My Father Sleeps (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  “A wonderful list and a wonderful memory,” she said. “And now let me hear your story. It had better be a complete autobiography, I think. Begin as far back as you can remember. Think hard. This may be important.”

  “But . . .” He looked perplexed.

  “You do want to make a full recovery from your nervous breakdown, don’t you?”

  “I—well, yes, of course. Only, you see, I thought you would ask me—put me through some mental tests—that sort of thing.”

  “I might do that later, if you wish it. Just now it is your memory that interests me.”

  “You said it was good.”

  “For things you hold in your conscious mind, yes. Now we must try to get inside the subconscious mind. Has that any interest for you?”

  “Not for me. I don’t believe in the subconscious mind. One’s thoughts, some of them, may be pretty foul, but they’re not subconscious. What one thinks, one thinks, and one is responsible for it. At least, that’s my idea. I don’t believe in all this quackery. It’s simply a lot of mumbo-jumbo, that’s all.”

  “I do not entirely disagree with you,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding. “What are your reactions to murder, Mr. Loudoun?”

  The man turned livid.

  “What the devil are you talking about?” he cried. He strode from his chair and leaned over her. Laura, self-styled protector of an employer who needed about as much protection as the alligator she so closely resembled, walked to the back of Mrs. Bradley’s chair, put a firm hand against Loudoun’s chest, and thrust him off.

  “Sit down,” she said. Loudoun pulled himself together, walked back to his chair, sat down, and then apologized.

  “I am apt to be carried away by my feelings when that word is mentioned,” he said. “You see, my father . . .”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding her head and then looking at him with great interest. She was wondering why he no longer limped. He had leapt across the room like a jaguar. Like a jaguar, too, he had snarled; an evil, uncivilized sound. She was fascinated by his reactions to her tests.

  “That’s all right, then,” he said. “It’s a sore subject, naturally, and one which I don’t discuss.”

  In view of the typed sheets reposing in a locked drawer at her hotel, Mrs. Bradley would have been astounded at this assertion but for the fact that, so far, she had seen in this man no trace of the pronounced limp which Ian had mentioned and which had been accounted for in the script, and (differently) in Loudoun’s spoken story. She did not comment, however, but continued casually,

  “It is of no use, then, to try to break down your inhibitions, I suppose. From whom could I obtain information? It seems most likely to me that your nervous state can be directly attributed to repressions and inhibitions dating from childhood. I do wish I knew what had happened. I could help you so very much better.”

  “All the same, he does remember something about the murder,” said Laura, later, looking very pleased. “And when we’re in Inverness you’re going to find out who was hanged for a murder committed in Lochaber about twenty-five years ago. But, honestly, I don’t see how it’s going to help him get over a nervous breakdown. In fact, I should think it will sicken him entirely if you can prove to him that his real father was a murderer.”

  “He believes, subconsciously, that his real father was not a murderer, if the ghost-voice was a subjective phenomenon, child. If the whole experience was objective, I shall be equally, although differently, interested.”

  “Meaning you don’t believe in ghosts?”

  “Meaning that I am still open to conviction, child.”

  The two of them walked back towards Ballachulish, although Loudoun had pressed Mrs. Bradley to make use of the car again. At the end of five miles, however, the postman, driving a small cart, picked them up, and he and Mrs. Bradley were soon in conversation.

  Loudoun did not seem at all pleased to receive, at eight o’clock that night, another call from Mrs. Bradley. She came in a hired car which she drove herself, and was welcomed by Loudoun with a scowl of annoyance. Assured that she had dined, however, he professed himself ready for any form of inquisition, intelligence test, or plain, straightforward deposition which might be demanded.

  “Is your father still alive?” she asked.

  “No. He lived in South Africa. He has been dead about a year.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She is dead, too. . . . She died when I was at college—a technical college, you know.”

  “Leaving you the property?”

  “There wasn’t much, as you may guess. The glen here, this house, some shares which don’t do very much, and some gilt-edged—enough to bring me in about a hundred and fifty a year. The rest I have to earn.”

  “This property, then, belonged to your mother? Mr. Loudoun had no claim on it?”

  “No, but he always thought of it as his home.”

  “Did you get on well with Mr. Loudoun?”

  “I haven’t seen him since my mother died. Her death completely broke him up, I believe. He was at the funeral, of course, and then he went straight out to the Cape, where he died, as I said, last year.”

  “What is the first recollection you have of Mr. Loudoun? I don’t think you told me that this morning.”

  Loudoun frowned. He did not answer for nearly two minutes. Then he said:

  “I don’t think I know. I’ve several recollections, but which one comes first I can’t tell you.”

  “Are they pleasant recollections?”

  “On the whole—yes. I remember being taken to the circus by him; I remember his giving me a shilling when I had my first tooth taken out; I remember his giving me a pretty good thrashing once when I ran away from my nurse and fell into a pond, and I remember his introducing me to a very tall man with a blond beard who terrified me by kissing me. But most of my recollections of him are pleasant.”

  “Terrified? Not exasperated?”

  “Eh? Oh, the response to the bearded fellow? Terrified, I’m sure. I must have been very small, for I remember a distinct and a very strong feeling of horror and repulsion, and I have a recollection of the smell of aniseed, an odour for which I still feel the strongest dislike.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. So far, the man seemed willing enough to answer questions, but his material was not helpful. She changed the subject gradually, and Loudoun was soon telling her about his work as a consulting engineer. She left him at shortly after midnight, having invited herself to bed and breakfast at Craigullich. It was an arrangement which had disconcerted her imposed-upon, unwilling, and rather disgruntled host, but he could scarcely refuse her his roof.

  She listened at her own door until she heard him close his, but she did not go to bed. Putting on a thick warm dressing-gown over all her clothes, and wearing fur-lined slippers, she crept to his door and seated herself in a very small alcove beside it. She had placed a small stool in the alcove, and had covered it with a cushion. Then, like a sinister guardian angel, she seated herself, pulled her dressing-gown about her, and waited in patience, attended only by her thoughts. The voice spoke at three in the morning.

  Laura, having assembled her companions, led them from Ballachulish by the road which, following the margin of Loch Leven, led to the small industrial town of Kinlochleven at the head of the loch where the little river Leven connects Loch Leven with the long stretch of Blackwater Reservoir.

  It was a long walk. The road was narrow and hilly, and the party, particularly Jonathan, who was not an enthusiastic walker, were glad when the long treeless trek was ended and they came into the town in time for tea.

  “What’s that place over there?” asked Jonathan.

  “The aluminium works,” replied the lad Brian, who, like most boys of his age, was informed upon such matters.

  “And now we are here, what do we do? I want my tea,” said Deborah plaintively.

  Laura could answer the question and mitigate her distress at
one and the same time. Following the directions communicated by Dougal the Post to Mrs. Bradley and by her to Laura, she led the way to the house of one Janet Forbes who let holiday lodgings, and knocked boldly upon the door.

  A majestic woman, imperially bearded, opened it, regarded the party shrewdly, and enquired what was to do. She then answered the question herself by adding that she supposed they were speiring after rooms.

  “Only for two nights,” said Laura.

  “Ye’ll wait,” said the sibyl, retreating. She reappeared shortly and continued, “I’ll take ye. All of ye wipe your boots, and if ye carry a stick wi’ a wee spike ye’ll leave it in the hall. I dinna have sticks upstairs.”

  They followed her through to the kitchen, a clean bright place which twinkled with brass and was warm with red curtains and a crimson overmantel decorated with a pale pink ball fringe, and were told to sit down whilst she planned out where she could put them.

  “The place is downstairs for the gentlemen and upstairs for the ladies,” continued their hostess, “and ye’re no to neglect to pull the chain.”

  With this forthright introduction began a pleasant and instructive two days’ holiday. Mrs. Forbes by (to use her own expression) ‘ousting’ a gentleman known as Number Six, and disposing of him elsewhere, contrived, with the aid of a camp-bed, to turn a large single room into a double room for Jonathan and young Brian, and Laura and Deborah, to whom she took an immediate and irrational fancy (whilst roundly declaring that her preference was, and had always been ‘for laddies’) she accommodated in a small but very clean room above the scullery. These necessary details settled, she provided her new guests with a tea of gargantuan size and infinite variety, and Laura, who felt that sufficient lead had been given, embarked upon the subject of ‘the laddies’ Mrs. Forbes had known, and mentioned Loudoun.

  In this she was carrying out instructions. According to Dougal the Post, Janet Forbes of Kinlochleven had been servant at Craigullich until her marriage. What was to be known about Hector Loudoun and his family presumably she would know. Whether she was prepared to share her knowledge had to be discovered, although it had not been determined, either, whether Loudoun had any objection to his family affairs being discussed with his old nurse.

  The high tide of reminiscence, having come to full flood upon Janet Forbes’ ready tongue, at last began to ebb, but this did not happen until Laura had had her fill of information. She treasured all she was told, made notes in private, and went to bed that night with the warm consciousness of a job well done and in the assurance that there was no more to learn and that on the morrow she might amuse herself as she pleased.

  The story of the Loudoun family had been a curious one. She conned it over in bed. It satisfied various demands which the eager hearer was accustomed to make upon tales of pity and terror, and had, in addition, that delightful quality of melodrama without which the seeker after excitement is never completely happy.

  When the ghost gave tongue, Mrs. Bradley’s first impulse, and one to which she yielded, was to write down what it said. She was anxious to compare her own version of its remarks with that of Loudoun. She had seen the script, and Ian’s précis of it had been excellent.

  She switched on a tiny shaded electric lamp which cast light nowhere but on the page of the note-book to which it was attached, and scribbled busily.

  “Hector! Hector! Hector! Another for Hector!” said the voice. It was low-pitched and very distinct. Mrs. Bradley’s sense of hearing was keen and its natural acuteness had been trained. As she made her swift, illegible hieroglyphics with the speed of a shorthand writer (only the shorthand was of her own invention and for her individual use), she listened with more anxious attention to the voice of the ghost than was necessary had she been alert only to catch its spoken words. “They hanged me. What’s Hectorcuba to him or he to Hectorcuba? Cuba? Where’s Cuba? Over the hills and far away. Far away. I am far away. No, I am not far away. I am here at your side, my son. You do not see me, but I am here. I am in the loch. I am in the loch. I am not in the loch. I am in the loch. They hanged me. This is near St. Andrews. A pleasant country. The hills are kind, are kind, are the kind hills.”

  The voice ceased. It had become more hoarse as its monotonous nonsense-statements went droning on. Mrs. Bradley switched off her tiny writing lamp, closed the notebook, stood, counted ten, and then switched on her larger torch. As she did this, the door of the room opened and Loudoun came stumbling out. His hair was wild and tousled, his eyes were staring open, his mouth hung horribly awry and he was shivering as though he had the ague. He did not appear to notice Mrs. Bradley. She said gently:

  “It’s all right. You can go back to bed. He won’t come here any more.”

  Loudoun turned slowly and stared at her. Then he thrust his left hand through his hair, and stared again. She took him by the sleeve of his crumpled jacket and led him back to his room. It was in darkness. She shone her torch about the room, found his candle, and lighted it.

  “Get into bed. You are cold,” she said, speaking firmly. He obeyed her, lay down, and pulled the covers up to his chin. She waited until he shut his eyes. Then she brought the candle almost up to his face, looked at his dark unshaven chin, the shadows under his eyes, the set of his mouth, closed now, and the blue-black above his upper lip. He opened his eyes. She put the candle on the bedside table and seated herself on the bed.

  “What did he say?” she enquired.

  “I can’t tell you,” said Loudoun. “It was terrible. He threatened to come from Loch Slòigh, and drag me down to its depths.”

  “Was that all he said?” she persisted.

  “All.” He turned his face from the light. Mrs. Bradley went to the door, opened it wider—it had been left ajar—slipped through it and went to her room but did not attempt to go to sleep. The housekeeper brought her a cup of tea at seven, and the report that there was fog all over the moor and that Dougal Macpherson the Post would not reach the clachan that morning, let alone the house, with the letters.

  “Was Mr. Loudoun expecting letters?” Mrs. Bradley, sipping the sweet strong tea, enquired.

  He was always expecting letters, but when he had them he was no better pleased.

  “Would Mr. Macpherson need to come by way of Loch Slòigh?” Mrs. Bradley enquired. The old woman stared at her aghast.

  “Loch Slòigh? Where did you hear of Loch Slòigh, I am wondering? I am full of wonder that you should be saying that word.”

  “Is it considered a difficult word to say?”

  “It has a strange meaning,” said the housekeeper. “Will you be pleased to come away down to your breakfast? Will you eat porridge? And there will be bacon and haddock . . .”

  “Morag, or, possibly, Minnie,” said Mrs. Bradley, “who comes here at night and talks to Mr. Loudoun, and is gone before the morning?”

  “I am not knowing who comes, but come they do. I have heard them in the policies and among the bushes, rustling and slipping and hiding themselves like thieves. But who they are I do not know, and I have not heard any speaking. And my name, please you, is Ellen. I am nobody’s minnie.”

  “In the policies and among the bushes,” repeated Mrs. Bradley thoughtfully. She recollected Hector Loudoun’s description of the man he had seen from his bedroom window.

  “What is the name of the little loch?” she demanded. “The little loch out in the grounds?”

  “It has no name,” said the old woman, looking at her closely.

  “No name? That is unusual, isn’t it?”

  “No, I am not knowing about that same. All I know is that I never heard a name given to it.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “I came to live here when Mr. Loudoun came.”

  “Such a very short time?”

  “Aye. I am from Craig Mellon.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Bradley. “That’s interesting.” She went downstairs to confront a wild-eyed, unshaven Loudoun.

  “Ah,” she said, “I s
ee you did not sleep. We will try a light hypnosis this morning, as soon as you have had breakfast.”

  Chapter Four

  ★

  Remember the death of Alpin!

  Cuimhnich bas Ailpein!

  War cry of the Mackinnons and of the MacAlpines

  ★

  Laura returned by way of the rough, steep larig called the Devil’s Staircase on to the road through Glencoe. To her right rose the grand stern peak of Eagath, and before her she could see the ramparts of the Glen, and, beyond the road that she would travel, the towering heights of Buchaille Etive Mor and Buchaille Etive Beag. She saw Buchaille Etive Beag from a different but not less impressive angle at the end of her tiring and difficult scramble over the Devil’s Staircase, for she came towards the crossroads marked by the Kingshouse Inn, and, before she turned on to the old road through Glencoe to reach the inn, from where she proposed to explore a part of the moor of Rannoch, she crossed a heathery knoll to paddle in a burn filled with boulders and tiny cascades, and from here saw the noble mountain, massive, shapely, and steep, its sheer sides scarred handsomely with the spirting tracks of waterfalls which needed nothing but a shower to bring them to leaping life.

  The knoll was wine-coloured, purple, and yellow. At its foot, near the burn, was rough, coarse grass, and then came the bare, sharp, and tumbled stones which marked the course of the stream. It was shrunken with the dryness of early summer, but under a sudden escarpment, where a miniature cliff was lifted to make a plateau, the water ran cold and deep, and here Laura waded and loitered, putting off the time of departure for the sake of pleasant dalliance in paddling.

  The rest of her party had made up their minds to return to Ballachulish along the northern shore of calm Loch Leven. She did not envy them, but pictured them tramping along, a slightly ironic Jonathan, who loathed to walk, a Deborah looking cool and clean whatever the dust or the heat or the difficulties of the way, and a philosophic Brian, who, at thirteen, affected to expect but little of life in general, and who contrived, in his own quiet, hedonist, almost Narcissan fashion, to realize his desires and to crown his wishes.