The Girl In The Cellar (13 page)

Jim Fancourt walked into Miss Silver’s sitting-room. He could hardly wait for Emma Meadows to shut the door behind him, or for Miss Silver to shake hands, before he said, ‘I’ve been thinking—’

Miss Silver gave a faint reproving cough.

‘Will you not sit down?’

‘Thank you, I’d rather stand.’

Miss Silver seated herself. She took her knitting-bag from the small table beside her chair and began to knit. Jim Fancourt stood before the hearth. When she had knitted about a row and a half, he came out with something between a groan and a cough.

‘You haven’t heard any more?’

Miss Silver was not prepared to tell an untruth. She said, ‘I have heard something, but not from Anne herself.’

He had been turned half away from her, looking down into the fire. He was round in a flash.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just what I said, Mr Fancourt. I have some news of Anne, but not from herself. I rang up your rooms, but you had already left. I felt sure that you would be very much relieved to have such satisfactory news.’

He didn’t know how dreadfully afraid he had been until she said that Anne was safe. He didn’t know how much his face gave away. He had to hear it again, to have it underlined.

‘Where is she?’

‘I do not think that I can tell you that. She is with the cousin of a girl whom I was able to help—a very nice steady person. She is quite safe, Mr Fancourt. You may be perfectly sure of that.’

‘You won’t tell me where she is?’

Miss Silver laid down her knitting.

‘I can make allowances for your impatience, but I will ask you to consider the circumstances. At the present moment Anne’s desire is to be left alone. She is perfectly safe, and you will do well to have regard to her wishes.’

He bit his lip.

‘That is all very well—’

‘Yes, I think that it is. I think that you will achieve more by giving her a little time to, shall we say, miss you.’

‘Do you think she will?’

‘I think so, if you do not alarm her by trying to force a decision upon her before she is prepared to make one.’

‘What decision do you mean?’

‘Think for a minute, Mr Fancourt. Anne is not your wife— that has become quite clear.’

‘I never said she was.’

‘No. But with her memory gone, and in your absence, she was presented to your family in that light. Then you arrived, and I suppose that was a shock to her.’

‘I suppose it was.’

They were both talking so seriously that to neither of them did it seem at all strange that it should be put like that. Miss Silver leaned forward.

‘Do you not see, Mr Fancourt, how it was? I do not know what your feelings were for the poor girl who was murdered. I do not know whether the form of marriage you went through with her would have held water. But all that is now beside the point. I think you must see that Anne will need a little time to think before any decision is taken as to your relationship. She is in the position of having no past. I do not think that she can decide upon her future until she knows what that past may have been. The best thing for her, and the thing most likely to clear up her thoughts, is a period of rest. What she needs is a time when nothing happens, a time in which she can feel secure and, if it works out that way, regain her memory.’

‘Yes—yes, I can see that. But she’ll need money. Will you see that she has what she wants? I’ll give you a cheque. Will fifty pounds be all right?’

‘Yes, Mr Fancourt.’

‘Couldn’t you tell me where she is?’

She smiled.

‘I think it will be better if I do not.’

He leaned forward and took her hands. His were hard and strong, but she felt them tremble.

‘If I say I won’t see her—I won’t go near her—’

‘Do you think you could really keep to that?’

He said, ‘I don’t know. I suppose I couldn’t, but I would try.’

Miss Silver looked at him with a great degree of kindness. She said, ‘Let it alone for a little, Mr Fancourt. It will be better that way.’

Having let go, it is always difficult to take things up again. Anne had let go. She felt that way about it. It was as if she had been climbing a very steep hill, the sort of hill that it takes every atom of your strength to climb, and then quite suddenly she had come out upon a flat, easy place where she could stop and rest. A week went by. She did not know that a process of healing was going on. She did not see, as Janet saw, that there was a change in her—colour coming back to her cheeks and light to her eyes.

She woke up suddenly after a week to think about how much money she had. She came down to breakfast with a troubled look, and was glad to find Janet alone.

‘I must get something to do.’

‘There’s no hurry.’

‘Oh, but there is. I must get a job. I haven’t much money.’

Janet hesitated.

‘You’ve got plenty for the present. I shouldn’t be in a hurry.’

Anne looked at her in a distressed way.

‘You’re so good to me. But don’t you see I can’t go on taking it? You don’t know anything about me, and if you let a room you’ve a right to be paid for it, and—and I ought to be earning something.’

Janet went on putting out the breakfast things. She didn’t want to tell her, but she would have to. She hoped Anne wasn’t going to mind. She said, ‘You needn’t worry about the money.’

Anne was looking at her with wide, distressed eyes.

‘You’re so good—but I must.’

Janet stood there with the teapot in her hand.

‘You know you spoke about Miss Silver—I told her you had come to me.’

The blood ran up to the roots of Anne’s hair and then down again. She looked as if she was going to faint. Janet put her in a chair and pulled up one beside her. She had been talking for some time before what she said came through to Anne.

‘—fifty pounds. Have you got that? You don’t look as if you had.’

Anne said, ‘No—no—’

‘Yes,’ said Janet firmly, ‘there’s fifty pounds for you.’

Anne came back slowly. Janet was sitting beside her, holding her hand.

‘Miss Silver sent me fifty pounds, and it was for you.’

The colour came into Anne’s face again.

‘He—he mustn’t,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

Anne’s hand went out.

‘It’s from Jim. He mustn’t—’

‘Why?’

Anne was shaking.

‘He—he mustn’t. I don’t want him to.’

Janet was frowning.

‘Look here, Anne, I do think you’ve got to be helped just now. Miss Silver says he’s in a dreadful state about you.’

‘Is he?’

‘She says he is. Look here, if Miss Silver says it’s all right for you to take the money you really needn’t worry. She’s like all the maiden aunts in the world. If she says it’s all right, then it is, and that’s that.’

‘Does she say it’s all right?’

‘She wouldn’t send it on if she didn’t think so.’

Anne woke up to the fact that she was talking about Jim, and—did Janet know anything about Jim? If she did, it wasn’t Anne who had told her. Jim had been in her mind, in her thoughts, but she had never mentioned his name until now. She said, ‘Who told you about Jim?’

‘Miss Silver thought I knew.’

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘Yes, I have. That’s when she gave me the money. She said it would be kind to take it because he was in such a state about you. You can pay it back, you know.’

Anne said slowly, ‘Yes—I can pay it back—’ And then Lizabet came in and there was no more private talk.

The letter from Jim came next morning. She didn’t know it was from Jim at first, because it was enclosed in one from Miss Silver. She read Miss Silver’s first.

My dear Anne,

I am very glad to have news of you, and to know that you are safe. Mr Fancourt has been in a great state about you. I have told him that he must wait until it is your wish to see him. Do not keep him too long, my dear. He is very much concerned for you, and quite trustworthy.

With affectionate regards,

Yours, Maud Silver.

Anne looked up from the neat handwriting to the enclosure, which wasn’t neat at all. Something of the desperation in his mind came across to her as she looked at the envelope with the name that wasn’t hers scrawled across it—Mrs Fancourt. That touched her. Suddenly and unexpectedly it touched her. She was trying to break away, and it was just as if he had put out a hand and caught at her to make her stay. She took the letter, ran up to her room with it, and locked the door. And even then she couldn’t open it or read it for a long, long time. She wanted to, and she was afraid. She wanted to with all her heart, and just because she wanted to so much she was more afraid than she had ever been about anything.

When at last she moved, it was with a strong effort. She tore the envelope, and out came the package of sheets which were inside.

The letter began without any beginning as formal as beginnings go. It said:

Why did you go away like that? It was cruel of you and quite useless. Don’t you know—don’t you know that I care for you? You must know it. Let me come to you. I don’t know why you went away. I think Lilian had something to do with it. You need never see her again if she had. I can promise you that. There is nothing else that I can think of that would come between us. Miss Silver says that you are safe. She won’t tell me where you are. She says she only knows in confidence, and that she won’t tell me unless you say she may. Oh, Anne, please do say so—please. Whatever is the matter—whatever you think you must keep to yourself, please, please, please let me know about it. I only want to help you. Darling—darling Anne, do believe that. You may feel that it is too soon for me to say all this. I know I shan’t change. I won’t worry you, I will promise that. But do let me see you. Don’t shut yourself off from me like this. I can’t stand it.

There was a big bold ‘Jim’ scrawled across the bottom.

Anne read her letter through three times. Then she put up her hand to her eyes, found that they were wet, and got out a handkerchief to dry them with. She didn’t know why Jim’s letter should have made her cry, but it had. Then she saw that there was another sheet. It had dropped on the bed beside her. She picked it up and read it:

I haven’t told you about Anne. There isn’t much to tell. I hardly knew her. She was with her father in the place where we were. Her mother was Russian, and she had been brought up out there. I don’t know whether she was legitimate. I think perhaps she wasn’t, because her father, Borrowdale, was in such a state about her when he was dying. He met with an accident and only lived a few hours. He asked me to marry Anne and look after her. I hadn’t had a lot to do with women, but there was no one else so I said yes. There wasn’t much time to think. He sent for the local priest—it was ten miles over very rough country—and he married us. The priest had been gone about an hour when the American plane came down. They got off again after a couple of hours, and they took Anne with them. It was a bit of a wangle, so don’t talk about it. There have been difficulties about getting anyone away from Russia, especially if their nationality wasn’t quite clear, so that American plane was just what was wanted. I thought it was the safest thing for her. But how she came to be murdered in London I don’t know, or how you got mixed up in it. Let me come and see you. Please do.

It was an extraordinary story. How and why had she come into it? She didn’t know at all. To think about it was like pushing at darkness itself. At dense darkness. Memory didn’t come back that way. If it came, it would come naturally—as naturally as she remembered getting up this morning, or what she did yesterday.

After what seemed like a long time she got up and washed her face. She couldn’t make up her mind what to say to him. She would have to write to him. What did she say? It wasn’t that she distrusted him, but he might distrust her. Suppose she told him just what had happened—how she had come down in the night and found Lilian talking to the man whose name she didn’t know. Suppose he didn’t believe her. Her heart beat hard at the thought. Why should he believe her? Lilian was his own kin. If it hadn’t been for that, she could have trusted him, but—She tried to put herself in his place. A strange girl with no background at all telling the strangest tale about the people you had known always. How could you believe her? How could you believe anything she said?

She didn’t know.

Jim Fancourt came down to breakfast after a night of tumultuous dreams. There was a little pile of letters, and he was sorting them through when he came on Anne’s and dropped the others. She wrote as he had done, without a formal beginning and without a formal address. He read:

I don’t know what to say. You don’t know anything about me. I don’t know anything about myself. You have sent me some money. I don’t know whether I ought to take it, but I am going to just for now, on the condition that you let me pay it back when I have got a job. You needn’t worry about me at all. Miss Silver knows the girl I’m with, and nobody could be kinder. Please wait a little before you try and see me. I want to think things out. If I could only remember—but it’s no use trying, it only makes everything confused.

He put his head in his hands and groaned. Why wouldn’t she? Because she didn’t trust him? Because she didn’t want to be rushed? That hurt a little less than the other. But there wasn’t a word to explain why she had gone off in the middle of the night. He went over the scene with her on the open slope of the hill. She had told him everything then. How did he know that? The answer came passionately. He did know it, but he didn’t know how he knew it. He just knew that everything was all right between them then. Whatever had happened, whatever had gone wrong, had come afterwards. Something had happened. What was it? Something had happened to make her run away in the middle of the night from Lilian’s house—from Lilian. That was it—Lilian had done something that had driven her away. Now, what had Lilian done?

That she was an idle, mischief-making woman, he had no doubt, but the idlest mischief-maker in the world needs something to start her off. It came to him then and suddenly that the man who had frightened Anne in the garden might be in on it. He had gone to the house first, and he had seen Lilian. What had passed between them, and was that their first meeting? He had no idea, but he meant to find out. He looked at his watch. He could catch the eleven o’clock for Haleycott.

Lilian was considerably surprised at his arrival. She had been congratulating herself on the way she had managed. Anne had gone. Jim had come and gone. The man whom she knew as Maxton had gone. There was nothing to bring any of them back again except Jim, who would naturally come down occasionally on a family visit which could have no particular significance, and which would be quite pleasant. She was all for keeping up pleasant relations with the family. What she had not allowed for was his coming down again right on top of his other visit and in such an exceedingly overbearing and difficult frame of mind. He had refused curtly to come into the garden and see how the borders were progressing, and had opened the study door, shown her in, and shut it again, all in the most peremptory manner.

She said, ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, ‘What is it? What have I done?’

‘That is what I mean to know. Just what have you done?’

She went back to her ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, in a tumble of words, ‘I don’t know what you can possibly mean. I don’t think you can be well. I don’t know what this is all about.’

‘Don’t you? Are you sure, Lilian? Are you quite sure you don’t know?’

She was beginning to be frightened. What did he know? How could he possibly know anything at all? He couldn’t— he didn’t! She opened her eyes as wide as they would go and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can only suppose that you’re not well, or—or that you’ve been drinking.’

‘No, I’ve not been drinking. There’s nothing wrong with me, Lilian. You’d better make up your mind to it and tell the truth. Anne told me about the man who came down to see her. I know that he saw you first. It’s really quite useless to try and deceive me. I’ve come here to get the truth, and I mean to get it.’

He saw real terror in her eyes. Her hand went up to her throat.

‘I don’t know—what you mean—’

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘something happened here in the middle of the night when Anne disappeared. It’s no good your telling me you don’t know anything about it. It’s no good, I say.’

Lilian did the best she knew for herself. She broke into sobs.

‘Really, Jim… I can’t think… I don’t know why! Oh—oh dear! What do you think I’ve done?’

He said, ‘I don’t know. You’d better tell me. That man who came down—I want to know whether you had ever seen him before.’

He didn’t know, then. He wanted to know. Well, she wasn’t going to tell him, and that would serve him right.

There was a sofa by the window. She made her way to it and sat down, moving feebly. It would serve him right if she were to faint. She wondered what he would do if she did, and then decided regretfully that she had better not. And it was quite obvious that he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know that she knew Maxton, or that Maxton had been here in the night. She must remember that he didn’t know, and she must stick to it. She got out her handkerchief and dried her eyes.

‘I don’t know what this is all about,’ she said in the most pathetic voice she could contrive. ‘Anne ran away from here. I’ve no idea why, but if you want to know what I think—’ She paused, mopped her eyes, and looked at him round the handkerchief. ‘If you want to know what I really think—well I don’t like to say it, but I’ve no doubt in my own mind—’

‘What have you got no doubt about in your own mind?’

She wished that Jim would stay farther off. She wished she had not sat down, but her legs were shaking and she had to. She was afraid to say what she had begun to say, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of it now. She spoke in rising agitation.

‘I thought she was odd when she came—very odd. And I didn’t think—’ She stopped.

Jim repeated her last words, ‘You didn’t think—’

Lilian was goaded into speech.

‘I didn’t think she was right in her head,’ she said.