“This is a horrid place, isn’t it?” said Miss Rokeby conversationally to Colvin.
“I’m used to it,” said Colvin, smiling. “Mrs. Royd has her softer side.”
“She’s put poor Myrrha in a cupboard.”
Colvin remembered about Greta’s old room upstairs.
“Perhaps she’d like to change rooms with me? I’ve been away and haven’t even unpacked. It would be easy.”
“How kind you are! To that silly little girl! To me! And now to Myrrha! May I see?”
“Of course.”
Colvin took her into the passage. It seemed obvious that Myrrha would come also, but she did not. Apparently she left it to Miss Rokeby to dispose of her. Malnik sulked behind also.
Colvin opened the door of his room and switched on the light. Lying on his bed and looking very foolish was his copy of Bull’s Graphite and Its Uses. He glanced round for Miss Rokeby. Then for the second time that evening, he felt frightened.
Miss Rokeby was standing in the ill-lit passage, just outside his doorway. It was unpleasantly apparent that she was terrified. Formerly pale, she was now quite white. Her hands were clenched, and she was breathing unnaturally deeply. Her big eyes were half shut, and to Colvin it seemed that it was something she smelt which was frightening her. This impression was so strong that he sniffed the chilly air himself once or twice, unavailingly. Then he stepped forward, and his arms were around Miss Rokeby, who was palpably about to faint. Immediately Miss Rokeby was in his arms, such emotion swept through him as he had never before known. For what seemed a long moment, he was lost in the wonder of it. Then he was recalled by something which frightened him more than anything else, though for less reason. There was a sharp sound from Number Twelve A. Mr. Superbus must have returned.
Colvin supported Miss Rokeby back to Number Nine. Upon catching sight of her, Myrrha gave a small but jarring cry, and helped her on to the bed.
“It’s my heart,” said Miss Rokeby. “My absurd heart.”
Malnik now looked more black than grey. “Shall we send for a doctor?” he enquired, hardly troubling to mask the sarcasm.
Miss Rokeby shook her head once. It was the sibling gesture to her nod.
“Please don’t trouble about moving,” she said to Colvin.
Colvin, full of confusion, looked at Myrrha, who was being resourceful with smelling-salts.
“Good night,” said Miss Rokeby, softly but firmly. And as Colvin followed Malnik out of the room, she touched his hand.
Colvin passed the night almost without sleep, which was another new experience for him. A conflict of feelings about Miss Rokeby, all of them strong, was one reason for insomnia: another was the sequence of sounds from Number Twelve A. Mr. Superbus seemed to spend the night in moving things about and talking to himself. At first it sounded as if he were rearranging all the furniture in his room. Then there was a period, which seemed to Colvin timeless, during which the only noise was of low and unintelligible mutterings, by no means continuous, but broken by periods of silence and then resumed as before just as Colvin was beginning to hope that all was over. Colvin wondered whether Mr. Superbus was saying his prayers. Ultimately the banging about recommenced. Presumably Mr. Superbus was still dissatisfied with the arrangement of the furniture; or perhaps was returning it to its original dispositions. Then Colvin heard the sash-window thrown sharply open. He remembered the sound from the occasion when Mrs. Royd had sharply shut it. After that silence continued. In the end Colvin turned on the light and looked at his watch. It had stopped.
At breakfast, Colvin asked when Mr. Superbus was expected down. “He doesn’t come down,” replied Greta. “They say he has all his meals out.”
Colvin understood that rehearsals began that day, but Malnik had always demurred at outsiders being present. Now, moreover, he felt that Colvin had seen him at an unfavourable moment, so that his cordiality was much abated. The next two weeks, in fact, were to Colvin heavy with anti-climax. He saw Miss Rokeby only at the evening meal, which, however, she was undeniably in process of converting from tea to dinner, by expending charm, will-power, and cash. Colvin participated in this improvement, as did even such few of the endless commercial travellers as wished to do so; and from time to time Miss Rokeby exchanged a few pleasant generalities with him, though she did not ask him to sit at her table, nor did he, being a shy man, dare to invite her. Myrrha never appeared at all; and when on one occasion Colvin referred to her interrogatively, Miss Rokeby simply said, “She pines, poor lamb,” and plainly wished to say nothing more. Colvin remembered Myrrha’s wasted appearance, and concluded that she must be an invalid. He wondered if he should again offer to change rooms. After that single disturbed night, he had heard no more of Mr. Superbus. But from Mrs. Royd he had gathered that Mr. Superbus had settled for several weeks in advance. Indeed, for the first time in years the Emancipation Hotel was doing good business.
It continued as cold as ever during all the time Miss Rokeby remained in the town, with repeated little snow storms every time the streets began to clear. The miners would stamp as they entered the bar until they seemed likely to go through to the cellar beneath; and all the commercial travellers caught colds. The two local papers, morning and evening, continued their efforts to set people against Malnik’s now diminished Gala. When Cornelia was no longer offered, the two editors pointed out (erroneously, Colvin felt) that even now it was not too late for a pantomime: but Malnik seemed to have succeeded in persuading Miss Rokeby to reinforce As You Like It with a piece entitled A Scrap of Paper which Colvin had never heard of, but which an elderly local citizen whom the papers always consulted upon matters theatrical described as “very old-fashioned”. Malnik caused further comment by proposing to open on Christmas Eve, when the unfailing tradition had been Boxing Night.
The final week of rehearsal was marred by an exceedingly distressing incident. It happened on the Tuesday. Coming in that morning from a cold visit to the Technical Institute Library, Colvin found in the stuffy little saloon bar a number of the Tabard Players. The Players usually patronized an establishment nearer to the Hippodrome; and the fact that the present occasion was out of the ordinary was emphasized by the demeanour of the group, who were clustered together and talking in low, serious voices. Colvin knew none of the players at all well, but the group looked so distraught that, partly from curiosity and partly from compassion, he ventured to enquire of one of them, a middle-aged actor named Shillitoe to whom Malnik had introduced him, what was the matter. After a short silence, the group seemed collectively to decide upon accepting Colvin among them, and all began to enlighten him in short strained bursts of over-eloquence. Some of the references were not wholly clear to Colvin, but the substance of the story was simple.
Colvin gathered that when the Tabard Players took possession of the Hippodrome, Malnik had been warned that the “grid” above the stage was undependable, and that scenery should not be “flown” from it. This restriction had caused grumbling, but had been complied with until, during a rehearsal of A Scrap of Paper, the producer had rebelled and asked Malnik for authority to use the grid. Malnik had agreed; and two stage-hands began gingerly to pull on some of the dusty lines which disappeared into the almost complete darkness far above. Before long one of them had cried out that there was “something up there already”. At these words, Colvin was told, everyone in the theatre fell silent. The stage-hand went on paying out line, but the stage was so ample and the grid so high that an appreciable time passed before the object came slowly into view.
The narrators stopped, and there was a silence which Colvin felt must have been like the silence in the theatre. Then Shillitoe resumed: “It was poor old Ludlow’s body. He’d hanged himself right up under the grid. Eighty feet above the floor of the stage. Some time ago, too. He wasn’t in the Christmas plays, you know. Or in this week’s play. We all thought he’d gone home.”
Colvin learnt that the producer had fainted right away; and, upon tactful enquiry, that M
iss Rokeby had fortunately not been called for that particular rehearsal.
On the first two Sundays after her arrival, Miss Rokeby had been no more in evidence than on any other day; but on the morning of the third Sunday Colvin was taking one of his resolute lonely walks across the windy fells which surrounded the town when he saw her walking ahead of him through the snow. The snow lay only an inch or two deep upon the hillside ledge along which the path ran; and Colvin had been wondering for some time about the small footsteps which preceded him. It was the first time he had seen Miss Rokeby outside the Emancipation Hotel, but he had no doubt that it was she he saw, and his heart turned over at the sight. He hesitated; then walked faster, and soon had overtaken her. As he drew near, she stopped, turned, and faced him. Then, when she saw who it was, she seemed unsurprised. She wore a fur coat with a collar which reached almost to the tip of her nose; a fur hat; and elegant boots which laced to the knee.
“I’m glad to have a companion,” she said gravely, sending Colvin’s thought to her other odd companion, “I suppose you know all these paths well?”
“I come up here often to look for lead-workings. I’m writing a dull book on lead and plumbago mining.”
“I don’t see any mines up here.” She looked around with an air of grave bewilderment.
“Lead mines aren’t like coal mines. They’re simply passages in hillsides.”
“What do you do when you find them?”
“I mark them on a large-scale map. Sometimes I go down them.”
“Don’t the miners object?”
“There are no miners.”
A shadow crossed her face.
“I mean, not any longer. We don’t mine lead any more.”
“Don’t we? Why not?”
“That’s a complicated story.”
She nodded. “Will you take me down a mine?”
“I don’t think you’d like it. The passages are usually both narrow and low. One of the reasons why the industry’s come to an end is that people would no longer work in them. Besides, now the mines are disused, they’re often dangerous.”
She laughed. It was the first time he had ever heard her do so. “Come on.” She took hold of his arm. “Or aren’t there any mines on this particular hillside?” She looked as concerned as a child.
“There’s one about a hundred feet above our heads. But there’s nothing to see. Only darkness.”
“Only darkness,” cried Miss Rokeby. She implied that no reasonable person could want more. “But you don’t go down all these passages only to see darkness?”
“I take a flashlight.”
“Have you got it now?”
“Yes.” Colvin never went to the fells without it.
“Then that will look after you. Where’s the mine? Conduct me.”
They began to scramble together up the steep snow-covered slope. Colvin knew all the workings round here; and soon they were in the entry.
“You see,” said Colvin. “There’s not even room to stand, and a fat person couldn’t get in at all. You’ll ruin your coat.”
“I’m not a fat person.” There was a small excited patch in each of her cheeks. “But you’d better go first.”
Colvin knew that this particular working consisted simply in a long passage, following the vein of lead. He had been to the end of it more than once. He turned on his flashlight. “I assure you, there’s nothing to see,” he said. And in he went.
Colvin perceived that Miss Rokeby seemed indeed to pass along the adit without even stooping or damaging her fur hat. She insisted on going as far as possible, although near the end Colvin made a quite strenuous effort to persuade her to let them return.
“What’s that?” enquired Miss Rokeby when they had none the less reached the extremity of the passage.
“It’s a big fault in the limestone. A sort of cave. The miners chucked their débris down it.”
“Is it deep?”
“Some of these faults are supposed to be bottomless.”
She took the light from his hand, and, squatting down on the brink of the hole, flashed it round the depths below.
“Careful,” cried Colvin. “You’re on loose shale. It could easily slip.” He tried to drag her back. The only result was that she dropped the flashlight, which went tumbling down the great hole like a meteor, until after many seconds they heard a faint crash. They were in complete darkness.
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Rokeby’s voice. “But you did push me.”
Trying not to fall down the hole, Colvin began to grope his way back. Suddenly he had thought of Malnik, and the irresponsibility of the proceedings upon which he was engaged appalled him. He begged Miss Rokeby to go slowly, test every step, and mind her head; but her unconcern seemed complete. Colvin tripped and toiled along for an endless period of time, with Miss Rokeby always close behind him, calm, sure of foot, and unflagging. As far into the earth as this, it was both warm and stuffy. Colvin began to fear that bad air might overcome them, forced as they were to creep so laboriously and interminably. He broke out in heavy perspiration.
Suddenly he knew that he would have to stop. He could not even pretend that it was out of consideration for Miss Rokeby. He subsided upon the floor of the passage and she seated herself near him, oblivious of her costly clothes. The blackness was still complete.
“Don’t feel unworthy,” said Miss Rokeby softly. “And don’t feel frightened. There’s no need. We shall get out.”
Curiously enough, the more she said, the worse Colvin felt. The strange antecedents to this misadventure were with him; and, even more so, Miss Rokeby’s whole fantastic background. He had to force his spine against the stone wall of the passage if he were not to give way to panic utterly and leap up screaming. Normal speech was impossible.
“Is it me you are frightened of?” asked Miss Rokeby, with dreadful percipience.
Colvin was less than ever able to speak.
“Would you like to know more about me?”
Colvin was shaking his head in the dark.
“If you’ll promise not to tell anyone else.”
But, in fact, she was like a child, unable to contain her secret.
“I’m sure you won’t tell anyone else . . . It’s my helper. He’s the queer one. Not me.”
Now that the truth was spoken Colvin felt a little better. “Yes,” he said in a low, shaken voice, “I know.”
“Oh, you know . . . I don’t see him or—” she paused—“or encounter him, often for years at a time. Years.”
“But you encountered him the other night?”
He could feel her shudder. “Yes . . . You’ve seen him?”
“Very briefly . . . How did you . . . encounter him first?”
“It was years ago. Have you any idea how many years?”
“I think so.”
Then she said something which Colvin never really understood; not even later, in his dreams of her. “You know I’m not here at all, really. Myrrha’s me. That’s why she’s called Myrrha. That’s how I act.”
“How?” said Colvin. There was little else to say.
“My helper took my own personality out of me. Like taking a nerve out of a tooth. Myrrha’s my personality.”
“Do you mean your soul?” asked Colvin.
“Artists don’t have souls,” said Miss Rokeby. “Personality’s the word . . . I’m anybody’s personality. Or everybody’s. And when I lost my personality, I stopped growing older. Of course I have to look after Myrrha, because if anything happened to Myrrha—well, you do see,” she continued.
“But Myrrha looks as young as you do.”
“That’s what she looks.”
Colvin remembered Myrrha’s wasted face.
“But how can you live without a personality? Besides,” added Colvin, “you seem to me to have a very strong personality.”
“I have a mask for every occasion.”
It was only the utter blackness, Colvin felt, which made this impossible conversation po
ssible.
“What do you do in exchange? I suppose you must repay your helper in some way?”
“I suppose I must . . . I’ve never found out what way it is.”
“What else does your helper do for you?”
“He smooths my path. Rids me of people who want to hurt me. He rid me of little Jack Nethers. Jack was mad, you know. You can see it even in his photograph.”
“Did he rid you of this wretched man Ludlow?”
“I don’t know. You see, I can’t remember Ludlow. I think he often rids me of people that I don’t know want to hurt me.”
Colvin considered.
“Can you be rid of him?”
“I’ve never really tried.”
“Don’t you want to be rid of him?”
“I don’t know. He frightens me terribly whenever I come near him, but otherwise . . . I don’t know . . . But for him I should never have been down a lead mine.”
“How many people know all this?” asked Colvin after a pause.
“Not many. I only told you because I wanted you to stop being frightened.”
As she spoke the passage was filled with a strange sound. Then they were illumined with icy December sunshine. Colvin perceived that they were almost at the entry to the working, and supposed that the portal must have been temporarily blocked by a miniature avalanche of melting snow. Even now there was, in fact, only a comparatively small hole, through which they would have to scramble.
“I told you we’d get out,” said Miss Rokeby. “Other people haven’t believed a word I said. But now you’ll believe me.”
Not the least strange thing was the matter-of-fact manner in which, all the way back, Miss Rokeby questioned Colvin about his researches into lead and plumbago mining, with occasionally, on the perimeter of their talk, flattering enquiries about himself; although equally strange, Colvin considered, was the matter-of-fact manner in which he answered her. Before they were back in the town he was wondering how much of what she had said in the darkness of the mine had been meant only figuratively; and after that he wondered whether Miss Rokeby had not used the circumstances to initiate an imaginative and ingenious boutade. After all, he reflected, she was an actress. Colvin’s hypothesis was, if anything, confirmed when at their parting she held his hand for a moment and said: “Remember! No one.”
The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories Page 34
