by John Burke
And then there was the same hostile silence which had greeted him that first time.
But this time the lights were on. Oil lamps were set in ornamental holders round the walls, casting a clear, faintly greenish brightness over the wary faces in the bar. Harry looked from one face to another. They were closed, unyielding. They met his stare with blank lack of recognition, not even admitting that he was a fellow human being.
Harry said: “Somebody has deliberately wrecked my brother’s cottage. My cottage!”
He waited. They did not look away and they did not flinch.
“I know I’m a stranger here,” he said slowly and deliberately, “and I’m not asking to be given any spectacular welcome. But I do expect to be allowed to prove myself before being judged an enemy. If any of you had any quarrel with my late brother and want to take it out on me, let him come right out and say so. If there are any grudges, let them be settled in a way we all understand.”
Still the sly eyes in the weathered faces were contemptuous in their indifference. Harry kept his voice down, but the challenge forced itself out with a menace which none could mistake.
“Well—which of you did it?”
Tom Bailey appeared from the parlor. If he sensed the atmosphere he did not let on. He was as uncommunicative on this score as the most dour of his customers.
“Hullo there, Mr. Spalding. I’ve got your luggage in the back there. Old Garnsey picked it up for you from the station.” He nodded at a hunched elderly man who sat stooped under the chimneypiece. “I expect you’d be thinking of standing him a pint for his trouble, wouldn’t you?” Without waiting for an answer he reached up for a tankard and began to fill it. “And I know old Garnsey won’t say no.”
The head jabbed up from between the sunken shoulders. Garnsey sucked his lips in, seemed to push himself towards Harry without moving from his seat, and said in a burring, slurred voice:
“None of us touched your cottage, mister.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know who did, mister. I’m only telling you it were none of us. And I don’t drink with people as accuses me of things I haven’t done.”
Now he moved. He got up, keeping his head down so that he would not collide with the heavy beam across the fireplace, and plodded towards the door. Without a word his cronies downed what was left of their drinks and followed.
Harry turned towards the bar, where Tom Bailey was already wagging his head.
“Looks like you’ve emptied my bar again. You’d better buy yourself a drink before you drive me out of business.”
Harry needed a drink. He offered one to Tom, who accepted politely but showed no sign of unbending too far. Harry explained what had brought him back so soon and tried to analyse the landlord’s expression. It was no good. Tom Bailey might have been in the district for only a few years but he had acquired the secretive ways of the villagers already. No, he couldn’t imagine who could have done such a thing. Some tramps or vagabonds, most likely. There wasn’t any point in trying to follow it up, in his opinion. Whoever did it must be over into the next county, well on his way, long ago. And it didn’t do, if you asked him, to go saying too much to the locals. They didn’t take kindly to that sort of talk.
“You mean,” said Harry indignantly, “I just have to pretend nothing has happened, and tell my wife there’s nothing to be done and she’s not to worry—and then go off and leave her on her own for months on end?”
“If you can’t put your finger on it,” Tom shrugged, “there ain’t much point in going on about it, is there?”
His shrug was unconvincing. Harry felt that the landlord sympathized with him but had one eye on his profits. It was hard to blame him. In a small inn like this it was the regulars who kept the place prosperous round the year. You didn’t offend your locals by teaming up with troublesome strangers—not if you wanted to stay in business. All the same . . .
Harry bit back a dozen remarks, all of them at best provocative and at worst inflammatory. With an effort he switched the conversation.
“We’ll need to lay in some food—I suppose there’s a village store?”
“There’s a shop,” conceded Tom, relieved at the change of subject. “What about tonight and the morning, though? You brought anything down from London with you?”
“I’m afraid we didn’t think.”
“You can’t live on fresh air. Not even for twenty-four hours. Look, I’ve got a good store of provisions in the back. We’ll make you up a bundle, and I’ll get my old cart out for you. Should take your luggage all right.” He glanced dubiously at Harry’s trim figure. “You can handle a horse—an old cart-horse?”
“I think so.”
“Can’t do you much damage—he hasn’t got no energy left in him. And I’ll lend you a lantern.”
“Thanks, but I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“Nor am I,” said Tom. “Only of what it conceals.”
Before Harry could question him, he turned and went back through the parlor, calling Harry to follow him.
3
The sound of wood and coal spluttering and occasionally shifting in the stove was comforting. As Valerie carried things to and from the kitchen she felt gusts of warmth breathing up from the metal and spreading out through the room. The oil lamp cast a cheerful light from the table, whose legs had been temporarily but efficiently secured by Harry before he left.
Wherever Valerie looked she found something wrong or makeshift. The tattered curtains were bunched and pinned awkwardly together so that they would not collapse. On the rugs there were smudges which would not come out. Two chairs had been mutilated beyond repair and were now stacked in an ugly heap in the corner. But in spite of everything the room was beginning to look cosy. The lamplight softened the harsher realities of the damage, and the cat drowsily licking itself in a basket close to the stove was doing its share in providing a homely atmosphere.
She had reason to be proud of the kitchen, too. She had sorted out unbroken cups from the debris and hung them back on their hooks. Saucers and plates were neatly stacked on the shelves. One kettle had been dented beyond repair, but she found another—a heavy, cumbersome black kettle which had been too tough to be destroyed.
Her clothes were grimy and she wouldn’t be able to change into anything fresh until their luggage arrived. But she felt triumphant. She had already restored a semblance of order to her home, and the effort made her feel possessive towards it.
Home . . . It was a good word, an inspiriting word.
Valerie took the black kettle and opened the door. The glow from the lamp faded a few feet down the path, but she had already been twice to the old hand pump and knew her way.
When she was out in the night, she found that the darkness was no longer quite so impenetrable. The moon silvered the skyline of the hill, and the silhouettes of bushes and the pump itself stood out before her.
She filled the kettle and turned back, walking slowly because of the weight and because of her growing appreciation of the rural tranquillity, the sweet night silence and the stillness of the shadows.
Then one of the shadows moved.
Valerie stopped. There was a sudden pain in her throat as though fear had lodged there in a tight little knot and would not let her speak.
She forced the sound out. “Harry . . . ?”
A man stepped forward until the faint moonlight picked out his lean, almost predatory features. He dragged one leg slightly in a limp. The faint shuffle of his foot on the path was somehow more unnerving than the thin severity of his face.
“Who are you?” Valerie demanded shakily.
“I’m sorry if I have caused you any distress.” The voice was precise and steely. “My name is Franklyn. Doctor Franklyn. Mine is the large house which, as you may have noticed, lies behind here.”
“No. We hadn’t.”
“No matter. It’s of no consequence.” He was barring her way to the cottage door. She could not tell whether this was
deliberate or not. “I am . . . looking for someone, Mrs. Spalding.” The faint hesitation did not accord well with his sharp, jabbing manner. “Have you seen anyone?”
Valerie was in no mood to be kept outside in the cold, answering vague questions about a vague person.
“No,” she said. “No one.”
She took a step forward, expecting him to stand aside. Instead, he turned and limped into the cottage ahead of her. Furiously she followed and found him in the sitting-room staring around, examining the place as though to lure someone out from behind the curtains or an armchair.
Valerie dumped the kettle down.
“Doctor Franklyn, I’ve just told you that I’ve seen no one. Are you doubting my word?”
He looked even more cadaverous in here than he had done in the hazy moonlight. His lips drooped in what might have been an unfathomable sadness . . . or a sneer.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it has not been my experience that everyone invariably tells the truth. Even my own daughter . . .” The cutting edge of his voice became even sharper. “My own daughter sometimes lies to me, Mrs. Spalding.”
“Is it your daughter you are looking for, Doctor?”
“I regret to say that it is. She is a great burden to me.”
His despondency seemed such an affectation, so intense and self-indulgent, that Valerie wanted to strike back at him. Impulsively she said: “Isn’t it possible that it works the other way, too?”
He stared and took his time in replying. It was not so much that he was slow in understanding as that he liked to keep his thoughts in order. She could tell that he wanted to consider each remark, classify it, assess the various possible responses, and do the subject full justice.
“That I am a burden to her?” he mused. Then he shook his head decisively. “No, it is not possible. Not possible at all.”
Valerie was not so sure. The man was pedantic in his outlook—not the type who would understand or make the effort to understand anything outside his own range of interests. If things did not fall into the right categories he would dismiss them as worthless. Even now he was appraising her as though about to deliver judgement on her speech, her dress, her appearance, and her reactions to his questioning.
She said: “If I do see her, shall I tell her that you’re looking for her?”
He shrugged ungraciously. “She will know that, Mrs. Spalding. And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Without further ceremony he headed for the door. “Doctor Franklyn.” She stopped him, realizing suddenly that he knew more than it was possible for him to know. “You called me Mrs. Spalding.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“How did you know my name? My husband and I arrived here only a few hours ago.”
“Although I am not active in the life of the village, I make a point of knowing what goes on. I am also capable of making reasonable deductions from observed facts.”
“Did you know Charles Spalding, my husband’s brother?”
Franklyn hesitated again, then said brusquely: “No. No, I did not have that pleasure.”
“He died here, very recently.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Do you happen to know what he died of, Doctor Franklyn?”
“I do not.”
“I thought that perhaps he was your patient.”
“Patient?” Franklyn looked puzzled. Unreasonably puzzled, thought Valerie.
“That you were his doctor?” she said.
He smiled. It was a thin smile, without warmth or humor.
“No, Mrs. Spalding. I was not his doctor.” He resumed his progress towards the door. “Goodnight. We shall meet again, no doubt.”
When he had gone, Valerie stood at the door for a while, looking pensively out into the night until its shapes became distinct and identifiable. Behind her the cottage was warm and reassuring. She wondered where Doctor Franklyn’s house lay. Tomorrow she and Harry would explore. Once they had established the features of the district and seen them clearly in daylight, everything would be less bewildering—and less frightening.
Valerie did not want to admit that she was frightened. She tried to put out of her mind the senseless violence that had run wild through the cottage and to think only of what it would be like in the years to come. There would be other people—people with whom she could make friends. Every tree and bush would become familiar. She would find out how to get into the nearest town for her shopping, she would go to church on Sundays, she would come to be accepted in Clagmoor.
There was no need to be frightened. No need to stare defiantly out into the night, daring it to bring forth its terrors.
Nevertheless, she would be glad when Harry got home. She wished he would hurry.
4
The horse was ancient but trustworthy. It needed no guidance and no encouragement. Once started on its way it plodded on with reassuring steadiness. It had all the deaf, dogged persistence of an old man who knew every turning, every slight rise and fall of the narrow road; and like an old man it snuffled to itself, grunted, and grumbled damply as it went on its way.
The harness creaked and the cartwheels groaned and, on a bend, squealed a protest. From the barren moor came the fitful cries of a night bird. Far away a dog barked.
Harry, letting the reins rest in his hand because there was no point in indulging in splendid flourishes or snapping out commands, felt remote from his normal world. The brisk routine of army life meant nothing here. The scurrying feet of London struck no echoes from these country lanes. He could adjust contentedly to this new tempo of life, given the time. This was the true, enduring England.
Suddenly the horse whinnied and stopped. Harry flicked the reins, letting them go slack and twitching them gently against the animal’s flank. The horse swung its head from side to side, whinnied again, and then seemed to listen.
A strange, ethereal music danced for a few seconds on the night air. It was no English pastoral melody but a plaintive little sequence of notes which spoke of the East. Nothing could have been more out of place. An exotic Oriental melody on a dour Cornish heathland—it was upsetting and dissonant.
Harry sat quite still. The reedy sound of the pipe seemed to come closer and then, like a mocking will-o’-the-wisp, to dodge away from him. He tried to follow the taunting tune, and found himself clambering down from the cart. The sound was hypnotic. It was music for a dance—but what strange, alien kind of dance?
The dog that had been barking in the distance began to howl. It bayed at the moon; and to his own amazement Harry found that he, too, wanted to send up a cry of anguish to the skies. The dog’s lament was an appeal for protection, an admission of fear, an awareness of strange powers that walked abroad in the darkness.
The horse began to paw the ground. Its head jerked painfully from side to side. A rustle in the undergrowth made it edge sideways so that the wheels of the cart scraped agonizingly on the rough surface of the lane. Harry calmed it and turned to face the gentle slope that fell away from the road.
There were no hedges here. The moorland rolled off into infinity like a dark, descending sea. The whisper of the grass was the whisper of waves. One step out into that unknown ocean and you could fall off the edge of the world.
Angry with himself and with the ridiculous impression that things were closing in on him, even on this barren expanse of land, Harry walked boldly off the road.
Someone sprang at him, caught him by the shoulder, and twisted him round. Harry floundered and went down. There was a man’s weight on his back, but he braced himself against the hard tufts of grass and kicked out. He was free. Before his assailant could leap again, Harry lashed out and gripped him by the throat. The two of them rolled a few yards and came to rest. Harry did not let go. He felt the man gurgling beneath his grip, and twisted the head round so that moonlight fell on the face.
It was a distraught face—the eyes wide, the mouth working in panic. A handsome but weak face, like that of some unfortunate simplet
on born into a noble family. A face filled with agony and reproach, as though subjected to one humiliating insult after another.
Harry slackened his grip, and the man panted: “Let go of me this instant. How dare you?”
Harry was taken aback. The intensity of the indignation was ludicrous in the circumstances. “What?”
“How dare you set upon me like that! You could have killed me, you know.”
“I could have killed you?”
“Or broken a bone, at least.” The man writhed, becoming shrill and querulous. “My bones are very fragile, you know. They break very easily.”
Harry was convinced that he was dealing with a lunatic. It might have been wise to restrain the creature, but he was so surprised by the verbal attack that he let go and sat back.
“Would you mind telling me who you are and why you attacked me?”
“I had to defend myself.” The man stroked his throat, winced, and patted the side of his head as though to make sure there were no gashes in it. “And as to being attacked . . . I should be asking that of you. But then”—his head bobbed forward, he grinned and sniggered and twitched his nose at Harry—“I know who you are, don’t I? You’re Spalding’s brother. The one they killed. My name’s Crockford. Peter Crockford. They call me Mad Peter, but only because I don’t conform. And why should I conform if it doesn’t suit me?”
Harry got to his feet. The man who called himself Peter looked up warily, then got up and faced him. An echo of what he had said struck resonances in Harry’s mind. He said:
“What do you mean—they killed my brother?”
“Didn’t you know he was dead? I knew, and I’m not his brother. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“Of course I know,” said Harry impatiently. It was hard to tell how much of the man’s craziness was genuine and how much an arch, calculated mockery. “But who are ‘they’?”
