The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (13 page)

“And I should be going with her,” said Lucy that evening to Captain Gregg. “I don’t like the idea of Anna alone in London.”

“Alone in London!” the captain scoffed. “Isn’t she going to live with Martha?”

“Yes,” agreed Lucy. “Of course it was unfortunate that her husband should die, but I feel it is providential that she should have returned to London and set up a lodging house. I would trust Anna with Martha anywhere.”

“Then stop worrying about it,” said the captain. “God bless my soul, if you set your ship on a certain course you stick to it; you’d never get anywhere if you navigated backwards half the time.”

“Perhaps I’m selfish,” went on Lucy, determined to talk the matter out, “but I do feel so lost in London, so many people hurrying along, and I always feel that I’m the only one going slowly in the opposite direction, and she can always come home for the week-ends, and it would only make more trouble with Cyril if I went with her, and she’ll have to work very hard at her dancing, Madame Lachinsky says, and she told me that she would keep an eye on her, too, and besides,
I couldn’t afford to keep up Gull Cottage and live in London as well,” she ended breathlessly.

“And now I hope you feel better,” said the captain, “and, dammit, there’s no question of your giving up Gull Cottage, so of course you must live in it.”

Presently that very question did arise. Lucy had never been extravagant, but she had very little knowledge of money matters. So much money was paid into her bank, and she spent so much money; but suddenly her expenses seemed to be running ahead of her income in an alarming manner. Taxes increased and dividends went down. One company in which she held shares failed altogether. And though Cyril had won a scholarship, he needed money for clothes and books; indeed he seemed to need more and more money, and there were Anna’s expenses to be paid as well. And then Cyril fell ill, and the doctor said that an operation for appendicitis was necessary.

“It’s no use,” said Lucy to Captain Gregg on the evening that she found that it meant that she must sell out capital to pay the surgeon’s fees, “I shall have to let Gull Cottage.”

“You can’t,” said the captain.

“I can,” said Lucy, “and I must. In the summer I can get eight guineas a week for a furnished house in a good position like this.”

“I will not have my house let,” said the captain; “if you allow strangers to come here I shall haunt them.”

“If I don’t let it, I shall go bankrupt and then the house will go altogether to strangers,” retorted Lucy.

“I’ll haunt the lot of them!” stormed the captain. “You dare go bankrupt! Why can’t that Eva woman help?”

“I would sooner die than ask Eva for a penny,” said Lucy hotly.

“Then you must make some money,” said the captain.

“I might take boarders,” said Lucy.

“Take hell!” said the captain. “They’d be worse than passengers. I won’t have a boarder in this house—you a landlady! You’d be driven to drink.”

“Well, what can you suggest?” asked Lucy. “I’m no good at dressmaking, I can’t paint pictures or write books, or do anything like that, and I’m rather old to learn to be a stenographer. I seem to be quite useless.”

“Write books,” said the captain.

“I’ve just told you that I can’t,” said Lucy. “I find it difficult enough to write a letter.”

“No, but I can,” said the captain, “I can write a book—bless my soul, I can write a best-seller of a book—and you shall put it down—buy a typewriter and some foolscap to-morrow.”

“But what will the book be about?” said Lucy doubtfully.

“Me,” said the captain. “It will be the story of my life—and I shall call it—I shall call it,
Blood and Swash
.”

“I don’t think that’s at all a nice title,” said Lucy.

“It’s not meant to be.” The captain chuckled. “But it’s arresting. Get a pad and some paper and we’ll start tonight.”

“Not so fast,” said Lucy, “typewriters cost money. How can I buy a typewriter when I’m overdrawn at the bank and there are Cyril’s hospital expenses yet to be paid?”

“You must sell something,” the captain replied after a pause. “Sell that hideous pearl ring to begin with.”

“Edwin’s mother left me that ring,” said Lucy. “I don’t think I ought to sell that.”

“Well, pawn it,” said the captain impatiently. “You really are in a tight place, Lucy, and in tight places there’s no room for false sentiment. You didn’t like Edwin’s mother and you hate her ring. And, dammit, I can see no difference in its lying hidden in your jewel case or in a pawnbroker’s safe. Get your jewel case out and let’s see what else you can get rid of.”

“How you do order me about!” said Lucy, but she went to fetch her blue leather jewel case from the drawer in her dressing table. She returned to the bed and spread out the contents on the coverlet.

“Earrings,” said the captain, “you never wear earrings, you can get rid of that lot.”

“I might wear them,” said Lucy, “these are very pretty,” and she held up a pair of coral drops against her ears.

“Might as well wear a ring in your nose,” said the captain. “Is that dove made of real diamonds?”

“Yes,” said Lucy, “and the olive branch it has in its beak is of emeralds. Edwin gave me that as a wedding present.”

“As a safeguard against strife?” asked the captain.

“No, his mother chose it for him,” said Lucy.

“Then you can’t have any sentiment about that,” said the captain, “and if those diamonds are good, you ought to be able to buy a typewriter and pay the hospital fees with that brooch alone. Pawn it to-morrow.”

“But where?” asked Lucy. “I couldn’t go into a pawnshop here even if there is one.”

“There’s one opposite the Three Feathers,” said the captain, “and there are two in Whitmouth. Perhaps you’d better go there, you’ll probably get a better price, and don’t let them do you—those diamonds look good to me.”

“Are you sure there’s no other way of making money?” asked Lucy.

“I can’t think of anything else,” said the captain, “and you might say in this case that a bird at the pop-shop is worth two on the bosom. Go on and sell it, there’s a good girl.”

On the following day, unable to think of any better solution, Lucy took the brooch and herself to Whitmouth by the afternoon bus.

It was a Saturday and the seaside resort was full of weekend trippers though it was late in September, and for once Lucy was glad to be in a crowd. She felt that the passers-by hid her purpose as well as herself, as she paused in front of a jeweller’s shop, with “Old Gold Bought” on a printed sign in the window, and three unobtrusive golden balls hanging over the doorway. Yet it took time for her to summon up enough courage to cross the threshold, and as she was still hesitating, gazing in unseeingly at a tray of wedding rings in the front of the shop window, she heard a familiar voice behind her, and, turning, found Eva at her elbow, a stouter Eva with greying hair, but otherwise the same Eva.

“So,” said her sister-in-law in her firm voice, “it is Lucy. Well, I was never one to bear a grudge, though personally I think you might have written and asked how I was after all I endured in that frightful house of yours, and I always said, ‘If Lucy ever holds out the olive branch I’ll be the first to take it.’ ”

“Olive branch!” said Lucy, feeling that the diamond dove in her bag had grown to the size of an eagle calling out to Eva that it was about to be sold, olive branch and all.

“You do look pale, my dear,” said Eva with ill-concealed satisfaction, “I always said that house was no place for you. You’d better come along and have a cup of tea with me. I always say let bygones be bygones and never rake up the
past. Come along, my dear,” and, taking Lucy by the arm, she led her away to a tea shop near by. With Lucy in a chair at a corner table, she took the one beside her and, ordering tea, proceeded to rake up the past to the last memory.

“Of course I swore I’d never set foot in the house again,” ended Eva, liberally buttering her third scone, “but if you needed me, I’d sacrifice my word. I mean, I’ve a sense of proportion, and duty always comes first with me.”

“It’s very good of you,” said Lucy, wondering when the pawnshop closed, for she would never summon up enough courage to get even so far as the door-step again, “but I really don’t need help. I’m alone at present, Cyril has gone to the Theological College in Whitchester—though he’s in the hospital at present——”

“I know,” said Eva, “actually Cyril and I have been corresponding for some time.”

How like Cyril to say nothing about it, thought Lucy.

“And I saw him yesterday,” continued Eva. “He said he was going home to convalesce next week—dear boy, he’s so like poor Edwin, and he’s doing very well. The Bishop thinks a lot of him. But what’s all this about Anna,” she went on, “taking up dancing? Cyril was very worried about it—he’s become such a man, shouldering all the cares of his family.”

“There’s no care about it,” said Lucy tartly. “Anna has gone to Madame Lachinsky’s school of dancing. She thinks a lot of Anna——”

“Lachinsky—a foreigner,” said Eva, “Russian, I suppose, and quite untrustworthy, and probably Red.”

“I don’t see why you should suppose all that,” said Lucy. “I have met Madame Lachinsky and she is very charming.”

“No doubt,” said Eva, “but if I were you I should keep my eye on her—and Anna. I must say I was surprised when
I heard that you had let the child go off to London alone. Really, Lucy, you should be with her.”

“Martha is looking after her,” said Lucy stiffly.

“That common old cook you had when you were first married?” said Eva.

“Martha is neither common nor old,” began Lucy and stopped. From experience she knew it was useless to argue with her sister-in-law. Martha spoke Cockney and her hair had gone grey as a comparatively young woman; therefore Martha was both common and old. Eva never looked beyond the surface; her criticisms were as rootless as her enthusiasms.

“I am quite satisfied with Martha,” said Lucy quietly. “Anna will be well fed and well cared for.”

“But will she be well cared for?” asked Eva, leaning forward with a gleam in her pale eyes behind their spectacles. “Who knows what peculiar society she may get into without someone to guide her? I don’t trust those dancing people farther than I can see them.”

“Have you ever known any?” asked Lucy.

“It’s a well-known fact that their standards are quite different from ours,” said Eva.

“Different, but that doesn’t necessarily mean worse,” said Lucy, “and I trust Anna.”

“All the same, you really ought to get rid of that ghastly house and go and live with her,” said Eva, biting into a cream bun as if it were a personal enemy.

“I don’t think Cyril would care for that,” said Lucy.

“Cyril would be the first to realize where your duty lay,” replied Eva.

“I doubt it, if it were to clash with his own interests,” said Lucy.

“I don’t think that’s fair to Cyril,” said Eva, “but, then,
you never have understood him, just as you never really understood poor Edwin.”

It was useless to argue, thought Lucy again. Nephews and brothers were quite different people from sons and husbands, and Eva, having had neither son nor husband, could never appreciate the difference that lay in the relationships.

“Cyril never suggested that I should go to London,” she said. “He wants to have nothing to do with Miss Dale, the dancer, and if I went to live with her, that might be difficult.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Eva. She pushed away her plate and glanced at the watch she wore on a massive gold chain about her wrist as if she had manacled time itself. “Five o’clock,” she said, “I shall just have time to see you on the five-fifteen bus to Whitecliff before I catch mine to Whitchester.”

“But I’m not catching the five-fifteen,” said Lucy, though she had intended to go by that very bus, “I—I have to see a friend.”

“A friend—what friend?” asked Eva. “I didn’t know that you knew anyone in Whitmouth.”

“It’s a sort of relation,” said Lucy. Weren’t pawnbrokers popularly called uncles, so this was no lie!

“I thought you had no relatives,” said Eva, “I always understood that your father and mother were both only children.”

“They were,” replied Lucy. “It’s a very distant connection.”

“I hope, Lucy,” said Eva, “that you are not getting mixed up with anyone undesirable—you always did have a very poor sense of social distinctions—you remember that girl you picked up in Whitchester and we found out her father was a retired undertaker.”

“I liked that girl,” said Lucy, “she had a lovely face and a grand sense of humour.”

“And was quite unsuitable,” said Eva. “If I hadn’t to get back for a special meeting of our Hobby Club, I should stay and meet this friend or relation.”

“I’m sure he’d be pleased to meet you,” said Lucy recklessly.

“He!”
repeated Eva, her worst suspicions more than confirmed. “Does Cyril know this man?”

“Not yet, but he may have to,” said Lucy with a twinkle.

“Have to!” echoed Eva. “Lucy, you’re not—you’re not thinking of marrying again!”

“No,” said Lucy, “you needn’t worry, Eva, I’ve grown up past romance.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Eva swiftly, “after all you’re younger than I am—I don’t consider myself old, not in these days—and I suppose some people might call you attractive in a clinging sort of way—men are such fools.”

She rose abruptly and, beckoning to the waitress to bring them the bill, stumped away with it to the pay-desk by the door, as Lucy surreptitiously slipped a tip into the girl’s hand.

It was drizzling when they left the shop, and, scolding Lucy for having no umbrella, Eva put up her own. Holding it over Lucy so that the drips ran coldly down her neck, she seized her arm and led her away in quite the wrong direction, until at a street-crossing Lucy managed to free herself and bid Eva good-bye, thanking her for the tea and promising that she would call and see her the next time she should be in Whitchester.

“Which will be never,” she said to herself as she hurried back to the pawnbroker’s before he should put up his shutters.

It was so near closing by the time she reached the shop that it was empty of any one but the proprietor, which was at least something to thank Eva for, thought Lucy, as she pulled out the leather case containing the brooch from her bag and laid it on the green baize cloth on the high counter.