Читать книгу She Came Back - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 7

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She got out of her chair and stood facing him. “Philip!”

He nodded briefly.

“Philip. But not Anne—or at least not Anne Jocelyn. I suppose Annie Joyce was christened Anne.”

“Philip!”

“That doesn’t get us anywhere, does it? May I ask how you thought you could get away with a fraud of this kind? Very ingenuous of you, but perhaps you thought I’d be abroad—or better still a casualty, in which case I suppose you might have brought it off. It seems to have gone down with Lyn and Aunt Milly, but it doesn’t go down with me, and I’ll tell you why. When Anne was hit I picked her up and I got her into the boat. She died there. I brought her body home.”

She kept her eyes on his face.

“You brought Annie Joyce home. You buried Annie Joyce.”

“And why am I supposed to have done that?”

She said, “I think you made a mistake—it was Annie who was hit, but I screamed. She was holding on to my arm. You had gone ahead towards the boat. The bullet went between us—I felt it go by. Annie let go of me and fell down. I screamed. Then you came back and picked her up. You may have thought it was I. You may have made a mistake in the dark—I don’t know—I don’t want to say. It was dark, and they were firing at us—you could have made a mistake. I thought you would come back for me, but you didn’t.”

Philip said softly, “So that’s your story—I left you on the beach?”

“I think—no, I am sure—you only thought that you were leaving Annie Joyce.”

“That’s a pretty damnable thing to say—” He checked himself. “This is what happened. I carried Anne to the boat. There were those other people who tacked on—the Reddings.” He turned to face Lyndall. When he went on speaking it was to her. “Murdoch and I took his motor-boat over. When we got there Theresa Jocelyn was dead and buried and the Germans were in the village. I went to the château whilst Murdoch stayed with the boat. I gave Anne and Miss Joyce half an hour to get any valuables together, and Anne said there were some other English people hiding at a farm, couldn’t I take them too? She said Pierre would go and tell them. I said how many were there, and she wasn’t sure—she thought two of them were children. She sent for Pierre—he was Theresa’s butler and factotum—and he said there was Monsieur and Madame, and a son and daughter not quite grown up. The farm belonged to his cousin, and he seemed to know all about them. I said all right, they could come, but they must be down on the beach within the hour. Well, they were late—they were the sort of people who would always be late for everything. We waited, and by the time they turned up the Boche had spotted us and the balloon was going up. I was a little way ahead, when Anne screamed. I went back and managed to get her into the boat. It was pitch dark and there was a lot of shooting. I called out to Annie Joyce, and got no answer. Murdoch and I went to look for her. By this time the Reddings were calling out to us. Murdoch came past me carrying someone—I thought it was Miss Joyce. When we’d got everyone in we counted heads. There was Murdoch, and myself, a man, a boy, and four women. And that was right—another of the women had been hit. We pushed off. Anne never recovered consciousness. She was shot through the head. We were half-way over before I found out that Miss Joyce wasn’t there. We’d got our six passengers all right, but the Reddings had brought their French governess along. She had a bullet in the chest and she was pretty bad. We couldn’t go back. It wouldn’t have been any good if we had. Anyone on the beach would have been picked up by the Boche long ago—he’s thorough. Well, there you have it.” He turned back to Anne. “That is what happened, Miss Joyce.”

She was standing against the mantelshelf, her left arm carelessly laid along it, the hand drooping. There was a platinum wedding-ring on the third finger, and, overlapping it, the big diamond-set sapphire that had been Anne Jocelyn’s engagement ring. She said in a frank voice,

“I am very glad to know. It has hurt all this time not knowing how you could have left me. Because it wasn’t Annie Joyce you left—it was me. You can imagine what I felt like when you didn’t come back. I couldn’t understand it, but now I see that it could have been the way you say—you could have mistaken Annie for me in the dark. I believe you when you say that you thought it was I whom you carried to the boat. I don’t know how long you went on thinking that. I suppose you could have gone on for a long time—in the dark. I suppose—” She broke off, dropped her voice, and said with distress, “Was she—much disfigured?”

“No.”

“And in the morning you still didn’t recognize her? I suppose—well, I suppose it’s possible. There was a strong likeness. It must have been possible, because it seems to have happened. I won’t think, or let anyone else think, of the only other possibility.”

Philip said, “You know, you interest me very much. Won’t you be a little more explicit? I’d really like to know about this other possibility.”

“I’d rather not put it into words.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

All this time Milly Armitage had been just inside the door. She came forward now and sat on the arm of her usual chair. She really felt as if she couldn’t stand any more. Her head was buzzing and the furniture had begun to flicker. Lyndall hadn’t moved. Her hands held one another tightly. There was no colour in her face. Her eyes had a horrified look.

Anne said, “Very well. I didn’t want to say it—I don’t ever want to think it, Philip. But the other possibility is that you buried Annie Joyce as Anne Jocelyn because you would be pretty sure that I was dead, and if you had to admit that you left me behind, it wasn’t going to look too well, and the death wasn’t going to be any too easy to prove. It might have been years before the legal question could be cleared up. There would have been quite a strong temptation to take a short cut—wouldn’t there?”

Philip was grey under his tan. His face had sharpened, his eyes were cold and angry. Milly Armitage found herself wishing that he would swear, or shout. Her father and her husband had always made a lot of noise when they were angry. There was something homely about it. She wished that Philip would make a noise.

Instead he said quite softly,

“So that’s the line. I see—I mistook Annie Joyce for Anne in the dark, and when I saw what I’d done I stuck to the mistake so as to be able to get my hands on Anne’s money. Is that it?”

She looked away. Those icy eyes were hard to meet.

“Philip—don’t! I didn’t want to say it—you know I didn’t—you made me. But it’s what people will say if you stick to this impossible story. Oh, don’t you see I’m trying to help you? Don’t you see that for both our sakes we’ve got to put some sort of face on it? It’s got to look like a genuine mistake. Do you think I want to believe it wasn’t? It must have been, and that’s what people have got to believe. You hadn’t seen me for three months—I’d got thin with all the worry—the likeness to Annie was confusing, and a dead person—” she gave a sudden violent shudder—“a dead person doesn’t look like any living one. Philip, please don’t take it like this! We’re saying all the wrong sort of things to each other! I’m saying all the wrong sort of things—just because it’s so important—just because I want to say the right ones. Philip!”

He stepped back a pace.

“You’re not my wife.”

Milly Armitage couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. It was a wonder that she had held it so long. Her eyes on the hand with the sapphire ring, she said,

“Anne’s wedding-ring had an inscription inside it, hadn’t it? I remember you told me.”

“A. J., and the date,” said Philip.

Anne slipped off the sapphire, slipped off the platinum ring beneath it, crossed to Milly Armitage, and held it out on her palm.

“A. J., and the date,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Nobody moved. Lyndall felt as if her heart would break. The three people she loved most in the world were there in that silence together. It wasn’t just a silence. It was cold, it was suspicion, it was distrust—and that icy anger of Philip’s which cut to the bone. She wanted to run away and hide. But you can’t hide from a thing which is in your own mind. It goes with you. You can’t hide from it. She stayed where she was, and heard Philip say,

“Anne took off her wedding-ring when she went to France. We quarrelled about her going, and she took it off.”

Anne stepped back.

“I put it on again.”

“I’ve no doubt you did—when you made up your mind to this impersonation. Now perhaps you will give us your story. You’ve had mine. I suppose you’ve got one ready. You had better let us have it.”

“Philip—” Her voice broke a little on the word. She slipped the ring back on her finger and stood up straight. “I’m very glad to tell you my story. Aunt Milly and Lyn have heard it already. Pierre helped me to get away from the beach. There was a cave—we hid there until the shooting was over. I had sprained my ankle very badly. The Germans came down and searched, but they didn’t find us. When they had gone away we went back to the château. I was very wet and cold, and I was beginning to be ill. By the time the Germans came to search I was in a high fever. Pierre told them that I was Annie Joyce, and that I had been living there for ten years with my old cousin who had just died. He said there had been another English lady there, but she had gone away when she heard that the soldiers were coming. They sent a doctor to look at me, and he said I had double pneumonia and couldn’t be moved. I was ill for a long time. They left me alone. When I was all right they sent me to a concentration camp, but I got ill again and they let me go back. That’s all. I just lived there with Pierre and his wife. Fortunately Cousin Theresa always kept a great deal of money in the house. We kept finding it in all sorts of places—lavender-bags, pin-cushions, between the pages of books, rolled up in the toes of her slippers. When it seemed to be coming to an end I began to feel desperate.”

“Why did you never write?”

“I was afraid. They were leaving me alone, and I didn’t want to do anything that might stir them up. But I did write—twice—when Pierre said there was a chance of getting a letter smuggled across.”

“Are you very surprised that these—letters—never arrived?”

She met his look with an open one.

“Oh, no—I knew it was only a chance. Then a week ago I was offered a chance of getting over, myself. I had to put up all the rest of Cousin Theresa’s money, but I thought it was worth the risk. I landed with nothing in my purse except a five-pound note which I had taken over with me. There isn’t a great deal of change left out of it now, so if you’re thinking of turning me out, I’m afraid you will have to provide me with funds until Mr. Codrington has handed my own money over to me again.”

Philip considered this in a cold fury. He couldn’t turn her out penniless, and she knew it. But every hour she spent under his roof was going to help her claim. If he turned out himself.... He was damned if he would turn out of Jocelyn’s Holt for Annie Joyce.

There was hardly any pause before he said, “Anne’s money.” And none at all between that and her reply, “My money, Philip.”