by Prey (lit)
"My dear man!" He clapped his hand on my knee; then obviously realized that his gesture might be misinterpreted, and snatched it away. "Yesyes, I believe you. All of my recent predecessors have been aware of what I suppose you could call spiritual irregularities at Fortyfoot House. I was simply wondering what advice I can possibly give youand, indeed, what I can possibly do."
"Is there anything you can do? For instance, could Fortyfoot House be exorcized? Or can you lay all these ghosts to rest? They always seem to manage it in films."
Dennis Pickering sighed, and said, "Yesthey do, in the films, don't they? But this is real life, I regret, Mr Walker, and the restless and the should-be-dead are not as easy to appease as they are in fiction."
"Do you have any idea what's causing all this disturbance?" I asked him.
He shook his head, almost sorrowfully. "I know the history of Fortyfoot House quite well; and I've seen lights and heard noises that one might put down to supernatural influences. But what they areand what their business might bewell, I simply have no idea, and nor did any of the incumbents of this parish before me. It's rather like living next to an active volcano, don't you know. You may not like it, but you have to live with it."
I took out the photostat that the plain, voluptuous woman in the library had made for me. "I have a theorywell, not so much of a theory, but a sort of feelingthat Fortyfoot House is in two places at once. Or rather, two times at once. You see here, look, the ancient Sumerians built ziggurats that were supposed to give them access to another world that was in the same place, but even more ancient."
Dennis Pickering unfolded the photostat and studied it scrupulously. "This is extremely interesting, yes," he said. "I've heard of this before. There was supposed to be not just a prehistoric but a prehuman civilization in Arabia, which was then called Mnar; and its principal city was Ib. According to several historians, like Dr Randolph Carterah, yes, you see, look! Carter's mentioned down herethe Sumerians were able to travel back in time to Ib by means of certain mathematical formulae and unusual architectural designs. Yes, fascinating!if a little dated, we did learn about most of this in college. Very suspect, I'm afraid. The Piltdown Man of ancient Babylonia."
He took off his spectacles and looked up at me. "I can't see the parallel with Fortyfoot House, however. In my opinion, Fortyfoot House is simply one of those buildings that is pervaded by the venality of those who once owned it, and by the tragedy of those who died there. A classic haunting. In fact I wrote a modest article about it myself, The Haunting of Fortyfoot House. It was published in the Church Times in the early 1970s."
He gave me back my photostat, and said, "The vicar of St Michael's when Fortyfoot House was built was the Rev. John Claringbull. He knew Mr Billings extremely well. That's old Mr Billings, not young Mr Billings. Old Mr Billings was a well-known local philanthropist, and when he decided to build Fortyfoot House to take in orphaned boys and girls from the East End of London, the Rev. Claringbull gave him every kind of pastoral assistance he could. It's all clearly recorded in his diaries, and his diaries are all still here, in the vicarage, as indeed they should be.
"All went well with the building of Fortyfoot House, apparently, until old Mr Billings brought back from London an orphaned girl to act as his maid and cook and cleaner. Mr Billings considered the moral salvation of this girl to be one of the greatest challenges of his lifebeyond any challenge that he had ever faced before. She was fourteen years old; and had been a prostitute since she was ten; and was depraved beyond imagination. She was said to have been brought up in the dankest warrens of London's docks, among rats and whores and criminals and people whose moral turpitude would shock you, Mr Williams, even today.
"According to Mr Billings, Dr Barnardo had rescued this girl from the custodianship of a nameless and filthy being who resided in the very center of the rat-runs of the London wharves. He had been unable to tell whether this being was man or woman, or even if it were human. You can read in Dr Barnardo's own diaries that it sat in almost total darkness, surrounded by the remains of literally thousands of huge sewer rats, some of which were so old that they were nothing but dust, but some of which were comparatively recent, and were still partly-mummified.
"The girl had been sitting dressed in filthy velvet at the being's feet, recitingaccording to Dr Barnardoa grotesque and guttural chant, over and over again. Even though he was unable to understand it, Dr Barnardo said that the chant filled him with an appalling horror; almost as if it were a prayer to Old Scratch himself.
"The girl protested violently when Dr Barnardo tried to take her away; but in the end he called on the help of two burly young friends of his, and they ambushed her one night in Slugwash Lane, and carried her off to old Mr Billings' London house. Although she was locked in, she tried to escape twice; so in the end old Mr Billings decided to take her to the Isle of Wight with himas far away from London as he couldeven though Fortyfoot House was not yet finished. He believed that, between them, he and Mr Claringbull could soon soon transform her from a dockside slut into a clean, moral and obedient young lady."
"The Pygmalion syndrome," I remarked. "Making ladies out of flower-sellers. 'The rine in Spine falls minely on the pline.'"
"Well, exactly," agreed Dennis Pickering. "Unfortunately, old Mr Billings' attempts to play the part of Professor Higgins went seriously awry. Is your boy sure that he wouldn't care for a yogurt? My wife makes it herself."
"No thanks, honestly."
"Mhm . . . I can't say I blame him. I detest her yogurt."
"What went wrong between old Mr Billings and the girl?" I persisted.
"My dear man, everything! The girl was of such wilfulness and deviousness and strength of character she soon had Mr Billings in her thrall, and rendered Mr Claringbull powerless to assist him. It's all told very vividly in Mr Claringbull's diaries . . . they're really very harrowing to read.
"According to Mr Claringbull, she insisted almost immediately that he spend hundreds of guineas on fine clothes and jewelry for her, and even though she was only fourteen she dressed and made up her face like a woman of twenty. She insisted that he buy her brandy, which he did, and morphine, which he procured from Dr Bartholomew in Shanklin. She would have sex with any man or boy who took her fancy and even" (his voice was already low, but now he lowered it almost to inaudibility) "with ponies and dogs."
"Oh, dear," I said. I didn't know what else he expected me to say.
"Strangest of all, though," Dennis Pickering continued, "she absolutely insisted that he alter the architect's plans for the roof of Fortyfoot House. She produced drawings and figures that astounded the architects, who refused to sanction them on the grounds that they were technically impossible, and that such a roof could not be built.
"Butthe girl was determined that she should have her way, and old Mr Billings eventually bowed to her determination, as he always did, and the builders followed the plans that she had drawn up, and built the roof, and as you see today the roof was possible, perfectly possiblethough why she should have insisted so strenuously on having it redesigned and how she was able to draw up such diagramsnobody shall ever know. Mr Claringbull saw less and less of old Mr Billings, and when he did see him, he seemed exhausted and fretfulunable to remember what day it was, or even what month it was.
''Whenever Mr Claringull caught sight of the girl, he felt 'chilled beyond all comprehension.' If he was in the same room with her, he came out almost immediately in a scaly rash, like dry eczema; and when he was invited to the dinner to celebrate the opening of Fortyfoot House, and had to sit next to her, he had to excuse himself after the tomato soup and spent most of the evening in the garden, vomiting.
"'I vomited things which I knew I had not ate,' that's what he wrote. 'I vomited things that moved of their own volition, things that shuddered and wriggled in the grass, and then crept off painfully into the shelter of the hedge.'
Dennis Pickering suddenly pausedglancing with dramatic effect from right to left, as if he we
re concerned that some ghost from the past might overhear him, and wreak its revenge.
"That, of course, was Mr Claringbull's side of the story. If you take it at its face value, then indeed it's a very horrifying and distressing story. But there were others who were not so sure that Mr Claringbull was altogether compos mentis." He tilted himself close to me and whispered, "If you read the verger's diaries, for example, and if you have a talent for reading between the lines, you might well deduce thatrather than being sickened by old Mr Billings' young wardMr Claringbull in fact had taken rather too much of a fancy to her, and that his violent physical reaction to her was caused by his own shame and guilt. Mr Claringbull was married, of coursebut from all accounts his wife suffered from endless spinal troublewith the inevitable result that Mr Claringbull was getting very much less in the way ofunh, marital comfort than he might have wished."
Danny turned around from stroking the cat and smiled at him ingenuously, and Dennis Pickering, embarrassed, flushed with color, smiled back.
"It's all right," I insisted. "You don't have to speak in riddles. Danny's already learned all there is to know about the reproductive behavior of amoebae and spirogyrae and sea-cucumbers and gerbils. Believe mewhat a few grown-up humans do together won't exactly corrupt him. In fact, it probably wouldn't even interest him."
"Ahyes, I suppose you're right," Dennis Pickering admitted, leaning back in his chair. "Do you care for snuff?"
"I've never tried it."
"Good, you shouldn't."
He took out a small silver snuffbox and (watched with total fascination by Danny) proceeded to sniff a little up each nostril; and sneeze; and then sit with his eyes watering.
I said, while he suppressed another sneeze, and then another. "Mrs Kemble down at the Beach Café told me that old Mr Billings was eventually killed."
"Oh, Mrs Kemble! She has quite a thing about Fortyfoot House, although I don't really know why. Once, you know, she asked me to bless its back gate, although she wouldn't explain what she wanted me to do it for. Strange woman. Her husband was something of a wartime hero, killed at Dieppe. She runs a jolly good café, though."
"You don't know how old Mr Billings died?"
Dennis Pickering blew his nose in three keys, like a Maserati motor-horn. "Well . . . like everything else about Fortyfoot House, there are all kinds of stories. I think the favorite is that old Mr Billings was struck by lightning. This, of course, was long after the orphanage had been established, and some time after his son had come to help him.
"The next time that the name of Billings appears in the parish records is when young Mr Billings approached Mr Claringbull and asked him to join him and his father's young ward in marriage. That was the first time that the girl's name was mentionedKezia Mason, spinster. Mr Claringbull had to write a long letter of explanation to the diocese, explaining that Kezia Mason's ungodly behavior put a church marriage beyond the pale. Apart from that, there were rumors in the village that young Mr Billings was himself involved in some kind of unGodly secret society, rather like the famous Hellfire Club by all accounts, and that the chapel at Fortyfoot House was being used for animal sacrifices and black masses. These rumors were obviously fueled by all the odd characters who used to appear at Fortyfoot House when young Mr Billings was in charge. 'Wanted murderers and freaks,' Mr Claringbull called them.
"Mr Claringbull insisted in his letter that young Mr Billings had magic powers, and that he had once distinctly seen him at the window of Fortyfoot House, only to turn around and encounter him face-to-face within less than a half-a-minute on the pathway leading down to the seafront.
"That letter to the bishop was Mr Claringbull's undoing. Understandably, they thought that he had gone potty. He was removed as vicar of St Michael'sfirst for an enforced Sabbatical and then to Parkhurst as an assistant prison chaplain. He was violently stabbed to death after only a year, by a prisoner who said he was the devil and that his eyes glared red in the dark."
"My God," I said.
"Yes," Dennis Pickering agreed. "It was a terrible end."
"What about young Mr Billings?" I asked. "What do you know about him?"
"Very little, I'm afraid. Mr Claringbull's successor here was Geoffrey Parsley, who seems to have a been very bluff, straightforward chap who was more interested in Southdown mutton and new potatoes than the works of the devil. He took very little notice of any of the local rumors about Fortyfoot House; although he once wrote in his diary that he passed young Mr Billings and the girl Kezia Mason on the road to the village one summer morning, and he felt a distinct chill as they walked past, 'as if the fish-wagon had rolled close by, fuming with ice and the taint of halibut.'"
"Mrs Kemble said something about young Mr Billings having a son."
"So it was rumored. Kezia Mason was certainly seen to be great with child, as one might put it; and around the time that she might have been considered to be ready to give birth, a doctor's waggon was seen several times at Fortyfoot House. But nobody ever saw a baby."
"What about Brown Jenkin?" I asked. "Mrs Kemble seems to suspect that young Mr Billings' sonif he ever had onemight have been one and the same creature as Brown Jenkin."
"I've heard that, too. But Brown Jenkin is supposed to be a rat, isn't it? And no matter how deformed a child might be, you could scarcely mistake it for a rat."
"There's no mention of it in the parish records?"
"Nothing at all."
"There must be some mention of the children dying, though."
Dennis Pickering nodded gravely. "Oh, yes. Of course. Geoffrey Parsley wrote about that at some length. That was, when?"
"Eighteen-eighty-six," I reminded him. "That's what it says on their gravestones, anyway."
"Yes, that's right, it must have been. Eighteen eighty-six. It was the talk of the whole island, of course, and beyond; and Dr Barnardo himself came to visit Fortyfoot House to see if there was anything that could be done. But the children all died, all of them."
"Do you have any idea why? There's nothing mentioned on their gravestones."
Dennis Pickering gave a small tight-mouthed shake of his head. "No idea. There were all kinds of epidemics in those days, of course. We forget how susceptible people were to illnesses that we now regard as quite minor. Before the war, you know, my grandfather used to be friends with Dr Leonard Buxton, the Bursar of Exeter College. But in 1939 Dr Buxton and his wife died within thirty-six hours of each other, of pneumonia, even though they were only in their forties. Unthinkable, today.
"I think there was some suggestion that it was scarlatina that took the children off. Young Mr Billings called down a specialist from Londonmade a big show of it, apparently, so that everybody in the district would be aware that he was doing his best for them. But the specialist was a most mysterious fellow, according to Geoffrey Parsleya very taciturn man called Mazurewicz who spoke scarcely any English and kept the lower part of his face covered with something that looked like a filthy white bandage. Anyway, specialist or no specialist, the children all died within a week or so, and were buried in the chapel at Fortyfoot House, as you obviously knowand nobody made too much of a song-and-dance about it because, after all, children did die commonly of such illnesses, and did die commonly in such numbers. There were many boarding-schools that were decimated or closed completely because of scarlatina or glandular fever or some such sickness.
"Apart from that, they were all East End orphans and they had no relatives to care what happened to them."
"Mrs Kemble said that young Mr Billings eventually went off his head," I put in.
"Well . . . there are all kinds of stories about that, too. People said that he kept appearing and disappearing. He was supposed to have been seen at two different placesOld Shanklin Village and Atherfield Greenat one and the same time. Local imaginations working overtime, if you ask me."
"What about Kezia Mason? What happened to her?"
"Again, there are all kinds of fantastic stories. But in the final analysis
, she simply seems to have grown tired of living at Fortyfoot House, and disappeared. Her disappearance, of course, may easily have led to young Mr Billings' mental breakdown. He told several peopleincluding Mr Claringbullthat he loved her more than sanity itself. Apparently he drank a great deal, and took morphineand on top of the tragedy at the orphanage, losing Kezia Mason probably finished him off. Eventually he committed suicide."
I looked at my watch. It was almost three-thirty: time to get back to the paintscraping before the estate agent came around to Fortyfoot House and realized that I was AWOL.
"I have to go now," I told Dennis Pickering. "But what I really need to know is what can I do? Quite honestly, I was going to pack up and leavebut if you can put these spirits to rest . . . "
"Are you totally convinced that what you have experienced is not a figment of your own imagination?" Dennis Pickering asked me.
"Totally. No question about it."