Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

  The clock went on ticking.

  David spoke at last. He spoke, but he didn’t move.

  “Tell me what you did with that letter.”

  Betty was able to move again. When David spoke, she stopped being so much afraid of him. She began to grope for her pocket-handkerchief.

  “I—I didn’t—”

  “Tell me what you know about the letter. You had better not tell me any lies.”

  “Oh!” said Betty. “How can you!”

  “Go on—tell me what you know. You’d better. You’d better tell me the truth.”

  Betty sniffed into her pocket-handkerchief.

  “How can I tell you anything when you speak to me like that? I’m sure it was an accident that might—that might have happened to anyone.”

  He turned a cold, dark look upon her.

  “You’re not making yourself very clear. What was an accident?”

  “The—the letter was. It might have happened to anyone.” She sniffed again and with more heart.

  “You had an accident with the letter. Is that what you’re asking me to believe?”

  She had a momentary spasm of fear at his tone.

  “I—I—really, David, I don’t see why you should blame me. It was Mrs. Perrott’s fault for giving it to me.”

  “Will you tell me what happened? You admit that Mrs. Perrott gave you the letter.”

  “She ought to have taken it up to the house,” said Betty. “She’d no business to give it to me like that.”

  “What did you do with it?” said David.

  Betty put the pink cushion behind her shoulders.

  “I slipped it into the pocket of my jumper, and when I got back to the house I should have given it to you, only the telephone bell rang, and—and it was Francis.”

  “He wasn’t in England.”

  An odd look crossed Betty’s face.

  “He was often over here when nobody knew. He used to let me know, so that I could meet him somewhere. He—he didn’t use his own name of course. I’m sure the way he was persecuted was shameful—everyone turning against him except me. If you’d stood up for him, things might have been very different.”

  “We won’t discuss Francis. You’re to tell me about the letter.”

  “I am telling you—and then you’ll see how unjust you’ve been. Francis wanted me to come to him at once. He was quite stranded—ill and without money to pay for anything. I can’t bear to think about it—he had a most dreadful time.”

  “You went to him?”

  “Of course I did. I had to tell you something, so I told you old Nurse was ill and I was going to look after her. And I forgot all about your wretched letter—anyone hearing suddenly that their husband was ill would have forgotten a thing like that.”

  David drew a long breath. He had himself under control again. He said sharply:

  “You forgot about the letter. When did you remember it?”

  “Not till I got back again—not—oh, not for a month at least. And I don’t suppose I should have remembered it then, only I was putting away my summer things and I felt something crackle when I was folding up the jumper I had on that day, and I put my hand in the pocket, and there was the miserable letter.”

  “Yes,” said David. “And why didn’t you give it to me then?”

  Betty sat up straight.

  “Really, David, anyone would think I was a thief!” She gave a little angry laugh. “Perhaps when you’ve got your temper back you’ll see that I did what I thought was the kindest thing to you.”

  David’s eyes narrowed.

  “You haven’t told me what you did. I don’t think I’ll start thanking you till I know.”

  Betty took an aggrieved tone.

  “I did what I thought was the best thing to do. I was naturally very much upset when I found the letter, and I thought I’d better just look at it and see if it was important.”

  “You mean you read it.”

  “I thought I ought to look at it. And I got a most dreadful shock when I found it was from someone we’d never heard of, who said she was your wife.”

  David clenched his hands again. He could not trust himself to speak. It was true. Erica had survived—Erica had written. It was true.

  Every trace of colour left his face; his lips were stiff as he said:

  “You kept the letter back.”

  Betty sniffed loudly.

  “It was the most dreadful shock I’ve ever had, except—things about Francis. I was most terribly upset.”

  “You kept the letter back.”

  “David, you’re most unreasonable. You don’t seem to think what a shock it was to find you’d been secretly married for goodness knows how long. I was so upset I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You kept the letter back.” His voice was quite low and expressionless.

  “It was out of kindness to you,” said Betty, “and you ought to be grateful to me instead of looking like that. At first I was too upset to think. And then I read the letters again, and I realized that you’d been thinking this girl was dead. And the letter from the people she was with said how ill she was, and I thought it would be dreadful for you to hear she was alive and then perhaps find out that she’d died after the letter was sent off.”

  Everything Heather Down had said was true. There had been a letter from Erica, and a covering letter from the people she was with, just as Heather Down had said.

  “What did you do with the letter?”

  “I put it away,” said Betty. “I—I asked Francis what I had better do, and he said I was quite right not to raise your hopes. He said he’d got a friend in Cape Town and he’d write and ask him to find out how things were before we told you anything. It was all for your own good and to save you anxiety. But, as Francis said, if she’d been alive and getting better, there’d have been more letters—and there hadn’t been. So he said not to do anything until he heard from his friend.”

  “There was another letter,” said David.

  “It came at Christmas.” Betty’s tone was quite eager. “Francis said his friend must be away, because we hadn’t heard from him. And then, just after Christmas, there was a registered letter for you from Cape Town.”

  “Go on,” said David.

  “You were away for a couple of days. I couldn’t send it on to you without explaining about the first one. You can see that, I suppose?”

  She flushed at the contempt in his voice as he said:

  “It was awkward—yes.”

  “David, I think you’re most unreasonable. You don’t try to understand my position.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about your position. What did you do with the second letter?”

  “Francis said we’d waited so long that it was no good being in a hurry. He said he’d send a cable to the address she wrote from, asking for news. He said—”

  David’s mind was wholly fixed upon the letters.

  “What did you do with the letter—with both the letters?”

  “I’m telling you what I did.”

  “Did you destroy them?”

  “No, of course I didn’t.”

  “You’ve got them still?”

  “Yes, of course I have.”

  “Give them to me.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want anything but the letters. Give them to me at once!”

  Betty got up. She said something under her breath and went across to the writing-table.

  “Are they there?” He spoke roughly.

  “Really, David!”

  “Are the letters there?” His voice took a tone that frightened her again.

  Her hand shook, and the bunch of keys she was holding jingled. With a little clatter she unlocked one of the small drawers of the bureau and pulled it out. It was a small deep drawer full of letters tied up in packets. She began to take the packets out. At the bottom of the drawer there were two letters in long-shaped envelopes. Betty took them up and turned with them in her hand. She began
to speak, to say something. But David did not hear what she said. He took the letters from her hand and went out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  David went into his study with the letters. He sat down in his writing-chair and laid the envelopes side by side on the table before him. Both the letters were addressed in the same clear commercial hand. He remembered Erica’s childish scrawl and frowned.

  After a moment he took up the first letter. Betty had not torn the envelope; she had steamed open the flap. The little bitter thought went through his mind that if it had suited Francis Lester, the flap would have been stuck down again, and he, David, would never have known that the letter had been read.

  He took the two enclosures out of the envelope, and was stabbed at once with a painful sense of pity. This was Erica’s own hand, weaker and more childish than he remembered it. She had written in pencil, and the marking was faint—so faint as to be almost illegible. He read slowly and with difficulty the words which he had slowly written to Heather Down’s dictation:

  “DEAR DAVID,

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

  “ERICA.”

  When he had read her name he took up the enclosure, written in ink in the same hand that had addressed the envelope. He read:

  “DEAR SIR,

  “Your wife has been ill in my house for some months. She has only recently been able to tell us who she is and to give us your address. Without wishing to alarm you, I should say it would be as well if you could come to her without delay.

  “Yours faithfully,

  “L. BAKER.”

  The letter was dated September 4th, 1922, from an address in Cape Town.

  David took up the second letter. It had been registered, and the postmark bore the date of December 7th. The flap of the envelope was open, but not torn. This letter too had been read.

  This time there was no enclosure, only the same weak pencil scrawl under the heading “Tuesday.”

  “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 a little better, but not very much. Will you write to me?

  “ERICA.”

  Under the name a postscript very badly written:

  “Please tell Aunt Nellie that I’m not drowned.”

  When a little time had passed, David took out his notebook and read the letters as Heather Down had given them to him. They were almost word for word what Erica had written. The most important difference was in the second letter. Erica had said, “I am a little better, but not very much.” In Heather Down’s version this had become: “I am better, but I am not well yet.” It was just such a difference as would be natural enough if Erica, recovered, were remembering what she had written in the dispirited mood of illness.

  David put the letters away in his pocket. There were things that he must ask Betty; but he had to master himself before he could meet her. He had trusted her utterly, and she had done this horrible thing to him. That she or anyone else should have read these simple, piteous appeals unmoved was unbelievable. Yet it had happened. Betty, reading them, had not been moved at all; she had thought of herself, of what Francis would say. It was quite unbelievable; but it had happened.

  Time went by. Instead of decreasing, David’s sense of shock and bitterness increased. It seemed impossible that he should meet Betty. And whilst this sense of impossibility was at its height the door opened and Betty came in.

  She held the door in her hand and said fretfully:

  “David, are you staying to lunch? I must tell the servants something.”

  “Come in and shut the door,” said David. “I want to speak to you.”

  She did come in then, and stood by the big armchair. Her manner was one of offence.

  “I want to speak to you about those letters. You’d better sit down.”

  She jerked an angry shoulder, but did as she was told.

  “You didn’t seem to want to hear what I had to say just now.”

  “I wanted to read the letters first. You can go on now. Why didn’t you give me that second letter?”

  “I told you,” said Betty in her most annoyed voice. “Francis said it was no good to raise your hopes, and he’d send a cable to find out what had happened.”

  “Yes?”

  A little of the assurance went out of Betty’s manner.

  “It was all for your own good. I’m sure I went through a dreadful time.”

  “What was the answer to the cable?”

  “I didn’t hear anything for ten days. Francis was abroad again. I kept writing to him. At last I said I should give you the letters, and he wired ‘Don’t.’ And then he wrote and said Erica was dead.”

  David repeated the last word.

  “Yes”—she spoke quickly and nervously—“the cable said so, and what was the good of my giving you the letters after that? It would only have raked things up and upset you.”

  David set his face like a flint; his voice rang harshly:

  “The cable said that Erica was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in the following October you and Francis put an advertisement in The Times under my initials to say that my wife was alive.”

  Betty began to sniff.

  “You were flirting with Angela Carr. Francis said you’d marry her. David—don’t look at me like that! You don’t give me time to explain. Francis said he’d made more inquiries, and that there was a mistake about the cable. He said Erica was alive, and—and—I suppose you think I ought to have let you commit bigamy.”

  An awful patience descended upon David. To Betty, right and wrong simply meant things convenient or inconvenient to Francis—what Francis approved was right; what Francis disliked was wrong; what Francis asserted was fact. On this basis the whole unbelievable affair was simple enough. He looked calmly at Betty’s flushed, angry face. His calmness stung her more than his anger had done.

  “It’s all very well for you, but it was most unfair of Father to leave you Ford and cut me off with a wretched six hundred a year. If I’d had to live on it, we should simply have starved—and, as Francis said, once you got married, you wouldn’t want me here, and you wouldn’t go on paying Dicky’s school bills either.”

  It was like being in a dream—the familiar room, and Betty saying this sort of thing to him. He seemed to have got past any feeling about it. There was just that strange patience which endured through some horrible dream. He put his head in his hands and stared at the ink-marks on his blotting-pad.

  It was clear now where most of Betty’s six hundred a year had gone. He had sometimes wondered how she managed to be so hard up and to produce a succession of unpaid bills for him to settle. She lived at Ford without contributing a penny to the expenses; Dick’s school bills came to David as a matter of course. He answered Betty’s complaint on that score first:

  “Why do you say things like that? You don’t really believe them. I told you I would pay Dick’s bills.”

  “You wouldn’t have gone on if you had married,” said Betty fretfully. “Francis said—”

  David traced an ink-stain with his finger.

  “I’d rather you didn’t quote Francis. If I said I’d do a thing, I should do it.” He looked up at her. “Let’s get back to the advertisement. It said Erica was alive. Is she alive?”

  Betty hesitated, sniffed, dabbed her nose.

  “Francis said—”

  In a perfectly expressionless voice David cursed Francis.

  Tears of anger sprang into Betty’s horrified eyes.

  “David! How dare you!”

  “Is Erica alive?” said David.

  Betty sniffed again.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  David went on looking at her.

  “
You kept back the letter because she was dead; and you put in the advertisement because she was alive. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Francis said she was dead; and then he said it was a mistake.”

  “Why did he think it was a mistake?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask him?”

  A pause.

  “Did you ask him?”

  “Yes, of course I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said to the best of his belief she was alive.”

  “And you left it at that?”

  Betty sniffed.

  “Did you believe what Francis said? Did you think Erica was alive?”

  “I didn’t know. I suppose you think I ought to have let you commit bigamy. You don’t seem to realize that it was all for your own good. And, as Francis said, it was better to be on the safe side, because it would have been most frightfully awkward if you’d married again and she’d turned up afterwards.”

  David looked down at his blotting-paper. Erica’s letter had lain there—the little weak scrawl in which she had asked him to come to her. His calm broke suddenly.

  “Can’t you realize what you’ve done? She must have thought I’d deserted her. If she’s alive, that’s what she thinks now. If she isn’t alive, she died thinking it. Betty, what have I done to you that you should do this horrible thing to me?”

  “I did it for the best,” said Betty in a fluttered voice. “You don’t understand—you don’t think how difficult it was for me. You don’t—What was the use?”

  It was like trying to talk to a person who is hopelessly deaf; she didn’t hear him. He spoke without looking at her:

  “You’d better go.”

  Betty got as far as the door.

  “Francis always said what an awful temper you had. I think you ought to beg my pardon.”

  David lifted his head.

  He said: “Do you want me to kill you? I shall if you don’t go.”

  CHAPTER XXXV

  David went back to town without breaking bread in his own house. He drove between wet hedges under a wet sky. There was rain on the wind-screen and rain on the long shining road that took the grey reflection of the sky. He felt as if his mind was full of a grey mist in which thoughts moved dimly and were lost. His ceaseless effort was to clear the mist away so that he might think. Little by little the formless thoughts began to take form and to become apparent.