THEY RETURN AT EVENING

by Herbert Russell Wakefield

  I grew to admire her greatly, and though we had no sexual relationship whatsoever, sometimes when I heard her turning over in bed, or saw her coming back naked from her bath I knew vague stirrings and excitement. But I repressed them vigorously and, indeed, they were never much more than the ripples on a pond as compared with the combers off the Horn of the average Mug.

  Our combined income for the next three years averaged £5,000, not one penny of which went into the coffers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. By now I was a badly wanted and notorious person, but I have a sixth sense for evading the constable, and I could see retirement and ease before me very soon, when the one thing I had considered inconceivable happened. Charity fell in love with a poor man in the middle stage of consumption, who most improvidently and prematurely caused her to be with child. After she had told me this she cut short my remonstrances and protests, by informing me she must have money to marry on, and that I must supply it to the tune of £2,000 a year for six years.

  I replied I would make it £200 a year for three years, and not a penny more.

  'In that case,' she said, 'I go round to the Editor of Truth tomorrow and tell him everything.'

  'And ruin yourself!' I replied. 'What's come over you? Be sensible. Have the baby quietly, leave this young dying fool for ever, and concentrate on business. A child might be useful to us. I'll think that point over.'

  'I shouldn't waste your valuable time if I were you,' she answered, 'and don't be too sure I shall ruin myself. You're the big game they are after. If I give you away they won't bother about me, and I doubt if they could convict me anyway. And I don't mind betting the papers will pay me anything I like to ask for my story after you've been jugged.'

  'Give me time to think,' I said.

  Was she bluffing? I didn't believe so. She was probably right. The police would merely use her as evidence against me, and she would be able to get thousands of pounds for her version of the last three years. Yet pay her £2,000 a year for six years! It would just not ruin me, and she knew it. The gross ingratitude!

  I tried to get her to lower her terms, but she was adamant.

  'I don't feel well, and am going down to Folkestone tomorrow for a week. I shall expect your answer directly I return,' was her ultimatum.

  I spent the most wretched night of my life. I saw all that I had planned for going by the board. Sooner or later I should be forced into extreme recklessness by this dreadful drain on my resources, and then, 'Ten years' hard labour' at least. This little vixen I had reared! Making her teeth meet in the hand which had fed her, for the sake of some broken-lunged piece of worm-fodder. I'd like to have flung her into a cell full of drunken stokers! And then I dozed off, and woke in the most confident, buoyant mood. That is why I am superstitious, for I have had this experience several times — just when I have felt that I was trapped at last, I have had these sudden flashes of confidence and ease, and always something has happened to save me. It would come this time! I went to see Charity off, pretending to be in despair, and imploring her to make some concession.

  'Oh, shut up!' she said. 'I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for Jim. He's sweet and he's straight and I love him. Words you don't know the meaning of, you mixture of dirty crook and frozen fish, so you can work for him or go to clink and work for His Majesty, and you've got a week to choose.'

  She had just got into a coach about halfway up the train, and I was about to leave when my eye was caught by an individual in clerical attire who was sauntering down the platform and glancing sharply at the people upon it. As he drew near he seemed vaguely familiar to me. Suddenly he saw me, and gave me a quick, meaning look. He passed close to me, and as he went past he said slowly and distinctly, 'There's more room in the third coach.'

  The third coach! The third coach! And in a flash I saw a third coach turn to matchwood.

  'There's more room in front, Charity,' I said. 'Come along!' The compartment was packed, and she came readily. Just as we reached the third coach the whistle went, and I bundled her into a compartment already filled to the brim. She gave me a venomous glance as the train pulled out.

  And then I looked round for that slightly familiar individual. He was far down the platform by now, but he turned round, saw me, waved his hand, and disappeared. As the train was passing out I happened to catch my reflection in a window glass, and then I knew why he had seemed familiar, for his face was mine!

  I left the station and took a taxi to Pantham Station. During the hour's run I was in a state of high excitement.

  About a mile from the station we were stopped by a policeman. 'You can't go down this road,' he said, 'there's been a smash on the line.'

  'What train?' I asked anxiously.

  'The down Folkestone express.'

  'My God!' I cried. 'I had a friend in it.'

  'Well,' he said, 'they've got the killed and injured on the side of the embankment, you'd better go down there; anyway, they want help.'

  It wasn't a pleasant sight. I identified Charity by the remnant of her watch-garter which was still hanging to what had been her leg. Then, saying nothing to anyone, I went away. Otherwise she was never identified.

  And then, for some reason or other, I became a clergyman. I don't really know why. In fact I think I've become that individual who told me about that third coach.

  Here the delicate little script came to an end, and a moment later Lanton came back.

  'Finished?' he asked. 'Well, what do you think of it?'

  'A very rascally and curious tale,' I replied.

  'But the most curious part of it is,' said Lanton, 'that there's not a word of truth in it.'

  'What!'

  'The Reverend Wellington Scot was a mild, timid, East End curate. Going down for a holiday to Folkestone he was in the Pantham disaster, and hurled from the third coach on to his head. He was unconscious for ten days, and when he came to he had to come here. He spends every moment writing that story in notebooks. He completes it twice a week. We read it carefully to see if his narrative ever changes, but it is always almost word for word the same. He is very docile and easy to manage so long as he is allowed to write. For an experiment we took his writing materials away, whereupon he delivered himself of the most appalling filth and blasphemy I have ever heard. He never speaks unless he is spoken to. When he first came in his face was round, chubby, and ingenuous in expression; it has slowly lengthened, hardened, and its expression has become cunning, watchful, and malevolent. That is the story of the Reverend Wellington Scot.'

  'And the explanation?' I asked.

  Lanton shrugged his shoulders.

  'How can there be one? I have known somewhat similar cases, though never so perfect, where some injury to the head has changed the disposition and to some extent the memory, but, as I say, never to this extent. As a matter of fact one can find traces of the curate in that narrative. A quotation from Shelley, a familiarity with strange types, a distaste for sex and so on, and, of course, the closing sentences; otherwise he is, as he appears in his story, the precise opposite of what he actually was. Perhaps you may have missed almost the most remarkable thing. His description of the accident, as seen in his vision, is precisely identical with that of the two eye-witnesses of it, yet, of course, he never could have seen it, and he hasn't read a word since he recovered consciousness. I said just now there wasn't a word of truth in that narrative, but that in a sense is presumptuous and unscientific. The fashionable theory today is that we each one of us create our own particular god and our own particular universe — it is subjectivity's innings. We certainly create our own truths. Fortunately in the case of most of us our truth roughly corresponds with the truth of others. The Reverend Wellington Scot's violently diverges, so we have to lock him up. He has been here a year, and I found he went to a Greyhound Racing Meeting at the White City the night before the accident. Would you like to see him again?'

  'Yes and no. On the whole, yes.'

  Lanton took me along a corridor and unlock
ed a door. The Reverend Wellington Scot was seated at a table, his face partly shaded by a reading lamp. He was writing busily, but looked up after a moment and shot that penetrating glance at me.

  'I hope you have everything you want, Mr Scot,' said Lanton.

  'Yes, thank you, sir,' he replied, in the mild, slightly clipped, slightly sing-song voice of a stage-curate, 'but I have one little question to ask of you, should the words watch-garter be hyphenated, in your opinion, or not?'

  'Hyphenated, I think,' replied Lanton.

  'I am much obliged to you, and glad to find that we are in agreement. I suppose, sir, I shall be here for some little time yet?'

  'Oh yes, just for a little while longer,' said Lanton. 'Good-night.'

  'Good-night, sir,' he replied, his pencil already busy again.

  'Poor devil,' I said, as we walked back to Lanton's study. 'Is he happy?'

  'Perfectly,' replied Lanton. 'There ought to be a deep truth hidden somewhere in that fact; and now for a drink.'

  The Red Lodge

  I AM WRITING THIS FROM an imperative sense of duty, for I consider the Red Lodge is a foul death-trap and utterly unfit to be a human habitation — it has its own proper denizens — and because I know its owner to be an unspeakable blackguard to allow it so to be used for his financial advantage. He knows the perils of the place perfectly well; I wrote him of our experiences, and he didn't even acknowledge the letter, and two days ago I saw the ghastly pest-house advertised in Country Life. So anyone who rents the Red Lodge in future will receive a copy of this document as well as some uncomfortable words from Sir William, and that scoundrel Wilkes can take what action he pleases.

  I certainly didn't carry any prejudice against the place down to it with me: I had been too busy to look over it myself, but my wife reported extremely favourably — I take her word for most things — and I could tell by the photographs that it was a magnificent specimen of the medium-sized Queen Anne house, just the ideal thing for me. Mary said the garden was perfect, and there was the river for Tim at the bottom of it. I had been longing for a holiday and was in the highest spirits as I travelled down. I have not been in the highest spirits since.

  My first vague, faint uncertainty came to me so soon as I had crossed the threshold. I am a painter by profession, and therefore sharply responsive to colour tone. Well, it was a brilliantly fine day, the hall of the Red Lodge was fully lighted, yet it seemed a shade off the key, as it were, as though I were regarding it through a pair of slightly darkened glasses. Only a painter would have noticed it, I fancy.

  When Mary came out to greet me, she was not looking as well as I had hoped, or as well as a week in the country should have made her look.

  'Everything all right?' I asked.

  'Oh, yes,' she replied, but I thought she found it difficult to say so, and then my eye detected a curious little spot of green on the maroon rug in front of the fireplace. I picked it up — it seemed like a patch of river slime.

  'I suppose Tim brings those in,' said Mary. 'I've found several; of course, he promises he doesn't.' And then for a moment we were silent, and a very unusual sense of constraint seemed to set a barrier between us. I went out into the garden to smoke a cigarette before lunch, and sat myself down under a very fine mulberry tree.

  I wondered if, after all, I had been wise to have left it all to Mary. There was nothing wrong with the house, of course, but I am a bit psychic, and I always know the mood or character of a house. One welcomes you with the tail-writhing enthusiasm of a really nice dog, makes you at home, and at your ease at once. Others are sullen, watchful, hostile, with things to hide. They make you feel that you have obtruded yourself into some curious affairs which are none of your business. I had never encountered so hostile, aloof, and secretive a living place as the Red Lodge seemed when I first entered it. Well, it couldn't be helped, though it was disappointing; and there was Tim coming back from his walk, and the luncheon gong. My son seemed a little subdued and thoughtful, though he looked pretty well, and soon we were all chattering away with those quick changes of key which occur when the respective ages of the conversationalists are 40, 33, and 6½, and after half a bottle of Meursault and a glass of port I began to think I had been a morbid ass. I was still so thinking when I began my holiday in the best possible way by going to sleep in an exquisitely comfortable chair under the mulberry tree. But I have slept better. I dozed off, but I had a silly impression of being watched, so that I kept waking up in case there might be someone with his eye on me. I was lying back, and could just see a window on the second floor framed by a gap in the leaves, and on one occasion, when I woke rather sharply from one of these dozes, I thought I saw for a moment a face peering down at me, and this face seemed curiously flattened against the pane — just a 'carry over' from a dream, I concluded. However, I didn't feel like sleeping any more, and began to explore the garden. It was completely walled in, I found, except at the far end, where there was a door leading through to a path which, running parallel to the right-hand wall, led to the river a few yards away. I noticed on this door several of those patches of green slime for which Tim was supposedly responsible. It was a dark little corner cut off from the rest of the garden by two rowan trees, a cool, silent little place I thought it. And then it was time for Tim's cricket lesson, which was interrupted by the arrival of some infernal callers. But they were pleasant people, as a matter of fact, the Local Knuts, I gathered, who owned the Manor House; Sir William Prowse and his lady and his daughter. I went for a walk with him after tea.

  'Who had this house before us?' I asked.

  'People called Hawker,' he replied. 'That was two years ago.'

  'I wonder the owner doesn't live in it,' I said. 'It isn't an expensive place to keep up.'

  Sir William paused as if considering his reply.

  'I think he dislikes being so near the river. I'm not sorry, for I detest the fellow. By the way, how long have you taken it for?'

  'Three months,' I replied, 'till the end of October.'

  'Well, if I can do anything for you I shall be delighted. If you are in any trouble, come straight to me.' He slightly emphasised the last sentence.

  I rather wondered what sort of trouble Sir William envisaged for me. Probably he shared the general opinion that artists were quite mad at times, and that when I had one of my lapses I should destroy the peace in some manner. However, I was duly grateful.

  I was sorry to find Tim didn't seem to like the river; he appeared nervous of it, and I determined to help him to overcome this, for the fewer terrors one carries through life with one the better, and they can often be laid by delicate treatment in childhood. Curiously enough the year before at Frinton he seemed to have no fear of the sea.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully — at least I think I can say so. After dinner I strolled down to the end of the garden, meaning to go through the door and have a look at the river. Just as I got my hand on the latch there came a very sharp, furtive whistle. I turned round quickly, but seeing no one, concluded it had come from someone in the lane outside. However, I didn't investigate further, but went back to the house.

  I woke up the next morning feeling a shade depressed. My dressing-room smelled stale and bitter, and I flung its windows open. As I did so I felt my right foot slip on something. It was one of those small, slimy, green patches. Now Tim would never come into my dressing-room. An annoying little puzzle. How on earth had that patch——? Which question kept forcing its way into my mind as I dressed. How could a patch of green slime . . .? How could a patch of green slime. . .? Dropped from something? From what? I am very fond of my wife — she slaved for me when I was poor, and always has kept me happy, comfortable, and faithful, and she gave me my small son Timothy. I must stand between her and patches of green slime! What in hell's name was I talking about? And it was a flamingly fine day. Yet all during breakfast my mind was trying to find some sufficient reason for these funny little patches of green slime, and not finding it.


  After breakfast I told Tim I would take him out in a boat on the river.

  'Must I, Daddy?' he asked, looking anxiously at me.

  'No, of course not,' I replied, a trifle irritably, 'but I believe you'll enjoy it.'

  'Should I be a funk if I didn't come?'

  'No, Tim, but I think you should try it once, anyway.'

  'All right,' he said.

  He's a plucky little chap, and did his very best to pretend to be enjoying himself, but I saw it was a failure from the start.

  Perplexed and upset, I asked his nurse if she knew of any reason for this sudden fear of water.

  'No, sir,' she said. 'The first day he ran down to the river just as he used to run down to the sea, but all of a sudden he started crying and ran back to the house. It seemed to me he'd seen something in the water which frightened him.'

  We spent the afternoon motoring round the neighbourhood, and already I found a faint distaste at the idea of returning to the house, and again I had the impression that we were intruding, and that something had been going on during our absence which our return had interrupted.

  Mary, pleading a headache, went to bed soon after dinner, and I went to the study to read.

  Directly I had shut the door I had again that very unpleasant sensation of being watched. It made the reading of Sidgwick's The Use of Words in Reasoning — an old favourite of mine, which requires concentration — a difficult business. Time after time I found myself peeping into dark corners and shifting my position. And there were little sharp sounds; just the oak-panelling cracking, I supposed. After a time I became more absorbed in the book, and less fidgety, and then I heard a very soft cough just behind me. I felt little icy rays pour down and through me, but I would not look round, and I would go on reading. I had just reached the following passage: 'However many things may be said about Socrates, or about any fact observed, there remains still more that might be said if the need arose; the need is the determining factor. Hence the distinction between complete and incomplete description, though perfectly sharp and clear in the abstract, can only have a meaning — can only be applied to actual cases — if it be taken as equivalent to sufficient description, the sufficiency being relative to some purpose. Evidently the description of Socrates as a man, scanty though it is, may be fully sufficient for the purpose of the modest enquiry whether he is mortal or not' — when my eye was caught by a green patch which suddenly appeared on the floor beside me, and then another and another, following a straight line towards the door. I picked up the nearest one, and it was a bit of soaking slime. I called on all my will-power, for I feared something worse to come, and it should not materialize — and then no more patches appeared. I got up and walked deliberately, slowly, to the door, turned on the light in the middle of the room, and then came back and turned out the reading lamp and went to my dressing-room. I sat down and thought things over. There was something very wrong with this house. I had passed the stage of pretending otherwise, and my inclination was to take my family away from it the next day. But that meant sacrificing £168, and we had nowhere else to go. It was conceivable that these phenomena were perceptible only to me, being half a Highlander. I might be able to stick it out if I were careful and kept my tail up, for apparitions of this sort are partially subjective — one brings something of oneself to their materialisation. That is a hard saying, but I believe it to be true. If Mary and Tim and the servants were immune it was up to me to face and fight this nastiness. As I undressed, I came to the decision that I would decide nothing then and there, and that I would see what happened. I made this decision against my better judgment, I think.