“Does she show it to you?” She giggled. “It was the most marvellous diary. We used to rag her about it. She used to put down simply everything.” She turned to Anne. “Did you stop doing it when you married?”
Another smiling shake of the head.
“I stopped when I got to France. It would have been too dangerous there. Imagine what would have happened if one had said what one really thought about the Germans!”
She took the coffee-pot from Philip and began to fill Joan’s cup. He picked up his own and went back to the fire. He said,
“Does one put that sort of thing in a diary? I keep one, but it doesn’t run to anything more compromising than ‘Lunch- Smith-1:30.’ ”
Joan gave a loud giggle.
“Anne’s wasn’t a bit like that. I read a piece once, and she nearly killed me. She put down simply everything-I mean, the sort of thing you wouldn’t think anyone would-like that old what’s-his-name Pepys, only of course I don’t mean to say the same sort of things, because his was all about having affairs with women. Anne’s wasn’t like that, only she just put down everything, the same as he did.”
Anne was still smiling. She said smoothly,
“Rather taking my character away, aren’t you, Joan?”
And with that her look crossed Philip’s. The two pairs of grey eyes, so much alike, glanced together, and glanced away. There was just a moment, then Philip drained his cup and came over to set it down on the tray. “Well, I must go and work,” he said.
CHAPTER 24
Garth Albany came into Philip’s room at the War Office next morning. He raised an eyebrow at the girl clerk and Philip sent her away. Garth, having been somewhat against his will absorbed into Military Intelligence, might very easily wish to dispense with even the most confidential clerk.
But when they were alone Garth still stood there on the far side of the desk. He had picked up a piece of red sealing-wax and was looking down at it with frowning intensity.
Philip sat back in his chair.
“Anything wrong with my sealing-wax?”
Garth put it down in a hurry.
“No. Look here, Philip, I’ve come on a damned awkward errand, and I don’t know where to begin-that’s the truth oï it.”
Philip’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“First rules of composition,” he murmured-“you begin at the beginning, proceed to the middle, and continue to the end. Don’t you think you’d better begin?”
Garth looked darkly at him.
“It’s damned awkward,” he said. He pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “The fact is they’ve sent me along because of the family connection, and our being friends and all that.”
Without any change of expression Philip said,
“I suppose it’s something about Anne.”
Garth registered relief. Once you got the ice broken you could say anything. He hadn’t relished the job of breaking it. He knew Philip’s obstinate pride. What neither he nor anyone else would ever know for certain was just how much of it stirred and stood on guard under that easy, languid manner. He would have liked to know now, but he didn’t.
Philip said, “Well?” and he had to start out in the dark. He said abruptly,
“They’re not satisfied. It’s this business of your having thought she was dead, and then her turning up after all this time. The D.M.I, wants to see you about it. I’m just an advance delegation, so to speak. The fact is, it’s a beastly job and they’ve shoved it on to me.”
“Go on.”
“Well, as you know, there’s a certain amount of coming and going across the Channel. Someone was told off to make enquiries, and we’ve had a report.”
“Yes?”
“It says what you know already, that Theresa Jocelyn was living at the Château de Mornac with her adopted daughter, Miss Joyce. Anne came to stay in April ’41, and in June you ran over in a motor-launch and tried to get her away. You did get someone away, but she died in the boat. She was buried as Anne. That’s not in the report, that’s just common knowledge. Now we get back to the report again. It says Theresa Jocelyn had been buried about a week when you came over and took Anne away. Annie Joyce remained at the Château. She was said to be ill. The two old servants, Pierre and Marie, looked after her. The Germans were in the village. They sent a doctor up to see her.”
“Yes, I knew all that. I suppose you’ve heard Anne’s story. She says she went back to the Château and called herself Annie Joyce. She says she had pneumonia. Afterwards, when she was well again, she was sent to a concentration camp.”
Garth looked unhappy.
“I’m afraid there’s more to it than that-according to the report. It says Annie Joyce got well very quickly. The German doctor continued to visit the Château, and so did Captain Reichenau. They seemed to be on very friendly terms with Annie Joyce. Presently the doctor was transferred. Captain Reichenau continued his visits. There was naturally a good deal of talk in the village. A few months later Reichenau disappeared from the scene. Some time after that Annie Joyce was sent to a concentration camp, but a couple of months later she was back at the Château. She said they had let her out because she was ill. She was certainly thin, but she did not seem like a person who has been ill, and she was in very good spirits. She told Pierre and Marie that she wouldn’t be with them for very much longer-she was going to England. There was some delay, but in the end she got off.”
“Is that all?”
“There’s one thing more. After her return from the concentration camp the Germans left her alone. There were no visits, no contacts.”
Philip said very coolly, “You’d have damned her if there had been contacts. Are you going to damn her because there weren’t any?”
“No-no, of course not. Philip, are you absolutely sure she is Anne? No, wait a minute-you weren’t sure, were you? Things get around the family, you know. Inez Jocelyn talked. You weren’t sure-were you?”
“Yes, I was sure-quite sure, that she wasn’t Anne.”
Garth appeared to be incapable of speech. He stared.
Philip went on.
“I was as sure of it as you can be of anything. She was utterly strange to me. I couldn’t believe that she had ever been my wife. She looked like Anne, she spoke like Anne, she wrote like Anne, and still I didn’t believe that she was Anne. And then it was forced on me-against the grain, against my instincts, against my feelings-because she knew things which I thought only Anne and I could know.” He got up and walked away across the room. There was a slight pause, then he turned round and said, “That’s what I thought-until last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“A girl came in. She’d been one of Anne’s bridesmaids. She giggled and she prattled, and in the course of the giggling and prattling she came out with some very illuminating remarks about a diary. It appears that Anne kept one after the model of the late Mr. Pepys, in which, as Joan had it, she put down ‘every single thing, even the sort you wouldn’t think anyone would,’ with a lot more to the same effect. Anne was not at all keen on discussing the diary. No reason why she should be of course, but she wasn’t. In fact abnormally restrained. I’d like to have a look at that diary, Garth. I’d like to see whether Anne wrote down in it the things which I found so convincing-the things that only Anne and I could know. Because if she did, and if Annie Joyce got her hands on the book, then my instinct was right, and all my reasons for accepting this woman as Anne-well, they go by the board.”
Garth had turned round in his chair. He looked seriously at Philip and wondered what he should say. Before he could make up his mind Philip spoke again.
“We’re living under the same roof, but we’re not living together. There’s nothing between us. She’s a stranger.”