‘I have avoided it, Bingham,’ I reminded him.
‘Yes, but my father didn’t: he took the apartments – furnished – and furnished most strikingly – for the furniture had character! The bed was a huge wooden four-poster hung with a fringed and crimson canopy – a feather bed, with two wooden steps to help you to climb into it. The bell-pulls – those old-fashioned rope things – were crimson also, and so were the curtains. The whole room, in my first rapid view of it, seemed to me to be flooded with the same sinister colour. Then this impression faded, leaving everything threadbare and drab, like the spiders’ webs in the corners under the ceiling. There were no blinds, the carpet was in holes, and there was a large chip out of the water jug; but the permanent stuff, the big mahogany wardrobe, the oval-mirrored dressing-table, the chest of drawers – those were solid as the house itself. And it was the same in my sitting-room – really the dining-room – when we went down to it; all the larger furniture was sombre, massive and old, built to defy the attacks of time; but there were rents in the chairs, through which the stuffing was visible; the screen in front of the grate was broken; the gas globes were dusty; the windows uncleaned; and the paper in one corner had begun to peel from the wall. My father thought I should be “very snug here”.’
Bingham laughed rather sourly, ‘You don’t see the joke, perhaps; but then you didn’t see the rooms. Even if they had been spick and span it would have been difficult to find them snug. But my father was like that, not so much optimistic as incurably easy-going and indolent. He gave me another surprise on the way to the station, when he remarked that Mrs Wace appeared to be a motherly kind of person. It may sound incredible; nonetheless, he really used those words; and I, in my turn, could not help asking upon what he based this opinion. “We haven’t seen her,” I pointed out, “and what we heard was chiefly about her father. It was in the basement, wasn’t it, that he tortured the animals?”
‘I mention this little outburst just to show, that though tiresomely submissive, I wasn’t absolutely a fool. I could picture, you see, all the cheerful colours in which Number 10 Anselm Terrace would be painted for my mother, and this exasperated me – none the less, because my deepest misgivings were incommunicable. In the meantime we walked up and down the platform, having arrived at the station much too soon.
‘When the train was gone I collected my traps and drove in a hansom back to Anselm Terrace. It was already dusk. I knocked – without result. I knocked twice more, and still nobody came. There was the noise of an upper window being opened in one of the houses opposite, but Number 10 remained silent as the tomb. The situation was becoming ridiculous, and if my cab still had been there I believe I should have put my portmanteau back into it and gone in search of a lodging on my own account. As it was, for several minutes I must have waited before I heard a soft yet heavy tread on the other side of the door. There was even a further delay, as if I were being inspected through the keyhole; then the door was slowly drawn back, and in the aperture a rather portentous figure loomed.
‘At least, she looked to me portentous, though it was only the “motherly” Mrs Wace, and I confess I gazed at her with a sinking of the heart. For she was not prepossessing, though, as with the house itself, I couldn’t have told you what I felt to be wrong. She uttered not a word of apology for having kept me; she remained absolutely still – a dark, massive figure, black against the thickening dusk behind her – black from head to foot, except for the white face, with its many chins and expressionless boot-button eyes.
‘I don’t suppose I can describe Mrs Wace dispassionately, but I can describe the impression she produced on me. She had not the distressingly common appearance of her husband; she probably was by birth a lady; but she was grotesque, extravagant, abnormal. For one thing, she seemed to me enormous; even her hands, her feet, might have been a man’s, and a big man’s. On her feet she wore felt slippers; on her wrists were black lace mittens; round her neck was a chain of jet beads, from which depended an oval locket of the kind that opens to reveal a portrait, or somebody’s hair twisted into a neat little plait. A memorial locket – a locket enshrining some memento of the dead. I am sure I stared at her, and I know she stared at me, or rather examined me, deliberately, appraisingly, from the crown of my head down to my feet, and then slowly up again. “You are Mr Bingham, I suppose,” she said at last, speaking in a husky voice that appeared to have travelled a long distance before it actually issued from her lips. And I answered with a meekness from which no one could have guessed the indignation I had felt while waiting on the doorstep. For that matter, Mrs Wace still appeared to be in no hurry to admit me. “There seems to have been some mistake,” she remarked, renewing her embarrassing inspection of my person. “There were no rooms to let.” She paused for quite a long time, during which I stood there tongue-tied, like an awkward schoolboy – and indeed I was no more. “Mr Wace must have put that card back into the window. It isn’t the first time he has done so, though when I speak to him about it he promises not to do it again. But he forgets. However, now you are here, I suppose you must stay. Can you carry your bag upstairs? Maggie is out; she has gone a message.”
‘I followed her into the hall, mumbling an apology. I didn’t want to stay, and if only she had not kept on looking at me I might have bolted even then. On the other hand, beneath the light of the hall lamp Mrs Wace’s attitude underwent an abrupt change. “Why, you’re only a boy!” she exclaimed. “I doubt if you’re as old as Maggie. Young people always interest me, and I’m afraid I spoil them.” She smiled, and I had a sudden feeling that it would be better not to be spoiled by Mrs Wace. “Mr Wace,” she continued, “let you the rooms, Maggie says. I think I’d better tell you at once that Mr Wace has never quite recovered from a bad nervous breakdown. He has little lapses now and then, in which he gets strange notions and does odd things. I only mention it to clear up the misunderstanding.”
‘I made no comment on this pleasant addition to my knowledge of the household, nor am I sure that it was an addition. Slowly, and despite her weight noiselessly, Mrs Wace preceded me upstairs to the bedroom I had already visited. “You’ll want some tea,” she murmured, as if it had just struck her. “Maggie will get it for you when she comes in. I can’t give you dinner: if you want dinner you will have to go out for it.”
‘I assured her that tea would do me very well, and that I was accustomed to dine in the middle of the day. I hoped she would now go, and leave me to unpack alone, but she stood at the foot of the bed, watching me with an interest that I suppose my father would have described as “motherly”. “We must give you a latchkey,” she said, while a smile spread across her white face. “Then you can come and go just as you wish.” Her tongue flickered for a moment between her parted teeth with a startling suggestion of active and separate life. “How old are you, Mr Bingham?”
‘ “Seventeen.”
‘ “Seventeen!” She glanced at the label on my portmanteau. “Then I suppose I may call you by your christian name, which I see is Henry. . . . And you are going to be a banker, Mr Wace says!”
‘ “Yes,” I answered shortly, for I did not relish the note of a rather heavy playfulness underlying her last words.
She fumbled with a matchbox, struck a match, and lit a second gas-burner, which cast its crude glare on her upturned and, as I now saw, distinctly ravaged countenance. “Shall I help you to unpack?” she suggested, and though I told her I could manage by myself, I might as well have held my peace. Not that she really did more than watch me, and occasionally lift up some garment and smooth it with a lingering caressing touch, as one might stroke an animal.
‘There was nothing very alarming, you may think, in all this, yet my discomfort remained. I knew little about life, and not much about human nature, but subconsciously I received a warning; Mrs Wace made me uneasy. Even when my back was turned I could feel her gaze fixed upon me, and no matter how soundlessly she might move in those large felt slippers, I was sure I sh
ould always know when she was near. “You are very shy!” she murmured.
‘I blushed still more. I was beginning to feel acutely unhappy; for beneath her half-bantering manner – which was in itself far too intimate – I became aware of something that, without fully understanding it, alarmed me – something I should now describe as a kind of veiled amorousness.
‘ “I hope you’ll be happy with us, Henry,” she pursued unctuously, “though I’m afraid you’ll find us very commonplace, ordinary people, not at all interesting.”
‘ “I don’t think you’re so very ordinary,” I plucked up courage to retort, but I kept my head bent while I said it.
‘A strange, low, not unmusical sound broke upon my ears, and looking up I perceived that Mrs Wace was laughing, and possibly for the first time quite unaffectedly. “He says that as if he meant it,” she chuckled richly, and I felt a firm warm hand drawn slowly over my hair. “Now don’t start away like that, as if I had done something dreadful! I believe you’re half afraid of me. And there’s Maggie – Maggie who would do anything for me! But it is always so: we’re mere bundles of prejudices – sympathies and antipathies, equally irrational. And what a little can alter them – and alter us! A stumble on the stairs – a fall – no bones broken – nothing apparently beyond a slight concussion: yet the difference ever afterwards!” Her eyes were fixed on mine. “That happened to Mr Wace, Henry – the least imaginative, the least fanciful of men. . . . And now he believes in ghosts!”
‘I did not answer, and as if at my embarrassed silence, once more she laughed. “Ghosts,” she went on, in half-humorous deprecation – “poor harmless creatures! Why should we be afraid of them? Aren’t we all of us, in a sense, trying to leave ghosts behind us? In other words, memories – memories to cheer and comfort those we love: and I’m sure at your age, Henry, whatever you may think of ghosts, you believe in love.” She had lifted my Sunday jacket from the bed, and now held the dark cloth against her mouth, while she looked at me over the top of it, much as a sentimental vulture might regard some particularly appetizing lamb. “I, too, believe in love,” she sighed, “so it turns out that in this at least we are very much alike.”
‘Here, though more from nervousness than amusement, I suddenly laughed myself, which perhaps pleased her, for she went on: “You must humour Mr Wace; make allowances for him: he suffers from fits of depression which come on quite suddenly, for no reason at all, and are, the doctors have warned us, the great, the real danger.”
‘ “Does he think the house is haunted?” I asked.
‘Mrs Wace put a finger to her lips and leaned her head sidelong, so that she seemed both to be enjoining silence and to be listening, though I heard nothing. “Haunted!” she at last breathed. “Well, I sometimes ask myself, could one be so deeply attached to it if it weren’t? But haunted only by thoughts, memories, and things that happened long ago. All my life, Henry, has been lived in this house.”
‘ “What were you listening to just now?” I questioned, plucking up a bolder spirit in sheer defiance.
‘Mrs Wace, I think, noticed this, for she laid a big white hand confidently on my shoulder. “Was I listening?” she rallied me. “Thoughts and memories are soundless.” And on that she turned slowly round, like an unwieldy sailing-ship, and left me.
‘I continued to put away my things, and by the time I had finished the unblinded windows were filled with night. On opening my door I was both surprised and annoyed to find the passage outside as black as pitch. I struck a match, and by its feeble glimmer made my way to the landing, and from there on down to the lighted hall. In my sitting-room, too, the gas had been lit and the table laid, so, after ringing the bell, I sat down in a rather more reconciled state of mind. Very soon the small servant came in with a rack of toast, which she placed on the table, and then retired. A further ten minutes elapsed without her reappearance. What could she be doing? I wondered, and how long did it take them to make a pot of tea? My impatience rapidly became indignation. If I was neglected in this barefaced fashion on the very evening of my arrival, what would it be like later? and I made up my mind that I would leave next day even if it meant going to an hotel. In the meantime I was determined to assert myself, and gave the bell a second and more violent tug.
‘All I heard was the rattle of a loose wire and the falling of some plaster; but in remote regions I must have succeeded in arousing a din, for after a minute or two Maggie returned, bearing a tray on which were a tea-pot and other essentials to a not very elaborate meal. As she set the things on the table I watched her with a dawning suspicion. There was something very strange about her. Her movements were somnambulistic, her eyes vacant, and the little smile on her lips was as fixed and meaningless as if it had been painted there. Placidly, deliberately, she arranged the tea-things, after which she laid a key upon the tablecloth. “This is the latchkey,” she said, in a soft indifferent voice, and without looking at me. “She told me to ask you, if you do go out, would you please lock and bolt the door and turn out the gas when you come back.”
‘ “Very well; and I want to be called in the morning at eight o’clock, please.”
‘ “Yes, sir.”
‘ “I’ll have breakfast at half-past eight sharp, remember.”
‘ “Yes, sir.”
‘ “That’s all.” I added the last words because she had made no movement to go, but seemed prepared to stand there in the same trance-like attitude for the rest of the evening. With a faint sigh, she turned and walked slowly from the room.
‘While I munched my cold toast I puzzled over the alteration that had taken place in her since our first meeting. I could not understand it; nevertheless I should have been prepared to swear that her condition now was not normal. Nor was Mrs Wace’s, if it came to that. But I could hit on no explanation that would fit the case, though a vague thought of drugs did occur to me. . . .
‘When I had finished tea, I put on my hat and went out. I had no destination in view, but I didn’t intend to sit all evening in that dreary room. For November the weather must have been unusually mild; I distinctly remember that I didn’t wear an overcoat. I sauntered up one street and down another, till presently I reached Westminster Bridge and began to stroll along the Embankment. When I grew tired of this, I turned up a street on my left, leading to the Strand. It was all so new to me that doubtless I should have enjoyed myself had I not been haunted by the thought of my return to those dismal lodgings. This cast its lugubrious shadow over everything, and the shadow deepened – deepened perceptibly – when at last I decided that I must go back.
‘It was a reluctant decision. Still, I could not walk the streets all night. In the morning I would send a telegram to my mother and word it so that it would bring her to town immediately. For I couldn’t do much without her: to-morrow would be my first day at the bank, and I should have very little time. To reassure myself I argued that it was because the place was so uncomfortable that I was in such a hurry to leave it, and so loath to go back to it now. After all, though I disliked my landlady, what had I against her? She had, in her own fashion, been very friendly. True, her manner and conversation were eccentric – but what else was there? Then I thought I had better have this out with myself once for all, and actually came to a halt under a lamp to do so.
‘No, there was nothing else – absolutely nothing. The house was cheerless, shabby, and, I suspected, not too clean; its inmates were peculiar; the service was deplorable; and that was all. . . . “A motherly sort of person!” . . . The abysmal ineptitude of my father’s remark still exasperated me. Nevertheless, I was determined to behave like a rational being, and walked on determinedly and quickly, disregarding an alarming simulacrum of Mrs Wace which suddenly took shape before me – the white, smiling face being followed by the complete form – voluminous, obese, draped from throat to heel in black, adorned with lace mittens and a mortuary locket. Yet all I knew about her was that she believed in love. . . . And Mr Wace believed in ghosts
and suffered from fits of depression. If I had been near the station and the last train for home had not gone— But no: there was the bank in the morning.’ Bingham leaned his elbows on the little table and stared with gloomy absorption at an advertisement of Somebody’s Soda Water.
‘You must think I was a very highly-strung youngster. I wasn’t. I was never the kind of boy who is afraid of the dark, and at this period I was practically grown-up, distinctly stolid: there’s a good deal of Scotch blood in me.’
‘I should have guessed Irish,’ I ventured.
‘Irish? Why? Well, there may be; it doesn’t matter; the point is that I returned to Anselm Terrace. I had to: I had to go to my work in the morning. Besides, there was something else which I haven’t mentioned. I am naturally curious, and to tell the truth, at the back of everything, I had now a consuming curiosity to find out just what was the matter with Mrs Wace – with Mr Wace – with Maggie. . . .
‘Late as it was, there were lights glimmering in several of the windows of Anselm Terrace when I reached it, and there was a street lamp immediately opposite Number 10. I climbed the five steps and opened the door with my latchkey. The gas in the hall had been turned down to a mere spark, but a candle and box of matches had been left on the side table, for which unexpected thoughtfulness I was grateful. On entering my room I lit the gas and sat down on the bed. It may have been that physical fatigue had blunted my sensibilities: at all events, I felt more at ease. This didn’t prevent me from making a careful tour of inspection. I examined the wardrobe and I peered under the bed: I would have locked the door, only there was no key. Finally, I undressed and turned out the gas. The softness of the feather mattress into which I sank was more strange to me than agreeable, but I had been on my feet more or less all day, and very soon I fell asleep. Nor were my last waking thoughts concerned with Mrs Wace. She had gone – I can’t say how: I only know that a weight, an oppression, had been lifted from my mind, and that my last thoughts before dropping asleep were of the morning and of the bank.
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories Page 24