‘I might form a guess, sir.’
‘What would be your guess?’
‘I don’t know that I should say.’
‘Yes, you must say.’
She went on rubbing the teapot. Presently she said, ‘It’s not my place to talk of what goes on in the house.’
He leaned forward and took her wrists in a light, steady clasp.
‘I’m not talking about what is your place and what isn’t. I’m talking about my desperate need to know what has happened to Anne.’
She lifted her eyes to his and said steadily, ‘It’s like that, is it?’
‘Yes, it’s like that.’
She turned round and put the teapot down without haste, without fuss. Then when she was facing him again she looked at him and said, ‘She’s good.’
‘Yes, she’s good.’
He had the feeling that they were talking on a different plane now. It was the plane on which you spoke the simple truth and it was received as such. Everything was plain and easy between them. He said, ‘Why did she go?’
‘I don’t know. She went in a hurry.’
‘How do you know that?’
She took her time to answer. Her eyes were on his face.
When she spoke her voice wasn’t quite so calm.
‘I woke up out of my first sleep-I don’t generally wake. It went through my head that there was something to be done and that I hadn’t known what it was. And then sleep came over me again, and I didn’t wake till it was light.’
He heard what she said. It didn’t mean anything-or it meant too much. Which was it? He said, ‘When did you find out that she was gone?’
‘When I went in with her tea. The blind was pulled back like she always had it, and I could see at once that she wasn’t there. Nor her clothes. Her hat and coat were gone as well as the rest. But she’d left her bag.’
‘Was her purse in it?’
Thomasina shook her head.
‘She didn’t have a purse. The notes was in the middle of the bag, and a little loose change in the pocket at the side. I looked to see.’ Her voice was quite calm and decided.
He called out sharply, ‘But if she hadn’t any money with her, how could she go?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was something in her voice-something.
He said, ‘Thomasina, if there is anything at all, you must tell me-you must.’
She looked at him full.
‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth-I don’t know anything. But the back door was open this morning. It wasn’t Mattie or me who left it open.’
‘Why would she go out the back way?’
‘Seems to me it would be because she didn’t want to be heard.’
‘Yes. But what made her-what made her?’
Thomasina had her thoughts, but she kept them close. Getting no answer, Jim sought one of himself.
‘Something must have happened. That time you woke up-when would it be?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t generally wake before the middle of the night.’
‘That would be between twelve and one?’
She nodded. ‘But it’s nothing to go by.’
‘What could have happened to make her go off like that? She went in a hurry-because she forgot her bag. How could she have forgotten it?’
Thomasina’s eyes met his.
‘I don’t know.’
He turned from her and stood for a moment with his face averted. Then he swung round on her again.
‘There must have been something to make her go off like that.’
Thomasina said slowly, ‘Perhaps she remembered something.’
CHAPTER 27
Jim went straight back to Miss Silver.
‘No one knows anything about her. She has simply vanished,’ he said.
Miss Silver picked up her knitting and sat in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up at him standing on her hearthrug and said, ‘It would be better if you sat down, Mr Fancourt.’
‘I don’t feel as if I could.’
‘Nevertheless it will be better… Thank you. What do you think has happened?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve thought the whole way up on the train. It seems to me there are only two ways of it. Either she went off herself, or she was taken.’
‘That is reasonable.’
‘If she went off herself, why did she leave her purse?’
‘She could have been in a very great hurry’
‘What hurry?’
‘That we do not know. But you say that yesterday when you went down something had happened.’
‘Yes, that man had come down and found her in the garden. He had threatened her. But she didn’t know him, she didn’t know him at all. She had never seen him before. What he said was a complete mystery to her.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said they’d got to have a talk. He said they wouldn’t want to have it in public. He frightened her. She turned quite faint when he said it. He laughed at her and said that she knew what he might say, and she said she didn’t know-she didn’t know anything. She said, “I think that’s what frightened me. If I could have remembered, I wouldn’t have been so frightened. It’s not knowing, not being able to see. It’s like waking up in the night and not knowing where you are.” ’ He repeated the words, and they brought her close to him. He wasn’t in here with Miss Silver. He was out on the windy side of the hill. His arm was round her. He felt her tremble against him.
Miss Silver knitted. She knew very well where he was. She let him be there. Presently he began to speak again.
‘After a little she went on-telling me what he said. I don’t know whether he mistook her for somebody else, but what he said was, “Remember, we know who you are.” Then he said he’d got some orders for her. She wasn’t to tell anyone she’d seen him, or what he had said. And when she got her orders she was to do just what she was told, and at once. Then he said, “You’d better,” and turned round and went away.’
Miss Silver looked up.
‘She did not know him at all?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I see-’ She paused for thought.
Jim’s voice came in.
‘I can’t understand it-any of it. You know how it is. You’re near someone-very near. You know they’re speaking the truth. And when I say you know, I mean you really do know. There’s no guess work about it-there’s only one mind between you. Well, it was like that.’ He sat back in his chair.
Miss Silver inclined her head gently. She said, ‘I see.’
He went on.
‘And then all of a sudden there’s a complete break-you can’t get in touch with them any more. It’s plain hell. What happened-that’s what I keep on trying to get at. What could possibly have happened?’
Miss Silver knitted, in silence for a minute or two. Then she said, ‘It seems to me that there are two alternatives. One is that Anne has recovered her memory. We do not know what that memory may have shown her.’
‘Do you think that?’
‘I do not know. It is evident that something of an extremely disturbing nature occurred. Will you tell me just what happened between you?’
He told her.
She said, ‘The other alternative is that something happened after you left-something that made her decide to get away. Can you think of anything that she may possibly have learned?’
He said, ‘She went in a great hurry.’
He reminded her about the abandoned bag.
‘Then she had no money with her?’
‘None. As far as we know.’
There was another silence. Then Miss Silver said, ‘What sort of woman is your aunt?’
‘Lilian?’
‘If that is her name.’
‘There are two of them, Lilian and Harriet. Harriet is the younger. She is entirely taken up with local good works.’
‘The letter which was in Anne’s handbag was signed Lilian. What kind of woman is she?’
Jim stared.
‘I’ve never seen very much of either of them. State visits at intervals-you know the kind of thing. She’s not a brain. She is just a woman living in the country.’
In Miss Silver’s mind was a clear recollection of something which her friend at Haleycott had said about Lilian Fancourt-‘One of those women who haven’t got very much, but what they’ve got they stick to.’