The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 26

Jim rang up Chantreys about an hour later.

‘I’d like to speak to Anne.’

There was a curious effect. He couldn’t make out what it was. The nearest he got to it was dismay. It was Lilian who had answered. First she didn’t say anything at all, then she said, ‘Anne-’

‘Yes.’

‘Well-’

‘I want to speak to her.’

Lilian didn’t know what to do. She temporised.

‘I don’t know that you can.’

‘Why?’

‘She-she isn’t here.’

‘You mean she’s out?’

‘Well-’

‘Lilian, do you mind telling me what you mean?’

There was a pause. She was greatly tempted to hang up. She could pretend they had been cut off. Her mind, twisting this way and that, boggled at a decision.

‘Jim-something has happened.’

It was a relief to tell him. He would have to be told. Much better to tell the truth-really-

‘What has happened?’

‘She-she’s gone.’

‘Lilian, what do you mean?’

‘She-she’s gone. I couldn’t stop her. I didn’t know she was going.’

‘Do you mean that Anne has gone?’

Lilian’s voice became more and more agitated.

‘Yes-yes. And it’s no use your asking me why, for I don’t know any more about it than you do. When we got up this morning she wasn’t here, that’s all-she just wasn’t here. And it’s no good asking why she went off like that, because I don’t know. No one here knows. I said good-night to her, and she went up to bed, and that’s the last I saw of her-the very last.’

Lilian was quite pleased with herself by now. She had got over the worst of it. Jim couldn’t really say anything. He had deceived her shamefully. She didn’t know whether to say anything about that to him or not. Perhaps better not. What was it that man had said last night-‘Least said, soonest mended.’ Yes, that was what she had got to remember. When you hadn’t said anything you could always put in a word here and there just as it might be convenient. She became aware of Jim’s voice, very hard and cold-‘I’m coming down at once.’ And then the click of the receiver being replaced.

By the time that Jim arrived Lilian was quite persuaded that she could carry everything off just as she wanted to. She was one of those people who can work out a fine plan if there is no one else to call the tune, but with Jim facing her it wasn’t so easy. To begin with, she had never seen him like this before. She had not seen very much of him. He had been brought up by his mother’s family, and on his visits he had been at first the boy and then the rather silent young man. Then he had vanished for three years-they really didn’t know what he had been doing. It was nonsense to think of his embarrassing them, and she certainly wasn’t going to stand it.

And then when he came down everything seemed to have changed. He was a man now, he wasn’t a boy any longer. When he looked at her like this her heart contracted. She couldn’t help it.

She got up, walked to the window, and back again:

‘I don’t know what you think. I’m sure we were all as kind to her as we could be.’

‘Were you? Then why did she go?’

‘Really-how do I know? You can say what you like, but there was something very extraordinary about her. I don’t know, I’m sure-’

He stood in front of the fireplace and looked at her.

‘What don’t you know?’

‘Really, Jim, anyone would think-’

‘What would they think?’

Lilian burst into tears.

‘Anyone would think you-you suspected us! It’s very hard-it’s very hard!’

‘Lilian-do you know why she went?’

‘No, I don’t’

‘Then I must see whether anyone else does.’

And he was gone. It was a relief, but what did he mean to do? She couldn’t think. She blew her nose and went over what she had said. There was nothing the matter. He couldn’t expect her to know anything. He couldn’t think that she did know anything. It would be all right. It must be all right. And if he had gone… Had he gone?

He had not gone.

When he left Lilian’s room he made his way to the back premises. It was in his mind that he would see Thomasina.

Lilian was always concerned with making a smooth tale. He didn’t want smooth tales, he wanted the truth. He thought that he would get it from Thomasina.

He came across her in the pantry and shut the door.

‘Thomasina, I want to ask you about Mrs Fancourt.’

She turned round to him with a teapot in her hand and a fine polishing cloth.

‘Yes, Mr Jim?’

‘I hear she’s gone.’

‘So it would seem.’ The words came without fuss, slowly- he thought with something in the voice. No, he couldn’t get nearer to it than that.

He said, ‘Do you know why she went?’

Thomasina rubbed at the side of the teapot.

‘I might form a guess, sir.’

‘What would be your guess?’

‘I don’t know that I should say.’

‘Yes, you must say.’

She went on rubbing the teapot. Presently she said, ‘It’s not my place to talk of what goes on in the house.’

He leaned forward and took her wrists in a light, steady clasp.

‘I’m not talking about what is your place and what isn’t. I’m talking about my desperate need to know what has happened to Anne.’

She lifted her eyes to his and said steadily, ‘It’s like that, is it?’

‘Yes, it’s like that.’

She turned round and put the teapot down without haste, without fuss. Then when she was facing him again she looked at him and said, ‘She’s good.’

‘Yes, she’s good.’

He had the feeling that they were talking on a different plane now. It was the plane on which you spoke the simple truth and it was received as such. Everything was plain and easy between them. He said, ‘Why did she go?’

‘I don’t know. She went in a hurry.’

‘How do you know that?’

She took her time to answer. Her eyes were on his face.

When she spoke her voice wasn’t quite so calm.

‘I woke up out of my first sleep-I don’t generally wake. It went through my head that there was something to be done and that I hadn’t known what it was. And then sleep came over me again, and I didn’t wake till it was light.’

He heard what she said. It didn’t mean anything-or it meant too much. Which was it? He said, ‘When did you find out that she was gone?’

‘When I went in with her tea. The blind was pulled back like she always had it, and I could see at once that she wasn’t there. Nor her clothes. Her hat and coat were gone as well as the rest. But she’d left her bag.’

‘Was her purse in it?’

Thomasina shook her head.

‘She didn’t have a purse. The notes was in the middle of the bag, and a little loose change in the pocket at the side. I looked to see.’ Her voice was quite calm and decided.

He called out sharply, ‘But if she hadn’t any money with her, how could she go?’

‘I don’t know.’ There was something in her voice-something.

He said, ‘Thomasina, if there is anything at all, you must tell me-you must.’

She looked at him full.

‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth-I don’t know anything. But the back door was open this morning. It wasn’t Mattie or me who left it open.’

‘Why would she go out the back way?’

‘Seems to me it would be because she didn’t want to be heard.’

‘Yes. But what made her-what made her?’

Thomasina had her thoughts, but she kept them close. Getting no answer, Jim sought one of himself.

‘Something must have happened. That time you woke up-when would it be?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t generally wake before the middle of the night.’

‘That would be between twelve and one?’

She nodded. ‘But it’s nothing to go by.’

‘What could have happened to make her go off like that? She went in a hurry-because she forgot her bag. How could she have forgotten it?’

Thomasina’s eyes met his.

‘I don’t know.’

He turned from her and stood for a moment with his face averted. Then he swung round on her again.

‘There must have been something to make her go off like that.’

Thomasina said slowly, ‘Perhaps she remembered something.’