Love Him or Leave Him

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Anne reluctantly. ‘Of course I remember that. But I don’t see—’

  ‘You don’t think that perhaps you swept those other papers into the drawer as well?’ suggested Deborah diffidently.

  ‘Of course not.’ Anne was both frightened and angry at finding herself in a position to be questioned like this. ‘And if I had, I must have found them later, as David said.’

  The faintest flicker passed over Deborah’s face at Anne’s use of David’s first name.

  ‘What happened to the drawerful of papers eventually?’ inquired Robin peaceably.

  ‘I put them all in a box file and Da—Mr. Jerome took them back to London with him,’ Anne explained, in a voice which trembled slightly.

  ‘Then that settles it,’ observed David, and held out his hand to Anne, with a reassuring smile. ‘I went through those papers myself, before they were filed in the office. The Firth & Farraday letter was certainly not there.’

  ‘Oh, I’m—so glad.’ Anne’s eyes filled with tears, and her fingers closed round his in a nervous, grateful clasp.

  ‘If you’re sure you transferred all the papers from the drawer to the file,’ murmured Deborah, rather insufferably, perhaps because she resented that handclasp.

  ‘Are you trying to find me in the wrong?’ demanded Anne sharply, for the feel of David’s hand had restored her courage and she felt better able to tackle Deborah on her own ground.

  ‘It’s just that one likes to make certain,’ Deborah explained, with a slight shrug.

  ‘Very well,’ Anne exclaimed, with a little flash of temper. ‘One does like to be certain. If the letter and its enclosures were not transferred to the file, they must still be there in the drawer. It’s very simple to go and look there now. Will that satisfy you?’

  And, with a slight toss of her head, and ignoring David’s ‘It isn’t necessary, Anne,’ she marched out of the room and into the small study, with her cheeks flushed and her head held high.

  Deborah did not—as she had rather expected—follow her. Perhaps even she was a trifle ashamed of her rather obvious hope that Anne would be discredited.

  Anne gave an angry little laugh, as she jerked open the drawer. It was all such a silly, petty business. She really ought not to have given Deborah the satisfaction of provoking her so far. The drawer was empty, as she had known it would be. To make assurance doubly sure, she put in her hand and ran it round the top and back of the drawer—

  As she did so, a most dreadful little chill slid down her spine. A fatal, inescapable presage of disaster. For, at the very moment when she would have withdrawn her hand, her fingers came in contact with a small bundle of papers, jammed in the space between the back of the drawer and the underside of the table.

  ‘No—no!’ Anne actually whispered the words aloud, as she jerked the papers free and spread them out, with shaking hands, on the top of the table.

  She hardly needed to look at them. They had represented so many hopes. They had followed her, threateningly into her very dreams. It was impossible not to recognise them at a glance.

  The missing letter to Firth & Farraday, with the accompanying specifications clipped neatly to it, lay before her.

  She was so frightened—so unspeakably dismayed—that she sank down in a chair and covered her face with her hands.

  No nightmare—nothing which her anxious imagination could have devised—could have been more dreadful than this, the simple truth. In spite of all her care, all her precautions, all her protests, she had apparently been guilty of a piece of monstrous carelessness.

  There was no excuse, nothing she could say in extenuation. Even now, she could not even pretend to know how it had happened. She could neither explain nor defend her conduct.

  She wished she could faint, or be very ill, or do something—anything—which would bridge the next hour, and postpone confession and explanation indefinitely. But she could not. She had already stayed away long enough. She must go back and tell the others the truth.

  With a little sound of despair, she dropped her hands and looked up.

  David was standing by the table, looking down at the slightly crumpled papers which lay there.

  She felt the colour drain out of her face, and her throat tighten, so that she found it very difficult to articulate any word. Only her wide, frightened eyes went from the papers to his face, and back again to the papers.

  ‘Where did you find them?’ he said, quite gently—almost puzzledly.

  ‘Where she—said,’ Anne explained, in a hoarse little voice. ‘In the drawer—at the back—they’d jammed between the drawer and the table.’

  He picked the papers up, and smoothed them absently in his long, strong fingers.

  ‘I thought I took every care. I—know I did,’ she whispered despairingly.

  ‘Yes, I accept that,’ he said unexpectedly. Then, speaking more slowly and deliberately, he added: ‘I want this to remain entirely between you and me, Anne. Do you understand? I want no one else to know about it at all.’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t have that!’ she exclaimed. ‘I mean—I don’t want to be—to be shielded. It’s like favouritism. I’d rather—’

  ‘In this case,’ he interrupted, with all his old arrogance, and more, ‘in this case, it is what I would rather. Not what you would.’

  ‘It concerns me more,’ she said, almost sulkily, because she was so wretched.

  ‘My dear child, don’t be silly. You were ready to abase yourself to almost any extent, when I came in just now. Well, the only thing I’m asking of you is that you keep this discovery to yourself. I shall say nothing about it—and nor will you.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because that’s the way I choose,’ he said impatiently. ‘Believe me, I have my own reasons.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said dejectedly. ‘It doesn’t really matter. N-nothing matters.’

  ‘I should call that a gross exaggeration,’ he retorted briskly, as he folded the papers and put them in an inner pocket. ‘Now, can you contrive to look a little less as though you’d discovered the corpse?’

  She smiled faintly—but more to please him than because she felt in the remotest degree amused.

  ‘What am I to say when we get back? Deborah is sure to ask me if—if I found anything. I’m not prepared to tell a deliberate lie about it.’

  ‘You can leave that to me,’ he said. ‘Come along.’

  And, trying to look casual, and not at all as though she had received a terrible shock, Anne accompanied him back into the other room.

  Deborah glanced up immediately, though Robin and Mrs. Eskin had the taste to continue their conversation.

  ‘Anne and I have both made the most exhaustive search, my dear,’ David said pleasantly, ‘and I’m completely satisfied. I really think you must also agree to be now, and the subject can definitely be dropped.’

  ‘But—’ began Deborah, and then stopped.

  Even she, Anne supposed, could not press her ungenerous hopes any further. And, little though she wished to be saved, in this arbitrary and, somehow, humiliating manner, Anne could not be sorry that, at least, Deborah had been effectually silenced at last.

  It was a miserable evening for Anne. All her joy in David’s presence, all the excitement and delight of being suddenly admitted to his company like this, was completely clouded by what had happened. Even the realisation that his desire to shield her transcended his natural annoyance gave her no comfort. She had no wish to be pitied and indulged by David Jerome. She hated and loathed the role of poor, unreliable little thing, who must not be exposed to the harsh consequences of her own foolishness.

  Worst of all, her own confidence in herself had been shaken to its foundations.

  She would willingly have gone into the witness-box, and declared on oath that nothing could have gone wrong with that letter, so far as she was concerned. The horrid, inescapable fact that something had gone wrong, all the same, made her feel like someone who begins to doubt
his own sanity for the first time.

  Not only was she miserable and bewildered. She was even a little frightened too. And, that being so, it was difficult to appear lighthearted and sociable. In particular, it was difficult to assume towards Deborah the reserved, but none the less genuine, air of satisfaction which would inevitably have been hers if she had been completely cleared.

  Once or twice, during the evening, she thought Deborah found her manner unconvincing. Certainly she gave Anne some odd glances, in which dislike, incredulity, and frank puzzlement were mingled.

  But Anne was past minding much what Deborah thought—except that she felt bound to carry out David’s instructions as well as she could.

  What really concerned her was what David thought. And what she now thought of herself. Deborah and her pinpricks seemed unimportant by comparison.

  However, if Anne was rather quiet and abstracted, David was extraordinarily lively and entertaining. She had never seen him like this before, and at any other time would have enjoyed the experience immensely.

  He talked as much as Robin, but with a certain dry humour, which, though entirely characteristic, was something he generally used sparingly. Tonight he seemed determined to use every effort to ensure that the party was a gay and pleasant one.

  That he was doing it largely on her account Anne could not doubt. And, at the back of her mind, gratitude and a faint sense of comfort stirred. The knowledge of what prompted this effort on her behalf, however, was enough to spoil any real pleasure in his concern for her.

  Once, impelled to contribute something to the conversation, she made herself inquire about one or two people at the office. But then that seemed to lead straight to the one topic she could not risk having mentioned, and her questions tailed off into a slightly uncomfortable silence.

  She would never have believed that she could sit in the same room with David and surreptitiously watch the clock. But that evening she did so. And sometimes it seemed to her that the hands must have stopped.

  At last, however, time itself took pity on her, and Anne felt she might reasonably say that she would have to go.

  ‘I’ll drive you over,’ Robin said.

  At the same moment, David made as though to speak, checked himself, and then rose and strolled to the front door with Anne, after she had said goodnight to Mrs. Eskin and Deborah.

  Robin had gone to fetch his car from the garage, and, for a few moments, they stood together at the gate, with the silence of the darkened hills around them.

  Then David said:

  ‘Please try not to worry too much about this, Anne. Circumstances have combined to make the whole thing more important than it really is.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to say so.’ Her voice was almost hard in her effort to keep it from trembling. ‘But I can’t see it that way. And I’m sure you wouldn’t think very well of me if I did. I can’t possibly explain what happened. If I could, I think I’d feel less dismayed and—and shattered. I’m sorry that all the trouble you took to clear me should only have resulted in—this. I’m afraid it hasn’t contributed much towards making your weekend enjoyable.’

  ‘Seeing you did, however,’ he replied curtly.

  And, since she could not believe David Jerome capable of mere gallantry, even in his best mood, she had to suppose he meant that.

  Though why he should, she could not imagine.

  Robin came then with the car, and David and she exchanged a brief goodnight.

  She could not bring herself to say anything about seeing him again during this visit. And he made no reference to any future meetings.

  Anne got into the car and was driven away, without her feeling justified in even giving a backward glance. Her eagerly anticipated evening at Greenslade was over.

  Either Robin sensed her disinclination to talk, or else had said all he had to say earlier in the evening. Anyway, they drove in silence, and a few minutes later he set her down at the gate of Mrs. Thurber’s cottage, with nothing more than a cheery, ‘See you on Monday morning.’

  She murmured some form of assent, and ran up the garden path towards the cottage, which was in darkness.

  The tears which she had kept in check with the greatest difficulty all the evening were now beginning to run down her cheeks. And, since Robin had driven off and the darkened cottage seemed to promise that Mrs. Thurber was safely in bed, she made no attempt even to check her sobs, as she fumbled with her key in the lock.

  She was crying bitterly as she let herself into the little hall, and was quite beyond stopping even when, to her intense dismay, the door of the back room was opened—sending a shaft of light into the hall—and Mrs. Thurber appeared, beaming and asking:

  ‘Did you have a nice—Oh, my dear child, what’s the matter?’

  ‘S-something dreadful. But I can’t—tell you,’ Anne managed to say. While a deeply distressed Mrs. Thurber stood beside her, stroking her arm and making consoling noises in her throat.

  ‘Come in and have a cup of tea, dear,’ she said at last, offering the unfailing form of comfort. ‘Though Miss Haskin is here,’ she added, the next moment, in a tone between apology and warning.

  ‘Oh, I’ll just go to bed, thank you,’ Anne exclaimed quickly, and turned towards the stairs.

  But Miss Haskin’s considerable form was already blocking most of the light from the doorway, and her loud, authoritative voice said:

  ‘Come in, come in. Moping upstairs never helped anyone. And the tea has just been made.’

  Anne was not quite sure whether it was Mrs. Thurber’s sympathy, or the thought of tea in a cosy room, or simply the inability to resist Miss Haskin’s firm instructions, which conquered her. Anyway, obeying the slight pull of Mrs. Thurber’s hand on her arm, she came slowly into the little back sitting-room, and accepted the chair and the cup of tea which both sympathetic ladies pressed upon her.

  Mrs. Thurber would have been willing to minister to Anne’s distress in grieving silence. But, as soon as the tea and kind company had begun to have its effect, and Anne looked more herself, Miss Haskin said briskly:

  ‘Now tell us all about it.’

  In spite of kindnesses received, Anne was tempted to tell her to mind her own business. But, partly because she was hypnotised by Miss Haskin’s manner—like so many victims before her—and partly because she feared that the suppression of the truth would lead to even wilder conjecture, she, began, in a low voice, to tell the story of the missing letter, which had turned up so tragically that evening.

  ‘But, dear, it was only a mistake, when all’s said and done,’ exclaimed forgiving little Mrs. Thurber, at the end. ‘You didn’t mean to lose his letter. You mustn’t upset yourself so, even if Mr. Jerome is cross. Why, I thought someone had broken your heart, when you came in just now.’

  ‘Mr. Jerome isn’t cross,’ Anne said, seizing on that one fact. ‘That’s almost the worst part of it.’

  ‘And who is to say her heart isn’t involved?’ demanded Miss Haskin majestically. ‘I don’t agree, Mrs. Thurber, that the matter is a small one. There’s something very strange about all this. Strange and—sinister.’

  And Miss Haskin, who was a great student of detective literature, dropped her deep voice to a note which made one think of blood-stained daggers and secret poisons.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Miss Haskin,’ Anne sighed. ‘It’s just silly and—and sordid. I proved myself inefficient and unreliable, that’s all.’

  ‘No need to be defeatist,’ declared Miss Eskin, in the tone of one making a last stand under a bullet-torn Union Jack. ‘You said, a moment ago, that you were sure you put the right letter in the envelope.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Tell us exactly what happened. No detail is unimportant,’ interrupted Miss Haskin, recalling that all the best detectives said that.

  ‘Oh—I typed the letter,’ Anne said wearily, trying not to show her impatience at Miss Haskin’s amateur detective work, ‘and took it upstairs for Mr. Jerome to sign. I think
he said something approving about the way it was done, and glanced at all the enclosures, which were attached to it—’

  ‘With an ordinary office paperclip?’ inquired Miss Haskin, so briskly that one almost saw her pencil and notebook.

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I can only say that I brought the papers downstairs, and folded them up and put them in the envelope I’d already addressed. I remember I took them out again and looked at them once. Then I put them in again and determinedly stuck down the flap before I could get too jumpy about it.’

  ‘You stuck down the flap, you say?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember it had that nasty, rather sweetish gum on it. It was a biggish envelope, you see, and—’

  ‘All this happened before Deborah got you to fetch the other papers?’

  ‘Yes, certainly—Oh!’

  Anne stared with widening eyes at Miss Haskin.

  ‘You see,’ said Miss Haskin, who, if she had been a snuff-taker, would undoubtedly have taken an elaborately casual pinch at that moment. ‘Your letter and its enclosures were actually sealed up in the envelope before the other papers even reached the desk. It’s impossible that it became entangled among them.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ exclaimed Mrs. Thurber plaintively, at this moment. ‘I thought Miss Hemming was supposed to have put blank sheets in the envelope.’

  ‘Impossible, in the circumstances,’ pronounced Miss Haskin. ‘If her desk had been covered with papers when she began to do up her post, I suppose it is remotely possible that some mistake could have taken place. But, if there was little else on the desk—I take it that there was little else?’ She turned and addressed Anne again with magisterial solemnity.

  ‘Nothing else,’ whispered Anne, in the tone of one recreating a complete mental picture. ‘Nothing at all. I remember now. I can see it exactly. I’d even put away my blank stationery. And I’d pushed my typewriter to one side. There was a completely clear blotting-pad. And I folded the letter and put it in the envelope and sealed it.’