Patricia Wentworth: The Girl in the Cellar

She remembered everything from there-how she had put out the light and listened, and how there had been no sound, and how she had come up the steps into the dark entrance hall, and so out into the street, and along it until she had come to the bus. Miss Silver wasn’t on the bus when she got on to it. She could see the bus quite clearly. It had stopped and she had got on to it, and then it had gone on again. She had shut her eyes, and when she opened them Miss Silver was there, sitting opposite to her in a neat shabby black coat and a much newer hat with a half-wreath of red roses on one side and an odd trimming of black chiffon rosettes on the other. The rosettes and the flowers grew smaller as they drew together in front of the hat.

She pulled herself up sharply. What was the good of thinking about Miss Silver’s hat? She was never likely to see it or her again. If she was to think, let her for goodness’ sake think about something or someone useful.

She must think about Jim Fancourt. She must think about the man who might be her husband. If she was Anne Fancourt, that was what he was. It lay between her and the dead girl at the foot of the stairs. The bag with the letter to Anne Fancourt in it had been on a level with her, and she had been some steps up. She had had to open the bag to get out the torch by which she had seen the dead girl. How did she know there was a torch there if it wasn’t her bag? The letter from Lilian was in her bag. If the bag was hers, she was Anne Fancourt, Jim Fancourt’s wife, and a niece of Lilian and Harriet. If it wasn’t hers, but the dead girl’s, then it was the dead girl who was Anne Fancourt.

Up and down, to and fro, endlessly, timelessly. The light changed, deepened, turned to grey. A little shudder went over her. It was no good going on thinking.

She turned and went back to the house.

It was two days later that she spoke to Lilian.

‘You said you had a letter about me from Jim. Might I see it?’

Lilian stared at her, a little offended as it seemed.

‘Well, I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so-if you really want to. I think I kept it.’

Something like a half-struck match went off in the darkness of Anne’s mind. There wasn’t time for her to see anything by the light of it, but there was something there to be seen, she was sure about that. It was gone in a flash, but it had been there. She said, ‘It might help me to remember, if you don’t mind.’

Lilian had gone over to her writing-table. She opened a drawer and began to fuss over the papers that were in it.

‘Miss Porson… dear, dear, I must remember to write. And Mary Jacks… One really ought not to put letters away, one forgets them so dreadfully. Now where did I… Oh, here’s the recipe for that very good apple-chutney we had at Miss Maule’s. I am pleased about that. I’ll leave it out and give it to Mattie. She’s so much better at remembering things than I am. Now what was it I was looking for… Oh, yes, Jim’s letter about your coming. Now you wouldn’t think I would have thrown that away, would you? I wonder if it wasn’t in this drawer at all. What do you think? Shall I finish this drawer and then go on to the one underneath it, where it is really much more likely to be, and I can’t think why I didn’t look there first. What do you think?’

Anne said, ‘I don’t know. I think I should finish one drawer at a time.’

Lilian sat back and looked at her.

‘Ah, that is the way the ordinary person looks for anything, but if you are guided by intuition it is all so much simpler, and intuition tells me-now what does it tell me?’

Anne said, ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

Miss Lilian bundled all the papers from her lap back into the drawer.

‘My intuition tells me that this next drawer may be the one.’ She began to take out the papers and put them in piles. “Three catalogues of garden seeds. Now how did these get in here? I can’t think. And really, you know, we never have got garden seeds from anyone but Hodgson. I think I must tear these up. Or perhaps not… Oh, there’s Ramsbottom’s bill! My dear, you are doing me quite a good turn! I’ve been looking for that, and it’s really got no business in this drawer. I can’t think how I came to put it there. Let me see-what were we looking for? Jim’s last letter-yes, yes, I must keep hold of that and not let myself be distracted. Jim’s letter-oh, yes, here it is! You wanted to see it, didn’t you?’ She held out a sheet of paper and then drew it back again. ‘I don’t know whether I ought to show it to you. You can’t be too careful. My friend Mrs Kesteven knew someone who showed a letter to her daughter-in-law, and it wasn’t from her husband at all. No, I think I’ve got that wrong, but it doesn’t matter, because the principle remains the same-never show letters. Not that there is anything in this one, so perhaps you had better read it.’ She held the letter out again and Anne took it from her.

It felt strange in her hand. It shouldn’t do that. Everything about it was strange. Utterly strange. The handwriting nice. Clear. Firm. But she had never seen it before. As she looked down at it she felt quite sure about that. But that might be true, and yet the man who had written it might be her husband, because hidden behind a wall of mist in her mind was all the story of her marriage.

For a moment everything seemed to press on her. She felt giddy, and looked round for a chair. When she had found one she sank on to it, passed her hand across her eyes, pressing on them hard. After a moment they cleared. She was aware of Lilian looking at her. She couldn’t tell with what expression, but it came to her afterwards that it was curiosity, suspicion, she didn’t know what. She made her eyes focus on the paper and read:

Dear Lilian

I think I shall be home almost as soon as this gets to you, which it will do by means of my wife. I have married rather suddenly, and have taken the opportunity of shipping her off by an American plane which came down here. Better not talk about this, as it’s a bit of a job.

They came down for temporary repairs, and were good enough to take Anne along. I calculate I should be home by the end of the month. Everything when we meet.

Yours,

J.F.

She read it twice. It meant nothing to her at all. When she looked up and saw that Lilian was watching her-she had been watching her all the time she had been reading the letter-she had a moment of acute fear. It came, caught her, and obliterated thought, sense, everything. It was like being pounced upon by some strange animal in a nightmare. She didn’t know what she was afraid of, or why she was afraid.

Lilian’s rather high voice came to her as if from a distance. She could only just hear it.

‘Good gracious, Anne, what is the matter?’

She heard her own voice say with the same effect of distance, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Anne-are you all right?’

The nightmare feeling left her. She was able to say, ‘Yes- thank you-’

She could see Lilian’s face now-curious. She said, ‘I don’t know why-as if-’ Her voice tailed away.

‘Well, as you are all right now-you’re sure you are all right? You’re very pale.’

‘Yes, I’m quite all right. It was just-’

Lilian looked at her. There was something curious in her expression.

‘You haven’t really forgotten Jim, have you?’

‘I don’t know how long I knew him.’ There was uncertainty in her voice.

Lilian gave her little high laugh.

‘You will have quite a tidying up to do when he comes- won’t you?’

It was two days later that Jim Fancourt came. Anne was in the garden. She heard the sound of a car. It went past her on the other side of the hedge. She felt nothing. Oh, no-nothing at all. That seemed very curious to think about afterwards, but at the time it seemed quite natural. She didn’t even think about it, but went on tidying up the border. There was a gardener, but he was an old man, and in his time the garden had had three men to do the work. Wherever she had been for all the unknown years, she had known all about clearing up a border. She didn’t have to think about that. Her hands remembered, if she had forgotten. When she heard steps behind her on the garden path she took them for the old gardener’s and said, ‘These chrysanthemums have done well- haven’t they? They must like the soil here.’