Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  My dignity was hurt, and a coward. ‘Come, come, my little man,’ I called, ‘I myself am Mr Pelluther.’

  ‘Le jour de gloire …’ whistled the little boy.

  ‘Give me the letter,’ said I peremptorily.

  ‘I’ve got to give it into the gentleman’s own hands,’ said the little boy.

  ‘Come, give me the letter,’ said I persuasively.

  ‘I’ve got to give it into the gentleman’s own hands,’ said the little boy doggedly, ‘and you don’t see a corner of the envelope.’

  ‘Come, my boy, here’s a sixpence.’

  He eyed me suspiciously. ‘Chestnuts,’ said he, retiring a step or two.

  ‘See, a silver sixpence for the honest messenger,’ said I.

  ‘Honest be blowed!’ said he. ‘Put it on the step and go behind the door. I’ll come up for the tanner and put the letter on the step. Catch a weasel?’

  I wanted the letter; I trusted my boy; so I put the sixpence on the top step and retired behind the door. He was true to his word. With a wary eye and a whoop of triumph he made the exchange. He doubled his fist on the sixpence and retired into the garden. I came like a felon out of the stocks for my letter.

  The letter was addressed simply ‘Pelluther’, in uncommon careless handwriting, so careless indeed that I hardly recognized the scholarly penmanship of my friend Dugdale. Forgetful of the messenger, who yet lingered upon my garden path, I shut the door and bustled into my study. I was reminded of his presence and of my discourtesy by a rattling shower of stones upon the panels of my door and by the sound of the Marseillaise startling the distant trees of the quiet square.

  ‘Dear, dear me,’ said I, perching my spectacles most unskilfully. Indeed, I was not a little perturbed by this untimely letter. For only a few hours ago I had walked and smoked with dear old Dugdale in his own pleasant garden, in his own gentle twilight. For twilight seems to soothe to sleep the flowers of my old friend’s garden with gentler hands than she can have vouchsafed even to the gardens of Solomon.

  I opened my letter in trepidation, only a little reassured of Dugdale’s safety by the superscription written in his own handwriting. This is the burden of the letter – ‘Dear Friend Pell. I am writing, in a fever. Come at once – Antiquities! – the lumber – a mere scrawl – Come at once, or I begin without you. R.D.’

  ‘Antiquities’ was the peak of the climax of this summons – the golden word. All else might be meaningless; as indeed it was. ‘Come at once. Antiquities!’

  I bustled into my coat and was pelting at perilous speed down my eight steps before the Marseillaise had ceased to echo from the adjacent houses. Isolated wayfarers no doubt imagined me to be a doctor, bent on enterprise of life or death. Truly an unvenerable appearance was mine, but Dugdale was itching to begin, and haste spelt glory.

  His white house lay not a mile distant, and soon the squeal of his gate upon its hinges comforted my heart and gave my lungs pause. Dugdale himself, also, the noise brought flying down into his drive to greet me. He was without his coat. Under his arm was clumsily tucked a spade, his cheeks were flushed with excitement. Even his firm lips, children of science, were trembling, and his grey eyes, wives of the microscope, were agog behind the golden-rimmed spectacles set awry on his magnificent nose.

  I squeezed his left hand and thus together we hurried up the steps. ‘Have you begun?’ said I.

  ‘Just on the move when you came round the corner,’ said he. ‘Who would believe it, Old Roman, or Druidical, God knows.’

  Excitement and panting made me totter and I was dismayed at the thought of my digestion. We hurried down the passage to his study, which was in great disorder and filled with a vexing dust, hardly reminiscent of his admirable housemaid, and with a most unpleasant mouldy odour, of damp paper I conjecture.

  Dugdale seized a ragged piece of parchment which lay upon the table and pressed it into my hand. He sank back into his well-worn leather arm-chair, the spade resting against his knee, and energetically set to polishing his glasses.

  I looked fixedly at him. He flourished his long forefinger at me fussily, shaking his head, eager for me to get on.

  Rudely scrawled upon the chart was a diagram rectangular in shape with divers scrawls in red ink, and crazy figures. I drove my brains into the open, with vain threats and cudgelling; no, I could make nothing of it. A small chest or coffer upon the floor, of a curious workmanship, overflowing with dusty and stained papers and parchments, betrayed whence the chart had come.

  I looked at Dugdale. ‘What does it mean?’ said I, a little disappointed, for many a trick of the foolish and of the fraudulent has sent me on an idle errand in search of ‘antiquities’.

  ‘My garden,’ said Dugdale, sweeping his hand towards the window, then triumphantly pointing to the chart in my hand. ‘I have studied it. My uncle, the antiquarian; it is genuine. I have had suspicions, ah! yes, every one of yours; I’m not blind. It may be anything. I dig at once. Come and help or go to the —’

  He shouldered his spade, in which action he shivered a precious little porcelain cup upon a cabinet. He never so much as blinked at the calamity. He slackened not an inch his triumphant march to the door. Well, what is a five pound note in one’s pocket to a sixpence discovered in a gutter?

  I caught up the pick and another shovel. ‘Bravo, Pelluther,’ said he, and we strutted off arm and arm into the pleasant and spacious garden which lay at the back of the house. I felt proud as a drummer-boy.

  In the garden Dugdale whipped out of his pocket a yard measure, and having lighted a wax candle stuck it with its own grease in a recess of the wall. After which he knelt down upon the mould with transparent sedateness and studied the chart by the candle-light, very clear and conspicuous in the darkness.

  ‘Yew tree ten yards N. by seven E. three – semicir – um – square. It’s mere A.B.C., ’pon my word.’

  He darted away to the bottom of the garden. I followed in a canter by the path between the darkened roses. All was blackness except where the candle-light bleached the old bricks of Dugdale’s wall and glittered upon the dewy trees. At the squat old yew tree he beckoned me. I had repeatedly beseeched him to fell the ugly thing – but he would not.

  ‘Hold the reel,’ said he, with trembling fingers offering me the yard-measure. Away he went. ‘Ten yards by how much?’

  ‘Five, I think,’ said I.

  ‘Spellicans,’ said Dugdale, and bustled away to the house for the chart. His shirt-sleeves winked between the bushes. He fetched back with him the chart and another candlestick.

  ‘Do wake up Pelluther, wake up! Oh, “seven”, wake up?’

  I was shivering with excitement and my teeth sounded like a skeleton swaying in the wind. He measured the yards and marked the place on the soil with his spade.

  ‘Now then to work,’ said he, and set the example by a savage slash at a pensive Gloire de Dijon.

  Exceedingly solemn, yet gurgling with self-conscious laughter, I also began to pick and dig. The sweat was cold upon my forehead after a quarter of an hour’s hard labour. I sat on the grass and panted.

  ‘City dinners, orgies,’ muttered Dugdale, slaving away like a man in search of his soul.

  ‘No wind, thank goodness. See that flint flash? Good exercise! Centenarians and all the better for it. I am no chicken either. Phugh! the place is black as a tiger’s throat. I’ll swear someone’s been here before. Thumb that time! – bless the blister!’

  Even in my own abject condition I had time to be amazed at his sinewy strokes and his fanatical energy. He was sexton, and I the owl! Exquisitely, suddenly, Dugdale’s pick struck heavily and hollowly.

  ‘Oh God!’ said he scrambling like a rat out of the hole. He leaned heavily on his pick and peered at me with round eyes. A great silence was over the place. I seemed to hear the metallic ring of the pick cleaving its way to the stars. Dugdale crept very cautiously and extinguished the candle with damp fingers.

  ‘Eh, now,’ whispered he, ‘you and
I, old boy, d’ye hear. In the hole – it’s desecration, it’s as glum a trade as body-snatching. Hush! who’s that?’

  His hand pounced on my shoulder. We craned our necks. A plaintive howl grew out of the silence and faded into the silence. A black cat leapt the fence and disappeared with a flutter of leaves.

  ‘That black beast!’ said I, gazing into the wormy hole. ‘I would like to wait – and think.’

  ‘No time,’ said Dugdale, doubtfully bold. ‘The hole must be filled up before dawn or Jenkinson will make enquiries. Tut, tut, what’s that noise of thumping. Oh, yes, all right!’ He clapped his hand on his chest, ‘Now, Rattie, like mice!’

  Rattie had been my nickname a very long time ago.

  We set to work again, each tap of pick or shovel chased a shiver down my spine. And after great labour we excavated a metallic chest.

  ‘Pell, you’re a brick – I told you so!’ said Dugdale.

  We continued to gaze at our earthly spoil. One strange and inexplicable discovery we made was this: a thickly rusted iron tube ran out from the top of the chest into the earth, and thence by surmise we traced it to the trunk of the dwarfed yew tree; and, with the light of our candles eventually discovered its termination imbedded in a boss between two gnarled encrusted branches a few feet up. We were unable to drag out the chest without first disinterring the pipe.

  I eyed it with perplexity.

  ‘Come and get a saw,’ said, Dugdale. ‘It’s strange, eh?’

  He turned a mottled face to me. The air seemed to be slightly phosphorescent. Whether he had suspicions that I should force open the lid in his absence I know not. At any rate, I willingly accompanied him to the tool-house. We brought back a handsaw, Dugdale greased it plentifully with the candle, and I held the pipe while he sawed. What the purpose or use of the pipe might be I puzzled my brains in vain to discover.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Dugdale, pausing, saw in hand, ‘perhaps it’s delicate merchandise, eh, and needs fresh air.’

  ‘Perhaps it is not,’ said I, unaccountably vexed at his halting speech.

  He seemed to expect no different answer and again set busily to work. The pipe vibrated at his vigour, dealing me little shocks and numbing my fingers. At last the chest was free, we tapped it with our fingers. We scraped off flakes of mould and rust with our nails. I knelt and put my eye to the end of the pipe. Dugdale pushed me aside and did likewise.

  I am assured that passing in his brain was a sequence of ideas exactly similar to my own. We nursed our excitement, we conceived the wildest fantasies, we brought forth litters of surmises. Perhaps just the shadow of apprehension lurked about us. Possibly a familiar spirit may have tapped our shoulders.

  Then, at the same instant we both began to pull and push vigorously at the chest; but, in such a confined space (for the hole was ragged and unequal) its weight was too great for our strength.

  ‘A rope,’ said Dugdale, ‘let’s go together again. Two “old boys” in the plot.’ He laughed hypocritically.

  ‘Certainly,’ said I, amused at his suspicions and wiles.

  Again we stepped away to the tool-shed, and returned with a coil of rope. The pick being used as a lever, we were soon able to haul the chest out of its hole.

  ‘Duty first,’ said Dugdale, shovelling the loose earth into the cavity. I imitated him. And over the place of the disturbance we planted the dying rose bush, already hanging drooping leaves.

  ‘Jenkinson’s eyes are not microscopes, but he’s damned inquisitive.’

  Jenkinson, incidentally, was an old gentleman who lived in the house next to Dugdale. One who having no currants in his own bun must needs pick and steal his neighbour’s! But he is dumb in the grave now, and out of hearing of any cavilling tongue.

  Dugdale swore, but a man would be a saint or a fool who could refrain from swearing under the circumstance. Even I displayed blasphemous knowledge and was not ashamed.

  Dugdale took one end and I the other side of the chest. Together we carried it with immense difficulty (for the thing was prodigously weighty) to the study. We cleared away all the furniture to the sides of the room. We placed the chest in the middle of the floor so that we might gloat upon it at our ease. With the fire-shovel, for we had neglected to bring the spade, Dugdale scraped away mould and rust and upon the top of the chest appeared three letters, initial to a word, I conjectured, which originally ran the whole width of the side, but the greater part of which had been rendered illegible by the action of the soil. ‘A - B - O’ were the letters.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Dugdale peering at this barely perceptible record. ‘I have no idea,’ I echoed vaguely.

  And would to God we had forthwith carried the chest unopened to the garden and buried it deeper than deep!

  ‘Let us open it,’ said I, after arduous examination of the inscription.

  The fire flames glittered upon dear old Dugdale’s glasses. He was a chilly man and at a suggestion of east wind would have a fire set blazing. The room was snug and cosy. I remember the carved figure of a Chinese god grinning at me in a very palpable manner as I handed Dugdale his chisel. (May he forgive me!) The intense silence was ominous. In a cranny at the lid of the chest he inserted the tool. He looked at me queerly; at the second jerk the steel snapped.

  ‘Dugdale,’ said I, eyeing the Chinese god, ‘let’s leave well alone.’

  ‘Eh,’ said he in an unfamiliar voice.

  ‘Have nought to do with the thing.’

  ‘What, eh?’ said he sucking his finger, the nail of which he had broken in his digging. He hesitated an instant. ‘We must get another chisel,’ said he, laughing.

  But somehow I cared for the laugh not at all. It was not the fair bleak laugh of Dugdale. He took my arm in his and for the third time we made our way to the tool-shed.

  ‘It’s fresh and sweet,’ said I sniffing the air of the garden. My eyes beseeched Dugdale.

  ‘Ay, so it is, it is,’ said he.

  When he again set to work upon the chest he prised open the lid at the first effort. The scrap of broken steel rang upon the metal of the chest. A faint and unpleasant odour became perceptible. Dugdale remained in the position the sudden lift of the lid had given his body, his head bent slightly forward, over the open chest. I put one hand upon the side of the chest. My fingers touched a little cake of hard stuff. I looked into the chest. I took a step forward and looked in. Yellow cotton wool lined the leaden sides and was thrust into the interstices of the limbs of the creature which sat within. I will speak without emotion. I saw a flat malformed skull and meagre arms and shoulders clad in coarse fawn hair. I saw a face thrown back a little, bearing hideous and ungodly resemblance to the human face, its lids heavy blue and closely shut with coarse lashes and tangled eyebrows. This I saw, this the monstrous antiquity hid in the chest which Dugdale and I dug out of the garden. Only one glimpse I took at the thing, then Dugdale had replaced the lid, had sat down on the floor and was rocking to and fro with hands clasped over his knees.

  I made my way to the window feeling stiff and sore with unaccustomed toil; I threw open the window and leaned far out into the scented air. The sweetness of the flowers eddied into the room. The night was very quiet. For many minutes so I stood counting a row of poplars at the far end of the garden. Then I returned to Dugdale.

  ‘It’s the end of the business,’ said I. ‘My gorge rises with despair of life. Swear it! my dear old Dugdale. I implore you to swear that this shall be the end of the business. We will go bury it now.’

  ‘I swear it, Pelluther. Pell! Pell!’ The bitterness of his childish cry is venomous even now. ‘But hear me old friend,’ he said. ‘I am too weak now. Come tomorrow at this time and we will bury it together.’

  The chest stood in front of the fire. The metal was green with verdigris.

  We went out of the room leaving the glittering candles to their watch, and in my presence Dugdale turned the key in the lock of the door. He walked with me to the church and there we parted company.
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br />   ‘A damnable thing,’ said Dugdale, shaking my hand.

  I wagged my head woefully.

  The next day, being Wednesday, the charwomen invaded my house, as was customary upon that day, and to be free of the steam and the stench of soap I took my way to Kew. Throughout the day I wandered through the gardens striving to enjoy the luxuriance and the flowers.

  In the first coolness of evening I turned my back upon the gorgeous west and made my way home again. I met the women red and flustered leaving the house.

  ‘Has anyone called?’ said I.

  ‘The butcher, sir,’ said Mrs Rodd.

  ‘Thank you,’ said I and entered my house.

  Now in the twilight as I sat down at my own fireside, my surroundings recalled most vividly the scene of the night. I leaned heavily in my chair feeling faint and sick, and in so doing was much inconvenienced by some hard thing in the pocket of my jacket pressed to my side by the arm of the chair. I rummaged in my pocket and brought out the little cake of hard green substance which had been in the mouth of the chest. I suppose that my fingers had clutched it when they had come in contact with it the night before and unknowingly I had deposited it in my pocket.

  Deeming it prudent to have care in the matter, I rose and locked up the stuff in my little medicine chest, which is hanged above the mantelpiece in the room which looks out upon the garden. For to analyse or examine the stuff I feared. This done I came again to my chair and composed myself to reading.

  Supper had been prepared by the women and was set upon the table for me in my study. It has been my custom since the death of my sister to dine at midday at my club.

  True! I sat with the book upon my knee but all my thoughts were with Dugdale. A rectangular shape obtruded itself upon my retina and floated upon the white page. The hours dragged wearily. My head drooped and my chin tapped my chest. In fact I was dreaming, when I was awakened by a doubtful knock upon the front door. My senses were alert in an instant. The sound, just as though something were scraping the paint, was repeated.