Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

  David came over to her and caught her arm.

  “Folly, what’s all this nonsense? Francis Lester at Ford—in the middle of the night?”

  Folly nodded lightly and impudently.

  “’M—he was—talking to Betty—in a dark room. Wasn’t it shocking? And when I didn’t know it was Francis—Ooh! I really did very nearly fall crash over the banisters in a deadly swoon, I was so shocked. Betty!”

  David dropped her arm.

  “Go on,” he said shortly.

  “When I stopped nearly swooning I thought I’d better go away. I didn’t think it was my business to chaperone Betty. It didn’t seem much use either, so I began to go upstairs. I didn’t go very fast, because I was feeling all tottery with the shock.” Her eyes danced wickedly. “And I’d only gone a few steps, when I heard Betty give a sort of choky cry, and I had a most dreadful thought that it might be a burglar after all, and that he was murdering her. So I ran right down the stairs and up to the door, and I turned the handle frightfully gently and opened the least little chink—and the room was quite pitchy dark. And just as I opened the door, Betty sniffed, and I thought he couldn’t be murdering her, because I don’t believe that even Betty would sniff if she were being murdered. She does sniff a lot—doesn’t she?”

  David frowned impatiently.

  “David! What a perfectly horrible face! All right, I am going on. I was just going to shut the door and go away when Betty said, ‘David took The Times to town with him yesterday, so I didn’t know for certain if it was in.’ Then she said, ‘Francis, I wish we hadn’t. He looks awful.’ And Francis said, ‘Don’t be a fool! Do you want him to get married?’ And of course I felt much better as soon as I knew it was Francis, and not a burglar or a horrid scandal. And I shut the door, and I wouldn’t have told anyone ever, only I thought you ought to know.”

  “Folly—is this true?”

  “You’ve got a very unbelieving mind,” said Folly. “I told you it was true before I began. But of course, at the time, I didn’t know in the least bit what they were talking about. But when I read out your advertisement at breakfast—you know, the one wanting information about Erica Moore—Betty knew the name as soon as I read it, and she jumped like anything, and upset the kettle and pretended she had burnt her hand. She hadn’t really burnt it, because the kettle was nearly cold. And when Eleanor told me about the other advertisement—the one that said your wife was alive—I thought and thought, and I began to feel certain that Betty was talking to Francis about it.”

  “Folly—you’re not making this up?”

  She gave a little resigned sigh.

  “What a frightfully high opinion you’ve got of me! You’d better let me finish telling you what happened, and then I’ll go away. I’ve got to where I shut the door, haven’t I?”

  “Yes, is there any more?”

  “Lots,” said Folly. “I nearly died of fright for one thing—but of course you wouldn’t mind about that. Well, I started to go towards the stairs; but I hadn’t gone halfway, when I heard the morning room window shut. And I felt my way back along the wall. I was only just past the door when it opened and Betty came out. She nearly touched me, and if she hadn’t been crying, I expect she’d have known there was someone there. She went straight upstairs—I don’t think it’s the first time she’s walked about the house in the dark like that. I waited till I heard her door shut, and then I went up too, and when I was nearly up—Ooh! I had such a fright! The light over my head went on like a flash of lightning, only it stayed there.”

  “Who turned it on? Betty?”

  “No—Eleanor. She’d heard the window shut. Her room was just over the sitting-room, you know.”

  “Well?”

  Folly sparkled.

  “It was frightfully funny! She thought I’d been having an assignation out in a nice dank wood, and she looked at my toes and they were dry. And I told her I’d been broom-stick riding. I do love to make Eleanor’s eyelashes curl! I got her so puzzled and shocked she didn’t know where she was.”

  David took no notice of this.

  “Folly—all that about Betty is true?”

  The mischief sank deep into her eyes like a stone sinking in a pool; they looked mournfully at David.

  “You don’t ever believe me. You won’t believe me if I say it’s true.”

  “Yes, I will. You’re sure it was Betty?”

  She nodded.

  “And sure of what she said?”

  She nodded again.

  He said, more to himself than to her:

  “But why? Why on earth?”

  “She doesn’t want you to marry. That’s what Francis said—he said, ‘Don’t be a fool! Do you want him to get married?’”

  He looked at her in horror for a moment.

  “Folly, I can’t believe this. No, I don’t mean that I don’t believe what you say. But you only heard a few words. I think there must be some other explanation. You see, I simply can’t believe a thing like that about Betty.”

  “I see,” said Folly. “It’s nice for Betty. It must be nice to have someone who—can’t—believe—things against one.” She went on looking David straight in the face, but the words came slower and slower and at the last were hardly audible.

  There was a pause. Then she said:

  “I thought you ought to know.”

  Before he knew what she was going to do, she had walked past him and opened the door. The sound of Miss Barker’s typewriter came tapping through the silence.

  Folly said, “I’m frightfully sorry I came,” and shut the door.

  CHAPTER XXX

  David went back to his work. About an hour later he found that he had stopped working. Betty—all this business about Betty and Francis. He went over it slowly, carefully, and at the end could only fall back on his loyalty to Betty and Betty’s loyalty to him. There must be an explanation.

  All the time that he had been working, and all the time that he had been going over Folly’s story, the thought of Folly herself had been pricking him. The sound of her voice coming slower and slower hurt and went on hurting. She had come to do him a service, and he had made her frightfully sorry that she had come. On a sudden impulse he rang up Chieveley Street. It was Folly herself who answered.

  “David speaking. Folly, is that you?”

  “Yes, it is. What do you want?”

  “I want to thank you.”

  “I don’t want to be thanked.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry you came,” said David. “The more I think about it, the more I feel sure that there’s some explanation of what you heard. But I think I ought to know what it is, and I think you were perfectly right to come and tell me. I’m most awfully grateful to you for trying to help me.”

  Silence.

  “Folly!”

  “’M—”

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Folly, I hated your saying it must be nice to have someone who can’t believe things against you. Do you think I’d believe things about you?”

  “’M—you would—everyone would—j-just like lightning.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense! You know I wouldn’t believe anything.”

  A pause. Then:

  “W-wouldn’t you? Not if people stood in rows and said they’d seen me?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t.”

  “Not if Grandmamma, and the Aunts, and Betty, and everyone said it?”

  “Not unless you said it yourself.”

  “Ooh!” said Folly with a little crow of triumph. “David, I l-love you!”

  The words came with a rush and were followed by a silence which seemed to stretch between them unbroken and unbreakable. Through this silence there beat a heavy, inaudible pulse. David found his hand clenching on the receiver. He could not have spoken a word to save his life.

  When the silence had lasted a very long time it was broken by a tiny click. Far away in Chieveley Street Folly had rung off.

&nb
sp; David hung up the receiver and drew a long breath. Folly’s little pleased laugh; her lightly, childishly spoken words; and then the silence which left behind it this dazed sense of something only just averted—

  He went doggedly back to his work. At nine o’clock he was ringing the bell at No. 16, Martagon Crescent. Heather Down opened the door.

  She said, “Come in,” and he followed her into Miss Smith’s parlour.

  “Well?” said Miss Down with a trace of defiance in her voice.

  “You got my letter?”

  “Yes, I got it.”

  He had come determined to test everything that he could recall of feature, voice, and manner; but in the actual presence of Heather Down his memory of Erica faded into something as dim as a just remembered dream. The bright colours which Miss Down affected were confusing to the eye; her features made but a slight impression. She wore to-day a jumper suit of the brightest shade of Reckitt’s blue; an orange and brown scarf was knotted about her throat; her hair was entirely covered by the bright pink hat in which she had paid him her first visit.

  “Well?” she said. “What about it?”

  “I couldn’t trace the registered letter,” said David. “They don’t keep the records. You say there were two letters. I’ve come here to-night to ask you to tell me what was in them.”

  She was leaning against the end of the horsehair sofa, her hands behind her. She gave him a quick, Searching look.

  “Erica wrote the letters.”

  “Yes,” said David. “Can you tell me what was in them?”

  He thought she eyed him warily.

  “You’re asking me if I can tell you what was in the letters that Erica wrote to you. A girl doesn’t show that sort of letter to anyone else.”

  “No—I suppose not. Can you tell me what was in the letters?”

  He kept his eyes on her face. If she were Erica, she would know what was in the letters. If she were Erica telling the contents of those five-year-old letters, surely there would be something that would ring true enough to convince him. If she were not Erica, could she produce anything that would pass muster? What Erica might be to-day he did not know; but he thought he knew what kind of a letter the Erica of five years ago would have written. Also, supposing Heather Down was not Erica, she could not be absolutely sure that Erica’s letters had not reached him; and in that case she would be afraid of making a slip. With a shock he realized that he was accepting the fact that Erica had survived the wreck. These thoughts did not so much pass through his mind as remain there; he did not at any time throughout the interview entirely lose sight of them. They were vividly present as Heather Down answered his question with another:

  “You want to know whether I can tell you what was in the letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mean word for word?” Her voice hesitated a little. “I couldn’t say that I’d remember word for word anything I’d written five years ago.”

  Did the hesitation mean that she was hedging? He watched her as he said:

  “No—I didn’t mean that. Can you give me the gist of the letters?”

  “Both of them?”

  “Both of them.”

  “Well, I can do it. I suppose you think you’re testing me. For all I know, you’ve got the letters in your pocket.” She stood up with a nervous jerk. “All right—I can do it. Are you going to write down what I say?”

  David had taken out a notebook and pencil.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  Heather Down laughed.

  “Why should I mind?”

  She pulled a chair up to the rose-wood table and sat down. Her right arm lay on the polished wood. She slid her fingers nervously to and fro along the dark markings. Her eyes followed the movement.

  “I’m ready,” said David.

  He too had drawn a chair up to the table. The notebook lay open. He watched Heather Down and waited, pencil in hand, for her to begin.

  “Dear David.” She said the words in a sort of embarrassed whisper, then looked up jerkily. “It begins like that.”

  “The first letter?”

  “Yes, the first letter. It begins, ‘Dear David.’” He wrote the words painfully.

  “Yes?”

  “‘I have been ill. I can’t write much. I didn’t know who I was till just now. They have been very kind. Please come quickly.

  ‘ERICA.’”

  David wrote the words as they were spoken. They fell slowly one by one, and he wrote them down. The unbearable conviction that they were Erica’s words bore down upon him like some crushing weight. He wrote her name, and after a long minute he looked up.

  “Is that all?”

  “The first letter.” Her voice was very low. Yes, that’s all of it.” After a pause she said: “There was a covering letter from the people she was with. I don’t know what it said—I didn’t read it.”

  “Their name?” The words came sharply.

  “I won’t tell you that just now. Do you want the second letter?” She had gone back to tracing the pattern on the table.

  “Yes.”

  She began again:

  “‘DEAR DAVID,

  “‘Did you get my letter? I wrote three months ago to tell you I was alive. I thought perhaps you would think I had been drowned—a lot of people were. Will you write and tell me what to do? I am better, but I am not well yet. Will you write to me?

  ‘ERICA.’”

  “There’s a postscript,” said Miss Down without looking up. “It says: ‘Will you tell Aunt Nellie that I wasn’t drowned?’”

  David wrote the words. The letters appalled him; they were just such letters as Erica, deserted, might have written.

  “That’s all,” said Heather Down. “You never answered. You never came.”

  “I never got the letters. They never reached me.”

  Her voice went away to a sobbing whisper:

  “That’s what you say.”

  “It’s true.”

  There was a very painful silence. David broke it with an effort.

  “Will you swear to what’s in those letters—that Erica wrote them?”

  Miss Down pushed back her chair and jumped up.

  “Oh yes, I’ll swear to it—on the Bible if you like. I’ve nothing on my conscience that I can’t swear to.” She leaned over and rested her hand on the big Bible with its worn brown leather cover rubbed shabby at the edges. “I don’t mind taking my Bible oath to the letters. Did you think I would? Did you think I made them up? I swear that that’s what Erica wrote—as near as anyone could remember after more than four years.”

  She took her hand away, and he saw that it was shaking.

  “There! I’ve sworn to it!”

  David got up with the notebook in his hand.

  “Will you put your hand back on the Bible and swear that you’re Erica?”

  Miss Down flushed scarlet.

  “No, I won’t. If I’m Erica, I’m your wife. And if you don’t know me and won’t own to me, do you think that I’d make any claim on you? Do you think I’ve come to try and get money from you?”

  She went back to the sofa and stood against it.

  “Do you think I’d take a penny from you? Do you think I want a man that deserted me and doesn’t even know me? Swear that I’m your wife? No, thank you, David Fordyce—not much I won’t!”

  The extraordinary, sudden passion in voice and look produced an effect of vehement sincerity. If she had sworn, David would have believed her less. He stood and looked at her with a sort of horror.

  Heather Down threw out both bands.

  “Go away! What are you stopping here for? I wish you’d never come! I wish I’d never seen you!”

  As she threw out her hands, David saw again the palm of her left hand a glint of blue. What he had taken to be a wedding ring was a ring with blue stones in it, turned round so that only the plain gold band showed whilst the hand was closed or lying palm downwards. He stepped forward, caught her by the wrist, a
nd put a shaking finger on the blue stones. They made three blue flowers—three forget-me-not flowers.

  It was the ring he had given Erica.

  Heather Down looked him straight in the face her eyes full of bright angry tears.

  “You’ve forgotten the girl, but you remember the ring!” she cried.

  As he met her look, unbelief came up in him like a flood. He dropped Heather Down’s wrist and stood back from her. The unbelief began to ebb away. The instinct to get away before he was betrayed into some irrevocable word or act turned him to the door.

  He went out of the room and out of the house.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  David got Mrs. Perrott’s letter next morning. She wrote:

  “DEAR SIR,

  “I have remembered something about a letter as may be the one you was asking for. Hoping this may be of service to you.

  “Yours obediently,

  “BEULAH PERROTT.”

  David took his car and went down to Fordwick. He was thankful for the need of action. To sit in office with a thousand conjectures coming, going, jostling, and contradicting one another, and making his attempt at work a farce, was an experience from which he was glad to escape.

  If Mrs. Perrott was surprised to see him so soon, she did not show it. She gave him her usual greeting, remarked upon the weather, and inquired after his health. After these polite preliminaries she seated herself in a leisurely fashion and asked what she could do for him.

  “I got your letter this morning,” said David.

  Mrs. Perrott nodded.

  “I thought maybe you would.”

  “I’ve come down to have a talk with you about it.”

  “To be sure,” said Mrs. Perrott comfortably. “And I’d ask you into the sitting-room, only Etta’s got her sewing all over the place, and we can be private here. Post office business is post office business, and dressmaking is dressmaking, and I don’t hold with mixing them, but if you come through this side of the counter, I can give you chair.”

  “I’d rather stand,” said David. “I’ve been sitting in the car.” He leaned on the counter. “You say you’ve remembered something about a letter.”