A slightly surprised Sims admitted her to the flat, but its occupant was still out. Drawing off her heavy driving gloves, the girl dropped wearily into a chair.
‘Give me a whisky-and-soda, Sims, for goodness sake! I’ll wait; you don’t suppose he’ll be long, do you?’
Sims’ long, lean face was wooden, expressionless, as he poured out the required drink.
‘Couldn’t say, me lady. Very uncertain these days, Mr Peter is, to be sure—very uncertain. Was you dinin’ with him tonight, me lady? Mr Peter doesn’t tell me as he used, where he’s going.’
‘Yes, we were dining out somewhere, and dancing, just to try and cheer him up; get him out of himself a bit.’ She drank a gulp of the stinging spirits thankfully. ‘But I don’t feel like it, after all; think we’ll go and have a grill somewhere, and not bother to change.’
‘Right, me lady. Then I’ll put out a dark suit for Mr Peter.’
The man moved to the door, and paused. At the movement Isabel glanced after him, and their eyes met in a sudden dramatic glance of understanding. The girl spoke quickly, fearfully:
‘Sims! You—know?’
The valet moved his feet uncomfortably, and twisted the door-handle. His voice, as he answered, dropped to a nervous whisper.
‘I don’t know, me lady . . . but I seen what Mr Peter says he seen! I seen the Woman!’
It seemed to Isabel afterwards, looking back, that at that moment there grew a faint Something in the room, a feeling as if a Presence, passing, halted and turned to listen. Cool, alert . . . a draught eddied about the room, soft as a breath, then dropped to a hush as if the very air held still, listening; but at the moment she was too agitated to notice. Gripping the chair-arm with her slim, nervous hands, she stared at the valet.
‘Seen Her!’ Her voice sank to a whisper too, and it seemed the Silence in the room grew deeper and more dire. ‘‘When? How often? Tell me!’
‘Not at first. . . . I useter think Mr Peter’d just had one or two extra when he talked about her at first. But then, I wasn’t sure! I tried to kid myself it was just fancy-like, but it wasn’t. . . . I see her the first time a day or so after Mr Peter brought home the Crystal Box there. I got a feeling She’s something to do with that damn thing. I don’t like it. First she was just a whisper in the dark, an odd scent like a sort of perfume, that came and went quick as a breath . . . then a shadow that wasn’t just like other shadows, that used to stand watching Mr Peter while he slept, and slip away behind the curtain or the screen when I stared ’ard. There wan’t nothing there, ever, when I stared really ’ard, but always just behind your eye, if you get me, my lady—a blink, and she wasn’t there! Only a shadow—an ordinary shadow. But before the blink . . . she ’ad been there, I’d take my dying oath!’
The fervour and conviction of the man’s tone was unmistakable. Isabel shuddered, despite her firm-held courage, as he went on.
‘Now . . . now she’s clearer. It’s as if she was more sure-like and sometimes shows herself to me by way of saying “yah-boo! I got him, for all you, and I don’t care!” I seen her twice on the stairs, slippin’ by; I seen her walkin’ by Mr Peter in the street, standing like a shadow at his elbow while he’s readin’ . . . just a shadow, in an old fashioned sorter yellow gown, with dark ’air piled up high. . . . But my God, me lady, ’er eyes that watch and watch ’im! I pray the Lord that she don’t never turn and look at me with them eyes. . . .’
Surely the room was growing colder and colder? With a huge effort Isabel pulled herself together, and smiled defiantly, courageously, into the drawn face of the valet.
‘I see. I see! Well, we have to fight, Sims—what, I don’t know, but something strange and dreadful. . . . We’ve got to fight it, all of us. . . .’
Sims stood against the half-open door of the kitchen. As he turned to go he spoke, lugubriously but certainly.
‘Fight? You can take it from me, me lady, Mr Peter’s got no more fight left in ’im, and I can’t do nothing. I’m—outside. It’s you that’s the one thing She can’t kill—yet! Mr Peter’s just hanging on to you. If she can once get past you, she’ll get ’im, for good and all. . . .’
The door closed behind him, and the silence descended upon the little flat. Lying back in the deep chair beside the fire, the girl linked her slender hands together behind her head, the left starred with the winking emerald glory of her engagement ring. Thoughtfully she twisted it round and round; how happy they had been choosing it, she and Peter, in that dirty little antique shop he loved so! It fitted very loosely, though; her finger must have got thinner. She must have it made smaller. Idly she drew it off, her attention momentarily distracted from the sinister conversation with Sims, and of a sudden dropped it sharply upon the glowing hearth. Springing to her feet, she fished it out of the embers with the poker, just in time—only to drop it again; and as she dived for it under the table, knocked it sideways most clumsily most clumsily again into the fire!
A faint impression was growing, an impression horrible but persistent, that there was something more than mere accident in the endeavour to make her lose or spoil her ring. As, for the third time, she rescued the jewel from the fire—and again dropping it, trod upon it as she stepped forward to pick it up from the carpet—the impression became conviction, and albeit her cheeks were hot with mingled defiance and terror, the girl spoke aloud to the unseen Presence that watched her.
‘I know, now. You’ve been trying all along to break things between Peter and me! I know it’s you that’s managed to cloud his mind and his memories so that he forgets things—muddles, puts everybody against him—so that you can isolate him, get him all to yourself! I know, and I love him still, and I’m going to stick to him. If he goes absolutely mad I shall stick and stick. . . . Now, what are you going to do?’
Clutching the battered scrap of metal that had been her cherished ring, the girl backed against the fire and waited breathlessly—oddly convinced, despite the emptiness of the quiet firelit room, that she spoke to One who not only heard, but would answer—though not in words. The consciousness of the Presence beat and pulsated all about her, cold, imperious, evil—so evil that the girl shuddered and grew sick with fear as she waited, peering into the floating, drifting shadows that filled the corners and twined about the tall screen, the high-backed Jacobean chairs, the deep settee. Straightening herself resolutely, she waited, then she spoke again.
‘I’ll tell you—I believe Sims is right. I believe you came into this place with the Crystal Box! Anyhow, I’m going to smash it, and see what happens then. It’s my last hope—and I don’t know what will happen, but I’m going to do it!’
Although her words were brave, the challenge was spoken in little more than a broken whisper, for in truth the Power was growing so swiftly, so terribly now in the shadow-filled room, that for all her courage the girl was shaking in every limb, her brow pearled with sweat under the waves of shining fair hair, her hands cold and clammy with terror. In the firelight the Crystal Box glimmered demurely in its accustomed place, the ruddy light reflected in its shining sides. . . . Clenching her hands, Isabel stepped forward to pick it up, but reeled back, gasping and startled—for the Woman was there!
Behind the Box she grew swiftly into shape, one long white hand covering the shining thing as though to defend it—though the shapes of the furniture, the outline of the window and the velvet folds of the curtains were distinct to be seen through her, still she was there, menacing, grim . . . and horribly real, for all her shadowiness! Tall and slender and darkly beautiful, in a maize-yellow satin gown, with her hair piled high in a fantastic tower of black silken curls . . . half-numbed with the fascination of sheer terror, the girl noted it.
That was the ‘hood’ so many people had seen, that she herself had seen in shadowy profile against the blind that evening so long ago. . . . Even as she stared, the Shadow seemed to melt, to waver. And surely the room was swiftly growing dark? The outline of the Woman was growing fainter, her yellow gown
blurring into the shadows that poured up now, it seemed, from every side like streaming veils of blackness! Only the glow of two terrible eyes shone out from beneath the shadow of that cloud of dusky hair?. Like lambent stars of evil they shone, relentless, unwinking, holding one’s own gaze with a fierce, dominant intensity that seemed to sear one’s very soul within one. . . . Oh, poor Peter, what he had suffered—how he must have struggled, to hold out for so long against this terrible Power, this Will that forced one’s own down, however hard one fought!
Now the shadows poured up faster and faster. Most curiously like long ribbons of hair they seemed—dark streaming hair, long curling strands that wound and twisted about one’s fingers like little Abbie Whitaker’s long brown curls. Faster and faster the shadows drove, weaving and gliding about the room swiftly, uncannily, like dark hair seen through water! like seaweed, strangling, serpentlike. . . . Oh, God, she was sinking, sinking into darkness! Everything was dim and clouded, and the only thing remaining, two dreadful merciless eyes, set in a mist of streaming silken hair. . . . Peter! Peter! Help!
* * * * *
Indeed, it was fortunate for Lady Isabel Dillingham that Peter, wearily dragging himself up the last flight of stairs, heard the wild cry from within, then thrusting his key into the lock, tumbled distracted into the sitting-room. At the same moment an affrighted Sims rushed from the kitchen, and between them they raised the prone figure of the girl, from where she lay flat on the hearth, before the dancing fire. She had fallen face forward, and her congested face and stifled shriek told their own story. . . . She was half-strangled, and more than half; but after a strong dram of brandy, she came more or less to herself, and, curled thankfully within the circle of Peter Wilbrough’s arm, gasped out her incredible tale. Listening, the young man nodded soberly.
‘I know—I’ve seen her—I know, my darling!’ Reverently he kissed her hand. ‘But you’ve won, sweet—how I know, I can’t tell—but you have, I knew the minute I heard you scream! All my manhood, my energy, my own self—everything She sapped from me—came back with a rush, and I know now, from the “feel” of things in the flat, that it’s all over. But how . . .?’
He turned as Sims spoke at his elbow, holding out something in one lean palm. Holding it gingerly, cautiously, as one holds a wasp or poisonous snake that even in death may be dangerous.
‘Here, sir, I found it on the floor. Just fallen orf the table, when me lady fell down. . . .’
It was the Crystal Box! Or rather, what remained of it—for the fall to the tiled hearth had broken and ruined it for ever, and only a few shining shards and fragments, a wisp of embroidered satin and what looked like a scrap of paper, remained. Sims laid the pieces thankfully on the divan and retired, as across them the two lovers looked soberly at each other.
‘It’s done—I broke her . . . “focus”, or whatever they call it!’ whispered Isabel fearfully. ‘I felt—suddenly, today, I knew—that that, in some way, brought her at first, and if it was broken, her power would be broken too, and she would go away. . . .’
But Peter was already examining the scraps with sudden alert interest.
‘Look. My God, I think we’ve got the clue to the whole thing!’ He held out a folded scrap of paper, evidently inserted flat between the two slips of crystal that, laid together, had formed the lid—hidden by the piece of embroidered satin, its presence had been unsuspected, but as the young man spelt out the old crabbed writing, the mystery of the Crystal Box and its dreadful Owner were made clear at last, and the haunting of Peter Wilbrough laid finally and completely to rest.
Within this Boxe I have hid, knoweing More than my Nieghboures of hidden Things, a Secret Waye back from the Dethe to wych I goe. Many I won to mee by the darke gloary of my Haire, and to my maister’s service, for wych hee has enspelled my Haire so that it shall still serve mee, for all Dethe and His minions!
The paper, yellow and thin with age, was signed boldly: Eliz. Denning.
Awed into silence, the two turned over the remaining fragments, and a cry from Isabel brought her lover’s head round startled.
‘Peter, here she is—on the back of the other piece of the lid!’
It was true. Painted on a slip of ivory fixed to the crystal was the miniature of a woman—of the Woman herself—clad in a gown of yellow satin, her eyes, even in the miniature, dark and dreadfully intent beneath the luxuriant black hair—that hair that had been her pride in life—piled high upon her graceful head?. And under the miniature, in another hand, was written: Eliz. Denning. Burnt as a wytch. December 1668.
It is worthy of note that on further investigation the embroidery on the scrap of yellow satin was found to be executed in human hair—pieces of her victim’s hair, or so Isabel with a shiver avowed—and the legend around, the strange words: ‘Beauty drawes us with a single haire’, with a strand of the Woman’s own. At least, it matched the picture’s black locks. And what of the strange words of ‘Secret Waye backe’? What should that mean, indeed, if not that while that strand of living ‘Haire’ remained in the world of men the Woman might find her ‘Waye Backe’ there, did she choose? At any rate, the unholy thing was promptly consigned to the fire, and so the Horror passed away from the lives of Peter Wilbrough and Isabel Dillingham.
One thing—or rather, two things only, remain to remind them of that night of terror. One, Peter has a rooted dislike of women, however charming, with dark silk hair; and two, a fine, ineradicable white line like a scar around Isabel’s delicate throat. Should the curious comment upon it, Peter hastily intervenes—for Isabel shivers a little, and a look comes into her eyes that he hates to see, knowing, as he does, how near she went to death to save him—since that sinister mark was made, strange as it may seem, by a single strangling strand of dark Hair!
February
The Sailor’s Tale
Mare Amore
Kitty Bellasis, wife of Commander Norman Bellasis, retired, ex of the Royal Navy, stood at the long window of the drawing-room of her pretty country house and stared out at the garden, drumming on the panes with her fingers. Drumming a little impatiently, in truth, since her husband and the friend who had arrived to spend the day with them were already a little late for lunch, and there was an especially good lunch: fried fish, cutlets and new peas, and a cheese soufflé, all of which would spoil by waiting. . . . Little Mrs Bellasis sighed impatiently, and frowned as she glanced at her wrist-watch, then at the clock.
She might have known it would be like this. Was not the visitor old ‘Pen’ Rigby, boon companion of Bellasis in his seafaring days? And did not Norman Bellasis invariably lose all sense of time and duty when one of his old naval friends came down to Dorset to look him up, on their brief spells of time ashore? Devoutly little Mrs Bellasis wished they would not come at all. She would have given years of her life—and being already forty-one (although with her slim, alert figure, thick brown hair untouched by grey, and state of childlessness, she passed as a rule for a woman five to eight years younger) she did not utter the wish without due realisation of what it meant—to have been able to divorce her husband from his old friends as completely as she had divorced him from his first love, the sea!
It had not been easy, that. Norman Bellasis was a born sailor, and his passion for the sea had been part of his very being—deep, abiding; indeed, there were times when Kitty Bellasis uneasily wondered whether, after all, his love for herself did not come second, in his innermost heart, to another and older love? Ever since she had first fallen in love with him, when they were both young things in their early twenties, she had been jealous of the sea; jealous of the years of his early manhood spent upon it before she met him; jealous of the men who shared with him the great freemasonry of the ocean; jealous of the happy light that came into his eyes whenever he turned his steps towards his ship—even as he bade her farewell that light would flame high in them, and start a smouldering flame of bitterness within her heart. She was jealous of the knowledge he had, intimate and curious, of the gre
at waters and their ways—jealous, above all, of the long periods he must perforce spend away from her, on the bosom of that ancient lover of men, the Sea!
Yet for many years, since they had nothing but his pay to live on, she endured it, albeit with a grim inner determination to terminate the endurance as soon as might be if the gods were kind. . . . And soon after her thirty-eighth birthday it seemed that they were minded to be kind at last. For a distant uncle died and left Kitty Bellasis heiress to all his money—sufficient to bring her in a regular income, small, yet larger than anything her husband could possibly make in the Navy; also (and more important still), a charming country house with farm-buildings already well stocked and staffed, in Dorsetshire.
Even thus, it had taken Kitty Bellasis many months of patient arguing, wrangling, pleading, to persuade her husband to ‘chuck his job’, as he put it. Bewildered, a little hurt, for the first time he realised how deeply and intensely his little wife hated the sea that meant so much to him; and was vaguely troubled by the realisation.
He loved his profession; loved his ship, a lean, wicked-looking cruiser; loved his men, tanned, laughing fellows with bright eyes and the lilt of the sea in their walk—but he also loved his wife with the simplicity and sincerity peculiar to sailors, despite the rubbish that is talked about ‘wives in every port’, and for long the two warring forces rode his simple soul like a nightmare. He did not want to become a country gentleman in the very least; the idea of settling down ‘on the land’ for the rest of his life was entirely new and distasteful to him.
Vaguely he told his comrades that he was ‘determined to stand his ground’, but Kitty’s determination was a hundred per cent more concentrated and intense than his own; and, so, reluctant, bewildered, yet acquiescent, he found himself sending in his papers at the end of six months, buying unfamiliar tweeds and leggings, studying books on crops and cows, and getting out his seldom-used golf clubs, since Kitty said importantly that now he would have to take up golf, and there were some awfully nice people she knew down in Dorset who would put him up for the local golf club. So, with a strange aching blank at his heart, Norman Bellasis took his leave of the sea.
THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Page 3