She Came Back

CHAPTER 13

After all nobody stayed the night. The only person who showed any disposition to do so was Inez, but receiving no encouragement, she departed as she had come, with Perry and Lilla.

A fleeting qualm of conscience prompted Milly Armitage to draw Lilla aside.

“Look here, I don’t want her-we’ve got enough on our hands without Inez. But if it means that she’s going to land herself on you and spoil the last evening of Perry’s leave, well, I’ll have her. I suppose if it comes to that, it isn’t really for me to say. If Anne’s back, it’s her house and I’m only a visitor.”

Lilla looked at her with affection,

“Anyone would love to have you as a visitor. And it’s quite all right about Cousin Inez, because she’s staying with her friend Roberta Loam, and they haven’t quarrelled yet, though I think they’re on the brink. Lyn says she’ll come to me tomorrow, so that’s all quite safe and fixed. What are you going to do?”

Milly Armitage made a face.

“Philip wants me to stay on here. Of course I can’t-at least I don’t see how I can-unless Anne wants me too. She says she does, so I suppose I’ll have to try it for a bit. None of it’s easy, is it?”

Lilla said, “No.” Then she squeezed her hands and kissed her very warmly indeed.

Philip came back from seeing them off, with the remark that his cousin Inez was without exception the most disagreeable woman he had ever met. She had been arch with him on the doorstep, had shaken those dreadful curls at him, and screamed parting jocosities about a second honeymoon from the window of the moving taxi.

“Theresa was bad enough. She bounced, and quarrelled, and interfered, but she had an awful sort joie-de-vivre. And she wasn’t vindictive, and she didn’t dye her hair-at least she hadn’t dyed it last time I saw her, because I remember its looking like a large grey bird’s nest.”

“At our wedding,” said Anne. She used a light, pleased voice and spoke as if there had never been a cloud between them since that wedding-day.

Then, before Philip’s silence could become noticeable, she was making herself charming to the Thomas Jocelyns and Mr. Codrington. She was no longer “the claimant” on her probation, but very much Anne Jocelyn speeding the parting guests from Jocelyn’s Holt.

It was some hours later, in the empty time before the evening meal, that Philip found Lyndall in the parlour alone. She had changed into a dark red house-gown which caught the firelight and reflected it back from warm velvet folds. Only one lamp was on, the shaded one by the far window. It showed Lyndall in her red dress crouched forward over the fire with both hands stretched to the blaze. He took a moment watching her. Then he came up to the hearth and stood there.

“I want to talk to you.”

She did not move, but her hands shook a little. She said,

“Yes.”

He looked, not at her, but down into the fire.

“Everything in my mind says that she is Anne-reason, logic, evidence. And everything else keeps shouting, ‘She’s a stranger.’ What else does one do?”

Lyndall said in a small voice like a tired child,

“I can’t tell you that-can I?”

“No. I suppose the fact of the matter is that we are strangers. The point at which we touched is a long way behind us both. We have gone off in different directions. I can’t see any meeting-point ahead. She thinks there might be one, and that we owe it to each other to try and come together again. I have told her that she owes me nothing. I can’t tell her that I don’t owe her anything either. From her point of view I owe her a good deal. However it came about, I did fail her-she was left in danger whilst I went back to safety.”

“Philip!” She turned round, her eyes imploring him.

“Lyn, don’t you see how it must have looked to her-how it might be made to look to anyone? I came away without her-I identified another woman’s body as hers-and I came in for every penny of her money. When she comes home again, you recognize her, Aunt Milly recognizes her-Mrs. Ramage, Mr. Codrington, the whole family recognize her. But I stick out, I go on saying she isn’t Anne, until the weight of the evidence overbears me by main force. I don’t need to dot the i’s or cross the t’s, do I? You see what it looks like- I deserted her, I lied about it, I denied her.”

“Philip-please-”

The rapid, bitter flow of words was broken, but only for a moment. He stared down at her as if he saw, not her, but some fantastic abyss whose unsteady edge might yet give way and launch him headlong.

“Don’t you see? If you don’t, Mr. Codrington does. He told me in so many words how grateful I ought to be for the way in which she is taking it. If she had chosen to bring a case, if she had shown resentment, if she hadn’t displayed the most extraordinary forbearance, my name would be mud. She wants to make it up, she wants to be friends, she wants us to give each other a chance. She doesn’t suggest our living together now. She only asks that we should to a normal and reasonable extent live under the same roof-show ourselves together in public-until all the talk and gossip has died down. What can I do? I can’t refuse her that-can I?”

Lyndall said, “No.” She stood up, moving slowly and a little stiffly, because if she let them, her knees would tremble. She controlled them very carefully, but the effort made her feel like one of those stiff, jointed dolls.

When she was on her feet, she said gently,

“You must do what she wants. You did love her. It will come back again.”

“Will it? On revient toujours à ses premiers amours. I have always thought that a particularly crass sort of lie. I told you we had gone in opposite directions. Lyn, even now, with evidence that I am bound to accept, I tell you she isn’t Anne to me.”

“Who is she?”

“A stranger. I can’t feel that we have ever shared a single experience-not even when she tells me things which only Anne could know.” He moved abruptly. “You are going away?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

There was a long, heavy silence. It weighed on the room, it weighed upon their hearts. Tomorrow she would be gone.

They had nothing more to say to one another, because that said everything. If he put out his hand it would touch her. But he couldn’t put it out. They were already divided, and with every moment of that silence each could see the other receding, whilst between them thought and feeling wrenched and broke.

When Milly Armitage came in, neither had moved from where they stood, yet each had travelled a long way.