Anne Belinda Read Free Page A

face that looked back from the mirror was the face of the child who had told John Maurice nine years ago that she promised to be sorry if he was killed. On either side of the face in the mirror there hung the long dark plaits which he remembered.
    The picture startled whilst it charmed, and charmed whilst it startled. Some vague recollection of having heard of this picture as Amory’s masterpiece just touched the outer surface of John’s memory. He looked at the two faces, and then at the neat black lettering which crossed the gold of the frame below:
    â€œJenifer Anne and Anne Belinda, twin daughters of Sir Anthony Waveney.”

CHAPTER II
    When a firm of solicitors has been established for a hundred and fifty years or so, it may very well happen that the names which appear on the brass door-plate do not to-day reveal the identity of a single one of the partners.
    It was Messrs. Garden, Longhope, Longhope and Mortimer who had informed John Waveney of his succession to the entailed Waveney property; but the benevolent old gentleman whom he interviewed on his arrival in England bore the name of Carruthers, and mentioned that, should Sir John Waveney require any information or assistance during the next month, “Mr. Smith, my nephew and partner, will be available—I myself am taking a short holiday.” There was, apparently, no Longhope, no Mortimer, no Garden. The past into which they had receded was decorous and honourable in the extreme. Its flavour clung about the dark, narrow stair and panelled walls of the old Georgian house.
    John Waveney, asking for Mr. Smith, was shown into one of those high rooms with narrow windows, in which so much legal business is transacted. Outside, the sky was dark with the threat of rain. A lamp with a tilted shade stood on the desk at Mr. Smith’s elbow. The light touched the top of a cropped red head; then, as he looked up, shone full on sharp features and surprised blue eyes.
    With a jerk that nearly upset both chair and lamp, Lewis Smith was on his feet.
    â€œMaurice! Hullo! My dear chap, where on earth did you spring from?”
    John dropped his hat.
    â€œGood Lord! It’s Lulu!”
    â€œBut you—how on earth—where on earth? I say, you’re not—Where’s that card? You’re not Waveney? Don’t tell me you’re Sir John Waveney!”
    â€œJohn Maurice Waveney. I dropped the Waveney when I enlisted. Just as well I did, though I didn’t know till afterwards that I was going to find myself in Tom Waveney’s company.”
    â€œSir Anthony’s second son?”
    â€œYes. Jolly good fellow—killed at Loos.”
    There was one of those little pauses which fall suddenly when people meet who have not met for years—on one side of the gulf every step so familiar, so full of intimate detail, so crowded with memories, strange, odd, comic, and horrible; on the other, a new country, in which the two who were so closely associated are each cast for a different rôle.
    The little silence fell, and was broken by the sudden laughter of Mr. Lewis Smith:
    â€œBy gum, it’s funny!” He smote John on the shoulder. “You—why, the last I remember of you is damning you into heaps because you’d pinched the tin of Keating’s—only it wasn’t Keating’s, but a special bug-slayer which my Aunt Louisa had sent me for my birthday.”
    John grinned.
    â€œI wanted it more than you did. It was good stuff. Besides, old Ananias Brown had half of it.”
    â€œThe blighter!”
    â€œWhere do you suppose I ran into Ananias last year? Java, of all places in the world, where he’s a highly respected member of a highly respected engineering firm. I’ve knocked about all over the place these last few years, and it’s astonishing what a lot of fellows I’ve run into. You remember Fatty Higgins? I bumped into him in Rio. He told me that Kennedy—you know, Rat