When the door swung open even the agent was not prepared for the long undisturbed foetor which met them; it was so strong that it seemed almost to darken the sunlight and they were forced to open the main door and remain outside for a few minutes before they could enter.
“Faugh!” said M. Gasion, with unrestrained disgust but even this did not seem to dampen Philip’s ardour.
“Loads of atmosphere, eh?” he said, turning to Angele with a smile. After a minute they descended some broad stone steps. The smell was still strong but not so offensive and Angele had to admit that it was probably due to vegetable decay. To her surprise, the light of the agent’s torch, supplemented by small windows high up, disclosed a vast stone hall. There was a fireplace to one side in which an ox could have been roasted and the remains of an old gallery which had collapsed with age and woodworm.
But the floor was covered with an indescribable medley of old rubbish. It was impossible to do more than look hurriedly around and be careful where one trod. Many of the massive roof beams would need replacing and Philip’s face became more thoughtful as the tour continued. The house would evidently need a great deal more renovation than he had bargained for. However, he brightened as they went through into the other rooms. The stones of the house were sound and would merely need replastering and painting. There were two more large reception rooms, though nothing on the scale of the old hall, which was partly subterranean; another room was used as a kitchen.
On the top floor, under vast, sagging roof beams, through which the sky could be seen, was another huge room over the Great Hall below. This could be partitioned and would make a corridor with bathroom, and three large bedrooms, said Philip. Or he could make a study and leave one spare bedroom for guests. The open mass of the tower spread out from one end room of this large upper storey and Philip could find no place for that at the moment, in his readymade scheme of things.
They had saved the best for last; off the kitchen, whose door was finally forced with screaming protest, they came upon the glory of The Grey House. It was nothing more or less than a large tiled terrace, but it gave the place a cachet that finally clinched the deal in Philip’s mind, weighing the cost, as he was, against the utility and suitability of the house for his writing purposes.
The rusty iron railings which enclosed the terrace, had evidently been of great elegance, and would no doubt be so again; Philip was already confiding to M. Gasion that he would have them painted pale blue. He could have his writing table comme ça and they could eat dinner under electric light at night sur le balcon. Even the agent was momentarily impressed by his enthusiasm.
For the view was magnificent; that could not be gainsaid. Below the balcony, the terrain dropped sheer for forty feet or so over a stone outcrop, to the small strip of orchard which was part of the purchase. A thick belt of leafy trees blotted out the immediate view, but above them were wooded hills and valleys, with the stream trickling between until the eye was arrested by the mountain opposite surmounted by the ruins of the old chateau. Angele was surprised to see how the white of the stones stood out against the dark blue haze, even at that distance. Just below and to the left was the small stone building of the old water mill, through which the stream meandered beyond the orchard.
When they tore themselves away from the unearthly beauties of that sylvan view, dusk was already falling and the tinkle of the water in the mill house had assumed a melancholy that it had lacked in the sunlight of the earlier afternoon. A thin mist was already rising above the belt of dark trees which abutted the orchard. Angele pointed this out to Philip as perhaps being undesirable, unhealthy.
“Oh, no,” said Philip with a short laugh. “Bound to get a mist with water at this time of the year, especially after the heat of the day. We’re too high up for it to affect us in any case.” But nevertheless, even as he spoke, the mist, white and clammy, almost like thick smoke, drifted up over the trees and already the farthest branches were wavering in its tendrils.
No more was said; the party went back indoors, led by M. Gasion’s enormous torch and once outside, the door was firmly locked and secured by double padlocks. The trio were silent on the way back to the town and, after a little reflection, M. Gasion spoke to Angele. Philip had gone to get something from the car and they were alone for a moment in the office.
“You do not like the house, madame?”
Angele was noncommittal. She did not want to spoil Philip’s evident delight in the property, but at the same time she had many reservations of her own about the dark, silent grey pile above the water mill, which sounded so eerily in the dusk. Instead, she stammered some words about the property being so derelict and the enormous expense she was afraid her husband would be put to.
The agent’s face cleared as though it had been sponged. If that was all that was worrying madame, he was prepared to lower the price.
Quite frankly, he had been rather taken aback by the degree of decay; he would be quite happy to take the equivalent of £250 to effect a quick sale. Philip had just returned from the car at this moment and was delighted with the news; so Angele had unwittingly been the means of sealing the bargain.
The notaire also, a lean, vulpine man named Morceau, had just arrived, cross at being disturbed at his favourite cafe. Introductions were made, M. Gasion produced a bottle and some glasses and over much agreeable smacking of lips and handing round of delectable little biscuits, the details of the sale were worked out.
An hour later Philip and Angele left the office, potential owners of The Grey House. They were to stay at a hotel in the city for a few days until the legal niceties had been gone into; that would take time, but there was nothing to stop monsieur from having the property surveyed or putting work in hand, for the remainder of the proceedings were a formality. So Philip signed a paper, handed over a cheque, wired his literary agent in London that he was staying on and would write, and worked himself into an agreeable enthusiasm over the possibilities of The Grey House.
It was decided between him and Angele that they would return to London for a couple of weeks, to wind up their immediate affairs and then return to Burgundy for the autumn. They would occupy themselves during that time by working on the house, assisted by local labour and then decide, with the assistance of a local architect, just what major repairs and alterations would be necessary. They would go back to London in November and keep in touch with the work through the architect. Then they intended to return to The Grey House in the spring to supervise the final stages and arrange for a house-warming.
By next summer Philip hoped they would be fully installed for a six-month season of prolific and profitable writing for him and a period of pleasure and entertaining for her. He was determined that they would make the old house a show place, a necessary pilgrimage for their London friends; and all that night, long after the rest of the hotel was asleep, he kept Angele awake with plans and possibilities. Angele had her reservations but kept her own counsel. She felt that she might be mistaken in her intuitions and after all, carpenters and builders could make a magnificent job of the old house. She would wait and see what transpired.
2
A month later The Grey House was already under siege. Philip had engaged a local builder and he, two assistants and Philip and Angele in their oldest clothes, were in a frenzy of demolition and renovation. Philip had decided that they would tackle the Great Hall first. It was mainly of stone and once they had got rid of the loathsome accumulation which littered the floor, they would rid the house of that putrescent smell. But first there was one setback.
Pierre, the builder they had engaged, was a stolid, good-looking man, broad as a barrel, in his early fifties; as was the custom he worked with his hands with his assistants, taking his share of the heavy work as well as directing operations. He was surprised, as were all the local people, that The Grey House was to be re-opened and lived in after all this time, but he was quite glad of the job.
But the first afternoon, there was a short co
nsultation among his two workmen and they drew the builder to one side. Philip, who had been down the lane returned at that moment and Pierre asked to speak to him. He seemed embarrassed and eventually said that nothing could be done until the electric light was in operation; his point was that the loathsome conditions underfoot in the Great Hall made good lighting essential.
This was understandable enough but Angele thought she could discern odd expressions in the eyes of the two workmen. Despite herself, she was convinced that they had other reasons for their request. Fortunately, a modern water supply was already laid on to the house, and Philip had merely to request the local electricity company to restore the current. Like many English people he was naive about local conditions and Angele had laughingly assured him that it would take a month or more before anything would be done about it.
Philip told the assembled workmen that the current would be turned on that afternoon. There was a general air of disbelief but Philip said he had an appointment with the electricity people at two o’clock and sat down upon an upturned box in front of the house to wait. Pierre and his workmen chatted among themselves. Philip was the only person present to believe the statement.
When half-past three came with not a stroke of work done it became obvious even to Philip that the electricity would not be connected. He jumped up angrily and drove off in his car. He was unable to achieve any satisfaction and found the company office locked; no doubt the official in charge was in one of the local cafes.
Incensed at this lack of efficiency Philip phoned M. Gasion who presently came down to the house himself. He assured Philip that he had sorted out the misunderstanding and that the workmen would be at The Grey House without fail the following day. Mollified, Philip announced that they could still get some work done while daylight lasted. It was not half past four, so, lighting a couple of lanterns, the party of five – M. Gasion having returned to his office – set off through the gloomy reception rooms to the terrace. Here, restored by the bright sunlight and the atmosphere of open countryside, the workmen unloaded their tools and set about clearing the area, amid jokes and laughter.
The whole terrace seemed to be covered with lichen and here and there fungoid growths; two of the workmen started scraping this off to reveal the intricately patterned tiles beneath, while Pierre, Philip and Angele busied themselves with clearing the area of brushwood, fallen branches and other debris which had accumulated over the years. This they threw off the balcony into the orchard below; it made loud crashing noises in the brittle branches of dead trees and for some reason gave Angele considerable uneasiness.
She looked sharply down to the water mill and the dark trees at the orchard end, but nothing moved and she attributed her feelings to nerves and the thin tinkle of falling water. In an hour, good progress had been made and when repeated applications with buckets of water had been carried out to the considerable area of tiling cleared by the workmen, it was seen that the whole terrace was one of considerable elegance and beauty.
Philip had recovered his good humour when he saw what an excellent start it was and how pleasantly and efficiently the workmen had carried out their task.
It was evident that with this team the house would be in good hands and Philip was obviously in a great hurry to complete the preliminaries and get to grips with the major problems. He spoke with Pierre of the work to be done to the main roof and the sagging turret; this would have to be a priority and needed to be started well before the winter. Pierre told him that work on this would commence within a fortnight, once working arrangements had been achieved inside.
It was in this atmosphere of mutual satisfaction that the day’s work ended. Dusk was falling and the lanterns had been carried on to the terrace to complete the clearing of the tiles. Another of the workmen was already chipping rust from the great sweep of the balcony. It made an ugly sound in the dusk and was re-echoed from the dark woods below. As they finished and carried the tools back into the house for the night, there was a faint rustling in the underbrush at the back of the house down by the water mill. Angele was the only one to hear it; she strained her eyes down to the orchard below and thought she could see the faintest shadow slip into the darker shade of the old trees at the end of the orchard.
Probably a cat. There were lots of them haunting the lanes down near The Grey House. Big, grey brutes they were, and sometimes she heard them howling sadly in the dusk when she and Philip went out. The big door of the house shrieked, as though annoyed at the intrusion into the long silence of forty years, when they left. Outside, on the small terrace in front of The Grey House, where Philip intended to lay tiles and build a small garage later, the employer and the employed congratulated one another and there was much shaking of hands.
Then Philip insisted on buying everyone a drink at the first cafe they came across. All parted with mutual expressions of goodwill and it was quite dark when Philip and Angele had got back to their hotel. He was resolved to make a good start the next day and had asked the electricity people to come in at nine o’clock. The workmen would arrive at twelve and with luck and sufficient illumination they could make a good start on clearing the Great Hall.
The following morning the electricity employees surprisingly arrived almost at the specified hour; The Grey House was opened again and around midday a jubilant Philip was allowed to pull the master switch and the Great Hall was flooded with light. Much of the house would need re-wiring and Philip had many special schemes for heating and outdoor floodlighting, but that would come later.
For the moment, naked bulbs and trailing lengths of flex were draped all over the house in order to give the workmen good light to work by. Philip hoped also to have two great picture windows opened up in the stonework of the Great Hall to let light into the building during daytime.
This, and a number of other anomalies puzzled him and he resolved to look up the history of the de Menevals in the great historical library in the City Museum, when time would afford. That opportunity did not arise until the next year; in the meantime Philip and his wife, with their team of workmen, followed by the interest of M. Gasion, M. Morceau and later, the architect, went at the work of restoration with enthusiasm.
But strangely, the progress of the first day wasn’t repeated. One of the workmen went sick the second afternoon and, assuredly, the stench from the floor of the Great Hall was such as to turn a strong stomach; Philip got round that with buckets of hot water and disinfectant and after a while they cleared some of the miasma which seemed to hang around the old foundations.
Lorry load after lorry load of malodorous rubbish left for the city tip and even the sick workman, who returned to duty the next day, had to admit there had been a great improvement. But there was something which made Angele vaguely uneasy, though Philip seemed as blind to the atmosphere of the place as ever. He was puzzled at the inordinate number of lights and flex positions the workmen were obliged to insist on, especially when working among the noisesome rafters and complained that the cost of electricity and bulbs would soon gross the total cost of the house if things went on that way.
Yet Angele understood perfectly the feelings of the workmen and marvelled again at the insensitivity of her husband to the atmosphere; especially as his name as an author had been largely made through the description of just such situations. About a week after the renovation of the house had begun the workmen were still clearing the upper storey and Pierre expected an early start to the roof repairs; Philip had been delighted with some unusual finds among the debris of centuries. A curiously marked ring, evidently belonging to a man of rank; a sword hilt, a tankard with a strange inscription in the Latin tongue and some porcelain jars and containers for which none of them could assign any known use.
Philip took them back to his hotel for cleaning and said he would use them for decorating the house when restoration was complete. One afternoon one of the workmen came to Philip with a bizarre object he had found in one of the upper rooms. It was a long instrument with a
spike of very old metal on one end of it; the other end was a sort of whip or switch. The thongs were made of wire, stained with the rust of centuries.
A learned Abbe from the City University, with whom Philip had become great friends, was visiting the Grey House on the afternoon in question. Monsignor Joffroy turned quite pale, Angele noticed.
“May I see?” he asked, taking the whip from Philip with unseemly haste. He drew him on to one side. The good Abbe looked worried.
“I do not wish to alarm you, my friend, but this is an unclean thing,” he said, almost fiercely.
“See.” He pointed out an inscribed tablet on the shaft of the instrument. “These are the arms of the de Menevals. We have a locked room of the Musee d’Antiquites at the University, devoted to such relics of the sadistic de Menevals. If you would permit me, I will see it is deposited for safe keeping. It is not fit that such mementoes should be allowed in the outside world.”
He crossed himself and Angele could not repress a shudder. Though inclined to be amused, Philip could not but be impressed by the earnestness and deadly seriousness of Monsignor Joffroy’s manner and he readily assented to his friend’s request.
“I should like to hear something of the history of the de Menevals from you, some time,” he said. “It would make good material for some of my books.”
The Abbe laid his hand on Philip’s arm and looked steadily into his eyes.
“Believe me, my friend, such things are not for books – or rather for books of your sort. Your essays in the macabre, admirable and successful as they are, are children’s nursery tales compared with the things that went on in the chateau above – now no more, praise be to God.”
A few minutes later the Monsignor excused himself, made his farewells to Angele and returned to the university; he left behind him a somewhat thoughtful Philip and a thoroughly disturbed Angele. Sensibly, Philip said nothing to Pierre and the workmen; and to M. Gasion, whom he met for an occasional glass of cassis at the latter’s home, he was guarded; he made no comment on the curious whip, but discussed some of the other finds which the workmen had made. He did learn one thing about the de Menevals from the inscription on the tankard, but of this he said nothing, even to Angele.
The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) Page 29