The House

by Hilda Lawrence

  © Phocion Publishing 2019, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  Publisher’s Note

  Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

  We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

  THE HOUSE

  An Inner Sanctum Mystery

  By

  HILDA LAWRENCE

  The House was originally published in 1949, along with Composition for Four Hands, as the two-novel compendium Duet of Death; Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

  DEDICATION 5

  PART ONE 6

  PART TWO 43

  Other Novels by Hilda Lawrence 77

  CONTENTS 78

  REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 79

  DEDICATION

  To Maggie Cousins

  “Miss Lawrence creates horror atmosphere the hard way, with a light touch that leaves no brush marks. The mere suggestion of a sinister sound, the barest hint of screaming silence, and the reader’s hackles come away from his collar.”

  Meyer Berger

  PART ONE

  TONIGHT I walked in the garden again, and the dog followed me. He follows me whenever I leave the house. Sometimes I tell myself I have escaped him; I wait until he is asleep on his rug in the kitchen passage, or until he has disappeared on what I think is an expedition of his own. But in a little while I hear that measured tread behind me, padding through the thick, wet leaves or over the old stone walks. He never looks at me, never touches me, but he takes his place at my side as if he belonged there. I try to understand it, but there is no explanation. Not yet. Father was the only creature in his world. I say, “Go home, Tray.” He feigns deafness and waits for me to move on.

  Tonight I could see his black coat shining in the half-dark. We stood at the hedge between our grounds and the Barnabys’, away from the stream of light that poured from their windows, and watched the Barnabys’ party. I had been invited, but Mother said the invitation was in bad taste, because they know too well that I am in mourning.

  They were dancing in the living room, and in spite of the cold and the damp, the windows were raised. I could see the blazing logs in the fireplace, the long, white-covered table, holding drinks and sandwiches. Mike was playing the piano. Even their grandmother was there, dancing and singing with the others. Once Mike turned his head, and I thought he saw me, and drew back; but no one came to close the windows and draw the shades. I saw young Joe, in his first dinner coat, his fair hair plastered to his head. He danced by the windows as if he were showing himself to an unseen audience. Both Mike and Joe know that I walk at night, but they never ask me why. I’m glad they don’t, because I wouldn’t know how to answer.

  I looked at their big white house, lighted from top to bottom, and turned to look at my own. There were no lights showing in mine. Tench, Mrs. Tench, and Anna were in their cottage down by the old stable, and Mother was asleep, or pretending to be, for my sake. We say good-night to each other at nine o’clock, and neither knows what the other does until morning.

  My house is dark, inside and out, and the rough gray stone looks wet. The four turrets rise above the trees, and their windows are covered with grime. The trees are thick and too many; we have no flowers, because no sun comes though the interlacing branches. Now, in November, the oaks are bare, but the evergreens still hide the pale autumn sun. I say that I walked in the garden. It is not a garden but a wilderness of trees, carpeted with moss and leaves. I call it my house, but it isn’t mine yet. In December, on my twenty-first birthday, it will be legally mine. Father left it to me. I think Mother was deeply hurt when he told her what he had done, but I have a plan that will make her happy again. If Mike and I—

  No, I mustn’t think about Mike. Not now. But I will give Mother the house if I ever marry anyone. She loves it.

  In these past weeks she has talked of Father constantly, remembering and reliving, helping me to understand their lives. They were devoted to each other and needed no one else. I was sent to school in Canada when I was six, and my long holidays were spent with hospitable schoolmates. So, although I went home for birthdays and Christmas, I saw too little of my parents. Mother thinks of that now and tells the story of their life together, giving it color and movement, so that I feel as if I had been there.

  She was poor when she was young, “a very respectable poverty,” she says; she laughs when she describes her clothes and the tragedy of a stocking run. She lived with her older cousins in the cottage they still own. Father was a catch; she cannot understand how she got him. Her little face is full of wonder as she tells me. “The women who threw themselves at that mans head!” She takes me through their courtship day by day, spicing it with flowers, sweetening it with ribboned boxes of candy. “I wore the ribbons in my hair, and he never guessed.” And then she comes to the day when they were driving and she saw the house and fell in love with it.

  The turrets rose above the trees as they do now. There were no other houses near by; the Barnabys came later. Except for the Barnabys, there has been no change. The house stood then, as it does today, in the center of a small forest, surrounded by fields.

  “There is my castle,” Mother said that day.

  My father smiled. “I’ve heard it called other things.”

  “Château, perhaps,” Mother guessed. “Or manor house.”

  “Prison,” Father said. “And madhouse.” He flicked his whip at the gloomy turrets. “I almost agree, too. It lacks only bars.”

  Mother tells me: “I cried then; I was heartbroken. That beautiful house, empty, desolate. To say such things about it!” She cried throughout the drive and refused to be comforted.

  He told her she was a child in spite of her grown-up airs. “What would you do with such a place if you had it?” he asked.

  “Live in it and be happy the rest of my life.”

  In three months they were married, and for a year they traveled abroad. I know the clothes she wore, the deep garnets, the turquoise blues, the gloves and the hats that matched. I know how she looked; she was twenty-five then, and she is sixty-five now, as he would be, but she is not the kind of woman who ages. When they returned, he told her they would live in a hotel until he could find a suitable house. Her trunks of clothes, her hat and shoe boxes, filled the hotel suite.

  One evening when she was waiting for him at the hotel, he sent a closed carriage and a note asking her to meet him at the house of a friend. It was a dark night, and the drive seemed endless; the coachman refused to raise the blinds. She tells me now that she was frightened, but I think she knew her destination before she started. She exaggerates, but the picture she paints is a romantic one. The wind howled, the trees moaned, the carriage rocked from side to side. She was young, she wore silk, she was loved.

  The destination was the house, of course. Father was on the stone veranda, the cousins beside him, the servants in the background. She spent most of the night running from room to room—there are twenty—and opening closets and wardrobes and chests. It was perfect, it was complete, and nothing has been changed.

  As time went on, the top floor was closed; there was too much work for a staff of three, and they wanted no more than that. The same silver is still poli
shed each Friday, and the same china stands in orderly rows behind glass doors. The cousins, Carrie, Jane, and Bess, still come to tea two afternoons a week. They were here this afternoon, and Tench took their wraps and served their tea as he has always done. Nothing is changed except that I am home, my father is dead, and my thoughts will not let me sleep.

  It was wet in the garden tonight, the fallen leaves were wet. Tray stood near me at the hedge, listening to the music and watching the Barnabys. I grew up with the Barnabys as much as I grew up with anyone. Until I was six, we played together, and Mike said I was as good as another boy would have been. After that, I saw them only at Christmas. But the holidays were too short, and they made other friends, too. There were parties every night, people drove out from town; but I was lost, out of place. My clothes were not right; even when I was eighteen, I was dressed like a child. Mother called it “keeping me young.” Old Mrs. Barnaby, Mike’s grandmother, would pin up my hair and help me braid it again before I went home, but there was nothing she could do about the clothes I wore. I used to see her watching me thoughtfully.

  Then, last spring, when I went home to stay, things changed; Mike said it was like the old days again. I was Issy once more, not Isobel. Every morning I waited for the shout across the hedge. “Issy!” The days were never long enough. Mike and I rode and walked and played tennis and contrived to avoid Joe. Joe is seventeen and in love with growing up. Mike is twenty-two.

  Mike said I was learning to be human. He said I was almost presentable. Father gave me an allowance for my clothes, and Mrs. Barnaby told me what to buy. Mother was preoccupied and thoughtful, and Father spent much time in his own room. I told myself they were old and tired, and I forgot them. I’m paying for that now.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your face,” Mike said, “but your manners are too good. They’re practically deportment. And do you have to talk like an Empire Builder?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Be your age. Comb your hair in public, scream across tables, swipe food from other people’s plates. Occasionally.”

  That was how we were when I went home in April. Last week when they planned their party, it was old Mrs. Barnaby who invited me. She talked to Mother on the phone. She told Mother I was young and required pleasure, and mourning was unsuitable and old-fashioned. I know what she said, because their cook met Anna in the village and repeated the conversation. She’d listened in on the kitchen extension. Mother told Mrs. Barnaby that I was not well, but she didn’t tell me that.

  It is late, and I am sitting in the dark. I do not want a light. Someone else may walk at night as I do, and look at my windows and wonder. My bed is ready for me, and after a while I shall lie down. Then Mrs. Tench or Anna will find the print of my head on the pillow and be satisfied. I am cleaning house in my mind.

  This afternoon I had tea with Mother and the cousins. They talked about Father, and after I had my tea, they sent me from the room. Cousin Jane said I had a long face and that four grieving old women were bad company.

  “Go up to your pretty room,” Cousin Jane said, “and read a nice book. Or work at your embroidery. Surely they taught you that at the convent.”

  They thought I went to my room, but I sat on the stairs and listened. I always listen to everyone, even to Tench and Mrs. Tench and Anna. I didn’t see Father after he died, no one did, but I know too little about the people who found him and what they said. So when Mother and the cousins sent me from the room, I went no farther than the stairs. The cousins have carrying voices, and the hall and stairs are stone sounding boards. I heard Cousin Jane say, “Will she sell the house?”

  She meant me. Mother must have shrugged her answer, because I heard no reply.

  But Cousin Jane’s voice was high and sharp. “Find out,” Cousin Jane said. “Find out at once, and don’t let her do it. You belong here; it suits you, it always has. Not one woman in a thousand could carry off a house like this. Close as many rooms as you like, but don’t let her sell it. She doesn’t need the money, lucky girl. Marsh must have been out of his mind. What am I saying? Of course he was out of his mind. He proved it.”

  “This is my home,” Mother said quietly. “It will be my last on earth, and until my time comes—”

  The teacups rattled, and silver rang against china. The cousins are always hungry, and Mother gives them a knife-and-fork tea.

  “What are you going to do with his clothes?” Cousin Bess asked. “If I were you, I’d sell them. Everyone does that now, even the nicest people; you’d be surprised if you knew. And you’re not the type to brood over moth balls. Sell everything he owned; don’t give a stitch away, not even to Tench. I’ve never seen so many clothes, all in perfect condition, too. I made it my business to investigate. Don’t look at me like that, dear, I was only trying to help. And it isn’t as if he’d had a disease.”

  I held my breath. No disease? Out of his mind? That was what I wanted to hear.

  No disease? He kept to his room for days at a time. I saw him; I went to his bedroom door and looked in whenever the door was open. He was too white. I would say, “Father, are you sick?” And he always said, “No. Go away like a good girl.” There was never a doctor, there was no medicine, and he ate almost nothing. Some days he’d get up and dress and drive into town. I’d see him leave his room and walk slowly through the hall and down the stairs, his hand on the balustrade; but if he saw one of us, the servants or Mother or me, he’d walk briskly and speak crisply, perhaps even whistle in his tuneless way. He wouldn’t let Tench drive him. Tench would bring the car to the door, and the dog would be waiting on the front seat. Father was a good driver; that’s one of the things I think of now.

  Out of his mind? Is that the answer?

  Sitting on the stairs this afternoon, I heard the cousins talk about his generosity; they sounded like crows on a fence, counting hills of com. They are in their early seventies, and today they looked like crows, too. Tall and thin, perched on red damask chairs, their veils and scarves streaming to the floor like long black feathers, their long teeth snapping over words and food. They wear mourning, too, because he gave them an allowance and remembered them in his will. We are all in mourning; even Mrs. Tench and Anna have put away their bright lilac prints, and Anna wears a black uniform when she serves.

  I heard Cousin Carrie say, “I see you still have that dog.”

  Mother said, Tie was devoted to the animal.”

  “Well, the animal wasn’t devoted to him,” Cousin Carrie said. I could imagine her tossing her head. The cousins talk with their heads and hands.

  Mother said, “Why do you say that? They were inseparable.”

  Cousin Carrie’s teeth clicked. “My dear Maude, are you blind? If you used your eyes, you might see a few things. That dog is sleek and well content, and it isn’t natural. He was a gaunt and nasty brute when his master was alive, and now he smirks.”

  “Carrie!”

  “He was so devoted to Marsh that he’s glad he’s dead. He’s laughing about it.”

  “Bessy, Janie, make her stop. She’s hurting me.” Mother was close to tears.

  I heard the mediatory rustles and gasps, but Cousin Carrie went on.

  “I’d get rid of him if I were you,” she said. “I’d lose him or arrange for an accident. I can’t bear to look at the brute. Have you noticed how he follows the girl around?”

  “Isobel?”

  “I see you haven’t. Well, I have. Jane and Bess know what I mean; we’ve spoken of it. When Marsh Ford was alive, that dog didn’t look at Isobel, or at any of us, except to snarl. And now he grins.”

  “Carrie, I beg you—”

  “Use your eyes and listen to me. When Marsh went driving alone, didn’t that dog always sit beside him? Always?”

  “Yes.” Mother’s voice was soft and faraway, and I knew what she was thinking and seeing: Father and Tray walking in the garden together, Father and Tray beside the library fire, Father and Tray on the front seat of the car, Tra
y asleep on the rug at the foot of Father’s bed...On the front seat of the car.

  Mother began to cry. “Oh, please, Carrie, don’t!”

  “Very well,” Cousin Carrie said. “But you know what I mean. I think that dog had something to do with it, that’s all. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I’ll say no more. Except that he’s probably behind the portieres this minute, listening to every word were saying.”

  I heard the rustles and gasps again, and someone pushed back a chair. If Cousin Carrie went to the door, she found no one. I went upstairs and locked myself in my room until Anna came to tell me they were leaving.

  Mother was quiet at dinner tonight, but she smiled at me when our eyes met. There was no conversation until we had our coffee in the library. Then—

  “You’re too pale, Isobel. Did you love your father so much?”

  I couldn’t answer.

  “An only child is sometimes a tragedy,” she went on. “For the parents as well as the child, and it’s no one’s fault. Your father and I were already growing old when you came; we could hardly believe it. I nearly died when you were born, Isobel. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Don’t look so woebegone, dear, as if you were wondering if you ought to apologize. I’m afraid the cousins are right—you re developing a long face.”

  “I’m all right, Mother.”

  “Of course you are. We all have our ups and downs. Isobel, this past month hasn’t been easy for me, either, and the weeks that led to it should have prepared me, but they didn’t. I know how you feel; in my own way I share that feeling. But if we cling together, help each other—”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “You understand why I declined the Barnabys’ invitation, don’t you?”

  “Because I am in mourning.”

  “Yes. Old Mrs. Barnaby is thoughtless and inclined to overrate pleasure. Death imposes conventions on old and young alike, Isobel; it locks doors, and a tragic death double-locks. But you must be patient. Your beloved Mike—dreadful name, but I know such corruptions are fashionable now—your beloved Mike will not run away. In another year, perhaps, or even in six months—But there, it’s bad luck to plan ahead. Your poor father is a sad example. He planned for your coming of age, and now—”