The Shadow on the House

by Mark Hansom

  “You were dreaming,” I said again; and again I saw the Professor glance at me.

  “It was close to mine,” she went on, with a shudder. “And I know I wasn’t dreaming,” she added angrily, looking at me. “I could see the room — and I could hear the clock ticking.”

  “Well, well; never mind!” said Dr. Grainger. “Don’t worry about that now. Tell us in the morning. You’ll be better then.”

  I said I would sit with her; but she insisted on having her aunt to keep her company. She asserted that she would not sleep any more that night.

  So we left them — Sylvia, Lady Somerton, and a maid who had unobtrusively appeared and who was saying something about tea when the Professor and the doctor and I went to join those who were still doggedly waiting in the corridor.

  Later, I wandered through to this room that I call my study. Sleep was not for me. My mind was in a chaos. Desolation, fear, mystery! For the sake of my own sanity I sat down to add this further chapter to my manuscript. Only by forcing myself to set my mind to some intellectual work can I hope to keep from brooding.

  And heaven knows I have enough to brood over!

  I have lost Sylvia. And, as though that were not enough, the ghost has come back.

  Undoubtedly my promptitude saved Sylvia’s life. But what of to-night and to-morrow night and all the other nights?

  I am of half a mind to tell everything to the Professor.

  CHAPTER XIX

  The Picture

  S

  aturday evening. Dr. Grainger and the Professor tell me that they intend to sit up with Sylvia to-night. I could say nothing against that, for Sylvia is in the doctor’s hands and I cannot, without offence, object to whatever measures he cares to take. And I must act with a great deal of tact, for I believe that they are on the point of unearthing the family secret.

  I ought, perhaps, not to care whether they do or not. If I have lost Sylvia nothing else matters; but the utter despair of last night has given place to a grim hope that I might yet get her back. I refuse to accept defeat — and I have had another defeat to-day. Perhaps, in a day or two, she will think better of me. When she is more herself she must see the tremendous injustice that she has inflicted upon me; and though I cannot expect to force her to love me I can still hope to induce her to live as my wife. I don’t mind humbling myself. I don’t mind playing on her pity. So long as I retain her the means do not matter. With that hope in my mind, therefore, I am as eager as ever that they should not find out about the family curse, for if they should discover that I am in league with the devil — for that is what it amounts to — there will be an end of my hope. And without hope there is nothing.

  I made it my business to have a few words with young Wetherhouse after breakfast this morning.

  Breakfast, after the disturbance in the night, was a rather haphazard affair. The time-table was ignored by half the guests. It was easy, therefore, for me to take young Wetherhouse aside without interfering with the programme of the day.

  I brought him through to the study here.

  On the way we met Sylvia and Lady Somerton just coming down. Both the ladies were showing signs of sleeplessness, but Sylvia had apparently recovered from the shock of last night.

  The doctor had advised her, Lady Somerton told us, to spend the forenoon in bed, but that she had absolutely refused to do.

  “Oh, I must be up and about,” said Sylvia. “I’m perfectly well. They are talking about my having seen a ghost. What rubbish!”

  “But you said so yourself, my dear!” said Lady Somerton. “You said so last night.”

  “Oh, I’m not responsible for what I said last night!” Sylvia exclaimed. Then she turned to me and added: “At least I’m not responsible for what I said after I woke up.”

  Lady Somerton laughed.

  “But we quite understand that you were responsible for what you said before that!” she remarked.

  Of course, Lady Somerton could not know that Sylvia’s apparently unnecessary reference to what she had said before she went to bed was intended for me — was intended to show me that she was still of the same mind regarding me.

  Perhaps there had been something in my manner that had made her think the reminder necessary. But though the glance that she gave me as she and her aunt turned towards the breakfast-room was far from encouraging, I was not going to be forced to give up hope until I had had a further talk with her and had fully stated my case.

  Nevertheless, that chance encounter outside the breakfast-room made me all the more eager to settle this young fellow Wetherhouse once and for all.

  1 ushered him into the study here, and made the dramatic gesture of turning the key in the lock.

  “Now, young man,” I said, when I had asked him to sit down, “you and I have a piece of very personal business to discuss. I want to know what you and my wife were doing out in the grounds last night.”

  I think I have said before that young Wetherhouse is one of those negative people who go about completely at the mercy of their environment. He is extremely well-behaved, extremely honest, wholly inoffensive. He is a mirror of text-book perfection in these matters. But I doubt whether he ever did anything original in his life. He is content to follow the rules laid down for behaviour in a drawing-room, but one would never expect him to take the conduct of life into his own hands. It had been a very great surprise to me to find that it was he who was sharing in Sylvia’s indiscretions.

  “We were talking,” he said.

  “I know that,” I told him. “But what were you talking about? That’s what I want to know.”

  “And if I refuse to tell you?”

  He said that very forcefully, but I could see that he was startled and afraid of me.

  “I shan’t let you out of here until you do tell me,” I said.

  “Now don’t be silly!” he exclaimed, fingering his cigarette in a manner that showed him to be uncomfortable. “If your wife chooses to confide some of her lesser affairs to me, it’s not my fault, is it?”

  “That’s the attitude you would adopt,” I said with a sneer. “ ‘It’s not my fault, is it?’ ” I mocked. “But it’s your fault that you listened to what she had to say. And, in any case, she wouldn’t say what she did say without encouragement. So she told you that she was unhappy, did she?”

  That made him give a start.

  “Now why should she tell you that?” I questioned.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said. “Unless it might be that I once asked her to marry me. Perhaps she thinks that gives her some sort of a claim on my sympathy — if she wants sympathy. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “Did you speak about your having asked her to marry you?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, we did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I refuse to tell you.”

  Now that we were into the heart of the matter he spoke with some spirit. But I was not discouraged by his blank refusal.

  “You were suggesting that the offer of marriage might still stand — if circumstances should ever make that possible,” I hazarded.

  “No,” he exclaimed. “That was the very thing I was trying to discourage.”

  “Ah!” I said. “So she was suggesting that the offer might still stand!”

  He was silent. I knew I had hit upon the truth.

  I could have killed him where he sat. I had no doubt that he was perfectly innocent in intention. Or, rather, I was sure that however much he loved Sylvia he would never be able to pluck up the courage to overstep the bounds of convention in order to get her. I had nothing to fear from him. He would never rob me of my wife. Yet he was the man whom she loved. It was surprising that a girl of Sylvia’s vital personality should love such a negative character as young Wetherhouse, but it was nevertheless true, and that was the fact I had to deal with. While he was alive I could not hope to influence Sylvia towards me again.

  Had I not spoken last night she might never have bee
n prompted to disclose her feelings and we might have gone on living a life of make-believe — to me perfectly satisfactory make-believe — indefinitely. Young Wetherhouse would never take an active part in any disruption. But now that the matter had been brought out into the light Sylvia would not go back to our old footing.

  Thus I reasoned as I sat facing the man whose silence was condemning my wife — the man who, though his intentions might be of the most honourable, had actually robbed me of the society of my wife. It was nothing to me that he was not taking advantage of his position. He was not vital enough to do that. But it was something to me that if he chose he might take advantage of his position. Sylvia, I knew, now that the whole affair had been brought out into the open, would not hesitate to go beyond the bounds of convention if he agreed to go with her.

  So I could have killed him where he sat.

  I never thought I should be glad to know that I was in league with the devil, but I was glad at that moment.

  My whole instinct was to spring on him and send his soul to perdition; but I restrained myself. I tried not to think of him as the man who had robbed me of all the exquisite joy that was associated in my mind with the idea of Sylvia. I tried not to think of that, for I knew what the result would be if I were to let my jealousy run riot. But it was of no use. I could not possibly keep down my bitter hatred of him. The most I could do was to prevent its showing in my face.

  I know that young Wetherhouse will die — as Christopher Knight died and as my cousin died. I am not responsible. I cannot stay the fulfilment of the curse. If the curse — or the ghost that Sylvia saw last night — operates with consistency, then I am sure that young Wetherhouse is ordained a victim, for he has come between Sylvia and me. Nobody who has come between Sylvia and me has escaped. Even Sylvia herself, when she flouted my love, aroused the ghost.

  “Thanks for telling me so much,” I said, forcing myself to appear calm. “I see that it isn’t your fault. You have nothing to reproach yourself with — nothing at all.”

  I rose as I spoke. He followed my example.

  “I’m glad you look at it like that,” he said.

  “It’s the only way one can look at it,” I told him. “I can’t blame you for being in love with my wife. Forgive me for any disparaging things I might have said about you — the heat of the moment, you know.”

  The words came smoothly enough. I had sufficient control of myself to realize that I must not quarrel with him. For if he were found dead following a quarrel with me it might result in my being suspected of the crime of murder.

  I did not hear what he said in reply. My mind was turned to a fresh aspect of the case. I was asking myself if I were not a murderer in effect. Should I not warn him of his approaching doom? Could I allow him to go to bed in that isolated part of the building knowing that he would be dead in the morning?

  Yes, I could. I have done so. He has been in bed an hour at this moment when I sit here writing.

  For the greater part of the day I have been worrying over that question. Yet I have done nothing. There is nothing that I can do. I warned him yesterday afternoon that the room is haunted. That will have to serve.

  I cannot explain the whole thing to anybody. People might not believe me, it is true. But if they do believe me they will shut me away — they might even destroy me — for society would never allow a man with such power as I possess to be at large. I can do nothing.

  There is one thing I can try to do. I have tried it, but without success. I have tried not to feel jealous of him. Counsel of perfection! As well might I try not to feel hungry or thirsty. The mere passing thought of Sylvia’s beautiful eyes and the bitter reflection that the light in them is not for me but for him — that is enough to send the blood whipping through my veins and arouse the primeval instinct to kill.

  I have not told even Makepeace.

  When we came out of the study I waited in the hall, after learning that Sylvia had not yet finished breakfast. I had not to wait very long, but when she reappeared she was accompanied by a number of kindly disposed but inquisitive people who were eager to have first-hand information about the ghost.

  Nevertheless, I succeeded in getting her aside, when I peremptorily demanded half an hour’s private talk with her. She probably knew that she must, sooner or later, listen to what I had to say, unless she intended to cease all communication with me forthwith. She agreed to listen.

  Meanwhile we had strolled upstairs to the first landing and there I opened the door leading to the picture gallery, which was the one nearest to my hand, and led her in.

  She walked some way down the long chamber and then, stopping, turned to me and said, “Well?”

  Her manner was anything but encouraging, but I was not affected by that. I was affected only by the tremendous fascination that she exercised over me. Her reputation for being one of the most beautiful girls in England is not by any means a false reputation. And she reaped a further attractiveness from the fact that she was quite unaffected by her reputation.

  She stood in the centre of the floor, stolidly waiting for me to begin; and I could only look at the exquisiteness of her figure in its grey sports skirt and jacket, and feel with every moment a more insistent desire to advance the two paces that separated us and take her in my arms.

  But at length I began to speak. There is no need for me to repeat what I said. I pleaded my case as though I were pleading for my life. I was, indeed, pleading for something that is more to me than my life. I denied that there had been any suspicion of a conspiracy between Lady Somerton and me. I protested that I had never thought of throwing my wealth into the scale in favour of my suit. I told her that I would immediately relinquish everything I possessed if it were to mean that I might still have her. I explained the reason for my having listened outside the door when Lady Somerton and Professor Wetherhouse were talking together. I said that I happened to hear the Professor asking Lady Somerton to stop our wedding. That, I suggested, was a sufficient excuse for listening.

  But, throughout the whole of my energetic appeal, she stood stonily unaffected. She could not doubt my sincerity. She could not but be aware of the unfairness of all she had said against me. But she did not retract one word. There are none so blind as those who do not want to see.

  “And what do you propose to do now?” I asked when I had finished my appeal and she remained mute. “You’re not thinking of running off with that spineless youth, are you? For one thing he wouldn’t have the nerve to run away.”

  She did not answer. She was staring past me, apparently determined not to give me the satisfaction of hearing one word of comment pass her lips.

  “If you expect me to arrange a divorce,” I went on, “then you are going to be disappointed.”

  I wondered why I troubled to touch on the future.

  I knew that young Wetherhouse’s death was imminent. Still she did not answer. Still she continued to stare past me, her eyes concentrated on one spot.

  “Sylvia!” I exclaimed. “Do you hear me?”

  Apparently she didn’t. Ignoring me, she took a slow step forward towards the spot at which she was staring. Her body was bent forward and her eyes had taken on the look of terror that I saw in them when I found her crouching by the wall in the bedroom.

  I wheeled round quickly to see what was affecting her.

  “That’s the face!” she exclaimed, pointing to one of the portraits. “The face I saw last night!”

  She turned to me and clutched me wildly. She clung to me and buried her face on my breast. The matter that had brought us here was forgotten.

  “That’s Mad Roderick,” I said, looking at the picture — a comparatively small and very old oil painting of one of my very early forebears. “That’s Mad Roderick, and he’s certainly enough to give anyone bad dreams.”

  But, though I tried to speak lightly, I was almost as deeply affected as she was. I had never thought of assigning to the ghost the personality of one of my own ancestors. Here was a f
urther step in my knowledge, but I was strangely shocked by the revelation. So it was the spirit of Mad Roderick that was walking the earth, I thought, seeing in this discovery of Sylvia’s the link that might finally enable the Professor to arrive at the truth.

  “Now don’t be silly, Sylvia,” I said. “You were only dreaming. You know you were only dreaming.”

  I could feel her trembling in my embrace.

  “I said I was,” she sobbed. “I said that afterwards. But at the time I knew I wasn’t dreaming. It was too real.”

  “No, no,” I persisted. “You must have seen this picture — perhaps without noticing it particularly — and the expression of the face has become lodged in your memory. And you dreamt about it. That’s all.”

  Still clinging to me, she turned her head and looked again at the picture.

  It is, as I had told her, a picture that is enough to give anyone bad dreams. There are no authenticated records about the original of the portrait, but enough may be learned from the painted expression of the face to allow one to build up a picture of the character behind it. Though the features follow the very marked lines that have characterized every member of our family, the individual expression in the case of Mad Roderick is that of sheer insanity. How the portrait came to be painted I do not know. The artist is unknown, but I can imagine that he must have been in very hard straits before he accepted the commission to paint the picture that now hangs in the gallery there. I can imagine, also, how Mad Roderick must have taken a diabolic delight in distorting his face so as to express the most bloodcurdling idea of insanity.

  Such is the picture we both stood staring at.

  “But,” said Sylvia suddenly, “I couldn’t have seen that picture. I have never been in here before. When you showed me round we just looked in at the door. I said I would wait and see the pictures later.”

  I could say nothing to that. My assertion that she had been dreaming last night could not be substantiated.