Free Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth

stay either. Do you think you will?”
    Miss Silver was removing her black cloth coat. As she hung it up in the cheap plywood wardrobe she said in her temperate way,
    “That will depend a good deal upon you. I should not care to stay where I was not wanted. But I think your mother needs someone to help her.”
    Jennifer stamped her foot. She said with sudden passion,
    “If she doesn’t have someone she’ll die! I told him so! That’s why he got you! He wouldn’t like her to die! Because of the money! But she will if someone doesn’t help her!” She came at Miss Silver with a rush, not touching her but coming up close, her dark head on the same level, her eyes full of angry tears. “Why do you make me say things?”
    “My dear—”
    The child stamped again.
    “I’m not! And you needn’t think you can make me do things I don’t want to! Nobody can!” There was tragic intensity in the words.
    Before Miss Silver could make any reply, one of those quick rushes took Jennifer across the floor and out of the room. She was as light on her feet as a kitten, the darting flight was soundless. The door clapped to with a bang.
    Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” After which she removed her hat, changed into indoor shoes, and remembered that she had not ascertained the whereabouts of the bathroom. She was tidying her hair—an entirely superfluous action, since it was always perfectly under control—when the door was flung open again. Jennifer stood beyond the threshold, her head up, her look defiant.
    “The bathroom is next door. I thought I’d make you look for it—and then I thought I wouldn’t. Are you coming down?”
    “I thought that I would put my things away first.”
    Jennifer backed. She remained poised for a moment in the patch of light from the doorway. She said with a jerk in her voice,
    “You won’t stay—they never do!”
    And was gone.
    CHAPTER IX
    Seen in the light of a grey January morning, Deepe House had a very desolate and ruined look. The main block of the house showed plainly the bomb damage which it had sustained. Of the ornamental balustrade which had run the length of the roof only a few fragments survived, and no more than three of the windows in the whole façade still kept their glass, the rest had been roughly boarded up. These three windows, all on the ground floor, imparted a curious furtive look, as if the house were peering up from under the clogging weight of its two blind storeys. The courtyard between the two wings was slippery with moss. When the wind stirred, fallen magnolia leaves and droppings of ivy whispered against the stone flags with which it was paved.
    Even in the Craddocks’ wing not all the windows had glass in them.
    “It is too big for us,” Mrs. Craddock explained. “We could not furnish or keep so many rooms. But it will be nice when we can get the windows mended.”
    On the other side of the courtyard in the opposite wing all the windows were boarded up, the tenant using only those rooms which looked upon what had once been a garden. He was a Mr. Robinson, and Miss Silver gathered that he preferred seclusion and was addicted to bird-watching and nature-study. He could not be said to have a very extensive view, but if he desired privacy he had it. Dead grass stood knee-high amongst unpruned fruit trees. Roses gone back to briar contended with the wild raspberry and currant. Evergreens, some half dead, ran riot, with here and there a cypress grown to an immense height. There were dark patches of the churchyard yew. Miss Silver could see only the outer fringe of this wilderness, but the signs of ruin and neglect were unmistakable.
    At lunch she made bright conversation about the house.
    “A very interesting old place. It is sad to think how much irreparable damage was done during the war, but perhaps it is better to reflect with gratitude upon what has been spared.”
    Mrs. Craddock said, “Oh, yes.” Mr. Craddock, partaking of a lentil cutlet, said nothing at