She Came Back

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Uncle Thomas, I’ve got to thank you-at once, without waiting-because you’ve cleared it all up for me. I can see how it could have happened-without Philip knowing. You’ve shown me not only that it did happen, but just how it happened.” Her hand dropped, her eyes went to Philip. “I’m afraid I said some rather horrid things when we talked about it, and I’m sorry. I want to ask you to forgive me. You see, I didn’t understand how it could have happened. I couldn’t get over the feeling that I had been left-” Her voice died. She looked away from Philip, who had not looked at her. She leaned back in her chair and for a moment closed her eyes.

  Without moving, Philip was aware of all she did. Behind perfect control his thoughts were turbulent and racing. How clever-how damnably clever-the slight gesture, the failing voice. Anne wasn’t as clever as that. Anne wasn’t clever at all. She had loved life. She had loved her own way, and for a little while she had loved him. Then, like a trickle of cold water-“Suppose she’s not being clever-suppose it’s real- suppose she is Anne-”

  Everyone about the table shared a momentary embarrassment. Lilla sat a little closer to Perry. She slipped her hand inside his arm and squeezed it. She had the air of a small bright bird seeking shelter. Her fur coat, open at the neck, showed glimpses of a rose-coloured jumper, a string of milky pearls, a diamond clip. Everything about her was warm, and soft, and kind. She leaned against Perry, who was the most embarrassed person there. Scenes were the devil, and family scenes were the devil with knobs on. He thought the world of Philip, and he wanted him and everyone else to be as happy as he and Lilla were.

  The silence was broken by Emmeline. Her husband’s remarks had surprised her very much. It wasn’t at all like Thomas to-well, to take charge like that. And he had interrupted her just as she was about to take charge herself, a thing she felt very well qualified to do-much better qualified than Thomas. She said now in her most decided voice,

  “There were several things that I was going to say when your uncle interrupted me. We’ve got to be practical. Handwriting first of all-what about that?”

  This time it was Mr. Codrington who replied.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Jocelyn. But of course it was a point which suggested itself at once. Neither Philip, nor myself, nor Mrs. Armitage can detect any difference between old signatures of Anne’s and signatures which we have seen written in the last few days.” As he spoke he opened the attaché case in front of him, took out some folded sheets, and passed them to Thomas Jocelyn. “I think everyone should look at these. Some of them are new, and some of them are old. The new ones have been purposely creased and handled. If anyone can pick them out, he or she is cleverer than I am.”

  Mr. Jocelyn took his time. Presently he shook his head and let his wife have the papers.

  “I might hazard a guess on the colour of the ink, but certainly not on the writing.”

  Emmeline took her time too. There was one whole letter which began “Dear Mr. Codrington,” and ended “Yours very sincerely, Anne Jocelyn.” In between, a few lines thanking him for the despatch of some papers unspecified.

  She took up the next sheet. Three or four lines to conclude another letter. The weather was very damp-she did hope it would clear soon. And once more she was his very sincerely.

  There were two more letters, one asking for a copy of her will, and the other thanking him for having sent it.

  Emmeline began to say, “I suppose-” then checked herself and passed the letters to Milly Armitage, who had seen them before and pushed them over the table to Inez Jocelyn. She made a great rustling with them, snatching them up, only to discard one, pick it up again, and finally arrange the four sheets like a hand at cards.

  “Of course the two about her will must have been written before she went to France. Not a very good choice, if I may say so. She could hardly have been making a will since her return-could she?” That very unpleasant laugh of hers rang out. “I thought of that at once. You can’t expect us to think of nothing but the writing, you know. The subject-matter is evidence too, Mr. Codrington.” With a toss of the platinum curls she relinquished the letters to Perry, who shook his head over them and said they all looked alike to him.

  As Mr. Codrington resumed possession of them he said drily,

  “The two letters about the will were written a couple of days ago to my dictation.”

  Mrs. Thomas Jocelyn allowed herself to smile. Then she addressed Philip.

  “Well, we had to get that out of the way. What I want to ask you now is about the night you went over to France. I want to know how those two girls were dressed. Because unless their clothes were alike, I don’t see how you could have taken one for the other.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t notice very much. It was dark. They were the sort of things girls wear-the sort of things you don’t notice-a tweed skirt and a jumper. Afterwards, I suppose, they had coats on.”

  “Was Anne wearing her fur coat?”

  “I don’t know-I didn’t notice.”

  Anne said quick and low, “Yes, I was wearing it. I’ve got it-I came home in it.”

  Emmeline said, “Oh-” And then, “It was a very valuable coat-mink, if I remember. Milly would know if it was Anne’s coat. Is it, Milly?”

  “There isn’t any doubt about that,” said Milly Armitage.

  Emmeline said “Oh-” again. Then she went on with her questions.

  “We’ve got to clear up this business about the clothes, because it’s very important. The girl who died in the boat- the one you thought was Anne-how was she dressed? You identified her, so you must have seen her next day.”

  Perry felt Lilla wince. Thomas Jocelyn was aware of an inarticulate bleak anger. Lyndall looked down at her hands, which were clenched in her lap.

  Philip said, “Yes, I saw her. But I’m afraid I don’t remember about her clothes, except that they were wet and a good deal stained-the sea kept breaking over us. I’m afraid it’s no good, Aunt Emmeline. We’ve been over this clothes question before, and it doesn’t lead anywhere.”

  “Where was Anne’s jewelry-those rings and her pearls? The pearls were real.”

  Again it was Anne who answered.

  “They were all in my handbag. I was carrying it.” She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “All except my wedding-ring. I took it off when I quarreled with Philip about going to France. When I knew he had come over to fetch me, I put it on again.”

  “Did you know she had taken it off, Philip?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I may ask something-” Inez Jocelyn’s tone was edgy. “Of course only if Emmeline has quite finished. I think we ought to know what this quarrel was about. Anne would be able to tell us, but probably Annie Joyce would not.”

  Anne gave her an unsteady smile.

  “Of course I can tell you. It was all very stupid-quarrels generally are. Cousin Theresa wrote and asked me to come over to France. She said she had made a will in my favour when she came over to the wedding, and she wanted to talk to me about personal mementoes for the family. Philip was very angry. He said she had no business to leave the money away from Annie Joyce, and he said I wasn’t to go. Of course he was perfectly right about the money, and I wouldn’t have taken it-though I didn’t tell him that, because I was angry too, and I didn’t like being dictated to. So we quarrelled, and I took off my wedding-ring and went to France without making it up.”

  Inez Jocelyn turned her pale eyes on Philip, protruded her pale chin.

  “Is that true?”

  He said, “Perfectly true,” and then looked suddenly at Anne. “Where did we have this quarrel?”

  Their eyes met, his very cold, hers very bright. Something in them eluded him.

  “Where?”

  “Yes, where? In what place, and at what time of the day?”

  She said very slowly, and as if it pleased her to dwell upon the words,

  “In the parlour-in the afternoon-after lunch.”

  That cold gaze of his held against the spark of t
riumph in hers. It was she who looked away.

  He said, “Perfectly correct.”

  There was a silence. Mr. Elvery wrote upon his pad.

  “Annie Joyce wouldn’t have been very likely to know that!” said Inez Jocelyn. She gave her jarring laugh. “But I suppose Anne might have told her. Not very likely of course, but girls do tattle. Only I suppose there’s a limit. Of course, you never know, but-Why don’t you ask her where you proposed to her, and what you said? I shouldn’t have expected her and Annie to be such bosom friends that she would have told her that.”

  Philip glanced across the table and spoke.

  “You heard what Cousin Inez said. Do you feel inclined to answer her?”

  She looked back at him in a softer way than she had done before.

  “We’re not to be allowed to have any privacies-are we?”

  “Is that what you are going to plead?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh, no. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Then, turning towards Inez, “He proposed to me in the rose-garden on the seventh of July, nineteen-thirty-nine. It was a romantic setting, but I’m afraid we were not very romantic about it. We had been talking about all the things Philip would have liked to do to the house if he had had enough money. He said he wanted to pull down the bits my grandfather built on. He called them expensive hideosities, and I said I thought so too. Then I said I’d like to do things to the garden, and he said, ‘What kind of things?’ So I told him I’d like to make a lily-pool and get rid of the ramblers out of the rose-garden- things like that. And he said, ‘All right, you can if you want to.’ I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ and he put his arm round me and said, ‘I’m asking you to marry me, stupid. What about it?’ And I said, ‘Oh, what fun!’ and he kissed me.”

  “Is that right?” Inez Jocelyn’s voice rang stridently.

  Philip said, “Oh, yes.”

  When he had said these two words his lips closed hard.

  Inez leaned right forward, crowding Lilla.

  “Well, there must be plenty of other things that you can ask her-things which only you or she can know anything about. After all, you had a honeymoon, didn’t you?”

  Thomas Jocelyn looked round sharply. Mr. Codrington put up a restraining hand. But before anyone could speak Anne pushed back her chair. Still smiling and without hurry, she passed round the end of the table and laid a hand on Philip’s shoulder. When she spoke her voice had a note of tender amusement.

  “Cousin Inez wants you to feel quite sure that I went on that honeymoon. Don’t you think that the family would be rather de trop? I mean-well, even the kindest cousin isn’t exactly welcome on a honeymoon. Wouldn’t it be a good plan if we went away and had this out together?”

  Without waiting for an answer she moved towards the door. After a moment Philip got up and followed her. They went out of the room together. The door fell to behind them.

  Everyone except Inez felt a sense of relief. Everyone also felt that Anne had shown a good deal of tact and breeding, qualities in which Miss Jocelyn was painfully deficient.

  Emmeline raised her fine eyebrows and said, “Really!”

  “Really what, Emmeline? You know as well as I do that the only definite proof would be something that was absolutely private between them. What’s the good of saying ‘Really!’ at me just because you haven’t got as much courage as I have? After all, we’re here to find out the truth, aren’t we? And I’d like to know how else you think we’re going to do it. What is the good of being mealy-mouthed? If she can tell Philip things which only his wife could have known, why, then she is Anne. But if she can’t, why, then she isn’t.”

  It was while Inez was still speaking that Lilla got up and came round the table to sit by Lyndall. She put a small warm hand over the clenched fingers in Lyndall’s lap and found them icy cold.

  “Lyn-I do so want you to come up and stay with me. Perry goes off again tomorrow. Couldn’t you come back with us?”

  Without looking at her Lyndall said,

  “Your last evening? Oh, no.”

  “Tomorrow then? Do be an angel and help me out! Cousin Inez has her eye on our spare room. She doesn’t like being evacuated to Little Claybury. She thinks there isn’t going to be any more bombing and she wants to get back to town, and I don’t really think I can bear it.”

  They spoke behind a barrage of voices. Everyone except Perry and Mr. Elvery was talking now. Lyndall said, quick and low,

  “Yes, I’ll come.”

  “I shall love to have you.”

  The family was still talking when the door opened and Anne came in with Philip behind her. Anne was smiling, and Philip deadly pale. She went back to her place and sat down, but he remained standing. As everyone turned and looked at him, he said,

  “I made a mistake. I must have made one three years ago. I have to beg her pardon. She is Anne.”

  CHAPTER 13

  After all nobody stayed the night. The only person who showed any disposition to do so was Inez, but receiving no encouragement, she departed as she had come, with Perry and Lilla.

  A fleeting qualm of conscience prompted Milly Armitage to draw Lilla aside.

  “Look here, I don’t want her-we’ve got enough on our hands without Inez. But if it means that she’s going to land herself on you and spoil the last evening of Perry’s leave, well, I’ll have her. I suppose if it comes to that, it isn’t really for me to say. If Anne’s back, it’s her house and I’m only a visitor.”

  Lilla looked at her with affection,

  “Anyone would love to have you as a visitor. And it’s quite all right about Cousin Inez, because she’s staying with her friend Roberta Loam, and they haven’t quarrelled yet, though I think they’re on the brink. Lyn says she’ll come to me tomorrow, so that’s all quite safe and fixed. What are you going to do?”

  Milly Armitage made a face.

  “Philip wants me to stay on here. Of course I can’t-at least I don’t see how I can-unless Anne wants me too. She says she does, so I suppose I’ll have to try it for a bit. None of it’s easy, is it?”

  Lilla said, “No.” Then she squeezed her hands and kissed her very warmly indeed.

  Philip came back from seeing them off, with the remark that his cousin Inez was without exception the most disagreeable woman he had ever met. She had been arch with him on the doorstep, had shaken those dreadful curls at him, and screamed parting jocosities about a second honeymoon from the window of the moving taxi.

  “Theresa was bad enough. She bounced, and quarrelled, and interfered, but she had an awful sort joie-de-vivre. And she wasn’t vindictive, and she didn’t dye her hair-at least she hadn’t dyed it last time I saw her, because I remember its looking like a large grey bird’s nest.”

  “At our wedding,” said Anne. She used a light, pleased voice and spoke as if there had never been a cloud between them since that wedding-day.

  Then, before Philip’s silence could become noticeable, she was making herself charming to the Thomas Jocelyns and Mr. Codrington. She was no longer “the claimant” on her probation, but very much Anne Jocelyn speeding the parting guests from Jocelyn’s Holt.

  It was some hours later, in the empty time before the evening meal, that Philip found Lyndall in the parlour alone. She had changed into a dark red house-gown which caught the firelight and reflected it back from warm velvet folds. Only one lamp was on, the shaded one by the far window. It showed Lyndall in her red dress crouched forward over the fire with both hands stretched to the blaze. He took a moment watching her. Then he came up to the hearth and stood there.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  She did not move, but her hands shook a little. She said,

  “Yes.”

  He looked, not at her, but down into the fire.

  “Everything in my mind says that she is Anne-reason, logic, evidence. And everything else keeps shouting, ‘She’s a stranger.’ What else does one do?”

  Lyndall said in a small v
oice like a tired child,

  “I can’t tell you that-can I?”

  “No. I suppose the fact of the matter is that we are strangers. The point at which we touched is a long way behind us both. We have gone off in different directions. I can’t see any meeting-point ahead. She thinks there might be one, and that we owe it to each other to try and come together again. I have told her that she owes me nothing. I can’t tell her that I don’t owe her anything either. From her point of view I owe her a good deal. However it came about, I did fail her-she was left in danger whilst I went back to safety.”

  “Philip!” She turned round, her eyes imploring him.

  “Lyn, don’t you see how it must have looked to her-how it might be made to look to anyone? I came away without her-I identified another woman’s body as hers-and I came in for every penny of her money. When she comes home again, you recognize her, Aunt Milly recognizes her-Mrs. Ramage, Mr. Codrington, the whole family recognize her. But I stick out, I go on saying she isn’t Anne, until the weight of the evidence overbears me by main force. I don’t need to dot the i’s or cross the t’s, do I? You see what it looks like- I deserted her, I lied about it, I denied her.”

  “Philip-please-”

  The rapid, bitter flow of words was broken, but only for a moment. He stared down at her as if he saw, not her, but some fantastic abyss whose unsteady edge might yet give way and launch him headlong.

  “Don’t you see? If you don’t, Mr. Codrington does. He told me in so many words how grateful I ought to be for the way in which she is taking it. If she had chosen to bring a case, if she had shown resentment, if she hadn’t displayed the most extraordinary forbearance, my name would be mud. She wants to make it up, she wants to be friends, she wants us to give each other a chance. She doesn’t suggest our living together now. She only asks that we should to a normal and reasonable extent live under the same roof-show ourselves together in public-until all the talk and gossip has died down. What can I do? I can’t refuse her that-can I?”