The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 7

Jim Fancourt looked out of the window and saw with his eyes the grey poplars and a flat monotony of fields, but he was not really aware of them. He was too busy with his thoughts, and they were too busy with the problem he had set them. He hoped Anne was all right. There wasn’t any way of finding out short of running a risk, and there weren’t going to be any more risks than he could help about this business.

There had been too many already. He wondered how long they would have to wait for a divorce, and for the hundredth time wondered crossly how on earth he came to give way to Borrowdale. And then he was looking back, seeing Borrowdale’s face with the desperate look on it and hearing his voice almost extinct, almost gone, ‘Get her-out of here-get her- away. For God’s sake-do it-do it-do it.’

Well, he had done it, and that was that. Borrowdale was dead, and Anne was alive and his wife-at least he supposed she was. He’d been a fool and he’d have to pay for it. Borrowdale was dead, and he’d made himself responsible for Anne. He could hardly remember her face. He could see the flat terror on it better than he could see the features. She hadn’t made a fuss, but she had been terrified all right. And then Borrowdale had died, and the American plane had come down and he had got Anne on to it and it had got away. They would take her to London, and then she’d be all right.

Lilian and Harriet were not the most enlivening companions, but she’d be all right at Chantreys until he got there. He had given her a letter to post in town and told her where to go; and she ought to have been all right with Mrs Birdstock. She would have been all right in any case. What was he worrying about? He’d been a fool to concern himself with her at all. He pushed her into the back of his mind and began to think about Leamington. He would have to see him the minute he got to town, because he’d have to decide on the line they were going to take. It was immensely important. Anne came into that too. They could either scrap her altogether, leaving him to pick her up at Chantreys, or they could feature her-no, he didn’t like that. He’d be hanged if he did. And it wouldn’t fit in with the divorce. The whole thing made a properly straightforward story without her. Cut her out, keep her out-that was the way of it. Now as regards Leamington -

In about five minutes he was looking back at Anne and not remembering what she looked like. The picture came up in his mind. A little creature, brown eyes wild with fright, brown hair, a voice trembling with terror-and Borrowdale choking away his life. ‘Get her away-oh, my God-get her away-’

Nonsense! What was he at? He had got her away, hadn’t he? If Borrowdale had had another day’s life in him he might have known a little more about it. But it wasn’t so hard to make up a story of what he did know. She was Borrowdale’s daughter- like enough to him for that to pass. And if, as he strongly suspected, her mother was Russian and there had never been a marriage, or not one that the Russians would admit-well the rest followed easily enough. A Russian’s daughter was a Russian, no matter whether she had an English father or not. That was their rule even where there had been a marriage, and it was ten to one there had been none in this case.

Looking back on it, he really didn’t see why he had got himself into the mess. It had all been so hurried. Borrowdale gasping his life away after the rock had fallen, and the girl shaking with fright. A feeling of revulsion swept over him. What had it got to do with him after all? Marriage? Nonsense! It wouldn’t hold water-not in England. He’d have to see a lawyer about it when he got home. The plane wouldn’t have taken her if she hadn’t sworn she was his wife.

He switched his mind to Leamington. What was he going to say to Leamington?