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Title: Fires Burn BlueAuthor: Andrew Caldecott* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 1403351h.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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An Exchange ofNotes
Cheap and Nasty
Grey Brothers
Quintet
Authorship Disputed
Final Touches
What's in a Name?
Under the Mistletoe
His Name was Legion
Tall Tales but True
A Book Entry
Seeds of Remembrance
Seated One Day at the Organ
1
It is doubtful whether you would call Telmington a village or asmall country town. Until 1849 it had boasted a weekly cattlemarket; but after completion of the Daven Valley railway this wastransferred to Shallowford, some four miles distant. An annualHilary Fair survived until its site was usurped by the Jubileeclock-tower, the gift (as a marble tablet bears record) of EdmundGiles Touchwood, J. P., of Telming Hall in this Parish. Shorn thusof its market and fair Telmington attracted but few visitors; itsseven shops and two inns catering almost solely for its thousand orso inhabitants. In this stagnancy it remained until theinauguration, in 1907, of a motor-bus service to and fromShallowford station twice daily.
Edmund Touchwood having died a widower and without male issue,Telming Hall in the autumn of 1910 was the home of his onlydaughter, Mrs Parlington. Her Christian name, Letitia, she ascribedto an apocryphal sneeze by a godmother at her baptism. She muchdisliked it; but, as such names will, it stuck to her like a burr;and Letitia she was called, though not to her face, by all andsundry in the neighbourhood. An energetic, capable and kindly, ifrather managing woman, she gardened, beagled, cycled, served on theRural District Council and Board of Guardians, sketched inwater-colour, and played the organ in church. Dr Holmbush describedher intellectual interests as middle-brow. Although of general goodtemper she could on certain subjects, music for instance, beargumentative and touchy. Indeed, her seat at the church organ wasoccupied on the express understanding that, while the choice ofhymns lay with the rector, it was for her to determine the tunes.Her language on this point had been blunt. 'The words of half yourhymns, Rector, are tosh. That's your lookout, of course; but Irefuse to play toshy tunes.' In a matter of months she had thechoir on her side, and within a year or two the congregation also;the rector being left in lonely lament for rejected 'oldfavourites'.
Another subject on which Letitia could speak harshly and hotlywas spiritualism. Her aversion to it was not from disbelief inspirits but from belief in them. She ever maintained that herhusband, who had been killed in the Boer War, appeared to herbefore her receipt of the War Office telegram. She saw him standingin uniform at the foot of her bed. He looked at her, smiled sadlyand was gone. In that moment, she averred, was established completeand eternal understanding between them. His smile showed that hehad no cause for fear; its sadness that he was sorry at the endingof their earthly companionship. There was no reason for him toreappear; nor did he. Her theory was that if a departing spirit(she emphasised the present participle) had a message to give, heor she would give it. Once departed (again an emphasis on the tenseof the participle) he or she would be quit of earthly connectionsand worries. If table-rappers and so-called mediums ever reallymanaged to put a call through, it would be an unwarranted andgenerally unheeded interruption; like a telephone call after one issnugly abed. Small wonder, she said, that the answers they got, ifgenuine, were such tosh. Séances were, more often than not,charged with fraud on the quick; and always with insult to thedead.
These views, thus trenchantly expressed, gave offence to MissGodwinstowe, founder of the Telmington Psychic Circle, withoutcommending themselves to out-and-out sceptics. The rector, however,fancied that he found in them a reflection of his own.
'I'm so glad, Mrs Parlington,' he confided, 'that you share myconviction that apparitions of the dying are just simulacra withoutpower of speech.'
'I've never said that; or thought it. My husband had no need totalk, nor I to hear. Our converse was total and complete withoutit.'
'Ah! Exactly so, exactly so!' nervously assented the rector,anxious to avoid any disagreement.
'But if,' continued Letitia, 'he had felt speech necessary, hewould certainly have spoken. And don't you forget, Rector, that ifyou were to choose toshy hymns for my funeral you would certainlyfind me a talkative ghost.'
The rector deprecated this sudden turn towards levity. 'You aremore likely to be at my obsequies than I at yours, Mrs Parlington;but really we oughtn't to speak lightly of grave matters, ought we?Dear me, how the days draw in to be sure! I must be getting home,for I forgot to put any oil in my bicycle lamp.'
'You were a bit hard on the foolish virgins in your sermon lastSunday, I thought. Well, goodbye, and look out for those loosestones by the lodge; they're dangerous.'
She watched him free-wheeling down the drive.
'How difficult it must be to be a parson,' she mused half-aloud.'The little man means well.'
2
The Reverend Septimus Tardell did mean well. Nor, as too oftenis the case, was well-meaning mated with ill-reasoning or tactlessscheming. His main present problem was how to remedy a division ofhis parishioners into two camps. Division perhaps was a wrong termto apply to two groups which, although Telmington wasgeographically their common ground, and its church should have beenso spiritually, had never really come together. An improved bustime-table and the incipient vogue of private cars had led tospeculative building on the fringes of the village and to aninvasion not only of regular week-enders, but even ofdaily-breaders who went up to London by the nine-three fromShallowford and returned by the six-eighteen. Such households hadno roots in the countryside; they professed a liking for ruralscenery and quiet, but their mental landscape remained essentiallyurban. As a result there was no neighbourliness, worth the word,between what the postmistress called 'our old people' and 'that newset'. Polite calls paid by the former on the latter were aspolitely returned; but at that it ended. The gulf of mutualdisinterest was unbridged. In church such newcomers as attendedslunk shyly to seats at the extreme west end, rather than incurinquisitive glances from pew-holders of long standing. In vain didthe rector periodically proclaim that all seats were free, andexhort his congregation to sit as near as conveniently possible tothe pulpit. He might as well have bade water mix with oil. Thingscould not be put right by a homily. Nevertheless he felt in dutyand conscience bound to do something to prevent permanent cleavage.The age was yet to come when a parson's job would connote anintensive specialism in church services with occasional sick-callsin the wake of the district nurse. Mr Tardell felt and knew himselfstill to be an influential personage. Though he had but two maidsand a bicycle, did he not reside in a twelve-bedroomed rectory withstabling for six horses? The popular estimate of the importance ofan office, as banks and business houses have long found out, isoften in proportion to the size of its premises. In 1910 rector andrectory, vicar and vicarage, still counted for much in the ruralsocial fabric. The parish looked to the parson not merely forministry but for leadership.
Mr Tardell was a systematic man. He kept, for instance, anotebook docketed 'Parish Memoranda & Agenda', which we findhim perusing, pencil in hand, on the morning after his call on MrsParlington. The two pages open before him contain notes upon thevarious village societies and clubs. He is going to place a tickagainst any that might be made use of for the breaking down ofsocial and cultural barriers.Telmington Cricket Club. Apromising field, no doubt—but wait a bit though; weren't theytalking of playing on Sundays? Well, Charles Dickens had approvedof it (a strong Dickensian, Mr Tardell) and it was bound to come,anyway. So a tick.Query. Why no football club? Play on therectory field was unorganised and spasmodic.Mem: get holdof young Towling and suggest that he start one. Hockey too,perhaps.Telmington Horticultural Society. Their annualflower show was excellent and some of the new people were alreadyexhibitors. A tick.Query: why not two or three shows ayear—spring, summer and Michaelmas?Mem: suggest thisto Colonel Bratton.Working Men's Club. Useful, but not forthe present purpose; no newcomers in this category.TelmingtonPsychic Circle. The rector reddened and frowned. Just as MissGodwinstowe's séances had ceased to attract the curious insuch matters, some village wag had given the circle a new lease ofnotoriety by painting 'Licensed to Retail Spirits' above her frontdoor in Church Street. Worse still, Miss Tisdale (easily his bestSunday-school teacher) was reported to be attending its meetings.No tick against this item!Philharmonic Club. Moribund,alas, since the Gurdstones left Telmington. A chorus and orchestrawould be the very thing to rope in quite a lot of people, new andold.Two ticks! The difficulty was how to go about it. MrsParlington had quite enough to do already, running the churchchoir. Besides, a choral society would need tact rather thantyranny! He mustn't hurt her feelings, though; and there would beno harm in asking her to be patroness, in view of her position asthe Lady of Telming Hall. Patronesses are ornamental, notexecutive. The right person to resuscitate the club wouldundoubtedly be Dr Wrenshall, retired organist of WintonburyCathedral, who had just come to live at Fretfield Grange. TheMus.Doc. and F.R.C.O. after his name would look well on the club'sprogrammes—if only he would take the job on. Anyhow, hecouldn't object to being asked.
The rector called at Fretfield Grange, and later at TelmingHall, that very afternoon. Dr Wrenshall agreed to serve, subject toreconsideration, should there emerge an insufficiency of singers orinstrumentalists; and to the stipulation that he alone shouldchoose all works to be practised or performed. Mrs Parlington alsoconsented to be patroness, with a promise (that the rector thoughtit prudent to extract) that, if ever she had suggestions orcriticisms to make about the music or its rendering, they should betendered privately to Dr Wrenshall and not bruited in the course ofpractice or rehearsal. Dr Wrenshall, the rector pointed out, wasaccustomed to a highly disciplined choir; so care must be taken notto upset him. 'Naturally,' Mrs Parlington rejoined, 'and, from whatI've heard from friends at Wintonbury, one thing that he won'tstand at any price is toshy tunes. So you'd better be carefulyourself, Rector!'
A public meeting to promote the revival of the TelmingtonPhilharmonic Club was largely and enthusiastically attended, bothby old inhabitants and by newcomers. Dr Wrenshall was electedPresident and Conductor; Mrs Parlington, by acclamation, aspatroness. Next Sunday morning Mr Tardell preached on 'Music in theBible'. Mrs Trimshaw, wife of the people's churchwarden and anex-governess, remarked that the dear Rector's learning seemed quitecyclopaedic. So indeed it was, in the sense that the sermon hadbeen lifted straight out of an encyclopaedia.
3
In the course of the next two years the Telmington PhilharmonicClub increased both in membership and in competency. Dr Wren shalltold the orchestra that they had begun by playing with scores, andwere now learning to play them. He refused all requests for aconcert during the first formative eighteen months; but agreed toconduct a public performance in celebration of the club's secondbirthday. In the meanwhile Mr Tardell had made the acquaintance ofSir Cuthbert Kewbridge, the composer, and had obtained for the clubthe privilege of being the first to render his Poem for Chorus andOrchestra entitledNorthern Lights. The music was still inmanuscript; for Sir Cuthbert wished to hear the effect of certainpassages before authorising their publication. A good deal ofcopying of the voice parts had to be done; and Mrs Parlington, withher usual helpfulness and energy, produced most of the copies. As aresult she claimed to know the whole thing backwards, and to havediscovered what she characterised as weak spots. Her criticismsreceiving no encouragement from Dr Wrenshall, she finally focusedher faultfinding on one particular note in the soprano part.
'The treble F in the third bar of line five on page twenty-threeshould certainly be A,' she protested. 'I feel it in my bones thatSir Cuthbert couldn't have meant F; it makes tosh of the wholepassage. You simply must write to him, Dr Wrenshall, and get hispermission to alter it.'
'What do you say, Rector?' asked Dr Wrenshall, afterscrutinising the note and bar in question. 'I think there'ssomething in what Mrs Parlington says; but you know the composer,and I don't; so, if anybody's going to write to him, it shouldobviously be you.'
'I fancy, Wrenshall, that he might feel it almost animpertinence. After all, he's coming down to hear our littleconcert with the express purpose of detecting any imperfections inhis composition. Personally I would not dream of trespassing on thefield of his artistic creation or musical judgment.'
Mr Tardell's voice, and face, reflected considerablesatisfaction at having been able thus obliquely to squashLetitia—had she not dubbed his favourite hymn-tunestosh?—and she was quick to perceive it.
'Very well,' she retorted, 'he shall hear what he undoubtedlymeant to write, and not what he has miswritten. I shall sing Afortissimo; and you know, Rector, what my fortissimo can be.'
'But, my dear lady, you could not do that, you know, withoutinjustice to Dr Wrenshall, who is taking such pains to secure anexact rendition.'
'I shall merely make a mistake, and Dr Wrenshall can apologisefor me afterwards to Sir Cuthbert if he thinks it necessary. But Ibet you half a crown, Rector, that Sir Cuthbert won't think it amistake.'
'As you are aware,' Mr Tardell spoke in a tone of reproval, 'Ido not bet, even in joke. If I did, I would certainly take yours.But if you are set on such an improper course, Mrs Parlington, Isincerely trust that you will say nothing of it to the othersingers.'
'Of course not,' she replied tartly; 'I've already given you myword on that. Well, I must be off now to catch the post; these newcollection times are most inconvenient.'
As she left the room Dr Wrenshall smiled and shrugged hisshoulders. 'Temperamental,' he said, turning to the still ruffledrector, 'very much so. Yet she has been of tremendous assistance incopying out all these parts; and an intentional mistake will be achange from the unintentional ones of other singers. I doubt, too,whether Kewbridge will notice just a single voice on the A,whatever her fortissimo. So don't let it worry you unduly.'
'No; but I hate indiscipline. She won't stand it herself fromthe church choir.'
Dr Wrenshall smiled again. 'Quite right too,' he murmured,sitting down to the piano.
4
The evening of the concert arrived. Seated in the front row,next to Sir Cuthbert Kewbridge, Mr Tardell viewed the packed hallwith a full sense of satisfaction. The new and old strata of hisparishioners were pleasantly intermingled both on the platform andin the auditorium. The Philharmonic Club had indeed attracted allwho were musically inclined; many acquaintances had been made, andnot a few friendships formed. Dr Wrenshall moreover informed himthat both choir and orchestra had developed a team spirit, and thathe anticipated a highly creditable performance. The rector's solecause for anxiety had been removed by Mrs Parlington's departurefor Wolmingham some days previously, to help look after an oldschool-friend who had been taken suddenly and seriously ill. Sheexpected to be away for ten days at least, and had asked MissTisdale to deputise for her at the church organ. Mr Tardellintended during the interval to ask the latter to play some of hisold favourites; but, looking round the hall, he could see no signof her. Then with a frown he remembered that it was Thursday, andthat she was probably at the Psychic Circle. Miss Godwinstowe, hehad been told, refused to put off their weekly séance,holding that the Philharmonic Club should have chosen some otherday for its concert. How typical of her!
In the first half of the programme choir and orchestra amplyjustified Dr Wrenshall's expectations of them. The items wereunambitious, and their execution such as to give the performersconfidence in their ability later on to renderNorthernLights not unworthily of the composer's presence.
The rector had just begun to inform Sir Cuthbert that theresuscitation of the Philharmonic Club had been his own idea, whenhe was annoyingly interrupted by a message to the effect that MissTisdale particularly wanted a word with him at the outer door.Excusing himself to Sir Cuthbert he made his way down the gangwayand, without the usual courtesy of bidding her good evening, askedabruptly what it was she wanted.
'I supposed that you would have been at the Psychic Circle,' headded sarcastically.
'Well, yes, Rector,' she replied, 'and that's why I've run uphere to see you.'
'What do you mean by "that's why"?'
'Well, Miss Godwinstowe thought it only fair that somebodyshould tell you: before it's too late!'
'Tell me what?'
'That there's some spirit trying to get through to you. We don'tknow who it is; but it's someone.'
The wind blew icily in at the doorway, but it was not so cuttingas Mr Tardell's reply.
'You can tell Miss Godwinstowe that you have delivered hermessage. She knows what I think of such things. I must now behurrying back to Sir Cuthbert. He will be wondering where I'vegone. Good night, Miss Tisdale.'
Back inside the vestibule he muttered an angry 'Preposterous!'and on regaining his seat was disappointed to find Sir Cuthbert nolonger there but in conversation with the leader of the orchestra.He was also perturbed by the dimness of the footlights. The villagegasworks were notorious for reducing pressure without warning. Ifit went any lower, the singers and instrumentalists would hardlysee their notes. He was just about to say so to the returning SirCuthbert when a rap of the conductor's baton transformed the buzzof conversation into a tense silence of expectancy.
The rector had reproved churchwarden Trimshaw, at the dressrehearsal, for describing the music of the short overture toNorthern Lights as 'snaky'. Snakiness, he had observed, wasnot a word in the vocabulary of musical criticism. Now, as helistened to it this evening, he admitted to himself that certainpassages, in the violin parts particularly, had a reptilianquality. It gave him a vague feeling of discomfort, which wasaggravated by a draught of cold air that began to chill the back ofhis neck and the bald patch on his head. Somebody must have openedthe east window, which he had given orders to keep closed. He hopedhe would not catch cold. It might be his imagination, but the gasjets seemed to him to burn lower than ever; and, as the singersrose for the opening chorus, he began scanning their faces to seewhether any of them had difficulty in seeing their music.Apparently not; but, he reflected, probably they knew it all byheart after so much practice and rehearsal. Then all of a suddenhis gaze became riveted on the vacant row which separated treblesfrom altos. Mrs Parlington was standing there; and, he thought,looking not at the conductor or her music but pointedly at him.Drat the woman! She must have rushed down for the concert andcaught the three-eighteen from London. Now, of course, she wouldsing that threatened A! She appeared to be saving up for it, too,for her mouth was closely shut and her lips motionless. It seemedto him an age before the crucial passage came. But come at last itdid. A brief half-second before the conductor's beat the closedlips opened, but only narrowly. From them he seemed to hearmomentarily a faint note as of a pitch-pipe or tuning-fork; andthen, to his consternation, the whole three rows of sopranos burstout on A, fortissimo. Horrified, he glanced anxiously at SirCuthbert. The composer's head was thrown back; his eyes wereclosed; and his lips bore the suggestion of a smile. Had henoticed? It seemed not; but, surely, he must have? Much puzzled, MrTardell turned his eyes nervously back to the platform, and againfound it hard to believe them. Mrs Parlington had gone! He lookedcarefully at each row of singers, but there was no sign of her. Howcold that draught was! He dug his hands deep into his trouserspockets for warmth, bringing his finger-nails into sharp contactwith coins and a bunch of keys. The lights were burning morebrightly now, but his feeling of anxiety persisted. He was notenjoying the music or attempting to follow it. He was, indeed,hardly conscious of the ending of the final chorus or of the burstof applause that followed. It was Sir Cuthbert's movement towardsthe platform steps, in answer to cries of 'Composer', that broughthim back to full alertness.
'I have been delighted,' Sir Cuthbert was saying, 'by thisperformance of my most recent work. I most gratefully felicitateboth choir and orchestra on its excellent interpretation, and Icongratulate them—and not only them, but all music-lovers inthis neighbourhood—on having in Dr Wrenshall a trainer andconductor who will lead this Philharmonic Club ever further alongthe never-ending road to musical perfection. You, Ladies andGentlemen of the audience, will be interested to hear that we havehad an example of his superlative musicianship this very evening.In making my final manuscript ofNorthern Lights I made acareless mistake, when copying the treble part from my rough draft.I wrote an F instead of an A. I noticed the error only thismorning, while refreshing my memory of certain passages which Iparticularly wanted to hear in actual performance; and I felt mostunhappy, as the mistake entirely ruined a climax in the secondchorus. I felt that it would be unfair to mention the matter to DrWrenshall at the eleventh hour, when there was no possibility offurther rehearsal, and decided to grin and bear the result of myown carelessness. Imagine, therefore, my relief and delight whenthat A rang out so triumphantly from the trebles. He had rehearsedright, though I had written wrong. I am grateful beyond words. Inconclusion I must thank you all very warmly for the kind receptionthat you've given to my little work, which I shall always associatewith Telmington and its kind people. Thank you all again.'
Sir Cuthbert stepped down from the platform amid loud clappingand, on his way to resume his seat before the singing of theNational Anthem, stooped to pick up something from the floor at MrTardell's feet.
'You've lost half a crown, I think, Rector? A hole in a trouserspocket perhaps.'
Mr Tardell's thoughts were apparently elsewhere; for his replywas most inconsequent.
'Oh! no, I never take bets,' he said.
5
The news of Mrs Parlington's death in the Eldonhall train smashwas in the newspapers next morning. She was travelling back toWolmingham from a day's visit to her lawyer in London and was inthe carriage next behind the engine that was completely telescoped.Her neck was broken and death must have been instantaneous. Shortlyafter breakfast Dr Wrenshall called on three of his leadingsopranos, to enquire why they had sung A instead of F and so wonhim unmerited commendation from Sir Cuthbert. The first repliedthat she didn't know that she had sung A; the second that shesupposed that she had just followed the others; and the third thatthe higher note seemed somehow to be in the air and she simply hadto sing it.
He then walked up to the rectory, where he saw the doctor'sdogcart standing outside the gate.
'You can go in for a minute or so,' Dr Holmbush said, 'but therector's running a high temperature and has passed a sleeplessnight. He wants to see you though, about something to do with lastnight's concert; and he'd better get it off his chest, if hedoesn't take too long about it.'
Dr Wrenshall listened sympathetically, but incredulously, to therector's account of what he had seen and heard in the village hall.The fever had probably already been on him, Dr Wrenshall surmised,and given rise to delirious fancies. The silly message from thePsychic Circle might have suggested them perhaps. Back in his ownhouse, despite such scepticism, Dr Wrenshall took the trouble tolook in his newspaper again for the exact time of the Eldonhallaccident, and to compare it with that of the interval in lastevening's concert.
'Not that it signifies anything,' he muttered to himself onfinding that they more or less tallied, 'but I'm very sorry thatwe've lost Letitia. They'll miss her a lot here.'
They did. No previous Telmington funeral had been so largelyattended. Among very many wreaths the most noteworthy was one fromDr Wrenshall. It was in the shape of a capital A. The rectorrecovered in time to officiate, but still looked poorly. Theprefatory sentences and a psalm were sung; but there were nohymns.
1
Moonlight, and curtains not back yet from the cleaners! That waswhy Tom Cromley was still awake at one o'clock of this coldNovember night; and how he was able to see his wife, Kathleen, risesuddenly in her bed and sit rigidly upright. Tired, and in no moodfor conversation, he continued to lie still and pretended sleep. Hewatched her nevertheless until, again suddenly, she thrust an armacross the narrow space between their beds and clutched hiseiderdown. It slipped across him and a corner of it brushed hisface.
'Hullo, Kitty, what's up?' he asked in cross surprise.
'Hush, Tom! Can't you hear it?'
'Hear what?'
'That moaning, groaning noise. Listen—there!'
'Oh that? Why, it's only the hot-water pipes. They're bound togrunt and growl a bit at first. We started the stove going only afew hours ago, and there are probably air locks. One can't expectperfection on a trial run. All the same, the radiators are pipinghot; which is the main thing. You did a fine stroke of business,Kitty, in getting the stove so cheap; and this house too. Wecouldn't have found a nicer one at double the price. Now lie downand go to sleep again, darling, and don't keep your ears waitingfor noises, or you'll begin imagining them.'
'I'll try, Tom, and I'm so thankful you like our new home. Ithas been great fun, really, getting it all fixed up; but Iwish—' The sentence was left unfinished, and merged into alittle sigh.
'You wish what? Look here, Kitty, I hope you're not worryingabout all that rubbishy talk of Aubrey Roddeck's.'
'No, not exactly; but I wish I'd never listened to him. There!I've taken another of my tablets, and ought to get to sleepquickly. You'd better do the same, darling. Thank Heaven, thathorrid noise has stopped.'
Cromley did not like his wife's taking sleeping tablets;especially as she had no idea what they contained, and had beengiven them not by a doctor but by her artist friend, Miss Bevisham.What could be the cause of her insomnia? She had no physicalweakness, he was sure, being of a strong athletic type and able togive him points at golf or tennis. Her nerve, too, was good at bothgames; even in matches and tournaments. Nor had she been nervy inother things until quite lately. On the contrary, lawyers andbrokers, employed by her in the management of her inheritance froma godfather-uncle, had spoken to him of her business grip and quickbrain. Of the rightness of their judgment he himself found proof inher running of household affairs; he had in fact added garage andgarden to her domestic domain after his discovery that she couldget much more out of the two men than he, and they less out of herthan of him. He thus had nothing now to interfere with his work,which (as that of a regular writer for a leading daily, twoweeklies and several monthlies) had become voluminous andexacting.
He was just as deeply in love with Kathleen as when he marriedher six years ago; and to the bonds of affection had been addedthose of gratitude. One grievous disappointment they equallyshared. They had no children. Was it brooding over this, perhaps,that made Kathleen nervy and sleepless? The thought so worried himthat he began fidgeting with quilt and pillows; but a moment later,as though symbolising the lifting of a load from his mind, heextracted his now lukewarm hot-water bottle from between the sheetsand laid it on the bedside table. No: it definitely couldn't bethat; for her insomnia had started suddenly, and he could put adate to it. It was the night following Roddeck's visit.
He cursed himself now for ever having asked Aubrey to stay withthem. One might have guessed from his novels that he wouldintroduce unusual, if not sinister, topics of conversation. Butwhat was it that Aubrey had actually said? Kitty, he remembered,had been boasting about the bargain she had struck in getting houseand land for five thousand five hundred. 'Cheap,' she had said,'and the opposite of nasty.' It was then that Aubrey butted in with'cheapness is never without cause: the vendor must have had goodreason to get it off his hands.' 'What on earth do you mean,' Kittyhad challenged, 'the place isn't haunted, you know, or anything ofthat sort.' 'Not haunted perhaps, but waiting', were, Cromleyremembered quite clearly, the exact words of Aubrey's reply; but ofthe explanation that followed his recollection was less distinct.He must make an effort therefore to reconstruct it if, as he feltsure, it had been the root cause of Kathleen's trouble.
At this point he slipped out of bed, and crept silently ontiptoe to see whether she was yet asleep. Yes—and peacefully.Reassured, he climbed back again and braced himself for aninquisition of his memory. Present perception, Aubrey had said, isa sense-stream trickling between the sludge of the past and thesands of the future; ever eating away the latter and depositing iton the former. On this stream fall many reflections, sometimes ofthings upon its alluvial bank and sometimes, though less often, ofthings that loom upon the other. Most often of all, the rippling ofthe stream over pebbles and shells prevents its reflectinganything. Of Roddeck's explanation of this simile Cromley found itimpossible to recollect anything intelligible, except that Aubreyhad gone on to claim for himself an ability to sense in theatmosphere of a house (such was his jargon) reflections of itspast, in which case he classified it as 'haunted', or of itsfuture, in which case he categorised it as 'waiting'. He himself,he had concluded, would prefer the former sort of house to thelatter.
Kathleen, Tom remembered with a grin, had paid Aubrey back inhis own coin by asking him whether he did not feel thatherhouse might be waiting for his early departure. They had all threelaughed at this retort, but rather a stagy sort of laugh; and thethought of play-acting reminded Tom that Roddeck had said that'waiting' houses always gave him the feeling of an empty scene onthe stage before the entrance of actors.
'Damn Aubrey,' muttered Cromley; 'that's three o'clock striking,and not a wink of sleep so far. I must get all this business off mymind till the morning: so now for counting sheep.'
Sleep did come to him at last; but with a foolish dream, inwhich he and his wife were paddling in a little stream between twobanks. He was picking from it little stones and shells, whileKathleen looked as though she were trying to skim off from itssurface some dark reflections from either bank.
2
Mrs Cromley's insomnia grew no better. Her pride in ThurbourneManor was unabated; but her enjoyment of it marred by recurrentfits of depression. For the first time in their married life Tomfound her not always quite sure of herself. Until now she had beenin the habit of looking through the advertisement columns ofnewspapers in search of bargains. That was how she had picked upthe central-heating stove so cheaply. A notice in theStokehampton Mercury had invited offers for it to be sent toa post-box number; and their surprise had been great when a smalllorry drove up the back drive three days later, with the stoveaboard, and its owner prepared to deliver it on payment of themodest sum she had offered. Tom, with previous experience of suchstoves (it was a No. 3 Keepalite), had inspected and approved; andthe stove was fixed up for them next day by old Fennings, a retiredplumber, in place of the old-fashioned and worn-out fuel-eater thatthey had found in the house.
In her present changed mood Mrs Cromley was no longer on thelook-out for bargains, and even began to consult her husband beforeplacing the most ordinary orders for household goods onwell-established firms. She would also examine such purchases ondelivery with a strange air of suspicion. One day, for instance, hefound her gazing intently at a new meat-saw, which she hadunwrapped on the hall table.
'I suppose,' she said, avoiding his glance of inquiry, 'thatsurgeons have to use something of this sort?'
'For amputations, yes: but I've never been in an operatingtheatre, nor want to for that matter.'
'No; it's a horrid-looking thing; but cook insisted on ourhaving one, though I can't imagine what she wants it for. I alwaysorder small joints. I shall hide it in the tool cupboard.'
'Very well, but it may be wanted if Sir Matthew sends us venisonagain next year.'
'I detest venison,' Mrs Cromley muttered crossly, very far fromher usual self.
Little outbursts of this kind were becoming of daily occurrence;so much so that her husband began to think of seeking medicaladvice. They and her insomnia must be interconnected; but which wascause and which effect? Or were both the result of some thirdtrouble? It would be interesting to see what, if any, effectChristmas with the Bridleys at Hartlingsea would have on hercondition. He would not, Tom decided, consult any doctors until thenew year.
Sir Matthew and Lady Bridley were excellent as host and hostessand the house party was convivial. In such surroundings Mrs Cromleysoon regained sleep and normality. But on return to Thurbourne theformer symptoms began to reappear, and her husband's work to sufferfrom his anxiety. Then, in mid January, she went down withinfluenza; but to his surprise and relief physical illness seemedto improve rather than aggravate her mental malaise. It was notuntil she was convalescing that fits of irritability and depressionagain set in. A possible clue to their causation was soon to befurnished by a trivial accident.
Although she was no longer in bed, the doctor would still notallow her downstairs. As he sat with her in the bedroom one eveningshe asked Tom to bring up her writing portfolio from the library,and on the way back there fell from it a thin notebook. He hadunconsciously swung it against the banisters. Stooping to pick thebook up he noticed, on the page at which it had fallen open, anewspaper cutting. The headline was 'WILL MURDER OUT?' Hurriedlyputting the book back in the portfolio Cromley decided to take anearly opportunity of a further look at it; for why had his wifetaken and kept a cutting of that sort?
He had not to wait long. The same evening, after supper,Kathleen asked him to read aloud to her; and he had not droned morethan three or four pages before he saw that she was asleep. Thatwas good, for she had slept little the night before. He soon hadthe notebook out of the portfolio, and looked first for thenewspaper cutting. It was not too long for reproduction here.
WILL MURDER OUT?
It is credibly reported that the incoming tenant of a house in thisvicinity has found in his vegetable plot certain remains; which mayafford some explanation of the sudden departure, without addressgiven, of his predecessor; also perhaps of the previousdisappearance of the latter's housekeeper. Complaints made byneighbours of disagreeable odours from a stove chimney may or maynot prove to be of relevance to police investigations nowunderstood to be in hand.
The name of the newspaper was not on the cutting, but thegreenish paper and the wording of the report were suggestive beyonddoubt of theStokehampton Mercury. Ever since itsproprietor, old Mr Catchwater, had been mulcted in heavy damagesfor an article about hauntings at Tresswell Court, the editor hadbeen under strict orders not to insert any local news that could berepresented as likely to cause depreciation of the value of anyspecified premises or property. But fancy printing such stuff; andfancy (Cromley frowned at the thought) cutting it out and pastingit in a notebook!
Puzzled and discomfited he turned to the other pages. Many wereblank; others contained addresses, recipes, prescriptions, names ofbooks, new stitches for knitting, a list of insecticides for thegarden, and so on, uninterestingly, to the last page. At the top ofthis was written 'Quotations' and the entries, only two, were inmanuscript. The first was from the Bible:
Until a time and times and the dividing of time. Dan.vii, 25.
Under this was a note in pencil: 'But see Revised Version andRev. xii, 14.' Odd, thought Cromley, for his wife was no Biblereader. The second quotation was from Aubrey Roddeck's lastpublished novel,Arrival Platform, and ran as follows:
We are prisoners set to quarry in a crevice between thecliff-face of the future and the slag-heap of the past. At anymoment either may cave in and fall on us.
Having put the notebook into the portfolio Cromley lit acigarette and sat down to think things out. His wife slept on.
3
Tom Cromley's meeting next day with Colonel Honeywood, the ChiefConstable, in the Stokehampton Club was not, so far as the formerwas concerned, accidental. He knew the Colonel to be in the habitof lunching there on Tuesdays, and this was not the first time thatthey had sat down together at the same table. They had beencontemporaries at Winchingham and Oxbridge.
'Anything behind that rubbish in theMercury, some weeksago, about human remains being found in somebody's garden,Colonel?'
'More than I like, I'm afraid; bits of a body buried in the fowlrun, and the rest of it, probably, burnt in a stove. TheMercury made a boss shot about the housekeeper, though. Sheleft to take up another job, and is alive and kicking somewherenear Penchester.'
'Any clue yet as to murderer or victim?'
'No, but one or two pointers. We're pretty sure now that nokilling was done down our way; only disposal of a body, and notnecessarily a murdered one. That's all I can say at present.'
'What sort of stove was it?' asked Cromley; aware, as he put thequestion, of its oddity.
The Colonel slowly helped himself to salt and mustard beforereply. 'I rather think, Cromley,' he said, 'that I know the realquestion at the back of your mind; and it may save you furtherbeating about the bush if I answer it at once. The new tenant ofthe house, when reporting the unpleasant find in his garden, askedwhether we had any objection to his removing the stove forthwith.He didn't fancy its associations. We agreed; on condition that hegave us details of its disposal for our future reference, shouldneed arise. He advertised it in theMercury; and, as Ibelieve you to have already guessed, the purchaser was Mrs Cromley.Well, you've got a first-rate stove, but I wouldn't let your wifeget any inkling of its past history, if I were you: women are soimaginative. I've a Keepalite No. 3 myself, by the way, andwouldn't mind feeding it with little bits off more than one personI could name!'
This little joke, as the Colonel intended, enabled them to dropthe subject with a feeble laugh; and their talk shifted to vagariesof the weather and prophecies about the coming bye-election.
On the drive home Cromley decided that he must tell Kathleen ofhis verification of what, he was sure, had been her suspicions. Heknew now why she had been so upset by moanings and fizzlings in thehot-water pipes. His sharing with her the facts about the stovewould, he told himself, reassure her. What a pity she had kept hersuspicion to herself! Or would he, perhaps, if she had told him,have merely exhorted her to put foolish fancies out of her prettyhead? Anyhow, it was for him to do the telling now. Better waitthough, he reflected, till she was quite recovered from the 'flu.In the meantime he would drop a line to Roddeck and warn him not tomake trouble for his friends in future by his insanemystifications. Back, therefore, at Thurbourne he went to his deskand wrote as follows.
MY DEAR AUBREY
I feel it right to let you know that ever since your stay with usKathleen has suffered considerably from nerve trouble. Some of yourquaint theories and metaphors about the past, present and futurehave stuck in her mind and made it most uneasy. I know you wellenough to be sure that you would be the last man wittingly to causeanxiety to a lady friend and that is why I write this letter. Youhave probably never had cause to consider the effect of yourfantasies (is this the right word?) on an unsophisticated mind.Even such a remark as yours about cheapness never being withoutcause may lead to sinister speculation. Indeed, to be quite frank,I do not think that my wife has been quite happy about this housesince you said that to her. I am sorry to have to write this but,as I said at the beginning of this letter, I feel in consciencebound to let you know. With all good wishes.
Yours ever,
Tom
The letter was posted that evening.
4
The scene now is Lestwick House, in Northshire, where AubreyRoddeck was staying the night with Lord Henry Hoverly. Lady Henrybeing on a visit to friends in Ireland, the two men sat alone inthe library after dinner. They were second cousins, Aubrey's motherhaving been a Crimley-Hoverly; but their acquaintance had arisennot out of their family connection but from Lord Henry'spartnership in the firm which published Roddeck's novels.
'I don't much care,' Lord Henry was saying, 'for moderntendencies in art, literature or music. There seems to be in allthree a spirit of revolt from rhyme or reason, a sort ofconstitutionalising of anarchy. I noticed in last week'sCosmos that even that sane chap Cromley is catching theinfection. By the way, do you remember telling me that his wife hadbought Thurbourne Manor, the house that I've always had an eye on?It used once to belong to the Hoverly family; in Stuart times Ithink.'
'I remember your saying that you'd give me a thousand guineas ifI could induce her to sell it to you.'
'Not guineas, Aubrey, pounds.'
'Well, make it guineas and I believe that I could do the trickfor you.'
'We'll make it guineas then; but no tricks, mind you. You saidbefore that nothing would induce her to part with it, but I'dwillingly give ten thousand; a good deal more than it would fetchin the market.'
'Not inclusive of my commission of a thousand guineas, Ihope?'
'No, that would be by way of charity to an indigent cousin orundeserving author. But seriously, Aubrey, you seem to possessunusual powers of persuasion. You got that house at Badwood for theFrannocks, and the old churchyard cottage at Mistleburyfor—I've forgotten whom. How do you manage to do it?'
'Oh! I just put wanted houses on my waiting list; throw out ahint or two perhaps, if occasion offers, and bide my time. Forinstance, when I stayed at Thurbourne, Mrs Cromley struck me as notfinding the house as comfortable as she had expected; and Iexpressed a sympathetic understanding of her disappointment. To mymind the Cromleys and Thurbourne Manor somehow just don't fit; andthe thought occurred to me that the next time I stayed there itmight be as guest of a noble cousin and with a thousand guineas inmy pocket!'
'Well, you seem to make money easily,' grunted Lord Henry, 'andto my taste rather nastily. You haven't, I suppose, got your eye onthis place for anybody, should I get Thurbourne?'
'No, my bent is to get houses at the lowest possible price; andI can't see you parting with Lestwick for a song,unless—'
'Unless what?'
'Oh, nothing! I was stupidly thinking of somewhere else. Sorry.By the way, I notice that you've had the archway into the old northwing built up. Hardly an architectural improvement is it?'
'No, but my wife was always complaining of draughts.'
One feels them quite unaccountably in old buildings, doesn'tone? You'll both be more comfortable at Thurbourne, if only I caninduce the Cromleys to sell.'
It would be an hour nearer to London, that's its main attractionfor me. But look here, Aubrey, don't you go spreading it abroadthat this house is draughty.'
'Ah! Lady Henry imagined it, did she? That's another drawback toold houses. People begin imagining things, especially women whenthey're left alone.'
Lord Henry was plainly annoyed by the turn which theirconversation had taken. 'I wish, Aubrey,' he said, 'that youwouldn't talk like a character in your books. I know nothing aboutpeople's imaginations, and have no truck with spooks or anything ofthat sort.'
'But I said nothing about spooks.'
'No, but I could see that you were leading up to it. Well, I'moff to bed. Switch the light off on the landing, will you, when youcome up.'
'Certainly, and it won't be long before I turn in too. I've onlygot one letter to write. Good night.'
Roddeck's one letter ran as follows:
MY DEAR TOM
Thank you so much for writing to me about poor Kathleen's neurosis.There is certainly no call for any but plain words between oldfriends. I should feel happier about her than I do if I could shareyour belief that my idle talk had any causal connection with whatyou report. I am however certain that her trouble had begun beforemy short stay with you. As you know I am critically observant ofpeople's psychology. The modern novelist has to be. Very soon aftermy arrival at Thurbourne her too enthusiastic references to thebargain which she had made in her purchase of the house indicatedto me beyond doubt her actual disappointment in, even dislike of,it. This however did not surprise me because nature has endowed mewith the faculty of sensing the past and future associations of abuilding, an unpleasant sort of intuition that I would much rathernot possess. On stepping inside your hall I was at once affected bya presentiment of not far distant tragedy. I hate writing this, butas you have been frank with me I must be equally so with you.Should you and your wife (as I much hope may be the case, in yourown interest) think of moving elsewhere I believe that I couldprevail on my host here, Lord Henry Hoverly, to offer almost twiceas much for Thurbourne Manor as she gave for it. It used, as youprobably know, to belong to the Hoverly family and a return toancestral proprietorship might perhaps mitigate, if not dispel, theominous atmosphere that I so vividly sensed. Be that as it may Ishall not of course breathe a word to Lord Henry about myapprehensions.Caveat emptor!
Yours ever,
AUBREY
Having inscribed, stamped and sealed the envelope Roddeck lookedat the clock as it struck eleven, smiled, and murmured purringly tohimself 'a thousand guineas!' And so to bed.
5
'Why of course, darling, we'll sell at that price,' Mrs Cromleyexclaimed, 'and there's no need to bother about replacing thestove. It seems quite providential, doesn't it, for we can nowstore the furniture and make our promised visit to your brother inNew Zealand. It'll do your writing good to have a change of scene,and you can send your stuff to the papers by this new air mail. Sothat's that.'
That was that. Tom, overjoyed at his wife's recovery, fell in atonce with her eager plans; and the lawyers were instructed to putthrough the transfer of Thurbourne Manor to Lord Henry Hoverly fora consideration of ten thousand pounds. By midsummer the ownershiphad passed to him.
Aubrey Roddeck saw the Cromleys off by the boat train fromLondon. He rather overplayed, Tom thought, the rôle ofbenefactor; but of course they had good reason to be grateful tohim. The voyage out was entirely enjoyable; calm seas, a pleasantlot of fellow passengers, and a well-found and well-run ship. Atthe journey's end they found New Zealand so much to their likingthat they accepted the invitation of Tom's brother to stay overChristmas.
It was two mornings or so after Christmas that their host tosseda newspaper across the breakfast table with the words 'Column fiveon the second page will interest you both.' It was a telegram froma London Correspondent, reporting the death of the novelist AubreyRoddeck. He was spending Christmas, they read, with Lord HenryHoverly at Thurbourne Manor, when a fire broke out in the furnaceroom as a result of logs and firewood being stacked too near thestove. Mr Roddeck, who was sleeping in the room above, jumped fromits window in ignorance, presumably, of there being a paved terracebetween house and lawn. The Stokehampton Fire Brigade got the fireunder quickly and prevented its spreading to the rest of themansion. Had only Mr Roddeck preserved presence of mind, he couldhave made his escape by a door leading into a back passage. But, itwas surmised, he was too stupefied by the fumes.
Mrs Cromley sat staring out of the window. Then, turning to herhusband, 'Poor Aubrey!' she said, 'So his premonition was true. Hemust have felt the walls about to cave in on him!'
1
Collinson'sKongea, published in 1883, stated thehighlands of that Colony to be 'well suited for coffee or spicegardens: excepting the Nywedda valley, which is rendered unfit forhuman habitation by the miasma exhaled from its marshland.'Present-day passengers, who watch their ship being loaded atTakeokuta wharves with case after case, and crate after crate, allstencilled 'Nywedda Produce', might guess Collinson to have beenmisinformed. He was right, however, according to the terminologyand medical science of his day; the habitability of the valleybegan only with the completion of a great drainage scheme roundabout 1908. Until then it was devoid of population, save for onesolitary individual, of whom and whose fate the pages that followwill give some account.
Of Hilary Hillbarn's origin and history before his arrival inKongea, at the end of 1895, there is no record. The papers dealingwith his appointment as Assistant Entomologist to the TakeokutaMuseum must have been lost in the fire that later destroyed thecurator's office. He was not a Colonial Office recruit, or therewould have been despatches about him in the Secretariat recordroom. His contemporaries in the museum remember him as reticent,secretive, unsocial and pedantic. The incoming mails brought noletters for him, and he made no friends in Kongea.
The work which he was set to do was that of a field collector,many of the museum specimens standing at that time in need ofamplification or replacement. The consequent expeditions into thejungle proved most congenial to Hillbarn. His brief periodicalreturns to Takeokuta and civilisation were dictated by thenecessity of replenishing provisions and handing over hiscollections. He never stayed long. As a collector he had greatsuccess. His specimens included not only some much-neededlepidoptera, but also a number of interesting arachnids hithertounrepresented. The only cause of concern to the Director of Museumslay in a growing unwillingness on the part of Kongean assistantcollectors and camp carriers to accompany Hillbarn on hisexplorations. This unwillingness culminated in point-blank refusalafter the death in mid-jungle of an assistant collector. A formaldepartmental enquiry had to be instituted.
Complaint against Hillbarn at this enquiry was on two maingrounds. First that all his collections were being made in theNywedda valley, notoriously the home of devils and disease;secondly that all the work of collection was being done by Hillbarnhimself, his assistants and subordinates being forced by him tospend their whole time in felling trees, and in building a largetimber hut in the middle of the forest. To these charges Hillbarnreplied that the Nywedda valley was of all Kongean regions therichest in insect life, hence his choice of it for his expeditions;and that a weatherproof hut was necessary for the treatment andconservation of his specimens.
The Kongeans being a not unreasonable folk, the Director wasdisinclined to accept these quite plausible replies without somedegree of verification. He decided, therefore, wet season though itwas, to go and see for himself. It was not a journey that he was toremember with pleasure. His party had to spend two nights inrain-sodden, leech-ridden scrub; was bogged twice; and had to makecircuitous detours, hacking their way through dense and spinyundergrowth. This effort and labour was, however, rewarded on thesecond morning by the disclosure, in a small clearing on risingground, not of a small hut but of a commodious two-roomed timbershed, walled with bamboo wattles and thatched with palmleaf.
'What else did you expect?' Hillbarn replied to the Director'sexpostulations, 'it's no use doing anything by halves: I shall needevery inch of this space when I get the big specimens.'
'Big specimens?' asked the Director angrily. 'What thedevil do you mean? Specimens of what.'
'Arachnids, you old fool,' Hillbarn barked back. 'You're blindif you didn't see them against the sunrise this morning. Just youwait till I bag one.'
The homeward journey was less physically arduous, for theyfollowed the trail that they had hacked on the way up. It was,however, rendered even more uncomfortable for the Director by agrowing conviction that he had to deal, not merely with aninsubordinate officer, but with a mental case. He had been calledan old fool in the hearing of English-speaking Kongean staff: well,he felt himself big enough to forget that; for Hillbarn was thebest collector that he'd had. But this talk of arachnids againstthe sunrise and sunset (for Hillbarn affected to see them againthat evening before they made camp) he could not bring himself toforget. Perhaps the young man, who boasted of being malaria-proof,had contracted it in some unusual form detrimental to mentalstability. He would send him for medical examination as soon asthey got back to Takeokuta.
It was not Hillbarn, however, but the Director who shortlyunderwent medical examination. He, with three others of the party,succumbed to a severe attack of malaria within a few days of theirreturn, and before he had completed his notes of enquiry orrecorded the findings. He lay in hospital a whole fortnight. On hisreturn to duty, the Director found among the letters awaiting hispersonal attention a short memorandum from Hillbarn.
DIRECTOR OF MUSEUMS
I return herewith my salary cheque for April, having decided toterminate my service on forfeit of a month's pay as provided byclause 12 of my agreement.
H. HILLBARN
May 5th, 1897
Nobody in Takeokuta could tell the Director where the signatoryhad gone. He had indeed become known to very few. Enquiry atshipping offices made it certain that he had not left the Colony:the Director therefore concluded that he must have taken up somejob on an up-country plantation. A month or more later, however, hewas reported by a headman to have been seen buying provisions inthe little shop near Kechoba, which lies at the foot of the Nyweddavalley. There were no plantations in the vicinity at that time, sothe Director knew at once that he must have returned to that jungleshed. Well; he was no longer a Government servant, and theDepartment bore no responsibility for his movements. All that needor could be done was to inform the Commissioner of Police of hisrecent behaviour and of his present whereabouts. This the Directorduly did.
2
The Nywedda valley is incorrectly so called. It is not adepression between two ranges of hills but an oval marshy basin,some three thousand feet above sea level, and roughly fifty squaremiles in area. There are high hills along seven-eighths of itscircumference; the remaining eighth consists of a narrow ridge orsaddle-back, at the western foot of which lies the small hamlet ofKechoba. This ridge is of granite, and unbroken by any watercourse.Were the rainfall more than it is, the basin would soon become amountain lake instead of damp jungle interspersed with bogs andshallow meres.
More than one authority claimed parentage of a scheme to drainit by tunnelling through the ridge. The idea was, indeed, likely tooccur to any engineer who inspected the terrain, or studied acontour map of the district. To finance such a project was a moredifficult problem. Its cost was finally allocated, in equal shares,between the Colonial Government and a newly formed plantationcompany, to which the basin was appropriated under a ninety-nineyear concession. This concession was instrumented and promulgatedby special ordinance in I goo; an incidental effect of which was toalter the status of the region's solitary inhabitant from squatterto trespasser. He no longer camped on Crown land but on privateproperty.
The necessity for Hillbarn's eviction might not have arisen, atany rate in the initial stages of the tunnel scheme, had it notbeen for his reputation among the local Kongeans. To them he hadbecome the familiar, if not an impersonation, of evil spirits ofthe mountains. He was seen only when he emerged to obtainprovisions at the Kechoba shop. These appearances became fewer ashe gradually accustomed his digestion to a diet of jungle herbs andberries. His clothing diminished with each visit, and was finallystandardised in a loincloth. His hair grew long and shaggy,covering not only his head and chin but also his legs, chest, armsand backs of the hands. It was a rusty grey. He walked barefoot;and the surface of his skin, where it was not covered by hair, wasblotched with sores. The steel-blue eyes seemed set in achallenging stare; he answered neither greeting nor question.
When his stock of currency notes and coin had run out, Hillbarntraded upon the Kechoba shopkeeper's fear of him by taking goodswithout payment. The second time that he did so the shopman hadsummoned up courage to ask for it; but Hillbarn pointed menacinglyto the hills, crooked his arms, moved them backwards and forwardslike a crab, and blew a thin grey froth of saliva through tightlyclosed lips. This, to the Kongeans, was a sure sign of demoniacalpossession. Hillbarn indeed may have intended such aninterpretation.
The upshot was that, when the Survey and Public WorksDepartments received instructions to take levels and measurementsfor the tunnel scheme, not a single coolie could be induced to setfoot in the valley so long as Hillbarn was at large.
The Surveyor-General appealed to the Commissioner of Police; butthe latter professed powerlessness in the matter until Hillbarnshould have received and acknowledged a formal notice to evacuate.But how serve such a notice on a man hiding in thick jungle? Bothofficers sought escape from this quandary by explaining theirpredicament to the Attorney-General.
'Well, well!' was his reply, 'it's a lucky thing that, indrafting the special ordinance, I had in mind that there might benomad aborigines on whom notices could not be served. So I inserteda provision that notice can be given by proclamation. I'll draftone right away, and have it sent up for the Governor's signature.It'll have to be gazetted, of course, and posted conspicuously atKechoba. When that's been done, your man will have ten days' gracein which to clear out.'
'But suppose he doesn't?'
'Ah! That's quite another matter. I never advise on hypotheticalcases. We must first wait and see.'
The proclamation was duly issued. Its posting attracted quite acrowd of villagers outside the Kechoba shop. None of them couldread it, being in English, but the Royal Arms at its top evokedtheir curiosity and admiration. It was, they supposed, some potenthieroglyphic that would strike terror into the man-devil. But ofsuch comfortable doctrine they were rudely disillusioned nextmorning, when Hillbarn appeared at the shop-front, bent as usual onloot. He read the proclamation; slashed it into shreds with hisjungle knife and, dashing into the shop, seized on one of theledgers and tore from it some two dozen pages. These he set on thecounter, and began writing on them with the shopman's pen and ink.He scribbled fiercely for more than an hour, every now and againsavagely tearing into small scraps what he had just written. Theshopman, in fear for his life, joined the gaping crowd outside.
Having at last produced a manifesto to his satisfaction hestrode with it to where the proclamation had been posted, andpinned it up. Then, having made a larger rape of goods than usualfrom the shop, he made off into the jungle. Again nobody could readwhat was written; but a Kongean sub-magistrate, passing by on hisreturn from circuit, declared it to be a bad sort of writing,unpinned it, and took it away with him to Takeokuta.
To the Commissioner of Police next morning it appeared a veryhad sort of writing. This is how it ran:
WE
HILARY HILLBARN, of Nywedda KING
By conquest, LORD PROTECTOR of the Hills,
DEFENDER of the Forests,
EMPEROR of all that lives or lies within this vale,
Give by these presents to Our subjects GREETING.
WHEREAS by proclamation of a recent date
A governor of Kongea has presumed
That WE shall quit Our rightful Realm and Throne:
NOW KNOW YE that the said presumption WE
Do utterly contemn and set at nought.
WE shall continue here to reign and rule,
And peradventure he attempt by force
Our Person to evict, let him BEWARE:
For WE upon his emissaries
With unrelenting hand will quick unleash
The Hounds of Death, high-kennelled in the hills.
HILARY R.I.
The Commissioner of Police grunted and frowned. He would have toshow this disloyal nonsense to the Chief Secretary; perhaps to theGovernor himself. At noon, therefore, we find him in the former'soffice, and at a quarter past the hour both officers are walkingtogether towards Government House.
Sir Wilfrid Narrowgate prided himself on being able to see athing quickly and state it shortly. 'Madman, rebel, or both,' hesaid, 'the fellow has got to be got out. We won't bring theAttorney-General in on it at this stage: it's easier to act incharity than in law. You've satisfied me that there's a sick man inthe jungle; so I shall send a search party to bring him safely out.Here's my specification for the party; you two must settle itspersonnel. First, a Civil Servant of magisterial rank; second, ayoung medical officer; third, a gazetted police officer; fourth, agovernment surveyor who knows the lie of the land. All four must begood men in the jungle: we can't send natives with them if they areas scared as you say of Hillbarn. So the party must travel light:sandwiches and flasks in their haversacks; enough for two days.They must be prepared for violence, but not use it unless forcedto. They must get the fellow out without injury to him or tothemselves. We needn't prescribe methods now, or probe toocuriously into them afterwards. Arrange for a wagonette to meetthem at Kechoba on the return journey; and tell the P.M.O. to haveaccommodation ready at the Tenekka Asylum. That's all for thepresent; but let me know as soon as they've got their man andhanded him over. That's when we may have to call in theAttorney-General.'
The Chief Secretary and Commissioner of Police discussedpersonnel for the expedition as they walked down from GovernmentHouse. 'What I like about the Governor,' the Commissioner remarked,'is the way he relieves one of responsibility.'
'Yes,' dryly assented the Chief Secretary, 'but not ofwork.'
3
The next day but one the search party set out for Kechoba. Itssenior member, Hugh Milversom, Assistant District Officer ofKaratta, was well known as a hunter of pig and big game: he knewhis jungle well. Medical Officer Leonard Hatley, also from Karatta,and Frank Nearwell, Assistant Commissioner of Police, were next inage and official standing. The youngest was Tasman Copworth, asurveyor on agreement from Australia. All four were as physicallyfit and mentally spry as the purpose of their present expeditiondemanded.
They had discussed strategy over whiskies and soda the nightbefore. If Hillbarn had any inkling of their search for him hewould, Milversom thought, make off into the jungle and eludediscovery. Their only hope of speedy contact lay in finding him athis hut. On this point they all agreed; and Nearwell, arguing frompolice experience, declared that it would be necessary for them toseparate a mile downstream of the hut, and later converge on itsimultaneously from the four points of the compass. This plan,Copworth objected, postulated the possibility of four men making anefficient cordon, which he felt to be absurd. They must keeptogether, and manage somehow to surprise their quarry.
At this Dr Hatley, who was making patterns with his forefingeron the marble-top table out of a splash of spilled soda water,began speaking in a low meditative tone. 'This fellow Hillbarn,' hesaid, 'has long been an enigma to us doctors. He ought to have diedyears ago. Malaria completely blotted out the local aborigines; sohow has he, a soft-bred European, managed to survive? From allaccounts he suffers from emaciation and scurvy; but just think ofhis dietary! In this hot-house climate, of course, nudity is notinjurious, except...'
Hatley here making a premonitory pause, the others impatientlycut in with 'Except what?'
'Except that he can't possibly wander about naked at night atthat altitude. As you know, the wind blows hard for eight out ofthe twelve months; and for an hour or so before dawn it ispositively icy. It gets unpleasantly cool soon after sundown. Waitand see for yourselves tomorrow. It's particularly bad this season.We've a score of pneumonia cases in the Karatta hospital. Take myword for it, Hillbarn must keep to his hut of a night, and useblankets too. That's where we shall find him, if we time ourarrival after dusk: a hundred to one on that.' The bet was nottaken; for the others, though they had not thought of it before,agreed. So they planned their timetable accordingly. They couldtake things easily on the way up, clearing a path, wherevernecessary, in order to facilitate their journey back withHillbarn.
Their progress up the valley proved uneventful. It was dryunderfoot, the weather fine and, owing to the wind, notoppressively hot. At about half-past five in the afternoon theyfound themselves on rising ground, from which Copworth's trainedeyes were able to descry a small clearing, not more than a quarterof a mile away, and in its middle a brown patch which could benothing but a hut or shed. The scrub round about them was now onlybreast-high, its branches and twigs bearded with tufts of agrey-green lichen. They decided, therefore, to sit down for a smokeand rest; for Hillbarn might not repair to his hut before sunset.They had not, however, sat long before there broke on their earsthe clang of a pan or tin being struck six times.
'Six o'clock,' Nearwell laughed, 'Fancy the fellow beating thehours in deserted jungle!'
'I might do it myself,' mused Hatley. 'His mind may betravelling back to some old church clock striking across a villagegreen. Even lunatics occasionally escape into the past.'
Milversom, who on hearing the clangs had made his way further upthe rise, returned at this point to suggest that they might usewhat remained of daylight to get as near to the clearing as theycould without being seen. This they proceeded to do; walkinghalf-bent, and speaking only in undertones. Creeping, thus silentlyforward they came before very long up against the prostrate trunkof a felled tree, on the edge of the clearing. Peeping from behindit they could see the hut, a few chains distant, and its surroundof half-grown coconuts, bread-fruit trees, plantains and chillies.From a slanting bamboo pole there hung by a piece of cord aninverted kerosene tin. A stick, lying on the ground below,evidenced its use as a gong. East and west of the pole two largestones had been set into the ground, each as big as a man couldcarry unaided.
Milversom was considering whether his party had better wait forcomplete darkness to veil their approach, or go forthwith to thehut, when they beheld Hillbarn hobbling feebly towards them. He hadclearly injured his right leg; for he dragged it laboriously, usinga stick. There was no chance, Milversom realised with relief, ofhis bolting into the jungle. As usual he wore a kind of loin-cloth,but supplemented this evening by a blanket hung down his back fromthe shoulders like an academic hood. Behind him slunk a very leanblack cat, which, on reaching the bamboo pole, he hit at with hisstick and drove away. Muttering something which his watchers couldnot overhear he then began to beat the tin, as though in imitationof the ringing of a bell for church. Indeed when the tolling hadceased it was plain to the four who spied on him that they werewitnessing some sort of religious ritual; for he advanced to thelarge stone on the west side, made signs of beckoning towards thehills, and began to chant words which Milversom afterwards thusreconstructed from memory:
Creep down, creep down, grey spiders of the sky
And leave the cobweb clouds that ye have spun
Across the face of day;
For day now dies.
Creep down, creep down the brazen chain of rays
Flung by the sun aslant the western hills;
It shall not burn you,
For the sun now dies.
Creep down, creep down to weave a pall of mist
From hill to hill; so hide me from the stars,
Until the morrow dawn
And they too die.
Creep down, creep down; there is no moon to thwart
The workings of the night; and I have called
All shapes of Hell
To keep me company.
But none so dear to me, O spiders grey,
As beady belly slung from eight lean legs
Poised for a pounce
Or crouching low to spin.
What if you be invisible to such
As see not what I see, live not my life,
Have other thoughts than mine,
Act otherwise?
This makes you the more mine, me yours;
So do I bide the promised time when I
Grey spider shall become,
My manhood shed.
Creep down, Creep down, entoil the trespasser
In grey cocoon of death; so keep me free,
My dark soliloquy
Inviolate.
At the close of this incantation Hillbarn limped back to thepole; gave the tin a loud bang and, peering this way and that,cried out 'I smell white men!'
'Your nose doesn't deceive you,' Milversom said, climbing overthe tree trunk and signalling the others to follow. 'There are fourof us here. How do you do?'
Hillbarn glared angrily at the extended hand. 'I do not knowyou,' he said, 'or what brings you here.'
'We've come to take you home with us tomorrow. The Governor'ssent for you. He can't allow you to die here in the jungle, youknow. You already look half-dead.'
'You must be brave men to venture here; but bravery kills morepeople than it saves. If you are alive, I will come with youtomorrow; but you will not be. They have already marked you.'
'Who have?'
'My grey brothers. Come inside the hut. The sun is down.'
The inside of the hut was bare of furniture; but in a corner ontop of a pile of leaves and rushes lay a heap of discolouredblankets. The floor was of trampled earth. In the middle of it afew logs smouldered, yielding little heat or light but emitting anacrid smoke, for which the palm-thatched roof offered no vent. Itwas consequently sooted over, and the fumes hung in layers belowit.
The party had brought candles in their haversacks and nowproceeded to light them, as the last of the twilight faded from thedoorway. The resultant glimmer revealed only one thing of interest.There was a closed door in the wall or partition on the right-handside of the entrance; presumably therefore a second room beyond. Infront of it Hillbarn stood shivering, for the evening was alreadycold. Or was it from excitement? His eyes, now burning withdefiance, were certainly those of a madman, and perhaps of adangerous one.
'They are hungry,' he snarled, 'and will leap on you swiftly,but softly and silently. There may be worse deaths than yours, butnone more noiseless. I bid you goodbye.'
At this he wrenched the shut door open.
Milversom afterwards confessed that his heart was in his mouth.Nearwell whipped out his service revolver, and Copworth had a handon his jungle knife. Only Dr Hatley kept his eyes away from theopened door. They were focused keenly on Hillbarn.
Nothing emerged from the door, and they could see nothing butblackness beyond it.
'They invite you to see them first,' Hillbarn said; 'take yourcandles and look inside.'
They did so. In various positions crouched a large number ofhuge spiders; the body of each about the size of a coconut, thelegs covered with a grey-green inch-long hairiness. They were notgrouped on one level; some were on the floor, others clung to racksagainst the walls, yet others hung from the rafters. All weremotionless.
Again Milversom's heart was in his mouth, and Copworth's fearbroke out chokingly with 'God help us! Just look at the bloodythings!' Nearwell pointed his revolver at the nearest of them. Thedoctor's gaze, however, was still riveted on Hillbarn, as thoughthat were the quarter from which danger might come. He had in factnoticed, what the others had not, that since their entry into thehut Hillbarn had picked up from somewhere, and now held in hishand, a heavy chopper.
This atmosphere of apprehension and suspense was all of a suddendispelled by a happening that in the recollection, but not at thetime, appeared ludicrous. The lean black cat must have passedunnoticed through the door when Hillbarn opened it. It now sprangacross the floor at some mouse or rat, and in doing so knocked overthree or four of the spiders. The bodies, that had looked the sizeof coconuts, were now revealedas coconuts; the legs astwigs with lichen on them. Hillbarn had modelled them into spidersso realistically that they would have deceived in a stronger lightthan that of the candles. Dr Hatley, on a considered review of thecase, had no doubt that the wretched man believed himself to haveendowed them with life.
There was no time for thought at the moment, for a horriblescene ensued. Hillbarn lurched savagely forward; his injured leggave way beneath him, and he crashed headlong to the floor,knocking over more of the spiders and pinning the cat under hisleft elbow. With the chopper in his right hand he hacked at itsprotruding forelegs; and then, grabbing its tail with his left,half-decapitated it. Twistily struggling to a kneeling posture heheld the shuddering animal above his head, its blood dripping on tohis hair and forehead, and hurled it against the wall. With acircular swing of the chopper he next smashed a couple of thespiders that lay nearest to him, and then giddily attempted toregain his feet.
'Get that chopper from him,' shouted Hatley; and Milversom, witha kick at his right wrist, sent it clattering to the ground. In aninstant Nearwell and Copworth had closed with him, hauled him erectand propped him against the wall. It needed their full strength tohold him upright, for he seemed suddenly to have gone limp andinarticulate.
'Lay him down on the blankets, please,' the doctor ordered in aprofessional tone, 'I rather fancy he's finished.'
He was. Whatever store of vitality there may have been in hisunderfed, underclothed body, it had been squandered in that finalparoxysm of rage and violence. As Hatley examined it now upon thebed of leaves and rushes there was neither breath nor heartbeat.Hilary Hillbarn was dead.
There was nothing more that they could do that night; so, havingpulled palm fronds from the roof and laid them as mats before thefire, they lay down, ate some sandwiches, drank from their flasks,and talked themselves into such sleep as they managed to get.
4
The presence at Hillbarn's passing of a magistrate, doctor andsenior officer of police would, without doubt or question underKongean law, have enabled immediate interment. Milversom, however,reminded his colleagues of the Kongean proverb that 'every plantingmakes a haunting'. To leave the corpse in that valley would be tomake an evil reputation worse. They slung it, therefore, in ablanket from a long bamboo and, shouldering it, marvelled at thelightness of their burden. It was little heavier than a child.
Starting at dawn they reached the Kechoba shop by three o'clock.The wagonette was there; and the body was duly taken to theTakeokuta mortuary.
Next day the four members of the search party were summoned tothe Secreta.
'The Governor wishes me to thank you for your services,' theChief Secretary told them, 'having heard the main gist of yourreport from the Commissioner of Police. His Excellency was greatlydistressed about the cat. He has come across a passage in an oldMuseum Journal which he thinks might interest you. You willfind it on the writing-table in the waiting-room, in case any ofyou would like to take a note. His Excellency has marked thepassage in pencil on page thirty-seven.'
TheMuseum Journal was that of the third quarter of 1893,and the marked passage read as follows:
...but the Kongeanaraneae have beeninsufficiently collected, and many of the museum specimens are notin a condition to ensure correct identification. One of theavicularia appears to be of a size hitherto unreported fromany tropical region; but the specimen is too disintegrated to admitof exact measurement. It may have been this species that gave riseto the legend, current within living memory among the aborigines,of man-hunting spiders. The legend is no longer heard, but theresurvives in some districts a superstition of mountain spirits thatassume a visible but impalpable arachnid form. Medicine men andwarlocks are still alluded to in such districts as 'those whobehold the eight-legged ones', and a popular but fancifulderivation of the name Nywedda is from nyiva (leg) and edda(eight). For its true derivation the reader is referred to the RevJosiah Hughson's monograph onSome Place Names in WesternKongea.
Milverson, who had been holding the book, suddenly dropped it.There had crept out on to his hand, from the hollow back-cloth, asmall but seemingly vicious grey spider.
1. Introduzione
A small party sat up in the parlour of Brindlestone Manor to seein the new year. There were five of them, three men and two women.The stillness of a windless frosty night and the warm glow of a logfire made them sleepy; yet it was only a quarter past ten.
'I vote we each tell a ghost story to keep ourselves awake,'said the youngest of the men. 'I want to practise my shorthand andI'll try jotting them down.'
The speaker was Vernon Ruthwell, recently appointed to theColonial Service and due to sail for Kongea in six weeks' time. Hisidea was to spice the routine of an administrative career withattempts at authorship. Had he not edited a college magazine andtaken English and French literature in the schools? That was why hehad during his last three vacations attended a course intypewriting and shorthand. He felt that he had it in him toobserve, describe and characterise. The other members of the partywere Vernon's paternal uncle, Philip; Aunt Susan, his wife; MissClara Godwinstowe, on a Christmas and new year visit fromTelmington; and a Mr Felworth who, having lately rented the manorcottage, had been asked out of neighbourliness to drop in for theevening. These four persons require but little introduction. PhilipRuthwell typified the moderately successful business man, with justa tinge of pomposity; Mrs Ruthwell the comfortable not over-brainywife. Miss Godwinstowe was an elderly and somewhat assertivespinster, proudly possessed of a 'psychic ego', whatever she meantby that. Readers of an earlier story may remember her as foundressof the Telmington Psychic Circle. Of Mr Felworth his presentcompanions knew little or nothing. His past history, if at allreflected in his present conversation, might have been dull. Hiscontributions to the evening's entertainment had so far been anoccasional 'yes', 'no', 'exactly' or 'quite'; a question as to whenthe church bells would be likely to start ringing; and his opinionthat it was more cheerful to hear them in company than alone.
Vernon's proposal of ghost stories, however, moved him to onefurther remark. 'You will excuse my being only a listener, I hope,'he said, 'for I always feel the telling of ghost stories to be atrifle incautious.'
'By Jove, that's a splendid introduction!' laughed Vernon.'You've certainly made your contribution, Mr Felworth. The tellingof ghost stories incautious! One couldn't improve on that. Now I'mgoing to sit at the desk with my notebook and the reading-lamp.We'll have the other lights off. There! Why the fire's burning abit blue already, isn't it? Well now; ladies first, I think; youmust start off, Aunt Susan.'
2. Andante
'I wish that you hadn't left your chair, Vernon,' complained MrsRuthwell; 'having this empty place beside me makes me feel quitecreepy,'
'Ah! that's the atmosphere we want. Now go ahead, Aunt Susan,and trot us out a real grisly.'
'Well, I can't very well do that, I'm afraid, for I've neverreally seen a ghost or anything of that sort: unless—'
'Unless what; Susan?' said her husband. 'You're not going totell us about that bedside companion, I hope.'
'Don't be foolish, Philip. Companion indeed! Why I've not seenhim more than twice. Anyhow he's the only thing in the ghost linethat I ever came across, and if you want a story from me it's gotto be him or nothing.'
'That's right, Aunt Susan,' interposed Vernon, 'go straightahead and don't mind Uncle Philip. His turn'll come next.'
'Well, it's difficult to know exactly where to begin, butlooking back now I think that it all started with a whiskyadvertisement. You probably all remember that picture of a man ingreen velvet coat, chocolate breeches, top-boots and an eyeglass.Well, the picture caught my fancy as a little girl, and I used totry to copy it in my exercise book with pencil and paint. Awfulsplodges I made, too, and I used to feel that the man in theadvertisement was laughing at them. Quite kindly, though. Then oneday I cut him out from the cover of a Christmas number, put himinto a frame and hung him on my bedroom wall. From there he seemedto smile at me more than ever. At Christmas time I would put a tuftof mistletoe or sprig of holly over him; sometimes too adaisy-chain in spring, or a rose in summer. Then, when my room wasrepapered, the frame got taken down and somehow mislaid and lost.My parents told me that anyhow I had grown too old for that sort ofpicture, and I remember that they hung up in its stead an engravingof "The Soul's Awakening!" Oh! How I hated that girl! I used oftento turn the picture back to front. Well, I suppose that I graduallyforgot about the whisky man; but several years later (I remember itwas the night before Dr Benstead's funeral) I woke up in the darkto see him sitting in the chair at my bedside; not a flat four-inchfigure as in the advertisement, but a real full-size man. Althougheverything else in the room was pitch-black, his face and bodyseemed to be in bright daylight. I could see the green of his coatand his chocolate breeches quite clearly; and somehow it all seemedquite right and natural. He was smiling at me. "Hullo Johnny," Isaid, for I always thought of him as Johnny, "How d'you do?" Withthat I held out a hand to shake his and then, as I did so, he beganto fade and melt away; not abruptly but very very quickly, and thelast thing to go was his smile. I thought afterwards of the cat'sgrin in the Alice book, but not at the time. All I was thinking ofthen was as to whether I had really been awake; but I knew that Imust have, for I had heard a clock strike three while he wassitting there, and I never hear clocks strike when I'm asleep.'
'A projected dream-image, obviously,' murmured MissGodwinstowe.
'Well,' continued Mrs Ruthwell, 'I only saw him once again, andthat was long afterwards; when I was married, I think. Why, yes, itmust have been; because I remember little Paul was on his way, andmy mother was so excited at the prospect of having a grandchild. Imust have gone down to see her without you, Philip, as I was givenmy old little single-bedded room. Well, the whisky man came and satand smiled and faded away, just as he did before. It was a Sundaynight, I remember, because we had special prayers in church thatmorning for the dedication of a stained-glass window in memory ofDr Benstead; and mother had left her glasses behind, and put alozenge into the plate in mistake for a threepenny bit. Well;there's nothing very exciting in what I've told you, I'm afraid,but that's all.'
'No, Susan,' said Miss Godwinstowe in her deep husky voice,'that can't be all. Tell us now, did you ever know Dr Bensteadpersonally?'
'Why yes, of course. He was our family doctor and such a dearman. It used to give me quite a thrill when he felt my pulse! Itwas a tragedy that he died so young, and unmarried too.'
Was he as good-looking as the whisky man, as you call him?'
'Well naturally he never dressed in a green velvet coat orchocolate breeches. He did wear an eyeglass, though, to look atone's tongue. In fact, though it's never occurred to me before, hewas rather like the whisky man. I might almost say verylike.'
'Exactly so, my dear Susan.'
'Why exactly so, Clara?'
'I'll explain to you tomorrow morning, dear, when we've got timeto ourselves. The night of the funeral and the night of thememorial service; just what I would have expected! Very natural.And now let's hear what your husband may have to tell us in the wayof a ghost story.'
3. Largo
Mr Ruthwell cleared his throat. 'I was glad,' he said, 'to hearMiss Godwinstowe, with her long experience of psychic phenomena,use the word "natural" in regard to some point or points in mywife's narrative; for I most strongly disbelieve in anythingsupernatural. Than to use such a classification it is more honestto confess that our inability to explain, or even maybe tocomprehend, certain phenomena is due to our imperfect cognition ofthe natural order. On the twin assumptions, which I predict thatscientists will sooner or later verify and confirm, thatpersonality survives physical dissolution, and that humanperception is not limited to data furnished by the five physicalsenses, all that is ignorantly termed supernatural is natural. Icannot pretend to explain what I am about to tell you, but tofuture generations it might appear a very ordinary tale.'
His wife, his nephew and Miss Godwinstowe were restive underthis prosy exordium; but they knew better than to bid Mr Ruthwellcut out the cackle and come to the horses; for, being of adisputatious bent, he would gladly have embarked on argument inpreference to narrative. Finding a minute's pause unproductive ofremark or question he cleared his throat once more andproceeded.
'As a boy I was brought up to regard talk of ghosts and theirkind as taboo; my father called it silly and my mother sinful. OurVictorianménage was certainly not such as to invitespectral visitation: everything and everybody were solid andsubstantial. Nevertheless there arose one day a topic forconversation which necessitated removal of my young brother andsister to their playroom before it could be discussed. It startedby the vicar asking my father whether he ever used the footpaththrough the churchyard and, if so, whether he had noticed a row ofheadstones to the left of it. My father had; four of them. Thevicar nodded and made some remark about the quaintness of theirdesign before passing on to other topics of parochial interest. Hestayed to dinner; and, when he rose to take his leave, my father,always ready for a short walk, said that he and I would see himpart of the way home. It was bright moonlight and, as we reachedthe graveyard, the vicar pointed with his stick at a row, ofheadstones and said "Five, you see; but I suggest that you countthem again tomorrow morning." On our way back to the house myfather was silent, which was unusual in him, and, what was stillmore unusual, said nothing to any of us at breakfast next morning;except to tell my mother that he had just been out for a stroll andwould she mind coming into the study a moment to see about orderingflower seeds?
'Later the same morning my mother asked me to walk with her tothe village. She chose the church path. As we passed through thelych gate, I saw her glance curiously to the left and then with herright forefinger touch in turn the four knuckles of her left hand.Whatever she was looking at seemed to puzzle her. Following thedirection of her eyes I noticed, to my surprise, that where lastnight there had been five headstones there were now only four. Thevicar had remarked upon the peculiarity of their design; and whathe had meant by that was now, in the daylight, plain to see. At thetop of each had been carved what presumably was meant to be an urnbut unquestionably resembled a more familiar and less ornamentalvessel. Beneath the urns, over dates of birth and death, were cutthe names of Matthew Punnings, Mark Punnings, Luke Punnings andJohn Punnings. Like my father on the previous evening, my mothermaintained an unwonted silence for the rest of our walk. She didnot even answer me when I said that one of the headstones seemed tobe missing.
'During the remainder of my Easter holidays my father made anightly excursion to the graveyard, taking a lantern with him ifthere was no moon. He was a methodical man, and I noticed on hisstudy table one day a time schedule, neatly ruled and lined, madeout for these inspections. In the right-hand column a space wasleft for daily entries. When I went back to school for the summerterm all entries up to that date consisted of the figure 5.
'My parents wrote nothing about this matter in their weeklyletter to me; but on the second day of the summer holidays therewas a sort of meeting in my father's study. The vicar was there, MrCarrowlake from the Hall, my father and mother, old Tetteridge thesexton, and a man whom I did not recognise but who turned out laterto be a monumental mason from Eaglebury. As a reward for havingbrought back with me from school a prize for English Essay I wastold that I might sit in the window seat and try my hand at jottingdown some account of what was said. My father announced hisintention of correcting it afterwards; so I had to listen withparticular attention. My opinion is that boys should be set to atask like that regularly in the course of their education; itstimulates their powers of attention and promotes accuracy.'
Mr Ruthwell paused here for a moment in the hope that one of hislisteners might combat this opinion; but, their silence remainingunbroken, he again cleared his throat and resumed his story.
'My father began proceedings by saying that their object inmeeting together that morning was to elucidate certain pointsconcerning the Punnings gravestones; and that, as Mr Smith (thatwas the monumental mason's name) wanted to get back to Eaglebury assoon as possible, they would seek his assistance first. MrPunnings, they learned from him, had ordered stones for the gravesof his five sons, who had predeceased him. Four of them, Mr Smithbelieved, had died of diphtheria or something to do with baddrains. The fifth had been a sailor and died a year or so laterdown Coastport way, the body being brought home for burial. By thattime the other four stones were nearly ready for erection, and oldMr Punnings called in at their shop and altered his order from fourto five. "I've outlived the whole bunch," he said. "They took aftertheir mother, not me. You'd better put up all five stones at thesame time, for I don't want to pay for extra cartage." Mr Smithremembered those words, for they had struck him as hard-spoken. Heremembered, too, putting up the stones himself; for he was a youngman then and sent by his father to do the outdoor jobs. The fivegraves were side by side, and he fixed a stone at the head of eachin a straight row. They weren't bad stones but spoilt, he thought,by old Mr Punnings having insisted that the urns should have onlyone handle and not show any narrowing at the base. His fatherhadn't liked doing it; but an order was an order. That was all thatMr Smith could tell; he hadn't inspected the stones since anddidn't want to, as he didn't consider them a good advertisement forhis business; for which he ended by humbly soliciting the futurepatronage of all present.
'After Smith's departure old Tetteridge was interrogated, and Ican give you what he told us in pretty well his own words; for, asyou will remember, I was taking notes of what was said. "If Ididn't know ole Punnings," he began, "I'd like to know who did! I'adn't the buryin' of 'im, though, because 'e died when visiting'is brother up in Scotland and were put to earth there. What MrSmith 'as told about them stones were true, but 'e told only 'alf.The fifth stone were the dead spit of t'other four 'cept for thename, which was Paul. But it 'adn't stood more'n a year aforePaul's widder come up out of Coastport and worrited ole Punningsfor money what to buy winter clothes with. Now ole Punnings werenever no mild-spoken man, and 'is boast 'ad always been to have got'is five sons off 'is 'ands sooner than most, so 'e flares upproper at the widder, and 'you come with me,' 'e says, 'and I'llshow you what I care for you and your dead 'un.' So 'e takes 'er upto churchyard, with a crowbar in 'is 'and; and there I seed 'im,for I was a-diggin' Mrs Purves's grave close by, lay 'old on Paul's'eadstone, wrench it sideways, push it over, and crack it in threepieces with 'is crowbar. 'Don't you go telling no tales to Parson,''e shouts to me, 'for I paid for this 'ere stone and that be what Ichoose to do with it.' Well I ain't a one to make trouble, so assoon as 'e were gone, with the widder cryin' shame on 'im and'ollerin', I tidies up the grave; and no questions arst. The piecesof the stone what 'ole Punnings 'ad broke 'll be at the bottom ofthe churchyard well, where I dropped 'em. But I reckon that sonPaul got even with 'is ole dad for what 'e'd done; 'cos most nightsarter that I spied ole Punnings walking up the church path, and onenight I follers him and sees what he seed. But I ain't a one tomake trouble and, 'cep' to say as the ten shillin' 'e offers meweren't enough, I says nothing; no, not to nobody 'cep' to young MrKirtle, what time 'e was a courtin' of Miss Apsney and 'imself seethe fifth stone. ''Tain't no ghost, Tetteridge,' 'e says to me,'for stones don't 'ave no sperrits. But there's a hinfluence'ereabout,' 'e says, 'a powerful hinfluence as makes you see whatyou doesn't.' 'Same as gin and such Hike,' I answers: but 'No,'says 'e, 'for you needn't drink no gin but the hinfluence 'ereaboutcatches you unbeknownst, same as 'ooping-cough.'"'
'It was difficult to get Tetteridge to stop, now that he had gotinto his stride; but he was silenced at last by my father's mentionof something awaiting him in a pint pot in the kitchen. Whathappened after he had gone is soon told, though there was lengthydiscussion. At the joint expense of the rector, the squire and myfather Mr Smith was commissioned to execute and erect a replica ofthe missing fifth stone; so that Paul's triumph over his father wasrendered permanent and complete.'
'Interesting, very!' Miss Godwinstowe pronounced hastily inorder to forestall any theorising on his tale by Mr Ruthwell, 'andI would much like to have had a word with Mr Kirtle. But now, MrVernon, it's your turn for a story.'
4. Scherzo
'No, no; it's your turn, Miss Godwinstowe,' objected Vernon.'Ladies first, you know, andseniores priores.'
'I always tell my stories last, selecting them with duereference to what has been previously told.'
'Oh! In that case I'll do what I'm told, but I'm afraid that mystory's a pretty rotten one. In point of fact it isn't mine at all,but one that was sent in anonymously to theCollegeMagazine. We never publish anonymous contributions, though, soI just put it by. I can read it to you with the help of this desklamp, for the writing's fairly legible. I warn you again that it'spretty rotten, but it's the best I can do, never having seen aghost myself. It's got a silly title too: "Not in these Trousers."Well, you've asked for it, you know; so here goes.
'Julian Markson was a piano tuner, whose job took himoccasionally to out of the way places. He had never been toAngerthorpe before, and was surprised to find the Three Badgers Inna good deal more comfortable than its size and remoteness wouldhave led a visitor to expect. Food and service were excellent andcharges moderate. He was sorry to be staying only one night; but hehad two pianos to tune at Wallingstoke Hall next day. Wallingstokewas three stations further down the line towards Ladderbridge,where he had booked a room in the Commercial Hotel and had severalpianos to attend to.
As he undressed that evening, Mr Markson looked approvingly atthe new suit which he was wearing for the first time. Nobody, hesaid to himself, would take it for a reach-me-down picked up at acheap sale; it fitted him to a nicety. Finding no coat-hangers inthe cupboard, and only one towel, the size of a dinner napkin, onthe towel-horse, he carefully arranged his suit on the latter; thetrousers underneath, and the coat and waistcoat on top. Then,having brushed his teeth and said a prayer (thus reversing theproverbial precedence of godliness and cleanliness), he got intobed, blew out the candle and was soon asleep. Waking later in thesmall hours he noticed that a shaft of moonlight had fallen aslantthe towel-horse. Even in this light, he thought, the trouserslooked well tailored and desirable. But what, he suddenly askedhimself, had happened to the coat and waistcoat? The answer lay ina heap on the floor—oddly, because he had taken particulartrouble over their disposition on the towel-horse. There was nowind or even draught, and he hoped that it wasn't rats. It must be,though, for there was now a slight movement in the trousers; a sortof twitching, as though they were being gradually inflated. Then tohis surprise they jauntily vaulted off the towel-horse, stood erectfor a moment, and then moved stealthily towards the door; which, heobserved, had somehow come ajar.
'Reconstructing this scene from subsequent memory Markson usedto say that his first feeling of intense uneasiness, almost offear, suddenly gave way to a sharp realisation that they were theonly trousers he had with him; and that, if they eloped, he wouldbe a semi-nudist. He leaped therefore from his bed, caught them bythe scruff of the seat as they were passing through the chink,hastily pressed them into a drawer and turned the key. In doingthis he had felt nothing tangible inside them to account for theirlocomotion. Before getting back into bed he locked into two otherdrawers his coat, waistcoat, underwear, socks and shoes, in casethey too should turn migratory. After that he tried to get to sleepagain, but found it difficult because of an intermittent rustlingnoise from the chest of drawers. This at last seemed to cease withthe faint flush of dawn, and he then enjoyed an hour or more ofdreamless repose; for he was an enviably incurious andunimaginative man.
'There appeared nothing abnormal about his clothes when he cameto dress. After shaving he sat down to breakfast and read theDaily Scene. Before the meal was finished, however, he hadan uncomfortable feeling that his trousers were being shared. "Ifelt," he used to say afterwards, "as though a lump of frogspawnhad somehow got between them and my shirt." Still, there wasnothing that he could very well do but put up with it.
'A further annoyance awaited him at the railway station. He wasstanding on the down platform when a porter remarked that the trainhad been delayed by fog up Pratford way. Even here at Angerthorpeone could hardly see the home signal. There was not a breath ofwind; but, for all that, his trouser-legs kept fluttering out andin against his calves and shin bones. A mongrel dog began to barkat this from a few yards distance, and, to disengage himself fromits attention, Markson took refuge in the general waiting-room.When at last the train arrived, and he was in the act of boardingit, a handful of coppers was whisked out of a trousers pocket, andfell tinkling between platform and footboard on to the permanentway below. "Lucky they were only coppers," Markson murmured. "Thismust be a poltergeist." He had never believed in such thingsbefore; but his suspicion increased while he was tuning theWallingstoke pianos. His work was rendered difficult by repeatedapplications of the loud and soft pedals by some agency other thanhis toe. The thing was getting really tiresome. On arrival at theLadderbridge Commercial Hotel, as he was putting down his suitcase,the turn-up of his right trouser-leg got inexplicably caught in thetap of a radiator, and nearly had him over.
'It was there, however, in the hotel vestibule, that he saw apossible means of deliverance. The premises were in the course ofredecoration. From a peg on the wall opposite the radiator hung asuit of painter's overalls. Before turning in that night he tookthese down, and slipped them into his suitcase. Having carried itto his room, and unpacked it, he used his braces to make histrousers fast to the bar at the foot of the bed. At their side heplaced, unsecured, the suit of overalls. After saying his prayers,perhaps more zealously than the night before, he set the doorslightly ajar and turned off the gas. He lay awake, watching, forperhaps an hour. It was an incandescent gas lamp, and the tiny blueflame of its lighting jet enabled him at the end of that time todiscern, though very dimly, an appearance of movement at thebed-foot. This was followed by two or three tugs at the bar; whichhe felt very distinctly. Thank heaven those braces were a strongpair! He next heard a rustling; then a scraping by the door. He lita match. The overalls had gone!
'That, so far as Markson's personal experience was concerned,was the end. Some weeks later a friend, to whom he had describedit, posted him a newspaper cutting, which may or may not be ofrelevance. It was from theLadderbridge Weekly Courier.
Nothing appears sacred to the professional clothesthief. The Marquis of Lynchester's bailiff, on unlocking the familyvault at Haddlecombe on his annual inspection, was amazed recentlyto find it the repository of a large amount of stolen apparel; muchof which has been since identified at Angerthorpe Police Station bythe rightful owners. A peculiarity of this strange find lies in theuniformity of the purloined garments, all of which, but for a pairof overalls, consist of tweed trousers. Haddlecombe Court, theancestral seat of the Wykevilles, is approached by a mile-longavenue of stalwart oaks on the south side of the mainAngerthorpe-Ladderbridge road. It is of Tudor origin with additionsin the Italianate style.
'It looks therefore as if Mr Markson's poltergeist may have beenwell connected.'
'You did perfectly right of course,' said Miss Godwinstowe, 'toreject that story for yourCollege Magazine. It's typicalfake-stuff; utterly fake.'
At this Mr Ruthwell cleared his throat ominously and was clearlyabout to stake a claim for haunted trousers in the field of futurescientific investigation, when his wife restrained him with'Tomorrow, Philip, tomorrow: it's Clara's turn now. Clara, will youbegin, dear? We're all so anxious to hear one of your genuineexperiences.'
5. Lento ma quasi drammatico
It was the dismal tradition of the Brindlestone bellringers toknell the old year out by tolling each of the eight bells insuccession during the quarter of an hour before midnight. Thismournful process had begun just as Vernon Ruthwell was finishingthe reading of his unworthy tale. The manor house stood less thantwo hundred yards from the church; so that the clang of eachbell-stroke resounded through it in uncomfortable volume. Thecompany awaiting Miss Godwinstowe's story reacted to thispunctuating din in different ways. Mr Ruthwell rose and poked thelog fire, which appeared to be dying with the old year. His wife ateach bell-stroke struck the arm of her chair with a crochet hook,and Vernon did much the same by the inkstand with his pencil. OnlyMr Felworth was moved to words. 'That's not the way to ring bells!'he exclaimed. 'The vicar or churchwardens should stop it.'
The light from Vernon's reading-lamp lay in a small circle atits foot; the rest of the room no longer had the glow of the fire.Sitting next to Miss Godwinstowe, Mrs Ruthwell could barely see herfriend's face, but just sufficiently to be sure that the eyes werefocused on the chair which Vernon had vacated between herself andMr Felworth. She wished that Clara would begin.
The remorseless tolling went on. The absence of any other soundwas becoming intolerable to one whose nerves might have been steadyenough under the smile of her 'whisky man', but were not proofagainst present suspense. Suddenly, almost savagely, she clutchedat Miss Godwinstowe's arm and gasped 'For God's sake, Clara, dobegin.' At this moment a flicker from a log, protesting against MrRuthwell's poker, shed a fleeting gleam on Miss Godwinstowe. Shewas gazing now, not at the vacant chair, but with a fixed intensityat Mr Felworth. Her response to her friend's appeal was, it seemed,deliberately belated. At least two tolls of a bell thudded on theroom before she at last broke silence, in a low slow drawl verydifferent from her accustomed incisive manner.
'This silence,' she droned; 'that bell; this surrounding gloom;those dying embers; you; I; the death of a year; all are part of mystory.'
This intelligence was neither of much consolation to MrsRuthwell nor much of an antidote to the growing impatience of herother hearers; especially as it was followed by another lapse intoonly bell-broken silence. They noticed, however, with relief, thatthe tolling was now that of the eighth and last bell. Perhaps MissGodwinstowe noticed it too; for, rising to her feet, shedramatically proclaimed in loud but deep and husky tones, 'There isno need totell my story. It is here. Look at thatchair!'
To which chair Miss Godwinstowe commanded their attention isdoubtful; but all four fixed their eyes on the empty one, as ifexpecting someone or something to materialise in its vacuum. She,however, continued to stare unblinkingly at that in which MrFelworth sat, or rather at the sitter himself.
It was on a party posed in these unusual attitudes that thebright light from the ceiling lamps fell when Vernon switched themon, on hearing the midnight chime. They remained thus, like sometableau vivant, while listening to the church clock boomtwelve. Then, when the full peal fell jangling on the night, thespell was broken and Mr Felworth rose to take his leave.
'Well, I'm afraid I must be going now. Thank you so much, MrsRuthwell, for asking me round. Good night, and a happy new year toyou all.'
As the door closed on him Miss Godwinstowe heaved a sigh. 'Poorman, poor man,' she said, 'I felt, Iknew, that he saw whathe will never, never, forget!'
'Oh Clara dear,' half-sobbed Mrs Ruthwell, 'how wonderful youare. What can it be that he has seen?'
'If there had been anything visible,' Mr Ruthwell objected, 'wewould have seen it too. We possess eyes, I believe. Our visitorappeared perfectly composed when he left us; rather sleepy in fact.Where has our nephew gone to?'
Vernon, who had seen Mr Felworth off from the front door, hadgone to fetch something from his bedroom and now reappeared as ifin answer to his uncle's question. Switching off the lights oncemore as he entered the room, he groped his way to his empty chairin the circle and from there to the desk where his notes laybeneath the reading-lamp.
'I was saying,' Miss Godwinstowe addressed him, 'that MrFelworth saw something tonight that he will never, neverforget.'
'Really? Where?'
Miss Godwinstowe's reply was delivered in her eeriest tone.'There,' she droned. 'There in that chair—the one that youpassed by just now. I have a feeling that something is hanging overit still!'
'I believe that Miss Godwinstowe speaks truly,' Vernon said withimitation of her Sibyllic manner. 'I have just brought my electrictorch down and will flash it across the affected area. Maybe thatshe will see there whatshe will never, never forget.'
The next moment she did see; nor will she ever forget. Somethingdid hang over the chair. A pair of trousers.
1
Eustace Amberlake inherited money at an early age. Not a largefortune, but seven or eight hundred a year spelled independence andcomfort for a young man of studious habit and inexpensive pursuits.The legacy was from a bachelor uncle who, impressed by Eustace'swinning a scholarship at Ruggenham, and later at St Peter's,Oxford, hoped that the family name, hitherto undistinguished, mightbe writ by his nephew on some page of future history. Eustace wasstill at Oxbridge when his uncle died. He took first-class honoursin history, but failed to take the Porthill prize, for which histutors had backed him as a certain winner. It went to his collegefriend Terence Terrison. Amberlake was a year senior to 'Terrie,but from the day of their first meeting the two young men wereinseparable. On moving out of college they shared lodgings; and,after leaving the university, set up house together in a Londonsuburb. Terrison daily travelled thence to Fleet Street, where aminor post had been found for him on the staff of theRecorder through the influence of a large shareholder, afriend of his father's.
Content with his private means, Amberlake did not look for ajob, but chose, as he put it, to round off his education. Heattended concerts and lectures, and visited art galleries andexhibitions. At the Acropolis Club he made the acquaintance of anumber of interesting people. They found in him a pleasant enoughfellow, knowledgeable but unassertive.
At the end of three years Terrison received an increase ofsalary sufficient to enable him, too, to join a club; so Amberlakeput him tip for the Acropolis. The date of his election happened tobe also t hat of the publication of his first novel,Cain'sSacrifice. It was well reviewed, and became widely read.Terrison was thus on the march, while his friend continued to marktime. There was no sign in Amberlake of discontent with a life ofdoing what he fancied when he chose, or of inclination tosupplement his income by taking up work. 'A sensible chap,' saidhis friends. 'Why bother about getting a job if you haven't gotto?' There was one thing about him, however, that began to bore. Hewas for ever talking of Terrie, and bragging about Terrie'ssuccess. So different from Terrison himself, who was modestypersonified; never mentioning his articles or books, though theywere frequently the subject of club discussion. One might almosthave supposed that it was Amberlake who had written them! Heresented Cliverton's criticism of the plot of Terrison'sRedRage, and, as a consequence of his perpetual harping uponTerrison's literary work, and touchiness if it were criticised,people began to avoid conversation with him. Most of his friendshad soon become also Terrison's friends, and they were annoyed byhis assumption of the rôle of a Boswell. They wondered indeedat Terrison's ability to continue living with such a monopolisticand proprietary bore. Many suspected that there must be somefinancial explanation of it. But there they were wrong. Terrisonnever borrowed from his friend, and scrupulously paid his fullshare of joint expenses.
The five novels written by Terrison, over as many years, showincreasing powers of imagination and description. The style isdistinctive, without being affected. The fourth, which has alreadygone through many editions, may perhaps find a permanent place inEnglish fiction; but nobody can foretell the taste of posterity.After it there cameAmberlake, with its laudatory dedication'To my old friend Eustace'. To everyone's surprise Amberlakeappeared far from appreciative of the honour done him. 'Amberlake,'in the book, is the name of a moorland village, and Eustace washeard to complain that a liberty had been taken with, rather thanhonour paid to, his patronymic.
This complaint was not taken too seriously, for Amberlake at thetime was a sick and nervy man. The doctors suspected a duodenalulcer, or something worse. He had bouts of severe pain, sleptbadly, and found fault with everyone and everything. Placed on astrict diet, he was eventually ordered to the seaside by hisdoctor. Funtingham-on-sea was the chosen resort; and thither thefaithful Terrison repaired every weekend to be with him.
Then the quite unexpected happened. Amberlake began to recoverwith remarkable rapidity: Terrison to show signs of ill health. Inspite of it, however, he persisted in his weekend visits toFuntingham, even during a January which the newspapers declared thebitterest for twenty years. Travelling back to London at thebeginning of February, in an unheated railway carriage, he caught achill; was in a high fever for five days; developed pneumonia; anddied on the following Sunday. He was only thirty-four.
Amberlake, contrary to expectation, was well enough to attendthe funeral. Arriving at the cemetery too late for the chapel partof the service, he found himself in the extreme rear of theprocession to the grave. The few people who recognised him made wayfor him to pass, but to the majority he was unknown. Through themhe elbowed his way, as though he were in a football crowd; theywondered how he could behave so at a funeral. Having reached thegrave-side he attracted further attention, after the closingbenediction, by picking up a clod of clay and shying, rather thandropping, it on top of the coffin. This done, he made off withoutgreeting, or apparently recognising, any of his acquaintances. Atthe Acropolis next day it was agreed that Amberlake's behaviourmust have reflected some derangement of mind at his friend's death.Cliverton therefore felt it his duty to visit him and see whetherhe could be of any assistance. What Amberlake then told him was ofso unusual a nature that, at Amberlake's own suggestion, he madenotes of it. These notes, which were in dialogue form, arereproduced below with but few omissions.
2
Amberlake: The first time I set eyes on Terrison was atmorning prayers in the college chapel. As a scholar, I sat in oneof the stalls; and, happening to glance during theVenite atthe stall immediately to my left, I saw him looking at me. He toowas a scholar, but a year junior to me. I noticed at once his darkpiercing eyes and full red lips. You must have noticed them too,for they never changed.
Cliverton: I can't say that I ever did. His looks struckme as rather ordinary, but quite pleasant.
A.: Ah! then he can never have looked at you like he usedto look at me. The moment I saw those eyes fixed on me in chapelthat morning I felt as though something were being drawn out of me;sucked out. I very nearly fainted during the psalms. Yet, afterchapel, I found myself going up to him, asking his name, andinviting him to come round to my rooms for tea that afternoon.Somehow I felt that he had dragged something out of me that I mustget back as soon as possible. I was a fool not to realise that Iwould be jumping from the frying-pan into the fire! He came to tea,of course; and, sitting opposite me, just sucked, and sucked, andsucked.
C.: Sucked what?'
A.: Me; what else? Sucked me like an orange.
C.: You talk as if he had been a sort of vampire.
A.: Precisely; so you have noticed his lips and eyes,though perhaps subconsciously. I felt sure that you must have.Well, I simply couldn't keep away from him. He drew me to him likea magnet—no, not a magnet, for a magnet doesn'tsuck—like a leech, or the tentacle of an octopus. Oh! it washorrible, day after day! And yet, somehow, I was fascinated by hisattention, and did my utmost to invite it. I liked at first toimagine that he wasn't really getting anything out of me; but myeyes were rudely opened when he carried off the Porthill prize.Never thanked me either; not a word.
C.: Never thanked you for what?
A.: For all that he wrote in the exam. papers. All, thatis, except for his beastly name at the top.
C.: You mean to tell me that he cribbed?
A.: No; nothing so honest and above-board as cribbing.There was nothing in my papers worth cribbing; he'd sucked mybrains drybefore the exam. If they set such and such aquestion, he used to ask me, what would be the right answer? Well,I would try to tell him; and so, when the exam. came, his brain wasfull and mine empty.
C.: But why empty? Talking over a subject doesn't emptyone's brain of it.
A.: Not if you talk with an ordinary person; but it was adifferent matter talking with Terrison. After half an hour of hisquestions I would feel quite limp and sucked out. I just couldn'tcollect my thoughts, afterwards, about anything he had questionedme on.
C.: Did you ever tell him so?
A.: Good heavens, no! I had too much self-respect. Toomuch pride, if you will; for I liked having him come to me as thepossessor of superior intellect. I wanted him to need me. Moreover,my disappointment at not winning the Porthill didn't last long, andI began to see my position in a new light. Terrison was dependentonme: he was no more than a marionette, or aventriloquist's dummy. All his movements weremy movements;his wordsmy words. Reading his articles and books I beganto recognise them as essentially mine. I started therefore to takea pride in my lay figure. I possessed and manipulated him to adegree never attained by parent over child, or teacher overstudent. In everything he wrote I caught the vivid reflection ofsomething that I had said to him. He was just pen, ink and paper: Iwas the writer. Pretty good stuff, too, I was turning out throughhis agency. I loved to hear it discussed and appreciated at theAcropolis. Those first three novels were fine! I had no idea Icould be so attractive and interesting. For two years, or more, Iwas a happy Narcissus.
C.: And then? What are you pausing for?
A.: Because I can hardly bring myself to tell of it.Terrie rebelled. He began not to reflect, but to distort me. It washorrible! It started over a very small matter. You may have noticedmy fondness for proverbs: real proverbs, not these slick modernaphorisms and paradoxes. Well, Terrison was writing a fortnightlycauserie in theParnassus, and I told him to take someproverb as a headline, or text, for each instalment. He asked forsome specimens, and I gave him half a dozen or so. Imagine then mydisgust when I found that he had not cited, but parodied, them.
C.: Parodies of proverbs? How do you mean?
A.: I can remember only two: 'Imitation is the flattestform of sincerity' and 'Invention is the mother of necessities.'Both vulgar: and neither, I should say, original. I told him thatthey were utterly cheap.
C.: And what did he say to that?
A.: That to hear me talk anybody might suppose that I,not he, had been commissioned to write the articles. I didn'tbother to argue the point with him, as I had no reason then toanticipate any further lapse. It came, though, and in a seriousconnection; for it had to do with religion. I had recently writtena letter to theRecorder, about the objectionable practiceof setting up images in professedly Anglican churches; and I wasexpecting an allusion to it in Terrison'sParnassuscauserie. Instead of that, I was amazed to read some lines over hisname that could only be interpreted asin support ofimages.
C.: Lines did you say? I didn't know that Terrison everwrote verse.
A.: He couldn't. You see, I'm no poet. He never wroteanything worth while that wasn't really, if indirectly, mine. I'vegot the lines here and will read them. Mere doggerel, as you'llsee.
Tell me, Madonna robed in blue,
What can these candles mean to you
Greasily guttering,
The shrine sill cluttering,
Winking up at you
From under your statue?
No less acceptable, better or worse
Is litten dip than written verse;
Orisons uttering,
Litanies muttering,
Why make men scandal
Of praying by candle?
Spirit need never be slave to tongue,
Muscle will pray when the bell is swung.
Gift-blossoms fluttering,
Votive wicks spluttering
Are prayers from the hand
That I well understand.
There! What do you think of that?
C.: A Protestant aesthete's apologia. No Catholic wouldhave written it.
A.: I don't know about that. Silly popish stuff I callit, and said as much to Terrison. I let him have it absolutelystraight. All his successful writing, I pointed out, had beenreally mine; and I rated him very little higher than my fountainpen. I didn't mince words.
C.: And what did he say?
A.: Made a pretence of thinking that I joked. Then, whenI assured him that I was very far from it, he said something abouthis gratitude to me for various suggestions I had made; and that itwas a source of inspiration to an author to live with a man ofideas. He proposed to dedicate his next novel to me, and to give itmy name; all this in a patronising tone that made me wild. Heseemed incapable of understanding that he was a mere tool. I camevery near to hitting him; but somehow felt too weak. So thatwretched book Amberlake came out; and I realised at once on readingit that the end was come. The vital juice in it had been sucked outof me; but dished up with futilities of his own or of somebodyelse's. I simply wasn't going to stand for it any further; and, bya stroke of good luck, I was taken seriously ill soon afterAmberlake's publication.
C.: How was it good luck?
A.: Why, can't you see? He was for ever sucking at mythoughts and ideas, so I set my mind to dwell on nothing else butmy illness; and on the fear of impending death. The result,naturally, was that I recovered and that he died. He sucked themortality out of me into himself, and so came to his just end.
C.: My dear Amberlake, I don't believe one single word ofwhat you say. I should consult a specialist, if I were you, oryou'll end your days in an asylum.
A.: That's just where you're wrong. I shall end my daysas a distinguished author. I intend in future to do my writing formyself. Just you wait and see.
3
Hildebrand Quarley, who reviewed books for theSundayRecorder, was a member of the Acropolis and did the bulk of hisreading in its library. A strict rule of silence obtained there;but on his way up or down the stairs to it he was continuallybuttonholed by Amberlake. There seemed no eluding him, and neithersnub nor remonstrance kept him at bay. The purpose of hisattentions was apparently to extract from the reviewer his opinionson a number of points in Terrison's novels. Would a posthumousnovel prove a success?
'How can I possibly say?' Quarley exclaimed impatiently. 'Itwould depend on the novel. Terrison's authorship would undoubtedlypredispose people favourably towards it.'
'But suppose it were published over another name?'
'Then it wouldn't be greeted as a posthumous novel by Terrison.It might not find a publisher.'
'Not even if it were by the man who wrote all Terrison?'
'I'm sorry, but I don't understand you; and I've got to catch atrain. Good evening.'
The morning after this conversation Amberlake received, fromsomebody signing as 'Secretary', a letter informing him that MrQuarley felt it incompatible with his position as a book-reviewerto enter into discussions concerning an author's work during hisvisits to the Acropolis Club. He would therefore be under thenecessity of abstaining from further conversation with a memberwho, to his surprise and regret, had made repeated attempts to leadhim into such discussion. The effect of this letter was to divertAmberlake's conversational gambits towards other members of theAcropolis. They understood him to say that he had found thetypescript of an unfinished novel by Terrison; that he himself hadbeen the real writer; and was now finishing it for publicationunder his own name. It seemed a queer project; but then there wasno getting away from the fact that Amberlake had become queer.Nobody now paid much attention to him or his intentions.
Except Cliverton. That talk with Amberlake after Terrison'sfuneral had left Cliverton thoroughly uncomfortable. Ought he totell anybody about it? Amberlake's obsession, he argued to himself,could have been of danger or injury only to Terrison. Terrison wasdead; the obsession was therefore now harmless. Things could safelybe left to run their course without interference by him.
It was in the evening of a day in mid June that Cliverton foundhimself in the same carriage as Amberlake on the Underground.'Hullo! Been watching the cricket?' he asked.
'No, just coming back from my gloaming gloat.'
'Gloaming gloat?'
'Yes, I often run up to the cemetery of an evening; to enjoy alook at his grave.'
Cliverton's frown expressed incredulity and disgust.
'Really, Amberlake,' he said, 'you're indulging your morbidfancies too far. Anyhow, there's one thing I'm glad of. You can'treally have believed in Terrison as a vampire, if you hang abouthis grave at sundown.'
'Vampire was your expression, not mine. What has it got to dowith cemeteries? Blood-sucking bats, aren't they?'
'I suggest you look up vampire in any encyclopaedia, and you'llsee. By Jove, this is my station! So good night; and do, for God'ssake, put all this nonsense about Terrison out of your head.'
That was the last that Cliverton ever saw of Amberlake. Twoevenings later he was dead of heart failure—at the foot ofTerrison's grave.
An inquest was held. Cliverton, having time on his hands thatday, attended it. There was only one other deponent besides thedoctor. He was an assistant schoolmaster, and had been placingflowers on his mother's grave when he noticed the deceased jabbing,with a wooden stake, at the middle of a recently filled grave. Itlooked to him like wanton desecration. So, walking up to thedeceased (who went on jabbing at the grave with his back to him),he shouted 'Hi! What do you think that you are doing there?' Thedeceased jerked his head round; glared at him with starting eyes;tottered backwards, and fell prostrate on the grave. Raising him hefound the body quite lifeless; so he propped it against atombstone, and ran to the cemetery caretaker's lodge forassistance. From there they telephoned to the nearest doctor, whowas round in less than fifteen minutes. That was all that theassistant master had to say.
Cliverton heard very little of it, for he was looking ratherthan listening. The witness's personal appearance had startled him.The eyes were dark and piercing, the lips red and full. Yes, andthe features bore a distinct resemblance to those of the lateTerence Terrison.
1
Mr Ridley Prandell's success as a barrister is of relevance tothis story only to the extent that it enabled him to retire atsixty, and to buy the old mill-house at Boldrington. A childlesswidower, without near relations, he was considered unwise by hisLondon friends to throw up work so early and bury himself in thecountry. He knew, however, what he wanted. Boldrington is but amile or two from the Royal Southshire golf course, and less thanfive from Smallhaven, where he kept a small yacht on the Davenestuary. The house had a good garden, and there were trout in themill-stream and pond. The mill barn he converted into a library,music room and workshop. Electric light and central heating wereinstalled. The new home was, in short, a materialisation of hispast dreaming.
Prandell soon made friends with the Kerringtons at BoldringtonHall. Sir Dudley, a man of much his own age, was the best shot inthe neighbourhood, an authority on the culture of rhododendrons anda regular contributor to the journal of the Southshire AntiquarianSociety. Lady Kerrington spent most mornings of her week inparochial good works, and most afternoons on golf. She playedagainst Mr Prandell every Wednesday. After one of these encounters,in July 1913, she gave him a lift back in her car, and persuadedhim to stay on at the Hall for an alfresco supper on the terrace.Sir Dudley had been reading and writing there, and by him on agarden seat lay a pile of journals and loose papers. Theconversation at supper consequently took a turn towards matters ofSouthshire history.
'My husband,' Lady Kerrington explained, 'is doing some researchinto parish records and traditions. Quite a lot appears to havehappened in Boldrington, though nobody has ever written aboutit.'
'Yes, I'm writing a little monograph for the vicar. He wants toplace copies for sale in the church, in aid of the belfry repairfund. The pamphlet's going to be longer than I intended, I fear,for I've unearthed so many little items of interest. By the way,Prandell, were your forebears by any chance natives of Boldringtonor Knapton?'
'Well, I rather fancy that they did belong to these parts: atleast I've heard my father suggest so. Our ancestry isn't at alldistinguished, and the family had never bothered about genealogy.That we have risen from the peasantry is certain, because an oldfellow who married my grandfather's sister was ostracised by hisrelations for marrying beneath him. He too, I believe, livedsomewhere on this side of the county. Bedsock; no, Ledsock; is thatthe name of a place?'
'Could his name have been Longbottom?'
'Why yes; however did you know? Yes, of course it was, becausethe family always spoke of him as old—'
'What a lovely sunset sky!' exclaimed Lady Kerrington, risingfrom her seat; 'but this drought is getting serious. I must go andwater those phloxes. So I'll leave you two to your talk for a fewminutes. You can tell me later, Dudley, what it's all about.'
'I have been looking through the church registers,' resumed SirDudley as his wife vanished behind the espaliers, 'and the twocommonest names in them are Perrandale, Prandell, Prendall orPrandle, and Farribal, Farball, Farble or Fribble. As you know,people took liberties with the spelling of their surnames in timegone by. Well, one of the entries related to the marriage ofSusanna Perrandale to John Jeremy Longbottom in 1841, their bannshaving been read in Boldrington and Ledsock churches. Can youremember your great-aunt's name.'
'Yes, that must have been Aunt Sue all right: and a vixenish oldlady she was too, from all accounts. How strange my settling downin the old family haunt without knowing it!'
'Very strange. Your distant cousins here must be legion, foreverybody seems connected with either the Perrandales or theFarribals. But never with both. I wonder whether you've yet comeacross the local superstition about people being touched, as theycall it?'
Prandell looked at his host uncomprehendingly.
'No. I can see that you haven't. It's a silly idea to have gotabroad and it's all mixed up with an old feud between those twofamilies. No Perrandale has ever married a Farribal or vice versa.They never vote the same way at elections, or at village meetings.My wife is in despair about getting the people to pulltogether.'
'What reason is there for the feud?'
'Oh! each of the two families seems to have laid the other undera curse. No Perrandale will take the bridle-path to Knapton afternightfall, and no Farribal that footway to the north of the villagegreen. They're frightened of being "touched", they say.'
'Touched by what?'
'Heaven only knows; I'm neither a P. nor an F., and notqualified therefore to find out. Perhaps you'll experience it oneday! If you do, don't forget to give me particulars for mention inmy monograph.'
'Certainly I will: but I don't believe in that sort ofthing.'
'Neither do I, yet one never knows!'
2
Mr Prandell had come to Boldrington with his mind made up toavoid participation in local affairs, as likely to encroach toomuch on the leisure of retirement. He was not therefore acquiescentwhen Stephen Perrandale, proprietor of the Boldrington Stores,called at the mill with a request that he would fill a place on thecommittee of the Recreation Club.
'Well, Sir, it seems as if you won't, and as Parson will; and hea Farribal on his mother's side. It'll be the first time that wePerrandales take second place at the club. I guess that Sir Dudleymay have been mistaken in what he told me and that you're not ofour old Perrandale stock. You can walk the path to Knapton withouttaking hurt, I reckon.'
Mr Prandell looked at him inquisitively.
'We never tell about the touching, not to strangers; but if yoube really one of us, Sir, just you take a stroll there one eveningand you'll need no telling.'
Mr Prandell, although loath to admit it even to himself, wascurious. He had heard often enough of people seeing, hearing orsensing unaccountable things; but never before had he come acrossany suggestion of a tactual impact of the invisible on the mundane.It was a novel idea to him; and by tea-time, sceptic though he was,he had half made up his mind to submit it to experiment. The Julyday had been insufferably hot. He had spent the morning andafternoon reading in a deck-chair on the lawn; and a walk in thecool of the evening would afford him needful exercise. Though hehad never yet been along the Knapton bridle-path, a full moon wouldenable him to find his way along it even towards midnight. That wasthe hour when, according to common report, immaterial agencies weremost operative.
Between tea and dinner he wrote letters; and at dinner dippedinto a book, as usual, to prevent himself from eating too quickly.He had meant to pick his Pope out of the hall bookshelf; but, onpropping the volume against a stand in front of his soup plate, hefound that he had taken Poe's Tales by mistake. Never mind; he hadnot read Poe for a long time, and would refresh his memory of theFall of the House of Usher. The meal was a light one,suitable to the sultry weather. With dessert he drank a glass ofclaret, and afterwards lit a cigar. Then, going into the study, hegave an hour and a half to the daily papers and a monthlyreview.
By now he was not somehow looking forward to his walk with muchzest. Pope, he felt, would have been a pleasanter dinner companionthan Edgar Allan Poe. However, what he had read, he had read: andhe had better be starting off; for the clock said half-past ten,and it was three miles by the road to Knapton and two back by thebridle-path. So he set out.
As he approached Knapton the daylight was failing rapidly. Whowas it that wrote 'Layer on layer the night came on'? He couldn'tremember. It was a true description though. Ah, yes! Calverley.Moonlight reinforcing the western glow enabled him to read withoutdifficulty the lettering on the finger post, BRIDLE-PATH TOBOLDINGTON. Something appeared to be scribbled beneath in blackchalk or pencil; so, putting on his glasses, he went up closer toexamine.'Forbidden to Perrandales after sundown.' Thatsuperstition, then, was well enough known in Knapton for somevillage wit to make joke of it!
He found nothing at all sinister about the path for the firsthalf-mile. A warm scent of meadowsweet floated from the ditches oneither side, and at one point he stood still for a few momentslistening to a tawny owl. Had Shakespeare been truthful indescribing that as 'a merry note'? He was not sure. It was merrierthough than this silence in the leafy tunnel through Gravely Wood;so he began to hum and whistle. Here the moonlight, filteringthrough hazels, made a silver-black tapestry of the mould beneath;but did not illuminate the path sufficiently for him to see thetufts of grass or small bushes that kept scraping his ankles, orcatching in the turn-ups of his trousers. Strange, he thought, thata well-trodden track between two villages should be soovergrown.
Further on there seemed to be roots or creepers as well as tuftsand bushes. He tripped more than once. Ah! that last one nearly hadhim over! Well, he was out of the wood now, and traversing thenarrow causeway through the Boldring water-meadows. From eitherside there rose to his ears a syncopated antiphon of frogs; but hewas looking rather than listening; looking, intently, at themoonlit surface of the causeway. It was level and almost grassless.Yet he still felt himself trudging through scrub and, here andthere, brambles. His ankles were not merely brushed, but pricked.The loud hollow thud of his boots on the bridge over Boldring Brookshowed that its planks were as bare as they looked; but in themiddle of the bridge his feet caught an unevenness. He savedhimself from a fall by grabbing and gripping the handrail.
Some thirty yards beyond the bridge there is a small brickculvert over a backwater. Just before he reached it, hiswalking-stick seemed to get entangled in some growth and wastwisted out of his hand. He heard it splash into the side drain,but rapidly decided not to try to retrieve it in the dark. Over theculvert itself, where the path showed white and smooth in themoonshine, he hurried forward, only to bark his shin against whatfelt like a fallen branch. Starting aside, he must have misjudgedhis distance, for he fell knee-deep into the backwater. There was aburst of bubbles and a stench of mud and pondweed as he clamberedup the bank. Then, suddenly, all his senses became fixed in oneurgent sensation: that of dashing along the path as fast as leg andlung would take him. There had been no decision on his part to run.He just ran, lifting his knees as high as if his way led throughheather or bracken. And so to the junction with the main road,where he leaned against the sign-post, gathering breath andwits.
For the remainder of the walk he reasoned with himself. Not verytruthfully at first; for he began by taking credit for his goodsense in running, after getting his feet wet. By the time, however,that he unlatched his front door he was in a mood to own himself aPerrandale, and to make his confession to Sir Dudley at the Hallnext morning. He had been 'touched'.
3
On arrival at the Hall, Mr Prandell found himself not the onlycaller. The vicar was there already, engaged in animatedconversation with Sir Dudley, when the footman ushered him in. TheReverend Samuel Leslicote needed no introduction to him, for theyhad exchanged calls and met several times.
'You may remember, Prandell,' Sir Dudley began as they tooktheir seats, 'my mentioning to you a local superstition aboutmembers of the Perrandale and Farribal families being liable towhat is called "touching". You looked a bit incredulous, I thought,but the vicar here, whose mother was a Farribal, will tell you, ashe has just been telling me, that he has been "touched"—andan unpleasant experience too, I gather! Perhaps you, being alawyer, will want to cross-examine him before accepting histestimony.'
'Unnecessary, Sir Dudley. In point of fact I've just called into tell you that I myself have been touched.'
'What!' ejaculated the vicar and Sir Dudley in unison.
'Yes, and an unpleasant experience, too, as you have justremarked. Perhaps the vicar and I might exchange and compare notesof what it was like.'
'Yes, please do so,' Sir Dudley requested; 'I shall be a mostinterested listener.'
Prandell's experience has already been related. The vicar's hadbeen of a more summary sort. He was at a meeting of the RecreationClub committee, when the new schoolmaster brought up a proposalabout female membership. Argument ran high, and at a quarter beforemidnight the debate had to be adjourned until their next meeting.On his way home the vicar heard the church clock strike twelve ashe strode along the gravel path on the north side of the villagegreen. Just as he was passing the pink may tree, planted there whenthey removed the old stocks and whipping-post, he felt a suddenstinging lash across the shoulder blades, followed quickly byanother on the buttocks. He did not wait for a third. He had been asprinter, he said, at school, but never made a spurt equal to thatwith which he reached the vicarage gate. He was still feeling thesmart of the two lashes, and quickly undressed that he might seewhat mark they had left. There was none. No weal, no redness,nothing at all. By the time he had read his compline, the smartingsensation had gone. That was all; but to his taste more thanenough. He felt sorry now that he refused once to listen to whatold Obadiah Farble had wanted to tell him. His reason had been thathe thought it a parson's duty to turn a deaf ear to idlesuperstition.
Sir Dudley jotted down a few notes of both narrations.
'What you have both been describing,' he said, 'supports whatwas told me by Elihu Tampson up at the forge. He got it as a boyfrom his grandfather. Most of the story is still apparently currenthere, and in Knapton too, though more than a century and a halfold. It happened, Tampson says, "in the year when many innocentpeople were robbed of their birthdays by Parliament". That ofcourse makes it 1752, when the calendar was reformed and Septemberthe 3rd became September the 14th. History books, you willremember, tell us that the alteration led to complaints by theignorant that they were being cheated out of eleven days of theirmortal span. Well, in the summer of that year a quarrel arose aboutthe rights over the Boldring water-meadows. They were unenclosed atthat period, and the present channel hadn't yet been dug, thestream wandering about where all those stretches of backwater stilllie. The dispute was over pasturage. One evening the Farribals ofKnapton Surrey, and the Perrandales of Little Boldring turned theircattle simultaneously into the meadows. The cows got mixed up,ownership was contested, and next day there were all the makings ofa free fight. The Perrandales stood on one side of the stream andthe Farribals on the other. Stones and sticks began to be thrown;and at this juncture old Ebenezer Farribal, well on in hiseighties, hobbled to the scene and urged his men to throw thetrespassers out then and there. He was in the middle of hisharangue when a great clod of mud and clay, hurled from thePerrandale side, caught him full on the forehead and laid him flaton his back. Being very old, I don't suppose that his heart was toogood; anyhow he couldn't rise to his feet. Propped up by his men ina sitting position he proceeded to pronounce what he called hisdying curse on the Perrandales. What the curse may have been no oneknows. Tampson's grandfather told him that the Bible itselfcouldn't have said it stronger. Itwas a dying curse, too;for, although they got the old man on to a hurdle and carried himhome, he never uttered again and died that night. The effect of hiscollapse had been to stay the fight, but feeling naturally ran highbetween the two sides. The Farribals indeed were not content toleave vengeance to the operation of a curse. Within a few weeks aninformation was laid against a Perrandale lad that he had stolenfowls. Whether the accusation was true or not, there were Farribalwitnesses in plenty to support it; and the boy received twelvelashes at the whipping-post at Boldrington Green. His grandmotherlay at that time on her deathbed, and once again dying words tookthe form of a curse, this time against the Farribals. The feudbetween the two families has persisted ever since; so too has abelief in the operation of both curses by what they call"touchings". That was what Elihu Tampson told me, and what you twohave described this morning seems corroborative.'
'It's got to be stopped,' the vicar exclaimed.
'What has?'
'This rankling of a family feud. I shall do some plain speakingfrom the pulpit on Sunday; and on Monday, which is August bankholiday, you will both perhaps help me get up village sports on thegreen and a tea picnic afterwards on the water-meadows. You will?Thank you; that's settled then. I'll get busy with preliminaryarrangements straight away. Josiah Farribal and Moses Perrandalewill be in church on Sunday and, when they've heard what I'm goingto say, they'll get busy too. People will probably think me a bittouched. Well, they'll be right; I have been!'
4
The vicar's address will be remembered. Its efficacy wasattested by Josiah Farribal and Moses Perrandale shaking hands inthe vestry after service.
Mr Leslicote began by giving a terse account of his and MrPrandell's experiences. Whether real or imaginary, he said, theyhad the practical value of focusing attention on a state of affairsthat must be put an end to. A house divided against itself couldnot stand. Boldrington must cease to be such a house. He thereforeurged all his parishioners to meet together on the morrow's holidayat a sports meeting and picnic, which were being arranged. Theycould dissolve past rancour in present amity. At the beginning ofthe sports, and again at the picnic, he would ask all present tojoin in saying the Lord's Prayer. If they did that meaningly itwould certainly destroy the potency of any curse that might stillhang over place or people as a result of past discord.
Sports and picnic were both greatly enjoyed. Three Sundays laterbanns were published between Mark Horatio Perrandale, winner of thehundred yards, and Caroline Jane Farribal, second in the egg andspoon race. Immediately after the Amen to the Lord's Prayer at thepicnic there had been cries of 'Snike! Snike!' and an adder wasscotched at the side of the bridle-path culvert. 'There dies thecurse,' everybody said.
There have indeed been no more touchings in Boldrington since;unless a literal meaning be attached to the vicar's remark thatwhenever he passes the pink may tree he feels gently patted on theback.
1
'We must give him a name associated with the family; none ofyour fancy names!'
'Associated withyour family, I suppose you mean. Whataboutmine?'
'He can have two names, one from my family and one from yours.What's wrong with Ronald Austin?'
'Nothing, dear; but somehow I'd set my heart on Derek.'
'Derek be damned! He'll be Ronald Austin. He couldn't have hadmore respectable grandfathers to be named after.'
This conversation was between Mr and Mrs Transome, with thesubject of the controversy sleeping in a cot beside them. Thesubject was not mentioned again until Uncle Charles, chosen to begodfather, counselled the dropping of one of the two names or theaddition of a third. This he did not do until the eleventh hour,just before they were to set out for the christening.
'Nonsense!' retorted Mr Transome. 'One name's too few andthree's too many. What's the matter with Ronald Austin,Charles?'
'He won't be Ronald Austin only; he'll be Ronald AustinTransome—R.A.T. He'll be nicknamed "Rat", sure as nuts.'
'I don't see why. Does he look like a rat?'
Uncle Charles looked down on the cot, and appeareduncomfortable. He was a truthful man.
Mrs Transome's entry into the room at this moment made itunnecessary for him to reply. 'It's time,' she said, 'we got off tochurch. The carriage has been waiting at the door for nearly tenminutes. Nanny, you go first and be careful to tuck the shawl wellround Baby. Yes; that's right. There's quite a cold windtoday.'
Uncle Charles's mind still dwelt on his talk with hisbrother-in-law, when the clergyman startled him with the command'Name this child.' Horrified to hear himself mutter 'Rat', hehurriedly tacked on to the monosyllable a paroxysm of coughingbefore pronouncing a stentorian 'Ronald Austin'. Ronald Austin,therefore, the live part of the little bundle in the vicar's armsduly became. Nevertheless the prelude to Uncle Charles's fit ofcoughing had been heard by two people. At tea that afternoon thevicar remarked to his wife that he had come perilously near tobaptizing a rat, and Nanny regaled the Transomes' domestic staffwith a description of Mr Charles'slapsus linguae. Caroline,the cook, and Mrs Vicar were, at different social levels, notoriousdisseminators of gossip, so that within a fortnight from hischristening Master Ronald Austin Transome was known throughout Eastand West Cattleton as the 'rat baby'. On his emergence from infancythis was changed to 'the little rat boy', and eventuallyabbreviated to 'the rat'.
Mr Transome did not come to hear of the appellation until hisson was nearly four. The gardener had been showing Ronald how tobait a mousetrap; the little fingers got pinched in the process,but Ronald did not cry. He saw how to lift the spring and pulledthem out. Mr Transome coming up at this moment heard old Haskinsgive vent to his admiration with 'Ah! the Rat be a rare youngsport, and no mistake!'
'The rat, Haskins? Where is it? Why, that's only amousetrap.'
'Beg pardon, Sir, for having said as I oughtn't. But we callsour young master 'ere the Rat, sort of affectionate-like; and Ididn't mean no 'arm by it, for a rare young sport 'e be. Takingafter 'is dad, Sir, I reckon.'
'Ah, well!' said Mr Transome, mollified by such reckoning; 'butMrs Transome and myself prefer proper names to nicknames, Haskins,and please not to forget it. Rat, indeed!'
Ronald understood less than half of what was being said, butenough to catch its gist.'Nice people call me "Rat",' hesaid.
'Very well, Ronald: you can be "Rat" when you and I are alone;but not when your mother's about. Remember that.'
'But why, Daddy?'
'Because she wanted you to be Derek.'
'Ferret?'
'No, Derek. Now come along, and leave Haskins alone to get onwith his work.'
Within a year or two Mrs Transome was also made aware of herboy's debased nomenclature. The vicar, a new one recently inducted,was paying her a call, and the parlour-maid had been sent to fetchMr Transome from the garden. She found him hiding in the shrubbery;for he had seen the caller, to whom he had already taken a strongdislike, coming up the drive.
'Ronald is a dear little boy, Mrs Transome.'
'I'm so glad you think so, Vicar.'
'He needs your help, you know. Your influence.'
'My help and influence?'
'Yes, your help in acquiring something of great value andimportance.'
'Of great value and importance? What can that be, MrGrimledge?'
'A proper sense of reverence in God's house.'
'Good gracious! Has Ronnie been naughty during the children'sservice? His governess has told me nothing about it.'
'He made the other boys laugh at Catechism.'
'Laugh? But how?'
'When Miss Pemmity asked him "What is your name, N or M?" heanswered, "Neither: it's Rat."'
Mr Transome, having heard this as he entered the room (with, itmust be confessed, an uncharitable intention of making himselfdisagreeable), immediately took his cue.
'You would have Ronald grow up a little liar then?'
'My dear Transome, good afternoon! What can you mean?'
'I mean that his name isn't N or M and that everybody except hismother calls him "Rat".'
'But in church one uses only Christian names. The choir-boysnaturally laughed when he said "Rat."'
'Well, Vicar, if you allow boys in your church to laugh attruth, Ronald had better attend services at East Cattleton infuture. It's barely a quarter of a mile further from here, and thechoir-boys there are better-behaved than yours.'
On the vicar's departure in dignified discomfiture, despite MrsTransome's attempts at conciliation, there is no need here toenlarge. As soon as the front door was shut on him she dissolvedinto tears.
'You shouldn't have reproved him so rudely, Herbert,' shesobbed, 'but have left him to me. I shouldn't have spared him theleast bit, but I would have been polite. Oh! just fancy himaccusing Ronnie of irreverence; Ronnie who always says his prayersso nicely! He's not fit to be a clergyman; horrid man.'
Ronald's sudden irruption into the room at this juncture causedMrs Transome to smile through her tears.
'Hullo, Ronnie!' she called to him, 'Come along to Mummy, youdear little—Rat!'
2
The reader will have gathered that Ronnie was not fortunate inhis parents: the father self-centred and irascible, the mothershallow and foolish. Happily, however, his character took its firstimpressions less from them than from an efficient and sensiblenurse and, later, from a stalwart governess. From the former helearned to do as, from the latter to understand what, he was told.Miss Ethelstone was not merely a well-qualified teacher, but able,as the saying is, to draw her pupil out. But for her realcompanionship Ronald's early boyhood would have been lonely. Therewere few children of his own age in Cattleton, and of them not morethan three or four were ever invited to the house, Mr Transomehaving outlawed the majority on grounds of social inferiority or ofhis dislike for their parents—a dislike which was widelyreciprocated. Frequent conversation and voluntary jobs with oldHaskins also helped to educate the Rat. Haskins was no 'scholard',but able to impart a knowledgeable love of countryside and gardenwhich Ronald was never to lose.
About the time of his sixth birthday there was a plague of ratson the farms round Cattleton. Ferret, gun, trap and poison wereused against the enemy, and on many barns and gates the tails ofthe slaughtered were nailed in competitive rows. One day Ronaldhappened on a small heap of them awaiting such a nailing-up.Picking two up he made a wristlet of them and, back home, showed itto Haskins.
'I shouldn't wear that if I were you, Master Ronald,' the oldman objected; Miss Ethelstone won't like it nor your mother either.Rats be'ant exac'ly clean. Nor, I mind me, wouldn't my old grandadhave liked it, considerin' 'is stories of girdlings and such likein them old times.'
'Girdling? What's girdling, Haskins?'
'Well, I don't rightly know, Master Ronald; but it was along ofthem witches what no longer troubles us nowadays. Though, mind ye,I've 'ad my doubts about my Aunt Jemima. She's dead and gone now,though, and I ain't a one to speak ill of them what's buried.Besides, she knit me good socks, did Aunt Jemima, what I wore formore'n three year afore Mrs Haskins chucked 'em into fire. It's forno use, she tole me, tacking one 'ole on to another 'ole; and thereain't nothin' else but 'oles, she says; 'oles and 'oles and'oles.'
'But what's girdling, Haskins?'
'Ah! girdling. That was what my grandad calledit—girdling.'
'Yes, but whatwas girdling;'
'Well, girdling weren't no more than makin' of a girdle andawearin' of it. Sure, there weren't no 'arm in that. But themwitches, grandad says, or some on 'em anyway, wore girdles made ofskins got from live animals, 'ares mostly, I believe. Then, comenight-time, the witch'd turn same as 'er girdle and go abroad on'er wickedness as an 'are. It don't sound like sense to me, MasterRonald; but grandad would tell as 'ow when Mrs Flintoff up at the'all lay dyin' of spotty fever, and 'Annaway 'er butler shot andlamed a 'are as 'e see on 'er lawn, it were old Mrs Rushpen as wereseen limpin' about next morning with 'er stocking all bloody; norwouldn't show 'er leg neither to no one, not even 'er daughter. Itwere a fact, says grandad, as Mrs Flintoff 'ad given the Rushpensnotice to quit for not payin' of their rent; and, as 'er coffin wasbein' carried through the churchyard, hout crawls a lame 'are frombe'ind a gravestone and makes off along toward their cottage. That,Master Ronald, was what come of Mrs Rushpen's girdling; and thatshe feared for what she'd done were clean proved by no girdle everbein' seen on 'er and by 'er never ownin' to one. So just you takeoff them rat-tails, Master Ronald, or one night you'll findyourself a rat maybe, same as what you're called.'
Ronald did take off the tails; but stuffed them into a pocketand sought out Miss Ethelstone.
'You know that book,' he said to her, 'you used to read to me,about a girl going down a rabbit hole.'
'Alice in Wonderland?'
'Yes, that's the name. Do you suppose Alice had a rabbit-skingirdle, like a witch?'
'Whoever's been talking to you about witches, Ronald? OldHaskins, I expect. Witches are all nonsense, and one shouldn'tlisten to nonsense.'
'Why not, Miss Ethelstone?'
'Because it's easier to have nonsense put into one's head thanto get it out again. No sensible boy or girl believes in witches orfamiliars.'
'What are familiars?'
'Animals that witches were supposed to exchange bodies with, orto send on errands. Such a stupid idea, isn't it? Fancy a personturning into an animal or an animal into a person! Alice's dreamwas far more sensible than that, though it was only a dream.'
'Could a rat be a familiar, Miss Ethelstone?'
'Well, Ronald; I know a rat, I think, who's being very familiar;asking his governess a lot of silly questions! Now come along, andlet me see you help saddle the pony.'
That evening, after his parents had kissed him good night,Ronald extricated the tails from his coat pocket and wound themround his left wrist. His regular prayers had been said on hisknees but, as he lay in bed, he added a special petition. 'Please,God,' he murmured tensely, 'let me dream myself into arat-hole.'
3
The prayer was not answered: on that and many succeeding nightshe slept a dreamless sleep. On his birthday, however, came morethan compensation for this disappointment. On a chair in hisschoolroom he found a large wooden box, with foil from biscuit tinstacked on to all sides but one. There there was a grating, madefrom an old bird-cage, and through it he saw a glimpse of somethingwhite. It moved! What could old Haskins have given him? He kneltdown quickly to see. A white rat! With twitching fingers heunloosed the little leather-hinged trap-door at the top for anearer look. Yes: a white rat, a lovely white rat.
'I shall call him Snattajin,' Ronald cried jubilantly.
'Why Snattajin?' asked Miss Ethelstone, eyeing the newimportation none too favourably.
''Cause he's as white as Mummy's tonic powder. Look! He'ssneezing.'
'It must be from Haskins: it's a home-made box. Very rough workindeed; but strong, though, and not even rats can gnaw through tinfoil. But we can't keep it here in the school-room. Rats smell, youknow.'
'I'll put him on the shelf in the summer-house,' Ronald replied;'he'll have a lovely view from there. Nobody ever uses thesummerhouse.'
Mr and Mrs Transome raised no objection, so Snattajin was dulyinstalled in the summer-house, before lunch. In the course of a fewweeks the lawn began to show a brown streak leading from thegarden-door of the house to Snattajin's new abode; it was thetrack, worn bare of grass, of Ronald's feet hurrying to and fromhis new pet. That was what his parents and Miss Ethelstone calledhim—a pet. But, alone with Snattajin in the summer-house,Ronald addressed him by a less trite, more sonorous name,suggestive of deeper intimacy. He had not forgotten MissEthelstone's mention of familiars. Well, here was his! With hispocket money he bought a bottle of cheap lavender water at thevillage shop, with which Snattajin suffered chrism every morning. Aheap of superficially gnawed apples, potatoes and other comestiblesin a corner of his box showed that his menu exceeded his appetite.He was neither lean nor fat, but just right. So sleek and clean,too. When at evening service in church they sang about saints beingclothed in spotless white, Ronald made a mental reservation thatthey could not be whiter or more unspotted than Snattajin. Inshort, no present received by a boy of six has ever given greaterpleasure and satisfaction than Snattajin brought to Ronald. Whetherthe pleasure and satisfaction were entirely wholesome is anothermatter.
The interval between the advent of Snattajin and Ronald's entryinto a preparatory school was about two years. During them he madegreat educational progress under Miss Ethelstone. The headmaster ofSt. Olave's, Seaborough, wrote in his first report that he wishedthat all of his new boys had had an equally sound grounding. ButMiss Ethelstone was not, after the birth of Ronald's little sisterLettice, any longer resident governess. Her room was required for anursery; so she went to live in lodgings at East Cattleton, comingafter breakfast on weekdays to give Ronald his lessons andreturning after tea. This left the boy much time to himself; for ababy is no playmate, and his parents had neither the psychology northe inclination to join him in games or to interest themselves inhis boyish pursuits. 'He's such a dear child.' Mrs Transome wouldsay, 'always happy and occupying himself, and no bother to us atall.'
What Ronald most occupied himself with was Snattajin. Had thelatter been a dog, this would have been all right. A dog haspersonality, shows affection and affords companionship. Not so arat. What Ronald did was to clothe Snattajin with a whole wardrobeof bogus qualities, all woven from the fabric of his ownimagination. He made of him analter ego to console hisloneliness. Nor had he forgotten the association of familiars withwitches, but felt that his intimate communion with Snattajin wassomething for which, if he were to talk of it, he would be eitherreproved or laughed at. There was also a sermon one Sunday aboutKing Nebuchadnezzar. Ronald listened attentively, for the idea of aking eating grass and letting his nails grow into claws wasattractive. He was, the preacher said, certainly like AnnThroppick, and Ronald began wondering who Ann Throppick might havebeen. The preacher then went on to say that there were two ways ofbeing like Ann Throppick. One was to be mad, which of course youcouldn't help. The other was to believe that you could turnyourself into an animal. This for people who wore God's image(Ronald wondered whereabouts it should be worn, and what size itwould be) was very wicked indeed. Nevertheless people had believedit in days gone by; people who were (he repeated thewere)wolves or witches. Ronald was now all agog to hear something aboutgirdlings, but the clergyman suddenly turned from Ann Throppick toanother girl, Ally Goricle, who wasn't half so interesting.Ronald's thoughts therefore turned towards the prospect of hisdeparture for school and consequent separation from Snattajin.Tears dimmed his eyes. It would be a terrible wrench.
So indeed it was. Words are lacking to describe the poignancy ofthat final parting in the summer-house, with the fly waiting at thefront-door. With difficulty he sobbed out an injunction to oldHaskins to be careful to look after poor Snattajin. Mr and MrsTransome saw in his too visible distress evidence of a right andproper filial affection. 'It is nice to feel,' said Mrs Transome,'that we have made home so lovable to him. I must remember to tellEmily to give his room a thorough clearing out. I do hope thatthey'll teach him at St. Olave's to be tidier, and to wipe hisboots. I doubt if we shall ever get those tar-marks off the staircarpet. Look, Herbert! How sweet of him to throw us a kiss out ofthe fly window!'
The kiss was thrown towards the summer-house. Miss Ethelstone,who was driving with him to the station, saw this. As he withdrewhis hand from the window she patted it. 'Ronnie,' she said, 'Ipromise you I'll come every Sunday after church to make sure thatSnattajin's all right.' Ronald's heart was too full for speech, buthe smiled gratitude through his tears.
'And I'll write to you sometimes,' Miss Ethelstone added, 'totell you how he's getting on.'
4
The big playroom in the basement of St. Olave's was known forsome reason as the boot-room. On either side of it were ranged thewooden play-boxes of some forty boys. One of them was white andnew; it bore the initials R.A.T. Inspecting it stood the head ofthe school, made responsible by the games-master for theorderliness of the boot-room.
'Whose box is this?' he asked.
'Mine.'
'You? You're a new boy, aren't you? What's your name?'
'Ronald Transome; but I like to be called "Rat".'
The head-boy looked at him quizzically, perhaps almostappreciatively.
'You'd have been called that anyhow,' he said, 'with R.A.T. onyour box; so it's lucky you like it.'
A number of boys were by now standing round, and Glayson (thatwas the head boy's name) addressed them.
'Hullo! you chaps,' he said, 'what was it Noah said when the arkran aground?'
'I smell A-ra-RAT,' they yelled in reply.
It was a riddle from the last number ofThe Olavian.
'Well, come and smell this one, then. His name's Rat, he says;and his box says so, too. Look!'
A dozen boys clustered round Ronald and sniffed him allover.
'He doesn't stink so bad,' was the general verdict. 'Any fodderin that hutch, Rat? If so, open up.'
Yes, there was fodder in it. Five minutes later there was not.The rat, however, had been voted not a bad sort, for a rat. Ongoing to bed that night he found between his sheets a coat-hangerwith a large piece of cheese on the hook. Pulling it out he held italoft, and began nibbling at the cheese. 'Well done, Rat,' said thedormitory captain. 'He knows his stuff all right. NowI'lleat the rest of it, thank you.'
Twice Ronald had done the right thing: done it because he wasthinking all the time of Snattajin and what Snattajin would havehim do. Snattajin thealter ego, the familiar!
It may be inserted at this point that, whatever his appearancein the cradle, Ronald had grown up not in the least like a rat. Hewas tall, blue-eyed and fair-haired; well-favoured enough by anyaesthetic standard. Good looks undoubtedly added to the goodopinion which other boys were forming of him. There was no virtuein liking to be called 'Rat' if you were like a rat; but, if youwere quite a decent-looking chap, it was rather sporting, theythought.
The Rat's reputation was finally set on sure foundations when hefell a victim to the exceedingly unpopular 'Maths' master. Whiledoing a sum in long division he chewed and gnawed the butt end ofhis pencil.
Transome,' Mr Stridwell hissed at him, 'stop gnawing yourpencil. You're not a rat, are you?'
Ronald caught a sudden vision of Snattajin. He must be loyal andbrave.
'Yes, Sir.'
There were gasps of surprise and expectation on all sides, forthe boys knew their Mr Stridwell.
'Stand up, Transome. You heard what I said. I won't take cheekfrom you or any other boy. Are you a rat?'
Again Ronald saw Snattajin. He was trembling a little, butmanaged to steady his voice.
'Yes, Sir.'
'Well, I've given you your chance, Transome, and you haverepeated your impudence. Go down to the boot-room. I shallfollow.'
There was a murmur of anticipation. How would the Rat take it?For the master's words had carried a fundamental significance. Theboot-room was the place of execution. Mr Stridwell now left hisdesk to enact it. His class waited in grim expectancy.
Then from the boot-room below came the thwack of a cane, sixtimes repeated. No other sound, though. Many eyes were turned onRonald as he re-entered the room. He was white and tight-lipped;his hands were clenched. But there were no tears in his eyes.
'If any boy,' Mr Stridwell acidly announced, 'should have ataste for natural history, Transome can tell him where to find arat with red streaks on its tail.'
Nobody laughed. They thought Stridwell a dirty swine and, afterthe lesson, the Rat found himself a hero. The games-master wasknown to detest his mathematical colleague, and several boys tookcare to let him know about the Rat's caning. As a result Mr Tradgerthereafter took a special interest in Ronald, coaching him at thenets and generally befriending him.
Back home for the holidays Ronald found Snattajin in goodfettle, except for a few scabs on the tail. Haskins, he learned,had inadvertently banged the door of the box on it after feedinghim one day.
'What day?' Ronald asked excitedly.
'Why, Master Ronald,' Haskins replied, 'I don't mind no dates;not for little things like that. But it were the first day of thefair; for that's how I come to be in a hurry and slam thedoor.'
The cook knew the date of the fair; for it had been that of hercousin Martha's birthday. The same also as that of Ronald's caning!I le and his familiar had suffered simultaneously. Somehow he hadexpected it. That was why he had asked.
In the course of his second term Ronald was bidden by Mr Tradgerto try writing something forThe Olavian. 'An ode to a rat',he suggested humorously with reference to Ronald's nickname, 'mightliven up the pages.' Mr Tradger did not of course know ofSnattajin's existence; but his request chanced to synchronise withRonald's receipt of a letter from Miss Ethelstone reporting that acat had tried, unsuccessfully, to get at Snattajin through thebars. From this news Ronald derived inspiration for a retaliatoryanti-feline effort. He struggled with it for a fortnight, until MrTradger told him that it must be ready without fail for the typistnext day. This is how his composition appeared inTheOlavian:
Nick was a fine brave rat:
He swore to kill the cat!
Rats do not go to school,
Yet Nick was not a fool.
He watched and waited till
He saw the cat was ill,
So bad was her disease
She could not scratch her fleas.
The day came when Nick saw
She couldn't lift a paw;
So now he crept up close
And bit her on the nose.
He gnawed out both her eyes,
Which caused her some surprise,
Then nibbled through her hide
And chewed the guts inside.
It may be truly said
That cat by now was dead;
Yet not too proud was Nick,
For why? She had been sick.
His fate, if she'd been well,
I do not care to tell.
If Nick is still alive
I hope that he will thrive.
Mr Tradger declared that Transome might one day become poetlaureate; but the headmaster, on reading the lines, shook his head.'Direct and monosyllabic,' he commented, 'and only one false rhyme.But I don't like the psychology. It's not quite boyish—it'sratty.' Next holidays Ronald recited the verses to Snattajin.
The headmaster may have written something about them in Ronald'sschool report; or possibly it was on his own initiative that MrTransome informed his son one morning that he was getting too oldto waste so much time on a white rat. 'Anyhow,' he went on, 'wecan't keep that animal here any longer. Your little sister will beplaying in the summer-house as the days get warmer, and she doesn'tlike rats. Besides, I can't have Haskins spending so much time onfeeding it and cleaning out its hutch. It must be got rid of,Ronald, before you go back to school.'
Ronald went as pale as he had after his caning, but knew betterthan to argue with his father. 'All right; I'll give him away,' hemanaged to jerk out.
If his parents wouldn't keep his old friend for him, he knewsomeone who would. That same evening Snattajin was installed in anouthouse behind Miss Ethelstone's lodgings. 'I'll send you twopenny stamps out of my pocket money each week,' Ronald told her,'to pay for his food. I know he'll be happy with you, when I'mgone.'
5
Like many other schools that year, St. Olave's was smitten by anepidemic of measles. One by one the boys went down with it, andwhole dormitories were turned into sick-rooms. Ronald, however,appeared immune; until one morning a letter arrived from MissEthelstone to say that Snattajin was off his feed and not lookingtoo well. The same evening after tea Ronald was taken with violentshivers and a bad headache. The matron took his temperature and puta red query mark against his name on the call-over list. He wassent to bed in a small room by himself and, after the doctor'sinspection next morning, moved to one of the dormitories being usedas hospital wards. The matron altered the red query mark to a redcross.
All Ronald knew at this time was that he was feeling worse thanthe other chaps appeared to be. He was in fact in a very highfever. He was dimly conscious later, he could not tell how muchlater, of being moved back into a small room and of having somebodysitting by him in a nurse's uniform. He had a terrible ache in hisears. It was very dark in this dark narrow tunnel but his feet werefreezing. Perhaps he had not got them properly into the tunnel yet.He struggled hard to pull them in, but could not do so withoutworming his body further along. This was difficult because thetunnel grew narrower and narrower; lower too, much lower; more likea rat-hole than a tunnel in fact. Ah! he remembered now; he hadprayed for this long ago. But only for a dream-hole, not for ablack suffocating reality like this. He was being buried alive;powerless now even to wriggle. Sharp flints were pricking into hisears, it seemed, and into the brain. Something hot began to tricklefrom his nose; blood, he thought, for he was being crushed andsqueezed like a tube of toothpaste. Suddenly the roof of the tunnelcame crumbling against his face; he could feel the grit and dust ofit against his eyelids. He could not open them. Now it was driftingup his nostrils and down into his throat: he choked violently. Ashe did so a great wind seemed to blow him further into the hole. Ina book on the Indian Mutiny he had seen a picture of men beingblown from guns: was this happening to him? There was certainly ahorrible roaring: it hurt his ears even worse than the flints.There were voices in it too. 'Go down to the boot-room: I shallfollow.' 'We can't keep that animal here any longer.' With afrantic convulsion he managed to cough out the one word'Snattajin!' At that his eyes must have come open again, for therewere vivid streaks of flickering green and purple flame on eitherside of him; and far away in front, facing him, two glowing redsparks. As he gazed, they grew smaller. They must be moving away;and he must follow, for he had recognised them—Snattajin'seyes! This was easier than he feared, for the tunnel seemed to havegrown wider and higher; now he was crawling on his knees and,before long, walking. Mile after mile he walked, with that piercingroar of wind in his ears and his cheeks scorched by the green andpurple flames. Mile after mile, with cramp in his legs, gulping forbreath. Mile after mile.
But at last the red eyes are stationary. Coming up to them hesees a great white rat crouched upon a green plush cushion. Theeyes no longer shine, though: Snattajin must have fallen asleep. Hethrusts forward an aching hand to stroke him. Hard, cold and smoothlike marble. There is no hair! The eyes have changed again; theyare open, but white—white as the body. Heis marble;just like that dog at the feet of the recumbent statues inCattleton church. Ronald tries to draw his hand away; but it toohas become marble, frozen on to Snattajin. All of him was turningto marble; cold, stiff but aching, terribly aching. And then,suddenly, the rain began to fall; gentle, warm rain. He felt aclamminess steal over him, and noticed that the green and purpleflames had changed into great green and purple cushions. On thegreen one sat a nurse in uniform, and on the purple one his father.He heard the latter say 'Thank God', and then both cushions andsitters were blotted out by a pitch blackness. It seemed to coverhim like a rug, and he knew no more.
One of the first visitors allowed to see Ronald during hisconvalescence was Miss Ethelstone. She was hoping he would not askafter Snattajin. Nor did he. His first question very much surprisedher.
'Where have you buried him?' he asked.
'Under the mulberry tree,' she replied, 'and I've planted somesnowdrops over him. He died quite peacefully; of old age, I think.I thought you would like a proper funeral, so I carried him on mybest cushion.'
'The green plush one?'
'Yes; I didn't know you'd ever seen it.'
'He looked like white marble, didn't he?'
'Yes, dear; I suppose he did, now I come to think of it.'
Ronald lay still and silent for several minutes. Then he turnedto her and said; 'He was my familiar, you know; I should have diedtoo if the rain hadn't come. It did rain, didn't it?'
'Yes, dear; I got quite wet. But how could you know?'
Ronald appeared not to hear. 'Robinson tells me,' he said, 'thatI've been given my second eleven colours.'
6
It is pleasant to be able to close this record with a coda inthe major key. The Rat did great credit to St Olave's, winning ascholarship at Winchingham where he ended by being head of theschool and captain of cricket. His career at Selham College,Oxbridge, was little less distinguished, though he just missedgetting his blue. After considerable success at the Bar he wasappointed Chief Justice of a prosperous colony, where he now is. MrTransome, now an octogenarian, is fond of repeating that 'all thiscomes of his having been brought up in a thoroughly happy home; nocoddling or making too much of him.'
The Chief Justice's interests are wide. He is known to have reada paper before a Colonial Philosophical Society on 'Some survivalsof a belief in Lycanthropy'. His white bull-terrier's name is'Snattajin'. The history of the first Snattajin used to interesthis contemporaries at Winchingham and Oxbridge, also many friendsof his later life. That is why it is here offered to a widerpublic. Names (except that of Snattajin himself) have of coursebeen altered or disguised, but the text of the narrative was sentto the Chief Justice's private secretary for any alterations oramendments that His Honour might consider desirable in the interestof truth or accuracy. His Honour made none, but endorsed themanuscript with the one word: 'Ratified'.
1
Place-names have an interest and fascination not only for theetymologist. This ugly suburb has an attractive, that lovely hamletan ugly, name. Origins are often forgotten; often, when traceable,found hidden under corruption, abbreviation, mispronunciation orvagaries of spelling. Romance and fancy weave legend round a name,erudition or ingenuity scaffold it with explanations. A disputeover derivation or pronunciation will strike sparks out of thedullest tea-party.
Kongean cartography was a fruitful field for such argument. TheDirector of Museums, with a profound knowledge of Kongahili,challenged the Surveyor-General on his nomenclature of almost everyplace on the Colony's ordnance map. They quarrelled indeed over thescene of events here to be recorded, the Surveyor-General mappingit as Elland, and the Director protesting that it should be L Land.It was a question of taste in spelling rather than of derivation;for the origin of the name was never in doubt. When thedevelopmental road was constructed in 1908, old Hartingwell, theresident engineer, had had its milestones graven with Romannumerals. Why, nobody knew; perhaps not even he. If asked about ithe would say that the only thing he studied year in and year outwas the dial of his watch; so that Roman figures 'came natural'.'Anyhow,' he would continue, 'what's good enough for a Biblechapter is good enough for a Kongean road.' Prospectors in searchof land for rubber-planting, having found the first milestone onthe new road marked with an 'L' and the area round and beyond itwithout any native name, dubbed it the L country or L Land; and thename stuck.
Elland, well watered by the Gangra river and tributary streams,has a good soil. Pioneer planters, with insufficient capital,cleared only narrow strips of flat land on either side of the road;but in 1911 a Takeokuta syndicate (Elland Rubber Estates Limited)bought them out, and developed the whole area in five rectangularblocks of equal size. The road ran dead straight from west to eastthrough the middle of each block, and some three hundred yards tothe south of it, wound the Gangra in a steep rocky gorge. Thebungalows of the five estate managers lay on its southern bank,each approached by a lane leading off the public road opposite amilestone. The names given by the company to its estates were puns,so to speak, on the Roman numerals of each stone. From west to eastthey were Elstone (L), Liston (LI), Ellibis (LII—somebody inthe head office must have had some Latin!), Elliter (LIII) andLivingstone (LIV). Kongean labourers could of course neitherunderstand nor assimilate such fanciful nomenclature; they talkedsimply of the fiftieth-mile estate, fifty-first-mile estate, and soon. It was indeed illustrative of the utter featurelessness of theterrain that, for European and Kongean alike, milestones alonecould afford differentiation and identification of its componentareas. At any spot along that seven miles of dull straight road awayfarer could determine and describe his location only by itsdistance from the nearest milestone. Such was the scenic monotonyof Elland.
The manager of Liston, Jim Wrightaway, was also general managerof the whole group. He had planted in Kongea for nearly twentyyears, and spoke Kongahili like a native. A John Bull of a man, hewas prone to express a contempt of the government, especially itslabour department, and of the company's visiting agents. Alldaylight hours he gave to his job, and most evenings to a game ofsnooker at the Kilkurri club, three miles down the Takeokuta road.The Kongean coolies liked and respected him, feeling his outlook onlife to be almost as simple as their own, but his dealings far morestraightforward.
Of the divisional managers the two Scots on Livingstone andElliter found Wrightaway a plain-spoken but affable chief; but,neither being of a social bent, they did not seek or desire termsof intimacy. The other two, considerably junior, managers tookopposing views of him. Atterside of Ellibis admired his linguisticproficiency and management of native labour. 'The old man,' hewould tell friends from Takeokuta, 'has little education but greatpractical capacity and common sense. A good sportsman too, andalways well met in the club.' To Algernon Craigley, his neighbouron Elstone, Wrightaway was neither more nor less than a 'damned oldPhilistine'.
Craigley flattered himself on being a man of culture andbreeding. Atterside thought him a pedant and a snob. The truth, asoften, lay midway. The two young men (neither was much over thirty)had no affinities, Atterside being of an athletic type with mainlyoutdoor interests and Craigley of a studious disposition, fond,whenever he chanced on a kindred spirit, of bookish talk andargument. Unlike his neighbours Craigley was never to be seen atthe Kilkurri club. He preferred, once or twice a week, to ride hismotorcycle in the opposite direction and to argue an evening awaywith Barclay Tinkerwell on Elland End estate.
It is a common fault in anybody of but mediocre attainment inhis profession to belittle its experts and grudge them theirsuccess. Such was the attitude of Craigley towards Wrightaway;especially when inspection disclosed something wrong on Elstone andhe was told to put it right. After one such corrective visit hegave tongue to his resentment.
'As you've found fault with me again, Sir, perhaps you won'tobject to my reminding you of the visiting agent's order aboutthose Tebanco trees?'
'I need no reminding, thank you, Craigley. So long as I remainhere, so do those trees; and I've told you the reason.'
'Because you're afraid of ghosts or devils!'
'Because our labour force is afraid of ghosts or devils. Youshould know by now how superstitious they are about those mistletoeclumps. I'd sooner bring down a hornet's nest.'
'Well, the sooner all that nonsense is drummed out of them thebetter. Everyone who comes up here comments on the absurdity ofleaving Tebancos standing in the middle of rubber. It makes me feelashamed.'
'You mean,' said Wrightaway drily, 'that they give you theopportunity of telling them what an old fool you think me.Doubtless they agree; but better the wisdom of a fool than thefolly of the wise. Those trees remain.'
For a reader unacquainted with Kongea the preceding conversationwill need elucidation. The Tebanco is a large tropical species officus, the favourite host of a parasite resemblingmistletoe. Viewed from below these parasitic clumps of leafage looklike so many giant grey-green sponges; and in them, according toKongean belief, roosts a sort of ghost or genie; harmless ifuninterfered with but dangerously malignant if disturbed.Wrightaway in consequence had left all Tebancos standing when therest of the jungle was felled and cleared for planting rubber. Thevisiting agent estimated that some ten acres of the Elland estateshad been thus denied economic cultivation; for the Tebanco hasextensive surface roots and a wide umbrella of branches.Nevertheless, Wrightaway swept aside his complaint, and defied asubsequent written order from the company's office in Takeokutathat the trees must be felled and uprooted. Of local shareholdersmany, like Craigley, thought him an obstinate old fool; others,mostly men of his own age, did not.
2
One morning towards the middle of 1922, Atterside discoveredwhat looked like a leaf disease,oidium he suspected, in afield of ten-year-old rubber. Anxious to find out whether therewere any sign of it on estates further along the road he bicycledafter tea to enquire of his Scots colleagues on Elliter andLivingstone. Neither had noticed any withering of foliage, butpromised to keep their eyes open for it. In order to render hisenquiries complete Atterside rode on the further two miles toElland's End and called on Tinkerwell. His answer also was in thenegative; but he seemed eager for conversation and urged Attersideto stay for a drink.
'That's a dirty trick, I think, that Craigley's minded to playon your boss.'
'Trick?' Atterside frowned. 'What trick? He's said nothing to meabout it.'
'Oh! Perhaps then I oughtn't to have mentioned it to you, andplease don't let him know that I have. All the same I feel that youought to be put wise, and to stop him if you can.'
Atterside frowned again. 'Craigley,' he said, 'likes me aslittle as he does Wrightaway. If I told him to stop anything hewould take it as the signal to go on. But what's he up to,anyway?'
Tinkerwell poured out two whiskies and soda and handed one tohis guest. Then, before resuming his chair, he lit a mosquitosmudge and placed it on the floor between them.
'Craigley's a queer card,' he said, 'and he's got a fearful downon Wrightaway about those Tebanco trees. Personally I thinkWrightaway right to keep them standing, but Craigley sticks to itthat he's actuated solely by personal funk of anythingghostly.'
Wrightaway a funk!' Atterside exploded. 'I'd pity any ghost thatgot up against him!'
'Yes, I agree. But Craigley's got it into his head that bigstrong not over-brainy men are generally nervous about spooks; andthat Wrightaway's information about mistletoe spirits comes notfrom his coolies but from Collinson'sKongea, a copy ofwhich Craigley saw on his bookshelf.
'Craigley's a bloody fool,' Atterside exclaimed angrily. 'Hedoesn't know enough Kongahili to understand a quarter of what acoolie says. They're for ever gassing about devils and ghosts.'
'Exactly what I tried to impress on him. I happen to be ratherinterested in things psychic and psychological; and I could tellhim a thing or two about himself which might surprise him, if onlyhe could understand. But he can't.'
'What are you getting at, Tinkerwell?'
'Well, Craigley's wrong of course about big strong simple-mindedmen being afraid of spooks. They haven't enough imagination orsusceptivity. The vulnerable sort, so to speak, are people likehimself; professed and militant rationalists, who subconsciouslyrepress and hide from themselves inherited instincts ofapprehensive belief. What Craigley predicates of Wrightaway is areflection of his own, to him unknown, self. The desire to exploitWrightaway's supposed superstition comes from the itch of his ownsubconscious fears.'
'I'm not sure that I follow you. But, tell me, what's the trickthat Craigley proposes to play on Wrightaway?'
'Well, he's going to get Wrightaway down the lane to hisbungalow next Saturday night.'
'He won't do that,' interrupted Atterside. 'The chief nevervisits any of us in the evening. Besides, there's a snookertournament at the club that night, and he won't be home tilllate.'
'Exactly. That's why Craigley has chosen Saturday. It's alwaysmisty on the road after nine o'clock; and he's going to put thathurricane lamp, that he has placed every night under the fiftiethmilestone, below the half-mile stone on the Kilkurri side.Wrightaway will then begin to slow down after passing the lamp, andhe's pretty sure to turn down the Elstone lane at milestone fifty,mistaking it for fifty-one. In case he should take a glance at thestone Craigley's going to paint an "I" after the "L". It soundslike some silly prep-school plot; but unfortunately it's verylikely to succeed. We all know the sameness of that damned road; atnight and in a mist it's always difficult to tell which turning iswhich. Wrightaway's thoughts too will still be on his snookermatch; and, if he wins again this year, he will very probably havehad a few.'
Atterside's look of annoyance and distaste at what was beingtold him suddenly changed to a smile.
'He's forgotten Sirono,' he said.
'Sirono?'
'Yes, Wrightaway's Kongean syce. When Wrightaway drives,Sirono's always behind in the dicky. He knows the feel of everyyard of that road, and if Wrightaway takes the Elstone turninghe'll shout out at once.'
'You've forgotten, Atterside, haven't you, that Saturday's theKashtipuja holiday? Sirono will be at the temple.'
'By George, and so he will! Craigley thought of that too, Isuppose. But what's his idea in getting Wrightaway down the Elstonelane? As soon as he reached the bridge over the Gangra he'd spothis mistake and turn back; for the Elstone and Liston bridges arequite different.'
'Another drink, I suggest, before I try to answer that!'Tinkerwell replied, and replenished both glasses. 'I put the samequestion to Craigley myself, and at once he became evasive andmysterious; muttering something about his being a good hand atdecorating Christmas trees.'
'What on earth did you make of that?'
'Nothing at the time; but an idea has struck me since, thatmayn't be far wrong.'
'Out with it then! Don't keep a man guessing.'
'Well, I feel—no, I'm certain—that Craigley's littlegame has something to do with his obsession about Wrightaway'sbeing scared of mistletoe spirits. Christmas of course can havenothing to do with it, except that you may remember it was Craigleywho rigged up those little electric bulbs on the Kilkurrichildren's Christmas tree. I've a hunch that he may be going to dosomething of the same sort on those mistletoe clumps in theTebancos along the Elstone lane. A lot of little dim lights,switched on all at once, would certainly have an eerie effect on amisty night and startle anybody at the wheel of a car. I haven't acopy of Collinson here, but I believe the book says something abouteyes in the mistletoe.'
Atterside took a long pull at his drink and grunted.
'You may have hit on it,' he said, 'though it sounds too damn'silly. Craigley, however, as I said just now, is a bloody fool, forall his brainy talk and swank.'
'Hadn't you better warn Wrightaway?'
'No, I don't want to put him against Craigley more than healready is. Besides, he's away in Takeokuta till Friday afternoon.I don't mind having a straight talk with Craigley, though.'
'No, no! You've promised not to let him know what I've beentelling you. He's coming up to pot luck here tomorrow evening, andI shall do my best to put him off any nonsense withWrightaway.'
Atterside put his empty glass down on the table and rose togo.
'Well, I must be trotting along. Many thanks for telling meabout Craigley. I just can't understand the chap, and that's afact. Yet you and he seem to find something in common. He's alwayscoming up your way.'
'Yes, he's fond of argument, and his talk amuses me. Like me,he's interested in hypnotism and that sort of thing. Not that heknows much about it; precious little in fact. Still, the appealthat I am going to make to him to stop baiting Wrightaway can bewrapped up in palatable jargon.'
'Then I wish you luck. If I should manage to think of anythingthat I can do to prevent his making an ass of himself, I'll do itof course. Good night!'
Atterside's thoughts were so fixed on what Tinkerwell had toldhim, and the mist so thick, that he had to dismount twice on theride home to see what milestone he had reached. He went on thinkingas he ate his supper, instead of reading as usual, and afterwardsthought on in a deck-chair on the veranda until past midnight. Itwas his habit from childhood to read a psalm, picked at random,before getting into bed. He did so tonight. It was Psalm xxxv andhe reached the eighth verse:
Let a sudden destruction come upon him unawares and hisnet, that he hath laid privily, catch himself: that he may fallinto his own mischief.
Shutting the prayer-book with a snap, he blew out the candleand, a few moments later, murmured aloud in the darkness, 'Thankyou, David, for a good tip.'
3
Next morning for Atterside was one of usual routine, exceptthat, Wrightaway being away at Takeokuta, he sat for an hour in thegroup office deputising for the general manager on a few mattersthat need not await his return. Having finished with these he tookthe opportunity of finding the copy of Collinson and turning up thepassage about mistletoe spirits. It was not long.
The parasitic growths, resembling mistletoe, to befound on trees of the ficus family (especially the Tebanco) are thereputed hives of demons called 'nyamika kunya' or eye spirits.These are said to be invisible save for their eyes, which sparklelike moonstones amid the leafage or, if they are angry, likerubies. The clustering of fireflies on the clumps may have givenrise to this myth.
That was all, but enough, it appeared, to set Atterside thinkingagain; for he sat on at the desk four or five minutes longer,staring blankly at the estate chart pinned on the blank wall above.Then, unlocking a drawer, he took from it a large key and walked,still meditatively, out of the office and across the paved yard toa large shed marked GROUP STORE. Unfastening the padlock he enteredand took down the Stores Index. Thence he passed to a stock book,and from it to rack J, Shelf 3,Estate Cycle Accessories.Item 23; yes, that was it—Reflectors for Attachment toRear Mudguard. He took out two and dropped them into his coatpocket, but made no entry in the stock book, for he would replacethem tomorrow. Ever since driving his car into young Koseni, thepostal messenger, Wrightaway had insisted on all estate cycles andbullock carts bearing reflectors.
By lunch-time Atterside was no longer thoughtful. An onlooker(had there been one) might have detected signs of impatience in hismanipulation of some little strands of wire which, having hurriedhis meal, he began attaching to the two reflectors. This done, hecalled his boy and told him to fill and trim a hurricane lantern,as he would be going up to the far field after tea and would not beback before dark.
The rest of the afternoon he spent in the factory and on aninspection of a new smoke-house, just completed by a localcontractor. The daily paper from Takeokuta arrived at tea-time, buthis reading of it was perfunctory, and he was soon pacingrestlessly up and down the lawn. He had never felt an evening to beso long.
At last the slow sun set and the cicadas began their crepuscularwhirr-whirr; the same noise, he said to himself, as that made by atoy clockwork engine fallen off the rails wheels upwards. Thetwilight was already dimming fast when he heard the sound for whichhe had been waiting—the chock-chock of Craigley's motor-cyclebound for Elland's End. In a moment he was back in the bungalow,stuffing two adhesive luggage labels into his pocket-book. Then,with the lantern in his hand and the reflectors in his pocket, hestarted off on foot through the rubber towards Liston.
It was dark by the time he came out of the rubber on to theListon lane. Here he turned right towards the Gangra river. Justshort of the bridge stood a half-grown Tebanco; and on its lowestbranch, not more than four or five feet from the ground, a largeclump of mistletoe. In front of this he stopped and lit thelantern. Then with great care and deliberation (for he knew thatany pedestrian or cyclist going to or from Liston would take theshort cut over a footbridge higher up and that he would not bedisturbed) he fastened the reflectors on to the mistletoe, just twoinches apart. Stepping back on to the lane he now walked back alongit some twenty yards, turned round and let the light of the lanternfall on his work. Two red eyes shone in the mistletoe. They wouldshine yet more brightly, he told himself, in the beam of amotor-cycle's headlamp. So far, so good.
He strode briskly, even jauntily, along the four hundred yardsof lane that lay between river and road. Arrived at the latter helooked anxiously along it in the Kilkurri direction. The mist wasonly moderate tonight, but he noted to his satisfaction that it wassufficient to obscure Craigley's lamp below the fiftieth milestone.Setting down his own lantern at the base of milestone LI he tookthe adhesive labels from his pocket-book, licked them, and stuckthem over the I. The milestone now read L; nor was the glimmer ofthe lantern sufficient to reveal the papering. Leaving it thereAtterside strolled back to Ellibis and had dinner.
He ate and drank mechanically. The boy wondered at his master'somission to charge him with the usual threatening message to thecook; for the food looked to him more than ordinarily unappetising,as indeed it was. What Atterside was intensely considering was theprobable reaction of Craigley to what awaited him. One possibilitywas that he might not see the reflectors but, finding himself onthe wrong bridge, turn his machine round and regain the road.
If so, he would certainly dismount at the milestone to see whoselamp was there (for all the estate lamps bore numbers) and in sodoing could hardly fail to see the paper stuck over the I. Suchdiscovery might perhaps have the effect of aborting his design onWrightaway, but would make future relations between himself andCraigley intolerable. The lantern and papering must, therefore, beremoved as soon as they had served the purpose of deflectingCraigley down the Liston lane.
The hour of Craigley's return from Elland's End would probablybe late, but no risk must be taken. Atterside therefore set outagain from the bungalow at nine o'clock, and on reaching themilestone satisfied himself that the gum-paper still adhered. Hethen sat down on a low bank in the rubber trees to await and watchevents. It was a long and painful vigil. Never had he knownmosquitoes so pestilent, or the steamy atmosphere of the rubber sooppressive. He had smoked the last of twenty cigarettes in his casebefore the distant throb of Craigley's motor-cycle punctuated thehot stillness. As the sound came nearer and nearer, Attersidebecame seized with a sudden misgiving about the part he wasplaying. He would give anything for the motor-cycle to flash bywithout Craigley noticing the decoy lantern. This, however, was notto be. He heard the machine slow down and, a few seconds later, thescrape of rubber tyres against grit and stone as it swung off theroad into Liston lane.
What would happen now? The throb of the exhaust was gettingfainter, but with no deceleration yet for the Gangra bridge. Then,suddenly, it and all other noises were silenced by a mighty roll ofdistant thunder. Rain began to fall in sparse but heavy drops.
Atterside ran quickly to the milestone, ripped off the gum-paperwith his pocket-knife and, picking up the lantern, turned it downand out. Retreating once more into the rubber he awaited Craigley'sreturn. Minutes passed but he did not come. The claps of thunderwere nearer now, the large raindrops more frequent. Craigley musthave taken his machine along that path above the river, Attersideconcluded; but he would find it bumpy.
There was one thing more that Atterside must do that night. Thereflectors must be recovered; or they would be noticed, perhapsstolen, next morning. He walked hurriedly therefore down the Listonlane; but never a sign of Craigley. Yes; he must certainly havetaken the river path. By the time Atterside approached the Gangrabridge the storm had burst in full fury; the lightning was soincessant as to render easy unwiring of the reflectors. Puttingthem in his pocket he made off home as fast as he could; runningevery now and again, but soaked to the skin long before reachingthe bungalow.
Though bodily tired he was long in getting to sleep. His brainfelt branded with a huge question mark. How had Craigley taken hismedicine? What might he be thinking of at that moment? What formhad Tinkerwell's efforts at dissuasion taken? What expression wouldCraigley's face wear tomorrow? And so on, on and on, until questionand imagined answer passed from fevered thought into fitfuldreaming. Or perhaps nightmare is the right word; for twice duringthe small hours he sat suddenly upright in his bed, straining tomake sure that it was not really Craigley's face at the window;with red eyes in it.
4
After muster next morning Atterside bicycled to the group officeand replaced the reflectors in store. He had difficulty inresisting a strong temptation to ride on to Elstone and satisfy hiscuriosity as to the effect of last night's experience on Craigley.His job lay, however, on his own estate, and he must carry on asusual. So back to Ellibis.
On returning from the field at noon he found an estate clerkfrom Elstone waiting to see him. Had he seen Mr Craigley anywhereabout, the man asked. No; why? Because he had been absent frommuster and was not to be found at the bungalow.
'Surely his boy must know where he is?' Atterside suggested,feigning an air of casual disinterest.
'The motor-cycle is absenting itself also,' the clerk replied,'and servant-boy is much wondering only.'
'Well, I heard his motor-cycle pass here just before the stormlast night; and that's as much as I can tell you.'
'But servant-boy says,' the clerk continued persistently, 'thatmaster not utilising bed last night. We are all much fearing,Sir.'
'Fearing what?'
'Fearing evil things, Sir. Perhaps motor-cycle running amuck.Servant-boy looks hither and thither for tyre marks, but big rainhave made all wash-out.'
'Then you'd better get your Elstone coolies on to a thoroughsearch through the rubber.' Send a man, too, down to the Kilkurripolice station to report.'
Atterside felt relieved when Wrightaway arrived back fromTakeokuta at tea-time and assumed direction of various searchoperations. Once, as a small boy, Atterside had set a large stonerolling down a hill in Westshire, and had spent an afternoon ofmisery for fear that word might come at any minute of someoneinjured on the farm below. The memory had faded with the years, butreturned to him now with an ugly vividness. As then, his plight wasone of guilty apprehension. He slept not a wink that night: andagain he saw red eyes.
No one, except Atterside, knew that Craigley had taken theListon lane instead of that to his own estate. That was whyWrightaway and the Kilkurri police had the river dragged only nearthe Elstone bridge. The discovery of body and motor-cycle in thedeep pool below the Liston bridge was due to an estate foreman'shaving noticed scratches on the moss and lichen of a rock at itsside. The pool was jammed with branches and other debris of arecent flood, so that it took long to disentangle and extricate thecorpse. A magisterial enquiry (they do not have coroners in Kongea)was held within a few hours, and the cleft and battered skullprovided evidence enough of the cause of death. There was no needto summon the doctor from Kilkurri for a post-mortem. Craigley,instead of keeping to the roadway over the bridge, must haveswerved into the side-drain where it plunges over a twenty-footdrop into the river gorge. At what point exactly he swerved orskidded nobody could tell, for the storm had washed away allwheel-marks. Death must have been instantaneous.
Atterside was white as a sheet as he testified to having heardthe noise of Craigley's motor-cycle returning from Elland's End.The magistrate asked him no questions, nor did Wrightaway when theyconversed after the enquiry.
'Must have taken the wrong turning in the storm,' Wrightawaysurmised, 'and then perhaps saw eyes in that Tebanco, I shouldn'twonder.'
Atterside started as if stung. 'Good God! What the hell do youmean?'
'The coolies tell me that there's a big devil in the mistletoethere, and they know about such things.'
'But you don't mean to say that you believe all theirnonsense?'
'I don't know about believing; but I take stock of all I see oram told. Maybe it's nothing but fireflies or glow-worms, but fromall accounts what look like eyes are seen there. One night Ifancied I saw something of the kind myself. If Craigley saw 'emhe'd have had a nasty shock, for I shouldn't care myself to seeanything I disbelieved in. Wouldn't seem natural, would it? Butnothing's frightening to an open mind.'
Atterside heaved a sigh of relief. He was not suspected.
Tinkerwell called in at Ellibis that evening and conversationturned inevitably to the recent tragedy.
'I fear,' Tinkerwell said, 'that I may have been anunintentional murderer.'
'Really, whose?'
'Craigley's. He and I had been trying some experiments inhypnotism that night; and, before putting him out of a finaltrance, I thought of that dirty trick he wanted to play onWrightaway and laid him under a post-hypnotic suggestion. "When youcome to the Tebancos on your way home," I said to him, "you willsee eyes in the mistletoe clumps; glaring red eyes."'
Atterside sat staring at the speaker, then at something beyond.The skin of his face was taut and grey. Suddenly he leaned forwardand clutched Tinkerwell's arm.
'Look, Tinkerwell!' he gasped. 'Look behind you. Isn't that aface at the window?'
1
Who does not find it exhilarating to stand on a height and lookdown? For the Alpinist there is a measure of achievement in thepleasure; but the humble carefree hiker enjoys equally the sense ofdominant aloofness that comes of viewing plain or valley from thehills. Such rapture is not for travellers by aeroplane: caged in acabin, windowed but noisy. For the gliderman, yes; but for momentsonly. He may not relax control of his craft so long as to lose allsense in gaze. The unencumbered stroller alone can stand, out oftime, yet robed with space, in silent impersonal unity with earthand sky.
There is, in Southshire, a place where the chalk downs protrudea northern knee of greensand on to the clayey levels of the weald.In spring there are waves of bluebell on its slope, foam-flakedwith wood anemones. Here and there, too, are golden drifts of wilddaffodil. Then, as summer comes, all is sunk in a green surge ofbracken, turning with autumn to russet and ochre. It was summer nowas Frank Lynton stood at the top, gazing abstractedly at thechessboard of field and copse below. He had stayed motionless forperhaps fifteen minutes, but could not have told you whether it hadbeen a matter of seconds or a full hour. 'I like,' he said to hishost, the Rev Vernon Vinetree, at dinner that night, 'occasionallyto let the brain merely tick over so that my mind becomesabsorptive, like blotting-paper.' The phrasing was neither clearnor happy; but the rector appeared to understand. It was he who hadsuggested that Frank should take that particular walk.
A clatter of twigs and the whirr of a cock pheasant rising froma clump of brambles woke Lynton from his reverie. Leaning forward,and pointing with his stick, he began identifying particularfeatures of the panorama. He had studied the map which hung in theRectory hall before he started. The building half-hidden by elms inthe left middle distance must be Affrington Court and the dumpylittle spire beyond it that of Westingly Church. And that group ofbuildings on the edge of the big wood clearly belonged to EastoverFarm. Save for these there was little evidence of human habitation.Wait a bit, though: what was that line of brown and grey againstthe oaks on the right? A stationary train? But surely the line randown the Daven valley, not there? Lynton took out hisfield-glasses. Yes, they were certainly railway carriages; old onesused for fowl-houses, he surmised.
Replacing the glasses in their case he turned his eyes to thehill's apron of bracken just below him. Here and there the purplespike of a foxglove pierced the green fronds; and over themfluttered a few butterflies, common whites and meadow browns. Thewarm smell of bracken came floating to his nostrils, although therewas no perceptible breeze. Loath to tear himself away from thisloveliness he saw nevertheless from a glance at his wrist-watchthat it was already four o'clock, and that he must be getting backto tea. It would be a good two miles back to the Rectory. As hetook a final look at the view a spiral of grey smoke rose above themiddle railway carriage. It was not a fowl-house, then, but akitchen; and the other two must be bedroom and living-room. He feltbitter that anybody should live so incongruously with hissurroundings; there ought, he said to himself, to be some provisionof law to prevent it.
2
There were visitors at the Rectory for tea: one a lawyer fromThornychurch, the other the vicar of a neighbouring parish. Theyhad left their wives shopping together at Thornychurch; for MrVinetree was unmarried and, from a feminine standpoint, prosy andunattractive. Lynton, slightly late, heard the trio in animatedconversation. It hushed at his approach and during the necessaryintroductions: 'Mr Lynton—Mr Cowdle; the Reverend SilasBoringer—Mr Lynton.' Then they plunged into it once more,dragging him with them. He worked for a printing and publishingfirm, didn't he? Yes: well, he would probably be interested in theproblem they were discussing. Cowdle had been about to sum up thewhole position just as he arrived, and would do so now.
'Our friend the rector,' Mr Cowdle began, thus invited, 'has forseveral years past issued monthly, at threepence a copy, a littlenewssheet entitledKidbury Parish Notes. It's placed forsale in the Galilee porch of his church, and can also be had at thevillage grocer's. In addition to church notices and statistics itcontains a leading article, and what are headed "PertinentParagraphs" from the rector's own pen; also excerpts, selected byhim, from current newspapers and reviews. He received therefore ashock when, at a recent Diocesan synod, the Archdeacon called himaside and complained of the unorthodox tone of theKidburyParish Magazine. Asked what in particular he found at fault,the Archdeacon pulled out a packet from his cassock pocket andreplied "The whole of it". The packet being opened Vinetree sawwith mixed surprise and relief that it contained not a copy of hisParish Notes, but a fair-sized magazine, bearing on itscover a picture of Kidbury Church and the titleKidburyNotebook (Quarterly). I haven't read any of the stuff inside itmyself, but I'm told that it's not exactly of a sort to harmonisewith the church on the cover. Now the question put to me by therector is as to whether or not legal steps can be taken to preventfurther issues of this magazine in a form that renders itmistakable for a parish magazine. He has consulted me as a friend,not as a lawyer (though I am one, Mr Lynton), and I have had nohesitation in replying "No". There is no impediment in law againstreproduction on a magazine cover of a photograph of a place ofpublic worship, and the titleKidbury Notebook constitutesno trespass on that ofKidbury Parish Notes. Perhaps, as amember of a printing and publishing firm, Mr Lynton has hadexperience of this sort of thing and will bear me out?'
'Yes, I agree. Still, if the publishers had been aware ofKidbury Parish Notes they would probably have suggested someother title thanNotebook.Scrapbook, for instance.But what beats me is that a little out-of-the-way place like thisshould support two periodicals; one of them, you say, a fair-sizedmagazine. The Kidbury people must be great readers!'
Mr Vinetree tapped the tea-tray with his spoon. He had a way oftapping things when upset. On Sundays he would do it with hisspectacle case to the reading-desk, whenever the choir sang out oftune. 'I'm happy to say, Frank,' he said, 'that our people donot read theNotebook. I've not come across a copy sofar in a single cottage, and I've forbidden it in the villageReading-room.'
'Then where is its circulation? It takes the deuce of a lot ofsold copies to make a magazine pay.'
'Ah! that's the annoying thing. It isn't meant to pay. It'sfinanced by a crank named Tresdale, and he uses it for what heimpertinently calls spiritual propaganda.'
'Spiritual propaganda?'
'Yes. When, after the Archdeacon's mistake, I called to askTresdale to alter its title he told me that he couldn't, because ithad been decided upon and communicated to him by directive spirits.Everything printed in it, he went on to say, had a spiritualauthorship. He himself was no more than a human editorial agent,luckily possessed of enough money to fulfil his vocation. With thathe pressed a copy into my hands and remarked that, by command ofthe spirits, he had some time back posted a copy to the Archdeacon.Every article, he assured me, appeared above the name of an authorspirit. I had, however, already had a look through the Archdeacon'scopy, and knew that the names were all those of letters in theGreek alphabet. Of this fact Tresdale professed himself to beunaware: falsely, because I have since found out that he took aclassical degree. The articles that most shocked the Archdeacon,and indeed myself, were all subscribed UPSILON.'
Mr Cowdle had begun to fidget at the mention of Greek letters.Having no Greek himself he felt that the talk might pass out of hisconversational depth. Looking down at his watch, and contriving alittle start, he now jumped to his feet with 'Good gracious,Rector! Half-past five and I've an appointment in Thornychurch atsix! I must be off at once. Now don't forget that you've no groundwhatever for legal action. I say that as a friend, but I've nevergiven better advice for a fee. Mr Lynton's staying with you overthe weekend, isn't he? Well, you might let him drop in at my placeif he's in Thornychurch; and I'll introduce him to spirits of adecent potable sort that don't write stuff for dud magazines! Solong.'
With this parting pleasantry Mr Cowdle hurried down the gravelpath to his waiting car. So far the other clergyman, Mr Boringer,had held his peace. Now, however, he broke silence.
'Cowdle's quite right, Vinetree,' he said, 'and between you andme I fancy that the Archdeacon may have been pulling your leg.Nobody who looks it through could possibly mistake Tresdale'squarterlyNotebook for a church magazine! It's far tooexpensively got up for one thing. You say that none of yourparishioners read it, so why worry about the thing? I confess tohaving glanced through a copy in the Thornychurch public library,and I rather enjoyed some semimetrical stuff about an art cycle.That the articles are dictated by spirits I just don't believe.Some of them are not too bad, it seemed to me.'
'There's no accounting for tastes, of course,' the rector saiddisapprovingly, 'but I can only suppose that the articles signed"Upsilon" escaped your notice. They're thoroughly atheistic andunwholesome. I've been careful to excise them from both copies ofthe magazine now in my possession. I wouldn't have my servants readthem for anything. If they weren't dictated, they were certainlyprompted, by an evil spirit.'
'Satan's a clever journalist,' responded Mr Boringer, 'anddoesn't confine his contributions to theKidbury Notebook.His hand is visible enough in many of the daily papers. So don'tyou go giving Tresdale's publication advertisement by opposing it.Denunciation from the pulpit would make it a best-seller. When Iworked in India for the C.M.S. I remember hearing a Tamil proverbto the effect that to prod excrement with a stick is to make itstink the more. Coarse but true. I should leave Tresdale wellalone, if I were you. I must be off now, and will drop that parcelfor you at Dawkin's cottage; no, no bother at all; I shall betaking the footpath in any case. Goodbye, Vinetree; goodbye, MrLynton.'
Left alone with his guest the rector expressed apology andregret that the conversation at tea should have been entirely takenup with discussion about Mr Tresdale's magazine.
'Oh! but I've been most interested,' Lynton replied, 'and amlonging to have a look at it.'
'Very well, you shall—after dinner.'
3
Over soup at dinner his host hoped that Frank had enjoyed hiswalk to Farnley Edge. 'I often go up there myself,' he said, 'if Iwant to be alone and to get away from things. So much of this southcountry has been spoilt by the spilth of an electric train service;but the view from the Edge is still very much what it was when Iwas a boy, and the wild flowers no fewer.'
'The only pity,' Lynton replied, 'is that some Philistine hasgone and stuck three railway carriages in that field by the oaks,and seems to be living in them.'
Mr Vinetree gave his now empty soup-plate a vicious rap with thespoon. 'Yes, even a bungalow would have been better than railwaycarriages. It's maddening that a fellow with money to spare, andall England to choose from, should elect to live in railwaycarriages and plunk them down just there, where there's no road,and where he had to dig thirty feet for good water. It must havecost him a pretty penny; and, as you say, he's polluted thelandscape.'
'What on earth made him choose such a spot?'
'Nothingon earth, so he says.' Here the rector madeanother rap with a spoon, this time on the table. 'Spirits!'
'Good heavens! Spirits seem a bit too rampant in these parts.First they engage a fellow to be their editor; and now another chapemploys them as house agents!'
'No; not another chap. It's Tresdale again.'
'He must be a lunatic, I guess.'
'You wouldn't say so if you met him. He's quite interesting totalk to. Used to be in the Colonial Service, I believe, till hecame in for money and threw his hand in. He's well read, paints inoil, and once had a picture in the Academy. It hangs now in one ofthe railway carriages. That makes it all the more deplorable thathe should be spending all his time and energy on this spiritnonsense.'
'I suppose he's always attending séances and that sort ofthing?'
'No, again. The people who call themselves spiritualists willhave nothing to do with him or he with them. He has no need formediums, he says, being clairvoyant and clairaudient. That's themongrel word he uses, "clairaudient!" So he sits all day in frontof a dummy wireless set and a dummy television screen, neither ofthem connected to anything or with any battery, imagining that hehears or reads the stuff that he jots down for publication in hismagazine.'
'But how doyou know all this?'
'Well, those railway carriages are just inside the parishboundary, and so I felt it my duty as rector to call on him. Hecomes to church, too, sometimes; and afterwards sends me on apostcard criticisms allegedly passed by his spirits on my sermons.No, don't laugh, Frank; it's a serious matter, for I'm perfectlycertain that they are read at the village post office. Not that Imind my efforts being criticised, if in a proper way; but Tresdale,or his spirits, read impossible thoughts into my simplestutterance. It makes me quite nervous to see him sitting below me,all eyes and ears. So much so that one Sunday I twice misquoted mytext! And yet somehow I always feel forced to look at the pew bythe second pillar to see whether he's there or not. He never sitsanywhere else. Usually he looks as white as a sheet, and thesockets of his eyes as dark as though he were wearing sun-glasses.I know that our doctor, Farrold, is worried about him, for he hastold me so. Asked me in fact whether I couldn't do something aboutit! I only wish that I could. Tresdale would be a decent and usefulenough fellow but for his infatuation about spirits.'
'I could never forgive him those railway carriages,' commentedLynton. 'No, no port, thank you: it makes me liverish. Now whatabout that magazine you promised to show me?'
'Ah, yes! I was forgetting. Come along with me into the study,will you? I keep it in a locked drawer. If you sit in the armchairby the window you won't need a lamp yet awhile. The room faceswest.'
They passed accordingly into the study. Finding difficulty withthe lock Mr Vinetree discovered that he had inserted a wrong key.'I've never done that before,' he murmured sarcastically.'Tresdale's spirits at work again, perhaps! Yes, here's the rightone; but the lock needs oiling: it shouldn't squeak like that.Well, here you are. Beautifully got up, you see: and that's anexcellent view of the church.'
'Yes; and the magazine's printed on first-rate paper. But whatare all those pencil crosses and underlinings?'
'Oh those! They're mine, I'm afraid. I've been checking up on atheory. No author's material, you'll agree, can be entirely of hisown creation. It will be derived from history, acquired knowledge,observation of nature, experience of human society, and so on. Likea cook he can choose and mix, but cannot make, his ingredients.Like a cook, too, he will put them into a mould that will give theresultant pudding shape and form. That mould will be his personalstyle and structural arrangement. Now Tresdale claims to haveeither read or heard on his dummy apparatus theipsissimaverba of spirits, and to have reproduced them verbatim in hismagazine. Nevertheless you will see from my marginal crosses andunderlines that a number of identical idiosyncrasies of style andvocabulary recur in all the prose articles. That satisfies me thatthese cannot have been in any literal sense dictated or visionallycommunicated. Tresdale has been the cook. I ought to tell you,though, that Tresdale's idiosyncrasies were not observable in theUpsilon articles, which I excised and burned. Those articles,however, were artificial stuff; all of them modelled on the patternof apocalyptic scripture. Several passages indeed were recognisablereflections of the second book of Esdras.'
'What a queer bird Tresdale must be! I've never thought ofdipping into Esdras II.'
'Well, you'd be better employed reading it than this magazine.Still, I would like your opinion on the dozen or so metrical items;they won't take you long to look through. "Art Cycle", whichBoringer liked, is the first and longest. They aren't poetry ofcourse, just versification; and a mere versifier has no style ofhis own, but writes to a set form. So, although these items aredissimilar, I suspect them all to be of Tresdale's own manufacture.Probably you'll agree. Well; now I'll leave you to it. I alwayswork at my bedroom desk before turning in, so will say good nightnow. Breakfast's at a quarter to nine. Sleep well, Frank, and don'tget dreaming of Tresdale's spirits!'
4
As he sat back in the armchair, Lynton's first look at theKidbury Notebook was to ascertain the name of its printers.Pyman & Pattercake, Limited. He knew the firm well, as one thatthrove on the publication of those exquisite brochures with whichprosperous corporations celebrate their jubilees and centenaries.'We are monumental printers,' old Mr Pyman would tell shareholders.'We cater for boardrooms, not bookstalls.' The magazine now underLynton's inspection had been turned out as elegantly as their otherwork, and Tresdale must have been footing a heavy bill for itsquarterly production. Could he get any considerable return from itssales? Hardly, Lynton thought, for on the inside of the front coverwas printed: 'Obtainable only at the Cloister Bookshop,Thornychurch; Price One shilling and sixpence.' Small wonder thatthe rector had come across no copy in a cottage: the CloisterBookshop was not a haunt of the rank and file. And the price too!Hadn't the Archdeacon noticed that?
Yet another notice appeared on the back cover: 'All items inthis Number are contributed by Spirits. Direct communication may behad with the authors in the manner described on page 37 of theJanuary issue, a few copies of which are (at the time of going topress) still available at the Cloister Bookshop, Thornychurch,price 2s. a copy.' Lynton smiled at the bait thus set for thecurious in such matters; and, first lighting the lamp, for it wasgetting dark, plunged into the letterpress within.
For an hour and a half he busied himself with a criticalexamination of the prose contents. Some of the stuff was well, noneof it conspicuously ill, composed. He could not discern thesignificance of some of Mr Vinetree's crosses and underlines, but(though he could not agree that identity of draughtsmanship waspositively deducible from internal evidence) he found nothing inthe various articles to controvert the probability of their allbeing of Tresdale's composition, whatever his source ofinspiration.
It was a pity, he felt, that the Upsilon items had all beenexcised, for he found nothing in the residue to account for therector's grave censure. None of the contents would, it was true, besuitable for a church magazine; but then it didn't look in theleast like a church magazine. The Archdeacon could have done nomore than look at the cover and at Upsilon's scriptural style. Theworst that could be predicated of the prose articles was that theyseemed to Lynton complacently futile. Cynicism is spurious ifself-satisfied, and the dressing of commonplaces in fancy costumeis not originality. The resultant tone, despite the claim ofspiritual origin, was spiritless. In bored distaste Lynton nowturned to the verses, on which the rector had requested his opinionas to single or multiple authorship.
The eleven pieces fell, so Lynton decided after examination,into three categories: mere versification, perversification (hisown term, that) and, in one instance only, sincere writing. A fairexample of the first was entitled 'Love's Visit', and ran asfollows:
When Love looked in at breakfast
He drame morn's care away;
Her arms flung round his neck fast,
Jane begged the boy to stay:
And oh! the golden time we had
In frolic with the lusty lad.
We danced and sang till luncheon,
And Jane did roses pluck,
Whereof to lay a bunch on
Love's lap to bring him luck:
Then, with pretence to be a scold,
She chid the youth for growing old.
But Love laughed on and chatted
Till it was time for tea;
Jane's sleeve he gaily patted
And bade her brew for three.
The glance she threw him was not kind,
But went unheeded—Love is blind.
He lingered on to dinner
('Twas I besought him stay),
But laughter now was thinner,
His pleasantries less gay:
The talk, too, ran on times of yore
Until Jane voted Love a bore.
Not recking her sour faces,
I urged Love spend the night;
Told Jane to stop grimaces
And use our guest aright.
In vain! When dawn came chill and red
His bed was empty: Love had fled.
—KAPPA
As typical of the second category, labelled by Lynton'perversification', the short piece headed Whitsun Protest' may bequoted:
Who stagger blindly on life's crumbling slope,
And in the gloom for hand or foothold grope,
What good to fling at us the loose unmadefast rope of Hope?
What good to prate of Faith, Reliance,
Trust To us who see the worm, the rot, the rust;
Whom observation teaches that the end of all things must bedust?
Doth charity, prime gift of Heaven's Dove,
Bid each of us with all live hand in glove?
Her score in life's rough game, whate'er the count above, islove. —LAMBDA
Archdeacon and rector would rightly have taken objection tothat!
The only piece to fall into the third category, of sincerewriting, was 'Art Cycle', for which Mr Boringer had expressed aliking after tea that afternoon. Here it is:
To her hairy lord cried the cave-woman
'What doest now
Pricking with flint thy wooden club-handle?'
Gave answer he:
'I mind the boar that I killed yesterday:
Thus was his head; his body thus;
And thus his legs—
Oh! but I had forgotten his tusks!
His tusks were so.'
'Fool!' frowned the woman, 'Fool!
Thy silly scratches shall not make a hog!
' Generations pass: their great-great-grandchildren
Cluster along the cave wall staring agape
At where a youth in charcoal, chalk and berry-stains
Has limned and daubed a story of the chase.
'See there, a boar!
And here a bear:
A fox, a polecat, and a badger!
Hounds too below.'
'Oh! wonderful,' they cry; 'wonderful!
He has caged all beasts of the forest on our wall!'
Millennia lapse into man-made history.
Great lives are lived;
Great deaths died; great names writ
By dint of music, letters, art, philosophy.
'Mark ye,' proclaims a painter's pupil,
'How the master never copies but creates:
His form robes essence;
Just like God in Genesis
He makes the light and sees that it is good:
And it is so.
The man who sat for yon portrait
Died of a quinsy yesteryear and lies
In an already unremembered grave.
Yet, new begotten of the master's brush,
Regenerate in paint and canvas,
He will live on, just as our master made him,
Through ages to attest the painter's power
E'en by his own anonymous nonentity!'
Noontide now turns to even; ripeness to rot;
Scions of giants grow pygmified
From grovelling under low roofs of convention,
Genuflecting to their idols of the past,
Breathing stale incense, nervous of open air,
Mumbling worn rules and musty shibboleths,
Followers all, spunkless to blaze new trails!
Critics, alas, abet.
'At the Dafton Gallery Mr Richard Doe, R.A.
Shows canvasses finely redolent of—and—.'
(Fill in the gaps with any old master's name;
You need not trouble to assess their affinity.)
What falser oracle?
As though a mill can grind with the water that has passed!
Revolt sets in; not with return to simpleness and truth,
But with much paraphernalia of isms and ologies
Pretentiously paraded by fists and ites;
Who, in their heresy of art for the artist's sake,
Mistake ingenious encipherment for creation
And puzzles for profundity,
Forcing the unled unfed multitude to pursue
Photography in Philistia.
Says Mr X:
'I'm glad we let young Harold study art:
He'll be a genius!
lust you look at this:
"The Boar Hunt".
Yet I can recognise nor boar nor hounds,
Nor anything resembling either,
Though it is possibly suggestive of a hunt breakfast.'
'How clever of him!' Mrs X replies:
But faint across the chasm of the years
Echoes the judgment of the cave-woman,
'Fool!' she frowns, fool!'
Thy silly scratches shall not make a hog!'
—OMICRON
Having heard from the rector that Tresdale once had a picture ofhis hung in the academy, Lynton believed that the foregoing mustrepresent some reflection of his true personality. That was what hewould suggest to the rector at breakfast next morning.
It was now eleven o'clock and, tossingKidbury Notebookon to a table, Lynton turned with relief to the last chapters of adetective novel that he had been reading in the train that morning.So engrossing was the plot that he read on to the end of the book;and, as he closed it, the chimes of midnight broke from the churchbelfry. Noticing that it was full moon he let himself out of thefront door for a stroll down the drive before going to bed. The airwas warm and close. Although the moon shone clear overhead, therewere winks of sheet lightning from clouds to the eastward. Onreaching the drive gate he leaned over it and lit a cigarette.Then, as he threw the dead match on to the road outside, he becameaware of some belated traveller stepping briskly along it in hisdirection. As this figure drew level with the gate it halted; and,with the moonlight now full on its face, stood staring at him. Itwas speaking, too.
'So, what Upsilon told me an hour ago is true!' The voice wasshaky, but clear. 'There is a guest at the Rectory. I see him nowat the gate, as Upsilon foretold. The spirits will have read histhoughts, and through him have discovered my interpolations. Iwanted so badly to see myself in print! This they will neverforgive. What will they do to me?'
At that the voice suddenly broke; and with a catch in his breaththe speaker started to run—to run madly, as though he werehunted and a pursuer close at his heels.
Lynton too almost ran, so hurried were his paces back along thedrive. At one point he jumped over the black shadow of a treetrunk. A dim light behind the blinds of an upper window showed thathis host was still awake; and of this he was glad Climbing thestairs two steps at a time he knocked at the door, and was told tocome in. 'Rector,' he said, 'I have just seen, and heard,Tresdale!' With that beginning they talked for more than anhour.
5
All that has been told so far happened on a Thursday: we nowskip to the following Sunday. First, however, an introduction isneeded to Mrs Bruckett. If ever the words buxom and bonnyadequately described a woman, that woman was Matilda Bruckett. Youdid not notice the colour of her hair or of her eyes, nor whethershe were tall or short; only that she was bonny and buxom. To talkto her was to experience a sense of honesty, gaiety andcontentment. 'Tilly' everybody called her, and 'Tilly' she liked tobe called. She was, and owned herself with pride to be, acharwoman. In that capacity she would visit Mr Tresdale's railwaycarriages on three mornings in the week: Sundays, Tuesdays andThursdays. 'I don't 'old with working on what some calls theSabbath,' she confided to the rector, 'but, there, Mr Tresdalerequires it, and I ain't a one to argify with a genelman as knowswhat he wants and pays accordin'. So that's why I comes to churchthese days of a hevening' stead of morning. I never could abidethat Litany neither; beggin' your pardon, sir, for I knows as itwasn't you as wrote it.'
At the Lion and Unicorn of a Saturday evening Tilly Bruckettwould eke out a half-pint of bitter with gossip about herclientèle. 'Mr Tresdale now were that strange,' she washeard to say; 'what with livin' in them railway carriages, and 'isgoin's on with sperrits as only 'imself could see and 'ear.Sperrits be better than dogs though, for they doesn't make no messabout a place: which ain't surprisin' seein' as 'ow I don't believethere are no such things, spite of all 'is talk.'
It was a less philosophical Tilly that fidgeted impatiently inthe church porch that Sunday, awaiting the termination of Mattins,and ready to pounce on Dr Farrold the moment that he emerged.''Ooever would want to marry 'is grandmother,' she mutteredindignantly with a contemptuous glance at the Table of Kindred andAffinity, 'short of a loony! There; that's the last 'ymn, that be,and I 'ope as old Tasker won't loiter with the bag or the organ'llplay twiddledy bits at the end. Ah! That's the Hamen all right, andnow they'll be coming out.'
So they did, to the strains of Handel's march fromScipione; and Dr Farrold found himself all of a sudden inthe unceremonious clutches of Mrs Brackett.
'Come at once, Sir,' she said, 'and take me with you in the caras far as Gander's Green where we'll 'ave to cross the fields bythe footpath. Mr Tresdale's been and taken a fit, and I left 'imlying on the floor as good as dead. Couldn't lift or move im', Icouldn't, 'e's that 'eavy. Oh! Come along, Sir, or maybe 'e'll begone.'
Lynton, coming out of the church door, found his way obstructedby Mrs Bruckett's seizure of the doctor, and to him the latter nowturned.
'We haven't met yet,' Dr Farrold said, 'but I saw you in therectory pew, and I may need assistance if Tresdale has to be gotout across the fields. Could you come with me?'
'Why, certainly, of course. I'll just look in at the vestry andtell the rector that I may be late for lunch.'
'Right! I'll drive down to the surgery for a stretcher, and comeback here for you in five minutes. The rector may like to come too.And you, Mrs Bruckett, please go at once and find the districtnurse. If she's in, you can hire the Lion and Unicorn's car, andbring her down with you to Gander's Green and across to MrTresdale's. We may need her help too.'
Mrs Bruckett made off as directed, and Lynton found the rectorvery ready to accompany him. In a matter of minutes therefore theywere driving down Hagland Hollow on their way to Gander's Green.There they alighted, climbed over the stile and hurried afoot overthe fields.
On arrival at Tresdale's enclosure Mr Vinetree removed his hat,and, bowing reverently, said 'Peace be to—to these railwaycarriages.' The doctor, meanwhile, being several yards ahead,pushed eagerly into the middle carriage that had once been asaloon. There, still prostrate on the floor, lay Mr Tresdale, withone outstretched hand resting upon an open notebook. On a lowtable, and just above his head, stood the dummy wireless set andtelevision screen.
'Take the table and other junk away, will you?' Dr Farroldrequested, kicking the notebook to one side. 'I shall need moreroom here.'
Lynton and the rector were quick to do his bidding, and set thetable (with the other articles upon it) on the pavement outside.While the doctor knelt to examine his patient Mr Vinetree took upthe notebook and began to read. His reaction to whatever he foundwritten there seemed to Lynton unnecessarily theatrical:reminiscent of that once popular print in which Moses is depicteddashing to pieces on a rock the first edition of the decalogue.Lifting first the wireless case, and then the television screen,above his head with both hands he hurled them on to the brickpavement and smashed them utterly.
'Here, for God's sake stop making such a damned noise!'ejaculated the doctor, unmindful of to whom he spoke; and then, ina lower voice, 'By Jove, though, it seems to have woken him up!Hand me that brandy flask, will you, out of my bag.'
They did not need the stretcher. Tresdale, though dazed andspeechless, managed to totter along through the fields, supportedon either side by the doctor and Lynton. Mr Vinetree carried thedoctor's bag, and the notebook. At the stile they met Mrs Bruckettand the district nurse. The latter was placed in charge of Tresdalein the back of the doctor's car; and, with the rector in the frontseat beside him, Dr Farrold drove off to Thornychurch hospital.Lynton was left with Mrs Bruckett to go back and pack up Tresdale'snight attire and sponges in a suitcase, to put the place generallyin order, and then to lock up the railway carriages.
6
Dr Farrold had supper after evensong at the Rectory. 'I mustthank you both,' he said, 'for your help this morning. It's a queercase, and the hospital people can't make head or tail of it.Mental, they think, rather than physical; but the poor chap ishalf-starved after living alone there with nobody to cook for him.They're shifting him to that nursing-home at Funtingham tomorrow.By the way, Vinetree, that was a rum text you preached from thisevening.My name is Legion, for we are many. Were you by anychance thinking of Tresdale?'
The rector nodded. 'I've thought of nothing else since we gotback from Thornychurch. You see, I read what he had written in thatnotebook. You two had better have a look at it before I burn it, asI certainly shall. Here it is.'
The notes were in pencil and decreased sadly in legibility asthey went on. These paragraphs were, however, more or less easilydecipherable:
You will die from the toes upward. Tomorrow you will beankle deep in death. Take off your socks and look at your feet.White! The blood will never...
Your shin and calves are numb: but, kneeling before us, you stillfeel the boards beneath your knees. For the last time.
You do not care to kneel today. You may lie on your belly and placethe notebook on the floor. Take a needle and prick your thighs.They are dying.
It is difficult to write now for your fingers are dead. You brokethat glass in your hand because you could not feel it. Take care ofthat cup of milk at your elbow. Drink it before you upset it, forit is your last.
You no longer hunger or thirst for your stomach is dead. We willrespite brain, lung and heart and take only your eyes today. Youare blind.
You still write what you hear, though the lines are crooked andyour letters misshaped. That is well. We wish our punishment of youto be recorded.
Within an hour you will be deaf. There will thus be no more for youto write, and your arms now die. Your brain will alone survive totake your punishment; until you starve.
Tomorrow de...
'No, Rector,' Dr Farrold emphatically objected, 'you must notburn this book. It may help in the treatment of the case. Thankyou: I will take it with me.'
7
Did Mr Tresdale recover? After eight months' treatment underProfessor Hasterton, the eminent psychiatrist, he did. He livesnow, and paints all day, at a resort on the East Coast. Severalmore of his pictures have been hung in the Academy.
A year, almost to the day, after the events here narrated, FrankLynton was again staying at Kidbury Rectory. He and the rector tooka walk together to Farnley Edge, and stood gazing in silence at thesteaming weald below. The rector was the first to speak. 'Thosewretched railway carriages are still there,' he complained. 'Iheard that they, and the field too, had been sold. So I was hopingthat they would have been removed by now.'
Lynton continued to gaze; unhearingly, it seemed. Then after aminute or two he remarked, still gazing, 'They wouldn't be seenfrom here if they were camouflaged green and brown. I can imagineno more delightful spot for a quiet weekend. In point of fact I'vebought them and the field myself.'
Note—It is probable that Mr Lynton did the Archdeaconinjustice in supposing that 'he could have done no more than lookat the cover' of the magazine. It seems more likely indeed that MrLynton himself omitted to look through the pages headed 'Children'sCorner'; unless, which is possible, the rector had already excisedthem. Those pages included three sets of verses (each subscribedIOTA), none of which would appear wholesome meat for children. Thereader, however, can judge for himself, for here they are:
LULLABY
Go to sleep, little one,
Shades of the night
Huddle around you
Gathering might:
Go to sleep, little one,
Till the daylight.
Go to sleep, little one,
Better to dream
Than know who enters
On the moonbeam:
So, to sleep, little one:
Eyes are agleam!
Quick to sleep, little one,
Lest you should see
What until cockcrow
Lurks in yon tree!
Safer, dear wee one, to
Sleep and let be.
FIVE-FINGER EXERCISE
The fire burns blue with caves of green,
A Hand amid the coals is seen,
A shrivelled hand with fingers charred:
The three who watch are breathing hard.
Did he who counselled this ordeal
Believe the Thing he spake of real?
How should they know, who breathe so hard
Watching that Hand, those fingers charred.
The fire burns bluer yet, they ween,
As something slips the bars between:
A cinder? No; it has no glow
Nor tinkled as it fell below.
As crab along a tidal edge
It sidles to the fender-ledge:
Each watcher tightly grips his chair,
The very silence screams 'Beware!'
Across the rug it flatly creeps,
Then, arched on five charred fingers, leaps!
Leaps to the rear of them that sit,
They have no longer sight of it.
But sounds they hear—a touch, a scrape:
They loathe but listen, mouths agape,
Cursing beneath held breath the Fate
That loosed this Terror from the grate.
Moments are frozen into years,
But comes no respite to their fears:
A reek of charnel taints the air,
But where the climber? Whose the chair?
At last a sob, a choke, a gasp,
A gurgling as burnt nails unclasp!
Blue sinks the fire, its caves dim green;
Within, once more, a Hand is seen.
A clock beneath the stair strikes one:
The Orders of the Night are done!
Two watchers rise to seek a bed;
The third still sits there silent—dead!
A grey dawn breaks on Fonterill;
White shroud of mist still wraps the hill,
When creaking fleshless shoulders bring
Another load to Kirsney Ring.
BED TALE
Burdened and wayworn up the drive
He limped, belated last guest to arrive,
When frost bit hard and snow lay deep on Hampden Clive.
Midnight had chimed an hour ago:
No gleam from any window lit the snow,
Only a narrow bar of light the door below.
A footman met him at the gate:
'The Master doesn't' old with sitting late,
'E told the other gents, what's staying, not to wait.
This 'ere's your candle, sir. Take care!
There ain't no carpet on the broken stair,
The whole place, if you asks me, badly needs repair.
Your room, sir! Fire don't seem alight;
Can't 'elp it, though; them logs is damp tonight.
I'll call you, sir, at eight: breakfast's at nine.
Good night!' The candles gutter: in the gloom
The guest now has remembrance of a room
In which 'twas said that old Sir Hubert met his doom.
There is no bottle in the bed,
And yet the sheets are warm! An ugly dread
Causes him seize the quilt and with it hide his head.
A bell tolls three. Still, still awake
He dares peep out—to see a curtain shake
And the red bell-cord sway and dangle like a snake.
How hot the sheets! Yet he how cold!
With what caress his body they enfold,
Too cold, too numb to rise and force them loose their hold.
Swathing of Death! The bed a tomb!
Ask not upon what warp or weft or loom
Were woven, by what hand, those living sheets ofdoom.
'Telling a story' is in nursery parlance a euphemism forspeaking untruth. Such use of the phrase is not unwarranted. Notale ever told or written has been wholly true. So much is missedin observation, omitted through forgetfulness, misinterpreted injudgment, misrepresented in verbal expression. History inconsequence is never a full reflection, seldom a fair summary, toooften a distortion, of events. Distortion is indeed inevitable whena record is handed down, not in writing or in memorised saga, butfrom mouth to ear, from ear to mouth, over a generation ormore.
All this is prefatory to stating that each of the two tales thatfollow is what is commonly termed a true story. They are not, thatis to say, of the narrator's invention, but a reproduction of whathas been told him, in varying versions, about unusual occurrenceswhich actually took place: the first in the late eighties or earlynineties of last century, the second in the first decade ofthis.
1. A Phantom Butler
If the reader has found the foregoing introduction stilted andpretentious it will have served to prepare him for the presence ofthose qualities in the character of Tertius Holyoak Burnstable,British Officer-in-Charge of the small Malay state calledPenyabong. To the few pioneer planters in that district, as well asto his colleagues in Government service, he was known as agenerous, good-hearted fellow enough, but 'sticky'; confoundedlysticky. He was a tall, well-groomed, finely featured man of fortyor so; very well pleased with himself in his rôle of virtualautocrat of a tiny territory recently brought under Britishprotection. Riding, driving a tandem, and shooting were his mainoutdoor pursuits; billiards and whist his indoor recreations. Heread novels, and had once written one. Nobody who stayed at theResidency was allowed to leave without taking with him apresentation copy signed by the author. Such visitors wereinvariably persons of social distinction or of high official rank;for Burnstable was particular about his invitations, havingadmonished the central Secretariat that in their postings of publicservants 'none but thoroughbreds' should be sent to Penyabong. It'sblood,' he would say, 'that Malays and planters respect; notbrains.' On one occasion he demanded the recall of a young surveyoron the ground that he had dropped an aitch in the course ofofficial conversation.
Hospitality at the Residency was frequent and lavish. Unlikemost Englishmen out East, Burnstable kept a large and choicecellar. His Chinese cook was no rough novice from Hainan, but theex-chef of a well-known restaurant in Hong Kong. The tableservants, however, were all Malays, attired, at their master'sexpense, in exquisite silksarongs andbajus. Threeof them, local recruits, had been drilled and trained to a fairlevel of proficiency by an admirable head-boy, or butler, fromPenang. This was Ahmad, a Tamil strain in whose ancestry wasevidenced by a darker skin than is usual for a Malay and a morenimble intelligence. The latter enabled him to imbue the localstaff with a sense of their own inferiority, and to exact fromBurnstable wages and pickings much in excess of the currentstandard. Ahmad in return rendered superlative service, with acat-like contentment if not dog-like devotion. He was in factmajor-domo.
That Lord Lettiswood, noblest of noble acquaintances, shouldhave proposed himself for a weekend visit just when Ahmad was awayon a fortnight's holiday in Malacca was most upsetting toBurnstable. There was no postponing the visit, however, for theship in which his lordship was making a trip to China would not bein Malayan waters for more than five days. Burnstable thereforetelegraphed to his Malacca friend Reddington (whose office peon wasAhmad's half-brother) requesting him to bid Ahmad cut short hisholiday, and take the remainder of it later. To this telegram camethe reply that Ahmad was down with malaria, and his immediatereturn out of the question. Burnstable swore.
He swore again when, on the very morning of Lord Lettiswood'sarrival, the District Surveyor and the Public Works Engineerbrought him a letter from the Secretariat requiring them to conducta surprise survey of the district treasury. Such surveys were aperiodically recurring nuisance, tying him to the office while cashand stamps were counted and ledgers inspected. Today he hadintended absence from office in order to supervise preparations forthe reception of his noble visitor by the Residency staff. Now hemust leave them to their own devices.
Then, to cap all, Lord Lettiswood arrived a full hour before hewas expected, and while Burnstable was still detained by thetreasury inspection. When he at last got home, a few minutes beforelunchtime, his guest was drinking a gin swizzle in a deck-chair onthe verandah.
'By Jove, Burnstable,' he said, 'your boys know how to mix adrink. The mint makes all the difference. Absinthe, too. I likedthe way your old chap stood over the young 'un while he wasconcocting it. Nothing like training the young idea!'
Burnstable looked surprised. 'I was afraid that you mightn'tfind my staff quite up to scratch perhaps, because my head-boy isaway in Malacca and down with fever. These local lads mean wellenough, but they're young and raw.'
'Surely not thatold chap? If he's your number two,number one must be a paragon.'
Conversation was interrupted at this point by the gong fortiffin, which was served far more deftly and expeditiously thanBurnstable had dared to expect in Ahmad's absence. The real test,however, would come with dinner, to which he had invited six orseven guests to meet the noble visitor.
Afternoon and early evening were spent by host and guest in anexpedition to the Ginting Merah waterfall, so that the Residencyservants were again spared any fussy interference from theirmaster. Lord Lettiswood was more impressed during their ride by thejungle scenery than by Burnstable's conversation, which was along-winded reproduction of his last annual administration report.Matters of interest are often made uninteresting.
Despite an entire absence of ladies (the white population of thedistrict being wholly male) the Residency dinner proceeded mostdecorously. Burnstable had warned Lord Lettiswood that he mightfind some of the guests rather rough diamonds, but the gentlemen sodescribed found his lordship far less 'sticky' and much moreinterested in their daily doings than Burnstable had ever been. Forthe first time they felt at their ease in the Residency; for LordLettiswood was a good mixer and drew each of them out. Even dourold Sandy Matheson from Ulu Sibarau waxed conversational.
Burnstable, attributing the success of his party to good wineand a Lucullan menu, and finding that conversation needed nostimulus or reinforcement from himself, was able carefully to watchthe waiting and attendance. The staff were certainly doingsplendidly, just as if Ahmad were there. This passing thought ofhis head-boy caused him to turn his eyes towards a corner of thebig Chinese blackwood screen behind the sideboard, from which pointAhmad had been wont to direct and supervise his assistants. Ah! sothat was why everything was going so well and smoothly: Ahmad wasthere! He must have recovered quickly from the fever, and caughtthe afternoon mailgharri from Malacca. He was looking farfrom well, though, his cheeks wearing that clayey hue which on abrown skin corresponds to pallor. The nose was peaky and the eyessunken. Burnstable regretted now that he had sent that telegram.Thirty-four miles in a mailgharri on top of a bout ofmalaria would be too much for any man; and Ahmad had never beenrobust. He must tell him to go to bed at once. That Ahmad saw himbeckon he was sure, for the sunken eyes turned towards him. Ahmad,however, did not move.
The District Surveyor was at this moment explaining to LordLettiswood a point of local matriarchal custom; and explaining itwrongly. Burnstable itched to interrupt and contradict, for heconsidered himself an authority on local custom. He found itimpossible, though, to concentrate sufficiently on what was beingsaid or to take his eyes or his thoughts off Ahmad. What could itbe that so gripped and distracted him? He felt somehow, as he putthis question to himself, that he would rather have it unanswered.This feeling arose from a consciousness of something being notquite right somewhere. For the first time in his life Burnstablewas ill at ease at his own table. He hoped that nobody was noticinghis stare.
He started violently when a fork or spoon dropped from thesideboard on to the floor at Ahmad's feet. One of the boys stoopedand picked it up; but, as he did so, Burnstable noticed somethingthat the boy apparently did not. The spoon had dropped, but not atAhmad's feet.For Ahmad had no feet! The standing figureended abruptly at the bottom hem of itssarong. For all itsappearance of solidity, it must be floating on air. Then, just asBurnstable muttered to himself something about optical illusions,another boy coming with a dish from the kitchen walked straightthrough the figure.
Burnstable prided himself on his strong nerve. Subduing with adetermined effort both fear and curiosity he plunged into thegeneral conversation: so successfully that his guests on leavingremarked to each other that they had never known sticky old B. insuch form. While talking, however, he darted frequent glances atthe figure by the screen. It was still there when the company leftthe dining-room and passed out on to the verandah.
Burnstable knew better than to question his servants about whatmight arouse suspicions of the Residency being an 'unquiet' house.When, next morning, he complimented the second boy on the waitingat dinner he received the reply that they had all been careful toremember what Ahmad had taught them. Sothey had seennothing! Lord Lettiswood, however, before taking his leave handed aten-dollar note to his host. 'I can't find your old chap about thismorning,' he said, 'to give him this tip. So you must do it for me.He's a marvel, isn't he? Such a quiet way of managing your otherboys, and never a word audible. I should be careful of him, if Iwere you; for he doesn't look too fit.'
Ten days later Ahmad returned from Malacca. 'Never before have Itaken the fever so badly,' he told Burnstable, 'On the day of yourdinner party I was like a madman. I seemed to see you beckon to meand I strained every muscle to get up. My feet, however, feltembedded in the sand where I lay beneath the coconut tree outsidemy brother's house. I set myself to pull and drag them out; till,suddenly, they snapped off just above the ankle, and my body bobbedup like a bladder that has been held under water. Then there was arushing of wind, and I seemed blown through the clouds and rainback here to Penyabong, where I found myself attending to Tuan'svisitor. At dinner I saw that Sulong and the other servants weredoing as I had taught them; so I felt very happy, except for havingleft my feet behind in Malacca. That was a strange dream, Tuan, wasit not? But the fever was hot on me when I dreamed it.'
When Burnstable related what has here been told to the MalayChief of Penyabong, the old man smiled and nodded. 'Shadows aresometimes thrown to a great distance,' he said.
2. Diplotopia
That the old Fort house was said to be haunted is of importanceto the extent that it was such hearsay that once prompted enquiryof a tenant as to whether he had ever seen or heard anything.
'Nothing,' came the reply, 'nor has my wife. All the samethere's a queerness about the place that neither of us likes. Weshall be glad to get into the hill bungalow when the Joneses go onleave.'
The speaker was Roland Belstrow, Assistant District Officer atSialang from 1909 to 1911. A promising young Civil Servant, not yetthirty, he had recently married Diana Dowland, whose brother,Philip, was manager of Sialang Rubber Estate.
'What do I mean by queerness? Well, just queerness: there's noother name to it. Ever since we've lived here quite ordinary thingsseem to go a bit queer, and it makes us feel uncomfortable. Forinstance, there was that business with my brother-in-law. He had toconsult Diana about some point in their father's will, andso—I'll give you his account first—he called in hereone afternoon a little before tea-time. Sinnatambi, our Tamil boy,told him that we had gone away for the day up to Kuala Pasir, to dosome shopping, and that we shouldn't be back until the seveno'clock train. Philip, however, said that he had just seen uswalking up the short-cut from the station, and that we must havecaught the four o'clock. Sinnatambi therefore went into the kitchenand prepared tea for the three of us. When (so Sinnatambi told uson our return) he came back ten minutes later with the tea things,he found Philip talking and laughing in a chair on the verandah asthough he had company. He was, however, alone and Sinnatambithought he must be tipsy. There seemed indeed to be no doubt aboutit when Sinnatambi came to clear away and wash-up; for Philip haddrunk from all three cups and eaten from all three plates.
As Sinnatambi was telling us this at dinner-time, Diana and Iconcluded that it must have beenhe that had been drunk; andI will tell you why. We had run across Philip that afternoon at theKuala Pasir club, andhe had had tea with us at the OrientHotel. Nevertheless, that Sinnatambi had not been drinking wassoon obvious enough from the steady hand with which he poured outDiana's glass of sherry and my ginpahit. We discussed thematter over our dinner, and put a few questions to Sinnatambi; allof which he answered with composure and coherence. Alternativesolutions seemed to be: either somebody had impersonated Philip(which appeared most unlikely), or Sinnatambi had beendreaming.
Both alternatives, however, were knocked on the head by whatPhilip told us after church next Sunday. He insisted that he hadhad tea with uson the Fort verandah and, by way ofevidence, produced a green pocket-book in which he had noted downwhat Diana and he had agreed to concerning their father's will.'But,' said Diana, 'I saw you jot that down while we were sittingin the lounge of the Orient Hotel.' 'What nonsense,' Philipreplied; 'I haven't been up to Kuala Pasir since Christmas.'
Well, there it was—and is; Diana's word and mine againstthat of Philip and Sinnatambi; and no reason why any of us shouldbe lying. That's what I meant by quite ordinary things going queer.As I said just now, we shall be damned glad when the Joneses go,and we get into the hill bungalow.'
1
The Government House calling-book was of great size and weight:so big and heavy that nobody could walk off with it unnoticed. Itwas safe, therefore, to leave it unattended during daylight hours,laid open impressively on a shelf in the kiosk below the Flamboyanttrees at the main gate.
Punctually every morning at nine o'clock it was deposited there,and as punctually every evening at half-past six removed, by twoscarlet-hatted, scarlet-sashed peons. This function they performedwith such evident satisfaction to their personal vanity as to makeof it almost a ceremony. Indeed the aide-de-camp referred to it inhis Routine Orders as 'the Procession of the Book'.
Before the governorship of Sir Oscar Sallerton, an unwritten lawprevailed in Takeokuta as to who were, and who were not, to writetheir names in the book. On the official side Heads of Departmentsmust, their deputiesshould, and other officers ofmore than ten years' senioritymight, inscribe theirsignatures. Of unofficials, members of the Legislaturemust,Town Councillorsshould, heads of the mercantile houses andpersons authorised to sign for them 'per pro'might sign.All others mightnot. Such traditional limitation served autilitarian purpose. It meant that every signatory could be invitedto a formal luncheon or dinner party twice a year withoutovercrowding the dining-hall or over-taxing the Governor's culinarystaff.
Whether Sir Oscar found himself bored by the thus selected few,or overcome by a democratic conscience towards the thus excludedmany, must be a matter for conjecture. All that is known forcertain is that, in the third year of a not very popular reign, heinstructed his A.D.C. to make it generally known that any loyalcitizen was welcome to call at Government House. Every taxpayer,said His Excellency, contributed towards the Governor'sentertainment allowance; and was entitled to aquid pro quo.Though he couldn't ask more people to dinner than he was alreadydoing, he proposed to give occasional garden-parties to which everyTom, Dick or Harry could be invited. It was unfortunate, perhaps,that Captain Preen should have repeated the use of this formula atthe Takeokuta Club; for it inspired inscription in the calling-booknext morning of the pseudonymous entries 'A. Thomas, A. Richard andA. Henry.'
If, as a consequence of Sir Oscar's revolutionary ruling, thecalling-book lost significance as an index of people's socialstanding, it became on the other hand a treasury of Kongeanautography. Aspiring minor chiefs wrote their titles in decorativecurvilinear Kongahili script, and competitive merchants theirbusiness addresses in impeccable copy-book style. Here and there,in purposeful contrast, a resentful patrician would indulge a pridein illegibility; or a self-conscious aesthete eke out his signaturewith fanciful twirl or flourish. Yet the only eyes to feast on theinscribed pages were those of Mr Ariyasonu, the clerk whosebusiness it was to copy entries from the calling-book into theGovernment House entertainment register.
These daily postings seldom presented any difficulty.Nevertheless it was a standing instruction that, should doubt orquestion arise, immediate reference must be made to the privatesecretary. This was why Ariyasonu felt it his duty to invite MrLushmoor's attention to an apparent breach of etiquette on the partof a caller who signed his name as U. Nomi.
'This gentleman,' he explained, 'is signing the book after lastthree garden-parties, but is never answering invitations. That issurely wrongful, Your Honour; for the capital letters on invitationcard say "Reply Soon, Very Pressing".'
Mr Lushmoor smiled. 'So that'syour reading of R.S.V.P.,is it? Not such a bad one, either! But tell me, Ariyasonu, who isthis Mr U. Nomi, who doesn't answer invitations?'
'God alone is knowing, Sir. It is not a Kongean name.'
'Nor a European one either, by the sound of it.You knowme! Well, apparently, that's just what we don't. A practicaljoker, perhaps.'
Mr Ariyasonu looked, and was, pained. The very suggestion of ajocular entry in The Book offended not only his sense of proprietybut his feelings of loyalty. Were not the Crown and Royal Cipherdeeply embossed in gold upon its red morocco cover? Nay, more; didnot its pages enshrine the actual signature of one Royal Highness?Fortunately for his peace of mind he had copied without suspicionthe fictitious signatures of A. Thomas, A. Richard and A. Henry,and had since wondered why the three gentlemen did not call again.So far as it is possible for a subordinate to show disapproval ofhis senior officer without disrespect, Ariyasonu now hinted it inhis reply to Mr Lushmoor.
'Your Honour must excuse me,' he said, 'but nobody can dare towrite wrongfully in the King's book. If this one or that one haswritten U. Nomi; then U. Nomi is surely this one or that one's truename. Indubittably.'
Mr Ariyasonu's fondness for long words outreached his knowledgeof their pronunciation, and 'indubitably' is here spelt as hepronounced it. Indubitably,' he repeated with emphasis.
'Well, let's hope you may be right, Ariyasonu,' the privatesecretary replied, anxious to mollify. 'You might perhaps try andfind out from the postal people whether they've got anybody namedNomi on their delivery lists. Captain Preen can also enquire of thePolice. Of one thing I'm absolutely certain, and that is that, ifthe fellow has ever attended a garden-party, he's never presentedhimself for introduction to His Excellency. Fancy having toannounce "Mr You Know Me"! Captain Preen and I would certainly haveremembered it.'
Enquiry of the Police proved fruitless. The post office was moreinformative. None of the three garden-party invitations had beendelivered! As no address had been given beyond 'U. Nomi, Esq.,Takeokuta', and as the addressee was unknown to any postal servant,the envelopes had been placed in the Poste Restante rack, and therethey still lay. It could be inferred therefore that the coincidenceof garden-party dates with those of Mr Nomi's calls had been purelyfortuitous.
Indubitably,' agreed Mr Ariyasonu, relieved that there had beenno breach of etiquette in the matter of answering invitations; 'noaddress was written in the book, and so I myself wrote "Takeokuta"in speculation only on the envelopes. Wherefore they have satsimply in postal waiting-box; but without my fault.'
'Yes, that's all right, Ariyasonu. But there still remains,'Lushmoor added, 'the question as to who wrote that name in thebook. It's you who look through the entries every evening; so, ifyou come across Mr Nomi's name again, let me know at once; or, if Ihappen to be out, leave a note on my desk. Captain Preen haspromised to inform the Police should the entry be repeated.'
At this point, for some two or three months, the matterrested.
2
It was about eight o'clock of a morning in early June that TobyLushmoor dismounted at the stable gate and, leaving his horse tothe syce, strolled over to the office to see whether the day's mailwas light or heavy. A large and varied assortment of envelopes layon the table; most of them, he saw with relief, of an unofficialsort that would be found to contain answers to invitations for theKing's Birthday garden-party. Only a dozen or so bore the printedsuperscription 'On His Majesty's Service'. Placing these on oneside he tossed the remainder into the clerk's tray. As he did so,he remembered that Ariyasonu had yesterday requested the issue of anew calling-book; but, before issuing it, he would see how manypages were left in the old one. Walking therefore to the tablewhereon it awaited the 'morning procession', he heaved it open,and, glancing at the latest entry, gave a little grunt of surprise.U. Nomi! Why on earth hadn't Ariyasonu told him last night, as hehad promised to do? He must put him on the mat after breakfast.
Telling Preen, over their poached eggs, of his discovery and ofAriyasonu's default, Lushmoor added that, on seeing the signature,he had experienced a strange sense of familiarity with thehandwriting. Would Preen come and have a look at it? While he wasstill speaking a peon hurried in with a memorandum form, to which ared 'Immediate Action' label had been pinned. 'To PrivateSecretary,' it ran, 'from Chief Clerk. Your Honour, there isfurther autograph of U. Nomi in calling-book also, which is enigmaonly as book was without said autograph at 7.18 p.m. when I amleaving office. It will behove therefore to investigate. T.ARIYASONU.'
'Well, that's a queer show,' Lushmoor commented, 'for the book'sbeen lying in my office all night. Let's go and have a look at it,if you've finished your coffee.'
Three minutes later they stood before the book; Preen with apuzzled frown as he peered at the signature. 'Impossible!' hemuttered.
'What's impossible?'
'Identification of handwriting from only two capital and threesmall letters. Still, I agree with you that there seems somethingreminiscent about it. I'll get on to the Police again thismorning.' As soon as Preen had gone Lushmoor took another andlonger look at the signature. He felt convinced that, when hemuttered 'impossible', Preen had noticed what he himself hadnoticed; and had, like himself, written it off as impossible. Whatthis was, and that it was not impossible, the following pages willmake clear.
From this scrutiny and meditation Lushmoor was roused by adeferential cough. 'Your Honour has received my memorandum?'Ariyasonu began interrogatively; and at an affirmative nod, wenton: 'It is greatly wrongful that anybody should sign in thenight-times; and yet how not so? At seven eighteen I am leavingbook here in accustomed location, and last name is Mr and MrsDarley-Fernchurch. Next, when I come this early morning, I see thewriting of U. Nomi. Wherefore it is done in the night-times and inthis office also. I am asking myself many times who is culprit. Thenew peon, Your Honour...'
'Cannot write English,' interrupted Lushmoor, 'and so is out ofit.'
'But, Sir, all others are long time tried and trustable; YourHonour will not be suspecting...'
'I suspect nobody, Ariyasonu; the thing's just unaccountable,and I doubt if the Police'll be able to make anything of it.However, I mean to try a bit of sleuth stuff myself. I'm going tohave my things moved to the downstairs bedroom across there; and,if in future you will place the book on the desk instead of theside-table, I shall be able to keep an eye on it even when in bed.The doors, you see, are opposite each other and both can be leftopen so long as I sleep there. Anybody signing the book must have alight to do it by, and I always wake up if there's a light. Ishan't expect an early disturbance, though; for this Nomi fellowsigns at pretty long intervals.'
Mr Ariyasonu appeared pleased at this plan of action. 'I am muchgrateful,' he replied, 'that your Honour is believing my word thatthis writing was done in the night-times: for, if Your Honour notbelieving, where shall be my proof?'
'In the ink, Ariyasonu, in the ink:you'll never make adetective. The peon must have put some red ink into this blackinkpot; for the stuff writes a dull purple. The signature, unlikethe other signatures, is a dull purple. Therefore it must have beenwritten here, and the book is only here at night.'
'Ah! Sir, I never noticed that.'
Nor indeed had Lushmoor until a minute or two ago.
3
Lushmoor was right in his prognosis that weeks would passwithout any repetition of the Nomi signature. They were not,however, in other respects uneventful for the inmates of GovernmentHouse. Dinners and luncheons had to be postponed more than onceowing to Lady Sallerton's ill-health. She had been married to theGovernor during his last furlough, and was as generally popular inKongea as he was not. The people contrasted her unaffected gladnessto meet them with his standoffishness; her readiness to listen andsympathise with his indifference or cynicism. Over bridge tables atthe Takeokuta Club, talk would sometimes dwell on the futureprospects of what appeared a union of opposites, and the ColonialSecretary's wife maintain a rather too affirmative silence wheneverit was hinted that all was not well between the Governor and hislady. Later, when the wife of a public works department officialcharged with checking the Government House furniture inventorywhispered that Lady Sallerton no longer slept in the same wing asHis Excellency, her hearers shook their heads knowingly and smiledgrimly at their cards.
The mirror of truth was by no means a permanent fixture in theladies' bridge-room; but in this case their information wascorrect. Lady Sallertonhad changed her room, and bydoctor's order. She was suffering from disturbed nights and, underhis cross-examination, had disclosed the fact that her husband notonly snored but also chattered in his sleep, sometimes loudly, in alanguage that she did not understand. It was, she surmised, one ofthose spoken in Luganda, his first colony, where he had won a name,and consequent early promotion, by averting a threatened revoltamong the Sasseni tribesmen.
On hearing this, Dr Thraplow counselled her to sleep out ofearshot in future, and so informed Sir Oscar. 'Certainly,' hereplied, 'you may move her away as far as you like. It's strange,isn't it, that she never appears to hear what I say when I'mawake!' It was perhaps well that, Dr Thraplow being unmarried, thisrejoinder did not find its way to the ladies' bridge-room.
Before very long it became quite clear to members of his staffthat Sir Oscar resented his wife's having told the doctor of histalking in his sleep. But for him, Lushmoor and Preen would neverhave heard of it at all; Lady Sallerton never alluded to it. He,however, talked of her before them as 'my nocturnal eavesdropper',and seemed to delight in making her uncomfortable. A gravedeterioration in marital relations was obvious; and Preen andLushmoor, in their turn, felt uncomfortable. Their efforts to makesmall talk at meals were laborious but unfruitful; Lady Sallertonwould be listless and the Governor snappily ironical. When,therefore, a cablegram arrived imploring her ladyship to sail hometo see her mother, who lay dangerously ill, Lushmoor and Preenheaved a sigh of relief. So also did the doctor, unable to arresther neurasthenia. She left for England in the s.s.Lithuania; and, with her embarkation, passes out of ourstory. It was rumoured later that she found her mother in excellentfettle, and that the cablegram had been sent on receipt of lettersreflecting inclement conjugal weather. But this wasonlyrumour.
The Governor showed no sign of regret at Lady Sallerton'sdeparture, but informed Preen and Lushmoor that they need notbother to talk to him at meals, unless they should have anythingofficial to communicate. They could conserve their conversationalpowers for parties; which, he sourly added, was what they were paidfor. A Trappist discipline thus ensued, unless there was company,and food was digested over books or newspapers.
About a fortnight after Lady Sallerton's departure Lushmoorawoke in the small hours of a moonless night, and lay listening fora repetition of any noise that might have aroused him. He thensuddenly realised that it had not been a noise but a light, orrather a reflection of light, in the office opposite. Someone, hesaw, must have switched on the lamps at the head of the grandstaircase. Jumping out of bed he slipped noiselessly into theoffice to investigate. Yes, the top staircase lamps were on, andslowly descending the stairs moved a figure in blue-stripedpyjamas. Lushmoor crept quickly behind the stationery cupboard, andhad hardly done so before the figure entered the office and presseddown the light switch by its door. In the glare of the ceilinglight he watched the Governor, for it was he, walk straight to thecalling-book, dip a pen in the inkstand at its side, and write anentry. There was something startlingly robot-like about thesemovements and, as the figure retreated towards the door, Lushmoornoticed that, although the eyes were wide open, they wereexpressionless and unreflecting. So Sir Oscar was both sleep-talkerand sleep-walker! His Excellency switched off the light as he leftthe office and also, on regaining the landing, the lamps above thestairhead.
After a minute or more of darkness Lushmoor flicked the officelight on again and looked in the calling-book. Mr U. Nomi hadsigned once more and 'in the night-times'.
4
Lushmoor was natty with his fingers. Nobody inspecting thecalling-book four hours after the events just narrated would havetold that a whole page (at whose top Sir Oscar had written the nameof U. Nomi) had been extracted. This Lushmoor had done aftercareful reasoning. Sleep-walking, according to Kongean belief, isthe result of a soul other than the sleeper's own animating thedormant body—an usurping tenancy which reflecteddiscreditably on the temporarily disowned possessor. To letAriyasonu know of the Governor's somnambulism would, therefore,never do. Yet there seemed no other way of accounting for thesignature: so it must be got rid of.
One other point Lushmoor had to decide. Should he tell Preen?Ever since Lady Sallerton's illness Preen had, Lushmoor thought,shown symptoms of antipathy towards Sir Oscar. If His Excellencyhad also noticed them he probably interpreted them as reactions tohis own sarcasms and mordant criticisms. Lushmoor, however,suspected a deeper source; for he knew that Preen, like himself,had felt the Governor's treatment of his wife to be callous if notcaddish. If Preen were now told of His Excellency's somnambulism,could he be relied upon in his present mood to keep the matter tohimself? Or would he sooner or later retail it as a tit-bit ofgossip in the club or at the police mess? The latter eventualitywas certainly not impossible, so Lushmoor decided to run no chancesand to keep his lips sealed.
In coming to this decision he was quite unaware that the Police,in liaison with Preen, were still intermittently interested in theriddle of the Nomi signatures. The Detective Branch indeed, notunnaturally, suspected their authorship to be associated with thatof the pseudonymous Tom, Dick and Harry entries. The two young menknown to have been responsible for the latter admitted it withoutdemur; but, asked whether they had ever taken any other libertieswith the calling-book, they answered 'No'.
Although this reply was believed it was decided, with usualpolice thoroughness, to subject the two young men to a test. TwoAssistant Superintendents were detailed to engage them inconversation at the next Government. House reception and to reporttheir reactions when, by pre-arrangement, Preen should announce thename U. Nomi. The Governor, so Preen assured the Commissioner,never paid attention to the announcements but shook handsmechanically with each guest as he walked by.
Preen intended, but forgot, to forewarn Lushmoor of thisexperiment. Consequently, when the day of the party arrived andPreen, amid several hundred other announcements, called out 'Mr U.Nomi,' Lushmoor gave a visible start. Knowing what he knew, hisnext reaction was to look at the Governor. Others were looking athim too; for His Excellency, having ejaculated 'Give me a chair',had subsided into it in apparent collapse. Dr Thraplow hurried tohis help, but was waved angrily aside and his place taken by DrStrathless, the Principal Medical Officer. Supported by the latterand by Preen, Sir Oscar, grey and trembling, suffered himself to beled away to his private apartments. A buzz of conversation ensued,guest asking guest whether they should stay longer or take theirleave.
This point was settled by the reappearance of Dr Strathless witha message from their host. His Excellency wished the party toproceed and his guests to enjoy it as though nothing had happened.The Governor's condition, Dr Strathless added, afforded no causefor alarm or concern, though he would not be able to move amongthem as usual or to shake hands on their departure. So the partywent on.
A bulletin issued from Government House next morning stated thatthe Governor had suffered from heat stroke. Subsequent bulletins,however, seemed to show that this had been a euphemism, and withinthe week it was announced that His Excellency, accompanied by amedical officer, would be leaving for England on recuperative leaveby the s.s.Lithuania.
In after years Lushmoor would sometimes ask himself whether heought not to have insisted upon telling the Principal MedicalOfficer of Sir Oscar's somnambulism and of his having himselfwritten the name of U. Nomi in the calling-book. He would certainlyhave done so had Dr Strathless been ordinarily human andapproachable. Unfortunately, however, the doctor was not of thesort that invites or accepts the confidences of a young man. WhenLushmoor began with 'I think I ought to tell you, Sir,' DrStrathless cut him short with 'There is nothing, Mr Lushmoor, thatyou ought to tell me, or that I ought to hear from you. Rememberthat you are aPrivate Secretary. Sir Oscar's medicalhistory is well known to me from his own lips. I enjoy his completeconfidence and possess ample data for correct diagnosis. It is nota case for lay observation.' Thus effectually snubbed, Lushmoorretreated to his office in silence.
The telegram reporting Sir Oscar Sallerton's death on board shipstated, without further detail, that it followed a severe heartattack. It was the following passages in a letter to Preen from theaccompanying Medical Officer that worried Lushmoor'sconscience.
'...It was a very sudden attack. H.E. seemed in goodform and was sitting on deck when the Purser handed him a typedlist of entries for the ship's sports. He glanced at it, put hishand to his heart, and fell sideways off his chair—dead. Theonly other piece of news is that we appear to have a mystery manaboard. When the notice inviting entries for the sports was postedup a Mr U. Nomi wrote his name down for several events. The fellowhas never turned up for his heats, and now it transpires that thereis nobody of that name on the Passenger List!'
5
Twenty years later Sir Tobias Lushmoor, K.C.M.G., now himself aColonial Governor, found himself at a London dinner placed next tothat lively octogenarian Sir Nathan Farmley, once ColonialSecretary of Luganda.
'I'm not a bit surprised,' Sir Nathan said, 'to hear thatSallerton wasn't popular in Kongea. We were damned glad, Iremember, when he got promoted out of Luganda. None of us trustedhim, and there was something fishy about his suppression of ourfirst trouble in the Sasseni area. It flared up again seven yearslater, when the tribesmen complained that Sallerton had somehowmanaged to spirit away an itinerant medicine man. What was his namenow? Ah! yes, I've got it—Umfalaga Nomi. The stories were socontradictory that nobody could make head or tail of them; but theyleft many of us with the suspicion that the fellow might have beendisposed of—well, improperly.'
'Murdered, you mean?'
'I don't know about "murdered"; but some young spiritualists,messing about with their ouija board one night, professed to havegot a message through from Nomi. It was for Sallerton, and theyoung idiots posted him a copy. He never acknowledged it though; itmust have been about the time he first went to Kongea.'
'What sort of a message was it?'
'I can give it you word for word, I think. It stuck in my memorybecause it sounded like fake Bible stuff.
By thine own hand shall it be written in the book thatI have called upon thee: my name shall be declared in thecongregation. The waves of the sea shall cover thee; that thoumayest go down with me into the pit.
1
A dead man's private account book, just a bare record ofpayments and payees, can arouse curiosity. What dealings, now, canJack Robinson have had with Jones, Smith and Jones, Ltd.? Artists'colourmen, of course; a very-well-known firm. Yet Jack never caredfor pictures; certainly did not paint. A gift to a niece, perhaps,or accommodation for an artist friend? But had Robinson either?What a field for speculation, for imaginings! A rich quarry, suchan account book, for the inventive novelist.
It was not, however, in any such generalised terms that EustaceBrayne was thinking, as he sat in the library of Sheldrake Hall,running through items in a ledger laid open on the writing-cabinet.He had already found out what he set out to find. The annualpremium on Uncle Malcolm's fire policy had been duly paid beforehis death. Eustace's first anxiety as inheritor of Sheldrake Hallwas thereby allayed. He had not liked the look of the electricwiring in his bedroom. The old-fashioned wooden strip-casing had inseveral places come away from the walls, and the flex of thebed-lamp had fused while he was reading last night. The wholeinstallation clearly demanded immediate overhaul, even if he shouldhave to sell the place for lack of means to live in it. That washis second anxiety and the reason why, having set his mind at restabout the insurance, he was still delving into the ledger. Hewanted to know what it had cost his uncle to live there in acomfortable but modest way. This should have been easilyascertainable from a smaller book, labelled 'Monthly Summaries,Sheldrake', that lay beside the ledger. A difficulty, however, hadarisen. The monthly totals shown in the summaries did not tallywith those in the ledger. The latter were often much larger andmust, Eustace inferred, include expenditure unconnected withSheldrake.
The entries in both books covered a period of some seven years,beginning in April 1928, and ending with pencil postings made,probably in bed, for the writing was shaky, during Malcolm Brayne'slast illness. It was in the course of examining the handwriting,out of curiosity to see whether the onset of illness was reflectedin its deterioration, that Eustace noticed that the discrepancybetween the totals first became considerable in the summer monthsof 1933. Until then they had corresponded more or less; butthereafter there appeared in the ledger large payments whichEustace was now marking with a cross against each, with a view tomore particular scrutiny on the morrow. At first sight theyappeared to fall, roughly, into two classes: handsome donations tocharitable institutions, and presents—or loans,maybe—to individuals.
Closing the books and shutting the cabinet, for the daylight wasfast failing, Eustace mixed himself a glass of whisky and water andsat down in an arm-chair to think things over. His uncle had been abit of an enigma. Malcolm Brayne was a name still remembered in thecity, although it was quite ten years since he sold his agencybusiness, built up gradually over forty strenuous years, forincorporation in an older and larger firm of world-wideramifications. After the sale he left London for good, boughtSheldrake Hall, and there lived the life almost of a recluse,seldom being seen outside its garden and park. Businessacquaintances—he had no business friends—used to say ofhim that he listened but never told, got but never gave, venturedand never lost. A shrewd, severe, silent, secretive, successfulman, he had never been known to overstep the tapes of commercialmorality. If it was never said of him that he was honourable, thatmay have been because he eschewed on principle any project ortransaction that might possibly involve a point of honour; such washis conception of business. Trade for him must be strictlyimpersonal; quite outside the humanities. When his only brother andsister-in-law, Eustace's parents, lost their lives in the sinkingof thePindaric, Malcolm added without comment an orphannephew to his schedule of assets and liabilities. Unmarried, andtoo old to look for a wife, he found himself thus furnished with aready-made heir. It was not inconvenient, so he made provision fora suitable upbringing. Eustace went to Ruggenham and Oxbridge; hisholidays and vacations were spent in reading-parties or oneducative Mediterranean cruises. Only twice or three times a yearwould the youth be invited to stay at No. 18 Braxington Gardens fora few days, in order to undergo avuncular inspection. How well heremembered quailing under the scrutiny of a clean-shaven Mr Dombeyin that dark, austere dining-room! The first visit to Sheldrake hadbeen less perturbing; and on later visits he found his uncleincreasingly humanised, sometimes even companionable. During onesuch visit conversation turned towards the future. 'Eustace,' theold man said, 'I want to see you called to the Bar before I die.You won't need to practise, if you don't want to, for I shall leaveyou means to live as and where you choose. But it is better to beknown as a young barrister that asa jeune riche; safer too.Do not therefore disappoint me.' Eustace didn't. In addition to hisB.A. he took an honours degree in law, and duly ate his dinners.Shortly after being called he was offered, as the result of anOxbridge friendship, an assistant-secretaryship in the OmnibusAssurance Company and settled down unambitiously to that.
The reason for his uncle's retirement, Eustace reflected(helping himself to more whisky), must have been the doctor'swarning about his heart. He had been given ten years more to live,and the prognosis was verified almost exactly by the event. He verynearly died, though, during his second winter at Sheldrake; and itwas in the summer of his recovery that Eustace first noticed animprovement in his moods and sociability. He began to talk about,and to write to, friends of whom he had never before spoken; andseveral of them were asked to stay at Sheldrake. Those of them thatEustace met there seemed to have one point in common. Not one ofthem appeared to be aware that he or she had been a friend ofMalcolm's! They gave the impression of liking him now all right,but spoke of him rather (so Eustace felt) as a missionary mightspeak of a converted and reformed head-hunter. So also did MrsAppleton, whom he had installed as housekeeper after tellingEustace that she was the relict of an old friend.
The thought of Mrs Appleton switched the young man's attentionfrom past to present, from Uncle Malcolm to himself. If he couldafford to live at Sheldrake, would Mrs Appleton consent to stay onas housekeeper? It would not be so easy a job for her if, as heintended, there were to be weekend parties and frequent guests. Hehoped that she might, however, for the comfort and cosiness ofSheldrake was mainly of her creation. She had transmuted a barrackinto a home. Look at those flowers, now! They made all thedifference to the library. What were they, by the way? Walking tothe mantelpiece Eustace took a near look at them. Forget-me-nots.He had never seen them before of so dark a blue: more likeanchusas. They smelt too: 'a Chinesey smell,' he said to himself,as he walked back to his chair and his drink.
He took a sip or two but did not sit down, for he no longer feltrestful. What a blamed idiot he had been just now ever to think oftaking on Mrs Appleton as a fixture! There would be no need of, noplace for, a lady housekeeper if—no!when...It waslate now, past midnight, but he simply must write to Isobel atonce. He dashed to the writing-cabinet and reopened it.
The envelope that Peddle, the garden boy, took to the early postnext morning, contained the following letter:
ISOBEL DARLING
For five whole days I have fooled myself in a pretence of trying toforget you—as you insisted I must. My darling, it's quiteimpossible. Your eyes have just gazed into mine out of a vase ofblue, deep-blue, forget-me-nots: so I knew at once that you werethinking of me. Yes, yes you were—and lovingly, too, forthere was a tiny twinkle in them. I promised not to call round orring up for a full week, but I never promised not to write. It'sbetter than telephoning for I can kiss the notepaper and send it toyou. There! see those smudges? Did I ever tell you, darling, thatyou have a large mouth? I hate women with little mouths, but yoursis perfectly perfect—and I want it so. I just can't stickbeing without you, and you've simply got to come and see this placethat I've come into. Telegraph that you'll come to lunch the dayafter tomorrow, and bring Vivian with you if you must. If you don'twire I shall meet the I I o'clock from London all the same, foryou've got to come.
Yours and yours only,
EUSTACE
P.S. For God's sake telegraph, or I shall go mad.
Before getting into bed Eustace caught a glimpse of himself inthe mirror above the wash-hand basin. He smiled wryly at thereflection, and addressed it. 'All the same, you had forgotten her,you know; for quite three hours!'
2
Eustace's letter must have reached London in time for theafternoon delivery next day; for a telegraph boy cycled up theSheldrake drive just as Eustace was sitting down to tea. Tearingthe envelope open he read:
I WILL CATCH AND VIVIAN MISS TRAIN YOUMENTION—ISOBEL
He tipped the boy a florin.
In spite of expectancy the morning and afternoon had passed nottoo slowly for Eustace, nor without consolation. None of theformidable items in the ledger proved on a careful survey to beannually recurrent. They could only represent lump-sumdisbursements, final and complete. A copy of his uncle's will and alist of his investments arrived by the midday post. The former hadnot been read after the funeral, having to be recovered from a safedeposit; but the lawyers had previously told him the gist.Everything was left to him and unconditionally. The investmentstotalled considerably more than he had anticipated. Even afterdeduction of death duties he would certainly have the wherewithalto live at Sheldrake. A third enclosure to the lawyers' letter wasthe copy of one received by them a few days before his uncle'sdeath. It was in his handwriting, written in pencil, but withoutdate or signature. The envelope, they said, had been addressed tothem by some uneducated person, to judge by the spelling; probablya servant or nurse. The letter read strangely but seemed to callfor no action either by him or them.
To Messrs. Lurgoyne and Bidmore
GENTLEMEN
Assisted by a horticultural phenomenon I have checked up on allinvisible debts incidentally incurred by me in the course of mycareer. I have liquidated them in full; although none of them wouldreceive cognizance from law or custom. If, after my demise, anyclaims should be lodged with you or my heir, you are to reject themout of hand. My audit has been exhaustive and final. Please tofurnish a copy of this letter to my nephew: I am too weak to writemyself.
Yours faithfully,
'So that,' muttered Eustace, 'accounts for those ledger entries.The old chap has been doling out conscience money; some fifteenthousand pounds in all, if I have totted them up right. I hope therecording angel has made equivalent postings to his credit! AnyhowI come in for a clean inheritance: not that I should have worriedmuch where the splosh came from anyway. Why, who's that coming upthe drive? Oh! the parson, damn it!'
The Rev James Forthwright promised not to stay long. He wascalling to explain that he could not accede to the late Mr Brayne'srequest that a proverb should be engraved on his tombstone.
'A proverb?'
'Yes. "It's never too late to mend." When I visited him duringhis first illness, three years ago, he said that he supposed I hadcome to expound to him the comforts of purgatory, and that heintended to leave instructions for that proverb to be engraved onhis tombstone. I had of course to explain that whatever conceptionone may have of it, and our Articles of Religion do no more thanrepudiate the Romish one, Purgatory certainly cannot becomfortable. When Mr Brayne objected that he understood the word"purgatory" to be derived from a Latin expression meaning a "secondchance" I realised that his knowledge of languages was as defectiveas his ideas of Church doctrine.'
'He never had any proper schooling,' Eustace interposed; 'he wasan entirely self-made man. Rather wonderful, I think.'
'Very,' assented the vicar, 'but I wanted to warn you that hemay have left instructions about that proverb; though I impressedupon him that amends must be made in this life so far asrepentance, grace and opportunity may render them possible.'
'Well, I have proof here in my pocket that he took your counselto heart, Vicar. Read this letter which the lawyers have sentme.'
Mr Forthwright read it slowly, and with a puzzledexpression.
'H'm. Rather lacking in humility, I fear. Not exactly a troubledspirit or a broken and contrite heart.'
'What can he have meant by assistance from a horticulturalphenomenon, I wonder?'
'I don't know, I'm sure; but he was always very proud of hisgarden here, and most generous in providing flowers for the altar.Regarded them as proxies perhaps,' added the vicar with a touch ofbitterness, 'for he never came near it himself. Ah! and now I cometo think of it, he made a most peculiar suggestion to me oneday.'
'What was that?'
'He asked whether he should send a bunch of forget-me-nots forthe confessional! I feared that he was being flippant; but hisexpression told me that the offer was made in all seriousness.'
'I never knew him anything else but serious,' Eustace commented,as Mr Forthwright rose to take his leave, 'but I quite agree withyou about not putting that proverb on his tombstone. Many thanksfor coming to tell me about it. Well, goodbye, Vicar, and I'll tellyoung Peddle to continue taking down flowers to the church. Youwill see me there sometimes, though I'm afraid that I'm not tooregular.'
After the parson's departure Eustace began a tour of the garden.He was not much of a gardener himself, but knew enough toappreciate that its condition and appearance reflected verycreditably on Halden and young Peddle. It was while he wasexamining the timber supports of the fruit-cage, reported by Haldento be rotten, that he saw Mrs Appleton coming down the cinder-path,presumably in search of him.
'Oh, there you are, Mr Eustace. I've come to ask whether you'lllet me have the key of the bookcase cupboard in the library. Iplaced your uncle's diary there until we should be lighting thehot-water stove; for I promised him to see it burnt. The sweep hasbeen such a long time coming, but he's been this morning and thestove is already lit.'
Eustace hesitated a moment before replying. 'That's all right,Mrs Appleton,' he said, 'but I rather think that as executor andsole legatee I ought to have a glance through the diary first. I'lldo so tonight; it'll keep me employed. And, by the way, MrsAppleton, there'll be a lady coming to lunch tomorrow: so will youplease tell them to have the east room ready?'
'Certainly I will, Mr Eustace—and, er, perhaps I ought totake this opportunity of saying that I shall have to leave you andSheldrake this autumn. I shall be sad to do so, but I have to makea home for my mother and younger sister. It was so kind of youruncle to buy me an annuity. It will make our combined resourcessufficient for us to live comfortably in a quiet way.'
'A due return for services rendered, Mrs Appleton. You certainlymade my uncle very happy here. It's quite different now from whenhe first came.'
'Thank you, Mr Eustace, I've certainly tried to do my best; butI shan't be quite happy in my mind until that diary is burnt, as hetold me.'
'Oh! You needn't worry about that. I promise to let you have itby Sunday, at latest.'
'Thank you; and now I'll go and give orders about the lady. Ihope she'll like Sheldrake. It has great charm, hasn't it?'
The question was not intended for reply. Mrs Appleton turneddown the grass path between the espaliers and was soon lost tosight. It annoyed Eustace to suspect that he may have blushed alittle when telling her of Isobel's visit on the morrow.
On the way back to the house he noticed in one of the borders aclump of the dark-blue forget-me-nots. They did not look soattractive as in the vase last night, and were in fact beginning togo to seed. The blue was almost black in the dusk.
During dinner he read a detective story: a poor one, he thought,but it served to pass the time and keep him from eating too fast.He took coffee in the library and, while the cup was cooling,rummaged in the cupboard for the diary. He found it, a large andheavy volume, and sitting down in the armchair placed it on hisknee, lit a cigar and began sipping his coffee. As he did sosomething fell from the book on to the floor at his side. He pickedit up and replaced it: a pressed and dried dark-blue forget-me-notwith leaves and stalk.
3
Although the word 'Diary' was embossed in gilt lettering on thecover the volume did not prove to be a diary in any proper sense.On the front page was written in capital letters 'NOTES OF FINALAUDIT AND ADJUSTMENT'; and On the second, at its top 'LEONARD ANDDAPHNE DE HEAVILAND, £500'.
Turning over the pages Eustace found a series of paragraphs orchapters, varying from one to fifteen pages long, each similarlyheaded by a name, or names, and a figure in pounds, shillings andpence. With considerable curiosity he set himself to read the firstnote or chapter, parts of which may be here reproduced.
Mrs Heaviland's letter (undated: Takeokuta postmark 7Jan 1933) arrived 9.2.33, opened 3.3.33, i.e. after my recovery,which doctors thought improbable. Vicar's visit was about middleFebruary. I never attend church, but he said it was his duty visitall sick persons. Read something from prayer-book about repentanceand declaring debts: asked if I had made a will—no businessof his, whatever's in book. Got on to future life. Argument.Doesn't know what life is: exercise of will, planning andachieving. Worms, weeds, etc., alive in sense only that they grow:they don't live. If no exercise of will after death it isextinction. [*****] Agree strict man of business must make finalaudit, close his books before dying. Prayer-book right there.[*****] Self-made man owes nobody nothing [sic]; must liquidateobligations. Mrs Heaviland's letter clinches matter. Paste it inhere:
SIR
My husband died in Takeokuta hospital yesterday of cerebralmalaria. You killed him by persuading him to come at his age tothis hellish climate. He did good work for you: this was yourreturn. He spoke loyally of you to the last, for he was blind toyour callousness. On the last day but one he made me promise tosend you enclosed packet of seeds to try in your greenhouse. Thenative name for them is 'seeds of remembrance', and they come fromblue flowers on Mount Keriapalu. He told me to tell you this. Formyself I hope that you may find in them the seeds of remorse.
Faithfully,
D. HEAVILAND
Language of hysteria. True, I got Josiah Pagworth offer him jobwith Cinchona Plantations. Was crocking up in my office and Iwanted promote young Chidworth. [*****] Many people older thanHeaviland survive in Kongea. Mosquito, not me, responsible. Pastein my reply.
MADAM
I regret your husband's death. Had he not left my service forbetter-paid employment you as his widow would have received agratuity of £500 under my Scheme AQ for compassionate grants.I have decided to stretch a point in recognition of his pastsatisfactory work for me and enclose a draft for that amount on theGeneral and Eastern Bank, Takeokuta Branch. Please sign and returnenclosed receipt form. I thank you for the packet of seed; yourlate husband's wishes in regard to them will be respected.
Yours faithfully,
M. BRAYNE
Mrs Heaviland's reply says she will not touch tainted money: hasendorsed draft to order of Medical Mission. No matter: her gift notmine. All square with Heavilands. Seeds came up. Flowers likeforget-me-nots but darker. [*****] Sneezed after smelling; effectlike snuff. Brain cleared: memory too better. Hence perhaps nativename; they know more about herbs than us. Specimen pressed andpasted on next page.
So much for the first entry. Eustace sat on reading others wellinto the small hours. It amazed him what things his uncle hadremembered. Some recipients of his cheques or postal orders musthave thought him crazy. A sixpenny stamp, for example, was sent toa Mr Jones who had once lent him a pencil that he forgot to return.But among trivial items there occurred now and again entries thatstruck Eustace as sinister or even ugly. The cruelty to a dog, forinstance, that was atoned for by a cheque of £100 to theR.S.P.C.A. At irregular intervals the succession of notes wasbroken by paragraphs headed 'PROGRESS REPORT'. One of the earlierones ran as follows.
Halden has succeeded in raising more of the Heavilandseedlings. They flower better if planted out in the open. I findfrom the gazetteer that Keriapalu is nearly 10,000 ft. high, andnight temperatures must be cold. The assistance lent by the flowersto my audit is most valuable. I had completely forgotten about thatdeal with Mabelson. He was a fool to accept my offer, but I wasunable to treat his letter otherwise than as an acceptance. He diedpenniless, I believe, but without wife or dependants.
The clock striking two as he read this, Eustace decided to leavetill tomorrow the remainder of the case-notes; but curiositycompelled him to find and peruse the other progress reports. Theywere easier to read than the notes, being free of contractions andabbreviations. The name of Greville Mabelson recurred in nearly allof them, but his case appeared to defy settlement. Here are someexcerpts:
The flowers are helping Mabelson more than me. Theymake me remember his appearance too well. I had forgotten till nowthat he said to me 'Some day, Brayne, you will regret this...'
I shall have to give up smelling the flowers. They focus myattention only on Mabelson, and he has left no successors orrepresentatives...
Mabelson keeps breaking in on me, even without the flowers. I seemto see and hear him in the room with me: a silly, senile illusion.Despite him I am completing all other settlements...
The final progress report may be quoted in full.
The settlement is complete. Happily; for my strength isgiving out and the end is near. I have told Mrs Appleton to burnthis book after my death. The final certificate at its end I willsign tomorrow. My will provides all necessary guidance for myexecutors. The settlements herein recorded are by me and for mealone. I meant to add a codicil to my will commanding that the bookbe placed with me in my coffin, but it is too late now. No matter;it can be cremated separately. It is ridiculous of Mabelson to saythat he and I will meet tomorrow and that he forgives me.Forgiveness is no settlement, and I will not have it.
Before putting the book away and going to bed, Eustace lookedfor the 'final certificate'. It was there all right—butunsigned.
4
After breakfast next morning Eustace asked Mrs Appleton whethershe had been present at his uncle's death.
'Probably,' she replied, 'but none of us could tell the exactmoment of his passing. He went so peacefully. Oh! Mr Eustace, I wasso surprised and thankful, for all the morning he had been sorestless and strange.'
'Strange? In what way?'
'Well, he kept telling me to take the diary away after callingfor it, and then bidding me bring it back again. Six or seven timesthis happened and all the while he seemed to be talking withsomeone, though his voice was so low as to be inaudible. Then atabout midday he scribbled some capital letters in pencil on a pagenear the end of the book, and sank back exhausted. He never seemedto regain consciousness, and died during the afternoon. Just fadedaway.'
'What were the letters he wrote? Could you see?
'Oh! just a jumble of two or three. They didn't spellanything.'
'Thank you, Mrs Appleton. I wonder if you'd mind coming into thelibrary for a moment, and showing me whereabouts in the diary hewrote those letters?'
They walked across the hall and, as they did so, a strong scentof flowers was wafted in from the open door. In it Eustace sensedsomething Chinesey, like a faint smell of joss-stick. 'There,' saidMrs Appleton, pointing to a page near the end of the diary, 'itlooks like "E. & O.E.", doesn't it?'
'Yes, a well-known commercial abbreviation: Errors and OmissionsExcepted. You can take the book away now and burn it, Mrs Appleton.Many thanks.'
5
It remains only to record that Miss Isobel Paynton came, asarranged, to Sheldrake; saw, and was conquered. She and Eustacewere married in October. As they sat, one December evening, over alog fire he told her about Uncle Malcolm's diary.
'You must tell Halden not to raise any more of those flowers,'she said.
'But why not?'
'Well, you see, darling, one always remembers the nice thingsthat happen. But there are bound to be other things too. Ishouldn't like to be married to a man, or you, darling, to a woman,who couldn't sometimes conveniently forget!'
1
While playing out the last hymn at evensong in the Abbeyyesterday the organist was seen to collapse and fall forward overthe console. A church warden and two choirmen hastened to hisassistance; and, having announced that the collection would betaken at the doors, Canon Glenside closed the service forthwith bypronouncing the Benediction. Since his appointment to the organlast year Mr R. Fulstowe, F.R. C.O., has effected great improvementin the Abbey music, and we are happy to record that his conditionlast night was reported as one of rapid recovery.
Thus theScarminster Mercury of 15th October 1931. A dullenough paragraph! Little description and no story. Indeed the Canonhad himself written and communicated it, in an anxiety to forestallthe curiosity of reporters. For the happening had been ugly, and ofa sort that none who were present can ever forget.
Hell had been loosed on their ears by a sprawling, immobile,surpliced body whose hands, elbows and forehead lay over, and atmany points upon, the keys of three manuals. In its lunge forward aknuckle had knocked against the pneumatic piston that gives voiceto the full organ, and the resultant blare was insufferable. Avolume of Bach's fugues too had fallen on to the pedals anddepressed half an octave of them. The whole church was aquake; thepews quivered. Many of their occupants pressed fingers into theirears; all of them glared protestingly towards the console, and atthe inert sagging figure there huddled. The startled faces of thechoristers resembled those of gargoyles. Although to sit stillamong such pandemonium was horrible, nobody stirred. Except for oneman, and he, mercifully, with the sense and knowledge to act.Tearing apart the transept curtains verger Rustley pounced upon andturned the stopcock of the hydraulic bellows. A second later themad fury of sound wailed into thudding silence. Thudding, becauseevery ear throbbed with a quickened and disordered heartbeat. Thenit was that Canon Glenside stuttered out his notice about theoffertory and gave the Benediction. The choir retreated to thevestry in distracted groups of three or four, forgetting to formfile, while the congregation hurried to the doors without waitingfor its recession. Never had the stately order of an Abbey servicebeen so interrupted and truncated.
2
Canon Glenside called on his organist early next morning, 'Butyoumust tell me, Fulstowe,' he was saying, 'what overtookyou so suddenly. The doctor, you say, cannot account for it. Well,naturally I have to satisfy myself, and you, I suggest, yourself,that there is no possibility of another such exhibition; for I cancall it no less. It was quite horrible; the worst sort ofadvertisement for our Abbey services. Hints are already abroad, nodoubt unjustly, of a lapse from sobriety. Surely you must see,don't you, the necessity of a full understanding between us,whatever is said to or by the public?'
Fulstowe rose from his chair, walked to the fireplace and kickeda large lump of coal that lay in the grate. Then turning slowlyround he faced the Canon with an expression at once unhappy andquizzical. 'Why, of course, Canon, I want to explain; very much so.But the difficulty is that I can't explain the explanation. Inpoint of fact I saw and felt something that couldn't have beenthere!'
'H'm,' grunted the Canon. 'Well, anyhow, you'd better tell mewhat you thought you saw and felt. Though, mind you, I don't at alllike the idea of a person having hallucinations in a consecratedbuilding.'
'Very well, I'll try. As it happens the source of myhallucinations—if you like to call them that, and I hope togoodness you're right—was something that has never beenconsecrated. I know that as a fact, for it wasn't in the Abbeyuntil Saturday.'
'Do you mean that Sapstead memorial tablet? It's to be dedicatedin the near future. I didn't realise that you could see it from theorgan.'
'One can't. No, I was alluding to the mirror above the console.You will remember my telling you that the mercury was perishing atthe back of the old one, and that you suggested my looking aroundfor a cheap replacement. Walking down Raymond Street on Thursday Isaw the very thing we needed in that second-hand furnitureshop—Mortimer's, isn't it?—and I bought it for onlyeighteen-and-six. Rustley helped me to screw it up after lunch onSaturday. It fitted almost exactly: even Rustley approved, and youknow what he is.'
'My wife has picked up a good thing or two at Mortimer's,' theCanon remarked, 'but what has your purchase to do with yourcollapse yesterday?'
'I was just coming to that. At Mattins on Sunday I was at oncestruck by the clearness of the reflections in the glass; theyseemed to me almost—what shall Isay?—three-dimensional. My own image looked as though it weresome actual person peering down at me through the frame. The facewas rather unshaven too, but on touching my chin I found it assmooth as usual. As a matter of fact I'd put a new blade in mysafety razor that morning. Then during the prayer for the churchmilitant the reflection appeared to shake its head at me, althoughI felt myself to be sitting quite motionless. The thing had begunto get on my nerves, so I made up my mind not to look at the glassagain. I didn't either, until the service was over and I waslocking up the keyboard.'
'And what then?' the Canon rapped out, for the organist hadceased speaking and appeared to be lost in thought.
'What then? Why, it smiled at me and—and it had a goldfilling in one of the front teeth.' At this point Fulstowe jerkedhis head up and round with a forced laugh. 'Well, as you can see,Canon, I haven't! If you will excuse me a moment I will slip intothe dining-room for a nip of brandy. I don't feel too good.'
The Canon's face reddened at this interruption. He was ateetotaller. Would he have to look for a new organist? Mostunfortunate, if so, for this one played well and got so much out ofthe choir. Still, if the fellow took to seeing things in the Abbeyand to nips of brandy within half an hour of breakfast, it wouldbecome a plain duty to...
At this point the clerical conscience was relieved by thereappearance of its disturber and an immediate resumption of histale.
'Sorry, Canon, but I never got a wink of sleep last night, andam all to pieces this morning. Well, at evensong I couldn't helpthrowing an occasional glance at the mirror while playing the firstvoluntary. It's my habit to do so. To begin with everything was asusual. Then gradually there seemed to be reflected in it a sort ofview.'
'The choir-stalls, I presume,' the Canon muttered impatiently,shuffling his feet on the rug.
'No; an outdoor view. The front of some country house withturrets at either end and a square tower in the middle. I saw theoutline first during the Absolution, and it gained in distinctnessevery time I glanced at it. By the middle of the first lesson itwas as though I peeped through a small window on to a real scene.It was a terribly queer sensation, and during the second lesson acurious development took place. My own reflection which was in theforefront of what I saw began to recede; to be becoming part of thepicture, as it were. I felt too as though I were being draggedforward. It was only by a great effort of concentration that Imanaged to accompany the anthem, and I dared not trust myself tolook at the glass during the following prayers and hymn. When youbegan the sermon, however, I gave way to my curiosity and tookanother look. As I did so, the whole prospect seemed to movetowards me; and as a result, the two end turrets passed out of viewand the central tower grew larger and larger. At its middlefirst-floor window I could now see my own head and surplicedshoulders, small at first but returning to life-size as the windowcame nearer and nearer; so near at last that the top and bottom ofthe tower were out of sight and only the window remained. It wasthen that I became aware that the figure was no longer mineSurplices do not have collars and buttons; what it was wearing wasan old-fashioned nightshirt. Nor was the face mine, or I hoped not.There were dark rings under the eyes, the cheeks were yellowish andthe eyebrows grey: the chin was unshaven. Through the crack betweenthe lips I could just see the gold-stopped tooth that I had seenafter Mattins. Its hands were now visible, the fingers clutchingthe window-sill with tips bent over it. Suddenly two things grippedmy attention. First, that the finger-tips protruded not merely overthe window-sill but over the frame of the mirror itself. They werenearer to me than the reflecting surface! Second, that the headwhich had usurped the place of mine was bleeding profusely from theneck. Before I had time to consider these developments, whichnevertheless set me shivering, you were ending your sermon with thedoxology and giving out the hymn. As I began playing it out Inoticed what looked like a splash of blood on the swell manual andin my surprise glanced upwards at the mirror. I saw there a throatslit from ear to ear and oozing great clots of blood. I gave a gaspand at that very moment the clawing hands shot forward from themirror frame and downward to clutch my shoulders. It was then thatI must have fainted; I felt an icy clamp round my neck andeverything went black. Oh God! I must have another drink.'
3
The Canon rose with a frown and stared aimlessly out of thewindow. He was thankful that Fulstowe had left the room, thoughdisapproving his purpose. It afforded time to think of what to say.He must not be too sympathetic, for the possible necessity of theorganist's dismissal pressed uncomfortably on his mind. On theother hand he must not appear callous or offhand, for the man hadobviously suffered a catastrophe of imagination for which hedeserved pity. Really, a most difficult situation to find oneselfin! What should, whatcould he say? In his quandary hegrabbed and crushed with his right hand a frond of a fern thatlanguished in a flower-pot on the window table. A knock at the halldoor caused him to turn round with a start; he tore the leaf rightoff and dropped it, crumpled, onto the carpet.
The knock also brought Fulstowe back from the dining-room,apparently quite recomposed. 'Who's there?' he said. 'Come in.'
Verger Rustley did so; and, seeing the Canon, addressed himobsequiously.
'I beg your pardon, Sir, but I didn't know as your reverencewere here. I wanted a short word with Mr Fulstowe; but it can wellwait, and I'll step in later when he's disengaged.'
'No, Rustley, don't go,' the Canon smiled, grateful for theinterruption; 'you'll be pleased, I'm sure, to find Mr Fulstowe soquickly recovered from his collapse yesterday evening.'
'Indeed I am, Sir; especially as having been and had a collapsemyself, a thing that's never happened before. Yes, Sir, this verymorning. When I was opening up the Abbey, it was. "Why you'relooking as white as a corpse," said Mrs Rustley to me when I gotback to breakfast. Couldn't eat much of it either.'
'I'm very sorry to hear it, Rustley,' the Canon rejoined withsome asperity. 'I had always regarded you as dependable. Faints andcollapses denote a lack of self-control, you know. One has to keepa grip on things.'
'I'm far from boasting of it, your reverence; but anyone who sawwhat I saw—or what Mr Fulstowe saw yesterday, if I may make aguess—would come near to fainting. I feel sure of that.'
At this the organist broke in with eager interest; 'What did yousee, Rustley? Nothing to do with the looking-glass we screwed up onSaturday, I hope?'
'Ah! Then youdid see it. I thought as much and said soto Mrs Rustley. Yes, Sir, blood dripping from that glass andsplashed all over the organ lid. Leastways that's what it lookedlike, but when I came to from my fainting—for I never couldabear the sight of blood—it was all gone and no mess at allto clean up. Optical illusion is what Mrs Rustley calls it. Anyhowit wasn't that as I came to see Mr Fulstowe about, though it has todo with the mirror. Mortimer's have taken it back.'
'Taken it back?' exclaimed Fulstowe. 'Why, I paid them for itand have got the receipt.'
'Yes, Sir, but it appears that it wasn't theirs to sell. YoungMr Clarence Mortimer came along himself to explain, and asked me tohand you back the money. Here it is, Sir, seven half-crowns and twosixpences: that's right, I think? His men were taking it down as Icame away, and they'll put the old one back till we get abetter.'
'Thank God for that.' Fulstowe muttered under his breath, andthen aloud: 'What explanation did young Mortimer give? It seems afunny way of doing business.'
'He said as it wasn'ttheir fault but that of theauctioneer at the Curdlestone sale. He'd never had the glassremoved from Sir Peregrine's dressing-room, though it was one ofthe pieces to be reserved. So Mortimer's men took it away, thinkingit part of the suite they'd bought. And a rare shindy Sir Peregrinekicked up, he said, when he found it gone. His favouriteshaving-glass, as he'd used since at college and had given ordersto be sent down to Rodneybury! That's the family seat inNorthshire, as you know, Sir; where Sir Peregrine's now goneto.'
Canon Glenside, not relishing the rôle of listener andmuch annoyed that two of his staff should have been seeing thingsin the Abbey, had been restive throughout the precedingconversation and now seized the opportunity for interruption andcontradiction. 'You are quite wrong, Rustley,' he said, 'inspeaking of Rodneybury as the Randhams' family seat. The family wasat Curdlestone long before Rodneybury was built. His ancestorswould turn in their graves if they knew of the ruin which SirPeregrine has brought on his inheritance. He will only have plungeddeeper into disaster by selling the old estate and retaining such abig place as Rodneybury. However, that's no affair of ours; and Iwant you, Rustley, to come down with me to the Abbey and point outthe places where the south aisle roof is said to be leaking. Itwouldn't be good for you and Mr Fulstowe to get talking togetherabout your optical illusions. The sooner foolish things areforgotten the better. What do you keep looking at your wristsfor?'
Mr Rustley appeared uneasy. 'I was afraid for a moment, Sir,that blood had got on to the cuffs.'
'Nonsense,' snapped the Canon, now righteously indignant; 'comealong with me at once. And as for you, Fulstowe, I advise you toput in some hard practice on Bach's fugues. You'll find them awholesome antidote to hallucinations. Good morning.'
4
Seven years later Dr Richard Fulstowe, Mus.Doc., F.R.C.O., wasappointed organist of Wintonbury Cathedral. In his rooms above thegateway to the cloisters we find him one morning sitting atbreakfast, with theMorning Courier on the table beside hiscoffee-cup. Having helped himself to porridge he glanced at thepictures on the front page. There are two of them: one of a countrymansion and the other of an elderly man. 'Good God!' he mutters;for he instantly recognises both, though he has known neither. Theheadline underneath is 'BANKRUPT BARONET DEAD', and theletterpress runs as follows:
The inquest is being held today on the body of SirPeregrine Randham, Bart., which was found yesterday morning on thefloor of his dressing-room at Rodneybury Towers (pictured above),with the throat cut. It lay before his accustomed shaving-mirrorand was clad only in a nightshirt. The deceased Baronet (photoinset) had been involved in bankruptcy proceedings, as recentlyreported in these columns. Sir Peregrine will be remembered as astaunch patron of the Turf, and as owner of Red Blade, the winnerof the Grinfield Plate in 1929.
It chanced that on the afternoon of the day when Dr Fulstoweread this at breakfast Canon Glenside was also in Wintonbury,attending a synod. Thus it was that the two happened to meet attea-time in the lounge of Caius Hotel. The Canon having aMorning Courier in his hand, Dr Fulstowe's conversationalgambit was inevitable.
'But, my dear Fulstowe,' the Canon remonstrated after fiveminutes, 'surely you cannot ask me to believe that you saw theghost of a man who had more than seven years yet to live?'
'Not exactly his ghost, perhaps.'
'Or that a mirror could reflect a place two hundred milesdistant from it and an event seven years before itsoccurrence?'
'Well, Canon, again not exactly.'
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