Pamela’s voice broke in, calling to John:
“Where on earth did you go to after our dance? You ought to have sat out with me and told me how well I did it.”
“I had something to see about.” John’s tone was as non-committal as it well could be.
“Well, you’ve missed the great bun contest. I’m three up on Derek. And I’m thinking of going in for the world’s championship. I’ll back myself to catch buns and dance the Charleston against anyone. Oh, I say, that’s an idea! Me doing the Charleston whilst Derek throws buns at me and I catch them in my teeth. It would make a perfectly ripping stunt. Come on, Derek! Let’s show them!”
Everyone looked round laughing at the long, undulating scarlet figure. She swayed this way and that, opened her wide mouth to its widest extent, and actually caught Derek’s first bun with a dexterous snap. The next one hit her in the eye, but she caught it as it fell and hurled it back amid shouts of “Rotten shot! Play the game!”
There was so much noise going on that the sound of Miss Aurora Fairlie’s massive tread and the inevitable creak of her stout shoes passed unnoticed.
It was John who saw her first. He looked round at Jenny and saw the big, square-built figure standing a couple of yards away, feet well apart, hat tilted back from the large brick-coloured face, and hands clasped upon a very manly looking stick.
Before he could speak, Miss Fairlie said, “Hullo, Jenny!” And Jenny sprang up with a little scream:
“Aurora!”
“My good child, don’t look so scared!”
“I thought you were in Spain,” said Nicholas Marr.
“Crossed yesterday. Beastly tossing. Why does one travel? I shall stay at home and knit.”
“How did you come?”
“Car, of course. You don’t catch me going in a train in a blessed country like this, where the roads are like billiard tables. Oh, Lord, I’m dry! Give me some tea.”
Jenny linked an affectionate arm in Aurora’s.
“Come up to the house, and I’ll give you some there. This isn’t fit to drink.”
“I’m not particular. It’s wet—and I’m dry.”
She laughed loudly, poured herself a cup of tea, and drank it off standing, regardless of Jenny’s protestations:
“Oh, Aurora, don’t! Come in. Please come in!”
“Don’t!” said Miss Fairlie loudly. “You’re pinching me! It’s ripping out here. I don’t want to come in a bit.”
Jenny’s “Aurora—please” reached no one’s ears but Miss Fairlie’s, but Nicholas came to his wife’s assistance.
“Come along in and see the boy. No one’s allowed food or rest in this house until they’ve told Jenny he’s the finest baby they’ve ever seen. We’ll feed you when you’ve perjured yourself sufficiently, but not before.”
With his hand on one arm and Jenny’s on the other, Miss Fairlie submitted to being walked off.
John stood looking after her. First Anne; and then Aurora. What on earth did it all mean? He would have given something for ten minutes’ conversation with Miss Fairlie now, before Jenny had her innings. As they neared the house, he saw Nicholas leave the two women and hurry on, presumably to order fresh tea.
Aurora turned upon her cousin at once.
“What’s all this to-do?” The small slaty eyes, set unbecomingly amongst sandy lashes, were shrewd and a little annoyed. “You pinched me black and blue down there. What on earth for?”
“I had to see you alone.”
“Oh, did you? And why?”
“I’m going to tell you. Aurora, please not here.”
“What on earth have you been up to?”
“Nothing! Nothing!”
“H’m!”—Aurora’s grunt sounded very cross—“the sort of nothing which means something too bad to talk about, eh?”
“No, no! Come in here. This is my room. No one will come in, and you can have tea comfortably. They’ll bring it in a minute.”
“Jenifer Marr, you didn’t lug me away from a perfectly good tea on the lawn to babble about buns in a boudoir.”
“Aurora—please.”
The admired Lady Marr felt uncommonly like a school-girl in a scrape.
“Oh, come off it, Jenny! Lord—I’m hot!” She pulled out a silk handkerchief of Spanish colouring and mopped a frankly perspiring brow. “My good girl, if you’ve anything to say, say it, and don’t gawp at me; for I can’t stand it. Get it off your chest!”
“Aurora, did you get my letter? No, I know you didn’t.”
“Then why ask me if I did?”
Jenny’s colour rose sharply.
“Aurora, you’re making it so difficult!”
Aurora laughed.
“My good girl, that’s what people always say when they’re boggling over something that isn’t going to sound very pretty. Better let me have it plain. If it’s anything ugly, it won’t look any the better for being dressed up.”
“I did write to you,” said Jenny with tears in her eyes. “I did write—but the letter came back.”
“What did you write about?”
“I wrote about Anne.”
“The deuce you did!” said Miss Fairlie. “And what has Anne been doing?”
An indescribable look of painful hesitation crossed Jenny’s face. Something in the look startled Miss Fairlie.
“Why, Jenny,” she said, “you don’t mean to tell me that Anne—”
Jenny burst into tears.
Oh, yes!” she said. “And I’ve told everyone that she’s been travelling with you in Spain.”
Chapter Thirteen
Miss Fairlie refused to stay to dinner. She admired the infant Tony in a brisk and rather perfunctory manner, and then insisted on returning to the garden and sitting where she could see the river.
“An English spring smells better than the foreign sorts,” she said as she creaked into the largest chair. “Wallflower”—she sniffed loudly—“lilac, syringa. Don’t care frightfully for syringa myself; it always reminds me a little of white rats.”
“Aurora!”
“Can’t help it—it does. My brothers used to make me clean the cages, and I’ve never really cottoned to syringa since. But the other things are A 1. That what-you-may-call-’em over there is topping. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenny vaguely.
Miss Fairlie changed the subject with her usual uncompromising abruptness.
“I want to talk to John Waveney. Bring him over here and tell him who I am. What’s he in such a rage about? Is he stopping here? Haven’t you been treating him nicely?”
“Is he in a rage?”
“My good Jenny!”
“Well, I don’t see why he should be. He’s been here for the week-end. I thought—”
“What did you think?”
“I thought he was going directly after tea. He said he had to get back to town.”
“Oh, then I can give him a lift.”
Jenny was appalled. The last thing she desired was an intimacy between John and Aurora. To be sure, Aurora had promised; but all the promises in the world would never make her tactful. Before she had time to recover, John had joined them.
“I mustn’t miss my train,” he said; and instantly Aurora must needs push in and offer to drive him back to town.
“I was just telling Jenny to call you. I’m Aurora Fairlie. Jenny, where are your manners? You used to have quite nice ones. I don’t mind introducing myself; but it’s really your job, and I object on principle to doing other people’s jobs for them. Well, John Waveney, I’m a cousin of Jenny’s, and Jenny’s a cousin of yours, so I don’t propose to be very ceremonious. Is a lift back to town any good to you?”
John accepted the lift with alacrity. A little later, when Aurora was talking to Nicholas, he addressed Jenny in a quiet but unmistakably purposeful tone:
“There’s something I want to say to you. Shall we walk to the end of the lawn?”
Jenny sprang up at once. Aurora’s words h
ad frightened her. If John were really in a rage, she had better see him alone and find out why he was angry. She had unlimited faith in her own ability to manage him, or any other young man.
“We’ll get you some lilac to take back to town, Aurora,” she called back over her shoulder as she went; and John frowned involuntarily. How quickly and smoothly she had found a reason for leaving the others! Something in the perfect ease of voice and manner jarred him sharply.
They came to a standstill by the largest lilac bush, and Jenny picked a spray.
“Well?” she said.
John was past pretence. He looked at her with a hard, angry look, and seemed entirely unaware of what a pretty picture she made, with the evening sun on her fair hair and her white dress, and the lilac in her hand.
“Look here, Jenny, I’d better tell you straight out. I saw Anne this afternoon.”
“You saw Anne.” She repeated his words as if she hardly understood them.
“Yes, I saw her. So it’s no use your trying to put me off any more.”
“How did you see her? How could you see her?” Jenny’s voice was low and frightened.
“I saw her. That’s all that matters.”
“But you don’t know her.”
“I knew her at once. I want her address.”
“Why didn’t you ask her for it?” said Jenny with an angry lift of the head.
“There wasn’t time. She—the Austins were coming up the drive—she didn’t want them to see her. I went on with them. They were playing the fool—you saw them. When I got back, she was gone—her taxi was gone. I missed her at the station by about half a minute. Her address, please, Jenny.”
Jenny shook her head.
“Is she with Miss Fairlie? Or was that a lie?”
“Oh!” said Jenny. Her brown eyes were furious.
“I want the truth, and I’m going to get it. I want Anne’s address.”
Jenny’s manner changed.
“I thought we were friends. You’re being—”
“Outrageous. Yes, I know. But I’ve got to have that address, Jenny.”
Jenny broke a branch of lilac before she answered. If she gave him the address, he would go, and she would have time to ring Anne up and warn her that he was coming. Anne wouldn’t want to see him. She could easily change her hotel. Or, better still, she could go to the rooms that Nanna had suggested. Rooms would be quieter than an hotel; there was always the risk of meeting someone one knew. She broke two more sprays, and then she said:
“She’s at Haydon’s Hotel, Bayswater.”
“With Miss Fairlie?”
“Yes, Aurora’s there too.”
“Why didn’t they come down together?”
“Anne wanted to see me.”
Anne wanted to see Jenny. And Jenny had sent her away looking like that!
“What did you say to her? What did you do to her?” said John in a low, rough voice. “She looked—”
Jenny gave a little cry that was almost a sob.
“I can’t explain—Anne wouldn’t like me to explain. It’s—it’s breaking my heart!”
John displayed a good deal of indifference to Jenny Marr’s breaking heart.
Later on, when he was driving up to town with Miss Aurora Fairlie, he received some outspoken advice:
“My dear boy, it’s not the slightest use your asking me any questions about Anne Waveney, because I can’t answer them. I’m not going to tell lies to please Jenny or anyone else. I’m uncommon bad at them for one thing, and I don’t approve of them for another. But I can hold my tongue about Anne and her affairs, and I advise you to do the same. Least said, soonest mended.”
Jenny’s forebodings were certainly being realized. John said nothing, and Miss Fairlie continued to give him advice:
“You leave Anne alone. She won’t thank you for butting in, and that’s a fact.”
“I shall stop butting in,” said John deliberately, “when Anne tells me to stop butting in.”
Aurora Fairlie was one of the most inquisitive women alive. A desire to probe the situation to the bottom very easily got the better of her discretion.
“I thought you didn’t know Anne. Why, you’ve never even seen her.”
“Once.” His tone was very dry. “She wasn’t a family secret then, but just an awfully nice kid.”
“Good Lord!” said Aurora. “Are you in love with her?”
John boiled over. “What a rotten thing to ask! I tell you she was a kid. There isn’t a soul in the family that seems to care a damn where she is, or what she’s doing, or whether she’s got tuppence to live on. All they care about is some rotten convention and what people will say.”
“I see,” said Aurora. She took her left hand off the wheel and clapped him on the shoulder. “All right, go ahead. I don’t care a brass boddle myself; but it’s only fair to warn you that you’re looking for trouble. The family’ll curse you. Jenny and Nicholas’ll hate you like the worst sort of poison. And Anne’ll probably say ‘Thank you for nothing.’ As I said, I don’t care.”
John’s face of stiff rage relaxed in a sudden grin.
“No more do I,” said he.
In her heart of hearts Aurora approved him. Obstinacy appealed to her, and she read obstinacy written large all over John Maurice Waveney. She wondered how much of his search for Anne was dictated by just that obstinate determination to be neither said nor bid.
They arrived at Haydon’s Hotel, only to be told that Miss Waveney had left directly after lunch. Pressed by Aurora, the girl at the desk managed to remember Anne’s arrival.
“Yes, Miss Fairlie, it was this morning. No, Miss Fairlie, she particularly said she wanted a room for the day. I quite understood she wasn’t staying.” Aurora was turning away, when the girl bent forward. “There was a telephone message for her just now—a country call.”
John’s mind leapt to Jenny; Jenny telephoning from Waterdene; Jenny telling Anne he was coming—warning Anne to keep out of his way.
“Thank you. Just let me know if she comes in.” Aurora turned to John. “Must have been Jenny calling up. I don’t suppose anyone else knew Anne was here. I expect she’ll blow in presently.”
“She won’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
John shook his head.
“She won’t come here again,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
As soon as Miss Fairlie had left Waterdene, Jenny made her way to the library, rang up the exchange, and asked to be put on to Haydon’s Hotel. As she waited for the call to come through, she moved restlessly to and fro about the room. It was still quite light out of doors; but the library windows looked to the east, and all the corners of the room were full of soft dusk shadows; the book-lined walls helped to darken it.
Jenny switched on the green-shaded lamp which stood on Nicholas Marr’s writing-table beside the telephone. She stayed there fidgeting with the inkstand, the pens, the piled-up papers. Nicholas was the neatest of men. Even as she moved the sticks of red and blue sealing-wax, Jenny knew how much it would vex Nicko to find them anywhere but in their own allotted place.
She turned her back on the table and crossed to where the windows stood open to the light, soft breeze. She left them open, but drew the heavy brown curtains close. It was as she was coming back from the windows that Nicholas Marr came in with a “Hullo, Jen! I wondered where on earth you’d got to.”
“Ssh!” said Jenny. “Nicko, shut the door. I’m telephoning to Anne.”
“What!” His astonishment was unmistakable.
“Yes. Nicko, do shut it. I haven’t seen you for a minute. I thought Aurora would never go. She’s perfectly awful, the way she says she can’t stay, and won’t stay, and nothing will induce her to stay; and then she just sticks and sticks and sticks, and doesn’t go and doesn’t go and doesn’t go, until you’re ready to scream. I very nearly did tonight.”
“What’s this about Anne?” Nicholas Marr’s thin dark face fell into frownin
g lines.
“Oh, Nicko!” said Jenny. She came and leaned against his arm. “Nicko, it was dreadful! She came here.”
“Who came here?” said Nicholas sharply.
“Anne did.”
“When?”
“This afternoon. We’d just got back from Grey-stones, when the telephone bell rang. And, fortunately, I heard it and went myself. And it was a telegram from Anne to say she was arriving at three-thirteen. Wasn’t it awful?”
“She didn’t come!”
“She did. I simply rushed, and I just caught her in the drive and made the taxi wait outside whilst I dragged her off into the Holly Room. No one ever comes there—hateful place!”
“Well? What did she want? Good heavens, Jenny! What possessed her to come here? It’s indecent!
“Don’t!” said Jenny. “Don’t! Nicko, please, please don’t!”
He shook off her hand impatiently.
“It’s unforgivable! She should have gone to Carruthers as she was told. Why didn’t she?”
“He’s been ill—he’s away.”
“What nonsense! He’s got a partner. Well, go on. What happened? How did you get rid of her?”
Jenny looked at him with wide, distressed eyes.
“Nicko, don’t look like that! I said everything you told me to say. I said—” She choked and held his arm in a trembling clasp. “Oh, don’t! Oh, Nicko, are you angry? I did say everything.”
“I’m not angry with you—now, Jen, don’t be a little fool—I’m angry for you. Don’t you know the difference? I won’t have Anne here, and the sooner she knows it the better. I won’t have her here, and I won’t have you bothered. She can write two or three times a year if she likes. If she attempts anything more—well, the money’ll stop, and she can just see how she likes getting along without it.” He gave a short laugh and flung an impatient arm about Jenny. “Look here, I forbid you to cry. There’s nothing to cry about. I’ll take good care she doesn’t bother you. Just tell me what you said.”
Jenny struggled for composure. Nicholas hated real tears most dreadfully. He liked to tease her until her eyes were wet, and then kiss the long wet lashes; but real tears, the tears that came from an aching, frightened heart—these were another matter.
Anne Belinda: A Golden Age Mystery Page 9
