Strange Tales (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural)

by Rudyard Kipling

  ‘Under that laburnum outside the window?’ I asked, for I suddenly remembered the crooked evil thing.

  ‘Exactly. She broke the tree in falling. But no death has ever taken place in the house, so far as we were concerned. You can make yourself quite easy on that point. Mr M’Leod’s extra thousand for what you called the “clean bill of health” was something toward my cousins’ estate when we sold. It was my duty as their lawyer to get it for them – at any cost to my own feelings.’

  I know better than to argue when the English talk about their duty. So I agreed with my solicitor.

  ‘Their sister’s death must have been a great blow to your cousins,’ I went on. The bath-chair was behind me.

  ‘Unspeakable,’ Baxter whispered. ‘They brooded on it day and night. No wonder. If their theory of poor Aggie making away with herself was correct, she was eternally lost!’

  ‘Do you believe that she made away with herself?’

  ‘No, thank God! Never have! And after what happened to Mary last night, I see perfectly what happened to poor Aggie. She had the family throat too. By the way, Mary thinks you are a doctor. Otherwise she wouldn’t like your having been in her room.’

  ‘Very good. Is she convinced now about her sister’s death?’

  ‘She’d give anything to be able to believe it, but she’s a hard woman, and brooding along certain lines makes one groovy. I have sometimes been afraid of her reason – on the religious side, don’t you know. Elizabeth doesn’t matter. Brain of a hen. Always had.’

  Here Arthurs summoned me to the bath-chair, and the ravaged face, beneath its knitted Shetland wool hood, of Miss Mary Moultrie.

  ‘I need not remind you, I hope, of the seal of secrecy – absolute secrecy – in your profession,’ she began. ‘Thanks to my cousin’s and my sister’s stupidity, you have found out ‘ she blew her nose.

  ‘Please don’t excite her, sir,’ said Arthurs at the back.

  ‘But, my dear Miss Moultrie, I only know what I’ve seen, of course, but it seems to me that what you thought was a tragedy in your sister’s case, turns out, on your own evidence, so to speak, to have been an accident – a dreadfully sad one – but absolutely an accident.’

  ‘Do you believe that too?’ she cried. ‘Or are you only saying it to comfort me?’

  ‘I believe it from the bottom of my heart. Come down to Holmescroft for an hour – for half an hour and satisfy yourself.’

  ‘Of what? You don’t understand. I see the house every day – every night. I am always there in spirit – waking or sleeping. I couldn’t face it in reality.’

  ‘But you must,’ I said. ‘If you go there in the spirit the greater need for you to go there in the flesh. Go to your sister’s room once more, and see the window – I nearly fell out of it myself. It’s – it’s awfully low and dangerous. That would convince you,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Yet Aggie had slept in that room for years,’ she interrupted.

  ‘You’ve slept in your room here for a long time, haven’t you? But you nearly fell out of the window when you were choking.’

  ‘That is true. That is one thing true,’ she nodded. ‘And I might have been killed as – perhaps Aggie was killed.’

  ‘In that case your own sister and cousin and maid would have said you had committed suicide, Miss Moultrie. Come down to Holmescroft, and go over the place just once.’

  ‘You are lying,’ she said quite quietly. ‘You don’t want me to come down to see a window. It is something else. I warn you we are Evangelicals. We don’t believe in prayers for the dead. “As the tree falls – ” ’

  ‘Yes. I dare say. But you persist in thinking that your sister committed suicide.’

  ‘No! No! I have always prayed that I might have misjudged her.’

  Arthurs at the bath-chair spoke up: ‘Oh, Miss Mary! you would ’ave it from the first that poor Miss Aggie ’ad made away with herself; an’, of course, Miss Bessie took the notion from you: Only Master – Mister John stood out – and – and I’d ’ave taken my Bible oath you was making away with yourself last night.’

  Miss Mary leaned towards me, one finger on my sleeve.

  ‘If going to Holmescroft kills me,’ she said, ‘you will have the murder of a fellow-creature on your conscience for all eternity.’

  ‘I’ll risk it,’ I answered. Remembering what torment the mere reflection of her torments had cast on Holmescroft, and remembering, above all, the dumb Thing that filled the house with its desire to speak, I felt that there might be worse things.

  Baxter was amazed at the proposed visit, but at a nod from that terrible woman went off to make arrangements. Then I sent a telegram to M’Leod bidding him and his vacate Holmescroft for that afternoon. Miss Mary should be alone with her dead, as I had been alone.

  I expected untold trouble in transporting her, but to do her justice, the promise given for the journey, she underwent it without murmur, spasm, or unnecessary word. Miss Bessie, pressed in a corner by the window, wept behind her veil, and from time to time tried to take hold of her sister’s hand. Baxter wrapped himself in his newly found happiness as selfishly as a bridegroom, for he sat still and smiled.

  ‘So long as I know that Aggie didn’t make away with herself,’ he explained, ‘I tell you frankly I don’t care what happened. She’s as hard as a rock – Mary. Always was. She won’t die.’

  We led her out on to the platform like a blind woman, and so got her into the fly. The half-hour crawl to Holmescroft was the most racking experience of the day. M’Leod had obeyed my instructions. There was no one visible in the house or the gardens; and the front door stood open.

  Miss Mary rose from beside her sister, stepped forth first, and entered the hall.

  ‘Come, Bessie,’ she cried.

  ‘I daren’t. Oh, I daren’t.’

  ‘Come!’ Her voice had altered. I felt Baxter start. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Baxter. ‘She’s running up the stairs. We’d better follow.’

  ‘Let’s wait below. She’s going to the room.’

  We heard the door of the bedroom I knew open and shut, and we waited in the lemon-coloured hall, heavy with the scent of flowers.

  ‘I’ve never been into it since it was sold,’ Baxter sighed. ‘What a lovely, restful plate it is! Poor Aggie used to arrange the flowers.’

  ‘Restful?’ I began, but stopped of a sudden, for I felt all over my bruised soul that Baxter was speaking truth. It was a light, spacious, airy house, full of the sense of wellbeing and peace – above all things, of peace. I ventured into the dining-room where the thoughtful M’Leod’s had left a small fire. There was no terror there, present or lurking; and in the drawing-room, which for good reasons we had never cared to enter, the sun and the peace and the scent of the flowers worked together as is fit in an inhabited house. When I returned to the hall, Baxter was sweetly asleep on a couch, looking most unlike a middle-aged solicitor who had spent a broken night with an exacting cousin.

  There was ample time for me to review it all – to felicitate myself upon my magnificent acumen (barring some errors about Baxter as a thief and possibly a murderer), before the door above opened, and Baxter, evidently a light sleeper, sprang awake.

  ‘I’ve had a heavenly little nap,’ he said, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands like a child. ‘Good Lord! That’s not their step!’

  But it was. I had never before been privileged to see the Shadow turned backward on the dial – the years ripped bodily off poor human shoulders – old sunken eyes filled and alight – harsh lips moistened and human.

  ‘John,’ Miss Mary called, ‘ I know now. Aggie didn’t do it!’ and ‘She didn’t do it!’ echoed Miss

  ‘I did not think it wrong to say a prayer,’ Miss Mary continued. ‘Not for her soul, but for our peace. Then I was convinced.’

  ‘Then we got conviction,’ the younger sister piped.

  ‘We’ve misjudged poor Aggie, John. But I feel she knows n
ow. Wherever she is, she knows that we know she is guiltless.’

  ‘Yes, she knows. I felt it too,’ said Miss Elizabeth.

  ‘I never doubted,’ said John’ Baxter, whose face was beautiful at that hour. ‘Not from the first. Never have!’

  ‘You never offered me proof, John. Now, thank God, it will not be the same any more. I can think henceforward of Aggie without sorrow.’ She tripped, absolutely tripped, across the hall. ‘What ideas these Jews have of arranging furniture!’ She spied me behind a big Cloisonnée vase. ‘I’ve seen the window,’ she said remotely. ‘You took a great risk in advising me to undertake such a journey. However, as it turns out . . . I forgive you, and I pray you may never know what mental anguish means! Bessie! Look at this peculiar piano! Do you suppose, Doctor, these people would offer one tea? I miss mine.’

  ‘I will go and see,’ I said, and explored M’Leod’s new-built servants’ wing. It was in the servants’ hall that I unearthed the M’Leod family, bursting with anxiety.

  ‘Tea for three, quick,’ I said. ‘If you ask me any questions now, I shall have a fit!’ So Mrs M’Leod got it, and I was butler, amid murmured apologies from Baxter, still smiling and self-absorbed, and the cold disapproval of Miss Mary, who thought the pattern of the china vulgar. However, she ate well, and even asked me whether I would not like a cup of tea for myself.

  They went away in the twilight – the twilight that I had once feared. They were going to an hotel in London to rest after the fatigues of the day, and as their fly turned down the drive, I capered on the door step, with the all-darkened house behind me.

  Then I heard the uncertain feet of the M’Leods and bade them not to turn on the lights, but to feel – to feel what I had done; for the Shadow was gone, with the dumb desire in the air. They drew short, but afterwards deeper, breaths, like bathers entering chill water, separated one from the other, moved about the hall, tiptoed upstairs, raced down, and then Miss M’Leod, and I believe her mother, though she denies this, embraced me. I know M’Leod did.

  It was a disgraceful evening. To say we rioted through the house is to put it mildly. We played a sort of Blind Man’s Buff along the darkest passages, in the unlighted drawing-room, and little dining-room, calling cheerily to each other after each exploration that here, and here, and here, the trouble – had removed itself. We came up to the bedroom – mine for the night again – and sat, the women on the bed, and we men on chairs, drinking in blessed draughts of peace and comfort and cleanliness of soul, while I told them my tale in full, and received fresh praise, thanks, and blessings.

  When the servants, returned from their day’s outing, gave us a supper of cold fried fish, M’Leod had sense enough to open no wine. We had been practically drunk since nightfall, and grew incoherent on water and milk.

  ‘I like that Baxter,’ said M’Leod. ‘He’s a sharp man. The death wasn’t in the house, but he ran it pretty close, ain’t it?’

  ‘And the joke of it is that he supposes I want to buy the place from you,’ I said. ‘Are you selling?’

  ‘Not for twice what I paid for it – now,’ said M’Leod. ‘I’ll keep you in furs all your life, but not our Holmescroft.’

  ‘No – never our Holmescroft,’ said Miss M’Leod. ‘We’ll ask him here on Tuesday, mamma.’ They squeezed each other’s hands.

  ‘Now tell me,’ said Mrs M’Leod – ‘that tall one, I saw out of the scullery window – did she tell you she was always here in the spirit? I hate her. She made all this trouble. It was not her house after she had sold it. What do you think?’

  ‘I suppose,’ I answered, ‘she brooded over what she believed was her sister’s suicide night and day – she confessed she did – and her thoughts being concentrated on this place, they felt like a – like a burning glass.’

  ‘Burning glass is good,’ said M’Leod.

  ‘I said it was like a light of blackness turned on us,’ cried the girl, twiddling her ring. ‘That must have been when the tall one thought worst about her sister and the house.’

  ‘Ah, the poor Aggie!’ said Mrs M’Leod. ‘The poor Aggie, trying to tell everyone it was not so! No wonder we felt Something wished to say Something. Thea, Max, do you remember that night ’

  ‘We need not remember any more,’ M’Leod interrupted. ‘It is not our trouble. They have told each other now.’

  ‘Do you think, then,’ said Miss M’Leod, ‘that those two, the living ones, were actually told something – upstairs – in your in the room?’

  ‘I can’t say. At any rate they were made happy, and they ate a big tea afterwards. As your father says, it is not our trouble any longer – thank God!’

  ‘Amen!’ said M’Leod. ‘Now, Thea, let us have some music after all these months. “With mirth, thou pretty bird”, ain’t it? You ought to hear that.’

  And in the half-lighted hall, Thea sang an old English song that I had never heard before.

  With mirth, thou pretty bird, rejoice

  Thy Maker’s praise enhanced;

  Lift up thy shrill and pleasant voice,

  Thy God is high advanced!

  Thy food before He did provide,

  And gives it in a fitting side,

  Wherewith be thou sufficed!

  Why shouldst thou now unpleasant be,

  Thy wrath against God venting,

  That He a little bird made thee,

  Thy silly head tormenting,

  Because He made thee not a man?

  Oh, Peace! He hath well thought thereon,

  Therewith be thou sufficed!

  The Rabbi’s Song

  The Wish House

  ‘Late came the god.’

  The new Church Visitor had just left after a twenty minutes’ call. During that time, Mrs Ashcroft had used such English as an elderly, experienced, and pensioned cook should, who had seen life in London. She was the readier, therefore, to slip back into easy, ancient Sussex (To softening the ‘d’s as one warmed) when the ’bus brought Mrs Fettley from thirty miles away for a visit, that pleasant March Saturday. The two had been friends since childhood; but, of late, destiny had separated their meetings by long intervals.

  Much was to be said, and many ends, loose since last time, to be ravelled up on both sides, before Mrs Fettley, with her bag of quilt-patches, took the couch beneath the window commanding the garden, and the football-ground in the valley below.

  ‘Most folk got out at Bush Tye for the match there,’ she explained, ‘so there weren’t no one for me to cushion agin, the last five mile. An’ she do just-about bounce ye.’

  ‘You’ve took no hurt,’ said her hostess. ‘You don’t brittle by agein’, Liz.’

  Mrs Fettley chuckled and made to match a couple of patches to her liking. ‘No, or I’d ha’ broke twenty year back. You can’t ever mind when I was so’s to be called round, can ye? ‘

  Mrs Ashcroft shook her head slowly – she never hurried – and went on stitching a sack-cloth lining into a list-bound rush tool-basket. Mrs Fettley laid out more patches in the Spring light through the geraniums on the window-sill, and they were silent awhile.

  ‘What like’s this new Visitor o’ yourn?’ Mrs Fettley enquired, with a nod towards the door. Being very short-sighted, she had, on her entrance, almost bumped into the lady.

  Mrs Ashcroft suspended the big packing-needle judicially on high, ere she stabbed home. ‘Settin’ aside she don’t bring much news with her yet, I dunno as I’ve anythin’ special agin her.’

  ‘Ourn, at Keyneslade,’ said Mrs Fettley, ‘she’s full o’ words an’ pity, but she don’t stay for answers. Ye can get on with your thoughts while she clacks.’

  ‘This ’un don’t clack. She’s aimin’ to be one o’ those High Church nuns, like.’

  ‘Ourn’s married, but, by what they say, she’ve made no great gains of it . . .’ Mrs Fettley threw up her sharp chin. ‘Lord! How they dam’ cherubim do shake the very bones o’ the place! ‘

  The tile-sided cottage trembled at the passage of t
wo specially chartered forty-seat charabancs on their way to the Bush Tye match; a regular Saturday’ shopping’ ’bus, for the county’s capital, fumed behind them; while, from one of the crowded inns, a fourth car backed out to join the procession, and held up the stream of through pleasure-traffic.

  ‘You’re as free-tongued as ever, Liz,’ Mrs Ashcroft observed.

  ‘Only when I’m with you. Otherwhiles, I’m Granny – three times over. I lay that basket’s for one o’ your gran’chiller – ain’t it?’

  ‘’Tis for Arthur – my Jane’s eldest.’

  ‘But he ain’t workin’ nowheres, is he? ‘

  ‘No. ’Tis a picnic-basket.’

  ‘You’re let off light. My Willie, he’s allus at me for money for them aireated wash-poles folk puts up in their gardens to draw the music from Lunnon, like. An’ I give it ’im – pore fool me! ‘

  ‘An’ he forgets to give you the promise-kiss after, don’t he?’ Mrs Ashcroft’s heavy smile seemed to strike inwards.

  ‘He do. ’No odds ’twixt boys now an’ forty year back. ’Take all an’ give naught-an’ we to put up with it! Pore fool we! Three shillin’ at a time Willie’ll ask me for!’

  ‘They don’t make nothin’ o’ money these days,’ Mrs Ashcroft said.

  ‘An’ on’y last week,’ the other went on, ‘me daughter, she ordered a quarter pound suet at the butchers’s; an’ she sent it back to ’im to be chopped. She said she couldn’t bother with choppin’ it.’

  ‘I lay he charged her, then.’

  ‘I lay he did. She told me there was a whisk-drive that afternoon at the Institute, an’ she couldn’t bother to do the choppin’.’

  ‘Tck!’