No. Not ever.
The prospect of seeing “Adelaide MacLeod” another time filled Horace with dismay. He did feel sympathy—pity—for the lonely old woman but he could not bear it that the Scots nanny knew so much about his private life, and the private lives of his parents.
That look in the faded blue eyes!—loneliness, sorrow.
He would not see Adelaide MacLeod again (indeed, Horace saw virtually no one) but yes, he would contact her. Even in his estrangement from his old life Horace was a gentleman, and could be generous; though he had very little income from his writing and from what remained of his parents’ estate, scarcely enough to feed himself, he would set aside a small amount of money to send to Adelaide MacLeod each month. He hoped for the rest of her life.
What a good, kind man you have come to be, dear Horace!—Adelaide MacLeod writes to him, each time he sends her a check. A Christian after all.
Weird tales he would compose to contain the unspeakable wonders of weird love.
In the high-ceilinged reading room of the Athenaeum library amid patrons like himself of good Providence stock, he would compose his weird tales. In a courtyard of the Ladd Observatory where no one would observe him, or, if observing, would not give him, gentlemanly-looking, an “old soul” in oversized clothes bearing the dull glaze of time, a second glance. On a stone bench in the rear grounds of the Butler Hope Psychiatric Hospital where Horace Love, Sr. had passed away many years ago when he, Horace, Jr. had been but five years old.
What exhilaration, what joy in the grandfather’s pen! Black ink spilling in the most intricate (silent) speech, enthralling to the writer.
Such a lot the gods gave to me—to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken.
And yet I am strangely content, and cling desperately to these sere memories …
Bearing the talismanic pen Horace is (more or less, usually) safe from night-gaunts. So caught up with the mesmerizing spell of his weird tales, he is capable of forgetting them for hours.
Empowered too, as he impersonates night-gaunts in human shapes. As if wearing a mask, and even his voice acquires a more confident timbre.
At the Butler Hope hospital, making inquiries. In the guise of “Jerald Ryerson, Esq.,” a Providence attorney representing the Gladys Love estate, with questions for the chief administrator of the hospital phrased in the most gentlemanly cadences, polite, unassuming and yet emphatic, asking if the medical record of the deceased woman’s husband Horace Love might be available after so many years. (Unfortunately no, the attorney is told: the medical records of the deceased are destroyed after a decade.) Well, then—is there anyone on the staff, an older nurse perhaps, who might recall Mr. Love?
Indeed yes. As it happens there is one individual, not a doctor but a white-haired nurse, in fact, a nurse-supervisor, who does remember Horace Phineas Love; and who tells Horace, Jr. that the case was “very sad, for little could be done for the suffering man, as the illness had advanced too far before being diagnosed, and had altered his brain, as it does in such cases … It may seem surprising that Mr. Love was very quiet much of the time, after his outbursts. As he grew older, and more ravaged, an outburst would exhaust him, and render him almost catatonic, like a statue. He had no appetite and had to be fed intravenously which presents problems, an irrational patient will pull out tubes if he isn’t restrained, and can be dangerous to himself and others …” Seeing the attorney’s respectful but puzzled expression the white-haired woman says, in a lowered voice, “It was syphilis, you know. Undiagnosed for years.”
Syphilis! The attorney stares speechless.
“Untreated syphilis. Mr. Love must have procrastinated going to a doctor and even then, he may have delayed treatment. Of course there was a ‘cure’ for the disease then but there was such social opprobrium attached to the disease, many of the afflicted simply refused to believe the diagnosis, and were too ashamed to tell anyone else, like family members. People did not want to know. Families did not want to know. A wife—ah, a wife!—would not want to know though of course the wife is the one who must know.” The nurse pauses, choosing her words with care; saying, with reluctance, “Mr. Love’s poor wife was likely ‘infected’ too. But I don’t believe that she was a patient here.”
“And—children? If she’d had children?”
“Well, possibly. I don’t like to say ‘probably.’ If the poor woman had had children after the infection, if the husband had not been diagnosed yet and there were marital relations between them, almost certainly the child was at risk of being infected.”
“I see.” A grave pause. Mr. Ryerson adjusts his eyeglasses, frowns just perceptibly. His lips draw back from his teeth in a rictus of a smile. “And how, in the child, would the infection manifest itself?”
He was the pollution—you were the helpless victim. From his loins he injected his poison into you, in your mother’s womb.
They would keep it a secret, would they?—the father’s terrible illness, that rotted his brain. And the mother’s brain, in time.
4. Weird Love
Swiftly words erupt from his pen. Black-inky words, beautifully formed, transcribing an old tale of anguish. All have died now on Charity Hill. There is peace.
In the interior of the (private, prestigious) Athenaeum library where for long hours he sits utterly content, writing.
Ah, writing! Here is an activity so much more rewarding than mere living.
“I am very happy here, Mrs. D_____. Thank you.”
(Mrs. D____ is one of the friendly librarians. Always a smile for the gentlemanly Mr. Love, grandson of Obadiah.)
“We are very happy to hear that, Mr. Love. But why?”
“Because”—glancing about almost shyly—“because we are all dead here, and there is peace.”
In Latin class at the Providence Academy, each year the instructor would note the Ides of March: 44 BC, death of Julius Caesar.
Though it is but superstition—(and Horace Love is a thoroughly rational, not-superstitious man)—always as March fifteenth approaches he feels a frisson of something like—premonition?
This year, a demon seems to have leapt into his pen—a night-gaunt? He feels the extra surge of energy, like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
What pleasure in the pen flowing swiftly and unerringly across the lined pages of his notebook! Months have passed since the mother’s death—years have passed since the father’s death—and yet (it might almost be claimed) very little time has passed inwardly. For the (now-adult) survivor the experience of writing is like making his way along a path by the light of a quarter-moon: he can see enough of the path before him to make his way safely though in fact he is surrounded by shadows on all sides.
The gift of “weird sight” is that you see just as much as it is required for you to see. Beyond that, you have no need.
While others, neither accursed nor blessed, see far less of the path before them, and know virtually nothing of the darkness that surrounds.
Many Waterman pens he has worn out in the course of his lifetime; yet still, for weird tales, he uses Obadiah Cornish’s Endura pen, though it is not so striking as it had been; the nib many times replaced, the gold titanium trim worn from his fingers.
Sometimes the pain is not bearable.
(But why has he written this line? It does not belong in the novella he is writing, set in the Antarctic in the present time and in the Cretaceous age of many millions of years ago.)
Of course he has infected you. You could not have been born except by way of infection. You yourself are infection.
Despite clanking radiators like panting beasts the reading room of the Athenaeum is drafty in winter months. Patrons tend to dress warmly in thick sweaters. Like a reptilian creature Horace, Jr. has difficulty retaining heat; in a cold room his temperature tends to drop, and his fingers become stiff and unwieldy. So, out of practicality Horace has taken to wearing leather gloves with the forefinger and thumb of the right glove cut away, to faci
litate writing. (The gloves are supple, thin black leather, once belonging to Horace, Sr.)
Indeed, Horace, Jr. often wears clothing formerly belonging to Horace, Sr. laid out for him by his mother years ago. She’d fretted that such “perfectly good”—“high-quality”—clothing could not simply be donated to Goodwill, when Horace, Jr. could wear it; despite the clothes being not quite right for him—too short in the sleeves and trouser legs, too loose otherwise. (For Horace Love, Sr. was a much heavier man than Horace Love, Jr., as well as two or three inches shorter.) Black woolen overcoat, with worn cuffs; dark woolen suit coat and (mismatching) dark woolen trousers; waistcoat, loose at the waist; belt, with inexpertly notched new holes, to fit Horace, Jr.’s narrow waist. The white cotton long-sleeved shirts are not starched, for Horace, Jr. washes them himself in a sink; their cuffs have grown discolored with ink which no amount of scrubbing can erase.
Sometimes there are experiences which scar too deeply to permit of healing, and leave only an added sensitiveness that memory reinspires all the original horror.
On exceptionally cold days Horace, Jr. wears a black felt fedora of his father’s in the library, though (he believes) it is not good manners for a man to wear a hat indoors, in the presence of women; murmuring Excuse me!—hope you won’t mind … with an apologetic smile that exposes uneven stained teeth.
Kindly Mrs. D____ assures Horace Love, Jr. that it is perfectly all right—of course. For years the librarian has observed the unusually tall, gaunt gentleman with a boil-like birthmark on his cheek and sunken, intelligent eyes, in old-fashioned ill-fitting clothes, who spends many hours a week in the library, in the reading room, occasionally in the reference room, taking notes, writing furiously in a notebook. He is a nervous man, but excessively well-mannered. His smile is a fierce but restrained grimace. His breath is faintly sour like something that has rotted and partly decomposed. From random remarks of his, both modest and boastful, she has gathered that these “manuscripts” are “typed up” at home, by Horace, Jr; he has said that he could not entrust a typist to type them, and that he is “constantly revising” as he types. His great literary hero, he has said, is Marcel Proust—for Proust’s explorations into the labyrinth of Time, which is our only true subject.
It is Mrs. D____’s vague understanding that stories by Horace Love, Jr. appear occasionally in magazines, though no magazine displayed in the library has ever contained any story by Horace Love, Jr., so far as she has discovered; and those magazines that do publish his work, if indeed they exist, are not (evidently) of a quality to be displayed in the periodicals room of the Athenaeum.
Out of curiosity Mrs. D____ has asked Horace for a copy of a magazine publishing his work, and Horace promised that yes, he would bring a copy to her—soon! But out of shyness, or embarrassment, Horace has not (yet) brought his librarian-friend a copy of Weird Tales in which his strongest work has appeared.
Many days, after hours of vigorous writing, when his (gloved) hand begins to ache, Horace, Jr. feels a thrill of exaltation. One day, he believes, the name Horace Phineas Love, Jr. will be as much revered in Providence as the name Cornish.
Though it is not likely, Horace concedes, that any street or park would be named after him, as a street and a park are in fact named after his mother’s relatives: Cornish Street, Cornish Park. Such a concession is a check to his exaltation for invariably if Horace’s spirits soar like a balloon, there must be a brisk tug on the string to bring the balloon down closer to earth.
On the ground floor of the library there is a men’s lavatory which Horace has no choice but to use. Shielding his eyes from the freakishly tall, thin, white-faced apparition in the mirror, a night-gaunt brazenly staring at him …
Wanting to protest—But I am not one of you. I have not succumbed to your despair, I am still alive.
Wanting to declare defiantly—What I have written will endure. Beyond any of you.
On this day shortly after the Ides of March 1937 Horace finds himself at the checkout desk of the Athenaeum, where a queue has formed just before closing time. In the truncated light of late winter it is already quite dark outside at six P.M., as he can see through the tall windows. Horace is taking out several books he has not yet read, though by this time it is a rarity for him to have found any book in the Athenaeum collection which he has not already read, or indeed owns; he has purchased so many books, most of them secondhand, that he has not had time to alphabetize them, and so these “new” books have been added to his grandfather’s considerable collection, in so haphazard a way that Horace often can’t locate a book he is reasonably certain he owns, and so must check it out of the library. “Thank God for the Athenaeum!—no riffraff here,” Horace remarks to patrons in the queue, who smile fleetingly at him, as if his humor is embarrassing; some of these, the older individuals in particular, are familiar faces to Horace as (he supposes) his is a familiar face to them. For they have shared this interregnum of history with one another even if they are not known to one another by name: all share a common bond, a kindred sense of the paramount importance of books, the life of the mind and the imagination, the life of print. Horace wants to think that he has been writing his weird tales of weird love for these readers, and for others like them, though they are not much aware of his work—yet …
How otherwise can I speak of my love. My writing, my books, my weird tales are my love. It is weird love I offer you.
And why?—because I love you. Because there is no other way.
It is true. Never could Horace have uttered such truths aloud. Only through the mouth of the mask fitted tightly over his face.
But here is a mystery: Horace’s fellow patrons are not behaving with their customary politeness. Rather, with uncharacteristic rudeness. Not only do they fail to acknowledge Horace’s innocuous remark, they are pushing past him in the queue, oblivious of his very presence. Inwardly he protests Excuse me? I have been waiting here also …
Of course Horace is too courteous, too much the gentleman, to object out loud. With an ironic self-effacing shrug he allows the others to move ahead of him, to check out their books from Mrs. D____; and finally, when the last of the patrons has left, and Horace approaches the checkout counter, to his surprise Mrs. D____ ignores him also, putting away her stamp pad, briskly shutting drawers. Ever thoughtful of Horace Love, on this blustery March evening when a faint wind howls about the rotunda in the foyer, Mrs. D____ seems unaware of him entirely. She shudders, a chill passes over her. Another librarian says, “What is it, Elisabeth?”
“I—I—I don’t know …”
“You seem so—cold, suddenly.”
“Just suddenly, yes. I—I am …”
Horace realizes, then.
Stepping back he realizes. He!—he is the sudden chill.
It is a gentlemanly gesture, to leave the Athenaeum at once. It is an uncouth act, to disconcert the lady librarians any further.
Without a word Horace hurries outside. He has left behind the precious library books he’d wanted to check out, he has brought only his precious notebook with him clasped tight against his chest. On his long legs staggers out of the building just as the door is being locked for the night by a custodian.
On the stone steps, gusts of wind. Overhead, a full moon. Horace runs into the street, he is both frightened and exhilarated, like one who has stepped across a threshold in full knowledge that a door will slam shut behind him, and lock against him irrevocably.
Was it here, on Benefit Street, that the little gypsy-girl had plucked at his wrist? Or no, that had been Market Street, and long ago.
The wind, the wind!—blowing Horace stiff-legged in his long flapping overcoat along Benefit Street, over the trolley tracks, to the foot of Charity Hill. More slowly then he climbs the cobblestone street past the large darkened houses of his neighbors set behind wrought-iron fences to keep out strangers, to thwart even the curious eyes of strangers, another steep block to the small mansion of sandstone, brick and iron in which he has l
ived out his life of forty-six years. Thinking—Why, this has been my happiness. The only world that could have sustained me.
Thinking, with a fluttering in his bony chest—My “weird tales” will make their way into your hearts as in my person I could never have done …
At 33 Charity Street the wrought-iron gate appears to be locked though (Horace is certain) he has not troubled to lock it in twenty-five years. Rust of the hue and texture of brine exudes from its iron pores. He is perplexed, surprised. What has happened? Why?
There has been some mistake, has there? He has been locked out of his own house—by whom?
He shakes the bars. He will certainly gain entry, he cannot be kept out of his own home.
But what is that?—a face?
Seeing in a high, octagonal window beneath the eaves of the old sandstone house something pale and blurred hovering just beyond the glass.
Acknowledgments
“The Woman in the Window” originally appeared in One Story (2016) and has also appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, ed. John Sandford (Mariner Books, 2017) and In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, ed. Lawrence Block (Pegasus, 2016).
“The Long-Legged Girl” originally appeared in The Kenyon Review (2017).
“Sign of the Beast” was originally published by Amazon Original Stories (2017).
“The Experimental Subject” was originally published by Conjunctions.com (2017).
“Walking Wounded” originally appeared in Conjunctions (2015).
“Night-Gaunts” originally appeared in The Yale Review (2017) and contains isolated lines from H.P. Lovecraft’s work, notably “The Outsider,” “The Shunned House,” and “At the Mountains of Madness.”
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense Page 26
