Barbara Todd - Miss Ranskill Comes Home

There was no answer from the woman on the bed, but an unassailable expression came into her eyes and she clenched one hand slightly.

‘I say, I’m most awfully sorry, I oughtn’t to have asked, only I am one of your oldest friends, and it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to me. I mean, ordinarily it would, but a desert island’s different. I only meant that over anything like that I’d have done anything I could to help.’

The voice went blundering on, as Miss Ranskill’s knuckles whitened.

She was seeing a figure on the sand and a whirl of sea-gulls.

‘I mean, of course, I hate anything like that , but I’m quite broad-minded, I suppose it’s being a doctor’s wife. I only wanted to help, I mean.’

Marjorie’s voice tailed off, and, at last, Miss Ranskill answered.

‘If you mean did he rape me, he did not.’

‘Nona!’

‘That was what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?’

‘Of course not, not put like that , anyway.’

Miss Ranskill made no answer. She was trying to see her island again, cool in the morning light, set in a fretwork of silver splinters, but the image was tarnished now.

‘Or ever the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken,’ she murmured.

‘What?’ asked Marjorie. ‘I can’t hear you.’

‘Tone-deaf,’ Miss Ranskill’s mind made answer but her lips did not move.

The police had come and gone, and now Miss Ranskill was sitting in the Mallisons’ overcrowded drawing-room.

‘It’s only a matter of form,’ her mind repeated. ‘This is a purely formal question…. Just a matter of routine, you know; no need to worry about it.’

She wondered if the Prince had murmured, ‘Just a matter of routine,’ before bestowing on the Sleeping Beauty that formal kiss that must have awakened her, also, to more practical matters than the buzzing of bees in the hedge of roses.

After each little bout of questioning, the elder had nodded to the younger, who had murmured, ‘Excuse me, Madam,’ and disappeared, not, as Miss Ranskill had at first imagined, to fetch suitable handcuffs, but to hold long telephone conversations.

He verified the fact that Miss Nona Ranskill, passenger in The Coraltania , had not been among the passengers who disembarked at Southampton a month before war was declared.

‘It is so much better for you , Madam, that we should check up on everything. And now, if you wouldn’t mind writing your signature, your usual signature, on that pad…. Three times, if you don’t mind…. The Midland Bank, you said, didn’t you? We can describe the signature by telephone.’

The younger policeman excused himself again, this time taking the pad with him; and the inquisition continued, to be interrupted by his return.

‘That seems to be all right, sir. The full-stop just below the first i, and the short rising line under the signature. The Will was proved in 1940.’

‘My Will?’ asked Miss Ranskill.

The elder inquisitor pursed his lips and nodded gloomily, adding: ‘They would be obliged to do that, of course, just as a matter of routine, but there should be no difficulty – just a few formalities.’

An hour and a half passed by, but at the end of it Miss Ranskill was in possession of her sister’s address in an inland Hampshire village.

She was told that certain formalities must be observed ‘merely as a matter of routine, of course’, and gathered that when her identity had been established more formally, she would be given the identity card and ration books that would prove her right to exist, as well as to be fed and clothed. In the meanwhile, and, again purely as a formality, it would be more convenient for everyone if she would remain where she was for the next few days.

‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Ranskill. ‘I must ask my hostess.’

It was then that Marjorie had made an entry and announced, while plumping uneasily on to the arm of a chair, that she had no intention of butting in.

‘Quite,’ replied the elder inquisitor, and saved Miss Ranskill from embarrassment by asking if she might remain as guest while matters, tiresome but necessary to routine, were completed.

‘But, of course.’ Marjorie hitched up a stocking and patted her sleek head. ‘And, I hate suggesting it, but I do think it would be an awfully good idea if Nona, Miss Ranskill, I mean, gave her parole not to do a bunk. I mean, we were at the same school, and that sort of simplifies things, doesn’t it?’

Assurance that nothing of that kind would be necessary stirred Marjorie to curious forms of activity. Miss Ranskill and the policemen watched and waited while she scratched her leg, opened and shut her mouth, tugged at her shirt collar and writhed as though the arm of her chair were a bed of stinging nettles.

‘I say,’ she gasped at last. ‘It’s no good, I simply must get it off my chest. I’d feel awful if I didn’t. I mean, private loyalties and being at the same school with a person aren’t absolutely everything in war-time, and so though I feel frightful and exactly like Lancelot–’

The younger policeman raised his eyebrows, and Marjorie explained:

‘You know – faith unfaithful kept him falsely true . I’m afraid I don’t go in much for poetry as a rule, I mean, there isn’t time, especially in war-time, and it’s mostly so sloppy, but Tennyson’s different, Tennyson and Kipling.’

‘Are you trying to tell us anything, Mrs Mallison?’ enquired the elder of the men.

‘Yes. It’s awful, but I am. I never have been the sort of person to say one thing behind people’s backs and another to their faces, and I just can’t sacrifice the whole country for the sake of one friend.’

‘Of course not. Well?’

‘And so,’ Marjorie writhed on the chair, ‘if Miss Ranskill has deserted from any of the Women’s Services and my husband did say over the telephone that she’d done a bolt from the Navy, I somehow don’t really think I could have her to stay.’

‘I quite understand that.’ (To Miss Ranskill’s relief there seemed no need for her to say anything.) ‘But I think you can feel quite easy about it. Miss Ranskill has explained to us how she and one of the Naval officers from the convoy happened to miss each other. We have been in touch with him since.’

But Marjorie’s loyalties, so the activities of her legs and arms hinted, were not at rest yet.

‘There’s something else,’ she gulped. ‘I hate saying it. I’ll probably never have another happy moment if I do, but if I don’t I’ll be a traitor.’

‘What is this information, Mrs Mallison?’ The policeman’s voice was a little weary.

‘She, Miss Ranskill I mean, tried to steal my identity card. I caught her with it in her hand, and when I came into the room suddenly, she crumpled it up and dropped it. And then she told me that her sister was in a prohibited area. If it’s true that she’s only just arrived in the country, how did she know that?’

She stared accusingly at her guest and then spoiled the dramatic effect by exclaiming, ‘Nona, old thing, I’m dreadfully sorry, but I had to.’

Miss Ranskill scarcely heard the apology, for she was worn out now by explanations. Already she had rebuilt the boat with words, till her mind was as sore as her hands had been on the island. She had dug the Carpenter’s grave afresh, and opened the secret places of her heart in doing so. She had conjured up the wind and the rain again, and answered questions until her head ached with remembering. Now she must reconstruct the scene in Marjorie’s bedroom and explain the results of the telephone call to Lynchurch.