Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

“How delightful—how very delightful! Dear child, you will be such a happy family. I feel sure of it. So sensible of your dear father to choose a contemporary of his own—so very sensible. I hear from Aunt Milly that he has made a most judicious choice, and that you will now have that kind, wise guidance which you must so often have felt the need of.”

  Folly was stroking the pads of Timmy’s paws; the little transparent claws came curving out of their velvet sheaths and then sank back again. She fixed a mournful gaze on Miss Editha’s face.

  “I shall probably go and live with Floss,” she said.

  “With—Floss? You mean—Oh, my dear child!”

  “’M—” said Folly. “I expect I shall.”

  Aunt Editha patted her hand. She was terribly shocked, but never too much shocked to be kind.

  “Dear child, pray don’t talk like that. I know how terribly hard it has been for you. But, believe me, brighter days will dawn—they will, indeed. I feel sure that your dear father has made a very wise and happy choice, and that you will come to rejoice in his happiness like a good, unselfish child. And now we won’t talk about it any more. When did you say dear Eleanor would be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she out to tea?”

  “I expect so.”

  “My dear—well, perhaps you would both come round and have supper with us this evening?” This was a really brilliant inspiration, and quite impromptu.

  “Thanks awfully, Aunt Editha, but we’re engaged.”

  “Are you going to Aunt Milly? She didn’t mention it.”

  “Oh no,” said Folly. She pulled Timmy’s whiskers, and was bitten for her pains.

  Aunt Editha smiled her kind, bright smile.

  “Now, don’t tell me. You must really let me guess. Is it Frank and Julie?”

  Folly shook her head.

  “Dear Uncle St. Clair then? No? The William Fordyces? My dear child, where can you possibly be going?” Aunt Editha was flushed, and her voice trembled a little.

  All at once Folly’s mood changed. Aunt Edith was kind. She did try to find things out, but she was kind; and she was really, really fond of Eleanor. She was even fond of the wicked little Will-o’-the-Wisp who had been teasing her. She put both hands on Aunt Editha’s arm and squeezed it.

  “We aren’t really going out at all; Tommy and David are coming here. So you couldn’t guess—could you?”

  “Tommy?” said Aunt Editha, pleasantly fluttered. “Is that Captain Wingate? And do you call him Tommy, dear child?”

  “’M—” said Folly. She stopped squeezing the arm and patted it instead. “Everyone calls him Tommy—he’s that sort. But I thought you knew him. David and Eleanor seem to have known him for ages and ages and ages.”

  “Wingate?” said Miss Editha. “Wingate—Wingate? David had a schoolfellow of that name, older than himself, I think. Yes—yes! And his parents used to live in the same neighbourhood as dear Eleanor’s parents. That would be it! Of course, such an old friend, it makes all the difference. Dear Eleanor would naturally enjoy meeting him again—to be sure—very pleasant for them both. Dear child, you’ve quite set my mind at rest. And now I must be getting back to Grandmamma.”

  Folly let her out. On the threshold Miss Editha turned and hugged her.

  “Such a nice talk, dear child! So cosy!”

  She forgot to leave the book that Bertha had enjoyed so much.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  David found a faint relief from strain in Tommy Wingate’s cheerful company. At supper Tommy was full of talk. The solemn parlourmaid had gone out, and they waited on themselves.

  After supper they sat round the fire and talked about the times when Tommy was Wingate major and a most tremendous swell, and David was his fag. Eleanor, it appeared, was then chiefly remarkable for the length of her pigtail and the way in which it was apt to betray her by catching in trees and bushes when she was in headlong flight from the boys. They went on remembering very happily, and Folly, curled up on the floor at Eleanor’s feet with her head against Eleanor’s knee, forgot all about George and Floss and being lost dog.

  When Tommy said good-bye, he said: “May I come next week, Eleanor?”

  Eleanor first met his eyes frankly and answered with an “Oh yes—do,” and then quite suddenly blushed and dropped her lashes.

  David went away feeling more rested than he had done all the week. That schoolboy past had been a very pleasant place to wander in.

  At midday on Monday he was rung up again.

  “Well, David Fordyce?” said the voice.

  David made his own voice as coolly indifferent as he could:

  “Who is speaking?”

  There was a laugh.

  “That won’t go down, you know.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you told me your name?” said David.

  “I’m going to. As a matter of fact my card is probably somewhere on your table at this moment. I left it there when I came to see you.”

  David fumbled amongst his papers and picked out a card. It was of the size used for men’s visiting cards, and written across it in pencil with printed letters were the words “Miss Heather Down.” There was no address.

  Miss Down—the girl in the bright pink hat who had talked so oddly. He asked quickly:

  “Are you Miss Down? I have her card.”

  “Miss Heather Down. Well, David Fordyce, you’ve had the week-end to think things over, and I should like to know what conclusion you’ve come to?”

  “I haven’t come to any conclusion at all. I should like to meet you and talk things over.”

  “All in good time.”

  David struck the table with his hand.

  “Miss Down, what’s the good of all this? If you wished to rouse my interest, you’ve roused it. I can’t believe that you want to torture me.”

  The voice said: “Can’t you?”

  “No, I can’t. Will you tell me plainly whether you believe Erica to be alive?”

  There was a long pause. Then the voice said:

  “What do you think, David Fordyce?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I have believed her dead.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the wreck of the Bomongo.”

  In a sort of hesitating way the voice said: “Erica survived that wreck.” Then with vehemence: “You know very well she did, David Fordyce.”

  “I do not.”

  “You say that?”

  “Of course I say it.”

  “Then you’ve got a nerve. Do you think I know so much, and don’t know that Erica wrote to you?”

  “Erica wrote to me?”

  “You know she did.”

  “Miss Down, that’s a most extraordinary assertion. If I had received a letter from Erica, how could I possibly have believed that she was dead?”

  “I never thought that you believed it. It suited you to pretend you believed it—that’s all.”

  “I never received any letter from Erica—I can swear it.”

  “You swore to love and cherish her. Pie-crust promises—weren’t they? What’s the good of your trying to bluff me? I can tell you what was in the letters.”

  David exclaimed sharply.

  “I know too much, you see. Do you still think you’re talking to a stranger, David Fordyce?”

  A feeling of the most sickening dread touched David.

  “Tell me who you are, then.”

  “Can’t you answer the question yourself? If you can’t, take a dictionary and look up my name. That may help you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look in the dictionary. And then if you want to see me, you can come round to Martagon Crescent. I shall be there at nine o’clock.” She rang off.

  David sat looking at her card. Miss Down—Miss Heather Down. The feeling of sickening dread touched him again. It was as if he were in the dark, in a place unknown, and there, upon the darkness, could see a formless image drawing together, taking on form and
outline.

  He got up, went to the bookcase, and took down “The Oxford Dictionary.” The leaves turned under his fixed gaze. He was scarcely aware that it was his own hand that turned them. Halfway down a right hand page he saw the word Heather, and read on: “A species of Erica.” He shut the book and put it back on the book-shelf. The image had taken shape; and with all his heart and mind he rejected it.

  He went back to his table and sat down. The horrible moment had passed; he felt clear and cool to coldness. Heather Down—Erica Moore. The name was merely a punning translation. He rejected the name and its implications. He rejected the whole attempt to convince him that Erica lived. Then, as he sat there, things began to come back to him—little odd things. Miss Down in her bright pink scarf. Erica’s voice saying: “How long must I wear black? I do love bright colours. I like pink best of all.” Miss Down sitting in that chair over there and using odd old-fashioned proverbs to point her nervous jerky speech. Erica saying to him: “We played parlour games—backgammon and spillikins and proverbs.”

  Like the tiny waves that wash against the foot of a cliff and undermine it, these thoughts came lapping against the set determination with which he rejected Heather Down’s preposterous claim. If it were a claim, why had it not been made before? The thing that she had said came sharply into his mind. She said that Erica had written. Impossible! If she had written, why had he not received her letter? She had not written. She had not survived the wreck of the Bomongo. The whole thing was some barefaced attempt to impose upon his credulity.

  At this point the little lapping waves began again. Whoever Heather Down might be, or whoever she might claim to be, she had, or fancied she had, some grudge against him. The resentment in her voice sounded real enough. He began to go over his interview with Miss Smith.

  The little waves went on lapping.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  At the corner of Martagon Crescent, David looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He walked slowly to the door of No. 16 and rang the bell. The same little girl whom he had seen before let him in. David supposed her to be some sort of maid-of-all-work—a small peaked creature who looked ten, but who was probably fifteen.

  He followed her into Miss Smith’s parlour. The single gas jet burned noisily and filled the room with its stale fumes; a small, weak fire dwindled on the hearth. The room was cold as well as stuffy. Beneath the predominating smell of gas other odours lurked—the fustiness of a very old carpet, faint traces of furniture polish, and the peculiar smell of linoleum.

  The door opened and Miss Down came in. She wore the same pink hat in which she had visited the office, a salmon-coloured jumper, and a bright cerise golf-jacket. Her manner was nervous, and her colour very high. She made no attempt to shake hands, but crossed between David and the fire and remained standing near the rose-wood table with its pink and green woolly mats and its family Bible.

  David turned so as to face her. His first feeling was one of extreme relief. She was at least two inches taller than Erica; and he judged her to be three or four years older.

  He said: “Good-evening, Miss Down.”

  She made no reply to the greeting, and before the nervous intensity of her look David felt a faint return of his old horrified dread.

  After waiting to see if she would speak, he said:

  “Miss Down, you have made a most extraordinary assertion. You say that my wife survived the wreck of the Bomongo. You do say that?”

  “Of course I do. The proof of the pudding’s in the eating, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Are you going to pretend that you don’t know what I mean?”

  “There’s no pretence about it.”

  “There are none so blind as those who won’t see.” Her manner was at the same time nervous and self-assertive; she was obviously in a state of great excitement.

  David said coolly: “Am I to understand that you claim to be Erica?”

  Her bright flush deepened.

  “And if I said ‘Yes’ to that, David Fordyce?”

  David’s eyebrows lifted.

  “I really shouldn’t advise you to make that claim.” Tone and manner were as quiet as could be, but Miss Down started as if he had struck her.

  “And why? You’ll have to tell me that, you know. You’ve got a grown woman to deal with now, not a poor little frightened child like you had five years ago.

  “That,” said David, “is one of my points Erica would not have been twenty-two until next June. You don’t seriously ask me to believe that you are only twenty-one?”

  Miss Down tossed her head.

  “There are things that make you old before your time. It doesn’t keep a girl young to be married and deserted before she’s seventeen.”

  David looked her straight in the face.

  “You’re a couple of inches taller than Erica was.”

  Miss Down pounced on the last word.

  “Was,” she repeated.” You’ve said it—haven’t you? Are you going to say that a girl of sixteen can’t grow a couple of inches, especially after a long illness? Are you going to say that?”

  “No, I’m not. But I’m going to say something else. You’re not Erica, Miss Down, and you can’t make me believe that you are.”

  As he spoke, David believed his own words—believed them utterly. But in the next instant he was shaken. The girl standing opposite to him looked down quickly at her left hand. It was the look, the turn of the head, which he had seen in Julie on the day of Grandmamma’s birthday party. Julie had looked down sideways at her new wedding ring, and the look had brought Erica to him—Erica looking down, Erica looking sideways at the ring which he had given her. Heather Down had looked sideways just like that.

  David’s eyes went to her left hand and saw a arrow gold circle about the third finger.

  The impression passed; but it had shaken him. He went on speaking:

  “I think you must realize that you can’t just make assertions like that and expect to be believed. Have you any proof of what you say? Have you any evidence at all to show that Erica survived the wreck?” David looked hard at her as he spoke.

  The light of the gas jet showed ends of dark brown hair under the bright hat. He thought that Erica’s hair was a little lighter. Miss Down would certainly say that the hair of a girl of sixteen usually does darken, especially when it is kept short. Erica’s eyes were between blue and grey; and so were Miss Down’s. The brows had the same arch, and the features in both cases were of that rather nondescript and indeterminate kind which do not leave any very definite impress.

  When David tried to call up a picture of Erica, his most vivid recollection was of her small shrinking form, her black dress, her pallor, and her shyness. Heather Down was certainly not pale. But there again she would say, no doubt, that a girl who has just lost her father and been thrown on the world at sixteen may very well be pale.

  She might have read his thoughts, for she threw up her head and said defiantly:

  “I’ve more colour than I used to have.”

  “You are not Erica,” said David. But his voice lacked the conviction with which he had spoken before.

  “I’m Heather Down.”

  David shrugged his shoulders.

  “You might as well call yourself Erica Moore and have done with it. Why don’t you? Is it because you’re afraid to take a name which you know you’ve no right to?”

  The girl dropped her voice to a lower note:

  “If you’re so sure that I’m not Erica, why do you trouble yourself about me? You can snap your fingers and go away like you did before. You can marry again. There’s nothing to stop you, is there as long as you’re sure that Erica’s dead?”

  “I want to ask you two questions,” said David. “There have been three advertisements in the last three years, giving my initials and saying: ‘Your wife is alive.’ Did you put them in?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Miss Down, with what was obviously a stare of astonis
hment.

  “But you saw my advertisement—the one in which I asked for information about Erica.”

  Miss Down smiled scornfully.

  “Yes, I saw that. I thought you’d waited a good long time before you put it in.”

  “And why did you wait five years before you came forward with this claim of yours?”

  “Tell me what I’ve claimed!” Her voice had real passion in it. “You married a poor friendless girl, and you deserted her. She wrote to you, and you never answered her letters. How can a girl who is ill and friendless, and who hasn’t got a penny in the world, come across the sea to make a claim on the man who’s deserted her? I had to work and save money before I could come over. And you say, why did I wait five years? I didn’t wait. There were two letters; and you never answered them.”

  “I never had them.”

  Heather Down dived into the pocket of her golf jacket and drew out a yellowish printed slip.

  “When there was no answer to the first letter, I registered the second. Here’s the receipt. Do you still say you didn’t get that letter?”

  David took the slip and looked at it. It was dated December 7, 1922, and the address was to David Fordyce, Esq., Ford, Fordwick, Surrey. He stared at it until the letters ran together and his own name was a formless blur. He looked up at Heather Down with eyes that saw her differently. He did not feel sure about anything any more. He said, simply and gravely:

  “I never had the letter—I didn’t indeed. If it ever arrived, there’ll be some record of it at the Fordwick office. I—Miss Down, do you really mean that Erica wrote?”

  She nodded, watching him.

  “You can keep the paper if you like.”

  “I must make inquiries. I must go down to Ford.”

  His manner was altered, shaken. He looked at her suddenly with a desperate appeal.

  “Who are you?”

  “Miss Smith’s niece,” said Heather Down.

  She leant over the rose-wood table and opened the big Bible; the leaves fluttered under her fingers until she found what she was looking for—the space between the Old Testament and the New.

  David looked at the page with its heading of Births, Marriages, and Deaths. The page was almost full. At the bottom he read, “Christina married William Moore;” and then Erica’s name and the date of her birth. His eye travelled up the page. Above Christina was Ellen—that would be Aunt Nellie, twenty years older than the little after-thought sister; and above Ellen the names of the parents, William John Smith and Ellen Riley, and the date of their marriage, a year before the birth of Ellen.