The Shocking Miss Anstey (34 page)

‘And I shall catch it next time, I suppose? I’m always catching it from someone.’

‘Quite right,’ said John calmly. ‘It might teach you not to squabble.’

‘Who’s squabbling?’ She turned on him at once, with the air of one happily accepting a challenge. ‘It was all sweet and loving here till you two men pushed in.’

‘Pushed in is good, after the trouble you took to get us here. And as to sweet and loving, what’s this about a house? Both of you screaming for help--can’t possibly live together?’

‘Well, of course we can’t. There isn’t room. That’s all. It’s as simple as that. But I
am
simple.’

‘How to distinguish you from an angel, Anice, is something I’ll never learn.’

‘There’s a lot you’ll never learn. Have you anything to say to Marion?’

‘Heaps.’

‘Then say it. I’m busy--otherwise engaged.’ She pushed her tongue out at him and then turned sharply to Richard. ‘I wanted to thank you, and I haven’t had a chance to, for getting it for me. I
am
grateful--really. It will mean more to me than you know.’

She had changed again, seeming strangely earnest, and her brown face was wrinkling as if this troubled her. He roused himself to speak what he thought was the truth.

‘You shouldn’t thank me for it, Anice, because I’d really very little to do with it. It was Hildersham, and I only went with him.’

‘He wouldn’t have pushed it like that if you hadn’t been there. He said so--couldn’t break off action, he said, with the Navy looking on.’

‘Good of him, but---‘

‘And that damned post captain face of his, he said. Looking as if he could write a circumstantial letter any minute, asking for a court martial.’

‘Really, Anice!’

‘Well, it’s what he said, and I don’t know what it means, but I’m saying thank you.’

‘I still say it was Hil---‘

‘Darling.’ She had jumped suddenly from her chair, and before he knew what was happening she was on top of him, sitting firmly on his legs and holding his shoulders while she looked straight into his eyes. ‘Darling, I’m thanking
you
, not Hillie, and you ought to be pleased, not all mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’t.’

‘All right, then. Thanks gratefully accepted--and I hope you like the house.’

‘It will do very well while I’m here.’

‘It ought to. What brought you here, by the way?’

‘You.’

‘What!’

‘Oh you silly!’ She leaned suddenly forward and grasped his ears. Then she spoke as if she were talking to a child. ‘Of course it was you. I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing. You hadn’t told me anything--anything at all--and then Marion wrote and said you were here. So of course I came too. I came next day, and I wouldn’t do
that
for anyone else.’ She stopped, let go of his ears, and then pouted at him while the mutinous look came back to her that he remembered. ‘I’m not sure I’d have come even for you, if I’d known you’d Mary Wickham with you--pushing in as if she owned you.’

‘Anice!’ He came suddenly erect. ‘You’re not to talk like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not decent, with her brother here listening.’

‘I don’t care if he is. She means to have you. She’s after you. Did you know that?’

‘I did not. And---‘

‘I thought you didn’t. But never mind, dear. You’ll be all right with me. I’ll look after you. Marion---‘

‘Yes?’

‘This is how---‘ She leaned forward suddenly and kissed him fiercely, before he had even guessed what she meant. ‘This is how you do it when he’s a dear but stupid. You might need it one day, so see how it’s done.’

‘Anice!’ He sat erect again now. ‘Will you show some sense of behaviour, please?’

‘I am doing. My sort.’

‘Then show some other sort. And listen---‘

‘I won’t.’

‘Yes, you will.’

It was his turn now to move unexpectedly. He had her by the shoulders before she was aware of it, shaking her soundly and strongly till she gasped and then began to squeal at him.

‘Stop it. You’re not to. I---‘

‘Then listen.’

‘All right. All right. I
am
doing. Ooh . . .’ She wriggled for breath as he let go of her. ‘You great brute! I don’t like that.’

‘You weren’t meant to. Now then . . .’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘Stop grinning at me.’

‘No, dear. I mean, yes.’

He looked at her suspiciously as she turned herself into a picture of docility, spoiled only by the gleam of mischief that shone through the blue of her eyes. But she sat still and quiet, and he went slowly on.

‘Now listen. While you’re talking of--Miss Mary, as you used to call her, we’ll have a word about her uncle also. Lord Barford.’

‘Blast him!’

‘Stop it.’

‘Why? Oh, all right.’ She changed her tone hurriedly as he grasped her shoulders again. ‘I’ll be ever so good.’

‘I doubt it. But about Lord Barford--what I’m telling you is that you are not to quarrel with him. You understand? You are
not
to quarrel.’

‘I shan’t have to. He’ll do the quarrelling.’

‘It takes two, and we don’t want your half of it.’ He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes. ‘Anice, you
do
understand? It would make things very difficult for all of us, and you’re not to do it. Promise?’

‘I can’t.’ She looked mutinous but she sounded earnest. ‘I can’t promise anything with a man like that. It might go wrong.’

‘How could it, if you don’t take it up?’

‘Because I’d have to. He’d make me lose my temper. That’s why.’

‘If you wait for him, he might. But with all that charm of yours, Anice, I’d have thought you could do something with him---not just wait to be provoked.’

‘Win him--over?’ She spoke slowly now, and the blue eyes were deep and troubled. ‘I--I’ve sometimes . . .’

‘What?’ He prompted gently as she stopped.

‘Nothing. I can’t tell you.’ Her eyes strayed away, looking to the window and then the hearth. ‘I don’t know. It might go wrong. And even if it didn’t, you mightn’t like it. She mightn’t, either.’

‘Who?’

‘His Mary. She doesn’t know everything.’

‘But---‘

‘I can’t promise it. You don’t know what’s in it.’

‘I’m sorry, Anice.’

‘Oh, I know you mean well.’ She brought her eyes slowly back to his. ‘You really want me to try? Will you blame me if---‘

‘I’ll never blame you if you’ll just try to keep the peace.’

‘I don’t know.’ A gleam of excitement came suddenly to her eyes, and the blue had taken light. ‘I’ll think about it. I can’t say any more. Don’t ask me to.’

‘Well--thank you for that. I won’t forget it.’

‘No-o. Perhaps not.’ For a moment they almost twinkled, and then she suddenly reared her head. ‘Marion, haven’t we any wine? We haven’t given them a drink between them yet.’

‘Lord help us!’ It sounded rather startled. ‘You’ve been talking so much, my dear.’

‘And you listening, I suppose--ears cocked up like a cat. Come on.’

She was off his knee in one leap, running to the side board, where Marion was already putting glasses out. Then she suddenly turned, with her hand on a decanter.

‘You can have two minutes for a drink, and then I want to know why you didn’t write to me.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said John quickly. ‘You said you’d leave that for tonight.’

‘Did we? So we did.’ She turned, carefully filling the glasses, and then she swung as abruptly back. ‘All right, then, we’ll have another night on our own. When shall it be? Tomorrow?’

‘I don’t think . . .’ He stopped, suddenly aware that this needed thinking of; and in any event tomorrow was Monday, when there was a ball in the Assembly Rooms. ‘No, not tomorrow.’

‘Well--when? Tuesday?’

‘I’m not sure. I think we shall have to leave---‘

‘What do you
mean?’
She banged the decanter down on the sideboard and came straight across to him, her eyes glittering angrily. ‘You’re wriggling. You don’t want it.’

‘I did not say that.’

‘It’s what you meant.’

‘It is
not.’
He spoke as angrily, aware that he had hardly known what he did mean. ‘But I can’t arrange it now. I’ve engagements this week.’

‘Engagements with
her,
you mean? You’ve made
me
promise, haven’t you, when I thought we were to have this out?’

‘Of course we’re to have this out--and about Luttrell too.’

‘All right.’ Her face eased, and suddenly she sat on his knee again, pressing close and looking into his eyes. ‘It’s a promise, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’ It was all he could say, and with the power and fragrance of her so close upon him, it was all he wished to say; and all thought of Barford had left his mind. ‘We mustn’t quarrel, my dear.’

‘Why not?’ Her eyes gleamed with sudden mischief. ‘It might be fun.’

‘Fun!’

‘We haven’t tried it, have we? All right, dear. Don’t get worried.’ She patted his forehead soothingly. ‘I’ll fix it myself, if you can’t. But we’re going to have a night of our own--and soon.’

‘I think you’d better be careful,’ said John thoughtfully, ‘or we’ll have Anice eating you.’

He had come to the Plough after breakfast the next morning to explain that he had told Mary as much as he thought good for her of their last night’s doings; which, as he admitted, missed out almost everything she would have liked to know.

‘I just said we called there and persuaded Anice to try some tact.’

‘With Barford? It will be all right if it works, I suppose, but I don’t quite make out what Anice means to do. She was rather mysterious about it.’

‘Was she, indeed? Well, never mind. I was quite vague about it to Mary. Oh, and by the way . . .’

It was at this point that he gave the advice to be careful, and he followed it with some more.

‘Anice needs watching,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and some good firm handling. Or it will be all up with you. One crunch and you’ll be gone.’

‘You speak as if she’s a sort of tigress.’

‘That’s exactly what she is, and she was looking pretty hungrily at
you.
Talk of the pot calling the kettle black!’

‘About what?’

‘Remarks about Mary, of course--going after you. Mind you, I’m not saying it isn’t true. It quite likely
is,
but all the same . . .’

‘Steady, John!’

‘I’m a damn sight steadier than you are, from what I can notice. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Mary knew what she wanted. She’s old enough, and she might be experienced enough.’

‘Might?’

‘Well, I’m not
quite
sure she’s just the blameless country lady she makes herself out to be--never looked at anyone but Charles, and so on. We aren’t that sort of family, and she’s sometimes seemed to know things the blameless lady mightn’t.’

‘Has she, indeed?’ A memory came quickly that she had spoken darkly of Luttrell, but he must treat that as a confidence. ‘Why not that sort of family?’

‘Not many of us are blameless. Look at me.’ John laughed softly. ‘Think of my grandfather too.
He
arrived with someone else’s wife, as I think I’ve told you.
And
there was his elder brother, who seems to have been Anice’s grandfather--wrong side of the blanket. Did I tell you that?’

‘I think you did.’

‘Then you may as well remember it, because it makes Mary and Anice second cousins--if I’ve worked it properly--and they might be more alike than you think. Same Wickham strain.’

‘I can hardly think of two women more
unlike.’

‘That’s different upbringing--and, of course, there’s the village witch too, in Anice, and she was a character. All the same, Mary has as much of the Wickham in her as anybody, so look out. Well, I must be off. Mary, by the way, is going up to Montpellier this morning. Walking up with Barford, I believe.’

‘Then I might go too. How about yourself?’

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ His soft chuckle came again. ‘I met a man from the regiment yesterday--at Anice’s little party. He’s at the George, and he has his sister with him. Wants me to meet her, so---‘

‘Then
you
look out. You’re a shade too susceptible.’

‘Not constant, however. Ah well, see you at dinner perhaps.’

He went cheerfully away, leaving Richard with some thoughts that were not entirely of Mary. It was hard to think of her as kin to Anice, and he wondered what she would say to it; or, for that matter, what Anice would say. But he could hardly think it important. They were still unlike, the opposite poles of his world, and his thoughts began to swing to Anice, who had come near to casting her spell again. She had done it last night, with the others present, and he knew what she could do when she had him to herself. Yet he had promised that, he wanted it, and a thought came that John had called her a tigress; then a thought of the Wickham strain, and the witch who had brought her up.

He shook himself out of it and went for his hat. Anything would be better than brooding like this, and the best corrective would no doubt be Mary, so he might as well walk to Montpellier. But he wondered which way he should go, and a tempter promptly whispered that he should go by the country lane he had walked with Hildersham. That would take him past the house Anice was to have, and a lurking thought, which he would not recognize, hinted that she might be there; to which he retorted that this was most improbable. Then he made for the lane.

He went round the corner of the Rooms, as he had done with Hildersham, and then steadily on past Vittoria House, which looked more than ever like the governor’s residence, and in this rustic lane the town seemed miles away. He even met a cow which had strayed from a field, and he spent a few minutes chasing it back and carefully shutting the gate. Then, with his sense of virtue restored, he emerged from the lane to the wide sweep of grass and a view of the Pump Room, clear in the morning sun. Yet he hardly looked at it. To his right he could see the houses, some still building, and by the one he had thought would be hers there were carts and men, and furniture being carried in. Someone had undoubtedly hurried, and he turned that way at once. This was legitimate, he told himself, just a decent curiosity. He was entitled to look at this.