Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 13

The hours of Sunday passed. The church bells rang. Miss Silver and Mrs. Merridew attended the evening service. There were very few people there. The Vicar’s wife played the organ, a memorial to the fallen in the first world war. The Vicar raised a robust baritone in the psalms and canticles, the District Nurse sustained a rather uncertain soprano. The old beautiful words hung in the cold, close air. The church had been old when the Wars of the Roses were fought. There were the tombs of two Crusaders, one with his legs crossed at the knees to show that he had ridden out on his pious errand twice. There were worn brasses and a clutter of monuments. It came into Miss Silver’s mind that the dead were better represented than the living. When they had prayed that the darkness might be lightened, and to be defended from the perils and dangers of the night, the Vicar went up into the pulpit and preached for five minutes on the duty of loving one’s neighbour as oneself. He had a vigorous, resonant voice, and he said that the world would be a much nicer place to live in if we all took a little more trouble about being kind. After which they sang “Sun of my Soul,” and came out into the windy dark.

Florrie Hunt had Sunday afternoon and evening off, so the two ladies prepared their own supper and washed up after it. Peaceful hours slipping by with nothing to mark them, a peaceful village settling to its Sunday rest, church bells and evensong, Sunday supper, a quiet hour or two by the fireside, a little talk, a pleasant book, music to be summoned with the turning of a knob, and then good-nights exchanged and a leisurely preparation for bed.

But within a stone’s throw of the White Cottage there was a bed that was not slept in that Sunday night.

Florrie came in with the news at eight o’clock on Monday morning. She set a tray down on the table by Mrs. Merridew’s bed and said in her gloomiest tones,

“Miss Holiday never come home last night, nor her bed wasn’t slept in.”

Mrs. Merridew blinked.

“Florrie, what do you mean?” Florrie swished the curtains back, and Mrs. Merridew blinked again, at the light this time. Very cold and grey, and not at all the sort of thing you wanted to look at if something unpleasant had happened. That cold light showed Florrie in a flowered overall very clean but a good deal faded. Even though the colours were not as bright as they had been, they did not go at all well with what was by no means a shining morning face. Lank black hair drawn back above sallow bony features, pale thin lips, and a set expression, were not flattered by the pinks and blues and greens of what had once been a gay summery pattern. There were four curtains, and it wasn’t till they had all been drawn that Florrie repeated what she had said.

“She didn’t come home, and she didn’t sleep in her bed. Mrs. Maple is in a terrible taking. Says she’s never known her to be out of her usual before-and that would be nine o’clock if it wasn’t for the evenings she’d go over to Melbury for the pictures and come back on the last bus, and then she’d always let her know beforehand and Mrs. Maple would let her have the key so as not to be kept about.”

There was at this juncture a slight tap upon the half open door. It was followed by the entrance of Miss Silver in the warm bright blue dressing-gown which had replaced the crimson one long worn and only parted with when it had begun to show serious signs of dilapidation. The hand-made crochet trimming with which it had been adorned had been very successfully transferred to the new gown, and her niece Dorothy’s gift of a pair of black felt slippers trimmed with blue pompoms completed a most comfortable outfit. Her hair, neatly coiled, was confined by a strong silk net. Her expression was one of concern.

“My dear Marian-has anything happened? I was on my way to the bathroom, and I could not help hearing-”

Florrie’s usual reserve had been shaken. She repeated her story for the third time and with some added details.

“Mrs. Maple she thought she was in-” she addressed herself to Miss Silver-“she’s that deaf she wouldn’t hear, and it being gone half past ten, she never thought anything but that Miss Holiday had come in and gone up without speaking, which is what she’s done time and again, it being a job to make Mrs. Maple hear and nothing particular to say except goodnight. Anyway, it’s all of ten years Miss Holiday has been lodging there, and that’s how it’s been. But come this morning when Mrs. Maple gets up and there isn’t any sign of her she goes knocking on her door, and when that doesn’t fetch her out she turns the handle and goes in, and there’s the bed not slept in, and not a sign of Miss Holiday having been near it.”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“Oh dear!” And then, “Oh, Florrie-she can’t just have disappeared!”

Florrie said what she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying if she hadn’t been shaken out of her usual discretion.

“That’s what everyone said about Maggie, isn’t it? And where is she? Walked out of the house no later than eight o’clock in the evening a year ago and never come back.”

Mrs. Merridew found herself explaining to Miss Silver.

“She was Florrie’s cousin, Maggie Bell, and it was just as she says. She lived with her parents in the cottage with the rose arch over the gate, and she worked by the day for Lucy Cunningham. And she went out one evening and never came back. She had been ironing, and she said she wanted a breath of air.”

Florrie tossed her head.

“And that was just a manner of speaking! The old people were that jealous of her going anywhere, she’d be obliged to have something to say like that. And she’d run in to me and get a bit of a change without having words about it.”

Mrs. Merridew reached behind her for the shawl which she wore when she sat up in bed.

“I didn’t know she was coming round to you, Florrie.”

Florrie looked angry.

“I didn’t know it myself! She’d come when she wanted to and welcome!”

“Did you ever tell the police about that?”

“They didn’t ask me. Made up their minds she’d gone off to London. I could have told them better than that, but they had their own ideas. The old people were tiresome enough-I’m not saying they weren’t-but Maggie wasn’t the one to run off and leave them. I’d say that, no matter who said different. And as to that postcard that come down from London, well, I can tell you right away, Maggie never wrote it.”

Miss Silver had been listening with the deepest interest. It was not necessary for her to speak, since without any prompting on her part Marian Merridew was asking all the right questions, and how much better that she herself should not appear to be too much concerned.

Florrie’s last statement produced a cry of surprise from Mrs. Merridew.

“Oh, Florrie, you’ve never said that before!”

Florrie’s left shoulder jerked.

“Least said, soonest mended,” she said. And then, in an accusing voice, “And what good will it do my saying anything? They didn’t ask me for one thing, and I didn’t want to get mixed up with the police for another. Nor I don’t now, so we won’t go on talking about it!”

“But, Florrie, you must have had some reason.”

“Reason enough and to spare, but none for talking about!”

Mrs. Merridew’s large fair face fell into lines of indecision. Even the pressure of Miss Silver’s hand upon her arm failed to produce a further question.

Florrie had turned to leave the room, when a slight cough stopped her. It was immediately followed by the sound of her name.

“I mustn’t take up your time, and I can quite understand that the subject is a painful one, but if, as you say, there has been a second disappearance, then the trouble may not even stop there. There may be others who are in danger.”

Florrie had turned. She stared, and said in an obstinate voice,

“I’ve said enough. Maybe I’ve said too much.”

Miss Silver said gently,

“You have said that your Cousin Maggie did not write the postcard which came from London. You saw it of course?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“It said, did it not, that she would come back as soon as she could, and that you would come in and help her parents?”

Florrie’s face darkened.

“Who told you that?”

There was something in Miss Silver’s look which was asking her to speak. She resisted it. There was something in her voice which put her in mind of not knowing her answer in school and the teacher making it easy for her. She resisted this too, but with a lessening force. Before the encouraging smile which followed she no longer wanted to resist at all. She felt instead the impulse to clear her mind of the thoughts which had burdened it for so long. It became easier to speak than to hold back. When Miss Silver said, “What made you think the card was not from Maggie?” she said in a different voice,

“It was because of the way the names were spelt. Maggie wasn’t any scholar, but we went to school together, and what she would always put on her exercise-book was Maggy-written with a Y. And the same with my name too. She hadn’t much call to write it, but if she did she’d spell it with a Y like she did her own. And the names on the card was both spelt out long with an IE at the end of them and not a Y, so I knew it wasn’t Maggie that wrote them.”

Mrs. Merridew looked shocked. This time the pressure on her arm counselled silence. Miss Silver said quietly,

“Maggie’s parents showed you the card. Did you point out to them that the names were not spelled as she would have spelled them?”

Florrie said, “No.” She was twisting her hands together, and they were shaking.

“Why did you not do so?”

Florrie caught her breath.

“They were taking on-bad enough-without. As it was, I could see they wouldn’t get over it-Maggie being all they had, and never away from them except just to go up the road to Miss Cunningham’s. So I thought-so I thought-” She broke into a hard sob. “They’d enough, hadn’t they-and the card was a bit of comfort-I hadn’t the heart to go taking it away-”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“Oh dear! But you should have told the police-you really should.”

Florrie flung up her head.

“And how long would it have been before they came worrying my aunt and uncle? I kept it, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I hadn’t! And I don’t know what made me speak of it, but they’re both gone now, and I suppose it don’t matter. All I know is, Maggie wouldn’t have gone off like that, and no more would Miss Holiday. They hadn’t got a boy friend, neither of them, and that’s gospel. Maggie was two years older than what I am, and Miss Holiday isn’t ever going to see fifty again. And not the dressy sort, nor the sort that’s out to get a man, no matter how. Maggie couldn’t be bothered with them, what with the dirt they bring into the house and the work they make. And her father the old bully he was-well, the way she saw it, you can’t get away from the relations you’re born with, but to go and tie yourself up with a husband is clean flying in the face of Providence. And as for Miss Holiday, men just scared her stiff. Why, she wouldn’t go to work in a house where there was a gentleman. Wouldn’t go down the lane to see Mrs. Selby that she’d taken a fancy to and that was always asking her in- wouldn’t even go down to her except when she knew Mr. Selby would be out of the way. Not quite the gentleman of course, no more than Mrs. Selby is what you’d call a lady, but not the kind anyone would be afraid of, if it wasn’t Miss Holiday.”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“The Selbys live down at the end of the Vicarage Lane. He is a retired business man. They have a great many hens, and he goes and plays darts at the Holly Tree every night. He is a very sociable, friendly kind of person, but I think she finds it lonely in the evenings when he is out. I didn’t know that Miss Holiday went there so much.”

Florrie had come back to her usual manner. She said briskly,

“Well, I don’t know about so much. She’d go in there now and again when he was at the Holly Tree, but go before he went or stay after he came back was what she wouldn’t do and nothing would make her. And if she’d feel like that about Mr. Selby she wouldn’t be likely to pick with any strange man, nor he wouldn’t be likely to want to pick up with her, for if anyone was the moral of an old maid, it was her, poor thing.”

Mrs. Merridew pulled her shawl closer about her and began to pour out. Births, and deaths, and disappearances were things that happened, but it didn’t help anyone to let a good pot of tea get stewed. She filled two cups and said in a determinedly cheerful voice,

“Well, Florrie, we must hope for the best.”