Call and I'll Come

by Mary Burchell

“Yes. I know about them.”

  “You know? How did you know?”

  “I’ve just seen Katherine,” Anna said quietly.

  “Oh, but, my dear”—he looked startled—“you must have hated that.”

  “Yes, I did.” Anna looked thoughtful. “But it was the only way of finding out about you.”

  “And was that so terribly important?”

  She nodded. “Just as important as the time you came to Paris to see me—even though you knew everyone would think you were running away from the police.”

  “Oh!” Tony looked embarrassed. Then he said: “Do you know everything, Anna? There doesn’t seem to be much left to hide.”

  “Nearly everything,” Anna said, with a little smile. “I suppose the reason you had to go back that night—the reason you wouldn’t come on to the supper-party with us—was that you simply dared not stay away from England any longer?”

  “Partly that, Anna. Partly—”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled slightly in his turn. “If you could realise how you looked that night—so lovely and radiant and triumphant. And I was on the edge of disgrace and ruin. They didn’t go well together, you know,” he added grimly.

  “And if you could realise how I felt that night,” began Anna impulsively. Then she stopped, and said: “Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter now. But I want you to come with me to your lawyer or counsel or whoever it is.”

  “Why?” Tony’s voice was suddenly sharp.

  “They may need my evidence to prove why you were out of England that night.”

  “Oh no, my dear.” Tony was suddenly on his feet, very firm, very determined. “I will not have you mixed up in this wretched business.”

  “But I am in it, Tony. I’m your wife. And that evidence may be important. Please come with me. I’m a little afraid of going alone.”

  Tony stopped in front of her. “Do you think I’m going to let you be dragged into this as a witness?”

  “I don’t think you have much choice,” she said, and her lashes came down in that determined finality which he had so often misread as sullenness. “I would rather you came with me. But if you won’t, then I shall go alone.”

  He came then, without further protest—silent, puzzled, almost a little resentful.

  She was surprised that neither Mr. Bury nor Tony’s counsel, Sir Derek Venables, appeared to attach overwhelming importance to her explanation of Tony’s actions on that unfortunate day.

  She gathered that they both thought Tony ridiculous not to have explained long ago, instead of firmly insisting that it had been a business trip. She also noticed that they entirely ignored his growing restiveness at the idea of her appearing as a witness.

  “Is it absolutely necessary for my wife to be dragged into this?” he asked impatiently.

  Sir Derek looked surprised and said: “My dear Roone, it may be of vital importance or of no importance at all. It depends on how much significance the prosecution choose to attach to your sudden departure to Paris. They will, of course, press the line that you lost your nerve and fled abroad, but that on reflection you considered it best to face things out. In any case, it would be absurd to ignore Mrs. Roone’s evidence.”

  “I don’t mind in the least, Tony,” she told him earnestly. “I’m used to appearing in public now, you know.”

  But he refused to answer her smile.

  Afterwards he went with her to collect her luggage from the airways terminus where she had left it.

  He didn’t talk much, and it seemed very odd to have Tony sitting beside her so unsmiling and silent. She made one or two rather timid attempts to start a .conversation, but he didn’t help her much, and presently she, too, relapsed into silence. Then suddenly he appeared to recollect himself, with something of an effort, and said:

  “By the way, where are you staying while you’re in London? I suppose your operatic crowd are still abroad?”

  “Your operatic crowd” didn’t sound particularly friendly, and Anna began to feel nervous and chilled.

  “I thought—perhaps”—she hesitated, and then went on—“perhaps I might stay at the place where you are?”

  “I don’t think we could manage that,” Tony said very blankly. “There isn’t a room vacant there, I know.”

  She was silent. And then, because she must find courage to make the first advances, she gripped her hands together and said desperately:

  “Couldn’t I be with—”

  “No, you couldn’t,” he interrupted so brutally that she winced. And he didn’t even attempt to apologise, although he must have seen how he had hurt her.

  It wasn’t going to be easy, she saw. She mustn’t suppose that, because his need had suddenly given her a place in his life again all her difficulties were at an end. Indeed, it might have a very different result.

  For a moment she felt terribly afraid.

  Until now she had thought of Tony’s danger only as something which must inevitably draw them together. Now she realised that, in his hurt pride, his bewildered humiliation at what had come upon him, he was more likely to shrink farther away from anyone who had known him only in the days when he had been successful and happy.

  Her heart almost failed her before this fresh difficulty. And then she remembered what Mario had said all those months ago: “When one loves the almost unattainable, one must work hard and be very patient.”

  She picked up the broken bits of her courage and hope once more. She managed to look as though Tony’s rebuff had not shaken her at all, and said quite steadily that perhaps it was better that she stayed at one of the big hotels, so that she could be right in Town.

  Tony nodded indifferently, and when her luggage had been collected he drove her to the kind of place that would have terrified the old Anna, but where the new Anna was entirely at home.

  Keeping her voice as steady as she could, she asked him to stay and have dinner with her, but he said that he was sorry, he had to go back and see Mr. Bury.

  “Perhaps you could come back here again afterwards?” she said, with difficulty. “I could wait—easily. I’m not at all hungry.”

  “I might be quite late,” he began. “There are several things—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Anna spoke eagerly. “I’d rather wait if you could come. It seems—lonely by myself.”

  “Very well,” Tony said, but she couldn’t tell from his expression as he left her whether he was pleased or irritated.

  It was nearly half-past eight before the telephone message came through that he was waiting for her downstairs again, and she had had time to form a dozen new fears meanwhile. But she resolutely dismissed them all from her mind. Tony needed someone with courage and calmness just now, not someone who was a prey to a hundred doubts.

  She saw him the moment she came into the lounge—standing beside a table, half turned away from her, and idly fingering the pages of a newspaper. He looked so quiet and grave, and just a little careworn. She longed to go to him in front of everyone and put her arms round him.

  Just then he saw her; and at the sudden smile of relief and pleasure which came over his face Anna felt her heart turn over.

  He greeted her much more naturally, much more like his old self. And he said quite unselfconsciously: “I think you’re more beautiful than ever, Anna.”

  She laughed at that, and said: “Thank you, Tony, How nice of you. But I think that perhaps food would be even better than compliments just now. I’m starving. Aren’t you?”

  She wasn’t really specially hungry, but she had an idea that he hadn’t taken much interest in his meals lately, and perhaps if she pretended to be very hungry he might contrive to make a good dinner too.

  Anyway, he smiled and said, rather as though he hadn’t realised it before: “Yes, I think perhaps I am.”

  He was very earnest about selecting just what she wanted, and ended by making an excellent dinner himself.

  They were very leisurely about it, and sat late over their coff
ee. He made her do most of the talking, and seemed eagerly interested in all that she had been doing.

  Once she mentioned Marie Frayne, and he said, staring at the tablecloth: “I’m sorry for the things I thought about you and Frayne. They weren’t true, were they?”

  “No they weren’t true. But how did you know? I meant you to think they were.”

  “Yes, I know that, too,” he said curtly. And then: “Did you know it was Frayne who went bail for me so that I shouldn’t go to prison?”

  “Mario!” Anna’s eyes were suddenly bright. “How like him.”

  “Yes,” Tony said slowly, “I suppose it is like him. I’m beginning to find that out. Of course, I told him to go to hell when he first offered, because I thought—”

  “Yes, I know what you thought.”

  “But he made me listen. Made me understand just how things had been, and that there was no reason why I should refuse to let him stand by me as a friend.” The word came out slowly, but it was spoken sincerely.

  “I’m glad it was like that,” Anna said.

  Tony smiled a little grimly. “It’s strange that it takes a disaster like this to show you which are your real friends and which are the shams. You know, Anna, I should have thought I could put my finger on half a dozen fellows who would have stood by me—apart from my family, even.” For a moment his face was overclouded. “But I was wrong about all of them. Do you remember I told you once that I didn’t know much about human nature? Well, it looks as though I was right.”

  “Tony, did your father refuse to—to—”

  “Yes. Don’t let’s talk about it,” Tony said abruptly. “I’ve got past blaming them now. They’re honestly convinced that I’m guilty. And for them—that’s the end.”

  She was silent for a moment, and then a thought seemed to strike her. “Tony, did Mario know almost from the beginning about this? He must have.”

  “Yes, of course. As soon as he got back from Paris. It was in all the papers.”

  “Then why didn’t he write and tell me?” She flushed with unusual anger. “He must have known I would want to be told.”

  “I wouldn’t let him, of course.” Tony’s voice was curt.

  “Oh, Tony, why?” she said, in dismay at his lack of understanding.

  “What? With you at the beginning of a dazzling career, and me on the threshold of prison? You must think I’m a funny sort of cad.”

  “Oh, won’t you understand?” she cried, in desperation.

  But he stopped her almost peremptorily: “Yes, my dear, I do. I understand a lot better than you, I see. Don’t let’s say anything more. You might say some things you regretted afterwards. Anyway,” he got up abruptly, “I must go now. You’d better go to bed early. You’ve had a tiring day—and tomorrow may be a bit of a strain.”

  “Very well,” she said obediently. It was no good trying to make him see reason just now. She must wait until the anxiety which was wearing his nerves thin had been removed.

  “I—shan’t come here to fetch you tomorrow,” he said, without meeting her eyes. “You’d better go straight to Bury’s office, and he’ll look after you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it—it’s not very nice coming with me.” He stammered a little. “Sometimes there are Press people—cameras and that sort of thing, you know. And, with your career to think about, I dare say it’s better not to be seen with me, in case—in case things don’t go well.”

  “I want to be seen with you, Tony,” she said quietly. “The only thing that would make me ashamed would be for you to be seen without me when you were in such trouble.”

  He didn’t say anything. He only looked at her, and then dropped his eyes and stared at the ground, profoundly moved. “All right,” he said at last, not quite steadily.

  She took his hand and patted it—kindly, calmly, as a much older person might have done.

  “Try not to worry, Tony. I know it’s going to be all right tomorrow. You’ll go straight home to bed now, won’t you? And sleep well.”

  “I can’t sleep,” he said in a very low voice. “I haven’t been able to sleep much for weeks. That’s why I’m so vile-tempered and jumpy.”

  “Oh, you poor boy!” Her eyes darkened with dismay. “How awful. Do you mean you have just been lying awake night after night, worrying?”

  He frowned.

  “Something like that. At least—I don’t lie awake. I usually take the car and go driving. It seems easier to get away from things if I can just drive like hell.” Unexpectedly he smiled at her—a faint suggestion of his old, boyish grin. “I believe I told you once that I was a bit of a speed fiend at heart. Well, it’s true. There’s something almost soothing in it for me.”

  Sudden fear clutched at Anna’s heart. The thought of Tony speeding in his black racer had always had the power to rouse her almost superstitious terror. Now, the idea of him driving alone through the night—rash and uncaring in his misery—seemed to be fraught with nameless danger.

  “Tony!—you aren’t going to do that tonight, are you?”

  He didn’t meet her eyes, and there was a second’s silence: “I might.”

  “Please—I wish you would promise me not to—just this once.”

  He made an impatient little movement.

  “Anna, you don’t understand.”

  That wasn’t true, she thought. She did understand, only she was afraid for him.

  “You mean you can’t face going home alone and doing nothing?”

  He nodded abruptly.

  “Then I’ll come with you.”

  It came out almost defiantly. The next second she longed to recall it.

  His eyebrows shot up. He took her lightly by her chin and turned her face towards him, not very gently.

  “You’ll come with me?” he said slowly and deliberately. “Where? In the car?”

  That wasn’t what she had meant, of course, and he knew it wasn’t. He was refusing her impulsive advances again. Not quite so brutally, perhaps, but quite as firmly. Giving her a chance to withdraw with some remnants of pride left.

  “Y-yes,” she stammered. “In the car, of course.”

  “It wouldn’t do, Anna.” He laughed slightly, but without much amusement. “You’d be terrified. You always hated it when I went fast.”

  “I wouldn’t mind—I wouldn’t really.” She spoke with almost breathless eagerness, but she had to shut her eyes for a second to keep back the tears.

  The next moment she felt his hand close on hers in a grip that made her fingers crack.

  “Would you really come?” His voice was very low and a little rough.

  “Of course—if you want me.” She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling.

  “And you won’t be frightened?”

  “I expect I shall,” she said honestly. “But I’d be much more afraid if you went alone.”

  He didn’t actually answer that. He just said: “I’ll wait here then while you get a warm coat.”

  When she came back to him, with a mink coat flung on over her brown dress, he gave her an odd little look. In that second she remembered him saying: “If you could realise how you looked that night—so lovely and radiant and triumphant.”

  She wished frantically then that she had put on anything else—the plainest thing she had—rather than give him again the impression that success had carried her so far away from him. She couldn’t possibly explain that she had flung on the mink coat quite unthinkingly, just because it was the warmest thing she had with her. It was the very fact that it meant so little to her which had made her put it on without a second thought.

  As she went out with him to the car she longed to say: “Tony, don’t think about this wretched coat again. I like it, of course, and I was thrilled when I was able to buy it—but, darling, I’d give it away now, this very minute, if only you’d smile instead of looking so remote and serious.”

  But of course, she couldn’t say that, and if she had he would probably have pr
etended to be surprised, and have said he hadn’t thought twice about the thing anyway.

  And so she had to let him go on looking remote and serious. And because that made her feel terribly serious too, she just sat quietly beside him in the car without saying a word.

  She had half hoped that he would go fairly slowly after all, even though she had assured him she wouldn’t mind. But one or two surreptitious glances of terror at the speedometer assured her that her presence was not making much difference.

  For an hour they drove in almost complete silence. Then he said abruptly: “Feeling frightened?”

  “No—oh no.” Anna swallowed slightly, but the lie came out gallantly.

  Tony drew the car up at the side of the road.

  “I’m sorry, Anna,” he said, with a contrite, unhappy little laugh. “You’re horribly scared, I know.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “And anyway, you didn’t mean to let yourself in for this, did you?”

  “I said I was quite willing to come,” she began.

  “Yes. But you didn’t mean this. You meant you were willing to come home and sleep with me.”

  Anna was dumb before the crude truth of that. Then she nodded slowly without looking at him.

  “You know you’re being a little fool, don’t you?” he said quietly. “And that I’m a perfect cad even to let us discuss it.”

  “No.” Anna looked away from him still. “It’s simply that you’re wretched and afraid to be alone tonight, just as I was afraid to be alone that first night at Eaton Square. I do understand. You just want someone there. It’s the sort of feeling that makes men go off the rails. Only I happen to be your wife, so it’s all right.”

  “Good God!” said Tony.

  Then without another word, he backed the car, turned it, and drove back to London.

  But this time he drove more slowly, so that even Anna could not be afraid.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She sat there very still beside him, wondering from time to time if she ought to say anything.

  But what was there to say? She couldn’t tell what he had meant by that one exclamation, and she couldn’t imagine what he intended to do—if anything.