Strange Recompense (17 page)

“Nothing will help anything—not now,” Jess Marrick maintained, determined to keep her tight-lipped silence even in the face of such protestations of sympathy an
d
understanding “She’s gone, and we’re well rid of her. T
h
at’s what everybody says.”

“Everybody, Jess?”

“All those who know.”

“Your friends?”

Jess glared at her.

“I have no friends. She was the only one.”

“But surely there’s someone special, some boy friend, perhaps?”

“There’s no one,” Jess repeated with absolute finality.

“Was there someone—once?”

The painful color which flooded into the dark face was answer enough for Sara, and she bent closer to the other girl to suggest: “And your sister married him. Was that it, Jess?”

The girl’s look became fierce to the point of hatred, and it was hatred against her present inquisitor as much as against her absent sister. It was a wild, ungovernable fury against the whole world because she had been treated badly by someone she had loved and respected. Her anger had the bleak quality of despair about it, although rancour had also gone deep.

She was reluctant to confide in anyone, however, least of all Sara, whom she could not like.

“I don’t want your sympathy,” she said with a curious dignity that shut the other girl out, and Sara’s anger immediately sought another weapon.

“Your sister’s name was Anna,” she suggested tensely. “Did you believe her dead?”

“No.”

Sara noticed that the dark eyes had registered pain at her use of the familiar name and her heart lifted with satisfaction. At least, she was on the right track!

No amount of further questioning, however, would induce Jess Marrick to discuss her sister or the past, and she even walked a little way ahead of Sara until they joined old Abraham at the front gate.

He was leaning against the wall, talking to a younger man in worn riding-breeches and leggings which were stained with the mark of moss and bog water, and the two seemed on the most friendly terms. Neighbors, no doubt, Sara concluded, noticing the younger man’s work-roughened hands and weather-beaten complexion, which stamped him as a typical product of those wild northern fells. He had a warm, friendly smile that embraced everything about him and included Sara as she drew level with Jess, but it was the younger girl at whom he looked longest, and he greeted her with a shy awkwardness which suggested
attraction.

“Hullo, Jess,” he said. “I came over to see if you would be going into Alnmouth to do the marketing.”

“Not me!” Jess flushed and tossed her head. “Happen I want to go to Alnmouth I can go with the bus from the crossroads.”

The rebuff was another form of defence, Sara thought, feeling sorry for the young farmer who recoiled visibly before it.

“This is Bill Cranston, a neighbor o’ ours,” Abraham Marrick explained, obviously angry at his daughter’s treatment of the young man. “This young lady will be going back to Alnmouth, Bill,” he added, as if one passenger would be compensation for the loss of another. “I warren she’ll be more grateful to ye for a lift than yon ill-mannered daughter o’ mine!”

“I would,” Sara assured him engagingly. “I seem to upset Jess, Mr. Marrick,” she added, turning to the farmer, “but I should like to come and see you again, if I may?”

“Come whenever it suits ye,” the farmer responded. “So long as yer don’t expect to be fussed over. We never keep company these days.”

He said so with suggestion of regret in his voice, although the frown that accompanied his words was still forbidding, but Sara had made up her mind to return again and yet again until she had sifted this mystery to its dregs.

By accepting the lift back to Alnmouth she hoped to hear something of the Marrick’s past from Bill Cranston, who was so evidently in love with the morose Jess, and she decided that the best way to obtain what she wanted was to pretend to misunderstand the younger girl.

“Is Jess Marrick ever pleasant?” she asked as they drove off down the hill. “She looks as if she might even bite the hand that fed her!”

“If that’s meant to be a smart crack at Jess’ expense,” her companion scowled, “I don’t think it very funny. She’s got plenty of reason to be fed up with life.”

“Because she is forced to work indoors, or because her sister ran off and married the man she wanted?” Sara demanded bluntly.

His work-roughened hands gripped the steering-wheel a shade more closely an
d
the speedometer climbed from thirty to forty and up to fifty miles an hour before he answered through set teeth: “Nobody could be expected to understand Jess unless they knew,” he said. “She’s had a rough deal, and she’ll be slow to get over it, I warren.”

“Unrequited love,” Sara mused. “So many of us have felt its barbed shaft. Perhaps I could tell you more about that than you think, Bill.”

“Jess’ love wasn’t unrequited, not in the first place,” Bill Cranston said savagely. “She was engaged to a fellow who went to sea. He’d got his mate’s ticket and he was doing well. They were going to be married after his next trip but one. The date was fixed. We all knew about it—”

“Yes,” Sara prompted, “go on.”

He shifted his position uneasily, taking his foot off the accelerator as they approached the main road.

“I don’t know why I should be telling you all this,” he said half-resentfully, “but I cannot abide Jess being misunderstood. We were all brought up together,” he went on disjointedly, “Anna and Jessica Marrick and me, and maybe I thought I had some sort of chance with Jess before Ned Armstrong came on the scene, but I might have known that a farming bloke like me would never have a look in with a uniform in the offing. Besides,” he added grimly, “Armstrong had a way with him. Maybe it was a way with women,” he added, speaking bitterly for the first time. “Anyway, there was no one for Jess but him right from the first. When he was at sea she wrote to him every day, and when he had leave he was here at Alnborough and Jess brought him to all the local functions to show him off and let us see how happy they were.”

His jealousy was thick in his pleasant voice, but he was in no way ashamed of it. Bill Cranston was far too natural for that, too much a son of the soil to dissemble about passions and beliefs.

“Anna had arranged a holiday in North Wales for just before the wedding,” he went on doggedly now that he seemed determined to get it all off his mind by repeating it, “and the day before she set out on her holiday she got a letter, addressed to her at Alnborough. It had a Swansea postmark, and Anna was always one of the confiding sort where her family were concerned, but she would not show them that letter or tell them what was in it. She was all cut-up about it, though, and she left Alnborough the next day with a Judas kiss for Jess when she was going! I’m not saying that I know all the details, but I know that the old man took it hard, and so did Jess. It seems that she found the letter half burned in her sister’s bedroom grate, and it was from Ned Armstrong.”

Bill paused dramatically, and Sara felt that he must surely be able to hear the quickened beating of her own heart as she waited with held breath for him to go on with his story.

“Do you mean that—the sister and Ned went away together?” she asked when she could wait no longer. “Anna Marrick went off and married her sister’s
fiancé
e?”

“I expect so,” Bill admitted miserably. “Anyway, that’s what Jess believes happened, and the old man thinks so, too. They’ve never heard from the other two from that day to this—never wanted to hear from them, either, I should think. Old Marrick won’t have Anna’s name mentioned in the house any more.”

“I don’t suppose Jess Marrick ever told anyone what was in that letter she found,” Sara suggested. “The half-burned one, I mean.”

“There seems to have been a missing page,” Bill Cranston admitted, rising to the carefully-placed bait. “Ned had written to Anna to say that he must see her at once. It was imperative, he said. He was no longer happy about his forthcoming marriage. Jess read all that, and then she came to the missing page, but it wasn’t difficult to guess what had been on it or why Anna had taken it with her. It would be the instructions about their meeting, no doubt, and he ended the letter by saying that he couldn’t go on pretending any more to Jess, and begged Anna not to fail him. He said he was keeping her to her promise, and that was the dreadful bit for Jess, I warren.”

He lapsed into silence, wondering if he had already said too much to a stranger, but Sara was quick to reassure him on that point.

“Thanks for being so frank with me, Mr. Cranston,” she said charmingly. “The Marricks were so very kind to me yesterday when I was caught in that thunderstorm that I feel as if I know them quite well now. By a rather strange coincidence, too,” she added deliberately, “I also believe I may have run up against Anna Marrick. Bill,” she said familiarly, “can you keep a secret?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ve kept plenty in my time. I don’t know why I’ve talked to you like I have about the Marricks today, but I suppose it sort of had to come out.”

“Yes, Bill,” Sara said, “I’m sure it had. I believe Anna Marrick is in Wales at this very moment suffering from loss of memory, but I can’t be sure. No one can be sure until this girl’s identity is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt,” she added, “but I believe that she married Ned Armstrong and there was some sort of accident afterwards. We’ll have to get together and check up on dates.”

Sara’s heart misgave her for a moment. Supposing—just supposing there had been no time for a wedding ceremony? That would leave Anna free! She realized that her primary interest in Anna Marrick’s case hinged upon whether she had married Ned Armstrong or not, and now it would seem that a few hours might be about to defeat her.

“First of all I must get in touch with the hospital where I work,” she explained to the bewildered Bill. “I’m a nurse, but perhaps you have already realized that,” she added egotistically.

“No,” he answered vaguely, “I guess I’m not very quick about things—placing people and the like.”

“Oh, well,” Sara said. “Never mind that now. The point is that I have come across a girl whom I firmly believe to be Anna Marrick, but just in case I should prove wrong, I want you to promise that you won’t say a word at Alnborough until you hear from me in a day or two.”

She watched her companion as she spoke and saw him struggling with his sense of loyalty to the Marricks and his own desire to do the right thing.

“Suppose this is Anna,” he said, at last. “This girl, you say, has lost her memory. Does it mean that she wants to come back here—that Ned Armstrong and she have split up?”

It was obvious that he viewed the possibility of Anna’s return to Alnborough from a personal angle now, wondering if Ned might yet effect a reconciliation with Jess. If so, his own hopes of finally winning her would be gone, and Bill Cranston looked the type who did not abandon hope easily. The way he lived, the constant struggle for survival against the elements in that exposed hill country, had bred in him a tenacity far above the average, yet he had seen how deep Jess Marrick’s love had gone and how terribly she had been afflicted by her lover’s treachery.

The fact remained, however, that Anna and Ned were married. Nothing could alter that, Sara thought, and she herself held the key to the whole situation. She even believed that she could detect a faint resemblance between Anna and Jessica Marrick.

“Were the Marrick girls very much alike?” she asked as they drew near her destination. “Jess is very much like her father—the same sturdy build and coloring, and the same eyes.”

“And Anna was the exact opposite,” he said. “She took after her mother. Mrs. Marrick was small and a bit frail-looking, and she had red-brown hair the same as Anna’s when she was a younger woman.”

He drew the car up in the middle of the broad market place, bumping to a standstill before the local saddler’s, where he had several purchases to make and Sara got out.

“
I mean to travel south tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’ve been most interested in this case right from the beginning. The doctor who has it in hand is—well, a particular friend of mine.”

She smiled at Bill, satisfied that he appeared to read her exact meaning into the words and conscious of a strange form of elation derived from a mere insinuation, which was as near as she dared come to claiming Noel Melford’s affections at the moment.

“Maybe you’d like to take something to eat with me,” Bill offered awkwardly, not really wanting to spend any more time in her company but feeling that it might be expected of him.

“I’d love to—some other time, Bill,” Sara assured him pleasantly. “I may be this way again, very soon.”

“Would you bring Anna back?” he asked, surprised.

“Quite conceivably,” Sara answered with a look in her eyes that was almost triumphant.

She had still almost a week of her leave to take and she would offer her services to Noel in whatever capacity he cared to use them, and if he had been appointed to the job in Bristol it might very well mean that she would bring Anna north. Noel could not be expected to go dashing off across the length and breadth of the country even on so definite a clue as this appeared to be, and she could quite easily relieve him of the responsibility. In so doing she would wind up all this wretched business of Anna Marrick, and the girl could be forgotten with the utmost speed.

The prospect lent speed to Sara’s plans and she travelled overnight from Newcastle-on-Tyne, arriving at Glynmareth half an hour after Noel came in from Bristol.

He was still discussing her message with Ruth when Sara came to the door, having paid off her taxi at the villa gate instead of taking it round to the nurses’ home, as might have been expected.

Ruth saw her approaching through the window and her fine lips set a fraction of an inch more firmly.

“Good heavens, here’s Sara herself!” she exclaimed. “I wonder what can have gone wrong?”

Noel wheeled round and went to meet Sara at the door.

“Hullo, Noel!” she greeted him with the assurance of one who holds all the trump cards, “I’m sorry to land on you like this with, I’m afraid, a great deal of trouble on my hands, but no doubt we can work it out from here together.”

He stood aside to let her pass into the room where Ruth was waiting, making no comment, but Sara was not to be intimidated by silence. She greeted Ruth effusively.

“My dear,” she declared, “I really have missed you these past few days! I’ve got so much to tell you both, too, that I didn’t wait to go over to the Home first.”

“Have you found out anything about Anna?” Noel asked almost coldly.

“Anything!” Sara permitted herself a thin smile. “My dear Noel, I hope I have found out
everything
!”

“Perhaps you would like some tea,” Ruth suggested. “I had it ready for Noel.”

“I
’
m gasping for a cup,” Sara declared,, so much on the old friendly footing again that Ruth wondered if she had misjudged her.

“Sara,” Noel said irritably, “what have you to tell us?”

She gave him a long, direct look, full of subtle meaning.

“Nothing very pleasant, I’m afraid. Where is she, by the way? Not gone?”

“She’s still working at the hospital—helping Dennis,” Ruth said. “But the sooner we can relieve her of this dreadful bondage of forgetfulness the better. What have you found, Sara? Is it really important?”

“It’s not a particularly pretty tale,” Sara warned as she sat down at the tea table which Ruth had set just inside the french window. “It began some time ago, apparently, when a girl called Jess Marrick became engaged to her seagoing boy friend and her sister, Anna, had designs on him, too.”

Without looking directly at Noel she could see his every movement, the small pulse beating rapidly in his cheek and the color fading slowly out of his face. Of course, she realized that she must hurt him by telling him all this, but far better that he should be hurt now, she decided, than afterwards when his affections might be completely involved. No one could possibly remain in love with a girl once they had heard the story she had to tell!

“Anna Marrick!” Noel repeated, as if he had heard very little else but the name.

“Anna Marrick that was,” Sara pointed out briefly. “She’s been married since then. She wore a ring, remember, when she first came here. Well, apparently the sister and her
fiancé
had settled on a day for their wedding and everything was arranged. They were to be married after Ned Armstrong’s next trip abroad and Anna Marrick had arranged an early holiday for herself so that she might remain with
h
er father when her sister had gone off on her honeymoon.”

Noel was still on his feet, standing rigidly beside the mantelpiece where he had put his untouched cup of tea and staring down into the empty grate. He was waiting for Sara to finish her story with his jaw set in a hard line and his muscles taut, and when she spoke again it was with a certain amount of misgiving.

“There’s no doubt about it that we have Anna Marrick here, Noel,” she continued in an effort to justify her rather dramatised version of the story. “The two girls are more or less alike,” she lied easily, “and the farm where these Marricks live is called Alnborough. What more could we want? It’s quite a distance from our
pied-a-terre
at Alnmouth, but it hangs together with your first clue, doesn’t it?”

Noel did not contradict her. He seemed to be seeing beyond Sara’s story to a dark country of his own imagining, but she could not tell from his expression what he thought.

“Please go on,” he commanded her.

“Seemingly, after her sister had gone, Jess Marrick found a letter written to Anna by Ned Armstrong and delivered at Alnborough the day before in which he begged Anna to meet him from her holiday resort in Wales! It was undoubtedly a love letter, and in it he declared that he could not go on with his marriage to Jess. Anna Marrick believed that she had burned that letter, but Jess found part of it in her sister’s bedroom fireplace, charred but still readable.”

Sara paused, but neither Ruth nor Noel spoke, and she was forced to continue a trifle uncertainly:

“Anna Marrick went away and
did
not return. Perhaps she did not even check in at the hotel where she had booked a room for a week, and as far as the Marricks are concerned she ran away with her sister’s
fiancé
and married him. They never want to see her again or hear her name mentioned at Alnborough!”

“That, of course, needn’t account for the silence on the part of this Ned Armstrong,” Ruth pointed out unhappily.

“Perhaps he was too ashamed to go back to Alnborough and just went off to sea again after his marriage to Anna,” Sara suggested.

Noel said suddenly: “I don’t believe in this marriage!”

“Could one ask why?” Sara said after she had drawn breath.

“Simply because I don’t believe there was time. If Anna had checked in at her holiday hotel her luggage would have been there and her disappearance would have been reported to the police when she didn’t return.”

“She may have had no intention of checking in at that particular hotel,” Sara pointed out. “She could quite easily have written or telephoned to cancel her reservation.”

She saw that her argument had struck home. Noel’s face was now so drawn and colorless under its tan that she actually felt sorry for him, yet she could still recognize the need to drive home her advantage.