Best New Horror 29

by Stephen Jones

  “An early frost, it seems,” said Emilia. I looked to where she pointed, a faint line of white across the lawn. As she walked on, I bent down. Touching the whiteness, which was cold enough, I brushed my fingertips to my lips. It was not frost.

  It was salt.

  I did not understand how that could be, but we rationalise in the oddest ways. A gardener, I told myself, had spilled rock salt stored against the winter, or something he used on the abundant slugs.

  In the end I feigned admiration of an old cedar tree and said nothing to Emilia.

  I was less than enthusiastic when Philip suggested that we went again to Dunwich, but there were no obvious excuses to be made. We took the wagonette to Greyfriars, with a picnic lunch in a hamper, and with some reluctance began our beachcombing.

  Philip, as before, was well ahead of us, following the low cliffs. Given the circumstances I kept a closer eye on his whereabouts, and Emilia was left to wander the shingle on her own, collecting shells, semi-precious stones and those pieces of sea-weathered glass that so often delight. I found it difficult to concentrate on the beach itself, picking up the occasional piece of weed or interesting pebble out of duty.

  Calling to Emilia that we might soon go back to the carriage for our lunch, I turned to check on my nephew. He was talking to someone in the shadow of the cliff, presumably another beachcomber.

  “Philip!” I shouted. “Lunch-time.”

  Emilia scrambled to my side, struggling with her sack.

  “I found a rather large cuttlefish bone,” she said, face flushed. “Look…” She parted the hessian, lifting out a chalky oval.

  I glanced at it, and turned to Philip. He was on his own again, a hundred feet away. His acquaintance must have climbed the cliff, which was easily scaled in these parts.

  “Come on now. We’re hungry.”

  He came slowly, his face pale.

  “Are you all right, dear?” I took one of his hands, which was wet, as if he had been dipping into pools.

  His eyes were clear enough when he looked up at me.

  “I…yes, thank you, aunt. The girl distracted me, she seemed so sad.”

  “Girl?”

  “The one with the long wet hair, the one we saw in Southwold. I think she lacks company.”

  I felt strangely faint, seeing Reverend Smith’s book as if it were there before me at Dunwich. A restless spirit on the sands.

  “What…what did she say to you, Philip?” I managed to ask.

  Emilia looked puzzled, the cuttlefish bone still in one hand.

  He shrugged. “She didn’t really say anything. She was waiting for me, I think, but she seemed so lonely that I showed her the heart, which—”

  “What did she do when she saw it?” I spoke more sharply than I had intended.

  “Aunt Beatrice, we were only talking.” He flushed. “She reached towards me, and then you shouted. You must have startled her, for when I looked back she had gone.”

  I had heard enough.

  “We must get back to Halesworth.” I gave Emilia a hard glance.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do think it might rain, and we’re hardly dressed for it today. October rain can be so cold. Let’s have lunch back at the house, instead.”

  I could see that Philip wanted to argue, but between us we bustled him away from the beach, making empty chatter as we went. I engineered it that he should see to the horses, taking his linen jacket from him while he checked the traces. The wooden heart was there, easily taken. I handed the jacket to Emilia.

  “I’m just going to check if I dropped a hair-pin on the way up,” I said.

  The army does not breed weak women. At a moment when Philip was involved in settling one of the mares, I took up the carving and hurled it across the shingle, hearing the faint dull sound of it landing at the edge of the incoming tide. Innocent or not, let someone else find it.

  There was no wind that night, but the house had a compelling odour of mud-flats and fish which had passed their best. Emilia had all the windows thrown open, and she ejected certain bags from her study, claiming that some specimens must have gone bad.

  I did not entirely believe her.

  I think that at that point, God help us, Emilia and I still wished to pass this matter of the heart and the mysterious girl off as a fancy caused by my nephew’s recent distress, a fancy which had unnerved us through association. I could not offer an immediate solution to Philip’s woes, but at least with that carving gone, an unhealthy focus had been removed.

  By the following morning guilt had wormed its way into me. I resolved to tell my nephew what I had done with his find, and why, however ridiculous it might seem. Perhaps we might even broach the subject of his fiancée, and how he now felt, though I doubted I could find a way to introduce the topic easily. I had no idea how to play the amateur alienist, having always been of a somewhat robust temperament myself.

  He was in his room, reading Curiosities of Old Suffolk.

  “Quite a bit of poppycock in there,” I tried to joke, sitting on the edge of his bed. The room held the iodine tang of seaweed from the study below.

  He nodded.

  “I suppose so. There must be some truth to one or two of these tales, though.”

  “People make things up, all the time.”

  I put my hand on the quilt. It was damp, and when I looked around I thought that there were darker patches on the carpet.

  “Have you spilled something?”

  He looked at the patches, shrugged. “I must have upset my water-glass last night.” He tilted his head on one side. “Is something bothering you, Aunt Beatrice?”

  “Philip, the wooden thing you found…” I prepared myself to explain why I had disposed of it.

  “The heart?” He reached into his jacket, which was on the back of the chair, and held up the same object which I had thrown to the waves not five hours before. “I think it must have got wet at the beach somehow. I mean to dry it with a towel later, before it warps or cracks…”

  “May I see it closer?” I managed to keep my voice steady.

  “I’d rather…” He pursed his lips. “Perhaps when I’ve dried it out. Perhaps then.”

  I did not stay to hear whatever excuses might have followed.

  Emilia was in her study. Taking her arm, I poured out what I had read, and what I had done.

  She listened as she washed her cuttlefish bone in a small bowl, then put it down. She knew me for a practical woman, whose normal reading was confined to the likes of sewing books and poultry manuals. I had imagination, yes, but not the sort that dwelt upon the psychic or the strange.

  “The girl with wet hair.” Emilia pulled up a stool. “Philip has been under a lot of strain. Might it have caused, how I can I put it, a peculiarity in his thinking? Temporary, of course,” she added hastily.

  “I suppose that it might.” She was too old a friend to upset me by making such talk. “You remember O’Connor, in David’s old regiment? He was never quite the same after he lost his wife.”

  “Yet the heart found its way back,” she said, templing her fingers at her chin. “Listen to me talking like that! I mean, someone must have brought it back.”

  This I could not explain.

  “The girl he mentions,” I murmured.

  “The girl who may not even exist.” Emilia’s finger-tips were white, pressed together so tightly. “But we’ve had no visitors this afternoon, and Sarah’s been polishing the hall floor. It would have been nigh impossible to slip in the house. I can’t make head nor tale of this, really I can’t. Do we require a doctor, a policeman or a priest?”

  I had no answer, unless we were over-complicating matters. Had a local girl taken a fancy to him and come in pursuit? If that were the case, what of the incident in the public house?

  Emilia and I agreed, after some discussion, that it might be necessary to cut short our stay, for Philip’s sake. If Dunwich was bringing him distress, or unhealthy thoughts, then he must be taken from Dunwich’s
reach. As for tangible threat, a passing fisherman’s story and suggestions in an old book were hardly proof that anything dreadful would happen.

  But there was one matter I had not mentioned to my friend. If I were pushed, I would have said that the damp patches in Philip’s room resembled small, regular footprints, leading to and from the window.

  Matters were brought to a head by the arrival of Isaiah that afternoon, home from business in Lowestoft. He bustled in, the antithesis of anything strange or unnatural, but his first words cut into me.

  “Who’s that odd lass at the end of the drive?” he asked, throwing his gloves onto the hall table. “Have we had callers?”

  Emilia dropped the cut flowers in her hands, scattering the last of the dahlias in a red and yellow confusion.

  “What sort of lass, Isaiah?” I helped pick up the flowers, squeezing Emilia’s arm as I did so.

  “Haven’t the faintest. Slim, lots of tangled long brown hair, an old-fashioned dress. A gypsy, perhaps. She seemed to be looking up to the house. Didn’t look at me, so I drove past her.”

  He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Have we had rain here while I was away?”

  “Why?” asked Emilia.

  “Oh, just that the lass seemed rather wet,” he said, and bustled off to change for dinner.

  And then I knew what must be done. At least, I knew what to do next.

  That evening we took Isaiah aside, and told him that Philip was a little unwell, that I was considering returning to London. He thought it over, but had noticed the mood at dinner.

  “I have to go to Ipswich tomorrow, to the Tollemache brewery. Shall I drive you and Philip down? You could take the train to Liverpool Street from there.”

  I accepted with relief, much though I would like to have seen more of Emilia.

  Philip and I argued, for the first time ever. He wished to stay, to visit Dunwich again and spend time by the sea. When I asked him why, he reddened.

  “The girl needs me.”

  I found that I had clenched my fists, unknowing.

  “The girl. Philip, if there is a girl here, she’s a fisherman’s daughter making sport of you. I know that you’ve been disappointed—”

  “Abandoned! Like her.”

  The air in his room seemed cool and damp around us, as if an unseen sea-mist had gathered there, brushing against our skin.

  “Is that what she says?”

  He mumbled something, but would not speak out plainly. I caught only a name. Eva.

  “Bring this Eva to me, then.” I tried not to glare at him. “Let her show herself, and make clear her intentions.”

  “I…” He stared around, seemingly at everything but me. “I cannot. She will not come with others present.”

  “She has been here, in this house?”

  He wiped one hand across his brow.

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. In the night, maybe. Perhaps I was dreaming.”

  “Enough.” I tried to soften my tone. “Philip, dear, you know that I care for you. Your mother’s ill, and I have no choice but to take some charge here.”

  He nodded, still looking away.

  “Then trust me. You have had a shock, a great upset to your life, and now you seek something to balance that unhappy event. But it is not here, in Suffolk. These lonely shores are not for you, and local superstitions help even less.”

  “But—”

  “You need company, and purpose, which we’ll find again in London.”

  There were other words, but I was still formidable enough to prevail. Somewhat sulkily, he agreed to pack that night.

  “You ought to leave that…carving for Mrs. Rawkins to examine further,” I said. “She might find out more about it on her travels.”

  “I shall keep it,” was his only defiance. “It was meant for me.”

  I was not fond of automobiles, but was persuaded by Isaiah’s bluff, matter-of-fact approach. He stuffed Philip and the cases in the back. I was given goggles, one of Emilia’s scarves and placed firmly next to Isaiah in the front. The noise of the engine was uncomfortable at first, but as we sped down narrow lanes I became more at ease. We were heading away from the vicinity of Dunwich, and that was a start.

  It was a straightforward journey, a route Isaiah apparently knew well, and we swung down through Suffolk without incident. Philip sat silent in the back seat. I glanced at him once or twice, but he was gazing east over the fields, expressionless. North-east, in fact, towards that low coast where we had sought shells and urchins but found…what? The idle carving of a long-dead sailor, probably worth a shilling on a bric-a-brac stall in Covent Garden. That was all.

  We made good time. I had booked tickets on the 3:45 London train, but we arrived in Ipswich before noon. Having said our goodbyes to Isaiah, I tipped a porter to secure our cases ready for the train, and encouraged Philip to see something of Ipswich with me.

  We must have been some fifteen miles from Felixstowe and the sea, in a place which the girl Eva, real or phantasmal, would hardly know. The weather had cleared, leaving a sunny day. There were cafés and a fine museum. We wandered through the town and admired the scale, if not the delicacy, of the Cliffe brewery with which Isaiah had occasional business.

  I did not see a slender figure with long wet hair, standing at the opening of an alleyway near the brewery. I am sure that I did not.

  “We should move on,” I said, and hurried a puzzled Philip away.

  There was a small regatta on the River Orwell, and we decided to spend our last hour in Ipswich watching the boats.

  “A fine sight, eh?”

  I smiled at him, and he managed a dutiful nod.

  I thought him paler again, which worried me. We had sandwiches and lemonade by the river, surrounded by a mixed crowd of boating enthusiasts and idle onlookers. When he went to relieve himself in the nearest public house, I noticed that the right-hand side of his jacket bulged oddly. The carved heart, which I had thought safely stowed in his luggage, must be in his pocket.

  Why in God’s name had I not forced him to leave it behind us with Emilia?

  After five or six minutes had passed and Philip had not returned, I began to worry. I scattered change for the attendant, and went into the tavern. It was almost empty, the crowds being by the river.

  “A young man in a cream jacket, clean-shaven, came in here a few minutes ago,” I said to the thickset barman. “Have you seen him since?”

  “Went out the side-door, lady,” he said, tipping his head to an exit I hadn’t noticed. “Asked him if he wanted a drink, but he said he had to meet a girl.”

  The cold I felt then was not of any unnatural nature. It was fear.

  I strode out of that side-door, scanning the narrow street. To the right it led into Ipswich, but to the left it went down to the river. Almost running, I pushed past idlers and locals alike. The chair where we had been sitting was empty, but I could see the back of his linen jacket as he slipped between the people on the riverbank.

  “Philip!” I cried out, trying to make my way towards him. He was down at the water’s edge by then, and I had a presentiment of some dreadful act to come. All I could think of was that damnable carving, and a phrase from Ecclesiastes.

  All the rivers run into the sea…

  “Oh God. Stop him, someone!” Before anyone could grasp who I meant, Philip was in the water. It might have gone differently, but the small boats of the regatta were passing our vantage point, and I was too late. I saw his hat, then his head bobbing in the water—no, surely two heads, one a tangle of long dark hair—and then the boats were on them, oars coming down blindly into the grey-brown river, driving the regatta past us…

  They pulled my nephew’s body from the Orwell a half-hour later. No one else had seen a second person in the water, and no other body could be found. People were very kind, plying me with blankets, tea, anything to hand that might be of comfort. I took a tall man’s flask, guessing its contents, and poured brandy down my throat until it b
urned.

  The police asked me to view Philip in the mortuary an hour later and complete the formalities. The police doctor was nervous, but I reached to draw the sheet away myself, to see my nephew’s face for the last time.

  “He drowned, I suppose,” I said, my voice dull. “Or was struck by a boat.”

  The doctor shook his head.

  “I fear…I believe that the young man had a seizure, or some form of cardiac attack.”

  The sheet fell away from his upper body. Philip’s left hand was by his chest, empty but clawed as if clutching at something, and his expression was one of terrible, terrible loss.

  I searched his sodden jacket.

  The heart had gone.

  My sister, always frail, was invalided by the shock, and it was decided that Edward, Philip’s elder brother, and I would make all necessary arrangements. I told Edward everything, even down to the most minor events of our stay in Suffolk. He listened without comment, squeezed my hand and said he would need to contact a more experienced friend.

  I received two communications of note at my London address that week. The first was from the friend of Edward’s, one Henry Dodgson, of whom I knew nothing. He had enclosed a small, yellowing pamphlet, along with a note to express his deepest sympathy. I found his mark upon the second page.

  In the year of Our Lord 1746, it is told, Eva van der Druysen, daughter of a Dutch merchant resident in Dulwich, Suffolk, took her own life. This was done in the most dreadful manner by her tearing into her own breast. The tragedy took place after she was abandoned by one of van der Druysen’s captains, not long before their proposed marriage—and after he had had his way with her. Reliable authorities state that her spirit walks the strand still, intent on bringing destruction to any who find her ruined heart.

  The pamphlet was stamped as privately published, but the details of the author were unreadable. Edward would speculate no further on the circumstances or background to his brother’s death. Mr. Dodgson, however, appended certain suggestions as to protecting oneself from such malign influences. His ideas would have seemed nonsense to me once, even un-Christian, but after Philip’s death, I was no longer so sure of myself.