The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (18 page)

“You lazy old woman,” she laughed, “hogging it in bed till all hours on this lovely sunny morning.”

“I’m a little tired after the wedding,” said Lucy, guiltily wiping off the cream she had so lately put on.

“Yes, I want to hear all about the wedding,” said Anna. “Celia looked like a
Vogue
dream in white satin, and Cyril looked like a crow in black—so unlucky, one crow at a wedding, but I expect there were heaps of crows in the audience—and you looked a poppet in that blue dress we bought—and what did the bridesmaids wear? Thank God they didn’t ask me to be one—and that’s not sour grapes, I sent them a lovely telegram and a silver salver. What did you give them, mummy?”

“I gave Celia a pearl ring.”

“The one like a bloated teardrop that Granny left you?” asked Anna with interest.

“I had it reset,” said Lucy, “and I gave Cyril a cheque for the honeymoon,” and suddenly the realization struck her that Cyril was taking his bride to Rome on the first royalties from
Blood and Swash
and she began to laugh. If only he knew! But she could never tell him.

“What’s funny?” asked Anna, smiling in sympathy.

“Nothing, darling,” said Lucy. She couldn’t even tell Anna, and how dearly she would love to share the secret with her; but Anna had called someone “darling,” and reticence had never been Anna’s strong point with those she loved.

“We’ve been wrong about the Bishop,” Lucy said. “He really is rather a fine man. I know he looks like a camel, but he is very impressive in the cathedral, and very kind in his own home.”

“If anyone’s kind to you, you think they’re saints,” said Anna, “when really they’d be devils if they weren’t. How was Aunt Eva?”

“Very much there in mauve and a purple hat,” replied Lucy.

“And what’s all this about Cyril’s wanting you to go and live with them?” asked Anna.

“How did you know?” asked Lucy in surprise.

“Oh, I know everything,” answered Anna, “but you can’t go and live with them, I should never be able to go and stay with you—besides, if you live with any one, you’ll live with Bill and me.”

“Bill!” said Lucy.

“His real name’s Evelyn Anthony Peregrine Scaithe,” said Anna, “so of course he’s called Bill, and the ghastly thing is he’s a baronet.”

“But why ghastly?” asked Lucy in bewilderment.

“I don’t want to be a lady,” said Anna with genuine disgust in her voice. “Oh, mummy, isn’t life odd? I did my best to fall in love with someone quite different, but I couldn’t bear him nearer me than the other side of a table, and I don’t want to be respectable! Here, living with Cyril, who disapproved of me utterly, I felt bold and bad, the Queen of the Underworld in fact; but on the stage I am the original Quaker girl—I still love to dance, but I want to do it privately, when
I
want, not every night for anyone to see. When Bill asked me to marry him, I implored him to take me away for a weekend to Brighton. I thought if I were a fallen woman I might be all I thought I was. But it was useless—Bill doesn’t want me to
be Miss Dale—he prefers me as Miss Muir, and if Cyril ever says, ‘I told you so,’ I’ll go and commit bigamy—oh, mummy, do you understand what a failure I feel as Me?”

“Yes, darling, I think so,” said Lucy, though in truth she felt a little overwhelmed at Anna’s outpouring. “I gather you are engaged to Sir Evelyn Scaithe and are going to marry him and settle down, and you feel it’s rather a tame ending to your career.”

“I knew you’d understand,” cried Anna. “Dancing isn’t just liking to move about to music, in or out of the limelight; it’s living it, being possessed by it—that is, if you are to be at the very top, and I could never bear to be half-way in anything. But I love too many things—I love the theatre, and music and parties, and I love to ride, and I love to drive a car on the racing track and to sail a boat in a rough sea, and most of all,” she ended simply, “I love Bill.”

“You will never be lonely,” said Lucy, and tried not to think of how much she had missed herself.

“And you will never be lonely either,” said Anna. “You shall come and live with us.”

“No, darling,” Lucy said quietly. Impossible to explain, even to Anna, that loneliness was not a matter of solitude but of the spirit and often much greater in company for that very reason. And it was selfish to give herself even a passing thought when Anna was so happy.

“I’m so glad for you,” she said, “and so thankful that you are going to settle down.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose I’ll settle very down,” said Anna. “Bill loves the theatre, too, and he’s going to turn an old barn on his country place into a theatre, and we’re going to put on all the ballets and plays that no one else will accept and have lots of fun.”

“Bill has money,” said Lucy.

“Yes,” said Anna, “but that has nothing to do with Us—I’d have married him if he’d been a bus conductor, but it does make life more amusing—and you
are
coming to live with us and be amused, too.”

“Now, Anna,” said Lucy firmly, “don’t you begin arguing with me—the Bishop nearly persuaded me that it was my duty to live with Cyril and Celia which I know in my bones could only lead to trouble. I have my own house and I mean to live in it.”

“With Captain Gregg?” said Anna.

Lucy turned and stared speechlessly at her daughter.

“Oh, I know all about him,” said Anna casually. “The girls at school told me about his haunting and asked me if I ever saw him, and I used to invent lovely stories and say that I did—I don’t know that they believed me, but it made me very popular.”

“You never told me,” said Lucy weakly.

“No,” said Anna, “I didn’t want to frighten you if you didn’t know; but I fell in love with his picture when I was eleven, and I used to pretend that he came and talked to me.”

“Pretend!” repeated Lucy.

“Of course he never did,” said Anna, “but I always felt he was still in the house. You remember that night you went out and met that man——”

“Anna!” said Lucy. “What man?”

“I didn’t know his name,” said Anna, “but he had red hair, and Bond Street clothes. I didn’t spy on you, mummy, but you were so different that spring, and I was picking bluebells in the wood one afternoon—yes, I know I should have been in school but it was such a glorious day to be out—and I saw him kiss you. I went home at once and prayed you wouldn’t marry him.”

“Go on,” said Lucy weakly.

“Of course I never told a soul—Cyril never knew he existed; but that other evening when you went out, I knew you were going to meet him and I was miserable and went and sat in your room and I felt Captain Gregg was very near, telling me not to worry, that it would be all right—jealous little beast I must have been.”

“He never—I mean I never knew you knew about Miles,” stammered Lucy.

“Was that his name?” asked Anna. “Oh, yes, I knew. Parents are always saying there’s nothing they don’t know about their children; but I should say it was the other way round, because most children are very observant and their home is most of their world. What I could never understand was Miles’ jilting you.”

“He didn’t,” said Lucy, “I jilted him—if you could call it that when he was a married man.”

“Oh, I see,” said Anna, “yes, that must have been hard. I mean if you are jilted it’s inevitable, but if you’re the jilter you must have awful moods of wishing you hadn’t. So Miles was married—I only saw him that once, but I thought I’d never seen anyone so out of place in a wood.”

“And I always thought Cyril was the secretive one of you two,” marvelled Lucy.

“It wasn’t exactly secretive of me, when it was your secret, darling,” said Anna.

“No,” agreed Lucy. “I wonder why you never said anything to me?”

“I think I was afraid,” said Anna. “If I admitted I knew I felt it would really be true—and then when it was over I was only too glad to forget it.”

“Did you ever hear Captain Gregg’s voice?” asked Lucy as casually as she could.

“Good lord, no,” said Anna. “You know how imaginative
children are and how they invent friends for themselves; and I did feel Captain Gregg was my friend, and a wise one. And I’ll tell you something else that I’ve never told a soul, not even Bill. I nearly got myself involved with a very odd set of people when I first went to London, and it was only the feeling of how much my old sea captain would have despised them that held me back. That may sound crazy to you, darling, but I do feel that he left a very definite atmosphere in this house. I should hate anyone else to live in it; but I do wish you didn’t have to be quite so alone.”

Now, thought Lucy, I should tell her about Captain Gregg and
Blood and Swash
, and everything; but the words seemed to stick in her throat—awful if Anna didn’t believe her, and it was an unbelievable story. I’ll ask him about it, she said to herself, I’ll ask him this evening.

“As a matter of fact,” went on Anna, “Aunt Eva rang me up last night—very late it was, too. Have you got a weak heart, mummy? She told me your father had died of angina and that you had fainted, and frightened me to death about you—but I must say you look all right, if a little pale.”

“I feel a little pale,” said Lucy, “having the skeleton dragged out of my cupboard after all these years!”

“I’m serious, darling,” said Anna reproachfully, “it’s not like you to faint, even if there was an earthquake.”

“But I didn’t,” said Lucy guiltily, “you know how interminable those dinners can be and I thought this one would never end, so——”

“So you pretended to pass out!” said Anna, smiling. “Was that quite right, darling, at a bishop’s table? I shall have to get you a book on etiquette before you come to any of my dinners, I can see! And what about this earthquake? Did all the lights go out and the china crash and the pictures fall? I got a sort of impression of the walls of Jericho falling from Aunt Eva,
caused, I suggested, by the Bishop’s voice, which might have much the same effect as a trumpet. But seriously, mummy, it would relieve me a lot if you would go and see a doctor.”

“I’ll go and see a dozen doctors if you like,” said Lucy, “but it will be a great waste of money.”

“It will be my treat,” said Anna, “and when I am married you won’t have to give me an allowance.”

“Oh, yes, I will,” said Lucy, “you don’t know how humiliating it is to have to ask even for a penny to buy a stamp. I had no money when I first married and I know what that is like. Besides, I’ve made a lucky investment lately and am much better off than I was.”

“Dabbling in the stock market!” said Anna. “Well, it’s no business of mine, but you know where that led daddy.”

“I know,” said Lucy, “but this is really a gold mine.”

“Whatever got you mixed up with gold mines?” asked Anna. “Really you are an astonishing old lady. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you sailed off to Alaska one day to do a bit of your own digging, and I put it all down to the influence of Captain Gregg and the spirit of adventure he’s left in this house. In fact, I think you need Martha to look after you much more than I do—of course, that’s the solution!” she cried. “Martha wants to come and be my cook when I marry, but Bill has a cook married to his butler. It would be far better if she came and cooked for you, and then I wouldn’t worry about you a bit, and you could come and stay with us whenever you liked and for as long as you liked. And now will you please get dressed, darling, or we’ll keep Bill waiting.”

“You never told me,” said Lucy that evening when Captain Gregg whistled a greeting, “you never told me how Anna felt about you. Did you know?”

“I knew,” said the captain, “but I don’t tell you everything, Lucia, it wouldn’t be fair.”

“And she knew about Miles,” said Lucy.

“Yes, and she cried herself to sleep many a night over him,” replied the captain.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Lucy.

“It wouldn’t have been fair,” repeated the captain, “and I’d done enough interfering. You had to work your own way out through your own convictions, not sympathy for Anna, or you might have come to hate the child, and God knows where she would have ended then. It was touch and go with Anna, she’s got the dark streak in her that seems the heritage of most artists; but as it is, she’ll be all right. Her Bill is a damn nice fellow and she’s very lucky.”

“He’s lucky, too,” said Lucy.

“Yes, that will be one of the real marriages,” agreed the captain.

“They laugh in the same language,” said Lucy, “and that is very important—Edwin only laughed out loud when other people were hurt, I mean if they slipped on a banana skin or sat down on a chair that wasn’t there. I like Bill very much,” she went on, “he didn’t make me feel a bit like a mother-in-law or a tiresome old woman. And I like his blue eyes—he isn’t really good-looking but you feel he’s the sort of man that other men would always trust; and he’s got that easy sense of assurance that always having plenty of money seems to give. Isn’t it amazing,” she went on, “the power that money has? I’m only just beginning to realize it. If you know you are secure and well dressed, and there will always be taxis to take you out of the rain, and maids to scrub the floors, and cooks to prepare your meals, you somehow feel the world is your oyster with a fine pearl in it—poverty is no disgrace, but it can make one feel as if one were born
in a dustbin; at least semi-poverty, I mean, and keeping up appearances on a shoestring. I imagine real beggars are even more carefree than the rich.”

“Far more carefree,” said the captain, “for they have no responsibilities.”

“Am I really going to be rich?” asked Lucy.

“Moderately so, me dear, moderately,” replied the captain. “Our book is going into yet another edition—can’t get them off the stocks fast enough—and there’s talk of it being translated into Swedish, Dutch, and French.”

“I would love to tell Anna,” began Lucy tentatively.

“Well, please yourself,” said the captain, “but if you do, you’ll soon be headline news.”

“But Anna can keep a secret,” said Lucy, “she has proved to me that she can.”

“One secret doesn’t make a Trappist,” said the captain, “and she would need to take those vows to prevent herself giving this one away. No, me dear, if you’re wise, you’ll keep me to yourself.”