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Title: Not Exactly GhostsAuthor: Andrew Caldecott* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 1403341h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: December 2014Most recent update: December 2014Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg AustraliaLicence which may be viewed online.
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A Room in aRectory
Branch Line to Benceston
Sonata in D Minor
Autoepitaphy
The Pump in Thorp's Spinney
Whiffs of the Sea
In Due Course
Light in the Darkness
Decastroland
A Victim of Medusa
Fits of the Blues
Christmas Re-union
1
Narrow in bounds, but wide in variety, the garden of TilchingtonRectory was one of the most beautiful in the South Country. It layin a hollow, some four to five chains broad, down the middle ofwhich ran a small and clear brook marked on the ordnance map as R.Tilch, but beloved of its riparians as, simply, our stream. Forhalf of its course through the Rectory grounds the little river wasimpounded by successive dams to form three pools. The two upper ofthese provided easy watering for vegetables, while thethird—into which a waterfall splashed between two clumps ofbamboo under overhanging fronds ofOsmunda fern—wasthe central and distinctive feature of the flower garden. On eitherside were sloping lawns and to the north of it stood the Rectoryhouse, mainly in the Georgian architecture, but partlyVictorianised by plate-glass windows. From the third pool, thestream cascaded down through a rock garden to the level of itsnatural bed, along which it dimpled and chattered by the side ofthe gravelled carriage drive, past rose-garden and orchard, untilit slipped away from the rectory precincts, over a stone sill setin a small arch beneath the boundary wall. All this description hasto be in the past tense, because the Ecclesiastical Commissionershave since sold both parsonage and glebe, and, for all that thewriter knows, the fell hand of the improver may have fallen uponhouse, garden and rivulet.
That future rectors of Tilchington would need to live in humblerand less lovely environment never entered the mind of the presentincumbent as, on the 17th June, 1900, from a deck-chair on thefurther lawn, he gazed across ornamental water and flower bedstowards a small shrubbery at the eastern end of the house where hehad just finished clipping some too exuberant Portugal laurels. Henow surveyed the result of his labour with something of thatsatisfaction which the author of Genesis ascribes to the Creator,who, looking upon his creation, saw that it was good. The ReverendNigel Tylethorpe was, and appeared, a fortunate and happy young manof thirty or so: happy in his ancestry, in his inheritance from alately deceased great-uncle of a comfortable financial competency,in education, in mental endowment, in physical looks, in athleticprowess and (for the living of Tilchington was worth over eighthundred a year) in early ecclesiastical preferment. Nor was hisparish less fortunate in him than he in Tilchington. Mr Bugles,sexton and verger, had given words to general opinion when heremarked to the People's Warden at the flower show that 't'newparson be the sort of man as'll do us good without usnoticing.'
From the shrubbery the Reverend Nigel's eyes passed, with aforeboding of more clipping to be done on the morrow, to theclimbers on the house itself. Of these there was a profuse variety:a japonica, wistaria, jasmine, roses and two kinds of ampelopsis.An intrusion into their midst, which he did not admire, was arectangular patch of thickly-set ivy, which rather ostentatiouslyconcealed a shuttered window on the ground floor. A slight frownflitted across the young man's face, and the pruning shearschattered impatiently in his hand as scissors do in a barber's. Hewould undoubtedly need to have a final battle with his housekeeperover that silly business of the disused room. Miss Roberta Pristinhad served his predecessor for more years than the delicateconventions governing a woman's age would allow her to admit. Athis death she had, with persuasive humour, asked Mr Tylethorpe totake her over with the rest of the Rectory fixtures. Except forthis one matter of the locked room he did not regret having doneso. A bachelor requires quasi-maternal attention, and Miss Pristinwas quasi-maternal without being unduly familiar.
The young rector's thoughts were temporarily diverted from thismatter of the empty room by the quarter chime of a clock in hisdining-room, the french windows of which lay wide open. In anotherfifteen minutes, at half-past six, he would read the evening officein the chancel of his church, and so he must have a quick wash andbrush up after his gardening. The next we see of him, therefore, isfive minutes later as he passes across the narrow paddockseparating rectory from churchyard. Mention may be found in morethan one architectural handbook of the treasures and oddities of StBotolph's, Tilchington: the twelfth-century frescoes, the longtunnel-like hagioscope, the Early English colonnade set on Normanpiers and capitals, the narrow chancel arch with remains of screenand rood, etcetera. Nineteenth-century restoration had beenunusually discriminative and restrained; so much so that the westend of the building had been left just as it emerged from thedemolition of a large and ugly gallery. To regulate the light atthe turn of the staircase, now no more, to this gallery a narrowlancet window in the western wall of the south aisle had beenwalled up and replaced at a higher level by a wood-framed,square-paned window of domestic pattern. The retention by therestorers of a sacred edifice of so secular a feature may have beendue to the fact that the glass, though not stained, had receivedsuperficial pigmentation and bore a spirited, if unusual,representation of St Michael vanquishing the Prince of Evil.
Mr Tylethorpe resented the survival of a window so completelyout of period with the rest of the church and, having read theoffice and re-hung his surplice in the vestry, he walked down thesouth aisle with intent to visualise what would be the effect ofwalling it up and re-opening the lancet window, should thenecessary money and faculty be forthcoming. From such generalobservation, he proceeded to particular examination of theoffending feature. There were nine panes, each one foot square, ina main frame of three by three; and the artist had had to disposehis figures accordingly. The top middle pane displayed the haloedhead of Michael; the one below it his body; and the nethermost hisfeet planted firmly upon the prostrate form of Satan, whose proudand rather beautiful head projected from a scaly saurian body. Bycomparison the visage of the victorious archangel seemedcommonplace and slightly bovine. The remaining panes on either sideof the central three were taken up with Michael's wings above andwith flames emanating from his trampled adversary below. In the twobottom corners, right and left, small oblong frames bore thelegends 'Anno 1798' and 'Rev. xii. 7' respectively.
As Mr Tylethorpe glanced at these inscriptions a sudden brightbeam from the westering sun flashed through the oblongs anddisclosed to his view some very faint writing which a moment beforehad been invisible. The characters under 'Anno 1798' looked like'NICOLAS PHAYNE PINXIT', and those under the biblical citation as'YE TRIUMPH OF AUTHORITIE OVER INTELLIGENCE'. It took the Rectorbut a moment to realise that they had been imprinted by a die orstamp held upside down; unless, indeed, the writing wasintentionally antipodean.
'So it really was him,' muttered the Rector ungrammatically as,standing before the carved list of former incumbents on a panel inthe porch, he picked out the name of Nicolas Fayne, 1796-1801. Fromthe porch to a tiny triangle of ground between a large yew tree,the south wall of the graveyard and the swing-gate at itssouth-west corner took but a minute of his homeward walk. Hereagain on a flat, heavy, horizontal tomb-slab level with thesurrounding grass stood out the name of Nicholas Phaine ('Whycouldn't he stick to one spelling?' grumbled the Rector); and,beneath it, the words: 'Found Dead January 27th MDCCCI.' So villagetradition had been proved right about that window. Perhaps it mightnot be far wrong on one or two other points? The triumph ofauthority over intelligence, indeed! No wonder the inscription wasall topsy-turvy: just as well that it had become illegible. Mentalderangement was, of course, the most charitable, as it was the mostrational, explanation.
The boom of his dinner gong reverberating across the paddockrecalled the Rector from speculative reconstuctions of parochialhistory to a pleasantly certain anticipation of the imminentrepast. He had a good cook and a good cellar.
2
In conversation with his housekeeper after breakfast nextmorning Mr Tylethorpe declared an immediate intention to inspectthe vacant room. Remembering previous parleys on this subject hefelt some surprise that she expressed neither remonstrance norapprehension.
'Very well, sir; and, of course, you'll need the key. I alwayskeep it in this drawer; yes, here it be.'
On his way down the passage, he examined the wooden tab by whichshe had handed it to him. On it was neatly cut in capitalletters:
SERMON CHAMBER
RE-OPENED 1858
and underneath in his predecessor, Mr Hempstede's, handwritingappeared in faded ink the injunction: 'Keep Locked'. The key turnedreadily in the keyhole; for, so long as Miss Pristin had been incharge, the room had been subject to a weekly sweeping. 'An emptyplace'll always get dirt from somewhere,' she used to say; 'whatwith rats and all.' With no inlet or outlet for ventilation otherthan the chimney, the Rector had expected the chamber to smellfusty and musty: he was relieved, therefore, to find its air notunduly oppressive, and proceeded to light the candle which he hadbrought with him for purposes of inspection. Only two thin streaksof daylight penetrated the shuttered and ivied window. Thedimensions were commodious enough—some twenty footsquare—for the library or study which he so badly required.That all his reading and writing should be done in a dark corner ofthe dining-room, subject to the many interruptions inseparable froma punctual preparation and removal of meals, was fair neither tohimself nor to the congregation that had to listen to discoursescomposed under such conditions. Carefully pacing the distancebetween the side walls and the central projection of fireplace andchimney in the southern wall he was gratified to find that his twoglazed bookcases would exactly fit the recesses. The ceiling wouldrequire re-plastering; the walls, papering; and much of the floor,re-planking. The wainscot was rotten and must be replaced. A modernfireplace and mantelpiece were also desiderata, if he could affordthem, as he thought he could. Gently locking the door behind him MrTylethorpe manifested his satisfaction with what he had seen byswinging the key wheel-wise by its tab and string as he returned,whistling, down the passage.
'I wonder, Miss Pristin,' he remarked as he gave it back to her,'whether you would tell me all you know about that room. You'vehinted at certain things, you know!'
'I can only tell, Sir, as I've already told; nor do I know nomore. Him as was took in there, more nor a hundred year ago, isburied up by t' church yew, in that parcel of weeds as was neverholied, they say. Nobody cared to bide where he were took, so theybricked up door and window and t' room had no hole to it for nighsixty year. Then come old parson Witacre and set it open again; butfor all he called it his "sermon chamber" no sermon did parsonWitacre ever preach; for he had impeditations in his speech, andhad to hire a guinea curate over from Frampton for to read servicewhenever unavoidable. My dear late master, 'e come next; and howlong it was afore he give order to lock up t' room I don't rightlyknow: but locked it were what time I come to him and ever after. Imind, Sir, one of them early days asking him to let me use it forlinen and what not; but "No," he says; and "Why not?" say I."Roberta," he answers, that kind and solemn as were always his waywith me, "It is wiser to learn from precept than by suffering. Youleave that room alone." Them were his words; and leave it alone Iever have, and will; except, of course, for the cleaning which isnext to godliness and therefore done regular. That's all I know,Sir, and make of it what you will: but he were a wise and good man,were my late master; and "Leave it alone," he says, "for it bebetter to learn from precept than by suffering." Them were hiswords.'
The Rector smiled upon his housekeeper with condescendingbenevolence: 'Thank you very much, Miss Pristin. I do not of coursequestion for a moment Mr Hempstede's decision to keep the apartmentlocked and in permanent disuse. In such matters each must begoverned by his or her conscience and discretion. I myselfnaturally mislike the idea of associating the performance of anywork pertaining to my sacred office with the reputed scene of amysterious and violent death. I have, however, analysed my distasteand discovered it to be rooted in sentiment rather than reason; andit would be clearly wrong in me to allow sentiment to acquire theappearance, if not indeed the nature, of superstition. I shall,therefore, take immediate steps to have the room restored andredecorated; and, although I shall certainly not allude to it bythe name of sermon chamber, I intend to use it for writing mysermons and for reading. I have no doubt that your late master, ifhe were here with us today—and who shall say that he isnot?—would appreciate my reasoning and applaud my decision.And by the way, Miss Pristin, don't forget to serve butter with thebaked potatoes.'
On his way to the dining-room, the Reverend Nigel's consciencesmote him for having been what he could not remember having everbeen before: pompous and polysyllabic; quite eighteenth-century, infact! Arrived at his desk he promptly penned a note to MessrsBurnidge & Hesselton, Builders and Decorators, of Minton Road,Trentchester, asking them to send a representative to adviseregarding certain points of interior decoration contemplated by himat Tilchington Rectory. Within ten days the representative hadcome, inspected, advised, estimated, quoted, and eventually carriedaway in his pocket what he represented to his employers as 'quite atidy little order'.
To the Rector's keen disappointment the repair and refurbishingof the room took no less than three months, although Burnidge &Hesselton's young man had indicated a maximum period of five weeks.There was not merely delay, but delay from unpleasant causes.Language used by the foreman plasterer, however interesting for acertain archaism and singularity, was nevertheless such as MrTylethorpe could not let pass without complaint. That the foremanregularly officiated as cross-bearer at the ritualistic church ofSt Terence, Trentchester (although pleaded in extenuation by itsscandalised Vicar) seemed insufficiently explanatory of hisvocabulary or of its unrestricted use in a country rectory. Fromthis time forward there unhappily came about a distance and acoolness between Father Prodnose and Mr Tylethorpe. The nextuntoward incident was the infliction of corporal chastisement bythe paperhanger on his 'holiday apprentice', as he described a veryyouthful assistant. This in due course brought to Tilchington oninvestigatory visits an inspector of the Royal Society forPrevention of Cruelty to Children and a minor official' of thePaperhangers' Union. All such events wasted time; but whatirritated the Rector beyond endurance was Miss Pristin's attitudeof obvious unconcern towards what might be going forward, or notgoing forward, in the room under repair. If only she would quotehis predecessor's injunction to 'leave the room alone', inreference to the present hindrances, he had his retort—and avery waspish one—ready for her. But she gave him no openingwhatever for conversation in the matter, and it became annoyinglyclear to him that the effect of Mr Hempstede's words on her simplebut strong mind had been to place the room outside her range ofthought or observation. It just did not exist for her; and MrTylethorpe felt as though he could have tolerated anything moreeasily than such total disinterest. It was perhaps well for bothrector and housekeeper that, in mid-September, the former left forten days holiday in Scotland, and did not return until the lastweek of that month when the room had been finished and the workmengone.
He had left behind him a plan showing the disposition offurniture in his new study, and he was, therefore, able to ensconcehimself in it on the very evening of his arrival, as soon as he hadtaken supper. A roaring fire of Welsh coal provided pleasantcontrast to the equinoctially blusterous night without. Itsreflection on ceiling, bookcases, armchairs, large writing-table,curtains and pictures suffused a general sense of cosiness andcomfort. Mr Tylethorpe was specially pleased with the two pictures,the framing of which had been his last order before leaving forScotland. They were not his own, but belonged to the church, beingthe largest of a series of water-colour drawings by an artistmember of the Southshire Archaeological Society that had been keptrolled up in the iron chest which protected the parish registers.The one above the fireplace was a reproduction—one thirtieththe size of the original—of the Doom fresco above the chancelarch; while that on the opposite wall was a full-size replica ofthe picture painted on the square window, already described, in thesouth aisle. As the firelight alternately flickered and faltered,the face of the nether figure in the latter started into life and,as quickly, relapsed into a flat gloom. Its beauty in the originalhad not been lost in the copying, but the water-colour artist hadintroduced into its expression the vestige of a smile; faint, itwas true, but sufficient to negative (what the subject soessentially demanded) an appearance of utter defeat and despair inthe vanquished. The figure of the archangel, on the other hand,retained all the stolidity of its prototype in the window; and,from where the Rector now viewed the picture, it appeared almost asthough St Michael, in the repletion of victory, had allowed hiseyes to close in sleep. Mr Tylethorpe felt much inclined to dolikewise, for the grouse had been well hung and well cooked and hisuncle's port better than any he had drunk on holiday. 'Bother you,Mike,' he apostrophised the angel, somewhat irreverently; 'it'syour beastly festival that keeps me from enjoying my armchair: butI simply must finish my Michaelmas sermon.'
Refilling his pipe, he sat down at the writing-table to thenotes which he had jotted down in the train. 'Why, to be sure,' helooked again towards the figures on the wall, 'I've dealt with onlyone side of the picture. I must fill in the other. For the nextfifteen minutes his pen travelled over the paper rapidly andwithout pause: then, thrusting his notes into a drawer, he rose tohave a look at his books. The older, calf-bound volumes of hisuncle's collection made an odd miscellany: for instance, that setofAnnual Registers, could there be anything still readablein them? He picked out one at random and sank sumptuously into anarmchair. 'The Year's Poetick Review' looked promising, but thelaureate flatulence of Pye quickly disgusted him. Here, however,was something more crisp and terse; and, by Jove, the very thing toround off the end of his sermon! He had read through the linesthree times, admiring their relevance to the theme of hisdiscourse, when the book slipped to the floor with a bang. What!Surely he had not fallen asleep? No: obviously not, because he hadmemorised the verses perfectly and would now write them down. Heresumed his seat at the table for that purpose and soon had them onpaper. But did the first line of the last verse begin, 'So sleepnot' or 'So be not'? He had better verify. This should have beeneasy enough, for he had not yet replaced the volume in thebookcase. Three times he went through 'The Poetick Review', thethird time page by page; but the verses eluded re-discovery. Nevermind! He had noted them down with sufficient accuracy for a pulpitquotation, and it was now quite time for bed: no need to bemeticulous.
He placed a guard against the grate, turned down thereading-lamp, and, carrying a candle, stayed at the door for aparting look at his new-found cosiness. The fire still glowed, andthe room seemed loath for him to go. He quite envied the shadowcast by the fire-screen on the further armchair; it seemed so toenjoy the red leather upholstery. As a coal fell and flared, itappeared indeed to assume a momentary substantiality. 'Good night,'said the Rector. If he had thought of it, that was the first timehe had ever bidden good night to a shadow. But he was not thinking:long railway journeys are so dreadfully tiring.
3
Nigel Tylethorpe, though no orator, was by no means a badpreacher. This was because he took trouble to think of what he wasgoing to say and to give his thoughts a clear and conciseexpression. Mr Bugles as usual was representative of majorityopinion among the congregation when he remarked 'as how parson'ssermons be well cooked and served up right-like, neither too warmnor too cold.' Many of his listeners however felt the peroration ofhis Michaelmas homily to have an unpleasant temperature: the sortof heat in fact that gives a chill. Having in the earlier stages ofthis discourse dilated upon the celestial ministry of angels (theirservice in heaven, errands upon earth, and vigil over mankind), theRector suddenly changed his tune to a minor key and gave to some ofits chords a distinctly ugly modulation. Just as all good wasimpersonated in the Deity, so was all evil impersonated in theDevil. Analogous to the Former's army of angels were the blackcohorts of the latter. People had become accustomed to acomfortable and one-sided belief in guardian angels, but when theaverage man spoke of his evil genius did he realise that he wasnaming a companion equally constant and quite as personal? It wasnecessary that all should face facts; especially elemental facts.To deny or ignore the emissaries of the Evil One was to provoketheir attentions. With the eye of the spirit he felt that he coulddetect unbidden visitants among his congregation at that moment.They were about to sing hymn No. 335. Why the compilers ofHymnsAncient and Modern had placed it among their selections 'Forthe Young' he did not know. Perhaps it was because the wordspresented only one side, of a picture whose other side Age,preferring to pretend blindness thereto itself, must logically hidefrom the eyes of Youth. Opportunely enough, continued the Rector,he had recently come across in an old book certain verses whichwould serve to supplement the hymn and enable them to conceive theangelic and demonic ministries in a comparative and correctperspective. He thereupon recited the lines which he had memorisedfrom his reading of theAnnual Register. They ran asfollows:
Around the mouth of Hell a band
Of fearful fiends for ever stand;
Their bat-like bodies tense and stark,
And on their heads the Beast's foul mark.
These, should some Holy One draw near
With store of love to give us cheer,
All-spoiling Satan with quick shout
Bids intercept and thrust him out.
On ev'ry Seraph in the sky
Keeps watch below a demon spy:
Doth angel guard thee overhead?
Two devils lurk beneath thy bed!
So sleep not swordless, nor confide
Too much to them of Michael's side;
Lest, when the door of death is slammed,
Thou find thyself among the damned.
Mr Tylethorpe had read in novels of people undergoing thesensation of seeming to witness their own speech and behaviour froma detached and exterior angle. Such a strange psychologicalexperience was his at this moment. In the concluding part of hissermon the feeling was unmistakable: he listened to himself withgrowing surprise and disapproval. He misliked the lines that hequoted and, now that the hymn was being played over, he realisedwith a shock that (although to appear in theAnnual Registerthey must have been written more than a century ago) they soundednevertheless like a Satanic parody of the more modern verses theywere about to sing. Others perhaps felt similarly; for the choirseemed half-hearted and in the middle of the last verse the blowerlet all the wind out of the organ. It was altogether a dismalperformance and, helping after service to count the collection inthe vestry, Mr Bugles was not quite his natural self.
'Them was true words as you uttered just now, sir; and asSolomon said, there be nought nastier than truth.'
'But where did Solomon write that, Bugles?'
'I don't rightly know, sir, for I mind my grandfather's tellingas how it were one of his unrecorded sayings. They were wonderfulwise men, was Solomon and my grandfather.'
As he walked down the churchyard path on his way back to theRectory Mr Tylethorpe noted that such of his flock as he overtook,responded to his 'good evening' with a more than usual deference.Or was it apprehension?
The self-surprise which his Michaelmas sermon awoke in the youngRector yielded before long to a growing interest in what had beenits subject-matter. The fallen angels were seldom absent from histhoughts. Milton'sParadise Lost assumed a more goetic thanpoetic value for him, and he would sonorously declaim Tartareanpassages from it in the pulpit.
There was only one conventicle of dissent in Tilchington, andthis belonged to Mr Nehemiah Gattle, owner of a small marketgarden. It owned no allegiance or affiliation to any of the freechurches, but had been started for the spiritual government of MrGattle by Mr Gattle for Mr Gattle. Nevertheless it had attractedthe more or less regular attendance of twenty or so free-lancereligionists who, now that 'Hell was preached proper at thechurch', deserted Mr Gattle for Mr Tylethorpe. In vain did theformer expostulate that at 'The Unsectarian Mission Hall' he hadalways preached an honest Protestant devil, and that the Rector'sdemons were dirty Romish impostors whom Satan would scorn torecognise. The names of Samael and Asmodai fell like magic music onthe bucolic ear and, as the Reverend Nigel's library on his new petsubject increased in quantity and diversity, a growing congregationwould listen open-mouthed and enraptured to the legend of Lilithand other apocryphal narrations. A discourse on Isaiah xxxiv, 14,evoked an uneasy thrill; and another, upon the first six verses ofChapter ii of Job, was imaginative rather than exegetic. Even onChristmas Day the Rector focused his remarks on the astromancy ofthe Magi instead of on the sublime purpose of their journey: thesorcery of Simon Magus was somehow dragged into this untimelydisquisition.
It was unfortunate for Mr Tylethorpe that there was no big housein Tilchington. The admonitions of a plain-speaking squire mighthave pulled him up at the brink whereon he now stood. As it was,the only person of any social position in the parish besideshimself was a Mr Adrian Gribden, a letter from whom to an oldcollege friend, written in January 1901, will throw light upon ourstory.
MY DEAR SMITH
I am so sorry you could not come for the New Year. There is littlenews to tell you, except that our worthy (?) incumbent intrigues memore and more. He is, believe me, surely and not slowly convertingthis countryside to a pseudo-mediaeval demonolatry. Those sermons Itold you about in my last letter were in the nature of directapproaches to Manichaeism. Last Sunday he succeeded in being evenmore corruptive by prompting an undesirable reference to the OldTestament. You may remember that under a bequest of old MissHardham every seat in St Botolph's is provided with a copy of theBible and Apocrypha. They are seldom opened, but there was anaudible turning of leaves when Tylethorpe, preaching on theprodigal son, remarked that those of us who remembered thetwenty-eighth chapter of the first book of Samuel, and especiallythe twenty-fourth verse, would realise that the return of theprodigal was not the only return associated in Holy Writ with aslaughter of the fatted calf. The result of this reference was ofcourse that every one of his listeners, from old Bugles down to thenewest joined choir-boy, was quickly reading how the witch of Endorbrought up the shade of Samuel from the grave. This continualharping upon the sinister and occult cannot be good for anybodyand, if I mistake not, Tylethorpe himself begins to show nervousstrain. For instance, he keeps turning to look behind him in anunpleasantly odd and furtive fashion and has taken to preaching notfrom the front of the pulpit but with his back to the wall at itsside; just as though he feared that somebody might look or leanover his shoulder. This attitude so impressed me on Sunday that Ifound myself half expecting to see him suddenly propelled forwardby some invisible and unwelcome agency! But enough of thisnonsense. Do try to get down for a week-end soon. They have put ona good afternoon train leaving town at 4.23, if you cannot managethe 12.57.
Yours sincerely,
A. GRIBDEN
The concluding sentences of this letter represent Mr Tylethorpein transition from the first stage of his soul's malady to thesecond; from the active and enjoyed pursuance of a morbid interestto a passive and involuntary obsession by it. Before, however, wepass to the second phase, let us take a peep into his study towardsthe close of the first. He has again taken from his bookcase avolume of theAnnual Registers, and it has again droppedfrom his hands during a perusal of the 'Poetick Review'. Asleep?No, hardly; because, as on a former occasion, he has memorised thelines he was reading. Can he find the page again? Bother it, no.Anyhow, he can jot them down from memory, and he does so. Noauthorship was subscribed, and he will send them tomorrow to the'literary inquiry column' of theCommentator foridentification. Here are the lines:
Down the chasms of the night
Flashed a comet, purple-bright,
Prone upon whose lambent tail
Clung an angel deathly pale.
All the heaven cried for shame
When was read the angel's name,
The dear sad name of Zadyra.
Fairest of all angels he
Had gazed upon the crystal sea;
Saw his image mirrored there
And cried, 'I am than God more fair!'
Which hearing, Uriel
Flung him from sky to hell.
The coward moon
Sank seaward in a swoon:
But the brave sun,
Seeing what deed was done,
Rode forth to shine on other worlds afar,
To us becoming no more than a star,
Because of what was wrought on Zadyra.
Nor was the Earth unchanged:
Great shapes arose and ranged
Along the mountain sides; but no man saw
What these forms were: for there was light no more.
Neither the literary staff of theCommentator nor any ofits readers proved able to trace the authorship of these lines, noreven to elucidate the name Zadyra.
4
The second, some might call it the hallucinative, stage of MrTylethorpe's decline started with his suspicion, which rapidlyripened into conviction, that he was not in sole occupancy of hisnew study. A succession of dreams, each of which came to him whileresting in one of the big armchairs, left him in no doubt as to whowas sharing it. So vivid was the first dream that he would havemistaken it for reality but for two things. The first was that,though he was seated facing the fire, his view of the room was asthough he were standing with his back to it. The second was thatthe furniture had become entirely different from that which he hadso recently chosen and installed. In his dream the window wasclosely shuttered but not curtained, and the floor was uncarpeted.Under the far wall was a long and deep chest, the size and shape ofa church altar. On the door side of the room were two cases ofshelves, the one filled with books and manuscripts and the otherwith what looked like laboratory equipment. At a large and untidywriting table in the bow window sat a black-habited figure, engagedapparently in limning some design on a pane of glass. Against oneof the table legs leant a nine-light wooden window frame, whoseshape and dimensions Mr Tylethorpe at once recognised as those ofthe window in the south aisle of St Botolph's. On the table infront of the artist was propped a looking-glass into which heappeared to keep peering, and at his side lay a sketch in charcoalof an angel. As the dreamer surveyed this scene its central figureturned slowly from the table and looked him full in the face.
The features were both beautiful and familiar. They were in factthose of Lucifer in the church window. 'So that was Phayne'sself-portrait, was it?' ejaculated the Rector aloud, and therebywoke himself from the dream. Thenceforward, however, he lived intwo rooms instead of one and, in both the dream room and the real,Nicolas Phayne lived with him. He thought and thought upon thissinister predecessor of his. Had anybody ever before so identifiedhimself with the Evil One as to impersonate him in a self-portrait?It seemed a dangerously wicked thing to have done, and still morewicked was it to have perpetuated this impersonation in the windowof a consecrated building confided to his charge. These and similarreflections probably caused the dream to repeat itself; for repeatitself it did, three or four times, and except in one smallparticular without variation. This one little change consisted inan appearance behind Phayne's back of visible disquiet in the air.It reminded the Rector of that peculiar crinkling of a view seenthrough waves of intense heat. He remembered in particular havingonce looked up at the sky above the open flue of a brick-kiln andseeing just such a rippling or disquiet interposed between him andthe clouds. The only distinction was that the focus of disquietbehind Phayne was not amorphous but took roughly the shape of afigure, though without differentiation of limbs and parts. The lasttime that this dream was repeated Phayne, or rather the appearanceof him, seemed for the first time to be conscious of somethingastir behind him. At first he made motions with his hands as thoughto brush away a gnat or moth, but finally he jerked round suddenlyand saw. Mr Tylethorpe will never erase from his memory thehorrible look that he then beheld. Surprise and fear were in it;but triumph also and never a trace of shame or remorse. After all,an offer had been made and accepted.
Mr Gribden's letter, reproduced some pages back, indicated theeffect upon the Rector of this new factor in his dream. He began,in fact, to look for and to expect appearances of visible disquietin the atmosphere of his own daily environment; and very soonimagination began to usurp the place of sensory observation. MissPristin quickly saw that something was going seriously wrong withher young master. First there was that senseless fuss that he madeover a flaw in the glass of the garden door. If one looks throughsuch a flaw naturally there must appear whorls or twists in theview seen through it; so where was the cause for him to break thewindow with his walking stick? Then came his sudden aversion to thepattern of the linoleum in the back passage. If he disliked acrinkly design, why had he himself chosen it barely five monthsago? Well: she would have it rolled up and stored in the box room.Next occurred his complaints regarding the transparent shapes drawnby a night's frost on his bedroom window. Nothing could be doneabout those of course, except to keep the blinds drawn until theythawed out. Last and strangest whim of all, he forbade her everagain to wear on her bonnet her favourite big bow of black wateredsilk because (how could an educated man talk such nonsense?) 'itall went alive and crinkly when she moved.' This command MissPristin thought it wise to obey, but with the muttered reservationthat she didn't hold with none such nasty fancies herself and hopedthat somebody as she knew weren't forgetting to say his prayersregular.
'Forgetting?' Mr Tylethorpe rejoined, 'There is no forgettingfor me, Miss Pristin, no forgetting at all!'
The second dream that came to the Rector was not so distinct asthe first; not because its verisimilitude was any the less, butbecause the scene presented was nocturnal and unilluminated exceptby a full moon shining through bare branches. At a block in frontof a tree-trunk stood Nicolas Phayne with what looked like a blackfowl fluttering in his left hand. With a downward sweep of hisright arm there fell on the struggling animal an axe or other metalimplement that glinted in the moonlight. A moment later he appearedto be dismembering the victim, and then to be doing something to itwith water and a dull fire. So Phayne had sunk to this! MrTylethorpe's recent readings had taught him enough of goetic ritualfor him to realise that he had visionally witnessed a preparationof Admixtures for the Evil Sacrifice. He dreaded, and yet yearnedwith a hideous impatience, to witness its consummation. Thisimpatience waxed to a madness when, after the fashion of itspredecessor, the immediate dream repeated itself a second and athird time. Nor was this psychological state without its inevitableeffect: it prevented the sleep that would enable the coming of afinal dream to resolve the horrid yearning in experience.
With the onset of this insomnia the worsening of the Rector'scondition could no longer be hid from his parishioners. For severalSundays past he had been reduced to reading a distinguishedecclesiastical dignitary's printed sermons, and Mr Gattle's errantsheep had promptly returned to the 'unsectarian' fold. The Rector'sreading of the liturgy had also become lifeless and perfunctory.'If t'poor parson,' said Mr Bugles, 'might be spoke of same as itmight be one of my span'el pups, 'ud say as how he were sickeningfor distemper and p'raps 'll get through and may be not.' MrGribden took a less charitable view and gave up going to church. Atthis juncture, also, the rectory servants decided to give noticebut, fearing to face the master in his present mood and failing toobtain the mediation of Miss Pristin, they postponed any action ontheir resolve.
Whether Dr Marlock was professionally correct in coming to seethe Rector on the summons of his housekeeper may be doubted, butthat medical attention had become urgently necessary was obvious toeverybody. The visit was not in itself a success, because thepatient locked himself in his room and refused to see him. This,however, did not prevent Dr Marlock from leaving with Miss Pristina small phial whose contents she undertook to pour into theafter-dinner cup of coffee which Mr Tylethorpe, in spite ofinsomnia, still insisted on taking. It was indeed thissurreptitious potion that induced sufficient sleep for the dreamingof his last dream.
Mr Tylethorpe had for some time given up trying to court sleepin his bed: having taken off his clothes and put on pyjamas and adressing-gown he would return downstairs and settle himself down inan armchair before his study fire. The chair that he now chose wasthe one associated with his dreaming. On previous nights it had notbeen long before he was out of it again and pacing the room in anagony of sleeplessness. Tonight, however, thanks to the draught, hewas sleeping soundly when Miss Pristin, who had taken upon herselfa night's vigil at the doctor's request, looked in at half-past tenand again at eleven. The dream that now came to him was none theless terrible for being anticipated. The room appeared once more asin the first dream. Phayne, robed in a black preaching gown, stoodbefore the altar-like chest, on which stood an array of sacredvessels (pyx, flagon, paten and chalice) and by their side a boxand a bottle which the dreamer recognised as those seen in hisprevious dream. The postures and gestures of the figure before thechest made plain that a shameful travesty of Christianity's supremerite was being enacted. Most of the figure's manipulations weremercifully half-hidden by the sleeves of the black gown, butsuddenly the head tilted back and the upturned chalice showed foran instant in a foul climax of sacrilege. For long minutesthereafter the figure continued to stand in erect rigidity, butwith successive tremors suggestive of extreme emotion or, it mightbe, physical pain. Then all at once the knees sagged, the bodylunged, and there lay on the floor a black and motionless heap. TheRector started and awoke. The slight bleeding from his mouth wascaused by his having bitten his lower lip.
The narration of this series of dreams will have taxed tobreaking point the reader's capacity to bear with the obscene andmacabre. Nevertheless there remains, and must be told, theirimmediate and still worse sequel. Madmen, as distinct from mentaldefectives, have been said to fall into three categories: those whothink senselessly from senseless premises, those who think sensiblyfrom senseless premises and those who think senselessly fromsensible premises. The man who now shuddered in his night attire onhis armchair belonged to the middle category. His ratiocination wasquick, clear and concise; its basis in religion, philosophy andethics was temporarily destroyed; it was rooted only in his presentterror. He would never forget those dreams, even if they should notrepeat themselves, which experience had taught him that they would.He could never rid himself of a consciousness of ghastly communionwith the predecessor who had desecrated his priesthood in this rooma century ago. Even if he should leave Tilchington, the spirit ofPhayne, he felt certain, would accompany him, for were they not nowfellow initiates in the Evil Mysteries? He could certainly nolonger continue in his Ministry, and when the reason for hisabandoning it became known he would be shunned by all as insane orunclean. In short, life would not be livable; and a burden thatcannot be borne must be laid down. He had heard suicides dubbedcowards by some and appraised as brave by others: but why prate ofcowardice or bravery? It was just a natural process that a manshould take his life when he can no longer live it. The necessaryact would be short and simple. This dressing-gown cord was bothstrong and smooth; there was no fear of the noose that he had justmade in it not pulling tight or of its breaking. Yes: he could justreach the curtain rod across the bow window by standing on thewriting table, and the other end of the dressing-gown cord was soonmade fast to it. Now the table must be pushed away, and a chairsubstituted: for he would never manage to kick from under him aheavy table. What an ugly scrooping sound its castors made! But notloud enough, luckily, to wake the servants. Here was a chair ofjust the right height. There now! All was ship-shape and ready.
Miss Pristin also observed that all was ready. Attracted by thescrooping of the table she had entered noiselessly and now stoodbehind Mr Tylethorpe. Her next action she has never explained, forshe has never told it to anybody. Neither to Mr Tylethorpe nor toherself did an explanation seem necessary. It was an effectprobably of the strain under which she had mustered resolve toenter the, to her, un-enterable room and of angry disgust at thescene on which she had intruded. Be this as it may, in a burst ofviolence and with all the strength at her command she first boxedthe Rector's ears and then, as he turned in his astonishment,slapped his face. Worn to extreme weakness by insomnia and mentalmisery the wretched man passively dissolved in a flood of tearsand, powerless to resist her seizure of his left forearm, allowedhimself to be meekly led by her to his bedroom. There she lockedhim in and, having returned to the study, untied the dressing-gowncord from the curtain-rod and unknotted it. This was somethingwhich Dr Marlock need not see. Early next morning the physicianfound the patient still sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. In threedays time he was strong enough to be taken by Dr Marlock and MissPristin in the midday train to Funtingham-on-Sea, where they lefthim in an efficient but not too fashionable Nursing Home.
5
Cyril Thundersley, by Divine Permission Bishop of Wintonbury,was entertaining a house-party at the Palace. No misogynist, buthimself unmarried, he preferred male company and was ever a littleapprehensive of lady guests. His present company at breakfast wassuch as he thoroughly enjoyed. There was old Dean Burnfell fromPenchester who, still young at eighty, had more than half a centurybefore been a minor canon at Wintonbury and had kept up hisconnections with the place ever since. On the host's other side satthe Colonial Bishop of Kongea, home on leave from his tropical see.Not yet forty, he still bustled and hustled with the momentum ofyouth. Next to him, and the only layman of the party, was LeslieTrueson, Fellow of St Peter's, Oxbridge, who was pursuing somehistorical researches in the palace library. The fifth person atthe table was Mr Lemmet, the Bishop of Wintonbury's chaplain. Quietand untalkative but invariably attentive, he had been well chosenfor his present position.
'Until yesterday,' remarked the Bishop of Wintonbury, 'Iimagined myself to be living in the twentieth century.'
'You should never, my dear Cyril,' rejoined Dean Burnfell, 'paytoo much attention to the almanacks. My life is nearing its closeand it has been lived in many centuries. A man belongs to all theages to which he is heir. I have found Plato more of a contemporaryin many ways than most moderns. It is only births and deaths, notlives, that can be dated in Time's Register. Wordsworth, indeed,surmised that we come into the world trailing clouds of glory froman Ever Has Been. I don't know about that: but our religion assuresus that we are destined for an Ever After and that we are incommunion with departed saints.'
'Quite so.' Here the Bishop helped himself to a second sausage.'If it were a matter of communion with saints only, I should nothave made my last remark. My reason for it was that, until facedyesterday by the fact, I would never have believed that a youngpriest of good family and excellent education, an athlete too, anda thoroughly manly fellow, whom I had specially selected for thebest country living in the Diocesan gift, would have shamelesslytaken to preaching sheer diabolism from his pulpit, and have endedby himself becoming demoniacally possessed; for such is myinterpretation of the so-called breakdown that has necessitated hisremoval to a home for neurotics. It sounds like seventeenth or atlatest eighteenth century history to me!'
'Yes,' agreed Mr Trueson, 'it is certainly reminiscent of theTilchington Trouble, as it was called, a hundred years or moreago.'
'What's that you say?'
'My dear Bishop, please don't look so startled! There is amanuscript account of the matter in your library. It was aperfectly straightforward case of what you have termed diabolismand it ended in the Rector's death.'
The man who has been received into a home for neurotics,' saidthe Bishop impressively, 'is none other than the present incumbentof Tilchington: young Tylethorpe.'
'The deuce it is! Poor fellow, he may have found in his countrycure something more than he bargained for. Lemmet, I wonder if youwould be so good as to go across to the library, look up the indexof manuscripts under T, and bring His Lordship the paper docketed"Tilchington Trouble". If I remember right it's in one of theshelves under the oriel window.'
No one spoke until Lemmet returned. Sausages are better enjoyedand more expeditiously consumed in silence. It was not, however,more than five minutes before the manuscript had been found andproduced.
'You read it to us, Trueson,' the Bishop requested, 'as you arefamiliar with it.'
'Certainly; I'll do my best, but it's a trifle illegible inparts. The docket bears a note over the initials P.V.R. (that wouldhave been Bishop Ranwell) that he had found his perusal of the fileso unedifying and distasteful that he had destroyed all itscontents except this one paper which, in his opinion, contained allthat was necessary to leave on record in the matter.'
'I remember Ranwell,' interpolated the Dean, 'as a kind andgentle old man. He once bought up all the Jacks-in-the-Box in a toyshop here, because as a small boy he had been frightened byone!'
'Ah! did he so?' resumed Trueson. 'That's what he may haveintended to do in the present connection, if one may judge fromwhat I shall now read to you. It is a letter dated the 3rdFebruary, 1801, written by Archdeacon Howgall from his vicarage atJedworth to Bishop Cumberley who, according to the panel in theChapter House, was enthroned in 1794 and died in this palace in1805. It was he who built the big block of stables and theextension to the palace wine-cellars. Now for the letter.
MY LORD BISHOP
The, I will not say lamented, death of Mr Phayne has relieved me ofthe pain and duty of adding to previous reports upon hismalpractice and Your Lordship from the trouble and expense ofprocesses necessary to his proposed deprivation.
In the final carriage of this matter I have obeyed throughout YourLordship's ordinance for the avoidance of all scandal; whereto Ihave been mightily assisted by the phlegm and incuriosity of thelocal physician, Dr Lammerton. From the fact that all three Rectoryservants were laid in bed with a sudden sharp colic after a meal offield puddocks picked in mistaking for mushrooms, whereof the deadman had also partaken, this learned doctor ascribed his death tonone other cause and set his hand thereto in writing. The deathchamber, as well as the body therein, were in fact unlooked uponuntil my arrival; but this not of intent or by discretion but byreason of general fear that there might be with the corpse such aswere with him, as sundry assert, when alive.
On entering this room I locked the door behind me and half-closedthe shutters against the window, so that I could see sufficientlywithin nor be seen from without. I will not distress Your Lordshipwith a tale of all that I there found, but will state enough toshow that the cause of our true religion hath suffered nought bythis death save an extreme good riddance. That here had been, tosay least, a mockery of the Sacrament was plain shewn by paten andcup set out upon a table-chest. Each of which contained a separatestuff; the ingredients whereof appeared from an open handwrittenbook beside them. The prescriptions were of a rank poisonous sortand were without doubt the certain cause of death. Whether thisPhayne was by lawfelo de se or no the physician has happilyleft us in no need to determine; and indeed I doubt it, for thename of the evil rite in his book was such as may have had himthink that damnation of soul would have fetch't him immunity ofbody from poisons and such like harms. This with other ten oreleven books of like blasphemy and mischief I did make a fire of inthe grate, and when the whole had waxed hot and consuming did pourthereon the substances from the sacred vessels. These latter,having found them to be not those used in the church but theproperty of the dead man, I placed with him in the coffin. For asnone in Tilchington would so much as touch the body it fell to meto compose it therein, which I did without removal of any of thehabiliments wherein I had found it. The carriage of the coffin tothe churchyard was done in a garden barrow, as none would bear himon their shoulders, and the grave had been dug in a portion thatwas unconsecrate. None would attend the burying; but the Sexton,his two grown sons and myself did lower the coffin without breakingthereof, although it slipped from the forward ropes and fell endon. The help of these good men was on condition that I will say noprayers, nor did I so but to offer thanksgiving to Almighty God fordeliverance of this parish from Satan's curse.
In regard to the points of my second and third letters, I causedthe ash tree and that which was below to be hewn down and burned,as also the ivy bush and grotto. I also loosed such animals asremained. Conscience bids me dissent, but with humble deference,from Your Lordship's view that exorcisation is but a Romish vanityor superstition. Nevertheless in obedience to Your Lordship'swishes I abstained from all motions there towards.
I have noted also Your Lordship's judgment that if only parsonswould do more fox-hunting and less book-reading this see ofWintonbury would be in happier case. May I respectfully suggestthat exhortations to this end would be more convincingly includedin an episcopal charge than in archidiaconal admonitions?
Believe me to remain, My Lord Bishop,
Your most dutiful & obedient Servant,
T. HOWGALL
Archdeacon
'So you see, Bishop,' added Mr Trueson, 'that what has beenworrying you is only the latest chapter in a serial story, "TheTilchington Trouble".'
'It was a most reprehensible omission that should be remediedwithout delay,' said the Bishop of Kongea.
'What was?'
The omission to exorcise. We never dare run risks of that sortin Kongea. My sanctioned appendix to the Book of Common Prayertranslated into Kongahili contains three occasional offices for theexorcisation of evil spirits. The first, relevant apparently to therectory at Tilchington, is for their expulsion from buildings orplaces; the second for their ejection from infants and children;and the third for their removal from persons of riper years. Allthree Forms are in frequent use and of proved efficacy. We wouldn'tbe without them for anything. Even the fauna of Kongea teaches usto appreciate the Petrine warning that our adversary the Devilwalketh about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.'
The Bishop of Wintonbury walked to the window and for someminutes appeared wrapt in contemplation of a revolving cowl on oneof his spare-room chimneys. He at length turned and addressed theBishop of Kongea.
'You told me yesterday, Christopher, that you meant to spend aday in visiting Halmeston and Tilchington churches. I suppose fromwhat you have just said that if you found yourself passingTilchington Rectory you would feel it a moral obligation, even inthe Rector's absence, to step inside and recite the office of whichyou have spoken?'
'I should certainly do so unless positively prevented. I have noEnglish translation; but, as I would be alone, its recital inKongahili would be all right.'
The Bishop of Wintonbury looked, as indeed he was, relieved. Hedid not wish to grant sanction as Diocesan to a ceremony that tohis modern mind savoured of superstition. At the same time therewere passages of scripture that could be quoted in justification ofit, and many of the See's High Churchmen would certainly approve.Moreover, his personal scepticism in such matters had been severelystrained that morning. He would not, therefore, expressly authorisethe performance of the rite but, as his friend was minded to do it,he would not prevent it.
'Lemmet,' he said, 'I suggest you take a holiday from metomorrow and accompany the Bishop of Kongea in the ten-thirty trainto Tilchington. If you both carry sandwiches you can walk fromthere to Halmeston and lunch on the common. That is to say,Christopher, if weather permits. It's no use doing such expeditionsin the wet.'
That night the wind rose to almost gale force and by morning hadblown away the clouds and rain. The Bishop of Kongea and Mr Lemmettherefore set forth with the prospect of a bright if gusty daybefore them. All went according to plan for them except that MissPristin attended the service of exorcisation and, unable to followthe. Kongahili language, interspersed the rite at what appeared toher appropriate intervals with fervently ejaculated Amens. She hadpreviously removed from their frames and now burnt in the kitchenfire, with full support from the Colonial Bishop, the two picturesthat had hung on the walls. She also, after departure of thevisitors and as her own particular contribution to a purificationof the chamber, lit therein a sulphur candle of the sort used formedical disinfection.
The Bishop of Kongea was much interested in St Botolph's but onedisappointment awaited him. The South aisle window, which was notprotected by any wire grid on the outside, had been irreparablysmashed that very morning, apparently only a few minutes beforetheir entry into the church, by a small branch that had beensnapped off one of the churchyard elms and hurled by the galeagainst the Western wall.
'I have always found exorcisation a very powerful rite!' theColonial Bishop assured Mr Lemmet as they surveyed the debris.
6
A comfortable conclusion to this history would have been thatNigel Tylethorpe after a full recovery returned to Tilchington andlived there happily ever afterward. That, however, was impossible.Even if his health had permitted a return, hisamour pro prewould have forbidden it. But in point of fact his condition, bothphysical and mental, remained critical for more than a year: andthen, on medical advice, he sailed on a world tour which occupied afurther eighteen months. He had submitted his resignation of theincumbency to the Bishop within a fortnight of his first admissionto the nursing home.
His successor, the Reverend Nathaniel Coltswood, brought withhim to Tilchington a wife and seven children. He soon, of course,heard rumours about the room, but he made light of them. 'We havemade it the nursery,' he declared, 'and if Old Nick is minded tomake off with a couple or so of the brats he's welcome to them. Hecan take his pick.' In actual fact there has been no unrest ordiscomfort associated with the apartment since his induction.
The Reverend Sir Nigel Tylethorpe, Bart (for thus he returnedfrom his long cruise owing to the unexpected death of SirSylvester, his first cousin) soon settled down in the old familyseat of Battlewick Hall. On Sundays he assists the Vicar ofCubley-cum-Battlewick by reading Service at the small church withinhis park gates. He is still unmarried, but house parties at theHall invariably declare his establishment to be the best managed inWestshire. The name of his housekeeper is, as you may have guessed,Roberta Pristin.
1
Although to know Adrian Frent was not necessarily to like him,he interested me from the very first. If his life contained much ofthe ordinary, the manner of his death was very far out of it; thebiographical portion of these notes is therefore by way of prefaceto the mystery of his end.
I had lived at Brensham for two years before the Garden CityCompany showed any intention of extending Ruskin Road. So long asit remained a cul-de-sac the peace of my bachelor homestead wouldremain undisturbed, for beyond it lay only a wilderness of weed andbramble between the road's end and the Bren river. I watchedtherefore with misgiving a gradual clearing by the Company'sroadmen of this barren strip and the construction by them of agravel track down its centre. But I need not have worried, for abridging of the Bren on a purely residential thoroughfare was quitebeyond the Company's financial resources, and the sole purpose ofthe extension was to afford access to a vacant building lot on theside opposite to me and nearer to the river. On this quickly arose'Brenside' and into it as first tenant moved Adrian Frent.
My first glimpse of him was during a reconnaissance made by mealong the river bank for that very purpose. What would be the looksof a man whom I might have to live next to for long years naturallyaroused my curiosity. Nor was my first impression unfavourable. Isaw a man of nearly six feet, clean-shaven, oval-faced,dark-haired, well-knit and smartly tailored. Without hesitation Imade up my mind to call as soon as he was comfortably settledin.
I did so some ten days later and found him very pleased to bedoing host in his new house. Brenside had been wisely planned toprovide one really large room, on the window side of which stood anErard grand piano on glass castors. In front lay a large Persianrug, on whose beautiful and expensive expanse none of thesurrounding leathered chairs were allowed to impinge. The pictureson the walls were all of religious subjects, though not pertainingto the same religion. They included a coloured print of the SistineMadonna, a silver-point drawing of the Hermes of Praxiteles, arather wishy-washy sketch in water colour of the Buddha, and anenlarged photograph of Hindu frescoes in the Ajanta Caves. Therewere two large bookcases, one containing books whose titles I couldnot see from the chair into which Frent beckoned me, and the otherlargely filled by bound volumes of theRailway Magazine.Immediately above them was a scale model of a locomotive protectedby an oblong glass frame.
This miniature engine and the magazines offended my aestheticsensibility by their incongruity with the other furnishings, andmade me curious to ascertain the nature of the books in the othercase. Finding excuse in a draught from the window I soontransferred myself to a nearer seat whence my eye fell on arepresentative and well-bound collection of English classics, bothin prose and poetry. The only exceptions were gathered on a shelfto themselves and might be categorised under the title borne by thelargest of them, which wasHerbs, Simples, Drugs andPoisons.
Frent caught my inquisitive glance. 'One of my many hobbies,' heexplained. 'I grow them, you know. That's why I've chosen a placeby the river. I lost a lot of valuable stuff last year at Tenfordduring the August drought. I'm going to make the garden here aherbalist's paradise; you must drop in occasionally and see howit's getting on. I've got my eye on the small greenhouse as afuture laboratory. I not only grow the plants but I make them intomedicines. I always make my own insecticides and the vermifuges formy dogs. They're in the kennel now, under treatment; come along andsee them.' Leading me out by a side door he introduced me to twoliver-coloured dachshunds in one of the outhouses. They were almostoffensively affectionate, after the nature of their breed. 'I adoredogs,' he said. I was glad that he did not see me wince, but I hatemen to use the word 'adore': it is woman's property.
Business men on their daily trek from Brensham to the City havea choice of three trains. The 8.47 runs you through to Cripplegateand is uncomfortably crowded. The 8.59 has a slightly superiorclientèle but lands you at St Euston's Cross, midway betweeneast and west, whence it is necessary to proceed by Underground.The 9.15, similarly bound, is patronised only by such as are inpositions to determine for themselves their times of arrival anddeparture. It was in this third train that I met Frent nextmorning, and thereby placed him in the category of employer ratherthan of employee. Nor was my inference at fault, as I learned fromhis conversation on the way up. He was a partner in the firm ofFrent, Frent & Saxon Limited, Music Publishers of 2 3 GreatPenchester Street. His father, who had died last year, had left himin joint managership with Paul Saxon; whom indeed I remembered,somewhat indistinctly, as a fellow member of the Junior Camisisbefore its absorption by the older University Clubs.
It did not take me long, listening to Frent's talk, to realisethat here was a case of a business house being very much dividedagainst itself. To put the matter in a nutshell, Adrian wasmusically a severe classicist while Saxon was crazy on jazz. Eachhad, I gathered, in his own line brought grist to the common mill.Frent had at the unlimited expense of an aunt of the composer, whocontributed also a frontispiece, published in album form JulianGrinley's 'Twelve Dream Pieces for Pianoforte'. Saxon undoubtedlystruck a good bargain when he acquired publishing rights over aJazz series which included such astonishing 'hits' as 'Gioconda'and 'Bendigo'. The pity of it was that each, while sharing in it,grudged the other his success.
Daily travelling in the same compartment Frent and I soon foundourselves on terms of acquaintance that bordered on intimacy. Thiswas because I was glad to find him interesting and he glad to findsomeone whom he interested. I derived entertainment even from hisknowledge of locomotives and running schedules and, acquiring thejargon of the initiate, was soon speaking of the permanent way as'the road' and of signals being 'on' or 'off instead of up anddown. His tales of railway history especially appealed to me, and(after he had pointed out the gas works siding which leaves themain line just north of Ponsden Priory as being all that nowremains of an aborted London, Middlehampton and East Coast Railway)I often found my eyes straying from my evening paper, as we jerkedover the junction points, towards the heavy gates that closed thesiding against the main line of which it had been intended to forma most important branch. In moments of despondency the tale of thissiding would appear to me as an allegory of what had happened to somany pet projects of my own scheming!
2
I forget the exact date of Frent's coming to Brenside, but itwas at the beginning of March. On the 17th April poor old MissLurgashall of Rosedene, Hesseltine Road, was trapped in her bedroomand burned to death when the house took fire from defects in theelectrical insulation. Rosedene and Brenside had been designed bythe same architect and in both plans the front and back stairsoccupied respectively the fore and rear of the middle section ofthe building. This arrangement, comparing it to a central flue, thecoroner described as a death-trap. A criticism so characteristic ofa Coroner'sobiter dicta naturally passed unheeded byhundreds of people whose houses were on a similar plan: but not byAdrian Frent.
'What are you going to do about your stairs?' he asked me.
'Nothing,' I replied, 'and you?'
'I'm having a fire escape put in from the box room next to mybedroom.'
'That'll cost you something!'
'Oh! not much. All one needs is a trap-door and a length ofrope. We used to have several of them at my prep. school. In caseof emergency one lifts the trap, throws down the rope and swarmsdown it hand over hand. Cheap and easy! I'm a bit of a carpenter,as you know, and I cut the trap-door yesterday. Now all thatremains to do is to get a rope.'
'You'll need a staple to fix it to,' I pointed out; 'and thatmeans a hole through the wall and a plate.'
'Oh! I know of an odd job man who'll fix that up for me in notime and at very small charge. I strongly advise you to follow myexample.'
I have recorded the above conversation for the reason (as wellas for another which will appear later) that it well illustrates abasic defect in Frent's character. He was always starting thingswithout consideration of their full implications and dropping themwhen he ran up against difficulties. In the present instance theexample which he bade me follow was never set, for neither staplenor rope eventuated. He just forgot about them. It was the samestory with his piano playing: he had excellent taste and touch, butI have seldom known him to play a piece right through. As soon ashe came to a tricky passage he would break off with a 'sorry, I'mout of practice!' I suspected, however, that he had never been inpractice, for he hated drudgery and all his activities lackedperseverance and system. Take, for instance, the death of hisdachshunds, the cause of which he never revealed to me. The Vet.,however, did. They had been poisoned by draughts out of a wrongbottle! How a man who prided himself on concocting his owninsecticides and vermifuges could have been so careless passed mycomprehension. Nor did the loss of these pets cause him anyobservable sorrow. I sometimes wondered in fact whether he did notderive a greater pleasure from the artistic little headstones thathe had placed over their graves than any that the dogs everafforded him while alive.
As these sentences flow from my pen I am conscious that theybecome increasingly critical of Adrian Frent. This is not from anydesire on my part to play the role of dissecting moralist, butbecause my portrait of the man cannot be rendered faithful orlifelike without painting in the shadows. He certainly suffered noqualms himself about personal criticisms, for his dailyconversations with me became more and more charged with venomagainst 'the Klaxon' as he now insisted on calling his partner. Hisoutbursts would indeed have been wearisome but for the many amusingturns of phrase and fancy with which he embellished them.Nevertheless, my conscience would sometimes accuse me of abettingslander; and by way of appeasing it I argued to myself that, byallowing Frent to blow off steam, I was preventing the accrual tohis animosity of any explosive quality that might be generated byenforced repression.
As the summer wore on we dropped in frequently at each other'shouses, and I was privileged to see the burgeoning of theHerbalist's Paradise. These were his words, not mine; for a meanercollection of disreputable weeds could be hardly imagined: The onlylasting memory of my inspection of it is of his telling me thatwhat I still continue to call 'Deadly Nightshade' is neitherNightshade nor deadly. The so-called laboratory in the littlegreenhouse was equally unimpressive; indeed it reminded me ofnothing so much as the pitiful messes that children will make outof leaves and berries to serve as 'pretence food' in their toydinner services. I could not but remember the sad end of those twodachshunds and found myself viewing the disarray of bottles, tinsand saucers with mounting distaste. Frent perhaps discerned thesethoughts. 'Come along indoors,' he said, 'and I will play you theMarch Funèbre out of that Beethoven Sonata.' The movementcontains no really difficult passages and he did it justice. Itlittle occurred to me that it was the last thing that I should hearhim play.
3
September the fourteenth is my birthday, and I am able to setthat date with certainty against the events that follow. I hadlunched at his club with my brother Gerald and, taking theafternoon off, made to catch the three-thirty at St Euston's Cross.I had hardly settled down in a corner seat before, to my surprise,in got Frent. I had never known him take so early a train before,and the fuss that he was in made me ask the reason.
'I'm through for good with Saxon,' he explained, 'and we shallhave to dissolve partnership. I just hate him and all his works;and he knows it and trades on it. All our publications are now onhis side of the show. I simply have to agree to everything hedemands in order to get him out of my room. He knows how I loathewhistling and humming, but he hums or whistles his filthy jazz thewhole working day, blast him! He rubs it in too about my dailybread being buttered with croon and swing. That "Lulu on the Lilo"tune is the rottenest stuff the house has ever published; and yetit's netted us some three hundred quid already. Tainted money Icall it!'
At this point Frent thumped his despatch case into the luggagerack, and stood over me while he continued: 'and now this morninghe comes and leans over my desk, breathing his beastly 'flu into myvery nostrils. He knows well enough how prone I am to colds and howcareful I have to be to avoid infection. And then to cap it all, heasks me to lend him my quack sniffle cure, as he thinks it funny tocall it: Well, he asked for it and he's got it: I hope it chokeshim!'
'As your worm mixture did the dachshunds,' I laughinglyinterposed.
Frent slowly sat down and scowled at me. It was the first timethat I had made him angry. 'Can't you let me forget those damneddogs?' he snapped; and then added self-pityingly, 'what I need is arest and a change of scene. Saxon's put all my nerves on edge.'
As the train glided out of the gloom of the roofed terminus intounimpeded daylight I was shocked to see Frent's face. It was lined,drawn and grey: an ugly yellow-grey. The man was patentlyunwell.
'I'm sorry, old man,' I said sympathetically. 'If I were you Iwould take a long week-end and run down to the seaside.'
'That's a good idea,' he muttered, and for the next quarter ofan hour made a show of reading the evening paper, though hisattention appeared far from concentrated on it.
The rolling-stock used on the three-thirty consists chiefly ofold six-wheelers, and progress became bumpy as we gained speed.After rattling through Ponsden Priory station the carriage gave abigger jolt than usual over the siding junction and something felltinkling on to the floor. Frent's pince-nez, always precariouslyperched, had been jerked off his nose and I waited for him to pickthem up. He remained however stock still with fingers outspread onhis knees, staring down at the paper which had fallen over hisfeet. He looked so dazed and helpless that stooping forward myselfI picked up the pince-nez and handed them up to him. Afterregarding them curiously for a few moments he lifted his eyesquestioningly to mine and said, 'Thank you, sir: but are you surethey're mine'
'They were on your nose a moment ago!'
'Ah! Were they? I had forgotten. You must excuse me, buteverything seems suddenly to have gone out of my head. It's quiteextraordinary. For instance, your face seems familiar to me and Ifeel sure that we must have met each other before: but at themoment I've entirely forgotten your name. I'm so sorry.'
Not only Frent's face but the impersonal note in his voice, asthough he were repeating a lesson, startled and distressed me. Ifelt relieved somehow that there was no third person in thecompartment to overhear his conversation. He was undoubtedly seizedby some sudden illness and consequent abnormality, and it mustdevolve on me to get him home to Brenside safely and withoutincident. It is strange how in emergency one sometimes finds thepoliceman element in one's character taking charge and directingoperations. It was so now; for I heard myself addressing Frent in acalm and custodial manner that surprised me.
'My name is Johnson and yours is Frent,' I said. 'We live nextto each other in Ruskin Road, Brensham, which is the next stop. Youhave been working too hard and worrying too much, and as a resultyour brain has gone temporarily on strike. But don't you botherabout that. Go on reading your paper' (I picked it up for him) 'andwhen we reach Brensham I'll see you home and call in the doctor.He'll soon put you right again.'
Frent received my remarks with a passive and childlikeacceptance and, save that I experienced an uncomfortable sensationof walking with a somnambulist, we reached Brenside withouttrouble. Having explained to the parlourmaid that her master hadbeen taken ill I got him to lie down on a sofa and rang up DrJameson.
The latter was round within five minutes, and having looked atFrent and taken his pulse, he peremptorily and monosyllabicallyenjoined 'bed'. A telephone enquiry of the Brensham DistrictNursing Guild elicited that Nurse Margison was immediatelyavailable, and in less than half an hour she had Frent and Brensidein her charge.
'Let's drop in at your place, and I'll prescribe for you too,'said Jameson as we walked away. 'You must have had an anxious timegetting that fellow home.'
He joined with me in taking his own prescription: it was 'astiff one'.
4
Frent lay in bed five days before recovery. He was described byMiss Margison as an ideal patient; which meant that he slept mostof the time, asked no questions and did whatever she told him.
It was on the second or third day that I read in my morningpaper of Paul Saxon's death from influenza. The attack, a severeone, had been aggravated by acute gastric complications and hadterminated, fatally, in pneumonia. Frent's fulminations against hispartner had led me to envisage a Philistine of the Philistines. Iwas surprised therefore to read in the obituary notice of adistinguished academic career and of his identity with Publics' intheBi-monthly Review, whose articles on art and literatureI always enjoyed and admired.
I was permitted to visit Frent at the very outset of hisrecovery. His first request was indeed that he might see me.Considering that he might be said to have lost his self for severaldays I found him almost incongruously self-possessed. Before himlay a letter from Lyster, his Company's manager, reporting thecircumstances of Saxon's death.
'How extremely annoying of him,' Frent complained, 'to die justwhen the doctor orders me a holiday. I simply must clear up themess he will have left and it will take several weeks. All the sameI shall have to run down to Benceston for a few days beforelong.'
'Benceston?' I queried.
Frent's face suddenly showed again (it may have been due to areflection of sunset glow on the ceiling) the same deep lines andyellow-grey colour that had worried me in the train.
'I don't know what made me say Benceston,' he continued; 'anyseaside resort would do; but I feel that I must get a whiff of thesea. By the way Saxon's funeral was this afternoon: I hope theydidn't jazz the Dead March.'
The last words were those of a cad but, in consideration forFrent's state, I let them pass and the conversation slipped intogeneralities. For some reason, however, he gave me the impressionof trying to drag our talk round to some subject from which, assoon as he had manoeuvred it into proximity, he veered away indistaste. It was an unpleasant sensation, and after half an hour orso I made as though to take my departure by asking whether I mightsend him over anything to read.
'Have you by any chance got a book calledThe Bad Lands?'he replied.
'I'm afraid not: but I remember reading a short story under thatname: by John Metcalfe, I think.'
Frent seemed quite excited.
Was it about a fellow being in two places at the same time, anddoing something criminal in one of them while he thought he wasdoing something good in the other?'
'I don't think,' I protested, 'that the author would appreciatesuch a crude summary! The tale was extraordinarily well andcarefully written.'
'And, in the light of modern conceptions of space and time, verylikely a true one!'
'What on earth do you mean, Frent?'
'I mean that space can get kinks and double back over and underitself. Of course you know all that.'
'I most certainly do not, and I'm perfectly certain that youdon't either. You must have been reading some such tosh asEinstein Without Tears orBrainfood for theBrainless. You had far better stick to your old RailwayMagazines.'
'I know far more, Johnson, than you guess and than I wish. Someday, perhaps, I'll try to explain: but not now.Au revoir!and many thanks for coming round.'
I had recently purchased in five large volumes a series of mapsof the counties of Great Britain with combined index. On reachingmy house I went straight to the study and, taking down the indexfrom its shelf, looked up 'Benceston'. My suspicions were notrelieved. There was no such place.
5
I never met Frent again in the train after his recovery. Thiswas because he changed his route and travelled from Wentlow, forEast Brensham, to King's Pancras. This involved him in a mile and ahalf walk morning and evening; which, as being conducive to hisgood health, he gave as a reason for the change. His looks howeverbelied the explanation. His condition indeed caused Dr Jameson andmyself increasing anxiety; and my uneasiness was aggravated by hispoint blank refusal to consult Jameson professionally or to call inany other doctor. It was reassuring therefore when he informed usthat a cousin, Gilbert Frent-Sutton, was coming to live withhim.
This cousin, he told us, was a Fellow of All Saints and arecognised authority on the Middle Ages. He did not tell us, but wesoon found out, that his cousin was also to be identified withFrent-Sutton the old Camford rugger blue. From the moment hearrived we recognised in him a man who would stand no nonsense; andwe therefore felt happier about Frent, who was already in visibledanger of going all to pieces unless he had somebody to help tokeep him together.
A week or so after Frent-Sutton's arrival the doctor and I wereinvited by telephone to drop in together at Brenside and have adrink. At the gate we were met by Frent-Sutton.
'Before we go in,' he said, 'I owe you both an explanation.Adrian refuses, Doctor, to call you in professionally; but I gothim to ask you round (using you, Johnson, as a sort of decoy) for adrink. The important thing is that, having attended him after hiscollapse, you should see him now and observe his present condition.It needs tackling at once. He has never told you yet about hisdelusions, though he suspects Johnson of having inferred theirpeculiar nature. Tonight he has promised to make a clean breast ofthem, and I fancy that you will find them important from themedical standpoint.'
We went in and, sitting in a half-circle round the fire, beganour drinks over the usual small talk. Frent-Sutton was, however, abeliever in getting to grips with a job quickly and broke in earlywith a request that Adrian would tell us all about his Bencestonbusiness. 'Tell us everything, old man: right from the verybeginning when your father and old Saxon held the stage.'
'I'll try,' responded Frent, not at all averse to becoming thecentre of our interest, 'and I'll make it as short as I can. Ourfirm's name, you know, is Frent, Frent and Saxon; and that isbecause when my father turned the show into a limited liabilitycompany he kept a third share for himself and reserved a secondthird for me (against the day when I should have grown up andproved my business capacity), while he allowed his manager, oldSaxon, to take up the remaining third share.
'Old Saxon's boy and myself were unfortunately of the same age,and wherever my father sent me—to Heathcote, Winchingham andOxbridge—old Saxon must needs send Paul. He dogged myfootsteps everywhere and at both schools, and later at the Varsity,he excelled me both in games and work. My parents took shame frommy inferiority and perpetually upbraided me with letting them down.As a result I grew to hate Paul and detested him the more for adesire on his part to fraternise.
'Finally we entered into the firm's business simultaneously; Ito be my father's greatest disappointment and Paul to be hisright-hand man and, at old Saxon's death, his energetic partner.Paul also inherited money from an aunt, and my father, inappreciation of his work, allowed him 'to purchase the share in thebusiness which he had earmarked for me. On my father's death,therefore, I had only the one-third share in the business which Iinherited from him against Paul's two. Frent, Frent and Saxon hadbecome in reality Saxon, Saxon and Frent. I was permanently numbertwo to my life's enemy; and during every day and hour of ourpartnership my hatred for him proliferated. It possessed my wholebeing.
'I don't very often go to church, but I had done so on theSunday preceding my collapse in the train; and it was the parson'ssermon that brought home to me the full significance of my hatred.He was preaching on sins of intention and quoted that text about aman committing fornication in his heart if he looks upon a womanlasciviously. The same logic, the parson pointed out, applies tothe other commandments. Many people might regard themselves aspretty safe against a breach of the sixth; but we must rememberthat anybody who allowed his imagination to dwell on how much nicerthings would be if only so-and-so were out of the way had alreadycommitted murder in his heart. I at once realised this to be true.I was murdering Paul daily: and, quite clearly, it was my duty bothto him and myself that I should cut adrift from ourpartnership.
'Nevertheless, I delayed doing it, fearing the explanation whichSaxon would demand and the loss of employment in which it must landme. This delay added further fuel to my hate. You will remember,Johnson, how, in the train that day, you joked about thepossibility of the cold cure which I had lent to Saxon proving asdeadly as the dose that killed my dogs. That jest of yours broughtme, with a jerk, bang up against the actuality that I had, inpassing the bottle to Saxon, thought how easy and pleasant it wouldhave been to hand over some poisonous mixture, if any such had beento hand. I tried to keep my mind off this memory by reading thepaper, but without success, and then endeavoured to concentrate onother thoughts. Johnson knows my fondness for railway history and Ihad told him how an important railway project had endedignominiously in a gasworks siding. I forced myself now to imaginewhat would have been the route of the abortive London,Middlehampton and East Coast Railway and what might have been thelivery of its rolling stock. While my thoughts were being directedalong these lines, we rattled through Ponsden Priory and, to mymomentary surprise, I felt the train, instead of carrying straighton over the points, swing right-handed towards the siding. I say"momentary surprise" because, within a few seconds, it seemedperfectly right and natural to me that we should be travellingeastwards. I noticed the monogram, L.M. & E.C.R. on theantimacassars opposite and, above them, two pictures ofBencestonon-Sea and one of Bellringers Cliff. The scenery throughwhich we were passing was also familiar, and I knew that beforereaching Benceston the train would stop at Latteridge Junction topick up passengers.
'I also had a certain foreboding that among the passengers weshould pick up would be Paul Saxon. And so it turned out. As thetrain glided in, I spotted him out of the corner of my eye andsurreptitiously watched him enter a compartment three doors offfrom mine.
'At Benceston West he got out, and I heard him tell a uniformedporter from Fotheringham Hotel to take up his suitcase.
'That gave me my cue. I journeyed on to the East Station andtook up my quarters at the Porchester. Paul and I, therefore, had agood three miles between us and ample space in which to avoid eachother.
'This, however, was not to be. Walking, next day, along thesummit of Bellringers Cliff, I suddenly heard a whistling of thatfilthy tune, "Lulu on the Lilo", followed by a loathesomely hearty"By Jove! How are we? Fancy meeting you up here! I say, what amagnificent view of the sea one gets!" He stood at the edge of thecliff, gazing seaward. I took a hurried look to right and left. Wewere alone. Striking him from behind, on both shoulder blades, Icaused him to overbalance and fall forward. I was alone. My heartthumped with the joy of quick decision and prompt execution.Glancing at my wrist watch, I saw that it was a quarter to three. Istarted singing, and was just about to peer over the edge, in orderto see if Saxon's body had fallen on the rocks above or belowtide-level, when a a large hand grabbed me by the arm and swung meround so that I faced inshore. My aggressor was a man of over sixfeet and broad in proportion.
'"I will see you to the Police Station," he said, "and, mindyou, no tricks! Give me your right hand." I suppose that I fainted,for everything seemed to go misty and black, and the next thing ofwhich I became conscious was lying in bed, here in this house.
'Now you three persons listening to my story have doubtlessrelegated this Benceston part of it to the realm of dreamland; andthat was my intention also. In order to prevent any recurrence ofthe stimuli that led to the nightmare I gave up travelling toLondon via Ponsden and used the other line to King's Pancras. Indoing so I forgot that I had returned from Benceston not by train,but in a faint or swoon; and I soon learned to my horror that thisprocess was reversable. During the past few weeks I have re-visitedBenceston many times in trance or swoon. I have stood my trialthere for murder and heard sentence of death pronounced on me. TheGovernor of Benceston Prison has told me that my execution takesplace tomorrow morning at eight. Give me a brandy, Gilbert.
'Thank you; that's better. Now I want all three of you to behere at that time tomorrow morning to protect me, and I will tellyou why. I have noticed that things which happen at Benceston cansimultaneously take place here, if in a different manner. Forexample, Saxon died from pneumonia at the same instant as I thrusthim over Bell-ringers Cliff. The exact time of his death is one ofthe first things I ascertained after my return to work. Lyster hadbeen at the deathbed. I have no doubt that punctually tomorrowmorning, as the clock strikes eight, whatever it is thatcorresponds to me in Benceston will be hanged. Therefore you mustagree to be here with me at that hour. I can see that you think memad: but if you will do what I ask, I promise you that at fiveminutes past eight tomorrow you will find me sane and sensiblebeyond all doubt. Whatever it be at Benceston that shares myidentity and usurps my consciousness will have been killed by thenand myself set free. Do promise, therefore, to come withoutfail.'
Frent directed a beseeching look at each of us in turn, and eachnodded his assent.
On our way home Jameson was, for him, unusuallycommunicative.
'I shall have to get Hasterton on to this case. Frent may thinkthat tomorrow morning will see the end of his delusions; but he iswrong. I know these symptoms, and there cannot be a sudden end tothem.'
Nevertheless, there was.
6
The doctor called for me next morning, and at ten minutes toeight we walked across to Brenside.
On entering the hall, I was surprised to see the hands of thelarge chiming clock registering seven fifty-five.
'That clock's fast,' I said to Frent-Sutton as he came out ofthe drawing-room, followed by his cousin, to meet us.
'Oh, no! it can't be. Adrian's been on to the Exchange twicethis morning. That's Greenwich time all right.'
For a man who, in his own apprehension, stood in danger ofimminent death, Frent struck me as unexpectedly calm and collected.He bade us take chairs facing the clock, and we must have looked astrange group as we sat watching the dial. The tick of the pendulumacquired unusual sonority owing to our silence: a silence dictatedfor three of us by our consciousness of the fatuity of the wholeproceeding.
A click and a cluck, followed by a whirring of small wheels,heralded the chimes, and I saw Frent dig his fingers into theleathered arm of his chair. The interval between the chimes and thehour gong seemed interminable; but, at last, the eight strokesdroned out—and, as we had foreseen, nothing whateverhappened.
'And now you chaps must celebrate my release! Thanks ever somuch for seeing me through. We can't very well have whisky at thishour though! Gilbert, tell Ada to bring coffee quickly, while Idash upstairs and get a handkerchief.'
Both cousins had thus left the room when Jameson exclaimedsuddenly: 'What's that?'
'What's what?'
'Listen!'
The morning breeze made them faint; but we heard unmistakablythe chimes of Brensham parish church; and then the distant boom ofthe great hour bell.
Simultaneously, there came from almost above our heads a noiseof rending, a cry, a crash, and, nearer to us still, a dull, heavythud.
We rushed down the back passage, where we ran into Frent-Suttonas he hurried out from the pantry. In the wooden ceiling above usgaped a yard-square hole, and immediately below lay the ruin of atrap-door, with hinges torn from the supporting joist. It wasFrent's fire-escape. Over what was close beside it the Doctor nowleaned, and, having lifted one end, laid it gently back.
'Finish!' he said; 'broken neck.' And then, looking on thebroken door beside him and up at the hole above, he added: 'Amateurcarpentry and unseasoned wood! A fatal combination.'
'But why on earth,' I interjected, 'should he have gone into thebox room?'
'And why,' murmured Frent-Sutton, 'should be have set that clockfast? He insisted on ringing up for the time and doing ithimself!'
'Possibly,' Dr Jameson rose from his examination, 'they may knowthe answers to those questions in Benceston!' Possibly.
1
Mrs Tullivant rose from her seat and looked for her glasseseverywhere but on the table where they very obviously lay.
'Here they are, my dear,' said her husband, with a thin smilethat failed to hide his weariness of a good deed dailyrepeated.
'Thank you, Peter! Now I'm off to bed, and will leave you and MrMorcambe to enjoy your music. I'm afraid that I'm a bit of a wetblanket where music is concerned.'
'My wife,' Mr Tullivant explained, 'has no use for composerswhose names begin with B, H, M or S. That, of course, knocks outall the great masters!'
'What my husband says is quite true, Mr Morcambe. You can'timagine what a difference their names and initial letters make tomy enjoyment of things and people! I just can't read the Bible,Milton or Shakespeare: and pictures by Holbein or Hogarth make meshiver. Although their styles and subjects are so different I feela similar dislike for Millais, Morland and Murillo. And, by theway,' here she pointed an accusing knitting pin at her guest, 'yourname begins with an M, you know!'
Before Morcambe had time to reply, the lady, with an ironicalcurtsey, had backed to the door and departed.
It may be said at this point that the mistress of Dulling Towerswas known to her cottager neighbours and tenant as 'a propercaution'. Not that all she did was unacceptable but she wasinvariably and, sometimes it seemed, laboriously peculiar. Thiseccentricity she carried into all her activities, even intocharitable works. Whether the latter category covered her annualdistribution of two white mice apiece to the Sunday School childrenon Holy Innocents Day is doubtful; but, in order not to forfeit herlargesse in other directions, the Vicar of East Dulling had topretend that it did. On St. Valentine's Day she similarly presenteda pair of white rabbits to every bachelor or spinster whose nameappeared on the St. Stephen's Communicants' Roll; and on MichaelmasEve a white goose was delivered from her farm to every marriedhousehold among her tenantry.
Her attendance at Divine Service on Sundays and Holy Days wasfaithfully regular, except on festivals of saints whose names beginwith B, H, M or S. The black-letter saints served this method oflimitation quite as effectually and with greater frequency than thered-letter ones. Her noticeable absence from the Dulling Towers pewon the rare occasion of a Bishop of Wintonbury's visit made itnecessary for the Vicar to explain to his Diocesan that the Sundaychosen for the Confirmation unfortunately coincided with thechurch's annual commemoration of the Venerable Bede.
In summer time she professed a strong faith in bare-footednessas a means to perfect health. Children's parties were accordinglygiven at the 'Towers' for which no footwear was permitted, and theVicar sorely regretted the public exposure of corns and twistedtoes entailed by his necessary attendance at the midsummerschool-treat.
In her choice of clothes, hats, books, furniture and friends MrsTullivant was equally wayward and aggressive. Her vagaries must, insome directions, have proved expensive; but she intended them to beso. 'I value wealth,' she would say, 'only as the key toself-expression.' This key had passed to her, as only child andsole heiress, on the death of the late Sir Jeremy Andler, theproprietor of the well-known Andler's Nerve Tonic. Lady Andler haddied long ago in an effort to provide her daughter with a littlebrother or sister; and the youth of Mrs Tullivant had been that ofa pampered dictatress, whose every whim and fancy had met withpaternal submission and encouragement.
'My wife'—Peter Tullivant turned his eyes from the closeddoor to meet those of his old friend—'probably appears to youto have perfected futility to a fine art. That unfortunately is notthe case. There is a sinister method in her madness. Roger, oldboy, I am an intensely unhappy man!'
Morcambe gazed at his host in sympathetic surprise at thisconfession, and waited for him to proceed further. To listen to afriend's complaints about his wife is forgivable, but not theprompting of them. Tullivant, moreover, quickly resumed.
'You did your best to save me from this marriage, Roger, andthat is how I feel able to talk to you about it. I never reallycared for Maud, much less loved her, but she amused me and I had noreason then to regard her oddities as anything but amiable andquaint. I anticipated that with the help of her large income wewould live amicably together, and I enjoy the life of a leisuredcountry gentleman. You know my tastes. I looked forward to a day ortwo a week with the hounds and to bridge or billiards of anevening; to motor tours on the Continent, and to some shooting hereand in Scotland. That, of course, was what suggested to her herplan of campaign, or system of torture.'
'What on earth can you mean, Peter?'
'Bridge, billiards, hunting, motoring and shooting: B, H, M andS!'
'Good heavens! you don't mean to tell me...'
'I mean to tell you that in her apparently capricious andidiotic aversion to whatever begins with those four letters lies acunning stratagem to thwart and frustrate me in everything and tomake my life unbearable. I once told you my financial position as abachelor: I had a meagre competence of some three hundred a year.Fifty of that I lost in a gramophone company, and what remains justabout suffices to pay my club bills and keep me in clothes. Foreverything else I have to go to my wife, and she jots down in heraccount books every farthing I spend and determines on what I may,and on what I may not, spend it. It's nothing short of slavery, andif it weren't for one thing I'd pack up and quit.'
'What is it that keeps you?'
'My love for this dear old place and garden. Her pride inappearances prevents my wife blightingthem with herridiculous B, H, M, S taboo. She gets over it by pretending neverto remember the names of trees or flowers; she realises that it isthe spell of Dulling Towers that binds me to her, and is far tooastute to give me my liberty by weakening that bond. On thecontrary she encourages my passion for gardening because of thehold which it gives her over me.'
At this point Tullivant, in reality startled at the extent towhich he had allowed himself to disclose his marital infelicity,made a show of self-possession by filling his pipe with muchdeliberation and apparent fixity of attention. This however did notdeceive Morcambe, who at once effected the change of subject whichhe felt circumstances to require.
'Well, let's get on with the music! What are you going to playme?'
'There are four hundred gramophone records in that cabinet allarranged alphabetically under the composers' names. Make yourchoice. You'll find the contents listed on the cardboard scheduleat the top of each drawer.'
Thus invited, Morcambe walked over to the cabinet and began hisinspection.
'Hullo! this middle drawer is locked and there is no key. Whatdo you keep in here?'
The pipe being by this time filled, Tullivant moved slowly overto the mantelpiece, picked a paper spill from a vase and stooped tolight it at the fire. His back was therefore towards Morcambe whenhe made the unexpected reply: 'I wonder, Roger, whether you'd allowme to try a little experiment on you?'
2
'Experiment? What sort of experiment?'
'Oh! nothing difficult or troublesome,' Tullivant explained,rising from the fire and standing in front of it; 'only that I wantyou to put on the record which is in that locked drawer and play itto yourself while I go out of the room. The only other thingnecessary to the experiment is that I should bolt the door on theoutside after I've left you. The object of the experiment will beto ascertain your psychological reactions on an undisturbed hearingof the record which, as you will find out, is a very special andunusual one. That is why I keep it locked up.'
'But why bolt the door?'
'I'll tell you that afterwards, if you still want to know; but Ithink you'll soon find out. Ah! here's the key: I always keep it inmy ticket pocket in order not to get it mixed up with those on mykey-ring. There you are!'
Morcambe took the record and surveyed it with considerablecuriosity. The colour of the disc was not the usual black but adark chocolate brown, and it had a blank apple-green label on whichwas written in manuscript:
SIEDEL'S SONATA IN D MINOR
Violin: Igor Vidal
Piano: Moritz Vidal
'I'll tell you all about that record when you've played itthrough,' Tullivant promised as he inserted a new needle in thepick-up, 'and till then I'm off. You know how to turn the thing on?I shouldn't have the loudspeaker quite full on if I were you. Now,please don't forget to register your sensations, for I shall wantto know all of them: so keep your mind on the music.'
Morcambe smiled a little wryly as his host closed the door andaudibly slid the outside bolt. Really it all seemed ratherridiculous; but one mustn't blame the husband of so eccentric awife for developing a few crazes of his own! The disc was nowrevolving, and with a firm but delicate touch Morcambe set theneedle to its margin and, settling into his chair, awaited themusic. Oh,that tune! He knew the piece well enough andassociated it with D'Esterre's music at the Vallambrosa. ButD'Esterre would never have murdered the violin like this! Whetherthe fault lay with player or instrument, the tone was indescribablyhorrible: it reminded Morcambe somehow of an animal moaning inpain, or was it rage? The piano, on the other hand, was beingplayed exquisitely and, by contrast, made the violin all the moreintolerable. Morcambe, indeed, rose from his chair to turn theradiophone off, but checked himself as he called to mind that thiswas an experiment and this his first reaction that he must rememberto describe to Tullivant. As he moved towards the fire the tone ofthe violin grew even more shrill and strident, and fiercer in itsapparent enmity to the piano. Catching a sudden glimpse of hisreflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece, Morcambe did notlike what he saw and turned angrily round. Sonata indeed! Vendettafor violin and piano, that was what he was listening to. Theviolinist had now reached that pizzicato passage in the firstmovement, in which his brutal plucking of the strings movedMorcambe to fury. With a pounce at the grate he seized the smallpoker from its tripod and brandished it towards the radiophone. No:there would be no relief in smashing that inanimate machine. Themusic clamoured for violence to flesh and blood! In a nervousfrenzy he sprang towards the door, and then as suddenly recoiled.That swine, Tullivant, in his dirty cunning had, he remembered,bolted it. But there was another way to get at him—throughthe french window! No, damn it! He had bolted that too. At thismoment there rang out on the piano the lovely solo recapitulationof the second theme; but Morcambe shivered in anticipation of thosepiercing chords in which the two instruments would shortly wrestlein the tempestuous coda. If only he could get at Tullivant!
But before ever the chords sounded, there came in quicksuccession a thud, a scream, a choking and a moan; and then, savefor the scratching of the needle on the record, silence. The sweatstood out on Morcambe's forehead and on the back of the hand inwhich the poker still hung limply clutched. Then with a clank itfell to the floor and he sank giddily into an armchair; nor did hehear the door unlocked before, looking up, he saw his host standingover him with a stiff brandy in his hand.
'Take this, old man; you'll soon come round. There's no delayedaction about your nerves!' Here Tullivant picked up the poker.'You'd have broken my skill if you could have got at me!'
Morcambe nodded and gulped down the brandy.
'And now perhaps you will be so good as to explain?' hesuggested acidly.
'Certainly, Roger, I owe it you, and you shall have the wholestory. You will remember my mentioning that I had lost money in agramophone company. It was called Orpheophone Limited, and the ideawas to begin business with the recording of a library of what ourChairman chose to call "popular classics". Siedel's Sonata wasamong the first half-dozen, and we thought ourselves lucky whenBallister, our manager, told us that he had booked the VidalBrothers to play it. We little knew, nobody in fact knew, that theywere not brothers at all, but distant cousins locked in a deadlyfeud which was to have its fatal finale in our studio. Igor waitedtill Moritz was playing that solo passage on the piano and thenstabbed him through the back with a stiletto which he had kept inhis violin case. Some of our shareholders, I remember, weresanguine enough to fancy that the tragedy might prove anadvertisement for Orpheophone records!
'Of this Vidal recording only two impressions were taken beforethe matrix was destroyed: one for the purpose of being put in as anexhibit in the murder trial that followed. It was never brought inevidence, however, and was accidentally dropped and broken by oneof the Court attendants. The other was the one which you have justheard.
'How did I come by it? Well, as a matter of fact, I found it ina parcel awaiting me at a Poste Restante in the Riviera, where Iwas on a motor tour with my aunt, Lady Sulcock, the followingspring. With it was a note from Baluster to the effect that, if Iwere to play through the recordby myself (on no account wasI to play it in company) I might perhaps understand the nature ofhis crime and think kindly of him. He dared to hope so, for he hadalways valued my friendship. This message completely mystified me,for I saw no English newspapers during our tour and had heardnothing of the second murder. Nor did I have a gramophone on whichto play the record, which I therefore packed carefully in mytrunk.
'On my return to England in late summer the tragedy was soonunfolded to me in a circular from the Orpheophone Company. By thattime Ballister had already gone to the gallows for the unprovokedmurder of one of the studio messenger boys. At the trial he hadcomported himself with great dignity and contrition; there was, hetold the Judge, an explanation for his act which he would reservefor the judgment seat of the Almighty, as he could not expect anyhuman judge or jury to accept it, true though it was. His bankbalance he made over to the mother of the murdered boy.
'With Ballister's death Orpheophone Limited lost its bestservant and, worse than that, mischievous rumours arose of thestudio being haunted. The balance sheet for the second yearpresented the alternatives of winding the company up or of raisingmore capital. It seemed an unlucky enterprise, and the Boardconsequently decided not to risk throwing good money after bad: sothe show was closed down.
'I never got an opportunity of playing the record, as I wasliving in hotels or staying with friends until after my marriage. Irespected Ballister's memory too well to break his condition ofsolitary audience. Then I forgot about the thing entirely in myfirst enjoyment of Dulling, and it was not until my wife flew intoone of her tantrums one evening and left me alone with theradiophone in this very room that I remembered the record andbrought it downstairs. I shoved it into the machine forthwith, andwith what psychological effects you can now yourself judge. I couldnot even wait for the end of the music, but grabbed a desk knife(which, by the way, I carefully stowed away before trying myexperiment on you!) and rushed out into the hall and up the stairs.Well, that was when I first discovered that my wife always sleepswith her bedroom door locked!'
There was a moment or two of uncomfortable silence beforeMorcambe found his voice.
'Peter!'
'Yes, Roger?'
'That's a fine roaring fire behind you. What do you say to ourconsigning that record to the flames?'
'What! Burn it? Certainly not. I never chuck presents away,especially not those from friends that are dead. For everythingcomes its day of utility. There, now! It is safely locked up againin its solitary confinement. Many thanks, old fellow, for helpingme to make sure that my previous experience wasn't just a matter ofpersonal imagination. And now, I expect, you're about ready forbed?'
Morcambe was quick to agree, both because he had disliked theexperiment and the ensuing conversation and also because he had tocatch the 8.20 train at Brecklethorpe next morning. He slept nottoo badly, and had had breakfast and was already in the car whenhis host appeared on the doorstep in a dressing-gown to bid himgoodbye.
'I wish,' said the departing guest, 'that we'd burnt that damnedrecord.'
'I know exactly what you have been imagining, Roger,' Tullivantreplied, 'but you completely misunderstood me. To put that old mindof yours at rest I'll give you this solemn assurance; that I willnever lay violent hands on Maud.Never. You may take my wordon that.'
The car was already in motion and Morcambe was not sure that hecaught Tullivant's concluding words correctly, but they sounded tohim like 'it won't be necessary'. That, however, didn't seem tomake sense.
3
Four or five weeks later Roger Morcambe was having breakfast inhis small house at Nether Foxbourne when his maid, coming in withthe newspaper, asked if she might make bold to ask a question.
'Why, certainly, Bertha; and I hope I may be able to answer it;but I'm not an encyclopaedia, you know.'
'That's as may be, sir; but cook keeps asking the name of thatplace as you stays in down Penchester way?'
'Dulling—Dulling Towers, to be exact.'
'Ah! and the name of the lady and gentleman as it belongsto?'
'Mr and Mrs Tullivant. But why do you ask?'
'Because, sir, of what's been wrote in this morning'sDailyScene. Such a scandal, cook calls it, as never she knew; and ifthey be the master's friends he'll sure be worried, she says.'
'Thank you, Bertha, for forewarning me. There's sure to besomething about it in theMorning Digest, I expect; and I'llhave a look after I've finished breakfast.'
No sooner had the door closed on Bertha than her master,yielding to the curiosity which he had felt it dignified todissemble in her presence, tore open the paper. From its secondpage there stared at him these ugly headlines:
COUNTY HOSTESS ARRESTED
Alleged attempt to murder
From what followed, the reader was given to understand that theCounty Hostess in question was Mrs Tullivant of Dulling Towers,near Penchester, and that the intended victim of assassination wasMiss Jane Cannot, her second housemaid. The lady had apparentlybeen sitting at needlework in the drawing-room when the maid camein to clean the grate and lay the fire. The latter saw her mistressplace a record on the gramophone and afterwards heard some music,but indistinctly as she was partially deaf. The next she knew was adreadful pain in the back and her mistress bent over her, stabbingand stabbing again. At this she had fallen forward into thefireplace and fainted.
Mr Tullivant, it was next reported, was helping Mr Hopkins, thegardener, to prune and tie up the virginian creeper outside thefrench window. Hearing a scream they dashed together into the room,where the former tripped over the carpet and falling against thegramophone overturned it onto the parquet floor, smashing therecord which it had been playing and also the glass protecting thecontrol dials. It was the gardener, therefore, who tore hismistress away from the prostrate maid and forced her into a chair.The latter had terrible wounds on neck and shoulder, and one on theleft upper arm, the consequences of which might yet prove fatal.She had been removed by motor ambulance to the PenchesterInfirmary. The attack had been made with a large pair ofsharply-pointed scissors from Mrs Tullivant's work-basket.
Morcambe read this account with an apprehension that increasedon a second perusal. Nor was his uneasiness allayed by the Courtproceedings reported at intervals over the following weeks. Theevidence of Tullivant, Hopkins and Gannot herself (whose recoverywas happily speedier than the doctors dared to expect) tallied inevery detail and was quite unshaken in cross examination. Theaccused woman, however, insisted on telling a story whichinevitably raised the question of her sanity. The assault, shedeclared, had been engineered by her husband. He had left lying onthe gramophone lid a record, with instructions that she must notplay it while alone because of its depressing psychologicaleffects. He knew, therefore, that she would try playing it as soonas she had company, and he knew, too, that the first person to comein would be the deaf maid, Jane Cannot. He took up his positionwith Hopkins outside the french window in order to witness thesuccess of his diabolical plan. It was the music that had compelledher to do the stabbing, and her husband had purposely fallenagainst the gramophone and smashed the record in order to deny herthe proof of her statement. No: his purpose was not to injure thehousemaid, though such injury was necessary to his plan. His objectwas to get herself, his wife, convicted and sent to prison so thathe might have Dulling Towers all to himself.
This preposterous explanation of her act led the jury tosuggest, and the judge to order, a remand of two weeks in order toenable a professional examination of her mental condition. For thispurpose she was removed to the St Dymphna's Home in Penchester,whither a very large number of reports concerning her pasteccentricities were posted by shocked but mercifully inclinedneighbours, including the Vicar of East Dulling.
The verdict of guilty but insane, found by the jury three weekslater, met with much approval. The feelings of all in East and WestDulling were expressed by the Vicar's wife when she remarked at theMothers' League, of which Mrs Tullivant had been patroness, thatthe poor thing could never have done it if only she'd been likeother people. To which the assembled mothers added, 'Ah yes,indeed, poor thing!' It gave them naturally a thrill, after yearsof toadying to their cantankerous queen, to call her now a 'thing':poor thing!
Only for Morcambe did the lady's removal to a place of detentionfor the criminal insane raise unpleasant interrogations ofconscience. Should he have volunteered his testimony in regard tothat gramophone record? Would he not thereby have raised questionsas to his own mental stability? He would, under cross-examination,have had to admit to very nearly a year's residence in Trantonhallfor shell-shock; and they had told him, what indeed he knew, thathis case had at one stage presented apparently mental symptoms.Then they would certainly unearth the tragedy of his uncle Edwin.Tullivant, of course, knew about all these things: and that waswhy, he now realised with shame and anger, Tullivant had chosenhim to experiment upon that night! 'No,' he found himselfmuttering his conclusions out loud, 'my giving evidence would havebeen no manner of good to her but would have done all manner ofharm to me. Moreover, from the standpoint of abstract Justice thereis more perhaps to be said for locking up malignant eccentrics thanunintentioned lunatics! But what a swine Peter has proved himself,he's worse than ever she can have been!'
Morcambe saw no reason to revise this opinion when in a sportingpaper some weeks later he read that Mr Tullivant had obtained legalcustody of his wife's estate and that frequent meets of theHaddenham Hunt were being held at Dulling Towers in response to hishospitable invitation. He might at least have waited till the nextseason! Morcambe decided never to visit Dulling again.
4
Nevertheless, he did, and within the year too. It was to attendTullivant's funeral.
The last months of Tullivant's life were of almost unadulteratedhappiness. Not the least of his gratifications was to be addressedas 'squire', a misnomer which evidenced his growing popularitythroughout the countryside. The fame of the Dulling shoots, huntbreakfasts and card parties had indeed spread far and wide, andTullivant took good care that they should reach the ears of hiscompulsorily cloistered spouse. His personal visits to herinvariably so aggravated her condition that the asylum authoritieshad soon limited them to one a month. Affecting still to humour herformer fancies, and thereby to improve the conditions of herincarceration, he informed the doctors of her aversion to allthings beginning with B, H, M or S and thus induced them to omitfrom her dietary and recreational curriculum many of the itemswhich she liked best. This part of his revenge he foundparticularly sweet. He also extracted a sacrilegious enjoyment fromthe public prayers for his wife's recovery which the Vicarperiodically offered at his hypocritical behest. With hands heldover his eyes he would study through the chinks between his fingersthe faces of choirboys and choirmen during such supplications. Thelady had not been greatly missed, he inferred.
The only hobby in which Tullivant no longer cared to indulge wasthat of playing the radiophone. This had nothing to do with anydefect in his sense of hearing but rather with some deteriorationin that of sight. Whether he was developing colour blindness, orwhether the illusion was due to some peculiarity in the room'sillumination, he could never open a drawer of the record cabinetwithout seeming to find at its top a chocolate brown disc with anapple-green label. On each such occasion he found it necessary tosteady his brain by repeating to himself the assurance that therehad been only one such record and that he had most certainlysmashed it to atoms. Nevertheless the hallucination persisted, andso he had to give up the radiophone.
The death of Tullivant in the fullness of his new and ill-foundbliss cannot be better or more exactly told than in the words usedby Mrs Hallowby at the inquest.
'My house in West Dulling is flush with the main London-Oxbridgeroad, along which the motor traffic is incessant. The front dooropens straight onto the pavement, my garden being at the back. LastWednesday morning I was putting up flowers in the dining-room, andmy son and daughter had just gone upstairs to the music room topractise the violin and piano together, when the front door bellrang. It was about eleven o'clock and my maid had gone down to thevillage shop. So I answered the door myself and there found MrTullivant. He had walked over from the Towers by the footpaththrough Brereton's copse and had his black spaniel with him. Hecame in and I offered him a sherry after his walk but, as men oftenwill, he preferred beer out of a pewter mug. While he was drinkingwe talked about our gardens, and he drew from his pocket a packetof hollyhock seed which he had promised me. After ten minutes or sohe said that he must be getting back and, as I let him out of thefront door, he pointed to an oncoming lorry and said, 'They oughtto limit the size of these juggernauts, you know.' Then, with awave of his hand, he walked across the road, and the dog wasalready on the other side. He had plenty of time to pass over andthere was no need for the lorry-driver to slacken speed; butsuddenly, right in the middle of the road he stopped dead with hishead on one side as if listening to something. Then he turnedcompletely round and shook his fist at the open window of my musicroom on the second floor. It was a mad act, for the lorry was ontop of him in an instant. There was a crunching and squealing ofbrakes and I hurriedly put my fingers into my ears to keep outanother sound that I knew must come. No; it was certainly not thedriver's fault, and what suddenly possessed Mr Tullivant I cannotguess. He knew my son and daughter, but he certainly couldn't haveseen them through the window for they had just that moment begunplaying their piece for the village concert, and the piano is atthe back of the room. I shall never hear that piece again withoutthinking of this tragedy; and it was a great favourite of my deadhusband's too, and therefore very dear to me!'
'I sincerely sympathise with you, Mrs Hallowby,' said thecoroner, 'for I am a musical man myself. Perhaps you would tell usthe name of the piece?'
'Thank you, sir; most certainly. It was Siedel'sSonata in DMinor for violin and piano.'
1
'You were right, Warden, beyond doubt in shutting the show downin such circumstances. The annoying thing is that they never let meknow.'
'If they had, though, we shouldn't have had you with us tonight:so you mustn't expect us to regret their omission!'
The scene is the Senior Common Room of Selham College, Oxbridge,and the preceding remarks have passed between Greville Tempest, thewarden, and Cyril Hunslow, sometime resident fellow and historytutor, but now librarian and occasional master at distantPenchester.
'We've never really forgiven you for leaving us,' continued thewarden; 'a man of your calibre's wasted on a public school.'
'Well, it's nice of you to miss me, but I've found more time formy writing and research there than ever I managed to get to myselfhere. I should never have got through the stuff for those two lastbooks of mine outside the peace of Penchester! I owe more than Ican say to the old aunt who left me Little Court and the money tolive there. By the way, when are you coming down to stay with meagain?'
'Very soon, I hope. I hear they've rebuilt your cathedralorgan.'
'Now then, keep off music, please!' interposed Brisson, thesub-warden. 'We had quite enough talk of Bach and Beethoven and therest of them last night. What I want to know is why should theclosing down of the College Psychical Society, owing to the pranksof a pack of young fools, preventus from hearing whateverHunslow was going to tell 'em tonight?'
'An excellent idea! Yes, please do read us your paper, Hunslow.We got talking about ghosts here last week and nearly had a roughhouse.'
'Merely because,' explained old Harsleigh the chaplain, 'Iendeavoured to suggest to certain of my more junior colleagues thata correct valuation of psychical data depends upon a nicediscrimination between what is objective and what subjective.'
'And merely because,' exploded a young don with red hair and afreckled face, 'I pointed out that those terms connoted adistinction without a difference. To the idealist amongphilosophers the objective may be said to be subjective, and to thesensationalist in psychology the opposite is the case. If only MrHarsleigh would stick to his theology and leave...'
'No more, Nicholls, please. We can't go ranging again over allthat ground. Now, Hunslow, if you'll read us your paper I promiseyou a quiet audience in spite of these disputants.'
'Well, if you really want to hear it, I'll go upstairs and fetchit. It won't detain you for more than twenty minutes or so; andthere's nothing in it that can't be explained in three or fourdifferent ways. So everyone will be welcome to his own theory andsolution!'
While Hunslow is away they stoke the fire, pull their seats intoa semicircle in front of it, and set the big leather armchairs ateither end for the warden and the reader. Except for the heavilyshaded reading lamp on a small table at the latter's side alllights are extinguished. The reading then begins.
2
A RECORD OF CERTAIN EVENTS ASSOCIATED BY THE WRITERWITH A DESK
by Cyril Hunslow
I have chosen the title of this paper carefully. It does notimply that the events which I shall narrate were of themselvesconnected with a writing desk, but only that I have associated themtherewith. Whether the interconnection goes any further than that Imust leave to your judgment. I only know that for myself theassociation will be permanent.
I will begin with four introductions.
First of myself. I am a historian and, as my books will bearwitness, a critical historian. I have tried to apply the samecritical standards to the preparation of this paper as to thecompilation of my histories.
Secondly, of my paternal aunt, the late Mrs Agatha Telling, ofLittle Court, Penchester, my present home, which she left to me ather death. She was a Victorian lady of common sense and strongmind, and with no fads or fancies about her.
Thirdly, of Mildred Hudson, my aunt's parlour maid and after herdecease my housekeeper. She was a gaunt, unimpressionable womanwhom her mistress once not inaptly described as a footman inpetticoats.
Fourth, and lastly, of the writing desk. It was of mahogany withinlays of patterned ivory on the slanting cover, which when openedand let down onto lateral draw-pins formed the writing board.Somebody, I forget who, once told me that the ivory inlaysindicated the workmanship of French prisoners during the NapoleonicWars. The catalogue of the Penchester Museum, however, to which Irecently presented the desk, says nothing as to that; butclassifies the piece as 'Miscellaneous: probably late EighteenthCentury'.
The first I remember of this desk was that it occupied a windowcorner of the almost disused morning room at Little Court. I onlyknew my aunt open it but once, and that was when on return from awalk with me she found on the hall table a telegram and a pre-paidreply form. Turning into the morning room and sitting at the deskshe scribbled a quick reply. 'Here, Cyril,' she said, 'run alongwith this, will you, to the epitaph office?'
'Epitaph office?'
Did I say epitaph office?' My aunt seemed annoyed with herself.'Of course I meant telegraph office. This wretched old desk alwaysmakes me talk and write nonsense!'
The inconsequence of this explanation of her mistake neveroccurred to me at the time. I was far too polite and politic ayoungster ever to question the veracity or validity of an avuncularor auntly utterance. In point of fact I completely forgot herremark until I caught myself in the act of making a very similarone almost twenty years later: when the old lady had recently diedand I was making a first entry on my inheritance. Nothing relevantto the subject of this paper happened, at least to my knowledge, inthe intervening period.
I was, at the time to which we have now jumped, making apreliminary stay of two nights at Little Court before moving in myfew bits of personal furniture. I wanted to see where they wouldfit in. It was an evening in early July and the daylight stillstrong enough after supper for me to try which of the foursitting-rooms on the ground floor would best suit my research workand writing. I wished to leave the drawing-room as Aunt Agatha hadleft it I felt sure that she would have preferred it so. Thedining-room was too dark and the hall too open to interruption.There remained, therefore, only the morning-room, which (withsubstitution of my large writing-table for the too small old desk)would suit admirably. With a view to testing the light, which Ilike having over my left shoulder, I sat down at the desk, openedit and looked for paper whereon to write. There were no loosesheets, but there was one of those Victorian 'commonplace albums'with pages of different coloured papers, of which some twenty or sohad been torn out and the remainder left blank.
Taking up a pen, with my thoughts focused on a futurerearrangement of the furniture, I jotted down a few unpremeditatedwords on the top leaf. The light was quite satisfactory, and Idecided to give instructions for my table to be sited exactly wherethe desk now stood. Before shutting it up again I glanced down atwhat I had written in the album, and what I saw gave me a littlejerk of surprise. This is what I had written:
AUTOEPITAPHY
being a Miscellany of
MESSAGES FROM THE BEYOND
selected as suitable for engraving upon the
senders' tombs and for edification of the
passing reader: complete with appropriate
titles in superscript, carefully chosen
by The Editor
My first instinct was to ejaculate 'What rubbish!' when thoselong-forgotten words of my aunt suddenly rushed back on me: 'Thiswretched old desk always makes me talk and write nonsense.' Andthen, of course, she too had said something about epitaphs. Ah,yes! now I remembered: 'the epitaph office', that was it! Well, itwas getting too dark now in the morning-room; so, having closed thealbum and shut up the desk, I returned to the cosiness of thedrawing room, where curtains were already drawn and the lights lit.Having read the daily papers and two or three chapters of a novel Iwent to bed well satisfied with my new home.
I always keep on a table at my bedside a number of books and awriting pad; not because I am slow in going to sleep but because Iwake early, especially on a bright summer's morning. I did so onthe morrow of the events just recorded and, taking up the writingpad, amused myself between six and half-past seven o'clock bytrying to compose a few epitaphs and titles for them on the linesof the nonsensical entry which I had made in the old album thenight before. I managed with some racking of the brain, andcertainly without any inspirational afflatus, to hammer out two;and these, for a reason that I shall shortly explain, I will nowread out to you. The first is a message from 'Everyman' and itstitle 'Ex Nihilo Nihil'.
Producer, actor, audience, in one
I played 'My Life', and lived the parts I played:
The curtain's down; my piece has had its run;
Nothing remains: a shadow leaves no shade.
The second was from 'A Horticulturist' and its title 'In Heavenas it is in Earth'.
Too garish are these bright Elysian fields
Of endless summer and unfading flowers!
Must I then pine while Recollection yields
Solace of cloud and sunset, wind and showers?
No! I have found a corner of the sky
Where soil is heaped, and ash and mulch and mould;
Where leaves still fall, buds burst and blossoms die;
Where the First Gardener gardens as of old!
My reason for reciting these verses is that you will have atonce noticed their entire difference in matter and manner from thestuff and style of my writing in the album the previous evening;which must have struck you, as it did me, as redolent of theeighteenth century. Those of you who have read my publishedmetrical efforts—I dare not call them poems—willrecognise my two epitaphs as quite of a piece with them. I was,indeed, gratified to find myself so normal on a slightly abnormaltheme; and, by the time I had had breakfast and kept an appointmentwith the headmaster of Penchester regarding my acceptance of thepost of School Librarian, I had forgotten all about the old deskand the album within.
Such forgetfulness was not, however, to last for long. On myreturn to lunch, Hudson (as Mildred desired me to address her inher new dignity of housekeeper) begged my pardon but had I expectedany visitor that morning? My negative reply appeared to puzzle herand elicited the comment that in that case it was a most peculiarthing.
'What is peculiar, Hudson?' I enquired.
'Well, sir; you know of them fainting fits as I were telling youof yesterday? While I were in the morning-room and you was out, andI bent my head over the writing-desk to see as whether thereweren't no ink in the inkpot which Mrs Telling always said it wasmy duty for to see to properly, I suddenly come over that giddy andstrange that I lay down longways on the sofa and shut my eyes, andwhether I goes into a faint or a doze or what not I don't rightlyknow, but when I opens them again I see a gentleman sitting at thewriting-desk and looking hard at that book as is inside of it. Hewas dressed queer too, just as though he step out of one of themfancy balls; in fact, he looked like a bishop, only worse.'
'What do you mean by "worse", Hudson?' I enquired.
'Well, he had little spindly legs same as a bishop, but were alluntucked about the neck and no proper collar to him either. So hesits there laughing at what you had wrote in the book; and it waslucky, I thought to myself, as my dear dead mistress had tore outall her drawings of gravestones with rhymes on 'em as I could nevermake sense on, nor she neither I reckon, poor lady, for 'tweren'ther as done it but the old desk, she would say. Well, sir, as Iwere a watching the old gentleman what should I do but tumble offthe sofa, and when I pulls myself up again there weren't no oldgentleman there at all and I minded that I must have been in adream. But it were peculiar all the same, for my digestion weren'tbad this morning and I ain't one to dream on a calm stomach nor inthe daytime neither.'
'Don't worry yourself, Hudson,' I replied. 'Most of us havenightmares, and all that you have had is a daymare! There's nothingto be upset about: it's all perfectly natural.'
It is significant, is it not, that a majority of men and womenseem to derive comfort from being told that a thing is natural. Itis difficult not to infer that most of us tacitly accept theexistence of phenomena classifiable in the opposite category!
At this stage of my experience and information in regard to thewriting-desk I was no longer sceptical, though I remained acutelycritical, of its association with some stimulus or urge towardssepulchral inscriptions. Indeed it wounded my self esteem to haveto confess that through lack of adequate mental concentration I hadallowed my pen to write words of which I could not consider myselfthe author. Nor was my discomfiture in any way relieved by Hudson'sdisclosure that a woman of my late aunt's strength of mind andcharacter had suffered a similar subjection to an uninvitedinfluence. I was glad in fact not to have to broach the subject toHudson again, as I had already ordered the desk's removal to a bigspare bedroom in order to make way for my writing-tabledownstairs.
In its new venue the desk was quite forgotten by me for some sixmonths after my entry into permanent residence at Little Court.During that time I had no guests to stay, and it was not untilafter a succession of four visitors had been incommoded by it inthe ensuing year that I offered the piece to the Penchester museumand paid for its removal thither. It is not necessary for thepurposes of this paper that I should give the names of my fourfriends, nor have I their permission to do so. It will suffice tocall them A, B, C and D.
A is a member of the Indian Civil Service, whose most markedtraits are a profound pride—his enemies would call itconceit—in his profession; and a bigoted and militantatheism. He would suffer no criticism, serious or jocular, ofeither. I therefore studiously avoided both subjects and, as wefound plenty to talk about outside of them, did not find theiravoidance difficult. I was sorry therefore when on the third day hetold me that he must leave on the morrow. He struck me as oddlyfidgety and ill at ease in saying goodbye and, as his cab droveoff, put his head out of the window to say, 'I'm afraid you'll findI've written some nonsense in your album: please forgive me.'Curiosity carried me quickly upstairs, and opening the album I readas follows:
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS
(from an Indian Civil Servant)
We sons of heaven here agree
Not to appear too fervent;
Each has the honour just to be
God's most obedient Servant.
GOOD FORM
(from an Atheist)
On earth I would mutter a curse on all
Fools who believe in God's essence:
But here it seems rather too personal
To pass such remarks in His presence.
The writing was indubitably in A's firm and readily legiblehand; but just as certainly what was written constituted a plainnegation of his authorship. It was, to use. Hudson's expression, 'amost peculiar thing'.
B came to stay a month or so after A, and in not removing thealbum from the desk but leaving it available to subsequent visitorsI yielded to my curiosity to see what, if anything, they wouldwrite in it. At the time of his visit, B was Bishop's chaplain in aNorth Country See. He had previously been a country parson in EastAnglia and has since become a much respected Archdeacon in theMidlands. I always found him tolerant of criticism of the clergy bythe laity and frank but restrained in his reciprocation. The lineswhich he wrote (and for which unlike A he did not apologise, thoughhe expressed surprise at having produced them) were incongruous inform rather than in substance with his ordinary writings. In thethree weeks of his visit he wrote more than a dozen verses, ofwhich I will read out three.
EXCEPT AS A LITTLE CHILD
(from a Lord Bishop)
Complete with mitre, cope and staff
I knock at Heaven's gate:
Why this should make the angels laugh
I cannot explicate.
NOR THY JUDGMENTS MY JUDGMENTS
(from a Minister of Religion)
That God is colour-blind in love
I from the grave forthtell:
My flock's black sheep are penned above,
My white lambs bleat in bell!
IMMORTALITY (from an Undertaker)
I, who with coffin, hearse and bier
Folk to their long rest laid,
Find in this dull and corpseless sphere
An insult to the trade.
I now come to verses written in the hand of C, but soaggressively naive and anachronistic that they at once appeared tome, and still appear, to leap at one straight out of theeighteenth, or very early nineteenth, century. C himself regardedthem quite impersonally and apathetically as 'rum stuff'. A personof considerable inherited wealth and of consequent leisure, he was,nevertheless, devoid of any literary accomplishment ordiscrimination. With the remark that he doubted whether his oldaunt (who had left him his money) would have approved of them, hewas, apparently, able to dismiss the verses he had written frommind and memory, although he had contributed no fewer than nineteenadditions to the album, of which I have selected eight as typical.Here they are:
RE-UNION
(from an Uxoricide)
Who, hanged by neck till I was dead,
Had paid for my wife-murder
Now find the bitch arrived ahead!
Pray, what could be absurder?
REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM
(from a Recidivist)
Did I not sin sans fear or tear
Great sins of rape and arson?
Then why am I detailed to hear
Confessions from a parson?
UNEMPLOYMENT
(from a Courtesan)
For harlotry my soul I sold
On men's desire reliant,
But now must walk the streets of gold
Nor ever find a client.
CONTINUITY'
(from a Politician)
The shams of party strife
Bred falsehood in my breath:
So did I lie through life
Who now lie still in death.
THE MIGHTY FROM THEIR SEATS
(from a Parish Clerk)
When the Duchess was churched, I intoned the response,
'Who putteth Her Ladyship's trust in Thee';
But her faith in the Lord must have suffered mischance
For Her Grace fills no castle in Sion's citie.
REDEMPTION AT PAR
(from a Company Promoter)
Unwanted? I? So good at schemes
To make thrice two look seven!
In need of no prospectus seems
The Company of Heaven!
SADISM
(from an Usher)
The bad boys made me sad; the worse
Sadder (thou rightly addest);
But daily flogging his obverse,
The worst boy made me saddest.
CYNOLATRY
(from a Dog Fancier)
No dogs allowed? No room for 'Squaw',
My friend I loved so well?
Too well,' St Peter said, 'and more
Than God: so Heaven's your Hell!'
The final entry to be made in the album before the desk'sremoval to the museum brought me face to face with tragedy. D hadfor many years been my greatest friend; and, as soon as I heardthat his doctor had ordered him a complete rest and change ofscene, I telegraphed an invitation to stay at Little Court. Hisrapid success at the Bar had led to overwork of both brain andnerve, and he had never been of really strong physique.Nevertheless, on meeting him at the station, I noticed none of thepallor or decline that I had expected in one sent for a rest-cure.On the contrary, D's complexion was florid and he appeared to walkand talk at full steam. It was unfortunate that I was reassuredthereby into letting him sit up late in discussion and argument. Ineed not blame myself, however, for I heard later that hiscondition had puzzled even the specialists and that he was far frombeing what medicos call a straightforward case. It was a long waypast one o'clock when we bade each other 'goodnight' in theupstairs corridor; and his last words to me were: 'Well, I feel adifferent man after our talk! Quite like old times, eh?'
At seven-thirty next morning I was awakened by Hudson knockingat my door to say that she was afraid that poor Mr D had been tookvery queer, and would I ring up for the doctor? To cut this sadstory short, severe cardiac symptoms were diagnosed and my dearfriend entered upon what could only be described as four months ofprotracted death before his final release. Two days after thiscollapse, he was removed, at his own request, to a nursing home runby a cousin of his at Davenham-on-Sea.
On my return from seeing him into the train—in which thedoctor had arranged for him to be accompanied by a trainednurse—I found Mildred Hudson in tears. She hadn't meant topry into what weren't nohow her concern; but would I go upstairsand see what the poor gentleman had written in that book? I ofcourse did so and, from a shaky scrawl, deciphered thefollowing:
Sham epitaphs I will not dare to write
In vein jocose: for I may die tonight.
This pain that stabs me through from chest to back
Must be precursor of a heart attack.
All I can offer is this sage advice,
'Cling hard to life: for dying is not nice!'
The grief caused me by these lines was not without remorse thatI had not removed the album or locked the desk before D came. I satdown straightway and wrote a letter offering the desk to the MuseumCommittee. Pending their reply, I had it carried down and placed inthe dark cupboard under the stairs. I had come suddenly to hate thesight of it.
It was six months or more after D's death, by which time I hadsucceeded in forgetting about the old desk and its associations,that, in my rearrangement of the School Library, I came across aportfolio docketed: 'Some materials for a history of Penchester'.Inside was a large number of unindexed and unarranged papers inprint and manuscript; most of them belonging to the first half ofthe nineteenth century. On a cursory inspection they seemed of veryunequal interest; but everything is grist to the mill of thehistorian, and I began placing them in chronological order as afirst step towards a more thorough examination. A folio to which myattention was drawn by its unusual calligraphy, was headed: 'AnAppreciation of our Cathedral Clergy, with a Short Note on DoctorErmytage'. The clerical appreciations were nauseating examples ofpolysyllabic flattery; so that I turned with relief to the curt andcrisp note on Dr Ermytage, which proved very far from appreciative.It is important to my purpose, and I will therefore read it to youin full:
Anselm Ermytage came to our organanno 1795 andobiit 1806. Upon that instrument he would discourse sweetharmonies, but proved himself an organ of great discord in ourmidst. His quarrel with the Dean arose in the matter of music forMagnificat, whereof he set the whole to soft and sadmelodies save only the sentences 'He shall put down the mighty fromtheir seat' and 'the rich He shall send empty away'; the which heput to a great shouting by the quire with much noise upon theorgan. Now the Dean's prohibition of this music lay upon the groundthat singing after such sort made of the holy canticle of theVirgin nought but a dangerous song of revolution and contempt forthe nobility. Wherein, Doctor Beven had the support of all personsof decent birth and superior understanding, but Dr Ermytage tookhis discipline so ill that he spread abroad an epitaph against theDean's death, which he hoped might be soon, and vented therein hisspleen upon the whole people of Penchester. The words of hislampoon, which few accounted wit, ran thus:
Such as knew Dean Beven well
Doubt not he has gone to hell.
Do not pity Doctor Beven,
After Penchester 'tis Heaven.
Whereafter he wrote many and diverse false epitaphs to the scandalof our city and to the sad annoyance of the dean and chapter.Moreover, upon his death, it was discovered in his testament thatthese and many more wicked verses had been set apart by him in hisdesk for posthumous printing, to which end he charged upon hisestate the sum of one hundred guineas. But, upon the advice of hisattorney, Mr William Telling of Little Court in this City (whobecame sole executor under this will after the death of the other,which had been Mr Mathew Bilney) did destroy these verses by fireand paid the whole amount aforesaid into the Bishop's chest for thesick and needy. And this he did notwithstanding a solemn caution inthe said testament contained that, failing due and faithfulexecution thereof, the testator reserved the right of personalenactment. Of this solemn caution the attorney made light, holdingthat it was vain and beyond the law and impatient of a wiseinterpretation: but in late life Mr Telling was wont to confessthat he doubted his action had been right and that he did not careto sit at the desk wherein the verses had been left by DrErmytage.
'That, gentlemen,' said Hunslow, 'concludes my paper. I willgladly answer, to the best of my ability, any question that you maywish to put to me. But any attempt at explanation I must leave toyour more experienced judgment in such matters. As an historian Ihave endeavoured to present as true and full account of a series ofevents as my sources of information and experience permit. Beyondthat I cannot go. I thank you for your patient hearing of what hasbeen a longer paper than I anticipated when I accepted yourinvitation to write and read it.'
3
There was silence for a minute or so after the reading of thepaper, during which its author leant forward and self-consciouslypoked the fire.
'I speak for us all, Hunslow,' said the warden, 'when I say thatwe've thoroughly enjoyed your paper. For myself, I confess that itsliterary transcends its psychical interest.'
'I'm not so sure about that!' exclaimed Nicholls, getting up andmoving towards the electric-light switches. 'Hunslow's story needsexamination in the cold bright light of reason. This spooky glimmerof the fire and huddling of shadows on the ceiling make forimagination and credulity. Let us, therefore, indulge in thesymbolism of turning on the lights!'
There was a clicking of switches, a momentary flash, thesplutter of a blown fuse, and a sudden relapse into gloom.
'As none of you have any questions,' Hunslow said, 'I think, ifthe warden will allow me, I'll be turning in now. Good-night!'
1
The present that pleased Philip Falmer most on his fourthbirthday was the wooden working model of a garden pump sent to himby his Aunt Sarah. The accompanying letter informed him that it wasthe handiwork of young Simon Tubbins, the gardener's boy atSockstead Hall, where Aunt Sarah's husband, Sir James Redlaw,reigned as Squire over the two parishes of Upper and NetherSockstead. The model stood on a tripod, which could be placed andheld firm by Philip's left hand in a basin of water, while hisright worked the handle up and down and brought the water pulsingfrom the spout. Philip felt that he was now one up on hisone-year-older brother, to whom, three months earlier, the sameaunt had sent a model of a stationary steam engine. Edgar was notallowed methylated spirit for this engine, except when MissWilliamson, the nursery governess, was there to superintend itsoperation: for Mrs Falmer had declared it a dangerous gift for achild. Edgar disliked being called a child, and could not view as agift to him anything of which he was forbidden sole andunrestricted use. The pump, on the other hand, was rated by themother as 'most sensible and suitable', and, for a week or so,Philip and his pump were in reciprocating, and almost perpetual,motion. It was only when he tried pumping brilliantine taken fromthe bottle on his father's dressing table as a variant from waterthat some few parental restrictions had to be enacted andenforced.
It may be doubted whether the generality of aunts, uncles,godfathers, godmothers, parents and other customary donors ofpresents to children sufficiently realise the dangers ofunintelligent generosity. If your godson asks for a pump, by allmeans give him one; for his request shows that he is alreadypump-minded. But to walk into a toy shop and there order a steamengine for Edgar, a pump for Philip, and a pistol for Arthurwithout knowing whether Edgar wants an engine, Philip a pump orArthur a pistol, involves a terrible responsibility. Just as a twigthrown into a mud bank may in time deflect the channel of a river,so may a chance-chosen toy determine the course of a child'spsychology. Thus it came about that Philip, who had neverpreviously paid any attention to pumps, soon began to search themout as objects of prime interest in the houses and gardens of hisparents' neighbours and friends.
One afternoon indeed he made bold to work the handle of thelarge and ancient pump in Tarrington Churchyard. The Sexton musthave been cleaning up the vestry when he heard its sonorousclanking, for, to Philip's consternation, he came fiercely runningout of the door in the south aisle. The boy need not however havebeen frightened, for the old man, seeing who he was, seemed vastlyamused and bade him go home and tell his father, 'as he had foundwhere to draw white wine with plenty of body in it'. Philip, thoughnot understanding the message, disliked the rather sinister cacklewith which it had been confided; and, because of this dislike, hedid not repeat it to his father, but suppressed it. He could nothowever forget the incident, which caused him thenceforward toclassify pumps in two categories, nice and nasty, and to suspectall pumps in lonely or unusual places as likely to belong to thelatter. Philip's new interest soon extended to other items ofhydraulic apparatus besides pumps. Although his parents nevertraced the disaster to his agency, the overflowing one morning oftheir main cistern and the consequent fall of plaster from theceiling of the bedroom beneath, resulted from Philip's firstself-introduction to a ball-cock. For many months he could neverresist the thrill to be derived from pressing the copper floatunder water and then allowing it to spring up again—a sudden,jerky movement for which the mechanism was not designed.
Then there were taps. Here, again, a dual classificationsuggested itself. There was the honest straightforward tap with aspout which, if you turned it, showed clearly what it was doing;but there was also the mysterious and secretive tap (to be found indark cupboards, long passages, or under iron flaps in the outsidepavements), whose purposes were hidden. Experiment in regard to thelatter was hazardous. When the bottom of the kitchen boiler wasburnt out for lack of water, Philip, overhearing cook's loudcomplaint to his mother, rushed speedily upstairs to readjust thetap in the wainscot of the housemaid's closet with which he hadpreviously meddled, thereby flooding the kitchen range, putting thefire out, and spoiling the dinner. Luckily Mr Falmer, on the databefore him, decided that there must have been a temporary blockagein the supply pipe, and his son went unsuspected. Strangely enough,it was a tap of the straightforward variety that shortly afterwardsled to his temporary undoing. It was the First Sunday in Advent,and he had greatly enjoyed joining in the singing of hymns about'Rejoice! Rejoice!' and 'dee-he-heeply wailing', when he noticed adribbling and a bubbling, and heard a slight sizzling, from theescape-cock of the radiator at the side of the family pew. Thetemptation was too great and he gave the little tap a smart twist.There was a merely momentary interruption to the Vicar's recital ofthe Litany, but permanent injury to Miss Williamson's smartest hat,damage which clearly necessitated a beating from his father, eventhough it was Sunday.
Once a week Mrs Falmer would drive over in the pony trap to doshopping in Bludborough, and it was there that Philip caught hisfirst rapturous glimpse of that apotheosis of a pump, a fire enginein action. It was in Bludborough, too, that, at the invitation ofthe Waterworks Superintendent (who was Miss Williamson'sbrother-in-law), Edgar and he were allowed to inspect the hugebeam-engined pumps that lifted water from the marsh meadows up tothe town reservoir above the railway station.
The hydraulic ram which supplied the large tank at TarringtonHall Philip found not altogether pleasant. The nature of theapparatus at the intake on the bank of Tarrington mill-pond wasexplained to him by his father, with the aid of the letter scaleson the library writing-table. The slow, rhythmic click-clack whichwas audible above the iron plate protecting the intake reminded himsomewhat of the tick-tock of the grandfather clock on the stairs.The din coming from the ram itself in its shed below the mill dam(a 'clang and a scroosh', as Edgar described it) was a verydifferent sort of noise and, Philip felt, rather alarming. Nor washis apprehension lessened when, finding the shed door open one day,he ventured to peep inside. The man who was doing repairs or makingadjustments undoubtedly meant to be kind; but, accustomed to preachin a neighbouring chapel, he proceeded, 'after explaining to Philipthe principle of the ram, to point a religious moral. 'You'll havetook heed, young sir, as how precious little of the water thatcomes down from the pond gets into this small pipe as leads to the'all on the 'ill. Most on it spills out, as you see, and runs downthe drain: which be a true parable of the Lord's working; for it'sonly His elect as may be squirted through the valve of grace up thenarrer pipe to 'eaven, while most on 'em goes splashing down thesewer of sin to 'ell.'
The half-light, half-gloom of the shed; the alternate thump,squelch and gurgle of the dimly discerned ram, and the awfuladmonitions of its guardian, put poor Philip in a sudden fear of heknew not what. Precipitately he rushed from the shed, banging thedoor behind him, and made off home as fast as his legs would carryhim. As he ran, his fear became gradually submerged in a sense ofshame at having been a coward; but, before reaching the front gateof Gorse Lodge, he had regained his self-possession sufficiently totry to dismiss both fear and shame from his mind. When, therefore,his mother asked where he had been (it was Miss Williamson'safternoon off and both boys were left to their own devices), hereplied that he had walked down along the fields by Highbarrow tohave a look at the cows and pigs. So, indeed, he had—on hisway to Tarrington mill-pond. But he couldn't forget that ram; orits noise, or its keeper!
2
During the next year and a half nothing much occurred ofrelevance to our tale. The model pump lasted only a matter ofmonths, Philip having soon become tired of it. Its final breakdownwas due not to fair wear and tear, but to use as a missile againsta too vocal cat. Philip's interest in hydraulic paraphernalia,which the model had aroused, nevertheless persisted and expanded.In spite of parental, and even fraternal discouragement, he paidsurreptitious visits to the Bludborough sewage farm. But, beyondthis, there is nothing else to be told of the period whichintervenes between the events already recorded and those about tooccupy our attention.
The scene now is Sockstead Hall, where the Falmers are paying aspring visit to the Redlaws. The reader will remember that LadyRedlaw, donor of the model pump to Philip, is Mrs Falmer's sister.The two boys, now nearly six and seven-and-a-half respectively, areon their best behaviour; being slightly overawed by the grandeurand dignity of ancient Sockstead as compared with the modestmodernity of their own home at Gorse Lodge.
It is the third afternoon of the visit, and the whole party,except Philip, have driven off in the wagonette to Penchester tosee the reconstructed retrochoir of the cathedral and the newreredos. Philip was considered too young for such an architecturaltreat; and, moreover, there was no room for him in the wagonette.Having ascertained that the cathedral was, apart from its font andan antiquated system of hot-water pipes, barren of hydromechanicaldevices, Philip did not at all mind being left out of the party. Hehad in fact been waiting for an opportunity of having anuninterrupted yarn with Simon Tubbins, the artist of the modelpump. Simon was in due course found in the big potting-shed betweenthe greenhouses in the walled garden. Although still called'gardener's boy' Simon seemed to Philip to have grown to full-sizemanhood since they last met two years ago. He was, consequently,shy in starting conversation; but, at the first mention of themodel pump, all reserve melted away and they were soon jabberingtogether as old friends. Yes: Simon still made models in his sparetime, if he could find any. He was now at work on one of a windmillpump. What! never seen a windmill pump? Well, Squire had had oneput up by the home farm, and it was well worth looking at. It wouldcertainly be working today, with this spanking wind. No: the modelher Ladyship had bought two years ago for a Christmas presentwasn't a copy of the pump in the kitchen garden, but of the one inThorp's Spinney. Where was Thorp's Spinney? Well, if the bullweren't out, you could take the short-cut and it was only twofields away beyond the home farm. The pump had been put there towater the cattle, but the well ran dry most seasons; so there wereno cattle kept there now, and nobody used the pump.
No, unfortunately; Simon couldn't possibly go there with Philipthat morning, because he must get these three dozen flower-potsready filled for Mr Lewkin to put the cuttings in at twelveo'clock. But if Master Philip would like to go by himself hecouldn't possibly miss the way. You walked straight as far as thehome farm gate, where you would see the windmill pump in the fieldon your left and the stile leading to Thorp's Spinney on yourright. If the bull were out there was always a notice by the stile,and then you walked on down the lane and followed it round insteadof cutting across the fields. There wasn't more than five minutesdifference really.
With these directions Philip found his way easily enough. AsSimon had foretold, the windmill was spinning round merrily in thestrong wind and the water spurted resonantly into the cisternbelow. After a brief inspection Philip walked on towards the stileand saw, propped against it, a board on which 'Ware Bull' had beencrudely daubed in tar. So he continued down the lane and, after aquarter-mile or so of its meanderings, found himself in Thorp'sSpinney and in sight of the object of his exploration.
The pump stood just outside the spinney fence; and that neitherit nor the trough below it had been in recent use was shown by theriot of nettles and burdock that surrounded both. Slipping underthe fence Philip found, as he rose on the other side, something toengage his attention besides the pump. His steps had till now beendirected westward, but he was now facing east and what he saw theredid not please him. The sky above Thorp's Rise was inky black, andas he gazed on it in surprise there was a glint of distantlightning. He also became suddenly aware that the westerly wind haddropped and that the scene before him lay wrapt in a stillness ofexpectancy. Snugly abed, with sheets to cover his eyes andpillow-ends to smother his ears, Philip did not bother aboutthunderstorms; but outdoors and all alone he found himself in fearof one. His first impulse was to bolt home and leave the pumpuninspected; but his second thought, prompted by self-respect, wasto pay it hastened attention before he ran. His nerves were,therefore, in a state of high tension and apprehension when hegrabbed hold of the handle and worked it jerkily up and down. Thiswas not easy, for the bearings had rusted, and at the fourth orfifth downstroke the plunger came out with a rattle and the shaftjammed.
At this moment there grated on Philip's ear a most horrible andunearthly sound. Frozen in stark fright he was unable even to lifthis hands to his ears to keep out the awful moaning that seemed toproceed now from the spout of the pump and now from the very groundbeneath his feet. It was a hideous ululation, expressive of abysmalpain and despair, and how long it continued Philip was never ableto tell. It might have been a matter of seconds or of minutes; tohim it was a timeless agony. What released him from its spell was aclap of not very distant thunder. With a quick dive beneath therail of the fence he dashed back into the lane. Two things onlyimpinged themselves on his numbed senses as he raced along. One wasthat the bull, after the manner of cattle, kept pace with him onits side of the dividing hedge; and the other was that the windmillhad ceased to turn for lack of wind. He noticed these irrelevanciesas in a dream.
But although insensitive to other external impressions Philipwas already turning a problem in his mind. What should he tell, ifanything, of his horrible experience? The truth was plainlyincredible. Edgar would not merely disbelieve but laugh. He musteither keep silence altogether about his afternoon's expedition orpretend that it had passed off without incident. Before he hadarrived at a conclusion he had reached the potting-shed and heardhimself hailed by Simon from within.
'What? Back already! Why, good gracious, Master Philip, what bethe matter? You're as white as chalk. Don't tell me as you forgotwhat I said and have been chased by the bull?'
Philip jumped at the explanation thus suggested. Invention wasalways pleasanter than suppression, and Edgar would envy thefictitious adventure.
'Why, yes!' he answered. 'I stupidly forgot on the way back, andhad to run for it. Luckily, I found a hole in the hedge.'
Simon's manifest admiration of this brevity showed Philip that alaconic touch would serve also in imparting the lie to Edgar. As heleft the walled garden a crash of thunder made him run towards theshort-cut to the Hall which lay across a footbridge over the river.Rain had already begun to fall in large ominous drops when hediscovered that the bridge gate was locked and that he must needsgo round by the drive; a detour which resulted in his being soakedto the skin before he arrived at the porch. There was no shelter enroute against a shower of tropical heaviness. It had hailstones init too, and was shiveringly cold.
Edgar found his brother very poor company at supper thatevening. He evinced no interest whatever in descriptions ofPenchester Cathedral, and very little more in the mysteriousdisappearance of Lenny Gurscall, the village idiot, about which allsorts of strange tales and rumours were current in the servants'hall. Nor was Philip's account of his escape from the bull such asto excite or amuse. The fact was that the hideous reality of theexperience which he was suppressing prevented him from giving tothe fictitious taurine encounter any sufficient veneer ofverisimilitude. Beginning the meal with mere lack of appetite heended it with a positive feeling of nausea.
Coming in with Lady Redlaw to bid both boys good night hismother quickly saw that all was not well with the younger. Aclinical thermometer confirmed her apprehensions by recording atemperature of a-hundred-and-two. Philip was therefore put promptlyto bed and Edgar removed to a separate room.
'Not,' Mrs Falmer explained, 'that I suspect anythinginfectious, but one can't be too careful. Running away from thatbull must have made the boy hot, and then on top of it he gotcaught in that icy downpour. He's probably got a chill.'
So, indeed, it appeared; for, in spite of a hot-water bottle,Philip was taken with shivers and passed a night far from peacefuleither for himself or for those in the adjoining bedrooms. Thereader may be left to guess for himself the nature of the dreamsthat caused him to wake up, screaming, not less than three times intwice as many hours.
3
It is not the purpose of this tale to curdle the reader's bloodor make his flesh creep by presenting Philip's dreams in horrificdetail. For a proper understanding of the trouble that temporarilyoverwhelmed him after his shell-shock in 1918 it is, however,necessary to sketch the development of what might be called thepump motif in his subconsciousness. The trouble indubitably arosefrom the fact that neither of his parents, excellently kind as bothwere, was sufficiently sympathetic or appreciative of childishfears and imaginings to encourage confidences between him and themon such subjects. In conversation with his brother, moreover,Philip was studious to avoid any appearance of juniority such asmight lead Edgar to patronise him. The consequences were that hekept the unpleasant episodes of Tarrington churchyard, themill-pond ram and Thorp's Spinney religiously to himself; that hissecretive repression bred recurrent remembrances of the incidentsin his dreams; and finally, after his shell-shock, a criticalcondition of neurosis.
At his preparatory school he was nicknamed 'Screamer', and oftenawoke from his nightmare with a cake of soap in his mouth. Thistreatment proved successful in putting a stop to his habit ofactual yelling and saved him from later persecution in the bigdormitories of Winchingham where a tooth-jug of cold water wasaccepted as the only remedy for even loud snoring.
The common source of all his dreams lay in the three episodesalready recounted, and especially in that of Thorp's Spinney;though they differed and divagated in detail. Sometimes, forinstance, the pump usurped the fictitious role of the bull aspursuer and came lunging, lurching, and clanking along behind himwith its handle swinging viciously up and down in an effort toreach and strike him. Another night the pump would wear a foulbestial face, of which the spout formed a trunk that trumpeted athim. There were nights, too, when it was robed in a silk academicgown like that of the headmaster, and its handle became an armbrandishing a cane. There were hundreds more of such variations buteach of them augmented rather than diminished the offensiveness ofthe nightmare. There appeared no rhyme or reason about itsperiodicity. Sometimes Philip would be without it for as long asthree months at a stretch, and then suffer it for two or even threenights in succession.
He grew up into a man of strong character who was not going tolet himself be beaten by a dream. He disciplined his sleeping selfso well, in fact, that he would often succeed in waking himself upat the very outset of the familiar vision. It was not untilshell-shock deprived him of his self-control that the nightmareproliferated and reproduced itself so incessantly as to threatenhis sanity. In this tragic plight he was wisely counselled by afriend to consult Dr Hasterton, whose success with such cases wasbeginning at that time to become well known.
Philip took to this specialist at once, and in the course ofgeneral conversation at their first meeting it transpired thatHasterton had just returned from Sockstead, where the Hall andsurrounding property had been acquired by his brother after SirJames Redlaw's death in 1913. The conversation then turnednaturally to shooting and the doctor mentioned how he had broughtdown two high birds with a marvellous right and left just aboveThorp's Spinney. To his own immense surprise Philip heard himselfenquiring whether the pump were still there. Such an unusualquestion gave the doctor a cue, which he discreetly and cleverlyfollowed up; with the result that in less than half an hour Philiphad made a clean breast of all his silly pump, ram and ball-cocksecrets. Finally, Hasterton suggested that, as he was running downto Sockstead again the next week-end but one, Philip mightaccompany him. If so, they could ramble round the old placetogether and possibly shoot a rabbit or two. To this suggestionPhilip gladly agreed.
Arrived at Sockstead Hall, Philip found Hasterton's brother ascompanionable and easy to get to know as the doctor himself. AfterMrs Hasterton and her daughter had gone to bed, the three men satup late over the big log-fire in the smoking-room. Their talkturned on sport, and the doctor couldn't resist mention once moreof his prowess at Thorp's Spinney.
'Talking of Thorp's Spinney,' said his brother, 'we made arather gruesome discovery there the week before last. It landed usin a coroner's inquest too! No; it wasn't murder or anything ofthat sort. 'Death by Misadventure' was what they brought it in; butthe odd thing is that the accident must have happened some twentyyears ago. But perhaps this bores you?'
'Far from it! Please go on.'
'Well, about a fortnight ago my bailiff, Horton, suggested thatwe put the three fields on Thorp's Rise under roots, but Gumwell(the new man at Home Farm) wouldn't hear of it. They were suchexcellent pasture, he said, and he wanted to use the old cowshedsbelow the rise if only water could somehow be led to them. Only afew days ago he had come across the remains of an old pump by thespinney. Its suction pipe had been broken away and he could find nosigns of a well. But there couldn't very well have been a pumpthere without one and he suggested that I should send a man down todig about and see. So I sent old Comper, and it wasn't long beforehe came back to report the discovery of a large flat stone thatrang hollow and looked a likely well-cover. The same afternoonHorton, Gumwell and I with two farm hands, in addition to oldComper, took down two crowbars and a rope, and sure enough we founda large pit under the stone. It wasn't a well though, but a largeunderground tank some fifteen feet in diameter. About seven feetfrom the top there opened into it a large circular brick culvert,large enough for a man to crawl through, and within five minutes orso we had traced its other end. It led from the big ditch above theSpinney, but the opening was so blocked with brambles and weedsthat I had never noticed it when rabbiting. The downhill side ofthe ditch had scoured out a hundred yards higher up, and any waterit brings down nowadays runs away on the other side of the wood.Consequently the tank was dry and I gave instructions for a ladderand lanterns to be brought down after breakfast next morning, sothat we could inspect the condition of the brickwork. I was delayedon the morrow by the arrival of some important letters, and by thetime I got to the Spinney they had already made their discovery ofhuman remains at the bottom of the tank. I was there, however, whenold Comper brought up the clue to their identity. It had once beena silver hunter watch, but now looked like a black pebble. On theinside lid at its back were engraved the words 'JUDE GURSCALL,1859'.
'Well, to cut this long story short, Jude Gurscall's widow isstill alive, and the remains were undoubtedly those of an idiotson. The unfortunate fellow is still well remembered in thevillage, for on reaching puberty he had shown signs of becomingdangerous and the question of getting him locked up had begun to beraised by neighbours when he unaccountably vanished and was seen nomore. One of his madnesses had been to crawl down holes, andplatelayers once had great difficulty in extricating him from theculvert under the railway embankment at Bemsford. He hadundoubtedly met his end by creeping along the Thorp Spinney drainand falling down into the underground tank at its end, a goodtwenty-foot drop. If there was more than his own height of water init he must have been drowned; if it was dry he probably broke hisbones and perished of starvation. However loudly he called for helphis cries could never have reached human ears.'
'That,' Philip interrupted, 'is where I'm sorry to say you'rewrong: because they happened to reach mine!'
4
Dr Hasterton's concern as to the likely effect of his brother'snarrative upon his patient had waxed greater as the tale unfolded.If he could have anticipated such a sinister dénouement hewould certainly never have brought Philip to Sockstead. There wasindeed a grave risk that what had just been told might cause arecrudescence of the young man's dreaming and re-establishment ofsubconscious obsessions. The doctor was therefore relieved to notethat Philip's face, which he kept under constant but unaggressiveattention, indicated neither distaste nor apprehension but onlyintense interest as the story proceeded. Philip's suddeninterruption of it provided the opportunity for preventing thedevelopment of any tendency to self-reproach on his part forhaving, though unwittingly, left a man to his death. Thisopportunity the specialist promptly seized.
'And now, Falmer, please explain to my brother how a kindprovidence used your childish fears, and your disinclination torelate your experience in the spinney, to prevent discovery of thelunatic and the lifelong misery for him of incarceration in anasylum.'
Thus encouraged Philip gave a full and unrestrained account ofthat terrible episode in his boyhood. In doing so he showed neitherrepression nor self-criticism. His two auditors listenedsympathetically and made it clear that Philip's conduct had beenperfectly natural in a small boy and that they would have behavedsimilarly.
'As my brother remarked,' said his host at the conclusion ofPhilip's confession, 'your silence was providential. A return ofthe lunatic after his merciful disappearance would have been atragedy. The first words that his old mother uttered when they toldher of our discovery were 'Lord help us, but don't let him backhere!' Only when she realised that he had been dead these twentyyears past did she become maternal and proprietary. Then herimagination ran quickly to a fine funeral, and in this the whole ofboth Socksteads were with her. Her better-off neighbourscontributed to the cost of an interment which could be fullyenjoyed without necessity for any pretence of sorrow. A large crowdturned up for the ceremony and thePenchester Pioneer sentover a special reporter to take pictures. Favourite hymns were sungvociferously at the graveside and, as the country saying goes, agood time was had by all. Only the parson objected to the levity ofthe coffin being matched by that of its bearers. To cap all, theysent round a subscription list for 'a tombstone. It's in that desknow, together with a drawing of the design. Horton tells me thatthe inscription is to be partly in Latin. We'll have a look atit!'
The drawing was duly unrolled, and the proposed epitaph ran asfollows:
In Memory of
LEONARD JOB GURSCALL
Born November 16, 1876
Died circa May 9, 1894
'Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the
pit of corruption.'—Is. xxxviii, 17
'What can Horton have meant about the inscription being partlyin Latin?' the doctor enquired.
'Well,' laughed Philip, 'one would hardly call "circa"English!'
Hasterton noted the laugh with satisfaction. It looked as thoughthe cure might prove permanent and complete. So indeed it proved:but the specialist was slightly chagrined some weeks later to learnthat his patient in no way ascribed it to his professionalministrations. 'Of course,' Philip declared, 'the nightmares werebound to stop as soon as they discovered and removed the presencein the well.'
1
In front of the thatched summer-house on a lawn over-lookingrockery and water garden at Telbury Grange sat Rupert Madgeby andthe two old college friends whom he had invited for the weekend. Ofthese, Richard Penham was a don at Oxbridge and Derek Singleton aliterary and art critic on the staff of theEvening Review.Madgeby himself after being called to the Bar had come in for moneyon the death of an uncle in the steel trade, and now seasoned hislimitless leisure with honorary secretarial work for a number ofphilanthropic causes. None of the three men was much over thirty,Singleton being the eldest at thirty-three and a half.
'It's the jasmine at the back of the summer-house,' Madgeby wassaying; 'I've never known it so sweet as this year. It is a strangething that so little trouble has been taken by horticulturists todevelop or even to preserve the scent of flowers. I hear that,after sacrificing the scent of sweet peas to magnifications of sizeand accentuations of colour, they have been driven to the absurdityof introducing a special class at flower-shows for sweet SweetPeas! Nor is it always the fault of the florist. Musk in recentyears appears to have deodorised itself of its own initiative. Nomusk smells nowadays.'
At this point Penham interpolated the suggestion that gardenersand garden owners did not as a general rule care about the smell offlowers; otherwise the seedsman would cater for them quicklyenough. There was, he said, no literature of scent as there was ofcolour and sound. Smell was the Cinderella of the senses.
'It isn't correct,' Singleton complained, 'to represent thatthere is no literature of scent. Oddly enough, I happen to becompiling an anthology on this very subject, and my citations arealready so voluminous as to need pruning. Surely, Penham, you can'thave forgotten that lovely passage in Bacon's essay, "Of Gardens"?I can quote you the first sentence: "And because the breath offlowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, likethe warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is morefit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plantsthat do best perfume the air."
'Then there is that delightful bit about flower scents inAHind in Richmond Park. I can't repeat the words from memory butHudson's argument was that the odour of blossoms, although chargedwith memories, never lost the freshness and charm of novelty.'
'You wouldn't, I suppose, suggest,' Madgeby enquired, 'thatmemories ever created a scent?'
'No; but Alphonse Karr came very near to such a proposition inhisTour of my Garden. His statement was so unusual that ithas stuck in my mind; this is what he wrote:
'"There often exhales from certain flowers something more andeven better than perfume—I mean certain circumstances of lifewith which they are associated and with which they inseparablydwell in the mind, or rather in the heart, even as the hamadryadswere not able to quit their oaks."'
'Is your anthology limited to what has been written about thescent of flowers?'
'Oh, no! The longest section will in fact be about smells of thesea. There's some very fine poetry, and prose too, about them.'
'Ugh!'
The exclamation seemed to have been jerked from Madgeby's mouthinvoluntarily, but he temporarily avoided interrogation byaddressing the butler who had just arrived with the tea things.
'Parkins, when you fetch the hot toast will you be so good as tobring me the red notebook lying on top of the small bookcase in themorning-room? The red one, remember; there are several of themthere but only one is red.'
'Very good, sir.'
'You were about to ask me, I think'—Madgeby turned-to histwo friends—'why I said "Ugh!": so I've told Parkins to bringyou the explanation. I never like being called a liar to my facethough I've no objection to people disbelieving me behind my back.That's why I've written down a short account of an experience theactuality of which I can't very well expect anyone else to accept.To put it crudely, I was once haunted by a smell and the memory isnot so pleasant as to make me want to talk about it. So you two canread my notes after tea, while I walk down to Merriman's to remindhim about Mrs Gibson's geranium cuttings. Thank you, Parkins: yes,that's the right one. Sugar, Dick? Nor you either? What commendablyeconomical guests!'
As soon as tea was finished and Madgeby had disappeared down theshrubbery path, Penham took up the notebook and, at a nod fromSingleton, began to read aloud.
2
[from the Red Notebook: First Part]
I bought the water-colour drawing at Herbertson's in Redford Rowfor two guineas. It was the picture of some harbour or estuary; sealavender, shingle, samphire and mud in the foreground; two rowingboats moored to a buoy in the middle distance, and a third boatwith two oarsmen approaching from a ketch in midstream; beyond thechannel a line of more mud, fields and hedges; and above them,between two clumps of elms, a distant spire; more distant still aglimpse of wooded downs. I had never heard the name of the artist(the picture was signed 'C. Withentake, 1841'), nor had oldHerbertson. He had thought the drawing and colouring good, as didI, and had bought it on its own merits at a sale for two pounds. Hehad subsequently developed a dislike for it and would let me haveit for that sum. 'Nonsense,' I replied, 'you would die of remorsewhen you tot up your accounts! I'll give you three guineas for it.In my opinion it's good.'
I was confirmed in this opinion when I saw the picture hangingin my rooms at Stanners Court, and Hollingdon, who dropped in fortea, congratulated me on the buy. 'It's got quite as muchatmosphere in it,' he said, 'in spite of its accuracy of detail, asany of our modern impressionist stuff. The scene is almostunpleasantly alive.'
I am never a sound sleeper and in the early hours of nextmorning I went into my sitting-room for a book. The moment I openedthe door my breath was caught by a strong, very strong, smell ofthe sea; not merely a fishy, shrimpy, muddy, weedy or salty smell,all of which odours can be sensed in isolation, but thatunmistakable concentrated amalgam of them all that one inhales onthe shore at low tide. I do not like this smell at any time, andalways avoid a seaside holiday. I thought little of it now,however, as the window was open and I postulated a high tide in theThames and a wind from the south-east. It struck me as strange toread in the newspaper next morning that tides were neap and thewind in the north, but I dismissed the matter from my mind asnegligible, and would have forgotten all about it but for arepetition of the smell that very next night and during manysucceeding nights. A professional writer might finds wordsadequately to describe the cumulative nastiness of theseexperiences. I will only say that I loathed the smell more and moreand began to dread its recurrence. I understood now the fullsignificance of the common phrase which predicates of a hatefulthing that it stinks in one's nostrils. This filthy sea smellstayed and stank in mine.
I disliked it none the less for a nightmare that would oftensynchronise with it. In this dream I would find myself cabined in avery small metal compartment and seem to hear all around me theswishing and gurgling of water. A complete airlessness forebodedearly suffocation. In a frenzy of despair I would try to beat myhands against the sides of my prison, only to find that they aswell as my legs were securely tied with ropes. At this point, witha horrid jump of the heart, I would wake up in a cold sweat, andwith the smell of the sea pungently around me.
I was beginning to mistrust my sanity, or at any rate, myability to retain it, when my trouble was brought into perspectivewith the humdrum and commonplace by Mrs Durren. This lady isemployed by Stanners Court Flats Limited under the impressivedesignation of Lady Supervisor of the Company's ResidentialPremises; but to all of us tenants she has always been just 'MrsD'.
'Ferguson has been telling me of the smell that hangs about yoursitting-room when he takes the coals up of a morning.'
'So he's noticed it too?'
'Yes, and I went this morning to see, or perhaps I should say,to smell, for myself. Mr Madgeby, there must be seaweed in the backof that new picture. That's where the smell comes from. Please haveit opened up and the stuff taken out. My husband used to keepseaweed nailed onto a board and called it his barometer. He wasseldom far out in his forecasts either, but I couldn't a-bear thesmell it gave off, and this one's exactly the same.'
'But nobody would place seaweed behind a painting!'
'And why not? Quite likely it was the artist's keepsake from thebeach where he drawed it. Anyway, there's no mistaking the smell,and if the seaweed isn't there we shall have to look somewhereelse. But my nose, which is a sharp one, has traced it to thatpicture!'
3
[from the Red Notebook: Second Part]
As I anticipated, Mrs Durren was proved wrong. There was noseaweed nor anything else found at the back of the picture. Itsunframing, however, disclosed some faint writing on the reverse ofthe drawing, which had been imperfectly erased and could withoutgreat difficulty be read as follows:
Who toils for us is our toilerman
And his lad our toiler boy;
If he boil not who is boilerman
Hie to our boiler boy:
So, hey, sing hey, for our boilerman
And hey for the boiler boy.
These lines struck me not merely as meaningless but aspositively idiotic but, such is the perversity of the human brain,I could not get them out of my head.
At the time of which I am writing the comic operetta,SailorsSeven, was having its record run at the Golconda, and everyguttersnipe in town was whistling the tune of that song whichbegins:
The bosun yelled at the cabin boy; Young son of adog, roared be.
To this wretched tune the words on the back of the pictureattached themselves in my involuntary imagination: it was amaddening combination! Nevertheless, it had an interestingdevelopment.
I was in the library of my club, where I thought myself alone,when, stepping down from a ladder with a book on Tudor Monuments inmy left hand, I sang to myself softly and absentmindedly, to thecomic opera tune, the words:
So hey, sing hey, for our boilerman
And hey for the boiler boy!
'Good heavens! who's that?'
Dropping the book in my surprise and turning round, I saw AubreyLenville staring at me from the writing-desk in the alcove.
'I'm sorry, Madgeby, to have startled you,' he said, 'but yougave me such a shock. Where on earth did you pick up that song youwere singing; I mean the words?'
When I told him that I had found them at the back of a paintinghe grew more excited than ever.
'Do you know what they mean?'
'Certainly not,' I replied. 'They can't mean anything! The wholeverse runs like this' (I repeated all six lines) 'and it'sobviously tosh.'
'It may seem so to you, Madgeby, but by Jove I'm glad to haveoverheard you! There's history in it.'
'History in what?'
'In that verse! Let's get into these comfortable chairs and I'llexplain. That's better. I wonder if you've yet seen any books inthat "Sidelines of History" series that Goldenshaw's arepublishing?'
'No; but I've read theDecade's review of the one onLepers and Lunatics. It sounded interesting and I jotted it down onmy library list.'
'Well, I've been commissioned to write the volume onSmugglers, and that's how I'm able to place your song andgive it a meaning. It's part of an old smugglers' shanty, and I'lltell you all about it so far as my researches have gone sofar.'
Lenville walked over to the desk where he had been writing, andcame back with a large number of notes written on blue foolscap.After a minute or two's search he found the sheet he wanted.
'Here we are. This is my note, and I'll read it as it isn't toolong: "In Thornychurch harbour the smugglers for some undiscoveredreason called their leader 'the boiler-man' and the following verseis still known at Itchenham as the Smugglers' song:
Who coils our rope is coilerman
And his son our coiler boy;
If he boil who is our boilerman,
Beware his boiler boy:
Once ho! twice ho! for our boilerman;
Thrice ho! for our boiler boy.
'(A different version from yours, Madgeby, or maybe a secondverse to it?) "Most of thegang lived on the Itchenham sidebut tradition has it that they landed their stuff across the waterat Bosnor, where the Emstead and Thornychurch channels meet. A spitof shingle near their junction is still known as Boilerman's Hard.The trade appears to have prospered well into the Queen's reignwhen the leader, one Charles Wapentake—"'
Withentake, not Wapentake,' I found myself interrupting. 'Whaton earth—'
'Never mind, go on reading. I'll explain afterwards.'
'"One Charles Wapentake, agreed with the Customs House man atItchenham to betray the whole business for a consideration but,before the bargain could be kept, Wapentake disappeared entirelyfrom the vicinity, nor was he ever heard of again either there oranywhere else. The rest of the gang are believed to havetransferred their activities to Graylingsea, where in the face ofincreased wariness on the part of the Customs the trade soonpetered out. It became known after his mysterious disappearancethat Wapentake had entered into an agreement with the Dean ofThornychurch to make certain drawings of the cathedral beforecommencement of its restoration." That finishes my note. It's onlyhalf the story of course, but it gives the meaning of the lines youwere singing. I don't suppose that I shall ever succeed in findingout anything more about the Bosnor gang; I pumped my local sourcesdry.'
'You've certainly provided a context for my song, but hardly ameaning! Now, if you can find time to come round with me to myrooms in Stanners Court I would like to show you the picture onwhich the verse was scribbled. The painter signed himself as C.Withentake: that's why I interrupted you just now.
'Youcan come? Well, that's splendid. Let's be gettingalong.'
Twenty minutes later we both stood opposite the picture in myroom. A twitching of Lenville's facial muscles belied theapparently calm deliberation with which he proceeded to examine itthrough my magnifying glass.
'You're right about the name; it's certainly Withentake, and thedrawing is just as certainly a view of Thornychurch harbour.There's no mistaking Thornychurch spire. It must, I think, havebeen sketched from Bosnor beach. What, by the way, is that thingwhich the boats are moored to?'
'Isn't it a buoy?'
'Perhaps so; but it's such a strange shape, more cylindricalthan conical.'
'Yes,' I politely agreed, 'more like a boiler than a buoy.'
Lenville suddenly gripped my arm, so violently that it hurt.
'You've got it, Madgeby; you've got it, by Jove.'
'Got what?'
'Why, the boiler buoy, of course! Sing, hey, for the boiler boy!It's all as clear as a pikestaff. This was the smuggler's buoy, andthe receiver who kept rendezvous by it and landed their smugglingsthey must have called their boiler-man. The fire which he lit onthe shore would be a signal of safety only if it were without acauldron or kettle; or, in the words of your song, if he boiled notwho was boilerman. Nor were signals given at Bosnor only. There'sother stuff very typical of known smugglers' codes in the rest ofthe verse. A man and a boy at work in the fields by Dittering Gapor coiling, ropes on Bulver Quay, would have indicated some item ofintelligence. There may, too, have been some significance in thenumber of Heys! or Ho's! to be shouted. One can't hope to establishthe exact details now, of course; but, thanks to you, Madgeby, themain puzzle is solved.'
'Possibly,' I replied. 'But I'm now going to tell you somethingwhich has been worrying me and which, I fear, will proveunexplainable.'
Lenville listened critically but not incredulously to mynarration of the recurrent smell and nightmare. He felt sure, hesaid, that both must bear some relation to the picture, andthereupon fell silent and pensive over a whisky-and-soda which Ihad poured out for him.
'What are you doing next weekend?' he at length enquired.
'Nothing particular; why?'
'Because I want you to run down with me to Thornychurch onFriday evening, and we can get back on Monday morning. That willgive us two whole days to have a look round Bosnor. The farmhousethere has been derelict for a long time and there's nobody livingon the headland, but I can get two men to row us over fromItchenham and lend a hand.'
'Lend a hand at what?'
'Investigation.'
'But what do you expect to find there?'
'What you've been dreaming about: a narrow metal chamber,airless and dark, surrounded by a gurgling and swishing of water.In other words, the boiler buoy. There's no port authority inThornychurch, and where the buoy once floated there it must havesince sunk. You can still see the one that used to mark the StockerShoal if you look over a boat's edge there at low water in springtides. If we should succeed in fording it, it might be possible tohave it opened. From the words of those two verses I guess that theinside may well have been used as the Smugglers' cache. Anyhow, theclue's worth following up. Will you come?'
I promised to do so.
'By the way,' Lenville concluded, 'we shall need to have thispicture with us in order to get our bearings. So take it out of itsframe, will you, and pack it at the bottom of your suitcase whereit won't get crumpled.'
4
[from the Red Notebook: Third Part]
When we landed in our boat from Itchenham on the spit of muddyshingle off Bosnor known as Boilerman's Hard the tide was still onthe ebb and there was an hour or so to go before low water.Lenville walked straight up the pebbly strip towards the foreshore,carrying in his hand the portfolio in which I had placed theWithentake picture. On reaching the line of sea lavender and driedseaweed that marked the season's high water-mark he took thedrawing out and compared it with the actual scene before him. Apuzzled look quickly crept into his face. In the pictureThornychurch spire was exactly over the water end of the hard,where the boats lay moored to the buoy. Our own boat, now occupyingan identical position, was completely out of line with the spire!Lenville was explaining this discrepancy to me when one of ourboatmen came up: a man named Burdenshaw, who, having served as ayacht-hand in his younger days, now made a comfortable living bylooking after many of the small craft at Itchenham, which theirowners found time to sail only at weekends.
'It's plain to me, sir,' he politely struck in, 'that this heredroring were done afore the Yardle creek came to be shifted afterthe storm of seventy-two, when the spring tides spilled over TilseaBank and flooded all the Brinsley flats. The old sluice, way backthere where you see them gulls, were washed away when the water ashad got in had to make its way out again at change of tide; and thecreek as it now lays follows the straight cut as was then made. Thewater cut through the old hard, it did; and that's the old hard allright what we sees in that picture.'
'But you told me over at Itchenham,' Lenville objected, 'thatthis was Boilerman's Hard.'
'Well, sir, so it be and so it bean't. After the Bosnor levelswere reclaimed (and a mort of money was lost when the sea broke inagain) farmer Betterman started grazing his cattle off them, and itwere he as made the present hard with shingle from Haylesworth bar.Betterman's Hard it should rightly be called, but the name of theold got stuck onto the new and Boilerman's Hard is what it iscalled by.'
'So that's how it is!' Lenville said with a recoveredcheerfulness. 'Well, now we've got to find the end of the old hard,and it shouldn't be difficult. You two must now go back to theboat, while I walk along the shore till I get Thornychurch spireexactly half-way between those two clumps of elms, as it is in thepicture. Then I want you to row slowly along at the edge of themuds till I give you a shout. That shout will mean that you'vereached a spot on the direct line between me and the spire, andthat's where you'll want those poles we've brought. Just go onprodding the bottom till you hit on something hard; then stake itwith a pole and shout for me. While you're prodding don't forget tokeep an eye on me, or you'll soon drift off the line. As long as Ikeep my arms down you can take it that you're all right, but if Ihold out either arm you must pole the boat towards that side untilI drop it again. Is that quite clear?'
It was; so Burdenshaw and I rejoined the other man in the boatand, as soon as Lenville shouted, commenced our prodding. We hadprodded for a long half-hour and the stench of the mud, whichreminded me unpleasantly of the smell in my nightmare, had begun tomake me feel sick when Burdenshaw asked what it might be as theother gentleman expected for to find?'
'An old buoy, I believe.'
'Then it ain't no good us prodding here in the water for what'sbeen high and dry five miles away for more nor thirty year! The oldbuoy be up at Appleham under the sea wall; as I would have told theother gentleman if he had asked after it: but he never did, did he,Bill?'
'He sure didn't.'
I bade them row to the new hard and had soon explained theposition to Lenville, who bitterly cursed old Dingleby, thelandlord of the Crown and Sceptre at Itchenham, for not having toldhim all he might have done. We must now, he added, go straight toAppleham.
This as it happened was easy enough, for the wind was blowingstrongly up the harbour from the south-west, and under a smalllugsail we were soon running before it at a good speed and, onpassing Itchenham, saw that the yachts at their moorings werealready swinging to the flood tide. This was also in our favourfor, by the time we had reached Never Point, we found sufficientwater for us to row right up the channel to Birdquay, whence a walkof little more than ten minutes brought us to Appleham seawall.
When I caught sight of the object of our search I felt sure thatthe boatmen must adjudge us lunatics. In this, however I was wrong,for I soon realised that their sense of local importance vestedeverything in Thornychurch harbour, or near it, with an interestthat needed no explanation, much less apology. The object mightonce have been an actual boiler: if so, the inspection plate hadbeen removed many years ago, and I found what might perhaps be theremains of it quite near by. The resultant hole in the cylinder,into which the plate would once have fitted, had been worn andwidened by corrosion and rust into a large and irregular aperture.Inside there lay a drift of sand, dried sea-weed, crab-shells andother wind-borne rubbish; for the boiler lay above the level ofordinary tides. With the help of a spade, Lenville satisfiedhimself that it contained nought else, and we then started on along and laborious row back to Itchenham against both wind andtide. Having at length arrived there, I noticed that Lenville paidboth boatmen much more than the amount agreed upon, presumably byway of compensation for the bad temper which he had exhibited onthe way back.
After a polite 'thank you!' the younger of the two (Bill, whosesurname I never got) mumbled something about old Dingleby's fatherhaving been sexton up at Appleham before they built the new church,and about an uncle having kept the 'Crab and Lobster' at Birdquay.With this parting intimation the two made off and, turning toLenville, I suggested that we might turn into the 'Crown andSceptre' for some food and drink as well as for a questioning ofold Dingleby.
'If he knows more than he's already told me, he's a damned oldscoundrel,' Lenville assented, 'but we'll make sure.'
5
[from the Red Notebook: Fourth Part and Postscript]
'We didn't never expect to see you back here so soon, MrLenville,' Old Dingleby remarked, as he set before us the beer,bread and cheese which we had ordered, 'for there hasn't been noneof your history-making here since you went away, and you sucked usas dry as an orange, you did, over them smuggler stories.'
'I'm not too sure about that,' rejoined Lenville, 'though youswore that you'd told all you know about the Bosnorgang.'
'Aye, sure!'
'But you said nothing at all about the buoy which lies underAppleham sea wall, did you?'
'Ah! then I didn't tell you about that, didn't I? Well now, ifthat isn't strange! But some days I remember and some days Iforget, though most days and most ways I mind well what were toldme by my father. He never told me nothing that weren't worthminding, didn't my father.'
'And what did he tell you about that buoy?'
'That it were broke away from its mooring off Bosnor in the bigtides before Jubilee and were drifted up under Appleham wall, whereit now lays.'
'Anything else?'
'Nothing, except that it were opened up by Squire Marcroft andParson Hayden and nothing found but mud and bones.'
'What did they expect to find?'
'Something maybe as might be more comfortably stowed in theirown insides! It were a smugglers' buoy, you mind.'
'Ah, yes; I see: and what then?'
'Well, my father said as the Chief Constable come down one dayout of Thornychurch; and bodies be one thing, he says to theSquire, and bones be another. What is took out as bones may havebeen put in as bones, he says; and them as finds can lose. SoSquire Marcroft was for chucking them into the creek; but Parsonsaid as they must be given benefit of the doubt, and buried them asyou come to the old churchyard stile; and if ever they belonged toa Christian body, he said, they could climb over easy at thedoom.'
At this point, Lenville called for two more mugs of beer andsome more cheese.
'I wish, Landlord, you'd told me all this before. It would havesaved my friend and me a long journey and a wasted morning. Isuppose that your father never told you of any suspicion he mayhave had about those bones?'
'Not exactly suspicions, but he and my uncle, as had the "Craband Lobster", this side of Birdquay, used to argue as how theymight have belonged to Smuggler Withentake. It's in the Dean'sbooks that Withentake took an order to make drawings of thecathedral, and afore he could do that he must need get out of hisold trade. But, asks my uncle, would his mates over at Bosnor makehim free? No, answers my father; that they wouldn't: for why, heknew their secrets. Therefore, my father and uncle agreed, he musthave gone to the Customs and offered to do what would at the sametime rid him of his bad company and fetch him money for his paintsand what not. Then, hearing as he were about to play Judas on them,his mates would have set on him and shut his body, alive or dead,into the old buoy. That was what my father would say, and my uncletoo; and my father used to add that it were his honest hope as theykilled their man first, for to be shut up in that boiler withoutlight or drink or food, and to hear the water gurgling and lickingthe outside—'
'That's enough!' I interrupted, and hurried outside, leavingLenville to explain that I was of a somewhat nervous dispositionand to settle the account. Lenville, very considerately, talked ofother subjects all the way back to London; but as we parted at therailway terminus and were shaking hands, he smilingly, instead of'Goodbye', said 'Q.E.D.'
R. MADGEBY
17th September, 1899
Postcript.—Since writing the above notes, I havenot once been incommoded by the smell or by the nightmare thereindescribed. Mrs Durren, to her great satisfaction, traced the formerto the use of seaweed in his bath by the tenant of the roomsimmediately below mine. He had it sent up twice a week by rail fromthe south coast and found that it relieved his rheumatism.
R.M. 13.XII.99
6
Penham and Singleton were still discussing scents anddreams—both generally and with particular reference to whatthey had just read in the notebook—when they saw their hostreturning by the grass path between the herbaceous borders andcarrying under his arm a picture-frame.
'I thought,' Madgeby explained, 'that you might like to see theactual painting about which I wrote in those notes. I keep itlocked up in a cupboard nowadays, because of its associations;although, here at Telbury, we're seventy miles from the coast andunlikely to catch any whiffs from the sea! I think that you'llagree as to its being a good piece of work.'
After a careful and critical examination, for which purposeMadgeby propped the frame against the back of a garden seat, bothguests assented, Singleton enthusiastically. All three menthereafter reclined once more in the comfortable deck-chairs andlazily accepted the drinks and smokes which Parkins brought roundon a tray. The evening was warm and windless and conducive toreverie rather than to argument. The night-scented stocks in thebed round the summerhouse began to add their fragrance to that ofthe jasmine—a blend which would have been sickly but for theadmixture of tobacco smoke. Suddenly however the closeness of theatmosphere seemed to be lifted, and a rustle in the silver poplaron the lawn was followed by a whispering in the maple above thesummer-house. A number of yellowish leaves fell fluttering downand, so nearly inaudible as to be felt rather than heard, came therumble of distant thunder. The three friends raised their eyessimultaneously to the sky overhead, which, however, gave no hint ofrain or storm. Something nevertheless began to impinge on a senseother than those of sight and hearing. Faint, but definite andunmistakable, and as though it came from an infinite distance,there was wafted into their nostrils the smell of the sea. Penhamand Singleton glanced at each other as if for mutual verification,then at the picture on the seat, and, lastly, at their host.
For a few moments, Madgeby continued to sip his whisky-and-sodain silence. Then, setting down the glass carefully on a stool byhis side, he turned to his friends with a smile of enquiry. 'Iwonder,' he said, 'whether either of you have ever had personalexperience of auto-suggestion?'
1
Fate, poaching as ever on preserves of human enterprise, hadfired two barrels at young Alec Judeson. Malaria first got himdown; dysentery prevented recovery. The board of doctors thatyesterday examined him would, as they had warned him, in due coursecertify not merely that he must go home forthwith, but also that hemust never return to the tropics. The days of his rubber plantingin Malaya were numbered.
The medical examination had been at Penyabong, the chief town ofSenantan, and Alec was now on his way back to the estate at SungeiLiat to pack up and to say goodbye. Tonight he would stay at thelittle resthouse on the summit of Bukit Kotak Pass, and leave theremaining forty-one miles to be driven in the cool of the earlymorning. Backing his two-seater car into the resthouse stable hesuddenly realised how bitterly he would miss the touch of itssteering-wheel and the feel of that patch on the driving seat wherethe stump of a fallen cheroot had burned through the leather.Nevertheless he must get out a quick advertisement for its sale ifhe was to scrape together enough dollars for his passage.
A zig-zag of earthen steps led from the stable up to the smallplateau on which the resthouse was perched. Empty beer bottles,sunk neck-downward into the soil for half their length, formed thevertical front of each step and so protected the stair from scouror detrition. On either side, amid the knee-deep lalang grass,sprawled straggly bushes of red shoe-flower or hibiscus. How weakhe had become was brought home to Alec by painful inability tomount the steps without several stops and waits. 'Those damneddoctors were just about right!' he muttered crossly, slashing withhis cane at a stem of hibiscus that slanted across the path.
The action dislodged, and brought rustling and fluttering to theground at his feet, a large green mantis. Uncannily swivelling itstriangular head the insect fixed him with protuberant black eyesand challengingly crooked its long forelegs in the posture that hasearned for the species the epithet of 'praying'. He flicked itdistastefully with his stick into the gutter, climbed the fewremaining steps to the resthouse verandah, and there sank heavilyinto one of the long rattan chairs.
A whisky-and-soda helped him regain his breath before, taking apacket of letters from his pocket, he drew out one from a blueish,crested envelope, unfolded it, and began to scan its contentsattentively. The embossed address was: 'Saintsend, Dedmans Reach,Tillingford', and the manuscript below it ran as follows:
MY DEAR ALEC—I am greatly distressed by the newsof your breakdown in health. You will remember my dubiety as toyour physical fitness for work in a tropical climate and myunavailing attempts to dissuade you therefrom. This letter,however, is written in no spirit of 'I told you so', but repeats myformer invitation to come and live with me here at Tillingford.Your father (and I state this with certainty, as he told me so onlyten days before he died) would have approved. It is indeedobviously right that you should get to know, and to regard as'home', the property that you will come into sooner rather thanlater; for I am now 67 and do not need a medico to tell me thatI've got a dicky heart. So do come along, and if you want to bringwith you any of your oriental paraphernalia, there's plenty of roomhere for its exposition or stowage.
Yours avuncularly—
MATTHEW JUDESON
P.S.—You will find several improvements at Saintsend. TheConservancy people refused to let me root out those pollardedwillows from the river bank; so I have blotted out all view of themby continuing the garden wall round to where the boathouse used tobe. This I have pulled down, filled in the dyke, and built insteada decent-sized studio, music-room and library—my 'Athenaeum',I call it.
'Yours avuncularly!' 'Exposition or stowage of orientalparaphernalia!' 'Athenaeum', indeed! Alec winced as these phrasesstung him into remembrance of Uncle Matthew's pomposity andhumourless affectation. And why, in heaven's name, wall off the oldwillows and thereby lose those lovely glimpses of river? Well, indue course (a half-conscious euphemism, this, on Alec's part forafter his uncle's death), in due course the wall could be pulleddown again; and a temporary circumvallation would only in smalldegree detract from the amenities of an exceedingly comfortable andcommodious residence. Amused that his thoughts should thus run interms of a house agent's advertisement Alec mentally registeredacceptance of his uncle's offer. He would telegraph to the old manas soon as his sailing date was fixed; but, for the moment, he feltit sufficient to clinch his decision with anotherwhisky-and-soda.
As he lay in the long chair, sipping it, there clumsily alightedon the verandah rail beside him another mantis; or, maybe, the sameone as before, for the beady stare and aggressive genuflexion wereidentical. Making a trigger of right forefinger and thumb, heflipped the creature off its perch into the garden and, in doingso, turned his eyes towards the sunset. This was of that jaundicedkind for which. Malays have the ugly wordmambang. Notmerely the western sky but the whole vault was dyed an uglystagnant yellow. Hills and jungle seemed to soak in it, and Alecremembered that, on such an evening, Malay children would be keptindoors: an understandable, albeit superstitious, precaution.
Five minutes or so later, the yellow glare having dimmed with asuddenness reminiscent of opera, the resthouse-keeper lit the lampwhich hung above the dry-rotten table whereon he would shortly laysupper. Numerous patches of iron-mould gave the badly launderedcloth a resemblance to maps of an archipelago, and so turned Alec'sthoughts to Java and to the set of shadow-show silhouettes which hehad bought on holiday there eighteen months ago. He had, indeed,already been twice reminded of them this evening by the prayingmantis, the disproportion of whose neck and arms to the rest of itsbody was as great as in the case of the shadow puppets. In theircase this disproportion was of course necessary in order that thejointed arms should be long enough for the showman to jerk them bytheir slender rods into the attitudes and gesticulations demandedby his miniature drama. A marionette is manipulated by strings fromabove, a shadow silhouette by spindles from below; the one beingpulled and the other pushed much in the same way, Alec cynicallyreflected, as weak or obstinate characters need pulling or pushingin real life. He would certainly take these shadow figures homewith him, as being the only 'oriental paraphernalia', to use hisuncle's expression, that he possessed. They had been cut in thickbuffalo hide and elaborately painted in gold, silver, crimson,saffron, brown and indigo; but on one side alone, the other beingleft polished but bare: for a shadow drama is watched from bothsides of a stretched sheet—on one side, spectators see thepainted surfaces of the figures against the white cloth and in thefull glare of footlights;' on the other, the clear-cut shadows ofthem projected through the cloth. From neither side is the showmanvisible, for he operates between two parallel screens of palm-leafimmediately beneath the sheet.
The meal, over which Alec Judeson indulged in these Javanmemories, was not, for dietetic reasons, that prepared for him bythe resthouse-keeper, whose menus depended for edibility on liberallibations of Worcestershire sauce. His hostess at Penyabong hadprudently provided him with a hamper of more palatable, and lessdangerous, fare. Nevertheless he was too tired to eat more than afew mouthfuls of each dish; and, before many minutes passed, hegave up the effort and went straight from table to bed.
As he undressed a slight movement of the mosquito-net arousedhis curiosity; so, before taking off his shoes, he got up from thechair to investigate. To his annoyance he discovered, for the thirdtime that evening, a mantis. So strong was the grip of its hindlegs on the curtain that its head and neck were thrust toward him,at right-angles to the body. Neglectful of their sharp spurs Alecseized the waving forelegs and was sharply pricked for hisrashness. This angered him. Savagely grabbing it by its back andwing-cases, he tore the creature roughly from the net and held itshead over the smoking chimney of the lamp. As the black, startingeyes became incinerated into opaque grey, he heard a sizzle and acrackle before he threw the still-wriggling insect to the floor andcrushed it under foot. Next moment he was hating himself for thiscruelty. Walking to the window he stood for some seconds listeningto the stridulation of cicadas in the jungle; then spat into thedarkness and returned to his undressing. A few minutes later heparted the mosquito curtains and crept into bed.
Out of weakness and exhaustion he was soon in the indeterminateborderland between waking and sleeping. Pictures passed before hisclosed eyes of Saintsend garden and he found himself wonderingwhether, after all, Uncle Matthew had not been right about thosepollarded willows at the river edge. Were they not, perhaps, alittle too like those gruesomely vitalised trees in ArthurRackham's illustrations toPeter Pan? There certainly seemedto be a group of shadow-show figures in the tree to the left of thesundial, and there appeared, too, to be something waving at himfrom among the spindly boughs of the one on the right. Then of asudden they parted, and the thing looked out at him 'O hell! Thatbloody mantis again!' He had cried this aloud and thereby wokenhimself out of his half-sleep. Was the wretched fever on him again?Having lit the bedside candle and rummaged in a suitcase for histhermometer, he took his temperature. Normal. Nerves, then, musthave caused his dream, and small wonder after that episode of themantis! To guard against further nightmare by forcing allnonsensical fancies out of his brain, he now set it to visualiseSaintsend with all the accuracy and detail of which his memory wascapable. This stern mental exercise, which within half an hourinduced a sound sleep, enabled him also to contemplate, withpleasurable anticipation, various improvements to house and gardenwhich it would be possible to make—in due course.
2
Nine weeks later a taxi from Tillingford pulled up at the stepsof Saintsend. Young Judeson had scarcely opened its door before heheard the voice of his uncle raised in ponderous salutation.
'Alec, my dear boy, how splendid to see you again! You mustexcuse a rising septuagenarian for not coming down the steps togreet you. The legs are willing but the heart is weak! Come alongup and let Larkin attend to your impedimenta. What? only two cabintrunks? I thought you Eastern nabobs travelled with more thanthat!'
'Nabobs may do so, but not a broken-down planter!' frowned thenephew as he paid off the taxi-man and turned to mount the steps.'Why, uncle, how fit and young you're looking!'
'Looks are liars, I'm afraid, my dear boy. Soon falls therotting leaf that autumn gilds: that's from one of my own poems.Now, if you hand over your keys to Larkin, he'll show you upstairsand help you unpack. They're putting you in the south wing, whereyou'll enjoy a safe refuge from avuncular intrusion. No more goingup and down stairs for the victim of myocarditis! Come and see theAthenaeum as soon as you've tidied yourself up, and don't take toolong about it, because our new neighbour at Sennetts, MissScettall, has promised to drop in to tea, and you will like to havea look round before she comes.'
Alec highly approved the bedroom and adjoining sitting-roomassigned to him. The windows of both gave on to the riverside, andhe could look over the new wall and the willow-tops on to themarshland and wood beyond. In the right foreground rose awhitewashed gable of the new studio or music-room, which looked fartoo nice and unpretentious to be dubbed an Athenaeum. In order thatit might be above flood-level, it had been built on a raisedterrace and was approached by a ramp of masonry leading from afrench window in the library. Steps had thus been avoided at eitherend, and the rough stonework was already ornamentally studded withpatches of saxifrage and wall-rue. It would be a dangerous passageto fall from, and Alec found himself considering whether theaddition of a rail or low parapet might not be animprovement—in due course.
A deferential cough woke him from this reverie, and, turninground, he saw Larkin standing in the doorway.
'Pardon me asking, sir, but would you be wanting them twoparcels as is atop of the brown trunk to be undone? Both of 'emseems to be stuck up with sealing-wax, like.'
'Oh no, thank you, Larkin; just put them, as they are, into thatbig drawer below the cupboard. Be careful not to shake the squarecardboard box: it's got some rather rare and valuable insectsinside it.'
Larkin seemed greatly interested at this. 'Then who'll beattending to their feeding, sir, if I may ask it? My young Tom,now, 'e's fair nuts on caterpillars. Hentomolology, the masternames it in 'is school report; but, "Tom," I says, "don't you neverbe putting them bug 'utches again in my pantry, for they ain't'ealthy; not about the 'ouse."'
'No; but mine aren't alive, Larkin! They're stuffed specimens,like you see in a museum. The fellow in the dispensary on ourrubber estate gave them to me when I was saying goodbye. I had beentelling him about an experience with what they call a prayingmantis. You tell young Tom, next time he has a half-holiday, to popin here, and I'll show him all sorts of queerthings—scorpions, centipedes, mantises, and what not. A bitof a surprise for him after butterflies and moths!'
Having dismissed Larkin with this invitation for Tom, Alecbrushed his hair with unusual attention, for the benefit of MissScettall, and started to go downstairs. He walked slowly andmusingly. His uncle's appearance had very greatly shocked him byits promise of longevity. The cheeks were fuller than he rememberedthem and positively ruddy. The hair too was but little greyer, ifat all, and the eyes gave no hint of weakening. Matthew, in short,looked good for another ten years at least; whereas during thevoyage home from Malaya Alec had been nursing the prospect of abrief spell of nepotal attention being speedily rewarded bygrateful benedictions from an early deathbed. After all, had nothis uncle indicated as much in his letter of invitation? But notonly did he now appear in deplorably rude health, but in fiveminutes of conversation had paraded all those exasperatingaffectations that would render any long companionship with himintolerable. Those bleats of 'my dear boy' and 'your poor olduncle'! That periphrastic avoidance of the first person singular; amaddening habit copied, perhaps, from those among the Anglicanhierarchy who address their children in God as 'your Bishop'!
Alec was by now at the foot of the staircase and in the longcorridor leading to the library. On either side hung paintings inoils of his grandfather's hunters and dogs, heavily and gaudilyframed. The names were on plaques beneath: Caesar, Hornet, Buster,Ponto, and the rest. Alec made a mental note for their removal indue course; and then he suddenly frowned. With his uncle in suchgood trim, how could his promised inheritance be expected anylonger to eventuate in due course. It was bound to be overdue:damnably overdue!
As if to corroborate this anticipation, Matthew Judeson emergedat this moment from the library door, and in full bleat. 'What,down again already? Good on you, my boy; quick work! Now be carefulof this rug; it's apt to slip on the marble floor and have youover. Now one goes out through the french window and here we are,you see, on a ramp or isthmus; no steps to negotiate, just agradual incline. And this is the door of theSanctumSanctorum! Open it, Alec; and please not to say that you aredisappointed!'
Alec certainly was not. He was wondering in fact how so fussyand finical a man could have evolved so restful a room. The plainlarge open fireplace, the unstained panelling, unceiled barrelroof, grand piano in unpolished oak, red Dutch tiles and rough cordcarpets, deep broad leathered chairs—all were right andpleasing.
'One tries,' his uncle resumed, 'to do a good turn to friendswhenever occasion offers. The Scettalls are poorly off, so I calledin young Alfred for a fee to help with the designs and furnishing.He would already have set up as an architect by now, but for hishaving got mixed up in a business of which his sister is best leftin ignorance. He can rely on his present benefactor, of course, notto tell her.'
'What do you mean by his present benefactor?'
'Why, this old uncle of yours: who else?'
'Well, this unfortunate young nephew of yours...' Alec had thusbegun in bantering imitation of the old man's circumlocution whenLarkin appeared, not obtrusively but withal importantly, in thedoorway and announced: 'Miss Scettall'.
At her finishing school the lady who now entered had been knownamong the other girls as 'Mona Lisa'. Her likeness to Leonardo'sfamous picture had grown rather than lessened with her years, andrenders any detailed description of her appearance unnecessary. Itneed only be said that she was fully conscious of the likeness,dressed to the part, and expected all the attention that itdemanded. During the conversation that followed her introduction toAlec, although politeness required her to address her remarksmainly to her host, she held the younger man's interest andattention by beck or smile and was gratified to find him all eyesand ears. The tea talk was suitably trivial, but two bits of itmust be recounted as bearing upon later developments. The firstrelated to a review in theTillingford Gazette of MatthewJudeson's locally printedSecond Posy of Poesy, wherein itwas opined that the best compliment payable to the second posy wasthat nobody could have suspected its authorship to be identicalwith that of the first.
'Now tell us, Mr Judeson,' Mona Lisa commanded with a shake ofthe forefinger, 'just how you feel about that criticism. Are youconscious of having changed, or shall we say "developed", sogreatly? Does your old self know your new self? Or vice versa?'
The question was clearly distasteful to Uncle Matthew; for heanswered with a certain acidity that he would ask his nephew toread the books, of which Larkin had already been instructed toplace author's presentation copies by his bedside, and to passjudgment. He could not help feeling that his first 'posy' had beenmuch underrated. Only forty-three copies had in fact been sold.
That ended discussion on this topic; but after desultory talk ofweather, crops and the new vicar at Fenfield the conversation tookits second turn of relevance to our story.
'By the way, Mr Judeson,' said Miss Scettall in low confidentialtones, 'your friend spoke to us again last night.'
'Which? Saint or the corpse?'
'Well—both or either; you see, our saintwas thecorpse!'
After this enigmatic utterance Miss Scettall turned to Alec and,raising her voice, continued: 'Now let me warn you before it is toolate, Mr Alec, not to allow your uncle to interest you too much inhis spiritualism. It isn't always quite comfortable, and I'm gladthat he's got your company now in this old house. Good gracious,six o'clock! I must be off at once or Alfred will go without hissupper, for we've no cook these days.'
As they escorted her to the front door, Alec wondered howearlier in the day he could have thought his uncle looking well.Perhaps it was the gloom of the corridor, but his face now appeareddrawn and grey.
'Alec, my dear boy,' he said as soon as the guest was gone, 'theexcitement of your arrival has quite knocked me over.' (Alec notedthis first allusion to himself as 'me'.) 'I shall need to takedinner in bed if you will excuse me. Please make yourselfthoroughly at home. You can't think how eagerly I have awaited yourcoming. Tomorrow we'll inspect the gardens together and the fields.There's lots to show you. Good night, my dear boy, and God blessyou!'
Alec, too, was tired and went early to bed. He woke but once inthe night when he heard the stable clock strike four. A patch oflight which he had vaguely noticed before falling asleep stillshowed on the ceiling. One of the curtains, he now saw, had beenonly half drawn and, going to the window to adjust it, he foundthat the light came from a chink in the shutters of his uncle'sdownstair bedroom. Was the old fellow then afraid to sleep in thedark?
3
Of Alec's first days at Saintsend it is necessary only to recordhis growing affection for the place and increasing dislike of hisuncle. This dislike was only slightly relieved by curiosity inregard to his character and behaviour. The two books of verse,which Alec found duly placed by Larkin at his bedside, certainlypresented an enigma.A Posy of Poesy, published six yearsago, was a collection of what might be described as period pieces;metrical exercises of classical artificiality. The first to catchAlec's eye as he opened the volume ran as follows:
Time was when I with heart intact
Would mock the poet's fancy
Whose heart, he quoth, was well nigh crackt
For love of pretty Nancy.
But, now I know, be stated truth:
Of me the same were spoken
Save that my dearling's name is Ruth,
My heart completely broken!
And so on, page after page, until Alec, nauseated by thebanality of
My heart is locked and, woe is me,
Cressida doth keep the key
And will not unlock it!
closed the book with a vicious snap and picked up its newlypublished successor. In order not to waste time over it he wouldread the first poem, then the last, and then one taken at randomfrom the middle.
The first was headed 'Red Idyll' and, as it seemed rather long,he looked at the last two verses only:
He smelt the hot blood spurting; then
Pressed the red blade to his own heart:
Oh throbbing wild embrace! Next morn
They two were difficult to part.
The dayspring crimsoned overhead,
But grey and cold they lay beneath;
Starkly protesting to the skies
Swift tragedy of love and death.
Good heavens! Uncle Matthew trying to be passionate and modern!What about the end piece? Here it was, written in a loosehexametrical form and entitled 'On My Portrait by N...'
How can you bid me, sir, accept the ME of thisportrait?
Does it not lie by its truth, a truth that is irreligious?
Secrets are blabbed by those lips that my will had sealed forever,
While from the eye peeps hunger for things that I live todissemble:
The nose, too, is tendentious, sniffing up self-approval,
And a smug ear sits tuned for flattering insincerities.
Take it away, I beg: I cannot conspire betrayal
Of the poor Jekyll who gives to Hyde, out of decency, biding.
Uncle Matthew turning autopsychoanalytic! Good gracious me! Andnow for a piece from the middle. Here weare—'Firewatching'.
What seest thou in the caves of fire?
I see red avenues of desire
Slope to a fen of molten mire.
What hearest thou in the caves of fire?
I hear the hiss of a hellish quire,
The knell of a bell in a falling spire.
What smellest thou in the caves of fire?
I smell the reek of a funeral pyre,
Foul incense raised to Moloch's ire.
What tastest thou in the caves of fire?
The gust of rouge when cheeks perspire,
The acrid lips of a wench on hire.
What touchest thou in the caves of fire?
The dead grey ash of lust's empire
Cold or ever the red flames tire.
'Really, Uncle Matthew!' murmured Alec, and then hastilycorrected himself. 'No,not really, Uncle Matthew. It justcan't be; it's the sort of stuff he won't allow himself even toread. It's quite beyond or, he would say, below him.'
The next poem, in three cantos headed 'addenda', 'corrigenda'and 'delenda', repudiated his authorship even more loudly; but Alecwas prevented from trying to guess any solution to the puzzle by aknock at the door and the entry of Larkin. Young Tom was going tobe at home that morning and would Mr Alec be so good as to show himthem insects? Yes, Mr Alec would, and at half-past eleven ifconvenient. At that hour consequently we find young Tom in atransport of delight and his father performing the role ofcommentator.
'Coo! Weren't that stinging crab a fair caution? Beg pardon,sir, did you say scorpion or scorpicle? And 'ooever seed the likesof this 'ere? A prying mantis? What, sir, prying like what theypries in church? Well, fancy that! 'E don't look much of achurch-goer to me. But now, Mr Alec, if I may make so bold, pleasedon't let Tom 'ere waste any more of your time. If you'll let metake the box downstairs 'e can make some drorins of the creeturs inthe pantry for 'is Natural 'Istory master and I'll mind 'e keeps itcareful as gold.'
'Very well, take it by all means: and when Tom has finished hisdrawings you can place it on the hall table where you put theletters.'
Who could have foretold that this simple and reasonable requestwas a first link in the chain of destiny that was to drag twomasters of Saintsend to their deaths? Yet so it was to prove; andwith speed.
On return from a walk down-river that afternoon Alec found a carat the front door and a sadly worried Larkin to greet him. Hisuncle, so Larkin said, had been took very poorly, not to speak of afit, and the doctor was with him now. It had all happened along ofthem insects, for Mr Judeson must have seen the box on the halltable and had opened it. Talk of a shock, why in all his lifeLarkin had never seen anyone took worse. Matthew Judeson was indeedin serious case. Not a stroke, luckily, said the doctor, butnevertheless a cardiac upset of grave omen for the future. Of hissurviving the present collapse the doctor was very hopeful, but hemust lie in bed until further notice and receive no outsidevisitors. With the aid of a draught sent post-haste from theTillingford dispensary the patient fell into a restful sleep and itwas Alec, not he, who lay awake into the early hours of the morrow,thinking of the many things which he would venture upon in duecourse and congratulating himself on a probable acceleration in thetime schedule.
His uncle's salutation when he went to see him next morning wasunusual. 'I suppose, Alec,' he said, 'you don't believe in witches?No, I thought not. Nor had your old sceptic of an uncle ever doneso until he met Miss Scettall. Now, however, he has his doubts, andperhaps you would be interested to hear the reason.'
'Look here, uncle,' Alec interrupted at this point, 'the doctorsays that you're not to tire yourself. So please cut out all thisroundabout talk of "your old uncle" and try to speak of yourself as"me" or "I". Yes, I would like to hear about that Mona Lisa womanif only you will speak naturally.'
Matthew contrived to turn a wince into a smile with somedifficulty, because his conversion of first into third person was atrick that enabled him, as it were, to sit with the audience andadmire his own play-acting. However, he affected to take therequest in good part and continued, 'Anything to please you, mydear Alec! Well, when Miss Scettall came to Sennetts last year shesomehow took to me and I to her. We were excellent neighbours. Butas the months passed by I noticed her becoming increasinglypossessive, and on New Year's Day I got a card from her with themessage, 'May this Leap Year bring you happiness!' That put me onmy guard, and when she suggested a walk on the afternoon of 29thFebruary I was ready for her. After effervescing about her love forthe river country, she began to enthuse over Saintsend and saidthat all the dear old house needed was an understanding chatelaine.It was then that I quoted two lines from my first book:
Ah! hapless nymph, what boots it him to harry
If Strephon is resolvèd not to marry?
She gave a laugh, but the sound of it was unpleasant. 'Surely,'she said, 'you don't imagine that I'm the sort to angle forsuperannuated fish? Come along to Sennetts and I'll give you a cupof tea.' I had to go, of course, and when tea was over and Alfredhad joined us, she began the séance business that has beenthe curse of my life ever since.'
The doctor's arrival at this point gave his patient a respitefrom completing the story. This was just as well perhaps, for hewas becoming exhausted.
4
Three or four days were to pass before, at Alec's prompting, hisuncle took up the unfinished tale. Once again he started with aquestion.
'You know perhaps the origin of the name Saintsend?'
'Why, yes: I've read it in Bennet'sTillingford.'
'And what does Bennet say?'
'That before the big house at Sennetts was burned down in 1747and the estate broken up, the farm we now call Santry was known asSennett's Entry and Saintsend as Sennett's End. The present namesare just contractions.'
'Then what does he say of Dedman's Reach?'
'Oh, that's a much more modern name. The land belonged not solong ago to a Sir Ulric Dedman.'
'I wish, my dear boy, that what Bennet wrote were true.Unfortunately, I know better, or perhaps I should say, worse. Ilearned the real truth during those séances I have told youof. The first spirit we got into touch with gave his name as Saynt;Lemuel Saynt. He said that he wanted to warn me about evilexistences in the riverside willows that had brought about hisdrowning (Saintsend, you see, means Saynt's end) in 1703. That hewas right about the willows I found out soon after, for I verynearly fell into the stream myself. I distinctly felt a push frombehind, and there was a sort of gurgling grunt as my left legslipped in. It was a horribly near thing. I have seen them toosometimes—or rather their arms and legs. That was why yourmantis and stick-insects gave me such a shock last Friday. Luckily,I cannot see the willows any more now that the wall is finished andI sleep downstairs. You can still see them from your room ofcourse, and I advise you to keep the curtains drawn on moonlitnights. We never managed to get a clear account from Saynt of thedead man in the reach. You heard Miss Scettall say the otherafternoon that it was Saynt himself. I suspect her and Alfred,however, of inventing things when I am not there, and I've caughtAlfred trying to guide the planchette. I'm certain, too, that bothof them try to incite the willow Things against me. On quitewindless nights I sometimes hear them scraping and scratching at mynew wall. Who was it, Alec, who said that Hell holds no fury like awoman scorned? It's true enough of Adeline Scettall. She's playingthe witch on me night and day. Your coming here, my dear boy, mademe feel safer until I opened that box of yours. Magnify that mantisa dozen times and you'll have some idea of what's in the willows.You believe me, don't you? It's all perfectly true, and I simplyhad to tell you.'
Alec sat thinking for some moments, and then he drew his bow ata venture. 'Uncle,' he said, 'you spoke just now of Alfred guidingthe planchette. Does that by any chance account for your secondposy of poesy?'
'It certainly came from the planchette,' was the answer, 'andthere was a spirit's order to publish it in my name I hope that itwas not Alfred: if so, he's as bad as his sister. All my nicefriends are offended by the verses, and the vicar at Fenfield haseven asked me to give up taking round the bag. From being asidesman I've become an untouchable! I can't blame him either.'
Unable to repress a slight smile at this ecclesiasticaldeprivation, Alec told his uncle not to take such things tooseriously. Everything would be right and normal again so soon asthe séances were stopped. Then, bidding the old man calmhimself and take a nap, the nephew went out into the garden tothink things over. For an hour or more he paced slowly to and fro,his eyes upon the ground. Finally, with the air of one who has laidhis plan, he walked briskly across the stable-yard, through thecoach-house (now used as a garage) and into the littleharness-room. On a shelf stood two old acetylene car-lamps, one ofwhich he took down and filled with carbide. He had promised, toshow Larkin how the shadow puppets worked and now he needed only adust-sheet, which was soon got, for a practical demonstration. Thishe gave in his bedroom after dark and, when Larkin left to lay thetable for dinner, he switched the beam of the lamp for a briefmoment onto the white gable of the Athenaeum.Jadi!' hesaid; which is Malay for 'It'll do'.
Next morning, as though to assure his uncle that he had seennothing incredible in the previous day's narration, he remarkedthat, having had to get up just after midnight to open the window,he had made the mistake of looking at the willows. There wascertainly something there which he could not associate with thevegetable or animal creation. He felt that his uncle must shakehimself and Saintsend free from this ugly tangle of spiritualismwithout a day's delay. It was getting on his own nerves too.
This speech had the desired effect. 'I'll write at once,' theuncle replied, 'to Miss Scettall and tell her to arrange a finalséance at Sennetts tonight. A final séance isnecessary because Saynt has hinted before now of other and moredirect methods of approach to me and I must avoid that at allcosts. We must pension him off decently, so to speak. The doctorwon't like my going out to dinner, but to be quit of this wretchedbusiness will be better medicine than any he has ever prescribed.Anyhow, I have made up my mind to go.'
After lunch Alec heard Larkin being told that his master wouldbe out to dinner at Sennetts and that brandy, whisky and twoglasses were to be put on the small table in the Athenaeum againsthis return. Larkin need not sit up; he would close the househimself.
'If the whisky and the second glass are meant for me,'interposed Alec, 'I must ask to be excused. I feel a bout ofmalaria coming on and shall go early to bed with a couple ofquinine tablets. You can tell me all about your evening at Sennettsafter breakfast tomorrow.'
'Very well, Larkin; the brandy and one glass only. Be carefulnot to forget, for after my recent collapse I may need it.'
Thus came it about that, when at nearly midnight he heard thesound of his uncle's car returning down the drive from Sennetts,Alec was in his bedroom. But not in bed. He sat on a stool by thewindow. On a small table behind him stood an acetylene car-lampwith a sheet of heavy cardboard pressed against the glass to blockits rays. In his right hand he held a shadow puppet ready formanipulation. Through the window he could now see the figure of hisuncle moving up the ramp towards the Athenaeum. Just as the figurereached the highest point Alec suddenly whipped away the sheet ofcardboard and manipulated his puppet. Simultaneously, on the whitegable above his uncle, loomed a long-armed, narrow-bodied, spindlyshadow, beckoning and waving.
There was no cry nor sound of any sort save a dull dead thud onthe gravel path beneath the ramp. Within five seconds the acetylenelamp was in a cupboard, the puppet back in its box, and Alec's headon its pillow. Nothing occurred to disturb the remaining hours ofnight, but early next morning Larkin found the lights in theAthenaeum still burning. A moment later he knew the cause. Anotherlight, and one that could not be relit, had been extinguished.
5
The interval between the inquests on uncle and nephew was almostexactly four months. Certain events during this period are worthyof brief record for the purposes of rounding off our tale.
Nobody knows whether Leonardo da Vinci liked or disliked thesmile on his Mona Lisa. Worn by Miss Scettall on a call ofcondolence it infuriated the new master of Saintsend. So also didher remark that all of us must come to the gravein duecourse. What the hell did she mean by that? Had she anysuspicions? Anyhow, he wasn't going to have her poking her noseinto his affairs: so he told her bluntly that he attributed hisuncle's death to her spook-raising and that she would not bewelcomed at Saintsend again so long as he was there. 'No doubtyou'll have company enough without me,' she had replied: and whatexactly did she mean by that?
Larkin always said that his new young master's heavy drinkingbegan on the night of the old one's funeral. A tile had been blownoff the bedroom roof and while dressing for dinner Alec heard thedrip-drip of a leak from the ceiling. The drops were falling on thepuppet box, and removing the top ones he carefully wiped eachbefore putting the box into a drier place. He did not trouble towash his hands thereafter and Larkin said to him as he sat attable, 'Why, sir, your fingers is all bloody!' The crimson veneerfrom a damp puppet had in fact come off on them, but there seemedno sufficient reason in this for Alec's extreme concern andannoyance. His face turned scarlet and then suddenly white; heswore at Larkin and bade him bring a neat brandy.
On the following morning he threw the whole collection of shadowfigures, box and all, into the river. Revisiting the place thatevening he cursed himself for not having corded the box. As aresult of the omission one of the figures suddenly protruded itselfat him from the swirl of an eddy. It seemed to him to have expandedin the water and to be now nearly life-size. That, of course, musthave been an optical illusion; but Alec never cared to walk on theriverbank again and when the masons arrived by his order to pulldown the garden wall he abruptly told them to leave it alone andget out. The same day he had his bed moved downstairs to a room atthe opposite end of the corridor to where his uncle had slept. Hewas suffering, he said, from insomnia. A week or so later heordered all windows on the river side of the house to be keptclosed and shuttered by day as well as night.
The effects of heavy drinking had indeed begun to exact a heavytoll on mind and body. Larkin was accused of allowing young Tom toput scorpions and centipedes into Alec's boots and shoes and ascarlet mantis into his bed. All patterned carpets and rugs hadsoon to be taken up and stowed in the box-room, for Alec felt thatin some strange way insects and shadow figures had got woven intothe designs. Curtains were next taken down because of what hebelieved to lurk in their folds, and pictures because of what mighthide behind them. No window might now be opened, even on thelandward side, and bath plugs must be kept firmly in their socketsfor fear of what might otherwise crawl out on him.
The faithful Larkin at last gave notice. Before its term was up,however, the end had come, and from a trivial causation. TheTillingford Grammar School was about to stage a speech-day pageant,of which one item would be a 'grasshopper parade' performed by thesmaller boys. Their costumes, cheap but effective, were ofgreen-dyed sacking with long thin osier shoots for antennae andlegs. After rehearsal one evening Tom, thus clad, ran up toSaintsend to show his father. In an end-of-term exuberance hejumped the little clipped yew hedge below the rose garden andlanded nimbly on the lower lawn. Alec at this moment, perhaps inmaudlin remorse, was gazing down from the stone ramp on to the spotin the gravel path below where his uncle had fallen to his death.Out of the corner of a bloodshot eye he caught a sudden glimpse ofthe boy-grasshopper. With a hysterical cry of 'Good God! thatmantis again!' he stumbled, pitched forward and fell.
Larkin, who was tidying up inside the Athenaeum, heard both cryand thudding crunch. Quick though he ran to his master'sassistance, it was to no use; for the neck was broken.
6
Saintsend thus passed into possession of a distant and wealthycousin, John Fenderby-Judeson. Within a year or so he had made manyimprovements, including the removal of Matthew Judeson's wall.Later he married a neighbouring lady whose Christian name wasseldom spoken, for he chose to call her 'Mona Lisa'. The mostrecent accounts from Tillingford and Fenfield suggest that theriverine air of Saintsend is not suiting her too well and that shewould like the dividing wall to be rebuilt. She complains, too, ofbad nights, but her husband assures her that, if only she willexercise patience, an end will surely come to them in duecourse.
1
It is over ten years since Martin Lorimer's death, and there isnobody now living to whom the publication of these notes could, asfar as I can see, cause pain or offence. However, in order to makesafety on this point safer, I have falsified all personal andplace-names throughout the narrative; and the first fact,therefore, to be recorded about the man of whom I write is that inreal life he answered neither to the name of Martin nor to that ofLorimer.
Few of his old school or college friends kept up with him inafter life. This was because Lorimer entered upon an educationalcareer under the Colonial Office and was posted to distant Kongea,where he eventually became principal of a Teachers' TrainingCollege and the author of several works on and in the Kongahililanguage. What bound him and me in the ties of fairly regularcorrespondence over two decades was a mutual interest in philately.He stayed with me more than once while on furlough and I must saythat, had it not been for our common hobby, my initial invitationto him would not have been repeated.
The fault in Lorimer's make-up was a strain of militant andoutmoded free thinking. Successive Directors of Education in Kongeahad found in this quality of his a counterweight to thepredominantly missionary element in Kongean scholastic circles. Hisappointment as head of Takeokuta College came indeed as athunderbolt to the local leaders of all religious denominations,and it was followed in the very next issue of theCollegeChronicle by an article from his pen entitled 'Creeds andCrudities'. To this the still youthful and pugnacious Bishop ofKongea retorted in theKongean Catechist with an editorialon 'Rot in Rationalism'. This, however, only had the effect ofprovoking theCollege Chronicle into a further dissertationon 'Mind versus Mitre'.
Lorimer would send me (and I still have them in my cuttingsbook) copies of his articles in various newspapers and one of them,in theTakeokuta College Chronicle, is of special relevanceto subsequent events. I will, therefore, reproduce it in full. Itran as follows:
MURK-MADE MYSTERY
The scandal of the Sadilena pilgrimage shows no abatement. Thisyear in fact there are more pilgrims than ever before, owing to areport that the effulgence from the so-called sacred cave-wall isof unprecedented brightness. It will be remembered that theSadilena cave was not discovered until the Boundary Commission of1873 and that it did not become the focus of superstition until1889, when Ubusda (self-styled hermit, but known to the police as aprofessional cheat and gambler) discovered the luminosity of theinner cavern and, at the small cost of a plaster statue of thegoddess Vahrunda which he set up in its middle, invented all thelying propaganda about miraculous cures and fulfilments ofpetitions that later achieved his fortune and fame as self-inductedcave-priest. When he died in 1899 many hoped that the governmentwould seize the opportunity of sealing up the cave and thereby savethe ignorant masses from further pseudo-religious exploitation.Unfortunately it did not do so, and within a year or two anambitious priest from the temple below Nikoduna migrated toSadilena and there turned troglodyte. Under his astute managementthe pilgrimage soon became a profitable business enterprisewherefrom only an infinitesimal part of the profits accrued to thecult of the goddess Vahrunda. The stock-in-trade of this giant hoaxis nothing more than a patch of phosphorescent fungus or lichengrowing on a cave wall. The pretension of its miraculous nature ismaintained only by a sacerdotal injunction against introductioninto the cavern of lamps, candles, matches, or any other means ofillumination. Thus, simply but effectually, does murk make mysteryand darkness dower deceit. We warn our readers against allowingthemselves to be made dupes of such deception!
Some eighteen months after receipt of this cutting I got aletter from Lorimer, posted from a hotel at Bournepool, to say thathe had been invalided from Kongea and was home on pension. Could hecome and stay with me for a night or two and bring some stamps withhim for possible exchange? Having replied in the affirmative I methim a fortnight later at Boscote station, which is three miles frommy Westshire cottage.
His first remark on alighting from the train was that he wasfeeling rotten. His face confirmed it too; though it would be truerto say that he looked rotting rather than rotten. He wore anappearance of active, not static, decay.
'I suppose, Robinson,' he enquired with some agitation, 'thatyou wouldn't mind my opening that cabin trunk a moment before it'sput into the car? I have an idea that I've gone and left somethingvery important behind.'
'But why open it here?' I replied. 'If you wish to wire foranything the telegraph office is only two minutes' walk from mycottage. You won't get anything sent down today, though, for thelast train left London half an hour ago.'
'Very well, I'll wait. Do you think that we could have the hooddown? After that dingy railway carriage I feel like getting a spotof sun and a breath of fresh air.'
To this I readily agreed, for he seemed to me to have used a tooheavily perfumed hair oil or else to have given his handkerchief anoverdose of scent. I could not call to mind having noticed such afailing in Lorimer on his previous visits, although I amparticularly sensitive to an overscented atmosphere.
During the short drive from the station I saw him look severaltimes inside his coat-sleeves and, by twisting and bending each legin turn, inside his trousers too. 'Fleas,' he explained, catchingmy inquisitive glance, 'or possibly something larger! That's theworst of railway travel.' I had never myself found our railwayverminous, but I refrained from saying so. Incidentally, this wasthe first time I had known Lorimer travel first-class.
No sooner had we arrived at the house and his trunk been carriedto his room than Lorimer went upstairs to unpack. In my study belowI could hear him throwing things out on to the floor, and thensuddenly I heard hurried footsteps on the staircase and he burst inon me, white and trembling.
'For God's sake, Robinson,' he said in a strained voice, 'lendme an electric torch. As I feared, I have left mine behind.'
'You won't need one,' I replied. 'There's an electric-lightswitch under the pillow and a bed-lamp besides.'
'That'll be no use. You see, Robinson, I must have light underthe bedclothes. The lamp will never shine through the blankets andeiderdown.'
I looked at him in amazement. He must, I thought, have becomewhat is vulgarly termed 'dippy' and the only thing for me to do wasto humour him. Fortunately, I did happen to possess an electrictorch which I used when locking up the greenhouse and garage eachnight. I therefore promised to lend it him provided that he wouldcome out with his full reasons and treat me as an old friendanxious to help him. This is what he then told me.
2
'You may remember,' Lorimer began, 'a newspaper cutting which Isent you some eighteen months ago about the Sadilena pilgrimage?Well, last year three of my senior pupils at Takeokuta asked leaveof absence in order, as they put it, that they might go and worshipthe Holy Gleam. I was, as you may imagine, very angry. I repliedthat a condition of their going would be that I should accompanythem, and that I should duly demonstrate to them and to anypilgrims present the material nature of the phosphorescence. It wasas absurd to call it a holy gleam as to deify a glowworm or afirefly.
'So in a few days time we set out together, but as soon as wehad left the train and started walking along the ten-mile footpathI could see that my company was distasteful to them. For the wholelength of our progress they sought to dissuade me from exposing andexploding the bogus mystery. The more they argued and entreated theangrier and more resolute I became, and my annoyance reached itsclimax when on arrival at the outer cave all three prostratedthemselves before its hairy and unwashen custodian: a mostdisgusting sight! Here, too, I found the pilgrimage to have beencommercialised to the extent of our having to buy tickets beforeentering the inner cavern.
'The passage to it though short was crooked, with the resultthat no daylight could penetrate the interior. Once inside, theglow from the walls became rapidly visible. I must confess that theluminescence exceeded my anticipation and I realised that lessimposing phenomena have in the course of history been hailed asmiraculous. So much greater the need, I reflected, for nipping thepresent superstition in the bud. The moment for action had arrived.With the fingers of both hands I vigorously scraped the shiningrock surface and sure enough there fell into my palms a luminousmildew or lichen, slightly cold and damp to the touch. It shone ablueish-green and, heaping it all into my left hand, I held italoft for all to see. With my right hand I whipped out from mytrouser pocket a small electric torch. "Look now," I cried, "atyour wonderful mystery. Nothing but a handful of dirty fungus ormould!" Before I could switch on the light, however, the torch wasstruck from my hand in the dark and fell with a clanking thud at myfeet. Although I could not see them, somehow I felt my three pupilsleave my side and soon heard their steps retreating down thepassage. Nevertheless, I knew myself not to be left alone; indeed,I have seldom had so vivid a sense of company. Of its nature therenow came audible indication; for there fell in my ears a successionof versicles and responses intoned antiphonally by what I surmisedto be a company of priests. The words that I heard were Kongahilibut, although I have never consciously translated them, it is in anEnglish version that they have become engraved on my memory. Thisis how they ran:
V. Whom name ye guilty of the sin of sins?
R. Him who lays band upon the Holy Gleam.
V. A man may touch by hap, not of intent.
R. Vahrunda pities: he shall be forgiven.
V. Another in youth's folly, or in wine.
R. Him she will burn with fevers, but let live.
V. But if the act be purposive and planned?
R. Who sinneth thus shall die within the year.
V. But first a hundred days of witless fear,
R. And sixty in half-knowledge of his doom:
V. Two hundred more beneath Vahrunda's curse
R. Of shining plague, whose reek be must inhale
V. Until the year be up and he may die.
R. Thrice six score days of misery; then death.
'The chanting ceased and I groped my way towards the passage.Somebody must have followed me for, just as I emerged blindly intothe outer cave, I heard a repetition of the final response croakedin a cracked voice from the gloom behind me:
Thrice six score days of misery; then death.
'There was no sign outside of my three pupils. The whole placeseemed deserted. I started, therefore, on the homeward trek alone.Whomever I passed on the footpath gazed at me so oddly that Isupposed my clothes to have become badly soiled in the cave.Inspection, however, showed that this was not the case. Perhaps itwas that my fingers were bleeding round the nails. It was foolishto have scraped so hard. Three times I tried to buy fruit atwayside stalls, but they refused me on the ground that they soldonly to pilgrims. The news of my deed had obviously precededme.
'The more I thought of my three pupils the angrier I felttowards them My mission in the cause of truth had not been asuccess. The cave priests clearly had been forewarned and therebyenabled to stage a scene of melodrama. I had been made a fool of:perhaps something worse than a fool. The only sensible course wouldbe to dismiss the whole wretched episode from my mind and think ofit no more.
'This. however proved impossible. Within two days I was summonedby the Director of Education and, from the moment that I saw him, Irealised that I had lost a friend. He was amazed, so he said, by mydisregard for Kongean religious susceptibilities. The chieftainswere demanding my dismissal from the College, and the Governor hadcalled for an immediate report. Thirty-seven influential parentshad already withdrawn their sons from attendance at my lectures,and it had, therefore, been his duty to order my transfer to theCentral Education Office, where I should find useful employment intranslating some recently-arrived primers into Kongahili. MrCadgeby (a cousin of the Bishop's, whom I despised more than anyother of my colleagues) had been instructed to succeed me as Headof the College. There need be no handing-over; and, indeed, itwould be inadvisable in all the circumstances for me to enter theCollege premises again. To be quite explicit, he had no option butto forbid my doing so. That, for the present, was all: but I shouldprobably be required, in the near future, to reply to a formaldisciplinary charge of having conducted myself in a mannerunbecoming a public servant.
'From this unpleasant interview I returned to my house, to findit deserted by the whole staff of Kongean servants. Until Isucceeded in inducing three rascally half-breeds to take, theirplaces, I had to go to the European Club for all my meals. Here,too, I found myself an object of disapproval, being asked byseveral heads of business firms why the devil I couldn't leaveother people's religions alone. The bank manager accused me stoutlyof stirring up anti-British prejudice, and a pioneer planter ofhaving let down the white man. The majority of members avoided me.It was my first taste of ostracism.
'I could have borne it better, perhaps, if I had felt well. But,unfortunately, I had begun to sleep badly of nights, owing to asevere itching at my finger-tips. There had been no water near theSadilena cave in which to wash my hands after scraping the wall,and some infectious matter must have got in under the nails. Thedoctor gave me some ointment; but, in spite of its curing theirritation, the insomnia to which it had given rise persisted. Ibecame a prey to all sorts of fears and fancies about my health.With the aid of a handbook entitledEvery Man His Own DoctorI diagnosed my disorder successively as diabetic, tubercularand cancerous. I could not say which was the greater at this time:my loathing of life or my fear of death. Both gripped mesimultaneously. The doctors grew worried and I was ordered up toBendosari, our only hill station. It was there that I had the firstinkling of my real trouble.
'While suffering from insomnia I used to imagine that nothingcould be worse. The kind of sleep or torpor into which I now fellnight after night at Bendosari proved how wrong I had been.Repeated nightmares can be infinitely more wearing and alarmingthan mere sleeplessness. Shortly before dawn each morning I woke updrenched by a cold sweat of horror at what I had dreamed. I hadbeen in the Sadilena cavern again. Again I had scraped its luminouswall, and again heard that chanting in the dark. The words began totake on a frightening significance. A hundred days of witless fear!Was not that exactly what I had recently suffered? And could I hidefrom myself any longer that I was daily suppressing an intuition ofwhat was in store for me? I knew that it was not diabetes; notphthisis, nor cancer. None of those would account for a certainanaesthesia, a lumpiness and sense of corrugation whenever Istroked my legs, arms or face.
'The moment that I allowed my lips to frame the fatal word, Ifelt as though a dam had burst inside me, and I rushed through thehotel crying "Leprosy! leprosy! leprosy!" The other guests, notunnaturally, complained; and I was quickly recalled to Takeokutafor examination by a medical board. None of the three doctors whocomposed it can have any experience of leprosy, for they stupidlyassured me that I showed no signs of it. What they invalided mefor, I have never had the curiosity to ask. I knew the truth, andwas thankful to get out of Kongea on pension, whatever label theymight choose to set on my condition.
'On the voyage home the full foulness of my fate was finallyrevealed to me. One hot and windless night I woke to find myselfgazing at my bare feet as they rested against the end of the berth.It struck me as odd that they alone, of all objects in the cabin,should be in the moonlight. I moved them, and the moonlight seemedto follow. I looked at the porthole. There was no moon! My heartthudded with sudden realisation. My leprosy was luminous.Vahrunda's curse, the shining plague!'
'Shaking all over, I switched on the lights to hide it; andevery night I kept them switched on until we were off the coast ofSpain, when cold compelled the use of a blanket. If only I couldhave drilled myself not to look under it, I might have been sparedmuch. But I could not. Curiosity kept me constantly peeping underthe bedclothes to see how far the luminosity had crept above myankles; for I felt that it would surely, if slowly, invade my wholebody. That, Robinson, is why I cannot sleep now without an electrictorch between the sheets. The batteries run out every now and then.Every time this happens, I find the disease to have crept higher.It is already half-way up my thighs. Eventually, of course, it willreach my face and hands. That is why I frequently treat them withantiseptic soaps and lotions.
'I have begun, too, to be conscious of the emanation from myskin of a faintly civet-like odour, which I daily disguise by aliberal use of oils and scents, as you have probably noticed.
'Well, that's the whole story. So please hand over that torch,and don't, for God's sake, start telling me that it's allimagination, as the damned doctors do. If it's their way of sayingthat there is no cure, I agree with them: but they might have thedecency to be honest about it!'
3
I was not sorry when, two days later, Lorimer left me. Somehowor other, I missed the announcement of his death (which occurredsome weeks later) in the daily papers. I read of it, however, inthe 'Weekly Summary' of theWestshire Review, which gave,also, some account of the inquest. The body had been found inThanwell tunnel, on the main line to Wolmingham, and a Mr AlgernonCutley, of 11 Almington Crescent in that city, gave evidence asfollows:
We were alone in the compartment. The main switch forthe whole carriage must have fused since we ran through the tunnelsoutside King's Pancras, when all the lights were on as usual. AtThanwell, we plunged into pitch blackness. After a minute or so, Iheard my fellow-traveller ask whether I could see anything luminouson him. I smiled at the oddity of the question and answered:"Nothing, except the dial of your wrist-watch." Then I heard himget up and slide open the corridor door, muttering something aboutwashing his hands. When the train ran out of the tunnel, I got upand walked along the corridor to the luncheon-car. I noticed thatthe exit door at the side of the lavatory door was ajar, butthought nothing of it at the time. When I came back from lunch,somebody had slammed it to: probably the ticket-collector. Mycompartment was now empty and I supposed that my fellow-travellerhad got out at Trentchester, while I was eating lunch. No, sir, Inoticed nothing unusual about the gentleman, except for his oddquestion and for his smelling very strongly of scent.
In thanking Mr Cutley for having come forward with his valuableevidence, the coroner remarked that, in one single respectonly—and that an unimportant one—had his account nottallied with the circumstantial details of the case, so far asthese had proved ascertainable. The slight difference lay in thefact that the body, as found, carried no wrist-watch.
1
In Kongea it is ever hot of an afternoon, but the annual meetingof the Kongean Art Club seemed always to engender a special warmth.Perhaps it was a mistake to hold it so early as four o'clock, butmembers wanted to be at the Swimming Club by seven; and who couldforetell how long old Jenderby, the president, might meander on inhis comments on the annual report or how many protests would needto be listened to on the subject of hangings, rejections and awardsat the last August show? On one point only were all the oldermembers agreed: that Mr Lorenzo de Castro's pictures must never berefused; because they invariably attracted buyers, the Club reapinga commission of ten per centum on all sales. Mr Eckington of theKongean Courier, knowing what his editor (a keen collectorof 'de Castro's') expected of him, would begin accounts of eachsuccessive exhibition with some such words as: 'This year, no fewerthan a score of Mr de Castro's striking canvases will be found onthe walls of the Main Gallery.' To disregard or criticise thepublic taste for de Castros would have been to throw doubt upon thefinancial acumen of the colony's merchant princes and leadingbankers, most of whom had been wheedled by their wives into, buyingexamples and were wont to excuse the purchase by pronouncing it 'agood spec'. Mr Eckington signed his articles, not as 'Art Critic',but as 'Art Correspondent': wherein lay a distinction; for MrEckington was not unconscientious.
Of de Castro's own origin and history there were many anddivergent rumours. The only established fact was that he hadentered the colony some eleven years ago, on a Spanish passport.Thereafter, he had found employment as superintendent ofdecorations at the Austral Restaurant and, enthusiastically vouchedfor by its directors, had recently been granted letters of Britishnaturalisation. Whatever might have been his Iberian past, hisKongean present was thus entirely satisfactory and acceptable.Under the magic of his brush, the dingy old 'Austral' had blossomedinto an ornate cheerfulness that was handsomely reflected inbookings and bar-takings. Indeed, the long and short of it is thatde Castro was a clever scene-painter; and if only he had restedcontent with such achievement, what is about to be narrated couldnever have happened. Kongea, however, supposed him—and he,himself—to be an artist.
'And now, ladies and gentlemen,' boomed Mr Jenderby, 'we have todetermine the date of our next exhibition. Hitherto, it has alwaysbeen held in early August; but this year we are confronted with aserious difficulty.'
Here, Mr Jenderby paused to clear his throat, and so affordedMiss Cavilege the opportunity to snap in with: 'What difficulty? Weknow of none.' Miss Cavilege, recently appointed Art and MusicPreceptress at the Takeokuta College, had already won the esteem ofits alumni by painting a portrait of the Principal as ugly andunpleasant as the likeness was unmistakable.
Mr Jenderby, with an air of not having heard the interruption,continued sonorously: 'Any of us who has the welfare of this Clubat heart will be aware of what that difficulty is; for it is commonknowledge that Mr de Castro is sailing for England by theRutlandshire and will not, therefore, be here for an Augustshow. To hold it in his absence and without any exhibits from himwould be to forgo the Club's principal item of revenue and mainattraction to the public. There appears, therefore, every groundfor making some sort of special arrangement.'
'What do you mean by special arrangement?' again interposed MissCavilege with a hostile sniff; 'the organisation of the Club showsis governed by Rule 23, I believe.'
The glare which the President now fixed upon Miss Cavilege beingmet by a counter-glare no less fierce, the Honorary Secretarytactfully tipped over the vase of alamanders abutting hisminute-book and so diverted the attention of the meeting to aclearing up of the mess.
'I was about to say,' Mr Jenderby resumed when the mopping wascomplete, 'that Mr de Castro has submitted a sensible and generoussuggestion. Provided that we agree to hang two dozen of his as yetunexhibited and unsold pictures in the sky-lighted portion of ourpremises, and not to mix them up with the work of othercontributors, Mr de Castro will leave that number with us forexhibition in his absence. Re will choose the canvases himself andthereby relieve the Selection Committee from unnecessarytrouble.'
Miss Cavilege's reaction to this announcement graduated from asniff into a snort. 'I oppose it,' she said, with an ominousrestraint of voice. 'I have learnt not to expect consideration forart from this society; but this proposal isn't even cricket. Itwould be monstrous to degrade our gallery into a saleroom for Mr deCastro, especially at this juncture, when a real artist is about tocome amongst us.'
'A real artist?'
'Yes, a real artist, if such a phrase conveys anything tomembers of this Club. The Principal of the College got a cable thismorning to say that John Mainbarrow was on his way out for a threemonths painting tour in Kongea and the archipelago. Possibly,however, you may never have heard of him. It wouldn't surpriseme.'
From this sally, Mr Jenderby took cover in a look of unctuousincomprehension. 'If Mr Mainbarrow,' he said, 'should honour ourClub with his attention, I have no doubt that we shall accord him afitting welcome. If he should condescend to contribute to ourexhibition, space for his pictures could certainly be found; ifnecessary, we might temporarily displace the Bugson Bequest But Iam quite unable to see the relevance of his approaching visit to aconsideration of our old friend Mr de Castro's proposal, which Inow put to the meeting for grateful acceptance.'
The right hands of all present, except Miss Cavilege, shotupward and, muttering the one word 'typical', she picked up herportfolio and strode from the room. Her exit, however, caused nocomment, for members of the Club were well used to suchebullitions. Later, at the Swimming Club, over a very acid limesquash, Miss Cavilege expressed her frank opinion of Mr Jenderbyand, over a stiff whisky-and-soda, Mr Jenderby his of MissCavilege. The afternoon heat survived the sunset.
2
John Mainbarrow's one-man show at the Grangeby Galleries hadbeen a distinct success. He had sold some fifteen pictures, nettedtwo hundred pounds or more, and won favourable notice inTheEasel, from the pen of Professor Sedley. According to theprofessor, his pictures, surprisingly various in subject, displayeda homogeneity of conception, expression and technique such as tojustify his admirers in their talk of Mainbarrow style.
Such praise, from such a quarter, would in any young artist ofJohn's sensibility have induced an excusable measure of conceit. Inhis case, however, it also instigated three months of overwork,resulting in a bad bout of nerves and insomnia. When, therefore, hereceived an invitation from his old Oxbridge friend, Cadgeby (nowacting Head of Takeokuta College), to come and stay for two orthree months in Kongea, his doctor advised telegraphic acceptanceof the invitation and as early a sailing as could be arranged.
The advice had been taken and Mainbarrow was now nearing the endof his outward voyage. He already knew how and wherewith to replacethe dews that tropical temperatures wring from the human body andhad made many acquaintances at the smoking-room bar. Among thesewas old Sir Joseph Pagworth, for thirty years resident manager ofKongean Cinchona Limited, and, in his present retirement, chairmanof its London board of directors.
'I am always glad,' Sir Joseph was saying, 'to visit the oldcolony again; though, in these days, it's in a hell of a muck. Toomany black faces in the Council and too much red tape in thesecretariat. One can't propose anything, now, without their passingsome law or other against doing it. However, none of 'em daremeddle with fundamentals. Whisky and gin, I mean: haveanother?'
Both did.
'They tell me, by the way, that you're one of these painterchaps. Well, you'll get colour all right in Kongea, plenty of it. Imind one evening, when our Mickey's nose bled all over my wife'syellow-satin frock. "Why, there's a Kongean sunset for you," I toldher. But my wife never could appreciate poetry. Used to sing,though. I almost seem to hear her now. "Every morn I bring theeviolets"—that was her favourite. Sang it in German, though.Yes, you'll get colour all right. I hear that a young dago calledCastrato, or some such name, is making quite a good thing out ofhis sketches in Takeokuta. Doesn't stint his paints, either: morethan two dollars' worth of 'em on every picture, they say. I guessyou two'll be no end of pals when he's given you a tip or two. Thenthere's a frosty old virgin on the College staff, name ofSacrilege, I believe. Dabbles in water-colour stuff; you know thesort, I expect. Used to be barmy on the Bishop, till he told herover a pineapple ice at the Governor's garden party that he had astern vocation to celibacy. So you be wary of her, or she'll bequeering your palette for you. Have another?'
It was not only from Sir Joseph that Mainbarrow heard of deCastro. Most of the planters and miners on board also spoke of himand of how he had recently raised his prices from twenty-five tosixty dollars a canvas. Some, whose wives had made them buy at theearlier price, now took credit for having known a good thing whenthey saw it. According to them, de Castro was going to England tobook space for his pictures in next year's Academy. His stuff wouldmake some of the Old Masters look a bit dowdy, they guessed.
John's ears, still pleasantly tingling with echoes of ProfessorSedley's encomium, were ill-attuned to this jargon of Philistia. Hequickly came to loathe the very name of de Castro. The fellow mustbe a vulgar mass-producer, a shameless pot-boiler. How lucky thatthey would never meet, journeying, as they were, in oppositedirections! The nearest that they would come to each other would bewhen theRutlandshire passed theTirynthian. Thishappened to take place at night; but not at too late an hour forjocular exchange of marconigrams between homeward- andoutward-bound Kongeans. To Mainbarrow's surprise, one such missivewas for him. Tearing it open, he read:
SORRY MISS YOU WELCOME TO CRADLE OF MY ART DECASTRO.
Well; of all damnable impertinences! Cradle of his art, indeed!For an hour or so John lay awake drafting withering replies, eachof which he tore up in turn as hopelessly inadequate. Finally,reflecting that silence is the sharpest sword of contempt, heturned over and courted sleep.
But was this sleep that came? Yes, he reasoned afterwards; forwithout sleep there is no dreaming, and what he now saw could onlybe a dream. In the middle of the cabin sat a man feverishlypainting at an easel. His head moved neither upward, downward, noraside. There was something sinister, even malevolent, about itsfixity. Then, with a shudder, he saw the explanation. Beneath theeyebrows were no eyes, nor eyelids: only a flat, blank ledge offlabby, ashen skin. Its obscenity wrung from Mainbarrow a groanthat mercifully woke him into action. Hastily switching on thelight, he snatched from the berth-rack a detective novel lent himby Sir Joseph and grimly set himself to banish from his mind thefoulness he had dreamed. In this, however, he was only temporarilysuccessful, for he found to his vexation next day, that any mentionof de Castro by a fellow-passenger revivified the memory of hisnightmare.
'Come along now,' called Sir Joseph, 'and let me introduce youto a gin-swizzle, the proper nectar for an artist. Oh! by the way,I got a wireless message last night from that Castrato chap, askingme to look after you. I suppose you painter fellows practise a sortof freemasonry, don't you? Anyhow, I wirelessed back, orderingthree of his latest daubs at a hundred dollars apiece. That waswhat he may have been after, of course. Well, I don't expect to betoo badly down on it when the time comes to sell off my tropicaljunk. Hullo! Why, that must be the outer-shoal buoy to starboardthere: we ought to be alongside and tied up by lunch-time.Another?'
Sir Joseph's anticipation of a lunch-time arrival provedcorrect. On the wharf stood Cadgeby, with two servants and a car,ready to receive and transport his guest. On their way from thedocks, he expressed regret that John's visit should coincide withthe absence from the colony of their premier artist, one de Castro,a dozen or so of whose landscapes he proudly pointed out on thewalls of his bungalow immediately after their arrival. John'sinspection of them was, he hoped, marked by such appearance ofinterest as common courtesy required; inwardly, he damned them asslick and meretricious, as indeed they were.
'I suppose,' he said, by way of making polite conversation,'that de Castro has to repeat his subjects pretty often.'
'He is far too conscientious to paint duplicates,' Cadgebyreplied; 'but, naturally, in the course of his long residence herehe has often painted the same thing more than once. Which remindsme; the Bishop will be dropping in after tea to show us de Castro'sdesign for a central panel in the cathedral reredos. I understandthat he has introduced Kongean scenery as background for a Madonnain the style of Bougereau.'
Mainbarrow winced: then, turning from the pictures and directinga puzzled glance at his host, 'Cadgeby,' he said, 'what is the realname of this colony?'
'What on earth do you mean? Kongea, of course!'
'Sorry, old man! It's stupid of me, but I thought it might beDecastroland.'
3
Mainbarrow's first month in Kongea was productive of some of hisbest pictures. Three of them ('Sadilena Falls', 'Vahrunda's Altar',and 'Portrait of a Pioneer') were placed on the line in next year'sRoyal Academy. The model for the 'Pioneer' was none other than oldSir Joseph, got up, somewhat disreputably, for a fishing picnic;and John's first thought for a tide had been: 'Have Another?'
Takeokuta College being in vacation, Cadgeby was able to motorhis guest round the cool highland districts, and the time so spent,though very pleasurable and full of opportunity for painting, wasuneventful for purposes of this record. It was on his return toTakeokuta that John first came under Miss Cavilege's assiduous andunsolicited attention. So many questions, she said, arose in theteaching of art at the College that could only be answered afterreference to a real artist. Opinions, orobiter dicta, of Mrde Castro were continually being quoted at her by students; most ofwhich, she felt, called for correction, if not denial. During histour upcountry Mainbarrow had managed, without much difficulty, tobanish de Castro from his thoughts, and it irked him greatly thathe should now be inveigled into criticism and controversyconcerning him. The Cavilege woman, however, was importunate, andhis annoyance with her became a stimulus rather than acounterirritant to his distaste for de Castro.
It was under such provocation that Mainbarrow set himself, afterearly tea of a morning, to an unwholesome and unworthy piece ofpainting. His consciousness of its unworthiness was evidenced bythe care which he took to hide it away under his travelling rug andin a cupboard whenever he left his bedroom. He worked at it,moreover, not in the room itself (which servants were wont toenter, after knocking), but with locked doors in the adjoiningbathroom. It was the picture of a man painting at an easel. Thelandscape on which he was working recalled unmistakably de Castro's'Mountains at Morn' which hung in the College hall. The face ofthis painter had neither eyes nor eyelids. Where these should havebeen, there was indicated only a flat, blank ledge of flabby, ashenskin. John was, in fact, giving substance on canvas to hisnightmare on the voyage. 'I'll send it in for the local show,' hechuckled; 'I wonder what the Selection Committee will make ofit!'
He found difficulty, however, in finishing the picture to hissatisfaction. Whenever he uncovered it, after laying it by, thefigure seemed to invite compassion rather than thecontempt—which he intended. He would, thereupon, set brush toit again ill-temperédly and, by the time that it was readyfor framing, he was heartily sick of the thing. Heaving a sigh ofrelief he tacked it into a gilt surround, locked it in the bathroomcupboard, and went out for a breath of fresh air in the publicgardens. Here, from a passing car that nearly knocked him down,Miss Cavilege waved and kissed her hand at him. He meant what hemuttered.
On his return to the bungalow Cadgeby met him on the steps witha copy of theKongean Courier in his hand, and, pointing toa front-page paragraph, said: 'Bad news for us and you, I'mafraid; read that.'
Mainbarrow took the paper and did so. This was theparagraph:
Art-lovers will learn with distress of our receipt ofdisquieting news concerning Mr Lorenzo de Castro. On arrival inLondon he is reported to have complained of pain in the eye socketsand to have consulted leading specialists. The case is understoodto present unusual symptoms and to have so far defied definitediagnosis. His last engagement before leaving for treatment andcomplete rest at Southgate-on-Sea was to see the three pictures byMr John Mainbarrow (now on a visit to Takeokuta) which wererecently purchased by the Bournepool Municipal Gallery. His manyfriends and admirers in Kongea will join with us in wishing Mr deCastro early and complete recovery.
Handing the paper back to Cadgeby, Mainbarrow yielded to asudden desire to have another look at the picture he had justfinished. As in other tropical countries, a bathroom in Kongea hastwo doors: one into the bedroom whereto it belongs, and the othergiving directly onto the garden, whence water for the bath iscarried in by the waterman. Finding the light from the windows toodim, John swung open the garden door and, standing with his back toit, surveyed his clandestine work. He regarded it with intensedisapproval for five minutes or more. It was, he saw, intrinsicallywrong and ugly; displaying strength without virtue. Its exhibition,even if there had not come this news about de Castro, would havebeen indecent. He felt a sudden rage, and, striding into thebedroom, took from the dressing-table drawer a Kongean dagger whichhe had bought as a curio. Back in the bathroom, he pounced on thecanvas and stabbed it into small strips. Then, as he stoodcontemplating the wreck of several hours' work, it struck him asstrange that, amid tropical heat, his sweat should feel cold. Damnde Castro! Shivering slightly, he turned suddenly round at a hintof rustling in the bamboo hedge outside the open door. Nobody wasthere, so far as he could see, and a waving of a casuarina bushbehind the hedge was, he persuaded himself, caused by a wind offthe sea. The bonfire of weeds and clippings that was burning beyondthe canna bed determined his next movement. He carried out the ruinof his canvas and poked it under the glowing embers.
After dinner that evening Cadgeby was called to the telephone.The editor of theCourier had rung him up to say that,according to a press cable just received, de Castro had committedsuicide; presumably under fear of complete blindness.
4
If Miss Cavilege had, as the saying goes, been throwing herselfat John Mainbarrow, she now indulged in a reverse process ofthrowing herself away from him. Nor was her method of doing so oneof mere avoidance. She would attend functions at which they werebound to meet and then pointedly disregard him. Perhaps, hesurmised, conscience was smiting her for a thousand uncharitablethings she had said to him about de Castro. Such a probability,indeed, seemed indicated by the lip-service she now paid to thedead man's work. At a special meeting of the Art Club, convened topass a vote of condolence with the bereaved family, Miss Cavilegeastonished her fellow-members by reading a carefully composed essayon his talent. In it she made a veiled reference to somebody whomight, in his own estimation, be a better artist; from which not afew of her hearers inferred that her infatuation for Mainbarrowmust have ended as infructuously as her earlier pursuit of theBishop.
The full reason for her change of front was, however, revealedto John Mainbarrow at a small dinner given by Cadgeby in the lastweek of his stay. Conversation having veered fitfully from art andliterature to philosophy and religion, Miss Cavilege was heard toask the Bishop whether his lordship believed in witchcraft. SirJoseph Pagworth's remark that, in his experience, all women werewitches, more or less, elicited only a contemptuous glance and arepetition of her question, with an added special reference to theKongean practice of sticking pins into the effigy of an enemy.
'The superstition to which Miss Cavilege alludes,' the Bishopresponded, 'is agelong and far from being peculiar to Kongea. InEurope, it could be traced back, I believe, to the Mycenaean Age,and a still longer history be found for it in Asia and Africa. Fromthe records of their trials it is clear that witches sincerelybelieved in their craft; and it has ever been a weakness of thehuman mind to translate coincidence and imprecation into causalityand agency. The insertion of pins into a material object is anaction physically complete in itself; but as to whetheraccompanying mental or psychic states may or may not havetelepathic consequences, I prefer not to speculate. Our Faith bidsus to live in charity with all men; and to stick pins into one'sneighbour, however vicariously, is certainly not charity. For theChristian, therefore, such practices, whether effective or not, areclearly taboo. The angels are not on the side of the witches.'
'Thank you, Bishop; I am sorry to have bothered you with such anunusual question. What put it into my head was a silly dream that Ihad the other day of an artist painting the portrait of a rival,but without any eyes, and then stabbing the picture to bits with aknife. It must have been poor Mr de Castro's eye-trouble andsuicide that put such nonsense into my brain. What added to thedream's absurdity was that the artist was painting in hisbathroom!'
'Why ever not?' grunted Sir Joseph; 'that's where I singopera.'
Mainbarrow was grateful to the old Philistine for thus switchingthe conversation away from Miss Cavilege's gambit intocomicalities. So the quivering of the bamboos and casuarina hadbeen due to something more substantial than a breeze! It would, ofcourse, be useless to tell Miss Cavilege about his dream on thevoyage out. She had put her own melodramatic construction on whatshe had seen and would doubtless stick to it. Indeed, she pointedlyavoided saying good-night to him, and he saw her on only oneoccasion more. This was at a farewell tea given in his honour bythe Art Club. At its close, Mr Jenderby presented to him, as amemento from the members, a small canvas by the late de Castro,entitled 'Kongean Nightpiece'. The scowl which Miss Cavilegedirected at him while he was returning thanks left him in no doubtthat, whatever picture or figure she might have chosen to representhim, it must already resemble a porcupine.
5
Lying in a long deck-chair on theLacedaemonian, JohnMainbarrow reflected that, much as he had otherwise enjoyed hisKongean visit, the whole de Castro business had been nasty anddiscomfiting. He must, at any rate, get straight with himself aboutit: so, fetching pencil and paper, he jotted down the followingnotes:
1 Bad attack of nerves owing to overwork and insomnia Trip toKongea taken for recuperation.
2 Plagued by fellow-passengers with eulogies of hack painter deCastro.
3 This got on already sore nerves and induced nightmare ofeyeless artist. Dream image resurrected whenever heard name of deCastro.
4 On arrival in Kongea, found his daubs everywhere and heardthem extolled as highest art.
5 Miss C. added fuel to fire of my aversion by daily quotationof opinions alleged to be de Castro's.
6 Discovered her intentions towards me were matrimonial. Shetalked of a union of minds based on a common hatred.
7 As safety-valve for my feelings, started work secretly onpicture of my eyeless dream-image.
8 When inspecting it before destruction, realised that nose,mouth and chin were those of Miss Cavilege. I had never set eyes onde Castro.
9 Common sense tells me that I had no hand in de Castro tragedy,but dislike having painted secret malicious picture, even thoughdestroyed.
This ninefold apologia Mainbarrow showed to Dr Hasterton, whomhe found it necessary to consult some four months later afterreading in theSunday Post an article headed 'TelekineticHomicide'. This famous psychiatrist, having told John to come backin ten days, found occasion in the meantime to look up their mutualacquaintance, Professor Sedley.
'I remember,' said Hasterton, 'reading an article of yours notso very long ago on the work of John Mainbarrow. Do you happen tohave seen any of the things he did in Kongea or since hisreturn?'
'Oh, yes! I was round at his studio last Tuesday afternoon.'
'Any change in style? Deterioration, perhaps?'
'I shouldn't say so, though it may take him some time to get thetropical sun out of his eyes. Personally, I liked what I saw verymuch. But why do you ask?'
'Because—this between our two selves—he's under anillusion that all his recent output is in the spirit, even by thespirit, of a dead man called de Castro. I can deal with the caseall right—there's nothing very novel about it—butbefore starting to do so I needed an authoritative judgment as towhether there has or has not been any real change in his work. Manythanks, Professor, for giving it me.'
A fortnight later, Mainbarrow stood with Hasterton in front of areconstruction of the Kongean bathroom picture, executed by him atthe latter's order.
'That's excellent,' the psychiatrist commented, 'but before Ipurchase it (which I insist on your allowing me to do) I want youto put in eyes—unseeing eyes. Not blind eyes, mindyou, but the eyes of a man who has no intellectual or aestheticoutlook or mental vision.'
'Oh! but de Castro mayn't have been as bad as all that!'
'What's it got to do with de Castro? Now do as I tell you,please, and finish your picture to the text, "They have eyes butsee not".'
The new title, John found, necessitated a new picture with afresh conception not associable with de Castro or any otherindividual. In his painting of it he thus found a way out of whathe later used to call his 'de Castro complex'. The canvas wasfavourably noticed by critics of his next show and its associationsfor him became entirely gratifying. He has, indeed, been known tolaugh and joke about his 'de Castro period'.
Recent letters from Kongea tell of the arrival there of anextremely good-looking and well-to-do Chief Justice. He isunmarried as yet, but Miss Cavilege is reported as hot on hisscent.
I am no student of aetiology, but lying in my hot bath of awintry morning and watching the steam precipitate on thewindow-panes I am struck by the fact that the resultant rivuletsseldom if ever follow the same courses today as they did yesterday.It is remarkable how often a down-speeding globule of water willunforseeably take an abrupt turn to right or left, as does theelectric fluid in a discharge of lightning. There must, of course,be cause for each twist and turn, though unperceivable, andsimilarly there must be cause for every twist and turn of humanexperience. Such causes can seldom be sensed with certainty even bythe human agent, or patient, whose behaviour is determined by them:their recognition by an outside observer is still moreproblematical. Nevertheless, I believe myself to have stumbled onconnected links in a chain of events that culminated in the suddenand violent death of my bachelor cousin, Herbert Sidden, at the ageof forty-three.
The coroner's verdict was death by misadventure. Herbert hadbeen knocked down and killed where the footpath from HaddenhamGreen used to cross the railway on the level. The presentfootbridge was erected after (possibly because of) the accident. Onrounding the curve by the tile factory the driver of a downexcursion train saw him stooping right in the middle of the track.Though he blew his whistle, Herbert never moved and a few secondslater a broken bleeding body lay in the six-foot way. Nobody elsewitnessed the fatality and the only object found by the police onthe sleepers of the crossing was, irrelevantly enough it seemed, ajellyfish. This, it was ascertained, had dropped from the toybucket of a small boy on his way home from paddling. Possibly, thecoroner remarked, the deceased had slipped on it; but there was noevidence to support the conjecture.
There was certainly no ground for suspicion of suicide. Mycousin had inherited a comfortable income, and his enjoyment of itas a leisuredlitterateur was without ill health or otherdetraction. Of his numerous acquaintances many would have welcomeda greater intimacy, but he inclined towards seclusion rather thansociety. In myself he seemed to take a mild cousinly interestsuggestive more of curiosity than of liking. It was, therefore, asurprise to find that he had left me five thousand pounds, free ofduty, together with the whole of his not inconsiderable library.During my inspection of its contents I came across the twomanuscript volumes and a scrapbook which, if I am not mistaken,afford clues to the problem of the testator's end.
The older manuscript book, much smudged and dog-eared, bears inan unformed hand the endorsement 'prayrs and pomes'; the second isheaded in firm well-written capital letters 'JUVENILIA'. Betweentheir respective contents there is great difference both in matterand style. Verses in the earlier have an authentic ring ofchildhood and the sentiments which they express are neitheraffected nor precocious. They are devoid of punctuation, as thefollowing five examples will show:
Example (1)
PRAYR
plese help me god
to be quite good
and never rude
or cross or odd
so when i die
or the werld ends
we may be freinds
up in the sky *
* Note. At first reading I thought the order of therhyming strange for a small boy, but I afterwards remembered thathe must have sat through many sermons in the family pew atHaddenham confronted by a mural tablet whose inscription endedwith:
There lyeth here
But dust and bone:
The soul is flown
To Heaven's sphere.
Example (2)
DETH
I felt sad and Mary cried
when the poor canarry died
we berried him in the chiken run
and hated god for what bed done
Example (3)
MUSIC PRACTIS
in saxling church on Saturday
we herd aunt madge the organ play
she did the hyms a trifle sadly
the sarms and other peices badly
Example (4)RAILWAY JURNEY
the railway carrage keeps quite still
but things outside it fly
mile on mile pole after pole
the telygraff wires streak by
up and down, down and up
scratching along the sky
a bush comes sliding down the hedge
the fence dives into a pond
green woods like catapillers crorl
eating the hills beyond
Example (5)
FUNAREL
yesterday we found a jellifsh
nanny said it were a smelly fish
so we berried it in sand
the funarel was grand
nanny says she does not know
where good jellifishes go
but she thort the chances are
that jellifsh is now a star
In contrast to the foregoing, the verses in 'Juvenilia' arepatently not the work of a child, even if a moiety of them mayperhaps have been written in revision of earlier efforts or havereflected memories of childhood. They leave the impression thattheir author must have taken pains to trick them out for grown-uprecital or even perhaps for publication. Two specimens of suchfake-stuff will suffice.
MR BROWN UNDER EXAMINATION
As we went walking down the town
Whom should we meet but Mr Brown?
Auntie says that she has never
Met a person half as clever,
So we thought that he'd know what
She and Uncle Tom do not:
Why God allows good men to die
And how do babies come and why.
But Mr Brown behaved so queerly;
He made a face and said 'O really!'
TO A JELLYFISH
Out of proper respect for you, Sir,
I shall call you Mr Medusa
(A name that I took
From our animal book);
Gentlemen in Debrett or Kelly
Don't have names like Fish, A. Jelly—
The sophistication of this last piece is in strong contrast tothe naïveté of 'funarel'. I have selected these twoverses for special citation and reference because no less than fourof the 'pomes' and nine of the 'Juvenilia' contain allusions tojellyfish or medusae. They appear, indeed, to have become anobsession. In the Juvenilia, for instance, there is a painfulparody of Shelley's 'Skylark' beginning, 'Hail to thee, blithejelly, Fish thou never wert'; and, even worse, a travesty of anEaster hymn in which the terminal Hallelujahs are replaced by'Jellyhoohahs'.
Pastings in the scrap-book show a similarly large proportion ofnewspaper and magazine cuttings on the same subject and evenexcerpts from books. For example, there is an account taken fromtheSouthshire Daily News of the 17th September, 1902, of anexperimental tank for sea anemones and jellyfish in the Bournepoolaquarium, and a letter from a correspondent to theBorehavenGazette recording measurements of a giant jellyfish found onthe beach below Corley Head. Its diameter was exactly the length ofthe correspondent's umbrella stick. In another cutting a 'Lover ofNature' reported having seen a weasel emerge from a tamarisk hedge,dash down the muddy bank of a creek and return with a jellyfish inits mouth. It is indeed amazing that a man of my cousin'sintelligence and education should have accumulated such a litter ofnonsense and misinformation. His childhood's prayer againstbecoming 'odd' had clearly been unanswered.
Oddities of taste and interest seldom conduce to mental orpsychological well-being. In Herbert's case the jellyfish motifappears to have become queerly associated with his tendency todabble in clairvoyance and mysticism, as the following typewrittenentry in the scrap-book will illustrate. It is headed in hishandwriting: 'Copied from Captain Philip Smythe'sGeographicaland Historical Relation of a Hitherto Undescribed Island in theSouth Seas, London, MDCCIV.'
The natives on this coast are adept soothsayers andtellers of fortune, to which end they employ divers ingeniousdevices; whereof I deem this peculiar to them that whenever therebe high winds and sea they will diligently search the beaches forjellyfishes of which (there being in that region no diurnal risenor fall of tides) none will be stranded in fair weathers. The samebeing found they will in no wise move or touch lest it lose virtuethereby but will bring to it a seer or magus for his divination. Ifthe number of coloured rings within the transparency be fewer orgreater than four, which is the common order, it is held ofexcellent augury for a revelation. The magus will regard the fishwithout nictitation until the coloured rings appear to him to turnin a revolution contrary to that of the sun, when he will cry inthe native tongue 'camphui', that is, 'I descend!' Any that be withhim shall then keep silence until he say 'timphui', that is, 'Iascend!'; whereafter he will recite to them the revelation, if onethere be. In the mean space he will have fallen into a dream ortrance, the manner of which was thus explained to me. The apparentrotation of the rings will by slow degrees become a gyration of thewhole substance, waxing faster and yet more fast, until the magusis as a man gazing into a vortex wherein he soon feels sucked downinto utter darkness. If a prophecy be vouchsafed he will now hearit as if chanted from afar; but if there be no prophecy he willhear but a hissing and seething of waters whereat he shall nottempt the oracle beyond its sufferance but cry forthwith 'timphui'and declare that there is no revelation. If any should tempt theoracle unduly or misstate the message given he will haply sufferthe fate that befell the arch-magus Rangitapha as described on page57 of this Relation.
Beneath this excerpt my cousin had written a note as follows:'N.B. I have not troubled to copy the account of Rangitapha's deathas it was clearly brought about by quite ordinarymisadventure.'
My last selection from the scrap-book will be of a final entryin my cousin's handwriting, initialed by him over a date some twomonths prior to his end. It runs thus:
I fancy that my experiments in divination by medusaewould strike most people as folly and waste of time. I find them,however, of absorbing interest and am deeply grateful to oldWillerton for lending me Smythe'sSouth Seas Relation. Isuppose the process to be akin to crystal-gazing but for me theresults have so far been more encouraging. I have twice now heardthe hissing of waters in the vortex and yesterday afternoon amedusa, dropped by some child on the old barge wharf, yielded aneven more promising reward for my mental and ocular concentration.This probably indicates that I now achieve a more complete andeffective abstraction than when I first started my experiments. Bethat as it may, I yesterday distinctly and unmistakably heard,above the hiss and gurgle of waters, the screech of a locomotivewhistle and roar of a train. Unfortunately, the hissing andgurgling caused me to call 'timphui' before there was any furtherdevelopment and I must now possess my soul in patience untilanother marooned medusa turns up to tell me what the engine whistleand roar of a train can have portended. I shall not allow myself tobe cheated of a prophecy again by 'noises off'.
Since reading the above I have had little doubt as to thecausation of my cousin's death. I am thankful to believe that itmust have been instantaneous and painless. The shadow cast beforeit by a coming event is mercifully not always recognisable.
1
David Crispwood and Dudley Lenbury sat in deck-chairs on thelawn of the Residency at Kokupatta. Schoolfellows at Ruggenham,they had not met again until today. Both had in the meantime donewell, David in the Kongean Civil Service and Dudley in the familybusiness of Scrutton and Lenbury, jewellers and silversmiths. Thetwo were far from alike: David fair, short and stocky; Dudley thin,tall and dark. In character also they were dissimilar: Davidcommunicative and congenial, Dudley introspective and reserved.Nevertheless, they had been inseparable at school and their presentchatter in the Kongean twilight reflected a renewal of mutualliking and understanding.
'A District Commissioner's job,' Crispwood was saying, 'is fullof snags and surprises. Take my own case. I counted myself lucky tobe posted to Kokupatta but within a month of my arrival here we'vehad first a flood and then a cyclone—all our crops ruined andthe fishing fleet smashed up. As a result we're short of food andare having to get supplies down from Sadilena. The main problem,however, is their distribution, and I find both the headman and hispeople most uncooperative.'
'Uncooperative? But surely they don't want to starve?'
'Not exactly want to,' resumed Crispwood, 'but they're sufferingfrom a sort of fatalism or superstitious apathy. By the way,Dudley, hasn't your business something to do with preciousstones?'
'Everything to do with them. But what's the connection betweenmy family business and your people's fatalism or apathy?'
A servant appearing at this moment with a tray of bottles andglasses, Crispwood poured out two tumblers of whisky-and-sodabefore replying.
'No connection,' he said, 'except that it won't bore you toomuch perhaps if I tell you about a local ceremony that has to doboth with jewels and with fatalism.'
'Go ahead then, I could bear with anything over whisky likethis. Mawson's blue label, isn't it?'
'Yes, good stuff. Well, the Kongeans, as you may have heard, arepolytheistic and their pantheon reflects human society to theextent that its lady members are the danger spots. Up country theyworship a truculent goddess named Vahrunda but here on the Coastall our troubles are ascribed to a she-god of the waters,Situwohela, who manages or mismanages the tides, the waves, therivers and the rain, so that she requires propitiation bycultivator and fisherman alike. At the moment this good lady issaid to be in high dudgeon at having been cheated by her votaries.Every year on the night of full moon in the month Kashti of theKongean Kalendar a sapphire is sacrificed to her by being thrownceremoniously into the lagoon. This year, according to my secretinformation, a bead of blue glass was substituted and the realsapphire traded to a gem-merchant from Takeokuta. The local priestwas taken by a crocodile on Tuesday while bathing, so Situwohela'sgot even with him all right. But she's still without her sapphireand the offering of a specially fine one is timed for elevenminutes past eleven tomorrow night, the next full moon afterKashti. In the meanwhile, the natives won't do anything to avert ormitigate the results of her punishment of them by storm and flood;that's what I meant by their fatalism or superstitious apathy. Ican hope for some measure of co-operation from them perhaps aftertomorrow night.'
'I should be interested to see that ceremony,' Lenbury remarked.'Is there by any chance a rest-house where I could put up tomorrownight after you've gone on circuit?'
'No, but you're welcome to stay on here, as I shall be leavingcooky and the house-boy behind. They'll look after you all rightand I'll tell old Punchaya the headman to let you stand by him atthe lagoon. Provided that you don't ask to examine thesapphire—for I expect that they'll be more than usuallytouchy about that after the recent swindle—the people will behonoured by a white man's presence. I should like to be theremyself, but I can't alter my circuit programme at short notice.Don't expect too much of a show, though, for these country peopleare no ritualists and the whole ceremony will be got through inless than ten minutes. Hullo! That's the dinner gong.'
As they strolled from lawn to verandah the nearly full moon rosebetween the coconut stems. Its light, slightly obscured by curls ofsmoke from a pile of burning fronds beneath the palms, lookedcuriously blue in contrast with the red glow of the embers.
'I have often wondered,' mused Lenbury, 'what can have been theorigin of the phrase "once in a blue moon". Anyhow, that moon seemsblue enough.'
'A good omen perhaps, for it happens to be Situwohela'sliturgical colour. That's why they offer her sapphires. Mind thatbroken doorstep!'
2
The offering of the sapphire was not, as Crispwood hadforewarned, much of a show; but Lenbury had been impressed by threethings. First and foremost by the size and beauty of the stone.What wouldn't his firm have given for it, and how his fingers haditched to touch and turn it over! Secondly, there was the actualtenderer of the oblation: a youth barely in the twenties andreminding Lenbury by his charm and sensuousness of expression ofthe Bacchus in Velasquez' 'Los Borrachos'.
Completely nude except for a light blue loin-cloth, themoonlight revealed his body and limbs in all their Greciansymmetry. The pale bronzeness of his skin, not over-oiled in themanner of most Kongeans, showed him to be of higher caste than thepeasants and fishermen who stood by. The mere throwing of a jewelinto the water would of itself have been neither graceful norimpressive, but enacted by this youth it partook of both thesequalities.
The third thing that struck Lenbury, and irked him exceedingly,was the, to him, wanton waste of a stone beyond price. It was,indeed, this last consideration that was keeping him awake andrestless in the hot Kongean night after return to the Residency.Finding that he could not lie still for heat of mind and body hestrolled out in his pyjamas onto the lawn and on beyond it to thespit of sand and coral that separated sea and lagoon. There was noone in sight and, having taken off his pyjamas, he waded nakedlyinto the cool brackish water on the landward side. The bottom wassmooth and sandy but here and there he trod on a pebble or musseland, each time that he did so, bent down to pull the object out forinspection. Perhaps this reflected memories of paddling as a boyfor cowries and fan-shells; or were his dippings motivated bysomething less distant in time and not so innocent? He was now indeeper water and soon found himself swimming, a favouriteexercise.
To cool his brain, perhaps, he swam largely under water andcontinued to grab pebbles from the sand, bringing them to thesurface for inspection. How repetitive habits ingrained inchildhood can be! This one didn't look like a pebble, though. Goodheavens! Surely it couldn't be Situwohela's sapphire? Why yes, itcertainly was; how extraordinary that his swim should have broughthim to the Beach of Offering and that his pyjamas should be lyingon the shore not thirty yards away. He dried himself before puttingthem on again for, oddly enough, he had brought a towel with him onhis stroll. He felt cooler now after that bathe, even somewhatchilly, and went back to the Residency at a brisk run, clutchingevery now and again at the pyjama pocket as if to make sure thatsomething was there. It was.
Before getting back to bed he had satisfied himself that hismake-believe of a chance swim and a chance find was very credibleindeed. Indeed, if he had not caught his satisfied look ofachievement in the dressing-table mirror he might have convincedhimself of its truth. As it was he felt it an adequate sop to hisconscience to murmur contentedly to himself, 'Well, I've preventeda damned waste anyway.'
His dreams were pleasant enough. One was that the Kongean youthlooked in on him from the verandah window and smiled. It was notuntil he was shaving next morning that he doubted whether the smilehad been altogether kindly. However, on the train journey fromKokupatta to Takeokuta he dismissed the whole night's happeningsfrom his mind and read the English newspapers that had reached himby yesterday's mail. Only once or twice did he feel for his walletto make certain that an important new bulge in it was there.
Next day he embarked on theNorthumbria for England, andwe take leave of him sitting in his cabin, the door of which he hasbolted, sorting and inspecting the various stones bought by him forthe firm during his tour. The best of them is a large sapphirewhich he is examining intensely under a magnifying glass.
3
It is not the purpose of this narrative to relate the history ofwhat was later to become known to the law courts as the LettiswoodSapphire. Its association with the firm of Scrutton and Lenburyterminated on its sale by them to a Colonel Barwell, from whom itsubsequently passed to its Lettiswood owners. All that need concernus is that the success of his son's tour prompted Mr Lenbury Seniorto retire from partnership in the firm, which by common consent ofthe Scruttons devolved on young Dudley. He was thus at the earlyage of twenty-nine comfortably established and in a position, hadhe had the inclination, to marry. That, indeed, was his father'sdesire, but Dudley's thoughts were differently occupied. He hadbeen brought up to a high sense of personal honour, and it worriedhim, therefore, that he had prevaricated to the firm about hisacquisition of the sapphire. To have told the truth would have losthim the esteem of the Scruttons and of his father. They would quitelikely have insisted upon a return of the stone to Kokupatta forreimmersion in the lagoon and have written him off as anunprincipled and untrustworthy agent.
He had represented himself, therefore, as having struck amarvellously good bargain with a Kongean gem-merchant and was nowreaping a golden harvest from the lie. Nor was an unquietconscience his sole trouble. He had begun to have doubts about hiseyesight, a matter of crucial importance to his work. Had heperhaps tried it too much by his repeated examinations of thesapphire on the voyage home? These had been made not merely dailybut almost hourly, by lamplight as well as daylight, for the reasonthat the stone seemed to him to exhibit strange variations incolour: always of course blue but sometimes darker and sometimeslighter. Once or twice after locking the stone away he had seemedto see things as through a mist, so that the white paint of thecabin and the enamel of the wash-hand-basin looked faintly bluish.This illusion had had recurrences since his disembarkation andquite ordinary pieces of crystal sometimes appeared to him to havea blueish iridescence about them, such as a tot of gin will give toa glass of tonic water. This, he quickly realised, was a graveimpediment to the work of a dealer in jewels, and one afternoon,when a lady wanted to exchange some aquamarines for other stones,he had felt obliged to call in an assistant for fear of taking overworthless trash. He had managed to seek this advice without raisingsuspicions of his own inability; but, he told himself, this sort ofthing must not be allowed to go on indefinitely.
And then, to make bad worse, there arrived a letter from DavidCrispwood with the following postscript:
Since writing this letter, I've heard that poor oldSituwohela has had another dirty trick played on her. That sapphirewhich you saw chucked into the lagoon is reputed to have been whatthe natives call ateshta dahima or 'spilling stone'. It'sall nonsense, of course, but certain rubies and sapphires arecredited here with spilling their colour on the eyes of theirowners, so that they see everything red or blue. What tripe! Stillit remains to be seen what Situwohela makes of it. As she isdescribed in Kongean poetry as the 'Blue Water Queen', she may takeit as a compliment. Let's hope so, at any rate. I have reopened theenvelope to add this piece of news, as I'm sure it will amuseyou.
Lenbury was not at all amused: far from it. It was nonsense, ofcourse, as Crispwood had written, but uncomfortable nonsense. Theoculist whom he had consulted a week ago had categorically assuredhim that there was no vestige of glaucoma or other eye trouble, andhad merely advised him to take a rest from his work so far as itinvolved examination of stones or, better still, to take a completeholiday for a fortnight or so. He had decided on the latter andwould run down on Friday to Hugh Blessingworth's place on theSouthshire coast. Meanwhile, today (Wednesday), he was to lunchwith Hugh at the Anchusa Restaurant, with the prospect of a realcurry. Before leaving the office, he tore Crispwood's letter intosmall pieces and burned them in the ashtray. Fancy David's havingtime to write such twaddle!
The Anchusa's curry was excellent, and its service by orientalwaiters unobtrusively attentive. Old Easterners were wont topronounce the Anchusa the only place where they could recapture thepleasures of a Sunday tiffin in the tropics. Lenbury, with acomfortable sense of repletion, was enjoying his black coffee andgreen chartreuse when his host enquired whether he still indulgedhis taste for good pictures. Replying in the affirmative, Lenburyregretted that he had little time nowadays for visiting theGalleries, but that he was thoroughly enjoying the volumes ofreproductions from the great masters issued by the Parnassus Press.He had placed a running order for them. Blessingworth agreed as totheir excellence and mentioned as particularly good the Velasquezvolume. 'I wonder,' he continued, 'if you remember his picture of"The Drinkers". I've forgotten its Spanish title. You do? Well, ifyou turn round now, you'll see the dead spit of young Bacchuswaiting at the table behind you. He struck me, just now, as tryingto attract your attention; but you don't ordinarily lunch here, doyou? Good God, man, what's up?'
Lenbury had upset his coffee cup and was noticeably shaking.Within a few seconds however he had composed himself and mutteredsomething about the after-effects of malaria. Perhaps he had betterbe getting along in case he were taken again that way. He was moresorry than he could say that he had spoiled the end of a perfectlunch, but—At this point, Blessingworth cut in with asympathetic 'That's all right, old chap. I'll see you into a taxi.Come along.'
Alone in the taxi Lenbury cursed himself for a neurotic. Howlucky that nobody but his old friend Blessingworth had witnessedhis foolishness! Or was it altogether foolishness? He had becomeused to seeing the Kongean youth in occasional dreams; butBlessingworth was no dreamer. There might, of course, be someKongeans on the Anchusa staff, which would be one solution. No itwouldn't, though, because what had struck him most about the youthat the lagoon that night had been his utter dissimilarity to otherKongeans. 'A queer business,' he muttered to himself, 'and beastly,too; damned beastly.'
His murmurings in this strain continued as he crossed thepavement to the entrance of Stonegate Mansions, where he rented aflat on the third floor, and must have been audible, orhalf-audible, to passers-by. Otherwise, there was no reason why thetaxi-man should put a forefinger to his cranium and wink knowinglyat the hall-porter.
4
Lenbury spent Thursday in bed, feeling in no mood to do anythingor see anybody. When Blessingworth rang up to ask how he was, hereplied that he felt better than he usually did after a malarialattack and would certainly be able to make the train journey toBlaybury on the morrow. In point of fact, Lenbury had never hadmalaria; but Blessingworth would have no means of discovering this,and a safe lie is an easy one. Replacing the telephone receiver(the instrument was on a table at his bedside), Lenbury noticedthat his sheets and pillowcase hat been given too much blue in thewashing. He would have to register a complaint in the laundry book;or better, perhaps, see the oculist again before doing so, for thesheets were now looking not so blue after all.
Lying on his back he spent the rest of the morning in a seriesof self-imposed experiments, shutting his eyes and then openingthem suddenly or gradually; staring now at the window, now at theceiling, and now at the walls; winking, blinking, half-closing hiseyelids or squinting through the finger-chinks of an upheld hand.Sometimes he detected a blueness in his vision, sometimes not:there appeared to be no law or order about it, and the only resultof his trials was a splitting headache.
This, however, did not deter him from a protracted experiment ofa different kind in the afternoon and evening. The idea hadoccurred to him that, in any assemblage of people, quite a numbermight bear some resemblance to the Velasquez 'Bacchus'. Hetherefore went laboriously through whole piles of illustratedpapers and photograph albums with the aid of a magnifying glass;and, by nightfall, was seeing Bacchuses everywhere, areductioad absurdum. Such sleep as came to him that night was the dulltorpor of exhaustion.
Rising at eight o'clock next morning, he decided to bracehimself for a brisk holiday by taking a cold bath. On secondthoughts however he turned on the hot tap full-cock before gettingin. While dressing he whistled a jaunty air from some old comicopera and picked out a cheerful claret-coloured tie. Down at thebreakfast-table however he was very soon at his experiments again.Were the egg-cups really a delicate shade of blue or were they apale cream, as he seemed to remember them? The waiter, to whom hereferred the point, appeared to take the question as a joke, for hereplied with: 'You're all right there, sir; everything looks a bitblue the night after, don't it?'
At the railway terminus he kept his eye steadily on the ticketcounter, in case some Bacchus of a booking clerk should leer at himthrough the pigeon-hole. Seated, however, in the corner of afirst-class carriage, he reverted to yesterday's experiment andbegan to stare at the faces of all who passed him on the platformor in the corridor. A plain-clothes policeman on duty at thestation put him down as an amateur detective. Nobody appeared towant to be his fellow-passenger and, having the compartment tohimself, he was able to concentrate his thoughts introspectively.First, he silently reviewed the whole of his experiences since hismeeting with Crispwood at Kokupatta, reconstructing every detail.Then, as the train flashed through Ormington Junction, he suddenlystraightened himself and sat stiffly erect, speaking out loud tothe empty carriage.
'These occurrences,' he said, 'must be either hallucinations orreal happenings. If the former, then I'm going mad. I'm nervy, Iadmit; but I've never felt saner in my life. Anyhow, it wasBlessingworth, not I, who saw young Bacchus at the Anchusa; andBlessingworth is certainly not mad. So hallucinations are out of itand I'm up against real happenings. I've never believed in thesupernatural up till now, but I'm quite ready to accept the verdictof my senses. The oculist can't explain why I'm seeing things blue;Crispwood's letter does explain it. Well, nobody has ever died ofwearing blue goggles and I'm not going to worry. As for thatKongean youth, he may have come to England for all I know or care.If he or Situwohela are on my tracks they can jolly well do theirdamnedest; I can't undo what I did, and I'm not going to let myselfbe disturbed by their pranks. So there!'
Lenbury had been thumping the floor with his stick as he spokeand now matched his thumps to the rhythm of the wheels. Looking upat the notice below the communication cord, he began singing thewords to a tune very like 'Nuts in May':
To stop the train pull down the chain,
Pull down the chain, pull down the chain,
To stop the train pull down the chain
and then, mimicking an intonation of the Litany:
Penalty for improper use; five pounds.
An observer, had he had one, would have guessed him slightly andcheerfully drunk.
Such a diagnosis was actually formed by Blessingworth as theydrove in the car from Chindley station to Blaybury, for Lenburyenthused the whole way over the blueness of the hills and of thesea although the former appeared that morning to Blessingworthparticularly green, and the latter unattractively grey. Anyhow, hehad beside him a far livelier and easier guest than the one whom hehad seen into the taxi on Wednesday; and his wife, Margaret,wouldn't need to bother overmuch about entertaining him.
It was mid July; the weather windless and hot. Tea, therefore,was served on the terrace and, during it, Blessingworth explainedthat he and Margaret would have to leave Lenbury to his own devicesfor an hour or so after dinner as they had to attend a Flower Showcommittee meeting at a quarter to nine.
'A guest left alone finds joys of his own,' said Lenbury. 'Isn'tthat a proverb or something?'
Blessingworth hadn't heard it before and went on to talk of thenew swimming pool he was having constructed beyond the rose garden.'It'll be ready for use tomorrow afternoon or Sunday morning,' hesaid; 'they were fiddling about with the pump and filter all thismorning, Tomkins tells me. It's twelve feet deep below thespringboard; so you'll be able, Dudley, to practise your dives. Didyou get any bathing in Kongea?'
'Lots!' Lenbury replied, and added facetiously: 'You should haveseen me diving for jewels. They grow on the bottom there, you know,whole bunches of 'em. You ought to sow some in your pool and ask medown for the harvest.'
Before coming down to dinner Margaret looked in at her husband'sdressing-room. 'What on earth's the matter with Dudley?' she said.'He's just like a boy back from a prep. school. It isn't like himat all.'
'Holiday spirit, I suppose,' returned her husband; 'but I agreethat it's damned silly. Due to his malaria, perhaps.'
Lenbury's facetiousness and exuberance persisted throughoutdinner, so much so that host and hostess were relieved to get awayto the Flower Show meeting, leaving their guest to take a stroll'in the cool of the evening'.
The evening, in fact, was not cool, but oppressively warm; andLenbury, standing on the springboard of the new swimming-pool,which he had not been slow to discover, thought the blue coolnessbelow him most inviting. There was a waist-high rockery wall roundthe pool, securing its privacy; and it was supper-time, hereflected, in the servants' hall. He need fear no intrusion,therefore, and decided to be the first to enjoy a swim in the newbath. Having stripped himself bare, he gave a little jump or two onthe springboard and then dived in.
5
'Yes, sir, it were a nasty mess and no mistake,' Tomkins deponedto the Coroner; 'head all bursted in, like as if 'e'd dived in.There wouldn't be no sense in that though, seeing as 'ow the bathwas empty. He was took giddy, I guess. No, sir: not a drop ofwater, nor 'adn't been neither; for the cement were still a-drying.They practised the pump straight into the overflow. No, again, sir:there ain't no blue or green tiles, only white ones, same as yousees in the railway lavat'ry. There weren't nought on top of 'em,neither, 'cept a chip of blue glass, might be the size of an'azel-nut, as my young lad picked up in the rose bed and throwed infor play. I mind fetching 'im a clip on the ear for it, too.'
Death by misadventure.
1
'I cannot explain what exactly it is about him; but I don't likeyour Mr Clarence Love, and I'm sorry that you ever asked him tostay.'
Thus Richard Dreyton to his wife Elinor on the morning ofChristmas Eve.
'But one must remember the children, Richard. You know whatmarvellous presents he gives them.'
'Much too marvellous. He spoils them. Yet you'll have noticedthat none of them likes him. Children have a wonderful intuition inregard to the character of grown-ups.'
'What on earth are you hinting about his character? He's a verynice man.'
Dreyton shuffled off his slippers in front of the study fire andbegan putting on his boots.
'I wonder, darling, whether you noticed his face just now atbreakfast, when he opened that letter with the Australian stampson?'
'Yes; he did seem a bit upset: but not more so than you when youget my dressmaker's bill!'
Mrs Dreyton accompanied this sally with a playful pat on herhusband's back as he leant forward to do up his laces.
'Well, Elinor, all that I can say is that there's something veryfishy about his antipodean history. At five-and-twenty, he leftEngland a penniless young man and, heigh presto! he returns astinking plutocrat at twenty-eight. And how? What he's told youdoesn't altogether tally with what he's told me; but, cutting outthe differences, his main story is that he duly contacted oldNelson Joy, his maternal uncle, whom he went out to join, and thatthey went off together, prospecting for gold. They struck ithandsomely; and then the poor old uncle gets a heart-stroke orparalysis, or something, in the bush, and bids Clarence leave himthere to die and get out himself before the food gives out. Arrivedback in Sydney, Clarence produces a will under which he is the solebeneficiary, gets the Court to presume old Joy's death, and bunksback here with the loot.'
Mrs Dreyton frowned. 'I can see nothing wrong or suspiciousabout the story,' she said, 'but only in your telling of it.'
'No! No! Inhis telling of it. He never gets the detailsquite the same twice running, and I'm certain that he gave adifferent topography to their prospecting expedition this year fromwhat he did last. It's my belief that he did the uncle in, poor oldchap!'
'Don't be so absurd, Richard; and please remember that he's ourguest, and that we must be hospitable: especially at Christmas.Which reminds me: on your way to office, would you mind looking inat Harridge's and making sure that they haven't forgotten our orderfor their Santa Claus tomorrow? He's to be here at seven; then togo on to the Simpsons at seven-thirty, and to end up at the Jonesesat eight. It's lucky our getting three households to share theexpenses: Harridge's charge each of us only half their cataloguedfee. If they could possibly send us the same Father Christmas aslast year it would be splendid. The children adored him. Don'tforget to say, too, that he will find all the crackers, hats,musical toys and presents inside the big chest in the hall. Justthe same as last year. What should we do nowadays without the bigstores? One goes to them for everything.'
'We certainly do,' Dreyton agreed; 'and I can't see the modernchild putting up with the amateur Father Christmas we used tosuffer from. I shall never forget the annual exhibition UncleBertie used to make of himself, or the slippering I got when Istuck a darning-needle into his behind under pretence that I wantedto see if he was real! Well, so long, old girl: no, I won't forgetto call in at Harridge's.'
2
By the time the festive Christmas supper had reached the dessertstage, Mrs Dreyton fully shared her husband's regret that she hadever asked Clarence Love to be of the party. The sinister changethat had come over him on receipt of the letter from Australiabecame accentuated on the later arrival of a telegram which, hesaid, would necessitate his leaving towards the end of the eveningto catch the eight-fifteen northbound express from King's Pancras.His valet had already gone ahead with the luggage and, as it hadturned so foggy, he had announced his intention of following laterby Underground, in order to avoid the possibility of being caughtin a traffic-jam.
It is strange how sometimes the human mind can harboursimultaneously two entirely contradictory emotions. Mrs Dreyton wasconsumed with annoyance that any guest of hers should be soinconsiderate as to terminate his stay in the middle of a Christmasparty; but was, at the same time, impatient to be rid of such askeleton at the feast. One of the things that she had foundattractive in Clarence Love had been an unfailing fund of smalltalk, which, if not brilliant, was at any rate bright and breezy.He possessed, also, a pleasant and frequent smile and, till now,had always been assiduous in his attention to her conversation.Since yesterday, however, he had turned silent, inattentive, anddour in expression. His presentation to her of a lovely emeraldbrooch had been unaccompanied by any greeting beyond anunflattering and perfunctory 'Happy Christmas!' He had also provedunforgivably oblivious of the mistletoe, beneath which, with acareful carelessness, she stationed herself when she heard himcoming down to breakfast. It was, indeed, quite mortifying; and,when her husband described the guest as a busted balloon, she hadneither the mind nor the heart to gainsay him.
Happily for the mirth and merriment of the party Dreyton seemedto derive much exhilaration from the dumb discomfiture of hiswife's friend, and Elinor had never seen or heard her husband inbetter form. He managed, too, to infect the children with his ownebullience; and even Miss Potterby (the governess) reciprocated hisfun. Even before the entry of Father Christmas it had thus become anoisy, and almost rowdy, company.
Father Christmas's salutation, on arrival, was in rhymed verseand delivered in the manner appropriate to pantomime. His lines ranthus:
To Sons of Peace
Yule brings release
From worry at this tide;
But men of crime
This holy time
Their guilty heads need hide.
So never fear,
Ye children dear,
But innocent sing 'Nowell';
For the Holy Rood
Shall save the good,
And the bad be burned in hell.
This is my carol
And Nowell my parole.
There was clapping of hands at this, for there is nothingchildren enjoy so much as mummery; especially if it be slightlymysterious. The only person who appeared to dislike the recitationwas Love, who was seen to stop both ears with his fingers at theend of the first verse and to look ill. As soon as he had made anend of the prologue, Santa Claus went ahead with his distributionof gifts, and made many a merry quip and pun. He was quick in theuptake, too; for the children put to him many a poser, to which awitty reply was always ready. The minutes indeed slipped by all tooquickly for all of them, except Love, who kept glancinguncomfortably at his wrist-watch and was plainly in a hurry to go.Hearing him mutter that it was time for him to be off, FatherChristmas walked to his side and bade him pull a farewell cracker.Having done so, resentfully it seemed, he was asked to pull out themotto and read it. His hands were now visibly shaking, and hisvoice seemed to have caught their infection. Very falteringly, hemanaged to stammer out the two lines of doggerel:
Re-united heart to heart
Love and joy shall never part.
'And now,' said Father Christmas, 'I must be making for the nextchimney; and, on my way, sir, I will see you into theUnderground.'
So saying he took Clarence Love by the left arm and led him withmock ceremony to the door, where he turned and delivered thisepilogue:
Ladies and Gentlemen, goodnight!
Let not darkness you affright.
Aught of evil here today
Santa Claus now bears away.
At this point, with sudden dramatic effect, he clicked off theelectric light switch by the door; and, by the time Dreyton hadgroped his way to it in the darkness and turned it on again, theparlour-maid (who was awaiting Love's departure in the hall) hadlet both him and Father Christmas out into the street.
'Excellent!' Mrs Dreyton exclaimed, 'quite excellent! One canalways depend on Harridge's. It wasn't the same man as they sentlast year; but quite as good, and more original, perhaps.'
'I'm glad he's taken Mr Love away,' said young Harold.
'Yes,' Dorothy chipped in; 'he's been beastly all day, andyesterday, too: and his presents aren't nearly as expensive as lastyear.'
'Shut up, you spoilt children!' the father interrupted. 'I mustadmit, though, that the fellow was a wet blanket this evening. Whatwas that nonsense he read out about reunion?'
Miss Potterby had developed a pedagogic habit of clearing herthroat audibly, as a signal demanding her pupils' attention to someimpending announcement. She did it now, and parents as well aschildren looked expectantly towards her.
'The motto as read by Mr Love,' she declared, 'was so palpablyinconsequent that I took the liberty of appropriating it when helaid the slip of paper back on the table. Here it is, and this ishow it actually reads:
Be united heart to heart,
Love and joy shall never part.
That makes sense, if it doesn't make poetry. Mr Love committedthe error of reading 'be united' as 'reunited' and of not observingthe comma between the two lines.'
'Thank you, Miss Potterby; that, of course, explains it. Howclever of you to have spotted the mistake and tracked it down!'
Thus encouraged, Miss Potterby proceeded to further correctiveedification.
'You remarked just now, Mrs Dreyton, that the gentlemanimpersonating Father Christmas had displayed originality. Hisprologue and epilogue, however, were neither of them original, butcorrupted versions of passages which you will find in ProfessorBorleigh'sSynopsis of Nativity, Miracle and Morality Plays,published two years ago. I happen to be familiar with the subject,as the author is a first cousin of mine, once removed.'
'How interesting!' Dreyton here broke in; 'and now, MissPotterby, if you will most kindly preside at the piano, we willdance Sir Roger de Coverley. Come on, children, into thedrawing-room.'
3
On Boxing Day there was no post and no paper. Meeting MrsSimpson in the Park that afternoon, Mrs Dreyton was surprised tohear that Father Christmas had kept neither of his two otherengagements. 'It must have been that horrid fog,' she suggested;'but what a shame! He was even better than last year:' by whichintelligence Mrs Simpson seemed little comforted.
Next morning—the second after Christmas—there weretwo letters on the Dreytons' breakfast-table, and both were fromHarridge's.
The first conveyed that firm's deep regret that theirrepresentative should have been prevented from carrying out hisengagements in Pentland Square on Christmas night owing todislocation of traffic caused by the prevailing fog.
'But he kept ours all right,' Mrs Dreyton commented. 'I feel sosorry for the Simpsons and the Joneses.'
The second letter cancelled the first, 'which had been writtenin unfortunate oversight of the cancellation of the order'.
'What on earth does that mean?' Mrs Dreyton ejaculated.
'Ask me another!' returned her husband. 'Got theircorrespondence mixed up, I suppose.',
In contrast to the paucity of letters, the morning newspapersseemed unusually voluminous and full of pictures. Mrs Dreyton'schoice of what to read in them was not that of a highbrow. Theheadline that attracted her first attention ran 'XMAS ONUNDERGROUND', and, among other choice items, she learned how, atPentland Street Station (their own nearest), a man dressed as SantaClaus had been seen to guide and support an invalid, or possiblytipsy, companion down the long escalator. The red coat, mask andbeard were afterwards found discarded in a passage leading to theemergency staircase, so that even Santa's sobriety might be calledinto question. She was just about to retail this interestingintelligence to her husband when, laying down his own paper, hestared curiously at her and muttered 'Good God!'
'What on earth's the matter, dear?'
'A very horrible thing, Elinor. Clarence Love has been killed!Listen;' here he resumed his paper and began to read aloud: "Thebody of the man who fell from the Pentland Street platform onChristmas night in front of an incoming train has been identifiedas that of Mr Clarence Love, of I I Playfair Mansions. There was alarge crowd of passengers on the platform at the time, and it isconjectured that he fell backwards off it while turning toexpostulate with persons exerting pressure at his back. Nobody,however, in the crush, could have seen the exact circumstances ofthe said fatality."'
'Hush, dear! Here come the children. They mustn't know, ofcourse. We can talk about it afterwards.'
Dreyton, however, could not wait to talk about it afterwards.The whole of the amateur detective within him had been aroused,and, rising early from the breakfast-table, he journeyed by tube toHarridge's, where he was soon interviewing a departmentalsub-manager. No: there was no possibility of one of theirrepresentatives having visited Pentland Square on Christmasevening. Our Mr Droper had got hung up in the Shenton Streettraffic-block until it was too late to keep his engagements there.He had come straight back to his rooms. In any case, he would nothave called at Mr Dreyton's residence in view of the cancellationof the order the previous day. Not cancelled? But he took down thetelephone message himself. Yes: here was the entry in the register.Then it must have been the work of some mischief-maker; it wascertainly a gentleman's, and not a lady's voice. Nobody except heand Mr Droper knew of the engagement at their end, so the practicaljoker must have derived his knowledge of it from somebody in MrDreyton's household.
This was obviously sound reasoning and, on his return home,Dreyton questioned Mrs Timmins, the cook, in the matter. She wasimmediately helpful and forthcoming. One of them insurance gentshad called on the morning before Christmas and had been told thatnone of us wanted no policies or such like. He had then turnedconversational and asked what sort of goings-on there would be herefor Christmas. Nothing, he was told, except old Father Christmas,as usual, out of Harridge's shop. Then he asked about visitors inthe house, and was told as there were none except Mr Love, who,judging by the tip what he had given Martha when he stayed last inthe house, was a wealthy and openhanded gentleman. Little did shethink when she spoke those words as Mr Love would forget to giveany tips or boxes at Christmas, when they were most natural andproper. But perhaps he would think better on it by the New Year andsend a postal order. Dreyton thought it unlikely, but deemed itunnecessary at this juncture to inform Mrs Timmins of the tragedyreported in the newspaper.
At luncheon Mrs Dreyton found her husband unusually taciturn andpreoccupied; but, by the time they had come to the cheese, heannounced importantly that he had made up his mind to reportimmediately to the police certain information that had come intohis possession. Miss Potterby and the children looked suitablyimpressed, but knew better than to court a snub by askingquestions. Mrs Dreyton took the cue admirably by replying: 'Ofcourse, Richard, you must do your duty!'
4
The inspector listened intently and jotted down occasionalnotes. At the end of the narration, he complimented the informantby asking whether he had formed any theory regarding the facts hereported. Dreyton most certainly had. That was why he had been sosilent and absent-minded at lunch. His solution, put much morebriefly than he expounded it to the inspector, was as follows.
Clarence Love had abandoned his uncle and partner in theAustralian bush. Having returned to civilisation, got the Courts topresume the uncle's death, and taken probate of the will underwhich he was sole inheritor, Love returned to England a wealthy andstill youngish man. The uncle, however (this was Dreyton's theory),did not die after his nephew's desertion, but was found and tendedby bushmen. Having regained his power of locomotion, he trekkedback to Sydney, where he discovered himself legally dead and hisproperty appropriated by Love and removed to England. Believing hisnephew to have compassed his death, he resolved to take revengeinto his own hands. Having despatched a cryptic letter to Lovecontaining dark hints of impending doom, he sailed for the OldCountry and ultimately tracked Love down to the Dreytons' abode.Then, having in the guise of a travelling insurance agentascertained the family's programme for Christmas Day, he plannedhis impersonation of Santa Claus. That his true identity, revealedby voice and accent, did not escape his victim was evidenced by thelatter's nervous misreading of the motto in the cracker. WhetherLove's death in the Underground was due to actual murder or tosuicide enforced by despair and remorse, Dreyton hazarded no guess:either was possible under his theory.
The inspector's reception of Dreyton's hypothesis was lessenthusiastic than his wife's.
'If you'll excuse me, Mr Dreyton,' said the former, 'you'vebuilt a mighty lot on dam' little. Still, it's ingenious and nomistake. I'll follow your ideas up and, if you'll call in a week'stime, I may have something to tell you and one or two things,perhaps, to ask.'
'Why darling, how wonderful!' Mrs Dreyton applauded. 'Now thatyou've pieced the bits together so cleverly the thing's quiteobvious, isn't it? What a horrible thing to have left poor old MrJoy to die all alone in the jungle! I never really liked Clarence,and am quite glad now that he's dead. But of course we mustn't tellthe children!'
Inquiries of the Australian Police elicited the intelligencethat the presumption of Mr Joy's death had been long sinceconfirmed by the discovery of his remains in an old prospectingpit. There were ugly rumours and suspicions against his nephew butno evidence on which to support them. On being thus informed by theinspector Dreyton amended his theory to the extent that theimpersonator of Father Christmas must have been not Mr Joy himself,as he was dead, but a bosom friend determined to avenge him. Thissubstitution deprived the cracker episode, on which Dreyton hadimagined his whole story, of all relevance; and the inspector wasquite frank about his disinterest in the revised version.
Mrs Dreyton also rejected it. Her husband's original theoryseemed to her more obviously right and conclusive even than before.The only amendment required, and that on a mere matter of detail,was to substitute Mr Joy's ghost for Mr Joy: though of course onemustn't tell the children.
'But,' her husband remonstrated, 'you know that I don't believein ghosts.'
'No, but your aunt Ceciliadoes; and she is such a cleverwoman. By the way, she called in this morning and left you a bookto look at.'
'A book?'
'Yes, the collected ghost stories of M. R. James.'
'But the stupid old dear knows that I have them all in theoriginal editions.'
'So she said: but she wants you to read the author's epilogue tothe collection which, she says, is most entertaining. It's entitled"Stories I have tried to write". She said that she'd side-lined apassage that might interest you. The book's on that table by you.No, not that: the one with the black cover.'
Dreyton picked it up, found the marked passage and read italoud.
There may be possibilities too in the Christmas crackerif the right people pull it and if the motto which they find insidehas the right message on it. They will probably leave the partyearly, pleading indisposition; but very likely a previousengagement of long standing would be the more truthfulexcuse.
'There is certainly,' Dreyton commented, 'some resemblancebetween James's idea and our recent experience. But he could havemade a perfectly good yarn out of that theme without introducingghosts.'
His wife's mood at that moment was for compromise rather thancontroversy.
'Well, darling,' she temporised, 'perhaps not exactlyghosts.'
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