Hide My Eyes (4 page)

She was up from the country, he decided. That was about it.

After forty minutes he began to feel downright anxious about her, although she showed no sign of being disturbed. If she was wearing a watch she did not consult it but remained relaxed, graceful, and apparently utterly content. Her slender feet were thrust out before her and her hands were folded in her lap.

He might have guessed that it was her destiny that other people should do the worrying about Miss Annabelle Tassie, for it was with positive relief that he, a complete stranger, saw at last a young man turn sharply in from the street and go hurrying towards her.

The newcomer, too, was an unusual type of visitor to the district. He was a small and dapper youngster with dark red hair and one of those bright little-boy faces which are so often the despair of their owners, whose tastes, more often than not, veer towards the romantic. He was twenty-two and looked no older, but there was pugnacity in the lower part of his face and his very clear blue eyes were vividly intelligent.

His dark suit was impeccable and his white collar shining, and if he had no overcoat it was because, as the newest recruit to the ancient firm of Wysdom Bros. and Company, Tea Brokers, Bread Lane, City, he did not care to wear to business his last year’s garment which was Her Majesty’s khaki. And until the end of the month he would not have quite enough money to purchase the soberly elegant affair on which he had had his eye for some time.

However, this temporary deficiency did not worry him. His most obvious characteristic, which was a natural grace and gaiety of movement, made him appear a joyous figure striding over the grass as if the world belonged to him. One of the compensations of youth is its ability to accept the shifts of life as the trivia they turn out to be, and Richard Waterfield had seen nothing outrageous in the demand in Annabelle’s letter that he should journey half across London
at
nine in the morning to meet her in some god-forsaken square of which he had never heard. It was the first letter he had received from her in eighteen months, but he accepted the call upon him without hesitation, arranging with Messrs. Wysdom Brothers that he should take the morning off to visit his dentist.

She was an old friend and ally whom he had known as a neighbour in the Suffolk village of Dancing.

“
I will wait for you in a park called Garden Green
,” she had written. “
On the map it looks nice and near the station and the train gets in at nine. I am sorry to bother you but I think someone living in London ought to be told where I shall be. I will explain when I see you. If it’s raining we’ll find a Church to talk in. I mean I shan’t come down on you for tea or food
.”

Her directness amused him. It was one of the reasons he had always liked the child. She had a sound grasp of essentials. He had decided to buy her an ice.

He was considering this particular aspect of the problem when unexpectedly he saw her. He stopped in full stride, his ideas undergoing sudden and drastic change.

“Hullo Richard,” said Annabelle demurely.

“Hullo,” he echoed cautiously, and added abruptly, “what are you dressed up like that for?”

The faintest of smiles, fleeting and content, passed over the remarkable mouth and she made room on the seat beside her.

“I thought you’d be surprised. You haven’t seen me for two years and five months. It’s Jenny’s coat. I—er—I think I look pretty good.”

Richard sat down. “I hardly recognised you,” he said stiffly.

Annabelle remained content. “It’s my hair,” she explained calmly. “I had it done properly while I was about it. I’m trying to look as old as I possibly can.”

“So I see.” He spoke gloomily. He was mourning a very pleasant child who had been a good friend to him some three years before, when an agony of calf-love for her elder sister Jennifer had rendered him in great need of sane companionship. This new Annabelle had blossomed like a whole
flower
-bed, apparently, overnight, and looked to his interested eye as if she might cause a heap of trouble for almost anybody.

To his surprise she laid a hand on his.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s still me.”

He laughed gratefully, recovering a modicum of his superiority.

“I’m glad about that. They know at home that you’re here, I hope? You’re not up to anything fantastic, like trying to go on the stage or anything?”

“No.” She was unoffended. “It’s more complicated than that. That’s why I wanted to see you, somebody reliable. Jenny knows I’m here of course, and that means that Medico Mike does too, but we couldn’t trouble Mother. She’s far too ill.”

Her mention of Dr. Michael Robinson, his successful rival for the affections of her elder sister, reassured Richard somewhat. That mature stuffed shirt was at least hard-headed.

“I heard about your mother,” he said awkwardly. “I’m awfully sorry. Isn’t she any better? I didn’t like to ask.”

“I’m afraid she can’t ever be. It was a stroke, you see.” Annabelle eyed him gratefully. “It doesn’t really help to talk about it. Jenny’s been wonderful. She won’t think of marrying Mike until … well, until it’s all over. The other two are at school, still, and I’ve just left. I can’t do what Jenny’s doing because it’s a tremendous feat to pay the bills out of the income, so I was going to get a job right away. Then the letter turned up and I thought I’d better be the one to answer it, and so here I am.”

“So I see.” He was finding it difficult to take his gaze from her face. “What letter was this?”

“Here.” She produced a plump envelope from her coat pocket and handed it to him. “See what you think. It was addressed to Mother but Jenny had to deal with it. You’ll have to read it all, I’m afraid, or you’ll never get the drift.”

Richard took the packet dubiously. There seemed to be a lot of letter, pages of it scribbled in an untidy but purposeful hand.

“7 Garden Green,

London, W.2.

“My dear Alice,” it began, “You may not have heard of me but I should not be surprised if you have because all families talk, I know, say what we will. Well, dear, I am your brother-in-law Frederick’s wife, or widow I should say, and I think you may have met Frederick before you were married.

“My dear, he was not a bad chap whatever you may have heard and was really very fond of his brother, your husband. I saw that
he
had passed on, poor fellow, some years ago. I am so sorry. It is difficult to talk about them, isn’t it?

“My Frederick was
all right really
but I can understand that it must have been a shock to you all when he went off and joined me in my hotel instead of marrying where he was expected to. I think perhaps I ought to mention that we
were
married—Gold Cross Registry Office, Manchester, 27th June ’31—a bit late as you will notice, I expect, but still we did do it, and we got on very well. When he went, poor old boy, in 1945 I was fed up, so I sold out and came to live in a bit of property my Dad left me, it falling empty about that time. The address is on the top of this letter. It is not in a swanky part but I have made it quite nice.

“What I am leading up to is that Freddy and I had no kids and I have no relatives left alive to need anything. I have not won the Irish Sweep but I did sell out at the best time and have always had a bit put by, being that sort of person I expect.

“To stop beating about the bush, dear, I believe there is a niece of Freddy’s. I remember we saw in the paper her name was Jennifer.

“Fred kept an eye on births and deaths and if he was too proud to write he always drank the health of a name he knew! Well, Alice dear, I would like to see this girl. I do not want to promise anything because I am as I am and I expect so is she, and we might not get on at all, but if you can see your way to it send her up to me, and if she is what I have in mind she will not be the loser. There is something here for her to do if she is the right sort.

“Now I have read this I see it looks as if I am up to I
don’t
know what. Do not think that. I would look after her. No silly nonsense or staying out late, or
anything not quite straightforward
. Anyhow, that is my idea and there is no harm in asking, is there?

“To close, dear, I hope you are all right. It has been a parroty old lifetime for us women, hasn’t it, but I daresay it has made us all a bit broader minded than we were long ago. If you decide to send the kid have a little chat with her first, because I do not want a crying set-out if I am not what she expects. Shall hope to see her but will understand if not.

Yours sincerely,

Margaret (Polly) Tassie.

“P.S. She must be nearly twenty-four. I expect she’s very nice and well brought up but I have opened this to say that if she should be really plain, kindly dear, forget I wrote.”

Richard read the postscript twice and looked up, his youthful face blank.

“I suppose someone
has
heard of her before?”

“Oh yes.” Annabelle appeared alarmingly complacent. “Father and Frederick were left our estate between them, with very little money and a lot of responsibility, but it looked more or less all right because Frederick was engaged to one of Lord Thole’s daughters over at Pharaoh’s Field. They were awfully rich. But when Grandfather died Uncle Fred beetled off, jilted the Honourable, and left Father to wrestle both with the estate and the scandal. I don’t think there was a row. Just an enduring coolth. No one even seems to have considered this old darling, who sounds rather a sweetie, don’t you think?”

He did not answer immediately and she leaned over his shoulder.

“Well, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “You’re sure Dr. Robinson has seen this letter, and that he thinks it was a good idea for you to come up?”

Annabelle hesitated and her grey-gold eyes wandered from his stare.

“I think so,” she said at last. “Things are rather dreary at home just now. I imagine Mike is a bit bored with me and the two young ones. I mean, I think that a wealthy relative is just what he feels we need.”

Richard’s expression remained uncharacteristically serious and he turned back to the first page of the letter before casting a furtive glance at the breathtaking face beside him. Annabelle hurried on.

“We didn’t write to Aunt Polly, because her letter was to Mother anyhow, and explanations seemed too difficult and long-winded to be put on paper. I thought I’d just come up and see what she wanted, but it all sounded a bit peculiar so I thought I’d better arrange with someone reliable to know where I was.”

She paused and grinned at him, reminding him vividly of herself as he remembered her best.

“You’re the only person I know in London,” she said. “It was the sensible thing to write you, don’t you think?”

“Of course.” Richard stifled an unmanly doubt. “Seven Garden Green. It’s one of those houses over there, I suppose.” He nodded without enthusiasm towards the grey terrace, dingy and tall in the mist, which surrounded the Green on the other side of the encircling wall.

“No, I don’t think so. I came that way. That’s Garden Crescent.” Annabelle glanced uneasily at the maze of shabby stucco stretching in every direction. “Perhaps it’s at the back here. I didn’t like to go and look in case you arrived and missed me.”

He smiled at her. She was terrific. That half independence, half leaning on one, was the most touching thing he had ever encountered. He got up. “I’ll find out. You stay there. There’s a bobby down there. He’ll know. I shan’t be a moment.”

He sped off before she could attempt to join him and caught Bullard just as he was moving off towards the Barrow Road.

“Garden Green, sir?” In the way of elderly constables he took his time before replying. “What number do you want? Seven? That’ll be the first building down that turning on the
right
over there. You can’t miss the house. It’s a museum.”

“A what?” Richard was taken by surprise. His eyes looked blue and astounded.

Bullard could not forbear to smile. The boy reminded him of a startled pup, with that red setter-coloured hair.

“Isn’t that what you were looking for, sir? It’s number Seven all right. It’s only a small museum and there’s a house attached which is occupied by the caretaker. If I recollect she’s also the owner. Name of Tassie.”

“The name’s right.” Richard still sounded shaken. “Thank you very much, officer. Over there? I see.”

Old Bullard was loth to let him go. He was curious about the pair. Annabelle in particular had stirred his imagination.

“Number Seven’s the museum all right. Only a small one, admission free. If it’s any help to you, the house used to be called Tether’s End.”

The boy grimaced at him. “That’s cheerful.”

“So it is.” Bullard was amused. “That’s a funny thing, I’ve been about here thirty years and never noticed that. It’s the same as
Dunroamin
only more sarky, isn’t it? Excuse me, sir, but has the young lady come up from the country?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact she has.” To his annoyance Richard felt himself flushing. He looked across the leaf-strewn grass to where she sat waiting, and on an impulse turned to the older man and expressed the incredulity which was overwhelming him. “She’s
suddenly
got beautiful like that,” he exploded. “Suddenly.”

Bullard’s smile was charming. “She’s certainly done it, sir,” he said, and moved off in his deliberate way, highly tickled. It was pleasant to see a young chap knocked all of a heap like that. Suddenly, eh? Well, that was how it always happened, and very nice too.

He dismissed the incident and started to think about himself again. It was quite remarkable, he reflected, what a memory he had got. Ask him anything you liked about the district and he could answer it pat, just like that. It was what they called a visual memory. Everything came in pictures. That little museum and the old girl who ran it, for instance. She’d only shown him round it once and …

At that point a picture returned to his mind with the abruptness and clarity of a price coming up on a cash register. He stopped in his tracks, his face turning first white and then red in his excitement. Standing in the middle of the pavement he felt in his pocket for his notebook, in the back of which was a worn police circular folded in four. He shook it out with a trembling hand and put on his reading glasses.