by Mark Hansom
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the old man’s grey face as they had been throughout the whole of his narrative, my voice sounding harsh and strange in my own ears.
I felt that the blood had left my face. A physical uneasiness had gripped me as though there might be some sinister being glaring at me from behind. I pictured myself lying asleep on the bed there (with heaven knew what weirdness going on around me) all unconscious of danger.
“I did try to wake you, sir,” Makepeace answered. “But I couldn’t. At first I thought — well, I didn’t know what I would find. But you were all right. I touched you and I shook you, and then you said something in your sleep so I knew you were all right. But I couldn’t wake you.”
“Queer, that,” I said, “for I’ve been sleeping badly of late. Did you go — ”
“Did I go into the study?” Makepeace asked, anticipating my question. “I did not, sir. Not for anything in this world or the next would I have — ”
“Of course not,” I said.
It was thoughtless of me to have suggested such a thing.
“With that moaning and chanting,” Makepeace went on, “and the flick of that thing when I opened the door, and you, sir, lying there neither dead nor alive nor awake nor yet asleep, as you might say — ”
“I understand.”
“It would have taken a less scared man than me to go into that room.”
I glanced towards the study as he spoke. The small room was sinister in its stillness. The light entering it by the communicating door struck my desk, which was in the middle of the carpet, and made it stand out distinctly; but the rest was in half darkness or deep shadow — the bookcases, the door leading through into the hall, the polished floor beyond the edge of the carpet — deep shadow and mystery.
“And what happened then? What was the voice saying? Could you make out?”
“No, that I couldn’t. It was saying something, but it was such a sing-song sort of way of speaking that I couldn’t catch any sense in it at all . . . Then I put on the light at the top of your bed, and sat down beside you, facing the study door there. That was all I could do. And the light was that eerie! It was just shining on the bed and on you. But do you think I could get up and cross to the door to put the big light on! Not for a fortune! And as for creeping over and shutting the study door — ! So I just sat there — watching for something to happen. But nothing happened, and you slept on, and it got light again. But I’ve had the creeps all day.”
The grey, aged face of Makepeace invested the moment with a peculiar horror. It seemed that he and I were alone and at the mercy of this mystery that had clung about my family for generations. My recent attempts at dismissing the terror by sheer force of will now appeared pitiful. Even to succeed in forgetting it for a time was nothing. And though there should be no further manifestation during my whole life, there would always be expectant terror, for now I and not others had become the object of the manifestations.
“Makepeace,” I said, taking his hand. “You are the best friend I ever had.”
My fears had made me overlook the night of terror that the old man had spent for my sake, sitting there hour after hour, his eyes never leaving the dark doorway of the sinister study.
“If it hadn’t been for you,” I went on, “I might not be alive now.” And I thought, for a fleeting second, though I did not say it: “And that might have been a good thing.”
“And you never told me,” I went on. “Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know, Mister Martin,” he said.” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell you. Leastways I thought I might wait a day or two and see if anything else happened.”
“And you were going to watch at nights?”
“Yes. You see, nothing else might happen, I thought; and maybe there would be no call to scare you. But however — ”
There was a pause.
“If I may make the suggestion,” said Makepeace, hesitatingly, “I think it would be as well for me to sleep in this room. We could have a bed brought in to-morrow. That is — ”
I agreed readily. That had been in my mind, but I had been afraid to suggest it. Yet something would have had to be done. I should have been afraid to shut my eyes at nights, and that would have been an impossible existence.
“What about Mr. Ashton?” I asked. “It will be too much for you. The nervous strain night after night, I mean. It will be bad enough for me, but I’m young.”
I spoke as though I were not in the most abject terror at the thought of night following night and my never knowing when the fatal night would arrive.
“We must keep this to ourselves, Mister Martin,” he said. “If rumours began to get about, there is no saying what folks might think. There are two deaths that have not been rightly explained away. You never know.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “We must keep it to ourselves.”
The law, I realized, did not consider the existence of ghosts. People who maintained that ghosts committed murders might be suspected by the law.
CHAPTER XII
Eavesdropping
T
he dawn was beginning to break when Makepeace and I, with a great deal left unsaid, parted — I to my bath, he to the kitchen to prepare some tea.
The greyness of the early morning was almost as eerie as the blackness of night; and though, for some reason having its basis in superstition, I was not now afraid of attack. I was acutely conscious of a creeping physical uneasiness that made me start at shadows and that made me want to be continually looking behind me.
And there was no rule by which I could gauge either the motive behind these supernatural phenomena or the extent of them. Until this latest manifestation there had been one constant feature that had provided a more or less scientific basis upon which to reason: the outrages had all been committed following upon a feeling of extreme jealousy on the part of some one of my family, and the victim had been the one who was the object of that jealousy.
But now the power — whatever it might be — was apparently exerting itself against me, whereas it had formerly exerted itself in my behalf. And there was no Strange left who could call the power into activity — assuming that the power was dependent for impulse upon the wish of a Strange.
The constant feature had been disturbed. There was no means of judging what might happen next — unless, as occurred to me suddenly as I was stepping under the cold shower, the spirit was now intent upon destroying me, the last of the family.
But no reasoning could be conclusive. I had not now any knowledge by which to reassure myself. I could only wait for the next drawing aside of the curtain behind which lurked the mystery.
I rejoined Makepeace in the bedroom where he had now arrived with the morning cup of tea. There were two cups of tea on the tray and two plates containing biscuits. Even Makepeace’s strict — I thought false — sense of position had been broken down by his ordeal of two nights ago.
Over this tea we arranged that he should move into my room sometime during that day. No one need or would know of the alteration in this part of the establishment, for Makepeace was very jealous of his position and would on no account allow any of the other servants to attend to me personally.
We did not discuss the tremendous mystery that lay at the back of this alteration in the domestic arrangements. It would not bear discussion.
That day I went to Park Lane for lunch. And, despite the curse that was hanging over my house and that might destroy me at any moment, I went with as great an enthusiasm as I should have felt had I been the most normal of beings and had my expectations of a rapturous existence with Sylvia been brilliantly unclouded. The bright sunshine and the crowds in the Park might have had something to do with my being thus easily able to shake off the fears of the night. But I think that Sylvia had more to do with it. At all costs I must not allow Sylvia to know what was hanging over me. And, in any case, why should I carry my fears into the daytime? They belonged to the nig
ht. In the daytime they existed only by recollection. I thought, as I walked down Park Lane, and the buses whizzed towards me on the left and the Park railings rose beside me on the right, and hundreds and hundreds of people within my view went about their business or their pleasure: “I’m not afraid now. I don’t feel that there is a sinister presence creeping up stealthily behind me. And if there is, it doesn’t matter. It can’t harm me physically, because of all these people. And it can’t harm me through fear — as I’m told is the way with things supernatural — simply because in daylight and in company I don’t feel fear.”
And these thoughts, as I walked down Park Lane between the speedy traffic on the one hand and the holiday atmosphere of the sunlit Park on the other, brought such a brightness of spirits as to make me think that I had positively and miraculously conquered the terrors of the other world. I knew, of course, by experience, that night would find me a different being; but my chance of happiness lay in not thinking of the night.
I was early for the luncheon appointment. As a matter of fact, I had not troubled to notice the exact time. Luncheon was at one o’clock; but I was now such a frequent visitor to the house that I might wander in an hour before the appointed time without causing anybody to raise questioning eyebrows. Even the servants — even the suspicious fellow whom I frequently found posted in the hall — honoured me by not submitting my visits to the usual elaborate rites by which the sanctity of the home is protected, and I was free to walk in or out as though the place were my own.
I crossed Park Lane and walked up the black and white mosaic path and mounted the steps to the front door. The front door stood open to the warm air. I walked into the deserted hall, paused a while to enjoy its coolness, put my hat and gloves on the oak rug-chest, and strolled casually through into the dim interior, guided by the sound of voices which I guessed came from that little room at the back — the little panelled room where I had declared my love to Sylvia.
I was sorry to hear these voices. The clock in the hall told me that I had half an hour to spare, and I should have welcomed half an hour alone with Sylvia. I was rarely alone with her for more than a few minutes at a time. We had not had a heart to heart talk for weeks. I tried to recall the last time we had had a heart to heart talk, and I could not.
And that thought, as I stood at the back of the hall uncertain what to do, brought me to the realization that I had never indulged in scenes of intense tenderness with Sylvia. There had been moments of strong emotion, such as that in the Park on the morning after Christopher Knight’s death and such as that on the evening after my cousin’s death, but these had had their origin in the dramatic intensity of circumstances and were not brought about by Sylvia’s tenderness for me.
And now I felt that my love-making had lacked just that exchange of tendernesses. Our courtship had been born of dramatic intensity. I had happened to be at hand when circumstances had overwhelmed Sylvia, when she had been most susceptible to the influence of a new acquaintance; and I had taken advantage of the circumstances. Sylvia had accepted my love, and I had been content with her mere acceptance. The honour of possessing so much beauty had contented me. Yet I had missed that foolish, delightful “spooning” that seems to characterize the period of courtship.
“It might be,” I said to myself as I took a step nearer to the door of the little panelled room — “it might be that she is still worried by the coincidence of the two deaths. It must have seemed queer to her, and she had some justification for the thought that she was at the bottom of them. Women are very superstitious, I believe.”
We had never mentioned that matter after her hysterical outburst on the night when we learned of Mick’s death. But perhaps it was still present in her mind — or perhaps she had given all her love to young Christopher and could not repeat the emotion in its full intensity. Lately I had been noticing her quietness, and these questions had been occupying my mind.
The door of the little panelled room was half open. I listened for the sound of Sylvia’s voice, intending, if I did not hear it, to roam into some of the other public rooms in search of her.
The murmur of conversation was indistinct, and I had to go within a few paces of the door in order to hear who was speaking.
The Professor was one. I was now in the corridor almost opposite the half-open door, and the voices suddenly became clear.
“Very well,” said the Professor. “I doubted very much whether I should succeed in convincing you. And as you will not be convinced,” (I pictured him shrugging his shoulders) “you must take the consequences.”
“But,” replied the voice of Lady Somerton, with a touch of hauteur, “you have not attempted to convince me of anything. If you were to tell me what was in your mind you might succeed in convincing me. But simply to ask me to trust you — and on a point that means so much to Sylvia, and to me — ”
Lady Somerton did not finish the sentence. It had more meaning when left unfinished. I saw her, in my imagination, turning from the Professor in that characteristic way of hers, in order to let her words sink home.
And I — who regarded eavesdropping with abhorrence — stood listening. Yes, I held my breath and was not ashamed. The mention of Sylvia’s name and the unmistakable tone of antagonism between these two made me stand where I was. If the matter they were discussing was of so much importance to Sylvia — who, I guessed, was not present — then very likely it had to do with me. Perhaps not. But most likely it had, for the supreme fact of Sylvia’s existence at the moment was her approaching marriage to me. In any case, I listened.
“But I have explained,” went on the Professor, “that I dare not say outright what I think. The whole thing is of such a very delicate nature that I am afraid to reduce my fears to plain words. Our information at this early stage is too imperfect, and our knowledge of the subject is too vague, to allow us to state our suspicions definitely. All I ask is — ”
“Sydney is in love with her,” put in Lady Somerton, ignoring his attempt at explaining his reasons for withholding information.
I instinctively drew back half a step, praying that no one might come along the corridor and so disturb my eavesdropping.
“Please,” he said, in a hurt tone, “please credit me with disinterested motives, at least! I do agree that Sydney is very fond of her, and some months ago I thought that she was not wholly averse to Sydney. But please leave Sydney’s name out of it. His affairs have nothing directly to do with my speaking to you now. His disappointment is nothing compared with what is in my mind.”
“Well, what is in your mind?” she persisted. “If you would only give me a hint about what you are driving at — ”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” exclaimed the Professor, and I could hear the sound of steps and knew that he was pacing the floor, impatient because of Lady Somerton’s inability or unwillingness to understand him.
As for me, I was for the time incapable of motion. Had the door opened fully and had they suddenly come forth from the room, they would have caught me unmistakably in the act of listening. I could not have gathered my wits together sufficiently well even to make a pretence of being about to knock at the door; for my mind had jumped to the conclusion that the Professor had hit upon my secret. Naturally I would jump to that conclusion. My secret — shared only by Makepeace — was my most carefully guarded possession. If it were known that the supernatural had designs upon me — that, in the popular phrase, I was haunted — there would be an end of all my joy in life. I should be shunned. I should be someone apart, with whom the normal and happily innocent of mankind could have no social dealings. Perhaps circumstances would enable me to lay the ghost, and then I could live happily; but until then I must guard my secret by every means within my power.
Little wonder, hearing the Professor, that I feared the worst!
“I need not mention,” said Lady Somerton, “that I have a fair amount of tact and discretion — even though I am a woman.” There was a ring of cruel irony in her voice. “Anyt
hing that you might tell me will not be repeated. That goes without saying.”
Yet she said it. I was sorry for the Professor then. Lady Somerton was persistent almost to the point of rudeness.
“I know, I know!” he said. “But please accept my word. I dare not tell you — simply dare not. As I say, the field of inquiry has not yet been thoroughly investigated, and I have not the knowledge necessary to enable me to prove my case. I can only suspect; but even the little knowledge we have makes me sure that my suspicions are correct. And until I can prove that my suspicions are correct — a very different thing! — I dare not state them. I dare not state them even to you, Lady Somerton.”