Anne Belinda (5 page)

“Where's C'ractacus?” panted Justin.

“Bashed!” snorted the indignant Cyril. He heaved himself up, and felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

“Hullo!” said John. “What are you up to?”

“We're bashing his old toad.”

“Ever been bashed yourself?”

Cyril wriggled. Augustine looked sulky.

“He's gone into a hole—he isn't hurt. We were only getting a rise out of the kid. He blubs for nothing.”

Delia drifted up to the group.

“I thought you two were going out to tea. Why on earth can't you leave Justin alone?”

“It's only that beastly toad of his.”

Delia frowned.

“I don't care what it is. You're to leave him alone. And you're to leave his creatures alone. And if you want to go out to tea, it's time you went.” She spoke in very lofty and elder-sisterly tones.

Cyril twisted his shoulder out of John's hand and ran away, making faces and calling back over his shoulder, “Dilly-dally, shilly-shally, goody-goody Delia!” To which Augustine added gruffly, “Go and boil your head and be a parson!”

John watched them disappear into the house. It would have given him a good deal of pleasure to knock their heads together.

When they were out of sight, he turned round. The small, square Justin was squatting down by the bank, obviously engaged in an attempt to coax the offended Caractacus from his dug-out. Delia stood with her long neck craned forward over a book. He remembered that Anne Belinda had lent her books; it occurred to him that a conversation with Delia might be profitable. He addressed her, and she came out of her book with a frown.

“I must say good-bye to your mother. I'm afraid I came when she was busy.”

“She's always busy.” Delia's tone was calmly indifferent.

“Well, I'll just say good-bye to her. And then I thought perhaps you'd show me the short cut to the Hall. There is one, isn't there?”

“But you've got your car.”

“Er—yes. But perhaps you'd show me the short cut just the same. I could come back for the car.”

CHAPTER V

John made his farewells, and walked down the untidy garden with a sufficiently reluctant Delia. She had tucked her book under her arm, and it was obvious that her one desire was to get away from him and read it. John, on his part, had no intention of letting her go. He plunged straight into what he had to say:

“I want to talk about my cousin Anne. You knew her, didn't you?”

Delia looked up, startled. She had dark lashes and beautiful grey eyes. She said “Oh,” and then stopped. The boredom which had enveloped her like a fog was gone. She said “Oh,” and looked at him with all her eyes.

John congratulated himself.

“Well?” he said. “Tell me about her. I can't get anyone to talk about her—and I want to talk about her pretty badly.”

“Yes,” said Delia with her eyes still on his face.

“Nobody will tell me anything about her. I saw her once, and I want to see her again. I want to know where she is.”

A sort of mist came over Delia's eyes. She said with a gasp:

“I don't know—they won't tell me.”

“Have you asked?” said John quickly.

“It's no use. You've asked yourself, haven't you? Was it any use asking?”

“Not much.”

They had come to the bottom of the garden. A stone wall divided it from the churchyard; a yard or two to their right was a gate. John leaned against the wall.

“Look here,” he said, “I've got to find her. If you'll tell me everything you know, there might be something that would help. For instance, when did you see her last?”

She stood in front of him hugging her book.

“It was the fifteenth of April—a year ago. She was going to meet Jenny in London, and she came to say good-bye. And we walked down this path together, and I said good-bye to her here.” She jerked her head back and stared over his shoulder. “I don't like Jenny.” Then she laughed, not at all mirthfully. “I expect I had better call her Lady Marr now—she's that sort.”

John received an impression which he did not quite understand. He put it away in the back of his mind, to be analyzed later on.

“You said good-bye to Anne here on the fifteenth of April, a year ago. Did you think you were saying good-bye for a long time?”

Delia pushed back the hair that would straggle into her eyes.

“No, I didn't. I thought she was coming back in two days. She meant to come; but she didn't come. Jenny came back; but Anne never came at all. And they said she was ill, and that was why she couldn't go to the wedding. But I don't believe it.”

“Why don't you believe it?”

Delia laughed again.

“If she was ill, why didn't Jenny go to her? I don't like Jenny, but I shouldn't think anyone would leave their own twin all alone in London if they were ill. Or if Jenny didn't go, why didn't Mrs. Jones go? She was their nurse, and she stayed on and did maid to them both. And she was devoted to Anne. She wouldn't
ever
have left Anne to be ill all alone. I don't believe for a single moment that Anne was ever ill at all.”

This was better than Mrs. Thompson's hesitancies.

“If she wasn't ill, where was she?”

The eager look passed from Delia's face. She walked to the gate, opened it, and passed into the churchyard. Then she looked over her shoulder, hesitated, and came back to lean upon the gate.

“Why do you want to know about Anne?” she said slowly.

John found it hard to answer. The strength of his own determination was something which he did not attempt to account for; he only knew that it was there. After a silence that seemed to last a long time he said:

“I don't know—I've got to find her.”

Delia looked at him across the gate.

“If I tell you something—” she began. Then the dark colour came into her face, and she stopped and shook her head. “I'd better not.”

“Nonsense!”

“I'd better not. I—sometimes I think something dreadful must have happened.”

“Look here,” said John, “you tell me just what you know. I've got to find her.”

“Oh!” said Delia. It was a sharply in-drawn breath that was very nearly a sob. Her face twitched. “You
can
go and look for her—I can't. You've all the luck, and I think I hate you for it!” She spoke with an extraordinary restrained passion.

“What does it matter who finds her?” said John reasonably. “If you're fond of her—” He broke off. “Don't you see, my dear girl, you and I don't matter a brass farthing? We don't matter, and our feelings don't matter. What matters is—Anne Belinda.” His voice changed ever so little on the name. “Now, don't you think you'd better tell me what you know?”

Delia rubbed fiercely at the bony ridge of her nose. She believed firmly in this exercise as a specific against inconvenient tears; but in spite of it her eyes brimmed over.

“I don't know anything. But I'll tell you all the same. I came down to get a book. I thought everyone had gone to bed; but when I got to the study, there was a light under the door, so I listened, just to see if there was anyone there. I've got frightfully quick hearing, and I thought if Father was sitting up I should hear him move, or breathe, or fidget or something. You see, there was a chance that he'd just gone to bed and left the light on—he does sometimes. That's why I listened to start with. But just when I thought there wasn't anyone there, I heard Mother say, ‘Poor Anne!' and then I simply had to listen. I don't care how dreadful it was—I simply had to. You know what it is when you care for someone so that it hurts all the time.” Her voice went lower and lower. When she said, “it hurts all the time,” it was just a tragic whisper and her great eyes shone.

John forgot the queer angles and the haphazard features dominated by the high, red, bony nose. He felt an extraordinary response to this wave of tragic emotion.

She went on speaking just above her breath:

“I listened. Mother said, ‘It frightens me.' She said, ‘I daren't think what may have become of her.' Then she said, ‘Oh, Cyril!'—that's my father—and she began to cry.”

“What did your father say?”

“He didn't say anything for a bit, except ‘Now, Mary!' and things like that; but when she'd stopped crying, he said, ‘Why don't you ask Jenny point-blank?' And Mother said, ‘Oh, I couldn't!' And when he said, ‘Why on earth not?' she said, ‘What's the use? She'd only look sweet and tell me all over again that Anne was abroad and enjoying herself so much. And I couldn't bear it. No, Cyril, I really couldn't.'”

“And then?” said John.

“Then Father said, ‘We've nothing to go on—nothing at all.' And Mother began to cry dreadfully, and she said—” Delia stopped and put her hand to her mouth.

“Go on.”

“I can't.”

“Why can't you?”

She stared at him almost accusingly. There was black misery in her eyes.

“I can't.”

John came up close and put his hand on her arm. “Delia, you've got to tell me. I've got to know—I've got to find her.”

“She said—she was crying all the time—she said, ‘Oh, Cyril, why did Sir Anthony tell you never to say her name again?'” Delia choked, pulled her arm away, and spoke harshly: “That's what she said. What did she mean by it? Why wouldn't Sir Anthony let Father speak about Anne?”

“What did your father say?”

“He said, ‘My dear, I don't know.' That's what they all say, till I'm sick of hearing it. Somebody ought to know.”

John nodded.

“I'm going to. Did they say any more?”

“No. Mother cried a lot.”

There was a pause. The spring sunshine made everything about them look very bright and clear; the church tower stood up black against a turquoise sky. John tried to sort out the very little he had learned from the vague, misty confusion of what he could only guess at.

“Delia,” he said, “you say Jenny and Anne went to London, and Jenny came back alone. Something must have been said about Anne not coming back.”

“They said she'd missed her train. I saw Jenny, because I'd gone up to the Hall to change a book—Anne used to lend me books. And when I asked where Anne was, Jenny said, ‘Oh, she missed the train. She'll be down to-morrow.' But she wasn't—she never came at all.”

“What did they say then?”

“They said she was ill—they went on saying she was ill. And then they said she'd gone abroad to get strong. But I don't believe a word of it.”

“She might have been ill.” John looked down meditatively at the topmost bar of the gate. A rough splinter stood up on it. He pulled it off carefully, and then broke it into little bits and dropped them one by one upon a clump of primroses at his feet.

“She wasn't. She wasn't ill—I'm sure she wasn't—I know when Jenny's telling lies.” She gave her jerky laugh. “Jenny doesn't take me in a bit. When her voice goes sweet and she looks down under her eyelashes, I know she's telling lies every time.” She paused. “I'll tell you something though—Sir Anthony really did think she was ill—
at first.”
She laid a heavy emphasis on the words.

“How do you know that?”

“I met him just before the wedding, and he talked about it a lot; and he kept on saying how upset jenny was about Anne not being bridesmaid, and what an awkward time it was for Anne to be ill, but he hoped she'd be better soon, and then I must come and see her. I asked him if he'd seen her, and how she was. And he said, No—he couldn't get about much—it was all he could do to manage the wedding—and Anne wasn't allowed to see anyone; but Jenny or Mrs. Jones rang up every day and got the news, and he hoped she'd be better soon.”

John was recalling what Lewis Smith had said—Sir Anthony had altered his will within a month of the wedding; just before the wedding he was talking kindly and naturally of Anne; and then within a week or two her name was not to be mentioned, and he had altered his will. He frowned at the primroses and let fall the last tiny splinter of wood.

Delia had come closer.

“He said they rang up every day. He wasn't telling lies, poor old man; he really thought they did. But they didn't.”

“How do you know?” said John sharply.

“You won't tell anyone? I should hate to get Mrs. Mellow into trouble. She's at the post-office. And she's a friend of mine, and I was having tea with her, and I said I expected that all those calls to London must give her a lot extra to do. And she said, ‘What calls?' So I said, ‘Isn't Miss Jenifer having a lot of London calls just now?' And she just laughed and said, ‘Well, there was one about her wedding dress Tuesday, and one about a lot of business Thursday. But that's not going to worry me, my dear!' So I said, ‘Doesn't she ring up a lot about Miss Anne?' And Mrs. Mellow said, ‘No, my dear, she don't—and that's a fact. She don't ring up at all—not anything to do with Miss Anne, she don't. So I take it there isn't much amiss.'” Delia looked at him anxiously. “Look here, you'll be sure not to repeat that, because she's not supposed to talk about anything like that, and she might get into trouble.”

John nodded impatiently.

“She told me one thing more,” said Delia. “She told me there'd been a letter from Anne that morning—a proper letter, addressed in ink.”

“How did she know?”

“Why, of course she knows Anne's writing. She's been postmistress for twenty years; she knows everybody's writing. She said there was a letter from Anne. And she said it wasn't the first. But she said they weren't any of them addressed to Jenny.”

“Who were they addressed to?”

“They were all addressed to Mrs. Jones,” said Delia.