by Anne Weale
Charles shot a discreet glance at the other table and met a freezing glare.
"Sorry. That was rather tactless of me," he said.
"That reminds me," Joanna said thoughtfully. "Perhaps it would be better to cover up the fact that I work in cabaret. People always seem to think that night-club singers are devoid of morals, and I don't want to bring too much notoriety down on you."
"I fancy you'll attract a good deal of attention either way," he said with a faint smile.
"Oh? Why do you say that?" she asked seriously.
His glance travelled from her softly reddened mouth to her slim white hands with their immaculate rose-varnished nails.
"We aren't used to Parisian elegance in our part of the world," he said mildly.
"Well, if you want me to, I'm quite willing to look dowdy," she said seriously.
His lips twitched. "No. As long as you don't appear in that spangled thing you were wearing the other night, I think you'll escape any serious censure," he said.
To her surprise, Joanna felt her color rising. She had forgotten that on the night he had been to the cabaret she haa been wearing that particular dress, the most outri of all her stage costumes. Suddenly, the realization that he had seen her in it, both on stage and in the dressing-room, made her feel oddly uncomfortable.
"I suppose you were horrified," she said coolly.
"Not particularly." A gleam of laughter lit his eyes. "Compared with some of the dancers, your outfit was most decorous."
She fidgeted with her napkin. "I don't wear those things from choice. It's part of the job," she said awkwardly.
"You seem to take me for a very narrow-minded type," he said, pouring himself a second cup of tea.
"Not exactly. But it's one thing to see a girl in a… a scanty dress and not mind, but rather different when you find out she's a relative," Joanna stated.
"You forget. Our relationship is so distant as to be almost negligible," he observed.
An hour later, they began the last stage of the journey. The heavy mist of early morning was melting away and, as they left the town behind, a pale sun broke through the clouds.
Once on the fast arterial road to Maidstone, Charles let the car out, occasionally pointing out interesting landmarks but mostly saving his attention for the road. Soon they were on the outskirts of London, although, as Charles remarked, the environs of the Blackwall Tunnel were not a very prepossessing part of the great capital.
"Tell me, how did your father make a living?" he asked suddenly. "All this roving round the world can't have been done on air."
Joanna tensed slightly. She had been anticipating this question and had decided that, since she had a temperamental aversion to telling direct lies, she would have to parry it somehow. There were already enough cards against her without making matters worse, she had reflected.
But now, without knowing why, she had an impulse to tell him the truth.
"No, it wasn't," she agreed awkwardly. "At first, when the war was just over, he had some kind of office job in Marseilles. As I told you yesterday, he never talked about the war — but I have a feeling he was involved in espionage, or something pretty risky. So I suppose desk work must have been very dull and monotonous, and after a while he couldn't stand it."
"Why didn't he go back to painting?" Charles asked, when she paused for a moment.
"He did, for a time. We moved to Monaco and lived in a very cheap pension. But people weren't buying pictures then, and I think he had lost all ambition. Then one night he went to the casino and won a lot of money at baccarat."
She stopped again, remembering that long-ago summer night when she had woken up to find a great bunch of mimosa on her bedside table, and her father drinking champagne from a pink china toothbrush mug. He had let her taste it, the bubbles making her sneeze, and then he had sat on the side of the bed and pulled her pigtails and told her they were going to South America on the first boat out of Marseilles.
"We went to Rio," she said presently. "It took three weeks to get there and I wanted it to last for ever. After he'd put me to bed, Michael used to play cards with some businessmen. He was always playing after that — everywhere we went." She paused, fidgeting with the clasp of her bag. "I suppose I was about thirteen when I found out that he'd become a… a professional card-sharper," she said, very low. "I knew he played for money and nearly always won, but I didn't realize why."
"And this went on until his death?" Charles said, in an expressionless voice.
"Yes. That's how we lived — by cheating people," she said tonelessly. "And that's why we had to keep moving all the time. You see, after a while, the hotels and the shipping lines get to know you. You have to keep breaking fresh ground and f-finding new v-victims." Her voice shook and she turned her head away, not wanting him to see her face. "I'm sorry. I suppose I should have told you before. You would have changed your mind about bringing me to England, I expect. But you see, I never think of him as — as a crooked person. I didn't care what he did for a living. He was all I had. I — I would have loved him whatever he'd done."
"How did he die?" Charles asked quietly.
"He was knocked down by a car in the Champs Elysees," she said flatly. "His injuries were pretty bad, but they needn't have been fatal. He… he died because he didn't want to live any more."
"That was rather hard on you, wasn't it?" There was an edge of censure in his tone.
"It depends on how you look at it," she retorted coldly. "Maybe you can't imagine being so intensely in love with a woman that, without her, life would be meaningless. But that's the way Michael felt about my mother. I — I was with him when he died. He thought I was Nina. It was the first time I'd seen him look really happy."
She had managed to keep her voice steady, but her eyes were smarting with tears and there was an aching lump in her throat. Fortunately Charles did not comment, and when he spoke again — to suggest that they should stop for lunch at a hotel a few miles ahead — she had composed herself.
Neither of them spoke much during the meal and Joanna wondered if, in the light of her recent disclosures, Charles was regretting his decision to bring her to England.
As they started off again, she stifled a yawn. Presently, lulled by the murmur of the engine, she began to feel drowsy. She must have dozed as, when she opened her eyes, they had stopped at a filling station. Stretching, a little stiff, she saw that Charles was behind the car, chatting to the pump attendant.
"Only another ten miles," he said, sliding behind the wheel a few moments later. "What were you dreaming about? You've been talking in your sleep."
"Have I? I don't remember dreaming about anything," she answered, rather startled.
"Not to worry. It was all in French, so I didn't make much sense of it," he told her, with a gleam of amusement.
"You seemed to speak very good French the other night. Where did you pick it up? I thought most English people prided themselves on getting around by sign-language."
"They don't all have the incentive of a pretty foreign student living near them," he said carelessly. "Our next- door neighbors had a flirtatious French nursery help for a couple of years when I was still at the impressionable age. Unfortunately a lot of the phrases she taught me weren't much use for general conversation."
"I thought English boys weren't interested in girls until quite late in life," Joanna remarked.
"If they're stuck at a boarding school they don't get much chance to experiment. I went to the local grammar school."
"Even so I should have thought you'd have been interested in motor-bikes or sports, or something serious."
"I was," he said gravely. "But the best of motor-bikes looks better with a decorative brunette on the pillion."
There was a pause while Joanna tried to visualize him as a lanky teenager. But somehow it was impossible to imagine him in the throes of adolescence, his beard still little more than a darkening down, his features still stamped with immaturity.
"What h
appened to her?" she asked, presently.
"To Marie-Luce? Oh, she went home to Lyons and I spent a spell in the Navy. She'll be in her thirties by now and a staid and stout matron, I expect."
"She was older than you?"
"Of course. That was part of her attraction. Didn't you prefer older men when you were a dreamy sixteen- year-old?"
"I don't think I had any views on the subject. I didn't have dates at that age. Most of the people who go on expensive cruises are middle-aged or senile." And my dreams were of having a home and security, she added mentally.
"Weren't there any heart-throbs among the ship's officers?"
"Perhaps — I don't remember. Anyway, I wouldn't have interested them. I was still weighed down with puppy- fat and had bands on my teeth."
"What about your schooling?" he asked. "How was that fitted in?"
"It wasn't," she said baldly. "Michael couldn't afford to keep me at a boarding school, so I had to pick up what I could from books."
"You mean you had no formal education at all after leaving the convent?"
"Not much. I did go to a day school in Marseilles for about a year when he was working for the foundry company, but not after we started travelling." She gave him a sideways glance. "I suppose that shocks you even more?"
"Have I looked shocked?" he enquired.
"No. But I expect you have been."
He smiled to himself. "Like all women, you assume too much," he said drily. "Why should I be shocked?"
"Well… it's scarcely a usual background, is it?"
"Most unusual," he conceded. "But that doesn't make it scandalous. In fact, I think you must have rather a sheltered outlook to feel that your background is so shocking."
"I — sheltered?" Joanna exclaimed in amazement. "What on earth do you mean ? I can't imagine anyone being less sheltered," she added, in a rather grim tone.
"Perhaps not — in the sense that you had to start fending for yourself at an earlier age than many girls and had no one to fall back on in an emergency," he agreed equably. "But just because your father made his living by card- sharping, and you haven't had the accepted form of education, I can't see any reason for your having to feel yourself a kind of social pariah."
Joanna gasped. "But I don't feel that at all!" she protested indignantly. "I never said I "
He cut her short. "You may not admit it — even to yourself — but I think you do feel something of the kind," he said negligently. "In fact, you must be fairly self- conscious about your upbringing, or you wouldn't expect me to be scandalized."
Joanna counted five. "You've been reading' a book on psychology, Cousin Charles," she said cuttingly. "But you're not as knowing as you think. Far from being ashamed of my circumstances, I'm rather proud of them. Personally, I feel there's something much more satisfying about making a go of life when the odds are against one. I should have been very bored if I'd merely inherited success."
But, as she might have guessed, it was too light to thrust to jar him into annoyance.
His only reaction was to give her an amused glance and a tolerant, "Let's leave it, for the time being, shall we? We'll be coming into Merefield in a moment."
Presently they entered a roundabout, and beyond it the countryside gave place to a prosperous-looking residential area with double gateways giving glimpses of large detached houses among carefully tended gardens. The centre of the town was crowded with parked cars and shoppers, and Joanna looked with interest at the attractive displays in the store windows and the striped awnings over the fruit and vegetable stalls in the central square. There was a rather . hideous red brick Town Hall, an even uglier station and an enormous glass-and-concrete building which Charles said was the new technical college. Beyond this edifice, a broad street, punctuated at intervals by pedestrian crossings, led away from the shopping area. The buildings here were an incongruous mixture of modern flats, drab Victorian terraces and small private businesses. Then, turning right at a fork, they entered a modern housing estate.
To Joanna, growing more and more tense with every passing moment, the estate seemed vast. But at last the rows of almost identical houses came to an end and, crossing another main road, they turned up a quiet lane which had a high brick wall on one side of it. Presently the wall was broken by two tall stone pillars flanking a massive wrought-iron gate and, leaving the engine running, Charles swung out of his seat and went to open the gate.
Finding her compact, Joanna snapped it open and peered anxiously at her reflection in the little glass. She was hastily retouching her lips when Charles came back to the car and said, "Ready to make your entrance?"
She nodded, putting away her lipstick and holding tight to her bag to control the trembling of her hands.
The short gravelled drive was bordered by hedges of evergreen shrubs, and directly ahead of them stood the house. It was a solid Victorian structure with high gables and windows, with stained glass fanlights. Not an attractive house, nor one which looked homely and welcoming, Joanna thought nervously.
Charles drew the car up to the steps, and then got out again and went round to open the trunk. Slowly, her knees feeling oddly weak, Joanna followed him.
"Ring the bell, will you? They can't have heard us coming," he said, lifting her cases out.
But before she could obey, the door opened and a tall greyhaired woman appeared on the threshold.
"Charles, my dear — how nice to have you back," she said cordially, coming down the steps with both hands held out and a smile of welcome.
"Hello, Monica. All well?" He bent to kiss her cheek. Then, turning towards Joanna, he said, "Well, here she is — the prodigal granddaughter. Joanna, this is your aunt."
Joanna stepped forward, her hand held out.
"How do you do, Aunt Monica?" she said, with a diffident smile.
Her aunt looked at her with a cool appraising stare that missed no detail of her appearance.
"So you are Michael's daughter," seh said slowly. "How do you do?"
But there was no warmth in the greeting and, as they followed her into the house, Joanna knew that even before they met, Monica Durrant had hated her.
CHAPTER THREE
"WHERE'S Grandmother? In the morning-room?" Charles asked, as they entered the hall.
"No, she's upstairs. I'm sorry to say that your trunk call last night had a rather upsetting effect on her," Mrs. Durrant replied, frowning slightly. "We were afraid she was going to have one of her attacks, so I thought it wiser to keep her in bed today. It would have been best if you had informed me first Charles. I could have broken the news gently."
"Yes, I suppose I should have thought of that," Charles agreed concernedly. "She's all right, isn't she? There haven't been any changes while I've been away?"
"No, I think she's recovered now. But we had rather a bad night with her," the older woman said, with a sigh. She glanced at Joanna. "I don't know if Charles has explained to you, Miss Allen, but my mother suffers from heart trouble, so it's essential that she should not be agitated or distressed in any way. Please remember that when you see her."
"Yes, of course," Joanna said gravely. Then, hesitantly, "Won't you call me Joanna?"
"Why, yes, if you prefer it," her aunt replied. "Naturally in the circumstances it's a little difficult to realize that you are a member of the family." She opened a door and stood aside. "I'll ring for tea. You must be hungry after travelling all day."
"I dare say Joanna can last out for another half hour," Charles said. "Won't Grandmother be waiting for us? She's bound to have heard the car. I think we should go straight up to her."
"Certainly — if Joanna has no objection," Mrs. Durrant said.
"No, of course not. I'm looking forward to meeting her," Joanna said eagerly.
Her aunt flickered a strange and unreadable glance at her, and then turned back to the staircase and led the way. Had Joanna's mother been alive, she would have been in her late forties, and Joanna estimated that Monica Durrant was about forty-
one or two. But for her grey hair — expertly cut and set, and tinted by a delicate lilac rinse — she could have passed for thirty-five. He figure and legs were slim, and her face comparatively unlined. She was wearing a well- cut black skirt and an expensive crepe-de-chine blouse with a triple strand of pearls at the neck and pearl-and-diamond clips in her ears. At first glance one would have described her as a gracious and attractive woman, but Joanna had already noticed that there was something curiously humorless about her face, and a hardness in the set of her mouth.
Mrs. Carlyon's bedroom was at the end of a long gloomy corridor which appeared to run the full length of the house. Tapping lightly on the door, her daughter opened it and walked in.
"They are here, Mother," she said, and beckoned her niece to enter.
The room was large and lofty, and Joanna had an impression of dark old-fashioned wallpaper and heavy mahogany furniture. Elaborate lace draperies shut out much of the light. But before she could take in any details, she found herself facing a massive Victorian bed, and in it, propped up by a mound of pillows, sat a white-haired old lady with a lacy Shetland shawl round her shoulders.
For a moment they gazed at each other in silence, and then, with a little cry, Mary Carlyon stretched out her withered hands and Joanna stepped forward and took them in her own young ones.
Afterwards, she could remember little of what they said in those first few minutes. She had no idea at what point Charles and her aunt retreated from the room. All she knew was that when, some time later, a maid brought in a tea tray, she was sitting on the side of the bed, and they were talking as easily as if they had known each other all her life.
"What a pretty child you are — and so very like your mother," Mrs. Carlyon said wistfully, as Joanna poured the tea. "No wonder Charles recognized you. Look, my dear, I have her portrait over the fireplace. But for the hair-style and the dress, it might well be a picture of you."
Joanna turned and looked at the full-length painting which faced the bed. The few indifferent photographs which Michael had carried with him to the day of his death had shown her mother as a tall slim young woman with wide dark eyes and perfect teeth. But the painter of the portrait, more discerning than the lens of a cheap box camera, had captured more than Nina's coloring and grace. She had sat to him in a dress of willow green velvet against a background of mellow oak panelling, and such was the artist's skill that she seemed to glow with youth and gaiety and laughter, her lovely eyes shining with merriment.