The House of Dr. Edwardes

by Francis Beeding

  “That will do,” he said.

  She felt herself lifted and laid upon it, flat, so that her bound hands pressed into her back.

  “810, 811, 812,” said Mr. Deeling, but his voice broke off abruptly.

  “You must come too, Mr. Deeling.”

  It was the voice of the Reverend Mark Hickett.

  “And you shall push the cart—,” it continued.

  Constance turned her head. She could just see the two of them. Mr. Deeling had left the gate and was coming towards the cart. His lips still moved. He adjusted his top hat, and obediently laid hold of the handle and started to push. The Reverend Mark Hickett went in front and Mr. Curtis brought up the rear, and in this order they moved slowly down the road. There was no sound except their feet shuffling in the dust, the creak of the wheels and the voice of Mr. Deeling:

  “850, 851, 852.”

  By the time they arrived at the castle he had reached 3,500.

  At the castle they halted. She was taken off the cart, pushed up the steps and taken straight through the main door into the hall.

  The door of the library was open, and they forced her to enter.

  “He has gone,” said Mr. Curtis. “I thought he would still be here.”

  “I will go and fetch him,” said the Reverend Mark Hickett.

  “Untie her hands. He will not like to see them bound.”

  Fingers were picking at the handkerchief behind her back, and a moment later she was free.

  Then, in the moonlight, she saw a figure bending over the desk. It was clad in a fantastic dressing gown, gold and green, and it was very still. She approached it, as yet hardly knowing what she expected to find, but drawn to it irresistibly.

  She laid a hand on its shoulder, and the head of Mr. Clearwater fell back. The eyes were open and the face was very white. His rigid hand was shut tight upon his chest, where there was a large irregular stain.

  “He’s dead,” she thought. “They’ve murdered him. He kept his promise.”

  And suddenly she felt the tears, the first she had shed since she came to Château Landry, raining down her cheeks.

  The head rolled heavily in the crook of her arm. Then, as she watched, the eyelids fluttered a moment, the lips moved. She bent down.

  “…cars drawn by rainbow-wingèd steeds

  Which trample the dim winds—”

  His voice died away, but the lips still moved. Constance bent lower.

  “And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars,” whispered Mr. Clearwater, and so died.

  II

  Someone was counting—1,008, 1,009, 1,010. Why were they counting? Couldn’t they go away and leave her in peace? And the wood was thick, too thick—and dark.

  Impenetrable, that was what it was, impenetrable. But she had to penetrate it. And that man was dragging on her and holding her down. What a fool he was. If he wanted her to help him, why did he hold on to her like that? She tried to tell him to put his hands on her shoulders, but he would not understand.

  “On my shoulders,” she kept repeating, “on my shoulders,” but he would not, and still he clung obstinately round her knees. She could not move a step. She struggled desperately. She turned round to tell him to let go. Then she saw that it was not Doctor Murchison. It was a green thing—all arms, with a great eye, dead like the eye of a fish, that looked at her blinkingly. Under the eye was a mouth with foam round it. She shrieked and found that she was awake.

  Her head was throbbing. Where was she? Her lips were dry and sticky; the back of her neck ached as though she had been struck. She was lying on the bed in a nightdress and dressing gown.

  The events of the night began to come back to her, slowly at first, disjointedly in a series of pictures: the dark corridor and herself tapping at Mr. Deeling’s door, his grotesque appearance in top hat and frock coat, Doctor Murchison’s collapse in the meadow, the moonlight on the road, Mr. Deeling’s counting, his black figure against the gate, the bleeding form of the doctor as Mr. Curtis stood over him, the creaking two-wheeled cart. But these visions quickly gave way to one more terrible, more cruel than all the rest—the crumpled form of Mr. Clearwater in his embroidered dressing gown, dead at the desk where she had placed him. There was the real horror.

  In her agony of mind she jumped from her bed and began walking up and down the room. She had killed Mr.

  Clearwater just as surely as if she had struck him down herself. She had given him his instructions, and had made light of his strange foreboding.

  “To the death,” he had said, and he had kept his word.

  For the first time the full meaning of all that had happened during the last twenty-four hours rose up and confronted her. She was appalled by her responsibility, for everything lay at her door. She had come to that place as a doctor, professing an interest in mental cases, and yet she had been unable to discover that the Château had been in charge of a madman for weeks! She had even rejected the evidence of the real doctor till it was too late. She had allowed herself to be fooled and fascinated like any schoolgirl. And these were the consequences,—two patients murdered, one sacrificed to the awful delusion of the lunatic she had failed to detect, the other dying as a direct consequence of her own act. And the real doctor, he was dead too. She felt sure of it, struck down and tossed into the bushes. “They will never see him there”—that was what Mr. Curtis had said. He would be lying there now, a sightless corpse, while the great mountain buzzards swept with beating pinions above him, and swooped and fought and tore.

  She shuddered from head to foot, and, pausing in her aimless pacing, looked round her with a start. She had not yet even begun to wonder where she was. But this was not her own room, these gray padded walls, this single window closely barred, the bed clamped to the floor with no sheets on it or coverings of any kind. That did not matter. She had nothing on but her nightdress and dressing gown, but it was hot enough. Heavens, how hot it was! And wasn’t that thunder she had heard! It came again, that distant rumble. The heat was about to break at last, perhaps?

  She realized now where she was. This was the room of Doctor Murchison, the real Doctor Murchison, where he had been confined as Godstone for weeks. She went to the door and turned the handle. As she thought, it was locked. She was alone, utterly alone now. Doctor Murchison was dead, and Mr. Deeling’s mind had given way. Perhaps he was dead too. She was alone, with the knowledge of what was in store for her. “In two days the ceremony will take place,” Miss Truelow had said. It was now the evening of the second day.

  She glanced at the window. The evening sun was striking a tall pillar of rock, thrust up at the sky, the only thing that she could see, for the window was high.

  She leaned back wearily against the door, her hands outspread. This, then, was the end. She was beaten. There was nothing more that she could do. Why had she not shared the fate of Doctor Murchison or Mr. Clearwater? Why was she not already dead? Death at any rate was oblivion, rest, a release from the fantastic horrors in which she lived.

  She drew herself up and walked firmly to the chair. She put her hand out, and then paused. There was nothing on the chair, her clothes were not lying there, and with them had gone the little phial which she had taken from the medicine cupboard on the day she had poured away the hyoscin.

  Then she realized why she had been put in that particular room, the room reserved for dangerous patients. She was not to be allowed to die. That way out was also barred.

  She fell on her knees by the bed.

  “God,” she whispered, “God, can you hear me? You know what is going to happen. You see me where I am. I am alone and without defense. But you will not suffer this thing to come to pass.”

  She stopped abruptly on the last phrase. Why did one always address God in archaic language as though he could not understand modern speech? She was praying from the heart, and yet it sounded unreal. It was simply that she could not, after the first few words, pray anyhow else.

  But she had prayed, as blindly and as sincerel
y as any soul had ever prayed to God. Would she be answered, or was it true that the Devil was master and that he would that night enjoy his victory?

  She rose from her knees, and, as she did so, she heard thunder again, nearer this time, and a moment later came the sharp swish of rain. The weather had broken then, and the parched earth would drink in the flood and soak it up and become green again.

  She was thirsty too. Heavens, how thirsty she was. Her mouth was dry. She looked round the room. There was something standing in the corner that she had not noticed before. She walked across to it. It was an enamel mug full of water. She seized it and drank it off without taking it from her lips. That was better, much better. She pulled her dressing gown round her, and sat on the edge of the bed.

  The rain was pouring down, but already it was less, and soon it dwindled to a light pattering, and then ceased altogether.

  It was only a sharp shower, not nearly enough. Something much heavier than that was needed.

  Why had the cup held so little? She was still thirsty—thirsty and sleepy, very sleepy. And still it was so hot.

  She slipped sideways and lay, half on the bed, half on the floor, breathing heavily.

  III

  It was dark when she awoke. The night was very still outside. There was a patch of moonlight on the floor, and through the bars she could see three stars, immeasurably remote.

  She got to her feet, very stiff, and almost helpless with cramp. A distant drumming beat on her ears, monotonous, rhythmical. When had she heard it before?

  She turned towards the window. As she did so, there came a knock on the door, and the sound of a key turning in the lock.

  IV

  Miss Truelow was waiting at the foot of the steps leading down to the meadow. It lacked three quarters of an hour to midnight. The full moon, which had risen early, was riding high, and the raindrops on the grass sparkled in its light. The sky was still not quite clear. Heavy patches of cloud were drifting slowly across it, caught every now and then upon the peaks of the mountains. The air was hot and steamy, almost tropical, and far away the thunder sulked and rumbled. The evening storm had brought no relief.

  Miss Truelow was dressed in a robe of green and yellow velvet. Her thin arms were bare and loaded with jewels, bracelets of paste, torques of imitation gold. On her head was a paste tiara, perched on her graying hair.

  She was tired, but in her excitement she was hardly aware of it.

  For the last two days she had been constantly busy under the direction of the Master. She had swept and cleaned the white stone and bound about it a garland of vervain, and there had been other things—the making of candles from fat, set in two candlesticks of black wood shaped like crescents.

  The Reverend Mark Hickett had been most active in all these preparations. He had helped her with the candles, and with the mingling of various spices which the Master had prescribed—incense and camphor and aloes. These she had placed in a copper bowl, and Mr. Curtis, taking the bowl, had returned presently and handed it back to her full of other things, which he had mixed with the spices. She did not know what they were, but the mixture was dark and sticky and pungent. The bowl was beside her now, on the steps, and she was to take it with her to the ceremony. She did not know its purpose, but that was no matter, for everything would be explained. The Master had told her that she had merely to be patient, to watch and on no account to cry out. There would not be many at the ceremony, for some had proved unworthy. That poor silly Mr. Clearwater, for instance, had been killed—killed for disobedience. Miss Truelow shuddered. She might herself have disobeyed, for she did not like being ordered about by the Reverend Mark Hickett. But she, thank goodness, had been wise enough to realize that the orders of the Master must be carried out to the letter. They were all part of the great plan.

  The Colonel, too, was in disgrace. He had been ordered to keep watch over the door of the bride, and he had deserted his post. The Master had been very angry with him, and had forbidden him to be present that night. Well, it would serve him right. She wished him no harm, but men were so careless. It did them good to be taught a lesson sometimes.

  There was a sound of footsteps. She raised her head. At last they were coming. She moved a few steps to the left, rustling in her flamboyant dress, while the moonbeams gleamed upon her jewelry. She picked up the copper bowl and held it to her breast as they came down the steps towards her.

  First walked the Master, very noble in his black sleeveless robe, with the leaden cap on his head emblazoned with strange signs. In his right hand he carried a sword, bright and sharp and gleaming in the moonlight. In his left hand was a forked stick of hazelwood. He reached the meadow and moved steadily on towards the belt of firs. Behind him were Mr. Curtis and the Reverend Mark Hickett, bearing the bride on a litter between them. They, too, were in black, with dark cloaks of the form and pattern prescribed, which she and Miss Collett had cut out and made for them.

  The girl was in white as a bride should be. There was a wreath on her head, which Miss Collett had been asked to make. It was unfair to ask Miss Collett. As bridesmaid she herself should have been allowed to make the bridal wreath. The wreath was not of orange blossom but of vervain, for so the Master had decided.

  Miss Collett herself followed. She, too, carried a bowl, and a branch of birch tree, together with four iron nails.

  Miss Truelow fell in beside her. The bride was very still, lying inanimate on the litter, her head hanging over the back of it. Her face was white, and her mouth moved now and again when she uttered a kind of moan.

  Constance did not come to herself till they were entering the wood. Up to that moment she had lived in a mist, incapable of movement, but seeing in a blur everything that went on around her, like a man sitting at a window who looks out into the cold world from a warm room.

  First her door had been opened. Mr. Curtis and the Reverend Mark Hickett had come straight inside and seized her by the arms. Then Godstone had arrived, and she had felt a prick in her arm. After that she had been lifted and carried out. And now here she was, numb in every limb, though she was not insensible, merely impotent.

  Her mind would not work properly. Everything was remote and nothing seemed to matter. She remembered vaguely what was going to happen, but it seemed now of little consequence.

  That was the moon up there, sailing high above the valley. How queer were the shadows of the fir trees on the grass. They were in the wood now. It was very dark in there, and impenetrable as it had been in her dream. How much farther would they carry her? The path was long, and she would never be able to find her way back to the castle. She would have to tell Doctor Murchison about this in the morning. For it was all most unusual, and she ought to make an effort, she supposed, to stop it. But that was impossible, for she had no power to move or even to think. That idea of telling Doctor Murchison, for example. It was merely silly, for Doctor Murchison was Godstone, and Godstone was the lunatic.

  They had reached the clearing now. Yes, there it was, bright in the moonlight. And the stone, the queer stone that she had seen on her walks, in the brightest spot of all. The stone was garlanded like her own head. How had her own head come to be like that? What had happened?

  She felt herself lowered to the ground, and she was propped against a tree, half sitting, half lying.

  What were they doing? What curious clothes Miss Truelow wore. They were getting to their places now. Godstone was tracing a circle about the stone with a sword in his hand and a forked stick. The others were helping. They all had bare feet, and the clearing itself was bare.

  Miss Collett and Miss Truelow were kneeling together in a little circle within the large one, and the two men were helping Godstone. It was all very childish. Faust and Mephistopheles, Paracelsus and all that quaint mediaeval nonsense which no sane person believed in now. But these people were not sane. They really expected the devil to appear. How disappointed they would be when nothing happened.

  Godstone was drawing a triangle, a gre
at triangle within the circle. In the center of the triangle was the white stone, and at the apex Mr. Curtis placed a brazier which the Reverend Mark Hickett kindled with flint and steel. A thick bluish-white smoke rose, and an acrid smell of spices filled the air.

  Her mind was growing clearer and her limbs were beginning to feel warm. She could smell the smoke quite strongly, but she did not yet feel that she could move.

  What was Godstone doing now? He was laying strips within the circle, strips of what looked like parchment, and now and then he hammered something into the ground to keep the parchment down. Mr. Curtis was setting things in place outside the circle opposite the points where Godstone had nailed the parchment. She could not see what they were—four dark objects. One looked like the horns of a goat.

  Godstone had signed to his two assistants. One of them was tendering him a bowl. He had taken a little branch of wood from Miss Collett and was sprinkling the ground all about them. The drops fell dark in the moonlight. Again there came the sound of flint on steel, followed by the crackling of wood. The Reverend Mark Hickett had kindled another fire on the bare ground, in another angle of the triangle. Then he and Mr. Curtis moved to one side, and, drawing a circle about themselves, knelt down.

  Meanwhile, Godstone was tracing strange signs on the ground. But presently he stopped, and, turning, faced the stone a little distance off, so that his back was now towards her. For the third time she heard the rasp of flint on steel, and she saw him bend to left and right and light two candles standing on the ground beside him in queer crescent-shaped holders. Their thin spear-points of name pointed straight upwards; for it was deathly still, and there was no wind. The smoke from the brazier and from the fire bellied upwards in thick coils. There was dead silence. No one moved. What curious clothes Miss Truelow was wearing.

  Godstone was standing with bowed head, like a great black bird drooping on a perch. Suddenly he raised his arms and called out with a loud voice. The others in the circle shivered; the two women drew closer together. Again he cried out something that Constance could not understand, and then a third time. What was that he was shouting?