Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

  Now her terror swelled up fully . . . What if Vin were not back, had not forgotten to bolt the door?

  She found herself circling round and round, like a clock-work figure, longing, of course, for the eyes of Argus. But she did not know, she never knew, of this reason-failing act. Inwardly she longed for belief in the efficacy of prayer, for the tangible objects by which Roman Catholics feel and express their faith. Lovely Latin words filled her mouth; but they were of no use to her, because her soul was empty. Darker thoughts succeeded. She laid her crooked fingers upon the child as if she would tear it from her womb and fling it into the abyss.

  A great bellow swept across the heavens . . . Like the tongues of brazen serpents the forked lighting licked the sky.

  Mechanically and without one positive thought she ran to her room and undressed. Aunt, she saw, was lightly asleep. That was good . . . And then she wondered if she had left a note in the empty bottles for the milkman. Since Aunt was going to-morrow, they’d need a pint less. A pint and a half, in fact; for Aunt had more than doubled their order this last two days . . .

  Barely had her body pressed the bed than she was out again.

  What if something were in the house. It must not creep upon her, not with closed doors, in the dark. Let her see it, know its presence, its approach. She could not lie; wander she must.

  The drawing-room . . . To pace like a cat . . . And listen . . . Nothing to hear? Yes. Steps. She began to laugh. The hysterical laughter of relief . . . And a sense of triumph surged up to her head. Her house was guarded. Not by one man; by many. Boldly she walked to the windows, opened them. Closed them. Yes. The patrols were on duty. Someone called out . . .

  “All okay, Mrs. Border, don’t worry!”

  She laughed in reply and closed the windows, drawing the heavy curtains, glad enough to shut out the boiling night, like the hot stink from a venomous animal’s mouth . . . Relief? None! Her heart quaked more. But what greater security could she ask? Strong, armed men on guard. Terry, bless him, had seen to that, she might be very sure.

  But there was no security. Something prescient was within her . . . The embryo? Was that it which knew? Knew she was not safe. That neither men nor guns, nor tactile protection of any conceivable sort could save her from . . . The thunder . . . the thunder . . . the thunder . . . and the lightning. Despite the thick curtains she could see it rip the sky. The night pressed upon her. Thick. Oppressive.

  . . . From somewhere in the house, a cry . . . Petrified, she stood waiting . . . Another, nearer . . . Ruth! Something had Ruth . . . suddenly the wind screamed loudly, pressing like violent hands upon the window—as if it were corporate and endeavouring to force entry. Again a cry, violently approaching. If it were . . . SOMETHING . . . what was she to see . . . What was she to do? Her duty. Help. She should be helping now. Running to the rescue. But her feet were glued to the spot they trod. Her congealed brain offered no stimulus to her paralyzed limbs.

  Now the heavens screamed aloud. The vast forces met. Their impact shook the earth, their javelins rent the night. And, as if imperial giants were shedding in relative copiousness their mighty ichor, the rain fell in one vast sheet, while the wind, not to be denied its part, whistled madly—as Ruth, bruised and virginally desperate, rushed in. The truth declared itself. Abruptly Mary knew why the child had clamoured for her protection at night; dreaded to sleep alone. This child! That beast! Little, roselike Ruth who had so endeared herself. She might have known! Vin. Drunk! Her mouth seemed dead. Words could not pass. Fitting that the storm should herald this!

  The foul enormity of it roused in her a spirit as warriorlike as that shaking heaven and earth.

  With a swift turn Vin locked the door. Mary needed no telling what this meant, and did not wait for assault from him, but under some frantic compulsion smashed a Dresden vase that had been in her family for years and with a jagged fragment attacked his smirking face. Taken by surprise he fell back, his face a crimson flood. It seemed the skies were harmonizing with Ruth’s screams, to which the harsh wind lent a crude accompaniment.

  As if roused by the raucous turmoil and a pagan love of conflict, Border swept the blood away, leapt with an untranslatable utterance towards Mary, and, to Ruth’s shrill screams, ripped her nightdress from neck to hem. His blows served only to rouse his victim’s fury, since, joining her cries to Ruth’s screams, she fought him blow for blow. While they battled, he yelled some senseless slogan at the top of his high tenor voice. And to all this saturnalia the storm, as if challenged by such unhuman outcry, came tearing over the earth like a horde of thundering Cossacks on blood-mad horses.

  With a wild push, Border staggered Mary, and she fell, giving him a chance to deal a coup de mort, for which purpose he raised above his head a huge brass jug. As it descended, she rolled and, before he could recover to attack again, secured her jagged fragment.

  Suddenly the loathsome indignity of the scene overwhelmed her. This man whom with a jagged piece of china she wished to mortally strike, whose face she had already so gashed that it streamed with blood, was the father of her foreshadowed child; and, perhaps in an instant of demented vision, she saw, not the face of him she hated, but the face of that child she would hate more. She laid her hands where its beginnings already thrived.

  The action stayed him.

  “This . . .” she whispered . . .

  “Our child!” he mocked.

  “Yours,” Mary snarled, “not mine . . .”

  Beyond the door, Aunt’s voice in undistinguishable commands; on its panels the battering of her urgent fists.

  “My son!” Vin howled.

  “If it is your son . .” Mary choked. Rage seemed to knot her vocal cords. Suddenly, driven beyond control by the orgy of tumult, Aunt’s madding blows, her inarticulate cries, Ruth’s screams, Vin’s hilarity, her own seething brain and the distraught sky, she let free all-and-every hideous impulse of her unconscious.

  She laughed. Terribly.

  And facing the night, as if its howling forces were the gods she worshiped, lifting her arms, as if offering the white body thus exposed to their frantic will, cried:

  “If it is his son, may it be cursed. May it be born a monster—as he is a monster.”

  To her frenzied mind it seemed the sun, perhaps the earth, had burst. The thunder. The scream of tempest. The lashing rain. All seemed to whirl in vengeful devastation upon her, scorning human interference, barriers, checks; hurling wide the flimsy french windows thus revealing Mary to the night—and what therein might lurk; offering the window as a frame to the thing that stood within it . . . Wolf’s face and body. Ape’s chest. Its eyes gleamed with feline fire; but were a man’s eyes.

  It advanced a human hand, touching her white abdomen—and laughed.

  With a crash, she fell.

  CHAPTER VII

  From what was almost a swoon Ruth roused to a realization that the two french windows were crashing in the gale, that someone violently hammered at the door and that Mary lay, her long, white body stark and glistening, in the rain that poured upon it. Of Vin there was no sign.

  “Open the door.”

  A lull rendered these words clear. The girl’s mind began to co-ordinate. In a bound she opened the door, admitting Aunt Charlotte, pale, trembling, dreadfully agitated, in obvious pain, wearing the pyjama jacket of one suit, the trousers of another.

  “The window, child, the window!”

  While Ruth now rushed to shut out the wind and rain, the elder ran to Mary’s side.

  “She’s ice cold. Run into the hall, girl. Get me a coat.”

  Ashen, Ruth recoiled. Her eyes skewing like a frightened horse.

  “Quick! Do you want your mistress to die?”

  With a gasp, from somewhere whence it had sunk, Ruth dragged up her courage. Yet nothing but her abounding love for Mary could have driven her into the empty hall alone. But she went, at a run, and seemed hardly gone before she was back with Mary’s coat.

  “Now help me.”r />
  Together they dragged off from the icy body what remnants of saturated silk still clung and wrapped her in the cloak.

  “We can’t carry her, ma’am.”

  “No. Run to the dining-room, get the brandy. Quick!”

  Again the tense struggle for courage; again success.

  The brandy did its work. Mary opened her eyes, struggled frantically up, stared round with the acme of horror, awe and a curious submission in her gaze.

  Aunt Charlotte, momentarily strong and forgetful of her own ills, supported her on the one side, Ruth on the other.

  Mary stared down at the girl’s starlike eyes, in which reverence, love and gratitude were all equally evident.

  “Did you see it?” she asked hoarsely.

  “What, ma’am?”

  For an instant Mary said nothing; then muttered:

  “Never mind.”

  “You must come to bed, Mary!” Aunt exclaimed, a little fretfully. After all she was old and ill. “You’re icy. You’ll catch a chill.”

  “I? I’m burning.” She placed a fiery hand on the old woman’s.

  “What happened?” Aunt Charlotte demanded.

  But, before Mary could reply, a sharp rapping. Muffled cries issued from the lips of both Mary and Ruth. They each, for different reasons, stared aghast at the window.

  “Let me in!”

  It was Terry . . . Terry! The patrol. What had become of them during that short, sharp battle? Impossible it had not been heard by one or more of that little force. Why had no one come? Both she and Ruth might be dead . . . Any Terry, he had been one of those on guard. A strange stupor held her still. It was Ruth who admitted Terry.

  “Hello, girl! What’s happened to your face?” Ruth, unaware of her own bruises, turned questioningly towards Mary, who with a shrug and an abrupt gesture indicated the condition of the room: tables overturned, débris littering the floor, rugs rolled up.

  “Vin?”

  Mary nodded. Then asked harshly:

  “Where were you?”

  “How long is it since this took place?”

  He in turn pointed at the floor.

  “Not more than fifteen to twenty minutes ago—since it started.”

  “We heard screams from the direction of Victoria Road . . . Dreadful cries. We ran that way in a body; the cries receded . . . When we located the cause, it was a cat; been run over and dreadfully crushed . . . This must have happened during our brief absence.”

  “You need not all have gone,” Aunt Charlotte said tartly.

  Terry nodded. “We acted on impulse. The cries were so human and so terrible. We thought it was the freak at work . . .”

  “The freak was here.”

  The other three turned in startled surprise towards Mary. Her eyes were glassy, as if she could still see the bewildering monster. Her long, expressive hands covered the shelter wherein lay, dumb, torpid, the child who alone might bear the penalty of this night’s work.

  “I cursed the child,” she muttered in hoarse, grating tones . . . Then she screamed and added piercingly: “I prayed it might be a monster . . . a monster—if it was his son; because he is a monster . . . And there it stood, in the window: THE MONSTER. It touched me here! The child is cursed . . . cursed!”

  At their feet she threw herself prone, frantic sobs, mounting both in volume and in key, shaking her from head to foot.

  Terry, stooping, encircled her head and shoulders in his arms, hiding her face against his wet raincoat, and whispered all the appropriate arguments. Always he had the power to soothe her. He soothed her even now. The sobs checked, stopped. And, urged by sudden thought, she raised herself, gazing round.

  “Where is he, Vin?”

  Where was he? No one had seen him go . . . But, for that matter, where was the freak? Why had it not destroyed the three women helplessly at his mercy?

  Mary rose to her feet, facing both Terry and Aunt Charlotte; her hands were clenched, her lips set, her eyes hard.

  “It’s my duty to charge Vin,” she said in low tones.

  The other two stared at her, then glanced at Ruth, who was sobbing softly.

  “He attacked . . .” Terry paused; but Mary answered.

  “He attacked Ruth.” She crossed to the girl, knelt and laid an arm round her shoulders. “When did this start?”

  “Ever since I came.”

  Mary whispered.

  “Did he succeed, dear?”

  “No, ma’am . . . I got away.”

  “But I told you to keep your door locked at night?”

  “I did. But to-night, when I went to lock it, the key was gone . . . I was afraid and I was putting my shoes on to come to you when he crept in—like a spirit.”

  “Why didn’t you complain before, Ruth?” Terry asked.

  “I was afraid . . . He said he’d kill me.”

  “Swine!” Terry muttered.

  Suddenly Aunt Charlotte groaned.

  “Oh, Aunt! You should be in bed! This will make you worse. Will you come now?”

  “Will you?” the old woman asked.

  “Yes. It’s cooler now.” Until this instant Mary had not noticed that the storm had passed. It rained, but with quiet persistence, and the wind had died as abruptly as it had arisen. “But what about Ruth? She had no key. She should come in with us.”

  “Couldn’t we take the bolt off your door and put it on here?” Terry asked.

  Mary glanced at Ruth. It was not bolts the girl wanted, but human companionship, the security of numbers. This orphan was in her charge, so far she had protected her badly.

  “We’ll move the bolt to-morrow, Terry. Ruth can manage on my settee to-night.”

  She saw a wave of glorious relief surge over the little maid’s face . . . Something would have to be done. Ruth must be moved from Vin’s immediate presence. But just now she felt too involved in her own cataclysmic problem to think clearly and benevolently.

  “Just as you think best, Mary,” Terry said quietly. He realized she had been through some mind-shattering experience. Something had somersaulted in her spiritually. Behind the forced calm of her eyes he could see profound horror lurking. Her whole face, her whole attitude, was one of unbearable strain. Both Mary and Ruth bore evidences of Vin’s savage treatment. He, too, saw clearly some other measures would have to be taken in regard to one who was without question an undisciplined drunkard. No use to rely upon force. It solved nothing. No use to accept even Vin’s most solemn assurances: they were as reliable as snow in heat. “I will stay in the house to-night,” he added. “The three of you be off to bed. You all look as fit as cripples.”

  None of the three expostulated. Each was too profoundly thankful for his personal guardianship. Despite his diffident manner, his genuine modesty, Terry had the power to promote confidence in his mental and physical efficiency; and Mary knew her friend, knew his prowess, had seen him fight again and again, knew that notwithstanding his slim appearance his was a frame of steel, his muscles were whipcord, his courage was superlative.

  Few more words passed between their silent acceptance of his offer and their departure. But, though none was more thankful than she to lay down her aching body in repose, Mary expected no sleep and did not until nearly dawn even close her eyes. She could still see that obscene appearance; her flesh still seemed to burn from its touch. Amazing that no scar remained as a brand to mark its contact. But, if her body had escaped all witness of its visit, had her soul, her mind? Had that silent embryo within her body? She was a doctor’s daughter. Useless to deceive herself . . . Till the days of labour she must ask: What do I carry within me, now?

  Her violent concentration upon the child, her sudden mental focus when she cursed it, with the almost miraculous appearance of an actual monster at that dramatic moment—how could what was so similar in nature to a sensitized and still unused film escape impression?

  Her dry lips opened and closed in violent prayer.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Only Terry was about wh
en Vin crept in and he stared at the being he meant to castigate in amazement. Stared dumbly . . . and did not even bar the prodigal’s progress to his room.

  Here was a being drained of all mental and much physical vitality; a creature, to Terry’s eyes, completely negative and for the time being, at least, no longer the Vin he knew, impish, pervert, psychically odd. Something satanic had gone, left behind, somewhere in the night—or perhaps was merely suspended. Yes, that was it. The man looked “still,” like a dynamo that isn’t working; like a man who has expended himself—fully, utterly, completely; who now merely moved by automatic impulse.

  Terry felt sure that, had he addressed Vin, no reply would have been vouchsafed; for this mentally evacuated creature would not have heard; or, if he had heard with his ears, he would not have heard with his mind.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  He sat down and thought deeply about Vin . . . There was something incomprehensible about his one-time friend. There was some ugly secret concerning him; a secret that neither science nor philosophy could demonstrate . . . A dumb something in himself—in every other normal man, too, he supposed—detected it, felt it, sensed it, crawled up from its fastness, raised its head into his conscious proper and strove after it—bellicosely; as the deep-down forest instincts of a cat are at times called into actual resurrection . . .

  . . . Well, there was nothing he could do that night except stick around . . . Huh! That seemed his job for life. Terry didn’t pretend to himself; Mary was his life. He earned his bread, made money in fact, was comparatively well-to-do; had a good mother and a jolly home; but he made no bones about the truth: nothing really mattered except Mary; nothing really made up for the loss of her. And she was married to this thing about whom his very unconscious had managed to think, against whom it had revolted.

  Still, there was service left. Non-promiscuous, Terry felt pleased at the idea of a quiet service devoted to the welfare of one whom, if he could not possess, he could help.

  Later he stole up to the spare room, where the bed, when the door was left open, commanded a view of Mary’s door. The lightest sleeper, a sound, barely audible, would rouse him; his scout training, his territorial training, his army training—each had emphasized this gift of easy awakening.