She opened her eyes and saw the strange room before she remembered anything. It frightened her. She started up in the grey, cold dawn and saw it. She had no memory of how she had come there, and for a moment everything was adrift. Then with a rush memory came back. She sat up in bed and saw herself coming downstairs in the other house, listening to the man as he talked to Lilian. She was back in the dark, her eyes wide, her heart thudding as she listened to them talking in the next room. She remembered it all. She could have repeated every word as she had heard, and every word said to her.
Get up and go from here as fast as you can. She was half out of bed, when there was a knock on the door and Prissy came in with her hair in a plait. It was absurd to feel caught, but she did.
Prissy was yawning.
‘I hate getting up early,’ she said. ’Don’t you. It’s only half-past six, but if you really want to catch a train-’
The train… She didn’t know… She looked at Prissy for a moment of blank unseeing fear. And then it all cleared. She had to get away-to Jim-to Miss Silver. She shut her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again.
‘I’m sorry-I was dreaming. I don’t know where I was, but not here.’
‘Are you here now?’ There was a frank curiosity in Prissy’s voice, and in her look too.
‘Yes-I’m here-’ Her voice shook a little on the words.
Prissy came over and sat on the bed.
‘Well then, I think we’d better talk. What I thought was- you’ve got friends, haven’t you?’
Jim-Miss Silver… She said, ‘Yes, I’ve got friends.’
Prissy hugged herself. She said with a good deal of relief, ‘Well, that’s all right. I should think the best thing would be if I were to drive you to Felsham to catch a train. It’s only seven miles, and it’s a different line, so that if anyone wanted to catch you they wouldn’t think of it-at least I hope they wouldn’t.’
‘Would you-would you do that?’
‘Yes, I would. Are you going to tell me anything?’
‘I don’t know. Would you believe me?’
Prissy burst out laughing.
‘How can I tell? You can try. I mean, if you were to say you had fallen out of an aeroplane, or something like that, I might help you, but I shouldn’t believe you, because that would be stupid. It would be much easier to believe that you were making it up, or-or something like that.’
Anne looked at her. Bright brown eyes in a rosy face, a red dressing-gown, bare feet tucked up beneath her. She said, ‘I won’t make anything up, I promise you that. I can’t tell you everything, because I’ve lost my memory and I don’t know it myself. If I tell you what I do remember you’ll maybe not believe me, so I think I won’t. Because they’ll tell lies-the man who came here last night-’
‘Yes, who is he?’
‘I don’t know-I really don’t.’
Prissy had her arms round her knees. She giggled a little and said, ‘He said you were his niece.’
‘I know-I heard him. It isn’t true.’
‘How do you know if you can’t remember?’
‘I’d never seen him before-I’m sure I hadn’t. He was utterly strange and-and horrible.’
Prissy was nodding.
‘Yes, I thought so too. I was glad you’d locked the door. I thought he was a horror.’ She got off the bed and yawned. ‘Isn’t getting up beastly? But we’d better get going before there are too many people about.’
Anne got out of bed and dressed quickly. She had ten pounds not broken into, that was her real comfort. Ten pounds. She looked for her bag, and couldn’t see it.
It wasn’t there.
She stared about the room, unbelieving. She was still staring when Prissy came back. Anne lifted eyes full of tragedy and said, ‘My money is gone-’
‘Oh-when did you have it last?’
‘I don’t know. It was in my bag-I can’t see it. It was in notes-ten one-pound notes.’
‘When can you remember seeing it last?’
Anne tried to think.
‘Yesterday morning.’ She sat down on the bed, her face white, her hands shaking. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘Perhaps you left it downstairs.’
They looked downstairs, but there was nothing there.
Prissy marched out of the room. Before Anne could get hold of herself she was back again. She had a little bunch of notes in her hand.
‘Here you are,’ she said.
The colour came back into Anne’s face with a rush. She said, ‘Oh, Prissy, I can’t!’
Prissy screwed up her face.
‘Nonsense! Money’s only any good when it’s doing something. This isn’t any good at all, not whilst I’ve got it, because it’s not doing anything but sitting in a box under my nightgowns. If that horrid man of yours had got in last night he’d have taken it.’ She gave a determined little nod of the head. ‘Quite easily. Come along, we’ll have some breakfast. And then we’ll be off to the train.’
They had cold bacon and bread and marmalade and cocoa for breakfast. And then Prissy went down to the garage and got out the car.
‘And suppose the horror is prowling. I think you had better be very quick. In fact I think it would be a good thing if you sort of crouched down in the back seat with a rug over you, so that no one would know I wasn’t alone. And the sooner we get off the better.’
Anne was stiff with fear. The sense of not knowing who she was, of being naked and open to attack, was strong upon her. All the way to Felsham she clutched the rug round her and thought with horror of letting go of it and stepping out on to the platform.
When they reached the first houses Prissy said, ‘You’d better come out now. It won’t do to look as if you didn’t want to be seen.’
That was true. She pushed away the rug, sat up, and tidied her hair. She was more frightened than she had been at all, but she mustn’t show it.
The car ran down to the station, drew up, and she got out. When she turned round Prissy was getting out too. She said, ‘Go into the waiting-room. It’s just here. I’ll take your ticket.’
It was a game for Prissy, an exciting game. But for her- And then suddenly there was a rush of courage and hope. She walked into the waiting-room and sat down with her back to the light.
Prissy came to her there with the ticket.
‘Here you are. There’s a quarter of an hour before the train comes in. It sounds horrid, but I think I had better not wait.’
Anne threw a startled look.
‘Why?’
‘Mrs Brown,’ said Prissy. ‘It’s her day. If she comes and finds me out she’ll talk about it all over the place. As it is, if I go at once I shall just get back before she comes and there won’t be any talk. You’ll be all right.’ She nodded her head and took both of Anne’s cold hands in hers, which were like little warm pies.
‘Let me know how it all comes out,’ she said, and was gone.
CHAPTER 24
Prissy drove back in a very good humour. She was pleased with herself. She thought of telling Aunt Hester that they had had a visitor, but decided that she wouldn’t. Aunt Hester was all right, but she was inclined to fuss, and she hadn’t seen Anne. It would be better if she didn’t say anything about her. Aunt Hester wasn’t very practical, yet she had had at least thirty years more of reading the papers than Prissy had. She knew a terrible lot about shady characters and tricks, and all sorts of things which oughtn’t to be but tried to pretend that they were. If you read too many of those things they get in the way of what you really know about people-of what a cat or a dog knows, or a child.