But she didn’t, she left it to Anne, who’d got plenty already. Sent for her to come over and told her she was going to have the lot, and she must always be kind to Annie because the poor girl was an orphan and had been done out of her rights. Philip said it was indecent, and of course it was. After all the fuss she’d made about the girl!”
Lyndall’s eyes were stormy. She hated injustice. She loved Anne. The two things struggled in her. She said like an abrupt child,
“Why did she do it?”
“Theresa? Because she was a Jocelyn-because she wanted to-because her crazy fancy for Annie Joyce was over and she’d taken a new one for Anne. She came over to the wedding and fell on their necks. A dreadfully tiresome woman, all gush and feathers. To be quite honest, I’m surprised that she had managed to keep out of having a finger in the family pie for as long as she did. The wedding was a perfectly splendid excuse, and it’s my belief she jumped at it. She was probably sick to death of her precious Annie Joyce and all set for a new craze. I believe she would have come back to England for good, but she got ill. By the time she’d sent for Anne it was too late to move her, and things were hotting up in France. That’s when the rows began. Philip put his foot down, and Anne put hers down too. He said she wasn’t to go, and she went. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so angry.”
“He’d no right to be angry!”
“My angel child, when married people begin to talk about their rights, it means something has gone pretty far wrong between them.”
Lyndall said,
“Did they make it up?”
“I don’t know.”
“It would be dreadful if they didn’t.”
Milly Armitage had her own ideas about that. Philip had certainly not been in any mood for reconciliation when he left England. She had never seen an angrier man in her life.
It would have been better if she had kept her thoughts to herself, but she was really incapable of doing so. She said,
“He was in a most frightful rage-and for the lord’s sake, why are we talking about it? It was a horrid tragic business, and it’s over. Why don’t we leave it alone instead of screwing our heads round over our shoulders and looking back like Lot ’s wife? Uncomfortable, useless things, pillars of salt. And I’ve dropped about fifty stitches with you glaring at me like a vulture.”
“Vultures don’t glare-they have horrid little hoods on their eyes.”
Milly Armitage burst out laughing.
“Come and pick up my stitches, and we’ll have a nice calming talk about natural history!”
CHAPTER 3
Philip Jocelyn rang up at eight o’clock. “Who’s that?… Lyn?… All right, tell Aunt Milly I’ll be down to lunch tomorrow-or perhaps not till after lunch. Will that disorganize the rations?”
Lyn gurgled.
“I expect so.”
“Well, I shan’t know until the last minute. Anyhow I can’t make it tonight.”
“All right. Just wait a second-someone rang you up this morning.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t give any name-only asked if you were here, and when I said you were up in London she wanted to know when you would be back. I said perhaps tonight but most probably not till tomorrow, and she rang off. It was a long distance call and the line was awfully faint.”
She heard him laugh.
“The Voice on the Telephone-our great serial mystery- to be continued in our next! Don’t be apologetic-I expect she’ll keep. Give Aunt Milly my love. I kiss your hands and your feet.”
“You don’t do anything of the sort!”
“Perhaps not-it’s a sadly unpicturesque age. Goodbye, my child. Be good.” He hung up.
Lyndall put down the receiver and came back to the fire. She had changed into a warm green housecoat, and Mrs. Armitage into a shapeless garment of brown velveteen with a fur collar which was rather the worse for wear.
Lyndall said, “That was Philip.”
“So I gathered.”
“He doesn’t know whether he’ll be down for lunch tomorrow.”
Things like that never worried Mrs. Armitage. She nodded, and said with what appeared to be complete irrelevance,
“What a good thing you and Philip are not really cousins.”
Lyndall bent forward to put a log on the fire, her long, full skirt flaring out from a childish waist. The glow from the embers stung her cheeks. She murmured,
“Why?”
“Well, I just thought it was a good thing. Jocelyns are all very well, and poor Louie was very happy with Philip’s father-he was a most charming man. But that’s what it is with the Jocelyns-they’re charming. But you can have too much of them-they want diluting.”
It was at this moment that the front door bell rang.
Anne Jocelyn stood on the dark step and waited for someone to come. The taxi which had brought her from Clayford turned noisily behind her on the gravel sweep. Then it drove away. The sound receded and was gone. She stood in the dark and waited for someone to come. Presently she rang again, but almost at once the key turned in the lock. The door opened a little way and a young girl looked round it. When she saw that it was a woman standing there she stepped back, opening the door wide open.
Anne Jocelyn walked in.
“Is Sir Philip back?”
Ivy Fossett was a little bit flustered. Visitors didn’t just walk in like that after dark, not these days they didn’t. But it was a lady all right, and a lovely fur coat. She stared her eyes out at it and said,
“No, ma’am, he isn’t.”
The lady took her up sharp.
“Who is here then? Who answered the telephone this morning?”
“Mrs. Armitage, and Miss Lyndall-Miss Lyndall Armitage. It would be her answered the phone.”
“Where are they?… In the parlour? You needn’t announce me-I’ll go through.”
Ivy gaped, and watched her go. “Walked right past me as if I wasn’t there,” she told them in the kitchen, and was reproved by Mrs. Ramage, the rather more than elderly cook.
“You should have asked her name.”
Ivy tossed her head.
“She never give me a chanst!”
Anne crossed the hall. The parlour looked out to a terrace at the back. The name came down, with the white panelling, from the reign of good Queen Anne. The first Anne Jocelyn had been her god-daughter.
She put her hand on the door-knob and stood for a moment, loosening her coat, pushing it back to show the blue of the dress beneath. Her heart beat hard against her side. It isn’t every day that one comes back from the dead. Perhaps she was glad that Philip wasn’t there. She opened the door and stood on the threshold looking in.
Light overhead, the blue curtains drawn at the windows, a wood fire glowing bright, and over it the white mantelshelf with The Seasons looking down, and over The Seasons, The Girl with a Fur Coat. She looked at her steadily, critically, as she might have looked at her own reflection in the glass. She thought the portrait might very well have been a mirror reflecting her.
There were two people in the room. On the right of the hearth Milly Armitage with a newspaper on her lap and another sprawling beside her on the blue carpet. Untidy, tiresome woman. Never her friend. Of course she would be here. Well dug in. Nous allons changer tout cela. Down on the hearthrug, curled up with a book, that brat Lyndall.