The Shocking Miss Anstey (35 page)

Another three minutes brought him to the house, and he stood watching as more carts came lumbering along the unmade road and more chairs and cases were carried in. Men were hanging curtains in the windows, somebody was polishing the doors, and a painter could be seen, doing the last touchings-up. The place was a whirl of activity, and he found himself wondering who was paying for this. Anice was no doubt expensive, to most of her visitors, and she might be shrewd enough, behind her childish airs, to look after her money. She was kin to Mary, and all these Wickhams had some sense--when they cared to use it.

Then he saw her, and thought stopped instantly.

She was at a middle-storey window, which might become her sitting-room, or perhaps her best bedroom, and she had seen him first. She waved gaily to him, and then she pushed the window open and stepped out to the ornate iron balcony that ran below it, with a matching canopy above. She leaned over the rail and called happily to him.

‘You can’t come in. We aren’t ready. But I’m coming out. I want you.’

She darted back through the window, and he could see her golden head rush across the room, then stop as if she had found a mirror and put her hands to her hair. Then she disappeared, and a moment later she came rushing out of the door to collide with a carpet that was being carried in. She bounced off, and then resumed her rush, plainly with no thought of dignity.

‘This is lovely,’ she said excitedly. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. We’ll go to Montpellier, and you can buy me some chocolate.’

‘Cake too, if you like?’

‘Of course I like. Will you be seen with me? I’m in my old clothes.’

He doubted that. She was in muslin, her favoured lavender and primrose, and it looked very fresh and new. She was hatless, but that was her outrageous way, and she even had gloves with her, of long white kid, which she swung like a fan instead of troubling to wear.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Montpellier, and perhaps we’ll wake them up.’

‘I think the Old Well might be wiser. I’ve just remembered that Lord Barford will be at Montpellier.’

‘Oh?’ It was mutinous at once. ‘Well, I can’t help that.’

‘You can go to the other pump.’

‘I won’t run away. I’ve said I won’t.’

‘It isn’t running away. It’s just good sense.’

‘No, it’s not. I should only--what on earth’s that? That cream-and-gold thing?’

‘Oh, it’s King’s phaeton. Official, I believe.’

It was passing between the trees as it went slowly up the avenue to the Pump Room, and Mr. King could be seen in it, gracefully lifting his hat as it passed a pair of walkers. Anice stared at it and seemed amused.

‘Cream-and-gold?’ she said again. ‘But why?’

‘Perhaps because it’s noticed. I suppose he needs to be.’

‘Does he?’ A broad grin split across her face suddenly. ‘Well, they’ll have something else to notice shortly. I’m having my curricle.’

‘What! Here?’

‘Of course. Sam’s bringing it, and my own horses.’

‘Who’s Sam?’

‘My groom, of course.’ In one quick movement she had folded her arms, squared her shoulders and flung her head back in imitation. Then she melted into laughter again. ‘He’s a dear old thing--King, I mean, not Sam--but they won’t look twice at him when they see the curricle--and me in it.’

‘Anice, you really are---‘

‘Don’t be silly. I have to be looked at, too. Besides, I like being looked at. Now come along---Oh! Wait a minute. I want something.’

She whirled round and went running wildly back to the house, leaving him to stand and wait. She was perhaps five minutes, as if she had had to look for what she wanted; and when she came running back she hooked her arm impulsively round his.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ she told him. ‘I can’t find anything in that clutter. Now then . . .’

‘Where are we going to?’

‘Montpellier. I said we were.’ She threw him a sharp sideways glance. ‘If I don’t meet him now, when I’m expecting it, I’ll meet him some time when I’m not, and that’ll be worse. So don’t look like that. We’ll get it over.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘How can I tell that till I see what he’s like? Now come along. If you don’t come with me I shall go by myself.’

She was obviously bent on having her own way, and it would be better, he reflected, to be with her than to let her go alone; and she was still good company, whatever sort of trouble she had in mind for Barford.

‘Wednesday,’ she announced suddenly.

‘Wednesday what?’

‘Oh, the curricle, of course. Sam was to start on Saturday, and it’s about four days if you don’t change horses. At least, I told him to take four. I don’t want them tired when they get here. It wouldn’t be
me,
with tired horses.’

‘You’re not going to career down the High Street, are you, as you did in the Park?’

‘Now how could I? It’s cluttered with old dodderers. I’ll career somewhere, though. What do I keep the thing for?’

They were in the avenue now, pacing up the gravelled walk, and as they approached the Pump Room she became quiet and perhaps almost thoughtful. The verandah, as usual, was filled with people, but at the side of the building, where the avenue ended, there was no one. Here she halted, and showed him for the moment a wrinkled forehead.

‘I’m a bit frightened,’ she told him ruefully. ‘Anything can happen, with an old fool.’

‘He isn’t quite that.’

‘You just wait. Now then, do I look right--all sweet and simple?’

She looked exactly that. He saw her change. The wrinkle left her forehead; the look of mischief left her eye; her shoulders eased, so that she looked somehow smaller, and timid; her eyes widened with innocence, and she was sweet seventeen again, fresh and eager, with not a gleam of guile to spoil it. It came to her while he watched, and he struggled between surprise and an irritated admiration. He had seen her with this childish look before.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Look as if you’re my uncle or something. Blast Barford!’

She linked her arm through his, seeming a little frightened now and in need of protection, and for a moment she stood still. Then her fingers pressed into his arm.

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she whispered. ‘I can do things when I’m with you. Now for it.’

A wave of warmth ran through him at her words, and at the note in them that breathed sincerity. Then he found himself in front of the verandah with her, walking past the painted pillars to the arched entry, and he was suddenly aware of eyes upon him and an odd hush that had come. There were fifty or sixty people, perhaps, on the verandah, all busy with their coffee and chocolate and talk, and he did not even have to look to know that every one of them was watching and that the talk had died away. They must all have known her, and him, and another quick pressure on his arm seemed to tell him to keep his poise and take no notice. It was followed by a quiver that was maddeningly like amusement.

Then they were in the verandah, walking to the inner door under the gaze of everyone. He looked quickly round, expecting an angry Barford, and instead, almost by the door, he saw Mary, standing very straight and stiff at the side of Hildersham. He had just wit enough, in his annoyance, to lift his hat. He had known she would be here, and he had not even thought of her before arriving with Anice on his arm.

He began to think he was mad, or bewitched, and he knew quite well that it was Anice.

The door to the Pump Room was open, and inside were fewer people, one or two on the chairs, listening to the quiet music from the dome above, and a small group by the pumps, chatting to each other as they sipped their chalybeate or sulphuretted saline. They looked quickly round, and one of them was Barford. At once his face changed, and he stood for a moment in angry recognition, almost as if he would stare her out of the room. Then he put away his glass, pushing it on the counter in one backward sweep, and came slowly forward. He took a few paces and then stopped.

Anice had stopped also, just inside the door, and again her fingers pressed into Richard’s arm. There was a tremble in them now, and quickly he moved his other hand across, pressing them in reassurance, while he wondered what was coming and what help he could give. A sound behind him set him turning quickly to see Mary at the door, and Hildersham. Then he was facing Barford again, wondering what the man intended.

But what he intended was never known. Anice was too quick for him, and she went into the attack at once. She disengaged her hand from Grant and moved quickly forward, her head held high and her shoulders back. She even had a smile for him as she stopped at the prescribed six feet and sank into a curtsey, full and proper, and quite unhurried. She was very young again, and when she spoke it was her childish voice, crisp and fresh and eager.

‘My lord . . .’ She looked him in the eyes as she spoke. ‘It is six years since you saw me.’

‘Is it?’ He paused before he answered, and then he stood cold and scornful, wrapped in the dignity of his rank and age. ‘Then you may remove yourself for another six years.’

‘I’ve been hoping for a word with you.’

‘A hope I don’t share.’

‘Am I
so
dislikeable?’ For an instant her smile appeared, and then she was grave again. ‘My lord, I’d a brother once--a half-brother.’

‘You will not speak of him in my presence.’

‘I’ve been told I’m rather like him.’

Again she changed. Her poise altered, her head a little to the side and her shoulders a little tighter. The childish look left her, perhaps by a change of her lips, and she was older and firmer, and what a painter had seen, who worked on ivory. Barford stared at her, and turmoil came suddenly to his eyes.

‘Good God!’

It was hardly heard, but it was admission enough, and at once she changed again, but now it was to herself, not to the child. She stood for a moment with a little smile, facing a bewildered man in whom the certainties of years had crumbled, and then she put her hand to her breast and pulled on a slender ribbon that was round her neck.

‘My lord, do you know this?’

She had pulled it clear, a slender brooch of gold set with a single pearl, flawless and perfect. She held it in her fingers, then slipped the ribbon over her head and held it out to him. He stepped forward, drawn to it compulsively, and his own hand was trembling as he took it.

‘Dear God!’ he said slowly, and he was suddenly showing his age. ‘How did you have this?’

‘From my brother.’

‘From---‘

‘From Dick. Yes, I called him that, when
you
weren’t there, and he called me Sister, and Ann. He was different.’

‘Different from---‘

‘Need I say it?’

‘No. I’m sorry. Tell me of this.’

‘Did you mean that--being sorry?’

‘I don’t know what I meant. Tell me of this.’

‘Very well.’ She hesitated, as if choosing words, and then she seemed reluctant. ‘I think you gave it to--his mother?’

‘It was his birthday--
his
--and I gave it in--happiness.’

‘Yes.’ She nodded quickly. ‘But, my lord--she was
my
mother too, even if you hated it, and I don’t know who was to blame. But
I
wasn’t--and should you hate
me
for it?’

‘You don’t know what you say--what it was, or---‘

‘Or anything about it--except what my grandmother told me.’

‘You are not to speak of it. Tell me of this.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She inclined her head in acquiescence. ‘But my mother died, when I was born, and she left this for me.’

‘You?’

‘Yes.’ Her tone hardened for an instant. ‘I think it was all she could leave for me--all she had--and she knew I’d get nothing from--anyone else. My grandmother kept it for me, and she gave it to me when I was twelve. That was my mother’s wish.’

‘I’d known nothing of this.’ He was white-faced now, and staring at her. ‘Go on. You said it was from Dick.’

‘Yes. I--I gave it to him.’ She hesitated, as if she were herself in difficulty now. ‘It was that---that last time he was home, before he went to
Royal Sovereign,
and you’ll know when it was.’

‘January.’

‘Yes--of Trafalgar year. He was with us over Christmas, and that last day, before he went, he met me in the park and---‘

‘You?
You met him?’

‘Oh, we did meet,
when you
weren’t there, and I thought the whole world of him. You don’t know. Perhaps because he was different.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Mustn’t I?’ Her voice rose for an instant, and then sank again. ‘All right, then. But we met that day--all grey and cold--to say good-bye, and I gave it him. I wanted him to have something from me, and I’d nothing else to give him. It wasn’t right, of course--a brooch--but it was all I had. He didn’t like taking it, but I made him.’ Again, for an instant, her voice rose angrily. ‘You weren’t the only one who loved him, who thought the world of him.’

‘I--I didn’t know.’

‘Did you ever want to know?’

‘Perhaps I didn’t. But go on. The brooch?’

‘Oh, it came back to me, after he--was dead. It was in his sea-chest, done in a packet for me, with my name on, and they sent it back. There was a letter from his captain, telling me, and he thought I was older. I was only fourteen.’

‘Only that?’

‘What did you think I was?
You
know when I was born--none better.’ Again there was the little flare of anger, as short-lived as before, and then she showed another mood. She was almost wistful now. ‘Well, my lord, there it is. It came from you, and now I give it back to you. Keep it, and put it with whatever else you have from him.’

‘Keep---‘

‘Yes.’ She cut him short. ‘And please--think a little better of me, if you can. Will you try?’

‘Ann!’ He moved closer to her. ‘You can’t give---‘

‘Yes, I can. I’ve said so. It was always yours, really. You’d never have given it, to come to me. So have it back. But do try to like me a little better.’

‘I--I’m more grateful than . . .’

He was still holding it, cupped in the palm of his hand, the pearl gleaming in its bed of gold, and suddenly she moved close to him, took his hand in both of hers and closed his fingers on the brooch.