Anna, Where Are You? (8 page)

Margaret Moray received Miss Silver’s letter at breakfast on the following day. It was a dark morning, and she took it to the window to get a better light. Then, still without opening it, she put it down before her husband. “What do you make of it, Charles?”

He gave it his frowning attention, asked to have the light switched on, and slanted the envelope towards it, flap uppermost.

“Well, I should say it had been opened.”

“So should I.”

She slit it carefully at the bottom end and read the innocuous missive aloud.

Charles Moray looked up from his porridge.

“What were you to do about it?”

“Let Frank Abbott have it, and send her a postcard to let her know whether we think it’s been tampered with. The postscript about the wool is the cue. If I was quite sure, I was to say, ‘How much of the wool do you want? I can get it all right.’ ” She hesitated a moment. “I don’t know that I can make it as definite as that.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Well, I thought I might say, ‘I think I can get the wool you want. Will find out for certain and let you know.’ I suppose they will be able to make sure at the Yard. Do you know, Charles, I do wish she hadn’t gone down there. I don’t like it a bit.”

Charles Moray didn’t like it either, but he wasn’t going to say so. Instead, he unfolded the rather lively newspaper with which he preferred to cheer his porridge and remarked in a carping tone that Beauty Queens got plainer every year.

Margaret came to look over his shoulder.

“Darling, what a frightful bathing-dress!”

“If you call it a dress! I shouldn’t! I wonder how much more she could leave off without getting arrested!”

She kissed the top of his head.

“I don’t know, darling—I’ve never thought it out. I do hope Michael isn’t being late for school. Betty will cut it too fine.”

Mrs. Moray’s postcard was duly delivered by Mr. Hawke next day. He was naturally aware that the new governess up at Deepe House was an indefatigable knitter, but he found himself unable to take a passionate interest in whether she could or could not get some particular kind of wool. And why write to London about it? Miss Weekes at the Fancy Stores in Dedham had a very good selection.

Meeting Miss Silver on his way up to the house, he imparted this information, adding,

“And Mrs. Hawke says it’s the best she’s seen for ever so long —quite pre-war, as you might say.”

He bicycled on to Deep End, pleased with his own kind thought and with Miss Silver’s pleasant response. And no harm in doing Miss Weekes a good turn neither, her sister Grace being married to a cousin of his own at Ledstow.

Miss Silver went rather thoughtfully back to the house with her postcard, which she made a point of showing to Mrs. Craddock.

“This special shade of pink is sometimes a little difficult, and it must be an exact match. Mrs. Moray was so kind as to say that she would do her best to get it for me.”

It was a little later that Jennifer came into the room. Since this was considered to be holiday time, Miss Silver had not attempted regular lessons, but was endeavouring to find things that would interest the children to hear about or to do. Maurice was working on a model engine, and what Maurice did Benjy of course must copy. In Jennifer she discovered a quick and sensitive response to poetry and drama. Some short one-act plays had been obtained, and all three children were rehearsing one of them. Already some pattern had been introduced into their days, and the first beginnings of order and punctuality instilled.

Jennifer came in now, said briefly, “Mrs. Masters wants to see you before she goes,” and then stood staring out of the window as Mrs. Craddock put down her mending and hurried out of the room.

Jennifer did not speak. She looked out at a graceful leafless tree, tracing its outline on the glass with the tip of her finger. Miss Silver, watching, was aware of the moment when she stopped thinking about the tree and the pattern which it made against the sky. Until that moment Jennifer’s thoughts had been lifted into an atmosphere of pure enjoyment—this lovely line and that, the way they crossed!, the way through all the crossing and turning that they sprang upward towards the light. And then all at once she didn’t see the tree or the sky any more. She saw her own hand spread out against the glass—a long, thin hand with the shape of the bones just showing through because a gleam of wintry sun was on the pane and its light made the flesh translucent.

It was when the sun came out that Jennifer stopped seeing the tree and began to stare at her hand. Looking on with interest and concern, Miss Silver was aware of a stiffening, a tension, an extraordinary concentration of the child’s whole being. She might have been looking at something repulsive, something horrible.

Miss Silver laid her knitting down upon her knee and said in her most matter-of-fact tone,

“Is there anything wrong with your hand, my dear?”

Jennifer whipped round, startled, angry.

“Why should there be?”

“I thought perhaps—you looked as if you were not very comfortable.”

“It’s just a hand, isn’t it? It’s just my own hand. Why shouldn’t I look at it if I like? There’s nothing wrong about looking at your own hand, is there?”

Miss Silver had taken up her knitting again. She said with a smile,

“Sometimes if you look too long at a thing it gets out of focus. It may even look like something else.”

Jennifer tossed back her dark untidy hair.

“Well then, it didn’t! It looked like a hand. It just looked like my own hand—see?”

When she turned round she had put her hands out of sight behind her back. Now she thrust them out at Miss Silver, staring not at them but at her.

“They’re just my hands—they couldn’t be anything else. I don’t know what you are talking about. They’re just my hands.”

Miss Silver continued to smile.

“And sadly dirty ones, my dear. It would be much easier for you to keep the nails clean if they were cut a good deal shorter. Your hands are a very nice shape. If you will allow me to cut your nails, you will not only find them much easier to keep clean, but a great deal pleasanter to look at.”

She thought there was the beginning of a shudder, but it was controlled. With an abrupt movement Jennifer turned away and went over to the bookshelf, where she stood fingering the books, pulling one out a little way and pushing it back again, taking another down and fluttering the pages. Presently she said in a discontented voice,

“They’re all as old as the hills. They belonged to the house. Did you know that? And the house used to belong to the Everlys. There aren’t any of them left now. Miss Maria Everly was the last of them, and she died before the war. She was ninety-six years old. This was her schoolroom, and these were her books. There aren’t any more Everlys. Old Mr Masters told me about them. He’s Mrs. Masters’ father-in-law— he lives in the cottage with the post-box on the wall. He remembers Miss Maria Everly. He says she was a terror, but a real lady for all that. He says there aren’t any left now—only bits of girls in breeches, and some that are old enough to know better. He’s a very interesting person to talk to—I like going down there and talking to him. Only sometimes—” She frowned and broke off.

“Sometimes what, my dear?”

“Oh, nothing, He won’t talk to everyone, you know—not about the Everlys. He says least said, soonest mended. You won’t say I talked about them, will you? Did you know all the furniture in this room belonged to the house? It was the schoolroom, and nobody bothered to have the things taken away. The good things were all sold, but He bought the rest when he bought the house.”

Since Jennifer never gave Mr. Craddock any name, the pronoun no longer surprised Miss Silver. She let it pass without comment.

Jennifer pulled out another book. “Ministering Children!” she said in a tone of scorn. “I hate them!”

Miss Silver, who was familiar with this pious classic, remarked mildly that there were fashions in books just as there were fashions in clothes.

“They talked differently a hundred years ago, just as they dressed differently, but I do not think that they were at all different in themselves.”

Jennifer rammed the Ministering Children back into their place.

“I hate them!” she said with emphasis. Then with a sudden and complete change of manner she turned round and came out with, “I saw Miss Tremlett, and I wasn’t quick enough, so she saw me. She says they’ve got a paying guest coming. And why can’t she just say lodger and have done with it? Paying guest is just nonsense, isn’t it? If you’re a guest you don’t pay, and if you pay you’re not a guest. That’s all there is about it, and I shall just go on saying lodger. Every time I meet them I shall say it— ‘How is your lodger today, Miss Elaine? How do you like your lodger, Miss Gwyneth?’ I wish I had said it to Elaine this morning. The lodger comes this afternoon, and they are going to give a party for her to meet everyone tomorrow. Gwyneth is taking the bus into Dedham this afternoon to buy cakes for it, and Elaine is going to make drop scones. And He will go, and I suppose you will too, but my mother won’t, because I shall make her lie down on her bed and rest. And I think it would be a good plan if I locked her in.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I do not think I should do that. It might alarm her very much.”

Something like a shadow went across Jennifer’s face. Her imagination had been pricked. She was thinking of being shut in—alone—in the dark. The scene sprang into view—hands beating on a locked door, shaking a fastened window—a voice sending out terrified screams—and at first they would be loud, and then choking, and then just a horrid whisper. And loud or soft, nobody would hear them. She stared at Miss Silver with dilated eyes and said in a shuddering voice,

“No—no—I won’t lock her in. Nobody ought to be locked in —really. It’s wicked!”

It was that evening after the children had gone to bed that the name of Mr. Sandrow emerged for the first time. Mr. Craddock was not present. His absence did not surprise Miss Silver, since he nearly always went away as soon as a meal was over, and often did not join the family at all. Sometimes Mrs. Craddock would load a tray and take it through to the main block where he had his study. The doors, one on each floor, which shut it off from the inhabited wing were kept locked, a precaution rendered necessary by the bombed state of the building. Mrs. Craddock would permit Jennifer, Maurice or Miss Silver to come with her as far as the locked door, but as soon as the key was turned and it had swung open she would take the tray and go through alone. The piece of passage disclosed was dark, dusty, and without other furniture than a small rough table upon which she could stand the tray whilst she locked the door behind her. Sometimes she merely put the tray down and returned immediately. Sometimes the door would be locked, and she would be absent for ten minutes or so. Every now and then she would repeat what she had said on the day of Miss Silver’s arrival—“Mr. Craddock is engaged upon a great work. He must not be disturbed.”

On this particular evening, as the two women sat by the schoolroom fire, the house was still and peaceful. Mrs. Craddock was patching Benjy’s shorts, whilst Miss Silver, her knitting laid aside, was engaged in filling up two gaping holes in one of Maurice’s jerseys. There had been a companionable silence for a time, when Mrs. Craddock gave a little sigh and said,

“It makes such a difference when there is someone to share the mending.”

Miss Silver gave her small prim cough.

“Did not Miss Ball or Miss Dally help you with it?”

“Oh, no.” There was another sigh. “They really were not very much help. Miss Dally had no idea—she liked young men and parties. Of course she was quite young, so I suppose it was natural. And Miss Ball—I really was quite glad when she went. She seemed to dislike me, and that is a very uncomfortable feeling.”

“And quite uncalled for, since I am sure you were all kindness to her, as you have been to me.”

Mrs. Craddock sighed again.

“Oh, I don’t know. Of course it was dull for her. But then there was Mr. Sandrow—I have always wondered if anything came of that. But of course he didn’t come again, and she never wrote—”

With no more than an absent-minded interest in her voice, Miss Silver said,

“Mr. Sandrow?”

Emily Craddock said, “Yes.” Her fingers smoothed the grey flannel patch, her needle took a stitch and halted. “I sometimes wondered whether we ought to have mentioned him, but Mr. Craddock said it wasn’t our business. I don’t know how old she was—but not a very young girl—she may have had her own reasons. Mr. Craddock thought we had no right to interfere.”

“Had you any reason to suppose that she went away with this Mr. Sandrow?”

Emily looked startled.

“Oh, no—of course not. I only thought— She didn’t write, but then why should she? She was only here for such a short time, and she didn’t like us—there was really no reason. But she didn’t write to her friends either. Someone came down only the other day to make enquiries. She hadn’t any relations, I believe, but there was a friend who was worried at not hearing from her. Only people don’t always write, do they, and she may not have wanted to keep up with her friend. She was a moody sort of girl.”

“The friend was trying to trace her?”

“Oh, yes. Someone came down—from the police, I think, only not in uniform. But of course there wasn’t anything we could say.

Miss Silver was picking up run-down stitches on Maurice’s left sleeve, using a darning-needle in a very expert manner. She paused for a moment to look at Emily Craddock and say,

“And now you feel that you ought to have spoken of Mr. Sandrow?”

“There was so little to say,” said Emily in a distressed voice. “I only saw him once—quite at a distance, and it was getting dark. There was a car at the gate, and I just saw him stop and drive on again. She had been out for the afternoon, you know. We walked up the drive together, and she had that excited way with her, but when I asked her whether her friend wouldn’t have come in she changed and said no, he didn’t like a crowd.”

“How extremely rude.”

“Yes, I thought so. And then she laughed and said quite angrily, ‘Two is company, isn’t it?’ She didn’t say any more, and I didn’t like to. Her tone was really quite rude.”

“But she told you his name?”

Emily had her startled look.

“No—no—I don’t think she did. I think it must have been somebody else—perhaps one of the children.”

“She spoke of him to the children?”

“I think she must have done—because of the name… Yes, it was Jennifer, because I thought it sounded as if it might be Italian—Sandro, you know. But she said it wasn’t. She said it was R O W.”

Miss Silver remarked in a meditative voice,

“If Miss Ball was so reserved about her affairs, it seems strange that she should have talked to Jennifer.”

“Oh, I don’t know. We had a governess when I was twelve, and she told me all about being engaged to a young man who was a missionary in China. When you are in love with someone you do want to talk about them. I think the children may have teased her about his being Italian, and that made her explain that he wasn’t and tell them how the name was really spelt.”

“Did they ever see him?”

“I don’t think so. Jennifer did say he was very goodlooking, but I think that was only what Miss Ball had told her. I think Elaine Tremlett saw him once—or perhaps it was Gwyneth. She said he had red hair, which doesn’t sound at all Italian, does it?”

“Did Miss Ball see much of him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She used to slip out in the evenings—it was one of the things I didn’t like. And people talked.”

Miss Silver reflected that they had not talked to Detective Inspector Abbott. It became apparent that Emily Craddock had told all she knew about Mr. Sandrow. Anna Ball had neither said where he came from nor how long they had known each other. After that momentary outburst in the dark drive she had gone back into her silent antagonism, and a few days later had taken her departure, a good deal to Emily Craddock’s relief.

“I did try to be nice to her,” she said in her plaintive voice. “We didn’t like her, but we did try. We gave her a red hat.”

“A red hat?”

“Mr. Craddock thought it would cheer her up,” said Emily.