Weird Tales, Volume 325

by Darrell Schweitzer

  We extricated ourselves from the uninspiring Miss Sempson and soon after left the tea-party. As we were going out, I remember that Aunt Alice said to me, “There is disappointing Mr Polleto. I understand he contributed generously to the bell fund, which I find curious, since he’s far from affluent, and never attends the church. Nor is he sociable. Did you happen to notice him this afternoon?”

  I said he might easily go unnoticed, but that I had not, I thought, seen him. Nor had I.

  * * * *

  The day before my departure from Steepleford, I had planned a walk through the woods. Whether or not I would approach the stretch of Lane that ran by Josebaar Hawkins’ house I was myself unsure. In any event a sudden thunderstorm erupted. Its violence and tenacity were such that I gave over any idea of walking, and spent all that last day with my aunt. The following morning we parted most affectionately, and I returned to London. A month later I went abroad, and spent the rest of the year in Rome, in which ancient, imperial and legend-haunted city it may be supposed Steepleford, and all its tales, sank in my memory to a depth of fathoms.

  * * * *

  Just after the New Year, I employed a day or so again at Steepleford. This time, there was snow down, but a flawless snow, thick and solid to tread upon, the weather chill and fine. Had I truly forgotten the house in Salter’s Lane? I think that I had in everything but my heart. I took my way across the white fields, admiring the shapes of everything, each changed by its cover of pale fleece, then strayed off into the ancient woods, which were like a cathedral of purest ice.

  And then somehow, in the way these things turn out, I took at random another of the silent avenues, and found myself ten minutes later at one of the several openings of the Lane. I had been walking by then more than two hours, and it seemed foolish not to follow this path back to the town.

  Soon I reckoned I had been wise to do so. The low afternoon sun was clouding over and a mauve cast had the sky. So I strode briskly, and thinking of a warm fire ahead, and other cheer, I came level with the high wall of Josebaar Hawkins’ ill-starred house.

  At first I think I did not recognize it, for like everything else it was plastered with white. But then I got a great shock, and stopped dead in my tracks.

  “What has happened here?” I asked, perhaps aloud. Until that time, the trees of the old estate had made a second wall behind the first, and the pile of the building been visible only in portions, as I have previously described. Now, beyond the range of one huge holly tree, I gained abruptly a view of the entire front aspect, all of it, its timber, stone and brickwork, the roof and chimneys, and every cold window, glaring as if it were eye to eye with me, like some person who has suddenly whipped from their face a mask.

  Astonished, I attempted to reason how this should be. It was not that the trees were bare. No, it was that every tree, saving the holly, which in any case stood this side of the wall, had been brought down.

  I confess that meeting the house like this, head-on, unnerved me. I made to myself no secret of that. But in a moment or so, I had a rational thought. Some vandal had been at work in the ‘grounds.’ They had chopped down the trees and carted them away, no doubt to provide firewood for needy winter hearths.

  On the wing of this rationale, an unusual, perhaps a boy’s desire took me, having seen so much, to scale the wall and peer over into the precincts of the house, now open to be studied. I have to say too that my peculiar eagerness to do this was prompted, I now think, more by an aversion to doing it, rather than a longing after secrets. It was like a dare one must not evade, for fear of being thought, and worst of all by oneself, a coward.

  I am quite strong and fit. The wall had inconsistencies and irregular stones in plenty. Despite the snow, I got up it in less than three minutes, and, perched there on the top, stared down into the gardens.

  They were the most desolate sight. The snow lay all about, but it had turned dark, and in places black, partly melting away as on some of the higher trees it did. There was a good reason for this. Any sun which fell here must fall directly over all, since nothing now stood between, only the house and its ground. While every tree and shrub which had grown, rampantly and untended, within the walls, had been levelled and presumably taken away. And I wondered who could have made so bold after all these hundred and more years.

  Then, something else caught my eye. There was, towards the side of the house, a sort of ornamental little building, perhaps a folly. It was ruinous and falling down, and its demise seemed hastened by a young oak tree, which had toppled aslant upon its roof and leaned there yet.

  And why then, I wondered, had the wood-stealing vandal not carted off also this ready-felled tree? There it lay, as useful as any other timber, bare and lean, its dislocated branches creaking in some unfelt wind, clear as complaining voices in the stillness.

  There were no birds, of course. There was, as before, no sound. But this effect had been common through much of the woods, as the day advanced and the winter sun prepared to leave the earth. This time, I had not noted it particularly only here.

  Now I did. For here the absence of all sound, save that sinister, creaking whine of broken branches, seemed heavy with presage. The air smelled sour, and faintly dirty, like what one might expect in the centre of an industrial town, where smoke and cinders fall and make each breath lifeless, and potent with disease.

  And then, even as I sat there gazing at it, the unlikeliest thing occurred. The leaning dead oak tree swayed, and out of it there burst a shower of dry pieces, splinters of wood ejected, and then one whole limb snapped off and dropped, disintegrating even as it went, so that by the instant it touched the ground, there was no more of it than dust. What had occasioned such a thing? The action of some animal — no animal was in the vicinity, so much was plain. The simple process of a slow decay then, electing to finish its work coincidentally with my scrutiny. I had the strangest notion that, by staring at the tree, I had hastened the breaking off and dissolution.

  And then, and then, I knew it was not I. I had not caused it. Across my scalp my hair crawled as if filled by icy tricklings. Against my will, it seemed to me, yet no more resistible than as if at the pull of a chain of steel, my head turned and tilted back; and I looked up the unmasked face of that house, towards its highest casements.

  There was not a creeper left upon any of them. Even the snow had been leached away. But oh, something white there was, which stood at the window, looking out, and out.

  I can put down here only what I saw. I saw a woman’s shape. Her gown I cannot detail, nor how her hair was dressed, though it seemed to me that both were disordered. Her features I could not see, and that had nothing to do with distance, and I believe nothing to do with light or shade. She had no features, none. That is, she had only one feature. She had two eyes. But her eyes were set in that featureless whiteness of a shape like two burned holes. They were not eyes at all — but, they were eyes, more eyes than are possible to any thing which lives.

  I remember little of my descent of the wall. Perhaps I fell from it. Certainly I think some of it crumbled and broke away too, as I slipped down. And then I fled along the Lane, and this I do recall. I fled and I whimpered like a man pursued by the dogs of hell, that are really fiends, and they will tear him, even his soul, if they catch him. But they did not catch me, and I reached the town. And then came maybe the most sinister and curious thing of all.

  For running out into Market Gate Street, in the wintry dusk a carriage passed me, and in the carriage a friend of my aunt’s, who greeted me as she went by most graciously. And I raised my hat, and nodded, and then walked on to my aunt’s door, like some man who has not just met the devil on the road.

  * * * *

  “Aunt,” I said to her that evening, “why not come up to London for a spell?”

  “Oh, no, dear boy,” she said. “I’m too comfortable here. Why should I wish to be in London?”

  “Well, I am there. And half a dozen theatres and shops and museums that are th
e envy of the country.” But she would not be moved, saying it would put me against her, if she encroached upon my ‘London World.’

  And so, after another day I went again away from Steepleford. And naturally, I had spoken to no one of what I had seen, and no one had asked me what I had seen. Nor did I hear a single mention about the town of Hawkins’ house, or its current state, let alone of anything else.

  However, as I sat in the train, I took myself sternly to one side, and told myself that perhaps ghosts did exist, for there are nowadays even photographs of some of them, but of all things, the dead could not harm the living; their power was done.

  III.

  Less than a month later, I was at a supper given by my then acquaintance, Lord D——. The food was of the best and the wines Olympian, which made up, somewhat, for the conversation. At midnight I well remember we had some music, amongst the rest an attractive rendition, given by a female singer of superb voice, of the words of Alexander Pope’s Pastorals, the melody being, I think, Handel’s. As it finished, one of the servants came discreetly in, and presently handed me a telegram.

  To my dismay I read that my aunt had fallen seriously ill, and begged my attendance on her. My own man had taken alarm and brought the message directly on to me. I hurried to my rooms and flung some things together, and was next on the train for Steepleford Halt.

  I have said, I had great affection for my aunt, and with good reason. My agitation was increased because she had never, until then, that I knew, been afflicted with any ailment more than trifling and swiftly over. Other thoughts I believe I dismissed from my mind.

  The morning was young when we arrived at the Halt, where her carriage had been sent in readiness. It was a dismal day in February, sleety and cold, with leaden skies. Everything looked horrible to me in the deadly light of it, and the light of my anxiety, and all the station buildings, the gaunt trees, covered by an air of desuetude and darkness. This impression only increased as we bumped among the wintry woods, and I cannot describe my abrupt unease as I thought we must turn into Salter’s Lane. Then the carriage veered away, and went instead by the other route, to the Crossing. On asking the coachman, he told me that some trees had come down in the Lane, which made it impassable; and I dare say I was ridiculously relieved.

  I barely noted the town. No sooner had we reached my aunt’s than I sprang from the carriage and hastened indoors.

  In the hall, I met her doctor, a solid man, who reassured me somewhat. “It is a kind of low fever we’ve been seeing in the town recently. Unfortunately, given your aunt’s age, it has stayed with her longer than one might have hoped.”

  Then he frowned, and I asked him why he did so.

  He said, “Ah, well, there have been rather a lot of such cases in the past month. But there. The old and the very young are always vulnerable. Your aunt, of course, is not yet sixty.”

  I said, “Have there been fatalities?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  None of this prepared me for the sight of my aunt, who, lying propped on her pillows, looked white, and, to me, near death. I took her hand, and she murmured at once, “I called you here, my dear, because I was afraid I might not be able to remain much longer. But today I feel rather better.”

  I told her she was a fraud, and that I was happy to find her so.

  Despite my nervousness, my aunt rallied. She improved. But she did not entirely get well. Two weeks later, when pressing concerns of my own urged me to go back to London, she too implored me to leave. “I was being very foolish,” she said. “What nonsense. I shall see the New Century, I am determined on it.” And I realized I made her more uncertain by remaining so faithfully, as if hourly fearful of her collapse.

  The doctor too grew confident. “She is completely out of danger, or I’d never concur with your departure. And she has the best of care. I’d like to see more progress, but then her age has been against her a little. When the spring weather comes, then we should see a change for the better. Although,” he added, rather insensitively and ominously, “I find that all those who have succumbed to this pernicious malady take a great while over mending. There’s a young woman I have heard of, of only three and twenty, of the working families, you understand, but well-nourished and fit, and the mother of healthy children, who has been sick with this same fever off and on for eight weeks. She was one of the first to contract it, and again and again she seems to throw it off, only to sink down once more.”

  Receiving this news, I was now in two minds whether or not to go. However, in the end a telegram arriving the other way from the metropolis forced my hand, and I caught the train.

  Truth to tell, it was a relief to escape the atmosphere of a convalescent house, not to mention all Steepleford, which had seemed unbearably dreary and run down in the rain and mud of a new-born and unfriendly March. Indeed, I had never seen the place look so forlorn; it had depressed me. And when, having been returned to the city only a few days, a firmly-written letter came from my aunt, assuring me she had now taken the upward path, and even given a tea-party for some friends, I resolved to stay where I was. Soon after this, and in the light of a further optimistic bright epistle from Steepleford, I allowed myself to be lured to France with Nash and his brother, and then was persuaded on to Italy again.

  In retrospect I gain a terrible impression of my short time there in the awakening summer, and of that previous more leisurely summer I had spent in Rome, happily gravitating among the bronzes and the marbles, both inanimate and human, while concurrently there ran on and on, behind the veils of distance and inattention, that dreadful horror of which I could know nothing, and yet which I do believe I sensed, for had it not shown itself to me behind its own shadow, brushed me with its noiseless wing?

  I shall not try to excuse myself. Perhaps I was afraid. I might have seen there was good reason to be.

  Certainly I did not ponder that chance vision I had had of a ‘ghost’ in the window of Josebaar Hawkins’ house, and did not even offer the experience as a suitable Gothic tale, one hot Tuscan night among the soft blue hills, when others were telling ghost stories. Did I even call it to mind? Perhaps, I cannot remember. But of course, too, what I had seen was not a ghost. Not that at all.

  * * * *

  Needless to say, when I got back to England late in July, I was at once assailed by feelings of unquiet and guilt, and instantly wrote to Aunt Alice — there had been no letters from her waiting for me, but as a general rule she did not constantly put pen to paper. I asked how she did, and if I might come down and see her.

  After a little delay, I received her reply, which was brief and penned in a careful, rigid style. She said she was in her usual health, and would be glad if I would ‘take time to call on her.’ I thought the whole tone of her letter sulky, and was peeved she had not mentioned some presents I had sent her on my travels, for which may I be forgiven.

  For some reason, as I saw to the packing of my bag, I had upon my brain that fragment of Pope’s Pastorals, which I had heard the very evening the telegram reached me of my aunt’s illness. The gracious verse was in every way unlike the rhyme which had accrued about Amber Hawkins and her murdering spouse, yet now it too lodged fast in my head, and repeated itself over and over. Never came warning in a stranger guise.

  The words are well-known, of course, but I shall put them down even so, such is their unconscionable significance to me now:

  Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade,

  Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade;

  Where’er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise,

  And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

  The train reached Steepleford Halt soon after three o’clock of a peerless summer afternoon. London had been somewhat stuffy and overheated, but as we entered the countryside beyond, a wonderful honeyed peace descended, balmy, lazy, and a-flicker with butterflies. Flowers blazed from every hedge and bank, the trees were laden with heavy green, the sky as
blue as the mysotis.

  Descending from my carriage I was struck initially only by the sense of the huge sun, which was hammering the earth, but looking about me, I perceived at once a quality in the light, both dry and harsh. Where it fell, not only did the sight seem wounded, but also the place beneath. Every thing looked to me, in this glare, drained of colour, faded like a woman’s lovely gown worn too often.

  The veteran who oversaw the station was standing to one side, consulting his watch as the train pulled out again. It was my habit to exchange a few pleasantries with him when I met him, and I prepared to do so now, but he forestalled me. Looking up, his face was not as it had been, less older than used up. He nodded with no smile.

  “Good day. I regret the train was late.”

  “No matter. It was a delightful journey today.”

  “But a poor arrival, I dare to think,” he said. He sounded surly, which surprised me very much; he was not of this sort. Then he pointed straight by me. “D’you see that tree?”

  I turned, to humour him, and gazed towards an old copper beech which had guarded the ground above the railway for as long as I had been coming there, and no doubt some regiments of years before that. “The tree. Indeed I do.”

  “See how it leans?”

  “Why yes — what can have happened?”

  “The good Lord knows,” said he. “The roots are out to one side. Dying it is.”

  “What a great pity. Can nothing be done?”

  He made a noise. He was angry, not merely at my paltry concern, but at all things, which had somehow conspired to ruin the beauty of the tree.

  “It’s got to be felled,” he said, “tomorrow. A danger to the trains if it falls, d’you see?”