This was exactly the kind of opening which Miss Collins could be trusted not to neglect.
“You have been staying with a niece? How very pleasant.”
Miss Silver shook her head. She was wearing a pre-war black felt hat, but the ribbon had been renewed, and the bunch of pansies had only done one winter.
“Not visiting,” she said. “I came down to lunch, and I should have been very sorry to miss this train, as I have a tea engagement in London.”
Miss Collins gazed at her with envy. Lunch with a niece, and then a tea engagement-how gay it sounded!
“How very pleasant,” she repeated. “I have often thought how nice it would be to have nieces to go and see, but there was only my sister and myself in our family, and neither of us married.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Marriage can be a very happy state, but it can also be a very unhappy one.”
“But it must be very nice to have nieces. Not such a responsibility as children, if you know what I mean, but near enough to make you feel you’ve got something of your own.”
Miss Silver’s smile was restrained. If it had been her niece Ethel Burkett whom she had been visiting, she would have responded rather more warmly, but she had always inclined to the belief that Gladys was spoiled, and her visit today had done nothing to alter this opinion. Younger than Ethel and a good deal prettier, she was also considerably better off, having married a widower twice her age with an excellent practice as a solicitor. She could not, of course, say so to a stranger, but in the privacy of her own thoughts Miss Silver did not consider Gladys a great deal more dependable than her dining-room clock. And she had allowed herself to be patronizing about Ethel and Ethel’s husband, who was a bank manager, and Ethel’s children, to whom Miss Silver was deeply attached. She opened her handbag now and took out the sensible grey stocking she was knitting for Johnny Burkett.
“Of course,” said Miss Collins, “in a way it’s a responsibility bringing up children, whether they’re your own relations or not. There was a little girl my sister and I brought up, and if she were alive I might be going up to see her- very much as if she were my niece, as you might say.”
Miss Silver looked discreetly sympathetic.
“She died?”
“I suppose she did.” Miss Collins’ tone was a hesitant one. A little flush came up on to her cheekbones. “You see, my sister and I had a very refined little business-I have it still- fancy work, with a few toys and calendars at Christmas. We had the whole house, and when my mother died we let off the first floor-very nice quiet people with a little girl between three and four-no trouble at all. And we got fond of the child-you know how it is. And when Mrs. Joyce died-well, what could we do? We couldn’t turn poor Mr. Joyce out- really quite crushed he was. And it came, as you may say, to our bringing Annie up. I suppose people talked, but Carrie was a good bit older than me, and after all-well, you’ve got to be human, haven’t you? And there wasn’t any of his grand relations came bothering about him when he was left like that.”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked, the stocking revolved at a great rate. Her eyes had an attentive expression. When Miss Collins paused she was encouraged to proceed by a sympathetic “Dear me!”
“Never came near him,” said Nellie Collins with emphasis. “Always talking about them, he was, because, you see, if his father had done the right thing by his mother, he’d have been a baronet with a fine estate instead of a clerk in a shipping-office, and you’d have thought those that came in for it instead of him would have taken a bit of interest-but not they. Twelve years he had our first floor, and believe it or not, no one ever came near him-not in the way of a relation, if you know what I mean, and not until the breath was out of his body.”
“Someone came down after his death?”
Miss Collins tossed her head.
“A cousin she said she was.”
Miss Silver gave her slight cough.
“Miss Theresa Jocelyn, I presume.”
“Oh!” said Miss Collins with a kind of gasp. “Oh! I never said-I’m sure I never dreamed-”
Miss Silver smiled.
“You mentioned the name of Joyce, and you called the little girl Annie. You must forgive me if I could not help putting two and two together. The papers have been full of Lady Jocelyn’s return after being mourned as dead for three and a half years, and the fact that the person buried in her name was an illegitimate connection of the family who had been adopted by Miss Theresa Jocelyn, and whose name was Annie Joyce.”
Miss Collins was very much taken aback.
“I’m sure I would never have said a word if I’d thought- the name must have just slipped out. I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world-after I’d passed my word and all!”
“After you had passed your word?”
Miss Collins nodded.
“To the gentleman that rang me up and made the appointment for Lady Jocelyn. He didn’t say who he was, and I’ve been wondering if it was Sir Philip-because of course you read about baronets, but I’ve never spoken to one that I know of, unless it was him.”
Miss Silver was giving her the most flattering attention.
“Pray, what did he say?”
“Well, you see, I wrote to Lady Jocelyn-I hope you don’t think it was pushing of me-”
“I am sure you would never be pushing.”
Miss Collins nodded in a gratified manner.
“Well, I thought I had a right to, after bringing Annie up.”
“What did you say?”
“I wrote and told her who I was, and I said I’d like to come and see her if she’d let me, because of hearing anything there was to hear about poor Annie, and of course I was looking for an answer and wondering what she would say. And then there was this gentleman ringing up. I had the telephone put in when my sister was ill, and the lady who has the first floor now pays half of it, so it isn’t such a great expense, and ever since Carrie died I won’t say it hasn’t been company, knowing you can ring a friend up if you want to. So I put the telephone number on the top of my letter, and he rang up like I told you. But he didn’t give any name-only said Lady Jocelyn would see me, and would I be under the clock at Waterloo Station at a quarter to four and hold a newspaper in my left hand so that she would recognize me.”
The newspaper was folded neatly beside her. Miss Silver’s eyes went to it for a moment and then returned to Miss Collins’ face. She was really showing the most gratifying attention.
“And of course, as I told him, that wasn’t necessary at all, because if Lady Jocelyn is anything nearly as like poor Annie as she must be for Sir Philip to have made a mistake between them, why, I should recognize her the very first minute she came in sight. And he said, ‘Oh, would you?’ and I said, ‘Indeed I would, because one of the papers had a picture of Lady Jocelyn, and I’d have known it anywhere.’ From the likeness to Annie, you know-the very same identical features, and that’s a thing that doesn’t change. Right from the time I took her over when she was five years old Annie had those features. You know, some little girls, they change a lot-fat one year and thin the next, so that you’d hardly know them. But not Annie-features, that’s what she’d got, and features don’t change. And Lady Jocelyn’s got them too. So I said to the gentleman, ‘Well, I’ll carry that paper, though it isn’t necessary, because I’d know her anywhere.’ ”
Miss Silver continued to gaze in that interested manner.
“What did he say to that?”
Nellie Collins leaned forward. She was enjoying herself. Her life was a lonely one. She missed Carrie very much. Mrs. Smithers who occupied her first-floor rooms had always got plenty to say, but she never wanted to listen. She had eight children, all married and in different parts of the world, so that the steady stream of family news never ran dry-births, illnesses, engagements, accidents, promotions, fatalities, christenings, funerals, fortunate and unfortunate occurrences, prizes won at school, the total wreck of a business, a son-in-law’s disastrous pre-occupation with a strip-tease artist-there was never any end to it, and Nellie sometimes found it a little daunting. It was balm to pour out her own tale to this quiet, interested lady who seemed to desire nothing better than to listen.