The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories

by Robert Aickman

  But he resolved to question Mrs. Royd in a business-like way about Mr. Superbus. An opportunity arose when he encountered her after luncheon (at which Miss Rokeby had not made an appearance), reading The People before the fire in the saloon bar. The bar had just closed, and it was, Mrs. Royd explained, the only warm spot in the house. In fact it was, as usual, hot as a kiln.

  “Couldn’t say, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Royd to Colvin’s firm enquiry, and implying that it was neither her business nor his. “Anyway, ’e’s gone. Went last Tuesday. Didn’t you notice, with ’im sleeping next to you?”

  After the death of poor Ludlow (the almost inevitable verdict was suicide while of unsound mind), it was as if the papers felt embarrassed about continuing to carp at Malnik’s plans; and by the opening night the editors seemed ready to extend the Christmas spirit even to Shakespeare. Colvin had planned to spend Christmas with his mother; but when he learned that Malnik’s first night was to be on Christmas Eve, had been unable to resist deferring his departure until after it, despite the perils of a long and intricate railway journey on Christmas Day. With Miss Rokeby, however, he now felt entirely unsure of himself.

  On Christmas Eve the town seemed full of merriment. Colvin was surprised at the frankness of the general rejoicing. The shops, as is usual in industrial districts, had long been off-setting the general drabness with drifts of Christmas cards and whirlpools of tinsel. Now every home seemed to be decorated and all the shops to be proclaiming bonus distributions and bumper share-outs. Even the queues, which were a prominent feature of these celebrations, looked more sanguine, Colvin noticed, when he stood in one of them for about half an hour in order to send Miss Rokeby some flowers, as he felt the occasion demanded. By the time he set out for the Hippodrome, the more domestically-minded citizens were everywhere quietly toiling at preparations for the morrow’s revels; but a wilder minority, rebellious or homeless, were inaugurating such a carouse at the Emancipation Hotel as really to startle the comparatively retiring Colvin. He suspected that some of the bibbers must be Irish.

  Sleet was slowly descending as Colvin stepped out of the sweltering bar in order to walk to the Hippodrome. A spot of it sailed gently into the back of his neck, chilling him in a moment. But notwithstanding the weather, notwithstanding the claims of the season and the former attitude of the Press, there was a crowd outside the Hippodrome such as Colvin had never previously seen there. To his great surprise, some of the audience were in evening dress; many of them had expensive cars, and one party, it appeared, had come in a closed carriage with two flashing black horses. There was such a concourse at the doors that Colvin had to stand a long time in the slowly falling sleet before he was able to join the throng which forced its way, like icing on to a cake, between the countless glittering photographs of beautiful Miss Rokeby. The average age of the audience, Colvin observed, seemed very advanced, and especially of that section of it which was in evening dress. Elderly white-haired men with large noses and carnations in their buttonholes spoke in elegant Edwardian voices to the witch-like ladies on their arms, most of whom wore hot-house gardenias.

  Inside, however, the huge and golden Hippodrome looked as it was intended to look when it was still named the Grand Opera House. From his gangway seat in the stalls Colvin looked backwards and upwards at the gilded satyrs and bacchantes who wantoned on the dress-circle balustrade; and at the venerable and orchidaceous figures who peered above them. The small orchestra was frenziedly playing selections from L’Étoile du Nord. In the gallery distant figures, unable to find seats, were standing watchfully. Even the many boxes, little used and dusty, were filling up. Colvin could only speculate how this gratifying assembly had been collected. But then he was on his feet for the National Anthem, and the faded crimson and gold curtain, made deceivingly splendid by the footlights, was about to rise.

  The play began, and then: “Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.”

  Colvin realized that in his heart he had expected Miss Rokeby to be good, to be moving, to be lovely; but the revelation he now had was something he could never have expected because he could never have imagined it; and before the conclusion of Rosalind’s first scene in boy’s attire in the Forest, he was wholly and terribly bewitched.

  No one coughed, no one rustled, no one moved. To Colvin, it seemed as if Miss Rokeby’s magic had strangely enchanted the normally journeyman Tabard Players into miracles of judgment. Plainly her spell was on the audience also; so that when the lights came up for the interval, Colvin found that his eyes were streaming, and felt not chagrin, but pride.

  The interval was an uproar. Even the bells of fire-engines pounding through the wintry night outside could hardly be heard above the din. People spoke freely to unknown neighbours, groping to express forgotten emotions. “What a prelude to Christmas!” everyone said. Malnik was proved right in one thing.

  During the second half, Colvin, failing of interest in Sir Oliver Martext’s scene, let his eyes wander round the auditorium. He noticed that the nearest dress-circle box, previously unoccupied, appeared to be unoccupied no longer. A hand, which, being only just above him, he could see was gnarled and hirsute, was tightly gripping the box’s red velvet curtain. Later in the scene between Silvius and Phebe (Miss Rokeby having come and gone meanwhile), the hand was still there, and still gripping tightly; as it was (after Rosalind’s big scene with Orlando) during the Forester’s song. At the beginning of Act V, there was a rush of feet down the gangway, and someone was crouching by Colvin’s seat. It was Greta. “Mr. Colvin! There’s been a fire. Miss Rokeby’s friend jumped out of the window. She’s terribly hurt. Will you tell Miss Rokeby?”

  “The play’s nearly over,” said Colvin. “Wait for me at the back.” Greta withdrew, whimpering.

  After Rosalind’s Epilogue the tumult was millennial. Miss Rokeby, in Rosalind’s white dress, stood for many seconds not bowing but quite still and unsmiling, with her hands by her sides as Colvin had first seen her. Then as the curtain rose and revealed the rest of the company, she began slowly to walk backwards upstage. Door-keepers and even stage-hands, spruced up for the purpose, began to bring armfuls upon armfuls of flowers, until there was a heap, a mountain of them in the centre of the stage, so high that it concealed Miss Rokeby’s figure from the audience. Suddenly a bouquet flew through the air from the dress-circle box. It landed at the very front of the heap. It was a hideous dusty laurel wreath, adorned with an immense and somewhat tasteless purple bow. The audience were yelling for Miss Rokeby like Dionysians; and the company, flagging from unaccustomed emotional expenditure, and plainly much scared, were looking for her; but in the end the stage-manager had to lower the Safety Curtain and give orders that the house be cleared.

  Back at the Emancipation Hotel, Colvin, although he had little title, asked to see the body.

  “You wouldn’t ever recognize her,” said Mrs. Royd. Colvin did not pursue the matter.

  The snow, falling ever more thickly, had now hearsed the town in silence.

  “She didn’t ’ave to do it,” wailed on Mrs. Royd. “The brigade had the flames under control. And tomorrow Christmas Day!”

  LARGER THAN ONESELF

  Upon the death of his father, Vincent Coner got out of mine owning, which had always been the family business, and invested heavily in popular journalism with himself as editor in chief. It is hard to believe that in any other place or time, past or future, his publications would have found many readers; but as it was, the thing most needed by his generation seemed to be the recipe he offered: the sweet things in life (the more obvious of them) smeared and contaminated with envious guilt.

  A typical man of his time, Coner throve exceedingly. While at Cambridge, he edited a symposium of modern philosophy, which attracted considerable attention; and he soon became known for his advocacy of a synthesis between the b
est of this world and the best of the next. Already he was giving parties: his thin figure, precociously bald, wove in and out pouring gin while others talked. Occasionally he would bring the uproar back to the point as he conceived it. He developed an exceptional eye for the view which would prevail.

  With increasing popular success, easily acquired, Coner’s main business in life became more and more an almost paranoiac pursuit of self-­integration. He read Berdyaev, Maritain, and C. S. Lewis, and even the first thirty pages of Ouspensky. Almost he believed what he read. Kierkegaard and Leopardi, rebound by a refugee craftsman, always attended his bedside (he had married a nightclub singer named Eileen); and Pascal he constantly rediscovered with new understanding, gorging on the insane root as he passed class-­conscious photographs for the press. At the time Mrs. Iblis entered his life, he was greatly interested in several of the newer spiritual movements competing to offer a deadbeat world metaphysical immunization against its own shadow. He had decided to ask the different leaders to Bunhill for the weekend in order that they might have the chance to exchange views on neutral ground. A symposium for Roundabout might emerge, a real chance to give a lead.

  Mrs. Iblis entered Coner’s life in the usual way through the front door. While waiting for the bell to be answered, she was joined on the large white step by two other visitors, who introduced themselves as David Stillman and Ruth. Ruth was not Mr. Stillman’s daughter, but Mrs. Iblis was unable to catch her other name, nor did she ever learn it. Mr. Stillman appeared to be a prosperous businessman. He arrived in a large car, which, when he had alighted, immediately drove away. He was well preserved and had excellent manners, but Mrs. Iblis had had little contact with Jews. Ruth was a highly strung voluble creature, little more than a girl in appearance, small and thin, with tousled hair, a round face, and restless hands. She wore red corduroy trousers, a shapeless jumper, and sandals. Mrs. Iblis had been speaking to Mr. Stillman when she appeared, presumably from the dense bushes which closely lined the drive, but carrying a bulging reticule with two handles. Mrs. Iblis had a suitcase; Mr. Stillman a dressing case of a type which Mrs. Iblis had thought obsolete.

  Presumably the din inside the house made it difficult for the servant to hear the bell, so, at Mr. Stillman’s suggestion, Mrs. Iblis rang again. Ruth maintained an intermittent flow of observations about the difficulty of reaching Bunhill (or indeed anywhere) by train and her own trials with the timetable.

  “I do hope you’ve not been kept waiting.” The door had been opened by Mrs. Coner, wearing a long tight dress of bluebottle green and smoking a cigarette from which the ash needed removing. “My husband’s sent all the servants to a Domestic Science Congress at Littlehampton, and we’re entirely in the hands of the caterers this weekend. Do come in.”

  Immediately inside stood a large figure in evening dress, with drink written all over him.

  “Your names, please.” He prepared to tick them off on a list with an indelible pencil.

  “Mrs. Iblis.”

  He crawled slowly through the list, stopping at each name with the pencil. Three raw youths in dinner jackets had seized the visitors’ luggage and were standing at the ready.

  “Could you spell it?”

  “1—b—l—i—s.”

  He repeated the search, then turned with irritation to Mrs. Coner.

  In the meantime, the masterful figure of Coner had appeared from the crowd within. “Ruth, my darling. How lovely to see you.” He kissed her mouth violently but dispassionately. “Did we ask you this weekend, or have you just dropped from heaven?”

  “Surely you asked me, Vincent.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you anyhow. Do come and join in right away. It will be really valuable to have the orthodox point of view.”

  “Could I have a sandwich first?”

  “Have everything there is. Haven’t you lunched?”

  “I left London at half past ten.”

  “If we’d known, we’d have sent a car. It only takes half an hour by road. But come on and eat.” Gripping her round the waist, he dragged her towards the hubbub.

  “Vincent.” His wife had clutched him by the other sleeve of his beautifully made gray suit. He stopped.

  “What is it, Eileen?”

  “Why do we have to have that damned list?”

  “I’ve told you more than once. The people we’ve asked this weekend have all been carefully picked by me for the contribution they can make. As I’ve hardly met any of them before, we must have a list and keep to it. What’s gone wrong?”

  “Two people have arrived. They are not on the list. They both say they were told to arrive at three. I can hardly send them away.”

  “All the people this weekend were told to arrive for breakfast if they could. Who are they?”

  “Mrs. Iblis and Mr. Stillman. They don’t seem like the others.” The suspect guests could be seen in the still open door miserably awaiting their fate.

  “Mavis!” Coner bawled at the top of his voice. “Forgive me a moment, Ruth.” With a violent squeeze, he released her.

  A tall, bony, off-­blonde, ageless woman strode forward. Coner succinctly outlined the crisis.

  “I’ll have a look in the invitations book, Mr. Coner.” She departed.

  Coner addressed his wife. “I leave it to you, my dear. But whoever they are, we don’t want them unless they harmonize. Come on, Ruth.” Resuming his python hold round Ruth’s narrow waist, he propelled her forward.

  Mavis returned with a huge folio volume of the minute book type. It must have contained five hundred pages. It was ruled into dates and packed with thousands of names in Mavis’s small clear writing.

  Almost at once Mavis had the answer. “They’re left over from the lot we asked before Mr. Coner decided on the Forum. Haven’t they had their postponement letters?”

  “I’d better let them in. They’ll have to share rooms with someone.”

  “Everyone’s doing that this weekend, Mrs. Coner.”

  “Can you take over, Mavis?”

  Explaining the situation about the rooms in a few courteous but emotionless words, Mavis was simultaneously scanning the hired butler’s list of guests and their accommodation. “So I do hope you don’t mind sharing,” she concluded. “This weekend is rather a special occasion.”

  Mr. Stillman smiled acquiescence, though he did not look too happy. Mrs. Iblis said: “Please do not go to any trouble about me.”

  “No trouble at all.” Then Mavis decided. “Mr. Stillman can have the Louise Room. I doubt Rabbi Morocco will come at all now. And perhaps Mrs. Iblis won’t mind sleeping with Sister Nuper? Our House Sister, you know.”

  “Is part of the house used as a hospital?”

  “Oh no. It’s just in case of sudden or serious illness. And Sister Nuper advises us on our diet and on questions of personal hygiene as well. You’ll find her a delightful person. Really, you couldn’t find anyone better to room with.”

  The youth who had seized Ruth’s piece of luggage had long ago departed with it, presumably to her room. Now the other two youths constituted themselves escorts to Mr. Stillman and Mrs. Iblis.

  “The lift’s through ’ere.” They held back heavy, dark brown velvet curtains.

  The lift, a Waywood-­Otis installation capacious enough for twelve at a hoist, was descending. When it reached the ground floor, there emerged two apparently identical Negroes in clerical dress. Small, compact, and beautifully polished, they looked like marionettes. They smiled and bowed in unison to the new arrivals, then walked off in step, conversing enthusiastically in some African tongue.

  At the first-­floor landing (Mrs. Iblis felt that it would have been quicker to have walked it), Mr. Stillman was at once shown into an enormous room which even through the door Mrs. Iblis could see contained at least two canopied beds. Mrs. Iblis was led away down a long passage, not too well proportioned, decorated in goose gray and lined with modern religious paintings, ascending on occasion as high in the scale as Vanessa Bell, and
even Rouault. (Mrs. Iblis could not be sure, however, that they were not merely good reproductions.) From the opposite direction advanced an extremely good-­looking woman of bold proportions; she was wearing a heavy black brassière, black-­and-­white striped knickers, and huge furry slippers. She made no acknowledgment of Mrs. Iblis’s presence, still less of the luggage carrier’s, and in the end, having passed the lift, vanished round the corner beyond the Louise Room, as Mrs. Iblis was unable to resist turning to see.

  Sister Nuper’s room was beautifully light and filled with built-in cupboards. There was a large, double divan-­bed with silk sheets. Above the bed was a ghastly and lurid cartoon of the Crucifixion by Edward Burra. Mrs. Iblis was unable to make up her mind whether the artist was in favor of religion or against it. A satinwood bookcase, which had been scraped and painted white like the other furniture, proved to contain mainly volumes of the more popular nursing and home medical journals (bound by Coner’s refugee craftsman). A French window and small balcony overlooked a garden of about an acre, from which rose a smell of intensive composting. A figure in a boiler suit could be seen at the dark work now.

  Mrs. Iblis peered into one of the built-­in cupboards. It was stuffed with evening dresses, depending from a thick chromium-plated rail and each in a transparent envelope made of plastic.

  Not caring to unpack without consulting Sister Nuper, Mrs. Iblis nonetheless changed into the other dress she had brought. Looking for an ashtray, she noticed the Sister’s bedside book: entitled Bowel Discipline, it was a lesser work by a well-­known member of the Labor party. A realistic colored drawing on the jacket depicted the alimentary system surrounded by a luminous radiation.

  For some time after Mrs. Iblis had descended (by the stairs) into the mêlée below, no one took any notice of her. The Forum, about fifty strong, were surging and wheeling between the drawing room, the dining room, and the large hall. Most of them, of course, were shouting at the tops of their voices, or reasoning at the full stretch of their intellects; but some, Mrs. Iblis noticed, sat or even stood perfectly silent and ignored. She had read an article in the Evening News of the previous night upon the value in a bustling noisy life of regular periods of meditation, and gazed at these mute figures with interest and awe. Press photographers moved about the throng. In the end Mrs. Iblis’s eye lighted upon Ruth eating a strawberry ice cream. This being the only person present to whom she had ever spoken (there was no sign of Mr. Stillman), Mrs. Iblis advanced.