Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)

by David G. Hartwell (Ed. )

  on my death bed that I saw it. I saw Luella Miller and

  Erastus Miller, and Lily, and Aunt Abby, and Maria, and

  the Doctor, and Sarah, all goin’ out of her door, and all

  but Luella shone white in the moonlight, and they were

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  all helpin’ her along till she seemed to fairly fly in the

  midst of them. Then it all disappeared. I stood a minute

  with my heart poundin’, then I went over there. I thought

  of goin’ for Mrs. Babbit, but I thought she’d be afraid. So

  I went alone, though I knew what had happened. Luella

  was layin’ real peaceful, dead on her bed.”

  This was the story that the old woman, Lydia Anderson, told, but the sequel was told by the people who survived her, and this is the tale which has become

  folklore in the village.

  Lydia Anderson died when she was eighty-seven. She

  had continued wonderfully hale and hearty for one of

  her years until about two weeks before her death.

  One bright moonlight evening she was sitting beside a

  window in her parlour when she made a sudden exclamation, and was out of the house and across the street before the neighbour who was taking care of her could

  stop her. She followed as fast as possible and found

  Lydia Anderson stretched on the ground before the door

  of Luella Miller’s deserted house, and she was quite

  dead.

  The next night there was a red gleam of fire athwart

  the moonlight and the old house of Luella Miller was

  burned to the ground. Nothing is now left of it except a

  few old cellar stones and a lilac bush, and in summer a

  helpless trail of morning glories among the weeds, which

  might be considered emblematic of Luella herself.

  Gerald Durrell (b. 1925)

  The Entrance

  Gerald Durrell is the brother o f Lawrence Durrell, who

  exceeded his sibling's literary success and reputation in the

  1950s with The Alexandria Quartet. Yet Gerald, the world-

  famous naturalist, always made more money, principally on

  nonfiction. Gerald's short fiction is not well known and

  “The Entrance” seems to spring from nowhere in the body

  of his work. It was a serious project for him, and he was

  reportedly pleased that Lawrence praised the piece that

  moved in a new direction, over which he had taken some

  time. O ne suspects that, like Fuentes’ "A ura,” the story

  was generated not by genre reading but by rich reading

  experiences and, perhaps, images of mirrors. The device of

  a tale told by a manuscript is common in horror, from Le

  Fanu and M .R . Jam es through, for instance, Jean Ray’s

  "The Shadowy S treet" (which makes an interesting comparison). Another literary antecedent might well be Oscar W ilde’s classic novella. "The Portrait of Dorian G ray.”

  Another, Through The Looking Glass. In any case, “The

  Entrance" is a polished and effective tale of horror that

  deserves wide recognition and repays careful reading. It is

  a monster story about the nature of identity.

  My friends Paul and Marjorie Glenham are both

  failed artists or, perhaps, to put it more charitably,

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  they are both unsuccessful. But they enjoy their failure

  more than most successful artists enjoy their success,

  and this is what makes them such good company and is

  one of the reasons why I always go and stay with them

  when I am in France. Their rambling farmhouse in

  Provence was always in a state of chaos, with sacks of

  potatoes, piles of dried herbs, plates of garlic and forests

  of dried maize jostling with piles of half-finished water-

  colors and oil paintings of the most hideous sort, perpetrated by Marjorie, and strange Neanderthal sculpture, which was Paul’s handiwork. Throughout this marketlike mess prowled cats of every shade and marking and a river of dogs, from an Irish wolfhound the size of a pony

  to an old English bulldog that made noises like Stevenson’s Rocket. Around the walls in ornate cages were housed Marjorie’s collection of roller canaries, who sang

  with undiminished vigor regardless of the hour, thus

  making speech difficult. It was a warm, friendly cacophonous atmosphere and I loved it.

  When I arrived in the early evening I had had a long

  drive and was tired, a condition that Paul set about

  remedying with a hot brandy and lemon of Herculean

  proportions. I was glad to have got there, for during the

  last half hour a summer storm had moved ponderously

  over the landscape like a great black cloak, and thunder

  reverberated among the crags like a million rocks cascading down a wooden staircase. I had only just reached the safety of the warm, noisy kitchen, redolent with the

  mouth-watering smells of Marjorie’s cooking, when the

  rain started in torrents. The noise of it on the tile roof,

  combined with the massive thunder claps that made

  even the solid stone farmhouse shudder, aroused the

  competitive spirit in the canaries and they all burst into

  song simultaneously. It was the noisiest storm I had ever

  encountered.

  “Another noggin, dear boy?” enquired Paul hopefully.

  “No, no!” shouted Marjorie above the bubbling songs

  of the birds and the roar of the rain. “The food’s ready

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  and it will spoil if you keep it waiting. Have some wine.

  Come and sit down, Gerry dear.”

  “Wine, wine, that’s the thing. I’ve got something

  special for you, dear boy,” said Paul, and he went off into

  the cellar to reappear a moment later with his arms full

  of bottles, which he placed reverently on the table near

  me. “A special Gigondas I have discovered,” he said.

  “Brontosaurus blood, I do assure you my dear fellow,

  pure prehistoric monster juice. It will go well with the

  truffles and the guinea fowl Maijorie’s run up.”

  He uncorked a bottle and splashed the deep red wine

  into a generously large goblet. He was right. The wine

  slid into your mouth like red velvet and then, when it

  reached the back of your tongue, it exploded like a

  fireworks display into your brain cells.

  “Good, eh?” said Paul, watching my expression. “I

  found it in a small cave near Avignon. It was a blistering

  hot day and the cave was so nice and cool that I sat and

  drank two bottles of it before I realized what I was doing.

  It’s a seducing wine, alright. Of course, when I got out in

  the sun again the damn stuff hit me like a sledgehammer.

  Maijorie had to drive.”

  “I was so ashamed,” said Marjorie, placing in front of

  me a black truffle the size of a peach, encased in a fragile,

  feather-light overcoat of crisp brown pastry. “He paid

  for the wine and then bowed to the Patron and fell flat on

  his face. The Patron and his sons had to lift him into the

  car. It was disgusting.”

  “Nonsense,” said Paul. “The Patron was enchanted. It

  gave his wine the accolade it needed.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Maijorie. “Now start,

  Gerry, before it gets cold.”
/>   I cut into the globe of golden pastry in front of me and

  released the scent of the truffle, like the delicious aroma

  of a damp autumn wood, a million leafy, earthy smells

  rolled up into one. With the Gigondas as an accompaniment, this promised to be a meal for the Gods. We fell silent as we attacked our truffles and listened to the rain

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  on the roof, the roar of thunder and the almost apoplectic singing of the canaries. The bulldog, who had for no apparent reason fallen suddenly and deeply in love with

  me, sat by my chair watching me fixedly with his

  protuberant brown eyes, panting gently and wheezing.

  “Magnificent, Marjorie,” I said as the last fragment of

  pastry dissolved like a snowflake on my tongue. “I don’t

  know why you and Paul don’t set up a restaurant: with

  your cooking and Paul’s choice of wines you’d be one of

  the three-star Michelin jobs in next to no time.”

  “Thank you, dear,” said Marjorie, sipping her wine,

  “but I prefer to cook for a small audience of gourmets

  rather than a large audience of gourmands.”

  “ She’s right; there’s no gainsaying it,” agreed Paul,

  splashing wine into our glasses with gay abandon.

  A sudden prolonged roar of thunder directly overhead

  precluded speech for a long minute and was so fierce and

  sustained that even the canaries fell silent, intimidated

  by the sound. When it had finished, Marjorie waved her

  fork at her spouse.

  “You mustn’t forget to give Gerry your thingummy,”

  she said.

  “Thingummy?” asked Paul blankly. “What thingummy?”

  “You know,” said Marjorie impatiently, “your thingummy . . . your m anuscript. . . It’s just the right sort of night for him to read it.”

  “Oh, the m anuscript. . . yes,” said Paul enthusiastically. “The very night for him to read it.”

  “I refuse,” I protested. “Your paintings and sculptures

  are bad enough. I’m damned if I’ll read your literary

  efforts as well.”

  “Heathen,” said Marjorie good-naturedly. “Anyway,

  it’s not Paul’s, it’s someone else’s.”

  “I don’t think he deserves to read it after those

  disparaging remarks about my art,” said Paul. “It’s too

  good for him.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

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  “It’s a very curious manuscript I picked up,” Paul

  began when Marjorie interrupted.

  “Don’t tell him about it; let him read it,” she said. “I

  might say it gave me nightmares.”

  While Maijorie was serving helpings of guinea fowl

  wrapped in an almost tangible aroma of herbs and garlic,

  Paul went over to the comer of the kitchen, where a

  tottering mound of books, like some ruined castle, lay

  between two sacks of potatoes and a large barrel of wine.

  He rummaged around for a bit and then emerged

  triumphantly with a fat red notebook, very much the

  worse for wear, and came and put it on the table.

  “There!” he said with satisfaction. “The moment I’d

  read it I thought of you. I got it among a load of books I

  bought from the library of old Doctor Lepitre, who used

  to be prison doctor down in Marseilles. I don’t know

  whether it’s a hoax or what.”

  I opened the book, and on the inside of the cover I

  found a bookplate in black, three Cyprus trees and a

  sundial under which was written, in Gothic script, E x

  Libras Lepitre. I flipped over the pages and saw that the

  manuscript was in longhand, some of the most beautiful

  and elegant copperplate handwriting I had seen, the ink

  now faded to a rusty brown.

  “I wish I had waited until daylight to read it,” said

  Maijorie with a shudder.

  “What is it? A ghost story?” I asked curiously.

  “No,” said Paul uncertainly, “at least, not exactly. Old

  Lepitre is dead, unfortunately, so I couldn’t find out

  about it. It’s a very curious story. But the moment I read

  it I thought of you, knowing your interest in the occult

  and things that go bump in the night. Read it and tell me

  what you think. You can have the manuscript if you want

  it. It might amuse you, anyway.”

  “I would hardly call it amusing,” said Marjorie,

  “anything but amusing. I think it’s horrid.”

  Some hours later, full of good food and wine, I took

  the giant golden oil lamp, carefully trimmed, and in its

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  gentle daffodil-yellow light I made my way upstairs to the

  guest room and a feather bed the size of a barn door. The

  bulldog had followed me upstairs and had sat wheezing,

  watching me undress and climb into bed. He sat by the

  bed looking at me soulfully. The storm continued unabated, and the rumble of thunder was almost continuous while the dazzling flashes of lightning lit up the whole room at intervals. I adjusted the wick of the lamp,

  moved it closer to me, picked up the red notebook and

  settled myself back against the pillows to read. The

  manuscript began without preamble:

  March 16th, 1901, Marseilles.

  I have all night lying ahead of me, and as I know I

  cannot sleep— in spite of my resolve— I thought I would

  try and write down in detail the thing that has just

  happened to me. I am afraid that even setting it down

  like this will not make it any the more believable, but it

  will pass the time until dawn comes and with it my

  release.

  Firstly, I must explain a little about myself and my

  relationship with Gideon de Teildras Villeray so that the

  reader (if there ever is one) will understand how I came

  to be in the depths of France in midwinter. I am an

  antiquarian bookseller and I can say, in all modesty, I

  am at the top of my profession. Or perhaps it would be

  more accurate to say that I was at the top of my

  profession. I was even once described by one of my

  fellow booksellers— I hope more in a spirit of levity than

  one of jealousy— as a “literary truffle hound,” a description that I suppose, in its amusing way, does describe me.

  A hundred or more libraries have passed through my

  hands, and I have been responsible for a number of

  important finds, the original Gottenstein manuscript,

  for example, the rare “Conrad” illustrated Bible, said by

  some to be as beautiful as the Book o f Kells, the five new

  poems by Blake that I unearthed at an unpromising

  country house sale in the Midlands, and many lesser but

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  nonetheless satisfying discoveries, such as the signed first

  edition of Alice in Wonderland that I found in a trunk full

  of rag books and toys in the nursery of a vicarage in

  Shropshire and a presentation copy of Sonnets from the

  Portuguese, signed and with a six-line verse written on

  the flyleaf by both Robert and Elizabeth Browning. I

  think to be able to unearth such things in unlikely places

  is a gift that you are bom with. It is really rather like

  water di
vining; either you are bom with the gift or not,

  but it is not a gift you can acquire, though most certainly,

  with practice, you are able to sharpen your perceptions

  and make your eye keener. In my spare time I also

  catalogue some of the smaller and more important

  libraries, as I get enormous pleasure out of simply being

  with books. To me the quietness of a library, the smell

  and the feel of the books is like the smell and texture of

  food to a gourmet. It may sound fanciful, but I can stand

  in the middle of a library and hear the myriad voices

  around me as though I were standing in the middle of a

  vast choir, a choir of knowledge and beauty.

  Naturally, because of my work, it was at Sotheby’s that

  I first met Gideon. I had unearthed in a house in Sussex a

  small but quite interesting collection of first editions,

  and being interested to see what they would fetch, I had

  attended the sale myself. As the bidding was in progress I

  got the rather uncomfortable feeling that I was being

  watched. I glanced around but could see no one whose

  attention was not upon the auctioneer. Yet, as the sale

  proceeded I got more and more uncomfortable. Perhaps

  this is too strong a word, but I became convinced that I

  was the object of an intense scrutiny. At last the crowd in

  the salesroom moved slightly and I saw who it was. He

  was a man of medium height with a handsome but

  somewhat plump face, piercing and very large dark eyes

  and smoky black curly hair, worn rather long. He was

  dressed in a very well cut dark overcoat with an astrakhan collar, and in his elegantly gloved hands he carried the sales catalogue and a wide-brimmed dark velour hat.

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  His glittering, gypsylike eyes were fixed on me intently

  but then, when he saw me looking at him, the fierceness

  of his gaze faded, and he gave me a faint smile and a tiny

  nod of his head, as if to acknowledge that he had been

  caught out in staring at me in such a vulgar fashion. He

  turned then and shouldered his way through the people

  who surrounded him and was soon lost to my sight. I

  don’t know why but the intense scrutiny of this stranger

  somewhat disconcerted me, to such an extent that I did

  not follow the rest of the sale with any degree of