After we had been out there a little while she asked me if I thought it would be terribly unprofessional if she sunbathed; and I said ‘Of course not’; so she went in and changed into a frightfully fetching bathing dress—white satin with no back and darned little front—which she said she had bought at Antibes the summer before the war. She is a Junoesque wench, and it would take a man of my size to pick her up and spank her, but she has one hell of a good figure.
Before I had had a chance to take in this eyeful properly she started in to get my upper things off, and she stripped me to the waist, so that I could sunbathe too. Then she lay down on a rug near my chair and we spent the next two hours talking all sorts of nonsense.
But, of course, the thing that has really made such a difference to my outlook is my talk with Uncle Paul yesterday. I am certain that I scared the pants off him, and convinced him that he will practically be selling matches in the gutter unless he gets me out of this before I am a couple of days older.
Saturday, 6th June
Another lovely morning and more sunbathing with Sally on the terrace. After we had been chatting for a while I asked her if she really and truly believed that I was nuts, and would be prepared to take her oath to that effect in a court of law.
She looked up at me from where she was lying on her rug, and her nice freckled face was intensely serious as she replied:
‘I’d hate to do that, but I’m afraid I’d have to, Toby. Of course, you’re not out of your mind at all frequently, but very few mental people are all the time. I wouldn’t have believed that you were mental at all if I hadn’t seen you as you were last week, and known about your quite unreasoned hatred of Dr. Lisický.’
‘Surely,’ I said, controlling my voice as carefully as I could, ‘the riots you saw me create downstairs in the library, and after my escape, could easily be accounted for as outbursts of temper, due to the frustration felt by an invalid who believes that an undue restraint is being put upon him?’
She pulled hard on her cigarette. ‘But that’s just the trouble, Toby. You imagine that an undue restraint is being put upon you; but it isn’t really so.’
‘Are you absolutely convinced of that?’
‘Absolutely. There is nothing whatever about the arrangements here, or Dr. Lisický’s treatment of you, to suggest that you are being persecuted. Yet you think you are. So I’m afraid there is no escaping the fact that you are suffering from a form of persecution mania.’
‘All right, then,’ I said after a moment. ‘Naturally, I don’t agree about that; but we’ll let it pass. Do you think that my state would justify putting me in an asylum?’
‘Oh, please, let’s not talk about it,’ she begged. ‘Tell me about some of the exciting times you had when you were in the R.A.F.’
‘No, Sally. I want you to answer my question,’ I insisted.
‘Well then,’ she said in rather a small voice, ‘if you must know, I think it might. That is, if these bouts of yours continue. You see, nearly all lunacy is periodic, and yours seems to take the classic form, in which the subject is affected by the moon. Dr. Lisický says that you are perfectly normal during the rest of the month, but suffer from these outbreaks whenever the moon is near full. This last time you raved, used the most filthy language—which I am sure you would never do in front of me when you are your real self—wept and became violent.’
‘And that,’ I cut in, bitterly, ‘is just what mad people do, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘I’m afraid it is. So you see, if you go on getting these attacks every month, it may become necessary to put you under restraint while they last. But that would be only for a few days each time, of course. And please don’t worry yourself about it, because that sort of mental trouble is perfectly curable, and I’m sure that you’ll be quite all right again in a few months.’
‘Thanks, Sally,’ I said. ‘I’m very grateful to you for being honest with me. Now we’ll talk of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings—or of anything else that you like’; and we did for the rest of the morning.
All the same, I am damnably disturbed by what she said. She may admire Helmuth, but I am positive that she is not under his thumb to the extent of deliberately deceiving me on his instructions. She was speaking from her own convictions, and with considerable reluctance. I am certain of that, and it has given me furiously to think.
Of course she knows nothing of the huge financial interests that are involved in this question of my sanity or madness; and she knows nothing about the Horror—which is the prime cause of my outbursts. But did I really see that Shadow or did I only think I did, owing to my mind having become subject to the malefic influence of the moon?
I can’t help wishing now that I had never raised the matter with Sally and forced her to answer my questions.
Monday, 8th June
This journal has served an admirable purpose. Keeping it has helped to distract my thoughts from my anxieties for many hours during the past five weeks, but to continue it further is now pointless; so I am making this last entry simply to round it off neatly.
Some day, when I am quite well again—mentally I mean—I may read it through with interest and, I think, astonishment at the extraordinary thoughts that have recently agitated my poor mind; so it is worth the trouble of giving it a proper ending.
During the past forty-eight hours a lot has happened. Just before tea-time on Saturday Uncle Paul returned, as he had promised, and he brought Julia with him. They had tea with me; over it they told me that they had already had a talk with Helmuth, and that he had said that he would not raise the slightest objection to their taking me away with them. He was sorry that I wished to remove myself from his care, and considered that I should be very ill-advised to do so, but if I decided to take that course I was perfectly free to go when and where I liked.
Naturally, at the time, I thought he was putting on a hypocritical act, to cover as best he could his inability to defy the Trustees openly. But I was greatly relieved to think that the matter was already settled and that I had in the end achieved my victory with so little trouble.
After tea Uncle Paul left Julia and I together, and we settled down to a real heart-to-heart.
She was looking as lovely as ever, and it seems impossible to believe that she is thirty-three. She has hardly changed at all since she reached the height of her beauty, and I don’t think a stranger would take her for more than twenty-six, or -seven. When I was a little boy I never understood why the angels in the Scripture books that Nanny Trotter used to read me were invariably portrayed as fair; and after I first saw Julia I always used to think of her as my dark-angel.
Her big eyes and her hair—which she has always worn in her own style, smoothly curling to her shoulders—are as black as night, and her flawless skin has the matt whiteness of magnolia petals. She might well have sat as the model for a Madonna by one of the old masters, and perhaps one of her Colonna ancestresses did when the Italian school of painting was at its height. The only unsaintly thing about her is the exceptional fullness of her red lips. That makes her beauty rather startling, but even more subtly devastating, as it gives her a warm, human touch.
She began by reproaching me very gently for the way I had treated Uncle Paul. She said that I should have known that he would at once take all possible steps to safeguard my happiness, without my threatening to reduce him to penury. And that I must have known that would mean poverty for her too; so, after all we had been to one another, how could I even contemplate such a mean and ruthless act against two people who had given me their love?
I felt terribly guilty and embarrassed, but I tried to explain the dire necessity I had been under to get myself removed from Llanferdrack at all costs; and I began to tell her about the Horror.
After a bit she said: ‘Please, darling, don’t harass yourself further by reviving these horrid memories. I know all about it already. Helmuth gave me your letters—the ones he stopped because he didn’t want me to h
ave fits about you—before I came upstairs. I read them all, and I have them here.’ Upon which she produced them from her bag.
‘Then, if you know that part of the story,’ I said quickly, ‘you must understand how imperative I felt it to get away.’
She nodded, but a sad look came into her eyes. ‘I do understand, darling. You must have been through a terrible time. But the thing that worries us all so much is that there has never been any suggestion before that this place is haunted; and we are afraid that you would have seen—or thought you saw—this terrifying apparition, during the periods of the full moon, if you had been with us at Queensclere, or anywhere else.’
‘Then you don’t believe that I really saw anything at all?’ I challenged her.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘Helmuth does not believe in the Supernatural, but I do. I’ve never seen an apparition myself, but I am certain that the “burglar” that you saw when we were down at Kew was one. Perhaps you are more psychic than I am, and so more receptive to such influences.’
‘I’ve never regarded myself as a psychic type,’ I admitted. ‘But you remember that business of the Abbot’s grave at Weylands. After that horrible experience I described my sensations to you, and I had exactly the same feelings of cold, repulsion and stark terror down in the library here.’
‘That could have been caused by a recurrence in your memory of the Weylands affair.’ She took out a cigarette. I lit it for her, and she went on: ‘I’ll tell you what makes me doubt if you really did see anything. When Helmuth and your nurse were telling us all about it, before I came up, they described the night just a week ago when you started bawling barrack-room choruses at the top of your voice, and they ran into your room. You pointed wildly to the bottom of the blackout curtain and yelled: “Look! Look! Do you call that an hallucination?” But neither of them saw anything; and I should have thought one or other of them would have, had there been anything to see.’
‘Perhaps neither of them is psychic,’ I argued a little weakly.
‘That might be the explanation,’ she shrugged, ‘but I don’t think so. I have been at séances where trumpets and tambourines have floated in the air, and others where the medium has emitted large quantities of ectoplasm; and it is not just one or two people who see such manifestations, but the whole audience—and sometimes some of them are convinced sceptics before the séance starts.’
For quite a time we argued round the matter. She pointed out that although Great-aunt Sarah and Miss Nettelfold had lived here for a lifetime, no complaint had ever been made by them to the Trustees that Llanferdrack had a family horror which periodically gave trouble; and that although servants were usually the first to get the wind up about such things, none of the staff here had ever given notice on the grounds that the place had a bad atmosphere.
So, eventually, I was forced to agree that such evidence as we had to go on all pointed to the Shadow having no existence outside my imagination.
About seven o’clock Julia left me to go and change; but she said that she would have her dinner sent up on a tray with mine, so that we could dine together.
I think most beautiful women look their best in evening-dress, and although Julia is a sight to gladden the heart in anything, she is certainly of the type whose proper setting is satin and pearls rather than tweeds. She looked absolutely ravishing.
We had a couple of cocktails apiece, split a bottle of Burgundy and rounded things off with some Kümmel. By the time we had finished I was feeling so good that I was almost resigned to the thought that I had gone a bit mental—provided I could get away from Llanferdrack, and there was a decent hope of my being cured pretty quickly. But I was still of the opinion that Helmuth’s conduct needed a lot of explaining, and when Konrad had carried away our dinner trays I started in on the subject.
We went into the whole business piece by piece: the letters, the blackout curtains, my telephone extension; the refusal to leave me my lamp, or get me a torch, or move my radio; or let me have more than one sleeping tablet; Helmuth’s arbitrary treatment of Taffy, his stopping me from getting into the train and, finally, his virtually making me a prisoner in this old part of the Castle.
Looked at in retrospect, I must honestly confess that there was really very little to it all, if one once accepts the following premiss:
(1) That shortly after my arrival here Helmuth began to suspect that my injury and eight months in hospital had, to some degree, affected the balance of my mind.
(2) That he at once began to keep me under observation and opened my mail as part of the process.
(3) That, on finding his fears confirmed, he considered it his duty to my relations to save them from worry, and his duty to myself to take all possible steps to prevent the knowledge leaking out and prejudicing my future.
(4) That he hoped the rest and a regular routine would put me right, and decided that nothing must be done which would encourage me to believe that I was suffering from anything worse than nightmares.
The above is the gist of how he had put it to Julia, and as she passed it on to me. After thrashing the matter out we fell silent for a bit; then she suddenly said:
‘Besides, what possible motive could he have for adopting such an extraordinary attitude towards you? I mean, trying to make things worse for you instead of better, as you still seem to half-suspect?’
I was surprised that Uncle Paul had said nothing to her about my theory that there was a conspiracy to drive me insane; but perhaps he had thought it too far-fetched to mention. I told her my ideas on that and her eyes widened in amazement as she listened.
‘But Toby!’ she exclaimed at last. ‘How could you think such base thoughts of a man who has given some of the best years of his life to developing your mind and character? This is the first time that I have ever been ashamed of you.’
‘Oh, come!’ I protested a bit uncomfortably. ‘After all, he was damn’ well paid for what he did.’
She shook her head. ‘One can’t pay for care and affection with money, darling. Perhaps, though, I am being a little hard on you. To talk to, you are so perfectly normal that I forget about your not being quite well in your mind. It is only when you produce ideas like that of turning Paul and myself out into the street, or this one that Helmuth wants to lock you up and rob you, that I suddenly realise how right he is about your no longer being your real self.’
‘All the same,’ I argued, ‘you must admit that the Trustees would stand to gain if a Board of Lunacy ruled that I was unfitted to inherit.’
‘Not sufficiently to provide a motive for them to enter into a criminal conspiracy,’ she countered. ‘You seem to forget that most of them are immensely rich already. Paul, of course, is an exception, but he knows as well as I do that if you come into your money you will make a most generous provision for him; and Smith and Roberts don’t stand to lose anything, because they are professional advisers and would go on drawing their fees just the same, whatever happens.’
‘That still leaves Iswick and Helmuth.’
She laughed. ‘Really, Toby darling, you’re being too silly. We may all look on Harry Iswick as an awful little bounder, but he is as clever as a cart-load of monkeys. In the past ten years he has made a fortune on his own account, and his interest in the Jugg combine is only a side-line with him now. I know that for a fact. As for Helmuth, surely you see that he has much more to lose than to gain from your being put in a home. Big business isn’t really his line of country, so it is unlikely that he would be able to improve his position much by continuing as a Trustee. Whereas, with you in possession of your millions, he would have every right to expect you to find a suitable use for his abilities, at a handsome remuneration, in recognition of all he has done for you in the past. I give you my word, sweet, that this conspiracy idea is absolutely fantastic.’
There seemed no answer to her arguments, and reviewing them again, now that I no longer have her glowing presence before me, I still don’t think ther
e is. But accepting them brought me face to face with the question of Helmuth, and I asked her what she thought I ought to do about him.
‘Sleep on it, darling,’ she advised me, ‘and see how you feel about it in the morning. If you find that you really cannot rid yourself of this awful prejudice that you have built up in your mind against him, I think it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie. Later, perhaps, you will feel differently; then you can let him know how sorry you are that you suspected him so unjustly. But he is terribly fond of you, and must be feeling very hurt at the moment.
‘So if all I have said has convinced you that you are in the wrong, the generous thing would be for you to let me bring him up to you tomorrow. You needn’t eat humble pie, or be embarrassed about it; but must say that you realise now that you have not been quite yourself lately, and have given him a lot of unnecessary trouble. That’s quite enough. He’ll understand; and I am sure it would please him a lot to know that you bear him no ill-will before you leave here.’
It was late when she left me, but I lay awake thinking about it a long time after she had gone. I came to the conclusion that in many respects Helmuth had shown very poor psychology in his treatment of me, and that the arbitrary way in which he had handled matters was enough to make anyone who was slightly mental develop a persecution complex, but that my conspiracy idea was the wildest nonsense, and that there was not one atom of proof to show that he had not acted throughout in what he believed to be my best interests.
In consequence, on Sunday morning I told Julia that I would like to see Helmuth, and later we had a grand reconciliation on my sunny terrace.
For such entertaining as my grandfather had to do, he bought anything that was going cheap in the City, in big parcels of forty or fifty cases at a time; so the cellar he left was not distinguished for either its variety or quality. But in the past thirteen years Uncle Paul has spared no pains to make up for those deficiencies, and soon after the war broke out he had a large part of the Queensclere and London cellars moved down here as a precaution against their being blitzed. So for us to celebrate he was able to order up a magnum of Krug, Private Cuvée 1926, and I don’t think I have ever tasted better champagne in my life.
The Haunting of Toby Jugg Page 25