Will O’ the Wisp (15 page)

A moment later, Folly, gay and impudent:

“Hullo, Mr. Grundy! Temper better this morning?”

“I was going to ask about yours,” said David dryly.

“'M—mine's feeling better, thank you. Did you ring up on purpose to ask about it?”

“No—Eleanor rang me up. Folly, is it true that you met Francis Lester last night?”

“'M—I danced with him. He dances divinely.”

“It can't be the man I mean.”

“'M—it is. He asked after you, and after Betty, quite
nicely
. He explained about being a cousin right away at the start. Is that all? Because I'm really having my bath, and Eleanor's old lady will make Eleanor buy her a new dining-room carpet if I go on dripping on to it much longer. I've only got a towel on. Good-bye, Mr. Grundy
dear
.”

She rang off.

David bent his mind to drainage.

A quarter of an hour later the telephone bell rang again. He picked up the receiver, and a woman's voice said: “I want to speak to Mr. Fordyce.”

“Speaking,” said David. He did not recognize the voice. It had that metallic quality which makes some voices so unpleasant on the telephone.

“You are David Fordyce?” said the voice.

“Yes.”

“You advertised for news of Erica Moore?”

David's hand closed hard on the receiver.

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you described her as Erica Moore and not as Erica Fordyce? She
was
Erica Fordyce, wasn't she?”

“Yes. Who am I speaking to?”

“To someone who knows that Erica Moore was Erica Fordyce. You haven't said why you advertised for Erica Moore.”

“I should think that would be obvious. Anyone who had any information would know that she had been Erica Moore. I naturally had no wish to make my private affairs public property.”

“Meaning you didn't wish your family to know of your marriage?”

“You can put it that way if you like. May I ask who you are?”

“You can ask,” said the voice.

David made a strong effort to keep down his temper.

“I suppose you didn't ring me up just to say that sort of thing. It's rather waste of time really. Don't you think so? The point is, have you any information to give me?”

“Quite a lot,” said the voice.

“Then if you have, don't you think it would be better to let me meet you? I don't consider this telephone conversation at all satisfactory. If you'll forgive me for saying so, I shall want to be convinced of the authenticity of any information about my wife.”

A hard, unmirthful laugh came to him along the wire:

“I'm afraid you'll have to talk to me this way or not at all. Now listen, David Fordyce. You met Erica Moore on your voyage to Sydney five years ago. The boat was called the
Susan Peterson;
the master's name was Quaid. You landed at Sydney on the first of February. Erica stumbled going down the gangway, and you saved her from a nasty fall. You drove with her to 120, Langdale Street, where her aunt, Mrs. Foss, had been living. When you got there, you found she had died a week before. Erica was taken in by a Mrs. O'Leary who lived at 125 in the same street. She was a widow with one son called Robert. He had red hair and freckles like his mother.” The voice paused, and then went on again: “Well, how does my information strike you? Is it accurate?”

David was dumbfounded; the mass of small details, the hard antagonism with which they were presented, fairly staggered him.

The voice went on:

“As you don't say anything, I take it that silence gives consent. On February 10, 1922, you married Erica at a registry office in a street with a church at one end of it. Erica didn't know the name of the street. You were married at half-past eleven in the morning. There was a thunderstorm going on, and you sheltered in the office until it was over.”

“Who are you?” said David. “For God's sake stop all this! If you've anything to tell me, don't beat about the bush.”

“You asked for proof that I knew what I was talking about. Are you satisfied? Or shall I tell you what Mrs. O'Leary said when you had such a row with her the day you made up your mind to marry Erica? She said, ‘If you mean fair by her, why don't you marry her?' Didn't she?”

David pulled himself together.

“You are telling me things that I know. Have you got anything to tell me that I don't know?”

“Monday comes before Saturday,” said the voice. “Do you remember buying Erica a ring with turquoises? Would you know it again if you saw it? It had three forget-me-not flowers set side by side. She liked bright colours, and she fancied it; and you bought it for her the day after you were married. You got the wedding ring at the same shop—the name was Andrews. And Erica wanted her initials put inside her wedding ring, and the date. So you'd know the ring again, even if you didn't know Erica.”

“Who—are—you?” said David. His lips were dry.

There was no answer; the line had gone dead. When he got the exchange, it was to be told that the other party had rung off. Further questions, and, perhaps, an urgent note in his voice, produced the information that the call had come from a public office.

David sat long and stared at the wall in front of him. Behind all this closely detailed information there was some motive which he could not divine. There was something vaguely horrible, as if Erica were being called up for a malignant purpose. The voice was dreadfully hostile. There was something that shocked those faint boyish memories of his.

As he sat there, he realized how faint they were, how little he had known of the timid child he had married, and of that little how dim a memory survived. He tried to call up Erica's face, but it would not come. A little shrinking figure in black—he could see that; but the small immature features eluded him. She was pale; her eyes were neither blue nor grey, and her hair neither light nor dark. She was in black for her father.

Suddenly he remembered her saying that she hated black. He could see the gesture with which she picked up a fold of her skirt and said: “I hate it! I love bright, bright colours. How soon do you think I can wear colours again?” He saw and heard her quite plainly; and he heard himself asking her what colour she liked best, and her eager answer: “I like pink best of all—bright pink, like roses.”

Looking back, he felt the old pity stir. She had been so starved of all the colour and gaiety of youth. He guessed at a stern, unhappy home—no companions, no toys, no amusements. A solitary visit to Aunt Nellie had been remembered and treasured. “I went with the Sunday-school for a treat all the way to Epping Forest;” and, “When I stayed with Aunt Nellie, we used to play games every evening.” David had laughed and asked what games—cards?—to be met with a shocked, “Oh no! Cards are wicked. Aunt Nellie wouldn't have them in the house.”

“What games then?”

“Oh, parlour games. Lovely! Backgammon—and Scripture characters—and spillikins—and proverbs. I liked proverbs best of all.”

It stirred his pity now as it had stirred it then. How could this little pitiful creature be a threat, and what link was there between her and that hostile voice?

He went over in his own mind the fortnight between the marriage and the shipwreck. In Sydney, Erica had known no one to whom she could have confided all these details. If Mrs. O'Leary had known some of them, there were others that she could not know—the little blue ring; the initials inside the wedding ring; the hour and place of the marriage. He had taken Erica away from the woman's house four days before, and they had not met again. There remained the second landlady and the other passengers on the boat. It was possible that Erica had told one of them all these details, and that they had been remembered for five years. It was possible; but it was supremely unlikely. Erica was timid and reserved to the last degree, and on the
Bomongo
she had hardly spoken to any of the other passengers. She had not spoken much, even to him.

But over and above everything else, there was the absence of motive. Why, after five years, should all these trivialities be focussed into an unexplained and implacable resentment?

He could find no answer to the question.

CHAPTER XXI

The afternoon post brought David a letter from Miss Nellie Smith. She wrote:

“D
EAR
S
IR
,

“I am sorry I cannot give you any information, as I am not at liberty to do so. My niece will communicate with you. It is no use asking me anything.

“Yours truly,

“E. S
MITH
.”

David read the letter three times. From its cold formality the two words “my niece” struck him. Her niece. What niece? Erica had told him that her mother had no relations except Aunt Nellie. Yet Aunt Nellie had a niece; and the niece would communicate with him. Someone had communicated with him already.

After a long time he took up his pen and wrote:

“D
EAR
M
ISS
S
MITH
,

“I should be very grateful if you would give me your niece's name and address. I did not know that you had any niece but Erica. I want to assure you that I have not, and never have had, any other motive than a desire to find out all that can possibly be found out with regard to Erica, and then to do whatever is right and just. I can do nothing whilst I am kept in the dark. Will you tell your niece this and ask her to treat me with confidence? I can assure you that she will not regret doing so.

“Yours sincerely,

“D
AVID
F
ORDYCE
.”

He dined that evening with Eleanor. She greeted him with “Oh, David, Betty's been here! And I hope I didn't do wrong.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I told her Folly had seen Francis Lester.”

David whistled.

“Well, it was really very difficult not to—she brought the conversation round so. David, don't be angry, but I believe she knew.”

“Knew! Knew what?”

“Knew that Francis was in town—knew that he'd met Folly last night.”

“What makes you think so?”

She lifted her clear, candid eyes.

“It's so hard to explain how one gets an impression. I can't explain. I think she'd been seeing him—I think she had come up to town to see him.”

“That's a bit far-fetched.”

“Perhaps it is. You're not vexed, David?”

“No—she'd have to know. It's rotten his turning up like this. I can't think what she ever saw in the fellow; but she was awfully fond of him.”

The door opened and Folly danced into the room. She made David a bob curtsy and twirled in front of Eleanor in a short, gold frock that glittered under the lights.

“Things being proper and improper are so funny! This morning, when I had a huge bath-towel on, it would have been frightfully improper for me to see David, though I was all covered up from my chin to my toes; and to-night, when I'm not covered up at all, anyone can see me and I'm perfectly proper.”

“Are you?” said David dryly.

“Honi soit qui mal y pense,”
said Miss Folly March in a tone of conscious modesty.

Folly, it appeared, was going out after dinner. She was meeting Floss, and they were going somewhere to dance; hence the new gold frock. When dinner was over Folly would not wait for coffee.

“I'll have coffee with Floss. I'm to pick her up at her flat. I'd have dined there, only I wanted to see if Mr. Grundy would pass my frock.”

She danced up to Eleanor and kissed her on the cheek.

“Bye-bye. David's going to take me down and catch me a taxi.”

“Am I?” said David.

“'M—you are. If you were really nice you'd come along and dance with me. But the
very
least you can do is to get me a taxi.”

Out on the landing she slipped her hand into his arm.

“Let's walk down. I hate lifts—they're like a Channel crossing stood on end.”

The flat was on the second floor. Just round the turn of the stone stair Folly stood still.

“I told you I should probably make it up with Stingo.”

“Did you?” His tone was indifferent.

“Yes, I did. I danced with him. He dances divinely.”

David said nothing. Perhaps his face spoke for him. Folly, standing one step above him, tapped with a little gold shoe.

“Why shouldn't I make it up with Stingo if I like?”

“Oh, certainly—if you
like
.” His voice was coldly contemptuous.

“I told you I'd probably make it up with him—and I did. Why shouldn't I? You look down your nose at him and
snoop
; but he isn't any worse than anyone else.”

“If you don't know a rotter when you see one—”

Folly jerked a round white shoulder. Her anger slipped from her.

“What's the good of talking like that? You're all the same, really. Any man'll go just as far as you'll let him.” Her tone was bleakly matter-of-fact. “Floss told me that when I was fifteen. She said any man would get you into a mess if you gave him a chance.”

David felt something; he did not know what. He said, “You're talking nonsense,” and turned to go on down the stair.

Folly jumped two steps and caught him up.

“I always do talk nonsense—don't I? David, don't
run
.” She hung on his arm and pulled him round to face her. “I've got something to show you.”

“What is it?”

“Something frightfully exciting. Prepare to be
thrilled
.” She caught his hand. “David, my hair's growing ever so fast. I shan't want my little bought curls any more. I've promised them to Timmy. He does
love
to bite them, and he shall have them all for his very own. My hair's simply racing.”