She Came Back (13 page)

Philip Jocelyn came home early that evening. As he let himself in with his key he could hear Anne at the telephone. He stood for a moment, listening not so much to what she was saying as to her voice, wondering as he always did when he allowed himself to think, why it should be Anne’s voice as he remembered it and yet a stranger’s, just as Anne was herself a stranger. He had no thought of overhearing a private conversation. She appeared to be making an appointment to have her hair done. He heard her say, “Is that Félise?… This is Lady Jocelyn speaking. I want an appointment with Mr. Felix. He isn’t there, I suppose?… No? Well will you tell him I don’t think the treatment he prescribed is suiting my hair at all. I am very upset about it—will you tell him that? I want to see him as soon as possible. Tell him I can’t go on with the treatment and he must change it. I can come tomorrow afternoon—that’s one of his days, isn’t it? Will you get into touch with him and find out what time he can see me, and then ring me up and let me know. I shall be in all the evening.”

She hung up the receiver and turned from the study table to see Philip in the doorway.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

He said, “You had your head in the telephone.”

“I was just making an appointment about my hair.”

She had gone over to the window and was straightening the curtains there.

“So I heard. What endless time women spend having their hair done.”

She came back to the table, half smiling.

“Mine has got into such a bad state—I do want to get it right again. This man is said to be very good, but the stuff he gave me to rub in isn’t suiting me at all.”

“Then I shouldn’t use it.”

“I’ve just been making an appointment to tell him he must give me something else. Why are you home so early?”

He had come up to the table and set an attaché case on it.

“I’ve got something I can work on here. I shall probably be late.”

“What time would you like dinner?”

“Oh, the usual. I’d like some coffee in here afterwards if it wouldn’t be a trouble.”

“Of course it wouldn’t.” She smiled at him again and went out of the room.

He found himself thinking, “Domestic scene between any husband and wife—any charming, affectionate wife.” She didn’t let it become obtrusive, but he was constantly aware that Anne was presenting herself in this light. The flat was beautifully run, water always hot, meals punctual to the moment and beautifully cooked. A smile and a pleasant word for him whenever a smile and a word were called for. He hadn’t seen her out of temper or out of humour yet. The girl he had married had none of this efficiency and tact. If she didn’t like anything she said so. If he had wanted to work late into the night, leaving her to sit alone, it would have been, “Oh, Philip, what a bore!” He opened his despatch-case and began to get out his papers. On every possible count Anne had gained, and so had he. Only it didn’t feel like it. Most ungratefully, he didn’t feel like it. He felt rather like Ben Jonson when he wrote:

“Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed:

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art’s hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.”

His lip twisted as he sat down to the table.

The telephone bell rang whilst they were having dinner. Anne went to it, leaving the door open. He heard her from across the passage say, “Yes, that will be all right.”

She came back and shut the door.

“Just to confirm my appointment. He’s a specialist—he doesn’t live in.”

His mind on the work which he had left, he hardly noticed what she said.

It was later in the meal that he remembered he had something to tell her.

“I ran into a friend of yours at lunch-time.”

“Oh, did you? Who was it?”

“Girl who was your bridesmaid—the lumpy one—Joan Tallent. She’s in the A.T.S. Very buxom, but better-looking than she used to be. She wants to come and see you.”

“When?”

He laughed.

“You don’t seem over-joyed.”

“Well, I’m not. She was rather a tiresome girl.”

“Why did you have her for a bridesmaid?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I used to see a lot of her when I was with Aunt Jane—she was some sort of fiftieth cousin of the Kendals. I’m sure she’ll bore me horribly now.”

“Well, you’ll have to bear it. She’s as keen as mustard.”

Anne looked resigned.

“When is she coming?”

“She did say something about tonight, and I’m afraid I rather encouraged her. I thought you could have coffee and a heart-to-heart whilst I was working. It’s very dull for you.”

She shook her head, smiling.

“Oh, no—after the last three years it’s heaven. I don’t feel dull—I feel safe.”

For the first time, something she said touched him. He had been sorry for her before, but at a distance, like hearing about a famine in China. Now all at once something in her voice when she said “safe” brought her much nearer. He thought, “She’s had a hell of a time.” He said aloud,

“You’d better wait and see if she turns up. I don’t mind when I have my coffee.”

The front door bell buzzed just as Anne finished washing up. Rather to her surprise, Philip had not vanished into the study. He did not vanish now. Before she could reach the door herself he was opening it and ushering in the guest.

Joan Tallent was certainly buxom. She filled her khaki uniform to capacity. Under the peaked cap her cheeks were as hard and red as apples. She said in a hearty, ringing voice,

“Well, Anne, it’s a long time since we met. I expect I’ve changed more than you have. It’s the uniform. Of course I’m lucky—I’ve got a good colour. Girls who haven’t look grim in khaki. Don’t you think I’m thinner? Of course one doesn’t want to get too thin, but I’ve still got some way to go.” She laughed a hearty laugh. Then, as they came into the lighted drawing-room, she fixed a round blue stare on Anne. “I say, you’re not slimming or anything, are you? You’ve got much thinner.”

“I’ve been in occupied France. One doesn’t have to slim there.”

The blue stare was turned on Philip.

“You ought to make her drink cocoa—that’s the stuff for putting on. I adore it, but I simply daren’t. We’ve got a corporal who drinks it all the time. She’s had her uniform let out three times, and now there’s no more stuff. We’re having bets on whether they’ll put a bit in next time or give her a new uniform.”

Philip had draped himself against the mantelpiece. He showed no sign of going to the study. As Anne went to fetch the coffee she heard him say in a languid voice,

“She might sign the pledge and go off cocoa for the duration.”

When she came back Joan was still talking about food. “You simply can’t eat it all,” she said with the earnest expression of one who has tried.

When she saw Anne she sprang up brightly and very nearly upset the coffee-tray in an effort to be helpful. And whether she was stumbling over a footstool, dragging a chair forward which jerked and rucked the carpet, or balancing a coffee-cup on a precarious knee, she never stopped talking. The old days—the wedding—“You looked marvellous, Anne.” The bridesmaids’ dresses—“Mine was too tight—I couldn’t eat any lunch. Wouldn’t it have been awful if it had unzipped in church? And of course white is frightfully enlarging. I don’t know that it really suited any of us. You know Diana’s in the Middle East. And Sylvia’s married—two babies, and she can’t get any household help. And that little thing—what was her name—Lyn Something-or-other—I believe she’s in the Wrens. She had a frightful crush on you, hadn’t she? Wasn’t she frightfully pleased when you turned up again?”

Still in that languid voice, Philip said,

“She was.”

With all her heart Anne wished that he would go, but he remained just where he was, incredibly tall, fair, and aloof, his coffee-cup at his elbow only occasionally sipped from, a cigarette between his fingers, which he hardly smoked.

Joan Tallent had a cigarette too. She smoked, as she talked, in hearty jerks. She went on talking about Lyndall until Anne could have boxed her ears. But she had learned to conceal her thoughts. She sat there smiling and pleasant. Philip could change the subject if he wished to. She wouldn’t do it for him, or let him see she cared who spoke of Lyndall, or what was said.

“She wasn’t exactly pretty, but there was something about her, don’t you think?”

This time Philip had nothing to say. He came over and filled his cup with black coffee. As he stood there, Joan swung round in her chair to face them both, grabbed at her cup just in time to save it, and said,

“I’ll have some more too. Do you still keep your diary, Anne?”

Reaching for the cup, Anne smiled and shook her head. Joan craned up at Philip with the coffee-pot in his hand.

“Does she show it to you?” She giggled. “It was the most marvellous diary. We used to rag her about it. She used to put down simply everything.” She turned to Anne. “Did you stop doing it when you married?”

Another smiling shake of the head.

“I stopped when I got to France. It would have been too dangerous there. Imagine what would have happened if one had said what one really thought about the Germans!”

She took the coffee-pot from Philip and began to fill Joan’s cup. He picked up his own and went back to the fire. He said,

“Does one put that sort of thing in a diary? I keep one, but it doesn’t run to anything more compromising than ‘Lunch— Smith—1:30.’ ”

Joan gave a loud giggle.

“Anne’s wasn’t a bit like that. I read a piece once, and she nearly killed me. She put down simply everything—I mean, the sort of thing you wouldn’t think anyone would—like that old what’s-his-name Pepys, only of course I don’t mean to say the same sort of things, because his was all about having affairs with women. Anne’s wasn’t like that, only she just put down everything, the same as he did.”

Anne was still smiling. She said smoothly,

“Rather taking my character away, aren’t you, Joan?”

And with that her look crossed Philip’s. The two pairs of grey eyes, so much alike, glanced together, and glanced away. There was just a moment, then Philip drained his cup and came over to set it down on the tray. “Well, I must go and work,” he said.

Garth Albany came into Philip’s room at the War Office next morning. He raised an eyebrow at the girl clerk and Philip sent her away. Garth, having been somewhat against his will absorbed into Military Intelligence, might very easily wish to dispense with even the most confidential clerk.

But when they were alone Garth still stood there on the far side of the desk. He had picked up a piece of red sealing-wax and was looking down at it with frowning intensity.

Philip sat back in his chair.

“Anything wrong with my sealing-wax?”

Garth put it down in a hurry.

“No. Look here, Philip, I’ve come on a damned awkward errand, and I don’t know where to begin—that’s the truth oï it.”

Philip’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“First rules of composition,” he murmured—“you begin at the beginning, proceed to the middle, and continue to the end. Don’t you think you’d better begin?”

Garth looked darkly at him.

“It’s damned awkward,” he said. He pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “The fact is they’ve sent me along because of the family connection, and our being friends and all that.”

Without any change of expression Philip said,

“I suppose it’s something about Anne.”

Garth registered relief. Once you got the ice broken you could say anything. He hadn’t relished the job of breaking it. He knew Philip’s obstinate pride. What neither he nor anyone else would ever know for certain was just how much of it stirred and stood on guard under that easy, languid manner. He would have liked to know now, but he didn’t.

Philip said, “Well?” and he had to start out in the dark. He said abruptly,

“They’re not satisfied. It’s this business of your having thought she was dead, and then her turning up after all this time. The D.M.I, wants to see you about it. I’m just an advance delegation, so to speak. The fact is, it’s a beastly job and they’ve shoved it on to me.”

“Go on.”

“Well, as you know, there’s a certain amount of coming and going across the Channel. Someone was told off to make enquiries, and we’ve had a report.”

“Yes?”

“It says what you know already, that Theresa Jocelyn was living at the Château de Mornac with her adopted daughter, Miss Joyce. Anne came to stay in April ’41, and in June you ran over in a motor-launch and tried to get her away. You did get someone away, but she died in the boat. She was buried as Anne. That’s not in the report, that’s just common knowledge. Now we get back to the report again. It says Theresa Jocelyn had been buried about a week when you came over and took Anne away. Annie Joyce remained at the Château. She was said to be ill. The two old servants, Pierre and Marie, looked after her. The Germans were in the village. They sent a doctor up to see her.”

“Yes, I knew all that. I suppose you’ve heard Anne’s story. She says she went back to the Château and called herself Annie Joyce. She says she had pneumonia. Afterwards, when she was well again, she was sent to a concentration camp.”

Garth looked unhappy.

“I’m afraid there’s more to it than that—according to the report. It says Annie Joyce got well very quickly. The German doctor continued to visit the Château, and so did Captain Reichenau. They seemed to be on very friendly terms with Annie Joyce. Presently the doctor was transferred. Captain Reichenau continued his visits. There was naturally a good deal of talk in the village. A few months later Reichenau disappeared from the scene. Some time after that Annie Joyce was sent to a concentration camp, but a couple of months later she was back at the Château. She said they had let her out because she was ill. She was certainly thin, but she did not seem like a person who has been ill, and she was in very good spirits. She told Pierre and Marie that she wouldn’t be with them for very much longer—she was going to England. There was some delay, but in the end she got off.”

“Is that all?”

“There’s one thing more. After her return from the concentration camp the Germans left her alone. There were no visits, no contacts.”

Philip said very coolly, “You’d have damned her if there had been contacts. Are you going to damn her because there weren’t any?”

“No—no, of course not. Philip, are you absolutely sure she is Anne? No, wait a minute—you weren’t sure, were you? Things get around the family, you know. Inez Jocelyn talked. You weren’t sure—were you?”

“Yes, I was sure—quite sure, that she wasn’t Anne.”

Garth appeared to be incapable of speech. He stared.

Philip went on.

“I was as sure of it as you can be of anything. She was utterly strange to me. I couldn’t believe that she had ever been my wife. She looked like Anne, she spoke like Anne, she wrote like Anne, and still I didn’t believe that she was Anne. And then it was forced on me—against the grain, against my instincts, against my feelings—because she knew things which I thought only Anne and I could know.” He got up and walked away across the room. There was a slight pause, then he turned round and said, “That’s what I thought—until last night.”

“What happened last night?”

“A girl came in. She’d been one of Anne’s bridesmaids. She giggled and she prattled, and in the course of the giggling and prattling she came out with some very illuminating remarks about a diary. It appears that Anne kept one after the model of the late Mr. Pepys, in which, as Joan had it, she put down ‘every single thing, even the sort you wouldn’t think anyone would,’ with a lot more to the same effect. Anne was not at all keen on discussing the diary. No reason why she should be of course, but she wasn’t. In fact abnormally restrained. I’d like to have a look at that diary, Garth. I’d like to see whether Anne wrote down in it the things which I found so convincing—the things that only Anne and I could know. Because if she did, and if Annie Joyce got her hands on the book, then my instinct was right, and all my reasons for accepting this woman as Anne—well, they go by the board.”

Garth had turned round in his chair. He looked seriously at Philip and wondered what he should say. Before he could make up his mind Philip spoke again.

“We’re living under the same roof, but we’re not living together. There’s nothing between us. She’s a stranger.”

“Am I to tell the D.M.I, that?”

“I don’t know. I shall have to tell him myself, if it comes to that, because behind all this business of your fellow’s report there’s the suggestion that Annie Joyce was sent over here to impersonate Anne for a definite reason, and the reason isn’t far to seek.” He came back to his chair and dropped down into it. “Garth—it might be. And I’ll tell you why. This girl Annie Joyce—you know about her, don’t you? Daughter of an illegitimate son of my great-uncle Ambrose—brought up to believe very intensively that her father ought to have been Sir Roger instead of a tuppenny-ha’penny clerk— brought up to see Anne and myself as supplanters. Then Theresa adopts her—not legally, but that’s what it amounted to—quarrels with the family about her, takes her out to France, and after ten years disinherits her because she’s taken a sudden fancy to Anne. It would rather pile up, wouldn’t it? It isn’t very hard to imagine that a girl with that sort of thing on her mind might be—shall we say, approachable. Your report suggests that she was approached by this Captain Reichenau. It’s possible. If it happened, then they chose their time to send her over. I suppose information about the where and when of the second front would be what they’d just about give their eyes for. They might very well think they’d got a first-class opportunity of planting an enemy agent on me. That’s one side of the picture. Here’s the other. If she is Anne, she has changed very much—not in appearance but in herself. But she has had enough to change her—no one can reasonably deny that. If she is Anne, she could believe that I had deserted her. She was ill. She had to hide under another name—keep the Boche guessing. She was sent to a concentration camp and got ill again. Finally she gets over here, to find that she has been dead for three and a half years. There’s a tombstone with her name on it, and—she isn’t wanted. I don’t recognize her—or say I don’t. If she is Anne, she has every reason to resent my attitude. When I am finally convinced, it is quite obviously against my will. She has every right to be cut to the heart.”

“And is she?”

“No, she isn’t—or if she is she doesn’t show it. She has the most admirable self-control. She is easy, charming, and extremely efficient. Anne wasn’t either easy or efficient. She said what she thought quite bluntly, and if she didn’t get her own way she let you know all about it. How much can a girl change in three and a half years? She’s much cleverer than Anne. She’s adroit, she’s tactful, she’s damned clever. Anne wasn’t any of those things. She was just young and full of life. She said what she thought and did what she chose. We weren’t going to hit it off—I knew that before we’d been married six months. But if this is Anne, she’s had an appallingly raw deal, and I’ve got to try and make it up to her. And if she’s Anne, you can wash out that report, or at any rate its implications. No conceivable circumstances would have laid Anne open to an approach from the Boche, nor would it have occurred to him to approach her. I can’t think of anyone more completely unsuited to the part of a secret agent—it just wouldn’t have occurred to anyone, least of all to Anne herself. Do you accept that?”

“If she is Anne, I accept it. I didn’t know her so very well, but I should put her down as just what you say—quite a simple character—no frills—healthy, lively girl, quite pleased with everything as long as she got her own way—very pretty and charming and all that—definitely no subtleties, if you don’t mind my speaking frankly.”

“We’re all going to say worse things than that,” said Philip with an odd intonation. “As a matter of fact you’ve only said what I did. Well, all that’s gone. She can look like Anne and talk like Anne, but she can’t think like Anne, because a subtle mind can’t think like a simple one, and when you live with a woman you get on to the quality of her thinking. And that’s what has been at the back of my resistance all along. I’ve lived with Anne, and I’ve lived with this woman who calls herself Anne, and they don’t think the same way. I could more easily get over a change of face than such a change of mind.”

Garth lifted a frowning gaze to Philip’s face and said,

“Then you don’t believe she is Anne?”

Philip said, “Last night I’d have said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

“And today?”

“At the moment I’m inclined to think I’ve been planted with Annie Joyce.”