dear Anne, you will pay them in ready money.”
“I haven’t got any ready money.”
Papa looked thoroughly exasperated.
“My child, I really cannot be bothered with these vulgar money details. The bank—I had something from the Manager yesterday, saying I had twenty-seven pounds.”
“That’s your overdraft, I fancy.”
“Ah, I have it! Write to my publishers.”
I acquiesced doubtfully, Papa’s books bringing in more glory than money. I liked the idea of going to Rhodesia immensely. “Stern silent men,” I murmured to myself in an ecstasy. Then something in my parent’s appearance struck me as unusual.
“You have odd boots on, papa,” I said. “Take off the brown one and put on the other black one. And don’t forget your muffler. It’s a very cold day.”
In a few minutes Papa stalked off, correctly booted and well mufflered.
He returned late that evening, and, to my dismay, I saw his muffler and overcoat were missing.
“Dear me, Anne, you are quite right. I took them off to go into the cavern. One gets so dirty there.”
I nodded feelingly, remembering an occasion when Papa had returned literally plastered from head to foot with rich Pleiocene clay.
Our principal reason for settling in Little Hampsly had been the neighbourhood of Hampsly Cavern, a buried cave rich in deposits of the Aurignacian culture. We had a tiny Museum in the village, and the curator and Papa spent most of their days messing about underground and bringing to light portions of woolly rhinoceros and cave bear.
Papa coughed badly all the evening, and the following morning I saw he had a temperature and sent for the doctor.
Poor Papa, he never had a chance. It was double pneumonia. He died four days later.
CHAPTER II
Everyone was very kind to me. Dazed as I was, I appreciated that. I felt no overwhelming grief. Papa had never loved me, I knew that well enough. If he had, I might have loved him in return. No, there had not been love between us, but we had belonged together, and I had looked after him, and had secretly admired his learning and his uncompromising devotion to science. And it hurt me that Papa should have died just when the interest of life was at its height for him. I should have felt happier if I could have buried him in a cave, with paintings of reindeer and flint implements, but the force of public opinion constrained a neat tomb (with marble slab) in our hideous local churchyard. The vicar’s consolations, though well meant, did not console me in the least.
It took some time to dawn upon me that the thing I had always longed for—freedom—was at last mine. I was an orphan, and practically penniless, but free. At the same time I realized the extraordinary kindness of all these good people. The vicar did his best to persuade me that his wife was in urgent need of a companion help. Our tiny local library suddenly made up its mind to have an assistant librarian. Finally, the doctor called upon me, and after making various ridiculous excuses for failing to send in a proper bill, he hummed and hawed a good deal and suddenly suggested that I should marry him.
I was very much astonished. The doctor was nearer forty than thirty, and a round, tubby little man. He was not at all like the hero of “The Perils of Pamela,” and even less like a stern and silent Rhodesian. I reflected a minute and then asked him why he wanted to marry me. That seemed to fluster him a good deal, and he murmured that a wife was a great help to a General Practitioner. The position seemed even more unromantic than before, and yet something in me urged towards its acceptance. Safety, that was what I was being offered. Safety—and a Comfortable Home. Thinking it over now, I believe I did the little man an injustice. He was honestly in love with me, but a mistaken delicacy prevented him from pressing his suit on those lines. Anyway, my love of romance rebelled.
“It’s extremely kind of you,” I said. “But it’s impossible. I could never marry a man unless I loved him madly.”
“You don’t think—?”
“No, I don’t,” I said firmly.
He sighed.
“But, my dear child, what do you propose to do?”
“Have adventures and see the world,” I replied, without the least hesitation.
“Miss Anne, you are very much of a child still. You don’t understand—”
“The practical difficulties? Yes, I do, doctor. I’m not a sentimental schoolgirl—I’m a hard-headed mercenary shrew! You’d know it if you married me!”
“I wish you would reconsider—”
“I can’t.”
He sighed again.
“I have another proposal to make. An aunt of mine who lives in Wales is in want of a young lady to help her. How would that suit you?”
“No, doctor, I’m going to London. If things happen anywhere, they happen in London. I shall keep my eyes open and you’ll see, something will turn up! You’ll hear of me next in China or Timbuctoo.”
My next visitor was Mr. Flemming, Papa’s London solicitor. He came down specially from town to see me. An ardent anthropologist himself, he was a great admirer of Papa’s works. He was a tall, spare man with a thin face and grey hair. He rose to meet me as I entered the room and, taking both my hands in his, patted them affectionately.
“My poor child,” he said. “My poor, poor child.”
Without conscious hypocrisy, I found myself assuming the demeanour of a bereaved orphan. He hypnotized me into it. He was benignant, kind and fatherly—and without the least doubt he regarded me as a perfect fool of a girl left adrift to face an unkind world. From the first I felt that it was quite useless to try to convince him of the contrary. As things turned out, perhaps it was just as well I didn’t.
“My dear child, do you think you can listen to me whilst I try to make a few things clear to you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Your father, as you know, was a very great man. Posterity will appreciate him. But he was not a good man of business.”
I knew that quite as well, if not better than Mr. Flemming, but I restrained myself from saying so. He continued:
“I do not suppose you understand much of these matters. I will try to explain as clearly as I can.”
He explained at unnecessary length. The upshot seemed to be that I was left to face life with the sum of £87, 17s. 4d. It seemed a strangely unsatisfying amount. I waited in some trepidation for what was coming next. I feared that Mr. Flemming would be sure to have an aunt in Scotland who was in want of a bright young companion. Apparently, however, he hadn’t.
“The question is,” he went on, “the future. I understand you have no living relatives?”
“I’m alone in the world,” I said, and was struck anew by my likeness to a film heroine.
“You have friends?”
“Everyone has been very kind to me,” I said gratefully.
“Who would not be kind to one so young and charming?” said Mr. Flemming gallantly. “Well, well, my dear, we must see what can be done.” He hesitated a minute, and then said: “Supposing—how would it be if you came to us for a time?”
I jumped at the chance. London! The place for things to happen.
“It’s awfully kind of you,” I said. “Might I really? Just while I’m looking round. I must start out to earn my living, you know?”
“Yes, yes, my dear child. I quite understand. We will look round for something—suitable.”
I felt instinctively