The Girl in the Cellar

by Patricia Wentworth

  He came across her in the pantry and shut the door.

  ‘Thomasina, I want to ask you about Mrs Fancourt.’

  She turned round to him with a teapot in her hand and a fine polishing cloth.

  ‘Yes, Mr Jim?’

  ‘I hear she’s gone.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ The words came without fuss, slowly- he thought with something in the voice. No, he couldn’t get nearer to it than that.

  He said, ‘Do you know why she went?’

  Thomasina rubbed at the side of the teapot.

  ‘I might form a guess, sir.’

  ‘What would be your guess?’

  ‘I don’t know that I should say.’

  ‘Yes, you must say.’

  She went on rubbing the teapot. Presently she said, ‘It’s not my place to talk of what goes on in the house.’

  He leaned forward and took her wrists in a light, steady clasp.

  ‘I’m not talking about what is your place and what isn’t. I’m talking about my desperate need to know what has happened to Anne.’

  She lifted her eyes to his and said steadily, ‘It’s like that, is it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s like that.’

  She turned round and put the teapot down without haste, without fuss. Then when she was facing him again she looked at him and said, ‘She’s good.’

  ‘Yes, she’s good.’

  He had the feeling that they were talking on a different plane now. It was the plane on which you spoke the simple truth and it was received as such. Everything was plain and easy between them. He said, ‘Why did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know. She went in a hurry.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  She took her time to answer. Her eyes were on his face.

  When she spoke her voice wasn’t quite so calm.

  ‘I woke up out of my first sleep-I don’t generally wake. It went through my head that there was something to be done and that I hadn’t known what it was. And then sleep came over me again, and I didn’t wake till it was light.’

  He heard what she said. It didn’t mean anything-or it meant too much. Which was it? He said, ‘When did you find out that she was gone?’

  ‘When I went in with her tea. The blind was pulled back like she always had it, and I could see at once that she wasn’t there. Nor her clothes. Her hat and coat were gone as well as the rest. But she’d left her bag.’

  ‘Was her purse in it?’

  Thomasina shook her head.

  ‘She didn’t have a purse. The notes was in the middle of the bag, and a little loose change in the pocket at the side. I looked to see.’ Her voice was quite calm and decided.

  He called out sharply, ‘But if she hadn’t any money with her, how could she go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ There was something in her voice-something.

  He said, ‘Thomasina, if there is anything at all, you must tell me-you must.’

  She looked at him full.

  ‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth-I don’t know anything. But the back door was open this morning. It wasn’t Mattie or me who left it open.’

  ‘Why would she go out the back way?’

  ‘Seems to me it would be because she didn’t want to be heard.’

  ‘Yes. But what made her-what made her?’

  Thomasina had her thoughts, but she kept them close. Getting no answer, Jim sought one of himself.

  ‘Something must have happened. That time you woke up-when would it be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t generally wake before the middle of the night.’

  ‘That would be between twelve and one?’

  She nodded. ‘But it’s nothing to go by.’

  ‘What could have happened to make her go off like that? She went in a hurry-because she forgot her bag. How could she have forgotten it?’

  Thomasina’s eyes met his.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He turned from her and stood for a moment with his face averted. Then he swung round on her again.

  ‘There must have been something to make her go off like that.’

  Thomasina said slowly, ‘Perhaps she remembered something.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Jim went straight back to Miss Silver.

  ‘No one knows anything about her. She has simply vanished,’ he said.

  Miss Silver picked up her knitting and sat in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up at him standing on her hearthrug and said, ‘It would be better if you sat down, Mr Fancourt.’

  ‘I don’t feel as if I could.’

  ‘Nevertheless it will be better… Thank you. What do you think has happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve thought the whole way up on the train. It seems to me there are only two ways of it. Either she went off herself, or she was taken.’

  ‘That is reasonable.’

  ‘If she went off herself, why did she leave her purse?’

  ‘She could have been in a very great hurry’

  ‘What hurry?’

  ‘That we do not know. But you say that yesterday when you went down something had happened.’

  ‘Yes, that man had come down and found her in the garden. He had threatened her. But she didn’t know him, she didn’t know him at all. She had never seen him before. What he said was a complete mystery to her.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said they’d got to have a talk. He said they wouldn’t want to have it in public. He frightened her. She turned quite faint when he said it. He laughed at her and said that she knew what he might say, and she said she didn’t know-she didn’t know anything. She said, “I think that’s what frightened me. If I could have remembered, I wouldn’t have been so frightened. It’s not knowing, not being able to see. It’s like waking up in the night and not knowing where you are.” ’ He repeated the words, and they brought her close to him. He wasn’t in here with Miss Silver. He was out on the windy side of the hill. His arm was round her. He felt her tremble against him.

  Miss Silver knitted. She knew very well where he was. She let him be there. Presently he began to speak again.

  ‘After a little she went on-telling me what he said. I don’t know whether he mistook her for somebody else, but what he said was, “Remember, we know who you are.” Then he said he’d got some orders for her. She wasn’t to tell anyone she’d seen him, or what he had said. And when she got her orders she was to do just what she was told, and at once. Then he said, “You’d better,” and turned round and went away.’

  Miss Silver looked up.

  ‘She did not know him at all?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I see-’ She paused for thought.

  Jim’s voice came in.

  ‘I can’t understand it-any of it. You know how it is. You’re near someone-very near. You know they’re speaking the truth. And when I say you know, I mean you really do know. There’s no guess work about it-there’s only one mind between you. Well, it was like that.’ He sat back in his chair.

  Miss Silver inclined her head gently. She said, ‘I see.’

  He went on.

  ‘And then all of a sudden there’s a complete break-you can’t get in touch with them any more. It’s plain hell. What happened-that’s what I keep on trying to get at. What could possibly have happened?’

  Miss Silver knitted, in silence for a minute or two. Then she said, ‘It seems to me that there are two alternatives. One is that Anne has recovered her memory. We do not know what that memory may have shown her.’

  ‘Do you think that?’

  ‘I do not know. It is evident that something of an extremely disturbing nature occurred. Will you tell me just what happened between you?’

  He told her.

  She said, ‘The other alternative is that something happened after you left-something that made her decide to get away. Can you think of anything that she may possibly have learned?’

  He said, ‘She went in a great hurry.’

&n
bsp; He reminded her about the abandoned bag.

  ‘Then she had no money with her?’

  ‘None. As far as we know.’

  There was another silence. Then Miss Silver said, ‘What sort of woman is your aunt?’

  ‘Lilian?’

  ‘If that is her name.’

  ‘There are two of them, Lilian and Harriet. Harriet is the younger. She is entirely taken up with local good works.’

  ‘The letter which was in Anne’s handbag was signed Lilian. What kind of woman is she?’

  Jim stared.

  ‘I’ve never seen very much of either of them. State visits at intervals-you know the kind of thing. She’s not a brain. She is just a woman living in the country.’

  In Miss Silver’s mind was a clear recollection of something which her friend at Haleycott had said about Lilian Fancourt-‘One of those women who haven’t got very much, but what they’ve got they stick to.’

  ‘And, if I may ask you-what is the position with regard to the house at Haleycott?’

  Jim said slowly, ‘My grandfather left it to me, but-I wouldn’t have turned them out. They’d lived there always. They were the second family. It wouldn’t have been right to turn them out.’

  ‘Did they know that?’

  ‘I suppose they knew what my grandfather’s will was. Look here, Miss Silver, you can’t think-’

  She fixed her eyes upon his face.

  ‘I think that no avenue must be unexplored.’

  He got up from his chair. It was as if he pushed the whole thing away.

  ‘Look here, we can’t go into that. If Lilian wanted to do anything, what could she do? Besides, she isn’t like that. She’s a fussy, silly woman. I don’t mind telling you a little of her goes a long way with me. But when all’s said and done, what could she do?’

  ‘Mr Fancourt, did this man who came see her?’

  ‘See Lilian? Yes, he did. But I don’t know that he asked for her. Thomasina wasn’t sure whether he said Mrs Fancourt or Miss Fancourt.’

  ‘And was he with her long?’

  ‘Thomasina didn’t know. She went back to her pantry. She left him with Lilian.’

  They went on talking, and got nowhere.

  CHAPTER 28

  The train got into the terminus. Anne left it. She did not know where she was going. She did not know what she was going to do. She went and sat down in the waiting-room and tried to think. For a long time nothing came to her. Then she began to think.

  She got up and walked out of the station. She had to buy a suitcase, and she had to find a room. She got the suitcase almost at once, and then bought herself a cheap nightgown, brush and comb, a cake of soap, and a towel. It was terrifying how much things cost, but no one would take her in without luggage. A curious feeling pushed up through her consciousness. These were not the sort of things she had ever bought before. She could do a sum in her head. She could know that she mustn’t spend more than the least possible, but all the time she knew in her own mind that these were not the sort of things she had ever bought before. It was all new to her, this considering of prices, this taking the cheapest thing that was offered.

  In the first shop she went into she began to give her name. She got as far as Miss Anne, and stopped dead and bit her lip.

  ‘No, I’ll pay for it,’ she said.

  The girl who was serving her with the nightdress looked up at her with a quick fleeting glance.

  When she had got as much as she dared, she turned her attention to the question of a room. There was a policeman at the next crossing. She made her way to him, waited till he was disengaged from the traffic, and then put her request.

  ‘Can you tell me where I can get a room?’

  The policeman was comfortable-looking. Ten years before, he had come up to London. The country burr still lingered in his voice. He said, ‘What kind of a room, miss?’

  And Anne said, ‘A very cheap one.’

  He directed her to a Young Woman’s Christian, and it sounded frightfully respectable and safe. She went on her way feeling very clever and encouraged. Nothing happened to you if you were sensible.

  Nothing could possibly happen to you at a Young Woman’s Christian. It sounded too utterly respectable and safe. She would deposit her luggage-how safe and respectable to have luggage-and she would ask them about jobs. They would know. The mere fact that there was going to be someone whom she could ask was like light in a dark place-the dark place of her ignorance, of her not knowing.

  But the Young Woman’s Christian was full. They gave her one or two addresses and said they might be able to take her in next week. She embarked on a long and weary hunt for a room. At last, too tired to be particular, she took what was offered by a woman whom she would have turned down flat at the beginning of her search, a little carneying person with untidy hair and a smooth ingratiating way of speech. She didn’t know how long she would want the room for, and she would leave her things there and go out and get something to eat. She was tired to the very bones of her, and she was so discouraged that there seemed to be no place left for her either to fall or to rise. The world was an empty place. There was no one who cared whether she was alive or dead. ‘Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.’

  She ate and drank in a dirty little shop, and then she went back to her room and undressed and went to bed. The day had begun early and there had not been much of the night. She put on her clean nightgown and lay down in the doubtful bed wondering if she would sleep, and that was the last thing she knew until the morning. She slept and slept, and when she woke she was conscious of nothing. The hours of sleep had passed over her and were gone.

  Her depression was gone too. She must find a job. And she must write to Jim and Miss Silver. It wasn’t fair to leave them without a word. She had got away, and now that she was quite on her own she could see them again. It was a very heartening thought. She put on her coat and hat, considered whether she could ask Jim to get hold of her bag and her money from Chantreys, and set out first on a quest for a roll. and butter and a cup of tea, and then to look for a job.

  CHAPTER 29

  Miss Silver got the letter with her breakfast next day. It was the second in a pile of letters. She opened it first. She read:

  Dear Miss Silver,

  I am writing to tell you that I had to come away. I couldn’t help it. When I see you I will tell you, but I don’t know when that will be. I’ve got to get work before I do anything else. I thought I must write to you because of Jim. I meant to write to him, but I couldn’t. He will be so very angry with me for coming away, and I don’t know whether I could tell him why. I must think it well over first. But if you see him, or if he comes to you, will you please tell him not to worry. He was so very good to me-as you were. It would be a bad return if I did anything that would make things difficult for him. I will send you an address when I have got one. This is only temporary. Dear Miss Silver, I feel so grateful to you. I can’t explain, but please, please do believe that I don’t mean to be ungrateful, and that I am all right.

  The letter was signed ‘Anne’.

  Miss Silver read it through twice, then she left the breakfast-table, went into her sitting-room, and rang up Jim Fancourt.

  ‘Mr Fancourt-’

  ‘Yes-who is it?’

  ‘It is Miss Silver. I have a letter from Anne.’

  She read it aloud to him, and he received it in silence. After a moment she said, ‘Mr Fancourt, are you there?’

  She got an angry laugh.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m here-and a lot of use that seems to be! She says she writes from London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why does she not write to me?’

  Miss Silver looked at the letter again. She said, ‘I think there has been trouble with your aunt.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘It is an impression.’

  ‘Something must have caused it.’

  ‘Yes. She says she had to come away, she could not help
it. Then what she says of you-“He will be so very angry with me for coming away, and I don’t know whether I could tell him why. I must think it well over first.” ’ She read on to the end of the letter, and then returned to the sentence which said, ‘It would be a bad return if I did anything that would make things more difficult for him.’

  ‘That appears to me to be her motive-not to make things difficult for you.’

  ‘Damned little fool!’

  Miss Silver turned a deaf ear. She could not approve of ‘language’, but she could ignore it. She said, ‘I will send you a copy of this letter. It will, I think, be a satisfaction to you to have it, and I will let you know at once when I hear from her again.’

  When Jim received the letter he read it through more than enough times to know it by heart. She said, ‘I meant to write to him but I couldn’t.’ Why on earth couldn’t she? She could tell him anything-anything. Why could she tell Miss Silver what she couldn’t tell him? He went on reading. ‘He will be so very angry with me for coming away, and I don’t think I can tell him why. I must think it well over first.’ And what did she mean by that? What had she got to think over? ‘Will you please tell him not to worry.’ Not to worry-‘He was so very good to me. It would be a bad return if I did anything that would make things difficult for him.’ What was at the back of all this? And she had left her bag with the money in it. That was the real puzzle. You can’t get anywhere without money, but she had got to London. How? How had she gone? He could imagine ways, but they infuriated him. And where was she now? In London? She might be, or she might not.

  He rang Miss Silver up.

  ‘Jim Fancourt speaking. You haven’t heard any more?’

  ‘No, Mr Fancourt. I will let you know as soon as I do.’

  ‘You think you will hear?’

  ‘I am sure I shall.’

  Her quiet, firm voice was reassuring. He said, ‘I don’t know where to look for her-I don’t know what to do.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘There is nothing you can do except wait.’

  ‘That’s the damnable thing.’

  ‘I will ring you up as soon as I hear anything.’