Anne Belinda

by Patricia Wentworth

  “But—how? I—don’t understand. How did you, how could you, know it was me?”

  “It was your hand.”

  “My hand?”

  “When it came over my shoulder and you said ‘Barley-water.’”

  “But how could you recognize my hand? You’ve never seen it—you’ve never seen me.”

  “Oh yes, I have.”

  They had come to the end of Malmesbury Terrace. The traffic of the full High Street went by them like a river in flood. Anne stopped by the wall of the last grey house.

  “When?” she said. “When did you see me? Tell me.”

  John felt a curious reluctance to tell her. His colour rose; then a sparkle came into his eyes.

  “You promised to cry for me if I was killed.”

  “I did?”

  “Nine years ago—at Waveney.”

  “But I never saw you before to-day.”

  “You’re forgetting yesterday,” said John, “—and another time—and nine years ago at Waveney, when you promised faithfully that you would cry.”

  “I—promised? Oh!” A very faint and far off memory stirred. “Were—you—wounded?”

  He nodded.

  “I had a crocked leg. It was in ’17. I was due to go back in a week, and I thought I’d like to have a look at Waveney—I’d never seen it. And we talked. You asked me if I had any relations, and when I said ‘No,’ you seemed awfully bucked and said that was splendid, because then it wouldn’t matter about my being killed.”

  “Oh, I didn’t!”

  “Yes, you did. You were frightfully serious about it. And then you were afraid you’d hurt my feelings, and you promised you’d be sorry.”

  Rather a charming remembering look came over Anne’s face. She looked younger—a little shy, confused; but her eyes were arch.

  “Was it you? How dreadful of me! But—” The archness died. “Courtney and Tom had gone. We’d been all smashed up. My father never really got over it. I suppose I was thinking how horrible it was for the people who didn’t get killed.”

  “I suppose you were, poor kid.”

  “But still I don’t see how you knew me.”

  “It was the little mole on your hand. I noticed it the first time I saw you; and somehow I remembered it. And when I saw you again—”

  “Last night?”

  “No, not last night.”

  “When?” She looked a little startled. A few minutes ago he had been just a name—an unknown kinsman who had stepped into her brothers’ inheritance through the tragic fortune of war; yet suddenly there was a nine years’ memory between them. She was talking to him on a deep, intimate note, and to both of them the intimacy was as natural as if they had shared the same nursery; it was the sense of kinship that was so strong.

  “When did you see me again?”

  “I don’t think I can tell you that. You didn’t see me.”

  Anne turned so pale that he was shocked. What did she think? What had he made her think? He said quickly:

  “Don’t! I saw you at Waterdene. You’d had a bit of a shock—you didn’t see me.”

  Very dimly, Anne remembered that there had been someone. She had held on to someone. She had been faint, and giddy, and blind; and she had held on to someone and said: “Don’t let them come!”

  “Was that you?”

  The roaring traffic went by as they stood on the edge of it. When everyone is busy and hurried, two people can be very much alone.

  “Yes. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You didn’t see me. And I didn’t mean to tell you, but you looked as if you thought—as if you thought—”

  “Thank you,” said Anne. “You—were—kind.” She drew rather a fluttering breath. Her own thoughts were shaking her; it had come to her suddenly and horribly that he might have seen her in the dock. She moved forward with quickening steps. She hated the place where the thought had come to her.

  They came out into the full roar of the High Street.

  “Do you know the way?”

  “No—I must ask.”

  She turned and spoke to a woman with a pram.

  “She says we have to cross over. The post office is just where that tram is stopping. I do hate crossings.”

  A year inside high walls leaves one sensitive to noise and rush. Anne stepped off the pavement, and had to struggle with a desire to run. Trams were so dreadfully sudden, and the noise they made—the sort of mingled whirr and clang—was like the sound of some relentless, uncontrollable machinery. Anne hated machinery. She had once been taken over a large factory, and she had come out white and shaking.

  She had not taken two steps before she felt John’s hand under her elbow. He took her across in such a cheerful, businesslike manner that she was unable to be angry. He must have seen that she was a fool about crossings. If she had an ounce of spirit she would be angry with him.

  She decided that her spirit was broken, and looked up at him with laughing eyes.

  “Noble preserver!” she said, and slipped into the post office with the parcel.

  She came back looking rather alarmed.

  “It’s frightfully late. We must hurry. I mean I must hurry. You’d better not come.”

  He piloted her across the road before he answered. It was frightfully nice to be taken over crossings. It was like old times, when the boys used to take her about with them.

  On the far pavement she turned to him and said good-bye.

  “I’m coming to the bottom of the road.”

  “You’d better not.”

  “I haven’t nearly finished all the things I’ve got to say. As a matter of fact I haven’t begun. Look here, when do you get out? I mean really out, not just a rush round to the post.”

  “We have rushed awfully—haven’t we?”

  “Absolutely flown! Look here, when do you go out?”

  “Thursdays, I believe.”

  “To-day is Thursday.”

  “Yes, but you don’t get out when you’ve just come. It’ll be next Thursday.”

  “How absolutely rotten! What about Sunday? I’m sure parlour-maids go out on Sunday, because I used to go to Sunday supper with my cousin, Letitia Ramsbotham, and she always used to say ‘I’ve no maids on Sunday, so we’ll wait on ourselves.’ And I know she had two, and one of them was a parlour-maid.”

  Anne burst out laughing.

  “What a frightful lot you know! I’m to get every other Sunday afternoon and evening, and it doesn’t begin till Sunday week.”

  “Well, when does Thursday afternoon begin? I mean what time do you get out?”

  “Oh, after lunch, when I’ve cleared away and washed up.”

  “Two o’clock?”

  “Goodness no! Nearer three!”

  “I’ll be at the bottom of the road at half-past two. Look here, you’re walking most frightfully fast—I can’t keep up.”

  Anne took no notice of this. She said: “You’ll probably have to wait,” and then coloured. “You oughtn’t to meet me.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “It would be much better if you didn’t—much better for both of us. I’m not Anne Waveney any more; I’m Annie Jones.”

  “Then I’ll meet Annie Jones.”

  Anne had spoken without looking at him. Now she turned her head a little, and the ghost of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

  “Annie Jones will lose her place if she is seen walking out with a wicked baronet.”

  “If you’re Annie Jones, I’m Annie Jones’ cousin. Anyone can walk out with their cousin. Anyhow I’ve got to see you. There’s a whole lot of business to talk over.”

  They had come to the lower end of Ossington Road.

  “I must go,” said Anne quickly. “But there’s one thing—”

  “What is it?”

  “You—won’t—”

  “Of course I won’t. What is it?”

  “You won’t tell anyone I’m here? Promise you won’t tell anyone.”

  John looked a
t her clear and hard.

  “You’ll have to give me a promise in exchange. I won’t tell anyone you’re here if you’ll give me your word that you won’t run away again.”

  “I don’t want to run away.”

  “Promise you won’t then.”

  “I won’t—till after Thursday.”

  John took her hand in his. It was too thin. It was much too thin.

  “I promise not to tell anyone where you are till after Thursday,” he said.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Anne hurried back to the flat. When she had changed into her uniform she went into the tiny kitchen. A rich smell of curry rather more than filled it. There was a newspaper on the floor. The dishes which had been used for lunch were piled higgledy-piggledy in the sink, and the curry saucepan, clogged with congealed sauce, stood on the drip board.

  Mrs. Brownling was sitting at the kitchen table playing patience. She was a middle-aged woman with a plump, pale face, vague, shifty eyes, and a fuzz of oddly coloured light hair, which she wore after the fashion of the nineties, in a deep curled fringe with a net over it.

  She had served a short sentence for shop-lifting some years before, and now drifted incompetently in and out of the households of the very charitably minded or those who could get no other cook.

  “Am I late?” said Anne.

  “Black on red—seven—eight—nine—there aren’t any tens in this pack. Late? Back in a flash I should have said. And why not stay out whilst you are out?”

  “It’s tea-time,” said Anne, filling the kettle.

  “Ten of clubs—now what in the world’s the use of the ten of clubs? Tea-time? Well, there’s only him in if it is. You go easy, my dear, and don’t flurry yourself. He wouldn’t notice if he didn’t get his tea this side of midnight. Or if he did notice he wouldn’t say anything—not if he was starving.”

  Anne laughed.

  “I think he’s kind.”

  “Jack,” said Mrs. Brownling—“jack of spades.” She paused with the card in her hand. “I knew a gentleman once, a friend of my poor husband’s, that used to call it the jack of diggers. He was a very amusing gentleman, but not—not quite, you know. My marriage was a bit of a comedown altogether, my father being a clergyman and all. Queen of hearts—king of clubs—that finishes that.”

  Anne was glad to hear it, for she was wondering where on the littered table she was going to cut bread and butter for tea.

  “Sweetly pretty vicarage I was brought up in, too.” Mrs. Brownling began to gather up the cards, which were very dirty, broken-backed, and dog’s-eared. “I’m sure I never thought in those days that I’d come down to this.” She began to shuffle the cards in a slow, meditative way. “My husband was in business—did I tell you? Nothing low. But a shop’s a shop, and I was brought up a perfect lady. I’m sure I couldn’t make a bed, or mend a stocking, or cook a potato when I was twenty.”

  Anne arranged the bread and butter which she had cut. She might have remarked that Mrs. Brownling could not cook a potato now. She smiled instead, and began to make the tea.

  “Oh, deary me!” said Mrs. Brownling. “You never know your luck—do you? Some go up, and some go down. You take my advice and look out for a comfortable, easy-going widower that’s tired of being run by his mother-in-law. That’s where a girl can get her chance. And the children needn’t be anything of a bother if you know how to manage. Get ’em off to school, and get your house and your husband to yourself. There! That’s real good advice.” She shot the cards across the table as she spoke, and laughed a foolish, rather unsteady laugh.

  Anne went out of the room with the tray. Mrs. Brownling was a trial. The kitchen table was always littered with her dirty, greasy cards. She could not so much as boil an egg without producing a complete state of disorder; and she never washed up a plate, dish, or saucepan until she had run through the whole stock. Anne had to share a bedroom with her—a bedroom in which most of Mrs. Brownling’s personal possessions lay about on the floor. She took an interminable time to dress and undress, and she talked continually, pouring out muzzy, variable tales of former greatness. Sometimes she was the daughter of a clergyman, sometimes of a doctor, or a solicitor. Towards midnight she would occasionally hint at an aristocratic descent crossed by the bar sinister. This flight of fancy invariably ended in tears.

  Anne found it all extremely trying. She never had any privacy; she had to live in the closest possible association with a dirty, foolish person; and nothing would induce Mrs. Brownling to sleep with the window open. There were moments when she regretted Holloway.

  On Friday morning she took in a type-written envelope addressed to Miss Annie Jones. It was from John. He wrote:

  “DEAR ANNE,

  “I didn’t give you my address. I meant to—it was awfully stupid of me to forget. Mind you let me know if you want anything. And don’t forget about your promise, or about Thursday. I shall be just round the corner at a quarter past two.

  “Yours,

  “J. M. W.”

  Anne locked the letter up in her suitcase. It was the first nice letter she had had for more than a year.

  “No one writes to me,” said Mrs. Brownling with an injured sniff. “But it was different when I was a girl. Girls don’t seem to attract young men now like they used to. Did I tell you, dear, how I used to drive my father on his rounds in a nice, high-stepping dogcart with the wheels picked out in red? He was a doctor, you know, in a very good practice up in the north. And I’m sure you wouldn’t believe the letters I used to get from young men. Did you say your letter was from your young man?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Anne.

  “Now I thought it was a man’s writing.”

  Anne laughed outright.

  “Why, it was typed!”

  “I always had a good eye for a young man,” said Mrs. Brownling complacently.

  On Saturday there was another letter:

  “DEAR ANNE,

  “I don’t think I gave you my telephone number. It might be useful for you to have it in case there was anything you wanted me for in a hurry. I hope you would ring up if there was.

  “Yours,

  “J. M. W.

  “P.S.—The best time to ring me up would be at breakfast-time, because I’m always in at breakfast.”

  It was Mrs. Fossick-Yates who gave Anne the third letter on Monday. She looked at it first, and read the post-mark. Then she said, “Typewritten,” in the sort of voice in which counsel for the prosecution might present a particularly damning piece of evidence.

  Anne didn’t say anything. She took the letter and turned away; her finger-tips tingled a little. How foolish of him to write again—how terribly foolish! It must be confessed that she did not find the folly altogether unpleasant.

  This time John wrote:

  “DEAR ANNE,

  “I hope you haven’t forgotten about Thursday. I think I’ll be there at two o’clock; because if they lunch at one, that would give you loads of time to get cleared up.

  “Yours,

  “J. M. W.”

  Half an hour later, when Anne was polishing the dining-room table, Mrs. Fossick-Yates sailed into the room and assumed a majestic pose on the hearthrug.

  “One moment, Jones.”

  Anne straightened herself. The rubbing had brought a little colour to her cheeks. She wore a blue print dress, the value of which was to be deducted from her wages.

  “Er—Jones,” said Mrs. Fossick-Yates.

  “Yes, madam?”

  “I think you should realize the—er—importance of dissociating yourself once and for all from any—er—connections you may have formed in earlier and less desirable surroundings.”

  Anne said nothing.

  “Correspondence with former associates is not a thing which I should expect you to encourage.”

  Anne looked at her across the shining table. Why was she so horrid? Why couldn’t she be decent? The first sharp stab of anger was gone. It just seemed silly, and a pity.
r />   “Answer me, please!” said Mrs. Fossick-Yates.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I should like an undertaking that you will not correspond with your old associates whilst you are under my roof. I cannot help knowing that you receive letters daily, and I think it only kind to caution you. I will say no more.”

  Mrs. Brownling said a good deal more:

  “What coloured eyes has he got, my dear? Tell me that, and I’ll tell you whether he’s got a constant disposition. The first gentleman I was engaged to had the most lovely hazel eyes you ever saw; and he threw me over to marry a titled lady. I never saw a man so put about as my poor father was. He’d had losses, and bad ones, that week—I told you he was on the Stock Exchange—and I thought there would have been murder done, which isn’t a thing that any young lady would like to have her name mixed up in, and so I told him.”

  CHAPTER XXV

  There was no letter from John on Tuesday. Mrs. Brownling appeared to be aware of the fact. She sighed heavily every time Anne came into the kitchen.

  “I wouldn’t take it to heart if I were you, dear. There’s better fish in the sea than ever came out of it.”

  “I’m not taking anything to heart,” said Anne laughing.

  “There’s many a broken heart that’s hid by a smiling face,” said Mrs. Brownling, letting all the potato peel fall upon the kitchen floor. She peeled potatoes so badly that it was all that Anne could do not to take the knife out of her hand and do them herself. A potato that had passed through the hands of Mrs. Brownling was a gashed and mutilated object of about a third its original size.

  “Not but what a broken heart’s a hard thing to put up with,” she continued, dropping the potato. “I remember when I was engaged the second time, I thought I’d never get over it—after it was broken off I mean. He wasn’t handsome; but he had a way with him. And when he stopped writing, which he did quite sudden, I’m sure if ever a girl had a broken heart, I did. So I can feel for you, dear.”

  “There’s nothing to feel about. Do you want this potato?”

  “Put it in with the others. Well, dear, I won’t say you’re not right to be proud. Talk about pride, I’d an uncle, an army officer, that was almost too proud to live—military manners and a moustache, and all the girls after him. My poor mother worshipped him, but my father didn’t hold with the army. He said lawyers saw too much of what came of it—He’d a very good law business that he came into from an uncle.”