The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 14

Anne woke up on the following morning with the curious feeling that she had known something in her sleep which had gone from her again. With the light of returning consciousness it had gone, but it had been there. She wondered where things went to when you forgot them. Perhaps it meant that her memory was not gone but was merely sleeping. Perhaps it would come again suddenly and she would remember all those things which she had forgotten.

When Thomasina came in with the tea she lifted a bright face to meet her. Thomasina shook her head.

‘There’s no cause for you to look as if there was a present for you on the tray,’ she said.

Anne laughed.

‘I feel as if there was, you know.’ She sat up, snuggling her knees. ‘Do you believe in presentiments, Thomasina? I’m not sure if I do or not. Tell me, do you ever wake up and feel as if all the bad things had happened and were passed away and done with?’

Thomasina looked at her in a pitying way.

‘I can’t say I do. And if I did I wouldn’t dwell on it, nor yet talk about it.’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’

Thomasina set down the tray.

‘Because I wouldn’t. And if you’ll take my advice you won’t do no such thing.’

Anne laughed again.

‘Why Thomasina-why?’

Thomasina stepped back. Her solid arms hugged one another. She stood and delivered herself.

‘Now just you listen to me, my dear. There’s times when you wake in the morning and everything looks black to you. No harm in taking a pinch of cheer-me-up those days-no harm at all. But when you wake up and everything’s going right and you feel like skipping out of bed and dancing whilst you put your clothes on, that’s the time to take a check on yourself and go easy. That’s all, my dear. And I’m a quarter of an hour late with the tea through Mattie having forgot to put the kettle on, so I’m all behind-and don’t you keep me talking or it’ll be the worse for all of us.’

Anne laughed again when the door was shut upon Thomasina. The laugh echoed in her head and left a little shiver behind it. She drank her tea and jumped up. The fatigue of the last few days was gone and she felt ready for anything.

She went downstairs, looked out at the day, found it brilliant and beautiful, and began to wonder what she should do with it.

There was sunshine on the lawn. The birches in the distance were golden, and nearer, the clumps of azaleas were crimson and flame-colour. As she stood looking out of the window of the dining-room she thought about gardening- about putting in bulbs. And then suddenly she became aware that that was what she had been used to doing in her old life, the life that was gone. A horrible feeling of loss swept over her. It was just as if she had been at home, and quite suddenly there wasn’t a home any more, only this strange place, bare and empty of everything she knew and loved. Past and present rocked together and she felt physically giddy for a moment. Then it was gone again, and she was left wondering, and a little breathless.

When breakfast was over she went out and began on the border again. More and more she found the garden a refuge. It was work she was in the way of doing. Her thoughts went down accustomed paths without effort. Some day she was going to find what she had lost. When she was in the garden she could feel sure of that, and she was content to wait.

It was about an hour after she had gone out that she found her new peace first touched by something alien and discordant. The feeling grew until it became so strong that she turned right round and looked up and down the border to find the cause for it. She had not heard any step, but there, a dozen yards away, was a man watching her.

She rose to her feet instinctively. The man was leaning over the gate which admitted to this part of the garden. He was leaning there, and he was smiling. He had a type of cheap good looks, and his smile was offensive. Her brows drew together as she said, ‘If you are looking for the house, you have taken the wrong path.’

He continued to smile. For a moment she was angry, and then she was frightened. Her heart began to beat violently. She turned pale. She said sharply, ‘Do you want anything?’

He produced a cigarette and tapped it on his knuckles.

‘Ah, now we’re getting at it!’ he said. There was a trace of an accent. It was no more than a trace. She couldn’t tell what it was.

She said, ‘If you want the house, it’s behind you. If you go straight along the path you’ll see it.’

‘How nice that’ll be.’

He was still smiling, but he didn’t move from where he stood leaning over the gate, only he got a box of matches out of his pocket and quite slowly and deliberately he lighted the cigarette. There was something, she didn’t know what, that kept her there watching him and waiting for him to speak. It seemed a long time before he did so. When the cigarette was lighted, he took two or three puffs at it before he spoke. Then he said, ‘You and me’ve got to have a talk. I gather you wouldn’t want to have it in public’

A rushing, dizzying cloud of feeling came over her. She didn’t know what she did, or how she looked. When it was gone again, she hadn’t moved, but all the blood had left her face. She felt drained and faint. He was speaking, but she had lost what he had said. Only the end of it came to her, faint and thin like something recalled out of the long ago past.

‘-never met before-’

She repeated it.

‘I’ve never met you before.’

He laughed. It was a very unpleasant laugh.

‘Is that what you’re going to say?’

‘It’s true.’

She hoped with everything in her that it was true.

He drew at his cigarette.

‘That’s what you say. I might say different. I might say-’ He paused, drew on the cigarette again, and let go a long curling trail of smoke. ‘Oh, well, I take it you know what I might say.’

She didn’t know. She didn’t know a thing. She looked into her own mind, and it was dark. There was nothing there.

He went on just leaning on the gate and smoking with that impudent jaunty stare. She made a great effort.

‘I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to. Will you please go away.’

He took no notice of that at all. He seemed to be considering something in his own mind. In the end he said, ‘Well, I’ll go for now, but you’ll please to remember that we know where you are. And there are some orders for you. You’ll not tell anyone you’ve seen me, or what I’ve said! And when you get your orders you’ll do what you’re told right away-no niminy piminy nonsense! Do you understand?’ He paused, said, ‘You’d better,’ and turned round and went away without a single backward look.

When he had gone she went down on her knees by the border and began to turn the earth. She was planting bulbs. The ground had to be cleared for them. You can’t put tulips in on the waste patches of mignonette and snapdragon and the blue, blue flax that looks like seawater. You can’t put anything in on the wrecks of last summer’s planting. You must clear the ground for the bulbs, or else they won’t grow.

She went on kneeling there, but her hands were idle. The tears were streaming from her eyes. After a time she groped for a handkerchief and dried them. And went on planting the bulbs for the next spring.