Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  Besides, Aubrey had been envious of Fiske long before he had become jealous of him. Not because he thought him as quick and clever – and certainly not as attractive – as himself. It was his dull, suety, habitually good qualities that he abominated most. They can be the very devil when one wants the owner of them out of the way. As for his own good qualities – brains, morals, heart? He’d have given himself a plus for the first. And the rest? Well, according to taste! Also he knew what he wanted. As, of course, in his slow, honest-to-god, nauseating fashion had Fiske. Precisely how much of his own particular want had he got? By no means all; Aubrey himself had seen to that. And yet … to hell with him!

  There, indeed, so far as undertaker, sexton, and the passing of time can manage, was precisely where he might perhaps be now; and for good! Though, somehow, the clever seem to be its likelier inhabitants. Why on earth then was he himself dithering about like this, outside this arboreal cage, and extremely reluctant to venture into it? Solely because it had for that split second seemed to be occupied; and by a vigilant and tongueless intruder loafing in wait by a damp-greened old water-butt – his clock a dripping tap!

  Aubrey’s first symptoms of shock having now subsided, one simple question presented itself. Since what he had seen, or had appeared to see, could by no possibility be actual – not at any rate as actual as the water-butt – could it have been ‘real’? If real, it would prove a deadly nuisance, and might entail the vilest complications. If not real, it had been merely an illusion.

  ‘Ghosts’ – pah! No, from that bourne no traveller returns; and that may be damned bad luck for those beyond it! ‘Dead men rise up never’; no matter into what Dead Sea even the weariest river may eventually wind its way. Apart from their bones and their worldly chattels the only thing the dead leave behind them is their memory. But that – such is the imbecility of the human mind – however anxiously it is hidden, may, as Emily would agree, become an obsession. And obsessions may breed illusions. With them, bell, book and candle are of far less service than pot. brom. A sneer webbed over Aubrey’s cold stiff features. For, with Emily, even pot. brom., let alone her Evening Services, tame-cattiness and deadly taciturnity, had failed.

  Real or not, it was just like Fiske to have chosen this particular place and time for – well, this reunion. During the lingering days of autumn how often at his work in the City used Aubrey’s fascinated fancy to turn to this last half-hour of twilight in his long straggling garden; these motionless, misty, earthy, early October evenings, the last of the sunset withering in the west. He loved the reek of his leaf bonfires and its haunting nutty odour of decay. He loved being alone; or, rather perhaps, being in strict privacy. And here, even at noonday, his garden was screened from the direct scrutiny of his neighbours. He was a person who refused not only to allow himself to be neglected, but also to be overlooked. But there are eyes that, once met, cannot even in memory be disregarded.

  Apart from direct access by way of the house, the only route into and out of Aubrey’s garden lay through a wicket-gate that led into the open – into wide, flat and now mist-bound fields of damp and malodorous cabbages and cauliflowers, sour acres and acres of deserted market gardens. Yet back from his day in London, he delighted in pottering and, hardly less, in pretending to potter. A perpetual and pleasing activity of mind usually accompanied this busy dolittle. He was abnormally secretive. For weeks he had held his tongue while that little romance of ‘yesteryear’ had steadily intensified and his own particular little intentions and designs had no less steadily matured. And even this no doubt was in part because of his peculiar pleasure in his own society; even at its worst. He especially enjoyed a festering stagnant mood. Not that many human beings are not pleasanter when they are alone. It is an eventuality that may be of equal advantage to their friends.

  Indeed, who would deny that it is chiefly the presence of one’s fellow-creatures that evokes one’s worst – though these may possibly be one’s rarest – characteristics! Alone, even by no means virtuous people may mean wholly well. Not so Aubrey. He despised what he called cant; and first and foremost he meant business. It was, too, in the solitude of his garden, particularly as dusk thickened, that he could best explore his little plans. Then, as if with a dark lantern, he could follow up the wavering intersecting paths leading into the future. Digging, trenching, and even weeding, helped him to concentrate. He was something of a sapper, too; sly and sedulous when things or people stood in his way.

  But why so thirsty a creature? He delighted in cold water especially and drank large quantities of it. For one thing, it was all but free. For another one’s wet may be a trifle too dry. It was, then, a special pleasure – his gardening done for the day – to sally off down to the water-butt under his weeping-ash, and there fill his earthenware pitcher. For himself, and for the flowers and pot-plants indoors. It was due, perhaps, to the Old Adam in him, after the fall of Eve. Also he had a nice taste in flowers. One might almost describe him as an intellectual aesthete who, on his arrival into this unrighteous world, had been deprived of a suitable start.

  As this very moment, he stood listening, he could hear from under the tree the furtive falling sing-song of the waterdrops out of the pump’s iron spout – a tuneless tune, either entirely heedless of its surroundings, or, contrariwise, endeavouring to warn him of something amiss. But what? Just lately, as the days drew in, it had been more than dusk, it had been all but dark, when he had abandoned his flower-beds. The first stars would be pricking into the sky. He would stand, looking up; amused to remind himself that these sparkling darlings of the poets and sentimentalists are nothing but remote and unimaginably immense vats of gas or ‘energy’ – anything you please, except the pretty-pretty. That, beyond inconceivably icy Saharas of pitch-black space, they are not only at some appalling velocity hastening towards (or was it away from?) man’s silly little solar system, but are also running down! It was an anarchistic little notion that made him laugh. All of us, every one of us, doomed! What concern had they indeed with human affairs? – these celestial glow-worms, devoid even of harbouring a consciousness! His own ‘star’ was quite another matter. That was his concern; or, at any rate, he meant to make it so.

  And now, large as life, as reserved, as unfathomable, and – damn his eyes – as coldly contemptuous of Aubrey himself as ever, here was this devil, Fiske – or his double, or his revenant, his astral body or mere presentiment, masquerading in the shelter of Aubrey’s very own private weeping-ash!

  ‘Come back’, had he! What for? Whom for? Ah, yes! In that maze we call the mind (and heart too), even an illusion may have a purpose and a motive, though either may remain securely hidden in the unconscious. If this was solely his own illusion and he himself was its only goal, well and good. But suppose Emily…? No, he badly needed that there should be no meddling with her. Not yet, anyhow. And to confess to an illusion! To her!

  He realized that he was being compelled to pay attention to a mere trick of the senses, to a silly hallucination – which might nonetheless tend to become a habitual hallucination. With the advent of this abused notion, Aubrey suddenly changed his mind. A brilliant idea! Why not presently make mocking mention to Emily of this silly illusion – and watch her reactions. It would all sound so plausible, and so natural, and so harmless… ‘Yes, darling, just now. As a matter of fact – having finished up – I was just going indoors to fill the water-pot when…’

  There had been too much futile reserve and concealment during these last months – the first vindictive indictments and persecutions over and before stagnancy had set in. Far better perhaps bring the whole stupid business into the open again. Yes, and keep it there. If his fancies intended to prey on him, they might in that case not have to prey for very long. Every female heart has its snapping-point. The elastic perishes.

  What need then was there for worry? Solely and solidly, of course, because all this entailed a crucial little question of £.s.d. ‘Ghosts’, whatever their texture, may gibber; but mone
y talks. And loudly too, if one has the need or the desire to listen. Had Emily, or had she not, made another will? If she had, then, he could be practically certain of disaster. And for the life of him he could not conceive of any hiding-place as yet unattended to. Not at least in the house. If she had not; well, better not inquire too closely. In any case she had not forgotten.

  That covertly scrutinized tell-tale face! The lurking shadows, the hauntedness beneath those rounded eyelids, had never left it. Neither by day nor by night had it lost either its pallor or its settled melancholy. An abandoned Ophelia, suckling a secret so intense and so profound. Those long lapses too into silence and vacancy. Recently he had done his level best to let this particular sleeping dog lie. And in so doing how much he had missed the amusing but now forbidden sport of stirring its maudlin slumbers. Passive resistance, passive acceptance – which was the most galling? He had begun to fancy, moreover, that slander – or intuition – had been busy with his own little activities.

  Supposing, then, that, after all, with her pestilent mother for accomplice, Emily was debating, still in doubt, whether or not to leave him? No guile, no subtlety, not even his own, could extort so much as a nod from her on that. Was she herself less candid, less transparent than he had supposed? Well, she had discovered long ago what kind of fish she had netted; or been netted by. Why, then, was he fudging and faltering like this?

  There had been a light rain that evening, gently weeping clouds; and only at this moment had he become aware that a newish moon was sinking in the west – a moon well on her way to her first quarter, faintly silvering the ash twigs, vaguely adulterating the gloom within. How easily might his recent little experience have been a pure deceit? And yet, could the mere misconception of some familiar object have continued active for so long? How many moments – minutes – had he been caught up in this idiotic trance?

  Aubrey stooped a little, shut his eyes very tight for a few instants, then opened them again. Idiot! The effort had only made them less effective. Those scintillant luminous motes poured softly on.

  At length, lifting his left hand – as gently as a Gehazi peering in upon an Elisha – he drew a fan of twigs an inch or two aside.

  ‘Well!’ he heard his dry lips calling softly into the gloom. ‘What about it, then? … Is that you, Fiske?’

  In the complete history of mankind never surely had a more imbecile question been addressed into a silence so intent. Not a single syllable of this dramatic little adjuration had been consciously present in his mind until he had heard his own voice utter it. A queer voice too. And no wonder. There, in every obscure detail, utterly motionless, mutely and tranquilly challenging, the illusion had taken shape again – or in the interval had remained unaffected. There was no active speculation in those eyes – nor assuredly anything approaching a ‘glare’. They were still faintly luminous and serenely inquiring, as if in some remote meditation. At this overwhelming proof of his beastly predicament, provoked too perhaps by the shaken and muffled tones of his own voice and the effort to stop his teeth chattering, Aubrey’s wits had become slightly unbalanced. He stooped lower; coughed. He was afraid.

  ‘Whoever you are, whatever you are,’ he heard his swollen tongue declare, ‘you have no bloody business to be here. Understand that! You —! If you want me – or anybody else, for that matter – you know where the gate is, and you can go round to the front. Do you hear me? Go round to the front, curse you; and knock like a gentleman!’

  But had he in fact uttered these words? Or had he only overheard one of those inward interlopers who begin so garrulously shouting into one’s ear on the very brink of sleep? He had, at any rate, thought them; and the rebuke had done something to restore his confidence. He knew – oh, absolutely – that no answer would come. He defied an answer. Indeed, the only perceptible change in his surroundings – the faintest of changes – was that the deepening darkness into which he was peering had been very feebly diminished. As cautiously as an animal venomously resentful of its cage he glanced over his shoulder. Well, he had bidden his visitor go round to the front and knock; and knock like a gentleman. And now, as if for a symbol of how warmly he would be welcomed, a light which must momentarily have shone out and down from an upper window of the house behind him, had suddenly gone out. Its walls and windows – its whole presence now blank again as a sepulchre’s.

  This time, too, when he himself wheeled swiftly round again, there was absolutely nothing to be seen but his mute own familiar pump beneath its writhen wattled tent of intertwining ash-boughs.

  And a silence had fallen, curdled only by that one tiny monotonous watery whimper, intent not only on repeating the same tune on and on and over and over again, but on singing it! God help him! Counterfeit or not, the ‘Black Man’ had certainly taken shape. The shape of Fiske.

  And, although Aubrey’s lean, long-chinned face, his pale eyes and brass-coloured hair hardly suggested that he was likely to be the victim of nerves, this precisely was what he was in danger of now…And for how long? He swallowed the hoarse laugh of bravado that had slid into his throat before it had become audible, and for yet another moment or two still hesitated to intrude, from out of the open, into the little tent of darkness that until this evening had been his all but unfailingly happy heritage as tenant of his garden. What the eye cannot see, the skin may become aware of! Still, go right in he did at last, and waited until his pitcher was three parts full, striving the while to breathe less quickly the dank autumnal air, and to slow up his silly heartbeats. He was alone now, acutely so. His visitor, his visitant, had absconded. But never never again would his idolized garden be able to convince him that his solitude was absolute and complete.

  The mists from the rain-soaked flats beyond his wicket-gate were now not only visible but smellable and tasteable. Whereas his late visitant – well, he could not say what precise conspiracy of his senses had been responsible for him. He had assuredly not been audible. ‘So much for that!’ Aubrey muttered to himself, as he gave a violent wrench to the cold water-wet tap in the hope of silencing its silly, officious, doll-like musical box. ‘Now for the rest of the play!’ He even regretted he had not reminded his meddlesome enemy that there was a notice-board at the gate out of the market-gardens proclaiming: ‘No Admittance: except on Business.’

  The faint tinkle of a bell sounded from the house behind him. He swore under his breath. ‘That’s just what these idiots would be doing at such a moment.’ And as yet he had had no time for a wash or to change his gardening boots – dumpers, half an inch thick with sodden soil. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and head. He was exhausted, solely by the strain of standing motionless, for, perhaps, three complete minutes! Or was it months? He must go in; and quickly. A cold, jagged smile broke over his features. Supposing that a little while ago, he had been taken at his word! A rat-tat-tat-tat?…Qui vive? …Who knows? And what then?

  Or had what happened in the solitude of the garden been only a novel and beastly symptom of one of his own familiar little attacks? Yet another bout – and as early as October? A glimpse of himself, feeble and sweating on a sick-bed, swam into his view. How much he loathed repeated, parrot-like inquiries and that evening-tray laden with its tail-swallowed whiting, or insipid minced chicken, and miniature ‘light pudding’. Or tapioca! That would be when he was getting better. Getting better, yes: but then, you never knew!

  However, he was no weakling. He had schooled himself in the past to face what may come, and particularly if he had arranged for it. Dunning letters, for example; plea-ful letters; indiscreet, passionate, aggrieved outpourings of the heart; rate-collectors; and now and then the moneylender’s jackal. Just wait! And above all, keep calm! Think before you speak. Watch! And never never – unless you are positively cornered – never lose your temper or your balance.

  Unless, in the next world, space is of no consequence, unless time is nonexistent in eternity, it would take his revenant, his come-back, his spook, if not his hallucination, at lea
st ten minutes to get round from his garden gate to the front door. Why, he wondered, must the thought of a slow but sure walking apparition be so much less savoury in the fancy, than, say, the classic method devised for its reappearance by the usual medium? A Fiske consisting of ectoplasm! And why was he himself still listening? The squeal of his front gate could be heard a mile off. But had he shut it? What the hell was the use of asking himself such fatuous questions?

  He pushed back his handkerchief into his pocket, lifted his pitcher of well-water – twice as heavy as it had ever been before – trod steadily and stealthily back to the house, set it down on the stones in the back porch, opened the door and went in.

  The fusty room beyond, although it contained his pet primulas and gloxinias, was scarcely worthy of being called a conservatory, and there was only darkness now to see his treasures by; so that, when he opened the french window and pushed back the curtain that concealed the dining-room beyond, the instantaneous electric blaze for the instant all but blinded him. It was as sudden as a blow in the face.

  The room was vacant; but everything lay ready on the table and on the sideboard, flowers, china, silver, shining and twinkling there, mute and peaceful. ‘Still life!’ He glanced at the clock on the chimneypiece – a wedding present. It at once began to tick. He went softly in, then out into the demure scrupulously clean and garnished little ‘hall’ beyond. Fingers and thumb on the newel of its post, he paused at the foot of the staircase.