Anne Belinda: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  He rang the bell, and was aware of a scurry in the hall, fierce whispering, and rapidly retreating footsteps. Presently he rang again. This time nothing happened at all. He watched the sunshine on the daffodils with resignation, and presently pulled the bell for the third time. As its loud ringing died away, there was a small patter of feet. The opening door disclosed a little angelic person with flaxen hair, forget-me-not eyes, and smudged pink face. It looked at John, and nothing happened. John was moved to speech.

  “Hullo! Is Mrs. Thompson—is your mother at home?”

  The little girl nodded. Her eyes never left John’s face.

  “Can I see her?”

  “I—don’t—know.” The words dropped slowly; the blue gaze persisted.

  “I’d like to if I can. Will you go and ask her if she’ll see me?”

  He produced a card, pressed it into the plump, grubby hand, and waited. After a moment a door opened and shut, and a little lady came flying along the passage.

  “Oh, Sir John, I’m so sorry—you’ve had to wait—I was in the garden. Do come in. I’m so very sorry.”

  She ran in front of him into a large bleak room, where each piece of furniture seemed to be a very long way from the next.

  “So kind of you!” she fluttered. “So dreadful to keep you waiting—your first visit! And now, where will you sit?”

  John took the nearest chair—none of the chairs were very near—and found himself at some distance from his hostess. She was a small person with a high, hard colour and a good many hairpins stuck at odd angles into the heavy knot of fair hair which rather overweighted her little head. Once upon a time she must have been exceedingly pretty. Her eyes were still very brightly blue, but the face from which they looked was terribly lined.

  John had told himself all the way down that it was no more than his duty to call on the Thompsons. It had seemed a pretty good idea. He would call on them, do his duty, and gather information, “all under one” as his old nurse used to say. Now, struggling through the polite preliminaries, he began to wonder why he had come. Mrs. Thompson fluttered. How on earth did one talk to a woman who fluttered? And he was probably disturbing her just when she most particularly didn’t want to be disturbed; she had the air of a person who is always doing something very important at the highest possible rate of speed, and she would go on talking about his having been kept waiting. He made a determined effort, and stemmed the flow of apology.

  “It doesn’t matter in the least. It’s very kind of you to see me. I’m such an absolute stranger, and I thought—”

  The door was banged open abruptly. John had an impression of flaming red hair, a turned-up nose, freckles, and enormously large hands. Then there was an exclamation of “Bother!” and the door was shut again with a bang.

  “Oh, Cyril!” protested Mrs. Thompson.

  John repeated his last words firmly:

  “I’m such an absolute stranger, and I shall be most grateful to anyone who will make me feel a little less strange—tell me something about the place and the people, you know.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Thompson.

  The door opened again. A long, ramshackle girl came half-way in and stood twisting the handle. She wore a desperate frown. The outgrown sleeves of a faded grey jumper showed some six inches of a bony wrist and arm.

  “What is it, Delia?”

  Delia went on twisting the handle. She had a high, bony nose, red and wind-bitten. She spoke through it now.

  “The Clothing Club accounts—Mrs. Anderson’s sent Annie, and she says that if she can’t have them at once, she can’t possibly do them before Saturday.” She finished with a sniff.

  “Oh, my dear child, how inconvenient and—This is my eldest girl, Delia, Sir John. Delia, pet, let go of the handle and come and say ‘How d’you do?’ And—dear me, let me see—yes, the accounts are in the left-hand corner of the third long drawer of my bureau—or if it isn’t the third drawer, it’s the second—and it’s the blue book with the torn label and ‘Library Account’ crossed out.”

  Delia drifted from the room. Mrs. Thompson turned again to her guest.

  “Ah, yes,” she said—“yes, of course—it must all feel very strange to you. But anything I can do—It’s very nice indeed to have you taking so much interest, and I hope we shall all get to know you quite soon. Now, there’s Mrs. Anderson—you heard Delia mention her—one of our most helpful workers, a war widow with one little girl—”

  “I’m afraid,” said John, “that I was beginning by being interested in my own family, though, of course, I hope I shall soon get to know all the other people round here. You knew my cousins?”

  There was a rattling, scrambling sound outside the window; the head and shoulders of a boy of nine appeared. John identified the red hair and the freckles which he had seen for a moment through the half-opened door.

  Mrs. Thompson whisked round in her chair and said “Oh, Cyril!” in exactly the same tone as before.

  Cyril burst into speech:

  “Annie says that Jim’s come to-day instead of to-morrow. And her mother says can Tin and I come to tea?”

  “Not in those clothes—My second boy, Cyril, Sir John. And tell Augustine to take the new nail-brush and scrub his hands, and then come and show them to me—and you too.”

  There was a smothered “Bother!” a renewed scramble, and, as Cyril disappeared, Mrs. Thompson said brightly:

  “Ah, yes, your cousins—such dear sweet girls! You know them?”

  “I’ve seen Anne—” He got as far as that and stuck; he had the most ridiculous sense that he was confiding in Mrs. Thompson. Resisting it, he said, quite loudly and firmly: “I don’t know either of them, but I’ve seen Anne Belinda.”

  “Dear, sweet girl,” said Mrs. Thompson a little vaguely. “Dear, sweet girls, both of them. But perhaps we knew Anne best. She was here more—Jenny used to visit her godmother, Mrs. Courtney. And she was so very kind to Delia, lending her books—though I don’t know that it’s really wise to encourage such a passionate love of reading. What do you think?”

  “Where does Mrs. Courtney live?” asked John.

  “She has a flat in town—in Queen’s Gate, I think. She’s a cousin of the late Lady Waveney. She was a Miss Courtney, as, of course, you know. And they were at school together. But somehow Jenny’s always been her favourite. To be sure, she’s her god-daughter, but then—”

  John sat forward in his chair, waiting for a break in the rapid, tangled sentences. He thrust in now with a blunt question:

  Where is Anne Waveney? Do you know?”

  As he spoke, the door opened about a foot; the small blue-eyed person who had let him in sidled through the opening, advanced shyly a few steps, and then made a rush at her mother. She wore a blue cotton frock, and trailed a mutilated doll by its one remaining leg.

  “My youngest little girl, Daphne,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Daffy, darling, say ‘How d’you do?’ nicely.

  Daphne took no notice. She began to speak very slowly and deliberately.

  “Christabel says if I come in the kitchen, she’ll go home. She says she can’t do with a clutter of children.”

  “Oh, Daffy!”

  “She says—”

  “Hush, darling! Go and play in the garden.”

  “She says—”

  “Darling, go and play!”

  Daphne turned, swinging her doll. She made her way towards the door, walking with slow deliberation and talking all the time deliberately and slowly:

  “She says she gets enough of it at home—and there are only seven of them, and nine of us.” She shut the door carefully on the last word.

  John tried to remember how many of the nine he had seen, and was aware of Mrs. Thompson’s restored attention.

  “You were saying, Sir John?”

  “I asked you if you knew Anne’s address.”

  He watched her sharply, and he thought that her high, bright colour deepened.

  “Her address? Well, I’m afr
aid—no, I don’t really think—”

  The door again. This time it opened with a jerk and displayed another biggish girl, an inch or two less in height than Delia. She wore a brown knitted dress, which had been oddly darned with blue. It bulged in such unexpected places as to suggest that it had been worn by some very stout person before it had descended to this angular young creature.

  “Oh, Cilly, what is it? My second daughter, Celia, Sir John. Darling, what do you want?”

  “Father says—”

  “Darling, do say ‘How d’you do?’”

  “Father says, did you write for the sermon paper? Because if you didn’t, he’s just finished the last sheet.” She cocked an impudent hazel eye at John. “Cheers if you didn’t! We shall get out ten minutes earlier.”

  “Cilly!”

  “Well, did you write?”

  “Oh, Celia, darling, I’m so dreadfully afraid I didn’t. It was the day the boiler burst—and Christabel had just come—and she said she wasn’t going to stop—and Justin fell into the water-butt. I’m so dreadfully afraid I forgot all about it.”

  “Cheers!” said Celia.

  The door closed abruptly behind her.

  “Dreadfully careless of me!” murmured Mrs. Thompson, driving a hairpin distractedly into her hair. “Dreadfully careless! Yes, Sir John?”

  Her resumption of the social manner was pathetic. John felt sorry for her, and very much in the way. But he wanted Anne Belinda’s address, and he meant to get it. He got up.

  “You’re busy,” he said. “If you’ll give me my cousin’s address, I won’t keep you a moment—”

  “But I don’t think—I really don’t know—I mean—surely, Sir John—”

  “Haven’t you got it?” said John.

  “Lady Marr—” began Mrs. Thompson.

  “Is she with Lady Marr?”

  “I don’t think—I really don’t know.”

  “Mrs. Thompson, do you know where she is?”

  “Lady Marr would surely—”

  “I want to see her very particularly. Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Thompson. “I don’t.”

  Now that she was driven to a plain answer, there was a curious something in her voice. John wasn’t sure what it was; it might have been resentment; it might have been anxiety. He characterized it in his own mind as “rum.”

  “Is she in England?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything, Sir John—I don’t know.”

  “She doesn’t write?”

  Mrs. Thompson shook her head. There was no doubt that she was in some agitation.

  “Since when?”

  “Oh, for more than a year. I haven’t seen her since the wedding, and I really don’t know where she is.”

  “She wasn’t at the wedding,” said John quickly.

  Mrs. Thompson looked distinctly frightened. She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Or at her father’s funeral?”

  She shook her head again. Someone came at a stumbling run along the passage and banged violently into the door. It burst open, and there rushed in a small, square, tear-stained boy whose breath came in gusty sobs.

  “He’s bashing C’ractacus! He’s bashing him!”

  “Oh, Justin!” said Mrs. Thompson in the same helpless, protesting voice with which she had said “Oh, Cyril!”

  Justin stamped.

  “He’s bashing him now!” He flung himself at John and tugged him by the sleeve.

  “Come at once! He’s bashing him!”

  “Oh, Justin!” said Mrs. Thompson again.

  John found himself half-way across the floor with that hot, tugging hand at his wrist. Then he found himself running.

  “Who’s Caractacus?” he asked.

  “He’s my toad,” panted Justin; a sob caught his breath. “Tin’s bashing him!”

  “All right, old man, we’ll bash Tin,” said John cheerfully.

  They emerged from a side-door upon a rough lawn surrounded by a bank. The red-haired Cyril and another boy were engaged in throwing stones at the bank. Justin let go of John’s wrist and hurled himself upon the stooping Cyril, who promptly lost his balance and fell sprawling and spluttering. Augustine, stone in hand, wheeled about, disclosing a rough, ugly face, and hands that had certainly not made the acquaintance of the new nail-brush.

  “Where’s C’ractacus?” panted Justin.

  “Bashed!” snorted the indignant Cyril. He heaved himself up, and felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

  “Hullo!” said John. “What are you up to?”

  “We’re bashing his old toad.”

  “Ever been bashed yourself?”

  Cyril wriggled. Augustine looked sulky.

  “He’s gone into a hole—he isn’t hurt. We were only getting a rise out of the kid. He blubs for nothing.”

  Delia drifted up to the group.

  “I thought you two were going out to tea. Why on earth can’t you leave Justin alone?”

  “It’s only that beastly toad of his.”

  Delia frowned.

  “I don’t care what it is. You’re to leave him alone. And you’re to leave his creatures alone. And if you want to go out to tea, it’s time you went.” She spoke in very lofty and elder-sisterly tones.

  Cyril twisted his shoulder out of John’s hand and ran away, making faces and calling back over his shoulder, “Dilly-dally, shilly-shally, goody-goody Delia!” To which Augustine added gruffly, “Go and boil your head and be a parson!”

  John watched them disappear into the house. It would have given him a good deal of pleasure to knock their heads together.

  When they were out of sight, he turned round. The small, square Justin was squatting down by the bank, obviously engaged in an attempt to coax the offended Caractacus from his dug-out. Delia stood with her long neck craned forward over a book. He remembered that Anne Belinda had lent her books; it occurred to him that a conversation with Delia might be profitable. He addressed her, and she came out of her book with a frown.

  “I must say good-bye to your mother. I’m afraid I came when she was busy.”

  “She’s always busy.” Delia’s tone was calmly indifferent.

  “Well, I’ll just say good-bye to her. And then I thought perhaps you’d show me the short cut to the Hall. There is one, isn’t there?”

  “But you’ve got your car.”

  “Er—yes. But perhaps you’d show me the short cut just the same. I could come back for the car.”

  Chapter Five

  John made his farewells, and walked down the untidy garden with a sufficiently reluctant Delia. She had tucked her book under her arm, and it was obvious that her one desire was to get away from him and read it. John, on his part, had no intention of letting her go. He plunged straight into what he had to say:

  “I want to talk about my cousin Anne. You knew her, didn’t you?”

  Delia looked up, startled. She had dark lashes and beautiful grey eyes. She said “Oh,” and then stopped. The boredom which had enveloped her like a fog was gone. She said “Oh,” and looked at him with all her eyes.

  John congratulated himself.

  “Well?” he said. “Tell me about her. I can’t get anyone to talk about her—and I want to talk about her pretty badly.”

  “Yes,” said Delia with her eyes still on his face.

  “Nobody will tell me anything about her. I saw her once, and I want to see her again. I want to know where she is.”

  A sort of mist came over Delia’s eyes. She said with a gasp:

  “I don’t know—they won’t tell me.”

  “Have you asked?” said John quickly.

  “It’s no use. You’ve asked yourself, haven’t you? Was it any use asking?”

  “Not much.”

  They had come to the bottom of the garden. A stone wall divided it from the churchyard; a yard or two to their right was a gate. John leaned against the wall.

  “Look here,” he said
, “I’ve got to find her. If you’ll tell me everything you know, there might be something that would help. For instance, when did you see her last?”

  She stood in front of him hugging her book.

  “It was the fifteenth of April—a year ago. She was going to meet Jenny in London, and she came to say good-bye. And we walked down this path together, and I said good-bye to her here.” She jerked her head back and stared over his shoulder. “I don’t like Jenny.” Then she laughed, not at all mirthfully. “I expect I had better call her Lady Marr now—she’s that sort.”

  John received an impression which he did not quite understand. He put it away in the back of his mind, to be analyzed later on.

  “You said good-bye to Anne here on the fifteenth of April, a year ago. Did you think you were saying good-bye for a long time?”

  Delia pushed back the hair that would straggle into her eyes.

  “No, I didn’t. I thought she was coming back in two days. She meant to come; but she didn’t come. Jenny came back; but Anne never came at all. And they said she was ill, and that was why she couldn’t go to the wedding. But I don’t believe it.”

  “Why don’t you believe it?”

  Delia laughed again.

  “If she was ill, why didn’t Jenny go to her? I don’t like Jenny, but I shouldn’t think anyone would leave their own twin all alone in London if they were ill. Or if Jenny didn’t go, why didn’t Mrs. Jones go? She was their nurse, and she stayed on and did maid to them both. And she was devoted to Anne. She wouldn’t ever have left Anne to be ill all alone. I don’t believe for a single moment that Anne was ever ill at all.”

  This was better than Mrs. Thompson’s hesitancies.

  “If she wasn’t ill, where was she?”

  The eager look passed from Delia’s face. She walked to the gate, opened it, and passed into the churchyard. Then she looked over her shoulder, hesitated, and came back to lean upon the gate.

  “Why do you want to know about Anne?” she said slowly.

  John found it hard to answer. The strength of his own determination was something which he did not attempt to account for; he only knew that it was there. After a silence that seemed to last a long time he said: