The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 34

Jim Fancourt came down to breakfast after a night of tumultuous dreams. There was a little pile of letters, and he was sorting them through when he came on Anne’s and dropped the others. She wrote as he had done, without a formal beginning and without a formal address. He read:

I don’t know what to say. You don’t know anything about me. I don’t know anything about myself. You have sent me some money. I don’t know whether I ought to take it, but I am going to just for now, on the condition that you let me pay it back when I have got a job. You needn’t worry about me at all. Miss Silver knows the girl I’m with, and nobody could be kinder. Please wait a little before you try and see me. I want to think things out. If I could only remember-but it’s no use trying, it only makes everything confused.

He put his head in his hands and groaned. Why wouldn’t she? Because she didn’t trust him? Because she didn’t want to be rushed? That hurt a little less than the other. But there wasn’t a word to explain why she had gone off in the middle of the night. He went over the scene with her on the open slope of the hill. She had told him everything then. How did he know that? The answer came passionately. He did know it, but he didn’t know how he knew it. He just knew that everything was all right between them then. Whatever had happened, whatever had gone wrong, had come afterwards. Something had happened. What was it? Something had happened to make her run away in the middle of the night from Lilian’s house-from Lilian. That was it-Lilian had done something that had driven her away. Now, what had Lilian done?

That she was an idle, mischief-making woman, he had no doubt, but the idlest mischief-maker in the world needs something to start her off. It came to him then and suddenly that the man who had frightened Anne in the garden might be in on it. He had gone to the house first, and he had seen Lilian. What had passed between them, and was that their first meeting? He had no idea, but he meant to find out. He looked at his watch. He could catch the eleven o’clock for Haleycott.

Lilian was considerably surprised at his arrival. She had been congratulating herself on the way she had managed. Anne had gone. Jim had come and gone. The man whom she knew as Maxton had gone. There was nothing to bring any of them back again except Jim, who would naturally come down occasionally on a family visit which could have no particular significance, and which would be quite pleasant. She was all for keeping up pleasant relations with the family. What she had not allowed for was his coming down again right on top of his other visit and in such an exceedingly overbearing and difficult frame of mind. He had refused curtly to come into the garden and see how the borders were progressing, and had opened the study door, shown her in, and shut it again, all in the most peremptory manner.

She said, ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, ‘What is it? What have I done?’

‘That is what I mean to know. Just what have you done?’

She went back to her ‘Really, Jim!’ And then, in a tumble of words, ‘I don’t know what you can possibly mean. I don’t think you can be well. I don’t know what this is all about.’

‘Don’t you? Are you sure, Lilian? Are you quite sure you don’t know?’

She was beginning to be frightened. What did he know? How could he possibly know anything at all? He couldn’t- he didn’t! She opened her eyes as wide as they would go and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can only suppose that you’re not well, or-or that you’ve been drinking.’

‘No, I’ve not been drinking. There’s nothing wrong with me, Lilian. You’d better make up your mind to it and tell the truth. Anne told me about the man who came down to see her. I know that he saw you first. It’s really quite useless to try and deceive me. I’ve come here to get the truth, and I mean to get it.’

He saw real terror in her eyes. Her hand went up to her throat.

‘I don’t know-what you mean-’

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘something happened here in the middle of the night when Anne disappeared. It’s no good your telling me you don’t know anything about it. It’s no good, I say.’

Lilian did the best she knew for herself. She broke into sobs.

‘Really, Jim… I can’t think… I don’t know why! Oh-oh dear! What do you think I’ve done?’

He said, ‘I don’t know. You’d better tell me. That man who came down-I want to know whether you had ever seen him before.’

He didn’t know, then. He wanted to know. Well, she wasn’t going to tell him, and that would serve him right.

There was a sofa by the window. She made her way to it and sat down, moving feebly. It would serve him right if she were to faint. She wondered what he would do if she did, and then decided regretfully that she had better not. And it was quite obvious that he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know that she knew Maxton, or that Maxton had been here in the night. She must remember that he didn’t know, and she must stick to it. She got out her handkerchief and dried her eyes.

‘I don’t know what this is all about,’ she said in the most pathetic voice she could contrive. ‘Anne ran away from here. I’ve no idea why, but if you want to know what I think-’ She paused, mopped her eyes, and looked at him round the handkerchief. ‘If you want to know what I really think-well I don’t like to say it, but I’ve no doubt in my own mind-’

‘What have you got no doubt about in your own mind?’

She wished that Jim would stay farther off. She wished she had not sat down, but her legs were shaking and she had to. She was afraid to say what she had begun to say, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of it now. She spoke in rising agitation.

‘I thought she was odd when she came-very odd. And I didn’t think-’ She stopped.

Jim repeated her last words, ‘You didn’t think-’

Lilian was goaded into speech.

‘I didn’t think she was right in her head,’ she said.