From that evening a curious thing occurred. I only seemed to be close to my friend when I was in my own room – and I felt more than that. When my door was closed and I was sitting in my armchair, I fancied that our new companionship was not only Bond’s, but was something more as well. I would wake in the middle of the night or in the early morning and feel quite sure that I was not alone; so sure that I did not even want to investigate it further, but just took the companionship for granted and was happy.
Outside that room, however, I felt increasing discomfort. I hated the way in which the house was treated. A quite unreasonable anger rose within me as I heard the Baldwins discussing the improvements that they were going to make, and yet they were so kind to me, and so patently unaware of doing anything that would not generally be commended, that it was quite impossible for me to show my anger. Nevertheless, Mrs. Baldwin noticed something. “I am afraid the children are worrying you,” she said one morning, half interrogatively. “In a way it will be a rest when they go back to school, but the Christmas holidays is their time, isn’t it? I do like to see them happy. Poor little dears.”
The poor little dears were at that moment being Red Indians all over the hall.
“No, of course, I like children,” I answered her. “The only thing is that they don’t – I hope you won’t think me foolish – somehow quite fit in with the house.”
“Oh, I think it’s so good for old places like this,” said Mrs. Baldwin briskly, “to be woken up a little. I’m sure if the old people who used to live here came back they’d love to hear all the noise and laughter.”
I wasn’t so sure myself, but I wouldn’t disturb Mrs. Baldwin’s contentment for anything.
That evening in my room I was so convinced of companionship that I spoke.
“If there’s anyone here,” I said aloud, “I’d like them to know that I’m aware of it and am glad of it.”
Then, when I caught myself speaking aloud, I was suddenly terrified. Was I really going crazy? Wasn’t that the first step towards insanity when you talked to yourself? Nevertheless, a moment later I was reassured. There was someone there.
That night I woke, looked at my luminous watch and saw that it was a quarter past three. The room was so dark that I could not even distinguish the posters of my bed, but – there was a very faint glow from the fire, now nearly dead. Opposite my bed there seemed to me to be something white. Not white in the accepted sense of a tall, ghostly figure; but, sitting up and staring, it seemed to me that the shadow was very small, hardly reaching above the edge of the bed.
“Is there anyone there?” I asked. “Because, if there is, do speak to me. I’m not frightened. I know that someone has been here all this last week, and I am glad of it.”
Very faintly then, and so faintly that I cannot to this day be sure that I saw anything at all, the figure of a child seemed to me to be visible.
We all know how we have at one time and another fancied that we have seen visions and figures, and then have discovered that it was something in the room, the chance hanging of a coat, the reflection of a glass, a trick of moonlight that has fired our imagination. I was quite prepared for that in this case, but it seemed to me then that as I watched the shadow moved directly in front of the dying fire, and delicate as the leaf of a silver birch, like the trailing rim of some evening cloud, the figure of a child hovered in front of me.
Curiously enough the dress, which seemed to be of some silver tissue, was clearer than anything else. I did not, in fact, see the face at all, and yet I could swear in the morning that I had seen it, that I knew large, black, wide-open eyes, a little mouth very faintly parted in a timid smile, and that, beyond anything else, I had realized in the expression of that face fear and bewilderment and a longing for some comfort.
III
After that night the affair moved very quickly to its little climax.
I am not a very imaginative man, nor have I any sympathy with the modern craze for spooks and specters. I have never seen, nor fancied that I had seen, anything of a supernatural kind since that visit, but then I have never known since that time such a desperate need of companionship and comfort, and is it not perhaps because we do not want things badly enough in this life that we do not get more of them? However that may be, I was sure on this occasion that I had some companionship that was born of a need greater than mine. I suddenly took the most frantic and unreasonable dislike of the children in that house. It was exactly as though I had discovered somewhere in a deserted part of the building some child who had been left behind by mistake by the last occupants and was terrified by the noisy exuberance and ruthless selfishness of the new family.
For a week I had no more definite manifestation of my little friend, but I was as sure of her presence there in my room as I was of my own clothes and the armchair in which I used to sit.
It was time for me to go back to London, but I could not go. I asked everyone I met as to legends and stories connected with the old house, but I never found anything to do with a little child. I looked forward all day to my hour in my room before dinner, the time when I felt the companionship closest. I sometimes woke in the night and was conscious of its presence, but, as I have said, I never saw anything.
One evening the older children obtained leave to stay up later. It was somebody’s birthday. The house seemed to be full of people, and the presence of the children led after dinner to a perfect riot of noise and confusion. We were to play hide-and-seek all over the house. Everybody was to dress up. There was, for that night at least, to be no privacy anywhere. We were all, as Mrs. Baldwin said, to be ten years old again. I hadn’t the least desire to be ten years old, but I found myself caught into the game, and had, in sheer self-defence, to run up and down the passages and hide behind doors. The noise was terrific. It grew and grew in volume. People got hysterical. The smaller children jumped out of bed and ran about the passages. Somebody kept blowing a motor-horn. Somebody else turned on the gramophone.
Suddenly I was sick of the whole thing, retreated into my room, lit one candle and locked the door. I had scarcely sat down in my chair when I was aware that my little friend had come. She was standing near to the bed, staring at me, terror in her eyes. I have never seen anyone so frightened. Her little breasts panting beneath her silver gown, her very fair hair falling about her shoulders, her little hands clenched. Just as I saw her, there were loud knocks on the door, many voices shouting to be admitted, a perfect babel of noise and laughter. The little figure moved, and then – how can I give any idea of it? – I was conscious of having something to protect and comfort. I saw nothing, physically I felt nothing, and yet I was murmuring, “There, there, don’t mind. They shan’t come in. I’ll see that no one touches you. I understand. I understand.” For how long I sat like that I don’t know. The noises died away, voices murmured at intervals, and then were silent. The house slept. All night I think I stayed there comforting and being comforted.
I fancy now – but how much of it may not be fancy? – that I knew that the child loved the house, had stayed so long as was possible, at last was driven away, and that that was her farewell, not only to me, but all that she most loved in this world and the next.
I do not know – I could swear to nothing. Of what I am sure is that my sense of loss in my friend was removed from that night and never returned. Did I argue with myself that the child companionship included also my friend? Again, I do not know. But of one thing I am now sure, that if love is strong enough, physical death cannot destroy it, and however platitudinous that may sound to others, it is platitudinous no longer when you have discovered it by actual experience for yourself.
That moment in that fire-lit room, when I felt that spiritual heart beating with mine, is and always will be enough for me.
One more thing. Next day I left for London, and my wife was delighted to find me so completely recovered – happier, she said, than I had ever been before.
Two days afterwards, I received a parcel fro
m Mrs. Baldwin. In the note that accompanied it, she said:
I think that you must have left this by mistake behind you. It was found in the small drawer in your dressing-table.
I opened the parcel and discovered an old blue silk handkerchief, wrapped round a long, thin wooden box. The cover of the box lifted very easily, and I saw inside it an old, painted wooden doll, dressed in the period, I should think, of Queen Anne. The dress was very complete, even down to the little shoes, and the little grey mittens on the hands. Inside the silk skirt there was sewn a little tape, and on the tape, in very faded letters, “Ann Trelawney, 1710.”
The Patter of Tiny Feet
Nigel Kneale
Prospectus
Address:
47, The Street, London Suburb, England.
Property:
Twentieth-century detached villa. Three bedrooms, lounge, dining room and kitchen with bordered gardens to the front and rear.
Viewing Date:
Autumn, 1955.
Agent:
Nigel Kneale (1922–) was born in Lancaster, Lancashire and trained to be an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He worked for a while on the stage before turning to scriptwriting and has become one of the most challenging of modern television playwrights. Kneale came to public attention with the Quatermass science fiction serials in the Fifties, and was also highly praised for his supernatural dramas, The Chopper (1971) about a biker’s ghost and The Stone Tape (1972), with ghosts being seen as apparitions of twentieth-century technology. “The Patter of Tiny Feet”, one of his rare short stories, features a poltergeist in the most everyday of settings.
“Hold on a moment. Don’t knock,” Joe Banner said. “Let me get a shot of the outside before the light goes.”
So I waited while he backed into the road with his Leica. No traffic, nobody about but an old man walking a dog in the distance. Joe stuck his cigarette behind one ear and prowled quickly to find the best angle on Number 47. It was what the address had suggested: a narrow suburban villa in a forgotten road, an old maid of a house with a skirt of garden drawn round it, keeping itself to itself among all its sad neighbours. The flower beds were full of dead stems and grass.
Joe’s camera clicked twice. “House of Usher’s in the bag,” he said, and resumed the cigarette. “Think the garden has any possibilities?”
“Come on! We can waste time later.”
Weather had bleached the green front door. There was a big iron knocker and I used it.
“It echoed hollowly through the empty house!” said Banner. He enjoys talking like that, though it bores everybody. In addition he acts character – aping the sort of small-town photographer who wears his hat on the back of his head and stinks out the local Rotarians with damp flash-powder – but he’s one of the finest in the profession.
We heard rapid footsteps inside, the lock clicked and the door swung open, all in a hurry. And there appeared – yes, remembering those comic letters to the office, it could only be – our man.
“Mr. Hutchinson?”
“At your service, gentlemen!” He shot a look over Joe’s camera and the suitcase full of equipment, and seemed pleased. A small pudding-face and a long nose that didn’t match it, trimmed with a narrow line of moustache. He had the style of a shop-walker, I thought. “Come inside, please. Can I lend you a hand with that? No? That’s it – right along inside!” It sounded as if the word “sir” was trembling to join each phrase.
We went into the front room, where a fire was burning. The furniture was a familiar mixture: flimsy modern veneer jostling old pieces built like Noah’s Ark and handed down from in-laws. Gilt plaster dancers posed on the sideboard and the rug was worn through.
“My name is Staines,” I said, “and this is Joe Banner, who’s going to handle the pictures. I believe you’ve had a letter?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Hutchinson, shaking hands. “Please take a seat, both of you – I know what a tiring journey it can be, all the way from London! Yes. I must say how extremely gratified I am that your paper has shown this interest!” His voice sounded distorted by years of ingratiating; it bubbled out of the front of his mouth like a comic radio character’s. “Have you . . . that is, I understand you have special experience in this field, Mr. Staines?” He seemed almost worried about it.
“Not exactly a trained investigator,” I admitted, “but I’ve knocked out a few articles on the subject.”
“Oh . . . yes, indeed. I’ve read them with great interest.” He hadn’t, of course, but he made it sound very respectful. He asked if we had eaten, and when we reassured him he produced drinks from grandmother’s sideboard. Banner settled down to his performance of the “Hicks-in-the-Stick Journal” photographer out on a blind.
“You – you seem to have brought a lot of equipment.” Hutchinson said quickly. “I hope I made it clear there’s no guarantee of anything . . . visible.”
“Guarantee? Why, then you have seen something?”
He sat forward on his chair, but immediately seemed to restrain himself and an artfully stiff smile appeared. “Mr. Staines, let’s understand each other: I am most anxious not to give you preconceived ideas. This is your investigation, not mine.” He administered this like a police caution, invitingly.
Joe put down his empty glass. “We’re not easily corrupted, Mr. Hutchinson.”
To scotch the mock-modesty I said: “We’ve read your letters and the local press-clipping. So what about the whole story, in your own way?” I took out my notebook, to encourage him.
Hutchinson blinked nervously and rose. He snapped the two standard lamps on, went to the window with hands clasped behind him. The sky was darkening. He drew the curtains and came back as if he had taken deep thought. His sigh was full of responsibility.
“I’m trying to take an impersonal view. This case is so unusual that I feel it must be examined . . . pro bono publico, as it were . . .” He gave a tight little laugh, all part of the act. “I don’t want you to get the idea I’m a seeker after publicity.”
This was too much. “No, no” I said, “you don’t have to explain yourself: we’re interested. Facts, Mr. Hutchinson, please. Just facts.”
“For instance, what time do the noises start?” said Joe.
Hutchinson relaxed, too obviously gratified for the purity of his motives. He glanced at his watch brightly.
“Oh, it varies, Mr. Banner. After dark – any time at all after dark.” He frowned like an honest witness. “I’m trying to think of any instance during daylight, but no. Sometimes it comes early, often near midnight, occasionally towards dawn: no rule about it, absolutely none. It can continue all night through.”
I caught him watching my pencil as I stopped writing; his eyes came up on me and Joe, alert as a confident examination-candidate’s.
“Footsteps?”
Again the arch smile. “Mr. Staines, that’s for you to judge. To me it sounds like footsteps.”
“The witness knows the rules of evidence, boy!” Joe said, and winked at us both. Hutchinson took his glass.
“Fill it up for you, Mr. Banner? I’m far from an ideal observer, I fear; bar Sundays, I’m out every evening.”
“Business?”
“Yes, I’m assistant headwaiter in a restaurant. To-night I was able to be excused.” He handed us refilled glasses. “A strange feeling, you know, to come into the house late at night, and hear those sounds going on inside, in the dark.”
“Scare you?” Joe asked.
“Not now. Surprising, isn’t it? But it seems one can get used to anything.”
I asked: “Just what do you hear?”
Hutchinson considered, watching my pencil. “He’s got the answer all ready,” I thought. “A curious pattering, very erratic and light. A sort of . . . playing, if that conveys anything. Upstairs there’s a small passage between the bedrooms, covered with linoleum: I’ll show you presently. Well, it mostly occurs there, but it can travel down the stairs into the hallway below.”
“Ever hear—?” Joe began.
Hutchinson went on: “It lasts between thirty and forty seconds. I’ve timed it. And in a single night I’ve known the whole thing to be repeated up to a dozen times.”
“– a rat in the ceiling, Mr. Hutchinson?” Joe finished. “They can make a hell of a row.”
“Yes, I’ve heard rats. This is not one.”
I frowned at Joe: this was routine stuff. “Mr. Hutchinson, we’ll agree on that. Look, in your last letter you said you had a theory – of profound significance.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t we get on to that, then?”
He whipped round instantly, full of it. “My idea is – well, it’s a terribly unusual form of – the case – the case of a projection – how can I put it? It’s more than a theory, Mr. Staines!” He had all the stops out at once. His hands trembled.
“Hold it!” Joe called, and reached for his Leica. “I’ll be making an odd shot now and then, Mr. Hutchinson. Show you telling the story, see?”
Hutchinson’s fingers went to his tie.
“You were saying—?” I turned over a leaf of the note-book.
The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) Page 50