by Susan Hill
I SPENT THE rest of the morning comfortably in the library before returning to my room at one o’clock, when the Guest Master brought my simple food. At two he returned to escort me to the Abbot. I had not left the building since the previous night, though I could see that it was a beautiful day and the bright sky and clear air ought to tempt me out. But whenever I so much as thought about venturing beyond the safety of the monastery walls, I felt a lurch of fear again.
THE ABBOT WAS unlike the figure I had imagined. I had expected a tall, imposing, solemn, older man. He was small, with a neat-featured face, deep-set eyes. He spoke good English, he listened carefully, he was rather expressionless but then his face would break into a warm, engaging smile. I warmed to him. I felt reassured by him and after ten minutes or so in his presence, I realised that he was a man with an unprepossessing exterior that concealed considerable human understanding and wisdom.
We talked business for a few moments in his tidy office, about the sale of the monastery’s treasures and the Folio in particular, and I knew that things would probably be arranged smoothly. The deliberation about whether to sell anything at all had been long, careful and probably painful, but once the decision had been made, they would be quite pragmatic and arrange things efficiently. They had to ensure the upkeep and survival of the monastery for the future.
‘Monsieur Snow, I would like you to feel you may stay with us here until you feel quite well again. We will look after you, of course. This is a very healing place.’
‘I know. I feel that very much. And I am very grateful to you.’
He waited quietly, patiently, and as he waited I felt an urge to tell him, tell him everything that had happened, recount the strange events and my own terrors, ask him – for what? To believe me? To explain?
There was no sound in the room. I wondered what the monks were doing now and presumed they were in their own cells, praying, reading holy books, meditating. From far on the mountainside came the tinkle of the cowbells. I looked at the Abbot.
‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘if I am going mad or being persecuted in some way. I only know that things keep happening to me which I do not understand. I have always been a healthy man and quite serene. Until – this began.’
His eyes were steady on my face, his hands still, resting on either side of his chair. His habit, with the hood back, lay in perfect folds, as if they had been painted by an old master. He did not urge me. I felt that he would accept whatever I chose to do – leave the room now, without saying more, or confide in him and ask for his counsel.
I began to talk. Perhaps I had not intended to tell him everything, even the details of my brother’s own breakdown, but I found myself doing so. Once, he got up and poured me a glass of water from a carafe on the stone ledge. I drank it eagerly before continuing. The sunlight, which had been slanting across his desk, moved round and away. Twice the bell rang, but the Abbot took no notice of it, merely sat in his chair, his eyes on me, his expression full of concern, listening, listening.
I finished speaking and fell silent, suddenly drained of every gram of energy. I knew that when I returned to the guest room I would sleep another of the deep, exhausted sleeps I had grown used to having in this place.
The Abbot sat thoughtfully for some moments as I leaned back, slightly dizzy but in some way washed clean and clear, as if I had confessed a catalogue of terrible sins to the priest.
At last I said, ‘You think I am mad.’
He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Mais non. I think terrible things have happened to you and you are profoundly affected by them. But what things and why? Can you tell me – nothing like this has ever happened in your life until the first visit to this house entirely by chance?’
‘Absolutely nothing. Of that I’m quite certain.’
‘And this hand? This hand of the child at first did not seem in any way upsetting?’
‘No. It seemed very strange.’
‘Bien sûr.’
‘But it was not until later that I felt any hostility, any desire to do me harm. Real harm. To lead me into harm.’
‘Into these pools. Into the water. Over the precipice into the lake of the gorge.’
‘But why?’ I cried out loudly. ‘Why does this thing want to do me harm?’
‘I think that either you can choose never to know that and simply pray that in time it will be tired of failure and abandon this quest. Or you can choose to find out, if that shall be possible, and so …’
‘To lay the ghost.’
‘Oui.’
‘Do you believe this thing – child – whatever it is – do you believe it truly exists?’
‘Spirits exist, bien sûr. Good exists. Evil exists. Perhaps the spirit of a child is disturbed and unhappy. Perhaps it has a need.’ He shrugged. ‘I do think you have suffered. I think you will do well to remain here and let us help you, refresh you.’
‘But here of all places, surely, this should not have happened again? If I am not safe here …’
‘You are entirely safe here. Do not doubt it. You will be given all the strength, all the protection of our Blessed Lord and his saints, and of our prayers for you. You are surrounded by strong walls of prayer, Monsieur Snow. Do not forget.’
‘Thank you. I will try.’
‘This evening, if you feel well and able, join us in the chapel for our night prayers. These give great peace, great power to combat the perils of the darkness. And if you decide to confront le fantôme, and your terrors, then you will also be under protection, under the shield of our prayers.’
‘What do you honestly think I should do, Father?’
‘Ah. For me, everything is the better when faced. You draw the sting. But you only can make this choice.’
He stood in one graceful, flowing movement of body and robes together and held up his right hand to make the sign of the cross over me, then led me towards the door. As I left, he stood watching me walk down the cloister and I glanced back, to see that his expression was grave. He had believed me. He had listened attentively and dismissed nothing, nor tried to explain any of it away. For that I was deeply grateful.
I RETURNED TO my room and slept, but when I woke I longed for outside air and found my way, with only a couple of wrong turnings down stone corridors, to the courtyard. This time, I walked in the opposite direction from the one I had taken the previous night and went instead through the gate in the wall to the main entrance and, from there, headed towards the pine-covered slopes and a narrow path that climbed steeply and would, I was sure, eventually lead to the top of one of the peaks. I am no mountaineer. I walked for perhaps twenty minutes along the narrow path that wound between the great, dark trees. The ground was soft with a carpet of pine needles, my feet made no sound and when I looked up I could see violet-blue patches of sky far above the treetops. I came to a clearing where two or three trees had been felled and were lying on the ground. I sat down. There was no birdsong, no animal movement, but tiny spiders and other insects scurried about on the logs and at my feet. I realised that I was waiting. I even held out my hand.
One of the small spiders ran across it. Nothing more.
I MADE MY way carefully back down the path. But when I went through the gate I heard voices coming not from inside the monastery but from somewhere beyond the outer courtyard. I found my way through the cloisters until I approached the inner garden. A group of about a dozen of the monks were standing around the pool. One held a thurible which he was swinging gently, sending soft clouds of incense drifting across the surface of the water. Another carried a cross. The rest were singing a plainchant, holding their books in front of them, heads slightly bowed. I stood still until the singing died away and then saw the Abbot lift his hand and give a final blessing while making the sign of the cross. I realised that the pool in which I had seen the upturned face of the child and towards which I had been so urgently drawn was being blessed, made holy. Made safe.
I was glad of it. But as I slipped back through the cloi
sters, I knew that the Abbot’s precaution had not been necessary, for it was not the monks who were in danger, or indeed any other person who might visit this quiet and holy place. Whatever it was that had come here had come because of me. When I left, it would leave too. Leave with me.
Fourteen
Four Ragged Staff Lane
Oxford OX2 1ZZ
Adam,
Terrific news. Well done! I was sure you and the monks would see eye to eye and am delighted you confirmed that it was indeed a First Folio and managed to secure it. Lucky client.
Come to Oxford again soon.
Best,
Fergus
Ravenhead
Ditchforth
West Sussex
Dear Mr Snow
We are greatly looking forward to seeing you here on Wednesday next, to dine and sleep and tell us about your visit to France. My husband is on tenterhooks.
Meanwhile, having more time on my hands as I grow old than perhaps I should, I have been delving a little into the story of the White House and have turned up one or two snippets of information which can perhaps be pieced together. But it may no longer be of the slightest interest to you and of course you must tell me if that is the case.
We will expect you somewhere between five and six o’clock.
With every good wish
Alice Merriman
Hello. This is Adam Snow. I am sorry I am not available. Please leave me a message and I will return your call.
It’s Hugo. Not sure if you’re back. I’ve been thinking about what you told me when you came up here last time. I just wanted to say I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe you had a virus. You know, people get depression after flu, that sort of stuff. So, if you’re worried about it, well, don’t be. I’m sure it was nothing. OK, that’s it. Give us a call some time.
Fifteen
f course I had to return. As soon as I had arranged to go down and see Sir Edgar Merriman about the Folio, I became aware of the sensation. It was like a magnetic pull upon my whole being. It was there when I slept and when I woke, it was there at the back of my mind all day and it was there even within my dreams. I could not have resisted whatever force it was and I did not try. I was afraid of it and I think I knew now that the best, the only thing to do if I was to retain my sanity was to obey. I hoped that the monks were continuing to pray for my protection.
This time I did not get lost. This time I did not come upon it by chance. This time I had marked my journey out on a map a couple of days before and gone carefully over the last few miles, so that I knew exactly where I was going and how long it would take me from when I left the A road. This time I drove slowly down the lane, between the high banks, the elephantine tree trunks pressing in on me in the gloom, and I was aware of everything as if I had taken some mind-expanding drug, so clearly did I see it all, so vivid the detail of every last tree root and clump of earth and overhanging branch seem.
It was a tranquil day but with a cloudy sky. Earlier there had been a couple of showers and by the time I got out of the car in the clearing the air was humid and still.
I had come prepared. I had bought a pair of wire cutters and some secateurs. I was not going to let undergrowth or fences keep me out.
What would I find? I did not know and I tried not to give my imagination any rein. I would obey the insistent, silent voice that told me I must go back and once there I would see. I would see.
EVERYTHING SEEMED AS before. I stood for a moment beside the car and then went to the gate and pushed it open, feeling it scrape along the ground just as on my previous visit, and walked towards the old ticket booth. The notice still hung there, the grille was still down. I stood and waited for a moment. In my left hand I carried the cutters, my right held nothing. But after several minutes nothing had happened. My hand remained empty. In a gesture that was half deliberate, half a reflex, I curled my fingers. There was no response.
THE AIR WAS heavy, the bushes on either side lush, the leaves of some ancient laurel glistening with moisture from the earlier rain. I had put on wellington boots, so that I could push my way through the long grass without inconvenience.
I came out into the clearing. There was the house. The White House. Empty. Half derelict, the glass broken in one or two of the windows. The stones of the courtyard in front of it were thick with pads of velvety moss.
I turned away. To the side was another low wooden gate. It had an old padlock and rusty chain across it and both gleamed with moisture. But the padlock hung open and the gate was so rotten it gave at once to my hand and I went through. Ahead of me was a path leading between some ancient high yew hedges. I followed it. I could see quite well because although the sky was overcast it was barely half past five and there was plenty of light left. The path led straight. At the end, an archway was cut into the hedge and although ivy trailed down over it, the way was clear and I had no need of the cutters I had brought. I went through and down four steps made of brick and set in a semi-circle, then found that I had come out into what had clearly once been a huge lawn with a high wall at the far end and the thickly overgrown remains of wide flower borders. There were fruit trees, gnarled and pitted old apples and pears, forming a sort of avenue – I know there are proper gardening terms for these things. On the far side of the lawn, whose grass was so high that it came over the tops of my boots and was mixed with nettles and huge vicious thistles, there ran yet another tall yew hedge in which was another arch. I turned round. To one side a path led diagonally towards woodland. I went in the opposite direction, to an open gate in a high wall. On the other side of it I found what seemed to have been an area of patterned beds set formally between old gravel paths. I remembered pictures of Elizabethan knot gardens. There were small trees planted in the centre of each bed, though most of them looked dead. I leaned over and picked a wiry stem from a bush beside me, breaking it between my fingers. It was lavender.
Every so often, I paused and waited. But there was nothing. Nothing stirred and no birds sang.
IT WAS A SAD place, but I did not feel uneasy or afraid in any way, there seemed to be nothing odd about this abandoned garden. I felt melancholy. It had once been a place of colour and beauty, full of growth and variety – full of people. I looked around me, trying to imagine them strolling about, bending over to look more closely at a flower, admiring, enjoying, in pairs or small groups.
Now there was no one and nature was taking everything back to itself. In a few more years would there be anything left to say there had been a garden here at all?
The silence was extraordinary, the same sort of silence I had experienced in the grounds of the monastery. But here there were no gentle cowbells reassuring me from the near distance. I wondered which way to go. I had come because I had had no choice. But what next?
As if in reply, the small hand crept into mine and held it fast and I felt myself pulled forward through the long grass towards the far hedge.
THE SOFT SWISHING sound my boots made as I walked broke the oppressive stillness. Once I thought I heard something else, just behind me, and swung round. There was nothing. Perhaps a rabbit or a stray cat was following — I was going to say ‘us’, for that was unmistakably how I felt now. There were two of us.
I reached the far side and the arch in the high dark yew and stopped just inside it. Looking ahead, I could see that I was about to enter another garden, a sunken garden that was approached down the flight of a dozen steps at my feet, semicircular again and broken here and there, with weeds growing between the cracks. On the far side stood a vast cedar tree. A very overgrown gravel path ran all the way round. It was not a large enclosure and the surrounding yew hedge closed in like high, dark walls. Because of these and the trees on the other side, less light came in here than into the wide open space I had just left, and so the grass in the centre had not grown wild but was still short, something like a lawn, though spoiled by yellowish weed and with bald patches here and there, where the earth or stones showed through, like the s
kull through an old person’s thinning hair.
I did not want to step down into it. I felt that if I did I would be suffocated between these dark hedges. But the small hand was holding mine tightly and trying with everything in its power to get me to move.
And then, as I looked down, I noticed something else. In the centre was a strange circle, like a fairy ring. I could only just make it out, for it seemed to be marked from nothing in particular — a darker line of grass perhaps, or small stones concealed below the surface. I stared at it and it seemed not to be there.
The grey clouds above me parted for a moment and a dilute and watery sun struggled through for a moment and in that moment the circle appeared quite clearly against a fleeting brightness.
THE SMALL HAND was grasping mine in desperation now. It was as if someone was in danger of falling over the edge of a cliff and clutching at me for dear life, but at the same time it was trying to pull me over with it. If it fell it would make sure that I would fall too. It was exactly the same as it had been on the edge of the precipice in the Vercors, except that that had been real. Here there was no cliff, merely a few steps. I still did not want to go down, but I could no longer resist the strength of the hand.
‘All right,’ I said aloud, my voice sounding strange in that desolate place. ‘All right. I’ll do what you want.’
I went, being careful with my footing on the loose and cracked stones, until I was standing in the sunken garden, on the same level as the half-visible circle. But at that moment the sun went in and a sudden rush of wind blew, shifting the heavy branches of the great tree on the far side before it died away at once, leaving an eerie and total stillness.
‘What are you doing here?’
The sound of the voice was like a shot in the back. I have never felt such a split second of absolute shock and terror.
