“No more did I.”

They looked at one another. Mrs. Ramage said in an uncertain whisper,

“It’s Sir Philip, isn’t it? He’s not sure-”

“He’s so sure that she was dead-it’s so difficult for him to believe he could have made a mistake. We didn’t see her- he did. It makes it hard for him.”

Mrs. Ramage considered, and spoke slowly.

“I’ve seen a lot of dead people first and last. Some looks like they were alive and just dropped off asleep, but some is that changed you’d hardly know them. And if you was to think of her ladyship with all that bright colour gone and her hair gone straight and wet with the sea water coming over like you told me Sir Philip said-well, that would make a lot of difference, wouldn’t it? And if this other lady was so much like her-”

“I didn’t say anything about another lady, Mrs. Ramage.”

“Didn’t you, ma’am? There’s been talk about it, as there’s bound to be, because it stands to reason if that’s her ladyship upstairs, then there’s someone else that was buried by mistake for her, and the talk goes it was Miss Annie Joyce, that we all seen when she came here with Miss Theresa a matter of ten or eleven years ago. Stayed here a week, and anyone could see how she favoured the family.”

“Do you remember her-what she looked like?”

Mrs. Ramage nodded.

“Long, thin, poking slip of a girl-looked as if she wanted a deal of feeding up. But she favoured the family all the same-might have passed for Sir Philip’s sister, and if she’d plumped out and held herself up and got a bit of a colour, well, it’s my opinion she’d have been like enough to her ladyship for Sir Philip to make the mistake he did, seeing the difference there is between a dead person and a live one. And that’s the way it was, you may depend upon it.”

Milly Armitage opened her lips to speak, shut them again, and then said in a hurry,

“You think it’s her ladyship upstairs?”

Mrs. Ramage stared.

“Why, you can’t get from it, ma’am. Looks a bit older of course, but don’t we all?”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure? She come in that door and straight up to me, and she says, ‘I do hope you’re glad to see me again, Mrs. Ramage.’ ”

Tears came into Milly Armitage’s eyes. Anne coming back, and nobody pleased to see her-She pulled herself up sharply. Lyn was pleased enough-but she’s looking like a ghost now-she isn’t sure either-

Mrs. Ramage said,

“A bit hard to come home and find you’re not wanted, ma’am.”

CHAPTER 11

The mist which had lain over the churchyard all day had by half past three in the afternoon spread into the park and was creeping up the long slope towards the house. A brief hour of pallid sunshine had failed to disperse the haze overhead. Milly Armitage began to count up bedrooms and rations, because if it was going to be foggy, neither Inez nor Emmeline would want to go back to town, and if they stayed-and of course Thomas-it would really be very much better if Perry and Lilla were to stay too. Three bedrooms… And fishcakes-the cod went farther that way than when it was boiled or grilled… And if Emmeline thought she could keep to a diet in war-time she would have to go hungry, because the next course would just have to be sausages, and they could have baked apples for a dessert… Mr. Codrington would probably prefer to go back to town unless the fog was very bad indeed. Well, if he stayed he must have the blue room… And Florence must put stone hot-water bottles in all the beds… The question was, if Mr. Codrington stayed, did it mean that his clerk would have to be accommodated too? She supposed it did-and he would have the dressing-room at the top of the stairs. A harmless, elderly, confidential person who was to take shorthand notes of everything that was said. Very unpleasant, but of course Mr. Codrington was quite right-it was only fair to everyone that there should be an accurate record. Her mind swung back to food again. If there were going to be two more, Mrs. Ramage would have to put a lot of rice into the fish-cakes, and they had better have potatoes in their jackets… Perhaps it wouldn’t be foggy after all… A glance out of the window dismissed this rather optimistic hope.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jocelyn were the first to arrive. Having met them in the hall, Milly led them into the dining-room, where the polished table and its attendant chairs awaited the expected family.

No one could say that the scene was a cheerful one. An aged, dirty, and extremely valuable Chinese paper covered the walls-one of those heirlooms supremely uncomfortable to live with but too costly to discard. Its prevailing tone was that of over-boiled greens. The carpet, which had once possessed a lively Victorian pattern, had now gone away to a murky drab. The furniture, which was in the largest mahogany tradition, reared itself in massive sideboards and serving-tables. If less than twenty-four people dined in the room, it had an under-populated appearance. A large wood fire struggled in vain to mitigate the chill of long disuse.

Mrs. Thomas Jocelyn looked around her, said, “A fine room, I always think,” and did up the top button of her fur coat again. Mr. Codrington came in behind her and switched on the light in the chandelier over the table. The shadows retreated to either end of the room, leaving the table and its surroundings isolated in a warm golden glove. Mr. Codrington’s clerk, who had followed him, moved now into this circle of light and proceeded to lay a writing-pad and pencil at one end of the table and set a small attaché case down at the other end, after which he withdrew to the fire and stood there warming himself.

Mr. Codrington nodded in the direction of the case.

“I shall be sitting there. Philip wishes me, as it were, to take the chair. It is all extremely painful for him, but I hope some definite conclusion may be arrived at. If you don’t mind, we won’t discuss the matter at all beforehand. It is so difficult to remain quite unprejudiced.” He shepherded them towards the table. “Now Philip will be on my right, and the-well, I suppose I had better call her the claimant-on my left. Then Mr. Jocelyn and yourself on her side, and Mr. and Mrs. Perry Jocelyn next to Philip, Miss Inez Jocelyn next to them, and Mrs. Armitage and Lyndall on the other side. My clerk, Mr. Elvery, will sit at the bottom of the table and take a shorthand record of the proceedings.” He pulled out the third chair on the left, looked down the table, and said, “Perhaps you will sit down. I think the Perry Jocelyns have just arrived. Miss Jocelyn was to travel with them, so that we shall be able to begin immediately.”

Mrs. Thomas Jocelyn sat down. As she drew in her chair, the light flooded down upon the massive waves of her abundant red hair. At forty it was as lively and burnished as it had been at twenty-two under her wedding veil, but, like her figure, it was now a good deal more rigidly controlled. Her complexion was still very good, and owed hardly anything to art. If her eyes had been a little more widely set, a little more deeply blue, she would have been a beauty, but no tinting of lashes originally sandy could disguise that shallow milky tint. Every time Milly Armitage saw her she was reminded of the white Persian cat she and Louie had had as children. Louie was gone, and the Persian cat was gone, but here were its eyes in Emmeline’s head, for all the world like a couple of saucers of skim milk. For the rest, Mrs. Thomas Jocelyn was a managing woman with everything handsome about her, from the small black fur cap on her careful waves, and the expensive coat that went with it, to her fine silk stockings and well cut shoes.

Beside her Thomas Jocelyn looked grey and insignificant.

He had the family features, but they seemed to have shrunk. He was not much over fifty-five years younger than Philip’s father-but he might easily have been taken for sixty-five. Perhaps the confinement of office life, perhaps his wife’s exuberant vitality.