“Haven’t been rouging, have you, dear? It’s fashionable enough, as everyone can see—and I won’t say it don’t brighten some faces up a bit—but in my young days, if you said rouge, you said the scarlet woman, and that was all about it. I remember when I was engaged to a gentleman of the name of Higgs that was in a soap-chandler’s business and afterwards did very well in the wholesale, there was a very handsome lady that lived no more than three doors down from us. It was when my poor father was on the staff of the British Museum and overworking something shocking. They were nice little houses, though steep in the stair and a wicked basement. Well, Mr. Higgs put his foot in it—and I must say he might have had more sense. Right in the middle of Sunday supper he comes out with ‘What a handsome neighbour we’ve got! A fine woman,’ he says, ‘a dashed fine woman—dashed fine eyes, dashed fine complexion!’ You should have seen how my father looked. I told you how strict he was. He opened his mouth; but my mother got in first. She was a Miss Smith from Brighton, and very quick with her tongue. ‘The lady’s eyes may be her own, but her complexion isn’t,’ she says. And my father says: ‘Silence, Matilda!’ And then he says to Mr. Higgs: ‘Profanity and immorality are disapproved of by me, sir.’ And after that there were some un-pleasant remarks passed on both sides, and in the end it came to my engagement being broken off which I dare say was all for the best, for he’d a shocking high temper, and it’s better to find it out before than after.”
Anne rubbed hard at spoons and forks and a coffee-pot. Part of her laughed and part cried, and a part of her was angry with John. She said “Wretch!” to herself, and rubbed the coffee-pot very hard indeed.
CHAPTER XXXIV
It rained on Sunday. The sort of sky that looks as if it had been born grey and meant to die weeping hung low and dark over London; the rain came down with a hard monotony that never slackened or varied in the least; there was no wind. It was a very discouraging day.
“Can’t say you’re favoured, dear,” said Mrs. Brownling, as Anne cleared away lunch. “Will he come and meet you? Some wouldn’t. But I don’t think much of a young man that’s afraid of getting his feet wet; puts me in mind of a cat, and makes me feel like saying ‘Poor pussy!’ Will he come, d’you think?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Anne impatiently.
Mrs. Brownling put back a straggle of hair with a hand that left a black mark all across her cheek.
“Go on, Annie!” she said. Then she chuckled.
It annoyed Anne to have to put on the grey coat and skirt. She slipped her blue coat over it and, after a last disgusted look at the weather, pulled on her black felt hat. If John were a reasonable person he wouldn’t expect her—especially after she had said she wouldn’t come. She had made up her mind not to go, and she wouldn’t go if it were not that John was perfectly capable of carrying out his threat and coming to the flat for her. With the drawing-room door next to the hall door, and Mrs. Fossick-Yates reading the Sunday papers on the other side of that door, the prospect of Sir John Waveney being overheard asking Annie Jones why she had failed to meet him was a really terrifying one.
Anne stamped her foot, put on her hat without looking in the glass, and then, when she had reached the door, turned back and put it on all over again, looking at herself carefully from every angle and making a number of minute adjustments. This took about ten minutes.
In the end she found herself hurrying down Ossington Road in a panic lest John should have got impatient and have started to meet her.
He was looking at his watch as she came round the corner.
“I suppose you know you’re late. You’re a frightfully unpunctual person. I can’t imagine why I want to marry you. I haven’t brought the car. We’re going to pick up a taxi at the other corner. I rang up Aurora, and we’re going to have tea at her flat.”
Anne stopped dead.
“No—I can’t!”
John took her by the arm and marched her along.
“I wish you wouldn’t go out of your way to be disagreeable. Isn’t the weather enough?”
“But—John—”
“Anne, you make me tired. Aurora isn’t there. Have you got that? Aurora has gone away for the week-end; the flat’s empty except for a parlourmaid called Horrocks, who is going to give us tea.”
Anne allowed herself to be piloted to a taxi. After all, they must have it out some time. She must find out what John knew, and make sure of his silence.
When you are very busy from morning till night, and very tired when you go to bed, it is possible to shut and lock away the things which don’t bear thinking of. Anne had made herself think about her work, about Mrs. Brownling, about the untidiness of the kitchen, and the harshness of Mrs. Fossick-Yates’ voice, and about how angry she was with John. These things, which had really no form or substance, could be made to fill her thought and keep it busy. Now all these pretences vanished away and left her with an empty space in front of a locked room in which were things which she was afraid to look at.
She sat quite silent in the taxi and stared through the window at the rain and the drenched streets—black umbrellas all wet and shiny, pavements like shallow running streams, a pillar-box scarlet as the book which John had sent her.
Aurora had coerced Horrocks into lighting a fire in the pale drawing-room. Horrocks didn’t hold with fires in May, especially with a coal strike on; but Aurora had prevailed.
John switched on the light in the tall gilt candlesticks with rose-coloured shades which stood on either side of the fireplace.
“Aurora says this is the least uncomfortable chair,” he said; and Anne was betrayed into a smile.
“How nice to be in a drawing-room again!” The words slipped out just above her breath.
John said “Damn!” with some violence. And then: “I’m sorry, Anne, but you’d make a hen canary swear.”
Anne’s dark blue eyes flashed a quick mischievous look at him. It made his heart jump. He stood on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, looking down.
“Now, Anne.”
“Well?”
Anne felt singularly disinclined to accept his challenge. Why couldn’t he let her dry her feet and sit peacefully by the fire with pink cushions at her back?”
She said “Well?” in a very half-hearted voice.
“I want you to leave Mrs. Fossick-Yates at once. I want you to come here and stay with Aurora whilst I arrange about our getting married.”
Anne drew a long sighing breath.
“We’re not going to get married.”
“Oh yes, we are. I’m not joking, you know—I’m dead serious.”
“So am I. I can’t marry you, John.”
“You know I love you—” He paused, and added, “Very much.”
Anne did not speak. The last two words had touched some secret spring of joy and pain; she could not trust herself to speak. If John would be angry, it would be so much easier. It was when he was so dear that she could not find the words to send him away.
“Anne, get up!”
He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her out of her chair.
“Now look me in the face and tell me, don’t you love me, too?”
Anne found courage. She looked him straight in the eyes and said “Yes.”
“Then—”
“I can’t marry you.”
“Yes, you can.”
He put her back in her chair.
“Sit down and listen.”
He knelt by her, one arm round her shoulders.
“Anne—darling—just listen, and you’ll see how easy it’s going to be. You’ll come here and stay with Aurora—it’s all fixed up. Any talk there’s been will die away as soon as you show yourself. Aurora said that at once. Most people think you’ve been in Spain with her as it is. It’ll all be quite easy. Then Nicholas and Jenny must play up; and you must put your darling pride in your pocket and stay with them just long enough for us to get married from there. That’ll stop everyone’s mouth.”<
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Anne felt herself at bay before her locked doors. She shook her head.
“I can’t—they won’t.”
John laughed harshly.
“Won’t they, by gum! I think they will. And if they don’t—”
“No—John!”
“If they don’t, I shall want to know who really took Levinski’s pearls.”
Anne wrenched herself from his arms and leaned back against the far corner of the chair.
“I took them—I told you I took them.”
“Did you? The girl who took them wore an emerald ring—Levinski noticed it particularly. It was such a handsome ring that it made him think the girl really wanted to buy pearls, not merely to look at them. Where’s your emerald ring, Anne?”
“I haven’t got one. You know that. I borrowed Jenny’s ring.”
“That’s a lie.”
Anne’s eyes blazed.
“Why shouldn’t a thief tell a lie? I borrowed Jenny’s ring.”
“And she lent it—her engagement ring?” He laughed. “Did she lend you her hair, too? Levin-ski didn’t notice her hair; but his assistant did. I found him day before yesterday—rather a susceptible young man with a noticing eye. He explained his carelessness by saying that the young lady had taken his fancy like. He said he was always struck on fair hair, and you didn’t often find it with brown eyes. Have you got fair hair and brown eyes Anne?”
“You’re making that up. He gave evidence.”
“Yes, I know he did. I think you took care that none of your hair showed that day; and I don’t suppose you looked at him. Did you? Anyhow, he was all of a doodah and only concerned with himself by that time. You see, he’d got the sack. No, Anne, you can’t get away with it. It was fair hair and brown eyes and an emerald ring that took the pearls. Fair hair and brown eyes and an emerald ring. Well, Anne, is that you? Or is it Jenny?”
Anne strained back in her corner, her face colourless, her eyes frightened—frightened. John put his arms about her and pulled her close.
“Anne darling—Anne darling, don’t look like that! Tell me about it. Won’t you?” Quite suddenly he dropped his head on her shoulder. “You can’t lie to me—I can’t stand it! And there’s no need to—I want to help you—Anne—” The words were all low and muffled.
She felt his shoulders shake. Her hand came up and began to stroke his hair. She said:
“John!”
He lifted his head. His face was wet.
“Tell me the whole thing, and we’ll find a way out together. There’s always a way out if you look for it. You haven’t been looking you know; you’ve just settled down to being a darling idiot of a martyr.”
“Oh! I haven’t!”
“Yes, you have. You’ve tied yourself up to your stake, and piled up lots of slow combustion fuel all round you, and settled down to being grilled for the rest of your life. And I won’t have it. You’ve got to come right off it and stay off it. I won’t stand any more of it. Now, will you tell me the whole story from the beginning?”
Anne was silent. Her hand had dropped back into her lap. She looked down at it, steadily, seriously.
John’s arms tightened about her.
“You’ve got to tell me. It won’t hurt Jenny, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’ve got proof against Jenny already. Look here, Anne, I’m not keeping anything back. I’ve seen pretty red about Jenny once or twice, and I’ve wanted her to be punished; I’ve wanted her to pay the last farthing; I’ve wanted her to feel everything you’ve felt, and suffer everything you’ve suffered.”
Anne set her hands against his shoulders as if to push him away.
“You mustn’t—you won’t.”
John bent and kissed the hands.
“I’ve got past that. I didn’t tell you, but she came to see me.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted to know where you were.”
“You didn’t—”
“No, of course not. She gave me a message for you.”
“You didn’t give it to me.”
“I think I’m a fool to give it to you now. I didn’t want to undermine you—you’re soft enough about Jenny as it is.”
“What did she say?”
“She said to give you her love—and little Tony’s love.”
“Oh!” said Anne. She put her hands to her face for a moment, then let them fall and looked at John with a shining look of happiness. “You don’t know—you don’t know what a difference that makes.”
“You’re easily pleased! Oh, Anne, what a blessed little fool you are! You’ve given Jenny everything, and you’re in the seventh heaven because she sends you her love!”
Anne laughed.
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. It’s because I understand that I’ve stopped wanting to punish Jenny. You’re such a little fool that I couldn’t hurt her without hurting you. I don’t want to hurt her; but I won’t have her hurting you. She and Nicholas have got to play up and make things easy for you.”
“Nicholas doesn’t know,” said Anne.
John whistled.
CHAPTER XXXV
“Nicholas doesn’t know; and Jenny’s afraid—she’s always been afraid.” Anne spoke quickly.
“Yes, I can see that. Look here, Anne, tell me the whole thing from the beginning.”
Anne looked past him into the fire. She had kept silence for so long that to break this silence seemed hard. She had never thought that she would tell anyone. Now she leaned against John’s arm and found words.
“It began a long time ago. You won’t understand unless I tell you from the beginning. I want you to understand so much because of Jenny.”
“I’ll try.”
“Jenny’s very loving—she’s all sunny and warm and loving. People love her, and she loves them—easily. I’m quite different. But Jenny’s always been like that—she’s got a loving nature.”
John’s face hardened and his jaw stuck out.
“You forget I saw you after you’d seen Jenny at Waterdene. You looked as if she’d killed you. What was her loving nature doing then?”
“She was frightened. It was my own fault—I’d no business to go down there. You see, I thought she would have told Nicholas—and she hadn’t. So naturally he wouldn’t have me there, and she was frightened.”
“Oh, naturally.” His tone was very dry. “Well, let’s get on. And, I say, darling, don’t try me too high—about Jenny’s virtues, or I shall say things. I can’t stand more than a certain amount.”
“Be good,” said Anne. “I can’t tell you anything unless you’re good.”
“I’m earning haloes all the time.”
“Go on earning them. If you don’t understand what Jenny’s like you won’t understand anything. I told you it began a long way back. It began really the last year of the war, when we were sixteen. Jenny was staying with Cousin Jenifer, and she got into a sort of love affair with a man she met at the canteen Cousin Jenifer worked in. I never saw him, so I can’t tell you what he was like. He wrote to Jenny, and she wrote to him. And by-and-by, when he was coming home on leave, he”—she hesitated—“he wrote and wanted Jenny to come up and meet him at an hotel. I don’t know how he dared; but people always thought Jenny was older than she really was, and—John, you will understand, won’t you?—Jenny was the sort of girl who doesn’t see any harm in anything. There are girls like that. It’s not just being innocent; it’s more like having a blind spot somewhere. She thought it would be just fun, and she wrote him three letters about it saying what fun they would have, and planning things to do with him. And then he was killed. I didn’t know anything about it for years afterwards—not until Jenny was engaged to Nicholas. Then her picture was in all the papers. And one day she came back from town in a perfectly dreadful state of mind. She’d been up staying with Cousin Jenifer for a week, and she said a woman had followed her and tried to blackmail her. She was frightfully upset, and she told me the whole story. The
woman had got the three letters she’d written to this man—they’d been sent home with his things. The woman said she was his wife, and she said that she’d show the letters to Nicholas unless Jenny bought them from her for five hundred pounds.
“John, I begged Jenny to tell Nicholas. I said he’d believe her, that any man who really cared for a woman would believe her. But she went off to town next day, and in the evening she came back with the letters, and we burnt them. She’d pawned the string of pearls which Nicholas had given her.”
“Little fool!” said John.
“My poor Jenny! She was in the wildest spirits. She laughed and sang and made me dance with her—the relief was so tremendous. She cared—she cares—so very, very much for Nicholas.”
“I can’t think why.”
Anne burst out laughing.
“Oh, John, how funny you are! You don’t care for people because you’ve got a reason for it.”
John said what he hadn’t meant to say:
“You certainly haven’t much reason to care for Jenny.” Then, as Anne winced, he cried out: “I’m a brute!” and caught her close and kissed her.
Anne kissed him back, with soft, reproachful kisses.
“You’re not being good. You promised to be good, and you’re not being a bit good.”
“It’s just as well you don’t love by reason,” said John.
“Are you going to be good?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try. Go on.”
“I don’t know where I’d got to.”
“That little ass Jenny had just pawned her pearls.”
Anne pushed him away and looked at him with laughing eyes that were suddenly swept by a shadow.
“Yes, she pawned them. She got five hundred pounds, and she was most awfully pleased about it. And then—you know the way things happen—Nicholas wrote and said he wanted her to go up and meet him in town, and she was to bring the pearls, because he was having them valued for insurance. They’d been his mother’s, and someone had just told him that the value of pearls had gone up tremendously. Jenny went all to bits when she got his letter. She’d bought a string of sham pearls to wear, and she’d had the real clasp put on to them. The pawnbroking man did it for her; he had the sham pearls in his shop, and he told her no one would know—I shouldn’t have known myself. And Jenny thought she could wear them, and then after she was married she could save enough money to get her own pearls back. Nicholas was making what Mr. Carruthers called ‘very handsome settlements.’ She thought it was all going to be quite easy, and when Nicholas’ letter came she couldn’t bear it. She sat on the floor with her head in my lap and just cried and cried. She said she couldn’t live if Nicholas found out. No, John—Jenny’s like that. I don’t mean to say that she’d do anything to herself; but I do think she’d die if the people she loved stopped loving her and thinking well of her and all that. She depends on it. I didn’t know what to say to her except that if she couldn’t tell Nicholas, couldn’t she tell Cousin Jenifer?”
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