She Came Back

CHAPTER 10

The first headlines appeared next day. The Daily Wire splashed them half across the front page, rather crowding the latest Russian victory.

THREE AND A HALF YEARS DEAD

– COMES BACK TO SEE HER TOMBSTONE

Underneath there was a picture of the white marble cross in Holt churchyard. The lettering stood out clearly:

Anne Wife of Philip Jocelyn

Aged 21

Killed by enemy action June 26th, 1941

The letterpress contained an interview with Mrs. Ramage, cook and housekeeper at Jocelyn’s Holt.

Mrs. Armitage went down to the kitchen with the paper in her hand.

“Oh, Mrs. Ramage-how could you?”

Mrs. Ramage burst into tears which were a good three parts excitement to one of remorse. Her large pale face glistened and she shook like a blanc-mange.

“Never said he’d put it in the paper. Got off his bicycle at the back door when the girls were in the dining-room and asked me civil enough if I could direct him to the churchyard, which I said you couldn’t miss it if you tried, seeing it runs next the park, and I took and showed him the church tower from the back door step, and you’d have done the same or anyone else. Well, there it is, as large as life and you can’t get from it.”

“You seem to have said a good deal more than that, Mrs. Ramage.”

Mrs. Ramage groped for a pocket handkerchief like a small sheet and applied it to her face…

“He arst me how could he find Lady Jocelyn’s grave, and I said-”

“What did you say?”

Mrs. Ramage gulped.

“I said, ‘We don’t want to think about graves or suchlike, not now her ladyship’s come home again.’ ”

Mrs. Armitage gazed resignedly at the front page of the Wire.

“Mrs. Ramage told me she was thunderstruck-” What a pity she wasn’t!-“ ‘I remember Lady Jocelyn coming here as a bride… Such lovely pearls-the same she’s wearing in her picture that was in the Royal Academy. And she came back wearing them, and her lovely fur coat too… ’ Miss Ivy Fossett, parlourmaid at Jocelyn’s Holt, says, ‘Of course I didn’t know who it was when I opened the door, but as soon as I got a good look at her I could see she was dressed the same as the picture in the parlour…’ ”

Mrs. Ramage continued to gulp and mop her face. All at once Milly Armitage relaxed. What was the use anyway? She said in her good-tempered voice,

“Oh, do stop crying. It’s no use-is it? I don’t suppose you had a chance with him really-he was bound to get it all out of you. Only I can’t think how they knew there was anything to get.”

Mrs. Ramage gave a final gulp. She looked about her. The big kitchen was empty, Ivy and Flo were upstairs making beds, but she dropped her voice to a hoarse whisper.

“It was that Ivy-but girls are so hard to get. I had it out of her last night. She’d an aunt got a guinea from a paper for sending up a piece about a cat bringing up a rabbit along with its kittens, and that put it into her head. She took and wrote a postcard to the Wire and said her ladyship had come home after everyone thought she was dead, and a cross in the churchyard and all. And I’m sure I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world, not if it was to vex Sir Philip.”

“Well, I don’t see that it was your fault, Mrs. Ramage. I suppose the papers were bound to get hold of it.”

Mrs. Ramage put her handkerchief away in a capacious apron pocket.

“It’s a lovely photo of the cross,” she said.

Milly Armitage gazed at the paper.

Anne

Wife of Philip Jocelyn

Aged 21

They would have to alter the inscription of course. Philip would have to get it done. Because if it was Anne upstairs in the parlour with Lyn, then it wasn’t Anne’s body under the white marble cross. You can’t be in two places at once. She wished with all her heart that she could be sure that the inscription on the cross was true. It was probably very wicked of her, but she would much rather be sure that Anne was in the churchyard, and not upstairs in the parlour. The trouble was that she couldn’t be sure. Sometimes Philip shook her, and sometimes Anne shook her. She was as honest as she knew how to be. It didn’t really matter whether she wanted Anne to be alive, or whether she wanted her to be dead. What mattered was that they should be sure. It was perfectly frightful to think of Annie Joyce grabbing Anne’s money and getting away with Philip and Jocelyn’s Holt, but it was even more frightful to think of Anne coming back from the dead and finding out that no one wanted her. Her eyes remained fixed upon the page.

Annie

Daughter of Roger Joyce

That was what it would have to be if Anne were alive… What a frightful business!

She looked up, met Mrs. Ramage’s sympathetic gaze, and said with the frankness which occasionally devastated her family,

“It’s a mess-isn’t it?”

“A bit of an upset, as you may say-”

Mrs. Armitage nodded. After all, Mrs. Ramage had been twelve years at Jocelyn’s Holt. She had seen Philip married. You couldn’t keep things from people in your own house, so what was the good of trying-you might just as well make a virtue of necessity. She said,

“Did you recognize her-at once?”

“Meaning her ladyship, ma’am?”

Mrs. Armitage nodded.

“Did you recognize her-” she paused, and once more added-“at once?”

“Didn’t you, ma’am?”

“Of course I did. I never thought of anything else.”

“No more did I.”

They looked at one another. Mrs. Ramage said in an uncertain whisper,

“It’s Sir Philip, isn’t it? He’s not sure-”

“He’s so sure that she was dead-it’s so difficult for him to believe he could have made a mistake. We didn’t see her- he did. It makes it hard for him.”

Mrs. Ramage considered, and spoke slowly.

“I’ve seen a lot of dead people first and last. Some looks like they were alive and just dropped off asleep, but some is that changed you’d hardly know them. And if you was to think of her ladyship with all that bright colour gone and her hair gone straight and wet with the sea water coming over like you told me Sir Philip said-well, that would make a lot of difference, wouldn’t it? And if this other lady was so much like her-”

“I didn’t say anything about another lady, Mrs. Ramage.”

“Didn’t you, ma’am? There’s been talk about it, as there’s bound to be, because it stands to reason if that’s her ladyship upstairs, then there’s someone else that was buried by mistake for her, and the talk goes it was Miss Annie Joyce, that we all seen when she came here with Miss Theresa a matter of ten or eleven years ago. Stayed here a week, and anyone could see how she favoured the family.”

“Do you remember her-what she looked like?”

Mrs. Ramage nodded.

“Long, thin, poking slip of a girl-looked as if she wanted a deal of feeding up. But she favoured the family all the same-might have passed for Sir Philip’s sister, and if she’d plumped out and held herself up and got a bit of a colour, well, it’s my opinion she’d have been like enough to her ladyship for Sir Philip to make the mistake he did, seeing the difference there is between a dead person and a live one. And that’s the way it was, you may depend upon it.”

Milly Armitage opened her lips to speak, shut them again, and then said in a hurry,

“You think it’s her ladyship upstairs?”

Mrs. Ramage stared.

“Why, you can’t get from it, ma’am. Looks a bit older of course, but don’t we all?”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure? She come in that door and straight up to me, and she says, ‘I do hope you’re glad to see me again, Mrs. Ramage.’ ”

Tears came into Milly Armitage’s eyes. Anne coming back, and nobody pleased to see her-She pulled herself up sharply. Lyn was pleased enough-but she’s looking like a ghost now-she isn’t sure either-

Mrs. Ramage said,

“A bit hard to come home and find you’re not wanted, ma’am.”