She Came Back Read online

  Mr. Codrington drummed on his knee.

  “Mrs. Armitage ought to have had more sense.”

  Philip got up and walked away.

  “Oh, you can’t blame Aunt Milly. She and Lyn hadn’t a doubt-until I came. Aunt Milly is shaken now-at least I hope she is. But Lyn-” He turned round and came back.

  “We’ve got right away from the point. I want you to go into the parlour and tell that woman she can have Theresa’s thirty thousand down on the nail for a nice safe legal receipt signed Annie Joyce.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Lyndall came out of the parlour and shut the door behind her. For a moment there was a little relief, an illusory feeling of escape. And then Philip came down at the top of his angry stride and took her by the arm and marched her off.

  When he had slammed the study door he leaned against it and said,

  “Now you’re for it! What are you playing at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re making a damned fool of yourself!”

  Words sprang to her lips but were not allowed to pass them. They horrified her so much that she turned even whiter than she had been before, because she had so nearly said, “I wish I were.” Philip had said she was making a fool of herself, and she had almost said, “I wish I were.” And that would mean she wished that Anne had not come back to trouble them. She couldn’t wish that-she couldn’t ever wish that!

  Philip looked at her with what she thought was contempt.

  “You’re a damned little fool!” he said. “You’ve done your level best to queer my pitch, you know. What are you doing it for?”

  She stood in front of him like a grieving child.

  “What have I done?”

  He laughed.

  “It’s more a case of what haven’t you done. If there was anything she didn’t know, you’ve been down on your knees handing it to her. Haven’t you?”

  “You mean about the photographs?” She spoke in a slow, troubled voice.

  Philip took her by the wrists.

  “Look at me! She isn’t Anne. Anne is dead. No-go on looking at me! Why do you think she is Anne?” His grasp tightened. “Do you really think so?”

  She went on looking at him, but she hadn’t any words. He let go of her and stepped back, laughing.

  “You’re not sure, are you? You stand there and you don’t say a word. Where have they all gone? You’d find them quick enough if you were really sure. Shall I tell you some of the things you can’t find those words for?” He drove his hands into his pockets and leaned against the door. “At first you were sure-you hadn’t a doubt. It was all ‘Oh, let us be joyful! Anne isn’t dead-she never has been!’ ”

  She hadn’t looked away. She said,

  “Yes-”

  “And then it wasn’t quite so joyful, was it?” His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “Not-quite-so-joyful. You had to whip it up a bit. That meant tumbling over yourself to do anything she asked.”

  “Yes-” again, but this time it wasn’t said by the pale lips. It was the eyes which said it, wincing away from Philip’s.

  He said, “If I didn’t love you like hell I’d knock your head off!”

  If it was possible to turn any paler, she did so. It may have been only a tensing of the muscles, giving that drawn look to a skin already blanched. Her hands took hold of one another and clung rigidly. She said,

  “You mustn’t-”

  Only very keen hearing could have caught the words. Philip’s hearing was keen. He said,

  “Which?” Then, as her eyes came back to his face in a look of tragic reproach, “Mustn’t love you-or mustn’t knock your head off?”

  “You know-”

  His smile came, and went again. Just for a moment you could see how it would warm and soften the Jocelyn type. Just for a moment the hard lines about the mouth relaxed and a gleam of humour changed the eyes. It was a very fleeting affair. Before Lyndall could take any comfort from it he was saying,

  “You’re quite right-I know. I mustn’t love you because Annie Joyce is putting up an act and pretending to be Anne. That’s it-isn’t it?”

  “Because of Anne-because Anne is your wife.” A little louder this time, but the lips hardly moving.

  Philip said in an icy, exasperated tone,

  “That woman isn’t Anne, and she certainly isn’t my wife! Don’t you suppose I should know? You can’t be married to a woman for a year and not know her. Anne and I knew each other very well. Every time we quarrelled we knew each other a little better. This woman doesn’t know me any better than I know her. We don’t meet anywhere-she is an utter stranger.”

  Lyndall’s eyes had been blank with pain. Something stirred in them now-some thought, some consciousness. Then the pain swamped it.

  Philip said roughly, “You want to be a little martyr-don’t you? Just because I love you-Anne is alive. Just because she’s going to come between us-Annie Joyce has got to be Anne. Just because it hurts like blazes-you’ve got to do everything you can to put her between us. And I suppose you think I’m going to back you up. Well, I’m not.” He put out a hand. “Come here!” he said.

  She came, moving slowly, until the hand fell on her shoulder.

  “Did you think I didn’t know what you were up to? First of all, you were sure she was Anne. Then, when you weren’t so sure you thought how wicked it was-how wicked you were to have any doubts about it. And from there you got to thinking you had the doubts because you didn’t really want Anne to be alive-and after that of course you just had to do everything you could to show her and everyone else how glad you were. I don’t know how much damage you’ve done-quite a considerable amount, I should think. And I hope it’ll be a lesson to you not to try and hide things up, because you’ll never make a good liar, and I should always find you out.” He pulled her up against him and held her there, an arm about her shoulders.

  She drew a long breath.

  “Have I done a lot of harm?”

  “I expect so.”

  “I’m sorry-I didn’t mean to.”

  “My child, ‘Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.’ ”

  “You’re being horrid.”

  “That was my intention.”

  “Philip-how much harm have I done?”

  “We shall go on finding out-or, qui vivra verra, if you’d rather have it in French. I expect you’ve probably told her quite a lot of things she ought to have known and didn’t, and wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t been there to oblige.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Family things-but she’d have heard most of those from Theresa. Things about the neighborhood-that’s where she’d have been most likely to slip up, and I expect that’s where you came in.”

  Lyndall turned in the circle of his arm.

  “Philip, that’s not fair. You’ve got to be fair. If Anne had been away all this time and then come back, wouldn’t it be natural for her to ask about everyone-how they are, and where they are, and all that sort of thing?”

  “It depends on how it was done. I’d like you to tell me how she did it. Cleverly, I’ve no doubt. She’s a much cleverer person than Anne. Anne wasn’t clever at all. She knew what she wanted, and generally speaking she got it-if she didn’t there was a row. All quite honest and open. She had never had to be anything else. Annie Joyce had. If she wanted to get her own way she had got to be clever about it. I expect she’s had plenty of practice. Now suppose you tell me just how clever she was about the neighbors.”

  Lyndall bit her lip.

  “Philip, it’s so horrid when you put it that way. It was all quite natural-it was really. She wanted to know which of the places round were empty. Wouldn’t Anne have wanted to know that? And who had lost anyone in the war, and what everyone was doing-well, Anne would have wanted to know all those things.”

  “And then you got on to the photograph albums?”

  “Philip, that was quite natural too. She asked me why I hadn’t been called up, and I s
aid I was a Wren, but I’d been ill and was having sick leave, and she said she’d love to see a photograph of me in uniform-did Aunt Milly still take her snapshots? And I said she did when she could get the films. And-well, you see-”

  Philip saw. The milk was spilled and couldn’t be picked up again. No good crying over it.

  She was looking up at him.

  “Philip-”

  “What is it?”

  “Philip-”

  “What else have you done?”

  “Nothing. I want to say you mustn’t think I agree with what you said. I don’t think anyone could know the things she knows unless she was Anne.”

  His brows lifted ironically.

  “But then you hadn’t the advantage of knowing my cousin Theresa. I assure you she made it her business to know everything, and Annie Joyce lived with her for seven years or so.”

  Lyndall shook her head. She looked as if she were shaking something off.

  “You’ve made up your mind. Philip, you mustn’t do that. It makes me go the other way, because somebody has got to be fair. I can’t help thinking about Anne. I loved her very much. I thought she had come back. If she hasn’t, it’s a dreadfully cruel trick. But if she has-if it is really Anne- what are we doing-how are we treating her? I keep thinking of that all the time. To come back home and find that nobody wants you-to find that your own husband doesn’t want you-it’s-it’s the most dreadful thing. I keep thinking about it.”

  Philip stepped away from the door, stepped away from Lyndall.

  “Stop harrowing yourself. She isn’t Anne.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Mr. Codrington’s interview was not going according to plan-at least not to any plan of Philip’s. The offer of the late Miss Theresa Jocelyn’s thirty thousand pounds in return for a receipt signed Annie Joyce had been as lightly and smilingly refused as if it had been a cucumber sandwich.

  “Dear Mr. Codrington-how could I! It wouldn’t be legal- I mean, I couldn’t sign poor Annie’s name-”

  “Philip never intended to keep this money-” He bit his lip. He ought to have said Sir Philip-if he was talking to Annie Joyce he would certainly do so. He found it impossible to believe that he was talking to Annie Joyce. He found it impossible to believe that he was not talking to Anne Jocelyn.

  She sat just across the hearth from him, her long slim legs stretched out to the fire, her head with its bright curls thrown back against a cushion which repeated the blue of her dress- a very pleasant picture, softened by the faint haze of her cigarette. She held it away from her in the hand which rested on the arm of her chair and smiled.

  “No-Philip never meant me to keep it. That’s what we had the row about. You know, I don’t believe he has got over it yet. That’s why he is being so horrid now. We both lost our tempers-said we wished we hadn’t married each other-” she waved the cigarette-“things like that. Of course he was quite right-Cousin Theresa hadn’t any business to leave me the money after practically adopting Annie. And I wouldn’t have taken it, Mr. Codrington-I really wouldn’t-but there was Philip putting down his foot and saying I wasn’t to, and all the rest of it, and naturally I wasn’t going to stand for that. You do like to refuse your own legacies.” She laughed a little. “Philip was very, very tactless, and of course I wasn’t going to give in, so we had our row, and I dashed off to France. And now-well, I’ve got over it, but I don’t think he has. I don’t see how he can really believe that I am Annie Joyce. It’s silly. He’s just being stiff-necked and obstinate. You know what the Jocelyns are like.”

  Mr. Codrington found himself every moment more convinced. The changes which he noticed were those which were only natural in the circumstances. It was just on four years since he had seen her. She was older, she was thinner, she looked as if she had been ill. She had a little more manner, and there were signs that it had been acquired amongst foreigners. Well, she had been living amongst foreigners, hadn’t she? There was nothing in that.

  He said, “What do you want?”

  She had her cigarette at her lips. She drew at it without hurrying herself. The haze between them deepened. Then she said, looking away from him into the fire,

  “I want a reconciliation.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be easy.”

  “No. But that’s what I want. I don’t think I ought to let our marriage break up without trying to save it. Philip cared for me enough to marry me, and we had some happy times. I have learned a lot since then-I’ve learned to keep my temper, for one thing. I suppose he has put that up to you as one of the reasons why he thinks I’m Annie Joyce. Well, if I hadn’t learned how to keep my temper out there under the Germans I really should have been dead by now. You can tell Philip that.” She leaned towards him, the cigarette in her hand. “Mr. Codrington, do help us. Philip’s angry because I’ve come back. He’s imagining himself in love with Lyndall, and he doesn’t want me. I want to save our marriage if I can. Won’t you help?”

  He made no reply in words, only lifted his hand and let it fall again upon his knee. He was actually a good deal moved.

  After a moment she said in a different tone,

  “Mr. Codrington-what am I to do? I haven’t any money. I can’t sign that receipt, but can’t you let me have some of the money? You see, it’s really mine whichever way you look at it.”

  “Not quite, I am afraid.”

  “Well, what happens next? It’s all so strange. I never thought of anything like this, and I don’t know what to do. Is there anything I could do in-in a legal way?”

  “You could bring a suit against Philip in respect of Anne Jocelyn’s property.”

  She looked distressed.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that.”

  He was watching her keenly.

  “Or Philip might bring a suit against you in respect of those pearls you are wearing, and any other jewelry which belonged to his wife. In either case the verdict would depend on whether you were able to establish your identity as Anne Jocelyn.”

  The look of distress deepened. She drew at her cigarette.

  “Would Philip do that?”

  “He might.”

  “It would be horrid. It would be in the papers. Oh, we couldn’t do anything like that! I thought-”

  “Yes? What did you think?”

  “I thought-oh, Mr. Codrington, couldn’t it be settled privately? That’s what I thought. Couldn’t we get the family together and let them decide? Like the conseil de famille in France.”

  “There would be no legal value in such a decision.”

  Her colour had risen. She was pretty and animated.

  “But if we were all agreed, there would be no need of any legal decision. You do not have to go into a court of law to prove that you are Mr. Codrington. It is only because Philip keeps on saying that I am not his wife that there is any talk about going to law.”

  Mr. Codrington put up a hand and stopped her.

  “Wait a minute-wait a minute-Anne Jocelyn is legally dead. Even if Philip recognized you, there would be certain formalities-”

  She interrupted him eagerly.

  “But you could see to all that. There wouldn’t have to be a case about it, and a lot of publicity. It would just be that I came back after everyone thought I was dead.”

  “Something like that-if Philip recognized you and no one else raised the question.”

  She said quickly, “Who else would be likely to raise it?”

  “Philip’s next of kin-the next heir to the title and estates.”

  “That would be Perry Jocelyn. Would he be likely to do that?”

  “I can’t tell you what anyone would be likely to do. It would depend upon whether he believed that you were Anne.” In his own mind he didn’t see Perry raising trouble for anyone, but it wasn’t for him to say so.

  She was asking with some anxiety,

  “Where is he? Can you get at him? He’s not abroad?”

  “No-I believe he’s somewhere near London. He is married you know-two
years ago, to an American girl. So you see he is a good deal concerned.”

  She nodded.

  “I see-it would be to his advantage if Philip was married and separated from his wife.”

  Mr. Codrington said drily, “I really can’t imagine such an idea coming into Perry’s head.”

  She said, “Oh, well-” There was a graceful movement of the cigarette. She laughed a little. “I thought we were talking from the legal point of view. You mustn’t make it a personal matter. Let us get back to the family council. Get all the family together-Perry, and his wife, and anyone else you can lay hands on, and let them say whether they recognize me. If they do, it seems to me there’s an end of it, and I think Philip must stop being so obstinate, because no one in any case would believe him against all the rest of the family. But if they are on Philip’s side, well, then I will go away and call myself something else. But I will not call myself Annie Joyce, because I am Anne Jocelyn and no one can take that from me!” Those very fine eyes were proudly lit.

  Mr. Codrington admired and approved. He was more sure than ever that she was Anne, and that she had developed from being a charming, impulsive girl into a no less charming woman.

  After a moment’s pause she went on speaking in a softened voice.

  “Mr. Codrington, won’t you help me? I’m only asking for a chance to save my marriage. If there is a court case, it would all be over so far as Philip and I are concerned. It wouldn’t matter which way it went, we’d never be able to pick up the bits again. He’s too proud-” She paused and bit her lip.

  Mr. Codrington agreed with her. All the Jocelyns were proud. He thought of headlines in the papers and their probable effect on Philip Jocelyn’s pride. He did not speak, but he very slightly inclined his head.

  She went on.

  “It would be fatal. That is why I would never bring a case against him even if he turned me out without a penny. Will you tell him so? I don’t want him to think that I’m putting a pistol to his head or anything of that sort. I want you to tell him that in no conceivable circumstances would I bring an action against him. I do him the justice to believe that he wouldn’t bring one against me. But a family council would be quite a different thing-there would be no publicity, no outsiders. I would do my best to satisfy Philip’s doubts. I don’t see how he can really think I’m anyone else, but if he does, I’ll do my best to satisfy him. If the family is satisfied, I want Philip to let me stay here. I don’t ask him to live with me, but I want him to be under the same roof as much as he would be if things were different. If he has to live in town, I’d like to be there too. I just want a chance to set things right between us. I know it won’t be easy, but I think I ought to have the chance. If I don’t pull it off in six months I’ll clear out and give him his freedom. If it comes to that, I’ll leave you to make any money settlement you think fair. Meanwhile I must have something to go on with-mustn’t I? Will you arrange that with Philip, please?” She broke suddenly into a laugh. “It’s too stupid, isn’t it, but I’m an absolute pauper- I can’t even buy a packet of cigarettes!”