Enclosed with the letter was a prospectus, a small brochure of glossy paper, showing the lawn, one of the classrooms, a dormitory in the sanatorium, the chapel. On the last page the fees were set out. Anna’s mind reeled when she saw them. It would cost almost as much to keep Annette at Cheltenham for a term as Anna earned at Tilliards in a whole year. And the extras! “Dancing, a guinea”; “Drawing, a guinea”; “Violin, two guineas.”
A lump came into Anna’s throat.
“I did so want Annette to have dancing lessons,” she told herself.
And then she remembered. Lady Yarde had said that she would attend to all the school fees. It was a promise made in the first heat of enthusiasm.
“They can’t amount to much,” she had remarked airily. “Not for a child of that age. Besides, I’m probably a patroness anyway. They never charge a patroness at full rates.”
VI
The housekeeper’s room at Tilliards was cold and, in Mrs. Merton’s occupancy, perpetually stuffy. She rarely opened the narrow, Gothic-pointed windows, and the atmosphere was heavy with the scent of verbena which she sprinkled on her handkerchief every morning. An air of genteel shabbiness hung over the room, and even the pictures seemed a little faded. But at this moment the outlines of everything were obscured. The room was full of a pale misty vapour.
The vapour was issuing from the long spout of a bronchitis kettle that stood on the hearth. And in front of the kettle Mrs. Merton was kneeling. She was very much intent upon something, and her usually pale face was now flushed and heated. In her hands she was holding a letter, and she was slowly and expertly running the gummed flap across the escaping jet of steam. After a few moments the envelope began to peel open and Mrs. Merton, with fingers that trembled ever so slightly, removed the letter that had been inside. Then, very expertly, she placed the envelope between two sheets of blotting-paper to dry.
It was not until she had done so that she sat down to read what she had gone to such lengths to obtain. She was still flushed. But it was not merely the colour in her cheeks that had altered her. Her face, indeed, seemed to have undergone a definite physical change. Not a change of expression simply but a change of character as well. The obedient meekness, the negativeness, had disappeared; and something aggressive and positive had now appeared there. Her thin upper lip was drawn right back, revealing the long yellow teeth. And, as she read, a smile of intense gratification gradually crept over her whole countenance.
“Just as I thought,” she kept repeating to herself. “She’s got some kind of hold over Mr. Gervase. She’s probably threatening to compromise him, and she’s driven him half out of his mind already.”
The desire to expose Anna was so strong that she had to pause and struggle to get possession of herself again. She wanted to go immediately to Lady Yarde and hold this damning document before her. But how to explain her possession of it? She could scarcely reveal that in her trusted confidential capacity she had extracted this letter simply because she had seen Anna’s name and Gervase’s handwriting both upon it.
She saw therefore, that there was nothing for it but to seal the letter up again. And very delicately, she took out a small bottle of mucilage and a feather and began re-gumming the flap. When it was finished, she folded the letter neatly into its original creases, and inserted it so that none of the mucilage should get smeared on to the notepaper.
When the whole operation was completed, she put it back into the blotter to dry off again.
It reached Anna, smooth and fresh-looking, by the afternoon post.
But for Mrs. Merton the delivery of the letter was no more than the next necessary link in the long chain—not too long, if she could help it—of events that she saw stretching into the intriguing future. It gave her a strange sense of power to think of Anna, now entirely at her mercy, going about her schemes observed, anticipated and frustrated.
“So he’s asking her to meet him at the White Hart in Tunbridge Wells,” Mrs. Merton said over to herself several times. “He’s chosen it because he thinks there’ll be no one there to see him. She’ll go all right, if I know her.”
She smiled, revealing her yellow front teeth again.
“And a very nice little surprise she’ll find waiting for her,” she added.
She longed to go herself. But there would be no point in it: she would simply be disclosing her hand without achieving anything. The solution, the subtle truly ingenious solution, was her own sister. On the sparse, elderly Miss Plunket, everything depended. She would invite her to go in her place, an unknown innocuous female, who could actually sit at the next table without their suspecting anything. She could listen, and she could report. And to overhear the private conversation of a peer’s son and a French adventuress was clearly something that any woman in her senses would jump at.
Chapter XLIV
I
“With the death of Francis the Second,” Delia was reading aloud from the history primer, “the family of the Guise declined in power. Charles IX, a mere boy, succeeded, and the regency …”
But it was not of the regency of Catherine de Medici that Anna was thinking. It was not even of Delia. Her thoughts instead were full of the letter that Gervase had written her.
“I’ve got to stop him,” she kept telling herself. “It would be madness to let it happen. He says that if I don’t marry him he will throw up his commission and go abroad. As if Lord Yarde would hear of his son marrying a governess.”
“In 1562,” Delia’s voice broke in upon her, “began the series of religious wars in which, for upwards of thirty years, Catholic and Huguenot massacred each other for political motives …”
“They would turn me out on the spot if they knew,” Anna continued. “And then I should never have Annette again.”
A shudder passed through her, and she drew in her breath sharply.
“But I must pay attention,” she told herself. “I must try to help Delia to understand what she is reading.”
“Why are you biting your nails?” Delia asked abruptly. “I’ve been watching you.”
Anna shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose it’s a habit,” she answered. “A bad habit that I’ve never got out of.”
“I thought perhaps you were worried about something,” Delia explained. “You didn’t look as if you’d been listening.”
“Of course, I was,” Anna said hurriedly. “You were reading about Francis the Second.”
“That was a long time ago,” Delia replied contemptuously. “I’ve reached the bit where they’re killing each other by now.”
Anna began counting on her fingers. Wednesday, Thursday. It was only two days.
“There’s scarcely time to stop him, even if I write now,” she reflected. “But he’s got to be stopped somehow. I’m certainly not going there.”
As it turned out, there was no time left to write. Lady Yarde kept Anna to herself for the whole afternoon. There was a number of odd jobs to be done, and she felt the need for someone to be with her while she did them. At one period she had employed a secretary. But the creature had been so efficient, had replied to all letters, even quite private ones, so promptly and with so little fuss that Lady Yarde had become alarmed: she had felt that somehow she was losing touch with her own life. Altogether, she preferred things as they were. She liked sitting at her desk, sorting over the letters and seeing what really had, to be answered.
But this afternoon she was too talkative to do very much writing. Her conversation kept veering round to Gervase. She could not forget that last visit he had paid them.
“So typical of him,” she was saying. “So thoughtful. He was always considerate even as quite a tiny boy.” She paused. “It was on account of his manners that we expected he’d do something in the Foreign Office,” she went on. “But he wouldn’t look at anything but the Army. In a way I’m glad. Diplomats get sent to all sorts of outlandish places. They lead very unsettled lives.”
She broke off and wrote half a page of
her letter, underlining nearly every other word to show how seriously she was taking it. Then she turned to Anna again.
“But I’m worried about him,” she said. “I can’t help feeling that he’s keeping something from me. I’m sure he’s not happy. A mother can always tell with her own son.”
Anna raised her eyes for an instant and glanced at her. But Lady Yarde was entirely preoccupied. She had put her pen down and had apparently given up all thought of writing.
“I do hope it’s not a woman,” she went on. “He’s so young and inexperienced. Of course that’s really the trouble where young men are concerned. They have to meet someone to get the experience, and, by the time they’ve got it, the harm’s been done.”
Her voice trailed off as she reached the end of the sentence and she waited for Anna to say something. These conversations with Anna were one of her chief relaxations. She was able to speak so freely. The fact of Anna’s being a widow seemed somehow to make everything all right.
“You aren’t very talkative to-day, my dear,” she said at last. “I don’t think I’ve ever known you quite so glum. I don’t like changeable people. You never know what they’re going to be like next.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna answered. “I was just thinking about what you were saying.”
Lady Yarde was mollified.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “I often wonder how men do get their experience. Their lives are so different from a woman’s.”
She suddenly noticed the letter at her side unfinished, and began to re-read what she had written: there were some more words that needed underlining and she picked up her pen. Then she sat back and saw that her companion was simply staring out of the window in front of her.
“You’re very fidgety this afternoon,” she said. “Why don’t you do something? There’s my work-table needs tidying if you’ve nothing else to do.”
She turned again to her desk and sat idly dipping her pen in the inkwell.
“Of course,” she went on, “on the Continent it’s all so different. People do things that would be quite impossible in England. I suppose it’s their upbringing. Did you know any other men before you got married?”
Anna did not reply immediately.
“You must remember,” she said at last, “that I was very young when I got married.”
“That’s just what I mean,” Lady Yarde observed. “A man doesn’t get married until he’s nearly forty sometimes. I think thirty to forty is quite soon enough for a man, and twenty quite old enough for a girl. I certainly hope Gervase doesn’t get married before he’s thirty. It’s sheer ruin to get married too early in the Army. I heard General Hunter say that no one under the rank of Major ought even to think of marrying.”
“And to-morrow, Gervase will be at the hotel in Tunbridge Wells waiting for me,” Anna was thinking. “If I’m not there he threatens to come straight on to Tilliards.”
She turned her head slightly so that she could see the clock. The afternoon post had left half an hour ago.
When Anna did not reply, Lady Yarde got up and came over to her. There was a fan lying on a small table. She picked it up and rapped Anna playfully across the knuckles.
“You’re really quite the worst companion I’ve ever known,” she said. “I can only think you’re fretting about that child of yours. I begin to be sorry I ever invited her.”
And to show that she was only teasing, she tapped Anna on the knuckles again just a little harder than she need have done.
II
She was in the train. Actually in the train, going to meet him. The simple fact of it amazed her.
“I am mad to be doing this,” she admitted. “Quite mad.”
The fact remained, however, that there was no other way.
“I’ve got to stop him somehow,” she told herself. “I know Lord Yarde would turn me out if he heard.”
Little waves of apprehension continued to pass through her, and she kept clasping and unclasping her hands as she sat there.
“There is so much at stake,” she went on thinking. “There is Annette’s whole future. I cannot afford to run any risks now.”
She stared out of the carriage window at the pattern of fields and woodlands that was passing, endlessly passing.
“Why did Gervase have to go and fall in love with me?” she asked herself. “It is so foolish having to lie to Lady Yarde and tell her that I am going to see a school-friend when all that I am thinking about is Annette.”
The weather was close and the carriage in which she was sitting, airless. She closed her eyes at last and rested her head against the upholstery. Soon the motion of the train drowsed her. She lay back, half dreaming.
“You will marry a soldier … the whole château can be yours if you ask for it.”
She sat up abruptly. Why had Madame Sapho’s words come to her again at that moment? Was it that at the back of her mind she was even for a single instant considering such a thing?
“No,” she told herself sharply. “I shall be as cold with him as I have always been. He means nothing to me.”
The train had now begun to slacken speed. She could feel the wheels stopping. They were already drawing up at the platform.
As soon as Anna got inside the hotel she saw Gervase standing there. Too nervous and keyed up to sit, he was walking up and down as though he were on guard. He had been in the lounge for nearly half an hour already and one by one had studied and re-studied the sporting prints that hung there. He had fingered the palms that stood in the big brass pots in the corner, breaking off little portions of their leaves in his agitation. And he had paid three quick anxious visits to the bar to swallow down a brandy and soda and return to the entrance hall to be there in readiness for her.
“She’s coming. I know she’s coming. She’ll be the next person who enters through that door,” he was saying alternately with: “What am I here for? I couldn’t really expect her to come. Perhaps she didn’t even get my letter.”
His back at that moment was turned towards the door but as he heard it open he spun round.
“Anna,” he said. “My darling.”
The word slipped out before he was aware of it; he had said it so many times in his imagination that it simply burst from him. He tried to seize her hand in both of his.
“You wanted to see me, Gervase?” she asked.
“I knew you’d come,” was all he answered.
In his emotion his voice sounded hoarse and throaty.
“It was only this morning that I changed my mind,” she told him. “Yesterday I had no intention of coming.”
“And what was it made you decide to come?” he asked eagerly.
“I thought that if I came perhaps I could persuade you how foolish you were being,” she replied.
She spoke quietly as though this were the most ordinary of meetings. But while she was speaking she was watching him.
“Can he really have meant what he said?” she asked herself. “Is he serious about giving up his commission?”
And she had to admit that she could not tell. Certainly, he was different. His eyes were brighter than she had remembered them, and his face was flushed. His movements, too, were quicker. There was the jerkiness about him of someone who has lost a lot of sleep.
He put his arm round her and began to lead her in the direction of the dining-room.
“Come in here,” he said. “I’ve booked a table over in the corner. We can’t be overheard in there.”
At the same moment, a lady in black who had been sitting in one of the wicker chairs on the far side of the lounge, rose and followed them. She was a sparse, fragile-looking creature and her limbs trembled. Even breathing was now difficult because her heart was hurrying so. But she was not to be deflected. She shook her head when she saw the table in the centre of the room towards which the waiter was leading her: the light, she said, was too strong there and she indicated that she preferred something up against the wall. The table at which she finally
contrived to get herself seated was next to the one which Anna and Gervase were occupying. And she had the forethought to get herself seated with her back to them. She was thus protected from the overwhelming temptation to stare. Not that she needed to use her eyes any longer: outside in the lounge she had checked them over bit by bit from Mrs. Merton’s description. And, simply by sitting very upright—she was naturally a thin poker of a woman—she could overhear and eat at the same time. The whole expedition was a treat to her and she did not want to lose any part of it.
At first they talked in whispers, and she could make nothing out. Her neck ached from the effort of leaning so far backwards. Then, just as she was despairing of ever hearing anything, she caught one sentence that was in itself sufficient reward for being there. It was the young man who had spoken.
“If you hadn’t come I think I should have killed myself,” was what he said.
She could not distinguish what it was that Anna replied to this. But it was obvious that she was pleading with him: her voice ran on, very low and intense. Then the waiter removed the soup plate and the thread of the intercourse was broken: there was simply the tantalising murmur of voices behind her. But with the fish there came another sudden break of fortune and she actually overheard a whole sentence.
“But think what your father would say if he knew of this. He would never forgive either of us,” Anna said.
And the young man replied a moment later: “I’ve reached the point where I don’t care about him. I’m desperate. I …”
It was the waiter leaning over her shoulder with the long handled dish of potatoes that destroyed the rest of this remark. Miss Plunket waved him irritably away, and sat there rigid, resenting even every breath she had to take.
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