Macfarlane walked up the steep moorland road. He turned in at the gate of a house near the crest of the hill. Setting his jaw squarely, he pulled the bell.
"Is Mrs Haworth in?"
"Yes, sir. I'll tell her." The maid left him in a low long room, with windows that gave on the wildness of the moorland. He frowned a little.
Was he making a colossal ass of himself?
Then he started. A low voice was singing overhead:
"The gipsy woman Lives on the moor -"
The voice broke off. Macfarlane's heart beat a shade faster. The door opened.
The bewildering, almost Scandinavian fairness of her came as a shock.
In spite of Dickie's description, he had imagined her gipsy-dark... And he suddenly remembered Dickie's words, and the peculiar tone of them.
"You see, she's very beautiful..." Perfect unquestionable beauty is rare, and perfect unquestionable beauty was what Alistair Haworth possessed.
He caught himself up, and advanced towards her. "I'm afraid you don't know me from Adam. I got your address from the Lawes. But - I'm a friend of Dickie Carpenter's."
She looked at him closely for a minute or two. Then she said: "I was going out. Up on the moor. Will you come too?"
She pushed open the window and stepped out on the hillside. He followed her. A heavy, rather foolish-looking man was sitting in a basket chair smoking.
"My husband! We're going out on the moor, Maurice. And then Mr Macfarlane will come back to lunch with us. You will, won't you?"
"Thanks very much." He followed her easy stride up the hill, and thought to himself: "Why? Why, on God's earth, marry that?"
Alistair made her way to some rocks. "We'll sit here. And you shall tell me - what you came to tell me."
"You knew?"
"I always know when bad things are coming. It is bad, isn't it? About Dickie?"
"He underwent a slight operation - quite successfully. But his heart must have been weak. He died under the anaesthetic."
What he expected to see on her face, he scarcely knew - hardly that look of utter eternal weariness... He heard her murmur: "Again - to wait - so long - so long..." She looked up: "Yes, what were you going to say?"
"Only this. Someone warned him against this operation. A nurse. He thought it was you. Was it?"
She shook her head. "No, it wasn't me. But I've got a cousin who is a nurse. She's rather like me in a dim light. I dare say that was it." She looked up at him again. "It doesn't matter, does it?" And then suddenly her eyes widened. She drew in her breath. "Oh!" she said. "Oh! How funny! You don't understand..."
Macfarlane was puzzled. She was still staring at him.
"I thought you did... You should. You look as though you'd got it, too..."
"Got what?"
"The gift - curse - call it what you like. I believe you have. Look hard at that hollow in the rocks. Don't think of anything, just look... Ah!" she marked his slight start. "Well - you saw something?"
"It must have been imagination. Just for a second I saw it full of blood!"
She nodded. "I knew you had it. That's the place where the old sunworshippers sacrificed victims. I knew that before anyone told me. And there are times when I know just how they felt about it - almost as though I'd been there myself... And there's something about the moor that makes me feel as though I were coming back home... Of course it's natural that I should have the gift. I'm a Ferguesson. There's second sight in the family. And my mother was a medium until my father married her. Cristine was her name. She was rather celebrated."
"Do you mean by 'the gift' the power of being able to see things before they happen?"
"Yes, forwards or backwards - it's all the same. For instance, I saw you wondering why I married Maurice - oh! yes, you did! It's simply because I've always known that there's something dreadful hanging over him... I wanted to save him from it... Women are like that. With my gift, I ought to be able to prevent it happening... if one ever can... I couldn't help Dickie. And Dickie wouldn't understand... He was afraid. He was very young."
"Twenty-two."
"And I'm thirty. But I didn't mean that. There are so many ways of being divided, length and height and breadth... but to be divided by time is the worst way of all..." She fell into a long brooding silence.
The low peal of a gong from the house below roused them.
At lunch, Macfarlane watched Maurice Haworth. He was undoubtedly madly in love with his wife. There was the unquestioning happy fondness of a dog in his eyes. Macfarlane marked also the tenderness of her response, with its hint of maternity. After lunch he took his leave.
"I'm staying down at the inn for a day or so. May I come and see you again? Tomorrow, perhaps?"
"Of course. But -"
"But what -"
She brushed her hand quickly across her eyes. "I don't know. I - I fancied that we shouldn't meet again - that's all... Good-bye."
He went down the road slowly. In spite of himself, a cold hand seemed tightening round his heart. Nothing in her words, of course, but -
A motor swept round the corner. He flattened himself against the hedge... only just in time. A curious greyish pallor crept across his face...
III
"Good Lord, my nerves are in a rotten state," muttered Macfarlane, as he awoke the following morning. He reviewed the events of the afternoon before dispassionately. The motor, the short-cut to the inn and the sudden mist that had made him lose his way with the knowledge that a dangerous bog was no distance off. Then the chimney pot that had fallen off the inn, and the smell of burning in the night which he had traced to a cinder on his hearth rug. Nothing in it all!
Nothing at all - but for her words, and that deep unacknowledged certainty in his heart that she knew...
He flung off the bedclothes with sudden energy. He must go up and see her first thing. That would break the spell. That is, if he got there safely...
Lord, what a fool he was!
He could eat little breakfast. Ten o'clock saw him starting up the road.
At ten-thirty his hand was on the bell. Then , and not till then, he permitted himself to draw a long breath of relief.
"Is Mrs Haworth in?"
It was the same elderly woman who had opened the door before. But her face was different - ravaged with grief.
"Oh! sir. Oh! sir. You haven't heard, then?"
"Heard what?"
"Miss Alistair, the pretty lamb. It was her tonic. She took it every night.
The poor captain is beside himself; he's nearly mad. He took the wrong bottle off the shelf in the dark... They sent for the doctor, but he was too late -"
And swiftly there recurred to Macfarlane the words: "I've always known there was something dreadful hanging over him. I ought to be able to prevent it happening - if one ever can -" Ah! but one couldn't cheat Fate... Strange fatality of vision that had destroyed where it sought to save...
The old servant went on: "My pretty lamb! So sweet and gentle she was, and so sorry for anything in trouble. Couldn't bear anyone to be hurt."
She hesitated, then added: "Would you like to go up and see her, sir? I think, from what she said, that you must have known her long ago. A very long time ago, she said..."
Macfarlane followed the old woman up the stairs into the room over the drawing room where he had heard the voice singing the day before.
There was stained glass at the top of the windows. It threw a red light on the head of the bed... A gipsy with a red handkerchief over her head... Nonsense, his nerves were playing tricks again. He took a long last look at Alistair Haworth.
IV
"There's a lady to see you, sir."
"Eh?" Macfarlane looked at the landlady abstractedly. "Oh! I beg your pardon, Mrs Rowse, I've been seeing ghosts."
"Not really, sir? There's queer things to be seen on the moor after nightfall. I know. There's the white lady, and the Devil's blacksmith, and the sailor and the gipsy -"
"What's that? A sailor and a
gipsy?"
"So they say, sir. It was quite a tale in my young days. Crossed in love they were, a while back... But they've not walked for many a long day now." "No? I wonder if - perhaps - they will again now..." "Lor'! sir, what things you do say! About that young lady -" "What young lady?" "The one that's waiting to see you. She's in the parlour. Miss Lawes, she said her name was." "Oh!" Rachel! He felt a curious feeling of contraction, a shifting of perspective. He had been peeping through at another world. He had forgotten Rachel, for Rachel belonged to this life only... Again that curious shifting of perspective, that slipping back to a world of three dimensions only. He opened the parlour door. Rachel - with her honest brown eyes. And suddenly, like a man awakening from a dream, a warm rush of glad reality swept over him. He was alive - alive! He thought: "There's only one life one can be sure about! This one!" "Rachel!" he said, and, lifting her chin, he kissed her lips.
THE HOUND OF DEATH
II
It was the second day after my arrival at Trearne that the story recurred to me. My sister and I were having tea on the terrace.
"Kitty," I said. "Didn't you have a nun among your Belgians?"
"You don't mean Sister Marie Angelique, do you?"
"Possibly I do," I said cautiously. "Tell me about her."
"Oh, my dear! She was the most uncanny creature. She's still here, you know."
"What? In the house?"
"No, no in the village. Dr Rose - you remember Dr Rose?"
I shook my head.
"I remember an old man of about eighty-three."
"Dr Laird. Oh! He died. Dr Rose has only been here a few years. He's quite young and very keen on new ideas. He took the most enormous interest in Sister Marie Angelique. She has hallucinations and things, you know, and apparently is most frightfully interesting from a medical point of view. Poor thing, she'd nowhere to go - and really was in my opinion quite potty - only impressive, if you know what I mean - well, as I say, she'd nowhere to go, and Dr Rose very kindly fixed her up in the village. I believe he's writing a monograph or whatever it is that doctors write, about her."
She paused and then said: "But what do you know about her?"
"I heard a rather curious story."
I passed on the story as I had received it from Ryan. Kitty was very much interested.
"She looks the sort of person who could blast you - if you know what I mean," she said.
"I really think," I said, my curiosity heightened, "that I must see this young woman."
"Do. I'd like to know what you think of her. Go and see Dr Rose first.
Why not walk down to the village after tea?"
I accepted the suggestion.
I found Dr Rose at home and introduced myself. He seemed a pleasant young man, yet there was something about his personality that rather repelled me. It was too forceful to be altogether agreeable.
The moment I mentioned Sister Marie Angelique he stiffened to attention. He was evidently keenly interested. I gave him Ryan's account of the matter.
"Ah!" he said thoughtfully. "That explains a great deal."
He looked up quickly at me and went on.
"The case is really an extraordinarily interesting one. The woman arrived here having evidently suffered some severe mental shock. She was in a state of great mental excitement also. She was given to hallucinations of a most startling character. Her personality is most unusual. Perhaps you would like to come with me and call upon her.
She is really well worth seeing."
I agreed readily.
We set out together. Our objective was a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. Folbridge is a most picturesque place. It lies in the mouth of the river Fol mostly on the east bank; the west bank is too precipitous for building, though a few cottages do cling to the cliffside there. The doctor's own cottage was perched on the extreme edge of the cliff on the west side. From it you looked down on the big waves lashing against the black rocks.
The little cottage to which we were now proceeding lay inland out of sight of the sea.
"The district nurse lives here," explained Dr Rose. "I have arranged for Sister Marie Angelique to board with her. It is just as well that she should be under skilled supervision."
"Is she quite normal in her manner?" I asked curiously.
"You can judge for yourself in a minute," he replied, smiling.
The district nurse, a dumpy, pleasant little body, was just setting out on her bicycle when we arrived.
"Good evening, nurse; how's your patient?" called out the doctor.
"She's much as usual, doctor. Just sitting there with her hands folded and her mind far away. Often enough she'll not answer when I speak to her, though for the matter of that it's little enough English she understands even now."
Rose nodded, and as the nurse bicycled away, he went up to the cottage door, rapped sharply and entered.
Sister Marie Angelique was lying in a long chair near the window. She turned her head as we entered.
It was a strange face - pale, transparent-looking, with enormous eyes.
There seemed to be an infinitude of tragedy in those eyes.
"Good evening, my sister," said the doctor in French.
"Good evening, M. le docteur."
"Permit me to introduce a friend, Mr Anstruther."
I bowed and she inclined her head with a faint smile.
"And how are you today?" inquired the doctor, sitting down beside her.
"I am much the same as usual." She paused and then went on. "Nothing seems real to me. Are they days that pass - or months - or years? I hardly know. Only my dreams seem real to me."
"You still dream a lot, then?"
"Always - always - and, you understand? - the dreams seem more real than life."
"You dream of your own country - of Belgium?"
She shook her head.
"No. I dream of a country that never existed - never. But you know this, M. le docteur. I have told you many times." She stopped and then said abruptly: "But perhaps this gentleman is also a doctor - a doctor perhaps for the diseases of the brain?"
"No, no." Rose was reassuring, but as he smiled, I noticed how extraordinarily pointed his canine teeth were, and it occurred to me that there was something wolflike about the man. He went on:
"I thought you might be interested to meet Mr Anstruther. He knows something of Belgium. He has lately been hearing news of your convent."
Her eyes turned to me. A faint flush crept into her cheeks.
"It's nothing, really," I hastened to explain. "But I was dining the other evening with a friend who was describing the ruined walls of the convent to me."
"So it was ruined!"
It was a soft exclamation, uttered more to herself than to us. Then looking at me once more, she asked hesitatingly: "Tell me, monsieur, did your friend say how - in what way - it was ruined?"
"It was blown up," I said, and added: "The peasants are afraid to pass that way at night."
"Why are they afraid?"
"Because of a black mark on a ruined wall. They have a superstitious fear of it."
She leaned forward.
"Tell me, monsieur - quick - quick - tell me! What is that mark like?"
"It has the shape of a huge hound," I answered. "The peasants call it the Hound of Death."
"Ah!"
A shrill cry burst from her lips.
"It is true then - it is true. All that I remember is true. It is not some black nightmare. It happened! It happened!"
"What happened, my sister?" asked the doctor in a low voice.
She turned to him eagerly.
"I remembered. There on the steps, I remembered. I remembered the way of it. I used the power as we used to use it. I stood on the altar steps and I bade them to come no farther. I told them to depart in peace.
They would not listen, they came on although I warned them. And so -"
She leaned forward and made a curious gesture. "And so I loosed the Hound of Death on
them..."
She lay back on her chair shivering all over, her eyes closed.
The doctor rose, fetched a glass from a cupboard, half filled it with water, added a drop or two from a little bottle which he produced from his pocket, then took the glass to her.
"Drink this," he said authoritatively.
She obeyed - mechanically as it seemed. Her eyes looked far away as though they contemplated some inner vision of her own.
"But then it is all true," she said. "Everything. The City of the Circles, the People of the Crystal - everything. It is all true."
"It would seem so," said Rose.
His voice was low and soothing, clearly designed to encourage and not to disturb her train of thought.
"Tell me about the City," he said. "The City of Circles, I think you said?"
She answered absently and mechanically.
"Yes - there were three circles. The first circle for the chosen, the second for the priestesses, and the outer circle for the priests."
"And in the center?"
She drew her breath sharply and her voice sank to a tone of indescribable awe.
"The House of the Crystal..."
As she breathed the words, her right hand went to her forehead and her finger traced some figure there.
Her figure seemed to grow more rigid, her eyes closed, she swayed a little - then suddenly she sat upright with a jerk, as though she had suddenly awakened.
"What is it?" she said confusedly. "What have I been saying?"
"It is nothing," said Rose. "You are tired. You want to rest. We will leave you."
She seemed a little dazed as we took our departure.
"Well," said Rose when we were outside. "What do you think of it?"
He shot a sharp glance sideways at me.
"I suppose her mind must be totally unhinged," I said slowly.
"It struck you like that?"
"No - as a matter of fact, she was - well, curiously convincing. When listening to her I had the impression that she actually had done what she claimed to do - worked a kind of gigantic miracle. Her belief that she did so seems genuine enough. That is why -"
"That is why you say her mind must be unhinged. Quite so. But now approach the matter from another angle. Supposing that she did actually work that miracle - supposing that she did, personally, destroy a building and several hundred human beings."
Short Stories Page 84