Anne Belinda

by Patricia Wentworth

  John found number twenty-one, and knocked on a door whose blistered paint bore witness that this was the sunny side of the street. The window on his left had Nottingham lace curtains, as clean as it is humanly possible for Nottingham lace curtains to be in Clapham. The curtains were drawn across the window, and between them stood an aspidistra in a bright pink china pot. Between the pink china pot and the tightly closed glass of the window was a long, rather debilitated strip of cardboard upon which the word “Apartments” had been printed by hand.

  The door opened and disclosed a plump, pasty-faced woman in a bright blue overall. John inquired for Mrs. Jones, and was ushered into the parlour, where white shavings blocked the fireplace and a funereal black marble clock ticked heavily at the aspidistra.

  The married daughter’s pride in the gentility of this room was evident. She threw a complacent glance at the two armchairs upholstered in crimson plush, which had figured in an auction ten years ago as “Gent’s, plush, easy,” and “Lady’s ditto.” Her eyes also dwelt fondly on the three-legged table—“real mahogany”—upon which there reposed in state a large picture Bible, a bound copy of Good Words, and two photograph albums. Then she turned her head.

  “What name shall I say?”

  “Sir John Waveney.”

  Twenty years before, Mary Jones would have dropped him a curtsey. Mrs. Porter ducked her head and—almost—gave at the knees. “My! If I wasn’t took aback!” she said afterwards over an excellent supper of tinned salmon and fresh cucumber. “’Im standing there and saying, ‘Sir John Waveney,’ and I’m sure no one ’ud ’ve took ’im for a baronet.”

  At the time she said nothing, only ducked her head and got awkwardly out of the room. John heard her, heavy-footed on the stairs, and was left with nothing to do but observe his surroundings.

  There was a dark green paper on the walls. Mrs. Porter considered it a good wearing colour. There were striped pink and white antimacassars on the backs of the crimson armchairs. A lustre cup and saucer of a lovely bronze colour sat on the mantelpiece next to the horrible clock and was balanced on the other side by a peculiarly atrocious blue vase with cheap gilt handles.

  John liked the cup and saucer, though he did not know that it was old and good. He was touching it when Mrs. Jones came in with a measured dignity of step. She was rosy, where her daughter was pallid, and she had the firmly buxom figure of a generation whose stays were really stays, and tightly laced at that. Over the stays she wore a black stuff dress, also heavily boned, and a high black stuff collar with buckram in it, and a little turned-over collar of Swiss embroidery. The collar was fastened by a large old-fashioned brooch with a border of plaited gold and a centre of plaited hair. She also wore a thick gold watch-chain and little gold earrings like buttons.

  John turned with a friendly smile, and was fairly startled by her air of respectful hostility. She shook hands with him, and her hand was cold, plump, and limp. He didn’t know quite what to say or where to begin, and found himself stumbling into some inanity about the weather—something to the effect that it was a fine day.

  Mrs. Jones said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Lovely, driving up—not too hot, you know.”

  Mrs. Jones said, “No, sir.” She had small grey eyes. Her grey hair was very neatly parted in the middle and plaited into a tight, flat bun at the back of her head. Not a single hair was out of place.

  “I’ve just been staying with Lady Marr for the week-end.”

  Mrs. Jones said nothing, and after a desperate pause John plunged on:

  “I expect you’re wondering why I’ve come to see you. (Oh, Lord! That’s not tactful!) I mean I wanted to see you awfully, because I want to have a talk with you.”

  Mrs. Jones said “Yes, sir” again.

  Then, to John’s relief, she offered him a chair and sat down herself. But when they were both seated there ensued a perfectly awful pause. Mrs. Jones did not seem to mind. She gazed politely and resentfully at the wall about six inches to John’s left and she kept her hands folded upon her knee.

  John broke the silence with a manful effort.

  “I wanted to see you because I wanted to talk to you about my cousins—you nursed them all, didn’t you?”

  “I took Mr. Courtney from the month,” said Mrs. Jones austerely.

  “I never met Courtney. I wish I’d met him. I served under Tom.”

  Mrs. Jones pressed her lips together, then opened them to say, “Mr. Courtney was the handsomest young gentleman in the county, and Mr. Tom was that clever at his studies there wasn’t no one to come near him.” Her lips shut tight again; her little grey eyes dealt faithfully with any pretensions which this new Waveney might have to either looks or brains.

  “Lord! What a refrigerator!” groaned John. But he went on:

  “I said I wanted to talk to you about my cousins. I really want to talk about my Cousin Anne.”

  “Yes, sir.” (“Never batted an eyelash!” was John’s comment.)

  “I want to see her very particularly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I thought perhaps you could give me her address. Can you?”

  Mrs. Jones became a little more frigid; there was a note of definite hostility in her “No, sir.”

  “Mrs. Jones,” said John, sitting forward, “I want to find my cousin very badly. Do you know where she is?”

  “Miss Jenny—I should say her ladyship—would be the right person to tell you that.”

  “Would she? And supposing she doesn’t know?”

  “Her ladyship would be sure to know.”

  “She doesn’t. (That ought to break the ice with a crash.) I don’t mean just that she says she doesn’t know. She really doesn’t—this time.”

  Mrs. Jones gave no sign of anything having broken. She merely repeated her last words: “Her ladyship would be quite sure to know.”

  “She doesn’t know. She’s said she didn’t know, when she really did; but this time she doesn’t know.”

  “That’s for her ladyship to say.”

  (“That’s the lie direct.”) Then aloud, “You’re not making it very easy to talk to you. Look here, I’d better tell you. I know the whole story. (I wonder if I do—and I wonder how much this old image knows.)”

  Mrs. Jones didn’t speak. She looked politely at the wall.

  John sprang up.

  “I tell you I know the whole story. Lady Marr’s been telling everyone that her sister was in Spain recovering from an illness. I didn’t believe the story, and this morning Sir Nicholas told me the truth. He told me that my cousin had been in prison for a year.”

  Mrs. Jones took a moment. Then she said:

  “It’s not for me to say one thing or the other.” Her voice was quite steady, but the plump folded hands shook.

  “Yes, it is. I say, do stop being like this! I’ve come here because I wanted you to help me. I can’t do anything unless you come off this awful frozen-up stunt. After all, you nursed Anne, you looked after her when she was a jolly little kid; and it’s not in reason that you shouldn’t have some human feeling about her. I’ll be bound to say the family doesn’t seem to have any. They don’t seem to care a damn where she is, or whether she’s got any money, or what she’s doing.”

  “Nobody,” said Mrs. Jones with trembling dignity—“nobody can never cast it up at me that I didn’t do my duty.”

  John struggled with this for a moment, and then decided to ignore it. At any rate, the ice was gone.

  “I don’t believe she’s got any money. I don’t see how she can have much, anyhow. She came out of prison yesterday, and she went to an hotel for the day, and in the afternoon she went down to see Jenny. And Jenny sent her away broken-hearted. I saw her. She looked as if Jenny had killed her. Then I missed her at the station. And she went off in the London train, and no one’s seen her since. She didn’t go back to the hotel. Jenny doesn’t know where she is. She isn’t lying this time—she really doesn’t know. I thought there was just a chance she
might have come to you. Did she?”

  Mrs. Jones stopped looking at the wall. She looked at John and shook her head.

  “Do you know where she is? Do you know anything?”

  A very large, round tear rolled suddenly down Mrs. Jones’s smooth red cheek.

  “Are you telling me true?” she said. And then, with a little hard sob, “Lord ha’ mercy, sir!”

  “Of course I’m telling you the truth. Why should I tell you anything else? I only wish to goodness I could get the truth out of some of you for a change. I’m pretty well sick of lies—I can tell you that. First she’s ill; and then she’s abroad; and then she’s mad; and now she’s lost!” He gave a short angry laugh. “Lost, and, for all I know, without a penny; and, for all any of you care, starving.”

  Mrs. Jones was much impressed; she liked to see a man angry—real gentlemen were often angry. Sir Anthony had had a most notable temper. Her nursery reminiscences included horrific tales of battle between Mr. Courtney and Mr. Tom. John ceased suddenly to be an outsider. “Looks a proper Waveney, he does, when he’s angry—and, Lord knows, I’ve seen enough of them angry to tell.”

  Having reached this point, she also reached the meaning of John’s words, and at once suffered an access of distress and confusion.

  “I’m sure no one could ever bring it up against me that I didn’t do my duty by them all,” she said. “And twins is day and night work, as everyone knows, and if one of them was quiet, the other ’ud begin, till it was more than flesh and blood could stand.”

  John made an impatient movement.

  “I’m asking you if you know where Anne is. Do you?”

  “Her ladyship—”

  Mrs. Jones broke off at the look on John’s face. “The very moral of Sir Anthony in one of his worst,” she said to herself. And if she quaked, she also admired.

  Do you know where she is?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Gospel sure.”

  “Then no one knows.” He did not shout as Sir Anthony would have shouted; but the passion was plain in his voice.

  He went to the window in a couple of strides, pushed aside the lace curtains, and stood looking out into the dull, drab street, the smoky blue sky—just a dull strip of it was over the greenish slate of ugly roofs—and the smoky yellow brick of ugly houses. There were miles and miles and miles of streets like this—poorer, uglier streets; poorer, fouler, uglier streets than this; slum streets, congested with foul and ugly people, full of hideous sights and hideous sounds. Where did a penniless woman drift to in a great city like this? Where in all this city was Anne Belinda? He turned, his anger gone away, his heart sick and sinking.

  Mrs. Jones was standing beside the table, leaning on it. Some of the rosy colour had left her face. John put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Can you think of anyone she might go to?”

  “No, sir, I can’t. Her ladyship—”

  “I tell you she sent her away—Anne went to her and she sent her away.” His brow darkened and a heavy flush rose to it. “She sent her away. She offered her money to stay away.”

  His hand dropped heavily, and Mrs. Jones cried out:

  “She wouldn’t do that! Miss Jenny’d never do that!”

  “I tell you she did. She offered to give her money if she’d go away and promise never to come back. She’s gone away penniless. And Jenny needn’t trouble about her coming back. I should think she’d die before she’d come—I should think she’d starve.”

  “No, no, sir—it wouldn’t never come to that!”

  “Why wouldn’t it? You’re all the same—you don’t really care what happens to her. But it’s unpleasant to think of anyone starving, so you don’t think about it. It’s quite simple and easy. You say, ‘Oh no, it could never come to that;’ and you just don’t think about it.”

  Mrs. Jones began to weep.

  “No one’s never brought it up against me that I didn’t do my duty,” she said in a weak, confused voice.” No one’s never said it, nor no one’s never thought it, nor had any call to—and I’ve been in the nursery since I was thirteen—and only a year married when Jones was taken, and me with Mary Ann six weeks old, and her ladyship expecting Mr. Tom—and glad and proud I was to go back to her and take the baby.”

  “Look here—” said John.

  “Her ladyship never looked to a thing, she’d that confidence in me. And there’s no one can ever say she thought different, or had any call to think different. Mr. Courtney, and Mr. Tom, and Miss Jenny, and Miss Anne—I took them all from the month. And I left my own child to strangers, and never grudged it. And there’s no one can say I didn’t love them all as well as if they’d been my own, and better—Mary Anne, she casts it up at me to this day that I loved them better.”

  John put up his hand and stopped her.

  “There, that’s enough. Sit down!”

  Mrs. Jones drew a long, surprised breath. Then she sat down.

  CHAPTER XIX

  If anyone had told Mrs. Jones that within half an hour of entering her daughter’s parlour she would be meekly taking orders from “that there Sir John” and gazing at him with a submission hitherto reserved for Sir Anthony, she would certainly not have believed him. Nevertheless when John said “Sit down!” she hastened to obey, and, having obeyed, sat looking at him in reverential awe.

  John did not speak for a moment; he glowered. Then he said:

  “That’s enough about all that. I want you to go back to the time before Lady Marr was married. She went to town to stay with Mrs. Courtney, and you and Miss Anne came up for a couple of days. Is that so?”

  Mrs. Jones nodded. Then she sniffed, and nodded again.

  “Everything was so ’appy,” she said. “Who’d ha’ thought it?”

  John had pulled his chair up to the table. He tapped impatiently upon it now.

  “I want to hear just what happened.”

  “It was all so ’appy. Oh, deary me! Who’d ha’ thought the way things was going to turn?”

  “Just tell me from the beginning and go right on You came up to town with Anne—”

  “We came up on the Tuesday, and we went with Miss Jenny to see ’er wedding-dress tried on. Miss Jenny, she knew as I was dying to see it, and she fixed it so as I could come to the fitting. And there she was, looking as beautiful as a queen, and me and Miss Anne and the dressmaker—a foolish French piece with the shamelessest red lips as ever I saw in all my days—all with our breath fair taken away at how lovely she looked. The dress wasn’t nothing to the lovely way she looked, though it was a very ’andsome dress and made beautiful.”

  John tapped again, and Mrs. Jones went on hurriedly:

  “There we was, and Miss Jenny the loveliest thing I ever saw, and all of a sudden something come to me, and I said, ‘Why, Miss Jenny, my dear, where’s your pearls?’ And Miss Jenny she colours up quick, and she says, ‘I don’t want any pearls on my wedding day, Nanna. Pearls are tears, you know, and we’re all going to be much too happy to cry.’ I looked round at Miss Anne, and I saw she looked anxious like. And it’s come over me many times since that that was the first time that trouble and pearls came into my mind together—but, dear knows, there were tears enough before we’d done!”

  John sat in a frowning silence for what seemed a long time. Curiously irrelevant this story of Jenny, and her wedding-dress, and her “pearls are tears”—irrelevant and haunting.

  “What were these pearls of Jenny’s?” he said at last.

  “Sir Nicholas give them to her when they were engaged, and I don’t know that I ever saw her leave them off before.”

  “She doesn’t wear them now,” said John slowly.

  “No, sir, I’ve noticed she don’t.”

  “Has she still got them to wear?” John did not know that he was going to say this until he heard himself saying it.

  “Oh yes, sir, she’s got them,” said Mrs. Jones in rather a surprised voice. “Last time I was
down there she’d her jewel-case open, and I took ’em out and let ’em slip through my fingers—they’ve a wonderful smooth feeling—and I said, ‘Don’t you never wear ’em, my dear?’ And she said, ever so sad, ‘Oh no, Nanna, I can’t.’”

  “Why?” John shot the word at her rather sharply.

  “Because of Miss Anne. Oh, sir, you don’t know how cruel she took it to heart, or you wouldn’t ask. Night after night there’d be her pillow soaking wet, and in the morning she’d put rooge on her cheeks so as no one should know as she’d been crying the best part of the night.”

  “All right—go on. Tell me what happened next day.”

  “We was going home, back to Waveney, Miss Jenny and all, and Miss Jenny came to fetch Miss Anne to have her bridesmaid’s dress fitted.”

  “Wait a moment,” said John. “Jenny came to the hotel? How did she come?”

  “She came in a taxi, and she ran in all of a hurry, and she said, ‘Come on, Anne, I’ve got a taxi waiting.’ And she kissed me and said, ‘We’ll meet you at the station, Nanna,’ and she went off with Miss Anne. And many’s the time since I’ve wished Miss Anne ’ad kissed me. But there, it was always Miss Jenny that had the loving ways.”

  Jenny’s loving ways left John singularly cold.

  “And then?” he said.

  “I went to the station, and I waited there. And just on the tick of the time Miss Jenny runs up and pulls me into a carriage and bangs the door. I put my head out and called to the porter as I’d engaged—a nice, curly-headed young man, he was, and put me in mind of my brother Joseph’s youngest—and I caught his eye and saw the luggage safe. Then I turned round, and there was Miss Jenny, all of a tremble. ‘You shouldn’t run so ’ard,’ I said; and with that she began to cry like a broken-’earted thing. ‘Where’s Miss Anne?’ I said, and she went on crying till she frightened me, so presently I took her by the shoulder pretty ’ard, and I said, ‘Where’s Miss Anne?’ And she sort of come to herself and stopped crying.”

  “What did she tell you about Anne?”