Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

She shook hands with me, and I did my best to thank her, but I don’t think I made a very good job of it. I liked her most awfully, and I hope she knew how grateful I was.

I took the matches and went down to the next landing, which had two doors at right angles to one another just like the one above; they both opened into the drawing-room. I’d hardly got safely in before I heard Fanny coming upstairs. She must have hurried like mad over making the arrowroot.

As soon as I heard the old lady’s door shut, I came out of the drawing-room and went down the stairs. There was no light below the bedroom landing, but I didn’t want to strike a match unless I was obliged to. The house was on the same plan as Mrs. Bell’s, so I thought I could manage.

I crawled down the basement stairs, because of course I realized that Ellen would most likely not have gone to sleep again yet. I wasn’t quite clear about the kitchen, and the scullery, and her room; but Fanny had left the kitchen door ajar and I saw the glow of the fire, which was a stroke of luck I couldn’t have reckoned on.

The scullery had an outer door with heavy bolts, the sort that were simply bound to make a row if I tried to shoot them back. I decided that it would be much safer to get out of the kitchen window.

Well, I slid back the catch, pushed up the window, and was half-way out, when I heard a sort of flapping sound. I recognized it at once, because I’d noticed when she went upstairs that Fanny had on slippers which flapped on every step. I pulled my other leg up, but before I could drop into the yard the kitchen door opened with a push, and there stood Fanny with a waggling candle in her hand and her mouth open all ready to scream. I ought to have cut and run, but like an ass I tried to stop her.

“Miss Fanny-” I began, and then she screamed. It was the most ineffectual scream I had ever heard. I think she was too frightened to put any breath into it. “I say-don’t do that! Mrs. Stubbs knows I’m here.”

She screamed again and let the candle fall with a clatter. I think some of the hot wax must have got her on the instep, because her third scream was much louder.

“For the Lord’s sake-” I said, but before I could say any more, the light went on in the passage and an amazing fat old thing in yards and yards of white night-gown rushed up to Fanny and caught her by the arm.

“Where is he, the nasty toad?” she cried, and began to let off screams like a steam siren.

I got out on the sill, banged down the window, and dropped.

The yard was one of the sort that has given up pretending to be a garden. I ran into a dust-bin and a clothes-line before I got to the wall at the bottom. I shinned up it, ran along as far as I dared, and dropped into the garden of one of the houses facing on Ely Road. They are rather better houses than the ones in our street. Some of them really have gardens. This one had. There were trees against the wall, and I’m afraid I trod right in the middle of a bed of geraniums; there was an aromatic smell from the plants I broke.

My idea was to lurk in the bushes until I saw what was going to happen. I couldn’t hear Ellen screaming any longer, but that probably only meant that she was using her breath to call in the police and tell them all about it.

There were some lilac bushes close up against the house. Lilac makes a very good screen. When I got to the bushes, I wasn’t more than a couple of yards from the house. There was a window on the ground floor. I couldn’t help thinking how convenient it would be if I could walk through the house and out into Ely Road. I suppose this made me go up to the window to have a look at it.

I wasn’t expecting anything-it was just an idle impulse; but, to my extreme surprise, the bottom part of the window was open. It seemed an impossible bit of luck. I thought I must be mistaken. I put out my hand to feel, and touched thick curtains drawn together behind the open sash.

Well, I wasn’t wasting any luck. This was a lot better than lurking in a lilac bush, so I pulled myself up over the sill and stepped down into the room.

I was still straightening myself up and wondering who on earth had left the window open, when the curtains were parted and some one said “Darling” and threw both arms round my neck. It was so frightfully sudden I couldn’t possibly have stopped her. The voice sounded quite young, and the arms were soft. I didn’t know if I said anything, or whether she just found out when she kissed me. Anyhow, she gave a sort of stifled shriek, began to push me away, and then slipped right down on the floor in a faint.

It was simply frightfully embarrassing, I couldn’t very well go off and leave her fainting, but I certainly couldn’t afford to dally. I picked her up, felt round for a chair, put her into it, and then hunted about until I found the electric light switch.

The light went on and showed the room. It was the little third room you sometimes get on the ground floor in a London house. It looked like a girl’s sitting-room, rather pretty-pretty, with lots of photographs and nick-nacks. The girl was beginning to catch her breath and open her eyes. They were the large, rolling, pale-blue sort, and she had fair fluffy hair and rather good ankles. She was dressed for going out, all except her hat, which was on the floor. I don’t know why girls always throw their hats on the floor, but they do. There were two suit-cases next to the hat.

I thought it would be perfectly awful if she began to scream, so I weighed in at once:

“Please don’t be frightened-I’m not a burglar.”

“I thought you were Tom,” she said.

“Did you?”

“Of c-course I did. And you’re n-not!” She sounded as if she thought it was my fault that I wasn’t Tom.

“I’m awfully sorry,” I said.

She put her head on one side and listened, and she said “Ssh!” though I wasn’t making any noise. After she’d listened again for a minute she whispered,

“Did you hear anything?”

I shook my head.

She was sitting up and quivering with fright. She said,

“Are you’s-sure?”

I nodded.

“If he w-wakes, we’re d-done for.”

I really never have seen a girl look so frightened. It wasn’t about me, which was something to the good. I was only some one she could shiver at and say “Ssh!” to. I said,

“Who is he?”

She said “Ssh!” again; and then, “My f-father. T-Tom and I are running away.”

“Well-why don’t you run?” I asked.

She said “Ssh!” every time I spoke, though I didn’t make a bit more noise than she did. It was most awfully annoying, and I could have shaken her. I thought I had better go before I lost my temper, so I said in a frightfully polite whisper,

“Can I get out of the front door-or would a window be better?”

She said “Ssh!” and made reproachful eyes.

“You’re not g-going to leave me?”

I thought that was the limit. I said,

“Suppose your father wakes up and finds me here?”

“I’d rather he f-found you than T-Tom.”

“Where is Tom?” I asked.

And just as I said it, there was a scrambling noise at the window and Tom fell into the room. He made about twice as much noise as I had done, but she didn’t say “Ssh!” to him. She jumped up and said “Darling!” and flung her arms around his neck just like she had done to me. I thought she might have managed to think out something different, but she was evidently a creature of routine. I felt sorry for Tom, because I could see he’d got years and years of being called “Darling” stretching before him, and I thought that after the first few thousand times he’d get bored, especially if she always said it in exactly the same way. The time she said it to me and the time she said it to him were as much alike as if you’d been playing the same gramophone record over twice.