by Otto Penzler
I awoke with a sensation of some light fabric trailed across my face. The boy’s position was unchanged.
“Did you do that?” I asked sharply.
“Ain’t done nary thing,” he rejoined. “What was it?”
“It was like a piece of mosquito-netting brushed over my face.”
“That ain’t netting,” he asserted; “that’s a veil. That’s one of the ghosts. Some blow on you; some touch you with their long, cold fingers. That one with the veil she drags acrosst your face—well, mostly I think it’s ma.”
He spoke with the unassailable conviction of the child in We Are Seven. I found no words to reply, and rose to go to bed.
“Good night,” I said.
“Good night,” he echoed. “I’ll sit out here a spell yet.”
I lit a match, found the candle I had stuck on the corner of the shabby little bureau, and undressed. The bed had a comfortable husk mattress, and I was soon asleep.
I had the sensation of having slept some time when I had a nightmare—the very nightmare the boy had described. A huge sow, big as a dray horse, was reared up with her forelegs over the foot-board of the bed, trying to scramble over to me. She grunted and puffed, and I felt I was the food she craved. I knew in the dream that it was only a dream, and strove to wake up.
Then the gigantic dream-beast floundered over the foot-board, fell across my shins, and I awoke.
I was in darkness as absolute as if I were sealed in a jet vault, yet the shudder of the nightmare instantly subsided, my nerves quieted; I realised where I was, and felt not the least panic. I turned over and was asleep again almost at once. Then I had a real nightmare, not recognisable as a dream, but appallingly real—an unutterable agony of reasonless horror.
There was a Thing in the room; not a sow, nor any other nameable creature, but a Thing. It was as big as an elephant, filled the room to the ceiling, was shaped like a wild boar, seated on its haunches, with its forelegs braced stiffly in front of it. It had a hot, slobbering, red mouth, full of big tusks, and its jaws worked hungrily. It shuffled and hunched itself forward, inch by inch, till its vast forelegs straddled the bed.
The bed crushed up like wet blotting-paper, and I felt the weight of the Thing on my feet, on my legs, on my body, on my chest. It was hungry, and I was what it was hungry for, and it meant to begin on my face. Its dripping mouth was nearer and nearer.
Then the dream-helplessness that made me unable to call or move suddenly gave way, and I yelled and awoke. This time my terror was positive and not to be shaken off.
It was near dawn: I could descry dimly the cracked, dirty window-panes. I got up, lit the stump of my candle and two fresh ones, dressed hastily, strapped my ruined valise, and put it on the porch against the wall near the door. Then I called the boy. I realised quite suddenly that I had not told him my name or asked his.
I shouted, “Hello!” a few times, but won no answer. I had had enough of that house. I was still permeated with the panic of the nightmare. I desisted from shouting, made no search, but with two candles went out to the kitchen. I took a swallow of cold coffee and munched a biscuit as I hustled my belongings into my hampers. Then, leaving a silver dollar on the table, I carried the hampers out on the porch and dumped them by my valise.
It was now light enough to see the walk, and I went out to the road. Already the night-dew had rusted much of the wreck, making it look more hopeless than before. It was, however, entirely undisturbed. There was not so much as a wheel-track or a hoof-print on the road. The tall, white stone, uncertainty about which had caused my disaster, stood like a sentinel opposite where I had upset.
I set out to find that blacksmith shop. Before I had gone far the sun rose clear from the horizon, and was almost at once scorching. As I footed it along I grew very much heated, and it seemed more like ten miles than six before I reached the first house. It was a new frame house, neatly painted and close to the road, with a whitewashed fence along its garden front.
I was about to open the gate when a big black dog with a curly tail bounded out of the bushes. He did not bark but stood inside the gate wagging his tail and regarding me with a friendly eye; yet I hesitated with my hand on the latch and considered. The dog might not be as friendly as he looked, and the sight of him made me realise that except for the boy I had seen no creature about the house where I had spent the night; no dog or cat; not even a toad or bird. While I was ruminating upon this a man came from behind the house.
“Will your dog bite?” I asked.
“Naw,” he answered; “he don’t bite. Come in.”
I told him I had had an accident to my automobile, and asked if he could drive me to the blacksmith shop and back to my wreckage.
“Cert,” he said. “Happy to help you. I’ll hitch up foreshortly. Wher’d you smash?”
“In front of the grey house about six miles back,” I answered.
“That big stone-built house?” he queried.
“The same,” I assented.
“Did you go a-past here?” he inquired astonished. “I didn’t hear ye.”
“No,” I said; “I came from the other direction.”
“Why,” he meditated, “you must’a’ smashed about sun-up. Did you come over them mountains in the dark?”
“No,” I replied; “I came over them yesterday evening. I smashed up about sunset.”
“Sundown!” he exclaimed. “Where in thunder’ve ye been all night?”
“I slept in the house where I broke down.”
“In that big stone-built house in the trees?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Why,” he answered excitedly, “that there house is haunted! They say if you have to drive past it after dark, you can’t tell which side of the road the big white stone is on.”
“I couldn’t tell even before sunset,” I said.
“There!” he exclaimed. “Look at that, now! And you slep’ in that house! Did you sleep, honest?”
“I slept pretty well,” I said. “Except for a nightmare, I slept all night.”
“Well,” he commented, “I wouldn’t go in that there house for a farm, nor sleep in it for my salvation. And you slep’! How in thunder did you get in?”
“The boy took me in,” I said.
“What sort of boy?” he queried, his eyes fixed on me with a queer, countrified look of absorbed interest.
“A thick-set, freckle-faced boy with a harelip,” I said.
“Talk like his mouth was full of mush?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said; “bad case of cleft palate.”
“Well!” he exclaimed. “I never did believe in ghosts, and I never did half believe that house was haunted, but I know it now. And you slep’!”
“I didn’t see any ghosts,” I retorted irritably.
“You seen a ghost for sure,” he rejoined solemnly. “That there harelip boy’s been dead six months.”
THE HOUSE IN HALF MOON STREET
Hector Bolitho
A BIOGRAPHER OF THE British royal family for decades, (Henry) Hector Bolitho (1898–1974) was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and settled in England in 1922. He traveled extensively to every part of the world, including the Antipodes at twenty-one with the Prince of Wales (later the Duke of Windsor), and claimed to prefer America to all the rest “because the people are honest and comparatively true.” He served in the military in both world wars, on the home front in New Zealand at eighteen and later with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as an intelligence officer. He began his writing career as a journalist at seventeen, produced his first novel at twenty-five, and went on to write more than thirty volumes as a sort of unofficial biographer and historian of the royal family. His biography of Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert the Good and the Victorian Reign (1932) is regarded as one of the greatest of all works about the royal family. He also edited the letters of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Bolitho once publicly declared that he was free of ambition and conte
nt to be a second-rate writer because he found life to be far more interesting than anything he could create with his pen. His early fiction took the form of historical adventure novels and short stories, few of which are remembered today.
“The House in Half Moon Street” was first published in his collection The House in Half Moon Street (London, Cobden-Sanderson, 1935).
The House in Half Moon Street
HECTOR BOLITHO
I
Michael Stranger was born on Christmas Day, in a small, half-timbered house called The Hollies, on the outskirts of the town of Reading. There is no record of his birth in the parish register, but it seems, when we read his uncle Benjamin’s letters and from his own diaries, that Michael was born in the early ’teens of the nineteenth century. Among the papers which were found in his room after his death was a water-colour drawing of The Hollies.
The lattice windows of the house opened upon a lawn and standing upon the grass were two yew trees, trimmed into the shape of peacocks. In the little drawing, which is still kept among Michael Stranger’s papers, the peacocks stare at each other across a flagged path.
In summer, the windows of the house were open so that the muslin curtains blew out, fluttering for a moment against the glass, until they were caught on the hollyhocks. The scents of rose and clover came in from the white orchard where Michael played jungle games in the grass. When he was no more than five years old, the cool green arches under the apple trees had been haunted by lions and tigers of his own invention. Sometimes he would be tired of stalking the elephant which was, in truth, a wheelbarrow: then he would lie in the long grass, digging his teeth into an apple and dreaming of the broad and exciting world which existed beyond the horizon of the Berkshire fields.
Michael’s dream of jungles was confused with the stories which were told to him of his wonderful uncle who lived in London. He knew that his uncle lived in Half Moon Street and he imagined him fighting his way into Piccadilly, over the dead bodies of the lions he had killed. There was never a whole apple lying in the grass of The Hollies orchard. Even if the birds had pecked them or if the wasps had burrowed into them, the apples were crisp and sweet. When he had taken one big bite, he would throw the apple at the shrill-voiced turkey gobblers who screeched and flaunted their dusty tails on the low brick wall. Michael Stranger spoke of these happy days of his childhood many times in the later years, when he came to live in London.
When he was almost twenty-one, on a day when the scents had died from the garden and when the two yew peacocks wore bonnets and capes of snow, Michael’s sister asked him to come to her sitting-room. He had expected some unusual announcement when he saw her dress, a precious, rustling, black silk, with big sleeves and bands of black velvet ribbon laced across the bodice. There was a stiff, surprised bow of ribbon in her hair: a bow which never appeared except for a birth, a wedding, or a great occasion.
Michael sat on the edge of the chair, looking out at the yew peacocks now becoming whiter and whiter under the snow. He thought that they were like his sister, on the cold days when she wore her white shawl. She opened a folded letter: her spiky fingers held the broad black edges of the paper. “I have received a letter from your uncle Benjamin,” she said. “It concerns you, Michael, and the unhappy time when you must leave me and go out into the world. I shall read it to you!”
Half Moon Street,
London,
October 26th.
Dear Niece,
The time has now come when we must consider the future life of your brother, Master Michael, or Mister Michael as he will no doubt wish to be named, since his years must now number one and twenty. My own years now number seventy-two, so it is all the more an urgent matter that I should see him established in my Counting House according to his merits, before I pass hence, to join my lamented wife and your noble aunt Florence in that Blessed Land where she awaits me. As you know, my dear niece, I live the life of a lonely widower in my house here, proceeding to my office in Mincing Lane upon most days, when the weather and my gout permit of my making the journey. My gout gives me monstrous pain and obliges me to remain in my rooms upon days when the weather is inclement. In the evening, I repair to the solitude of my dinner and my hearth, having permitted no visitor since the death of your aunt and the beginning of my own desolate life as a widower. It will therefore be most suitable for your brother Michael to live in bachelor’s chambers which I shall engage for him in Jermyn Street, a fashionable and respectable vicinity, where he will be near enough to take luncheon with me on Sundays, after Church, which I trust he will attend with me when the weather allows of my attempting the outing. He will also dine with me upon one night each week, when I may aid him with the religious and moral guidance, together with advice in commerce and social manners, which will be indispensable to a young country boy embarking for the first time upon life in London. The rent for his chambers will be paid each quarter by my clerk and he will receive a remuneration which will permit his enjoyment of the comforts and amenities of a young Christian gentleman, at the same time obliging him to observe those economies which are a defense against extravagance, loose living, and lounging in coffee-houses, from which I hear many stories of peril to the young.
It will be pleasant and suitable that he should arrive in London to eat Christmas dinner with me, on the twenty-fifth day of December. I observe by a memorandum sent to me this day that the coach from your part of Berkshire arrives in Kensington on the evening of December 24th, one day before I shall require his presence at dinner, as I shall myself be engaged at Bath upon that day, in matters relating to the estate of my late partner. Master Michael’s room in Jermyn Street cannot be made ready for him until the following day as a gentleman lately returned from the Indies will still be in possession. I shall therefore arrange for his reception for one night at the Goat and Compasses Inn, Kensington, wherein my old butler and his Kentish wife are established and where the young gentleman will come to no harm nor be faced by aught of temptation.
I see, in the miniature which you sent me, a likeness between the boy and my lamented wife, his aunt Florence, and if his moral character and talents are a tithe of those with which she was so liberally endowed, I shall be happy in the opportunity of his acquaintance. If you concur with these prospects for the future of your brother, I would ask him to address me in his own hand and thus embark upon that relationship and confidence which I hope to awaken in his young heart.
I am,
Your affectionate uncle and obedient servant,
Benjamin Grinling.
The snow fell softly as Michael listened to his sister’s voice. The flakes tumbled from the backs of the yew peacocks like moulting feathers. He, Michael Stranger, was to live in London! He was to live in his own rooms, near to his wonderful uncle, who worked in offices in Mincing Lane, where he dealt in tea and spices and cloves and ginger, brought from the far-away places of the world. He would travel to London by the coach which swung down the Thames Valley, from Reading to Maidenhead and from Maidenhead to London. In the days that followed, Michael read his uncle’s letter many times, thinking out the words of his answer, which was to open the way to the first adventure of his life. After much scratching upon the sheets of paper, and moulding of phrases, many questions to his sister’s knowledge and frowning over the words he used, Michael dispatched an answer to his uncle’s letter.
The Hollies,
Three miles from Reading,
November 3rd.
My dear Uncle Grinling,
My sister has read me your letter and I have read it myself also, many times, so as to be fully aware of its contents and import before embarking upon the happy task of penning you my answer. I am grateful beyond earthly measure for the opportunities and good fortune you offer me and I shall be obedient to your wishes in proceeding from Reading to London by the coach which will bring me to the Goat and Compasses Inn, upon the night of December the twenty-fourth. There I shall await your orders and wishes. My sister in
structs me to say that my wardrobe is sparse, being that of a young man accustomed to country pursuits, but she wishes me to acquaint you with the fact that I shall travel to London with the sum of twenty pounds sterling, which she has saved for the purpose of my equipment in whatever manner you may direct. I trust, dear uncle, that I shall merit the honour put upon me and the trust you demonstrate in so admitting me to your Counting House. I shall endeavour to earn the kindness so generously expressed in your letter.
With my duty to you, Sir,
I beg to remain,
Your affectionate nephew and humble servant,
Michael Joseph Stranger,
Aged twenty-one years.
November passed and December came. The little tailor came out from Reading, with his pins and his chalk, to make a plum-coloured coat for Michael, and a waistcoat, upon which his father’s cut steel buttons were sewn. On the morning of Christmas Eve, Michael stood at the door of the house, watching the servant walk down through the snow, carrying his carpet bag and his hat-box.
His sister came to him then. The gaunt woman softened a little as she led him to the sitting-room to say good-bye. Beside the window was a glass-topped table which Michael had always known but had never dared to open. In it were a hundred treasures, lying on a bed of faded blue velvet. There was a little silver watering-can, and a gilt carriage, on wheels. When he was very young, Michael had wondered whether the wheels would move if he touched them: but he had never dared to lift the lid and learn for himself. There were two of his father’s medals and a lock of his mother’s hair, arranged in a gold locket, in the shape of a flower. There were three seals, a coin salvaged from a wreck, a model of St. Peter’s in ivory, four rings, and some small papier mâché boxes. His sister opened the top of the table and lifted a tortoise-shell snuff box and a cornelian, set in a ring, from the bed of velvet. They had belonged to Michael’s father.