Will O’ the Wisp (12 page)

Folly came up to the table and touched the kettle with a wary finger.

“It's not very hot,” she said. “It couldn't possibly have burnt her.” She looked mischievously at Eleanor.

“It startled her. Betty's rather easily startled.”

“'M—
she is
,” said Folly with her hand on the kettle.

CHAPTER XV

Just a little later, when Folly was throwing out crumbs to the birds, Eleanor put a hand on her shoulder.

“Folly, will you come to the study for a moment? David wants to ask you something.”

In the study David was standing at the window with his back to the room. He did not turn round when they came in. Eleanor shut the door. Then she put her arm round Folly and said:

“David wants to know if you can help him. It's that thing you read at breakfast—the advertisement about Erica Moore. You said you'd heard the name before. Can you remember where you heard it?”

Folly shot one glance at Eleanor and then looked down.

“I've heard it,” she said. “Yes, I have.”

“Where have you heard it?”

“'M—I don't know.”

Eleanor looked anxiously at David; but David did not move.

“Folly—it's rather serious. Do try and remember.”

Folly flashed her another look, suspicious, defiant, and a little frightened.

“I can't—I don't know where I heard it. Why do you want to know?”

“Are you sure you know the name?”

“Yes, I was—when I read it, I was sure. It came, and it went”—she flicked her fingers in the air—“just like that. I read: ‘Erica Moore,' and I had a little lightning picture of knowing something about her; and then it was gone. Eleanor—what's the matter? Who is she? Why do you want me to remember? Who is Erica Moore?”

“My wife,” said David. He did not turn round, and his voice was hard and forced.

Folly gave a little gasp. It was so faint a sound that it did not reach David. For a moment all her weight came on Eleanor's arm.

Eleanor did not look at her. She waited till Folly said in a small choked whisper:

“David hasn't got a wife. Why did he say that?”

A feeling of acute distress swept over Eleanor. She was between David and Folly. If she had been alone with either of them, she could have found something to say. She felt Folly pinching her arm with hard, shaking fingers, and she heard Folly's voice say again very urgently:

“Why does he say it?”

It was David who answered. He gave an odd laugh and said:

“Because it's true.”

Folly let go of Eleanor and went back a step or two until she caught the edge of the writing-table and leaned against it.

“How is it true?” she said, staring at David's back.

Eleanor looked from one to the other. Then she spoke quickly:

“It is true, Folly. They were married in Australia; and on the way home the ship was wrecked, and David thought his wife was drowned. He had every reason to think so. And then the other day there was an advertisement in the Agony Column; it had David's initials, and it said, ‘Your wife is alive.'”

Folly threw up her head.

“There might be millions of people whose initials were D. F. Why should it be David?”

“It wasn't just D. F.; it was all his initials—D. A. St. K. F.—David Alderey St. Kern Fordyce.”

Folly's hands came together and clung. She didn't speak.

Eleanor said: “The advertisement you read was David's. We thought—”

She stopped with a bewildered feeling that she did not really know what they had thought or expected. Not this queer tangled thread which led to Folly—no, not that at any rate. She went on speaking because when the silence fell it fell so heavily:

“You see, if you know anything—if you can remember anything, it might be a great help.”

“I can't remember—it's gone.”

“Did you think you'd known her, or that you'd heard the name somewhere?”

“I didn't know her. It was just the name. I think I saw it—I think I saw it written—I think—”

Her voice stopped. She looked past Eleanor at David, who had not moved. After a long dragging minute she went to him and touched his arm. When he turned, she was there, close to him. She said:

“I can't remember. I'll try.”

She was very white.

“Don't try too hard. It's more likely to come back if you don't.”

“I did try—nothing came.”

“Stop trying, and it will probably come of itself.”

She nodded. Then, without another word, she turned and ran out of the room.

Eleanor, standing where Folly had left her waited to see whether David would speak. She felt a bewildered constraint. When David and Folly spoke to one another, it was as if they were speaking in a language which she did not know—so few words—such simple words; but they left her with the feeling that she had been listening to something which was not meant for her. There was a sense of strain, a sense of fear, as if the meaning which eluded her held something which would be terrifying if she could grasp it.

David was looking again into the dull grey mist which lay beyond the window at which he stood. It thickened continually, coming up like smoke between the trees; one moment they appeared as half-smudged impressions, and the next were blotted out of sight.

Eleanor became aware that she had nothing to say to David if David had nothing to say to her. She went softly out of the room and shut the door.

CHAPTER XVI

David was lunching at the other side of the county with a prospective client. Later in the day he telephoned to Ford to say that as the fog was getting worse every minute he would stay the night and go on up to town next morning.

Eleanor went back to London by an afternoon train, taking Folly with her. They did not speak of David or of his affairs. Folly, who had been gay and impudent at lunch, had a long silent fit, and hardly spoke at all. After dinner she stopped playing with Timmy, sat back on her heels, and said:

“I suppose David wrote and told you at once when he married that Erica person?”

Timmy, who had been left on his back, made an agile recovery, darted under a chair, and crouched for a spring.

Eleanor was vexed to find herself blushing.

“No—he didn't tell anyone.”

“I suppose he told his father,” said Folly in an accusing voice.

“No, he didn't.”

“Why didn't he?”

“It all happened so quickly. She was left stranded in Sydney.”

Folly gave a little laugh. Her small figure, in its straight, black frock, was stiff and upright. Timmy watched her with orange eyes; the tip of his tail twitched.

“I expect she took good care to be stranded where there was a man to pay the bills.”

“Folly! Don't! She's dead.”

“Is she? I thought she was alive. You can't have it both ways. If she's drowned, I'll say ‘Poor Erica!' in a proper funeral voice; but if she isn't drowned, then she's a horrid, designing cat who's just been waiting to
pounce
on David.”

At the word, uttered with great energy, Timmy pounced; a swift, furry rush carried him right up on to Folly's shoulder, where he was caught, slapped, and kissed.

Folly got off her heels and made a lap for him.

“Little serpent cat!” she said. “Eleanor, will you lend him to me to come out with me on my broomstick? He'd love it. You're a witch-kitten, aren't you, Timkins?—a bad, worst, wicked, furry-purry witchling?”

She cuddled him as she spoke, and he slipped purring into the sudden sleep of kittens, his head thrown back and a tip of pink tongue peeping out between white milk-teeth.

“Well?” said Folly. “Go on telling me about the Erica person. She married David, and she wouldn't let him tell anyone.”

“Folly, she was only sixteen and quite alone.”

Something looked out of Folly's eyes.

“When I was sixteen I knew a lot,” she said.

Eleanor did not doubt her. She went on hastily:

“David married her, and a few days afterwards they sailed on a ship that went down. David put Erica into the second boat, and it was never heard of again. He got away in the last one, and they were picked up next day. The second boat was never heard of at all.”

“Why didn't he tell anyone?”

“He didn't want to. And when he got home his father was dying.”

“He told Betty,” said Folly.

“No—he never told anyone till he told me the other day.”

Folly nodded.

“Betty knows—he must have told her.”

“He didn't.”

“Well, she knows. She jumped like anything when I read that out about Erica Moore—she jumped so that she upset the kettle, and she pretended she'd burnt her hand.”

“I don't see how she could know. David said she didn't. You know David and I were both frightfully taken aback when you suddenly said ‘Erica Moore'; and I expect Betty saw that there was something wrong. She's a nervous sort of creature.”

“She's a vinegar cat,” said Folly. “I hate vinegar cats. Timmy, my angel, if you grow up into a vinegar cat I shall drown you. I
will
. I shall take you broomstick-riding and drop you into a bottomless lake, and you'll be a good riddance of bad rubbish.”

She tickled Timmy under his chin and he mad a little growling sound in his sleep. Folly darted a look at Eleanor and resumed:

“Why did David have to marry the Erica person? Hadn't she got any relations? Who'd she been living with?”

“Her father in New Zealand. He died. She went to Sydney on the same boat as David—she was going to stay with an aunt. When she got there the aunt was dead.”

“And you believe all that?”

“It's what David told me.”

“Of course David believes it. She vamped him.”

“Folly, I really don't think—”

“Pouf! Of course she did! She vamped him, and she married him when he was all alone with no one to protect him; and then she pretended to be drowned. And now she's getting ready to pounce. Why should she go and advertise now? Tell me that.”

“I don't know,” said Eleanor disingenuously; but she blushed again.

“I do. I know quite well. She thought David was thinking about getting married, so she got ready to pounce.”

“Folly, wait a minute. It wasn't the first advertisement. There'd been one three years ago, and another last autumn year.”

Folly stared at her.

“It's mean,” she said. “It's like a snake. Why doesn't she write to David or come and see him?”

“Folly, I don't believe it's Erica—I can't. She was so young, and David was so good to her—and they hadn't quarrelled. Why should she do anything like that?

“Why should anyone?”

“I don't know. That's just it—I don't know. It's like being in a fog.”

“'M—” said Folly. “Didn't she have any relations that weren't dead? They might know something.”

“There was an aunt in England—her mother's sister. Erica didn't seem to know the address.”

Folly made a face.

“Can't David find her? What was her name? Who was she?”

“I think she let lodgings,” said Eleanor. “I think her name was Nellie Smith.”

“Ooh!” said Folly. She scrambled to her feet, upsetting the slumbering Timmy. “Ooh!” she said, and pressed a hand to each of her flushed cheeks. They burned like fire and her eyes sparkled. “I saw it! Ooh! I saw it quite clearly.”

“What, Folly? What?”

“Erica Moore—the name, you know. I've remembered! It came just like that—blip! And I saw it—her name all funny and neat on the next date to mine in Miss Smith's birthday book.”

“Oh,”
said Eleanor. “Folly, are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure—I'm always sure about things. It was Miss Smith, where George and I were in rooms just before I went out to India nearly three years ago. And she brought in her birthday book and said would I write my name in it? She was that sort, you know—birthday books, and woolly mats, and awful enlarged photographs of all her relations. And she said would I write my name, and then she would always pray for me on my birthday? She was a nice old thing really, so I wrote it on the twenty-fifth of June. And Erica Moore was on the twenty-sixth just under mine. And I said, ‘Who's that?' And she said, ‘It's my niece, my poor sister Chrissie's daughter.' And she told me a most awful long story about her poor sister Chrissie; but she didn't tell me a single word about Erica.”

Eleanor had turned quite pale. The fog was lifting; but what was behind it? She tried to speak steadily.

“Folly—have you got the address? Can you remember it?”

“Martagon Road—no, Martagon Crescent. It runs out of Martagon Road, and it's
much
more select. 16, Martagon Crescent, Bayswater.”

CHAPTER XVII

David reached his office at half-past ten next day. His secretary, Miss Barker, came in with his letters—a very efficient lady with sandy hair done in a bun and features which even David's Aunts considered respectable.

“Good-morning, Miss Barker.”

“Morning, Mr. Fordyce. A Mr. Wilde rang up yesterday—introduced by Mrs. Homer Halliday. He wants to build a house as a wedding present for a nephew—about three thousand. I made an appointment for three o'clock this afternoon. And a Miss Down rang up and said she wanted to see you personally, so I gave her ten forty-five. Oh, and Mrs. Rayne rang up a quarter of an hour ago. She said she'd ring you up later.”

David was opening his letters.

“Then Miss Down will be here directly. Did she say what she wanted?”

“No, she didn't say.”

Miss Down was shown in a few minutes later. David had an impression of an over-dressed person in crude, bright colours which did not match. She shook hands with a hard, nervous grasp, sat down with her back to the light, and broke into voluble speech: