Strange Recompense

by Catherine Airlie

  “Your father has been ill,” he said. “Desperately ill, but he is well enough to see you now. Whatever he felt in the past, Anna, he wants you to go back to Alnborough now.”

  “I see,” she said, looking down at her clasped hands, but not completely convinced, because there had been just a suggestion of hesitation in his voice. She would not persist with her questioning, however, because she was already grateful beyond measure for all he had done for her.

  When Ruth made her appearance they decided to spend the morning going over the castle. It would fill in time, Noel said, and he had always wanted to see the place. There was, he believed, a particularly well-preserved dungeon, and the castle itself was in excellent repair.

  “Ruins need too much imagination from my point of view,” he confessed, “but I can picture a reasonably preserved castle down through the ages. I’ll go round and get the car, and you had better change those fancy shoes of yours, Ruth, for we’ll have to walk when we get there.”

  Ruth left Anna to wait for them in the lounge. The big, oak-panelled room was deserted at that hour, and Anna sat down near one of the deep mullioned windows, conscious once more of the feeling of familiarity which she had experienced the afternoon before at “The Schooner”. If she had lived near here, if Noel was right and he had traced her family, it would be quite natural, but nothing could account for the unhappiness which assailed her each time she considered the past in relationship to her own family.

  Something like dread stalked her mind when she contemplated her return to Alnborough, the grim old house which Noel believed she had described so faithfully, and she could only account for it by supposing that her relationship with her family had not been good. That fact alone distressed her anew as subconscious protest rose to deny it, and a deeply abiding love seemed to be entangled in her impressions of Alnborough and the past.

  That these impressions were emerging, slowly but surely, from behind the veil of forgetfulness, could not be denied, however. She felt far more sure of herself now, sure of the way to the future, and only the cold fear of forgetting the present which Sara had implanted crushed hope down in her heart. When she tried to analyse it she saw it as a fundamental fear of losing the love she had, fear of losing Noel, although she had no real right to claim his love.

  Despair so great that it almost shook her fine courage gripped her in its relentless stranglehold and she got to her feet with a movement as if to escape, and then she saw the other girl standing in the doorway looking in at her with naked hatred in her dark eyes.

  It was someone she knew. Uncertainty and bewilderment choked the expression of surprise back in her throat and she put both hands up to it in a protective gesture as the intruder came towards her across the thick pile of the carpet.

  “Jess—!”

  The one strangled cry was all she uttered. The name had burst in her brain like an exploding shell, leaving a havoc of confusion and darkness behind it after that first blinding revelation of light.

  “I thought your memory wasn’t all that far gone!” Jess Marrick sneered. “You remember me, and you remember what you did, sneaking off with Ned—you and him planning everything while you slept under my father’s roof and he wrote to me like a lover! And now you want to come back, don’t you? Something’s gone wrong, and you want to come back!” Jess laughed sharply. “Well, you never shall! My father can’t do without me at Alnborough now, and he knows it! The farm means more to him than his life. It would kill him to part with it, but he needs me to run it with him! You were the one who ran the house, but anyone could do that. I helped him to run the farm,” Jess boasted. “I was as good as any man out in the fields, and I still am, but the day you come back to Alnborough, Anna Marrick, I leave it!” Her lips twisted with passionate denunciation. “You can take your choice,” she flung at her sister. “You’ll kill my father if you go to Alnborough, because he will be forced to leave it if I leave!”

  The harsh, brittle voice rang in Anna’s ears with no very clear meaning behind the words except the fact that she was being denied the right to return home, denied the right to memory and the past.

  “You can’t do this, Jess,” she appealed desperately. “I’ve got to remember, and only you can help me! I’ve got to go to Alnborough, as Noel says—”

  “He’s in love with you!” Jess accused, “Anyone could see that yesterday when he tried to make me do his bidding, but he knows now what you did to me and Ned Armstrong—”

  Anna covered her face with her hands.

  “Jess, please—please try to let me think!” she cried. “Please try to help me! I have tried to help you. Oh! why doesn’t it all come back to me? Why can’t I tell you all I want you to know?”

  “Because you are ashamed of what you have done!” Jess assured her. “And whatever has happened between you and Ned, it serves you right! You want to crawl back and be accepted again, don’t you? But you won’t be! I’ll stand in your way if it is the last thing I do, for I hate you with an everlasting hatred—”

  “Be quiet, you little fool!” Noel came striding past her and went to Anna, but he turned on Jess almost immediately, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her with a depth of passion rarely seen in him. “You don’t know what you are talking about, and you have no decision to make,” he said. “It will not matter in the slightest whether you leave Alnborough or not. I shall take Anna there this afternoon and you can listen to the truth with the rest of us or not, just as it pleases you. And now,” he added, releasing her abruptly, “if you have any sense of pity left, you will go and leave us to look after your sister.”

  Jess stared back at him with concentrated hatred burning in her eyes, but she knew better than to renew her tirade against Anna in his presence.

  “Don’t go,” Anna said haltingly. “Jess, if you would only try to understand—how difficult it is just at first—adjusting to everything. It’s like—feeling one’s way through a jungle, hoping that civilization is coming nearer all the time, yet never being quite sure, never being able to see anything clearly for the dense undergrowth. It’s—praying that you’re going to win through, praying for the return of life as you know it, yet—yet—”

  Noel moved and put a protecting arm about her shaking shoulders, drawing her back to the chair she had left.

  “Take your time,” he advised.

  “It’s—coming back,” she whispered. “Noel, I knew her—I knew Jess!”

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “It’s just a pity she succeeded in slipping in when my back was turned. All right, Jess,” he added, turning to the other girl, “you needn’t make the effort to understand if it’s too much for you.” His voice altered suddenly, becoming surprisingly gentle. “You won’t believe it, but perhaps I can understand how you feel just now, how far from forgiveness you are at this moment.”

  “I’ll never forgive her!” Jessica Marrick cried again. “I’ve vowed never to speak to her as long as I live!”

  “Never is a bitter word,’ Noel told her, “and life is long. You’ll learn to love again, Jess, and live to forget all this.”

  He led her to the door, returning immediately to Anna’s side with all his concern etched in the deep lines around his mouth and eyes. Her own face was colorless, drawn into the lines of perplexity he hated to see, but he knew that this was the supreme effort, the final endeavour that must bring results.

  “She hates me,” she whispered. “You could see that, couldn’t you, but I tried to help her. Oh! if only I could think why she needed my help so much! If only I could understand why! It was about Ned.”

  “Jess and Ned were to have been married,” he prompted quietly while his own heart contracted at the irony of the situation, of helping her to remember this part of her story which he prayed might be wrong. “Their wedding was planned, Anna. Do you remember that? His voice reverted to the old note of authority. “You must remember! You were to have been her bridesmaid, I suppose.”

  “Yes—yes!” She drew in a sharp
breath, one hand still clasped to her throat as if she would force the words out. “It was all planned. My mother was dead and Jess had been so good to me—looking after me all these years. I was bewildered, Noel, when my mother died. It didn’t seem possible that someone I had loved and relied upon for all the comfort and happiness that came my way should suddenly have been taken from me—cut down at the height of her own happiness.”

  “You were very fond of your mother,” he suggested, “and Jess was kind to you after she died. You were, in fact, a happy and devoted family, who would have gone to any lengths to help one another.”

  She nodded, accepting the authenticity of his statement with an eagerness he had never seen in her before.

  “I worked in the house because I was more like my mother and Jess liked the outside jobs. My father taught her to do everything about the farm, as he would have taught a son. A son! She paused, searching diligently for the connecting thought. “When Ned first started coming to the farm to see Jess we resented him a little, I suppose. Perhaps I was even a little jealous, and my father thought he was going to break up the happiness we had built round ourselves at Alnborough like a wall, but soon my father was accepting him as a son, as an addition to our small family circle. The fact that he went to sea made it simple enough, for Jess could still be at home a great deal of her time. We would not really lose her!”

  “Did your father ever suggest, at any time, that Ned Armstrong might leave the sea and come and farm at Alnborough?” Noel asked, watching her closely, and whatever reaction he had expected to follow his remark he was certainly not prepared for the complete upheaval the suggestion appeared to create in Anna’s mind.

  She stared at him for a moment without speaking, without seeming even to see him, and then her whole face seemed to break up, quivering pathetically, while her hands fell to her sides and were clenched tightly there in a desperate effort at composure as memory came rushing back, sweeping everything before it.

  “That was it! That was what caused the trouble, but it was Jess who talked Ned into the promise to leave the sea. She over-ruled all his objections, all his desires, but the sea won in the end!” Her face was as pale as a ghost, but her eyes were keen with understanding. “Noel,” she said uncertainly, “the sea won—in the end.”

  He took her hands in his holding them firmly as he turned her round in the chair to face him.

  “Don’t think about that yet,” he commanded. “You knew Ned felt like that about his career—about giving it up for Alnborough. Was it because he wrote to you and told you, Anna? Was it all in that letter you tried to burn the day you went away?”

  “Yes,” she agreed without hesitation, taking his knowledge for granted. “Ned told me he had changed his mind, not only about giving up the sea but about Jess, too. He said—he said he couldn’t go on loving anyone so possessive when he knew he couldn’t give her everything in return. He said that his chosen career meant more to him than any woman he had ever met and he couldn’t give it up.”

  “Was that all?”

  Her mouth twisted painfully, but the words could not be stopped now. They came tumbling out, one after the other, as if time was limited and so much had to be said in the shortest space of time.

  “He was terribly upset. He said he would give the world to be able to change back to loving Jess again, but he just didn’t know how. He said he would try to explain everything if I would only agree to meet him, but he would not come to Alnborough. Perhaps he feared a scene with Jess—he had always a hasty temper—and I thought that sounded cowardly at the time, but I was foolish enough to think, too, that I could persuade him to change his mind again if only I could see him and talk to him.”

  “And so you went to Swansea instead of going to your holiday hotel?”

  She nodded.

  “I decided to telephone to them to say I would be late, and then Ned said he could get me there in reasonable time, so I didn’t. He had bought a second-hand car in Swansea and he said we could talk it all over on the way north to Harlech. He was going on to Liverpool to join another ship there.”

  Noel’s face was almost as pale as her own now, but he held her firmly.

  “How far did you drive on the journey? A long way?” he suggested.

  “We left Swansea quite early. My train got in early in the morning and Ned met it with the car. He looked dreadfully haggard and untidy, as if he had been up all night, and he was terribly unhappy. I felt sorry for him. He was so deeply concerned about what he was doing, but—he just couldn’t go on with the marriage. And after a while I saw that I couldn’t argue against such black despair. He just didn’t love Jess any more.”

  “Anna,” Noel asked quietly, “was he in love with you?”

  She gave him his answer instantly, clear and decisive as all truth. “He was never in love with me. We had been good friends, that was all—good friends for a very long time. I would have welcomed him as a brother if he had gone on loving Jess.”

  “And since he couldn’t do that, your mission was hopeless,” he concluded. “Anna, do you remember your mother’s ring?”

  Deep distress lined her face again.

  “My father gave it to me to give to Ned before the wedding because it had always been said among us that the first bride should wear it, and I took it with me to Wales, thinking that it might help me in my argument for Jess. I thought—I must have thought that I could influence Ned in that way, but it was no use. When a person has made up his mind about a thing like that—about not loving someone sufficiently—nothing will sway them—not pity or sentiment or anything like that,” she added. “I didn’t even show him the ring once I realized how hopeless everything was.”

  “You put it back in your pocket and it was found there with your other possessions,” he said.

  “I don’t know—”

  For the first time she was thinking about the ring, thinking directly about herself, and she stared down at the thin gold circlet on her finger and began to twist it round and round in confusion. He put a firm hand over hers to stop the confused gesture.

  “Never mind that now,” he said. “Where did you leave Ned Armstrong?”

  Her fingers gripped hard on his as Ruth came in at the door and he nodded to his sister to stay where she was. Little beads of perspiration were standing out on Anna’s brow now and her voice began to shake.

  “I didn’t leave Ned,” she said unsteadily. “We went together—to the edge of the sea. There was no other road—”

  Noel got abruptly to his feet.

  “All right, you can forget about that now,” he said. “The essentials are all here, Anna.” He bent down and took her hands again, drawing her to her feet. “My dear, I’ve got the right to look after you now, thank God! Try to remember that there’s nothing more to fear.”

  Ruth came to his side, her kind eyes full of concern.

  “Is it all right?” she whispered.

  “Practically.” His tone was buoyant with relief. “Much better than I could have hoped for, in fact, but I still think I should take her to Alnborough. I think, too, that we might go right away. If we’re quick enough, we may even get there ahead of Jess.”

  Ruth could not understand his reason, and she was more perplexed when he decided to take a road along the coast instead of following the main highway, which he knew. He was driving much faster than he normally did, too, and he had insisted on Anna’s sitting beside him in the front of the car.

  They came upon the sea at last, looking down over sand dunes covered with rough grass; from there they climbed on to the cliff, and the dunes finally gave way to a rocky coastline with a steeper drop to the sea. Noel began to increase his speed and almost instantly Anna covered her face with her hands.

  “No! No!” she protested. “Noel—stop! Please stop! The road—” Her cry ended in a shuddering sigh, as if all the breath had gone out of her, and she lay back against the cushioning with her eyes closed, the blue veined lids trembling spasmodically. Noel
slowed the car and turned to look at her.

  “Anna,” he demanded ruthlessly, “you saw that car go over the cliff. When did you leave it?”

  “I jumped. I saw the road all broken away—”

  “And Armstrong couldn’t stop in time! He braked and slowed up, but it was too late—for him.” He was forming his own impression, fitting in clue after clue to make an acceptable whole, and he knew that it coincided with the picture shaping in her mind.

  He looked at Anna again, critically, and Ruth spoke for the first time.

  “Is she all right?”

  “I’d like to take her somewhere where she could rest for a while,” he said. “It looks as if we had better go back to the hotel.”

  “Or on to Alnborough,” Ruth suggested. “Take her home, Noel, and leave Jessica Marrick to me. I passed her in the entrance hall of the hotel just now and she glared hatred at me, though she couldn’t possibly have known who I was, but I knew her because she was with a young man who called her Jess—the farming type.”

  Noel hesitated.

  “It’s the only way,” Ruth urged. “Anna will want to go home.

  He let in the clutch and the car slid away down the hill, away from the sea towards the open moor.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We’ll take her home'. I’m sorry for Jess Marrick,” he added, “and I’m possibly going to have the thankless task of proving to her how wrong she has been, but I’ve also got to convince her that the man she still loves is dead, drowned off the Welsh coast when a car plunged over a cliff in the darkness! I’m not exactly looking forward to that bit!”

  “Will we ever have proof!” Ruth wondered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really think so, but I’ll phone Dennis tonight and see if he can put any inquiries on foot before we get back. He was as interested in this case as I was.”