* * *
To begin with, the house accepted Joyce as though it had known no other woman. The first three months were all that Richard Service could have asked for. He rushed back from London like a boy; they gardened, they went on the river, they played tennis; and life was not complete unless they did these things together. At week-ends they would take the car and a luncheon-basket and disappear. The staff, marvel of marvels, created no discords. Joyce had a happy touch in dealing with servants.
Then a change came. Joyce could not say just how or when she began to feel something: a curious sense of otherness in the house, a kind of awareness of some other presence. But she did remember the day of the thunderstorm, not because of the storm, but because of an incident that was associated with it. She was not afraid of storms. She happened to be in the drawing-room, busy going through the books in an old glass-fronted bureau, for this piece of furniture had never been touched since their marriage. She had noticed a book bound in black and gold brocade, with no title to it—and she took it down and opened it, or rather, the book seemed to open of itself at a particular place.
She stood staring, for the book contained no print, and between the open leaves she saw lying, like the ghosts of pressed flowers, a loop of black hair and a slip of white silk. She had a most strange feeling of having discovered something that was sinister and ironical. The room was dark, and she was in the act of moving to one of the windows for more light, when a flash seemed to fall like a bolt of fire into the garden. She saw the top of the cedar of Lebanon on the lawn shivered in a blaze of white light. It crashed, leaving a splintered stump.
For the first time in her life she was frightened. The windows still seemed to be quivering with the shock. She had dropped the book on the floor, and the coil of hair and the slip of white silk lay on the carpet.
She heard the frightened voices of the servants.
“Mary, the house is struck.”
“Oh—bless us, it was a chimney.”
They came rushing in, to find Joyce standing in the middle of the room with a queer stillness.
“Oh, ma’am—the house——!”
She pointed towards the window.
“No; the tree, the poor tree, the cedar. Look!”
“Oh, ma’am, supposing there’s another flash? It may be the house this time.”
“It’s not likely, Mary; we’ve had our escape.”
She sent them away reassured, and then the blackness overhead broke in a deluge of rain, a grey sheet that hung like a curtain. Gutters and pipes gurgled; the moist rush of the rain brought a coolness, almost a chilliness; there was no other sound to be heard. And Joyce was sitting in a Sheraton chair, looking at that book on the floor and the relics it had disclosed. She was afraid of that book, more afraid of it than she had been of the storm, for she seemed to divine in it a something hostile towards herself. But mingled with her fear was curiosity. The thing fascinated her.
It lay half-open, prone, with the leaves crumpled and its black and gold brocaded cover suggesting the skin of a snake. Her curiosity prevailed, though it was more than mere curiosity that made her pick up the book and examine it. She felt that she had to examine it. It was like the book of knowledge of good and evil.
She stood by the window with the rain rushing down. She held in her hands the day-book or diary of a woman who was dead—Service’s first wife. She read and read with a kind of fascinated, guilty horror, a shrinking of her sensitive self, for the book was too intimate. Every page had its intimacies.
But what manner of woman had this been? Passionate, possessive, morbid, analytical. All her thoughts were there, moods that were both glowing and sombre. She wrote of Service; his name was on every page. She wrote of him as “My man.” Sometimes she wrote angrily, with a jealous glance at the world.
She was a woman who had been furiously possessive; she handled that which she possessed, and turned it over and examined it like a woman examining jewellery and dresses, things that were intimately hers. She wrote of the house as hers, and the garden as hers. She spoke of pieces of furniture which had grown familiar to Joyce, and suddenly Joyce realized the other woman in the very chair in which she had been sitting.
She felt stricken, chilled. And yet she read; she felt somehow that she had to read.
She came upon one secret sentence that made the woman in her tremble at the knees. “My man——” And Service was her man. And yet he was like the very furniture in the house: he had belonged to this other woman.
On the last page of all she came upon the final threat.
“If any woman comes after me let her be accursed. I will miswish her—though I be dead.”
There was a fire laid in the grate behind a needlework screen, and Joyce removed the screen and lit the fire. It burnt sluggishly and slowly, but when she had got it to blaze she took those relics and the book and placed them on the fire. She did it deliberately. She felt that the book was evil, and that in burning it she was defending both herself and her husband from the menace of the past. Watching the leaves crumple and scorch and burn she tried to assure herself that the business was over, that she had discovered a skeleton and destroyed it. She was prepared to feel relieved, secure—her happy, personal self.
But what an extraordinary thing that Dick should never have discovered the book. She was glad. Almost it had seemed to her like the book of a vampire.
Service came back to a clear sky and a rain-washed world. He found his wife in the front garden recovering some of the flowers which had had their faces dashed and drabbled.
“Hallo! You seem to have had the storm here rather badly.”
She straightened and stood looking at him, and there was a something in her eyes that Service did not understand. A man’s love is not always blind because of his self-centred maleness, and Richard Service was troubled. He thought that Joyce looked frightened.
“Nothing happened, Eve?”
His pet name for her was Eve.
“Yes; come and see.”
She went to him and snuggled against him, as though for warmth, and to feel that he was hers.
“I’ve been frightened, Dick.”
“My dear one——”
He had an arm round her.
“What’s happened?”
“The tree—our beloved tree.”
She took him and showed him the broken cedar, and he looked shocked.
“Good Lord! It might have been the house! Where were you?”
“In the drawing-room.”
“Poor old tree. If I’d known I should have been scared to death.”
And suddenly she clung to him.
“You do love me, Dick; you do, don’t you?”
“My dear——”
“You always will, whatever happens?”
He was troubled, challenged. Why this cry of pain, this question? Was it woman, and the way of a woman? Had something——?
“Why, you are the one thing that matters to me. Good heavens, don’t you know?”
“Oh, Dick, I want to feel sure.”
“You can feel sure. I say—everything’s all right? You’re not——?”
She pressed her forehead against his shoulder.
“Oh, yes—no, nothing of that sort. I’ve been frightened, Dick. I wanted you.”
“You dear.”
But she did not tell him about the book.
* * *
Joyce had burnt the book, but you cannot burn a memory—and the memory remained. It was more than a memory. It was as though that other woman had survived as an unseen, unfelt presence in the house, unable at first to make her presence sensed, but striving to do so. And Joyce’s discovery of the diary, and the sudden intimate yet hostile contact between the living and the dead had broken down some mysterious barrier. The other woman was neither visible nor audible; but she was felt: she was in the atmosphere; she walked in the garden; she sat in the chairs; she looked into the mirrors, even into that little Queen Anne mirror on Joyce’s dressing-table.
It had been the other woman’s mirror.
Joyce bought a new looking-glass, and had the other one put away in the boxroom.
She was a healthy young person. She would say to herself: “Don’t be so absurd.” But the absurdity was becoming a most sinister and haunting reality.
She could not forget those last, written words:
“If any other woman comes after me——”
The house was haunted, not by any visible or audible ghost, but by a presence, the remnants of a personality, the associations of a woman who had slept where Joyce now slept. The thing began to permeate her consciousness. Insensibly she was obsessed by the horrible conviction that she and Richard were not alone, and that a third person moved and listened and hated. The rooms were filled with jealousy, suspicion.
Joyce began to suffer. She tried to fight the thing down, but she did not succeed. She began to feel afraid to be alone; she was sleeping badly; she grew nervous, moody, irritable. The house had lost its beauty; it was no longer hers; it was becoming hateful, dark, sinister. It would startle her with imagined noises! Sometimes, in the dusk, when passing from one room to another, or when climbing the stairs, she would stand still and listen, convinced of some imminent presence. She felt that she was going to be touched—that she would see a shape, something. She knew terror, that nameless, indescribable fear.
She began to lose her healthy poise, her good temper. It was as though that presence was willing her to say things that she did not mean, cruel, hateful things. Sometimes her face looked sullen.
Service had noticed the change in her. He was worried. It was as though the sun had gone in, and life had grown suddenly dark.
What was the matter?
Joyce did not meet him as she used to meet him. She was clouded, strange. She seemed to have something on her mind. She was touchy, incalculable, puzzling.
“Anything the matter, Eve?”
“Matter? Why should there be?”
“I’ve thought—lately——”
“Perhaps I’m bored.”
She was aware of his shocked, hurt face. He was frightened, but not so frightened as she was, for those words had come blurting out as though some other self in her had uttered them. They were not her words. Almost it was not her voice, but the voice of some other personality speaking through her.
She burst into tears.
“I didn’t mean that. I don’t know what made me say it.”
But even while he was being gentle to her she was aware of that spirit of doubt and of dread in him. He was frightened.
She had said it. What was her denial worth? A young wife did not blurt out such words without reason. The incident left him perplexed and brooding.
What did it mean? Was this second marriage of his slipping down towards unhappiness, and the tragedy of a dead and casual ennui? Was he one of those unfortunate men who lack the essential something? Was he too old for Joyce? For, to begin with, she had seemed to be happy, such a glowing, wholesome creature; they had played together almost like girl and boy; they had no worries, no incompatibilities.
He brooded over it. He was hurt in his secret pride, and in his tenderness.
Perhaps she was ill. Perhaps she was going to have a child?
He watched her, and she was only too conscious of being watched. She felt that she was being driven, forced towards disharmonies. His troubled glances accused her, irritated her.
“What about a doctor, Eve?”
“A doctor? I don’t need a doctor.”
“You don’t seem quite the thing.”
“Oh, don’t fuss me; I can’t stand being fussed.”
She saw his poor face close. He grew suddenly and lamentably silent. He got up from the breakfast-table, lit his pipe, and glanced at his copy of The Times. She fled. What was happening to her? What made her say the things she did? She went out into the garden, and wandered miserably down to the river. Why not tell him? Wasn’t that the only sensible and human thing to do? She would go and tell him, but when she returned to the house she found that he had gone without seeing her again. The manner of his going was a challenge and a reproach.
She spent a miserable day, and so did Service. The hours dragged; he found it difficult to concentrate upon his work, and to pay attention to other people’s affairs and troubles when he was so full of his own particular worry. He had to interview a difficult client, a woman with a grievance who took her emotions out for exercise and who talked nineteen to the dozen. Ostensibly she came to be advised, and left advice lying like rejected articles on a shop counter.
Service lost patience. He was frankly ungallant.
“May I remind you—in your own interest, that we charge clients for advice even when it is not taken.”
She was a thoroughly unreasonable woman, but he got rid of her, and dictated his letters, and locked up his desk.
“I am going off early to-day, Miss Jones.”
He caught the 4.15 train. He began by walking fast from Lelham station, but as he approached Weir House his pace slackened. He was afraid: he shrank from the unknown, the possible mood, the shadow of a vague disillusionment. How preposterous it was. A month ago there had been no such shadow.
He entered his house almost with a feeling of surreptitiousness, of sneaking in. He hung up his hat, and put his attaché case away in the study. He stood hesitating in the hall as though not knowing where to go or what to do.
And suddenly the drawing-room door opened; he saw his wife standing there; she too seemed to hesitate, and then she made one swift rush to him, and clung.
“Oh! Dick; oh, my dear!”
He was deeply moved.
“Why—Eve—my darling—that’s all right. I thought I’d come home early.”
She clung.
“Dick, I’ve got something to tell you. I must tell you. Oh, my dear, you do love me, don’t you?”
“I think I love you too much.”
“You can’t—but—you can’t. I’ve got to ask you to do such a big thing. It’s the house. I can’t live here, Dick. It’s—it’s haunted.”
He was astonished, but he hid his astonishment.
“Why? How do you mean?”
“Come in here. I’ll tell you. I must tell you. Lock the door.”
She was trembling. She drew him to the sofa.
“Sit down; hold my hand. I want to ask you something.”
“Anything you like.”
“I want you to tell me—what was she like—my predecessor—the woman who lived here before me?”
He looked at her.
“You mean—Violet?”
“Yes. You must tell me. Was there anything——?”
He was silent a moment. His face looked dark and strange.
“I’ve kept—this quiet. It seemed only fair and decent.”
“Yes, but tell me.”
“She was a woman with an ungovernable temper. She was—what you call passionate and exacting.”
Joyce’s head touched his shoulder.
“Oh, my dear—she’s here still. I can feel her—everywhere. She’s hating me—trying to will me into beastliness. No; I’m not being mad or silly. I did not feel her here at first, but gradually she came. I can’t live here, Dick. It’s spoiling everything, and we were so happy.”
He put a hand over her head.
“My dear, forgive me; I ought to have felt.”
“Dick, if you love me, take me away from here. Let’s start fresh—fresh with everything. You’re not mine here. And she’s turning me and everything into evil.”
His face had grown very gentle.
“Of course. That’s the only thing that matters. I’ll have it done at once. We’ll go up to town, until you have found your own real house, Joyce.”
She clung to him.
“Oh, Dick, you haven’t failed me. I’m not mad. You’ll see—when we begin again. I don’t want to grow like her.”
WHAT ABOUT IT?
They were a pair of
bright young things. They came to occupy one of the new little houses in Oakwood Chase, and their house was as much a flight of fancy as the name of the road in which it stood. The speculative gentleman who had laid out the estate appeared to understand both human nature and the art of symbolism. There were two oak trees in Oakwood Chase, one at each end of it, but that did not matter, for there had been other oak trees that had fallen to the axe. Also a cedar tree and a grove of some twenty Scotch firs had supplied the speculative gentleman with inspirations, and it was possible to rent or buy a house in Cedar Walk or in Firland Avenue.
The little house of the bright young things had “Chase Cot” painted in black on a deal gate painted white. Mark you, it was a double gate—for “Chase Cot” had seven yards of gravel that was called the drive. It led to the garage. The garage had doors stained brown with creosote, and a pink roof of asbestos tiling. It was occupied in those early days by two bicycles, a second-hand mower, a garden barrow, two deck-chairs, a collection of tools, and a Japanese screen with a hole in it.
Wilfred went up to town each day with a bowler hat somewhat on the back of his head. He occupied a subordinate position in the city. Maisie, standing between the little white pillars of the porch, and looking like “The River Girl,” as photographed for one of the illustrated penny papers, raised a pretty and benedictory arm.
“So long, old thing.”
“Cheerio.”
“Don’t forget to buy the nasturtium seed.”
“Is it likely!”
Wilfred was fair, with a biggish nose and an air of cheerful cockiness. He liked to be impressive. His voice had a slight throatiness. He had had cards printed: “Mr. Wilfred Smythe—‘Chase Cot’—Oakwood Chase—Riverton.”
Maisie was dark, with a shingled head, and an air of alert vivacity. All her movements were quick and a little exaggerated, and her adjectives suggested that life was very exciting. Things were topping and marvellous and too perfectly sweet. She was very full of her youth, and was apt to air the conceit of it, as young things will, and she had social ambitions. She wore cerise and yellow jumpers, and put on an air of refinement when she shopped, and when referring to her husband in the presence of strangers, spoke of him as Mr. Smythe.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 48