The Girl In The Cellar (10 page)

When she looked back on it she could just remember going up the stairs, and that they seemed very steep. After that there was a candle-flame that worried her. It kept getting in her eyes. Her clothes seemed to be coming off. Prissy’s little plump hands were undoing hooks and buttons and putting on a nightgown. And then—and then—the candle was being taken away and the room was dark about her. Prissy said something, she thought it was good-night, and the door shut. She sank into sleep like a stone sinking into water and there was nothing else at all.

At first her sleep was quite dreamless. She was too tired for thought. And then, as it drew near to morning and the dazed fatigue passed from her, the dreams came. She was running along a dark tunnel with the sound of an express train coming up behind her. She was sitting high up on a hillside with Jim. It was sunny, and they were at peace. It was like the time when they had been together on the last day she had seen him. She knew that there had been a last time, and she knew that he had taken her in his arms. He didn’t touch her now. They sat side by side in the sunlight and did not look at one another. It was quite peaceful. And then the waves began to lap against their feet. Time seemed to have passed. There hadn’t been any water, but time had passed and the sea was up to their feet. It filled all the place below them where she had seen the open fields and the trees. And suddenly a great wave broke over them. And Jim was gone. And she was alone. She came panting and struggling up from the dream into a crushing sense of loss. Jim was gone, and she was alone.

She opened her eyes and saw the strange room before she remembered anything. It frightened her. She started up in the grey, cold dawn and saw it. She had no memory of how she had come there, and for a moment everything was adrift. Then with a rush memory came back. She sat up in bed and saw herself coming downstairs in the other house, listening to the man as he talked to Lilian. She was back in the dark, her eyes wide, her heart thudding as she listened to them talking in the next room. She remembered it all. She could have repeated every word as she had heard, and every word said to her.

Get up and go from here as fast as you can. She was half out of bed, when there was a knock on the door and Prissy came in with her hair in a plait. It was absurd to feel caught, but she did.

Prissy was yawning.

‘I hate getting up early,’ she said. ’Don’t you. It’s only half-past six, but if you really want to catch a train—’

The train… She didn’t know… She looked at Prissy for a moment of blank unseeing fear. And then it all cleared. She had to get away—to Jim—to Miss Silver. She shut her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again.

‘I’m sorry—I was dreaming. I don’t know where I was, but not here.’

‘Are you here now?’ There was a frank curiosity in Prissy’s voice, and in her look too.

‘Yes—I’m here—’ Her voice shook a little on the words.

Prissy came over and sat on the bed.

‘Well then, I think we’d better talk. What I thought was— you’ve got friends, haven’t you?’

Jim—Miss Silver… She said, ‘Yes, I’ve got friends.’

Prissy hugged herself. She said with a good deal of relief, ‘Well, that’s all right. I should think the best thing would be if I were to drive you to Felsham to catch a train. It’s only seven miles, and it’s a different line, so that if anyone wanted to catch you they wouldn’t think of it—at least I hope they wouldn’t.’

‘Would you—would you do that?’

‘Yes, I would. Are you going to tell me anything?’

‘I don’t know. Would you believe me?’

Prissy burst out laughing.

‘How can I tell? You can try. I mean, if you were to say you had fallen out of an aeroplane, or something like that, I might help you, but I shouldn’t believe you, because that would be stupid. It would be much easier to believe that you were making it up, or—or something like that.’

Anne looked at her. Bright brown eyes in a rosy face, a red dressing-gown, bare feet tucked up beneath her. She said, ‘I won’t make anything up, I promise you that. I can’t tell you everything, because I’ve lost my memory and I don’t know it myself. If I tell you what I do remember you’ll maybe not believe me, so I think I won’t. Because they’ll tell lies—the man who came here last night—’

‘Yes, who is he?’

‘I don’t know—I really don’t.’

Prissy had her arms round her knees. She giggled a little and said, ‘He said you were his niece.’

‘I know—I heard him. It isn’t true.’

‘How do you know if you can’t remember?’

‘I’d never seen him before—I’m sure I hadn’t. He was utterly strange and—and horrible.’

Prissy was nodding.

‘Yes, I thought so too. I was glad you’d locked the door. I thought he was a horror.’ She got off the bed and yawned. ‘Isn’t getting up beastly? But we’d better get going before there are too many people about.’

Anne got out of bed and dressed quickly. She had ten pounds not broken into, that was her real comfort. Ten pounds. She looked for her bag, and couldn’t see it.

It wasn’t there.

She stared about the room, unbelieving. She was still staring when Prissy came back. Anne lifted eyes full of tragedy and said, ‘My money is gone—’

‘Oh—when did you have it last?’

‘I don’t know. It was in my bag—I can’t see it. It was in notes—ten one-pound notes.’

‘When can you remember seeing it last?’

Anne tried to think.

‘Yesterday morning.’ She sat down on the bed, her face white, her hands shaking. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Perhaps you left it downstairs.’

They looked downstairs, but there was nothing there.

Prissy marched out of the room. Before Anne could get hold of herself she was back again. She had a little bunch of notes in her hand.

‘Here you are,’ she said.

The colour came back into Anne’s face with a rush. She said, ‘Oh, Prissy, I can’t!’

Prissy screwed up her face.

‘Nonsense! Money’s only any good when it’s doing something. This isn’t any good at all, not whilst I’ve got it, because it’s not doing anything but sitting in a box under my nightgowns. If that horrid man of yours had got in last night he’d have taken it.’ She gave a determined little nod of the head. ‘Quite easily. Come along, we’ll have some breakfast. And then we’ll be off to the train.’

They had cold bacon and bread and marmalade and cocoa for breakfast. And then Prissy went down to the garage and got out the car.

‘And suppose the horror is prowling. I think you had better be very quick. In fact I think it would be a good thing if you sort of crouched down in the back seat with a rug over you, so that no one would know I wasn’t alone. And the sooner we get off the better.’

Anne was stiff with fear. The sense of not knowing who she was, of being naked and open to attack, was strong upon her. All the way to Felsham she clutched the rug round her and thought with horror of letting go of it and stepping out on to the platform.

When they reached the first houses Prissy said, ‘You’d better come out now. It won’t do to look as if you didn’t want to be seen.’

That was true. She pushed away the rug, sat up, and tidied her hair. She was more frightened than she had been at all, but she mustn’t show it.

The car ran down to the station, drew up, and she got out. When she turned round Prissy was getting out too. She said, ‘Go into the waiting-room. It’s just here. I’ll take your ticket.’

It was a game for Prissy, an exciting game. But for her— And then suddenly there was a rush of courage and hope. She walked into the waiting-room and sat down with her back to the light.

Prissy came to her there with the ticket.

‘Here you are. There’s a quarter of an hour before the train comes in. It sounds horrid, but I think I had better not wait.’

Anne threw a startled look.

‘Why?’

‘Mrs Brown,’ said Prissy. ‘It’s her day. If she comes and finds me out she’ll talk about it all over the place. As it is, if I go at once I shall just get back before she comes and there won’t be any talk. You’ll be all right.’ She nodded her head and took both of Anne’s cold hands in hers, which were like little warm pies.

‘Let me know how it all comes out,’ she said, and was gone.

Prissy drove back in a very good humour. She was pleased with herself. She thought of telling Aunt Hester that they had had a visitor, but decided that she wouldn’t. Aunt Hester was all right, but she was inclined to fuss, and she hadn’t seen Anne. It would be better if she didn’t say anything about her. Aunt Hester wasn’t very practical, yet she had had at least thirty years more of reading the papers than Prissy had. She knew a terrible lot about shady characters and tricks, and all sorts of things which oughtn’t to be but tried to pretend that they were. If you read too many of those things they get in the way of what you really know about people—of what a cat or a dog knows, or a child.

Prissy considered that she was very good at judging people and knowing what they were really like. That man last night, she had really hated him from the first moment that he knocked on the door. Anne was all right—Prissy had been quite sure about that from the first moment. She was sorry not to have seen her onto the train, but the sensible thing was to come away at once and not let anyone see them together, and then to get home before Mrs Brown came. She went along at a pleasant speed and sang to herself.

She had locked the garage door and let herself into the house, when it came to her suddenly that she had been very wise. She was quite often pleased with herself, but this time she was very pleased indeed, because not a quarter of an hour after she had let herself into the house there was someone tapping on the front door again. It was too early for Mrs Brown. A quarter past eight was her time, and it was only eight o’clock.

She went down, and she put the chain on the door before she opened it. It was the first time she had ever used the chain, and she was very glad of it. The door opened as far as the chain would let it, and she saw the man who was standing outside.

Horrid. Casual. Impertinent. A bad lot.

She said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘Well, I’m looking for a lost lady. I came here last night, but you weren’t very hospitable. Now that it’s quite respectably daylight, don’t you think you might open the door? I’m enquiring for Miss Fancourt, just up the road from you.’

She wasn’t taken in for a minute. He was a bad lot. She wished she had something to stand on, because he was right up over her head. She stood up as tall as she could and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. My aunt’s in town, and Mrs Brown won’t be here for a quarter of an hour. Please go away.’

‘Well, then I shall just have to wait and see Mrs Brown, that’s all. You’re making a bit of an ass of yourself, you know. If you’ve got the girl here, you can’t keep her. She’s in Miss Fancourt’s charge, and she isn’t right in the head, that’s all. You’re taking a very great responsibility in keeping her away from the people who are looking after her.’

Just for one awful moment there was a most horrible waggle in Prissy’s mind. Suppose what he said was true. It wasn’t the black dark of night any longer. It was broad daylight— well, not so very broad, because there was a black cloud over them, and it looked as if it might be going to rain at any moment. Everything in her shook.

And then quite suddenly everything was steady again. She believed Anne, and she didn’t believe a single word this creature was saying. She looked over her shoulder at the hall clock and saw that it was seven minutes past eight. She said, “That’s all very well, but I’m not supposed to open the door to anyone when I’m alone like this. You’ll have to wait till Mrs Brown comes.’

He didn’t want to wait. She heard him say ‘Damn!’ quite distinctly through the door. She said, ‘She’ll be here in about five minutes, I should think. Do you mind if I shut the door?’ and she shut it right in his face.

It was a very rude thing to do. Part of her was shocked, and part of her was very pleased. There was something extraordinarily gratifying about being rude to someone who couldn’t get at you. She tingled with excitement and backed away from the door.

It was a very long five minutes, and right in the middle of it Prissy had the most dreadful idea. Suppose that this day, out of all the days in the month and all the months in the year, Mrs Brown shouldn’t come! She was firm with herself. Why shouldn’t she come? She would come—she’d got to come—she always came.

The voice from the other side of the door broke in, ‘Look here, this is nonsense!’ The man outside was very angry.

Mrs Brown would be here in a minute. She would be a great help. Prissy went back until her heels struck against the first step of the stairs. The man was banging on the door and shaking the handle. She went up two or three steps and waited for Mrs Brown. When it was over it would be an adventure. In all her eighteen years she had never had an adventure like this before.

From the other side of the front door she could hear the man stop his knocking. She heard the gate. She heard Mrs Brown say, ‘Why, what’s up?’ and she ran down the three steps and along the passage to the back door.

‘Mrs Brown! Mrs Brown!’

Mrs Brown made short work of him.

‘Scaring the life out of a young girl! Really, you should be ashamed of yourself! No, you’ll not come in! If you’ve anything to say, you can say it to Miss Hester Knox when she comes home! There’s no one in the house corresponding to what you say! There’s no one here but myself and Miss Prissy that you’ve scared into a come-over!’

Prissy listened to her in full blast. She wasn’t in a come-over, but her legs felt a bit waggledy and she was quite pleased to sit down on the stairs and listen to Mrs Brown putting it across the horrid man. She didn’t think she was going to tell Mrs Brown about Anne. She thought she had better not. She didn’t think she was going to tell Aunt Hester. Really, the fewer people who knew the better. Aunt Hester would certainly tell her great friend Miss Ribblesdale, and goodness knew how many people Miss Ribblesdale might confide in. Come to think of it Aunt Hester wasn’t so bad, but Miss Ribblesdale had hundreds of friends absent and present. Absent friends didn’t matter so much. The present ones did. Why, before you could turn round everyone in Haleycott would know. Prissy had a horrifyingly clear picture of Mrs Bodingley, and Miss Escott, and Mrs Town, and the two Miss Bamfields all talking like mad. She shook her head in a very determined way and made up her mind that they weren’t going to talk about her—or Anne. She got up from the stairs and said, ‘Oh, Mrs Brown, what a horrid man! He said he was looking for someone—his niece he said she was. And why she should have come here, I can’t think, with Aunt Hester away and all.’

Mrs Brown looked shocked.

‘Miss Knox is away?’

‘Well, just for the night. She’ll be back for lunch—at least I suppose she will.’

Mrs Brown took off her hat and coat and hung them on the pegs in the scullery.

‘You did quite right keeping him in his place like you did, my dear. A horrid low fellow, that’s what he was. I thought as I’d do the dinning-room and your aunt’s bedroom this morning—give them a good clear-out. And we’ll have a cup of tea before we start. I’m sure you look quite pale, Miss Prissy.’

Prissy did feel a little pale.