Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

  David sat on the other side of the fire. He was reading. His eyes never left his book, but he did not very often turn a page. Folly looked at him, and looked away. Eleanor’s shawl had fallen from her shoulders; it lay on the sofa between her and Betty. Tommy was playing with the fringe, plaiting and unplaiting it.

  Folly struck a loud banging chord, jumped up, and ran across to Eleanor. She held her elbows and shivered ostentatiously.

  “Eleanor, may I have your shawl?”

  “You certainly want it,” said Betty pointedly.

  Eleanor smiled and nodded.

  Folly caught it up by a handful of fringe, shook it out, and made a little sheeted ghost of herself. Then she trailed across the hearth, picked up her stool, and carried it round to the corner between David and the wall. Here she sat herself down chin in hand and kept silence for a long ten minutes. Then David heard a dejected voice at his elbow:

  “David!”

  “What is it?”

  “Are you angry with me too?”

  David looked round. There was something forlorn about this little white ghost with all its flaunting scarlet hidden away. He had never looked at Folly quite as he looked at her now.

  “Silly little thing! Who’s angry with you?”

  “Betty is—and Tommy is. Are you?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t like my dress—did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. Why on earth did you get it?”

  A flicker of impudence came and went.

  “I got it in Paris, partly because George said I wasn’t to, and partly because I thought it was like my name.”

  David’s eyes laughed.

  “Are you as scarlet a folly as all that?”

  “’M—sometimes. But I didn’t mean that. My name’s not really English folly, but French follet, and I got it from an old French gentleman, Monsieur Renault, who came and stayed with us when I was five. He heard them call me Flora, and he said it was a name much too serious. Ooh! I can hear him saying it now—‘beaucoup trop sérieux.’ He said I was Feu-follet—Will-o’-the-Wisp. And after that everyone called me Folly. Sometimes I hate him, because I think I might have been ever so good if they’d gone on calling me Flora.”

  Her face came just a little way above the arm of David’s chair; it was tilted up to him. David looked down at sad green eyes, a white face, and a painted scarlet mouth. Suddenly, vividly, he remembered that he had kissed Folly, and that Folly had kissed him. He pushed his chair back a foot and picked up his book. In another moment he would have kissed her again under Betty’s very eyes.

  He held the book between them and looked hard at it. Feu-follet—Will-o’-the-Wisp—Fire-folly—Wildfire. The words slipped through his mind, each name a little dancing tongue of flame floating over dangerous places—dark, dangerous places where a man might drown.

  After a moment Folly moved too. She turned slowly round upon her stool and sat quite still, with one hand propping her cheek, and mournful eyes that looked into the flames—and looked long. The white China shawl fell round her to the ground. It was the colour of ivory, and the raised flowers and birds and butterflies embroidered on it looked as if they were carved in ivory. Folly herself was so still and so white that she too might have been a little ivory figure with the firelight playing on it.

  David never looked at her once.

  Tommy went off next morning after an early breakfast. David drove him to the station, and came back to find Betty and Eleanor at the toast and marmalade stage, with Folly on the fender-stool alternately eating an orange and reading extracts from the Births, Marriages, and Deaths. She kissed her hand to David as he came in.

  “We’re all weeping for our Tommy. I’m trying to cheer the others on their way. ’M—Mrs. Mulberry Beam has a son—only she doesn’t put it like that. It’s, ‘Mrs. Mulberry Beam—Genevra Jones—a son, Theophil Mortimer Delange.’ Ooh! What a name! I must have some orange after that!”

  “You’re simply plastering The Times with juice,” said David. “Suppose you hand it over.” Folly dropped her orange and clutched the paper. “I haven’t nearly finished. Betty, give him some tea to keep him quiet. ’M—Brown has a boy, and Smith has a girl, and the Robinsons have got twins.”

  “Don’t you ever read anything except the Births, Marriages, and Deaths?” said David, between amusement and impatience.

  “’M—I read the Agony Column. I’m just getting to it: ‘Constantia B—Return the books, and all will be forgiven.’ I expect that’s thieves really—and this one too: ‘If Ernest has any doubts, J. S. M. will set them at rest.’”

  “Come on, give me the paper, Folly!”

  “I’ve nearly finished. Betty’s poured you out a nice cup of tea. Go and drink it. Here’s another: ‘Erica Moore.—Anyone giving information with regard to—’” She stopped and looked across the top of the paper with a puzzled frown. “Erica Moore—Erica Moore—I know that name—I’ve seen it somewhere. Ooh! It says, ‘will be rewarded!’ Now if I could only remember about it, I might get a simply enormous reward!”

  David had walked to the window. Eleanor looked at him helplessly. She ought to be able to stop Folly; but she couldn’t. And then quite suddenly Betty, who was filling the teapot, caught her sleeve in the kettle and pulled it over with a crash. The Times was forgotten. Betty, very white, twisted her handkerchief about her wrist and left the room.

  Folly came up to the table and touched the kettle with a wary finger.

  “It’s not very hot,” she said. “It couldn’t possibly have burnt her.” She looked mischievously at Eleanor.

  “It startled her. Betty’s rather easily startled.”

  “’M—she is,” said Folly with her hand on the kettle.

  CHAPTER XV

  Just a little later, when Folly was throwing out crumbs to the birds, Eleanor put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Folly, will you come to the study for a moment? David wants to ask you something.”

  In the study David was standing at the window with his back to the room. He did not turn round when they came in. Eleanor shut the door. Then she put her arm round Folly and said:

  “David wants to know if you can help him. It’s that thing you read at breakfast—the advertisement about Erica Moore. You said you’d heard the name before. Can you remember where you heard it?”

  Folly shot one glance at Eleanor and then looked down.

  “I’ve heard it,” she said. “Yes, I have.”

  “Where have you heard it?”

  “’M—I don’t know.”

  Eleanor looked anxiously at David; but David did not move.

  “Folly—it’s rather serious. Do try and remember.”

  Folly flashed her another look, suspicious, defiant, and a little frightened.

  “I can’t—I don’t know where I heard it. Why do you want to know?”

  “Are you sure you know the name?”

  “Yes, I was—when I read it, I was sure. It came, and it went”—she flicked her fingers in the air—“just like that. I read: ‘Erica Moore,’ and I had a little lightning picture of knowing something about her; and then it was gone. Eleanor—what’s the matter? Who is she? Why do you want me to remember? Who is Erica Moore?”

  “My wife,” said David. He did not turn round, and his voice was hard and forced.

  Folly gave a little gasp. It was so faint a sound that it did not reach David. For a moment all her weight came on Eleanor’s arm.

  Eleanor did not look at her. She waited till Folly said in a small choked whisper:

  “David hasn’t got a wife. Why did he say that?”

  A feeling of acute distress swept over Eleanor. She was between David and Folly. If she had been alone with either of them, she could have found something to say. She felt Folly pinching her arm with hard, shaking fingers, and she heard Folly’s voice say again very urgently:

  “Why does he say it?”

  It was David who answered. He gave an odd laugh and said:


  “Because it’s true.”

  Folly let go of Eleanor and went back a step or two until she caught the edge of the writing-table and leaned against it.

  “How is it true?” she said, staring at David’s back.

  Eleanor looked from one to the other. Then she spoke quickly:

  “It is true, Folly. They were married in Australia; and on the way home the ship was wrecked, and David thought his wife was drowned. He had every reason to think so. And then the other day there was an advertisement in the Agony Column; it had David’s initials, and it said, ‘Your wife is alive.’”

  Folly threw up her head.

  “There might be millions of people whose initials were D. F. Why should it be David?”

  “It wasn’t just D. F.; it was all his initials—D. A. St. K. F.—David Alderey St. Kern Fordyce.”

  Folly’s hands came together and clung. She didn’t speak.

  Eleanor said: “The advertisement you read was David’s. We thought—”

  She stopped with a bewildered feeling that she did not really know what they had thought or expected. Not this queer tangled thread which led to Folly—no, not that at any rate. She went on speaking because when the silence fell it fell so heavily:

  “You see, if you know anything—if you can remember anything, it might be a great help.”

  “I can’t remember—it’s gone.”

  “Did you think you’d known her, or that you’d heard the name somewhere?”

  “I didn’t know her. It was just the name. I think I saw it—I think I saw it written—I think—”

  Her voice stopped. She looked past Eleanor at David, who had not moved. After a long dragging minute she went to him and touched his arm. When he turned, she was there, close to him. She said:

  “I can’t remember. I’ll try.”

  She was very white.

  “Don’t try too hard. It’s more likely to come back if you don’t.”

  “I did try—nothing came.”

  “Stop trying, and it will probably come of itself.”

  She nodded. Then, without another word, she turned and ran out of the room.

  Eleanor, standing where Folly had left her waited to see whether David would speak. She felt a bewildered constraint. When David and Folly spoke to one another, it was as if they were speaking in a language which she did not know—so few words—such simple words; but they left her with the feeling that she had been listening to something which was not meant for her. There was a sense of strain, a sense of fear, as if the meaning which eluded her held something which would be terrifying if she could grasp it.

  David was looking again into the dull grey mist which lay beyond the window at which he stood. It thickened continually, coming up like smoke between the trees; one moment they appeared as half-smudged impressions, and the next were blotted out of sight.

  Eleanor became aware that she had nothing to say to David if David had nothing to say to her. She went softly out of the room and shut the door.

  CHAPTER XVI

  David was lunching at the other side of the county with a prospective client. Later in the day he telephoned to Ford to say that as the fog was getting worse every minute he would stay the night and go on up to town next morning.

  Eleanor went back to London by an afternoon train, taking Folly with her. They did not speak of David or of his affairs. Folly, who had been gay and impudent at lunch, had a long silent fit, and hardly spoke at all. After dinner she stopped playing with Timmy, sat back on her heels, and said:

  “I suppose David wrote and told you at once when he married that Erica person?”

  Timmy, who had been left on his back, made an agile recovery, darted under a chair, and crouched for a spring.

  Eleanor was vexed to find herself blushing.

  “No—he didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I suppose he told his father,” said Folly in an accusing voice.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “It all happened so quickly. She was left stranded in Sydney.”

  Folly gave a little laugh. Her small figure, in its straight, black frock, was stiff and upright. Timmy watched her with orange eyes; the tip of his tail twitched.

  “I expect she took good care to be stranded where there was a man to pay the bills.”

  “Folly! Don’t! She’s dead.”

  “Is she? I thought she was alive. You can’t have it both ways. If she’s drowned, I’ll say ‘Poor Erica!’ in a proper funeral voice; but if she isn’t drowned, then she’s a horrid, designing cat who’s just been waiting to pounce on David.”

  At the word, uttered with great energy, Timmy pounced; a swift, furry rush carried him right up on to Folly’s shoulder, where he was caught, slapped, and kissed.

  Folly got off her heels and made a lap for him.

  “Little serpent cat!” she said. “Eleanor, will you lend him to me to come out with me on my broomstick? He’d love it. You’re a witch-kitten, aren’t you, Timkins?—a bad, worst, wicked, furry-purry witchling?”

  She cuddled him as she spoke, and he slipped purring into the sudden sleep of kittens, his head thrown back and a tip of pink tongue peeping out between white milk-teeth.

  “Well?” said Folly. “Go on telling me about the Erica person. She married David, and she wouldn’t let him tell anyone.”

  “Folly, she was only sixteen and quite alone.”

  Something looked out of Folly’s eyes.

  “When I was sixteen I knew a lot,” she said.

  Eleanor did not doubt her. She went on hastily:

  “David married her, and a few days afterwards they sailed on a ship that went down. David put Erica into the second boat, and it was never heard of again. He got away in the last one, and they were picked up next day. The second boat was never heard of at all.”

  “Why didn’t he tell anyone?”

  “He didn’t want to. And when he got home his father was dying.”

  “He told Betty,” said Folly.

  “No—he never told anyone till he told me the other day.”

  Folly nodded.

  “Betty knows—he must have told her.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Well, she knows. She jumped like anything when I read that out about Erica Moore—she jumped so that she upset the kettle, and she pretended she’d burnt her hand.”

  “I don’t see how she could know. David said she didn’t. You know David and I were both frightfully taken aback when you suddenly said ‘Erica Moore’; and I expect Betty saw that there was something wrong. She’s a nervous sort of creature.”

  “She’s a vinegar cat,” said Folly. “I hate vinegar cats. Timmy, my angel, if you grow up into a vinegar cat I shall drown you. I will. I shall take you broomstick-riding and drop you into a bottomless lake, and you’ll be a good riddance of bad rubbish.”

  She tickled Timmy under his chin and he mad a little growling sound in his sleep. Folly darted a look at Eleanor and resumed:

  “Why did David have to marry the Erica person? Hadn’t she got any relations? Who’d she been living with?”

  “Her father in New Zealand. He died. She went to Sydney on the same boat as David—she was going to stay with an aunt. When she got there the aunt was dead.”

  “And you believe all that?”

  “It’s what David told me.”

  “Of course David believes it. She vamped him.”

  “Folly, I really don’t think—”

  “Pouf! Of course she did! She vamped him, and she married him when he was all alone with no one to protect him; and then she pretended to be drowned. And now she’s getting ready to pounce. Why should she go and advertise now? Tell me that.”

  “I don’t know,” said Eleanor disingenuously; but she blushed again.

  “I do. I know quite well. She thought David was thinking about getting married, so she got ready to pounce.”

  “Folly, wait a minute. It wasn’t the first advertisem
ent. There’d been one three years ago, and another last autumn year.”

  Folly stared at her.

  “It’s mean,” she said. “It’s like a snake. Why doesn’t she write to David or come and see him?”

  “Folly, I don’t believe it’s Erica—I can’t. She was so young, and David was so good to her—and they hadn’t quarrelled. Why should she do anything like that?

  “Why should anyone?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just it—I don’t know. It’s like being in a fog.”

  “’M—” said Folly. “Didn’t she have any relations that weren’t dead? They might know something.”

  “There was an aunt in England—her mother’s sister. Erica didn’t seem to know the address.”

  Folly made a face.

  “Can’t David find her? What was her name? Who was she?”

  “I think she let lodgings,” said Eleanor. “I think her name was Nellie Smith.”

  “Ooh!” said Folly. She scrambled to her feet, upsetting the slumbering Timmy. “Ooh!” she said, and pressed a hand to each of her flushed cheeks. They burned like fire and her eyes sparkled. “I saw it! Ooh! I saw it quite clearly.”

  “What, Folly? What?”

  “Erica Moore—the name, you know. I’ve remembered! It came just like that—blip! And I saw it—her name all funny and neat on the next date to mine in Miss Smith’s birthday book.”

  “Oh,” said Eleanor. “Folly, are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure—I’m always sure about things. It was Miss Smith, where George and I were in rooms just before I went out to India nearly three years ago. And she brought in her birthday book and said would I write my name in it? She was that sort, you know—birthday books, and woolly mats, and awful enlarged photographs of all her relations. And she said would I write my name, and then she would always pray for me on my birthday? She was a nice old thing really, so I wrote it on the twenty-fifth of June. And Erica Moore was on the twenty-sixth just under mine. And I said, ‘Who’s that?’ And she said, ‘It’s my niece, my poor sister Chrissie’s daughter.’ And she told me a most awful long story about her poor sister Chrissie; but she didn’t tell me a single word about Erica.”