne and I are going to get married in about three weeks time. And I think when you've spoken to Jenny you'll feel—”

Nicholas interrupted him:

“My dear John, I shan't ever feel differently about Anne Waveney. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it'll save trouble all round if you'll realize that my decision about Anne is quite final.”

“I think,” said John, speaking mildly, “I think that when you know the facts you'll feel that it's up to you and Jenny—”

Nicholas interrupted again:

“I don't accept the slightest obligation.”

John pursued his way:

“There's been a certain amount of talk; and there'll be more if you and Jenny go on cold-shouldering Anne. Naturally, I don't want there to be any talk.”

Nicholas lit another cigarette.

“Anne Waveney took her own line. I told you what that line was. I haven't the slightest intention of allowing Jenny to have anything to do with her.”

“I really think you'd better talk to Jenny about it. I wrote to her and suggested that Anne should come down here until we could be married. Of course, if Jenny hasn't spoken to you, you'll say ‘No.' So I think you'd better talk to Jenny before you say anything.”

Nicholas shot him an odd sidelong glance. He smoked in silence for a full minute before he said:

“Nothing that you've said to Jenny is going to have any effect at all upon the situation.” A second glance said quite plainly: “Now, will you go?”

John took no notice of it. He was wondering where Jenny was. He said in rather a hesitating manner:

“I think you don't know all the facts. There were things which I had asked Jenny to tell you. I think when you know them you'll feel differently about Anne. That's why I'm not getting angry. I'd like to see Jenny, if you don't mind.”

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders, got up, and walked to the bell.

“If you'd rather hear Jenny tell you that my mind is made up, I've no objection—Yes, I rang. Will you ask her ladyship to come down. Tell her Sir John Waveney is here.”

Then, as the door closed behind the servant, he returned to his lounging attitude and to an expression of bored annoyance.

Upstairs Jenny was sitting on the floor with her baby in her lap.

“He knows me, nurse! I'm
sure
he knows me! Didn't urns, lovey? Didn't urns knows its horrid old deserting mum—going away and leaving him for two whole days? Nurse, I'm sure he's heavier—I'm
sure
he is!”

“He's got your letters, ma'am. He'll have them in his mouth in a minute.”

Jenny laughed and kissed the pink clutching hands.

“Lie still, angel! Oh, he's sucked the corner of this one! Piggy Wiggy!”

She held it up, and then remained looking at the envelope. Her mind said quickly: “John Waveney! Why should he write to me?” She took the letter out, tearing it a little in her haste, and read what John had written:

“Anne and I are going to be married.”

The words seemed to jump towards her, seemed almost to hit her. She felt as if she had been struck.

“Anne and I are going to be married. I hope you will be pleased.”

Pleased.
She took a sharp breath and called the nurse:

“Nurse, take baby.”

She got up with the letter in her hand and went over to the window with it.

Little Tony gave a piercing shriek of disapproval. He was very comfortable on Jenny's lap; it was soft, not starchy; and he liked being cooed at and tickled. He voiced the most passionate disapproval. But Jenny did not hear him.

“I hope you will be pleased.” This—
this
was what she had always been afraid of. She was so much afraid now that she did not know how to go on reading the letter. She felt as if she was standing on the edge of some frightful nightmare. If she read the letter, she would slip over the edge and become part of it. But she had to read the letter.

She looked at it and read on. Anne to come here—Anne to stay with her! Nicko wouldn't—And then: “I think you had better tell Nicholas all about Levinski's pearls.” The letter disappeared in the mist that seemed to fill the room.

Jenny went on staring at the place where the letter had been. The mist got thinner. She saw a white oblong with streaks on it—black streaks, letters, words, that danced, shifted, steadied. She began to read the words: “You'd better tell Nicholas at once, because I'm coming down tomorrow, Monday.”

She read on to the end of the letter. She was to tell Nicholas at once—tell Nicko that she was a thief; that she had taken Levinski's pearls and let Anne go to prison for it. She was to tell Nicko all this at once.

Her right hand held the letter. Her left closed hard upon itself, driving the pink pointed nails into her palm. She began to breathe a little faster. John—she must get hold of John. She must get hold of him before he saw Nicko. And she must make him understand that she couldn't possibly do such a preposterous thing. He couldn't ask her to do it—not really.

“If you please, my lady—” It was the nurse with little Tony, now pacified, in her arms.

“What is it?” said Jenny sharply.

“If you please, my lady, James came to the door with a message from Sir Nicholas; and he says will your ladyship please go down, as Sir John Waveney would like to see you.”

Jenny took the blow without any outward sign; it hit her so hard that, for the moment, it took away her power to feel. She crumpled up the letter and pushed it down into the pocket of her white jumper suit. She had thrown off her hat when she came into the nursery. She put up the hand that had held the letter, and smoothed her fair wavy hair. The other hand hung down rigid.

She went out of the door and down the stairs with the fear in her rising to panic. It was coming; she couldn't stop it. John was there with Nicko. The worst of all her terrible dreams was coming true. And there was no Anne to save her now.

Halfway down the stairs she began to run. Then, with her hand on the study door, she stopped, leaning there, her head against the panel, breathless and quivering. She heard John speak, and the thought rushed into her mind: “He's telling Nicko
now
.”

She pushed the door open and ran into the room.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

When the servant had gone to find Jenny, John remained looking at Nicholas for a moment. Then he walked over to the window and stood there looking out. The clouds were very black on the far side of the river; the water ran like dull quicksilver through the wet green meadows. The lilac was over, and the crimson may.

John looked out into the drizzle of fine rain and settled what he would do. When Jenny came, he would ask her if she had had his letter; then he would leave her to tell Nicholas. He could go for a tramp and come back again. He felt sorry for Nicholas Marr.

“I'm sorry Jenny didn't get my letter first thing this morning. I didn't think of her being away. Have you only just got back?”

“Five minutes before you—blew in.”

“I see.”

Perhaps he'd better give them a little more time—clear off altogether and come down again tomorrow.

“Jenny'll want to talk to you,” he said. “I'll just make sure she's had my letter, and then I'll clear off. I can come down again to-morrow.”

Nicholas knocked the ash off his cigarette on to the carpet.

“Can you?” he said. And with that the door was pushed open and Jenny came in.

John turned, and received a shock. For the first time, the likeness to Anne was a real thing. And it was a likeness of suffering. Jenny's face, with the colour drained from it and the eyes staring, was terribly like the face Anne had lifted to him when he met her, dumb and beaten, in the drive at Waterdene.

Jenny was looking, not at him, but at Nicholas. She ran into the room, and stopped by the writing-table, holding to the back of a tall chair and looking at Nicholas.

“Nicko! What has he said? Send him away! It's not true! You won't—you won't believe him if I say it's not true! You won't believe him against me!
Nicko!
”

Nicholas Marr got up slowly. He threw the end of his cigarette into the fireplace. Then he went over to Jenny and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Jenny!” The word came sharp.

The hand on her shoulder was firm. Jenny clutched at him.

“Nicko—send him away! What has he said?”

Then, leaning back against Nicholas, she turned upon John:

“How dare you come here with your lies? Do you think he'll believe them?”

Then back again to catch at Nicholas with a desperate hand:

“Say you don't believe him! Nicko, it's a dreadful, dreadful lie! I didn't do it—I didn't! Anne confessed—you know she did. She took the pearls, and she confessed. Nicko, send him away!”