‘Could I do it? What would she want me to do?’
Janet laughed.
‘I don’t know. She has a friend, and the friend’s got a family. Twice a year she goes off and sees them. It’s a law of the Medes and Persians, and everything has to give way to it. Well then, Cousin Clarry comes up to town full of wrath and demandings. It isn’t an easy time for anyone, and quite candidly it wouldn’t be an easy time for you. I haven’t said anything about it. For one thing, I didn’t know just when she was coming, and for another, I really hadn’t the nerve.’
‘You mean-Oh, Janet, how nice of you! You wouldn’t say anything as long as you thought I couldn’t very well refuse, only now-now that I’m not obliged to do it if I don’t want to-Why, Janet, of course, I will!’
‘It will only be for a couple of weeks, and if you can’t stand it-’
‘You can stand anything for a couple of weeks,’ said Anne.
‘Well, if you’re sure-if you’re quite sure-’
‘Of course I am!’
It was all fixed up by telephone, Anne’s part in the fixing being a silent one. She stood and heard Janet talk into the telephone.
‘I have a friend, Cousin Clarry, who I think would be just the thing for you. She’s staying here… Yes, with me. I think she is just what you are looking for.’ She paused. The telephone crackled vigorously. Miss Carstairs evidently had the gift of words. They poured out for about five minutes, after which time it became just possible to get in a word edgeways. Janet, apparently used to it, waited patiently. When the voice stopped for a moment, she resumed with calm.
‘If you would care to see her, I could bring her round tomorrow morning, and if you thought she would do she could stay on for the rest of the day and come back here at night… Yes, three pounds a week will be all right. She’s staying here, so it will be quite convenient… All right, I’ll bring her round in the morning… Ten o’clock?… Goodbye.’ She hung up and turned round.
‘Well, that’s fixed. If you find you can’t stick it you will just have to say so. Ten to six every day.’
In both their minds was the unspoken thought that Anne would be out of Lizabet’s way for the greater part of each day, and that would be something to the good.
Next morning Janet and Anne went through the square at a quarter to ten, turned to the left, and came up the next street, where the houses were a little shabbier but otherwise very much the same as in the square.
At the fifth house they stopped and rang the bell. A stout comfortable woman opened the door, beamed on Janet, and said. ‘Come up then, come up. She’s all in a fidget. Wants to get settled like. Wants to see the young lady. Puts herself about like because she didn’t think to say come round last night and fix it up. Never knew anyone worry herself like Miss Carstairs-never in my life!’
They were going up the stairs whilst she talked. When they came to what Mrs Bobbet called the first floor front she opened the door, said in a loud cheerful voice, ‘Miss Janet and the other young lady,’ and having shown them in disappeared from view and shut the door.
Miss Carstairs remained seated until they were half-way across the room. Then she got up and stood leaning on a black crooked stick and looking so exactly like an illustration in an old-fashioned book of fairy stories that Anne could hardly believe her eyes. She was the exact image of the Wicked Fairy who had terrorised her childish dreams. To begin with, she was only four foot eight or nine. It was a child’s stature but not a childish face. The cheeks were pendulous and the nose curved. The eyes were very keen and black. And black too was the elaborately dressed hair-coal black without a grey hair to soften it. It lay above the peering brow in elaborate folds and scallops, tight, neat, and extraordinarily artificial. She wore a curious black velvet garment pinned in front with an elaborate and apparently very valuable diamond brooch. She stood there leaning on her stick and waited for them to come to her.
Janet bent and kissed one of the yellow cheeks. The embrace was received without any return. It was endured, not reciprocated. The little creature received it, waited for it to be over, and went on waiting.
Janet, a little flushed, introduced Anne.
‘This is my friend whom I spoke to you about.’
Miss Carstairs spoke. She had a deep, decided voice.
‘You didn’t tell me her name. Very careless, very careless indeed.’
‘Oh, she’s Anne Fancourt,’ said Janet in a hurry.
Miss Carstairs did not offer to shake hands with Anne. She looked her up and down. Under that sharp gaze Anne felt herself looked through and through. There was something very unpleasant about the look. It seemed to say, ‘Hide from me and I’ll find you. Oh, yes, I’ll find you, no matter how clever you think yourself.’
Where Janet had coloured, Anne turned pale. And then the moment was over. The sharp black eyes shifted, the stick on which the little figure leaned moved. Miss Carstairs went back a step, seated herself, and leaning forward still propped on her stick, addressed Janet.
‘She understands what I want?’
Anne answered her.
‘You want someone to be useful to you-to take the place of your companion whilst she is on holiday.’
Miss Carstairs gave her a sharp look.
‘Not much holiday about it if the truth were told. Ada Lushington is a born fool to go near her cousin. The most disagreeable woman I ever saw in my life, and just because she’s taken to her bed there’s Ada gone pounding off on what she calls a holiday to see her! Holiday indeed!’ She laughed angrily. ‘But there, Ada ’s a fool, and that’s all there is to it! Goodbye, Janet-I needn’t keep you. You’ll have plenty to do looking after that cousin of yours-what’s her name?’
‘Do you mean Lizabet?’
‘Who? No, I don’t mean anything of the sort. Lizabet indeed! Why, I was at the christening myself, and the name she was given was Elizabeth. You can bring her round at tea-time tomorrow. Get along on with you!’
Janet got along on. She had really forgotten how impossible Cousin Clarry could be-or else she had got worse. She ought never to have exposed Anne to this. Oh, well, there was nothing she could do about it now. She went down the stairs, stopping at the turn for a moment and hearing Cousin Clarry’s harsh, deep voice take up the talk.
CHAPTER 37
The first thing that Miss Carstairs said when they were left alone was a challenge to Anne’s self-possession. She sat there, her hands crossed on the crutch of her stick and her head on one side.
‘Well?’ she said, ‘What do you make of me? Do I eat the young, or don’t I?’
Anne found herself laughing.
‘I don’t think you do.’
‘Oh, well, if I try you can always walk out, can’t you? How do you get on with Elizabeth? And don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean-but call her Lizabet I will not. It’s not her name, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Was she christened Elizabeth?’
‘She was. And what’s wrong with that, I ask you. Lizabet’s rubbish! When she comes here she gets her Christian name, and that’s Elizabeth, after my poor cousin that was her mother. You didn’t know her?’
‘No.’
She got a sharp glance.
‘I never heard of you in my life till last night when Janet answered my call. How long have you known her?’
‘Not very long.’
‘I never heard of you before. Don’t stand there towering over me! Take off your hat and your gloves and sit down! There-that’s better. What were we talking about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re not half-witted, are you? Of course you know! We were talking about Elizabeth. Janet got herself fairly tied up with that young woman. She’ll be sorry before she’s through with it. But she won’t listen, of course. She knows best, and she’ll go on knowing best until that Elizabeth girl has dragged her into some mess or other. And when she has, she’ll expect me not to say “I told you so”! And she may expect! Now, how do you come into it all? You might as well answer me truthfully, for I shall go on asking you until you do.’