Call and I'll Come

by Mary Burchell

  At last, as they were driving through the quiet streets of the inner suburbs once more, he said, looking straight ahead: “Shall I drive to your place—or mine?”

  She hesitated only a second, and then said very gently and firmly: “To your place, please, Tony.”

  So they drove to the street in Kensington where Tony had been living. He garaged the car at the end of the quiet road, and as they walked the few yards to the house his hand was rather tightly round her arm.

  The sort of angry excitement which had possessed him before seemed to have gone, and he looked terribly weary and dispirited as they came into his room.

  She stood there for a moment, just inside the doorway, looking round and feeling strangely out of place.

  Tony glanced at her, frowning.

  “Well?” he said, almost truculently. “It’s rather a ridiculous situation, isn’t it?”

  “Oh no,” she said quite calmly. “I don’t think it’s a ridiculous situation at all. But you’re terribly tired—and, to tell the truth, so am I. We’d better go straight to bed, don’t you think?”

  He looked as though he were going to say “Good God!” again. But he didn’t, after all. Instead, he said: “I suppose you’ll have to borrow a pair of my pyjamas, though they’ll be miles too big for you.”

  “I’ll sleep in my petticoat,” she said seriously. And somehow she looked so like a good, earnest child trying to make a helpful suggestion that he laughed.

  She smiled too, then, and the tension immediately relaxed.

  “All right,” he said. “Here you are.” He went over and collected some things together. “Here are towels and some soap—oh, and you’d better borrow my sponge. You’ll find one of the bathrooms at the end of the passage there.”

  “Thank you, Tony.”

  She knew he watched her curiously, particularly when she took off her mink coat and hung it carelessly over the back of a chair.

  He didn’t say anything as she went out of the room, but later, when she came back, ready for bed, her coat had been put carefully on a hanger, and now it hung from a peg on the back of the door.

  She smiled a little, very tenderly.

  Tony wasn’t there, and as she stood there combing her hair, with the pocket comb from her handbag, she looked round the room. It was a dreary place really , and she thought: “I’m glad I didn’t let him spend tonight here all alone. He wouldn’t have slept—not with the thought of tomorrow in front of him.”

  He came back just as she had got into bed. For a moment he leaned against the door, looking at her as she sat up, her long, dark hair plaited back, and the slender straps of her petticoat showing white against the golden tan of her shoulders.

  Then he tossed off his dressing-gown and came and sat on the side of the bed.

  “Well, Tony?” She smiled at him.

  “I don’t understand you at all,” he said. “But then I never have.” And he got into bed.

  She laughed a little at that.

  “Shall I put out the light?”

  “If you like.”

  She put out the light.

  “Come here, and let me put my arm round you.”

  He came without a word.

  “I’m dog-tired,” he muttered after a moment.

  “Yes, I know,” she said gently. “But you’ll sleep quite soon.”

  “No, I can’t sleep,” he murmured protestingly. And then she felt him turn his head and sleepily kiss her bare arm.

  She lay perfectly still, while he moved restlessly once or twice.

  “How—comforting—you are,” he said slowly at last. And a moment later she knew, by the sudden relaxing of his big figure against her, that he was asleep.

  She smiled a little into the darkness, and gently drew the bedclothes more closely round him. And she thought: “Even if there is never any more than this, it was worth the journey from Italy—and even all the waiting too”

  Afterwards she realised that she must have slept quite a long while herself, because when she opened her eyes the early morning light was already strong.

  She looked at Tony, who seemed scarcely to have stirred then she softly drew her arm away and crept out of bed. He gave a worried little groan, but settled down again at once when she patted him gently as though he were a baby.

  As quickly and quietly as possible she dressed. Then, when she was ready, she found a piece of paper and hastily scribbled on it:

  “I’ll be ready, if you'll call for me at the hotel at 9.30.—Anna.”

  She didn’t even kiss him, for fear of interrupting the sleep which he so badly needed, but she slipped silently out of the room, and out of the house.

  She had to walk quite a little way before she was able to pick up a slowly cruising taxi, and she knew the man looked at her rather curiously.

  That didn’t worry her, however. Nor did the equally curious glance of the sleepy night porter at her hotel, who was just preparing to go off duty. Anna had never cared greatly for appearances—and she cared even less now.

  She gave orders to be called in an hour’s time, and during that hour she slept heavily and dreamlessly.

  When she was wakened she had a leisurely bath and dressed very carefully. She examined her face in the mirror, and removed any traces of weariness with a subtle touch or two of make-up. Finally, she forced herself to make a good breakfast.

  “Always look well and eat well before a crisis,” Schreiner had once told her, and she found it excellent advice.

  The Anna who went downstairs to greet Tony looked wonderfully composed and tranquil.

  He was pale, and looked a little strained, but the air of deadly weariness had gone; and when she came towards him he smiled brilliantly.

  “Did you sleep well, Tony?” was all she said.

  “You know I did—bless you,” Tony answered, in a low, moved voice.

  And after that they didn’t say much as they drove through the streets in a taxi. Evidently that morning Tony had not felt quite like driving himself.

  Actually, the trial turned out to be much more like a stage performance than anything Anna had ever imagined. There was the same long, long wait first behind the scenes, while you watched other performers (or witnesses) go to take their places on the stage (or in court). There was the familiar overwhelming sickness of stage fright, when your head seemed on fire and your feet felt like ice.

  Then the horrible moment when you took the centre of the stage. There was Sir Derek acting as conductor—only his calm, dry air was very different from Schreiner’s smiling, picturesque arrogance—and then there was the deliberate, clear-thinking effort to play your part well and convincingly.

  She scarcely looked at Tony. She had an idea that it might unnerve her and this time, of all times in her life, her nerve must not fail.

  It was quite easy answering Sir Derek’s questions. She had been coached in her role here, and knew how to play it. But it was a little disconcerting when the prosecuting counsel rose to put a few suave questions. She had been prepared for this, of course, only it was terribly like having to make up your part as you went along.

  “Mrs. Roone, were you surprised when your husband presented himself before you in Paris?”

  “I did not know he was coming.”

  “So that it gave you some surprise to see him?”

  “Yes.”

  Where was this leading? she wondered. And then, before she could decide, that trail of questions broke off and another began.

  “I think you will agree that for a man to fly to Paris for the sole purpose of hearing his wife sing might be interpreted as a sign of great—regard and devotion?”

  Anna hesitated. “It was a very special occasion. It was my debut.”

  “Oh, certainly, Mrs. Roone. But even so, that does not minimise the fact that it was something which might please and gratify any woman?”

  “Oh yes, of course.” She remembered her surprise and joy very keenly.

  “That it was, in fact, a si
gnal mark of regard and devotion?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Particularly in view of the fact that a very serious construction could be put upon such an action?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Mrs. Roone, I want to have one or two dates quite clear. The date of this performance—the one your husband attended in Paris—was the fourth of last December?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the date of your return to England to appear as a witness in his defence?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday. That is to say, something like five and a half months after your husband was first charged?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is a very serious matter with which your husband has been charged, Mrs. Roone. Why did you delay until the very last minute to come to his assistance?”

  “I didn’t know until the day before yesterday that he had been charged. I saw something about it in an English newspaper in Florence, and I came at once.”

  “I see.” Something just underneath the silkiness of the tone made Anna sense danger like a startled animal, and she narrowed her eyes in sudden nervousness.

  “So that the situation between you and your husband was such that for five and a half months you knew nothing whatsoever of his life except something gleaned casually from a newspaper ? Yet you ask the court to believe that on one certain day—by a curious coincidence, the very day on which his partner committed suicide—he was suddenly overwhelmed by such devotion for you that he flew to Paris for the sole purpose of hearing you sing?”

  With a slight, deprecating smile the prosecuting counsel prepared to sit down. A second—half a second—and the chance would be gone. But one thing, above all, Anna had learned under Schreiner—and that was to act quickly and calmly in an emergency.

  “No,” she said gently, “I don’t ask the court to believe anything of the sort.”

  Up went prosecuting counsel’s eyebrows.

  “But, Mrs. Roone, everything you have said in answer to my questions goes to prove just that.”

  “No.” Anna still spoke quite gently. “What I ask the court to believe is not that my husband was overwhelmed by sudden devotion for me on the fourth of December, but that he had always been devoted to me. So devoted to me that even when I wanted to live my own life as a singer, he was willing to let me do so, if that would make me happy. So devoted that when I came to the testing-point of my debut he risked his good name and his liberty to be there with me in case I should fail and so need him again. So devoted that when he saw for himself that I had succeeded he deliberately engineered a break between us, so that his possible disgrace should not tarnish my success. How convincingly he did that, you can judge by the fact that I severed all connection with him for five and a half months. How artificial that break really was you can judge by the fact that, the moment I heard of his danger, I returned to his side. That’s all.”

  The deprecating smile froze slightly on the prosecuting counsel’s face.

  “That is one interpretation of the facts, no doubt, Mrs. Roone, but I would suggest to the jury that it is hardly the only—or even the most probable—one. That is all, thank you.”

  And her part was over.

  It was terribly difficult to know whether her evidence had been important or useless. It was terribly difficult to make any sort of guess at the progress of the case at all.

  There was more endless waiting, more sensation of burning head and frozen feet. A growing, leaden despair, a certainty that Tony was lost, that nothing anyone could say or do could help him. Wave upon wave of hopelessness, a dark, choking sea of misery...

  And then suddenly, blessed land under one’s feet again—the sun shining—the misery rolling away.

  “... Case against the accused dismissed ... entirely innocent of any complicity in his partner’s frauds ... leaves this court without a stain on his character...”

  And Tony was there beside her, holding both her hands very tightly, and looking terribly white and exhausted and a little dazed.

  And Sir Derek was congratulating and being congratulated, and—once more as though he were conductor of a stage performance—insisting on a celebration dinner afterwards.

  So there was a little celebration dinner with Sir Derek and Mr. Bury and Tony and herself.

  And she tried very hard to be gay and talkative and lighthearted, as Sir Derek seemed to expect. But, all the while, she was frightenedly aware of Tony sitting there, growing quieter and grimmer every moment—looking rather as though he had lost the case and not won it.

  Surely everything ought to be all right now? She could see no reason at all why it should not. But every time she looked at Tony her heart knocked against her ribs. He seemed almost like a stranger—and a chilly, distant stranger, at that.

  He took her back to her hotel afterwards, and in the taxi he said abruptly:

  “When do you leave for Europe again?”

  She was utterly still, feeling as though someone had put a cold hand round her throat.

  “I—I hadn’t thought about it,” she said at last.

  “No?” He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring grimly out of the window. “Well, anyway, I expect I shall see you again before you go.”

  Another awful silence, and then:

  “I expect so.”

  They were drawing up outside her hotel now. She looked at his weary face, and for a moment everything was forgotten in her pity for him. Words forced themselves to her lips, spoken tenderly, protectively:

  “It shouldn’t be difficult for you to sleep well tonight, Tony, and—and there are a good many things for us to talk about in the morning.”

  He shook his head with an impatient little movement. “There’s not very much to discuss, Anna. And—I don’t feel sleepy,” he added irrelevantly.

  She felt suddenly frightened again, just as she had last night. “Are you going out driving again tonight?” she asked quickly.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m coming too.”

  He laughed slightly. “No, Anna. You were scared enough last night. It’s ridiculous for you to come and terrify yourself deliberately like that for—well, nothing.”

  “I won’t mind it. However fast you go, I won’t mind it. Tony—please. If you send me away tomorrow, at least let me come tonight.”

  He stared at her gloomily for a moment. And then suddenly he gave in.

  She was frightened, of course—just as she always had been. But that didn’t really matter any more, because this was her one chance of making him listen to her.

  Her one chance!

  She sat beside him in the low-slung black racer, hatless, quite silent, while they threaded their way out of London. It wasn’t so bad until they got. clear of the suburbs, because he was forced to go fairly slowly. But once they were out in the open country the purr of the engine rose to a whine, and she could feel the wind beat on her pale, set face until it almost brought the tears into her eyes.

  Once she glanced at him, but there was nothing reassuring about his face. It was strange and frightening to see Tony—her once kind and understanding Tony—so hard and uncaring.

  She knew it was unhappiness that had built this wall around his naturally sweet nature. The betrayal by his family; the crashing of his hopes; his bewilderment and misery; perhaps, above all, his fixed belief that he had failed her ... It was all there in the grim line of his jaw and the unsmiling eyes.

  “Where are we going?” she said at last.

  “I don’t know. Anywhere.”

  “Can I talk to you,” she asked timidly, “or do you have to have all your attention on the car?”

  “No. You can talk—if you feel there’s anything to say.”

  That wasn’t very encouraging, but she had to go on somehow.

  “Tony, there is something to say.”

  “Well?”

  “Tony, what are you going to do, now that everything is all right?”

  “Everything is
n’t all right. I’m cleared, of course, personally but the whole business has gone completely. There’s nothing left. But that doesn’t really matter much. I can start near the bottom again.”

  “I—I see.” She gripped her hands together. “And—what about—me?” The wind seemed to snatch the words away from her as she spoke them.

  “You?” He smiled without looking at her. “Why, you’ll start near the top again and go right up there, of course. Unhampered by me. Do you understand?” His voice was almost harsh.

  “Tony”—she was desperate now—“that isn’t what I want I—”

  “And this isn’t what I want” he cut in fiercely. “I don’t want your pity, just because I’ve failed you completely. Great heavens, you’ll be offering me money to make a fresh start in a minute! Oh, I know I’m a hound to talk to you like this after what you did for me in court today, but it’s only brutal frankness that can serve us now. And, to be brutally frank, you’re far better off without me. Don’t let’s confuse the issue with sentiment.”

  “But last night—” she began.

  “For God’s sake, forget about last night, Anna!” he exclaimed impatiently. “I had no earthly right to let you do such a thing. I think I’m more ashamed about that than anything.”

  She sat very still, struggling wearily to frame some sort of appeal that would reach past this strange, bitter Tony to the Tony she knew.

  “Do you remember,” she said huskily at last, “the last time we were driving together? Oh, not yesterday. I mean—all those months ago.”

  He refused to reply, but she could see that he remembered.

  “It was our wedding day, Tony.”

  “Do you have to say these things?”

  “And you told me something then that I was always to remember. You said I had only to call and you would come to me—from the ends of the earth.”

  His hands on the wheel seemed to blur before her eyes, and she felt the cold, slow tears on her cheeks.

  “I wanted to say something to you then, too, but I hadn’t the courage. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember. I’ve often wondered what it was,” he said reluctantly.

  She suddenly put her cheek down against the rough sleeve of his coat, and felt him go rigid.