“You’ve noticed the eyes? No doubt the man’s eyes were actually blue, as was common among the Anglo-Saxons ...” He paused for a moment, then resumed: “By Tosti’s time, of course, the various invading races—yes, including the Scandinavians—had become melded into a truly English people, in whose veins also ran much good Celtic blood. Besides, this part of north-eastern Essex was variously claimed by the East Saxons and the East Angles, and there’s no telling to which people the saint himself belonged.” A longer pause, while he seemed to gather his thoughts. “Ha! Yes, blue eyes. Well, real blue is rare in medieval wall-paintings. It was usually made from azurite, and not easy to come by. Mostly the artists used, as here, a cunning mixture of black and lime white, with the slightest touch of red ochre. You would expect the result to be a sort of dull brown, but there’s no doubt that this is intended to be blue. No doubt at all.” His voice trailed off, and I looked away, with some reluctance, from the compelling gaze of the painted figure.
The left hand was raised, as if in blessing, but instead of the first two fingers being extended, as I had seen before, only the forefinger was lifted; it pointed directly upwards. I mentioned this, and my companion, roused from his reverie, replied, “Yes, interesting, isn’t it? It gives credence to the notion that there was something unsaintly about this saint. The forefinger, extended on its own, is usually a symbol of condemnation in these murals, and as this one is pointing upwards—well, one wonders. I’m curious that it should be the left hand too, and not the right. Have you noticed, by the way, what he holds in his right hand? Uncommonly like a cat-o’-nine-tails, isn’t it? That’s really what decided for me that this must be St Tosti. You see, he’s mentioned in more than one of the records as driving his enemies before him with a scourge. His enemies, notice, not the enemies of Christ.”
“It was not a symbol of martyrdom, then?”
“Ah, that would naturally occur to you. You are thinking of the grid-iron associated with St Lawrence. No, there seems no doubt that it was Tosti who wielded the whip. Still, Our Lord himself flogged the moneylenders in the temple, so perhaps we should not read too much into that. But tell me what you make of this.”
He indicated the curious, shadowy figure to which I have referred. It seemed to stand or squat, perhaps half the height of the saint, just by his left foot, and partly concealed by the folds of his red gown. No features could be distinguished, and indeed, the closer I looked, the less sure I was that the figure was actually there. It might have been merely a darker stain upon the grey background of the painting. Yet such was the meticulous care with which the saint had been depicted that I was inclined to doubt this.
I asked Faragher, “Is there perhaps some animal—a dog or a wolf—which is associated with the legend of St Tosti?”
His reply was negative. “And yet,” he added, after a moment’s thought, “something, some fact or suggestion, is nagging at my mind.” He gestured, wryly. “Perhaps we’ll find out when we look at the Archdeaconry Records. And that reminds me, the time is getting on. If we’re to get any real work done in Colchester, we had better go now.”
With some reluctance, I left the presence of that enigmatic and dubious saint, and scurried towards the vestry to collect my overcoat and hat. As I went, I observed that Howard Faragher was gazing intently at one portion of the wall-painting and murmuring, almost to himself. “What are you? I wish you would show yourself, so that I could be sure.”
The journey into Colchester is not a long one, and usually, upon a morning in early spring, it is particularly pleasant. My impatience, however, made it seem rather long and tedious, and I could see that my companion found it so as well. Still, we reached the town at last, and made our way to the offices of the Archdeaconry. Our eagerness was not well rewarded: the information about St Tosti and the early history of Welford St Paul was quite as scant as Faragher had supposed. After nearly three hours, we had uncovered no more than a few very uncertain references to miraculous events, and one late version—dating from the mid-thirteenth century—of the story that St Tosti had whipped his foes before him. Here, though, there was the qualifying statement that “the Brethren of Tosti cried aloud to magnify the name of Christ”, but this was probably a pious interpolation.
At two o’clock, the Archdeacon’s clerk remarked rather pointedly that of course the Archives could be made available for our inspection another day, but at present his duties were pressing. Indeed, I myself had begun to feel that our quest was something of a wild goose chase. But at that moment Howard Faragher gave a sudden cry of satisfaction. “Hah! Gifford, listen to this: it’s from a pamphlet issued in 1612 by the Puritan Richard Fine of Colchester. The pamphlet was called England, Rome and Babylon, and it cost Richard Fine both his ears in those intolerant times. All copies were destroyed except for this one page, and that is charred along one edge ...”
“But what does it say?” I cried.
“It starts in the middle of a sentence, thus: ‘to his Lord while In Converse with his Brethren’—a reference to the disappearance, I think. Then it continues, ‘This Tosti was knowne to consorte with an Angell, as some say, others a Sprite of different sorte, not being a Creature of God but of the Divell.’ After that there’s a new paragraph, fulminating in general terms against the Popish superstition.”
The clerk, uncomprehending, interrupted with a discreet cough, and Faragher hastily laid down the ancient paper. “I do beg your pardon,” he said. “We mustn’t keep you any longer.” He glanced at his watch and added, “We should go now, in any case, if we are to find somewhere open for luncheon.” Polite, but triumphant, he accompanied me from the office. He said no more for a while, but his look as we bade farewell to the harassed clerk clearly said, “What do you think of that, my friend?”
There was but one thought in my mind: that the shadowy figure who accompanied the painted saint had little about it of the angelic.
As we drove into Welford St Paul, Faragher said, “If you don’t mind, I should like to stay here for a day or two longer. This matter becomes more and more curious, and I’d rather like to put off unveiling the picture until we know what there is to know about it. I suppose that the builders ...?”
“You need not worry,” I replied. “The builders know only that a painting of some kind has been uncovered, and that it is being examined by an expert.”
“Splendid! Well, let’s go and have another look at it, shall we, while the light lasts?”
The shade that clung to St Tosti was as disturbing and indefinable as ever. After peering at it for several minutes, Faragher said, “Please go if you want to, Gifford. I must see if I can date this thing at all accurately.” He looked up at me with a smile. “Who knows, I may yet be able to tell you who the artist was.”
I left him, but with slight and amorphous misgivings. Whatever the truth about St Tosti, I was sure that the painting itself was unholy. The proud face of the ascetic, the lazy and arrogant way in which he held his wicked-looking scourge, the sinister, almost shapeless figure of his unknown companion ... The companion! I could not be certain but the suspicion would not leave my mind that that shadowy form had actually moved since we had last seen it.
The light had almost gone when Howard Faragher returned to the vicarage. He looked and sounded preoccupied, tapping his long forefinger against his lips and muttering to himself. In answer to my question, he said, “No further, I’m afraid. My original estimate of the date may even be too late; it might just be late eleventh century. Did you notice the folds of the saint’s robe, how carefully they were moulded? That’s a pretty sure sign of early work in this country. Later artists tended away from the continental ideal and concentrated much more on essential purity of outline. I doubt very much that we’ll ever find out who painted Tosti for us—he was simply far too early.”
Faragher said little more until after dinner, when he observed, “Tomorrow, I think I shall pay a visit to the Diocesan Offices in London—I don’t think there’s much point in go
ing to Rochester or St Alban’s—and see if their records have any more to offer. I’ll bring my camera back with me, and a magnesium flare, and we’ll try to get a decent photograph of our mysterious saint.”
I retired early that night, leaving Faragher to his musings. I was very tired, and yet I did not sleep well, for I had a most unsettling dream. It was not a nightmare, in the sense that it did not induce fear or horror, but it was instinct with a sense of isolation and menace. I stood in the churchyard of Welford St Paul, and about me was only a dark, vague greyness. Before me was the church, its windows illuminated fitfully by the feeble glow of candles. From the building came the sound of singing or chanting, though that too was faint, almost ethereal, and I cannot recall whether the words or the music were known to me. I walked unsteadily to the porch and unlocked the door. As I entered the building, it was suddenly darkened, though the singing continued, as faint and attenuated a sound as before. I did not realise the fact until I considered the dream in the morning, but the interior of this building was not that of Welford church. I had an impression of vast, almost infinite space; huge, dark and cold—made to seem more so, perhaps, by the singularly distant quality of the incorporeal singing. And as I progressed, there came upon me the feeling that I was not wanted here, nor ever would be, though for what reason I could not tell. Something—something huge, perhaps the building itself, was, with a disturbing subtlety, hostile to me. That is all I remember, but it is enough.
At breakfast, Faragher, though still seeming abstracted, was more open. He greeted me with the question, “Did you sleep well?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued, “I didn’t—I had a very disturbing dream.”
Putting aside my own vision, I said, “Tell me about it.”
“I was walking alone,” he said, “through some sort of forest or heathland. The sky was darkening, and I knew that I must reach my destination before the light was quite gone. No, I have no idea what that destination was, nor why I was in such haste. I walked faster, and as I did so, I became aware that something was stalking me. I could not see it, nor tell precisely where it was, but I could hear it moving, with a rather horrible ease, not very far from me.”
“It was something, then, and not someone?”
“I can’t be certain. That’s the devil of it! I could only sense the rustling and stepping of its long legs as it kept pace with me. I think that it was toying with me, as a cat does with a mouse. Yes, it had very long legs—but, Gifford, I couldn’t tell how many long legs!”
Before Faragher set out for Colchester and the London train, we went once more to look at the wall-painting. My friend said nothing—though he glanced at me rather uneasily—but again it seemed to me that Tosti’s shadowy companion had moved.
I was crossing the churchyard after Evensong when he arrived back from London. He smiled ruefully and waved to me, then began to unload two large packages from the dogcart—a square, bulky object which contained his camera and plates and a long bag such as golfers use. This held the tripod. I went over to help him carry them into the vicarage.
“We’ll have dinner first,” I said, “and then you can tell me what you’ve learned.”
“There’s little to tell,” he replied. “One thirteenth century document, written by a clerk of St Paul’s, which refers cryptically to a reliqua Sancti Tostigii, and an episcopal order from the reign of Edward VI that a monstrance be destroyed at Welford Church. That’s all. There was nothing to identify the relic, and only the absence of other probabilities leads me to suppose that the monstrance was connected with it. It must have contained a relic of some sort, and it might as well have been Tosti’s.”
After dinner, we took the photographic equipment into the darkened church. With the magnesium flare, of course, there was no need for adequate light in the building, and half a dozen candles sufficed while we erected the tripod and set the camera upon it. Only then did we look closely at the painting. Faragher’s next words made my heart sink: “When we first examined this, wasn’t Tosti’s companion partly hidden by his robe?”
“It was,” I replied, hesitantly. “But now there is a clear gap between the two. The shadow has definitely moved towards the edge of the picture.” Insanely, the thought occurred to me that it was trying to get out! But this quite impossible happening seemed only to have increased my friend’s interest. With calm determination, he took three photographs of the painting—I averted my gaze each time, but the sudden flash of light seemed to sear my eyes—and then he began to pack up his equipment, saying, “I’ll develop these in the morning, and we’ll see whether any secrets are revealed.”
I carried the tripod out of the church, while Faragher took the camera and its precious photographic plates. The moon had not yet risen, and a thick cloud obscured the stars. It seemed almost unnaturally dark in the churchyard. No lights could be seen in the vicarage, for my housekeeper had left long before. Fortunately the walk is short and straight, so that we had no difficulty in reaching the vicarage gate, but there, as chance would have it, I slipped upon the step and fell, giving my ankle a severe twist. I had dropped the heavy bag, but Faragher retrieved it unharmed. Then carrying both loads, he supported me while I hobbled, and we soon reached the door of the house.
I found my key and unlocked the door, so that he might go in and switch on the electric light before helping me. I felt, rather than saw, him enter and feel for the light-switch, which is just inside the door and to the left. There was a dull click, but no light. Faragher’s voice said, “I’m sorry about this; I think the bulb must have blown. Shall I try the light in the study?”
“If you please,” I replied. “The door is just a few feet along on the same side.”
A moment later I heard the study door open, and again a muffled click in the darkness. Then Faragher returned to me. “This is most annoying,” he said. “I think we shall have to make do with candles tonight, and tomorrow we’ll see about getting the electricity restored.”
I sighed, no doubt with some petulance. “Very well. The candles are kept in the kitchen, in a cupboard beneath the sink. That’s the second door on the right, remember—about twenty feet along.”
“All right,” he said, and I heard him feeling his way along the wall. The moments seemed to pass interminably, and when I heard his voice again it seemed curiously muffled. “Gifford! You did say it was the second door on the right, didn’t you? Only I must have gone twenty feet already, and I haven’t come across a door yet.”
Something like fear touched me then. It was true that I had not lived long at the vicarage, but long enough, surely, to know where all the rooms were. Then came the voice again, clearer this time, but fainter: “There seems to be a bend in the hallway here. I don’t remember that.” Neither did I; I knew that the hall ran quite straight from the front to the back of the house, where it gave onto the back garden. There was, I think, a note of hysteria in Faragher’s voice as he continued: “I’ll try down here—perhaps I’ll find the door this way!”
A moment later the faint voice said, “There’s no door here.” Then there was a dreadful long pause, and I heard my friend’s voice for the last time, seeming to reach me from an infinite distance. The words were simple and, in the circumstances, terrifying: “Dear God!” The sound seemed to ring, echoing, as though from an abyss; I heard it for long minutes after it had actually ceased.
Desperately, I stood upon the doorstep, not caring for the pain in my ankle, and fumbled hopelessly for the light-switch. I found it, pressed it—and the light went on, to reveal the hallway as I had always known it, running quite straight from the front to the back of the house. “Faragher!” I cried, and again: “Faragher!” Then the pain and the confusion overcame me. My ankle gave way, and I fell to the floor in a faint.
I awoke in the grey dawn, my body shivering with cold and my head feeling as if it would burst. Desperately, hopelessly, I hobbled and crawled throughout the house, seeking for some sign of my friend. I found nothing. The back door was l
ocked, and had not been unlocked. The windows, too, were all closed against the chill night, and while I could not swear that he had not returned to the front door and stepped over my unconscious body into the darkness, yet I knew that it was not so. The answer was not outside the house, nor was it within. I lay for fully two hours upon the sofa in my study, with both my head and my ankle throbbing, and at the end I could only think, as I had suspected at the beginning, that the answer lay in that damnable wall-painting, with the false saint and his infernal companion. It was an answer, I thought, which they would keep to themselves forever.
In that I was mistaken. With the aid of a strong stick, I staggered across to the church and let myself in, not knowing, but fearing, what I might find. In the sanctuary, the sheet of dark cloth still covered the painting, but before removing it I knelt at the altar and prayed for understanding of what I should do, and resolution to do it. Strengthened, but no less uneasy, I went to the north wall and firmly pulled down the cloth. The light was quite sufficient for me to see the painting clearly, and every detail of it is impressed upon my mind. For several minutes I gazed at it, a sickness growing within my spirit, and then I did what I knew I had to. Blessing the caution that had prevented me from letting the builders see the picture, I raised my stick and hammered at the wall, blow after blow, until every scrap of painted plaster was gone from it. Then I ground the lumps of plaster beneath my feet, so that soon there was nothing but powder upon the floor. It would not be hard to devise a story that would satisfy the builders. At last, sobbing and choking, I knelt before the altar again and prayed for the soul of Howard Faragher.
The wall-painting upon that last day was just as we had first seen it, save for one small detail. The gaunt figure of St Tosti still stood, clutching his whip and pointing derisively toward heaven, and the shadowy form of his companion again lurked by his left foot, partly hidden by his robe. But now the features of the shadow could be distinguished; they were faint, but quite clear, and they were the features of Howard Faragher.
The Year's Best Horror Stories 12 Page 8