Ancient Images

by Ramsey Campbell

  "I've had some trouble with the media myself."

  "Yes." There was a glimmer of regret in his eyes. "I did say when we spoke earlier that I wanted there to be no misunderstanding. You should understand that I exert no editorial control over the newspaper."

  "I find that hard to believe."

  "You have my word." He gazed at her until she nodded, then he said, "I did feel that the columnist who pilloried you behaved improperly. I spoke to the editor, and you may have seen that later editions of that issue omitted the paragraph. I hope it caused you no undue distress."

  "I got off lightly compared with Enoch Hill. Your paper has been stirring up hatred against him and his followers all summer."

  "Not simply expressing an honest English view?"

  "If you value peace as much as you say, you ought to leave others in peace."

  "Perhaps we needn't be so economical with our peace as with our grain. I remind you, though, that the newspaper isn't my voice."

  "But doesn't it employ writers who agree with you? Leonard Stilwell, for instance?"

  "My grandfather rewarded him for loyalty. Would you say that was the same thing?" When she didn't answer he went on: "Stilwell undertook some research on my grandfather's behalf while he was writing for a magazine of ours. The magazine was a casualty of the war, and since Stilwell was medically unfit to fight, my grandfather arranged for him to have the job he holds now."

  "Stilwell researched the background of the film your grandfather attacked in the House of Lords."

  "Precisely."

  "The film your family bought the rights to and suppressed."

  "The same."

  Her question was intended to take him off guard, but instead it was his response that did so to her. "You admit it?"

  "Why should I not?"

  His impregnable poise was infuriating. "Then maybe you can tell me what your grandfather said to Giles Spence," she blurted.

  "My family would have had no desire to speak to him."

  Had his voice stiffened, just a little? "But one of them did," Sandy said.

  "You're mistaken."

  "Spence certainly came here while he was making the film. I've seen proof of that," Sandy said, praying that he wouldn't call her bluff. "He may even have been on his way here again when he died."

  "Do you think so?"

  "He died on the road after making the film, I know that. Somewhere on the way north."

  Redfield raised the fingers of one hand like a lid and pressed them against his lips while he appeared to ponder. "I do remember something," he murmured.

  He reached into an iron basket on the hearth and dropped a log on the fire, and sat back. "Perhaps I do remember Mr. Spence, though I was scarcely toddling. He came here to the house and caused a scene under the impression that our family was trying to sabotage his film. Even as a child I knew that was untrue. This family has no need to hire saboteurs. I rather think that whatever befell Mr. Spence's film was brought upon it by Mr. Spence."

  "What happened to it finally? What happened to the negative?"

  "A choice word for it and its intentions, I must say. My father destroyed it. I'm sorry that dismays you, but I rather wonder why this film should mean so much to you."

  "I've never seen it," Sandy said, breathing hard to control her anger, "but I know people who believe it deserves a place in history."

  "It's a curious notion of history that wants to preserve a film which tells so many lies about England and the English. You and I and anyone else of intelligence might be able to see it for what it was, but there's grave danger in assuming everyone to be like ourselves."

  "You're saying that was the only reason why your family destroyed a man's work?"

  "Did I imply that? I didn't mean to. No, the truth is simply that when Mr. Spence failed to receive whatever satisfaction he demanded here, he attempted to lampoon us in the film. More specifically, he inserted into the film a parody of our coat of arms."

  Sandy glanced at the shield carved above the fireplace, and saw what she had been trying to remember. The braids of wheat were very like the horns in the design Charlie Miles had sketched for her, and his arthritis would explain why the rest of the design had looked so odd. "I wonder if your research tells you whether his collaborators on the film knew what he had smuggled into it," Redfield said.

  "I don't think any of them did."

  "Does that suggest to you that Mr. Spence was not a very admirable person? Not only did he continue filming when he must have known that the nature of the film was likely to lead to its being banned or at the very least to severe restrictions on its distribution, he made his cast and crew unknowing accomplices to slander. They might have lost more than the time he made them waste if my family hadn't been content just to suppress the film."

  He interwove his fingers as if he were about to pray, then turned his palms upward. "I do sympathize with your motives. Your friend's scholarship ought not to have been disputed in the newspaper. But the country will have forgotten the slur on his name, whereas to revive the film would reopen old wounds. Would you expect me to be less loyal to my family than you are to the memory of your friend?"

  "While I'm here," Sandy said, trying to sound casual, "do you think I could speak to your father?"

  "Out of the question, I'm afraid. He's old and frail and easily upset, precisely why I cannot allow the film to be revived, even if an illegal copy were to come to light." He gazed at her with a mildness born of total confidence. "I ought to say that if anything I've told you were to find its way into the media I should feel bound to take strong action to protect our name, and I rather think my son would too." He looked past her and beckoned. "Miss Allan, my son Daniel."

  She hadn't heard anyone come in, but he must have been close behind her, because he was in front of her before she could turn. He was in his twenties, wearing expensive casual clothes. His face was a chubbier version of his father's, and more humorous. He'd inherited his father's economy of gesture. As he bowed slightly to her a faint smile brightened his eyes, and she couldn't help feeling favored. "Excuse me, father, I didn't realize you were in conference," he said.

  "I'm glad Miss Allan could meet you." When Daniel had gone Lord Redfield murmured, "I hope there will be no need for him to learn what we have been discussing."

  She didn't feel menaced, nor did she think he intended her to. She sensed how proud he was of his son. The Redfield bread lay in her stomach like sunlight and lazy contentment, and she felt as if she had done all she could. She took a last sip of Earl Grey and was pushing herself to her feet when he said, "I shouldn't like you to think you are simply doing my family a favor. Regard yourself as helping to preserve a little of the best of England and Englishness."

  He smiled almost wistfully, his gaze sinking inward. "My father said that to me, just as his father said it to him. We are the guardians of this portion of old England, and should we ever fail it or abandon it, our good fortune will abandon us. We're as much a product of this land as our crops are. This soil is in our blood. This land is rooted in our souls, and every one of us has his place in the chapel."

  He gave a barking laugh. "Now you've heard me being pompous," he said, and escorted her to the gatehouse. "I hope that will be the least happy impression you take away from Redfield."

  She thought it might be. She walked back to the hotel, past fields of wheat that the lowering sun was turning to gold. Between the stalks the soil glowed redder than the Redfield palace. She felt as if the warmth of the landscape were focused in her stomach and spreading through her, making her steps springy and light and relaxed. She felt the memories of Graham must be as peaceful as she was.

  ***

  In her room she phoned Roger, but there was no reply. She would have told him to wait while she drove back to London. Apart from pleasure and waiting for him, she could see no reason to linger in Redfield: at least, none that she could identify. She lay on the bed until a gong announced dinner, and went downstairs slo
wly, preoccupied. Her sense of well-being wasn't quite enough to hush the notion that while interviewing Redfield she had somehow missed the point-that there was still a crucial issue to be raised.

  ***

  That night she slept more soundly than she had for weeks. She dreamed of a tower that was a single stalk of wheat, swaying so widely that its ear touched the horizon, first north, then south, then east, then west… At each touch the landscape brightened, until it was white and scaly as chalk. The brightness must have been a translation of the morning sunlight, which eventually wakened her by finding the gap between the curtains and settling on her face.

  Children were singing, playing a game in a schoolyard. It must be close to nine o'clock. Sandy stretched and yawned and resisted the temptation to turn over and go back to sleep. No doubt she had missed breakfast, but she ought to get up to meet Roger. He might already be in Redfield, he might even be waiting downstairs if she had slept through a call from the receptionist. She glanced at her watch, and was wide awake. The children weren't playing before school, they were enjoying their midmorning recess.

  She had a quick bath and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and went down to the desk. The white-haired receptionist smiled plumply at her. "You go straight in and she'll get you your breakfast."

  "Aren't I too late? I don't want to be any trouble. Won't the other guests have breakfasted by now?"

  "Just now you're our only guest."

  "Oh, I thought-was Last night she'd assumed the other guests had dined after she had trudged sleepily upstairs to bed. Realizing that the hotel was operating solely for her was as disconcerting as having slept so late. "I think I'll skip breakfast, thanks. Could you tell me if there's a message?"

  "I gave it to you," the girl said, with a bluffness that seemed anxiously defensive. "You remember, yesterday, to go up to the big house."

  "Since then, I mean, and not from Lord Redfield."

  "No, nothing else at all."

  Sandy was turning away when the receptionist detained her. "Will you be having the lunch?"

  "Possibly. I'm not sure."

  "But you'll be here for the dinner?"

  "I don't expect to be," Sandy said, and hurried upstairs to phone Roger in case his writing had delayed him and she could head him off. His phone rang and rang until she terminated the call and tried Staff o' Life. He hadn't called or shown up there either. He must be on his way, she thought, and went out for a walk.

  Under the high sun the town looked newly swept. Token shadows stuck out from beneath the buildings. Tudor cottages gleamed at one another across streets, brown houses sunned their smooth thatched scalps. As Sandy strolled, glancing in shop windows at glass-topped jars of striped sweets sticky as bees, hats like mauve and pink and emerald trophies on poles, elaborately braided loaves, knitting patterns and empty rompers, she heard children chanting answers in a classroom.

  She passed a church, a Sunday school, a graveyard that reached out of the town alongside the factory, toward the fields. Several overalled youths were tending the graves and the grass. She thought idly of Redfield's challenge that she should try and find someone discontented, but everyone she met looked well-fed, comfortable, satisfied. All of them bade her good day, many of them asked how she liked the town. As she completed her perambulation of Redfield and strolled back to a pub that looked out on the central green, she realized what she had missed seeing. On all the shops and houses, there hadn't been a single For Sale sign.

  The pub was called the Reaper. She bought a pint of murky beer, and cheese rolls made of the Redfield special, and sat at a table outside. For a while she lazed and ate and drank, feeling as if she were slowing from the rhythm of the click of bowls on the ditched section of the green to the pace of the sundial shadows of chimneys. She took another drink and then another bite, the tastes of beer and bread combining into a warm dark earthy flavor, and remembered that she was still carrying the book by F. X. Faversham in her handbag.

  It had been in there when she'd met Lord Redfield. Of course, that was what she had been trying to call to mind about her interview with him, that was the point she had missed. His grandfather hadn't seen the film when he'd attacked it in the House of Lords, but he'd known it was a version of this story. Perhaps whatever had disturbed him had been with her all the time.

  She opened her handbag and glanced about. Two old ladies in slacks were playing bowls, and she was visible from all the houses bordering the green, but why should that bother her when everyone was so welcoming? The Redfield tower commanded the roofs, but Lord Redfield had explained its purpose to her and so drained it of any menace. If she was being watched, so what? "So watch," she said conversationally, and pulled out the book and read the first line of "The Lofty Place."

  "There was once a man who presumed to build the highest tower in Christendom."

  Well, there it was. No wonder the Redfields had felt libeled-though why should they have, unless the story grew more specific? She read on. "Long before the edifice was raised, the workmen set to cursing it and one another in a Babel of old tongues…by So Faversham had had the Old Testament in mind, not Redfield? "At the instant when the last stone of the parapet was cemented, the architect commenced to run up the countless thousand steps. Time's heartbeat ceased until he burst out upon the parapet. The outflung fields spun in a dizzy dance to greet him, the hub of the world's whirling…"

  Soon the story turned moral, as the architect lost patience with the way a church blocked his view of a distant lake. He climbed into the parapet to see beyond the spire. "A wind like the rage of the heavens caught him up and cast him, as he were a shot bird, to the harsh earth."

  His son appeared in the next paragraph, and grew up in a subordinate clause. As he neared the age at which his father had died he became fascinated with the tower. At fifty years old, just like his father, he craned to see beyond the church, and fell, leaving Sandy wondering why he hadn't simply walked over to the lake. Would his son, whose birth had several intertwining clauses all to itself, repeat the pattern? His mother's family had him educated abroad, and he distinguished himself in the tropics until "a wasting fever" brought him home to England and his father's dilapidated property. "There he bethought himself of his father's last day on the earth, when his father had borne him shoulder- high upon the tower and he had glimpsed the promise of the water which the church had cloaked." He struggled up the tower and clambered onto the parapet, and managed to stand upright. "For the space of a guttering heartbeat he saw the water clear, and the uprush of air into his eyes could not snatch that vision from him as he fell. The spectres of his ancestors sprouted from the earth that their blood had sown, to bear him to that place of which his eyes had glimpsed the merest symbols."

  That was all, and it left Sandy scratching her head. She shouldn't be surprised that the tale had so little to do with her impression of the film-that was nothing new in her experience of the cinema-but what was there in the story to trouble any of the Redfields? She finished her lunch and walked back to the Wheatsheaf, hoping she could discuss the problem with Roger.

  He still hadn't arrived. When the receptionist asked her again if she would be having the dinner, Sandy was politely noncommittal. She thought of resting upstairs, and then she strode out of the hotel. She could walk off her lunch while she was waiting for Roger, and perhaps she might learn what she was disregarding in "The Lofty Place." She would go up the tower.

  ***

  Clouds were bustling across the sun as Sandy walked out of the town. Whenever the sun cleared, the colors of wheat and rusty soil blazed up, a silent leap all around her. The shadow of the tower welled up through the grass, sank muddily into the earth, reached out again toward the road along which she was walking. The voices of the children at the school shrank and were swept away by the rustle of the landscape, and then that was the only sound except for the small dull sounds of her shoes on the tarmac. When she stepped off the road onto the broad strip of mown grass that led from the tower to
the palace, her tread was muffled by the earth.

  The sun bloomed through a gap in the clouds, and the shadow of the tower seemed to swerve toward her. She walked along the shadow to the doorway. There was no door, just a frame with a thick lintel, a shape that made her think of standing stones. As she glanced up the rough gray shaft whose only features were glassless windows as thin as her waist, the tower stooped toward her out of the rushing sky. She closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself, and then paced into the tower.

  The stone tube closed around her, chill and gray as fog. She zipped her jacket and started up the steps, each of which was uncomfortably tall. She kept grasping her right knee to help herself climb, and running her left hand over the outer wall to make sure that she didn't lose her footing. She climbed one complete turn of the spiral and could barely see her way; another turn, and the wall began to glimmer with the light from the first window-slit; another, and she was level with the window, overlooking a pinched vista of the fields. The light fell behind as she clambered upward; dimness filled the next turn of the spiral and made her eyes feel swollen until she came in sight of a further horizon beyond the next window. She stopped at the fifth window to rest her aching legs, and at the seventh and ninth, wishing she had counted the slits so that she knew how much higher she had to climb. She rubbed her legs hard, and then she climbed beyond the light of the ninth window, into a dimness that seemed to be thickening and lasting for more than a turn of the spiral, more than two turns, no longer dimness but darkness that smelled faintly rotten. She pressed her hand against the wall and made herself step up, her legs trembling and aching dully, and something cold touched her scalp.