Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  He turned away with a vague shrug of his shoulders. ‘Of course,’ he said coldly, ‘if you’d rather not.’

  ‘Go to bed, Beverley,’ I answered, ‘I’ll watch till morning … We are, you say, absolutely alone in this house?’

  ‘Physically, yes; absolutely alone. Apart from that old cat there is not so much as a mouse stirring.’

  ‘No rival heirs? No positive claimants?’

  ‘None,’ he said. ‘Though, of course … It’s only – my aunt.’ We stood in silence.

  ‘Well, good-night, then; but honestly I am rather sceptical.’

  He raised his eyebrows, faintly smiled – something between derision and relief, lifted the portrait from the wall, carried it across the room, leaned it against the armchair in the corner. ‘There!’ he muttered. ‘Check! you old witch! … It’s very good of you. I’m sick of it. It has relieved me immensely. Good-night!’ He went out quickly, leaving the door ajar. I heard him go up the stairs, and presently another door, above, slammed.

  I thought at first how few candles stood between me and darkness. It was now too late to look for more. Not, of course, that I felt any real alarm. Only a kind of curiosity – that might perhaps leap into something a little different when off its guard! I sat down and began meditating on Beverley, his nerves, his pretences, his venomous hatred of … well, what? Of a dozen things. But beneath all this I was gazing in imagination straight into the pictured eyes of a little old lady, already months in her grave.

  The hours passed slowly. I changed from chair to chair – ‘t.e.g.’ gift-books, albums of fading photographs, old picture magazines. I pored over some marvellously fine needlework, and a few enchanting little watercolours. My candle languished; its successor was kindled. I was already become cold, dull, sleepy and depressed, when in the extreme silence I heard the rustling of silk. Screening my candle with my hand, I sat far back into my old yellow damask sofa. Slow, shuffling footsteps were quietly drawing near. I fixed my eyes on the door. A pale light beyond it began stealing inwards, mingling with mine. Faint shadows zigzagged across the low ceiling. The door opened wider, stealthily, and a most extraordinary figure discovered itself, and paused on the threshold.

  For an instant I hesitated, my heart thumping at my ribs; and then I recognized, beneath a fantastic disguise, no less tangible an interloper than Beverley himself. He was in his pyjamas; his feet were bare; but thrown over his shoulders was an immense old cashmere shawl that might have once graced Prince Albert’s Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. And his head was swathed in what seemed to be some preposterous eighteenth-century night-gear. The other hand outstretched, he was carrying his candlestick a few inches from his face, so that I could see his every feature with exquisite distinctness beneath his voluminous head-dress.

  It was Beverley right enough – I noticed even a very faint likeness to his brother, Henry, unperceived till then. His pale eyes were wide and glassily open. But behind this face, as from out of a mask – keen, wizened, im mensely absorbed – peered his little old enemy’s unmistakable visage, Miss Lemieux’s! He was in a profound sleep, there could be no doubt of that. So closely burned the flame to his entranced face I feared he would presently be setting himself on fire. He moved past me slowly with an odd jerky constricted gait, something like that of a very old lady. He was muttering, too, in an aggrieved queer far-away voice. Stooping with a sigh, he picked up the picture; returned across the room; drew up and mounted the parrot-green footstool, and groped for the nail in the wall not six inches above his head. At length he succeeded in finding it; sighed again and turned meditatively; his voice rising a little shrill, as if in altercation. Once more he passed me by unheeded and came to a standstill; for a moment, peering through curtains a few inches withdrawn, into the starry garden. Whether the odd consciousness within him was aware of me, I cannot say. Those unspeculating, window-like eyes turned themselves full on me crouched there in the yellow sofa. The voice fell to a whisper; I think that he hastened a little. He went out and closed the door, and I’d swear my candle solemnly ducked when his was gone!

  I huddled myself up again, pulled up a rug and woke to find the candle-stub still alight in the dusk of dawn – battling faintly together to illuminate the little vivid painted face leaning from the wall. And that, on my soul – showing not a symptom of fatigue – in this delicate spring daybreak, indeed appeared more redoubtable than ever!

  I sat for a time undecided what to be doing, what even to be thinking. And then, as if impelled by an inspiration, I got up, took down again the trophy from its nail, and with my pen-knife gently prized open the back of its gilded frame. Surely, it had occurred to me, it could not be mere vanity, mere caprice or rancour that could take such posthumous pains as this! Perhaps, ever dimly aware of it as he was in his waking moments, merely the pressing subconscious thought of the portrait had lured Beverley out of his sleep. Perhaps …

  I levered up the thin dusty wood; there was nothing beneath. I drew it out from the frame. And then was revealed, lightly pasted on the back, a scrap of yellowed paper, scrawled with five crosses in the form of a quincunx. In one corner of this was a large, capital Italianate ‘P’. And beneath a central cross was drawn a small square. Here was the veritable answer before my eyes. How very like old age to doubt its memory even on such a crucial matter as this. Or was it only doubt?

  For whose guidance had this odd quincunx been intended? Not for Walter Beverley’s – that was certain. Standing even where I was I could see between the curtains the orchard behind the house pale in the dawn with its fast-fading fruit-blossom. There, then, lay concealed the old lady’s secret ‘hoard’. We had but to exercise a little thought, a little dexterity and precaution; and Beverley had won.

  And then suddenly, impetuously, rose up in my mind an obstinate distaste of meddling in the matter. Surely, if there is any such thing as desecration, this would be desecration.

  I glanced at the old attentive face looking up at me, the face of one who had, it seemed, so easily betrayed her most intimate secret, and in some unaccountable fashion there now appeared to be something quite other than mere malice in its concentration – a hint even of the apprehension and entreaty of a heart too proud to let them break through the veil of the small black fearless eyes.

  I determined to say nothing to Beverley; watch yet again. And – if I could find a chance – dig by myself, and make sure of the actual contents of Miss Lemieux’s treasury before surrendering it to her greedy, insensitive heir. So once more the portrait was re-hung on its rusty nail.

  He was prepared for my scepticism; but he did not believe, I think, that I had kept unceasing watch.

  ‘I am sure,’ he said repeatedly, ‘absolutely sure that what I told you last night has recurred repeatedly. How can you disprove my positive personal evidence by this one failure – by a million negatives? It is you who are to blame – that tough, bigoted common-sense of yours.’

  I willingly accepted his verdict and offered to watch once more. He seemed content. And yet by his incessant restlessness and the curious questioning dismay that haunted his face I felt that his nocturnal guest was troubling and fretting him more than ever.

  It was a charming old house, intensely still, intensely self-centred, as it were. One could imagine how unwelcome the summons of death would be in such a familiar home on earth as this. I wandered, and brooded, and searched in the garden: and found at length without much difficulty my ‘quincunx’. The orchard was full of fruit trees, cherry, plum, apple: but the five towering pear trees, their rusty crusted bloom not yet all shed, might become at once unmistakably conspicuous to anyone in possession of the clue; though not till then. But how hopeless a contest had my friend set himself with no guidance, and one spade, against such an aunt, against such an orchard!

  Evening began to narrow in the skies. My host and I sat together over a bottle of wine. Much as he seemed to cling to my company, I knew he longed for solitude. Twice he rose, as if urged by some sudden capric
e to leave me, and twice he sat down again in even deeper constraint.

  But soon after midnight I was left once more to my vigil. This time I forestalled his uneasy errand and replaced the portrait myself. I rested awhile; then, when it was still very early morning, I ventured out into the mists of the garden to find a spade. But I had foolishly forgotten on which side of the mid-most tree Miss Lemieux had set her tell-tale square. So back again I was compelled to go, and this time I took the flimsy, precious scrap of paper with me. Somewhere a waning moon was shedding light, for the mists of the garden were white as milk and the trees stood phantom-like above the drenched grasses.

  I pinned the paper to the mid-most pear tree, measured out with my eye a rough narrow oblong a foot or two from the trunk and drove the rusty spade into the soil.

  At that instant I heard a cautious minute sound behind me. I turned and once more confronted the pathetic bedizened figure of the night before. It was fumbling with the handle of the window, holding aloft a candle. The window opened at length and Beverley stood peering out into the garden. I fancied even a shrill voice called. And then without hesitation, with the same odd, shuffling gait Beverley stepped out on to the dew-damped gravel path and came groping towards me. He stood then, quietly watching me, not two paces distant; and so utterly still was the twilight that his candle-flame burned slim and unwavering in the mist, shedding its small, pale light on leaf-sprouting flowerless bough and dewdrop, and upon that strange set haunted face.

  I could not gaze very long into the grey unseeing eyes. His lips moved. His fingers, oddly bent, twitched. And then he turned from me. The large pale eyes wandered to my spade, to the untrampled grasses, and finally, suddenly fixed their gaze on the tiny square of fading paper. He uttered a little cry, shrill and desperate, and stretched out his hand to snatch it. But I was too quick for him. Doubling it up, I thrust it into my pocket and stepped back beneath the trees. Then, intensely anxious not to awaken the sleepwalker, I drew back with extreme caution. Nonetheless, I soon perceived that, however gradual my retreat, he was no less patiently driving me into a little shrubbery where there would be no chance of eluding him, and we should stand confronting one another face to face.

  I could not risk a struggle in such circumstances. A wave of heat spread over me; I tripped, and then ran as fast as I could back to the house, hastened into the room and threw myself down in my old yellow sleeping-place – closing my eyes as if I were lost to the world. Presently followed the same faint footfall near at hand. Then, hearing no sound at all, and supposing he had passed, I cautiously opened my eyes – only to gaze once more unfathomably deep into his, stooping in the light of his candle, searching my face insanely, entreatingly – I cannot describe with how profound a disquietude.

  I did not stir, until, with a deep sigh, like that of a tired-out child, he turned from me and left the room.

  I waited awhile, my thoughts like a disturbed nest of ants. What should I do? To whom was my duty obligatory? – to Beverley, feverishly hunting for wealth not his (even if it existed) by else than earthly right; or to this unquiet spirit – that I could not but believe had taken possession of him – struggling, only I knew how bravely, piteously and desperately, to keep secret – what? Not mere money or valuables or private papers or personal secrets which might lie hidden beneath the shadow of the pear tree. Surely never had eyes pleaded more patiently and intensely and less covetously for a stranger’s chivalry, nor from a wilder ambush than these that had but just now gazed into mine. What was the secret; what lure was detaining on earth a shade so much in need of rest?

  I took the paper from my pocket. Light was swiftly flowing into the awakening garden. A distant thrush broke faintly into song. Undecided – battling between curiosity and pity, between loyalty to my friend and loyalty to even more than a friend – to this friendless old woman’s solitary perturbed spirit, I stood with vacant eyes upon the brightening orchard – my back turned on portrait and room.

  A hand (no man’s asleep, or awake) touched mine. I turned – debated no more. The poor jaded face was grey and drawn. He seemed himself to be inwardly wrestling – possessed against possessor. And still the old bygone eyes within his own, across how deep an abyss, argued, pleaded with mine. They seemed to snare me, to persuade me beyond denial. I held out the flimsy paper between finger and thumb.

  Like the limb of an automaton, Beverley’s arm slowly raised his guttering candle. The flame flowed soft and blue. I held the paper till its heat scorched my thumb. Something changed; something but just now there was suddenly gone. The old, drawn face melted, as it were, into another. And Beverley’s voice broke out inarticulate and feverish. I sat him down and let him slowly awaken. He stared incredulously to and fro, from the window to me, to the portrait, and at last his eye fell on his extraordinary attire.

  ‘I say,’ he said, ‘what’s this?’

  ‘Seemingly,’ I said, ‘they are the weeds of the malevolent aunt who has been giving you troubled nights.’

  ‘Me?’ he said, not yet quite free from sleep.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  He yawned. ‘Then – I have been fooled?’ he said. I nodded. I think that even tears came into his eyes. The May-morning choragium of the wild birds had begun, every singer seemingly a soloist in the enraptured medley of voices.

  ‘Well, look here!’ he said, nodding a stupid sleep-drowsed head at me, ‘look here! What … you think of an aunt who hates a fellow as much as that, eh? What you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ I said.

  * First published in Lady’s Realm, December 1906.

  An Anniversary*

  At least a minute – and one that resembled not only a sort of hole in Time but a pause in eternity – must have ticked its moments away; but even yet Aubrey could not be positively certain of what he had seen. Of the after effects of just that one transfixed vague glimpse, his present attitude – long-chinned face thrust forward; cold, grey, light-lashed eyes peering fixedly through the budding tresses of his contorted weeping-ash – was evidence enough.

  His earthenware pitcher still dangled from his numbed fingers. The blood in his throat and temples continued its faint drumming, and was the cause perhaps of the peculiar descending shimmer, as of motes of light, that now affected his vision. His eyes themselves, it seemed, had refused to let him make sure. He had been abjectly shaken – momentarily terrified even. The scalp on his head was still tingling. And yet he had continued to think.

  He had made a habit of attending to what happened ‘in his mind’, and was well aware that unpleasing memories, if they are steadily suppressed and driven down into the dark of that mind, may yet somehow grope to the surface again and reappear in unexpected disguises. Especially when one is not ‘watching-out’ for them! What then of this particular memory?

  For a whole year it had stationed itself like a skulking menacing shadow on the outskirts of consciousness. With anything so habitual one does not even have to look to see if it is still there; just as in one’s own house – at the end perhaps of a corridor, or on the landing of a staircase, may hang a portrait which appears as if what it represented were always steadily in wait for – well, for a renewed and really close scrutiny of itself.

  And even though faces in portraits are only made of paint on canvas, they can yet shed on one a sort of passive influence.

  The inward shade that frequented Aubrey’s mind was not, however, a mere portrait. It was the vivid mental image of a ‘friend’ whom he had sufficient reason to distrust, and even detest, although its original must long ago, surely, have given up all earthly (or any other) concern with him. Or with Emily, either! The bourne from which, please God, no traveller returns —. It had needed no Shakespeare to discover that! Why then quite unexpectedly – not out of the blue, perhaps – but out of these cold evening shadows had…? That was the question. A fantastic yet rather pressing question. What neglect there had been up to the present, had, it is true, been on one side only. The fr
iend’s. Not on Aubrey’s. And he believed that he knew all that he needed to know of Emily.

  When two minds, a man’s and a woman’s, are in close and frequent association with one another – or two bodies for that matter – each, it seems, may be silently aware even of what may be secretly passing in the other’s. They seem to play eavesdropper, not only to one another’s thoughts but even sensations. But then, women are assumed to be more sentimental than men. More sentimental at any rate than Aubrey was himself by nature, or than he had any intention of being. Over anniversaries, for example – birthdays, wedding-days, red-letter days, promise-days, love-days, mothers’-days, death-days. It was fantastic. It was as if their hearts were their calendars – dismally trustworthy calendars in the clearest of print. To let the dead past bury not only its dead but also its moribund, and bury it deep, had always been – by much – Aubrey’s private preference.

  And what of that sinister and secretive evil jealousy? Which may rot into a wearisome and corrosive hatred. Hack away as you will at its roots and suckers they will begin sprouting again even in the small hours of a single night. They become entangled with the instincts, and are the hops and brambles and bindweed of the imagination. Trailing, tender, almond-scented bindweed – Aubrey had read somewhere – will penetrate into loamy churchyard sod and soil a sheer nine feet. ‘Full fathom five.’ But that he should have fallen a prey to jealousy! And with nothing but envy and a worn-out passion, no affection even, for its justification!

  Apart from any reasons, however – and hatred no more than love positively needs any – he had at first sight taken a sudden hatred to John Fiske. In the whole wide world he was certain there was nothing they could have ever agreed about. ‘Oil and vinegar’, yes; but here there had been no salad. One can sneer at, despise, and label an enemy stupid and stolid, too, and yet realize that it would be nearer the mark if in the latter epithet one omitted the ‘t’. In spite of his cursed ‘honesty’, his stubborn directness and unshakable devotion (to what did not belong to him), John Fiske had been as hard to see through as he had been to explore. More impenetrable indeed even than the gloom now steadily deepening beneath the branches of this weeping-ash.