She Came Back

CHAPTER 14

The nine days’ wonder died down in the Press. On the whole it had been discreet. Annie Joyce’s connection with the family, the likeness which had made the mistake in identity possible, was handled tactfully, and presently the affair receded. A week after Anne’s return the telephone bell had ceased to ring, and reporters to clamour for interviews.

Anne received a ration-book, which also contained clothes coupons, and went up to town to shop with a cheque-book in her handbag and the knowledge that there was a comfortable sum in her account at the bank. She had a very full day mapped out. Clothes were going to be a problem. Twenty coupons of her own-very aggravating to find that she couldn’t spend more than that before the end of January. Fifty produced by Mrs. Ramage, who preferred saving her money to buying what she called “those utilities.” And the prospect of perhaps another forty from the Board of Trade when her case had been considered, which would certainly take time. Eighteen coupons for a coat, the same for a coat and skirt, eleven for a dress, seven for shoes, and then underclothes-the coupons were just going to trickle away like water through a leaky sieve. Impossible to blame Aunt Milly for giving away a dead Anne Jocelyn’s wardrobe to the blitzed, but enraging to the last degree.

Then she must have her hair waved and set again, and a facial treatment, and a manicure. It was going to be a very full day indeed, but she would have looked forward to it if it hadn’t been for the letter in her bag. She kept telling herself that it was tiresome but no more.

The matter could be dealt with easily enough. She could have dealt with it herself as far as that went. Easy enough to write, perhaps in the third person, something on the lines of “Lady Jocelyn is afraid that there really is not anything she could add to what has appeared in the papers with regard to the death of Annie Joyce. She does not think-” No, that wouldn’t do-too stiff, too much de haut en bas. It was no good hurting people’s feelings. Quite a simple letter would be best. “Dear Miss Collins, I don’t think I can tell you anything that you do not know already about the death of poor Annie Joyce. The cutting you enclose has all the information that I have myself. I would meet you if I felt that it would serve any useful purpose, but I really think it would only be distressing for us both.” Yes, that would do.

She had a fleeting regret that she had not written and posted just such a letter. After all, who was to know that Nellie Collins had ever written to her, or she to Nellie Collins? And even as the thought was in her mind, she knew that she couldn’t hide this or anything else, and that the answer she wrote, or whether she wrote an answer at all, was part of a pattern which was none of her designing-a very strict pattern to which she would be most strictly kept. Just for a moment she had something like a black-out. It was a very strange sensation-between one second and the next a shock like the shock of concussion, leaving her numb, dazed, and reluctant. It passed, and afterwards she would have been frightened if she had let herself think about it.

Fortunately, she had a great many other things to think about. There were still excellent clothes to be got, but you had to look for them, and they were a shocking price. She gave twenty-five pounds for a coat and skirt in a good Scotch tweed, sandy beige with a brown line and a brown fleck- very becoming. Eighteen coupons gone. A pair of brown outdoor shoes, and a pair for the house-fourteen. Six pairs of stockings-another eighteen. She found herself thinking less of the price of a garment than of the number of coupons that had to be given up.

It was three in the afternoon before she really had time to remember that she had been afraid. She stood hesitating imperceptibly between the rather narrow windows which displayed on the one side a smiling wax model with an elaborately dressed head of golden hair, and on the other a snowy hand with tinted nails lying on a velvet cushion. The back of both windows was curtained in the very bright shade called bleu de roi. The cushion under the hand and the golden-haired lady’s draperies were of an equally bright rose colour. A gold scroll over the door bore the name Félise. Anne Jocelyn pushed down the handle and went in.

If she had hesitated a little longer, or if she had not hesitated at all, some things might have happened differently, and some might not have happened at all. If she had gone straight in, Lyndall would not have seen her. If she had waited a little longer, Lyndall would have caught her up before she entered the shop, in which case she probably would not have kept her appointment with Mr. Felix, and she might, just possibly she might, have answered Nellie Collins’ letter herself.

As it was, Lyn’s moment of startled recognition brought her to a standstill on the opposite pavement just too late for her to be sure that it was Anne whom she had seen. And if that was all, it wouldn’t have mattered, but she wasn’t sure whether she herself had been seen by Anne, because the upper half of that door between the two windows was made of looking-glass. The question was, how much did it reflect, and how much could Anne have seen before she pushed open the door and went in? If it was Anne, and she had seen Lyndall looking at her, she would think-well, what would she think? That Lyn wouldn’t cross the road to speak to her? That she had some reason for avoiding her? It would be quite dreadful if she were to think anything like that. There mustn’t be anything of that sort, ever. There wouldn’t be if she could prevent it.

She had to wait whilst what seemed like an endless stream of traffic went by. By the time she managed to cross over, her courage had gone cold, but it held. She was not yet sure that it was Anne whom she had seen, but she was going to make sure. She had seen a fur coat and a glimpse of blue go into the shop. If there was a fur coat and a blue dress on the other side of that looking-glass door, it wouldn’t take a moment to find out whether Anne was inside them.

She went in, and saw two women waiting by the counter, and a buxom assistant reaching something off an upper shelf with her back turned to the shop. Neither of the two women was Anne Jocelyn, but neither of them was wearing a fur coat, and quite definitely Lyndall had seen a fur coat go in at the looking-glass door.

She stood there waiting for the assistant to turn round. But she didn’t turn round. One of the women was explaining just what sort of setting-lotion she wanted, and every time it was possible to get in a word edgeways the buxom girl said they hadn’t got it, but that something else would do just as well, in fact very much better. Lyndall could see that it was likely to go on for ages. On the spur of the moment she walked across the shop and through the curtained archway on the other side of which the cubicles for hairdressing and manicure would be found. If Anne was having her hair done, that was where she would be. It wouldn’t take a moment to find out. She could always say she was looking for a friend.

As soon as she was through the archway she could hear the swish of running water. The cubicles had curtains, not doors. It was quite easy to look through the curtains. A fat woman with a red neck-a thin one with her head over the basin-a little dark girl having a manicure-a permanent wave-another manicure. Not a sign of Anne, not a sign of the fur coat. After all, it had got to be somewhere.

At the end of the passage between the cubicles was another of those looking-glass doors. She saw her own reflection coming to meet her like a doppelgänger-Lyn Armitage in a grey tweed coat and skirt and a dark red hat, looking scared. It was frightfully stupid to put yourself in the wrong by looking scared. If you were doing something which made you feel not quite so sure of yourself as you would like to be, that was the time to put your chin in the air and look as if you had bought the earth and paid cash down for it.

She pushed the door as she had pushed the other one, and came into a small square space with a wooden stair running steeply up on the left, a door on the right, and another straight ahead. It was dark after the brightly lighted shop, and it was cold after the warm, steamy heat of the passage between the cubicles. There was a damp, mouldy smell. Quite evidently these were back premises with no allurements for customers. Anne wouldn’t be here. And as the thought went through her mind, she heard Anne Jocelyn’s voice.

It frightened her, she couldn’t think why. It was only the voice, no words, but she wasn’t sure-no, she wasn’t sure about its being Anne’s voice. If she hadn’t been thinking about Anne just at that moment, perhaps she would never have thought of its being her voice. She took a hesitating step forward. Now that her eyes were getting accustomed to the changed light, she could see that the door in front of her was not quite shut. It wasn’t open, but it hadn’t latched when it was closed. Some doors are very tiresome like that-they latch and spring open again, or they close and do not latch.

Lyndall put her hand on the panel of the door. She had no design in doing this; it was neither thought nor planned. She saw her hand come up and move the door. It moved quite easily. There was a line of light all down the edge of it like a thin gold wire. She heard the voice which was like Anne’s voice say, “You might just as well let me write to Nellie Collins. She’s quite harmless.” A man’s voice said in a carrying whisper, “That is not for you to say.”

Lyndall took her hand away from the door and turned round. Her heart had begun to beat with suffocating violence. She felt ashamed and inexplicably frightened. If she let herself move quickly, panic might take hold of her. She must get away. She must move quickly, but she mustn’t make any noise. She was very near to feeling that she couldn’t move at all.

Warmth and scented steam met her between the cubicles. She passed the curtained archway, and found the scene in the shop unchanged-the two women by the counter, the babble of voices, the assistant, with her back still turned, shifting bottles. She passed out into the street and shut the door behind her. No one had seen her come or go.