Love Is My Reason (10 page)

“
I wish you would tell me,
”
she said gently.
“
Why does she look at me as though she could love me? While the other one—Celia—looks at me as thought she could hate me?
”

“
Oh, nonsense, my dear!
”
He was shocked and, for the first time, slightly annoyed with her.
“
You exaggerate. Celia is a good deal taken aback by the situation. She
’
s afraid her mother will do something impulsive. That
’
s all.
”

“
Something impulsive about me?
”

“
Well, yes.
”
He hesitated. And then he saw that the present time was probably as good as any for telling her the rest of her own strange story.

“
Let
’
s sit down here for ten minutes, Anya. I think, after all, perhaps I should explain things further.
”

Obediently she seated herself beside him on the short, dry grass. But she sat up straight, and a little removed from him, as though she were very much aware of the slight reproof contained in his protest about Celia.

“
I hope it won
’
t upset you to hear about it.
”
To his surprise he found that he was oddly nervous about explaining.
“
But when your—father sent you out of the room—out of the cubicle, I mean—yesterday, and spoke to me alone, he told me something vital about you.
”
He paused and looked at her.
“
Have you any idea of what it was?
”

She shook her head, and looked back at him with such innocent, limpid blue eyes that he wondered, passingly, why he had ever supposed there was something enigmatic about her glance.

“
Briefly, my dear, he explained that you were not his child in reality. That your father had been an Englishman, who died before you were born. Beran then married your mother and, after your birth, took you both to Prague.
”

He stopped speaking and there was a long silence. Then she said very softly, as though to herself,

“
Then I am English?—like you.
”

“
Yes.
”
He was, he discovered, strangely moved as well as amused that this should be her first consideration.
“
You are English. Like me.
”

“
And because of the photograph, and what my mother said about it, Mrs. Preston thinks I might be the child of her lost son?
”

“
Yes, Anya. And one must admit there is some ground for the belief.
”

“
Then what,
”
asked Anya slowly,
“
is going to happen?
”

“
That, my dear, remains to be seen. And now,
”
said David, getting to his feet.
“
I must take you back to the hotel, or my aunt will scold us both.
”

She rose obediently at once. But, although he started down the hillside, she paused for a moment longer and looked across the shining river to the wretched place which had been all she had known of home for so many years. And suddenly she made a peculiar little gesture with her hands, as though she took leave lovingly of someone.

“
Good-bye,
”
she whispered, so low that David could not hear it,
“
good-bye. You were my dear and loving father always, whatever they say. But now I must go with him.
”
Then she turned and followed David down the hillside.

CHAPTER
FIVE

It was morning,
and the sunlight, filtering through the slatted blinds, picked out the faded pattern of the carpet on the floor of Anya
’
s bedroom.

She was not used to a carpet, any more than she was used to a room of her own. But then she was not used to anything which had happened to her in the last twen
t
y-four hours.

She turned on her side and looked at her own thin, lightly tanned arm. It was like the arm of someone else. Someone to whom she was half a stranger. And, not for the first time since David had brought her away from the camp, she had the odd feeling that she was living another person
’
s life.

Yesterday she had been one of a vast number of featureless, rootless, indistinguishable people who shared a common lot. What happened to one of them more or less happened to all. They were without individuality to those who dwelt in the outside world. They were almost without identity.

But now it was all different. She was the girl to whom something had happened. Not just minor, day-to-day events or experiences. But events which were fast building up into
a
composite whole—creating a new sort of existence.

And it was from David that all this strange drama and development flowed. He was the core and inspiration of her new existence. From the very first moment he had smiled at her, that evening on the hillside, she had felt as though her heart reached out to him. She had managed not to show anything of the feelings which both frightened and enraptured her, of course. She had stood beside him, answering his questions quite calmly. But even then, she thought, her world had begun to change.

Other men had smiled at her in her short life. In affection, in amusement, interest or desire. But none of it had been important. Just something one accepted gratefully or rejected contemptuously. But after that first short encounter with David, she had gone back to her wretched room knowing that nothing else in the world was more important to her than that she should see him again.

And that was why, in her hour of anxiety and distress, it had seemed natural to turn to him. Just as his response had seemed inevitable.

If David had not spoken to her that first evening
—
If
he had not agreed to come with her to the man she had
known as her father
—
If he had not insisted on bringing
the English doctor
—
If he had not taken her back to the
hotel when it was all over
—
But he
had
done all of these things. And so her life had changed. It was even David, in the end, who had told her the strangest part of her own life-story. True, he had, characteristically, told it quietly and unemotionally. But, in some strange way, he had made her feel that, though the ground had been cut from beneath her feet so far as her old life was concerned, she was not to be alone in the strange paths she was now to tread.

He had spoken of other, unimportant, things on the way back to the hotel the previous evening, and she thought he had probably intended that the dramatic disclosure should not be enlarged upon until she had had time to absorb it quietly.

But when they had arrived back at the hotel, Lady Ranmere had met them, with that dry, closed-in look which meant she was not pleased about something. Anya knew a lot about the way people looked when they were not pleased about something. When you lived in close proximity to your fellows for years on end, there were few glances or words or even silences which you could not interpret accurately.

“
David—
”
Lady Ranmere had not exactly ignored Anya, but she had certainly addressed her nephew
—
“I’
m afraid Teresa refuses to let things rest until the morning. She insists on seeing Anya again tonight.
”

“
Well—
”
David looked doubtfully at Anya
—“
if she feels she must
—
”

“
I will go and say goodnight to her,
”
Anya offered at once.
“
Perhaps that is all she wants.
”

David had come with her to the door of the Prestons
’
suite, but at that point Celia had come out into the corridor, her lovely face a little pale, and her eyes so cold that Anya wondered if even David noticed them. On the whole, she thought not.

“
You had better stay outside, David,
”
Celia had said to him.
“
The fewer people there are, the less likelihood there is of a scene.
”
And she had glanced at Anya without any friendliness.

So Anya had gone in alone with Celia, and found Mrs. Preston lying on the sofa in her sitting-room, which was more or less a replica of Lady Ranmere
’
s sitting-room. Like h
e
r daughter, she looked pale, but her eyes were not hard. They were bright and eager, and as her glance rested on Anya, she smiled and held out her hand.

“
I had to speak to you again, darling,
”
she exclaimed.
“
There were some questions I wanted to ask
—
”

“
Mother, you promised me not to get excited again.
”
Celia spoke as though her mother were a very tiresome, though of course well-loved, child.

“
It is difficult not to be excited when one
’
s heart is deeply stirred,
”
Anya said, and she came forward immediately and, taking the outstretched hand of the older woman, she sat down on a chair near the sofa.
“
Sometimes one is less excited if one is allowed to talk.
”

“
Of course—that
’
s what I say,
”
Mrs. Preston agreed eagerly.

Celia made no comment on this, but she drew back slightly, with an aloof expression which said plainly that it was not for Anya to advance any general opinion of that sort.

“
David has told me,
”
Anya explained gently,
“
what my father—what Beran—said to him before he died. How he was not really my father, but that I was the daughter of an Englishman.
”

“
There is no proof of that,
”
Celia interjected coldly.

“
If my father—if Beran said it then it is true,
”
Anya replied, as coldly.

“
Naturally that is what you would wish us to believe.
”
Celia shrugged.
“
But he realized he was very ill—perhaps
dying—and he saw David was an Englishman, with easily aroused sympathies. It would not be surprising if he made up this story in a moment of desperation. How are we to know that he didn
’
t even tell you what he had said, and advise you to continue the story on your own account?
”

“
Invent what my mother said about the photograph, you mean?
”
Anya looked her full in the face.

Celia looked away, but she only shrugged again in reply.

“
But if I had made the story up, I should say my mother identified your brother as my father. No one could disprove it, and it would be a much more effective story. But I am telling you the exact truth. I think one of them probably was my father
—
but I don
’
t know which
.”

“
But
I
know,
”
cried Mrs. Preston, suddenly taking a hand—rather ill-advisedly—in this conversation.
“
I know you are my darling grandchild—all that is left to me of Martin. Do you suppose there could be anything more convincing to me than the certainty I feel
here
?
”
And she pressed her hand against her heart.

“
Mother, you
’
ve nothing to go on but your own wishes and your overcharged emotions,
”
Celia exclaimed.
“
And whatever this girl likes to tell us,
”
she added, with a glance at Anya which was suddenly one of naked and implacable enmity.

Even now, as she lay there in the early morning sunshine and recalled the scene, Anya felt the chill of that stony dislike.

“
And yet she has everything on her side,
”
thought Anya wonderingly.
“
She is secure and happy and rich and beloved. Why should she hate and fear me, a stranger, with no country, no home, and even a father who is in doubt?
”

But perhaps that too had changed in a matter of hours. For if half the excited words which had fallen from Mrs. Preston in the scene which followed meant anything, they meant that she regarded Anya as her darling granddaughter, however much anyone else might choose to say that no case had been proved.

It was all terribly exciting and puzzling, and rather frightening, Anya thought, as she got out of bed and began to dress. She wondered, as she had to wonder over each of the simplest processes of her new life, what she was supposed to do with the early part of the day. She could hear
the maids outside in the passage, polishing endlessly in the German way, but the sound was reassuring rather than disturbing. To one who had been used to hear sounds of others in the very room in which she lived her life, it was strange to be alone in a room of one
’
s own, every sound muted by heavy doors and thick curtains.

The church clock nearby struck eight, and, not knowing if this were considered late or early, Anya presently ventured forth and—since she was slightly afraid of the lift
—
went down the stairs.

She remembered the way to the restaurant from the previous evening and, thinking that she might perhaps find David there, she made for it. Before she reached it, however, she came on a smaller room, open now for breakfast, and, looking in, she saw that David
’
s cousin, the man with the speculative eyes and the knowledgeable smile, was sitting there, pouring out coffee.

“
Hello.
”
He caught sight of her as she stood there m the doorway.
“
Come and join me for breakfast. How did you sleep?
”

She came in rather slowly and sat down opposite him at the table.

“
Thank you. Very well. Is David down yet?
”

“
No. I
’
m usually the first. Though why I don
’
t know. I
’
m a lazy devil in the mornings when I am at home. But then I keep much later night hours when I
’
m working. Holidays are different.
”

She considered that and asked gravely,
“
What is your
work?
”

“
I
’
m a theatrical producer.
”

“
You mean, you work in the theatre? On a stage?
”

“
Yes. Does that sound to you more like playing than
working?
”

“
No.
”
She shook her head.
“
I know it is very hard work if you do it well. There used to be a theatre director in the camp He was quite famous once, in Poland. But the Germans took him for slave labor during the war, and at the end of the war there was no place for him to go back to
.
All his family had been murdered—and, anyway, he had T.B.
”

Bertram looked slightly startled.

“
Where is he now?
”
he enquired rather gruffly, perhaps dismayed at the fate of even so remote a colleague.

“
I don
’
t know. He went to the sanatorium more than a year ago. Maybe he is dead.
”

“
You
’
re a cheery little soul, aren
’
t you?
”
Bertram frowned.
“
Can
’
t you think of something gayer than that to tell me across the breakfast table?
”

She looked surprised. Then she smiled, as she might have done at a child who rebelled against some unpleasant restriction.

“
I
’
m sorry. I forgot. One always thinks other people know life in the same terms as oneself.
”

“
I guess that
’
s right.
”
Bertram gave her a reflective grin, and ordered breakfast for her from the hovering waiter.