Love Is My Reason

by Mary Burchell

  Surely, she thought, if one of those young men in the photograph had been her father, there must be something—something about him which would touch the edge of her consciousness with the knowledge of it. Could so close a bond awaken no real response, touch no chord of instinct?

  Almost desperately she searched for the faintest, most fleeting likeness between herself and the smiling young man who had been Martin Deane. But there was none. Or none that she could see.

  Less eagerly, she searched the features of the other face. But here again there was no likeness that she could see.

  And yet, if all that had been hinted or said or guessed at were true—if only half of it were true—one of these men must have been her father. And if Martin Deane had been that man, then she was Anya Deane, granddaughter of Mrs. Preston and niece (however unwelcome) of Celia Preston. Which would mean that she belonged by right in this comfortable, secure, elegant world in which she now found herself.

  Lady Ranmere, for all her efforts to be just and objective, would look at her with quite different eyes. David—yes, even David—would see her, not as the engaging waif towards whom he felt an indulgent but pressing responsibility, but, quite simply, as a girl of his own world.

  Oh, exquisite, elusive, magical security! What more could anyone ask of life? A home, a family, a place in the world, a right to be there. A place—a place—a place! Never again to be a displaced person.

  “Anya Deane—Miss Deane—Mrs. Preston’s granddaughter.” She said the words over to herself, as though she were being introduced. And then she looked once more at the two young men—and they gazed back at her, blankly, secretly.

  She gave a long sigh. “We shall probably never know,” she said aloud. “And what then?”

  Even to anyone as inexperienced as Anya, it was obvious that Mrs. Preston would not go on indefinitely accepting an arrangement which she regarded as a most unsatisfactory compromise. Sooner or later, she was bound to insist that, in the absence of any information to the contrary, Anya be accepted as her granddaughter.

  She would always behave as though Anya were indeed the child of her lost son, and if Anya accepted the situation there would be at least a sort of material security about it. But the position would not be easy. It would never have any real significance or integrity.

  To everyone except Mrs. Preston, in a greater or lesser degree she would remain the unknown, slightly bogus mystery girl from “that camp”. And Celia would take care to give most people the impression that Anya had in some way contrived to foist herself, rather questionably, upon the devoted and credulous Mrs. Preston.

  Oh, why, why had her mother, all those years ago, not said just those few words which would have solved the mystery, and given her child either security or at least a decent anonymity?

  “I was very fond of one of them—but it’s better for you not to know which.” Even now, Anya could hear the sad, nostalgic little laugh with which her mother had said that. And then, with a sigh, she had added those words which had shut off the past irretrievably—“He died before you were born.”

  Presently, with a start, Anya realized that time was slipping away, and that she had been sitting there in her room much longer than she had intended. Hastily she put the photograph in a drawer—the one which contained David’s stole—and she went downstairs, feeling rather intimidated by the quiet elegance of the house, which seemed to receive her politely but with reserve.

  Over supper Lady Ranmere and the two men discussed their plans for the immediate future. All of them were obviously taking up the strands of an existence which claimed them as soon as they returned home. Only Anya had no past on which to build a present, no future which stemmed inevitably from a past.

  “I shall run up to town tomorrow,” David said. “I suppose you will too?” He turned to his cousin.

  “For the day, at any rate. Though I’ll probably come down again in the evening,” Bertram replied. “Can I give you a lift, or will you be coming by train?”

  David, however, said that he would probably have to stay in London for a day or two. And Anya tried to look politely indifferent, and as though it were not a matter of tormenting interest to her whether David returned or stayed away.

  While this conversation went on, Lady Ranmere was examining a pile of correspondence and making entries in an engagement book at her side. Obviously committees and local interests were already absorbing her. She was the complete picture of the busy, capable woman, fitting into her niche once more.

  A little anxiously, Anya wondered what she herself would be expected to do while everyone else was either busy or absent. Presumably the same thought struck David, for he turned to her with a smile and said,

  “For the first few days you won’t want to do anything but get used to your new surroundings, I expect.”

  “I—don’t know. I—I should like to do anything that would be of help,” she told him shyly.

  “Mama will work you into one or other of her various interests,” Bertram declared lightly.

  But Lady Ranmere looked both surprised and doubtful, and obviously failed to see Anya fitting into such activities as the Women’s Institute or the Church Committee or, least of all, the Magistrates’ Bench.

  “There is no need to make any hurried decisions,” she observed, a trifle irritably. “Anya can have some quiet days in the garden, or do some reading or get to know the district. After that—” She broke off and returned to her correspondence. And Anya thought that perhaps even Lady Ranmere was at a loss when it came to deciding what one could do with the stranger after that.

  “You concentrate on feeling at home,” David told her kindly. “Then we can talk about what you want to do.” To this Anya could only say, “Thank you,” in a suitably grateful tone. But she was annoyed that Bertram’s glance caught hers at that exact moment, and that he gave her a roguish little smile which reminded her of his remarks earlier that day about the depressing effect of gratitude.

  No one seemed inclined to stay up late after the long journey, and good-nights were said early.

  “You had better have your breakfast in bed tomorrow.” David looked down indulgently at her as he said goodnight.

  But Anya exclaimed, “Oh, no!” rather quickly, because the imminent departure of David weighed heavily upon her, and she told herself that she would at least see him for half an hour at the breakfast-table in the morning.

  Even this small matter, however, was settled for her. Lady Ranmere glanced up and said,

  “Yes, that’s the best arrangement. You and Bertram will be breakfasting early, I take it. Anya and I will have our breakfast in our rooms.”

  She longed to cry rebelliously that she would get up and have breakfast with David, and enjoy the last short moments of his companionship. But one did not question Lady Ranmere’s domestic arrangements in her own house. One merely said meekly, “Very well.”

  “Don’t get downcast without me.” David smiled at her—reassuringly, even a little teasingly. “I’ll be down again in a few days’ time.”

  And in reply to this, she had to smile and murmur something suitable. For of course no one must know that her heart gave a frightened flutter and then seemed to sink like lead at the idea of facing life at last without David at any rate somewhere near at hand.

  She slowly climbed the stairs to her room, telling herself that it was all right—that everyone was kind to her and that in Lady Ranmere’s house no harm could come to her. It was sad to be without David, of course. But he would be coming back in a day or two, and meanwhile no one expected anything difficult or impossible of her. She had only to do what she was told and all would be well.

  But for the first time since David had brought her from the camp, she slept badly, waking at intervals with a beating heart and a sensation of choking terror. She would lie there for a few moments, unable to imagine where she was—the pretty room dark and sinister in its mystery, the soft bed like something in which one was buried alive.

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sp; Then, slowly, the terror would ebb and she would tell herself again that she was safe—that no danger threatened her except some formless shadow of her own imagination.

  Towards morning she slept deeply and tranquilly at last, so that finally when she woke it was to the sound of a car driving away from the house.

  “That’s David!” she thought, and, jumping out of bed, she ran to the window.

  Before her stretched a glorious expanse of rolling countryside with, nearer at hand, a lawn and an infinitely attractive flower garden. But she looked at none of these. Only at the gravel drive and at the car which was just turning out of the end of it into the road beyond.

  “He’s gone,” she said aloud. And then, because the sun was shining and she felt refreshed and rested at last, she added eagerly, “But it’s all right. He’ll be coming back. He said he would.”

  Feeling vaguely presumptuous, she presently rang her bell, and a neatly dressed maid, younger and less rigid than Dixon, appeared, and accepted her timid request for breakfast as something perfectly normal.

  It was all rather fun, she could not help thinking suddenly, and her spirits rose irrepressibly, so that she looked round and took fresh pleasure in her beautiful room, in the elegant house, and the knowledge that, if she did not belong here, at least she was here temporarily by invitation.

  After her breakfast, she dressed and went downstairs, to find Lady Ranmere already seated at her desk in the morning room, telephoning to someone with her characteristic air of benign dictatorship.

  She made a friendly little gesture towards Anya which did duty both as a greeting and an indication that she might sit down and wait. Then she rapidly completed her telephone conversation with a few crisp instructions, thinly disguised as suggestions.

  “Good morning, my dear.” Lady Ranmere replaced the receiver and addressed Anya kindly, if absently, as she made a note on a pad in front of her. “Did you sleep well?”

  Ignoring the early part of the night, Anya said she had slept very well and asked if she could do anything for her hostess.

  “Oh—no, thank you. I don’t think so. Why don’t you go out and have a look at the garden?” Lady Ranmere suggested. “Gardens always look their best in the morning.”

  It was perfectly obvious that she wished Anya to take herself off and be happy elsewhere. So Anya obediently rose and stepped out into the garden, by way of the open french windows, for she had had a great deal of experience in gauging the moments when she was not wanted.

  It was indescribably peaceful and beautiful out in the garden. Distant sounds of the countryside came to her as she wandered along the paths, and the sun shone warmly on flowers and trees. It was all so far removed from the harsh ugliness of life as she had known it for years that it was difficult to decide which was reality and which only a dream.

  Presently she heard the sound of a car coming up the front drive and, although she knew this could not be David returning, some nervous compulsion drew her back to the house, so that she even hurried a little, as though she might be late for something.

  As she entered the morning-room again by the french window, Celia came in by the door, and in an inexplicable moment of shock the girls faced each other across the room, almost as though Lady Ranmere was not there. And this was strange, for one did not often overlook Lady Ranmere, particularly in her own house.

  It was the older woman, however, who spoke first.

  “Good morning, Celia. How nice of you to call so early,” she said, though she did not really mean this at all, for she thought early calls interfered with one’s own routine.

  “I didn’t mean to be so early. I shouldn’t have been—But I had to come—at once—” It was not like Celia to speak in this breathless, jerky way, and Lady Ranmere asked sharply,

  “What is it, my dear? Has something happened?”

  “Yes.” Celia looked at Anya again, and Anya found herself groping for the back of a chair, as though she were going to need some support. “Something has happened. We had news this morning—of Martin.”

  “News of Martin?” Lady Ranmere’s glance went to Anya then. “You mean—real news? Something which concerns Anya?”

  “It is real news. But it doesn’t concern Anya in the least.” Celia spoke quite confidently now, in clear, almost triumphant accents. “The news is of Martin himself. He is alive—”

  “Celia!”

  “—in America” And he’s coming home, after all these years. It has nothing to do with Anya at all because her father is dead. Her own mother said so. So she can’t have any connection with Martin, can she?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For perhaps half a minute there was silence in the room. A silence so intense and complete that Anya could actually hear the heavy hum of a bee cruising in the flower-bed just outside the open window.

  Then Lady Ranmere spoke—slowly and as though, for once, her usually active mind found it difficult to cope with the immensity of Celia’s announcement.

  “Are you trying to—to tell us that Martin didn’t die in Russia or Bulgaria or wherever it was? That he went away to America instead, where no one ever thought of looking for him.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s what I am saying. When he left Russia he went to the United States.”

  “Then—” Lady Ranmere was still groping after the facts and their exact significance—“then it was the other man who died.”

  “Obviously.” Celia spoke with a sort of impatient yet good-humoured triumph. As though it were silly to have to recapitulate these facts, but as though she did not really mind doing so because they were so infinitely welcome. “In other words, it was the other man who was Anya’s father, and she has no connection with Martin whatsoever. Or with us,” she added, with a bright, cold glance in Anya’s direction.

  It was curiously like a blow, and Anya felt herself go white. She had not, she tried to tell herself, ever counted too much on Mrs. Preston’s eager theories. But, however much she had tried to preserve an objective attitude, the fact was that these people were all she had to depend upon in an alien world. Now, suddenly, she was being told she had no connection with them—not the faintest claim upon them—and she felt a wave of panic and embarrassment that almost choked her.

  Lady Ranmere had gone on asking questions, and desperately, almost stupidly, Anya tried to follow Celia’s eager, happy explanations.

  It was not, it seemed, entirely coincidence which had brought Martin on the scene, just as his identity had become of such painful importance. In her anxiety and distress over her mother’s obstinate claim on Anya, Celia had applied to someone she referred to as Godfrey, who was in the Diplomatic Service.

  “Godfrey said very truly,” Celia was explaining, as Anya struggled to the surface again, “that it was the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack, but he managed to get some enquiries on foot.”

  “In America? But why in America?” Lady Ranmere wanted to know.

  “No. That part was a coincidence,” Celia explained. “He happened to tell the story to a friend of his who was going to Washington. I’m still not quite clear how this other man contacted Martin. I think they knew each other slightly already, but Martin doesn’t say so—”

  “You mean he has actually written himself?” Lady Ranmere exclaimed.

  “Yes, yes! Didn’t I tell you that? It’s all so incredible and sudden that I hardly know which way to tell the story.” For a moment Celia looked genuinely moved, and Anya thought she could have found it in her heart to be sympathetic, if only Celia were not so determinedly inimical.

  “And what about your mother?” enquired Lady Ranmere, rather doubtfully. “It must have been a great shock for her, even though a happy one.”

  “Well—yes,” Celia conceded. “She is wild with excitement, of course. Crying because she is so happy, and not knowing what to do first to welcome Martin when he returns. She wanted to speak to him over the Atlantic telephone, but he gave no number, so we have to cable instead. It�
�s a wonderful day for us both.”

  “Yes.” The older woman looked thoughtfully at the radiant, triumphant Celia and then, more reluctantly, at Anya.

  “I’m sorry, Anya,” she said, with characteristic, but not unkindly, candour. “This cannot be very good news for you.”

  “It was to be expected.” Celia spoke quickly, a little contemptuously. “I, for one, never believed that far-fetched story about Anya being Martin’s daughter.”

  “Then that was very prejudiced of you, my dear,” replied Lady Ranmere drily. “The facts pointed to a strong possibility, if nothing else.”

  Celia gave the very faintest toss of her head at this, but she did not answer. And at last Anya found her voice and said huskily,

  “It’s a—a disappointment, of course. But I’m glad for Mrs. Preston’s sake that she has found her son alive.”

  “Of course, of course,” agreed Lady Ranmere rather absently.

  Celia glanced at the quiet, pale girl, who seemed to have so curiously little to say for herself in this dramatic moment

  “I don’t know quite what you will be able to do now.” She did not seem anxious to soften the situation. “It was a pity decisions were made so hurriedly. I always said so.”

  “Anya is not called on to do anything at all at the moment,” Lady Ranmere stated crisply. For, however much she might regret the impetuosity which landed her with this problem, Lady Ranmere was certainly not one to allow a guest to be made unwelcome. “She came here on a visit, at my invitation, and here she will stay for the duration of her visit.”

  Anya gave a grateful glance at her hostess. But, inevitably, even in these kindly meant words, a term had been set to her all too temporary security. A visit was something which must have an end. And then what?

  She was not the concern of any of these people, after all. The time would come when they must, or necessity, wash their hands of her. She would stand alone in a terrifying world.

  In a frightening uprush of mingled nostalgia and loathing, she seemed to see the barracks again, clearly outlined in every squalid detail. And she did not know in that moment if she feared it or longed for it.