Anne Belinda (29 page)

“I'm going,” said John. He went to the door and spoke in clear, deliberate tones: “I haven't said anything, Jenny. Why did you think I had? It's up to you. I told you so in my letter.”

Then he went out and shut the door behind him.

Jenny took a shuddering breath. She let go of Nicholas and stood back a pace. He hadn't spoken. How much had she said? What was she to say now?

As the thought went through her mind, Nicholas looked at her, and she had hard work to keep from crying out.

“Explain,” he said.

“I—Nicko—” She put her hand to her throat.

“That is hardly an explanation.”

“Nicko—I—”

“Your very tactful cousin having removed himself, I'm afraid I must ask you for something a little more to the point.”

Jenny gazed at him dumbly. It was worse than the worst of her dreams.

“What does it mean?” said Nicholas.

“I—” Her voice failed.

“John Waveney wrote you a letter. Where is it?”

She moved her head very slightly, as if to deny the letter.

“I imagine it shed some light on the situation. Will you show it to me?” Again that very slight movement of the head. “I think you have it—pockets aren't meant to hide things nowadays. Will you give it to me?”

Sheer terror opened Jenny's lips:

“Nicko, I can't!” Then, as he reached forward and took the letter from her pocket, she gave a little broken cry and shrank away.

Nicholas straightened out the letter without looking at it.

“I shall not read it without your permission. But I think you can hardly refuse your permission. You see, I'm bound to have an explanation. You seem unable to give me one. There remains the letter—and your cousin. Either I read this letter, or I ask John Waveney to tell me its contents. It's whichever you prefer, of course.”

Jenny went back a pace, struck against the writing chair, and sat down. The fight was gone out of her. There was no one to help her. Nicko would never forgive her. She felt a great longing for Anne. She laid her arms on the back of the chair and dropped her head on them.

“Am I to read the letter?” said Nicholas in that icy voice.

Jenny just moved her head again. This time the movement said “Yes.”

She had no sooner moved than she would have given all the world to recall that despairing consent. If she had said “No,” he wouldn't be reading that dreadful letter—
now.
Her forehead was wet where it pressed against her arm. If she could only faint—if she could die, and escape from Nicko's eyes.

After a long, cold time, Nicko's voice, slow, measured, controlled:

“You're to tell me about Levinski's pearls. I'm waiting.”

He waited.

Jenny's mind, strung to the extreme of terror, was swept clear of conscious thought. When she and Anne were small they had been taught verses from a book that had belonged to their grandmother. One of these formal, stilted verses repeated itself over and over in the empty places of her mind:

“
Now, Jenny, I pray, put such feelings away,

And own that you acted amiss.

How sweet to be friends and make loving amends,

And end all our strife with a kiss!”

“Answer me!” said Nicholas in a voice that Jenny had never heard from anyone in her life.

The shock brought her head up and gave her back the power of speech.

“Was it you who took the pearls?” said Nicholas.

Of all the denials that had come so fast to Jenny's lips there was not one to serve her now. She said, “Yes. Why?” She put her hand to her neck as if she were feeling for the pearls that were not there. “Your pearls—you wanted them.”

“Mine? What do you mean?”

“You wanted them. I hadn't got them.”

“Will you explain?”

Jenny went on looking at him with eyes that saw nothing—blank brown eyes like shallow peat-water.

“I had to have some money. I couldn't ask anyone. I pawned your pearls.”

When she had said this, Jenny shivered under the contempt in his eyes.

“You told me Anne took your pearls and pawned them. That wasn't true?”

Jenny shook her head.

“You pawned them yourself, and when I went on asking for them you took Levinski's. Were you going to pass them off on me as mine?”

“I don't know—I didn't think—it was so easy to take them—I just did it.”

“I see. And you let Anne take the blame?”

“She did it,” said Jenny. “Anne's always—always—” She broke off with a little bitter cry of “Anne!” and dropped her head on her arms again.

Nicholas stood quite still. He had never liked Anne. Jenny was his, and he would share her with no one. Anne's likeness to her was an offence; Anne's love for her a claim. In his intolerable humiliation his anger against Anne was a relief. There was murder in his heart for Anne. What there was for Jenny he didn't know—contempt, colder than anger; resentment, far more bitter than a blow.

He said, very low, “You rotten little outsider!” and went out of the room without looking back.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Nicholas came back to Waterdene in the dusk. The rain had ceased; it was a clear, grey evening with streaks of saffron in the west. He had driven furiously for hours. He came home now for no reason except that one cannot go on driving for ever.

Emmot, the butler, met him in the hall, a comfortable, rotund man who had been for twenty years at Waterdene, and to whom Nicholas was still secretly Master Nick.

“Her ladyship—we've been a bit troubled about her ladyship.”

For an instant Nicholas went cold.

“What's the matter?”

“Nurse wanted to send for the doctor, but I said better wait till you came home.”

“What's the matter?”

“Her ladyship's been sitting in the study ever since you went away. Nurse can't get her to move—not even for Master Tony. She and Harman are very much upset.”

Nicholas shed his coat.

“Her ladyship's had bad news—we both have. I'll go to her.”

“Nurse did get her to take some tea. I didn't think you'd want the doctor sent for till you came home.”

“No—quite right.”

He came into the study with his mood violently wrenched. Public opinion—no getting away from it. Servants, friends, relations, Press—you couldn't live your life, meet tragedy or disaster, in a decent privacy.”

He had thrown his bitter contempt at Jenny and flung off. He came back to Emmot's concern, to what nurse and Jenny's maid, Harman, were thinking—to public opinion in his own household.

Jenny was sitting just as he had left her. Harman, frightened and excited, was at the far end of the room. She went out as he came in, with just one scared look over her shoulder.

As the door shut Jenny lifted her head from her arms. She looked as if she had been crying for hours. The light from the reading-lamp upon the table touched the edges of her hair with gold. The curtains had been drawn, and the room was in darkness except for that one lamp.

Nicholas put up his hand to the switch and turned on the light in the ceiling.

“I thought you'd gone,” said Jenny.

“I've come back.”

He went to the fireplace and stood there, one arm on the mantelshelf, his face dark and expressionless. His eyes avoided Jenny.

“Why did you do it?”

“I told you.”

“You wanted money. Why?”

The thought of the money had been like poison all those hours.

“I had to have it.” Jenny's voice was very faint and exhausted.

“How much was it?”

“Five hundred pounds.”

“You had to have five hundred pounds. You were being blackmailed?”

Jenny choked on a cry.

“You were being blackmailed?”

“Who—told you?”

“It was fairly obvious. Perhaps you'll tell me why.”

Jenny pushed back her hair. Nicholas felt a strange, sharp stab. She had looked like that when they let him see her after Tony was born.

“Are you going to tell me?” he said harshly.

Jenny got up. All her movements were stiff and slow. She held on to the chair, and said in a whispering voice:

“It wasn't anything really. But you won't believe that. Anne said to tell you; but I always knew that you wouldn't believe me. So I had to have the money.”

“I think you must tell me now.”

“It's no use. But it doesn't matter—it wasn't anything really. There was a man. I didn't know he was married. He was at Aunt Jenny's canteen. He made love to me. When he went back to the Front I wrote to him.”

“What did you write?”

“Just letters—nothing at all. He said he hadn't anyone to write to him.”

“Well?”

Jenny hesitated.

“Nicko—there wasn't anything.”

Nicholas said:
“Five hundred pounds.”
His hand rose for a moment, and then fell again. There was a certain finality about the gesture.

“It was when he was coming home on leave,” said Jenny quickly. “He wrote about our doing theatres and going to dances together. When I said Aunt Jenny wouldn't let me, he said she needn't know—I could stay at an hotel with him. And I wrote him letters about it. I didn't know, Nicko, I really didn't know—I thought it would be fun.”

“And you went?”

Jenny shivered at his voice.

“No, I didn't. He was killed.”

Nicholas was looking at her very hard.

“He was killed. And they sent his things home to his wife—they sent her my letters. Nicko, she was a most dreadful woman. She saw my picture in the paper after we were engaged, and she came to see me, and said if I didn't buy my letters from her she'd show them to you. And when I said I hadn't any money, she said, ‘What about those pearls you're wearing?' That's what made me think about the pearls. Anne said I ought to tell you—she always said so. She said you'd believe me. But I couldn't do it.”

“How old were you?” said Nicholas abruptly.

“Sixteen. Nicko, I
didn't
know.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I couldn't. I minded—so much—what you thought. I cared so much, I couldn't.”

She sat down again as if the strength to stand was gone.

Nicholas found himself believing her. He said:

“Have you told me everything, Jenny?”

“I think so”—her voice sounded very tired—“I think I have.” Then, after a long pause: “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you going to send me away?”

Separation, and a hundred tongues wagging over their affairs; a hypothetical lover for Jenny, or a mistress for himself; Jenny alone and lonely—there would be plenty ready enough to proffer consolation. Nicholas knew his world very well; he was able to see Jenny's future very distinctly. If their separation was to be final there would be only one result; if temporary, what was there to be gained except a liberal spattering of mud? His mind, working coolly, discarded these solutions. Something fine in him recognized a debt to Anne, whom he disliked, and an obligation to Jenny, whom he loved. He did not feel that he loved her, but he knew it in the clear, cold places of thought. He knew that he could not separate from her, because she had never needed him so much. The need irked him, but it compelled him too.

Jenny had been watching him with eyes in which hope had drowned. He would send her away. He would take Tony away from her. She had lost Anne; now she was going to lose Nicko and Tony. It was her punishment. No one would ever love or admire her again. Everything was going from her except the power to suffer. She thought then of Anne, who had lost everything and been alone.

She went on looking at Nicholas.

After a long time he came over to her, frowning.

“We must have Anne here,” he said. “They must be married from here.”

That was a strange thing for him to say. Jenny thought how strange it was. Anne would be here, but Jenny would be gone. She felt puzzled about it.

“We'd better do it with a splash,” said Nicholas, still frowning. “Ask everyone, and go the limit.”

Jenny put up her hand and touched his sleeve.

“Aren't you going to send me away, Nicko?”

“What would be the good? You're my wife. We've got to stick it out.”

Jenny held his sleeve.

“Nicko—”

“We've got to make the best of things. You're worn out. We'd better have a meal.”

He pulled away from her and went over to the bell.

Jenny sat back in her chair. Everything seemed to have come to a stop. She heard the door open and she heard Nicholas speaking:

“Emmot! We want something to eat. It's too late for dinner. I think something on a tray in here—soup and something cold. Her ladyship's a little faint.”

The door shut again. Nicholas lit a cigarette.

CHAPTER XL

John came into the drawing-room of Aurora's flat at a little after seven o'clock. He found Anne alone—Anne rather pale, in a blue and silver dress. She turned to meet him with an anxious “What has happened?”

“You look ripping in that dress,” said John.

Anne caught him by the arm.

“John—please—
please,
what has happened?”

“I don't know.”

“Haven't you been down?”

“Yes, I've been down. They'd been away for the week-end—Jenny had only just got my letter. I cleared off because I thought I'd be in the way whilst she was telling Nicholas.”

Anne's hands dropped.

“She won't tell him,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes, she will. As a matter of fact she had practically told him. She lost her head a bit and said things, and I came away. You will hear from them to-morrow, I expect. Anne darling, don't look like that!”