Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

  “Excellent,” Terry agreed. “It’ll do the girl a world of good and is a load off your mind.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  For both Mary’s peace of mind and Terry’s it was, perhaps, fortunate that on the night of Faith’s departure they each slept peacefully and in ignorance, throughout that sleep, of Vin’s behaviour; otherwise their growing suspicion of his mental instability might have received confirmation.

  For, while they slept at peace in their beds, he lay nude on his back in Mary’s unused cellar; unused because so damp and inclined to smell.

  The only light—noisome, phosphorized fungi and gleams from the eyes of awe-filled rats, which, after The Black Commune had begun, crept from this hole, from that, reported prey and scurried in light-footed, light-hearted scampers to attack and, with luck, feed. Yet not a rat reached destination. Instead, one an all slunk slowly back to the shelter of their holes, where they lurked—as might untouchable pilgrims shrink back from a priest of high caste. Their eyes gleamed like tiny, fierce, warmthless jewels.

  Thus began The Black Commune.

  Stretched on his back and his mind full of an inverted faith, Vincent Border, whether madman or fanatic, surrendered his being to the unimaginable, inviting not possession, but repossession; seeking once more power long since abandoned. Opening his mind so that the forbidden might enter . . . A spine-chilling ritual. A Hogarthian orgy . . .

  The rats grew uneasy and squealed . . . Vague light shed a ghostly radiance. It came—from Border’s eyes? Or from a huge fat rat that now perched upon his brow? . . .

  When the first faltering approach of light weakly threatened the profound dark, Vin rose, and staggered silently up the cellar steps.

  In his own room he stole, wearing an odd, faunish smile, to his dressing-table and stared into the mirror. Either self-hypnotism can be profoundly potent, or in every truth he could not see his image in the glass.

  CHAPTER II

  Mr. Govina was due to arrive at eleven a.m. on the morning after Faith’s departure; but Terry, all expectant, returned to lunch and yet he had not come.

  “P’raps he’s changed his mind,” Mary said, moodily.

  “Whether he has or not, the deposit is not returnable,” Terry replied grimly.

  “This is the only real bit of good fortune that’s come to me for years, Terry . . . and of course it must go wrong.”

  Terry glanced at her surprised; it was unlike Mary to be fretful . . . He began, as upon many a previous occasion, casting about in his mind to discover some undetectable fashion of helping her financially. He’d simply have to and risk discovery, with its subsequent anger. It was impossible to let her be plagued by these shifts and debts and lackings . . . P’raps in a way it might be a good thing if this visit fell through; then he’d have an excuse for putting his foot down. It was because of these thoughts that he left again for his office in a more than usually buoyant mood—buoyant even after several vain attempts to cheer up Mary.

  On her part she gave way to despondency and was deep in arithmetic, with her mind empty of all thought of her visitor—when he came.

  “He’s come, M’m,” Anne announced in a hoarse whisper.

  Mary shrugged nonchalantly, as if his coming or his not coming were of no consequence; but her heart secretly gave a bound of joy.

  “I thought I heard the bell,” she said with a further assumption of indifference.

  But Anne grinned. She knew Mary; and she knew human nature.

  “I’ve put him in the drawing-room. Oh, M’m, he is queer.”

  Anne, usually the most sedate of domestic aids, giggled.

  “I’d better go along,” Mary said in sudden and unexpected nervousness. “Oh dear!” she sighed as she somewhat slowly descended to her unfamiliar interview, “after all Terry was right; it’s something to have one’s home to one’s self.”

  She felt an absurd inclination to knock at her own drawing-room door; would have given much could she have run away. All this, she supposed, was due to Josh Wray’s explanations of Mr. Govina’s accident and its unhappy consequences.

  She opened the door.

  An odd figure awaited her. Tall. Drooping. Gaunt—in so far as one could judge; for, despite the time of year, the visitor was swathed in wrappings. Immediately Mary had a strong revulsion from her guest, who stood strangely still, strangely impersonal. Round his mouth was woven a muffler of soft, fine material. His head was bare, revealing a tough-looking black thatch, which was almost too coarse for human hair and resembled nothing so much as what is known in theatrical circles as a scratch wig. Perhaps, Mary thought, it is a wig. He may have lost his hair. With his mouth definitely concealed and his eyes masked by special dark glasses, which had side-flaps to prevent all hurtful rays reaching his eyes, the stranger’s face reminded Mary of a carving rather than of a human head. One hand, she observed was gloved, the other not. There seemed, for an instant, something baleful in his stillness. It was impossible to determine the newcomer’s age.

  Suddenly a strange thought disturbed Mary’s serenity . . . There was something familiar, something amazingly elusive, yet powerfully familiar in his attitude. A vague suggestion of grace? A singularity of pose? A matter of line? She could not determine . . . And, of course, the idea was absurd.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon, madame.”

  His voice sounded far away, due, naturally, to the muffling of his mouth. Possibly due also to his injuries. Yet she heard him distinctly, which seemed to Mary strange, considering how wrapped about his mouth was. Though noticing the continental Madame, she was yet surprised at the perfection of his English. His voice, perhaps, was guttural; but then his nationality doubtless accounted for that. She disliked his voice, not because of its throaty notes, but because of its harsh quality. It was an inimical voice.

  “I hope you . . .”

  Mary had hardly opened her mouth, when he stopped her.

  “I beg you not to stand on ceremony with me, Madame, nor to talk more than is actually necessary to learn my requirements. This is not rudeness. It makes me unhappy to talk. Kindly instruct your servants so. I will go to my rooms, if you please. I eat hardly anything and will be no trouble. Is there a means of summoning attention in my rooms?”

  “Oh, yes, an electric push-bell.”

  “Well, may it be understood that I am not disturbed unless I ring?”

  “Certainly. You may be sure we shall be as discreet and tactful as you wish.”

  Her own voice, Mary thought, sounded a little dry. But she definitely did not like this odd creature and resented his high-handed commands. Nevertheless, he was, she felt sure, best obeyed and obeyed implicitly. A nasty person to cross.

  “If you will come with me, please.”

  “If he had not come so fully vouched for, I’d be uneasy at having this man in my house,” she thought, as she led the way. “Heaven knows why, but I feel positively uneasy at his gliding behind me . . . As if . . . as if . . . Oh, I don’t know what. Mary Border, you’re a fool!”

  In his room she turned and noticed his soft, swift approach and disliked his curious, slouching, loping movements.

  “Like the movements of something wild,” she half-consciously decided. “Do you require any food now, Mr. Govina?”

  In spite of her better judgment she could not prevent her voice from sounding curt.

  “Not now, I thank you. These rooms are very nice. I shall be . . . quite at home; that I think is the idiom. I will ring if I need attention.”

  It was nothing more nor less than a dismissal.

  “Exactly as if I were a servant!” she told herself as she hurried from the room. And then added irrationally: “I’m glad Faith’s away.”

  Anyhow he was here. The money was secure. And since the terms were exceptionally generous that was something to be thankful for, something that made a little inconvenience and brusque manners worth enduring.

  Suddenly she wondered about his luggage. It was still
down in the hall. She should have asked at the recent interview . . . Better go back, since obviously such heavy stuff couldn’t stay where it was. For an instant, so great was her reluctance, Mary played with the idea of sending Anne, instead of going herself; but cowardly shirking of obvious duties was repugnant to her forthright nature.

  Back she went.

  She knocked sharply. No immediate answer came and she was about to rap a second time when the door flew open. Mr. Govina had discarded his voluminous wraps and presented himself as a study in black, made the more marked on account of the tiny portion of putty-hued face that was visible, together with his one uncovered hand. From halfway down his nose a black apron depended, so that the lower half of his face could not be seen. A sinister, forbidding figure, well calculated to fill ordinary people with vague apprehensions. Mary, suddenly confronted with him now, fully realized his craving for as much privacy as was humanly possible and his irascibility. He must have been appallingly burnt. However, the most uncomfortable impression arose from the blanking out of his eyes. It was rather dreadful, Mary thought, to have someone in your house whose face, good or evil, you had never seen.

  “It’s just as if he’s invisible,” she told herself. “Or negative.”

  There was a stillness about him, an immovability when he was not speaking or engaged in necessary action, that affected Mary profoundly . . . And yet, was there not in this very stillness, in its very excessiveness, a suggestion of controlled violence? His voice, his lines, even, somehow, his horrid, tow-like hair—each seemed to her unaccountably excited imagination prophetic of dammed-down power, terrible physical power obeying the will of still greater mental power.

  She explained about the luggage and he said:

  “Let it be put here, in the sitting-room. I will then arrange it myself.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Terry returned that night somewhat late, for his firm had been engaged to prepare evidence of an extensive and important nature for a local commission of a public character. Nevertheless, he was in a happy mood, for his determination of an earlier hour still held good: Mary should accept his help. He was also keen for a report upon the new arrival, and, instead of going up to his room immediately, he decided to see Mary first and hear her opinion.

  “Oh, hello, Terry! He’s come!”

  “Good egg! Well?”

  “I’m sorry, now, he has come.”

  This was what Terry had hoped to hear. Providing this experiment turned out unpleasant and consequently a failure, his approaching task would be easier.

  “What’s the matter, then?”

  “He’s somehow frightening, Terry . . . And brusque to the point of rudeness.” She explained at some length what had taken place between the visitor and her, then added: “And since, it’s struck me, Terry, it’s a bit risky having a peculiar creature like that in the house: all muffled up. It’s like living with a masked man on the premises. You can’t possibly find one point by which, at any future time, you could identify him.”

  “H’m! That’s a shrewd thought, Mary.”

  “He has one glove on continually, I imagine. The right glove. So you see he could commit all kinds of criminal acts without incriminating himself.”

  “Yes, there’s quite a nasty sound to all that. However, on the other hand, Josh Wray would not have undertaken the arrangement had he not been fully acquainted with the fellow’s bona fides . . . Should I see him and have a talk?”

  “Oh, no! He’d never stand for that. I feel sure he’d be tremendously angry and would go.”

  “Still . . . I’ll tell you what, Mary, after dinner I’ll slip back to the office and ring up Josh . . .”

  “Oh, not to-night; the morning . . .”

  “Well, I’ve got to go out, in any case. It’s the guild night . . .”

  “Oh, lord yes! What are you going to ask Mr. Wray?”

  “Exactly what grounds he has for accepting this merchant as okay.”

  “Well, I’d be really glad if you would.”

  “On the other hand, if you feel uneasy, why not chuck him out to-morrow? We can hand back the deposit.”

  “It wouldn’t be right to do that because of mere prejudice, which, I suppose, is due to his misfortune. No doubt, if we could see him as nature originally made him, we’d find him charming. But I’d like you to satisfy yourself that your friend had solid grounds for his recommendation.”

  “Very well, old lady. But if it’s necessary—out he goes.”

  “Will you be able to get him so late?”

  “Who, Wray? Oh yes. They’re posh folks the Wrays; never dine before eight-thirty . . . I’ll get through to him all right.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Terry was now determined at all cost to catch Josh on the phone, even if he had to keep on till every one else had gone to bed. For some reason Mary’s rather vague uneasiness had awakened doubts in his own mind. After all, one should be careful before bringing complete strangers into one’s home; and Mary’s description of Mr. Govina certainly made the visitor sound a dubious proposition.

  If Josh could not completely satisfy him, he’d give up the guild dinner and return to look after Mary. Vin was seldom in before midnight; often not then. He suspected at times that Vin was away all night. Still, that was nobody’s business; not even Mary’s in the circumstances.

  However, rather to his relief, Josh Wray was able to satisfy him fully, was prepared to vouch for Mr. Govina in every way.

  “His credentials are first class, old man. I had a letter from Zimmern, for one thing.”

  “Oh, well, that should be enough in itself . . .”

  “But I even had references from two of our own consuls and Lord Portage. I really think you have no cause for concern.”

  “Right ho! You quite understand . . .”

  “Oh, rather. As you say he’s got it all cut and dried for a first-class, unsolvable murder. Only, he’s merely unfortunate, not criminal.”

  Terry went to his banquet with a lighter heart. Indeed, not for years had he felt so gay. This was partly on account of his determination to enter more fully into Mary’s life and partly because he knew that a spark, smouldering beneath her immediate cognizance, had gained in strength, might even become a flame. Long years ago he had hoped for this, deploring the waste of two human lives; but had learned with some bitterness that high regard, though it may in time produce the purest, the most covetable love, does not induce women to burn their boats. But now, as he walked briskly through a dark yet pleasant night, he felt compelled to admit that seen from this long, clear perspective he would not change the love that he thought had developed in Mary’s heart for that fiercer love he had one desired. Rewards delayed are often the greater, he told himself. A little revolution had begun inside him. Granted that he could be sure of his facts—and what lover isn’t?—he would, even at this belated period, fight for a little autumnal romance. Reconstitute this home, with himself as its directive head. Never had he known a stronger case for divorce than this . . . Vin could be bought, no doubt, even if he was well-satisfied with his present mode of life. But what was that mode of life? What now was the source of Border’s joy—if he had any?

  One light burned—Don’s room—as he sauntered homeward, seeing both his and Mary’s properties softly suggested by night’s vague refraction. If he’d any sense, he’d put that old dump of his up to auction. Been empty far too long; far too long for such old property. Bad enough when new property stands empty for any considerable period, but old, really old, buildings deteriorate seriously when unoccupied. Damn place had only been let that once! Never likely to be let again. Yes. He’d sell, at any price . . . But—there was sentiment, still profoundly strong in the breast of man, as it would always be. Few men, few Englishmen, at any rate, care, Terry thought, to put up their old homes, homes that have housed their blood for generations, for sale by auction. And that even when the home is a mere house, not some palatial pile. And at least they’d always had the benefit of i
ts garden. Since it adjoined Mary’s, they’d had a truly tremendous garden to ramble in. The gardens to both houses were separately very large, but considered as one were uncommon both in size and picturesque effects. He ought really to inspect the place more often. He’d have a trot over it this week-end . . . As for selling, well . . . no. He’d put the place in complete repair and let it absurdly cheap, if he could get really nice people for neighbours. One day it might make a nice wedding-present for Faith—or, of course, Don. But Terry, strangely enough, never took Don’s future into his mental account; nor had he that paternal affection for Don that he had for Faith. Don was so utterly capable of carving his own way, so fenced round with odd bigotries, so insular. He hardly seemed to belong. While Faith was nothing if not dependent.

  He let himself in, pausing on the mat to listen, a thing he’d never done before. Everything seemed peaceful. But so it should be at this hour of night. What had he expected?

  He began, soundlessly, to mount the thickly carpeted stairs. His room, by his own choice, was on the same floor as Mary’s and possessed a lovely view of the two gardens and of distant hills, with fields adding to their variety of colour.

  On the first floor were the rooms Mary’s bizarre guest now occupied and these were faced by two rooms which Vin had claimed as his own. Facing the head of the staircase was an attractive and fairly large room: Don’s bedroom-den. And, as he softly mounted, Terry became aware that there peeped out from Don’s door a still, watching face. It was Don himself. Without speaking the young man beckoned Terry to come in. Wondering and somewhat alarmed, the latter obeyed, waiting in perturbation while Don carefully closed the door. What did this mean? Sensationalism was the last thing he expected from solid, silent, wise, materialistic Don. But he waited.