by James Hanley
Was it the heat, was it the menace of decay, that made him sit down and stare? Was it the house that somehow proclaimed that all inside was dead, as dead and silent as it was outside?
A curious feeling passed through the Captain. He had come a long way. And he had lied to Sheila, but here he was, sitting on his haunches staring up at this enormous white structure hidden away in the trees. He opened his shirt and breathed heavily.
‘Hell! The heat here!’ The trees held it in, the drive under his feet shot up waves of heat, it throbbed in the air—and what an orgy of smells!’ Phew!’ he said. ‘It’s strong!’ but what, he didn’t exactly know.
Well, here he was anyhow, and he was going to have a look at it. Perhaps this was only the beginning, the skin of the whole, and into his ear there began to drone Lieutenant Downey’s ‘ten thousand acres, trees, lakes, rivers.’
He got up, fastened his tunic, buttoned his shirt and put on his tie. Then he went on down to the green door. He didn’t ring the bell at first, but looked back up the drive. At this end it seemed cooler, for it was more shaded, and an enormous tree spread foliage over the roofage. He followed the path with his eye, it ran on to what looked like a large lawn, then a high hedge, and beyond that were trees. He tugged at the bell.
Suddenly he thought: ‘To hell with it, I’m going back!’ He felt lonely, even a little afraid. The silence, the heat, and all these trees, glutted around the house, and that sprawling thing over his head that seemed designed to crush everything, so firmly did its hold upon the house proclaim itself, its massive weight of trunk leaning towards the wall, its foliage spreading over windows, gutters and roof.
‘Damn it!’ he said. ‘Looks as though the blasted place was empty.’
After two more tugs at the bell he discovered that it didn’t function. He rapped on the door. ‘What a place!’ he said.
The door opened, partly, and a woman’s head appeared. Captain Fury was so surprised by the look on this face that he drew back a pace before he said: ‘Good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon,’ the woman said. Already she seemed to be slowly shutting the door.
‘This is Mr. Patrick Downey’s place?’ enquired Desmond. ‘The Ram’s Gate?’
The woman bowed her head. ‘Yes. This is the place. What does the gentleman want?’ her eyes said, and then the whole of her appeared from behind the door. She was a slightly built woman of medium height, about forty, with deep-set and very piercing grey eyes. Her black hair was drawn back from the forehead and done into a bun on the back of her neck.
Captain Fury, however, watched her hand on the door. It moved up and down, round and round. It seemed to be a complete entity, it functioned quite separately. Somehow it didn’t belong to her body at all. She was dressed in black satin blouse, buttoned high about the neck, a black skirt. A white bone brooch was pinned at the breast just below the right shoulder.
‘She looks very cool,’ thought Desmond. ‘This must be the woman John Downey didn’t like.’ The one he was afraid of. Just looked like any ordinary housekeeper to him. Rather like the kind that looked after priests.
‘My name is Fury,’ he announced. ‘Captain Fury. I have come to look over the place.’ He spread his legs apart, hands resting on his hips.
‘Yes,’ she said, and never for a moment took her eyes off him. ‘Yes.’
‘You are Miss Fetch?’ he said.
The woman put one hand to her eyes, as though to shield them from the light of the sun, though there was no sun there. She even blinked. ‘I am,’ she said. ‘What is your business?’ apparently ignoring his previous announcement. Then she stepped back into the hall. Her very attitude, her expression seemed to say: ‘I am not interested.’ Fury! Had she not heard that name somewhere before? Surely. It couldn’t—it wasn’t—well! Well!
Desmond looked away and up the drive towards the gate.
‘Very hot to-day,’ he said, and wiped his neck with a blue handkerchief.
‘Have you any authority to look over the estate?’ she asked, shifting from one foot to the other, whilst the hand roamed over the brass knob on the door.
‘I have,’ he replied, and took a wallet from his pocket, from which he took a card. He handed this to her, and watched both her hands as she read it.
‘Lieutenant John Downey—Ram’s Gate, Ballin,’ and in the lower left-hand corner: ‘United Services’ Club.’
She handed him back the card. ‘You had better come in,’ she announced, and stood aside for him.
Captain Fury stepped into the hall. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and his feet sounded thunderous upon the blue tiles, down the centre of which ran a long strip of black carpet. The door closed. He was inside at last. In her place. The place she hated. He smiled to himself. What would she think if she saw him standing in this hall? Instead of being on important business at Gelton! Well, here he was, and what she might think didn’t matter a damn. He was in the place. He could see it, feel it, smell it. Her world. His eye roved the cream walls.
‘This way, please,’ Miss Fetch said. She led him down the hall, opened a door, and passed in first—Miss Fetch always did—and Captain Fury followed.
It was a long room, high ceilinged, from which hung an enormous chandelier, and one broken chain dangled untidily. It was coated with dust. The eyes of two gentlemen in frames followed the Captain to the chair which was offered him, and which he sat upon with the utmost caution. He hadn’t seen a chair quite like it before. He felt uncomfortable, and would have much preferred the sprawling comfort of the couch. But that was covered with a long white dust-cloth, and covered so securely that it seemed to say: ‘Keep off.’ The floor was polished, but the green carpet that somehow fawned before the massive brass of kerb and accessories was thin, almost threadbare. The walls were blue. The grate was stuffed with brown paper. A beautifully decorated brass screen lay useless against the wall alongside a chest of drawers. Some of its drawers were open. He saw the hem of a dress, the sleeve of a shirt, some parchment papers, sticking out of them.
Having seen him seated, Miss Fetch stood on the carpet, hands clasped, and took a good look at the visitor. She liked looking down at people.
‘Were you thinking of purchasing the estate?’ she asked, and one felt she was strongly tempted to say much more—but perhaps it was the expression on the Captain’s face that decided against it. ‘A teamster in fancy dress,’ thought Miss Fetch. She watched him; the eyes in the frames watched him. Her eyes said: ‘Who are you?’ The eyes of the gentlemen in the frames said: ‘Intruder!’ and the Captain’s eyes said only one thing: ‘I am in dreamland.’
‘I had thought of taking it over,’ announced the Captain in the most casual way.
‘I see! You must excuse me a moment. I may be able to show you over the house,’ she went on, ‘but as for the outside, I’m afraid I shall have to leave you to yourself. I am unable to show visitors the estate. Nobody comes here, at least without due notice,’ she wound up, and turned on her heel and left the room. ‘That’s meant for you, teamster,’ Miss Fetch’s back seemed to say. And the Captain looked hard at Miss Fetch’s back as she passed through the door.
‘My God!’ he thought. ‘I can’t see anything marvellous about it yet.’
He got up. What a relief! He looked at the chair. What a back, what legs! Like four painted match-sticks. He wanted to kick it to pieces. He wandered about the room, picking up this, feeling that, examining the other. The eyes on the wall followed wherever he went. ‘Intruder!’ they said. ‘Intruder!’
Miss Fetch returned.
‘Could I have a drink of water?’ he said. ‘I’m very hot.’
Without a word, she went out, later came back carrying a glass of water on a small silver tray.
‘What style,’ thought Desmond, and then as he took up the glass, he saw the engraved head of a ram upon the tray. ‘Hang it,’ he said to himself, ‘why, it’s the crest! That’s it! These sort of people have crests. I had one myself once. A bloody hammer, cross
ed by another hammer!’ ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘May I ask you, sir,’ she said, ‘when last you saw Master Downey?’ and she dropped her hand, the tray swinging against her side. She listened to the Captain drink. Napoleon and Rob, those two bays made the same noise. She saw the bays clear on her mind—a picture of long ago. Bay horses.
‘Yes! I left him only last night. Why?’
He didn’t like this person. She seemed sly. He’d better watch himself. Had she guessed anything? Who he was?
‘I didn’t know they were thinking of selling this estate. I thought it was just going to rot away. It’s been rotting from the beginning, and now it seems only natural to let it rot away. But perhaps you would build it up, sir.’
Desmond smiled. Almost his own dream, his own idea. Bring Sheila back, run the place—in the end own it. Nothing like being ambitious, anyhow. ‘I shall be glad to look over the house as soon as you’re ready,’ he said, but he wasn’t thinking about the house, but about something that John Downey had said to him at the United Services’ Club in London. The words were spoken clearly into his ear.
‘This bloody war,’ said Lieutenant Downey, ‘is getting awful! It’s knocking the whole bottom out of society.’ And then they had talked about Sheila and the Ram’s Gate. And John had said: ‘That’s bad enough. But God—I have a horror of what comes after. The mere idea of being ruled by the half-educated is to me appalling.…’ Then they had had more drinks.
‘Was there a dirty hint in that?’ reflected Desmond. Was he thinking of his old mouldy property? Had he said it because he, Desmond, was crossing to Ireland to have a look at it? He wondered—wondered whilst he looked Miss Fetch up and down, and then said to himself: ‘Well now! I’ll have a look at the rotten estate.’
Miss Fetch had opened the door, was standing waiting. ‘This way, please.’
He followed her out. She might have offered him something more than water, and he was hungry. No matter! He’d go down the hill to the ‘Foxes,’ have something to eat there. Everything had such a decaying, unhealthy look in this place that it wouldn’t have surprised him to find the bread with leaf mould in it.
‘Upstairs first, sir,’ she said, advancing ahead of him.
He clambered up the wide oak staircase, the carpet of which, like the one in the room he had just left, was showing the worst signs of wear. On the landing he halted. More portraits. Men, women, children. ‘I suppose those are all the bloody ancestors,’ he told himself. He wanted to laugh. This silly woman actually thought he was going to buy the estate. Good Lord! Buy it! Get it for nothing one day. Take the whole damn place over. That would be the last star to be reached.
‘There are twenty-eight bedrooms, sir,’ Miss Fetch said. ‘Perhaps you would care for a sandwich and a glass of beer after you have done the top floor.’
He said ‘Thank you,’ without realizing he had, and they went into the first room. It was huge, heavily furnished. The beds were shrouded over like the couch below. The windows were dirty, the heavy curtains dust-laden. A mouse ran across the floor. Desmond sat down on the bed. ‘Bedroom!’ he said to himself. ‘But it’s as big as Hatfields!’
Enormous room. Were they all like this? Then Miss Fetch went and looked out of the window.
‘There was a beautiful view from here once.’
He went over and looked out. Seen from this height, the neglect, the havoc of nature seemed more appalling. Ram’s Gate was sinking under neglect, under the enormous weight of indifference.
‘It’s been neglected,’ he remarked, and rubbed clean a patch of glass to look through. He smiled.
‘Yes,’ she said, and if the Captain had turned round then and seen the expression on Miss Fetch’s face, he might have realized how personal a thing it was, this rubbing away of dust, dust that settled over the bones of Ram’s Gate as naturally as it settled upon death. ‘It has always been neglected,’ she added quickly. ‘I’ve been here a lifetime, sir, and seen it happen. Nothing grows.’
‘You are the housekeeper then?’ he said, and stepped back from the window.
The look she gave him seemed to say: ‘Are you insulting my intelligence?’
‘I am the housekeeper here,’ she said presently. ‘I know everything. I run the place.’
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Fancy. A big place for one person to run. Don’t you think so?’
‘It is, and it isn’t,’ she replied, and reflected: ‘Now and then I put out my hand, touch the place in order to keep in operation the petrifying process.’
‘It’s all waste,’ she went on. ‘Utter waste! And now the intelligent young people in this part of the world are considering blowing up such places as these. It’s a pity, and it isn’t a pity. Would you care to see some of the other rooms, sir? Perhaps you would like something to eat. I could make you a sandwich and give you a glass of beer, but you would have to eat in the kitchen. As you see, things are rather upset here.’
She stood directly in front of him, and he could not have avoided her searching glance, even had he turned right round. It would have penetrated the back of his head. Miss Fetch smiled to herself. ‘I know who you are,’ she said to herself. ‘And don’t think that I don’t. We’re on the same level, Captain.’
Desmond Fury could make neither head nor tail of the woman. She was an enigma. Who the devil is she? Seems to have very definite opinions of her own. And educated too. But housekeepers generally are, in such places. This was a random opinion shot from the gun of ignorance. He knew nothing about housekeepers. ‘H’m. She doesn’t seem to think much of the Downeys anyhow. I wonder if she’s guessed anything,’ he thought. ‘Does she know who I am?’
But Miss Fetch showed no sign that she did. She had, however, thawed a bit, even to the extent of offering him something to eat. She stopped on the landing, pointed to a large cream-painted door. ‘That is Mrs. Downey’s room,’ she said quietly. ‘You could see that if you wished,’ and made for the door, but the Captain put a hand on her arm.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I suppose the rooms are all alike. I’m more keen on seeing the outside, the estate proper,’ a remark that brought a smile from Miss Fetch, but he hardly noticed it.
‘It’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘She’s in there, of course. But she wouldn’t notice you. As a matter of fact she sits in a sort of trance half the day. You can’t do anything with her. All my time is taken up with her. And everything else has to be left. She likes looking out of the window at her estate,’ concluded Miss Fetch.
Captain Fury was aware at once of the viciousness behind the remark. ‘No wonder that son hates the woman,’ he thought.
She approached the door, opened it without a sound. ‘Come in,’ she said.
Captain Fury looked at Mrs. Downey. He couldn’t see her face. She was seated in a wheeled chair at the window. She had a beautiful head of black hair, here and there streaked with grey. Desmond felt Miss Fetch’s hand on his arm.
‘I take her out sometimes. She likes going round the estate,’ Miss Fetch said.
Desmond was staggered. He saw a grand piano, on the top of which stood photographs in silver frames. The piano lid was shut and covered with dust, and a pile of old newspapers lay on it. This lid was thoroughly shut. It gave the impression of being banged shut by a powerful hand that was determined it would not open again. There was a large old-fashioned bed with a silk canopy, a dressing-table, two chairs.
‘Everything here,’ remarked Miss Fetch under her breath, ‘—rots!’
Desmond went over to the piano. ‘Good Lord,’ he exclaimed under his breath: ‘It’s Sheila,’ and he turned and saw that Miss Fetch watched him. She beckoned to him.
‘We had better go below,’ she said quietly. ‘That picture you were looking at was of Mrs. Downey when she was a young woman.’ She showed him out. As she was closing the door a bell rang.
‘A moment, sir,’ she said, and went back into the room.
‘I thought I heard somebody in the room. Is
that you, Miss Fetch?’ Mrs. Downey did not turn round but went on looking out of the window.
‘Yes, mam. I’m here! Did you want something?’ She tip-toed behind her.
‘Has the daily paper come?’
‘Yes, mam, I’ll just get it for you,’ Miss Fetch said.
From a heap on the table she drew one out at random.
This table stood by the door, and was piled high with newspapers. She handed the paper to Mrs. Downey, saying: ‘Here’s your paper,’ and then left the room.
The paper she handed to the woman was two years old.
Captain Fury accompanied Miss Fetch down to the large slate floored kitchen. It was very cool here, even to the point of chilliness, and Desmond, after taking the white scrubbed chair at the big table, began fastening his collar, adjusting his tunic. He even fixed his tie. Miss Fetch made sandwiches. Desmond stretched his legs under the table, spread himself, felt comfortable.
‘I’m rather interested in the Downeys,’ he said, and glanced up at a large oleograph of the Royal Family. Under it was a photograph of some gentlemen with dogs at their feet. All the gentlemen carried guns, they wore beaver hats.
‘I’m sure you are,’ Miss Fetch said, her back to him, filling a glass from a small barrel at the other side of the kitchen. She came over, placed beer and ham sandwiches on the table. Then she took a chair, stood it in front of the fire and sat down. She might have forgotten his existence altogether. She simply sat and looked at the burning coal, and occasionally up the chimney. He was rather interested in the Downeys! She reflected. Naturally. Quite naturally.
‘It’s curious when you come to think of it,’ said Miss Fetch, ‘that a can of petrol could destroy all this, and its history as well. Already I’ve read of these large houses being fired. It’s astonishing the number of people who want to be free to-day. Funny! If they destroyed it, I’d be gone with it. I’ve been here years, and when I first came I said to myself. “This won’t last. This kind of living is all wrong.” My father served his father. A curious life. All rot underneath. Dry rot.’
