Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  He was old – over seventy. A wide-brimmed rusty and dusty black hat concealed his head – a head fringed with wisps of hair, lank and paper-grey. His loose, jaded cheeks were of the colour of putty; the thin lips above the wide unshaven and dimpled chin showing scarcely a trace of red. The cloak suspended from his shoulders mantled him to his shins. One knuckled, cadaverous, mittened hand clasped a thick ash stick, its handle black and polished with long usage. The only sign of life in his countenance was secreted in his eyes – fixed on mine – hazed and dully glistening, as a snail in winter is fixed to a wall. There was a dull deliberate challenge in them, and, as I fancied, something more than that. They suggested that he had been in wait for me; that for him, it was almost ‘well met!’.

  For minutes together I endeavoured to accept their challenge, to make sure. Yet I realized, fascinated the while, that he was well aware of the futility of this attempt, as a snake is of the restless, fated bird in the branches above its head.

  Such a statement, I am aware, must appear wildly exaggerated, but I can only record my impression. It was already lateish – much later than I had intended. The passengers came and went, and, whether intentionally or not, none consented to occupy the seat vacant beside him. I fixed my eyes on an advertisement – that of a Friendly Society I remember! – immediately above his head, with the intention of watching him in the field of an eye that I could not persuade to meet his own in full focus again.

  He had instantly detected this ingenuous device. By a fraction of an inch he had shifted his grasp upon his stick. So intolerable, at length, became the physical – and psychical – effect of his presence on me that I determined to leave the train at the next station, and there to await the next. And at this precise moment, I was conscious that he had not only withdrawn his eyes but closed them.

  I was not so easily to free myself of his company. A glance over my shoulder as, after leaving the train, I turned towards the lift, showed him hastily groping his way out of the carriage. The metal gate clanged. The lift slid upwards and, such is the contrariness of human nature, a faint disappointment followed. One may, for example, be appalled and yet engrossed in reading an account of some act of infamous cruelty.

  Concealing myself as best I could at the book-stall, I awaited the next lift-load. Its few passengers having dispersed, he himself followed. In spite of age and infirmity, he had, then, ascended alone the spiral staircase. Glancing, it appeared, neither to right nor left, he passed rapidly through the barrier. And yet – had he not seen me?

  The ticket collector raised his head, opened his mouth, watched his retreating figure, but made no attempt to retrieve his. It was dark now – the dark of London. In my absence underground, minute frozen pellets of snow had fallen, whitening the streets and lulling the sound of the traffic. On emerging into the street, he turned in the direction of the next station – my own. Yet again – had he, or had he not, been aware that he was being watched? However that might be, my journey lay his way, and that way my feet directed me; although I was already later than I had intended. I followed him, led on no doubt in part – merely by the effect he had had on me. Some twenty or thirty yards ahead, his dark shapelessness showed – distinct against the whitening pavement.

  The waters of the Thames, I was aware, lay on my left. A muffled blast from the siren of a tug announced its presence. Keeping my distance, I followed him on. One lamp-post – two – three. At that, he seemed to pause for a moment, as if to listen, momentarily glanced back (as I fancied) and vanished.

  When I came up with it, I found that this third lamp-post vaguely illuminated the mouth of a narrow, lightless alley between highish walls. It led me, after a while, into another alley, yet dingier. The wall on the left of this was evidently that of a large garden; on the right came a row of nondescript houses, looming up in their neglect against a starless sky.

  The first of these houses appeared to be occupied. The next two were vacant. Dingy curtains, soot-grey against their snowy window-sills, hung over the next. A litter of paper and refuse – abandoned by the last long gust of wind that must have come whistling round the nearer angle of the house – lay under the broken flight of steps up to a mid-Victorian porch. The small snow clinging to the bricks and to the worn and weathered cement of the wall only added to its gaunt lifelessness.

  In the faint hope of other company coming my way, and vowing that I would follow no further than to the outlet of yet another pitch-black and uninviting alley or court – which might indeed prove a dead end – I turned into it. It was then that I observed, in the rays of the lamp over my head, that in spite of the fineness of the snow and the brief time that had elapsed, there seemed to be no trace on its surface of recent footsteps.

  A faintly thudding echo accompanied me on my way. I have found it very useful – in the country – always to carry a small electric torch in my great-coat pocket; but for the time being I refrained from using it. This alley proved not to be blind. Beyond a patch of waste ground, a nebulous, leaden-grey vacancy marked a loop here of the Thames – I decided to go no further; and then perceived a garden gate in the wall to my right. It was ajar, but could not long have been so because no more than an instant’s flash of my torch showed marks in the snow of its recent shifting. And yet there was little wind. On the other hand, here was the open river; just a breath of a breeze across its surface might account for this. The cracked and blistered paint was shimmering with a thin coat of rime – of hoar-frost, and as if a finger had but just now scrawled it there, a clumsy arrow showed, its ‘V’ pointing inward. A tramp, an errand-boy, mere accident might have accounted for this. It may indeed have been a mark made some time before on the paint.

  I paused in an absurd debate with myself, chiefly I think because I felt some little alarm at the thought of what might follow; yet led on also by the conviction that I had been intended, decoyed to follow. I pushed the gate a little wider open, peered in, and made my way up a woody path beneath ragged unpruned and leafless fruit trees towards the house. The snow’s own light revealed a ramshackle flight of steps up to a poor, frenchified sort of canopy above french windows, one half of their glazed doors ajar. I ascended, and peered into the intense gloom beyond it. And thus and then prepared to retrace my steps as quickly as possible, I called (in tones as near those of a London policeman as I could manage):

  ‘Hello there! Is anything wrong? Is anyone wanted?’ After all, I could at least explain to my fellow-passenger if he appeared that I found both his gate and his window open; and the house was hardly pleasantly situated.

  No answer was returned to me. In doubt and disquietude, but with a conviction that all was not well, I flashed my torch over the walls and furniture of the room and its heavily framed pictures. How could anything be ‘well’ – with unseen company such as this besieging one’s senses! Ease and pleasant companionship, the room may once have been capable of giving; in its dirt, cold, and neglect it showed nothing of that now. I crossed it, paused again in the passage beyond it, and listened. I then entered the room beyond that. Venetian blinds, many of the slats of which had outworn their webbing, and heavy, crimson chenille side-curtains concealed its windows.

  The ashes of a fire showed beyond rusty bars of the grate under a black marble mantelpiece. An oil lamp on the table, with a green shade, exuded a stink of paraffin; beyond was a table littered with books and papers, and an overturned chair. There I could see the bent-up old legs, perceptibly lean beneath the trousers, of the occupant of the room. In no doubt of whose remains these were, I drew near, and with bared teeth and icy, trembling fingers, drew back the fold of the cloak that lay over the face. Death has a strange sorcery. A shuddering revulsion of feeling took possession of me. This cold, once genteel, hideous, malignant room – and this!

  The skin of the blue loose cheek was drawn tight over the bone; the mouth lay a little open, showing the dislodged false teeth beneath; the dull unspeculative eyes stared out from beneath lowered lids towards the black mouth of
the chimney above the fireplace. Vileness and iniquity had left their marks on the lifeless features, and yet it was rather with compassion than with horror and disgust that I stood regarding them. What desolate solitude, what misery must this old man, abandoned to himself, have experienced during the last years of his life; encountering nothing but enmity and the apprehension of his fellow creatures. I am not intending to excuse or even commiserate what I cannot understand, but the almost complete absence of any goodness in the human spirit cannot but condemn the heart to an appalling isolation. Had he been murdered, or had he come to a violent but natural end? In either case, horror and terror must have supervened.

  That I had been enticed, deliberately led on, to this discovery I hadn’t the least doubt, extravagant though this, too, may seem. Why? What for?

  I could not bring myself to attempt to light the lamp. Besides, in that last vigil, it must have burnt itself out. My torch revealed a stub of candle on the mantelpiece. I lit that. He seemed to have been engaged in writing when the enemy of us all had approached him in silence and had struck him down. A long and unsealed envelope lay on the table. I drew out the contents – a letter and a Will, which had been witnessed some few weeks before, apparently by a tradesman’s boy and, possibly, by some derelict charwoman, Eliza Hinks. I knew enough about such things to be sure that the Will was valid and complete. This old man had been evidently more than fairly rich in this world’s goods, and reluctant to surrender them. The letter was addressed to his two sisters: ‘To my two Sisters, Amelia and Maude.’ Standing there in the cold and the silence, and utterly alone – for, if any occupant of the other world had decoyed me there, there was not the faintest hint in consciousness that he or his influence was any longer present with me – I read the vilest letter that has ever come my way. Even in print. It stated that he knew the circumstances of these two remaining relatives – that he was well aware of their poverty and physical conditions. One of them, it seemed, was afflicted with cancer. He then proceeded to explain that, although they should by the intention of their mother have had a due share in her property and in the money she had left, it rejoiced him to think that his withholding of this knowledge must continually have added to their wretchedness. Why he so hated them was only vaguely suggested.

  The Will he had enclosed with the letter left all that he died possessed of to – of all human establishments that need it least – the authorities of Scotland Yard. It was to be devoted, it ran, to the detection of such evil-doers as are ignorant or imbecile enough to leave their misdemeanours and crimes detectable.

  It is said that confession is good for the soul. Well then, as publicly as possible, I take this opportunity of announcing that, there and then, I made a little heap of envelope, letter and Will on the hearth and put a match to them. When every vestige of the paper had been consumed, I stamped the ashes down. I had touched nothing else. I would leave the vile, jaded, forsaken house to reveal its own secret; and I might ensure that that would not be long delayed.

  What continues to perplex me is that so far as I can see no other agency but that of this evil old recluse himself had led me to my discovery. Why? Can it have been with this very intention? I stooped down and peeped and peered narrowly in under the lowered lids in the light of my torch, but not the feeblest flicker, remotest signal – or faintest syllabling echo of any message rewarded me. Dead fish are less unseemly.

  And yet. Well – we are all of us, I suppose, at any extreme capable of remorse and not utterly shut against repentance. Is it possible that this priceless blessing is not denied us even when all that’s earthly else appear to have come to an end?

  * First published in Listener, 1 April 1954.

  A Beginning

  In a word, a man were better relate himself, to a Statua, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

  BACON: Essay on Friendship

  In a corner of the Count’s old writing desk I found the Diary and Letters which follow. For the sake of brevity one or two passages have been omitted; otherwise, the young man speaks for himself; a task, apparently, by no means uncongenial. Let his youth be his apology. The letters are here, just as they were found, in a bundle wrapped up in brown paper, tied with a piece of red tape; and simply marked on the cover with a big F.

  April 25th 18—. In very low spirits all day. It seems to me that one’s moods keep up a kind of see-saw; so that the slightest thing swoops one mid-air, or plunges one into Hades. This is weak. Perhaps Fanny does not quite understand me. She does not come out to me. I sometimes wonder if I should not have done something really great in the world, if I had had someone who passionately believed in me, a companion for my higher self. But after all, obscurity is more philosophical – and certainly less trouble some! Yet I do detest mere flippant tittle-tattle. Anything abstract depresses women. At least so I find it. I am sick to death of my miserable self. All the virtue is gone out of this musty stolid world. Vae Victis!

  April 26th. Met Fanny this afternoon in the High Street. She was out shopping, so I walked a little way with her. But I did not intend to humble myself, craving forgiveness for what I had not done, or intended to do; and she kept looking at everyone, and answering vacantly, and her face was all indifferent. So I asked her to tell me what I had done. Whereupon, of course, she began to cry – in a corner by a bonnet shop … I could not help being in a rage, because some counter-jumper was watching us from between the bonnets. And then she flared up, and told me to go away for ever, because she hated me to see her crying! So I shook hands and told her about the counter-jumper.

  ‘That’s just it,’ she said, ‘you simply glory in making me look silly. I know I am silly, but it’s not so very clever to bring me here to be laughed at by people.’ Of course all this was quite unreasonable, and I pointed it out to her. But we made it up afterwards, and went into Martellini’s and had some tea. I don’t understand women; and yet I do if I think them out. They don’t understand themselves; that’s pretty certain.

  April 26th. (Letter from Fanny to Nicholas.)

  10.15 p.m.

  My bedroom.

  My dear Nicholas,

  Mama did see us in the pastrycook’s; and is extremely vexed. She says it looks so vulgar. I wonder if she thought as much about looks in Papa’s days! But we must not do it again, though I did enjoy myself very much indeed, dear. We are going to a Concert tonight – second row; will you come and sit somewhere else, and come up accidentally afterwards, because I haven’t another ticket? Mamma and Laura are coming, and I dare say Mr Herriot will be there; so that will be alright. I think he cringes, but Laura says it’s policy. I hate policy if one’s feelings tell one not, don’t you? I’m sorry for being cross, dear, but sometimes you seem as if you were cold almost on purpose. Do please come to the concert and sit where I can see you. I shall not enjoy it the least bit if you don’t. Mrs Bolsover is going to sing ‘The May Queen’!!! and Harriet, the guitar in the second part.

  From ever your affectionate,

  FANNY.

  P.S. Do you think that impudent shopman really saw us?

  April 27th. Letter from Uncle R. Threatens to mew me up in Cornwall if I laze about here. There are two sides to that question, sweet guardian! Last night I dreamed vividly of the old house. I have not seen it for thirteen years. I was looking in by the iron gates and saw Mother in a shawl walking in the garden. And there was a fire burning in the dining-room, the flames were shining in the window. And then, just as Mother looked up, the dream went out – as if Morpheus had taken the light away. There is a tinge of melancholy in old things. I feel as if I were a traitor in having quite forgotten it all. I shall go down one afternoon and revive the dead past. My memory seems haunted now. Of course this is nonsense, and it is just thought-connection. Letter from Fanny. So Madam did espy us over our banquet. She puts me in mind of a gooseberry that has spent all its sweetness on its size. Some men have no vocation to be a husband. The intellectual life is highest. Well, I suppose I shall be a
maudlin old greybeard in time. We all come to it if we are such fools as to live long enough. New coat and trousers came home; shall send latter back tomorrow; very bad fit.

  Fanny, I gently muse of thee

  In midnight Solitude,

  The memory of thy melting orb

  Is like a beatitude.

  And oft the breezes waft thy name

  Unto my wakeful sense;

  Thy loving heart were all my Fame

  And all my recompence.

  To bed!

  April 28th. Warm. Sent clothes back. Nil.

  April 29th. The Scarlet Lady!!! I started off about 2 o.c. And there, as if all these years it had been preserved under a glass case, was the old place. I dawdled slowly up the narrow street. There in the sawdust sprawled the same narrow curly retriever dog (or a grandson); there in ‘gilty’ row stood the same shabby dusty books in the ‘Library’, and there the same old Mrs Perks (now in the apple-dumpling stage, with silvering hair) peering between the illuminated texts. But everything seemed so curiously small. I seemed to myself a kind of Werther, or for that matter, a Rip van Winkle. Not a soul recognized me. But I enjoyed the secrecy of the thing. On I went, and at the hilltop under the chestnut trees burst out upon the heath. And like the effeminate ass I am, I had to blink to keep from crying.