The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 33

Having let go, it is always difficult to take things up again. Anne had let go. She felt that way about it. It was as if she had been climbing a very steep hill, the sort of hill that it takes every atom of your strength to climb, and then quite suddenly she had come out upon a flat, easy place where she could stop and rest. A week went by. She did not know that a process of healing was going on. She did not see, as Janet saw, that there was a change in her-colour coming back to her cheeks and light to her eyes.

She woke up suddenly after a week to think about how much money she had. She came down to breakfast with a troubled look, and was glad to find Janet alone.

‘I must get something to do.’

‘There’s no hurry.’

‘Oh, but there is. I must get a job. I haven’t much money.’

Janet hesitated.

‘You’ve got plenty for the present. I shouldn’t be in a hurry.’

Anne looked at her in a distressed way.

‘You’re so good to me. But don’t you see I can’t go on taking it? You don’t know anything about me, and if you let a room you’ve a right to be paid for it, and-and I ought to be earning something.’

Janet went on putting out the breakfast things. She didn’t want to tell her, but she would have to. She hoped Anne wasn’t going to mind. She said, ‘You needn’t worry about the money.’

Anne was looking at her with wide, distressed eyes.

‘You’re so good-but I must.’

Janet stood there with the teapot in her hand.

‘You know you spoke about Miss Silver-I told her you had come to me.’

The blood ran up to the roots of Anne’s hair and then down again. She looked as if she was going to faint. Janet put her in a chair and pulled up one beside her. She had been talking for some time before what she said came through to Anne.

‘-fifty pounds. Have you got that? You don’t look as if you had.’

Anne said, ‘No-no-’

‘Yes,’ said Janet firmly, ‘there’s fifty pounds for you.’

Anne came back slowly. Janet was sitting beside her, holding her hand.

‘Miss Silver sent me fifty pounds, and it was for you.’

The colour came into Anne’s face again.

‘He-he mustn’t,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

Anne’s hand went out.

‘It’s from Jim. He mustn’t-’

‘Why?’

Anne was shaking.

‘He-he mustn’t. I don’t want him to.’

Janet was frowning.

‘Look here, Anne, I do think you’ve got to be helped just now. Miss Silver says he’s in a dreadful state about you.’

‘Is he?’

‘She says he is. Look here, if Miss Silver says it’s all right for you to take the money you really needn’t worry. She’s like all the maiden aunts in the world. If she says it’s all right, then it is, and that’s that.’

‘Does she say it’s all right?’

‘She wouldn’t send it on if she didn’t think so.’

Anne woke up to the fact that she was talking about Jim, and-did Janet know anything about Jim? If she did, it wasn’t Anne who had told her. Jim had been in her mind, in her thoughts, but she had never mentioned his name until now. She said, ‘Who told you about Jim?’

‘Miss Silver thought I knew.’

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘Yes, I have. That’s when she gave me the money. She said it would be kind to take it because he was in such a state about you. You can pay it back, you know.’

Anne said slowly, ‘Yes-I can pay it back-’ And then Lizabet came in and there was no more private talk.

The letter from Jim came next morning. She didn’t know it was from Jim at first, because it was enclosed in one from Miss Silver. She read Miss Silver’s first.

My dear Anne,

I am very glad to have news of you, and to know that you are safe. Mr Fancourt has been in a great state about you. I have told him that he must wait until it is your wish to see him. Do not keep him too long, my dear. He is very much concerned for you, and quite trustworthy.

With affectionate regards,

Yours, Maud Silver.

Anne looked up from the neat handwriting to the enclosure, which wasn’t neat at all. Something of the desperation in his mind came across to her as she looked at the envelope with the name that wasn’t hers scrawled across it-Mrs Fancourt. That touched her. Suddenly and unexpectedly it touched her. She was trying to break away, and it was just as if he had put out a hand and caught at her to make her stay. She took the letter, ran up to her room with it, and locked the door. And even then she couldn’t open it or read it for a long, long time. She wanted to, and she was afraid. She wanted to with all her heart, and just because she wanted to so much she was more afraid than she had ever been about anything.

When at last she moved, it was with a strong effort. She tore the envelope, and out came the package of sheets which were inside.

The letter began without any beginning as formal as beginnings go. It said:

Why did you go away like that? It was cruel of you and quite useless. Don’t you know-don’t you know that I care for you? You must know it. Let me come to you. I don’t know why you went away. I think Lilian had something to do with it. You need never see her again if she had. I can promise you that. There is nothing else that I can think of that would come between us. Miss Silver says that you are safe. She won’t tell me where you are. She says she only knows in confidence, and that she won’t tell me unless you say she may. Oh, Anne, please do say so-please. Whatever is the matter-whatever you think you must keep to yourself, please, please, please let me know about it. I only want to help you. Darling-darling Anne, do believe that. You may feel that it is too soon for me to say all this. I know I shan’t change. I won’t worry you, I will promise that. But do let me see you. Don’t shut yourself off from me like this. I can’t stand it.

There was a big bold ‘Jim’ scrawled across the bottom.

Anne read her letter through three times. Then she put up her hand to her eyes, found that they were wet, and got out a handkerchief to dry them with. She didn’t know why Jim’s letter should have made her cry, but it had. Then she saw that there was another sheet. It had dropped on the bed beside her. She picked it up and read it:

I haven’t told you about Anne. There isn’t much to tell. I hardly knew her. She was with her father in the place where we were. Her mother was Russian, and she had been brought up out there. I don’t know whether she was legitimate. I think perhaps she wasn’t, because her father, Borrowdale, was in such a state about her when he was dying. He met with an accident and only lived a few hours. He asked me to marry Anne and look after her. I hadn’t had a lot to do with women, but there was no one else so I said yes. There wasn’t much time to think. He sent for the local priest-it was ten miles over very rough country-and he married us. The priest had been gone about an hour when the American plane came down. They got off again after a couple of hours, and they took Anne with them. It was a bit of a wangle, so don’t talk about it. There have been difficulties about getting anyone away from Russia, especially if their nationality wasn’t quite clear, so that American plane was just what was wanted. I thought it was the safest thing for her. But how she came to be murdered in London I don’t know, or how you got mixed up in it. Let me come and see you. Please do.

It was an extraordinary story. How and why had she come into it? She didn’t know at all. To think about it was like pushing at darkness itself. At dense darkness. Memory didn’t come back that way. If it came, it would come naturally-as naturally as she remembered getting up this morning, or what she did yesterday.

After what seemed like a long time she got up and washed her face. She couldn’t make up her mind what to say to him. She would have to write to him. What did she say? It wasn’t that she distrusted him, but he might distrust her. Suppose she told him just what had happened-how she had come down in the night and found Lilian talking to the man whose name she didn’t know. Suppose he didn’t believe her. Her heart beat hard at the thought. Why should he believe her? Lilian was his own kin. If it hadn’t been for that, she could have trusted him, but-She tried to put herself in his place. A strange girl with no background at all telling the strangest tale about the people you had known always. How could you believe her? How could you believe anything she said?

She didn’t know.