The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 43

The bell rang. Miss Silver waked. She was quite composed, quite all there. She stretched out her hand to the extension by her bed, took up the receiver, and said, ‘Miss Silver speaking.’

A voice that tried very hard to be steady answered her.

‘Miss Silver, it’s Janet Wells. Something dreadful has happened. Anne has gone.’

‘Gone!’

‘Yes. I don’t know what to do.’

Miss Silver sat up and pulled a shawl round her.

‘What has happened?’

There was a pause. It was as though Janet couldn’t get it over her lips. Then she said, ‘I’m afraid I was followed yesterday afternoon. Lizabet went out to post a letter, and she saw the man. I’m afraid she hasn’t behaved well, but she’s so young-she didn’t understand. She is dreadfully sorry now.’

Miss Silver pressed her lips together. She said, ‘What did she do?’

‘The man persuaded her. She thought it was a joke-I don’t know what she thought. Anne was finishing some sewing and I went to have a bath. When I had gone, Lizabet pretended that she had a letter to post. She asked if Anne would come to the corner with her. She said she had promised me not to go alone when it was late. Anne went with her, and Lizabet turned back. She said she had forgotten one of her letters and would catch her up with it, so Anne walked on slowly. There was a car standing by the pillar-box. When she got level with it a man came round from the other side and another got out from the front. I-I think they held something over her face. Lizabet couldn’t see, and she was frightened. She says it didn’t take a minute, and then they drove away with her.’

Miss Silver said, ‘I see-’ Then she said, ‘Have you reported this?’

‘No-not yet.’

‘I will tell Jim Fancourt. Do not do anything until I ring you.’

She rang off, sat for a moment in thought, and then rang up Jim Fancourt.

Anne lay in the back of the car. Every now and then the deep unconsciousness which held her thinned away. She became aware of unhappy things, a confusion, of a rushing, sliding sound. As often as this happened there was the smell of chloroform again and she went down into the pits of sleep. This was until they were out of London -out of the network of roads round London.

It was later that she passed this stage. She did not hear the driver say, ‘I should slack it off now,’ or the man who was sitting by her answer with a brief ‘All right,’ but this time her consciousness came nearer and went on coming.

She made a moaning sound, and Ross Cranston said, ‘I say, what about it?’

The man who was driving laughed.

‘She’ll probably be sick. Never mind-we’ll be there soon.’

Ross was in a state. ‘Oh, I say!’ he protested. The man who was driving said, ‘Shut up!’ and he shut up.

The first thing that Anne knew was the motion of the car. At first it was pleasant and vague and then, after it had gone away and come back several times, she was tired of it and wanted it to stop. But it wouldn’t stop. It went on, and on, and on. In the end she called out and tried to change her position. Something stopped her and she struggled to be free. And then the thick white giddiness came down on her again.

It was whilst she struggled out of the giddiness that they turned off from the road.

The house was in a hollow. It was thickly surrounded with trees-big hollies and monstrous yews. It was an old house. They drew up in front of it, and Anne opened her eyes again. She said, ‘Why have you brought me here?’ Because she knew this house, she knew it very well. It was the house where she had lived with Aunt Letty, the house she had seen-was it in a dream-she didn’t know. She sat in the car, her eyes wide, and every now and then the picture before her dipped and slanted. When this happened she shut her eyes and there was a rushing sound in her ears. The man who was in the car with her got out. He must have gone to the door, because when she looked again it was open and he was turning and coming back to the car.

And it was Ross.

She was so astonished that she did not know what to say. For a moment she said nothing at all. She shut her eyes again, but when she opened them he was still there-her cousin Ross Cranston. She couldn’t imagine what brought him there. She shut her eyes again, and then opened them quickly and said, ‘Ross!’

Cranston looked around. He felt the need for someone to back him up. The man who had been driving came round the house.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘ Miss Forest, will you come in? Are you able to walk?’

Anne looked at him with wavering eyes. She knew Ross- she knew this man too. He had stood in the garden at Chantreys and talked to her. He had stood in the study there and talked to Lilian. And she had stood in the dark on the other side of the door into the dining-room. She had stood there and she had listened, and then she had gone upstairs cold-foot in the dark, and dressed, and run away. She didn’t know his name, but she knew who he was. He had come into the garden whilst she was there. He had talked to her. She couldn’t remember all he had said, but it had frightened her. She thought he had said not to repeat anything, not to tell anyone. But she had. She had told Jim. The thought of Jim rushed to her heart. It was a strength and a deliverance. It was the linking of her two worlds. It was safety. She must keep hold of that.

She got out of the car. She was weak and dizzy and her head went round. She needed Ross’s arm and she held to it. They came into the hall of the house. She knew it all quite well. The third stair would creak when she put her foot on it-it always had-and the tenth one again. It was very difficult to climb the stairs, very difficult indeed. Ross was helping her. That was kind of him. He hadn’t always been kind. She wouldn’t think about that now.

The other man frightened her. Why had he talked to Lilian in the night, and why had she run away? She couldn’t remember, but she stood still and said, ‘I don’t want him to come up.’

They weren’t quite at the top-there were fifteen steps before the landing, and she had taken only twelve of them. There was a pause. She had the feeling that Ross was looking across at the other man. He had her left arm. She stood still and pulled to get it away from him, and he laughed and let it go so suddenly that she came within an ace of falling. He said, ‘What’s the odds?’ and she caught at Ross to save herself and stumbled up the rest of the stairs and across the landing. She needed Ross’s arm to lean upon but not to guide her. She did not need anyone to guide her to her own room.

When she reached it, it was like coming home. The bed was sideways to the window. Someone had put a candle on the chest of drawers. She walked to the bed and laid herself down on it. She would have liked the window open, but it was too much trouble to bother about that. She pulled up the eiderdown until it covered her and turned on the pillow and went to sleep. The last thing she knew was the change from light to darkness. There was the click of a turning key. She slept.