When he went down to Mrs Mace for his lunch, George asked her quietly why she had told Sir Augustus that she had seen him take the library key. Mrs Mace was confused. She said she had done no such thing; Sir Augustus had guessed and then forced her into a betrayal. She began to apologise in a most abject way, but George cut her short with a smile and a gesture of absolution. Outside the kitchen window clouds hung heavy over the park. It threatened rain.
*
VII
Despite this, George knew he must make his journey that afternoon. After he had eaten, and while Mrs Mace was occupied, George took a lantern, a tinderbox and several candle ends from the pantry and slipped through the scullery door.
It was not yet raining, but the air felt heavy and damp. Its moist warmth pricked his skin. George looked around to confirm, as far as possible, that no one was following or observing him, then he set a course for the Doric mausoleum in the woods. Having not yet learned to distrust his own arrogance, he was quite confident that he would find what he wanted there.
As he arrived under the mausoleum’s portico it began to rain, at first a few portentously heavy drops, then a steady fall, finally an all-embracing shower that cut out all other sound. George studied the bronze doors. They had neither handle nor keyhole and, when pushed against, they felt solidly immovable. He felt a sudden wave of indignation against Mr Graine, the watercolourist, who had shown one of the doors ajar.
‘You’ll never open them.’
George started and looked around. Standing in the portico was Hargreave, Sir Augustus’s butler. His white face and hair glistened from the rain and there were shiny patches of dampness all over his black clothes. He stood quite still, his pale blue eyes unblinking, a slight sneer on his lips.
George thought he was making a little too much of his dramatic appearance. ‘Why not, Hargreave?’
‘Because they are false doors, Master George. They are there for show only. The real entrance to the tomb is elsewhere.’
‘Then you had better show it to me, Hargreave.’
‘And why should I do that, young sir?’
‘Because Sir Augustus wishes me to see inside my own family mausoleum, Hargreave, damn your impudence!’
Hargreave smiled but said nothing. He looked up at the sky and sniffed as if he were scenting the air like an animal. Then he said, ‘The rain seems to have abated somewhat. If you would follow me, Master George.’
Hargreave led the way around to the back of the mausoleum, where he spent some time clearing away earth and undergrowth from an area directly adjoining the centre of the back wall. Revealed at last was a stone slab with an iron ring, somewhat rusted, set into it. As he crouched over the slab, Hargreave glanced up at George. Something about the very blankness of his look alerted the boy. Hargreave took hold of the iron ring and pulled away the slab to disclose a narrow flight of stone steps leading down into blackness.
‘The St Maur family vault,’ said Hargreave wiping his hands carefully on his breaches. George leaned against the back wall of the mausoleum while he lit the candle in the lantern, glancing occasionally at Hargreave as he did so. George noticed that the man seemed impatient about something. He tried not to show the fear he felt. Deliberately he took his time with the lantern.
When it was lit he handed it to Hargreave. ‘There you are, Hargreave - you lead the way.’
Hargreave looked perturbed. ‘After you, Master George,’ he said trying to hand back the lantern to him. George put his hands behind his back and stared at Hargreave. How old was he? Fifty? Sixty? At any rate still strong enough to overwhelm a boy not yet eight years old.
Suddenly Hargreave seemed to lose all control. He threw away the lantern and made a lunge at George, who turned to run from him but slipped in the wet grass. He fell, and Hargreave came down on top of him. George felt his foul panting breath on the back of his neck. The man was whispering curses into his ear, as if willing him to give up all resistance. George went on struggling, but now he found himself being dragged by the legs towards the black entrance of the tomb. He cried out with all the force of his lungs, then, prompted by some strange instinct, he let out a piercing whistle.
There was an answering bark and Hargreave, in his surprise, released his grip on George’s legs for a moment. The boy struggled to his feet, but Hargreave was on him again, this time wrapping his long thin arms around George’s arms and body and lifting him off the ground. George did his best to kick back at Hargreave’s shins, but without much effect. He was swung around and was once again being propelled feet first towards the hole in the ground and the steps leading downwards. George knew that once he was thrown down those steps he would be dead one way or another.
‘My uncle will hear of this, you dog!’
‘He will, Master George, sir. It was he who gave me the order!’
Now George was being held directly over the black hole. In a frantic effort to save himself, he jerked his head backwards and made contact with Hargreaves mouth. He heard a rattle like dice on a wooden table as he felt the back of his head break the butler’s teeth from their rotten moorings.
Hargreave staggered for a moment and let out a yell. At the same time George heard a bark, this time nearer. He twisted in the man’s grip, but still he was held fast. Then he sensed rather than felt a thud and found himself crashing to the ground on top of Hargreave. The grip was released and he rolled free.
Lying on the grass, George saw Jem Mace standing over the unconscious Hargreave, holding his fowling piece by the barrel. He must have used its stock as a club on the back of the man’s neck. Dido was industriously licking a trickle of blood from Hargreave’s mouth.
‘Thank you, Jem,’ said George as he got to his feet. It was the lightheadedness that made his voice sound shrill. ‘Your arrival was most timely.’ Then he almost laughed at the absurd expression he had just used.
‘It was Dido as heard you, Master George.’ He glanced down at Hargreave and kicked him with his foot. ‘He were the one who betrayed me to Sir Augustus about selling them hares in Beccles Market. What do we do about him?’
George delicately shifted Hargreave’s head with the toe of his shoe. It lolled uselessly. ‘He doesn’t appear to me to be in the land of the living,’ he said. Once again George had the strange impression that it was not his voice at all coming from his mouth, but that someone calm and fastidiously detached was speaking through him. ‘We must bury him some fathoms deep with my ancestors.’ He pointed at the steps leading down into the earth.
With great difficulty the boy and the poacher manhandled the body down the steps. (Dido refused to accompany them.) When they reached the bottom, George’s lantern revealed an extraordinary sight. They were in a high, narrow space. On either side of them on shelves were coffins reaching up into a black obscurity where the light did not penetrate.
Jem was for dropping the corpse on the floor of the vault and getting out as soon as possible, but George forbade it. He now had command of the situation. He told Jem that Hargreave was to be put into one of the coffins. They opened several, which George pronounced either too rotten or too small to sustain the dead butler. As each one was opened, George steeled himself to look inside, holding up his lantern to stare on grey and rotted winding sheets, parchment skin stretched across eyeless skulls.
George pointed to one of the largest and newest coffins. Jem opened it and stood back. George took the lantern and peered inside. In the coffin lay the collapsed remains of what had once been a tall, broad-framed man. George recognised the suit of plum-coloured velvet, now stained and faded, from the Gainsborough portrait in the library. It was Sir Hercules.
‘We’ll put him in there,’ he said.
Together they managed to lift Hargreave into the coffin on top of Sir Hercules and replaced the lid. There was one more thing to do.
George identified the coffin at last because it was the newest and its wood was covered in green baize pinned down with brass tacks, almost untarnished. Jem would not
look, so George lifted the lid and peered in by himself.
The figure in its winding sheet was slender and still retained the vestiges of her beautiful shape. The features, too, were almost intact, though the eye sockets were empty. Black lustrous coils of hair hung down on each side of a face whose exquisite bone structure was covered by a delicate membrane of golden skin. Over the folded skeletal hands, on one finger of which a sapphire ring still sparkled, had been laid a pair of common iron slave manacles. George picked them up, then gently closed the coffin lid on the Lady Circe’s remains.
He signalled to Jem that their task was done and, carrying the lantern, he followed the poacher out of the vault and up the stairway
Halfway up the steps, George thought he heard a noise like a tapping from one of the coffins. Jem, ahead of him and almost in the open air, had heard nothing. The boy played with the possibility that Hargreave had, after all, survived the blow from Jem’s gun stock and was feebly trying to attract attention. He considered whether he could live with the possibility that he might have imprisoned a man alive in a coffin with a corpse. It did not take him long to decide that he could, but he stamped heavily up the last few steps to the vault so as to drown out any lesser noises.
When he and Jem were both above ground again, George said, ‘When my time comes, I shall not be buried in that vault.’ They replaced the slab and covered it with grass and leaves.
George returned to the Abbey, but he did not show himself until half-past five, when he walked calmly into the dining room, one hand behind his back holding the manacles. Sir Augustus was already seated at the head of the table, and when he saw George his pale skin became greyer.
‘Good evening, Uncle Augustus,’ said George.
‘Where is Hargreave?’ said Sir Augustus.
‘I do not know, sir,’ answered George with only metaphysical truthfulness. He seated himself and dropped the manacles onto the floor beside his chair.
Soup was eaten in silence. When one of the footmen came in with the entrée, a fricassée of rabbit, Sir Augustus asked again.
‘Where is Hargreave?’
‘I could not say, Sir Augustus,’ answered the footman. ‘We saw him leave the Abbey at about two of the clock. Since then he has not been seen.’
‘In which direction was he going?’ asked Sir Augustus.
‘I am not sure, Sir Augustus. I will make enquiries of the other servants.’
The rabbit and other dishes were eaten again in silence. Sir Augustus finished his decanter of port and called for another.
When the servants had left the boy and his uncle with the dessert, George said, ‘Will you play chess with me this evening, Uncle?’
Sir Augustus, who had fallen almost into a trance over his second decanter of port, started violently.
‘What was that?’
George repeated the question.
Sir Augustus smiled thinly. ‘I thought I had set you a task to perform before you might have the temerity to make such a request of me.’
‘I have performed it, Uncle,’ said George, picking the shackles off the floor where he had concealed them and placing them on the dining table.
Sir Augustus stared at them for a long minute, then he said quietly, almost to himself, ‘Are you a boy, or are you the devil incarnate?’
‘Shall we play after dinner, sir?’
Sir Augustus rose slowly and, supported heavily by his stick, came to stand over his nephew. George saw a man who was putting out the last remnants of his power and authority.
‘Where is Hargreave?’ said Sir Augustus.
‘I do not know, Uncle.’
He picked up the manacles. ‘How did you find these?’
‘By finding the entrance of the mausoleum. It was a matter of observation and calculation. Like a game.’
‘If I find you have been lying to me, I’ll have young Hamlet flog you to within an inch of your life.’
George reached out for a walnut and broke open its skull between the silver jaws of a nutcracker.
Sir Augustus left the room.
George was in possession of the field.
It must have been near to midnight when a noise woke George from a deep sleep in his bedroom. It sounded like a groan, or perhaps a heavy door opening. He went to the window and looked out. The clouds and rain were gone, leaving behind an intensely clear night lit by stars and a diminishing moon. Almost without emotion, George saw the three figures on the lawn beside the faintly glittering lake. The central figure beckoned to him. George nodded and left the window. Curiosity had mastered almost all his fear. He must know the end of it all.
He slipped out of his room and down the main staircase, pausing in the hall to note the faint thread of light under the library door that indicated Sir Augustus’s presence there. He lifted the latch of the front door and went out onto the drive. For a few moments he looked from left to right. The grounds were bare and silent. He decided to wait concealed in the deep shadow of a buttress that supported the entrance to the Abbey. There he felt secure. It was a warm night. Not an owl hooted; not a leaf stirred. His mind strayed over the events of the day.
Presently he looked out from his vantage point, and this time he saw something.
A thin shadow in a long gown, wearing a turban with a great nodding plume, was crawling towards the faintly glowing library window. It was such an unnatural apparition. George was reminded of a giant doll, a puppet, perhaps, whose head lolled and wagged as if there were no bones or muscles in the long neck. At first it moved slowly, then, as it found its ability, it began to proceed rapidly on all fours, to scuttle almost, like a spider up a wall.
Some way behind it on the lawn stood the dog and Brutus with his rope, motionless.
When the creature reached the window it reached up with its long arms and pulled itself almost to a standing position, the thin trailing legs supporting the body crookedly. With a suddenness that shook George out of his fascinated trance, the thing threw back its turbaned head and smashed it like a hammer through the glass of the library window. Then, with her strong forearms, the Lady Circe pulled her long body and her crooked stick legs through the shattered casement. It looked as if the Abbey were swallowing her, like a lizard devouring a grasshopper.
George heard a cry - high, piercing, full of animal terror and human despair. It could have been anybody’s voice - a man’s, a woman’s, or a child’s - but George knew it to be Sir Augustus. He waited for further sounds for a minute, but none came. He turned to see that Dis and Brutus still stood motionless on the lawn in front of the Abbey. George half-raised a hand in greeting to them, then went back into the hall. No sound came from the library. He walked up the main stairs and back to his bedroom. It was only when he was in bed that George felt stunned and a little ashamed at his lack of fear and absence of compassion. Something had separated him from the agony; by it he had both gained and lost.
The following morning he lay in bed listening to the sounds of the Abbey waking up and the inevitable agitations following the discovery of Sir Augustus’s body in the library George heard Mrs Mace weeping. He rose, dressed himself and went to the top of the stairs where he could half-hear a whispered conversation about what they should tell the young Master. He liked the phrase ‘young Master’.
It was some days later that he heard from Jem what had happened. Some kind of savage beast of unknown origin must have leapt through the library window in the night. Sir Augustus was found in his chair with half his face torn away and the lower part of his body disembowelled; his heart and other organs were nowhere to be found. It was remarked as strange that, despite the violence of the attack, the chessboard on the table remained intact, a game apparently in progress.
That morning, when George came down into the hall, he was treated with a new deference and solicitude. The body was spirited away to be examined and for the coroner to pronounce a verdict. Strenuous efforts had been made to prevent George from seeing it. He was to be protected at all costs, so he
spent much of the day in the company of Mrs Mace, whose kindness and solicitude bored him. Towards evening, when at last he was left to his own devices, he sauntered into the library, which had been left unlocked. There he studied the game in progress on the chessboard. Black could mate in three moves. He moved a black knight, then the white King, then the black Queen.
‘Checkmate,’ he said out loud, and the sound of his own voice in that lonely place frightened him a little. A cold breeze blew in from the open casement.
*
In the Michaelmas of 1811, George St Maur, now heir apparent to the Baronetcy of St Maur, was entered for Eton at Hexter’s House. He was given his own room and seemed to the other boys a self-possessed creature, despite his comparative youth. It was not long, however, before his mettle was tried by a boy called Damer. Damer was by no means the most senior boy in the house, but was known as ‘the Cock of Hexter’s’ by virtue of his good looks, sporting prowess and general daring. One afternoon he wandered into George’s room.
That morning George had received a packing case from Tankerton Abbey containing some books he had requested from its library. He was in the process of taking the volumes from the case and placing them neatly on his shelves. On the table by the window was a chessboard. There were five white pieces on the board and three black: white could checkmate in two moves. It was a child’s problem.
‘Hullo, St Maur,’ said Damer. ‘I’ve decided that you’re to be my slave this half.’
‘Oh, have you indeed, Damer?’ said George, continuing to arrange his books.
Damer came up and stood over the younger boy. ‘Well, you’re a cool customer, I’ll say that, young ‘un, but you won’t be so damned cool when I’ve finished with you.’
He made a grab for George’s left arm and twisted it round behind his back in a half-nelson. George dropped the books he had been carrying, stepped back and stamped hard with his heel on Damer’s foot. Damer was so startled that he let go of George’s arm, crying out with pain as he did so.
A Book of Horrors - [Anthology] Page 32
