by Susan Hill
I went to look out but there was no one, either on the near or far pavement or on the wide roadway between, and in the gardens nothing moved, either in the still, eerie moonlight or among the shadows.
What was happening to me, why I had seen the boy, and now heard the singing, why I was such easy prey to so many emotions as a result I did not understand, but strangely, as I stood there in the middle of the night, alone in my rooms, I was quite calm and undisturbed, only bewildered, and strangely out of touch with my own self and the feelings and responses I was experiencing.
It was a long time before, shivering, I returned to my bed and slept, and slept well until morning and the noise of the caretaker hammering on the door.
I felt rested and clear of purpose. The incidents of the previous night had not faded from my mind but I was sure that I needed to give myself something to occupy me completely and decided to put down both my repeated sightings of the boy and now the sound of the woman’s voice singing, when I was sure no woman had been by, to some sort of nervous strain whose cause I could not fathom but which had better be dealt with by vigorously plunging myself into work. I had been too idle, too self-absorbed, too many hours had been spent ambling purposelessly about, or staring idly out of windows.
Accordingly, after a hurried breakfast, I set out to make my arrangements.
CHAPTER SIX
The fine weather changed on the morning of my departure. A raw wind blew off the river, finding its way mercilessly through my inadequate light overcoat and the sky was thick and curded with low steely clouds. Because of a miscalculation in the time of ordering my cab and congestion in the streets, I arrived at Waterloo with scarcely a minute to spare and was obliged to run along the platform and jump into the first available compartment.
The guard’s whistle blew as the door slammed shut and I found myself alone with a striking-looking woman who was surrounded by suitcases, bags and hat-boxes and sitting with a very upright posture in the opposite seat. I removed my hat and muttered an apology for my precipitate entry but she merely inclined her head very slightly and looked away. I noted how well she was dressed in a long, fur-trimmed coat of dark purple wool, with a high fur collar, muff and hat. Her hands, which were folded in her lap, were studded with heavy diamond and emerald rings and I judged her, from my covert glances, to be in the prime of her middle years, wealthy and well connected.
To my pleasure the train ran for some way alongside the Thames, before branching off – we were to pick it up again at the end of our journey. But it was a dismal view, the outskirts of London and then the countryside dull and grey under a gathering sky, and before long I turned away to read my newspaper. When I glanced up again it was because of a change in the light and, looking out, I saw that it had begun to snow. I was not able to suppress an exclamation of pleasure and wonder for, whatever I may have known in childhood, as a grown man I had not seen snow, and sat mesmerised by the swirling flakes and fast-whitening fields as the train ran on. Then the lamps came on in the carriage and at once the outside world seemed to darken and recede, though now and again fat snowflakes splattered silently on the windows before being at once blown off again.
We stopped at a station, and then another, but no one got into our compartment. I went on with my paper, though I was repeatedly drawn from it towards the snow and as I did look up I became conscious that the woman opposite was regarding me steadily. I did not so much see it, for I did not turn my head towards her, or catch her eye, as sense her look upon me, and in the end was made uncomfortable by it and would have spoken, had we not just then stopped at a small station. No one waited on the platform, no one left or boarded the train but we did not move off, only waited in the cold and silence, the luggage rack creaking occasionally above our heads. I looked out. There was not even a porter on the platform. Above the roof, the snow was like feathers flying about the sky.
‘Go back.’
I spun round. She had spoken in a low but quite firm, clear tone. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Her eyes were very blue, and slightly widened, and they stared not so much at as into me, and yet there was a strange, distant expression in them, as though she were seeing not me but something beyond.
‘You should not go. I sense it very strongly. You must stay away.’
Into my head came Beamish’s voice, ‘Leave be’, and Votable’s ‘Be wary’, and I shuddered involuntarily and shrank back in my seat from the woman’s stare, feeling suddenly afraid of these apparently random but adamant warnings. I did not believe in gypsy prophecies or other superstitions of that kind but there had been too many odd hints and happenings. I was watching her face. Quite suddenly her expression changed, she came out of her trance-like state. Her eyes focused upon me and she smiled and coloured faintly. ‘I must apologise. But when it is so clear I cannot help myself. It comes without warning. From the moment you entered the compartment …’
‘Madam … ?’
‘My name is Viola Quincebridge. My husband is Sir Lionel – the judge.’
‘1 am afraid I am new to England, Lady Quincebridge, I know almost no one, have heard of no one.’ I held out my hand to her. ‘James Monmouth.’
‘Yes, of course. You have been a traveller. You …’ Her face clouded again. ‘But it is not the past – or not altogether … it is the future.’
‘I must ask what you know of me.’
‘Nothing. I have neither seen nor heard of you before today.’
The compartment was absolutely silent, apart from her low, urgent voice. We were still standing at the deserted country station. Now and again there came a faint hiss of steam, or iron clang, from the engine ahead. I saw that the edge of the platform was now white with lying snow.
‘It is sometimes very awkward – an embarrassment, that I know – am told, these things – am given warnings. I become so horribly aware of, oh, an imminent death, danger, of evil surrounding someone – usually a person I do not know at all, but very occasionally it is a friend, which is the worst. It has happened to me since I was a child. I never try to influence it, bring it about, very much the contrary, but it is so powerful I cannot ignore it.’
I saw that she spoke the truth.
‘And have these – feelings ever proved correct?’
‘Oh yes, always – when I know the outcome, that is. Of course I very often do not …’ She pulled her collar closely around her throat. It was becoming bitterly cold in the carriage.
‘I do hot choose,’ she said quietly.
Then, I found myself beginning to speak about myself, and to tell her, though quite guardedly at first, of my years abroad and a little about the recent weeks in London. I finished by outlining, very matter of factly, my plans for the immediate future, and the work on Conrad Vane.
‘It is in that connection,’ I said, ‘that I am travelling today. I am on my way to his old school, where the library has papers, letters and so forth. I intend to stay there for a few days and begin my researches.’
Her face remained clouded and thoughtful. ‘And then?’
‘Then? Oh, I shall return to my rooms in Chelsea – unless my quest leads me elsewhere, which at this stage I cannot foresee.’
‘What will you do at Christmas, Mr Monmouth?’
‘I confess I have given it no thought whatsoever.’
It was true. In past years, in those countries I had lived and travelled in, Christmas had meant little or nothing and, although I had been brought up as a Christian and sent to a missionary school, I had grown away from observance of the ceremonies as soon as I had left – though not altogether from some simple, essential beliefs.
‘The day will soon pass,’ I said, ‘without very much interest.’
She opened her handbag and took out a card.
‘That is our address. We are only a few miles or so from the school – my sons went there, of course, so did my husband. If you have need of anything at all during your stay …’
I took it and thanked her.
‘I am so uneasy. I wish you would not go on with this. I do not know why but I feel it so strongly.’
I did not reply.
‘Ah, you think I am mad, a hysterical, middle-aged woman. I have embarrassed you, I see that.’ She leaned forward and spoke urgently. ‘It has been so very long – years, since it has happened to me. I assure you that I am in all respects very calm and common-sensical.’
‘I believe it.’
‘Come to us for Christmas. Yes, that is the answer! We shall be quite a large party, you will fit in perfectly. I can’t think of your being alone in a strange country at Christmas.’
‘It is not strange – I have never felt more at home.’
‘Nevertheless.’
‘You are very kind. But you do not know me – you know nothing about me.’
‘I know what you have told me, and it is quite clear to me that you are an honest man.’
I remembered that the Reverend Mr Votable had said as much.
‘Thank you. But surely your husband …’
‘Oh, Lionel will not object, he will find you of great interest, I assure you, and he is always guided by me in such domestic arrangements. Come to us at Christmas, Mr Monmouth. Telegraph to us, giving your arrival time, and I will arrange to have you met at the station – say, on Christmas Eve?’
At that moment, the train jerked and started to move slowly forwards, we cleared the bleak little station and were at once plunged into a blackness through which snow whirled furiously. Lady Quincebridge settled back, took out a pair of spectacles and a book, and I returned to my paper and for the rest of the journey we read in companionable silence. But I felt a warmth and pleasure within me as a result of her invitation. I had made a friend, the first since my arrival in England, and I welcomed it. Her odd warnings and forebodings I preferred to set quietly aside.
When the train slowed again and then pulled into the riverside station at which I was to alight, she extended her hand.
‘I continue a little further down the line,’ she said, peering at me in a wholly cheerful and friendly manner over the top of her glasses. ‘Now I shall expect to hear from you.’
I bade her goodbye and turned to set my bag down on the platform. It was only as I slammed the heavy train door that she called out something else, but over the noise of the engine and the clang of a porter’s trolley I could not make it out, I only saw her expression which was again one of alarm and anxiety – the sight of her distraught face was to return often to my mind in the weeks to come.
For the moment, though, I was occupied in finding my way out of the station and taking directions for the school, which I was told lay about a mile ahead. In spite of the weather, I rejected a cab and, carrying my own bag, walked out into the snow-covered street and turned right, to cross the bridge that spanned the river.
Here, the Thames curved slightly towards me, wide and fast-flowing, and I stood and looked over into the water. The snow had almost stopped falling now and there was a crack in the clouds through which a little moonlight shone. The air was cold and a slight breeze blew from downriver. I turned. Ahead of me stretched a long, narrow high street, with the roofs of small houses and shops clustered together on either side, low-lying and sloping at different angles, and all covered with thick, freshly fallen snow. Here and there, lights shone out onto the pavement, but the roadway was white and untrammelled. The air smelled wonderfully of the snow and my spirits were high, I felt excitement, as if something miraculous were about to happen, and a complete absence of any sense of strangeness or apprehension. The dark warnings of Lady Quincebridge on the train now only seemed amusing.
An old man, muffled in heavy scarves and a long, shabby tweed coat, came shambling towards me, and I bade him a cheerful good evening. He nodded, peering at me out of rheumy eyes, but after that the bridge and the street ahead were empty again.
I walked on, treading carefully through the snow, for I had no boots or overshoes, and kept close to the shop fronts and houses, where it lay more thinly. Inside the bakers’ and grocers’, cobblers’ and outfitters’ and alehouses, lights glowed warmly behind steamed-up windows, and I saw the shadows of those moving about within, but out here I was entirely alone, making my way towards where I began to see the ancient building of the school, the tower, the chapel, the old walls rising up, dark and imposing. Apart from the gas lamps, all was dark, and silent, save for the soft press and creak of my own footsteps upon the snow. The moon had gone behind the clouds again. I stopped and set down my bag and my breath plumed out like silver smoke in front of my face.
To my right stood a wooden door with a square grille and a brass bell handle set into the wall beside it. I went over, pulled it and listened to the clang and, as I waited then, the snow began to fall lightly again, the huge flakes settling gently like goose-down on my shoulder and sleeve. I found it beautiful beyond all expressing, and the cold and snow and the silent darkness were home to me, familiar, fitting; I remembered and responded to them, and realised that, when I was a child, they must have formed part of the background to my life. There was some secret, just out of reach, the answer to a mystery, and, if I had been able to stand there for long enough, I felt I would have guessed it, been given an answer and understood it. But then there was a scraping sound and the metal grille was lifted. Behind it, I saw the outline of a face, and a muffled light.
I spoke my name and heard the bolts being drawn back, and the veil fell forward again, the secret was secret still.
The porter who admitted me was a ruddy-faced man wearing a bowler hat and greatcoat. He took my bag and, after locking and bolting the wooden door again, led me out from under the shadow of the buildings. As we passed by his lodge, I glanced in and saw a cosy, frowsty room, with an armchair pulled up close to a grate in which a small fire was burning, and, beside it, a black cat, curled asleep.
We came out into a great, rectangular cobbled yard, surrounded on four sides by dark buildings, several of which he pointed out as we passed. ‘Chapel’, and ‘Scholars’ House’, and ‘Muniments’, though without any explanation, and then stopped before a statue on a plinth in the centre.
‘King Henry,’ he said curtly.
The King stood, grave and venerable, with snow on his leaden shoulders. Ahead was a clock tower. ‘The King’s Tower.’ I paused and looked back. Snow covered the cobbles and the stone window-ledges, giving off a pale sheen, and a pool of light bobbed ahead from the porter’s lantern. Everything else was hidden deep in shadow, and now we passed under an archway into an inner cloister, and here the shadows lay deeper still. A passage ran round the parameters of the snow-covered central square, with arches at regular intervals. We walked around three sides, our footsteps echoing hollow on the stone floor, and the echoes were taken up and continued to sound all around us, so that I had the urge to whisper aloud and hear the answering echo.
It was cold as iron here but, at last, we ascended a flight of stone steps, went through a baize door, and into a wood-panelled corridor. Several closed doors stood on one side, and, on the other, windows in stone embrasures looked down into the court. The walls were lined with portraits, whose eyes seemed to follow me, staring down, and I had an uneasy sense that all around us and behind doors, hidden in corners, standing back in the shadows, faces watched, saw us pass, took note. But, when I looked, there was no one.
We stopped in front of a door, and the porter set down my bag. ‘Here is your set, sir. Everything you should require. Dr Dancer is away until tomorrow, sir, but I am to conduct you to the library after breakfast, which I will bring. And so, sir, I bid you goodnight.’ He leaned forward, through the doorway, and switched on a light. ‘At the top of the two flights. There is a bell, sir, connecting to the lodge, should you require anything.’
‘Thank you.’ I picked up my bag. ‘Thank you very much.’
But he was already off down the corridor; the baize door sighed shut and I was left alone in the silence that seethed like dust, settling around me.
A steep flight of stairs led ahead, twisted sharply round and narrowed even more for a second, shorter flight, at the top of which was another baize door. My footsteps trod heavily on bare boards and I was half-expecting to come out into some dingy attic furnished with spartan iron bedstead in the style of a school dormitory, without comforts of any kind. It was still bitterly cold and a draught came through cracks on every side. I reflected that, since my arrival in England, I had spent much time climbing stairs up to strange rooms, wondering what lay ahead, and I was becoming, after so many odd, unnerving events, more and more wary and apprehensive. I need not have been.
On pushing open the door, I found myself at once in a most pleasing and comfortable sitting room. The lamps were lit, a fire burned brightly in the grate, with a brass hod full of coal beside it and logs neatly stacked on either side. There was a desk and a fine mahogany table, deep armchairs, books in the bookshelves, a good Persian rug, bowls of fruit and nuts on a sideboard – I felt as if the room had been waiting like a friend, for my arrival, and I sat down, still in my overcoat, closed my eyes and, involuntarily, a great sigh of relief and contentment rose up from deep within me, and I shed, as I exhaled, all the anxiety, weariness, fear – yes, it had been a form of fear that I had been so bowed down and cramped by all that day and for several days past.
And, as I sat, from across the roof-tops a gentle bell chimed and then sounded the hour, and the sound was a sweet one, lulling me even further into tranquillity.
The rest of the set, when I bestirred myself to explore it, consisted of a small bathroom, and a bedroom more plainly, but nonetheless adequately, furnished and equipped, and containing a long carved and gilded mirror, fixed to the wall opposite the window. The sight of it made me start. I had seen the mirror before, it was so familiar that I thought back to my Guardian’s bungalow, all those years before, wondering if perhaps one like it had hung there, but I was sure that it had not, there had been nothing so ornate in that sober little house. I stared at the mirror again, puzzled, tracing over every scroll and curlicue, certain that I had done so many times before, searching in the depths of my memory. But I was forced to give up, I had no clue as to where I had previously seen it.
