“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.”